Village of Montgomery
Kane County, Illinois
According to the History of Kane County, by Joslyn & Joslyn, of 1908.
The community is located in sections 32 and 33 on the west side of the Fox River. According to Phiny DURANT, the first settler was ELIJAH PIERCE who arrived in the spring of 1834. "He erected a shanty, which contained but one room, answering all the purposes required of it, and his house, being a station on the stage road between Chicago and Galena, became a noted tavern and popular place, as many as forty persons bunking at a time on its floor overnight, men, women and children huddled together like a flock of sheep."
DANIEL GRAY, from Montgomery county, New York, came out in the fall of 1835 and brought his family in 1836, and built the first frame house in the village. The place became known as "Graytown", but Mr. Gray named it Montgomery. The large stone grist mill was begun by Gray and Watkins in 1851, and finished in 1853. Mr. Gray died in 1854. The grist mill, started afterwards became the property of Hord, Brodhead & Company, who still own it, although it is used for grinding mica instead of wheat. The Burlington sheep pens were located in Montgomery about 1890, and have a capacity of 75,000 sheep. There has been some discussion about the old covered bridge in Montgomery, some claiming it floated down bodily from Aurora in the flood of 1857, and was picked up and put on the present foundation, but eye witnesses say that the bridge went down in pieced and was not stopped at Montgomery, but the bridge now there was an old bridge at Aurora, which was taken down and hauled to Montgomery when the new bridges were built in Aurora in 1868.
Source: History of Kane County by Joslyn & Joslyn 1908
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