USA > Illinois > Atlas of the State of Illinois, to which are added various general maps, history, statistics and illustrations > Part 13
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The command of the expedition, so far as related to sailing directions, was unfortunately confided to Beaujeau, a martinet, whose subsequent dissensions with La Salle were the cause of hringing disaster upon every member of the colony. The ships sailed August 1, 1684, and after a pause at one of the West India islands, where La Salle was attacked by a violent fever, they at length entered the Gulf of Mexico, and on the 28th of December, land was desoried. They had already passed the mouth of the Mississippi, but, not knowing its longitude, sup- posed that it was still to tho westward. A landing was finally effected on the Texas coast, not far south of Matagorda Bay. La Salle, in diseussing their position with Beaujeau, insisted that they had passed the mouth, and requested him to turn baek and scareh for it; but Beaujeau alleged that he was short of provisions and must immediately return to France. In his explorations, he discovered a hroad, deep river, which ho unfor- tunately mistook for the western mouth of the Mississippi, and thinking that he could retrace his course along the coast in canoes, he conseuted to the doparture of the refractory com- mander. The " Amiable," their store-ship, in attempting to approach the shore, struck n reef and went to pieces, and only a small portion of her eargo was saved. Thus at the very outset the little colouy was erippled past recovery. La Salle con- menced a fort and buildings for the shelter of his men, but hefore midsummer thirty of them had fallen victims to the elimate. On the 1st of November, 1685, he started on a trip of discovery, leaving Joutel in command of the fort, hut it was
169
not until March that he returned." He had wandered through the territory of various hostile tribes until at length he came to a large river which he mistook at first for the Mississippi. Ho then detached a party of men to proceed to the coast to look for the " Belle," a small vessel which had been given him by the King of France, and on which he relied to transport tbo colonists to the mouth of tho Mississippi so soon as it should he found; but the muen returned, and with downcast looks informed him that nothing could be learned of her. It subsequently appeared that she was wrecked in attempting to approach tbo fort, and all perished except eight men. The loss was incalcu- lahle, and the only avenue through which succor could arrive was from Canada, by the route which ho hnd formerly travoled. La Salle embraced tho desperato resolution; and his brother Cavalier, his nephew Moranget, and twenty otbers volunteered to accompany him ; and on the 22d of April, 1686, they issued out of the fort and took their way across the prairie. On the 17th of October, much to the surprise of Joutel, La Salle reap- peared at the fort, with eight men out of twenty. Four had deserted, one had been lost, one had been devoured by an alli- gator, and the rest, having given out, had prohahly died iu tlicir attempts to regain the fort. The party struek what is called the Brazos, probably, which they crossed with difficulty, and then became involved in a cane-brake where they had to hew their way. They next reached tho Cenis Indians near the Trinity River, by whom they were hospitably entertained. La Sdle and his nephew were attacked hy a fever which detained the party nearly two months, and as their stock of ammunition Was nearly exhausted and his party greatly diminished by deser- tion, there seemed no alternative hut to return to the fort. The Cenis had horses originally derived from the Spanish, and La Sulle procured five, which he employed in packing and wbieb greatly aided him in his journey.
After a brief respite, La Salle resolved to renew the attempt, and made his disposition of men as follows : Joutel and his brother were to proceed to Quehee and thenee to France to solicit succor ; Barbier to take command of the fort; while La Salle himself would pause in Illinois. The entire party con- sisted of twenty men. It was the 7th of January, 1687, when they left the fort. It was a sad parting, and many had a fore- hoding that they would never meet again. Among the party were Duhaupt, a man well-descended; Liotot, a surgeon ; and Heins, a German and an ex-buccaneer. For several days they toiled on, crossing rivers and gullies, and over a landscape diversified by grassy plains and forest belts, and had reached near a point formerly attained by La Salle, and where be had a cache of Indian corn. He directed Duhaut, Liotot, Heins and a few others to proceed thither and securo the contents. Hav- ing reached the spot, they found tho corn spoiled; but in returning to camp they shot two buffaloes. Here they pauscd, and sent word to La Salle to furnish horses to carry the meat. Moranget, his nephew, was sent out with the horses, and a dis- pute arising hetween him and Dubaut as to the disposition of tbe meat, the latter had a consultation with the disaffected of the party, who resolved to dispateh all those in La Salle's inter- ests. Night stole on, and as Moranget, Saget and Nika (a faithful Mohegan hunter who had accompanied La Salle in nearly all his wanderings) hecame wrapped in deep sleep, Liotot with an axe dealt each a fatal blow, while Duhaut and Heins stood with coeked guns to shoot down any victim who might not be killed outright. For the security of the assassins, it was necessary now that La Salle should die. It would seem that after watching two days for the return of Moranget, he started in search of him, taking the friar Douay and two Indians with him. As he approached Duhaut's camp, he fired off his pistols in order to attract the attention of any of his followers who might be within hearing. The sound aroused the conspirators, who rightly conjectured that La Salle was near. Duhaut and Liotot crouched in the grass, while L'Arcbeveque, tho servaut of the former, stood forth on the bank of the stream. La Sallo, beholding him, inquired for Moranget. The man replied that he was along the river. La Sallo rebuked him for his insolence, when he became more disrespectful, retreating meanwhile toward tho ambuscade. As La Salle advanced to chastise him, a shot was fired, and then almost instantly anotber, and La Salle, pierced through the brain, dropped dead. " There thou liest, great Bashaw! There thou liest1" (Te voila, grand Bachia, te voila) ex- claimed Liotot, with mockery, as he advanced. Tho corpse was stripped of its clothing and left a prey to the wolves and buzzards.
STATE HISTORY.
Thus fell, on the 19th of March, 1687, not far from the banks of the Trinity, Robert Cavalier do La Salle, one of the grandest characters that ever figured in American history; a man capahle of originating the vastest schemes, and endowed with a will and judgmcut capable of carrying them to successful results. Had ample fueilities heen placed by the King of Franco at his dis- posal, the result of the colonization of this continent might have been far different from what we now hehold-might have been different even, if he had not fullen hy tho assassins' hands.
Duhaut was now in a position to oxact obedience from tlioso who had remained faithful to La Sulle. There were left Joutel, tho two Cavaliers, brother and nephew, and Douay tho friar. But dissensions soon arose among the conspirators as to the division of the spoils, and Hiens, who had been joined by Ruter, n renegade Frenchman, demanded a portion, which was refused ; whereupon, addressing Duhaut, he exclainicd, " You are a wretch. You killed my master," and at the same time drawing a pistol, he shot him dead, and at the same time Ruter shot down Liotot, who lingered long enough to confess, when his hrains were blown out with a pistol sbot.
Heins remained among the Cenis Indians, while Joutel and his party struck across the country for the mouth of the Arkansas River, which, after a journey of two months, thoy succeeded in reaching. Having been ferried across, they were surprised to meet Contre and De Launay, two of Tonti's fol- lowers. An explanation soon ensued. Tonti, having heen reinstated at Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois, no sooner heard of La Sallo's landing, and the misfortunes that had ensued, than he resolved to go to his succor. Accordingly, gathering to- gether twenty-five Frenchmen and five Indians, on the 13th of February, 1686, he left the fort and descended the Mississippi to its moutlı, and dispatched canoes along the shore on either side for thirty leagues, without being able to gain a trace of his commander. He then ascended the stream as high as tho Arkansas, where ho left six of his men, whom Joutel was so fortunato as to meet. The log cabins to the toil-worn wander- ers were a paradise, and corn bread, buffalo meat and water- melons were furnished in profusion. They tarried bere until August, when, procuring guides, they descended the Arkansas to its mouth, and turned their course up the current of the great river, but it was not until the 14th of September that they arrived at "Starved Rock," where they were kindly received by Bellefontaine-Tonti being absent fighting tho Iroquois. Cavalier carefully concealed the death of his hrother, lest he should lose some advantages as bis representative, alleg- ing that when ho parted with him ho was in good health, which was literally true. Allouez, the Jesuit, who from the first had looked with much disfavor on La Salle's schemes, as they interfered with tho plans of his order for christianizing the Indians, was at the fort prostrated by disease, and evinced great alarm when informed that he was yet alive and on his way to Illinois. Tonti returned in October, when the same tale of deception was practiced on him. The party, the next spring, proceeded to Quebec, and the following full they embarked for France, where for the first time they disclosed their terrible seeret.
It was not until the following spring that Tonti heard of the death of his chief, when, with a erew which occupied a single pirogue, he descended the river with a view of affording relief to the little colony ahandoned on the Texas coast. Reach- ing the Indian villages on the Red River, he inquired for Heins, when he learned that he was at a village eighty leagues dis- tant. He was preparing to proceed thither when the voy- ageurs refused to follow, and all hut two abandoned him. Reaching the village, lie eould at first learn nothing of Heins, but he finally extorted from the women tho confession that he had been put to death. Thus, swift vengeance overtook all but one of La Salle's murderers.
Tonti, with no guides, and but two men remaining, with tbo loss of his ammunition, and in a country flooded hy water, was roluctantly compelled to wend his way back to Illinois. And here we take leavo of this noble man, whose intercourse with La Salle was characterized hy eandor and self-sacrificing devotion, while tho conduct of most of those around him, even his own brother's, was marked hy deeeit, and even flagrant trcaohery. The little colony left on the Texas coast fell vic- tims of the savage hutchery of the Indians .*
* In the compilation of this portion of the corly hlatory of Illinois, I freely express my acknowledgmenta to Fraucin l'arktnn for hisadmirable volume, "The Discovery of tho Great West,"* 1869-a work of great research, and ono which corrects many mistakes into which Bancroft bus fallen, in the absence of documonte siuco rocovered, when treating of this period.
After the death of La Salle, tbc French continued to main- tain their occupancy of Illinois. As early as 1720, they had a chain of forts extending from Canada to the mouth of the Mississippi, of which Fort Chartres was a connecting link. That fort long since hecame dilapidated, and its foundations were undermined in one of the inundations of the Mississippi, so that at this day only a portion of its walls can be traced. Its site was about sixteen miles above Kaskaskia, in what is known as tho " American Bottom."
Kaskaskia is the oldest town in the valley of the Upper Mis- sissippi, and was probably founded as far back as 1683, and Cahokia, nearly opposite St. Louis, was another prominent point.
The French did little toward subduing the country and bringing it under cultivation. Separated from the rest of the world, they intermarried with the Indians with whom they as- similated, and were content to lead an easy, listless lifc.
By the treaty of Fontainchleau (1762), all of the vast terri- tory east of the Mississippi, except the island of New Orleans, was yielded to the British, while the territory west of the river, including New Orleans, was, in consideration of her losses, ceded to Spain. In 1765, Captain Sterling, n British officer, was sent out to take possession of the country, aud exact alle- giance from its inhabitants.
After this cession of the region, and whilst preparations were making to occupy it, the Indians hecame restless, and saw that they must either expel the invaders or forever abandon their hunting grounds. In Pontiae, an Ottawa chief, born near Detroit, and who, as on ally of the French, had seen much service, they found a proper leader. He organized one of the most formidable combinations that the English on this continent were ever called upon to encounter. Having em- braced in the league all the tribes from the Lakes to the Caro- linas, and from the Mississippi to the Alleghanies, he conceived the idea of attacking simultaneously all the English forts throughout the West, stretching from Mackinaw to Cumber- land, and numbering not less than sixteen. He assigned par- ticular tribes to perform a particular work, and on the appointed . day the assault was made, and all but three of the forts sue- eumbed. Pontiao himself led the assault on Fort Detroit, but, bis scheme having been divulged by a squaw the night previ- ous, was unsuccessful.
Dispirited at the partial failure of his designs, Pontiac re- tired to the banks of the Mississippi in the vicinity of Cahokia, and here he was assassinated by an Indian of the Peoria tribe -an act said to have been prompted by the English, who took this method to get rid of a most formidable adversary. Tra- dition has it that his remains repose near that now deserted village. The murder of Pontiae so enraged the northern tribes that they wreaked fearful vengeance on those of Illinois, almost exterminating them.
In 1765, Colonel George Croghan was sent West as a com- missioner to conciliate the Indians. He descended the Ohio as far as Shawneetown, and thence proceeded to Vincennes, when, after pausing a few days, he ascended tbe Wabash two hundred and ten miles to Ouiatenon-or Weastown, as it was ealled by the Americans-and thenee crossed over to Detroit. Croghan, in his journal, records that "on the south side of the Quahache (Wabash, probably below Covington) runs a high bank in which are several fine coal mines." This is earlier than any notice we have of tho existence of bituminous or anthracite coal in Pennsylvania ; but the first notice of the existence of this combustible in North America is by Father Hennepin, in 1679, who indicated a " coal mine" on his map ahove Fort Crevecœur, and recorded in his journal that "there are mines of coal, slate and iron." (Vide Taylor, Statisties of Coal, p. 21.) Thus, then, it is a curious historical fact, that the coal seams of the Illinois and Wabash Valleys should have been observed before those of the Atlantic States.
The Declaration of Independence, in 1776, severed our rela- tions with the mother country, and Virginia claimed jurisdiction over this territory as a part of her domain. The French, occu- pying the posts along the Mississippi, had remained nentral or ill-disposed, during the progress of our Revolutionary struggle, and it was deemed proper that they should he compelled to acknowledge the sovereignty of the United States. Accord- ingly, in the summer of 1778, George Rogers Clark, a back- woodsman of Kentucky, with two hundred men enlisted for three months, was dispatched to that region. This expedition was set on foot by the Governor and Councd of Virginia, and was among the most memorahle of the war. Embarking with
1 70
STATE TOPOGRAPHY.
his command at Pittsburgh, he descended the Ohio to within forty miles of its mouth, where, concealing his boats, he marched across the country to Kaskaskia. Tho inhabitants, taken hy surprise, surrendered at ouce, and those occupying Forts Char- tres and Cahokia, posts farther up the river, followed their example. With the assurance that they would be protected iu their property aud iu the exercise of their faith, they took the oath of allegiance to tho coustituted authorities. In October of that year, the Assembly of Virginia erected all of the terri- tory north of the Ohio River into the County of Illinois. In 1783, that State passed an act anthorizing the cession to the United States of this territory, and during the subsequent year the deed was executed.
On tho 11th of June, 1787, Congress, sitting at New York, passed " An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio," a most important measure, inasmuch as it forever excluded slavery from this vast domain.
On tbo 30th of December, 1788, the Assembly of Virginia passed an act authorizing a division of the Northwestern Ter- ritory into Republican States, and August 7, 1789, Congress passed an act for its government. The year previously, a colony, gathered principally in Massachusetts, under the guid- ance of Rufus Putnam, had made a lodgment at Marietta, on the Ohio; and this was the first organized settlement of Anglo- Saxon origin in this territory.
A few Americans, however, had straggled into the French villages on the Mississippi. Some of the men who had accom- pauied Clark's expedition remained in the country, and when Virginia found it difficult to maintain a garrison at this distant outpost, the men were quartered on the French residents, but ultimately were compelled to shift for themselves.
Prior to the year 1788, there were about forty-five improve- ments made by Americans, which entitled each owuer to four hundred acres of land, under the aet of Congress passed in 1791. As early as 1781, a little band of five individuals (James Moore, Shadrach Boud, Robert Kidd, Larkin Ruther- ford and James Garrison), then residing in Maryland, taking with them their women and children, crossed the Alleghanies, descended tho Ohio to its mouth, and ascended the Mississippi as far as Kaskaskia. Here they separated; the first three set- tled on the American Bottom, while the other two resorted to Bellefontaine. The whole number of Americans, in 1791, capable of bearing arms, amounted to sixty-five. A scttlemeut called "New Design," about four miles south of Bellefon- taine, was made as early as 1782. It was on a bluff overlook- ing both tho Mississippi and Kaskaskia; but no traces of it now exist.
Arthur St. Clair, who, in 1788, had been appointed Gov- ernor of the new Territory, proceeded to Marietta, where he organized a government. It was not until 1790 that he pro- ceeded to Kaskaskia and organized that region into a county and applied to it the name of St. Clair. Thus, then, the peo- ple of Illinois, for the first time, were brought under a civil jurisdiction. The first Territorial Legislature met at Cincin- nati, September, 1799, when William Henry Harrison was elected a Delegate to Congress.
On the 7th of May, 1800, Congress passed an act dividing the Territory into two separate governments, at which time the population of Illinois numbered about 3,000 souls, for the most part of French extraction, and restricted to the southern part of tho State. In 1809, a Territorial Government was erected out of Illinois. In 1812, a Legislature was convened, aud a Delegate to Congress was chosen, On the 18th of April, 1818, an act of Congress was passed authorizing the formation of a State government, and on the 18th of December follow- ing, Illinois was received as the twenty-second State into the Union.
At the time of the adoption of the ordinance, the govern- ment, hy treaties with the Six Nations, the Wyandots, the Delawares and the Shawnces, had extinguished the Indian title along de northern bank of the Ohio for a considerable dis- tance inlund, and as far west as the Wabash, emhracing an area of 17,000,000 acres, and cmigration at once began to flow in through the channel of the Ohio River, and from the hordering States of Virginia and Kentucky.
The region immediately west of Lake Michigan, and com- prehending Northern Illinois, was not open to settlement uutil the close of the Black Hawk War, in 1832. Government, however, as far back as 1804. had established a military post at Fort Dearborn, now Chicago, and garrisoned it with one
company of infantry. For years tho iutereourse between the occupauts of the fort aud tho Indians had been amicahle, but on tbo declaration of war, in 1812, they gathered about in great numbers, and showed evident signs of hostility. Cupt. Heald, tbcu in command, foreseeing that his supplies might be cut off, and availing himself of discretionary orders sent to him by the War Department, resolved to retreat with bis command to Detroit, about three hundred miles distant. He concluded a negotiation with the Indians hy which it was agreed that he might march out with his little command, numbering about ninety, unmolested, leaving to them the provisions and muni- tions in the fort. Capt. Heald and his command had not pro- ceeded more than two miles along the lake shore when they were ambuscaded, and only two or three of the little baud escaped massacrc.
In 1816, the fort was rebuilt and garrisoned by two compa- nies of infantry. The hones of those who had been massacred four years before were found bleaching on the prairie, and with pious eare were collected and iuterred.
At that time, the central and northern portions of tho State were occupied by the Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottawattomies of the Illinois and Milwaukee. An annuity of $1,000 for twelve years, from 1816, was giveu them in consideration of tho cession of a traet twenty miles wide, including Chicago, and extending south and west to the Kankakee and Fox rivers. In 1818, another treaty was negotiated with the Delawares, by which still greater cessions were made, and by which the Indians agreed to remove west of the Mississippi.
Lead was first discovered in the region of Dubuque as carly as 1780, and in 1788, Dubuque, an Indian trader, obtained from the Indiaus a grant of land extending for seven leagues along the river bank, and three leagues inland. This grant was recognized by the Spanish Government, but was not con- firmed by our own. Dubuque at once commenced mining operations, and in 1805, informed Lieut. Pike, who visited the region while engaged in one of his exploring expeditious, that he was raising from 20,000 to 40,000 pounds of lead annually. Here he remained mining and trading with the Indians until the time of his death, which occurred in 1810. About 1820, population hegan to flock into this region, attracted by the rich deposits of lead, and in 1826, Galena was founded. As early as 1827, adventurers had swarmed over nearly all the territory now forming the productive lead region.
Since 1832, Chicago has been the great highway through which has flowed a vast tide of immigration to people Nortbern Illinois and the extreme Northwest; nor does that tide exhibit any signs of ehbing. In all history, there is not such an in- stance of the incrcaso of population, and of the rapid develop- ment of material wealth, as is afforded by this region. As late as 1837, flour was shipped from Ohio, to supply the do- mestic wants of the city; and in 1839, the first shipment of wheat, amounting only to 1,678 hushels, was sent from this port, which now annually ships more than 80,000,000 hushels of ecreals.
Space will not permit us to treat of the eivil and political history of Illinois, since she fairly became incorporated into the Union. Suffice it to say, that she has become among the most populous and wealthy in the sisterhood of States.
TABLE, SHOWING THE INCREASE OF POPULATION AND OF THE NUM- BER OF ACRES OF IMPROVED LAND, FROM 1810 ro 1870.
1810.
1820. 1890
1840
1850.
1560.
1870.
Population Improve Land ..
12,282: 55,1621157,445
476,183
851.170
1,711,051
2,039,801
72,692 325,272 031,800 2,818,373 6,039,615/13,096,874 19,329,952
No census was taken in 1875, but the population was esti- mated to he 2,950,000.
TABLE, SHOWING THE INCREASE IN SOME OF THE PRODUCTS OF AGRICULTURE FOR TEN YEARS, ENDING IN 1870.
Years.
Wheat
Corn.
Darley.
Swine.
Cattle.
1860 1870.
24,169,500 115,296,779 15,330,072 1,175,651 2,279,722 1,505,5$1 30,128,405 129,921,395 42,780,851 9,460,400 2,703,843 1,715,580
Iu the amount of agricultural products, Illinois is first in the Union; and in population it is the third.
TOPOGRAPHY.
FURNISHED BY R. A. CAMPBELL.
AREA AND GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION .- This State lies between the parallels of 37º and 42° 30' north latitude, aud between 10° 30' and 14° of the longitude west- of Washing. ton. The extreme length of the State is about 370 miles, and the extreme hreadth, 220 miles; the arca in square miles is 55,531.
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