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John Emerson - Death of an Early Comer
Benjamin Emerson, the father of John
Emerson, of this city, and the man who laid out Emerson Street for whom the
street was afterward named, died Tuesday at his home in Niles, four miles west
of Evanston. The funeral was held at the Gross Point Church yesterday, Rev.
Father Neidstretter officiating. The pallbearers were Timothy O’Connell, James
Carney, Melville Rohrer, George Scully, Bernard Tullman and Henry Soils. The
interment was at Grosse Point.
Mr. Emerson was born in New York
State, March 27, 1810. In his infancy his parents removed to New London, Conn.,
from where, in 1835, he came to Chicago. In his journey to the West he came
part way on foot. It was Nov 10th that he reached Chicago, & he often described
the city as being but little better than a mudhole, at that time. He
immediately went into the milk business & was always proud of the fact that he
was the father of a Chicago milkman.
In 1839 Mr. E. married Miss Ellen
Kelly. From this union there survives three children, 19 grandchildren and
fourteen great-grand children.
(Balance exactly like other
obituary).
.. . . . . One-half mile West. Soon
after settling at Niles Center, he walked there from there to Stanwood, Mich,
where he pre-empted 840 acres of government land, which he retained in his
possession until a few year’s ago.
In 1849 when the gold-fever seized
hundreds, this man, with the rugged blood of a revolutionary ancestor flowing
his veins, started for California by the overland route, and after four-months
of hard travel, reached the gold fields. At the end of two years he had saved
$4,000.00, which he had hidden under a stump. He decided to return home, but
when he went to get his money he found that somebody had stolen it. Cast down,
but undismayed, he went back to his work and it was another two years before he
retraced his steps Eastward.
Mr. Emerson than returned to Niles
Center and laid out one of Evanston’s best-known streets, which to this day is
called Emerson Street.
He had been a vigorous man all his
life and for some years had been able to read without glasses, enjoying what he
was pleased to call his second sight. He never drank a drop of liquor in his
life, nor did he ever smoke. His three surviving children are John Emerson of
Evanston, Mrs. Wm. Savage of Chicago, and Mrs. John Happ of Northfield.
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