History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 54

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

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will hanl three and one-half tons two and one-half miles an hour for ten hours ont of fourteen ; which experience has proven to be the most economical rate of speed teams with heavy burdens ought to travel. From an examination of the statistics it would appear that the whole number of teams arriving in our city during the past year was not far from seventy thousand. Now, in place of the railroad now agitated, construct three hundred miles of plank road, divided to the best advantage, say northwest and southwest. This will not cost more than $500,000, about what it will cost to build a good railroad to the Fox River, for which the annual receipts for the next ten years could not be less than $200,000, supposing the average number of teams arriving per annum to be 130,000 (a cal- culation not large, as the population of Northern Illinois doubles in about six years), which at $1.50 per team would give that sum- sufficient to keep the roads in repair, divide thirty per cent divi- dends, and when the road is worn ont (ten years hence) we would have a city containing seventy thousand inhabitants. Then we might talk of a railroad. One of the reasons most argued with those in favor of the proposed railroad to Fox River is that if we don't build one, Milwaukee will. The people of that city are not able to build a railroad of any length; if they were, they are not so simple."

By 1854 Chicago had completed the Northwestern Plank Road to the town of Maine, seventeen miles. Seven miles from the city the Western road branched off and was finished seventeen miles from Chi- cago. The Southern Plank Road left the city at Bull's Head, on Madison Street, and passed through Lyonsville to Brush Hill, sixteen miles. From Brush Hill the Oswego Plank Road extended fourteen miles to Naperville. The Southern Plank Road was com- commenced on State Street, at the south line of. the city, and was finished to Comorn, ten miles south of the city. The Blue Island Avenue road extended from the village of Blue Island north to the heart of the city, on the west side of the river, about thirteen miles. The Lake- shore Plank Road, under contract, was an extension of North Clark Street, and was to run parallel with the lake shore for five miles.

FERRIES AND BRIDGES .- In June, 1829, the Com- missioners of Peoria County established a ferry "across the Chicago River, at the lower forks, near Wolf Point, crossing the river below the Northeast Branch." The precise locality is where West Lake Street crosses the river. The keepers, Archibald Cly- bourne and Samuel Miller, were to pay a tax of $2, and execute a bond in the sum of $200 for the faithful per- formance of their duties. Rates for ferriage were fixed as follows : Foot passenger, six and one-fourth cents ; man and horse, twelve and one-half cents ; Dearborn sulky chair, with springs, fifty cents ; one-horse wagon, twenty-five cents ; four-wheeled carriage, drawn by two oxen or horses, thirty-seven and one-half cents ; cart with two oxen, thirty-seven and a half cents ; head of neat cattle or mules, ten cents ; hog, sheep or goat, three cents ; hundred weight of goods, wares and mer- chandise, each bushel of grain or other article sold by the bushel, six and one-fourth cents ; "and all other articles in equal and just proportion." The rates estab- lished were one-half the sum that "John L. Bogardus gets at his ferry in Peoria." The main landing was on the South Side, from which passengers could be ferried over to either the North or West Side. By the spring of IS31 the husiness of ferrying was confined to the individual exertions of travelers who found themselves obliged to navigate the torpid waters of the Chicago River and its branches. This lack of enterprise, how- ever, was partially overcome by the energy of Mark Beaubien, who, in April of that year, purchased a scow from Mr. Miller for $65. His bond of Szoo was secured by James Kinzie, and in consideration for the privilege of running this ferry, Mr. Beaubien was to transport the people of Cook County free, the emolu- ments of his office coming from strangers. Some of

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his friends go so far as to say that for a time Mark con- sidered the office a sort of sinecure. However that may be, it is possible that he was brought to a realizing sense of his importance as a public functionary by the order of the Commissioners that he should ferry citizens of Cook County over, "from daylight in the morning until dark, without stopping." This effectually put an embargo upon any more " fast running" of Mr. Beau- bien's horses with ambitious redskins, which is the rumored cause of Mark's dereliction of duty.

After Mark Beaubien had been running his ferry for less than a year the citizens of the young town decided that they had left such a primitive affair behind them, and feeling. furthermore, that it would be well to utilize the United States troops then stationed at Fort Dear- born, they conceived the idea of throwing a bridge over the South Branch, just north of the present Ran- dolph Street crossing. This feat was accomplished by Anson H. and Charles Taylor, assisted hy the militia. To effect its construction the citizens contributed

$286.20 and the Pottawatomies $200, making a build- ing fund of $486.20. The bridge was a floating concern, built roughly of logs, and three years' travel upon it created alarming havoc. Early in January, 1836, a petition to the Trustees was extensively signed, asking for the removal of the bridge and the building of a good "draw," at Lake Street. The "undersigned" found that the bridge was "much decayed and in a ruinous condition," and that lives were endangered so long as it was not repaired; also that it could not be re- paired because there were defects in the original plan of construction, viz., that it was too narrow and had no draw to admit vessels to pass; that it should not be repaired because its present site was not upon a traveled thoroughfare. The bridge was a dangerous "public nuisance," they said, and a good substantial draw- bridge should cross the South Branch, at Lake Street so as "to unite and continue said street through the town." The prayer of the petitioners was not granted, although offered up by such men as J. B. and Mark Beaubien, G. W. Snow, H. G. Loomis, F. Moseley, Josiah C. Goodhue, George Davis, Stephen F. Gale, Philip Dean and John T. Temple. In March, 1836, the Town Trustees issued an order for the building of drawbridges at Kinzie and Randolph streets, but in May they deemed such works inexpedient. The South Branch bridge was repaired, however, at considerable expense several times, before its removal in 1840.

In the summer of 1832 Samuel Miller, the original possessor of the old ferry scow, built the first bridge over the North Branch. It was located near the south- east corner of Kinzie and Canal streets, in the vicinity of the present bridge of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Company. It was formed of stringers and only fitted for foot passengers. Even up to the sum- mer of 1833 the structure was useless for teams.

The first drawbridge thrown across the river was at Dearborn Street, and was built in 1834 by a shipwright named Nelson R. Norton, who in a letter, says :

" I came to Chicago November 16, 1833. Sonn after I arrived, I commenced cutting the lumber for a drawbridge, on the land ad- joining Michigan Avenue, afterward owned by Hiram Pearsons. In

March, 1834. I commenced building it, and I think it was completed by the Ist of June. The first steamboat that passed through it was the old ' Michigan,' with a double engine, commanded by Captain C. Blake, and owned by Oliver Newberry, of Detroit."

Mr. Norton is evidently in error as to the time of the completion of the bridge, since the Democrat states that it was formally accepted by the Trustees in August, the first proposals having been received in February. At the time the Dearborn Street bridge was completed, the bridges across the North and South branches also belonged to the corporation, and a committee had been appointed during the previous December, consisting of G. W. Dole, Madore B. Beaubien and Edmund S. Kim- berly, to see that they were properly repaired. In September the corporation paid $166.67 on account of repairing. The Dearborn-street structure was a primi- tive affair and received the blows of passing vessels and the curses of pedestrians and drivers. From various sources it is learned that it was about. three hundred feet long, and the opening for the passage of craft about sixty feet. It was of the "gallows pattern," and for five years, the frames, one at either end, stood like instru- ments of death to frighten the timid stranger at night. Upon one occasion when hoisted it "would not down" at anyone's bidding, and for forty-eight hours the gal- lows frames held the draw suspended in mid-air. The bridge was repaired in 1835 and 1837, and the Common Council ordered its removal in July, 1839. Many citi- zens were so afraid that the Council would rescind this action, that a large crowd gathered upon the river be- fore daylight, the next morning, and going to work with a will, in a very short time chopped the bridge to pieces. This step was only one in the progress of the bridge war which had been raging for several years. During the spring of that year two ferries were running, one at Clark and the other at State Street. The latter was supported by private subscriptions. The feeling finally reached such a pass that in April some envious supporter of the Clark Street ferry cut the rope of the State Street institution with an ax. This ferry was the famous " Velocipede," the approach to which is thus noticed by the American the day previous to the cutting : " The access has been made solid and clean by the laying of a nice board or platform, on which the Chinese foot of the most delicate of nature's handiwork may step with perfect impunity from the vulgar mud and Brobding- nagian gravel." This ferry, with its wretched approach, was used at State Street until August 29, when it was transferred to Dearborn Street. It consisted of a scow, large enough to accommodate two double teams, oper- ated by a rope which was fastened to a windlass, on each side of the river. The boat was propelled by one man with the aid of such of the passengers as chose to assist. George Brady and Samuel Carpenter were ferrymen.

The bridge and ferry troubles commenced when Chicago became a city, continued through many vari- ations of heat and cold mostly heat), for a period of five years, and culminated in 1840. The cause of this sectional warfare between the North and South sides is thus detailed by a writer in the Chicago Times :

"Every night there came up out of the south a great fleet of prairie schooners that anchored on the Reservation. It often num- bered five hundred, and came laden with wheat and corn and all sorts of produce. All the warehouses were in that day built on the north bank of the river. The south side opposed the Clark-street bridge, in order that their prairie schooners might not reach those warsehouses, and thus be compelled to trade on the south bank. The old Dearborn bridge, the first drawbridge over built in the city, had been demolished in 1830, and a scow ferry substituted. At Clark Street, there was another ferry ; these were not of the most approved pattern. They were simply scows hauled to and fro by ropes. The North Side warehouses were in sore distress. They

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needed a connection with the other two towns. The Council was evenly divided. At the time when the question was at its height, Messrs. Newberry and Ogden presented to the Catholic ecclesiasti- cal authorities the two blocks now occupied by the cathedral. It was said at the time that the present was to influence votes on the bridge question. It undoubtedly was. The North Side won her bridge. Mayor Raymond cast the deciding vote."

Subsequently the subscription to the fund of $3,000 was completed by residents of the North Side, and on April 18, 1840, the work of driving piles for the Clark- street bridge was commenced. Mayor Raymond, in his inaugural address, March 7, 1842, refers to the bridge question thus :

" I will take the liberty of referring to a subject which agitated the Council through the whole municipal year of 1839. This was the bridge question. As the contract for the construction of the present Clark-street bridge was the last official act I was called upon to ratify during my connection with the Council of that year, it is quite natural that I should have a ready ear to any commenda- tion of, or complaint against, either the plan or location of the bridge ; and I am gratified to find so large a portion of those who were previously hostile to any bridge, now satisfied with this one; although many now, as well as then (myself among the number), would prefer it on Dearborn Street, and think if this had been erected there and had caused as little hindrance to the passage of boats as the present one has thus far been, the community gen- erally would have been as well satisfied as with the present loca- tion. But I should deprecate the idea of a change in location, so long as this bridge answers so good a purpose, and in the present state of our finances should consider it an unwarrantable expendi- ture to make any change."

The building of Clark-street bridge may be said to have terminated the bridge war. It was found that the weight of public opinion was adverse to the existence of a bridge as low down as Dearborn Street, and that ferries were both inconvenient and expensive. The $3,000 re- quired to build the bridge was raised by those principally interested-citizens of the North Side-by subscribing to seven per cent stock at par. "If thrown upon the market," says the American, " the stock would not have sold for more than fifty cents on the dollar." This was the first floating swing bridge ever constructed in the West, and, as it was mainly the work of William B. Og- den, it is perhaps unnecessary to add that it was well done. Nine years after its building, the ice jam of 1849 swept it away.

In 1840 a low flood-bridge was built at Clark Street, a sort of pontoon arrangement. To open it, one of the floats was pulled around by means of a chain and wind- lass.

During the next year the float bridge at Wells Street was constructed. The greater share of the funds con- tributed to build it came from Walter L. Newberry.

r.L. newberry

This bridge with those structures at Randolph, Kinzie and Clark streets were swept away by the flood of 1849.

The public demanded with the building of the Clark- street bridge, that the ferries should be free. In May, 1842, the Common Council passed an ordinance oblig- ing all persons who ran ferries on the Chicago River to obtain licenses. One of its provisions was : "The ferryman may receive all such sums of money from private subscription for the support of said ferry as he can obtain." N. Scranton had been operating a ferry since August, 1844, and according to his own statement, had been conducting his business at a loss. In June, 1842, he was tried for violating the ordinance, noticed above. Henry Brown appeared for the city, and Justin

Butterfield and B. S. Morris for Mr. Scranton. Through his attorneys, he claimed that he was running his ferry- boat " because the ordinance of 1787 for the govern- ment of the Northwest Territory declares that the nav- igable waters of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways and forever free," and that he had the same right to run his boat across the river as owners of ves- sels had to run theirs up and down it. The jury ren- dered a verdict for the defendant. He offered to pay a license of $100, provided he be allowed to charge one cent for each person (ladies excepted), and such sums as the Common Council should prescribe for families paying by the month or year ; or to run a free ferry for strangers, on receipt of such a sum as could be obtained by private subscription and $30 per month from the city. The city would not accede to these propositions, and in July Mr. Scranton discontinued his ferry. But he was not a man who could remain long idle. Accord- ingly he constructed a pleasure boat, " Commodore Blake," its figure head a Roman gladiator, with helmet, shield and sword. In company with Z. Woodworth, he also commenced to operate the " Chicago and Michigan City lines," composed of sloops "C. Blake " and " Sea -Gull," which crafts left every day from the foot of Rush Street.

The Common Council ordered the construction of a bridge at Wells Street in November, 1846. It was at once commenced, the structure being completed in July, 1847. The bridge consisted of a floating draw of boiler iron, one hundred feet long from the pivot to the opening point, making a clean passage-way between the fenders of eighty-one feet. The total length of the bridge was two hundred and two feet, costing $3,200. There were two tracks for teams, and a sidewalk; on either side, for foot passengers. In the spring and sum- mer of 1847 there were constructed, besides the Wells- street bridge, that at Madison Street, and a second across the South Branch at Randolph Street. The latter was a semi-floating draw, with a self-regulating apron. It had two tracks in the center for teams and a sidewalk on either side for passengers. It cost about $5,000. The Madison-street bridge, built upon a simi- lar plan, was one hundred and ninety-five feet in length and twenty-six feet wide, with a draw eighty feet wide in the clear, and resting on boiler-iron floats. This bridge cost about $3,200.

Thus in 1848 there were float-bridges at Clark, Wells, Randolph and Kinzie streets. They were all swept away by the flood of 1849. William Bross, in his "History of Chicago," says: " When it was necessary to open the bridge for the passage of vessels, a chain, fastened on or near the shore on the side of the pier at some distance from it, was wound up by a capstan on the float-end of the bridge, thus opening it. It was closed in the same manner by a chain on the opposite side of it." It is quite evident, however, that some of the bridges at first were not even operated with a chain. In March, 1848, the rope attached to Madison-street bridge was carried away by a schooner, and this sort of accident was of no infrequent occurrence. It was as obvious to the Common Council as to other common people that a rope did not fully answer the purpose, as it would not sink rapidly enough. They therefore re- solved that "the Street Commissioner of the West Divi- sion be authorized to procure a chain for the bridge." Of old " Bill," the Lake House ferryman, the Democrat, of December 12, 1848, has a word to say:

" lle works his ferry with as much case and assurance as the captain of one of the largest crafts upon the lake his floating

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palace; and we can assure our readers the task is not without its difficulties, and withal not unaccompanied with danger, if not to life and limb, at least to the reputation of the ferryman, Sometimes the wind blowing strong up the creek, a brig comes bowling along with fore-sail, top-gallant and jib set. An impatient citizen is on the South Side with visions of roast beef aod dessert to match in his minds eye and hunger knocking at the walls of his stomach. Bill sees the brig. The captain halloos: . Let go your d-d rope.' The citizen cries: 'Come over; you have time enough,' but Bill thinks ' it's better to be sure of the line; if that breaks, the gentle- man loses his dinner, and I may lose my place.'. So he very prop- erly 'lets go all;' and the impatient citizen has to wait just two minutes and a half, at which he grumbles some, when Bill runs the old boat's nose ashore and gives him a chance to step aboard. But Bill takes it coolly. fie works at his rope, and with the conscious- ness of having done his duty, he lets the landsman have his ' pipe out,' as he can afford to be generous as well as just. Old Bill is a

before. The following account of the flood, from the pen of Rufus Blanchard, is taken verbatim :

" The last thing one might expect in Chicago, situated as it is on almost a dead level, is a flood, in one of the branches of its river. But this actually took place one fine morning in March, 1849. After two or three days' heavy rain, which had been pre- ceded by hard snow storms during the latter part of the winter, the citizens were aroused from their slumbers by reports that the ice in the Desplaines River had broken up ; that its chaoocl had become gorged with it ; that this had so dammed up its waters as to turn them into Mud Lake ; that, in turn, they were flowing thence into the natural estuary, which then connected the sources of the South Branch of the Chicago River with the Desplaines. These reports proved to be correct. Further, it was also rumored that the pressure of the waters was now breaking up the ice in the South Branch and branches ; that the Branch was becoming gorged in the main

THE FLOOD OF 1849.

man-of-war's man. He has been thirty-six years in the service of Uncle Sam, although he drew his first breath under the shadow of the British lion. His hair has grown gray while he has been fighting the battles of his adopted country; but his eye is not yet dimmed. Ife can tell a vessel's rig, although she lies away in the offing, or read her name upon the stern or head when a lubberly landsman couldn't see a letter. You can see this in the tidy way in which the boat is kept. The painters are coiled men-of-war fashion. The deck is neatly swabbed every morning, and once or twice in the day. besides, this wet weather. Old Bill is one of the steadiest men we have ever known, and we hope he will continue to wear his blushing honors thick upon him and remain, many years to come, the best ferrynian in Chicago."

THE FLOOD OF 1849 .- The flood which occurred March 12, 1849, was an event of most calamitous na- ture. For two or three days previous to that date the citizens of Chicago had been reading accounts of the re- markable rise of rivers in the interior of the State. The heavy snows of the winter had been followed by fre- quent and hard rains. Rock, Illinois and Fox rivers were threatening to burst their bounds and devastate the country. Their waters were higher than in 1838, and, in some localities, even than in 1833. The bridges on Rock River were nearly all swept away, and the Illi- nois had partially destroyed the village of Peru. The Desplaines River was also higher than it had ever been

channel at various points, and that if something were not done, the shipping which had been tied up for the winter along the wharves would be seriously damaged. Of course each owner or person in charge at once sought the safety of his vessel, added additional moorings to those already in use, while all waited with anxiety and trepidation the result of the totally unexpected catastrophe. It was not long in coming. The river soon began to swell, the waters lifting the ice to within two or three feet of the surface of the wharves ; between nine and ten A. M. loud reports as of distant artillery were heard towards the southern extremity of the town, indicating that the ice was breaking up. Soon, to these were added the sounds proceeding from crashing timbers, from hawsers tcar- ing away the piles around which they were vainly fastened, or snapping like so much pack-thread, on account of the strain upon them. To these in turn were succeeded the cries of people calling to the parties in charge of the vessels and canal boats to escape ere it would be too late ; while nearly all the males, and hundreds of the female population, hurried from their homes to the banks of the river to witness what was by this time considered to be inevitable. namely, a catastrophe such as the city never before sustained. It was not long before every vessel and canal-boat in the South Branch, except a few which had been secured in one or two little creeks, which then connected with the main channel, was swept with resistless force toward the lakes. As fast as the channel at one spot became crowded with ice and vessels intermingled, the whole mass would dam up the water, which, rising in the rear of the obstruction, would propel vessels and ice forward with the force of an enormous catapult. Every lightly constructed vessel would at once be crushed as if it were an egg-shell ; canal-boats disap- peared from sight under the gorge of ships and ice, and came into

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CREATION OF THE CITY.

view below it in small pieces, strewing the surface of the boiling water. "At length a number of vessels were violently precipitated against Randolph - street bridge, then a comparatively frail struct- ure, and which was torn from its place in a few seconds, forcing its way into the main channel of the river. The gorge of natural and artificial materials-of ice and wood and iron-kept on its resistless way to the principal and fast remaining bridge in the city, on Clark Street. This structure had been constructed on piles, and it was supposed would prevent the vessels already caught up by the ice from being swept out into the lake. But the momentum already attained by the great mass of ice, which had even lifted some of the vessels bodily out of the water, was too great for any ordinary structure of wood, or even stone or iron to resist, and the moment this accumulated material struck the bridge, it was swept to utter destruction, and with a crash, the noise of which could be . beard all' over the then city, while the ice below it broke up with reports as if from a whole park of artillery. The scene just below the bridge after the material composing the gorge had swept by the place just occupied by the structure, was something that bordered on the terrific. The cries and shouts of the people, the crash of timbers, the toppling over of tall masts, which were in many cases broken short off on a level with the decks of the vessels, and the appearance of the crowds fleeing terror-stricken from the scene through Clark and Dearborn streets, were sounds and sights never to be forgotten by those who witnessed them. At State Street, where the river bends, the mass of material was again brought to a stand, the ice below resisting the accumulated pressure, and the large number of vessels in the ruck, most of which were of the best class, the poorer ones having previously been utterly destroyed, helping to hold the whole together. In the meantime several canal boats, and in one instance a schooner with rigging all standing, were swept under this instantaneously constructed bridge, coming out on the eastern side thereof in shapeless masses of wreck, in the instance of the schooner, and of matchwood in the instance of the canal boats. Presently the ice below this last gorge began to give way, clear water appearing, while a view out into the lake showed that there was no ice to be seen. it was then that some bold fel- lows, armed with axes, sprang upon the vessels thus jammed to- gether, and in danger of destruction.

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 54

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