USA > Illinois > Cook County > Growth of Cook County; a history of the large lake-shore county that includes Chicago, Vol. I > Part 3
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United States Army Capt. John Whistler, who had been stationed at Detroit, began the construction of the new fort that year and completed it in 1804, naming it in honor of Gen. Henry Dearborn, then Secretary of War.
The fort, consisting of two block houses surrounded by a palisade, was built on the south bank of the Chicago river near its mouth. (The site sometimes is referred to as the "west" bank because the river then flowed southward a few hundred
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feet before entering the lake at the foot of what now is Madison street. )
A few yards southwest of the fort was the U. S. Agency house, built the same year. The Kinzie house, it will be remem- bered, was across the river, on the north bank.
Fur trade flourished even better than before, but the presence of the fort hastened the inevitable trouble with the Indians. The fort attracted about its perimeter a small number of settlers who looked to it for protection.
The Indians, stirred up by their British allies who were losing their fur trade to the Americans, resented the toe-hold the settlers thus were gaining and in April of 1812 organized raid- ing parties which set upon the outlying whites, driving the settlers inside the palisade for protection.
These Indians, mostly Pottawatomies, had enlisted help from neighboring tribes in Wisconsin and Indiana to repulse the settlers and garrison.
On June 12, 1812 the United States declared war on the British and on July 14 surrendered Fort Mackinac to the enemy, thus leaving Fort Dearborn cut off from help. On August 9 Capt. Nathan Heald, then commanding Fort Dear- born, received orders to abandon the fort immediately and proceed to Fort Wayne by land.
Capt. Heald's force consisted of 68 men. Also present were some dozen women and 20 children. Instead of leaving im- mediately, however, Capt. Heald waited six full days by which time some 500 hostile Indians were encamped about the fort.
The Indians admittedly were present to chase away the whites, but sent word into the garrison that an orderly with- drawal would be permitted if the garrison would leave behind its stores, principally ammunition and barrels of whisky.
This posed an even greater problem for Capt. Heald. He and his men felt, with considerable justification, that if un- limited quantities of fire-water and ammunition fell into the
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hands of the Indians the savages might go berserk, change their minds, and set upon the small band of whites as it was making its getaway on foot thru hostile wilds.
In the meantime, Capt. William Wells, Indian agent at Fort Wayne, came to Chicago with 30 friendly Miami Indians to help with the evacuation.
On the night of Aug. 13 Capt. Heald took the step that, as we know now, may have been wrong. He had his men destroy all the ammunition that was to be left behind and pour all the whisky into the lake. The Indians knew of the whisky- dumping and their leaders informed Capt. Heald that the younger warriors were incensed beyond control.
At 9 a.m., August 15, 1812, the garrison marched out and the Indians entered the fort to confirm their suspicion that the ammunition also had been destroyed. The 500 enraged savages sullenly followed as the procession of men, women and children made its way southward from the fort along the Indian trail that paralleled Lake Michigan.
The Day Of The Massacre
When about one and one-half miles south, a large portion of the Indians circled to the right and took ambush positions behind a low range of sand hills about 100 yards back from the lake. Some were ahead of the procession of whites, others were alongside, and some still stalked behind.
Realizing that battle was but minutes away, some of the soldiers, who were on horses, charged to the top of the ridge and fired the first volley. With that the entire procession was swarmed upon by the savages. Greatly outnumbered, and from inadequate fighting positions, the whites resisted bravely, even in hand-to-hand struggles, but were overwhelmed.
Men, women and children, alike, were slaughtered and scalped. Capt. Heald surrendered what was left of his pitiful handful, following which the Indians killed without mercy the prostrate wounded.
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Site of Chicago about 1820 as visualized in 1857 by unidentified painter. Looking westward from Lake Michigan, picture shows winding Chicago river, together with its north branch, south branch, and west fork of south branch. Rebuilt Fort Dearborn appears in center, with John Kinzie house and trading post at right. Broken lines, superimposed, indicate new river channel after straightening by army engineers. Courtesy Chicago Historical Society.
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Model of first Fort Dearborn (1803-1812) from drawing in 1808 by Capt. John Whistler, executed by A. L. Van Den Bergen, sculptor, in 1898. Courtesy Chicago Historical Society
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Out of the band of 100 whites who had left the fort but an hour earlier, only 30 men, ten women, and eight children sur- vived. The casualties were 38 men, two women, and 12 children. The Indians lost about 15 warriors.
The 30 Miami tribesmen, who were supposed to aid the whites, had fled into the woods when the fighting began, but not Capt. Wells.
The brave Capt. Wells, fighting desperately, was surrounded and stabbed in the back. His head then was cut off and his heart taken out and eaten by the savages who believed that by so doing part of his courage would be conveyed to them.
The following day the fort and Indian agency house were burned and the prisoners scattered among the tribes. Capt. Heald subsequently was turned over to the British at Fort Mackinac and eventually paroled.
John Kinzie, who had accompanied the soldiers and par- ticipated in the fighting, was among the prisoners, but because he had been fair in his dealings, the Indians soon released him. Kinzie had spared his family the massacre ordeal by hiding them beforehand with friendly Indians who later took them by canoe to St. Joseph (Mich.).
In 1816, following the Treaty of Ghent which closed the War of 1812, the government rebuilt Fort Dearborn on the same site as the original and rebuilt the nearby Indian agency. John Kinzie returned with his family to reoccupy his deserted home and trading post, only now he was to become an agent for John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company. As mentioned previously, he died on Jan. 6, 1828.
Also in 1816 the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians ceded to the United States the lands ten miles north and ten miles south of the mouth of the Chicago river, and back to the Kankakee, Illinois, and Fox rivers. The purpose of this grant was to secure right-of-way for the building of a canal and military road, described later on.
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Women and children leaving fort in covered wagon shortly before massacre. Picture from the movie, "Fort Dearborn Massacre," made in Chicago by Selig Photoplay company in 1912.
Courtesy Chicago Historical Society
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John Kinzie bids farewell to his family which is being taken to safety by friendly Indians shortly before massacre. Picture from 1912 movie "Fort Dear- Courtesy Chicago Historical Society born Massacre."
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Unknown artist's conception of Fort Dearborn battle near lake front. Courtesy Chicago Historical Society
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In 1830 the federal government opened for settlement these ceded public lands and settlers began arriving, both from over- land and by boat from Detroit, Buffalo, and other Great Lakes ports. Many settlers never stopped when they reached the Chicago area, using the portage merely as a gateway to the fertile prairies lying to the west. The capture of Black Hawk and his handful of warriors in the skirmishes of northwestern Illinois in 1832 wiped out the last Indian resistance in northern Illinois, making settlement safe.
With the need for the second Fort Dearborn at an end, it was closed officially on Dec. 29, 1836. In the meantime Cook county had been born and a city started. The great fur-trading era was over.
Up to this point the background of the Cook county story has featured the explorations, discovery of site, early fur trade, battles of empires for possession, and savage Indian warfare. All of this was the outgrowth of white man's first entry to the region thru the Great Lakes waterway lying to the north and east.
Government Moves Northward
It remained, however, for civil government to advance from the opposite direction, from the southern and southwestern edges of the state, areas which had attracted pioneering settlers from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other points east, as well as a number from Tennessee and southeastern states.
This second half of the Cook county background likewise involves struggles of empires and Indian uprisings, but more than that it is the story of daring settlers who, having advanced into the wilds ahead of law and order, were trying to evolve for themselves workable forms of government that would pro- tect their lives and property and secure for them the rights of free men.
While the colonies of young America were fighting for their independence from the British, the general assembly of Virginia
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The second Fort Dearborn, built in 1816, as seen from north. Rope ferry is shown in right foreground. Painting, possession of Chicago Historical Society, is by unidentified artist.
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extended that colony's territorial claims in the west by first creating the "county of Kentucky," now western Kentucky.
Realizing, then, that this new Kentucky county needed pro- tection from both the Indians and British, the Virginia assembly, at the urging of Virginia Governor Patrick Henry, on Jan. 2, 1778, authorized the sending of an expedition to seize the British strongholds along the Mississippi, including Fort Kas- kaskia at the mouth of the Kaskaskia river.
Young George Rogers Clark was appointed a lieutenant colonel of the Virginia militia and, with a small band of 175 men, sent west to battle the British.
With characteristic daring Clark slipped up on and cap- tured Fort Kaskaskia on July 5, 1778; then, with an exhi- bition of courage that only a Washington could rival in crossing the Delaware, Clark led his diminishing handful of impover- ished men across the then undrained flatlands of Illinois to Vincennes on the Wabash river where, on Feb. 25, 1779, he captured that British stronghold.
In the meantime, the Virginia legislature, having heard of Clark's initial success on the Mississippi, on Dec. 9, 1778 created the "County of Illinois." This unsurveyed territory stretched from the Ohio river on the southeast and the Missis- sippi on the southwest to the Illinois river on the northwest. The vague eastern boundary was up the Wabash toward Detroit.
With the northern boundary of the "county" undefined and left open, it may be said without fear of much, if any, contra- diction that present-day Cook county, with its all-important portage route, probably was included.
That they were inhabitants of Virginia and that Patrick Henry was their governor would have meant nothing, even had they known of it, to the savage Indians who then inhabited the area around "the portage called Chicago."
A large proportion of the residents in the Mississippi river
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villages were French who had come to the new territory prior to the time Britain wrested control from the French. (In 1763, at the close of the French and Indian War, France had ceded 'her North American possessions east of the Mississippi to Great Britain. )
The French in these villages at first welcomed Clark and, later, John Todd, "county lieutenant" who had arrived in 1779 to establish government; but in time this warm feeling cooled, partly because Clark's small army, having exhausted its funds and credit, was compelled to seize without payment what was needed in food and other supplies from the now poverty- stricken villagers and small farmers. The French complained bitterly to Virginia, but to no avail.
That the Virginia colony could not send aid to Clark in the way of men, supplies, and money was because she was draining the last of her available resources in combatting the British along the seaboard.
As the war wore on, Clark reached out here and there to quell Indian uprisings, but with diminishing forces, he lived in constant dread that the repulsed British would come back upon him. The enemy, however, was concentrating its fighting strength on the eastern battlefields.
Adding also to the worries of Clark and Todd was the fact that the local governments they had established in the villages, particularly in Kaskaskia, had fallen into disrepute and had become chaotic.
Clark undoubtedly was greatly relieved when he learned that on Nov. 30, 1782 a provisional treaty of peace was signed by Great Britain and the colonies. On Jan. 18, 1783 the Illinois regiment was disbanded and in the following July Clark was relieved of his command.
In the final settlement of the war (Sept. 3, 1783) Britain gave the entire territory east of the Mississippi and as far north as the Great Lakes to the United States. The brave Clark,
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with all of his troubles, had been chiefly responsible in securing these lands for the new nation.
On March 1, 1784 Virginia turned over to the new nation this large territory which had become such a headache during the six turbulent years it had been under her jurisdiction. (Virginia's proclamation of Illinois as a county actually had expired in 1782, but she retained authority two more years.)
It was not until July 13, 1787 that the new nation, recover- ing from its war wounds, passed the ordinance calling for the establishment of government in the Northwest Territory which included, of course, Illinois. And it even was three years after that before Arthur St. Clair, governor of the territory north- west of the Ohio river, arrived in Kaskaskia (Mar. 5, 1790).
On April 27, 1790 Gov. St. Clair established the county of St. Clair and made Kaskaskia its seat. Two days later he named judges for his new courts.
In the six intervening years between 1784 and the arrival of St. Clair the settlements along the Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash rivers had to rule themselves as best they could, which at times amounted to practically no government at all. Their government sometimes has been likened to that of city states.
Preliminary to the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 the new congress appointed James Monroe of Virginia, who later was to become the fifth president of the United States (1817- 1825), to assist in formulating policies for the new country. Monroe thereupon made a reconnaissance tour of a portion of the area in 1785 and wrote:
"A great part of the territory is miserably poor, especially that near Lakes Michigan & Erie & that upon the Mississippi & the Illinois consists of extensive plains wh. (Monroe abbrevi- ated the word 'which') have not had from appearance & will not have a single bush on them, for ages. The districts, there- fore, within wh. these fall will perhaps never contain a suffi-
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cient number of inhabitants to entitle them to membership in the confederacy."1
Familiar only with the wooded hills of the East, Monroe, who later was to achieve greatness for his "hands-off" doctrine to European nations, could not realize that the black prairies upon which he gazed were the world's most fertile lands, need- ing only to be planted to corn and wheat to become the nation's "bread-basket." Nor could he know that livestock, which would consume much of this grain, would be transported only a short distance to the world's greatest stockyards in the nation's second largest city for processing into meat that would feed much of the nation.
And without even a hint of the vision of a Joliet or a La Salle, Monroe could not sense that the "miserably poor" terri- tory near Lake Michigan would become, in the not-too-distant future, the site of a huge inland seaport, the site of the Pru- dential sky-scraper, the Board of Trade building, the Merchan- dise Mart, Soldier Field, belching steel mills, the world's largest hospital (Cook county), the river that would be made to flow backwards, the world's largest rail center, largest airport, a web of super-highways over which automobiles, buses, and trucks would flow smoothly, and the site of a county in which over five million prosperous people would live and work.
Prior to the time Cook county was created by an act of the Illinois legislature on Jan. 15, 1831 its territory had been under the imposing number of 31 different jurisdictions since the discovery of America.
Among those laying claims to it at one time or another were France, England, the American colonies of Virginia and Connecticut, the Northwest Territory, the Indiana Territory, the Illinois Territory, the state of Illinois, and various counties
1. Writings of James Monroe, Hamilton, Vol. 1, p. 117.
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within the state. Civil government within the area, however, either was non-existent or negligible until the time of Cook county's creation.
The political subdivisions into which the county was thrown between 1784, when Virginia relinquished the county of Illi- nois to the new union, and 1831, when Cook county came into being, are worthy of some note beyond mere mention.
When Arthur St. Clair, first governor of the Northwest Territory, created St. Clair county early in 1790, he included in it not only most of Illinois, but also much of Wisconsin and Minnesota, all of Indiana and Michigan, and a portion of Ohio. He made Kaskaskia its seat.
St. Clair was told, however, by higher authorities in Phila- delphia (then capital of the U. S.) that he had overdone the size of the county he had named after himself, so shortly there- after (April 27, 1790) he trimmed down the county, throw- ing most of it, including Cook county, into Knox county which was to be organized the following June 20 and for which Vincennes on the Wabash river was to be made the seat. (This Knox county, which embraced about half of Illinois, all of Indiana, part of Ohio, most of Michigan and Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota, is not to be confused with the present Illinois county of the same name.)
The able historian, Pierce, says1 that Cook county became a part of Wayne county of the Northwest Territory when the latter county was created on Aug. 15, 1796, remaining thus for the next five years, tho this is not shown in the recent Illinois publication-Counties of Illinois, Their Origin and Evolution.
On May 7, 1800 Congress carved from the Northwest Terri- tory the Indiana Territory, which included Illinois, and pro- claimed Vincennes the territorial seat.
1. Pierce, A History of Chicago, p. 409.
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On Feb. 9, 1801 Gov. William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory enlarged St. Clair county, dumping back into it most of Illinois (including Cook county), all of Wis- consin, large portions of Michigan and Minnesota, and a bit of northwestern Indiana.
On Jan. 24, 1803, according to Pierce, the boundaries of Wayne county were enlarged to gain back the site of Cook county. (It is evident that these early counties of the Indiana Territory were not competing with each other for possession of the area that eventually was to become Cook county. Rather, the opposite appears to be true; nobody cared into whose juris- diction this far-off, Indian-infested, wilderness country was to fall. )
So it was that in 1805, when most of Wayne county became the territory of Michigan, few cared that the site of Cook county again passed back into St. Clair county of the Indiana Territory.
Then on Feb. 3, 1809 the Illinois Territory was created and on Apr. 28 Nathaniel Pope, Secretary and Acting Gover- nor of the new territory issued a proclamation continuing within it the two counties then organized-St. Clair (including Cook) and Randolph.
We now enter in earnest upon the series of "begats" by which counties, singly and in groups, were split off from larger, parent counties until the last division was made in 1859.
Out of the present 102 counties in Illinois, Cook and La Salle, both created on Jan. 15, 1831, became the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth in the state.
Confining ourselves to Cook county, we find that it was a part of and descended from each of the following counties, beginning with St. Clair when that original county was in the Illinois Territory:
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County
Territory or State
Years
St. Clair
Illinois Territory
1809-1812
Madison
Illinois Territory 1812-1814
Edwards
Illinois Territory 1814-1816
Crawford
Illinois Territory
1816-1818
(Cook thus was a part of Crawford, one of the 15 organized counties when Illinois was admitted to the union on Dec. 3, 1818.)
Clark
State of Illinois 1819-1821
Pike
State of Illinois 1821-1823
Fulton
State of Illinois 1823-1825
Putnam1
State of Illinois 1825-1831
Nor was Cook county to be the end of the line. When created on Jan. 15, 1831 it contained 2,4642 square miles, as against its present 956.3 It touched upon both Wisconsin and Indiana and included all of Lake and DuPage counties, two- thirds of Will, and smaller portions of McHenry and Kane counties.4
In 1836 Cook had taken from it portions that became parts of Will, Kane, and McHenry counties. (Lake county was in this part of McHenry county that was split off from Cook. In 1839 Lake county was created out of the eastern portion of McHenry county.) DuPage was carved from Cook county in 1839, following which no changes were to be made in Cook county's boundaries except minor ones caused by lake fills.
Early historical writers sometimes stated that Cook county once was a part of Peoria county. Technically they were in error, tho there was a logical reason for such statements.
The explanation5 is that at the same time Putnam county (containing the site of Cook county) was peeled from the
1. Attached to Peoria county as explained later on.
2. Determined by James Rivera, formerly of Map Division, Cook County High- way Dept.
3. Increased from time to time by lake fills.
4. Carpentier, Counties of Illinois, p. 50.
5. Pierce, A History of Chicago, p. 411.
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territory governed by Fulton county (Jan. 13, 1825), Peoria county likewise was created from a portion of the Fulton terri- tory and the new Putnam county was placed under the tem- porary jurisdiction of Peoria county officials where it was to remain until the establishment of Cook county six years later.
This accounts for the action of the Peoria county commis- sioners in creating in December of 1825 an election precinct in Chicago. One of these elections, together with one of the early Chicago tax assessments made by the Peoria assessor, we describe later on.
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CHAPTER 3
HOW COOK COUNTY GOT ITS NAME
C
OOK COUNTY is named after Daniel Pope Cook, one of the earliest, youngest, and most brilliant statesmen in Illinois history.
The spectacular achievements accomplished by this young pioneer lawyer, newspaper publisher, territorial auditor and clerk, United States courier, circuit judge, attorney general, United States congressman, and diplomat are worthy of recount here.
Tho widely acclaimed in his day for his astute leadership, Cook has been something of a forgotten man in the annals of his state's history, possibly because the overshadowing figure of Abraham Lincoln soon was to appear upon the scene. It is lamentable, therefore, that there is a scarcity of source materials dealing with Cook's life.
Cook was born in Scott county, north central Kentucky, in 1794. Tho he was related to the influential Pope family of Kentucky, young Daniel's parents were too poor to send him to college after he had finished with the grades. The youngster was ambitious, however, so began studying law while working in the office of a lawyer relative.
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DANIEL POPE COOK After Whom Cook County, Illinois, Was Named. Born 1794, Died 1827
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From boyhood thru manhood Cook not only was small and frail of stature, but his health-he was a consumptive-was poor most of the time. Thus beset with continuing ill health, it is a testimonial to his fortitude that he always could muster a winning smile, a cheerful word, and draw from deep wells within him sufficient strength to bring fulfillment to his dreams. Like Another he had but 33 years in which to accom- plish his life's work.
Upon reaching 21 young Daniel set out to seek his fortune in new country further west. Three hundred miles away lay St. Genevieve, a town on the banks of the Mississippi river in the Missouri territory, just across the river from Kaskaskia, seat of the new Illinois territory. There, at St. Genevieve, Daniel found work in a store, but quit after a short time and moved across to Kaskaskia, then a western metropolis of some 700 residents.
When he entered Kaskaskia in the Illinois territory in 1815, young Cook is believed to have worked again in a store, but for only a few weeks because the bartering of salt and calico for "Dominecker" chickens, hand-churned butter, and fresh 'possum pelts did not fit in with his ambitions.
Cook resumed the reading of law, this time under his uncle, Nathaniel Pope, a lawyer, and in the same year began practic- ing law in the counties surrounding Kaskaskia.
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