USA > Illinois > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Illinois > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
They (the Kickapoos) had a village much smaller than the former, near where the Vandalia Railroad crosses Owl Creek, near the Bond County line; and another on the bluffs on the Kaskaskia River, about two miles south of Vandalia, now known as the Bunyard Farm. This, however, was not a permanent settlement. They frequently moved their quarters, up or down the river, for several miles. In 1845 a half-breed descendant of the
tribe came from Wisconsin to visit the graves of his fathers. He professed to be able to give the exact location of the villages, from a rough chart or map engraven upon a powder-horn. He related a tradition among his tribe of the existence of a silver mine near the junction of Hickory Creek with the Okaw. Subsequent investigation proved it to be like most information of a similar character, " Cucullus non facit monachum." He also told of an incident which occurred to some members of his tribe: A small body of Indians were returning from some lead mines where they had been getting out ore, with which they had six mules laden. When encamped near what is now known as Yarbrough Lake (within the present limits of Seminary Township) one of their number came into camp with the information that " a party of whites were on their way to meet them and capture the lead." The Indians drove their mules into the lake and unloaded them, and sought shelter and security in the fastnesses of the forest. They were at that time on terms of friendship with the whites; a state of affairs the whites en- deavored to maintain by enforcing the doctrine that the red man had no rights the white was bound to respect.
Until 1832, at the breaking out of the Black Hawk war, there was quite a number within the county, who left to participate in the war, never to return; and probably few, if any, of the present generation have ever seen a member of the race that a few short years ago were the owners and occu- pants of the soil they call their own.
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HISTORY
OF
FAYETTE COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
CHAPTER I.
CIVIL HISTORY.
KARLY HISTORY. SETTLEMENTS BY MARQUETTE. ORGANIZATION OF TERRITORY OF LOUISIANA.
HE discovery and subsequent occupation of the vast extent of territory known as the Northwestern Territory, the struggle for supremacy within its borders by two of the most powerful nations of modern times, and its final incorporation into the young and insignificant confederation of States, are facts that would seem to indicate providential interference in behalf of the Republic. Had it been otherwise, had France and England maintained a foothold in this, the fairest and richest portion of the American Continent, the trials, sufferings and successes of the revolutionary and liberty-loving heroes would have come to naught; they would have only been temporarily successful; they would have awakened from their dreams of a free and constitutional govern- ment to find a monster of gigantic proportions overshadowing their peaceful homes and one that would ultimately have swallowed them up; the estab- lishment of an empire more mighty and powerful than any of its European progenitors.
But fortunately for the Republic and human liberty a succession of adventitious circumstances interposed, which prevented the accomplishment of such a project and finally made the disputed territory an integrant of the Union. From the time of the discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto and the subsequent exploration by Marquette and La Salle, the history of the country is almost a romance, interspersed with some beautiful and many tragic passages.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN ILLINOIS.
In 1675 Jacques Marquette, a religious enthusiast, conceived the idea of spreading the gospel among the Indian tribes of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. For this purpose, he travelled in company with Lewis Joliet, a trader, and who knew something of the topography of the country in which Marquette proposed to establish his mission.
Prior to their long and perilous journey they had spent several years among the tribes that frequented the country in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes. Marquette's zeal in his great work, coupled with an active mind and great energy, enabled him to master many of the dialects. His influence among the Indians was unlimited. He seemed to possess all the requirements to succeed in his great undertaking. The first mission was established at the principal Indian village in the section, which was where Utica, in La Salle County, now is. In 1680, La Salle, & French soldier, with a small body of troops descended the Mississippi, and built a fort on the Illinois River, near Lake Peoria. These with the settlement at Fort St. Louis were the first in the territory. Kaskaskia was next selected 88 8 point at which to found a colony, which was successfully effected between 1685 or 1690. The exact date is a matter of speculation, as none of the records in existence give any definite information upon the subject. Until 1711 the territory was considered as a Canadian province. But in the early part of the eighteenth century numerous exploring parties traversed it from both directions, north and south. The adventurous Canadians still conti- nuing to send parties for the purpose of forming permanent settlements, and the home government beginning to realize the extent and richness of the country, and fearful lest her hereditary enemy, England, should endeavor to make & conquest of it, dispatched troops, with able commanders, who sailed to the mouth of the Mississippi, and navigated its course almost to its head waters, building forts and founding colonies at various points along their route.
In 1711 the entire country was erected into one province and the capital located at Mobile. At this time the region in and around Kaskaskia bid fair to be the centre of refinement and learning of the western world. From the date of its founding Kaskaskia grew apace. Emigrants were locating in the vicinity in unprecedented numbers. A great impetus was given to emigration by the visionary and speculative schemes of Johr. Law. The people of France, of all degrees, seemed to have lost their reason. Nothing in the history of popular fallacies approached it, save, perhaps, the tulip mania, which well-nigh made Holland bankrupt. While the bursting of the bubble inundated and nearly ruined France, it was not without its benefit. It served to attract the attention of the people, and many hurried to the El Dorado where they were led to believe, like Ponce De Leon, that youth and wealth were indigenous to the soil.
CHAPTER II.
PROSPERITY OF THE COLONIES. DIVISION OF THE TERRITORY. FORT CHARTRES THE CAPITAL. ENGLISH OCCUPATION. EXODUS OF FRENCH INHABITANTS. CES- BION TO UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BY THE STATE. TERRITORIAL GOVERN- MENT FORMED. GEN. ST. CLAIR APPOINTED GOVERNOR.
FROM 1717 until 1760, France retained almost undisputed posses- sion of the country. The people being rudely awakened from their dreams of unlimited stores of mineral wealth, began to rea- lize that while disappointed in that respect, they had a country of inexhaustible fertility, and it only remained for them to develop it, and reap the reward of honest toil. In 1721 Louisiana was divided into seven districts, of which Illinois was one, with Fort Chartres as the seat of gov- ernment. The fort was situated on the east bank of the Mississippi, a short distance from where the village of Prairie du Rocher now is. It has now entirely disappeared, the river slowly but surely encroaching upon it and destroying it piecemeal. Until 1750 peace and plenty reigned throughout the country. The people had turned their attention to agriculture, and the soil yielded a most bountiful return. A demand arose in Europe for their surplus. Bacon, flour, hides and tallow were exported. Emigrants continued to come, many of them from the colder and less productive Canadas. Sud- denly the air was filled with rumblings of the distant storm, which finally broke upon them, and swept forever from France her fairest possessions. The war was concluded in 1759, and in 1762 by the treaty of Fontainbleau France transferred her entire possessions east of the Mississippi to England. Immediately upon assuming control the French prepared to leave en masse. Every effort was made on the part of the conquerors to prevent the threat- ened depopulation. The English government made large concessions, proposed to ratify all conveyances, establish titles, organize courts of justice. All attempts, however, proved abortive, and the territory retrograded even more rapidly than it had advanced. For the succeeding ten years, until the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, very little of interest transpired within the limits of the territory, which was under the jurisdiction of Vir- ginia. In 1775, George Rogers Clark, after a journey through the country, returned to Virginia and strongly urged upon the Governor of the State the advisability of peopling it with Americans, and in 1778 received a commis- sion authorizing him to raise troops and take possession of the territory. In that year he completed the conquest, and the Virginia Assembly denomi- nated it the County of Illinois. Soon after the close of the Revolutionary struggle the Atlantic States agreed to cede to the general government their title to all western lands. In 1784 Virginia executed her deed of cession.
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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
The territory at this time embraced within its limits all of the country since divided into the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In 1787 it was erected into a separate territory, with a governor, secretary, and a court consisting of three judges. The seat of government was located at Marietta, Ohio, and Congress appointed Gen. Arthur St. Clair governor. President Washington directed the governor to visit Kaskaskia, and carry out the orders relative to the lands of the French and Canadian inbabitants.
The grants of land and tenures had been under four different governments -French, English, Virginia, and the United States-and each made grants of land to the inhabitants; the French as early as 1722 at Fort Chartres : these grants were made by the crown of France together with the royal company of Indies. The first organization of Illinois was made by the king of France to Crosat. When the English government occupied the country under the cession of 1763, they also made grants of land to the inhabitants. These grants of land were surveyed as the grantees pleased, without much reference to the cardinal points. After the country came into the hands of the Americans, the government of Virginia made grants of land before the cession of the country in 1782 to the United States.
In the year 1788, the United States recognized all the valid grants of land made by the former governments, and made other grants to the inhabi- tants. Also, in 1791. acts of Congress were passed making additional dona- tions of land. In 1790, the governor of the north-western territory was authorized to adjust the land titles of the settlers, and the same power was continued with the governors down to the year 1804, when certain commis- sioners of the land office were appointed to settle the land titles. These commissioners remained in office about ten years, and they and the governor of the territory adjusted the land titles to all the lauds in the country, before the first land sales at Kaskaskia in 1814.
Governor St. Clair and Winthrop Sargent, the Secretary, arrived at Kas- kaskia in 1790. The territory within the present limits of Illinois, extending northward to Little Mackinaw Creek on the Illinois River, was organized into a county, and named St. Clair in honor of the Governor. The county was divided into three judicial districts. A court of common pleas was established, and three judges, John Edgar of Kaskaskia, John De Moulin of Cahokia, and Jean Baptiste Barbeau of Prairie du Rocher, appointed to hold court in their separate districts. William St. Clair, a brother of the Governor, was appointed Clerk and Recorder of Deeds, and William Biggs Sheriff of the new county.
About this time the attention of Congress was directed to slavery, which institution existed within the territory. " The first introduction of slavery into Illinois was by Philipp Francis Renault in the year 1720. Ou his pas- sage from Europe to America he procured from San Domingo five hundred slaves to work the mines in Illinois, and these negroes are the ancestors of the French slaves in this state. The descendants of those slaves who re- side in Illinois are now free, and are located in Randolph County." *
When Virginia conquered the county, and the same was annexed to that state, the right of property in their slaves was guaranteed to the inhabitants as well as their other property. In the act of cession of the county from Virginia to the general government, the right of property, slaves amongst the rest, was secured to the inhabitants of Illinois. The Act of Congress known as the ordinance, which was passed in the year 1787, and by which the North-western Territory was organized as a government, prohibited posi- tively the introduction of slavery into the territory, and Illinois at that time formed a part of the territory. This Act of Congress was the great sheet anchor which secured the states of Illinois, Ohio and Indiana from slavery.
After the organization of the Indian Territory, of which Illinois formedla part, laws were enacted by the territorial legislature, permitting slaves to be introduced as indentured servants; under that law many came into the territory. The owner could go with his slaves before the clerk of the court of common pleas, and make an arrangement with his negroes to serve a cer- tain number of years, and then they became free. The children were to serve their masters : the males until they were thirty-five years old, the females until they reached the age of thirty-two years; this agreement, however, had to be done within thirty days after the slave entered the territory. If the slaves would not consent to the arrangement they could be removed out of the territory within sixty days. This agreement was made a record binding on the parties. This act of the legislature operated as a kind of gradual emancipation of slavery in the territory.
The supreme court of the state in 1845 decided that slavery, French or other, could not exist in the state. That decision liberated all the French slaves in the territory. Public opinion in the state being against slavery, reached the bench, and what was right twenty years before, was wrong in 1845, in relation to slavery. In 1810 one hundred and sixty slaves are said to have been in the territory ; in 1820 they increased to nine hundred and seventeen, and in 1830 they decreased to seven hundred and forty- six.
The prompt and efficient-action on the part of Congress can be better appreciated now than at any former time. Had the north-western states been slave states in 1860, the result of the late civil war would have been different, and that foul blot, slavery, would have continued to defile our otherwise pure body politic.
" " Reynolds' Life and Times."
CHAPTER III.
DISMEMBERMENT OF THE TERRITORY
OHIO ADMITTED AS A STATE-INDIANA AND ILLINOIS FOLLOW.
N 1795 Governor St. Clair created a new county, which was named in honor of Edmund Randolph of Virginia, Randolph County. Sha- drack Bond, afterwards the first governor of the state, was elected from Illinois a member of the Territorial Legislature that con. vened at Cincinnati in January, 1799. In 1800 was formed the Territory of Indiana, of which Illinois constituted a part, with the seat of government at Vincennes. In 1805 George Fisher was elected from Ran- dolph County a member of the Territorial Legislature, and Pierre Menard was chosen a member of the Legislative Council. In 1806 Aaron Burr. · who was then plotting for the establishment of his ideal empire, visited Kaskaskia among other places in the west, endeavoring to enlist men to assist him in his treasonable schemes against the government.
Illinois, by act of Congress in 1809, was created a territory, with Ninian Edwards as Governor, and Nathaniel Pope received the appointment as Secretary. The legislature did not convene until 1812, when Shadrack Bond, a resident of St. Clair County. was elected the first representative to Congress. Kaskaskia had been selected as the seat of government when the legislature convened on the 25th of November, 1812. In 1816 the counties of Monroe and Jackson were formed.
In 1818 a bill passed Congress admitting Illinois as a sovereign state. In the following July a convention was held at Kaskaskia to frame a constitu- tion. At the time of its admission into the Union the population was esti- mated at fifty thousand, nine-tenths of whom were south of its geographical centre, and in the counties of St. Clair, Crawford, Washington, Jefferson, Wayne, Edwards, Monroe, Randolph, Jackson, Franklin, Wbite, Gallatin, Union, Johnson, Pope and Alexander. The entire state north of where Shelbyville now is, was almost a wilderness, some settlements existing; one on the Illinois River and one or more in the extreme northern part of the state. In July, 1818, a convention was called to meet at Kaskaskia for the purpose of drafting the first constitution for the state of Illinois. The fol- lowing are the names of the delegates and the countics which they repre- sented in the order of their organization : *
ST. CLAIR-Jesse B. Thomas. John Messinger, James Lunn, Jr.
RANDOLPH-George Fisher, Elias Kent Kane.
MADISON-Benjamin Stephenson, Joseph Borough, Abraham Prickett.
GALLATIN -Michael Jones, Leonard White. Adolphus Frederick Hubbard.
JOHNSON-Hezekiah West, William McFatridge.
EDWARDS-Seth Yard, Levi Compton.
WHITE-Willis Hargrave, Wm. McHenry. MONROE-Ooldwell Carns, Enoch Moore.
POPE-Samuel ()'Melveny, Hamlet Ferguson.
JACKSON-Conrad Will. James Hall, Jr.
CRAWFORD-Joseph Kitchell, Edward N. Cullom.
BOND-Thomas Kilpatrick, Samuel G. Morse.
UNION-William Echols, John Whitaker.
WASHINGTON-Andrew Bankson.
FRANKLIN-Isham Harrison, Thomas Roberts.
Jesse B. Thomas was selected president, and William C. Greenup secre- tary of the convention.
In September, 1818, Shadrack Bond was elected governor, and Pierre Menard lieutenant governor, the first election under the state constitution.
CHIAPTER IV.
THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT.
REMOVAL OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT-VANDALIA SELECTED-BUILDING OF THE STATE HOUSE-ITS DESTRUCTION BY FIRE-TEMPORARY QUARTERS OF BOTH HOUSES OF THE LEGISLATURE-ORGANIZATION OF FAYETTE COUNTY.
N 1819, it becoming apparent that the centre of population was gradually moving northward, the following act was introduced and approved, changing the state capital from Kaskaskia to Vandalia.
SEAT OF GOVERNMENT, 1819.
An Act for the removal of the seat of government of the State of Illinois, approved March 30th, 1819.
Whereas it appears to the satisfaction of the General Assembly, that at the last session of Congress here was granted four sections of land to the State of Illinois, for the est. blishment of the seat of government thereon for twenty years ; and therefore it becomes necessary from the Constitution, and from policy, to have commissioners appointed to select the said quantity of land and provide for laying out a town thereon.
* Davidson and Struve.
t NOTE .- Laws passed by the 1st Legislature at 1st session. (We give this Act in full.)
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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois repre- sented in the general assembly :
That there shall be appointed by the joint ballot of both branches of the present General Assembly, five commissioners. for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, who shall take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation, to wit : I, A. B .- being appointed a commissioner to select a suitable site whereon to fix the seat of government of this State, agreeable to the donation of the Congress of the United States, and the Constitution of this State, and that in making such selection, I will not be governed by my own interest, or the interest of any other person or persons, but in all things will be governed alone by the interest of this State.
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, that the said commissioners, or a major part of them, shall at some convenient time, not exceeding three months from the official publication of the act of Congress, granting said four sec- tions of land to this State, and designate the same by the number and de- scription thereof, according to the true intent and meaning of the said Act of Congress, and of the thirteenth section of the schedule of the Constitution of this state; said land to be situate on the Kaskaskia river, and as near as may be east of the third principal meridian on said river.
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the said commissioners, or a ma- jor part of them, shall as soon as practicable transmit the number and de- scription of said four sections of land so sclected for the State, to the register and receiver of the land-office in whose district the said four sections of land may be situate, or to any other office or officer as may be required by said Act of Congress, so as the government of the United States may know the land so selected by said commissioners for this state.
SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the said commissioners, or a ma- jor part of them, shall have the power to employ a skillful surveyor to lay off a town on said land, on the Kaskaskia river, on such a plan or device as the said commissioners, or a major part of them, may agree on ; and the said commissioners shall have the right to give to the said town some proper name as they may agree upon. The said plan shall be fairly made out and laid before the next stated session of the General Assembly, and the said commis- sioners shall have the right to draw on the treasury of their state, for any sum which may be agreed upon by them as a compensation to the person employed in laying off said town.
SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the said commissioners, or a ma- jor part of them, are authorized and required to sell one hundred and fifty lots; (not more than ten of said lots shall be on the public square) to the highest bidder, on advertising the time, place and quantity of lots sold, in some public newspaper of this state, for at least six weeks before the sale thereof. The consideration money for said lots to be paid down, or credit given of not longer than six, twelve and eighteen months, with approved se- curity, at the discretion of said commissioners, or a major part of them. Said commissioners, or a major part of them, who may receive the money arising from the sale of lots sold by the authority of this act, shall give bond and security, to be approved of by the Governor, in double the sum to be re- ceived as aforesaid, to the Governor, for the use of the state, conditioned for the faithful payment of all monies arising as aforesaid into the treasury of this state, within one month from the receipt of the same. And the said commissioners shall have the right to allow such privileges, as to the use of timber to the first settlers in said town, as they may deem just and advisable.
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