Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume II, Part 25

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913; Cunningham, Joseph O. (Joseph Oscar), 1830-1917
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 632

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(1) Henry Brown, in the preface to his "History of Illinois" (1844), says: "Many have supposed that a state so young can furnish nothing of interest deserving the historian. They seem, however, not to consider that Illinois was set- tled at an early day-that the Spaniards once claimed-that the French once occupied-that the English once conquered-and that the Americans afterwards held 'this proud domain' by right of conquest: that the Gaul, the Saxon and the savage-the Protestant, the Jesuit and the Pagan-for more than a century here strug- gled for the mastery. They have also forgot- ten, or never knew, that John Law and his as- sociates in the "Mississippi Scheme" once claimed the whole territory as theirs-that Fort Chartres was built by them at an expense of several millions, and that a portion of its soil is now held under titles derived from that 'eminent speculator'."

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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.

wood, a rude stockade, as a defense against threatened attacks from the Spaniards of New Mexico, its service was thought to be of sufficient importance to justify its replace- ment in 1751 by a stone structure of great strength, as fortresses were then viewed. It is said that the latter was built of stone, quar- ried from a bluff a few miles away, at a cost of 1,000,000 French crowns, the equivalent of $1,200,000.

The fortress exceeded in strength any then upon the American continent, and compared favorably with any contemporaneous structure of a military character in the world. Within its walls there were assembled, during the period of its existence, many of the bravest soldiers of France, and from its gates there went forth organized armies against ene- mies to the north, to the south and to the east, while its guns were ever pointed to the west for the Spanish foes. It yielded the protection of France to the missionaries and the traders of that nation from the lakes to the gulf, and extended its invitation to the immi- grants in the remotest parts of the earth, and from its flag-staff, on the 10th day of October, 1765, descended the last French flag that floated in American air, in token of the sovereignty of that nation.(1) It was near its walls that Pon- tiac, the renowned Indian chieftan, was treach- erously slain.

The lowering of the colors of France from the walls of Fort Chartres, while it terminated the dominion of France upon the North Amer- ican continent, set on foot other changes which were of the most far-reaching character. It supplanted the dominion of one religion or church, which at once ruled in civil as well as in religious matters, by another faith; it ter-

(1)"On the meadows of the Mississippi, in the Illinois country, stood Fort Chartres, a much stronger work, and one of the chief links of the chain that connected Quebec with New Or- leans. Its four stone bastions were impregnable to musketry; and, here in the depths of the wild- erness, there was no fear that cannon would be brought against it, it was the center and cita- del of a curious little forest settlement, the only vestige of civilization through all this region."-Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe," page 44.

Captain Philip Pittman, who visited this for- tress at its best, said of it that it was the "most convenient and best built fort in North America."-Moses' "History of Illinois," pages 114, 116.

See also, as to the character and strength of Fort Chartres, "Chapters from Illinois His- tory," by Edward G. Mason, page 215.

minated the rule of the code of Justinian, and in its place set up the Common Law of Eng- land; it put an end to the coming of the men of the Latin race, and in their place intro- duced the Anglo-Saxon, with his religion and his laws and customs.

Finally, after such a history, lasting fifty years, in the hands of the English conquerors, it was compelled to capitulate to the ele- ments, as personified by the Great River, too near whose treacherous banks the inexperi- enced engineer had planted its ramparts. It surrendered thus to the first and only enemy bold enough to lay its siege and execute its plans of approach by regular passages and mines. It fell-into the Mississippi River.

The facts connected with the earliest peo- pling of the State with men of the white race, are not exceeded in thrilling interest by those connected with the settlement of any other section of the Republic. In point of priority of time, its settlement antedates the settle- ment of some of the eastern or seaboard States, as well as of all its fellows of the valley of the Mississippi. Its early white settlers came, not to intrude upon the posses- sion or rights of the occupants then claiming ownership, or to expel them from their lands; for lands they did not want, but souls. It was not to establish an earthly kingdom of any prince that these people came, but to ex- tend the knowledge and dominion of the Re- deemer of mankind. It may be said to their credit, that before John Eliot and his Protes- tant co-workers had extended their sphere of influence ten miles from Boston into the In- dian country, these Catholic fathers had set up the altars of their faith around the upper great lakes and along the Illinois and Missis- sippi rivers. With a deathless desire for the salvation of the aborigines, they led the way of the voyager and the traders, and finally of the civilization of the present. (1) They

(1) "There is no more romantic nage in Amer- ican history than that which records the efforts of the early French missionaries and explorers to plant the Lily and the Cross, emblems of France and of Christianity, in the west. They dotted the continent from Quebec along the banks of the River St. Lawrence to the great lakes, and by Detroit, Mackinac, Kaskaskia and St. Louis, to the Gulf of Mexico, with their mis- sionary stations and settlements. In these set- tlements prevailed an innocent gaiety, a purity of manners, and an almost Acadian simplicity, such as Longellow has scarcely exaggerated in Evangeline." -- Isaac N. Arnold's Address.

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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.

sought out the places of vantage and there set up their altars. Towns and cities grew up upon the same or nearby ground, and the cities of Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis, in and near our own State, prove the keen fore- sight of these men in a business sense. (1)

To these facts in our own history and to others equally prominent in the history of the Republic, occurring in Illinois, attention is invited and urged upon all Illinoisans, as vindicating the assumptions here made.

From this foundation or starting point we may well hope to launch the story of one - of the one hundred and two county units which now make up "The Illinois Country,"(2)-now the State of Illinois-in such a manner as to invite and secure the interest of its peo- ple, and to put in a permanent and conven- ient form the fact here gathered.

"Not without thy wondrous, story, Illinois, Illinois,

Can be writ the Nation's glory, Illinois, Illi- nois."

"CHAPTER II.

A PERIOD OF TRANSITION.

GOVERNMENTS HOLDING DOMINION OVER ILLINOIS TERRITORY - DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATIONS BY MARQUETTE AND JOLIET-INDIAN OCCUPATION UNCERTAIN LAND CLAIMS OF THE IROQUOIS- ILLINOIS INDIANS AND THEIR DESTRUCTION- COMING OF THE FRENCH-CATHOLIC MISSIONA- RIES-ILLINOIS AS A PART OF LOUISIANA, CAN- ADA, VIRGINIA AND THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.

Of curious historical interest, if for no other and greater practical use, we give here a brief statement of the variety of governments which, during the three and a half centuries

(1)"It is remarkable that the discoveries of the American Central West were either French or American. For the work of exploring this hinterland, England scarcely furnished a man; she can write no names opposite those of Brule, Cartier, Champlain, Du Lut, Hennepin, Joliet. Marquette and La Salle. Nearly all that Eng- land knew of the interior she learned from the French."-"Historic Highways of America," by The Arthur H. Clark Company, Vol. 6, page 44. (2)"Until long after the expulsion of the French, who, in official correspondence and otherwise, always spoke of this region as "The Illinois," or as "The Illinois Country." this expression was made use of when reference was had to the territory."-Birkbeck's "Notes."

elapsing since white men first saw and occu- pied, have held jurisdiction and authority over Illinois territory.

When first discovered and in part explored by Marquette and Joliet, in 1673, it was under the dominion of those savage pagans, the American Indians, of various tribes, chiefly of those known as the Illini, in the central and southern parts, and by the Miamis, Pottawato- mies and Winnebagoes in the north and around the lake. The boundaries of Indian dominion over territory, where not settled and agreed upon and marked by some natural boundary, as a river or lake, were always un- certain and the subject of destructive wars among the aborigines. So here, where the rightful boundary between the northern and the southern native races was located, had for ages been a subject of dispute and war between them, while the Iroquois of the east denied the rights of all in any territory and made destructive war alike upon all.

It is told in histories of the times that the tribes occupying the central and southern parts of the Illinois country, known as the Illinois, were the subjects of the annual at- tacks of the Iroquois Indians of Central New York and the lake regions, and that they were finally dispersed and almost destroyed by neighboring tribes, after a long siege at their last stand, at Starved Rock. The subject of this Indian war and the result as effecting the destruction of the Illinois tribes, has been the topic of many a pathetic story in prose and song, and forms an interesting chapter in Illi- rois history.

One has written as follows:

"Nine times the sun had risen and set Upon that little fading band; Nine weary days they sat and gazed Out on their own beloved land; And from the warrior's weary eyes, Slow faded forest, plain and skies; 'Neath famine sank they one by one, Till there their chieftain stood alone.

The valleys of the Illinois Must now by hostile feet be pressed; Their waters bear the light canoe Of strangers on their quiet breast; The wooded depths will not prolong In echo now their wonted song,

635

HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.

For faded soon will be each trace Of Illinois' ill-fated race."(1)

While these people held a quasi posses- sion, having few, if any, permanent abiding places, their possession was only that of wan- derers and wayfarers, always in dispute by tribes of superior strength, who, at their pleasure drove the claimants before them' from place to place, often beyond the Missis- sippi to the territory of other nations.

So, all over the State, and in adjoining States, there exist undeniable evidences of a prior occupation of the same territory by an- other and, perhaps, a superior people.

The tenure of these occupants and the use to which the great natural wealth of their country was put, must reconcile us and all future occupants to the imputed injustice of the displacement of the savage races by the stronger white race.

About January, 1680, the French, under La Salle, formally took possession of the territory along the Illinois River and established Fort Creve Coeur at a point now in Tazewell Coun- ty, opposite the lower part of the city of Peo- ria, although as a nation the French claimed the whole territory to the South Sea, or Pa- cific Ocean, by virtue of the discovery and occupation of the country along the St. Law- rence River and the great lakes. This occu- pation lasted but one winter, and was followed by the establishment of a post upon what is known as Starved Rock below Ottawa, by Henry de Tonti, a follower of La Salle.

In the wake of these semi-military enter- prises, and as a part of them, came a band of priests of the order of St. Francis, who are said to have established missions along the Illinois River for the conversion to Christianity of the pagan inhabitants. One of those mis- sions was called the Kaskaskias, located at the Rock and, in time, owing to the fortunes of the wars in which the local tribes engaged, which drove them south and away from their enemies, this mission was removed down the Mississippi to a point' near the mouth of a river which takes its rise in what is now Champaign County. The name of the mission is supposed to have given the geographical name to the river Kaskaskia, though it is bet-

ter known along its course as the "Okaw."(1)

The coming of these foreigners among the Indians was peaceable and acceptable. Won by the devotion and eloquence of the Franciscan and Jesuit Fathers, the Indians had permitted France to erect forts on the lakes and rivers and in the interior without objection. Nay, more; they welcomed the strangers because they brought them arms, instructed them in the use of them in war and the chase, and in the useful arts of peace, receiving in barter their skins and furs.

While the territory was in this course of occupation, its government was under French officers from Canada, and it was considered a part of that province.

Following these events a few years came the organization of the principality of Louisiana, with its more accessible seaport of New Or- leans, by the French monarch, of which the Illinois country was made a part by imperial decree. The grants of lands made while thus governed, the customs in vogue among the people then, and some of the laws of that day are still recognized and enforced by our courts.

In this manner came the territory of the Illinois, then quite undefined, to be part of the empire of France, though its possession and right was all the time menaced by the Spanish forces in possession of the contigu- ous territories of Mexico. (2)

(1)"Okau (Au Kas, Fr.), a name frequently given to the Kaskaskia River.

"It appears to have been originally a contrac- tion, using the first syllable for the whole name, and prefixing, the article-a practice common among the early settlers and explorers of Illi- nois."-Peck's "Gazetter of Illinois" (1837) page 263

"The Okaw .- For the benefit of those who are not acquainted with the history of how the rag- ing Kaskaskia River derived the alias name of Okaw, we submit the following: The name Kas- kaskia was never pronounced in full by the ear- ly French inhabitants of the American Bottom. They only employed the first syllable to desig- nate it; and this, "Kas," by the French rule of orthography or phonetics, became "Kah." In conversation they invariably alluded to the old town as "aukas, pronounced "oukah;" which was anglicized by the pioneers of English stock from Virginia and Kentucky to "Okaw;" and the Kaskaskia River is now generally known locallv by this perversion of the French abbreviation." -Old Newspaper.

(2)"When France divided its domain in North America, Illinois fell partly in Canada, as well as in Louisiana, and later all of it was attached to the latter province. The boundary between Canada and Louisiana seems to have been either not well defined or changed several times. For we find that the Governors-General. the one res- ident at Quebec and the other on Biloxi Bay or

(1) Comly Jessup.

636

HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.

The treaty of peace entered into at Paris in 1763, not only terminated the long war be- tween England and France, but transferred the sovereignty of Canada and so much of the Louisiana territory as lay east of the Missis- sippi River and north of the thirty-first par- allel of latitude north from the equator, to England. By an act of Parliament of the year 1774, the Illinois country, with the Ohio River as its southern and the Mississippi as its west- ern boundary, was again attached to Canada, under the authority of which it remained until the conquest by Virginia under the ad- venturous George Rogers Clark and his hand- ful of Virginians, who had tramped over mountains and floated down rivers a thousand miles, to accomplish this result, as heretofore related.

Virginia accepted this new trust and, by legislative enactment, organized the County of Illinois and sent its officers to set up and maintain the new government, in which con- dition it continued until, by deed of convey- ance of 1784, the State of Virginia surren- dered the sovereignty of all territory nortli- west of the Ohio River to the United States.

The United States, in turn, organized the Northwest Territory, the Territory of Indiana and the Territory of Illinois, under its author- ity, where the sovereignty remained until in 1818, the "Country of the Illinois," by Federal authority became a sovereign State, under the

the later capital, at New Orleans, or their re'- spective commandants and licensed traders for the border posts, were in frequent disputes as to where the line was to justify charges of tres- pass by the one on the rights of the other.

"It is known that, since 1724, Vincennes, In- diana, under this or more ancient names, was in Louisiana, while from like official manuscripts it is clear that Post Ouiatenon, higher up the Wabash on the west side, a few miles below Lafayette, was officered and its trade farmed out from Canada. And it is a more specifically known fact that in 1755, when Peter Rigaud, Marquis of Vaudruil-Cavignal, became Governor of Canada, the line dividing it from Louisiana in the Illinois country began at the mouth of the Vermilion River, thence up it and down the Vermilion of the Illinois to the Post of Le Rocher (Starved Rock) on the river of the Peo- rias (Illinois), and thence to the peninsula formed at the confluence of Rock River and the Mississippi." (Rock Island)-H. W. Beck- with, in the "Chicago Tribune."

The line up the Vermilion and down the Ver- milion of the Illinois, must have been defined to have followed either the Middle Fork or the Salt Fork, as the most direct and natural line; and, in either case, the dividing line which separated the two provinces of the French Empire in America, divided the terri- tory of Champaign County, placing one part in Canada and the other in Louisiana.

name given it by its early French explorers, derived, as is believed, from the name of the pagans who occupied it when white men first saw its fair landscapes.

From this brief recital of facts in the pedi- gree of Illinois, it will be seen that since it emerged from the control of the red man, it has, in turn, formed a part of the empires of France and Great Britain, with Spain as a claimant, while again and now, under its motto, "State Sovereignty and National Union," it has, for a century and a quarter, as Territory and State, well and honorably ful- filled its destiny as a unit of the Great Re- public.(1) Under Great Britain it was, by an act of Parliament, after the treaty of 1763, made a part of Canada.

CHAPTER III.

UNITED STATES LAND SURVEYS.

TREATY OF 1819- COMING OF THE UNITED STATES SURVEYORS IN 1812 AND 1822-THEIR WORK- RECORDS OF THE COUNTY SHOWING SURVEYS.

The territory now forming the County of Champaign, with all the counties contiguous thereto for many miles each way, was, from the first accounts of it, held and occupied by the Kickapoo Indians, known as the "Kicka- poo Indian tribe of the Vermilion," when the country first came under the observation of the whites. It so. continued until the year 1819, when, by a treaty entered into at Ed- wardsville, Ill., on the thirtieth day of July, between the United States and the Kickapoo Indian tribe, represented by its chiefs, the latter ceded all the territory bounded as fol- lows: Beginning at the northwest corner of the Vincennes tract (about twenty miles northwest of Vincennes, Ind.); thence north- easterly to the dividing line between the States

(1)"We do not realize at the present time that the early inhabitants of what is now Illinois had the Spaniard for a neighbor; nor that the terri- tory of ten sovereign States of our Union, lying beyond the Mississippi, was once as hopelessly doomed to civil and ecclesiastical tyranny as anv province of Old Spain. And His Most Catholic Majesty not only owned all the country west of what some early voyagers finally called "The Eternal River." but soon laid claim to the ex- clusive control of its waters, and would not suffer the Mississippi to go unvexed to the sea." -"Chapters from Illinois History," by Edward G. Mason, page 293.

637

HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.

of Illinois and Indiana; thence along said line to the Kankakee River; thence with said river to the Illinois River; thence down the latter to the mouth; thence with a direct line to the northwest corner of the Vincennes tract, the place of beginning.(1) The language of this treaty recites that, "said Kickapoo tribe claims a large portion by descent from their ances- tors, and the balance by conquest from the Illinois nation and undisputed possession for more than half a century."

This treaty was confirmed and re-declared a month later between the same parties in a treaty held at Vincennes. Upon the making of these treaties the Kickapoos at once de- parted to their new home beyond the Missis- sippi, and this, according to the records of those times, ended the Indian occupation of this country, as well as ended the claims of any Indians to the soil, except the right claimed by certain Pottawatomies and others who, for many years, made their annual visits to this country during their hunting expedi- tions.

The question has, no doubt, been mentally, if not audibly, asked by the dwellers in these groves and upon these prairies, "Who sur- veyed these lands into sections and townships, whose lines now divide our people as farm lines, neighborhoods and civil townships? Who piled up the mounds at the corners of the sections in the absence of better monu- ments? Whose eyes first minutely examined these landscapes, and who, in his day, first heard the tramp of our coming?"

These questions have often been asked of himself by the writer, and he presumes that others have asked like questions. From of- ficial information from the General Land Of- fice, we are able to answer these questions.

The Townships 17 to 20, in Ranges 7 and 8, including the towns of Sadorus, Colfax, Scott, Mahomet, Pesotum, Tolono, Champaign and Hensley, were surveyed into sections by Rich- ard P. Holliday, for Elias Rector, deputy sur- veyor, in the year 1822.

Townships 21 and 22, in Ranges 7 and 8- now being the towns of Newcomb, Brown, Condit and East Bend-were likewise sur-

veyed by David Anderson and Patrick Oscar Lee, deputy surveyors, in the year 1822.

Townships 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21, Range 9, including Crittenden, Philo, Urbana, Somer and a part of Rantoul, were surveyed by Ben- jamin Franklin Messenger, the deputy sur- veyor, in the year 1822.

Townships 21 and 22, Ranges 9 and 10, in- cluding Ludlow and Harwood, were surveyed in 1822 by Enoch Moore, deputy surveyor.

Towns 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21, Range 10, being the Towns of Raymond, Sidney, St. Joseph, Stanton and parts of Rantoul and Compro- mise, were surveyed in 1821 by Jacob Judy, deputy surveyor.

Townships 17, 18, 19 and 20, Range 14 west, including the towns of Ayres, South Homer and Ogden, were surveyed by James Thomp- son, deputy surveyor, in the year 1821.

Township 21, in Range 14, being a part of Compromise, was surveyed in 1821 by James Messenger, deputy surveyor.

Township 22, Range 14, being part of Kerr Township, was surveyed in 1822 by E. Starr, deputy surveyor.

The facts in relation to the regular town- ships, atove given, will explain the existence of the narrow, irregular strip, running through the eastern part of the county, known as Range 11, for the fixing of the corners of the section in the regular townships above re- ferred to, at the same time operated to divide this strip into townships and sections. (1)

(1) "The extensive territories of the United States are surveyed upon a peculiar system, planned with reference to the division of the lands into squares of uniform size, so arranged that any tract of 160 acres, or a "quarter sec- tion," may have its distinct designation and be readily found upon the map or recognized upon the ground by the marks left by the sur- veyors. Each great survey is based upon a meridian line run due north and south by as- tronomical measurements, the whole extent of the survey in these directions; and upon a "standard parallel" or base line, running east and west, similarly established with great ac- curacy. Parallels to these lines are run every 6 miles, usually with the solar compass cor- rected by frequent celestial observations; and thus, as nearly as the figure of the earth ad- mits, the surface is divided into squares of 6 miles north and south and the same east and west, each one containing 36 square miles or sections, into which the territory is further di- vided by meridians and parallels run at every mile; while the half-mile being marked on these lines by setting what is called a "quarter post," the points are established for the subdivisions into quarter sections. The squares of 36 square miles are termed townships, often contracted to "towns;" and each line of them east and west is numbered either N. or S. from the base line,

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume II, Part 25

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913; Cunningham, Joseph O. (Joseph Oscar), 1830-1917 Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 632

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913; Cunningham, Joseph O. (Joseph Oscar), 1830-1917
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 632