USA > Illinois > Livingston County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume I Pt 1 > Part 62
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JOHNSON COUNTY, lies in the southern por- tion of the State, and is one of the smallest counties, having an area of only 340 square miles, and a population (1900) of 15,667-named for Col.
Richard M. Johnson, Its organization dates back to 1812. A dividing ridge (forming a sort of water shed) extends from cast to west, the waters of the Cache and Bay Rivers running south, and those of the Big Muddy and Saline toward the north. A minor coal seam of variable thickness (perhaps a spur from the regular coal- measures) crops out here and there. Sandstone and limestone are abundant, and, under cliffs along the bluffs, saltpeter nas been obtained m small quantities. Weak copperas springs are numerous. The soil is rich, the principal crops being wheat, corn and tobacco. Cotton is raised for home consumption and fruit-culture receives some attention. Vieuna is the county-seat, with a population, in 1890, of 828.
JOHNSTON, Noah, pioneer and banker, was born in Hardy County, Va., Dec. 20, 1799, and, at the age of 12 years, emigrated with his father to Woodford County, Ky. In 1821 he removed to Indiana, and, a few years later, to Jefferson County, Ill., where he began farming. Ho sub- sequently engaged in merchandising, but proving unfortunate, turned his attention to politics, serving first as County Commissioner and then as County Clerk. In 1838 he was elected to the State Senate for the counties of Hamilton and Jefferson, serving four years; was Enrolling and Engrossing Clerk of the Senate during the session of 18-14-45, and, in 1816, elected Representative in the Fifteenth General Assembly. The following year he was made Paymaster in the United States Army, serving through the Mexican War; in 1852 served with Abraham Lincoln and Judge Hugh T. Dickey of Chicago, on a Commission appointed to investigate claims against the State for the construction of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, and, in 1854, was appointed Clerk of the Supreme Court for the Third Division, being elected to the same position in 1861. Other posi- tions held by him included those of Deputy United States Marshal under the administration of Presi- dent Polk, Commissioner to superintend the con- struction of the Supreme Court Building at Mount Vernon, and Postmaster of that city. Hle was also elected Representative again in 1866. The later years of his life were spent as President of the Mount Vernon National Bank. Died, No- vember, 1891, in his 921 year.
JOLIET, the county-seat of Will County, situ- ated in the Des Plaines River Valley, 36 miles southwest of Chicago, on the Illinois & Michigan Canal, and the intersecting point of five lines of railway. A good quality of calcareous building stone underlies the entire region, and is exten-
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ILLINOIS STATE PENITENTIARY, JOLIET.
HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
sively quarried. Gravel, sand, and clay are also easily obtained in considerable quantities. Within twenty miles are productive coal mines. The Northern Illinois Penitentiary and a female penal institute stand just outside the city limits on the north. Joliet is an important manufac- turing center, the census of 1900 crediting the city with 453 establishments, having $15, 152, 136 capital, employing 6,523 hanna, paying 38 .... wages and $17.891,836 for raw material, turning out an annual product valued at $97,705,101 The leading industries are the manufacture of foundry and machine-shop products, engines, agricultural implements, pig iron. Bessemer steel, steel bridges, rods, tin cans, wallpaper, matches, beer, saidles, paint, furniture, pianos, and stoves, besides quarrying and stone cutting. The Chi- cago Drainage Canal supplies valuable water. power. The city has many handsome public buildings and private residences, among the former being four high schools, Government postoffice building, two public libraries, and two public hospitals. It also has two public and two school parks. Population (1880), 11,657; (1800), 23,251. (including suburbs), 34,473; (1900), 29,853.
JOLIET, AURORA & NORTHERN RAIL- WAY. (See Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ruiliray.)
JOLIET, Lonis, a French explorer, born at Quebec, Canada, Sept. 21, 1645, educated at the Jesuits' College, and early engaged in the fur- trade. In 1669 he was sent to investigate the copper mines on Lake Superior, but his most important service began in 1613, when Frontenac commissioned him to explore. Starting from the missionary station of St. Ignace, with Father Marquette, he went up the Fox River within the present State of Wisconsin and down the Wis- consin to the Mississippi, which he descended as far as the month of the Arkansas. Ile was the first to discover that the Mississippi flows to the Gulf rather than to the Pacific. He returned to Green Bay via the Illinois River, and (as believed) the sites of the present cities of Joliet and Chicago. Although later appointed royal hy drographer and given the island of Anticosti, he never revisited the Mississippi. Some historians assert that this was largely due to the influential jeal- ousy of La Salle. Died, in Canada, in May, 1700.
JOLIET & BLUE ISLAND RAILWAY, con- stituting a part of and operated by the Calumet & Blue Island-a belt line, 21 miles in lengthi, of standard gange and laid with 60-1b. steel rails. The company provides terminal facilities at Joliet, although originally projected to merely run from that city to a connection with the Calumet &
Blue Island Railway. The capital stock author- ized and paid in is $100,000. The company's general offices are in Chicago.
JOLIET & NORTHERN INDIANA RAIL- ROAD, a road running from Lake, Ind., to Joliet, Ill., 45 miles (of which 99 miles are in Illinois), and leased in perpetuity, from Sept. 7, 1S51 (the date of completion), to the Michigan Central Rail-
Its capital stock is $300,000, and its funded echt, $$0,000. Other forms of indebtedness sweli the total amount of capital invested (1895) to $1,- 143,201. Total earnings and income in Illinois in 1894, $$9,017; total expenditures, $62,370. (See Michigan Central Railroad.)
JONES, Alfred M., politician and legislator, was born in New Hampshire, Feb. 5, 1837, brought to Mell nry County, Il., at 10 years of age, and, at 16, bagan life in the pineries and engaged in rafting on the Mississippi. Then, after two winters in school at Rockford, and a short season in teaching, he spent a year in the book and jewelry business at Warren, Jo Daviess County. The following year (1858) he made a trip to Pike's Peak, but meeting disappointment in his expec- tations in regard to mining, returned almost immediately. The next few years were spent in various occupations, including law and real estate business, until 1872, when he was elected to the Twenty-eighth General Assembly, and re-elected two years later. Other positions succcesively held by him were those of Commis- sioner of the Joliet Penitentiary, Collector of Internal Revenue for the Sterling District, and United States Marshal for the Northern District of Illinois. He was, for fourteen years, a member of the Republican State Central Committee, dur- ing twelve years of that period being its chair- man. Since 1885, Mr. Jones has been inanager of the Bethesda Mineral Springs at Waukesha, Wis., but has found timo to make his mark in Wisconsin politics also.
JONES, John Rice, tirst English lawyer in Illi- nois, was born in Wales, Feb. 11, 1759; educated at Oxford in medicine and law, and, after prac- ticing the latter in London for a short time, came to America in 1781, spending two years in Phila- delphia, where ho made the acquaintance of Dr. Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin; in 1786, having reached the Falls of the Ohio, he joined Col. George Rogers Clark's expedition against the Indians on tho Wabash. This having partially failed through the discontent and desertion of the troops, he remained at Vincennes four years, part of the time as Commissary-
HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
General of the garrison there. In 1790 he went to Kaskaskia, but eleven years later returned to Vin- cennes, being commissioned the same year by Gov. William Henry Harrison, Attorney-General of Indiana Territory, and, in 1805, becoming a member of the first Legislative Council. He was Secretary of the convention at Vincennes, in December, 1502, which memorialized Congress to suspend, for ten years, the article is the Only. nance of 1787 forbidding slavery in the Northwest Territory. In 1808 he removed a second time to Kaskaskia, remaining two years, when he located within the present limits of the State of Missouri (then the Territory of Louisiana), residing suc- cessively at St. Genevieve, St. Louis and Potosi, at the latter place acquiring large interests in mineral lands. He became prominent in Mis- souri politics, served as a member of the Conven- tion which framed the first State Constitution, was a prominent candidate for United States Senator before the first Legislature, and finally elected by the same a Justice of the Supreme Court. dying in office at St. Louis, Feb. 1, 1824. He appears to have enjoyed an extensive practice among the early residents, as shown by the fact that, the year of his return to Kaskaskia, he paid taxes on more than 16,000 acres of land in Monroe County, to say nothing of his possessions about Vincennes and his subsequent acquisitions in Missouri. He also prepared the first revision of laws for Indiana Territory when Illinois com- posed a part of it .- Rice (Jones), son of the pre- ceding by a first marriage, was born in Wales, Sept. 28, 1781; came to America with his par- ents, and was educated at Transylvania University and the University of Pennsylvania, taking a medical degree at the latter, but later studying law at Litchfield, Conn., and locating at Kaskas- kia in 1806. Described as a young man of brilliant talents, he took a prominent part in politics and, at a special election held in September, 1808, was elected to the Indiana Territorial Legislature, by the party known as "Divisionists"-i. e., in favor of the division of the Territory-which proved successful in the organization of Illinois Territory the following year. Bitterness engendered in this contest led to a challenge from Shadrach Bond (afterwards first Governor of the State), which Jones accepted; but the affair was ami- cably adjusted on the field without an exchange of shots. One Dr. James Dunlap, who had been Bond's second, expressed dissatisfaction with the settlement; a bitter factional fight was main- tained between the friends of the respective parties, ending in the assassination of Jones, who
was shot by Dunlap on the street in Kaskaskia. Dec. 7, 1808-Jones dying in a few minutes, while Dunlap fled, ending his days in Texas .- - Gen. John Rice (Jones), Jr., another son, Was born at Kaskaskia, Jan. 8, 1792, served under Capt. Henry Dodge in the War of 1812, and, in 1831, went to Texas, where he bore a con. picuous part in securing the independence of that State .... Mexico, dying there in 1815-the year of its annexation to the United States. - George Wallace (Jones), fourth son of John Rico Jones (Ist), was born at Vincennes, Indiana Territory, April 12, 1801; graduated at Transylvania Uni- versity, in 1825; served as Clerk of the United States District Court in Missouri in 1826, and as Aid to Gen. Dodge in the Black Ilawk War; in 1834 was elected Delegate in Congress from Michigan Territory (then including the present States of Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa), later serving two ternis as Delegate from Iowa Terri- tory, and, on its admission as a State, being elected one of the first United States Senators and re- elected in 1852; in 1859, was appointed by Presi- dent Buchanan Minister to Bogota, Colombia, but recalled in 1861 on account of a letter to Jefferson Davis expressing sympathy with the cause of the South, and was imprisoned for two months in Fort Lafayette. In 1838 he was the soc- ond of Senator Cilley in the famous Cilley-Graves duel near Washington, which resulted in the death of the former. After his retirement from office, General Jones' residence was at Dubuque, Iowa, where he died, July 22, 1896, in the 93d year of his age.
JONES, Michao', early politician, was a Penn- sylvanian by birth, who came to Illinois in Terri- torial days, and, as early as 1809, was Register of the Land Office at Kaskaskia; afterwards removed to Shawneetown and represented Gallatin County as a Delegate to the Constitu- tional Convention of 1818 and as Senator in the first four General Assemblies, and also as Repre- sentative in the Eighth. Ile was a candidate for United States Senator in 1819, but was defeated by Governor Edwards, and was a Presidential Elector in 1820. He is represented to have been a man of considerable ability but of bitter passions, a supporter of the scheme for a pro-slavery con- stitution and a bitter opponent of Governor Edwards.
JONES, J. Russell, capitalist, was born at Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio, Feb. 17, 1823; after spending two years as clerk in a store in his native town, came to Chicago in 1838; spent the next two years at Rockton, when he acceptod a
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