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 4

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 4

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Judge Caton's illustration of how the forests obtain a foot-hold in the prairies is so aptly expressed, and in such harmony with the ex- perience of every old settler on the prairies of eastern Illinois and western Indiana, that we quote it.

" The cause of the absence of trees on the upland prairies is the problem most important to the agricultural interests of our state, and it is the inquiry which alone I propose to consider, but cannot resist the remark that wherever we do find timber throughout this broad field of prairie, it is always in or near the humid portions of it,- as along the margins of streams, or upon or near the springy uplands. Many most luxuriant groves are found on the highest portions of the uplands, but always in the neighborhood of water. For a remarkable

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

example I may refer to that great chain of groves extending from and including the Au Sable Grove on the east and Holderman's Grove on the west, in Kendall county, occupying the high divide between the waters of the Illinois and the Fox Rivers. In and around all the groves flowing springs abound, and some of them are separated by marshes, to the very borders of which the great trees approach, as if the forest were ready to seize upon each yard of ground as soon as it is elevated above the swamps. Indeed, all our groves seem to be located where water is so disposed as to protect them, to a great or less extent, from the prairie fire, although not so situated as to irrigate them. If the head-waters of the streams on the prairies are most frequently with- ont timber, so soon as they have attained sufficient volume to impede the progress of the fires, with very few exceptions we find forests on their borders, becoming broader and more vigorous as the magnitude of the streams increase. It is manifest that land located on the borders of streams which the fire cannot pass are only exposed to one-half the fires to which they would be exposed but for such protection. This tends to show, at least, that if but one-half the fires that have occurred had been kindled, the arboraceous growth could have withistood their destructive influences, and the whole surface of what is now prairie would be forest. Another confirmatory fact. patent to all observers, is, that the prevailing winds upon the prairies. especially in the autumn, are from the west, and these give direction to the prairie fires. Conse- quently, the lands on the westerly sides of the streams are the most exposed to the fires, and, as might be expected, we find much the most timber on the easterly sides of the streams."

"Another fact, always a subject of remark among the dwellers on the prairies, I regard as conclusive proof that the prairie soils are pecu- liarly adapted to the growth of trees is, that wherever the fires have been kept from the groves by the settlers, they have rapidly encroached upon the prairies, unless closely depastured by the farmers' stock, or prevented by cultivation. This fact I regard as established by careful observation of more than thirty-five years, during which I have been an interested witness of the settlement of this country,- from the time when a few log cabins. many miles apart, built in the borders of the groves, alone were met with, till now nearly the whole of the great prairies in our state, at least, are brought under cultivation by the in- dustry of the husbandman. Indeed, this is a fact as well recognized by the settlers as that corn will grow upon the prairies when properly cultivated. Ten years ago I heard the observation made by intelligent men, that within the preceding twenty-five years the area of the timber in the prairie portions of the state had actually doubled by the sponta-

FOREST ENCROACHMENT.

neous extension of the natural groves. However this may be, certain it is that the encroachments of the timber upon the prairies have been universal and rapid, wherever not impeded by fire or other physical canses."

When Europeans first landed in America, as they left the dense forests east of the Alleghanies and went west over the mountains into the valleys beyond, anywhere between Lake Erie and the fortieth degree of latitude, approaching the Scioto River, they would have seen small patches of country destitute of timber. These were called open- ings. As they proceeded farther toward the Wabash the number and area of these openings or barrens would increase. These last were called by the English savannahs or meadows, and by the French, prairies. Westward of the Wabash, except occasional tracts of timbered lands in northern Indiana, and fringes of forest growth along the inter- vening water-courses, the prairies stretch westward continuously across a part of Indiana and the whole of Illinois to the Mississippi. Taking the line of the Wabash railway, which crosses Illinois in its greatest breadth, and beginning in Indiana, where the railway leaves the tim- ber, west of the Wabash near Marshfield, the prairie extends to Quincy, a distance of more than two hundred and fifty miles, and its contin- nity the entire way is only broken by four strips of timber along four streams running at right angles with the route of the railway, namely the timber on the Vermillion River, between Danville and the Indiana state-line, the Sangamon, seventy miles west of Danville near Decatur, the Sangamon again a few miles east of Springfield, and the Illinois River at Meredosia; and all of the timber at the crossing of these several streams, if put together, would not aggregate fifteen miles against the two hundred and fifty miles of prairie. Taking a north and south direction and parallel with the drainage of the rivers, one could start near Ashley, on the Illinois Central railway, in Washing- ton county, and going northward, nearly on an air-line, keeping on the divide between the Kaskaskia and Little Wabash, the Sangamon and the Vermillion, the Iroquois and the Vermillion of the Illinois, eross- ing the latter stream between the months of the Fox and Du Page and travel through to the state of Wisconsin, a distance of nearly three hundred miles, without encountering five miles of timber during the whole journey. Mere figures of distances across the "Grand Prairie," as this vast meadow was called by the old settlers, fail to give an ade- quate idea of its magnitude.

Let the reader, in fancy, go back fifty or sixty years, when there were no farms between the settlement on the North Arm Prairie, in Edgar county, and Ft. Clark, now Peoria, on the Illinois River, or 3

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

between the Salt Works, west of Danville, and Ft. Dearborn, where Chicago now is, or when there was not a house between the Wabash and Illinois Rivers in the direction of La Fayette and Ottawa ; when there was not a solitary road to mark the way ; when Indian trails alone led to unknown places, where no animals except the wild deer and slinking wolf would stare, the one with timid wonder, the other with treacherous leer, upon the ventursome traveler; when the gentle winds moved the supple grasses like waves of a green sea under the sun- mer's sky ; - the beauty, the grandeur and solitude of the prairies may be imagined as they were a reality to the pioneer when he first beheld them.

There is an essential difference between the prairies eastward of the Mississippi and the great plains westward necessary to be borne in mind. The western plains, while they present a seeming level appear- ance to the eye, rise rapidly to the westward. From Kansas City to Pueblo the ascent is continuous; beyond Ft. Dodge, the plains, owing to their elevation and consequent dryness of the atmosphere and absence of rainfall, produce a thin and stunted vegetation. The prai- ries of Illinois and Indiana, on the contrary, are much nearer the sea- level, where the moisture is greater. There were many ponds and sloughs which aided in producing a humid atmosphere, all which induced a rank growth of grasses. All early writers, referring to the vegetation of our prairies, including Fathers Hennepin, St. Cosme, Charlevoix and others, who recorded their personal observations nearly two hundred years ago, as well as later English and American travel- ers, bear uniform testimony to the fact of an unusually luxuriant growth of grasses.

Early settlers, in the neighborhood of the author, all bear witness to the rank growth of vegetation on the prairies before it was grazed by live stock, and supplanted with shorter grasses, that set in as the country improved. Since the organization of Edgar county in 1823,- of which all the territory north to the Wisconsin line was then a part,- on the level prairie between the present sites of Danville and Georgetown, the grass grew so high that it was a source of amusement to tie the tops over the withers of a horse, and in places the height of the grass would nearly obscure both horse and rider from view. This was not a slough, but on arable land, where some of the first farms in Vermillion county were broken out. On the high rolling prairies the vegetation was very much shorter, though thick and compact ; its aver- age height being about two feet.

The prairie fires have been represented in exaggerated pictures of men and wild animals retreating at full speed, with every mark of ter-

PRAIRIE FIRES.

ror, before the devouring element. Such pictures are overdrawn. In- stances of loss of human life, or animals, may have sometimes occurred. The advance of the fire is rapid or slow, as the wind may be strong or light; the flames leaping high in the air in their progress over level ground, or burning lower over the uplands. When a fire starts under favorable causes, the horizon gleams brighter and brighter until a fiery redness rises above its dark outline, while heavy, slow-moving masses of dark clouds curve upward above it. In another moment the blaze itself shoots up, first at one spot then at another, advancing until the whole horizon extending across a wide prairie is clothed with flames, that roll and curve and dash onward and upward like waves of a burn- ing ocean, lighting up the landscape with the brilliancy of noon-day. A roaring, crackling sound is heard like the rushing of a hurricane. The flame, which in general rises to the height of twenty feet, is seen rolling its waves against each other as the liquid, fiery mass moves for- ward, leaving behind it a blackened surface on the ground, and long trails of murky smoke floating above. A more terrific sight than the burning prairies in early days can scarcely be conceived. Woe to the farmer whose fields extended into the prairie, and who had suffered the tall grass to grow near his fences ; the labor of the year would be swept away in a few hours. Such accidents occasionally occurred, although the preventive was simple. The usual remedy was to set fire against fire, or to burn off a strip of grass in the vicinity of the improved ground, a beaten road, the treading of domestic animals about the inclosure of, the farmer, would generally afford protection. In other cases a few furrows would be plowed around the field, or the grass closely mowed between the outside of the fence and the open prairie .*

No wonder that the Indians, noted for their naming a place or thing from some of its distinctive peculiarities, should have called the prairies Mas-ko-tia, or the place of fire. In the ancient Algon- quin tongue, as well as in its more modern form of the Ojibbeway (or Chippeway, as this people are improperly designated), the word scoutay means fire ; and in the Illinois and Pottowatamie, kindred dialects, it is scotte and seutay, respectively.+ It is also eminently characteristic that the Indians, who lived and hunted exclusively upon the prairies, were known among their red brethren as " Maskoutes," rendered by the French writers, Maskoutines, or People of the Fire or Prairie Country.

North of a line drawn west from Vincennes, Illinois is wholly

* Judge James Hall: Tales of the Border, p. 244; Statistics of the West, p. 82. + Gallatin's Synopsis of the Indian Tribes, etc.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

prairie,- always excepting the thin curtain of timber draping the water-courses ; and all that part of Indiana lying north and west of the Wabash, embracing fully one-third of the area of the state, is essentially so.

Of the twenty-seven counties in Indiana, lying wholly or partially west and north of the Wabash, twelve of them are prairie ; seven are mixed prairies, barrens and timber, the barrens and prairie predomi- nating. In five, the barrens, with the prairies, are nearly equal to the timber, while only three of the counties can be characterized as heavily timbered. And wherever timber does occur in these twenty-seven counties, it is found in localities favorable to its protection against the ravages of fire, by the proximity of intervening lakes, marshes or water-courses. We cannot know how long it took the forest to ad- vance from the Scioto; how often capes and points of trees, like skir- mishers of an army, secured a foothold to the eastward of the lakes and rivers of Ohio and Indiana, only to be driven back again by the prairie fires advancing from the opposite direction ; or conceive how many generations of forest growth were consumed by the prairie fires before the timber-line was pushed westward across the state of Ohio, and through Indiana to the banks of the Wabaslı.

The prairies of Illinois and Indiana were born of water and pre- served by fire for the children of civilized men, who have come and taken possession of them. The manner of their coming, and the diffi- culties that befell them on the way, will hereafter be considered. The white man, like the forests. advanced from the east. The red man, like the prairie fires, as we shall hereafter see, came from the west.

CHAPTER VI.

EARLY DISCOVERIES.

HAVING given a description of the lakes and rivers, and noticed some of the more prominent features that characterize the physical geography of the territory within the scope of our inquiry, and the parts necessarily connected with it, forming, as it were, the outlines or ground plan of its history, we will now proceed to fill in the frame- work, with a narration of its discovery. Jacques Cartier, as already intimated in a note on a preceding page, ascended the St. Lawrence River in 1535. He sailed up the stream as far as the great Indian vil- lage of Hoc Lelaga, situated on an island at the foot of the mountain, styled by him Mont Royal, now called Montreal, a name since extend- ed to the whole island. The country thus discovered was called New France. Later, and in the year 1598, France, after fifty years of domestic troubles, recovered her tranquillity, and, finding herself once more equal to great enterprises, acquired a taste for colonization. Her attention was directed to her possessions, by right of discovery, in the new world, where she now wished to establish colonies and extend the faith of the Catholic religion. Commissions or grants were accordingly issued to companies of merchants, and others organized for this pur- pose, who undertook to make settlements in Acadia, as Nova Scotia was then called, and elsewhere along the lower waters of the St. Law- rence; and, at a later day, like efforts were made higher up the river. In 1607 Mr. De Monts, having failed in a former enterprise, was deprived of his commission, which was restored to him on the condition that he would make a settlement on the St. Lawrence. The company he represented seems to have had the fur trade only in view, and this object caused it to change its plans and avoid Acadia altogether. De Monts' company inereased in numbers and capital in proportion as the fur trade developed expectations of profit, and many persons at St. Malo, particularly, gave it their support. Feeling that his name injured his associates, M. De Monts retired ; and when lie ceased to be its governing head, the company of merchants recovered the monopoly with which the charter was endowed, for no other object than making money out of the fur trade. They cared nothing whatever for the col- ony in Acadia, which was dying out, and made no settlements else-

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

where. However, Mr. Samuel Champlain, who cared little for the fur trade, and whose thoughts were those of a patriot, after maturely ex- amining where the settlements directed by the court might be best established, at last fixed on Quebec. He arrived there on the 3d of July, 1608, put up some temporary buildings for himself and company, and began to clear off the ground, which proved fertile .*

The colony at Quebec grew apace with emigrants from France ; and later, the establishment of a settlement at the island of Montreal was undertaken. Two religions enthusiasts, the one named Jerome le Royer de la Dauversiere, of Anjou, and the other John James Olier, assumed the undertaking in 1636. The next who joined in the move- ment was Peter Chevirer, Baron Fancamp, who in 1640 sent tools and provisions for the use of the coming settlers. The projectors were now aided by the celebrated Baron de Renty, and two others. Father Charles Lalemant indneed John de Lauson, the proprietor of the island of Montreal, to cede it to these gentlemen, which he did in August, 1640 ; and to remove all donbts as to the title, the associates obtained a grant from the New France Company, in December of the same year, which was subsequently ratified by the king himself. The associates agreed to send out forty settlers, to clear and cultivate the ground ; to increase the number annually ; to supply them with two sloops, cattle and farm hands, and, after five years, to erect a seminary, maintain ecclesiastics as missionaries and teachers, and also nuns as teachers and hospitalers. On its part the New France Company agreed to trans- port thirty settlers. The associates then contributed twenty-five thou- sand crowns to begin the settlement, and Mr. de Maisonneuve embarked with his colony on three vessels, which sailed from Rochelle and Dieppe, in the summer of 1641. The colony wintered in Quebec, spending their time in building boats and preparing timber for their houses ; and on the Sth of May, 1642, embarked, and arrived nine days after at the island of Montreal, and after saying mass began an intrenchment around their tents.+

Notwithstanding the severity of the climate, the loss of life by dis- eases incident to settling of new countries, and more especially the

* History of New France.

+ From Dr. Shea's valuable note on Montreal, on pages 129 and 130, vol. 2, of his translation of Father Charlevoix' History of New France. Mr. Albach, publisher of "Annals of the West," Pittsburgh edition, 1857, p. 49, is in error in saying that Montreal was founded in 1613, by Samuel Champlain. Champlain, in company with a young Huron Indian, whom he had taken to and brought back from France on a previous voyage, visited the island of Montreal in 1611, and chose it as a place for a settlement he designed to establish, but which he did not begin, as he was obliged to return to France; ride Charlevoix'. " History of New France," vol. 2, p. 23. The Ameri- can Clyclopedia, as well as other authorities, concur with Dr. Shea, that Montreal was founded in 1642, seven years after Champlain's death.

QUEBEC FOUNDED.

destruction of its people from raids of the dreaded Iroquois Indians, the French colonies grew until, according to a report of Governor Mons. Denonville to the Minister at Paris, the population of Canada, in 1686, had increased to 12,373 souls. Quebee and Montreal became the base of operations of the French in America; the places from which missionaries, traders and explorers went out among thie savages into countries hitherto unknown, going northward and westward, even beyond the extremity of Lake Superior to the upper waters of the Mississippi, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico; and it was from these cities that the religious, military and commercial affairs of this widely extended region were administered, and from which the French settlements subsequently established in the northwest and at New Orleans were principally recruited. The influence of Quebec and Montreal did not end with the fall of French power in America. It was from these cities that the English retained control of the fur trade in, and exerted a power over the Indian tribes of, the northwest that harassed and retarded the spread of the American settlements through all the revolutionary war, and during the later contest between Great Britain and the United States in the war of 1812. Indeed, it was only until after the fur trade was exhausted and the Indians placed beyond the Mississippi, subsequent to 1820, that Quebee and Montreal ceased to exert an influence in that part of New France now known as Illinois and Indiana.

Father Claude Allouez, coasting westward from Sault Ste. Marie, reached Chegoimegon, as the Indians called the bay south of the Apos- tle Islands and near La Pointe on the southwestern shore of Lake Supe- rior, in October, 1665. Here he found ten or twelve fragments of Algonquin tribes assembled and about to hang the war kettle over the fire preparatory for an incursion westward into the territory of the Sioux. The good father persuaded them to give up their intended hostile expedition. He set up in their midst a chapel, to which he gave the name of the " Mission of the Holy Ghost," at the spot afterward known as "Lapointe du Saint Esprit," and at onee began his mission work. His chapel was an object of wonder, and its establishment soon spread among the wild children of the forest, and thither from great distances eame numbers all alive with curiosity,- the roving Potta- watomies, Sacs and Foxes, the Kiekapoos, the Illinois and Miamis,- to whom the truths of christianity were announced .*

Three years later Father James Marquette took the place of Allouez, and while here he seems to have been the first that learned of the Missis- sippi. In a letter written from this mission by Father Marquette to * Shea's History of Catholic Missions, 358.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

his Reverend Father Superior, preserved in the Relations for 1669 and 1670, he says : "When the Illinois come to the point they pass a great river, which is almost a league in width. It flows from north to south, and to so great a distance that the Illinois, who know nothing of the use of the canoe, have never as yet heard tell of the mouth ; they only know that there are great nations below them, some of whom, dwelling to the east-southeast of their country, gather their Indian-corn twice a year. A nation that they call Chaonanon (Shawnees) came to visit them during the past summer; the young man that has been given to me to teach me the language has seen them ; they were loaded with glass beads, which shows that they have communication with the Europeans. They had to journey across the land for more than thirty days before arriving at their country. It is hardly probable that this great river discharges itself in Virginia. We are more inclined to believe that it has its mouth in California. If the savages, who have promised to make me a canoe, do not fail in their word, we will navi- gate this river as far as is possible in company with a Frenchman and this young man that they have given me, who understands several of these languages and possesses great facility for acquiring others. We shall visit the nations who dwell along its shores, in order to open the way to many of our fathers who for a long time have awaited this happiness. This discovery will give us a perfect knowledge of the sea either to the south or to the west."

These reports concerning the great river came to the knowledge of the authorities at Quebec and Paris, and naturally enough stimu- lated further inquiry. There were three theories as to where the river emptied ; one, that it discharged into the Atlantic south of the British colony of Virginia; second, that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico; and third, which was the more popular belief, that it emptied into the Red Sea, as the Gulf of California was called ; and if the latter, that it would afford a passage to China. To solve this important commercial problem in geography, it was determined, as appears from a letter from the Governor, Count Frontenac, at Quebec, to M. Colbert, Minister of the navy at Paris, expedient "for the service to send Sieur Joliet to the country of the Mascoutines, to discover the South Sea and the great river - they call the Mississippi - which is supposed to discharge itself into the Sea of California. Sienr Joliet is a man of great experience in these sorts of discoveries, and has already been almost to that great river, the mouth of which he promises to see. We shall have intelli- gence of him, certainly, this summer .* Father Marquette was chosen to accompany Joliet on account of the information he had already ob-

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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 4

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