Bureau County, Illinois - Chapter 5: The Grand March of Empire - the Marvels in the Sweep of, 1885

THE GRAND MARCH OF EMPIRE - THE MARVELS IN THE SWEEP OF POPULATION - THE MARCH OF ONE HUNDRED YEAES - THE ACT or THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY CREATING BUREAU COUNTY - ETC., ETC.

IN the preceding chapter is traced the genealogy of the county down to the period of its formation and the commencement of its municipal existence under its present designation of Bureau County. The geological history, involving to some slight extent, the play of nature's great forces, and aeons of time in continent-building were first referred to ; the strata which are the base upon which rests the crust of the earth's surface, and the surface itself, and the long and slow process of forming our prairies, and the preparations that were made for the corning of animate life, and eventually of man, were briefly touched upon; and then following cursorily the evidences that for millions of years different races of men were here and had passed away before the coming of the red men and their congeners; and from such hasty glimpses, we catch enough to tell us something of the weird and wonderful story that is contained in the little world, even that is bounded by the bending horizon of each living inhabitant of this particular portion of the globe. The mind staggers under the astounding revelations of the historian, and at the same time, if the picture has been at all drawn to the facts, they have enlarged the views of the student, and, it is hoped, will broaden the average ideas of men and materially aid them in grasping those larger and more generous plans of human life that will ennoble and better the condition of all. The plan of this work compelled only the briefest allusion to the past, so slight indeed, that it is feared the majority of readers will fail to feel the impress of the important hints it gives, and thereby lose much of value and deep interest. With this expression of perhaps a groundless regret, we turn from the Then to the Now, and what do we find? A story that grows, if that is possible, in interest as we approach our own age and time.

Nothing in the history of the globe is so extraordinary in its topographical and moral results as the vast western march of the American people within a hundred years. Let us look, for instance, at the excellent French map of what constituted the northern part of the United States in 1798. The western boundary of the visible settlement is the Genesee River of New York. The names on the Hudson are like the names of to-day; all beyond is strange. No railroad, no canal ; only a turnpike running to the Genesee, and with no further track to mark the way through the forest to " Buffalooe " on the far-off lake. Along this turnpike are settlements - " Schenectady," " Canajobary,'' " Schuyler or Utica," "Ft. Stenwich or Rome," " Oneida Cassle,"

" Onondaga Cassle," " Geneva " and " Canandargue," where the road turns north to Lake Ontario. Forests cover all western New York, all northwestern Pennsylvania. Far off in Ohio is a detached region indicated I as ' ' the Connecticut Reserve, conceded to the families who had been ruined during the war of independence," whence our modern phrase " Western Reserve. " The summary of the whole map is that the United States still consisted of the region east of the Alleghanies, with a few outlying settlements, and nothing more.

Now pass over twenty years. In the map prefixed to William Darby's tour from New York to Detroit in 1818 - this Darby being the author of an emigrant's guide and a member of the New York Historical Society - we find no State west of the Mississippi except Missouri, and scarcely any towns in Indiana or Illinois. Michigan Territory is designated, but across the whole western half of it is the inscription: ''This part very imperfectly known." All beyond Lake Michigan and all west of the Mississippi is a nameless waste, except for a few names of rivers and of Indian villages. This marks the progress - and a very considerable progress - of twenty years. Writing from Buffalo (now spelled correctly), Darby says: " The beautiful and highly-cultivated lands of the strait of Erie are now a specimen of what in forty years will be the landscape from Erie to Chicaga [sic]. It is a very gratifying anticipation to behold in fancy the epoch to come, when this augmenting mass of the population will enjoy in the interior of this vast continent a choice collection of immense marts, where the produce of the banks of innumerable rivers and lakes can be exchanged."

"Where is this prodigious increase of numbers, this vast extension of dominion to end? What bounds has nature set to the progress of this mighty nation? Let our jealousy burn as it may, let our intolerance of America be as unreasonably violent as we please, still it is plain that she is a power in spite of us, rapidly rising to the supremacy; or, at least, that each year so mightily augments her strength as to overtake, by a most sensible distance, even the most formidable of her competitors."

This was written, it must be remembered, when the whole population of the United States was but little more than 9,000,000, or about the present population of New York and Pennsylvania taken together.

What were the first channels for this great transfer of population? The great turnpike road up the Mohawk Valley in New York; and farther south, the "National road," which ended at Wheeling, Va. Old men, now or recently living, as, for instance, Sewall Newhouse, the trapper and trap maker of Oneida, can recall the long lines of broadwheeled wagons drawn by ten horses, forty of these teams sometimes coming in close succession; the stages, six of which were sometimes in sight at once; the casualties, the breakdowns, the sloughs of despond, the passengers at work with fence rails to pry out the vehicle from a mud-hole. These sights, now disappearing on the shores of the Pacific, were then familiar in the heart of what is now the East. This was the tide flowing westward; while eastward, on the other hand, there soon begins a counter-current of flocks and herds sent from the new settlements to supply the older States. As early as 1824 Timothy Flint records meeting a drove of more than a thousand cattle and swine, rough and shaggy as wolves, guided toward the Philadelphia market by a herdsman looking as untamed as themselves, and coming from Ohio, "a name which still sounded incur ears," Flint says, " like the land of savages." The group so well known in our literature, the emigrant family, the way-side tire, the high-peaked wagon, the exhausted oxen, this picture recedes steadily in space as we come nearer to our own time. In 1788 it set off with the first settlers from Massachusetts to seek Ohio; in 1798 it was just leaving the Hudson to ascend the Mohawk River; in 1815 the hero of Lawrie Todd saw it at Rochester, N. Y. ; in 1819 Darby met it near Detroit, Mich.; in 1824 Flint saw it in Missouri; in 1831 Alexander depicted it in Tennessee; in 1843 Margaret Fuller Ossoli sketched it beyond Chicago, 111. ; in 1856 in Nebraska and Kansas; in 1864 Clarence King described it in his admirable sketch, "Way-side Pikes," in California; in 1882 Mrs. Leighton in her charming letters pictures it at Puget Sound, beyond which, as it has reached the Pacific, it cannot advance. From this continent the emigrant group in its original form has almost vanished; the process of spreading emigration by steam is less picturesque but more rapid.

The newly published volumes of the United States census for 1880 give, witlTan accuracy of detail such as the world never before saw, the panorama of this vast westward march. It is a matter of national pride to see how its ever- changing phases have been caught and photographed in these volumes, in ways such as the countries of the older world have never equaled, though it would seem much easier to depict their more fixed conditions. The Austrian newspapers complain that no one in that nation knows at this moment, for instance, the center of

Austrian population; while the successive centers for the United States are here exhibited on a chart with a precision as great, and an impressiveness to the imagination aa vast, as when astronomers represent for us the successive positions of a planet. Like the shadow thrown by the hand of some great clock, this inevitable point advances year by year across the continent, sometimes four miles a year, sometimes eight miles, but always advancing. And with this striking summary, the census report gives us a ' series of successive representations and colored charts, at ten-year intervals, of the gradual expansion and filling-in of population over the whole territory of the United States. No romance is so fascinating as the thoughts suggested by these silent sheets, each line and tint representing the unspoken sacrifices and fatigues of thousands of nameless men and women. Let us consider for a moment these successive indications.

In the map for 1790 the whole population is on the eastern slope of the Appalachian range, except a slight spur of emigration reaching westward from Pennsylvania and Virginia, and a detached settlement in Kentucky. The average depth of the strip of civilization, measuring back from the Atlantic westward, is but 335 miles. In 1800 there is some densening of population within the old lines, and a western movement along the Mohawk in New York State, while the Kentucky basis of population has spread down into Tennessee. In 1810 all New York, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky are well sprinkled with population, which begins to invade southern Ohio also, while the Territory of Orleans has a share; and Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, the Mississippi Territory - including Mississippi and Alabama - are still almost or quite untouched. In 1820 Ohio, or two-thirds of it, shows signs of civilized occupation; and the settlements around Detroit, which so impressed Darby, have joined those in Ohio; Tennessee is well occupied, as is southern Indiana; while Illinois, Wisconsin and Alabama have rills of population adjoining the Indian tribes, not yet removed, still retarding southern settlements. In 1830 - Adams' administration now being closed - Indiana is nearly covered with population, Illinois more than half; there is hardly any unsettled land in Ohio, while Michigan is beginning to be occupied. Population has spread up the Missouri to the' north of Kansas River: and, further south, Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas begin to show for something. But nven in 1830 the center of population is in Moorefield, Western Virginia, not yet moving westward at the rate of more than five miles a year.

This is but a short scene in this wonderful drama of state building - populating a belt across a hemisphere, within certain lines of latitude indicated by the soil and climate, as the working grounds of what will some day be the most historic people that have ever lived.

Hon. John Wentworth says that the Black Hawk war, 1S32. was what led to the real discovery and settlement of the Upper Mississippi Valley. Evidently it was the marching of these soldiers through what is now this county, that first made known to the real pioneer people, those hardy and heroic advance couriers of civilization who eventually came here with a fired determination of staying, the wonderful country that awaited their coming.

As noticed in the preceding chapter, this county was carved out of Putnam County, and the Illinois River was mainly the dividing line. It was the topography of the country that not only fixed the boundary of the new county, but that compelled the people to seek the aid of the legislature in bringing about the division that would enable those west of the river to have their own county seat and trading point of access without compelling them to cross the river and the often impassable roads across the river bottom in the approach to Hennepin.

Hence, as early as 1833 interested parties, living on this side of the river, began to attend the sessions of the Legislature at Yandalia. praying the assembly for relief, and that a new county be created.

SECTION 1. Bt it tnaettti. etc.. That all that tract , of country lying within the following boundaries. i to-wit: Beginning at the northeast of Putnam I County,, running thence south on the east boundary line of said couuu to the center of the main channel of the Illinois River: thence down the main channel of said river to the place where the line dividing Townships fourteen and fifteen north intersects said river: thence west on said line to the west line of said county; thence north on the western line of said county to the northern boundary thereof: and thence east with said county line to the place of beginning, shall be created into a new county, to be called the county of Bureau. 7V»»i'<t«< ktnrtrf That the legal voters of the old county of Putnam, including also, the voters of the contemplated county of Bureau, shall be given for the creation of said county as hereinafter provided.

SEC. 3. That on the first Monday in April next, there shall be an election held at the several precincts in the present county of Putnam, and the polls shall be open to receive votes for and against the creation of the aforesaid county of Bureau. Said election shall be opened and conducted in all respects in the same manner, and by the same judges as other elections in this State are: and if a majority of the votes given shall be given in favor of the formation of such new county, then the said county of Bureau shall be considered and taken as permanently and legally established with the aforesaid boundaries.

SBC, 8. That William Stadden. Peter Butler and Benjamin Mitchell are hereby appointed commissioners to locate the seat of Justice for said new county. Said commissioners or a majority of them shall meet at the town of Princeton on the first Monday of May next or as soon thereafter as may be. and be first duly sworn before some justice of the peace faithfully to take into consideration the convenience of the people, the situation of the settlements, with an eye to future population and eligibility of the place, shall proceed to locate the county seat of said county. If said commissioners shall select any town already laid off they shall require the proprietors or owners of said town to donate to said new county for the purpose of erecting public buildings, a quantity of lots of an average value with the remaining ones, which together shall amount to twenty acres of land, or shall donate and give in lieu thereof not less than $5,- 000. And if said commissioners shall locate said county seat on land not having been laid off into town lots, they shall secure the title to not less than twenty acres to and for the use of said new county, and the court house shall be located on the same.

SEC. 4. That the legal voters of said county shall meet at the several places of holding elections on the first Monday in June next, and proceed to elect county officers, and returns of said election shall be made by the judges and clerks to the justices of the peace of said county; said justices shall meet at the town of Princeton, within seven days after said election, and proceed to open said returns, and in all things perform the duties required by law of the clerks of the county commissioners courts, and justices of the peace in like cases.

SEC. 5. That the county commissioners court shall meet at Princeton within ten days after their election, and being first duly qualified shall proceed to appoint a clerk, and lay off the county into justices' districts and order an election to be held for the purpose of electing additional justices of the peace and constables for said county, and all officers elected agreeably to the provisions of this act shall be commissioned and qualified as required by law; all officers shall hold their office until the nest general election and until their successors are elected and qualified. Provided. That nothing in this section shall be so construed as to repeal out of office any justice of the peace or constable elected for the county of Putnam and living within the limits of said new county.

SEC. 6. Provides for the holding of courts at some suitable place, designated by the commissioners, until a court house and county building can be provided. The Circuit Court to be holden twice a year.