Bureau County, Illinois - Chapter 4, 1885

THE genealogy of the county, that is, the civil divisions, changes and transfers of allegiance from one government to another, and then to the United States, and from one State to another, and finally a chain of title from county to county, ending in the present civil community of Bureau, is a material part of the county's history; and yet, how many are there who can tell its chronological story? In even a Teachers' Institute, composed of the educators of the county, and where the subject of history is often treated at great length, could any of them, after much reflection and reading on the subject, tell anything about it? Nearly all know that Bureau County was carved out of the territory of Putnam County, and there, as a rule, their information stops.

Suppose a board of examination in the best of our high schools should ask the class, by the aid of their teachers, to give an abstract of the title to any quarter section of land, tracing it back to the original tribe of Indians, who were the owners in possession when the country was discovered. A legal abstract of the title of a piece of land is by law complete when the title is traced from the General Government, and in this transfer there are no notes of the different counties of which the particular tract may have formed a part, because the title to the lands does not vest in the State or county, only as it passes to them from the Government. Yet the descriptive part of the title is incomplete without naming both the State and county. Hence in a chain of title, where any special day or time might be called for, it is of the first importance to tell exactly the name and territorial title at each change that has occurred in its history.

What school-child or teacher could readily tell how a letter should have been directed to have reached a person, supposing one had been here, and there had been mails delivered, during all the time of the known history of this part of Illinois? Suppose, reader, you had been here the past two hundred years, and without ever removing from one spot, in what empires, nations, and governments, Territories, States and counties would you have lived ?

Going back to the time of the Indians, you would have been of the tribe of the Potawattomies, then a citizen of New France, and a subject of the French Empire. This was a province of France for about one hundred years. We have seen elsewhere in a preceding chapter that La Salle and Tonti made the first white settlement in Illinois, before the close of the seventeenth century, on the borders of Bureau County. The next white settlement was made in Kaskaskia by the French, in 1707. *

-William H. Brown, of Chicago, was in Kaskaskia in 1818, and gives it as a fact, that he then learned from old settlers, and he found other evidences, that this date (1707J was correct.

The next move the "old settler'' would have found made for him by the changes in government, while he was stationary, was that he was a Canadian.

Then, in 1673, by the treaty of Paris, the title of all this part of the world passed to the British Empire. Thomas Gage was the ruler by virtue of being Commander-in-chief of the British troops in North America. In ] 764 he issued a proclamation, in which he most graciously authorized the Roman Catholics of this part of the world to exercise the worship of their religion in the same manner here as they did in Canada, and granting them the further permission '%to go about and look at the country, even to New Orleans."

During all this century of changes and transfers there was no civil government established here. The only government was military, and the title to the country a mere claim of discovery and possession to the time of the treaty of Paris.*

October, 1778, the House of Burgesses of Virginia created the county of Illinois, and appointed Lieut. John Tod, (. ivil Commander, and this appointment authorized all the civil officers to whom the inhabitants had been accustomed, to be chosen by a majority of the citizens of their respective districts. This was the establishment of the first English civil government in what is now Illinois. The act of the House of Burgesses above referred to, defined the Northwestern Territory, with the seat of government at Marietta, Ohio. The whole territory was divided into three counties, namely: Hamilton, now Ohio; Knox, now Indiana, and St. Glair, now substantially Illinois. If our imaginary Bu-

* November 2, 1762, France made a secret treaty with Spain, by which the Louisiana Country was ceded to Spain ; this treaty was not made known until 1764. At this time, and just before the treaty was made known. The villages of St. Louis and Bte. Generieve were founded.

Gov. Tod was commissioned by Gov. Patrick Henry, who wrote his commission and instructions within hearing of the guns of the American Revolution. The book containing Tod's commission and an account of his official acts while at Kaskaskia was recently picked up by accident in a woodbox in Chester, 111. , by one who thus rescued this valuable document from the flames, and thus supplied a missing link in the history of the State, the complete loss of which would have been very great indeed.

All the upper Mississippi Valley was conquered from Gruat Britain by Gen. George Rogers Clark, who has been often styled " The Hannibal of the North west." In the American Revolution he certainly was the hero standing second only to George Washington. He conceived the plans, and wif h an army of less than 200 poorly armed, half fed and worse clothed soldiers, wrested all this rich empire from England and the Indian, and by able diplomacy, the most daring enterprise and heroic bravery and endurance, and a tact and strategy never surpassed, kept and preserved a conqueror's title and transmitted it to us. No romance compares with the wonderful achievements of Gen. Clark. In 1795, a mere youth, he penetrated the wilds of what is now Kentucky. In connection with Gabriel Jones he founded and erected the county of Kentucky in 1796, and fought out the wars with the Indians that gave that fair land the name of " The Dark and Bloody Ground." In war and in founding and erecting Government and Commonwealths he was the leading and master mind everywhere. Without men, without money, without support from any source he conquered, held and handed over to his

Government empires that in their extent and magnificence dwarf the proudest achievements of the flaunting eagles of Napoleon; and we have no hesitation in claiming that conceiving of the plan and the remarkable manner in which he executed his designs, find no parallel in American history. When the Revolution had been fought out and Gen. George Rogers Clark's great work was done in that wonderful play on the chessboard of nations, he retired to private life, to obscurity and poverty that was only equaled by that the humblest soldier in his ragged squad.

If the deeds of our great men are ever to be measured by the greatness of the results that come of their acts, rather than by the pomp, the ceremony, the loud blasts of fame and the pageantry of great numbers, then the future historian of the United States may burn his brightest fires in illuminating the greatest chapter in his book, where he tells the story of George Rogers Clark and the Northwest It is no part of our purpose here to attempt to tell the interesting story. We merely point it out, and hope the young who may peruse this page may be induced to take up the sub'ject and follow it through.

From 1732 to 1759 we were under the control or rather belonged to the Company of the Indies. M. Penier was Governor-General, and M. D'Artaguette was Local Governor of Illinois. This brave and chivalrous man was killed in the Chickasaw war, where he had been called to assist the people of Louisiana. Illinois at this time was a part of Louisiana and a province of Canada. The Company of the Indies failing, the French Government again assumed the control and title to the country.

The treaty of Greenville (this point is now in Darke County, in the southwest part of Ohio) was made in 1795. This was a treaty with the Indians, and at the time was not considered of any value in defining the future boundaries of the country, but in the end it became a very important matter in the settlement of our boundary lines with Great Britain. When the treaty of Ghent was being negotiated in 1814, and the American Commissioners met the English, the former were much surprised at the demand of the British for recognition of that treaty as the basis of negotiations for the western boundary of the United States. At first the English refused to negotiate except on that basis and insisted upon the entire sovereignty and independence of the Indian confederacy. They claimed the Indians as allies, and even subjects they were bound to protect in all their defined rights. It was a fact the Indians had received annuities, first from the French, and that afterward the English had continued these after the treaty of cession in 1763, and also after the acknowledgment of our independence. The Indians had annually sent delegations to Canada to receive these annuities. During the negotiation of this treaty it was brought to light, a fact that had been denied by the parties to it, that there had existed an alliance offensive and defensive between Tecumseh and the British. The American Commissioners peremptorily refused to recognize the sovereignty of the Indians, or that they had any right to dispose of their territory to a foreign power. The British Commissioners then proposed that the English and American powers arrange matters so that they might jointly exercise protectorate powers over the Indians, and consider all the territory not acknowledged to belong, by the treaty of Greenville, to the United States, as embraced within that proposed joint protectorate. This would have left six miles square of the heart | of the city of Chicago permanently Indian territory, and would have placed the upper Mississippi Valley exactly as was left the western slope which now includes Oregon and Washington Territory. These were long under this joint protectorate or joint occupation by the "United States and Great Britain. And the final result of the joint protectorate would have been a division of the territory, as was the case in Oregon, when perhaps all this portion of Illinois would have fallen to the portion of Canada, and in that event we would to-day have been Canadians instead of Illinoisians.

In 1787 we were a part of Virginia, as before stated, and were by that State erected at that time into the Northwest Territory, and became Illinois County. No one civil act in the country's history has exceeded in importance the celebrated ordinance of 1787 (July 7). By it the whole country northwest of the Ohio was constituted one district. A governor and secretary was provided for ; a court consisting of three judges was also provided for, and this court with the governor enacted laws for the government of the country; with many other provisos "the territory was not to be divided into less than three States, and at its option Congress might form one or two [more] States in that part which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan.' '' If the reader will keep in mind the words italicized, he will find it a convenient explanation of certain otherwise puzzling points that arose in fixing the north boundary line of this State ; but more especially when Wisconsin, when applying to be admitted as a State, put forth the claim to all that portion of northern Illinois to a line running due west from the extreme south bend of Lake Michigan.

October 6, 1789, President Washington wrote to Gov. St. Clair: "You will also proceed, as soon as you can with safety, to execute the orders of the late Congress respecting the inhabitants at Post Vincennes and at the Kaskaskias, and the other villages on the Mississippi." He says: "It is a subject of some importance, that the said inhabitants should, as soon as possible, possess the lands which they are entitled to, by some known and fixed principle." Accordingly in February, Gov. St. Clair and the Secretary, Winthrop Sargeant, arrived at Kaskaskia. The country within the bounds of our present State, extending northward to the mouth of the Little Mackinaw Creek on the Illinois River, was organized into a county and called after His Excellency, St. Clair, and this is therefore the mother county in Illinois. It was divided into three judicial districts, and three judges appointed; Cahokia was the county seat. Had our imaginary Bureauite been here then he could have gone to Cahokia if he wanted a marriage or liquor license, or to administer on his mother-in-law's estate.

By act of Congress, May 7, 1800, the Territory of the Northwest was divided, and all that part of it lying westward of a line beginning on the Ohio River opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River, running thence north via Fort Recovery to the British Possessions, was consti tuted a separate territory and called

Indiana. This comprised the present States of Indiana (except a small strip on the eastern side of the State), Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. The white population at that time in all this vast region was estimated at 4,875, about the population of the city of Pri oceton. Had they been evenly scattered over the country it would have been, in Yankee parlance, " a right smart step " between neighbors.

In 1803 Louisiana was purchased from France and annexed to the Indiana Territory, and thus again we became a part of Louisiana. But this was of very short duration, as in ] 805 Louisiana was detached and erected into a separate Territory. At this time Aaron Burr entered upon his treasonable effort to wrest from the United States this territory of the Mississippi Valley. He visited Vincennes and Kaskaskia and by his smooth and artful tongue induced in each place a few to consent to become his followers. But the scheme was soon exposed and he was arrested in Mississippi in 1807.

We were a part of Indiana for nine years. By act of Congress, February 3, 1809, Illinois was created and set apart from Indiana. This included not only the boundaries of the present State but all of "Wisconsin, the whole containing an estimated population of 9,000. Still, had the people been evenly distributed over the country the neighbors' chickens would have been kept separated without very high picket fences between them. Ninian Edwards became Governor of the Territory of Illinois.

April 28, 1809, Illinois was divided into two counties, St. Clair and Randolph. Then the imaginary Bureauite would have received his mail " Shakerag, St. Clair County, Territory of Illinois," and if he had wanted a squaw, by marriage, unless he had done as the officers of the army often did in those days, buy one, he would have had to go to Cahokia for his license. In September, 1812, Madison County was created and that then included all this part of Illinois, and we could all then attend court at Edwardsville.

In March, 1819, we would, had we all been here then, have become citizens of Clark County, with our county seat at Palestine, on the Wabash Kiver.

In January, 1821, we would, without any act of our own, have all become citizens of Pike County, and could have joined in the refrain of ''Joe Bowers, all the way from Pike." In January, 1823, never leaving home, we would all have been in Fulton County. Then in 1825 in Peoria County, and the same year we were placed in Putnam County, provided it had enough people to organize, and it seems it did not have, as the steps to really form Putnam County were not taken until 1831, and we remained in happy content until 1837, when poor Putnam County was divided, as the clown cut off the dog's tail, "just behind the ears," and Bureau County came into existence

As a part of the history of the abstract to all our land titles in this portion of Illinois, it may not be amiss to here note the fact that the French had for a century lived with the Indians, and there had been no serious disputes as to the titles to the lands. At the conclusion of the Revolution and when Washington was President, and the present race of men were commencing that flow of immigration that has never ceased, the Indians confederated together and determined to contest the right of these " white dogs " to come among them. They took the position that the Ohio River was the extreme northwestern boundary line, and thus, commencing at Pittsburgh, all the Northwest should be left to them " as long as grass grows and water runs. " Pontiac, and then Tecumseh and finally Black Hawk, were the respective Indian leaders in wan-ing upon the white invasion. Every defeat of the Indians was followed by new treaties, in which the red man moved west and the Saxon extended his dominion across the upper Mississippi Valley, and it was the final treaty with Black Hawk, in 1832, after his defeat and capture, that forever settled the title to the lands in Bureau, or in fact, to all territory east of the Mississippi River.