USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Past and present of Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois > Part 1
USA > Illinois > Putnam County > Past and present of Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY NE WA-CHAMPAIGN ILL. HIST. SURVEY
I
-
Past and Present
of
Marshall and Putnam Counties Illinois
By John Spencer Burt and W. E. Hawthorne
Together with Biographical Sketches of Many Prominent and Leading Citizens and Illustrious Dead
Illustrated
Chicago The Pioneer Publishing Company 1907
Dedicated to the Pioneers of Marshall and Putnam Counties
Q.977.3515 B 95p
Illinois Historical Surv
John Spencer Bush
HISTORY OF MARSHALL COUNTY
BY JOHN SPENCER BURT
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
It is a far cry to begin the history of Marshall county at the beginning of the twentieth century to the latter part of the fifteenth and yet he who writes American history, all or any part of it, must inevitably refer to that period, as the year 1492 A. D. can be considered the birthday of America so far as we and the race to which we belong are concerned.
Two events occurred in that year which gave to the Aryan races a new world. They were the expulsion of the Moors from Spain and conse- quently from Europe. Spain had been almost constantly in war with the Moors for over three hundred years and their final expulsion gave the sovereigns and grandees opportunity and willing- ness to think of other things, and Queen Isabella was at last willing to listen to the story of a mariner, who had for a long time been trying to interest some one of the rulers of Europe in furthering his project, as it was necessary that some sovereign should be sponsor for him, for anything he might discover must be taken pos- session of in the name of some king or potentate.
The career of Christopher Columbus, who gave to mankind a new world, is interesting read- ing even at the present day ; what he accomplished by his persistence, under adverse circumstances, and how he finally saw the fruition of his hopes and his theories and deductions verified should be an incentive and inspiration to any boy or young man to never give up. We can here give only the slightest sketch of Columbus' life, but we think a short history may not be out of place.
Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, about 1435 or 1436. His father was a wool comber and had means enough so that he was en- abled to send his son to the University of Pavia, where Christopher devoted himself to the study of mathematics and natural science, of which he was fond. At the age of fifteen he became a sailor and says of his career: "Wherever ship has sailed, there have I journeyed." Columbus married the daughter of a sea captain who had made many voyages and his charts and papers, in which he kept full account of all his voyages, fell into Columbus' hands.
These voyages were to the Indies, then thought to be at the end of the world, and were made by following the contour of the coast nearly, the mariners seldom going out of sight of land ex- cept when sailing across from headland to head- land.
Columbus also got hold of the history of the voyages of Marco Palo, a celebrated navigator of the time. Columbus made a study of these things as he was making a business of drawing maps and charts for sale.
The rotundity of the earth had not long before this been demonstrated and Columbus reasoned that if the earth was a globe that instead of sail- ing the long easterly route to the Indies, more than one-third of the distance might be saved by sailing to the west and coming upon the other side of them. He was wrong in two of his ideas. One was that the earth was much smaller than it really is, and the other that India was much larger.
Columbus laid his project and plans, enlarging
6
PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
upon the results that might flow from it, first be- fore his native country, Italy, and later Portugal, England, Venice and other places were tried. At last he went to Spain and had his hopes raised at times and at others dashed to the ground. After seven or eight years Queen Isabella, though against the advice of her husband, King Ferdi- nand, agreed to help him, but impoverished by the long wars with the Moors, who had just been finally driven from the country, after having been there four hundred years, she was obliged to pledge her jewels to raise the necessary means. She did so and sent word to Palos to furnish Columbus with the necessary vessels. The town of Palos soon placed two small vessels at his dis- posal but it was necessary to find men to man them, and this was no easy matter. The voyage to be undertaken was over an unknown sea and there was a legend that there existed somewhere an enormous whirlpool where the waters poured into the center of the earth taking everything with it, and at the west there was no knowing the dangers to be encountered. Columbus had made in Palos a friend of Juan Perez, a powerful priest, and he interested the brothers Martin and Vincent Pinzon in the voyage, and they succeeded in getting men to man the vessels. At last all was ready and on the third day of August, 1492, the little fleet, consisting of the Santa Maria, a decked ship, manned by fifty men under the command of Columbus, the Pinta, with thirty men under the command of Martin Pinzon, and the Nina, with twenty-four men under Vincent Pin- zon, set their sails and started westward.
The hardihood and recklessness of this expedi- tion can hardly be realized in this age. To set out in these boats, no better than fishing smacks, in fact a replica of one of them came down through the canal and through the lock down the river a few years ago. Just think what it meant to start out over an unknown ocean, of whichi nothing was known, and the most horrible stories had been told about it, in a little boat like that ! Besides, although the "mariner's compass," as it was called, had been in use in Europe for some time, but little if anything was known of its qualities except that it pointed to the north, and when, as he went westward, Columbus ob- served its variations, there is no wonder that he and his men were alarmed, for it was their only dependence to find their way back home. But in spite of his own fears and the discontent and
-
almost mutiny of his men the persistency, it might be called obstinacy, of the man, which had carried him through the trials and disappointments in his long search for a sponsor for his enterprise, carried him through, and on October 12, 1492, a sailor on board the Nina at two o'clock in the morning, sighted land, which proved to be a part of what has since been called the "New World."
It is true they were islands which Columbus supposed was a part of the Indies, and so called them the West Indies, the name they bear to this day.
As a matter of fact Columbus never knew the magnificent proportions of the grand discovery he had given to the world. Only once did he visit the mainland of the continent and then he had no idea of its vastness.
The island upon which they had landed, after they all had knelt upon the beach and thanked God for his mercy in bringing them safely through the dangers, known and unknown, Columbus took possession of in the name of the sovereigns of Castile and Leon.
After considerable cruising, which resulted in the discovery of a number of the islands and the almost irreparable loss of the Santa Maria, their best ship, which ran aground and they were obliged to abandon her, Columbus built a fort and, leaving forty-three men in charge of it, on January 16, 1493, set sail with the Nina and Pinta for Spain, but, owing to head winds and other detentions, it was not until the 15th of March that he cast anchor off Palos, from which place he had started a little over seven months before.
Columbus was loaded with honors and titles and made a grandee of Spain for his discoveries. He made several voyages back and forth, but was met with envy and malice, his character traduced and he was at one time taken back to Spain in irons, but was later reinstated in his honors.
The story of the discovery of the New World electrified all Europe and whetted the appetite for adventure of all classes. Especially were the Spaniards roused to action. Spain at this time was filled with a great number of young cavaliers of noble families, whose means had been exhausted by the long wars with the Moors and from con- stant warring between themselves, and they were ready for almost anything.
They were a restless, reckless lot, brave to a
7
PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
fault and were capable of any adventure, no mat- ter how wild. They and the country were just in the mood to make the most of whatever there was and they started out as exploring parties in every direction.
With a few men, but those trained soldiers, and with superior arms, they, with ridiculously small forees attacked and eventually conquered great nations.
Hernando Cortez set out with 400 men and four cannon to conquer Mexico, and sueceeded in do- ing it. At no time did he have 1,000 white men, though he had considerable Indian help before he was through.
Pizaro, with a force of about 1,000 men, a single regiment, conquered Peru, which was thick- ly settled by a people in an advanced state of civilization, in about a year.
Diego Columbus conquered the island of Cuba with three hundred men without the loss of a single man. The stories told of their doings are almost incredible. Gold and silver ornaments and other valuables were found in great quantities by the Spaniards in their raids and sent over in immense quantities to the mother country, and Spain flourished as never before and extended her dominion not only over the West India islands and the greater part of South America, Central America and Mexico, but over the greater part of Europe in a few years, and the king of Spain be- eame the most powerful monarch of the time in Europe.
The conquest of Mexico, Peru and other South American states, is a wonderful story. How these Spaniards with a few hundred men met and over- eame vast armies of the natives and in a won- drously short time conquered entire countries reads like a medieval romance, but the history does not come into the scope of a work like this.
CHAPTER II.
THE DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA.
The discovery of North America is credited to John Cabot and his son Sebastian, who made their first voyage in the year 1497. Five years after the discovery of Columbus, they sailed under the auspiees of Henry VII of England. The Cabot9 were mariners of Venice, though John Cabot appears to have lived in England at one time, and Sebastian, his son, was born in Bristol, England,
but John Cabot moved to Venice with his family when Sebastian was quite young, probably about four years old.
Even at this time no one had any idea of the magnitude of the new discoveries and the Cabots in their application to King Henry said they wanted to look for "a more direct and shorter passage to the Indies." This was the inducement they held out. Just where the Cabots made their first landing, whether upon the mainland or upon an island is not clear, but it was near the island of Newfoundland, and was probably what is now the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. He named the land "Terra primini Vista," first land seen, and this has probably given the name, New- foundland to the large island off the coast, as it is uncertain whether it was the island they saw or the mainland.
Sebastian Cabot, his father John Cabot, hav- ing died, made a second voyage with five ships (none of more than two hundred tons), in May, 1498. During this voyage there is no question but that he discovered the continent of America and is the first white man, of which there is authentic account, that stepped upon the conti- nent. It is certain that he saw it before either Columbus or Americus, for whom it was named America. Cabot not only discovered it but ex- plored the coast for 1,800 miles and began to have some idea of its immensity, but it was not till Vasco Nunez Balboa, in 1513, with a small force of men, said to be less than 200, erossed the isthmus of Darien, now Panama, and from the tops of the mountains saw the broad Pacifie ocean stretch out before him.
While the Spaniards were founding colonies and conquering the several states in South America which they appear to have largely accomplished in the sixteenth century, during the one hundred years following the discovery of America but little in the way of settlement was accomplished in North America. Ponce de Leon, a Spaniard, while searching for the fountain of perpetual youth landed on the coast of a land he called Florida on account of the many flowers that were growing there. In 1512 a fort was built and a colony established in 1565 on what is now the site of St. Augustine, Florida.
In 1611 the Duteh founded a colony at the mouth of the Hudson river and in 1614 New York eity, then called New Amsterdam, was founded by them. A few years before that in 1607 a
8
PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
permanent settlement was made on the James river in Virginia, but the most interesting to us and the one which had the most to do with the giving our government its peculiar form was the landing of the Pilgrim fathers, as they are called, in Plymouth in 1620, in what is now the state of Massachusetts.
These people, who have had so much influence wpon our national character, were largely English people who, on account of persecution for their religious views, had left the home country and gone first to Holland, but not finding the neces- sary liberty there to worship as they saw fit, con- cluded to cast their lot in the new world where there was no one to molest or make afraid, and they could worship their God as they saw fit.
Men and women who could thus leave every- thing they held dear, the comforts and luxuries to which they had been accustomed, trusting themselves in small and unserviceable vessels to go thousands of miles over almost unknown waters to make their homes in a wilderness, the resources and dangers of which were entirely unknown, be- cause they wished to worship according to their own ideas, proves they were of stern and uncom- promising natures, who were willing to sacrifice everything for what they thought was right.
It was the descendants of these men and women that, one hundred years later, still impatient to what they thought was wrong, who protested against what they thought was the iniquity of the stamp act, who refused to pay the tax on imports, who disguised as Indians threw the cargo of tea into Boston harbor, in fact, refused to be taxed, no matter how little when they had no voice in the matter; it was these things that, as every one knows, in part led up to the Revolutionary war.
It was these same inen that a little later at Lexington near the first settlement, fired the gun "whose report was heard around the world," and demonstrated to the world that British troops, hitherto considered invincible, were not such ob- jects of terror, and by their conduct at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, fairly inaugurated the Revolutionary war and made possible its success- ful conclusion. Had those undisciplined farm- ers, with their squirrel rifles been successfully met at the time by the British regulars the rebel- lion, in all probability, would have been crushed and the history of the United States would have been vastly different from what it is.
We do not wish to infer that the men of New
England alone fought and won the war of the rev- olution. What we wish to say is that the seeds of the revolution were sown in New England and that their stubborn and partially successful re- sistance, to the much superior forces of the Brit- ish regulars in the early battles inspired the whole country with hopes of ultimate victory which finally crowned the efforts of the American forces.
The history of the various attempts to colonize the territory now known as the United States, the trials and tribulations, fights with the Indians and troubles among themselves arising from the ambition of leading men, is of intense interest to him who would be familiar with the history of his country, but such a history does not come in the scope of a work like this.
CHAPTER III.
OCCUPATION BY THE FRENCH.
The century following the discovery of America by Columbus was utilized by hardy adventurers from the three great maritime nations of Europe - Spain, England and France, - in exploring and colonizing the new world, though it was a long time before they began to realize the im- mensity of the new possessions. The three nations appear to have exhibited a sort of neutrality, con- fining their explorations and colonizations to spe- cial sections of the coast. Fortunately it was large enough to give all a chance and it was many years before there was a clash.
Of the explorers and exploiters of the new coun- tries the Spaniards were by far the most active and during the sixteenth century they had ex- plored and conquered the greater part of South America and Mexico, the West Indies Islands and had explored the southern part of what is now the United States, discovered the lower part of the Mississippi river and established settlements in Florida. Next to the Spaniard in activity of exploration were the French, who discovered and made their first settlements near the mouth of the gulf of St. Lawrence, and later spread their settle- ments up the coast.
This part of the country which is now Canada was wonderfully rich in fur bearing animals and other game and a race of hardy hunters and trappers, who were termed voyageurs, were devel- oped who went far out into the country exploring the rivers and navigating the great lakes in frail
9
PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
birch bark canoes, extending their explorations hundreds of miles into the heart of the wilderness but, unlike the Spaniards, went in pairs or small bands and made no attempt to conquer the native inhabitants.
From time to time trappers and hunters who had traversed the western lakes brought baek rumors they had gathered from the Indians that there was a mighty river in the west farther south than they had yet been.
In 1672 the Governor General of Canada called Louis Joliet, a famous voyageur, well acquainted with wood life and familiar with several Indian languages and a peculiar tact in dealing with the Indians, and told him to go out and see if there was such a river and to bring him an account of it if there was. In all of the exploring expeditions of both Spaniards and French it appears to have been the rule for priests to accompany them, and whatever may have been their part in the business they were invariably the historians, and all we know of these early explorations are taken from the diaries of the priests.
Father Marquette was appointed to go with Joliet on his perilous journey, and it required men of boundless courage and a complete reliability upon themselves and a total disregard of danger from whatever source to make the journeys in an unknown land among the savage natives.
They were going into a country absolutely unknown, to navigate a river in the frailest of boats, and of which they heard horrible stories of rapids and falls and monsters which inhabited the river and roamed upon its banks. They had no idea what the inhabitants were likc, in fact they took their lives in their hands; no dangers ap- peared to daunt them and no hardships too great to be undertaken.
On the 17th of May, 1673, Joliet and Mar- quette set out on their remarkable voyage, one of the most remarkable in the history of the world and in which they were the first white men that set their eyes upon the fertile prairies of Illinois and also were the first to view the bold shores and oozy swamps of Marshall county along the river.
These two men started from the lake near Green Bay in two bark canoes with five men as helpers. They ascended the Fox river to its headwaters and getting some friendly Indians to guide them across the country they reached the source of the Wisconsin, and unheeding the protestations of their friendly guides and the many warnings about
the unknown dangers from rapids and waterfalls, they launched their canoes on the unknown waters and rapidly floated down the Wisconsin. Seven days later saw them afloat on the broad bosom of the father of waters, the first white men to navi- gate the treacherous waters of the great river which they named the River St. Louis in honor of their king.
Down the river they went past the mouths of the Illinois, the Missouri and the Ohio, the Ken- tucky, Tennessee, Cumberland, on to the mouth of the Arkansas, where finding the river emptied into the Gulf of Mexico one of the matters they were to determine, they concluded to turn baek, coming to the mouth of the Illinois its plaeid waters lured them from the swelling, rapid cur- rent of the big river and they concluded to return by the Illinois, which they did without mishap. This voyage of Joliet and Marquette was a most remarkable one. In the one hundred and twenty days they were gone they travelled two thousand five hundred miles, an average of twenty miles a day paddling up stream and down, afraid to go ashore to kill any of the numerous game they saw or even to fire a gun, not knowing what savage enemies they might arouse, anchoring out in the stream at night for fear enemies might come upon them unawares, they travelled practically the entire length of three large rivers, finding they were navigable for hundreds of miles and getting a faint idea of the immense Mississippi valley. ,
The discoveries of Joliet do not appear to have, at the time, been utilized in any way, for it was not till six years later that LaSalle started out to begin the real history of Illinois.
While Joliet undoubtedly was elated by what he had done, he appears to have been content to rest upon his laurels and did not try to reap any benefit from his voyage, and did not take a thought of personal aggrandizement from his dis- coveries.
LaSalle was of different mold, fully as cour- ageous and energetic as Joliet and probably a man of much greater resources ; it was his design to sail down the Illinois and Mississippi, take pos- session of the country in the name of his king, make treaties with the natives, to build forts, open up settlements and trading posts, and become, under the king, governor of the lands he explored and received a permit from the king to do all that and further to enjoy a monopoly of the trade in
10
PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
all the country he brought under the dominion of France for a period of five years. But LaSalle was an unfortunate man. He was of good birth and well educated, of boundless energy and un- daunted courage, but bad luck appears to have fol- lowed him from the cradle to the grave. No sooner did he overcome an obstacle than something happened to put him back where he was or leave him worse off. With the exception of a few faithful friends everybody appeared to have been against him.
To carry out his scheme to explore the large rivers that Joliet had found he had from his own means built a boat of sixty tons burden, which he called the "Griffon." This was loaded with furs on Lake Michigan and with a crew of five men sent to Montreal where they were to sell the furs and to buy such supplies as he needed for his expedition. The Griffon was never heard from again. After waiting for its return in vain, short of means as he was, he determined to carry out his designs and going to the mouth of the St. Joseph river where he was joined by his lieutenant Tonti with twenty men.
When a few years before Joliet and Marquette had come up the Illinois river they had near the head waters found a large village of friendly Indians who had fed. them, and to whom Mar- quette had promised to return and tell of the Savior, a promise which he religiously kept, and after his death another priest was sent there to continue the work.
Despairing of the return of the Griffon and un- daunted by the shortness of his supplies, LaSalle with Tonti and Father Louis Hennepin, to whom we are indebted for most of our early history of this part of Illinois, set out with part of his men from the mouth of the St. Joseph across the country for the Kankakee river, carrying their canoes and rather scanty supplies.
The journey, which was undertaken in Decem- ber, was a terrible one. It was over a rough, hilly country, in extremely cold weather, with short supplies and nothing to shelter them from the inclement nights, and to cap the climax, when the half frozen and nearly starved voyagers reached the Indian village they had relied upon to replenish their supplies they found it deserted, the Indians being away on their annual winter hunt. They, however, found a small quantity of corn under a cabin which they appropriated and passed on down the Illinois, to near where Peoria
-
now stands, landing there on New Year's Day, 1680.
Here they met a large concourse of friendly Indians returning from their hunt and coming to amicable terms with them, LaSalle concluded to remain till spring and built a fort and make the place a kind of base. He named it Fort "Creve . Coeur" (broken heart), a sad commentary upon the struggles, trials and discouragements he had met with. He also began the building of a boat of larger size and better adapted for the purpose for which he wanted it than the canoes they had been using so far.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.