The Settlement of Illinois, 1778-1830

Life of the People.

Of the 13,635 persons who were following some occupation in Illinois in 1820, nearly 91 per cent (12,395) were engaged in agriculture.437 To this pursuit the state was naturally well adapted. One of the most observant of German travelers in America wrote that the meaning of “fertile land” was very different in this region from its meaning in Germany. In America fertile land of the first class required no fertilizer for the first century and was too rich for wheat during the first decade, while fertile land of the second class needed no fertilizer during the first twelve to twenty years of its cultivation. Bottom-lands belonged to the first class.438 The prairies remained unappreciated by the Americans, although some foreign farmers preferred to settle in Illinois, because there they could avoid having to clear land, and could raise a crop the first year, while coal could serve as fuel,439 and a ditch and bank fence, requiring little wood, could be constructed, or a hedge could be grown.440 A traveler of 1819 speaks of one of the largest prairies as not well adapted to cultivation, because of the scarcity of wood, and in the fall of 1825 there was [pg 166] but one house on the way from Paris to Springfield, leading across eighty miles of a prairie ninety miles in length.441

It was easy to obtain land. After 1820 it could be bought from the government of the United States at $1.25 per acre, it could be rented—sometimes for one peck of corn per acre per year442—, or the claim of a squatter could be purchased. When Peter Cartwright moved from Kentucky to Illinois in 1824, he gave as reasons for moving the fact that he had six children and but one hundred and fifty acres of land, and that Kentucky land was high and rising in value; the increase of a disposition in the South to justify slavery; the distinction in Kentucky between young people reared without working and those who worked; the danger that his four daughters might marry into slave families; and the need of preachers in the new country.443 The land being obtained, the first cultivation was difficult. Writers often give the idea that after a year or two the land which had been heavily timbered was left free from trees, stumps, or roots, but many a pioneer plowed for twenty years among the stumps. Stump fields are today no novelty in Illinois, and farming has not retrograded. Usually the settler's first need was a crop, and in order to hasten its production the trees were girdled, a process which might either precede or follow the planting, according to the time of year in which the immigrant arrived. If prairie land was plowed six horses, or their equivalent of power in oxen, were required for the first breaking, and a summer's fallow usually followed in order to allow the roots to decay. In 1819 five dollars per acre [pg 167] was paid for the first plowing of the prairie, and three or four dollars for the second.444

Agricultural products exhibited considerable variety, although corn was the chief article raised, because it furnished food for man and beast, it gave a large yield, and it was more easily harvested than wheat. Wheat was raised without any great degree of care as to its culture, being frequently sowed upon ground that was poorly prepared, and being threshed in a most wasteful manner. Both wheat and flour were exported. Flour-mills, often of a rude sort, were found at inconveniently long distances from each other. Ferdinand Ernst, traveling in 1819, found a turbine wheel at the mill of Mr. Jarrott, a few miles from St. Louis, and mentioned the fact as a peculiar feature.445 Some of the settlers in Sangamon county had to go sixty miles to mill in 1824.446 In 1830 the first flour mill in northern Illinois was erected on Fox River. It was operated by the same power that ran a saw-mill, and the millstones were boulders, laboriously dressed by hand.447 Tobacco of excellent quality was grown, and sometimes formed an article of export.448 Cotton was an important article for home consumption. In the early years of the state hopes were entertained that cotton might become an article of export, but it was found that the crop required so much labor as to make raising it in large quantities unprofitable. It was after 1830, however, that it ceased to be cultivated in the state. It was raised at least as far north as the present Danville, about one hundred and [pg 168] twenty-five miles south of Chicago.449 A woman whose parents moved to Sangamon county in 1819 says that when in that county they raised, picked, spun, and wove their own cotton. The children had to seed the cotton before the fire in the long winter evenings. The importance of cotton as a factor in inducing immigration may have been considerable.450 Large quantities of castor oil were made in the state from home-grown castor beans.451 Vegetables were large, although not always of good flavor.452 Peaches, apples, pears, quinces and cherries were cultivated successfully, while grapes, plums, crabapples, persimmons, mulberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries grew wild.453 An agricultural society was formed in 1819, a chief purpose being to rid the state of stagnant water.454

It is not easy to exaggerate the simplicity of the farming of pioneer times. When one reads that in 1817 a log cabin of two rooms could be built for from $50.00 to $70.00; a frame house, ten by fourteen feet, for $575.00 to $665.00; a log kitchen for $31.00 to $35.50; a log stable for $31.00 to $40.00; a barn for $80.00 to $97.75; a fence for $0.25 per rod, and a prairie ditch for $0.29 to $0.44 per rod; that a strong wagon cost $160.00; that a log house, eighteen by sixteen feet, was made by contract for $20, and ceiled and floored with sawn boards for $10 more; [pg 169] that a cow and calf cost $12.00 to $16.00, and a breeding sow, $2.00 or $3.00; that laborers received $0.75 per day without board, and a man and two horses $1.00 per day; and that various other useful articles could be procured at certain prices, care is needed in order to avoid the conclusion that an immigrant must have had several dollars, if not a few hundreds of them. This need for care is increased by the fact that the most detailed statistical data for early Illinois is given by Birkbeck or his visitors, and is applicable to the English settlement in Edwards county—a settlement with enough unique features to make the data almost more of an obstacle than a help. As a matter of fact, many immigrants before 1820 had only enough money to make the first payment on their land ($80.00), or after July 1, 1820, only enough to buy the minimum tract offered for sale ($100.00), while in both periods hundreds had not even as much money as $80.00 or $100.00, and had to become squatters. A log house, and practically all of the first houses were of logs, was usually built without the expenditure of one cent in cash, being erected by the family which was to occupy it, or, if neighbors were within reach, on the “frolic” system. Ceilings and floors were both rare, and if a floor existed it was usually made of puncheons. The number of pioneers who actually paid as much as $31.00 for a log stable must have been small indeed. First fences were often of brush, or brush and logs, and many times crops were raised unfenced. Territorial laws prohibited allowing stock to run at large during the crop season. An immigrant often brought his cow and sow, and if not he either did without, which in the latter case was small privation in a region almost crowded with game, or secured the desired animals by barter or by working for a few days. Men frequently traded work, but the payment of cash wages was rare, the cheapness of [pg 170] land and the ease of securing a living leaving small inducement to anyone to become a day laborer;455 while for the same reason those who were professional laborers were often of an undesirable type.456 Foreigners were sometimes shocked at the utter carelessness of Illinois farmers. A soil of great fertility, a region so abundantly supplied with game and wild products as to make it almost possible to live from the forest alone, combined with a lack of efficient means of transportation, made such a temptation to a life of idle ease as many pioneers did not resist. Be it remembered, also, that although towns, retail trade, and export trade had begun in Illinois by 1830, these changes were not simultaneous throughout the state. As 1830 closed Illinois still had squatters many miles from a mill, it still had Indians, it still had unbridged streams, it still had regions far from a market—in a word, it had still persisting in some part of its wide extent each of the ills that had at various times confronted it in respect to personal danger and lack of inducements to farmers. The minority of really progressive farmers overcame the difficulties confronting them by raising cattle or hogs and driving them to distant markets, the price received being almost clear profit, or by constructing their own boats and shipping their produce.457

Although the great majority of the population of Illinois was engaged in agriculture, there were salt works in the southeast and lead mines in the northwest. The salt industry was important. Far the greater part of the salt made in the state was made at the Gallatin county saline, near Shawneetown. In 1819 the indefinite statement was made that these springs furnished between 200,000 and [pg 171] 300,000 bushels of salt annually, the salt being sold at the works at from fifty to seventy-five cents per bushel.458 In 1822, the price of salt in Illinois was reported to have fallen from $1.25 to $0.50, because of the discovery of copious and strong salt wells.459 The next year a strong well was reported twenty miles east of Carlyle.460 In 1825, a visitor to the Vermilion county saline found twenty kettles in operation, producing about one hundred bushels of salt per week.461 In 1828, an official report of the superintendent of the Gallatin county saline stated that about 100,000 bushels of salt was made annually, and sold at from $0.30 to $0.50 per bushel. The lessees paid $2,160.50 rent during the year.462 In 1830, the salt works in Gallatin county had a capital of $50,000; a product of from 100,000 to 130,000 bushels, selling at from $0.40 to $0.50; and three hundred employees. The saline in Vermilion county had a capital of $3500; a product of 3000 to 4000 bushels, selling at $1.25 to $1.50 per bushel; and eight employees. The works in Jackson county produced 3000 to 4000 bushels, selling at $0.75 to $1.00; and had from six to eight employees. The difference in price is noteworthy as indicating what must have been the difficulty of transporting salt from Gallatin county to either Vermilion or Jackson counties. At the Gallatin county works fuel was becoming scarce and water had to be carried some distance in pipes, thus increasing the cost of production. At the springs in Indiana salt was $1.25 per bushel, and in Kentucky it was $0.50 to $1.00. The states of New York, Virginia, Massachusetts [pg 172] and Ohio, respectively, produced more salt than did Illinois.463

The lead industry at Galena was still in its infancy, notwithstanding the fact that the richness of the mines was early known.464 In 1822, a number of persons went to Galena from Sangamon county.465 For some years it was a common practice to go to the mines in the summer and return to the older settlements for the winter.466 The population of Galena was 74 in August, 1823;467 about 100 on July 1, 1825; 151 on December 31, 1825; 194 on March 31, 1826; 406 on June 30, 1826;468 and 1000 to 1500 in 1829.469 In 1826 a part of Lord Selkirk's French-Swiss colony on the Red River moved to Galena and became farmers in that region.470 The rush to the lead region began in 1826 and became intense in the next year.471 In 1827, a rude log hut, sixteen by twenty feet, rented for $35.00 per month. Galena had then about two hundred log houses,472 and in the same year the first framed house was raised.473 In July, 1828, five hundred lead miners were wanted at $17.00 to $25.00 and board per month.474

[pg 173]

A pursuit that was once common and profitable is described by a lawyer who traveled the first Illinois circuit, consisting of the counties of Greene, Sangamon, Peoria, Fulton, Schuyler, Adams, Pike and Calhoun, in 1827, as follows: “On this circuit we found but little business in any of the counties—parties, jurymen and witnesses were reported in all the counties after Peoria, as being absent bee and deer hunting—a business that was then profitable, as well as necessary to the sustenance of families during the winter.”475

Not until after 1830 was a common school system with effective provision for its support established, although subscription schools existed some years before the close of the eighteenth century. Instruction given in the earliest schools was slight, and in 1818 a most competent observer declared that he believed that in Missouri “at least one-third of the schools were really a public nuisance, and did the people more harm than good; another third about balanced the account, by doing about as much harm as good; and perhaps one-third were advantageous to the community in various degrees. Not a few drunken, profane, worthless Irishmen were perambulating the country, and getting up schools; and yet they could neither speak, read, pronounce, spell, or write the English language.”476 These schools closely resembled those of Illinois. Schoolbooks were rare and children carried to school whatever book they chanced to have, the Old Testament with its long proper names sometimes serving in lieu of a chart or primer.477 In some schools pupils studied aloud. Reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic were the only branches commonly taught, although as early as 1806 surveying was [pg 174] taught in a “seminary” near the present Belleville.478 In 1827 Rock Spring Seminary, now Shortleff College, was opened by Baptists, and the following year instruction was begun in what was to become McKendree College (Methodist).479 The teacher of the first school in McLean county (1825) received $2.50 per pupil for the term of four months.480 The next year a teacher in Jacksonville was to be paid in cash or produce, or in pork, cattle, or hogs at cash prices, and to pay board in similar commodities at the rate of one dollar per week. This included washing, fuel and lights. School was open ten, and often twelve, hours per day.481

Religious societies were early organized, but the building of churches was not then common. In 1796 a Baptist society was organized, and previous to this time both Baptists and Methodists, without organized societies, had united in holding prayer-meetings in which the Bible and published sermons were read, prayers offered, and hymns sung.482 Before the close of the century the Methodists organized. The Presbyterians were prominent in the early years of statehood, but in 1818 they were just beginning their work in Illinois.483 Meetings were usually held in private houses until such time as the congregation felt that a church building should be erected, or at least until some one felt the need, for the first church was sometimes built by a few individuals.484 Ministers were of two types—those who devoted all of their time to religious work and traveled over large areas, and those who [pg 175] combined ministerial duties with farming, hunting, or some other frontier occupation. Neither class received much money. Peter Cartwright, one of the most famous pioneer preachers, received $40 one year (1824-25) and $60 the next—and this he considered good wages.485 Pioneer energy was displayed in the overcoming of difficulties. For more than ten years the Baptists held meetings on alternate months at two places thirty-six miles apart, and several families regularly traveled that distance to the two-days' meeting, even in unfavorable weather—and this, too, after Illinois had become a state.486 In 1829, the Presbyterians, true to their missionary spirit, occupied the extreme frontier at Galena.487 Catholicism increased but slowly.488 Divisions such as were found in the East or South reached Illinois, and at one time the Baptists were divided into three factions, which had about the same kind of fraternal relations as the Jews and the Samaritans. The chief questions for contention were whether or not missionaries should be sent out by the church and whether fellowship with slaveholders should be maintained.489 An association of anti-slavery Baptists was formed, as also Bible societies and temperance societies.490 Camp-meetings, with their well-known phenomena, were common in the early years of statehood, and it is no reflection upon their value to say that they were one of the chief diversions for the pioneers.

Slavery, as well as indentured servitude, existed in Illinois as late as 1845,491 and the “Black Laws” of the state were repealed on February 7, 1865.492 From 1787 until years after 1830 the slavery question was an unsettled one. In addition to the arguments for or against the institution that were used everywhere, the pro-slavery party in Illinois asserted that as the Ordinance of 1787 guaranteed to the French inhabitants their property, the French could hold slaves, and that as all citizens of a state had equal rights other persons in Illinois could hold slaves. The reply was that the Ordinance plainly forbade slavery.493

Whatever the merits of the argument, slavery did exist in Illinois. The fear of the French that they might lose their slaves, and the desire to attract slaveholders to Illinois, led to determined and repeated efforts to legalize slavery. Early in 1796 a petition was sent from Kaskaskia to Congress, praying that the anti-slavery article in the Ordinance of 1787 might be either repealed or so altered as to permit the introduction of slaves from the original states or elsewhere into the country of Illinois, that a law might be enacted permitting the introduction of such slaves as servants for life, and that it might be declared [pg 177] for what period the children of such servants should serve the masters of their parents. This petition was signed by four men, including some of the largest landowners in Illinois, but as the petition, while purporting to come from Illinois alone, concerned the entire Northwest Territory, as there was no indication that the four petitioners represented Illinois sentiment, and as the congressional committee was informed that many of the inhabitants of the territory did not desire the proposed change, the prayer of the petition was denied.494

In 1800, two hundred and sixty-eight inhabitants of Illinois, chiefly French, petitioned Congress to repeal the anti-slavery provision of the Ordinance, stating that many of the inhabitants were crossing the Mississippi with their slaves. The petition was not considered.495 A similar request, presented late in 1802, was twice reported upon by committees, one report (Randolph's) declaring that the growth of Ohio proved that a lack of slavery would not seriously retard settlement, while the other was in favor of suspending the anti-slavery article for ten years, the male descendants of immigrating slaves to be free at the age of twenty-five years, and the females at twenty-one.496 In 1805 a majority of the members of the respective houses of the Indiana legislature petitioned for the repeal of the anti-slavery article, and this petition was closely followed by a memorial from Illinois expressing the hope that the general government would not pass unnoticed the act of the last legislature authorizing the importation of slaves into the territory. It violated the Ordinance, the memorialists declared, and although they desired slavery they [pg 178] professed themselves to be law-abiding.497 A committee report on the petition and memorial recommended that permission to import slaves into Indiana (then including Illinois) for ten years be granted, in order that the evil effects of slavery might be mitigated by its dispersion, but no legislation resulted from the report,498 and the next year petitioning was resumed. The legislature sent resolutions asking for the suspension of the anti-slavery article, and elaborating the argument for such suspension. A committee of which the territorial delegate from Indiana was chairman, presented a favorable report.499

In September, 1807, a petition for the suspension of the anti-slavery article was sent to Congress from the Indiana legislature. It was signed by Jesse B. Thomas, later author of the Missouri Compromise, but then Speaker of the territorial House of Representatives, and resident in what was to become the State of Indiana, and by the president pro tem. of the Legislative Council. Action in committee was adverse,500 Congress being then busied with the question of the abolition of the slave trade.

During the territorial period in Illinois (1809-1818), the slavery question was not much agitated. The Constitution of 1818 provided that slaves could not be thereafter brought into the State, except such as should be brought under contract to labor at the Saline Creek salt works, said contract to be limited to one year, although renewable, and the proviso to be void after 1825, but existing slavery was not abolished, and existing indentures—and some were [pg 179] for ninety-nine years501—should be carried out. Male children of slaves or indentured servants should be free at the age of twenty-one and females at eighteen.502 In Congress, as has been seen, Tallmadge, of New York, objected to admitting Illinois before she abolished slavery, but his objection was ineffectual.

In March, 1819, a slave code was enacted. Any black or mulatto coming into the State was required to file with the clerk of a circuit court a certificate of freedom. Slaves should not be brought into the state for the purpose of emancipation. Resident negroes, other than slaves and indentured servants, must file certificates of freedom. Slaves were to be whipped instead of fined, thirty-nine stripes being the maximum number that might be inflicted. Contracts with slaves were void. Not more than two slaves should meet together without written permission from their masters. Any master emancipating his slaves must give a bond of $1000 per head that such emancipated slaves should not become public charges, failure to give such a bond being punishable by a fine of $200 per head. Colored people must present passes when traveling.503

Stringent as was the code of 1819, it was of a type that was common in the slave states. Its passage may have kept some negroes, both free and slave, from coming into the state upon their own initiative without certificates of freedom. From 1810 to 1820 the number of slaves in Illinois increased from 168 to 917, Illinois being the only state north of Mason and Dixon's line having an increase in the number of slaves during the decade, although in the Territory of Missouri, during this time, the number increased from about 3000 to over 10,200. At the same [pg 180] time the number of free blacks in Illinois decreased from about 600 to some 450, while they increased in Indiana from nearly 400 to over 1200. Of the slaves in Illinois in 1820 precisely 500 were in the counties of Gallatin and Randolph, the former being the center of the salt-making industry, and the latter the seat of the early French settlement at Kaskaskia.504

Whether the anti-slavery clause of the Ordinance of 1787 freed the slaves of the old French settlers was long a disputed question, and it is certain that a strict construction of the Illinois Constitution of 1818 made further importation of slaves illegal. Many slave-owners passed through southern Illinois to Missouri, because the main road for emigration by land to that territory crossed the Ohio River at Shawneetown. Many of the slaves who produced the large increase in the number of slaves in Missouri from 1810 to 1820 must have gone over this route. In 1820 more than one-seventh of the population of Missouri was slave.505 The people of Illinois could not fail to see that they were losing a certain class of emigrants—the prosperous slaveholders. The loss became greater as the likelihood of Missouri's admittance as a slave state increased. As early as 1820 there was a rumor of the formation of a party in Illinois to introduce slavery into the state in a legal manner.506 The next year an editorial in a leading newspaper of Illinois said: “Will the admission of slavery in a new state tend to increase its population?—is a question which has been of late much discussed both within and without this state. It has been contended that its admission would induce the emigration of citizens of states as well where slavery was, as where it [pg 181] was not tolerated—that while it would attract the attention of the wealthy southern planter, it would not deter the industrious northern farmer.” The editor cites Ohio and Kentucky as proof against the above argument. In 1810 Ohio had a population, in round numbers, of 230,700 and Kentucky one of 406,500; in 1820 Ohio had 581,400, while Kentucky had 563,300, giving a difference in favor of Ohio of over 18,000; and an excess of gain during the decade, in favor of Ohio, of 93,847. “We are willing to take into consideration the unsettled titles of land in the last-mentioned state [Kentucky], and admit that in this respect Ohio had a decided advantage—we will therefore deduct the fraction of 93,847, believing it equivalent to the loss of population from this cause—there is still a difference of 100,000.”507 The editor's figures for 1810 were correct and those for 1820 were approximately so. It is also true, and in line with his argument, that during the same decade Indiana showed an increase from 24,500 to 147,200, while Missouri's increase was from 20,800 to 66,500; the increase in Illinois being between the two in proportion of increase—from 12,282 to 55,162.508 The passing of the slaveholders to Missouri continued and the discussion of the slavery question became animated.

In the gubernatorial election of 1822 there were four candidates for governor, two being anti-slavery and two pro-slavery in belief. Edward Coles, from Virginia, an anti-slavery man, was elected by a plurality of but a few votes. His election was due to a division in the ranks of the opposite party, as is shown by the fact that the pro-slavery party polled over 5300 votes, while the anti-slavery party polled only some 3300.509 In his message of December [pg 182] 5, 1822, Governor Coles strongly urged the passage of a law to prevent kidnapping510—then a regular trade. This was referred to a select committee which reported as follows: “Your committee have carefully examined the laws upon the subject, and with deep regret announce their incapability of devising a more effectual plan than the one already prescribed by law for the suppression of such infamous crimes. It is believed that the benevolent views of the executive and the benign purposes of the statutes can only be realized by the redoubled diligence of our grand juries and our magistrates, aided by the well-directed support of all just and good men.”511 The legislature was politically opposed to the governor, and the committee's report sounds like the baldest irony. With the report was presented a scheme for introducing slavery into the state,512 a scheme which eventually led to the vote of 1824.513

The Constitution of Illinois provided that upon the vote of two-thirds of the members of each house of the legislature, the question of calling a convention for the revision of the Constitution should be submitted to the people. For calling a convention only a majority vote from the people was necessary. This method of procedure the pro-slavery party determined upon. The two-thirds in favor of the project could be secured without difficulty in the senate, but in the house the desperate expedient of [pg 183] reconsidering the right of a member to a contested seat and seating his opponent was resorted to.514 This being done the resolution to submit the question of a constitutional convention to the people was passed by a bare two-thirds vote in each house.515 Of the eighteen men who voted against the resolution, eleven were natives of southern states, two of New York, two of Connecticut, one of Massachusetts, one of Vermont, and one of Sweden. There were some northern men who voted in favor of the resolution.516

The campaign resulting from the passage of the convention resolution was waged for eighteen months with great vigor. Press and pulpit were actively employed.517 A large anti-slavery society was formed in Morgan county,518 and it was in all probability one of many such organizations. In August, 1824, came the final vote, and the official count of the votes showed a majority of 1668 against calling a constitutional convention.519

[pg 184]

It is noteworthy that in this struggle the governor of the state was an anti-slavery southerner; eleven of the eighteen anti-slavery men in the legislature were southern; the pro-slavery party, which polled 1971 more votes than its opponents in 1822, was defeated by 1668 votes in 1824. It is also true that of the leaders in the campaign some of the most noted were southern anti-slavery or northern pro-slavery men.

Illustration: Election Results.

The history of settlement suggests several explanations for the votes of 1822 and 1824. The legislature which passed the convention resolution had not been chosen with the avowed purpose of doing so. Some designing politicians had such an object in view and secured the election of pro-slavery men by anti-slavery constituents. The number of such cases was not large, but as the resolution passed by the minimum vote they are important.520 In 1822, however, there was almost without doubt a pro-slavery majority in the state, but it is improbable that there was a two-thirds majority. In the election of 1822, there were 8635 votes cast, while in that of 1824 there were 11,612 votes cast. This great increase indicates a large immigration. Immigration at this time was largely to the northern counties of the state, and it is a point of prime significance that each of the seven northern counties gave large majorities against the calling of the convention, [pg 185] and that without the vote of these seven counties the vote would have been 4523 for a convention and 4408 against a convention, thus changing the decision of the state. This vote of the northern counties can not be explained by an increased immigration from the north, because no such increase to any significant degree is discoverable. The admission of Missouri as a slave state would naturally lead pro-slavery emigrants to go to that state instead of to Illinois. Another event which tended to influence the vote in Illinois was the decision of Indiana against slavery, in the summer of 1823, in the midst of the campaign in Illinois.521 The unjust action of the Illinois House of Representatives in unseating an anti-convention member was a powerful argument against the pro-slavery party.

In his message to the legislature, on November 16, 1824, Governor Coles said: “In the observations I had the honor to make to the last Legislature, I recommended that provision should be made for the abolition of the remnant of African slavery which still existed in this state. The full discussion of the principles and policy of personal slavery, which has taken place since that period, resulting in its rejection by the decided voice of the people, still more imperiously makes it my duty to call your attention in an especial manner to this subject, and earnestly to entreat you to make just and equitable provision for as speedy an abolition of this remnant of slavery, as may be deemed consistent with the rights and claims of the parties concerned.

“In close connection with this subject, is my former recommendation, to which I again solicit your attention, that the law as it respects those held in service should be rendered less severe, and more accordant with our political [pg 186] institutions and local situation; and that more severe penalties should be enacted against the unnatural crime of kidnapping, which then prevailed to a great extent and has since considerably increased, in consequence of the defects of the present law. Regarding the former, our laws in general are a mere transcript of those of the more southern states, where the great number of slaves makes it necessary for the safety of the whites, that the laws for their government, and concerning free blacks, should be very strict.—But, there being no such motive here, the necessity of such laws ceases, and consequently their injustice and cruelty are the more apparent. The latter are found every day more and more defective and inefficient; and kidnapping has now become a regular trade, which is carried on to a vast extent to the country bordering on the lower Mississippi, up the Red River, and to the West Indies. To put an immediate and effectual stop to this nefarious traffic, is the imperious duty of the Legislature.”522

The house of representatives referred the governor's remarks concerning kidnapping to a select committee. A bill was reported, but after being weakened by amendments it was tabled.523 In his message in 1826 the governor renewed his recommendations,524 and a section of the criminal code of January, 1827, provided that kidnapping should be punishable by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than seven years.525 An act of January, 1825, provided that anyone who had failed to give the bond required by the black code of 1819 from [pg 187] those who emancipated slaves, should be released from any verdict or judgment arising from such failure, upon indemnifying the county for any money expended for the relief of the freedmen.526 By an act of 1829 relating to slaves, whites were not to marry blacks, slaves were not to come to the state in order to be free, and runaway slaves should be advertised in the newspapers of the state.527 The number of slaves in Illinois decreased after 1820. In 1820 there were 917 slaves in the state; in 1830, 747; in 1840, 331,528 and before the next census slavery in the state was abolished.

The vote of 1824 against calling a constitutional convention marked the end of the slavery question as an obstacle to the immigration of an anti-slavery population. Slaveholders, never a large proportion of the immigrants, practically ceased to come to the state, while the immigration of anti-slavery southerners continued, and the aggregate immigration greatly increased. The population of the state was 55,162 in 1820; 72,817, in 1825; and 157,445 in 1830. Missouri, more populous than Illinois by more than 11,000 in 1820, was less so by 17,000 in 1830.529 Governor Coles, in his message of January 3, 1826, said: “The tide of emigration, which had been for several years checked by various causes, both general and local, has again set in, and has afforded a greater accession of population during the past, than it had for the three preceding years. This addition to our population and wealth has given a new impulse to the industry and enterprise of our citizens, and has sensibly animated the face of our country. And as the causes which have impeded the [pg 188] prosperity of the state are daily diminishing, and the inducements to emigration are increasing, we may confidently anticipate a more steady and rapid augmentation of its population and resources.”530

From 1820 to 1825 the increase of population in Illinois was 17,655, while from 1825 to 1830 it was 84,628. Contemporaries have left some interesting records of immigration during the latter five years—a period in which the population of the state increased more than 116 per cent. Immigration had begun to be brisk by the fall of 1824. At the general election in August, 1820, there were 1132 votes cast in Madison county, while at a similar election in August, 1824, there were 3223 votes cast in the same territory, Madison county having been divided into Madison, Pike, Fulton, Sangamon, Morgan and Greene counties. A Madison county newspaper said: “That country bordering on the Illinois River is populating at this time more rapidly than at any former period. Family wagons with emigrants are daily passing this place [Edwardsville], on their way thither.”531 During the five weeks ending October 28, 1825, about two hundred and fifty wagons, with an average of five persons to each, passed through Vandalia, bound chiefly for the Sangamo country.532 The unsettled condition of the slavery question from 1820 to August, 1824, is given as the cause of the slight increase in population during that period, and the settlement of the question is thought to have been a chief cause for the increase after 1824.533 It must not be supposed, however, that any one cause excludes all others. The country as a whole had scarcely recovered from the great financial depression of 1819; [pg 189] Kentucky was in turmoil over her bank, land titles and old and new courts;534 early in 1825 over 65,000 acres in a single county in Tennessee were advertised for sale for the delinquent taxes of 1824;535 and in 1826 a great drought in North Carolina caused a marked emigration from that state.536

In 1829 emigration was great. Some forty English families from Yorkshire came by way of Canada and settled near Jacksonville, Illinois. They brought agricultural implements and some money.537 The Kentucky Gazette lamented the fact that a large number of the best families of Lexington were removing to Illinois.538 An Illinois newspaper reported: “The number of emigrants passing through our Town [Vandalia] this fall, is unusually great. During the last week the waggons and teams going to the north amounted to several hundred. At no previous period has our State encreased so rapidly, as it is now encreasing.”539 Another editor estimated the annual increase in population from 1826 to 1829 at not less than 12,000540—a figure which was almost certainly too low. In 1830 a meeting of gentlemen from the counties of Hampshire and Hampden (Massachusetts) was held at Northampton to consider the expediency of forming a colony to remove to Illinois. After a discussion it was voted to adjourn to meet on the 10th of October at Warner's Coffee House in Southampton. Similar meetings were held at Pawtucket and Worcester.541

[pg 190]

The immigration to Illinois was but part of a general westward movement. From Charleston, Virginia, we hear: “The tide of emigration through this place is rapid, and we believe, unprecedented. It is believed that not less than eight thousand individuals, since the 1st September last [written on November 6, 1829], have passed on this route. They are principally from the lower part of this state and South Carolina, bound for Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.—They jog on, careless of the varying climate, and apparently without regret for the friends and the country they leave behind, seeking forests to fell, and a new country to settle.” The editor attributes this movement to the fact that slavery had rendered white labor disreputable.542 Three thousand persons bound for the West arrived at Buffalo in one week and six thousand per week were reported as passing through Indianapolis, bound for the Wabash country alone.543 The great northern tide was chiefly bound to Ohio and Michigan,544 northern Illinois not being open to settlement. Five years after Detroit received three hundred arrivals per week, Chicago had about a dozen houses, besides Fort Dearborn. This was the Chicago of 1830.545

[pg 191]

Chapter VII. Successful Frontiersmen.

The character of the men who succeed in gaining the favor of those among whom they live indicates the character of those whose favor has been gained. Preachers, land dealers, lawyers, town builders, and politicians can not thrive in a hostile community. It is worth while in studying Illinois in its frontier stage to notice some of the chief traits of its leaders.

No better type of the pioneer preacher need be sought than the Rev. Dr. Peter Cartwright. He preached in the West for nearly seventy years, during which time he delivered some eighteen thousand sermons, baptized some fifteen thousand persons, received into the church nearly twelve thousand members, and licensed preachers enough to make a whole conference. He was for fifty years a presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal church. His home was in Illinois from 1824 until his death in 1872. Aside from his ministerial duties he twice represented Sangamon county in the Illinois House of Representatives; was a candidate for congressman against Abraham Lincoln in 1846; and was a member of an historical society founded as early as 1827.

Cartwright had a number of traits that attracted frontiersmen. In person he was about five feet ten inches high, and of square build, having a powerful physical frame and weighing nearly two hundred pounds. “The roughs and bruisers at camp-meetings and elsewhere stood in awe of his brawny arm, and many anecdotes are told of his courage and daring that sent terror to their ranks. He felt that he was one of the Lord's breaking plows, and that he had to drive his way through all kinds of roots and stubborn [pg 192] soil.... His gesticulation, his manner of listening, his walk, and his laugh were peculiar, and would command attention in a crowd of a thousand. There was something undefinable about the whole man that was attractive to the majority of the people, and made them linger in his presence and want to see him again.” He had a remarkable power to read men, his first impressions being quickly made and almost always correct. He was often gay, but never frivolous; often eccentric, but never silly. A Cumberland Presbyterian, after attending a communion service administered by Cartwright and at which the Baptist, Rev. John M. Peck, was present, wrote: “After meeting, I invited these two men to spend the night with me, which they did; and such a night!—of all Western anecdotes and manners, flow of soul and out-spoken brotherhood—we had never seen, and never expect to enjoy again. These were, then [1824 c.], the two strongest men of mark in the ministry, in this State [Illinois].” Cartwright's vitality was remarkable. In the sixty-sixth year of his ministry, and the eighty-sixth of his life, he dedicated eight churches, preached at seventy-seven funerals, addressed eight schools, baptized twenty adults and fifty children, married five couples, received fifteen into the church on probation and twenty-five into full connection, raised twenty-five dollars missionary money, donated twenty dollars for new churches, wrote one hundred and twelve letters, delivered many lectures, and sold two hundred dollars worth of books. Many frontier preachers of the time were lacking in common sense, but they were not popular. This is the testimony of a contemporary (1828) writer whose analysis of western character has rarely been excelled.546

[pg 193]

John Edgar, a native of Ireland, was one of the largest landholders who ever lived in Illinois. At the outbreak of the American Revolution he was a British officer living at Detroit, but becoming implicated in the efforts of his American wife to aid British soldiers in deserting, he was imprisoned. He escaped, and in 1784 settled in Kaskaskia, where his wife joined him two years later, having saved from confiscation some twelve thousand dollars. This made Edgar the rich man of the community. “In very early times, he erected, at great expense, a fine flouring mill on the same site where M. Paget had built one sixty years before. This mill was a great benefit to the public and also profitable to the proprietor. Before the year 1800, this mill manufactured great quantities of flour for the New Orleans market which would compare well with the Atlantic flour.” Edgar built a splendid mansion in Kaskaskia and entertained royally. At a time when hospitality was common he improved upon it. His home was the fashionable resort for almost half a century. It was here that Lafayette was entertained. In addition to his flour mill, which attracted settlers to its vicinity near Kaskaskia and which for many years did most of the merchant business in flour in the country, Edgar owned and operated salt works near the Mississippi, northwest of Kaskaskia, and also invested largely in land. Before the commissioners appointed to settle land claims he claimed thirty-six thousand acres in one claim as the assignee of ninety donation-rights, while he and John Murry St. Clair [pg 194] claimed 13,986 acres which proved upon survey to cover almost thirty thousand acres. In territorial times Edgar paid more taxes than any one else in the territory. In 1790 Edgar was appointed chief justice of the Kaskaskia district of St. Clair county; in 1800 he was “Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the First Regiment of Militia of the County of Randolph”; in 1802 he was commissioned an associate judge of the Criminal Court of Randolph county, by Governor Harrison. He had never studied law “but common sense, a good education, and experience in business with perfect honesty made him a very respectable officer.” Edgar's correspondence with Clark and Hamtramck show him to have been a leader in Illinois during its period of anarchy preceding the establishment of government in 1790. He offered to board a garrison on the credit of the United States, if a garrison should be sent to protect Illinois. At a time when slaveholding was regarded as eminently respectable by the people of Illinois, Edgar held slaves, and in 1796 he was one of four who petitioned Congress to introduce slavery into the territory. He was a member of the legislature of the Northwest Territory, was worshipful master of the first Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in Illinois, constituted at Kaskaskia in 1806, and was major-general of militia, in which capacity he presided at reviews with much dignity. In person Gen. Edgar was large and portly. He was definitely charged with forgery by the commissioners to settle land titles at Kaskaskia. In one case a letter signed in a fair hand by one who had made his mark to a deed was produced by Edgar. The letter was an offer of the illiterate owner to sell his land to Edgar. There is no indication that this conduct of the hospitable and popular man changed the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries.547

[pg 195]

John Rice Jones, the first lawyer in Illinois, was eminently successful. He was born in Wales in 1759, received a collegiate education at Oxford, England, and afterward took regular courses in both medicine and law. In 1783 he was a lawyer in London and owned property in Wales. The next year he came to Philadelphia where he practiced law and became acquainted with Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, Myers Fisher, and other distinguished men. In 1786 he came to Kentucky and joined Clark's troops against the Wabash Indians. A garrison was irregularly established at Vincennes and Jones was made commissary-general. He sold seized Spanish goods to partially indemnify those whose goods had been seized by the Spanish. In 1790 Jones removed to Kaskaskia, bringing to his residence on the frontier a mind well trained by education and experience. He early became a large landowner, in 1808 paying taxes on 16,400 acres in Monroe county alone. The list of offices held by Jones shows him to have been prominent wherever he went. He was attorney-general of the Northwest Territory, a member and president of the legislative council of the same, joint-revisor with John Johnson, of the laws of Indiana Territory, one of the first trustees, as well as a chief promoter, of Vincennes University, official interpreter and translator of French for the commissioners appointed to settle land claims at Kaskaskia, and after his removal to Missouri, about 1810, a [pg 196] member of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1820, and, upon the admission of the state, justice of its Supreme Court until his death in February, 1824. In Missouri he engaged in lead mining and smelting with Moses Austin and later with Austin's sons. He made an exhaustive report on the lead mines of Missouri in 1816. Jones was well versed in English, French and Spanish law, especially in regard to land titles. He was an excellent mathematician, and had also a thorough acquaintance with the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, English, and Welsh languages. The pioneers recognized his peculiar fitness for a legal career on the frontier. Governor Reynolds, a fellow-townsman of Jones, says: “Judge Jones lived a life of great activity and was conspicuous and prominent in all the important transactions of the country ... His integrity, honor, and honesty were always above doubt or suspicion. He was exemplary in his moral habits, and lived a temperate and orderly man in all things.”548

The founding of the towns of Mt. Carmel, Alton and Springfield illustrates the work of successful town building on the frontier. Mt. Carmel was laid out in 1817, Alton in 1818, and the land where Springfield now stands was entered in 1823.

The town of Mt. Carmel was founded by three ministers, Thomas S. Hinde, William McDowell and William Beauchamp, the first two being proprietors and the last agent and surveyor. McDowell probably never settled in Illinois. Hinde and Beauchamp were men of more than ordinary ability. The former was a son of the well-known Dr. Hinde, of Virginia, who was a surgeon in the British navy during the French and Indian war. Dr. [pg 197] Hinde moved to Kentucky and there the boy Thomas grew up. At one time he was a neighbor of Daniel Boone, and later of Simon Kenton. He was in the office of the Superior Court of Kentucky for some time, during which he became well acquainted with Governor Madison and his nephew, John Madison, kinsmen of President James Madison. He was well informed as to some of the obscure movements of Aaron Burr. This led him to send copies of the Fredonian, which he published in order to oppose Burr, to Henry Clay, then secretary of state, although the copies later unaccountably disappeared; and, in 1829, to write to James Madison, who was reported as contemplating the writing of a political history, offering to furnish information which he possessed at first hand concerning the conspiracy. Madison denied any intention of writing a history, but asked Hinde to furnish an account of Burr's transactions to be filed with Madison's papers. This was done. In 1806, Hinde moved to Ohio to get away from slavery.

William Beauchamp was born in Kent county, Delaware, in 1772. He became a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794, but located in 1801 on account of ill health. His ministry had been markedly successful and he had been stationed in New York and Boston. In 1807 he settled on the Little Kanawha River in Virginia, and in 1815 moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, where he acted as editor of the Western Christian Monitor, Hinde being a contributor. Beauchamp knew Latin, Greek and Hebrew, was a writer of considerable ability, and was well fitted to be editor. In 1816, however, the General Conference decided to establish a magazine, and in the following year Beauchamp retired from the editorship of the Monitor, having successfully established the first Methodist magazine in America. Beauchamp, Hinde and McDowell were now [pg 198] fellow-townsmen. They resolved to establish a town where their ideas of rectitude might be applied.

The site chosen for the town was a point on the west bank of the Wabash opposite the mouth of the White River, and twenty-four miles southwest of Vincennes. This point was selected because of the available water power and of the likelihood that main roads from east to west would pass here. The town became a railroad and manufacturing center and justified the wisdom of its founders. An elaborate circular, called the “Articles of Association, for the City of Mount Carmel,” was issued at Chillicothe in 1817. The purpose of the association was announced to be “to build a city on liberal and advantageous principles, and to constitute funds for the establishment of seminaries of learning and for religious purposes.” The proprietors reserved for themselves one-fourth of the lots, these being called “proprietors' lots;” one-fourth were called “public donation lots;” and one-half were called “private donation lots.” The plan of survey and sale was described as follows: “The front street is 132 feet wide; the others 99. The in-lots are six poles in front, and eleven and a half back; containing each sixty-eight perches, nearly half an acre. The most of the out-lots contain four acres and eight square poles; some of them more, (five and six acres on the back range); and a few of them less. There are 748 in-lots, and 331 out-lots—1079 in the whole.

“The lots are offered at private sale, at the following prices:

In-Lots On Front Street.

Corners, $150 each

Not corners, 100

The Rest Of The In-Lots.

Corners, $120 each

Not corners, 80

The out-lots, $100 each

[pg 199]

“The payments are to be made in four annual instalments; the first at the time of sale.

“A bank is to be constituted by the sale of the lots.

“One-fourth of the lots are appropriated to the use of schools and religious purposes.

“One-half of the lots are to be given away to those who will improve them according to the articles of association. A person may have as many gift, or private donation out-lots, as he has such in-lots; the out-lots not required to be improved. The gift lots are to be disposed of on the following terms: the persons receiving them pay the prices above stated, and receive for the money thus paid, stock in the aforesaid bank. They are to improve the in-lots thus given to them, by building one dwelling-house for every such in-lot; one-half of the houses to be built within five years, and the other half within ten years, from the sale of said lots. The houses to be framed, brick, or stone, and to contain two rooms, and two fire-places each.”

The bank referred to was “The Bank of Mount Carmel.” Its shares were ten dollars each. The proprietors might put into the stock one-half of the money received from the sale of proprietors' lots; all the money received for public donation lots was to be divided into three equal parts, one part to be funded in the bank in the name of the trustees (to be appointed) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the proceeds to be applied to the building of “Methodist Episcopal meeting houses in the city of Mount Carmel, and to other religious purposes,” not including ministers' salary; the second part to be funded in the name of the trustees (to be appointed) of a male academy; the third part to be similarly funded for a female academy; the money from private donation lots to be funded in the name of the purchasers, after deducting ten per cent for expenses, which ten per cent should remain in the bank [pg 200] as permanent stock. The articles of association were elaborate. The 18th article became known as the “Blue Laws.” It read as follows: “Art. 18. No theatre or play-house shall ever be built within the bounds of this city. No person who shall be guilty of drunkenness, profane swearing or cursing, Sabbath breaking, or who shall keep a disorderly house, shall gamble, or suffer gambling in his house, or raise a riot, or break the peace within the city, or be guilty of any other crime of greater magnitude in guilt than those here mentioned, and shall be convicted thereof before the mayor, council, or any other court having cognizance of such crime or crimes, shall be eligible to any office of the city of Mount Carmel or its bank, or be entitled to vote for any such officer, within three years after such conviction, notwithstanding anything in these articles to the contrary.”

The plan for a town was successful. Beauchamp was surveyor, pastor, teacher, and lawyer in the beginning of settlement. By 1819 a school was established; four or five years later a school-house was built; by 1820 Mt. Carmel circuit of the M. E. church had been formed; in 1825 a brick church was erected; the same year the town was incorporated by the state on the plan laid down in the articles of association; in 1827 the annual conference of the Illinois Conference was held at Mt. Carmel.

Beauchamp's health having improved he reËntered the ministry in 1822, and at the General Conference two years later he lacked but two votes of being chosen bishop. He died in 1824.

Hinde, in 1825, was a member of the Wabash Navigation Company, consisting of seventeen prominent Indiana and Illinois men, and having a capital stock of one million dollars. He was one of the nine directors for the first year. He continued to be a contributor to periodical literature [pg 201] and became the biographer of his friend Beauchamp. In a letter from Mt. Carmel, of May 6, 1842, Hinde says: “I have just returned from the East, having visited the Atlantic cities generally for the first time, after forty-five years pioneering in the wilderness of the West. I have been three times a citizen of Kentucky, twice of Ohio, and twice of Illinois.” Hinde died in 1846 and was buried at Mt. Carmel. Among his writings is found one of the most acute analyses of frontier character that has appeared. The writer points out that eastern ministers have often been unsuccessful and eastern immigrants unpopular, because they have underrated the people of the West, among whom there are many people of culture. They prefer “the useful to the shining or showy talent.” In the West the best work has been done by westerners. The English spoken in the West is the purest to be found, because the various provincialisms of the immigrants are mutually corrective. The Virginian, who retained his unbounded hospitality, was the most prominent character in the West. “If we expect to find on crossing the mountains a people either illiterate or ignorant as a body, we will assuredly, in many instances, be happily disappointed. It too often happens, that one puffed up with self importance, and possessing a conceited and heated imagination, will form wild conjectures as to men and things. We have been amused at the bewildered minds of such, with the ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’; and one of the most ridiculous whims of some, is to endeavour to press every thing into their own mould; and shape it, be it what it may, if possible, after their own manner, custom, or operation, forgetting that ‘we have to take the world as it is, and not as we would have it to be.’ The fact is, an emigrant should come forth as an inquirer, and set himself down to learn at the threshold of experience. On this rock thousands have been [pg 202] injured, and none have suffered more than the English emigrants. Oh! with what poignant grief have I heard the English emigrant exclaim with the bitterest invectives on his own course and conduct, as to this particular. Conceiving that he knew every thing, when he came here to test his experience, he soon found that he ‘knew nothing.’ This circumstance I have found too to have its bearings upon American emigrants from different states; upon families, upon individuals, and upon preachers also. How often have I heard the old settler complaining, (who having himself learned by experience) of the impertinent conduct of an emigrant, who sometimes carries his local policy through all the ramifications of his life, and often into the religious society, as well as elsewhere; he wishing every thing done, as he saw it done in Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and very often ‘Old England’ and ‘Ireland!’ as if men who have to act, and reflect upon the circumstances of the case, different from any ever before presented except among themselves, are to be governed by acts and doings of people in the moon!”549 A man who [pg 203] thus knew the frontier was fitted to be the founder of a western town.

Rufus Easton was the founder of the town of Alton. Like Hinde, he brought to his work a fund of experience gained on the frontier and in public affairs. Easton was born at Washington, Litchfield county, Connecticut, in 1774. He descended from pioneers, being a direct descendant of Joseph Easton, who came from England to Newtowne, now Cambridge, Massachusetts, about 1633, and was later one of Rev. Thos. Hooker's colony which founded Hartford, Connecticut, of which Easton was an original proprietor. In 1792 Rufus Easton's father, a Tory, obtained a large grant of land near Wolford, now Easton Corners, Ontario. Rufus received a good education before studying law. In 1798 he was practicing law in Rome, New York, then a frontier town. November, 1801, Easton, with thirteen other prominent men, held a banquet to celebrate the election of Thos. Jefferson as President. The prominence of the young lawyer at this time is shown by the fact that he was consulted in regard to federal appointments, and that he was in 1803 a confidential correspondent of De Witt Clinton. The winter of 1803-4 Easton spent in Washington, where he became a friend of Aaron Burr, Postmaster-General Granger, and others. In the spring of 1804 he started for New Orleans. Aaron Burr gave him a letter of introduction to Abm. R. Ellery, Esq., of New Orleans, in which he said: “You will certainly be greatly amused to converse with a man who has passed the whole winter in this city—who has had free intercourse [pg 204] with the officers of Govt. & members of Congress—who has discernment to see beyond the surface, and frankness and independence enough to speak his own sentiments.” Easton did not, however, go to New Orleans. He stopped for a short time at Vincennes and then located at St. Louis. He was appointed by Jefferson judge of the Territory of Louisiana and first postmaster of St. Louis. In September, 1805, Burr, Wilkinson and Easton had a conference at St. Louis. Easton turned a deaf ear to Burr's questionable proposals and from this time Wilkinson was hostile to Easton. Easton corresponded with Jefferson and Granger concerning the Burr conspiracy. Jefferson appointed him United States attorney, 1814-18 he was delegate to Congress from Missouri, 1821-26 he was attorney-general of Missouri. Easton was very prominent, entertaining almost all visitors of note. Edward Bates, Lincoln's attorney-general, read law in Easton's office.

Soon after coming to St. Louis, Easton began to buy up claims to land in Missouri and Illinois. When seeking to find a suitable place for a town in Illinois, he selected a point on the east bank of the Mississippi, twenty-five miles north of St. Louis and twenty miles south of the mouth of the Illinois. There was here a good landing place for boats, and also extensive beds of coal and limestone. The town was named Alton in honor of the founder's son. One hundred lots in the new town were donated to the support of the gospel and public schools, one-half of the proceeds to be devoted to each. This provision was confirmed by the act of incorporation of January 30, 1821, and the trustees were given the right to tax undonated lots for the support of schools. This latter provision was in advance of public sentiment and two years later it was repealed. Alton, like Mt. Carmel and to a much greater extent, proved the wisdom of its location. [pg 205] It has long been noted for its manufactures and is a thriving modern city.550

The town of Springfield, since 1839 the capital of Illinois, was laid out in 1822, before the land upon which it stood was offered for sale. When the land was sold in November, 1823, the section upon which the town stood was bought by Elijah Iles, Pascal Paoli Enos, Thomas Cox, and Daniel P. Cook, each purchasing one quarter, but the title being vested by agreement in Iles and Enos. Cook, like McDowell in the founding of Mt. Carmel, seems to have been a non-resident proprietor.

Elijah Iles was a child of the wilderness. He was born in Kentucky in 1796, and died at Springfield, Illinois, in 1883, leaving valuable reminiscences of his long experience on the frontier. His mother was Elizabeth Crockett Iles, a relative of David Crockett. Elijah attended school two winters and taught two winters. In 1812, although but sixteen years of age, he acted as deputy for his father, who was sheriff of Bath county, Kentucky. Some three years later his father gave him three hundred dollars, with which he bought one hundred head of yearling cattle. For three years he herded these cattle among the mountains of Kentucky, about twenty miles from civilization, having as his only companions his horse, dog, gun, milk cow, and the cattle. His meals usually consisted of a stew made of bear meat, venison, or turkey, and a piece of fat bacon. At the end of the three years the cattle were sold for about ten dollars a head, and the youthful dealer having attained his majority went to Missouri and became a land agent for eastern speculators, and soon began to speculate [pg 206] for himself. In 1821, concluding that Missouri was too far from a market, he sold some of his land and resolved to move to Illinois. At that time the site upon which Springfield was to stand had been chosen as the temporary county seat of Sangamon county, because eight men, some of whom had families, lived within a radius of two miles from the site, and at no other place in the county could the lawyers and judge secure board and lodging. Iles quickly discerned the advantages of the Sangamon country as a place of settlement, and straightway built a log store sixteen feet square, went to St. Louis and bought fifteen hundred dollars worth of goods, which he loaded on a keel-boat and had towed up the Mississippi and the Illinois by six men, whom he paid seventy-five dollars for their services. When the land was offered for sale, in 1823, Iles bought a quarter-section.

Another quarter-section of the town site was bought by Pascal Paoli Enos. The fact that the frontier is a great social leveler is well illustrated by the combination of Enos and Iles as joint owners of a town site. The Enos family had come from England in 1648, and Pascal Paoli Enos, son of Major-General Roger Enos, was born in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1770. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1794, studied law, was a member of the Vermont legislature in 1804, married in Vermont and moved to Cincinnati in 1815, later to St. Charles, Missouri, then to St. Louis, then to Madison county, Illinois, and in 1823 was appointed by President Monroe receiver of public moneys for the land-office in the District of Sangamo. Thus the elderly scholar joined the shrewd but youthful frontiersman.

Col. Thomas Cox was the third of the trio of the resident proprietors of Springfield. He had signed a petition for the division of Randolph county in 1812, represented [pg 207] Union county as a senator in the first general assembly of Illinois, and in 1820 was appointed register of the land-office at Vandalia. In 1823 he came to Springfield as register of the land-office at that place. Col. Cox was six feet tall, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, and was a drunkard within a short time after the founding of Springfield.

The most important thing about the founding of the town is the heterogeneous character of its founders. A few incidents in their subsequent history will emphasize this, and also show how well they worked together when surrounded by the same conditions. When the commissioners came to locate a permanent county seat Springfield, then called Calhoun, had a formidable rival for the honor. Iles and Enos managed to have a mutual friend engaged as guide to the commissioners. The guide conducted them to the rival settlement by a long and rough route and upon being requested to take them back over a shorter route he took a course more difficult still. The commissioners decided that the rival settlement was inaccessible. Iles was twice state senator, major in the Winnebago war, and captain in the Black Hawk war, in which he served with Zachary Taylor, Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln, John T. Stuart, Robt. Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, and others. Iles was also a large stock dealer, selling hogs and cattle in St. Louis and mules in Kentucky, until 1838, in which year he lost ten thousand dollars on hogs packed at Alton. In 1838-9 he built the American House in Springfield. This was then the largest hotel in the state and its erection created a great sensation. He was four times state senator, and was an officer of the Bank of Edwardsville. Enos held his position as receiver until removed for political reasons by Jackson in 1829. Cox had an eventful career. He was removed from his position [pg 208] of register, under charges of misconduct, early in 1827; the next year he was keeping a hotel in Springfield; later he removed to Iowa, then Wisconsin, having secured a contract for the survey of public lands. He was three times a member of the Iowa territorial House of Representatives and twice a member of the territorial Council. A band of murderers, horsethieves, counterfeiters, and blacklegs, having gained possession of the town of Bellevue, on the Mississippi, in Jackson county, Iowa, Col. Cox led the citizens in a successful attack in which seven men were killed outright and some ten or fifteen wounded. At this time Cox was recognized as a pronounced drunkard, but his undoubted courage, ability to command, and strong physique secured him a following.551

Shadrach Bond, the first governor of Illinois, and Pierre Menard, the first lieutenant-governor, were both poorly educated, but they had a good knowledge of men and a large fund of information concerning practical affairs.552 Edward Coles, the second governor of the state, is a good example of the polished, well-educated gentleman succeeding with a rude constituency. Coles was born in 1786, in Albemarle county, Virginia, fitted for college by private [pg 209] tutors, educated at Hampden Sidney and later at William and Mary College. His father's home was visited by Patrick Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, the Randolphs, Tazwell, Wirt, and others. For six years Coles was the private secretary of President Madison, and during this time he became an intimate friend of Nicholas Biddle. In 1815 he visited Illinois in what must have seemed at that time great state, for he traveled not only with a horse and buggy, but with a servant and a saddle-horse as well. In 1816-17 he was sent as a special messenger to Russia, stopping at Paris on his return, meeting Louis XVIII. of France and becoming a friend of Lafayette. In 1819 he came to Edwardsville, Illinois, emancipated his slaves, and assumed his duties as register of the land-office. The rough pioneers were very anxious to get a title to their lands. “When the settler reached Edwardsville, dressed in jeans and wearing moccasins, with his money in his belt, having traveled on foot or on horseback long distances, and first presented himself to the Register of the Land Office, there he found Edward Coles, who had recently emigrated into the State from Virginia. It was known to some of them that he had been the private secretary for President Madison, and had been on an important mission to Europe.

“They found him a young man of handsome, but somewhat awkward personal appearance, genteelly dressed, and of kind and agreeable manners. The anxious settler was at once put at ease by the suavity of his address, the interest he appeared to feel in aiding him, and the thoroughly intelligent manner in which he discharged his duty. No man went away who was not delighted with his intercourse with the ‘Register.’ And herein is illustrated the great mistake so often made by politicians and candidates for popular favor. Too many candidates for [pg 210] the suffrage of the people in our early political contests thought it necessary, in order to make themselves popular, to affect slovenly and unclean dress and vulgar manners in their campaigns. There was never a greater mistake. However rough, ill-clothed and unintelligent the voter might be, he always preferred to vote for the man who was dressed and acted like a gentleman to the one who dressed like and acted like himself.”553 Coles was always dignified, always gentlemanly, and always respected. His brief residence in Illinois affected its history for all time to come. Like Coles in several respects was his successor as governor, Ninian Edwards. Born in Maryland in 1775, educated by the celebrated William Wirt, and later graduating from Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, at nineteen years of age he came to Kentucky. Here he served two terms in the Kentucky legislature, was presiding judge of the general court, circuit judge, and chief-justice of the court of appeals. Henry Clay gave as Edwards' marked characteristics, good understanding, weight of character, and conciliatory manners. In his campaign for governor of Illinois, Edwards presented himself as the highest type of a polished and well-dressed gentleman, always riding in his own carriage and driven by his negro servant, and dressing in all the style of an old-fashioned gentleman with broad-cloth coat, ruffled shirt, and high-topped boots. The people were not repelled by such a display, but considered it an honor to vote for such a man. The egotistical Adolphus Frederick Hubbard, who was one of the two opponents of Edwards, intermingled bad grammar and poor attempts at wit in his electioneering speeches, and [pg 211] received less than one-tenth of the number of votes cast for either of the two other candidates.554

[pg 213]

Clyx.com