515 - 60th Street
Des Moines 12, Iowa
February 10, 1964
Mrs. Harry Barber - formerly Bessie Carrington
Route 2 - Box 32
Crawford, Nebraska
Dearest Bessie:
You are the second daughter of William H. Carrington, who according to my records was born at Lyonsville, Illinois on November 29, 1856 and died in the Rocky Ford, Colorado, area on July 26, 1923, and of Ella L. (Plank) Carrington who was born February 1, 1869, and who died in Colorado on June 5, 1948.
Your father and my mother were brother and sister, and therefore you and your brother and sisters are first cousins of mine, and I assure you most dearly beloved cousins at that. Although we have not had any contacts through the years yet I have always felt very close to you all.
I well remember my first visit to your home at Rocky Ford or La Junta, I never did know which town you claimed, in the Summer of 1901. I will tell you how it happened that I made that trip. In June 1900 I went to work for my brother-in-law, Charles Beacham in his Bank at Farnhamville, Iowa. It was my first regular job with steady pay month after month. Soon after my first pay day my mother asked me what I was going to do with the money I was earning. I didn't know. "Anyway", she said, "I hope you won't spend it on livery teams hauling these town girls around the county". "It isn't worth it" she said, and added, "why don't you save your money for a trip some where. By next Summer, (1901) you could have enough money saved for a trip out see Uncle Willie (as he always called him." It sounded like a pretty good idea to me and by July 1, 1901 I had $75.00 put away. Theodore Carlson, a brother of Bert, and who later married Iva Craigmile, a cousin on my father's side, found out we could buy a round-trip railway ticket to Pueblo with stop-offs at Colorado and Denver for $18.75.
After spending about a week in those towns and Manitou and with an unforgettable side trip to Cripple Creek, in its wildest days, I finally arrived at Rocky Ford one evening about midnight, Your father met me with a team and wagon and what a nice long visit we had driving out to his home. You know the rest.
Bessie I am making about five copies of this letter for distribution to some other relatives including Glenn and Margaret anyway. I just wanted to identify you to some who may know you so well as others.
Now to get down to the business of answering some questions you raised in your letter of last Fall. First of all I have a picture of the Carrington home identical with yours. To me it is such a realistic picture and it seems like only yesterday that I was running barefoot around the place. That would be in 1893 when mother and Minnie and I went back to see the World's faire and stay for a month's visit.
Pictured from left to right are grandfather, grandmother, Aunt Susan, Aunt Elizabeth, and Aunt Laura. The boy is unknown to me but I am sure the dog was Uncle Ed. [did he mean "uncle Ed's" ?]The team and democrat wagon and milk cans were either just ready to leave for Hinsdale or had returned from making a delivery. The barn like structure at the rear was a general utility shed. Misc. ______ items were stored there. Seed Corn and hickory nuts are two items I remember. In 1893 the room next to the house contained a well equipped blacksmith shop.
I will now explore some of the questions raised in your letter and will add a question or two of my own.
My examination of some records show I have show that the Carrington Farm consisted of 220 acres. I had always assumed that the original farm consisted of 320 acres or half a section. I have said a "half section" in other papers I have written. Will trip to make proper corrections before having any mimeograph copies made.
The Carrington land or farm home was in Cook County in section 18, Township 38 N. Range 12 E. of the 3rd P. M. on the East Side of the County line. Du Page County was across the road on the West.
Every week day morning during that month in 1893 Grandfather would hitch up his old white horse to a cart and together we would drive up to Hinsdale three miles away to pick up his Chicago Tribune. Invariable there was a purchase of a sack of candy for me in addition to the paper. After chatting a few minutes with the Hinsdale loafers Grandfather and I would return. Twice on each trip Grandfather would have his little joke of me of how we were in separate counties. On the way to town he would give me a good nudge, and I do mean a good one, and laugh and say that he was in Cook County and I was in DuPage. On the return trip the same nudges and hearty laugh but I would be in Cook county and he in DuPage. (Note to future generations who might read this it should be remembered that all carts, buggies, wagons and other vehicles had right side drives. One can always find exceptions and I met one old gaffer at Odebolt who said that in driving a wagon he always sat in the middle of the seat. It gave him a better view between the horses of the road.
To get back to the farm the first mention of Carrington was in 1836 on the 29th day of December when a warranty deed was issued to Henry Carrington to the "Southwest quarter and the Northwest Quarter" (really the West half) of Section 18 for a consideration of $4,000.00.
Various other items are shown in the record, deeds, quitpclaim deeds, mortgages, estates, etc. but in the end it came down to the 220 acres mentioned above which is described in the record as follows: "The West half of Section 18, etc. except that part lying West of the East 80 rods of the North 200 rods thereof". To put it another way and to make it easier to draw on a diagram it could be described as the East half of the West half of Section 18, and the SW 3/8ths (SW 60 acres) of the West half of Section 18.
A rather complicated description of my own and subject to correction on review.
The record shows that on August 8, 1849 Henry Carrington, our great grandfather, and wife, conveyed by deed certain lands in Section 18, totaling 145 acres, "for life with remainder to their children in fee", to our grandparents, Nathan S. Carrington and Laura B. Carrington, his wife, of _____________ is to _____ Middletown, Connecticut.) How and when the balance of the approximately 220 acres or possibly 217 acres would involve too complicated a statement and is not of very much importance. Suffice it to say that the land ________ on the cook County Line on the West and did include the original home ____ including the log cabin, Uncle Ed's barn, "Aunt Laura's Woods", and adjacent ___ sheep barns that were so well remembered by so many of us now living and dead.
My mother [Mary Dyson Carrington] was born at Middletown, Conn. on May 10, 1849. It has always been my understanding that the Nathan Starr Carrington family consisting of five members moved to the new home in Cook County in the middle or late Fall of that year. The fact that the deed to the property was executed on August 8, 1849 and states that all parties were then residents of Middletown would indicate that actual settling in the new community came after that date. The records show that their first born, William H. Carrington, died at the age of a little past six years on August 28, 1949 [1849] would indicate that there were five members of the family, at the time.
The question has been asked as to whether or not the first shelter, the old log cabin that survived for about sixty years and which so many of us knew so well, was there in 1849 when the new occupants arrived or did grandfather build it after their arrival. Since Great Grandfather Henry Carrington bought the land in 1836 I would assume that the cabin was constructed before the arrival of the new owners.
The new permanent home was constructed about a quarter of a mile East of the road on the West, the Cook County line, and the cabin was located about half way between the two. Minnie and I used to go out to it many times to play during that month of the fall of 1893 that we were there.
One time in the early thirties I asked Aunt Laura about the town of Lyonsville. I said I had heard of it all my life but never could find it on a map and no one I asked seems to know either where it was located. She laughed and said there never was a town of that name. There was a town of Lyons nearby but no Lyonsville. Lyonsville Church and Lyonsville township and Lyonsville cemetery but the "hamlet" itself went out of existence with the arrival of the Burlington railroad and the town of Hinsdale in the eighteen fifties. (My mother remembered the building of the Burlington railroad and told many interesting stories the difficulties of establishing a solide roadbed over the swampy ground between the North end of the Carrington land and the town of Western Springs). But that story belongs elsewhere.
To get back to Lyonsville. Grandfather Carrington was always a very public spirited man and during his prime very active in Cook County politics. A very ardent Republican who would probably turn over in his grave if was every told that his grandson, Starr, had ever voted for a Democrat for any office. But that story belongs elsewhere.
Very soon after his arrival at the new home, possibly the next month but more likely the next week, he began agitating for a post office. Being familiar with proper procedures as he would be, no doubt he circulated a petition which was sent "pronto" to Washington. In due time the petition was acted on favorably, a new post office was established with the name of Lyonsville, its first postmaster Nathan Starr Carrington, and the office duly set up in the old log cabin, of course.
I have often wondered how long the family lived in the old log cabin before construction of the new home completed. Was it just a year or two or was it several years. And did the post office ever get moved into the new home? I don't suppose there is any one living who can answer those questions. This and about a hundred other question are ones I wish I had asked when I was younger and there were then living people to answer. And that may be the big reason why I "spur" myself on from day to day to finishe before it is too late my account of the Wilson-Carrington History.
A while back I mentioned the huge sheep barns that were located at the edge of Aunt Laura's woods and about a quarter of a mile from the dwelling. My mother has told me many times that whenever grandfather heard any sort of a disturbance in the direction of the sheep barns during a night he would arise, put on his clothes, and with his trusty pistol in his belt walk over and investigate. Whether or not he ever did run into any sort of trouble mother did not say.
That he was a fearless and determined man and a well known and able horseman is proven, it seems to me, by a half page article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune under date of January 27, 1901, the Sunday edition. The article is titled "Deer Once Hunted in Chicago - Now Vanishing From Michigan." After giving an account on the subject it then goes on to say or tell of how the wolves were bothering the farmers around Willow Springs, a town at the edge of my Grandfather George Wilson's farm. It tells of how they stated in from a large circle and then gradually closing in to trap the wolves. Various prizes were to be given. The hunt was ended at a certain flagpole established at the beginning of the hunt. Disputes were in progress over the prizes when, as quoted from the article:
"A large timber wolf driven by a pack of dogs from his hiding place in a thicket close to the flagpole. John Leonard who now lives in California fired at the wolf, and the ball from his rifle broke the animal's jaw. The wolf dashed through the line of horsemen and headed in the direction of Lyons. A few scattering shots were fired without effect, and the wolf continued his race with a pack of nearly a hundred in full pursuit.
Starr Carrington a noted hunter who lived just over the line at Flag Creek, mounted on a race-horse of considerable local fame, joined the chase. Meanwhile a bloodhound owned by a member of the Chicago Gun Club caught up with the wolf. The animal, his jaw hanging to the ground, was putting up a gallant battle, when Carrington came up. A dozen other hunters were at the spot almost as soon as Carrington, but his was the shot that ended the hunt.
The winner of the first prize, Leonard, backed his claim to the wolf on the fact that his shot disabled the animal. The owner of the bloodhound insisted that the prize ought to be given to him because his dog had brought the animal to bay, and Carrington was positive that his was the most valid claim. After a long argument the men "drew cuts" and Leonard won. Carrington, however, who was a character of some note, inveigled Leonard into some kind of a game of chance, at the end of which he rode away with the carcass of the wolf thrown across the shoulders of his horse's shoulders."
Thomas Leonard of 28 Fowler Streets is another old settler who rode a horse in the hunt. Mr. Leonard said "I remember well the last big deer and wolf hunt. It was held during the winter after Mr. Lincoln was elected President. Between 4,000 and 5,000 persons participated. My brother was one who claimed the prize, having broken the jaw of a wolf _____ under the flagpole. As I remember it, however, Starr Carrington rode home with the wolf."
(Knowing Grandfather like I did, even only briefly, there never could be any doubt in mind but that GRANDFATHER DID RIDE OFF WITH THE WOLF)-Editor.
