Glencoe Historical Society
at the
Eklund History Center & Garden

The Research Center staff often is busy looking up the answers to inquiries from people interested in the history of their homes or those who are doing genealogy about their families. But one of the first inquiries of the new 2009 year dealt with a deeper mystery—and Center researcher Dan Goodwin solved it in almost no time flat.

An e-mail arrived from the San Diego Maritime Museum, via the Chicago Maritime Museum, asking if someone could find information about a wicker basket in the San Diego museum’s collection. It had the initials A.E.N. and the words Glencoe, Illinois on it. Whose basket could it have been?

Ellen Paseltiner, Research Center director, responded, saying we would try and find out but could they describe the basket, tell us the approximate era or even better send a picture. No reply.

Dan took the request and decided to start with the file, “People, N” to see if we might find anyone with those initials. The back-up plan was to go to the phone book collection but sifting through all of them sounded daunting. Within the first five minutes, Dan found the file of Dr. John Nutt, one of the original Glencoe Company, the group that had incorporated Glencoe. Inside was a hand-written will by Dr. Nutt’s wife, bequeathing her possessions to her husband and children.

Dr. Nutt was one of the most active contributors to the development of Glencoe. He built a house for his own family and another to sell, fulfilling the agreement of the men. He was among only three men who stayed as economic times got worse; the rest left Glencoe. And, it was he who inserted the clause in Glencoe deeds that prohibited residents from the sale of “spirituous liquor” or the practice of prostitution on their property. His wife, we are told in “Glencoe Lights 100 Candles,” an historical society book from 1969, was the sister of John Evans for whom Evanston is named and who was one of the three founders of Northwestern University. She was the first president of the Woman’s Library Club here in Glencoe.

A.E.N. is very likely Ann Evans Nutt. Her will was written when she was in San Diego, Calif. That a wicker basket of hers ended up at the San Diego museum is likely as well.

Unless the San Diego Maritime Museum comes up with another explanation, we are fairly certain that the basket belonged to Ann Evans Nutt, of Glencoe, Ill. We’re hoping that soon we will have a picture of the item, or even someday have it returned to Glencoe. And, thanks to Dan, we now can respond to the San Diego museum confidently to a query that seemed unanswerable when we first began.