USA > Illinois > Madison County > Alton > Gazetteer of Madison County : containing historical and descriptive sketches of Alton City, Upper Alton, Edwardsvile, Collinsville, Highland, Troy, Monticello, Mairne, Bethalto, and other towns, including some account of the resources of the various townships, to which is added a directory of the Altons,. > Part 6
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The following extract from the "Record of Indentures" for Madison County, casts considerable light on the early institutions and customs of the country, and the existence of slavery in the Territory and County.
Be it remembered that this day to wit the fifteenth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred fifteen, personally appeared before me Josias Randle, Clerk of the County Court for the County of Madison, in the Illinois Territory, Jack Bonaparte, a man of color and Joshua Vaughan, both of the County of Madison, and the said Jack now being the property of the said Joshua, and for other considerations doth 7-
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hereby agree and freely oblige himself to serve the said Joshua Vaughan, his heirs or assigns ninety years, as a good and faithful servant, and the said Joshua Vaughan obliges himself on his part as long as the said Jack continues with him to furnish the said Jack in good and wholesome food, and necessary clothing, with all the other necessaries suitable to a servant. In testimony whereof both the parties have hereby agreed to the foregoing bargain before me in my office the day and year aforesaid.
JOSIAS RANDLE,
County Clerk of Madison County. Entered 1815. -
Test. Fielding Bradshaw.
Term of Service 90, Jack Bonaparte will be free, 1905.
To appreciate the force of this singular document, as it would now be considered, we are naturally led to some brief account in explanation of the history and nature of slavery as it existed then and for many years subsequent in the county, both under the Territorial and State Govern- ments.
Probably the first slaves bought into the Illinois country were those introduced under a royal grant of Louisiana, by the King of France, 1717, to the "Company of the West," which in 1719 changed its name to that of the "Company of the Indies," and which grant contained a condition "that they shall during their privilege, (twenty-five years, ) introduce at least six thousand whites and three thousand blacks into the country granted them."
In accordance with this agreement a rapid importation of blacks began, and in 1720 Philip Francis Renault, Manager and Agent of the "Company of St. Phillips," a branch of the Company of the West, for prosecuting the mining business in Upper Louisiana, bought five hundred slaves in St. Domingo, which he brought to Illinois where he established himself and his colony a few miles above Kaskaskia, in what is now the south- west corner of Monroe County, and called the village he founded Saint Phillips.#
Upon the cessation of the Illinois country to the British crown at the treaty of Paris, concluded 1763, many of the inhabitants removed with their slaves to the western side of the river. Those who remained held their slaves by virtue of the treaty, which secured to the inhabitants the possession of their entire property and a guarantee of all their rights. Slavery then existed by law in all the British Colonies. Upon the con- quest of the country by George Rogers Clarke, in 1778, an Act was passed by the Virginia Legislature confirming the inhabitants in the enjoyment of their own religion, together with all their civil rights and property. These "civil rights and property" doubtless covered the so-called right of slavery. In 1783 the Legislature of Virginia passed an Act of cession of the Northwestern Territory to the United States, containing a clause "that the French and Canadian inhabitants, who have professed themselves
*Western Annals. p. 672.
51
MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
citizens of Virginia shall have their possession and titles confirmed to them, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties," among which it is probable they reckoned the privilege of holding the black in bondage. The famous "Ordinance of '87" in accepting the gift of Virginia declared "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- tude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." This ordinance was prospective and has been so decided by the courts, It did not, therefore, affect the condition of the French slaves or their descendants-numbers of whom were scattered through portions of the county, though they have continued to be most numerous further south-until 1845, when the Supreme Court of the State declared thein free.
Under the Indiana Territory's government two, and perhaps three at- temps were made by votes in convention and Legislature to procure of Congress a suspension of the anti-slavery clause of the Ordinance of 1787, but the measure was unsuccessful in Congress, and was the political ruin of at least a portion of its advocates at home.t The Indiana Legisla- ture of 1807 however, succeeded in passing an act which effected at least a temporary and modified form of slavery, under which Negroes were introduced and held as "Indentured Slaves," a class to which the instru- ment above quoted evidently has reference.
The act was entitled "an Act concerning the introduction of Negroes and Mulattoes into the Territory, passed September 17th 1807."
This act provides that the owner of a person owing labor may bring him into the Territory, and agree with him before the Clerk of Common Pleas of the proper County, upon a term of service after which the slave shall be free. Of this the Clerk shall make record, should the slave refuse to serve his master the latter may remove him within sixty days to anoth- er Territory or State. Slaves under the age of fifteen were bound to serve until the age of thirty-five or thirty-two according to sex, and also to be registered by the Clerk of Common Pleas. The owner gave bond that the slave should never become a County charge. No slave was to be removed from the Territory without his consent, except on refusing to serve his master, and the children of slaves were to serye until the age of twenty- eight and thirty, according to sex. The apprentice law regarding abuse by masters was made applicable to slaves.
Many shifts and evasions were resorted to under this act, to defeat the intent of the law. In many cases where a slave proved refractory, in spite of the "considerations," which were brought to bear, to bring him to give his assent to a "bargain for service," a somewhat common expedient was to remove him across the Mississippi at stated periods, which could
*Western Annals, p. 788.
+Western Annals, page 789.
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be legally done under the provisions of this and other acts of a similar nature, thus acquiring a new residence and a new lease over the "proper- ty-"' on each occasion.
To the quotations from these early records, we add the copy of a document which possesses considerable of personal and historical interest, and bears honorable witness to the existence of elevated, and enlightened sentiments on the subject of slavery, based upon principles of justice, among the earliest and most honored citizens of Madison County, of whom she has good right to be proud.
"WHEREAS, my father, the late John Coles, of the County of Alber- marle, in the State of Virginia, did in his last Will and Testament give and bequeath to mne certain negro slaves, among others Robert Crawford and his sister Polly Crawford; the said Robert being a mulatto man, about five feet seven inches high, and now about twenty-five years of age; and the said Polly being a mulatto woman about five feet one inch high and now about sixteen or seventeen years of age. And, whereas, I do not be- lieve that man can have of right a property in his fellow man, but on the contrary, that ALL MANKIND were endowed by nature with equal rights, I do by these presents restore to the said Robert and his sister Polly, that inalienable liberty of which they have been deprived; and I do hereby renounce for me and my heirs forever, all claim of every description whatsoever to them and their services, and I do hereby emancipate and set free, the said Robert Crawford and his sister Polly Crawford. In testi- mnony whereof, I have hereunto set iny hand and seal, this fourth day of July, in the year of Christ one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, and of the Independence of the United States the forty-third.
EDWARD COLES, [SEAL. ]
In the presence of Hail Mason, Jacob Linder.
Madison County, State of Illinois :- Personally appeared before me, a Justice of the Peace for the County aforesaid, the above named Edward Coles, who acknowledges the foregoing to be his act and deed for the purpose therein mentioned. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this 17th day of November, 1819.
HAIL MASON, J. P., [SEAL.]
MR. COLES was born in Albermarle County, Virginia, December 15th, 1786. His father was a rich planter with a large number of slaves, but having ten children, the amount of property received by each was not large. Edward received for his share a plantation and about twenty slaves-the slaves constituting about one-third of his estate.
It was in William and Mary College, under the tuition of the venerable Bishop Madison, that he received the conviction of the wrong and im- policy of negro slavery, and he then formed the resolution, that should he come into possession of this species of property, he would emancipate them. Mr. Coles became Private Secretary for President Madison, and remained for six years an inmate of his family. He was then sent on a special message to Russia, as bearer of despatches to the American Minis- ter, John Quincy Adams, and previous to returning he made the tour of Europe. On his return he effected a sale of his plantation, and removed his slaves to Illinois in 1819; purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land for each family and superintended their settlement in the vicinity of Edwardsville. Soon after, he was appointed by President Monroe Regis- ter of the Land Office at Edwardsville, which office he held till 1822, when
53
MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
he was elected Governor of the State, and, as it turned out, at a most im- portant crisis in the history of Illinois.
To resume the thread of the narration-which has been somewhat broken by these digressions-early in July, 1814, another Indian murder was committed in the Wood river settlement, about five miles from Alton, attended with circumstances of unusual horror and atrocity. Mrs. Reagan and four children returning homeward after nightfall from her brother's house, a Mr. Moore, were massacred by a small party of Indians, not far from their home and their bodies scalped and shockingly mangled. The husband and father supposing they had remained with their relatives during the night, was awakened by a party of Rangers next morning with the distressing intelligence of the massacre of his family. Captain- afterwards General-Samuel Whitesides with fifty rangers was on their trail at an early hour, and pursued them to the banks of the Sangamon river, where they discovered the party just as they entered a dense thicket in the river bottom, by which all escaped, except the leader in whose possession the scalp of Mrs. Regan was found.
In 1817 the first banking institution in the county was chartered, under the name of the Bank of Edwardsville, and was made a bank of deposit for government funds.
In this year (1817) or shortly before, the City of Alton began to have an existence. Col. Easton ator about this time laid out the town fronting upon the Mississippi, consisting of the streets between and including Henry Street on the east and Piasa on the west. It probably extended no further north than Tenth Street. Mr. Joseph Meacham also laid out the town now called Upper Alton, on land upon which only one fourth of the price had been paid. He disposed of as many lots as he could by lottery. Each ticket drew one lot, or thirty acres more or less. In 1817 Mecham's Alton was far ahead of the other Alton, both in population and improve- ment. The people of the adjacent country were in the habit of "lumping" them together by the name of Yankee Alltown.#
An active settlement was already in progress in the neighborhood. A firm under the name of Wallace & Seely owned a mill site three miles below on Wood River, where they had three mills-two saw mills and a grist or flour mill, and they were in full and active operation. Messrs. Wallace & Seely had laid out a town and called it Milton, and were doing a flourishing business. A distillery a few rods up Wood River was equally active.
Mr. Mecham soon after purchased what was called the Bates farm, laid it out and advertised it as Alton on the river. This last enterprise was purchased by Major C. W. Hunter in 1818 and has since been popularly known as Hunterstown, and has been incorporated into the City of Alton.
In this year (1817) Rowland P. Allen came out as a pioneer to explore for himself, and some sea-faring friends with a view to a settlement in the west. He made choice of the point or bay of the prairie lying between
*Lippincotts' Papers, No. 2 .- Churchills' Annotations No. 1.
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Silver Creek and the Middle fork or Pecks' branch of Silver Creek. In the next year a colony of those who had long traversed the ocean settled upon this prairie. Captain Curtiss Blakeman, Captain George C. Allen, with several of the same vocation, and the original discoverer R. P. Allen settled in the lower part, and in the year following (1819) Captain James Breath came in company with another group and settled upon Silver Creek in the same prairie, some eight or ten miles north for a few years and then removed to the vicinity of his brother mariners. From this the place took the name of Marine Settlement. Colonel John Shinn formerly known as an extensive practical manufacturing chemist in Philadelphia, bought a farm in the same place. Oliver S. Balster and James Ground were also well known early settlers. The settlement soon became known as an intelligent, enterprising and prosperous society, and many of the comforts and even refinements of social life were enjoyed in advance of other neighboring settlements.#
In 1818 Benjamin Stephenson, Joseph Burrough and Abraham Prickett were elected delegates from Madison County to the Convention assembled to form a Constitution for the State previous to its admission into the Union.t
On the 6th of August, 1819, at Edwardsville the Commissioners of the United States and the Chief of the Kickapoo tribe negotiated a treaty, by which a purchase was made of the Indians estimated to contain more than 10,000,000 acres of a tract of country "bounded by a line commencing at the month of the Illinois river, and running eastward. by the old pur- chase line to the northwest corner of the second Kaskaskia purchase next north eastwardly by the old purchase lines to the lines dividing the States of Illinois and Indiana, thence north to the Kankakee river, thence down that river to the place of beginning;" embracing among other lands the whole tract denominated as the Sangamon country .;
In 1819 the first newspaper published in the county and the third in the State, was established at Edwardsville, under the name of the Edwards- ville Spectator, and edited by Hooper Warren, Esq., which at once as- sumed a position of eminence, among the journals of the West, for the ability
*Lippineott's Papers, No. 18.
¡The "Aet to enable the people of Illinois Territory to forin a Constitution and State Government, and for the admission of such State into the Union was ap- proved, April 18th, 1818." This Act stated that "the election for Representative to the Convention, shall be holden on the first Monday of July next.
Also "that the members of the Convention then elected be and they are hereby authorized to meet! at the seat of Government of the said Territory on the first Monday of August next, (1818.,
# * * * Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, That the State of Illinois shall be one, and is hereby declared to be one of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever. Approved, December 3d, 1818.
#Geographical Sketches of the Western Country, page 147.
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MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
and spirit with which it discussed the questions of the day, as well as for its general intelligence and information. Its editor, Mr. Warren, while a journeyman printer in St. Louis, published under an assumed name, a series of articles upon public questions which attracted the notice of the most eminent public men in the State, and called out replies from Hon. Thomas H. Benton and others of equal reputation, who joined in attribu- ting them to men in high position in the State. He was known for many years afterwards as master of an easy and vigorous style in writing, which gave considerable interest and influence to the journal which he edited.
The paper was published weekly. The following is a partial synopsis of the contents of some of the earlier numbers.
APRIL 18TH, 1820 .- Poetry on "Home;" List of Letters remaining in the Alton Post Office, (10;) Independent Artillery Company, N. Buckmas- ter, Captain; Enos Pembrook advertises that he keeps the Fountain Ferry at Alton, three miles nearer from Milton to Madame Griffith's near Portage du Sionx, than any road now travelled," and that "he can make three trips across the Mississippi at this Ferry sooner than one trip can be made at any other ferry on the same river within the State."
APRIL 25TH, 1820 .- Hail Mason, Candidate for Representative; Cards of Chester Ashley and T. W. Smith, do .; Address, Geo. Churchill; Edwards- ville Hotel Sign of General Washington, W. C. Wiggins informs his friends and the public that he has opened a house for their accommoda- tion in the brick building on the north-east side of the public square. where he will be glad to accommodate those who may favor him with a call."
MAY 16, 1820 .- Curtis Blakeman of Marine Settlement raised 130 bushels corn to the acre.
JUNE 13, 1820 .- Address to County Commissioners by a citizen of Ridge Prairie.
Addresses of Isom Gilham and Daniel Parkison candidates for Repre- sentative from Madison County.
Justices Madison County; (Reuben Hopkins, Hail Mason, John Laird, Micajah Cox, Joshua Armstrong, Benjamin Spencer, Isaac E. Robinson. Thomas Lippincott.
JUNE 20, 1820 .- Proposals to build a Court House gratuitously by Ben - jainin Stevens, J. W. Smith, Ninian Edwards and others. A farmer on Taxation; Sabbath School at Alton.
JULY 18TH, 1820 .- Celebration of 4th of July, at Alton.
Addresses of various Candidates.
Negro Woman for Sale: Anti-Slavery Poem.
FEBRUARY 13TH .- Census according to State Census, of Madison County, Whites 8,403, Blacks 141, Total 8,549. Madison County, 1820 Census of the United States, Thomas Reynolds, Assistant Marshal :
White Males under 10
2,682
over 10 and under 16.
1,140
16
26
1,509
66
26
45 1,519
704
White Females under 10.
2,20G
over 10 and under 16.
1,085
16
26
1,037
66
26
45
1,080
45
461
Slaves
109
Free Colored
17
Total
13,550
45
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Edwardsville Hotel to rent; Post Rider Wanted.
FEBRUARY 20TH, 1821 .- Dedication Sermon by Rev. Jesse Townsend, at Marine Settlement; Legislative Acts; Ode in imitation of Anacreon.
JANUARY 21, 1822 .- Carriers' Address; Edwardsville Library Meeting.
In 1819 also appeared a small volume entitled "Geographical Sketches on the Western Country," designed for emigrants and settlers" in which oc- eurs a description of the towns of Milton, Alton and Edwardsville, and which is of interest as containing the first mention made of these places, so far as is known, in any printed work. We transcribe it here.
"About twenty-five miles from the month of the Illinois on the east bank of the Mississippi and twenty-five miles above St. Louis is situated Alton. The town lies west of Edwardsville ten miles, and was located in 1816. Nearly one hundred decent houses are already erected. The spirit of enterprise displayed by the settlers who are mostly from the Eastern States, and the natural advantages attached to the place point out this town as a stand where small capitals in trade may be properly invested."
Two miles from Alton at a place called Wallace's Mill on Wood Creek, which empties into the Mississippi is the little town of MILTON on the route by Edwardsville to Vincennes.
The place contains about fifty houses and though it seems to flourish is considered an unhealthy situation. The Creek here drives both a saw and a grist mill each of which do great business."
"EDWARDSVILLE is the seat of Justice for Madison County. It lies eight miles east from Milton and twenty miles north-east from St. Louis. It is a flourishing town, containing sixty or seventy houses-Court House, Jail, Public House, Bank, Printing Office, which issues a weekly news- paper and a United States Land Office, of which Col. Stevens is the Reg- ister. As this County embraces all the lands above east of the Mississippi and all the bounty lands in Illinois, all soldiers patents and grants of Illinois Bounty land are recorded here. In the vicinity of this town is a society of Methodists."
A SABBATH SCHOOL was organized and taught May 1st 1820, ut Upper Alton, by Enoch Long and Henry Snow, and was continued during the Summer, which was said to have been the first taught in Illinois. During the year previous however the wife of the Rev. Thomas Lippincott then a merchant at Milton had gathered into their house on Sabbath mornings for religions instructions some fifteen or twenty children-all there were and this in reality was the earliest effort made in this direction in the County, and perhaps deserves the name of the first Sabbath School in Illinois.
THE METHODIST AND BAPTIST CHURCHES were early planted in Illinois, and there were many preachers of these denominations who labored more or less in Madison County. The Baptists were mostly of the old-or as they are sometimes known the hyper-calvanistic school. They were then popularly called Ironsides, but have been since more widely known and famed as Hardshells. About 1818 or 1819 the Rev. John M. Peck came to itinerate among them. He was an able man as many can testify, and urged his New School, Missionary, Sunday School, Bible and Temperance efforts with great zeal, power and success.
THE METHODIST CHURCH furnished many specimens of able ministry
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MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
and devotion to the work. The principal resort or place of meeting in Madison County was about two miles west of Edwardsville where they had a meeting house and camping ground called "Ebenezer." Among the most conspicuous of their ministers were John Dew and Samuel H. Thompson. Mr. Dew was a man of unusual intellectual power, not very eloquent, or at least oratorical, his strong arguments and vigorous appeals -to the judgment rather than to the passions-were felt especially by thinkers. Samuel H. Thompson was a different style of man. His in- tellectual powers could not be esteemed equal, yet he could better command an audience and produce more effect upon the public mind than Mr. Dew or any other of the men of his day. He was frequently im- passioned, but this did not seem to be the secret of his power. It was more common to attribute it to his strong common sense, combined with strong affections and knowledge of mankind. Gov. Edwards said of him that he was the most poperful man with the people he knew; and if he had made politics his business would have been wonderfully successful. But he was devoted to what he considered a higher work, and though he consented to allow his name to be used as a candidate for Lieutenant Gov- ernor in after years, he abstained from personal effort, and it was thought lost his election by it.
THE PRESBYTERIANS at this time were few if we except the Cumber- land Presbyterians who were active, efficient and successful. The John Barbers, father and son, though not among the first as ministers, were known as among their most efficient laborers.
In 1819 two ministers came into Illinois as Presbyterian Missionaries. Their names were Lowe and Graham. As their field included Illinois and Missouri and their time a year or less they were of course but little in Madison County. Edward Hollister and Daniel Gould were in the Coun- ty in 1820 as Missionaries of this denomination. Subsequently Mr. Gould taught School in Edwardsville six months, while Mr. Hollister itinerated mostly in Missouri, occasionally visiting Edwardsville.
In 1822, two other Missionaries came from New England, Rev. Orin Catlin and Rev. I. N. Sprague. Their labors were mostle in Madison and adjacent counties. Before all these the Rev. Salmon Giddings, who ar- rived in St. Louis in 1816 or 1817 came over occasionly and preached, and it was he who formed the Churches of Edwardsville and Collinsville, the first of the denomination in Madison County."
RECORD OF MARRIAGE LICENSE granted by Josias Randle, Clerk, pre- vious to 1820.
In the following record of marriage licenses from No. 15 to 150, (the first 14 seeming not to have been placed on record,) those marked * appear also in the list of marriage certificates which follow. Both extend to about the same period-June, 1819. The list of certificates is most com -
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