History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 29

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

USA > Illinois > Cook County > History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time > Part 29

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" It was in May. 1835. that Mr. Ogden went to Chicago for the purpose above stated. The spring had been one of unusual wetness, and on his arrival at Chicago to take charge of the prop- erty committed to his care, his first impressions were not at all favorable. The property lay there on the north side of the river an unbroken field, covered with a course growth of oak and under- brush, wet and marshy, and nyiddy from the recent heavy rains. Nothing could be more unattractive, not to say repulsive in its sur- face appearance. It had neither form nor comeliness, and he could not at first sight in looking at the property, in its then primitive condi- tion, see it as possessing any value or offering any advantages to justify the extraordinary price for which it had been bought. Ile could not but feel that I had been guilty of an act of great folly in making the purchase, and it was a cause of sad disappointment and of great depression. To him it was a new experience ; it was novel anıl different from anything that he had ever been engaged in. But Mr. Ogden had gone there for a purpose and to execute an important trust. A great deal of work had to be done to prepare this wilderness field for the coming auction. It had to be laid mit and opened up by streets and avenues Into blocks and lots, the boundaries of which must be carefully defined, maps and plans must be made, surveys perfected and land marks established. Mr. Ogden addressed himself to this work with energy and brought to it his extraordinary ability in the handling of all material interests. The work that he accomplished on this property in a short time. under circumstances discouraging and depressing, was wonderfully effective. le conceived what would be required in order to attract the attention of purchasers, so that by the time the auction sale approached he could exhibit it in business form. It will be remem. bered that the tract covered t31 acres, exclusive of the half belong- ing to the Kinzies, which lay in mass with it, say fifty-one acres, which, added to my purchase represented by Mr. Ogden, made a tract of 182 acres.'The Government sale of lands had brought together a large collection of people from all parts of the country.

particularly from the East and Southeast, and these were there when Mir. Ogden offered the property on the North Side. The result of the auction was a surprise to him, for the sales amounted to more than one hundred thousand dollars and included about one-third of the property. This result, although it was astonish- ing to him, seemed yet to fail of making the impression on his mind of the future of the town which was to become the scene of his after life, and in the development and growth of which he him. self was to become an active and most important factor.

" As he expresssed himself to me In giving an account of the transaction, he could not see where the value lay nor what it was that justified the payment of such prices. He thought the people were crazy and visionary. Having completed the sales, he left Chi- cago in the summer and did not return there until the summer follow- ing ( 1836 ). But he was not long. after this experience, in grasp- ing the idea of the future of that portion of the United States, and of the natural advantages which Chicago offered as the site of a commercial town, which in the future growth of the country would become so important. As the result of this agency and the care of this large property interest, regarding it as an occupation, he gave his mind to the consideration of the whole subject, and it determined him in the end to make his home in the West and iden- tify himself with the fortunes of Chicago. It was a field suited to his taste and to his habits, and for which his previous life andex- perience in his native country had trained him, although that life and experience had up to this time been narrow as was the boundary the Delaware River on which he had been teared. Now, his mind and his energies were directed to the development of the vast and boundless prairies of the West. He had been reared in a country of dense forests, and surrounded on every side by mountain scenery. and now he was in a field where there were no forests and no mountains.

"It was not long before Mr. Ogden became imbued with an enthusiastic appreciation of the capabilities and attractions of this new country. His descriptions of it were poetic and inimitable.

" And from this time onward up to the close of his life he gave to Chicago the full benefit of his rare talents and ability: and he has left in the city of his adoption the distinctive marks of his life work, as well as through the West and Northwest, where the great railways which he projected and promoted to comple- tion will remain ever as monuments of his genius and his enterprise. No man exercised a more magical influence in stimulating all around him to acts of usefulness and improvement in the interest of intellectual, social and material progress, and the development of the country ; and few men were capable of accomplishing so much useful work in so short a time. He was comprehensive and broad in his views as the country in which he lived. The later years of his life were devoted largely to the extension of lines of railways to the Pacific coast, and especially the Northern Pacific, which is now approaching completion. Mr. Ogden had always regarded this route as one of the most important, and the country which it trav- ersed-and which by its completion would be opened to settlement -as one of the most attractive and richest in its soil productions of any of the projected lines connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific coast.

" During all this period, from 1835 to t865, my house was Mr. Ogden's home when in New York. As memory sweeps back over these most active years of his life-associated as they are Indis- solubly with Chicago and the West-and reproduces the picture mellowed by time, of what he was as a man, and of what he was doing and what he did do ; the charm of his influence is still felt. fragrant with sympathy for his fellow-men in all conditions of life- one on whose tombstone might be appropriately inscribed, 'Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.'

** And the citizens of Chicago do but honor themselves by placing in their Historical hall the portrait of him whose name should ever be cherished as one of their foremost and most notable citizens,"

John Bates, a settler of 1832, in an interview October 15, 1883, said:

" In 1833 the settlement of the new town, so far as buildings showed, was mostly on what is now Water Street. There was noth. ing on Lake Street, except perhaps the Catholic church begun on the northwest corner of Lake and State. Up and down Water Street, between what is now State and Wells streets, now Fifth Avenue, all the business houses and stores were built. Also nearly all the cabins for dwellings. You could, from every store and dwelling, look north across the river, as there were no buildings on what is now the north side of that street. At that time a slough emptied into the river, at what is now the foot of State Street, and was a sort of bayou of dead water through which scows could be run up as far as Randolph Street, near the corner of Dearborn, and there was a dry creek up as far as where the Sherman Hlouse now stands. There was a foot-bridge of four logs run lengthwise across

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HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

the creek near the mouth of the creek. Al thal time there was no bridge across the main river, and never had been, There was a sort of bridge built the year before by Anson Taylor across the South Branch near Randolph Street-a log-bridge, quite near the water, over which teams could pass. Hall & Miller had, in 1833. a large lannery on Wolf Point. There was no foot-bridge across North Branch, that I remember, at thal early day. At the Wolf Point Hotel there was a sign-post up ; perhaps there was at one lime a sign of a wolf on it, but if so, it was a temporary charcoal or chalk sign put up by the boys. I don't remember it."

The population numbered not far from two hundred and fifty at the close of the year. It comprised six lawyers-Russel E. Heacock, who had come in :827 ; Richard J. Hamilton, 1831 ; and Giles Spring, John Dean Caton, Edward W. Casey and Alexander N. Ful- lerton, who had put out their signs in 1833. There were also eight physicians : Elijah D. Harmon came May, 1830 ; Valentine A. Boyer, May 12, 1832 ; Ed- mund S. Kimberly, 1832 ; Phillip Maxwell, February, 1833 ; John T. Temple, spring of 1833 ; William Brad- shaw Egan, fall of 1833 ; Henry B. Clark, 1833 ; and George F. Turner, Assistant-Surgeon U. S. A., at the garrison.

There were at that time four religious organizations holding stated services at places, and with pastors as follows :

St. Mary's Catholic Church, near the southwest cor- ner of Lake and State streets, Rev. J. M. L. St. Cyr.

The Presbyterian, in the Temple Building, at the southeast corner of Franklin and South Water streets ; Rev. Jeremiah Porter, pastor.

Baptist, in the same building; Rev. Allen B. Freeman, pastor.

Methodist, in the same building ; Rev. Jesse Walker, pastor.

The Temple Building, where most of the Protestant religious services of the town were held, was built through the agency and efforts of Dr. John T. Temple, who had arrived early in July, 1833, with his family, consisting of a wife and four children. He was a pious and earnest Baptist Christian, and came to Chicago from Washington, D. C., armed with a contract to carry the mails from Chicago to Fort Howard, Green Bay. His contract gave him a surety of a living, so that his surplus energy could well be used in the services of the Lord, as he understood it. Through his efforts, he, heading the subscription paper with Sioo, found funds to build a two-story building at the corner of Franklin and South Water streets, which was the earliest struct- ure dedicated especially to religion and education erected in Chicago. The lower story was a hall for religious services, the upper floor was a school-room, where Granville Temple Sproat kept one of the first public schools. Miss Chappel (Mrs. Jeremiah Porter), Miss Sarah Warren (Mrs. Abel E. Carpenter), and S. L. Carpenter were at different times teachers in schools held in this building .*

The Temple Building did not derive its name from its dedication to sacred uses, but from the fact that Dr. Temple built it and rented it to such societies, religious or otherwise, as could pay the rent. The name of the builder gave to the building itself a double sanctity that its subsequent career could not sustain.

There were four hotels : The oll Wolf Point Tavern, formerly kept by Caldwell & Wentworth, then by Chester Ingersoll, who had re-christened it "The Trav- elers' Home ;" the Sauganash, on the south side of what is now Lake Street, near the forks of the river, still kept by the original proprietor, Mark Beaubien ; the Green Tree Tavern, just built by James Kinzie,

and leased to David Clock, who was the landlord; the Mansion House, where are now numbers 84 and 86 Lake Street. It was at that time an unpretentious log tavern kept by Dexter Graves, and according to some authorities had no name, being on the site of the build- ing which was afterwards known by the above-mentioned name. Besides this there were several boarding-houses where transients were fed and lodged, if there was room, which depended upon how particular the regular board- ers might be as to the number or character of the said transients who had to be stowed away in their rooms, either as bed-fellows, or on the floor. Mrs. Rufus Brown kept one of the first-class boarding houses.

In addition to the ministers, lawyers, doctors, land- lords and others before named, a fair assortment of druggists, merchants, butchers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and other artisans were settled in the town. There was also a score of adventurers, comprising moneyed specu- lators and prospectors, as yet undecided whether to stay at Chicago or go on.

The following is an imperfect list of the denizens of the town in the fall of 1833, not before named : Philo Carpenter, still living in Chicago, druggist, who came in July, 1832 ; Peter Pruyne, druggist, early in 1833 ; George W. Dole, merchant ; P. F. W. Peck, merchant ; Madore W. Beaubien, merchant ; John Bates, Jr., still living in Chicago, auctioneer, who came in :832; Alan- son Sweet, 1832 ; Augustin Taylor, builder, still living in Chicago, arrived June, 1833 ; J. B. Beaubien, merchant ; the Kinzies, John and Robert A., merchants ; T. J. V. Owen, who came in 1831 ; John Watkins, school-mas- ter, came in 1832 ; James Gilbert, came in :833 ; Charles H. Taylor, came in 1832 ; John S. C. Hogan. Post- master, came in 1832 ; William Ninson, came in fall of 1832 ; Hiram Pearson, came in spring of 1833 ; George Chapman ; John Wright ; Mathias Smith, came in 1833; David Carver, seaman and lumber merchant, came in 1833 ; Eli A. Rider, came in 1832 ; Dexter J. Hapgood, came in 1832 ; George W. Snow, came in 1832 ; Ghol- son Kercheval, Government Agent and clerk, came in 1831, died in California ; Stephen F. Gale, from New Hampshire ; Captain DeLafayette Wilcox, in the garri- son ; Lientenant Louis T. Jamison, in the garrison ; Enoch Darling, W. H. Adams, C. A. Ballard, Captain J. M. Baxley, came June, 1833, and remained until April, 1836 ; Lieutenant J. L. Thompson, came June 20, 1833, and remained until December, 1836; Jabez K. Bots- ford, speculator and capitalist ; Morris Bumgarden, came in 1832 ; Henry and Samuel L. Brooks ; Stephen Rexford, came July 27, 1833 ; Charles Wisencraft, came in 1833; John S. Wright, then a minor, afterward editor of Prairie Farmer, and one of the most merito- rious pioneers of Chicago, came in 1832 ; John Wright, came in 1832, a merchant ; Timothy and Walter Wright, came in 1833 ; Patrick Welch, in 1833 ; John Calhoun, printer and editor of the first newspaper published in Chicago, arrived in November, 1833, and issued the first number of the Chicago Democrat November 26, 1833; Tyler K. Blodgett, came in the spring of 1833, and started the first brickyard, between Dearborn and Clark streets, on the North Side ; Oscar Pratt and Beckford, printers, were in the employ of Mr. Calhoun at that time ; E. H. Mulford, watch-maker, came in 1833 ; Lemuel Brown, blacksmith, came in 1833 ; Joseph Meeker, carpenter and builder, came in the summer of 1833; Major Handy, bricklayer and mason ; E. K. Smith ; L. D. Harrison ; Archibald Clybourne, butcher, came in 1823, then living north of the town limits, and not a voter in the new village ; John K. Clark, half-brother of A. Clybourne, then living with him; Nelson R. Norton,

* See Schools.

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

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

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

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

The only manufactory established at that early day was the rude shed called a tannery, near the Miller tavern, where John Miller and Benjamin Hall were tan- ning a few hides into a rough but endurable leather. A saw-mill was in operation on the North Branch, below Clybourne's, at the mouth of a slough just south of Di- vision Street .* At that time there was but one street running to the lake, described by Jedediah Wooley, who surveyed it April 25, 1832, as extending "from the east end of Water Street (at the west line of the Reservation) in the town of Chicago, to Lake Michigan. Direction of said road is south 8816° east ; from the street to the lake eighteen chains and fifty links." The street was fifty feet wide, and was reported by the viewers as " a road of public utility, and aconvenient passage from the town to the lake. It was only staked out and marked by the travel from the town to the fort. There was a rough bridge thrown across the slough at State Street to make the highway available.

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

* John Bates says there was no mill there.

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

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

THE TOWN, 1833 TO 1837-The history of the town of Chicago covered a period of nearly four years-from Au- gust 10, 1833, to March 4, 1837. On the latter date the act incorporating the city was passed, and the election of the first city officers under the act was held on the first Tuesday of the May following. The annals of the town of Chicago for the period of its existence show a most wonderful growth in population, commerce and trade. During this era the tide of immigration set in vigorously to the lands of the Pottawatomies just acquired. Its principal route to the region, by land, lay through Chi- cago, which became the portal to the coveted territory, and through which, with increasing volume, it flowed until suddenly checked by the general financial collapse of 1837. 'T'bis disaster for a time retarded all business, checked immigration and brought the town itself to such a sudden stop in its headlong career of prosperity as to seriously dampen the ardor, and still more seriously deplete the pockets, of its enterprising and over-sanguine citizens, As the entrepot of this vast westward moving and endless caravan, Chicago could but increase its own population from the ever-changing throng of so- journers. This was the era of the wildest speculations in land ever known in the country, and Chicago became the western center of the craze which began in 1835, developed in 1836, culminated in the early part of 1837, and finally burst into thin air in the fall of the latter year.

The sale, by public auction, of the school section (16) occurred October 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24, 1833, was made under R. J. Hamilton, commissioner, and by John Bates, auctioneer, and realized prices quite beyond ex- pectations. The section embraced the square mile be- tween State and Halsted streets on the east and west, and Madison and Twelfth on the north and south. It was divided into one hundred and forty-four blocks, the area of each being not far from four acres, not in- cluding the streets. All but four of the lots were sold, and brought in the aggregate the sum of $38,865, or an average of $6.72 per acre. The land was sold mostly on credit of one, two and three years at ten per cent interest. No such favorable chance for purchasers of limited means to become possessed of land near the village occurred again until after the financial revulsion of 1837. These blocks, afterward cut up into lots, to- gether with the canal lots in Section 9, were the original lots on which the trading and speculation was begun, which, as the mania increased, was supplemented by various "additions " to the town, which were platted on paper, and the lots thrown into market."

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

* An advertisement by the Collector of lots to be soll for delinquent taxes October 1, 1836, mentions the original town (Section 9) Section 16, Wolcott's ad- dizion, North Branch addition, and Wabansia addition.

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

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

At first the purchases were what might be termed legitimate ; a lot for cash on which the purchaser would erect a dwelling or store. The legitimate demand soon absorbed the floating supply and prices began to advance under the competition of anxious buyers, Lots purchased one day for $50 were sold the next for $60, and resold in a month for $100. It did not take long under such circumstances to develop a strong specula- tive fever, which infected every resident of the town and was caught by every new-comer. At the close of the year 1834, the disease had become fairly seated. What- ever might be the Isiness of a Chicagoan, or however profitable, it was not considered a full success except it showed an outside profit on lots bought and sold. The next year was but a continuance of the trade, enlarged by the constantly increasing number of speculators who now bought, not so much for investnient, and with less regard to actual value, as the increasing number of purchasers made a quick turn at a large profit apparently sure.

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

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History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 29

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