USA > Illinois > St Clair County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of St. Clair County, Volume II > Part 4
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CHAPTER III.
NATURAL CONDITIONS.
TOPOGRAPHY - LOCATION, DIMENSIONS AND BOUN- DARIES OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY-SOIL AND STREAMS -NATURAL SPRINGS-FAUNA: NATIVE WILD ANI- MALS, BIRDS, FISHES AND REPTILES - FLORA: GRASSES, TREES, FRUITS AND OTHER PLANTS.
TOPOGRAPHY .- St. Clair County is in the southwestern part of Illinois, situated between parallels thirty-eight degrees and thirty-three
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
minutes North Latitude and thirty-eight de- grees, ten minutes and forty-five seconds North Latitude, and is bisected by ninety de- grees West Longitude. It is thirty miles wide, from east to west, and thirty miles long, at its greatest length from north to south. It con- tains 653.36 square miles, or 418,162 acres. It is bounded on the north by Madison County, on the east by Clinton and Washington coun- ties, on the south by Randolph and Monroe counties, and on the west by Monroe County and the Mississippi River.
The surface of St. Clair County is mainly a rolling prairie.' Parallel with the Mississippi, from five to seven miles distant, are bluffs eighty to one hundred feet high, which break- the monotony of the scenery, and protect a large part of the county from floods. The val- leys, low and level, deep with alluvial deposits (resulting from overflow of swollen rivers), have evidently once been beds of rivers or lakes. The timber belts follow the direction of the streams or crown the bluffs. Along one bank of the Kaskaskia River are bluffs which, on the boundary between St. Clair and Monroe counties, shift to the opposite bank. Across the stream from these bluffs are low and level swamps; tracts covered with lakes, very fer- tile, but needing the protection of levees against overflows. Along the base of the bluffs are lands luxuriant but full of miasma. The high- est point in the county is Turkey Hill. Twelve Mile Prairie is the largest prairie. Shiloh Val- ley is as beautiful as any vale in the State. St. Clair County is, characteristically, a tim- ber and prairie district.
WATER COURSES-SPRINGS .- St. Clair County is well supplied with water courses. The lar- gest of these is, of course, the Mississippi River, which forms the northwestern boundary of the county. The Kaskaskia River, which enters the county from the east, about the middle of the eastern border and flowing southwest- ward for thirty miles, with its tributaries, drains the eastern portion. Its tributaries are: (1) Silver Creek, which enters St. Clair Coun- ty from the north, and flows almost directly south into the Kaskaskia nearly opposite New Athens; (2) Big Mud Creek, which entering the county from the southeast, is fed by Little
Mud Creek, and flows northwest to join the Kaskaskia below Fayetteville; (3) Dosa Creek, which drains the land south of the Kaskaskia in the vicinity of New Athens; and (4) Rich- land Creek, which, with its tributaries, drains the south central part of the county.
Prairie du Pont Creek, which drains the west- ern part of the county, flows into the Mississippi near East Carondelet and opposite the lower part of the city of St. Louis. This latter was the first stream to furnish water-power in the county, or, for that matter, in the State. By means of drainage, much hitherto unproductive marsh land has been made amenable to agricul- ture. Silver Creek was so named because of an early belief in the existence of silver along its course.
Along the hillsides are numerous springs of clear water. Of these the most noteworthy are "Falling Springs"-called by the French "L'eau Tomb"-two miles southeast of Prairie du Pont, which gush from the Mississippi bluff with a fall of seventy feet to the bottom lands below. In the spring-time, the volume of wa- ter here is especially large and the sound which it produces may be heard for a considerable distance. The Catholic missionaries once built a water-mill here, and seventy-five years ago some of its ruins are said to have been still visible, noticeably a decayed hollow log that appeared to have been used as a conduit be- tween the spring and the water-wheel. Some distance east of Falling Springs are magnesia springs, and near the latter is the largest spring in the county, which breaks through an open- ing in the rocks at a height of five and a half to six feet. In wet seasons, this portion of the county abounds in springs.
FAUNA .- Long before the coming of civilized man into Illinois, there roamed over the prairie the buffalo, deer, bear, wild-cat, panther and wolf; and, of the feathered tribe, the goose, duck, prairie fowl, wild turkey and quail were numerous.
Chief among the ruminating animals were the American elk, deer, buffalo (of which re- mains were numerous in 1820), bear (found af- ter 1850), wolf (the prairie wolf has been found within the last thirty years), fox, pan-
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
ther, wild-cat (common in early days), weasel, mink, American otter, skunk, badger, raccoon, opossum, fox, squirrel (five varieties), wood- chuck, muskrat, bat, shrew, mole, rats, mice and rabbits. Many of these animals are now extinct .here, having passed away with the transformation of the forests into agricultural lands.
Of birds we mention the following: Turkey, prairie hen, grouse, quail, woodcock, snipe, yel- low-legs, marbled godwit (or long-billed cur- lew), Virginia rail, short-billed curlew, Ameri- can swan, trumpeter swan, goose, brant, mal- lard duck, teel, shoveler, American pigeon, wood duck, redhead duck, canvas-back duck, butter- ball, hooded ยท merganser, rough-billed pelican, loon, killdeer plover, baldhead, yellow-legged and upland plover, wild ibis, white heron, great blue heron, bittern, sand hill crane, wild pigeon, common dove, American raven, common crow, blue jay, bobolink, red-winged blackbird, mead- ow lark, golden oriole, yellow bird, snow bird, chipping sparrow, field sparrow, swamp spar- row, indigo bird, cardinal red bird, cheewink, white-bellied nuthatch, mocking bird, cat bird, brown thrush, house wren, barn swallow, bank swallow, blue martin, cedar bird, scarlet tana- ger, summer red bird, robin, blue bird, king bird, pewee, belted kingfisher, whippoorwill, night hawk, chimney swallow, ruby-throated humming bird, hairy woodpecker, downy wood- pecker, red-headed woodpecker, golden-winged woodpecker, Carolina parrot, great horned owl, barred owl, snowy owl, turkey buzzard, pigeon hawk, swallow-tailed hawk, Mississippi kite, red-tailed hawk, bald eagle, ring-tailed eagle.
FISHES AND REPTILES .- Of fishes the most common are cat, bass, sunfish, perch, pike, buf- falo and carp chuff.
The reptiles in St. Clair County were much the same as those found everywhere in this part of the country. They were very numerous during the period of early settlement, but, as in all things Nature provides means for keeping a true balance, the reptiles of the county, like the wild animals, yielded to civilization and are now partially extinct. A large majority were as innocent as mice. There were, in early days, three or four species of the lizard, but neither of them was harmful as is the scorpion kind. Rattlesnakes (called "rattlers") were thought to be the most dangerous serpents; however, they always give warning before striking. It
is believed that there were three distinct spe- cies of the rattlers. The prairie rattler was much smaller than the bluff, wood, or timber rattler. The cliff or bluff rattler was lighter colored. Larger environment may have had to do with both size and color. The copperhead snakes were not numerous, but were supposed to be very poisonous. The spreading adder, or viper, and the water-moccasin were exceedingly venomous. The blue racer, the most beautiful of the snakes of St. Clair County, averages in length three and a half to four feet, in color it is bluish black, and its quickness of move- ment proclaims it well deserving its universally accepted name.
There were three or four varieties of the common blacksnake. Most repulsive of these was the timber or chicken-snake, so called be- cause of its fondness for eggs and young chick- ens, for robbing birds' nests and stealing the young. It climbs large trees very readily and finds a safe harbor, as well as food, in their hollows. These are among the largest snakes known in the county. They are thick, heavy, and often five feet long. The house-snake is about two feet long, of variegated color, with dark reddish-brown square spots. It doubtless received its name from its love of the old-styled log house as a harbor. The common black- snakes, including the chicken-snake, are not vicious in disposition, but they are repulsive in appearance. The joint-snake, long since ex- tinct, when struck with a stick would break in two without apparent injury, as reminiscent pioneers have stated.
The little green snake, which in length does not exceed fifteen or twenty inches, is as inno- cent as an earthworm. The familiar striped garter-snake is now the most common snake in the county. There was formerly a small water- snake, marked with light colored stripes.
FLORA .- Grasses of the following mentioned varieties grow here: Cat's tail, timothy, herds- grass, nimble will, bluejoint, orchard grass, Kentucky bluegrass, true bluegrass, mead- OW fescue, cheat (chess), reed cane, grass, crab perennial ray grass, canary
grass, barnyard grass, foxtail, bottle- grass, millet, broom-beard grass, sweet-scented vernal grass, witch grass, reed canary grass and smooth panicum. An enumeration of grain plants is here omitted; but valuable grasses, adapted to the sustenance of inferior animals,
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
are included. Some of the native grasses have been vanquished by blue grass and white clover.
Native woody plants of these varieties have been found: Rock sugar-maple, black maple, silver-leaf maple, box-elder, stinking buckeye, smooth-leaf alder, true-service berry, false-indi- go shrub, lead plant, Virginia creeper, paw-paw, red birch, blue beech, red root, great red root, judas tree or red-bud, false bitter-sweet, hack- berry, button bush, choke cherry, black cherry, false dogwood, kinnikinnick, pigeon berry, red ozier, paniculata, sanguinea, hazelnut, haw- thorn, shagbark hickory, thick shellbark and white-heart hickory, pig-nut hickory, leather- wood, strawberry tree, white ash, green ash, black ash, blue ash, wahoo, honey locust, Ken- tucky coffee-nut, witch hazel, butternut, walnut, red cedar, woodbine, moonseed, mulberry, iron- wood, sycamore, quaking asp, cottonwood, cot- ton tree, wild plum, crabapple, burr oak, post oak, white oak, swamp white oak, swamp chest- nut oak, laurel-leaf oak, black-jack oak, yellow- bark oak, scarlet oak, red oak, swamp Spanish oak, sumach, poison ivy, climbing poison ivy, prickly gooseberry, smooth gooseberry, swamp gooseberry, black currant, prairie rose, wood rose, rose willow, cone willow, silky-head wil- low, black willow, joint willow, elderberry, red- fruit elderberry, sassafras, buffalo berry, green- brier, vinebark spiraea, willow spiraea, wood- bladder nut, coral berry, trumpet creeper, bass- wood, red elm, white elm, cork elm, hickory elm, black haw, arrow wood, summer grape, frost grape, prickly ash, spice bush, red rasp- berry, black raspberry, blackberry, black lo- cust.
OTHIER PLANTS .- The most common plants of other varieties are: Pinkroot, columbo, gin- seng, boneset, penny-royal-all used for medi- cine; phlox, lily, asclepias, mints, goldenrod, eye bright gerardia, and many others may be classified as plants of beauty, as may also the vines, trumpet-creeper, bitter-sweet, woodbine, clematis, grape and others.
As for trees, we find at least twenty varieties of oak, twenty of hickory, thirty of elm, some of walnut, hackberry, gum-tree, tulip, cotton- wood, and others too numerous to mention, characteristic of a fertile soil and a mild cli- mate.
CHAPTER IV.
FIRST WHITE SETTLEMENT.
EARLY FRENCH MISSIONS - APOCRYPHAL CHARAC- TER OF THEIR HISTORY - KASKASKIA ON THE UPPER ILLINOIS-REMOVAL TO THE SECOND KAS- KASKIA AND CAHOKIA -PERMANENT OCCUPATION BEGINS ABOUT 1700-DECADENCE OF FRENCII SET- TLEMENTS-OCCUPATION BY THE ENGLISH UNDER TREATY OF 1763-FIRST LAND SPECULATIONS- THE GEORGE ROGERS CLARK CONQUEST - THE BRADY EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT ST. JOSEPH- A DOUBLE BRITISH AND INDIAN ATTACK ON CA- HOKIA AND ST. LOUIS-THE FORMER DEFEATED BY PROMPT ACTION OF COL. CLARK-CHARACTER- ISTICS OF THE EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS.
By or under the direction of La Salle, a colony of Canadians was planted, part of it at Kaskaskia and part of it at Cahokia, about 1683.1
(1) The late Edward G. Mason, in a paper read before the Chicago Historical Society in December, 1879, says:
"In Southern Illinois, near the Mississippi, a hundred miles or more above the mouth of the Ohio, is situated the ancient village of Kaskaskia, supposed to be the oldest permanent European set- tlement in the valley of the Father of Waters. The eminent historian ("Bancroft," in footnote), "who concedes to it this distinction, finds it dif- ficult to fix the date of its origin and leaves that undetermined. Its foundation has been variously ascribed to members of La Salle's expedition to the mouth of the Mississippi on their return in 1682, to Father James Gravier in 1683 or 1685, to Tonti in 1686, and to others still, missionaries or explor- ers, at different dates in the latter part of the sev- enteenth century." (In support of these different claims as to dates are mentioned successively "Da- vidson & Stuve's History of Illinois," "Atlas of State of Illinois," and "Montague's History of Randolph County.")
Mr. Mason adds: "But the uncertainty upon this point has arisen, in part at least, from the confounding of Kaskaskia with an earlier Indian settlement of the same name on the Illinois River, where was established the Jesuit mission after- wards removed to the existing village."
Then, after tracing the history of the mission at Kaskaskia on the Illinois under the direction of different missionaries, from Marquette, who found- ed it in 1675, Allouez, Rasle, Gravier, Binneteau, Pinet and Gabriel Marest, Mr. Mason continues:
"It will readily be seen that, in the writings of such a number of missionaries at these various dates, concerning a mission frequently spoken of as at Kaskaskia, or the village of the Kaskaskians, many allusions might occur which would seem to refer to the present place of the name. But the evidence that this mission remained upon the Illi- nois River until the year 1700, and that there was no settlement before that time upon the site of Kaskaskia we now know, appears to be well nigh conclusive."
In support of the claim as to the site of the orig-
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
These settlements increased
and the
visited the re- Jesuit missionaries, who gion early in the eighteenth century, were so delighted with it that they described it as a new paradise. Soon after settlement was begun the Jesuits were there, teaching the Tammarais and Cahokia Indians. In 1700 the inhabitants began to cultivate the soil around Cahokia and to build permanent dwellings. The colonists, like most of the French emigrants of that pe- riod, maintained the most friendly relations with the Indians. Cahokia prospered and car- ried on a large trade with the northwestern tribes until 1763, when she, in common with the other French settlements in Illinois, passed into English hands, to fulfill the conditions of a treaty made to bring to an end the French and Indian war, the final result of the defeat of the French at Quebec in 1759. The men prominent here in early days-some of the them under French rule and some after the George Rogers Clark conquest-were Charles Gratiot, Joseph Trotier, Dominique Ducherme, M. Saucier and his sons, Jean, Michael and Francis; William Arundel, Thomas Brady, Cap- tain McCarty, William Morrison, William Atch-
ison, John de Maulin, Nicholas Jarrot, John Hay, John Hayes, the brothers Louison, Etienne and Louis Pensoneau, Dr. Truman Tuttle, Doctor Lyle and Dr. William L. Reynolds. Mrs. St. Ange (Pelate) La Compt-Brady and Madame Beaulieu were historic characters. Until 1788, William Arundel and Thomas Brady, both Irish, were the only men there not of French blood. About 1771 Cahokia contained fifty houses, 300 white inhabitants and about eighty negroes.
Prairie du Pont, which was settled soon after Cahokia, was the result of the establishment of the first water-mill within the territory now embraced in St. Clair County, erected on Prairie du Pont Creek by the Mission of Saint Sulpice, about 1754. The village was founded in 1760 a mile south of Cahokia, by people from the other French settlements. Jean Francois Perry and Philip Creamer were prominent early settlers. There were fourteen families there in 1765, and it was then a sort of suburb of Ca- hokia.
EARLY FRENCH MISSIONS .- The people of Can- ada, and even those of France, were stirred with enthusiasm by the reports of the fertility and beauty of Illinois, which caused immigra-
inal Kaskaskia, Mr. Mason quotes Parkman's "Discovery of the Great West," and also, in proof that that continued to be the site of the Jesuit mission, from a letter written by St. Cosme in 1699, describing a trip from Mackinaw to the mouth of the Arkansas by way of the Illinois and Missis- sippi, in which notice appears to have been taken of the fact that the Kaskaskians had, before that date, moved to Peoria, and were there located un- der the charge of Fathers Pinet and Marest. This removal, which probably included only a part of the tribe of the Kaskaskians, is claimed by some to have taken place as early as 1794 and by others at a still earlier date. D'Iberville had founded a set- tlement near the mouth of the Mississippi in 1699, and there seems to have been an attempt to induce the Kaskaskias to remove to that point, and an actual movement was begun, but was prevented from being accomplished by the interference of Fa- ther Gravier after the body of the tribe had reached the mouth of the Kaskaskia River, where they were finally induced to settle-and thus the location of. the Kaskaskia mission was changed. Mr. Mason, referring to a letter written by St. Cosme in 1699, in reference to his trip upon the Illinois, says:
"The letter of St. Cosme and the journal of Le Seuer" (a French voyageur who had come from D'Iberville's colony near the mouth of the Missis- sippi) "seemed to show clearly enough that down to the middle of the year 1700, the present Kas- kaskia had not been settled, and that the Mission was still on the Illinois River."
The late Judge Hiram W. Beckwith, during the latter years of his life President of the Illinois State Historical Society, and who had devoted spe- cial attention to this subject by the accumulation of much original data from French and Canadian archives, in a series of articles contributed to a Chicago paper, a few years before his death, speaks of the first location of the Kaskaskia Mis- sion and its removal, some twenty years later, to the site which it occupied when Illinois became a part of the British possessions and, later still.
when it became an appendage of Virginia, as fol- lows:
"Founded by Marquette in 1675 on the north val- ley of the Illinois River, a few miles below Otta- wa, Ill., then moved to the foot of the rocky height that was crowned with Fort St. Louis. Here it was without a regular teacher, after the Francis- can Friars went away with La Salle, for he would have no Jesuit in his concessions: then cared for again by Father Allouez, aided by Gravier, until forced to remove the mission from the licentious traders, to find it a few years' lodgment at Peoria Lake. Here from 1691 to 1694 it was under the charge of Father Sebastian Rasles; then again of Gravier and Father Gabriel Marest until late in the year 1700, when, as we have seen, the mission again drifted to find its final lodgment on the lower end of the great alluvial bottom (the American Bot- tom) already described, to become the germ of what is popularly known as 'Old Kaskaskia.'
"From first to last the mission has kept the names given it by Marquette- The Kaskaskia Mis- sion,' or that 'Of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin'-and for this reason historians, not careless at all, but for lack of access to material to follow its shiftings, have assigned Kaskaskia an antiquity that belongs alone to the mission from which that town took its name."
A similar view has been expressed by Parkman in his "Discovery of the Great West" (page 65), with less detail but reaching the same conclusion, when, speaking of the arrival of Joliet and Marquette at the site of the first Kaskaskia on their return from the lower Mississippi, he says: "This was a village of the Illinois, then called Kaskaskia, a name afterwards transferred to another locality."
Davidson and Stuve's History of Illinois (page 110), referring to Kaskaskia as the earliest perma- nent white settlement in Illinois, says: "There is no evidence to substantiate the statement that La Salle left colonists here and at Cahokia on his return from his successful exploration of the Mis- sissippi in 1682."
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.
tion to flow to it; and the religious orders, par- ticularly the Jesuits, were also much interested to snatch from destruction the Indians that were not converted. All over the West the French had missionaries, and at every Indian village the holy father was seen employing all his talents and energies to convert the savages to Christianity. It was at the Indian villages of Cahokia and Kaskaskia that the missiona- ries first located to instruct the aborigines.1
It was about the year 1686 that the Reverend Father Allouez, a companion of La Salle, made his first missionary entry into the Indian vil- lage of Kaskaskia.2 He was the first white man who made this village his permanent resi- dence. Sometime after, the Rev. Father Gabriel Marest visited the place, and there dated a let- ter: "Aux Cascaskias, autrement dit de l'Im- macule Conception de la Sainte Vierge, de 9 Novembre, 1712." About the same time, Father Pinet formed the station of the missionaries in the Tammarais and Cahokia villages of In- dians, which was first called "Notre Dame de Kahokia." As Governor Reynolds says, "the missionaries emigrated to Illinois in numbers and did all in their power to make the Indians drink of the waters of everlasting life; but the natives refused, even to this day, to embrace Christianity."
Charlevoix, in a letter, dated Kaskaskia, 20th October, 1721, in relation to Cahokia, says: "I lay last night in a village of the Cahokias and the Tammarais, two Illinois tribes, which have been united, and together compose no very numerous canton. I passed the night in a mis- sionary's house, with two ecclesiastics from the seminary of Quebec. M. Taumur, the elder, was absent; but I found the younger, M. Le Mercier, such as he had been represented to me, rigid to himself, full of charity to others, and displaying in his own person an amiable pattern of virtue."
We are told that the Jesuits established a monastery and founded a college at Kaskaskia at a very early day.
FORT CHARTRES .- About sixteen miles above Kaskaskia, in the American Bottom, three miles from the Bluff, and three-quarters of a mile from the Mississippi River, a fort was com- menced in 1718 and completed in eighteen months, which was called Fort de Chartres.
Fort Chartres, while the French retained the country, was the seat of government of Illi- nois, and it was the headquarters of the mili- tary forces of England until 1772, when an ex- traordinary freshet in the river destroyed one side of the fortification. Then the English abandoned it, and made Kaskaskia the seat of government.
The fort was constructed in an irregular quadrangle, the sides of the exterior polygon being 490 feet; while the walls were two feet two inches in thickness and built of limestone. This fort was enlarged and improved in 1754, when war was declared by England against France. "It is strange," says Reynolds, "that such a site would be selected for a fort by a na- tion famous for two thousand years past in all the science of the military art. The place in the Bluff may be seen to this day, where the stone was quarried to erect the fort. A lake intervened between the quarry and the fort, so that the rock must have been boated across the lake and then carted to the building. The site is on alluvial soil, which has been washed away; so that the wall of one side has been swept off by the Mississippi; and then again, the river, after destroying part of the fort, has left it out of sight." This fort is situated in the southwest corner of Monroe County, Illi- nois, and is an object of antiquarian .interest. The trees, undergrowth, and brush are so mixed and interwoven with the old walls, that the place has a much more ancient appearance than the dates will justify. The soil is so fertile that it has forced up large trees in the very houses that were occupied by the English sol- diers. (Since the description given by Rey- nolds was written the site of the fort has been in large part swept away by the current of the Mississippi.)
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