The first European settler arriving in the area was Jacob Carpenter, who came to the Chicago area from Logan County, Ohio, in November 1832. In the fall of 1835, Daniel S. Gray, from Montgomery County, New York, visited the area where his brother Nicholas Gray had located in the previous spring, on a farm now within the limits of Kendall County. He made immediate preparations to settle there, and in the fall of 1836, after his family moved from New York state, he built the first wooden house in the area. It was located in the southern part of what is now Montgomery, near the west bank of the Fox River.
The settlement was called “Graystown” for several years, but eventually Gray convinced other settlers to call the small village “Montgomery” after the New York county where he and several other settlers had origins.
On February 17, 1858, the village of Montgomery was incorporated. Ralph Gray, son of Daniel Gray, was elected as the first village president. The population of Montgomery remained fairly consistent at about 300 people during the rest of the 1800s.
Montgomery’s zip code is 60538.