USA > Illinois > Edwards County > Combined history of Edwards, Lawrence and Wabash counties, Illinois. With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
USA > Illinois > Wabash County > Combined history of Edwards, Lawrence and Wabash counties, Illinois. With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
USA > Illinois > Lawrence County > Combined history of Edwards, Lawrence and Wabash counties, Illinois. With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
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LAND TENURES.
The early French settlers held the possession of their land in common. A tract of land was fixed upon for a Common Field, in which all the inhabitants were interested.
Besides the Common Field, another tract of land was laid off on the Commons. All the villagers had free access to this as a place of pasturage for their stock. From this they also drew their supply of fuel.
Individual grants were likewise made. Under the French system, the lands were granted without any equivalent con- sideration in the way of money, the individuals satisfying the authorities that the lands were wanted for actual settle- ment, or for a purpose likely to benefit the community. The first grant of land, which is preserved, is that made to Charles Danie, May 10th, 1722. The French grants at Kaskaskia extended from river to river, and at other places in the Bot- tom they commonly extended from river to bluff. Grants of land were made for almost all the American Bottom, from the upper limits of the Common Field of St. Phillip's to the lower line of the Kaskaskia Common Field, a distance of nearly thirty miles.
The British commandants, who assumed the government on the cession of the territory by France, exercised the pri-
vilege of making grants, subject to the approval of his Ma- jesty, the King. Colonel Wilkins granted to some merchants of Philadelphia a magnificent domain of thirty thousand acres lying between the village of Kaskaskia and Prairie du Rocher, much of it already covered by French grants pre- viously made. For the better carrying out their plans, the British officers, and perhaps their grantees, destroyed, to some extent, the records of the ancient French grants at Kaskaskia, by which the regular claim of titles and convey- ances was partly broken. This British grant of thirty thousand acres, which had been assigned to John Edgar, was afterward patented by Governor St. Clair to Edgar and John Murray St. Clair, the Governor's son, to whom Edgar had previously conveyed a moiety by deed. Although much fault was found with the transaction, a confirmation of the grant was secured from the United States government.
When Virginia ceded Illinois, it was stipulated that the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers, who had professed allegiance to Virginia, should have their titles confirmed to them. Congress afterwards authorized the Governor to confirm the possessions and titles of the French to their lands. In accordance with this agreement, Governor St. Clair, in 1790, issued a proclamation directing the inhabitants to exhibit their titles and claims of the lands which they held, in order to be confirmed in their possession. Where the instruments were found to be authentic, orders of survey were issued, the expense of which was borne by the parties who claimed ownership. The French inhabitants were in such poverty at this time that they were really una- ble to pay the expenses of the surveys, and a memorial signed by P. Gibault, the priest at Kaskaskia, and eighty- seven others, was presented to Governor St. Clair, praying him to petition Congress for relief in the matter. In 1791, Congress directed that four hundred acres of land should be granted to the head of every family which had made improve- ments in Illinois prior to the year 1788. Congress had also directed that a donation be given to each of the families then living at either of the villages of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, Cahokia, Fort Chartres, or St. Phillips. These were known as the " bead-right " claims.
At an early date, speculation became active in the land claims of different kinds; bead-rights, improvement rights, militia right», and fraudulent claims were produced in great numbers. The French claims were partly unconfirmed, owing to the poverty of that people, and these were forced on the market with the others. The official report of the commissioners at Kaskaskia, made in 1810, shows that eight hundred and ninety land claims were rejected as being ille- gal or fraudulent. Three hundred and seventy were reported as being supported by perjury, and a considerable number were forged. There are fourteen names given of persons, both English and French, who made it a regular business to furnish sworn certificates, professing an intimate knowledge, in every casc, of the settlers who had made cer- tain improvements upon which claims were predicated and when and where they were located. A Frenchman, clerk of the parish of Prairie du Rocher, " without property and fond of liquor," after having given some two hundred depo-
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HISTORY OF EDWARDS, LAWRENCE AND WABASH COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
sitions in favor of three land claimant speculators, " was induced," in the language of the report, " either by compen- sation, fear, or the impossibility of obtaining absolution on any other terms, to declare on oath that the said depositions were false, and that in giving them he had a regard for something beyond the truth."
The report of the commissioners raised many doubts in regard to the validity and propriety of a number of confir- mations by the Governors, and much dissatisfaction among the claimants ; and in consequence, Congress in 1812, passed an act for the revision of these land claims in the Kaskaskia district. The commissioners under this law were Michael Jones, John Caldwell, and Thomas Sloo. Facts damaging to persons who occupied positions of high respectability in the community, were disclosed. They reported that the English claim of thirty thousand acres confirmed by Gover- nor St. Clair to John Edgar and the Governor's son, John Murray St. Clair, was founded in neither law or equity ; that the patent was issued after the Governor's power ceased to exist, and the claim ought not to be confirmed. Congress, however, confirmed it.
For a period of several years, emigration was considerably retarded by the delay in adjusting land titles. The act of Congress passed in 1813, granting the right of pre-emption to settlers, was influential in bringing the public lands into market. Emigrants poured into the country, and improve- ments were rapid'y made.
PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE STATE.
In area the State has 55,410 square miles of territory. It is about 150 miles wide and 400 miles long, stretching in latitude from Maine to North Carolina It embraces wide variety of climate. It is tempered on the north by the great inland, saltless, tideless sea, which helps the thermometer from either extreme. Being a table-land, from 690 to 1,600 feet above the level of the sea, one is prepared to find on the health maps, prepared by the general government, an almost clean and perfect record. In freedom from fever and mala- rial diseases and consumptions, the three deadly enemies of the American Saxon, Illinois, as a State, stands without a superior, ' She furnishes one of the essential conditions of a great people-sound bodies; we suspect that this fact lies back of that old Delaware word, Illini, superior men. The great battles of history have been determinative; 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 belong 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. It is well on toward the centre 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 Lake Michi- gan. With the Mississippi forming the western and south- ern boundary, with the Ohio running along the south-eastern line, with the Illinois river and Canal dividing the State diagonally from the lake to the Lower Mississippi, and with the Rock and Wabash rivers furnishing altogether 2,000
miles of water-front, connecting with, and running through, in all about 12,000 miles of navigable water. 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 away 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 Richmond. 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 of food and an under layer of fuel; with perfect natural drainage, and abundant springs and streams and navigable rivers; half way between the forests of the North and the fruits of the South; within a day's ride of the great deposits of iron, coal, copper, lead and 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 admit- ted to the union, her population were chiefly from Kentucky and Virginia. But, in the conflict of ideas concerning sla- very, a strong tide of immigration came in from the East, and · soon changed this composition. In 1880, her now native population were from colder soils. New York had furnished 143,290: Ohio gave 172,623: Pennsylvania 108,352: the entire South gave us only 216,734. 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.
PROGRESS OF DEVELOPMENT.
One of the greatest developments in the early history of Illinois, is the Illinois and Michigan canal, connecting the Illinois and Mississippi rivers with the lakes. It was of the utmost importance to the State. It was recommended by Governor Bond, the first governor, in his first message. Two bright young engineers surveyed it, and estimated the cost at $600,000 or $700,000. It finally cost $8,000,000. In 1825, a law was passed to incorporate the canal company, but no stock was sold. In 1826, upon the solicitation of Daniel P. Cook, congress gave 800,000 acres of land on the line of the work. In 1828, another law-commissioner was appointed, and work commenced with new survey and new estimates. In 1834-35, George Farquar made an able report on the whole matter. This was, doubtless, the ablest report ever made to a western legislature, and it be- came the model for subsequent reports and action. From this the work went on until it was finished in 1848. It cost the State a large amount of money ; but it gave to the indus- tries of the State an impetus that pushed it up into the first rank of greatness. It was not built as a speculation. But it has paid into the Treasury of the State an average annual 35
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HISTORY OF EDWARDS, LAWRENCE AND WABASH COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
nett sum of over 111,000. Pending the construction of the canal, the land and town lot fever broke out in the state, in 1834-35. It took on the malignant type in Chicago, lifting the town up into a city. The disease spread over the entire State and adjoining States. It was epidemic. It cut up men's farms without regard to locality, and cut up the purses of the purchasers without regard to consequences. There was no lack of buyers ; speculators and money swarmed into the country. This distemper seized upon the Legislature in 1836-37, and left not one to tell the tale. They enacted a system of internal improvement without a parallel in the grandeur of its conception. They ordered the construction of 1,300 miles of railroad, crossing the State in all directions. This was surpassed by the river and canal improvements. There were a few counties not touched by either railroad or river or canal, and those were to be comforted and compen- sated by the free distribution of $200,000 among them. To inflate this balloon beyond credence it was ordered that work should be commenced on both ends of each of these railroads and rivers, and at each river-crossing, all at the same time. The appropriations for the vast improvements were over $12,000,000, and commissioners were appointed to borrow money on the credit of the State. Remember that all this was in the early days of railroading, when railroads were luxu- ries ; that the State had whole counties with scarcely a cahin, and that the population of the State was less than 400,000, and you can form some idea of the vigor with which these brave men undertook the work of making a great State. In the light of history it appears that this was only a premature throb of the power that actually slumbered in the soil of the State. It was Hercules in the cradle. - At this juncture the State bank loaned its funds largely to Godfrey Gilman & Co., and other leading houses for the purpose of drawing trade from St. Louis to Alton. Soon they failed, and took down the bauk with them. In 1840, all hope seemed gone. A population of 480 000 were load- ed with a debt of $14,000,000. It had only six small cities, really only towns, namely : Chicago, Alton, Springfield, Quincy, Galena and Nauvoo. This debt was to be cared for when there was not a dollar in the treasury, and when the State had borrowed itself out of all credit, and when there was not good money enough in the hands of all the people to pay the interest of the debt for a single year. Yet in the presence of all these difficulties the young State steadily refused to repudiate. Gov. Ford took hold of the problem and solved it, bringing the State through in triumph. Having touched lightly upon some of the most distinctive points in the history of Illinois, let us next briefly consider the
MATERIAL RESOURCES OF THE STATE.
It is substantially a garden four hundred miles long and one hundred and fifty wide. Its soil is chiefly a black sandy loam, varying from six inches to six feet thick. On the American Bottoms it has been cultivated for over one hun- dred and fifty years without renewal. About the old French towns it has yielded corn for a century and a half without rest or help. It produces nearly everything green in the tem- perate and tropical zones ; she leads any of the other States
in the number of acres actually under plow. Her products from 25,000,000 acres are incalculable. Her mineral wealth is scarcely second to her agricultural power. She has coal, iron, lead, copper, zinc, many varieties of building stone, fire clay, cuma clay, common brick and tile clay, sands of all kinds, gravel, mineral paint, everything needed for a high civilization. Left to herself, she has the elements of all greatness. The single item of coal is too vast for an appreciative handling in figures. We can handle itin gene- ral terms, like algebraical sigus but long before we get up into the millions and billions, the human mind drops down from comprehension to mere symbolic apprehension. Nearly four-fifths of the entire State is underlaid with a deposit of coal more than forty feet thick on the average, including all strata (now estimated by recent surveys, at seventy feet thick). You can get some idea of its amount, as you do of the amount of the national debt. There it is, 41,000 square miles, one vast mine into which you could bury scores of European and ancient empires, and have room enough all round to work without knowing that they had been sepulchered there. Put this vast coal-bed down by the other great coal deposits of the world, and its importance becomes manifest. Great Britain, has 12,000 square miles of coal; Spain 3,000; France 1,719; Belgium 578; Illi- nois about twice as many square miles as all combined. Virginia has 20,000 square miles; Pennsylvania, 16,000; Ohio, 12,000 ; Illinois has 31,000 square miles ; one-seventh of all the known coal on this continent is in Illinois.
Could we sell the coal in this single State for one-seventh of one cent a ton it would pay the national debt. Great Britain uses enough mechanical power to-day to give each man, woman and child in the kingdom the help and service of nineteen untiring servants. No wonder she has leisure and luxuries. No wonder the home of the common artisan has in it more luxuries than could be found in the palace of good old King Arthur. Think, if you can conceive of it, of the vastarmy of servants that slumber in Illinois, impatient- ly awaiting the call of genius to come forth to minister to our comfort. At the present rate of consumption England's coal supply will be exhausted in 250 years. At the same rate of consumption (which far exceeds our own) the deposit of coal in Illinois will last 120,000 years. Let us now turn from this reserve power to the
ANNUAL PRODUCTS
of the State. We shall not be humiliated in this field. Here we strike the secret of our national credit. Nature provides a market in the constant appetite of the race. For several years past the annual production of wheat in Illinois has exceeded 30,000,000. That is more wheat than was raised by any other State in the Union ; with corn, she comes for- ward with 140,000,000 bushels, twice as much as any other State, and one-sixth of all the corn raised in the United States. She harvested 2,767,000 tons of hay, nearly one- tenth of all the hay in the Republic. It is not generally appreciated, but it is true, that the hay crop of the country is worth more than the cotton crop ; the hay of Illinois equals the cotton of Louisiana.
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HISTORY OF EDWARDS, LAWRENCE AND WABASH COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
The valuation of her farm implements is $230,000,000, and the value of her livestock, is only second to the great State of New York. She raises from 25,000,000 to 30,000,- 000 hogs annually, and according to the last census packed about one ba'f of all that were packed in the United States. This is no insignificant item. Pork is a growing demand of the old world. Illinois marked $64,000,000 worth of slaughtered animals; more than any other State, and one- seventh of all the States.
Illinois is a grand and wonderful State, peerless in the fer- tility of her soil, and inexhaustible resources. She is fast marching on towards her predestined place as first among the sisterhood.
We subjoin a list of the things in which Illinois excels all other States.
Depth and richness 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; and number of horses.
Illinois excels all other States in miles of railroads and in miles of postal service, and in money orders sold per annum, and in the amount of lumber sold in her markets. She pays a larger amount of internal revenue to the general govern- ment than any other state.
Illinois is only second in many important matters. This sample list comprises a few of the more important:
Permanent school fund (good for a young State); total income for educational purposes; number of publishers of books, maps, papers, etc .; value of farm products and im- plements, and of live stock ; in tons of coal mined.
The shipping of Illinois is only second to New York. Out of one port during the business hours of the season of navi- gation she sends forth a vessel every ten minutes. This does not include canal boats, which go one every five minutes. No wonder she is only second in number of bankers and brokers or in physicians and surgeons.
She is third in colleges, teachers and schools ; cattle, lead, hay, flax, sorghum, and beeswax.
She is fourth in population ; in children enrolled in public schools, in law schools, in butter, potatoes, and carriages.
She is fifth in value of real and personal property, in theo- logical seminaries and colleges exclusively for women, in milk sold, and in boots and shoes manufactured, and in book- binding.
She is only seventh in the production of wood, while she is the twelfth in area. She now has much more wood and growing timber than she had thirty years ago.
A few leading industries will justify emphasis. She man- ufactures $210,000,000 worth of goods, which place her nearly equal to New York and Pennsylvania.
In the number of copies of commercial and financial news- papers issued, she is only second to New York, and in her miles of railroads she leads all other States. More than two- thirds of her land is within five miles of a railroad and less than two per cent. is more than fifteen miles away.
The Religion and Morals of the State keep step with her productions and growth. She was born of the missionary
spirit. It was a minister who secured her the ordinance of 1787, by which she has been saved from slavery, ignorance, and dishonesty. Rev. Mr. Wiley, pastor of a Scotch congre- gation 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. The Convention did not act in the case, and the old cove- nanters refused to accept citizenship. They never voted until 1824, when the slavery question was submitted to the people. But little mob violence has ever been felt in the State. In 1817 the regulators disposed of a band of . horse thieves that infested the territory. The Mormon indignities finally awoke the same spirit. Alton was also the scene of a pro-slavery mob, in which Lovejoy was added to the list of martyrs. The moral sense of the people makes the law supreme, and gives the State unruffled peace. With about $23,000,000 in church property, and 4,321 church organiza- tions, the State has that divine police, the sleepless patrol of moral ideas, that alone is able to secure perfect safety. Con- science takes the knife from the assassin's hand and the blud- geon from the grasp of the highwayman. We sleep in safety not because we are behind bolts and bars-these only de- fend the innocent ; not because a lone officer sleeps on a distant corner of the street; not because a sheriff may call his posse from a remote part of the county ; but because con- science guards the very portals of the air and stirs in the deepest recesses of the public mind. This spirit issues within the State 9,500,000 copies of religious papers annually, and receives still more from without. Thus the crime of the State is only one-fourth that of New York and one-half that of Pennsylvania.
Illinois never had but one ducl between her own citizens. In Belleville, in 1820, Alphonso Stewart and William Ben- nett arranged to vindicate injured honor. The seconds agreed to make it a sham, and make them shoot blanks. Stewart was in the secret. Bennett mistrusted something, and, unobserved, slipped a bullet into his gun and killed Stewart. He then fled the State. After two years he was caught, tried, convicted, and, in spite of friends and political aid, was hung. This fixed the code of honor on a Christian basis, and terminated its use in Illinois. The early preachers were generally ignorant men, who were accounted eloquent according to the strength of their voices. Gov. Ford says, " Nevertheless these first preachers were of incalculable ben- efit to the country. They inculcated justice and morality. To them are we indebted for the first Christian character of the Protestant portion of the people."
In Education, Illinois surpasses her material resources. The ordinance of 1787 consecrated one thirty-sixth of her soil to common schools, and the law of 1818, the first law that went upon her statutes, gave three per cent. of all the rest to Educa- tion. The old compact secures this interest forever, and by its yoking together morality and intelligence it precludes the legal interference with the Bible in the public schools. With such a start it is natural that we should have about 11,500 schools, and that our iliteracy should be less than New York or Pennsylvania, and about one-half of Massachusetts. What a grand showing for so young a State. These public schools
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HISTORY OF EDWARDS, LAWRENCE AND WABASH COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
soon made colleges inevitable. The first college, still flour- ishing, was started in Lebanon in 1828, by he M. E. Church, and named after Bishop Mckendree. Illinois college at Jacksonville followed in 1830, supported by the Presbyterians. In 1832 the Baptists built Shurtleff college at Alton, and Knox college at Galesburg followed in 1838, and Jubilee college at Peoria in 1847, and the good Catholic missionaries long prior to this had established in various parts of the State, colleges, seminaries and parochial schools. After these early years colleges have rained down. A settler could hardly encamp on the prairie but a college would spring up by his wagon. The State now has one very well endowed and equipped university, namely the North-western University, at Evanston, with six colleges, ninety instructors, over one thousand students, and $1,500,000 endowment. Rev. J. M. Peck was the first educated Protestant minister in the State. He settled at Rock Spring, St. Clair County, about 1820, and has left his impress on the State. He was a large contribu- tor to the literature of that day in this State ; about 1837 he published a Gazetteer of Illinois. Soon after John Russell, of Bluffdale, published essays and tales showing genius. Judge James Hall published the Illinois Monthly Magazine with great ability, and an annual called The Western Sou- venir, which gave him an enviable fame all over the United States. From these beginnings, Illinois has gone on till she has more volumes in public libraries even than Massachu- setts, and of the 44,500,000 volumes in all the public libra- ries of the United States, she has one-thirteenth.
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