History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 3

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 3

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"The upper (lake) beach consists, in this region, of a single bold ridge of sand, pursuing a remarkably straight course in a northeast and southwest direction, and crossing portions of Defiance, Williams and Fulton counties. It passes just west of Hicksville and Bryan ; while Williams Center, West Unity and Fayette are built on it. When Lake Erie stood at this level, it was merged at the north with Lake Huron. Its southwest shore crossed Hancock, Putnam, Allen and Van Wert counties, and stretched northwest in Indiana, nearly to Ft. Wayne. The northwestern shore line, leaving Ohio near the south line of Defiance county, is likewise continned in Indiana, and the two converge at New Haven, six miles east of Ft. Wayne. They do not,

* Geological Survey of Ohio, vol. 1, p. 550.

HISTORIC NOTES OF THE NORTHWEST.

however, unite, but, instead, become parallel, and are continued as the sides of a broad watercourse, through which the great lake basin then discharged its surplus waters, southwestwardly, into the valley of the Wabash River, and thence to the Mississippi. At New Haven, this channel is not less than a mile and a half broad, and has an average depth of twenty feet, with sides and bottom of drift. For twenty-five miles this character continues, and there is no notable fall. Three miles above Huntington, Indiana, however, the drift bottom is replaced by a floor of Niagara limestone, and the descent becomes comparatively quite rapid. At Huntington, the valley is walled, on one side at least, by rock in situ. In the eastern portion of this ancient river-bed, the Maumee and its branches have eut channels fifteen to twenty-five feet deep, without meeting the underlying limestone. Most of the inter- val from Ft. Wayne to Huntington is occupied by a marsh, over which meanders Little River, an insignificant stream whose only claim to the title of river seems to lie in the magnitude of the deserted channel of which it is sole occupant. At Huntington, the Wabash emerges from a narrow cleft, of its own carving, and takes possession of the broad trough to which it was once an humble tributary."

Within the personal knowledge of men, the Wabash River has been, and is, only a rivulet, a shriveled, dried up representative in comparison with its greatness in pre-historic times, when it bore in a broader channel the waters of Lakes Erie and Huron, a mighty flood, south- ward to the Ohio. Whether the change in the direction of the flow of Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan toward the River St. Lawrence, instead of through the Wabash and Illinois Rivers respectively, is because hemispheric depression has taken place more rapidly in the vicinity of the lakes than farther southward, or that the earth's crust south of the lakes has been. arched upward by subterraneous influences, and thus caused the lakes to recede, or if the change has been produced by depression in one direction and elevation in the other, combined, is not our province to discuss. The fact, however, is well established by the most abundant and conclusive evidence to the scientific observer.

The portage, or carrying place, of the Wabash," as known to the early explorers and traders, between the Maumee and Wabash, or rather the head of Little River, called by the French " La Petit Rivière," commenced directly at Ft. Wayne ; although, in certain seasons of the year, the waters approach much nearer and were united by a low piece

* Schoolcraft's Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley, " in the year 1821, pp. 90, 91. In this year, Mr. Schoolcraft made an examination of the locality, with a view to furnish the public information on the practicability of a canal to unite the waters of the Maumee and the Wabash. It was at a time when great interest existed through all parts of the country on all subjects of internal navigation.

PORTAGE OF THE WABASH.

of ground or marsh (an arm or bay of what is now called Bear Lake), where the two streams flow within one hundred and fifty yards of each other and admitted of the passage of light canoes from the one to the other.

The Miami Indians knew the value of this portage, and it was a source of revenue to them, aside from its advantages in enabling them to exercise an influence over adjacent tribes. The French, in passing from Canada to New Orleans, and Indian traders going from Montreal and Detroit, to the Indians south and westward, went and returned by way of Ft. Wayne, where the Miamis, kept earts and pack-horses, with a corps of Indians to assist in carrying canoes, furs and merchandise around the portage, for which they charged a commission. At the great treaty of Greenville, 1795, where General Anthony Wayne met the several Wabash tribes, he insisted, as one of the fruits of his victory over them, at the Fallen Timbers, on the Manmee, the year before, that they should cede to the United States a piece of ground six miles square, where the fort, named in honor of General Wayne, had been erected after the battle named, and on the site of the present city of Ft. Wayne; and, also, a piece of territory two miles square at the carrying place. The distinguished warrior and statesman, " Mishe- kun-nogh-qual" (as he signs his name at this treaty), or the Little Turtle on behalf of his tribe, objected to a relinquishment of their right to their ancient village and its portage, and in his speech to General Wayne said : "Elder Brother,-When our forefathers saw the French and English at the Miami village - that ' glorious gate' which your younger brothers [meaning the Miamis] had the happiness to own, and through which all the good words of our chiefs had to pass [that is, messages between the several tribes] from north to south and from east to west, the French and English never told us they wished to purchase our lands from us. The next place yon pointed ont was the Little River, and said you wanted two miles square of that place. This is a request that our fathers the French or British never made of us ; it was always ours. This carrying place has heretofore proved, in a great degree, the subsistence of your brothers. That place has brought to us, in the course of one day, the amount of one hundred dollars. Let us both own this place and enjoy in common the advantages it affords." The Little Turtle's speech availed nothing .*

The St. Joseph of Lake Michigan, a fine stream of uniform, rapid current. reaches its most southerly position near the city of Sonth Bend, Indiana, -- the city deriving its name from the bend of the river ;

* Minutes of the Treaty of Greenville: American State Papers on Indian Affairs. vol. 1, pp. 576, 578.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

here the river turns northward, reënters the State of Michigan and dis- charges into the lake. West of the city is Lake Kankakee, from which the Kankakee River takes its rise. The distance intervening be- tween the head of this little lake and the St. Joseph is about two miles, over a piece of marshy ground, where the elevation is so slight "that in the year 1832 a Mr. Alexander Croquillard dug a race, and secured a flow of water from the lake to the St. Joseph, of sufficient power to run a grist and saw mill." *

This is the portage of the Kankakee, a place conspicuous for its historical reminiscences. It was much used, and offered a choice of rontes to the Illinois River, and also to the Wabash, by a longer land- carriage to the upper waters of the Tippecanoe. A memoir on the Indians of Canada, etc., prepared in the year 1718 (Paris Documents, vol. 1, p. 889), says: "The river St. Joseph is south of Lake Michi- gan, formerly the Lake of the Illinois; many take this river to pass to the Rocks [as Fort St. Louis, situated on 'Starved Rock' in La Salle county, Illinois, was sometimes called], because it is convenient, and they thereby avoid the portages 'des Chaines' and 'des Perches,'"- two long, difficult carrying places on the Desplaines, which had to be encountered in dry seasons, on the route by the way of Chicago Creek.

The following description of the Kankakee portage, and its adjacent surroundings, is as that locality appeared to Father Hennepin, when he was there with La Salle's party of voyagers two hundred years ago the coming December: "The next morning (December 5, 1679) we joined our men at the portage, where Father Gabriel had made the day before several crosses upon the trees, that we might not miss it another time." The voyagers had passed above the portage without being aware of it, as the country was all strange to them. We found here a great quan- tity of horns and bones of wild oxen, buffalo, and also some canoes the savages had made with the skins of beasts, to cross the river with their provisions. This portage lies at the farther end of a champaign ; and at the other end to the west lies a village of savages, - Miamis, Mascontines and Oiatinons (Weas), who live together. "The river of the Illinois has its source near that village, and springs out of some marshy lands that are so quaking that one can scarcely walk over them. The head of the river is only a league and a half from that of the Mi- amis (the St. Joseph), and so our portage was not long. We marked the way from place to place, with some trees, for the convenience of those we expected after us; and left at the portage as well as at Fort

* Prof. G. M. Levette's Report on the Geology of St. Joseph County: Geological Survey of Indiana for the year 1873, p. 459.

THE KANKAKEE.

Miamis (which they had previously erected at the mouth of the St. Joseph), letters hanging down from the trees, containing M. La Salle's instructions to our pilot, and the other five-and-twenty men who were to come with him." The pilot had been sent back from Mackinaw with La Salle's ship, the Griffin, loaded with furs; was to discharge the cargo at the fort below the mouth of Niagara River, and then bring the ship with all dispatch to the St. Joseph.

" The Illinois River (continues Hennepin's account) is navigable within a hundred paces from its source,- I mean for canoes of barks of trees, and not for others,- but increases so much a little way from thence, that it is as deep and broad as the Meuse and the Sambre joined together. It runs through vast marshes, and although it be rapid enough, it makes so many turnings and windings, that after a whole day's journey we found that we were hardly two leagues from the place we left in the morning. That country is nothing but marshes, full of alder trees and bushes ; and we could have hardly found, for forty leagues together, any place to plant our cabins, had it not been for the frost, which made the earth more firm and consistent."

CHAPTER IV.

RAINFALL.

AN interesting topic connected with our rivers is the question of rainfall. The streams of the west, unlike those of mountainous dis- triets, which are fed largely by springs and brooks issuing from the rocks, are supplied mostly from the clouds. It is within the observa- tion of persons who lived long in the valleys of the Wabash and Illinois, or along their tributaries, that these streams apparently carry a less volume of water than formerly. Indeed, the water-courses seem to be gradually drying up, and the whole surface of the country drained by them has undergone the same change. In early days almost every land-owner on the prairies had upon his farm a pond that furnished an unfailing supply of water for his live stock the year around. These never went dry, even in the driest seasons.

Formerly the Wabash afforded reliable steamboat navigation as high up as La Fayette. In 1831, between the 5th of March and the 16th of April, fifty-four steamboats arrived and departed from Vin- eennes. In the months of February, March and April of the same year, there were sixty arrivals and departures from La Fayette, then a village of only three or four hundred houses ; many of these boats were large side-wheel steamers, built for navigating the Ohio and Mississippi, and known as New Orleans or lower river boats .* The writer has the concurrent evidence of scores of early settlers with whom he has con- versed that formerly the Vermilion, at Danville, had to be ferried on an average six months during the year, and the river was considered low when it could be forded at this place without water running into the wagon bed. Now it is fordable at all times, except when swollen with freshets, which now subside in a very few days, and often within as many hours. Doubtless, the same faets can be affirmed of the many other tributaries of the Illinois and Wabash whose names have been already given.

The early statutes of Illinois and Indiana are replete with special laws, passed between the years 1825 and 1840, when the people of these two states were crazed over the question of internal navigation, providing enactments and charters for the slack-water improvement of

* Tanner's View of the Mississippi, published in 1832, p. 154.

RAINFALL.

hundreds of streams whose insignificance have now only a dry bed, most of the year, to indicate that they were ever dignified with such legislation and invested with the promise of bearing upon their bosoms a portion of the future internal commerce of the country.

It will not do to assume that the seeming decrease of water in the streams is caused by a diminution of rain. The probabilities are that the annual rainfall is greater in Indiana and Illinois than before their settlement with a permanent population. The "settling up" of a country, tilling its soil, planting trees, constructing railroads, and erect- ing telegraph lines, all tend to induce moisture and produce changes in the electric and atmospheric currents that invite the clouds to pre- cipitate their showers. Such has been the effect produced by the hand of man upon the hitherto arid plains of Kansas and Nebraska. Indeed, at an early day some portions of Illinois were considered as uninhab- itable as western Kansas and Nebraska were supposed, a few years ago, to be on account of the prevailing drouths. That part of the state lying between the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, south of a line run- ning from the Mississippi, between Rock Island and Mercer counties, east to the Illinois, set off for the benefit of the soldiers of the War of 1812, and for that reason called the "Military Tract," except that part of it lying more immediately near the rivers named, was laid under the bane of a drouth-stricken region. Mr. Lewis A. Beck, a shrewd and impartial observer, and a gentleman of great scientific attainments,* was through the " military tract " shortly after it had been run out into sections and townships by the government, and says concerning it, "The northern part of the traet is not so favorable for settlement. The prairies become very extensive and are badly watered. In fact, this last is an objection to the whole tract. In dry seasons it is not unusual to walk through beds of the largest streams without finding a drop of water. It is not surprising that a country so far distant from the sea and drained by such large rivers, which have a course of several thousand miles before they reach the great reservoir, should not be well watered. This, we observe, is the case with all fine-flowing streams of the highlands, whereas those of the Champaign and prairies settle in the form of ponds, which stagnate and putrify. Besides, on the same account there are very few heavy rains in the summer; and hence during that season water is exceedingly scarce. The Indians, in their journeys, pass by places where they know there are ponds, but gener- ally they are under the necessity of carrying water in bladders. This drouth is not confined to the 'military traet,' but in some seasons is very general. During the summer of 1820 it was truly alarming;

* Beck's Illinois and Missouri Gazetteer, published in 1823, pp. 79, 80.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

travelers, in many instances, were obliged to pass whole days, in the warmest weather, without being able to procure a cupful of water for themselves or their horses, and that which they occasionally did find was almost putrid. It may be remarked, however, that such seasons rarely occur; but on account of its being washed by rivers of such immense length this section of the country is peculiarly liable to suffer from excessive drouth." The millions of bushels of grain annually raised in, and the vast herds of cattle and other live stock that are fat- tened on, the rich pastures of Bureau, Henry, Stark, Peoria, Knox, Warren, and other counties lying wholly or partially within the "mili- tary tract," illustrate an increase and uniformity of rainfall since the time Professor Beck recorded his observations. In no part of Illinois are the crops more abundant and certain, and less liable to suffer from excessive drouth, than in the " military tract." The apparent decrease in the volume of water carried by the Wabash and its tributaries is easily reconciled with the theory of an increased rainfall since the settlement of the country. These streams for the most part have their sources in ponds, marshes and low grounds. These basins, covering a great extent of the surface of the country, served as reservoirs ; the earth was cov- ered with a thick turf that prevented the water penetrating the ground ; tall grasses in the valleys and about the margin of the ponds impeded the flow of water, and fed it out gradually to the rivers. In the tim- ber the marshes were likewise protected from a rapid discharge of their contents by the trunks of fallen trees, limbs and leaves.

Since the lands have been reduced to cultivation, millions of acres of sod have been broken by the plow, a spongy surface has been turned to the heavens and much of the rainfall is at once soaked into the ground. The ponds and low grounds have been drained. The tall grasses with their mat of penetrating roots have disappeared from the swales. The brooks and drains, from causes partially natural, or artifi- cially aided by man, have cut through the ancient turf and made well defined ditches. The rivers themselves have worn a deeper passage in their beds. By these means the water is now soon collected from the earth's surface and carried off with increased velocity. Formerly the streams would sustain their volume continuously for weeks. Hence much of the rainfall is directly taken into the ground, and only a por- tion of it now finds its way to the rivers, and that which does has a speedier exit. Besides this, settlement of and particularly the growing of trees on the prairies and the clearing out of the excess of forests in the timbered districts, tends to distribute the rainfall more evenly through- out the year, and in a large degree prevents the recurrence of those ex- tremes of drouth and flood with which this country was formerly visited.

CHAPTER V.

ORIGIN OF THE PRAIRIES.

THE prairies have ever been a wonder, and their origin the theme of much curious speculation. The vast extent of these natural meadows would naturally excite curiosity, and invite the many theories which, from time to time, have been advanced by writers holding conflicting opinions as to the manner in which they were formed. Major Stod- dard, H. M. Brackenridge and Governor Reynolds, whose personal acquaintance with the prairies, eastward of the Mississippi, extended back prior to the year 1800, and whose observations were supported by the experience of other contemporaneous residents of the west, held that the prairies were caused by fire. The prairies are covered with grass, and were probably occasioned by the ravages of fire; because wherever copses of trees were found on them, the grounds about them are low and too moist to admit the fire to pass over it ; and because it is a common practice among the Indians and other hunters to set the woods and prairies on fire, by means of which they are able to kill an abundance of game. They take secure stations to the leeward, and the fire drives the game to them .*

The plains of Indiana and Illinois have been mostly produced by the same cause. They are very different from the Savannahs on the seaboard and the immense plains of the upper Missouri. In the prairies of Indiana I have been assured that the woods in places have been known to recede, and in others to increase, within the recollection of the old inhabitants. In moist places, the woods are still standing, the fire meeting here with obstruction. Trees, if planted in these prairies, would doubtless grow. In the islands, preserved by accidental causes, the progress of the fire can be traced ; the first burning would only scorch the outer bark of the tree; this would render it more susceptible to the next, the third would completely kill. I have seen in places, at present completely prairie, pieces of burnt trees, proving that the prairie had been caused by fire. The grass is generally very luxuriant, which is not the case in the plains of the Missouri. There may, doubtless, be spots where the proportion of salts or other bodies may be such as to favor the growth of grass only.t

* Sketches of Louisiana, by Major Amos Stoddard, p. 213.

+ Brackenridge's Views of Louisiana, p. 108.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

Governor Reynolds, who came to Illinois at the age of thirteen, in the year 1800, and lived here for over sixty years, the greater portion of his time employed in a public capacity, roving over the prairies in the Indian border wars or overseeing the affairs of a public and busy life, in his interesting autobiography, published in 1855, says : " Many learned essays are written on the origin of the prairies, but any atten- tive observer will come to the conclusion that it is fire burning the strong, high grass that caused the prairies. I have witnessed the growth of the forest in these southern counties of Illinois, and know there is more timber in them now than there was forty or fifty years before. The obvious reason is, the fire is kept out. This is likewise the reason the prairies are generally the most fertile soil. The vegeta- tion in them was the strongest and the fires there burnt with the most power. The timber was destroyed more rapidly in the fertile soil than in the barren lands. It will be seen that the timber in the north of the state, is found only on the margins of streams and other places where the prairie fires could not reach it."

The later and more satisfactory theory is, that the prairies were formed by the action of water instead of fire. This position was taken and very ably discussed by that able and learned writer, Judge James Hall, as early as 1836. More recently, Prof. Lesquereux prepared an article on the origin and formation of the prairies, published at length in vol. 1, Geological Survey of Illinois, pp. 238 to 254, inclusive; and Dr. Worthen, the head of the Illinois Geological Department, referring to this article and its author, gives to both a most flattering indorsement. Declining to discuss the comparative merits of the various theories as to the formation of the prairies, the doctor "refers the reader to the very able chapter on the subject by Prof. Lesquereux, whose thorough acquaintance, both with fossil and recent botany, and the general laws which govern the distribution of the ancient as well as the recent flora, entitles his opinion to our most profound consideration." *

Prof. Lesquereux' article is exhaustive, and his conclusions are summed up in the declaration " that all the prairies of the Mississippi Valley have been formed by the slow recessions of waters of various extent; first transformed into swamps, and in the process of time drained and dried ; and that the high rolling prairies, and those of these bottoms along the rivers as well, are all the result of the same cause, and form one whole, indivisible system."

Still later, another eminent writer, Hon. John D. Caton, late Judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, has given the result of his observa-

* Chap. 1, p. 10, Geology of Illinois, by Dr. Worthen; vol. 1, Illinois Geological Survey.

THE PRAIRIES.

tions. While assenting to the received conclusion that the prairies - the land itself- have been formed under water, except the decomposed animal and vegetable matter that has been added to the surface of the lands since their emergence, the judge dissents from Prof. Lesquereux, in so far as the latter holds that the presence of ulmic acid and other unfavorable chemicals in the soil of the prairies, rendered them unfit for the growth of trees; and in extending his theory to the prairies on the uplands, as well as in their more level and marshy portions. The learned judge holds to the popular theory that the most potent cause in keeping the prairies as such, and retarding and often destroying forest growth on them, is the ageney of fire. Whatever may have been the condition of the ground when the prairie lands first emerged from the waters, or the chemical changes they may have since under- gone, how many years the process of vegetable growth and decay may have gone on, adding their deposits of rich loam to the original sur- face, making the soil the most fertile in the world, is a matter of mere speculation ; certain it is, however, that ever within the knowledge of man the prairies have possessed every element of soil necessary to in- sure a rapid and vigorous growth of forest trees, wherever the germ could find a lodgment and their tender years be protected against the one formidable enemy, fire. Judge Caton gives the experience of old settlers in the northern part of the state, similar to that of Bracken- ridge and Reynolds, already quoted, where, on the Vermillion River of the Illinois, and also in the neighborhood of Ottawa many years ago, fires occurred under the observation of the narrators, which utterly destroyed, root and branch, an entire hardwood forest, the prairie taking immediate possession of the burnt district, clothing it with grasses of its own ; and in a few years this forest land, reclaimed to prairie, could not be distinguished from the prairie itself, except from its greater luxuriance.

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History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 3

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164