North Branch Otter Creek

Jane Addams was born nearby in Cedarville in Stephenson County on September 6, 1860. The two never knew each other until they met and became close friends at Rockford Female Seminary (Rockford, IL) which Ellen attended for only one year (1876-77). In 1888 while traveling together in Europe, Jane expressed her interest in establishing a settlement house in Chicago to help the largely impoverished, immigrant population adjust to life in a new country. On their return, they opened Hull House, one of the first settlement houses in the United States in September of 1889. To learn more about Ellen Gates Starr click here. 

Nearly two decades before the birth of Ellen Gates Starr, the Sackett family was among the early settlers in the pioneer community of Laona*. The family’s journey from New York City by steamboat and horse and wagon in 1841 and their early days of homesteading in this Winnebago County settlement was documented by their sixteen-year-old daughter Mary. Over the course of a year, in journal entries and letters to her younger brother George, who remained behind in New York, Mary Johnson Sackett described the routine of daily life managing livestock, provisioning building materials, food and clothing (sewing was almost a daily work activity!), as well as maintaining important relationships with other settlers for socializing and commerce. Considerable time was spent planting crops, gardening, collecting and swapping seed, churning butter, berry picking, pressing cider, making cheese, and in the seasonal production of maple syrup. The early nineteenth century Sugar River bottomlands and surrounding woodland, prairie and barrens landscape come to life as she tells of the 5-hour, 18-mile journey to Rockford with her father, negotiating the often muddy and impassable dirt roads, crossing spring brooks and the Sugar River (either by ferry or toll bridge at a cost of 18 pence), and bracing against the unrelenting winds of the open prairie. She describes traveling along the “pleasant but unhealthy” banks of the river, picking from the endless supply of prairie flowers, encountering and killing rattlesnakes, waking to the howls of wolves at night, hearing the chorus of songbirds, and observing prairie chickens by the hundreds, not to mention the abundant “Prairie devils” (a bird of some sort) and sandhill cranes. She noted the practice of burning the prairie prior to breaking the sod and evidence of rapid settlement with considerable land clearing and fencing underway. Mary Sackett died at the age of 43 in 1869. In 1985, William Murray Underwood recovered his great aunt’s tattered journal from a dusty attic and transcribed it, providing additional information about the family. We thank George Johnson, a descendant of the family and formerly from the Durand area, for sharing the journal and making available this fascinating local historical account.  A newly revised edition of the journal by Barbara Johnson is currently being prepared for publication in the coming months.

* Some confusion exists as to the Laona settlement one is talking about. The Laona settlement mentioned in Mary Sackett’s Journal was the original settlement and later renamed several times (Medina, Howard, Pettingill), but finally settled on the name of Durand in 1863 after Henry S. Durand, President of the railroad running through the town. At some point around 1850, the Laona post office was relocated northwest to a store at the intersection of Rock Grove and Eicks Roads. This is the Laona settlement associated with Ellen Gates Starr. We thank Beverly Waller, Durand resident and historian for her valuable input and helping us get our stories "straight".

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