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By Barbara Benson

Assessor, REBECCA M. TONIGAN     

My staff and I would like to wish you all a safe and happy New Year.

 

We are approaching a county-wide quadrennial reassessment year.  This means that all properties in the Township are due to be revalued.   It is difficult to say how the conditions of the current real estate market will affect the re-evaluation.  By State law we are required to use the prior three years sales to establish a basis for our sales ratio study. For purposes of this quadrennial reassessment the sales will be from January 2004 through December 31, 2006.  We are committed to equity and fairness and as such should the sales show a decrease in values then this decrease will be reflected in the assessments. To the same end should the sales show an increase in a neighborhood then that too will be reflected in the assessments. 

 

I would encourage you all to review your properties on line at www.lakecountyil.gov/maps to make sure that we have correct information regarding square footage and amenities.  If you see any discrepancies, please contact us at (847) 381-1120 and we will be happy to make an appointment to review those differences. 

 

Also please make sure you have the appropriate exemptions applied to your property.  As reviewed in previous newsletters there are a few types of exemptions available.

 

General Homestead           $5,000

Senior Homestead                $3,500

Homestead Improvement        $25,000 assessed/$75,000 market

Senior Freeze Income         $50,000 (tiered benefit for over $45,000 of income)

Senior Tax Deferral Income  $50,000

Disabled Veteran’s Exemption  $70,000 assessed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking about my latest CUBA HERITAGE column, and reflecting that I would Email it as a document to Cuba Township Clerk, Priscilla Rose, I found my topic, from Email, back to the days of stage coach mail and rural post offices.

 

In 1988, in connection with the opening of the new United States postal facility on Grove Avenue in the Village of Barrington, I had researched and contributed a History of the Post Office in the Barrington Area, to a commemorative book published by the Barrington Rotary Club.  Much of the following is drawn from that book to recall the days when mail sent weeks and months ago was eagerly awaited by the pioneers in the scattered settlements of a vast country.

 

According to local historical resources and U.S. Postal Service Archives, a Post Office named Flint Creek, in McHenry County, was the first to be located in what it now the Barrington area.  It was on Section 10 of what was later named Cuba Township, and Vincent H. Freeman was appointed the Postmaster on July 1, 1839.   Some context is required about the date and location.  Vincent Freeman lived on Section 10 and operated a saw mill on Flint Creek, close to the creek’s confluence with the Fox River, probably in partnership with an E.W. Densmore, who owned considerable acreage in Section 10, according to an 1861 Plat map.  Furthermore, in November of 1839, Lake County was established out of the eastern part of McHenry County.

 

John Sears, who lived on Section 15, and succeeded Freeman on September 12, 1840,  kept his position for only a few months, because on  July 13, 1841, the Postal Service closed the Flint Creek office and transferred it to Lake Zurich, which was on the Waukegan to Dundee stage route.  The route followed Cuba Road from the intersection with Ela Road, west to the presently named Buckley and Oak Knoll Roads, then south on Ridge to County Line Road, where it passed into Barrington Township at Sutton Road.

 

It was probably in early 1836, that the Postal Service began contracting with stage coach operators to carry the mail.  This was the time when the territory around Chicago was opening up for settlement, and the stage routes were becoming competitive.  Among new mail routes advertised on October 29, 1836, was the following:  “From Chicago to George McClure’s on Fox River and back.  To leave Chicago every Wednesday at 6 a.m. and arrive McClure’s Thursday by 6 p.m.  Leave McClure’s Friday at 6 a.m. and arrive at Chicago

Saturday at 6 p.m.”   From other routes that were advertised at the same time, this was clearly the northwestern route, but McClure’s exact location is not known.  Of greater interest is the travel time for these routes which were nothing but trails, well worn by the Native Americans and the army, heading for their forts in the northwest.

 

In 1847, the Flint Creek Post Office was re-established in Lake County, with the new Postmaster Harvey Lambert appointed on

October 7, 1847.  Earlier, in 1846, the Little Fort Porcupine (Waukegan was then called Little Fort) reported that an Act of Congress had established several mail routes in Lake County, among them “Dundee via Barrington, Lake Zurich, and Gilmer to Libertyville”.   Since the Village had not then been established, “Barrington” refers to Barrington Center at Route 68 and Sutton Road, where a small settlement was growing, and Squire Alvah Miller maintained a postal stop in his house at that intersection.

 

The best information about where Harvey Lambert lived, is again from the 1861 Cuba Plat Map, which places a Lambert property on Section 35, and therefore not directly on the Cuba Road stage and mail route.   Lambert was succeeded on July 14, 1849 by John J.

Bullock.   Bullock’s house was located on Section 27, in the vicinity of where West Cuba Road joins our present day Northwest

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