USA > Illinois > The era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 > Part 2
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21 Illinois Journal, December 20, 1848; Quincy Whig, December 26, 1848; Beardstown Gazette, December 27, 1848; Illinois Globe, January 6, 1849; Chicago Democrat, January 9, 1849.
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THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
the trail as the "Sucker Mining Company." Companies from Springfield, Jacksonville, and other points in western Illinois were soon off in parties of fifty, one hundred, or more. Many small groups left without flourish or display; on the trail they seemed to outnumber the organized companies. "Every wagon is apparently an independent nation of itself -every emigrant a captain," reported an enthusiastic emigrant.22
The progress of the emigrants on the trail was reported by the newspapers and aroused new interest. Finally, in 1850, however, as a result of editorial warnings, of discouraging . letters from unsuccessful adventurers, and of the complaints of " California widows," a dismal picture of life in California replaced the glittering mirage; and contentment with prevail- ing conditions was restored in Illinois. The beginning of 1852 saw a serious recurrence of the California fever, but after another season of heavy migration the movement to California was gradually restored to a normal basis. 23
No sooner had the gold fever subsided, however, than another diversion came when the fertile fields of Kansas and Nebraska were thrown open to settlement in the spring of 1854. An important movement had already begun the pre- vious year; but now old rangers prepared in companies to go west to establish land claims in the new territory.24 The genuine hard-fisted yeomanry of the older portions of south- ern and eastern Illinois yielded to the temptingly high prices offered for their own farms and transferred their families to the new pioneer field. The attention of the land speculator was also attracted to the new opportunities for investment.
A different incentive, however, soon came to dominate this emigration; in the fight between the north and the south for the control of the new territory under squatter sovereignty
22 Quincy Whig, February 6, 1849; Illinois State Register, May 31, 1849; Alton Telegraph, March 23, 1849.
23 Illinois Journal, October 17, 1849, February 8, 1850; Illinois Globe, December 22, 1849; Ottawa Free Trader, March 16, 1850, January 31, 1852 ; Alton Telegraph, March 22, 1850; Beardstown Gazette, February 11, 1852; Quincy Whig, March 16, April 26, 1852. The La Salle Standard reported the passage of at least a hundred wagons a day with three to five persons each. Five to twenty-five persons passed through Peru daily.
24 Chicago Weekly Democrat, November 26, 1853; Urbana Union, March 23, 1854; Illinois Journal, April 13, 1854; St. Clair Tribune, April 22, May 13, June 3, 1854; Belleville Advocate, June 14, 1854.
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PASSING OF THE FRONTIER
the people of Illinois began to take a hand to preserve Kansas from the institution of slavery. An advance guard of one hundred and fifty New Englanders sent out by the Emigrant Aid Society had passed through Illinois en route for Kansas in July and aroused considerable attention; 25 when other com- panies followed, alongside the pioneer who sought the more fertile prairies of the west and alongside the restless adven- turer, there marched from the sober homes of the northern counties, from the rich Military Tract, the garden of Illinois, the sturdy pilgrim who proposed to plant and water the seeds of freedom in that fresh soil.
In the beginning no special encouragement to emigrants was necessary; emigrant wagons passed through the state with the letters "Kansas" and "Nebraska" boldly chalked on their canvas coverings. The first mission from Illinois went from Quincy; a "Nebraska Colonization Company " was organized in that neighborhood in March, 1855, to found a city named Fontenelle, in which the moral and intellectual atmosphere of a free community should be preserved in a literary society and other institutions. But when blood began to flow upon the soil of Kansas, the more timid held back. Then companies of young free-state men were organized and conducted to the field of "bleeding Kansas," prepared, with Sharpe's rifles in their hands and the plow and sickle among the baggage, for either peace or war.26 Following them whole communities were aroused to take part in these ventures; the material means to transfer these companies to Kansas were collected in the spring of 1856 by Emigrant Aid or Kansas Settlers' societies in Chicago, Rockford, and other towns.
Excitement began to quicken when, in spite of their mili- tary preparations, the Chicago company was held up by a superior force of Missourians, disarmed, and sent back to Alton under guard; while the outrage fanned the zeal for aiding Kansas sufferers, the company was again fitted out and sent to Kansas by a safer route.27
25 Alton Weekly Courier, July 27, 1854.
26 Rockford Register, February 23, March 8, 1856; Rockford Republican, March 5, 1856; Chicago Weekly Democrat, March 31, December 22, 1855.
27 Chicago Weekly Democrat, July 12, 19, 1856; affidavit of Charles H. Wood, August 1, 1856, Trumbull manuscripts.
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THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
A state Kansas aid committee was created in Illinois to dispense relief, and local committees were organized and set to work. Upon the arrival of the news of the destruction of Lawrence, the free-state stronghold in Kansas, a meeting was held at Rockford at which $1,000 was easily raised as the nucleus of a fund to represent that community. At the same time a Chicago meeting raised $15,000 to aid persons willing to go to Kansas as actual settlers. Not to be outdone, the ladies of Chicago organized a "Kansas Women's Aid and Liberty Association," with active auxiliaries in the impor- tant towns and villages of northern Illinois, and sewing socie- ties worked for the relief of their distressed sisters in Kansas. 28
Enthusiasm thus aroused caused a general revival of unassisted emigration in the spring of 1857.29 Thus did a state which a few years before had been the El Dorado of agricultural pioneers, give up a part of her settlers and their descendants to fill up the still farther "great west."
In the closing year of this decade, the rumor of the dis- covery of gold again reached Illinois, and the lure of the gold fields aroused the spirit of adventure in the manhood of Illinois. Soon the old scenes of 1849 were renewed; a rush to Pike's Peak attracted companies of young men from all sections of the state, usually in smaller groups than in the California gold rush. Thousands left for the gold fields and many others had completed preparations before the news came in May that the gold hunters were returning in droves with the cry of " humbug." 30
The place of these citizens lost by Illinois to the trans- Mississippi west had been more than filled by a great influx from without which was still bringing in a great diversity of population. There was the Yankee stock from the rugged
28 Rockford Republican, May 28, 1856; Peter Page to Trumbull, June 3, 1856, Trumbull manuscripts; Chicago Weekly Democrat, June 21, 28, 1856.
29 Rockford Republican, February 26, 1857; Aurora Beacon, March 9, 1857; Illinois State Journal, April 1, 1857; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, June 5, 1857.
30 Quincy Whig, January 28, March 19, 1859; Ottawa Free Trader, April 2, 1859; Chicago Press and Tribune, March 28, 1859; Rockford Register, May 14, 1859; Ottawa Weekly Republican, May 14, 1859; Alton Courier, May 19, 1859.
I3
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER
farms of New England, enterprising fortune seekers from the seaboard states as a whole, and, coming from the old world at the same time, the restless, ambitious, and freedom-loving refugees from the political and economic oppression of the European states-all destined to do their part in the develop- ment of the hospitable prairie commonwealth and by the diver- sity of the cultures they introduced to hasten the passing of the frontier.
Of the American born immigrants it was in large measure the northern elements that made up the westward movement. The Yankee immigrants found a special welcome because of their "good old New England character for thrift, morality, and intelligence;" furthermore they usually brought enough means to purchase improved farms, thus freeing the true pio- neer to exploit other pieces of the prairie wilderness.31 The Yankees showed a strong tendency to migrate in parties or even in well-organized colonies, groups of from twenty to forty families being fairly common. In 1855 two hundred families came from the vicinity of Rutland, Vermont, under the auspices of the Vermont Emigrant Association and, on the lands opened up by the Illinois Central, established a new Rutland in La Salle county. New England groups first sought their kind and kin in the northern counties, but it was not long before they turned to the attractive fields of middle and southern Illinois. In those regions the colony grouping was even more marked. Near the junction of the Ohio and Mis- sissippi with the Illinois Central was Hoyleton, a Yankee colony of Congregational temperance men and republicans ; in their zeal for education they included in their plans the scheme of erecting a seminary of learning.32
In Egypt, Yankee enterprise, industry, and frugality were welcomed, for they promised to bring about the development of the enormous wealth that lay latent and unused in south-
31 Illinois Journal, May 19, 1853; Carthage Republican, clipped in Chicago Daily Democratic Press, November 24, 1855; Belleville Advocate, November 26, 1856; Cairo Gazette, April 29, 1859; Rock River Democrat, April 28, 1857; Alton Courier, February 4, 1854.
32 Ottawa Free Trader, May 2, 1857; Rockford Republican, May 7, 1857; St. Clair Tribune, May 22, 1857; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, July 18, 1855; Cairo City Times, July 25, 1855; Ovid Miner to Trumbull, May 31, 1860, Trumbull manuscripts; Central Illinois Gazette, June 8, 1859.
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THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
ern Illinois. Many a local poet paid tribute to this vast transforming force :
"And westward ho! on either side, See towns as if by magic rise ; What Genii then the wonder works? Why, none-but Yankee enterprise." 33
Both the Egyptian and the New England pilgrim, how- ever, realized the absence of congeniality in their interests; the one frankly voiced his execration of "Yankee 'kinks' in politics," while the other deplored the survival of "intemper- ance accompanied with ignorance and indolence" that dated from the earlier settlers from the south.34 "One thing is certain," declared a new arrival, "that where New England emigrants do not venture, improvements, social, agricultural, mechanic, or scientific, rarely flourish, and seldom intrude."
New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, Ohioans, and even Hoo- siers also came to play an important part in the settlement of central and southern Illinois. First, the Wabash valley, claimed by boosters to be the garden of America, was the region of attraction; wagons crossed the river at Terre Haute almost as fast as the ferryboats could carry them. With the opening up of railroad communication, however, settlers spread over the entire lower half of the state, which the best classes of immigrants previously passed by. Two hundred Pennsylvanians came in a group to settle in Adams county near Mendon. Joseph and M. L. Sullivant, wealthy land owners of Columbus, Ohio, purchased many thousand acres of Illinois prairie and sent out several well-equipped parties 33 Belleville Advocate, February 8, 1849. The Yankee bard paid his respects to the attractions of Illinois in the Boston Post:
" Westward the * of Empire takes its Course." Come, leave the fields of childhood, Worn out by long employ, And travel west and settle In the state of Illinois :-
Your family is growing up, Your boys you must employ. Come, till the rich prairies In the state of Illinois.
Clipped in Belleville Advocate, April 25, 1850. 3+ Cairo City Times, July 25, 1855; unsigned letter to Trumbull, January II, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts; see also Western Citizen, August 3, 1852.
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PASSING OF THE FRONTIER
of industrious farmers and mechanics to develop them; ex- Governor William Bebb of Ohio bought an extensive tract in Winnebago county.35 These and similar ventures testified to a new era in Illinois settlement, when the advanced stages of the frontier had been pushed well across the Mississippi.
A novel feature of the immigration movement was the assisted migration of women and children. Missionary socie- ties in cities like Springfield and Danville sent agents to the east to select worthy orphans to place in Illinois homes; groups of twenty-five to fifty were brought west and distributed among the farmers, to whom they were indentured until they became of age. It is evident that the problem of labor supply entered into this charity, and such an element is even more apparent in the scheme to secure for the west the surplus female population of eastern cities. In 1858 the agents of Women's Protective Immigration societies in New York and Philadelphia placed groups of fifty as servants in each of the towns of Decatur, Springfield, and Urbana. 36
Only a slight immigration entered Illinois from the south- ern states. North Carolina made some contributions, while Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky sent many settlers across the Ohio; but they were outnumbered even in Egypt by north- ern born settlers. These new southern immigrants were supe- rior to the old stock; they seemed " a better class, accustomed to think & act for themselves." 37
The distracted state of affairs in Europe, with economic oppression increasingly unbearable and with liberal and revo- lutionary forces crushed under the iron heel of reactionary authority, promoted a spirit of restlessness that made the thoughtful, sober-minded workers
"Turn from the old world their anxious eyes,
To seek a home beneath the western skies." 38
35 Illinois Organ, June 28, 1851; Terre Haute Journal clipped in Illinois State Register, October 11, 1849; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, March 6, 1855, April 18, 1857; Belleville Advocate, July 18, 1855.
36 Illinois Journal, August 4, 1855; Illinois State Journal, January 13, March 17, 24, 1858 ; Urbana Union, February 21, 1856, March 18, 1858; Aurora Beacon, April 20, 1857; Belleville Democrat, April 17, 1858; Belleville Advocate, No- vember 20, 1857; Our Constitution, March 13, April 3, 1858.
37 Edward Holden to Trumbull, March 9, 1858, Trumbull manuscripts.
38 Chicago Daily Journal clipped in Illinois State Register, July 5, 1849.
16
THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
Crowded cities of the old world poured forth a mighty stream of immigrants, whom Illinois received with enthusiastic wel- come. With almost every national element already represented in the population of the state, Illinois offered the bewildered immigrant a hospitable asylum among friendly fellow-country- men. The hardy workmen found places on the vast system of public works just being undertaken; to the more prosperous newcomers were offered the fertile farms of the state.39
Of the European nations, Germany and Ireland made the largest contributions to Illinois; in 1860 there were in the state 130,804 Germans and 87,573 Irish. Illinois drew so large a quota of the immigrants from all countries that even before 1850 it could boast of 111,860 foreign born settlers, or one-eighth of the total population of the state; by 1860 their number had nearly tripled, reaching a total of 324,643. Chicago, rapidly becoming an important immigration depot, retained so large a number of the new arrivals that the foreign born population of the city actually outnumbered the natives.
For a considerable period Illinoisians seem to have been unaware of the size of this foreign element. In January, 1854, however, the ice in the Mississippi held up fourteen steamers loaded with two thousand German and Irish immigrants, who, landed near Cairo and suffering greatly from cold, want of food, fever, and cholera, drew attention to the fact of the heavy foreign immigration. It became evident that the Ger- man and Irish emigrant societies of St. Louis who aided in the relief work had no effective Illinois counterpart, although a few local German societies had their agents on the ground. It became widely published, also, that of the emigrants land- ing at New York in 1856 seven per cent went to Illinois, but they brought with them over fourteen per cent of the "cash means" listed with the immigration authorities. Inducements to foreign immigrants to come to Illinois were therefore urged; a proper immigration system at Chicago was espe- cially favored.40
39 Belleville Advocate, May 1, 1851.
40 Chicago Daily Democratic Press, January 24, 1854; Illinois State Reg- ister, January 26, 1854; Peru Daily Chronicle, February 1, 1854; Rockford Register, February 7, 1857; St. Clair Tribune, February 13, 20, 1857; Illinois State Journal, January 12, 19, 1859; Chicago Democrat, July 24, 1857.
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17
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER
A considerable accession of French and French Canadian settlers was made during the fifties. The sons and daughters of la belle France increased so rapidly in Chicago that just when the influence of the old regime had about disappeared they became numerous enough to erect a church of their own where services were performed in their own language. French confectionery establishments began to make their appearance and even a French hotel. Nearby was the strong French Canadian settlement at Kankakee. It had steadily grown with fresh additions from lower Canada, the emigration be- coming so considerable that the Canadian government took alarm. In 1857 a French paper, the Journal de L'Illinois, started publication at Kankakee with a subscription list of 1,200 persons. Twelve miles up the Kankakee river, at St. Anne, a new settlement of French families from Montreal and Quebec was started in 1852 by Father Chiniquy, a Roman Catholic priest and temperance apostle of note, who acted as a spokesman of French Canadian discontent; by 1860 these two settlements included over 1,500 families. The settlement at St. Anne was then just recovering from a period of hard times and financial embarrassment. Father Chiniquy, more- over, had become involved in a long and bitter contest with the Catholic bishop of the Chicago diocese; as a result of his increasing impatience with hierarchical authority a ma- jority of his parishoners withdrew from the Catholic church and in 1860 joined the Presbyterian or Baptist churches.41 Father Chiniquy himself with 1,000 communicants from the French churches of St. Anne and Kankakee became a part of the Presbyterian organization, and thirty-six young men of his flock offered themselves as candidates for the ministry.
Other French settlements were scattered over the state. A company of Trappist monks, direct from France, located
41 Chicago Daily Journal, November 13, 1850, June 18, 1851; Illinois State Register, March 9, 1849; Quebec Gazette clipped in Gem of the Prairie, Decem- ber 23, 1848; Joliet Signal, November 11, 1851; Belleville Advocate, September 1, 1852; Chicago Press and Tribune, December 1, 1859, January 18, 1860; Presbytery Reporter, 5: 126; Canton Weekly Register, September 18, 1860. Eight months after the establishment of the Journal de L'Illinois, it was trans- ferred to Chicago. Chicago Daily Democratic Press, January 6, September 9, 1857.
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THE ERA OF THE CIVIL WAR
near Beardstown in 1849, while Ottawa, already something of a French settlement, in 1859 welcomed the arrival of a large number of families of Waldenses from the Vaudois. Another Waldensian colony was established near Odell, in Livingston county, on the line of the Chicago and Alton rail- road. At the same time a large body of French Canadians were assisted by wealthy French planters in Louisiana in estab- lishing themselves at Tacusa on the Illinois Central to serve as a central depot for the deposit and distribution of the staples of Louisiana.42
Probably the most interesting French settlement in the state was the company of French communists who acquired the property of the Mormons at Nauvoo. In 1849, under the leadership of A. Charles Cabet, an Icarian colony estab- lished itself there; soon upon the fifteen acres of ground with its outlying farm 340 colonists were housed; the settle- ment, with the remodeled old Mormon temple as headquarters had excellent educational facilities, a good library, together with workshops, mills, and a store in St. Louis for the sale of their textile manufactures. The progress of the colony was chronicled in its official paper, the Popular Tribune, edited by M. Cabet; later a German and a French weekly paper were added.
So well did the experiment succeed at the start-with a net profit of $9,000 for the year 1852 -that it was arranged to make Nauvoo, as the parent colony, a place for the prepara- tion of new colonists who would found similar establishments in Iowa and elsewhere. Soon, however, discussions arose over administrative matters, and the authority of Cabet was chal- lenged by opponents who sought his overthrow ; the opposition acquired a majority and deposed Cabet shortly before his death in November, 1856. In resisting the leadership of Cabet, the rebels insisted upon the failure of the colony so aggressively that in spite of a considerable degree of pros- perity, they succeeded in convincing even themselves of the truth of their assertions. They claimed that Cabet with his wild theories had fleeced fifteen hundred victims; they, there-
42 Beardstown Gazette, January 10, 1849; Chicago Daily Democratic Press, March 7, August 20, 1857; Quincy Whig, March 5, 1857.
19
PASSING OF THE FRONTIER
fore, petitioned for the repeal of the act of incorporation and removed to St. Louis.43 This brought the complete ruin of Icaria; the faithful remained at Nauvoo but without spirit; farming operations were abandoned, and the property became heavily mortgaged. In August, 1859, they disposed of some goods at a public sale to satisfy a debt of $10,000 and a month later realized $10,000 on the remaining properties. Thus out of a factional opposition to the authority of Cabet, an end came to this promising experiment in the realization of a nineteenth century communistic Utopia.
During this decade Illinois acquired two Portuguese settle- ments, one in north Springfield and one in the vicinity of Jacksonville. In each case they were Protestant Portuguese exiles from the island of Madeira; the first company of 200 arrived November 1, 1849, followed by groups of from 60 to 150, until each settlement numbered 500 persons. These exiles proved to be thrifty and industrious workers and rapidly attained material prosperity. They promptly built homes for themselves and the Springfield group established a Portuguese school and church where they zealously guarded the cultural atmosphere of their native land. 44
So considerable an increase in the Scandinavian population was made during the fifties that by 1860 it numbered well over 10,000. The Norwegians located largely in and around Chi- cago. They began to arrive in numbers about 1848; a year later there were nearly 600 in Chicago and by 1853, a Nor- wegian paper, the Banner of Freedom, was started in that city. Toward the end of the decade the Norwegian popu- lation of Chicago was variously estimated at from two to twelve thousand, with three Norwegian churches in the city. Chicago acted as a great distributing station from which Nor- wegians were supplied to other regions of the state; Norse groups gathered at " Old Sangamon Town" and in the "Kin- caid neighborhood" north of Athens. Most of them, how- ever, hired out with the farmers, who were so well satisfied with their work that some sent money to Norway to contract 43 New York Tribune clipped in Chicago Daily Democratic Press, Novem- ber 18, 1852; ibid., April 10, 1855, February 21, 1856, February 16, 1857.
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