History of La Salle County, Illinois, Part 5

Author: Hoffman, U. J. (Urias John), b. 1855
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1286

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ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL.

The reader may wonder why the history of the canal connecting the Illinois River with Lake Michigan should be introduced at this point in the history of La Salle County. The canal was the greatest undertaking in the early part of the century and was the chief factor in the making of Chicago and the settlement of northern Illinois.

The state received American settlers immediate- ly after the close of the Revolutionary war. The first to come were soldiers who served with Clark in the conquest of the Northwest Territory. They received grants of land from the government and settled about Kaskaskia and the southern part of the. state. The Illinois territory was organ- ized in 1809 and in 1818 it was admitted as a state. The law organizing the Northwest Ter- ritory provided when it was organized into states the northern boundary line of what became Illi- nois should be a line due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. This would have made the northern line of La Salle County the state line. Nathaniel Pope, Illinois delegate in Congress, was impressed with the advantage that the new state would have if it had a lake port. By his efforts the line was fixed where it now is. This led to a bitter controversy for many years. The southern settlers were from the southern states. The northern were from the northern states. The southern held a good many slaves and favored slavery. The northern settlers, who were Whigs, objected to being ruled by the south- ern, who were Democrats. The people of Wis- consin took no interest in the controversy for they feared that Galena would then be made the capital of Wisconsin. The people of Chicago were indifferent for the same reason.

The fur trade was the greatest interest of the generation after the close of the Revolution. St. Louis became the fur trading center. Lewis and Clark made their exploration from St. Louis to the Pacific. It was the fur trade more than anything else that animated this expedition. John Jacob Astor had his agents all over the northwest as far as the Pacific. The Mississippi became the highway for the fur trade. Lead was dis-

covered at Galena and that became a prosperous frontier town. The Illinois River became the highway between the lakes and the Mississippi as it had been in the days of La Salle. At high water the fur traders were able to push their boats through the lakes and sloughs between the Chicago River and the Des Plaines. The waters of the same lakes and sloughs flowed into both rivers, which were the same level as the lake.

The French explorers made note of the fact that a canal could easily be cut and form a water- way from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf. The fur traders noted the same thing.

The United States government built a fort at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1804. In 1812 the commander at Detroit ordered the soldiers to evacuate the fort. While the soldiers were out of the fort they were fallen upon by the In- dians and massacred. The fort was rebuilt in 1816 and a company of soldiers kept there until 1836.

In 1830 there was no one at Chicago except John Kinzie, his helpers in the fur trade mostly French and half-breeds, and the soldiers.

In 1814 President Madison in his message to Congress called attention to the feasibility of a canal, calling it the "great work of the age." Ninian Edwards, afterward governor, was one of the commissioners to form a treaty with the In- dians in 1816. He says that the Indians were induced to sign a treaty ceding land to the gov- ernment by being told that a canal would be of great advantage to them. In 1814 the Niles Register contained this passage: "By the Illinois River it is probable that Buffalo in New York, may be united with New Orleans, by inland navi- gation, through lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan, and down the Mississippi. What a route! How stupendous the idea ! How dwindles the import- ance of the canals of Europe compared with this water communication ! If it should ever take place (and it is said that the opening can be easi- ly made) the Territory of Illinois will become the seat of an immense commerce and a market for the commodities of all regions." And this prophecy was made when the territory compris- ing Ohio, Indiana and Illinois was a wilderness !

In 1817 Major Long made a report to Con- gress in which he said a canal could be considered of greatest importance to the country and could be made with little difficulty. In 1819 Gov- ernor Bond recommended the construction of a canal. In 1819 John Calhoun, Secretary of War, called the attention of Congress to the canal as of military importance.

The General Assembly in 1822-23 appointed a Board of Canal Commissioners to make esti- mates for completing the canal. This board

PAST AND PRESENT OF LA SALLE COUNTY.

consisted of Emanuel J. West, Erastus Brown, Theopholis W. Smith, Thomas Sloe and Samuel

Alexander. The board appointed Rene Paul and Justin Post as engineers to survey the route and make estimates. They reported that a canal was highly practicable and would cost $640,000. The survey alone cost $10.589.87. Their esti- mates were about one-tenth of what it afterward cost.

Every governor advocated the canal in his mes- sage and every General Assembly did something to further the undertaking. In 1829 the Gen- eral Assembly organized a new Board of Canal Commissioners. In 1831 this act was amended. The board laid out the towns of Chicago and Ottawa. At that time only seven families lived at Chicago. There were a few more at Ottawa. The surveyor was James Thompson. Town lots and canal lands were sold, the proceeds amount- ing to $18.924.83. Another survey was made

by Mr. Bucklin.

He estimated the cost at

$4.043.386.50. A railroad, he estimated, would

cost $1,052,488.19. In 1827 Congress granted the state of Illinois a belt of land along the canal three miles wide, the proceeds from the sale of this land were to be used in building the canal.

It is unnecessary here to give the details of the further struggle to start the building of the ca- nal. We must remember it was in a wilderness. Machinery, as well as methods, was crude. Every possible hardship was in the way. It is no won- der mistakes were made and great sums of money were wasted. The state was greatly embar- rassed by bank failures. enormous debts con- tracted in schemes of internal improvement. But at last the digging of the canal actually began.

In 1830 the population of Chicago was seven families. When work on the canal began the population numbered about 3,000. The pros- pect for great things from the new enterprise caused a rush to northern Illinois. All the inci- dents of a "boom" town were enacted, speculation in town lots, fortunes made and lost in a day. Chi- cago was in a swamp and the land for miles out was swamp. It was then that nearly every old settler had a chance to get land now in the city for a few dollars which is now worth a million for every dollar of the original price. The dreary prospect caused them to decline to invest and caused them to move on into the interior of the wilderness. Afterward all were able to repeat the familiar story, "If I had bought what was offered me in Chicago I would today be a mil- lionaire."

The opening of the canal is thus described by Rev. A. D. Field, who as a boy witnessed the same.

"The canal was to start out from the south branch of the Chicago River at a point three miles from the mouth of the river. From the main river all the way out the river was fringed by woods and thickets. The banks of the river were trimmed up. A plank-walk and tow-path were laid for three miles, to Bridgeport, and on the Fourth of July, 1836, the crowd, five thou- sand strong (this present writer drifting with the human tide), with wild hurrahs, with flags and drums, and, above all, with plenty of the choicest liquors, floated on the river and tramped on the walks out to the opening place. Boats of all sorts-a steamboat large as a river tug, a schooner gayly bedecked with green boughs, and laden with women and children-steamed and was towed by gangs of men out to the grand rendezvous ; and somewhere about noon, with speeches and toasts and hurrahs, the first shovels of earth were thrown out, and at last, after twen- ty years of waiting, the Illinois Canal was becom- ing to our seeming a reality. Contracts were made and the real work of excavation began in earnest. - For months all went on well. Peo- ple flocked to the new Chicago, and town-lots went up into the thousands. Business of all kinds began running at the highest. The canal and its workmen needed provisions. lumber, teams, and the country for a hundred miles around felt the impulses of the new enterprise. The city began to plan for its future. In 1837 it became an incorporated city. with W. B. Ogden as its first mayor.

"Six months of this prosperity passed, and then the collapse came! All over the United States, in 1837, there came general failure and bank- ruptcy. All credit seemed to vanish from busi- ness circles. Money became worthless, and dis- appointment prevailed over the whole land. Some one ought to write out a history of the dark days that began in 1837. The whole country felt the calamity ; how much more Chicago, whose every hope was built upon credit and what was to be! The people had come there because the canal was being opened, and every sort of busi- ness was started on the idea of trade arising from the canal. When work ceased, and the laborers left the country, and the supplies the canal called for were no longer needed, the reader can imagine the condition of the people of Chicago were left in. My father began cut- ting timber at the head of Lake Michigan for use. When we began timber was fifty cents a foot ; in the end it could not be given away, and it was left in the Calumet River to rot. This was in 1837. It was twelve years before the canal project was resuscitated. Eight years of perfect

PAST AND PRESENT OF LA SALLE COUNTY.

prostration followed. This brought lots and lands and buildings down to the lowest auction- sale prices, and general bankruptcy prevailed.

"The revival of credit throughout the country and the increase of capital caused the project of completing the canal to be revived and in 1847 work was renewed. In June, 1848, the city turned out once more in a mass and marched up the same old path by which they went in 1836, to the starting point of the canal. In 1836, just twelve years before, the crowds went out to witness the first removal of earth ; now it was the day of fruition! With music and speeches the crowd greeted the first packets as, with ban- ners and music, they made their way through the completed canal. Chicago has never since seen a day of triumph like that ! From that time the city has been the great market place of the western world."

Ottawa was platted in the same year as Chi- cago and by the same surveyor. La Salle was to be the terminus of the canal. This made the region the center of interest to pioneers who were seeking a location.

The laborers on the canal were principally Irish. Large numbers of them came to engage in this work. At times there were more laborers than settlers in the county. Money was not to be had after the panic of 1837 and the laborers were paid in state orders. The best use that could be made of these was to buy land of the canal company. Thus it was that a large Irish population came into the county especially in the country about La Salle and Ottawa.

Work began at both extremities of the canal at the same time in 1836. Navigation began from the river upward before the boats could go through to Chicago. It was completed to Mar- seilles from La Salle and to Morris from Chi- cago in 1842.

The first boat came through from Chicago one Sunday afternoon in 1848. The people saw it coming and ran to meet it at the aqueduct over Fox River, cheering all the way into town. Lum- ber was selling at $60 a thousand. After this boat brought a cargo it went down to $30 a thousand. The second boat load reduced the price still more. The first boat carried back a load of wheat charging 12 1-2 cents a bushel. In one year freight rates on wheat dropped to 8, then 6 and finally to 4 cents a bushel.

Two lines of packet boats were put in, the Green and the Red. The settlers now enjoyed the luxuries of travel. Formerly they crept slowly over the prairie trails with ox teams and at best with horses. Now they could be snugly

seated in a boat and the horses trotted along the towpath. No more camping out, sticking in the mud, or fording dangerous streams but the en- joyment of social intercourse, as they moved at the rapid rate of three or four miles an hour over the smooth waters. This seems primitive and slow to us. But the people at that time no more expected to move along in palaces at 60 miles an hour than we do to flying safely through the air.

The canal made it unnecessary now to haul grain and produce to Chicago. Formerly every- thing had to be taken to Chicago in wagons. The trip took a week or more. The horses or oxen would graze on the prairie while the men slept under the wagons. Provisions were taken along and prepared at the campfire. They man- aged so as to camp outside of the city the night before and get into the city early in the morn- ing, then to camp outside the city at night. One old settler said he used to make the trip expend- ing only 10 cents for personal necessities, a supply of coffee. Dressed hogs brought from $1.50 to $2.50 per hundred pounds and wheat from 25 to 35 cents a bushel. This seems to us a great deal of work for a little money.

The canal was the greatest thing in Chicago from 1836 to 1850. The city built up on the hopes of what the canal would be. These hopes brought not only thousands of people to Chicago itself, but they brought many more thousands into the country west of the city and it was no longer a city in a wilderness as it was in 1835. Railroads were built about the time the canal was completed and though it did a good busi- ness twenty-five years, it became less and less a factor in business until now it does nothing at all.

SALEM MISSION.

Among the first white settlers in La Salle County was Rev. Jesse Walker, who in 1825 founded a mission among the Pottawatomie Indians in what is now known as Mission township. It was lo- cated on Mission Creek on section 15, township 35, range 5 east. The land is now owned by Francis Bowen. The story of the life of this missionary gives such a vivid idea of the times in which he lived that it will be well to go into detail.

REV. JESSE WALKER.

Jesse Walker was born in Buckingham County, Virginia, June 9, 1766. His parents were not among the rich in that slave holding state, so did not belong to the aristocracy. While they did

PAST AND PRESENT OF LA SALLE COUNTY.

not belong to the church yet they taught their boy to live a moral life. His schooling amounted to only twenty days. In 1786, when he was twenty years old, a Methodist camp meeting was held in his neighborhood and he was converted. It should be borne in mind that at the time the Methodists were much the same as the Salvation Army of today. They worked almost wholly among the poor. They were very fervid in re- ligious feeling and demonstrative in their pro- fessions. They preached especially against the vanities and pleasures of life. When one united with the church it was necessary to forego styl- ish dress, jewelry, give up all the popular amusements, dancing, card playing, horse racing, come out from the world and be a peculiar people. This form of religion appealed to the masses of the people who being separate from the aristocratic rich found little comfort in the ritualism of the Episcopal church. They believed in the guidance of the spirit and most people of any talent usually felt themselves called to preach the gospel. To resist this call they believed meant banishment from God. If one did not obey the call he expected some calamity to overtake him. There would be no peace on earth nor salvation after death unless he gave up all to obey the call of the spirit.

In the same neighborhood with Jesse Walker lived a rich Englishman, a slave owner, one of the most stylish and worldly minded of men ; yet he and his family were strict Episcopalians. He had a son and a daughter who were among the best educated and gayest of the young people. The father and mother died suddenly. While the son was on his way to England to attend to some business he was shipwrecked and lost. At this time the daughter, Susannah Webly, attended the Methodist meetings and was converted. She laid aside her beautiful clothing and her jewels, even a silver back comb, and dressed plainly. She gave up all her social gaieties, freed her slaves, and married the poor but pious Jesse Walker. She made every sacrifice demanded by her con- victions and entered fervently and happily into her new life.

Probably the last thing that one could lay on the altar of self-sacrifice in those days was to become a Methodist preacher. It meant the hardest of hardships, giving up everything that people count dear, pleasure, position in society and entering into hopeless poverty. Children came to the young couple. Jesse Walker felt that he ought to preach. His wife thought he ought to. But considering the delicate rearing, the refinement and education of his wife and

the worldly welfare of his little children, he re- sisted the call. While he was earnest and con- sistent in his religious duties as a class leader and local preacher, he felt that he had not made the final sacrifice for his Savior's cause.

They moved from Virginia to North Carolina, then to Tennessee near Nashville: He prospered in business. Everywhere he was a class leader and a devout worker. His friends and his con- science urged him to enter the traveling ministry. But he excused himself for lack of education and ability.

One day in 1802, he was then thirty-four years of age, he found his children very sick. The two boys died within a few hours of each other. In this hour of deep affliction he and his wife surrendered to the divine call. A writer says : "The wife, the noble Susannah, from that hour bade him go where duty led and she would care for the home. She never after looked back, but through thirty years that followed was Jesse Walker's greatest earthly encouraging force."

He was a traveling preacher in Tennessee and Kentucky for four years. He licensed Peter Cart- wright to exhort. In 1805 he, with William Mc- Kendree, afterward bishop, came to Illinois to open up the work. Returning to Kentucky he brought his family, wife and two daughters, to St. Clair County, a distance of two hundred miles, through the wilderness. They suffered great hard- ships from cold, hunger and exposure. Here he settled his family in a log cabin. The hearth was on the ground and the floor so high that it served as seats for the family while they sat about the fire place. His work was largely in Missouri. In 1819 he spent seven years as presiding elder. Like Daniel Boone, however, he did not feel con- tent when the country became settled up. He liked to be out on the border with the pioneers. His next appointment was simply "Missionary."

A Methodist had preached in the log court- house in St. Louis for several years, but the work was given up. Jesse Walker resolved to go to work there as this seemed about the hardest field of labor. Vice and all kinds of wickedness were rampant in frontier towns. Walker had two young preachers with him who were very zealous in the work. They rode into St. Louis on horseback. Everywhere they received only ridicule and curses. There was no place where they could hold meetings nor even a place where they could get lodging. Unable to do anything they held a consultation on their horses in the middle of the street. The young men decided that as the Lord had not opened a door for them he had no work for them to do here. They rode

JCLOTHING.

LA SALLE STREET-OTTAWA-1860.

PAST AND PRESENT OF LA SALLE COUNTY.

away to other fields and left Walker alone. The Methodist depended upon the "leading of the Spirit." The young men felt that the Spirit prompted them to go elsewhere and Walker could not persuade them to remain. He too felt a call to go elsewhere. Turning his horse to the south he decided to go to Mississippi to work in the desolate places.

He had ridden about eighteen miles, praying for guidance most of the time. He said : "Was I ever defeated before? Never! Did ever any one trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and get confounded? No! And by the grace of God I will go back and take St. Louis!" Turning about he rode back to the city. With difficulty he found a place to sleep at a tavern. The next morning he began to search the city hoping to find a Methodist. He heard of a carpenter who, it was said, was a Methodist. The carpenter took him to one side and said in almost a whis- per, " I was a Methodist once, before I came here ; but finding no brethern in St. Louis, I did not make myself known and do not now consider myself a Methodist, and do not wish it to become known lest it injure my business." This was even more disheartening than curses. He found some members of the Legislature who knew him. In astonishment they said, "Why, Father Walker, what has brought you here?" "I have come to take St. Louis." They admired his zeal but advised him to go home to his family. It was foolishness to try to do anything in St. Louis. But he was not to be turned back.

A room was at last obtained where a few "Hardshell" Baptists sometimes held meetings. The first meeting was poorly attended, so it was easy to get the house again. The second meeting was largely attended and the interest grew so great that it was thought dangerous, so the house was closed against him. He then found a large unfinished dwelling house which he rented for ten dollars per month, an enormous price to pay when he had nothing to pay with. However, he thought his credit was good at the bank of the Almighty, that the funds were forth- coming. He begged the old benches that had just been taken out of the courthouse, borrowed tools and fitted up the largest room in the house for a place of worship. Here he preached twice on Sunday and often at night during the week. He invited the children of the poor to attend a free day school which he taught in his house. He boarded himself to avoid expense.

His chapel was soon filled when he preached and he had all the children in his school for which he could find room. Some of the well- to-do began to send their children and paid for their instruction. This enabled him to hire a

young man to teach who was better fitted for it than he was himself. Just as he was getting well started the owner of the house died and the church and school had to vacate.

Mr. Walker now decided to build a church though he had nothing to build with. He let the contract, himself to furnish the material. A man who owned land across the Mississippi River gave him the privilege of cutting all the timber which he needed, and then he did still more, he paid the passage of the wood cutters on the ferry boat going and coming from their work. Soon the rude church was built. The ladies fur- nished the church. The vestrymen of an abandoned Episcopal church gave Walker their Bible and their old pews. New friends came forward and all was paid for. At the end of the year he was able to report a house of wor- ship, a flourishing school, seventy members, the first Methodist church in St. Louis.

In a place of so much prosperity this back- woods soldier of the Cross found himself ill at ease. He was next appointed "Missionary to the Indians." The following is from Rev. A. D. Field's "Worthies and Workers of the Rock River Conference" and gives us a good picture of the pioneer preacher and the times in which he labored.

"In his wanderings he became acquainted with William S. Tee, a man of large property in the mines at Potosi. He was a man of noblc and generous impulses, but profane and wicked. Loving everything heroic, he formed a sincere attachment for Jesse Walker, and had great admiration for his zeal. After his success at St. Louis, our preacher resolved to visit Potosi, a place where Satan held undisputed sway. Brother Walker sent an appointment to the place, but soon received word from the miners that if he came to fill his appointment they would 'regulate' him. He sent word that his Master had re- quired him to go, and he should do his duty. Tee heard of the threats and asked Walker if he really intended to go. When answered in the affirmative he said : 'Well, you are a great fool to think that you can do those reprobates any good ; but if you want to try you shall have a chance. Don't be afraid: I shall be there, and they shall hear the gospel once in their lives at any rate.' On the day appointed Jesse Walker, with a rifle on his shoulder, set out on horseback for Potosi. He found assembled three hundred as desperate men as ever congregated, all armed as Missouri and Arkansas men could arm them- selves. Tce, with a large party of his men, was there when Mr. Walker rode up. Before prcach- ing began, Tee mounted a stump, and exclaimed : 'Mr. Walker is a minister; I do not know any-

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History of La Salle County, Illinois, Part 5

Author: Hoffman, U. J. (Urias John), b. 1855 Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1286

Author: Hoffman, U. J. (Urias John), b. 1855
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago : S.J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1286