History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 30

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company
Number of Pages: 776

USA > Illinois > Bureau County > History of Bureau County, Illinois > Part 30

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but one for a whole district, and this gave Sangamon County a decided preponderance in the log-rolling system of those days. *

* * By such means the 'Long Nine ' rolled along like a snow-ball gathering acces- sions of strength at every turn, until they swelled up a considerable party for Spring- field to be the seat of government. Thus it was made to cost the State about $6,000.000 to remove the seat of government from Van- dalia to Springfield." This Legislature will forever possess a historical interest far beyond that of any other legislative body in the his- tory of the State. A list of some of the men who were in the Legislature and who voted for the internal improvement system is enough to immortalize it as a law making body. Among others were Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Donglas, Ninian W. Edwards, Gov. A. C. French, John Hogan, U. F. Linder, John A. McClernand, Lieut .- Gov. Moore, Gen. James Shields, (afterward Senator from three States), Robert Smith, (Congress- man), Judge Dan Stone, James Semple, the Speaker, and afterward United States Sena- tor. All these voted in the affirmative. Of those who voted in the negative, the only ones who attained any eminence were William A. Richardson (short term in the United States Senate), Col. John J. Hardin and John Dement.

The internal improvement laws and those other equally bad laws of the State banks ran their career in about three years; and in 1840, after they were exhausted for evil, the Legislature commenced repealing the acts. The Presidential election coming on that year, the people of Illinois forgot their own sad financial condition in the din and general hurrah over the "coon-skin and hard-cider " campaign. No politician was ever called to account for the grievous mis- take of voting for the bad laws. They had

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not been party measures, and all prominent politicians were equally guilty with the people, and in fact the people rather seemed to sympathize with these erring brothers, and the list of those who voted for the meas- ures, and they were advanced in life much above those level-headed and certainly honest members of the Legislature who faced the public storm and voted " No."

But to go back a little. The work upon these improvements was commenced upon all the railroads and upon the canal. The Board of Canal Commissioners, in pursn- ance of law, projected a magnificent work, and even completed small portions of it, in a manner creditable to the engineers and con- tractors. But here again was the spirit of over-calculation working its cruel mischiefs. The United States, in 1826, had donated 300,000 acres of land to this work. And now, in the frenzy of the hour, these lands were estimated at a fabulous valne, and hence the Commissioners supposed their funds were inexhaustible for carrying on the work, and they projected a large and deep canal, to be fed by the waters of Lake Michigan. To complete their vast plans and make a steamboat canal, wonld cost about $9,000,000, but this was nothing in the esti- mation of the Commissioners .*

But the inevitable crash came, and the

*Hon. John Wentworth tells the following amusing iocident, in regard to the commencement of the work ou the canal :

" On the 4th of July, 1836, every man, woman and child in the city (Chicago), whose health would permit, went down to where the canal was to be commenced, then called Canalport, and cel- ebrated the removal of the first shovelful of dirt by the Canal Cotumissioner. Near the place was a living spring of water. The men chopped up the lemons of several full boxesand threw them into the spring, to make lemonade for the temperance peo- ple. Then they spoiled the lemonade by emptying into it a whole harrel of whisky, which so penetrated the fountain-head of the spring, that Bridgeport people feel the effects of it to this day. All of you who have ever heard the late Dr. William B. Egan, the most eloquent of the many eloquent Irish orators Chi- cago has ever had, will remember how fond he was of quoting Pope's poetry. Some of his audience had quietly stolen away, and as they had supposed) unobserved by him, to slake their thirst at the spring, when he brooght down the crowd by pointing his finger at them and exclaiming :

'Drink deep, or taste not that Pierian spring,

Its shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

But drinking largely sobers you again.' "

State was plunged over $14,000,000 in debt, and out of it all the State afterward went on and finished about forty miles of railroad, and did eventually complete the Peru & Michigan Canal, at a cost of over $6,000,000. The forty miles of railroad cost the State over a $1,000,000, and the State eventually sold this and took its pay in evidences of State indebtedness for $100,000. But on the canal investments it seems the State was never so greatly wronged. The canal lands brought the State over $5,000,000, and its earnings over expenses of operating have been over $2,000,000. The termini of the canal are Chicago and Hennepin, and for many years the States of Illinois and Iowa have been deeply concerned in extending this great work from Hennepin to the Mississippi River. It is now believed that it is only a question of time when the General Government will take the present canal (which is offered as a free gift, if completed to the Mississippi River) and make it a great artery of cheap transportation from the Mississippi to the sea shore. This is a matter of vast interest to Bureau County- the leading county of its size in the United States in its area of corn grown. Every ten years the county will produce an average of over 100,000,000 bushels of corn. On this one article of corn alone then a canal would be worth over $5,000,000 to the county every ten years, or $500,000 yearly. Every cent transportation is cheapened to the sea shore adds that much to the value of the crops, and hence it proportionally increases the value of the land.

The great problem of this age, especially to the people of the Upper Mississippi Val- ley, is cheap transportation, and every day it is more and more pressing for a solution. The interest in this subject in the six States of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minne- sota and Wisconsin may be partially under-

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HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

stood when we reflect that these States annu- ally produce of wheat, corn and oats 1,047, - 536,850 bushels. And to show how rapidly, too, the increase of production is going on, we may cite one of many that we might give as instances. In Iowa the wheat from 1849 to 1860 aggregated 50,000,000 bushels; from 1860 to 1870, 195,000,000; from 1870 to 1881 it was 375,000,000 bushels. The total wheat crop of the United States in 1867 was 181,- 199,000 bushels, and in 1881 it was 498, - 549,000 bushels, and the larger portion of this increase was in the Upper Mississippi Valley, the locality deeply interested in the extension of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. This is the locality that is destined, is already, the chief producer of American exports. Those European markets are no longer left to the supply by American producers. These are invited, but only in competition with those of other countries. The freight rates to be paid in transporting products from the Upper Mississippi to Liverpool often alone deter- mine the possibility or impossibility of profit- able exportation. On this point we are fur- nished the most conclusive evidence. A com- mittee which had its sessions in New York in September, 1881, recorded the testimony of members of the New York Produce Ex- change, which asserted that it frequently hap- pened that the difference of one cent per bushel in the price of wheat in New York City determined the ability or inability of the commission men and dealers to make ship- ments to European markets. One shipper placed that controlling difference as low as one-fourth of a cent per bushel. It was also the concurrent statement of several of the gentlemen testifying that advance in freight rates frequently estopped grain exportations, while freight reductions stimulated such movements of cereals, and gave legitimate impetus to the grain markets of the entire country.

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So manifestly correct are these several tes- timonies, that they were even anticipated by Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Jr., of the Bureau of Statistics, when he said, in his report on the commerce of the United States for 1880 (page 154):

"The price of all commodities of low value in proportion to weight is in every mar- ket greatly affected by the cost of transporta- tion.

"Especially is this the case in regard to the surplus agricultural products of the West- ern and Northwestern States. The low rates which prevail for transportation upon the Northern water lines, therefore, exercises an important regulating influence over the price of all the products of the West, not only in the markets of the Atlantic seaboard States, but also in foreign countries. It is due chief- ly to this fact, during the last ten years, that the value of domestic exports from the United States has greatly increased, and that since the year ended June 30, 1875, the value of exports from the United States has largely exceeded the value of imports to the United States."

Scarcely less important to the Upper Mis- sissippi Valley region than the export of its products, rendered possible and profitable only when cheap transportation is secured, is the ready and inexpensive delivery of its imports. The aggregate of these increases year by year, while it has already reached proportion and value which are literally im- mense. Thus, not only are vast totals of anthracite coal and crude and manufactured iron from Pennsylvania, pottery from New Jersey and Ohio, hard woods from Indiana, and stone and bituminous coal from eastern Illinois, shipped in large quantities to the Upper Mississippi Valley States, but the cot- ton goods of Massachusetts, the woolens of Rhode Island, the machinery of Connecticut, the agricultural implements of New York, all

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HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

constituting heavy bulk freights, are con- stantly adding to the number of their con- sumers in the wide area of territory to be more immediately benefited by the construc- tion of the Hennepin Canal.

A single locality may be specifically men- tioned as furnishing significant illustration of the general fact thus urged to attention. The tri-cities of Moline, Davenport and Rock Island (to name each in the order of its manu- facturing importance) have had their respec- tive business interests carefully revised in statistical form, at the close of each year for the columns of the Davenport Gazette. The last of these reports-that of January 1, 1883, for the year 1882-presents some noteworthy figures. A single plow manufactory establishment at Moline (Deere & Co.) consumed in 1882 1,110 tons of steel, 3,000 tons of wrought iron, 900 tons of pig iron, 300 tons of malle- able iron, 2,000,000 feet of oak and ash lum- ber, 400 tons of grindstones, 30 tons of emery, and 250 barrels of oil and varnish, employing weekly 700 men. Another estab- lishment (the Moline Plow Company's Works) used only a less aggregate of similar ma- terial, the value of the products of these two establishments footing up to $2,500,000 for the year. The Moline Wagon Company manufactured goods to the value of $625, - 000; the Deere & Mansur Planter Company, to the value of $600,000; the two malleable iron companies, to the value of $280,000; the machine, engine and boiler shops, to the value of $480,000; the paper mills, to the value of $150,000, the pump factory, to the value of $125,000; while the saw-mills and other establishments aggregated a yield of products exceeding in value $1,000, 000 more. In Davenport the enumerated manufactures for the year-agricultural implements, lum- ber, flour, oatmeal, glucose, carriages, woolen goods, cigars, clothing, etc .- aggregated a

value of $5,864,876; and the value by jobbing houses, the sum of $8, 046, 730; the shipments of local freights by three railroads, 17,536 car-loads, and the receipts. 16,653 car-loads. In Rock Island the plow works manufactured goods in excess of 1,000,000 in value; the glass works to the value of $200,000 ; stove works, to the value of $1,000,000; the saw-mills, 80,- 031,866 feet of lumber only, 18,328,750 shingles, 16,653,000 lath, and 198,650 pick- ets. If to this partial exhibit of the manu- facturing interest of Rock Island City were added those of the United States Arsenal, on Rock Island, the aggregate of railroad ship- ments would be 17,982 car-loads shipped and 18,258 forwarded by four roads, including the receipts and exports of coal, largely mined from the extensive coal-fields lying within an area of fifteen miles east and south- east of Rock Island.

The construction of a canal to connect the waters of the Upper Mississippi with those of the lakes, by way of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, has long been earnestly de- sired by the people occupying the vast area lying west of Chicago and seeking improved channels of communication with that city and the East. Four times-in 1864, 1870, 1874 and 1882, respectively-has the General As- sembly of Iowa, by concurrent action on the part of each of its branches, specifically memorialized Congress for the opening of such a canal by the General Government. The Legislature of Illinois has also similarly addressed its appeal to Congress repeatedly, the last occasion being that of the special session of that body last year. These two States, thus speaking through their represent- atives, embrace more than 5,000,000 of people. Their expression of opinion and desire have been earnestly supported, too, by resolutions adopted by such Boards of Trade as those of St. Paul, La Crosse, Duluth,

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HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

Davenport, Rock Island and Chicago in the Northwest, and those of Buffalo, Syracuse and New York in the East, and by the reso- lutions of the Senate branch of the New York Assembly last May, which would have been concurred in by the House had the session had two days longer continuance. In the city of New York, particularly, not only on the Board of Trade and Transportation, but the "Produce Exchange," a body numbering in its membership nearly 3,000 of the pro- duce commission and other business men of that city, have addressed Congress in urgent appeals in behalf of the canal in question, usually denominated the " Hennepin Canal." In May, 1881, there assembled in Davenport, Iowa, a delegate body of about four hundred members, representing commercial bodies, municipal corporations, and farmers' associa- tions, of seven different States, expressly to urge upon the attention of the country the desirability of and the necessity for the con- struction of the said canal by the General Government. That Convention, attended and addressed by Governors of States, members of Congress and prominent business men, emphatically urged upon Congress the great importance of the proposed canal as a means to secure to the people a greatly needed im- provement of facilities for the transportation of their products and commodities.

Exactly what a boon the extension of this canal will become to all the country west and northwest of Chicago, will be plainly seen by the following table of railroad charges for 1880:

RAILROADS HAVING COMPETITION IN WATER ROUTES. Per ton per mile

New York Central Railroad. $0 00.88 Pennsylvania Railroad. 00.88 New York, Erie & Western Railroad. 00.84 Philadelphia & Erie Railroad. 00.56 Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad 00.75 Michigan Central Railroad. 00.842 Pittsburgh & Ft. Wayne Railroad for 1879, for 1880 not given. 00.76

RAILROADS NOT COMPELLED TO MEET WATER-ROUTE COMPETITION.

Boston & Albany Railroad. Per ton per mile.

$0 01.20

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad

(for 1879, for 1880 not given). . 01.023 Chicago & Northwestern Railroad (for 1879,, for 1880 not given) .. 01.49

Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad

(for 1879, for 1880 not given). . 01.76

Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad

(for 1879, for 1880 not given). 01,21

Erie Canal rate for 1880. $0 00.49

When the great work is completed to the Mississippi River,-perhaps eventually ex- tended to all the great granaries of the North- west beyond the Mississippi-the first point of historical interest to posterity will be, who was the originator of the idea; whose brain conceived it, and who is entitled to the im- perishable honor of being its sponsor? In this light the following letter will be read with great interest by not only the people of Bureau County, but all who are interested in the Hennepin Canal, or the story of some of the remarkable men, who like the writer of this letter, have pioneered civilization liter. ally across the continent. When the great national canal, as it will be some day, is com- pleted to the Mississippi River, it should be made the eternal monument of its projectors. The following is the letter in full:

"SEATTLE, W. T., April 13, 1884. " MR. H. C. BRADSBY.

"Dear Sir: I have received your letter of inquiry and will try to answer it.

" You said you saw in your local paper that I was the originator of the idea of the Hen- nepin Canal project :- To give you the mov- ing cause, I must go back a few years prior to that time. My father's name was Peter Galer; he had ten children. I was the fourth. I was said to be the first white child born in Fairfield County, Ohio; my birthplace was near Lancaster, and in the year 1807, August 20. My father moved to Licking County, Ohio, when I was one year old, where I lived

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HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

until I moved to Illinois in 1834, crossing the Illinois River the 20th day of August (my twenty-seventh birthday).

While in Ohio (in 1825) on the 4th of July, at what was called the Licking Summits on the Erie & Ohio Canal I saw Gov. Mor- row take out the first wheelbarrow load of dirt from the canal. Shortly after I hired as a common laborer to work on the canal at $12 per month, but by taking the part of a boy that the superintendent of the job was abusing, the superintendent was discharged and I was given his place. From that time I superintended the job until the canal was completed. I then engaged in building saw- mills. There was a reservoir to feed the summit level and south of that a deep cut that for three miles averaged thirty-three feet digging. From the circumstance of heavy rains, and seaps in the banks, it kept wash- ing and slipping in uutil a boat half loaded could not pass through the deep cut. About that time the reservoir broke, and they could not get anyone to repair it permanently, so they sent thirty-five miles to me for me to try what I could do. After I spent several hundred dollars in repairing, I originated the idea of a new reservoir on the west of the old one. The bank of the old reser- voir was the tow path of the canal. There were several thousand of acres of swamp land that I proposed to utilize for the new reser- voir with a lock at its north side, also one at the south end of the deep cut, thereby rais- ing the water twelve feet in the deep cut. I reported this plan at headquarters and it was approved and carried out. That was my ex- perience at canaling at Ohio.

As I said before, I crossed the Illinois River at Hennepin on the 20th of August, 1834. I was in company with my parents, four sisters and three brothers. We went up Robinson's River or Bureau through what is

now called Tiskilwa and settled on Center Grove Prairie. In September, 1834, I took my blanket and gun and viewed the country through from Hennepin to the Mississippi River, near Rock Island, and thought it a natural pass for a canal, as there was a de- pression all the way across with high land on either side. I reported my discovery but was much ridiculed for holding such ideas.

In October following my oldest brother, John Galer, helped to review the route, and I talked with Dr. A. Langworthy about the project. At first he made very light of the subject, but on my showing him the advan- tages that would accrue to him if it was car- ried out, his having property at Indiantown, now Tiskilwa, he began to see that there might be dollars and cents in it, and so he joined in with me, and I appointed a meet- ing in Hennepin, where I gave my views on the canal project, and the doctor made a good speech. My plan was only for a common canal to be taken out of the river at the head of the Lake DePue so as to have that for a harbor, and also to avoid much overflow of the river. I also planned to have a dam across Green River at the narrows where New Bedford now is, and use it for a reser- voir to feed the summit level and put the feeder into the lake on the south side of Devil's Grove, so it would feed the canal both ways, until other supplies could be got from the Bureau and Green River further down on either end of the canal. We had circulars printed, and finally got a bill through the Legislature for a company to undertake the project; but the State was deeply involved, and the Michigan & Illi- nois Canal being delayed, the subject was dropped until the country around Rock Island had settled quite thickly, when a com- pany changed the canal to a railroad, and the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad was put

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HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

through almost directly over my old route. The railroad becoming exorbitant in freight charges, the canal project was again revived and carried up to Congress by Hawley, and was known as Hawley's canal bill."

This communication is to the point as to who was the first active worker in the project of extending the canal from Hennepin to Rock Island. It is more than a generation ago this movement had its inception. It was perhaps chimerical at that time, but since then millions of people have become deeply interested in the subject of cheap transporta- tion, and it is now both feasible and possi- ble to carry out the original idea of extension that was agitated as a necessity so long ago.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ARTHUR BRYANT, THE PIONEER FORESTER AND HORTICULTURIST- ABOUT TREES GENERALLY-FIRST PLANTINO IN BUREAU COUNTY -BEST VARIETIES-SKETCH OF ARTHUR BRYANT, ETC., ETC.

And there in the sultry noon, With brawny limbs and breast, On the silken turf, in that cool shade, The reaper came to rest. -JOIIN H. BRYANT.

"THE pioneer "tree-man " was a boon of no mean magnitude to the people of the broad prairies of Bureau County. He must have been an enterprising, public-spirited man with an alert and active brain to antici- pate the benefits and the good that would some day come from the culture here of trees. He saw here not long ago vast plains dotted with farm-houses, standing cheerless and treeless on the bleak expanse, which was inhabited by a people whose highest ambi- tion was to grow corn and swine and cattle enough to furnish himself and family a live- lihood, and also enable each to add a few

more acres to the dreary homestead. The intelligent lover of trees set about the work to créate in the people a taste for something higher and better-to teach them that even a northern prairie would grow the hardier fruit trees and the shade trees and flowering shrubs about their houses and thus double the beauty and money value of their homes; give them comforts and cash bountifully for this labor of love. They (possibly only he) must have realized that the way to do this successfully was to set the example, and thus tree-planting commenced.

Those who first planted trees here must have been amazed at the rapid growth they made, which continues to give evidence that there is no place that is possessed of a deeper or stronger soil than is this county; and now the towns and villages have beauti- fied their streets, and the spreading branches of trees only twelve or fourteen years old offer their pleasing and shady bowers to the passer, and around every farm-house are fruit and shade trees that dot the broad prairies in every direction, and give to the eye of the beholder the most pleasing land- scapes and enchanting views to be seen in all the world.

As to the question of what varieties of trees to plant, it was of easy solution as to shade and ornamental trees, because almost every variety yet planted had yielded a most rapid and healthy growth. The elm, the maple and box elder so far predominate, and many trees, especially elms, can now be found, not more than a quarter of a century old, that throw out their long branches and wide-spreading shade equal to the grandest monarchs of the forest. But the question of the best adapted fruit trees and vines for this locality was a more difficult one to solve, and perhaps something in this line- possibly very much-is, even after these

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HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

fifty years of trials and experiments, yet to be learned, because the successful prosecu- tion of this industry requires some under- standing of the soil and climate, and the habits of insects destructive to the trees and fruit, as well as a knowledge of the mode of best caring for the different varieties of fruit trees. The State, through the solic- itations of the various societies, provided a competent entomologist, and he has done much in aiding fruit growers to understand the injurious insects, and to provide for their destruction.

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History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 30

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company Number of Pages: 776

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company
Number of Pages: 776