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 39

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

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Other evidence of the antiquity of the Mound Builders is found in the surface markings of their pottery. The writer has a piece in his cabinet that represents a species of Lepidodeudson simplex, a fern that grew in the upper carboniferous period. It is no accidental resemblance, but line after line is traced with unerring accuracy.

Of the cave-dwellers but little is known. On section eight in Jubilee township, near a perpetual spring, a large number of subterranean chambers have been explored - most of them have fallen in. That these were the abode of men is proven by the imple- ments found in and about them, consisting of pottery of various patterns, stone spear points, arrows, and battle axes. When the writer surveyed them as many as twenty of the underground caves were seen. Four miles southeast of this group of earth-houses, on land owned by Mr. Joseph Stewart, a large number are to be seen. They are near a never-freezing spring. The outer chambers in the last group have all fallen in, and they now resemble a long disused coal shaft. On the right bank of the Illinois river, three miles below Rome, a great number of these caves can be found at this time, some of which are stoned up and arched over with water-worn drift boulders of unequal size. Most of these have fallen in, disclosing to the casual observer nothing but a sudden de- pression of the surface, and a portion of the stone wall. These are also near never-fail- ing springs. On a small terrace-drift prairie four miles above Peoria, one of these caves was opened, and in it was found a skeleton, in a recumbent position, as if he had lain down from exhaustion or disease, to die. Beside the skeleton were the broken bones of some animal, from which the marrow had been scraped by some pointed instrument ; some pieces were scraped from the inside to half their thickness. Arrow points, stone beads, pipes, cooking utensils, made from clay, and pulverized shells were found in this subterranean chamber, with ashes and charred wood. In summing up what little evi- dence we have brought to light in this country, the cave-dwellers appear to have been an indolent race, with little or no energy, content to live like brutes, and most likely noc- turnal in their habits.

ORIGIN OF THE PRAIRIES ..

Peoria county is largely prairie. The timber is confined to the bluffs, ravines and river bottoms. Of the origin of prairies nearly as many theories have been advanced as there are writers on the subject. One is, " that a dew drop assuming the form of a lens sets on fire the grass of the prairie." But a dew drop does not assume the form of a lens. The nearest approach is hemispherical, which would have no more burning property than a bubble on the ocean. As well might it be said that the sun shining through the rain drops of a retreating thunder storm produces the lightning. Again, as the grass must necessarily be wet when the dew drops are on it, there would be danger of that kind of fire communicating to brooks, streams and rivers, and as a sequence set the ocean on fire, sapping the foundation of dews. If the sun by any means could set the prairie on fire, why are not our grain fields and meadows burned over every year ?

Prairies were made by the same creative God that made our coal fields, our stone quarries and our forest grounds ; and they were made for the use of man. The lessons that geologists have failed to teach, the husbandman has been swift to learn. Although

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prairies are of aqueous origin, they are not perfectly level, but have a gentle rolling or undulating surface, on which no surplus water can remain. That they are not adapted to the growth of trees, every farmer who has planted an orchard knows ; a larger per cent. dying the first year, and in a few years his orchard is decimated. But although trees grow reluctantly on the prairies, they are and always will be the garden of the world for all other vegetation the climate will permit to grow.

ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY.

Coal veins four and six, with an aggregate thickness of nine feet underlying the en- tire area of the county, and are above the horizon of the Illinois river ; the banks of the Kickapoo and its tributaries, and the bluffs of the Illinois, afford facilities for mining by horizon tunnels.

Building stone of an inferior quality is found in great abundance on the right bark of the Kickapoo. It is a soft ferruginous sandstone, which has been used in building cellars, curbing wells and abutments for bridges : but it is not reliable on account of the unequal hardness in different parts of the same quarry. Of limestone there is an inex- haustible amount ; and when burnt it makes a cement, which for strength and durabili- ty can not be surpassed in the State. There is also in the town of Rosefield a fresh- water limestone that makes an excellent building material. splitting out in slabs of an equal thickness, as smooth as if sawed. Where exposed to frost and rain for twenty years and upwards it has stood a better test than the Joliet or silurian limestone. On the south-east of section three, in Logan township, there is a quarry of variegated lime- stone, which, on being polished, presents a handsomer surface than any of the Vermont marble.

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS.

Besides the collections of the Seientific Association noted elsewhere in this work, there are several interesting private collections in Peoria county. The largest of these is that of William Gifford, whose cabinet embraces the following, with other classified fossils :

Lower Silurian, 215 specimens ; Upper Silurian, 115 : sub-carboniferous, 150 ; coal measure, 290; Devonian, 135 ; Cretaceous, 300 ; Tertiary, 210 : making an aggregate of 1,415 specimens. In addition to these he has an extensive cabinet of minerals and marine and fresh water shells, collected from all parts of the workl.

The cabinet of Dr. W. H. Chapman ranks next to his in magnitude. The Doctor is a gentleman of superior education, and having a taste for scientific study, has spared neither pains nor money to make his collection perfect.

Miss Emma Smith also has a fine private collection ; and is making a speciality of the study of geology, in which she already ranks high among scientists. She has been solicited by an Eastern publishing house to prepare a primary work on geology, with the hope that such a work may soon find a place in the public schools.

Miss Mary E. Stringer, of Kickapoo township, has the nucleus of a choice collec- tion ; and displays remarkable zeal in her pursuit of scientific knowledge.

HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY HISTORY-FRENCH SETTLEMENT.

1673 : Marquette and Joliet - Their Voyage up the Illinois River - Loss of the Diary of their Tour of Discovery - Joliet's Report to Frontinac. 1679: LaSalle, Hennepin, and Tonti - Their Voyage to Illinois - From Green Bay, Wisconsin, to South Bend, Indiana - Down the Kankakee River to the Illinois - Indian Village at Utica - New Year's Day, 1680 - Arrival in Lake Peoria - Surprise of the Indians - Strategy of LaSalle - Distrust of the Indians - Mutiny and Desertion - Fort Crevecoeur - Preaching Among the Indians - Hennepin's De- parture to Explore the Upper Mississippi - LaSalle's Return to Canada- Indian Against Indian - Tonti's Flight to Green Bay - Destruction of Fort Crevecoeur - Return of LaSalle - The French Settlement - Old Village of Peoria - Charge of Treason Against the French Inhabitants - Craig's Expedition Against the French and Indians - Letter of Governor Edwards to Secretary of War Eustis -Destruction of the Village - Population of the Village - Second Expedition to Peoria - Fort Clark - Colonel Hubbard - Destruction of Fort Clark.

From the time the world was created until the latter part of the seventeenth century, the history of the land of the Peorias was a lost volume. There are neither legends nor traditions to guide the mind and the pen of the historian in describing the condition of the country or the habits and pursuits of the people previous to the date of which we write. Vain would be the search for some tangible evidence of a higher type of human- ity than the races or tribes known in history as North American Indians. True, the dis- coveries in archeology furnish data for conjecture, but scarcely more. Hence we must accept the history of the country as beginning when Marquette and Joliet, the mission- aries of French civilization, ascended the Illinois river, on their return to Canada from the discovery of the Mississippi river in 1673.

The exact date of their passage through Lake Peoria has not been preserved, but from the best accessible evidence it is fair to presume that it was during the last days of the month of August, or the first days of the month of September, A. D., 1673. This conclusion is reached from the following facts :

It is known that these brave explorers descended the Mississippi river as far as the Arkansas, which they reached about the middle of July. They had been on the river four weeks, and concluded they had descended far enough to decide that its outlet was on the Atlantic side of the continent. Their provisions were nearly exhausted, and they also feared if they visited the river below they might be killed by the savages, and the benefit of their discovery lost.

Influenced by these considerations they determined to retrace their steps. Leaving the Arkansas village, they forced their way up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Illinois river, where they learned from the Indians that the latter stream afforded a shorter and more direct route to the lakes than the route by which they had descended. Acting upon this information they entered the Illinois river and found that, besides being much more direct, its current offered less resistance to their light canoes than the current of the Mississippi. Passing far up the river they stopped at an Indian town called Kas-kas-kia, which name, afterwards transferred to a different locality, became noted as the first capital of the Territory of Illinois. At Kaskaskia they secured a chief and some of his men to conduct them to Lake Michigan and proceeded hither by way of the Illinois, Des- plaines and Chicago rivers. Following the west shore of the lake they entered Green Bay the latter part of September.

Marquette stopped at the mission at the head of the bay to recover his failing health, while Joliet hastened on to Quebec to report their discoveries. At the foot of the rapids above Montreal his canoe was capsized, and he lost the manuscript containing an account

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of their discoveries and two of his men. He said in a letter to Governor Frontenac : " I had escaped every peril from the Indians ; I had passed forty-two rapids, and was on the point of disembarking, full of joy at the success of so long and difficult an undertaking. when iny canoe capsized after all the danger seemed over. I lost my two men and box of papers within sight of the first French settlement, which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains to me now but my life and the ardent desire to employ it on any service you may please to direct."

The loss of the papers here mentioned leaves analogy to supply the date when these bold adventurers passed up through Lake Peoria and probably landed at the place where the American settlement of Peoria county was commenced one hundred and forty-six years later. " Nowhere on this journey," Marquette wrote, " did we see such grounds. meadows, woods, stags, buffaloes, deer, wildcats, bustards, ducks, parroquets, and even beavers, as on the Illinois river.

Robert de LaSalle, Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan monk, and Henri Tonti, an Italian. were the next white men to visit this region. This trip was commenced up Lake Erie. on the 7th day of August. 1679. They passed over that lake, through the straits beyond and into Lake Iluron, where they encountered heavy storms. They remained some time at Michillimackinac, where LaSalle founded a fort, and then passed on to Green Bay, the " Baie des Puans," of the French .*

They remained at Green Bay until the 3d day of December of that year, and then. with thirty-three men -thirty working men and three monks-commenced ascending the St. Joseph river. The margins of the stream were glassed with sheets of ice, and the forests were gray and bare. In four days they reached the present site of South Bend. Indiana, and began looking for the Indian trail leading across the portage to the Kanka- kee river.t While hunting for this path, LaSalle became bewildered and did not find his way back to camp until the next afternoon. The path was found, and, with a Ma- hingan Indian for a guide, it was not long until the portage was crossed, and the party stood on the bank of the Kankakee, which zig-zagged its way among tufts of tall grass and clumps of elder. The current channel was so narrow that a man could easily jump across it, but they launched their canoes and started down its sluggish waters-the wa- ter was so shallow that the voyagers seemed sailing along on the surface of the ground. while their evening shadows, unobstructed by banks, fell far beyond their canoes, and trooped like huge phantoms along by their side. By and by it grew to be a considerable stream from the drainage of miry barrens and reedy marshes skirting the banks. Then came prairies and woodlands recently seorched by the fires of Indian hunters, and here and there deeply scarred with the trails of buffaloes. They continned on down the river by easy stages until they entered the Illinois. They were then in the grazing places and home of the deer, but now wonderfully transformed into scenes of agricultural thrift, Ou the right, they passed Buffalo Rock, a favorite resort with the Indians. Farther down on the left, was seen a towering promontory, beautifully crested with trees, and destined to he erowned with the bulwarks of an impregnable fortress, and now known as Starved Rock, fuller mention of which is elsewhere made. A short distance below, standing on the right bank, was the principal village of the Illinois Indians - Utica, LaSalle county -but the inhabitants were absent, and their village was a voiceless solitude. The voyageurs went on shore, and being pressed for food, they took a sufficient quantity of

* Tonti's father had been Governor of Gaeta, bul had fled to France to escape the political convulsions of his native country. lle was an able financier, and the author of the system of life insurance, known as Tontine.

+ The Indian name for this river was Theake, which means wolf, and was so named because of a tribe of Indians of that name who dwelt about its source, but who were more commonly called Mahigans. The French pronounced Theake Ki-a-ki-ki, which was corrupted to Kankakee. It is a sluggish, tortuous stream, with very low banks, and overflows and renders useless thousands of acres of land in LaPorte, Starke, Jasper, Lake, and Porter counties, in Indiana.

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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

corn, which they found hidden away in pits, to supply their immediate needs, and then re-embarked and passed on down the river.

" This day [January 1, 1680, wrote Hennepin in his journal] we went through a lake formed by the river, about seven leagues long and one broad. The savages call that place Pimiteoni ; that is, in their language, where there is an abundance of fat beasts. When the river of the Illinois freezes, which is but seldom, it freezes only to this lake, and never from there to the Mississippi, into which this river falls. We found ourselves on a sudden in their camp, which took up two sides of the river. M. de LaSalle ordered his men immediately to make their arms ready and brought his canoes on a line, placing himself to the right, and M. Tonti to the left, so that we took almost the whole breadth of the river. The Illinois, who had not discovered our fleet of eight canoes, were very much surprised to see us coming so swiftly upon them, for the stream is very rapid at this place. Some ran for their arms, but the most of them took to flight, with horrid cries and howlings.

" The current brought us, in the meantime, to their camp, and M. LaSalle went the very first ashore, followed by his men, which increased the consternation of his savages, whom we might have easily defeated, but as it was not our design, we made a halt to give them time to recover themselves, and see that we were no enemies. M. LaSalle might have prevented their consternation by showing his calumet, or pipe of peace, but he was afraid the savages would impute it to our weakness."

The Indians were distrustful and LaSalle's men become troublesome and mutinous, and it soon became evident to him that there were secret movements to foment ill-will towards him and his enterprise in the minds of the better disposed of his followers. Under these circumstances he determined to build a fort as a precautionary measure of safety. The ground selected for the fort, which was called Crevecoeur - meaning Broken Heart - was on the site now occupied by the Fort Clark Elevator, in the city of Peoria. The distrust of the Indians was finally overcome, and the new fortification served more the purposes of a place of worship than as a place of protection against hostile foes. Hennepin, as long as he remained, preached to the Indians twice on the Sabbath, chanted vespers, and regretted that the absence of wine prevented the celebra- tion of mass.

Such was the first French occupation of the territory embraced in the present limits of Illinois. For many years after the erection of Fort Crevecoeur the country remained the home of the Indians and pasture grounds for animals native to the soil, and herbs and grasses.

On the last day of February, 1680, Hennepin and two companions, Accan and Du- Gay, left Fort Crevecœur to make a tour of the Upper Mississippi. Two days later, March 2d, LaSalle set out on a return trip to Canada. Soon after his departure nearly all the men deserted and left Tonti almost alone. The Iroquois commenced hostilities against the Illinois, sacked their village (at Utica) and scattered terror before them everywhere. For safety Tonti fled to Green Bay. Fort Crevecœur was destroyed, and when LaSalle returned in December he found little except its ruins.

It has been said by some that the French commenced a settlement here soon after the erection and destruction of Fort Crevecoeur, but we can find no authority in sup- port of the assertion. When Charlevoix visited the Illinois country forty years after LaSalle, or about 1720, he found no French inhabitants here, or, if he did, he made no mention of the fact. One hundred years later, Edward Coles, then Register of the U. S. Landoffice at Edwardsville, who was deputized to take proof of French claims to lands at Peoria, submitted a report to the Secretary of the Treasury, dated November 10th of that year, from which we extract the following :

" The old village of Peoria was situated on the northwest shore of Lake Peoria, about one mile and a half above the lower extremity of the lake. This village had been

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inhabited by the French previous to the recollection of any of the present generation. About the year 1778 or 1779, the first house was built in what was then called La Ville de Maillet, afterwards the new village of Peoria, and of late the place has been known by the name of Fort Clark, situated about one mile and a half below the old village, immediately at the lower point or outlet of Lake Peoria. The situation being preferred on account of the water being better and its being thought more healthy. The inhabi- tants gradually deserted the old village, and by the year 1796 or 1797 had entirely aban- doned it and removed to the new village.

" The inhabitants of Peoria consisted generally of Indian traders, hunters and voy- ageurs, and had formed a link of connection between the French residing on the waters of the great lakes and the Mississippi river. From that happy faculty of adapting them- selves to their situation and associates for which the French are so remarkable, the in- habitants of Peoria lived generally in harmony with their savage neighbors. It would seem, however, that about the year 1781 they were induced to abandon the village from apprehension of Indian hostilities ; but soon after the peace of 1783 they again returned, and continued to reside there until the Autumn of 1812, when they were forcibly re- moved from it, and the place destroyed by Capt. Craig, of the Illinois militia, on the ground, as it is said, that he and his company of militia were fired on in the night, while at anchor in their boats, before the village, by Indians, with whom the inhabitants were suspected by Craig to be too intimate and friendly,

" The inhabitants of Peoria, it would appear from all I can learn, settled there with- out any grant or permission from the authority of any government : that the only title they had to their lands was derived from possession, and the only value attached to it grew out of the improvements placed upon it. That each person took to himself such portion of unoccupied land as he wished to ocenpy and cultivate. and made it his own by incorporating his labor with it, but as soon as he abandoned it his title was understood to cease, with his possession and improvements, and it reverted to its natural state, and was liable again to be improved and possessed by any one who should think proper. This, together with the itinerant character of the inhabitants, will account for the num- ber of persons who will frequently be found ; from the testimony contained in the re- port, to have occupied the same lot, many of whom, it will be seen, present conflicting claims.

" As is usual in French villages, the possession in Peoria consisted generally in vil- lage lots, on which they erected their buildings and made their gardens, and of outlots or fields, in which they cultivated grain, etc. The village lots contained, in general, abont one-half of an arpent of land ; the outlots or fields were of various sizes, depending on the industry or means of the owner to cultivate more or less land.

" As neither the old nor new village of Peoria was ever formally laid out or had de- fined limits assigned them, it is impossible to have of them an accurate map. I have not been able to ascertain with precision on what particular quarter-sections of the military survey these claims are situated."

This is the first written reference to the French settlement at Peoria we have been able to find, and it is indefinite and unsatisfactory. There is no authority extant, so far as we can find, to show that there were any French people here previous to 1760, or until eighty years after LaSalle's party left.

Under a treaty made by the United States with Great Britain in 1783, and under the Jay treaty made in 1794, the French people in Illinois became citizens of the government of the United States. When the war broke ont between Great Britain and the United States, it was treason under the terms of these treaties for the French to take sides with the British or British allies, the Indians. But notwithstanding this, the Peoria French were charged with obtaining ammunition and other munitions of war from the British in Canada, and with furnishing it to the Indians ; with murdering the American settlers in

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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

the southern part of the Illinois Territory, and Captain John Baptiste Maillet, the chief military man at Peoria, who was afterward rewarded for his supposed fidelity to the gov- ernment of the United States, was openly charged with stealing cattle from the settlers in the Wood river country, in Madison county, and driving them north to feed the Indians. Whether true or false, these stories had sufficient plausibility to demand investigation from Governor Edwards, and he ordered Captain Craig, of the Illinois militia, " to ascend the Illinois river - there were no roads between the southern part of the territory and Peoria then - to ascertain the truth or falsity of these accusations, and to act accordingly That Governor Edwards believed they were founded in fact, is evidenced by the follow- ing letter to Mr. Eustis, then United States Secretary of War, under date of August 4, 1812, in which he said, speaking of the Indians :

"Those near Peoria are constantly killing and eating the cattle of the people of that village. The Indians on the Illinois are well supplied with English powder, and have been selling some of it to the white people. A few days ago they sent some of their party with five horses to the Sac village for lead." In a postscript to this leter he added: "No troops of any kind have yet arrived in this territory, and I think you may count upon hearing of a bloody stroke upon us very soon. I have been extremely reluctant to send my family away, but unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a few rangers, I shall bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and stand my ground as long as possible."

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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 39

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