Hester Vernon Fell (1819-1906)

             Hester Vernon Fell was born on March 2, 1819 in Little Brittain, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to William and Rachel Milner Brown. Like her ancestors, Hester was born a Quaker. Her father was a descendent of James Brown, who came from England prior to 1679. James’ brother William even came over on the same boat as William Penn, the Quaker settler known for founding Pennsylvania.

            In 1828, Hester’s father brought his family to Illinois, where his children would have all the opportunities of a new land. A four-horse wagon carried their belongings, while the family rode in a two-horse carriage. Their journey took four weeks to complete, and the family slept in farmhouses along the route. Hester, who was nine years old at the time, vividly remembered the bumpiness of the corduroy roads over the marshy Indiana land.

            They settled on a farm along the Mackinaw River in Tazewell County in October 1828, which was very religiously diverse and populated with people from all over the United States. Hester’s father built a large log cabin for them to live in, and eventually traveled to St. Louis, returning with real glass windows, which were rather extravagant and unusual for the time. As there were no nearby public schools in Tazewell County, the Browns hired teachers to live in their home and teach the younger children.

            This is how Hester met Jesse Fell, who would later become her husband and an important figure in the founding of Normal, as well as Illinois State Normal University. Jesse arrived in the fall of 1832. He came to Pekin by steamboat and walked 16 miles inland, intending to become a lawyer. When he arrived in Tazewell County, he found that there were no court sessions in the winter, and he became the Brown family teacher that winter. Seventeen-year old Hester and her fifteen-year old sister Rachel, however, were able to attend a finishing school for young ladies in Springfield, which was considered a superior education because of its emphasis on social and cultural skills. Hester spent two years at this school. Fell family history reports that Hester said that most of her time was “taken up with French lessons and instruction in fine embroidery. What a way to fit girls for a life in a new country!”

            On January 26, 1838, Hester and Jesse were married by a minister of the Universalist Church from Tremont. Although they were both Quakers by birth, they

had moved away from Quaker doctrine and embraced the more liberal Universalist doctrine. Their wedding did not include gifts or a honeymoon.

But Hester and Jesse’s married life got off to a rather rocky start. Their wedding was only a year after the Land Panic of 1837. Although Jesse was still living rather comfortably at the time of their marriage, he soon lost all of his landholdings (including several hundred acres in what is now downtown Chicago) and went bankrupt when his real estate creditors were unable to repay him, despite his kind and lenient policies. After going bankrupt, he returned to the law profession, which required traveling sixty miles overnight to Springfield on horseback several times a month. It was a hard lifestyle for Jesse, and probably for Hester, who had to cope with his frequent absences, but it was a necessary source of income.

While working in Springfield, Jesse Fell met Abraham Lincoln, who later became a close friend of the family. Lincoln’s law office became Jesse’s headquarters while he was in Springfield, and when Lincoln traveled the 8^th Judicial Circuit, Jesse’s law offices in Bloomington were Lincoln’s headquarters as well. It was at Jesse Fell’s urging that Lincoln published his Autobiography, and when Fell traveled east on business, he made it his mission to promote Lincoln and his policies. It may even be safe to say that if it wasn’t for Jesse Fell, Lincoln would never have been elected president.

One thing that the Fells had in common with Lincoln was their views on slavery. Both Jesse Fell and Hester’s fathers were ardent Abolitionists who were known to have assisted slaves fleeing the South through the Underground Railroad. Family lore states that William Brown’s dog Pete would growl at strange whites but be friendly and quiet toward blacks.

When Hester and Jesse arrived in Bloomington, they settled in a modest sized farmhouse on 160 acres of land (east of the Bloomington courthouse), which Jesse would later sell to David Davis. They named it Fort Jesse, but many of their peers called it “Fell’s Folly” because it was separated from Bloomington by a stream. According to Fell family lore, Hester spoke of hearing wolves and foxes at night and that if Jesse was away, she feared that “he would be overtaken and killed.” Once, while seven year old Henry was left in the cabin to watch three-year old Eliza while Hester and Jesse went to town, a gray wolf entered their cabin, attracted by the children’s pet deer. Jesse and Hester could not get back to the cabin because the rainstorm that evening caused the nearby stream to flood. Henry defended the deer himself, throwing a wooden stool at the wolf to scare it away. She also told that at times, “a wandering Indian came near the house. She would open the door, hand out food, and wave him away.”  

Hester and Jesse had seven children, two sons; named Henry Clay and William B. (who died after three weeks) and five daughters; Eliza, Clara, Rachel, Fannie, and Alice. They were also the de facto guardians of a little girl named Ellen McGinnis. Ellen’s mother was a servant for the Fells and she frequently brought her seven-year old daughter along to play with the Fell children while she worked. One day, she asked Hester if Ellen could spend the night. Hester agreed, but Ellen’s mother never returned. Hester then took pity on the orphan girl and incorporated her into her family, treating her kindly as if she was her own daughter. Ellen later attended Illinois State Normal University, like the Fell daughters did, and eventually became a teacher at the Illinois Soldiers and Sailor’s Children’s School in Normal. She is said to have done this out of gratitude for Hester Fell in caring for her as a child. Three of the other Fell children also became teachers; Rachel became a botany assistant in ISNU, Eliza studied and taught piano in Chicago, and Fannie taught Latin, Greek, and German in the College Preparatory department of ISNU.

            In 1845, Jesse moved the family to a farm near Quincy in Adams County. Here, he wanted to sell seedlings and establish a permanent nursery. However, due to low demand for trees, he grew fruit instead. He also attempted to join the California Gold Rush in 1849, but he could not raise enough money to make the journey west. So instead, they moved back to North Bloomington in 1851 (now the town of Normal). They eventually settled on the corner of Vernon and Broadway streets in 1857. Their home is considered the first house built in the town of Normal (officially founded in 1865). The land which the Fell home was located on was known as “Greenwood.”

            Their homestead was used as a church for a time because there were no churches in town yet. Their home was also the site of several lively dance parties for the Fell children, who attended ISNU. Although Jesse was opposed to alcohol consumption and public dance halls, he seemed to have no problem with dancing in general. He hired African-American men to tack down the edges of the carpet, making it more suitable for dancing, and Hester used her new ice cream maker to make ice cream for the parties. Although Jesse was never particularly affluent, their home was comfortable and had several items new to Bloomington, including the first furnace, window screens, the first piano sold in Bloomington, an indoor bathroom, and, of course, the ice cream freezer, which Hester often loaned to neighbors.

            Jesse and Hester’s home also included a little private school, which soon became the first school district in Normal. It was so small that it was unable to meet the standards of the State Department of Education, so the Fells hired a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts to teach the children. Education was very important to Jesse Fell, for as early as 1837, he began planning and dreaming of establishing his own institution of higher learning. In 1857, his dream came true when ISNU was opened as a school for teachers that fall. Originally, there was a heated debate over whether the school should be located in Peoria or Normal (then called North Bloomington), and Jesse Fell was responsible for raising the money needed to start it in Normal.

            After Jesse’s death on February 25, 1887, Hester remained in the house and managed nearly all of its affairs until her own peaceful death on June 12, 1906. She was eighty-seven years old. Their marriage had been happy and complimentary—he being an idealistic dreamer, she being practical, orderly, and supportive of her husband. They are buried side by side in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.