History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 21

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

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In the fall of 1818, he was appointed Chicago agent of the American Fur Company, and built a sinall trading- house near his residence.

In 1823 the fort was evacuated, and remained for several years without a garrison. The U. S. Factory- house, just outside the south wall, was sold to the American Fur Company, and again sold by the company to Mr. Beaubien for $500. He moved into this build- ing, and resided there until he left Chicago for his farm on the Desplaines, in or about the year 1840. During the winter of 1831-32, Mr. Beaubien was president of the village Debating Society, the meetings being held within the fort. It is said the presiding officer filled his responsible position with " much efficiency and dignity." During the Black Hawk troubles, he led a party of val- iant Chicagoans to the scene of anticipated warfare, as related in the history of that war in another chapter. Two years later when the militia of Cook County was organized, he was elected its first colonel, at the famous meeting at " Laughton's Tavern," when " The Puuch Bowl of Ogden Avenue " sparkled with good cheer, and the hearts of the lively crowd with fun and jollity.

THE BEAUBIEN CLAIM .- Colonel Beaubien made two pre-emption claims for the land upon which he had resided since the rebuilding of the fort, which were re- jected. Finally in May, 1835, he entered at the land office in Chicago, of which Edmund 1). Taylor was Re- ceiver, and James Whitlock Register, a pre-emption claim to the southwest fractional quarter of Section 10, Township 39, Range 14 east, the quarter-section upon which he resided. After consulting the United States District Attorney for Illinois and Hon. Sidney Breese, afterward Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, the officials of the land-office allowed his claim, and Colonel Beaubien became the purchaser of a fraction over seventy-five acres of land in what was known as the "Fort Dearborn Reservation," for the sum of $94.61. Payment was made, entry recorded and certificates and receipts delivered to Mr. Beanbien. The following year 1836, Murray McConnell, a lawyer of some ability residing at Jacksonville, Ill., to whom Mr. Bean- bien had conveyed a portion of this land, brought an action of ejectment against Colonel DeLafayette Wil- cox, then in charge of United States property at Fort Dearborn, which stood on a portion of the land in ques- tion. This suit was entitled " John Jackson ex. dem. Murray McConnell v. DeLayette Wilcox," and was brought before Judge Thomas Ford of the Cook County

Innse came to this place from Milwaukee, and was doubtless the sun of one of These brothers. The family moved to the place called " Hardscrabble," and lived there many years ; Francis LaFramboise or his sons being taxpayers in 1825 and 1826."

* The old calun must have come to its end in the cholera summer of 18;2. ( aptain A. Walker, commander of the stramer " Sheldon Thompson." which arrived at Chicago with a part of General Scott's troops on the 10th of July of that yrar, Ny, in a letter published in the Chicago Democrat in 186t : " The number of buildings at that time (:8;2) where your populous city now stands. was but five, three of which were bog tenements-one of them, without a roof. uved ay a stable. We remained four days after landing the troops, procuring Url for the homeward voyage, etc. The only means of obtaining anything for fin 1 was to purchase the footless log-building used as a stable. That, biggether with the rail fence enshrine a field of wine three acres near by, was sufficient io rable its to reach Mackinaw. Being drawn to the beach and prepared for De. it was bited on board by the crew, which operation occupied most of four days to aucinnplish.

Circuit Court, at the October term of 1836. The suit was popularly known as " the Beaubien claim."

The property involved, as before stated. was what was then known as the " Fort Dearborn Reservation." now Fort Dearborn Addition, and was by Government survey the southwest fractional quarter of Section 10. Township 39, North Range 14, East of the Third princi- pal meridian, in Illinois, containing 75.69 acres. Colonel Wilcox was defended by David J. Baker, United States District Attorney for lilinois. Waiving any right that may have arisen from the purchase and occupation of a certain claim of land at an earlier date by Colonel Beaubien, his attorney based his case on the purchase made by him from John Dean, an army contractor or sutler, in 1817, of a house near the fort, and not far from his former residence, and for which, with its field and garden, he claimed to have paid $1,000. The land in question was not surveyed, and was therefore not open to pre-emption until 1821. In 1822 the United States Factory at Chicago was finally closed by Government. and during 1823. the building was sold by order of the Secretary of the Treasury to Wm. Whiting. who resold it to the American Fur Company. Mr. Beaubien bought it of this company for $500, and moved into it with his family, thus becoming by right of purchase and occu- pation the owner of all there was in the quarter-section on which he lived. except the fort and its immediate en- closure, still in possession of the Government. In 1824 the Commissioner of the General Land Office, at the re- quest of the Secretary of War, "set apart " the whole of Section 10 for military uses. In 1831 the heirs of John Kinzie claimed pre-emption of the fractional quar- ter of Section 10, north of the river, at the nearest land- office, at Palestine, in Crawford County, which was al- lowed. Mr. Beaubien made a similar claim for the fractional-quarter-section south of the river, which was refused. In 1834 he again entered claim at the land- office at Danville, Vermillion County, which was again rejected, and finally in 1835, as before related, he pre- sented his claim at the Chicago land-office, which was allowed, and he bought the Fort Dearborn Reservation, at the regular rate of $1.25 per acre, and obtained his certificate, which was dated May 28, and recorded June 26. When the suit was brought into the Circuit Court at the fall term of 1836, Judge Ford decided that Beau- bien's claim was valid, but could not be enforced until he procured a patent from Washington ; or, in technical terms, that "although Beaubien's claim is legal in every respect, yet he cannot assert his right against the United States in this form ; a writ of mandamus against the proper officer for the patent is the proper remedy." The judgment of the Circuit Court was approved by the Supreme Court of the State, and in 1839 an effort was made in the House of Representatives at Washington, to establish Beaubien's title in accordance with the decision of the State courts. But the Solicitor of the Treasury, Henry D). Gilpin, informed the committee of the House in charge of the claim that the Government lawyers at Chicago-Butterfield. Collins and Morris-had drawn up a bill charging the local land-office with collusion in giving the original certificate to Beanbien in 1835. This information killed the hopes of the claimant in the House. Meanwhile the law suit had been carried into the Supreme Court of the United States, and Francis Peyton, attorney for Beaubien, on the last day of Feb- ruary, 1839. applied to the Government for certain maps which he deemed important, if not essential. to the support of his client's claim. They were not furnished. and in March, 1839, the judgment of the State Courts

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

was reversed .* The Secretary of War ordered the land to be divided into blocks and lots, constituting the Fort Dearborn Addition to the city of Chicago, and to be sold to the highest bidder, except block one, and fourteen lots in block two, and blocks four and five reserved to the Government. The Government was censured by the opposition journal in Chicago for its "indecent haste " in advertising in April, almost before the decision of the Court had placed on record the sale of the disputed land on June 10, 1839. It was understood that Colonel Beaubien desired to secure six lots in block five ; and by general consent the citizens declined to bid against him. This kindness was, however, neutralized by James H. Collins, one of the attorneys for the Government, who secured five of the six, Beaubien obtaining only oue lot II, block five), for $225 ; an advance of fourteen dol- lars on the highest price paid by Collins. This sale took place June 20, 1839. On the morning of the 21st an indignation meeting was held by the citizens, at which W'm. H. Brown was president, and John H. Kinzie and James Wadsworth were secretaries. Resolutions were passed denouncing Collins and expressing the regret that the Government should find it necessary to be so- ungenerous to an old and respected citizen, who had been of great service to the early settlers of Chicago in their relations with the Indians ; but all this could not change court decisions. June 13. 1840, the United States filed a bill in the Circuit Court for Illinois, to set aside the receipt and certificate given to Beaubien in 1835. The Court decreed that he should deliver them up for cancellation, and they were duly surrendered by Beaubien, accompanied with his receipt dated Decem- ber 18, 1840, for the original purchase money then re- funded. In 1878, Wm. H. Standish, a lawyer of Chi- cago, again brought the case before Congress, " explain- ing the Beaubien title to the Lake front lands, etc." He went over the points above given, re-enforcing them by affidavits of old residents, including one of E. D. Taylor. the Receiver in 1835, in which he states that he and his colleague, James Whitlock, Register, took the advice of David Jewett Baker, at that time United States Attor- ney for Illinois, who declared that "the law made it their duty to let said Colonel Beaubien pre-empt this land, whether it hurt or benefited the United States Gov- ernment," and that they received the same advice from the Hon. Sidney Breese, who "even at that day enjoyed the reputation of being an eminent lawyer." The strong points of the claim were that from August 15, 1812, to July, 1816, the land in question could scarcely be said to be a post of any sort in the actual possession of the United States, having neither Government buildings, nor soldiers nor agents there ; that it had not been formally reserved for military purposes until 1824, that it was therefore subject to pre-emption by Beaubien under the law of 1813, and that it should have been as open for pre-emption to him on the south side as it was to R. A. Kinzie on the north side of the river. To which it was answered by Senator Bayard, from the committee of Congress on private land claims, May 31, IS;8; that there was a reservation and appropriation for Government uses as shown by the actual occupation from 1804 to 1812; that the non-occupation from 1812 lo 1816 " was caused by the compulsion of war," and "a citizen could not take advantages of the misfortunes of his Government." This bounty of pre-emption, it cannot be supposed was designed to be extended to the sacrifice of public establishments or of great public interests 13 Peters, 498. " For these and other con- siderations your committee." says the Senator, "report

adversely upon the bill No. 773) and recommend that it be indefinitely postponed." The apparent similarity of the interest involved with that of the Kinzie family could furnish no solid basis for a claim against the Gov- ernment, as pre-eniption has been decided by the courts to be a matter of bounty on its part and could not be turned into a right against it, on the part of a citizen. Moreover, the Government had need, or use, for the southern fraction which it was actually occupying when suit was brought, while of the northern fraction it had never made any use. Had the Beaubien claimants awaited the abandonment of the land by the Govern- ment it is not improbable that they would have succeed- ed. Indeed, it was rumored that the patent had been actually signed in favor of Beanbien when the news of the suit aroused the indignation of President Jackson, who in his impulsive wrath tore it into fragments. The story is somewhat open to suspicion, being such as the known character of the President would have given rise to, without any foundation in fact. Eventually Con- gress donated to Beaubien four or five lots in the Fort Dearborn Addition. as a compensation for his original outlay; but the effort to prosecute the claim before Congress in 1878, was, as has been shown, resisted with so much firmness as to leave but little hope of its suc- cessful revival at any future time.

The Fort Dearborn Addition was sold by the Gov- ernment under Act of Congress of March 3. 1810. There was also some abortive agitation about obtaining the contested land for county purposes, in virtue of an act of Congress of May 26, 1824, granting any unsold public lands at $1.25 an acre for such purposes. But it was too late, and the Beaubien Claim went into the real estate market, as stated, under the auspices of the Gen- eral Government.

The homestead of Colonel Beaubien was where now is the southwest corner of South Water Street and Mich- igan Avenue. This was bid in at the land sale in June, 1839, by James H. Collins, for $1,049, and, in the words of Madore, son of the old pioneer, the " very house his father was inhabiting, in which his family had been born and reared, and around which were the graves of his departed children, was sold from him in his old age. No wonder the citizens of Chicago held an indignation meeting.

Colonel Beaubien owned a farm near the place, called " Hardscrabble," to which he removed about the year 1840, and where his wife died in September, 1845. In 1850 he was commissioned Brigadier-General of militia. He returned from his farm to Chicago where he married, in 1855, Miss Louise Pinney. In 1858 he removed to Naperville, where he died January 5, 1863.

UNITED STATES INDIAN AGENTS AND FAC- TORS AT CHICAGO.

When old Fort Dearborn was built in 1803-4, an agency-house, for the use of the United States Indian Agents to be stationed at the post, was erected under the protection of its guns. It was situated a short dis- tance above the fort on the same side of the river, and is described as an old-fashioned log building with a hall in the center, and one large room on each side. Porches extended the whole length of the building, front and rear. The Chicago Ageney included the Pottawal- omies, Sacs. Foxes and Kickapoos. . . All negotiation- with them, all payments made to them by the United States, all settlements of disputed questions, were through the medium of the Indian Agent.

CHARLES JOUETT, the first Indian Agent at Chi-

" 1; l'eters. 498.

UNITED STATES INDIAN AGENTS AND FACTORS AT CHICAGO.

cago, arrived and entered upon the duties of his office in 1805. He was a native of Virginia, the youngest of nine children, and was born in 1772. His father shared in Braddock's defeat in 1754, and two of his brothers

C. Lomt

fought in the War of Independence. John Jouett and his four sons were all of remarkable size and strength. Charles was six feet three inches in height and propor- tionally muscular. He studied law in early manhood, and practised for a short time at Charlottesville, Va. In 1802, he was appointed by President Jefferson Indian Agent at Detroit. January 22, 1803, Mr. Jouett mar- ried Miss Eliza Dodemead, of Detroit, who died in 1805, leaving a daughter, born in 1804. April 2, 1805, he was appointed Commissioner "to hold a treaty " with the Wyandotts, Ottawas and other Indians of northwestern Ohio, and what is now southeastern Michigan. The treaty was signed at Fort Industry, on " the Miami of the Lake," now the Maumee, July 4. 1805. The same year he was appointed as Indian Agent at Chicago ; and was officially notified, October 26, 1805, that the Sacs, Foxes and Pottawatomies would be thenceforth in- cluded in that agency. Early in 1809 he married Miss Susan Randolph Allen, of Clark County, Ky., but born near Williamsburg, Va., in 1786. By her he had one son, born in Chicago in 1809, and there deceased in 1810; and three daughters, born in Kentucky. In 1811* he removed to Mercer County, Ky., where he became a judge in 1812. He was again appointed In- dian Agent for Chicago, by President Madison, in 1815, and moved there with his family that year. He is charged with $1,ooo salary as such agent in the nation- al accounts of 1816. The Indian agencies in Illinois were turned over to the Territory of Illinois in 1817, with a proviso that all such accounts should not exceed $25,000 a year. It may be owing to this change that Mr. Jonett severed his connection with the Indian De- partment a second time. He, however, signed the In- dian treaty of St. Mary's, Ohio, September 17, 1818, as witness, with the title of Indian Agent. This seems to have been his last service in that line; and he soon afterwards returned to Kentucky. At the organization of the Territory of Arkansas, in 1819, he was appoint- ed its Judge ; but the climate proved unhealthful, and after a stay of six months, during which he was engaged in establishing the institutions of the new govern- ment, he returned to Kentucky. He then settled in Trigg County, of which he remained a resident until his death, May 28, 1834. He enjoyed the friendship and confidence of three Presidents ; and was noted for his integrity and fidelity to the trust imposed in hin.

Soon after the building of Fort Dearborn, the United States established a Factory at the post, for the purpose of controlling the Indian trade of the vicinity. The Factory system was instituted by the Government from motives of both philanthropy and expediency. It was designed to benefit the Indians by giving them a fair equivalent for their furs in such useful articles as their needs required, and to withhold from them whisky, which was rapidly rendering them not only useless, but dangerous " wards" of Government. It was believed that by dealing fairly and honestly with them, they

He was charged with salary to Oktober t. 1811 ; and his successor, Cap- Isin Nathan Heald, is charged in same account from July 1. in to Angil 15, 1810.

would soon learn to consider the United States Factors their friends and benefactors, and gladly transfer their trade from those who first intoxicated and then cheat- ed them, to those who came among them to better their condition. With this motive was also the desire of transferring the immense profits of the Indian trade from private traders or corporations to the United States Treasury. The system eventually proved a fail- ure. The gentlemen sent to the frontier to deal with the Indians, although men of intelligence and integrity, were unacquainted with the nature of those they came to serve, and unequal to the task of competing with old, acute and experienced traders, whom the Indians had learned to trust, and whose influence over them was unbounded. Before the war of 1812, the factories were a partial success, but after peace was declared, and they were re-established in 1816, they proved a complete failure. . The American Fur Company, after its re-organ- ization in 1817, swept away both private traders and factories, and enjoyed for a time almost a monopoly of the Northwestern fur trade.

The name of the United States Factor at Chicago. from the time the system was established until 1810. has not been preserved, unless, as seems probable. . Charles Jouett was both Indian Agent and Factor.

Matthew Irwin was Factor here from 18to until the destruction of Fort Dearborn, August 15, 1812, and after the departure of Mr. Jouett, in 1811, probably acted also as Agent. He was the son of Matthew Irwin, Sr., a native of Ireland, who settled in Philadel- phia when quite young, and becoming a wealthy mer- chant assisted the United States Government during the Revolution by loaning it money for carrying on its plans. In September, 1777, he was appointed Quarter- master-General of Pennsylvania, and served in General Armstrong's division, then in the field. During 1778 and 1779 he was engaged in fitting out privateers and ships against the enemy, being appointed a naval agent for the State in the latter year, and commissioner for procuring salt for the public. In 1781 he was Port Warden for Philadelphia ; from 1785 served for several vears as Recorder of Deeds and Master of Rolls of Philadelphia, and in 1787 was appointed Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. He became bankrupt in the latter part of 1788, partly in consequence of surety debts. The mother of Matthew Irwin, Jr., was a sister of Thomas Mifflin, General in the Revolution and after- ward Governor of Pennsylvania. His oldest brother, Thomas, was United States District Judge of Western Pennsylvania, and another brother was a merchant of Philadelphia. Matthew Irwin, Jr., was born, reared and educated at l'hiladelphia.

In a written communication, given to Dr. Jedidiah Morse, in 1820, and published in " Morse's Report on Indian Affairs," Major Irwin gives the following state- ment of the amount of business done while he was Factor at Chicago :

Amount of furs and peltries forwarded to the Superin- tendent of Indian trade June 30, ISIo, and ju-

voiced at ....

2,072.50

Amount of drafts on the Secretary of war, in favor of

the Superintendent of Indian trade in that year __ 1. 749 91

Total amount of business done in 1~10. 4.712.57

AAmount of furs and peltrie, forwarded to the superin-

intendent of Indian trade Sept. 25, 1811, .. 5,250.50

Amount of drafts on secretary nf War transmitted in favor of the Superintendent of Indian trade, 775.39

Total amount of business done in 1811. .. $ 6,055 49

-----

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

Amount of furs and peltries forwarded to the Superin-

tendent of Indian trade July 11, 1812, . $ 5,761.91

Amount of drafts transmitted in favor of the Superin-

tendent of Indian trade,. 500.67

Amount of articles sold for cash,- 515.48

Amount of business done in 1812, $ 6,798.06

In May, 1811, Mr. Irwin gave notice to the Secre- tary of the Treasury of the machinations of the Shawa- noe Prophet to incite the Pottawatomies of the Illinois River and surrounding country to hostility against the Government. Mr. Jouett's absence left Mr. Irwin to discharge the duties of Agent and Factor. He again writes on the 10th of March, 1812: " The Chippewa and Ottawa nations, hearing that the Winnebagoes and Pottawatomies are hostilely inclined toward the whites, sent speeches among them, desiring them to change their sentiments and live in peace with the whites ;" and again on April 16, 1812: "On the 6th, a party of ten or eleven Indians surrounded a smail farm house on Chicago River, and killed two men. The Indians are of the Winnebago tribe." Mr. Irwin must have left Chicago soon after forwarding goods July 11th, or he would hardly have escaped the massacre of the next month. The goods in the factory were distributed among the savages, and the subsequent war put an end, for a time, to the factory system. Mr. Irwin was appointed Assistant Commissary of Purchases in the ariny May, 1813, and served until June, 1815, when the army was disbanded. The following spring a mil- itary post was established at Green Bay, and he was sent there as United States Factor, remaining until the office was discontinued in 1822. Major Irwin married, in 1816, at Uniontown, Penn., Miss Nancy Walker, and his son William, born in 1817, was the first white child of American parents born at Green Bay. On the organization of Brown County, Wis., in 1818, he was appointed by Governor Cass its first Chief Justice and Judge of Probate, serving until September, 1820. Late in 1822 he returned with his family to Philadelphia, and finally settled at Uniontown, Pa., where he was em- ployed as merchant and Postmaster, and where he died about 1845, from the effects of paralysis, at the age of nearly seventy-five years. Major Erwin is described as of a little above medium height, well proportioned, of pleasing deportment, and interesting and popular address.

On the rebuilding of Fort Dearborn in 1816, a fac- tory was again established by Government. Jacob B Varnum, of Massachusetts, was appointed Factor, with a salary of $1,300. The business was unsatisfactory. In a letter to Major Irwin at Green Bay, dated Decem- ber 5, 1818, a year and a half after the reorganization of the American Fur Company, Mr. Varnum says :

" The indiscriminate admission of British subjects to trade with the Indians is a matter of pretty general complaint, through- nut this section of the country. There are five establishments now within the limits of this agency, headed by British subjects. These, with the large number of American traders, in every part of the country, will effectually check the progress of this factory. I have hardly done a sufficiency of business this season to clear the wages of my interpreter."

The following year he writes to the superintendent of Indian affairs at Washington, evidently believing that a better day was dawning for the factories in conse- quence of the recent decision of the Attorney-General as to who should be considered American citizens, and granted licenses to trade with the Indians. The decis- ion was, that unless those residing within the jurisdic- tion of the western ports, at the time they were given up by the British, did absolutely go into court within

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 21

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