USA > Illinois > Peoria County > 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 16
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TOWN BURNED.
On nearing the town a general charge was made. the Indians fleeing to the interior wilderness. Some of their warriors made a stand, when a sharp engagement occurred, but the Indians were routed. In their flight they left behind all their Winter's store of provisions, which was taken, and their town burned. Some Indian children were found who had been left in the hurried flight, also some disabled adults, one of whom was in a starving condition and with a voracious appetite partook of the bread given him. He is said to have been killed by a cowardly trooper straggling behind, after the main army had resumed its retrograde march, who wanted to be able to boast that he had killed an Indian.
About the time Gov. Edwards started with his little band against the Indians. Gen. Hopkins, with 2,000 Kentucky riflemen, left Vincennes to eross the prairies of Ilinois
GENERAL HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
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BOND-CHANDLER,CHI.
PONTIAC. THE OTTAWA CHIEF.
8
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and destroy the Indian villages along the Illinois river. Edwards, with his rangers, ex- pected to act in concert with Gen. Hopkins' riflemen. After marching 80 or 90 miles into the enemy's country, Gen. Hopkins' men became dissatisfied, and on Oct. 20 the entire army turned and retreated homeward before even a foe had been met. After the victory of the Illinois rangers they heard nothing of Gen. Hopkins and his 2,000 mounted Kentucky riflemen ; and apprehending that a large force of warriors would be speedily col- lected, it was deemed prudent not to protract their stay, and accordingly the retrograde march was commenced the very day of the attack.
PEORIA BURNED.
The force of Capt. Craig, in charge of the provision boats, was not idle during this time. They proceeded to Peoria, where they were fired on by ten Indians during the night, who immediately fled. Capt. Craig discovered, at daylight. their tracks leading up into the French town. He inquired of the French their whereabouts, who denied all knowledge of them, and said they "had heard or seen nothing ; " but he took the entire number prisoners, burned and destroyed Peoria, and bore the captured inhabitants away on his boats to a point below the present city of Alton, where he landed and left them in the woods,-men, women and children,-in the inclement month of November, with- out shelter, and without food other than the slender stores they had themselves gathered up before their departure. They found their way to St. Louis in an almost starving condition. The burning of Peoria and taking its inhabitants prisoners, on the mere suspicion that they sympathized with the Indians, was generally regarded as a needless, if not wanton, act of military power.
SECOND EXPEDITION AGAINST TIIE INDIANS.
In the early part of 1813, the country was put in as good defense as the sparse pop- ulation admitted. In spite of the precaution taken, numerous depredations and murders were committed by the Indians, which again aroused the whites, and another expedition was sent against the foe, who had collected in large numbers in and around Peoria. This army was composed of about 900 men, collected from both Illinois and Missouri, and under command of Gen. Howard. They marched across the broad prairies of Illinois to Peoria, where there was a small stockade in charge of United States troops. Two days previously the Indians made an attack on the fort, but were repulsed. Being in the enemy's country, knowing their stealthy habits, and the troops at no time observing a high degree of discipline, many unnecessary night alarms occurred. yet the enemy were far away. The army marched up the lake to Chillicothe, burning on its way two deserted villages. At the present site of Peoria the troops remained in camp several weeks. While there they built a fort, which they named in honor of Gen. George Rogers Clark. who with his brave Virginians wrested Illinois from the English during the Revolutionary struggle. This fort was destroyed by fire in 1818. It gave a name to Peoria which it wore for several years. After the building of Fort Crevecœur, in 1680, Peoria lake was very familiar to Western travel and history ; but there is no authentic account of a per- manent European settlement there until 1778, when La Ville de Meillet. named after its founder, was started. Owing to the quality of the water and its greater salubrity. the location was changed to the present site of Peoria, and by 1796 the old had been entirely abandoned for the new village. After its destruction in 1812 it was not settled again until 1819, and then by American pioneers, though in 1813 Fort Clark was built there.
EXPEDITION UP THE MISSISSIPPI.
The second campaign against the Indians at Peoria closed without an engagement, or even a sight of the enemy, yet great was the benefit derived from it. It showed to the Indian the power and resources of his white foe. Still the calendar of the horrible
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deeds of butchery of the following year is long and bloody. A joint expedition again moved against the Indians in 1814, under Gov. Clark. of Missouri. This time they went up the Mississippi in barges, Prairie du Chien being the point of destination. There they found a small garrison of British troops, which, however, soon fled, as did the inhabi- tants, leaving Clark in full possession. He immediately set to work and erected Fort Shelby. The Governor returned to St. Louis, leaving his men in peaceable possession of the place, but a large force of British and Indians came down upon them, and the entire garrison surrendered. In the mean time Gen. Howard sent 108 men to strengthen the garrison. Of this number 66 were Illinois rangers, under Capts. Rector and Riggs, who occupied two boats. The remainder were with Lieut. Campbell.
A DESPERATE FIGHT.
At Rock Island Campbell was warned to turn back, as an attack was contemplated. The other boats passed on up the river and were some two miles ahead when Campbell's barge was struck by a strong gale which forced it against a small island near the Illinois shore. Thinking it best to lie to till the wind abated, sentinels were stationed while the men went ashore to cook breakfast. At this time a large number of Indians on the main shore under Black Hawk commenced an attack. The savages in canoes passed rapidly to the island, and with a war-whoop rushed upon the men, who retreated and sought refuge in the barge. A battle of brisk musketry now ensued between the few regulars aboard the stranded barge and the hordes of Indians under cover of trees on the island, with severe loss to the former. Meanwhile Capts. Rector and Riggs, ahead with their barges, seeing the smoke of battle, attempted to return ; but in the strong gale, Riggs' boat became unmanageable and was stranded on the rapids. Rector, to avoid a similar disaster, let go his anchor. The rangers, however, opened with good aim and telling effect upon the savages. The unequal combat having raged for some time and about closing, the commander's barge, with many wounded and several dead on board-among the former Lieut. Campbell-was discovered to be on fire. Now Rector and his brave Illinois rangers, comprehending the horrid situation, performed, without delay, as cool and heroic a deed-and did it well-as ever imperiled the life of mortal man. In the howling gale, in full view of hundreds of infuriated savages, and within range of their rifles, they deliberately raised anchor, lightened their barge by casting overboard quanti- ties of provisions, and guided it with the utmost labor down the swift current, to the windward of the burning barge, and under the galling fire of the enemy rescued all the survivors, and removed the wounded and dying to their vessel. This was a deed of noble daring and as heroic as any performed during the war in the West. Rector hurried with his over-crowded vessel to St. Louis.
It was now feared that Riggs and his company were captured and sacrificed by the savages. His vessel, which was strong and well armed, was for a time surrounded by the Indians, but the whites on the inside were well sheltered. The wind becoming allayed in the evening, the boat, under cover of the night, glided safely down the river without the loss of a single man.
ANOTHER EXPEDITION.
Notwithstanding the disastrous termination of the two expeditions already sent out, during the year 1814, still another was projected. It was under Maj. Zachary Taylor, afterward President. Rector and Whiteside, with the Illinoisan, were in command of boats. The expedition passed Rock Island unmolested, when it was learned the country was not only swarming with Indians, but that the English were there in command with a detachment of regulars and artillery. The advanced boats in command of Rector, Whiteside and Hempstead, turned about and began to descend the rapids, fighting with
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great gallantry the hordes of the enemy, who were pouring their fire into them from the shore at every step.
Near the mouth of Rock river Maj. Taylor anchored his fleet out in the Mississippi. During the night the English planted a battery of six pieces down at the water's edge. to sink or disable the boats, and filled the islands with redskins to butcher the whites, who might, unarmed, seek refuge there. But in this scheme they were frustrated. In the morning Taylor ordered all the force, except 20 boatmen on each vessel, to the upper island to dislodge the enemy. The order was executed with great gallantry, the island scoured, many of the savages killed, and the rest driven to the lower island. In the meantime the British cannon told with effeet upon the fleet. The men rushed back and the boats were dropped down the stream out of range of the cannon. Capt. Rector was now ordered with his company to make a sortie on the lower island, which he did, driving the Indians back among the willows; but they being re-inforeed, in turn hurled Rector back upon the sand-beach.
A council of officers called by Taylor had by this time decided that their force was too small to contend with the enemy, who outnumbered them three to one, and the boats were in full retreat down the river. As Rector attempted to get under way his boat grounded, and the savages, with demoniac yells, surrounded it. when a most desperate hand-to-hand confliet ensued. The gallant ranger, Samuel Whiteside, observing the imminent peril of his brave Illinois comrade, went immediately to his rescue, who but for his timely aid would undoubtedly have been overpowered, with all his force, and murdered.
Thus ended the last, like the two previous expeditions up the Mississippi during the war of 1812, in defeat and disaster. The enemy was in undisputed possession of all the country north of the Illinois river, and the prospects respecting those territories boded nothing but gloom. With the approach of Winter, however, Indian depredations ceased to be committed, and the peace of Ghent, Dec. 24, 1814, closed the war.
CHAPTER VII.
ILLINOIS TERRITORY ADMITTED AS A STATE.
Constitutional Convention - Meeting of the Convention - Constitution Adopted - Arbitrary Features - First Election Under The Constitution - Lincoln -Grant - Rawlins - Douglas -Shields - Illinoisans in the War of the Rebellion - Elias Kent Kane - Congressional Act of Admission - Houndary Question - Boundary Con- ventions - Attempt to form Another Territory - Failure of the Allempl - Shadrach Bond - Pierre Menard - Other Stale Officers - Meeting of the General Assembly - Financial - Territorial Revenue - State Revenue - How Collecled -The Whipping Post - Earthquakes.
On the 18th day of April, 1818, the Congress of the United States passed an act entitled " An act to enable the people of the Territory of Illinois to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States." Immediately after the passage, approval and publica- tion of this aet, an election was ordered to choose delegates to form a State convention.
At this time there were fifteen organized counties in the territory. all in the southern part of the State, to which section the settlement of the territory had been confined. These counties were organized in the following chronological order :
St. Clair, 1790 ; Randolph, 1795 ; Madison, Gallatin and Johnson, 1812; Edwards,
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1814; White, Monroe, Pope and Jackson, 1816; Crawford and Bond, 1817; Union, Washington and Franklin, 1818.
MEETING OF THE CONVENTION.
The convention assembled at Kaskaskia in July, of that year, and completed its labors by signing the constitution on the 26th day of August following. The names of the delegates and the counties they represented are subjoined :
St. Clair county, Jesse B. Thomas, John Messinger and James Lemon, Jr.
Randolph, George Fisher, Elias Kent Kane.
Madison, Benjamin Stephenson, Joseph Borong, Abraham Pickett.
Gallatin, Michael Jones, Leonard White, Adolphus Frederick Hubbard.
Johnson, Kezekiah West, William McFatridge.
Edwards, Seth Gard, Levi Compton.
White, Willis Hargrave, William McHenry.
Monroe, Caldwell Carns, Enoch Moore.
Pope, Samuel O'Melveney, Hamlet Ferguson.
Jackson, Conrad Will, James Hall, Jr.
Crawford, Joseph Kitchell, Edward N. Cullom.
Bond, Thomas Kilpatrick, Samuel G. Morse.
Union, William Echols, John Whitaker.
Washington, Andrew Bankson. Bankson's colleague died during the session of the convention.
Franklin, Isham Harrison, Thomas Roberts.
Jesse B. Thomas, of St. Clair county, was chosen to preside over the deliberations of the convention, and William C. Greenup to be its secretary.
ARBITRARY FEATURES.
"The constitution was not submitted to a vote of the people for their approval or rejection ; nor did the people have much to do with the choice or election of officers gen- erally under it, other than that of governors, the general assemblies, sheriffs and coronors. Notwithstanding the elective franchise was in a blazen manner extended to all white male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one years, having a residence in the State of six months next preceding any election, which it will be perceived included aliens, and possibly invited immigration, there was scarcely an office left to be filled by its exercise." -[Stuve's History of Ill., p. 297.]
Says Mr. Ford : "The Constitution, as formed, required the Governor and Lieu- tenant Governor to have been citizens of the United States for thirty years before their election. It also gave power to the Governor to nominate, and the Senate to confirm, all officers whose appointments were not otherwise provided for by the Constitution ; the only exceptions to this rule being the judges of the supreme and inferior courts, State Treasurer and public printer. But motives of favor to particular persons who were looked to to hold office under the new government, induced the convention to make excep- tions in both these cases, which, in the case of appointments to office in the hands of the Legislature, became the general rule."
Thus it seems that " the electors of the people were not entrusted with the choice of State officers other than mentioned ; nor of their judges, either supreme, circuit or probate ; nor of their prosecuting attorneys, county or circuit clerks, recorders or justices of the peace ; the appointment of nearly all of these being vested in the General Assem- bly, which body was not slow to avail itself of the powers thus conferred to their full extent." * * * " The Governor was denied the veto power, but, jointly with the four Supreme Judges, was constituted a council to revise all bills passed. For this purpose the judges were required to attend at the seat of government during the sessions
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of the Legislature, without compensation. If the council of revision, or a majority, deemed it improper for any bill to become a law, their objections were noted in writing ; but the bill might, notwithstanding, be passed over their objections, by a majority, and become a law. While the Executive is commonly a co-ordinate branch of the law- making power, here he was entirely stripped, and while the judicial department is never thus vested, here it was clothed with a quasi legislative prerogative."
Mr. Stuve continues : " The Constitution was about the first organic law of any State in the Union to abolish imprisonment for debt. It did not prohibit the Legislature from granting divorces, and this was a fruitful source of legislation, as the old statutes abundantly testify. But its worst feature, perhaps, was the want of limitation against the Legislature loaning or pledging the faith and credit of the State in aid of, or to the undertaking of, any public or private enterprise, or to the aid of individuals, associations or corporations. The absence of such most necessary limitations, caused her repeated connections afterwards with banking schemes, and her undertaking the vast system of internal improvements in 1837, all of which proved detrimental to her credit, harassing and expensive to her finances, and came near bankrupting and completing her ruin."
Section eighteen of article two provided that "the General Assembly of this State shall not allow the following officers of the government greater or smaller annual salaries than as follows, until the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four : the Gover- nor, one thousand dollars ; and the Secretary of State, six hundred dollars."
Section two of article three : "The first election for governor shall commence on the third Thursday of September next (1818), and continue for that and the two succeed- ing days ; and the next election shall be held on the first Monday of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-one. And forever after, elections for governor shall be held once in four years, on the first Monday of Angust."
Section three of the same article: "The first governor shall hold his office until the first Monday of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-two, and until another governor shall be elected and qualified to office ; and for- ever after, the governor shall hold his office for the term of four years, and until another governor shall be elected and qualified, but he shall not be eligible for more than four years in any term of eight years," ctc.
FIRST ELECTION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.
Pursuant to section two of article two of the Constitution, the first election for governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, members of the Senate and House of Representatives, etc., commenced on the third Thursday of September, 1818, and con- tinued for two days thereafter.
The poll books of the several voting places in the fifteen organized counties that made up the State of Illinois at that time, would be interesting now if it were possible to secure them. But very few, if any, of the voters at that election, are spared to the present. Almost sixty-seven years have come and gone since the first Territorial Legis- Jature convened at Kaskaskia, and sixty-one years have been engulfed in the vortex of time since the first State officers were elected, in September, 1818. Since then the people of the commonwealth have participated in no less than three wars : the Black Hawk war of 1832, which commenced within the boundaries of the State, the Mexican war, and the war against the great Southern rebellion, the prolonged and bloody conflict between Freedom and Slavery, 1861-65.
LINCOLN -GRANT -RAWLINS - DOUGLAS -SHIELDS.
In these sixty-one years this State has given to the parent government one of the most successful warrior chieftains known to history, and two Presidents, - Lincoln, Free- dom's martyr, and U. S. Grant, the honored guest of the crowned heads and titled courts
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of the European and Oriental world. Besides these, others of her sons by birth and adoption, arose to distinction in home and national councils, and filled places of high honor and trust as ministers to foreign courts. Douglas, whose memory is dear to every Illinoisan, if not to every American ; Yates, whose intellect was as exhaustless as the resources of the great State of his home, and only equalled by his generosity of nature ; Shields, the hero of two wars, and Senator from three States, Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri ; and John A. Rawlins, the " noblest Roman of them all," who rose from driver of a coal cart and the pseudonym of "Charcoal Johnny," to the exalted position of the nation's war minister. These are a few, and only a few, of those whose wisdom and heroic achievements illuminate the pages of history, and render their names immortal among the great men of earth. They sleep in honored graves, but the memory of their glorious deeds will live in the hearts of men until time shall end.
And when the nation's life was imperilled more than two hundred and fifty thousand men sprang from their prairie homes and " pledged their lives, their fortunes and sacred honors" in defense of the parent government that fostered and protected the Common- wealth in its days of territorial dependency. Heroes every one of them, they followed the bugle's call wherever and while ever an armed foe appeared. Their dead lie buried on every battle field. No State in all the freedom-loving North made a grander record or offered a nobler army of men. Illini - tribe of men, indeed thou art.
Mr. Ford, in his History of Illinois, says in reference to the Constitutional Conven- tion and its members : " The principal member of it was Elias K. Kane, late a Senator in Congress, and now deceased, and to whose talents we are mostly indebted for the peculiar features of the Constitution. Mr. Kane was born in the State of New York, and was bred to the profession of the law. He removed in early youth to Tennessee, where he rambled about for some time, and finally settled in the ancient village of Kas- kaskia, Illinois, about the year 1815, when he was about twenty years of age. His talents were both solid and brilliant. After being appointed Secretary of State under the new government, he was elected to the Legislature, from which he was elected, and again re-elected to the United States Senate. He died a member of that body in the Autumn of 1835; and in memory of him the county of Kane, on Fox river, was named."
The following is the act of Congress declaring the admission of the State of Illinois into the Union :
Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assem- bled, That, whereas, in pursuance of an act of Congress, passed on the eighteenth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen, entitled " An act to enable the people of Illinois Territory to form a Constitution and State Government, and for the admission of such State into the Union, on an equal footing with the original States," the people of said Territory did, on the twenty-sixth day of August, in the present year, by a convention called for that purpose, form for themselves a Constitution and State Government, which Constitution and State Government, so formed, is Republican, and in conformity to the principles of the articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, passed on the thirteenth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven. Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the State of Illinois shall be one, and is hereby declared to be one, of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever. [Approved, December 3, 1818.]
THE BOUNDARY QUESTION.
The act of Congress of the 18th day of April, 1818. referred to in the act just quoted, was based upon the action of the Territorial Legislature in session January, 1818, when a petition for authority to organize as a State was prepared and forwarded to Nathaniel Pope, then Territorial delegate in Congress. Mr. Pope lost no time in pre- senting the petition to Congress, and that body as promptly referred it to the proper com- mittee, and that committee instructed Mr. Pope to prepare a bill in accordance with the prayer of the petition. Mr. Pope complied with the instructions, but the bill as orig- inally drafted did not embrace the present area of Illinois, and when it was reported to
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Congress certain amendments proposed by Mr. Pope, were reported with it. The ordi- nance of 1787 provided that not less than three nor more than five States were to be erected out of the territory northwest of the Ohio River. Three States were to include the whole territory, and these States were to be bounded on the north by the British possessions, but Congress reserved the right, if it should be found expedient. to form two more States out of that part of the territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southern extremity of Lake Michigan.
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