History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 9

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 9
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 9
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 9

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).

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

of travel and commerce, then, indeed, were the floodgates of prosperity once more opened to Cairo, and the town as the gateway between the Mississippi Valley and the South was the busiest place of its size on the continent. On every train and on every steamboat the tide of hu- manity poured through the town. The steam- boats, freighted to the very waters edge, going and coming, filled the rivers, and day and night they were struggling and almost fighting for room at our wharves to load and unload their cargoes. The Ohio levee, from one end to the other, was covered with freight in great rows and piles in bewildering quantities. The marine- ways and docks from here to Pittsburgh were building boats as fast as they could, and every day, almost, new and elegant ones rounded to at our wharf, and yet they were wholly inad- equate to carry the immense merchandise that was awaiting shipments. The railroads were taxed until they cried " peccavi !" And it is a well-known fact that property amounting to millions of dollars awaited shipment over the Illinois Central Railroad, at stations where there being no room in the depots, it was exposed to the weather and rotted. To all this there came

a corresponding horde of people to Cairo-per- manent and temporary sojourners. The hotels, boarding houses, tenement and everything in the shape of a house was crowded to suffocation ; new houses were at once being rapidly con- structed and the universal ery was for more. Rents went to fanciful figures, and in a short time it was impossible to tell how many people were here. Lots, leases, houses, rents and nearly all Cairo property went balooning away in a gay style-sailing up and up as grandly and to as dizzy heights as a Fourth of July orator's eagle. As said, the transient pop- ulation was immense. In 1864, it was even es- timated, counting the floating population. that there were nearly 12,000 people here, although the vote at that time had never reached a thou- sand. In other words, the population was estimated greater then than the census has since shown it to be, although the last general elec- tion showed there were over 1,800 voters. In other words, the census of 1880 shows a pop- ulation of a little less than 10,000 people. And it is estimated now that the actual number of in- habitants here is a fraction over 12,000.

CHAPTER IV.

DECIDEDLY A CAIRO CHAPTER-CAIRO AND ITS DIFFERENT BODIES POLITIC AND CORPORATE- CAIRO CITY AND BANK OF CAIRO - CAIRO AND CANAL COMPANY -CAIRO CITY PROPERTY-TRUSTEES OF THE CAIRO TRUST PROPERTY-THE ILLINOIS EXPORTING COMPANY - D. B. HOLBROOK-JUSTIN BUTTER- FIELD-RECAPITULATION, ETC., ETC.

A T a time simultaneous with, or just prior to, the coming of the nineteenth century, the delta formed by the junction of the Mis- sissippi and Ohio Rivers began to attract the attention of far-seeing men, as one of the future important points upon the continent. And from the time the first white man's eyes

ever beheld it, 210 years ago, as Joliet and Marquette and their little party, consisting of five men besides themselves, floated around the point of land that forms the extreme southern limit of Illinois, and with joy and gladness beheld the beautiful blue Ohio River, and by this, their marvelous voyage

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

of discovery, placed this great Mississippi Valley under the ægis of France and Papal Christendom, and thereby inaugurated that tremendous world's drama that continued during more than ninety years, in which France and the Church were such conspicuous actors; we say, from this date on, the little strip of land on which the city of Cairo stands at- tracted the attention of men, and presented something of its prospective importance to the entire Christian world. At the time of its discovery, nearly all nations were more or less involved in wars of conquest and in- vasion-those mighty struggles for suprem- acy in civilization, that were the most im- portant factors in the present advanced state of mankind, and especially that splendid civilization that has been spread broadcast over the world by the Anglo-Saxon race. Hence, for more than a century after the dis- covery of the point of junction of the two great rivers, situated almost in the center of the inhabitable portions of the continent of North America, its transcendent importance, in a military point of view, were studied and well comprehended by all the military powers of Europe. Its wonderful undevel- oped and almost unclaimed commercial value and inexhaustible productions were but little considered until the long Revolutionary war had been fought out, and peace had begun to win those triumphs that have resulted in the present rich and prosperous nation of more thar fifty millions of people.

A large number of incorporation acts, dat- ing back even to the Territorial times of Illinois, have been enacted, and a somewhat extended notice of these legislative doings is made of great importance, from the fact that in the attempt to make laws for found- ing a city here there resulted the most im- portant legislation, in both the State Legis- lature and the Congress of the United States,

for the entire State of Illinois, that have ever been placed upon the statute books; wise laws, that have brought Illinois from a sparsely settled, bankrupt and unpromis- ing waste and wilderness, to the position of the first State in the Union in many of the leading agricultural products, as well as in railroads and all that tends to make a rich, prosperous and happy people.

On the 9th day of January, 1818, the Ter- ritorial Legislature concluded the time had come that imperatively demanded that a city be founded here, and on that day it passed an act for the incorporation of the "City and Bank of Cairo in the State of Illinois;" the incorporators, consisting of John G. Comyges, Thomas H. Harris, Thomas F. Herbert, Shadrach Bond, Michael Jones, Warren Brown, Edward Humphreys and Charles W. Hunter, who had entered a certain tract of land between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and near the junction of the same. This land included Fractional Sections 14, 15, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and the northeast fractional quarter of Section 27, Town 17 south, Range 1 west, and contained about 1,800 acres. The act of incorporation is ushered into the world by the following grandiloquent stump speech: " And whereas, the said proprietors represent that there is, in their opinion, no position in the whole extent of these Western States better calculated, as it respects com- mercial advantages and local supply, for a great and important city, than that afforded by the junction of those two great highways, the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. But that nature, having denied to the extreme point formed by their union, a sufficient degree of elevation to protect the improvements made thereon, from the ordinary inundations of the adjacent waters, such elevation is to be found only upon the tract above mentioned and described. [It must be borne in mind

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

that this is one way of putting it that the town site only commenced at the north line of Bird's land, which was not included in the town plat. ] So that improvements and property made and located thereon [no sem- blance of levees then made] may be deemed perfectly safe and absolutely secure from all such ordinary inundations, and liable to injury only from the concurrence of unusually high and simultaneous inundations in both of said rivers, an event which is alleged but rarely to happen. and the injurious consequences of which it is considered practicable, by proper embankments, wholly and effectually and permanently to obviate. And whereas, there is no doubt that a city erected at, or as near as practicable, to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, provided it be thus secured by sufficient embankments, or in such other way as experience may prove most efficacious for that purpose, from every such extraordinary inundation, must necessarily become a place of vast consequence to the prosperity of this growing Territory, and, in fact, to that of the greater part of the in- habitants of these Western States. And

whereas, the above-named proprietors are desirous' of erecting such city, under the sanction and patronage of the Legislature of this Territory, and also of providing by law for the security and prosperity of the same, and to that end propose to appropriate one-third part of all money arising from the sale and disposition of the lots into which the same be surveyed, as a fund for the con- struction and preservation of such dykes, levees and other embankments as may be necessary to render the same perfectly secure; and also, if such fund shall be deemed sufficient thereto, for the erection of public edifices and such other improvements in the said city as may be, from time to time, considered expedient and practicable, and to

appropriate the two-thirds part of the said purchase- moneys to the operation of bank- ing. And whereas, it is considered that an act to incorporate the said proprietors and their associates, viz., all such persons as shall, by purchase or otherwise, hereafter become proprietors of the tract above men tioned and described, as a body corporate and politic, while it guarantees to all those who may become freeholders or residents within the said city the fullest security as to their habitations and property, will at the same time concentrate the views and facili- tate the operations of the said proprietors and their said associates in rendering the said city secure from all such inundations as aforesaid, and in promoting the internal prosperity of the same." After this extraor- dinary line of whereases, the Legislature pro- ceeds to regularly incorporate the " City and Bank of Cairo"-the city to be here, at the junction of the rivers, and the bank tempo- rarily to be, and transact business in, the town of Kaskaskia, giving the body corporate the title of the " President, Directors and Com- pany of the Bank of Cairo," requiring John G. Comyges and his associates, within the space of nine months from the passing of this act, to proceed to lay off, on such town site, a city, to be known and distinguished by the name of Cairo; which shall consist of not less than 2,000 lots, each lot being not less than sixty-six feet wide and 120 feet deep, and the streets of said city to be not less than eighty feet wide, and to run, as near as may be, at right angles to each other; that the price of the said lots shall be fixed and limited at $150 each, and appropriating the money arising from the sale of lots as fol- lows. Two-thirds part thereof, that is to say, the sum of $100 on each lot sold, shall constitute the capital stock of the bank; dividing the capital stock into twice as many

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

shares as there are lots, the one-half of which shares shall belong to the purchasers of said lots, in the proportion of one share to each lot, and the remaining of the shares shall be the property of the said John G. Comyges and his associates, their heirs and assigns, in proportion to the interest they may hold in the same respectively; the remaining one- third part of the purchase-money to consti- tute a fund to be exclusively appropriated to the security and improvement of said city; the said Comyges and associates are author- ized to appoint so many commissioners as they may deem necessary, to receive sub- scriptions for the purchase of lots; they are required, upon any person applying to make such purchase of subscription, to direct the person so applying to deposit to the credit of the Bank of Cairo, in the Bank of the United States, or in the nearest chartered bank, one-third of the purchase money, in three and six months' payments. Then it provides that no subscription shall be re- ceived from any person for more than ten of said lots. When 500 lots have been sub- scribed for, the Commissioners are to call a meeting of such subscribers at Kaskaskia, and elect from their body thirteen Directors, who were to hold office one year, and then these Directors are to choose, by ballot, a Presi- dent; authorizing them to prescribe by-laws and regulations, and defining the duties of the officers; the Directors are at once to dis- tribute by lot among the subscribers, the number each is entitled to receive, and to make deeds therefor upon full and final payment, and they are imperatively required to receive all moneys deposited to their credit in other banks, and thereupon to "commence their operations as a banking company." Provision is then made that the total amount of debts which the bank may at any time owe shall not exceed twice the amount of

the capital stock actually paid into said bank; making the bills of credit, under the seal of the corporation, assignable by indorsement, as well as making all bills or notes which may be issued by the corporation, in pay- ment, though not under seal, binding and obligatory as upon any private person or per- sons; the bank is required to make half-year- ly dividends of profits; requiring each Cash- ier, before entering upon the duties of his office, to give bond and security to the amount of $10,000, and each clerk in the bank to give like bond to the amount of $2,000; lim- its the interest on loans made by the bank to six per cent. It then provides for the ap- pointment of three of the Directors, a Com- mittee, to have the charge and management of all that portion of the purchase moneys above set apart, and appropriated as a fund for the security and improvement of said city; and which fund, or such portion there- of as the said Committee shall deem proper and advisable, shall be invested in stock of said bank, the said Directors being author- ized and required to add to the capital stock so many shares as shall be sufficient to take in the same, at the par value of the stock. Section 20 explicitly requires that it shall be the duty of the Directors, immediately after their election, to appoint three persons not of their own body, but who shall be remov- able at the pleasure of the Directors, who shall be citizens of Illinois, and even res- idents of Cairo, if competent and judicious persons can be found in the city, who shall be styled " The Board of Security and Im- provement of the City of Cairo," which board, or a majority thereof, shall, under the sanction of the Directors of the said bank first had and obtained, direct and superintend the construction and preserva- tion of such dykes, levees and embankments as may be necessary for the security of the

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

city of Cairo, and every part thereof, from all and every inundation which can possibly affect or injure the same; and the erection, from time to time, of such public works and improvements as the state of such fund will justify. They are authorized to increase the capital stock, but it shall never exceed the sum of $500,000. Section 23 commands that the corporation shall not at any time suspend, or refuse payment in'gold and silver for any of its notes, bills or obligations, nor any moneys received on deposit in the bank or in its office of discount and deposit, and if at any time such default is made, then the bank shall forfeit 12 per cent per annum from the time of such demand. The twenty- fourth and last section declares this to be a public act, "and that the same be construed in all courts and places benignly and favor- ably."

Such was the grand scheme of the Illinois Territory for founding here a city. To some extent, it was running counter to the world's experience, namely, to start the bank and the embryo city at one and the same time, and require the bank to build the city and the city make rich and strong the bank. It was a species of legislative financial wisdom that might be likened unto the old saying of making one hand wash the other. They pro- longed their vision into their future and our present time, and dreamed golden day-dreams of all Illinois-at least all the part of it south of Kaskaskia. They thought, perhaps, of Romulus and Rome and the she-wolf; of St. Petersburg and Peter the Great; of Ven- ice and her gondoliers, and her soft moon- light and music; of Alexandria, in Lower Egypt, with her great forests of masts in her harbor, and her temples and towers and steeples and minarets glittering in the morn- ing sun-the proud mistress of the world, in wealth, commerce, intelligence, prowess and

glory-and their souls were fired with no less an ambition than to rival and surpass all these, and, therefore, to found and build here a great and eternal city. They knew of the Egyptian Cairo, lying midway between Eu- rope, Asia, the Mediterranean Sea and the north of Africa; of St. Petersburg, where the Gulf of Finland, , the Black Sea and the White Sea, the Baltic and the Caspian pour in their wealth upon ther, through the Dnie- per and Dniester, the Neva, the Dwina and the Volga, with all their ten thousand reser- voirs, by the help of her great canal system, giving her a direct navigation of 4,000 miles, from St. Petersburg to the borders of China. They looked upon New York and her vast navigation; upon New Orleans, whose waters drained a great empire. They, doubtless, unrolled the world's map, and 'there noticed that there are certain points that engage the attention of mankind; that these points are centers of civilization, and in all time they have been found where vast bodies of water meet, and large, populous and fertile terri- tories converge, giving the most favorable conditions for colonization, supply and de- fense. There cannot be a doubt that, in the estimate they put upon the natural point at Cairo, they were wholly correct, however much they may have been mistaken in the legislative machinery they deemed it wise to put in motion to start into being the young city.

John R. Comyges was the moving and mas- ter spirit in the inception and origin of the " City and Bank of Cairo" scheme. He at- tended upon the Legislature, and unfolded his vast enterprise in such glowing terms that that body made haste to grant his every re- quest. He must have inspired those won - derfully-constructed " whereases " that were enacted into a law. And it must have been his busy brain that conceived the dashing

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

idea of first founding a wild-cat bank in the wild jungles, the oozing marshes and among the festive frogs of the Delta, and upon this South Sea Bubble to lay the foundation of a great city, where men should " build for the ages unafraid."

This, the earliest effort to start a city here, to fix a " base whereon these ashlars, well hewn, may be laid," although so generously aided by the Territorial Legislature, came to naught, by the death of Comyges, just as he was about to visit the capitalists of Europe, to enlist their aid and interests in the grand and promising scheme. The company had entered the land on the old credit system, and had surveyed and platted the town, and were pushing every department under favor- ing prospects, when the sudden death of their organizer and leader, when there was no one to take his place, spread such general doubts and dismay among the stockholders, that the enterprise collapsed and passed away, and the title to the land reverted to the Govern- ment.

A part of the interest that now attaches to this original Cairo Company is the record it made as to the knowledge men possessed sixty-five years ago, as to the high waters in our rivers, and how much we have learned by the intervening experiences between then and now. In the prospectus, it stated to the world : "It remains only to be shown that the want, in this tract, of sufficient material elevation presents but an inconsidrable obstacle to its future greatness. To prove this fact, it be- comes necessary to advert to the provisions contained in the charter and the report of the Surveyor, Maj. Duncan, who, at the re- quest of the proprietors, undertook to run the exterior limits and to ascertain the eleva- tion of the ground; from which report it will appear that an embankment of the average height of five feet will secure it

effectually against the highest swells in both rivers. It may here be proper to state that much of this tract is already high, and quite as eligible for warehouses and other build- ings as many of the most flourishing stations on the Ohio." They carefully estimated, from their engineers' reports, that $20,000 would build all the levees around Cairo to forever secure it against any possible waters in the rivers.

Cairo City & Canal Company .- On the 4th of March, 1837, the Illinois Legislature incorporated Darius B. Holbrook, Miles A. Gilbert, John S. Hacker, Alexander M. Jen- kins, Anthony Olney and William M. Wal- ker as a body corporate and politic, under the name of the "Cairo City & Canal Com- pany ;" giving the usual powers of a charter company, and to own and hardle real estate, but providing that " the real estate owned and held by said company shall not exceed the quantity of land embraced in Fractional Township 17, in Alexander County, and the said corporation are hereby authorized to pur- chase said land, or any part thereof, but more particularly the tract of land incorpo- rated as the city of Cairo, and may proceed to lay off said land, or any part of the land of said Township 17, into lots for a town, to be known as the city of Cairo, and whenever a plan of said city is made, the company shall deposit a copy of the same, with a full de- scription thereof, in the Recorder of Deeds' office in the C unty of Alexander. *

* And the said corporation may construct dykes, canals, levees and embankments for the security and preservation of said city and land and all improvements thereon, from all and every inundation which can possibly affect or injure the same, and may erect such works, buildings and improvements which they may deem necessary for promoting the health and prosperity of said city. And for

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

draining said city, and other purposes, said corporation may lay off and construct a canal, to unite with Cache River, at such point of such river as the company may deem most eligible and proper, and may use the water of said river for said canal, running to and through said city of Cairo, as said company may direct. * * The capital stock of the company shall consist of 20,000 shares, and no greater assessment shall be laid upon any shares in said company of a greater amount than $100 each share. And the im- mediate government and direction of the affairs of said company shall be vested in a board of not less than five Directors, who shall be chosen by the members of the cor- poration in manner hereinafter provided, a majority of whom shall form a quorum for the transaction of business; shall elect one of their number to be President of the Board, who shall also be President of the company. * * The President and Directors for the time being are hereby au- thorized and empowered, by themselves or their agents, to execute all powers herein granted to the company, and all such other powers and authority for the management of the affairs of the company not heretofore granted, as may be proper and necessary to carry into effect the object of this act, and to make such equal assessments, from time to time, on all shares of said company as they may deem expedient and necessary, and direct the same to be paid in to the Treasurer of the company; and the Treasurer shall give notice of all such assessments, and in case any subscriber shall neglect to pay his as- sessment for the space of thirty days due notice by the Treasurer of said company, the Directors may order the Treasurer to sell such share or shares at public auction, after giving due notice thereof, to the highest bidder, and the same shall be transferred to

the purchaser, and such delinquent subscriber shall be held accountable to the company for the balance. *

* * A toll is hereby * granted and established, for the benefit of said company, upon all passengers and prop- erty of all descriptions which may be con- veyed or transported upon the canal of the company, upon such terms as may be agreed upon and established, from time to time, by the Directors of said company. That the company shall not be authorized by this act to erect or construct any dam or dams upon or across Cache River, for the purpose afore- said, until they shall first have obtained the consent of the County Commissioners' Court of Alexander County, which consent. so ob- tained shall be entered upon the records of said court; and whenever the route on said canal shall be located, the company shall have recorded a plan and description thereof in the office of the Recorder of Deeds and the office of said County Commissioners' Court, in Alexander County. The said com- pany shall be holden to pay all damages that may arise to any person or corporation, by taking their land for said canal or any other purpose when it cannot be obtained by volun- tary agreement, to be estimated and re- covered in the manner provided by law, for the recovering of damages happening by lay- ing out highways. When the lands, or other property or estate of any femme-covert, infant or person non compos mentis, shall be wanted for the purposes and objects of the company, the guardian of said infant or per- son non compos mentis, or husband of such femme-covert, may release all damage and interest for and in such lands or estate taken for the company as they might do if the same were holden by them in their own right respectively. This act shall be deemed and taken as a public act. It shall continue in force for the term of twenty-five years

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 9

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