USA > Illinois > Pike County > History of Pike County, Illinois : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons and biographies of representative citizens > Part 6
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HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
Clark of Missouri. This time they went up the Mississippi in barges, Prairie du Chien being the point of destination. There they found a small garrison of British troops, which, however, soon fled, as did the inhabitants, leaving Clark in full possession. He im- mediately set to work and erected Fort Shelby. The Governor returned to St. Louis, leaving his men in peaceable possession of the place, but a large force of British and Indians came down upon them, and the entire garrison surrendered. In the mean time Gen. Howard sent 108 men to strengthen the garrison. Of this number 66 were Illinois rangers, under Capts. Rector and Riggs, who oc- cupied two boats. The remainder were with Lieut. Campbell.
A DESPERATE FIGHT.
At Rock Island Campbell was warned to turn back, as an attack was contemplated. The other boats passed on up the river and were some two miles ahead when Campbell's barge was struck by a strong gale which foreed it against a small island near the Illinois shore. Thinking it best to lie to till the wind abated, sentinels were stationed while the men went ashore to cook breakfast. At this time a large number of Indians on the main shore under Black Hawk commeneed an attack. The savages in canoes passed rapidly to the island, and with a war-whoop rushed upon the men, who retreated and sought refuge in the barge. A battle of brisk musketry now ensued between the few regulars aboard the stranded barge and the hordes of Indians under cover of trees on the island, with severe loss to the former. Meanwhile Capt. Reetor and Riggs, ahead with their barges, seeing the smoke of battle, attempted to return; but in the strong gale Riggs' boat beeame unmanageable and was stranded on the rapids. Rector, to avoid a similar disaster, let go his anchor. The rangers, however, opened with good aim and telling effect upon the savages. The unequal combat having raged for some time and about elosing, the commander's barge, with many wounded and several dead on board,-among the former of whom, very badly, was Campbell himself,-was discovered to be on fire. Now Rector and his brave Illinois rangers, comprehending the horrid situation, performed, without delay, as cool and heroic a deed-and did it well-as ever imperiled the life of mortal man. In the howling gale, in full view of hundreds of infuriated savages, and within range of their rifles, they deliberately raised anchor,
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lightened their barge by casting overboard quantities of provisions, and guided it with the utmost labor down the swift current, to the windward of the burning barge, and under the galling fire of the enemy rescued all the survivors, and removed the wounded and dying to their vessel. This was a deed of noble daring and as heroic as any performed during the war in the West. Rector hur- ried with his over-crowded vessel to St. Louis.
It was now feared that Riggs and his company were captured and sacrificed by the savages. His vessel, which was strong and well armed, was for a time surrounded by the Indians, but the whites on the inside were well sheltered. The wind becoming allayed in the evening, the boat, under cover of the night, glided safely down the river without the loss of a single man.
STILL ANOTHER EXPEDITION.
Notwithstanding the disastrous termination of the two expedi- tions already sent ont, during the year 1814, still another was pro- jected. It was under Maj. Zachary Taylor, afterward President. Rector and Whiteside, with the Illinoisan, were in command of boats. The expedition passed Rock Island unmolested, when it was learned the country was not only swarming with Indians, but that the English were there in command with a detachment of regu- lars and artillery. The advanced boats in command of Rector, White- side and Hempstead, turned about and began to descend the rapids, fighting with great gallantry the hordes of the enemy, who were pouring their fire into them from the shore at every step.
Near the mouth of Rock river Maj. Taylor anchored his fleet out in the Mississippi. During the night the English planted a battery of six pieces down at the water's edge, to sink or disable the boats, and filled the islands with red-skins to butcher the whites, who might, unarmed, seek refuge there. But in this scheme they were frustrated. In the morning Taylor ordered all the force, except 20 boatmen on each vessel, to the upper island to dislodge the enemy. The order was executed with great gallantry, the island scoured, many of the savages killed, and the rest driven to the lower island. In the meantime the British cannon told with effect upon the fleet. The men rushed back and the boats were dropped down the stream out of range of the cannon. Capt. Rector was now ordered with his company to make a sortie on the lower island, which he did,
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driving the Indians back among the willows; but they being re-in- forced, in turn hurled Rector back upon the sand-beach.
A council of officers called by Taylor had by this time decided that their force was too small to contend with the enemy, who outnumbered them three to one, and the boats were in full retreat down the river. As Rector attempted to get under way his boat grounded, and the savages, with demoniac yells, surrounded it, when a most desperate hand-to-hand conflict ensued. The gallant ranger, Samuel Whiteside, observing the imminent peril of his brave Illinois comrade, went immediately to his rescue, who but for his timely aid would undoubtedly have been overpowered, with all his force, and murdered.
Thus ended the last, like the two previous expeditions up the Mississippi during the war of 1812, in defeat and disaster. The enemy was in undisputed posession of all the country north of the Illinois river, and the prospects respecting those territories boded nothing but gloom. With the approach of winter, however, Indian depredations ceased to be committed, and the peace of Ghent, Dec. 24, 1814, closed the war.
ILLINOIS AS A STATE.
ORGANIZATION.
In January of 1818 the Territorial Legislature forwarded to Nathaniel Pope, delegate in Congress from Illinois, a petition pray- ing for admission into the national Union as a State. On April 18th of the same year Congress passed the enabling act, and Dec. 3, after the State government had been organized and Gov. Bond had signed the Constitution, Congress by a resolution declared Illi- nois to be "one of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects."
The ordinance of 1787 declared that there should be at least three States carved out of the Northwestern Territory. The boundaries of the three, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, were fixed by this law. Congress reserved the power, however, of forming two other States out of the territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southern boundary of Lake Michigan. It was generally conceded that this line would be the northern boundary of Illinois ;
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but as this would give the State no coast on Lake Michigan; and rob her of the port of Chicago and the northern terminus of the Illinois & Michigan canal which was then contemplated, Judge Pope had the northern boundary moved fifty miles further north.
BOUNDARY CHANGED.
Not only is Illinois indebted to Nathaniel Pope for the port where now enter and depart more vessels during the year than in any other port in the world, for the northern terminus of the Illinois & Michigan canal, and for the lead mines at Galena, but the nation, the undivided Union, is largely indebted to him for its perpetuity. It was he,-his foresight, statesmanship and energy,-that bound our confederated Union with bands of iron that can never be broken. The geographical position of Illinois, with her hundreds of miles of. water-courses, is such as to make her the key to the grand arch of Northern and Southern States. Extending from the great chain of lakes on the north, with snow and ice of the arctic region, to the cotton-fields of Tennessee ; peopled, as it is, by almost all races, classes and conditions of the human family ; guided by the various and diversified political, agricultural, religious and educational teachings common to both North and South,-Illinois can control, and has controlled, the destinies of our united and beloved republic. Pope seemingly foresaw that a struggle to dissolve the Union would be made. With a prophetic eye he looked down the stream of time for a half century and saw the great conflict between the South and North, caused by a determination to dissolve the confederation of States; and to preserve the Union, he gave to Illinois a lake coast.
Gov. Ford, in his History of Illinois, written in 1847, while speaking of this change of boundary and its influence upon our nation, says:
"What, then, was the duty of the national Government? ยท Illinois was certain to be a great State, with any boundaries which that Government could give. Its great extent of territory, its unrivaled fertility of soil and capacity for sustaining a dense population, together with its commanding position, would in course of time give the new State a very controlling influence with her sister States situated upon the Western rivers, either in sustaining the federal Union as it is, or in dissolving it and establishing new gov- ernments. If left entirely upon the waters of these great rivers, it
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was plain that, in case of threatened disruption, the interest of the new State would be to join a Southern and Western confederacy; but if a large portion of it could be made dependent upon the com- merce and navigation of the great northern lakes, connected as they are with the Eastern States, a rival interest would be created to check the wish for a Western and Southern confederacy.
"It therefore became the duty of the national Government not only to make Illinois strong, but to raise an interest inclining and binding her to the Eastern and Northern portions of the Union. This could be done only through an interest in the lakes. At that time the commerce on the lakes was small, but its increase was con- fidently expected, and, indeed, it has exceeded all anticipations, and is yet only in its infancy. To accomplish this object effectually, it was not only necessary to give to Illinois the port of Chicago and a route for the canal, but a considerable coast on Lake Michigan, with a country back of it sufficiently extensive to contain a popu- lation capable of exerting a decided influence upon the councils of the State.
" There would, therefore, be a large commerce of the north, west- ern and central portion of the State afloat on the lakes, for it was then foreseen that the canal would be made; and this alone would be like turning one of the many mouths of the Mississippi into Lake Michigan at Chicago. A very large commerce of the center and south would be found both upon the lakes and rivers. Asso- ciations in business, in interest, and of friendship would be formed, both with the North and the South. A State thus situated, having such a decided interest in the commerce, and in the preservation of the whole confederacy, can never consent to disunion; for the Union cannot be dissolved without a division and disruption of the State itself. These views, urged by Judge Pope, obtained the unquali- fied assent of the statesmen of 1818.
" These facts and views are worthy to be recorded in history as a standing and perpetual call upon Illinoisans of every age to remember the great trust which has been reposed in them, as the peculiar champions and guardians of the Union by the great men and patriot sages who adorned and governed this country in the earlier and better days of the Republic."
During the dark and trying days of the Rebellion, well did she remember this sacred trust, to protect which two hundred thousand
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of her sons went to the bloody field of battle, crowning their arms with the laurels of war, and keeping inviolate the solemn obliga- tions bequeathed to them by their fathers.
FIRST CONSTITUTION.
In July and August of 1818 a convention was held at Kaskaskia for the purpose of drafting a constitution. This constitution was not submitted to a vote of the people for their approval or rejection, it being well known that they would approve it. It was about the first organic law of any State in the Union to abolish imprisonment for debt. The first election under the constitution was held on the third Thursday and the two succeeding days in September, 1818. Shadrach Bond was elected Governor, and Pierre Menard Lieuten- ant Governor. Their term of office extended four years. At this time che State was divided into fifteen counties, the population being about 40,000. Of this number by far the larger portion were from the Southern States. The salary of the Governor was $1,000, while that of the Treasurer was $500. The Legislature re-enacted, ver- batim, the Territorial Code, the penalties of which were unneces- sarily severe. Whipping, stocks and pillory were used for minor offenses, and for arson, rape, horse-stealing, etc., death by hanging was the penalty. These laws, however, were modified in 1821.
The Legislature first convened at Kaskaskia, the ancient seat of empire for more than one hundred and fifty years, both for the French and Americans. Provisions were made, however, for the removal of the seat of government by this Legislature. A place in the wilderness on the Kaskaskia river was selected and named Vandalia. From Vandalia it was removed to Springfield in the year 1837.
DERIVATION OF THE NAME ILLINOIS.
The name of this beautiful "Prairie State" is derived from Illini, an Indian word signifying superior men. It has a French termination, and is a symbol of the manner in which the two races, the French and Indians, were intermixed during the early history of the country. The appellation was no doubt well applied to the primitive inhabitants of the soil, whose prowess in savage warfare long withstood the combined attacks of the fierce Iroquois on the one side, and the no less savage and relentless Sacs and Foxes on the other. The Illinois were once a powerful confederacy, occupying the most beautiful and fertile region in the great valley of the
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Mississippi, which their enemies coveted and struggled long and hard to wrest from them. By the fortunes of war they were dimin- ished in number and finally destroyed. "Starved Rock," on the Illinois river, according to tradition, commemorates their last trag- edy, where, it is said, the entire tribe starved rather than surrender.
The low cognomen of "Sucker," as applied to Illinoisans, is said to have had its origin at the Galena lead mines. In an early day, when these extensive mines were being worked, men would run up the Mississippi river in steamboats in the spring, work the lead mines, and in the fall return, thus establishing, as was supposed, asim- ilitude between their migratory habits and those of the fishy tribe called " Suckers." For this reason the Illinoisans have ever since been distinguished by the epithet "Suckers." Those who stayed at the mines over winter were mostly from Wisconsin, and were called " Badgers." One spring the Missonrians poured into the mines in such numbers that the State was said to have taken a puke, and the offensive appellation of "Pukes " was afterward applied to all Missourians.
The southern part of the State, known as "Egypt," received this appellation because, being older, better settled and cultivated, grain was had in greater abundance than in the central and northern por- tion, and the immigrants of this region, after the manner of the children of Israel, went "thither to buy and to bring from thence that they might live and not die."
STATE BANK.
The Legislature, during the latter years of territorial existence, granted charters to several banks. The result was that paper money became very abundant, times flush, and credit unlimited; and every- body invested to the utmost limit of his credit, with confident expectation of realizing a handsome advance before the expiration of his credit, from the throng of immigrants then pouring into the country. By 1819 it became apparent that a day of reckoning would approach before their dreams of fortune could be realized. Banks everywhere began to waver, paper money became depreci- ated, and gold and silver driven out of the country. The Legisla- ture sought to bolster up the times by incorporating the " Bank of Illinois," which, with several branches, was created by the ses- sion of 1821. This bank, being wholly supported by the credit of the State, was to issue one, two, three, five, ten and twenty-dollar
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notes. It was the duty of the bank to advance, upon personal prop- erty, money to the amount of $100, and a larger amount upon real estate. All taxes and public salaries could be paid in such bills; and if a creditor refused to take them, he had to wait three years longer before he could collect his debt. The people imagined that simply because the government had issued the notes, they would remain at par; and although this evidently could not be the case, they were yet so infatuated with their project as actually to request the United States government to receive them in payment for their public lands! Although there were not wanting men who, like John McLean, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, fore- saw the dangers and evils likely to arise from the creation of such a bank, by far the greater part of the people were in favor of it. The new bank was therefore started. The new issue of bills by the bank of course only aggravated the evil, heretofore so grievously felt, of the absence of specie, so that the people were soon com- pelled to cut their bills in halves and quarters, in order to make small change in trade. Finally the paper currency so rapidly depre- ciated that three dollars in these bills were considered worth only one in specie, and the State not only did not increase its revenue, but lost full two-thirds of it, and expended three times the amount required to pay the expenses of the State government.
LAFAYETTE'S VISIT.
In the spring of 1825 the brave and generous LaFayette visited Illinois, accepting the earnest invitation of the General Assembly, and an affectionately written letter of Gov. Cole's, who had formed his personal acquaintance in France in 1817. The General in reply said: " It has been my eager desire, and it is now my earnest inten- tion, to visit the Western States, and particularly the State of Illi- nois. The feelings which your distant welcome could not fail to excite have increased that patriotic eagerness to admire on that blessed spot the happy and rapid results of republican institutions, public and domestic virtues. I shall, after the 22d of February (anniversary day), leave here for a journey to the Southern States, and from New Orleans to the Western States, so as to return to Boston on the 14th of June, when the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument is to be laid,-a ceremony sacred to the whole Union and in which I have been engaged to act a peculiar and honorable part."
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HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
General LaFayette and suite, attended by a large delegation of prominent citizens of Missouri, made a visit by the steamer Natch- ez to the ancient town of Kaskaskia. No military parade was attempted, but a multitude of patriotic citizens made him welcome. A reception was held, Gov. Cole delivering a glowing address of welcome. During the progress of a grand ball held that night, a very interesting interview took place between the honored General and an Indian squaw whose father had served under him in the Revolutionary war. The squaw, learning that the great white chief was to be at Kaskaskia on that night, had ridden all day, from early dawn till sometime in the night, from her distant home, to see the man whose name had been so often on her father's tongue, and with which she was so familiar. In identification of her claim to his distinguished acquaintance, she brought with her an old, worn letter which the General had written to her father, and which the Indian chief had preserved with great care, and finally bequeathed on his death-bed to his daughter as the most precious legacy he had to leave her.
By 12 o'clock at night Gen. LaFayette returned to his boat and started South. The boat was chartered by the State.
EARLY GOVERNORS.
In the year 1822 the term of office of the first Governor, Shadrach Bond, expired. Two parties sprung up at this time,-one favorable, the other hostile, to the introduction of slavery, each proposing a candidate of its own for Governor. Both parties worked hard to secure the election of their respective candidates; but the people at large decided, as they ever have been at heart, in favor of a free State. Edward Coles, an anti-slavery man, was elected, although a majority of the Legislature were opposed to him. The subject of principal interest during his administration was to make Illinois a slave State. The greatest effort was made in 1824, and the propo- sition was defeated at the polls by a majority of 1,800. The aggre- gate vote polled was 11,612, being about 6,000 larger than at the previous State election. African slaves were first introduced into Illinois in 1720 by Renault, a Frenchman.
Senator Duncan, afterward Governor, presented to the Legisla- ture of 1824-5 a bill for the support of schools by a public tax; and William S. Hamilton presented another bill requiring a tax to be
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used for the purpose of constructing and repairing the roads,-both of which bills passed and became laws. But although these laws conferred an incalculable benefit upon the public, the very name of a tax was so odious to the people that, rather than pay a tax of the smallest possible amount, they preferred working as they formerly did, five days during the year on the roads, and would allow their children to grow up without any instruction at all. Consequently both laws were abolished in 1826.
In the year 1826 the office of Governor became again vacant. Ninian Edwards, Adolphus F. Hubbard and Thomas C. Sloe were candidates. Edwards, though the successful candidate, had made himself many enemies by urging strict inquiries to be made into the corruption of the State bank, so that had it not been for his talents and noble personal appearance, he would most probably not have been elected. Hubbard was a man of but little personal merit. Of him tradition has preserved, among other curious sayings; a speech on a bill granting a bounty on wolf-scalps. This speech, delivered before the Legislature, is as follows: "Mr. Speaker, I rise before the question is put on this bill, to say a word for my constit- nents. Mr. Speaker, I have never seen a wolf. I cannot say that I am very well acquainted with the nature and habits of wolves. Mr. Speaker, I have said that I had never seen a wolf; but now I remember that once on a time, as Judge Brown and I were riding across the Bonpas prairie, we looked over the prairie about three miles, and Judge Brown said, 'Hubbard, look! there goes a wolf; ' and I looked, and I looked, and I looked, and I said, 'Judge, where?' and he said, 'There!' And I looked again, and this time in the edge of a hazel thicket, about three miles across the prairie, I think I saw the wolf's tail. Mr. Speaker, if I did not see a wolf that time, I think I never saw one; but I have heard much, and read more, about this animal. I have studied his natural history.
" By the bye, history is divided into two parts. There is first the history of the fabulous; and secondly, of the non-fabulous, or unknown age. Mr. Speaker, from all these sources of information I learn that the wolf is a very noxious animal; that he goes prowl- ing about, seeking something to devour; that he rises up in the dead and secret hours of night, when all nature reposes in silent oblivion, and then commits the most terrible devastation upon the rising generation of hogs and sheep.
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" Mr. Speaker, I have done; and I return my thanks to the house for their kind attention to my remarks."
Gov. Edwards was a large and well-made inan, with a noble, princely appearance. Of him Gov. Ford says: "-Ile never con- descended to the common low art of electioneering. Whenever he went out among the people he arrayed himself in the style of a gentleman of the olden time, dressed in fine broadeloth, with short breeches, long stockings, and high, fair-topped boots; was drawn in a fine carriage driven by a negro; and for success he relied upon his speeches, which were delivered in great pomp and in style of diffuse and florid eloquence. When he was inaugurated in 1826, he appeared before the General Assembly wearing a golden-laced cloak, and with great pomp pronounced his first message to the houses of the Legislature."
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