Treaties and other political events altered the North Shore forever in 19th century. The 1833 Treaty of Chicago forced the removal of Native Americans from the area.
Andre and Catherine Loesch and their seven children emigrated from the Duchy of Luxenbourg and homesteaded in what is now Highland Park in the years following the “Third Partition of Luxembourg,” created by the 1839 Treaty of London.
On Aug. 10, 1846, Loesch purchased property north of the current Northmoor Country Club and stretching east across where the railway now runs. That same year, Andre Loesch, along with about 30 other Catholic families, helped build the first house of worship, St Mary’s Chapel, near Lincoln Avenue and Green Bay Road.
He died in 1849, but his widow and four sons and three daughters continued farming. Farm acreage decreased as portions of the farm was sold to the country club and the railway.
Local lore cites the four Loesch brothers, Henry, Peter Xavier, Frank, and John, as enlistees during the Civil War who returned home safely from the front. However, only Peter Xavier’s and John’s service in the 48th and 134th Illinois infantries respectively can be confirmed.
Peter Xavier rejoined his widowed mother, married, and continued to farm after he was mustered out at the war’s end.
Other local soldiers did not return. Irish immigrants Thomas Moroney and David O’Brien both enlisted in the 89th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Organized by the Railway Companies of the Chicago and dubbed the “Railroad Regiment,” the 89th witnessed continuous engagement from May until September of 1864.
Moroney died from battle wounds in Chattanooga, Tenn. on July 30, 1864. Before enlistment in 1862, he worked as the railroad laborer, as did his father.
O’Brien enlisted despite being over 40 and married with four children. Captured on an unrecorded date in mid-1864, he died of disease at Fort Sumter Prison (Andersonville) in June or October 1864. (Records conflict.)
No portraits of these two solders are known to exist.
Webster is the archivist at the Highland Park Historical Society. This article was written using resources in the society’s Archives and Research Collections, funded in part by Henry X Arenberg Archives Preservation Fund. See highlandparkhistory.com for more information.
