The History
of Chatsworth Sts. Peter & Paul High School
Chatsworth (population 1,225) is located in east-central Illinois in Livingston County, about
45 miles away from Bloomington, Champaign, and Kankakee. The community can be reached from the east or west by US Route 24,
and County Highway 3 from the north. Two railroads cross in town, with the Toledo, Peoria, and Western (east-west) meeting
the Bloomer Line (north-south). A branch of the Vermillion River also runs thru the community on the east side.
The history of Chatsworth goes back to 1831 when Franklin Oliver stopped in the area on his way west from
New Jersey. He befriended a group of Kickapoo Indians, who lived near a natural lake and large grove of trees, and they
invited him to stay thru the winter. The Kickapoos later moved westward, and Oliver purchased over 4,000 acres of the land in
which he spent the rest of his life. Part of that land today is being planned for development for homes around the lake, and
has already been annexed into Chatsworth. Some of it still has remnants of the former Rockford-Champaign stage coach line,
with artifacts such as arrowheads, harnesses, and hatchets still there along with some stage coach ruts.
Chatsworth was founded in 1867 as the railroads made their way across the country. The country home of the
Duke of Devonshire in Great Britain was (and still is) called Chatsworth, and it was decided to call the new village
the same name.
