Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne was born on 13. Apr. 1794 at Ulster County, New York. He was the son of
Rev. Abram Van Horn Jr. and
Anna Covenhoven. Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne was graduated in 1813 at Union College, Schnectady, Schenectady County, New York. He married
Elizabeth Veeder, daughter of
Simon Veeder and
Margareta Terwiilger, on 19. Oct. 1813 at Fonda, Montgomery County, New York. Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne resided at at Will County, Illinois, in 1832. He held the position of of Mayor of Joliet, IL. He was the first Mayor of Joliet a 1832. He married
Mary Minier Richards c 3. Jan. 1842 at Porter County, Indiana.
Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne was shown in the census on 26. Nov. 1850 as an attorney at law.
Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne and
Mary Minier Richards appeared on the census of 26. Nov. 1850 at New Lenox, Will County, Illinois,
; real estate value 4,000.00. Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne died on 7. Jul. 1854 at Joliet, Will County, Illinois, at age 60; of cholora. He was buried at Old Frankfort Cemetery, Will County, Illinois. Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne, son of "Dominie" Abraham and Anna Covenhoven Van Horne, was born April 13, 1794 in Ulster County, NY., in the Catskill Mountain region, where his father was pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church. Most of his childhood days were spent in Caughnawaga, New York, now called Fonda, where his father preached for thirty-seven years. There were ten children in the "Dominie's family. Cornelius and his three brothers were educated at Union College, Schenectady, NY. Cornelius was graduated in 1813. October 19, 1813 he married Elizabeth Veeder, a daughter of Simon Veeder and Margareta Terwilliger of Schenectady. Simon was a member of the New York Assembly, also a Revolutionary soldier.
The "Dominie" had entertained high hopes that his son Cornelius would enter the ministry, but Cornelius with his strong will, ready jokes and quick intelligence had other aims, so when he entered Union College he studied law. He became associated with the Democratic party and was a strong friend of Martin Van Buren, another lawyer of Dutch blood.
In the spring of 1832 Cornelius, Elizabeth and their six children left New York to seek their fortune in the west. The children were: Abraham, Simon, Anna, Cornelius Putman, Margaret Catherine and Barney. They came to Will County (IL) and settled in the Hickory Creek Settlement; building their cabin in the woods, where the Methodist Camp Grounds were later located, in New Lenox. At that time New Lenox was called Van Horne's Point. On August 5th, only a few months after their arrival, little Andrew Jackson became the seventh child of the Van Horne family, and one of the first children to be born in the settlement and the county.
During the summer of 1832, the Indian chief, Black Hawk, was causing trouble in this area so Cornelius and his two sons, Abraham and Simon, joined Capt. Sisson's Company to drive Black Hawk and his tribe out of the area. Cornelius was made a Corporal and Abraham, 17, and Simon, 14, were privates. They saw no action as Black Hawk had been driven out of Illinois into Wisconsin.
The winter of 1832-33 Cornelius taught the first school in the vicinity in a little log cabin on Hickory Creek. He had twelve scholars of all sizes from little tots just able to walk, up to young men and women. Probably three or four of these were his own children.
Soon a post office was established at the home of "Uncle Billy Gougar" another Hickory Creek settler. Although the post office was in the Gougar home, Cornelius Van Horne was appointed the first postmaster June 29, 1833. He also served a Justice of the Peace in the vicinity, and while serving in this office he united in marriage Michael Noel and Louisa Webb, the first couple to be married in Lockport.
In 1833 Matthew Van Horne, a brother of Cornelius, also came to Will County and settled farther east on the creek, where the village of Chelsea was established, a mile west of the present town of Frankfort. Three more Van Horne's soon arrived in Will County. William came to the Chelsea area but the sisters, Gertrude Putman and Catherine Yates and their families became a part of the Beardstown settlement in the southern part of Will County. The Beardstown settlement did not thrive and all left the area.
In a few years Cornelius and his family left Van Horne's point and moved up the creek and settled near his brothers. In 1837 he purchased the Daniel Wilson homestead in Hickory Creek, the section east of brother Matthew. Now parts of these sections are public forest area called Van Horne's Woods. Cornelius' early years in the west were clouded with misfortunes. One day while all of the family were away from the farm the house, barns and all personal belongings were burned. His most treasured law books were gone. With the aid of his brother Matthew, he was able to rebuild his home. The house was a spacious log house covered with saw timber. The farm buildings were rebuilt and a saw mill was built on the bank of the creek. Even greater misfortune was death in the family. Margaret Catherine died and on October 2, 1838, his wife Elizabeth, passed away leaving him with five children at home. Abraham had married Lucy Wood on January 1, 1835. Anna at the age of sixteen became the mother of the family.
January 3, 1842 Cornelius brought his second wife, Mary Minier Richards (they were married in Porter Co. Indiana[1]) to the new home. In this home the five children of his second marriage were born.
They were: William, Augustus, Elizabeth, Theodore and Mary.
The mill was seldom running and the land not extensively cultivated for Cornelius was not a farmer, by instinct or training, but a lawyer. While he waited for a client he eked out a livelihood by dabbling in farming and milling. He helped the early settlers a great deal by transacting business for them and getting their claims and land titles settled. Cornelius was becoming better known politically throughout the county, and often he would ride to the Capitol, 150 miles away, to transact business concerning claims and land titles, and to discuss politics with fellow lawyers, among whom were Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.
In 1851 Cornelius sold his homestead at Chelsea and moved to Joliet. One home in Joliet stood out in the open prairie of the southeast corner of Sherman Street and Third avenue. The only other house in the neighborhood was the Thomas McGovney home a block east on Richards Street.
Being a man of liberal education, great shrewdness, likable personality and because of his willingness to always help those about him, he quickly made his influence felt; and when, in 1852, Joliet received its first charter, the city elected him its first mayor. He took office July 26th. His political career in Joliet didn't last long for on July 7, 1854 he died, one of the victims of cholera, the dreaded disease that swept the county at that time.
Cornelius was buried beside his first wife in the Old Frankfort Cemetery. After Cornelius' death, Mary lived in Joliet until William married, then she lived with him, until her death in Montreal, November 8, 1884. William wished to be buried in Joliet, so he purchased a lot in Oakwood Cemetery. Mary was buried on William's lot in Oakwood Cemetery.[2]
George H. Woodruff, Esq.:
Perhaps I can contribute an item to your early reminiscences of Will County. You might properly include among the early pioneers of Joliet the late Judge Barnett, H.A. Cagwin, Sr., and myself. In the Autumn of 1834, we together journeyed from Clarkson, NY., and explored on horseback much of the West and Northwest as far as Dubuque. We passed twice through Joliet, which then had a name, but not many habitations. A few miles east of this prospective city, at Van Horne's Point, we found Cornelius Van Horne, subsequently a Joliet magistrate and its first Mayor. He was at this time drawing fence-stuff with an ox-team and "Sucker wagon." as he called it. This wagon was the product of his own hand, from the rough forest timber. The wheels were sawed off from a round oak log. They were about three feet in diameter, being smoothly beveled from the rim to the hub, where they were about one foot through. It did good service (or answered a good purpose).[3]
Cornelius C. Van Horne came from New York, and settled in this township in 1832. He was a man of considerable prominence and intelligence, and is noticed elsewhere as holding many positions of importance. He died in Joliet several years ago. The following incident is given in "Forty Years Ago." as illustrative of Van Horne's bold, outspoken way of giving vent to his honest convictions. In 1840, an old man, over six feet high, came through the settlement, making his way to his former home in Pennsylvania, on foot. He was troubled with some kind of nervous affliction which often ended in fits of a rather serious character, rendering him entirely helpless and at the mercy of whoever might find him. He was found in a fit in an old blacksmith shop near where Samuel Haven lived, when it was discovered that he had a considerable sum of money upon his person, and he was taken to the house of one McLaughlin. After recovering partially, he went on his way, and nothing more was heard until he was found in another fit, near "Skunk's Grove." and in his mutterings were something of having been robbed, and search revealed the fact that his money was all gone. In a few days he died and was buried by charity. Suspicions rested upon McLaughlin as having robbed the old man. Van Horne was outspoken and made no hesitation in avowing his belief as to McLaughlin guilt. The matter was taken up by the grand jury and a bill found against old McLaughlin's son, principally through the instrumentality of Van Horne. The young man gave bail for his appearance at court, and when the term came as he started on foot for the town, as he gave out, but he never made his appearance at the Court House. The Van Horne party said he had run away to avoid trial - the McLaughlins alleged that he had been foully dealt with, and charged it upon the Van Hornes, whom they charged as being the real robbers of the old man, and were afraid to have young McLaughlin's case tried, lest the truth should come out. The excitement run high. Old McLaughlin spent days traveling up and down the creek and searching in the woods, ostensibly for his lost son, while others, feeling some sympathy for him, assisted in the search. In the old mill-pond, just above where the Rock Island Railroad crosses Hickory Creek, was discovered a wagon-track running by a blind road from one of the Van Horne's, and from where the wagon track terminated a wheelbarrow track to the mill - pond. The wheelbarrow was found in the mill and upon it some hair. The pond was dragged and the body of a man considerably decayed was found. Old McLaughlin was told of the discovery, and he said that if it was his son certain teeth would be missing. The body was examined and found to correspond with the old man's description. The excitement was intense and public opinion divided. The Coroner held an inquest, which resulted about as satisfactorily as such things generally do. Old McLaughlin and his wife swore positively that they believed the body was that of their son, while many others believed it too tall, aged and too much decayed. But notwithstanding these discrepancies, the Coroner's jury found it to be the body of young McLaughlin, and while they did not bring a charge against any one, old McLaughlin swore out a warrant and had Van Horne arrested. And in the excitement and division of sentiment, many were ready to hang Van Horne without judge or jury. It became an object to those who sided with Van Horne, and who did not believe the body "sat on" by the Coroner to be that of young McLaughlin, to find out whose it was. At length, some one thought of the grave of the old man who had been robbed, and a delegation was sent to examine, when it was found to have been recently disturbed, and when the coffin was opened, it was tenantless. In the mean time, a surveillance had been put upon the post office, and a letter having come for old McLaughlin, mailed somewhere in Pennsylvania, it was opened by consent of the Postmaster and found to be from the missing son. The tide of public opinion had changed when the discovery was made at the grave, and now those who had been so eager to hang Van Horne were still more eager to hang McLaughlin, and his wife. The development of the matter shows that old McLaughlin, his wife and son had conspired to ruin Van Horne, and that they had dug up the body of the old man, taken it to the mill-pond - a distance of two miles - examined it closely enough to detect the missing teeth, or extracted them on purpose to make it correspond with the son, and then deposited it in the water. They had taken the wagon of Van Horne and drawn it to the creek and back to turn suspicion on him. The old man got wind of the town affairs had taken upon the opening of the letter, and made his escape before the infuriated people could get hold of him, or perhaps the historian would have the melancholy duty to perform of chronicling a sure-enough murder story, instead of one with the murder left out.[4]
The first school was taught in New Lenox Township in the winter of 1832-33, by C.C. Van Horne. In the Summer of 1832, a schoolhouse had been built in the timber on Hickory creek, which was a small log structure, and in this building Van Horne taught the following winter.[5]
Perhaps the most prominent of the persons named above, in our history, was C.C. Van Horne. He taught the first school in the vicinity in the winter of 1832. His place in the point of timber that makes out into the prairie, in which are the Camp Grounds of the Methodist brethren, was known in the early days as Van Horne's Point. He was a marked character, well and extensively known throughout Cook County, of which we then formed a part. He was a man of liberal education, great shrewdness, abundant self-esteem and tenacity of purpose. He got the appointment of Postmaster and Justice of the Peace soon after coming here. The only mail route at that time in the county was a weekly horseback one from Danville to Chicago. This passed by the cabin of Uncle Billy Gougar. As Van Horne resided some distance to the east, the office was kept by one of the Gougar boys. In 1832-5, before a post office was established at the city of Joliet, the writer hereof made weekly pilgrimages to Uncle Billy's, after the longed-for letters from home. Well can he recall the old log house (long since replaced by a comfortable frame farm cottage), with its two rooms, in one of which the post office was kept. In what a striking contrast to the place where he now gets his mail, was that old dry-goods box, roughly pigeon-holed, with the letters of the alphabet rudely inked on the edges of each partition. With what greed he seized a letter when he happened to get one, although it cost a quarter, and had been several weeks on its dreary way. He remembers how, on one occasion, he had to pay about a dollar for a pamphlet, the margins of which were covered with writing, contrary to law. But it was cheap, even at that price! And the writers of those letters -where are they? Gone! all Gone!
But we are sadly digressing. Van Horne was one of our most useful citizens in those days, transacting the business of the early settlers, aiding them in obtaining their claims and land titles. It was the good fortune of the writer to make his acquaintance before that of any other settler, having met him somewhere this side of Niles, when coming into the country, and riding back with him to "Van Horne's Point." It was, perhaps, owing as much to his influence as to the good sense of the settlers generally, that two years after he was elected as the first Recorder of the county. But we soon forfeited his friendship by our bad behavior in apostatizing to abolition. But we are anticipating. It will be well remembered that Van Horne, some years ago, removed to Joliet, and was elected the first Mayor under our city charter, and how he "magnified his office." It may not be improper to add that one of his sons is now Superintendent of an important Western railroad. C.C. Van Horne died of cholera in 1854.[6]
The first marriage was that of Louisa Webb and Michael Noel, and the matrimonial knot was tied by C.C. Van Horne, a Justice of the Peace from the Hickory Creek settlement. C.M. Bronson says that upon its being reported that the wedding was to take place, and no invitations having been received by any of the neighbors, he, but a boy at the time, was dispatched to Webb's to reconnoiter, but ostensibly to borrow something, as borrowing was an every-day occurrence at that period of the country's settlement. Upon presenting himself as an Electoral Commission of one, he found the old gentleman sitting on a three legged stool, eating a piece of the wedding cake, Van Horne riding away from the place and the new bride and bridegroom sitting on the bed looking very ( the article is cut off here LS)[7]
Death notice of C.C. Van Horne
Cornelius C. Van Horne, deceased, formerly of Joliet Tp., was born in Hunterdon Co., NJ., April 13, 1794; shortly afterward, his parents removed to Amsterdam, NY., where his father, a widely-known clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church, lived many years. In the spring of 1832, Mr. Van Horne came to Illinois and located in Will (then Cook) Co. He died in Joliet July 7, 1854. In 1813, he married Elizabeth Veeder, who died, in Will Co., in 1838; in 1842, he married Mary M. Richards, who is still living; by his first marriage he had seven children - Abraham C., born in 1815; Simon V., born in 1818; Anne, born in 1822; Cornelius P., born in 1824; Margaret C., born in 1826; Barney W., born in 1829, and Andrew J., born in 1832; by his second marriage he had five children - William C., born in 1843; Augustus, born in 1844; Elizabeth, born in 1846; Theodore C., born in 1849, and Mary, born in 1852 - all now living. He was a man of great force of character, and of liberal education, and had much to do with the shaping of events in the early days of Will Co., in the history of which his name occurs often and very prominently; he gave his name to the locality known as Van Horne's Point. He was successively a Postmaster and a Justice of the Peace, and, upon the incorporation of Joliet as a city, he was chosen its first mayor; after a long, active and useful life, he died in 1854, one of the victims of cholera.[8]
Chicago Democrat 1835: On the 29th ult. by Cornelius Van Horn, esp. Capt. Robert Stephens, to Miss Nancy Kercheval, daughter of Mr. Lewis Kercheval, all of Juliet.[9]
Francis, Thomas, of Will County, Illinois, will dated 28 Feb 1850. Wife, Hannah Francis, and "all my children" (unnamed). Exrx., Hannah Francis. Wit: Mary Ann Brencerhoff & Cornelius C. Van Horne. Will Co., Ill. 16 Nov 1858. William Gowger verifies the signature of Mary Ann Brencerhoff whose residence is not known, and Cornelius C. Van Horne, decd. Philander Simmons testifies that Mary Ann Brencerhoff resided in Will Co. for 25 years, but left for Calif. in the spring of 1857. Uri Osgood witnesses that about fall of 1856 Thomas Francis left state of Illinois and went to Missouri. Cornelius C. Van Horn departed this life at Joliet in summer of 1854. Rec. in Bates Co., (Missouri) 19 Oct 1848.[10]
C.C. Van Horn, Probate Box 168, had very little information in it. Administratrix was Mary M. Van Horne. Warrant to Appraisers were Jacob C. Vanaukin (?), D. Brown and Francis Goodspeed. "Will County, State of Illinois, Greetings: Verify the appraisal of the estate of C.C. Van Horne. Witness: Oscar Hauley of Will County, City of Joliet 29 April 1854."[11]
Frankfort population 2325 meets on the edge of the Van Horn Woods, part of the Forest Preserve, settled by Germans, Frankfort was named after Frankfurt. (Illinois).
Cornelius' second wife's last name was Richards. I'm not sure if this is her maiden name or married name. However, Cornelius' son Cornelius Putnam who is our direct descendant married Margaret Stephens from Porter Co., Indiana where C.C. and Mary married. Margaret's mothers name was Mildred Richards. I have yet to find a connection but I imagine there is one.