Biography of James Clayton Herrington, founder of Geneva, Illinois Posted with the permission of the Geneva Public Library. (Transcribed from the book "Geneva, Illinois, A History of Its Times and Places") Julia M. Ehresmann, editor Published by Geneva Public Library District Geneva, Illinois 1977 James Herrington was born in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, on May 8, 1798, son of James and Ann Clayton Herrington. At maturity, James Clayton moved to Mercer, where he operated a general store, distillery and newspaper office with his older brother, Jacob. In competition with Herrington's store was Nathan Patterson's, which evidently supplied young James with a bride. For in 1819, he married Charity Patterson, who was then twenty years old. She was strong-willed, capable and durable. Her life and influence spanned all of Geneva's formative years until her death in Geneva in 1879. She bore ten children: Augustus Marlin, Nathan Patterson, James Clayton, Jr., Nancy (called Fanny, who died in 1839), Alfred Richard (Dick), Jane, Thaddeus, Mary, Margaret, and Charles. James Clayton's father was a practical engineer and surveyor, a career then in the greatest demand. He applied for a job of surveyor of the Huron Territory and traveled to Fort Dearborn, Illinois in 1830 to begin work. While waiting for confirmation of his appointment, he improved and claimed a quarter section of land (160 acres) in downtown Chicago, part of it just south of the fort and the rest between about State Street and the lake shore from 12th south to 16th Street. The senior Herrington was certain of the high value of his claim and he looked forward to making his home there. His letters to his sons in Pennsylvania have frequent references to the opportunities of owning rich Illinois land and show his shrewd business acumen. He wrote to James Clayton that a shanty next to a store could be rented out for a fortune, "as people are paying $6.00 a night to sleep in an open lot." Father Herrington clearly had "Western fever." But it was ague, a malarial disease contracted while he was a soldier in the Black Hawk Wars, that sent him back to Pennsylvania forever. In 1833, with his father's land and cabin beckoning from Chicago, James Clayton sold his interest in the Mercer store, packed up Charity and their first seven children, and prairie-schoonered to Lake Michigan, where the family moved into the senior Herrington's holding. Shortly afterward, title became available to the property. One "James Herrington" took title, but not the same one who had claimed it. The raw, new town of Chicago was rife with burgeoning enterprises and inflamed by speculators, especially in land. It has been written that it was Charity, unhappy with the unwholesome influence of Chicago on her children, who instigated the move west to the Fox River. It seems more likely that James, well-schooled by his father, considered the move a profitable business investment. His choice of Big Spring seems to reflect the advice of his father given in a letter dated January 27, 1831 (Chicago Historical Society) to: "hunt out a good grove of timber & water." His father also mentioned that no one could expect to find the choicest land, good timber, and a good spring all at one location. When James Clayton found all of these on (Daniel) Haight's claim, he must have recognized that he had a chance to settle and develop a first-rate investment. In April 1835 James Clayton Herrington moved with his family, which by then included baby Mary, to Big Spring. Haight's shanty was so dingy, smelly and unpleasant that the new arrivals lived out of doors. They cooked over open fires and slept beneath the stars, unless it rained, when they slept under the wagons in which they had moved from Chicago. Immediately, work was begun on a double log house, of a type common back in western Pennsylvania. This was a long structure of two low stories, with three chimneys projecting two to three feet from the roof ridge. A low porch overhung five windows. It was just west of Haight's shanty. Frederick Bird, along with the older Herrington boys, helped construct the house from native oak; they put in a white ash floor. Bird split the butternut shingles for the roof and was paid in trade for his labor. By the autumn of 1835, the family was comfortably settled in this homestead, which was to serve as the virtual center of community life for the first years. James had opened a general store in Haight's shanty, a spot marked today with a plaque on the south side of State between River and First. Herrington's store ledger for 1835 and 1836 shows a substantial trade, much of which was on credit. Later on, in 1836, Herrington built a new store, which was noted as "a great town improvement." There is sound reason to believe that this building was the one used as a polling place and for the first meetings of the county commissioners court in the summer of that year, and that it was on the north side of State, on lot 12 of Block 37, about opposite the Herrington house. Admittedly, this opinion is not part of local tradition. L. M. Church, and later David Dunham, came to clerk in Herrington's store. Although county historians refer to the early settlement as "Herrington's Ford," Herrington himself was calling his town "La Fox" in 1835. In a letter dated December 31, 1835 returned addressed "La Fox P.O." he was soliciting the speedy federal designation of the post office. Herrington's place had been the unofficial post office from the beginning, and the official confirmation of La Fox, P.O., came through on March 17, 1836, just three months before the adoption of Geneva as the town's name. (In government records, however, Geneva remained "La Fox Post Office" until 1850. Herrington was postmaster until his death, and mail for Genevans was brought from Naperville once every two weeks, on horseback, by Batavia's much esteemed postmaster Isaac ("Daddy") Wilson. (The following excerpt is taken from the book "The Herrington Family from Maryland through Pennsylvania to Illinois" by W. Douglas Little.) The year 1839 was an eventful year for the Herrington family, as on March 25th, James Herrington died followed in two days by his oldest daughter Nancy (Fannie). A few days later (April 7th) Charity Patterson Herrington gave birth to their son Charles. Transcribed by LeAnne Herrington (NellieJane01@aol.com) who is happy to hear from other Herrington researchers. 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