History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 25

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 948

USA > Illinois > Union County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 25
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 25
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 25

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

We hold this to be true, and we speak from experience, that you may commence teaching your child as soon as it can prattle, always as play and never as a task, and by the time it can talkj'plain, you can have it to both read and write and spell correctly the name of nearly every one of its playthings and the articles of furniture about the house. We do not attach any value to this very young play- education, yet, if it is play that it enjoys with the keen zest of infancy, it will not probably hurt it. This can be done with any ordinarily bright child, and yet foolish fathers and mothers will tell you they are always too busy to teach their children any- thing at home. It is not that they are too

busy, but only too ignorant. They are, may- hap, both graduates of some institution of learning, and yet so ignorant that they will undertake to rear a family, when incompe- tent, really, for the position of caring for blind puppies.

We champion the cause of outraged inno- cence and blessed childhood. We would war to the death upon that monster, ignorance, whether " learned ignorance " or that more excusable, inherited and common, if not uni- versal, kind. We would enact it a capital crime to task a child. It is simply the most inexcusable and infernal species of slavery. It is soul-polluting, and enslaving and de- grading your own flesh and blood, and where such a wretched practice prevails, it is mar- velous that mankind does not relapse into brutal barbarism. We know of but one thing meaner, more degrading or infamous, and that is whipping your child. In the schools-we blush for the age of which this must be written-they call it "corporal .pun- ishment," and flatter themselves that that great compound word can cover the blotch and deep damnation of the monster act.

But we stop abruptly in this line of thought, appalled at the immensity of the subject, as it grows in the succession of ideas as they follow each other. Assuming, as we may, that the most important subject in this life is the education of the young, we might be justified in disregarding all else, and fol- lowing these merest hints to their final and inevitable conclusions, and elaborating them, at least, in a manner that might make plain to the comprehension of all the views of the writer. To convince intelligent thinkers that this important institution deserves to be ever examined and watched, and that it is a foolish people who sit supinely down in the faith that the fathers possessed all wisdom, and had so arranged our schoolrooms, that

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any further questioning of the system is a folly, if not a crime. In heaven's name, No! We would not write the schools down, but up. We would correct the wrongs, if any, and improve and perfect the good. And, above all, if we have not real schools of true education, we would never stop until we had made them such, if this were possible.

The first public free school was commenced in 1854, in the present Eleventh Street Schoolhouse. This was a plain, one-story, one-room, frame building, and one teacher, and meager as were these school facilities they supplied the demand of that day, and continued to do so until 1865. In 1864, the three-story brick building on the corner of Thirteenth and Walnut streets was erected. It has five rooms, two on each floor, except the third, which is in one room. The colored schoolhouse (responsive to the negroes' sen . sitiveness on the pigment points) was erected. This is a two-story frame, with four rooms, and is situated on the corner of Nineteenth and Walnut streets. Then was erected the present elegant high school building, on the corner of Walnut and Twenty-first streets. This is a three-story brick, and has five rooms. The School Board has rented a schoolroom for the past two years. This is across the street from the high school. The past school year, the board has employed seventeen teachers; there were 1,100 pupils; the highest salary was $1,200 a year, and the lowest $30 per month. The number of chil- dren, of ages under twenty-one, is, males, 2,036, females, 2,024; the number of school age is, males, 1,394, females, 1,447; total, 2,841. The assessment for school purposes, the present and past few years, has been $10,000. There has for some time been but one male teacher in the white schools-the Superintendent-and one male in the negro schools. For some time, the seating capacity in the school rooms

and the supply of children have been out of . all proportion, and the result is that the primary rooms were so overrun that the board was compelled to allow only half-days' attendance, and we make no doubt but this necessity will result in the discovery that half a day is a plenty for the little children to be mewed up in the schoolroom.

The newspapers of the country, of a few months ago, were laden with dispatches from Cairo, giving the full details of what were called the negro raids upon the public schools. It seems they were not satisfied to be alone in their own schoolrooms, and so they counseled together, and, by concert of action, met at their "churches and school- rooms, and in bodies marched upon the white schools. Their principal point of attack seemed to be the high school building. The motly processions were headed by the most venerable old gray-headed bucks and wenches, and tapered down to the most infantile, un- washed, bow-legged picaninnies; and they all said, " I recken we'uns wants to gradiate as well as white trash." It all resulted in nothing more serious than a great annoyance and interruption to the schools. Some of the brave girls that were teaching saw the savory mob approaching, and barred the doors and kept them out; while in other rooms they effected a lodgment, and proposed to stay. The writer had the curiosity to interview the Tax Collector of this school district, and was informed that the whole tax paid by the negroes was not enough to pay for the fuel used in the negro schools. But these young Solomons of Africa probably would have paid small heed to that, had it been presented to them.

Loretto Academy .- This is a female con- vent school, under the auspices of the Sis- ters of Loretto. It was founded in 1863, under the superintendency of Mother Eliza-

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beth Hayden, a sister of bishop Spaulding, of Kentucky. It cost over $8,000, and when the frame was up, and ready for inclosure, it was wrecked by a storm. It was again put up, and soon was one of the most flourishing female academies in the country. Four years ago, the entire building was burned to the ground, inflicting a great loss, as well as an interruption to the school. It was soon rebuilt, and in the rebuilding it was enlarged and greatly improved, and has now fully re- gained its lost ground. This institution of learning has been much prized by the people of Cairo, and many of the daughters of some of the best people have been educated there.

Frei Deutsch Schule .- This has long been one of the noted schools of Cairo. To a Ger- man, the name is quite enough explanation

as to what it is; a free school, for the pur- pose of teaching German, and without re. ligious bias. Their building is on Four- teenth, between Washington and Walnut streets. They have about seventy-five pupils, and the institution is maintained wholly by private subscription. This free school was opened in 1863; its founders and principal supporters were F. Bross, H. Meyers, P. G. Schuh, Ed Buder, Charles Feuchter, Peter Each, John Reese, Peter Neff, Leo Klepp, Charles Meyner, John Scheel and Jacob Lanning. The house cost $4,500. and among the largest contributors to build it were A. B. Safford and Will- iam Schutter. The principal teachers have been Mr. Apple, Wirsching, Kroeger, and assistant, Miss Yocum.

CHAPTER X.

RAILROADS -- THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL-CAIRO SHORT LINE-THE IRON MOUNTAIN-CAIRO & ST. LOUIS-THE WABASH -MOBILE & OHIO-TEXAS & ST. LOUIS-THE GREAT JACKSON ROUTE-ROADS BEING BUILT, ETC., ETC.

"Mine eyes, that I might question my con- ductor."-Longfellow.

TN the opening chapter of the history of Cairo, we noted that the event of trans- cendent importance, not only to Cairo but the entire Mississippi Valley, was the coming of the first steamboat-the first that ever stirred the waters west of the Alleghany Mountains, being the Orleans, Capt. Roose- velt, which, passing down the Ohio, rode out into the Mississippi River on the 18th day of December, 1811. Compared with the floating palaces that have since plowed these rivers, it was but a rude craft-yet it was a steamboat-a true type of an immortal hu-

man conception, that was freighted and bal- lasted with the weal of civilization.

The railroad is but the steamer running on dry land. But far-seeing minds looked at the steamboat as it stemmed the current and the winds with its enormous loads of mer- chandise, and they thought that wheels could be made to take the place of the paddles, and thus the propelling engine would carry the same precious cargoes over valley and plain, hills and mountains that it did on the water. The great invention of Fulton's had cast its seed in other men's minds and then the thought goes on forever; starting like the little rivulet over the white sand and

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gravel, so insignificant at first that a straw would turn or obstruct its course, yet passing on and on, and gathering accessions and vol- ume here and there until it swells into the great and resistless river, bearing upon its heaving bosom the Armada of the world as in majesty it rushes into the great sea that rolls around all the world. Just so is a great thought matured, fashioned and grown; it is the slow growth of ages, perhaps, as it has gathered accretions from millions of minds.

It comes not springing forth a full grown Phoenix fron the ashes, but in the nature of things, the greater the conception the slower has been its formation; but once the seed has commenced to germinate, and the warm fruc- tifying rays from the mind of genius have touched it into life, nothing can prevent or check its progress, and it will mature and bear fruit for the human race and for all time. What a travesty upon men are all the Napoleons, Caesars, Alexanders, and all the warriors, rulers and potentates of the earth, when stood up beside the serene, the great Fulton! They are the toads and bats and vampires-sucking rivers of blood, and see them picking the shreds of human flesh from their bloody talons, wiping their beaks of the fresh stains of quivering hearts, and behold them blink and shrink back in the presence of the bright day and sunshine cast from the peaceful and benign countenances of these great men who have lived and thought and starved and died for the good of their fellow-men.

When the thoughts of genius burst into blossom, they fill the world with hope like the spring time, and of this ripened fruit come those grand advances of civilization that alone distinguish us from the beasts of bur- den and prey. A human invention that started away back in the past ages, by whom the world will never know generally, has

slowly grown and ripened as minds have ad- ded to it in the years, until it becomes per- fected into a living force, is the supremest production of the earth. It surpasses that " perfect creature, man," as the gods do the groundlings. These slow-growing and per- fected thoughts come rarely and slowly into this world, but they are the only true mark and measure of our civilization. And there- fore, could their history be truly given, with something of each great mind that played its rays of light upon the subject, and the work- ing impulses of that mind, they would be the most interesting, profound and edifying words that were ever placed upon paper. This, indeed, would be history-history containing philosophy, science, civilization- all knowledge, all good, all enduring pleas- ure possible to man. It is present in its im- measureable effects always, while its causes are in the " deep bosom of the ocean buried:" and it is the ignorance and unweeded barbar- ism yet lingering in mankind that works this injustice to its true benefactors and great men, and that has crowned with laurel wreaths the butchers and the shams, and that has told the story of the world's bloody sacrifices to mean ambition in immortal epic, and consigned to forgetfulness the works of genius that are the very sunlight of the crowning type of civilization.

There is no one thing in the history of Cairo, or for that matter, the entire State of Illinois. that exceeds in importance the building of the Illinois Central Railroad. The idea of a railroad running from this point to the north line of the State began to be enter- tained by a few far-seeing minds almost sim- ultaneously with the first settlement of the place.

The Legislature elected August, 1836, was supplemented by a State Internal Improve- ment Convention, composed of many of the

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ablest men in the State, which was to meet at the seat of government simultaneously with the Legislature. This convention devised a general system of internal improvement, the leading characteristics of which were "that it should be commensurate with the wants of the people." This convention was an irre- sponsible body, determined to succeed in its one object, regardless of consequences. Possibilities were argued into probabilities, and the latter into infallibilities. The Leg- islature was duly impressed with the public sentiment that had been worked up.

A bill for the construction of nine rail- roads, including $3,500,000 for the Central Railroad from the mouth of the Ohio to Ga- lena, was the largest of these enterprises, and the importance of reaching the naviga- ble rivers at Cairo is well outlined by the concluding paragraph of the committee's re- port, which was submitted to the Legislature. It says: "In the present situation of the country, the products of the interior, by rea- son of their remoteness from market, are left upon the hands of the producer or sold barely at the price of the labor necessary to raise and prepare them for sale. But if the contemplated system should be carried into effect, these fertile and healthy districts, which now languish for the want of ready markets for their productions, would find a demand at home for them during the prog- ress of the works, and after their completion would have the advantages of a cheap tran- sit to a choice of markets on the various nav- igable streams. These would inevitably tend to build towns and cities along the routes and at the terminal points of the re- spective railroads."

The theory of the effect upon the State that would come from the building of rail- roads were not dreams, even if their ideas as to how this consummation was to be

brought about was a huge and almost fatal blunder.

The improvement convention mapped out nine railroads, as mentioned, and the Legisla- ture not only responded fully to their com- mands, but proceeded to show that its mem- bers had ideas, too, in regard to the State tak- ing hold of this beautiful Aladdin's Lamp. After making all the appropriations called for, it proceeded to hunt out the small streams, forsooth, often the wet-weather riv- ulets, and appropriate money by the thou- sands to make them navigable rivers, or to improve them by locks and dams. Because there was no money in the treasury, they de- termined to spend money with the most per- fect abandon. This was reckless legislation -shocking financiering, but it showed great energy and industry, and ending in the ap- parent total destruction of the very objects and purposes it had in view. The Central Railroad was scotched, not killed, and soon new schemes for its construction came in view; but all of them lacked vitality until the passage of the act of Congress of September, 1850, granting to the State the munificent donation of nearly 3,000,000 acres of land through the heart of Illinois in aid of its completion. The year 1850 was truly a his- torical one for the nation. That year wit- nessed the throes and convulsive tremors at- tending the great adjustment measures, dur- ing that long and exciting session of Con- gress. And amid the exciting struggle for national life the bill which finally created the Illinois Central Railroad passed, and, in the West, gave the people's mind some di- version from the all absorbing national topics. At that time the entire railroad in Illinois consisted of the Northern Cross Railroad from Meredosia and Naples on the Illinois River, to Springfield; the Chicago & Galena, from the former city as far as Elgin, and a

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six-mile track across the American bottom from opposite St. Louis to the mines in the bluffs. The essence of the Congressional act consisted in granting, not to the road, but to the State of Illinois, the public lands to the extent of the even-numbered sections for the distance of six sections deep on each side of the track, including the contemplated trunk and branches of the road from Cairo to Galena, with a branch to Chicago; for the lands sold or pre-empted within this des- ignated twelve-mile strip, enough might be taken from even-numbered sections for the distance of fifteen miles on either side of the tracks to be equal in quantity to them. The act granted to the railroad the right of way through public lands of the width of 200 feet. The construction of the road was to be simultaneously commenced at its north- ern and southern termini, and when com- pleted the branches were to be constructed, the whole to be completed within ten years, in default of which, the unsold lands were to revert to the Government, and for those sold the State was to pay the Government price. The minimum price of the alternate or odd numbers was raised from $1.25 to $2.50 per acre. Here were 3,000,000 acres of land given away at an immense profit, as by this doubling the price of the remaining half, the gain in time in the sales and the increase of population of the State are beyond computation. The land was taken out of market for two years, and when restored in the fall of 1852, it in fact brought an aver- age of $5 per acre. The purposes of Con- gress in donating this land to the State was the construction of the railroad, and that the State should use it only for that purpose, and the Government required the State to make the road subject always to remain a public highway for the use of the Govern- ment of the United States, free from all tolls

or other charges for the transportation of any troops, munitions, or other property of the General Government. This is a plain pro- vision in the Congressional act, and yet when the war came, almost upon the completion of the road, this restriction was construed not to apply to the rolling stock, but only to the rails, and, therefore, it only gave the Govern- ment the right to put its own rolling stock and run them over the road free, otherwise it had to pay as well as any private citizen. The act of Congress contemplated the extension of the road south from Cairo to Mobile, and the same provisions were ex- tended to the States of Alabama and Missis- sippi. This was the substance of the first subsidy ever made by Congress to aid in the construction of a railroad, and wise, just and good as was the measure, it opened a Pan- dora's box that has well nigh despoiled the country of its public domain.

At the same session, Congress passed an act granting to the State of Arkansas the swamp and overflowed lands unfit for culti- vation and remaining unsold within its borders, the benefits whereof were extended by Sec- tion 4, to each of the other States in which there might be such lands situated. By this act the State of Illinois received 1,500,- 000 acres more. These lands were subse- quently turned over to the respective counties where located, with the condition that they be drained and used for school purposes.

Mr. Douglas prepared a petition, signed by the Congressional delegations of all the States along the route of the road from Mo- bile north, describing the probable location of the road and its branches through Illinois and requesting the President to order the suspension of land sales along the lines des- ignated, which was immediately done.

The Legislature of Illinois was to meet in January, 1851, and the whole people of the

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State, but especially those along the contem- plated line and branches, began to discuss the probabilities of what that body would do and what it of right should do. The point of departure of the branch from the main line was an open one, and rival towns began to push forward their claims, and much dis- cussion and contention pervaded the press of the State. The La Salle interests wanted the branch for Chicago taken off at that point: Bloomington was making a vigorous struggle in the same way, and unfortunate Shelbyville, which was a fixed point in the old charters, feeling secure on that point, also grasped for the branch deflection from that point, and in the end missed both the main line and branch. The route proposed was a direct line from Cairo, making di- rectly to Mount Vernon and making the sep- aration at that point, and from Mount Vor. non the main line to run to Carlyle, Green- ville, Hillsboro, Springfield, Peoria, Galena and over to Dubuque. But by this route the belt of vacant land would have failed to give the required donation, and hence the author- ities of the road would not adopt it.

In a previous chapter we have spoken at some length of several charters obtained under the name of the Illinois Central, and the Great Western Transportation Company and the Cairo City & Canal Company. all looking to the building or securing the rail- road as it is now constructed substantially. All this multifarious legislation was obtained under what is now known as the Holbrook regime, and the many charters, amendments, repeals and re-enactments affecting this sub- ject came to be known as the Holbrook char- ters. Holbrook was the chief factotum of the Cairo Company, and eventually under the name of a charter for the Great Western Company he secured for the Cairo City Company the franchise of the Illinois Cen-

tral Railroad. And in the charter it was provided that " all lands that may come into the possession of said company, whether by donation or purchase," were pledged and mortgaged in advance in security for the payment of the bonds and obligations of the company authorized to be issued and con- tracted under the provisions of the charter. By act of March 3, 1845, the charter of the Great Western Railway Company was re- pealed; by an act of February 10, 1849, it was revived for the benefit of the Cairo City & Canal Company. The company thus revived was authorized in the construction of the Cen- tral Railroad to extend it on from the southern terminus of the canal-La Salle-to Chicago, " in strict conformity to all obligations, re- strictions, powers and privileges of the act of 1843." Holbrook's railroad scheme then gently took the Governor into a quiet partner- ship, to the extent of authorizing that official to hold in trust for the use and benefit of said company whatever lands might be donated to the State by the General Government, to aid said road, subject to the conditions and pro- visions of the bill (then pending before Cou- gress and expected to become a law) grant- ing the subsidy of 3,000,000 acres of land. This was a nice scheme to have the grabbing all done in advance. In the light of the long years that are past, there can now be but one construction put upon the "Holbrook charters." They were not honest, and char- ity alone may protect the Legislature from an equally severe judgment by saying they were ignorant. Holbrook in some unaccount- able way had impressed even such men as Judge Breese and Gov. Casey that he was a great and pure financier, and they were ready to confess they could see no signs of a cat in the meal tub. The Legislature seemed to delight in dancing attendance upon his slightest wishes, and so far as in

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their power, they seemed ready to lay the State at his feet. But most fortunately for Illinois, Judge Douglas was alive and at this time a United States Senator from Illinois, and he could not be hoodwinked by the plausible schemes against the vital interests of his State. During the session of the Illi- nois Legislature of 1849, he appeared be- fore that body (a special session) and in an able and effective speech, which he delivered October 23, he showed the Legislature that a palpable fraud had been practiced upon it in its session of the preceding winter in pro- curing from it this charter; and that had the bill in Congress met with no delay on ac- count of this fraud, this vast property would have gone into the hands of Holbrook & Co. to enrich those scheming corporators, with little assurance, as they represented no wealth, and gave no assurances that the road would ever be built; that Con- gress had an insuperable objection to making the grant for the benefit of a pri- vate corporation. The connection of these Holbrook companies with the Central Rail- road in the estimation of Congress, presented an impassable barrier to the grant. But the same Legislature that had granted the char- ter refused to repeal it even after it had been thus exposed by Judge Douglas. Thus mat- ters stood and the schemers supposed their triumph complete until the fact finally was brought to their attention that Judge Doug- las would never permit Congress to pass the bill in any shape whereby . the Holbrooks could reap all the benefits. Judge Douglas simply said he preferred the bill should never pass than that the State and the Gov- ernment should be robbed, and then no cer- tainty the road would ever be built. This was unexpected difficulties for the schemers, and Holbrook's genius at once set about the way of getting up a plausible dodge to

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 25

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 948

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 948