Kate's Brief History

A grist mill for grinding grain was also constructed in Naper’s Settlement. It was built soon after the saw mill but apparently there was some serious concern as to how they were to create such a thing since they had no mill stones for grinding.

Robert Nelson Murray, who was a teenager at the time, tells us that the grist mill was built due to the efforts of Christopher Paine. Paine, who was homesteading in the area before the Naper group arrived, was apparently a prairie-style MacGyver since “To him the whole settlement looked for devising ways and means to accomplish ends.”

“He laid the case before Mr. Paine. He scratched his head and ‘his jaws wagged with increased rapidity while he kept up an incessant expectoration,’ (says Mr. Murray), and exclaimed ‘By Jinks, I can
make them’(the stones. He then selected two good bowlders from the grove, and hammered and pecked on them till he had fashioned them
into upper and nether mill stones.”

The mill was used communally by all the settlers and was powered not by the river but by each farmer’s oxen, the same ones they used to pull the wagon of wheat or corn to the mill.

What happened to Christopher Paine’s mill stones is unknown, but if you go to Pioneer Park on Washington Streets, you’ll find Bailey Hobson’s stones from his grist mill which was just downriver.

Eventually both grist mills as well as the saw mill ceased operation. The mill pond receded and the DuPage River was allowed to flow naturally again. Its major application now is to support ducks and the occasional canoe!

I started writing this blog in October of 2009, after the publication of my first book, Ruth by Lake and Prairie. Ruth's story tells about the 1831 journey to what would one day become Naperville, Illinois. This Kate's Brief History blog let me share tidbits of history about Naperville, DuPage County, and Illinois. All the bits that I loved researching, but which didn't get into the book. 

Later local history also showed up in these posts because I was offering a monthly history lesson to fellow business folk at the Naperville Chamber of Commerce. It only made sense to know more about the city in which we were doing business!

As I progressed with my Agatha Christie research, I started writing more about England in the early 1900s. I am thrilled to report that the glossary, Agatha Christie Annotated: Investigating the Books of the 1920s has now been published and with it, a brand new website at AgathaAnnotated.com.

I have also been blogging at my author website, KateGingold.com, for many years, but I decided that it's time to bring the blogs together. From now on, both blogs can be found at AgathaAnnotated.com/Blog. 

Thank you so much for following me here at Kate's Brief History and I do hope you will follow me over to AgathaAnnotated as we start something new!

Agatha Christie's brother, Monty

While thinking about a topic for this month’s post, I wondered if there was an Agatha Christie-related or 1920s event that happened in June to write about. I did a little online research – and then created my own event!

If you’re into gardens, you can find videos online of gorgeous English gardens and learn what’s blooming in June. And speaking of blooms, search results bring up the famous poem “O my Luve is like a red, red rose/That’s newly sprung in June,” although Robert Burns is actually the national poet of Scotland, not England. Looking a bit further, I read that Burns also wrote the words to “Auld Lang Syne,” which I already knew, and that he died at the age of thirty-seven, which I did not know.

June seems to be a good month for crowning English monarchs. The coronations of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon were held in June of 1509. Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, was crowned in June of 1533. Anne’s reign only lasted until 1536, but 420 years later, England celebrated the coronation of Elizabeth II, and she is considered the second-longest-reigning monarch of all time. Louis XIV beat her record, having ascended the throne at the age of four.

Since Agatha Christie’s earliest novels often refer to World War I, I looked for June events there, too. The war raged on from July of 1914 until November of 1918, and in June of 1917, the British royal family changed their name. When Queen Victoria married her Albert, he was a German prince of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Technically, that made them Mr. and Mrs. Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Germany was England’s enemy during WWI, so George V, the grandson of Albert, made the decision to drop the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha name. Instead, he took the name “Windsor” for his family.

The only Christie-related event in June I could find was the birthday of Agatha’s brother, Monty, on June 23. The second child and only son of Fred and Clara Miller, he was born in 1880, just eighteen months after his sister, Madge. Fred and Clara’s third and final child, Agatha, wouldn’t follow for another ten years, in 1890.

Fred was an American whose mother died when he was quite young. His father remarried an English woman and while there were no offspring from this union, they did raise a niece of Fred’s stepmother. In 1878, Fred and the niece, Clara, were married. They settled in Torquay, which is where both Madge and Agatha were born, but Monty was born in New Jersey during a long visit to the United States.

Monty apparently did a little of this and little of that as an adult. He was stationed in South Africa and in India during the Boer War. After seven years of service, he became a professional hunter in East Africa until he ran afoul of illegal ivory trading. During World War I, he served with the East Africa Transport Corps, rising to the rank of captain. Tow