Laflin Family History
The picture above is Mathew Laflin born 1803.
Rich’s Aunt Eileen Laflin Loeffler family history is extremely interesting. While most of Rich and Johanna’s ancestors came to the U.S. in the mid 1800’s to very early 1900 Eileen’s oldest ancestor came to the U.S. in the early 1600’s from France. That’s 200 years before the War of 1812 between the U.S. and Great Britain and before the American Civil War. They lived in MA not very far from the famous Boston Tea Party that occurred in 1773.
Her ancestor Mathew Laflin learned the gunpowder business from his father, also named Matthew Laflin, He was attracted to Chicago because of the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal and hoped to sell gunpowder to the construction company. He quickly found a market for his product. The opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1848 allowed shipping from the Great Lakes through Chicago to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.
With the money he made in the gunpowder business, he began to purchase large tracts of real estate and once owned 140 acres (0.57 km2) of land within the city limits. He bought the land for $300 and lived to see it worth millions. In 1849, he purchased 100 acres (0.40 km2) of land on the west side, extending eastward from Madison Street and Ogden Avenue. Here he built the Bull’s Head Hotel, resort for men in the cattle business. The hotel was constructed complete with barns, sheds and cattle pens and so established Chicago’s first stock yards. After its heyday, the hotel was used as an asylum for alcoholics before being torn down.
In 1867, he refinanced the Elgin Watch Company when it was on the verge of failure, and became one of the largest stockholders in the company. The Laflin family sat on Elgin’s board of directors for more than 70 years.
He built one of the first plank roads, known in those days as the Blue Island toll road. He operated the first omnibus line to carry his hotel patrons to his stock yards and the State Street markets. He also established the first water works system in Chicago by building a pine-log reservoir at Lake Street and the lake shore. Water funneled into the reservoir was distributed through wooden pipes to the city.[During the Civil War, he was a Union Democrat. Laflin was also a founding member of the Chicago Board of Trade.
Another of Eileen’s ancestors is Matthew Laflin Rockwell, (1915–1988) an American architect and director of planning for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and responsible for the site selection, plan and design of O’Hare International Airport. He is a cousin of Sylvester “Pat” Laflin Weaver, actress Sigourney Weaver and comedian and actor Doodles Weaver. He is also the grandson of Francis Williams Rockwell, a United States Representative from Massachusetts and the great grandson of Julius Rockwell, a United States politician from Massachusetts.
Colonel Bryon Laflin, a Colonel in the Civil War with the 34th New York Volunteer Regiment of Infantry is another ancestor. After the war he went to NC and was a member of the constitutional convention of 1868. His career is not without blemish. Choose the link below to read about him.
Henry Laflin born 1778 purchased or built a house at 20 Depot Street in Southwick, MA which is now on the National Register of Historic Places Listing in Hampden County, Massachusetts.
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