USA > Illinois > St Clair County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of St. Clair County, Volume I > Part 29
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EAST DUBUQUE, an incorporated city of Jo Daviess County, on the east bank of the Missis- sippi, 17 miles (by rail) northeast of Galena. It
is connected with Dubuque, Iowa, by a railroad and a wagon bridge two miles in length. It has a grain elevator, a box factory, a planing mill and manufactories of cultivators and sand drills. It has also a bank, two churches, good public schools and a weekly newspaper. Population (1880), 1,037; (1890), 1,069; (1900), 1,146.
EASTON, (Col.) Rufus, pioneer, founder of the city of Alton; was born at Litchfield, Conn., May 4, 1774; studied law and practiced two years in Oneida County, N. Y .; emigrated to St. Louis in 1804, and was commissioned by President Jefferson Judge of the Territory of Louisiana, and also became the first Postmaster of St. Louis, in 1808. From 1814 to 1818 he served as Delegate in Congress from Missouri Territory, and, on the organization of the State of Missouri (1821), was appointed Attorney-General for the State, serving until 1826. His death occurred at St. Charles, Mo., July 5, 1834. Colonel Easton's connection with Illinois history is based chiefly upon the fact that he was the founder of the present city of Alton, which he laid out, in 1817, on a tract of land of which he had obtained possession at the mouth of the Little Piasa Creek, naming the town for his son. Rev. Thomas Lippincott, prominently identified with the early history of that portion of the State, kept a store for Easton at Milton, on Wood River, about two miles from Alton, in the early " '20's."
EAST ST. LOUIS, a flourishing city in St. Clair County, on the east bank of the Mississippi di- rectly opposite St. Louis; is the terminus of twenty-two railroads and several electric lines, and the leading commercial and manufacturing point in Southern Illinois. Its industries include rolling mills, steel, brass, malleable iron and glass works, grain elevators and flour mills, breweries, stockyards and packing houses. The city has eleven public and five parochial schools, one high school, and two colleges; is well sup- plied with banks and has one daily and four weekly papers. Population (1890), 15,169; (1900), 29,655; (1903, est.), 40,000.
EASTERN HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE. The act for the establishment of this institution passed the General Assembly in 1877. Many cities offered inducements, by way of donations, for the location of the new hospital, but the site finally selected was a farm of 250 acres near Kan- kakee, and this was subsequently enlarged by the purchase of 327 additional acres in 1881. Work was begun in 1878 and the first patients received in December, 1879. The plan of the institution is, in many respects, unique. It comprises a
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general building. three stories high, capable of accommodating 300 to 400 patients, and a number of detached buildings. technically termed cot- tages. where various classes of insane patients may be grouped and receive the particular treatment best adapted to ensure their recovery. The plans were mainly worked out from suggestions by Frederick Howard Wines, LL.D., then Secretary of the Board of Public Charities, and have attracted generally favorable comment both in this country and abroad. The seventy-five build- ings occupied for the various purposes of the institution, cover a quarter-section of land laid off in regular streets, beautified with trees, plants and flowers, and presenting all the appearance of a flourishing village with numerous small parks adorned with walks and drives. The counties from which patients are received include Cook, Champaign, Coles, Cumberland, De Witt, Doug- las, Edgar, Ford, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, La Salle, Livingston, Macon, McLean, Moultrie Piatt, Shelby, Vermilion and Will. The whole number of patients in 1898 was 2,200, while the employés of all classes numbered 500.
EASTERN ILLINOIS NORMAL SCHOOL, an institution designed to qualify teachers for giving instruction in the public schools, located at Charleston, Coles County, under an act of the Legislature passed at the session of 1895. The act appropriated $50,000 for the erection of build- ings, to which additional appropriations were added in 1897 and 1898, of $25,000 and $50,000, respectively, with $56,216.72 contributed by the city of Charleston, making a total of $181,216.72. The building was begun in 1896, the corner-stone being laid on May 27 of that year. There was delay in the progress of the work in consequence of the failure of the contractors in December, 1896, but the work was resumed in 1897 and practically completed early in 1899, with the expectation that the institution would be opened for the reception of students in September fol- lowing.
EASTMAN, Zebina, anti-slavery journalist, was born at North Amherst, Mass., Sept. 8, 1815; became a printer's apprentice at 14, but later spent a short time in an academy at Hadley. Then, after a brief experience as an employé in the office of "The Hartford Pearl," at the age of 18 he invested his patrimony of some $2,000 in the establishment of "The Free Press" at Fayette- ville, Vt. This venture proving unsuccessful, in 1837 he came west, stopping a year or two at Ann Arbor, Mich. In 1839 he visited Peoria by way of Chicago, working for a time on "The
Peoria Register," but soon after joined Benjamin Lundy, who was preparing to revive his paper, "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," at Lowell, La Salle County. This scheme was partially defeated by Lundy's early death, but, after a few months' delay, Eastman, in conjunc- tion with Hooper Warren, began the publication of "The Genius of Liberty" as the successor of Lundy's paper, using the printing press which Warren had used in the office of "The Commer- cial Advertiser," in Chicago, a year or so before. In 1842, at the invitation of prominent Abolitionists, the paper was removed to Chicago, where it was issued under the name of "The Western Citizen," in 1853 becoming "The Free West," and finally, in 1856, being merged in "The Chicago Tribune." After the suspension of "The Free West," Mr. Eastman began the publication of "The Chicago Magazine," a literary and historical monthly, but it reached only its fifth number, when it was discontinued for want of financial support. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln United States Consul at Bristol, England, where he remained eight years. On his return from Europe, he took up his residence at Elgin, later removing to Maywood, a suburb of Chicago, where he died, June 14, 1883. During the latter years of his life Mr. Eastman contributed many articles of great historical interest to the Chi- cago press. (See Lundy, Benjamin, and Warren, Hooper.)
EBERHART, John Frederick, educator and real-estate operator, was born in Mercer County, Pa., Jan. 21, 1829; commenced teaching at 16 years of age, and, in 1853, graduated from Alle- gheny College, at Meadville, soon after becoming Principal of Albright Seminary at Berlin, in the same State; in 1855 came west by way of Chicago, locating at Dixon and engaging in editorial work; a year later established "The Northwestern Home and School Journal," which he published three years, in the meantime establishing and conducting teachers' institutes in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. In 1859 he was elected School Commissioner of Cook County-a position which was afterwards changed to County Superintend- ent of Schools, and which he held ten years. Mr. Eberhart was largely instrumental in the estab- lishment of the Cook County Normal School. Since retiring from office he has been engaged in the real-estate business in Chicago.
ECKHART, Bernard A., manufacturer and President of the Chicago Drainage Board, was born in Alsace, France (now Germany), brought to America in infancy and reared on a farm in
1
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Vernon County, Wis .; was educated at Milwau- kee, and, in 1868, became clerk in the office of the Eagle Milling Company of that city, afterwards serving as its Eastern agent in various seaboard cities. He finally established an extensive mill- ing business in Chicago, in which he is now engaged. In 1884 he served as a delegate to the National Waterway Convention at St. Paul and, in 1886, was elected to the State Senate, serving four years and taking a prominent part in draft- ing the Sanitary Drainage Bill passed by the Thirty-sixth General Assembly. He has also been prominent in connection with various financial institutions, and, in 1891, was elected one of the Trustees of the Sanitary District of Chicago, was re-elected in 1895 and chosen President of the Board for the following year, and re-elected Pres- ident in December, 1898.
EDBROOKE, Willoughby J., Supervising Architect, was born at Deerfield, Lake County, Ill., Sept. 3, 1843; brought up to the architectural profession by his father and under the instruc- tion of Chicago architects. During Mayor Roche's administration he held the position of Commissioner of Public Works, and, in April, 1891, was appointed Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department at Washington, in that capacity supervising the construction of Govern- ment buildings at the World's Columbian Exposi- tion. Died, in Chicago, March 26, 1896.
EDDY, Henry, pioneer lawyer and editor, was born in Vermont, in 1798, reared in New York, learned the printer's trade at Pittsburg, served in the War of 1812, and was wounded in the battle of Black Rock, near Buffalo; came to Shawneetown, Ill., in 1818, where he edited "The Illinois Emigrant," the earliest paper in that part of the State; was a Presidential Elector in 1824, a Representative in the Second and Fif- teenth General Assemblies, and elected a Circuit Judge in 1835, but resigned a few weeks later. He was a Whig in politics. Usher F. Linder, in his "Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois," says of Mr. Eddy: "When he addressed the court, he elicited the most profound attention. He was a sort of walking law library. He never forgot anything that he ever knew, whether law, poetry or belles lettres." Died, June 29, 1849.
EDDY, Thomas Mears, clergyman and author, was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, Sept. 7, 1823 ; educated at Greensborough, Ind., and, from 1842 to 1853, was a Methodist circuit preacher in that State, becoming Agent of the American Bible Society the latter year, and Presiding
Elder of the Indianapolis district until 1856, when he was appointed editor of "The Northwestern Christian Advocate," in Chicago, retiring from that position in 1868. Later, he held pastorates in Baltimore and Washington, and was chosen one of the Corresponding Secretaries of the Mis- sionary Society by the General Conference of 1872. Dr. Eddy was a copious writer for the press, and, besides occasional sermons, published two volumes of reminiscences and personal sketches of prominent Illinoisans in the War of the Rebellion under the title of "Patriotism of Illinois" (1865). Died, in New York City, Oct. 7,1874.
EDGAR, John, early settler at Kaskaskia, was born in Ireland and, during the American Revo- lution, served as an officer in the British navy, but married an American woman of great force of character who sympathized strongly with the patriot cause. Having become involved in the desertion of three British soldiers whom his wife had promised to assist in reaching the American camp, he was compelled to flee. After remaining for a while in the American army, during which he became the friend of General La Fayette, he sought safety by coming west, arriving at Kas- kaskia in 1784. His property was confiscated, but his wife succeeded in saving some $12,000 from the wreck, with which she joined him two years later. He engaged in business and became an extensive land-owner, being credited, during Territorial days, with the ownership of nearly 50,000 acres situated in Randolph, Monroe, St. Clair, Madison, Clinton, Washington, Perry and Jackson Counties, and long known as the "Edgar lands." He also purchased and rebuilt a mill near Kaskaskia which had belonged to a French- man named Paget, and became a large shipper of flour at an early day to the Southern markets. When St. Clair County was organized, in 1790, he was appointed one of the Judges of the Common Pleas Court, and so appears to have continued for more than a quarter of a century. On the establishment of a Territorial Legislature for the Northwest Territory, he was chosen, in 1799, one of the members for St. Clair County-the Legis- lature holding its session at Chillicothe, in the present State of Ohio, under the administration of Governor St. Clair. He was also appointed a Major-General of militia, retaining the office for many years. General and Mrs. Edgar were leaders of society at the old Territorial capital, and, on the visit of La Fayette to Kaskaskia in 1825, a reception was given at their house to the distinguished Frenchman, whose acquaintance
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they had made more than forty years before. He died at Kaskaskia, in 1832. Edgar County, in the eastern part of the State, was named in honor of General Edgar. He was Worshipful Master of the first Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in Illinois, constituted at Kaskaskia in 1806.
EDGAR COUNTY, one of the middle tier of counties from north to south, lying on the east- ern border of the State; was organized in 1823, and named for General Edgar, an early citizen of Kaskaskia. It contains 630 square miles, with a population (1900) of 28,273. The county is nearly square, well watered and wooded. Most of the acreage is under cultivation, grain-growing and stock-raising being the principal industries. Generally, the soil is black to a considerable depth, though at some points-especially adjoin- ing the timber lands in the east-the soft, brown clay of the subsoil comes to the surface. Beds of the drift period, one hundred feet deep, are found in the northern portion, and some twenty-five years ago a nearly perfect skeleton of a mastodon was exhumed. A bed of limestone, twenty-five feet thick, crops out near Baldwinsville and runs along Brouillet's creek to the State line. Paris, the county-seat, is a railroad center, and has a popu- lation of over 6,000. Vermilion and Dudley are prominent shipping points, while Chrisman, which was an unbroken prairie in 1872, was credited with a population of 900 in 1900.
EDINBURG, a village of Christian County, on the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway, 18 miles southeast of Springfield; has two banks and one newspaper. The region is agricultural, though some coal is mined here. Population (1880), 551; (1890), 806; (1900), 1,071.
EDSALL, James Kirtland, former Attorney - General, was born at Windham, Greene County, N. Y., May 10, 1831. After passing through the common-schools, he attended an academy at Prattsville, N. Y., supporting himself, meanwhile, by working upon a farm. He read law at Pratts- ville and Catskill, and was admitted to the bar at Albany in 1852. The next two years he spent in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and, in 1854, removed to Leavenworth, Kan. He was elected to the Legislature of that State in 1855, being a member of the Topeka (free-soil) body when it was broken up by United States troops in 1856. In August, 1856, he settled at Dixon, Ill., and at once engaged in practice. In 1863 he was elected Mayor of that city, and, in 1870, was chosen State Senator, serving on the Committees on Munic- ipalities and Judiciary in the Twenty-seventh
General Assembly. In 1872 he was elected Attorney-General on the Republican ticket and re-elected in 1876. At the expiration of his second term he took up his residence in Chicago, where he afterwards devoted himself to the prac- tice of his profession, until his death, which occurred, June 20, 1892.
EDUCATION.
The first step in the direction of the establish- ment of a system of free schools for the region now comprised within the State of Illinois was taken in the enactment by Congress, on May 20, 1785, of "An Ordinance for Ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the Western Terri- tory." This applied specifically to the region northwest of the Ohio River, which had been acquired through the conquest of the "Illinois Country" by Col. George Rogers Clark, acting under the auspices of the State of Virginia and by authority received from its Governor, the patriotic Patrick Henry. This act for the first time established the present system of township (or as it was then called, "rectangular") surveys, devised by Capt. Thomas Hutchins, who became the first Surveyor-General (or "Geographer, " as the office was styled) of the United States under the same act. Its important feature, in this con- nection, was the provision "that there shall be reserved the lot No. 16 of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within the town- ship." The same reservation (the term "section" being substituted for "lot" in the act of May 18, 1796) was made in all subsequent acts for the sale of public lands-the acts of July 23, 1787, and June 20, 1788, declaring that "the lot No. 16 in each township, or fractional part of a township," shall be "given perpetually for the purpose con- tained in said ordinance" (i. e., the act of 1785). The next step was taken in the Ordinance of 1787 (Art. III.), in the declaration that, "religion, morality and knowledge being necessary for the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." The reservation referred to in the act of 1785 (and subsequent acts) was reiterated in the "enabling act" passed by Congress, April 18, 1818, authoriz- ing the people of Illinois Territory to organize a State Government, and was formally accepted by the Convention which formed the first State Constitution. The enabling act also set apart one entire township (in addition to one previously donated for the same purpose by act of Congress in 1804) for the use of a seminary of learning,
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together with three per cent of the net proceeds of the sales of public lands within the State, "to be appropriated by the Legislature of the State for the encouragement of learning, of which one- sixth part" (or one-half of one per cent) "shall be exclusively bestowed on a college or univer- sity." Thus, the plan for the establishment of a system of free public education in Illinois had its inception in the first steps for the organization of the Northwest Territory, was recognized in the Ordinance of 1787 which reserved that Territory forever to freedom, and was again reiterated in the preliminary steps for the organization of the State Government. These several acts became the basis of that permanent provision for the encouragement of education known as the "town- ship," "seminary" and "college or university" funds.
EARLY SCHOOLS .- Previous to this, however, a beginning had been made in the attempt to estab- lish schools for the benefit of the children of the pioneers. One John Seeley is said to have taught the first American school within the territory of Illinois, in a log-cabin in Monroe County, in 1783, followed by others in the next twenty years in Monroe, Randolph, St. Clair and Madison Coun- ties. Seeley's earliest successor was Francis Clark, who, in turn, was followed by a man named Halfpenny, who afterwards built a mill near the present town of Waterloo in Monroe County. Among the teachers of a still later period were John Boyle, a soldier in Col. George Rogers Clark's army, who taught in Randolph County between 1790 and 1800; John Atwater, near Edwardsville, in 1807, and John Messinger, a sur- veyor, who was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1818 and Speaker of the first House of Representatives. The latter taught in the vicinity of Shiloh in St. Clair County, afterwards the site of Rev. John M. Peck's Rock Spring Seminary. The schools which existed during this period, and for many years after the organi- zation of the State Government, were necessarily few, widely scattered and of a very primitive character, receiving their support entirely by subscription from their patrons.
FIRST FREE SCHOOL LAW AND SALES OF SCHOOL LANDS .- It has been stated that the first free school in the State was established at Upper Alton, in 1821, but there is good reason for believ- ing this claim was based upon the power granted by the Legislature, in an act passed that year, to establish such schools there, which power was never carried into effect. The first attempt to establish a free-school system for the whole State
was made in January, 1825, in the passage of a bill introduced by Joseph Duncan, afterwards a Congressman and Governor of the State. It nominally appropriated two dollars out of each one hundred dollars received in the State Treasury, to be distributed to those who had paid taxes or subscriptions for the support of schools. So small was the aggregate revenue of the State at that time (only a little over $60,000), that the sum realized from this law would have been but little more than $1,000 per year. It remained practically a dead letter and was repealed in 1829, when the State inaugurated the policy of selling the seminary lands and borrowing the proceeds for the payment of current expenses. In this way 43,200 acres (or all but four and a half sec- tions) of the seminary lands were disposed of, realizing less than $60,000. The first sale of township school lands took place in Greene County in 1831, and, two years later, the greater part of the school section in the heart of the present city of Chicago was sold, producing about $39,000. The average rate at which these sales were made, up to 1882, was $3.78 per acre, and the minimum, 70 cents per acre. That these lands have, in very few instances, produced the results expected of them, was not so much the fault of the system as of those selected to administer it-whose bad judgment in premature sales, or whose complicity with the schemes of speculators, were the means, in many cases, of squandering what might otherwise have furnished a liberal provision for the support of public schools in many sections of the State. Mr. W. L. Pillsbury, at present Secretary of the University of Illinois, in a paper printed in the report of tlie State Superintendent of Public Instruction for 1885-86-to which the writer is indebted for inany of the facts presented in this article-gives to Chicago the credit of establishing the first free schools in the State in 1834, while Alton followed in 1837, and Springfield and Jacksonville in 1840.
EARLY HIGHER INSTITUTIONS .- A movement looking to the establishment of a higher institu- tion of learning in Indiana Territory (of which Illinois then formed a part), was inaugurated by the passage, through the Territorial Legislature at Vincennes, in November, 1806, of an act incorpo- rating the University of Indiana Territory to be located at Vincennes. One provision of the act authorized the raising of $20,000 for the institu- tion by means of a lottery. A Board of Trustees was promptly organized, with Gen. William Henry Harrison, then the Territorial Governor. at its head; but, beyond the erection of a building,
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little progress was made. Twenty-one years later (1827) the first successful attempt to found an advanced school was made by the indomitable Rev. Jolın M. Peck, resulting in the establislı- ment of his Theological Seminary and High School at Rock Springs, St. Clair County, which, in 1831, became the nucleus of Shurtleff College at Upper Alton. In like manner, Lebanon Semi- nary, established in 1828, two years later expanded into McKendree College, while instruc- tion began to be given at Illinois College, Jack- sonville, in December, 1829, as the outcome of a movement started by a band of young men at Yale College in 1827-these several institutions being formally incorporated by the same act of the Legislature, passed in 1835. (See sketches of these Institutions.)
EDUCATIONAL CONVENTIONS .- In 1833 there was held at Vandalia (then the State capital) the first of a series of educational conventions, which were continued somewhat irregularly for twenty years, and whose history is remarkable for the number of those participating in them who after- wards gained distinction in State and National history. At first these conventions were held at the State capital during the sessions of the Gen- eral Assembly, when the chief actors in them were members of that body and State officers, with a few other friends of education from the ranks of professional or business men. At the convention of 1833, we find, among those partici- pating, the names of Sidney Breese, afterwards a United States Senator and Justice of the Supreme Court; Judge S. D. Lockwood, then of the Supreme Court; W. L. D. Ewing, afterwards acting Gov- ernor and United States Senator; O. H. Browning, afterwards United States Senator and Secretary of the Interior; James Hall and Jolin Russell, the most notable writers in the State in their day, besides Dr. J. M. Peck, Archibald Williams, Benjamin Mills, Jesse B. Thomas, Henry Eddy and others, all prominent in their several depart- ments. In a second convention at the same place, nearly two years later, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas and Col. John J. Hardin were participants. At Springfield, in 1840, pro- fessional and literary men began to take a more prominent part, although the members of the Legislature were present in considerable force. A convention held at Peoria, in 1844, was made up largely of professional teachers and school officers, with a few citizens of local prominence; and the same may be said of those held at Jack- sonville in 1845, and later at Chicago and other points. Various attempts were made to form
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