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Very Early Illinois Survey Map.

Interesting hand-drawn map of a portion of Northern Illinois centered on the town of Dresden and the confluence of the Illinois River and the Kankakee River, south of Chicago and Joliet.

The map tracks the course of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, as it runs more or less parallel to the Illinois River through this section of Northern Illinois.

The map predates the arrival of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, which was constructed through the area near where Dresden is shown in 1852.  The labeling of the Illinois & Chicago Canal Route as simply "Canal Route" strongly suggests that this map was prepared in connection with a report on the status of the Canal, the proposal for which was passed in 1835.

The map was drawn by famous Illinois surveyor A.J. Mathewson, who would later contribute to the Peck & Messinger map of the state.

Illinois & Michigan Canal

The Illinois and Michigan Canal served as a way to move goods and people from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River and thereby connecting Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River, expanding Chicago's importance as a major transportation hub. Approved by the Illinois Legislature in 1835, construction of the Canal began in 1836, but did not finish until 1848.

Kankakee, Illinois

Settlement of the area began in 1832, and the city was founded in 1853 when the builders of the Illinois Central Railroad bypassed the French Canadian town of Bourbonnais (now an adjacent village) and chose Kankakee as a station.

Dresden, Illinois

Platted in 1835, Dresden served as a small rural service center during the late 1830s and 1840s, but never grew beyond this role and ultimately was eclipsed by the towns adjacent to it.  The first Anglo-American settler to occupy the site of Dresden was Salmon Rutherford, a Vermonter who arrived in 1833 and established a farmstead along the prairie-timber border in Sections 23 and 26. Rutherford built a tavern and erected a water-powered sawmill along the east bank of Aux Sable Creek, two and one-half miles west of his tavern in 1836.  

In 1836, a survey of the proposed route of the Illinois and Michigan Canal was initiated. This was but one of series of surveys that would be conducted over the next eleven years that were aimed at establishing the line of the canal and estimating the work needed to be done on the different sections of it. Canal records indicate that Rutherford’s tavern provided accommodations for several survey parties.  

By 1838, Dresden had been designated as a postal stop along the mail route that ran between Chicago, Joliet, and Ottawa.   

Despite its early promise, Dresden never grew beyond the size of hamlet. Tax assessment records suggest that there were only twelve lots in the platted town that had buildings or structural improvements upon them in 1849.