USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. I > Part 50
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Two aldermen were nominated for each of the three wards and the whigs also elected their entire ticket for these offices, except Asbury in the First Ward, who was defeated by three votes.
The following appointments were made by the City Council :
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S. P. Church. clerk ; Andrew Johnston, treasurer; Jacob Gruell, mar- shal and collector: 1. O. Woodruff, assessor; John R. Randolph, attorney: George Wood, sexton; J. D. Morgan, fire warden ; Enoch Conyers, overseer of the poor, and William King, Harrison Dills and John Odell, street supervisors.
Then came a season of readjustments bringing much confusion, which is always anticipated in such transitions from one local form of government to another. The council meetings were first held at the courthouse, there continuing until the first of November, 1840, and thereafter at the mayor's office. The town ordinances were kept in force until the 30th of May after the election, when Quiney went under eity government. Governor Carlin, who was a strong demo- erat, refused to commission the whig mayor as a justice of the peace, although authorized by the charter to hold the latter offiee by virtue of his position as head of the city government. The quarrel waxed furious between the local whigs and democrats, but Mayor Moore finally won.
The first year of the city's life saw the death of petitions against the issuing of licenses to "groceries" and "dram shops," which in those days were equivalent establishments. The improvement of the streets, however, progressed. Maine Street was graded from the publie square to the river and the publie landing, which was then a narrow strip of new-made ground at the foot of Hampshire, was ex- tended and improved. The public square was also feneed.
FIRST CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Most important of all the measures adopted were those which established a fragment of the foundation of the present local system of publie edneation. Dr. Joseph N. Ralston, perhaps more than any other Quiney citizen, made that matter a personal and an earnest duty. As one of the most influential of the aldermen he persistently brought the subject before the City Council and finally in October, 1840, at his recommendation, that body ordered that the "surplus revenue of the city, after paying ordinary and contingent expenses," should be devoted to the establishment and support of the public schools: and that a consultation should be had with the township school trustees in regard to buying ground and the building of two school- houses. In the following month the Council ordered a schoollionse to be erected on the old cemetery lot where the courthouse now stands. and the purchase of a lot on block 30. which is the present site of the Franklin schoolhouse. The sprontings of that seed into a vigorous system will be traced in succeeding pages.
A CITY SEAL CONCEIVED IN SIN
The City of Quincy of course had to adopt some kind of a seal with which to place its stamp upon official documents, and the ex-
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planation for the first design plaeed upon the first municipal instru- ment of that nature is thus given : At his own expense, but with the eoneurrenee of the Council, John Wood had transplanted from his own grounds to the center of the square a handsome elm tree fully a foot in diameter. On the night of May 6, 1841, some young vandals of that day and year girdled the tree and it died. In the next issue of the Argus, the democratic paper of the place, appeared a rough ent which was supposed to represent Mr. Wood resting upon his cane and mournfully gazing at the dead tree. The City Council offered a reward of $100 for the detection of the rogues. They were soon dis- covered, but found not worth the trouble of punishing. At the meeting of that body on June 26th, it was ordered that "the elm trec and flagstaff upon the public square as represented in the Argus some time sinec, be adopted as the device of a seal for the city." This representation of a man standing beside a dead tree was used as the Quiney City seal for some years, until a later Couneil, said to have been composed of those very (grown-up) bad boys who had killed the elm tree some years before, changed it to something less sug- gestive of local vandalism.
A FREE LIBRARY REVIVED
The year 1841 marked the appointment of the first regular city physician, although sinee incorporation Doctor Ralston had acted as such ; Dr. Richard Eels was officially named to perform its duties. The city also opened a poor house. Another enterprise appeared, or rather a more Insty revival of an older venture. Several years before a small collection of books had been gathered and shelved for publie use; but the public seemed rather cold toward that indoor recreation and the books were distributed among their original donors. But in the spring of 1841 the library enterprise arose in a way which refused to be smothered, and in October of that year a Library Association was incorporated. The library was really opened in the preceding April, but was not considered fully established until the association was incorporated with a substantial management. Capt. E. J. Phillips was president of the association; Dr. J. N. Ralston. secretary. By the elose of the year the collection amounted to nearly 800 volumes, and lectures and other forms of entertainments were under way for the purpose of raising funds to push the library ahead.
CITY GRADES ESTABLISHED
In April, 1842, the City Council established a system of strect grades throughout the city, embracing the territory from Broadway to State Street and from Front to Twelfth (then called Wood) streets. This was the first comprehensive plan adopted in regard to eity grades, and, though slightly changed sinee, has been substan-
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tially followed. A carefully compiled eensus of that year records the population of Quiney at 2.686.
MAILS IMPROVED
Mail facilities had somewhat improved. The two eastern semi- weekly stages now came in as tri-weeklies on alternate days, making it practically a daily mail, although not always affording the earliest news. In addition to these there were two mails carried north, one south and one west into Missouri.
GREAT FLOOD OF 1844
The year of the Great Flood was 1844. Quiney was in just the proper geographical position to get the "benefit" of the combined. rise of the Upper Mississippi, the Illinois and the Missouri, all of which were at a phenomenal high-water mark in May and June of that year and poured their waters down the valley of the father stream. The flood arose rapidly and spread high from bluff to bluff. doing much material damage at Quiney, and the subsidence of the waters in the spring was followed by unusual sickness.
BUSINESS PARTIALLY REVIVED
As an offset to these misfortunes was the partial revival of busi- ness and the glimmer of the silver lining in the financial clouds which had lowered over the country-and Quiney with it-for a number of years. About 20.000 hogs had been packed in the winter of 1843-44, which was remarkably open : the half a dozen mills turned out 35,000 barrels of flour during the year, and other manufacturing interests had revived. So the equilibrium of local affairs was fairly maintained.
COMPARATIVE CITY AND COUNTRY POPULATION
Up to 1845 the population of Quiney, as indicated by the census records, showed quite a regular or steady growth : of later years, this cannot be said. A comparison of the relative growth of the city and the country, or rural districts, for the twenty years preceding. is of interest. The census of 1845 indicated that Quiney had then a population of 4.007. Adams County, including Quincy, had a popu- lation of 13.511. to which, adding 5,888 in Marquette, gave a total of 19,399, showing that the city had about one-fifth of the whole. In. 1825 the county, with perhaps 300 in Ilancock, had 2.186; Quiney, by the end of the year, perhaps 50. In 1830, the population of the county was 2,186. of which some 200, about one-tenth, were in the village. Five years later, by the state census, the county had 7.0.12 and the town 753, still about one-tenth. In 1840 the county contained
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14,476 and the city 1,850, or onc-eighth of the total. As before stated, in 1845 Quincy had about one-fifth of the county's total population, and, to anticipate by a quarter of a century, the city increased its comparative percentage very regularly ; it was over one-fourth of the total population of the county in 1850, nearly one-third in 1860, three- sevenths in 1870 and nearly one-half in 1880. After the last named year the proportion was not steadily in favor of the city.
FERTILE YEAR OF 1848
Several years now passed before events occurred which could be called vital in their character, or classed as pioneers in the local advancement. But 1848 was fertile and brought forth quite a crop of that nature. On the 18th of March, at the foot of Delaware Street, was launched the first steamboat built in Quincy. The hull was suc- cessfully set afloat and towed down to St. Louis, where it was com- pleted and received its machinery.
TELEGRAM SENT "QUICK AS LIGHTNING"
Then in the summer of 1848 telegraphic communication was estab- lished. Quincy had been called upon for a $10,000 subscription to aid the construction of the line. At a public meeting held February 26th $7,200 had been raised and the balance soon afterward. On the 8th of July the wires were brought into Quincy, and on the 12th the line was completed from Beardstown to Springfield, thus making a continuons connection between the capital of Illinois and the me- tropolis of Missouri. It is said that the first formal and paid mes- sage transmitted was from Sylvester Emmons at Beardstown to the Quincy Whig, to which a reply was sent, as that newspaper en- thusiastically put it, "quick as lightning."
FIRST REAL CITY DIRECTORY
The first directory of the city was issued about the time that Quincy got into telegraphie communication with everybody outside ; two steps toward metropolitan character. Two attempts at directory- making had been previously made, but the outcomes were mere trifles compared with the directory of 1848 prepared and issued by Dr. J. S. Ware. Doctor Ware was a stranger, comparatively, but an in- dustrious, original man, and the publication of his directory was considered quite a large event. He also projected the Mutual Po- litical Journal, one-half of which was to be edited by a whig and the other half by a democrat ; but the local leaders could not be made to fight at such close quarters, and the Journal was almost still-born. But the directory was a success.
The writer had the pleasure of examining one of the few copies still left of Quincy's first real directory. He found Doctor Ware's
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introdnetion the most interesting part of the little town, as it draws a clear-cut picture of the city of 1848, and from it the following ex- traet is taken: "The geographical position of Quincy is in 40 deg. north latitude and 14 deg. west longitude from Washington City on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the county of Adams-160 miles by water above St. Louis, 110 from Springfield, the seat of government of the State of Illinois-360 from the mouth of the Ohio by water, and about 280 from Chicago at the head of Lake Michigan.
GROWTH OF THE TOWN UP TO 1848
"This is a point highly favored by nature, being in that mild latitude which furnishes the richest growth of all kinds of grain and luxuriant grasses, as also an abundance of all the fruits produced in the temperate zone. It is situated, too, on navigable water 800 miles below the head of steamboat navigation and communication with all the navigable streams of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys; in the heart of a region of country abounding in the most valuable timber of North America, in bituminous coal and limestone. It is manifest that this, as other towns on the Upper Mississippi similarly favored, is destined to become a place of importance in the extensive trade and commerce of our country. The ground on which Quincy is located is a substratum of limestone, covered in some spots with mounds of sandy soil, and in others with rieh alluvium, at a general elevation of 150 feet above the average level of the river and the neighboring bottom lands; this being the only point at which the bluffs strike the river shore, without intervening bottom lands, for a distance of eighty or ninety miles up and down the river.
"The elevation of the town site above the river favors its citizens with a commanding view of the river for several miles, both above and below. embracing the opposite shore of the Mississippi: the width of the river at this point being about one mile: and running along under the northwest side of the eity is a beautiful bay, which was formerly called Boston Bay by the early traders, from the cireum- stanee of a Bostonian who onee navigated his craft up to the head of the bay, supposing it to be the main channel of the river, but after much labor and many fruitless splashings of his oars he was obliged to back out again."
Doctor Ware then takes up the historical threads of his subjeet and speaks of John Wood, Willard Keyes, John Droulard and other pioneers of Quincy : notes the old Sae Village which preceded the white man's town, the location of the county seat in 1825, and other events which naturally lead to commerce and trade. The chief interest to the present-day readers is to select the features of his historical and descriptive paper which will give us a general picture of the 1848 Quiney. "In 1825," he remarks, "Quiney imported bacon and flour for her inhabitants, then numbering sixteen individuals;
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and from that time until the year 1835, when her population was 700, she continued this practice. From the last mentioned period until the present time, she has been exporting these articles, with a great increase annually, so that when their amounts come to be fairly stated, they will produce astonishment among the business men of towns of the same size in older states.
"As late as the year 1832, when the Black Hawk War broke out, the Indians, principally of the Sac and Fox tribes, were very nu- merons in Quincy; the shores of the river were frequently covered with their wigwams a long distance, both above and below the town. They traded with the whites, both in town and in the surrounding country. As they came in from their hunting excursions, they im- ported feathers, dressed deer skips, moccasins, beeswax, honey, maple
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sugar. grass floor mats, venison, hams, muskrats and coon skins. At this period (20 years sinee) a tea was in general use in Quincy made of the bark and roots of sassafras. The coffee then used was the nut of the coffee tree, a tree which grows in the neighboring forests. Maple sugar was worth twenty-five cents per pound. Honey, which was abundant and sold by the barrel, would bring thirty- seven and a half cents per gallon ; beeswax was worth from twenty- five to thirty cents per ponnd, and so ready was the sale of this article and coon skins that it was said 'coon skins were curreney and bees- wax, Land Office money.' The usual price of a bec-tree, as it stood in the forest, was one dollar. The person who first saw it would mark his name or initials on it; and it was then regarded as his property. These were often exchanged in trade for horses, or other stock and property.
"Such trade as here deseribed was carried on by the people, who raised small crops of corn and potatoes, until the year 1832.
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Prior to this, however, several merchants had settled at Quiney and rommeneed business."
Doctor Ware then narrates the coming of Ashur Anderson (1826), Robert Tillson. Charles Holmes, Ebenezer Harkner, Whitney & Green, and others, and the opening of the old steam flour mill (afterward called the Phoenix) in the summer of 1832. As to the local trade in wheat and flour, he adds: "The rapid growth of the place and the settlement of the surrounding country, has produced a change in these branches, which, although not very wonderful in the result is, nevertheless, unparalleled in the growth of eastern towns. In the year 1847, 450,000 bushels of wheat were shipped from this city and 55.160 barrels of flour. There are now eight steam flour mills here, capable of turning out 800 barrels of flour every twenty-four hours.
"There are also in successful operation three distilleries, capable of manufacturing 60 barrels of whiskey per day and are feeding 3,600 hogs. In the winter 1833-34 there were about 400 hogs killed and packed : average weight, about 135 pounds. In the winter of 1847-48, there were 20,000, averaging about 250 pounds : which shows an increase almost unparalleled, when we consider the newness of the country and the difficulties of settling in this western valley.
"The importation of pine lumber in the year 1835 was very small. amounting to about 23.000 feet, which was brought around from the Ohio river. During the year 1848, up to August 2d, there has been about 22,560,000 feet of lumber received, which will not be sufficient to supply the growing demand. In the year 1835 good lumber com- manded from $60 to $70 per thousand feet, and at the present time can be had for from $10 to $20 per thousand: the lumber now being brought from the pine regions on the upper Mississippi, where have been established many large mills for manufacturing lumber. There are also yearly brought large quantities of pine logs to supply the mills in this eity, of which there is a number and which, during the past three years, have sawed about 1,500,000 feet, all of which has been used in the city and its immediate vicinity.
"In religions and intellectual improvement, this eity is making rapid progress. Public and private schools are numerous and sup- plied with able teachers. In 1833 the first regular church was or- ganized, which numbered fifteen members : since which time the num- ber has increased to fourteen churches, numbering in all 2,716 mem- bers: one Episcopal, two Methodist. one Presbyterian, two Baptist, two Catholic, one German Lutheran, one Unitarian, two Congrega- tional. one German Methodist and one African church.
"Quiney is doubtless a very healthful and desirable place for the convenient residence of families, affording excellent facilities for the education of children, all the privileges of Christian worship, and the hest means for cheap and comfortable living. The city is ornamented with various public edifices, where tall spires strike the eye of the traveler on the river long before he arrives in the place : several
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large and elegant churches; a beautiful courthouse; two large brick hotels, and one of the strongest and best county jails in the country. There are also two large and commodious public school buildings suited for the accommodation of 2,000 scholars. The streets have been extensively graded and paved, and great pains have been taken to enclose and adorn two of the publie squares in the place. Strangers and travelers who visit Quincy uniformly bear testimony that it is one of the most pleasant towns they have ever seen."
QUINCY EXODUS OF GOLD HUNTERS, 1848-50
The gold excitement, which raged through the country like an epidemic in 1848, swept down the Mississippi Valley and into Quincy with special violence. The first local party left the city on February 1st, hy way of New Orleans and the Isthmus of Panama (Chagres), for the California Coast, and consisted of the following: John Wood, Daniel Wood, John Wood, Jr., Demas Guntery, I. H. Miller, D. M. Jordan, Aaron Nash, W. B. Matlock, David Wood, S. W. Rogers, George Rogers, Jolin MeClintock, John Mikesell, Jr., George Burns, J. Dorman, J. J. Kendrick, C. G. Ammon and Charles Brown.
The first overland party left Quincy on the first week in April. There were fifty in the party which contained, among others, Drs. William II. Taylor and M. Walker, although its members were not generally so well known as those comprising the first colony. About a dozen wagons were provided for the party, some drawn by two span of mules and others by three or four yoke of oxen. The outfit was complete in every way. From the landing on the river front the party embarked on a ferry boat bound for Lagrange; thence to St. Joseph, from which point the start was made for the long trip across the plains. At about the same time as the Quincy party de- parted, the Mill Creek neighborhood sent out a delegation of some twenty-five gold hunters, and later Columbus, Millville, Ellington Township, Woodville and other localities in the county contributed considerable quotas to the Gold Coast.
After they had been on the way several weeks word was received from the first Quincy party, through Dr. S. W. Rogers, that it was waiting at Chagres, with about 2,000 other impatient adventurers, for transportation to San Francisco. That contingent was generally known as John Wood & Company's California Company. Its Quincy friends were cheered at the news that the company had arrived at a locality thirty miles from San Francisco, on the 19th of May, 1849, on their way to the mountains.
News from the plains party arrived in September, 1849, in the form of a letter from George Adams to his brother James, dated at Green River Junction, July 28th, seventy miles from South Pass. Joseph Pope, one of that party, died of cholera about eighty miles from Fort Laramie. But Mr. Adams wrote that they "saw nothing
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to discourage them until they reached the Black Hills, where they were never out of sight of a dead ox, and could sometimes count a dozen at one glance."
On the 20th of February, 1850. John Wood, his two sons, David Woods and Benjamin Mikerell, returned. They only spent about four months in the mines. It is said that they were somewhat retieent regarding their own success, but gave no discouragement to others.
Between the departure of so many of the young men from Quincy and the county in 1848-50 to join the general procession of gold hunters. and the death-dealing tacties of the cholera which brought sorrow and gloom to so many of the same region in 1849-50, these were seasons long to be remembered, albeit those who lived through them would most willingly have forgotten them.
FIRST DAILY MAIL AND DAILY NEWSPAPER
But Quiney continued to grow and by the early '50s gave several outward and special manifestations of that faet. In April, 1852, the first daily mail was established which she was privileged to enjoy. It was arranged to carry it by steamer from St. Louis to Galena, and was continued for many years, until superseded by railroad con- veyanee. Before that time occasional mail matter had been carried D11 the boats plying between those points and messengers were ap- pointed to take charge of it, but a permanent arrangement was not effected until that date.
And the month before the daily steamboat mail was established. the Whig branched out as a daily newspaper. Two good up-to-date things to come to Quiney in 1852.
MADE A PORT OF ENTRY
So little publie land remained to be sold in the following year in the Quincy District that the Land Offiee was moved to Spring- field, but in December. 1853, Congress made the city a port of entry. The law did not go into effeet until February, 1854, and the appoint- ment of the surveyor of the port was made soon after in the person of Thomas C. Benneson. It is said that the prime object in making Quiney a port of entry was to convenience the railroad in its pay- ments on the iron imported from England. Under the operation of this law shipment could be made direet to Quiney, there taken out of store, and the duties paid thereon, from time to time, in such amounts as the company required. Several other cities, likewise interested in the building of railroads, were also made ports of entry about this time and so continued for a number of years-sometimes after the chief excuse for the establishment had long passed.
ILLUMINATING GAS AND OTHER BRIGHT LOCAL THINGS
The time when Quincy as a city abandoned its smoky, greasy oil lamps and went over to illuminating gas was bright with pride. Vol. 1-30
WHOLESALE &R
CONTISTOFE HOLESALL&RETAIL
GRO
FIFTH STREET IN 1858, LOOKING NORTHI FROM MAINE STREET On the left is the east half of Washington Square where the Lincoln- Douglas Debate was held
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Preparations for the great event were made as early as 1853, when a company was incorporated and organized by John Wood. Lueins Kingman. Samuel Holmes, Thomas Redmond, James D. Morgan, Samuel W. Rogers, Thomas (. King. Robert S. Benneson and William 11. Carlin, under the name of the Quincy Gas Light and Coke Com- pany. Through the corporation named, they entered into a contract with A. B. Chambers and Thomas Pratt, of St. Louis, who, in con- sideration of $75.000 of the capital stock of the company, agreed to purchase suitable grounds, furnish all the materials and construct works of sufficient capacity to manufacture and store 55,000 enbic feet of gas daily, lay 312 miles of street mains, provide the necessary meters and erect fifty public lamps. The works were completed in December, 1854, and considerable extensions of the system made, as originally planned. But the introduction of electricity to the list of the public utilities of Quiney did not create so much satisfaction and pride as when the city "went over the top" by bringing illu- minating gas to its streets, stores and residences. The night of De- cember Ist in Quincy was illuminated as never before and perhaps never since. The street lamps, houses and stores were all ablaze with the new light : the people without were admiring the bright lights within and the people within were enraptured with the appearance of the brilliantly illumined streets. There were also many sounds of revelry that night at the Quincy House at which a gay banquet was being given in honor of the event. Under the legislative charter the Gas Light and Coke Company had a twenty-five year contraet with the city.
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