USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > History of Chicago : historical and commercial statistics, sketches, facts and figures, republished from the "Daily Democratic press" ; What I remember of early Chicago, a lecture, delivered in McCormick's hall, January 23, 1876 (Tribune, January 24th) > Part 21
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the book-store to my partners. It was the original of the great house of Jansen, McClurg and Co. The leading member of the firm now-my brother-in-law-I left in the store a mere boy, whose duties were to swecp out, carry packages, and generally to do a boy's business. I men- tion this as an example for the boys who hear me to follow.
I then formed a partnership with J. Ambrose Wight, then editor of the Prai- rie Farmer, - a most valuable paper, owned by John S. Wright,-and we bought out the Herald of the Prairies, a religious paper, the organ alike of the Presby- terians and Congregationalists of the Northwest. The latter half of the con- cern survives in the Advance. It was then published on Wells strcet, on the corner of the alley between Lake and Randolph streets. We soon moved to 171 Lake street, next door to The Tribune, and in the rear building, on an old Adams press, the first power press ever brought to the city, we printed our own paper, and also The Tribune, for Messrs. Stewart, Wheeler & Scripps. The press was driven by Emery's horse-power, on which traveled, hour by hour, an old black Canadian pony. So far as my interest in the splendid machinery of The Tribune is con- cerned, that old blind pony ground out its beginnings, tramping on the revolving platform of Emery's horse-power.
By the autumn of 1851 Mr. Wight, a man who, as editor of the Prairie Far- mer, did very much towards laying the foundations of the rapid progress and the great prosperity of the West, and now pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Bay City, Mich., and myself, found out by sad experience that the Prairie Herald, as we then called it, could not be made to support two families, for we had scarcely paid current expenses. I there- fore sold out to Mr. Wight, taking in pay- ment his homestead lots on Harrison street. That winter rather than have nothing to do I remained in his office with him, working for the large sum of $1 per day. After a vacation of a few months the late John L. Scripps and myself formed a partnership and issucd the first number of the Democratic Press on the 16th of September, 1852. We started on a borrowed capital of $6,000, which all disappeared from sight in about six weeks. We put in all our services and profits, and about all the money wc could borrow, never drawing a cent from the firm till after the first of January, 1855. This required nerve and the using up of funds to a very considerable amount, which we had obtained from the sale of real estate; but we thought we could see future profit in the business and we worked on, never heeding discouragements for a moment.
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124
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
The hard times of 1857-'58, brought the Democratic Press and The Tribune together, and Dr. Ray, J. Medill, John L. Scripps, and myself, became equal partners, with Mr. Cowles as business manager. Dr. Ray and Mr. Scripps have ceased from their labors, but not till they had done most effective and valuable work in the development and progress of Chicago. Mr. Scripps was Postmaster during Mr. Lincoln's first Administration. Both he and Dr. Ray were able and very cultivated gentlemen, and the memory of them should have a high place in the esteem and gratitude of their fellow citizens. Mr. Medill, Mr. Cowles, and myself, still stand by the old Tribune, with what efficiency and success the reading public can best judge.
I should like to have an hour to pay a passing tribute to the men who gave char- acter to Chicago in 1848, and the years that followed. To Thomas Richmond- still with us; to John P. Chapin, Charles Walker and Captain Bristol, heavy deal- ers on Water street; to Judge Giles Spring, Judge George Manierre, S. Lisle Smith, William H. Brown, George W. Meeker, Daniel McIlroy, James H. Collins, and others of the Bench and Bar; to Drs. Maxwell, Egan and Brainard; to Editors Dick Wilson, T. A. Stewart, John E. Wheeler, and James F. Ballantyne, as well as to Ray and Scripps; to the Rev. Dr. Tucker, Parson Barlow, and perhaps several others of the clergy. I should like to speak of Mayors F. C. Sherman, James Curtiss, J. H. Woodworth, and Thomas Dyer, all of whom have been relieved of all earthly cares. Many of our oldest citizens still linger among us. Of these, Col. Gurdon S. Hubbard first came to Chicago in 1818-the year Illi- nois became a State. Still hale and happy, may he long bless Chicago with his pres- ence. Of our ex-Mayors previous to 1860, William B. Ogden, the first, Buckner S. Morris, B. W. Raymond, Walter S. Gurnee, Charles M. Gray, Isaac L. Milliken, Levi D. Boone, John Wentworth, and John C. Haines, are still living. Of the clergy we have still the Rev. Dr. R. W. Patterson, " whose praise," like one of old, "is in all the churches." Of our leading citizens we have still a host, almost too numerous to mention. The names of Jerome Beecher, Gen. Webster, Timothy and ยท Walter Wright, S. B. Cobb, Orrington Lunt, Philo Carpenter, Frederick and Nelson Tuttle, Peter L. Yoe, C. N. Holden, Charles L. and John Wilson, E. H. Had- dock, E. D. Taylor, Judge J. D. Caton, J. Y. Scammon, Grant Goodrich, E. B. and Mancel Talcott, Mahlon D. Ogden, E. H. Sheldon, Mat. Laflin, James H. Reese, C. H. McCormick and brothers, P. W. Gates, A. Pierce, T. B. Carter, Gen. S. L.
Brown, Peter Page, William Locke, Buck- ner S. Morris, Capt. Bates, and many others, will at once recur to our older citizens.
Some of these gentlemen were not quite so full of purse when they came here as now. Standing in the parlor of the Mer- chants' Savings, Loan and Trust Com- , pany, five or six years ago, talking with the President, Sol. A. Smith, E. H. Had- dock, Dr. Foster, and perhaps two or three others, in came Mr. Cobb, smiling and rubbing his hands in the greatest glee. " Well, what makes you so happy ?" said one. "O," said Cobb, "this is the 1st day of June, the anniversary of my arrival in Chicago in 1833." " Yes," said Haddock, " the first time I saw you, Cobb, you were bossing a lot of Hoosiers weatherboarding a shanty-tavern for Jim Kinzie." "Well," Cobb retorted, in the best of humor, "you needn't put on any airs, for the first time I saw you, you were shingling an out-house." Jokes and early reminiscences were then in order. It transpired that our solid President of the South Side Horse Railway left Mont- pelier, Vt., with $40 in his pocket, but by some mishap when he reached Buffalo he had only $9 left. This was exactly the fare on the schooner to Chicago, but the Captain told him he might buy some pro- visions, and if he would make no trouble and sleep on deck the boy could come to Chicago for what was left. Cobb got some sheeting, which some lady fellow- passengers sewed up for him, and he filled it with shavings, and this made his bed on deck. He got a ham, had it boiled, bought some bread, and, thus equipped and provisioned, he set sail for Chicago. There was then no entrance to the Chi- cago River, and the vessel anchored out- side, a long way out, and the cabin passen- gers went ashore with the Captain in a Mackinaw boat. A storm spring:ng up, the mate lay off for three days between Michigan City and Waukegan. When the vessel returned, a cabin passenger, who . had returned for baggage, was surprised to find Cobb still aboard. Cobb told him the Captain had gone back on him, and would not let him go ashore without the other $3, and what to do he did not know. The gentleman lent him the $3, and Cobb gladly came ashore. Though he knew nothing of the carpenter's, trade, he ac- cepted a situation to boss some Hoosiers, who were at work on Mr. Kinzie's excuse for a hotel, at $2.75 per day, and soon paid his friend. From that time to this he has seldom borrowed any money. Mr. Haddock also came to Chicago, I think, as a small grocer, and now these gentlemen are numbered among our millionaires. Young men, the means by which they have achieved success
125
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
are exceedingly simple. They have sternly avoided all mere speculation ; they have attended closely to legitimate busi- ness and invested any accumulating sur- plus in real estate. Go ye and do likewise, and your success will be equally sure.
Having seen Chicago in 1848 with no railways, no pavements, no sewers, scarcely an apology for water-works-a mere city of shanties, built on the black prairie soil -the temptation to imagine for her a magnificent future is almost irresistible.
I beg leave with characteristic Chicago modesty to refer to a prophecy which I ven- tured to make in 1854. I had just written and published the first exhaustive account of our railway system, followed by a his- tory-the first also-of the city. In the closing paragraph I had the following sentences. The city had then not quite completed the seventeenth year of its ex- istence, and I ask :
" What will the next seventeen years accomplish? We are now (1854) in direct railroad connection with all the Atlantic cities from Portland to Baltimore. Five, at most eight, years will extend the circle to New Orleans. By that time also we shall shake hands with the rich copper and iron mines of Lake Superior, both by canal and railroad, and long ere another seven- teen years have passed away we shall have a great national railroad from Chicago to Puget's Sound, with a branch to San Fran- cisco."
By the time the building of the road was fairly undertaken, San Francisco had grown so largely in wealth and population that the main line was forced to that city. But in June, 1869, two years before the thirty-four years in the life of the city had passed away, I rode from Chicago to Sacramento with my good friend George M. Pullman in one of his splendid palace cars, with a dining car attached, and no one could possibly fare better than we did on the entire trip. Another line was open from Sacramento to Vallejo nearly right across the bay from the City of the Golden Gate, so that practically the prophecy was literally fulfilled. Perhaps it was only a fortunate guess, and as I was educated in New England, you will permit me to guess again, and to bound the city for you on the nation's second Centennial, viz., on the 4th of July, 1976. I think the north line will probably begin on the lake shore half way between Evanston and Winnetka, and run due west to a point at least a mile west of Aux Plaines River; thence due
south to an east and a west line that will include Blue Island, and thence south- east from Blue Island to the Indiana State line, and thence on that line to Lake Michigan. With my eye upon the vast country tributary to the city, I estimate that Chicago will then contain at least 3,000,000 of people, and I would soonersay 4,000,000 than any less than 3,000,000. I base my opinions on the fact that the gastronomic argument controls mankind. Men will go and live where they can get the most and the best food for the least labor. In this respect what city in the world can compete with Chicago? And I also assume that the nation for the next hundred years will remain one united, free and happy people.
But, gentlemen, in order to realize the magnificent destiny which Providence seems to have marked out for our city, permit me to say, in conclusion, that the moral and religious welfare of the city must be carefully guarded and promoted. Philo Carpenter (still among us) and Capt. Johnson established the first Sunday- school here July 30, 1832, and the Rev. Jeremiah Porter (also still living) organ- ized and became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church (now Dr. Mitchell's) on the 26th of June, 1833. Brave old Jesse Walker, the pioneer Methodist, also preached sound doctrine in the earliest years of the Town of Chicago. All other denominations were also on the ground early, and through all her former history our people seemed as active and earnest in religious efforts as they were enterprising and successful in mercantile and other business. Let all our churches address themselves earnestly, faithfully, to the work of moralizing, if you please converting, the people, working as their Divine Master would have them work ; let respectable men, honest men, and especially religious men, go to the polls, and banish from places of trust and power those who are stealing their sub- stance and corrupting, aye even poison- ing, the very life blood of the city ; let us all, my friends, do our whole duty as citizens and as men, ever acting upon the Divine maxims that "Righteousness exalt- eth a nation," that " Godliness is profit- able for all things," and with God's bless- ing Chicago, as in the past so in the future, shall far outstrip in wealth, popu- lation and power all the anticipations of her most enthusiastic and sanguine citi- zens.
126
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
MAYORS OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO.
City Incorporated March, 1837.
1837 William B. Ogden.
1838 Buckner S. Morris.
1839 Benj. W. Raymond.
1861 Julian S. Rumsey.
1862 Francis C. Sherman.
1864 Francis C. Sherman.
1865 John B. Rice. 1867 John B. Rice.
1844 Alanson S. Sherman.
1855 Levi D. Boone.
1869 Roswell B. Mason.
1845 Augustus Garrett.
1856 Thomas Dyer.
1857 John Wentworth.
1873 Harvey D. Colvin.
1876 Harvey D. Colvin.
POPULATION OF CHICAGO.
1835
_3,265
1845
12,088
1855
80,028
1865
178,900
1836
.3,820
1846
14,169
1856
84,113
1866
_200,418
1837
4,179
1847
16,859
1857
93,000
1867
.220,000
1838
4,000
1848
20,023
1858
90,000
1868 .252,054
1839
4,200
1849
23,047
1859
95,000
1869 .273,043
1840
4,479
1850
28,269
1860
112,172
1870 298,977
1841
5, 752
1851
.34,437
1861
120,000
1872
364,377
1842
6,248
1852
.38,733
1862.
138,835
1874 _. .395,408
: 1843
7,580
1853
.60,652
1863
160,000
1876 (est). 450,000
1844
8,000
1854
65,872
1864
169,353
1885, (estimated by Jno. S. Wright), 1,000,000. 1911, (estimated by J. N. Balestier), 2,000,000. 1976, (estimated by Wm. Bross), 3 to 4,000,000.
CONCLUSION.
The history of Chicago from 1850 to 1876 remains to be written. I have most of the materials, but fear I shall not have the time and the patience to put them together. Somebody should do it, for such a work would show a more astonishing progress than has ever been realized by any other city in the history of the world. I respectfully commit this little volume to my fellow-citizens as my contribution to the facts, that should be stored away in our libraries in this Centennial year, with the hope that they may in some way interest and perhaps benefit those who are to come after us.
1871 Joseph Medill.
1846 John P. Chapin.
1847 James Curtiss.
1848 Jas. H. Woodworth. 1849 Jas. H. Woodworth.
1859 John C. Haines.
1860 John Wentworth.
1840 Alexander Loyd.
1841 Francis C. Sherman. 1842 Benj. W. Raymond. 1843 Augustus Garrett.
1850 James Curtiss. 1851 Walter S. Gurnee. 1852 Walter S. Gurnee. 1853 Charles M. Gray. 1854 Isaac L. Milliken.
1858 John C. Haines.
MEMORIES, A STORY OF GERMAN LOVE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF MAX MULLER,
By GEO. P. UPTON.
Small 4to, 173 pages, red-line, tinted paper, full gilt. Price, $2.00. The same, 16mo, red edges. Price, $1.00.
Sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of price.
"This is, in every respect, an exquisitely beautiful and charming book. * * The perfection of elegance and simplicity. As to the story itself, it is one of the purest, sweetest and most fascinating that we have read for months. * * "_Advance.
" It is dramatically constructed, unflagging in interest, abounding in grace, beauty and pathos, and filled with the tenderest feelings of sympathy which go right straight to the heart of every lover of the ideal in the world of humanity. *
* ' Memories' is really a poem in prose."-Pittsburgh Chronicle.
"' Memories' is one of the prettiest and worthiest books of the year. The story is full of that indescribable half naturalness, that effortless vraisemblance, which is so commonly a charm of German writers, and so seldom paralleled in English. * * Scarcely could there be drawn a more lovely figure than that of the invalid Princess, though it is so nearly pure spirit that earthly touch seems almost to profane her. * * As a specimen of * book-making, this ' Memories ' is admirable. Its paper, typography and red-lined pages are dainty as the contents deserve."-Springfield Republican.
JANSEN, McCLURG & CO.,
Publishers, Chicago.
GRAZIELLA, A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE,
By J. B. RUNNION.
Small 4to, 235 pages, red line, tinted paper, full gilt, uniform with holiday edition of " Memories." Price, $2.00.
Sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of price.
" ' Graziella' is a poem in prose. The subject and the treatment are both eminently poetic. * * * It glows with love of the beautiful in all nature. * * It is pure * literature, a perfect story, couched in perfect words. The sentences have the rythm and flow, the sweetness and tender fancy of the original. It is uniform with 'Memories,' the fifth edition of which has just been published, and it should stand side by side with that on the shelves of every lover of pure, strong thoughts, put in pure, strong words. 'Graziella' is a book to be loved."-Tribune.
" It is a most delightful and picturesque tale, abounding in delicate appreciation of nature and containing much fine descriptive writing. Mr. Runnion's translation deserves special notice for its fidelity to the grace and charm and artistic as well as poetic beauty of the original."-New York Graphic.
" This is a most fascinating story from beginning to end. Some passages are thrilling, while over the whole is a charm like that said to be peculiar to Italian skies."-Troy (N. Y.) Times.
JANSEN, McCLURG & CO.,
Publishers, Chicago.
A SUMMER IN NORWAY.
WITH NOTES ON THE INDUSTRIES, HABITS, CUSTOMS AND PECULIARITIES OF THE PEOPLE, THE HISTORY AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE COUNTRY, ITS
CLIMATE, TOPOGRAPHY AND PRODUCTIONS; ALSO AN ACCOUNT OF THE RED-DEER, REIN- DEER AND ELK.
BY JOHN DEAN CATON, LL.D., Ex-Chief Justice of Illinois.
8vo. 401 PAGES. ILLUSTRATED. PRICE, $2.50.
THE NATION says : "He is, as far as we know, the first foreign traveler who has given anything like a correct statement of the nature of the union between Norway and Sweden."
THE BOSTON POST says: "The book of travels, which Judge CATON has presented to the public, is of a high order of merit, and sets forth the interesting natural phenomena and popular characteristics of the land of the 'unsetting sun' with great strength and clearness."
THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE says: "The tone of the book is frank, almost colloquial, always communicative, and leaves a favorable impression both of the intelligence and good nature with which the author pursued his way through unknown wilds. *
* They are excellent specimens of terse and graphic composition, presenting a distinct image to the mind, without any superfluous details."
THE TIMES says : "The author of 'A Summer in Norway' has accomplished what but few able professional writers are capable of under the circumstances. He has given to the public a volume of travels which will hold its own with any of like kind. The style in which it is written is concise, terse and cheerful. The information is solid and interesting, and a vein of genial humor pervades every page. Throughout it is generously sprinkled with harmless, amusing incidents, delicately told."
THE INTER-OCEAN says: "Judge Caton has given us a work possessing all the best qualities of a perfect book on Summer Travel, It contains neither too much nor too little ; it is written in an easy, confidential style, without strain or affectation. As the writer sails along by coasts and lakes and rivers, and lingers in quaint Norwegian towns, he gives us here and there just sufficient scraps of history to awaken interest in this ancient and warlike but now peaceful and industrious people. He has the strong, bold touch of masculine force and observation, united to a graceful narrative style. The book from beginning to end reads like a story told by the Judge at the head of his own table. Carlyle sits in his den at Chelsea, poring over 'Sagas' and ancient manuscripts ; our stalwart traveler, accompanied by his ladies, mingles with the people, makes friends with the 'Laps,' watches salmon fishing in the pools, sleeps in Norwegian beds, and indulges in a little wholesome rhetoric over their narrowness and discomfort. His book is as fresh as the mountain breezes, while his observa- tions are full of that kindly and appreciative feeling which can only come from a liberal mind and a generous heart."
Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price by the publishers,
JANSEN, MCCLURG & CO., CHICAGO
4767
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