The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest-history of Illinois-history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc., Part 14

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company
Number of Pages: 932

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HE TAKES KASKASKIA.

With these instructions Col. Clark repaired to Pittsburg, choosing rather to raise his men west of the mountains, as he well knew all were needed in the colonies in the con- fict there. Ile sent Col. W. B. Smith to Holstein and Captains Helm and Bowman to other localities to enlist men ; but none of them succeeded in raising the required num- ber. The settlers in these parts were afraid to leave their own firesides exposed to a vigilant foe, and but few could be induced to join the expedition. With these companies and several private volunteers Clark commenced his descent of the Ohio, which he navi- gated as far as the falls, where he took possession of and fortified Corn Island, a small island between the present cities of Louisville, Ky., and New Albany, Ind. Here. after having completed his arrangements and announced to the men their real destination, he left a small garrison ; and on the 21th of June, during a total eclipse of the sun, which to them augured no good, they floated down the river. His plan was to go by water as far as Fort Massac, and thence march direct to Kaskaskia. Here he intended to surprise the gar- rison, and after its capture go to Cahokia, then to Vincennes, and lastly to Detroit. Should he fail, he intended to march directly to the Mississippi river and cross it into the Spanish country. Before his start he received good items of information ; one that an alliance had been formed between France and the United States, and the other that the Indians throughout the Illinois country and the inhabitants at the various frontier posts had been led by the British to believe that the " Long Knives," or Virginians, were the most fierce, bloodthirsty and cruel savages that ever scalped a foc. With this impression on their minds, Clark saw that proper management would cause them to submit at once from fear, if surprised, and then from gratitude would become friendly, if treated with unexpected lenity. The march to Kaskaskia was made through a hot July sun, they ar- riving on the evening of the 4th of July, 1778. They captured the fort near the village and soon after the village itself, by surprise, and without the loss of a single man and without killing any of the enemy. After sufficiently working on the fears of the natives, Clark told them they were at perfect liberty to worship as they pleased, and to take whichever side of the great conflict they would ; also he would protect them against any barbarity from British or Indian foe. This had the desired effect ; and the inhabitants,

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

so unexpectedly and so gratefully surprised by the unlooked-for turn of affairs, at once swore allegiance to the American arms; and when Clark desired to go to Cahokia on the 6th of July, they accompanied him, and through their influence the inhabitants of the place surrendered and gladly placed themselves under his protection.

In the person of M. Gibault, priest of Kaskaskia, Clark found a powerful ally and generous friend. Clark saw that, to retain possession of the Northwest and treat suc- cessfully with the Indians, he must establish a government for the colonies he had taken. St. Vincent, the post next in importance to Detroit, remained yet to be taken before the Mississippi valley was conquered. M. Gibault told him that, he would alone, by per- suasion, lead Vincennes to throw off its connection with England. Clark gladly accepted this offer, and July 14th, in company with a fellow-townsman, Gibault started on his mission of peace. On the 1st of August he returned with the cheerful intelligence that every thing was peaceably adjusted at Vincennes in favor of the Americans. During the interval, Col. Clark established his courts, placed garrisons at Kaskaskia and Cahokia, successfully re-enlisted his men, and sent word to have a fort (which proved the germ of Louisville) erected at the falls of the Ohio.

While the American commander was thus negotiating with the Indians, Hamilton, the British Governor of Detroit, heard of Clark's invasion, and was greatly incensed because the country which he had in charge should be wrested from him by a few ragged militia. He therefore hurriedly collected a force, marched by way of the Wabash, and appeared before the fort at Vincennes. The inhabitants made an effort to defend the town, and when Hamilton's forces arrived, Captain Helm and a man named Henry were the only Americans in the fort. These men had been sent by Clark. The latter charged a cannon and placed it in the open gateway, and the Captain stood by it with a lighted match and cried out, as Hamilton came in hailing distance, "Halt!" The British officer, not knowing the strength of the garrison, stopped, and demanded the surrender of the fort. Helm exclaimed, "No man shall enter here till I know the terms." Hamilton responded, " Yon shall have the honors of war." The entire garrison con- sisted of one officer and one private.

VINCENNES CAPTURED.

On taking Kaskaskia, Clark made a prisoner of Rocheblave, commander of the place, and got possession of all his written instructions for the conduct of the war. From these papers he received important information respecting the plans of Col. Ham- ilton, Governor at Detroit, who was intending to make a vigorons and concerted attack upon the frontier. After arriving at Vincennes, however, he gave up his intended campaign for the Winter, and trusting to his distance from danger and to the difficulty of approaching him, sent off his Indian warriors to prevent troops from coming down the Ohio, and to annoy the Americans in all ways. Thus he sat quietly down to pass the Winter with only about eighty soldiers, but secure, as he thought from molestation. But he evidently did not realize the character of the men with whom he was contending. Clark, although he could muster only one hundred and thirty men, determined to take advantage of Hamilton's weakness and security, and attack him as the only means of saving himself; for unless he captured Hamilton, Hamilton would capture him. Ac- cordingly, about the beginning of February, 1779, he dispatched a small galley which he had fitted out, mounted with two four-pounders and four swivels and manned with a company of soldiers, and carrying stores for his men, with orders to force her way up the Wabash, to take her station a few miles below Vincennes, and to allow no person to pass her. He himself marched with his little band, and spent sixteen days in traversing the country from Kaskaskia to Vincennes, passing with incredible fatigue through woods and marshes. He was five days in crossing the bottom lands of the Wabash ; and for five miles was frequently up to the breast in water. After overcoming difficulties which had

GENERAL, HISTORY OF ILLINOIS

been thought insurmountable, he appeared before the place and completely surprised it. The inhabitants readily submitted, but Hamilton at first defended himself in the fort. Next day, however, he surrendered himself and his garrison prisoners-of-war. By his activity in encouraging the hostilities of the Indians and by the revolting enormities perpetrated by those savages. Hamilton had rendered himself so obnoxious that he was thrown in prison and put in irons. During his command of the British frontier posts he offered prizes to the Indians for all the scalps of the Americans they would bring hin, and earned in consequence thereof the title, "Hair-Buyer General," by which he was ever afterward known.

The services of Clark proved of essential advantage to his countrymen. They dis- concerted the plans of Hamilton, and not only saved the western frontier from depreda- tions by the savages, but also greatly cooled the ardor of the Indians for carrying on a contest in which they were not likely to be the gainers. Had it not been for this small army, a union of all the tribes from Maine to Georgia against the colonies might have been effected, and the whole current of our history changed.

COUNTY OF ILLINOIS.

In October, 1778, after the successful campaign of Col. Clark, the Assembly of Vir- ginia erected the conquered country, embracing all the territory northwest of the Ohio river, into the County of Illinois, which was doubtless the largest county in the world. exceeding in its dimensions the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. To speak more definitely, it contained the territory now embraced in the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. On the 12th of December, 1778. John Todd was appointed Lieutenant-Commandant of this county by Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, and accordingly. also, the first of Illinois County.

CHAPTER IN.

FORMATION OF ILLINOIS TERRITORY.

Ordinance of 1787 - Sympathy with Slavery - Governor St. Clair - The Territory Divided into Counties.

Illinois County remained a part of Virginia until that State ceded the Northwest Territory to the United States in 1784, as heretofore noted. This cession was really made in 1781, but the deed was not executed until March 1. 1781, henee the condition and government of the country remained the same as if no cession or transfer of domain had been contemplated. Immediately after the deed of cession, Congress, by ordinance. established a form of government, for the entire region from the Gulf to the Lakes. although the whole of it had not been acquired, and this form of government for the Northwestern Territory continued until the passage of the ordinance of 1787. No one can study the secret history of this ordinance and not feel that Providence was guiding with sleepless eye the destinies of these unborn States. American legislation has never achieved any thing more admirable, as an internal government, than this comprehensive ordinance. Its provisions concerning the distribution of property, the principles of civil and religious liberty which it laid at the foundation of the communities since established. and the efficient and simple organization by which it created the first machinery of civil society, are worthy of all the praise that has ever been given them.

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

THE ORDINANCE OF 1787.

This ordinance has a marvelous and interesting history. Considerable controversy has been indulged in as to who is entitled to the credit for framing it. This belongs, undoubtedly, to Nathan Dane ; and to Rufus King and Timothy Pickering belong the credit for suggesting the proviso contained in it against slavery, and also for aids to religion and knowledge, and for assuring forever the common use, without charge, of the great national highways of the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence and their tributaries to all the citizens of the United States. To Thomas Jefferson is also due much credit, as some features of this ordinance were embraced in his ordinance of 1784. But the part taken by each in the long, laborious and eventful struggle which had so glorious a consumma- tion in the ordinance, consecrating forever, by one imprescriptible and unchangeable mon- ument, the very heart of our country to Freedom, Knowledge, and Union, will forever honor the names of those illustrious statesmen.

Mr. Jefferson had vainly tried to secure a system of government for the Northwest- ern Territory. He was an emancipationist and favored the exclusion of slavery from the territory, but the South voted him down every time he proposed a measure of this nature. In 1787, as late as July 10, an organizing act without the anti-slavery clause was pend- ing. This concession to the South was expected to carry it. Congress was in session in New York. On July 5, Rev. Manasseh Cutler, of Massachusetts, came into New York to lobby on the Northwestern Territory. Every thing seemed to fall into his hands. Events were ripe. The state of the public credit, the growing of Southern prejudice, the basis of his mission, his personal character, all combined to complete one of those sudden and marvelous revolutions of public sentiment that once in five or ten centuries are seen to sweep over a country like the breath of the Almighty.

Cutler was a graduate of Yale. He had studied and taken degrees in the three learned professions, medicine, law, and divinity. He had published a scientific examination of the plants of New England. As a scientist in America his name stood second only to that of Franklin. He was a courtly gentleman of the old style, a man of commanding presence and of inviting face. The Southern members said they had never seen such a gentleman in the North. He came representing a Massachusetts company that desired to purchase a tract of land, now included in Ohio, for the purpose of planting a colony. It was a speculation. Government money was worth eighteen cents on the dollar. This company had collected enough to purchase 1,500,000 acres of land. Other speculators in New York made Dr. Cutler their agent, which enabled him to represent a demand for 5,500,000 acres. As this would reduce the national debt, and Jefferson's policy was to provide for the public credit, it presented a good opportunity to do something.

Massachusetts then owned the territory of Maine, which she was crowding on the market. She was opposed to opening the Northwestern region. This fired the zeal of Virginia. The South caught the inspiration, and all exalted Dr. Cutler. The entire South rallied around him. Massachusetts could not vote against him, because many of the constituents of her members were interested personally in the Western speculation. Thus Cutler, making friends in the South, and doubtless using all the arts of the lobby, was enabled to command the situation. True to deeper convictions, he dictated one of the most compact and finished documents of wise statesmanship that has ever adorned any human law book. He borrowed from Jefferson the term " Articles of Compact," which, preceding the federal constitution, rose into the most sacred character. He then followed very closely the constitution of Massachusetts, adopted three years before. Its most prominent points were :

1. The exclusion of slavery from the territory forever.

2. Provisions for public schools, giving one township for a seminary and every section numbered 16 in each township; that is one thirty-sixth of all the land for public schools.

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS

3. A provision prohibiting the adoption of any constitution or the enactment of any law that should nullify pre-existing contracts.

Be it forever remembered that this compact declared that religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind. schools and the means of education shall always be encouraged." Dr. Cutler planted himself on this platform and would not yield. Giving his unqualified declaration that it was that or nothing-that unless they could make the land desirable they did not want it-he took his horse and buggy and started for the constitutional convention at Philadelphia. On July 13, 1757, the bill was put upon its passage, and was unanimously adopted. Thus the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, a vast empire, were consecrated to freedom, intelligence, and morality. Thus the great heart of the nation was prepared to save the union of States, for it was this act that was the salvation of the republic and the destruction of slavery. Soon the South saw their great blunder and tried to have the compact repealed. In 1803 Congress referred it to a committee, of

GEN. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR.

which John Randolph was chairman. He reported that this ordinance was a compact and opposed repeal. Thus it stood, a rock in the way of the on-rushing sea of slavery.

SYMPATHY WITH SLAVERY.

With all this timely aid it was, however, a most desperate and protracted struggle to keep the soil of Illinois saered to freedom. It was the natural battle-field for the irre- pressible conflict. In the southern end of the State slavery preceded the compaet. It existed among the old French settlers, and was hard to eradicate. That portion was also settled from the slave States, and this population brought their laws, customs, and institutions with them. A stream of population from the North poured into the northern part of the State. These sections misunderstood and hated each other perfectly. The Southerners regarded the Yankees as a skinning, tricky, penurious race of peddlers, fill- ing the country with tinware, brass clocks, and wooden nutmegs. The Northerner thought of the Southerner as a lean, lauk, lazy creature, burrowing in a hut, and rioting in whisky, dirt, and ignorance. These causes aided in making the struggle long and

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

bitter. So strong was the sympathy with slavery that, in spite of the ordinance of 1787, and in spite of the deed of cession, it was determined to allow the old French settlers to retain their slaves.

This part of the history of Illinois will be made to form a separate chapter of this volume.

GOVERNOR ST. CLAIR.

October 5, 1778, Congress appointed Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair to be Governor of this vast territory. Gov. St. Clair was born in Scotland, and came to America in 1775. He served in the French and English wars, and was a major general in the war of the Revolution. He was elected to Congress in 1786, and was chosen to preside over the deliberations of that body.

ILLINOIS TERRITORY.

After the division of the Northwestern Territory, Illinois became one of the counties of Indiana Territory, from which it was separated by an act of Congress approved Feb- ruary 3, 1809, forming the Territory of Illinois, with the capital at Kaskaskia, and a population estimated at 9,000. At the time of separation from Indiana it was made to include the present State of Wisconsin. Under the administration of Gov. St. Clair it had been divided into two counties - St. Clair and Randolph. President Madison first appointed John Boyle, of Kentucky, to be the Governor of the new dependency, but the office was not to his liking, and a change was affected by which Ninian Edwards became the first Governor of Illinois. When the Territory was created, Mr. Edwards was serv- ing as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, of which Boyle was an associate judge. To suit their respective inclinations they exchanged offices, and Mr. Edwards, through the influence of Henry Clay, was appointed to the office declined by Mr. Boyle, and the latter became Chief Justice of Kentucky. Mr. Edwards is remembered as a large, fine looking man, and one who wielded a ready pen and an eloquent tongue. He served as territorial governor with distinction, and after the organization of the State was elected to the same position, being the third governor.

CHAPTER V.

FIRST AMERICAN SETTLERS.

The Advance Guard - Route of Travel and Means of Transportation - Grades of Government - First Federal Judges - The Law-Making Power - The First Legislature - Population in 1809 - Location of Settlements - Personal Sketches of the Members of the First Territorial Legislature, etc.

Emigration westward from the Atlantic States commenced about 1779-80, and there can be no doubt that the brilliant achievements of Gen. Clark, heretofore noted, as they spread abroad, exercised a great influence in directing attention to the fertile prairies of Illinois. Marching through the country as his army did, they had every opportunity of seeing its rare beauty and examining its exceeding richness and general adaptability to agricultural purposes. The knowledge of the country thus gained by the men compos- ing this little army of Spartan heroes was not long in spreading to the older settled parts of America, nor was it long until immigrants began to come in and select sites for homes and the pursuit of fortune. The increase of population from American immigration was necessarily slow for many years. This immigration was not confined to any one locality, but was scattered about in different sections, so that, notwithstanding the presence of an

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

estimated population of 9,000, a part of whom were French and French half-breeds, when the Territory was organized, the country still seemed like an undisturbed wilderness, as indeed by far the larger part of it was.

In the Spring of 1780, three hundred family boats arrived at the Falls of Ohio (Louisville), the most of them destined for Kentucky." Some of them. however, were bound for Illinois. Among these there were James Moore, Shadrack Bond, James Gar- rison, Robert Kidd and Larken Rutherford, from Maryland and Virginia, the two last having been with Gen. Clark. In those perilons times they had crossed the Alleghany Mountains without molestation, descended the Ohio, stemmed the Mississippi, and landed safely at Kaskaskia. James Moore, the leader of this little band of pioneers, and some others, settled among the hills near Bellefontaine, in what is now Monroe county, while the remainder settled in the American Bottom ( from which fact that name had its origin), near Harrisonville. James Piggot, John Doyle, Robert Whitehead and another man, named Bowen, soldiers in Clark's expedition, came soon after. Doyle was a man of family and taught school, and was, perhaps, the first to engage in teaching as a profession in Illinois. He could also speak French and Indian. and was frequently employed as Indian interpreter. No other American immigrants came till 1785, when the little band was reinforced by Joseph Ogle, Joseph Warley and James Andrews, from Virginia, each of them with a large family. James Leman, George Atcherson. David Waddell and their families, and several others, came in 1786 .; The families here named were the advance guard of that mighty host that came to occupy Illinois in after years, and make it the grandest of all the States.

GRADES OF GOVERNMENT.

During the time Illinois formed a part of Indiana Territory, from 1800 to February, 1809, the government was of two grades : first, the law-making power, consisting of the Governor and judges, and, second, the Territorial Legislature, composed of a House of Representatives, elected by the people, and a Council appointed by the President and Senate of the I'nited States. Illinois remained under the first grade until 1812.

Nathaniel Pope, a relative of Gov. Edwards, was appointed Territorial Secre- tary. He was born at the Falls of the Ohio, in Kentucky. Was one of the early gradu- ates of Transylvania University at Lexington, after which he chose the profession of the law. At the age of twenty-one years he emigrated to St. Genevieve, then in Upper Louisiana, but now in Missouri, where he acquired full command of the French language. When twenty-six years of age, he received the appointment of Secretary of the Territory of illinois, and on the 25th day of April, 1809, at St. Genevieve, before Judge Shrader, he took the prescribed oath of office and came to Illinois to enter upon the duties of his position. In the absence of the Governor, the Secretary was empowered, under the ordinance of 1787. to discharge the duties of the executive, and on the 28th day of April, three days after taking the oath of office, he inaugurated the new government by procla- mation. The counties of St. Clair and Randolph, previously organized, were reinstated as the two counties of Illinois Territory. On the Bd of May he appointed and commis- sioned Elias Rector to be Attorney-General ; John Hay, Sheriff: Enoch Moore, Coroner ; and seventeen justices of the peace. Hence it will be seen that the honor of starting the civil government of Illinois Territory belongs to Nathaniel Pope, the first Territorial Secretary.

Governor Edwards assumed the duties of his office on the 11th of June following, having subscribed to the oath of office before leaving Kentucky.

FIRST FEDERAL JUDGES.

On the organization of the Territory, Jesse B. Thomas, Alexander Stuart and William *Butler's Kentucky. tAnnals of the West.

GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

Sprigg were appointed Federal Judges. On the 16th of June, 1809, Governor Edwards, and Judges Stuart and Sprigg met together as a legislative body, as provided in the fifth section of the ordinance of 1787, and re-enacted such of the laws of the Indiana Terri- tory as were suitable and applicable to Illinois, and with which the people had been famil- iar for nine years, all laws local or special to Indiana, being rejected. Many of these laws were as old as the Northwestern Territory, some of them having been imported from Pennsylvania and some of them from Massachusetts. They were adopted without change of phraseology.

Under the act of Territorial organization, provision was made for the advancement of the government from the first to the second grade whenever the Governor should be satisfied that a majority of the freeholders desired the same. Choosing to be guided by the popular will, Governor Edwards, on the 4th day of February, 1812, issued an order directing an election to be held in each county on the second Monday in April, to enable the people to determine whether they would enter upon the second grade. The question was decided in the affirmative by a large majority. Congress approved the action of the people, and on the 21st day of May an act was passed by which Illinois was raised to the second grade of government. That act also extended the right of suffrage to any white male person twenty-one years of age, who had paid a territorial tax and resided in the Territory one year next preceding any election, ete.

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The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest-history of Illinois-history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc., Part 14

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company Number of Pages: 932

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company
Number of Pages: 932