::-; ; : ; ^')|^|:AS:l^WEST : '' LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN IN MEMORY OF STEWART S. HOWE JOURNALISM CLASS OF 1928 STEWART S. HOWE FOUNDATION 977 Se9e cop. 2 T . H . 8 . Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/episodesinlivesoOOseym OUR MIDWEST ^EPISODES IN THE LIVES OF SOME INDIVIDUALS WHO HELPED SHAPE1HEGROWIH STORIES OF CERTAIN SeTTLEr MENTS, ROADS, TAVERNS, AND EXPERIENCES ENCOQN' M TERED WHEN TRAVELING IN El TH6 EARLy DAyS -TBv&tttad( WRAlPHFLGTCHeR SEYMOUR Publisher Chicago DlinoLs Copyright 1954 by Ralph Fletcher Seymour 97? a This book is dedicated to the soil CONTENTS PART I THE BEGINING PAGE THE OLD WORLD HEARS OF A NEW ONE 13 THE FRENCH ESTABLISH THEMSELVES IN THE NORTHEAST 15 MARQUETTE AND JOLIET FIND THE MISSISSIPPI 16 MARQUETTE RETURNS TO "HIS CHILDREN" 21 LA SALLE AND HIS "VISION" 22 KASKASKIA 24 THE "MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE" 26 STE. GENEVIEVE 28 DANIEL BOONE BECOMES A FARMER 30 THE STORY OF WAUBANSEE 31 THE CONTEST FOR THE FUR TRADE 33 CANADA SURRENDERS TO THE ENGLISH 34 GEORGE ROGERS CLARK TAKES KASKASKIA AND VINCENNES 37 ANTHONY WAYNE WINS THE BATTLE OF FALLEN TIMBERS 41 THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 42 PART II HOW THE MIDWEST WAS SETTLED THE WAR OF 1812 43 THE FORT DEARBORN MASSACRE 44 THE TERRITORY OF ILLINOIS BECOMES A STATE 47 THE CHICAGO PORTAGE 48 GURDON HUBBARD 50 OLD BAILLY TOWN 54 MICHIGAN CITY AND LIFE IN THE SAND HILLS 59 JOHNNIE APPLESEED 60 THE LEAD MINES AT GALENA 66 OLD SPRING MILL 70 THE BLACK HAWK WAR 72 BETTER ROADS 78 PLANK ROADS 81 COVERED BRIDGES 82 CONTENTS (Continued) FIRST MID- WEST TRY AT BUILDING RAILROADS 86 TAVERNS AND TRAVEL IN THE EARLY DAYS 86 ROADHOUSES 88 VIOLENCE AT POTTS' TAVERN 90 STAGE COACHES 94 SOUTHWEST PLANK ROAD 96 NAPERVILLE 97 MARK BEAUBIEN'S SAUGANASH TAVERN 100 WATER TRANSPORTATION 101 THE ITINERANT PEDDLER 106 THE ITINERANT PRINTER 108 THE ARKANSAS TRAVELLER 109 EARLY SETTLEMENTS 110 THE NEW HARMONY EXPERIMENT 1 1 1 BISHOPS HILL 114 THE LOST TOWN OF SINGAPORE 117 BROWN COUNTY, INDIANA 121 THE MORMONS 127 NEW SALEM 133 PART III DAYS OF DECISION MACHINES AND BOND ISSUES, ADVERTISING AND BIG BUSINESS 1 39 TRAGIC EPISODE OF LOVEJOY'S ANTLSLAVERY NEWSPAPER 141 ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN CHICAGO 143 HE ENTERS POLITICS AND LOSES AN ELECTION 144 FORMATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 145 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 146 HIS SHORT VISIT AT TURNER'S JUNCTION 147 HIS LAST STOP IN CHICAGO 150 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 151 THE RIVER THAT VANISHED 153 CHICAGO, BOOM TOWN 156 GOOSE ISLAND 157 THE BLACK HAWK MONUMENT ON THE ROCK RIVER 162 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Map of the old mid- west 10 Marquette and Joliet depart from St. lgnace 17 The Mississippi River is found 19 Marquette's camp on the Chicago Portage 21 LaSalle fortifies Fort Saint Louis 23 St. Genevieve, "Mother of the West" 27 Bolduc House, 1784 28 Daniel Boone, farmer 30 Waubansee makes prohibition a reality 32 Clark and Kenton call on Commander Rocheblave 37 Fort Sackville surrenders to Clark 39 Fort Dearborn is evacuated 44 A friendly redskin saves a life 46 A spate of rain on the Chicago Portage 49 Hubbard trail and State Street 51 Chief Tannin did not forget 53 Old Bailly Town 55 Joseph Bailly de Messeur meets Marie de la Vigne 57 The valley was full of the smell of roasting venison 61 Johnnie Appleseed gives some advice 63 Oldest house in Galena 66 The Gratiot mansion 67 Galena waterfront 68 Old Spring Mill 69 The Black Hawk war 73 Fort Armstrong 74 Battle of the Bad Axe 75 The first roads 79 Travelling on "improved plank roads" 81 Covered bridge 83,84,85 Early railroad days 86 Taverns and travel in the early days 87 A lodging for the night 89 The gang at Pott's Tavern 91 Onetime roadhouse 94 Grahe Mill 96 Preemption House 97 Sauganash Tavern 100 The broadhorn 101 8 ILLUSTRATIONS (Continued) About time for the packet to leave 103 The itinerant peddler 107 The itinerant printer 109 "Give ME that fiddle, 11 said the Arkansas Traveller 1 1 1 New Harmony 1 1 3 The first winter at Bishop's Hill 1 1 5 Singapore 117 On this spot stood the town of Singapore 120 Brown County, Indiana 122 Town jail 123 Nashville, Brown County, Court House 124 The Mormons give thanks 127 The Great Mormon temple 128 The Brigham Young home 129 The body of Joseph Smith is carried from Carthage jail 130 Destruction of Nauvoo 131 The first immigrants leave for the far west 132 New Salem, The BerryLincoln store 134 The great fireplace, Rutledge Tavern 1 3 5 Martin WaddelPs home 136 Young Lincoln wrestles with the local champion 137 Lovejoy's printing press is dumped into the Mississippi River 140 Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot 141 Abraham Lincoln in Chicago 143 Lincoln rides on a hay rick to Turner's Junction 146 Stephen A. Douglas introduces Lincoln 147 Funeral cortege 150 Vista on the old Kankakee 154, 155 The Chicago river 156 The story of Goose Island 159 Resident district 160 Cherry street 161 The Black Hawk monument 163 life r tihnson Indianapolis Brown County Ste.Genevieve Nowyflariksb'nco\n KENTUCKY 1759 OUR MIDWEST Modern methods of living and interest in current affairs have relegated events and per- sonalities typical of our forefather's times to a nearly forgotten past. Some of these which occurred during the first 200 years of midwest history, which influenced its growth from the days when it was Indian Country to becoming the very heart of the nation, should not be forgotten and are here retold. I OUl^MIDWEST THE BEGINNING FEW 16th CENTURY INTELLECTUALS EXPLORING / \ FIELDS OF THOUGHT, NOT THEN FAMILIAR TO f\ X) ORDINARY MEN, PROVED THE EXISTENCE OF Y V THINGS WHICH HAD BEEN NEITHER SEEN NOR imagined. They explained what stars were, reshaped the flat world into a round one and made it sure that somewhere beyond the ocean horizon lay a completely beautiful, un- touched other half. Men then understood in certain vivid moments, which come to every one, that this made it pos- sible for them to leave old lives in walled town's narrow streets and sail away in great ships to build new lives as they preferred them, in a new world of boundless, fertile fields through which ran rivers of gold. An unending procession of galleons presently returning from somewhere called Mexico, loaded to the scuppers with nothing but gold for Spain, did not disturb this aspiration. Castilian cavaliers, stirred by what they had heard, left their fortress castles, spent their wealth for ships, materials and men, got 13 an O.K. from the Crown, and set sail for Spanish West India colonies to get a share of this fabulous New World.* French, English, Portuguese and Dutch men, equally eager to serve their King, country, Church and their own interests did likewise. Champlain, a Frenchman, sailed into the St. Lawrence River in 1608 and established the first permanent French new world colony. The future of our own midwest was in- volved for the French turned out to be excellent colonizers and during the next 70 years a New France materialized in Canada, spread westward across the Mississippi, south and beyond the Ohio Rivers. Ramparted citidels, trading posts, missions where "black robes" lived, to do good, towns and roads came into being.** Adventurers and explorers went into the mesmeric western wilderness of forests, grass prairies, rollings hills; some to bargain with savages, trading irrestist- ably beautiful glass beads, knives, hatchets and the "thunder stick" made of the strange material called steel for furs, some hoping to find another still unknown realm, spiked with gold, *Ponce de Leon, one-time companion of Columbus and an ex-governor of Porto Rico, was first to set foot on American mainland, anchoring off St. Augustine, Florida, in 1502. He had heard of a magical spring which restored youth to those who bathed in it, and meant to have a swim in its water if the occasion presented itself. He wandered through the southeastern wilderness, failed to find the spring of eternal youth, got an arrow in his body, returned to Cuba and died. Vasquez de Ayllon and Pamphilo de Narvaez followed him, keen to find gold, finding only trouble. Then Hernando de Sota, with kingly encouragement and a large body of men, sailed for the New World, which by then had become known as "Florida, Land of Flowers," a land full of hostile savages and disappointingly empty of gold. He had instructions to subdue the recalcitrant natives and end the suspense regard- ing the question of gold by locating and getting plenty of it. Coming to anchor in a cove called by him Bay Espiritu Sancto on May 12th, 1539, he put in 4 terrible years, full of fighting, starving and profitless wandering, finally led his haggard followers to and across the mighty Father of Waters, enroute to Arkansas, and thus discovered the Mississippi River. Arkansas turned out to be a worse place than others and he fought his way back to the river, and died. His associates, alarmed at the probable consequences, should their enemies learn of this catastrophe, secretly burried his body at midnight in the river, in 19 fathoms of water. Not half a dozen of his band were heard of again. One who survived did so by making an almost unbelievable journey around the northern rim of the Gulf of Mexico, in an attempt to join his Spanish countrymen, conquerors of Mexico. DeSota's report was the first telling of the existence of the Mississippi River. Although the discoverers knew it was a flowing river it appears to have been many years before any one connected it with the mid-continent stream which was supposed to be, at that time, the long sought passage westward to China. **The earliest French explorer of note was Jean Nicolet. He penetrated the mid- west wilderness to the Wisconsin River and as early as 1634 was dealing with Indians on Green Bay. 14 and claim it for their king. Some lost themselves on strange rivers, returned in native boats called canoes which they had loaded with priceless furs, traded and trapped, married Indian girls and settled down to the new life in the New World. On the St. Lawrence River passed the pirogues of the voyageurs and through forest trails the courier du bois, back, further into the new land. Two such men, Raddison and Grosselliers, built a trading post near the southwest end of a great sweet- water lake called Superior and called it La Pointe. The surrounding wilderness was home to one of the most powerful and fierce of Indian tribes, the Iroquois, who wasted little time in deciding to oppose this growing body of white skinned men, and whether they wore the casque and carried the dangerous weapons of steel or wore the black robe of the medicineman they murdered both alike. Many priests of the Jesuit and Recollet orders hastened to journey to this fresh vinyard, where by the payment of such insiginificant penalties as privations, wilderness dangers, tortures and death they might save red skin souls and build a new-world Heaven on earth. Their presence and works greatly influenced the development of New France*. Father Allouez, a wandering priest, when working among the Chippewa Indians at St. Mary's, heard of the existence of a mighty river somewhere to the westward in the wilder- ness. From Indian reports he tried to give a description of it and called it the "Messi-sipi." Many Indians spoke of this great stream although none would admit having seen it or even really knowing anything about it. They were sure, how- ever, that it flowed through dangerous country, inhabited by monsters, dragons and devils. White men, when they heard of this body of water, thought it would turn out to be the dreamed of passage leading across the New World, westward to the China Sea and thus to China. *The doings of these holy men were supervised by the Church authorities. They were required to send reports of their activities to their superiors who in turn for' warded them to headquarters in France. There, after being subjected to scrutiny the most of them appeared in print, their contents affording valuable sources of information about early mid-west settlements. 15 Rapidly growing Canada was made a royal province in 1665. At La Pointe, after it had been in existence 10 years, the Church established a mission and sent a young Jesuit, Pere Jacques Marquette, to take charge of it. He too had heard of the riches within the new land and of the river none had seen, or knew its course. He cherished the hope that in due time the Church might send him into the wilderness to save red-skin souls, perhaps he might travel to where the great river flowed in its mysterious path to China. IN the year 1672 French Canadian authorities, aware that the English and Spanish were hoping and planning to be the ones to discover this route, concluded it was time for the French to do it. Jean Talon, next in importance to the Gover- nor of Canada, wrote to the King's Minister, in Paris, for permission to undertake the project. The reply came back; — "Since, for the increase of the colony there is nothing more important than the discovery of a passage to the South Sea, His Majesty wishes you to give it your attention." Jean Talon had the very man to send on such a difficult adventure. He was the son of a Quebec blacksmith; young, sturdy, experienced in wilderness living and ambitious. His name was Louis Joliet. The Church selected the young, eager Jesuit Jacques Marquette. One would represent the Crown of France, the other the King of Heaven. These two were friends, and when they learned they were to share the adven- ture they began to adequately prepare themselves, spend- ing the preceeding winter at St. Ignace on the Straights of Mackinac. From the Jounal written by Marquette we learn that; — Because we were to seek unknown countries we took every precaution in our power, so that if our undertaking were hazardous, it should not be foolhardy. 16 Marguette and Joliet Depart From StJgnace in Search. of the Mississippi River. When the ice floated away through the straights in the spring they prepared to go. Again he writes; — We were not long in preparing all our equipment, although we were about to begin a voyage the durating of which we could not foresee. We embarked, Monsieur Joliet and myself, in 2 bark canoes, fully resolved to do and suffer everything for so glorious an undertaking. The morning of May 17th, 1673, on which they were to start on their trip arrived. Marco Polo sailing around the world, Peary out to reach the north pole were no less fearless, 17 millions more then unborn, would leave an old life to become more venturesome or more needful of luck than these men and their crews. Thousands in New World settlements, and part of a new, dangerous, rich one in a fabulous new land because these men had made this trip. They went in 2 canoes, with 5 men, not well supplied with food or equipment, from St. Ignace. Indians thought the trip surely would end in disaster; none of them would dare attempt it. They paddled along the Lake Michigan shore southward and entered the wilderness by way of Green Bay, traversed Lake Winnebago, and portaging and paddling arrived at a Mascoutin village. Not much food could be had there but the Indians were friendly and the party stayed 3 days, Marquette exhorting them to turn from their pagan ways to the white man's re- ligion. Both he and Joliet tried to find out something about the nature of the country and the tribes living along the river banks for which they were headed. Such information as their hosts gave them afforded small comfort. Marquette writes of these well meant counsels as follows; — They did their best to dissuade me. They represented to me that I would meet Nations who never show mercy to Strangers but Break Their heads without any cause; — They also said that the Great River was very dangerous — full of horrible monsters, which devoured men and Canoes Together; that there was even a demon — Heat was so excessive — that it would inevitably Cause Our death. Nevertheless the white men persuaded 2 Miami Indians to come with them as Guides. Each day their progress became more difficult, powerful river currents and turbulent swells nearly swamped their bark canoes, mosquitoes tortured them day and night and food was hard to find in a new and wild country which sometimes seems uninhabited. Presently they entered the swift, tumbling Wisconsin River, which was to lead them straight into the Mississippi. On June 17 th the little party rounded a bend and for the first time looked upon the vast panorama of the mighty Father of Waters, flowing between green and purple hills southward 18 Marquette and Joliet Find fheMississippx River to a shimmering horizon. Marquette writes that they gazed on this the first goal of their labors, "with a joy that I cannot express". They had achieved that which had been deemed insurmountable. Their work was not yet completed; By following this river they now hoped to find the fabulous passage across the New World wilderness to the China Sea and define a short route to Asia from Europe. Marquette wrote that by means of this river passage he hoped to discover the vermilion or Cali- fornia Sea. They passed Indian villages and mouths of many large rivers, of which none were so awesome as the surging, muddy Missouri, camped with many friendly natives who began to speak of other white men, far on down the big river, who traded with them, giving hatchets and beads. White men to 19 the south indicated that this river probably emptied into the Mexican gulf, and did not turn westward toward China. Joliet and Marquette thought the white men were Spaniards who would hold them as prisoners. Marquette writes; They were now convinced beyond a doubt the Missis- sippi River discharged into the Florida or Mexican gulf. We further considered that if we proceeded we would fling ourselves into Spanish hands. Already they had traversed 1,100 miles of Mississippi River and were at the point where the Arkansas River flowed into it, about half way between Memphis and Natchez. So on July 17th they turned back, retracing their course until they came to the Illinois River into which they turned, coached by friendly red men who knew it to be a less difficult course than that to be found on the turbulent Wisconsin. They paddled up the Illinois to the Des Plaines and through it into Lake Michigan, finally arriving at St. Ignace mission in September. Both men prepared careful reports of their trip and Mar- quette drew a map of the country which may be seen at St. Mary's College, in Montreal. Joliet started back to Quebec with his but was capsized in the La Chine rapids, his records lost, the men accompanying him drowned and only after 4 hours of struggle was he able to save himself. Marquette had written a less ample report for his superiors in the Church, and this is the only existing first hand account of this trip. Marquette had promised "his children" on the Illinois River, not far from Starved Rock, to return and establish a mission among them. Hardships endured on the Mississippi River expedition had brought on a wasting disease and he had to wait on a partial recovery before permission was granted him to go. He left in October, 1674, with 2 French woodsmen, althouh winter was at hand and the season a poor one in which to travel through wilderness. These 3 white men came paddling down Lake Michigan shore from the north on December 4th, and turned into the mouth of the Chicago River, pushed through floating ice for a couple of leagues, 20 Marcpe^sCarnp QS^^^^^°£^|fi£ made camp and went no further until spring. Their stopping place was on a sand ridge looking over a wide stretch of mud and water, where for hundreds of years red men had paddled and portages into the interior. It became historic ground. They thought themselves quite alone, but even in those earliest days unrecorded adventurers had penetrated even further into the sealed wilderness. It chanced that a couple of such men who had made their winter camp not more than 25 miles from Marquette learned that he was at the portage. They visited him and brought food, and one, being something of a physician, may have helped him survive the hard winter. Indians brought them berries and dried meats. When the ice broke up in the spring Marquette went on to "his children" and when he reached them they welcomed him, (so he wrote,) "as an angel from heaven". He knew he stood in the shadow of Death and did what the short time at his disposal permitted, promised to send another in 21 his stead, and started back for St. Ignace. His boatmen nursed him tenderly, but on the 18th of May, as they were passing the point of land where Ludington now stands they realized he was dying. Under a hurridly built shelter they laid him. Three hours later he whispered a request that his crucifix be held before his eyes, muttered a prayer and died. Two years later Indians removed his remains to St. Ignace, a dis- tance of almost 250 miles, where he was reinterred. More than 30 canoe loads of warriors escorted his body. They revered him as a holy man; they remembered him as one whose lips spoke wisdom and in whose heart was love. IN the year 1666 another Frenchman, Rene-Robert Cavalier de la Salle, 22 years old, arrived in Quebec. He had decided to turn from the conventional titled Frenchman's career and dedicate his life to the exploitation of New France, following a trail which brought a continent to his country and death to himself. His courage, endurance, adventures and achieve- ments earned him the title "Prince of Explorers". For a few years he worked near Canadian settlements formulating the program he wanted to carry out. By 1678 he had travelled far, and familiarized himself with a great deal of unexplored wilderness, possibly reaching the Ohio River and its junction with the Mississippi. He built an early fort at St. Joseph, followed the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers to Peoria where he built Fort Creve Coeur and he had seen and passed the great rock we call Starved Rock. *His activities gained him * Starved Rock was headquarters for thousands of prehistoric peoples, whose reliques and bones have been garnered from graves on its top. The remnants of the once powerful Illinois Indians fled to it for temporary safety about 100 years after it had been abandoned as a stronghold. This occurred after the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars. Pontiac, defeated in his conspiracy to reestablish red supremacy, had fled to Cahokia and the Illinois Indian's protection. A Crow Indian was bribed, so goes the tale, by a keg of rum, to murder him. Those tribes who had adhered to Pontiac's viewpoint thought this an act of treachery, descended on the Illinois, and nearly annihilated them. According to legend they retreated to the top of the rock. It is 140 feet high and although impregnible it is without water. Unless it rains people cannot stay up there very long. After a few terrible days the Illinois painted their faces black, and began their death song. Then they descended to do their last fighting and almost every one of them, men, women and children died. 22 M Louis the enmity of certain men in high places in both Canada and France, whose open and secret conspiring against him caused him continual trouble. He had to leave his field work at this time and return to Quebec to defend himself, and get more supplies. He returned by way of his earliest entrance, Creve- Coeur and the Illinois River, passed into the Mississippi, traversed its entire length, and in April, 1682, formally laid claim to all the great territory through which it flowed, in the name of the King of France. During the same year he got back to Starved Rock and began to fortify it, meaning to make it one of a string of strongholds by which the realm of New France could be defended. He spent the next 3 years at this job, and the larger one of administering the growing affairs of the new province over which he had command. Officers quarters, fortifications, store houses and a 12 foot high palisade which went all around the top rim of the rock were built. A large town grew around its base, several 23 thousands of wilderness men, red and white came there for business, pleasure or protection. Leaving his lieutenant, Tonty, in charge of the Rock he went back to Canada and to France, where to his surprise he found himself famous. His critics, whose chiselling often had been seriously effective, had tried to persuade the French king that he was incompetent, or worse, but in his audiences with his Majesty La Salle gained his confidence and approval. When he went back to the New World it was at the head of a fine fleet, with the commission to build another strong French fort at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The fleet failed to pick up their specified destination and found themselves over in Texas. It took 2 more years to disentangle himself from this mix-up and head back up river for Fort St. Louis and his faithful Tonty. He never reached there; on March 19th, 1687 he was assassinated by one of his party. Tonty, who had remained in charge of the Rock all these years, heard that his leader was in trouble, gathered a rescue party, traversed the length of the great river, hoping to find and help him, failed and returned. From a few stragglers who drifted into Fort St. Louis he learned that La Salle was dead. He remained commander of the fort until 1702, then removed to Creve-Coeur. In 1721 Indians burned the fortifications. Other villages and strongholds attracted most of the new- comers. The old rock went to sleep; waiting perhaps, for the "new day" when over fine roads week-end guests would drive to a fine hostelry, seat themselves on broad stone terraces and watch cloud shadows drift across historic Illinois River valley. Kaskaskia, a mission at first, founded in 1677 by Fathers Gravier and Marest on the Mississippi River, became the "town to watch," in those earliest mid-west days. LaSalle fostered its growth, it enjoyed an advantageous location and many immigrants came up the big river to settle there. Early in the eighteenth century the French made it their midwest capitol and in 1731, evidently becoming somewhat aware of the desirable possibilities appearing as the country opened up, made our present Illinois a Royal Province, governed directly by the King. 24 Jesuits played a great part in opening the lands stretching from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi Rivers, establishing missions and getting along very well with most of the Indians. Hennepin, a Recollect priest, wandered far and wide, Father Pinet labored among Tamaroas and Cahokia Indians and established the earliest white post at the Chicago River's mouth in 1699. Other settlements grew; Prairie du Rocher in 1740. New Madrid in 1764 and St. Louis, both on the west bank of the Mississippi and all starting as trading posts. Massac and Vincennes, a town by 1735, and Bourbournaisse, Ste. Anne, La Pie and Fort St. Joseph up to the northeast became towns. Settlers, largely French, spread through the country, following the navigable rivers. It was evident that these French went at the business of living in the new world differently from their Spanish and English contemporaries. Their towns were built around village squares, on them they played many a game and danced many a dance which well might have been seen and heard in France. Voyageurs went among the natives to barter for furs and were welcome. Where they set up trading posts priests soon fol- lowed, and although towns usually grew at such points Indians knew these white men were not intending to disrupt their lives or homes, The French, however, carried out an impres- sive ceremony of claiming the land, for all the world to know, at Sault Sainte Marie in 1671. Hearing it said that unmeasurable and unknown riches awaited discovery in the western portions of their New World, expeditions of adventurous Frenchmen, led by leaders who knew something of new World conditions or by ambitious vis- ionary organizers, always authorized to search for riches and to colonize, began arriving from France. As early as 1693 one such party led by LeSueur, who previously had been in command of a new world post at Chequamegon Bay, arrived with 30 miners and went north from St. Louis. Near a stream they called Fever River* they found deposits of lead. For 7 years they wandered around, seeking their fortunes, but the *Now the Galena River. 25 results were disappointing and their leader went back to France. Through the old world spread thrilling news,* unblighted by tales of failures or by misinformation, of the unbelievable fertility, fine climate and joy in living certain of realization for those who could get over to the new one. This created an enthusiasm in France which influenced many to sell what they could not carry, pack up and come to New Orleans or Quebec with their families, from where they moved back into wild country. They were given land grants by LaSalle, when they arrived at Fort St. Louis, and settled all through lower Illinois, trading with Indians and sending their furs back to Canada, because hot weather, encountered in descending the big river to the southern port of New Orleans, spoiled skins. Those who could not come found solace in various oppor- tunities offered them for making money in the new world without going there. Organizations formed to buy and sell the products of New France; — lead, lumber, hogs, wheat, fur pelts, perhaps gold; — offered shares to such would-be buyers as had money to pay for them. The French, speculators at heart, acted the part; the less they knew the more were they prepared to believe. They believed the wonderful new world was very nearly a "pot of gold." One of the most popu- lar of such companies with a charter to do business given them in 1717, was known as the John Law Company. This company received such heavy support and turned out so badly that when it exploded in 1727 it almost ruined France. It was called the Mississippi Bubble. Radisson and Grosseilliers had recorded rumors, told them by Indians, of lead deposits near the Fever River, and Hen- nepin, sent by LaSalle on an early exploring trip, of which he drew a map, dated 1687, marked the location of lead mines near the same place. This information bore fruit in many places. A trader, Julien Dubuque, went there after it, **Champlain , s report was printed in 1619, after which many other explorers wrote narratives of their experiences in and their opinions of the New World. Nicolet, Radisson, Thevenot, Marquette, Tonty and Hennepin were a few whose writings were eagerly read in Europe and added fuel to the flame of interest in life in French colonies. 26 StsGenevfev^^Mofh^r of the West*' and was the first white man in that area who succeeded in building a fortune as Indian trader, miner and shipper of lead. In 1721 Philip Francis Renault, having been granted mining rights came to New Orleans and ascended the big river, bring- ing 200 miners and 500 negro slaves, bought in Domingo en route to the New World. He hoped to find gold or make his fortune by mining. First he tried Chartres, where another Frenchman, Major Pierre Boisbriant, had a fort, and then went to the lead ore district, then crossed the Mississippi and founded the first settlement on the west shore in 1735, which grew into Ste. Genevieve, but after 20 years, discouraged at the meagre results, he sold his slaves and went back to France. AROUND Ste. Genevieve were many natural riches; iron, -£*- marble, cobalt, nickle; these and a quickly established trade in furs, buffalo pelts, farm produce and lumber developed it into one of the important mid-west river shipping centers. The Ste. Genevians had trouble settling down. Their first town site was abandoned after one, if not the greatest, of 27 Bolduc House Built floods swept the Mississippi River valley in 1785, filling the entire basin from hill-top to hill-top and drowning out the villagers. They retreated 3 miles further upland where they built their present town. When they had satisfactorily nested down they became so active in fostering the interests natural to the neighborhood that in not too long a time their reputa- tion for hospitality and prosperity spread through the land, and Ste. Genevieve became known as "The Mother of the West 55 . When the Treaty of Fontainbleau, in 1766, turned this territory over to Spain the townspeople were not greatly worried; they kept on electing their neighbors to municipal offices and fraternizing with their new landlords. They were returned to the French fold in 1800, and in 1803, by the terms of the Louisiana Purchase, they became a part of the United States. The pleasant reputation of this fair and still undeveloped land reached Kentucky, and influenced America's greatest pioneer woodsman and Indian fighter, Daniel Boone, to pull up stakes and migrate to the neighborhood, there to pass his last days. He, who almost alone had won Kentucky from 28 savages, cleared fields, founded and protected an entire frontier, including his special settlement of Boonesboro, and influenced thousands of settlers to come into that wild and lovely State, at the age of 60 found himself deprived of his properties and holdings because he had neglected to take any steps to legally protect them. He considered this to be less important than the deplorable changes which had been taking place around him. His wilderness had turned into farm land, towns stood where once were forests, he could no longer lose himself in his particular wild world. He had heard, however, of the mighty rivers, wide, rolling hills and plains, on which countless buffaloes roamed unhampered, of game to be hunted, furs to be trapped, in the lands west of the Mississippi near to Ste. Genevieve. He moved there, into the then Spanish Province of Louisiana, to a spot about 40 miles from St. Louis. When the Spanish Governor of Louisiane heard that the great Daniel Boone had become a settler in his province he did him all honor; appointed him to the office of Syndic, a posi- tion similar to our Justice of the Peace, and gave him 1 0,000 arpents of land. He was made Commandante of the "Femme Osage District", and so continued until Spain ceded the land to France and France sold it to the newly established United States. Boone fished and hunted in his new home, and ran into trouble with the Indians there just as he had in his earlier Kentucky days. Once as he tramped through the forests accompanied by a black boy he was attacked by Osage Indians, with whom he had a pitched battle, and another time they ambushed him in his camp and he escaped by hiding for 20 days before they gave up and moved on. In 1810 the great naturalist, Audobon,* who made Ste. Genevieve his * Boone regaled Audobon with his Indian adventures. He told of a time when he was captured and how he escaped because his captors found a bottle of Kentucky bourbon on him and proceeded to "kill" it. A gunshot sounded off in the hills and they handed Boone and what was left of the whisky to their squaws while they slid into the forest to investigate. The squaws finished the bottle and fell asleep. Boone rolled to the fire, burned the thongs which held him and escaped. But first he cut 3 large biases on the side of a young ash tree to signalise his luck. When he revisited Kentucky he said this spot was one of those he most hoped to visit. There stood the ash tree. Carefully he chopped back the encroaching bark and there were the 3 blazes. 29 Daniel Boonon^ Farmer headquarters for a year, paid Boone a visit, and they talked a whole day and night. Audobon tells of it in one of his books and writes that he thought Boone was a fine man. When the Louisiana Purchase brought this land back into United States control Boone's real estate holdings were found to be in as bad or worse shape than had been his Kentucky ones. He had again failed to properly prove up his title to them, eager Yankees had filed on them, the United States Land Office had legally allotted them the land — and Boone was again without property. He petitioned Congress for a restoration, got 1,000 arpents back, built himself a home, and settled down to pass the rest of his days carving powder flasks from buffalo horns, repairing rifles and retelling thrilling adventures. 30 Far north of Ste. Genevieve, near LaSalle's Fort St. Louis, where the beautiful Fox River flows into the Illinois, before the days of the white man, there stood a fine Indian town, ruled over by a good chief named Waubansee. Father Henne- pin, whose travels included a stop over there, writes that it had 460 lodges. The neighborhood was favored by buffaloes, in fact back about 1700 the Fox River was known as the "River of the Buffalo. Things went along very nicely in this Indian town until trappers and traders commenced to paddle up and down the Illinois and Fox Rivers, bartering knives, hatchets, guns and firewater for prime skins. Waubansee would not let his townspeople touch this firewater. Having closely watched its effect on both white and red men he was sure it was an evil thing. One day a trader arrived with a keg of trade whiskey, anticipating with deep satisfaction the swapping of rather small swallows of whiskey for large piles of furs. Waubansee reached his canoe first and told him there was no hope for his using this liquor in his dealings with the townspeople. The trader paid little attention and Waubansee smashed the barrel, letting its contents flow into the river, thereby becoming the first to use it for waste disposal. Although the Chief wouldn't let his people or traders use it, he, being the boss, did not stint himself in taking chances with it, and he was one who could not well hold his liquor. Settlers followed traders, the lodges were lost in a growing wilderness of white men's log cabins, and Waubansee's life became more complicated. He thought things would go more smoothly if he tried to understand what white men wanted, or said were the right things for good Indians to do. To be sure, he could not quite understand why they said it was sinful for any man to have more than one wife. Why efficient, willing and available man power, or in this instance squaw power, should be arbitrarily limited in this way was beyond his comprehension, but he tried to conform. It happened that he had 2 very satisfactory wives, but he called one of them to him and instructed her to slay the other right away. Some sense of impropriety, or perhaps a reluctance to do away with 31 "totbaiisee makes Prohibition aj^alitjr a good working associate which would pile too much labor on her, influenced the first wife to balk at this unexpected command. She would not kill the other squaw, but Waubansee, following instructions to the letter, did it himself. The town grew; it was on the mail route from Chicago to Danville, the first steamboat to be built on the Illinois River was built there. By 1827 the Indian metropolis was gone. Once it had been known as the town of Waubansee, but they changed the name to Ottowa. Unsolved guesses regarding the extent, and boundaries of this mid-west continued to confuse map makers, explorers and colony managers. The map makers had trouble determining where the Mississippi River flowed. The Massachussets charter defined the western boundary of that territory as joining the 32 eastern Spanish line. Mercator, the authoritative map maker of those days, thought the head waters of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers constituted a water route for reaching Mexico. In 1672 the English governor of Virginia dispatched some one to check up on the wonderful country LaSalle had reported. The impression, held by those most concerned with that matter, that the country stretched comfortably westward to the Indian ocean, was refuted by this investigator's report; he stated that those who assumed that the Indian Ocean could be reached by traveling westward for 10 days were quite wrong. By 1750 England and France had come to value the fur trade as their greatest new world revenue earner and each took steps to hold it against their rival. The European Seven Years War strengthened new world animosities, which of them- selves were enough to stimulate each power to greatest efforts. The English early settlements were along the Atlantic sea- board. The French had penetrated the entire middle country from Canada to Kentucky and were doing well in their con- tacts and business relations with the Indians. In 1 749 Virginia planters organized a land company which was known as the Ohio Company and had a land grant of 500,000 acres, for purposes of trade and settlement, situated along the Ohio River. Meaning to remain on at least equal terms in this contest, the French established a chain of forts from Canada, at Presque Isle, south to the forks of the Ohio. They had hoped and planned to restrict English colonization to the lands east of the mountains. The English, however, began settling through the mid-west in considerable numbers, coming in by crossing the Alleghanies and down the Ohio River to Cincin- nati, or across Lake Erie and on to Detroit. They did not relish the advantages enjoyed by their French predecessors. When and where they could they established fortified settlements, and at a point on the Ohio River they also ceremoniously claimed the entire land as theirs. They regarded themselves as superior to Indians, held aloof from them and paid scant respect to their wishes and customs. Certain English practices told in their favor; they had no compunctions at selling natives all 33 the liquor they wanted, which the French would not do, and supplied them with rifles and trade goods for less than could their rivals. The Canadian Iroquois, seeing that their newly come British governors were apparently less eager to settle down and make their homes on Indian soil than were the French, gradually became allies, listened to English counsel which urged them to continual raids and massacres aimed at older and stable settlements, and cherished the dream that by thus conspiring they might keep the country from their masters, not seeing that the British had determined it was to become theirs alone. The great body of red men favored the French, which placed them at odds with the Iroquois. For better communciation routes eastward, to serve their own interests, the French established and maintained a sort of trunk line, running from the Mississippi across the mid-west territory to Lake Erie, and built forts at Miami, near Fort Wayne, at Ouitenon near Lafayette and at Vincennes on the Ohio. Increasingly favorable European conditions enabled Eng- land to send more troops to their American colonies and they planned and undertook a campaign to drive the French out. Attacks on Louisberg and around Lake Champlain were suc- cessful. Frontenac fell to them in 1758, severing the French line of communications between Quebec and the Ohio country. With the taking of Quebec the following year French colonial power was broken; Montreal and Canada surrendered to Eng- land in 1760. The Indians generally preferred to have French as business and neighbor associates to English and did not feel like sur- rendering. Instead, under an able chieftan, Pontiac, they formed a great confederacy, plotting to throw the English out and restore authority to the red men. The entire north- east portion of the mid-west became a battlefield. All the strongholds within a thousand miles area, except 3, fell before this savage campaign. Fort Ouitenon was destroyed, the gar- risons at Miami, St. Joseph and Michilimackinac butchered. Detroit, having received reinforcements in time, proved too much for the red skins and Pontiac failed to take it. Because 34 of this and also because this war showed the Indian to be unqualified to win over established white men's methods of warfare, the Pontiac Rebellion failed, Pontiac was pardoned, but still had dangerous enemies. He fled for sanctuary to the friendly Illinois at Cahokia and there was murdered, in 1769. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 France ceded their Northwest Territory to England. The French flag which had flown over the New World for more than 150 years was not lowered over Chartres, however, until October 10th, 1765. At this time the British possessed the Mississippi valley. They began strengthening or rebuilding strongholds at Chartres, Massac, St. Joseph, and Vincennes, and desig- nated Kaskaskia as their capitol. They got around to estab- lishing their first mid-west court of justice at Fort de Chartres in 1768. For some years immigration into the territory did not in- crease, due, perhaps, to incessant Indian disturbances. The new rulers continued to urge them to more savage warfare against white settlers, supplying both advice and supplies, and the red warriors took to this program with such enthusiasm that by 1775 they had turned the country into a state of chaos. Acts of violence were common. Governor Hamilton, at Detroit was notably active in this program and openly bargained for white scalps, earning thereby the nick-name of "the hair buyer". With the mid- west safely in their control, the fur trade flourishing, their strongholds not in danger, and with growing and serious disturbances in their eastern colonies the British withdrew much of their military strength and replaced it with a militia recruited largely from the amiable French inhabitants, who not long since had become British citizens. The War of the Revolution was shaping up, which was to vitally change the entire status of the mid-west territory. Its conclusion left many vital and necessary adjustments to be made, of which the most pressing, as was to be expected, was the disposition of great tracts of land. The fur trade also became a bitterly disputed question. Canadian traders who had built valued connections with many thousands of Indians, 35 buying their furs and selling supplies, refused to give them up. Prairie du Chien had a strong Canadian population and almost a trade monopoly in that area. Americans wanted this lucrative business, and later on took steps intended to exclude Canadians from dealing in furs throughout the Louisiana Purchase territory. England hoped to be able to retain control of the Great Lakes region and the Mississippi valley, and made no effort to evacuate it when the Revolu- tionary War had ended. Her continued possession of key strongholds did not go un- noticed in the east. The heavy requirements of the just past war, however, had left the new United States almost barren of resources necessary for maintaining their authority in a so distant territory. There were many advocates of stronger action. Benjamin Franklin spoke in its favor, but until 1778 things drifted along. AT that time there lived in the east a young, red headed J^A- American, by name George Rogers Clark, an officer in the Kentucky militia. He felt a personal concern over what was taking place in the mid-west country, and wanted to get colonists to go there and settle, but more than anything else he wanted authority to go himself, with soldiers, and drive the English from their several strongholds and re-establish United States authority. Patrick Henry was the Governor of Virginia and from him Clark received authority and barely sufficient materials and men to undertake the project. He promptly led an expedition of 1 75 fighting men and 20 immi- grant families to resettle the mid-west and if possible throw the British out. Carrying the new national flag into Illinois for the first time he descended the Tenessee and Ohio Rivers to the town of Massac, on the Ohio about 125 miles from the fortress of Kaskaskia. The commandant, a Frenchman and naturalized Britisher named Rocheblave, did not have at that time a strong garrison of soldiers. Clark wanted first to capture Kaskaskia, take Vincennes and then concentrate on reducing Detroit. With the falling of these 3 strongholds the Northwest 36 At Kaskaskia George Rogers Clark and Simon Kenton call on Commander, ~ RochebWeat territory would again become American in fact, instead of words. Proceeding from Massac he reached Kaskaskia on July 4th, 1778, and carefully studied its strength. There are various versions of how he took the post, but his own written account seems to place the vital achievement among the more easy military successes. He was told that the greater part of the population in the town and neighboring villages and most of the priests were friendly to the American cause. As darkness fell, having crossed the river undiscovered, he with his entire force approached and entered Kaskaskia. Dividing his men into 3 parties he sent 2 of these to opposite quarters in town and with the 3rd, among whom was a redoubtable frontiers- man, Simon Kenton, he called on Commandant Rocheblave, who was in bed and took his time preparing to receive his 37 unwelcome visitors. They informed him, when he showed up, that he was a prisoner of war. Throughout the dark and almost empty streets Clark sent his men, with instructions to tell all citizens they met that Clark had possession of the town and fort, to disarm all officers, and place them in irons. Cahokia, 60 miles away, was visited by a part of Clark's force and was as easily taken. Within 3 days things were quiet and Kaskaskia was completely in the hands of the Americans. The British Commander, General Hamilton, in Detroit, learned of this, and moved 600 men at arms and artillery southward, to hold and strengthen the English Fort Sackville, at Vincennes, preparatory to retaking Kaskaskia. The fort was one of the strongest in the territory, having bastions at the corners, heavy 12 foot high walls, brass and iron cannon mounted in embrasures. Adjacent to the fortress lay Vincennes, a town of 1,200 people, mostly French, and mostly friendly to Americans. There was a lot of rain and flood water in southern Indiana in February 1779. Around Vincennes all the flat river bottom lands were submerged. All the land between the little and big Wabash Rivers appeared to be a lake. Commander Hamil- ton felt sure that he was safe from attack, and, because of these floods, had no need to hurry his attack on Kaskaskia. He looked forward to doing it later, when the going would be easier. Clark, 240 miles away, thought that was what he would think, and determined to attack first. He proposed to swim, march or float across the intervening country, surprise Hamilton and win the stronghold of Fort Sackville, even though it seemed that his small force, in face of the inclement weather, flooded lands and the strength of Fort Sackville, could not achieve so formidable a task. In cold February Clark with 70 of his old lot of soldiers and about an equal number of Creole reinforcements started off to take this fort. To arrive there he and his men tramped and waded across flooded meadows through freezing water up to their waists, slept without fires the last 2 nights, with hardly sufficient food to give them a meal a day. In his memoirs Clark tells of his fears that these men, poorly equipped, beset with difficulties, 38 Sackville at Vincennes surrenders to CM llllllll.'l. ill! facing very poor chances of success, might decide to give up the affair and turn back, but this they did not do. They had a few lucky breaks ; they ran across a squaw paddling a canoe partly loaded with food, and near Vincennes ran onto a few French citizens not loath to telling Clark that officers and men in the fort were relaxed, sure of their safety and enjoying themselves. On the evening of February 24th, 1779, the resolute band of invaders crept into the streets of Vincennes, there to find unexpected welcome and even a store of gunpowder freely given. They immediately opened fire on Fort Sackville. Com- mander Hamilton was even more surprised than Clark thought he would be. He did not know how many men were in the attacking army, but he knew they were first rate marksmen. His cannoneers were shot at their places, assault after assault kept his soldiers in a turmoil, and the day after Clark got to work Hamilton surrendered. With it lost the British found 39 themselves unable to hold their northwest territories, which the Treaty of Paris had given them. They relinquished an empire the extent of which was dimly realized. Vincennes is a glory spot and George Rogers Clark one of the nation's heroes. When terms under which the Revolutionary War was to end came up for discussion Great Britain was inclined to insist that the Mississippi River valley remain a part of their new world empire. To which Benjamin Franklin replied that since this tract had been surrendered by the English General Hamil- ton it had remained under United States control and admini- stered as their territory and he could see no reason for turning it back. Thus the part played by George Rogers Clark became the occurence which more than any one other deed saved the mid-west to the United States. In spring time there still is a lot of water around Vincennes. The walls of Fort Sackville have rotted away, the old village is gone, but on its site stands a noble memorial building, where the log house once stood in which the authorities met to arrange terms of surrender stands a cathedral, now itself some- what venerable, and the Wabash River across which Clark and his men stumbled or swam is spanned by a great bridge. After the treaty of 1783 the British had no business trying to hold settlements or to keep on conniving with red-skin con- federates in the mid-west. Gen. Arthur St. Clair was appointed governor of the Northwest Territory in 1788, and 2 years later President George Washington dispatched Gen. Harmer to the area with an army to clear things up. An Indian force led by Little Turtle defeated them in several engagements and they withdrew. Governor St. Clair then undertook the task of chastising the red skins and destroyed one of their Maumee villages, but he, too, suffered many defeats and at last the Indians combined in a mass attack and decisively defeated him. President Washington then appointed one of his Revolu- tionary generals, Anthony Wayne, to raise and properly pre- pare an adequate force, proceed to the war front and definitely settle matters with the Maumees. He moved effectively and with caution, built 3 forts, Grenville, Recovery and Defiance 40 in Indian territory. Little Turtle who had won many battles, counselled peace, saying the red men had won many times and could not hope to always do so, but to the Miamis the memories of their recent victories were sweet and they decided to fight. The British governor said this was precisely the thing to do, in fact he would help them build a fort of their own, which was done at Maumee Rapids near a tangled fall of forest trees. There the Indians planned to way-lay the Ameri- cans from ambushes. Wayne came upon them, attacked first, kept them from retreating to their fort, and gave them a decisive defeat which became known as the battle of Fallen Timbers. This occurred in August, 1794 and the following winter the Miami Confederacy fell apart. A new Indian boundary was established, but it did not contribute to a better understanding for white men, ignoring the terms of the treaty which established these demarkations, to immediately commence pouring across it into Indian lands, pre-empting what they wanted of it. Another great red-skin leader, Tecumseh, noting these aggressions, and concluding that words could not remedy matters, began to build another confederacy, pledging its members to not tolerate the presence of whites within their villages and to not give away any more of their land by trade or by treaty. Until 1811 he held back from taking up the war hatchet, trying by every means to come to some real agreement under the terms of which red and white men might live together in peace. His insistence on Indian rights was too onerous to white men, who would not stop grabbing Indian land. This led to war, a really fierce one, in which at the battlefield of Tippecanoe, Tecumseh and his warriors went down in fatal defeat. Tecumseh met death at a later engagement, the red men's hold on the land was broken, but not yet were they reduced to complete passivity. For years they remained a serious mid-west menace, opposing with all their strength the inevitable, complete, dominance by white men of their country. The great mid-west remained a sort of no-man's-land for a while, after the termination of the War of the Revolution. Then the Continental Conress made it a county of Virginia. 41 Its administration may have proved to be more complicated than anticipated, at any rate Virginia relinquished her control in 1784. Congress took its time in deciding what next to do with it, but in 1787 it made the Northwest Territory out of an area now Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota. To start this territory off properly and according to good yankee notions the holding of slaves was forbidden, except as a punishment for crime. Officials were appointed and a territorial legislature, among whom was not a single lawyer, assembled at Kaskaskia to make some laws. They legalized bare back whipping as penalty for the commit- ting of felonies and misdemeanors, authorized branding with a hot iron and the use of stocks, sent debtors without enough funds to erase their debts to jail, and those caught stealing horses for the second time, and other sinners who had com- mitted rape, arson, treason or murder were hung. In 1805 the French nation obtained a great tract of country west of the Mississippi River through treaties, and their ruler Napoleon disposed of it to the young republic not without considerable adverse comment both in France and the United States. This practically unexplored country was large enough to have taken the breath away from the managers of Spain, France or the United States, had they suspected its magnitude and potential value. The deal was known as the Louisiana Pur- chase. In 1 809 the territory of Illinois was formed and included the western portion of what now is Indiana and reached to the Canadian border. In this great area there was a population of 1 2,500. Kaskaskia was again made the capitol of the terri- tory. Nine years later the present state of Illinois emerged, and by this time it alone had a population of 56,000, most of whom had migrated there from the south. This changed the attitude toward slavery; the majority of landholders now favored its use. 42 II HOW THE MID-WEST WAS SETTLED IN 1812 THE UNITED STATES DECLARED WAR ON GREAT BRITAIN, THE BRITISH CAPTURED MACKINAC AND PRESSED THEIR ATTACK ON DETROIT SO VIGOROUSLY THAT AMERICA'S General Hull conceeded its certain fall.* Among the various parcels of land the Indians had been compelled to conceed to the white men, when Tecumseh met his great defeat, was an area 6 miles square, at the point where the Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan. This was of importance for it controlled the water passage up that river, through the Chi- cago Portage, and thus on into the interior and the Mississippi River. The United States built a fort there in 1 803 and ordered Captain John Whistler to occupy it with a force of soldiers. This outpost was called Fort Dearborn. Occasional newcomers, traders and half breed Indian families gravitated to the neigh- borhood during the succeeding 9 years. Disconcerting British successes at the commencement of the War of 1812 influenced General Hull to order the evacuation *It fell to the British on August 16th, 1812, the day after Fort Dearborn was evacuated. 43 The Port Dearborn Massacre of this American outpost and the withdrawal of government forces to stronger Fort Wayne, in Indiana. Captain Heald, the commander, had been ordered to destroy all excess powder and liquor, and to distribute all other United States property among the Indians. In some way these red men had learned of the impending retreat and had established a sizable village a mile or so up the Chicago River where for weeks they had danced day and night. Captain Heald had been holding pow-wows with them for several days, relative to the white men's departure. He had poured the liquor into the river and done away with the powder. The day preceeding the evacuation Captain Heald told the Indians this very unwelcome news. They said, how- ever, they would abide by the terms of the agreement he and they had concluded. On that preceeding day a famous frontiersman, Captain Wells, an adopted son of an Indian chief, accompanied by a body of friendly red-men, unex- pectedly arrived at the fort, where his niece was a resident. Learning that the hostile Indians were going to attack the garrison he had gathered all the help he could and hurried there to be of all possible assistance. 44 August 15, the day set for the evacuation, arrived. Early in the morning men began loading frontier wagons, hooking harness tugs to whiffle-trees, lining up the vehicles. Women tried to keep track of 20 excited children, happy at travelling somewheres. But then, everybody was happy or sad that morn- ing, for they were starting back east to distant homes, to reach which unknown hardships and dangers would be faced. When everything was completed military band music rang out, then came the command to march. From out the great gate came the advance guard of soldiers, Captain Wells lead- ing, his face painted black, a custom common among Indians when facing death. Drivers cracked their whips, wagons got under way, children still shouted with joy, women still wept; sullen Indians lined the course, silently watching. After the advance guard came loaded wagons, then more with the sick, women and children, then the band, and a dozen home- steader families, unable to stay since the fort would not be there to protect them, then the remainder of the soldiers, and as a sort of rear guard the band of friendly Indians silently glided along with the column. They moved southward, through low sand dunes, following the lake shore, pulling through sun warmed sand toward tree covered hills a mile and a half away. The Indians who were watching scarcely could restrain themselves. Before the procession had gone half a mile hundreds of them rushed through the gate, shouting and shoving. But other warriors and their squaws, had no time for plundering; 500 of them formed into a parallel column and ac- companied the retreating whites j? to the hills. There the soldiers, wagons and settlers started to pass them by turning to the east, the Indians turned toward the west. Captain Wells suspected some- thing might be amise, rode ahead A&encflj^dSkinSavesiiieLife of CaptainHealds Wife to do a little scouting. About that time the band of friendly Miami allies faded into the scrub forest. Wells discovered Indians in ambush ahead; he turned his horse and with all speed rode back, shouting "The Indians are going to attack us! Form in line Hurry! hurry!" It was too late! Before the astonished soldiers could present any effective resistance the enemy broke their ranks with a murderous fire, and with bloodcurdling whoops rushed among them, slaughtering a considerable number. Officers succeeded in getting the men to form a line of resistance along a ridge and there a deadly 15 minute fight flared. Slowly moving out toward a flat, open prairie not far ahead the badly mutilated, retreating whites maintained themselves a while longer, but outflanked, half their number dead or wounded, and but 27 able bodied men left, they asked for quarter and promise of protection upon surrendering. Tasting victory the Indians did not feel interest in compromises. The annals of frontier fighting record few more terrific battles than this, or a more sad slaughter of women and children. Captain Wells was one who had sur- 46 rendered but saw a savage murdering unprotected children in a wagon, broke from his guard, crying, "I can kill, too!" He jumped on a horse, rode as fast as possible toward the blood stained groups, was pulled from his mount and died from a stab in the back. His body was mutilated and his heart eaten by his enemies. Black Partridge, parried a blow meant to kill, another Indian saved the young wife of Captain Helm, who faced death at the hand of a murderous enemy after she had surrendered. 26 infantrymen, 12 settlers, 12 children and 2 women were killed, Lieutenant Heald and his wife, 25 soldiers, 11 women and children were taken prisoners, more than half of whom were wounded. Several were tortured, some put to death within a few hours, others held for weeks or months and sold back to friends up at Detroit or other trading posts. The night after the Fort Dearborn massacre the Indians danced around their fires and tortured their captives. The next day they drifted into the shadowy forests. IN 1818, the Territory having become the State of Illinois, the first state legislature convened at Kaskaskia and elected Shadrach Bond governor. They proceeded to correct such deficiencies in the earlier laws as struck them as unacceptable and came up with others of their own. They ruled that slavery within certain limits was legal and enacted ordinances ap- parently designed to prevent free negroes from seeking asylum in Illinois. Kaskaskia, the first capitol of the mid-west was relieved of its dignified office by the removal of the Illinois state capitol to Vandalia. Ohio and Indiana, having pre- ceeded Illinois in the enacting of their state laws, were accepted as reliable examples of law-making bodies and their enact- ments carefully studied and largely followed. One embarass- ment the new state did not have to meet was an excess of spending money. Taxes amounted to between $25,000.00 and $30,000.00 per year, salaries of all state officials totalled $12,500.00, a perhaps not too grossly exagerated statement of inhabitants put the population at 45,000. Indiana and Ohio 47 had dedicated .03% of moneys received from sales of state lands to the development of education but in this particular Illinois did not follow their examples, their percentage was dedicated to the development of roads. The earliest growth of the settlement around Fort Dearborn did not materialize by the palisades. A couple of trading posts, a post office and a few cabins went up on a spot called Wolf's Point, west of the fort, at the junction of the 2 river forks. The first Chicago tavern, called Wolf Tavern, run by Archi- bald Caldwell, stood there. Soldiers on leave, all residents, and Indians gathered at this social center to enjoy such pleasures as the place afforded. Lest the reader assume that strong drink was one of these it is necessary to add that liquor was not sold in taverns in those days. This equivocal asset to human happiness could be had only at dispensaries, then called "groggeries". Most of Wolf Point's patrons came there by boat; the body of modern Chicago was then a marshy waste. A significant advantage to Wolf Point business lay in its situation. It lay at a point past which about all water traffic passed, those going up stream tightening their belts in antici- pation of "making the Chicago Portage". This much used, heartily hated, portage had always been there. It led out of the Chicago River into what was called Mud Lake, through which the course passed into the Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers. Crossing this so-called lake usually was pretty terrible. Only when high water prevailed could loaded boats or canoes be paddled or pushed over its reed and wild rice infested miles of mud and water. Otherwise, except in winter time when the whole place was frozen solid, the crews guiding traffic through the Chicago Portage ex- perienced an unforgettable ordeal. Usually all but 2 of them jumped overboard to shove their boat, the 2 on the deck having cut long poles on which foliage was left at one end to serve as a pushing surface, walked the boat's length pushing. Sometimes the waders sank almost out of sight, saving them- selves by hanging onto the gunwales. Often several hours were thus passed in shepherding loaded boats across this passage. Mosquitoes and blood suckers helped by feasting on human 48 flesh. Having reached the end, whether in storms, freezing or pleasant days, all voyageurs stripped and began removing blood-suckers, usually applying a disagreeable concoction made from tobacco, to persuade the leeches to let go more willingly. Few recovered from the many inflamed insect bites under 3 days. BEFORE this territory was farmed many trappers and hunters came each year to the various trading posts to buy and sell. The Great American Fur Company was domi- nant in the country, with their facteurs or representatives stationed at favorable locations, to buy skins and supply woods- men with needed goods. 49 Traders usually came in canoes or accompanied with pack trains on foot. One of them was a young Yankee, born in Windsor, Ver- mont in 1802, named Gurdon Hubbard. He appeared in Chicago at the age of 18, having come there by way of Mackinac and by 1823 he had a trading post south of the Kankakee River, near the town of Watseka. Many trips re- quiring him to pass over the Portage, convinced him that there could be a better trail than this muddy, slow one and not a long while after he blazed one which ran from Danville through Momence and the Calumet region into Fort Dear- born on hard ground. For those travelling to the Fort from a southern direction this trail was important, and became the favored highway from Lake Michigan to Danville, Peoria or on to Mississippi River towns. It was called the Hubbard Trail until it passed Danville, then it was known as the Vin- cennes Trace. When the State of Illinois got around to better- ing primitive roads a survey was made to determine the ones best suited to the growing demands and this Hubbard Trail was designated to become a pike. Where it entered the town of Chicago it was called the State Road, because it came up through the state, and when, in 1830, this road came right into the center of town, it was called State Street. A new type of frontiersman was appearing in the mid-west. The French courier du bois, the Jesuit Father, the cheerful farmer and family from France were no longer preponderant, Americans from northern and southern districts were farming, mining, exploiting the country. Each year those who followed river transportation grew in numbers with the river traffic. Great stories of fighting, gambling, adventuring lay hidden in the lives of these average frontiersmen, trappers, river-men and newly come citizens, men brave in ways learned from woods and waters, bashful when among strangers, helping more than they thought or cared in the forming of a new American mid-west. At Fort Dearborn they thronged paths ankle deep in mud, carousing, loafing, dickering with traders and cheating Indians, telling new comers where the trails lay, what land tracts were good, which had water, where they 50 The Story of State Street Adventures of Gurdo: might be safe from Indians. Among these Hubbard grew to be a leader. Extraordinary hardships were commonplaces to him. His wilderness menus were hearty and simple. He usually lived on game roasted over an open fire, over which some one was set to keep it turning, so all portions would be equally well done. When brazed to a finish it was put in a home made wooden bowl on a home made puncheon table and every one cut off such portions as he thought he could manage. Usually there was nothing else but wild honey. As a substitute for bread slices of cooked turkey were used, and these, eaten with fat venison, coon or bear meat were more delicious than roast beef. Dried and crushed lotus leaves served as coffee 51 substitute. In winter his clothing consisted of a buckskin shirt belted in at the waist with a buckskin belt, on which hung tobacco pouch, tomahawk and sheathed knife. Underneath it a calico shirt and a breech cloth, with buckskin leggins, Square pieces of blanket, called "neip," were skillfully folded around the feet and the leggins drawn over them. In winter he let his hair grow long for its warmth. Once in the month of March, 1823, he went to visit some Indians camped along the Fox River and in crossing the stream he broke through. The rapid current drew him beneath the ice and carried him down stream. While his breath held he tried again and again to gain his footing, for by humping his back up and pushing upwards he could again break the ice and reach air, but the strong current prevented. He had about resigned himself to drowning when his hand struck a submerged willow branch, which he grasped, by its help got his feet on the river bottom, heaved against the ice roof, luckily where it was thin enough to break through, and just in time was able to draw a life-giving breath. Two Indian companions who watched this affair were surprised at seeing his success, and showed the depth of their emotion by uttering a number of peculiar grunts. At his trading post he soon became popular. An old Win- nebago chief, Tanin, wanted him to marry his fat and desir- able daughter, but this, Hubbard stated, he meant to avoid. He therefore proposed to Tanin that he be affianced to a younger, attractive niece, Watseka by name, then a slim 10 year old damsel. He promised to take her when she had reached marriageable age, 4 years away; in his own mind he intended in the mean time to think up some way to evade it. Alas for his hopes; the 4 years sped and nothing to help his plan materialized. The old chief, holding Watseka's young hand, was at Hubbard's door right on the minute. Hubbard married Watseka and wrote that their relations were always tender and fine. Their child did not live. Time worked against this wilderness romance; the outside world claimed Hubbard. He was drawn to the busy port of Chicago and there rapidly became an important personality. When it was evident that 52 Chief Tanin did not forget his early life, with the trading post, and all, was a thing of the past he had a talk with Tanin, who turned out to be a practical man, recognizing that Destiny and not Hubbard had made a readjustment necessary. He consented to the return of Watseka to his protection and not long after married her to Noel Levasseur, Hubbard's successor. This second husband encountered about the same conditions as had Hub- bard. Called to a greater sphere of activity he gave Watseka back to Chief Tanin. These Indians were expelled from their 53 ancestral lands, crossed the Mississippi River into Kansas, and Watseka went with them. In 1863 she journeyed back on foot to again have a look at the place where she was born and, presumably, spent her happiest years. She had become a personality and was given great consideration during her visit. The name Watseka was a most honorable one among the Winnebagoes, being conferred on one maiden only, who in the minds of the elders gave promise of becoming the finest squaw in the tribe. The legend which recounts the manner in which this name gained its meaning tells how, long years past, a band of Winnebagoes were attacked and beaten by a roving party of Iroquois, and the men refused to re-engage the victors. A brave squaw taunted them, and gathering such squaws as she could, led them forth, renewed the combat and won a victory. The leader bore the name Watseka. Thereafter it was bestowed on the young girl who gave the most promise of becoming worthy of that great name. Our Watseka was the last to bear it. NINE years before Hubbard became factor at his Iroquois post a young Frenchman with a newly won wife moved down from Mackinac to a location on the Calumet River, alongside an ancient trail, not far from the present town of Chesterton. The buildings they erected are standing today, perhaps the only authentic ones which date back to the actual beginning of settlements in this area. There is a romance con- nected with this couple, the young and beautiful Marie de la Vigne and Joseph Bailly de Messeur. One day, on the island of Mackinac, in the year 1814, two men stood indifferently watching the approach of 2 canoes, paddled by Indians. Presently one remarked, "If those happen to be Osage Indians you may see with them one of the most beautiful white women in this wilderness". "How come?" asked the other. "How can a lovely white girl be travelling around with red skins?" "Well, it is like this! It is now many years ago since two 54 Old BaiUy Town nd a Romance ofih Early Days sons of a French family came to Quebec, and it was not long thereafter before they began to associate with the natives. They were handsome and strong but they were not good Christians; they practiced the dark rituals of sorcery, and some said they possessed occult powers. They took up with Indian Medicine Men, dancing with them, learning their medicine chants, torturing themselves as did Indians, and they worshipped the red-skin Serpent God. Good whites soon ostracised them, thinking they must be evil. But these French- men did not care ; in their association with Indians they found all things necessary to them in human relationships. They learned the ways of the forest, bought furs from wilderness dwellers, and were even adopted into the Osage tribe. One of them however, turned back to his white people sufficiently to court a young, pious and beautiful white maiden he found there named Marie de la Vigne. Although she was repelled by the reputation of this strange Frenchman-Indian, yet he had much wealth in land and furs, and both the gentle girl's father and mother kept insisting on it. So, in spite of protests 55 and tears she married the Frenchman. He took her away to his home with the Osages. Now, these Osages have a law that any squaw of a brave can buy her freedom from her husband if she does not like him by working overtime, and when she has done a great deal of extra work such as tanning skins, weaving blankets and preparing extra supplies of maize and dried meats she can ask the Head Man of the village to look at what she has done. If he thinks she has done enough to win her freedom he must so declare it to the husband and to the village. Then the squaw can take her children and personal belongings and go; she is no longer the squaw of that brave. Marie did this, although it was hard work and took her many, many months. She returned to her relatives in Quebec. They repudiated her, drove her away, saying that she was no longer a part of their family. There was no place for this poor white woman and her two baby daughters to go but back to her Indian adopted friends. That's why she will be in one of those canoes." The bark boats had been drawing near and even as the tale ended the men saw the girl arise and prepare to step ashore. A wave of emotion, not only of sympathy but also of personal interest and, perhaps, of love, swept over the younger man. He stepped forward and offered the woman his hand to help her step from the canoe, asking respectfully if he might have the honor of her acquaintance. To this the girl replied, "If it is for the purpose of honorable wedlock, yes; if for some other purpose, no." Joseph Bailly de Messeur at once told her his intentions were most honorable and he said he even entertained the hope of making her his wife. But the young Marie was too honest to take advantage of such a man and answered with a tinge of regret that she was not just as he then saw her, she was the mother of two daughters. But he, it turned out, was also the father of two children, and he suggested that as she might come to be a mother to his children, so might he in turn prove to be a father to hers. There was a dance at Headquarters Post that night and so fiercely blazed the passion of love in those two young hearts that before the party ended Joseph stepped to the 56 JosephBaillydeMesseur meets Marie delaVSgne front and told the dancers that he and Marie had pledged their troth. It proved to be a long, successful association. Not long afterward they rode from Mackinac the length of Lake Michigan to a spot on an ancient Indian trail which ran through the sand hills surrounding the lower end of the lake where it met the Grand Calumet River and built themselves a trading post. In time it became known as "BaiUy's" and enjoyed a profitable business and friendly relationship with their red skin neighbors. Bailly-town started in 1814 and stayed in business over 100 years. Only once was there the threat of neighborhood trouble. Indian mothers sent three of their young daughters over to a field in which a few young men were digging potatoes to ask if they might buy some, and the boys stampeded them and chased them back home, through the doors of which they fell frightened and breath- less. One of the girls had a Pottawattomie chief for a father, who said improper advances had been made by the boys and he swore revenge. He called his tribe together and they began a war dance, and kept it up for three days. This meant trouble, but it had not gone un-noticed by Marie. She interrupted 57 the dance by placing herself in the center of the dancers, and began reciting the rituals of her Church, kept it up all day, stopping neither for fatigue nor fear. Indians have a belief that the Great Spirit touches his favorite human beings with a little madness and will not interfere with one whom they think has been so chosen. After watching this woman singing her white man's chant in their faces they began to think she was speaking very strong medicine and one by one left their frenzied dance, to fade into the sandy hills. One exceptional experience stands out from all the others recorded in Bailly-Town history. Over the Sauk Trail, from across the great river and wide plains, and all the then un- conquered Indian country, came representatives from all the Tribes; Menominees, Winnebagoes, Saux and Fox, Osages, Chickasaws, Pottawatomies, in their various regalias, and then the most savage, most bedizened of all, the fierce Dakotas, all going to a great Indian Council in Canada. The Dakotas rode on ponies, great blankets, red, black, yellow or white around their shoulders, one end brought under an arm, across the chest and held on the other shoulder with broad shining silver plates, strange and wonderful ornaments woven in their long black hair, quiver full of arrows and bow hanging at their back, in one hand long, barbed lances and in the other buckskin wrapped rifle. It had been whispered they had no respect for white man conventions in the treatment of women, the ladies at the post, worried over the possibility of a per- sonal attack, discreetly hid themselves, at least partly, behind window curtains while they passed. For days and days the red men went by, going to pow-wow with their blood brothers, the Canadian Iroquois. Fur trader Joseph Bailly broadened out into the real estate business. In 1833 he platted a town called Bailly, but before he had completed arrangements to sell lots he died. Three log houses and an old tree called "the marriage tree" which he planted upon arrival are all that remain. Other sand hill settlements were launched; one in the year 1837, smothered by a national financial crisis, and another, started at the mouth of the Grant Calumet River, perished 58 from lack of business. The dune-land metropolis, Michigan City, scarcely known before 1830, grew as the fertile back country farms began to raise excess crops of corn, wheat and hogs. This produce loaded into ox-drawn wagons came through the sand country to the lake shore, where boats transported it to markets. As many as 300 ox teams a day struggled to Michigan City to find shipping facilities, and it became the principal grain market for northern Indiana. When the Michi- gan Central Railroad finally pushed their track to and past Michigan City and supplied the needed land shipping facili- ties, things began to boom. With the rails to carry it away an unsuspected commodity grew into big business, all rail- roads entering Chicago were elevating their enormous trackage and the sand for embankments was all shipped to them from the area at the foot of the lake. After the fur trade had become a thing of the past there was little in the sand country to support trade until the first manufacturing plants came in. This pioneer industry built there because their manufactured product was too dangerous to be welcomed in inhabited neighborhoods. The Aetna Powder Company were manufacturers of explosives, and not welcomed in the cities, built alongside railroad tracks as soon as there were any, in the dunes. The erection of their lone- some plant marked the beginning of the Calumet River manu- facturing district development. The old Sauk Trail which came up from Danville, passed through La Porte, around the lower end of Lake Michigan to Niles and Detroit was paved, and by 1880 people could drive through the dunes, and discover how beautiful they were. As Michigan City grew its suburbs, Tremont and Dune Park, also grew. There "dune lovers" could buy lots for songs, and build shacks in which to spend week-ends and go swimming untrammelled by bathing suits. This also passed. The State of Indiana bought 2,200 acres of sand dune landscape and built a great park for the nature worshippers. It is not quite fair to all the other wonderful dune country — which stretches off east and north, around the southern end of Lake Michigan, past Michigan City and St. Joseph and 59 even up to Holland, Michigan — to mention only the Indiana dunes. All the sun-drenched southeast shore of Lake Michigan is also true dunes land. Certain places in it do, in fact, express a wild, strange character more vividly than does the area in the Chicago region. Near the old lake port of Saugatuck there is a wide sand beach which stretches inland in a series of great, bare, always moving sand dunes. As the winds pick up and throw innumerable grains further from the shore one hears the continual hiss of scouring, moving sand, drifting into the groves of trees and burying them. Less and less of the trees remain visible, then their very tops are buried, then as the sand hills commence to subside they bury less and less of the bodies of the trees until a hundred feet back in the forest, the sands no longer cover anything of more height than grass blades. There is yet one more dune wonder; it is the ant bear. Scientists who have suggested that but for a lot of luck the ants might have been the dominant animal on this world should take a look at this saviour of mankind, in his native dune country home. He digs an inverted cone, about an inch deep and at the inverted point, down at the bottom he buries himself. Along comes the confident ant, slips down the shifty sand slope into the ant-bear trap and is lost; eaten by an ant-bear. FRONTIER life produced strong and strange characters, among whom stronger there may have been but none more strange than one whose name has become identified with the early mid-west days, Johnnie Appleseed. Known casually to many throughout a broad territory he was really scarcely known by any. In a world then torn by struggles, in- justice, hardships and wars he alone was a man of peace, lover of beast, bird and all men, whether red or white. Of him was said, as of another long gone character, — the good St. Francis of Assissi, who also loved birds, — that about him lingered an odor of sanctity; with Johnnie, however, it was more often the fragrance of apples. His slogan fitted his voca- tion, "fruit is next to religion". 60 The valley was fiill of the smell of roasting venison His name was John Chapman and he was born in Spring- field, Massachussets in 1774. His first apple seed planting of record was made in Licking County, Ohio. He loaded a canoe with apple mash, a by-product of cider mills and full of apple seeds, and inaugurated his life work by paddling down the Ohio River, planting these seeds only where it looked to him as if they would become trees, usually returning later to culti- vate the seedlings until they grew strong. Where civilization pressed into wilderness this strange man followed, pushing beyond its limits and planting seeds from a sack load he carried on his back. The ground over which he travelled reached westward from Pittsburg to the Indiana westward boundary and from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, an area estimated at 100,000 square miles. 61 Ohio then was a battle ground, the Miamis and "Mad Anthony" Wayne were preparing for the decisive battle of Fallen Timbers and most of the country north of the Ohio River was called "Indian Shore", dangerous territory. Then and through the War of 1812 Johnnie Appleseed passed back and forth without molestation. He was indifferent to clothes and usually went barefooted, his garments often 2 gunny sacks, through one of which he cut a hole for his head and 2 for his arms, the other 2 for his legs, holding them on by a rope belt. His hair and beard were seldom trimmed, sometimes he used his cooking skillet for hat. He was a good trencher- man and enlivened mealtimes with instructions as to how virtue, like good cooking, might be had for the seeking. If the weather was bad he often entered cattle barns unan- nounced and slept with the cattle. Sunday services and com- munity gatherings were favorite affairs with him. This led to his participation in an event about which the country side talked for a long time. Eight families had homesteaded in a western Ohio valley and soon began to have Indian trouble. Two brothers in this group, Elija and Elisha, had a cabin by a creek, where one autumn day an Indian "pot shot" Elisha as he was working in the field. Elijah spoke of little else after this tragedy, de- clared he knew the red skin who had done it and would surely kill him. One day he did. The Indian had a brother and both were known to certain settlers. As the holiday season came around that year a neighbor gave a party in his new barn and everybody was invited. The floor was cleared so the young people could dance; by dusk the whole valley was full of the smell of venison and wild turkey meat roasting; there was corn bread and maple syrup, ground parched sweet corn mixed with wild honey rolled into bars, and wild cherry wine. A tremendous iron kettle used for soap making but now cleansed and full of thick meat and vegetable soup hung in the great fire place. Everybody sat down to enjoy a real feast. Even Elijah had come, and for once, seemed almost to be enjoying himself. Johnnie Apple- seed slipped into the barn and modestly sat himself among 62 ^and send a bond ofnnive^salLrotlierKoodl to bind all men in peace? cried Johnnie Appleseecl the cornstalks piled along the wall. About mid-evening the fiddles were taken from their flannel bags, and dance tunes were lifted up. Three Indians, 2 old ones and a young buck, all wrapped in red blankets, walked in. People never settled the question as to whether they knew Elijah was there or whether they just naturally came, as Indians usually did when they knew there was to be feasting. They stood for a while in a group near a wall with chins in their blankets. Elijah spoke to the host; — "You goin' to allow them red skins in here to your party?" The host said, "Elijah, this 63 here is a Christmas party, we dont aim to have no Indians 'round here regular, but I think seein' as how they is here already we might give them a feed of soup and corn bread and let 'em out". Elijah turned his back on the party and walked over to the door. Some thought he was going to leave, but he just stood. The heads of these 3 red skins came together, 2 of them stalked past Elijah and out the door but the young one made a quick jump toward Elijah and pulled a thin, black tomahawk from his blanket. Johnnie had risen as the bucks started to leave and now, quick as any Indian, jumped right alongside the tomahawk carrier. He raised his arm aloft, like Jehovah might have done, and began to sing-song some words; "Holy Father", bring peace to this gathering; Holy Father, send a feeling of universal brotherhood to all here at this Christmas season and bind all men together in peace". For half a minute he stood thus, looking up at the rafters seemingly held in some mysterious spell. Elijah turned and saw that tableau; — the Indian with raised tomahawk, ready to split his skull, and Johnnie with his arm raised, too, looking toward heaven. Then Johnnie suddenly turned and looked the Indian square in the eyes, neither moved for a little minute, then he reached for and took the tomahawk and stuck it back in the red blanket. He turned to the big soup kettle, picked up a smaller one near by, dipped it in and rilled it to the very brim with hot soup, using his fingers to steer in some extra good looking chunks, then he picked up a big handfull of parched sweet corn bars and stuck them in the blanket, alongside the tomahawk, handed the soup to the Indian, and the two of them walked in a very dignified way to the door. The Indian went on out, looking sort of undecided as to whether this stew was really the equal of a good murder. Turning to the host Johnnie said; — "fear not; this kettle will be back by your door very soon". And it was, and was the wife glad to get it back! The party went right on, Johnnie refrained from reciting scripture, and the evening was long remembered. In fact, after the settlement grew into a nice little town old people liked to tell of it to those who 64 would listen; how Johnnie Appleseed quieted down that Indian without saying a word. The Indians all thought Johnnie had been "touched" ; when he "put the eye" on any of them it was serious business, the Great Spirit was speaking through his eyes. After getting that look the young Indian wouldn't take a chance. In his lonesome wanderings Johnnie slept where darkness overtook him. One stormy night he crawled into one end of a large, hollow log, and bumped into a bear who had come in from the other end. Neither disturbed the other, both slept soundly, snuggled together, and at daylight departed in peace. The teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg met with Johnnie's approval and he derived great pleasure in discoursing on his visions, as recounted in the book, "Heaven and Hell". If any members of a settlers family seemed interested he loaned them a copy to be picked up on his return. When he met home- steaders who were interested but going on out of the neigh- borhood he tore pages from one of these books for them to carry west. What made him the character he was has never been settled. There were various opinions about his being "touched". Not the Indians alone thought he had been thus selected by the Great Spirit. Some of his early neighbors said he had been kicked in the head by a mule; and were sure that this had at least started him out on his life pilgrimage planting apple seeds. The night he passed from this to a better world he arrived at sunset before a settlers lonely cabin in a clearing and wearily sat himself down on the doorstep. A ripple of interest ran through the family; — that was Johnnie Appleseed out on the doorstep! The housewife brought him a bowl of bread and milk, with her welcoming greeting. Later on he drifted into the house, sat down against the wall and read the Beatitudes to his host and hostess. Then he stretched himself out on the floor and died. He died in the 1840's, in Allen County, Indiana. Like all good soldiers he has never really died ; his name and deeds remain a fair American legend in the land where he travelled and talked. 65 DIAGONAL STREET and the OLDEST HQU6E 'N GALENA ACROSS the new country settlements appeared,* some grow- xA- ing around rarely found road-side taverns, at river fords, some near frontier forts, and at favorably located places near natural resources. One of these latter appeared near the Mis- sissippi River at the north end of Illinois where early French explorers had indicated deposits of lead and other minerals. A stream first known as the Fever River flowed through sur- rounding hills and there were unlimited deposits of lead in them, because of which it became one of the earliest mid-west points of economic interest. Lead was a precious commodity on the frontier, about as precious as gold. Every owner of a rifle had to have it for bullets and it was the heaviest item to transport across wilderness trails. In this area, which soon *Travellers experienced in the dreams, pleasures and pains engendered by adventuring in new and promising lands were responsible for thousands of others back home leaving to become immigrants to the mid'west. These travellers wrote of the frontier country and the life of its inhabitants; their narratives were printed in Germany, England and the eastern United States and diligently studied. 66 The Gratiot Man became known as the Galena country, it was found every- where, in nuggets so heavy 2 men were scarcely equal to lifting them from open mine pits. Miners came there from every where, regardless of ever present Indian danger. The red men meant to keep them out at all costs. "White man never come here, this home of Great Spirit, this good medicine for red man!" said they, and put up a resolute and savage fight to make good on this threat. But nothing could keep the white man from their sacred Eden. Miners began coming seasonally, parties gathered as spring broke, journeyed to the Galena country and camped until cold weather made living difficult, frantically digging for lead, which was shipped in broadhorn boats down the Fever River to the Mississippi and south to the older settlements or to Canadian trading posts. One such large party who gathered at Fort Dearborn, left as maple trees leaved and returned just before winter time, were nicknamed "suckers," after a particularly active fresh water fish which ascends rivers in spring to spawn and returns down stream in the fall, known as suckers. Observers said 67 the fish and these Illinois miners had the same habit. People from Illinois are apt to be called "suckers" to this day. By 1810 the mining industry had increased to an annual output of 400,000 pounds. Shipping requirements were so de- manding that all types of conveyances were commandeered. Many boats were navigating the Mississippi River by 1816, engaged in carrying lead up and down the big river. Most used of early water craft were the broadhorn boats, often manned by 20 oarsmen. They could get to New Orleans in from 14 to 16 days. If they came back up stream it took them about 70 days of danger packed work. Miners came from Cornwall and Wales, and having come so far did not make their appearances seasonal, but built themselves villages quite similar to those they had left back in Europe. Mineral Point, founded in 1828, was one of these villages. Those who wanted to become rich and establish themselves among frontier lead- ing families built themselves pretentious mansions of stone, with iron grilles imported up river from distant France, and elaborate interior furnishings. Many cultural and morally con- structive organizations were first materialized in these young towns. The earliest Odd Fellows Lodge in Wisconsin, the first Methodist church and the first bank were some of them. Galena Water Front 68 Hundreds of English Virginia families with their slaves settled in this neighborhood, all engaged in the lead mining business. A treaty consummated in 1812 which seemed to assure greater safety, encouraged immigration. Indians, never- theless, perpetrated more and more dreadful acts of rapine, murder and massacre until the end of the Blackhawk war broke their strength. Then the Galena boom days began. The Kellogg Trail was opened from Peoria and Chicago, steamboats plied the big river on regular schedules between Galena and St. Paul, as many as 15 lining up along the river wharf on some days, then the railroads appeared and the dizzy, young, frontier town grew into the first mid-west metro- polis. Having wealth some citizens turned to the finer things, to the creating of an atmosphere of culture. Pre-civil war types of mansions were built on Galena hills, schools, churches, pretentious hotels and a home for the law materialized. Many illustrious personages, venturing through this mid-west frontier ventured enough to visit and have a look at this activity. General LaFayette, Dolly Madison, Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, the Prince de Joinville, scion of the House of Bourbon, were royally entertained in citizen mansions such as the Gratiot Old Spring Mill mansion, or in the sumptious DeSota House, a hotel with 200 rooms. Lincoln went there in 1852. Joseph Jefferson with his troup of actors played to aesthetically starved and crowded audiences in a temporarily transformed Stone Store building. Words can hardly describe the regrettable revels indulged in down along the river front, designed to help tired miners, lonesome trappers, gamblers and travelling adventurers while away time. These activities gave a prominence to the area quite out of harmony with the finer things going on up on the hills. Gambling, drinking, duelling, fist fighting and women, — all the enthusiasms common to the most common frontier life were vigorously practiced on the water front, as Galena established itself as a place of which some early pes- simist remarked "neither law nor the gospel can pass the rapids of the Mississippi". Then the irrepressible question of how inclusive were "states rights" and which territories and states should be free soil and which "slave states", and the civil war, absorbed the nation's interest. Although there must have been far more lead used during these sad years than the Galena businessmen could have imagined possible, their metropolitan town continued to maintain itself after the war until the lead supply in the mines became too slight to pay for the mining. Then it subsided into a pleasant little city with a puzzling eastern character. AFTER the war of 1812 a larger percentage of home- steaders began to come from middle east, and the south, good American stock, intending to work and do their part in building a brotherhood of people and states, and, incidentally, to "make a go of it". They pushed back into locations removed from the alleged safety of fortified sites, to locations where communications with the east or mid-west settlements were difficult. A group of them found a pleasant, rock-rimmed mid- Indiana valley, where some "first comer," an 1812 war veteran, had started to build a grist mill. They liked the site and bought his holdings, enlarged and completed the mill, fitting 70 it with a fine large water wheel 22 feet in diameter, and best grade grinding mill stones, imported from France, — necessary practice in the building of best mills. These great stones were brought to this country as ballast in sailing ships returning to the United States, and were in great demand, native mill stones lacking necessary sharpness and durability. After the completion of this mill homesteaders drifted in, mostly from Virginia, bringing Virginia friendliness and cuture to Indiana. They cleared land, dug wells, built houses, a church, brewery, blacksmith shop, hatter's shop, with great cauldrons for boiling hair and glue, and hat moulds, a fine tavern, and were given a post office. Their settlement is standing today, about as they constructed it. It comes near to being the mid-west Williams- burg. The buildings look different from the average log house type, larger, handsomer, with better fireplaces. They are in good repair today, the grist and saw mills oper- ating. Through the center of town flows a rippling stream with fish in it, and near by in narrow, rock rimmed canyons, lie a couple of clear lakes. Not far away are a few caves wherein live a school of blind fish. Settlements not very different from Galena, Ste. Genevieve and Spring Green sprang up, with populations drawn from the already well populated states just west of the Alleghanies. Rich soil and low cost of farm land tempted sons and daughters of yankee sailing ship captains and New England farmers. Many from this northeast part of the U. S. A. made their way to the Ohio River, boarded barges or keel boats and drifted all the way to the Falls of the Ohio, guessing where lay the river channels and pushing off mud flats. Somewhere along the course they took to overland travel, buying a yoke of oxen and wagon or joining up with some group to walk. Companies or caravans sometimes banded to hire half wild frontiersmen guides and undertook the hard and dangerous treck to the land of promise, — the Mississippi Bottoms. Fording turbulent rivers, wallowing across marshes, cutting their way through forests they barged westward and in spite of "hell and high water" reached Illinois. One of the heavily favored trails led from Detroit to Chi- 71 cago, and southwest, called the Sauk Trail. A traveller, Thomas Parker, who made this journey in 1834, stated that 80,000 immigrants had passed through Buffalo that year, to take that road west. A Detroit paper, in 1836, described the much used portions of it as resembling the route of a retreating army, so great were the number of wrecks along its course. This influx populated Kentucky, then Ohio, and overflowed into Indiana, then Illinois and Wisconsin. Up and down the Mississippi River paddled smoke-belching steam boats, going to St. Louis or Minneapolis, and up and down the Illinois, Ohio and all navigable streams went lesser craft, intent on business. But all through this wide country there still remained unconquered and proud Indian tribes, greatly disturbed by white aggression. White and red relations grew more strained as the country settled up. BEFORE the day of the white man a tribe of Indians called The Illinois possessed the mid-west. Not long after LaSalle had explored the Ohio and Mississippi River country northern tribes known as the Saux, and Fox Indians, having been de- feated by the Canadian Iroquois and expelled from their territory northeast of the Wisconsin River, came into the Illinois Indians lands, beat them in battle, remorselessly slaughtering men, women and children, and finally drove the remnant across the state into southern Michigan. In this newly conquered land they grew powerful, established and main- tained a great national life. Their territory began about where Peoria stands, ran northward to the Wisconsin River and to the Lake Michigan shore, and crossed the Mississippi into Iowa. Their capitol settlement was at the junction of the Rock and Mississippi Rivers, about where Rock Island now stands. There thousands of warriors and their families built permanent wig-wams, cultivated maize and beans, held their herds of ponies, danced, dispatched war parties, enjoyed happiness and what they thought was security. In a river-side cave resided their protector-God; on a river cliff was a lookout which became known later as Blackhawk's watch tower. They 72 e Black Hawi/War had 2 sagacious leaders, the more important being the war chief Black Hawk, the other his brother Keokuk. The latter, having watched white men move into the red man's strong- hold, survey some of it into lots and allot parcels to settlers, and being able to comprehend that the east was full of such eager and unscrupulous men, so far as Indian lands were concerned, whose determination to possess their country lying east of the big river could not be diverted, prudently moved west across the river on to lands still undisputedly Indian territory with his supporting braves. But Blackhawk listened to the English counsel; he had been allied to them before and welcomed their advice. 73 Fort Armstrong Trouble started in 1804, precipitated by a Sauk Indian, visiting in St. Louis, who got mixed up with a white man in a drunken brawl, killed him and landed in jail. Five rather important red men from their Rock River town went to buy him out, a customary proceedure, requiring a few horses only as ransom. The wicked metropolis proved too much for them also, they got drunk and signed a written agreement with United States representatives which purported to transfer the land belonging to their tribesmen to the United States. The agreement read that they were to be permitted to remain on the land as long as the Government owned it, until white settlers moved in, which, they were assured, would not be for many years. They must have been quite intoxicated to believe this. They were to receive, also, the sum of $2,000.00 annually forever. Although they had no authority whatever to sign this or any agreement for their tribes it was this docu- ment on which the whites based their warrant to take over the land. The first serious disturbance occurred in 1812, a series of small battles fought mostly along the river edge, of which the most important one became known as the battle of Camp- bell's Island. Prairie-du Chien was besieged by the British 74 Battle of the Bad Axe If » ^ and a Major Campbell with 3 loaded keel-boats left St. Louis to deliver supplies to them. Upon approaching Campbell's Island he was attacked and turned back by Indians; Prairie du Chien had to capitulate. This test of strength encouraged the red-skins in their opposition to white encroachments. The alleged agreement of 1804 was ratified in 1828. This encouraged the white men to increase surveying and selling Indian lands to new comers along the Rock River and within Indian boundary lines. More than 600 capable Indian warriors were under Blackhawk's immediate command, with arms and horses, but he was reluctant to take hostile action. He crossed over to Iowa soil and back again and again, talking things over with many friendly tribes and considering the wisest course to follow. On the eastern side of the Mississippi River the bulk of the Indians continued their fading home life, cultivating their fields even when white settlers disputed their possession. It had become evident, however, that the entire area had become too settled for them to live in. St. Louis was a large city, boats in ever increasing numbers passed up and down the rivers, the country was dotted with homesteads, villages and crossed with roads. 75 Nevertheless, in 1 829 Blackhawk told the settlers that they would all have to get out and resettle somewhere south of Rock Island. The settlers petitioned Governor Reynolds for protection and the Indians were sternly ordered to move them- selves over to the west bank of the Mississippi River. The governor concluded that things had gone so far by 1831 as to be dangerous, and issued a call for volunteers to guard the frontier. He asked General Gaines for a regular troop to help settle the Indian disputes. Fort Armstrong was strengthened with 10 companies of regular troops stationed there under command of General Atkinson. Again the Indians were ordered to leave Illinois territory. The Sauk and Fox tribes had an influential medicine man known as "The Prophet," whose frantic advice to Blackhawk to continue his opposition, because he was destined to realize a great victory, cut considerable weight. He had visions in which he saw Blackhawk expelling the white men from Indian lands. It took quite a long time for the bitter crisis to materia- lize; things drifted along until 1832. That spring Blackhawk and his adherents, who were in Iowa, crossed back to Illinois, Blackhawk declaring that they had returned to their fields to raise their corn crops, as had their fathers. Numbers of volunteers and army troops gathered to oppose them. At Still- man's Run Blackhawk sent a group of Indians under a white flag of truce to parley with the soldiers who fired on them, killing three. The Indians then attacked and routed the solders. This further reassured the Indians of the possibility for a per- manent victory. Like unchained fiends they, and their neigh- bors the Winnebagoes and Pottawattomies, rushed to the war path, pillaging the entire frontier, murdering many families and scaring the whole mid-west as it had never been scared before. About that time another encounter favored the Indians. Captain Stephenson with a small body of troops unexpectedly met a red-skin raiding party at Kellog's Grove and were re- pulsed. This stirred white settlers more than it did the red men. From Duluth to Cairo, from the banks of the big river to the great lakes, every white settlement lived in terror, many 76 towns built fortifications, every homesteader dreaded the pos- sibilities each day held of terror and rapine. General Winfield Scott with a thousand regulars was ordered west. Young Abe Lincoln volunteered and marched away from New Salem. A strong force starting from Dixon, moved slowly along the east bank of the Rock River and after a few skirmishes and much tramping across the country brought the Indians to a final stand a few miles from the Wisconsin River and gave them a severe beating. Blackhawk's chief lieutenant, Neapope, asked for mercy without success. In August of 1832 Blackhawk and his now half starved band reached the Mississippi south of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, near where the Bad Axe River flows into it, anxious only to cross to the west bank and forget their hopes of holding Illinois Indian lands. Before this could be done the wildly excited soldiers came up to them, for whom nothing but a battle was acceptable. No discussion was permitted; a slaughter ensued that lasted 3 hours. In this Indian Dunkirk, known as the battle of the Bad Axe, fell the last of the mid-west Indian chivalry. 1 50 braves were killed, many more drowned in trying to swim the Mississippi, a large but unascertained number were wounded, only 50 taken prisoners. Almost all the squaws and children were killed. 17 white men were killed and 12 wounded in this "campaign". On the western bank the inveterate enemies of the Saux and Fox tribes, the northern Iroquois had gathered, waiting for Blackhawk's Indians. They practically annihilated the wretched remnant. Blackhawk and his son were taken from the Winnebagoes with whom they had sought refuge and the fallen leader given in charge of his old associate and co-chief Keokuk, which he did not like at all. Later he was granted a small piece of ground on the Des Moines River, in Davis County, Iowa, where in 1838 he died, 72 years old. Mid-westerners needed little time to realize that for them the Indian question was settled. They let hastily built forts fall to pieces and no longer kept their long barrelled rifles near to hand as they set about grubbing out stumps. 77 AGITATION for better roads, for canals and rail transpor- l tation began immediately. There were many other vital questions to meet and answer ; which town was to become the state capitol, should Illinois remain a free soil territory or lega- lize slavery, where was money coming from to pay state debts or for improvements, and what must be done with a strange sect of religious fanatics who had migrated from Missouri into the state and called themselves Mormons? The legislature bravely tackled these and more problems. In 1837 they voted a $5,850,000.00 bond issue for transportation purposes, truly an act of faith, for the entire taxable wealth of the state was $58,889,525.00. A nation wide panic held up this planned expenditure before much was accomplished, but a railroad line, with track, engine and train of cars went into operation on the state owned so-called Northern Cross section of a large system which contemplated the building of a main line be- tween Galena and Cairo and 2 shorter, transverse, lines to serve as feeders, of which the Northern Cross was one. Rails were made of strap iron, which farmers sometimes appro- priated for wagon tires, train schedules were unreliable and unkeep costs all out of proportion to the returns from opera- tions. After while this "going" portion of the big plan was leased to private parties and passed into oblivion. In spite of the surprisingly large amount of railroad and water transportation the traffic on cross country dirt roads increased right along with it. Across great stretches of prairie* through sloughs and forests, newly made country hiways carried thousands of travellers and tons of freight. North- eastern Illinois was particularly badly off for good roads, few having been surveyed in the area above Peoria, because it was largely an unsettled tract. The vital pikes connecting Milwaukee with the Mississippi River towns and those grow- ing up around the foot of Lake Michigan, the Green Bay pike, the Southwest Highway and most of the old Sauk Trail were among those most used and close to impassible in spring time. When bottom lands were flooded their courses could hardly be discerned. Representatives of Cook and adjoining counties got together in 1840 to deal with the problem of 78 The Pirst R too much water, too much mud. One of the roads leading westward to Barry's Point and Naperville was pronounced to be the worst, and was selected to be the first for improving. The grade was raised 2/2 feet above the prairie by digging 2/2 foot deep ditches along its sides under the illusion that this raised surface would remain free of water, which was supposed to drain into and off through the ditches and make the road servicable. Alas, this did not happen. A contemporary traveller in writing of his experience in travelling this "im- proved" road stated "the mud seemed several inches deeper on the road-bed than on the prairie; — human ingenuity could not have invented a more detestable highway ; once committed to travelling on it there is no escape off to the sides, save at the peril of life itself". 79 At this critical time the voice of Canada's governor, who had travelled in Russia, made itself heard. While among the Muscovites he had noticed that they used heavy planking on dirt roads after they were graded, and he introduced this method of mud control in Canada. There it was reported to be a satisfactory solution. Mired eastern cities heard of it and hoping the reports were true gave it a trial. A furor for plank roads swept the east and then western settled areas. In 1848 contracts were let for changing Berry's Point pike to a plank road. The first section was to be 10 miles long, 8 feet wide and cost $10,000.00. It cost a 4 horse vehicle .37/2C, a single team .25c and a single rider 12c to traverse its glamorous length. The feeder roads to this pike were as bad as ever, but the entire countryside drove over or through them to patronize the new, first, plank road. In the first month of its existence it did a $15,000.00 business. Within a few years Chicago and its neighboring towns built many more plank roads. They reached to St. Charles, Oswego and Little Rock, Naperville and Sycamore, and out along the old Oak Ridge road to Dutchman's Point, (now known as Niles) and on toward Wheeling. The famous Green Bay Road to Milwaukee became a plank road, as did the Vincennes Trace, called Hubbard's Trace as it approached Chicago and the State Road as it came into town. They were made, pre- ferably, of 3 inch oak planks laid on heavy stringers and it was supposed they would last for about 10 years. The reality did not bear out this hope. Built by private enterprise, on state issued permits, they returned enormous dividends. Stockholders reaped profits of from 10 to 20 per cent. But it was found that on flooded prairies the entire road would float off from its grade, also, that the fills of ancient water holes gave way under heavy traffic and the planks covering such spots broke and sank into the mire. Within a year or so many of them developed these bad holes so plentifully as to make traffic over them very difficult. Farmers were asked to work out their road tax by filling them with rocks but these stone fills sank unevenly, the large rocks stayed on top and the road remained 80 Travel rovedTlank Rbads CNT Of EMIGRANTS M**M fconnHm*** 'n 5EWU PICTOPML HISIMIYif *t l/MTtOSTW dangerously pitted. The cost of replacing missing planks ran high, and most of the road companies earnings, although also high, had been paid to delighted stockholders. The road com- panies found themselves without sufficient funds for main- tenance. Plank roads may be said to have flourished for not over 15 years. In some areas they lasted longer and mostly became toll roads. Then as time brought its changes it was discovered that good roads depended largely on improved conditions in the country through which they ran. Where marshes were drained into farm land, forests cut, prairies ditched and creeks bridged well tended dirt roads did pretty well. More funds went into their building and maintenance, as towns served by them became able to undertake the costs and as prosperous farms yielded higher tax totals. Towns paved their main thoroughfares with field stones, then paving brick, then cedar block paving was tried, laid on smooth sand base and inter- stices filled with tar. An interesting side development which accompanied road building, particularly plank roads, were covered bridges. They had existed long before they appeared in the mid-west. They 81 seem to have always been in the old world. Famous examples over there are the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy and the Kappelbrucke, or Chapel Bridge, in Lucerne, Switzerland, this latter built in 1333. Both are still in use. Thousands were built here throughout New England and the east, usually on important old highways which in time often became alternate or even forgotten thoroughfares, the covered bridges were pro- nounced unsafe, blocked off, auctioned off, and torn down for the wonderful walnut beams inside of them. Some have been saved for sentimental reasons. One dating back to 1 854, bridg- ing Little Mary's River, near Chester, Indiana, is in this ignominious class. It was approached over a plank road, which was replaced by a crowned gravel one, then a modern Hiway, ILL. 150, took away almost all the traffic, and the structure was "put on ice", preserved in a small public park, for visitors to wonder at. There is another near the Cape Girardeau Mill- ing Company's feed mill in the Missouri village of Burford- ville, an 80 foot long Howe type, truss bridge, which has also been "eliminated" by the construction of a hard surfaced highway, leaving the bridge to dream what ever dreams it may be able to hang on to. Another old one went into oblivion in a glory crash, on the 10th of July, 1946, down at Laird, Kentucky. It was very old even then and had been in active service since 1870. The entire town watched its gradual de- composition, brought on by old age, with keen concern. Until 30 minutes before it collapsed with a mighty roar they were passing back and forth across it, it being the only serviceable means for reaching the town distillery. It is hard to give a convincing answer to the query, why were covered bridges built? Country roads converged on them because travellers passed over on them instead through the streams they bridged, but it seems a lot of trouble to erect a substantial covering over them when so sound a footing has been supplied beneath. One service they rendered; their im- mediate approaches and interior walls were desirable spots for nailing up and displaying all sorts of public announce- ments and advertisements. From them might have been gained a pretty good idea of what interested people those days. There 82 were announcements of public auctions, election notices, county fairs, plowing contests, neighborhood dances, lithographed advertisements of tobaccoes, sarsaparillas, Kickapoo Indian remedies, Swamp-Root cure-alls, corn cures, newest wrinkles in plows and stallions at stud. These were precursors of modern advertising. When the usefulness of covered bridges waned advertisers took to painting their display lines on farmer's field fence boards, when barb wire drove out board fencing they erected great display bill-boards which even today deface our land. Covered bridges came in handy as shelters where love-sick swains and their sweeties repaired to spend summer evening hours. Dubious characters some times made them their rendezvous. Many a stage coach was held up on the old bridge near Chester and it was said that several murders had occurred there. Now and then evidence of murder was hidden away among the rafters, and discouraged men re- paired there to throw a hempen rope over some shadowy beam and shuffle off, out of this dim world. These old bridges had an authentic odor of dried dirt and manure and an air of friendly protectiveness. Such homelike 83 qualities once nearly got a farmer into trouble. Having sold a load of produce and indulged in a little celebrating before returning home he arrived about dark at the entrance to a covered bridge. Thinking it was his barn door he unhitched his team, gave each horse a slap on its rump and told it to go to its stall. He then decided to wait a while and let the effects of his indulgence wear off before encountering his wife, and crawled back into the wagon box and fell asleep. His horses wandered home, a distance of two miles, showing up about sunrise. This alarmed his good wife who aroused the neighbors who ran across their neighbor, still asleep, in his wagon box. Several methods were developed for successfully building these bridges some of which were patented. There was the Howe Truss style, the Horace Childes truss, the Long patent and the Town method. Bridges built for two-way traffic or even for foot passengers were known as "double barrel" ones. Now and then some community caused an elaborate Y-shaped bridge to be built where two rivers met. From 1840 on railroads made great headway. Enormous quantities of produce and lumber were awaiting shipment from Michigan and many mid-west points to prairie areas where new towns and farms were springing up and to border- ing shipping points for national distribution. New railroads, extensions of the limited trackage already being used and the 84 OH HOWE TRUSS SHElBY COUNT* iu.about3m;.n.i.o» tCWN OtCOWDON. tMCUD ABOUT 18V amplifying of construction to expedite railroad business, sup- ported by plenty of freely invested capital, soon covered the mid-west. In 1850 the Illinois Central, helped by government land grants, pushed their lines through from Chicago to Cairo, and went into a quite extensive land business selling acreage along their right of way for $2.00 an acre; then the North- western, Wabash, Burlington and others established lines. Some of them promoted new towns on their right of ways and asked financial support from already established cities in exchange for coming through them. Some cities refused to consider this, a decision which retarded their growth. Knox- ville, Illinois, which was the county seat of Knox County, had a college and a southern gentlemen's culture, did not encourage the Burlington road to come through their town, the Yankee village of Galesburg did every thing to induce them to come through theirs, subscribed for its securities, succeeded, got the Burlington car barns, a college, and finally the county seat. Grand Detour on the Rock River was not keen about getting a railroad, the trucking service seemed amply able to transport the fine farm implements made there. Dixon did want the railroad and got it, the implement works 85 Early Bailioad Days moved to Moline, leaving the charming river town of Grand Detour in possesssion of a highly regarded hotel and restaurant which burned. Bourbonnaise, one of the oldest French towns in Indiana, did not want the Illinois Central railroad to disturb its pleasant quiet, Kankakee did and became a business center, Bourbonnaise remained quiet. AS roads came into being, with their coverage bridges, serv- xl- ing towns and prosperous settlements, there also sprang up throughout the country the old-time road house. Before stage coaches added their note of sophistication to mid-west travel those who travelled in the scarcely organized country were strictly on their own. As darkness fell, whether they were walking, on horseback, in an ox-drawn wagon or more brisk private conveyance, they all began to worry about where they 86 Taverns andTjgyel in ihe Earty^Days were going to sleep that night. In summer they worried about mosquitoes and in winter about freezing. It was an almost universally observed rule-of-the-road that travelling people were welcome for the night in every pioneer home. These cabins usually were two-room log structures, warmed by a fireplace, with perhaps an extra bunk. Privacy was unknown, food was elemental, hospitality and friendliness abounding. Presently the first road houses appeared; not much more elaborate than the homesteader's cabin, services not better, — maybe not quite so good, — but on a professional basis. In these simple hostelries itinerants upon retiring tried to ignore the characters, snoring as they slept, bedded alongside their cot, and thankfully buried themselves beneath heavy buffalo robes, lying on rope woven, pole bunk beds; seldom were the rooms heated. Their horses or oxen fared as well, sheltered beneath sod roofed sheds. 87 Early tavern keepers were content with remarkably low charges to patrons. At one tavern of record the weeks charge for food and lodging was $2.00. Even at that price travellers sometimes tried to beat their bills, and so small was the margin between profit and loss that in at least one instance the pro- prietor, learning that some rascally guest had left owing him seventy-five cents decided that "that did it," and went out of business. Althought the bills were low the accomodations were not so much, either. Perhaps the most disconcerting of inconveniences, common in backwoods taverns, to which even the most prominent guests were subject, was the complete lack of privacy. Travel- lers of both sexes and all conditions of life were assigned bunks alongside each other. Sometimes as a concession to vague proprieties, to separate men from women, the host stretched a cord across the room and hung a sheet over it. With whiskey selling throughout the countryside at about 20c the gallon it was hard to be sure of the night-time behavior of neighbor bedfellows. The common road experiences, inti- mate nearness to other sleeping travellers, the necessity of preparing ones own bed, the watching and listening to action- packed bar-rooms full of happy frontiersmen loading up on corn likker lent a not always welcome zest to early time tavern nights. A far-from-home European traveller in 1819 recorded the sleeping accomodations he got in an Illinois tavern. "Each had to prepare his own bed upon the floor, a matter regard- ing which none of the natives seemed to care". Another in 1841 recorded his dissatisfaction with the way he was treated in Kaskaskia. The landlord, a county judge, a surveyor and three guests came in after he had gone to sleep and began playing cards. Another transient applying for a night's lodgings at a log roadhouse thought himself lucky because he was given a real mattress equipped bed and a blanket. In his dreams he heard roosters crowing. Waking early he saw not only several large roosters perched on the head and foot boards of his bed but also a good many hens who had been forced to use chair backs for roosts. In this the landlord saw nothing 88 A Lod£in£ fcr the Mdht amiss; he did not have enough chicken coops to take his excess fowls and therefore had to make use of the guest room. The luck of the road, which concerned all travellers, in- cluded situations even worse than those connected with re- tiring in public and sleeping with chickens. A large percentage of such frontier hostelries and many more hide-outs and strongholds were maintained by robber landlords, bandits, highwaymen and worse, expressly for the despoiling of itinerant strangers. The Rock River valley had its villians, and because of them a band of more worthy but no less rough citizens, called regulators, who tried to control them. Ogle County was infested with horse thieves, to the extent that those who wanted their horses when they awakened in the morning spent the night with them in their stalls, and the Ogle County better element organized an Ogle County Lynching Club. East of Calumet City and Michigan City were bad areas through which informed strangers hurried, so that night would not fall and catch them there. Hardin County, then as now hard 89 to get along with, sheltered a notorious gang of dangerous and remorseless bandits and murderers led by the notorious Harpe brothers. The district in which they operated quickly gained the reputation of being the most dangerous for travel- lers. It was near a strange natural formation known as "Cave- in Rock," located on a bend in the lower Ohio River. Com- mencing as early as 1823 and continuing on down as late as 1879 this district remained the rendezvous for a strong gang of river pirates, cattle thieves, despoilers of farms and robbers of travellers. It was called "Hell-on-the Ohio". Much early travel was between Louisville, St. Louis, Shawnee Town, Vin- cennes, and the older southern Mid-west settlements and re- spectability was no defense against the necessity of passing over both safe and dangerous stretches of highway. In the year 1830 a Kentucky merchant, his wife, tall young son and body servant left their Georgetown home for St. Louis, driving over the highway leading to Fort Massac, hoping to reach there before nightfall. The end of a wind-torn, rain swept, autumn day had come and night was falling, their sturdy, high wheeled carriage, drawn by mud spattered horses, was laboriously progressing over a bad pike road, the driver alternately urging the tired horses forward or grabbing for the iron seatrail to keep from being tossed into some mud hole. Through the dusk he saw a flash of light. Taking heart and pushing his team to greater effort he pulled up before a strange looking road house bearing the sign "POTT'S TAVERN". Out came a heavy shouldered, bewhiskered proprietor who invited them to enter and share such hospitality as his poor establishment could offer. On such a night what choice had the poor travellers? The driver un- hooked the horses and led them to the shelter which was to be his as well, the travellers, accepting the timely invitation, entered the tavern, there to spend the night. Guttering candles revealed a heavy-raftered room, log walls, chinked with clay, puncheon floor, rude homemade tables and chairs, beyond were other rooms, in one of which a group of shabby, noisy men were disputing over the division of some unseen com- modity. The host, Mr. Potts, hastened to disperse these 90 The Gang at Pg&kJ^vgm characters with a few sharp words, then, with outstretched hands and kind words told the tired wayfarers they might shortly expect to have a dinner of roast duck and wild rice, washed down with good corn liquor, and afterwards a good bed, of corn husks, to be sure, but deep and soft, with blankets of buffalo fur. "I will now," said he, "stow your baggage away in this closet room, where it will be safe until morning, while you sleep and rest against your tomorrow's rough journey". This was in accordance with what they had hoped for and what their host had said they might expect, and presently the travellers, dismissed earlier and apparently un- founded suspicions, asked for their sleeping quarters and retired, the merchant and his wife in one room and their son, with the servant to another, somewhat removed. Heavy 91 drowsiness had fallen over the entire party, except the wife, who had thought it wiser not to taste the colorless distillation offered by the host. She had noted with some uneasiness that those men who had been bickering in a back room at the time her family had arrived, had returned and gathered in a far corner evi- dently hoping to be un-noticed and awaiting some develop- ment. Her husband had fallen asleep immediately, his breath- ing sounded unnatural and labored, she became aware, also, of her son's heavy breathing in the adjoining room to which he and the servant had retired. This caused her some un- easiness and yet, as there was nothing definite with which to fortify her alarm she lay quietly, listening to the raging storm and to all those mysterious sounds which often fill the ears of sleepless travellers in strange places. But presently she heard sounds more definite and sinister; low, urgent, whispered sen- tences, smothered exclamations and curses; rustling sounds which might be made by the dragging of bundles across creak- ing floors. Unable to longer withstand the suspicions they aroused she went to her husband's side and tried to awaken him. He seemed unable to arouse himself. A sudden terror seized her, she resolved to hasten to her son and tell him her fears. She was stopped at the entrance to his room by the dead body of her servant; her son's couch was empty but a broken window frame seemed to indicate that he might have gone through that opening to the outdoors. In terrible panic she now returned to her husband to tell him what she had found, and by great effort brought him from his heavy sleep. He became aware of her presence, "What," said he, "has happened to me? I feel as tho' a thousand cannons were ex- ploding in my head !" She whispered the tragedy of the servant and their son: he found his long-barrelled, flint lock pistol and went on staggering feet into the courtyard. There he encountered a group of fighting struggling men. His appear- ance and the pistol he carried influenced 3 of them to hurriedly leave, those remaining were his son and his driver. Their torn clothes and bloodied bodies gave evidence of a terrific struggle. Mr. Potts joined the party at that moment, wringing his 92 hands in dismay and exclaiming in surprise. "What have we here? Why this fighting in my peacable abode? Have I taken a party of brawling roughs into my home? What do ye here, — at this time o' night, fighting and crying out?" Shaking his fist in the face of the confused merchant he indignantly con- tinued: — "Cannot a man offer his house as a refuge to way- farers, without paying for it by having to squelch murderin' midnight brawls? I will call my sons and drive ye from my place!" The merchant's son, somewhat recovered from the life and death struggle in which he had been engaged, interrupted. "Ha ! these words from you ! A moment ago I saw my servant murdered, I heard someone whisper in the dark, 'Thats enough for him; get 'tother one now! we'el toss 'em in the river before we go after 'tother couple!' I waited no longer; I jumped through a window, came here to get help from our driver, and what do I find? He, too, as was I, is fighting for his life". Fortunate he was to have awakened in time, the murderers were attacking his driver when he reached him. The two had been able to parry the savage asault of Mr. Pott's murderous accomplices until the merchant's timely arrival. With baggage ravished, their gold misplaced, clothing despoiled and torn, the merchant and his party collected their remaining belong- ings, had their carriage readied and indignantly left early the next morning. Mr. Potts had become a sympathetic and outraged host, unable to account for the past nights violence or the loss of the gold. In those days towns were far apart, the administration of law limited and ineffective, roads hard to travel, conditions tended to shield the renegade. There was no recourse open to the merchant for his adventure at Pott's tavern. As roads were improved and both passenger and freight traffic grew these conditions came somewhat under control. ONE of the earliest evidence of this improved condition was the establishment of the first stage coach lines. Such re- markable service, placed at the disposal of travellers who then 93 did not need to hire or own a private conveyance, rapidly gained in favor, and soon several efficient stage coach lines were operating over the important roads. The Government gave them mail carrying contracts, which helped financially, and competition between the lines became strong. In 1836 a man who was to become a stage coach monopolist, by name, Mr. Frink, moved to Chicago and there set up his stage coach line and in "true-to-form" Chicago style went after the busi- ness. He fought all rival lines and seems to have been com- pletely successful. His line was known as the Walker & Frink Stage Lines. Their coaches started from a shanty-like building located in the heart of Chicago at the corner of Lake and Clark streets. One by one he brought rival lines under his control until his various itineraries covered about 1,000 miles, going from Chicago to Galena, Milwaukee and long distances south, west and east. Occasionally his stages would encounter one of some other company's on the highroad and the two would race to their destination. Mr. Frink's orders were definite, his drivers were to not spare whip, horses or passengers but to be sure to come in first. This sometimes injured a pas- senger or so or a horse or two, but stablemen could bring cripples in to the barns only at night so no one would suspect One-tiraeXspadHo Standing onHiWay N0.34 Once aWalkeriOIiink Stage CoachStop 94 that Walker & Frink stages ever had troubles: History saith not how the mained passengers were taken care of. Roads were exceedingly rough and at times even Walker & Frink stage coaches jolted passengers severely. Some trips became so un- pleasant or even dangerous that many passengers preferred to alight and walk a few miles, letting the coach driver solve the road troubles and catch up with them. Stage coach travel continued to increase through 1850. There is standing today alongside Route No. 34 in the suburban village of Fullersburg, an old building that once was a Walker and Frink roadhouse and used by them for a night's stop when road conditions were so bad that they could go no further. It was built on an ancient Indian trail later taken over by the Cook County Board and made into one of the earliest highways. It threaded its way from Chicago across Mud Lake (the Chicago Portage) to a Sac Indian village on the Des Plaines River. At Fullersburg this highway divided, one arm went to Plainfield, the other southwest to Ottowa. It was turned into a plank road about 1830. The first stage coach west of Chicago traversed this road on January 1, 1834 and was supposed to reach Naperville that first day. On account of bad roads it succeeded in getting no further than to the roadhouse at Fullersburg. Beyond Fullersburg ran an Indian boundary line, marking the "Indian country" from the lands which had been ceded to the whites. At just about this point, on the bank of a tributary of the DuPage River, known as Salt Creek, about 1838 a man built a mill. It was replaced in 1847 by the one now there which is called the Grahe Mill. This rather vener- able structure has been repaired and is again grinding out corn meal. Flour from this grist-mill could be delivered into the Chi- cago market in two days where it brought $3.00 per barrel. 95 GraheMiH NearFullersburg IN 1851 the Great Southwestern Plank Road was extended to Naperville and stopped right before the doors of one of the most famous and finest examples of an old time Illinois hostelry. Some nights fifty Conestoga Wagons would pull up there for the night ; stages made it their night stop-over tavern. 96 The DuPage River ran before its plaza down which many grain barges floated, and their crews always stayed the night. Boatmen and stage drivers nourished a hot feud, which re- ceived its most satisfactory work-outs right in the long, walnut panelled bar-room. This old tavern was pulled down in 1949 because no one could think up any way to make it pay for its upkeep. It was known throughout the state, in earlier days, as the Pre-Emption House, and this is how it got its name. When this country was new the nearest land office where homesteaders could file claims for land was at Peoria. They were allowed to select and hold land under a plan called pre- empting it until they could go to the Peoria land office and file a proper claim. When the Inn was built many of its patrons were pre-emptors, and it became known as the Pre- Emption House. Homeseekers crowded into Naperville so fast before the Inn was built that Joseph Napier, who with about 40 other "free born" men, women and children had pioneered the town, said to George Laird, a neighbor, "What we've got to Pre-Emption House 97 have here is a hotel, and right off! So many settlers and land speculators are coming here that they are getting to be as big a nuisance as the Indians". Mr. Laird agreed, and in 1834 they, with John Stevens, built the Pre-Emption House. In 1839 the first district election was held there, at which Naper- ville was established as the county seat. The old hotel had one unique distinction, Abraham Lincoln never slept there; — but Stephen A. Douglas did. Before its door thousands of dusty, perhaps discouraged homesteaders have "geed" and "whoad" their oxen and hurried inside where good corn likker could be had at a marvellous walnut bar. The building was composed of two wings. The ceilings were low, doors had two panels with oval topped glass. In those days life was somewhat different than today. Men out on the frontier worked hard and continuously to gain and enjoy the benefits of eastern civilization, among which was the getting of a good wife and a family. One young man, the records show, succeeded in realizing at least the latter part of this program. Pre-Emption House had not yet become a reality and, following the custom of the country, he stopped at a log cabin, asked for food and overnight lodging, and at supper encountered the house owner's daughter, fell in love with her on sight, and next morning asked her father if he could marry her. The old man knew of no reason why he couldn't, but thought the girl should be spoken to about it first. She refused, giving as the reason her conviction that no girl should marry any man she did not know. The young man admitted a certain amount of good sense to this notion, said he would try again in two weeks, and hurried away. In two weeks he returned riding a fine pony and leading another, with a marriage license, for which he had travelled to Peoria, the nearest point where it might be had. This time the young lady thought she knew him well enough to marry him, so she did. They rode off into the forest and for a bed that night they had the forest floor. They were happy from the first and had many children. Then came the Blackhawk War. It is told that the great Indian himself visited an Indian living not far from Naper- 98 ville, on the Fox River, and tried to get him to join with the other rebelling red-skins, but the Fox River Indian was friendly with the white people and sent his young son that night through the forest to warn the settlers and tell them to flee to safety. The news and warning threw the Naperites into a turmoil. They got their ponies and oxen, children and some goods together, and early the next morning left for Fort Dearborn. Before they stopped that day they were safely within the Fort's heavy log walls. But the two families of Messrs. Bailey and Davis failed to leave in time and were massacred. The Naperites banded together and went over to bury them. Shortly thereafter they built a fort where General Scott and a body guard of twelve men stopped one night, en route to the Indian battle front. But the fort quickly fell into disuse; things were moving so fast in the rich, flat lands around Naper- ville that the citizens wouldn't bother with this Indian war. It was already too out-dated to be interesting except for frightening children! Schools were going up in Naperville, and colleges and churches, and roads were cutting the wilder- ness into sections. Business was growing by leaps and bounds — why, in 1856 the Jones Plows Works, of Naperville, built and sold 2,500 Jones plows, the best plows made. After the Civil War had ended the Naperites and their neighbors indulged in a little war of their own. They fought over where the county seat was to remain. One night there was an exciting raid, staged by the Wheatonites, who scrambled into the Naperville Court House through a treacherously unbarred window and tried to steal the County records. They were driven off and what records were left were hustled to Chicago for safe keeping, where they burned in the Chicago Fire. Wheaton won a court fight and became the County Seat of DuPage County. The Naperites do not seem to have thought it was important, the empty Court House building was torn down and a business building put up where it had stood. 99 THE country became very well stocked with road-side taverns, of which every traveller said it must have been his luck to have encountered the worst, and to each, as darkness was falling and his back aching from the jouncing given it in the stage coach as it lurched in to and out of the pot holes in the road his heart went out in gratitude because it looked from the stage to promise unmoving rest overnight. One of the most famous of them all, maintained out on the northwest fringe of the little town of Chicago, was converted into a tavern from a log-house by the owner Mark Beaubien. Chi- cago had a population of 3,265 in 1835, in 1836 there were 4,170; a good location for a tavern! Beaubien saw and grasped the opportunity almost before it had chrystallized. In the year 1831 he opened the Sauganash Tavern, a name he gave it in honor of his Indian friend "Billy Caldwell", who was called "Sauganash" by everybody. Stock raisers and farmers driving their stock in to town from the north or west liked the location. It became the most popular, best known hostelry in the district. Beaubien by himself was enough it make it popular. He was a big, jovial, friendly man, who Sauganash Tavern 100 seems to have treated guests casually and made up for it by feeding them royally and playing his fiddle for them as often as they wished. In fact he seems to have virtually fiddled himself into the hearts of all his guests and into the early history of Chicago. Of his manner in accommodating his guests with beds he commented; — "I had no beds, but when a traveller came for lodging I gave him a place on the floor to be on and a blanket to cover him, and told him to look out or an Indian would come and steal it. Then, when he got asleep I took the blanket away carefully and had it ready for the next man who came". >Va±e£ JTransp or tatiori IN the earliest days the most reliable method of transpor- tation was over navigable rivers; the disadvantage of such service being that they served only areas through which they ran. For a long time the country found them adequate, for the mid-west has many fine river-ways, chief among them being the turbulent Wisconsin, the Chippewa, the Fox, the Wolf, the Rock, the Illinois, the Kaskaskia, the Ohio and Wabash. Up and down this network, for about a century and a 101 half, went the bateau, keel-boat and broad-horn, carrying supplies in and furs, farm products, salt, & ores out. These broad-horn boats, of which there were hundreds, were usually built by their crews on the river banks. They were from 60 to 100 feet long by 20 wide, depending on what waters they were intended to navigate. Their gunwales were hewn from giant yellow poplar trees, to a thickness of 8 inches by 3 feet in width. Cabin walls rose about 3 feet above the gunwales, and a deck-wide roof and rough cabin house gave shelter and protection from Indian river-edge attacks. These were of rather common occurrence, the boats being able to travel only in daylight, were moored alongside the shore at night and many times were beset by skulking red-skins ambushed on the shore and waiting to send arrows into the hides of visible crewman or passenger. The steering sweeps, sometimes 40 feet long, were given in charge of really strong and ex- perienced river pilots. Four men to row, shove, load and un- load, a cabin-cook and general roustabout boy, with a boss in charge, made up the crew.* Trade in ores, corn, pork, salt, bacon, lard in kegs, venison, hams, navy beans and dried fruits, with or without passengers comprised a cargo. Lincoln grew up on Illinois rivers. First he was a ferry-man on a flat-boat which took travellers across the Ohio River, then he piloted a barge down the Sangamon and Illinois Rivers from Salem to Beardstown, and twice he was given charge of barges loaded with Illinois merchandise for the ocean port of New Orleans. Packet boats with masts and sails appeared after the flat- boats. They were slow, clumsy craft, offering bulk for carrying large loads. When they reached New Orleans they usually were sold and the crews had to tramp the thousand miles, back to the mid-west, or if they were scheduled to bring back their boat loaded they laboriously poled, pulled and *One of these river men, past 70 years in age declared," I could carry, paddle, walk and sing with any man I ever saw. I have been 24 years a canoe man, and 41 years in service; no portage was ever too long for me. Fifty songs could I sing. I have saved the lives of 10 voyageurs. Have had 12 wives and 6 running dogs. I spent all my money in pleasure. Were I young again, I should spend my life the same way over. There is no life so happy as a voyageur's life. From LAKE SUPERIOR, by James H. Baker Minnesota Historical Coll. 102 AbootTime for -flue Packet to Leave \M sculled the craft up stream, watching out for river pirates, who took over as the Indian ambushers faded from the shores of the big river. None of these boats adequately took care of the tremendous and steadily growing shipping which traversed the waterways. Canals had effectively served in Europe and in the eastern states. The Erie Canal was the earliest and did the greatest eastern business. One or more canals were dug in Ohio, then they appeared in Illinois. In 1827 Congress granted alternate sections of land along a 5 mile strip on either side of a proposed canal to connect Lake Michigan with water running into the Mississippi. Hard times prevented the realization of this plan for several years, then the Illinois-Michigan canal was authorized, and was opened to traffic in 1848, with acclaim; military bands, parades, community holidays, picnics, fire- works and the discharging of cannon. The initial trip was from Lockport to Chicago, and the "General Thornton," a freight barge, loaded with New Orleans sugar, followed. The 103 canal caused a revolution in mid-west commerce, and also in travel. Its effectiveness largely reversed the direction of ship- ments, which had gone down the big river to the Gulf, and presently turned the settlement of Chicago into an important shipping center. Passenger traffic got the idea that canal boat travel was more pleasant than travel by stage coach; in fact it came to be considered a rather "classy" thing to indulge in. The Illinois-Michigan packet canalboats inaugurated a "snazzy" passenger service, called the Red and Green Packet Line. The description left by a "de-luxe" passenger of a trip from Chicago to LaSalle on one such boat, the "Queen of the Prairies", does not quite bear out this claim. This boat had a cabin 50 feet long by 9 feet wide; 90 passengers ate, slept and refreshed themselves within this space, their luggage was stored on the cabin roof under tarpaulins. They travelled at the rate of five miles per hour, supper was served shortly after leaving Chicago, after which male passengers had to go on deck while the cabin was transformed into a sleeping room. 50 berths appeared, beds for 20 more were spread on the floor and one end of the cabin was curtained off for women. Besides the beds there were three rows of wall bunks on each side of the cabin. Being a stranger in the west the nar- rator was politely offered first choice of sleeping quarters. He awakened stiff and sore, convinced all choices would be insufferable. In those days night air was thought to be un- healthy, so all windows had been closed and he had a head ache. He beat his associates to the deck, and made his ablu- tions, using a water bucket. The "Queen of the Prairies" reached the junction of the DesPlaines and Kankakee Rivers about breakfast time, docked at Morris by 9 a.m. and tied up at LaSalle at 6 o'clock that night. Although the boats may or may not have been "de luxe" they hired distinguished bows-men, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, William McKinley and James Garfield; — each once worked as packet-boat bows-men. The packet boat held this high place in river and canal navigation for years, but took second place to a more impres- 104 sive successor, the great "side-wheeler" river boat. The first of these steamers appeared in 1817, christened "New Orleans", followed promptly by the "Zebulon M. Pike," which, in a manner characteristic of Yankee enterprise, had become the first boat of its class able to navigate the Mississippi up to St. Louis. They were clumsy, paddle wheel boats and burned quantities of logs, for which they made frequent stops to load up. They, nevertheless, inaugurated an era of romance and wonder in mid-west life. On the Ohio River one night in the year 1825 the Illustrious Frenchman, LaFayette, travelling in company of Illinois Governor Coles, came near meeting death. His steamer, the "Mechanic" struck a snag and rapidly sank. LaFayette fell overboard while trying to get into a small boat, lost all his personal belongings and $8,000.00 and was saved with great difficulty. By 1828 big river steamboats were taking a large share of river trade which had grown tremendously, and St. Louis, Rock Island, Dubuque, Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi and Naples, Havana, Meredosia, Beardstown, Peoria, Peru, Morris, LaSalle and Ottowa on the Illinois had become river traffic trade centers. These boats were powered with strong engines and heavy water wheels, and traveled with safety and speed. By 1840 they were carrying out regularly scheduled trips between Peoria and St. Louis. The more pretentious boats introduced the first formalities to simple mid-west travel habits; — hungry passengers who could not appear at dining salons wearing coats to cover their shirt sleeves were not admitted, and no passengers were permitted to climb in bed with boots on. The large boats made about 50 trips each season, carrying from 75 to 100 passengers, it took 5 days for a one-way run. Still spoken of with some awe and much admiration, wherever tales of the "big river" are told, is the historic race run on the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Louis, in 1870, by two big river boats, the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee. The entire country seems to have been fascinated by its glamor and thousands of dollars were bet on the result. Great preparations were made by both boats. They steamed out of 105 dock within five minutes of each other and ran a neck and neck race up to Cairo. There the Robert E. Lee escaped a fog which shut down on the Natchez, and proceeded alone up to the final destination, a total distance of 1,218 miles. Half legendary show-boats favored the Illinois River. They used to put on primitive American shows, such as Uncle Tom's Cabin at these river towns. The better known boats bore such names as "Cotton Blossom" and "Princess". In spite of a changing world they held their own until "movies" appeared. HOMESTEADERS who had built homes from trees, grubbed stumps for gardens, split rails for fences and be- gun their housekeeping around a mud and stick fireplace found it hard not to welcome itinerant peddlers more warmly per- haps, than itinerant preachers. Particularly if the peddler came around with horse or oxen drawn wagon so he could accept furs, eggs, feathers, old rags, honey and tree sugar from customers in exchange for things from his "pack goods" stock. Peddlers were not always just peddlers, they were useful as vendors of both local and national news. They were also potential homesteaders who walked or drove to the "new lands," making their travelling expenses by selling goods brought by them from the east. Others chose peddling for a profession, and were sharp yankee traders, never betraying their customers fully, because they were going to return again and again. It was hard to ask too much for the goods they carried; items commonly used in the east and almost impossible to get on the frontiers, where there never were enough steel and iron tools, shovels, axes, adzes, wedges, frying pans, iron kettles large and small, saws, files, hinges, chains, knives, fish-hooks, needles, and the medicines, nostrums, rock candy, "hoss" linament, oil and lead paint, combs, buttons, jewelry, even Jew's harps, and fiddles, occorrenas, Seth Thomas clocks, and books. These were not religious symbols, but if happiness like cleanliness, is next to godliness, they came awfully close. Peddlers had customers other than housewives and their men; children and Indians watched the road over the hill just as ardently as did the grown-ups as the seasonal hour drew on when one might expect to see the old horse's 106 The Itinerant Peddler head show up over the hill top or hear the tinkle of the wagon bell. Indians wanted vermilion paint, beads, mirrors, kettles, knives, blankets and trade cloth, red and green, with as deep a desiring as did any white brother. Then things changed, as they have ever been doing, whether on frontiers or back among the established settlements — as a matter of fact things change so fast in this land that we all are always enjoying changes common to frontiers. General stores came into business which curtailed the peddler's market. Bulk production began to invade those markets where sales had once been limited to hand worked and home made goods. The "yankee trader" was not eliminated by such improve- ments but he seriously felt the changed world. As railroads, fast transportation, canned goods, machine knit stockings, the early factories, one after another, appeared in what had been so very much his world, he bethought himself of other activi- ties. Now he is probably as happy as ever selling automobiles. Scarcely had Johnnie Appleseed and the itinerant peddler 107 begun to fade before a worthy, although less generally known successor, began circulating from new little city to city, bum- ming his way, or, if he had succeeded in hanging onto part of his salary, buying a railroad ticket and entering the next town — any next town — in style. This character was the itinerant printer. Nothing disturbed his reign for 100 years, — long as any other average reigning house reigned — until the very Devil's own invention, the linotype or automatic type- setting machine became a vital part of every newspaper shop. Until this took place, about 1880, this not poorly educated, heavy drinking, Bohemian-of-the-printing-world had things his own way. He was much like a sailor, every town was his home, every newspaper shop welcomed him with no questions, expected everything of him in the way of standing up to a type case and setting type, standing up again and throwing it all back in its boxes, expected nothing in the way of con- ventional morals. They got what they expected, and the type- setting bum knew no greater happiness than walking into a shop, learning that they were short a typesetter or two and would take him on, no questions asked, protecting himself behind his ink-stiffened work apron and beginning to set type better than it had ever been set in that office. These craftsmen came from the east where printing had been going on since Stephen Daye set type and printed the "Whole Book of Psalms" in 1638, and they drifted on the western fringe of civilization, like true frontiersmen. They would be serving their honorable profession to this day had not the fast linotype machine done them in, not by mechani- cally setting type very fast but also by eliminating the job of distributing type back into the cases after use, because linotype slugs are melted and recast. So progress again fulfilled its double destiny of serving the needs of the newly established world and doing away with some preceeding hand craft, and eliminated the professional itinerant typesetters whose labors had helped the mid-west to a quicker cultural growth than had many a school-room or college pundit, helping mightily, between drinks, to produce the living, printed word; — final medium by which all that is known is brought to usefulness. 108 The Itinerant Printer TRAVELLERS who used barely usable hiways, the pictur- esque personalities, trappers, priests, homesteaders and peddlers, disappeared, giving way to people going places on important business; perhaps to buy an already surveyed farm for some one-time back- east neighbor, now wanting to become a mid-west farmer, or perhaps to organize a branch office for an expanding business. They no longer were men experienced in rough forest living. Their travel adventures generally were tough, exciting and interesting. Some of the recorded ones became western favorite stories or songs. Among these the best known is the "Arkansas Traveller" and an ever popular "hill-billy" dance song tune goes with it. About dusk one storm drenched day a road weary traveller road up to a lonesome hill-road cabin, stopped and asked a native sitting on the ramshackle porch, with a fiddle across his lap, "Can you play that fiddle?" 109 "Yep, I recon I kin, some," "Will you cheer us up a bit with a "tune," "Thanks, stranger, you bet I will; heres a little tune we-alls like mighty well that I kin play fer you." Then he played a little bit of the hill-billy tune. Then the stranger says; — "Can I get a night's lodgings with you-alls? Well the fiddler he was a playin' this tune, but he stops, an' he says; "Guess you kaint, stranger, we-alls haint got no spare room." "Caint you make room?" "Well, I guess we kaint, 'cause it might rain". "All right, supposin' it do rain, what of that?" "Why, theres only one dry spot in this here cabin an' me an' my old woman we sleeps thar". Then he begins where he left off on the tune, and he plays away for a while. Then he stops and looks up and says; "You see, stranger, this here place is terribul tumble down." And the stranger, he says; — "Why dont you-all fix that roof?" "Well, when it is good weather we dont need it fixed, an' when it rains I caint get out to fix it". Then he begins play- ing again. "How long have you lived here?" asks the stranger. "Well, see that mounting, stranger? That mounting wuz here when I come". Then he starts playing again. So the story runs along, with strips of yarn and strips of jiggly music, but finally the stranger says; — "Is that all of the tune you know, friend?" "Yep, thets all, an' its good enuf for me". "Give me that fiddle," says the stranger, and he plays the whole darned tune right through, and the native jumps up and he says; — "Come right in, stranger, an' welcome". BEFORE the mid-west had become so conventional as to look with suspicion on those who moved in and settled near them, and lived more or less unorthodox lives, there were 110 XJive me that fiddQe" said the ArkansawTiavefler groups of advanced thinkers in Europe, who thought the Lord had spoken directly to them and they were harried by old world prejudices. They directed their attention to studying out what possibilities for freedom to think, work and play as they pleased might be found by them in this new and unin- hibited land across the ocean. Many organizations and indi- viduals, encouraged by reported histories of similar Atlantic seaboard colonies, arranged to come over and colonize here. One group, larger in numbers than most, who were called "Rappites" because of their leader whose name was George Rapp, settled on the Ohio River, in southern Indiana in 1815, hoping to find peace there in this world, and they called their town New Harmony. After a few years they went away, to be followed by other truth-seekers who settled in various places and disintegrated. Ill George Rapp, the inspirational leader of the Rappite Brotherhood, was a Westphalian German who with his fol- lowers separated themselves from the Lutheran Church, and in 1804 crossed the ocean in search of a place where they might think as they thought right, forget certain of the world's vanities, work diligently and await the second coming of the Lord, which Rapp had found out was going to occur during his lifetime. As they were nothing if not logical in their reason- ing they saw no sense in bringing children into a nearly ended world. So they were celibates, the men lived in one dormitory and the women in another. They were hard workers, good farmers and business men, believing these activities to be in accord with virtue, and they prospered. The name of New Harmony was given the settle- ment because before settling there they had tried living for ten years out in the east near Pittsburg, and that earlier town they had called Harmony. The works of their hands were shipped up and down the Ohio River, to all the other new towns, but they concluded that the mid-west banking facilities were too meagre and markets too distant; so, ten years after they came, in 1824, they went back. The order of their going was excellent ; they found a solvent buyer for their 30,000 acre improvement and received $150,000 for it. Robert Owen, a Scotchman, was the purchaser. He had a very different social experiment in mind. He meant to demonstrate the feasibility, nay, the necessity for all men to live in practical brotherhood, with physical work evenly di- vided, and reliance placed on the probability that human nature could approximate perfection. The equality of women, abolition of slavery, progressive education, and kindergarden training for children were fundamental features of living in New Harmony. It was a center of advanced thinking and high living, far out in the west where few besides the dedicated knew that such things existed. For a number of years the arts, sciences and many cultural developments were normal practices in this remarkable colony. Things continued this way for about twenty years, until 112 New Harmony it was discovered that many of the brother- hood were not trying. They were willing to let others try, and were content to do their part by attending the parties and having fun. This ultimately wrecked the entire experiment. New Harmony was not without important results; university presi- dents, leading scientists, significant artists, writers and biologists went from there full of high ideals and rather practical notions of how to realize them, to lead advanced thinking in many centers, not all, by dany means, in the mid- Si west. The effect of this school of ideals for living had and still has a definitely con- structive influence on the American way of life. 113 ANOTHER group of dissenting Christians found a couple - of moneyed gentlemen disposed to give them financial backing, sent scouts from their homeland in Sweden to the mid-west land of promise, to find and secure a place where they might come and build a new Eden. Then they all came over. The leader was Eric Jansen. In 1846 about 1,100 of these determined dreamers left their old world homes to try for better ones in the new Illinois country. They thought as did their leader, that the communal life was the right one, that everything material should be equally shared by all, that there should be help by all for all, no struggles for advancement, no fever of ambition — except the burning fever of righteous- ness — that these were unassailable rocks on which the founda- tions of their new Eden could be built. Their timing was not all it should have been; they arrived near to or at their chosen location just as an old fashioned American winter closed in on the new world and they found that life in Sweden had not adequately prepared them for it. About 700 of the original party had stuck through the difficulties of ocean and cross-country travel and were praying that upon arriving at their pre-determined location they would find a winter haven, but they found themselves facing a wilder- ness, exposure and privations almost beyond bearing. They tried to survive by building shelters of boughs and bark, by digging cave homes in the river hill sides, or fortifying such tents as they had with bark and earth to keep out the wind and cold, and they were put to it to find enough to eat. Many thought twice about remaining with a body of pilgrims upon whom such hardships were visited and faded into the more inviting wilderness. Four hundred and fifteen loyal, hardy followers remained and when spring came rallied to the task of building a more substantial village. As few or none could speak English they started a school in which it was taught. A couple of grist mills, a brewery and several craft shops, essential to supplying the needs of frontier living, were started; a long communal building, built of home-made bricks, and then an annex to it, all within a 114 eFirstWinterat Bishops Hill few years. They raised flax and wove it into cloth which became famous up and down the country-side. Soon they were a going community, and a credit to the new world. In 1849 cholera swept through their settlement, reducing its numbers gravely. Then a wanderer named Root, a good look- ing no-good, came along and asked to join up with the Jansenists. They doubtfully accepted him with serious con- sequences; he married Jansen's daughter. Then he wanted to renig on his membership and asked his wife, whom he mistreated, to accompany him when he left. The laws govern- 115 ing this colony forbade wives following apostate husbands out of the community. So he finally stole his wife, who did not like it a bit. Root and Jansen encountered each other later, before the Cambridge courthouse and the villian shot Eric Jansen dead. Until 1860 all things were really held in common owner- ship in this town of Bishop's Hill, but about then a division occurred, and finally each one was given an allotment of land for his own. This individualistic, capitalistic plan was the beginning of the end of the Jansenist's dream of a new world Eden. Some individuals worked their land very efficiently, others turned out to be shiftless. Just ahead of this develop- ment an artist materialized in the colony. He was a portrait painter and recorded the physical appearance of certain citi- zens. In the Bishop's Hill town hall, along with a clock with a 40 foot long pendulum, there used to be a collection of "primitive" type portraits of Bishop's Hillers which he painted in a style all his own. He painted jolly events and social activi- ties, sleighriders out in the snow in a bod-sled, but he was best at portraiture. He produced around fifty paintings, of blue eyed, ruddy cheeked, capable looking citizens. Along in 1950, or thereabouts, a director of one of our leading art museums drifted by and seeing this lot of native art pronounced it priceless, modernistic American art. After that the greater number of them were transported to the Museum, where they are languishing, forgotten among the many more timely evi- dences of our aesthetic culture, but perhaps a dozen of them were left up in the city hall at Bishop's Hill where they are to this day. There is not much more to be said about this sleepy settle- ment off on some side road, side tracked in a strange, violent, commercial age, except that once it was a thrilling, spiritual adventure, paid for in suffering and lives, rewarding its par- ticipants with nothing much more than a moderate number of hours of ecstacy. 116 OF activities identified with the exploitation of virgin pine timber lands the most picturesque, brutal and quickly ended were those of lumbering. Almost before people got around to giving it their attention it had come and gone, sup- plying the enormous quantities of lumber with which the grow- ing nation built its million homes. The profession of lumbering was a violent one, of a character different from all others, manned by rough and rude, tough, men. They wore steel caulks in their boots, handled two-bitted axes and peavies, were masters of log booms, rode rapids in wanigans, built their solid winter homes of great white pine logs, and earned the strange names of lumber- jacks and white-water men. Never did they encounter any primeval pine forest which they were not sure they could cut down more quickly than any other man or machine, and they naively believed the forests were so boundless that they would never have to leave because pine trees would be exhausted. Their profession began some- time back in the early 1800's, up in Maine on the Penobscot, rolled across the continent, through New York and Pennsyl- vania, across Michigan, beyond the great lake into Wisconsin, 117 and then, before any one even suspected, the pine was gone and so were the lumber- jacks. Across the lake from Chicago there once was a town created by this lumber business, where the lumber- jacks and the mill owners brought millions of log-feet and cut them into millions and millions of boards, and other yankees supplied the neces- sary means for transporting it to markets. This town had a strange, exotic name, and a destiny about the same as a thousand other lumber towns, except that many survived, somehow, but this town didn't. Now it is scarcely a memory. The Kalamazoo River makes a great curve just before it flows into Lake Michigan, not far from the city of Saugatuck, and that curve is called Horseshoe Bend. Here, near the Lake Michigan edge, many years ago a few half buried tombstones, were visible, leaning at various angles marking almost ob- literated graves. This forgotten cemetery approaching its final burial in sand dunes, and a few rotting piles lining the north bank of the river, were all that remained of a town which bore the strange exotic name of Singapore. Today nothing remains to mark the townsite and the docks. Scarcely an old timer is left who can recall any definite facts about the things that went on when Singapore was a "hell- roaring" lumber town, back in the '50s, but once that very town had one of the largest saw mills in Michigan. It cost $60,000 to build it and it could cut and saw 12,000 feet of lumber a day. It was built in 1837. A blacksmith and engineer named James Harris installed a seven boiler rotary engine in it, and this was but one of many other mills. There was a leather tannery and a town hall, two hotels, besides lumberjack's houses, several general stores and a bank that became famous because of its beautifully engraved paper money currency. To be sure this money was not much good outside of Singa- pore, for it was issued by the local bank and was known as "wild cat" money, but who in Singapore cared what people outside of Singapore thought about anything? Although one of the old settlers said of it, "The money was good enough at home, but you couldn't travel on it any further than you 118 could on a piece of bark," yet in Singapore that money was as good as gold. The Government told the Singapore bank that for every paper "shin plaster" dollar they issued there would have to be somewhere in their vaults a gold dollar, because the Government had also told all the banks in the surrounding towns the same thing. These banks got a con- siderable amount of gold together and made a point of always having it at the particular bank at which the Government Bank Examiner was checking up on that bank's reserve. It took some pretty lively traveling to get this one gold fund around, but in so sparcely settled a country it was easy to keep track of the important bank examiner and his where- abouts, and there were plenty of strong canoeists in those days. The scheme worked all right for a long time. But once the examiner checked the reserve at Kalamazoo and then went to Allegan, and, there was the gold, all right, then he left for Singapore, via the river and Saugatauk. At the same time an Indian in a canoe left for Singapore carrying the almost over- worked sack of gold; but he was in such a hurry to get there that he tipped over into the water somewhere near Saugatuck. The financial authorities now knew they were facing a crisis, and that the Singapore bank would be caught without the necessary gold reserve unless some way could be found to fish that bag up out of the river and get it to the bank ahead of the examiner. So the citizens of Saugatuck surprised the traveling bank examiner with a grand reception, and dined and wined him, while divers fished up the gold and the Indian got it down the river to the Singapore bank on time. The first white man to stop in the neighborhood of Singa- pore and settle there was named William Gay Butler. He and his wife landed from a coast wise sailing ship at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River in 1830. The Pottawattomies had a large town of their own a few miles further up the river. They were friendly Indians and he built a log house near them and for three years ran a trading post. Around them a tiny settlement sprang up and in 1835 a post office was established. The town plat was filed in 1838. The country 119 On this Spot once stood the Town of Singapore was a great pine forest in those days but the demand for lumber was greater. Michigan was the western lumbering frontier and the business of cutting, milling and shipping it grew in leaps and bounds. Singapore was splendidly located for such a development and soon the river was full of immense log rafts, docks lined with ships, saw mills working to the limit and yet not meeting the demand for top grade white pine lumber. Building lots sold at a premium, it was thought Singapore was likely to grow into a big city. Yet never more than 200 "permanent" residents were ever recorded as living there, and only so long as there were Michigan pine forests was there significance to the town of Singapore. While it was in existence and Saugatauk was also there a most severe winter storm blew in which lasted 40 days. The snow became so deep that these towns and the Pottawattomie and Ottowa Indians, who lived around there, were cut off from the rest of the world. They were wondering how to keep from starving when a 3 masted sailing schooner loaded with 120 wheat and casks of wine blew into the shallow water, grounded and lay helpless. Wheat was selling that year, 1842, at $15.00 a barrel but this cargo would have been spoiled before it could have been salvaged, so the Captain began selling it to all comers at .75c a barrel and the neighborhood escaped starving. After a while the forests were all cut, the lumber barons moved their equipment and men across Lake Michigan to unravaged Wisconsin pine. Log booms were no longer re- plenished, saw mills no longer had anything to cut, most of the permanent residents moved away, most of the stores closed up, bushes grew in the streets, the bank shut down, the rough hotels were deserted, only a few "never dies" and the harbor lights remained, the shifting sands began drifting over sidewalks, then over house roofs. Singapore was no good without pine forests, any more than were a thousand other lumber towns. By 1875 it was deserted, only the pilings where docks once were and a few lonesome tombstones were left to mark the site of a real one-time Michigan lumber town. Michigan's "east shore" has its historic interest. An old lake- side trail from Fort Dearborn to Machimiliac went through both Singapore and Saugatauk, the Kalamazoo River served for decades as a water way down which fruit and live stock were shipped to Chicago markets. The Saugatauk municipal flagpole is made of 2 masts from a wrecked sailing ship that foundered at the river mouth and all on board were lost. An American author, Fenimore Cooper, laid the plot of one of his novels, "Oak Openings", in this neighborhood, and one of his well known typical woodsman characters, the Bee Hunter, hid his boat from pursuing Indians in river swale just inside its mouth. AMONG Indiana rolling hills, where the Ozarks are com- . mencing to add their unique charm to prairie land- scape, almost far enough south to be on the Ohio River, Virginia and Carolina homesteaders settled in 1836 and founded Nashville, county seat of Brown County. They slowly 121 Brown County, Indiana created an atmosphere which gave it fame as the typical Hoosier settlement. Nashville has no railroad. It possesses a couple of buildings, worthy hangovers from primitive days. One is the 2 story log jail, out of which no one has ever broken, perhaps because every one in Brown County, potential jail- birds included, are proud of it. There was a native once who couldn't keep out of it, but the town marshall felt there was no need to spend time safeguard- ing him, the sole culprit in town, so he and the native had a talk, the sheriff got his promise to co-operate, gave him the jail key and told him to lock himself up every night. ^r^C TowrgtJ Every morning he let himself out and went off to do his honest share of work and as night shrouded the hills with its mysteri- ous mantle he came back and locked himself up for the night. In all probability there was no more efficiently or successfully managed penal institution in the state. The other building is an equally ancient court house. Nashville is nearly spoiled by the hill-billy poseurs and over-anxious shop-keepers but the environing country is not. The roads going there wind around low, wooded hills and half hidden creeks. The people living in these hills are simple and usually poor. Their fathers came from Virginia and the Carolinas. How homesteaders, with all Indiana to choose from, selected these scrawny hills and laughing streamlets for permanent resident sites is hard to understand, but some of their descendants are still there, and if modernity had not crowded in on them they could still be happy. If visitors do not drive in their own cars to Nashville they 123 ^^CdurtTiouse will have to take a local bus over from the nearest railroad point, which is Helmsburg. This remoteness from rail facilities is one of the reasons why this place is a restful one and has kept some of the old time character. But even so the town and the country roundabout has yielded to the inevitable modernization of present day civilization and the people are beginning to have a self-conscious pride in their elemental way of living. Plenty of modern houses have been built alongside old-time log ones and automobiles desecrate the parking spot heretofore sacred to the one-hoss shay, out alongside the barn. District and village names in Brown County are quaint and representative of the neighborhood as it used to be. There is Salt Creek, Bear Wallow Hill, Peoga, Scarce o' Fat Ridge, Shake-Rag Hollow, Needmore, Stone Head and Weedpatch Hill, which is the highest point in that state. At Bear Wallow Hill one can view the lovely hill and valley scenery from 124 Lookout Point. A few miles from Nashville is the funny little village of Gnawbone. A good many pieces of hickory furniture used to be made in the wooded valleys, but the old timber is being cut out. They still bring a good many hides in to market, buckwheat and other grains. The land never was overly fertile and quite a lot of the best soil is scoured off the rolling hills and carried away by the countless little streams. There is apt to be a barn dance at one of the little country towns to which visitors are welcome, and it is hoped they know how to dance. BY 1836 Indians, wolves and wild heron had become strangers in a white man's land. Illinois had been admitted as a state and 175,000 citizens lived where wilderness not long before had held forth. These citizens were conscious of how wonderful their mid-country really was, with its fertile prairies, towns, pike roads, river transportation and iron horses. Labor had begun to be a problem. The southern part of the state where the greater population lived was mostly agrarian, owned slaves who did most of the work, and the northern half, more self-contained, more "yankee", felt com- petent to get their work done with the help of "free men". All, however, had definite ideas regarding the general direc- tion in which they wanted their culture and business to develop and they wanted schools, churches, laws, banks, courts and taxes properly administered, so their development would be as proper as it was rapid. They had many problems to meet, among them one for which this young country had no guiding precedent. It had to do with a large band of people whose religious beliefs seemed unorthodox but who declared themselves to be true Americans, whose business practices were good and who asked only for land on which to live and equal opportunity, — but who were Mormons. In the spring of the year 1840, 15,000 - * them were herded together over on the Missouri side of 125 the big river, awaiting the revealing of urgently needed in- structions from the Highest Source telling them where to go next. Trouble had chastened but not defeated them; conscious of the necessity of purifying tribulation they had dociley suf- fered persecutions without complaint. They had been driven from city to city, from state to state, from Harmony, Pennsyl- vania to Kirtland, Ohio, across that state, across Indiana and Illinois. Compelled to fight for their lives at a place called Crooked River and not long afterwards at near-by Haun's Mill, where church-going farmers and villagers had almost massacred them, they had fled to Clay and Caldwell counties and finally, as they rested at Independence, Missouri, the Governor had sent them a warning that if they were in Mis- souri 3 days more they would be delivered to death. When again given a chance they meant to demonstrate their virtue by their works. They were thinking of crossing the river into Illinois. At that time on the eastern side of this mighty river there stood 3 or 4 shabby, deserted trapper's huts, hang-overs from early river traffic days, behind them, on up and over the river bluffs, stretched a waste of land so poor and unhealthy that homesteaders had seen in it nothing worth taking. Confessing themselves unworthy of better land and needing a home they crossed the river, settled on the low flood-lands, and on the bluffs, spread out on to easterly fields and forests; they cleared the ground, built homes, planted and rendered thanks to God for leading them there. Presently an epidemic of malaria broke out among them, their founder and leader travelled from house to house, from tent to tent, bidding the sick to rise. Among the sick ones was Brigham Young. The Prophet told him to rise and be healed, he arose from his sick bed a well man, spared from death, destined to become the Prophet's successor. They became established around their capitol city of Nauvoo and prospered, thousands of willing workers tilling farms, roads, schools and business enterprises materializing. 5 years later 20,000 people had come to live in these Mormon settle- ments. The Illinois State Legislature granted Nauvoo a charter 126 TheMoimons Give Thanks for Having Been Led to their New Zion at Nauvo< permitting it to maintain a company of militia, of which the Prophet, Joseph Smith, was made commander. The great temple was begun on May 24th, 1841, in which were to be held the ceremonies and rituals peculiar to the Church, known as the "Endorsement". Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimber were sent as missionaries to England to secure converts. Chi- cago was a trading post when Nauvoo was the most prosperous city in Illinois. This Healer, Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Mormon Church, said he had received instructions directly from the Lord to relinquish every thought but that of "gathering up to Zion" those whose faith, under his leadership, would re-establish righteousness in these latter days. This Heavenly Command had reached him at Palmira, New York. News of it and of the inspired "Gold Bible" he had written filtered through the east, and believers as well as adventurers with little to lose, flocked through the portals of the "True Church". The main noi'nt of difference in his religion and that of Orthodox 127 The great Mormon Temple atNauvoo BUILT IN \$iqsu(i IT WAS 128 rttf LONG, " fur wide § 128 rcrr micm. scarcely was it DEDICATED BtrORt THE FAMOUS MORMON MIGRATION ACROSS THE WESTERN WILDER' NESS BEGAN. TWO YEARS AfTtA ITS COMPLETION IT WAS DESTROYED churches lay in the statement that "Latter Day Saints" of the New Church were able to and did receive divine inspira- tion directly fom God's Throne, and therefore could enunciate new doctrines of guidance and health. Orthodox churches thought the days of direct, divine communication with God were past. Another questionable feature of their faith was the efficacy of baptism of the dead and the idea that life did not originate or end on earth. At first they did not believe in plural marriages but somewhere around 1831 Joseph Smith received a "command" regarding this; — it could be and was to be practiced by only the most faithful and virtuous. Its justification lay in the principle that the spirit of man required a mortal body in which to live on this earth, and to be born here and partake of a mortal tabernacle was a priceless privi- lege for spirits yet unborn. Children were "an heritage of the Lord", and it was the duty of the most righteous Mormons to bring as many children into the world as possible. They therefore gladly suffered the affliction of many wives. Mormon authorities assert that for the hundred years that this doctrine 128 was practiced and until the principle was officially cancelled by the Church Apostles at Salt Lake City few of the sect actually practiced plural manage. The brethren lived simple, industrious lives and they were opposed to slavery. This had much to do with the discrimina- tion against them which grew among their neighbors. Presently serious evidences of this dislike showed in thefts of Mormon stock and assaults, and influenced the Prophet to ask the Federal Government in Washington if special protection might not be granted them, but he received no satisfactory guarantees. Nevertheless that same spring, with surprising assurance, the Mormons tried hard to secure the nomination of their Prophet Joseph Smith as a candidate for election to the Presidency of the United States, and sent leading elders through the east campaigning for him. His platform advo- cated principles of justice to black and white men alike, TheBrighamVbung Hamesteadin Nwvooj^p^caredini^8 129 The body of Joseph Smith was carried from the stone jail in Carthag^J^^^^^ loyalty to the Government, the extension of the United States from sea to sea, and the annexing of Texas. Discontented Mormons began to make trouble, within the commonwealth, denouncing the principle of polgamy, Joseph Smith's arbitrary ways and his political aspirations. Two brothers, William and Wilson Law, became prominent in this opposition, and, with others, published a single issue of an oppositionist newspaper called the Expositor, which appeared on June 7th, 1844. The editors said they hazarded every earthly blessing in thus striking at tyranny and oppression. Mayor Smith declared a state of martial law and ordered the destruction of the Expositor. The Laws flew to nearby Carthage. An arrest warrant was issued charging Joseph and Hyrum Smith with destroying the Expositor, and placed Nauvoo under martial law. The two Mormon leaders accom- panied by the entire membership of the City Council, volun- tarily travelled to Carthage, surrendered themselves and were put in the Carthage stone jail. Governor Ford hurried to the scene of the disturbance, visited Carthage, then went over to Nauvoo. While he was there a mob gathered before the 130 :''<. T4-IC DESTRUCTION OF NAUVOO * T ' fo\ A Carthage jail throwing stones and taunting the inmates. They tried to force the cell door. When those within heard the cries from the mob they reinforced the jail door with their bodies. Shots fired through this door hit and killed Hyrum Smith. Joseph Smith carried a pistol to jail with him and had used it valiantly, wounding four assailants, but this attack so dis- concerted him that he retreated to a window, opened it and leaned out, perhaps speculating on the possibility of escape. He was immediately shot and fell outward on to the ground. His body was leaned against the wall and filled with bullets. The murdered bodies of the brothers Smith were secretly re- moved to Nauvoo and interred in the basement of the Nauvoo House. Nine men were tried for this act and all declared not guilty. The Church, now leaderless, was thrown into confusion. At that time the "Twelve" were elected to be the leaders of the people, and Brigham Young presently became the First of The Twelve. As the Temple rose toward completion mobs renewed their attacks, burning fields, driving off stock, demanding that the Mormons leave and asserting that they would never allow 131 the Temple to be finished. The Mormons, now under the leadership of Brigham Young, began to send exploration parties into the West hunting for some place where they could build and live in peace. Joseph Smith had prophesied that this was to occur and that after much tribulation the faithful would find home, peace and happiness in the un- known desert. Fremont, an explorer who had traversed the Rocky Mountains, had written a careful report on the west which they carefully studied. An advance body of twenty-five hundred families prepared for this great exodus. Each family was expected to have one good wagon, three yoke of cattle, two cows, one thousand pounds of flour, twenty pounds of sugar, one rifle and ammunition, a tent, and twenty pounds of seed, together with farming tools and cooking utensils. Mob violence finally became acute and government officials ordered their immediate departure; the charter of Nauvoo was cancelled in 1845. The Mormons built feverishly on the Tem- ple and had the satisfaction of formally dedicating it in 1846. A few services were held within its dignified walls and the building abandoned forever. That year Brigham Young led THEflRST IMMIGRANTS L€AV€ NAUVOO fO* THE UNKNOWN WEST n. T ;~, -.* ■ 132 the first Immigrant expedition westward across the Mississippi. In September, 1847, a mob stormed Nauvoo, some of the saints set up barracks to resist and defend their property, a 5 days battle resulted in which a number of men, women and children were wounded and killed. A truce temporarily settled things and again the Mormons directed their attention west- ward, where lay their new home. More and larger caravans departed, leaving houses, farms, factories and mills, the magni- ficent Temple and other improvements to whosoever might take them, without compensation. They crossed the big river in boats or over winter ice, and on the occasion of their greatest trek they camped the first night on Sugar Creek, 9 miles to the west and that night 9 babies were born. After most of them had gone, leaving only those who for want of necessary equipment were unable to depart, in- cendiaries and vandals invaded the desolate city and burned the temple on November 10th, 1848. The Mormon issue had been practically disposed of long before that date; the dramatic destruction of the temple and the migration of thousands of the faithful scarcely amounted to more than a ripple on the surface of mid-west life. The almost wrecked Nauvoo became the home of a body of Icarians who built it back into quite a place. Today it has a few reliques of the various developments which took place there, and carries on a simple existence. AT a point on the Sangamon River not many miles from - Springfield, Illinois, a couple of men, James Rutledge and John Cameron, in the year 1828, built themselves homes on a hundred foot high bluff, overlooking the river. The next year they dammed the river right below the bluff, where it makes a bend, and built a grist and saw mill. Although the neighborhood was still wild and sparsely inhabited, settlers with grain to grind or who wanted logs sawed into boards began to come to this mill. The owners saw the possibilities of a real estate venture and had the area on the flat hill top surveyed, and sold these lots. By the year 1 83 1 this had become 133 New Salem Village The Berry- Lincoln General Store a thriving, typical mid-west village called New Salem. The houses were built of hewn logs, roofs of "splits" with stone fire places, wood sheds, rope and bucket type wells and rude barns. It soon had quite a few business enterprises; four general stores, the Rutledge Tavern, a hat-maker, a cobbler, a tannery, a barrel-maker, a saw mill and grist mill, a black- smith and wagon maker, a furniture and cabinet maker, a loom where weaving was done, a carding mill run by oxen power, a school, several doctors, a brick yard, a stone quarry and a drinking tavern. In the year 1832 a merchant living in Springfield decided that because of the heavy rains which fell that spring there would be enough depth of water in Sangamon River to enable him to send a barge loaded with merchandise down this river to the Mississippi and thence on to New Orleans, where the goods and the barge were to be disposed of and the crew of men who had taken it there were to return on foot. This merchant hired a tall, thin, strong young farm lad to conduct this barge to its destination, and one day the outfit floated down the Sangamon River past the new little village of New Salem. When the boat came to the dam it stuck, because there was not quite enough water flowing over this dam to float the heavily loaded barge over. At the dam the prow was carried out over it but the stern settled back, permitting considerable water to come aboard. The young man in charge 134 came to shore and climbed the bluff to the village. There he asked for the loan of a small flat bottom boat, into which to transfer the perishable part of his merchandise while he got his barge afloat, and he said he wanted a large augur. They sent him to the village cooper for this. Everybody came to the river bluff to watch the proceedings and among them came one of the prettiest girls in that whole countryside, the young daughter of the Inn keeper, Miss Ann Rutledge. It was a long hard job getting the barge over the dam and by and by the villagers began to chaff the boat crew. The young man in charge did not object to this; he seemed to enjoy it and gave them retort for retort. First he lifted the perishables out into the small skiff tied below the dam, then he bored a hole in the bottom of his boat where it overhung the dam and lifted enough of what was still in the cargo to the front to cause the barge to tip forward. This lowered the front end so that the water which had come aboard ran out the hole, after which the young man stopped the hole with a plug. Then the barge already tipped forward, was easily shoved The 135 make* over the dam, reloaded and proceeded on its trip. As they left the young man thanked the villagers for their friendliness and told them to be watching out for him as he would come back. He said his name was Abraham Lincoln. It was not long before he did come back. He was young and wanted to find a place where he could make his own way while he studied and tried to find out how he might amount to something in this half wild western world. Lincoln grew faster than the town did. When the town languished and finally died, Lincoln had grown strong and had come to under- stand the part a man could play in the affairs of his country. He had been a clerk and owner of a grocery store ; postmaster of Salem; surveyor, captain of militia in the Black Hawk War, and in 1834 was elected to General Assembly. He lived at Salem for 6 years and built a sincere friendship with pretty Ann Rutledge. Evenings he studied law and read all the "good 136 Ycm& Lincoln wrestles /*fc*iw. v ^^ fh e xocal champion books" available in a town so far out west. Somehow he gained a wish to live his life according to high principles, and along with his sound and deep thinking these gave unique distinc- tion to his career. He decided to buy the grocery store and found out how hard it could be to make both ends meet financially in a place where a selling market was very restricted. The grocery turned out to be a failure and left him saddled with a heavy debt, which took a long time to pay ; — so long that he referred to it as "the national debt". Other more lively preoccupations gave plenty of seasoning to this serious way of living. He undertook a wrestling bout with the local champion, the result of which is not known, except that if Lincoln won it was a reversal of form. The match and other equally human relationships with the country-side people made him popular; the wrestler and 137 Lincoln became life-long friends and when the brother of his opponent got in some sort of trouble, after Lincoln had gone to Springfield and become a man of affairs, he defended him in court and won an acquittal for him. Most every one moved away from Salem after a while, they even moved one or two of their houses a couple of miles down to Petersburg, and the town site was marked by no more than a couple of fallen-in wrecks of log structures. But Lincoln be- came America's greatest son and years later a movement to rebuild this, his town, gained some attention. William Ran- dolph Hearst came into the neighborhood to deliver a lecture and heard of the plan. He bought the town site and turned it over to those in charge of the plan to restore Salem to the condition it was in when Lincoln lived there. The plan became a reality; all the homes, the mill and dam across the river, the Rutledge Tavern, — every thing, has been restored to the shape it was in during Lincoln's 6 year residency, and it now has become one of the favored mid-west historic shrines. 138 Ill DAYS OF DECISION IUFACTORIES, BUSINESSES, BANKS, COL- LEGES, COURT HOUSES, LAW ENFORCE- MENT, SCHOOLS, CHURCHES AND TRANS- PORTATION FACILITIES BROUGHT NEW living conditions to mid-westerners, built cities, and pro- duced activities capable of challenging eastern competi- tion. In steamboats and over steel rails mid-west produce went north, east and south, eastern markets poured fabri- cated articles and items of luxurious living into a barely organized newly settled land. French and English furniture, printed books, pianos, machine spun cloth appeared, to meet the increasing demands of the ever growing number of prosperous citizens who were commencing to build man- sions on river bluffs or on tree-shaded "select areas" in new cities. Soon active yankees commenced making many of the much-in-demand utilities, and most of these young cities were supplied with central water-works, gas works, town slaughter houses, ponderous ice-houses, paved roads, public fire depart- ments and ever increasing municipal and state bond issues. Building materials were standardized, corner groceries turned into department stores, farmers bought farm implements from jobbers instead of blacksmith manufacturers. A new activity began to make headway in this new, unfolding section of the world, called advertising, designed to tell those who could 139 That Night the Press and all die Print ShopEcjuipTuentwasDumped CMP the Warehouse Dockin to the Mississippi Iffver afford the better things in life of their existence; — and then to describe the articles and their uses so well that all who read probably would be unable to resist buying. At first this new business of advertising cried out its wares in a not too loud voice, saying "If you are among the leaders you must have these new things". Then it pointed out that those who had them could not afford to not replace their first purchases with improved ones. As it became an established part of our method of doing business it also established part of our economy; announcing every new gadget as "better than the last," fascinating and selling those who wanted to be a part of an unfolding "modern" life. As the country filled up, and acquired a population close to 475,000 it was not only to business, manufacturing, acquir- ing an education, politics, and in maintaining a refined living standard, but also in more significant ethical decisions that the populace found its interest. A state convention was author- ized to consider problems concerning free soil and slavery, 140 Hjahl? ^vejoyFell at thelfrstVblW, HitFfveTimes which indirectly led to the formation of the Republican party, although the party organization did not materialize for a few years. The southern half of Illinois, which had grown most rapidly, favored the use of slave labor, the northern half, settled by northern yankees, believed slavery to be wrong, made small use of it, successfully worked their farms with hired help and that of their sons and daughters, and found skilled help with which to work manufacturing plants among Irish, German and Norwegian immigrants. As there still were more people in the southern part of the state partisan feeling increased. This tension resulted in one of the first tragic episodes, leading to the already impend- ing civil war. To St. Louis, then a large, growing, soundly pro-slave city, came a New England minister, editor and publisher named Elijah P. Lovejoy, owner and editor of an abolitionist newspaper. After 3 rough years he moved himself 141 and his paper a few miles up river to Alton, where the per- centage of abolitionists and free-soilers was more favorable to his viewpoint. He and his press arrived in Alton on Saturday, July 21st, 1836. No help could be found with which to move his materials to his new quarters and he left them on the river dock for the week-end. A mob gathered and dumped every- thing in the river. Free soil advocates bought Mr. Lovejoy another. A meeting was held to talk things over, and it was understood that he said his intention was to establish a religious sheet and keep its columns free from discussions on slavery. This was acceptable to everybody and the first issue of the paper, named, "The Observer," appeared September 8th, 1836. The following June the paper supported a petition to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and later advocated the formation of an anti-slavery society in Illinois, whereupon the second press was pitched into the river. The anti-slavery friends outfitted Mr. Lovejoy with another printing equip- ment, but things had become rather rough for him by then. He suffered several personal assaults and as things were not resolved in a manner satisfactory to all his opponents his third press followed the others into the water. The fourth press arrived and was delivered at his shop. Those favoring the Lovejoy program immediately gathered to protect it. At dusk a large crowd of unusually rough men also gathered around his establishment throwing bricks, shooting off firearms, and building a fire. As the moon rose over the city defending and attacking parties began to do some shooting. Several in the mob were wounded and one killed. Lovejoy and others climbed onto the roof to see what might be done to control or put out the fire. He was shot down, hit five times and killed. The mob broke into the warehouse and consigned the fourth press and equipment to the river. News of the affair spread throughout the north and was inflammable material to the fire then commencing to sweep the Nation. Another man came forward to lead anti-slavery supporters. Illinois became one of the fiercely fought over battlefields in the struggle for freedom or slavery, remained abolitionist, and 30,000 of its sons died in defense of the Union. 142 Abraham Li: amxvinco IN 1842 Abraham Lincoln moved to Springfield, hung out his shingle and became an Illinois country lawyer, riding around from county seat to county seat trying cases and tell- ing stories. Few were the court houses in which he had not argued his cases in his inimitable way. His practice brought him to Chicago a considerable num- ber of time. His first authenti- cated visit was on July 5 th, 1847, he stayed 2 days. They were having a great convention there, and although no railroads entered the town and the popu- lation was only 16,000, 25,000 delegates, their families and others who did not want to miss anything attended. They came from Buffalo, Cleveland, De- troit, Milwaukee and St. Louis, by boat, stage coach, horse back and on foot, special steamships offered excursion inducements, even canal boats out of New York city gave special rates for this terrific convention. Every hall, every hotel and almost every private home was filled with visitors, they also slept in 143 A K ' 'ft */. . jP^b I . , . il the streets and out on the open prairies. It was a gathering to influence President Polk to endorse pending inland river and harbor bills. Lincoln was one of the Illinois delegates. He knew quite a lot about the rivers part of the proposed bill, for he had twice taken loaded barges all the way down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. He enjoyed sufficient prominence to command newspaper notices, The Chicago Democrat announced that "Hon. A. Lincoln of the Illinois delegation is in the city". A description of what he wore is extant. He "sported a short waisted, thin swallow- tailed coat, short vest of the same material, thin pantaloons scarcely coming down to his ankles, straw hat, pair of brogans and woolen sox". He and Mrs. Lincoln stopped at the Sherman House a year later, as they were returning from a New England electioneer- ing trip where he had "stumped" that territory in favor of the national Whig ticket. By then Chicago had acquired a new "Galena Railroad" depot, and the McCormick Reaper Company was producing 500 reapers a year. Lincoln favored the townspeople with a campaign speech in support of Zachary Taylor for president. He talked at the Court House. The next time he came, in 1850, the occasion again, partly at least, concerned President Zachary Taylor, who had died. Lincoln pronounced an eulogy to his memory. He also had a law suit to try, which he won. Through the succeeding 4 years he came often, usually transit stops or short appearances, in connection with his law business. In 1855 Lincoln was 44 years old. He had become a man of understanding and experience, could give a fine speech and was known throughout the central states for his sound sense, force of expression and quaint native humor. A Chicago paper at that time commented, "Abraham Lincoln never trims a speech to suit a latitude; he is always the same man". At this time Lincoln received the nomination for United States senator, a distinction he seems not to have wanted. He was defeated in the ensuing election. He had at least one good dinner out of the campaign for during that time he was 144 one of three hundred Republicans to attend an eight o'clock banquet, on Wednesday, December 11th, at Chicago's Tre- mont House. They had "every luxury which the most fastidious palate could desire." Lincoln responded to the toast: "The Union — the North will maintain it — the South will not de- part therefrom !" That year Lincoln came often to Chicago, where he was concerned with a law suit brought by a reaper machine manu- facturer named Manny. Manny was a McCormick competitor whom McCormick had tried to eliminate from the field. Manny had brought suit and retained Lincoln as one of his lawyers. The Whig party was disintegrating and a new one, the Republican, coming into the political field as its successor. In this party Lincoln became an important unit. He spoke at a political meeting in Chicago, on February 28th, 1857, along with one of Chicago's most important citizens, "Long John" Wentworth. He read, with some surprise, in the columns of a Chicago newspaper, on June 20th, that one hundred and ten votes had been cast for him at the National Republican Convention, as candidate for vice-president. On the 19th he spoke in Chicago on "Freedom or Slavery". On July 12th he and another of Chicago's illustrious citizens, Gurdon S. Hub- bard, had tea together. He made his longest stay, a period of twenty-four days, in Chicago during the month of Sep- tember, 1857. He was engaged in trying one of his most in- teresting law suits, the "Effie-Alton" case. It was in that same year that he received a $5,000.00 legal fee for representing the Illinois Central Railroad in some of their land tenure cases. In 1858 he wrote one of his most significant letters, chal- lenging Stephen A. Douglas to a series of debates on matters of current importance. Each hour was bringing the time nearer when the nation would have to decide what it would do regarding "state's rights" and slavery. These questions were dynamite, and they surely would be good material for discussion because they were of general interest. Douglas accepted under protest. They agreed to talk in Ottowa, Free- port, Jonesboro, Charlestown, Oquawka, Quincy, Alton and 145 '^^^Mj^j^o^mV^stC^^o Galesburg. In the first debate, which took place in the old Indian town of Ottowa, Douglas framed a series of questions for Lincoln to answer. At the second, in Freeport, on August 27th, 1859, Lincoln replied. On the following day Douglas had an engagement to give a political speech in a town called Turner Junction, Lincoln was going to Peoria. Kane County Democratic supporters of "State Rights and Douglas for Senator" planned a rousing greeting and a "get together" dinner, out under the hickory trees in Nel tor's Grove on the edge of Turner Junction, in honor of their candidate. Adjacent villages and towns sent band-wagon loads of en- thusiasts and from a little village 18 miles from Turner Junc- tion, then known as Blackberry, came a suitably decorated hay-rick carrying beautiful young lady Democrats, known as the "Ever Readys". The Republicans, not to be out-done, prepared a similar wagon to carry "Lincoln True Hearts" over to the rally. It chanced that Lincoln was driving across 146 Stephen StmLincoln country from Freeport to reach Turner's Junction where he could catch a Peoria bound train and his road led through Blackberry. Near that village he had a friend named Moran, who owned a farm and he planned to visit and stay the night with him. The Kane County Republicans heard of this and thought it would be a fine idea for Lincoln to join the "Lin- coln True Hearts" and ride from Blackberry to Turner's Junc- tion in their hay-rick with them. He agreed, but he got to Blackberry so late that his party's representatives had driven off without him. The "Ever Readys" seem to have been less ready than were the "True Hearts," for they were still in town when Lincoln drove in from Mr. Moran's. They asked him to ride with them to Turner's Junction. He agreed, but their hay-rick got there too late to permit of his catching the Peoria bound train. Some one suggested that he go down to the big Hickory Grove rally and he did. Douglas heard he was there, got hold of him, greeted him warmly, persuaded him to mount the hay-rick and say a few words to his "many friends" in the audience, and he did that, too. It was a short talk, and then he returned to the railroad station and this 147 time he caught his train. Mr. Douglas talked for 2 hours or until it commenced to rain. All the "Every Ready's" wore beautiful blue sashes draped over their shoulders, and tied around their waists on which was lettered in black the name of some state that was going Democratic. The paint ran over everything. Turner's Junction is now West Chicago and the village of Blackberry, still a village, has a new name also, it is Elburn. All who participated in this event have now passed into a world in which slavery and "States Rights" cut no figure, and had it not been for the diligence of the Woman's Club of West Chicago, who undertook to find out just what did happen at this Turner's Junction meeting in Neltor's Grove on the 28th of August, 1858, this occurrence would have been forgotten. *But these ladies in the year 1928 undertook to gather together such remaining participants of the event as might be found, or if they could not be gathered in a body at least secure depositions from them telling their recollections of the affair. Several persons told their stories which were recorded and then sworn to by them. About August 27 th, 1898, the Aurora Beacon-News printed testimonials from 7 elderly but reputable people and a sworn statement from another who happened to come from Elgin, wherein they stated that they attended a political rally in Hickory Grove, Turner's Junction, (now West Chicago) on August 28th, 1858, and there heard Lincoln make a few remarks. Mr. Douglas was certainly there and possibly an unanticipated meeting between Lincoln and he did occur under the great trees in Neltor's Hickory Grove. This grove had previously belonged to a man by the name of Updike and long before his time had been a gathering spot for Pottawattomie Indian pow-wows. In the election Lincoln, who was from down-state carried Chicago and even got the majority of all votes cast, but *If this turns out to be an apocriphal yarn it is nevertheless a good one, and sets forth the manner in which our fathers or maybe our grandfathers put on their political rallys. In its issue two days after the Freeport'Douglas'Lincoln debates the Chicago Tribune stated that Lincoln had stopped at Peoria, on the afternoon of the preceeding day, en route home to Springfield after the Freeport debate, and addressed a gathering of about 200 people from the rear platform of his train. 148 Douglas carried the districts which cast the winning majority of votes in the State legislature. He won 54 to 46. Joseph Medill, owner of the Chicago Tribune, was one of Lincoln's staunch partisans and gave him the "breaks" when ever possible. His paper began broadcasting the idea that Lincoln was the only real national leader. By 1860 almost everybody thought Lincoln was going out for the Republican nomination for the presidency and the loyal Tribune said, "Everybody is for Lincoln". In 1860 the Republican National Convention met to nominate their candidate in a great build- ing known as the "Wigwam", in Chicago, located on the corner of Lake and Market Streets. Lincoln did not come up from Springfield. The convention's favored candidate was supposed to be William E. Seward, an easterner, but Lincoln's managers thought differently. They controlled Program ar- rangements at the convention. The Seward partisans were allowed to have things their way during the first 2 days. When the time came to make nomination speeches for presi- dent the hall was packed with thousands of rabid, shouting Lincoln partisans. A Mr. Judd arose and said, "I desire, on behalf of the delegation from Illinois, to put in nomination as a candidate for president of the United States Abraham Lincoln of Illinois." Forty thousand throats let out a roof- splitting roar. On the first ballot, Seward had 173/ 2 votes, Lincoln 102; on the third ballott, he had 231/2 and Seward 180. Mr. Medill, persuaded the Ohio delegation floor manager to change four Ohio votes to Lincoln, and the thing was done. Old Abe, the rail splitter, the New Salem store clerk, the farm hand, was the nominee of the party of the North. Lincoln, in Springfield, awaited news of the results of the Convention in company with his friend Baker through the morning of May 18th, 1860. About noon a messenger boy rushed up to him with a telegram. It bore one word for the address — "Abe". Opening it Lincoln read these words: "We did it. Glory to God." To the few bystanders who gathered he said a few words, then remarked that he thought he would go home, where he knew there was a woman who would like to hear the news. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, received 149 the nomination as vice president. It had cost Lincoln's friends only about $700.00 to secure him the nomination. On Novem- ber 2nd, I860, he was elected president of the United States. On November 21st, Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln once more visited Chicago and put up at their favorite hostelry, the Tremont House. They stayed until the 26th, and left in a drizzling rain. Chicago went wild over "their" president- elect, for Chicago had begun to think that Lincoln was really their son. On the 23rd they gave him a public reception that lasted all morning. Sunday the Lincolns went to church at St. James, on the near North Side. It was in the spring of the year 1865 that Lincoln came through Chicago for the last time. But he knew nothing of it. On the 14th of April John Wilkes Booth had shot the presi- dent and on the 15th this wound caused his death. En route to his final resting place in Springfield his body was taken through the city. It was again a cold and rainy day, but again the city turned out to do their great son honor. Every place where people could stand was taken as the solemn cortege passed north on Michigan Avenue from Park Row to Wash- ington Street. General Joseph Hooker headed the procession. The blackdraped catafalque pulled by 8 plumed horses, was escorted by 30 white clad maidens. The body lay in state in the Court House rotunda. Thus ended the 56 years of life which had been vouchsafed America's greatest son, the Emancipator. 150 IN the center of an iron fenced square of grass, trees and shrubs to the south-east of a shabby old residential quarter in Chicago known as Woodlawn Place, stands a tall granite shaft on the top of which is an heroic statue of another Chi- cagoan, Stephen A. Douglas. Beneath the shaft, within a dark crypt, reposes a catafalque in which lie his earthly remains. Children play in this lot and around the tomb.* Douglas was identified with some very dramatic incidents in the history of the mid-west and the nation. He came to the fore at a period of great danger, when sincere and capable leaders were badly needed, and as representative of a powerful body of voters who thought his proposed solutions were safest, he accepted a challenge from America's greatest son to a contest in which it was generally thought he had the better chance to win.** Stephen A. Douglas experienced a remarkable rise in his not long life. Born in New England, coming in his 20th year, unknown, to Chicago, working as a mechanic, he reached the office of State's Attorney by the time he was 37 years old, then he was elected a member of the State Legislature, became Secretary of State, Judge of the State Supreme Court, member of Congress and United States senator. He identified himself with many of the most important issues before the people and gave freely of all his resources. Once when the Illinois State Legislature was in financial difficulties and a strong group were proposing the repudiation of State obligations the then Governor Ford, knowing that this would be an almost fatal error and personally unable to check it, sent for Mr. *A sort of super-man legend has begun to gather around this nearly forgotten resting place of Stephen Douglas. "Mama says the man in that place has risen three times from the dead. Is that so?" whispered a small Mexican girl timidly peering at the catafalque visible in the crypt. "It is not so," one of her more experienced little boy friends replied: "That's what my brother says; — he says it sure ain't so." "When that there man rises even once the world has got to come to an end," declared the young man. **The quality of loyality in Douglas shone forth after his defeat. At Lincoln's inauguration he wore, probably for the first time in his life, a tall hat, and as he stepped forth on the platform it was evident he hardly knew what to do with it. Douglas, seated near by, sprang forward and relieved him of the burden; Lincoln was now Douglas' leader and to him he owed and gave his every support. 151 Douglas, who was home and ill. He hurried to Springfield and so strong was his influence that the plan was defeated. His speeches on the Texas boundary question were largely responsible for bringing that empire into the Union; he spoke in vindication of the United State's position in the Mexican war and upheld its contention in the Canadian boundary settlement, demanding that the 54-40 latitude be accepted. Had his voice been heeded this country would today possess the Pacific coast up to Alaska. He was active in railroad legislation and helped the Illinois Central railroad establish its line the length of the state. He was a strong advocate of the "majority rule" plan, a very important position in decisions then being made by several states in determining whether they should be slave or free soil states. His unflinching adherence to this majority rule or state rights policy probably cost him the presidency. Douglas was the leader of the Democratic party, which was the party of the south, but he strongly sided with the Kansas free soil majority when in 1858 that state undertook to adopt a state constitution which would have placed it in the slave holding group. A powerful minority at that time were in a position to force an adoption of a slave endorsing constitution. Knowing them to be acting against majority interests he de- nounced their proposition as un-American and they lost. The southern democracy heard of this and although he was then their uncrowned choice as presidential democratic candidate they turned from him, nominated another candidate, and Douglas lost the election. He believed the colored race was incapable of taking care of itself and declared that the Declaration of Independence in the lines "all men have been created free and equal" re- ferred to the white race only, saying the lines meant equality between the colonists and British common men ; he had plenty of money but did not value it highly; he drank too much; he travelled continually; he married Dolly Madison's niece, a highly placed lady and became an associate of eastern rail- road magnates. He built his home on Chicago's South Side in a district not then within the city limits and from that 152 land he gave 10 acres for the founding of the present Uni- versity of Chicago. As the civil war swept over the States Douglas died. His land was used as a concentration point for newly organized soldiers and then as a Confererate prison camp. Two small residential parks, Groveland and Woodlawn, remain with their private roads, and old, comfortable looking residences. In one of these parks, on the site of Douglas' mansion "Oakenwald", his admirers erected a monument to his memory. Four sculp- tured maidens, Tolerance, History, Justice and Illinois sit at the 4 stone corners of the edifice which houses his coffin; chisseled on the face of the marble sarcophagus are his last words; — "Tell my children to obey the laws and uphold the constitution". THE third generation of mid-west pioneers found themselves in a new, largely mechanized world. Railroads and tele- phones, hard roads and steel utensils had nearly eliminated old, clumsy methods of doing things. Land values became so high that where engineering and money could remove swamps and scrub- tree encumbrances it was done. Comparatively large areas, such as the Horicon marshes in Wisconsin and the Kankakee River swamp lands, were ditched and drained. The Kankakee River from the day when LaSalle passed had run its devious course through north-west Indiana farming country, and after 200 years farmers began speculating on the quality and value of the soil under the river bed and the miles of sloughs and ponds, known as the Kankakee marshes. "It must be very fertile land," said they, and began to plan how they might get it drained, so use could be made of what might be extra rich farm acres. The old river made sort of a paradise out of northern Indiana and Illinois. It dawdled along, making many twists so it could flow between all possible banks of fragrant fern, cedar and arrow-root hummocks, and nourish the tall trees festooned with wild grape and bittersweet vines, before it 153 The River That Vanished reached the prairies and be- came part of the Father of Waters. Beaver and deer came from hiding places at dusk and swam in the pools or stood knee deep in them; about 50,000,000 muskrats, mink, racoon, opossum, great heron, ducks and geese, owls, fish and frogs; - — our little brothers never seen in good farm land country; — lived there, and did not want the changes which the farmers did. Red men had to be driven from the place by force, and when French settlers came and created their simple towns, such as Bour- bonnaise, L'Erable, Papineau, Ste. Marie, Manteno and Ste. Anne they wrote back to those they knew in the old country and told them how specially wonderful this little part of the New World was, and advised them to come on over. But the country grew up and various people endorsed modern ways of living; and at last all the country was settled. Then when the farmers urged the au- thorities to drain the Kankakee marshes and sell them the land under its waters there were too few to say no. A commit- tee of men distinguished for their wisdom, was appointed to consider this, and after due consideration in 1882, the work be- gan of turning the river into a canal and digging laterals to drain most of the water-covered areas within the entire dis- 154 trict. It was only 77 miles, as the crow flies, from river source to mouth, but counting twists and turns it measured 240 miles. It fell 97.3 feet in its short course, and when the channel was completed and the lateral ditches were pouring their life water into it it discharged 25,000 cubic feet per second and drained an area of about 1600 square miles. There is no river in that area now, nor the rich wild animal life there was, nor are there many rich farm acres; most of the recovered ground was light and dried out under the sunshine. The big ditch is 40 feet wide and rainfall drains into it too fast, the basic water level keeps falling. Birds and game, heavy native foliage and flowers largely disappeared, the millions of ducks and geese that used the Kankakee water as a resting and breeding station in their long flight to and from the far north and warm south found other sky-trails. The draining eliminated natural flood control over a section of the mid-west. This is the story of the river that vanished. AcDusRwe soft miscs Rose room xme rivcrs. surface fino jumpinc hsh broke me sunset RmecaonS Chicago: BoomTown IT would have been hard to have found another more un- promising site on which to found a metropolis than were the great prairies in the north eastern corner of Illinois, through which a shallow river flowed into Lake Michigan. In spring they lay undrained and nearly impossible to pass over. Yet in the spectacular mid-west growth this spot, where a small fort and four log cabins stood in 1814, was to outgrow all other centers and become Chicago. As the outpost grew into a village and then a struggling town some observers, among them an army general Winfield Scott, who had been detailed to help fight the Blackhawk war and had then been transferred back to the east, foretold a bright future for it. Eastern capitalists were more liable to believe such optomistic prophesies about its future if they remained in the east, than they were if they came out to have a look at this wonder-child among western cities. New York capitalists invested $20,000.00 in a tract of newly surveyed Chicago land, apparently without having first inspected it, and Mr. Bronson, of that city, journeyed west to see what they had got for their money. He did not think well of the investment and another interested New Yorker, Mr. William B. Ogden, came out and agreed with him. This tract, of which they were owners, lay just west and north of the Chicago River and Mr. Ogden described it as a low, muddy 156 160 acres covered with oak patches and shrubbery. The north branch of the Chicago River bounded it on the west and south, bending around it something like a bow. He advertised it for sale and was amazed when a would-be purchaser with $100,000.00 showed up. Now thinking somewhat better of it, he divided it into thirds, put them up at auction, and hung around to see what would happen. Again he heard a bid of $100,000.00 for one third only of the original plat and with- drew it all from the market. Noticing building going up on all sides, and learning that building material was scarce he decided to become a Chicagoan, and to begin digging clay from his property, build a brick kiln and make bricks. At the same time he meant to turn the trench thus dug to his further advantage; — truly a real Chicagoan in spirit — make a ditch from which the clay came into a slip where boats might enter to receive loads of his bricks. The more he dug the longer grew the slip, and finally it reached along the entire eastern edge of the property and became a ship-wide channel, commencing at the southern end and running north in a straight line, something like the string on a bow. Boats ascend- ing the river passed up this channel, thus shortening their course. The newly dug ditch became known as the Ogden canal and made his piece of land into an island. It was Chi- cago's first canal. For a number of years little happened on the island, besides the brick yard and the squatting of a few workmen's families around it. About 1847, however, a lot of immigrants starved into leaving Ireland by 3 successive potato crop failures, had been persuaded to come to Chicago where there was plenty of work. They arrived in town, penniless and hungry and were allowed to become squatters over on this artificial river island. They were a happy crowd and did not care much whether they did or did not own the land on which they built ram- shackle huts, gathered a few pigs, geese and maybe a cow or two, and went to work helping to build the city across the river. They called their settlement Kilgubbin after the place they had left. Every morning red headed Irish goose girls drove the geese to Widow Ryan's pond, potatoes and cabbages 157 grew well, at eventide was heard the jolly Irish reel, and the singing of Irish ballads. 1 8 years later a newspaper reporter strayed into Kilgubbin. The Irish were still there, the streets, still unpaved, held fine mud puddles in which hundreds of geese, ducks and pigs wallowed, women were all good looking, mostly red headed, usually barefooted, dressed in rags and tatters. Their pic- turesque shanties scarcely turned wind and rain. Each one seemed to have 3 rooms, in the parlor lived the pig or cow, in the next the geese and chickens, children and grown-ups were in the third. Along the walls (outside) grew cabbages and potatoes. It was easy to hit on the right name for such a paradise; it had to be Goose Island. Some of these residents bought their homesteads but the majority had never had it so nice just as it was. Such a place could not last forever; the city across the river began to crowd over into Goose Island. Tanneries, breweries, ship, coal and lumber yards, a tremendous rolling mill, more brick yards and a city Gas works were built. The Chicago Land Company became technical owners of the greater part of the island and began to evict those who did not own their land, and sell it to manufacturers or speculators. Polish immigrants moved into the houses thus emptied in place of the vanishing Irish. There still was plenty of work for every one and old and new settlers found qualities to life on Goose Island which commanded their affection. Then, on October 9th, 1871, Chicago was swept by the "great Fire". It spared Goose Island, but thousands of near north side residents, whether rich or poor, were not spared. They crowded over to the safety of the Island and stayed there for several tense days and slowly dispersed, having for the first time in their lives, perhaps, heard of and thanked providence for Goose Island. Then, by and by, the Goose Islanders asked for street light- ing. There was a great gas works in their midst, but the Company refused to pipe and light their streets, pointing out that the area was unpaved and shabbily built, little better than a "little hell." In the ensuing agitation that designation was 158 taken up, and there might have been serious trouble had not a more serious crisis just then arisen. The Chicago, Milwau- kee & St. Paul railroad wanted to secure terminal rights in Chicago, and to do this they bought a tiny, inconsequential road which had trackage on the Island. They began laying multiple tracks on all available Goose Island spaces. Towns- people resented this and one night tore up all the tracks on Cherry Street. Their fury was of no avail, the railroad had the legal right to be there. Slowly the people gave up. From then on more and more tracks went down and more factories went up. : • • - * One of the wildest chapters in the Island history was yet to come. About 1885 speculation in grains began to assume tremendous proportions. It was the practice of speculators to buy quantities of wheat for future deliveries, hoping that others might have to buy this commodity at some future stated date 159 R£SlD€rtT DISTINCT on WORTH BRANCH STRSEl for more than they had paid for it. On the delivery date specu- lators had to have grain right on hand for delivery. Their opponent speculators also bought all the wheat they could store, hoping to buy so much that their opponents could not "cover" the amount they had agreed to deliver and therefore would have to come around and buy from them at a high price. This dangerous and exciting speculation took not only nerve but capital. P. D. Armour began to deal in wheat on a tremendous scale hoping to thus "corner the market," and had to have great storage space. The St. Paul railroad there- upon built the largest grain storage elevator in the world on Goose Island. It held 4,000,000 bushels at a time. Mr. Armour also hurriedly built three more elevators. Anyone who could hit a nail with a hammer could get a job on his eleva- tors; people called them the "30 day elevators" because they were built in that space of time. For each of three years P. D. Armour did "corner" the wheat market, and each time he won. His operations caused the failure of banks, ruined the careers of some of his con- temporaries, and in the third and last year of his market manipulation they "broke" Joe Leiter, whose father, Levi, had to come to Armour to settle for his son. Then the government ruled such speculations out. But there were the gigantic eleva- 160 tors over on the "Island." One day they caught fire and burned to the ground. Sixty-five fire engines, both of Chi- cago's fire boats, and thousands of awed spectators went to the fire and did more or less toward putting it out. And then, to pile indignity on insult, the City Council removed the fire engine company house from Goose Island and left them with- out that protection. Well, other things came along. Goose Island had its share of Gangland murders. Joe Connel's saloon used to stand at 1140 Hickory Street, and one August day three men in an auto drove up and called Joe over to speak with them and riddled him with bullets for selling beer in defiance of the "syndicate." His brother, "Little Connell," a friend of Dion O'Bannion's got his a year or so later. He was a gambler. At one time the then mayor William Thompson caused a $6,000,000 municipal incinerator to be built there. It is there today, unused. Once they were going to have a great municipal food market there, but it fell through. Once they thought of locating the city airport on the island. But so far Goose Island has done no better for itself than become a "waste of track- age, factories and coal piles; — except that toward the south- ern end stand a couple of groups of simple little frame con- struction homes in which survivors of all the changes live, with their stove heated houses, fenced yards, pumps and out houses, the only real "Goose Islanders" left. 161 SEVENTY-FIVE years after the Blackhawk War had be- come history and largely by chance, the memory of he who had led his people in this last gallant try to hold onto their liberty, the Chief Blackhawk, received recognition. On the high rock bluffs lining the Rock River opposite Oregon, Illi- nois, in the heart of what once was Indian country, a gentle- man named Wallace Heckman owned a farm. He gave the use of 40 of these river acres to a group of Chicago artists for the establishing of a summer colony. They built a dozen or more cottages and a club house, christened the settlement "Eagle's Nest Camp" and spent each summer there for the next 44 years, until their tenure ended with the death of their last artist member, Ralph Clarkson. Each year they staged a fiesta which included as elaborate a procession as they could manage. On one such occasion their distinguished resident sculptor, Lorado Taft, created a small image of Blackhawk to be carried in it. Some guest remarked that this subject, representing the last great mid-west Indian, would make a fitting piece of sculpture if erected on the river bluff, looking out over the country where he lived and fought and died. The idea met with hearty encouragement from the guests, among whom was a representative of a cement company who said his organization would supply the required cement for casting such a statue if the other requirements could be met. As cement construction up until then had been used mainly for making roads, bridges and building foundations, and was not yet dedicated to the more precious service of the fine arts this seemed a barren suggestion. One of Taft's apprentices stepped forward and diffidently offered to try to execute the job. His name was Presuhn; he was young, tall, strong, and before becoming an apprentice student under Taft for the summer (and perhaps an artist) , had labored for several years at railroad concrete work. None other, among the assembly of artists, bankers, lawyers and manufacturers had anywhere nearly an equivalent accomplishment, so pertinent and inter- esting, to offer. After a time spent in discussing the possibilities for success in a field so unexplored as cement construction for great statuary Mr. Presuhn was told to go ahead. 162 Mr. Taft, deeply interested in the possibilities of casting large figures in concrete, of which this, so far as he knew, was to be the pioneer, made a second, more definite statue The Blacl^wk Monumen 163 about 6 feet high to serve as guide in making molds with which to cast the final monumental figure.* After the second statuette was made he and his assistants set about making the molds and laying the foundation for the big work. It was Presuhn on whom the responsibilities and labors fell. He promptly set about it by blasting a 9 feet deep hole in the rock for a foundation, filling it with con- crete, first imbedding many heavy iron rods in it for the tying together of the base and the figure. He laid a water pipe line from the river up the 250 foot high bluff and brought in an old threshing machine with which to draw up water. The body of the statue had to be molded where it was to stand, and forms in which to cast the concrete were modelled and made for this purpose by enlarging the 6 foot original with a pantograph. The statue is 48 feet high, and an adequate frame, roughly the shape of the body, was built, using timbers and wire netting covered with a plaster-of-paris wash, 10 tons of which were needed. Approaching winter drove summer residents to the city, but not Presuhn.** He enclosed the entire *In 1911 a 2 page broadside was printed, probably at Taft's suggestion, in which he wrote of how he conceived the dream of making a figure. "This is the way it happened. Every evening as the shadows turned blue we walked over this bluff (where the statue finally was erected). We always stopped at this point to rest — * * * And as we stood here, we involuntarily folded our arms, and it came over me that generations before had done so. And so the figure grew out of this attitude, ! ! ! I did not study any one type or race of Indians. It is a composite of the Foxes, * * * and in short it represents the Indian personality. * * * To be suggestive rather than direct is what I aim at — to do that is the great joy of the sculptor." **Presuhm progressed no further than an employe of the Field Museum, in the department of taxidermy, where armatures for mounting animal and bird skins were made. As years passed it looked as though the not small contribution he had made to the producing of the Blackhawk statue would be as near as he would come to being a sculptor. Lorado Taft and the one time owner of the land on which the statue stood, had died, the estate was in process of being turned over to the State of Illinois for another state park, but lack of immediate funds was holding up the plan when a shaft of lightning struck and blasted a considerable part of the face of the statue away. No one was immediately available to restore this heavenly vandalism. Presuhn heard of it, went there during his 2 weeks vacation and asked the caretaker for permission to restore the damage. All he wanted was the materials and a place to sleep. He was put up in the empty Heckman house and, after some dickering with authorities the materials materialized. He went to work; the Museum extended his vacation to 6 weeks, but the work had not been completed. A year later he returned and after a second 6 weeks the restoration was completed. Presuhn went back to building armatures, his labor almost unnoticed, but some where in his consciousness a pleasant warmth must have come when he remembered that he had done a part of Blackhawk's noble head. Six months after he got back to his job he died. 164 grotesque structure with a temporary weather proof, shed-like shelter, within which he placed a large stove to combat the impending freezing cold. The interior of the mold was coated with a sizing and a back mold was also built to create the hollow space between it and the inner face of the outer molds and reinforcement rods were placed between. A small shaft was left in the center for service purposes. The cement was then poured in. The great head went up last. It was not possible to say immediately whether the long continued pouring which had taken a large part of the winter, was successful. When spring came a group went down to see. It was completely O. K. On July 1st, 1911, it was unveiled. "The figure rises out of the cliff as if it belonged there, as if almost it were a part of it. Indeed it does belong there — once seen this statue can never be forgotten;" wrote Harriet Monroe. Thus was Blackhawk memorialized in the land which once he thought was his. FROM the coming of the first adventurers in the mid-west until today the story of its development is one continuous narrative of historical events and notable or picturesque per- sonalities. They helped form its character and guide its prog- ress. Through the first 100 years of this period men struggled to find out how to live with Nature, during the second they directed their efforts to finding out how to live with each other. Their diligence, bravery, belief in freedom and the principles of democracy helped prevent this mid-west from becoming a British province and reconciled its development with that of the nation. The impact of this not long past remains a valued part of our lives, adding strength and direction to our present struggle in which we are still concerned in finding out how to live well in our increasingly complicated world. 165