page_title: Orangeville, Illinois
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Orangeville, Illinois / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Post Office, village of Orangeville, Illinois, USA.
context_page_description: Orangeville is a village in Stephenson County, Illinois. The population was 793 at the 2010 census, up from 751 in 2000. The area's earliest white settlers arrived in the year 1833, and the village was platted in 1851 by John Bower, who is considered the village founder. In 1867 Orangeville was incorporated as a village. The town's central business district contains several 19th century commercial buildings, many of which were built during the railroad boom of 1888–1914. By the time the Great Depression was ongoing, business in Orangeville had started to decline, with the last bank closing in 1932. Although recently infrastructure jumps have given back some of its old decor.
  Orangeville is about two miles south of the Illinois–Wisconsin border and about 35 miles west of Rockford, Illinois. The town itself is located in farmland surrounded by vale and rises from Richland Creek on its west end, down High Street and into the central business district, where the Central House hotel occupies the highest lot.
context_section_description: Before 1837, the area was occupied by Native Americans who utilized it for hunting grounds; the Sioux tribe had a camp near Oneco. Game that populated the Orangeville area included buffalo and deer. John H. Curtis purchased the 80 acres (32 ha) of land, which included the area that would eventually become Orangeville, on January 1, 1838 at the Dixon Land Office. Curtis constructed a dam on Richland Creek, and on the creek's west bank erected a gristmill and a saw mill. Curtis died in 1843 and both mills stood idle until John Bower arrived in 1846, with his family, after having visited the area the year before. Bower purchased the 80 acres (32 ha) and the mills.
  Throughout the 1830s and 1840s farmers from New York and Pennsylvania, known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, arrived to settle the area around present-day Orangeville. Of the first 14 settlers to the area, 13 were Pennsylvania Dutch, the 14th was a German immigrant. A Dr. Thomas Van Valsah led a wagon train from Pennsylvania to Stephenson County in 1837.
  The village of Orangeville was founded by John Bower, popularly confused as "Bowers." Bower came to Stephenson County in 1845 and, on October 16, 1846, bought the land that would be platted as Orangeville from for $950. Bower built the Union House in 1849 on a portion of what became Orangeville in 1851. Though the town was platted by Bower in 1851, it was not incorporated until 1867. A drawing of the plat was done by surveyor Marcus Montelius and indicated that Orangeville has always been known as Orangeville; several publications have asserted that the town began as Bowersville or Bowers Mills and underwent a name change in 1854. It is possible that the incorrect name Bowersville was a misremembered version of "Bower's mill". The plat also showed 48 original town lots.
  At the outset, Bower brought "wagon loads" of lumber from Galena and Chicago to the settlement, and by 1849 he had reconstructed and improved the gristmill. The mill was completed in 1850 at a cost of $8,000. Charles Moore, who would become the first President of the village when it was incorporated, came to the town, lured by Bower's efforts, in 1849. George Hamilton built a store and soon farmers began to build houses, by 1850 a stagecoach served the area. In September 1852 construction began on Orangeville's first church.
  By 1854, Orangeville was in competition with the village of Oneco as a growing center of commerce. That year, the federal government decided that population growth in the two villages warranted the establishment of a post office. On an appointed day, residents of both villages lined up on the sides of the street according to which town they supported as the location for the post office. Orangeville won by a narrow margin.
caption: The current Orangeville post office; in 1854 the village narrowly won an election over Oneco for post office location.
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