USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. I > Part 7
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La Salle went to France in the summer of 1683 and left Tonti in charge of his interests in the Illinois country. Tonti was active in the defense of his superior's interests. In this duty he was forced to defend the Illinois country against the Iroquois and to struggle
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against La Salle's enemies in New France. Ile made expeditions of trade and exploration throughout all the western country, took part in a great campaign against the Iroquois, and was the life of a growing community around Fort St. Lonis.
The death of La Salle occurred in the spring of 1687. Just one year previous to this Tonti had made a trip to the Gulf in search of La Salle, but, failing to find him, returned sorrowfully to Fort St. Louis. In September, 1688, Tonti heard definitely of the death of La Salle. In December of that year he organized an expedition to reseue the colonists whom La Salle had left on the coast of the Gulf. This expedition also proved a failure. For the next ten years Tonti remained in the region of the lakes, but when Bienville began planting new settlements near the mouth of the Mississippi River, Tonti abandoned Fort St. Louis and joined the new settlements. He died near Mobile in 1704.
PERMANENT PIONEER SETTLEMENTS OF ILLINOIS
The death of La Salle in 1687 and of Tonti in 1704 coneluded the most romantic chapter of the early French explorations which prepared the way for permanent settlement and the solid satisfac- tion of home-building. Without going into the rather intricate claims as to the priority of the pioneer settlements of Illinois which assumed permanence, it will be eoneeded that Kaskaskia was for several generations the most notable. The Mission of the Immaenlate Con- ception founded there by Father Marquette, with the fertile lands in that region, eventnated in drawing thither not only the soldiers of the cross, but French traders and agrienlturists. The Indians and Frenehmen who came to Kaskaskia in the eighteenth century built their huts by weaving grasses and reeds into frameworks of upright poles set in rectangular form. The roofs were thatched. The ground was very rich, and a sort of rude agriculture was begun. In those days the French were just taking possession of the month of the Mississippi, and Kaskaskia became quite an important inter- mediate port of call for fresh supplies. The trading with the Indians was also a large factor in the building up of the place, which was located on the west bank of the Kaskaskia, six miles from the Mississippi.
Cahokia, its rival, situated a short distance below the present city of East St. Louis, was also a mission and a trading post, but it met with a setbaek quite early in its history. The village was first built on the east bank of the Mississippi, on a little ereek which flowed across the rich alluvial bottoms, but by 1721 the river had carved a new channel westward, leaving the village half a league from free water communication. The little creek also took another course, and Cahokia was left decidedly inland.
The Mississippi River has swept away even the site of Kaskaskia, and Cahokia is little more than a name.
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FORT CHARTRES, CENTER OF ILLINOIS DISTRICT
Fort Chartres, which was situated sixteen miles northwest of Kaskasia, was founded in 1718 and became the military and the civil eenter of the llinois district of Louisiana, and so continued for nearly half a century. As completed, its outer structure con- sisted of two rows of parallel logs filled between with earth and limestone, the latter quarried from an adjacent cliff. It was sur- rounded on three sides by this two-foot wall, and on the fourth by a ravine, which during the springtime was full of water.
The fort was barely completed when there arrived one Renault, a representative of the Company of the West (a ereation of the famous John Law), the director-general of the mining operations of that coneern, which were designed to reinforee the uncertain finanees of France, laborers, and a full complement of mining utensils. Among his foree were also several hundred San Domingo negroes. whom he had bought on his way to Louisiana to work the mines and plantations of the province. Those whom he brought to the Illinois distriet were the original slaves of the State of Illinois.
Renault made Fort Chartres his headquarters for a short time, and from here he sent his expert miners and skilled workmen in every direction, hunting for the precious metals. The bluffs skirt- ing the American Bottoms on the east were diligently searched for minerals, but nothing encouraging was found. In what is now .Jackson, Randolph, and St. Clair counties the ancient traces of furnaces were visible as late as 1850. Silver Creek, which runs south and through Madison and St. Clair counties, was so named on the supposition that silver metal was plentiful along that stream.
Failing to diseover any metals or precious stones, Renault turned his attention to the cultivation of the land in order to support his miners.
FIRST LAND GRANT IN DISTRICT
On May 10, 1722, the military commandant, Lieutenant Bois- briant, representing the king, and Des Usins, representing the Royal Indies Company (the Company of the West), granted to Charles Davie a traet of land five arpents wide (58.35 rods) and reaching from the Kaskaskia on the east to the Mississippi on the west. This is said to have been the first grant of land made in the Illinois district in Louisiana.
The next year, June 14th, the same officials made a grant to Renault of a traet of land abutting or facing on the Mississippi more than three miles. This traet contained more than 13,000 acres. It reached baek to the bluffs, probably four to five miles. It is said the grant was made in consideration of the labor of Renault's slaves. probably upon some work belonging to the Company of the West. This grant was up the Mississippi three and a half miles above Fort
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Chartres. The village of St. Phillipe was probably started before the grant was made-at least, the village was on the grant.
As soon as Fort Chartres was complete there grew up a village near by, which usually went by the name of New Chartres. About the year 1722 the village of Prairie du Rocher was begun. It was located near the bluffs, due east from Fort Chartres about three and a half miles. It is said that some of the houses were built of stone, there being an abundance of that material in the bluffs just back of the village. To this village there was granted a very large "common," which it holds to this day. The common is about three miles square and lies back of the village, upon the upland.
There were probably, as early as 1725, five permanent French villages in the American Bottom, namely : Cahokia, settled not earlier than 1698, and not later than 1700; Kaskaskia, settled in the later part of the year 1700 or in the beginning of the year 1701; New Chartres, the village about Fort Chartres, commenced about the same time the fort was erected, 1720; Prairie du Rocher, settled about 1722, or possibly as late as the grant to Boisbriant, which was in 1733; St. Phillipe, settled very soon after Renault received the grant from the Western Company, which was 1723.
The villages were all much alike. They were a straggling lot of crude cabins, built with little, if any, reference to streets, and con- structed with no pretension to architectural beauty. The inhabitants were French and Indians and negroes.
LIFE AT THE PIONEER FRENCH ILLINOIS SETTLEMENTS
The industrial life of these people consisted of fishing and hunt- ing, cultivation of the soil, commercial transactions, some manu- facturing, and mining. The fishing and hunting were partly a pas- time, but the table was often liberally supplied from these sources. The soil was fertile and yielded abundantly to a very indifferent cultivation. Wheat was grown and the grain ground in crude water mills, usually situated at the mouths of the streams as they emerged from the bluffs. And it is said one windmill was erected in the bottom. They had swine and black cattle, says Father Charlevoix, in 1721. The Indians raised poultry, spun the wool of the buffalo and wove a cloth, which they dyed black, yellow, or red.
In the first thirty or forty years of the eighteenth century there was considerable commerce carried on between these villages and the mouth of the river. New Orleans was established in 1718 and came to be in a very early day an important shipping point. The grist mills ground the wheat which the Illinois farmers raised on the bottom lands, and the flour was shipped in keel boats and flat- boats. Fifteen thousand deer skins were sent in one year to New Orleans. Buffalo meat and other products of the forest, as well as the produce of the farms, made up the cargoes. Considerable lead was early shipped to the mother country. The return vessel brought
East St Louis
Caloria
Prairie
St Phillibe.
COTATIONS
+ Charts
Prairie
du Rocher
Kaskean
Rison.
Chester
MAP OF AMERICAN BOTTOM AND OLD FRENCH VILLAGES
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the colonists riee, sugar, coffee, manufactured articles of all kinds, tools, implements, and munitions of war.
UNDER THE CROWN AND THE JESUITS
In 1720 a financial panic struek Franec, and Jolin Law was forced to flee from the country. The Company of the Indies kept up a pretense of earrying on its business, but in 1732, upon petition by the company, the king issued a proclamation declaring the com- pany dissolved and Louisiana to be free to all subjects of the king. There were at this time (1732) about 7,000 whites and 2,000 negro slaves within the limits of the Louisiana territory. The rules of the Western Company had been so exacting that many of the activities of the people had been repressed. Every one seems to have been held in a sort of vassalage to the company. Now the territory was to come directly under the crown.
In 1721 the whole of the Mississippi Valley had been divided into nine civil jurisdietions, as follows: New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Alabama, Natchez, Yazoo, Natchitoches, Arkansas, and Illinois. "There shall be at the headquarters in each distriet a commandant and a judge, from whose deeisions appeals may be had to the superior eouneil established at New Biloxi." Breese's "History of Illinois" gives a copy of an appeal of the inhabitants of Kaskaskia to the pro- vineial commandant and judge relative to the grants of lands to individuals and to the inhabitants as a whole.
The religious life of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and other French vil- lages was quite free from outside influence. By the third artiele of the ordinance issued by Louis XV in 1724, all religious beliefs other than the Catholic faith were forbidden. The article reads as follows: "We prohibit any other religious rites than those of the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church; requiring that those who violate this shall be punished as rebels, disobedient to our com- mands." This ordinance also made it an offense to set over any slaves any overseers who should in any way prevent the slaves from professing the Roman Catholic religion.
KASKASKIA, ILLINOIS JESUIT CENTER ยท
By an ordinance issued in 1722 by the council for the company, and with the consent of the Bishop of Quebee, the province of Louisiana was divided into three spiritual jurisdictions. The first comprised the banks of the Mississippi from the Gulf to the mouth of the Ohio, and ineluding the region to the west. The Capuchins were to officiate in the churches, and their superior was to reside in New Orleans. The second spiritual district comprised all the terri- tory north of the Ohio, and was assigned to the charge of the Jesuits, whose superior should reside in the Illinois, presumably at Kaskaskia. The third distriet lay south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi
.
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River, and was assigned to the Carmelites, the residence of the supe- rior being at Mobile. Each of the three superiors was to be a grand viear of tho Bishop of Quebec. The Carmelites remained in charge of their territory south of the Ohio only till the following fall. December, 1722, when they turned over their work to the Capuchins and returned to France.
As evidence of the activity of the JJesuits in the territory which was assigned to them, we are told they had already, in 1721, estab- lished a monastery in Kaskaskia. It is stated in Monette's "Missis- sippi Valley" that a college was also there about the year 1721. Charlevoix, quoted by Davidson and Stuve, says: "I passed the night with the missionaries (at Cahokia), who are two ecclesiasties from the seminary at Quebec, formerly my disciples, but they must now be my masters. Yesterday I arrived at Kaskaskia about 9 o'clock. The Jesuits have a very flourishing mission, which has lately been divided into two." All deseriptions which have come down to us of the conditions in the Illinois country in the first part of the eighteenth century represent the church as most aggressive and pros- perous. Civil government ecrtainly must have passed into "innoeu- ous desuetude" by 1732.
The government was very simple, at least until about 1730. From the settlement in 1700 up to the coming of Crozat there was virtually no eivil government. Controversies were few, and the priest's intlu- enee was such that all disputes which arose were settled by that personage. Recently documents have been recovered from the court- house in Chester which throw considerable light upon the question of government in the French villages, but as yet they have not been thoroughly sorted and interpreted.
The Company of the West realized that its task of developing the Territory of Louisiana was an unprofitable one, and they sur- rendered their charter to the king, and Louisiana became, as we are accustomed to say, a royal province by proclamation of the king. April 10, 1732.
FORTUNATE AND PROGRESSIVE ILLINOIS
The two efforts, the one by Crozat and the other by the Company of the West, had both resulted in failure so far as profit to either was concerned. Crozat had spent 425,000 livres and realized in return only 300,000 livres. And although a rich man, the venture ruined him financially. The Company of the West put thousands of dollars into the attempt to develop the territory, for which no money in return was ever received. But the efforts of both were a lasting good to the territory itself. Possibly the knowledge of the geography of the country which resulted from the explorations in search of precious metals was not the least valuable. Among other things these two efforts brought an adventurous and energetie class of people into Illinois.
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For many years after 1732, when Louisiana became a royal province, the Illinois country, or district, was spared many of the hardships of war which so distressed and retarded the French domain both north and south of it. The massacre at Natchez and the cam- paigns against the Natchez and Chickasaw Indians, which ravaged the southern country for a decade, were events of this character. The French and the Indians north of the Ohio were on very good terms, and the settlements in the Illinois country grew rapidly, especially after 1739, with the subjugation of the turbulent Indians who had so interfered with the free navigation of the Mississippi. Neither did King George's war, which broke out between France and England in 1714, disturb the even progress of the western country. In the fall of 1745 the rice crop of Lower Louisiana was almost ruined by storms and inundation, which misfortune worked to the advantage of Illinois by creating an unusual demand for its wheat and flour.
THE ENGLISH INVADE THE OHIO VALLEY
King George's war, which had its origin in European political complications, elosed in 1748. The treaty which closed the war pro- vided for the return of Louisburg to the French, and all other possessions of England and France in America to remain as they were prior to the war. It could easily be seen that the next struggle between the French and the English would be for the permanent control of the Ohio Valley and the adjacent territory east of the Mississippi River. The English had never relaxed in their deter- mination to possess the Ohio Valley. In 1738 a treaty was made at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, between English commissioners and three Indian chiefs representing twelve towns in the vicinity of the Wabash. The purpose of the treaty was to attach the Indians north of the Ohio to the English eanse. The Ohio Land Company was formed in 1738. It contained residents of England and Virginia. It received from King George II a grant of a half million aeres of land on and about the Ohio River. They were given the exclusive right of trading with the Indians in that region.
In 1749 the governor general of Canada sent Louis Celeron, a knight of the Military Order of St. Louis, to plant lead plates along the valley of the Ohio, which might eventually prove French pri- ority of occupation of this territory. Several of the plates were afterward unearthed. In 1750 Celeron wrote a letter to the governor of Pennsylvania, warning him of the danger of his people who might trespass upon the French possessions along the Ohio. In 1752 agents of the Ohio Company established a trading post within a few miles of the present site of Piqua, Ohio. In the same year the French and Indian allies destroyed this post, killing fourteen Twightwees Indians, who were under a treaty with the English. Logstown, about eighteen miles below the forks of the Ohio, was settled in 1748 by
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the English, and in 1752 a treaty was made there in which the Indians ceded certain rights and privileges to the English.
The French began in 1753 to build a line of forts from the lakes to the Mississippi by way of the Ohio and its tributaries from the North. The first fort was located at Presque Isle (now Erie, Penn- sylvania) ; the second one was Fort Le Boeuf, on French Creek, a branch of the Alleghany. The third was called Venango, at the mouth of the French Creek. From here they pushed south and found some Englishmen building a fort at the junction of the Alle- ghany and Monongahela. The French drove the Englishmen from the place and finished the fort and named it Fort Duquesne. This was the fourth fortification in the line of forts reaching from the lakes to the Mississippi River. The French and Indian war was now fairly begun, and we shall return to the Illinois to see what part this region was to play in this final contest for supremacy between the two great powers of the Old World.
FRENCH REBUILD FORT CHARTRES
We have called attention to the activity of the French in buikling forts on the Upper Ohio to secure that region from the English. The same activity marked their preparations in the West for the impending struggle. Fort Chartres had been originally of wood. There never were many soldiers stationed there at a time-only a few score soldiers and officers-but following King George's war it was decided to rebuild Fort Chartres on a large seale.
The old fort had been hastily constructed of wood. The new fort was to be of stone. It was planned and constructed by Lieut. Jean B. Saussier, a French engineer, whose descendants lived in Cahokia many years, one of whom, Dr. John Snyder, recently lived in Virginia. Cass County. Illinois. When complete it was the finest and most costly fort in America. The cost of its construction was abont $1.500,000. and it seriously embarrassed the French exchequer. The stones were hewn, squared, and numbered in the quarries in the bluff just opposite, abont four miles distant. and conveyed across the lake to the fort in boats. The massive stone walls enclosed about four aeres. They were 18 feet high and about 2 feet thick. The gateway was arched, and 15 feet high : a eut-stone platform was above the gate, with a stair of nineteen steps and balustrade leading to it: there were four bastians, each with forty-eight loopholes, eight embrasures, and a sentry box. all in eut stone. Within the walls stood the storehouse, 90 feet long. 30 feet wide, two stories high : the guardhouse, with two rooms above for chapel and missionary quarters : the government house, 84 by 32 feet, with iron gates and a stone porch : a coach house, pigeon house, and large well. walled up with the finest of dressed rock: the intendant's house: two rows of barracks, each 128 feet long: the magazine, which is still stand- ing and well preserved. 35 by 38 and 13 feet high ; bake ovens; four
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prison cells of cut stone; one large relief gate on the north. Such was the pride of the French empire, and the capital of New France.
ILLINOIS TRIUMPHS OVER VIRGINIA
The fort was scarcely completed when the French and Indian war broke out. In May, 1754, George Washington and his Virginia riflemen surprised the French at Great Meadows, where Jumonville, the French commander, was killed. A brother of the slain French commander, who was stationed at Fort Chartres, secured leave from Makarty, in command there, to avenge his death. Taking his com- pany with him, they proceeded to Fort Duquesne, and there, gather- ing some friendly Indians, they attacked Washington at Fort Neces- sity, which was surrendered on July 4th. This was the real beginning of the old French war. Flushed with victory, the little detachment returned to Fort Chartres and celebrated the triumph of Illinois over Virginia.
In the French and Indian war the demand upon Makarty at Fort Chartres for men and provisions became incessant-in fact, Fort Chartres became the principal base of supplies in the West. In 1755 Captain Aubry was sent to reinforce Fort Duquesne with 400 men. The fort held out for some time, but later Colonel Washington compelled its abandonment.
NEW FORT CHARTRES IN BRITISH HANDS
The power of the French began to wane. They maintained the struggle gallantly, however, and made one more desperate effort to raise the siege of Fort Niagara. They failed. The flower of Fort Chartres went down at Niagara. The surrender of Canada soon followed, but Fort Chartres, now called New Fort Chartres, still held out for the French king. They hoped that they would still be considered with Louisiana and remain in French territory.
Their disappointment was bitter when they learned that on Feb- ruary 10, 1763, Louis XV had ratified the treaty transferring them to Great Britain.
While the French at Fort Chartres were waiting for a British force to take possession, Pierre Laclede arrived from New Orleans to settle at the Illinois, bringing with him a company representing merchants engaged in the fur trade. Learning of the treaty of ces- sion, he decided to establish his post on the west side of the Mississippi, which he still believed to be French soil. He selected a fine bluff sixty miles north of Fort Chartres for the site of his post, and returned for the winter. In the spring he began his colony, and was enthusiastic over its prospects. Many of the French families followed him, wishing to remain under the French flag. Their dis- appointment was still more bitter when they learned that all the French possessions west of the Mississippi had been ceded to Spain. This is now St. Louis.
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The elder St. Ange, who had been at Vincennes, returned to take part in the last aet. Though the territory had been transferred to King George, the white flag of the Bourbons continued to fly at Fort Chartres, the last place in America. The Indian chief Pontiae was another power not taken into confidence at the treaty. Pon- tiae loved the French, but detested the English. When the English companies, under Loftus, Pitman, and Morris, respectively, came to take possession, each was balked by the wily red man. Chief Pontiac gathered an army of red men and proceeded to Fort Chartres, where he met St. Ange and boldly proposed to assist him in repelling the English. St. Ange plainly told him that all was over, and advised him to make peace with the English. Fort Chartres was finally surrendered to Captain Stirling on October 10, 1765. The red cross of St. George replaced the lilies of Franee. St. Ange and his men took a boat for St. Louis, and there enrolled in the garrison under the Spanish, which St. Ange was appointed to command.
FIRST ENGLISHI COURT OF LAW IN THE ILLINOIS COUNTRY
The first court of law was established at Fort Chartres in Deeem- ber, 1768, Fort Chartres becoming the capital of the British provinee west of the Alleghanies. Colonel Wilkins had assumed command under a proclamation from General Gage, and, with seven judges, sat at Fort Chartres to administer the law of England. After the surrender by the French the church records were removed to Kas- kaskia. The records of the old French court were also removed there.
PONTIAC BURIED AT ST. LOUIS
A constant warfare had been kept up by the Indians until Pontiac was killed near Cahokia by an Illinois Indian, Pontiae's warriors pursued the Illinois tribe to the walls of Fort Chartres, where many of them were slain, the British refusing to assist them. St. Ange recovered the body of Pontiae, and it was buried on the spot now ocenpied by the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, a memorial plate marking the place.
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