The Ridge Historical Society
Lost or Found? – Building #1: FOUND – Part 2 on the Iglehart House
By Carol Flynn
This new Facebook series from the Ridge Historical Society, “Lost or Found?”, presents photos of buildings in Morgan Park from an 1889 publication, and invites the reader to comment if the building is still standing, and if so, where it is located.
The first building was correctly “found” and identified by several people as the Charles D. Iglehart House at 11118 S. Artesian Avenue. The previous post discussed the house itself. This post will share some information on the Iglehart family.
Charles Duvall Iglehart was born in 1818 to a farming family in Maryland. His father, Richard, was a slave-owner. The Slave Schedule for the 1850 U.S. Census lists eleven enslaved people living at Richard’s residence, ranging from a 7-year-old boy to a 70-year-old woman.
Charles was also listed as part of that residence, with his wife Marietta and an infant son, Jacob. Marietta died shortly after that census was taken, leaving Charles with a motherless Jacob.
In 1853, Iglehart married Elizabeth A. Haslup in the District of Columbia. They had their first child, son Charles, in 1854.
Andreas’ History of Cook County, published in 1884, reported that “C.D. Iglehart and family came in November 1856, and settled … on what is now known as the corner of One Hundred and Eleventh Street, on Morgan and Western avenues.”
Their second child was a daughter, Mary Ann. Andreas claims she was “the first birth in the immediate vicinity of Morgan Park … in 1857.”
However, Mary Ann is buried in Mt. Greenwood Cemetery, and her date of birth engraved on her gravestone is given as January 16, 1856. This is also mentioned on family trees on Ancestry, and one entry lists her birth occurring out east before they left for Chicago.
If Andreas’ date of November for the Igleharts’ arrival in Cook County is accurate, this means that the claim about being the first (white) child born here cannot be accurate – it is quite possibly just urban folklore. The source of the claim that Andreas makes is not mentioned.
Three more children were born to the Iglehart family on the Ridge. Third was Margaret Ellen, who went by Ellen or Nellie, born in 1858; then Thomas born in 1859; and Elizabeth, or Lizzie, born in 1865. Iglehart’s oldest son Jacob was listed living with the family on the 1870 census.
Charles Iglehart was described as an educated, cultured man who attracted the same type of people as guests in his home. The Iglehart family remained in the Morgan Park community for many years. They are credited with starting the second orchard on the Ridge, around 1857 (William Morgan, son of Thomas Morgan, established the first).
They were among the original subscribers to the Morgan Park Baptist Church, which held its dedication in April of 1874. They also were founders of the Church of the Mediator, sitting empty now at 109th Street and Hoyne Avenue.
Charles Iglehart died in 1886 at the age of 68. His family stayed in the house, and on the 1910 census, Elizabeth Haslup Iglehart was listed as the matron of the house. She died in 1917 and was buried with her husband in Mount Greenwood Cemetery.
The three Iglehart daughters lived in the house in 1920, but left within a few years, moving to other locations on the Ridge. The original farm property, which extended at one time from 111th to 115th Street, from Western to Rockwell, was sold for residential and commercial development. When Western Avenue was regraded, widened, and repaved in 1922, the house was moved a block west, and set on a new foundation. A street was later added, Artesian Avenue.
Mary and Ellen were both art teachers, and neither married. Ellen became famous for her work in ceramics, including hand-painted chinaware.
Youngest daughter Lizzie was a widow; her husband Edward James Carson, a salesman, died in 1916. In 1920, she was working as a piano teacher. She had three adult children also living at the house.
The Iglehart daughters were active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, and Lizzie was a contributor to early local history groups. She was a member of the Morgan Park Woman’s Club.
Charles Iglehart’s oldest son Jacob moved to Tennessee, where he practiced as an osteopath. In one directory he was listed as a “magnetic healer.” Magnets have been used for hundreds of years to treat pain and there is some slight research evidence that electromagnetic therapy may be helpful.
The younger sons, Charles and Thomas, went into business together as contractors. Both lived in Morgan Park with their families.