1842
A pioneer on Penny Road
George Waterman, a War of 1812 veteran from Massachusetts, arrived in 1842. The Waterman School on Penny Road began as a log building, was rebuilt around 1886, and is still a home today.
Farms and a stage road
Settlers began arriving in the mid-1830s, many from around North and South Adams, Massachusetts. George Waterman came in 1842. Algonquin Road was then the stage and mail route between Chicago and Freeport, and grain, cattle, produce and poultry kept the farms going. The Waterman School on Penny Road started as a log building, was replaced around 1886, and survives today as a residence.
Weekend estates
By the 1930s, city families were buying land here for summer and weekend homes, and a few lived here year-round and took the train from Barrington. George Fairweather bought a 160-acre estate on Mundhank Road in 1935. Mr. and Mrs. Fowler McCormick owned 440 acres on Penny Road.
A village of big lots
In 1957 Bill Rose, who ran the family’s Rose Packing Company, was flying over the countryside looking for land to raise his family, and he settled at Millrose Farm. When a group proposed a village called Barrington Countryside with quarter-acre lots, Rose, Fred T. Kramer, Bill Brough, Laura Witt, Hans Seegers and Ferris Gaskol hired an attorney and filed their own petition minutes ahead. Rose liked to say the village was born at his kitchen table. At the first election on December 12, 1959, Kramer became village president, and the new board set minimum lots at 1½ acres.
Lakes and landmarks
Rose’s company built The Glen, The Coves and Sunset Ridge Farms, with winding roads and covenants on architecture, and his tractors shaped a series of lakes and waterfalls. The largest, in The Glen, is Lake Adalyn, named for his mother. Jim Goebbert bought his 40-acre farm in 1972, and Happy Jack has sat on the silo since 1979. Alexander Stillman donated 80 acres to the Chicago Audubon Society in 1976 for what became the Stillman Nature Center. Willow Creek Community Church bought land at Barrington and Algonquin roads in 1981, and in 1998 Barbara B. Rose Elementary opened on Penny Road, so younger children no longer rode buses north to Barrington.
Source: Quintessential Barrington: South Barrington · Goebbert’s: About the Farm · Stillman Nature Center · Village of South Barrington: Subdivisions