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In presenting to our patrons and the citizens in general a
history or Rock County, we beg leave to say that the limits prescribed
in this work will not admit of a lengthy detail of facts connected
with the early settlement, rise, and progress of the County.
In briefly considering our subjects, there are many times, places,
and persons to whom we must allude. We will give the outlines;
you must complete the picture. We will do our little to sketch
the County as it was and is, that the contrast may show whatever
of growth and development has been attained. Volumes, perhaps,
might be written relative to the primitive days in the Rock River
Valley, in giving an account of the early scenes enacted, anecdotes,
hardships, trials, toils, and privations of the bold pioneer
in advancing the cause of industry, enterprise, and civilization.
But had we the time and space we deem ourselves entirely inadequate
to the task, and will only attempt to give in abbreviated terms
a few of the most prominent facts concerning the early settlement,
progress, and present prosperity as they are gleaned from records
and the memory of the old settlers, many of whom still survive.
Rock County is yet as it were in her infancy. Only a few years
have passed since along the banks of Rock River no pale-face
was to be seen. The sound of the bold pioneer's axe waging destruction
to the majestic oak of the forest was nowhere to be heard. The
stillness and monotony was not broken then as now by the shrill
whistle of the iron horse or the almost ceaseless hum of machinery,
the result of the white man's industry. The broad prairies, that
to-day present almost every evidence of civilization, were only
a short time since traversed in all directions by herds of deer,
antelope, etc. No white man was then a citizen of Rock County;
all this section of country was the undisputed home and hunting-ground
of the red man. No one who now beholds this beautiful country,
boasting in its wealth, its educated sons and daughters, its
broad and fertile acres, dotted over on every hand by palatial
mansions, the inmates of which are made happy through the fruitful
reward of their energy, enterprise, and industry, can reflect
with surprise that the red man was loath to leave this, to him,
garden of Eden, when compelled by the tide of white emigration
to seek a new home beyond the Mississippi. Prior to this time,
and even before Rock County even had an existence, white men
had their homes in localities all around us. Their eyes feasted
on a goodly prospect, timber and prairie, water, profuse herbage,
plentiful game and pleasant temperature: these attractions combined
would fascinate anyone. When tired of the broad, flat prairies,
level as a floor, there was the more broken country and rugged
hills along Rock River. The tide of white emigration wrested
from the had of the red man a noble heritage, and after one had
seen this beautiful country he was no longer surprised that the
Indian, whose eloquence is the poetry of nature, clung with such
tenacity to the country in the Rock River Valley. |