Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Edgar County, Part 40

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell
Number of Pages: 876

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THIRTY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY. This Legislature held two sessions-a regular and a special. The former opened Jan. 9, 1895, and

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closed June 14, following. The political com- plexion of the Senate was-Republicans, thirty- three; Democrats, eighteen; of the House, ninety-two Republicans and sixty-one Democrats. John Meyer, of Cook County, was elected Speaker of the House, and Charles Bogardus of Piatt County, President pro tem. of the Senate. Acts were passed making appropriations for improve- ment of the State Fair Grounds at Springfield; authorizing the establishment of a Western Hos- pital for the Insane ($100,000); appropriating $100,000 for a Western Hospital for the Insane; $65,000 for an Asylum for Incurable Insane; $50,- 000, each, for two additional Normal Schools-one in Northern and the other in Eastern Illinois; $25,000 for a Soldiers' Widows' Home-all being new institutions-besides $15,000 for a State exhibition at the Atlanta Exposition; $65,000 to mark, by monuments, the position of Illinois troops on the battlefields of Chickamauga, Look- out Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Other acts passed fixed the salaries of members of the Gen- eral Assembly at $1,000 each for each regular session; accepted the custody of the Lincoln monument at Springfield, authorized provision for the retirement and pensioning of teachers in public schools, and authorized the adoption of civil service rules for cities. The special session convened, pursuant to a call by the Governor, on June 25, 1895, took a recess, June 28 to July 9, re-assembled on the latter date, and adjourned, sine die, August 2. Outside of routine legisla- tion, no laws were passed except one providing additional necessary revenue for State purposes and one creating a State Board of Arbitration. The regular session continued 157 days and the special twenty-nine-total 186.

FORTIETH GENERAL ASSEMBLY met in regular session at Springfield, Jan. 6, 1897, and adjourned, sine die, June 4. The Republicans had a major- ity in both branches, the House standing eighty- eight Republicans to sixty-three Democrats and two Populists, and the Senate, thirty-nine Repub- licans to eleven Democrats and one Populist, giving the Republicans a majority on joint ballot of fifty votes. Both houses were promptly organ- ized by the election of Republican officers, Edward C. Curtis of Kankakee County being chosen Speaker of the House, and Hendrick V. Fisher, of Henry County, President pro tem. of the Sen- ate. Governor Tanner and the other Republican State officers were formally inaugurated on Jan. 11, and, on Jan. 20, William E. Mason (Republican) was chosen United States Senator to succeed John M. Palmer, receiving in joint

session 125 votes to seventy-seven for John P. Altgeld (Democrat). Among the principal laws enacted at this session were the following: An act concerning aliens and to regulate the right to hold real estate, and prescribing the terms and conditions for the conveyance of the same; empowering the Commissioners who were ap- pointed at the previous session to ascertain and mark the positions occupied by Illinois Volunteers in the battles of Chickamauga, Lookout Moun- tain and Missionary Ridge, to expend the remain- ing appropriations in their hands for the erection of monuments on the battle-grounds; authorizing the appointment of a similar Commission to ascertain and mark the positions held by Illinois troops in the battle of Shiloh; to reimburse the University of Illinois for the loss of funds result- ing from the Spaulding defalcation and affirming the liability of the State for "the endowment fund of the University, amounting to $456, 712.91, and for so much in addition as may be received in future from the sale of lands"; authorizing the adoption of the "Torrens land-title system" in the conveyance and registration of land titles by vote of the people in any county; the consolida- tion of the three Supreme Court Districts of the State into one and locating the Court at Spring- field; creating a State Board of Pardons, and prescribing the manner of applying for pardons and commutations. An act of this session, which produced much agitation and led to a great deal of discussion in the press and elsewhere, was the street railroad law empowering the City Council, or other corporate authority of any city, to grant franchises to street railway companies extending to fifty years. This act was repealed by the General Assembly of 1899 before any street rail- way corporation had secured a franchise under it. A special session was called by Governor Tanner to meet Dec. 7, 1897, the proclamation naming five topics for legislative action. The session continued to Feb. 24, 1898, only two of the meas- ures named by the Governor in his call being affirmatively acted upon. These included: (1) an elaborate act prescribing the manner of conduct- ing primary elections of delegates to nominating conventions, and (2) a new revenue law regulat- ing the manner of assessing and collecting taxes. One provision of the latter law limits the valuation of property for assessment purposes to one-fifth its cash value. The length of the regular session was 150 days, and that of the special session eighty days-total, 230 days.

GENESEO, a city in Henry County, about two miles south of the Green River. It is on the Chi-

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cago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway, 23 miles east of Rock Island and 75 miles west of Ottawa. It is in the heart of a grain-growing region, and has two large grain elevators. Manufacturing is also carried on to a considerable extent here, furniture, wagons and farming implements con- stituting the chief output. Geneseo has eleven churches, a graded and a high school, a col- legiate institute, two banks, and two newspapers, one issuing a daily edition. Population (1890), 3,182; (1900), 3,356.

GENEVA, a city and railway junction on Fox River, and the county-seat of Kane County; 35 miles west of Chicago. It has a fine courthouse, completed in 1892 at a cost of $250,000, and numerous handsome churches and school build- ings. A State Reformatory for juvenile female offenders has been located here. There is an ex- cellent water-power, operating six manufac- tories, including extensive glucose works. The town has a bank, creamery, water-works, gas and electric light plant, and two weekly news- papers. The surrounding country is devoted to agriculture and dairy farming. Population (1880), 1,239; (1890), 1,692; (1900), 2,446.

GENOA, a village of De Kalb County, on Omaha Division of the Chi., Mil. & St. Paul, the Ill. Cent. and Chi. & N. W. Railroads, 59 miles west of Chicago. Dairying is a leading industry ; has two banks, shoe and telephone factories, and two newspapers. Population (1890), 634; (1900), 1,140.

GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. The geological structure of Illinois embraces a representation, more or less complete, of the whole paleonic series of formations, from the calciferous group of the Lower Silurian to the top of the coal meas- ures. In addition to these older rocks there is a limited area in the extreme southern end of the State covered with Tertiary deposits. Over- spreading these formations are beds of more recent age, comprising sands, clays and gravel, varying in thickness from ten to more than two hundred feet. These superficial deposits may be divided into Alluvium, Loess and Drift, and con- stitute the Quaternary system of modern geolo- gists.

LOWER SILURIAN SYSTEM .- Under this heading may be noted three distinct groups: the Calcifer- ous, the Trenton and the Cincinnati. The first mentioned group comprises the St. Peter's Sand- stone and the Lower Magnesian Limestone. The former outcrops only at a single locality, in La Salle County, extending about two miles along the valley of the Illinois River in the vicinity of Utica. The thickness of the strata appearing

above the surface is about 80 feet, thin bands of Magnesian limestone alternating with layers of Calciferous sandstone. Many of the layers con- tain good hydraulic rock, which is utilized in the manufacture of cement. The entire thickness of the rock below the surface has not been ascer- tained, but is estimated at about 400 feet. The St. Peter's Sandstone outcrops in the valley of the Illinois, constituting the main portion of the bluffs from Utica to a point beyond Ottawa, and forms the "bed rock" in most of the northern townships of La Salle County. It also outcrops on the Rock River in the vicinity of Oregon City, and forms a conspicuous bluff on the Mississippi in Calhoun County. Its maximum thickness in the State may be estimated at about 200 feet. It is too incoherent in its texture to be valuable as a building stone, though some of the upper strata in Lee County have been utilized for caps and sills. It affords, however, a fine quality of sand for the manufacture of glass. The Trenton group, which immediately overlies the St. Peter's Sandstone, consists of three divisions. The low- est is a brown Magnesian Limestone, or Dolomite, usually found in regular beds, or strata, varying from four inches to two feet in thickness. The aggregate thickness varies from twenty feet, in the northern portion of the State, to sixty or seventy feet at the bluff in Calhoun County. At the quarries in La Salle County, it abounds in fossils, including a large Lituites and several specimens of Orthoceras, Maclurea, etc. The middle division of the Trenton group consists of light gray, compact limestones in the southern and western parts of the State, and of light blue, thin-bedded, shaly limestone in the northern por- tions. The upper division is the well-known Galena limestone, the lead-bearing rock of the Northwest. It is a buff colored, porous Dolomite, sometimes arenaceous and unevenly textured, giving origin to a ferruginous, sandy clay when decomposed. The lead ores occur in crevices, caverns and horizontal seams. These crevices were probably formed by shrinkage of the strata from crystallization or by some disturbing force from beneath, and have been enlarged by decomposi- tion of the exposed surface. Fossils belonging to a lower order of marine animal than the coral are found in this rock, as are also marine shells, corals and crustaceans. Although this limestone crops out over a considerable portion of the terri- tory between the Mississippi and the Rock River, the productive lead mines are chiefly confined to Jo Daviess and Stephenson Counties. All the divisions of the Trenton group afford good build-

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ing material, some of the rock being susceptible of a high polish and making a handsome, durable marble. About seventy feet are exposed near Thebes, in Alexander County. All through the Southwest this stone is known as Cape Girardeau marble, from its being extensively quarried at Cape Girardeau, Mo. The Cincinnati group immediately succeeds the Trenton in the ascend- ing scale, and forms the uppermost member of the Lower Silurian system. It usually consists of argillaceous and sandy shales, although, in the northwest portion of the State, Magnesian lime- stone is found with the shales. The prevailing colors of the beds are light blue and drab, weathering to a light ashen gray. This group is found well exposed in the vicinity of Thebes, Alexander County, furnishing a durable building stone extensively used for foundation walls. Fossils are found in profusion in all the beds, many fine specimens, in a perfect state of preser- vation, having been exhumed.

UPPER SILURIAN SYSTEM .- The Niagara group in Northern Illinois consists of brown, gray and buff magnesian limestones, sometimes evenly bedded, as at Joliet and Athens, and sometimes concretionary and brecciated, as at Bridgeport and Port Byron. Near Chicago the cells and pockets of this rock are filled with petroleum, but it has been ascertained that only the thirty upper feet of the rock contain bituminous matter. The quarries in Will and Jersey Counties furnish fine building and flagging stone. The rock is of a light gray color, changing to buff on exposure. In Pike and Calhoun Counties, also, there are out- croppings of this rock and quarries are numerous. It is usually evenly bedded, the strata varying in thickness from two inclies to two feet, and break- ing evenly. Its aggregate thickness in Western and Northern Illinois ranges from fifty to 150 feet. In Union and Alexander Counties, in the southern part of the State, the Upper Silurian series consists chiefly of thin bedded gray or buff-colored limestone, silicious and cherty, fiinty material largely preponderating over the lime- stone. Fossils are not abundant in this formation, although the quarries at Bridgeport, in Cook County, have afforded casts of nearly 100 species of marine organisms, the calcareous portion hav- ing been washed away,

DEVONIAN SYSTEM .- This system is represented in Illinois by three well marked divisions, cor- responding to the Oriskany sandstone, the Onon- daga limestone and the Hamilton and Corniferous beds of New York. To these the late Professor Worthen, for many years State Geologist, added,

although with some hesitancy, the black shale formation of Illinois. Although these comprise an aggregate thickness of over 500 feet, their exposure is limited to a few isolated outcroppings along the bluffs of the Illinois, Mississippi and Rock Rivers. The lower division, called "Clear Creek Limestone," is about 250 feet thick, and is only found in the extreme southern end of the State. It consists of chert, or impure flint, and thin-bedded silico-magnesian limestones, rather compact in texture, and of buff or light gray to nearly white colors. When decomposed by atmospheric influences, it forms a fine white clay, resembling common chalk in appearance. Some of the cherty beds resemble burr stones in poros- ity, and good mill-stones are made therefrom in Union County. Some of the stone is bluish-gray, or mottled and crystalline, capable of receiving a high polish, and making an elegant and durable building stone. The Onondaga group comprises some sixty feet of quartzose sandstone and striped silicious shales. The structure of the rock is almost identical with that of St. Peter's Sandstone. In the vicinity of its outcrop in Union County are found fine beds of potter's clay, also variegated in color. The rock strata are about twenty feet thick, evenly bedded and of a coarse, granular structure, which renders the stone valuable for heavy masonry. The group has not been found north of Jackson County. Large quantities of characteristic fossils abound. The rocks composing the Hamilton group are the most valuable of all the divisions of the Devonian system, and the outcrops can be identified only by their fossils. In Union and Jackson Counties it is found from eighty to 100 feet in thickness, two beds of bluish gray, fetid limestone being sepa- rated by about twenty feet of calcareous shales. The limestones are highly bituminous. In Jersey and Calhoun Counties the group is only six to ten feet thick, and consists of a hard, silicious limestone, passing at some points into a quartzose sandstone, and at others becoming argillaceous, as at Grafton. The most northern outcrop is in Rock Island County, where the rock is concretion- ary in structure and is utilized for building pur- poses and in the manufacture of quicklime. Fossils are numerous, among them being a few fragments of fishes, which are the oldest remains of vertebrate animals yet found in the State. The black shale probably attains its maximum development in Union County, where it ranges from fifty to seventy-five feet in thickness. Its lower portion is a fine, black, laminated slate, sometimes closely resembling the bituminous

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shales associated with the coal seams, which cir- cumstance has led to the fruitless expenditure of much time and money. The bituminous portion of the mass, on distillation, yields an oil closely resembling petroleum. Crystals of iron pyrites are abundant in the argillaceous portion of the group, which does not extend north of the coun- ties of Calhoun, Jersey and Pike.

LOWER CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. - This is di- visible into five groups, as follows: The Kinder- hook group, the Burlington limestone, and the Keokuk, St. Louis and Chester groups. Its greatest development is in the southern portion of the State, where it has a thickness of 1,400 or 1,500 feet. It thins out to the north ward so rapidly that, in the vicinity of the Lower Rapids on the Mississippi, it is only 300 feet thick, while it wholly disappears below Rock Island. The Kinder- hook group is variable in its lithological charac- ter, consisting of argillaceous and sandy shales, with thin beds of compact and oolitic limestone, passing locally into calcareous shales or impure limestone. The entire formation is mainly a mechanical sediment, with but a very small por- tion of organic matter. The Burlington lime- stone, on the other hand, is composed almost entirely of the fossilized remains of organic beings, with barely enough sedimentary material to act as a cement. Its maximum thickness scarcely exceeds 200 feet, and its principal out- crops are in the counties of Jersey, Greene, Scott, Calhoun, Pike, Adams, Warren and Henderson. The rock is usually a light gray, buff or brown limestone, either coarsely granular or crystalline in structure. The Keokuk group immediately succeeds the Burlington in the ascending order, with no well defined line of demarcation, the chief points of difference between the two being in color and in the character of fossils found. At the upper part of this group is found a bed of calcareo-argillaceous shale, containing a great variety of geodes, which furnish beautiful cabinet specimens of crystallized quartz, chalcedony, dolomite and iron pyrites. In Jersey and Monroe Counties a bed of hydraulic limestone, adapted to the manufacture of cement, is found at the top of this formation. The St. Louis group is partly a fine-grained or semi-crystallized bluish-gray limestone, and partly concretionary, as around Alton. In the extreme southern part of the State the rock is highly bituminous and susceptible of receiving a high polish, being used as a black marble. Beds of magnesian limestone are found here and there, which furnish a good stone for foundation walls. In Hardin County, the rock

is traversed by veins of fluor spar, carrying galena and zinc blonde. The Chester group is only found in the southern part of the State, thinning out from a thickness of eight hundred feet in Jackson and Randolph Counties, to about twenty feet at Alton. It consists of hard, gray, crystalline, argillaceous limestones, alternating with sandy and argillaceous shales and sandstones, which locally replace each other. A few species of true carboniferous flora are found in the are- naceous shales and sandstones of this group, the earliest traces of pre-historic land plants found in the State. Outcrops extend in a narrow belt from the southern part of Hardin County to the southern line of St. Clair County, passing around the southwest border of the coal field.

UPPER CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM .- This includes the Conglomerate, or "'Mill Stone Grit" of Euro- pean authors, and the true coal measures. In the southern portion of the State its greatest thick- ness is about 1,200 feet. It becomes thinner toward the north, scarcely exceeding 400 or. 500 feet in the vicinity of La Salle. The word "con- glomerate" designates a thick bed of sandstone that lies at the base of the coal measures, and appears to have resulted from the culmination of the arenaceous sedimentary accumulations. It consists of massive quartzose sandstone, some- times nearly white, but more frequently stained red or brown by the ferruginous matter which it contains, and is frequently composed in part of rounded quartz pebbles, from the size of a pea to several inches in diameter. When highly ferruginous, the oxide of iron cements the sand into a hard crust on the surface of the rock, which successfully resists the de- nuding influence of the atmosphere, so that the rock forms towering cliffs on the banks of the stream along which are its outcrops. Its thickness varies from 200 feet in the southern part of the State to twenty-five feet in the northern. It has afforded a few species of fossil plants, but no animal remains. The coal measures of Illinois are at least 1,000 feet thick and cover nearly three-fourths of its entire area. The strata are horizontal, the dip rarely exceeding six to ten feet to the mile. The formation is made up of sandstone, shales, thin beds of limestone, coal, and its associated fire clays. The thickness of the workable beds is from six to twenty-four inches in the upper measures, and from two to five feet in the lower measures. The fire clays, on which the coal seams usually rest, probably represent the ancient soil on which grew the trees and plants from which the coal is formed.

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When pure, these clays are valuable for the manufacture of fire brick, tile and common pottery. Illinois coal is wholly of the bitumi- nous variety, the metamorphic conditions which resulted in the production of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania not having extended to this State. Fossils, both vegetable and animal, abound in the coal measures.

TERTIARY SYSTEM .- This system is represented only in the southern end of the State, where cer- tain deposits of stratified sands, shales and con- glomerate are found, which appear to mark the northern boundary of the great Tertiary forma- tion of the Gulf States. Potter's clay, lignite and silicious woods are found in the formation.

QUATERNARY SYSTEM .- This system embraces all the superficial material, including sands, clay, gravel and soil which overspreads the older for- mations in all portions of the State. It gives origin to the soil from which the agricultural wealth of Illinois is derived. It may be properly separated into four divisions: Post-tertiary sands, Drift, Loess and Alluvium. The first- named occupies the lowest position in the series, and consists of stratified beds of yellow sand and blue clay, of variable thickness, overlaid by a black or deep brown, loamy soil, in which are found leaves, branches and trunks of trees in a good state of preservation. Next above lie the drift deposits, consisting of blue, yellow and brown clays, containing gravel and boulders of various sizes, the latter the water-worn frag- ments of rocks, many of which have been washed down from the northern shores of the great lakes. This drift formation varies in thickness from twenty to 120 feet, and its accumulations are probably due to the combined influence of water currents and moving ice. The subsoil over a large part of the northern and central portions of the State is composed of fine brown clay. Prof. Desquereux (Illinois Geological Sur- vey, Vol. I.) accounts for the origin of this clay and of the black prairie soil above it, by attribut- ing it to the growth and decomposition of a peculiar vegetation. The Loess is a fine mechan- ical sediment that appears to have accumulated in some body of fresh water. It consists of marly sands and clays, of a thickness varying from five to sixty feet. Its greatest development is along the bluffs of the principal rivers. The fossils found in this formation consist chiefly of the bones and teeth of extinct mammalia, such as the mam- moth, mastodon, etc. Stone implements of primeval man are also discovered. The term alluvium is usually restricted to the deposits

forming the bottom lands of the rivers and smaller streams. They consist of irregularly stratified sand, clay and loam, which are fre- quently found in alternate layers, and contain more or less organic matter from decomposed animal and vegetable substances. When suffi- ciently elevated, they constitute the richest and most productive farming lands in the State.

GEORGETOWN, a village of Vermilion County, on the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, 10 miles south of Danville. It has a bank, telegraph and express office and a news- paper. Population (1890), 662; (1900), 988.

GERMAN EVANGELICAL SCHOOL, located at Addison, Du Page County ; incorporated in 1852; has a faculty of three instructors and reports 187 pupils for 1897-98, with a property valuation of $9,600.

GERMANTOWN, a village of Vermilion County, and suburb of Danville; is the center of a coal- mining district. Population (1880), 540; (1890), 1,178; (1900), 1,782.

GEST, William H., lawyer and ex-Congress- man, was born at Jacksonville, Ill., Jan. 7, 1838. When but four years old his parents removed to Rock Island, where he has since resided. He graduated from Williams College in 1860, was admitted to the bar in 1862, and has always been actively engaged in practice. In 1886 he was elected to Congress by the Republicans of the Eleventh Illinois District, and was re-elected in 1888, but in 1890 was defeated by Benjamin T. Cable, Democrat.

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Edgar County, Part 40

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Number of Pages: 876

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell
Number of Pages: 876