USA > Illinois > Ogle County > Sketches of the history of Ogle County, Ill., and the early settlement of the Northwest > Part 1
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History of
Mount
SKETCHES
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Styl
2060-129
A
OF THE
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY, ILL.
AND THE
EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHWEST ..
Boss, Henry R.
WRITTEN FOR THE POLO ADVERTISER.
POLO, ILLINOIS: PUBLISHED BY HENRY R. BOSS, Advertiser Office, Mason Street. 1859.
Ilar F547 0337
District of Illinois.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by HENRY R. Boss, in the Clerk's Offee of the Nor Leri
;
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
No apology is needed for the publica- tion at this time of a History of Ogle County. There are few who will not at once recognize the importance of the work.
The following sketches, perhaps, can hardly be dignified with the title of a history, from a lack of order and arrange ment which is almost unavoidable under the circumstances; but such as they are, we believe them to be accurate and relia- ble. In looking to books for materials, we have endeavored to find such as could be relied upon for accuracy and impar- tiality, while the accounts given by the pioneers now living are from men who can be relied upon for probity and integ- rity and a knowledge of the things where- of they have spoken. We have consulted Hakluyt's Voyages, Hennepin's Works, Burnet's Notes, Bancroft's History of the United States, Hart's History of the Val-
ley of the Mississippi, Shelton's History of Michigan, Ford's History of Illinois, Peck's Western Annals, and many other works, and in some instances have adopted parts of them as best expressing what we wanted to show.
We have commenced with a rapid sketch of the Early Settlement of the Northwest, which is inseparably connected with the history of our own county. In this we have drawn from the most authen- tic sources such facts as presented them- selves to us as possessing interest and were well sustained. The settlement of the entire Valley of the Mississippi, of which this section is a part, is so connectcet with our own local history, that we could not in justice pass it by.
The Black Hawk War, in which many of our citizens took a part, is a matter in which we have all felt a deep interest, occurring, as it did, where our own fire- sides are now located. Its history is full
2
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
De Soto'a Voyage and Discoveries-IIis Fate-Le Caron-First Canadian Envoys at the Falls of Ste. Mary.
of incidents bordering upon the romantic, and far more thrilling than the veriest blood-and-thunder fiction ever published.
We have merely called our work a his- tory for want of a better title. It is ne- cessarily written during a pressure of multitudinous engagements, which pre- vent our giving theso sketches an arrange- ment and classification which we could readily give were they all written previ- bus to their publication.
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CHAPTER II.
On Easter Sunday, in the year 1512, Juan Ponce de Leon, a comrade of Chris- topher Columbus, discovered the conti- nent of America, near St. Augustine, and named the new country Florida. The causes which led to this discovery were the same which actuated scores of the adventurers of that day, viz : a thirst for gold and a desire to find the fountain, said to exist in the wilds of America, whick was thought to have the power of renew- ing the youth of those who drank of or bathed in its waters. Though unsuccess- ful in their own search after these objects, the earlier adventurers bore back to their native land marvellous tales of what might be found, and thus stimulated others to renew a search in which they had failed. Among the most noted of those whom these reports reached was Ferdinand De Soto, who, in the month of May, 1539, or about three hundred and nineteen years ago, anchored his vessel near the coast of the Peninsula of Florida, in Tampa Bay. He was accompanied by a brilliant band
of followers, many of whom were of no- ble birth, all of them eager to clutch the golden treasures which were said to exist in America. The career of De Soto and his ill-fated band is fa- miliar to all our readers. The ill suc- eess of their search after gold, their fail- ure to discover the fountain of youth, the sickness and wasting away of the troop, and the death and burial in the Missis- sippi of their high-spirited and energetic leader, are " familiar as household words." Of the " gallant six hundred" who ac- companied De Soto in his setting-out, about one-half left their bones to bleach on the morasses and mountains of the South from Georgia to Arkansas. This,
the first expedition of Europeans into the Valley of the Mississippi, left no trace behind it. They gained nothing for themselves or those to come after them, and the only effect produced was to em- bitter the minds of the Indians and to dishearten those who might otherwise have attempted to explore this valley.
During the succeeding century not an European made his appearance in the ter- ritory now known as " the West" In 1616, Le Caron, a French Franciscan, had penetrated to the streams which run into Lake Huron, and in 1634 two Jesuits had founded the first mission among the rivers aud marshes of the region east of that lake; but it was in 1641, just one hundred years after De Soto reached the Mississippi, that the first Canadian envoys met the savage nations of the Northwest at the Falls of St. Mary, below the outlet of Lake Superior .* It was not until 1659
*Western Annals, p. 28 et seq.
3
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
First Missionary Station on Lake Superior-Marquette Embarks for the Mississippi-Dangers foretold-Legend of Piasau.
that ever any of the fur-traders spent a winter in the frozen regions about the great lake, nor till 1660 that the un- flinching devotion of the missionaries caused the first station to rise upon its borders. The earliest of the lasting habi- tations of the white man among the Indi- ans of the Northwest was built in 1665 by Father Claude Allouez. After this venerable man came Claude Dablon and James Marquette to St. Mary's Falls and there founded a mission. Nicholas Per rot, agent for Talon, the intendant of Canada, explored Lake Michigan as far as Chieago in 1670. The year following these explorations of Perrot, the French formally took possession of the Great Northwest, in the presence of an assem bled multitude of the aborigines, who had come from every part of the surrounding country to witness the ceremony; and in the same year Marquette gathered a little band of listeners at Point St. Ignatius, on the main land north of the island of Mackinac. Unlike the ambitious De Soto, who had found the Father of Waters in his search for the mystic fountain, mighty cities and mines of gold, the heart of the no less ambitious Marquette yearned for the numberless hosts of the children of God, who, he rightly fancied, were living upon its fertile banks, and upon whom the light of the Gospel never shone. Pursu- ant to the orders of Talon, on the 13th of May, 1673, with Monsieur Joliet, of Que- bec, and five boatmen, this noble man left Michilimackinac in two bark canoes, with a small store of Indian corn and jerked meat, bound they knew not whither. The first nation they visited bgged them to
desist from their daring adventure; they told them of ferocious savages and blood- thirsty warriors upon the " Great River," who would slaughter them with the least provocation; of a demon, who engulfed in the boiling waters around him any who might come within the reach of his fatal power ;* and should they pass these dan- gers, there were heats by which they must certainly perish.
"I thanked them," says Marquette, " for their good advice, but I told them that I could not follow it, since the salva- tion of souls was at stake, for which I should be overjoyed to give my life."
They passed through Green Bay and entered Fox River, and after having cru- elly cut their feet upon the stones, while dragging their canoes through the strong rapids, arrived at an Indian village where the Miamis, Mascoutens and Kickapoos lived together in harmony. Here Father Alloucz, of whom we have before spoken, had preached, and evidently not without some effect; for, to their surprise, Mar- quette and his party found in the middle of the town a cross on which had been hung bows and arrows, belts and skins, which " these good people had offered to the Great Manitou, to thank him because
*The reference here is to the legend of Pia- sau, or the monster bird that devoured men, of which some rude Indian paintings were seen thirty years since on the cliffs above the city of Alton, and the Indians, as they passed in their canoes, made offorings by dropping to- bacco and other articles, valuable in their estimation, into the river. John Russell, Esq., of Illinois, wrote this "Indian Tradition" into. a beautiful story that went the rounds of po- riodical literature in 1840 .- Western Annals.
1
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
Marquette on the Wisconsin River-At an Indian Feast-He Reaches the Arkansas-Returns to Green Bay-IIis Death.
he had taken pity on them during the winter, and had given them an abundant chase." Here was the bound of discovery; not even the most daring Frenchman had ever ventured into the wilds beyond. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the bravery of those seven men, who were casting themselves upon the merey of savages, should excite astonishment in the minds of those " braves," who better knew the dangers beyond.
Leaving these hospitable strangers, with two guides to lead them through the lakes and marshes which abounded in that re- gion, they started for the Wisconsin river, which, they were told, rose about three leagues distant and fell into the Missis- sippi. Strengthening their souls with prayer to the Virgin Mother, they com- mitted themselves to the hands of God and the bosom of a westward flowing river. Although the Wisconsin is a sand-barred stream, and hard to navigate, their troubles were compensated by its vine-clad islands, the waving meadows along its banks, the graceful slopes and music ringing forests. After floating down the river for six days, with inex- pressible joy they entered the Mississippi. On they floated down the "Great River," with living things above, beneath, on either hand, but nowhere could be seen a vestige of man, until the 21st day of June, when a trail was discovered on the western bank, which, Marquette and Jo- liet following, led to an Indian village at a short distance from the river. Here they were hospitably received, and they found themselves in a town of the " Illinois." The rest of the company
were immediately brought, and after many ceremonies, a feast was prepared of not exactly modern style, the first course con- sisting of hominy, the second of fish, the third of dog, and the last of roast buffalo.
Proceeding on their journey, they found the river all along, and on either side, inhabited by these rude children of the forest.
They touched at points now well known to every citizen of our State, till they reached the Arkansas or " Akamsca," as it was called, when they determined to return to the North, being deterred by the dangers which beset the route to the mouth of the Mississippi; and on the 19th of July they commenced to retrace their steps and turned towards the Lake, and reached Green Bay in September without loss or injury.
The circumstances attending the death of the simple-minded Marquette were af- fecting. In the month of May, in 1675, as he was passing with his boatmen up Lake Michigan, he proposed to land at the mouth of a stream running from the peninsula, and perform mass. Imita- ting the example of his Master before him, he "went apart to pray." Not re- turning as soon as they expected, his boatmen, remembering that he had said something about his death being near at hand, went to seek him. In the act of prayer he had fallen asleep forever. In the sands on the shores of the " Great Lakes" this man of boundless sympathy found a narrow home. A river in Michi- gan bears the name of the missionary, at the mouth of which it is said his body was buried. His remains were removed
5
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
Robert De La Salle-Ifis Projects-First Vessel Built on the Lakes-Commerce of the Lakes.
a year after, by the Indians, and conveyed to his mission at Mackinac. The place of his death, however, has never yet been definitely ascertained, though several wri- ters agree in fixing it at or near the mouth of the Marquette River.
Among those who had listened to the story of Marquette's expedition to the west, was Robert De La Salle. He was a native of Normandy, and having lost his patrimony from some cause unknown to us, came to the new world to seek his fortune. He had loug had in his mind the project of crossing the continent, and thus opening a shorter way to China and the East. Glad was he to receive from Marquette the suggestion, that by follow- ing up the Mississippi, or turning into some of the rivers that flow into it from the west, his end could be accomplished without great difficulty. He immediately laid before the Governor of Canada his ambitious design. He proposed, as a first step, to re-build Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, Canada, (which took its name from the Governor,) which proposition he had good reason to expect would meet the wishes of the Governor. Nor were his expectations wrong. Fronte- mac warmly endorsed his whole plan, for he saw, if La Salle's project was successful, that a chain of forts upon the lakes and rivers which so won- derfully unite the Great West should link the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, the power of France would be unmeasured, and ho himself would receive unequaled glory, if, as he hoped, all could be ac- complished under his administration. By his advice La Salle at once started for
France. The plans of the penniless ad- venturer were warmly approved of by the French authorities. La Salle was made a Chevalier, and was invested with the seigniory of Fort Frontenac, provided he should re-build it. He returned to Canada and labored for nearly two years upon the Fort, and then, in the year 1677, went again to France to report progress. In the latter part of September, 1678, ho returned to Fort Frontenac vested with new authority, and having gained new privileges.
On the 22d of January, 1676, the docks for building a vessel were made at two leagues above Niagara Falls, and on the 26th of the same month, the keel and some other pieces being ready, La Salle drove the first pin of the first vessel ever built to navigate the Great Lakes of the North and the Northwest. We may be pardoned if we pause here to take a sur- vey of the changes which have been made in less than two centuries. It is with no little pride that we point to the vast com- merce whose sails now dot every portion of these Lakes, and which is rivalling the commerce of the ocean. In a recent Jee- ture, Lieut. Maury stated, on the authority of Col. Graham's report to the department at Washington, that the shipping and commerce of Lake Michigan amount to $218,000,000. He also stated that the value of the shipping and commerce pass- ing over the St. Clair Flats averages daily, for two hundred and thirty days of each year, $1,129,223. At this estimate, one hundred and twelve vessels, valued with their cargoes $10,000 each, must pass over the Flats daily. He stated the value
6
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
La Salle's Expedition with Hennepin-llis Death-De Soto's Dream of Gold Realized-Early Settlements in Illinois.
of the lake commerce to be $200,000,000 to each lake, except Lake Erio, which is estimated at $300,000,000. What a vast change has been made since the launching of the Griffin, two centuries ago!
On the 7th of August, 1779, La Salle with his little company, of whom one was Louis Hennepin, a monk of the Recollet order, started for Illinois. On the 3d of December, they left Fort St. Joseph, which was built at that time by La Salle, who left a garrison of ten men, and built Fort Crevecœuer, on the Illinois River, early in 1680. From Fort Crevecœuer La Salle returned to Canada, while Hennepin con- tinued the exploration. On the last day of February, 1680, he started for the Mississippi, which he reached after a journey of seven days, and by the 11th of April had paddled up the Wisconsin. On the 1st of May he reached St. Anthony's Falls, where he was taken prisoner and remained three months. Hennepin re- turned to New-France in November of the same year, and published his first work in 1684, in France.
We find La Salle again, in August, 1681, on his way up the Lakes, and on the 3d of Noven ber at the St. Joseph's, undismayed at the losses and ill fortune to which he had been subjected. On the 16th of April, 1682, the Chevalier and his party discovered the three passages by which the Mississippi discharges its waters into the Gulf. La Salle here took possession of the country for his king, and crected a column bearing the arms of France and an appropriate inscription.
Wo are compelled to pass over the " haps and mishaps" with which this
lion-hearted adventurer met, and simply record his death by the hands of his own comrades, in 1687.
De Soto's dream of gold is realized. After the lapse of nearly three centuries and a half, we now, in this year of grace 1859, hear more reliable tales than he did, of the discoveries of immense heaps of wealth on the castern slope of the Rocky Mountains. In the Valley of the Mississippi, where the bones of the ad- venturous Spaniard were laid, we find all that he sought, save the fountain of youth. Populous cities and stores of countless wealth are on every side of us; while he who so bravely sought what we now see and enjoy, sleeps in the bosom of the Fa- ther of Waters, where no monumental stone shall ever rise to mark his last rest- ing-place.
CHAPTER III.
Although La Salle came very far short of a realization of his ambitious dreams, he played no insignificant part in the early settlement of the Northwest. He estab- lished several permanent forts, and thus opened the gateway for the tide of immi- gration, so that as early as 1693 we hea of mission stations among the Illinois which were so permanent as to identify the places of their location, and many of them are now flourishing cities. Kaskas- kia, Cahokia and Peoria were prominent points at the above date, although the precise time of their first settlement is not positively known, except it be that of Pc- oria, which is situated on the site of the old Fort Crevecoeur, which La Salle built,
7
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
D'Iberville's Expedition to the Mississippi-Founds Fort Rosalie-Cadillac founds Fort Pontchartrain in 1701.
as we have said, in the early part of 1680. These, however, must be regarded as mis- sion stations, where a few priests, under the supervision of Father Gravier, who was the first to reduce the language of the Indians to grammatical order, ministered to the spiritual wants of the natives, until the year 1712, when they became known as French settlements. Whatever be the time of the first settlement of the three places named above, it is evident that Kas- kaskia comes first in order; very soon after, Cahokia ; and nest Peoria.
La Salle's project, to discover and settle Louisiana by sea, was next undertaken by D'Iberville in 1697. Like his predeces- sor, he net favor in the court of France, and with two ships, on the 17th of Octo- ber, 1698, he left the court of France, and on the 2d of March, 1699, he entered the mouth of the Mississippi having ac- complished with little difficulty what had long been regarded as almost an impossi- bility. After dispatching one of his vessels to France with the news of his success, he began slowly to ascend the vast river ; and after gaining a limited acquaintance with its appearance for a short distance above its mouth, he built a fort near the mouth of the Mobile, and leaving a suitable garrison, returned to France. While he was gone, the com- mander of the fort, being absent on an expedition about the mouth of the Mis- sissippi, met a British vessel carrying twelve cannon. Assuming an imposing authority, he informed his rivals that if they did not leave the river immediately he would bring to bear his forces, which were amply sufficient to oblige them to
do so. This had its desired effect, and the Britons left the French in quiet pos- session for the time being only, for they believed their claim was paramount, and they afterwards supported it with more courage than upor. this occasion, and it was settled only at the conclusion of the French war of 1756. D'Iberville re- turned from France in January, 1700, and having heard of the advances of the British, he formally took possession of the great valley of the West, and built a fort on the bank of the river. He then proceeded up the river and laid the cor- ner stone of Fort Rosalie, where the city of Natchez, Miss., now stands. Leaving a mining company to search for copper, which company was not very successful, he returned to France, but visited this country again on the following year. Ex- cepting a settlement on the Mobile, he effected very little.' In the year 1708 he died, having written his name among the successful adventurers of his age. The French government, losing very much of its confidence in these modes of procedure to esta1 ish actual settlements, and thinking that a single man, who had his own pecuniary interests at stake, would do more for her advancement, gave the actual possession of Louisiana to Cro- zat for fifteen years. Meeting with nothing but loss, he surrendered his privi- lege in 1797, having kept it five years.
In the month of June, 1701, Fort Pont- chartrain was founded by Cadillac where the city of Detroit now stands.
The management of affairs in the west now passed into the hands of the noted Mississippi company, or Company of the
8
HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
Law's Mississippi Scheme-D'Artaguette attacks the Chickasaws-Ill Fate of the French-Treaty of Peace.
West. The government nourished with every possible care this element of ruin, authorizing it to sell its shares for public stock taken at par, which was selling at 60 to 70 per cent. discount, giving exclu- sive right of the Mississippi country trade for twenty-five years, the monopoly of the Canadian beaver trade and the tobacco trade, the exclusive right of trading in Asia and the East Indies, the farming of the public revenues, the exclusive right of coining for nine years, &c., &c., until in April, 1720, the stock of the Company had risen to 2050 per cent., while it had in circulation notes for $200,000,000. Then the bubble burst. The decline of stocks began in April, and in spite of the government, the company was bankrupt in May. Yet this strange mania was not without some benefits. It introduced the cultivation of tobacco, indigo, rice and silk; it opened the lead mines of Mis- souri, in the hope of finding silver, and wheat, in the Northern portions of the country, began to assume a place among the commodities of the day, and withal the French settlements were considerably extended. "Law's Mississippi Scheme" is now almost proverbial for the magni- tude of its promises and the narrowness of the basis on which it rested.
When the Company of the West gave up Louisiana again to the French govern- ment, it was determined to strike terror into the Chickasaws, who constantly inter- fered with the trade on the Mississippi. On the 10th of May, 1736, D' Artaguette, governor of Illinois, and Vincennes, ap- peared in the Chickasaw country, leading a small body of French and more than a
thousand northern Indians; but they were disappointed in not meeting Bienville, the king's lieutenant, whom they expected. They waited ten days for his appearance, when, fearful of exhausting the patience of his red allies, D' Artaguette ordered an onset. Two Chickasaw stations were suc- cessfully carried, but in attacking the third, the French leader fell, when the Illinois fled, leaving D'Artaguette and Vincennes, who would not leave him, in the hands of the Chickasaws. Five days afterwards, Bienville appeared, but it was too late; the Chickasaws were on their guard, and had so fortified their position that the French attacked them in vain. On the 20th of May, D'Artaguette had fallen; on the 27th, Bienville had failed in his assault; on the 3Ist, throwing his cannon into the river, he and his white companions turned to the southward. The successful Chickasaws danced around the flames in which they burned D'Artaguette, Vincennes and the Jesuit Senat, a priest who stayed and died of his own frec will, because duty bade him .*
In the year 1729 Louisiana became the theater of a succession of tragedies at once both sickening and appalling, and between the inimical Indians and the French, many scalps were taken, and much blood was shed, until 1740, when a treaty of peace was concluded.
Very little is told us as happening be- tween the years 1740 and 1750 in West- ern history. We give below some ex- tracts from letters written by a missionary among the Illinois, which will serve to show the advancement of civilization in
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