History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 162

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875

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The organization of the Presbyterian Church of Pullman occurred August 13, 1882, with twenty-seven members, and a Sunday-school consisting of sixty scholars was constituted immediately thereafter. The elders were Dr. H. O. Rockwell, C. A. Dole and John McLean; and the deacons were Robert Rochester, M. G. Holmes and Charles E. Aylin. These gentlemen constitute the present bodies of elders and deacons, with the addition of C. F. Swingle to the former, and D. T. Averill to the latter. The board of trustees are Dr. A. C. Rankin, president; Jesse Wardell, secretary and treasurer, and E. W. Henricks, W. H. Clayton, Robert Rochester, C. L. Whitcomb and C. A. Dole. The services have always been held in the Market Hall. The present pastor is Rev. D. S. McCaslin, t who as- sumed charge February 1, 1883, previously to which the

pulpit was filled by supplies. The present congregation has eighty members, and the Sunday-school furnishes religious instruction to about two hundred adults and

Early in the summer of 1882, meetings commenced to be held by the members of the Episcopal faith in the library room, Arcade Building ; and theology was sup- plied to them by an occasional minister, who conducted services according to the ritual. These meetings were held with tolerable regularity and the average attend- ance at them was about sixty persons. In the spring of 1883, the Sunday-school was organized. The services are now held in the Casino Building, in a hall that is especially fitted up for ecclesiastical purposes, and has a seating capacity for two hundred worshipers. The attendance is about ninety, and the Sunday-school has about fifty pupils. The present vestrymen are T. S. Johnson and John 1., Woods," appointed by the Bishop of the Diocese. Rev. J. Rushton is the present incum- bent, and has been a resident of Pullman since Decem- ber 1, 1883. Now that All Saints Protestant Episcopal Mission of Pullman has a settled pastor, the prospects for its growth are very encouraging ; as there are a great many residents who have a predilection for the Episcopalan form of worship, and who will attend the services when they are regularly held.

The Baptist congregation was organized on January 1, 1882, with ten members. A union Sunday-school was being carried on at the time the congregation was or- ganized ; and a Sunday-school pertaining to the Church was not organized until the May following. Rev. H. A. Nash was the first pastor ; the present pastor, Orson P. Bestor, having assumed charge on November 1, 1882. Mr. Bestor conducted the Union services at Kensing- ton until December 1, 1882, since which date they have been conducted by delegates fion the Young Men's Christian Association. The congregation at present numbers about eighty, and the Sunday-school about one hundred. Services are held at Market Hall on Sunday morning and in Odd Fellows Hall in the eve- ning. The present deacons are : N. W. Robinson, William H. Joyce and F. A. Peelman; the church clerk is Doctor L. G. Bass, and William H. Joyce is superin- tendent of the Sunday-school.

A congregation of Swedish Baptists was organ- ized on October 8, 1882, Rev. K. E. Gordh being in charge at the time. Octolier 9, 1882, Mr. Gordh died of typhoid fever, and Rev. Lundquist took charge. The members at first numbered fifteen, and at present number about thirty-five ; and the Sunday-school has an attendance of about forty. Services are held at the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad depot.

There are a large number of adherents of the Cath- olic faith in Pullman. They have a neat and commodi- ous edifice outside the boundaries of Pullinan ; and the history of this Church will be found in the article de- scriptive of Roseland, within the boundaries of which hamlet the church is situated.

THE ARCADE .- Immediately south of the Illinois Central Railroad depot is the Arcade Building, within whose comprehensive walls are twenty-eight stores, the theater, lodge-rooms, bank, bath-rooms, offices, library and post-office. The idea of having a large number of distinct industries, or separate sales-places, under one roof is not novel, and can be scen exemplified in the bazaars of the East, the Bon Marche at Paris, and the Burlington and Lowther Arcades at London ; but the arrangement and adaptation as at Pullman is decidedly' unique and excellent.

The post-office was established on March 18, 1881, " To whom the collaborator is Indebted for these particulars.

. Rev. R. W. Bland courteously furnished these particulars, +.Who kindly funished this data.

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with N. F. Van Winkle as Postmaster. He is still the occupant of that office, and has for his assistants Alma Woodward, registry clerk, and Albert Sorgenfrey, as- sistant distributing clerk. The office is one of domestic money order and registry, and four mails each way are received and dispatched daily.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY,-On April 10, 1883, George M. Pullman presented the town of Pullman with a library ; the account given in the Chicago Tribune of April 12 is accurate : and, containing the dedicatory document of Mr. Pullman and the speech of the Ameri- can Demosthenes-David Swing-says all that is perti- nent or germane to the occasion. The article is as follows :

" Notwithstanding the bad weather, a large number of Chicago people went on the special train that left here at seven o'clock Tuesday evening to attend the dedica- tion of the new public library at Pullman, and the entertainment given at the Arcade Theater for the benefit of the library fund. The theater contained a large and brilliant assemblage, and seated in the private boxes were Mr. George M. Pullman, Mr. and Mrs. C. M. Henderson, Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Kimball, Mr. and Mrs. John M. Clark, Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Ackerman, Mrs. H. O. Stone, Mrs. F. I .. Fake, Judge Lochrane, General Anson Stager, Mr. Benoni Lockwood, Mr. J. W. Doane, Mr. C. Rand, Mr. John Raper, Mr. Robert Caird, Mr. Robert Barry, and Mr. George F. Brown.

" Professor Swing opened the dedicatory exercises by reading from the stage a document signed by Mr. Pull- man making the conveyance of a long list of books, periodicals, etc .- in number five thousand one hundred -to the Pullman Public Library. as follows :

" 1, George M. Pullman, of Chicago, Cook Co., Ill., in consider- ation of the fact that the moral and intellectual growth of any com- munity promotes and advances not only all of its material interests, but all the forms of human welfare, do hereby give, grant, transfer, and set over unto the l'ullman l'ublic Library, a corporation created and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Illinois, the following-named books, publications, and periodicals, lo wit : [ Here comes the list of books. ] To have and to hold the same unto the said l'ullman Public Library and its successors forever.

" In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal at Chicago this tenth day of April, A. D. 1863. " GEORGE M. PULLMAN."

" Professor Swing then delivered the following highly interesting address :

" The town of Pullman possesses an interest above and beyond that of rail-cars and wheels. It stands related to the question how cities should be built and in general how man should live. Young as this village is it is answering rapidly some inquiries over which wise men have pondered from Plato to Robert Owen.

"* "The first enemy of Chicago lay in the fact that it was for years unexpected. There were no capitalists or philanthropists present fifty years ago to foresee and shape its future. Instead of rising up out of any creative thought it came together as a bunch of oysters form on a rock, or with that mixture of shell, and mud, and seaweed with which barnacles form on the bottom of a ship. Chicago grew like a modern woman's crazy quilt. As a final result the harhor for ships is all over town, every wagon and every fontman is stopped by a bridge, the railway stations are in all parts of the cor- poration, the streets are paved to-day to be torn up to-morrow for a gas-pipe, repaved to he disturbed for a water-main, repaved to be torn up for a sewer, repaved once more in time for the City Surveyor to come along and raise the whole grade.

"' Following this law of chaos, the saloon became as welcome as the school-house, and the churchgoer and

the man anxious for his Sunday-morning drink now walk together, thus making the stranger from the rural district uncertain whether the crowd is moving toward a free-lunch or a sanctuary. The architectural plans are a continuation of the discord. A fine stone resi- dence often enjoys the presence of a grocery on its right-hand and a wood-yard on its left; in front of it is the police-station; on its rear a smoking factory, Nor is there a front line which determines how far the resi- dents upon a certain street shall or may come forward with their brick and mortar. Much is left to the will of one's neighbor, and when ten men have agreed upon having front yards the eleventh man agrees to have no front yard, and he builds out to the sidewalk, and goes to the country for flowers and grass.

"" This new town of Pullman illustrates the value of thought and taste in the building of a city or village. Could Chicago only have foreseen itself and have passed into the hands of some master-mind or huikling com- mittee ar corporation in 1835, it would now surpass in neatness, and wealth, and beauty, Paris or Brussels. Its want of plan has been an expensive fact, since it has made the work of destruction as constant as that of construction. It stands for all the great cities of the land.

"* Coming out to Pullman to-night a sense of harmony comes to all our hearts. Each detail is in its proper place and proper proportion. The buildings for labor are not joined to the fireside. Home, and shop, and church, and opera-house, and library, and railway-sta- tion are where each should be, and, instead of making a discord, they verify to the full the definition of him who said that "architecture is frozen music." Here the stores are as numerous as the population demands; the churches pay some regard to the number of souls which need transportation from sin to goodness; the theater is adapted to the number of those who need hours of laughter and sentiment; the library fits the community as neatly as the glove the hand of the lady; even that strange invention of man in his estate of sin and misery-"the saloon"-is subjected here to the eternal fitness of things, and inasmuch as a community however large needs no saloon at all, that is the number laid out by the thoughtful architect and built by the company. It receives its due proportion of time and money.

"* But the material symmetry of this new city is only the outward emblem of a moral unity among the inhab- itants. It has been long known that unity is not an endless repetition of all qualities, not a perfect sanie- ness, but it is a resemblance in some great particulars. Unity is a common bond of interest and feeling- a bond great enough to hold men together, but not strong enough to cramp human nature in any of its honorable departments. The Brook Farm was based upon certain contortions of human nature. The members of that community had to think alike and believe alike, and had the organization heen ahle to survive the strain of wounded manhood it would have produced a group of machines. It was an effort to make a thousand persons resemble each other just as a thousand plaster casts of Garfield or Lincoln look like the first image taken from the mold. The Brook Farm was literally blown to pieces by the explosive elements in different souls. Each member returned to Boston or his native town to find personal identity once more. He or she longed to be self again. The experiment at New Harmony, Ind., under the lead of Robert Owen, was based upon an assumed identity of men. It hastened to its end.

" The moral quality or basis of Pullman is not ab-

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stract philosophy or socialism like that of Brook Farm or New Harmony, but it is common sense of the highest and best order. Industry, and economy, and comfort are the foundation stones of this latest and wisest ex- periment. Under the new Rugby of Tennessee there lies no well-defined industry and no form of economy. The population is part idler, part dreamer, part laborer, part wise, and part foolish. No better foundations can be laid than those under the town of Pullman-industry, sobriety, economy. Here exists for each family a vis- ible means of support. Industry will always surpass philosophy as the basis of welfare. It was the bane of the middle ages that they had more philosophy than science, more thought than work, more premises and conclusions than plows and engines and wheels, The greatest men discussed the next workl-the poorer classes starved to death rapidly in this. Learned men examined into the nature of the soul while their women plowed the ground with a crooked stick. Wise is the age that bases society upon industry and economy and uprightness of life. Abstract thought is good for souls that have no body.

". It is asked whether these companies can endure the taxation such comforts for the workmen bring. Yes, where a company earns a surplus it may, and generally must put away large sums where only a lower rate of interest must be expected. English surplus sums yield three or four per cent. To employ extra capital in building decent villages for humanity is as wise as it is new and beautiful. A great railway mag. nate put away $60,000,000 in four per cent bonds because he did not know of such a thing as building towns for the people. But a man's mind or heart is eclipsed when he can put his surplus into Government honds. To have interest coming in from a vault should make a man feel related to a grave-yard. Government bonds should all be held by orphans, and widows, and invalids, and servants. The full-grown man would rather have his money out where the sun can shine on it, and where some one can sit down in it or by it. Give me a handful of four per cents and a pair of scissors and I will buy Texas land where the trees, and grass, and grains, and cattle will do to look at while they are making money. One of the humiliating spectacles of the age is to see a full-grown man cutting coupons off of a bond. Better far have an opera-house, or a ship, or a village. Money in a bond is the end of all thought and sentiment. It is to be hoped no Chicago capitalist will ever mentally sink to the level of a United States bond. Four per cent cottages are a nobler investment. ** As a second partial answer it may be said that beauty does not cost much more than deformity. Houses built by a wise architect cost no more than houses built by a simpleton. A neat, good house will go ten years without repair. Houses built on a line cost no more than houses built on the crazy- quilt plan. It is not more expensive to have five hun- dred persons go to one church than to have them go to ten different churches. No money is saved by having a church surrounded by wood piles or livery stables. A house with a few flowers in front will rent as well as though it had a ton of garbage and ashes at its door- step. The stores in the arcade are just as profitable and pleasant as they would be were the mud six inches deep in front of them and your umbrella inverted by the wind, Except in parts of Chicago the time has passed by for having the pig-pen in front of the house. No money is lost by leading the pig to the rear.

" ' The man who first said 'Cheap as dirt' should have been slain for corrupting the public. The public needed

no persuading in that direction. " Dirt is expensive." It will not bring the money and happiness cleanliness and beauty will bring. A thing of beauty is not only a joy forever, but it is a perpetual income. All harmony and symmetry and unity are conservative. If the wheel of a car or locomotive does not run truly, the axle heats, and will, if let alone, burn up the train. Nature hates discords. When the wheels of a city government run falsely, the car of progress must stop. The har- mony of this town will be its source of wealth, and health, and happiness.

"""The beautiful library-room with its five thousand volumes is one more detail in this collection of things useful and noble. C'an a business firm afford to furnish libraries for artisans? There are two answers to this inquiry. Yes, great employers can afford to be kind to their men. They cannot afford to build up self at the cost of the workmen. The happiness of the workmen will in a higher state of society make up the happiness of the employers. Peter Cooper took care of his men when the days were cloudy ; A. T. Stewart ground his to powder when even the days were bright. This is the general answer, but in this particular case which calls us here to-night, the five thousand volumes came from George M. Pullman himself. What a country shall we have when such an example shall be imitated in all parts of the land ! There is nothing inexplicable or mysterious in the gold thus applied by the founder of this library ; but should this gentleman give a Van- derbilt ball we might well be amazed, for there a hundred thousand dollars, less or more, were lavished upon the last point between something and nothing. All the scenes were as transient as the flowers of the evening. Such pageants should come hut rarely into our world ; and indeed they are fading away. They were frequent in Rome in times of war and plunder, but, as reason advances, such applications of money and labor decline. We hope the rich men of the West will always prefer libraries, and parks, and drives, and lakes, and music-temples, and even good theaters to the perishable display of a ball-room.

"" These remarks must here end to make room for an hour of more interest. As a clergyman I have in former years helped dedicate churches to the worship of the Infinite Father. Our task to-night is similar in import. A library of good books is almost as sacred as a sanctuary. Here the mind and heart will be allured away from sin and temptation. Here in half-hours away from the noise of wheels, and amid pure and beautiful associations, the reader will soon feel the greatness of the world and of man, and will reach some realization of the duties and even glory of life. The gentleman who gave these volumes, and who has been the soul of this new alliance between capital and labor, has among the many good works of his life done no one act more useful or attractive than this last act recorded in these many books. I thank him, not only in the name of the grateful citizens of Pullman, but in the name of those good and kind beings in the outer circle who love to see the unfolding leaves and blossoms of a hetter civilization.'"

The address was received with continuous applause and laughter. At its conclusion the Pullman Amateur Dramatic Club gave a sparkling little comedy, entitled " The Two Roses," in a manner creditable to novices in the dramatic art.

Between the acts the library was visited and admired by the greater portion of the audience. It is on the second floor of the Arcade Building, the main entrance being through large folding-doors from the gallery,

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traversing the interior of the arcade. The library proper is forty-two by sixty feet in dimensions, with three retir- ing-rooms for ladies and one for gentlemen. The archi- tectural design is ancient Roman, and the woodwork is of unique pattern. The walls are beautifully frescoed in peacock colors and marine blue and gold, with a fan- cifully-designed frieze ornamentation. The floors are richly carpeted with costly Axminster velvet and plush. Along the sides of the main room are eleven double book-cases of tastefully-carved cherry, which contain 5,100 carefully selected volumes, Ventilation and light- ing have both been carefully looked after, a large sky- light affording ample light.

Mrs. Lucy D. Fake has been appointed secretary and librarian, and the directors and advisory committee are as follows : George M. Pullman, George C. Clarke, Norman Williams, J. L. Woods, John Christianson, D. R. Martin, S. S. Beman, John McLean, Henry Vogt, R. N. Caslin, J. P. Hopkins, O. P. Bestor, Mrs. George M. Pullman, Mrs. A. Rapp, and Mrs. E. W. Henricks. The library, in its appointments and the beauty of its embellishment, is as elegant as though it were an appur- tenance of the mansion of a millionaire of cultivated taste and excellent judgment. It is a revelation to the workingman, and a potent cultivator of the love of the beautiful in the minds of those whose lives are-or were before their habitation of Pullman, a sordid battle for existence. Not an elegantly bound volume but speaks to the appreciative heart of the workman ; not a costly fauteuil but demonstrates that this luxury is for him ; and that he, the grimy wage-worker, is conceded to pos- sess sufficient artistic and literary appreciation and cul- tivation to properly estimate the comforts and elegan- cies thus provided. And when a man is accredited with the possession of a virtue, he is always imbued with a wish to justify that supposititious or actual investment. A verification of this is found in the Pullman Library. On entering. the visitor is struck with the total absence of those obtrusive signs whose mandates imply the belief of an impossibility of a visitor's decent behavior, with- out full instructions how to do so ; forbidding expec- toration on the carpet ; removing one's hat, etc., etc. Thus a tacit appeal is made to the gentlemanly behav- ior of the visitor, and it is carefully, yes, religiously, responded to. The writer asked Mrs. Fake whether any outrages of etiquette were common ; the librarian replied, " there are none ; the men who visit the library, among whom are a large number of workingmen, are all gentlemen; they take off their hats and use the cuspidors and conduct themselves toward me with a gentle courtesy worthy of a Bayard. In nine months only one faux pas was made, and that was by a man un- der the influence of liquor : he was asking for a book at the desk and furtively expectorated on the carpet." The librarian said also that this one instance worried her a good deal, because of the betrayal of the confi- dence, by this individual, reposed in the inhabitants of Pullman by the directors of the library. Mrs. Fake certainly is an optimist on the subject of the chivalry of the average man ; she tells with pride of the little courtesies she receives from the workmen, and their pride and care of the library. It was suggested that perhaps the Pullman workmen might be an exceptional class; but this is hardly a reasonable presumption, as thirty-five hundred men would probably include all kinds and descriptions of men, especially when there are so many transients among them. The cause is simply as stated ; the visitors to the library find there a lady, and their own gentlemanly instincts appealed to ; the consequence is that their chivalry responds to the

trustful appeal. The Pullman Library is a homily upon the successful method of treating American workmen, and the solitary policeman, who enjoys a sinecure, pac- ing the streets of the town, is an exemplification of George M. Pullman's method of applying the precepts of the homily. "Treat a man as you want to find him," appears to be the motto of Pullman, and its inhabitants are found to be the most orderly. well-regulated and law-abiding of any town upon the continent. The resident agent of the Pullman Company who has charge of the town is E. W. Henricks, who is also clerk of the village of Hyde Park.

The officers of the Pullman Loan and Savings Bank are: George M. Pullman, president; W. A. Lincoln. secretary, and John E. Shea, teller. The business of the bank is principally local, and its establishment was principally to provide a place, easy of access, for the workmen to deposit their savings, and, by its mere ex- istence, be an incentive to them to be frugal and provi- dent. The capital stock of the bank is $100,000.

The lodge-room is commodious, elegant and per- fectly adapted to the purpose for which it is designed. This peculiarity is one of the architectural features of the city: taste and elegance are displayed, but notwith- standing which the adaptability of the structure to the use for which it is destined is particularly observable. Elegance and practicability are usually opposites. The various orders at present in Pullman are represented by the following lodges:

On September 25, 1882, a charter was issued to Court Model, No. 6,929. A. O. of F., with the following charter members: William Tilling. 1). Hamilton, J Sullivan, J. J. Healey, L., Lacousior, T. Sudds, F. C. Sudds, N. Poulson, J. F. Kauffman, W. J. Waddell, C. Justison, C. S. Algren, S. A. Clark, O. W. Moody, W. Adams, John McLean. William Rudy, G. H. Allen and F. Gaulter. The first officers of the court were: William Tilling, chief ranger; William AAdams, sub-chief ranger; J. V. Halleka, recording sec- retary; W. J. Waddell, financial secretary; John Mc- Lean, treasurer; 1 .. Lacousior, senior woodward; J. Sullivan, junior woodward; N. Poulson, senior beadle, all F. C. Sudds, junior beadle. The present officers are: William J. Waddell, junior past chief ranger; John Hales, chief ranger; J. F. Kauffman, sub-chief ranger; N. P. Sindell, recording secretary; J. F. Smith, financial secretary: C. Justison, treasurer; H. T. Webber, senior woodward; F. Gaulter, junior woodward; F. Farr, senior beadle, and S. Shaw, junior beadle. The court membership at present is seventy six.

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History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 162

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas Number of Pages: 875

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875