Palatine Historical Society

George Clayson House

The Palatine Historical Society has put together an absolutely fantastic display in this pioneer home from 1873.  Inside are many interesting things including a civil war letter from a soldier that is translated for the public and is an absolute tear jerker.  This house also features an archive/library for public use.  It is well worth the visit.  The house is also said to be haunted and was investigated by several paranormal investigators.  Next door is a museum for the pioneer firehouse.

http://palatinehistoricalsociety.com/clayson-house/

Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin

Yes, I know this is a bit far from Lake County and Volo, Illinois but I wanted to show you how beautiful this place is.  It is up in Wisconsin about 2 1/2 hours North and you can take Rt 12 and the other roads needed, on up to the marsh.

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Horicon/

Barrington Historical Society and Museum

I finally made it out to the Barrington Historical Society and Museum.   It was worth the visit.  There are four buildings including the reproduction of a one-room schoolhouse.  The standard pioneer vintage items are there but there is much much more to see.  Without giving too much away, I will say that they have a pioneer home, a school house, and two more buildings of very interesting history.  The tour guide gave us a one hour tour and talked to us afterwards.  It was well worth the visit.  I will only post a few pictures so as not to spoil the surprises you may encounter on the visit.  I would also like to say thank you to the historical society for the work they are doing with the schools.  Good job.

http://www.barringtonhistorymuseum.org/

Haunting in Antioch

I visited the town of Antioch and went to a Ghost Hunt/Lecture at the Lodge.  We did have some results.  Here is a video I took.







Antioch was also inhabited by the Pottawatomi Indians who were nomadic and living in teepees  Route 173 was an Indian trail.  After settlers came and brought the railroad with them, the town became a tourist town.  Hotels and restaurants sprang up.

But life wasn't that easy for the pioneers and fire destroyed much of the downtown for multiple years including 1891, 1903, 1904, and 1905.  Each time, the town was rebuilt.

Antioch is also the name for an ancient city in Greece just like Volo, Illinois is as well.

Spirit Fruit Society & Commune in Ingleside, Il 1905

Portrait of Jacob Beilhart, founder of the Spirit Fruit Society. 1904, Cincinnati Enquirer

When you start looking, you find all kinds of things.  A Utopian commune started by Jacob Beilhart moved from Libson, Ohio to Ingleside, Illinois to live their lifestyle of spiritual development and free love.  For the year 1905, it was pretty scandalous to live a "free love" lifestyle and produce love bomb children, but they did it.  After the founder's death, the group carried on for a bit and moved to California.

There is nothing new under the sun.  What is more interesting to me involves my research of the mound builders that lived in the same area and all around Lake County.  Some say there are mounds that still exist unnoticed in Ingleside, Illinois today.  I'll be looking for them.



https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Spirit_Fruit_Society

Pioneer Murder in Lake County

A very twisted tale of inappropriate affections led to murder on November 22, 1863 in Lake Zurich during pioneer days.  The murder of a sixty year old woman, Ruth Briden, by a hired hand who had the hots for her teen-age daughter and a disgusting plot to take the daughter as a bride and inherit the land from the elderly widow concocted by William Bell, led to the first execution in Lake County in the summer of 1865 (June 30).

Mrs. Ruth Briden was found dead by the neighbor, Mr. Morley, who found her lying dead in the cow-yard near her house on her farm.  One side of her head had received a stunning blow from the flat of ax and the left side of her neck was severed at the jugular vein.  Part of the head was decapitated.  A razor that belonged to Mr. William Bell, was in her hand.

Tracks were found leading from the front yard in the light snow to the place where William Bell was chopping wood.  William Bell tried to deny it and blame it on the neighbor, but the tracks proved otherwise.

Ms. Almeda Briden, the 16 year old daughter, had refused to marry William Bell and told him he was too old for her and she was not interested in him.  He had also abandoned a wife and ten-year old daughter back in Vermont.  He felt that Almeda's mother stood in the way of a marriage.  Almeda was at school in Wauconda, when the murder of her mother occurred.

Before he was hung, William Bell made a rambling speech claiming he was innocent.


"When I took Mrs. BRIDEN's place, she, and also her daughter, forbade me having Mr. MORLEY come into the place, and she said she wanted nothing to do with him. Didn't want that I should change works with him; said if I did she wouldn't board him, and I never did; never had him on the place. He testifies that he never had any difficulty with the old lady, that they were on good terms. The neighbors, all the neighbors that knows old MORLEY knows better than that. There is nobody that tells that MORLEY's family had threatened to 'burn the old lady's house down and wring her d -- d old neck,' and that they said that 'she kept a whore house.' I present these, gentlemen, just as Mrs. BRIDEN told me, and that she had a notion to have them arrested for abusing her with slander. Nobody tells that old MORLEY had a son that was corresponding with this girl of Mrs. RUTH BRIDEN; but, 'I killed the old lady in order to get the girl, because I had asked her the question some time during the Summer, and she answered that she wasn't so hard up as to have an old married man.' Mr. MORLEY started a story that Mrs. BRIDEN's girl was coming down to Waukegan to get a license to marry BELL, and reported it about the neighborhood. The old lady came in contact with him about it, and he owned up in the presence of neighbors there, that he made up this and reported it, which he confessed was false. Wasn't he trying to injure me, gentlemen, in making such remarks as those, because I was living on Mrs. BRIDEN's place? There was no motive for nobody but me to kill Mrs. RUTH BRIDEN. His son couldn't have got the property there if the old lady was out of the way. That could not have been a motive, could it gentlemen? I don't say, gentlemen, that Mr. MORLEY killed that old lady, but, gentlemen, I say I did not kill that old lady. (This he uttered with great emphasis, elevating his right arm at the same time toward Heaven.) Nobody tells that that Copperhead BRIDEN and the old lady was at variance and had been for years. Nobody tells that. Nobody tells that he hadn't been on the place but once while I was there, and that was in the case of the death of one of his children, and the old lady said if it was him, she would not go to his funeral. No one tells that he was owing the old lady a hundred dollars, and that since her death he has tried to break her last will that she left on this earth. Wouldn't a man that would do that, wouldn't he cut a woman's throat to get her property, a man of such a disposition as that? Would'nt he be as likely to do that as poor BELL, beceuse he was living on her place. Wouldn't there be a motive there, gentlemen? I understand since I have been in here in this prison below, that she had made her will and he was trying to break that will. That was the first I ever knew that she had made a will. I want you to take it for granted, gentlemen, that this matter is wrong. I believe, gentlemen, that there was a motive for some one to kill that old lady. I did not say that JOHN BRIDEN killed that old lady, but, gentlemen, I say that I did not kill that old lady (using the same venemence and gesture as before.) Nobody tells that this old lady's daughter and her used to quarrel and fight, beyond my language to express, gentlemen. It was nothing for her to call the old lady an old liar or anything else she wished to call her. She treated the old lady worse than I could a dog, but I don't say that the girl killed the old lady, but I say, gentlemen, that I did not."


https://www.nytimes.com/1865/07/09/archives/an-execution-in-illinois-hanging-of-wm-bell-for-the-murder-of-ruth.html

Pioneer School House

This old brick school house in Lake Zurich (built in 1913), was converted to apartments.  Many old buildings have been converted into apartments around the Lake County area.