George E, Holmes Family Settled in Port Byron

100th reunion 1896 Holmes Descendents

The Rock Island Argus, Thursday, Aug. 22, 1946

The Town Crier

Centennial Reunion Requested in “96 Will Be Held by Holmes Descendants

 

by George Wickstrom

(Transcribed by Karen Cavanaugh Donsbach, 14 Nov 2022)

 

Port Byron, IL

 

One hundred years ago Mr. and Mrs. George E. Holmes and seven daughters, ranging in age from 4 to 18 years, made an adventurous journey from Vermont to Rock Island county. Holmes, then 44, had been a boot and shoe maker, a sheriff, storekeeper and a hotel proprietor.

 

“We started in the spring of 1846 from St. Johnsbury, Vt. in a 4-seated spring wagon for Burlington, and there boarded a fine steamboat, the first any of us had ever seen.” one of the daughters wrote long afterward. “One nights ride took us across Lake Champlain to Whitehall. There we loaded ourselves and our freight onto a slow canal boat. I could, and often did, get off and walk faster than the boat. We remained on that boat two weeks, cooking our own meals and sleeping in bunks, one above the other.”

 

“At Buffalo we again boarded a steamboat which sailed the Great Lakes, touching at Detroit which had a few scattered houses, and reaching Chicago in one week. Chicago was a small city in a mud-hole.”

 

Mrs. Holmes didn’t want to leave Vermont to endure the hardships of the wild west, but “she thought to better her daughters' lives.” The family’s destination was Port Byron, in the northern end of Rock Island County. There her brother George Moore had settled and had done quite well. For a number of years he had the town’s only carriage, the one in which he and his family rode from Vermont to Port Byron.

 

Uncle George sent two white covered wagons drawn by oxen, to bring his relatives from Chicago to Port Byron. In Chicago the mud reached the hubs of the wheels, but some of the girls walked until they go past the houses, too proud to ride, as they had made fun of such immigrants’ wagons in the east.

 

They travelled for a week over the prairies, sometimes riding all day without seeing a house. They felt their first fleas; the Illinois country was full of them.

 

All residents of Port Byron and surrounding country were present when the seven beautiful daughters and their parents climbed out of the covered wagons. Their fame had preceded them, so that their coming had long been eagerly awaited.

 

The only place large enough for the Holmes family in the hamlet of half a dozen houses was the Port Byron House, an inn in which pigs and sheep had run at large. Father Holmes went into partnership with his brother-in-law in a store and the homesick Mrs. Holmes ran the hotel. The fame of her cooking spread until the Port Byron House was known as an oasis of comfort from the lakes westward to the Indian settlements. Passengers from Frink & Walker’s Concord stagecoaches were delighted with the spick and span inn.

 

Holmes Home in Port Byron

 

The three oldest daughters started schools in Port Byron, in LeClaire (across the Mississippi in Iowa), and in the country, their “scholars” ranging upward from five to 25 years in age.

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“Spoony Bachelors”

 

“There was one product of the country at that time of which there seemed to be and over-production; namely, old bachelors.” one of the Holmes girls wrote years later. “A more persistent, spoony set would be hard to find.”

 

“It became known in Rock Island.” another of the sisters recalled, “that some young ladies had arrived from the east. (We caused a lot of jealousy.) Some of the young Rock Island lawyers made out legal papers and sent S. S. Guyer, the young sheriff, to arrest us and bring us to the ball at Hampton.

 

“One game we played was called hurly-burly. One person told the others what each must do or pay a forfeit. I was told to pull Mr. Guyer’s beard. When the signal was given, some mischievous persons turned out the light and I was immediately caught in the arms of this audacious sheriff.

 

“The next ball we attended was a fancy dress party of the Rock Island House. We went in Frink & Walker’s stagecoach, at this party we accidentally met my uncle Robert Moor, and Nathaniel Belcher, who was the uncle of my friend, Susan Dodge. They prevailed upon Mr. Guyer and Ira O. Wilkinson, one of Rock Island’s ablest lawyers and afterwards circuit judge, to allow them to escort us home.

 

“We five occupied all of the inside of the coach; I in my corner by myself keeping my eyes open, the others in a very sleepy and spoony condition.”

 

So in due time, Cynthia was married to Nathaniel Belcher, Annette to Sheriff Guyer, and Susan Dodge to Mr. Moore. Ellen Holmes became the bride of Captain George Dodge, Mary was wed to Edward Murphy, Rosette to Myron Pratt, and Jane to William H. Lyford.

 

The girl’s mother died four years after coming to Port Byron, but the father lived until Jan. 3, 1872. He was a popular man of fine attainments and was elected county judge.

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Reunion in 1896

 

On Christmas day, 1896, Mrs. Guyer, Mrs. Belcher, Mrs. Dodge, Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. Lyford, the only surviving members of the George E. Holmes family, held a reunion in Rock Island, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Vermont = Port Byron journey.

 

Each of the five sisters read a paper at that time, giving her impressions of her life. Mrs. Belcher reported that she had lived the 12 years since her husband died in Boston, and Europe, frequently pinching herself to make sure she was really Cynthia, the girl from the hills of Vermont and Port Byron, and wishing that she were young enough to become a great musician.

 

Mrs. Guyer told of her wedding journey from Rock Island to Springfield in a light carriage. It was a 4-day, lonesome honeymoon ride with “one prairie 40 miles from house to house.” but the bridegroom sheriff had to take Rock Island county’s tax money in silver and gold to Springfield. He laid his bag of tax specie on a barrel and told Abraham Lincoln to watch it while the sheriff went hunting for the auditor. “Lincoln remarked in his usual joking way that he would run off with the money, but he remained on guard.”

Mrs. Dodge spoke of wonderful inventions within her lifetime. “It is fairly bewildering to think of railroads, horse cars, electric cars, tricycles, bicycles, sewing machines, knitting machines, photography, electric lights, telegraphy and telephones.”

 

Mrs. Murphy gave a simple but stirring account of the dangerous covered wagon journey which she and her husband and two baby daughters made to the Pacific coast in 1860. At one time they traveled in a train of 80 covered wagons, with another train containing 70 wagons behind them.

 

Mrs. Lyford remembered the thrills of a trip to Galena, where she saw her first ice cream parlor. Captain Dodge, old frontiersman and army soldier, and Dr. Lyford the only surviving husbands of the Holmes girls, added their reminiscences.

 

The seven papers were printed and bound into a book, “The 50th Anniversary of the Settlement of the Hon. George E. Homes in Illinois.” Mrs. James R. Burke of Rock Island, great granddaughter of Judge and Mrs. Holmes, loaned us her copy of this family treasure.

 

The preface to the book of 1896 requests the descendants of those at the reunion to “get together by correspondence or otherwise 50 years Hence.” That would be in 1946.

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Three-day Reunion

 

For three days, beginning tomorrow morning and continuing through Sunday, 70 of the descendants will camp at Archie Allen place near Port Byron to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the settlement of George E. Holmes in Illinois and to fulfill the request of 1896. Some will come from California, Montana, Ontario and Alabama, but most are from Iowa and Illinois.

 

Five, possibly six, generations will be represented. Francis Lyford, president, and Mrs. Edna Schafer said that perhaps some of the papers could be published, as were those of 50 years ago, but that is something to be decided when the family gets together.