David Smith Shumway

David and his wife Sally Greeley were both born in Vermont in the first decade of the Ninteenth Century. There they were married and had their first child, Rosannah. Then, after a year or so, in 1831, they left Andover, Vermont for Ohio, locating in Carlisle, Loraine County.

David built a sawmill and supplied most of the lumber for the first Oberlin College. Here they stayed until their second and third children were born, and in 1836 left with pair of horses, a yoke of oxen and a buggy for Illinois settling on the Rock River, where the Kishwaukee River joins it. There the balance of David and Sally's children were born. Sally (maybe David, too) must have had a touch of the ROmantic about them, for here are the names of their eight children:

At Kishwaukee, as the area was called, they first occupied a trapper's log cabin and there he built another saw mill. This mill was burnt down by a lawless band of men.(later mentioned). He rebuilt the mill on the "south bend" and produced lumber for a tavern (inn). It was not much later that David claimed some government land and eventually became a prosperous farmer and cattle raiser. They remodeled the inn which eventually became known as the Old Shumway Homestead.

In the early eighteen-forties David augmented his farming income by driving stagecoach between Rockford, Illinois, six miles north of the farm, along the picturesque Rock River to Dixon, about forty miles south in Ogle County. This experience undoubtedly introduced my ancestor to most of the settlers along his route.

David became a peacemaker in this frontier country and most of the neighborhood problems seemed to come to him for unofficial, honest adjustment. He in fact became Justice of the Peace and held that office for many years during the settlement of Winnebago and Ogle Counties. He rendered valuable service in ferreting out and capturing many desperadoes known as " bandits of the prairies," who were infesting the frontier and certainly impeding the development of these sparsely settled areas.

One of these bands known as the Driscoll boys raided the Shumways' own farm, gagged and tied David and threw him in his own granary while Sally and the children hid in the house. After stealing farm products and other valuables these bandits set the granary on fire . . . . with David still in it! Just in time, the bandits were frightened away by friendly Winnebago Indians who rescued David as flames crept about his body.

For many years the family got together at the old homestead at Kishwaukee to celebrate these two brave pioneer parents, David and Sally Shumway.

Their fourth child, Alvaro, was my great-grandfather.


Compiled and edited by David Shumway Bardue, from:

    1. Genealogy of the Shumway Family, originally published in 1909.
    Reprinted in 1972 by the Maple Press, York, PA.

    2. Miscellaneous obits from Rockford and Lanark, Illinois newspapers.