History of Macoupin County, Illinois, Part 4

Author: Brink, McDonough & Co.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 440

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The French were not blind all this time. They saw that if the British once obtained a stronghold upon the Ohio, they might not only prevent their settlements upon it, but in time would come to the lower posts, and so gain possession of the whole country. Upon the 10th of May, 1744, Vaudreuil, the French governor, well knowing the consequences that must arise from allowing the English to build trading posts in the northwest, seized some of their frontier posts, to further secure the claims of the French to the west. Having these fears, and seeing the danger of the late movements of the Bri- tish, Gallisoniere, then Governor of Canada, determined to place along the Ohio evidences of the French claim to, and possession of, the country. For that purpose he sent, in the summer of 1749, Louis Celeron, with a party of soldiers, to place plates of lead, on which were written out the claims of France, in the mounds and at the mouths of the rivers. These were heard of by William Trent, an Indian commissioner, sent out by Virginia in 1752, to treat with and conciliate the Indians, while upon the Ohio, and mentioned in his journal. One of these plates was found with the inscription partly defaced. It bears date August 16th, 1749, and a copy of the inscription, with particular account, was sent by De Witt Clinton to the American Anti- quarian Society, among whose journals it may now be found. These mea- sures did not, however, deter the English from going on with their explora- tions.

In February 1751, Christopher Gist was sent by the Ohio Company to ex- amine its lands. He went to a village of the Twigtwees, on the Miami, about 150 miles above its mouth. From there he went down the Ohio River nearly to the falls, at the present city of Louisville, and in November he commenced a survey of the company's lands. In 1751 General Andrew Lewis commenced some surveys in the Greenbrier country, on behalf of the company already mentioned. Meanwhile the French were busy in preparing their forts for defence, and in opening roads. In 1752 having heard of the trading houses on the Miami River, they, assisted by the Ottawas and Chip- pewas, attacked it, and, after a severe battle, in which fourteen of the natives

* Plain Facts, pp. 40, 120.

+ Revised Statutes of Virginia.

were killed and others wounded, captured the garrison. The traders were carried away to Canada, and one account says several were burned. This fort, or trading house was called by the English writers Pickawillany. A memorial of the king's ministers refers to it as " Pickawellanes, in the center of the territory between the Ohio and the Wabash." This was the first blood shed between the French and English, and occurred near the present city of Piqua, Ohio. The English were determined on their part, to pur- chase a title from the Indians of lands which they wished to occupy, and in the spring of 1752 Messrs. Fry,* Lomax and Patton, were sent from Vir- ginia to hold a conference with the natives at Logstown, to learn what they objected to in the treaty of Lancaster, and to settle all difficulties. On the 9th June the commissioners met the red men at Logstown. This was a village seventeen miles below Pittsburg, upon the north side of the Ohio. Here had been a trading point for many years, but it was abandoned by the Indians in 1750. At first the Indians declined to recognize the treaty of Lancaster, but the commissioners taking aside Montour, the interpreter, who was a son of the famous Catherine Montour, and a chief among the six nations, being three-fourths of Indian blood, through his influence an agreement was effected, and upon the 13th of June they all united in sign- ing a deed, confirming the Lancaster treaty in its fullest extent. Mean- while the powers beyond the seas were trying to out-maneuver each other, and were professing to be at peace. The English generally outwitted the In- dians, and secured themselves, as they thought by their politic conduct. But the French, in this as in all cases, proved that they knew best how to manage the natives. While these measures were taken, another treaty with the wild men of the debatable land was also in contemplation. And in September 1753 William Fairfax met their deputies at Winchester, Vir- ginia, where he concluded a treaty. In the month following, however, a more satisfactory interview took place at Carlisle, between the representa- tives of the Iroquois, Delawares, Shawnees, Twigtwees, and Wyandots, and the commissioners of Pennsylvania, Richard Peters, Isaac Norris, and Ben- jamin Franklin. Soon after this, no satisfaction being obtained from the Ohio, either as to the force, position, or purposes of the French, Robert Dinwiddie, then Governor of Virginia, determined to send to them another messenger, and learn if possible their intentions. For this purpose he selected a young surveyor, who, at the age of nineteen had attained the rank of major, and whose previous life had inured him to hardships and wood- land ways; while his courage, cool judgment, and firm will, all fitted him for such a mission. This personage was no other than the illustrious George Washington, who then held considerable interest in Western lands. He was twenty-one years old at the time of the appointment.t Taking Gist as a guide, the two, accompanied by four servitors, set out on their perilous march. They left Will's Creek, where Cumberland now is, on the 15th of November, and on the 22d reached the Monongahela, about ten miles above the fork. From there they went to Logstown, where Washington had a long conference with the chiefs of the Six Nations. Here he learned the position of the French, and also that they had determined not to come down the river until the following spring. The Indians were non-committal, they deeming a neutral position the safest. Washington, finding nothing could be done, went on to Venango, an old Indian town at the mouth of French Creek. Here the French had a fort called Fort Machault. On the 11th of December he reached the fort at the head of French Creek. Here he delivered Governor Dinwiddie's letter, received his answer, and upon the 16th set out upon his return journey with no one but Gist, his guide, and a few Indians who still remained true to him. They reached home in safety on the 6th of January, 1754. From the letter of St. Pierre, commander of the French fort, sent by Washington to Governor Dinwiddie, it was perfectly clear that the French would not yield the West without a struggle. Active preparations were at once made in all the English colonies for the coming conflict, while the French finished their fort at Venango and strengthened their lines of fortifications to be in readiness. The Old Dominion was all alive. Virginia was the center of great activities. Volunteers were called for, and from the neighboring colonies men rallied to the conflict, and every- where along the Potomac men were enlisting under the Governor's procla- mation,-which promised two hundred thousand acres on the Ohio. Along this river they were gathering as far as Will's Creek, and far beyond this point, whither Trent had come for assistance, for his little band of forty- one men, who were working away in hunger and want, to fortify that point

* Afterwards Commander in Chief over Washington, at the commencement of the French War of 1775.

+ Sparks' Washington, Vol. ii., pp. 428-447.

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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

at the fork of the Ohio, to which both parties were looking with deep in- terest. The first birds of spring filled the forest with their songs. The swift river rolled by the Allegheny hillsides, swollen by the melting snows of spring and April showers. The leaves were appearing, a few Indian scouts were seen, but no enemy seemed near at hand, and all was so quiet that Frazier, an old Indian trader, who had been left by Trent in command of the new fort, ventured to his home at the mouth of Turtle Creek, ten miles up the Monongahela. But though all was so quiet in that wilderness, keen eyes had seen the. low entrenchment that was rising at the fork, and swift feet had borne the news of it up the valley, and on the morning of the 17th of April, Ensign Ward who then had charge of it, saw upon the Alle- gheny a sight that made his heart sink ;- sixty batteaux and three hundred canoes, filled with men, and laden deep with cannon and stores. The fort was called on to surrender: by the advice of the Half-King, Ward tried to evade the act but it would not do. Contrecoeur, with a thousand men about him, said ' Evacuate,' and the ensign dared not refuse. That evening he supped with his captor, and the next day was bowed off by the French- man, and, with his men and tools, marched up the Monongahela." The French and Indian war had begun. The treaty of Aix la Chappelle, in 1748, had left the foundries between the French and English possessions unsettled, and the events already narrated show that the French were de- termined to hold the country watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries : while the English laid claim to the country by virtue of the discoveries by the Cabots, and claimed all the country from New Foundland to Florida and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The first decisive blow had been struck, and the first attempt of the English, through the Ohio Company, to occupy these lands had resulted disastrously to them. The French and Indians immedi- ately completed the fortifications begun at the fork, which they had so easi- ly captured, and when completed gave to the fort the name of Du Quesne. Washington was at Will's creek, when the news of the capture of the fort arrived. He at once departed to recapture it. On his way he entrenched himself at a place called the " Meadows," where he erected a fort called by him Fort Necessity. From there he surprised and captured a force of French and Indians marching against him, but was soon after attacked by a much superior force, and was obliged to yield on the morning of July 4th. He was allowed to return to Virginia.

The English Government immediately planned four campaigns, one against Fort Du Quesne, one against Nova Scotia, one against Fort Niagara, and one against Crown Point. These occurred during 1755-6, and were not suc- cessful in driving the French from their possessions. The expedition against Fort Du Quesne, was led by the famous Braddock, who, refusing to listen to the advice of Washington and those acquainted with Indian warfare, suf- fered an inglorious defeat. This occurred on the morning of July 9th, and is generally known as the battle of Monongahela or " Braddock's defeat." The war continued through various vicissitudes through the years 1756-7, when, at the commencement of 1758, in accordance with the plans of William Pitt, then secretary of state, afterwards Lord Chatham, active preparations were made to carry on the war. Three expeditions were planned for this year : one under General Amhurst, against Louisburg : another under Aber- crombie, against Fort Ticonderoga : and a third under General Forbes, against Fort Du Quesne. On the 26th of July, Louisburg surrendered after a desperate resistance of more than forty days, and the eastern part of the Canadian possessions fell into the hands of the British. Abercrombie cap- tured Fort Frontenac, and when the expedition against Fort Du Quesne, of which Washington had the active command, arrived there, it was found in flames and deserted. The English at once took possession, rebuilt the fort, and in honor of their illustrious statesmen, changed the name to Fort Pitt.

The great object of the campaign of 1759, was the reduction of Canada. General Wolfe was to lay siege to Quebec; Amherst was to reduce Ticonde- roga and Crown Point, and General Prideaux was to capture Niagara. This latter place was taken in July, but the gallant Prideaux lost his life. Amherst captured Ticonderoga and Crown Point, without a blow ; and Wolfe after making the memorable ascent to the plains of Abraham, on September 13th, defeated Montcalm, and on the 18th the city capitulated. In this en- gagement Montcalm and Wolfe both lost their lives. De Levi, Montcalm's successor, marched to Sillery, three miles above the city, with the purpose of defeating the English, and there on the 28th of the following April was fought one of the bloodiest battles of the French and Indian War. It re- sulted in the defeat of the French and the fall of the city of Montreal, The Governor signed a capitulation by which the whole of Canada was surren- dered to the English. This practically concluded the war, but it was not

until 1763 that the treaties of peace between France and England were signed. This was done on the 10th of February of that year, and under its provisions all the country east of the Mississippi and north of the Iberville river in Louisiana were ceded to England. At the same time Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain.

On the 13th of September, 1760, Major Robert Rogers was sent from Montreal to take charge of Detroit, the only remaining French post in the territory. He arrived there on the 9th of November and summoned the place to surrender. At first the commander of the post, Beletre, refused, but on the 29th, hearing of the continued defeat of the French army, surrendered. The Northwest Territory was now entirely under the English rule. In 1762, France, by a secret treaty, ceded Louisiana to Spain, to prevent it falling into the hands of the English, who were becoming masters of the en- tire West. The next year the treaty of Paris, signed at Fontainbleau, gave to the English the dominion in question. Twenty years after, by the treaty of peace between the United States and England, that part of Canada lying south and west of the great lakes, comprehending a large territory, was ac- knowledged to be a portion of the United States. In 1803 Louisiana was ceded by Spain back to France, and by France sold to the United States. By the treaty of Paris, the regions east of the Mississippi, including all these and other towns of the northwest, were given over to England ; but they do not appear to have been taken possession of until 1765, when Captain Stirling, in the name of the Majesty of England, established himself at Fort Chartres, bearing with him the proclamation of General Gage, dated December 30th, 1764, which promised religious freedom to all Catholics who worshiped here, and the right to leave the country with their effects if they wished, or to remain with the privileges of Englishmen. Dur- ing the years 1775 and 1776, by the operations of land companies and the perseverance of individuals, several settlements were firmly established be- tween the Alleghenies and the Ohio river, and western land speculators were busy in Illinois and on the Wabash. At a council held in Kaskaskia, on July 5th, 1773, an association of English traders, calling themselves the " Illinois Land Company," obtained from the chiefs of the Kaskaskia, Ca- hokia, and Peoria tribes two large tracts of land lying on the east side of the Mississippi river south of the Illinois. In 1775 a merchant from the Illinois country, named Viviat, came to Post Vincennes as the agent of the associa- tion called the " Wabash Land Company." On the 8th of October he ob- tained from eleven Piankeshaw chiefs, a deed for 37,497,600 acres of land. This deed was signed by the grantors, attested by a number of the inhabitants of Vincennes, and afterward recorded in the office of a Notary Public at Kaskaskia. This and other land companies had extensive schemes for the colonization of the West, but all were frustrated by the breaking out of the Revolutionary war. On the 20th of April, 1780, the two companies named consolidated under the name of the " United Illinois and Wabash Land Company ;" they afterwards made strenuous efforts to have these grants sanctioned by Congress, but all signally failed. When the war of the Re- volution commenced, Kentucky was an unorganized country, though there were several settlements within her borders.

In Hutchins' Topography of Virginia, it is stated that at that time Kas- kaskia contained 80 houses, and nearly 1,000 white and black inhabitants, the whites being a little the more numerous. Cahokia contained fifty houses, 300 white inhabitants and 80 negroes. There were east of the Mississippi river, about the year 1771-when these observations were made-" 300 white men capable of bearing arms, and 230 negroes." From 1775 until the ex- pedition of Clark, nothing is recorded and nothing known of these settle- ments, save what is contained in a report made by a committee to Congress in June, 1778. From it the following extract is made : " Near the mouth of the river Kaskaskia, there is a village which appears to have contained nearly eighty families from the beginning of the late Revolution ; there are twelve families at a small village at La Prairie Du Rochers, and nearly fifty families at the Kahokia village. There are also four or five families at Fort Chartres and St. Philip's, which is five miles further up the river." St. Louis had been settled in February, 1764, and at this time contained, in- cluding its neighboring towns, over six hundred whites and one hundred and fifty negroes. It must be remembered that all the country west of the Mis- sissippi was under French rule, and remained so until ceded back to Spain, its original owner, who afterwards sold it and the country including New Orleans to the United States. . At Detroit, there were, according to Captain Carver, who was in the north-west from 1768 to 1776, more than one hun- dred houses, and the river was settled for more than twenty miles, although poorly cultivated, the people being engaged in the Indian trade.

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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

On the breaking out of the Revolution, the British held every post of im- portance in the West. Kentucky was formed as a component part of Vir- ginia, and the sturdy pioneers of the West, alive to their interests, and recog- nizing the great benefits of obtaining the control of the trade in this part of the New World, held steadily to their purposes, and those within the com- monweath of Kentucky proceeded to exercise their civil privileges by elect- ing John Todd and Richard Gallaway burgesses, to represent them in the assembly of the present state. The chief spirit in this far-out colony, who had represented her the year previous east of the mountains, was now medi- tating a move of unequalled boldness. He had been watching the move- ments of the British throughout the north-west, and understood their whole plan. He saw it was through their possession of the posts at Detroit, Vin- cennes, Kaskaskia, and other places, which would give them easy access to the various Indian tribes in the north-west, that the British intended to penetrate the country from the north and south, and annihilate the frontier fortresses. This moving, energetic man was Colonel, afterwards General George Rogers Clark. He knew that the Indians were not unanimously in accord with the English, and he was convinced that, could the British be defeated and expelled from the north-west, the natives might be easily awed into neutrality ; by spies sent for the purpose, he satisfied himself that the enterprise against the Illinois settlements might easily succeed. Patrick Henry was Governor of Virginia, and at once entered heartily into Clark's plans. The same plan had before been agitated in the Colonial Assemblies, but there was no one until Clark came who was sufficiently acquainted with the condition of affairs at the scene of action to be able to guide them.

Clark, having satisfied the Virginia leaders of the feasibility of his plan, received on the second of January, two sets of instructions, one secret the other open. The latter authorized him to proceed to enlist seven companies to go to Kentucky, subject to his orders, and to serve three months from their arrival in the west. The secret order authorized him to arm the troops, to procure his powder and lead of General Hand, at Pittsburg, and to proceed at once to subjugate the country.

With these instructions Clark repaired to Pittsburg, choosing rather to raise his men west of the mountains. Here he raised three companies and several private volunteers. Clark at length commenced his descent of the Ohio, which he navigated as far as the falls, where he took possession of and fortified Corn Island, between the present sites of Louisville, Kentucky, and New Albany, Indiana. Remains of this fortification may yet be found. At this place he appointed Col. Bowman to meet him with such recruits as had reached Kentucky by the southern route. Here he announced to the men their real destination. On the 24th of June he embarked on the river, his destination being Fort Massac or Massacre, and thence march direct to Kaskaskia. The march was accomplished and the town reached on the evening of July 4. He captured the fort near the village and soon after the village itself, by surprise, without the loss of a single man or killing any of the enemy. Clark told the natives that they were at perfect liberty to worship as they pleased, and to take whichever side of the conflict they would, and he would protect them from any barbarity from British or Indian foes. This had the desired effect, and the inhabitants at once swore allegiance to the American arms, and when Clark desired to go to Cahokia on the 6th of July, they accompanied him, and through their influence the inhabitants of the place surrendered. Thus two important posts in Illinois passed from the hands of the English into the possession of Virginia. During the year (1779) the famous "Land Laws" of Virginia were passed. The passage of these laws was of more consequence to the pioneers of Ken- tucky and the north-west than the gaining of a few Indian conflicts. These grants confirmed in the main all grants made, and guaranteed to actual set- tlers their rights and privileges.

DIVISION OF THE NORTH-WEST TERRIRORY.

The increased emigration to the north-west, and extent of the domain, made it very difficult to conduct the ordinary operations of government, and rendered the efficient action of courts almost impossible ; to remedy this it was deemed advisable to divide the territory for civil purposes. Con- gress, in 1800, appointed a committee to examine the question and report some means for its solution.

This committee on the 3d of March reported: "In the three western countries there has been but one court having cognizance of crimes, in five years, and the immunity which offenders experience attracts, as to an asylum, the most vile and abandoned criminals, and at the same time deters useful citizens from making settlements in such society. The extreme

necessity of judiciary attention and assistance is experienced in civil as well as in criminal cases. * * * * To remedy this evil it is expedient * to the committee that a division of said territory into two distinct and sepa- rate governments should be made, and that such division be made by beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami river, running directly north until it intersects the boundary between the United States and Canada."

The report was accepted by Congress, and, in accordance with its sugges- tions, that body passed an act extinguishing the north-west territory, which act was approved May 7. Among its provisions were these :

"That from and after July 4 next, all that part of the territory of the United States north-west of the Ohio river, which lies to the westward of a line beginning at a point opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river, and running thence to Fort Recovery, and thence north until it shall intersect the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall, for the purpose of temporary government, constitute a separate territory and be called the Indian Territory."

Gen. Harrison, (afterwards President ) was appointed governor of the Indian Territory, and during his residence at Vincennes he made several important treaties with the Indians, thereby gaining large tracts of land. The next year is memorable in the history of the west for the pur- chase of Louisiana from France by the United States for 815,000,000. Thus by a peaceful manner the domain of the United States was extended over a large tract of country west of the Mississippi, and was for a time under the jurisdiction of the north-western government. The next year Gen. Har- rison obtained additional grants of land from the various Indian nations in Indiana and the present limits of Illinois, and on the 18th of August, 1804, completed a treaty at St. Louis, whereby over 51,000,000 acres of land were obtained.

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History of Macoupin County, Illinois, Part 4

Author: Brink, McDonough & Co. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 440

Author: Brink, McDonough & Co.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 440