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 40

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

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 40

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Craig's command reached Peoria in small row-boats on the 5th of November, 1812, remained four days, and left on the 9th. In his report to Governor Edwards he stated that on his arrival at Peoria he was told the Indians had all left, but that he believed from the actions of the citizens the statements were false ; that the sentinels on his boats could see them passing through town with candles, and hear their canoes crossing the river all night during the time he remained. On the night of the 6th of November the wind blew so hard they were forced to drop down the river about a quarter of a mile below town, where they cast anchor, but the wind continued with such force that their cable parted and the armed boat drifted ashore. Between the break of day and daylight on the morning of the 7th, the boat was fired on, as Captain Craig thought, by ten or more guns, not more than thirty yards distant from the boat. Arrangements were made imme- diately to give the Indians battle, but it seems they fell back and escaped as soon as they had discharged their pieces. Immediately after daylight Captain Craig landed his boats opposite the center of the village and sent to know what had become of the citizens, to which he received the reply from those interrogated that they had heard or seen nothing unusual. He then sent to the place from which his boat had been fired upon, and found plenty of tracks leading up to the village. This was sufficient to convince Captain Craig that the Frenchmen there were not faithful to the Americans and that they were in league with the Indians and siding with the British, and ordered them taken prisoners. He found them all in one house, and their guns were empty and had the appearance of having just been discharged. We quote in full the concluding part of Captain Craig's report :

" I gave them time to collect their property, which was done immediately. Howard's express came on board my boat and told me that seven of the citizens went out (they said to hunt beef ) the morning we were fired upon. They started about the break of day, and returned about daylight. He said perhaps there were more. for they would never let him know what they were going to do, and would talk together in his absence. We stayed two days after they were taken prisoners. I made them furnish their own rations all the time I kept them. I burnt down about half of the town of Peoria, and I would have burnt the whole and destroyed all the stock, but I still expected Hop- kins' army to pass the place. I found four American muskets in their possession, and one keg of musket balls, and one musket in the house under the floor, and some brass musket moulds. On our way down the river, they were all unarmed. I gave them permission to camp on shore, while I anchored in the river. They always preferred the Indian side for their camping ground."

This is all we find in this report about the old French village of Peoria. Captain Craig does not give any estimate of the population nor the extent of improvements, and

276

HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

much less of the character of the inhabitants. Mr. C. Ballance, in his history of the city of Peoria, published in 1870, says on this subject :

". I apprehend that the men LaSalle and others brought here were of the lower class, and the most ignorant of the French population. If not, they had woefully deteriorated between the time they were brought here and the destruction of their village. I have not been able to ascertain the population of l'eoria when the village was broken up by Captain Craig. Every man of them. I believe is dead, except Robert Forsyth, of St. Louis, who was then a boy. I wrote to him for a list of them, as near as his recollection could furnish it, and I suppose he knows, for be- sides being born among them, he spent fifteen years in hunting them up, and bringing and conducting suits, in which he derived his title through them; but he has never answered my letter. Nor do I find any record or his- tory giving the number of the population at that time. From all information I possess, I can only find the names of sixteen men who were there (here) at the time. As this statement will probably be disputed, I here insert their names : Thomas Forsyth. Louis Pilette, Jaques Mette, Pierre Lavoisseur dit Chamberlain, Antoine LeClair, Michael LeCroix, Francis Racine, sen., Francis Racine, jun., John Baptiste de Fond, Felix Fontaine, Louis Binet, Hypolite Maillet, Francis Buche, Charles LaBelle, Antoine LePance, and Antoine Bourbonne. Of these, Michael LeCroix escaped to Canada and accepted a commission from the enemy, and fought against us. Others claimed lots by reason of their residence at this place; but the proof on file at the land office, an abstract of which can be found in the third volume of American State Papers, page 422, shows that they had previously abandoned the place, some of them more than twenty years before. But I will suppose I have overlooked some, which is possible, and call the number twenty-five. Then, if these men had, on an average five in a family, which is the usual calculation, we have in this village, that has made so much noise and caused so much trouble, a population of one hundred and twenty- five souls, all told ; and, except these, I know of no French inhabitants on the Illinois river in those days, nor be- tween the Mississippi and Wabash. excepting, always, a very ancient Frenchman, by the name of Bissow (pro- nounced Besaw), who always lived at Wesley, then called the Trading House. I have seen many affidavits and other papers signed by these men, but signed with a mark. I remember as exceptions to this rule that Thomas Forsyth, Michael LeCroix and Antoine LaPance wrote their names. There were probably others that could write, but I do not remember them. I recollect no case where a French woman could write her name. The depositions in the Peoria French claims at Edwardsville, and in the many suits brought on them, will show if I am right. These were fishermen and hunters, and not farmers. All the fields they pretended ever to have in cultivation amonnted to less than three hundred acres, even if none of the fields had been deserted before they left. When the village was burnt I think they had less than two hundred acres in cultivation. They, however, sometimes acted as voyageurs for the Indian traders, but of manufactures they had none. They had not a school-house or church, nor a dwelling-house that deserved the name. I saw and examined the ground on which their houses had stood, before it was disturbed, and I am able to state that there was not a stone nor brick wall in the village, for any purpose, nor was there a cel- lar. Some of the houses had a small place excavated under the floor in front of the fire-place for potatoes. Some of the houses had posts in the ground, and some were framed with sills ; but instead of being boarded up as with us, the space between the posts was filled with pieces of timber laid horizontally, with mud between them. The

chimneys were made of mud and sticks. That they had no gardens, in the common acceptation of the term, is mani- fest from this : many of the cultivated plants, when once introduced in a place, will never cease to grow there. This is true of all the fruits that grow in this climate, and it is true of many herbs, and of some culinary vegetables. Every one knows that long after a farm is deserted, the apple trees and gooseberry and currant bushes will continue to grow; and tansey, flags, lilies, mustard and many other plants, were never known to voluntarily abandon the place where they had once grown. Yet, when the present population commenced to settle here, about forty (fifty ?) years ago, there was not to be found in this vestige of a tree, shrub or plant belonging to Europe. They would have made wine of the sour grapes of the woods, if they had had sugar to assuage its acidity and cellars to preserve it, but the sugar could not then be afforded, and the cellars they had not. And we know they had no French grapes, for the reason above-no vines remain *

SECOND EXPEDITION TO PEORIA - FORT CLARK.

A second expedition to the Lake Peoria country was planned and carried out in the Summer and Fall of 1813. Large minbers of Indians, disaffected with the turn of affairs between the British and American Governments, collected among the Pottawatomies and Kickapoos, from whence they made frequent predatory raids on the frontiers of Illinois and Missouri. These harrassments were so annoying and threatening that a joint expedition from Illinois and Missouri was projected, an army of 900 men were collected. of which Gen. Howard - who had resigned the governorship of Missouri to accept a Brigadier General's commission in the United States army - was placed in command. Most of the Illinois troops concentrated at Camp Russell, near Edwardsville, in Madison county, from whence one company was ordered to the Mississippi, at a point called the Piasa, opposite the Portage des Sioux, where it remained several weeks, during which time the men suffered seriously from sickness. The Illinois troops were organized as the second regiments, with Benjamin Stephenson, of Randolph county, as colonel ; W. B. Whiteside and John Moredoek, majors, and Joseph Phillips, Samuel Judy, Nathaniel

277

HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

Journey and Samuel Whiteside as captains. When the time for the forward movement came, the Illinoisans marched up the Mississippi river by companies, to the Illinois, which they crossed a few miles above its mouth. The Missouri division marched up the west side of the Mississippi for a distance of one hundred miles, and crossed to Illinois, at Fort Mason, where a junction was formed with the Illinois division. The Missourians crossed the Mississippi by swimming their horses, on which they were mounted, naked. Their clothes were carried across on a platform supported by two canoes. The Missouri division was commanded by Colonel McNair, who was afterwards made Governor of the State. After crossing, the whole force was re-organized, of which General Howard was commander- in-chief.

After the re-organization was perfected, the march was continued up the Mississippi, and at the present site of Quincy, the column passed the Indian camp and village, which had recently been deserted, and supposed to have contained one thousand Sac warriors. At " Two Rivers," the army turned east, and crossed the high prairies to the Illinois, near the mouth of Spoon river, and not far from the present site of the city of Havana, where the provision boats were met, and to which the sick were transferred. The march was then continued up the Illinois to Peoria, where there was a small stockade in charge of Captain Nicholas, of the U. S. army. Two days before the arrival of General Howard's command, the Indians had attacked the stockade, bnt were defeated and driven away.

In the heart of the enemy's country, accustomed to the stealthy habits of the Indians, and the troops being without thorough discipline, unprovoked night alarms were of fre- quent occurrence. The troops were often paraded and ordered to arms ; and under the general excitement incident to a constant dread of an attack, and not knowing from which side the attack would come, every little noise added to the uneasiness of the situ- ation ; guns were incautiously discharged, and a state of constant alarm existed. In one of these panicky spells, one of the troopers, a young Kentuckian, was shot dead by a terror-stricken sentinel. "All this time," says the authority from which we quote, "the Indians were far away."

From Peoria, Howard's army went up the river as far as Gomo's village, at the pres- ent site of Chillicothe, but the Indians had fled. After burning two of the deserted villages, the command made a retrograde movement to Peoria Lake, and went into camp at the outlet, and remained several weeks. As a precautionary measure of safety and protection in case of a sudden Indian attack, a small stockade was built, which was named Fort Clark, in honor and memory of General George Rogers Clark, the hero of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, whose gallant exploits in connection with the early history of the Illinois country are elsewhere detailed.

While Howard's army remained here, Major Christy, of the Missouri division, was sent up the river as far as the rapids to rout and chastise such of the enemy as might have stopped in that region. Major Boone, with another detachment, was sent out to scour the country in the direction of Spoon and Rock rivers, for a like purpose. Both expeditions returned without finding any signs of Indians, except the signs of alarm and retreat. In October the army left the port and took up its line of march for Camp Rus- sell, and arrived there on the 22nd day of that month, 1813.

Fort Clark is thus described by Mr. C. Ballance. It was a simple stockade, con- structed by planting two rows of logs firmly in the ground, near each other, and filling the space between them with earth. This, of course, was not intended as a defense against artillery, of which the Indians had none. This fort was about one hundred feet square, with a ditch along each side. It did not stand with a side to the lake, but with a corner towards it. The corner farthest from the lake was on the upper side of Water street, near the intersection of the upper line of Water and Liberty streets. From there the west line ran diagonally across the intersection of Water and Liberty streets, nearly to the corner of the transportation warehouse, at the lower corner of Liberty and Water

278

HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

streets. At this corner was what I suppose military men would call a bastion ; that is there was a projecting corner made in the same manner as the side walls, and so construct- ed, as I imagine, as to accommodate a small cannon to command the ditches. And the same had, no doubt, been at the opposite corner. but when I came to the country in No- vember, 1831, there was no vestige of it remaining, In fact, at that time there was but little to show that there had ever been a fortification there, except some burnt posts along the west side, and a square of some ten or twelve feet at the south corner with a ditch nearly filled up, on two sides of it, and on the west side of the square. The fort had been burnt down to the embankment of this square and of the west side, after which the embankments had been mostly worn away by the rains and other means until that part of the logs that was under ground had become charred posts. Some of them, how- ever, had become entirely decayed and were gone. On the other sides there was but little to be seen of logs or embankment. I lived where the transportation warehouse is for more than ten years, and when I leveled down the southerly angle. for my own con- venience, one of those posts become high enough and was strong enough for a hitching post, and I employed a blacksmith, Isaac Evans, to put hooks in it for that purpose. That post was thus used until I removed from there in May. 1844. It was then taken up by Mr. Drown, and sawed up into walking canes and sold on speculation at fifty cents each. "

Colonel G. J. Hubbard, an Indian trader in Illinois, was prominently identified with the affairs of the commonwealth and of Chicago in after years, is authority for the state- ment that Fort Clark was burned by the Indians in the latter part of the year 1818. In a letter to Mr. Ballance, under date of " Chicago, Dec. 30th, 1867," he says :

" I have to say that I was in Peoria in the last days of 1818, for the first time on my way to St. Louis passing there, returning about the 20th November, and wintering about one mile above Hennepin. It was my first year as Indian trader.

" As we rounded the point of the lake above Peoria, on our down trip we noticed that old Fort Clark was on fire, just blazing up. Reaching it, we found about two hundred Indians congregated, enjoying a war dance, painted hideously, with scalps on their spears and in their sashes, which they had taken from the heads of Americans, in the war with Great Britain from 1812 to 1815. They were dancing, rehearsing their deeds of bravery, etc. These were the only people then there, or in that vicinity."

This statement of Colonel Hubbard has been the subject of some controversy. as no- pears from a paragraph on page forty-four of Ballance's History of Peoria, in which he writes :

" Since writing the above I have talked with Josiah Fulton and William Blanchard who first came here in IS19. and they are both positive that they found it (the fort) on fire, and put it out. Perhaps they are both right. Per- haps when it was first set on fire it was only partly consumed. Earth having been filled in between the pickets, they would not burn fast, and the fire would be easily extinguished."

On page forty-five, Mr. Ballance says: " In the Spring of 1819, seven men, then living in a settlement called Shoal Creek, Clinton County, Illinois, to wit - Abner Eads. Joseph Hersey, Seth Fulton and Josiah Fulton, S. Dougherty, J. Davis, and T. Russell. made up a company to emigrate to Peoria, then called Fort Clark. Eads and Hersey came through by land with two pack-horses. The others came up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in what was then known in the west as a keel boat.

Mr. Blanchard's name does not appear in this paragraph. And, according to Mr. Ballance's own statement (see page forty-seven in history of Peoria), that gentleman did not come until about the 10th of June of that year. Eads and Hersey arrived " on the 10th day of April, 1819, and pitched their tents against some of the remaining timbers of Fort Clark, which had been burnt by the Indians." The other five men arrived on the 17th. If Mr. Fulton came in April and found the fort on fire, how could Mr. Blanchard, who did not come until June, help him extinguish the burning timbers ? But Mr. Fulton said to the writer on the 27th of September, 1879, that only the west side of the fort was burned away when he came here in April, 1819. This is no doubt

279

IHISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

true, for it has always been stated that Eads and Hersey, who arrived on the 15th of April, of that year, pitched their tents against one side of the fort. Hence Colonel Hubbard is right in so far as one side of Fort Clark was burned in the last days of the year 1818. The other parts of it were burned at a later period, and at a time when Fulton and Blanchard were present and extinguished the flames, as Mr. Fulton claims they did, but does not fix the date.

CHAPTER III.

AMERICAN OCCUPATION.

1813. 1819: The Shoal Creek Colony - Keel Boats - Horse-back Trip up the Illinois River - Arrival at Fort Clark - First American Habitations -Captain Jude Warner and his Fishing Smack - Moving Across the Trackless Prairies - Arrival of Mrs. Eads - Isolation - First Crops - A Hard Winter - Scarcity of Provisions - Hominy Blocks and Hominy - Primitive Mills - Growth of the Settlement - Difficulties in the Way of Immigration - Personal - An Indian Murder - Capt. Jude Warner's Crew - William Blouchard - First Mar- riage License - A Dream and What Came of It -First Shoemaker - John Hamlin, Judge Lockwood, Judge Latham, and the Moffatts - Primitive Beauty of the Situation - LaSalle Prairie or the " Upper Settlement "- Spread of Settlements - Peoria in 1832.

Between October, 1813, and the Spring of 1819, there is a blank in the history of Fort Clark. The garrison that had occupied it had been withdrawn, and there is no evi- dence to show the presence of white men anywhere in the vicinity, unless it were the U. S. soldiers garrisoned at Fort Clark, and the surveyors of the military tract in 1816-17 ; hence we are left to conclude that the country was occupied only by wild beasts as a grazing place, and as a hunting ground by the Indians. But, with a diversity of soil, an abundance of good water, and a most desirable climate, it could not long remain in unproductive idleness. First, the country had been traversed by a small army in 1812, of which Captain Craig's company formed a part, and again in September and October, 1813, by the army of General Howard. These armies were made up of Kentuckians, Missourians, and men from the southern part of Illinois, with probably some from Vir- ginia and other States. When they were discharged from service and returned home, they carried with them golden stories about the country's beauty and fertility of soil. These stories were heralded wherever the discharged soldiers went, and wherever their friends were found. Under such circumstances Illinois soon come to be regarded as a region of unsurpassed excellence - a very Valparaiso,* where nature had lavished her fondest touches and stored her richest treasures.

In the early Spring of 1819 a small colony was made up from among the settlers on Shoal creek, in Clinton county, to found a settlement on what was then called Mauves- terre Prairie, near the present site of Naples. This colony was represented by Abnear Eads, Seth Fulton and Josiah Fulton, Virginians by birth ; Joseph Hersey, a New York- er ; S. Daugherty, J. Davis and T. Russell, of Kentucky parentage and birth. They left Shoal creek in the last days of March and traveled across the country (forty miles) to St. Louis on foot. There they purchased a keel-boat; and other necessaries preparatory

*Spanish for Vale of Paradise.

+Keel-boats were built something like a modern barge, only their hulls were lower. They were from 50 to 80 feet long, and from 10 to 15 feet beam, and from 2 to 212 feet hold. On the deck was built the " cargo box," which generally extended to within about ten feet of each end and set in from the gunwale about two feet on each side, leaving a gangway or " walking-board," as it was called, on each side the whole length of the boat. Sometimes on small boats these walking-boards projected over the hull. The rudder was a long sweep, something like a gigantic oar. The keel-boat was propelled by sails, by rowing, poling, bushwacking, cordelling and warping. When the water was high or the boat was running close in shore, the crew would grasp the bushes growing on the bank and pull the boat up

280

HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

to the trip up the Illinois. Eads and Hersey returned to Shoal creek for a pair of horses, while the other five proceeded up the river to their point of destination, where they ar- rived in safety, and where they were soon joined by their two companions, Eads and Hersey, with their two horses. After a careful examination of the country around there, they were not satisfied, and Eads having heard from a French trader of the beauties of the country around Fort Clark, they determined to push on to this place. They launched their boat and ferried their horses across to the west side of the Illinois river, where Eads and Hersey mounted them and struck out for Fort Clark. The country was swampy and the waters high at that season of the year, and they either swam or forded all the streams on the route, and arrived at Fort Clark on the 15th, and made a camping place against one side of the remaining timbers. The other five men. the two Fultons, Daugherty. Davis and Russell, were left to the management of the boat and the care of its cargo. "On the 17th," says Mr. Fulton, " Eads hailed a deserter from Fort Dearborn (Chicago), who was coming down the river in a canoe, and joining him as a passenger, started out to see what had become of their friends and outfit. He met them in the vicinity of La Marsh creek, slowly foreing their way against the current, and returned with them to the camp at Fort Clark, on the afternoon of the same day, the 17th. They were pleased with the lay of the land, and determined to remain here and found a settlement.

" We found." continues Mr. Fulton, "the walls of two small log cabins, which we supposed to have been built by the soldiers of the garrison stationed here, and at onee set to work to cover them over and finish them up for dwelling places. While we were em- ployed at this work, we made out to be comfortable in the shelter of our tents and boat. The cabins stood in what is now Water Street, and almost directly in front of the Ger- mania Hall Building. These cabins were the first American dwelling places at what is now the city of Peoria.

" There were also rails enough, which the soldiers had made, to enclose fifteen aeres of ground. The ground was broken up and planted to corn and potatoes, from which a pretty good erop was gathered in the Fall. The north line of that first field ran west from the river, and not far from Fulton Street.

"About the first of June. Eads, Fulton and Daugherty returned to Shoal creek with their two horses to move Eads' family, consisting of his wife and three children, to their new home. After settling up his affairs in that neighborhood, Eads loaded his household effects, wife and children on a two-horse wagon, and headed across the country in the direction of the beginning of Peoria -the new settlement at Fort Clark. They reached and crossed the Illinois river, at the present site of Wesley City, where there was a trading post, and where Indians and Indian canoes were nearly always to be found. Some of the canoes were secured, the household goods were unloaded from the wagon, and with the family transferred to the canoes, and carried over to the west side of the river. The wagon was taken to pieces and carried in the same manner. The horses and cattle were made to swim across.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

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 40

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