USA > Illinois > Illinois in 1818, 2nd ed > Part 10
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larger number than is credited to any other state. Tennessee contributed 82, Ohio 23, Indiana 9, and Illinois 3.103 From the middle states came 91 or thirteen per cent; 47 from Pennsyl- vania, 36 from New York, 6 from New Jersey, and 2 from Delaware. Only 19, or three per cent, were from New Eng- land, Massachusetts and Vermont being credited with 6 each, Connecticut and New Hampshire with 3 each, and Rhode Island with I. The remaining 66, or nine per cent, were for- eign born, 40 coming from England, 10 from Ireland, 5 each
108Obviously the proportion of 3 to 716 is too small for the native born if the French are taken into consideration. Very few of them are included in the list, however, because specific information about individuals is lacking.
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from Germany and Canada, 4 from France, and 2 from Scot- land. Including Kentucky and Tennessee with the southern states, the totals show that 505 or seventy-one per cent came from south of Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio river, as compared with the 142 or twenty per cent who came from the north and northwest.
A study of the movements of individual immigrants dis- closes the fact that a surprisingly large number had made one or two other moves before coming to Illinois. If there are added to those counted above as coming from the western states those who came to Illinois from these states but are known to have been born elsewhere, the total becomes 385 or fifty-four per cent. Of this number only 60 are known to have been born in the west; 118 are known to have been born else- where; 89 in the southern states ; 16 in the north; and 13 abroad. Assigning the remaining 207, whose birthplace is unknown, to the respective sections in the same proportions produces the fol- lowing revised figures : from the old south, fifty-three per cent ; from the west, eighteen per cent; from the north, eighteen per cent; and from abroad, eleven per cent. This may be taken as representing roughly the nativity of the 716 inhabitants of known antecedents, and therefore as an indication of the sources of the population of Illinois in 1818.
The outstanding conclusions from this investigation are : first, that about half the heads of families in Illinois in 1818 had been born in the five states of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia; and secondly, that about the same pro- portion had come to Illinois directly from the four western states of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, principally from the latter two. Most of the immigrants from Kentucky and Tennessee who had been born there, moreover, were de- scendants of natives of the old southern states. It would prob- ably be a safe generalization, therefore, to say that two-thirds of the people of Illinois at this time belonged to southern stock, while the numbers with New England or middle states ante- cedents only slightly exceeded those of foreign birth. This coin- cides with the impression to be gained from contemporary and
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reminiscent writers. Two of the correspondents to the Intelli- gencer during the convention campaign indicate that, in their opinion, immigration up to that time had been principally from the southern states.104 William H. Brown states that "the early inhabitants of Illinois were composed of the French Cana- dians . .
. and immigrants from Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina," while Governor Ford speaks of the American inhabitants as "chiefly from Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsyl- vania." Reynolds states that they "were almost entirely emi- grants from the Western States; Tennessee, Kentucky, Vir- ginia, and some from Pennsylvania and Maryland." Accord- ing to Robert W. Patterson, "the families in the country, were generally of Southern origin, many of them having come orig- inally from Virginia and the Carolinas to Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, and thence to Illinois."105
Later writers, also, have reached the same conclusion, adducing as evidence, in addition to the testimony of contemporaries, the fact that most of the po- litical leaders during the territorial period and the early years of statehood were natives of the south.106
It is not a sufficient identification of these people, however, to say that they came from the south, for the south was far from being a homogeneous section. Westward of the tidewater and plantation area along the Atlantic coast was a region of uplands and mountain valleys stretching across state boundaries from Pennsylvania to Georgia, the population of which differed materially in origin and characteristics from the occupants of the tidewater section; it was from this stock that the bulk of the "southern" people in Illinois came. The evidence for this is to be found not only in the biographical and genealogical data available in the county histories, but also in the names of heads of families in the schedules of the census of 1818. A large
104" A republican," Daniel P. Cook, in Intelligencer, April 1, 1818, and "Cau- tion," in ibid., April 15, 1818.
105Brown, "An Historical Sketch of the Early Movement in Illinois for the Legalization of Slavery," in Fergus Historical Series, no. 4:9; Reynolds, My Own Times, 65; Patterson, "Early Society in Southern Illinois," in Fer- gus Historical Series, no. 14:105.
100 Johns Hopkins University Studies, I :pt. 3, p. 9; Illinois State Historical Society, Transactions, 1903, p. 75; Boggess, Settlement of Illinois, 145; Mathews, Expansion of New England, 206-207.
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proportion of these names are typically Scotch-Irish, Welsh, or German, with Scotch-Irish predominating; and thus they are indicative of the connection of the people with that stream of non-English immigrants which poured into Pennsylvania during the eighteenth century and thence up the valleys and through the gaps to the back country of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. By the time of the revolution, the occupation of this region had been completed and the stream began to flow into Kentucky and Tennessee. In the early decades of the nine- teenth century it progressed into southern Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.
A striking characteristic of these people was their love of the frontier. From the time it appeared on the continent their strain had been in the vanguard of settlement. As frontier conditions passed away in one place, they packed up their few possessions and pushed farther into the interior. Few sons were born in the same locality that their fathers had been; few men died near where they had been born. Probably a majority of those in Illinois in 1818 had made at least one move before coming to the territory, and many, located near the border of settled area, had advanced from more southern locations within the territory. These people were true pioneers; they had become experts in grappling with frontier conditions. As Morris Birkbeck wrote of them, "to struggle with privations has now become the habit of their lives, most of them having made several successive plunges into the wilderness."107 They blazed the trail for the more permanent settlers who were to follow; always, of course, a part of them dropped out of the procession and became permanent settlers themselves. Essen- tially, then, these people were westerners rather than south- erners.
Neglecting to make this distinction, various writers have sought for the causes of this migration from the south to the northwest in the social and economic conditions of the south. Opposition to slavery, the pressure of the plantation system on the small farms, and the desire for social equality, have been
107 Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey, 121.
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assigned as causes; and doubtless these were factors which prompted many individuals. But in general the real explana- tion is to be found in the irresistible attraction which the wilder- ness exerted upon these people. They were essentially frontiers- men ; they preferred life in the woods to that in the busy haunts of men; and they felt themselves cramped and crowded in any except the most thinly populated regions. Then, too, they had a restless hope of finding something better a little farther on; they were always ready to take a sportsman's chance on the un- known. As Morris Birkbeck, the Englishman, wrote: "They are also a migrating people; and even when in prosperous circum- stances, can contemplate a change of situation, which under our old establishments and fixed habits, none, but the most enterpris- ing, would venture upon, when urged by adversity."108 It was not so much positive dissatisfaction with conditions existing in their old communities, then, as the force of habit and the hope of bettering themselves economically, that prompted the migration.
No description of these pioneers from the south can be ade- quate unless it takes into account the existence of different types among them. Although possessing some characteristics in com- mon, even these varied in degree; and statements of contem- porary writers who have a particular class in mind can not be applied indiscriminately to all the pioneers. Among the best observers of pioneer settlers were some of the leaders of the English settlement, who were careful to discriminate between the different types. Fordham divided the people on the frontier into four classes, "not perfectly distinct yet easily distinguish- able."109 To the first two of these classes belonged the bulk of the element under consideration.
"Ist. The hunters, a daring, hardy, race of men, who live in miserable cabins, which they fortify in times of War with the Indians, whom they hate but much resemble in dress and manners. They are unpolished, but hospitable, kind to Strangers, honest and trustworthy. They raise a little Indian corn, pumpkins, hogs, and sometimes have a Cow or two, and two
108Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey, 36.
109Ogg, Fordham's Personal Narrative, 125.
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or three horses belonging to each family: But their rifle is their principal means of support. They are the best marksmen in the world, and such is their dexterity that they will shoot an apple off the head of a companion. Some few use the bow and arrow. I have spent 7 or 8 weeks with these men, have had opportuni- ties of trying them, and believe they would sooner give me the last shirt off their backs, than rob me of a charge of powder. Their wars with the Indians have made them vindictive. This class cannot be called first Settlers, for they move every year or two.
"2ยช class. First settlers ;- a mixed set of hunters and farmers. They possess more property and comforts than the first class, yet they are a half barbarous race. They follow the range pretty much; selling out when the Country begins to be well settled, and their cattle cannot be entirely kept in the woods."
The description and classification of these people by George Flower is especially interesting. "These original backwoods- men," he writes, "look upon all new-comers as obtruders on their especial manorial rights. The old hunters' rule is: when you hear the sound of a neighbor's gun, it is time to move away." He found "all of this class of men, who live in solitude and commune so much with nature, relying on their own efforts to support themselves and their families, to be calm, deliberate, and self-possessed whenever they are sober. The best breeding in society could not impart to them more self-possession or give them greater ease of manner or more dignified and courteous bearing." Flower acknowledges the services of representatives of this class to the English settlers : "Dextrous with the ax, they built all our first log-cabins, and supplied us with venison. In a year or two, they moved into less-peopled regions, or to where there were no people at all, and were entirely lost to this part of the country." These men derived their means of livelihood principally from hunting, and devoted very little attention to farming. Some, however, says Flower, "follow a different des- tiny. Their little corn-patch increases to a field, their first shanty to a small log-house, which, in turn, gives place to a double- cabin, in which the loom and spinning-wheel are installed. A
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well and a few fruit-trees after a time complete the improvement. Moderate in their aspirations, they soon arrive at the summit of their desires."110
A more systematic account of the classes of settlers in the west is given by James Flint, a Scotch economist with keen powers of observation and analysis, who traveled in the west during 1818, 1819, and 1820:111 "All who have paid attention to the progress of new settlements, agree in stating, that the first possession of the woods in America, was taken by a class of hunters, commonly called backwoodsmen. The im- provements of a backwoodsman are usually confined to building a rude log cabin, clearing and fencing a small piece of ground for raising Indian corn. A horse, a cow, a few hogs, and some poultry, comprise his live-stock; and his farther operations are performed with his rifle. The formation of a settlement in his neighbourhood is hurtful to the success of his favourite pursuit, and is the signal for his removing into more remote parts of the wilderness. In the case of his owning the land on which he has settled, he is contented to sell it at a low price, and his establish- ment, though trifling, adds much to the comfort of his successor. The next class of settlers differ from the former in having con- siderably less dependence on the killing of game, in remaining in the midst of a growing population, and in devoting themselves more to agriculture. A man of this class proceeds on a small capital; he either enlarges the clearings begun in the woods by his backwoodsmen predecessor, or establishes himself on a new site. The settler of the grade under consideration, is only able to bring a small portion of his land into cultivation, his success, therefore, does not so much depend on the quantity of produce which he raises, as on the gradual increase in the value of his property. When the neighbourhood becomes more populous, he in general has it in his power to sell his property at a high price, and to remove to a new settlement, where he can purchase a more extensive tract of land, or commence farming on a larger scale than formerly. The next occupier is a cap-
110Flower, English Settlement, 67-72.
111Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 9:232-233, 235-236.
JOHN EDGAR [From original owned by Chicago Historical Society
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italist, who immediately builds a larger barn than the former, and then a brick or a frame house. He either pulls down the dwelling of his predecessor, or converts it into a stable. He erects better fences, and enlarges the quantity of cultivated land; sows down pasture fields, introduces an improved stock of horses, cat- tle, sheep, and these probably of the Merino breed. He fattens cattle for the market, and perhaps erects a flour-mill, or a saw- mill, or a distillery. Farmers of this description are frequently partners in the banks; members of the State assembly, or of Congress, or Justices of the Peace. The three con- ditions of settlers described, are not to be understood as uni- formly distinct; for there are intermediate stages, from which individuals of one class pass, as it were, into another. The first invaders of the forest frequently become farmers of the second order; and there are examples of individuals acting their parts in all the three gradations."
While it is true that some of the backwoodsmen or their de- scendants occasionally became men of prominence and of in- fluence in the community, as a rule the leaders in the movements for the political and economic development of the territory be- longed to a different class. The majority of them were south- erners also, but their antecedents went back usually to the planter class of the tidewater region. As was the case with the frontiers- men, many of them had lived in Kentucky, Tennessee, or In- diana, before locating in Illinois. A few migrated because of a dislike of the institution of slavery, many were brought in to fill appointive offices during the territorial period, others sought opportunity for political advancement and the practice of their professions in a new country, while all of them expected to make fortunes by speculating in land. A smaller number of the lead- ers were from the middle states and New England and their in- fluence was slowly increasing. These men of influence were usually fairly well educated and possessed of a moderate amount of property; but, above all, they were ambitious for themselves and for the country. They formed the third group of Ford- ham's classification-"composed of enterprising men from Kentucky and the Atlantic States. This class consists of Young
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Doctors, Lawyers, Storekeepers, farmers, mechanics, &c., who found towns, trade, speculate in land, and begin the fabric of So- ciety."112 Most of them lived in or near one of the land office towns, Kaskaskia, Shawneetown, or Edwardsville, but a few were to be found located in the smaller settlements.
Besides the settlers of German antecedents who had come to Illinois by way of the south, there were a number of Germans who had come directly from Pennsylvania. One early writer, indeed, classified the settlers as "French, Pennsylvania Dutch and native American." As a matter of fact the French and the "Dutch" were practically all native born Americans, but the classification is a rather significant commentary on those Ger- mans who, by isolating themselves, kept for so long their pe- culiar characteristics. Even when they migrated to Illinois they manifested a tendency to keep together. The principal set- tlement of Pennsylvania Germans was in and near Brownsville in Jackson county where Dr. Conrad Will, their leading repre- sentative, established himself in 1815. A number of families from Somerset county, Pennsylvania, came under the leadership of Singleton Kimmel in 1817; and John Ankeny, a relative of Kimmel, brought out eight or ten families early in 1818. Of these people, the writer before referred to, says: "They were industrious, though not enterprising people, usually farmers of moderate means, who lived comfortably, and kept their associa- tions mainly among themselves."113 As for the real foreigners, there were a few scattered in all parts of the settled area. With the exception of the English, who will be considered later, they had generally been in America for some time before coming to Illinois; and being mainly Scotch-Irish and Germans, they were
112Fordham lists a fourth class, also, not clearly distinguishable from the third : "old settlers, rich, independent, farmers, wealthy merchants, possess- ing a good deal of information, a knowledge of the world, and an enterprising spirit. Such are the Ohio men, Western Pennsylvanians, Kentuckians and Tennessee men. They undertake with facility, and carry on with unconquerable ardour, any business or speculation that promises great profit, and sustain the greatest losses with a firmness that resembles indifference." Ogg, Fordham's Personal Narrative, 126.
113Patterson, "Early Society in Southern Illinois," in Fergus Historical Series, no. 14:104; Illinois State Historical Society, Transactions, 1905, P. 351- 377 ; P. Kimmel to Pope, December 22, 1817, in United States State Depart- ment, Bureau of Indexes and Archives, "Miscellaneous Letters."
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scarcely distinguishable from the frontiersmen already described. Robert Reynolds, for example, emigrated from Ireland to Penn- sylvania in 1785, moved to Tennessee in 1788, and from there to Illinois in 1800. George Barnsback came from Germany to America in 1797, and had lived in Philadelphia and in Kentucky before moving to Illinois in 1809.11
The closing years of the territorial period saw the beginning of a settlement of foreigners that was unique not only in Illinois but in the whole west-the English settlement in Edwards county. The men who planned this enterprise, selected the site, directed the emigration, and established the settlement, were George Flower and Morris Birkbeck. Men of education and means, their purpose was partly philanthropic-to provide bet- ter opportunities for English laborers. Economic and political conditions in England following the close of the Napoleonic wars were such that emigration to the United States began to assume large proportions and these men planned to point the way for their countrymen and to assist them in establishing themselves in the new world. The reasons which led them, after a careful survey of the United States, to select the prairie land between Bon Pas creek and the Little Wabash river for their place of settlement are of considerable interest.
When Morris Birkbeck arrived in the United States in May, 1817, he had made up his mind to locate in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois; farther north he would not go be- cause of the climate, and the south had no attractions for him because of his abhorrence of the institution of slavery.115 In Richmond, Virginia, Birkbeck was joined by Flower, who had been traveling in the United States for about a year; and the two men, accompanied by Birkbeck's family, started on a tour of exploration to the west.116 The rough conditions of the frontier had no such attraction for the English emigrants as they had for the American pioneers, but the opportunity to purchase land
114Reynolds, My Own Times, 6-7, 24, 31; Illustrated Encyclopedia of Madi- son County (1873), 47.
115Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey, 6-7.
116For accounts of this tour, see ibid .; Flower, English Settlement, ch. 3. Elias Pym Fordham, a cousin of Flower, joined the party at Cincinnati. Ogg, Fordham's Personal Narrative, 94-99.
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in unlimited quantities at a low price appealed to them very much. Land ownership was the measure of social and political position in England; and, to Birkbeck and Flower, who although men of considerable means had in England only been tenants of their farms on long-time leases, the possibility of possessing large estates of their own had been one of the principal reasons for their coming to America. The prospect of more liberal political institutions held forth considerable attractions, especially to Birkbeck, but the leading motive in the formation of the settle- ment was the desire to enjoy, not so much the political liberty of the United States, as the liberty to be "found in its great space and small population. Good land dog-cheap everywhere, and for nothing, if you will go far enough for it."117
The part which the land situation played in inducing Flower and Birkbeck to select a site on the frontier in Illinois instead of in one of the more settled states to the eastward is explained by Birkbeck in a letter written in November, 1817, a few months after the decision had been made. "Had we remained in the state of Ohio," he wrote, "we must have paid from twenty to fifty dollars per acre for land which is technically called 'im- proved,' but is in fact deteriorated; or have purchased, at an ad- vance of 1000 or 1500 per cent. unimproved land from specula- tors : and in either case should have laboured under the incon- venience of settling detached from society of our own choice, and without the advantage of choice as to soil or situation. We saw many eligible sites and fine tracts of country, but these were precisely the sites and the tracts which had secured the attach- ment of their possessors.
"It was in fact impossible to obtain for ourselves a good posi- tion, and the neighbourhood of our friends, in the state of Ohio, at a price which common prudence would justify, or indeed at any price. Having given up the Ohio, we found nothing attrac- tive on the eastern side of Indiana; and situations to the south, on the Ohio river bounding that state, were so well culled as to be in the predicament above described; offering no room for us
117Flower, English Settlement, 29. See also Birkbeck, Letters from Illi- nois, 46-50; Ogg, Fordham's Personal Narrative, 122, 226; Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 9:174; II :231,
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ERES
GEORGE FLOWER [From original owned by Chicago Historical Society]
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without great sacrifices of money and society. The western side of Indiana, on the banks of the Wabash, is liable to the same and other objections. The northern part of Indiana is still in possession of the Indians.
"But a few miles farther west opened our way into a country preferable in itself to any we had seen, where we could choose for ourselves, and to which we could invite our friends; and where, in regard to communication with Europe, we could com- mand equal facilities, and foresee greater, than in the state of Ohio, being so much nearer the grand outlet at New Orleans."118
The amount and cheapness of available land was a motive in bringing American settlers as well as the English to Illinois; but there was another motive, more idealistic, which influenced the English much more than the Americans-the desire to locate on prairie land. George Flower was especially attracted by the prairies. When traveling in the west in 1816 he sought dili- gently for information about them. "I had read of them in Imlay's work,"119 he says, "and his vivid description had struck me forcibly. All the country that I had passed through was heavily timbered. I shrank from the idea of settling in the midst of a wood of heavy timber, to hack and hew my way to a little farm, ever bounded by a wall of gloomy forest. It was at Governor Shelby's house [in Kentucky] that I met the first person who confirmed me in the existence of the prairies. It was Mr. Shelby's brother. He had just come from some point on the Mississippi, across the prairies of Illinois to the Ohio River, about Shawneetown.
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