History of Grundy County, Illinois, Part 9

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

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PROGRESS OF DEVELOPMENT.

One of the greatest elements in the early development of Illinois is the Illi- nois and Michigan Canal. connecting the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers with the lakes. It was of the utmost importance to the State. It was r co unended by Gov.

Bond, the first governor, in his first mnes- sage. In 1821, the Legislature appropri- ated $10,000 for surveying the route. Two bright yonng engineers surveyed it, and estimated the cost at $600,000 or 8700,000. It finally cost $8,000,000. In 1825, a law was passed to incorporate the Canal Com- pany, but no stoek was sold. In 1826, upon the solicitation of Cook, Congress gave 800,000 acres of land on the line of the work. In 1828, another law-commis- sioners appointed, and work commeneed with new survey and new estimates. In 1834-35, George Farquhar made an able report on- the whole matter. This was, doubtless, the ablest report ever made to a western legislature, and it became the model for subsequent reports and action. From this, the work went on till it was finished in 1848. It cost the State a large amount of money; but it gave to the in- dustries of the State an impetus that pushed it up into the first rank of great- ness. It was not built as a speculation any more than a doctor is employed ou a speen- lation. But it has paid into the treasury of the State an average annual net sum of over $111,000.

Pending the construction of the canal, the land and town-lot fever broke out in the State, in 1834-35. It took on the malignant type in Chicago, lifting the town np into a city. The disease spread over the entire State and adjoining States. It was epidemic. It eut up men's farms without regard to locality, and eut up the purses of the purchasers withont regard to consequences. It is estimated that build- ing lots enough were sold in Indiana alone to accommodate every eitizen then in the United States.

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

Towns and eities were exported to the Eastern market by the ship-load. There was no lack of buyers. Every up-ship came freighted with speculators and their money.

This distempter seized upon the Legis- lature in 1836-37, and left not one to tell the tale. They enacted a system of inter- nal improvement without a parallel in the grandeur of its conception. They ordere l the construction of 1,300 miles of railroad, crossing the State in all directions. This was surpassed by the river and canal im- provements. There were a few counties not touched by either railroad or river or canal, and those were to be comforted and compensated by the free distribution of $200,000 among them. To inflate this balloon beyond credence, it was ordered that work should be commenced on both ends of each of these railroads and rivers, and at each river erossing, all at the same time. The appropriations for these vast improvements were over $12,000.000, and commissioners were appointed to borrow the money on the credit of the State. Re- member that all this was in the early days of railroading, when railroads were luxu- ries; that the State had whole counties with scarcely a cabin; and that the popu- lation of the State was less than 400,000, and you can form some idea of the vigor with which these brave men undertook the work of making a great State. In the light of history I am compelled to say that this was only a premature throb of the power that actually slumbered in the soil of the State. It was Hercules in the era- dle.

At this juneture the State Bank loaned its funds largely to Godfrey Gilman & Co.

and to other leading houses, for the pur- pose of drawing trade from St. Louis to Alton. Soon they failed and took down the bank with them.

In 1840, all hope seemed gone. A pop- ulation of 480,000 were loaded with a debt of $14,000,000. It had only six small eities, really only towns, namely: Chicago, Alton, Springfield, Quincy, Galena, Nau- voo. This debt was to be cared for when there was not a dollar in the treasury, and when the State had borrowed itself out of all eredit, and when there was not good money enough in the hands of all the peo- ple to pay the interest of the debt for a single year. Yet, in the presence of all these difficulties, the young State steadily refused to repudiate. Gov. Ford took hold of the problem and solved it, bringing the State through in triumph.

Having touched lightly upon some of the more distinctive points in the history of the development of Illinois, let us next briefly consider the

MATERIAL RESOURCES OF THE STATE.

It is a garden four hundred miles long and one hundred and fifty miles wide. Its soil is chiefly a black sandy loam, from six inches to sixty feet thick. On the Ameri- ean bottoms it has been cultivated for one hundred and fifty years without renewal.

About the old French towns it has yield- ed corn for a century and a half without rest or help. It produces nearly every- thing green in the temperate and tropical zones. She leads all other States in the number of acres actually under plow. Her products from 25,000,000 of acres are in- calculable. Her mineral wealth is scaree- ly second to her agricultural power. She

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

has coal, iron, Jead, copper, zine, many va- rieties of building stone, fire elay, enma elav, common brick clay, sand of all kinds, gravel, mineral paint-everything nee Jed for a high civilization. Left to herself, she has the elements of all greatness. The single item of coal is too vast for an appre- ciative handling in figures. We can han- dle it in general terms like algebraical signs, but long before we get up into the millions and billions the human mind drops down from comprehension to mere symbolic apprehension.

When I tell you that nearly four-fifths of the entire State is underlaid with a de- posit of coal more than forty feet thiek on the average (now estimated by recent sur- veys, at seventy feet thick), you can get some idea of its amount, as you do of the amount of the national debt. There it is! 41,000 square miles-one vast mine into which you could put any of the States; in which you could bury scores of European and ancient empires, and have room all round to work withont knowing that they had been sepnlchered there.

Put this vast coal- bed down by the other great coal deposits of the world, and its importance becomes manifest. Great Brit- ain has 12,000 square miles of coal; Spain, 3,000; France, 1719; Belgium, 578; Illinois abont twice as many square miles as all combined. Virginia has 20,000 square miles; Pennsylvania, 16,000; Ohio, 12.000. Illinois has 41,000 square miles. One- seventh of all the known coal on this con- tinent is in Illinois.

Could we sell the coal in this single State for one-seventh of one cent a ton, it would pay the national debt. Converted into power, even with the wastage in our com-

mon engines, it would do more work than could be done by the entire race, beginning at Adam's wedding and working ten hours a day through all the centuries till the pres- ent time, and right on into the future at the same rate for the next 600,000 years.

Great Britain uses enough mechanical power to-day to give to each man, woman, and child in the kingdom, the help and ser- vice of nineteen untiring servants. No wonder she has leisure and luxuries. No wonder the home of the common artisan has in it more Inxuries than could be found in the palace of good old King Arthur. Think if you can conceive of it, of the vast army of servants that shunber in the soil of Illinois, impatiently awaiting the call of Genius to come forth to minister to our comfort.

At the present rate of consumption Eng- land's coal supply will be exhausted in 250 years. When this is gone she must transfer her dominion either to the Indies, or to British America, which I would not resist; or to some other people, which I would regret as a loss to civilization.

COAL IS KING.

At the same rate of consumption (which far exceeds our own), the deposit of coal in Illinois will last 120,000 years. And her kingdom shall be an everlasting king lom.

Let us turn now from this reserve power to the annual products of the State. We shall not be humiliated in this field. Here we strike the secret of our national credit. Nature provides a market in the constant appetite of the race. Men must eat, and if we can furnish the provisions we can com- mand the treasure. All that a man hath will he give for his life.

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

According to the last eensus Illinois pro- duced 30,000,000 of bushels of wheat. That is more wheat than was raised by any other State in the union. She raised in 1875, 130,000,000 of bushels of corn-twiee as much as any other State, and one-sixth of all the eorn raised in the United States. She harvested 2,747,000 tons of hay, nearly one-tenth of all the hay in the republic. It is not generally appreciated, but it is true that the hay crop of the country is worth more than the cotton erop. The liay of Illinois equals the eotton of Louisiana. Go to Charleston, S. C., and see them ped- dling handfuls of hay or grass, almost as a enriosity, as we regard Chinese gods or the eryolite of Greenland ; drink your coffee and condensed milk; and walk baek from the coast for many a league through the sand and burs till you get up into the hetter at- mosphere of the mountains, without seeing a waving meadow or a grazing herd; then you will begin to appreciate the meadows of the Prairie State, where the grass often grows sixteen feet high.

The value of her farm implements is $211,000,000, and the valne of her live stoek is only second to the great State of New York. In 1875 she had 25,000,000 hogs, and paeked 2,113,845, about one-half of all that were paeked in the United States. This is no insignificant item. Pork is a growing demand of the old world. Since the laborers of Europe have gotten a taste of our bacon, and we have learned how . to paek it dry in boxes, like dry goods, the world has beeome the market.

The hog is on the march into the future. IIis nose is ordained to uneover the secrets of dominion, and his feet shall be guided by the star of empire.

Illinois marketed $57,000,000 worth of slanghtered animals-more than any other State, and a seventh of all the States.

Be patient with me, and pardon my pride, and I will give you a list of some of the things in which Illinois excels all other States.

Depth and richness of soil; per cent. of good ground; acres of improved land; large farms-some farms contain from 40,000 to 60,000 acres of cultivated land, 40,000 acres of corn on a single farm; number of farm- ers; amount of wheat, corn, oats and honey prodneed; value of animals for slaughter; number of hogs; amount of pork; number of horses-three times as many as Ken- tucky, the horse State.

Illinois excels all other States in miles of railroads and in miles of postal service, and in money orders sold per annum, and in the amount of lumber sold in her mar- kets.

Illinois is only second in many important matters. This sample list comprises a few of the more important: Permanent school fund (good for a young State); total in- evme for educational purposes; number of publishers of books, maps, papers, etc .; value of farm products and implements, and of live stoek; in tons of coal mined.

The shipping of Illinois is only second to New York. Ont of one port during the business hours of the season of navigation she sends forth a vessel every ten minutes. This does not include canal boats, which go one every five minutes. No wonder she is only second in number of bankers and brokers or in physicians and surgeons.

She is third in. eollere", teachers and schools; cuttle, lead, hay, flax, sorghum and beeswax.

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

She is fourth in population, in children enrolled in public schools, in law schools, in butter, potatoes and carriages.

She is fifth in value of real and personal property, in theological seminaries and colleges exclusively for women, in milk sold, and in boots and shoes manufactured, and in book-binding.

She is only seventh in the production of wood, while she is the twelfth in area. Surely that is well done for the Prairie State. She now has much more wood and growing timber than she had thirty years ago.

A few leading industries will justify emphasis. She manufactures $205,000,000 worth of goods, which places her well up toward New York and Pennsylvania. The number of her manufacturing establish- ments increased from 1860 to 1870, 300 per cent .; capital employed increased 350 per cent., and the amount of product in- creased 400 per cent. She issued 5,500,000 copies of commercial and financial news- papers-only second to New York. She has 6,759 miles of railroad, thus leading all other States, worth $636,458,000, using 3,245 engines, and 67,712 cars, making a train long enough to cover one-tenth of the entire roads of the State. Her stations are only five miles apart. More than two- thirds of her land is within five miles of a railroad, and less than two per cent is more than fifteen miles away.

The State has a large financial interest in the Illinois Central railroad. The road was incorporated in 1850, and the State gave each alternate section for six miles on each side, and doubled the price of the re- maining land, so keeping herself good. The road received 2,595,000 acres of land,

and pays to the State one-seventh of the gross receipts. Add to, this the annual receipts from the canal, $111,000, and a large per cent. of the State tax is provided for.

TIIE RELIGION AND MORALS

of the State keep step with her productions and growth. She was born of the mission- ary spirit. It was a minister who secured for her the ordinance of 1787, by which she has been saved from slavery, ignorance, and dishonesty. Rev. Mr. Wiley, pastor of a Scotch congregation in Randolphlı County, petitioned the Constitutional Convention of 1818 to recognize Jesus Christ as king, and the scriptures as the only necessary guide and book of law. The convention did not act in the case, and the old covenanters refused to accept citizen- ship. They never voted until 1824, when the slavery question was submitted to the people; then they all voted against it and cast the determining votes. Conscience has predominated whenever a great moral question has been submitted to the people.

But little mob violence has ever been felt in the State. In 1817 regulators disposed of a band of horse-thieves that infested the Territory. The Mormon indignities finally awoke the same spirit. Alton was also the scene of a pro-slavery mob, in which Love- joy was added to the list of martyrs. The moral sense of the people makes the law supreme, and gives to the State unruffled peace.

With $22,300,000 in church property. and 4,29S church organizations, the State has that divine police, the sleepless patrol of moral ideas, that alone is able to secure perfect safety. Conscience takes the knife

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

from the assassin's hand and the bludgeon from the grasp of the highwayman. We sleep in safety, not because we are behind bolts and bars-these only fence against the innocent; not because a lone officer drowses on a distant corner of a street; not because a sheriff may call his posse from a remote part of the county; but because conscience guards the very portals of the air and stirs in the deepest re- cesses of the publie mind. This spirit issues within the State 9,500,000 copies of religious papers annually, and receives still more from without. Thus the crime of the State is only one fourth that of New York and one half that of Pennsylvania.

Illinois never had but one duel between her own citizens. In Belleville, in 1820, Alphonso Stewart and William Bennett arranged to vindicate injured honor. The seconds agreed to make it a sham, and make them shoot blanks. Stewart was in the secret. Bennett mistrusted something, and unobserved, slipped a bullet into his gun and killed Stewart. IIe then fled the State. After two years he was caught, tried, convicted, and, in spite of friends and political aid, was hung. This fixed the code of honor on a Christian basis, and terminated its use in Illinois.

The early preachers were ignorant men, who were accounted eloquent according to the strength of their voices. But they set the style for all public speakers. Lawyers and political speakers followed this rule. Gov. Ford says: "Nevertheless, these first preachers were of incalculable benefit to the country. They inculcated justice and morality. To them are we indebted for the first Christian character of the Protest- ant portion of the people."

In education Illinois surpasses her ma- terial resources. The ordinance of 1787 consecrated one thirty-sixth of hier soil to common schools, and the law of 1818, the . first law that went upon her statutes, gave three per cent of all the rest to

EDUCATION.

The old compact secures this interest forever, and by its yoking morality and intelligence it preeludes the legal interfer- ence with the Bible in the public schools. With such a start it is natural that we should have 11,050 schools, and that our illiteracy should be less than New York or Pennsylvania, and only about one half of Massachusetts. We are not to blame for not having more than one half as many idiots as the great States. These publie schools soon made colleges inevitable. The first college, still flourishing, was started in Lebanon in 1828, by the M. E. ehureh, and named after Bishop McKen- dree. Illinois College, at Jacksonville, supported by the Presbyterians, followed in 1830. In 1832 the Baptists built Shurt- leff College, at Alton. Then the Presby- terians built Knox College, at Galesburg, in 1838, and the Episcopalians built Jubilee College, at Peoria, in 1847. After these early years, colleges have rained down. A settler could hardly encamp on the prairie but a college won'd spring up by his wagon. The State now has one very well endowed and equipped university, namely, the Northwestern University, at Evanston, with six colleges, ninety instructors, over 1,000 students, and $1,500,000 endowment.

Rev. J. M. Peck was the first edneated Protestant minister in the State. IIe settled at Rock Spring, in St. Clair County,

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

1820, and left his impress on the State. Before 1837 only party papers were pub- lished, but Mr. Peck published a Gazetteer of Illinois. Soon after John Russell, of Bluffdale, published essays and tales show- ing genius. Judge James Hall published The Illinois Monthly Magazine with great ability, and an annual called The Western Sourenir, which gave him an enviable fame all over the United States. From these beginnings, Illinois has gone on till she has more volumes in publ e libraries even than Massachusetts, and of the 44,- 500,000 volumes in all the public libraries of the United States, she has one thirteenth. In newspapers she stands fourth. Her inerease is marvelous.

This brings us to a record unsurpassed in the history of any age.

THE WAR RECORD OF ILLINOIS.

I hardly know where to begin, or how to advance, or what to say. I ean at best give you only a broken synopsis of her deeds, and you must put them in the order of glory for yourself. Her sons have always been foremost on fields of danger. In 1832-33, at the call of Gov. Reynolds, her sons drove Blackhawk over the Mississippi.

When the Mexican war eame, in May, 1846, 8,370 men offered themselves when only 3,720 could be accepted. The fields of Buena Vista and Vera Cruz, and the storming of Cerro Gordo, will carry the glory of Illinois soldiers long after the causes that led to that war have been forgotten. But it was reserved till our day for her sons to find a field and cause and foemen that could fitly illustrate their spirit and heroism. Illinois put into her own regiments for the United States government

256,000 men, and into the army through other States enough to swell the number to 290,000. This far exceeds all the soldiers of the Federal government in all the war of the Revolution. IIer total years of service were over 600,000. She eurolled men from eighteen to forty-five years of age when the law of Congress in 1864- the test time-only asked for those from twenty to forty-five. Iler enrollment was otherwise excessive. Her people wanted to go, and did not take the pains to correet the enrollment. Thus the basis of fixing the quota was too great, and then the quota itself, at least in the trying time, was far above any other State.

Thus the demand on some counties, as Monroe, for example, took every able-bod- ied man in the county, and then did not have enough to fill the quota. Moreover, Illinois sent 20,844 men for ninety or one hundred days, for whom no eredit was asked. When Mr. Lincoln's attention was called to the inequality of the quota eon- pared with other States, he replied : " The country needs the sacrifice. We must put the whip on the free horse." In spite of all these disadvantages Illinois gave to the country 73,000 years of service above all ealls. With one thirteenth of the popula- tion of the loyal States, she sent regularly one tenth of all the soldiers, and in the peril of the elosing ealls, when patriots were few and weary, she then sent one eighth of all that were called for by her loved and honored son in the White House. Her mothers and daughters went into the fields to raise the grain and keep the children together, while the fathers and older sons went to the harvest fields of the world. I knew a father and four sons who

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

agreed that one of them must stay at home ; and they pulled straws from a stack to see who might go. The father was left. The next day he came into the camp, saying : " Mother says she can get the erops in, and I am going, too." I know large Methodist churches from which every male member went to the army. Do you want to know what these heroes from Illinois did in the field ? Ask any soldier with a good record of his own, who is able to judge, and he will tell you that the Illinois men went in to win. It is common history that the greater victories were won in the West. When everything else looked dark Illinois was gaining vietories all down the river, and dividing the Confederacy. Sherman took with him on his great march forty- five regiments of Illinois infantry, three companies of artillery, and one company of cavalry. He could not avoid

GOING TO TIIE SEA.

If he had been killed, I doubt not the men would have gone right on. Lincoln answered all rumors of Sherman's defeat with, "It is impossible; there is a mighty sight of fight in 100,000 Western men." Illinois soldiers brought home 300 battle- flags. The first United States flag that floated over Richmond, was an Illinois flag. She sent messengers and nurses to every field and hospital, to care for her sick and wounded sons. She said, " these suffering ones are my sons, and I will care for them."

When individuals had given all, thien cities and towns came forward with their credit to the extent of many millions, to aid these men and their families.

Illinois gave the country the great general of the war-Ulysses S. Grant-

since honored with two terms of the Presi- deney of the United States.

One other name from Illinois comes up in all minds, embalmed in all hearts, that must have the supreme place in this story of our glory and of our nation's honor; that name is Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois.

The analysis of Mr. Lincoln's character is difficult on account of its symmetry.

In this age we look with admiration at his uncompromising honesty. And well we may, for this saved us. Thousands throughout the length and breadth of our country, who knew him only as " HIonest Old Abe," voted for him on that account; and wisely did they choose, for no other man could have earricd us through the fearful night of the war. When his plans were too vast for our comprehension, and his faith in the cause too sublime for our participation; when it was all night about us, and all dread before us, and all said and desolate behind us; when not one ray shone upon our cause; when traitors wore haughty and exultant at the South, and fierce and blasphemous at the North; when the loyal men here seemed almost in the minority; when the stoutest heart quailed, the bravest cheek paled. when generals were defeating each other for place, and contractors were leeching out the very heart's blood of the prostrate republic; when every thing else had failed us, we looked at this calin, patient man, standing like a rock in the storm, and said: " Mr. Lincoln is honest, and we can trust him still." Holding to this single point with the energy of faith and despair we held together. and, under God, he brought us through to victory.

His practical wisdom made him the

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

wonder of all lands. With such certainty did Mr. Lincoln follow canses to their ultimate effects, that his foresight of con- tingencies seemed almost prophetic.

He is radiant with all the great virtues, and his memory shall shed a glory upon this age, that shall fill the eyes of men as they look into history. Other men have excelled him in some point, but, taken at all points, all in all, he stands head and shoulders above every other man of 6,000 years. An administrator, he saved the na- tion in the perils of unparalleled civil war. A statesman, he justified his measures by their success. A philanthropist, he gave liberty to one race and salvation to another. A moralist, he bowed from the summit of human power to the foot of the Cross, and became a Christian. A mediator, he exer- cised mercy under the most absolute abey- ance to law. · A leader, he was no partisan. A commander, he was untainted with blood. A rnler in desperate times, he was unsullied with crime. A man, he has left no word of passion, no thought of malice, no trick of craft, no act of jealousy, no pur- pose of selfish ambition. Thus perfected, without a model and without a peer, lie was dropped into these troubled years to adorn and embellish all that is good and all that is great in onr humanity, and to present to all coming time the representa- tive of the divine idea of free government.

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History of Grundy County, Illinois, Part 9

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