History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 166

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340

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MORTUARY REPORT .- The first mortuary report was published in June, 1851, from data furnished the City Clerk by the City Sexton. For several years there- after the record was prepared from reports furnished the City Sexton by the undertakers. Following will be found a table showing the number of deaths by the principal causes, from 1851 to 1857 inclusive, and the total mortality by years :

Years.

small-pox.

Fevers.

Con- sumptimm.

Dyson. lery.

Cholera, , Totals.

216

1352 ....

144 .

116

630

.1.652

1853. ..

116

176

5-4

113

1,205

1854. . . .

200

216

212

1,424

3.834

1855 ....

30)

162

150

147

1,953

1850. . . ..

135

305

....

1,307

1857. ...

267

255

465

....

2,170

Tot.ils .......

1,006

1.220

1,291

2,430

13,410

HOSPITALS .- The first city hospital established was. as stated, a small-pox hospital, built in 1843, immedi- ately above the present North Avenue, near the lake shore, on ground purchased for a cemetery ; this was burned early in 1845, and a second one erected in that year upon the same site.

'The first Insane Asylum was on Kinzie Street, in 1847, and was controlled by Dr. Edward Mead, but these quarters proving too restricted, Dr. Mead pur- chased about twenty acres of land two miles north of the city, and, in 1847, a new asylum was ready for occu- pation. This was a private institution.

The County Hospital was first opened March 30. 1847, in the old Tippecanoe Hall, under the direction of the professors of Rush Medical College, and under the especial control and management of Dr. and Mrs. J. J. Van Dalsem. In the Weekly Democrat of December 28, 1847, it is stated that "everything is done for the amelioration of the condition of the patients, and every possible care taken of them during their occupancy of the hospital," but that "the building is entirely inade- quate to the requirements of a hospital, there being no regular wards," and in the male department there were forty or fifty patients suffering from various diseases. The reporter also states that "from the crowded condi- tion of the hospital the aroma was pungent and particu- larly unpleasant." The number of patients present at one time fluctuated from seventy to one hundred ; the- total number admitted, up to the date of the reportorial visitation, being three hundred and seventeen.

In May, 1849, a temporary hospital for the treatinent of cholera patients was located on Eighteenth Street, near the river. The Democrat, of June 12, 1849,also states that "we are informed that there is a house, on Erie street in the Seventh Ward, between Wells Street and the river, on the North Side, which is intended for cholera patients. When our informant was there, the bodies of a man and his son were in a coffin, while on a wretched pallet within sight was the wife and mother. There was but one attendant-a man." Dr. L. D. Boone, hospital physician, however, under date of June 14, 1849, controverts the full force of this assertion, by specifying that "the building is sixteen feet wide, forty feet long and twelve feet high ; that it is divided into three rooms ;" that the patients were attended by Dr. Hagerman, county physician ; that there were two attendants, one " as good a nurse as can be found in the United States." Dr. Boone also states that " this is the second attempt that has been made by the city authorities to provide a place for homeless and friendless persons who might be attacked with cholera in the city, and also the second time that inhuman persons have threatened to demolish it." Two facts are deducible from the allegation and the refutation : that newspapers sometimes made sweeping assertions years ago, and that early residents of the city were just as unreasoning and apprehensive during epidemics as they ever have been in later days. Another communication from P. F. W. Peck, in the same paper, states that the first hospital was on Jackson Street, between State and Clark. This assertion is not verifiable from any extant record of reliable information.

THE ILLINOIS GENERAL HOSPITAL OF THE LAKE was incorporated October 29, 1849, at the second ses- sion of the Legislature of that year, the trustees under the incorporation being Hon. Mark Skinner, Hon. Hugh T. Dickey and Dr. John Evans. The Journal of September 24, 1850, contains an announcement that " Dr. N. S. Davis will give a course of five lectures in the City Hall-the free use of which is granted by the City Council-the avails of which are to be expended

598

HISTORY OF CHICAGO.

in the purchase of furniture;" and Dr. Davis says, under date of September 26, 1850, that "the trustees have engaged a building adequate for the accommoda- tion of fifty patients," but that furniture is required to fit up the hospital for their reception. Dr. Davis inaug- urated his course of lectures, but on the Campbell Minstrels coming to the city he canceled his dates, the lectures remaining undelivered; and the Minstrels, then under the management of George A. Kimberly, in recognition of the courtesy of Dr. Davis and the Trustees, gave a complimentary concert for the benefit of the hospital. The course of lectures was thereafter completed, and the hospital was opened in the old Lake House, with beds for twelve invalids, on Novem- ber 23, 1850, where patients could receive treatment gratis, upon payment of from two to three dollars a week for board and nursing. On November 30, 1850, the Board of Trustees met, adopted a code of by-laws for the government of the hospital, and elected the fol- lowing officials, viz .: Mark Skinner, president; Dr. John Evans, secretary; Captain R. K. Swift, treasurer; Dr. Daniel Brainard, surgeon; Dr. N. S. Davis, phy- sician; Dr. John Evans, physician to the female wards.

The Sisters of Mercy furnished nurses for the care of the patients from the opening of the hospital; but on the incorporation of the Mercy Hospital, on June 21, 1852, they determined on opening a hospital under the auspices of their order, and in June, 1853, removed to Tippecanoe Hall, and there cared for the county patients. The Illinois general hospital was then dis- continued.

THE UNITED STATES MARINE HOSPITAL .- In the Weekly Democrat of March ro, 1846, appears an account of a meeting held at the Bethel church in this city, on Tuesday, February 25, 1846, for the purpose of inducing the General Government to establish a Marine hospital in Chicago. Of this meeting Mr. Brainard was chairman and Thomas L. Forrest, secretary. Colonel William B. Snowhook, Redmond Prindiville and Thomas L. Forrest were appointed a committee to submit the report of the meeting to Captain J. McClellan, of the Topographical Corps. Messrs. John Reed, E. Kelly, Henry Courting, James McNeil and Captain Sauly were designated as a committee to draft and circulate a petition asking Congress to locate a marine hospital at this port, for the benefit of sick and disabled seamen; and a vote of thanks was passed to Messrs. William B. Snowhook and Augustus H. Knapp for the interest and zeal they manifested in collecting information contained in the adopted report. The petition was drafted, numer- ously signed, and presented to Congress; and under

the championship of Hon. John Wentworth, who worked assiduously for the measure, a law was passed locating a United States marine hospital at the port of Chicago. It was built in the years 1850 and 1851 on Michigan Avenue, near the site of old Fort Dearborn, under the superintendence of Lieutenant J. D. Webster, of the Topographical Corps, at a cost of $50,000, ex- clusive of the land which belonged to the Government. and was under the charge of Jacob Russell, collector and agent, with Dr. William B. Herrick, physician and surgeon, and C. R. Vandercook, steward.

In 1849, the executive committee of the Hibernian Sociery met, and, on May 7, passed the following resolution : Resolved, that we thankfully accept the liberal offer made by the faculty of the University of St. Mary of the Lake, of five acres, on the lake shore, north of the city, and that as liberal donations have been promised us, we proceed at once to erect a per- manent hospital building. The site was just north of the German settlement. Despite the liberality of the donative and the sanguine temperament of the society, the hospital does not appear to have been erected.

In May, 1854, a temporary cholera hospital was built by the city, on the beach of the lake, in the North Division, and is stated to have been an enlargement of the small-pox building erected in 1845.

In June, 1857, the first permanent City Hospital was completed.

St. James' Hospital was organized in 1853. and incorporated in 1854, with the following officers and · directors : Rev. R. H. Clarkson, president ; George W. Dole, treasurer ; Dr. A. B. Palmer, physician ; C. R. Larrabee, secretary. The board of directors were John West, Edwin H. Sheldon, John C. Dodge, William F. Dominick, Walter L. Newberry, S. H. Kerfoot, T. F. Phillips. In the spring of 1854, the hospital was estab- lished at No. 79 Illinois Street, and was mainly sup- ported by contributions taken up on the first Sunday in every month in St. James' church, the deficiency unfilled by contributions being supplied by members of the congregation. During the first year of its maintenance it admitted sixty-nine patients and the expenditure was $1,498.48. The number of beds was something less than twenty, and they were kept occupied by incurable cases : the hospital being maintained more for such cases than for those afflicted with casual and temporary ailments. In 1855, the hospital was removed to No. ILI Ohio Street, and there retained until the establish- ment of St. Luke's Hospital, in 1858, when the patients were transferred to the latter, and St. James' Hospital was discontinued.

POLITICAL HISTORY.

The vast political influence the State of Illinois has wielded in deciding the destiny of the nation is due in great measure to the geographical location of Chicago within its borders. The result of the elections of 1860 would not have been a Republican victory had the northern boundary line of the State been an extension of the northern boundary line of Indiana, as was at first intended. This would have thrown Chicago and the fourteen northern counties of Illinois into the State of Wisconsin. These were all strong Republican coun- ties, and it was their vote that carried the State for Mr. Lincoln. Without them he could not have carried it, and indeed had they been in Wisconsin it is possible that Mr. Lincoln would never have been a candidate for President at all. Hence it appears that the action of a far-sighted statesman, at the time of the admission of the State of Illinois into the Union, was of vast import- ance in shaping the ultimate history of the Union, and. that action was taken chiefly because of the location of Chicago. The history, therefore, of the admission of the State of Illinois is the beginning of the political history of Chicago, though Chicago as yet was not, and its site was only occupied by a frontier post and a few trading houses.

It was a fortunate thing for Illinois and for the whole country that at the time Illinois applied for admission to the Union, the Territory was represented in Congress by Nathaniel Pope. He was a native of Kentucky, where he was born in 1784. He received a liberal education, and adopted the law as a profession. When the Territory of Illinois was set off from Indiana in 1809, Governor Edwards appointed him Secretary of the Territory and instructed him to proceed to Kaskas- kia and inaugurate the new government, which he did prior to the arrival of the Governor. He held the position of Secretary until 1816, when he was elected Delegate to Congress. He served in that capacity until after the admission of the State, when he was appointed Judge of the United States District Court for the Dis- trict of Illinois, which position he filled with eminent ability until his death at Springfield, June 14, 1850.

In January, 1818, the Territorial Legislature, then in session at Kaskaskia, sent a petition to Congress asking the admission of Illinois into the Union. This petition described the northern boundary line of the State as drawn at the southerly bend of Lake Michigan, being an extension of the northern boundary line of Indiana. The whole northern portion of the Territory was at that time still in the possession of the Indians and was unin- habited, save by the Indians themselves, and by a few frontiersmen and traders. But little importance was ascribed to it, and, besides, it was supposed that the ordinance of 1787 provided that the northern line should be drawn there.

By the fifth article of that celebrated ordinance it was provided that the Northwest Territory should be divided into not less than three, nor more than five States, and it defined the boundaries of three of the States. The western State was to be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Wabash rivers ; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Port Vincennes duc

north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, and by the said territorial line to the Lake of the Woods and the Mississippi. It was provided, however, that if Congress should find it expedient they should have authority to form one or two states in that part of said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend, or extreme of Lake Michigan.

It was upon this provision that Wisconsin subse- quently based her claim to the fourteen northern coun- ties of Illinois.

When the bill came from the committee to be acted on by Congress, Mr. Pope, with a wise and statesman- like forecast, moved to amend the bill by establishing the northern boundary line at the parallel of forty-two degrees and thirty minutes north latitude.

The object of this amendment, Mr. Pope said, was to gain for the proposed State a coast on Lake Michigan. This would afford additional security to the perpetuity of the Union, inasmuch as the State would thereby be connected with the States of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsyl- vania and New York through the lakes. The facility, too. of opening a canal between Lake Michigan and the Illi- nois River made it desirable that the port of Chicago should be in the proposed State, so that the canal, when built, should be entirely in one State jurisdiction.

These considerations prevailed, and the bill was amended so as to establish the northern boundary line of the State, as it has since existed.

The bill became a law April 13, 1818, and in pur- suance thereof a convention was called at Kaskaskia to form a constitution. The State was formally admitted by Congress December 3, 1818.

Thus it was that Chicago influenced the formation of the great and imperial State of Illinois, binding the North and East by the chain of the great lakes, and the Mississippi River to the South and West, becom- ing the key-stone in the western arch of States.

But many years were yet to pass before Chicago's influence was to be felt by means of elections.

When Illinois was set off from Indiana in 1809, it was divided into two counties. These were Randolph and St. Clair. The latter comprised the northern por- tion of the territory. As the population of the State increased new counties were organized, and Chicago has been successively in the counties of St. Clair, Madi- son, Crawford Clark, Pike, Fulton, Peoria and Cook.

The records of these counties do not recognize Chi- cago as a place, or a voting precinct, until it was em- braced in Fulton County in 1823. The records of that county show that September 2, 1823, an election was ordered to be held at the house of John Kinzie for the purpose of choosing a Major and company officers of the Seventeenth Regiment of Illinois Militia, the elec- tion to take place on the last Saturday of September.

If this election was held, it was the first that ever took place at Chicago. No records nor returns of this election are extant, consequently it remains a matter of doubt whether the election called was held or not.

The first official account of an election actually held at Chicago appears in the records of Peoria County. It

599

600

HISTORY OF CHICAGO.

was held August 7, 1826, being a gubernatorial and congressional election. The poll-list from the Chicago precinct shows the names of thirty-five persons who voted, as follows:

1. Augustin Banny,

2. Henry Kelley ,

3. Daniel Bourassea,

4. Cole Weeks,

5. Antoine Ouilmette,

6. John Baptiste Secor,

7. Joseph Catie,

8. Benjamin Russell,

9. Basile Desplattes,

10. Francis Laframboise, Sr.,

II. Francis Laframboise, Jr.,

12. Joseph Laframboise,

13. Alexander Larant,

14. Francis Laducier,

15. Peter Chavellie,

16. Claude Laframboise,

17. Jeremiah Clairmore,

18. Peter Junio,

19. John Baptiste Lafortune,

20. John Baptiste Malast,

21. Joseph Pothier,

22. Alexander Robinson,

23. John K. Clark,

24. David Mckee,

25. Joseph Anderson,

26. Joseph Pepot,

27. John Baptiste Beaubien,

28. John Kinzie,

29. Archibald Clybourne,

30. Billy Caldwell,

31. Martin Vansicle,

32. Paul Jamboe,

33. Jonas Clybourne,

34. Edward Ament,

35. Samuel Johnson.

The judges were John Kinzie, J. B. Beaubien and Billy Caldwell; clerks, Archibald Clybourne and John K. Clark.

The whole thirty-five cast a solid vote for the fol- lowing ticket : Ninian Edwards, for Governor; Samuel H. Thompson, for Lieutenant-Governor; and Daniel P. Cook,* for Congressman. On the State vote Edwards was elected by a small majority, but the other two were defeated.

The names of these voters indicate that the large majority of them were French half-breeds, French trad- ers, and others connected with the fort or in the Gov- ernment employ. They were for the most part em- ployés about the fort, and the trading- houses, and voted precisely as their employers or the officers of the fort dictated. The election was held at the agency- house, on the North Side, the residence of Dr. Alex- ander Wolcott. As John Quincy Adams was President, it followed that the voters of the Chicago precinct at that time were all Whigs.

DANIEL P. COOK .- The life and services of Daniel P. Cook covered but a brief period of time, but were of enduring value to the great State of Illinois. A Kentuckian by birth, he possessed all the social, genial qualities by which the noled men of that State are marked, and during the twelve years of his residence in his adopted home he developed, to a life-destroying degree, that quality of untiring industry which is a prominent trait of the people of the East. His services during four terms in Congress, not only gained him the admiration and the love of his constituentsat home, hut the respect of such statesmen of the day as Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams and James Monroe. For the last five years of his short life Mr. Cook labored unceasingly- . l'or whom Cook County was named.

and, as regarded his delicate constitution-relentlessly, for that measure of public utility, which accomplished more than all else to boild ap northern Illinois into one of the most prosperous re- gions of the earth. The first grant of lands to the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1827, was the commencement of the up-build- ing of a great-commonwealth, and especially of that region whose life aod wealth has concentered, with such grand results, in the county of Cook. It was but a just tribute of remembrance to an earnest, an honest and a useful life, to stamp this region of future power with the name of one who, though cut down in youth, was so much its father and benefactor.

Daniel P. Cook was born of respectable and humble parents, in the county of Scott, Kentucky, in the year 1794. With merely a

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common school education, and a brief experience in mercantile pursuits, he entered the law office of Hon. John Pope. In 1815, Mr. Cook removed to Kaskaskia, the Territorial seat of Government, to engage in the practice of law, and to strive for the success which was so soon to come to him. "The Illinois Intelligencer," the first paper publisbed in the Territory, had been established six years. That journal had all the Government printing, which was, of itself, quite a profitable monopoly. On account of the sparsely settled state of the county, the practice of law was then at a low ebb, and, in order to add to his scanty income Mr. Cook, soon after settling in Kaskaskia, purchased the " Intelligencer " and formed a partnership with Robert Blackwell. The original pro- prietor of this paper, and from whom it was purchased by Messrs. Cook & Blackwell, was Matthew Duncan, the brother of Joseph. Joseph Duncan was afterwards a successful competitor for Mr. Cook's seat in Congress and Governor of the State. The paper became at once a political power, Judge Breese acting as one of its editors. Mr. Cook's energy, ability and endearing qualities of disposition, coupled with the influence possessed by Judge Nathaniel Pope, then Secretary of the Territory, snon made them . selves felt, and the bright young Kentuckian was elected Clerk of the House of Representatives, at the second session of the Second Territorial I.egislature, serving in this capacity until January, ISIS, when the last session of the Territorial Legislature ad- journed. A portion of this period, also, from January, 1816. to April, 1817, he acted as Auditor of Public Accounts. The next

601

POLITICAL HISTORY.

day after the adjournment of the last Territorial Legislature Mr. Cook became " Judge " Cook, his district in the " Western Cir- cuit " embracing the counties of Bond, Madison, St. Clair, Ran- dolph and Mooroe, or a territory comprising about one-third of tbe present State. He remained in office but a few mooths, no doubt wishing to give his whole energies to the movement then progressing for the formation of a State Government. In July, 1818, the constitutional convention assembled at Kaskaskia and adjourned in August. The Constitution was approved by Congress in December of that year. Illinois, therefore, did not formally and legally become a State until December 3, 1818. But by virtue of the Constitution adopted by the convention in August, an elec- tion for State officers and a Congressional Representative was called for the third Thursday of September. The question of slavery was even then dividing the councils of the young State, and the politicians of the day had separated into two sharply-defined parties, led respectively by Ninian Edwards, last Governor of the Terri- tory, and Shadrach Bond, first Governor of the State. A strong disposition had been evinced by Governor Bond and his party to insert into the new Constitution some provision recognizing slavery as a necessary, because an "established " institution. Although better counsels prevailed and the slavery issue was not recognized as an element in the campaign, Mr. Cook was put forward as a Congressional candidate for the short term expiring March 3, 1819, and as a representive of the Edwards faction ; while John McLean, of Shawneetown, also a Kentuckian by birth, and a brill- lant and irreproachable member of the Bar froin southeastern Illi- nois was his opponent, and the representative of the Bond party. This campaign, therefore, resolved itself into a personal contest for popularity, waged by two talented and energetic young men, supported by parties of nearly equal strength. As would be ex- pected, the result was close ; Mr. McLean was returned by only fourteen majority.

Mr. Bond was inaugurated as Governor October 6, 1818, and upon the organization of the State government in December, Mr. Cook was elected Attorney-General by the Legislature, and held the office until the conclusion of his more successful contest with Mr. McLean in the summer of 1819. The proposed Missouri Com- promise had now entered Congress, had became a national issue, and divided the country. During his term of service Mr. McLean had taken his stand with the pro-slavery party and against the re- striction of slavery to the future state of Missouri. The second campaign between himself and Mr. Cook was therefore fought on this all-absorbing issue, and was short, sharp and decisive. Mr. Cook was elected by a good majority. He was re-elected to the Seventeenth Congress, his competitor being Hon. E. K. Kane, first Secretary of State, and who was a stubborn representative of the pro-slavery element. It was understood, at the time, that Mr. Cook favored the admission of Missouri as a slave State, merely as a matter of policy. To the surprise and indignation of many of his supporters, at the next session of Congress he voted against the measure. While the bill was before the House of Representatives he frankly admitted that he had changed his mind, and gave as his only reason that the proposed Constitution of the new State was not in conformity with the principles of the Constitution, in that it proposed to bar out free negroes and mulattoes from settling in Missouri, notwithstanding they had the power, and had availed themselves of it, to purchase and hold property. Missouri pro- posed to pass ex-post facto laws-laws impairing the obligation of property contracts which these people had made. Mr. Cook re- peated that his " feelings " were in favor of the admission of Mis- souri-that "both personal and political reasons rendered it a de- sirable event."

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 166

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas Number of Pages: 1340

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340