History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 4

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 4
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 4
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 4

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not quarter himself in a hotel or boarding- house and bid his persecutor defiance, for even that was held by the all-pervading power. No house or hotel anywhere within the prescribed limits of the corporation could be erected or destroyed, unless Holbrook ex- ercised the power of controlling the manner and means, and designating the time and place for such erection or destruction. And his powers, or what is the same thing, the powers of the Cairo City & Canal Com- pany, terminated not here. A corrupt or an imbecile Legislature conferred upon that company the dangerous authority to establish all the rules and regulations for the govern - ment of the municipality that a Mayor and a Board of Councilmen, selected from amongst the people might, as a body. establish. It was for D. B. Holbrook. or what is the same, the Cairo City & Canal Company, to define offenses and prescribe their punishment; to declare, by fixing wharfage at a rate that would amount to a prohibition, that steam- boats should cease landing at this delta: to say what style of living or existing should amount to vagabondage, and affix the penal- ty; to declare a levy of taxes, and enforce its collection; and to expend these taxes as he elected, whether for the advantage of the public or the furtherance of the aims of his bantling, the Cairo City & Canal Company. In short, D. B. Holbrook, as the Cairo City & Canal Company, at a late hour in his career here, to wit, on the 17th February, 1871, were clothed by the then sitting. thoughtless or villainous Legislature of Illinois, with all the powers conferred upon the Board of Aldermen of the City of Quincy. as defined between the First and Forty-fifth Sections of the charter of that city; and these grants of power the same Legislature con- firmed for a period of ten years. It is, per- haps true that he never exercised any legal

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despotism, or felt any disposition to exercise it, but the mere reposition of such alarming privileges in one man, and that man charged with the control of the material affairs of the city, could have but exercised a most enervat- ing and destructive influence upon the proj- ect in hand, and of itself ultimately insured the overthrow and destruction of the enter- prise."

From 1839 to 1841, a little more than two years of Cairo's first glory, there was spent here by Holbrook's company, or the founda- tions laid for spending, the whole of the $1,250,000 that he had arranged for in Europe, and when to this is added the actual expenditures made by the State, and the pros . pective future expenditure of the $3,500,000 by the State on the Illinois Central road, the wonder is [there were not more than two thousand people gathered here. Nearly every one of these must have been needed as em- ployes in the vast enterprises commenced and projected. When the work was stopped by Holbrook's company, the two levees run- ning along the shores of each river, joining at the south end and forming a levee, were com- pleted, and were of a height and strength then determined by the company's engineers to be amply sufficient for protection from inunda- tion. The base of the levee was forty feet, a top width of twelve feet, with an easy descent on the outside of one foot perpendicularly to seven feet horizontally. In 1843, Mr. M. A. Gilbert constructed the cross levee. As said above, a splendid dry dock and ship-yard had been established, and, under the super- intendence of Capt. Garrison, a well-known river man, the steamer Tennessee Valley had been built, and the iron work for this vessel had been turned out by the Cairo Foundry Works, and thus a complete vessel, of first- class quality, had been fitted out and wholly completed by Cairo skill alone.

As the existence of Cairo, under Holbrook's auspices, ran only through about three years, and as much of that time was exhausted in the procurement of lands and means to im- prove them, and in the erection of saw mills and the opening of quarries and brick-yards to provide building materials, but few build- ings were erected, whether for residence or business houses. According to the best data to be obtained, we have it represented that the first building put up by the company was the addition to the Cairo Hotel, situated on the point; then the Bellews House was erected next; then the machine shops; Holbrook's spacious residence, on the spot now occupied by the Halliday House; the planing mills, and some twenty cottages. These, with a number of shanties, that stood at the mercy of Holbrook, as his order to tear them down at any time would have been like the edict of a tyrant, were the sum total of Cairo's im- provements in this line even in this zenith of her glory. But a great many others were contemplated, and a few had been commenced before the crash came. An immense stone foundation, near what is now the corner of Sixth street and the Ohio levee, was nearly completed, upon which was to be erected the " Great London Warehouse," that was to eclipse, in point of size, elegance and general finish, the monster warehouse of like name in the City of London.

The intentions of Holbrook's company, in regard to future building operations, is prob- ably truthfully shadowed forth in the follow- ing extract from one of the circulars issued about the time when the prospects for the town were the fairest:

" The demand for building for every pur- pose and every description, encourages the company to use all the labor and force which can be advantageously employed to meet these applications-in fact, the conclusion is

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

rresistible, that the proper and requisite number of dwellings and places for business are only wanting at Cairo to secure a popula- tion equal in number and character to any town in the West; and it will be evident to every one that the advantages which the com- pany possess for building are very great, having their own forests of timber, saw mills, quarries of stone, lime and brick yards, and every other material required is obtainable in large quantities, and consequently at a reduced price; and every kind of labor which can be done, to save advantage, by use of steam power and machinery, will be adopted by the company and made available."

This is appropriately chapter one of the history of Cairo. Abortive as the grand

effort, or "splurge," to use a more truthful description of the occasion, was, it was the one final effort to lay the foundation upon which the present superstructure stands. A generation has passed away since that time, and of all the struggling, active, busy throng that were parties to this stirring [and hope- ful period, there are but very few now left us to tell over the story, and recall the hopes and fears and trials and triumphs that ani- mated their bosoms in those young days of their lives and of the city's life. The story is a remarkable one and full of interest, and contains a lesson, when properly 'read, that none can afford to pass by unnoticed, and that all may contemplate with pleasure and profit.

CHAPTER II.

CRASH OF THE CAIRO CITY AND CANAL COMPANY IN 1841-THE EXODUS OF THE PEOPLE- PASTIMES AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THOSE WHO REMAIN-JUDGE GILBERT-HOW A RIOT WAS SUPPRESSED-BRYAN SHANNESSY-GRADUAL GROWTH OF THE TOWN AGAIN-THE RECORD BROUGHT DOWN TO 1853, ETC.

TN the preceding chapter we told of the first gathering of the people here, and on what a grand scale they went to work to build a great city. How the Cairo City & Canal Company literally took charge of everything, and, by a profuse display of money, and work and high wages, it in- duced many hundreds of people to come and cast their fortunes with the rising young city ; and how in a moment, when all seemed the most promising and cheerful, the whole thing vanished like a pricked bubble, and leaving nothing but grief and pain for promised joy to the many hundreds who felt they had been lured into the wilds by false rep- resentations, and bitterness and disappoint-

ment took the place of hope and promise' As already intimated, when the crash came there had gathered here about two thousand people, and they were proceeding rapidly to gather about them all the appliances of civil- ized and municipal life. A man named T. J. Gass, mentioned in the preceding chapter, was teaching the first school in Cairo. It was a pay school, taught in a hastily con- structed building near where is now the cor- ner of Twelfth street and Washington avenue.

But when the failure of the city company came, everything of a public nature, and even every private enterprise, stopped, and the work of depopulating at once set in and went forward with almost as much celerity as

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

had its gathering of people the year before. The post office, Col. Walter Falls, Postmas- ter, continued. It is said, as an evidence that the few left here were not writing to their friends for money to get away, that his salary often amounted to as much as $2.15 per quarter. The Catholic Church, the only one regularly established here at that time, continued its work. The foundry tried to brave the storm, and continued to run when all else had apparently stopped forever, but the cross levee was not yet constructed, and the floods came in 1842, and, on the 22d day of March of that year, it put out its fur- naces, and forever afterward partook of the universal abandonment to quietude and decay. Col. Falls did continne his store, on his wharf-boat and his wharf-boat business until 1846 or 1847, when he quitted the town and removed to a place once called "Ohio City," on the Missouri shore, a short distance below Cairo.

So rapidly did the process of depopulation go on that in a few months there were not more than a score of families left. The flam- ing forges, the flying wheels, the clangor of machinery and the "music of the hammer and the saw" had died away, and given place to a quiet that could not have been far sur. passed had nature set upon the city the very signet of eternity.

And now commenced, on the part of those who held unsatisfied claims against the com- pany, a legal effort to secure their own. Judgments were rendered, executions issued, and every article of movable property left or abandoned by the company, not excepting the fine machinery of the mills, shops and foundries, was seized upon and sold for a mere trifle under the hammer at public sale. The dry dock was either cut loose, or the high waters of 1842 swept it away in the flood, and as it approached the Kentucky

shore it was seized under an execution for debt, sold, and taken to New Orleans and used at Algiers until the war, when the rebels converted it into one of their first formidable war vessels.

For more than a year, the Cairo City & Canal Company, as if overpowered by their complete failure, appeared utterly careless of the wreck they had left behind them. The company had gone and chaos came, and there seemed to be no one left to look after or care for its property or its rights here. People moved into the houses that were deserted at will, where they had no landlord, no rents, no taxes, nor no care how soon it fell into decay or was used piece-meal for kindling the matutinal fires. The same with the land; whoever first fancied to take possession and cultivate any cleared portion, did so without let or hindrance. We have spoken of the dangerous powers the Legislature had placed in Holbrook's hands. Upon the sudden dis- appearance of this autocrat, with his excess of law and authority, the people were left at the other extreme, and possession now was sovereign, and, as a rule, every man was a law unto himself.

Judge Miles A. Gilbert was the first per- son to come to Cairo after the collapse, and act as agent and representative of the com- pany, to the extent of protecting its property and his own, of which he had large quanti- ties, as well as a considerable holder in the stocks of the company. A detailed account of what he found here, and the spirit and moods of the people in their anger at Hol- brook and his company, could they be fully given, would read like a Western early-day romance. And of all the men it was possible to send here to speak peace to the brewing storm, and stay the uplifted hands of vio- lence, he was the only one. His unflinching integrity, his ripe judgment, and his mild,

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

and firm and fair treatment of all questions that arose between the people and the com- pany were productive of results that must have saved even bloodshed at times, and at all times it was a protection to the property of the place, as well as to the angered and out- raged people who clamored for the pay due them.

Judge Gilbert may justly be regarded as one of the active and leading spirits engaged in the early enterprise of founding the city of Cairo, and the only one of the early founders of the city now living. He was born in Hartford, Conn., January 1, 1810; came to Kaskaskia, Ill., June 8, 1832, with a large stock of goods; merchandized there eleven years; November 17, 1836, married Ann Eliza Baker, eldest daughter of Hon. David J. : Baker, Sr., at Kaskaskia, Ill. April, 1843, he removed to Cairo, and took charge of all the property there owned by the Cairo City & Canal Company, as their agent. The company had just failed, and a great number of men, in consequence, thrown out of employment, were in a wild, ungovern- able state, making a great noise about their pay. Judge Gilbert's great-grandfather was Abraham Gilbert, who died at Hamden in 1718, and was the grandson of Josiah Gil- bert, who, with three other brothers, came from Norfolk, England, to America in 1640, and settled near New Haven, Conn .; so that Judge Gilbert's lineage is traceable directly back to the " Gilberts of Norfolk," England, whose coat of arms bore the motto Tenax propositi-firm of purpose; and there is, per haps, nothing more illustrative of this trait of character in Judge Gilbert, in his long, honorable and active life, or better illustra- tive of the condition of affairs at Cairo, im- mediately following the failure of the Cairo City & Canal Company, than his bold, de- termined and successful defense of the prop-

erty of the company he came to Cairo to protect and preserve, as against the enraged mob of workmen he found fiercely demand- ing everything, and threatening an open out- break, and, by mob violence, to seize and sacrifice all within reach. This was the con- dition of affairs when Judge Gilbert arrived in the spring of 1843, and his first work was to set about the most active efforts to thwart the threatened mob. Had he reached the grounds sooner, it is probable he could have influenced the leaders and prevented an out- break. Here were a great number of men sud- denly thrown out of employment; they had grown clamorous and turbulent, and they de- termined to break into the company's machine and carpenter shops, a large building, 150x200 feet in dimensions, and filled with the most expensive machinery, which was attached to and formed part of the building. and in law formed a part of the realty, and had to be so treated as regards attachments or executions. The turbulents went to Judge Gilbert, and demanded that he allow them to enter the building and detach the machinery and sell it under execution. He had no authority to grant the request, and so in- formed them. They swore they would take it at all hazards, when he informed them he was here to protect the property, and he would do so against friend or foe. The leaders retired in great anger from the in- terview, and at once began to gather their mob. Judge Gilbert, realizing what was coming, selected four laboring men, upon whom he could fully rely, hired them and armed them, and the five men entered the building and hastily barricaded the doors and windows as best they could, and took their respective positions at such places as the at- tacking party would have to approach. They had hardly had time to do so when the mob, in great force, approached the front or main

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

entrance; failing to open this, they tried the windows, but finding them securely fastened they procured a ladder. Judge Gilbert, from the second story window, addressed the crowd, and his quiet, firm, yet pleasant man- ner secured their close attention. He told them he was their friend, and not their enemy; that it would deeply pain him to hurt or injure any one of them in any way, but that he had been placed there to protect the property, and protect it he would, to the extent of his life. He advised them to go peaceably home, and await the results of the negotiations of the President of the com- pany, who was then in New York, and nego- tiating for money wherewith to pay every one of them every cent the company owed them. He showed them that they were violating the law, and that, instead of. thus righting their wrongs, they were putting themselves in the position to be punished by law; that the law was his protection; it was with him in his effort to protect property, and this made his apparent helplessness and weakness strong enough to resist and repel even their over- powering numbers. He frankly told them they could not come into the building while he was alive, and that for them to kill him in order to get in would be murder, for which they would be hung. He urged them to peaceably go away, and concluded by in- forming them that he would kill the first man who entered the building. This quiet and sensible talk had a marked influence on the crowd; the leaders called them away, and they retired a short distance to hold a council. After much parleying, and a bounteous supply of fighting whisky, they re- turned to the charge, more furious than ever. They surrounded the building, cursing, swearing and howling their rage, like in- furiated beasts, and calling upon each other to kill Judge Gilbert and his four faithful

companions and take the machinery and con - tents and destroy the building. The front of the building was upon or against the levee, and the rear of it stood about ten feet above the ground, and here was a large trap-door, used for the purpose of taking in and pass- ing out the most cumberseme articles of goods. The mob succeeded in breaking and pushing up and open this trap-door, and then they attempted to "boost" their men up through this. Judge Gilbert was at the spot by the time they had the trap open, and again appealed personally to some of the leaders and begged them to go away. He showed them he was armed with firearms and a stout hickory club, and told them he alone could kill them as fast as they could show their heads above the floor, and informed them he would certainly do so. Several ventured to put up their hands and clasp the upper side of the floor, but a sharp rap from the hickory club made them quickly take them down again. Finally, after trying all manner of means to effect an entrance, they persuaded one poor fellow, who was much under the in- fluence of liquor, to let them push him up through the floor. He was warned, as he started up, not to attempt it, but, nothing daunted, he allowed himself to be shoved forward. He received a light blow from the club, and it affected him so little that the crowd cheered and pushed him the harder. The club was then rained upon his head fast and furious, and finally he yelled in agony . to be lowered instantly or he would be killed sure enough, and he was let down. This man's dreadful experience sobered him, and also seems to have had the effect of sobering the crowd. A feeble effort was made to call out other volunteers to go up, but to this there was no response. They began to fall away in small squads, but the majority lingered around the building until after dark, when

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

they all left, and quiet reigned supreme once more. Judge Gilbert and his four men re- mained on guard all night, and it can well be imagined they did not even sleep by relays. They stayed close upon duty for several days, until the leaders of the mob (something they should have thought of first) advised with attorneys, and concluded a mob was not the true remedy for their wrongs.

This episode is properly a history of the trying times in Cairo, but it well answers the double purpose of illustrating the temper of the people when Judge Gilbert came here to take possession of the Cairo City Canal Company's interests, as well as something of the iron there was in the Judge's nature, and which constituted him the right man in the right place.

Judge Gilbert had the cross levee built in 1843, and had the Ohio and Mississippi levees repaired, inclosing about six hundred acres of land, so strong and permanent that it secured Cairo from inundation during the great flood of 1844. He remained there for three years; was one of the original pur- chasers of the land, from Government, on which the city is now built; was identified with all the charter railroads and organiza- tions of the city, as either President, Direc- tor or stockholder, up to the appointment of Samuel Staats Taylor as agent of the Trustees (Thomas S. Taylor and Charles Davis). He then moved to Ste. Genevieve County, Mo., where he had large landed interests; laid off a town thereon, and called it "Ste. Mary," now a flourishing village of several hundred inhabitants, where he has resided ever since, and still resides at his homestead, "Oakwood Villa," situated upon a beautiful hill over- looking the village, on the banks of the Mississippi River, with a splendid view of the river for many miles each way. He has been an active, energetic man all his life;

has been for many years, and still is, though now over seventy-three years of age, one of the leading and most influential citizens of Ste. Genevieve County, with a high character for honesty and integrity, and (a kindness, hospitality and generosity poverbial among those who know him. He was elected Judge of the County and Probate Courts of the county three successive terms-twelve years -and so well did he manage the affairs and finances of the county and discharge the du- ties of the office that he was strongly urged to accept another election to the office, but declined. In politics, Judge Gilbert, since the disruption of the old Whig party, has been a Democrat, but strongly opposed the secession movement in Missouri. The first Union resolutions in his county were drawn up by him, advocating to "stick to the Union," and that "secession would prove the death- knell of slavery."

In 1860, during the secession excitement in Missouri, the State Convention was called, to determine whether Missouri should secede or remain in the Union. Judge Gilbert took an active part in securing Union delegates from his district, against powerful opposi - tion, and it was largely through the ,influ- ence of his pen and management that Union delegates were elected from his Congression - al District. At the Congressional District Convention, it is said that he sat up all night, wrote the Union circular address to the people, got it printed, and had it circu- lated all over the district by 12-o'clock next day, and before the secessionists (and seceders from that convention) had their circular printed.

Judge Gilbert still holds large interests in Cairo and Alexander County; has two sons living in Cairo-William B. and Miles Frederick Gilbert-practicing law there. His wife is also still living, and he has one

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married daughter-Sarah F., wife of Thomas B. Whitledge, residing with him at Ste. Mary, and a prominent lawyer of that place. Judge Gilbert makes frequent visits to Cairo, and takes great interest in the pros- perity of the place, and still has a lively faith in the future greatness of the city.

The presence and control of the company's interests here by Judge Gilbert was a great surprise to many who began to look upon themselves as old settlers. It was the first intimation that the abandonment had not been so complete as they had for some time supposed. When he had completed the cross levee, and had so strengthened the others as to protect the city, even from the extraordi- nary high waters of the Mississippi in the year 1844, when Cairo was the only dry spot from St. Louis to New Orleans, and when these duties were discharged, he would re- turn to business that called him to other places, and, therefore, his government of the people here amounted to no more than the mere assertion of the company's title and possession to moveable property, so the Cairoites continued to occupy at will the houses and so much of the land as they pleased, without rents or question. And they were soon inclined to hoot at the idea of any one collecting rent from them. Was it not enough to live in such a place as Cairo! And thus they assured each other. Thus occupied, the property fell far short of furnishing the means of paying the annual taxes levied against it. For about thirteen years-from 1841 to 1853-there was little of change in Cairo, except that of slow decay.

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 4

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