USA > Illinois > Peoria County > Peoria > Peoria city and county, Illinois; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 21
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SCENE AT COLE BRIDGE, FOOT OF BRIDGE STREET, JUST BEFORE BRIDGE WAS TORN DOWN IN 1908 FOR NEW STRUCTURE The bridge "crowd" say "good-bye"
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PEORIA'S NEW FREE BRIDGE AT FOOT OF BRIDGE STREET
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along Floral street to Bourland, on Bourland to Hansel, on Hansel to the city limits ; along North street from Main to Armstrong avenue, and on Armstrong avenue to Taylor street and to Bluff street; also along the Knoxville road from Main to the city limits.
May 17, 1873, the Fort Clark Horse Railway Company was organized by Jacob Darst, John S. French, Jolin H. Hall, William E. Bunn and Jacob Littleton. Under the franchise granted the company had authority to lay track, some of which paralleled the "Central's," which eventually led to the last named company absorbing its rival.
April 20, 1888, the Central City Horse Railway Company was reorganized as the Central Railway Company and changed from horse to electric power. The Fort Clark Company was given authority to adopt electric power May 18, 1891, and changed its corporate name to the Fort Clark Street Railway Company, March 11, 1892.
The Peoria Rapid Transit Company was organized December 10, 1891, mainly to benefit the Central Company and laid tracks on Monroe and Fifth. These tracks with others of the Central paralleling the Fort Clark road, made the lat- ter's business hazardous to its stockholders and as a result the Fort Clark road lost its identity by being merged with its competitor.
The Peoria Heights Street Railway Company was organized October 1, 1892, and the Glen Oak & Prospect Heights Railway Company, May 7, 1896. The latter company operated a single track road, which began at the intersection of Main street and Glendale avenue and from thence run to the old Mount Hawley road at the "Alps." From there the line continued past Glen Oak Park and Springdale cemetery to the village of Prospect Heights. The stock of this road is largely held by the Central City company.
ILLINOIS TRACTION SYSTEM
The Illinois Traction System known as the McKinley Lines runs from Peoria through Springfield to St. Louis, a distance of one hundred seventy-four miles and is the only railroad between these two points that has its own rails all the way, its own terminals and bridges. Trains run from the courthouse square in Peoria to the corner of High and Twelfth streets in St. Louis, the very heart of the hotel, business and theatre district.
Over forty-five passenger trains and cars a day enter and leave Peoria. From Peoria the traction also runs to Bloomington, Decatur, Champaign, Urbana and Danville, also to Springfield. Decatur and Springfield are connected, mak- ing five hundred miles of high speed lines owned and operated by this road.
The station in Peoria is located at the corner of Hamilton and Adams streets where the offices of the Vice President, Executive, the General Counsel, the Chief Surgeon, the Chief Operating Engineer, the Purchasing Agent and the Depart- ment of Publicity are also located. At the corner of Washington and Walnut is located the freight house, the car barns and the power house. The freight house has but recently been enlarged and affords shipping facilities unequalled by other roads.
The Illinois Traction System is the only electric line in the world to operate sleeping cars. These run nightly between Peoria and St. Louis. They leave the station in Peoria at 11:30 p. m. arriving at St. Louis at 7:05 a. m. These cars, designed by officials of the Traction System, are said to be the finest sleepers on wheels, being much superior to Pullmans. They have windows in the upper berths. Steel lockers for valuables are placed in the wall at the head of each berth. The berths are not made into seats and have six inch spring beds and are six inches longer than standard Pullmans. They are as comfortable as a bed. These cars are lighted by storage batteries with lights in each berth.
Another innovation for an electric line is parlor cars. These have every convenience and were designed for comfort and easy riding. They have large
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observation platforms, comfortable arm chairs and for a small charge offer privacy and luxury. These cars, run to Springfield, Bloomington, Decatur and St. Louis.
The System also handles all classes of freight. Rapid delivery of freight is a big feature. Goods delivered to the freight house in the evening reach any point on the Traction the next morning. This is true of all terminals. Regulation freight equipment is handled by the Traction which has elevators and connections with steam roads for its freight business. Belt lines around Decatur, Spring- field, Edwardsville and Granite City have recently been completed for the more rapid handling of its freight trains.
The lines were built and put in operation from Bloomington to Peoria in 1906 and 1907, and in 1908 from Mackinaw Junction to Springfield.
The street car lines in Peoria were acquired by the System in 1904 and work was started on the Mckinley bridge across the Illinois. The power house was rebuilt and enlarged to furnish current for the local lines and the interurban.
Since acquiring the street car lines they have been practically rebuilt and to- day are said to be the best in the west for a city of the size of Peoria.
The Illinois Traction is in every respect a railroad doing all classes of rail- road business. It operates freight trains and gives an unexcelled passenger service. Cars leave Peoria for all points every hour and arrive on the same schedule. This frequence of service is a great convenience for travelers. The local cars stop at all highway crossings making it possible for the farmer to visit the city as he pleases. The limited cars stop at stations only and make as good time as the steam roads.
At St. Louis across the Mississippi the System has built the Mckinley Elec- tric Bridge at a cost of four million, five hundred thousand dollars. This is the largest bridge ever built by an electric railroad and the heaviest in carrying capacity of any that crosses the river. A handsome passenger station and ter- minal facilities have but recently been finished.
During the last year, the Traction has installed a complete system of auto- matic electric block signals. These are absolutely automatic in their operation and assure perfect safety in train operation. They are placed at all meeting points, curves and subways and render collision practically impossible. It is interesting to note that the Traction has more signals of this type than any other electric road in the United States.
In the northern part of the state the Mckinley interests own and control the Chicago, Ottawa and Peoria Railway Company. This interurban operates one hundred miles of track connecting Princeton, La Salle, Spring Valley, Ottawa, Streator and Joliet. Eventually these lines will enter Chicago and be connected with the Illinois Traction System, making a continuous interurban from St. Louis, Missouri, to Chicago, via Peoria.
William B. Mckinley is the founder and builder and president of these inter- urban lines. He is also well known from his public life, having represented the nineteenth district of Illinois in congress for six terms. He is a member of the committee of foreign affairs and was for four years chairman of the committee on coinage weights and measures.
H. E. Chubbuck, vice president and general manager of all the Mckinley interests, lives in Peoria. Mr. Chubbuck is one of the foremost men in the elec- trical business in the United States. His father and grandfather also spent their lives in the electrical industry. His grandfather then living in Utica. New York, had the distinction of collaborating with Morse in the invention of the telegraph. His father invented the sounder and established the first factory for the manu- facture of telegraph instruments in the United States. Mr. Chubbuck is the head of an organization of more than three thousand, five hundred men. His offices are in Peoria and he has made this city his permanent home, having bought property on Moss avenue. He is well known in Peoria, taking an active interest in all its business and social affairs.
CHAPTER XVIII
RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS OF PEORIA COUNTY-THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FIRST IN THE FIELD- THE METHODISTS STRONG IN THE FAITH AND IN NUMBERS- IHISTORY OF MANY CHURCHES TO BE FOUND IN THIS CHAPTER.
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
The story of the Roman Catholic church in Peoria county can best be told under several general headings.
I
As with Columbus the church came to this continent so came it also with the sons of France who first rowed down our unknown streams and penetrated our trackless forests. The explorers were catholic: the missionaries, as well. Fre- quently the same individual was both the one and the other. Witness the names of Marquette, Hennepin, Alloutez, Rasle and Gravier.
The spring of 1673 saw Father James Marquette, Joliet and five fellow countrymen rowing down the Wisconsin river to the Mississippi, thence down its current to the place where the Arkansas pitches itself into the Father of Waters. Here, satisfied that the Mississippi empties into the Gulf instead of the Pacific ocean, they started on the return voyage. Just a little curious that as Columbus was seeking a short route to India and discovered America, so these seven Frenchmen in seeking a short passage to India opened up a territory com- pared with whose wealth the lure of India drops into utter insignificance. Mar- quette's Journal of his first glimpse of the Illinois country says: "We had seen nothing like this river for the fertility of its land, its prairies, wood, wild cattle, stag, deer, wild cats, swan, ducks, parrots and even beaver: its many lakes and rivers." Prophetic forecast, for the golden harvests of Illinois now find their way to Bendemeer and Bosphorus !
Having satisfied themselves that the Mississippi afforded no short cut to India, they began the return and when at the mouth of the Illinois river they were told by the Indians of the place that this river offered a shorter way to the lakes, they ascended it and in that ascension we are privileged to chronicle the fact :
Peoria County First Fell Upon White Man's L'ision
The exact date of this potent event we do not know, but the month and the year we are able to record. June 17, 1673, saw Marquette and companions entering the Mississippi and two months later, we note him spending three days with the Indians of the Peoria village, announcing the Catholic faith to them and baptizing a dying child which was brought to him on the water's edge as he and companions were embarking to continue the journey to the Great Lakes.
With the preaching of Father Marquette and the administration of the Sacra- ment of Baptism August, 1673, we are able to fix the humble beginning of the Catholic church in Peoria county. Its beginning is coeval with the advent of the first white man to these parts.
In this voyage up the river a stop was made at the principal village of the
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Kaskaskias-a mission station was established, and from this establishment dates the authentic period of the Illinois history (1673). Seven years later La Salle descended the Illinois river on his way to the mouth of the Mississippi and while on that journey built Fort Creve Coeur, opposite the present city of Peoria. This marks the second step in the opening up of Illinois. While neither settlement was made in Peoria, they were both made in the portion of Illinois which since 1875 is known in church geography, as
The Diocese of Peoria
April 8, 1675, finds Father Marquette at the first Kaskaskia village-on the high ground north of the Illinois river and south of the present village of Utica. The narrative tells us that five hundred chiefs and old men were seated in a circle round the priest while the youth stood without, to the number of fifteen hundred besides the many women and children. Marquette preached to them and on the following Thursday and Sunday-Holy Thursday and Easter Sun- day-celebrated Mass, the first clean Oblation ever offered to God in Illinois.
April 11th and 14th. 1675, are the dates of the first Masses offered in the Diocese of Peoria. A little more than a month later this first missionary passed to his reward near the mouth of the St. Joseph river, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. His thirty-eight years ending on the 18th of May, 1675, make the historian, however crude, feel they were the beginning of immortality and the Middle West places him among names she cannot afford to let die.
After the death of Illinois' and Peoria county's first missionary, Father Allouez came to Kaskaskia on the Illinois (1077). Father Rasle, who was later murdered by the New Englanders at Norridgewock, Maine, in 1724, also visited Kaskaskia before 1700.
II
The era of the discoverer passes and the missionary gives place to the explorer and the colonist. The idea grows upon us as we behold in Fort Creve Coeur ( 1680) the fourth of that chain of fortresses which La Salle's far-reaching plans contemplated. He had already established Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, Fort Conti on the River Niagara and Fort Miami. With these the church historian is not particularly concerned except as he finds them centers of mis- sionary activity. We have already noted Marquette's visit to Peoria county, 1673, and a little more than seven years later we chronicle the advent of the second missionary or rather band of missionaries. For New Year's day, 1680, witnessed La Salle, Tonti and twenty-five followers and three Franciscan mis- sionaries landing to begin the construction of Fort Creve Coeur. The mission- aries were Fathers Hennepin, Gabriel de la Rebourde and Zenobe Membre.
March 1. 1680, saw the fort nearly finished. We cannot do better than let Hennepin tell the story in his own words: "Our fort was very nearly finished and we named it Fort Creve Coeur because the desertions of our men and the other difficulties which we labored under had almost broken our hearts. And we heard nothing of our ship and therefore wanted rigging and tackle for our bark -MI. de La Salle did not doubt then that his beloved Griffin (i. e. his transport and trading ship-Ed. ) was lost, but neither this nor the other difficulties dejected him-his great courage buoyed him up, and he resolved to return to Fort Fron- tenac by land notwithstanding the severe and unspeakable dangers attending so great a voyage.'
Hennepin tells again of long consultations had and the resolve that La Salle set out with three men and bring back with him all the necessary things for their discoveries. La Salle was intending to navigate the Mississippi to its mouth and Hennepin and two companions to go by the mouth of the Illinois to the upper Mississippi.
The missionaries who had accompanied La Salle to Creve Coeur are now about
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ST. MARY'S CATHEDRAL
THE NEW K
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to scatter themselves for more widespread effort. We cannot do better than hear again the story in Hennepin's own words: "We were three missionaries for that handful of Europeans at Fort Creve Coeur and therefore we thought fit to divide ourselves. Father Gabriel de la Rebourde, being very old, was to continue with our men at the fort. Father Zenobre Membre was to go among the Illinois, having desired it himself, in hopes to convert that numerous nation, and I was to go on without discovery."
Tonti was left in command of the fort as La Salle with three men set out overland for Canada. Father Hennepin and two companions went down the Illinois and began his memorable exploration of the upper Mississippi. Mean- while Father Membre lived in the cabin of the chief Oumahowha but the brutal habits greatly discouraged him. Gradually, however, he acquired their language. Tonti was deserted by most of his men and the aged Father de la Rebourde was adopted by Asapiata, an Illinois chief.
In September, same year, the Peorias and Kaskaskias were attacked by an Iroquois army and Hled. Tonti and the missionaries narrowly escaped and seeing no alternative set out for Green Bay in a wretched bark canoe. The following day being compelled to land for repairs while Tonti and Father Membre were making the repairs, Father de la Rebourde retired to the shade of a neighboring grove to recite his office. This was the last seen of him. Three Kickapoos had come upon him and killed him and thrown his body into a hole. His breviary eventually fell into the hands of a Jesuit missionary.
Thus September 9, 1680, bears witness to the first martyr of the Illinois mis- sions in the person of Father Gabriel de la Rebourde, who in the seventieth year passed from earth, far indeed, from his native France.
From the breaking up of Fort Creve Coeur in Autumn, 1680, to 1721, we behold the Catholic church in the ministrations of Father Gravier, Jesuit, who was here in 1693 and 1694, and who tells us of fervent Christians among the Indians. Even in the absence of the missionary the men assembled in chapel for morning and evening prayers.
The year 1700 we see Father Gravier again in Peoria, but this time the medi- cine man incited a sedition in which the missionary was dangerously wounded and narrowly escaped his life.
Father Moreat resided here for some time after Father Gravier's experience in 1700. The mission then became vacant, and the Indians in punishment for their cruelty to Father Gravier were cut off from the French trade. Father Moreat came a second time to them in 1711, and found them somewhat subdued and conscious of their former cruelty. On his return to Kaskaskia (on the Mississippi ) he sent from there Father de Ville to renew the faith among the Peorias. The next priest to visit this site was Father Charlevoix in 1721. At that time the chief's little daughter was dying and he brought her to the mis- sionary to be baptized. The chief wore on his breast a cross and figure of the Blessed Virgin.
III
From 1721 until early in the next century silence falls upon missionary effort among the Indians in the Illinois country. This is so for the reason that tribal wars of the bitterest kind made such effort impossible. That their wars were relentless yet having in them elements of the noblest daring and greatest heroism the reader need but advert to the memorable siege of Starved Rock, where, like Schamyl, on Gunib's height, ninety years later, valiant warriors looked down upon the enemy. But what traitors or new found paths could not do hunger and thirst did.
Another explanation is found for a prolonged interruption of the missionary story in what here follows. In 1712 the French government began to send white settlers to this and other colonies, which stretched all the way from New Orleans to the Great Lakes. It granted valuable franchises to Crosat and Cadillac. The Vol. 1-10
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grant ended in disaster in 1717 and was quickly followed by the bursting of Law's bank in 1720. This was known in those days as the Mississippi Bubble and was doubtless Illinois' first experiment in high finance. The white settler lost his all. In 1736, war broke out with the Chickasaws and the Illinois troops met defeat. Illinois' first governor, D'Artaguiette and its second martyr priest, Father Senet, were put to death by slow torture at the stake.
The Illinois troops under Bienville again tasted of defeat at the hands of the Chickasaws. Then came Vandruel, as governor of Louisiana, who later in 1760 surrendered Montreal and the whole of Canada to England. 1763, just ninety years after Marquette's visit to Peoria, witnessed the passing of our city and surrounding territory from French to short-lived British rule.
IV
From Father James Marquette's visit, then, in 1673 to the proclamation of General Gage bearing date December 30, 1764, the catholic was the only form of the christian religion known or proclaimed in Illinois. Bearing upon the fact : the early missionary phase of religion was exclusively catholic. Miss Jones, in her painstaking work entitled "Decisive Dates in Illinois History" writes: "Two strong motives led the French into the wilderness. One was the fur trade and the other was the love of their church which sent them as missionaries among the American Indians. Wherever a trading-post was located, a mission was established. The priest with his altar on his back went side by side with the explorer and the trader. This was the case from the time of the building of Quebec, the first permanent settlement in New France by Samuel Champlain in 1608."
The first proclamation of the first English Governor of the newly acquired territory has to do with religion and reads as follows. General Gage says : "And His Brittanic Majesty grants to the inhabitants of Illinois the liberty of the Catholic religion, as has already been granted to his subjects in Canada. He has consequently given the most precise and effective orders to this end that his new Roman Catholic subjects of the Illinois may exercise the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Roman church."
The British held possession of all this northwest territory until 1778 when Col. George Rogers Clark dislodged them. That Father Gibault greatly assisted the colonel the records show. Through him messengers were dispatched to Vincennes and Peoria (Ville du Maillet) assuring the French residents they were American allies and enemies of the English, against whose rule their racial feelings had protested for the past fourteen years. Father Gibault's services in this episode of the militant gospel were recognized in public eulogium in the legislation of Virginia in 1780.
V
From the period of the revolution just adverted to, the local historian asks the reader to make a good long mental jump of more than fifty years. There are no records covering the intervening half century : in truth, there seems little to record other than a settling back into primeval wilderness and silence from which our territory was first awakened by Father Alarquette on a memorable August day, 1673.
To be exact in dates, the mental jump brings historian and reader to Decem- ber, 1837, and August, 1839. The former date tells of Mass celebrated in the house of Thomas Mooney, who in 1835, with his family came to the La Salle Prairie about sixteen miles up the river northeast of the present city of Peoria. Mr. Mooney's name attached itself to this early homeseeking in Peoria county and the place is rightfully called Mooney Settlement. The priest who first paid the few Catholic settlers there a visit was a fellow countryman of Father Mar-
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quette. Born at Lyons, France, 1804, and ordained at St. Louis, by Bishop Rosati, April 6, 1833, the Rev. J. M. J. St. Cyr. has the distinction of being the first resident priest of Chicago and of building its first church-St. Mary's. lle has also the pilgrim's experience of walking from (Chicago) Fort Dear- born to St. Louis. This foot journey enables us to chronicle his visit to Mooney Settlement and to resume the story of the Catholic church in Peoria county after more than fifty years of silence.
The village of Kickapoo lays claim to possessing the first permanent Roman Catholic church edifice built in Illinois. The little stone church is still in use and its cornerstone was laid August 4, 1839. Fortunately the record of this most interesting early event has been preserved.
"By the authority of the Bishop, the illustrious and Rt. Rev. Joseph Rosati, I have this day blessed and placed the (first) cornerstone of a church to be erected by the faithful in Kickapoo, a mission connected with this parish and situated in the county of Peoria about sixty miles from La Salle, said church to be erected to the glory of God and of St. Patrick, Bishop of the Irish People." August 4, 1889. J. B. RAHO, C. M.
The local historian finds himself noting the passing of the early Jesuit and Franciscan missionary and their places taken by the Lazarist, who is to occupy no small space in the church history of central Illinois after the event chronicled by their worthy son, who came from the center of their religious activity at La Salle, Illinois, to lay the cornerstone of the first permanent Catholic church in Peoria county and perhaps in Illinois. Father Raho's name is closely associated with the beginnings of the Catholic activity, which has remained down to the present in the city of Peoria. He paid a short visit here in 1838 on his way from St. Louis to La Salle and a year later returned and celebrated Mass at the home of Patrick Ward on the Jefferson street lot adjoining the present St. Mary's parochial school.
From this date Mass was said now and then at the houses of various early settler Catholics.
Services were held in a public building for the first time in 1840. The distinc- tion belongs to Father Raho and the place the upper room of a frame building, corner Main and Adams, where the MeDougal drug store now stands. Father Raho was assisted by Fathers Parodi and Staehle. For a few years, the Sunday Mass was celebrated about once a month. From 1841 to 1843, public services were held on the lower side of Washington street about half way between Main and Fulton streets in what was known as Stillman's Row.
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