History of Grundy County, Illinois, Part 8

Author:
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, O. L. Baskin
Number of Pages: 506

USA > Illinois > Grundy County > History of Grundy County, Illinois > Part 8

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).

Tonti had escaped, and after untold pri- rations, taken shelter among the Potta- wattomies near Green Bay. These were friendly to the French. One of their old chiefs used to say, "There were but three great captains in the world, himself, Tonti and La Salle."

GENIUS OF LA SALLE.

We must now return to La Salle, whose exploits stand out in such bold relief. IIe was born in Rouen, France, in 1643. Ilis father was wealthy but he renounced his patrimony on entering a college of the Jesuits, from which he separated and came to Canada a poor man in 1666. The priests of St. Sulpice, among whom he had a brother, were then the proprietors of Mon- treal, the nucleus of which was a seminary or convent founded by that order. The Superior granted to La Salle a large tract of land at La Chine, where he established himself in the fur trade. Ile was a man of daring genius, and outstripped all his

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. .

competitors in exploits of travel and com- merce with the Indians. In 1669. he vis- ited the headquarters of the great Iroquois confederacy, at Onondaga, in the heart of New York, and obtaining guides, explored the Ohio River to the falls at Louisville.

In order to understand the genins of La Salle, it minst be remembered that for many years prior to his time the mission- aries and traders were obliged to make their way to the Northwest by the Ottawa River (of Canada) on account of the fierce hostility of the Iroquois along the lower lakes and Niagara River, which entirely closed this latter route to the UpperLakes. They carried on their commerce chiefly by canoes, paddling them through the Ottawa to Lake Nipissing, carrying them across the portage to French River, and descend- ing that to Lake IIuron. This being the route by which they reached the Northwest accounts for the fact that all the earliest Jesuit missions were established in the neighborhood of the Upper Lakes. La Salle conceived the grand idea of opening the ronte by Niagara River and the Lower Lakes to Canadian commerce by sail vessels connecting it with the navigation of the Mississippi, and thus opening a magnificent water communication from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. This truly grand and comprehensive purpose seems to have animated him in all his wonderful achievements and the matchless difficulties and hardships he surmounted. As the first step in the accomplishment of this object he established himself on Lake Ontario, and built and garrisoned Fort Frontenac, the site of the present city of Kingston, Canada. IIere he obtained a grant of land from the French crown, and

a body of troops by which lie beat back the invading Iroquois and cleared the passage to Niagara Falls. Having by this masterly stroke made it safe to attempt a hitherto untried expedition, his next step, as we have seen, was to advance to the Falls with all his outfit for building a ship with which to sail the lakes. He was snecessful in this undertaking, though his ultimate pur- pose was defeated by a strange combination of untoward cireninstances. The Jesnits evidently hated La Salle and plotted against him, because he had abandoned them and co-operated with a rival order. The fur traders were also jealous of his superior snecess in opening new channels of com- merec. At La Chine he had taken the trade of Lake Ontario, which but for his presence there would have gone to Quebee. While they were plodding with their bark canoes through the Ottawa he was constructing sailing vessels to command the trade of the lakes and the Mississippi. These great plans excited the jealousy and envy of the small traders, introduced treason and revolt into the ranks of his own companions, and finally led to the foul assassination by which his great achievements were prematurely ended.

In 1682, La Salle, having completed his vessel at Peoria, descended the Mississippi to its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico. Erecting a standard on which he inscribed the arms of France, he took formal posses- sion of the whole valley of the mighty river, in the name of Louis XIV, then reigning, in honor of whom he named the country LOUISIANA.

La Salle then went to France, was ap- pointed Governor, and returned with a fleet and immigrants, for the purpose of

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

planting a colony in Illinois. They arrived in due time in the Gulf of Mexico, but failing to find the month of the Mississippi, up which La Salle intended to sail, his supply ship, with the immigrants, was driven ashore and wrecked on Matagorda Bay. With the fragments of the vessel he constructed a stockade and rude huts ou the shore for the protection of the immi- grants, calling the post Fort St. Louis. IIe then made a trip into New Mexico, in search of silver mines, but, meeting with disappointment, returned to find his little colony reduced to forty souls. Ile then resolved to travel on foot to Illinois, and, starting with his companions, had reached the valley of the Colorado, near the month of Trinity river, when he was shot by one of his men. This occurred on the 19th of March, 1687.

Dr. J. W. Foster remarks of him : "Thus fell, not far from the banks of the Trinity, Robert Cavalier de la Salle, one of the grandest characters that ever figured in American history-a man capable of originating the vastest seliemes, and en- dowed with a will and a judgment capable of carrying them to snecessful results. Had ample facilities been placed by the King of France at his disposal, the result of the colonization of this continent might have been far different from what we now behold."

CARLY SETTLEMENTS.

A temporary settlement was made at Fort St. Louis, or the old Kaskaskia village, on the Illinois River, in what is now La Salle County, in 1682. In 1690, this was removed, with the mission connected with it, to Kaskaskia, on the river of that name,

emptying into the lower Mississippi in St. Clair County. Cahokia was settled about the same time, or at least, both of these settlements began in the year 1690, though it is now pretty well settled that Cahokia is the older place, and ranks as the oldest permanent settlement in Illinois, as well as in the Mississippi Valley. The reason for the removal of the old Kaskaskia settle- ment and mission, was probably because the dangerous and difficult route by Lake Michigan and the Chicago portage had been alnost abandoned, and travelers and traders passed down and np the Mississippi by the Fox and Wisconsin River route. They re- moved to the vicinity of the Mississippi in order to be in the line of travel from Can- ada to Louisiana, that is, the lower part of it, for it was all Louisiana then south of the lakes.

During the period of French rule in Louisiana, the population probably never exceeded ten thousand, including whites and blaeks. Within that portion of it now ineluded in Indiana, trading posts were es- tablished at the principal Miami villages which stood on the head waters of the Maumee, the Wea villages situated at Oniatenon, on the Wabash, and the Pian- keshaw villages at Post Vincennes; all of which were probably visited by Freneh traders and missionaries before the elose of the seventeenth century.

In the vast territory claimed by the French, many settlements of considerable importance had sprung up. Biloxi, on Mobile Bay, had been founded by D'Iber- ville, in 1699; Antoine de Lamotte Cadillac had founded Detroit in 1701; and New Orleans had been founded by Bienville, under the auspices of the Mississippi Com-

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

pany, in 1718. In Illinois also, considera- ble settlements had been made, so that in 1730 they embraced one hundred and forty French families, about six hundred "con- verted Indians," and many traders and voyageurs. In that portion of the country, on the east side of the Mississippi, there were five distinct settlements, with their respective villages, viz .: Cahokia, near the mouth of Cahokia Creek and about five iniles below the present city of St. Louis; St. Philip, about forty-five miles below Ca- hokia, and four miles above Fort Chartres; Fort Chartres, twelve miles above Kaskas- kia; Kaskaskia, situated on the Kaskaskia River, five miles above its confluence with the Mississippi; and Prairie du Rocher, near Fort Chartres. To these must be add- ed St. Genevieve and St. Louis, on the west side of the Mississippi. These with the exception of St. Lonis, are among the oldest French towns in the Mississippi Valley. Kaskaskia, in its best days, was a town of some two or three thousand inhabitants. After it passed from the crown of France its population for many years did not ex- ceed fifteen hundred. Under British rule, in 1773, the population had decreased to four hundred and fifty. As early as 1721 the Jesuits had established a college and a monastery in Kaskaskia.

Fort Chartres was first built under the direction of the Mississippi Company, in 1718, by M. de Boisbraint, a military officer, under command of Bienville. It stood on the east bank of the Mississippi, about eighteen miles below Kaskaskia, and was for some time the headquarters of the mil- itary commandants of the district of Illinois.

In the Centennial Oration of Dr. Fowler, delivered at Philadelphia, by appointment

of Gov. Beveridge, we find some interesting facts with regard to the State of Illinois, which we appropriate in this history:

In 1682 Illinois became a possession of the French crown, a dependency of Canada, and a part of Louisiana. In 1765 the Eng- lish flag was run up on old Fort Chartres, and Illinois was counted among the treas- ures of Great Britain.

In 1779 it was taken from the English by Col. George Rogers Clark. This man was resolute in nature, wise in council, prudent in policy, bold in action, and heroic in danger. Few men who have figured in the history of America are more deserving than this colonel. Nothing short of first- class ability could have rescued Vincennes and all Illinois from the English. And it is not possible to over-estimate the influence of this achievement upon the republic. In 1779 Illinois became a part of Virginia. It was soon known as Illinois County. In 1784 Virginia ceded all this territory to the general government, to be ent into States, to be republican in form, with "the same right of sovereignty, freedom, and inde- pendence as the other States."

In 1787 it was the object of the wisest and ablest legislation found in any merely human records. No man can study the secret history of

THE "COMPACT OF 1787,"

and not feel that Providence was gniding with sleepless eye tliese nnborn States. The ordinance that on July 13, 1787, finally be- came the incorporating act, has a most marvelous history. Jefferson had vainly tried to secure a system of government for the northwestern territory. Ile was an emancipationist of that day, and favored the

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

exclusion of slavery from the territory Vir- ginia had ceded to the general government; but the South voted him down as often as it came up. In 1787, as late as July 10th, an organizing aet without the anti-slavery clause was pending. This coneession to the South was expected to carry it. Congress was in session in New York City. On July 5th, Rev. Dr. Mannasseh Cutler, of Massa- chusetts, came into New York to lobby on the northwestern territory. Everything seemed to fall into his hands. Events were ripe.

The state of the public eredit, the growing of Southern prejudice, the basis of his mis- sion. his personal eharacter, all combined to complete one of those sudden and marvelous revolutions of public sentiment that once in five or ten centuries are seen to sweep over a country like the breath of the Almighty. Cutler was a graduate of Yale-received his A. M. from Harvard, and his D. D. from Yale. He had studied and taken degrees in the three learned professions, medicine, law, and divinity. He had thus America's best indorsement. Ile had published a scientific examination of the plants of New England. Ilis name stood second only to that of Franklin as a scientist in America. Ile was a courtly gentleman of the old style, a man of commanding presence, and of inviting face. The Southern members said they had never seen such a gentleman in the North. IIe came representing a company that desired to purchase a traet of land now included in Ohio, for the purpose of plant- ing a colony. It was a speculation. Gov- ernment money was worth eighteen cents on the dollar. This Massachusetts company had collected enough to purchase 1,500,000 acres of land. Other speculators in New

York made Dr. Cutler their agent (lobbyist). On the 12th he represented a demand for 5,500,000 acres. This would reduce the national debt. Jefferson and Virginia were regarded as authority concerning the land Virginia had just ceded. Jefferson's policy wanted to provide for the public eredit, and this was a good opportunity to do some- thing.

Massachusetts then owned the Territory of Maine, which she was crowding on the market. She was opposed to opening the northwestern region. This fired the zeal of Virginia. The South caught the inspiration, and all exalted Dr. Cutler. The English minister invited him to dine with some of the Southern gentlemen. He was the cen- ter of interest.

The entire South rallied round him, Massachusetts could not vote against him, because many of the constituents of her members were interested personally in the western speculation. Thus Cutler, making friends with the South, and, doubtless, using all the arts of the lobby, was enabled to command the situation. True to deeper convictions, he dictated one of the most compact and finished documents of wise statesmanship that has ever adorned any human law book. He borrowed from Jef- ferson the term "Articles of Compact," which, preceding the Federal constitution, rose into the most saered character. He then followed very closely the constitution of Massachusetts, adopted three years be- fore. Its most marked points were:

1. The exclusion of slavery from the ter- ritory forever.

2. Provision for public schools, giving one township for a seminary, and every see- tion numbered 16 in each township; that

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

is, one thirty-sixth of all the land, for public schools.

3. A provision prohibiting the adop- tion of any constitution or the enactment of any law that should nullify pre-existing contracts.

Be it forever remembered that this com- pact declared that " Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good govern- ment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall always be encouraged."

Dr. Cutler planted himself on this plat- form and would not yield. Giving his unqualified declaration that it was that or nothing-that unless they could make the land desirable they did not want it-hc took his horse and buggy, and started for the constitutional convention in Phila- delphia. On July 13, 1787, the bill was put upon its passage, and was unanimously adopted, every Sonthern member voting for it, and only one man, Mr. Yates, of New York, voting against it. But as the States voted as States, Yates lost his vote, and the compact was put beyond repeal.

Thus the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin-a vast empire. the heart of the great valley-were consecrated to freedom, intelligence and honesty. Thus the great heart of the na- tion was prepared for a year and a day and an hour. In the light of these eighty-nine ycars I affirm that this act was the salva- tion of the republic and the destruction of slavery. Soon the South saw their great blunder, and tried to repeal the compact. In 1803. Congress re.erred it to a commit- tee of which John Randolph was chairman. He reported that this ordinance was a com- paet, and opposed repeal. Thus it stood a

rock, in the way of the on-rushing sea of slavery.

With all this timely aid, it was, after all, a most desperate and protracted strug- gle to keep the soil of Illinois sacred to freedom. It was the natural battle-fiekl for the irrepressible conflict. In the southern end of the State, slavery preceded the compact. It existed among the old French settlers, and was hard to eradicate. The southern part of the State was settled from the slave States, and this population brought their laws, customs and institu- tions with them. A stream of population from the North poured into the northern part of the State. These sections misun- derstood and hated each other perfectly. The Southerners regarded the Yankees as a skinning, tricky, penurious race of ped- dlers, filling the country with tinware, brass clocks and wooden nutmegs. The Northerner thought of the Southerner as a lean, lank, lazy creature, burrowing in a hnt, and rioting in whisky, dirt and igno- rance. These causes aided in making the struggle long and bitter. So strong was the sympathy with slavery, that in spite of the ordinance of 1787, and in spite of the deed of cession, it was determined to allow the old French settlers to retain their slaves. Planters from the slave States might bring their slaves, if they would give them a chance to choose freedom or years of service and bondage for their chil- dren till they should become thirty years of age. If they chose freedom they must leave the State in sixty days or be sold as fugitives. Servants were whipped for of- fenses for which white men are fined. Each lash paid forty cents of the finc. A negro ten miles from home without a pass

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

was whipped. These famous laws were imported from the slave States just as they imported laws for the inspection of flax and wool when there was neither in the State.

These Black Laws are now wiped out. A vigorons effort was made to protect slavery in the State Constitution of 1817. It barely failed. It was renewed in 1825, when a convention was asked to make a new constitution. After a hard fight the convention was defeated. But slaves did not disappear from the census of the State until 1850. There were mobs and mur- ders in the interest of slavery. Lovejoy was added to the list of martyrs-a sort of first fruits of that long life of immortal heroes who saw freedom as the one supreme desire of their souls, and were so enam- ored of her, that they preferred to die rather than survive her."

The population of 12,282 that occupied the Territory in A. D. 1800, increased to 45.000 in A. D. 1818, when the State Con- stitution was adopted, and Illinois took her place in the Union, with a star on the flag and two votes in the Senate.

Shadrach Bond was the first Governor, and in his first message he recommended the construction of the Illinois and Miehi- gan Canal.

The simple economy in those days is seen in the fact the entire bill for station- cry for the first Legislature was only $13.50. Yet this simple body actually enacted a very superior eode.

There was no money in the Territory before the war of 1812. Deer skins and coon skins were the circulating medium. In 1821, the Legislature ordained a State Bank on the credit of the State. It issued

notes in the likeness of bank bills. These notes were made a legal tender for every thing, and the bank was ordered to loan to the people $100 on personal security, and more on mortgages. They actually passed a resolution requesting the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States to re- eeive these notes for land. The old French Lieutenant Governor, Col. Menard, put the resolution as follows: "Gentlemen of the Senate: It is moved and seconded dat de notes of dis bank be made land office money. All in favor of dat motion say aye; all against it say no. It is decide l in de af- firmative. Now, gentlemen, I bet you one hundred dollar he never be land-office money!" Hard sense, like hard money, is always above par.

This old Frenchman presents a fine fig- ure up against the dark background of most of his nation. They made no prog- ress. They clung to their earliest and simplest implements. They never wore hats or eaps. They pulled their blankets over their heads in the winter like the In- dians, with whom they freely intermin- gled.

Demagogism had an early development. One John Grammar (only in name), elected to the Territorial and State Legislatures of 1816 and 1836, invented the policy of op- posing every new thing, saying, "If it succeeds, no one will ask who voted against it. If it proves a failure, he could quote its record." In sharp contrast with Gram- mar was the character of D. P. Cook, after whom the county containing Chicago was named. Such was his transparent integri- ty and remarkable ability that his will was almost the law of the State. In Congress, a young man, and from a poor State, he was

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

made Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. IIe was pre-eminent for standing by his committee, regardless of consequences. It was his integrity that elected John Quincy Adams to the Presi- deney. There were four candidates in 1824, Jackson, Clay, Crawford, and John Quincy Adams. There being no choice by the people, the election was thrown into the House. It was so bilaneed that it turned on his vote, and that he cast for Adams, electing him ; then went home to face the wrath of the Jackson party in Illinois. It cost him all but character and greatness. It is a suggestive comment on the times, that there was no legal interest till 1830. It often reached 150 per cent., usually 50 per cent. Then it was reduced to 12, and now to 10 per cent.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE PRAIRIE STATE.

In area the State has 55,410 square miles of territory. It is about 150 miles wide and 400 miles long, stretching in latitude from Maine to North Carolina. It embraces wide variety of elimate. It is tempered on the north by the great inland. saltless, tide- less sea, which keeps the thermometer from either extreme. Being a table land, from 600 to 1,200 feet above the level of the sea, one is prepared to find on the health maps, prepared by the general government, an al- most elean and perfeet record. In freedom from fever and malarial diseases and con- sumptions, the three deadly enemies of the American Saxon, Illinois, as a State, stands without a superior. She furnishes one of the essential conditions of a great people- sound bodies. I suspect that this fact lies baek of that old Delaware word, Illini, su- perior men.

The great battles of history that have been determinative of dynasties and desti- nies have been strategical battles, chiefly the question of position. Thermopyla has been the war-ery of freemen for twenty-four centuries. It only tells how much there may be in position. All this advantage belongs to Illinois. It is in the heart of the greatest valley in the world, the vast region between the mountains-a valley that could feed mankind for one thousand years. It is well on toward the center of the continent. It is in the great temperate belt, in which have been found nearly all the aggressive civilizations of history. It has sixty-five miles of frontage on the head of the lake. With the Mississippi forming the western and southern boundary, with the Ohio running along the southeastern line, with the Illinois river and canal divid- ing the State diagonally from the lake to the lower Mississippi, and with the Rock and Wabash rivers, furnishing altogether 2,000 miles of water front, connecting with, and running through, in all about 12,000 miles of navigable water.

But this is not all. These waters are made most available by the fact that the lake and the State lie on the ridge running into the great valley from the east. Within cannon-shot of the lake, the water runs away from the lake to the gulf. The lake now empties at both ends, one into the At- lantie and one into the gulf of Mexico. The lake thus seems to hang over the land. This makes the dockare most serviceable; there are no steep banks to damage it. Both lake and river are made for use.

The elimate varies from Portland to Richmond; it favors every prodnet of the continent, including the tropics, with less

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

than half a dozen exceptions. It produces every great nutriment of the world except bananas and rice. It is hardly too much to say that it is the most prodnetive spot known to civilization. With the soil full of bread and the earth full of minerals; with an upper surface of food and an un- der layer of fuel; with perfect natural drain- age, and abundant springs and streams and navigable rivers; half way between the for- ests of the north and the fruits of the south; within a day's ride of the great deposits of iron, coal, copper, lead and zine; contain- ing and controlling the great grain, cattle, pork and lumber markets of the world, it is not strange that Illinois has the advan- tage of position.

This advantage has been supplemented by the character of the population. In the early days when Illinois was first admitted to the union, her population were chiefly from Kentucky and Virginia. But, in the confliet of ideas concerning slavery, a strong tide of emigration came in from the East, and soon changed this composition. In 1870 her non-native population were from colder soils. New York furnished 133,290; Oliio gave 162,623; Pennsylvania sent on 98,352; the entire Sonth gave us only 206,734. In all her cities, and in all her German and Scandinavian and other foreign colonies, Illinois has only abont one-fifth of her people of foreign birthi.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Grundy County, Illinois, Part 8

Author: Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago, O. L. Baskin Number of Pages: 506

Author:
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, O. L. Baskin
Number of Pages: 506