Reminiscences of Early Experiences 
in the Chicago Area 
By BENJ. T. GAULT 
Peace had come to a badly torn and 
disturbed nation when my _ parents 
moved from Decatur, Illinois, the writ- 
er’s birthplace, to Manchester, New 
Hampshire, where we lived for about 
a year before coming to the then young 
city of Chicago. Had they gone to 
Logansport, Indiana, as they thought 
quite seriously of doing, the writer’s 
career might have been materially alt- 
ered. We lived in rented homes at first, 
but soon after the Chicago Fire of 1871 
—witnessed on the two occasions by 
myself from a safe distance—moved 
to a permanent home on Washington 
Boulevard, then Washington Street. 
We came to Glen Ellyn in the fall of 
1890. At that time Glen Ellyn bore the name of Prospect Park but 
prior to our coming the name was Danby. In the fall of 1867 we moved 
to Chicago from New Hampshire shortly following the assassination 
of President Lincoln, whom my father knew personally at Springfield 
in this state before he was elected to the presidency. I recall the 
wretched sanitary conditions existing at that time. Everything was 
wet and soggy, cholera was raging, and Chicago citizens were passing 
away at an alarming rate. 
Recollections of my earliest years in Chicago, when we were living 
in a rented building on Wilson Street in the southwestern section of 
the city, are associated in my mind with the heavy flight of Wild 
Pigeons that took place at that time. It must have resembled in many 
respects similar scenes that took place during Audubon’s day, for it 
reached from horizon to horizon in continuous flocks for practically 
one entire day. I sat on a moist packing box observing this great 
sight, barring meal times, during all the while it was going on. In 
the years following we had smaller flights off and on during the 70’s 
and in the early 80’s when they dropped off altogether, which was not 
surprising the way they were slaughtered for commercial purposes. 
The last specimen the writer saw was a bird-of-the-year in the early 
fall (See Chapman’s Handbook for exact date) of 1893. 
The Ruffed Grouse is another bird that apparently has disappeared 
from these parts and it is questionable whether there are many of 
these noble game birds left in our state. Once they were fairly com- 
mon here in DuPage County. 
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