CHAPTER IX. 



KENDALL COUNTY. 



Kendall county is bounded on the north by Kane county, on the east by Will 

 county, on the south by G-rundy county, and on the west by LaSalle and 

 DeKalb counties. It comprises an area of nine townships, or about three 

 hundred and twenty-one square miles, of which about one-sixth is wooded and 

 the remainder is prairie. It is watered by the Fox river, which traverses the 

 northern and northwestern portions of the county, and by several smaller 

 streams, the largest of which are the AuSable and its branches, the Blackberry, 

 Big Rock and Little Rock creeks. The water supply of three streams, in this 

 county, is chiefly derived from surface drainage, and to a very limited extent 

 only, from springs, therefore the smaller ones are nearly or quite dry during 

 seasons of drouth. 



The general character of the surface of the country in this county, is that of 

 an undulating prairie, with the timbered portion either in isolated groves, or 

 skirting the principal streams. Sloughs, or flat damp meadows, frequently 

 occupy the hollows between the high rolling prairies, but are not often of any 

 considerable extent. It is in these sloughs that most of the streams which 

 head in this county take their rise. Along the Fox river, which flows in a 

 valley one hundred feet or more below the general surface, the country is more 

 broken. The alluvial bottom lands along this river, are nowhere of any very 

 considerable extent, being seldom of more than half a mile in width, and, for 

 much of its course through this county, the Fox runs through precipitous 

 banks coming to the water's edge, without even a narow strip of bottom 

 land. 



The principal varieties of timber found in this county, are similar to those 

 in the adjoining counties. On the uplands we find the woods consisting chiefly 

 of black, white, red, and burr oak, shell-bark and bitternut hickory, black 

 walnut, butternut, white and slippery elm, white ash, iron wood, white and 

 sugar maple, and on the lower grounds, in addition to the most of these, we 

 find black ash, cottonwood, and occasionally a sycamore. The red cedar is 

 also frequent along the banks of Fox river, though it forms no large portion 

 of the timber. The undergrowth is pretty constantly of hazel, with wild plum, 



