Local History

The name Franzosenbusch is German and it means literally "Frenchman's Woods".  Donna Freymark's Old Names of DuPage County Towns explains that an area known as Frenchman's Woods, named after the large landowner Nicholas Torode from the French-speaking Channel Island of Guernsey, was located in a grove centered at the intersection of York and Roosevelt Roads.

In a town like Westchester, with so many street names like Canterbury, Windsor and Oxford, one might be surprised to learn that the first half of its modern settlement history was dominated by German-speakers. In fact, the early records of Immanuel Lutheran Church, the parish that established the Franzosenbusch settlement, which later became the township of Proviso, are all in German.

We know from the following from the 1908 commemorative pamphlet Golden Jubilee and Short History of the Evangelical Lutheran Immanuel Church (original German title: Goldenes Jubiläum und Kurze Geschichte. Ev.-Luth. Immanuels-Gemeinde. Proviso, Illinois. 1858-1908)—

• Nine early settlers, Heinrich Mesenbrink, Heinrich Degener, Friedrich Meyer, Friedrich Degener, Friedrich Volberding, Heinrich Volberding, Wilhelm Mandel, Christian Puscheck, and Heinrich Evers got together to create a new school district in 1852 at the Franzosenbusch site. This was called the Southern District by the sponsoring church community of Addison.
• The majority of the settlers came directly from the Kingdom of Hanover. (Spelled Hannover in German, this major city in Lower Saxony, Northern Germany, was once comprised of a much larger area and was long ruled in conjunction with the British Crown.)
• Because the children of the early settlers had to make an arduous six to eight-hour trek by foot to receive confirmation at the parent church in Addison, there was an obvious need for establishing an independent school and church.
• Initially school was taught three times a week by teacher Bartling, from Addison, while visiting in the house of Heinrich Degener.
• Forty acres of land at the intersection of Cermak Road and Wolf Road (Franzosenbusch) were purchased in 1852 by the local German settlers for the purpose of establishing a church and a school. The exact location was at the present-day intersection of 22^nd Street and Wolf Avenue.
• In the spring of 1853 the first school building was erected, with Friedrich Meyer serving as construction supervisor and the other men providing building materials.
• The building consisted of two rooms, a teacherage and another room alternating as schoolroom and church.

Today's Franzosenbusch Prairie House on Constitution Drive, the welcome center for the Wolf Road Prairie, has at its center the remnants of this original two-room schoolhouse. The exposed beams of the downstairs front rooms are hand-hewn timbers with the common German post-and-beam construction utilized in the more elaborate medieval half-timbered framing method known as Fachwerk. A visit to either the nearby Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery or either of two 19th Century cemeteries off Churchville Road in Bensenville shows clearly the large number of German settlers, predominantly from the Hanover area.
 

Authors: Drew and Patricia Reaves

We have actually collected quite a bit on the history of the area. However, we have been spending much of our time on the very challenging job of saving, moving, researching and restoring our base of operations, the Prairie House. Much remains to be done. 

This will ultimately be the largest section of the web site.  Many opportunities are available for interested volunteers to contribute to this area.

Please feel free to contact me at j.arbuthnot@sbcglobal.net.  I will route your email through our other researchers.

As we expand this section the links below will become active and new ones will be added.

Some topics:

• History Overview and Timeline   *Updated 09/17/2003*
  • Early Residents and Settlers (a historical Who's Who)    *Updated 12/07/2003*
• When was the first Immanuel Lutheran schoolhouse built?     *Updated 09/13/2002*
  • Franzosenbusch House Through The Years  *Updated 08/09/2002*
  • Franzosenbusch History  *Updated 11/17/2003*
• Native American History
  • Salt Creek -- Native American Villages    *Updated 05/12/2002*
  • Native American Settlements - 1804    *Added 05/12/2002*
  • The Metis Nation    *Added 08/17/2003*
  • The Land Reverts to the Past  *Added 12/07/2003*
• The Great Depression and WWII
  • Area Aerial Photographs    *Updated 02/20/2002*
  • Maywood -- The Story of Company A and Bataan  *Added 06/29/2002*
• The Area's History
  • America in the mid-1800's     *Updated 01/05/2003*
  • Lincoln and Early Growth South and West of Chicago       *Added 01/05/2003*
  • Early Settler History 1832-1850  *Updated 07/31/2003*
  • Life in "Proviso" (1850 - 1900)  *Updated 04/13/2003*
    • Proviso Land Ownership in 1863      *Updated 02/16/2002*
    • York Township Ownership -- 1870s     *Added 03/30/2002*
    • Proviso Township Maps   *Added 12/29/2002*
  • Village of Bellwood  - Early History       *Added 03/09/2002*
  • Village of Broadview     *Updated 04/17/2003*
  • Village of Hillside - Early History      *Updated 02/23/2002*
    • Mount Carmel   *Added 01/15/2003*
    • Oak Ridge Cemetery    *Added 12/04/2002*
    • Queen of Heaven Cemetery   *Added 02/05/2003*
  • Early History of the La Grange - La Grange Park Area   *Updated 07/28/2002*
  • Early History of the La Grange Park    *Updated 07/28/2002*
  • Early History of the La Grange    *Updated 07/28/2002*
  • Maywood - Early History     *Added 03/30/2002*
  • Checkerboard Field     *Updated 04/09/2003*
    • The Maywood Herald   *Added 11/20/2002*
  • Western Springs History   *Updated 04/17/2003*
  • Western Springs History -- Train Crash of 1915   *Added 03/20/2003*
  • Village of Westchester -- 1925 to 1954    *Updated 01/19/2002*
    • Westchester Tribune Sep 28 1926
    • Greater Chicago Magazine-June1929    *Added 10/01/2002*
    • History of the Westchester Park District     *Updated 04/21/2002*
    • Westchester's Early Rapid Transit   *Updated 04/06/2003*
      • Who was Samuel Insull?
  • Covell's Quarry   *Updated 02/10/2002*
  • Memories, Letters and Stories of the Area
    • Memories Early (Westchester) Village History by Charles N. Field    *Updated 01/26/2002*
    • Area Church and Schools Histories    *Updated 03/28/2003*
  • Forest Park (Harlem) Entries:
    • Historical Society of Forest Park page    *Updated 12/10/2002*
    • Harlem State Savings Bank (1906)    *Added 12/10/2002*
    • A History of Forest Home and German Waldheim Cemeteries    *Updated 11/17/2003*

    • Jewish Waldheim Cemetery    *Added 11/09/2002*

    • Woodlawn Cemetery    *Added 11/09/2002*

    • Concordia Cemetery    *Added 11/09/2002*

• Post World War II Recovery to the Present
  • Torode Homestead Displaced By TriState -- a 1957 newspaper article about the Torode homestead and its fate    *Updated 04/28/2002*

A note about the historical content on this web site:
We are constantly searching for cross references to verify our historical information.  Whenever we find such info we will endeavor to let you know about it.  In the meantime the reader is cautioned to apply common sense in realizing that the remembrances of individuals and even the writings of historians are not always totally accurate.

Last Modified:  12/07/2003