A Town Called Plainfield

Lambert: The Slippery Slope of Quality Hill – Part 2

Was the home at Lockport Street and Eastern Avenue part of the Underground Railroad movement?

The Inquiry Several readers have inquired whether it is true or not that a Plainfield home is associated with the Underground Railroad movement of the 19th Century. The Facts  Dating to circa 1843 and built by Robert and Louisa Bartlett, the home at the corner of Lockport Street and Eastern Avenue is believed to have been a “station” along the famed Underground Railroad as it passed through Plainfield.  However, as the house passed from one family to the next, the history of the storied house became twisted and—eventually—lost. The Dillman Years As Robert Bartlett began to subdivide property in the village in the late 1850s, he sold his pioneer home to Michael and Mary Dillman.  Dillman was a prosperous farmer from Stark County, Ohio who …

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A Town Called Plainfield

Lambert: The Slippery Slope of Quality Hill

The story behind a home at Lockport Street and Eastern Avenue is a long and complicated one. But was it ever part of the Underground Railroad?

The Inquiry Several readers have inquired whether it is true or not that a Plainfield home is associated with the Underground Railroad movement of the 19th Century.  The Facts Consisting of a network of secret routes and safe houses, the Underground Railroad movement began in the early 19th Century. However, the “network to freedom” for enslaved men, women and children reached its height of activity in the years prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. Some estimates suggest that as many as 100,000 oppressed individuals escaped through these sympathetic routes. Others suggest that the number who escaped was a small fraction of that estimate.  The Abolitionist movement was a subversive, underground resistance movement that blossomed in …

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A Town Called Plainfield

Lambert: Memory of Abolitionist Brothers Lives On

One helped rescue thousands via the Underground Railroad, the other was called the "pioneer" of Plainfield's anti-slavery movement.

Part Two: Plainfield Abolitionists The Inquiry Decades before the outbreak of the Civil War 150 years ago, the battle to end slavery had been waged by abolitionists, typically under a cloak of secrecy. But what visible reminders of the abolitionist cause and the Civil War remain here in Plainfield? The Facts   Most — but not all — of the physical sites associated with local abolitionists have disappeared over time. Some historians suggest that those families whose sons and husbands first rushed to the call of Union service in April 1861, when the Civil War erupted, were associated, most often, with the decades-long abolitionist movement.  Besides local Congregationalists, the German Evangelical, Baptist and Methodist congregations counted …

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A Town Called Plainfield

Lambert: First Black-Owned Biz Opened in 1873

Its success may be linked to Plainfield's large number of abolitionists, who helped establish a section of the Underground Railroad here to help African-Americans escape to freedom.

Part One: Plainfield’s First African-American Businessman The Inquiry The Soldiers’ Monument at Settlers’ Park identifies the local men and boys who fought in the Civil War. But what long-lasting effects did the abolitionist cause and the Civil War have here, in Plainfield? The Facts In February 1862, the Civil War was entering its 10th month of battle. The War of Rebellion was proving to be a prolonged effort to preserve the Union and to bring closure to a decades-long struggle to end slavery. Through acts of civil disobedience since the late 1820s, abolitionists had actively waged a battle for the abolishment of slavery in the United States. By the late 1850s, the “agitators” had become more demanding in their fight to end slavery. Some…

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Local Landmarks Let History Buffs Relive the 'War Between the States'

A bus tour organized by History Without Borders made stops at sites significant to the Civil War in Oswego, Plainfield, Montgomery and Aurora.

When the bus stopped outside the tiny Montgomery Historical Society building, Barb Peck and Pat Torrance were the only ones not marveling at how an entire family could live inside what was once a cramped cottage. The women knew only too well. It was the sisters' home during the Depression, which they shared with their parents and four other siblings. But its historic pedigree goes must deeper than that, said Debbie Buchanan, one of several guides for Saturday's History Without Border’s Civil War and Architecture Tour. The house was built in 1840 and is the oldest remaining structure in the Montgomery area. It sits across the Fox River from the former site of Camp Hammond, where Civil War soldiers in the 36th Illinois Volunteer Infantry …

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About Town

Attention Civil War Buffs, Time to Get on the Bus

History Without Boundaries' first-ever bus tour will visit sites in Plainfield, Oswego, Aurora and Montgomery.

Think Plainfield's just your run-of-the-mill farm town turned Chicago suburb? Think again. Next month, history buffs can see these sites for themselves and walk through the pages of local history during the first-ever Civil War bus tour sponsored by History Without Boundaries. “With the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, we thought there was no better time than the present to study our past," said Tina Beaird, a Plainfield librarian, who helped the organize the tour with local historian Michael Lambert. History Without Boundaries is a regional history group with members from several local historic preservation commissions, Beaird said. "Our goal is to promote the relevance of our historic buildings and the significance of our…

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