History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 173

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

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JOHN WENTWORTH was born in Sandwich. Strafford Co., N. H .. on March 5, 1815. of the Hon. Paul and Lydia Cogswell Wentworth. His paternal grand- father was the Hon. John Wentworth, Jr., memleer ( the Continental Congress from New Hampshire, whose name is signed to the original " Articles of Confeder. tion." His maternal grandfather was Colonel Amos (og- well, who served through the entire Revolutionary War. entering at the same time that General Washington took command of the Revolutionary Army, under the old tree at Cambridge, Mass; and served through the

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entire war, with six brothers, and assisted at the forma- New Hampton, N. H., Academy, of which Benjamin F. Farnsworth was principal. On August 12, 1828, the inchoate congressman participated in the annual exhi- bition, being then thirteen years of age, and declaimed an extract from Webster's eulogy on Adams and Jeffer- son. In the winter of 1828-29 he attended a school taught by Dudley Leavitt, of Meredith, N. H .. the cele- brated almanac-maker. In the summer of 1829 and the winter of 1829-30, he attended the New Hampton Academy, under the same preceptor as before; and, on August 13, 1829, at the annual exhibition, took part in tion of the Society of Cincinnati at the disbanding of the Revolutionary Armny. John Wentworth is descended on both sides from the earliest settlers of New En- gland, and there is no blood in his veins of any emi- grant, since the year 1700; all his ancestors, after that date, living and dying in New England, and nearly all of them in the State of New Hampshire. The ancestor of his family in 1066 was Reginald Wentworth,-Ry- nold de Wynterwade-who was proprietor of the fief of Wentworth, in the wapentake of Strafford, West Riding of Yorkshire, as shown by the celebrated Domesday . a Greek dialogue. He remained at home during the Book; Wentworth means the White Hall, Court or Town. A periodical of years since thus describes the birthplace of John Wentworth: " He was born in that part of New Hampshire known as the Switzerland of America; among those highlands separating those beau- tiful and picturesque bodies of water, dotted with hun- dreds of little islands, which are known as Squam and Winnipisseogee Lake. As the traveler from the capital of the State reaches the first of that extensive range of mountains, which he never loses sight of until he arrives at. Mount Washington itself, known as the Red Mountain, he beholds a promontory of comparatively low lands, nearly equally divided between hills, vales, and little lakes, jutting up among precipitous and rug- ged mountains, and from which there seems no outlet, except in the direction of the entrance. At the extreme end of this peninsular strip of land, bounded almost entirely by mountains, with no house, no road, nor any place beyond save the mountain's craggy side; less than a quarter of a mile to the right of the road that now leads through a hardly passable gorge to Thornton, in the town of Sandwich, at the foot of Mount Israel, and at the last cultivated farm thereon, was Colonel Went- worth born, in the sight of almost perpetual snows. Seldom indeed are all those towering peaks that iine the town of Sandwich snowless, and few are the fields that miss the frosts for six months in a year. It blights the blossoms in the spring and the unripe fruit in autumn. Few are the agricultural products adapted to its short and cool summers, and to its winters, vieing almost with those of Franconia, known as the coldest place in the Union. The soil is sterile and rocky; and its original settlers, in 1768, declared that they found it a dense mass of rocks and trees, with no bare spot save its lakes and rivers. . It the date of the birth of Mr. Wentworth there were no stores, no hotels, and no places of recreation, where one could while away a leisure hour, or which could entice one from the paths of industry. Work was the only recreation and sleep the only rest. The evening shade was the signal for general retirement, and the day-dawn found all break- fasted, and the oxen yoked at the door. Amid such habits, and upon such a theater, was the subject of this sketch born and reared." And so restricted were its mail facilities, that the news of the Battle of New Or- Jeans reached the town on the day of Mr. Wentworth's birth.

The first school attended by John Wentworth was the public school taught by Benjamin G. Willey, at Sandwich, in the winter of 1819-20. He attended the common schools of Sandwich umil the winter of 1826- 27, when he went to reside with Dr. Ssa Crosby the ancestor of the distinguished family of all the Crosby's in the United States . of Gilmanton, N. Il., and attended the academy there under the charge of Isa Emerson Foster. During the summer and fall of 1827. he was a pupil of Rev. James Towner at the Wolfeborough, N. 11., Academy, and in the summer of 1828 was at the

summer of 1830, and returned to the Academy in the winter of 1830-31. At this Academy, in the spring of 1830, he founded the Social Fraternity, which was created by the founder in order to supply the necessity existing for a debating and literary society, other than the Literary Adelphi, an association whose advantages were limited to students of older age than that of Mr. Wentworth. It was a fitting prelude to the life of John Wentworth, editor, mayor and congressman, to find him at the age of fifteen organizing a literary society, to provide students with those educational amenities from which they were debarred because of their age. He remained at this Academy until the winter of 1831-32. participating in the exhibition of August 13, 1831, and there took an original part in the discussion: "Which has conferred the greatest benefit upon mankind, the discovery of the art of printing or the mariner's com- pass?" During this winter he taught his first school at Simpson Hill, New Hampton, N. H .; and returned to the Academy subsequently and remained until the spring vacation. In the spring of 1832 he attended the Academy of South Berwick, Me., under the charge of Lewis Turner, remaining until the close of the summer term, and there delivered the valedictory address. During his stay there he wrote several articles for the Democratic Press in defense of General Jackson's financial policy, which received high eulogium. Thus, during his adolescence, is John Wentworth noticeable for his. prominent literary ability. In the autumn of 1832 he entered Dartmouth College, N. H., from which institution he graduated in 1836. During his second winter in college he taught school in Hanover, about two miles south of the college; during the third winter at college he taught school at Grafton, N. H., and the fourth winter at East Lebanon, N. H. While there he was a substitute for one of the leading men in the school district, a delegate to the county convention, to nom- inate a democratic candidate for Senator, and was made chairman of the committee on resolutions; his reports and the remarks called forth by the transaction of busi- ness received high encomiums from the delegates and the Press. His first and only vote before coming to Chicago was cast for Isaac Hill, Democratic candidate for Governor, and this action likewise manifested the bent of his subsequent career. On Monday, October 3, 1836, he left the paternal roof-tree in Sandwich, N. H., with a general idea of going West and with Stoo in his pocket. The opinions of the prominent men of that time may be inferred from the following letters, given to Mr. Wentworth prior to his departure :

" MOULTONBOROUGH, September 22, 1336.

" HON. JOHN REYNOLDS, Dar Sir: Permit me to introduce to your acquaintance Mr. John Wentworth, a young man of good talents, who has just completed his collegiate studies, and visits the West for the purpose of studying and pursuing the practice of the law. Is your knowledge and influence will enable you to direct him in the chance of a desirable spot to locate, whatever assistance you may render him will be gratefully received and considered a favor conferred un. Your friend and obedient servant.

" BENNING M. BLAN."

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John Reynolds was Governor and Member of Con- gress from Illinois, and Mr. Bean was Member of Con- gress from New Hampshire. The other letter was from Governor Isaac Hill, formerly United States Sen- ator from New Hampshire, to General Henry Dodge, Governor of Wisconsin :

"CONCORD, N. II., September 29, 1836.

'Sir: Permit me to introduce to your friendly attentions Mr. John Wentworth, a graduate of Dartmouth College, of the present year. Mr. Wentworth possesses merit as a scholar and a gentle- man, and has already discovered talent as a politician which gives hira the first rank among our young men. Ile goes to the West in pursuit of fortune and fame. Should he take a stand in your Ter- ritory, I cannot doubt that he will receive, as he will merit, the patronage and friendship of the pioneers of your flourishing country. I am, with high respect, Your obedient servant,

"ISAAC HILL."

These letters and the facts recited show how well his dominating characteristics were exhibited in his early life; how the struggles, the difficulties and the encomi- ums he experienced, seemed to be preparatory to the wider, higher sphere he was ultimately to fill. Upon his journey he traveled by post-coach to Concord, N. H .; thence across the Green Mountains to Troy, N. Y .; thence to Schenectady; thence, for the first time, on the cars to Utica, N. Y .; thence, for the first time, on the canal, to Tonawanda, N. Y .; thence by stage to Niagara Falls; thence on a steamer, for the first time, to Buffalo, thence on the steamboat Columbus, Captain A. Walker, to Detroit, arriving there October 13. He took a pedes- trian excursion of some forty miles into the country from Detroit, visiting Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, and advertising for a position as school teacher, in the De- troit Free Press, but meeting with no response to his advertisement, and not being inspired by the " star of inevitable destiny " otherwise to remain, he returned to Detroit upon. the seventeenth, and sent his trunk to Chicago by the brig Manhattan, Captain John Stewart, and took stage for Michigan City, Ind., arriving there on the afternoon of October 22. The ensuing day he set out on foot for Chicago. Several old residents remembered seeing Mr. Wentworth en route to Chicago, tall, dusty, gritty and independent as he strode toward the goal, where he was to win fame and fortune such as are achieved by but few people. He tarried over the night of October 24, at Calumet, now known as South Chicago, and arrived in Chicago on the forenoon of October 25, 1836, and accidentally meeting Matthew S. Moloney, then of the leading mercantile house of Wild, Moloney & Co., formerly of Northfield, N. H., and an old schoolmate of Mr. Wentworth's, that gentleman strongly recommended to him the United States Hotel-previ- ously the Sauganash-kept by the late John Murphy, afterwards well known as an Alderman and leading pol- itician of the city. Since that date John Wentworth dines with Mrs. John Murphy every 25th of October. He determined upon pursuing the study of law, and made the necessary arrangements having that end in view with Henry Moore, a leading lawyer of this city, whose ill-health required him to return to the East, where he died of consumption many years ago. But, on Novem- ber 23. 1836, he was induced to take editorial charge of the Chicago Democrat. Of the inBuence of that news- paper upon civic and general politics ; of the sturdy denunciation of the wild-cat and other fictitious paper money: its stanch advocacy of " Liberty and Econ- omy; " its stinging and pungent epigrams, the history of those times bears witness. \ short time after he took charge of the paper, the mark of this twenty-one years old editor was made in the city of his choice. and many of the prominent citizens of Chicago and propri-

etors of the newspaper, urgently solicited him to remain in charge of the paper, and proffered him every financial assistance necessary for its purchase: so evidently was Mr. Wentworth the right man in the right place. Ile accordingly made arrangements to take the paper, and within three years the establishment costing $2, 800 was owned by John Wentworth, free from indebtedness. He had earned it by incessant labor and indefatigable application, rigid economy and unremittent attention to business-such attention as his magnificent physique and the stern, persistent daily labor of his early New England home fitted him to endure. In the winter of 1836-37, Mr. Wentworth attended the meetings held in the Saloon Building, to consider whether the Legisla- ture-then in session at Vandalia-should be applied to for a city charter. But very few of those who attended those meetings are now living. He also took an active part in the election of Chicago's first Mayor, William B. Ogden. He was the secretary of the first political meeting ever called in the old First Ward. In 1837. he was appointed by the Council the first corporation printer of ! Chicago, and early in 1838, was appointed School Inspector, which office, under different names. he held at various times afterward. Mr. Wentworth was one of the earliest, and has ever been one of the most persistent advocates of the common-school system in the West. In 1839, he was appointed one of the "aides-de-camp" of Governor Carlin. In 1840 he commenced making speeches to publie assemblages outside the city, and in February, 1840, wrote a letter upon the relation of the banks to the Govern- ment and their reciprocal duties. This letter was printed in pamphlet form, and copied into the Adminis- tration papers of the day: it received deserved eulogiums, and attracted a great deal of attention to the utterances of the newspaper, whose editor, in such terse, powerful yet elegant phraseology, clearly solved one of the vexed financial and economic questions of the day. During this year, also, he started the Daily Democrat, the first daily Democratic newspaper in the Northwest. Despite these various demands upon his time and mental capacity, he still pursued his legal studies, and early in the spring of 1841 he left Chicago to attend the law lectures at Cambridge, Mass., with the intention of re- maining there a year, but hearing that he would prob- ably receive the nomination for Congress, he returned to Chicago late in the autumn of 1841, and was shortly thereafter admitted to the Bar. On May 18, 1843, he was unanimously nominated for Congress by the Demo- cratic convention at Joliet. In consequence of the fail- ure of the Legislature to district the State, the election which should have taken place in 1842 did not occur until August, 1843, when Mr. Wentworth was elected from the Fourth District of Illinois by a large majority. at the early age of twenty-eight, to a seat in the House of Representatives of the Twenty-eighth Congress, the youngest member of that body. In 1844 he was re- nominated, " nemine contradicente," and re-elected by . majority of more than three thousand. He was re- nominated in the same manner and re-elected by a majority of over six thousand in 1846. In 1848 he was again nominated and rolled up a majority of three thou- sand five hundred and fifty-five votes, while in Washing- ton, attending to his Congressional duties, and notwith. standing the cry of rotation in office made by aspirant -. As an evidence of Mr. Wentworth's personal popularity it may be remarked that at the time of the antagonism to him, Mr. Polk's majority was, in the same district. only three thousand and eight votes; also, that Mr. Wentworth's majority was greater than that of any

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other person in the State whose election was contested by an opposing faction. The Congresses to which he was elected up to this period of his life were the Twenty-eighth, Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth and Thirty- first. Before Mr. Wentworth entered Congress he had never seen a legislative body in session, yet his actions in Congress were such as though he had been engaged in parliamentary debates for years. In fact, his whole life has exhibited a wonderful adaptability of mind and aptitude of manner, with a comprehensiveness of under- standing that made all questions readily understood by him. Before his election to Congress there had not been any member who resided on the lake, nor had there been one north of the center of the State of Illi- nois, and until the admission of Wisconsin as a State he continued to be the sole representative who resided upon the shores of Lake Michigan. His district em- braced the counties of Boone, Bureau, Cook, Cham- pagne, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy. Iroquois. Kane, Ken- dlall, Lake, LaSalle, Livingston, MIcHenry, McLean, Vermillion and Will, and it extended from the Wiscon- sin State line on the north to a distance of one hundred miles below the line of the termination of the Illinois & Michigan Canal on the south, and from the Indiana State line on the east to counties touching Rock River on the west. Its area was two hundred and fifty miles by one hundred miles, and comprised the most wealthy and populous portion of the State. Since that time several entirely new counties, and parts of other new counties, have been created out of his old district. Mr. Wentworth was a member of the Baltimore National Convention of 1844, which nominated James K. Polk for the presidency ; also of that of 1848, which nomi- nated General Lewis Cass. He was chairman of the committee that called the celebrated National River and Harbor Convention which assembled at Chicago in 1847, and Mr. Wentworth also drafted the address to the peo- ple of the United States, urging them to send delegates to the convention. In 1850 he peremptorily declined a renomination to Congress, and retired from his repre- sentative duties on March 4, 1851. In November, 1852, he was elected to Congress from a new Congressional district, the Second, made under the census of 1850, comprising the counties of Cook, DeKalb, Du- Page, Kane. Lee, Whiteside and Rock Island. His term in the Thirty-third Congress expired on March 4, 1855, and again he refused to accede to the solicitations of his constituents, declining a re-nomination. He thus served two years under Acting-P'resident Tyler ; he was present at the inauguration of President Polk and served out his term of office : was present at the inau- guration of President Taylor and that of Acting Presi- dent Fillmore, and served two years under their admin- istrations. He was then out of Congress for two years. He was present at the inauguration of President Pierce, and served two years under his presidency. He was present when John Quincy Adams fell in the House of Representatives, and was one of the committee appointed by Speaker Robert C. Winthrop to take his remains home to Massachusetts. He was elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress from a district composed alone of Cook County, and was upon the Committee of Ways and Means under the administration of Acting- President Andrew Johnson. During this session he was an earnest advocate of the immediate resumption of specie pay- ments, often declaring that every day's delay therein would prove calamitous to the country. lle attended the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln and was one of the committee to receive his remains at Chicago. Dur- ing Mr. Wentworth's occupancy of a seat in Congress,

there was much local legislation requisite for the cres- cive Chicago of that era, and he worked intelligently and incessantly for those improvements that were nec- essary for her future greatness. He urged, and accom- plished, the improvement of the harbor, the establish- ment of light-houses and ports of entry, the erection of marine hospitals, etc. He championed the causes of his constituents in contested cases under the pre-emp- tion acts, and was the uopaid agent for numberless claimants for bounty, back-pay, etc., accrued during the Mexican War. He strenuously championed pre-emp- tion, graduation and homestead laws; he was the first Western congressman who introduced a bill advocating the bonded warehouse system, and he was mainly instrumental in passing the land grant bill for the Illi- nois C'entral Railroad through the House of Representa- tives. The remarks of the Democratic Review, made during his congressional career, aptly describe his serv- ice : "Colonel Wentworth's political career has been marked by untiring industry and perseverance, by inde- pendence of thought, expression and action, by a thor- ough knowledge of human nature ; by a moral courage equal to any crisis ; by a self-possession that enables him to avail himself of any chance of success when on the very threshold of defeat ; and by a steady devotion to what he believes to be the wishes and interests of those whose representative he is. * * * Few *

men of his age, under so many adverse circumstances, have attained to equal success, and still fewer are less indebted to accidental circumstances. So many obsta- cles have been already overcome by him, that he is never daunted by the hopelessness of any enterprise that it may seem desirable to undertake." Wheeler, in his " Biographical and Political History of Congress." Vol. 2, conveys the same idea as to Mr. Wentworth's persistence : " We mark him down as a man of untiring energy, whose mind once fixed upon a project is not apt to be diverted from it, but will make -every considera- tion secondary to its accomplishment. Possessing 'a

good knowledge of parliamentary tactics, and conver- sant generally with the means of success in any move- ment he may make, he calculates coolly and afar off. and turns every little circumstance to good account. We have seen him stand up in the face of denunciation ancl excommunication fierce enough to awe into submission any mind accustomed to acknowledge the obligations of that austere discipline which is characteristic of the Democratic party. If he has winced, we have never seen him. As a good local representative he has few superiors-perhaps none." The value of these criti- cisms lies in their having been contemporaneous. almost synchronous, with the performance of the legis-

lative duties commented upon. Mr. Wentworth was one of the original stockholders of the Chicago & Galena Railroad, and continued one of its most urgent supporters, and was chairman of the executive commit- tee of the board when the road was consolidated with the North-Western. In 1857, Mr. Wentworth was unan- imously nominated, in a convention of delegates from all the old political parties that existed at that time, as a candidate for Mayor. The new party was designated. at that period; the Republican fusion. Upon receipt of the nomination Mr. Wentworth at once stated, in his speech at Metropolitan Hall, that if he was elected he wished it distinctly understood that he was elected to enforce all the laws of the city. This he proposed doing. He stated that he did not desire the salary : that he could not well attend to the duties without en- croaching upon the responsibilities of his private busi- ness ; and that the only consideration that made him a

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candidate was, that he believed the great mass of those who ought to take it, were deterred from doing so, from the moral certainty that they would greatly increase the number of their enemies. But, of all considerations, this would have the least weight with John Wentworth. He also explicitly stated that he would defer to the wishes of the people, if they elected him, and serve for one year, but that must be all that he would be expected to serve. In March, 1857, he was elected by over eleven hundred majority. His watchword, while serving the public, was that which dominated his individual business inter- ests ; "Liberty and Economy," and to the doctrines im- plied in that watchword he steadfastly adhered. It may be remarked that, during this term, he introduced the first steam fire-engine into the city, which was named " Long John " in his honor; and his first official act was to call a board of engineers who established the present grade. Mr. Wentworth declined a re- election, but he was again nominated and elected to the mayoralty in 1860. When the Prince of Wales visited Canada in 1860, there was a strong effort made to have him make a tour of the United States, but the Canadian authorities were opposed to this, and wished to take him through the British Provinces, with an idea of enlisting his influence for their development, with reference to the then contemplated Pacific road through the British Provinces. Lord Lyons, then British min- ister at Washington, was exceedingly anxious to gratify the American people in their wishes, and he suggested

that the Governors of the States and the Mayors of the principal cities should meet the Duke of Newcastle upon the arrival of the Prince in Canada, to have a consulta- tion upon the subject. It was understood that the Duke of Newcastle had the movements of the Prince in

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 173

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