a I B RAHY 
 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 977.334 
 F31g 
 cop. 5 
 
 111. HlbL.3ur v< 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/galenaguideOOfede 
 
A/~aA^3aDa4^ 
 
 »: NEWCOMB 
 SOS Nevada St. 
 
 WftBANA. 1U 
 
 AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES 
 
American Guide Series 
 
 GALENA GUIDE 
 
 Compiled and Written by 
 
 FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT (ILLINOIS) 
 
 Works Progress Administration 
 
 ivada Si. 
 
 !A, ILL. 
 
 Sponsored by 
 
 THE CITY OF GALENA 
 
 1937 
 
Copyrighted, 1937, by 
 The City of Galena 
 
777. 33V 
 
 F 51: 
 
 «<: 3>U. Wilt . -Mc^o^c^ 
 
 Foreword 
 
 'Towns were never intended as objects of worship, we 
 believe. Surely ours was not. But, if it were possible to have 
 such gods, and if we were compelled to worship none better, 
 we should choose one with a marked character in appearance ; 
 of hills and valleys, of beetling cliffs and quiet dells, far rather 
 than a city of tame curvatures or of a level plain." 
 
 — Editorial, Galena Daily Advertiser, 1856. 
 
 WE whose lives have been shaped against the background of Galena's 
 past may be inclined to accept our birthright as a matter of 
 course without fully realizing that our little town has national signifi- 
 cance as a unique bit of Americana. 
 
 We have come to regard Galena and its romantic past — its aging 
 buildings with their wealth of architectural treasure — as our personal 
 prize when as a matter of fact it belongs not only to us but to America. 
 We of Galena are merely its custodians, holding it in trust for future 
 generations and for the world beyond our little hills. 
 
 In this sense, we welcome those for whom Galena has an esthetic 
 or a historical appeal. It is with a thought of preserving for our- 
 selves as well as for the State and Nation a true word picture of the 
 part that our city has played in the winning of the West that the City 
 of Galena has sponsored the publication of this volume. 
 
 We appreciate the painstaking and unbiased research of the Federal 
 Writers' Project which we believe has given us an authentic record 
 without sacrificing the color and romance of this human narrative which 
 mirrors a time when Galena was a key city of the Northwest. We are 
 grateful to the Federal Art Project for the cover design and for the 
 illustrations, which assist in portraying the Galena we love and which 
 we invite you to enjoy. 
 
Preface 
 
 THE Galena Guide is first of a series of city guide books to be 
 published in Illinois under the direction of the Works Progress 
 Administration as represented by the Federal Writers' Project. 
 
 Authorization for work on guide books for individual cities and 
 counties came as an aftermath of the major task allotted to the Federal 
 Writers eighteen months ago. This task was to obtain, compile, and 
 prepare for publication the material for guide books in the forty-eight 
 states and the District of Columbia. These state guides are to furnish 
 material for an encyclopedic publication to be known as the American 
 Guide. 
 
 Some idea of the scope of the Federal Writers' activities may be 
 gained from the fact that more than six thousand writers, editors, and 
 research workers have been employed to rediscover America for the 
 Americans as well as for foreign visitors. Many millions of words 
 have been written dealing with resources, points of interest, economic 
 and social development, history, and sectional peculiarities of the nation. 
 Members of the Federal Writer's staff have penetrated every part of the 
 country, no matter how obscure or remote. 
 
 Much credit is due volunteer associates throughout Illinois who, 
 in every community, have helped to obtain material and insure accuracy. 
 Those of us who were entrusted with writing the Galena Guide feel 
 that we have been greatly favored. In Galena particularly local resi- 
 dents, public officials, civic, fraternal, religious and social organizations 
 have lightened our task, and of their assistance the writers remain deeply 
 appreciative. 
 
Contents 
 
 Foreword 5 
 
 Preface 6 
 
 General Information 8 
 
 Galena, Profile of the Past 9 
 
 Jo Daviess County: A Glacial Caprice 13 
 
 Burial Ground 15 
 
 Many Mines 17 
 
 Many Miners 20 
 
 Boom Border 25 
 
 Lead and Grain 32 
 
 The Fermenting Fifties 37 
 
 A Middle- Aged Clerk in a Faded Army Coat 43 
 
 Armed Years 46 
 
 Landmarks and Watermarks 50 
 
 Strolling Our Streets 53 
 
 Points of Interest 57 
 
 Environs 64 
 
 Chronology 68 
 
 Galena Bibliography 78 
 
 Personal Interviews 79 
 
 Views of Galena 81-95 
 
General Information 
 
 VISITORS to Galena will find most accommodations well-centralized ; 
 the Illinois Central and Chicago & North Western railroads, how- 
 ever, are at the foot of Bouthillier Street on the opposite bank of the 
 Galena River. Three other lines, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Great 
 Northern, and the Chicago Great Western, operate passenger trains 
 through the East Dubuque Terminal, fifteen miles northwest of Galena. 
 Northland Greyhound Bus Lines operate three busses daily on the Chi- 
 cago-Galena-Dubuque route over U.S. Highway 20 ; busses also operate 
 between Galena and East Dubuque. The Galena bus station is located 
 on South Main near Green Street. 
 
 Galena's business area, concentrated on Main between Warren and 
 Franklin Streets, has three hotels, several cafes, and one theater. None 
 of the hotels offers garage accommodations, but local automobile dealers 
 arrange for overnight storage. Two well-equipped camps stand west of 
 Galena on U.S. Highway 20 ; another is four miles east of the city on 
 the same road. 
 
 Tourist information is available at the Galena headquarters of the 
 Chicago Motor Club, South Main at Perry and Franklin Streets, and at 
 the American Automobile Association, Commerce and Perry Streets. For 
 those who wish to see the city's historic sites, a guide service is pro- 
 vided by both organizations. 
 
 Two miles west of Galena on U.S. Highway 20 is the Galena Golf 
 Club, a public course of nine holes with a greens fee of one dollar. 
 Public tennis courts are in Grant Park. During the winter months the 
 Galena River Playground, on the east side of the river near U.S. High- 
 way 20, is converted into a skating rink. 
 
GALENA 
 
 The Profile of the Past 
 
 GALENA, nestling against steep hills in the 
 quiet valley of the Galena River, is the 
 oldest city of northern Illinois. It lies in the 
 northwestern corner of Jo Daviess County six 
 miles below the Illinois-Wisconsin line and four 
 miles from the Mississippi. In 1826, while 
 Chicago still was a swamp village, Galena was 
 a bustling outpost swarming with miners, gam- 
 blers, traders, rivermen, and trappers. Just be- 
 fore the Civil War the coming of the railroads 
 diverted its river traffic, foreign competition 
 killed its lead and zinc enterprises, and the 
 Galena River became unnavigable. Today it re- 
 mains a county seat of 3,878 persons, remem- 
 bered as a trade center of the Northwest Terri- 
 tory and the home of U. S. Grant. 
 
 It was one of America's early boom towns. 
 Its beginning was that of the average mushroom 
 settlement of the Northwest Territory, but be- 
 cause of its access to the Mississippi at a time 
 when the river traffic dominated the frontier 
 economy, the town pushed itself rapidly toward 
 hegemony of the Middle Border. Its scattered 
 hillside huts of log and sod gave way to sub- 
 stantial homes of native limestone as miners 
 prospered, and the huddle of rough buildings 
 along the river were replaced by brick and stone 
 business blocks as increasing numbers of boats 
 found Galena's wharves. By the late forties and 
 early fifties it was Illinois' wealthiest city, its hills 
 were studded with mansions and its overhanging 
 bluffs resounded to the tumult of its waterfront. 
 
 Then came the railroads to divert commerce 
 from the river towns toward cities which made 
 good centers and terminals. Galena was left 
 standing, the hands of its clock stopped at the 
 moment of its greatest prosperity. Today, with 
 its crooked little streets and weathered buildings, 
 its grilled porticoes and cast iron balconies, the 
 town suggests a tinted etching torn from the 
 pages of America's past. 
 
 [9] 
 
Galena is built in a natural amphi- 
 theatre. The old commercial and indus- 
 trial district is crowded into an elliptical 
 bowl scarcely a mile long and a fourth 
 as wide, through which Main and Com- 
 merce Streets twist, paralleling the Galena 
 River. Terraced forty feet on the bluff 
 above Main Street, to the northwest, are 
 the aged churches and commodious homes 
 of Bench Street. Above and behind Bench 
 Street the town's chief residential section 
 spreads fanwise against the sky, its pic- 
 turesque roofs and chimneys pleasing to 
 the eye. 
 
 Modern paving has replaced cobbles 
 and planks, electric lights have supplanted 
 kerosene lamps that in other days cast great 
 shadows along the levee, and running 
 water has replaced the water peddler's 
 cart. Chainstores, motion picture theaters, 
 public playgrounds, and radio shops have 
 claimed the town. Galenians have fitted 
 the drama of the present to the setting of the past. Modern business thrives 
 within walls which witnessed the barter of lead miner and Indian. Virtually 
 no new buildings have been built on Main Street in fifty years. There has 
 been little need for new buildings in a town which was sturdily built to 
 accommodate 8,000 people in thel850's. Most of the present day stores, 
 behind modern fronts, are occupying quarters erected 80 and 100 years ago. 
 The four and five-story buildings, rising somewhat incongruously above their 
 smaller neighbors on Main Street, were built in the pre-war years. A variety 
 store now occupies the old rooms of Grant and Perkins, leather workers. 
 A creamery operates in the old commission house on the abandoned levee. 
 The Siniger & Siniger drug store is doing business at the stand it occupied 
 in the 1830's. An ultra-modern entrance affected by the town's motion pic- 
 ture theater cannot hide from old timers that the building was put up 80 
 years ago. It is this faculty of Galenians for moving into the future with- 
 out brushing aside their landmarks that has preserved one of the quaintest 
 spots of the Middle West. 
 
 The late Lorado Taft once declared that every stick and stone of Galena 
 was precious to the artist and the student. He urged that the city's architec- 
 tural relics be kept as close to their original state as possible. Mr. Taft was 
 one of a group of artists who for many years made frequent visits to the 
 neighborhood. Galena's countryside and Galena's streets have stimulated 
 many charming canvases and etchings. Janet Ayer Fairbanks chose the 
 city as the locale for her novel of pioneer life, The Bright Land, and Mac- 
 
 [10] 
 
Kinlay Kantor wrote verses to the High School Steps, steep flights which 
 scale the tedious hill from Main to Prospect Street. 
 
 But while Galena's chief attraction for the visitor lies in its rich lore, 
 the modern Galenian is more concerned with the present. Because a decline 
 in lead and zinc prices following the World War made operation of only 
 its most productive mines profitable, the area has become largely dependent 
 upon agriculture and small industry. Dairying is the principal agricultural 
 pursuit throughout the county, with some attention given to raising market 
 pork. Galena's three dairy concerns and a cheese factory handle the county's 
 milk and cream. An axle-grease factory is one of the pioneers of that in- 
 dustry. The cigar factory's locally famous "Lead Mine" cigar, smoked by 
 Galenians for several generations, maintains its popularity. A brewery, a 
 distillery, and two stove factories operate within the city. But the smelters 
 all are silent. 
 
 Since 1826, when Galena's first religious service was conducted in the 
 back room of a log store on Main Street, the church has been a large part 
 of the city's social life. Churches, of which there are now eight, were among 
 the first permanent structures built. Some buildings here have stood over a 
 century. They were erected when it was necessary to convey material hun- 
 dreds of miles by oxen or water. Some Galenians still pray in the same pews 
 in which their fathers worshipped six generations ago. Church bazaars and 
 socials assist the city's communal life. 
 
 Second to the church in the minds of the early settlers was the school; 
 hence the city has a splendid system which dates back to 1826, when Doctor 
 John Hancock opened the first classroom. Central High School, a three- 
 story structure at 409 Prospect Street, accommodates 625. Seminary School, 
 211 Jackson, is a grade school which accommodates 74. Two parochial grade 
 schools, St. Mary's and Annunciation (St. Michael's), have enrollments of 
 around 140 and 100, respectively. 
 
 Fraternal organizations and their auxiliaries round out Galena's social 
 life. There are the Masonic orders, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 
 Elks, Eagles, Royal Neighbors of America, Modern Woodman of America, 
 Knights of Pythias and Knights of Columbus. E. D. Kittoe Post, No. 82, 
 Grand Army of the Republic, with its auxiliary, the Ladies Circle, for many 
 years was the leading patriotic and military organization of the city, but no 
 members of Galena's G. A. R. now survive. Active patriotic orders at the 
 present time are: Priscilla Mullins Chapter, Daughters of the American 
 Revolution, Herman Finkbohm Post, American Legion, and the Veterans of 
 Foreign Wars. The Galena Woman's Club, the Galena Commercial Club 
 and the Lion's Club are active in cultural and civic programs. 
 
 Under a charter issued in 1857 Galena has a city government headed by 
 a mayor and a council of two aldermen from each of four wards. The school 
 board is appointed by the mayor. 
 
 The plant and pump station at the corner of Bouthillier and Park draw 
 water from an artesian well 1,500 feet deep. A reservoir is sunk near the 
 
 [ii] 
 
old city cemetery on High Street, one of the highest points in the city. Fire 
 protection is given by a volunteer fire department of 125 with quarters in 
 the 100 block on Commerce Street. 
 
 Galena's decline has not discouraged its outlook. At socials, at luncheons, 
 in the lobby of the DeSoto House and wherever Galenians congregate, there 
 is confidence. Aware of great untapped layers of lead and zinc in their 
 hills, they believe that Galena is capable, when the time is ripe, of regaining 
 lost boom days. 
 
 Yet most Galenians realize that the return of prosperity would ultimately 
 destroy the town as they know it. Its archaic buildings could not long with- 
 stand the demands of a machine age. Another boom would start the hands 
 of the clock again, but old landmarks would be razed and the town's peculiar 
 charm lost. It would no longer be the city that time forgot. 
 
 [12] 
 
Jo Daviess County: A Glacial Caprice 
 
 EONS ago great floods and quakes formed many rivers and laid deep ores 
 in the hills about Galena. Time stored the plain with lead, and men 
 followed rivers to many mines. They made small markets by many streams 
 and rammed lead into many guns. Indians mining for lead to trade to whites 
 were digging for the very bullets which were to drive them off the land. 
 
 Millions of years of topographical mutation have so modified this area 
 as to make it perhaps the most beautiful in the state. Flat- topped ridges are 
 spread fingerwise above the plains, and between the plains lie the valleys. 
 Topographical caprice has made here a region unlike any other in Illinois. 
 
 Three miles south of Galena is Pilot's Knob, a sign-post for rivermen of 
 other days ; slightly to its left is Dygert's Mound. Two miles east of the city 
 is Horseshoe Mound, and nine miles east-by-northeast, visible on clear days, 
 is Scales Mound. Two miles to its left is Charles Mound, 1,241 feet above 
 sea level and the highest point in Illinois. 
 
 Two phenomena were responsible for Galena's frontier importance: up- 
 heavals which exposed the ore-bearing stone known as Galena dolomite near 
 those rivers which were to become explorers' routes, and the glaciers which 
 once swept the continent to leave northern Illinois and southwestern Wisconsin 
 lead and zinc fields untouched. There was no glacial debris left here to 
 keep ores from sight. 
 
 What is now Jo Daviess County was once part of a sea bottom which 
 stretched from the Alleghenies to the Rockies ; its marine life has been recorded 
 in the prairie rocks. Five times immense seas came and receded, each 
 leaving a record of its peculiar life in stone. Around the last of these 
 prehistoric seas, in the earth's middle age, there lived such huge reptiles as the 
 Mosasaur, the Plesiosaur, and turtles weighing over half a ton. Subsequently 
 earthquakes raised the bottom of the sea, causing the waters to withdraw 
 into inland lakes, beds of which can be traced on both sides of U.S. 20 north 
 of Galena. 
 
 Galena's geological significance lies in the abundance of its fossils — 
 giant ferns, palms, and a thousand tropical growths left in the neighborhood 
 from the recession of the last sea. Scientists depend on the region for the 
 remains of a jungle which existed in the Cretaceous, or chalk and coal deposit- 
 ing era; that jungle fed an order of dinosaurs which included the 80-foot 
 Brontosaur and the double-brained Stegosaur, a huge lizard with one brain 
 in the skull and the other, twenty times as large, at the base of the tail. Dino- 
 cerate fossils have been found during road building through the county, in- 
 cluding teeth of Tyrannosaurus Rex, a fifteen-ton carnivore fifty feet long 
 and twenty high. 
 
 [13] 
 
From Apple River, on the edge of the glacial plains, canyons have been 
 gutted between the hills. Jagged precipices bare, in successive layers, Galena 
 and Niagarian dolomite, Maquoketa shale and Trenton limestone. Here 
 submarine volcanoes literally cracked the ancient seabed and tilted great slices 
 of it on end. Vast ages of water erosion widened the valleys and deepened 
 the canyons as rivers and streams cut their way through the stone. 
 
 Had glaciers crossed the county they would have ironed out its hills and 
 bluffs; by filling valleys with glacial drifts they would have buried the ores 
 so deep that they might never have been discovered. Accessibility of these 
 ores in the dawn of the eighteenth century accounts partly for Galena's 
 frontier boom. Another happy circumstance of topography placed the center 
 of the ore fields on a tributary of the Mississippi. Without such direct access 
 to the sea Galena could not have become, during the 1840's and 1850's, the 
 warehouse of the West. 
 
 [14] 
 
Burial Ground 
 
 HOW long Indians lived in the five hills about Galena, or what men may 
 have preceded them, is largely conjecture; no traces of prehistoric man 
 have been found in the region. The only remaining expressions of a human 
 past preceding the discovery of the continent are in mounds found along river 
 banks and hidden in small valleys throughout the county. Because of their 
 frequency, archeologists assume that the area was long inhabited ; they believe 
 that the mounds were left by an Indian nation who, in a long retreat from 
 the Atlantic seaboard, left one tribe, the Winnebagoes, in the Galena hills. 
 Along the route of that retreat are found the long, the round, and the effigy 
 type of mound, the latter so-called because it attempts a profile of some bird, 
 beast, fish, or man — although the delineation is sometimes so vague that the 
 layman cannot follow it. 
 
 More than 500 mounds have been located and mapped in the neighbor- 
 hood, of which many have attracted students of Indian lore from all over 
 the country. The mounds have been found most frequently along the Missis- 
 sippi in Hanover and Rice Townships and along the Galena River forks in 
 Council Hill and Vinegar Hill Townships. In the latter township, six miles 
 north of Galena on U.S. 80, on the Birkbeck farm, is a serpent mound approxi- 
 mately 100 feet long. On the Leekley farm, four miles northeast of Galena 
 in Council Hill Township, is a horse mound. A well-preserved effigy mound 
 built against the river bluff near Aiken, in Rice Township, represents a 
 thunder bird. 
 
 A theory which regarded the effigy mounds as the work of a race ante- 
 dating the Indians has now been largely abandoned, and they are commonly 
 credited to the Winnebagoes. It is generally supposed that the creatures 
 depicted represent totems of various clans, and that the mounds were built 
 to commemorate signal events and to mark burial ground. Many of the relics 
 found within suggest the culture of ancient Mexico, while other relics are of 
 European manufacture. It is noteworthy that the later mounds are less per- 
 fectly designed and are usually smaller. From these, and from Indian lore, 
 archeologists and ethnologists have pieced together the story of many tribes 
 in Illinois country. Here they built villages, erected shrines, buried their dead 
 and finally fled before the invader. 
 
 With the discovery of the New World, European imperialism began a 
 mad scramble for land and power. Although the Court of Rome, by a Papal 
 edict, gave all land 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands to Spain, and 
 all east of that line to Portugal, yet England, France, Sweden and the Nether- 
 lands refused to recognize the edict. In this they were aided by the Spanish 
 incapacity for colonization. Spanish successes in Mexico and Peru had made 
 all Spain eager for gold and silver, but when De Soto discovered the Mississippi 
 
 [15} 
 
 R. NEWCO 
 605 Nevada St. 
 
 URBANA, ILU 
 
he was disappointed in the river's lack of plunderable cities. As Spanish 
 enthusiasm for the new world began waning, the French began colonizing in 
 Quebec, Montreal and New Orleans. These lands were claimed by France 
 until 1763, when, following the fall of Quebec, all lands east of the Mississippi 
 were ceded to England. 
 
 The French were traders and explorers rather than gold-seekers, and 
 French colonial policy was greatly encouraged by the Jesuits, religious intel- 
 lectuals dedicated to augmenting the power of the church. While English 
 and Dutch colonized the Atlantic seaboard, the French penetrated the interior, 
 established missions, forts and trading posts, and everywhere ingratiated 
 themselves with the natives. French traders encouraged northwestern tribes 
 to hunt fur-bearing animals, introducing them incidentally to rifles and whis- 
 key to stimulate pelt production. Subsequently, lead for bullets became a 
 frontier essential. 
 
 A story is told by an early settler of Galena. In the winter of 1837-8 
 while out hunting with an old Indian, the pair came to an open prairie or plain, 
 to one portion of which the settler's attention was called because of its circular 
 form and the heavy growth of old weeds and grass within it. His companion 
 offered an explanation. 
 
 "Seventy years ago this winter (1838) was the coldest winter ever known. 
 During the winter a heavy deep snow came on, and the buffalo were snowed 
 in. The snow fell so deep they could not travel and in making the attempt 
 they went round and round, just like a white man when he becomes lost on 
 the prairies. The snow was so deep and remained so long that they fell 
 exhausted and starved, and froze to death. The carcasses decayed and en- 
 riched the ground where they died^and so the weeds and grasses were different 
 than those natural to the prairie that grew over their bones. 
 
 "After that winter the buffalo left, crossed the Mississippi and none have 
 ever been seen since on the east side of the great river." 
 
 [16] 
 
Many Mines 
 
 PRECISELY when lead was first mined in the Galena region is not known, 
 but as early as 1658 French adventurers had learned of its existence in 
 the locality from the Sioux. Jontel, who was in the Mississippi Valley in 
 1687 and later recorded LaSalle's expedition, wrote: "Travelers who have 
 been at the upper part of the Mississippi affirm that they have found mines 
 of very good lead there." The journals of the Jesuits Marquette, La Hontan, 
 and Hennepin mention the mineral wealth of the "Upper Mississippi." 
 
 Nicholas Perrot, Indian trader and French commandant, is generally cred- 
 ited with being the first white person to see Indian mines in the Galena area. 
 Perrot established a small trading post on the east bank of the Mississippi op- 
 posite modern Dubuque in 1690, and often visited the mines. It is fairly safe 
 to assume that other whites had preceded him, for the Indians made no use of 
 the mineral save in barter with whites. No weapons, implements, beads, or 
 trinkets of smelted lead or lead ore have been found by archeologists in north- 
 ern Illinois. It is probable that, until instructed by whites, the Indian remained 
 ignorant of the use of the ore. 
 
 It is possible to justify the claim of some historians that Jean Nicolet was 
 the first European to see the Galena lead deposits, in 1634. Nicolet, an agent 
 of Champlain, was the first European to set foot on Wisconsin earth. He is 
 known to have ascended the Fox River in Wisconsin from Green Bay to the 
 present site of Menasha, on Lake Winnebago. He probably took the easy 
 portage across from the Fox to the Wisconsin River and struck the upper edge 
 of the lead and zinc district in the neighborhood of Iowa County, Wisconsin. 
 Thirty-nine years later Marquette and Joliet took the same route up the Fox, 
 portaged to the Wisconsin and, arriving at the Mississippi, traveled down- 
 
 [17] 
 
stream to the mouth of the Arkansas. They wrote of Indians encountered 
 along the upper Mississippi: 
 
 "They do not know the use of either iron or copper and have nothing 
 but stone knives. Their faces are painted with red lead, or ocher, which 
 is found in great quantities a few days' journey from the village." 
 
 Other references to lead in Joliet's journal, and stories told by returned 
 adventurers, so aroused French interest that in 1699 an expedition, under 
 Le Sueur and Iberville, was financed to explore the mines. Pierre Charles 
 Le Sueur, who had been along the Upper Mississippi in 1693 and had reported 
 "mines of lead, copper, and green and blue earth," was sent with thirty men 
 to study the region. They traveled up the Mississippi from New Orleans and 
 reached a point near Galena August 25, 1700. Le Sueur, discoverer of the 
 Galena River, which he called "The River of Mines," described it thus: 
 
 "It comes from the north at its mouth and flows from the northeast. Seven 
 leagues to the right there is a lead mine, a league and a half inland. This 
 river, except the first three leagues, is only navigable when the waters are 
 high; that is to say, from spring to the month of June." The French land 
 league is a trifle less than two and one-half miles. 
 
 During the two days following this entry the party pressed north ten 
 leagues, passing two rivers and observing a lead mine at which Le Sueur sup- 
 plied himself. Those rivers are now known as the Platte and the Grant, 
 which empty into the Mississippi between East Dubuque, Illinois, and Potosi, 
 Wisconsin, and the mine was probably one in the Potosi area later named 
 "Snake Diggings." 
 
 The Galena River was presented on a map published in Paris in 1703 by 
 William Delisle, Geographer for the French Academy of Science, as "La 
 Riviere des Mines," Le Sueur's name. Another map published about the same 
 time calls the river the "Riviere de Parisien." During the next 150 years 
 before it was officially named Galena, the river was known as "La Riviere 
 de Feve," or Bean River, Fielle and also Fever River. 
 
 The great mining fields depicted on early French maps, combined with 
 glowing tales of upper Mississippi minerals, resulted in the mine area being 
 included in the famous wildcat promotion scheme launched in Paris in 1717 
 by John Law, Scotch adventurer, whose financial juggling almost bankrupted 
 the French government and impoverished many wealthy nobles. Law feigned 
 that the mines were under extensive development by his "Company of the 
 West." After the company's stock had been pyramided dizzily, it collapsed, 
 and the venture became known as the "Mississippi Bubble." 
 
 In 1715 the governor of Louisiana, La Mothe Cadillac, led a party of 
 Frenchmen and Indian guides up the Mississippi in search of silver, but found 
 none. Cadillac penetrated the Illinois country, it is believed, to present-day 
 Dubuque, for he returned with samples of lead ore which he found "fourteen 
 miles west of the river." 
 
 The first definitely business-like French effort to explore the lead mines 
 was conducted in 1721 when Phillip Francois de Renault, newly appointed 
 
 [18] 
 
director-general of mines of the "Royal India Company in Illinois," came with 
 a well-equipped company of 200 miners and 500 San Domingan slaves. The 
 latter were probably the first Negroes and the first slaves to visit this part of 
 the country. Renault's Frenchmen were experienced woodsmen and pros- 
 pectors, and took ore from both sides of the Mississippi. They established 
 a settlement in the vicinity of Galena and mined there for some time. Renault 
 is known also to have had a settlement in Monroe County, Wisconsin, during 
 four years spent in upper Mississippi territory. It is possible that some of 
 his prospectors remained after he returned south, and that other independent 
 prospectors came into the area during the two decades which followed, for, 
 in 1743, M. LeGuis found 18 or 20 miners operating along the Fever River. 
 He described them as "a fast lot" who mined only superficially, taking out 
 the easily accessible surface lead, and only enough of that to satisfy immediate 
 needs. 
 
 Although little is known of the lead country from the time of LeGuis 
 until the early eighteenth century, it is certain that mines were operated in 
 that interval by independent bushrangers, Indian and white. French missions 
 and trading posts littered the Mississippi Valley from the Great Lakes to 
 Louisiana, and French soldiers, trappers, and hunters came to depend on the 
 valley's lead for bullets. 
 
 Two important French outposts were at Kaskaskia, at the mouth of the 
 411ifio*s, established about 1700, and Fort Crevecoeur, later Peoria; the latter 
 was nearest the mines. By 1721 Kaskaskia was a sizable settlement, with a 
 stone monastery, a church, several large warehouses, and a brewery. At 
 Cahokia several mills and a large farm were operated by priests with Indian 
 assistance. There were at least 500 whites in the Illinois territory at this time. 
 
 In 1769 Milony Duralde of St. Louis received permission of Louis Sain- 
 tange de Bellrive, local commandant, to work lead mines reputed to be 160 
 leagues up the Mississippi, but, so far as is known, did not take advantage 
 of the concession. 
 
 Perhaps history overlooks the region in this period because of the greater 
 importance of contemporary events in Europe and along the Atlantic seaboard. 
 
 [19] 
 
Many Miners 
 
 FOUR years after the fall of Quebec France ceded all lands east of the Missis- 
 sippi to England and all lands west of the river to Spain. During the 
 American Revolution a regiment of Virginians under Colonel George Clark 
 ousted the British from their French forts, and Illinois country was subse- 
 quently claimed by Virginia, of which Patrick Henry was governor. Clark's 
 expedition was the only phase of the revolution which directly touched this 
 region. 
 
 The Illinois country was officially ceded to the American federation of 
 states at the close of the revolution, but it was not till 1809 that the Illinois 
 Territory was organized, with a seat of government at Kaskaskia and a popu- 
 lation of 12,282. 
 
 In 1778 a Frenchman from Cahokia came into the lead country and opened 
 a trading post on the west side of the river. Julien Dubuque was a well 
 educated young fellow with a good deal of drive, and in time he wheedled 
 extensive mining concessions from the Indians. Until his death in 1810 he 
 was the most persistent and prosperous miner in the area. He took a native 
 wife, was granted tribal privileges and allowed to work mines concealed from 
 other whites. Much of his lead went down-river to St. Louis, where August 
 Choutou guarded his interests. 
 
 In 1796 Dubuque asked the ^Spanish governor at New Orleans, Baron 
 Carondelet, for the right to continue operating his plantation and mines, 
 known as "The Spanish Mines," and permission was granted. From then 
 on he confined his operations to the site of modern Dubuque. The fact that 
 "The Spanish Mines," later "The Dubuque Mines," were claimed as private 
 property, kept other miners on the east side of the river. They preferred 
 prospecting Indian territory or public lands to the east. Thus it was that 
 many sought the Fever River claims. 
 
 In 1810 the United States Indian agent at Prairie du Chien went afoot 
 from Fort Crawford to Fort Armstrong (Rock Island) and returned. He 
 spent the greater part of the year in the interior and found that the Sauk 
 and Fox were mining and smelting lead extensively. Lead and money at 
 this time were equal mediums of exchange. At trading posts a peck of lead 
 bought a peck of corn. 
 
 In 1816 a Mississippi riverman who frequently stopped at the mines, 
 Captain John Shaw, reported that the Indians were working a mine known 
 as the Buck, just north of the present limits of Galena, and had twenty crude 
 smelters. Shaw on one occasion bought 70 tons of lead without exhausting 
 their supply. Between 1815 and 1820 Shaw made eight trips between St. 
 Louis and Prairie du Chien, stopping at Galena to pick up white passengers 
 and Indian lead. Colonel George Davenport, after whom the city of Daven- 
 
 [20] 
 
port was named, shipped the first boatload of lead ore from the Fever River 
 mines to St. Louis in 1816. 
 
 John and Tyler Armstrong, the first Am erican s to bu ild a permanent 
 home in GalenaTca me^fromGreen Bay, down the Fox, to Portage, Wisconsin, 
 crossed the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi, and went up Fever River 
 to the mines, where they found Indians smelting. The Sauk and Fox took them 
 to the Buck mine where they had penetrated 100 feet and were hauling up 
 earth and mineral in skin sacks. Where rocks interposed the squaws built 
 fires against them and then cracked them by dousing with cold water. The 
 Armstrongs built a cabin on the east bank of the river and lived there during 
 the winter of 1818, after which they located in Deel Creek, Wisconsin. 
 Shortly after, Francisco B ou thillier, interpreter at Prairie du Chien for the 
 British government, took over the deserted Galena cabin of the Armstrongs 
 and later established the first local ferry service. 
 
 Jesse W. Shull, after whom Shullsburg, Wisconsin, was named, and Dr. 
 Samuel Muir, with an Indian wife, came to the settlement in 1820. The settle- 
 ment's first white woman arrived the following year, the wife of a Kentucky 
 trader by name of Thomas January. The Januarys built a log cabin on what 
 is now January's Point, at the north end of the city. Six or eight boats, carry- 
 ing possibly 100 men, made the voyage in two weeks from St. Louis to Galena 
 in 1819 and thereafter a steady stream of traders poured into the settlement. 
 
 Colonel Davenport, trader and colonial promoter, established a trading 
 post at "The Portage" of the Fever and Mississippi Rivers in 1821 with Farrar 
 and Farnham. This was a point near the junction of the rivers at which 
 boatmen unfamiliar with the channel sometimes landed. Several years later 
 settlers dredged a canal through the portage, and this entrance to the river 
 was used thereafter. The site of this trading-house, which later became known 
 as the American Fur Company's post, is three miles below Galena. 
 
 The post of Davenport and the surrounding mines attracted many Indians 
 to the neighborhood, where they built villages on the river banks. Black 
 Hawk, among other chiefs of the Sauk and Fox, mined an entire summer near 
 the present site of Galena. Until the whites provided better tools, the Indians 
 mined with sharpened sticks and deer-horn prongs, and had smelting methods 
 equally crude. A hole two feet wide and deep was dug in sloping ground 
 in the shape of a millhopper, in the bottom of which a grate of narrow stones 
 was laid eight or nine inches square ; a trench was dug from the sloping ground 
 inward to the hopper's bottom. The channel was a foot in width and height, 
 was filled with dry wood and brush, the hopper filled with ore, and the fuel 
 ignited. The molten lead fell through the stones at the bottom of the hopper 
 and thence was discharged through the trench into an awkward mould. The 
 consequent lump, weighing about 70 pounds when cooled, was called a "plat" 
 and corresponds to the "pig" of contemporary methods. 
 
 The spreading fame of the region brought in a rush of squatter miners 
 in the early 1820's. Galena became known by the French as "La Pointe," 
 as the "Fever River Diggings," and later as the "Bean River Settlement." 
 
 [21] 
 
Although by an act of March 3, 1807, Congress provided for a leasing 
 of mineral lands, no licensed mines were operated until 1822, when the first 
 lease was granted Colonel James Johnson, brother of Richard M. Johnson, 
 later a vice president of the United States. The lease was for three years 
 and Colonel Johnson brought twenty white miners and 150 slaves with him 
 from Kentucky. The landing of the keel boats of miners and slaves was 
 resisted by the Winnebagoes, who insisted that they had never ceded the 
 land as had the Sauk and Fox. It was several days before Johnson effected a 
 landing, by dint of many gifts. 
 
 Johnson built cabins and a wharf and began the first successful operation 
 of mines in the Fever River settlement. The following year nine more leases 
 were issued by the government. La Pointe began to grow. 
 
 The Vir{rinid f en route from St. Louis to Fort Snelling, entered the Fever 
 River in 1823 and docked at Johnson's crude wharf; it was the first steamer 
 to enter the little river. In the same year Dr. Moses Meeker began smelting. 
 In that year of 1823, 425,000 pounds of ore were shipped from the settle- 
 ment, and within six years annual production had risen to 13,000,000 pounds. 
 By 1824 the little settlement was bustling with activity as new mines, smelters, 
 stores, and taverns opened, and cabins began rising far out among the hills. 
 One of the general stores to open that year was operated on January's Point 
 by Frederick Dent, later father-in-law to Ulysses S. Grant. Like all the stores 
 and trading posts of the period, Dent's supplied miners with apparel, food, 
 tools, hardware, and liquor. He accepted lead ore, pelts and furs in barter. 
 He held a government contract to supply all forts along the upper Mississippi. 
 
 Movers from the South Central states modified the Galena settlement, 
 for many pioneers had come up the Mississippi from towns along the Ohio 
 and Missouri. Their cabins were rough stone and sod, or semi-dugouts of 
 rough logs built against bluffs and chinked with sticks and stones and daubed 
 with mud. Even in the more substantial homes, stick-chimneys were arranged 
 like rail pens and covered thickly with clay to protect them from fire. With 
 the development of the colony, the houses were built of logs chinked neatly 
 with stone and plastered with lime mortar. These white-washed one-story 
 structures had small attics floored with rough-hewn logs and were sometimes 
 lighted by a small gable window; such attics were often nurseries. Some 
 homes were double log houses which have evolved into homes one sees in 
 the city today. These, of brick, are distinguishable by their chimneys, two 
 at each end of the gable. Their predecessors were double homes under one 
 roof, with a middle passage. This type of structure was less suited to the 
 climate of northern Illinois than to that of the South Central states. It is 
 probable that it was in such a house that Galena's first white child, James 
 Smith Hunt, was born in 1824. 
 
 Early Galenians enjoyed many modern table luxuries; their streams and 
 woods abounded with fish and fowl. Every spring and fall countless flocks 
 of wild geese, following the Mississippi, darkened their skies. The fields 
 were alive with prairie chickens and quail. 
 
 [22] 
 
Housewives knit stockings and fashioned clothes for the entire family 
 after carding wool and spinning it into yarn, from which they wove cloth. 
 Baking bread meant grinding whole grain into flour. Beside their normal 
 household duties, the women found time to help in the fields. 
 
 By 1824 the Fever River mines had become of importance sufficient to 
 warrant issuance of mining leases. The federal government appointed Lieu- 
 tenant Martin Thomas, U. S. army, St. Louis, as special mine agent. The 
 first lease provided for a ten per cent royalty on the lead produced, a rate 
 later reduced to six per cent. Royalties were paid with regularity only briefly ; 
 after 1843, as a result of immense numbers of illegal entries of mineral land 
 at the Wisconsin land office, smelters and miners refused to make further 
 payment. The government was unable to collect. After great trouble and 
 expense it was decided, in 1847, to sell the lands. Lead deposits in the Joplin 
 area, discovered in 1848, attracted little attention before the Civil War, the 
 Galena mines continuing to be the Republic's source of ore. 
 
 Growth of the settlement in 1824 and 1825 was rapid. Every steamer 
 passing up or down the river left passengers at La Pointe. Stores and "groceries" 
 were concentrating along the lower end of the muddy little trail that ran into 
 the settlement from the northeast and ended at the levee — the trail that after- 
 wards became Main Street. "Groceries" were the taprooms of the early days. 
 Mines and farms were operating in an ever-widening area around the settle- 
 ment, and La Pointe was becoming a social as well as a commercial site. 
 
 In 1825 Dr. Moses Meeker sent a prospector to the neighborhood of what 
 is now Hazel Green, Wisconsin, twelve miles north, and a rich vein of ore 
 was found. Here another mining settlement, dependent upon La Pointe for 
 supplies, was established. During the next few years numerous small settle- 
 ments grew up in a circle about the Fever River village. 
 
 Many of the first Fever River miners were Kentuckians and Missourians 
 who suffered from the severe Illinois winters. Some of these came prospecting 
 only in summer, and in fall, after disposing of their ore, returned south. Some 
 of these came overland in covered wagons drawn by mules or oxen, bringing 
 their families and carrying supplies for the summer months. They established 
 wagon camps and slept in the wagons. Others came up the river every spring 
 in keel boats and returned downstream in the fall. These Southerners were 
 known as "suckers," because their habits so resembled those of the fish which 
 migrated seasonally up and down the Mississippi. It was in this manner that 
 Illinois came to be known as the "Sucker State." 
 
 Travel was difficult, by land or by water. Only the hardiest attempted 
 the narrow trails through country often frequented by hostile Indians. Most 
 overland travel was on horseback or in prairie schooners, but the more cour- 
 ageous went long distances afoot. Ax and rifle were indispensable to land 
 travel. 
 
 Boating upstream on the Mississippi was first by keelboats propelled tedi- 
 ously along shore by poles, or towed by mules or towmen where towpaths 
 
 [23] 
 
were accessible. Another method, resorted to when banks were steep and 
 the stream deep, was "bushwacking." To "bushwack" a boat one leaned from 
 the craft and grasped shrubs and bushes growing along the bank and thus 
 inched the craft along. "Cordelling" was accomplished by attaching a long 
 rope to the bow and then throwing it about a tree some distance ahead ; the 
 rope's end was then taken aboard and was hauled in until the tree was reached. 
 
 Although several kinds of boats were used in early river navigation, the 
 keel boat, because of its keeled bottom, was the only craft of the day which 
 could be propelled upstream against the swift Mississippi currents. Flatboats, 
 commonly fifty and sometimes 100 feet long and twenty-five feet wide, built 
 much like modern houseboats, were used for downstream trips. Since there 
 was no way of returning them to their starting point they were usually sold for 
 lumber at their destination. Keel boats were, however, the first "queens" of 
 the Mississippi. They usually were built in the larger Ohio river settlements, 
 floated down to the Mississippi and there could be navigated either north or 
 south. They were pointed at stem and stern and held cargo in a great box in the 
 center. Sometimes passenger quarters were arranged in the center also. Along 
 the gunwales from prow to stern ran narrow walks along which polemen 
 trudged, pushing their poles against the river bottom to force the boat against 
 the current. Some boats used twenty polemen. The journey from New 
 Orleans to Galena sometimes required six months. 
 
 [24] 
 
Boom Border 
 
 THE year 1826 is memorable in the history 
 of the mining border for several events. On 
 June 4 of that year the first post office of 
 northern Illinois was established in Galena on 
 Main and Perry Streets. Efcenezer Lockwood 
 of Prairie du Chien was its first postmaster. 
 Previously there had been no post office nearer 
 than Vandalia. In this year also Lieutenant 
 Thomas was ordered to lay out the city in lots 
 and stree ts; Main and Perry and several others 
 were accordingly laid. James Jones, an eastern 
 journalist, launched the city's first newspaper, 
 the Miners Journal. Doctor John Hancock 
 opened the settlement's first school in a log 
 cabin on Bench street, and a chaplain for the 
 Hudson Bay Fur Company, whose name is for- 
 gotten, held the first religious service in the 
 back room of a store on Main Street across from 
 the present site of the De Soto Hotel. The serv- 
 ice was attended by 25 or 30 persons, while in 
 the store's front room a boisterous card game 
 continued uninterrupted. 
 
 Doctor Horatio Newhall , a pioneer physi- 
 cian of Illinois and a native of Massachusetts, 
 arrived in the mine settlement and remained to 
 become one of Galena's most distinguished 
 citizens. 
 
 But the outstanding event of the year was 
 a little meeting of representative citizens, held 
 December 27, to select a definite name for the 
 community. Frederickstown, Jo Daviess, Har- 
 rison and several other names were suggested, 
 but Richard W. Chandle r prevailed upon the 
 committee to select Galena, the Latin name 
 for lead sulphide and the chief ore of lead. 
 
 Illinois had been a State since 1818, but its 
 northern limits had not been clearly defined. 
 Because the mining district was so near the 
 boundary, many Galenians were uncertain 
 
 [25] 
 
 mm 
 
whether they were in Illinois or the Territory of Michigan. Doctor Newhall 
 wrote to a brother in Lynn, Massachusetts : 
 
 "It is not certain whether I am in the boundary of Illinois or Michigan, 
 but direct your letters to Fever River settlement, Illinois, and they will be 
 sure to come." 
 
 The value of the region's lead yield that year was $86,000. Lieutenant 
 Thomas' report declared: 
 
 "The number of lead mines at Fever River are increasing rapidly. Such 
 are the inducements to individual enterprise and industry that numbers of 
 the most respectable inhabitants of the upper Mississippi are resorting to 
 them." 
 
 Thomas advised his government that boat channels be dug through the 
 rapids of the Upper Mississippi, the first near the mouth of the River Des 
 Moines (near Keokuk), the other just above Fort Armstrong or Rock Island. 
 
 By the following year the mining area had become of sufficient importance 
 to remove the agency of lead mines from St. Louis to Galena. Lieutenant 
 Thomas was succeeded by Major Thomas C. Legate of the United States Army. 
 The government invited miners and settlers to the town and permits were 
 granted to persons to occupy and improve lots with the understanding that 
 they might be asked to surrender them on thirty days' notice. Three hundred 
 signed for lots that year. This was the only title residents had to lots in 
 Galena, since the government owned all real estate in the area. 
 
 Jo Daviess County was organized in 1827 w ith Galena as its county seat. 
 The name of "Jo Daviess" was chosen in honor of Colonel Joseph Hamilton 
 Daviess, a Kentuckian, there being a predominance of Kentucky-born repre- 
 sentatives in the state legislature that year.^ County commissioners were elected 
 and a circuit judge, Richard M. Young, presided over Galena's first court 
 of law. 
 
 A colorful description of the booming border town of 1826 was given 
 by Doctor Newhall in another letter to his brother: 
 
 "You ask me to write a description of Fever River lead mines. This would 
 puzzle me or any other person on the river. It is non-descript. It is such a 
 place as no one can conceive of without seeing it. Strangers hate and residents 
 like it. 
 
 "The appearance of the country would convince anyone that it must be 
 healthful, yet the last season it was more sickly than Havana or New Orleans. 
 There is no civil law here, nor has the Gospel been yet introduced, or to 
 make use of a phrase here, 'neither law nor Gospel can pass the rapids of 
 the Mississippi.' The country is one immense prairie from the Rock River 
 on the south to the Ouiskonsin (Wisconsin) on the north, and from the 
 Mississippi on the west to Lake Michigan on the east. It is hilly here and 
 abounding in lead ore of that species called by mineralogists galena,' whence 
 is derived the name of our town. 
 
 "The lead mines of the upper Mississippi are under the control of the 
 Secretary of War. Lieutenant Thomas is superintendent. He resides at St 
 
 [26] 
 
Louis and a sub-agent resides here. Any person wishing to dig, gets a permit 
 of the agent to do so by signing certain regulations, the principal one of which 
 is that he will sell his mineral to none but a regularly licensed smelter. He 
 has all the mineral he can raise and sells it at $17.50 per thousand pounds, 
 delivered at the furnaces. Any person who gets this permit stakes off two 
 hundred yards. This is his lot so long as he works on it, and no one else 
 can interfere with his discoveries. Any person who will give bond to the 
 Government for $5,000, can have half a mile square on condition he employs 
 twenty laborers and pays the Government ten per cent of lead made from 
 mineral raised on his survey, or sells his mineral to a public smelter. The 
 public smelters give bond for $20,000 to pay the Government one-tenth of 
 all lead manufactured. They buy mineral of any person who has a permit 
 to dig, manufacture it into lead, pay the government one-tenth monthly and 
 are the great men of the place. The mineral, lead, and cash all go through 
 their hands. The privilege of working these mines was first given to Colonel 
 Johnson of Kentucky five years ago. He did but little and sunk money. 
 
 "Not much lead was made here until last year. There were then four 
 log buildings in Galena (1826). Now there are one hundred and fifteen 
 houses and stores in the place. It is the place of deposit for lead, and provi- 
 sions, etc., for all the mining country. There is no spot in America, of the 
 same size, where there is one-fourth of the capital, or where there is so much 
 business done. There was manufactured here in the year ending September 
 last, 5,000,000 pounds of lead. 
 
 "The population consists mainly of Americans, Irish and French (that 
 is in the diggings) . There are but comparatively few families and few ladies. 
 Hence every lady, unmarried, who lands on these shores, is immediately mar- 
 ried. Little girls fourteen and even thirteen years old are often married here. 
 Three young ladies who came fellow passengers with me on the steamboat 
 from St. Louis in June and the only ones on board, are all married months ago. 
 
 "Dubuque's mines, on the opposite side of the Mississippi, are worked 
 by the Fox Indians. They, however, merely skim the surface. The windlass 
 and the bucket are not known among them. Dubuque's mine is a delightful 
 spot, particularly the Fox village on the banks of the Mississippi. But most 
 of all places in the United States which I have seen, Rock Island, at the lower 
 rapids of the Mississippi, is by far the most beautiful. Fort Armstrong is 
 on the island. 
 
 "At the mouth of the Fever River is a trading post of the American Fur 
 Company. Their trading houses are scattered up and down the Mississippi, 
 the Des Moines, the St. Peters, etc. Their capital is so large and they give 
 the Indians such extensive credits that no private establishment can compete 
 with them. 
 
 "An Indian debt is outlawed by their own customs within one year. The 
 Fur Company credits each Indian hunter a certain amount — from one to five 
 hundred dollars, according to his industry and skill in hunting and trapping. 
 If, when they return in the spring, they have not furs and peltry enough to 
 pay the debt, the trader loses it. But on the goods sold to the Indians, there 
 
 [27} 
 
 R. NEWCt 
 605 Nevada St, 
 
 URBANA, ILL. 
 
is a profit of two or three hundred per cent made, and a profit on the furs 
 received in payment. 
 
 "Fever River was closed with ice on the twenty-first of November and, 
 of course, navigation is ended, and I have not sent my letter. I now have 
 an opportunity to forward it by private conveyance to Vandalia. We are now 
 shut out from all intercourse with the world until the river opens again in 
 the spring. We have no mail as yet but we shall have a mail once in two 
 weeks, to commence the first of January next." 
 
 Galena, indeed, was a busy place. Steamboats now were running on regu- 
 lar schedule between St. Louis and Galena, except in the winter, when ice 
 in the upper Mississippi halted navigation. Farmers and merchants as well 
 as miners were rushing to the vicinity as the news of Galena's prosperity was 
 buzzed about the Republic. In the fall of 1827 the greater part of the colony 
 from Lord Selkirk's settlement on Red River (now Winnipeg) packed up 
 bag and baggage and came to Galena, many of them traveling overland by 
 ox team. These were largely farmers who began to till the hills into which 
 miners were then burrowing; thus a farmer following his plow would 
 often hear the rumble of blasts deep in the earth beneath his furrow. As 
 rapidly as newcomers arrived they set about building homes, and the increas- 
 ing number of traders and merchants worked swift changes in the business 
 district. By 1828 the city had 42 stores and warehouses, and 46 new houses 
 in business buildings were built in that year. Buildings were assuming a 
 more permanent aspect and native limestone was being used for many of 
 them. In this year the John Dowling house, at the junction of Diagonal and 
 Main Streets, was built. The population was nearly 800. 
 
 This same year the settlement experienced its first serious flood. Spring 
 rains swelled the Galena River until a large section of the business district 
 was inundated. There had been floods before, but this one broke local records. 
 In the backwaters where the DeSoto Hotel now stands, a catfish weighing 
 106 pounds was caught. Steamboats passed down Main Street, the grade 
 of which was lower than at present. By this time the greater part of the lead 
 district was dotted with mining camps or "diggings," some of them fifty 
 miles or more north of Galena, but all of them depending on Galena for 
 supplies. 
 
 A map of the region for 1829, preserved by the Wisconsin Historical 
 Society, shows more than fifty diggings ranging from Galena to the Wisconsin 
 River. Among these were the Wisconsin settlements of Platteville, Shulls- 
 burg, New Diggings, Mineral Point and Cassville. Practically all these little 
 communities were established by men who had prospected the neighborhood 
 with Galena as their base. 
 
 Prairie and timberland stretched endlessly in all directions devoid of any 
 human habitation, save where remained, at occasional strategic points on 
 river or lake, some forts built by the French but now garrisoned by the 
 United States. 
 
 Twenty-five miles northeast of Galena, near the present site of Wiota, 
 Wisconsin, was Hamilton's Diggings, where a son of the first Secretary of 
 
 [28] 
 
the Treasury prospected. Colonel William S. Hamilton came to this region 
 in the early twenties and served in the Illinois legislature in 1825-6. Hearsay 
 has it that he came to Illinois looking for Aaron Burr, who had killed his 
 father in a duel. He is said to have found Burr in St. Louis and challenged 
 him, but Burr, then an old man, declined. 
 
 Although Colonel Hamilton was a well-educated and a cultured person, 
 he lived a rough life in his pioneer camp, occupying a log hut with a dirt 
 floor and wearing clothes slightly less reputable than those of his miners. 
 He visited Galena frequently. In 1838-9, his mother, a daughter of the Revo- 
 lutionary general, Schuyler, spent a year in Galena near her son. She was a 
 guest of Captain H. H. Gear during this visit. Colonel Hamilton remained 
 in the lead country until 1849, when he joined the gold rush to California. 
 He died there in 1851. 
 
 Colonel Henry Gratiot, United States Indian Agent who settled a land 
 dispute between settlers and Winnebago Indians at a peace meeting at Council 
 Hill in 1827, was one of the founders of the little Wisconsin settlement which 
 bears his name today. Colonel Gratiot and his brother, John P. B. Gratiot, 
 Creole Frenchmen from St. Louis, founded "Gratiot's Grove" and at one time 
 operated nine smelters there. 
 
 Overland travel was so difficult that almost all shipments to Galena were 
 by water. Lead from every digging was brought to Galena by ox-cart and 
 snipped down river to St. Louis or New Orleans by barge. In 1829 the first 
 overland shipment was sent to Chicago by ox-cart, a journey of eleven days 
 by a prairie trail, over many streams. Merchants purchased goods in New 
 York to be sent down the Atlantic coast and through the Gulf of Mexico to 
 New Orleans and then up the river to the mines. The Galena Advertiser and 
 Upper Mississippi Herald, established in 1829, carried the advertising of 
 several packet lines operating between Galena and southern ports. 
 
 Late in 1829 Galena suffered its first set-back. Lead production was 
 slackened to create a scarcity leading to higher prices. Not until after the 
 close of the Black Hawk war in 1832 did the city begin to revive. In 1829 
 Aratus Kent, a young Presbyterian minister, came from New England to 
 organize the First Presbyterian Church. He was instrumental in bringing 
 Amasa B. Campbell to Galena, in 1832, to open a school. In the same year 
 Colonel J. M. Strode organized the Jo Daviess Third Brigade, First Division, 
 Illinois Militia, which was to see action in the Black Hawk campaign. In 
 1829 weekly mail service was established from Vandalia, and a smallpox case 
 alarmed the town when it was discovered on a boat at the dock. Doctors Muir 
 and Newhall urged a general vaccination and many followed that advice. 
 
 On February 1, 1830, the first fire-fighting corps was organized at a meet- 
 ing in the home of Moses Swan, near what is now the DeSoto Hotel. Most of 
 Galena's homes and buildings of that time were frame, and heated by open 
 hearths. In many stores and warehouses were quantities of blasting powder; 
 several fires had threatened the city. As the members were leaving the Swan 
 home they saw the roof of Major F. B. Farnsworth's "grocery," just across 
 the street, ablaze. With great zeal they scaled the building and extinguished 
 
 [29] 
 
the fire amid much applause. But though the store was saved, its liquors were 
 immediately ravaged by both firemen and spectators. 
 
 The Galena volunteer fire department became a smoothly functioning and 
 well-equipped organization. Eventually five fire stations were built and large 
 cisterns built under the streets for use of volunteers with hand pumps. Six 
 of these cisterns were located on Main Street. One of them still remains near 
 the intersection of Main and Green. 
 
 Galena's mines attracted men from all corners of the earth. In 1830 an 
 influx of Cornish miners began which lasted until the gold rush of 1849. 
 
 The first Cornishmen found lead mining in a decline, for several reasons. 
 "Overproduction" in 1828-9 had reduced lead prices. Higher wages were 
 being offered elsewhere. But the prime cause was fear of Indians, who were 
 increasingly restless. The Winnebago uprising of 1827, when that tribe 
 terrorized southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, had not been forgotten. In 
 two days in that year 3,000 men, women, and children fled farms and mines 
 for refuge in Galena. 
 
 The Black Hawk War, although more heat lightning than actual storm, 
 did bring the Indian question to a head. With the defeat of Black Hawk at 
 Bad Axe, it was not long before the Winnebagoes ceded their lands and moved 
 across the Mississippi with the remnants of the Sauk and Fox. With their pass- 
 ing came a permanent peace. 
 
 Along the Rock River, the Apple River, the Wisconsin and the Missis- 
 sippi, lie the battlefields of the Black Hawk War. Black Hawk, Sauk chief, held 
 a well- justified hostility and suspicion toward whites. He never forgave four 
 chiefs who signed a treaty, while drunk in St. Louis in 1804, ceding all land 
 east of the Mississippi. Although by this pact the government granted the 
 Indians use of the lands of the Sauk village on the Rock River, Black Hawk felt 
 that the whites would violate it. He was correct, and so during the War of 
 1812 he supported the British, who promised him to return his lands. 
 
 When the whites began using whiskey in trade for Sauk land, Black Hawk 
 let it be known that he would not tolerate such methods and would not recog- 
 nize such exchanges. In 1831 the whites became insistent that the Indians be 
 moved across the Mississippi. Although Black Hawk made a great show of 
 strength in protest, he yielded without contest and so no lives were lost. He 
 and his followers had been invited to spend that summer at the Winnebago 
 Prophet's Town, 35 miles up the Rock River, to grow corn and beans. On the 
 arrival of Black Hawk and his warriors, they found themselves unwanted. The 
 Winnebagoes refused the Sauks permission to stay, fearing the hostility of their 
 white neighbors. So Black Hawk moved on to the mouth of the Kishwaukee 
 River. Shortly after occurred the battle of Stillman Run, an affair provoked 
 by the killing of several Sauks bearing flags of truce. For three months Black 
 Hawk was pursued through Wisconsin, where he sought safety for his women 
 and children, their flight culminating in defeat at Bad Axe. 
 
 It was expected that Black Hawk's early victory over Major Stillman and 
 his volunteers would rally other tribes to him and launch a long-feared Indian 
 
 [30] 
 
war. When Colonel Strode, at Galena, learned of Stillman's rout, he im- 
 mediately ordered all able-bodied men to join in building a stockade. Logs, 
 twelve to fourteen feet long, were set up, with suitable portholes, around an 
 area bounded by Main, Franklin, Bench and Hill Streets. Within this en- 
 closure stood Major Campbell's stone house and the log houses of Doctor 
 Hancock and Amos Farrar, the latter arranged to give shelter to the women 
 and children. Atop the hill, at Elk and Prospect, a block house became a watch 
 tower. 
 
 Doctor Newhall established a hospital, as Galena was expected to be the 
 base of military operations. Although Galena was spared need for its stockade, 
 the hospital proved invaluable in 1832 in fighting an epidemic of Asiatic 
 cholera. The malignancy of the disease is revealed in the experience of Win- 
 field Scott's expedition, ordered to Illinois to help suppress the Indians. 
 General Scott sailed from Buffalo with 950 men, and when he arrived in 
 Chicago cholera had decimated his command to 400. Scott arrived at Bad 
 Axe the day after Black Hawk was routed for the last time. 
 
 The anxiety of the times is shown by an incident which occurred shortly 
 after completion of the stockade. Someone on watch in the block house 
 thought, mistakingly, that he saw Indians ; a cannon was fired in warning, and 
 700 whites ran so rapidly for the stockade that, even had the alarm been war- 
 ranted, there probably would not have been one caught alone. 
 
 Many men later to gain national renown fought in the Back Hawk War, 
 among them Zachary Taylor, Robert Anderson, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson 
 Davis, Albert Sidney Johnston, Duncan, Ford, Carlin, Wood, and Ewing, the 
 latter five of whom were to become governors of Illinois. 
 
 [31] 
 
Lead and Grain 
 
 WITH Black Hawk in irons and his tribesmen gone, Galena began to boom 
 again. Lead production, the barometer of its times, had fallen under 
 5,000,000 pounds for 1832, a figure substantially below the country's need. 
 Mines reopened, new lodes were struck, and another influx of settlers began. 
 
 A lead pipe and sheet metal factory was established in 1834, and in the 
 same year Bartlett and Loring of St. Louis began the Galena Gazette ; three 
 years ago the paper's centennial edition was published. It is the oldest news- 
 paper in the state possessing a complete file. For decades it was one of the 
 most widely read sheets in America, drawing subscriptions from all over the 
 world. 
 
 By 1835 a forceful, thrifty minority began taking local power from the 
 adventurers and drifters and careless ones ; it established a branch of the State 
 Bank of Illinois. That they managed their money so long without a bank is 
 a tribute to Galena's settlers. Thievery was so infrequent that merchants did 
 not trouble to lock their stores. 
 
 The peso, the sovereign and the franc were common in the city's currency. 
 Miners, particularly during the depression of the early 1840's, insisted on 
 payment in gold. The casual regard of these men for the sovereign and the 
 five-franc piece is revealed in that the former, worth $4.84, was accepted in 
 trade at $5, and the latter, worth 94 cents, paid $1. The New Orleans 
 picayune was worth six and a quarter cents. Not until after the Civil War 
 did copper and nickel coins become common. 
 
 The city extended its limits from Main and Green Streets to Branch and 
 Dodge in 1835. It was becoming a trade center. Large granaries were built 
 along its waterfront ; aided by the slope of the land, grain could be unloaded 
 from wagons on Bench Street into the third floor of a granary and loaded 
 at the same time from the Main Street level on the other side into waiting 
 boats. Old-timers in Galena remember ox teams standing for blocks down 
 Bench Street, awaiting their turn to unload. 
 
 Galena became self-governing through federal authorization of an elec- 
 tion to choose a governing body of its own; local government had been in 
 the hands of the surveyor-general. Samuel Leach, John Turney and Daniel 
 Wann, later port collector, were elected president and trustees, to serve with- 
 out pay. It was not until a constable was appointed in 1837 that any city 
 office carried a salary; that office then received $150 a year. 
 
 The city's cultural life was stimulated by formation of a "young men's 
 society for moral and intellectual development," later the Galena Lyceum 
 Association. During these years the young army officers at Fort Crawford 
 (Prairie du Chien) and Fort Armstrong (Rock Island) attended many func- 
 tions in town. 
 
 [32] 
 
Up to 1836 transportation was predominantly by water. During that year 
 Frink, of the firm of Frink & Walker, sent the first stage coach from Chicago 
 to Galena. Foreign visitors marveled from the coach windows at acres of 
 prairie grass endless as a sea dotted with trees like islands and bearing wave 
 after wave of wild flowers constantly before the wind. The State ordered a 
 survey of a wagon route between the two cities. Illinois 5 (U.S. 20) from 
 Freeport to Rockford follows the old stage road. The 200-mile run was 
 made in one day, over uncertain roads and bridgeless streams, with fresh 
 horses every twelve miles; wayside inns served meals of bread, bacon, and 
 coffee. Brandon's tavern, built in 1840 over the stump of the "Treaty Oak" 
 at Council Hill, is standing still. It was not until 1840, when the mail stages 
 began, that regular schedules could be maintained; the traveler still carried 
 his own blanket, and could expect no more than a sack of hay for a bed. 
 Fare was $13. 
 
 The city was unaffected by the panic of 1837, a circumstance which brought 
 many newcomers to the region. In 1838 the auditorium of the stone store 
 which Nicholas Dowling had built on Main Street was rented for a court- 
 house. Mines grew scarcer; lawsuits over lodes brought many lawyers, some 
 of great ability, to Galena. Among those to settle in the city were Thomas 
 Ford, later governor, the eloquent Benjamin Mills, Jesse B. Thomas, who 
 became a state supreme court judge, and William Smith. After holding office 
 for a year, the first constable was ordered to find a jail, and he acquired the 
 lower story of a house on Main and Diagonal. 
 
 A growing civic consciousness resulted in organization of a chamber of 
 commerce with Daniel Wann as president and Major Thomas Melville as 
 secretary. Meetings were held to consider introduction of a common school 
 system. A draft for a city charter was sent to Senator G. W. Harrison at 
 Vandalia for enactment by the State legislature. The Galena Library Asso- 
 ciation, formed in 1835, had 835 volumes. City trustees, realizing that the 
 river was silting in, sought means of stopping the process. In 1839 dredging 
 was begun, but this achieved only temporary improvement. 
 
 Amusements along the Middle Border were few. A circus came to 
 Galena in September 1838, and was taxed $20 for a license. The next month 
 the McKenzie- Jefferson players began an engagement which lasted out the 
 year. The Galena Advertiser announced that tickets for Wives as They Were 
 and Maids as They Are, could be bought for $1 at the Eagle saloon and the 
 Galena Hotel. In this comedy, in a minor role, Joseph Jefferson, then nine 
 years old, appeared; he was later to immortalize Rip Van Winkle. 
 
 Rougher pastimes, such as wolf fights and cock fights, were held in the 
 "Lighthouses" — groceries and saloons. Bowling, whist, seven-up, and varia- 
 tions of poker were popular. The Galena Temperance Society was formed 
 in 1838. 
 
 When Illinois became a State in 1818 its northern line had been drawn 
 at 42 degrees 30 minutes, and all land north of the Illinois River designated as 
 Pike County. In 1827 the country between the Mississippi and Rock Rivers 
 
 [33] 
 
was named Jo Daviess County; this included all or portions of eight of the 
 present counties within those limits. The first county to be cut out was Rock 
 Island, formed in 1831 ; Ogle, Whiteside, Winnebago, and Stephenson were 
 formed in 1836, the latter forming Jo Daviess' eastern border. Lee and 
 Carroll, organized in 1839, completed the definition of Jo Daviess' boundaries. 
 
 Black Hawk's defeat emboldened the lead district. People began farm- 
 ing in greater numbers, and between $300,000 and $400,000 was eventually 
 spent to "prove up" rights to land. Henceforward agriculture was to over- 
 shadow both mining and manufacturing. In 1840 there were 876 farmers to 
 every 617 miners in the county. 
 
 Farming first proved highly productive, with a ready market in Galena. 
 It was not until the unglaciated soil began washing away down the hills that 
 farming became an increasingly difficult pursuit. 
 
 Illinois might have seceded from the Union, when the Confederacy was 
 established, had Congress not pigeonholed a petition of northern counties to 
 withdraw from Illinois and join Wisconsin territory, in a boundary dispute 
 of the 1840's. The dispute rose out of the slavery problem, and had its basis 
 in a petition of 1818. In that year Nathaniel Pope had petitioned Congress 
 that Illinois be made a State, the petition following an ordinance of 1787 
 which set the northern boundary of Illinois at the southernmost tip of Lake 
 Michigan, thus precluding possibilities of Illinois having a lake port. Realizing 
 that Illinois' contact with the East was via the Great Lakes, Pope, on his own 
 initiative, changed the description to 42 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, 
 thereby establishing the present boundary. Congress approved this altered 
 measure and thus Galena, as well as Fort Dearborn, later Chicago, remained 
 in Illinois. Years later the northern counties invoked this petition as a threat 
 to withdraw from the State because of domination of the legislature by down- 
 state factions ; these factions were not only southern in sympathy, but brought 
 fears of bankruptcy and increased taxation to the northern counties. The latter, 
 seeing themselves outvoted, sought escape by holding conventions in Galena, 
 Rockford, Freeport, and Belvidere, with resultant elections almost unanimous 
 in approving withdrawal. Galena especially felt a bond with southwestern 
 Wisconsin because of common mining interests. But in 1848 Congress shelved 
 the last petition. 
 
 The forties was perhaps Galena's most colorful decade . The new market 
 created by the rising farm population, the steady growth of the city itself, 
 the continued upturn in lead production, all made for free spending. The 
 four-storied buildings along Main were crammed with merchandise to be 
 distributed throughout the Northwest. Bargemen raced for the limited dock 
 space, sometimes settling a dead heat by a knock-down and drag-out brawl on 
 the wharf in which everything from knee-lifting to eye-gouging went. 
 
 Blood and whiskey flowed freely along the waterfront and in the mining 
 camps. Welsh miners varied the art of personal conflict by introducing the 
 stone duel ; a type of warfare as formal as fencing and twice as deadly. Par- 
 
 [34] 
 
ticipants assumed positions behind prearranged stone-piles and proceeded to 
 bombard each other, always formally, into death or unconsciousness. 
 
 The Paul Pry Coffee Shop thus tempted epicures of the era in the Daily 
 Advertiser: 
 
 "Mr. Wm. Baldwin respectfully informs the citizens of Galena and 
 
 the mining country generally that he has reopened his coffee house. 
 
 "Between you and I, he has got some of the best liquors in Galena 
 
 and will always keep on hand beef steaks, hot coffee, venison steak, tripe, 
 
 prairie chicken, pigs feet and sausages which will be served up in the 
 
 neatest stile and in ten minutes notice." 
 
 The roaring life of the mines and the waterfront was but one aspect of the 
 city's life. On "the hill" an aristocracy of Southern and Eastern origins was 
 developing. Here lived such men as Elihu B. Washburne, w ho came to the 
 city in 1840 from Livermore. Maine, a Harvard graduate who began prac- 
 tising law in the city. In time he became Secretary of State and Minister to 
 France. A brother, Cadwallader, came to Galena in 1841 and later founded 
 the milling firm of Washburne & Crosby in Minneapolis ; in time he became 
 Governor of Wisconsin. W. R. Marshall also came to Galena in 1841, later 
 to open the first store in St. Anthony (Minneapolis), and during the Civil 
 War to become a brigadier general ; he became Governor of Minnesota. Many 
 such men spent their young manhood in Galena in the forties. 
 
 In 1841 Galena accepted a charter of incorporation granted by the State 
 legislature. An aldermanic government, with Charles H. Hempstead as 
 mayor, supplanted the trustee system. Galena was a city — officially. A census 
 revealed that it had 650 house s and 2,225 people. By 1850 the population 
 was 6,000, and in 1858 it was 14,000; two years later it had fallen to 10,000. 
 In these early censuses it is probable that many of the communities comprising 
 "Greater Galena" were included. 
 
 The peak of lead production for the region was reached in 1845, when 
 54,500,000 of the 65,000,000 pounds for the entire country were produced 
 here. Whereas England in 1833 had exported 10,000,000 pounds of lead to 
 America, eight years later the situation was reversed, and by 1845 the United 
 States led the world in such production. Much American lead went to China. 
 
 Toll bridges were built in 1841, one at Bouthillier Street and another at 
 Franklin, but were so frail that both were swept away in flood the following 
 spring. The river at that time was 340 feet wide and from three to four feet 
 deeper than the main channel of the Mississippi ; but in spite of this the city 
 had a dredging bill on its hands by 1856. Ferry service had no competition 
 until 1847, when new toll draw-bridges were built by private capital at Meeker 
 and Spring Streets. Shortly after, the city bought these and made them public. 
 
 Among the important buildings completed in the forties were the Marke t 
 House. 1845 . the German Methodist church. 1846 T Grace Episcopal church, 
 begun in 1847, a nd St. Mary's, 1848. 
 
 Southerners brought slaves to Galena. A bill of sale for Oct. 6, 1830, 
 records the sale of a mulatto female, age nineteen and her eighteen-months-old 
 
 [35] 
 
son, for $330. A natural concomitant of the traffic was runaways; in 1835 
 Galena was offering $200 rewards for such slaves. 
 
 The State constitution, adopted in 1848, stated, "There shall be neither 
 slavery nor involuntary servitude in the state ..." The ordinance of 1787 
 also barred slavery, but it was ignored and local officials winked at its actual 
 existence. Not until 1848 did slavery really cease. 
 
 There were ex-slaves who endeared themselves to the townspeople. Barney 
 Norris, who was brought to Galena by Captain Thomas C. Legate in 1834, 
 and was footman to John Quincy Adams from 1826 to 1828, was in great 
 demand at weddings and banquets. Norris also came to know where bass 
 and pike were biting best, so that dignitaries sought him out when there 
 was fishing. Old-time Galenians tell too of Swanzy Adams and his water- 
 wagon. Swanzy never missed a Fourth of July parade, invariably bringing 
 up the rear with the wagon. Jim Lee, a handy-man, dressed in his best every 
 Christmas, put rings on his fingers and called upon all for whom he had 
 worked during the year, saying that he had set aside the day to receive gifts. 
 
 With the discovery of gold in 1848 in California, fortune-hunters were 
 diverted from the Mississippi valley. Many miners in the Galena area left 
 their diggings to join the rush to San Francisco and Sacramento. This exodus 
 from the lead fields had only a temporary effect on Galena, for many, dis- 
 appointed, returned to mine lead, and new settlers replaced many who had 
 left. As a matter of fact, Galena enjoyed a small boom in equipping and sup- 
 plying wagon trains moving toward the coast. 
 
 The spring of 1850 saw thousands of prairie schooners moving west, and 
 Mississippi ferries were always full. Wagon-trains were sometimes forced to 
 wait a week for their turn to cross the river. 
 
 [36] 
 
The Fermenting Fifties 
 
 THROUGH the fifties the lead country was 
 extremely California-conscious. Many Galen- 
 ians had settled there and were writing home 
 from the gold fields. Their letters were pub- 
 lished in the local paper. Every scrap of news 
 from the coast was reprinted by the Daily 
 Gazette. Second generation Galenians were be- 
 ing dazzled by much the same hopes which but 
 a few years before had brought their fathers to 
 northern Illinois. Almost overnight, it seemed, 
 the frontier had flung itself two thousand miles 
 farther west. Galena no longer was an outpost 
 of the Northwest. 
 
 There was little building done in 1850 and 
 1851 because of the gold rush, hence an acute 
 housing shortage developed in 1852. Homes 
 and hotels began rising again as the city prepared 
 for a new railroad being built from Chicago. 
 A stock company was formed to build a credit- 
 able hotel; by 1854 it was completed, five stories 
 and with over 200 rooms. The suggestion that 
 it be called the Marquette House was canceled 
 out of fear that that name would be corrupted 
 to Market House; hence it was called the De 
 Soto. 
 
 Newspapers in 1853 carried daily accounts 
 of the efforts of the Galena & Chicago Union 
 Railroad to reach Galena before the Illinois 
 Central reached Cairo. Since the thirties Galena 
 had employed every influence to bring a rail- 
 road through the city. Subscriptions for the 
 Galena Railroad and Transportation Company in 
 1838 had failed to bring a railroad; there was 
 no foreseeing now that the road was to hasten 
 Galena's decline. Traffic on the river had always 
 been conducted under obstacles ; the freezing of 
 the river in the winter restricted movement of 
 freight to nine months a year. Up till the open- 
 ing of the Illinois-Michigan Canal in 1848, con- 
 tact with the east was via New Orleans. The 
 coming of the railroads diverted Galena's domi- 
 nation of river traffic to every town through 
 which the road passed. 
 
 [37] 
 
For many years there had been a growing local aversion to the name 
 "Fevre River." "Fevre," Anglicized to "fever," had implications which 
 Galenians felt made timorous easterners chary of the city. 
 
 Uncertainty surrounds the name's origin. French explorers had known 
 it as "Riviere de la Mine," according to maps reproduced by Marcel in the 
 archives of the Marine in Paris. Indians had known the stream as "Moschuck 
 Maucaubie," the "big smallpox river," because tribesmen had succumbed to 
 smallpox in the neighborhood. Another story persists that it was also called 
 "Fielle," meaning "gall," the name of an Indian chief. Again it was referred 
 to as the "Feve River," or bean river, for the wild beans growing along its 
 banks. 
 
 The question of the derivations of "Fevre" or "Fever," as the stream was 
 generally known in the early days of settlement, prompted many heated argu- 
 ments and much newspaper comment. A miner, urging a change of name in 
 the Daily Advertiser in 1853, wrote: "Permit me to call attention to the sub- 
 ject of the changing of the name of the Fevre river to some other that will not 
 be a bugbear to strangers and emigrants coming to the N. W., something 
 that will not frighten the people so that they are not able to pass an unbiased 
 judgment on Galena when they get there, by hearing that it stands on the 
 banks of the stream called Fevre river. 
 
 " '. . . But,' says one, 'why change the name? It is not Fever, but Fevre 
 river; it is French and means Bean river.' No such thing! There is such a 
 word as Fevre in the French language ; it is merely a technical term pertaining 
 to a particular business, and means, a fireman working salt works — 'Bean' in 
 French is spelled feve and is pronounced fave. So Frenchify it as much as 
 you please, you cannot make sense of it. Even putting what our citizens appear 
 to think is the name of the river into proper French, which would be, Le 
 Riviere des Feves (The River of Beans) , does it not speak badly for the tastes 
 of our citizens ? Think, for instance, of a future Burns, a Scott, a Tom Moore 
 or a Bryant, describing, in poetic strains, the beauties of the River of Beans ! 
 Decidedly poetical, is it not ? 
 
 "There is a certainty of having communication with the eastern states by 
 railroad and the emigrant about to start west will be told that he can have 
 direct communication and passage to every point on the Mississippi from 
 Galena as he can by going on to the Mississippi itself. 
 
 " "But where is Galena? Is it not on the Mississippi?' asks the emigrant. 
 
 " 'No. It is on the Fevre river,' is the reply. 
 
 " 'Fever river? Oh, no! I don't want to go there. I should be afraid to 
 stop there a single day with my family', and immediately his imagination 
 peoples Galena with long, lean, lantern- jawed, bilious-looking, fever-and-ague- 
 shaken beings, whilst he has visions of miasma, bad air, fevers, anti-bilious 
 
 [38] 
 
pills, long doctor's bills, and a whole army of doctors, who being the majority 
 of living citizens, have named the town after their great predecessor, Galen, 
 adding an 'a' for propriety's sake. 
 
 "Surely the names by which we are bounded, Snake Hollow on the north, 
 Catfish and Death's Head on the west, on the south and east by Small Pox, 
 should be enough for the most fastidious of horror mongers. It may be con- 
 tested that these are only imaginary objections. I admit it, but it is well known 
 that prejudices formed on imaginary grounds are the most difficult to combat, 
 because they are not tangible, there is nothing to lay hold of, and then why 
 give rise to imaginary objections, when the cause could be eradicated with but 
 little trouble ? I propose to call it Deep River. It is a name possessing more 
 of the elements of adoption, being smooth and affluent, more concise, easily 
 spoken, and also a characteristic of the river, which from the city to its mouth 
 is little else than a canal deep and narrow." 
 
 Because of the commonness of such protests, the State legislature of 1854 
 finally changed the name of the stream to "Galena River." 
 
 The year 1853 marked an appreciable increase in Galena's population. The 
 census of 1850 listed the population of the city proper as 6,004, and in 1853 
 it had grown to 8,000. The suburban population was nearly as much again. 
 Total business for the year was $6,283,671.50. 
 
 The tides of movers bound west in 1854 are recalled by reports of "600 
 to 700 arrivals daily" with all boats and trains having their "full squeeze of 
 passengers." Many came without money, adventurers hoping to attach them- 
 selves to those more fortunate. A relief association was organized to abolish 
 the "system of street begging which is a system of monopoly, the few and 
 the reckless winning the prizes." In the hope of placing the more ambitious 
 drifters, an employment bureau, called the Galena Intelligence Office, was 
 opened. 
 
 In June of that year five excursion boats visited Galena at one time, and 
 1,000 people from the East and South swarmed over the city and delighted 
 in its picturesqueness. Among these editors, professors, governors, railroad 
 presidents, and ministers to foreign countries were Charles A. Dana of the 
 New York Tribune; Millard Fillmore, and the historian, Bancroft. 
 
 Through the fifties successive tides of immigration often altered the aspect 
 of a town over night. A Galenian stated that his city had "the most laby- 
 rinthian streets, the handsomest women, ugliest men, deepest mineral holes 
 and all in all a greater amount of cheek." 
 
 The levee was a busy place, and at times as many as seven boats docked 
 within an hour, emptying porters, draymen, runners, ticket agents, ice dealers, 
 butchers, bakers, shoppers, and consignees down the docks into Main Street. 
 
 [39] 
 
After 1855 the steamboat's importance on the upper Mississippi declined 
 as railroads slowly reversed the flow of trade. Previously, because trade had 
 gone downstream, St. Louis, New Orleans, and even New York and Phila- 
 delphia were better known to the business men of Galena than was Chicago. 
 Even with modern advertising volume, it would be highly unusual for con- 
 temporary midwestern newspapers to carry whole sections of advertisers' dis- 
 plays from New York and other east coast cities, as did the Galena press of 
 the 1850's. Galena was the emporium of the Northwest. Its forty warehouses 
 and wholesale establishments were markets well worth cultivating, but war 
 clouds were gathering and fear of a blockade before New Orleans hastened 
 the passing of the steamboat. The steamboat as a carrier of freight still served 
 to keep down freight rates, and so fought the railroads for a while. In 1857 
 a new customs house was built to carry on official business and register all 
 upper Mississippi River traffic. 
 
 Galena of the late fifties moved through a curious cycle. The advent of 
 the railroad shattered her trade. Dubuque, dormant for a quarter century, 
 began to flourish as the western terminus of the Illinois Central. Neighboring 
 towns too diverted much of the territorial trade. Since 1845 lead production 
 had been in a sharp decline, but the boom of Galena as a trading center had 
 more than counterbalanced that loss. The growth of manufacturing pulled 
 population to a peak of 14,000 in 1858. But even industrial expansion failed 
 to sustain the city, and it came out of the depression of 1857 no longer the 
 metropolis of northwestern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, but only the 
 chief city of Jo Daviess County. 
 
 Galena knew the meaning of brother against brother as secessionist talk 
 spread. Enmities began which were never to heal ; the southern origin of many 
 Galenians intensified feeling. Others were proud that the city was able to 
 give Grant to the Nation. 
 
 The Galena Daily Advertiser announced July 23, 1856, that the "Hon. A. 
 Lincoln, Republican candidate for Elector, will address the citizens of Galena 
 and Jo Daviess County on political questions of the day, from the balcony of 
 the DeSoto House this evening." Four years later Galena helped put the 
 speaker of that evening into the White House. Stephen A. Douglas spoke in 
 Galena the same year. 
 
 The following year the United States Marine Hospital was begun, to be 
 completed in 1858 at a cost of $30,000. Doctor Horatio Newhall was placed 
 in charge of the institution, designed as a refuge for rivermen of the upper 
 Mississippi. Although, as previously suggested, river trade was falling off 
 from Galena, yet the city benefited by the extension of daily boat service to 
 St. Louis, St. Paul, and intermediate points. 
 
 The railroads had not yet forced the stage lines out of business. In 1857 
 fifteen stage lines radiated from the city. St. Matthew's Evangelical Church 
 
 [40] 
 
was erected the same year. The lead output for the year amounted to 34,183,- 
 250 pounds, indicative that lead was still vital to Galena's trade. 
 
 Galena of 1858 supported two daily newspapers. Its schools housed 
 1,500. In addition to the dozen or more mills built on streams near the city, 
 there were brick and lime kilns, seven breweries, three soap and candle 
 factories, three leather finishing houses, wagon shops, pottery plants, lumber 
 yards, two grist mills, two iron foundries, two plow factories, two furniture 
 factories and two carriage factories. Two lead furnaces smelted 15,000 pounds 
 daily. 
 
 Lead mining became costlier as the shallowest diggings were worked out. 
 By the fifties mining entailed not only hard manual labor, but money to 
 finance expensive machinery for depth mining. Previously, ambition, a strong 
 body, a short handled pick, a gad and a shovel were the chief requisites. 
 Depth mining became complicated by the presence of zinc ore, a nuisance to 
 miners who knew little about separating processes. In spite of these diffi- 
 culties, new mines were begun. Once a prospector had discovered a deposit of 
 mineral by sinking a test hole into the earth, a shaft was dug down to the 
 ore. These shafts were usually four by six feet across and from ten to twenty 
 feet deep, according to the location of the vein. Ordinarily the shafts were 
 perpendicular, but, when practicable, they were constructed on an incline. 
 The walls were cribbed with heavy timbers. Galena dolomite, in which the 
 ore is found, usually was encountered at the twenty-foot level, and tunnels 
 were sent out from the bottom of the shaft, sometimes for a distance of several 
 hundred feet, following the veins. These tunnels were from ten to fifteen 
 feet in height and varied in width from five to forty feet according to the 
 ore's distribution. 
 
 When water was encountered a pump driven by horse power was em- 
 ployed. Tallow candles were used to light the chambers ; the candlestick was 
 a lump of soft fire clay wrapped about the base of the candle. The clay would 
 adhere to any wall surface and hold the candle in any position. Pushcarts 
 operating on wooden rails transported the mineral from distant parts of the 
 mine to the shaft, where it was placed in tubs and hauled to the surface by 
 a windlass. When the ore arrived at a smelter it was crushed with hammers 
 and then washed in running water to free it from dirt. It was then ready 
 for the furnace. 
 
 There were at one time 23 smelters operating in Jo Daviess County, the 
 best known of which was for many years that of Samuel Hughlett & Son, 
 located on a small stream a half mile from the end of Gratiot Street. This 
 smelter, in operation in 1839, was equipped with the crude log furnace of 
 that period. Successive improvements in smelting processes in time con- 
 verted the Hughlett plant into a blast furnace smelter. Only ruins remain of 
 this old plant, abandoned when the industry declined. 
 
 [41] 
 
In 1857, when Jo Daviess County was estimated to have a population of 
 26,000, only 3,000 were employed in mining. Wages ranged from $1 to 
 $1.50 per day. Big money had begun to pass from the miners, who were 
 unable to finance depth mining, into the hands of the smelters, who took 
 control of the industry. From that time forward Galena ceased to be a Mecca 
 for fortune hunters. 
 
 But settlers kept coming on. 
 
 [42] 
 
A Middle-Aged Clerk 
 in a Faded Army Coat 
 
 IN April of I860 the Itasca, carrying freight and passengers up the Missis- 
 sippi from St. Louis, docked at the Galena wharf. Among those who 
 crowded ashore was a bearded fellow in a blue cape overcoat carrying a chair 
 in each hand. A woman and four young children followed him down the 
 dock to Main Street without attracting the attention of other than a few levee 
 loungers. Ulysses S. Grant was 38 that April. Six years later he was to be 
 welcomed at the same wharf with an enthusiasm approaching mob frenzy. 
 
 Born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27, 1822, he was graduated from 
 West Point when 18, served through the Mexican War and subsequently 
 failed in several civilian pursuits before coming to Galena: farming, auction- 
 eering, account collecting. 
 
 Jesse R. Grant, prosperous St. Louis tanner, was Ulysses' father ; the sons 
 associated with the elder Grant in his Covington, Kentucky, tannery and his 
 stores in St. Louis and Galena were Jesse, Simpson, and Orville, all younger 
 than Ulysses. It is said that the father and the younger sons offered Ulysses 
 a place in the Galena firm only with misgivings, and largely out of pity. 
 Fifteen years in the army had maladjusted him, they felt, for civilian life; and 
 his unsuccessful efforts to find a living in the four years of his retirement 
 seemed to substantiate their doubts. 
 
 The circumstances which gave two of the Grant boys the maternal name, 
 Simpson, has interest. Ulysses was christened Hiram Ulysses, but the con- 
 gressman who arranged his West Point appointment was unfamiliar with the 
 family roster and recorded it as Ulysses Simpson Grant. After brief efforts 
 to rectify the error among comrades, Grant resigned himself to the name. 
 
 Grant, who possessed decision, judgment, and courage, was too soft-hearted 
 to press a debtor and too honest to misrepresent merchandise. But since his 
 family had to be provided for, it was finally decided to give him work in the 
 Galena store at $600 a year. 
 
 Grant rented a modest brick house at 121 High Street and took up his 
 duties with his brothers Jesse and Simpson. Because of his retiring disposition 
 he attracted little attention, but made some friends among neighbors and 
 customers. Although not well known in Galena at this time, the few who did 
 come to know him intimately respected him. Among these intimates were 
 several destined to become Civil War generals: John Corson Smith, a car- 
 penter-contractor; William R. Rowley, circuit clerk of the county; Jasper A. 
 Maltby, a gunsmith ; and John A. Rawlins, a lawyer. 
 
 [43] 
 
Grant had been in Galena just a year when Fort Sumter was fired upon. 
 Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers had a mixed welcome in Galena. It had 
 been only a few years since the diversion of the river traffic by the railroad had 
 slackened the city's ties with the South and tightened those with the North 
 and East ; those years had not been enough to overshadow, deeply, the bonds 
 of blood and sentiment which so many Galena families of South-Central 
 origin now felt. 
 
 Mayor Robert Brand, loyal to Lincoln yet reluctant to take up arms, 
 presided at a mass meeting in the courthouse immediately after Fort Sumter 
 had fallen, at which formation of volunteer companies was proposed. Brand 
 went on record as favoring "an honorable compromise" which would again 
 unite the nation. This evoked a storm of protest which threatened to disrupt 
 the meeting; but order was restored and a resolution adopted to form two 
 companies immediately. 
 
 The following evening, April 18, another meeting was held to enlist 
 volunteers. Grant was introduced as a West Point graduate and a veteran of 
 the Mexican War. He was asked to preside and to take charge of the recruiting, 
 to organize a company and to become its commander. He replied that he 
 could not command a company because, as an army officer, his services were 
 already at the disposal of the Government. He offered, however, to act as 
 chairman, and to train volunteers until such time as he should be called into 
 service. 
 
 A protest was voiced against Grant as chairman on the ground that he 
 was from St. Louis, a city of known secessionist sympathies. It was pointed 
 out too that his wife, the former Julia Dent and daughter of Frederick Dent, 
 owner of Galena's first store, was known to have owned two slaves. This 
 protest was spiked by Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, and the following 
 week Grant began training recruits, using the Washburne lawn as parade 
 ground. 
 
 It was a memorable day for Galena when this company of 100, captained 
 by Augustus L. Chetlain, son of an early Galena family, left for Springfield 
 to be mustered into service. Dressed in home-tailored blue frock coats and 
 dark gray pants with blue cords, the company was escorted to the depot by 
 the Galena volunteer fire companies, the German Benevolent Society and a 
 large group of citizens. A flag was presented by E. A. Small and the company 
 boarded the train amid cheers and tears. 
 
 Grant accompanied the company to Springfield, but took no part in the 
 depot ceremonies. He made his way there alone with his battered luggage. 
 Congressman Washburne, after whom the Washburne Lead Mine Regiment 
 was named, also accompanied the first unit to Springfield, and there intro- 
 duced Grant to Governor Yates. 
 
 Grant had offered himself to the War Department, but receiving no reply, 
 and being unable to attach himself to McClellan at Cincinnati after several 
 attempts, he accepted the Adjutant Generalship of Illinois from Governor 
 
 [44] 
 
Yates. After some weeks assisting organization of State troops in the capital, 
 he was commissioned Colonel of the Twenty-first Regiment of Infantry. 
 Thus began the career which was shortly to place him in command of all 
 the Union forces. 
 
 [45] 
 

 .31 
 
 &$ 
 
 %& 
 
 fl&T 
 
 
 fffll 
 
 %/V ■= a. 
 
 '*? f c>' 
 
 \AUJrtilJiV 
 
 nfiw 
 
 V-Vi>v.<i. 1 
 
 i«S 
 
 
 Armed Years 
 
 GALENA was in a fever of excitement 
 through the spring and summer of 1861. 
 Scarcely had the first company departed before 
 another was formed, and men eager to trade pick 
 and gad for rifle and bayonet came from all 
 corners of the County to volunteer in Galena. 
 Mines, mills, and furnaces were abandoned; 
 Galena became a hive of wartime activity with 
 all pursuits subordinated to that of clothing and 
 equipping the new companies. Tailors worked 
 day and night fashioning uniforms. In every 
 schoolhouse recruiting meetings were held, and 
 before the close of the summer four companies 
 had been organized from Jo Daviess County. 
 
 The first casualties did not occur in battle. 
 Captain B. B. Howard and seventeen of his com- 
 pany of "Anti-Beaure-Guards" were killed 
 September 18, 1861, when a troop train plunged 
 through a bridge across Beaver Creek, near 
 Huron, Indiana. More than fifty others of the 
 company were injured. The disaster was attrib- 
 uted to southern sympathizers and grief was 
 tempered with indignation in Galena. The 
 bodies were brought home for burial and the 
 injured taken to the Galena Marine Hospital. 
 
 The little city distinguished itself for giving 
 the Union more finished militarists than any 
 other community of its size in the Nation. By 
 the close of the war Galena's roster included 
 Major General John A. Rawlins, Grant's Chief 
 of Staff; Major General John E. Smith, a Main 
 Street jeweler; Brigadier General Augustus L. 
 Chetlain; Brigadier General Jasper A. Maltby; 
 Brigadier General William R. Rowley ; Brigadier 
 General John Corson Smith; Brigadier General 
 Ely S. Parker; Brigadier General John R. Duer, 
 killed in action ; Lieutenant Colonels Edward D. 
 Kittoe and Melanchon Smith. 
 
 Grant's return on August 19, 1865, was one 
 of Galena's greatest days. "Galena is in its glory 
 today," a Chicago paper commented, "General 
 
 146} 
 
Grant has come back home. He arrived here 
 after a triumphal journey from Chicago during 
 which he was given ovations at every station 
 and hamlet along the route. Minute guns were 
 fired as the train passed. On arrival here General 
 Grant was met at the station by fully 10,000 
 persons. He and his party went to the De Soto 
 House, where 36 beautiful young ladies, dressed 
 in white, formally greeted him. The Hon. E. 
 B. Washburne delivered the address of wel- 
 come, after which General Grant went to his 
 new home, presented by citizens of Galena at 
 a cost of $15,000, including the furnishings." 
 
 Galena's great day was spread across news- 
 papers nationally, and pictures of the arch which 
 spanned Main Street bearing a huge caption, 
 "Hail to the chief who in triumph advances," 
 were distributed broadcast. From all corners of 
 the lead country and from counties as far east 
 as Shephenson, Rock, Kane, Lake, and Cook, 
 admirers of Grant gathered. 
 
 In 1868 Grant became president. Wash- 
 burne, who had served 18 years in Congress, 
 was subsequently named Secretary of State and 
 later Minister to France, Chetlain became Consul 
 General to Belgium, and Rawlins was appointed 
 Secretary of War. The latter died in 1869. 
 
 By 1870 the mines and manufactories of the 
 new area were no longer of national significance. 
 The value of the county's produce greatly ex- 
 ceeded that of its lead, and upon agriculture 
 henceforward the local economy was to depend. 
 
 As far back as 1867 the city had been forced 
 to fund its bonded indebtedness of $168,884.06, 
 principal and interest. This debt represented ten 
 separate bond issues through a decade in which 
 the city had financed bridges, a market house, 
 street lights, and river dredging. 
 
 No clearer illustration of Galena's decline 
 can be given than that of a circular letter issued 
 by the city in July 1867, in which bondholders 
 were requested to turn in their old bonds and 
 receive a funded new issue at 25 per cent of the 
 old debt. The bonds were issued, creditors were 
 informed, "at periods when the city was flour- 
 ishing; when property was valuable and found 
 
 
 .Jfei 
 
 r* 
 
 IV 
 
 SSI* 
 
 [47] 
 
 6C5 Nevada St, 
 
 URBANA, ILL 
 
ready sale at high rates." The city's revenue from taxation was sufficient at 
 that time to pay the interest, and the promise of "a glowing and prosperous 
 future" was felt certain indication that the principal on the bonds would be 
 paid at their maturity. "But," the letter continues, "since 1857 and 1858 
 business has gradually declined. The opening of the railroads from Chicago 
 to Prairie du Chien and LaCrosse has diverted trade and travel from our city ; 
 the wholesale grocery and drygoods establishments which lined our levee 
 and Main Street have disappeared and the large steamboat interest, which 
 was concentrated in our city and gave animation to business, has almost 
 ceased to exist." The administration called attention to a real estate decline 
 which had severely cut the city's income. Property which had cost $23,000 
 had been sold for $6,000 and stores on Main Street which had cost $7,500 
 were going for $1,500. Some Main Street rents had fallen from $1,000 
 to $180 annually. The city's total assessment had fallen from $1,500,000 in 
 1857 to $450,000 in 1867. 
 
 Fugitive hopes were revived in 1872 when a Galena & Southern Wis- 
 consin railroad company was organized to build a narrow gauge road to 
 attract lead shipments through Galena. The city council authorized the road, 
 but, like the enterprise of 1838, it failed to materialize. 
 
 So it was to a city which had lost the greater part of its commercial prestige 
 that Grant returned, after a world tour, in 1879. Again Galena gave him 
 an enthusiastic reception, more pretentious but no less sincere than that of 
 1865. Every home displayed flags, and the business streets were decorated 
 as never before. Celebrities came from all parts of the country, and veterans 
 gathered from almost every State in the union. The city's accommoda- 
 tions became inadequate, its streets too narrow for the parading military 
 groups, drum corps, fraternal drill teams, marching societies, fire departments, 
 and civic and social groups from every corner of northern Illinois. At night 
 fireworks were displayed from an arch above Main Street near the DeSoto 
 House. 
 
 Unfortunately, a premature explosion ignited the arch, severely burning 
 many persons. Postmaster Warren W. Huntington, in charge of the program 
 and a personal friend of Grant, sustained burns from which he died some 
 weeks later. 
 
 The Grants took up residence in the gift home, where they lived until 
 1881 ; in that year they went to New York City, where Grant died on July 
 25, 1885. Shortly after, Galenians formed the Grant Birthday Association, 
 which until recently held annual celebrations. 
 
 Since Grant's death Galena has been host to many renowned persons 
 during the birthday celebrations. In 1892 Chauncey M. Depew was the 
 speaker of the day when Herman H. Kohlsaat, native Galenian and Chicago 
 publisher, presented to the city the bronze statue of Grant which stands in 
 Grant Park. A soldiers' monument, which had been built at the courthouse 
 in 1883, was moved to Grant Park at the same time. Members of the Grant 
 family were at the dedication. A cannon from the captured Spanish gunboat 
 V he ay a, was placed in the park in 1900. 
 
 [48] 
 
President McKinley and his cabinet, on a tour of the West in 1898, visited 
 Galena, and several years later McKinley revisited the city to attend a Grant 
 celebration. 
 
 In 1900, Theodore Roosevelt, then Vice President, was the Grant Day 
 speaker at Turner Hall. In 1904 General Frederick Dent Grant, Grant's 
 oldest son, presented the Grant home to the city. Speaking for his family, 
 General Grant requested that the home become a memorial to be preserved 
 as his father had left it in 1881. It was accepted by the city subject to this 
 request and remained Galena's property until 1932, when it was presented 
 to the Illinois State Department of Works and Buildings. 
 
 [49} 
 
Landmarks and Watermarks 
 
 MORE fine examples of early Illinois architecture survive today in Galena 
 than in any other one place, and the standards of taste and construction 
 prevailing here compare favorably with the best of the same period in the East 
 and South. Galena is a city of many hills, up which streets and stairways 
 climb tortuously. Main Street's unique four-storied buildings, with those 
 deep stone light areas behind showing only two stories on Bench Street above, 
 the unexpected glimpses of mansions and quaint cottages on every hand, 
 memories of lead mining and of Grant — these combine to create Galena's 
 peculiar charm. 
 
 The Stockade, the Dowling stone house, the Soulards' home and numerous 
 cottages, many enclosing log cabins, recall stirring times of Indian alarms 
 and roaring mining days. By the early 1820's the lead country was attracting 
 French, Cornish and Welsh, Southerners and Indianians. An aristocratic 
 element from down the river fixed upon the young city the cultivated archi- 
 tectural tastes of old St. Louis and New Orleans, and New England's prim 
 culture is perpetuated in stone and brick residences and public buildings. 
 
 By the late 1840's Galena was in its heyday, with the finest buildings and 
 the richest and most enterprising citizens in the State. The old Market House, 
 a distinguished early American building nowjmjjejgoin g reconstruction , and 
 the Hoge, Smith and Stouffer homes , all the work of H. T. StoufTerT Belong 
 to this period. Aloag Bench Street can be seen homes where lived such fami- 
 lies as the Ryans, Dowling s. Gratiots, and Stahls, an d across the river are the 
 Telford ho use and Washburne house, the latter interestingly remodeled at 
 a later date. 
 
 Grace Episcopal Church , literally carved from the rocky cliff behind and, 
 nearby, the Presbyterian Church on Bench Street, are types of early church 
 design, one Gothic and the other Greek Revival. Old St. Michael's w as the 
 first Roman Catholic edifice in Galena and was designed by Father Samue .1 
 Mazzuchelli . remembered in the lead country for his good work and excellent 
 architecture. He it was who planned the chaste stone porticoed courthouse , 
 now so disfigured by ill-advised alterations, as well as Sinsinawa Conven t, 
 the little wood church at New Diggings, Wisconsin, and many others. 
 
 Before the Civil War Midwesterners sought to build their homes and 
 public structures in accord with an architectural enthusiasm for Hellenism 
 then sweeping the country. College societies, names of towns, classic studies, 
 all were Greek. Thus with the miners' tools came also the carpenters' hand- 
 book with finely drawn exemplars of Greek architecture to be carefully exe- 
 cuted in the new land as in the older East and South. For in the pioneer's 
 buildings can be plainly read the courageous story of his struggle and success 
 as well as the region from which he emigrated. Galena's many graceful 
 porticoes, with glistening white columns against softly warm brick, ^ speak 
 eloquently of southern origins. 
 
 [50] 
 
The DeSoto House, though reduced two stories and robbed of its ornate 
 cast-iron balcony, is still fairly representative of a sumptuous Midwest hotel 
 of the fifties. Down Main Street is the less pretentious Mississippi House , 
 in one of Galena's least changed business blocks. At the other end of the 
 street is the Dowling warehouse , with a fine cast-iron balcony. The city was 
 formerly full of such decorative iron work, but ignorance of its value has 
 permitted most of it to be lost. 
 
 Nowhere else can the general decay which overtook American architec- 
 ture about Civil War time be better observed than in Galena. Along in the 
 fifties, Greek chasteness and handicrafts began to be replaced by machine- 
 made and rococo imitations of the French and Italian. Ulysses Grant's 
 admirable little brick house offers instance of this decadence when contrasted 
 with the extravagant bad taste and jig-sawed excesses of his second house 
 across the river. 
 
 But not all the Galena generals fared so badly, architecturally speaking. 
 General Smith's house, previously mentioned, is a landmark of early Midwest 
 design, Rawlins' is delightfully done in the wood Gothic manner, and General 
 Chetlain's, si tuated in its fine acres on the heights beyond the city, is a 
 charming example of wood architecture wherein successive alterations, each 
 in character with the particular time, have achieved harmony. C hetlain's 
 pioneer log house is immured in one end of the structure . 
 
 The environs of Galena also possess fine architecture predating the Civil 
 War. Council Hill has an authentic stage road tavern ; old farm houses dot 
 the countryside everywhere. Tumbled down little brick and stone houses 
 of Creole galleried typ e, suggestive of the Latin Quarter of New Orleans, 
 abound. These were once miners' homes. 
 
 Thus is seen here, nearly unchanged, the pageant of Midwest American 
 architecture from the 1820's to the late 1870's, when the last of the wealthy 
 mine owners' houses was built. Galena's early crudities, its period of glorious 
 prosperity and its graceful decadence still live in its architecture. It is to 
 be hoped that the people of the State at large and Galena's own citizens find 
 means and understanding to preserve for all time its Greek Revival antiquities, 
 which will become as significant to the Midwest as is the Colonial to the East. 
 
 In one of several efforts to revive river transportation, a Government 
 dredging fleet removed the silt from the Galena River in 1890 and dam and 
 locks were erected below the city. The dam was financed by private capital 
 but was purchased by the United States Government in 1894. The locks 
 were removed and the project abandoned in 1922, when Galena resigned 
 herself to the river's innavigability. It has not floated a freight barge since 
 1916. 
 
 The river which guided explorers to Galena and carried its lead to market 
 is no longer of commercial importance. Scarcely more than a rivulet, 
 it occasionally gives forceful reminder of its past. On February 19, 1937 
 it began to rise and by Sunday, February 21, reached its crest and established 
 a new high water mark which sent newsreel men scampering to Galena. 
 Damages were conservatively estimated at $300,000, and two lives were lost. 
 
 [51] 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
At some points along Main Street the waters rose over five feet above street 
 level, and so rapidly that many merchants were helpless to protect their 
 stocks. In the building of J. W. Coatsworth, part of which was once the 
 J. R. Grant & Sons leather store, the water stood well above five feet. Original 
 Grant leases stored in the Coatsworth safe were soaked till their signatures 
 are now scarcely legible. 
 
 Spring freshets have caused many floods at Galena since the first high 
 water mark was recorded on Main Street in 1828. In 1859 water damage 
 was so great that Main and Commerce Streets were elevated; but this pre- 
 caution, while minimizing effects of occasional minor floods, failed in 1870, 
 1880, 1892, 1896 and 1916. 
 
 So extensive was the damage wrought by the 1937 flood that Galena, 
 which has usually accepted its river's caprices philosophically, began discuss- 
 ing control measures. There is talk of high levees, of widening the river's 
 mouth, and also of a dam north of the city to impound flood waters. Fear 
 is expressed that the flood danger may be increased when the Bellevue dam, 
 now being built eight miles below the confluence of the Galena and Mississippi 
 rivers, is completed. 
 
 Unless some control measure is successfully effected, it is conceivable 
 that the little river which was responsible for Galena's birth and early pros- 
 perity may ultimately destroy the town. 
 
 C'52] 
 
Strolling Our Streets 
 
 GALENA'S streets are lined with landmarks 
 of the city's golden age. A tour might 
 start from Spring Street on U.S. 20, at the foot 
 of Bench, one block west of Main and the U.S. 
 20 bridge, and proceed north up the Bench 
 Street hill to the terrace on the face of the bluff 
 where Bench Street becomes a narrow shelf 
 forty feet above Main, which is on the right 
 approximately 100 feet below Prospect. Ascend- 
 ing the Bench Street hill on either side stand 
 weather-worn brick buildings. At the crest of 
 the incline to the left stands the PUBLIC 
 LIBRARY, a modern structure. 
 
 The first Galena Library Association was or- 
 ganized in 1835. The present building, a gift 
 of the Andrew Carnegie Foundation and the 
 B. F. Felt estate, was completed in 1908 and 
 houses a well-rounded collection. 
 
 From the street in front of the library is an 
 uninterrupted view down the slope to Main 
 Street, which there flanks the Galena River. The 
 stream is narrow and sluggish, flowing through 
 the wide commons that were its bed in the days 
 when the stream carried a heavy commerce and 
 many excursionists. 
 
 West of the library is SOUTH PRESBY- 
 TERIAN CHURCH, a Gothic structure hnil^ in 
 1848. Across the street are the old GRAIN 
 HOUSES, four four-story brick warehouses with 
 their third-floor entrances on Bench Street. Their 
 great bins now are empty and the buildings 
 practically abandoned. But once heavily loaded 
 grain wagons crowded Bench Street from these 
 warehouses for seven blocks north to Franklin 
 Street. The wagons were unloaded and the grain 
 was dropped from the third floor to the Main 
 Street level, where it was sacked and carried by 
 Negroes to barges bound for New Orleans. 
 In later years great quantities of wheat were 
 freighted up the Mississippi to Minneapolis for 
 milling, and much of the flour found its way 
 back to Galena for distribution. Each granary 
 
 [53] 
 
was built into the hill instead of merely against it, for each site was excavated 
 to the level of Main Street and a large semi-circular retaining wall built against 
 the bluff up to the edge of Bench Street for the double purpose of guarding 
 against earth-slides and to allow masons room for the erection of the bluff 
 side wall of the buildings. Windows on the lower floors thus gain light from 
 these deep, well-like areaways. Bridges span the gap of six or eight feet from 
 the street curb to the granaries' third-floor entrances. 
 
 To the left, toward the end of a row of brick dwellings of which many 
 still have iron-grilled windows and heavy wooden shutters, stand FEEHAN 
 HALL and ANNUNCIATION SCHOOL. This hall has been a center 
 of social activity for Roman Catholics since the late 1880's. 
 
 A short distance farther is a distinctive Galena institution, the HIGH 
 SCHOOL STEPS. A wide short flight on the right leads up from the Main 
 Street level and across, on the left, narrower flights with frequent landings 
 rise 100 feet to Prospect Street. At each landing benches wait for the winded 
 and foot-weary. 
 
 Just south of the steps on Bench Street is the former Second Presbyterian 
 Church, now the American Legion Hall. Immediately north of the steps 
 on the left side of the street is the NEWHALL HOME, a massive struc- 
 ture topped by an octagonal cupola, which has been one of the city's 
 outstanding homes for many years. Doctor Horatio Newhall, who built 
 the home, had varied interests. He established the oldest existing drug 
 store in the State. During the Asiatic cholera epidemic of 1832 and during 
 the Black Hawk War he was in charge of hospitalization of all of the wounded 
 and most of the sick of an army of 5,000, and he was responsible for the 
 establishment of the Marine Hospital in the city's south corner. In 1828 
 he assisted in editing the Miners Journal, for which subscriptions were, to 
 quote the newspaper itself, "$3.50 a year, payable in lead or cash." 
 
 Next is ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, belonging to the oldest Roman 
 Catholic parish in the Rockford diocese. There was a resident pastor in 
 Galena before Father St. Cyr selected a lot on Lake Street for the first Catholic 
 church in Chicago. In 1827 the Irish- American residents of the lead mine 
 district, numbering nearly 7,000, petitioned the Bishop of St. Louis to send 
 them a pastor. The Reverend Father Vincent Badin established the parish, 
 but no building was erected for eight years; then, under the third pastor, 
 the missionary Charles Samuel Mazzuchelli, P.P., the cornerstone was laid 
 and the building completed in 1842 . In 1848 the first parochial school was 
 opened. In 1856 the chu rch was raze d by a fire w hich destroyed 38 build- 
 ings in the neighborhood. 
 
 Th e present church was built soon after , but the school did not reopen 
 until 1870. The Shrine of the Little Flower in St. Michael's was dedicated 
 in 1928. Names of visitors from many lands are in its register. 
 
 Opposite the church on the right side of Bench is a row of brick homes 
 with the aspect of a small European village ; they stand on a slope and entrance 
 to their second floors is by narrow bridges from the sidewalk. 
 
 [54] 
 
At the corner of Washington and Bench is the METHODIST EPISCO- 
 PAL CHURCH, built in 185^. Bishop John Vincent, its first pastor, was 
 the founder of the Lake Chautauqua (N. Y.), Assembly which suggested 
 the commercialized traveling chautauqua of later years. The pew where the 
 Grant family prayed has been preserved here. Bench could easily have been 
 named Church Street, as most of the city's eight churches are either on or 
 near it. 
 
 Up Bench Street one comes to TURNER HALL, a gray stone auditorium 
 surrounded by a terraced lawn. It is now the local headquarters of a fraternal 
 organization. Here many civic and social functions are held, and here Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt and William McKinley addressed Galena. It has been gutted 
 by fire and remodeled since it was built in 1874, but the rounded, double 
 decked boxes beside the stage recall the heyday of the Victorian stage. 
 
 Halfway down the next block and to the left is the FIRST PRESBY- 
 TERIAN CHURCH, built in 1838. Some say the steeple, added in 1854, 
 is a reproduction of that on the old South Church in Boston and others that 
 an early pastor duplicated that of a church he had observed in a Swiss valley. 
 Its founder was Aratus Kent, Yale and Princeton gradu ate, whose zeal 
 brought him from New England to the West. He is said to have appealed 
 to the American Missionary Society for a difficult assignment. "Send me 
 to a place that is so hard that no one else will take it," he urged. So he 
 was sent to Galena, and, arriving on a Sunday, cleaned out an unfinished 
 store, set up benches and conducted the first Presbyterian service. In 1831 
 he organized the First Presbyterian Church of Galena with a nucleus of six 
 persons. He also pioneered in education and in the anti-slavery movement. 
 He was one of the founders of Beloit and Rockford colleges. His brother, 
 Germanicus, settled in Rockford, seat of Winnebago County, in 1835. In 
 the forties the Reverend Kent's church was the largest west of Chicago. In 
 1832 he convinced Amasa B. Campbell that the latter should come to Galena 
 and open a school for boys. Campbell remained for fifteen years, being 
 succeeded by Dr. George Magoun, who later became first President of 
 Grinnell College at Grinnell, Iowa. Kent was appointed general superin- 
 tendent of home missions for the Northwest in 1855. 
 
 Two doors north of the Presbyterian Church is the JAMES DOWLING 
 HOUSE, a white-pillared, tan brick, Colonial home built in 1847. This 
 home was used by the novelist, Janet Ayer Fairbank, as the home of the 
 heroine of The Bright Land. The house was built by James Dowling, son 
 of John Dowling and brother of Nicholas. 
 
 On the next corner is a small home with a sprawling roof, flanked by 
 cobble-stoned Perry Street, which here descends sharply to Main. This is 
 the site of the AMOS FARRAR CABIN, the present structure being built on 
 the foundation and around the upright logs of the original cabin. When the 
 stockade was built, during the Black Hawk War, Farrar's cabin was on the 
 inside and the underground rooms were prepared as refuge for women and 
 children. Visitors are welcome to this blockhouse home, and may hear from 
 Margaret Gardner, a member of the second family to occupy it, stories of 
 
 [55] 
 
its early days. One may see the upright logs and hear tales of the old stockade 
 from Miss Gardner, who taught school in Galena more than half a century. 
 The first occupants were the Farrars ; Mrs. Farrar was the first woman school 
 teacher in Galena. 
 
 A trench walled in by heavy timbers connected the stockade and the 
 blockhouse on the hill to the west. The stockade embraced the area one 
 block north and one block south of this spot and running east and west from 
 Main to Prospect at the top of the hill. On this ground several other homes 
 were built by settlers who abandoned their cabins during the war. 
 
 On Hill and Prospect Streets stands the GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
 built in 1847. It is a gray stone, vine-covered building, buttressed and castel- 
 lated in Tudor style. Stained-glass windows, imported from Belgium, cast 
 bright colors across the aisle leading to the hand-carved walnut altar. The altar 
 is flanked by walnut choir stalls, each an exhibition of the woodcarver's art. 
 Back of the stalls to the left is the organ, a one-manual instrument, and behind 
 the organ are hand-operated bellows and pump. It was brought from Phila- 
 delphia by sailing vessel to New Orleans and then by steamboat to Galena 
 to be installed in a frame chapel, built in 1838. This was the first organ 
 brought to the Northwest and was presented to the church by Captain Hezekiah 
 H. Gear. 
 
 POINTS OF INTEREST 
 
 1— Public Library Dl 
 
 ^2 — South Presbyterian Church Dl 
 
 3 — Grain Houses Dl 
 
 4 — Feehan Hall & Annunciation 
 
 School Cl 
 
 5— High School Steps C2 
 
 6 — Newhall Home C2 
 
 - 7 — St. Michael's Church C2 
 
 ^ 8 — Methodist Episcopal Church . . . . B2 
 
 9 — Methodist Manse B2 
 
 10— Turner Hall B2 
 
 .11— First Presbyterian Church B2 
 
 12 — James Dowling House B2 
 
 13 — Amos Farrar Cabin B2 
 
 14 — Grace Episcopal Church B2 
 
 15— High School Cl 
 
 16— U. S. 20 Bridge El 
 
 17— Fort B2 
 
 18— First Grant Home Bl 
 
 19— Old Cemetery Bl 
 
 20 — Rawlins Home Al 
 
 21 — Rowley Home Al 
 
 22— St. Mary's Church A2 
 
 23— St. Joseph's Halle A3 
 
 24 — Court House A3 
 
 25 — John Dowling House B3 
 
 26 — Nicholas Dowling Store B3 
 
 27— First Court House B3 
 
 28— Market Square C3 
 
 29 — Lawrence House B3 
 
 30 — Grant and Perkins Store B2 
 
 31 — Siniger & Siniger Drug Store. . .B2 
 
 32 — Grant Leather Store C2 
 
 33— Galena Gazette C2 
 
 34— De Soto Hotel C2 
 
 35 — First Customs House C2 
 
 36 — Lead Mine Cigar Factory C2 
 
 37 — Old Commission House D2 
 
 38— Present Post Office C2 
 
 39— Grant Park D3 
 
 40 — Grant Our Citizen D3 
 
 41 — Union House C4 
 
 42 — Joseph Hoge House D3 
 
 43 — Grant Memorial House D4 
 
 C. & N. W. R. R. Sta D2 
 
 111. Central R. R. Sta D2 
 
 C, B. & N. R. R. Sta Cl 
 
 Dodge Park Bl 
 
 [57] 
 
To the right of the altar is the winter chapel. The lectern is in the 
 church proper, a five-foot stand surmounted by an eagle, the entire piece 
 carved from one walnut block. On the back of the eagle rests a bible printed 
 by the Oxford University Press in 1847. 
 
 South on Prospect Street one comes to the METHODIST MANSE, a 
 small box-like red brick structure overhanging the bluff. It was built directly 
 above the first Methodist Church building, erected in 1833 on Bench Street 
 below. This manse was the home of Bishop Vincent, pioneer educator and 
 founder and editor of Methodist publications. At the end of this street 
 is the GALENA HIGH SCHOOL AND GYMNASIUM. The plaza in 
 front of the school is a vantage point from which one has an excellent view 
 of the city, the river valley, and the hills beyond. 
 
 Directly across the valley is Horseshoe Mound, one of the state's highest 
 points. To the right is a square brick building topped by a square cupola, 
 the Marine Hospital, built in 1857 and at that time the largest hospital north 
 of St. Louis. Over the door remains a plate reading "United States Marine 
 Hospital." The building is now privately owned and occupied and is closed 
 to the public. 
 
 The construction engineer of this hospital was Ely Parker, a full-blooded, 
 well-educated Seneca. His Indian name was Do-ne-ho-ga-wa, signifying 
 "Keeper of the West Gate." He was born on the reservation at Tonawanda, 
 N. Y., and was descended from the famous Red Jacket. Parker was a civil 
 engineer for Government buildings in Galena at the outbreak of the Civil 
 War. For gallant conduct in the Vicksburg campaign he was commissioned 
 Brigadier General and became military secretary to Grant. After the war 
 he was appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, but retired in 1871 to 
 devote himself to engineering. 
 
 [58] 
 
Up the river and leading through the hills is U.S. 20. To the left of the 
 highway halfway up the hill is the GRANT MEMORIAL HOME. To 
 the left of the home and at the river's edge is Grant Park, where the statue 
 of Grant Our Citizen stands. 
 
 The site of the old FORT is at the peak of Prospect Street. A boulder 
 marker by the Daughters of the American Revolution designates the spot 
 where stood the watch tower built in 1832. From this point Elk Street fol- 
 lows the brink of the bluff. Below the street level on the right, gables and 
 chimneys stipple the steep fall of the hillside, and far below lies Franklin 
 Street, one of the principal arteries of Old Galena. A turn to the left on 
 High Street, one block from Prospect, brings the spire of St. Mary's to view. 
 
 At 121 High Street, in the second block from Elk, is the square brick 
 house which was the FIRST GRANT HOME. Here Grant lived with his 
 wife and four small children, Frederick, Ulysses, Jesse, and Nellie, until 
 the Civil War. 
 
 A little pioneer graveyard, the OLD GALENA CEMETERY, is north 
 of Washington on Dodge Street, just a block from High. Here are the 
 graves of many first settlers; some of them hold remains of easterners who 
 died before 1812 and were brought west by relatives who had made homes 
 in Galena. Many miners from Cornwall are buried here. The plot was 
 given to the city by Captain Hezekiah H. Gear, who came to Galena in 1827 
 and chanced upon a rich deposit in Tower Hill. He was a native of Con- 
 necticut and a veteran of the War of 1812. He farmed in Massachusetts 
 and later worked in a tannery in Upper Alton, Illinois. After illness had 
 impoverished him he came with a party of Ohioans to the Galena diggings, 
 where he prospected successfully for several years. In 1832 he organized a 
 company for the Black Hawk campaign, returning to find his debts heavy 
 and his family in need. Shortly after, he discovered a lode on Tower Hill 
 from which he eventually took 26,000,000 pounds of ore. 
 
 Captain Gear's modest residence, still standing on South Bench, became 
 the home not only of his large family but for several of his relatives, clerks, 
 and bookkeepers of his store. In this home Gear entertained many prominent 
 people of his day, including Martin Van Buren and Alexander Hamilton's 
 wife. Gear interested himself in smelting, lumber, river trade, and in time 
 became the wealthiest man in the region ; recalling his own poverty, he assisted 
 deserving miners throughout the area. Among his gifts were lots for the 
 erection of the First Presbyterian and First Methodist Churches. He also 
 contributed the principal fund for the Grace Episcopal Church of which his 
 brother, the Reverend Gilbert Gear, subsequently became rector. John H. 
 Gear, son of Gilbert and nephew of Captain Gear, later became a legislator 
 in Iowa and Governor of that State. 
 
 Down Hill Street to the left of the old Galena cemetery are the RAWLINS 
 HOME and the ROWLEY HOME, two small neatly built batten-board 
 houses. General John A. Rawlins, a personal friend of Grant and his 
 Secretary of War, lived at 517 Hill Street. He was born in Galena and a 
 
 [59] 
 
statue of him stands in Washington, D. C. General William R. Rowley, 
 who lived at 515 Hill Street, was clerk of the circuit court when he was 
 commissioned a brigadier general and provost marshal on Grant's staff. It 
 was in Rowley's office that Grant awaited word of his third nomination by 
 the Republican convention, only to hear that Garfield had been chosen. Row- 
 ley's counsel assisted Grant throughout his career. 
 
 On Franklin Street, after a row of shuttered red brick houses along the 
 ridge to the south, stands ST. MARY'S. The parish was established in 1850 
 when Bishop Van de Velde came from Chicago to organize the German 
 Catholics of Galena. In 1856 the first brick structure was erected following 
 the plans of Father Mazzuchelli. Upon completion of the church, Father 
 Mazzuchelli presented a marble altar. The Reverend Father Bally was pastor 
 from 1862 until 1914 and during his pastorate built an addition to the rear 
 of the building and, with an inheritance from the estate of Leopold de Massuir, 
 paid for the steeple. The sanctuary windows and the painting of the Assump- 
 tion were donated by Massuir. The rectory to the west of the church was 
 built in 1917 at a cost of $20,000 and in the previous year a large addition 
 to the school was built. 
 
 Franklin Street is a strange little thoroughfare as it approaches Bench 
 Street from the northwest. Its odd houses, with overhanging balconies, face 
 each other across narrow pavements with a placidity suggestive of long 
 association. 
 
 ST. JOSEPH'S HALLE, an old German meeting house, stands to the left 
 near the corner of Franklin and Bench Streets, and a little farther, on the 
 hill to the left, is the county jail which has served the city and county for 
 nearly 75 years. One block north of Franklin, on Bench, is the COURT 
 HOUSE, the first of many local buildings in American Colonial style. It 
 was built in 1839. In 1900 the columns on the face of the building were 
 removed and an addition built. 
 
 Down on Main and Diagonal is the JOHN DOWLING HOUSE, the 
 oldest structure still standing in Galena. Built in 1828 by John Dowling 
 with help of his son Nicholas, it was unique at that time, in a log cabin 
 settlement, for its gray stone. Today its windows are out, its roof sags, and 
 the long high porch which once crossed its front is gone. Only its heavy 
 walls, of native Galena stone, resist time and neglect. Next door is the 
 NICHOLAS DOWLING STORE, now a grain and feed market. Nicholas 
 Dowling was one of the Northwest's earliest entrepreneurs and is buried 
 in St. Michael's Cemetery. 
 
 Directly across Main Street stands the FIRST COURT HOUSE, a two- 
 story gray stone building easily distinguished by six portholes on the second 
 floor. The building, now a monument works, was built by Nicholas Dowling 
 in 1838 for a store, and for a time was rented by the county. It held the first 
 theater of the lead mining area, when the Jefferson-McKenzie players came 
 from Chicago in open wagons to play in Galena until early in 1839; they 
 then left for a month, and returned to await the opening of the river in April. 
 
 [60] 
 
After an extended tour the troupe split and the elder Jefferson died. Young 
 Joe Jefferson attended the Campbell school next door to the courthouse. 
 
 On Perry and Commerce stands the old MARKET SQUARE. On the 
 near corner is an iron watering-trough emptying from two lions' heads. In 
 the center of the square is the Market house, a small limestone building of 
 Grecian line and quiet charm, built in 1845. It was recently remodeled to 
 serve as a city hall. In this square one once could buy a chicken, a hog, a 
 cow, a cabbage, a horse, or a slave. Prim matrons in hoop skirts and Paisley 
 shawls mingled with blue-jeaned farmers and miners in ocher-stained flannel 
 shirts and leather boots. Trappers in buckskin leggings, Indians in beads and 
 blankets elbowed each other in busy stalls, haggling over prices, greeting 
 friends and exchanging gossip. 
 
 Opposite the market house, on the northwest corner of Perry and Com- 
 merce, is a three-story brick building built in 1831. This was once the 
 LAWRENCE HOUSE, one of the most popular hotels of the old Northwest, 
 now a public garage. Had its registers not been lost, the pages would show 
 the names of many who led the conquest of the Middle Border. 
 
 Crossing the square to Hill and going one block west returns one to Main ; 
 a modern paved street, it runs nine blocks through the business district, 
 merging with Broadway on the north and losing itself in Water Street soon 
 after it skirts the old levee. Main was once a narrow, rocky trail which 
 angled into the town from the northeast, paralleling the river to pass between 
 rows of pioneer stores, taverns, and warehouses, and ending at the levee. In 
 those days it was flanked with board walks and resounded to pounding shod 
 hoofs and the rumbling of lead-burdened carts and the wheels of ox- drawn 
 prairie schooners. Today Main Street has the dignity of age and individuality 
 with each landmark possessing a story of its own. 
 
 Two doors north of the corner of Hill and Main is a three-story building 
 which was the GRANT AND PERKINS STORE, the second business loca- 
 tion of the leather store in which Grant worked for his father. On the north- 
 east corner of Main and Hill is the SINIGER AND SINIGER DRUG STORE, 
 established in 1834 and in continuous operation since. 
 
 Halfway down the block is the building in which, in the late fifties, was 
 the GRANT LEATHER STORE, at 120 Main. This is the store in which 
 Grant went to work in I860. 
 
 Between Washington and Green, on the east side of Main, is the Galena 
 Gazette, established as a weekly in 1834 and as a daily in 1841. The Gazette 
 today is merged with the Galena Advertiser and Upper Mississippi Herald, 
 established in 1830. Both the files of the Gazette and the Advertiser have 
 been preserved. 
 
 On Main and Green is the DE SOTO HOTEL, built in 1855. The Brad- 
 ley House, Bryne House, Gear House, and City Hotel, and a number less 
 pretentious, were already operating then, but the De Soto was planned as 
 something more representative of a growing community. It had five stories, 
 cost $85,000, and had over two hundred rooms. On the first floor was a 
 
 [61] 
 
large dining room equipped in the latest mode, a large lobby and grill. A 
 staircase spiraled from the lobby to a second-floor balcony on which were 
 well-appointed parlors for women. Its velvet carpets, rosewood furniture, 
 satin curtains, gilt-framed mirrors, sofas, divans, and chairs with intricately 
 carved backs and plush upholstery, marble top tables, and ornamental statuary 
 then were the acme of elegance. Later there were five barrooms in the build- 
 ing, the largest of which was in the basement, a spacious room with a saw- 
 dust floor where miners and rivermen gathered. In the basement also were a 
 room for ten-pins and a large gambling room. Horace Greeley was a guest 
 the year the hotel was completed. James Russell Lowell was there the same 
 year. In 1856 Abraham Lincoln addressed Galenians from the balcony which 
 ran along the face of the building above Main Street. General Grant main- 
 tained a suite there for headquarters whenever he was in the city. Room No. 
 4 on the second floor was a gathering place for the General's friends. 
 
 One block south of the De Soto House is the LEAD MINE CIGAR 
 FACTORY, a four-story brick building, the oldest cigar factory in the North- 
 west, in operation since 1864. Just south of it is a row of brick buildings 
 which were warehouses, and across the street, now occupied by a dairy firm, 
 is a building which once was the OLD COMMISSION HOUSE, where 
 water-front business was transacted. Turning to the left it is a short block 
 to the railroad tracks which now cover the cobbles of the old levee. At 
 this point the Galena River was suificiently wide to let the largest Mississippi 
 steamer swing around for its return trip. The levee was the heart of Galena, 
 and the river was Galena's lifeline to the South. With the coming of the 
 railroad the city was linked to the East and associations there strengthened. 
 Thus the railroads modified, and eventually severed, Galena's bonds with 
 the South. 
 
 One block north on Commerce Street is the FIRST CUSTOMS HOUSE 
 and FORMER POST OFFICE, and directly across the street, the PRESENT 
 POST OFFICE, where hangs the original of the Thomas Nast painting, 
 Lee's Surrender at Appomatox. With Grant in the picture are General 
 Rawlins and General Parker, who was construction engineer for the present 
 post office building. Other Galenians in the picture who achieved prominence 
 through Grant's friendship are General Augustus Chetlain, later Consul 
 General to Belgium ; General John C. Smith, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois 
 after being State Treasurer; J. Russell Jones, Minister to Belgium; H. H. 
 Houghton, Consul to the Hawaiian Islands, and General John E. Smith, 
 a statue of whom stands in the Illinois Memorial in the Vicksburg National 
 Park. Grant called Nast "the most prominent figure in civil life to come 
 out of the war of the rebellion." The Tammany tiger, the Republican 
 elephant, and Democratic donkey were Nast's conceptions. He came to 
 America from Bavaria in 1846 and copied paintings while door-keeping 
 at a gallery. While cartooning for Leslies and Harper's, Lincoln called 
 him "the best recruiting sergeant." Theodore Roosevelt told Nast, "I learned 
 my politics from your cartoons." His greatest service was his assistance in 
 the destruction of New York's Tweed ring. His lampooning of Greeley is 
 
 [62] 
 
said to have hastened the latter's death. Nast was appointed consul to 
 Ecuador, where he died of yellow fever in 1902. 
 
 One turns right to cross the tracks, then the river, now so irretrievably 
 choked. Once more than 300 feet wide and floating large steamboats, this 
 river which has borne the Indian, explorer, settler, excursionist and missionary 
 is now but a few feet deep. Across it lies GRANT PARK, where Grant's 
 statue stands. This bronze was presented to the city by Herman Kohlsaat, 
 a native of Galena and publisher of the Chicago Inter-Ocean. On the monu- 
 ment's base is inscribed a list of Grant's battles. Here too is a monument to 
 all the soldiers and sailors of all the wars of the nation. Tennis courts, picnic 
 grounds, fountains, and shaded walks augment the park's charm. 
 
 Through Grant Park one reaches Park Avenue ; to the left are the UNION 
 HOUSE, and the JOSEPH HOGE HOUSE. The former is at 403 Park 
 Avenue, and when built in 1839 was a tavern accommodating four boarders. 
 A stairway led from the stilted porch to the river below. It was convenient 
 to the railroad depot built in the 1850's and near the starting points for all 
 outgoing Mississippi steamers. It was advertised as "a quiet and comfortable 
 home commanding a fine view of the city and suburbs." 
 
 The Joseph Hoge House at 5 1 2 Park Avenue h as won the attention of the 
 Department ot the Interior as one of those buildings selected by the advisory 
 committee of the Historic American Buildings Survey as possessing exceptional 
 architectural interest. A record of its present appearance and condition has 
 been deposited in the Library of Congress. The home represents a distinctive 
 type of Southern Colonial architectur e. The fourteen panels of Russian 
 engraved glass surrounding the solid oak door in the vestibule employed a 
 hand engraving technique now almost lost. The unusually designed fire- 
 places, the hand-carved woodwork, and the self-supporting staircase are worth 
 observation. 
 
 One block from the corner of Johnson and Park is the East Galena Town 
 Hall and a municipal waterworks, and to the left, up the long incline of 
 Bouthillier Street, stands the GRANT MEMORIAL HOME, a two-story 
 brick, wide-eaved building commanding a sweeping view of the valley. It 
 was built in 1857 and was presented to Grant by Galena after the war. It 
 now contains a spacious parlor, a library and many bedrooms, all appointed 
 with Grant heirlooms. Dishes on the plate rail in the dining room were 
 used in the White House during Grant's administration, as was the silver on 
 the buffet. It is open from 9 to 5 daily, free. 
 
 One block east is St. Michael's Cemetery, in which many Irish, German, 
 and Belgian settlers are buried. A crumbling column towers over the grave 
 of Nicholas Dowling and fenced by rusting iron, are tiny plots in which are 
 buried many of Galena's pioneers. This their journey's end, also is ours. 
 
 [63] 
 
*ORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION 
 
 FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT 
 
 STATE Of IUINOIS 1937 
 
 Environs 
 
 MANY points of interest intimately connected with early Galena can be 
 found only a short distance from the city. Several villages of Jo Daviess 
 County and some in southwestern Wisconsin are picturesque reminders of 
 the mining era. A few of these old mining towns are taking on new life as 
 the lead and zinc industries slowly revive. 
 
 APPLE RIVER CANYON, northeastern Jo Daviess County, is a State 
 park set aside mainly for its unusual formation of limestone cliffs which have 
 been carved out of the hills by Apple River. This quiet spot was once the 
 home of the war-like Sauks, who were driven out as whites began to trek 
 
 [64] 
 
through the canyon on their way to the mines at Galena. Here was estab- 
 lished the town of Millville, of which not a trace remains. It was named 
 after its two saw mills, one of which was erected in 1836 and the other in 
 1838. Later they were remodeled into grist mills. 
 
 Millville became a well known stop on the Galena-Chicago stage coach 
 line established by Frink & Walker. During the Black Hawk War settlers 
 here were driven from their homes by Indians, but later returned. Millville 
 flourished until 1854, when the Illinois Central Railroad, then building its 
 lines from Freeport to Galena, passed four miles north of the town. In 1892 
 a devastating flood washed out the dam, carried away many of the buildings, 
 and drove its people out forever. This canyon is 37 miles from Galena and 
 can be reached by way of Stockton where U.S. 20 and Illinois 78 join. (Drive 
 north from this point six miles and then three and one-half miles west.) 
 
 Many small towns in Grant County, southern Wisconsin, played a part 
 in the growth of Galena in the mining days. The mining country stretched 
 into Wisconsin and across the Mississippi. 
 
 HAZEL GREEN, Wis., now a typical farming center, was called "Hard- 
 scrabble" and was the center of many mines. How the name "Hardscrabble" 
 originated is uncertain, but the "scrabble" part is believed to have been a 
 corruption of "scramble." Hazel Green was the first place in Grant County 
 to be occupied by miners from the Galena settlement. Its first miner, John 
 Bonner, operated there in 1825. In the Hazel Green cemetery is the grave 
 of James Gates Percival, a poet of national renown, a linguist and geologist. 
 In 1853 he went to Wisconsin to examine and superintend the mines in the 
 vicinity. He was appointed State geologist in 1854. Hazel Green is ten 
 miles from Galena. Drive west on U.S. 20 three miles, then north on Illinois 
 80. This route is that of the old Galena-Hazel Green plank road. 
 
 POTOSI, Wis., among the hills, was the scene of many mining ventures. 
 It is approximately 35 miles from Galena and can be reached by travelling 
 west on U.S. 20 to East Dubuque, turning right on Illinois 79 which, three 
 miles onward, joins U.S. 118. Continue on this highway through Kieler 
 to Dickeyville, Wisconsin. Turn left on U.S. 61 to British Hollow. Potosi 
 lies a short distance south. 
 
 Potosi was first called Snake Hollow, and in 1837 the town was booming 
 with mining activity. Very possibly it was near Potosi that Le Sueur, in 
 1700, found a lead mine. In 1840 Potosi was the largest town in the western 
 part of the State and ranked with Galena in both wholesale and retail trade. 
 River towns and trading posts as far north as Fort Snelling laid in their 
 supplies at Potosi. This town was strung out for three miles within a valley 
 so narrow as to permit but one street. Potosi, like Galena, was an important 
 river town until 1847, when it began to decline rapidly because the Grant 
 Slough, connecting the town with the Mississippi, filled in, keeping steamers 
 from Lafayette Landing. The town is worth a visit, if only to view its odd 
 location and quaint buildings. 
 
 [65] 
 
Other towns that reached their peak during the lead mining era include 
 Benton, Platteville, Leadmine and New Diggings, all in Wisconsin. These 
 towns now rely on retail trade for their existence. They can be reached easily 
 over good roads from Galena. Benton, 16 miles from Galena, was a typical 
 mining town; the peak of its prosperity came, however, during the World 
 War, when hundreds of foreign laborers were brought there to work the 
 mines. Recently, the rising price of lead has opened new mines in this ter- 
 ritory, and workers who had almost lost their skill are again going "down 
 under." 
 
 DICKEYVILLE, Wis., on U.S. 118, is 23 miles northwest of Galena. 
 It possesses a large grotto made by Father Matthias Wernerus. The grotto 
 is always open to visitors without charge. To reach Dickeyville drive west 
 on U.S. 20 to East Dubuque, turn right on Illinois 79, which leads to U.S. 118, 
 thence directly north to Dickeyville. The shrine is located one block west 
 of the main street. 
 
 DUBUQUE, Iowa, 18 miles west of Galena on U.S. 20. 
 
 A TRAPPIST MONASTERY, New Melleray Abbey, one of three such 
 monasteries on the North American continent, is 27 miles from Galena. 
 Drive west on U.S. 20 to Dubuque, Iowa, then for 9 miles southwest on 
 U.S. 161. The road leading from the pavement is clearly marked to the 
 abbey on a bluff overlooking the highway on the right side of the road. Here 
 modern American youths are living under the same discipline which St. 
 Benedict outlined for his followers more than 1,300 years ago. These monks 
 rise daily at 2 a.m. and retire at 8 p.m., 12 of the intervening hours being 
 devoted to prayer, religious service, and meditation, and the remaining 6 to 
 manual labor. They live a communal life, abstain entirely from meats, and 
 observe complete silence save when speaking to their superiors. In July, 
 1848, Don Bruno Kirkpatrick, Abbot of Mount Melleray in Ireland, decided 
 to found a new monastery in America. Bishop Matthias Loras of Dubuque 
 offered the tract of land southwest of Dubuque, and the foundations of New 
 Melleray were laid in 1849. Father James J. Gormann was the first superior. 
 The institution soon became self-supporting, and holdings were gradually 
 increased to more than 3,200 acres. The farm is one of the finest in eastern 
 Iowa. The monks have a large herd of dairy cattle, an immense chicken 
 farm, and cultivate acres of corn, wheat, hay, and other products. The 
 typical old-world appearance of the monastery makes it particularly attrac- 
 tive. Recently a guest house was erected on the grounds for the convenience 
 of visitors and to accommodate those who attend the week-end retreats. 
 Visitors are welcome every day except Sunday. The Cistercian (Trappist) 
 order is one of the few groups within the Catholic church which follows 
 the strict rule of St. Benedict. The name Trappist is derived from the 
 monastery at La Trappe, France, from whence came the group that founded 
 the Mount Melleray monastery in Ireland. The monks were dispersed from 
 La Trappe during the French Revolution, some of them going first to the 
 
 [66} 
 
deserted monastery at Melleray in the province of Brittany before the Irish 
 Mount Melleray was established. 
 
 St. Donatus (674 alt.), a quaint reproduction of a French village, is 
 15 miles south of Dubuque on U.S. 52 in the sheltered valley of the Tete 
 des Morts ("Head of Death") River. St. Donatus was founded during the 
 early lead mining days of Dubuque by Luxemburgers. A legend explains 
 the name Tete des Morts, by which the village was first known: two French- 
 men canoeing down the Mississippi were attracted toward two objects on 
 the right bank of the river near the mouth of a small stream, and investigation 
 disclosed these to be two human heads impaled on pointed sticks. In the 
 early 1850's Father Michael Flanmang came to the village, gave it the present 
 name, and built a church and school. To the right of U.S. 52 (which passes 
 through the center of town) are two-story French houses made of natural 
 stone. They stand close to the road and side streets, are built without eaves, 
 and sometimes include stables under the same roof. On the left the visitor 
 may see the old church. A few blocks behind the church, part way up the 
 side of a steep hill is the school, a four-story stone convent. Far at the top 
 of the bluff stands a reproduction of the Chapel du Bildchen in Luxemburg. 
 The chapel is reached by a winding path leading past a series of 14 open-air 
 Stations of the Cross. From the top of the bluff three valleys may be seen 
 winding away from St. Donatus. 
 
 SINSINAWA MOUND, five miles west of Hazel Green on Wis. 79, 
 is the site of Saint Clara Academy , a girls' school, incorporated in 1848 as 
 Sinsinawa Mound College. Today the collegiate department of the school 
 is in River Forest, Illinois, but the mound, with the academy on its south 
 slope, may be seen from U.S. 20 when driving from Galena to East Dubuque. 
 The mound may be reached by Illinois 79 from the latter town. The academy 
 is conducted by the Sisters of St. Dominic and the Mother House for this 
 Dominican order for the United States is here. Among the first trustees of 
 the school were the Reverend Samuel Mazzuchelli, who was pastor at the 
 village church at Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, and Nicholas Dowling of Galena. 
 
 [67] 
 
Chronology 
 
 1687 — Jontel wrote of mineral deposits along the Mississippi River. 
 
 1690 — Nicholas Perrot visited mines and established trading posts near mouth 
 of "Fielle," later the "Galena" River. 
 
 1700 — Pierre Charles Le Sueur entered Galena River; called it Riviere de 
 la Mine. 
 
 1703 — William Delisle's map published in France, charting Indian mines 
 on Riviere de la Mine. During the same year another French map 
 showed the stream as the Riviere de Parisien. 
 
 1763 — Land east of Mississippi ceded to England by France. Spain acquired 
 all lands west of the Mississippi, by secret treaty with France. 
 
 1778 — Colonel George Rogers Clark, by his victories over English forts in 
 the region, claimed Illinois Territory for Virginia. 
 
 1783 — Northwest Territory surrendered to England by terms of the Treaty 
 of Paris. 
 
 1787 — By ordinance, Congress provided that not less than three nor more 
 than five States should be formed from the Northwest Territory. Even- 
 tually five States were formed, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, 
 Ohio. 
 
 1796 — Dubuque granted concessions for his land west of the Mississippi, by 
 Baron de Carondelet, Spanish Governor-General of Louisiana Terri- 
 tory. 
 
 1802 — Convention at Vincennes petitioned Congress to suspend for ten years 
 the article of the Ordinance of 1787 which prohibited slavery in the 
 Northwest Territory. Congress refused. 
 
 1807 — Congress provided for leasing land containing minerals. 
 
 1809 — Illinois Territory organized to include what are now Illinois, Wis- 
 consin and peninsular Michigan. Population, 12,282. Seat of govern- 
 ment, Kaskaskia, Illinois. 
 
 1811 — Nicholas Boilvin, reporting to Secretary of War, stated that Sac and 
 Fox Indians had abandoned the chase in favor of the more lucrative 
 mining of lead. 
 
 [68] 
 
1816 — Colonel George Davenport, after whom Davenport, Iowa, was named, 
 shipped the first recorded boatload of lead from the mine area to 
 St. Louis. 
 
 181 8 — John and Tyler Armstrong, Americans, built the first permanent home 
 in Galena. 
 Illinois, with its present boundaries, admitted into the Union as a State. 
 
 1819 — Francisco Bouthillier, British interpreter at Prairie du Chien, moved 
 into the abandoned Armstrong cabin. 
 
 Jesse W. Shull, after whom Shullsburg, Wisconsin, is named, Dr. 
 Samuel Muir, and A. P. Van Mater arrived. 
 
 1820 — Settlement called "La Pointe" by the French, "The Point" by Ameri- 
 cans, and "Fever River" in official documents. 
 United States land office opened at Vandalia. 
 
 1821 — Thomas January, trader and miner, came from Maysville, Kentucky, 
 with his wife and son ; built a home along the river on a high point 
 of land later known as January's Point. 
 
 The United States Government transferred supervision of the lead 
 mine district from the general land office to the War Department. 
 Granting of leases on mineral lands, many of 160 acres each, in north- 
 ern Illinois and southern Wisconsin territory, resulted in wide news- 
 paper publicity in Ohio and the Mississippi River valley. 
 
 1822 — Leases granted to licensed smelters. 
 
 Kentucky arrivals for the year included Carneil, Suggett, Payne, and 
 James Johnson, brother of the man who slew Tecumseh. This proved 
 to be but th e beginni ng of a great influx of southerners to Galen a. 
 
 1823 — Doctor Moses Meeker, after whom Meeker's Branch of the Galena 
 River was named, arrived with James Harris, brother of a former 
 governor of Connecticut. 9 
 
 The steamboat Virginia, on its way to Fort Snelling with supplies, 
 landed at a rude wharf, being the first steamboat to enter the Galena 
 harbor. 
 
 1824 — James Smith Hunt, first white child, born in the settlement. 
 
 First regular store built by Frederick Dent, father-in-law of General 
 
 U. S. Grant. 
 
 Lieutenant Thomas of the War Department named superintendent 
 
 of the district. 
 
 Moses Meeker started the first farm near Galena. 
 
 [69] 
 
1826— Population, 150. 
 
 The first post office built at the corner of Perry and Main Streets; 
 
 known as the "Fever River Post Office, Crawford County, Illinois." 
 
 (Crawford County used erroneously, as that county was actually in 
 
 southwest Wisconsin.) 
 
 Committee met to name city. Richard Chandler suggested "Galena," 
 
 technical name for sulphide of lead. 
 
 First school opened by Doctor John Hanco ck. 
 
 Weather-bound chaplain of the Hudson Bay company conducted the 
 
 first church services in a log cabin. 
 
 Miners Journal, first newspaper, established by James Jones. 
 
 Doctor Horatio Newhall arrived. 
 
 Lieutenant Thomas ordered laying out of town lots and thoroughfares. 
 
 1827 — The Government invited miners and settlers to the town and permits 
 were granted to individuals to occupy and improve lots on condition 
 of the land being surrendered upon thirty days' notice. These were 
 the only titles the settlers had until 1838. More than 300 settlers 
 signed for lots. 
 
 Jo Daviess County was organize d, commissioners elected and a circuit 
 court established. Richard M. Young was the first circuit judge. 
 Seven steamboat captains arrived ; also Henry Dodge, later a United 
 States Senator ; Moses Hallett, who became Galena's first sheriff ; J. H. 
 Gear, later elected state senator ; Charles S. Hempstead, later a Galena 
 mayor. 
 
 Agency of the lead mines removed from St. Louis to Galena. 
 Lieutenant Thomas succeeded by Major Thomas C. Legate, United 
 States Army. 
 
 1 828 — The John Dowling house, oldest in Gale na still standing, was built. 
 There were 195 homes, warehouses and shops in the rapidly growing 
 city, and 46 more under construction. Population 800. Mining 
 centers in immediate vicinity swelled the total to nearly 5,000. 
 
 First recorded flood. 
 
 1829 — Galena Advertiser and Upper Mississippi Herald established. 
 
 Congressional act authorized surveyor-general of Illinois, Missouri, and 
 Arkansas, to lay out town on "Bean" River embracing 640 acres, sell 
 lots at auction, reserving to actual settlers pre-emption rights to pur- 
 chase land at from $10 to $25 per acre. This act was not complied 
 with. 
 
 The Reverend Aratus Kent, one of the founders of Beloit College 
 and Rockford College, arrived. 
 
 [70] 
 
Weekly mail service from Vandalia, Illinois, was instituted by order 
 of the postmaster general. 
 
 Galena doctors urged vaccination as a result of case of smallpox on 
 board a boat at the dock. 
 
 Jo Daviess Third Brigade, First Division of Illinois Militia, was or- 
 ganized under Colonel J. M. Strode. 
 
 1830 — First fire-fighting corps organized. 
 
 Thomas Ford, later Governor of Illinois, organized a newspaper, The 
 Galenian. 
 
 1831 — Aratus Kent organized the First Presbyterian Church. 
 Cornish miners began to arrive. 
 
 1 832 — Black Hawk War. Doctor Newhall established a military hospital, re- 
 ceived all of the wounded and most of the sick of an army of 5,000. 
 With the war came the Asiatic cholera in its most malignant form. It 
 was the first time it had appeared in the United States. Many who are 
 buried in the old cemetery on the hill were victims. 
 The Block House was built on the hil l. A house now called the Old 
 Stockade, then used as a refuge for women and children, was erected. 
 Doctor Newhall established a drug firm now known as Siniger & 
 Siniger. 
 
 Kent induced Amasa B. Campbell to open a school. He was succeeded 
 by the Reverend Magoun, D. D., who later became president of 
 Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa. 
 
 1833 — Black Hawk War halted growth of district. Population of city grew 
 when miners moved their families from outlying districts to Galena. 
 
 1834 — Galena Gazette, the oldest daily paper in Illinois having complete 
 files, was established by Bartlett and Loring of St. Louis. Bartlett was 
 later a missionary to Armenia and began the first missionary paper in 
 that country. 
 
 1835 — First fire cart purchased by Galena. 
 
 The limits of the town extended from Main and Green Streets to 
 
 Branch and Dodge, extending due east and west from these points. 
 
 Galena branch of the State Bank of Illinois established. 
 
 Galena Library Association formed. Library contained 825 volumes. 
 
 Cornerstone of St. Michael's Church la id. The first resident pastor 
 
 was appointed in 1832. 
 
 The Reverend Charles Samuel Mazzuchelli appointed pastor of St. 
 
 Michael's Church. 
 
 [71] 
 
One Townsend built the first house on what was called Quality Hill. 
 Young Men's Society for moral and intellectual development or- 
 ganized, later becoming the Galena Lyceum Association. 
 
 1836 — Harris Hall replaced the First Methodist Church, which had been 
 built in 1833. 
 
 Frink of Frink & Walker sent the first stage coach from Galena to 
 Chicago. 
 
 Election held to name city trustees. Three commissioners, Samuel 
 
 Leach, John Turney and Daniel Wann, later port collector, were 
 
 authorized by the Federal Government to assume duties previously 
 
 assigned to the surveyor-general. 
 
 As business grew, many persons bought stock in river boats. 
 
 Colonel Henry Gratiot, appointed agent to the Winnebago Indians in 
 
 1826, died in Baltimore, Maryland. 
 
 The boat Frontier left Galena with supplies for settlements along the 
 
 Rock and Pecatonica Rivers. 
 
 Eastern boundary of Jo Daviess County defined by formation of 
 
 Stephenson County. 
 
 1837 — First salaried officer, the constable, appointed at $150 per year. 
 
 N. A. Drummond and G. W. Fuller patented an improved air furnace 
 for the smelting of lead. 
 
 National panic and depression. Miners refused currency. Scarcity of 
 gold forced use of English sovereigns and French five- franc pieces. 
 The sovereign, worth $4.84, had a trade value of $5, the five-franc 
 piece, worth 94c, was considered the equivalent of a gold dollar. 
 
 1838 — Committee appointed to select site for Market House. 
 Constable ordered to find suitable place for jail. 
 First circus license issued. 
 
 Draft of city charter sent to Senator G. W. Harrison at Vandalia for 
 enactment by legislature. 
 
 Trustees took action to prevent filling of river with mud as this threat 
 to river traffic became stronger. 
 
 First Grace Episcopal Church and First Presbyterian Church built. 
 Galena Temperance Society organized. 
 
 Chamber of Commerce organized. Daniel Wann, president, and Major 
 Thomas Melville, secretary. 
 
 Meeting held to consider introduction of common school system. 
 Subscription books for Galena Railroad & Transportation Company 
 distributed. 
 
 The Mechanics Association, Galena Beneficial Society, and a guild 
 were organized. 
 
 [72] 
 
First courthouse established in part of Nicholas Dowling's stone store. 
 Theatrical company, headed by Joseph Jefferson, father of the great 
 Joe Jefferson, opened at the old courthouse. 
 
 1839 — Licenses issued to three "tippling shops." 
 
 Cyrus Denio came to Galena. Later he was appointed by President 
 Lincoln as superintendent of construction at Mare Island, California. 
 Captain H. H. Gear said in Galena Gazette that "our internal improve- 
 ments will have a tendency to fill up the river." 
 
 Present boundary of Jo Daviess County established when Carroll 
 County was formed to the south. 
 
 1840 — Chicago-to- Galena mail stage began operations, scheduling the trip 
 in one day. Fare, $13. 
 
 Elihu B. Washburne of Maine, a Harvard law graduate, arrived. He 
 later served eight terms in Congress, was Secretary of State and am- 
 bassador to France. 
 
 Meeting called to discuss Illinois-Wisconsin boundary question. 
 Brandon Tavern built over the stump of the "Treaty Oak," where 
 Henry Gratiot held council with Winnebago Indians in 1827. 
 Second post office was built. 
 
 1841 — City charter accepted. 
 
 Census takers appointed. Population of city proper, 2,225. 
 Charles H. Hempstead elected mayor. 
 
 City council passed ordinance permitting issuance of bonds to cover 
 $73,396 indebtedness. 
 
 1 842 — African Methodist Episcopal Church built. 
 
 Cadwallader C Washburne, later flour multi-millionaire and Governor 
 of Wisconsin, arrived. 
 
 Toll bridges built at Bouthillier and Franklin Streets. Later carried 
 away by floods. 
 
 1843 — First parochial school opened. 
 
 Galena River was 340 feet wide and three to four feet deeper than 
 the main channel of the Mississippi. 
 
 1845 — Market House built. Orville Pratt, later Chief Justice of Oregon 
 supreme court, arrived. 
 
 George Magoun, later president of Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, 
 arrived. 
 The largest shipment of lead, 54,494,850 pounds, recorded this year. 
 
 [73] 
 
1 846 — Land auctioned to settle claim disputes. 
 Germ an Methodist Chu rch b uilt. 
 
 1847 — Present Grace Episcopal Church started. Finished in 1850. 
 
 1848 — St. Mary's Church erected. 
 
 Colonel Edward D. Baker, later United States Senator from Oregon 
 
 and a Brigadier General in the Civil War, arrived. 
 
 Toll bridges were constructed over the Fever River at Spring and 
 
 Meeker Street. Later the city purchased and operated them without 
 
 toll. 
 
 South Presbyterian Church built. 
 
 Discovery of gold in California drew many miners from Galena. 
 
 1849 — The Reverend E. D. Neill, later consul in Dublin, arrived. 
 Galena Gas Company organized. 
 
 President Zachary Taylor ordered nation-wide fast and prayer on the 
 first Friday of August for the relief of the cholera epidemic. 
 
 1850 — James J. Hill, builder and president of the Great Northern Railroad, 
 was a "mud clerk," discharging and receiving freight at the Galena 
 docks. 
 
 1851 — Galena Insurance Company organized. 
 
 1852 — Stock company organized to build a hotel. Housing shortage acute. 
 
 1853 — Bank of Galena organized. 
 
 Name of river changed locally and unofficially from Fever River to 
 
 Galena River. 
 
 Building boom. 
 
 First Methodist Church built. 
 
 Total business for the year reached $6,283,671.50. 
 
 1854 — Relief Association formed to stop "system of street begging." 
 
 De Soto House , destined to become a center of social activity, ^com- 
 4>leted. 
 
 Employment bureau, called Galena Intelligence Office, opened. 
 Salmon P. Chase, Charles A. Dana, Millard Filmore and George Ban- 
 croft visited the city. 
 
 State legislature officially changed the name of Fever River to Galena 
 River. 
 
 1855 — Galena branch of the Illinois Central Railroad extended from Galena 
 to Freeport, thus connecting Galena directly with Chicago. 
 
 [74] 
 
First German Presbyterian Church erected . 
 
 Galena residents torn between conflicting sympathies for North and 
 
 South. 
 
 City of Galena issued $20,000 in bonds to pay one-half the cost of 
 
 construction of the Illinois Central Railroad freight depot. 
 
 1856 — Abraham Lincoln spoke from balcony of De Soto House. Stephen A. 
 Douglas spoke in Galena the same year. 
 City council ordered installation of gas street lights. 
 
 1857 — Doctor Horatio Newhall in charge of new United States Marine 
 Hospital. 
 
 Residence that is now the prant Memorial Home built by Alexand er 
 Jackson. 
 
 Daily boat service to St. Louis, St. Paul and intermediate points begun ; 
 also fifteen stage lines covering all principal points in region. 
 Lead output 34,183,250 pounds. 
 St. Matthew's Evangelical Church erected. 
 
 Customs house and new postoffice st arted and completed two years 
 later. 
 
 Galena was the largest port on the Mississippi north of St. Louis. All 
 upper river traffic registered here. 
 
 1858 — Galena population was 14,000; 3,500 residences. 
 
 1859 — Second serious flood recorded. Lower streets elevated after this flood 
 to minimize subsequent floods. 
 
 1 860 — Ulysses S. Grant arrived in city to work in his father's leather store. 
 
 1861 — Mass meeting called to discuss impending war. Volunteers responded 
 and more than 100 joined first company. A second and larger company 
 was formed later. 
 
 Flags were at half staff for Colonel Ephraim Ellsworth, once of Rock- 
 ford, and the first commissioned officer killed in the war, May 24, 1861. 
 Galena's troops in train accident in Indiana. Fourteen killed and fifty 
 injured. Captain Howard, organizer of the volunteers, killed. 
 
 1863 — Low water suspended navigation on the Galena River. Shipments of 
 lead dropped off and the railroad carried most of the freight. 
 
 1864 — Galena had a general, one major general, two brevet major generals, 
 brigadier general, and three brevet brigadier generals. 
 Lead Mine Cigar factory, oldest in the Northwest, established. 
 
 [75] 
 
1865 — Merchants National Bank organized. 
 
 Huge celebration welcomed General Grant back from the war. 
 Memorial home presented. 
 
 1868 — Grant elected president. 
 
 1869 — General John Aaron Rawlins, born in Galena in 1831, died. 
 
 1870 — Mines in this region were no longer of national importance. Value of 
 Jo Daviess County agricultural products now greatly exceeded that 
 of lead. 
 Flood waters set a new high mark. 
 
 1872 — Galena & Southern Wisconsin Railroad Co. planned a narrow gage 
 line to Galena. Council passed ordinance permitting construction 
 through the city. 
 
 1873 — Marine Hospital deeded to the German Methodist Episcopal Church 
 of Galena by the United States secretary of the treasury. 
 
 1874 — Tornado hits city. 
 Turner Hall built. 
 German drama group organized. 
 
 1877 — General Grant left Galena for world tour. 
 
 1879 — Grant returned and city held home-coming celebration. 
 
 1880 — Flood swept out sidewalks and bridge approaches with an estimated 
 damage of $23,000. Railroad bridge and Green Street bridges ripped 
 out. 
 
 1881 — Grant left Galena to live in New York City. 
 
 German Methodist Episcopal Church turned the Marine Hospital over 
 to the German-English College. 
 
 1885— Grant died. 
 
 1889 — Galena Choral Society organized. 
 
 City gave the old cemetery to Grant Park commissioners. 
 
 Continual soil erosion from nearby farms and mines caused the river 
 
 to fill. Government dredging fleet arrived. 
 
 1890 — Dam and locks erected in river below Galena by private capital. Later 
 sold to Federal Government. 
 
 [76] 
 
1891 — Grant monument dedicated in Grant Park by 'Chauncey Depew. 
 
 German-English College, unable to make headway, deeded the Marine 
 Hospital property to the Northwest German Conference for disposal. 
 
 1892 — Flood caused $100,000 damage and took one life. 
 
 1894 — Marine Hospital Building sold by Northwest German Conference to 
 private individuals. 
 
 1898 — President McKinley and his cabinet visited Galena. 
 
 1900 — Theodore Roosevelt spoke at Turner Hall. 
 
 1904 — Grant home presented to city by Grant's children. 
 
 1906 — Present high school building completed. 
 
 1916 — Flood caused much damage as Galena River overran banks. 
 Last of cargo boats navigated the Galena River. 
 Continual silting obstructed the Galena River and the decline in 
 navigation caused the dam and locks to be ra2ed. 
 
 191 8 — Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis spoke at Turner Hall. 
 
 1926 — Turner Hall burned; rebuilt. 
 
 1932 — Grant Memorial home presented to State. 
 
 1937 — City swept by most disastrous flood in its history with estimated damage 
 of over $300,000 and loss of two lives. 
 
 [77] 
 
Galena Bibliography 
 
 Galena Daily Gazette files, Galena Daily Gazette, Galena, 111. (1934-36). 
 
 Galena Daily Advertiser files, Galena Daily Gazette,, Galena, 111. 
 
 Lead and Zinc Deposits of Northwestern Illinois, G. H. Cox, State Geological 
 Survey, University of Illinois, 1914. 
 
 Geology and Geography of the Galena and Elizabeth Quadrangles. Arthur 
 C Trowbridge and Eugene Wesley Shaw, Illinois State Geological Survey, 
 University of Illinois, Urbana, 111., 1916. 
 
 History of Development of Jo Daviess County. Bernard H. Schockel, Illinois 
 State Geological Survey, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1916. 
 
 Charter of the City of Galena. Printed by Leal & Crouch, Daily Courier Pub- 
 lishing Co., 1857. 
 
 Ordinances of the City of Galena. Leal & Crouch, Galena, 1856. 
 
 The Mississippi Basin. Justin Winsor, Houghton Mifflin & Co., Riverside 
 Press, Cambridge, 1895. 
 
 Illinois State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1864-65. Published by 
 J. C. W. Bailey, 128-130 Clark Street, Chicago, 1864. 
 
 History of Illinois. J. Nick Perrin, Illinois State Register, Springfield, 111. 
 1906. 
 
 Life of General Ulysses S. Grant, Capt. Bernard Galligasken and Oliver Optic, 
 Pub. by Lee & Shepard, Boston, Mass., 1868. 
 
 Recollections of Seventy Years. General Augustus L. Chetlain, Pub. by 
 Galena Gazette, Galena, 111. 
 
 History of Grant County, Wisconsin, Castello N. Holford, Teller, Printer, Lan- 
 caster, Wis., 1900. 
 
 History of Jo Daviess County. H. K. Kett, Kett Pub. Co., Chicago, 111., 1878. 
 
 History of Jo Daviess County. Pub. by Munsell Pub. Co., Chicago, 111., 1904. 
 
 Galena City Directory. Pub. by W. W. Huntington, Galena, 1858. 
 
 Sixty Years on the Upper Mississippi. S. W. McMaster, Pub. by S. W. Mc- 
 Master, Rock Island, 111., 1893. 
 
 The Bright Land. Janet Ayer Fairbank, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1932. 
 
 Historic Illinois. Randall Parrish, pub. by A. C. McClurg, Chicago, 111., 1919. 
 
 Wisconsin Historical Society Collection. Works and writings of Thwaites, 
 R. G. ; Works and writings of Copeland, Schoolcraft, and Libby, Madison, 
 Wis. 
 
 [78] 
 
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXXII, New York, Harper & 
 Brothers, 327 to 335 Pearl St., N. Y., 1866. Title of article: "Galena 
 and its lead mines." 
 
 Centennial Pamphlet, First Presbyterian Church, Galena, 111., 1931. 
 
 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1928. Bird and Animal 
 Effigies of Wisconsin, pp. 663-685, Published by the United States in 1929 
 at Washington, D. C. 
 
 The Observer, Dubuque, la., Nov. 6, 1936. 
 
 Personal Interviews 
 
 Leo LeBron, South Bench Street, Galena, 111. 
 
 Harriet Grimm, business manager, Galena Daily Gazette, Galena, 111. 
 
 Miss Margaret Gardiner, Old Stockade, Galena, 111. 
 
 Atty. D. B. Blewett, South Prospect Street, Galena, 111. 
 
 Irving Clauer, Prop. De Soto House, Galena, 111. 
 
 Robert McKeague, De Soto House, Galena, 111. 
 
 C Edward Asmus, High Street, Galena, 111. 
 
 John Clauer, De Soto House, Galena, 111. 
 
 E. H. Lacy, Agent, Illinois Central RR., Galena, 111. 
 
 Mrs. Louise C. Asmus, High Street, Galena, 111. 
 
 Francis Nash, Galena, 111. 
 
 Earl H. Reed, Historic American Building Survey, Pure Oil Bldg., Chicago, 111. 
 
 Miss Anna E. Felt, Galena, 111. 
 
 [79] 
 
Views of Galena 
 
1 "V > , . X t/ 
 
 9 
 
 u 
 
 
 H 
 
 iWlfSii 
 
 ■.■'■ ■'■-.'■■■ : --::- 
 
 % Slip 
 
 GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
..-y*-: 
 
 UNEXPECTED GLIMPSES— CREATES GALENA'S PECULIAR CHARM 
 
 STREETS CLIMB TORTUOUSLY 
 
 
 ill. 
 
 i v 
 
 :.: 
 
 
 %.^i0lM> 
 

 THE CITY THAT TIME FORGOT 
 
 
 V V 
 
 'V^-^^- 
 
 &*0*~+*-£u 
 
VIEW FROM GRANT PARK 
 
 GRANT MEMORIAL HOME 
 
 !"u,Ms»tu\pirtj 
 
 

 f^" m - . Ik. 
 
 ■-■' : «#K%%^ V ^ 
 
 I 
 
 4 SkJ^SStefi 
 
 W^iJffc 
 
 ^ *'- 
 
 •**: ;%.^* 
 
 
 \ f *i~ 
 
 
 r 
 
 * 
 
 
 CARVED FROM THE ROCKS 
 
St. 1 
 
 
 
 ™ I 
 
 OLD GERMAN MEETING HOUSE 
 
 OLDEST STRUCTURE STANDING IN GALENA— THE JOHN DOWLING HOME 
 
 
36 STEPS TO THE BASEMENT 
 
- r'""—"" ' ■■■■■-■■- .">i ■""" ■' 
 
 MAIN STREET 
 
 THE FIRST POST OFFICE OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS 
 
 ■ 
 
 P 
 
 IN 1840 GOOD 
 
 BC 
 
 

 fl 
 
 THE HIGH SCHOOL STEPS 
 
-OF GRECIAN LINE AND QUIET CHARM 
 
 T**_o^Ow )W-*-^JL. H-A^a^UL 511. P*A-fc* 
 
 DRAMA OF THE PRESENT— SETTING OF THE PAST 
 
 1 
 
 \ % < " 7 I 
 / ''ft* i I 
 
 .. ..... 
 

 « ***m* 
 
 1 I 
 
 1 ili 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 ■ 
 9 ' 
 
 
 1 : 
 
 ft 
 
 ■L ; . 
 
 
 ELOQUENT OF SOUTHERN ORIGIN 
 
 /Ltxv^U^r dj^^JL^ c^ \ -«-^^ 
 
i s 
 
 t 
 
 I 1 >" 8 S S I ! 
 
 
 VIEW OF GALENA FROM THE BRIDGE 
 
 GRANT PARK CANNON 
 
 
 
 
 illlfll : : 
 
 
 : ■.:. .■■ , ; ■■:■ ■■ ■ ■;■■■;■ ■; : 
 
 ;|l|l| r / 
 

 ii : ftW/i : lH 
 
 HISTORIC GALENA RIVER 
 
OLD WAREHOUSE 
 
 ■T^BpftaiSL 
 
 ■wo ,,•, — •■-.. -i,... 
 
 
^WSMSl' 
 
 W 
 
 THE OLD MARKET SQUARE 
 
 MEMORIES OF THE REPUBLIC'S PAST 
 
 

 N--> 
 
 
 it 
 
 £ N 
 
 I: 
 
 I / 
 
 t \ 
 
 CITY 01 
 
 WORKS PROGR^ 
 FEDERAL w' 
 
 STATE OF 
 SCALE 
 
 !#___ TO FREEPORT AND SAVANNA 
 
 20 
 
 80 
 
 /