Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Chadwick, Jane 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com May 5, 2007, 6:19 pm

Author: Portraits & Bio Sketches, 1890

JANE CHADWICK has displayed a degree of administrative ability and 
comprehension of business affairs which would be highly creditable to one of 
the sterner sex. She is administratrix of the estate of the late John Jones, 
of Manhattan Township, having full power to manage the five hundred and sixty 
acres as she sees fit, and is kept busy in attending to the labors which it 
entails upon her. The farm is rented and Miss Chadwick occupies a pleasant 
residence in the village, which for comfort and ease is not excelled therein. 
She is looked up to by everyone and no person in this vicinity has more 
friends than she. The father of our subject was John Chadwick, a native of 
Lancashire, England who died when his daughter, Jane, was about eight years 
old. The mother was Jane (Murray) Chadwick, a native of Scotland, who upon 
being left a widow with nine children, labored so wisely and well that she was 
able to rear them with fair educations and preparation for future usefulness. 
She died in Manchester, England, in 1852. She was a consistent member of the 
Presbyterian Church and endeavored to instill the principles of right living 
into the hearts of her offspring. The members of the parental family were 
Mary, Alice, James, Jane, Joseph, Elizabeth, Henry, John and Ellen. Mary and 
Alice moved to Australia some years after our subject came to America and have 
since been lost track of. James was in the Twenty-third Royal Welsh Fusileers 
and served through the Crimean War, becoming a Corporal. At the close of the 
struggle he returned to England, but a few weeks later accompanied the army to 
China and his sister has never heard from him since that day. She has lost 
trace of the entire family and is not aware that she has a single relative 
living. Miss Jane Chadwick was born in Manchester, England, and reared there 
with somewhat limited school advantages. It being necessary that she should 
early in life have an occupation by which she could secure a livelihood, she 
learned dress-making and millinery, serving a regular apprenticeship from 
sixteen until twenty-one years of age. From early years she had made her home 
with an aunt and about the time that she became of age the health of her 
relative failed and the doctors recommended travel as a means of restoring it. 
Miss Chadwick was requested to accompany her aunt and uncle, and having 
consented, embarked at Glasgow, Scotland, on the steamer "City of Glasgow," 
which sailed April 1, 1850. This vessel was one of the first ocean steamers 
and this was her first trip. After a stormy voyage of fourteen days and eight 
hours, during which Miss Chadwick had been ill continually, landing was made 
at New York. For three years the party traveled in and through many of the 
States of the Union, their journeyings ceasing only with the death of the 
aunt, which took place at Louisville, Ky., in 1853. The bereaved uncle was 
obliged to return to England and was most anxious to have our subject go with 
him, but she so dreaded the voyage that she declined. For some time Miss 
Chadwick followed dress-making in Louisville and then, having friends in 
Atchison, Kan., who had come from her old English home, she determined to 
locate there. She traveled to Atchison by boat and there engaged in 
dressmaking, making her home with her friends. During those exciting times of 
border ruffianism which preceded the late Civil War, she saw and heard much of 
the events which have become historical. The head of the household in which 
she had found her home, went South and was killed on board a boat at New 
Orleans, his murder proving such a shock to his wife that she too died and our 
subject was again left alone. In 1858, having been recommended by Atchison 
friends to come to Joliet, Ill., which was then just starting, Miss Chadwick 
turned her face eastward. Close confinement to sewing had affected her health 
and her physician advised her to do house-work for a change. Although she knew 
nothing about housekeeping, she determined to follow the doctor's advice and 
when she reached Joliet did not even stop to eat her dinner for fear that her 
courage would fail her, but started out in search of a place. Walking up on 
the bluff, where she had several amusing experiences, she finally secured a 
situation at Mr. Furman Macks. There she remained until she became housekeeper 
for the late James Jones in Manhattan Township. This gentleman was not the 
best of managers, although an excellent man, and Miss Chadwick manifested so 
much ability and good sense that he ere long admitted that she was a better 
farmer than he, and followed her advice in his business. Seeing that Mr. Jones 
was not successful as a farmer, Miss Chadwick advised him to build tenant 
houses on each quarter section and rent the estate. This he did, the plan 
working so admirably that he became one of the most substantial men of the 
township. Miss Chadwick remained with him until his death, when she lost a 
good friend. Realizing that to her advice he owed his success, Mr. Jones 
wished to give Miss Chadwick a deed to the farm, but she would not allow this, 
having no desire to become defendant in a suit which would swallow up the 
place and cause much hard feeling in the minds of his relatives. She accepted 
a life annuity, $300 per annum, which, with the administrator's fees, affords 
her a comfortable support. Congressman Hill, of Joliet, was appointed by Mr. 
Jones to assist Miss Chadwick, but she has the supreme power. She remained on 
the farm a year after the death of the owner, straightening up affairs and 
selling off eighty acres, leaving five hundred and sixty in the farm. In 1883 
Miss Chadwick bought a half acre in Manhattan upon which she erected three 
houses, later building her own residence. She is an active and liberal member 
of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, in Manhattan Township, and a member of the 
Ladies' Guild, for which she has acted as delegate and otherwise labored. She 
is a firm believer in the principles of Republicanism and exerts all the 
influence which a woman of her standing can, in favor of that party.

Additional Comments:
Portrait and Biographical Album of Will County, Illinois, Containing Full Page 
Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens 
of the County; Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1890 
 


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