Commerce drives a community, and businesses such as Berkots and Mokena Video immediately bring our village to mind. Known for miles around, they are not only fixtures in our landscape, but they also have the earthy credence of long-established houses that have been a part of Mokena for decades. Long before their and our time, came James Ducker, who was not only one of the first merchants to speak of in town, but whose name is intertwined with the heady, early days of Mokena.
Ducker first saw the light of day on October 27th, 1823 in a small town called Epworth, not far off England’s east coast. The Duckers were a farming family, and members of the peace-loving Society of Friends, better known as Quakers. As a mere lad of 15, James Ducker ventured to the medieval city of Hull, a place around 25 miles northeast of his home. While there, the young man worked in a store for about 5 years, where he learned the ins and outs of the business. As England’s dreary weather came to plague Ducker’s health, so it was that in 1852, at the age of 29, that he set sail for America.
After whiling for a bit in Chicago, James Ducker headed south to sparsely settled Frankfort Township, where he took up farming. He tried his hand at cultivation for a year, until a disastrous hailstorm ruined his crops. This experience soured Ducker, and in the words of a later historian, “convinced him that agriculture was not his forte in life.” Out of this pitfall, fate led him to relocate to Mokena in 1853, where his name would be sealed to the ages.
The town as it was when James Ducker moved here was barely worthy of the name, being more so a tiny hamlet clustered around the new Rock Island tracks, which had just been constructed the year before. He was an Englishman surrounded almost entirely by Germans, the community being mostly populated by the latter. The community needed goods, and where there was a want, Ducker found an opportunity, and opened a store upon his arrival. A 19th Mokenian shopping at Ducker’s would find all sorts of general goods for sale, while almost 100 years later, one Mokena old-timer specifically remembered Ducker selling “boots and kerosene.” An 1870 ad from his store, having appeared in the Joliet Republican, specifically mentioned wares such as "Dry Goods, Groceries, Hats and Caps, Boots and Shoes, and Yankee Notions" while another from a year later listed off “Dress Goods, Flannels, Blankets, and Scarves”. In his Mokena heyday, Ducker had also come to be known across the region as a grain dealer.
James Ducker, one of Mokena's pioneer merchants, as seen in this circa 1880 image.
The exact location of James Ducker’s general store remains vague. In the generations after his time, memories became foggy, and conflicting explanations came to light. A 1937 retrospective article in Mokena’s News-Bulletin placed it in a long-gone building close to the southeast corner of Front and Mokena Streets. This jives with the fact that Ducker came to own a sizeable chunk of real estate along the south side of Front Street, running from Mokena Street and stretching east almost half the distance to Division Street.
As a newly minted storekeeper, Ducker wed Scottish-born Jeanette Allison in 1854, and came to raise a large family with her, at least five of their children surviving into adulthood. By 1862, the Duckers had built a stately home at today’s 11122 Third Street to house their young family. Looking much as it did in the 19th century, the house was declared a Will County Historic Landmark in 2011.
After having found commercial success in Mokena, James Ducker moved to Joliet in 1874, re-establishing his store where it would become a fixture for generations. While in business there, Marshall Field & Co. reached out to him as a possible foreign buyer for their firm, but he declined, preferring to stay in Will County. Ducker breathed his last on December 16th, 1885, in the county seat. His mortal remains were buried in scenic Oakwood Cemetery, where a distinguished monument still stands over his bones.
Decades after his death, a local history book remembered him as “one of the county’s most influential residents” and one who “long held a prominent place among businessmen of northeastern Illinois.” Before he became wealthy in Joliet, and years before his name was theirs, James Ducker was a Mokena mainstay.
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