USA > Illinois > McHenry County > Biographical directory of the tax-payers and voters of McHenry County : containing also a map of the county, a condensed history of the state of Illinois, an historical sketch of the county, its towns and villages, an abstract of everyday laws of the state, a business directory, officers of societies, lodges and public officers, a department of general information for farmers, dairymen, etc., etc > Part 2
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One impetus of the construction of this canal was the unprecedented sale of town lots along its course, especially in Chicago. Adjoining States caught the fever. "It cut up men's farms without regard to locality, and cut up the purses of purchasers without regard to consequences." In Indiana alone the building lots sold might have accommodated every citizen of the Republic at that time.
The Legislature of 1836-7 engaged in the speculation. They passed a code for internal improvement unsurpassed in designs for the good of a young State. One thousand three hundred miles of railroad were to be laid out and built-a line crossing the State in all directions. The few counties not reached by the canal, railroad or any river were offered a compensation of $200,000 to .. be distributed freely among the people. The work was ordered to be started simultaneously on both ends of these railroads and rivers, and at each river crossing. Twelve million dollars were appropriated, and Commissioners in- structed to effect loans on the credit of the State. These stupendous plans appear more remarkable when it is remembered that in those early days the population was short of 400,000. Many counties scarcely were dotted with a cabin, and railroads were a new invention.
But a serious misfortune now clouded the sky of internal improvement. The State Bank loaned its funds extensively to Godfrey, Gilman & Co., and other houses, in order to draw trade from St. Louis to Alton. They failed, and the bank went with them.
Witness the changed aspects of 1840. A debt of $14,000,000 hanging over 480,000 inhabitants, only six small cities : Chicago, Springfield, Quincy, Alton, Galena and Nauvoo. The State's credit was gone, the treasury empty, and not money enough among all the population to disburse the interest of the debt one year. Providentially, a wise and honest Governor stood at the helm. and steered safely beyond the rocks of repudiation.
HISTORY OF THE "COMPACT OF 1787."
Thomas Jefferson was an early emancipator. He was in favor of the exclusion of slavery from the territory ceded to the General Government by Virginia. As - often as the question came up in Congress assembled, the sturdy President's theory
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
was put down by the majority of Southern votes. Still Jefferson was earnestly trying to mark out a system of government for the Northwestern Territory. In July, 1787, an act was pending wherein the anti-slavery clause had been ex- cluded. Congress was convened in New York city. Rev. Dr. Manasseh Cut- ler, of Massachusetts, was pleading the interests of the North western Territory. While the slavery concession to the South was deemed sufficient to carry the act, Massachusetts owned the territory of Maine, and wished to force it on the market. Dr. Cutler came, representing a company who were desirous of pur- chasing a tract of land included in Ohio. It was a speculation and for coloni- zation purposes. At this time, Government money rated eighteen cents on a dollar. This Company proposed to purchase 1,500,000 acres. Dr. Cutler represented a call for 5,500,000 acres. This was a tempting sale. It would ma- terially reduce the national debt. Jefferson's policy provided for the public credit.
At this juncture, a remarkable man, in the person of Dr. Cutler, infused and turned the tide of events by which a vast and prolific empire in the rich States of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan became forever con- secrated to the honesty and prosperity of freedom.
On this memorable July of 1787, in the legislative halls, the Southern mem- bers rallied around Dr. Cutler. He was, as history represents, a man of great parts and a courtly gentleman. He graduated at Yale, received his A. M. from Harvard and D. D. from Yale. He had taken degrees in three learned professions and published a scientific work on the examination of plants. His presence was commanding, his face comely and bold. He stood second to Franklin as a scientist of America. The Southern members declared him to be the most gentlemanly man of the North.
Massachusetts was opposed to opening the Northwestern region. This sharpened the zeal of Virginia, and the South lauded Dr. Cutler. He dined with the English Minister and his guests, the Southern gentlemen. While he thus made friends with the South, enabling himself to command the situation, Massachusetts could not vote against him, because many of her constituents were personally interested in the Western speculation.
Dr. Cutler, true to deep and noble convictions, drew up "one of the most compact, and finished documents of wise statesmanship that has ever adorned any law book."
Preceding the Federal Constitution, it was an immortal antecedent. The Constitution of Massachusetts, adopted three years before, in the " Articles of Compact "-a title borrowed from Jefferson-comprised the following marked points :
1. The exclusion of slavery from the Territory forever.
2. Provision for public schools, giving one township for a seminary, and every section numbered 16 in each township; that is, one-thirty-sixth of all the land, for public schools.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
3. A provision prohibiting the adoption of any constitution or the enact- ment of any law that should nullify pre-existing contracts.
Be it forever remembered that this compact declared that " Religion, mo- rality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall always be encouraged."
Dr. Cutler stood firm to his platform. He declared it was that or nothing, and that unless the land could be made desirable, it was not wanted. He then took his horse and buggy and drove to Philadelphia to join the Constitutional Convention.
July 13, 1787, the bill was unanimously adopted. Every Southern mem- ber voted for it. Mr. Yates, of New York, was the only man who voted against it. The States voted as States and Yates lost his vote. The compact was safe beyond repeal.
This act has been designated as being the salvation of the Republic and the death-blow to slavery's perpetuation. The South discovered their blunder and tried to repeal. In 1803, Congress referred it to a committee over which John Randolph presided. He declared the compact beyond repeal.
Illinois proved to be a sanguinary field for the "irrespressible conflict." A prolonged struggle was necessary to preserve its soil inviolate for freedom.
Southern portions of the State had been settled from the slave States. Their customs and institutions followed as a natural consequence. The north- ern parts of the State were populated from . the North and East. Different sections opposed and disliked each other. Slavery was existing in the southern localities, and among the old French settlers. The seeds of hatred and pro- vincial contempt which germinated in rancorous perfection in the war of the rebellion of 1861, in those early days were self-sown in the breasts of Southern immigrants. On the other hand, the Northern settlers regarded the Southerners with a corresponding disrespect and dislike. Yankees were " a tricky, penuri- ous, peddling race, filling the country with tinware, brass clocks and wooden
nutmegs." The Southerner was " a lean, lank, lazy being, burrowing in a hut, rioting in whisky, dirt and ignorance." This prejudice, tempered with some grains of truth, was a long time dispelling. Such a condition of scattered society offered but a poor reception for the compact of 1787. So powerful was their predilection for slavery, the French settlers were permitted to retain their slaves. Planters were allowed to move their slaves, provided they would give them the choice of freedom or years of bondage for their children until they reached thirty. If the slaves under these conditions chose freedom, they were required to leave the State within sixty days or be sold as fugitives.
A bold effort was made to protect slavery in the State Constitution of 1817. It fell little short of success, and, in 1825, a convention was asked to make a · new constitution. The scheme was tried again. The convention was defeated, but slaves were numbered in the census until 1850.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
From the year 1800 to 1818, the population of Illinois increased from 12,282 to 45,000. In the latter year, the State Constitution was adopted, a star was added to the flag, and two votes to the Senate.
Before the war of 1812, no money circulated in the territory. Deer and coon skins were the medium. The issues of the State Bank, created by the Legislature in 1821, were notes in the likeness of bank bills. These were a legal tender for everything, The bank was ordered to loan at any time, to the people, $100, on personal security, and larger sums on mortgages. A resolu- tion was passed requesting the Secretary of the United States Treasury to accept these notes for land. The French Lieutenant Governor, Col. Menard, resolved as follows : "Gentlemen of the Senate-It is is moved and seconded dat de notes of dis bank be made land office money. All in favor of dat motion say aye ; all against it say no. It is decided in the affirmative. Now, gentlemen, I bet you one hundred dollar he never be land office money."
· MATERIAL RESOURCES OF THE STATE.
· Illinois takes the lead in the agricultural race, in the number of acres under the plow, viz .: 25,000,000. Its soil is mostly a black sandy loam from six inches to sixty feet thick. On the American bottoms it has been cultivated one hundred and fifty years with no renewal. Around the old French towns it has grown corn without cessation or replenishing for as many years. Every plant that grows in the tropical and temperate zones will flourish within the borders of the Prairie State. The mineral wealth is enormous and varied.
Coal, lead, iron, copper, zinc, fire clay, cuma clay, common brick clay, varieties of building stone, sand, gravel, mineral paints, are all in rich store for the support of her advancing civilization.
KING COAL.
Four-fifths of the surface of the State is underlaid with the coal measures of geology. It has been estimated in recent surveys that this vast deposit ranges from forty to seventy feet thick. Forty-one thousand square miles has been named as the amount of coal fields in Illinois. This single item in the catalogue of her natural productions falls below appreciation in figures. The magnitude of such wealth is incomprehensible. Future millions of mankind are to be blest by these provisions of the Creator long before human beneficia- ries existed.
Compare this coal-bed with other great carboniferous deposits of the earth, and a nearer understanding of its superior importance will be reached :
In our own land, Virginia has 20,000 square miles of coal ; Pennsylvania, 16,000; Ohio, 12,000.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
Great Britain has 12,000; France, 1,719; Spain, 3,000; Belgium, 578. Illinois comprises about twice as many square miles as all these countries com- bined, and one-seventh of all the known fields on this continent lies within the bounds of this State. Her aggregate of coal, sold for one-seventh of a cent per ton, would pay the national debt. At the present rate of consumption, the coal deposits of England will be exhausted in 250 years. Then she must extend her dominion or import her fuel. At the same rate of consumption, the coal in Illinois would last 120,000 years.
ANNUAL PRODUCTS.
Illinois has for many years produced more wheat than any other State in . the Union. In 1875, she raised 130,000,000 bushels of corn. This is one- sixth of all the corn product of the Union. Two million seven hundred and forty-seven thousand tons of hay was harvested-nearly one-tenth of all the hay gathered in the United States. The hay of Illinois is equivalent to the cotton crop of Louisiana. Her farm implements are valued at $211,000,000; her live stock is only outvalued by that of the Empire State. In 1875, she had 25,000,000 hogs and packed 2,113,845, nearly one-half of all packed in the United States. The whole world is the market for the pork of the West, and the demand is increasing. The working classes of Europe are partial to Amer- ican cured bacon and hams.
An apt writer has thus grouped the excellencies and advantages of the Prairie State :
" Depth and richiness of soil ; per cent. of good ground ; acres of improved land ; large farms ; number of farmers ; amount of wheat, corn, oats and honey produced ; value of animals for slaughter ; number of hogs ; amount of pork ; number of horses-three times as many as Kentucky, the horse State."
This State is only second in many other great interests. Here are some of the most important : Value of farm implements and products, of live stock and tons of coal mined. Her educational advantages and interests are superior. She has a permanent school fund only second to any other State. She pub- lishes great numbers of books, maps and newspapers.
The shipping of this State ranks next to the metropolitan port-New York.
Illinois is third in colleges, teachers and schools; cattle, lead, hay, flax, · sorghum and beeswax.
She is fourth in population, in children enrolled for public schools, in law schools, butter, potatoes and carriages.
She is fifth in value of real and personal property, in theological seminaries and colleges exclusively for women, in milk sold, in boots and shoes manufac- tured, and in book-binding.
She is seventh in the production of wood, though the twelfth in area. Some forests have been planted, and now more wood and timber are growing"
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
than the land produced thirty years ago. This is a matter for farmers to con- sider. The dearth of wood, of shade, forest and fruit trees on some of the most valuable prairie farms, might, in a few years, with moderate expense and little care, be obviated. A few acres less of wheat would, in many instances, secure more vigorous health to the families, more pleasure to the eye, more fruit, more comfort for the cattle. The farmer may cultivate liis tastes for the beautiful and refined, with his acres, and make a home for his children that will aid in developing the finer qualities of mind and heart, and thus in no wise necessarily unfit them for the sphere in which they were born. Honest labor, rewarding toil, homely industry, may band with gentleness of soul, love of the beautiful and polish of manners ; and all these may unite to form the true nature's gentleman or gentlewoman.
Illinois has completed 6,759 miles of railroad, worth $636,458,000; 3,245 engines and 61,712 cars are in use; these would make a train long enough to cover one-tenth of all the roads in the State. Stations are five miles apart. More than two-thirds of the land is within five miles of a railroad. Last year, 15,795,000 passengers were carried 363 miles. This is equal to taking the entire population twice across the State. A large financial interest is merged in tlie Illinois Central Railroad. It was incorporated in 1850. The State gave each alternate section, for six miles on each side, and doubled the price of the remaining land. The road received 2,595,000 acres and pays to the State one-seventh of the gross receipts. The State received, in 1876, $35,000; has received, in all, $7,000,000. Annual receipts from the canal are $111,000.
Illinois manufactures, annually, $205,000,000 worth of. goods. This com- pares favorably with New York and Pennsylvania. From 1860 to 1870, her manufacturing establishments increased 300 per cent .; capital employed, 350 per cent. ; amount of product, 400 per cent.
From these dry statistics, which are of incalculable interest as a measure- ment of agricultural, commercial and financial progress, turn to the contempla- tion of some of the
GENERAL FEATURES OF THE STATE.
From the eloquent Centennial oration, delivered by Dr. C. H. Fowler, at Philadelphia, by appointment of Governor Beveridge, we copy some fine para- graphs containing items of universal interest :
" The great battles of history that have been determinative of dynasties and destinies have been strategical battles; chiefly the question of position. Thermopylæ has been the war-cry of freemen for twenty-four centuries. It only tells how much there may be in position. All this advantage belongs to Illinois. It is in the heart of the greatest valley in the world, the vast region between the mountains-a valley that could feed mankind for a thousand years.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
It is well on toward the center of the continent. It is in the great temperate belt, in which have been found nearly all the aggressive civilizations of history. It has sixty-five miles of frontage on the head of the lake. *
* It has, altogether, 2,000 miles of water front, connecting with and running through, in all, about 12,000 miles of navigable water, including rivers and canals.
"But this is not all. These waters are made most available by the fact that the lake and the State lie on the ridge running into the great valley from the east. Within cannon shot of the lake, the water runs from the lake to the gulf. The lake now empties at both ends-one into the Atlantic and one into the Gulf of Mexico. The lake thus seems to hang over the land. This makes the dockage most serviceable; there are no steep banks to damage it. Both lake and river are made for use. The climate varies from Portland to Rich- mond; it favors every product of the continent, including the tropics, with less than half a dozen exceptions. It produces every great nutriment of the world, except bananas and rice. It is hardly too much to say that it is the most productive spot known to civilization. With the soil full of bread and the earth full of minerals, with an upper surface full of food and an under layer of fuel, with perfect natural drainage and abundant springs and streams and navigable rivers, half way between the frosts of the north and the fruits of the south, within a day's ride of the great deposits of iron, coal, copper, lead, zinc, containing and controlling the great grain, cattle, pork and lumber markets of the world, it is not strange that Illinois has the advantage of position.
" This advantage has been supplemented by the character of the population. In the early days, when Illinois was first admitted to the Union, her population were chiefly from Kentucky and Virginia. But, in the conflict of ideas concerning slavery, a strong tide of emigration came in from the East, and soon changed this composition. In 1870, her non-native population were from colder soils. New York furnished 133,290; Ohio gave 162,623; Pennsylvania sent on 98,352; the entire South gave us only 206,734. In all her cities, and in all her German and Scandinavian and other foreign colonies, Illinois has only about one-fifth of her people of foreign birth. "
MILITARY STRENGTH AND PATRIOTISM.
From the time when the call of Governor Reynolds, in 1832-33, stimulated the pioneers of the State, and the people drove Blackhawk and his warriors across the Mississippi, until the memorable hour when Abraham Lincoln at the head of the nation said, "The country needs the sacrifice," Illinois has nobly conse- crated her sons to the vindication and defense of the country. They have been no laggards from the front, no cowards in the battles of the Republic.
For the Mexican War that broke out in May, 1846, 8,370 men volunteered; only 3,720 could be accepted. In the war of the Rebellion, 256,000 men were
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
enrolled for the State regiments, and through other States 290,000. This was a larger number than all the soldiers of the Federal Government during the war of the Revolution. The law of Congress only required men from twenty to forty-five years of age; but Illinois sent them freely from eighteen to forty- five. The people were so eager to go they did not seek to correct the enroll- ment ; 20,844 were sent for ninety or one hundred days, for whom no credit was asked. Numbering one-thirteenth of the population of the loyal States, she sent regularly one-tenth of all the soldiers. Sherman marched forty-five regiments from Illinois in that grand sweep to the SEA.
Illinois soldiers brought home 300 tattered flags. The first United States colors that were victoriously planted at Richmond was an Illinois flag. She sent nurses to every field and hospital to care for her sick and wounded.
Among all her grand statesmen and immortal heroes, the name of the martyr President will glow as if every letter were a star of the first magnitude, through all centuries to come.
Dr. Fowler says : "The analysis of Mr. Lincoln's character is difficult on account of its symmetry. In this age, we look with admiration on his uncom- promising honesty. And well we may, for this saved us. Thousands through- out the length and breadth.of our country, who knew him only as 'Honest Old Abe,' voted for him on that account ; and wisely did they choose, for no other man could have carried us through the fearful night of the war. When his plans were too vast for our comprehension, and his faith in the cause too sub- lime for our participation ; when it was all night about us, and all dead before us, and all sad and desolate behind us; when not one ray shone upon our cause : when traitors were haughty and exultant at the South, and fierce and blas- phemous at the North; when the loyal men here seemed almost in a minority ; when the stoutest heart quailed, the bravest cheek paled ; when generals were defeating each other for place, and contractors leeching out the very heart's blood of the prostrate Republic ; when everything else had failed us, we looked at this calm, patient man standing like a rock in a storm, and said : 'Mr. · Lincoln is honest and we can trust him still.' Holding to this single point with the energy of faith and despair, we held together, and, under God, he brought us through to victory.
" His practical wisdom made him the wonder of all lands. With such cer- tainty did Mr. Lincoln follow causes to their ultimate effects, that his foresight of contingencies seemed almost prophetic. He is radiant with all the great virtues, and his memory shall shed a glory upon this age that shall fill the eyes of men as they look into history. Other men have excelled him in some point, but taken at all points, all in all, he stands head and shoulders above every other man of 6,000 years. An administrator, he saved the nation in the perils of unpar- alleled civil war. A statesman, he justified his measures by their success. A philanthropist, he gave liberty to one race and salvation to another. A moral-
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
ist, he bowed from the summit of human power at the foot of the Cross, and became a Christian. A mediator, he exercised mercy under the most absolute abeyancc to law. A leader, he was no partizan. A commander, he was un- tainted with blood. A ruler in desperate times, he was unsullied with crime. A man, he has left no word of passion, no thought of malice, no trick of craft, no act of jealousy, no purpose of selfish ambition. Thus, perfected with- out a model, and without a peer, he was dropped into these troubled years to adorn and embellish all that is good and all that is great in our humanity, and to present to all coming time the representative of the divine idea of free govern- ment. It is not too much to say that away down in the future, when the republic has fallen from its niche in the wall of time; when the great war itself shall have faded out in the distance, like a mist on the horizon; when the Anglo-Saxon language shall be spoken only by the tongue of the stranger, then the generations looking this way shall see the great President as the supreme figure in this vortex of history."
RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS AND MORALS.
Dr. Fowler says the State was born of the missionary spirit. Rev. Mr. Wiley, pastor of a Scotch congregation in Randolph County, petitioned the Constitutional Convention of 1818 to recognize Jesus Christ as king, and the Scriptures as the only necessary guide and book of law.
Rev. J. M. Peck was the first educated Protestant minister in the State. He was settled at Rock Spring, St. Clair County, in 1820. He published the first gazetteer of Illinois. The first College was started in 1828, in Lebanon, by the Methodist Episcopal Church, and named after Bishop McKendree. The next was Illinois College, at Jacksonville, in 1830, supported by the Pres- byterians. In 1832, the Baptists established Shurtleff College, at Alton. The Presbyterians built Knox College, at Galesburg, in 1838, and the Episcopalians Jubilee College, at Pcoria, in 1847. The State can now boast of one well-en- dowed University-the Northwestern, at Evanston, with its magnificent edifices, six colleges, ninety instructors, 1,000 students, and $1,500,000 endowment.
Illinois owns $22,300,000 in church property, and has 4,298 church organi- zations. Nine million five hundred thousand copies of religious papers are issued annually in the State.
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