Daily Herald opinion: Preserving the past: Lovers of local history will benefit after DuPage recorder finds 1846 document

After becoming the DuPage County recorder of deeds in early December, Liz Chaplin was going through her office in Wheaton when she found a large manila envelope on a stack of plastic containers.

That envelope contained a land patent that U.S. President James Polk signed in 1846. That document bestowed 40 acres of land in Winfield Township to a resident named George Cary.

“When I opened that envelope, I felt like I was looking at a national treasure,” Chaplin said last week.

The county recorder immediately recognized the 179-year-old document as an important piece of DuPage history.

To her further credit, Chaplin decided to share the historic document with the public by displaying it inside the recorder’s office at the county government administration building, 421 N. County Farm Road, Wheaton.

Chaplin said the document she found was “very damaged” with rips, mold and dirt. But experts spent several months cleaning and restoring it. It is now in a museum-quality frame, along with a photo of Polk.

There was a real possibility that the document could have gone unnoticed. Theodore Fauth Sr. of Pennsylvania sent it to the recorder’s office four years before Chaplin rediscovered it. In a handwritten note dated Dec. 21, 2020, Fauth wrote that he wanted to donate the document, which previously belonged to his father. It’s unknown how the envelope containing the historic document and Fauth‘s note ended up on a stack of containers.

“The only thing I can think is maybe they didn’t know what to do with it,” Chaplin said.

Fortunately, Chaplin didn’t return the document to the envelope and forget about it.

In a story published on May 28, our reporter Susan Sarkauskas described how DuPage County History Museum Director Michelle Podkowa was especially excited by the find.

Podkowa said land patent documents are increasingly rare, and the museum has only three. In addition, they often were signed by lower-level federal officials.

Indigenous people originally settled on the land before the federal government acquired it and began selling it, according to Podkowa. The land patent Cary received in 1846 gave him ownership of 40 acres in the northeast corner of Winfield Township, near Williams Road and present-day Warrenville.

Sarkauskas reported that the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County bought the land in 1967. Today, it is part of Blackwell Forest Preserve.

DuPage County Board members are considering what to do with the DuPage Heritage Gallery, a longtime exhibit at the county building that highlights the accomplishments of 12 individuals with ties to the area.

While the discussion about the gallery continues, it’s refreshing to see Chaplin take the simple step of preserving a piece of county history and making it available for everyone to view and learn from.