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Silas and Dolley Mason Sutherland came to Deer Grove in 1837 with some of their children. Mason Sutherland, their son, had one of the original grants of government land here. He eventually owned 300 acres of farm land at Hicks and Dundee Roads. The farm house was approximately where the Target is now. He married Nancy Boynton, a school teacher, in 1843. Their children were Edward, Maria, Emma, Charles, May, and Hattie Belle. Mason was the first postmaster in Deer Grove. The mail arrived every Saturday and farmers came from miles around to get it. When news of the 1849 gold rush arrived, Mason and his brother, Silas, went off overland for the gold fields. They nearly died of starvation on the way, found no gold claims, and returned home when they had earned enough money. In the 1850’s, the Sutherlands built a brick house in town at Bothwell and Wood Streets. Mason served terms as justice of the peace and highway commissioner. After the Civil War began, Mason and Judge James Bradwell got authorization from Governor Yates to form Co. E of the 113th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. A meeting was held in the Methodist Church in August of 1862 and mostly men from Palatine or Barrington signed up. They went to Camp Hancock in Chicago to train and were nicknamed the Bradwell Guard. The whole 113th regiment was called the Board of Trade regiment. It was headed by Colonel George Hoge and Mason Sutherland was elected captain of Co. E. They left Chicago for the South in November and Sutherland was given a sword by the ladies of Palatine. Years later, his daughter, Emma wrote of the last time she saw her father. She said that he came home the day before he left to help harvest the crops. The whole family worked until eleven o’clock at night gathering the grain into the barn. Nancy was pregnant with Hattie Belle but Mason never saw her. He came down with typhoid fever in January of 1863 and died in Young’s Point, Louisiana, on January 27th. Hattie Belle was born the day his body returned home for burial February 9th. Mason willed all his land and property to his wife and the Sutherland family continued to live off the income from the farm. Several years later, Nancy began to receive a widow’s pension. Post # 89 of the Women’s Relief Corps in Palatine was named after him.

Joel Wood was the son of Samuel Wood and Huldah Cole, born on December 10, 1810, in Smithfield, Pennsylvania. He married Hannah Rockwell of Canton, Pennsylvania, on August 10, 1834. The couple settled in Troy Township but were not satisfied there so bought an improved farm near Alba, Pennsylvania. Six sons were born to them: Thomas, Marshall, Crawford, Samuel (died in 1843), Ezra, and Emersen. They remained there until 1846 with little financial success. They sold the farm and traveled to Palatine Township by wagon. Joel Wood purchased 80 acres of prairie here at Palatine Road and Northwest Hwy. for $1.25 an acre. He built a cabin for his family, raised a crop of wheat, and cut it with the first McCormick reaper used in Cook County. He later bought 40 more acres of land. Hannah bore him three more children named Henry, Sarah, and Emma. The Chicago & Northwestern Railroad was planning a train line to run through this area and Joel Wood did some work for them constructing an embankment. He bought 80 more acres along the rail line and with Mason Sutherland solicited the building of a station here by offering a $10,000 subscription to the company, more than the offers made in two other areas. He built that depot in 1855 for which the railroad company paid him over $1,000. He surveyed and platted a new village around the depot. Elisha Pratt moved his small store across the tracks from the depot the same year. Hiram Thurston built the first house in town. Joel Wood donated land for Methodist and Lutheran churches , a school, and a cemetery. The school, of course was named after Joel Wood as was the street it was on. The original section of Hillside Cemetery along Smith Street was donated and sadly, one of the early burials there was wife Hannah when she died of lung congestion in 1857. Three of the Wood boys fought in the Civil War; Thomas, Emerson, and Marshall who came home wounded in 1864 and died. Ezra and Crawford died of illnesses before and after the war. A couple of the children married and moved away. With his family gone, Joel Wood sold his farm and holdings and moved to Kansas. He started a grocery store in Grantville, but that venture was a failure. He moved to Lyon County, Kansas, bought a farm, and in 1874, he married widow Elizabeth Campbell. He attended a family reunion of 225 relatives in Smithfield, Pennsylvania, on his father’s homestead. He was then the oldest living member of the Wood family. In 1888, they moved to Elmira, California and planted a fruit orchard. In 1891, they returned to Kansas where his wife died in 1896. He lived with his daughter, Emma, in Kansas well into his 90’s, but he never returned to Palatine.

Louis Bergmann was born in Alsace-Lorraine, Germany in 1842. His family came to Palatine

Township and settled in the Algonquin and Roselle Roads area. At age 20 Louis enlisted in the 113th Illinois Volunteer Infantry at the Methodist Church in August of 1862. By the spring of 1864, his regiment was located at Corinth, Mississippi. General Grant wanted his army to destroy the train tracks running south of Corinth. In June, about 8,000 troops were headed toward Guntown, Mississippi where they met Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest’s command, about 1/10 that size. Forrest was well-known as a battle strategist and Federal troops were attacked from both the front and the sides at Brice’s Crossroads. After fierce fighting through the day, Union troops began a retreat and many men were killed or captured. Louis Bergmann and two others from his company were taken prisoner and sent to Andersonville. In the late summer a new prison camp was built to alleviate the terrible overcrowding and health conditions. Camp Lawton in Millen, Georgia, was the place where Bergmann was marched along with hundreds of others. The compound was 42 acres with a 15 foot wooden fence, several brick ovens, and a stream running through it. No barracks were provided and the prisoners made their own lean-tos with scavenged material and blankets they had brought with them. The rations were inadequate, there was poor medical care, and the men were exposed to cold nights and rain as October passed. Bergmann died there on October 29, 1864. Burials were made in the fields downstream from the camp. The prisoners were evacuated in November as General Sherman was marching to Atlanta and the camp was abandoned. At least 725 Union prisoners died there in the few months of its existence. A few years after the war, the dead were exhumed and reburied at Beaufort National Cemetery, in South Carolina. The Bergmann family has records of the grave’s location at the cemetery. — Connie Rawa

Mae Sefton was born on August 31, 1886, here in Palatine, the daughter of Andrew and Betsy Sefton. Her family was among the earliest settlers in the Palatine area. Her great-grandfather, John Slade, arrived here in 1838, with a set of carpenter’s tools and $10. That year he rented a log cabin from Ben Lincoln and traded with the Indians for corn to plant the following spring. Her grandfather, Joseph Slade, was born and raised in Palatine. He ran a grain and lumber business with three other partners. Mae’s mother was his daughter. Betsy met Andrew, a mason, when he secured a contract to plaster the school house. Mae grew up here in Palatine with 3 brothers and 2 sisters. She married Roy Harris in 1906. Roy’s mother gave them a house and lot in Arlington Heights as a wedding present. Roy was a member of the Chicago firm of Harris and Tinkham, varnish dealers, and at one time he managed the Bowling Alley Café. They had two sons, Marvin and Elroy. — Connie Rawa

The Chicago architectural firm of Julius Wegman & Son designed the house for Charles Patten, Palatine banker. A French architect did the actual designs that resulted in the chateau influence of its towers, cupola, and ornate grillwork. It has a great round porch and a carriage portico. Inside are large windows, curved walls holding china cabinets, and display niches. There are 15 major rooms and five fireplaces. An oak staircase leads to the 2nd floor with five bedrooms. A smaller stairway leads to the billiards room on the 3rd floor. That large room was used for dances and parties. The house took a year to build. Patten believed in spending his money within the community. The house was built by Palatine craftsmen using wood from area groves and metal supplied by local blacksmiths. The one exception was that the colored marble tiles in the fireplaces were installed by Italian craftsmen because there was no one locally who was able to do the job. There was a large barn for a horse and buggy on the property and a windmill to provide the power to pump rainwater into the cistern. — Connie Rawa

The Victorians had superstitious beliefs about the dead. When someone died in a home, the clocks were stopped at the time of death or you would have bad luck. Mirrors were covered so that you could not look in and see the soul of the dead person. Black ribbons were put on outside doors to let people know the family was mourning and they should not be bothered by visitors. People who lived on busy city streets often put straw on the street in front of the house to dull the sound of horses’ feet. Cabinet makers were hired to build a proper sized wooden coffin. In Palatine, Carl Danielsen was the cabinet maker who did that job. His son, Frank, became Palatine’s first mortician with a license. Wakes were held in the home, in the parlor. Wreaths and crosses of flowers were sent to the home. Ads were placed in the newspaper so people would know when to come and pay respects to the family and when/where the funeral would be held as is still done today. Men whose close relatives died wore black armbands for at least three months. Women, of course, had more severe restrictions. They were socially required to wear black mourning clothes from six months to a year for close relatives. Wives had to wear mourning clothes for two or three years. The first year was full mourning, that is dull black cloth, often crape, with no other color; no shiny cloth or jewelry. Jet was a common mourning jewelry made of a soft black rock or gutta percha. The exception here was memorial jewelry that held cuttings of the dead person’s hair. Also included were black shoes & stockings, black gloves, black purses, black fans and black aprons. Some even wore black undergarments or at least black ribbon in their old white ones. After a year, shiny black cloth could be worn with white trims like cuffs and collars. French jet jewelry was appropriate; that is black glass. The third year, not usually followed in rural areas, was a switch to gray or lavender colors. A man could remarry after three months. Not a widow; she must wait a full year before marrying and should never wear white. A woman must quickly get black clothes before the wake so these were the first ready made things sold in stores  If you could not afford to buy new clothes you dyed the ones you had black.Queen Victoria’s lifelong mourning of Prince Albert and America’s Civil War brought all of these customs fully blown to all classes of people.

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