History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 22

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

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When the time came for the removal of the Indians, under the various treaties made with them, Caldwell's influence was exerted to make the removal peaceful and successful. Ile determined to leave his cherished white friends behind, and cast his fortunes with his people, and share their privations and trials with themn. In 1836, under the leadership of Captain Russell the Government Agent, and Billy Caldwell, the Indians to the number of nearly twenty-five hundred assembled for the last time at Chicago, to receive their payments and then take up their line of march for their new hume on the Missouri, at Council Bluffs, Through the influence of Sanganash the removal was accomplished with ease and success. Ile never returned again to the scenes of his youth and manhood. Age was coming on him, and the bustling activity of the ambitious young city had no charm for one whose life had been passed amid the wildness of nature. Ile seems to have taken some interest in public affairs and during the exciting presidential

campaign of 1840, he with his friend Shawbonee, published the following letter:

"CorNett. BLUFFS, March 23, 1840. "TO GENERAL HARRISON'S FRIENDS ;

"* The other day several newspapers were brought to us; and peeping over them, to our astonishiment we found that the hero of the late war was called a coward. This would have surprised the tall braves. Tecumseh of the Shawnees, and Round Ilead and Walk-in-the-Water of the Wyandotts. If the departed could rise again, they would say to the white man that General Harrison was the terror of the late tomahawkers. The first time we got ac- quainted with General Harrison, it was at the council-fire of the late Okl Tempest, General Wayne, on the headquarters of the Wabash, at Greenville, 1796, From that time until t&t1, we had many friendly smokes with him; but from 18t2 we changed mir tobacco smoke into powder smoke. Then we found General Har- rison was a brave warrior and humane to his prisoners, as reported to us by two of Tecumseh's young men who were taken in the fleet with Captain Harclay on the toth of September, t8t3, and on the Thames, where he routed both the red men and the British, and where he showed his courage and his humanity to his prisoners, both white and red. Sce report of Adam Brown and family, taken on the morning of the battle, October 5, 1813. We are the only two surviving of that day in this country. We hope the good white men will protect the name of General Harrison. We re- main your friends forever.

"CHAMBLEE [SHAWBONEE]. Aid to Tecumseh. "B. CALDWELL, [SAEGANASI], Captain."

Caldwell did not long survive the removal, but died in his new home in Council Bluffs on the 28th of September, 1841. at the age of sixty-two. His most striking characteristic was his humanity. In this respect he resembled his great leader, Tecumseh. lle did all in his power to alleviate the horrors of the war, and in time of peace did all he could to promote the feeling of friendship between the Indians and whites. By the first residents and settlers of C'hicago he was highly respected, and some are still surviving who esteemed it no smalt privilege to accompany him on a hunting excursion. The esteem in which he was generally held is well re- flected in the action of Mark Beaubien, when he named his new tavern. It was suggested to Mark that he should name his house after some great man. He could think of no greater personage than Billy Caldwell and in his tavern became celebrated as the " Saugranash."

SHAW-HO-NEE, whose nante has been written in many ways, among others, as C'hamblie, in Billy C'akiwell's certificate hereto- fore given, was the son id an Ottawa chief, and was born near the Maumee River in Ohie about the year 1775. He married the daughter of a Pottawatomie, and he seems thereafter to have been more klentified with the Pottawatomies than with the Ottawas. though these tribes were always more or less intimately associated. Ilis village was on the Illinois near where the present city of Ottawa now stands, but he subsequently removed it to what is now known as Shabbona Grove in De Kalb County. Shawbonce became associated with Caldwell and Tecumseh about the year 1807, and was their firm ally in all their enterprises, until the death of Tecumseh. Shawbonee was present at the battle of the Thames, and was by the side of Tecumseh when he was killed. Ile always maintained that it was Colonel Richard Johnson who fired the fatal shot that killed his chief. After the war was over he gave in his adherence to the United States Government, and from that time forth until the end of his life he was a strong and constant friend to the Americans, and on more than une occasion risked his own life to save his white friend. At the time of the so-called Winnebago war, in 1827. there was no military force at Fort Dearborn, and It was greatly feared by the settlers in the neighborhood that the Pottawatomies would be leil to join with the northern tribes in war against the white". After the annual payment was made in September of that year. rumors that Big Foot's band, which had their villages on Lake Geneva, would certainly join with the Winnebagoes, fell thick and fast upon the cars of the startled settlers. At this juncture Shaw- bonce and C'aldwell used their influence to restrain their own bands. and also volunteered to find out what were the plans of the Winne. bagoes, and whether flig Foot's band really intended to join with them. With this purpose in view they visited Big Foot's village, and by their astuteness and clever management, succeeded in pre- venting Big Foot's band from entering into the threatened alliance. The last attempt made to engage the Pottawatomies in war with the whites was that made by Black Hawk in 1832. That cele- brated warrior, emulating the example of Tecumseh a quarter of a century before, sought to enlist all the Indian tribes in a general war. A great council was held at Indiantown in February, 1832, and there with great eloquence and force Black Hawk enlarged upon the necessity of co-operation in order to save their hunting grounds from the encroachments of the whites. "Let all our tribes

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HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

unite," said the tawny orator, "and we shall have an army of war- riors equal in number to the trees of the forest." The appeal was powerful and it required all the influence of Shawbonce, Caldwell and Robinson to overcome it. But these men well knew the power and military resources of the whites, and how hopeless a war with them would be. Said Shawbonee in answer to Black Hawk's figure of speech as to their numbers. "Your army would equal in number the trees of the forest, and you would encounter an army of palefaces as numerous as the leaves on those trees." The coun- cil failed in uniting the Indians in a common cause and although Black Hawk made one more effort to gain Shawbonce in his cause. he utterly failed. Not only did Shawbonce repel all the efforts of Black Hawk, but when the war broke out, by his personal exer- tions, and at the risk of his life, he succeedled in warning some of the fruntier settlers in time to save their lives, By the treaty of I'rairie du Chien two sections of land were granted to Shawbonee. This was located by him at the place where for many years his vil- lage had been situated in Ile Kalb County. A survey and plat were made accordingly, and here Shawbonce resided until his lsind was removed to the West in 1837. Ile accompanied them with his family, but unfortunately their reservation was in the neighborhood of that of the Sacs and Foxes. The feud which had arisen between the tribes on account of Shawhonce's refusal to co-operate with Black Hawk still existed, and culminated in the munler of Shaw- bonce's eldest son and nephew by some of the revengeful Sacs and Foxes, Shawhonce himself narrowly escaped and he was induced to return again with his family to his old hinne. Ile resided at his favorite grove with his family, for a number of years, until his tribe was removed to their new reservation in Kansas. This in- duced him to again join his red brethren, but he remainedl with them only for three years, when he again returned to his Illinois home. Ilut a change had now recurred. The Land Department had or- dered a new surrey and ignored Shawbone's claim, holding that he had forfeited it by removal from it. It was entered at the land-of- fice at Dixon for sale, and when Shawbonee returned, he found his favorite home in the possession of strangers. 11is eminent services in behalf of the whites in the carly days were all forgotten and he was ruthlessly driven from the spot he so much loved and about which clustered so niany of his dearest recollections. A few of his carly friends hearing of his circumstances, united in the purchase of a small tract of twenty acres near Morris, Here he lived with the remnants of his family until July, 1559, when he died. Ilis re- mains lie buried in the cemetery of Murris. In personal appearance he was one of the linest speciniens of the American Indian. Tall, straight, and muscular, he was said to have been a model of physi- cal manlikl. Until late in life his habits were temperate, but the misfortunes of his later years often led him to the intemperate use of that liquor which has ever been the enemy of his race. lle owed much to the teachings and precepts of Tecumseh, and he in all things endeavored to conform himself to the example of that great warrior. Ile was huntane as well as courageous, and alway- exerted his influence to protect unfortunate captives from the vio- Ience of the savages. A portrait of him adorns the walls of the Chicago Historical Society rooms, and his name and memory are preserved in the records of that association.

tiURDON S. HUBBARD, the earliest resident of Chicago now alive, was born In Windsor, Vt., August 22, 1802. He was the son of Elizur and Abigail (Sage) Hubbard. Hle received in his youth only the ordinary education afforded by the common schools.

Guidon& Hubbard

At the age of ten years he left home and went to North Bridge- water, Mass., where he was a pupil in the school of Rev. Daniel Iluntington for nearly three years. In the spring of 1815 he returned to his parents at Windsor, and sonn thereafter removed with them to Montreal, Canada. Soon after this removal the youth began life on his own account. lle evinced a wonderful aptitude and taste for trade and traffic, even at this early age. His first ventures were in the poultry trade between northern Vermont and Canada, which as a mere boy without capital or friends, he managed so as to bring him a living and something more. In the fall of 1816, he gave up the traffic and entered the hardware store of John Frothingham, of Montreal, as a clerk, where he continued until t818. In the spring of that year, being then sixteen years of age, he bound himself for five years, for the sum of St20 per year, to William W. Matthews, then the agent of the American Fur Company. Under this new engagement, he left Montreal for the wilds of the great Northwest, May 13, 1818.

He was one of a party consisting of thirteen clerks, and one hundred and twenty men besides, the latter being all Canadians, The party traveled in thirteen batteaux. The destination was "the head of navigation " on the lakes. The route was long and the journey dangerous. The party without accident ascended the l.a Chien rapids and in due course of time reached Toronto, then called Yorktown. Here some fifty of the party, tired of the ardu. ous labor which to them had apparently just begun, deserted. At this point, as so many voyagers had left them, Mr. Matthews, who was with the party, determined to shorten his course to the upper Lakes by a portage between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay, an estuary of Lake luron, The remaining party. accordingly. changed their propied route at Toronto and moved across the country northwest : tirst, going up what was then known as the Young-street road to Lake Simcoe, coasting the lake ; thence by a weary portage, where not over nine miles a day could be made, to the mouth of the Sauga Kiver, at the font of Georgian Bay. From thence re-cinbarking in their batteaux, they coasted along the shores and among the islands, to the straits of Mackinac, which they reached July 4. 18ts. Here young Hubbard remained, working in the company's warehouse, until the middle of September, when. joining the Illinois lirigade, consisting of one hundred men, under the agent, Antoine Dest'hamps ; he set out, via Lake Michigan, for the Illinois country. The party had a full stock of supplies. such as would be required in trade with the Indians, and the fleet cumsisted of twelve batteaux. l'assing through the straits, they crept along the cast shore ol Lake Michigan, stopping at various points on their voyage. (In the last day of October or first of No. vember, 1518, the party reached Fort Dearborn, then all there was of Chicago, Mr. Hubbard remained there three days, being the guest of John Kinzie, at his house on the North Side. He then, with the party, pushed into the interior country. They went, via the South liranch and through Mud I ake (near Bridgeport), and from thence, carrying their gouds upon their backs, and dragging their batteaux across the intervening land, came to the Desplaines Kiver, which they descended to the Kankakee, and thence down the Illinois River. Mr. Hubbard was ordered to the trading.post at the mouth of Bureau Kiver, then in charge of a Frenchman nanted Bebeau, who could neither read nor write. Young Hub- bard was detailed to keep the accounts and assist in the details of the business of this post, by Mr. DesChamps, He reached his appointed pust carly in November, but was allowed by the agent to proceed down the river to St. Louis, where he visited his father and brother, who had removed to that far western point from Mon- treal. On the trip he saw no white nien, except members of his own party, until he reached St. Louis, then a town of some six hun- dred inhabitants. About the middle of November he returned to Bebeau's trading-pust, where he remained performing his clerical dutles until spring. At that time, the trade with the Indians being over, he returned by the same weary route, in the same batteaux, now ladened with furs, and manned by many of his companions and voyagers of the downward trip, to Mackinac, the headquarters of the American Fur Company. There he may be said to hare made his home for the succeeding five years. Hle became a clerk under W. W. Wallace, who had charge of the fur store at that rendezvous. lle acted as shipping-clerk, receiving the furs from the various trading-posts west, and the inland traders, and assort- ing, parking, invoicing and shipping them to New York. John Jacob Astor of that city being the president of the company. He made trips to the interior nearly every winter, returning to Mackinac cach summer. During the winter of 1819-20, he was detailed to a trading-post at the mouth of Muskegon Kiver. The following winter he spent in charge of a post near the present site of Kalamazoo, Mich. In the late fall of t82t he again visited Chicago on his way to the trading-post on Bureau River, to which he had been re-assigned. There, and ou Crooked Creek, a tributary of the Illinois River. skirting the northern boundary of what is now Brown County, and emptying into the river a few miles below, the present town of Beardstown, he spent the succeeding three winters, in charge of the business of the company in that region.

On his second visit to Chicago he found the same in- habitants outside the fort as at his former visit viz .: John Kin- zie and family, and Antoine Ouilmette, his Indian wife and half-breed children. From that time he became identified with the history of Chicago, although he did not become a per- manent resident until many years after. For the four succeed. ing years he passed through the region now known as Chicago, and then as a gengraphical point called Fort Dearborn, many times cach year. His supplies were all brought by water navigation to that point, and nearly all his furs were shipped from there. Chi- cago was the objective point of the Indian trade during those years, and young Hubbard, then the most active and vigorous agent of the company, became well known to every man, woman and child at the fort, whether American, French, half-breed, or pure In- dian. Subsequent to 1822, no person lived about the mouth of

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CHICAGO FROM 1816 TO 1830,

Chicago River who did not know this young, brave, and vigorous fur-trader.

Mr. Hubbard remained in the employ of the American Fur Company two years beyond the term for which he was bound- seven years in all-during which time he had accumulated some wealth, and had acquired what was better, the entire confidence of every man connected with the trade of the Northwest, both Ameri- can and Indian. Ilis wages, as has been stated, were, during the five years of his indenture only nominal-$t20 per year *- but, for the succeeding two years, while he remained in the employ of the company, he received $1, 300 per year and was, during the last year of his engagement a special partner. Ile severed his connection with the American Fur Company in the spring of 1827. During the last year of his engagement, he, at his own solicitation, was allowed to open up an inland trade, on the Iroquois, his station being at the site of the present town of Watseca. While there he laid his plans, afterwards carried out, for an immense trade all along the line of what afterwards became famous as 11mbbard's trail.

During the period of Mr. Hubbard's engagement with the American Fur Company, he made twenty-six voyages to and from his interior posts and via Chicago, to the headquarters at Macki- nac. In t827, having purchased uf The company its franchises and good-will, he commenced business for himself. Hle no longer confined his trade to the waler-ways as had been formerly donc, hut, scuttling his boats for safety within the South Branch of the Chicago River, he fitted out what at that time might be termird a most formidable caravan, consisting of nearly fifty heavily-laden ponies, whicit he had bought of the Pottawatomie chief Big Foot at his village fifty miles away, at the head of what is now known as Geneva Lake, Wisconsin. With this outfit he moved south toward the Wahash River, and established trading-posts all along the line. nearly to the mouth of the Wabash, al intervals of thirty to fifty miles. The trail thus first marked out by 1lubbard's caravan, and for years after traveled between his trading posts, became famil- iarly known as " Hubbard's trail," and was for fifteen years the only well known and constantly Traveled road between Chicago and the Wabash country, Danville, now the shiretown of Vermillion County, was the principal iniand depot of supplies, and there Mr. Hubbard made Itis home for several years, although his business kept him mostly on the trail between his various posts. Thus it happened that, al- though not at the time a resident of Chicago, he was present at the partial burning of the fort in 1827; and, during the " Winnebago scare " which succeeded, made his memorable ride from Chicago to the Wabash country for heip, the particulars of which are related elsewhere.

As the settlements increased along the line of trading-posts established, the Indian trade gradually languished, and, one after another, Mr. Hubbard abandoned them on the south, until, after the extinction of the Indian title in t833, and the certainty that his Indian customers would leave the country within Two years, he abandoned the trade altogether, and became a permanent resident of Chicago, transferring his wonderful energy to kis new home. This occurred in 1834. The intimate connection of Mr. Ilubbard with the history of Chicago since that dale is apparent on nearly every page, and in nearly every lopic. It is unnecessary to repeat. He stands prominent as one of the foremost merchants for ike succeeding twenty years, during which period, besides carrying on one of the largest shipping, commission, packing, and forwarding trades in the city, he held nearly every office of trust and honor that his fellow.citizens could thrust upon him. It may be said here that he never violated any trust bestowed, and, in his oki age. he lives among the scenes of his active and useful life, with a character above reproach and a reputation untarnished by the busi- ness vicissitudes of half a century.

In the spring of 1831 Mr. Hubbard married Elenora llerry. daughter of Judge Elisha Berry, of Urbana, Ohio, They had one child, Gurdon S. Hubbard, Jr., who was born in t'hicago, February 22, 1838, and is now (1883), an honored citizen of the town where he was born. Mrs. Hubbard died February 28, 1838.

In 1843 Mr. Hubbard married Miss Mary Ann Hubbard, daughter of Alhira Hubbard, Chicago, who, with her honored his- band still lives after forty years of married life, the worthy wife of the oldest and one of the worthiest of Chicago's citizens.

CHICAGO IN 1830-33.

Prior to 1830 there was no town of Chicago. The region round-about, and the embryo settlement out. side Fort Dearborn, had been known by that name,

*Mr. Itubhard's father died in 181g. Out of the very moderale pillaner of $120 per year, during the years of his indenture, he sel apart for his widowed mother one-half of his earnings, A Jeller from the agent, January 26, 1871. to his mother, then at Middleton, Conn., speaks in the highest irris of her faithful son, and potes the inclosure to her of $75, which he had sel apart for her before leaving for his winter trip.

which had been applied since the time of the early French explorations quite indiscriminately to the Des- plaines River, to all the marshy district lying about its source, and extending to and embracing the site of the present city .*

The canal commissioners t appointed by the Legis- lature of 1829 were empowered to " locate the canal, to lay out towns, to sell lots, and to apply the proceeds to the construction of the canal." The members of this board were Dr. Jayne of Springfield, Edmund Roberts of Kaskaskia, and Charles Dunn. . These commissioners were the official fathers of the city. They employed James Thompson to survey and plat the town of Chicago on Section 9, Township 39, Range 14. The completion of this survey, and the filing of the plat bearing date August 4, 1830, marks the date of the geographical location of the town, now the great city of Chicago.

The part of Section 9, platted as above, was bounded as follows: Commencing at the corner of Madison and State streets, on the south hy Madison Street to its in- tersection with Desplaines; on the west hy Desplaines; on the nurth by Kinzie; and on the east by State Street. It embraced the little settlement at Wolf Point and the lower village on the South Side, and comprised an area of about three-eighths of a square mile.

The population of the new town and suburbs, nut- side the fort where two cumpanies of United States infantry, under command of Major Fowle, were stationed , numbered, including the white families, half- breeds, and three or four French traders, not to exceed a hundred. Colbert's Chicago pp. 5 and 61, gives the following regarding the residents of Chicago in t829 and 1830.

** In 1829, the residents of the town besides the garrison were the following: John Kinzie, ; residing on the North Ilranch : Dr. Wolcott, Indian Agent, and son-in-law to Mr. Kinzie, residing near the site of the present Galena freight depot, just east of Clark Street (he died In the fall of 1830) : John Miller, keeper of a log tavern, near the forks of the tiver, al Wolf Point, North Side; John B. Beanbien, residing near the lake shore, a little south of the fort; three or four Indian traders whose names have not been pre- served, residing in Ing cabins west of the river."

The more elaborate "directory," given by the same author at the date of the finishing of Thompson's plat of the town, shows considerable increase of the resident population, or that the "census" of the previous year was imperfectly taken. It reads as follows;

"At this time (August 4. 1830.) the commercial strength of Chicago was composed and located as follows:

"Taverns-Elijah Wentworth, north side of the river, near the fork: Samuel Milier, west side of the river, just north of the fork; Mark Beaubien, east side of the river, just south of the fork.§

"Indian Traders-Robert A. Kinzie, near Wentworth's tavern; Mr. Bonrisso (1.con Bourassea), just south of Beaubien's

. The earlier maps do bot designate the present Chicago River by that name, although many of them mark the region about the mouth of the present Chicago, as "Chicagou," while on the same map the river Desplaines was designated as the Chicagou River. It was also recognized as a locality under the name of Chicago in the official records of Fulton County, Then embracing the present county of Cook. Concerning this, Hon. John Wentworth inn his- loric lecture published in Fergus's Historical Series, No. 7, says : " From St. Clair County, what is now Cook County was set nff in the new county of Madisent; Theace in the county of Crawford; in t81g, in the new county of Clark; and so little was then known of the northern country that the act creal- ing Clark County extended it to the Canada line. In sozi we were set off in the new county of Pike; in 1823, in the new county of Fulton; and in 1835, in the new county of Peoria. I have m4 only caused the county records of these counties to be examined, but have also corresponded with their earliest settlers. and I can find no official recognition of Chicago until we reach Fulton County. The Clerk of that county writes me that the carliest mention of Chicago in the records is the order of an election at the term of the Fulton County Commis- sionere Court, September 2, 1873, to chuinr one major and company officers, polls al Chicago to be opened at the house of John Kinzie. The return of this election cannot be found, if they were ever made." Chicago was also a voting precinct of Peoria County, an election being held there as early as August 7, 1826,

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History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 22

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