USA > Illinois > Grundy County > History of Grundy County, Illinois > Part 7
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The whole country was aroused by this brutal massacre; but it was not until the following May that the murderers were brought to justice. At that time Boston Charley gave himself np, and offered to guide the troops to Capt. JJack's stronghold. This led to the capture of his entire gang, a number of whom were murdered by Ore-
gon volunteers while on their way to trial. The remaining Indians were held as pris- oners until July, when their trial occurred, which led to the conviction of Capt. Jack, Schonchin, Boston Charley, Hooker Jim, Broncho, alias One- Eyed Jim, and Slotuck, who were sentenced to be hanged. These sentences were approved by the President, save in the ease of Slotuck and Broncho whose sentenees were commuted to impris- omment for life. The others were executed at Fort Klamath, October 3, 1873.
These closed the Indian troubles for a time in the Northwest, and for several years the borders of civilization remained in peace. They were again involved in a conflict with the savages about the country of the Black Hills, in which war the gallant Gen. Custer lost his life. Just now the borders of Ore- gon and California are again in fear of hos- tilities; but as the Government has learned how to deal with the Indians, they will be of short duration. The red man is fast passing away before the march of the white man, and a few more generations will read of the Indians as one of the nations of the past.
The Northwest abonnds in memorable places. We have generally noticed them in the narrative, but our space forbids their deseription in detail, save of the most important places. Detroit, Cincinnati, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and their kindred towns have all been described. But ere we leave the narrative we will present our readers with an account of the Kinzie house, the old landmark of Chicago, and the discovery of the source of the Missis- sippi River, each of which may well find a place.in the annals of the Northwest.
Mr. John Kinzie, of the Kinzie house,
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established a trading house at Fort Dear- born in 1804. The stockade had been erected the year previous, and named Fort Dearborn in honor of the Secretary of War. It had a bloek house at each of the two angles, on the southern side a sallyport, a covered way on the north side, that led down to the river, for the double purpose of providing means of escape, and of pro- curing water in the event of a siege.
Fort Dearborn stood on the south bank of the Chicago River, abont half a mile from its month. When Major Whistler built it, his soldiers hauled all the timber, for he had no oxen, and so economieally did he work that the fort cost the Govern- ment only fifty dollars. For a while the garrison could get no grain, and Whistler and his men subsisted on acorns. Now Chicago is the greatest grain eenter in the world.
Mr. Kinzie bought the hut of the first settler, Jean Baptiste Point au Sable, on the site of which he erected his mansion. Within an inclosure in front he plante l some Lombardy poplars, and in the rear he soon had a fine garden and growing orchard.
In 1812 the Kinzie house and its sur- roundings became the theater of stirring events. The garrison of Fort Dearborn consisted of fifty-four men, under the charge of Capt. Nathan Ileald, assisted by Lieutenant Lenai T. Helm (son-in-law to Mrs. Kinzie), and ensign Ronan. The sur- geon was Dr. Voorhees. The only resi- dents at the post at that time were the wives of Capt. Heald and Lieutenant Helm and a few of the soldiers, Mr. Kinzie and his family, and a few Canadian voyageurs with their wives and children. The sol- diers and Mr. Kinzie were on the most
friendly terms with the Pottawatomies and the Winnebagoes, the principal tribes around them, but they could not win them from their attachment to the British.
After the battle of Tippecanoe it was observed that some of the leading chiefs became sullen, for some of their people had perished in that conflict with Ameri- ean troops.
One evening in April 1812, Mr. Kinzie sat playing his violin and his children were dancing to the music, when Mrs. Kinzie came rushing into the house pale with terror. exclaiming, " The Indians! the Indians!" " What ? Where ?" eagerly inquired Mr. Kinzie. " Up at Lee's, kill- ing and sealping," answered the frightened mother, who, when the alarm was given, was attending Mrs. Burns, a newly-made mother, living not far off. Mr. Kinzie and his family crossed the river in boats, and took refuge in the fort, to which place Mrs. Burns and her infant, not a day okl, were conveyed in satety to the shelter of the guns of Fort Dearborn, and the rest of the white inhabitants fled. The Indians were a scalping party of Winnebagoes, who hov- ered around the fort some days, when they disappeared, and for several weeks the in- habitants were not disturbed by alarms.
Chicago was then so deep in the wilder- ness, that the news of the declaration of war against Great Britain, made on the 19th of June, 1812, did not reach the com- mander of the garrison at Fort Dearborn till the 7th of August. Now the fast mail train will carry a man from New York to Chicago in twenty-seven hours, and such a declaration might be sent, every word, by the telegraph iu less than the same number of minutes.
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PRESENT CONDITION OF THE NORTHWEST.
Preceding chapters have brought ns to the elose of the Black Hawk war, and we now turn to the contemplation of the growth and prosperity of the northwest under the smile of peace and the blessings of our civilization. The pioneers of this region date events back to the deep snow of 1831, no one arriving here since that date taking first honors. The ineiting cause of the immigration which overflowed the prairies early in the '30s was the reports of the marvelous beauty and fertility of the re- gion distributed through the East by those who had participated in the Black Hawk campaign with Gen. Scott. Chicago and Milwaukee then had a few hundred inhab- itants, and Gurdon S. Hubbard's trail from the former city to Kaskaskia led almost through a wilderness. Vegetables and elothing were largely distributed through the regions adjoining the lakes by steam- ers from the Ohio towns. There are men now living in Illinois who came to the State when barely an aere was in cultiva- tion, and a man now prominent in the bus- iness eireles of Chicago looked over the swampy, cheerless site of that metropolis in 1818 and went southward into civilization. Emigrants from Pennsylvania in 1830 left behind them but one small railway in the coal regions thirty miles in length, and made their way to the Northwest mostly with ox teams, finding in Northern Illinois petty settlements scores of miles apart, although the southern portion of the state was fairly dotted with farms. The water courses of the lakes and rivers for- nished transportation to the second great army of immigrants, and about 1850 rail- roads were pushed to that extent that the
crisis of 1837 was precipitated upon us, from the effects of which the Western country had not fully recovered at the outbreak of the war. Ilostilities found the colonists of the prairies fully alive to the demands of the occasion, and the honor of recruit- ing the vast armies of the Union fell largely to Gov. Yates, of Illinois, and Gov. Mor- ton, of Indiana. To recount the share of the glories of the campaign won by our Western troops is a neeilless task, except to mention the fact that Illinois gave to the nation the President who saved it, and sent out at the head of one of its regiments the general who led its armies to the final victory at Appomattox. The struggle, o. the whole, had a markel offset for the bet- ter on the new Northwest, giving it an im- petus which twenty years of peace would not have produced. In a large degree this prosperity was an inflated one, and with the rest of the Union we have since been compelled to atone therefor. Agriculture, still the leading feature in our industries, has been quite prosperous through all these years, and the farmers have cleared away many incumbrances resting over them from the period of fietitions values. The pop- ulation has steadily increased, the arts and seienees are gaining a stronger foothold, the trade area of the region is becoming daily more extended, and we have been largely exempt from the financial calam- ities.
At the present period there are no grant schemes broached for the Northwest, no propositions for government subsidies or national works of improvement, but the cipital of the world is attracted hither for the purchase of our prodnets or the expan- sion of our capacity for serving the nation
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at large. A new era is dawning as to transportation, and we bid fair to deal al- most exclusively with the increasing and expanding lines of steel rail running through every few miles of territory on the prairies. The lake marine will no doubt continue to be useful in the warmer season, and to serve as a regulator of freight rates; but experienced navigators forecast the decay of the system in moving to the sea- board the enormous erops of the West. Within the past few years it has become quite common to see direet shipments to Europe and the West Indies going through from the second class towns along the Mississippi and Missouri.
As to popular edneation, the standard has of late risen very greatly, and our schools would be creditable to any seetion of the Union.
More and more as the events of the war pass into obscurity will the fate of the Northwest be linked with that of the Southwest.
Our publie men continue to wield the full share of influence pertaining to their rank in the national autonomy, and seem not to forget that for the past sixteen years they and their constituents have dictated the principles which should govern the country.
In a work like this, destined to lie on the shelves of the library for generations, and not doomed to daily destruction like a newspaper, one can not indulge in the same glowing predictions, the sanguine statements of actualities that fill the col- uinns of ephemeral publications. Time may bring grief to the pet projects of a writer. and explode eastles erected on a pedestal of facts. Yet there are unmistaka-
ble indications before us of the same radical change in our great Northwest which char- aeterizes its history for the past thirty years. Our domain has a sort of natural geographical border, save where it melts away to the southward in the cattle raising districts of the Southwest.
Our prime interest will for some years doubtless be the growth of the food of the world, in which branch it has already out- stripped all competitors, and our great rival in this duty will naturally be the fertile plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, to say nothing of the new empire so rapid- ly growing up in Texas. Over these regions there is a continued progress in agriculture and in railway building, and we must look to our laurels. Intelligent observers of events are fully aware of the strides made in the way of shipments of fresh meats to Europe, many of these ocean car- goes being actually slaughtered in the West and transported on ice to the wharves of the seaboard cities. That this new enterprise will continue there is no reason to doubt. There are in Chicago several factories for the canning of prepared meats for European consumption, and the orders for this class of goods are already immense. English capital is becoming daily more and more and more dissatisfied with railway loans and investments, and is gradually seeking mammoth ontlays in lands and live stock. The stock yards in Chicago, Indianapolis and East St. Louis are yearly inereasing their facilities, and their plant steadily grows more valuable. Importations of blooded animals from the progressive conn- tries of Europe are destined to greatly im- prove the quality of our beef and mutton, Nowhere is there to be seen a more entieing
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display in this line than at our state and eounty fairs, and the interest in the matter is on the increase.
To attempt to give statistics of our grain production would be useless, so far have we surpassed ourselves in the quantity and quality of our prodnet. We are too liable to forget that we are giving the world its first article of necessity-its food supply. An opportunity to learn this fact so it nev- er can be forgotten was afforded at Chicago at the outbreak of the great panie of 1873, when Canadian purchasers, fearing the pros- tration of business might bring about an anarehical condition of affairs, went to that city with coin in bulk and foreign drafts to secure their supplies in their own currency at first hands. It may be justly elaimed by the agricultural community that their com- bined efforts gave the nation its first impe- fus toward a restoration of its crippled industries, and their labor brought the gold premium to a lower depth than the govern- ment was able to reach by its most intense efforts of legislation and compulsion. The hundreds of millions about to be disbursed for farm products have already, by the an- ticipation common to all commercial nations, set the wheels in motion, and will relieve ns from the perils so long shadowing our efforts to return to a licalthy tone.
Manufacturing has attained in the chief cities a foothold which bids fair to render the Northwest independent of the outside world. Nearly our whole region has a dis- tribution of coal measures which will in time support the manufactures necessary to onr comfort and prosperity. As to trans- portation, the chief factor in the production of all artieles except food, no seetion is so magnificently endowed, and our facilities
are yearly inereasing beyond those of any other region.
The period from a central point of the war to the outbreak of the panic was marked by a tremendous growth in our railway lines, but the depression of the times caused almost a total suspension of operations. Now that prosperity is return- ing to our stricken country we witness its anticipation by the railroad interest in a series of projects, extensions, and leases which bid fair to largely increase our transportation facilities. The process of foreclosure and sale of incumbered lines is another matter to be considered. In the case of the Illinois Central road, which formerly transferred to other lines at Cairo the vast burden of freight destined for the Gulf region, we now see the incorporation of the tracts connecting through to New Orleans, every mile co-operating in turning toward the northwestern metropolis thie weight of the interstate commerce of a thousand miles or more of fertile planta- tions. Three competing routes to Texas have established in Chicago their general freight and passenger agencies. Four or five lines compete for all Pacific freights to a point as far as the interior of Nebraska. Half a dozen or more splendid bridge structures have been thrown across the Missonri and Mississippi Rivers by the railways. The Chicago and Northwestern line has become an aggregation of over two thousand miles of rail, and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul is its close rival in extent and importance. The three lines running to Cairo via Vincennes form a through route for all traffie with the States to the southward. The trunk lines being mainly in operation, the progress made in
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the way of shortening tracks, making air- line branches, and running extensions does not show to the advantage it deserves, as this process is constantly adding new facili- ties to the established order of things. The panie reduced the price of steel to a point where the railways could hardly afford to use iron rails, and all our northwestern lines report large relays of Bessemer track. The immense crops now being moved have given a great rise to the value of railway stocks, and their transportation must result in heavy pecuniary advantages.
Few are aware of the importance of the wholesale and jobbing trade of Chicago. In boots and shoes and in clothing, twenty or more great firms from the East have placed here their distributing agents or their factories ; and in groceries Chicago supplies the entire Northwest at rates
presenting advantages over New York.
Chicago has stepped iu between New York and the rural banks as a financial center, and scarcely a banking institution in the grain or cattle regions but keeps its reserve funds in the vaults of our com- mereial institutions. Accumulating here throughout the spring and summer months, they are summoned home at pleasure to move the products of the prairies. This process greatly strengthens the northwest in its financial operations, leaving home capital to supplement local operations on behalf of home interests.
It is impossible to forecast the destiny of this grand and growing section of the Union. Figures and predictions made at this date might seem ten years hence so ludierously small as to excite only derision.
1
EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
The name of this beautiful Prairie State is derived from Illini, a Delaware word signifying Superior Men. It has a French termination, and is a symbol of how the two races-the French and the Indians- were intermixed during the early history of the country.
The appellation was no doubt well ap- plied to the primitive inhabitants of the soil whose prowess in savage warfare long withstood the combined attacks of the fieree Iroquois on the one side, and the no less savage and relentless Sacs and Foxes on the other. The Illinois were once a powerful confederacy, ocenpying the most beautiful and fertile region in the great Valley of the Mississippi, which their en- emies coveted, and struggled long and hard to wrest from them. By the fortunes of war, they were diminished in numbers, and finally destroyed. "Starved Rock," on the Illinois River, according to tradi- tion, commemorates their last tragedy, where, it is said, the entire tribe starved rather than surrender.
EARLY DISCOVERIES.
The first European discoveries in Illi- nois date back over two hundred years. They are a part of that movement which, from the beginning to the middle of the seventeenth century, brought the French
Canadian missionaries and fur traders into the Valley of the Mississippi, and which at a later period established the eivil and ecclesiastical authority of France, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexi- co, and from the foot-hills of the Alleghe- nies to the Rocky Mountains.
The great river of the West had been discovered by De Soto, the Spanish con- queror of Florida, three quarters of a eent- nry before the French founded Quebec in 1608, but the Spanish left the country a wilderness, without further exploration or settlement within its borders, in which con- dition it remained until the Mississippi was discovered by the agents of the French Canadian government, Joliet and Mar- quette, in 1673. These renowned explor- ers were not the first white visitors to Illi- nois In 1671-two years in advance of them-came Nicholas Perrot to Chicago. HIe had been sent by Talon as an agent of the Canadian government to call a great peace convention of Western Indians at Green Bay, preparatory to the movement for the discovery of the Mississippi. It was deemed a good stroke of policy to se- cure, as far as possible, the friendship and co-operation of the Indians, far and near, before venturing upon an enterprise which their hostility might render disastrous, and which their friendship and assistance would
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EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
do so much to make successful; and to this end Perrot was sent to eall together in council, the tribes throughout the North- west, and to promise them the commeree and protection of the French government. He accordingly arrived at Green Bay in 1671, and proenring an eseort of Pottawat- omies, proceeded in a bark canoe upon a visit to the Miamis, at Chicago. Perrot was therefore the first European to set foot upon the soil of Illinois.
Still there were others before Marquette. In 1672, the Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Claude Allouez and Claude Dablon, bore the standard of the Cross from their mis- sion at Green Bay through western Wis- consin and northern Illinois, visiting the Foxes on Fox River, and the Masquotines and Kickapoos at the mouth of the Mil- waukee. These missionaries penetrated on the route afterwards followed by Marquette as far as the Kickapoo village at the head of Lake Winnebago, where Marquette, in his journey, secured guides aoress the portage to the Wisconsin.
The oft repeated story of Marquette and Joliet is well known. They were the agents employed by the Canadian govern- ment to discover the Mississippi. Mar- quette was a native of France, born in 1637, a Jesnit priest by edueation, and a man of simple faith and of great zeal and devotion in extending the Roman Catholic religion among the Indians. Arriving in Canada in 1666, he was sent as a mission- ary to the far Northwest, and, in 1668, founded a mission at Sault Ste. Marie. The following year he moved to La Pointe, in Lake Superior, where he instrneted a branch of the Hurons till 1670, when he removed sonth and founded the mission at St. Ignace,
on the Straits of Mackinaw. Here he re- mained, devoting a portion of his time to the study of the Illinois language under a native teacher who had accompanied him to the mission from La Pointe, till he was joined by Joliet in the spring of 1673. By the way of Green Bay and the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, they entered the Mis- sissippi, which they explored to the mouth of the Arkansas, and returned by the way of the Illinois and Chicago Rivers to Lake Michigan.
On his way up the Illinois, Marquette visited the great village of the Kaskaskias, near what is now Utica, in the county of La Salle. The following year he returned and established among them the mission of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, which was the first Jesuit mission founded in Illinois and in the Mississippi Valley. The intervening winter he had spent in a hut which his companions erected on the Chi- cago River, a few leagues from its month. The founding of this mission was the last act of Marquette's life. Ile died in Mieh- igan, on his way back to Green Bay, May 18, 1675.
FIRST FRENCH OCCUPATION.
The first French occupation of the terri- tory now embraced in Illinois was effected by La Salle in 1680, seven years after the time of Marquette and Joliet. La Salle, having constructed a vessel, the "Griffin," above the falls of Niagara, which he sailed to Green Bay, and having passed thenee in eanoes to the mouth of the St. Joseph River, by which and the Kankakee he reached the Illinois, in January, 1GSO, erected Fort Crevecoeur, at the lower end of Peoria Lake, where the city of Peoria
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EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
is now situated. The place where this an- cient fort stood may still be seen just below the outlet of Peoria Lake. It was destined, however, to a temporary existence. From this point, La Salle determined to descend the Mississippi to its mouth, but did not accomplish this purpose till two years later -in 1682. Returning to Fort Frontenac for the purpose of getting materials with which to rig his vessel, he left the fort in charge of Tonti, his lieutenant, who during his absence was driven off by the Iroquois Indians. These savages had made a raid up- on the settlement of the Illinois, and had left nothing in their traek but rnin and desola- tion. Mr. Davidson, in his History of Illinois, gives the following graphie account of the picture that met the eyes of La Salle and his companions on their return:
" At the great town of the Illinois they were appalled at the scene which opened to their view. No hunter appeared to break its deatlı-like silence with a salutatory whoop of welcome. The plain on which the town had stood was now strewed with charred fragments of lodges, which had so recently swarmed with savage life and hi- larity. To render more hideous the picture of desolation, large numbers of skulls had been placed on the upper extremities of lodge-poles which had escaped the devour- ing flames. In the midst of these horrors was the rude fort of the spoilers, rendered frightful by the same ghastly relics. A near approach showed that the graves had been robbed of their bodies, and swarms of buzzards were discovered glutting their loathsome stomachis on the reeking corrup- tion. To complete the work of destruction, the growing corn of the village had been cut down and burned, while the pits con-
taining the products of previous years, had been rifled and their contents scattered with wanton waste. It was evident the suspected blow of the Iroquois had fallen with relent- less fury."
Touti had escaped, La Salle knew not whither. Passing down the lake in search of him and his men, La Salle discovered that the fort had been destroyed, but the vessel which he had partly constructed was still on the stocks, and but slightly in- jured. After further fruitless search, failing to find Tonti, he fastened to a tree a painting representing himself and party sitting in a eanoe and bearing a pipe of peace, and to the painting attached a letter addressed to Tonti.
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