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| Portrait of Jacob Haish | Photo by Jessi LaRue |
Take a tour of Jacob Haish sites and landmarks and never leave your seat.
At 2 p.m. on Sunday, September 8 at the Glidden Homestead, Jessi Haish LaRue will give a virtual tour on inventor, manufacturer, and DeKalb benefactor Jacob Haish. She will show some landmarks in DeKalb and beyond that tell Haish’s life story and show his philanthropy.
LaRue, a Haish family descendant, is a writer who blogs regularly about Jacob Haish at JacobHaishStory.com. The blog shares photos, interviews and news articles which relate to Haish's life. LaRue has been documenting her 4th great uncle's story since early 2016 in an attempt to spread the story of the "underdog of barbed wire."
“Jessi has spent great effort and care finding, visiting, and documenting Haish sites,” says Rob Glover, executive director of Glidden Homestead. “Her ‘virtual tour’ will help you see these sites more completely and leave you wanting to see them in person.”
Haish is renowned for his “S barb” patented in 1875. Jacob Haish was born March 9, 1827, in Germany and came to America in 1835 when he was nine years old. In his youth, he learned the carpentry trade from his father and “possessed natural mechanical ingenuity and displayed ready aptitude in the use of tools.” At 19, he moved to Illinois and then to DeKalb in 1853 where he entered the lumber business. He built many of the city’s most notable buildings, past and present, including the Glidden Homestead.
His first barbed wire patent is dated January 20, 1874. His “S barb” was patented August 31, 1875. He followed these with many later designs for wire and other innovative devices.
Also on Sunday, noon-4, you can tour the home where Joseph Glidden and his family lived when he created his most famous invention, see a working onsite blacksmith shop, and walk where Glidden walked. Joseph Glidden developed barbed wire in DeKalb in 1873 and went on to patent numerous other inventions. Glidden’s brick barn, where an archaeological excavation has taking place, can be considered the monument for the invention of barbed wire, a symbol of innovation in the Midwest, the workshop of an iconic inventor. Programs at Glidden Homestead are made possible in part by the Mary E. Stevens Concert and Lecture Fund.
A full season of programs highlighting “Center of It All” continues at the Glidden Homestead in 2019. A program listing can be found at http://www.gliddenhomestead .org/events.html. The Glidden Homestead, located at 921 W Lincoln Hwy, is open Tuesdays 10-2 or by special arrangement. Admission is $4 per adult and free for children younger than 14. For more information, visit www.gliddenhomestead.org or e-mail info@gliddenhomestead.org or call (815) 756-7904.
Hi Jessi, I am writing the first spreadsheet from the American point of view about 19th century rotunda panoramas.These were the biggest paintings in the world, 50 x 400=20,000 square feet, housed in their own rotundas which were 16-sided polygons. Chicago in 1893 had 6 panorama companies and 6 panorama rotundas. I am studying the first modern taxidermist, Carl Ethan Akeney (1864-1926), whose mother was a GLIDDEN and whose uncle was JOSEPH GLIDDEN. Am seeking a diary or cache of letters that could possibly document Akeley's residence in DeKalb in the early 1890s, when (according to 3 academic sources) he built THE FOUR SEASONS OF THE VIRGINIA DEER with his future wife Delia and brother Tom Akeley. THE FOUR SEASONS supposedly was begun in DeKalb, then shipped to Akeley's new studio in Hyde Park, and eventually sold to The Field Museum in 1902, where it has been on display ever since. Have collected much info, but am having a hard time documenting his residence--and workshop--in DeKalb. Info to share.Gene Meier,1160 Bailey Road, Sycamore, Illinois 60178 815 895 4099 genemeier@frontier.com
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