USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. I > Part 10
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REAL WILD CAT BANKS
Following the ratifieation of the Constitution of 1848, there began, almost immediately, an agitation for banks of issue in Illinois. The New York free banking law had been in operation for a deeade. The bank bills were seeured by bonds of the United States or state, or mortgages approved by the state comptroller, in whose hands the
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securities were placed. That official issned the bills put in circula- tion, which were countersigned by the bank officers. The bank bills were to be redeemed when presented by the holders within a reasonable time and, if necessary, the comptroller was authorized to sell the bonds deposited with him for that purpose and wind up the affairs of the bank.
In the session of 1851 the Legislature passed a law founded on the New York system, and it was ratified at the general election in Novem- ber. Under it. also, no bank could be organized with a smaller issue of bills than $50,000. It was also provided that if any bank refused to redeem its issue, it was liable to a fine of 121/2 per cent on the amount presented for redemption.
On the face of it, the law seemed fairly to proteet both the bank noteholder and the state: but various schemes were worked to keep the people from presenting their bills for redemption. One of the most ingenions was the interchanging of bills between banks in widely sep- arated sections of the country. A bank, say. in Springfield, Illinois, would send $25.000 of its own issue to a bank in Massachusetts, say in Boston ; the Boston bank returning a like amount to the Springfield bank. Each bank would then pay out this money over its counter in small quantities and in this way the Springfield bank issue would become seattered all over New England and no person holding but a few dollars would think of coming to Springfield to get his bills re- deemed. The issne of the Boston bank would be seattered through the West. In this way, and in other ways. the money of Illinois he- came scattered in other states, while in the ordinary business trans- action in the state one would handle a large number of bills daily which had been issued in other states.
No doubt many corporations went into the banking business under this law with elean hands and carried on a properly conducted bank- ing business, but there were ways by which irresponsible and dis- honest men might go into the banking business and make large sums of money without very much capital invested.
These banks were known as wild-eat banks. The name is said to have originated from the picture of a wild eat engraved on the hills of one of these irresponsible banks in Michigan. However, they may have been named from the fact that the words "wild eat" were often applied to any irresponsible venture or seheme.
There were, in Illinois, organized under this law. 115 banks of issue. Up to 1860 the "ultimate seenrity" was sufficient at any time to redeem all outstanding bills, but when the Civil war eame on the securities of the southern states, on deposit in the auditor's office, depreciated greatly in value. The banks were going into liquidation rapidly. They redeemed their bills at all prices from par down to 49 cents on the dollar. It is estimated that the bill-holders lost about $400.000, but that it came in such a way that it was not felt seriously. This system of banking was followed by the national banking system with which we are acquainted today.
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The 115 banks of issue which were in operation in Illinois just prior to the Civil war issued nearly 1,000 different kinds of bank bills. Because of the large number of kinds counterfeiting was easy, and it is said that much of the money in cireulation was counterfeit. Banks received reports as to the condition of financial institutions over the state daily. One never knew when he presented a bill in payment of a debt whether it was of any value. Often the merchant would accept this paper money only when heavily discounted.
The agitation of the slavery question, which had eentered around the debates on the Missouri Compromise and the efforts of the Free Soilers at least to restrict the spread of the institution, swept through Western Illinois, where both Lincoln and Douglas were not unfa- miliar figures. In 1858 they also eleetioneered in their famous contest for the United States Senate, and one of their most famous debates was held in Washington Park, Quiney.
NATIONAL BANKS FORCE OUT FREE BANKS
In February, 1863, Congress passed an act ereating a national banking system, and in that year several of the free banks of Illinois changed accordingly. All free banks which had their notes seeured by bonds of the seceding states were obliged to furnish additional security. or redeem their notes and suspend. Thus the free banks began to disappear. In March, 1865, Congress passed a law which placed a tax on all bills issued by the state banks, which had the effeet of forcing the remainder of the free banks ont of business, or indueing them to join the ranks of the National banks. The National Banking Law of 1863 is the basis of the system of today. It has been greatly reinforced of late years by the statutes by which banks are chartered and regulated by the state, and by the National enaetments of even later data by which the National banks co-operate and pro- teet the entire financial system of the country and especially promote and conserve the vast agricultural interests of the nation.
THE CONSTITUTION OF 1870
The coming and progress of the Civil war, and how Adams County participated in it, is told in another chapter. Perhaps the next broad event affecting the county at many points was the adoption of the State Constitution of 1870. It is divided into twenty sections. Briefly, it provides for minority representation and for free schools; prohibits the paying of money by any eivil corporate body in aid of any church or parochial school; creates fifty-one senatorial distriets. each of which is entitled to one senator and three representatives ; deelares the inviolability of the Illinois Central Railroad tax; lays the basis of the present railroad and warehouse laws; prohibits the sale or lease of the Illinois & Michigan Canal without a vote of the people ; prohibits municipalities from subseribing for any stoek in any
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railroad or private corporation ; limits the rate of taxation and amount of indebtedness that may be incurred ; prohibits special legislation : authorizes the creation of appellate courts, and fixes the salaries of state officers by legislative enaetment.
Since the adoption of the Constitution of 1870, the state as a topic has been broken into so many fragments that it is impracticable to treat it as a whole, and even the history of the county since that time is so divided and subdivided as to be strictly modern in its aspect. It is a most natural and logical ending to this chapter.
CHAPTER V
SOME YEARS PRECEDING COUNTY ORGANIZATION
ILLINOIS BOUNTY LAND TRACT AND MADISON COUNTY-OLD PIKE COUNTY-WOOD AND KEYES "MEET UP"-THE TILLSONS SPEAK OF QUINCY'S FOUNDERS-THE FIRST MAN AND THE FIRST WOMAN -AGREEABLE ALL 'ROUND THE OLD WOOD PLACE-MIRS. JERE- MIAH ROSE, FIRST QUINCY WHITE WOMAN-KEYES AND DROULARD SETTLE-THE COUNTY'S FIRST PHYSICIAN-GOV. JOHN WOOD- WILLARD KEYES-JEREMIAH ROSE-ASA TYRER-OLD PIKE COUNTY VOTES "NO CONVENTION"-THOMAS CARLIN-COUNTY OF ADAMS CREATED-LOCATING THE SEAT OF JUSTICE-JOHN QUINCY ADAMS COMPLETELY IMMORTALIZED.
The territory now embraced within the limits of Adams County was originally a very small part of the Military Bounty Land Tract, which was created by Congress in May, 1812, and embraced all the country lying between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers as far up as fifteen north of the base line. With other lands in the territories of Michigan and Louisiana (afterward Missouri and Arkansas), that tract was set apart as a bounty to the non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Patriot army, each of whom was entitled to 160 acres, or a quarter section of land.
ILLINOIS BOUNTY LAND TRACT AND MADISON COUNTY
The Illinois Bounty Land Tract (which comes still closer home) was surveyed by the United States Government during the years 1815 and 1816. The title to that domain remained with the United States until after the distribution of the lands by patents to the respective soldiers entitled thereto. The entire tract, however, was not patented to the soldiers; a large portion of it was subsequently sold by the Government to purchasers outside of that class.
The County of Madison, which was organized by proclamation of Governor Edwards March 14, 1812, embraced the entire Illinois Mili- tary Tract-that is, the country in the present state north of a line beginning on the Mississippi River with the second township above Cahokia, and running east to the Indiana Territory.
OLD PIKE COUNTY
An act to form a new county from the Illinois bounty lands was approved on January 21, 1821. It was created as Pike County and
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its boundaries were defined as "beginning at the mouth of the Illinois River and running thence up the middle of said river to the fork of the same, thence up the fork of the said river until it strikes the state line of Indiana, thence north with said line to the north boundary line of this state, thence west with said line to the west boundary line of this state, and thence with said boundary line to the place of be- ginning."
Pike County thus bounded was to form part of the First Judicial Circuit. The election for county officers which completed the or-
PIONEER HOME IN OLD PIKE COUNTY
ganization of Oldl Pike, took place at Cole's Grove (now Gilead), Calhoun County. April 21, 1821.
By a legislative act approved December 30, 1822, the County of Pike was again bounded so as to inelude not only all of the Military Bounty Land Tract south of the baseline, but all the rest of the territory within its original limits was still attached to the county for judicial and political purposes until otherwise disposed of by the General Assembly of the state.
From the foregoing record it is evident that from the organization of Madison County in 1812 to the creation of Old Pike in 1821. deeds for lands lying in the Bounty Land Tract were properly recorded in
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Madison County ; afterward, until the formation of new counties, in Old Pike. When the boundaries of the latter were fixed in Jannary, 1821, the entire population of that great country could not have ex- ceeded 100 whites, including a few Freneh families on the Illinois River.
WOOD AND KEYES "MEET UP"
In the meantime, the founders of Quiney and Adams County were on their way to the new country bordering on the Mississippi. John Wood, a native of Cayuga County, New York, and Willard Keyes, a son of Vermont, young, hardy, ambitious and single, coming west to explore and settle "met up," as the old phrase runs, in the winter of 1819, and decided, with the opening of navigation, to board a lumber raft and float down the river in a preliminary trip of inspec- tion. As Mr. Keyes says, in a lecture delivered many years afterward before the New England Society: "We floated past the model city (Quiney) on the 10th of May, 1819. unconscious of our future des- tiny in its eventful history." They decided on making eamp about thirty miles south of that locality in the American Bottom, and there built a log cabin in what was then Madison County, subsequently Old Pike. From that vantage point the two young adventurers sallied forth for two or three years and became so familiar with the country, in their quest for permanent homes for themselves, that their paid serviees were in wide demand to act as guides to strangers seeking locations, or endeavoring to reach tracts already selected.
In February, 1820, with several others, Wood and Keyes started on an exploration through the southern part of the Military Tract. This journey occupied several weeks and carried them along the see- tions adjoining the Illinois River as far north as the base line, and thence east and south toward the junction of the two rivers. The young leaders wished to inspect that locality, as the published maps of the country, defective though they were, all indicated a high bluff on the river at that point, which would always be above overflow and therefore the only really available locality north of the mouth of the Illinois River for the founding of a town. Wood and Keyes rode borrowed horses, and were fully prepared to lead their party to the promised land, but although it was piloted to the bluffs, their con- fidence and enthusiasm could not be so instilled into their eo- travelers so as to induce them to actually visit the proposed site of a new town. On their southern return, the exploring party passed through the belt of timber stretching out into the prairie and known as Indian Camp Point. The locality was a favorite gathering place for fugitive Indians for several years after white settlers were quite numerous. The Wood-Keyes explorers therefore passed within about twelve miles of the present site of Quincy, and when they reached their rendezvous thirty miles south they had been gone eleven days.
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THE TILLSONS SPEAK OF QUINCY'S FOUNDERS
The father of the late General Tillson, who resided in the southern part of the Military Traet at this period, met the founders of Quincy in the course of his own investigations, and made the following record in one of his journals: "Passed the night with two young bachelors from northern New York, Wood and Keyes by name, These young men propose to be permanent settlers, and have all the requisites of character to make good eitizens, such as will add to the character of a community and the development of landed values about them."
General Tillson himself, in his "History of Quincy," continues: "It was on one of the land-seeking excursions, as above named, in February, 1821, that Wood at last struck upon the long-thought-of El Dorado, Piloting two men, Moffatt and Flynn, in search of a quarter seetion of land owned by the latter, it proved to be the quarter section immediately east of and adjoining his present (written in 1857) residence, on the corner of Twelfth and State streets. The primitive beauties of the location touched his fancy; and he de- termined that it was just what he desired, and should be secured, if within his power. It was a disappointment to Flynn, who was im- pressed with its loneliness, and said he would not have a neighbor in fifty years. He carried away with him these feelings of dissatis- faction.
"On Wood's return to his cabin, he lost no time in pouring into the eager ears of his partner his enthusiastic impressions, and his in- tention of returning to plant himself for life. Catching the infee- tion, which so blended with his own predileetions and desires, Keyes, at his first convenience, borrowed a horse from his nearest neighbor eight miles distant, going up alone to look at the promised land and see for himself; he needed but a glance to become convinced that he should seek no further, or. to use his own words, that 'not the half had been told.' He laid out for the night at the foot of the bluff near the river, returned on the following day, and thenceforth the purposes of the young adventurers were fixed. Their home was chosen, the site of the future eity was selected, and they waited only the opportunity to establish themselves.
"These details are given as indicative of the ideas that stimulated our ancestors in their settlement of the place. Circumstances, as has been seen, conspired to lead them to eonecal the profound satisfae- tion which they entertained respecting their future home. Wood, it will be remembered, was 'tongue-tied' by the presence of parties from whom he expected to purchase, and before whom it was not judicious to too strongly express himself, and, whatever Keyes may have said or thought, could hardly have been remembered and brought away by his sole companion and another man's horse.
"The site of Quiney was then an unbroken wild, with no evidences of past permanent oceupation, save the remains of a few rude stone chimneys or fireplaces on the river bank about the foot of Broadway
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and Delaware Street. These were known to be the vestiges of the huts ereeted by French Traders who in past years had occasionally wintered there, or sometimes made it a temporary rendezvous in their oeeasional dealings with the Indians."
THE FIRST MAN AND THE FIRST WOMAN
Messrs. Wood and Keyes were not the first to view the future site of Quincy, of those who subsequently became permanent settlers in Adams Connty. Viewed in the light of later happenings, however, they were by far the most prominent of the new comers who arrived in that seetion of the Military Bounty Tract previous to 1821. Prob- ably the first settler in the county was Justus I. Perigo, an old soldier who drew a quarter seetion in seetion 9, in the northern part of Fall Creek Township, and made some improvements on his land as early as 1820. He is also said to have brought the first wife into those parts under rather questionable representations. The story goes that he pietured to his confiding sweetheart that he owned a farm of 160 acres on which were 2,000 blooming, bearing, bending apple trees. It is believed that to relieve his loneliness he stretched the nndoubted fact that upon his quarter-seetion flourished at least 2,000 prolifie wild erabapple trees. But the woman eame into the man's wild garden and if she did not eat much of its fruit, she prob- ably preserved considerable, and made some fine jellies. At all events, Perigo's farm had the distinction of being the first enltivated tract in Adams County. It adjoined the well-known Chatten farm.
About the time of Perigo's settlement, Daniel Lisle located a short distance south of the present Town of Liberty. He afterward became a county commissioner and prominent in various other ea- pacities.
AGREEABLE ALL 'ROUND
Fortunately for the future of Quincy, Quinn, who had first elaim upon its site, was as anxious to dispose of his quarter seetion as young Wood and Keyes were to acquire it. But $60 stood for an awful lot of money in the summer of 1822; and that is what Flynn asked for his elaim. The future founders of Quincy, by seraping the bottoms of their purses, got together $20 between them, and a sym- pathetie neighbor some forty miles away loaned them $40 more; so the deal went through. Flynn, who did not propose to wait for near neighbors half a century, departed and Messrs. Wood and Keyes came into possession of his land.
THE OLD WOOD PLACE
In the fall of 1822 Mr. Wood eame up from their old eamp, made another one on the river bank at what would now be the foot of
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Delaware Street, and commeneed the ercetion of the first building within the limits of the present Quiney. It was a rough log cabin, 18 by 20 feet, nailless, the cracks between the logs chinked with clay, with a specially generous application around the chimney, both over the sticks outside and the primitive stone fireplace within. With occasional aid from his distant neighbors in Old Pike, especially at the raising, Mr. Wood was enabled to complete his home sufficiently to move into it on December 8. 1822. The cabin, which stood for some years on the southeast corner of Front and Delaware streets facing west, was well remembered by the old settlers of Quiney. It was constructed with perhaps more than ordinary care for those early days : a wide porch and other additions were made; Mr. Wood applied whitewash to his residenee and fenees in liberal quantities and kept
THE WOOD CABIN OF 1822
his grounds in neat condition with tasteful improvements, now and then : so that the original, or old Wood place, was always a com- fortable looking and pretty homestead.
For the first seven years the ownership of the property was in doubt. The Government claimed the land; so did Mr. Wood, who had purchased his title from Flynn and had made all the improve- ments upon it. He was planning and preparing to farm it in the spring of 1823, although his legal status was that of a "squatter," or trespasser. Had he been a soldier, with a patent title to this traet of Military Bounty Lands, his claim would have been beyond question. Lands otherwise occupied in this section were not subject to entry or purchase until 1829. After the organization of Fulton County January 28, 1823, deeds for lands in the Military Traet, and all east of the fourth principal meridian, were properly recorded in that county until the organization of counties north of Fulton.
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MRS. JEREMIAH ROSE, FIRST QUINCY WHITE WOMAN
In March, 1823, Maj. Jeremiah Rose moved from Pike County, with his wife and child, and moved into Wood's cabin. Mrs. Rose was the first white woman to settle in Quincy and her daughter, afterward Mrs. George W. Brown, the first child. Mr. Wood boarded with the family, and the change from his own cooking and general domestic service to the home life offered him by the Rose family was doubtless welcome. In the spring the men broke and put under tillage about thirty acres of the land which Wood had purchased of Flynn and which he had fenced. This tract, which was first to be cultivated in the vicinity, was located on what would now be on both sides of State Street just cast of Twelfth.
During the year 1823 there was little immigration, although a few settlers dropped in at seattered points throughout the county. Asa Tyrer, who had been searching a location in the American Bottom since the summer of 1820 and taken passage for a point below on the Western Engineer, the first steamboat that ever stopped at the Quincy riverfront, located a homestead in Melrose Township, southeast of the present site, and erected a little blacksmith shop there. Rather it was part of the log eabin, to which he brought his family in the fol- lowing year.
KEYES AND DROULARD SETTLE
In 1824, also, Willard Keyes returned to the locality and erected a cabin on the part of the traet which he had obtained from Flynn, near what is now Vermont and Front streets. John Droulard, an- other real accession to the neighborhood, settled at about the same time, fixing his residence near the corner of Seventh and Hampshire streets.
Referring to Keyes and Droulard, General Tillson says: "This settlement of Keyes was a 'squat'; the term in those days applied to a location or residenee on Government land not yet subject to entry, and was in opposition to laws which forbid such settlement and oceupation. Mr. Keyes hoped, however, to obtain a pre-emption under the law which would entitle him to priority in purchase when the land became subject to sale. But the fact of its being fractional and the subsequent taking it for the county seat under the provisions of a law which reserved any quarter section from private entry that had been selected as a county seat, before its offer for sale, spoiled the hopes of the pioneer. He cared little about this, because it was mainly through him that the county seat was located where it now is, to the sacrifice of his immediate interests in the land on which he lived. This rough, little cramped cabin became a prominent build- ing, because put to many public uses in those early days. It was the 'temple of justice' where the first courthouse was held. It was the place for public assemblages where the early officials met and the
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primitive organizations were matured. Sometimes it served for re- ligious meetings (like Wood's cabin, half a mile south). It was a general free hotel for the wanderer and the wayfarer, and the tempo- rary stopping place of the immigrant with his family, until he could make his permanent location in the neighborhood. This was the second honse built in Quincy.
"In the fall of this year (1824) came John Droulard, a French- man and a shoemaker by trade, who had served in the army. He became the owner of the northeast quarter of Section 2, Township 2 south. Range 9 west-the 160 acres now in the center of the city lying immediately east of the fractional quarter on which Keyes had settled ; bounded by Broadway and Twelfth Street on the north and east, on the west by the alley running from Maine to Ilampshire between Sixth and Seventh streets, and on the south by a line nearly half way between Kentucky and York streets. This was a choice piece of property which, in a few years. Droulard frittered away. He ereeted a cabin near the northeast corner of what is now Jersey and Eighth streets, a little west of where the gas works are situated. These three honses-Wood's, Keyes' and Droulard's-were the only build- ings in the place in 1824."
THE COUNTY'S FIRST PHYSICIAN
A Dr. Thomas Baker, the first physician to settle in Adams County, arrived during the summer of 1824, and established himself about two miles south of the bluff. Ile was a learned and skillful man. A few years later, he moved north into what is now Mercer County. and shortly afterward was kicked to death by his horse.
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