A note about town names

Many years ago I was looking at a letter written to my great-grandparents in the 1850s and it was addressed to the town of Ogle, Illinois. That puzzled me a little because I'd grown up in Ogle County, they had lived in Lee County, and I'd never heard of the town of Ogle. My dad, who knew every road and farm in northern Illinois (he delivered fuel oil and later owned a bolt supply service for farming equipment) explained it was an early name for Ashton.

Today I came across a clipping in my grandmother's quilt pattern file published sometime during or after 1982 (photos of missing children on the back, but no quilt information). The article is written for the Dixon paper by George Lamb who had written Historical Reminiscences about Dixon, Illinois in 1970. The column was called, "We Remember When," and included Nachusa (Taylor), Nelson (Summerset), Shelburn (Rocky Ford), Ashton and Franklin Grove. So here's the story.

In 1854 the railroad that passed through the eastern section of Lee County established a freight stop and at first called it Ogle Station. Later the name was shortened to Ogle and after a time this name was dropped in favor of the town title of Ashton.

In 1853 Christian Lahmann, who owned the tract of land south of the railroad several miles east of Dixon, platted about 10 acres of it and christened what the hoped would be a thriving new village, Chaplin. The name lasted only until the village of Franklin Grove was incorporated first in 1857 and, again, in 1865."

I'm sure all this is in the Lee County History (2 vols.) which is somewhere on a family member's book shelf.