USA > Illinois > Cook County > Growth of Cook County; a history of the large lake-shore county that includes Chicago, Vol. I > Part 5
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These officials were sworn in the following day by John S.
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C. Hogan, a justice of the peace of Peoria county, and the three commissioners promptly adjourned to the magazine (powder room) of nearby Fort Dearborn where they conducted the first county board meeting. With the commissioners green at their new jobs, and having many things to attend to, the meeting lasted two days.
Among other business, the new board appointed William See (blacksmith and Methodist minister) as county clerk, Archibald Clybourn, treasurer, and recommended that the governor appoint Jededah Wooley as county surveyor. (The appointment of Wooley was made soon thereafter by the state legislature and approved by the governor.)
(No mention is made in any records of a local prosecuting attorney for that time, but there is a statement in the Senate Journal of 1834-35 that James Grant was "circuit attorney" for the Sixth Judicial Circuit which then was comprised of most of northern Illinois.)
At this first meeting the board also adopted a resolution to seek from the state 10 acres of land, including the site of the present Cook county court house, for public building pur- poses. (The grant later was made by the state canal commission, and the county sold a portion of the tract to raise money for the construction of public buildings.)
Three voting precincts also were established. One was Chi- cago precinct, which included the eastern portion of the county, another the Hickory Creek precinct that covered the south end of the county, including much of present Will county, and the third was the DuPage precinct for the western portion of the county.
Names also were selected of those who were to serve on petit and grand juries, and the county clerk was instructed to perform the duties of the board between regular monthly meet- ings when "urgent" matters arose, such as "issuing licenses and transacting other county business."
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On April 13, however, the board saw fit to call a special meeting at which it levied a tax of one-half of one per cent (50 cents on each $100 of assessed value) on "town lots, pleasure carriages, distilleries, all horses, mules, and neat cattle above the age of three years; on watches, with their appurtenances, and on all clocks."
Whether this was merely the county government's portion of the tax, or whether it constituted the entire tax is not clear, tho probably the latter was the case, the town of Chicago not yet having been incorporated. State revenues were not alluded to. It also will be seen that this tax covered real estate, possibly for the first time.
At this special meeting tavern licenses were issued to the settlement's Elijah Wentworth for $7, to Samuel Miller for $5, and the license was renewed which permitted Russel E. Heacock of Hardscrabble to keep a tavern in his residence. (This license originally had been issued on June 3, 1830 by Peoria county officials.)
The taverns of those days, it will be remembered, meant hostelries where could be had both board and lodging as well as spirited refreshments. They also included accommodations for the horses of the weary travelers.
Price Regulations Established
At the same time that it issued the tavern licenses, the board set maximum prices that tavern keepers could charge. This undoubtedly was the first time that the policy of regulating prices was invoked in Cook county. The commissioners thought it necessary, however, because with a shortage of sleeping, eat- ing, and drinking establishments, and with an ever-increasing number of settlers and travelers coming into the area, the tavern owners of that day were inclined to jack their prices to unreasonable limits.
The prices established by the board were in terms of cents and fractions of cents because at that time no dimes or nickels
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had yet been minted and the common small coin then in circu- lation was the "York shilling" or "nine pence," worth twelve and one-half cents.
There also appears to have been in use a coin worth but half a shilling, for some of the prices, such as that of a gill of whisky, are listed at six and one-fourth cents. It is doubtful, however, that many of the hard-drinking frontiersmen limited them- selves to six and one-fourth cents worth of whisky.
Following are the prices fixed by the board:
Each half pint of wine, rum, or brandy $ .183/4
Each pint do .371/2
Each half pint of gin
.183/4
Each pint do .311/4
Each gill of whisky
.061/4
Each half pint do
.121/2
Each pint do .183/4
For each breakfast and supper .25
For each dinner .371/2
For each horse fed
.25
Keeping horse one night .50
Lodging for each man per night .121/2
For cider or beer, one pint .061/4
For cider or beer, one quart .121/2
At this busy meeting the commissioners also licensed Robert A. Kinzie, Samuel Miller, and one B. Laughton as merchants, and James Kinzie as an auctioneer.
Plans for establishing a ferry that would carry traffic across the river also were formed and a scow purchased from Sam Miller for $65. The ferryman, the board decided, should post a $200 bond and pay the county treasurer $50 for the franchise. It also was decreed that no charges were to be made for ferrying local persons and their vehicles, and that outsiders were to be charged a "reasonable" fee.
At the next meeting, June 6, the board granted the ferry
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franchise to the lone applicant, Mark Beaubien.
This, therefore, became the first public transportation fran- chise issued in the then unincorporated area that in time was to become the great city. The simplicity of its issuance was in notable contrast to great franchise-agreement fights, involving millions of dollars, that have marked the city's transportation problems down to the present times.
Tired Of It All
The ferry system worked fairly well for a while, but in time Mr. Beaubien grew disgruntled and then weary. With the population expanding (it then had grown to 60) and with new faces appearing upon the scene, arguments naturally arose as to which ones should be charged. Then Mark began won- dering why he should exert himself at all for persons who did not pay. Nor were there any daylight hours in which he could enjoy his favorite sport-riding his own pony in horse races.
The result was that the gentleman began disappearing for hours at a time, leaving those who wished to cross the river to ferry for themselves.
Bridges would help solve the problem, the board decided, and in due time two flimsy structures were thrown up, one connecting the north bank of the river with the south bank, and the other spanning the south branch. The location of the first did not suit certain merchants, however, with the result that one dark night the bridge disappeared completely. No one could or would say who had destroyed it. Needless to say, the board rebuilt the bridge at a less vulnerable location.
At the June 6 meeting the board also took its first steps in laying out a county highway program. It decided the new county needed two roads, one of which was to run "from the town of Chicago to the house of B. Lawton, from thence to the house of James Walker, on the DuPage river, and so on to the west line of the county."
The other road, the commissioners decreed, was to run "from
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the town of Chicago, the nearest and best way to the house of Widow Brown, on Hycory creek." Two three-man commis- sions, one for each road, were named to work out the details.
Both roads eventually came into being. The DuPage road followed approximately the line of Madison street to Ogden avenue, then south-westerly to Riverside, then westerly to the DuPage river and beyond.
The Widow Brown road ran southward on what now is State street, thence south-westerly on the present Archer avenue. The stream known as Hickory creek flows westerly, emptying into the Des Plaines river near the present site of Joliet. Widow Brown's house was a "mile or two" up the creek, and her deceased husband reputedly was the first white man buried in what now is Will county.1
In 1830, a year before Cook county was formed, an incident occurred that is worth relating, both because it presents a picture of the amusement life of that day and because it in- volved a young man, Gholson Kercheval, who within less than a year was to be elected as a member of the first board of county commissioners. For this story we are indebted to Mrs. John H. Kinzie who recounted it in Wau-Bun, her recollections of early Chicago days, written some one hundred years ago.
The handful of residents at the new Hickory Creek settle- ment (near the present site of Joliet) were holding a dance and, wishing to promote friendship, invited the young single men and women from the neighboring settlement of Chicago to attend.
In the frontier settlements of those days, however, there always was a shortage of young unmarried ladies, so when time for departure came, the Chicago cavalcade was found to consist of but three young men-Kercheval, Medard Beaubien, and Robert Kinzie.
1. Maue, History of Will County, p. 166.
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Splendor Rides Forth
What they lacked in numbers, tho, they made up for in ele- gance and showmanship. For the occasion they changed from homespun raiment to clothes that had a "New York" look, polished their boots and saddles, and groomed their sleek riding horses, one of which was borrowed from an officer at Fort Dearborn.
The journey took them half a day, but it still was daylight when they reached their destination. Never had the maidens of Hickory Creek beheld such gallant splendor, and saying that they were overwhelmed is an understatement.
The three city slickers with the polished manners were frank to admit they had come down to Hickory Creek to "take the rag off the bush," or as one might say at a much later date, the "real cool cats" had come to the "jam session" to "rock 'n' roll."
Their execution of the pigeon-wing and double-shuffle while the fiddler played "hoe corn and dig potatoes" was something "out of this world," at least as far as the beautiful belles of the ball were concerned. The enraptured young ladies vied for dances with the dazzling visitors, totally ignoring their rustic sweethearts who knew only a few awkward stomps.
As the night of revelry wore on, the rural swains grew more and more sullen, and gradually, one after another, disappeared from the floor.
"What's the matter with your men down here?" chided the young Chicagoans. "Did they get tired and go home to bed?" The girls, if they heard at all, answered only with sweet smiles and begged for more dances.
Dawn was just streaking the sky as the ball ended and the three young visitors, still flushed with the unquestioned success of their night's conquest, went to the nearby stable to get their horses for the ride home. But lo, when they led their mounts out into the daylight, they hardly recognized the poor
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beasts. The once proud creatures had been shorn of their flow- ing manes, and their beautiful tails had been shaved bare.
Recovering from the initial shock, the young men's feelings turned to rage, but there was no one within sight with whom they could pick a fight. The early-morning songs of the birds in the trees fell upon unheeding ears.
What would the folks at home have to say? How would the army officer feel about his once-beautiful horse? Did the horses, themselves, realize how terrible they looked?
It was too much for young Kercheval, he who soon was to become a county commissioner. According to Mrs. Kinzie, the distraught young man "sat down on a log and cried outright."
Nor was their embarrassment alleviated upon their return to the Chicago settlement. There was no way for them to sneak home unnoticed. They were seen coming across the treeless flatlands, and the entire population of some 40 or 50 persons turned out to welcome the young cavaliers.
At first the townspeople were disbelieving of what they saw. Then followed the inevitable shouts of derisive laughter and mortifying jibes, with only here and there a few expres- sions of sympathy.
It is further recorded that the young men entertained no further desire to revisit Hickory Creek. In all fairness to Gholson Kercheval, however, it should be noted that with the regrowth of hair on his horse's tail, his resentment dissipated to the extent that a year later, as county commissioner, he voted to build a road to the "house of Widow Brown, on Hycory Creek."
The spirited young Kercheval also was to further prove his merit soon thereafter by organizing Chicago's first militia com- pany, of which he was captain, and later becoming postmaster and then Chicago's representative in the state legislature.
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By 1832 the sessions of the Circuit court had been moved out of the fort and were being held in the home of Sheriff James Kinzie. That year, also, the county board constructed at a cost of $12 the first "public building," if an "estray-pen" can be classified as such.
This enclosure, which the builder, Samuel Miller, agreed to erect for $20, was to confine, until their owners claimed them, all stray cattle, horses, and hogs that were roaming loose and destroying gardens. That the commissioners deducted $8 from the contract price was because the pen did not meet specifica- tions, possibly not being altogether hog-tight.
By 1833 the settlement's population had risen to 350, an increase of 200 over that of 1832, and with it came a demand for street improvements. In fact, with the early-spring thaw, the "bottom dropped out" of the streets, rendering some of them impassable quagmires. The settlement, it should be re- membered, was springing up on the site of Chicago's present "loop," where the land was low and marshy.
The responsibility for street repairs at that time rested solely with the county commissioners, the town of Chicago not yet having been incorporated.
Having no funds in their young treasury, the commissioners voted that spring to borrow $2,000 for one year at ten per cent interest. But much to their consternation, no one would lend the county the money.
Bankers Guessed Incorrectly
In the first place, there were as yet no local banks, and the directors of the established banks in such far-away places as the southern Illinois towns were of the expressed belief that the Chicago settlement never would amount to anything and was a poor money risk.
Early settlers of the area had little money to lend, and altho monied speculators from the East were beginning to descend upon the settlement, they were investing their capital in lots
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and reselling almost immediately to other speculators at double and treble prices. A mere ten per cent interest was no induce- ment whatever.
Unable to raise funds, and with the local citizenry growing more indignant and more vociferous by the day, the con- scientious, harrassed commissioners, according to some accounts, took what they thought was the only way out, resigning in June of 1833.1
Tho their "resigning" offers a neat climax to the dilemma in which the commissioners found themselves, for the sake of accuracy we are compelled to note our inability to verify this point.
There is the possibility, of course, that if they did "resign," they may have reconsidered their hasty action and returned to their offices. (As commissioners they received pay of $1.50 per day-and that only for days on which they attended meetings.)
A compilation of early office holders by Historian Andreas indicates that altho our previously-mentioned young hero, Gholson Kercheval, resigned in July of 1831, some four months after being elected, no commissioners are shown to have resigned during 1833 when the roads were so bad.
(By contrast with those times, Cook county's credit at pres- ent is unexcelled in municipal finance circles. The county board readily can and does sell millions of dollars worth of public-approved bonds, some of which in recent years have borne interest as low as two per cent.)
Settlers about Chicago and those who were pushing on to the fertile lands in the northwestern part of the young state of Illinois during the late 1820s and early 1830s lived in almost continuous fear that the Indians who had been crowded from the area would return to annihilate the whites.
The Indians would have, too, had they been stronger. In
1. Chamberlin, Chicago and Its Suburbs, 1874, p. 39.
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retrospect, however, it can be seen that they already realized the hopelessness of the situation and were submitting, tho grudgingly, to the unrelenting forces of civilization. There are strong points in history which indicate that even the small Black Hawk War might have been avoided had there been more diplomacy and less aggressiveness on the part of "down- state" volunteer militiamen, mostly adventurous youngsters, who were "just itchin'" to do some Indian fighting.
The Winnebago Scare
The "Winnebago scare" that occurred in 1827, however, was very real to the Chicago settlers, a few of whom were survivors of the Fort Dearborn massacre of 1812.
Several hundred Potawatomie Indians, members of Chief Big Foot's band from the Lake Geneva ( Wisconsin) area, were encamped about Fort Dearborn which then was ungarrisoned. They had come to the fort at the behest of the United States government to collect their annual monetary payments as provided in previous treaty agreements.
After the payments had been made that day, the settlers assumed that the Indians would start homeward, at once, but instead, the tribesmen stayed overnight, possibly to spend a large portion of their funds for whisky and simple articles that were to be had at the trading post.
To worsen their fears, however, an electrical storm arose that evening, one bolt of lightning setting fire to and destroy- ing the unoccupied soldier barracks in which the settlers were holding a dance. The blaze also destroyed a storehouse and a portion of the guard house before the volunteer firemen- men, women, and children-could extinguish it with water carried from the river in buckets.
During the fire the Potawatomies, instead of helping fight the blaze, stood by and grunted, probably with a degree of deep satisfaction.
Altho the Indians departed the next day, this seeming hos-
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tility had the settlers on nervous edge, so that a week later, when Gov. Lewis Cass of Michigan arrived with news of Indian outbreak (the Winnebago War) around Prairie du Chien, in what now is southwestern Wisconsin, they felt certain that the Chicago settlement was due for another annihilating attack.
Accordingly, one of the settlers, Gurdon S. Hubbard, was dispatched on horseback to the nearest sizable settlement, Dan- ville, 125 miles to the south, for help. Riding day and night across country, swimming his horse across rivers, Hubbard reached Danville where he recruited from among townsmen and farmers fifty mounted volunteers to come to the defense of Chicago. Armed with squirrel rifles-there weren't enough to go around-and knives, the calvacade followed Hubbard back to Chicago. Hubbard had been away but seven days in accomplishing his mission.
The Indian attack never materialized, however, and after word was received that things had quieted down in the Indian country to the northwest, the Danville volunteers returned home, but not before being feted at a farewell party, given in appreciation by the Chicago settlers. (Such a rousing time was had that one religious zealot reputedly seized upon the occasion to exhort the rough-and-ready visitors in the ways of a more-religious life.)
The following year (1828) the War Department sent troops who re-occupied the fort and remained in peaceful occupation for some three years. They were removed in May of 1831, however, and a year later another scare developed.
In April of 1832 a small number from the Saux (Sac) and Fox tribes, which had been crowded out of the state by the whites, returned peacefully to their homelands in northwestern Illinois, thereby precipitating the Black Hawk War. The scat- tered settlers thruout the northern part of the state flocked to Fort Dearborn and Peoria for protection, and volunteer forces
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kept guard.
General Scott Arrives
Calls for help this time brought militiamen from Michigan, and two companies of the regular army, stationed at Fort Niagara. They arrived at Fort Dearborn in June, and before the end of the month, a thousand troops, under the command of General Winfield S. Scott, arrived upon the scene. Gen. Scott's forces had been sent from Fort Monroe, Va., and came by water, using the new Erie canal and the Great Lakes route. Their purpose was not to just protect the Chicago settlement, but to travel to the scene of the latest uprisings and wipe out the last vestiges of Indian opposition.
As they were coming across the Great Lakes by boat, cholera broke out among Gen. Scott's troops. Several died and were buried at sea. Morever, the epidemic continued unabated after they landed at Fort Dearborn and even spread among some of the settlers. Gen. Scott lost, altogether, more than 100 men, and scores of others who contracted the disease were incapaci- tated for weeks.
In the Chicago settlement, which now was the seat of the 18-months-old Cook county, Gen. Scott's forces camped at Wolf's Point, the area on the west bank of the Chicago river where the river branched both north and south. As the cholera victims died they were wrapped in their own blankets and buried in the nearby sands.
Army Trail Established
Gen. Scott's army broke camp on July 20 for a halting march to the scene of the Indian outbreak. Upon reaching the Des Plaines river, at the present site of Riverside, the sickened forces established camp for a 10-day stay. Leaving word that they were to proceed, when able, Gen. Scott, with 12 men and two supply wagons, went on ahead.
The route that the main body of the army followed is recounted here because it soon was to become an important
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road leading west and north from Chicago, a portion of which, known as the Army Trail, still is in use.
From the Des Plaines river encampment, the army, includ- ing 50 horse-drawn wagons heavily laden with supplies and sick soldiers, marched northward to what now is Maywood, then westerly on an Indian trail (present-day Lake street) to what now is Addison in DuPage county where it camped the first night.
From Addison the army marched westerly (present-day Army Trail) to "Gilbert's Grove" on the DuPage river, then northwesterly to the Fox River, crossing at a point three miles below what now is Elgin, then thru the "Pigeon Woods" to what now is Belvidere, then to an old Indian village, near the present site of Beloit, Wis.
With the cholera epidemic still raging, the army camped for a week at the Beloit site and there learned of the final battle of the Black Hawk War which had been fought on Aug. 2 near the mouth of the Bad Axe river in what now is Vernon county, Wis.
The heavy wagons and trampling feet of the horses and marching men not only had widened the Indian trail, but wore in the sod a roadway of sufficient depth that from thence- forth it became the road that most settlers would follow into the new territory to the northwest of Chicago.
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CHAPTER 5
CHE-CAU-GOU, MEANING "GREAT"
B ECAUSE the establishing of Chicago officially as first a town and then a city has been dwelt upon at length in numerous histories of the city, itself, only the barest details of this will be recounted here in outlining the county's growth.
The first plat of Chicago, completed Aug. 4, 1830, was made by James Thompson at the direction of the canal com- mission. As laid out, the town occupied approximately one- third square mile of land, including river. Its street boundaries were State on the east, Madison on the south, Desplaines on the west, and Kinzie on the north.
It was not until Aug. 10, 1833, one and one-half years after Cook county was created, that the frontier settlement of Chicago , was incorporated as a town. During that year its population jumped from approximately 150 to some 1,800. (It should be remembered that with the final defeat of Black Hawk in 1832, settlers and, more particularly, land speculators no longer feared to come to Chicago.)
Even before its incorporation as a town the settlement about Fort Dearborn was being called Chicago.
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"Chicagou," a powerful chief of the Illinois Indians, as visualized 150 years later by sculptor Edward Kemeys (1843-1907). Executed in bronze in 1895, the plaque hangs in lobby of Marquette building, 140 S. Dearborn st., Chicago. Files of Chicago Historical Society say the chief "visited France in 1725, where he was presented with a splendid snuff box by the Duchesse of Orleans at Versailles."
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No one probably ever can say with certainty the original meaning of the word, Chicago. The name is a shortened form of an Indian word, but there has been no agreement even as to which Indian word.
The Indians, having no written language, naturally could not spell out their words, so early whites-mostly fur traders, explorers, missionaries and voyagers-tried to spell the word the way it sounded. But the various tribes had different dialects and pronunciations, and even different meanings for words that sounded something like Chicago.
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