History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 36

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

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The following is an imperfect list of the denizens of the town in the fall of 1833, not before named : Philo .. Carpenter, still living in Chicago, druggist, who came in July, 1832 ; Peter Pruyne, druggist, early in 1833 ; George W. Dole, merchant ; P. F. W. Peck, merchant ; Madore W. Beaubien, merchant ; John Bates, Jr., still living in Chicago, auctioneer, who came in 1832; Alan- son Sweet, 1832 ; Augustin Taylor, builder, still living in Chicago, arrived June, 1833 ; J. B. Beaubien, merchant ; the Kinzies, Jolın and Robert A., merchants ; T. J. V. Owen, who came in 1831 ; John Watkins, school-mas- ter, came in 1832 ; James Gilbert, came in 1833 ; Charles H. Taylor, came in 1832; John S. C. Hogan, Post- master, came in 1832 ; William Ninson, came in fall of 1832 ; Hiram Pearson, came in spring of 1833 ; George Chapman ; John Wright ; Mathias Smith, came in 1833; David Carver, seaman and lumber merchant, came in 1833 ; Eli A. Rider, came in 1832 ; Dexter J. Hapgood, came in 1832 ; George W. Snow, came in 1832 ; Ghol- son Kercheval, Government Agent and clerk, came in 1831, died in California ; Stephen F. Gale, from New Hampshire ; Captain DeLafayette Wilcox, in the garri- son ; Lieutenant Louis T. Jamison, in the garrison ; Enoch Darling, W. H. Adams, C. A. Ballard, Captain J. M. Baxley, came June, 1833, and remained until April. 1836 ; Lieutenant J. L. Thompson, came June 20, 1833, and remained until December, 1836; Jabez K. Bots- ford, speculator and capitalist ; Morris Bumgarden, came in 1832 ; Henry and Samuel L. Brooks ; Stephen Rexford, came July 27, 1833 ; Charles Wisencraft, came in 1833; John S. Wright, then a minor, afterward editor of Prairie Farmer, and one of the most merito- rious pioneers of Chicago, came in 1832 ; John Wright, came in 1832, a merchant ; Timothy and Walter Wright, came in 1833 ; Patrick Welch, in 1833 ; John Calhoun, printer and editor of the first newspaper published in Chicago, arrived in November, 1833, and issued the first number of the Chicago Democrat November 26, 1833 : Tyler K. Blodgett, came in the spring of 1833, and started the first brickyard, between Dearborn and Clark streets. on the North Side ; Oscar Pratt and Beckford, printers. were in the employ of Mr. Calhoun at that time ; E. H. Mulford, watch-maker, came in 1833 ; Lemuel Brown. blacksmith, came in 1833 ; Joseph Meeker. carpenter and builder, came in the summer of 1833; Major Handy, bricklayer and mason ; E. K. Smith ; L. D. Harrison ; Archibald Clybourne, butcher, came in 1823. then living north of the town limits, and not a voter in the new village : John K. Clark, half-brother of .1 Clybourne, then living with him ; Nelson R. Norton.

* See Schools.

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CHICAGO IN 1833-37-

ship-carpenter, and builder of the first draw-bridge over the main river, at Dearborn Street, in March, 1834, came November 16, 1833 ( he also built the first sloop, the " Clarissa," launched May 12, 1836); Anson H. and his brother, Charles Taylor, came in 1832 ; John Miller, brother of Samuel, the landlord, came in 1831, and run a tannery just north of Miller's tavern ; Benjamin Hall, tanner, a partner of John Miller, who came in 1832 ; Martin D. Harmon ; Willard Jones ; Ashbel Steele, plastered Calhoun's printing office in November, 1833 ; S. B. Cobb, a minor, came June 1, 1833.

Many of these names are not on the list of voters for 1833, for the reason that they had not been in Chicago a sufficient time to gain the right under the law to vote. They are, nevertheless, entitled to a place in the list of actual residents of the new town of Chicago, as organized in 1833.

As appears from the above list there were besides, four churches, a newspaper, a private school, and a job printing office ministering to the higher wants of the community ; and besides the taverns enumerated, a half dozen stores and a butcher, to minister to the physical necessities of the citizens. There was not at that time a single dram shop or what would in these later days be denominated a saloon, where the sale of spirituous liquors was the only ostensible business. That was carried on in connection with the stores and hotels, the tavern- keeper being by the terms of his license allowed to sell liquors to his guests, and not forbidden to sell to others.

The bridges were quite primitive, and consisted of a rude foot-bridge crossing the North Branch above the Wolf Tavern; and a log bridge across the South Branch, between Randolph and Lake streets, nearer Randolph. The latter is stated to have been build by Anson H. Taylor and his brother Charles, in 1832. Its total cost, as stated in Hurlbut's Antiquities, p. 556, was $486.20, of which sum the Pottawatomie Indians contributed $200. The bridge is frequently mentioned by the early comers of 1833. It was, prior to 1834, the only bridge across the river or its branches over which teams could pass. At a meeting of the Town Trustees December 4, 1833, both these bridges were reported as " needing repairs," as the historian says, "probably because, in contravention of the law, their bulk had been lessened, for the building of fires ; the said bridges being nothing more nor less than piles of rough wood thrown into the channel."

The only manufactory established at that early day was the rude shed called a tannery, near the Miller tavern, where John Miller and Benjamin Hall were tan- ning a few hides into a rough but endurable leather. A saw-mill was in operation on the North Branch, below Clybourne's, at the mouth of a slough just south of Di- vision Street .* At that time there was but one street running to the lake, described by Jedediah Wooley, who surveyed it April 25, 1832, as extending " from the east end of Water Street at the west line of the Reservation) in the town of Chicago, to Lake Michigan. Direction of said road is south 8812º east ; from the street to the lake eighteen chains and fifty links." The street was fifty feet wide, and was reported by the viewers as " a road of public utility, and a convenient passage from the town to the lake. It was only staked out and marked by the travel from the town to the fort. There was a rough bridge thrown across the slough at State Street to make the highway available.

At this time, although the work of, making a harbor had been begun by building the first section of the south pier, which shut off the current of the river through the

old mouth, there was no harbor, only a roadstead, where craft might find fair anchorage and safe landing by boats or lighters in any but the most tempestuous weather.

The close of the year 1833 saw the town, above im- perfectly described, fairly born and in its corporate swaddling clothes. Its past history or present condition did not warrant, at that time, the extravagant hopes that its citizens had in its future development. Its subse- quent history has transcended the wildest prophesies of its early friends.

THE TOWN, 1833 TO 1837-The history of the town of Chicago covered a period of nearly four years-from Au- gust 10, 1833, to March 4, 1837. On the latter date the act incorporating the city was passed, and the election of the first city officers under the act was held on the first Tuesday of the May following. The annals of the town of Chicago for the period of its existence show a most wonderful growth in population, commerce and trade. During this era the tide of immigration set in vigorously to the lands of the Pottawatomies just acquired. Its principal route to the region, by land, lay through Chi- cago, which became the portal to the coveted territory, and through which, with increasing volume, it flowed until suddenly checked by the general financial collapse of 1837. This disaster for a time retarded all business, checked immigration and brought the town itself to such a sudden stop in its headlong career of prosperity as to seriously dampen the ardor, and still more seriously deplete the pockets, of its enterprising and over-sanguine citizens. As the entrepot of this vast westward moving and endless caravan, Chicago could but increase its own population from the ever-changing throng of so- journers. This was the era of the wildest speculations in land ever known in the country, and Chicago became the western center of the craze which began in 1835, developed in 1836, culminated in the early part of 1837, and finally burst into thin air in the fall of the latter year.

The sale, by public auction, of the school section (16) occurred October 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24, 1833, was made under R. J. Hamilton, commissioner, and by John Bates, auctioneer, and realized prices quite beyond ex- pectations. The section embraced the square mile be- tween State and Halsted streets on the east and west, and Madison and Twelfth on the north and south. It was divided into one hundred and forty-four blocks, the area of each being not far from four acres, not in- cluding the streets. All but four of the lots were sold, and brought in the aggregate the sum of S38,865, or an average of $6.72 per acre. The land was sold mostly on credit of one, two and three years at ten per cent interest. No such favorable chance for purchasers of limited means to become possessed of land near the village occurred again until after the financial revulsion of 1837. These blocks, afterward cut up into lots, to- gether with the canal lots in Section 9, were the original lots on which the trading and speculation was begun, which, as the mania increased, was supplemented by various "additions " to the town, which were platted on paper, and the lots thrown into market .*

THE GREAT LAND CRAZE .- Early in the spring of 1834 emigration from all parts of the East, even to the hitherto extreme western settlements, set for the lands just open to occupation by the treaty made at Chicago the previous September. By the middle of April, the van had arrived in Chicago, and by the middle of May there was no room for the constant crowd of incomers,

* An advertisement hy the Collector of lots to be sold for delinquent taxes October 1, 1836. mentions the origin.il town (Section g) Section 16, Wolcott's ad- dition, North Branch addition, and Wabansia addition.

* John Bates says there was no mill there.

134

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

except as buildings were hastily put up for their accom- modation, or as sojourners, leaving the town, made room for them. The hotels and boarding houses were always full; and full meant three in a bed sometimes, with the floor covered besides. Many of the emigrants coming in their own covered wagons had only them or a rude camp, hastily built, for home or shelter. All about the outskirts of the settlement was a cordon of prairie schooners, with tethered horses between, inter- spersed with camp fires, at which the busy house-wives were ever preparing meals for the voracious pioneers.

The price of real estate in Chicago was not long in evincing signs of what in later times would have been styled " a boom." Over one hundred and fifty houses, stores and shanties were put up, mostly on the canal section (9) during the spring and early summer. Lots which had sold at $20 to $50 at the first sale of canal lots, and for two years thereafter had been bandied about by the luckless owners, and swapped and bartered in regular horse-jockey style, suddenly assumed the true dignity of real estate, and had a price and a cash valuation. Many an old settler discovered that he was, if not rich, the possessor of possible wealth in what he had before deemed a possible incumbrance at tax-paying time, and, to strangers from the East seek- ing to invest, began to put on the airs of a landed proprietor. It was not long before land-agents became plenty in Chicago, and their offices the most crowded business resorts in the city.

At first the purchases were what might be termed legitimate ; a lot for cash on which the purchaser would erect a dwelling or store. The legitimate demand soon absorbed the floating supply and prices began to advance under the competition of anxious buyers. Lots purchased one day for $50 were sold the next for $60, and resold in a month for Sioo. It did not take long under such circumstances to develop a strong specula- tive fever, which infected every resident of the town and was caught by every new-comer. At the close of the year 1834, the disease had become fairly seated. What- ever might be the business of a Chicagoan, or however profitable, it was not considered a full success except it showed an outside profit on lots bought and sold. The next year was but a continuance of the trade, enlarged by the constantly increasing number of speculators who now bought, not so much for investment, and with less regard to actual value, as the increasing number of purchasers made a quick turn at a large profit apparently sure.

The excitement was greatly increased during the summer and early fall of 1835 by the opening of the Government Land-Office, which occurred May 28, where the sales continued, with some intermissions, until Sep- tember 30. The sale brought to the town, not only thousands of the bona fide settlers who came to secure a title to the lands they had already entered, but a crowd of adventurers and speculators who saw visions of untold wealth in the lands now for the first time offered for sale. The order in which the sales were made, and the sums realized, was stated in the American, October 10, 1835 :

Lands entered under pre-emption laws, from May 28 to June 30

$ 33.066 00

* At public sale, from June 15 to 30, inclusive 354,278 57 . - By private entry, from August 3 10 31, inclusive- 61,958 57

By private entry, from September 17 10 30, inclusive. 10,654 71

$459,958 75

* These sales by auction were made in a building on the west side of Dearborn Street, neur Water Street. The building was erruted by John Bates, and afterwards wcupied by him in his business as all auctioneer.

As the interior became settled the mania for land spec- ulating spread throughout the newly settled country, and Chicago became the mart where were sold and resold monthly an incredible number of acres of land and land-claims outside the city, purporting to be located in all parts of the Northwest. It embraced farming lands, timber lands, town sites, town lots, water lots, and every variety of land-claim or land title ever known to man. The location of the greater portion of property thus sold was, as a rule, except so far as appeared in the deed, unknown to the parties to the trade; and, in many cases, after the bubble had burst, the holders of real estate, acquired during the excitement, on investi- gation failed to find the land in existence as described. Town lots were platted, often without any survey, all over Wisconsin and Illinois, wherever it was hoped that a town might eventually spring up, or wherever it was believed that the lots could be floated into the great tide . of speculative trade.

The following are a few of the many paper towns advertised in the Chicago papers during 1836 : Lots in Warsaw; in Michigan City ; in Koshkonong, Wis .; in Macomb, McDonough County ; in Winnebago, on Rock River ; in Oporto, opposite Dixon's Ferry ; in New Boston, Mercer County ; in Liverpool, Ind. ; in Oquaka ; in Concord-fifty lots ; in Calumet , in Rockwell; an addition to the town of Stephenson ; lots in Sheboygan, Wis. ; in Wisconsin City,* now Port Washington, Wis. : also Ottawa Canal lots, which the American, November 19, 1836, stated were sold at $21,358, being $3,266 in excess of the valuation ; also canal Port lots in Vienna, Will County.

The leading advertisers were: John Bates, Jr .; Thompson & Wells; Higgins, Montgomery & Co .; R. K. Richards, agent of Chicago and New York Land Com- pany office, in July, 1836, over the drug store of W. H. & A. F. Clarke, corner Lake and Clark streets ; A. Garrett, auction room, on Dearborn Street. Mr. Garrett's room was the most popular resort of the speculating crowd. The American, October 31, 1835, stated that during the

* The following description of " Wisconsin City," aod what became of it, is given as the probable history of nearly all the paper towns and cities platted and sold during those exciting times. " They [the proprietors] forthwith laid out the town and named it . Wisconsin City.' The original plat was on the north side of Sauk Creek, along the lake shore, on the site of the present village of Port Washington. The streets were laid out north and south, and east and west from the hluffs to the lake, all except Lake Street, which ran diagonally in a northeasterly direction along the shore. The street nearest the creek, destined for docks and wharves when the dredging was completed, was named Canal Street. The parallel streets in order, going north, were Main, Washington and Jackson, each having a width of sixty-six feet, except Main, which was eighty feet in width : Lake Street intersected Canal Street at its foot and ran along the lake front, City Street starting at the intersection of Lake and Canal streets ran due north and south, intersecting Main, Washington and Jackson streets ; west and parallel came in order Franklin, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Mont- gomery and Clay streets, all of the regulation width of sixty-six feet except Wisconsin, which was eighty feet wide. The public square was in the block bounded by Washington on the south, Wisconsin on the east. Jackson on the north and Milwaukee on the west. Alleys twenty feet in width running north and south, intersected each block. The lots were 60x120 feet in size. The names of the proprietors of this embryo city, as appears in the recorded plat, were Solomon Juneau, Morgan L. Martin, G. S. Hosmer, Allen O. T. Breed. Wwwster Harrison, Calvin Harmon. G. S. Hosmer, Thomas A. Homes and William Payne, all non-residents except General Harrison. The land seems to have been ceded hy the Government to Harrison and sold to his partners, whom he let into the speculation on casy terms. Some sixteen acres of land were cleared and several building- erected ; a tavern, two stores, and several dwelling- houses, among them that of the " father of the city," General Harrison, which is still (1881) standing. A dam was built on the creek some distance from the city and a saw-mill erected. The first transfer of property by deed appearing on the records was a part of this tract. It bears date December 1, 1835. and Convey's to Thinmins A Homes an undivided half of about eleven acres, the con- sideration being Stoo. In January, 1336. Hobur- sold about four acres of this lot to Solomon Juneau for Szm. In February, 1836, Levi Mason bought twu " I'rices went up rapidly but culminated in the crash of 18:7. The highest point was reached in August of that year. On the go if that month Sokann and one-half acres of a tract adjuining the town plat fur Sen per arre.

Juneau sold to one Jasper Bostwick une ' city bit' (Last 12, Block 19) for $300, equivalent to nearly $1.Suo per acre.

" The decadence of Wisconsin City was as sudden as its growth had been rapid. The crash of 18:7 hrought it in a dead halt, and it was abandoned entirely except hy Harrivin, who remained there when not in Milwaukee, tu look after the ruins of what had been the darling hope of his life. The present village of Purt Washington, alter forty-five years, is built on the old plat, and along the streets then laul ont, and, in its beauty, is the counterpart of the Wis. consin City that pour Harrison bink on paper and in his fans so many years ago. Not until 1842 was any attempt made to revive the deserted village.

135

CHICAGO IN 1833-37.

ten months of the year he had sold $t,Soo,ooo of prop- erty, real and personal, and that he had fitted up a large room, "equal to any in New York or Philadelphia." A single advertisement of R. K. Richards, July 2, 1836, · offered for sale lots in Chicago, Joliet, Penn, Dorchester, Tremont, and Pekin ; also lots in Dearbornville, Con- stantine, Mottville Mills, St. Joseph and Milwaukee.

The American, July 2, 1836, said, " The rapidity with which towns are thrown into market is astonishing. Houses are born in a night, cities in a day, and the small towns in proportion."

The speculative mania was not confined to Chicago or the West. A superabundance of paper money, issued under divers State laws, had flooded the whole country, in volume far in excess of the requirements of legiti- mate trade, and was seeking outside investment in all quarters. In the great money centers of the East, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, a furore of speculation in all commodities and in real estate was at its height, before the Western mania was fairly started. The rumor of the fortunes made in a day at Chicago in the pur- chase of Western lands soon reached New York, where, among capitalists, the excitement became but little less intense than at home. There a new speculative demand grew up which proved an outlet for the avalanche of new towns that were being thrown into market. But for this, the craze might have spent itself sooner ; as it was, Eastern capitalists, after once embarked in the trade, became the most reckless and wildest speculators and held the excitement at fever heat until the collapse, which began at the East, forced them to take an obser- vation, which resulted in a sudden and complete stop- page of monetary supplies from that source. The trade was thrown back upon its own resources, and fell into a state of languishment at once, from which it went into a rapid decline, ending before the close of the year in absolute death. Although innumerable fortunes were made, few survived the wreck, and no class suffered more in the final crash than the non-resident speculators, who, in fact, were about the only ones who ever put much real capital into the business.

The first historic lecture ever delivered in Chicago was by Joseph N. Balestier, before the Chicago Ly- ceum, January 21, 1840. Speaking of the "Land Craze," he said:

" The year 1835 found us just awakened to a sense of our own importance. A short time before, the price of the best lots did not exceed two or three hundred dollars; and the rise had been so rapid, that property could not, from the nature of things, have acquired an ascertained value. in our case, therefore, the induce- ments to speculation were particularly strong; and as no fixed value could be assigned to property, so no price could, by any established standard, be deemed extravagant. Moreover, nearly all who came to the place expected to amass fortunes by speculat- ing. The wonder then is, not that we speculated so much, but rather that we did not rush more madly into the vortex of ruin. Well indeed would it have been had our wild speculations been confined to Chicago; here, at least, there was something received in exchange for the money of the purchaser. But the few miles that composed Chicago formed but a small item among the subjects of speculation So utterly reckless bad the community grown, that they chased every bubble which floated in the speculative atmos phere; madness increased in proportion to the foulness of its ali- ment; the more absurd the project, the more remnte the object, the more madly were they pursued. The prairies of Illinois, the for- ests of Wisconsin and the sand-hals of Michigan, presented a chain almost unbroken of supposititious villages and cities. The whole land seemed staked out and peopled on paper. If a man were reputed to be fortunate, his touch, like that of Midas, was supposed to turn everything into gold, and the crowd entercd blindly into every project he might originate. These worthies would besiege the land offices and purchase town sites at a dollar and a quarter per acre, which in a few days appeared on paper, laid out in the most approved rectangular fashion, emblazoned in glaring colors, and exhibiting the public spirit of the proprietor in

the multitude of their public squares, church lots, and school lot reservations. Often was a fictitious streamlet seen to wind its ro- mantic course through the heart of an ideal city, thus creating water lots and water privileges. But where a real stream, however diminutive, did hind its way to the shore of the lake-no matter what was the character of the surrounding country-some wary operator would ride night and day until the place was secured at the Government price. Then the miserable waste of sand and fens which lay unconscious of its glory on the shore of the lake, was suddenly elevated into a mighty city, with a projected harbor and light-house, railroads and canals, and in a short time the circumja- cent lands were sold in lots, fifty by one hundred feet, under the name of 'additions.' Not the puniest brook on the shore of Lake Michigan was suffered to remain without a city at its mouth, and whoever will travel around that lake shall hind many a mighty mart staked out in spots suitable only for the habitations of wild beasts.

" If a man were so fortunate as to have a disputed title, it made no great difference where the land lay, or how slender was his claim, his fortune was made; for the very insecurity of the purchase made it desirable in the eyes of the venturous. A powerful auxil- iary to the speculative spirit was the sale of lands by auction. When bodies of men, actuated by a common motive, assemble together for a common object, zeal is apt to run into enthusiasm; when the common passion is artfully inflamed by a skilful orator, enthusiasm becomes fanaticism, and fanaticism, madness. Men who wish to be persuaded are already more than half won over, and an excited imagination will produce' almost any anticipated result. Popular delusions have carried away millions at a time; mental epidemics have raged at every period of the world's history, and conviction has been ever potent to work miracles. Now the speculating mania was an epidemic of the mind, and every chord struck by the chief performers produced endless vibrations, until the countless tooes of the full diapason broke forth in maddening strains of fascination. The auctioneers were the high-priests who sacrificed in the Temple of Fortune; through them the speculators spread abroad their specious representations. Like the Sibyls and Flamens of old they delivered false oracles, and made a juggle of omens and auguries.

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 36

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