Iroquois County, Illinois - Chapter 23: Gen. Clark's Conquest of "the Illinois., 1880 (part 4 of 6)

At the March term, 1843, it was ordered that a court-house be built on the public square in Middleport. Certain dimensions, together with the general features of a plan, were specified, and a committee named to procure a plan and to estimate the cost. Acting on the report rendered that day. the commissioners, on the 10th of April, appointed Lorenzo I). Xorthnip. Charles Gardner, Isaac ( 'ourtright, Samuel Harper and .John llarwood a building committee. The dimensions were slightly changed. The building was to be 37£ feet square, of two twelve-toot stories; and the committee was limited to $1,506, fifty-two town lots in Middleport, and the saline land in Vermilion county for its inclosure. The town lots included those which had already been sold. s.SoO were appropriated from the treasury to begin the work. The house was of brick, -4-0x40 feet, with a square roof, surmounted by a belfry, which was never furnished with a bell. The first floor was laid with brick and kept covered with sawdust to render it noiseless; this was the courtroom. The offices and jury rooms were up-stairs.

By the fire of October 16, 1866, a part of the county records, on which we have thus far depended for information, were destroyed. The hiatus extends to September 23, 1861, about eighteen and onehalf years. Through this period we are as a traveler that wanders in a desert.

The saline land above referred to was a part of the salines situated in Yermilion county, and which were granted to the two counties by the state in 1837, for the purpose of building a bridge across each the Yermilion and Iroquois rivers. When Illinois was a territory the salt springs on these lands were considered valuable for the manufacture of salt, and were reserved from sale and leased by the government ; but the management of them proving unprofitable and troublesome, the lands were ceded to the state. Salt-making at these springs was abandoned many years ago. The amount of land apportioned to Iroquois county we have not been able to learn, but it was inconsiderable. Mr. Stanley states that he was empowered to sell the land, and that he went to Yermilion county and exchanged -a tract (either 40 or 80 acres) for a horse, which was disposed of in Chicago, and the proceeds arj^ed on the court-house. Joseph B. Dean had the first contract to 1^ the brick. In June, 1845, the walls had been reared about four feet; all the funds on hand had been expended, and work was discontinued. George B. Joiner and William Pierce were now appointed commissioners to superintend the further construction. New contracts we*e made, and it is thought that Aaron Hoel and his son burned the rest of the brick, and that Spencer Case did the mason work. The Hebrews were required to make brick without straw, - a thing scarc%y Aore difficult than this committee had to do when it was forced to build a court-house without money. They disbursed county orders till these were so depreciated toward the close, that they paid them out at half their face value. The contractors who accepted them were compelled to negotiate them a^ 75 per cent discount.

To encourage settlement, public lands were exempted from taxation five years from the date of entry. While this was, no doubt, a judicious course, it can be understood t^at the resources of the public treasury were so disproportioned t<ra population at most small in number, it was nearly impossible for the people to proceed with public improvements. The building was inclosed in 184B, and near the end of the year it was first used for holding court ^JW it was not completed and furnished, and the offices occupied unt^Bl^fcext summer. It would be interesting to note the difficmtie^MrcT delays by which the completion of the first court-house was retarjred four years , were the facts accessible, but it can now only be said that it cost a patient and protracted effort, and in the end left an onerous debt. A special act was passed February 16, 1847, authorizing the county commissioners to borrow a sum of money not to exceed $1,000, to finish the court-house, or to redeem orders issued for that purpose, for which they might execute notes or bonds with interest at a rate not over 12 per cent. In 1851 another act was procured empowering the county court to levy a special tax of o-ne mill upon every one hundred dollars' worth of taxable property, which was, when collected, to be kept as a separate fund for the payment of debts incurred in building the court-house, and if any surplus remained, it was to be applied to the erection of a jail.

The constitution of 1848 did away with probate justices and county commissioners' courts, and provided for county courts. The general assembly, at its first session after the adoption of the constitution, enacted a law (February, 1849) establishing county courts with probate jurisdiction, and providing that two associate justices of the peace having county jurisdiction, to be elected by each county at large, should sit with the county judge, and that th^lcourt, as thus organized, should possess and exercise the same plwers as had belonged to the old commissioners' court. The judge, sitting by himself, constituted a court for the transaction of probate business. These officers were to be elected every four years.

John Chamberlain was the first county judge of Iroquois county, and was elected to that office in November, 1849, filling it three consecutive terms. He was a man of strongly marked personal character ; possessed decided convictiojis ;^< 1 commanding ability ; and as an orator and lawyer, superior powers. By conferring freely with men he always had so exact a knowledge of current popular feeling that it seemed as if he had a prescience of events. His habits in this% particular were remarkable enough to require mention. With rare subtlety he drew from others what they would conceal, without compromising his own information. This was done with diplomatic art, and scarcely left a sensible impression of his mastery. The advantages so gained he dic^iot fail to make an element of success in objects which "forever remamed in the custody of his own consciousness. He was dark and difficult to fathom ; mistrustful of men, diligent in detail, long headed, slow to act, but eminently energetic and unshriiikiniji^ien the time of action came. His sagacity was always equal to J^^Lcasion. In private life he displayed the traits and practiced CT^^Brts%f genuine benevolence. He was tall of stature, nnd of strikin^appearaiice. When he undertook the control of the county government its fiscal affairs were in a deplorable condition. County orders were bringing but thirty-seven and a half cents on the dollar. The judge addressed himself with zeal to the restoration of the county credit. In less than four years under his administration the whole debt was redeemed, and orders were at a premium for taxes ; but they fell again somewhat below par, when the liability of $50,000 was incurred in aid of the Peoria & Oquawka Eastern Extension railroad, - a measure against which he opposed an earnest, vigorous, but unavailing remonstrance.

In 1846 Micajah Stanley went to the legislature from this county. The navigation of the Kankakee and Iroquois rivers had excited much interest and been warmly discussed and advocated since any considerable settlement had been made in the county. The feeling had become so earnest that this question was the staple of thought and conversation - the single idea of the public mind. Mr. Stanley brought forward a bill chartering "The Kankakee and Iroquois Navigation and Manufacturing Company," which was passed and approved February 15, 1847, granting this corporation full control of the improvement of the two rivers for navigation, and also all the use and control of the water-power thereon for the term of fifty years. Several amendatory acts have taken effect, but none of them changing the original powers granted. Fifty thousand dollars were raised by stock subscriptions and expended on a dam and lock at Wilmington, which was swept away by high water the next spring after it was completed. By a law in force February 12, 1849, the county court of Iroquois county was granted power to levy and cause to be collected a tax not to exceed $1 upon each $100 worth of taxable property for the purpose of improving the Kankakee and Iroquois rivers, provided that upon thirty-days notice previous to a general election a majority of the votes cast upon the question should be in favor of the tax. We do not know that any money was raised in this way, and it is doubtful if the question was submitted to the people, Judge Chamberlain, though favorable to the improvement of these streams, and taking an active interest in the design, being, as is evidenced by other acts of his, opposed to such a plan for raising funds in the then exhausted condition of the county, and the low state of its credit. The company made the Kankakee navigable by slack-water to Wilmington, connecting that city with the Illinois and Michigan canal. Then th,e work slumbered some time, so far as the general public was coJmrned. Again, in the summer of 1862, fresh interest was arouse(r^n the project, and citizens of Troquois and Kankakee counties, and delegates from

Newton county, Indiana, held a public meeting at Middleport, on June 16, at which business committees were appointed, one of which was to examine and report on the subject preparatory to raising stock. This was composed of Dr. C. F. McNeill, chairman ; George B. Joiner, Michael Hogle and John Wilson of Iroquois county ; James McGrew and E. A. Webster, of Kankakee county ; G. W. Spitler, of Jasper county, Indiana, and A. B. Condit, of Newton county, Indiana. Condit was a practical engineer, and was appointed by GOT. Wright, of Indiana, in 1853, to do the engineering for the draining of the swamp lands in White, Jasper and Newton counties. It is stated in the k' Middleport Press " of that date, that he explained, by diagrams and otherwise, the practicability, at a very small cost, of making the rivers navigable at the driest season of the year, by slack-water, not only up to Middleport, but to Rensselaer, Indiana, by making a reservoir of Beaver lake. He further advocated the feasibility of a navigable eastern outlet by way of the Pinkamink and a seven-mile canal over a flat surface to the head of the Monon, and down that stream and the Tippecanoe river into the Wabash and Erie canal. At the meeting of July 2, the chairman read an exhaustive report showing the stage of the work, and also what was further required to be done, besides demonstrating its practicability and importance. But notwithstanding the enthusiasm of the hour, the absorbing and gigantic demands of the war coming suddenly in the form of calls for 600,000 volunteers, caused this local enterprise to be forgotten. " The Kankakee Company," an association of Massachusetts capitalists, of which Gov. Claflin is president, purchased the franchises and property of the old company, and are slowly prosecuting the extension of navigation on the Kankakee toward the state line. For a while after the building of the Chicago, Danville & Yincennes railroad the question of improving the Iroquois river was generally thought to be forever quieted, but in the winter of 1879-80 the agitation was again revived, and the attention of Hon. G. L. Fort, representative from the eighth congressional district, was invited to the subject with a view to bringing it before congress ; and petitions were circulated asking an appropriation for the work. In 1878 Mr. Fort introduced a bill in congress appropriating $50,000 for the survey and improvement of the Kankakee, but the amount was reduced to $10,000, with which an examination was made. In 1879 there was an appropriatjfcn of $28,000, and in the fall the river was again surveyed from Wilmington to a point one mile and a half above Momence, under the direction of Maj. Jared A. Smith, of the United States engineer corps.

In 1851 an attempt was made to form the county of Kankakee from Will and Iroquois. A law was enacted defining the boundaries and establishing the new county, subject to a vote of the people of the two counties to be affected, which was to betaken at a special election on the first Tuesday in April. The vote in Iroquois county stood 192 for and 554 against the proposition. More than threefourths of the minority vote was polled in Limestone and Polk precincts, which were situated on the Kankakee river. The attempt was renewed in the fall of 1852, when petitions were again circulated and signed, and on the assembling of the legislature they were laid before that body. The law relating to the formation of new counties required notice by advertisement and otherwise before the general assembly should act upon the petition, which notice it was charged had never been legally given. It further required that the lines of division or curtailment should be particularly described in the petition. The proposed new county, with the metes and bounds set forth in the petition not meeting with favor among the members of the legislature, the southern boundary was changed in the petition and fixed on a line farther north. A law was enacted February 11, 1853, establishing the county of Kankakee with the amended boundaries, provided that a majority of the voters of each of the counties of Will and Iroquois voting on the question should vote in favor of the measure. William Parish and James Lamb, of Iroquois county, were designated as commissioners to receive the return of the votes of their county. A special election was held on Tuesday, April 5, 1853. At the time of the election the Illinois Central railroad was in course of construction, and a great force of laborers were employed at that point in excavating and quarrying. This floating population was used at the polls in Limestone precinct, voting in phalanx for the new county. It was charged that irregularities were committed in the organization of the election board. In 1851 this precinct had cast 65 votes for the new county, and 27 against it, making a total of 92, which was said to be, and probably was, the full strength. At this election there were 360 votes polled, and all in favor of the proposed county. When the poll-lists were returned it was found that the judges and clerks had made no certificate. In consequence of the invalidity the return was thrown out by the canvassers, when the vote in the county stood 367 against, to 290 for, the new county. George W. Byrns, justice of the peace, who returned the poll-book and was chosen to assist in the canvass, refused to sign the certificate declaring the result. It was proposed by Byrns and others to procure a writ of mandamus to compel the board to accept the return, whereupon

Judge Chamberlain and the associate justice, William Pierce, sued out an injunction restraining the county clerk, Amos O. Whiteman, from making returns of the election, and the commissioners from receiving them. The regular April term of the circuit court should have begun on the 26th, when the case would have come up for hearing ; but the judge, Hon. Hugh Henderson, did not arrive, and so ordered a special term for July. May 9 was the time fixed by law for the election in Kankakee county to locate the seat of justice and elect officers, in case that the county should be established by the votes of the people. A. O. Whiteman, writing on this subject, says: "After the issue and service of the injunction, Orson Beebee (afterward judge of Kankakee county), Dr. Lyons, S. S. Vale, and several others, leading men of Momence and vicinity, came to Middleport and examined all the poll-lists of said election (including what purported to be a poll-book from Limestone precinct), and after due deliberation and legal advice from J. A. Whiteman, S. A. Washington, and others of the Iroquois county bar, were of the opinion that all would be right if they should proceed to organize the county of Kankakee." He further adds: "In May, a deputation consisting of Hon. William Pierce, Hon. Joseph Thomas and others whom I do not now remember, visited Springfield for the purpose of an interview with the attorney-general, Governor Joel A. Matteson, and Hon. T. H. Campbell, secretary of state, the result of which I do not know." The election was held on the day mentioned, and Kankakee county was fully organized. Taking into consideration all the circumstances, and the excitement having cooled off, the complainants thought it best to dismiss the injunction, which was accordingly done on their motion. Through the informal proceedings described, a part of Iroquois county was detached and Kankakee finally established ; and the people of the latter only narrowly succeeding had been obliged to forego the attempt to get a larger strip of territory. It had always been a favorite object with that county to get the remainder of township 29, and in 1867 an act was procured attaching it to Kankakee, if a majority of the voters of each county should consent. Accordingly an election was held May 14, 1867, at which the result in Iroquois county was 513 votes for annexation, and 1,095 against, thus defeating the scheme.

"The first efforts seriously made to construct railroads"* in the state of Illinois, was in the winter of 1832-3, when the legislature passed several charters to incorporate companies. The one for the

Central railroad, which was to extend from Peru to Cairo, was granted to Darius B. Holbrooke, a friend and partner of Judge Sidley Breese, by which latter gentleman this undertaking was first wrought, through a newspaper publication, into public notice. No ?tock was taken in this company, and at the session of the legislature of 1836-Y that body inaugurated a system of internal improvements, which was made to include the Illinois Central railroad, the >vhole to be under the control and at the expense of the state. Mr. [lolbrooke's charter was, consequently, repealed. Over a million lollars were spent on this single improvement when the financial 'evulsion of 1837 came on and bankrupted the state, and forced an ibandonment of all these works. Mr. Holbrooke asked and obtained i renewal of his charter, by which was granted to him and his asso- 2iates all the work that had been done on the line, provided that he should build the road. Judge Breese, then a senator of the United States, from Illinois, brought forward a bill from the committee of the public lands of the senate, conferring exclusive preemption privileges on Holbrooke to all the lands on each side -of the road at $1.25 per acre, for a period of ten years. Mr. Douglas denounced it as a gigantic scheme for speculation, and demonstrated that it would be injurious to the interest of the state. He then introduced in the senate the bill, which finally passed, granting to the state every alternate section within six miles of the road on each side of the main track and branches, designated by even numbers, to aid in its construction from the southern terminus of the Illinois and Michigan canal to Cairo, with a branch to Chicago, and another via Galena to a point on the Mississippi river opposite Dubuque, Iowa. For any lands embraced in this donation which might have been sold or preempted, the company was entitled to receive an equal amount to be selected from the public lands within fifteen miles on either side of the line by agents to be appointed by the governor. The lands reserved by the government within the six-mile limits were not to be sold for less than double the minimum price of the public lands. The road was to be commenced simultaneously at both extremities of the main line, and continued therefrom until completed ; and if not completed within ten years the grant should be forfeited. The inside history of this bill in detail, as related by Mr. Douglas himself, in a small work on constitutional and party questions, to which we are indebted for some of our facts, is of no little interest ; but we can refer only to a single incident. When introduced in congress it met with sufficient opposition in the house to defeat it by two votes, which proved in the end, and to the great satisfaction of all parties, with a single exception perhaps, a fortunate circumstance, owing to a certain fraudulent proceeding, probably of some engrossing clerk of the Illinois legislature, acting in the interest of Holbrooke, which transaction was discovered and exposed by Mr. Douglas himself. He then procured from Holbrooke a release of his charter for the road, which the recent discovery had shown to be necessary, and had it recorded in the office of the secretary of state at Springfield. The bill had received the opposition of the delegations from Alabama and Mississippi, and he felt that their cooperation was necessary. The Mobile railroad was then building, but had failed for want of means, and Mr. Douglas went to Alabama and held a conference with the president and directors, proposing to obtain for them a grant of lands by making it a part of his bill. This was readily accepted, and he quietly departed for Washington, desirous of not being seen in those parts, lest his influence upon the action of the legislatures of Alabama and Mississippi should be revealed to the senators and representatives in congress from those states. Before he left it had been arranged for the directors to procure from those legislatures instructions to their congressional delegations to support the bill. When the instructions reached them at Washington they were bewildered and in no good humor. It was amusing to Douglas when they came to him for his assistance. Concealing his secret gratification, and assuming an attitude of independence toward them till he could seem to yield, he at length consented to a proposition to amend his bill so as to make a grant to each of the states of Alabama and Mississippi, in the same manner as it did to Illinois. It then became a law, September 20, 1850. It had been ably advocated in the house by the representative from this district, the Hon. John Went worth. This explains how the two southern states came to be included ; as it also revives the memory of the fact that Mr. Douglas was the author and master-spirit of the measure. In 1859, he said : "If any man ever passed a bill, I did that one. I did the whole work, and was devoted to it for two entire years. The people of Illinois are beginning to forget it. It is said Douglas never made a speech upon it." And again: "The Illinois bill was the pioneer bill, and went through without a dollar, pure, uncorrupt, and is the only one that has worked well." * The grant was accepted, and on February 10, 1851, the act passed by the Illinois legislature incorporating the Central company was approved by the governor and became a law.

The incorporators were Robert Schuyler, George Griswold, Gouverneur Morris, Franklin Haven, David A. Neal, Robert Rantoul, Jr., Jonathan Sturgis, George "W. Ludlow, John F. A. Sanford, Henry Grinnell, Leroy Wiley, Joseph W. Alsop, and William H. Aspinwall. These gentlemen, exclusive of the one last named, were the first board of directors. The interest of the state was protected by appropriate guarantees that the road would be built, and the completion of the main line limited to four years. Near the close of this period the time was, without necessity, extended six months. The branches were to be finished in six years. All the work that had been done on this line by the state, and all the rights of every nature which it had acquired, were transferred to this company by its charter. The lands granted were to be exempt from taxation till sold and conveyed. It was afterward claimed that this provision of the law was retarding the development of the country wherever these lands were situated, as purchasers, instead of paying for their tracts and getting deeds from the company, kept renewing their contracts, thus evading taxation, and in 1873 a law was enacted requiring the trustees of the road to offer all unsold lands at public auction once every six months. The lands of this company were sold at prices ranging from $5 to $25 per acre, according to quality and location. The sale of lands within the six and fifteen-mile limits of the road was suspended by the commissioner of the general land office, September 20, 1850, by order of President Fillmore. Those granted to the Central Railroad Company were selected by David A. Neal, assisted some of the time by Col. R. B. Mason, the chief engineer, and the whole grant, save an inconsiderable amount, was certified, March 13, 1852 ; and the remainder of the lands within the railroad limits, which had been withdrawn from sale, were soon after placed in market by executive proclamation. In return for the grants and franchises conferred, the company was required to pay semi-annually into the state treasury, on the first Mondays of June and December of each year, a sum of money equal to seven per cent of the gross proceeds of the road, which revenue was to be applied to the payment of the interest-bearing indebtedness of the state until it should be extinguished. The constitution of 1870 makes this a perpetual obligation, and provides that after the extinction of the state debt the revenue from this source shall be used to defray the ordinary expenses of the state government. The amount of this revenue to the state of Illinois has been, to the end of 1879, over $8,000,000.

March, 1851 - there were but ninety-eight miles of railroad in the state, and this was laid with strap iron. The first engineering party was organized in Chicago, on May 21, 1851, and commenced preliminary surveys of the Chicago branch, making that city a point of departure, and by the middle of summer seven other parties had been organized and were in the field : at Freeport, La Salle, Bloomington, Decatur, Cairo and Urbana ; and the whole line was surveyed and located before the end of the year. The work of construction was begun at Cairo and La Salle about Christmas. The first contract for grading was made March 15, 1852, for the division between Chicago and Calumet, and that section was opened for travel by the middle of May. A long contest ensued with the city of Chicago for the privilege of entering the corporation and locating its line along the shore of Lake Michigan ; and at last, on June 14, the city council passed an ordinance granting permission. On May 15, 1853, the first sixty miles, from La Salle to Bloomington, was opened, arid the company commenced operating the road on its own account. In March the Chicago branch was extended to Blue Island, from which point a line of stages were run by Chipman and Wilcox to Middleport and Danville, furnishing the only regular communication which the county then had with the metropolis. The railroad was rapidly extended during the year, and just at its close was finished to Del Rey, which point the cars reached but little in advance of the new year. The company designed building machine-shops there, but land could not be obtained on liberal terms, and so they erected them at Champaign. We subjoin the following facts relating to the completion of the Chicago branch, which were first published in the Chicago "Daily Press," of November, 1856:

" Dates of opening by sections : Chicago to Calumet, 14 miles, May 15, 1852. Calumet to Kankakee, 42 miles, July 14, 1853. Kankakee to Spring Creek, 31 miles, December 2, 1853. Spring Creek to Pera, 22 miles, May 28, 1854. Pera to Urbana (Champaign), 20 miles, July 24, 1854. Urbana to Mattoon, 44 miles, June 25, 1855. Mattoon to Centralia, 77 miles, September 27, 1856. The main line, from Cairo to La Salle, 309 miles in length, was finished January 8, 1855. The Galena branch, from La Salle to Dunleith, 147 miles, was completed June 12, 1855." The total cost of the entire line was $36,500,000. The capital stock of the company is $29,000,000, and the debt $10,500,000. The general offices are at No. 78 Michigan avenue, Chicago. This road, by its network of branches and by its connections, furnishes direct communication with both the south and the northwest. Daily passenger trains are run between Chicago and

New Orleans, 915 miles, without change of cars, a transfer boat being used on the Ohio. St. Louis has, by this route, direct connection south as well as north. Between Chicago and St. Louis through trains are run, and Peoria and Keokuk also are reached without change. From Cairo connections are made with all principal points in the south. The company controls, by lease, the route to Sioux City, thus providing for Dakota travel and emigration. This is one of the best and most safely managed roads in the country. No other public improvement in Iroquois county has done so much for the material and intellectual advancement of her people as the Illinois Central railroad. It was opened at a time when attention began to be largely awakened in the east to the subject of making western homes, and the rich country is brought into com mini ication with the world, invited great numbers of settlers from the sterile lands and jostling population of New York and New England. The uniting of eastern culture with western sinew has produced most positive and important benefits to the county.

The Peoria & Oquawka Eastern Extension railroad was constructed east from Peoria. In 1859 it was styled Logansport, Peoria & Burlington, a few years later Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw, which name it retained until the transfer early in the present year, when it was changed to Toledo, Peoria & Western. The charter from the state bore date February 12, 1849, and has been several times amended. This important railway was built and put in operation in sections at considerable intervals, and its present line and connecting branches were not completed until 1871. The main line itself was not finished between Peoria and Warsaw but a little earlier. The citizens of this county early displayed a practical interest in the undertaking, by voting, under the law of 1849 providing for a general system of railroad incorporations, to take $50,000 of stock in the road. The election was held June 7, 1853, and the question was decided by a majority of 357. Prior to this the individual subscriptions taken in the county had reached the same amount. As soon as the result of the election was known, the county court being required to pay five per cent of the stock in money or in bonds, issued a bond for $2,500. The same per cent was also collected on the private subscriptions.

Col. Richard P. Morgan obtained the contract for grading and furnishing with ties all that portion of the eastern extension located between the Chicago & Mississippi (now Chicago, Alton & St. Louis) railroad and the town of Middleport. By this contract, made in September, 1854, the company assigned to him all the proceeds of subscriptions obtained, or to be obtained, in Iroquois county. He then entered into a contract, bearing date November 13, 1854, with the county court, by which he was to receive 75,000 acres of swamp lands at seventy-five cents per acre. When the stock was voted it was generally understood that it was to be paid for from the proceeds of these lands. Morgan bound himself to procure from the railroad company certificates of the full paid shares of stock, to be transferred or issued to the county, to the amount of the estimates by the company's engineers from time to time, and as such estimates should be presented the county court was to pay to Morgan an amount equal to the par value of the stock so presented, in cash, or by a deed or a bond for a deed, to such a part of the said 75,000 acres of swamp lands as should at that time be unsold. Seventy thousand acres of these lands were set apart, commencing at township 24, range 10 east, and proceeding north by succession of numbers in each range successively until the complement should be obtained, and the other five thousand were to be those which might be selected in any part of the county by the citizens who should bid them off at public auction, at a price exceeding seventy-five cents per acre. The selection was to include all lands of this description entered at the land office, and Morgan was to receive the proceeds of the same. He was also to be entitled to all receipts from the sales of swamp lands by the county, provided that he should expend the money accruing from the sale of the 75,000 acres on the railroad within the limits of this county. The court also agreed to convey to him all the remaining swamp lands after the sale of the 75,000 acres, at $1 per acre, whenever he should give satisfactory evidence that he could command from the sale of the residue means sufficient, by the addition of such securities as should be due from the company, to complete his contract. He was to pay for these lands with bonds of the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad Company, secured by mortgage on a portion of the road, to which bonds he would be entitled under his contract with that company. Morgan further stipulated that he would engineer and drain the lands free of charge before demanding a title, and also that all previous expenses in surveys or otherwise, made according to law. should be provided for from the proceeds of the lands. He was to receive the $2.500 bond which had been issued to the railroad company, and the lands purchased by him were to be exempt from county taxes for three years from the date of this contract. Owing to a feeling among capitalists that the title to these lands was uncertain, Morgan failed to obtain means to prosecute the work, and as he could not get money or land from the county only as that should be completed in sections and estimates made of the same, a lock was soon produced, leaving neither party capable of exercising separate power over the lands. The demand for them seemed to increase when it became known that they could not be sold. Settlers on adjoining tracts, as fast as they could accumulate means, were anxious to add some portion of these lands to their farms. The jobbers and speculators grew disquiet, for once a propitious circumstance, for their interest and discontent were sure to break the land embargo, if that were possible. Col. Morgan, selfwilled and impracticable, meanwhile refused to give any satisfactory assurance of his willingness to accede to an accommodation. Influential persons suggested to him the expedient of making a new contract with the county. Among these were Joseph Thomas and George B. Joiner. The latter finding him on an occasion in the right humor, pressed the matter upon his favorable notice, and the consequence was, that on the 18th of August, 1855, Col. Morgan surrendered his contract, and a new one was made. The county court covenanted with Morgan to pay the monthly installments on the $50,000 subscription in cash, or in county bonds drawing seven per cent semi-annual interest, principal to be paid in fifteen years, with a guaranty on the back of the bonds pledging the proceeds of the swamp lands for their payment. A reservation was made, by which the county was to retain a sum sufficient to defray all the expenses of the survey and selection, as well as the expense of quieting the contests of the title of the county to the lands. It was further agreed that the county should take steps to bring them immediately into market, and to pay Morgan the installments on the county subscription, either from the proceeds or with bonds, when he should procure from the Peoria & Oquawka company certificates of paid-up stock to the amount of the installments.

The court gave immediate public notice, through the columns of the "Middleport Press," to all who wished to purchase any of the swamp lands to make application to the county clerk by the 15th of September, and Monday, October 15, was set for the sale to commence. A second sale was held on May 6, 1856 ; these were the only public sales of swamp lands in Iroquois county. Up to this date the county court, which was vested by the special act of February 14, 1855, with power to appoint an engineer to survey the lands, had made no move in the matter, but on September 15, at a special term, they appointed Elkanah Doolittle, who subscribed the proper oath, and then nominated as his assistants, Robert Nilson, Benjamin F. Masters, George B. Joiner and Joseph Thomas, who were confirmed by the court. The lands were exainined and classified as first, second and third class, and appraised at $1.25, $1 and 75 cents per acre respectively. It will be necessary now to go back and trace up the history of the swamp land grant. By the provisions of an act of congress approved September 28, 1850, entitled "An act to enable the state of Arkansas and other states to reclaim the swamp lands within their limits," all the swamp and overflowed lands in the several states, unfit for cultivation at the date of the act, were granted to the states respectively. Every legal subdivision of land, the greater part of which was "wet and unfit for cultivation," was to be considered of this class. The reader's attention is invited to the condition upon which the cession was made, as expressed in the act, by which the title to these lands in fee-simple, vested in the state, viz: "That the proceeds of said lands, whether from sale or by direct appropriation in kind, should be applied exclusively, as far as necessary, to the purpose of reclaiming said lands by means of the levees and drains aforesaid." The legislature of Illinois, by an act in force June 22, 1852, granted to each county all the lands of this description within its boundaries so donated by the general government, and annexed the same condition as congress had before, " For the purpose of constructing the necessary levees and drains to reclaim the same ; and the balance of said lands, if any there be, after the same are reclaimed as aforesaid, shall be distributed in each county, equally, among the townships thereof, for the purposes of education ; or the same may be applied to the construction of roads and bridges, or to such other purposes as may be deemed expedient by the courts or county judge hereinafter mentioned desiring so to apply it." The control and disposition of these lands was vested in the county courts. By an act approved March 4, 1854, the control was changed to the board of supervisors in counties under township organization. All swamp tracts which had been sold by the government after the passage of this act of the general assembly, were to be conveyed by the county in which they were situated to the purchaser, who was to assign all his rights in the premises, and as such assignee the county was authorized to receive the .purchase-money from the United States. Likewise, any which had been located by warrants after the passage of the act of congress were to be conveyed by the county, when the locator was to assign the warrant to the county judge, who was then to be regarded as the assignee of the state, and as such was empowered to locate the same on any of the public lands. In case that any had been appropriated in any other manner after the dona-

The grant to the state for the building of the Illinois Central railroad was made September 20, 1850, eight days anterior to the passage of the swamp land act. By a ruling of the secretary of the interior in 1855, which is held to be binding on his successors, the state has been deprived of the swamp lands lying within the six-mile limit of that thoroughfare, the title to which remained in the United States.

" The history of the operations under the grant, however, reveal the fact that in the years of land speculation immediately following its passage, many of the lands conveyed by the grant were entered with cash or located with warrants by individuals. As a result of this, contests arose as to the actual character of the lands thus disposed of, and the land bureau found itself overwhelmed with conflicting claims of this description. The process of adjusting these conflicts was necessarily slow, and congress intervened to relieve the department and at the same time relieve the individual purchasers and locators. By act of March 2, 1855, all sales and locations made to that date were confirmed, and upon presentation of proof that the lands were actually swamp, the state was allowed indemnity, to be paid in cash where cash had been received, and in other lands where the swamp lands had been taken by warrant locations. Now it cannot be gainsaid, in view of the strong array of judicial decisions on the subject, that had the state of Illinois chosen to contest the right of the government to thus dispose of lands previously granted to her, she could have successfully done so. The moment the swamp grant was approved, the title to the lands vested in the state, and were as much beyond the power of the government to again dispose of them as if it had never owned them. In a spirit of accommodation, however, and to afford relief to many of her citizens who had ignorantly purchased these lands, the state of Illinois acquiesced in the plan of relief embodied in the act of 1855, and agreed to relinquish her claim to the land, and accepted the proffered indemnity."*

From these complications have arisen a mass of claims which are yet unadjusted, though legislation is now pending in congress for their settlement, the importance and magnitude of which claims will appear farther on.

The general law of 1852, granting the lands to the counties in which situated, was not - adopting Judge Chamberlain's own language - satisfactory either to Col. Morgan or to the county court, as it did not authorize or justify the application of the lands to the payment of bonds used in constructing that part of the railroad lying without and beyond the limits of the county. Before, then, the avails of the lands could be pledged to the payment or security of the bonds, the proceeds of which were to be expended as well on that part of the Eastern Extension lying without as within the county, the law had to be changed. It therefore became expedient, if not necessary, to procure a special act applicable to this new state of things. Other counties had set the example of getting special acts from the state to suit existing emergencies, and advance certain objects. Judge Chamberlain and Col. Morgan attended the legislature and obtained the passage of a law, entitled "An act to expedite and insure the thorough drainage of the swamp lands of Iroquois county, and to facilitate the sale thereof," in force February 14, 1855. This act is so important to a full understanding of the subject that we shall be justified in giving a synopsis of the principal portions. The county court of Iroquois county was authorized to appoint an engineer, with assistants, to survey the swamp lands, who should recommend to the court an effectual and thorough system of drainage, and make such rules, regulations and compensations as would insure the draining of the lands. From the maps and reports of the engineer the court was to place a valuation on each piece, and to fix the price to be allowed for drainage ; the judge was empowered to sell the same at public or private sale under the direction of the county court, either in large or small tracts. But those contiguous to improved farms were to be sold at public vendue after thirtydays notice in some newspaper in the county, at prices not below the appraised value. The surplus arising from the sales over and above the cost of drainage, was to be applied by the county court in payment for the capital stock of the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad Company on that part of the Eastern Extension situated between Middleport and the Chicago & Mississippi railroad ; also in payment of such other securities of that company as the court might deem expedient ; and to appropriate such portions thereof to school and other purposes as they might think advisable. Payments by purchasers were to be made to the county treasurer, in cash, or such securities as the court should deem sufficient, on the day of sale or the succeeding day, the cost of drainage first to be deducted therefrom. A certificate was to be given for lands sold subject to drain- age, and whenever the drainage should be completed in conformity with the system which the county court should adopt, deeds were to be executed. The balance due for draining each tract might remain unpaid by the purchaser for eight months after the day of sale ; but if the estimated cost should not be paid, or if the labor of draining should not be performed within that time, the land should revert, and the money advanced should be forfeited to the county. Authority was given to receive for all the swamp lands, any money, scrip, warrant or other evidence of entry which should be issued by congress to the state of Illinois, the same to be subject to the order of the county court. Iroquois county was exempted from all the provisions of the general laws enacted to fix the mode of draining and selling the swamp lands which conflicted with this act.

Only a little while now elapsed till a disagreement arose, Judge Chamberlain says, "Between Col. Morgan and the county court, as to the policy of issuing county bonds as fast as, and to the extent that he desired ; and also as to the policy of giving to him the swamp lands with no very good prospect of realizing anything for them, but with the strong probability of losing them entirely." Charges and denunciations were freely indulged at the expense of the court. Distrust of its capacity and integrity grew apace, until it had deteriorated so much in public favor that this became the chief argument in support of township organization. "Writing in his own defense in 185T, Judge Chamberlain used the following language in regard to Col. Morgan, which is an authoritative explanation of the reasons for resisting his importunities: "His extravagance and folly, and utter incapacity to take care of any financial business was such that there was not, as I believe, 25 per cent worth of work done, with the avails of the bonds, on the road. The bonds were literally squandered, and lost both to him and the county. But where should we have been now if Col. Morgan had gotten the swamp lands ? Judging by the estimates of work he obtained and presented for the bonds, he could have received any amount of certificates and presented for the lands. It was not the business of the court, but of the railroad company, to look after the estimates. Had he received the lands, it is fair to presume, such was his recklessness in other matters, that he would have sold them for a slight consideration."

At the general election in November, 1855, the township system of local government was adopted. Robert Kilson, Dr. William Fowler and Foreman Moore were commissioners to district the county into political townships. The original number was eleven, as follows : Ash Grove, Beaver, Belmont, Concord, Chebanse, Crab

Apple, Loda, Milford, Middleport, Onarga and Wygant. Let us turn again to the Peoria & Oquawka Eastern Extension railroad. The grading of the Middleport division, under contract to Morgan, was done without any of the usual energy displayed on such improvements, and several times labor was wholly remitted. Work on the west end of the Middleport division was continued until the track was laid to Gil man. That portion of the line was opened for business, and the first train ran over it September 21, 1857. At the close of the year 1853 a sub-contract was taken by Sherman & Patterson, and Chamberlain & Thomas, of Middleport, who graded one mile of the route west from that place. This lay several years serving no other purpose than to keep in memory what was expressively termed, after the bonds had all been issued without a better prospect of seeing the work completed, the "dead horse" railroad. These men received three of the county bonds, which were paid by the county before the intervention of the Tallman arrangement.

Conflicting interests concerning the location of the route at Middleport retarded, in some degree, the construction of the line. It was surveyed to the Old Town, but disagreements occurring in regard to depot grounds, and a proposition on that point being entertained from Micajah Stanley, it was laid out and finally built on the present route. These cross-purposes furnished a pretext for the private subscribers to the capital stock to refuse to make payment. Fearing that they would be a total loss, the county court refused to issue the bonds. As has been elsewhere remarked, Judge Chamberlain was from the first strenuously opposed to the county's taking stock in the road, and exerted all his influence, by making speeches and otherwise, to prevent it. In May, 1856, $19,000 of bonds were outstanding. Some of the first had been taken in and renewed for reasons not ascertained, nor even conjectured, unless because of the new arrangement made by which Morgan was to receive the bonds from the county. These bonds were executed with great reluctance by the county court, but the pressure of public opinion was irresistible. The measure was warmly advocated by such leading and influential men as Micajah Stanley, William Pierce and Joseph Thomas. At the second session of the board of supervisors, May 30 and 31, a special meeting convened to appoint a person to represent the interests of the county in the election of the board of directors of the Peoria & Oquawka railroad for the ensuing year, Joseph Thomas was appointed agent ; and the county treasurer was directed to deliver to Col. Morgan on the presentation of certified full paid stock, bonds sufficient to cancel the same, in pursuance of the contract existing between him and the county. The bonds were at this time executed and held by the treasurer. On June 3 following, the contract with Tallman, which will be noticed at length hereafter, was made, and at this time there were outstanding, as shown by this contract, thirty-one bonds, an increase of the bonded indebtedness in two weeks by $12,000.

The grading between Middleport and Gilman was well advanced, and the bridges on the principal streams were raised. Fresh efforts were made by Morgan to obtain private aid for the road, but beyond getting hold of the county bonds he accomplished nothing. The diverse interests which were operating to locate the line, one at Middleport and the other where it now is, brought matters to a crisisbetween Morgan and the company. He decided to run the track to- Middleport, when some who were interested in the New Town, among them Mr. Stanley, the proprietor, who donated 10 acres for a station, appealed to the company, and his purpose was reversed and contract terminated. This resulted in litigation in wjiich Morgan recovered judgment against the company for $50,000. The following spring, 1857, this division being extended to the state line where connection was to be made with the Toledo, Logansport & Burlington railroad, and its construction in new hands - T. C. Field, of New York, and other contractors - witnessed a renewal of interest in the enterprise, and private subscriptions secured by mortgage on real estate, amounting to $47,000, payable on completion of the road to the state line, but void if not so completed by January 1, 1859, were obtained by George B. Joiner, agent for the company. But the hope raised and confidence inspired by the new energy apparently infused into the project underwent again, as grading was not resumed for two years, a mortifying transition. Both the company and the people continually realized defeats and disappointments. In the "Iroquois Kepublican," August 26, 1858, Dr. Blades thus alludes to this matter : " For years the company have struggled with counter railroad interests and schemes, and have thus far defeated them ; have struggled with enemies within its own organization, and have exposed and rid themselves of such enemies ; have struggled beneath pecuniary depressions that would have completely crushed most other enterprises, yet through it all, in spite of all, they have built 180 miles of the road. * * * Our people have waited, and wished, and hoped, and wondered, and have at last settled down into a kind of apathetic feeling somewhere between indifference and despair." The stock subscriptions taken by Mr. Joiner two years before were forfeited.

In the spring of 1859 the company caused it to be made known that unless the people should aid the road with at least $25,000 its completion would' have to be abandoned, perhaps for years ; and with this announcement was coupled the intimation that in such an event the route might be diverted from Gilman to some new point on the Wabash ; but if such aid should be forthcoming they would finish the line during the year. Asa B. Roff, as agent, made a strong effort to raise the amount asked. On May 5, 1859, he had secured $17,975. With only this amount subscribed the company resumed work to encourage the people and strengthen their faith in its ultimate completion, at the same time giving assurance that it would be necessary for them to raise an additional seven or eight thousand. A contractor named Doyle laid the track on this section and made connection at the state line with the road just put down from Monticello, on the Wabash, and the first train of cars ran through from Peoria to Logansport but a day or two before the ushering in of the new year, 1860. This result was mainly achieved by the indomitable will and energy of Charles A. Secor, president, and W. H. Cruger, superintendent of the road.

We have given an account of the swamp land question so far as it was involved with the railroad. We now recur finally to that subject. At the December term of the county court in 1852 the surveying and selecting of the swamp lands was let to John Wilson, George B. Joiner, Benjamin F. Masters, Robert JSTilson, Belva T. Clark and Amos O. Whiteman. Legislation providing for this was loose and indefinite, and the lands were not selected with nice discrimination ; some of the work was done in the spring of the year, a season when it was not difficult to find swamp lands, and without any excuse at all some of the finest pieces were thus condemned, and so the result was that much was designated as swamp land which was not of that description. Representations being made to the commissioner of the land department of the unfairness of counties in making selections, he rendered and published a decision requiring certain proofs to be made by the counties that the lands entered at the district land office and selected as swamp lands were of that character, within the meaning of the act of congress of 1850, which decision opened the way to contests and endless litigation. To enable contestants to enter the lands, they were required only to make proper applications, with proof that the tracts applied for were not swamp lands, within the meaning of the law.

county as well as others did not neglect to take advantage of this state of affairs. It has been said that a flood of applications poured in upon the department from this county ; but as some of the material, which we are obliged to draw upon, was the stock of political campaigns, the narrow line which divides fact from tumid campaign rhetoric is not always clear. No figures are at command by which to determine this question ; the defenders of the county court, but more especially of its principal member, Judge Chamberlain, represent the number extravagantly large. But these were partisan utterances on the eve of election - a case was to be made out. One campaign circular, signed by nearly a dozen prominent citizens who were giving a loose rein to assertion for the ticket which had to find reasons for the sale, and some of whom were agents or attorneys for Tallman, estimates the amount at "nearly, or quite, one-half." After the partisan ardor of the hour had cooled, the same persons would likely have discounted their own statement, "nearly, or quite, one-half." Another, a candidate, touching off a last gun of the campaign, thinks ' ' all the lands that were valuable, to say the least, were under contest." Still another, soaring high in imagination, says that "application upon application piled in upon every piece worth contending for." Regarding the efforts made to perfect the title to these lands, Judge Chamberlain wrote: "The county court of our county had exhausted their efforts in trying to get a title to the lands. Messrs. Thomas and Joiner had been to Washington at the expense of the county ; Mr. Norton, too, our representative in congress, had exerted himself strongly throughout in our behalf, keeping us well posted in all that transpired there calculated to affect us ; the governor, Mr. Matteson, had visited Washington in person concerning these lands on the part of the state, and had two agents through one session of congress there, to wit : Judge Scates, of the supreme court of the state, and Mr. Gilbert, in the hope of changing the mind of the commissioner, and having the order granting contests revoked, or of getting congress to pass an act confirming the titles. But all was of no avail."

The county had $47,000 of bonded indebtedness, on which there was an annual liability of $3,290 for interest, and it owed the state $2,500 for the surveying of the swamp lands. The contests and the debt served the useful purpose of specters to make it appear all the more probable that the lands would be lost, by showing through the magnifying lens of alarm the appalling extent of the evil in such a case. June 3, 1856, an agreement was entered into by the county court, and George C. Tallman, of Utica, New York, by which the court agreed to sell, or issue certificates of sale, to Tallman for 10,000 to 20,000 acres of the swamp lands, for which the latter was to pay at the rate of $1 per acre on an average, upon the following terms : $1,000 when the certificates of sale should be issued to him, and the balance according to the quantity of land taken (which was to be selected for Tallman by Joseph Thomas within thirty days) on or before the first day of September, 1857, in cash, at seven per cent interest, or in county bonds at par, as he should decide, the interest to be payable from the first day of September, 1856. He agreed to drain the lands at his own expense, which was to be over and above the price at $1 per acre. His selections were to embrace, first, all the vacant swamp lands on the west side of the Central railroad ; he was to take none adjoining improved farms on the east side of that road, and also none under contest at the time of making the contract, of which the court had received written notice. He covenanted, besides, to procure at his option a valid title to one-half of the lands which he should select by the first day of September, 1857, or to defray at his own expense, when called upon, one-half of the cost of defending the contests, which might be made of any of the lands purchased by him. In case of failure on his part to perform one or the other of these stipulations, he was to forfeit $1,000 advanced on the certificates, and the county court was to have power to determine the contract. The certificates to be issued to Tallman were to be unassignable, and the lands not subject to sale by him until the county had obtained, or the court was satisfied it would obtain, a title to them. On receiving title, the lands having first been drained, or the court being satisfied that they would be drained, a deed was to be executed to Tallman for the same. In case of failure of the county to get title to the lands, or to any part of them, a corresponding deduction was to be made from the amount mentioned to be paid for them, or others might be selected by him, as he should choose. In the event of his making payment in county bonds, he was limited to those outstanding at the date of the contract, the highest number being thirty-one. When made, it was left to the discretion of Judge Chamberlain whether this contract should ever take effect. One of the conditions was that if he should decide to accept it, it was to be entered upon, and become a part of, the swamp land record. Accordingly, on the 17th, the court ordered that it be ratified by placing it upon the record to date from that day, whereupon, agreeably to the contract, Tallman decided to take 20,000 acres.

to employ, at his own expense, such assistance as he should think best to obtain such a reversal or modification of the opinion of the commissioners of the general land office, as would enable the county to receive the proceeds of the lands entered and selected as swamp lands, and approved as such by the surveyor-general. On condition of his success, and as a result, if Iroquois county should come into possession of the avails, without further trouble or expense, he was to receive, as compensation, $1,000 in money or swamp lands at their appraised value, according to the choice of the county. On the following day an order was entered to pay Tallman the money, ' ' Upon the condition that he should procure from fhe commissioner of the land office at Washington, within six months, a good and valid title to the swamp lands of the county by having the same patented to the state, excepting that the said George C. Tallman is not by this order required to obtain title to any lands already gone into contest where evidence has been taken in said contest by the parties therein, or where the right to contest has been granted to contestants and notice of said contest served upon the county judge."

A question existed in the minds of most people as to which of the two bodies, the county court or the board of supervisors, had jurisdiction of the swamp lands. The administration of this interest by the county court had engendered a dissatisfaction so general that refuge had been sought from the evils, real or fancied, which the people imagined afflicted them, in a different form of county government ; and the adoption of township organization was, to a certain extent, an arraignment of the court and a disavowal of confidence in it, however much they lacked of being well grounded. As the people would reorganize the board once a year, it was believed they would secure to themselves direct and perfect control of the lands. A law was passed, in 1854, giving the management of the swamp lands to the board of supervisors, in counties under township organization, to harmonize with the growth of the republican idea in the northern half of the state, because the original act invested county courts with that responsibility. As before stated, Judge Chamberlain and Col. Morgan obtained from the state, at the regular session of the legislature in 1855, a special act granting to the county court of Iroquois county entire control of the swamp lands in the county, for particular purposes. Foreseeing that a conflict of views concerning the proper tribunal to dispose of them would arise, now that township organization had been adopted, in January, 1856, the county court procured from the lion. Ur_i Osgood, of Joliet, a lawyer of reputation, an opinion relative to the question. He held that the board of supervisors would have no supervision over the swamp lands, or the sale of them, or over the proceeds of the lands when sold. In a controversy upon this subject, between John "W. White, of Pike Creek, and Judge Chamberlain, in the spring of 1857, this point was urged with much pertinacity and no little seeming cogency by Mr. White, he taking the ground, without doubt erroneously, that the board of supervisors and not the county court was the lawful custodian of this immense interest.

Judge Chamberlain determined upon the sale of the swamp lands to Tallman. At just what time is not known, nor is it material ; but his sentiments in regard to the matter cannot be better and more fairly represented than in his own language when a candidate for reelection in 1857: "The issuing of the bonds by the county has created a large debt against it ; to pay off that debt with the swamp lands and their proceeds has been the uniform and expressed intention of the county court." Pertinent in this connection is the fact that seems to have been understood in that period of sharp discussions, that John Wilson at one time proposed on behalf of Elijah Huntley and James Culbertson, both responsible capitalists, to pay the bonded indebtedness of the county for one-half of the swamp lands, $20,000 to be paid down. This was charged to Judge Chamberlain's account in the campaign of 1861, when the contest for his place was between Samuel Williams and Charles Rumley, and which, we believe, was never publicly' denied ; though he had been careful enough on a former occasion to contradict the truth of a similar charge, embodying a kindred proposition. It is said that he promised to accept Wilson's proposal, or at least to take it under advisement, but always declined definite action. What reasons the judge could have brought forward to excuse his course in preterrnitting so handsome a sale we have no means of knowing, and can only express our surprise. John Wilson and Charles Rumley are authority for this statement. That it was his uniform purpose to extinguish the county debt with the lands is a fact resting upon his own assertion. It appears that he had decided to sell to Tallrnan in preference to anybody else. They were friends; he well understood Tallman' s character and financial ability, and knew that his word was at all times as good as his bond, though Judge Chamberlain was not the man to omit any man's bond for his unsupported oral obligation. The contract jointly consummated between the county court and board of supervisors on the one part and Tallrnan on the other, bearing date October 16, 1856, was a sacrifice of the county's interests which public sentiment has never been charitable enough to excuse. Tallman anticipating that some dispute might arise as to the authority of the county court to make a valid sale, preferred to have the two bodies cooperate in making the contract. The substance of this was that by virtue of the grants of congress and of the state the county sold and agreed to convey "all the lands now remaining not sold in the county, obtained under said grants, amounting to 40,000 acres or thereabouts, subject to drainage," for which Tallman agreed to pay $30,000 in the bonds of Iroquois county, with interest from September 1, 1856, $20,000 of which bonds were to be delivered in three months, the remaining $10,000 whenever Tallman should see fit, by his providing for the interest on the same from the date mentioned ; his performance of this stipulation to be secured by bond with two good securities, upon delivery of which to the county court, the clerk thereof was to issue certificates of sale. As fast as ascertained that any of the lands had been sold by the government, Tallman was to be entitled to a conveyance of them. The consideration for his payment of the $30,000 of bonds was increased by "all the money, being the proceeds of the lands sold by the county up to this time, with the interest thereon," the county reserving the right to withhold the money until it should be ascertained what amount might have to be repaid to purchasers of lands already sold, which might be contested away ; also to deduct the amount required to meet incidental expenses and to defend contestants [contests], besides other legal fees. The consideration was further increased by granting to Tallman "all the remaining interest of the county which they have to the land or the proceeds of the same, which have been sold by the general government at the land office at Danville, which were embraced in the selections of this county as swamp lands, inside of six miles as outside of the six miles on each side of the Illinois Central railroad," and he was empowered to receive the avails. He was still further entitled to receive "the benefit and the proceeds or otherwise that might be obtained by any new act of congress touching said lands, and all and every benefit that might be derived from the same, either in warrants or money, under the present law ; and in every way, directly or indirectly, the same shall become the property " of Tallman, upon condition that he should deliver to the county court ten bonds of the county at any time- before they should become due, and should provide for the interest on the same from September 1, 1856. He was allowed nine months to decide whether he would accept this last provision. The consideration was even further enlarged by the agreement that the $50,000 of stock owned by the county in the Peoria tfc Oquawka Eastern Extension railroad should be sold and transferred to him, provided he should pay seven remaining and outstanding bonds in like manner and time as the $10, 000 of bonds last above referred to, with the interest thereon from the same date. Tallman was grwn nine months " in which to make up his mind to accept of the same," and if accepted the county clerk was authorized to issue to him certificates of sold stock under a resolution of the board of supervisors passed October 15, 1856. The stock the county court, to be by them delivered to him if they saw fit, when he should execute a bond, with approved security, guaranteeing that the seven bonds should eventually be redeemed and restored to the county. The contract of June 3d was canceled, and the $1,000 paid upon it by the county was made the consideration for Tall man's performance of this, which sum was to be repaid when any of the county bonds should first be delivered to the county court. The county was "to pay out of other funds than those arising from the sal6 of the swamp lands the interest due on all or any of the bonds of the county up to September 1, 1856 ; and also all sums of money due the state for surveying and selecting said swamp lands." It was also "to procure, if possible, a repeal or modification of the law requiring said lands to be drained within eight months from the sale of the same." It was understood and so expressed in the contract that the bonds in question were only those at that time outstanding and issued for railroad stock. The instrument was signed by John Chamberlain, county judge-; Samuel M. Ayres and Thomas M. Pangborn, associate judges ; R. W. Andrews, Samuel Williams and Thomas Maggee, on behalf of the board of supervisors, and George C. Tallman.

This transaction was Judge Chamberlain's, and the credit or responsibility, whether it be approved or condemned, belongs to him. By his zealous championship it was accomplished, and for several years his overmastering will, ingenuity and prestige were constantly employed to keep the tide of opposition from breaking over its banks in proceedings either to nullify the sale or to test its validity. The committee of the board had been previously appointed to confer with the county court and Tallman on the subject. Their deliberations occupied two days. The report of the committee recommended making the contract, but Mr. Williams voted against its adoption, not being satisfied with the scheme, - but after it was done supported the sale. The same committee was instructed to complete the bargain jointly with the county court. This sale was unknown to the general public for some time, but when it was published there was deep agitation. Some indorsed it ; many shook their heads in grave doubt of its expediency and soundness, while others were outspoken in their denunciation.

We quote from an editorial in the Iroquois "Republican," of May 21, 1857, by Dr. Blades, in which he says: "Whether it be correct or not, there is an impression pervading the public mind of this county, that the county has had its interests badly financiered in disposing of the swamp lands, under the contract to Mr. Tallman. There are but few who believe that the board of supervisors and the old county court had any other view in the matter than for what they deemed for the best interests of the county. But a considerable portion of our citizens believe they have made a bad job of it, notwithstanding " ; and "a large number believe that the contract was made without sufficient consideration, and that it is not a valid one. And they demand that if the contract is not a good one, the board should repudiate it." Again : " The people want this matter satisfactorily explained, and they are determined it shall be, from- what indications we can gather." He then urges the board to publish the facts upon which it is assumed that the sale is for the best interests of the county, and was at the time it was effected ; and also that an able attorney be employed to investigate the subject and pass an opinion upon it, out of respect to the demands of the people.

Owing to the scantiness of authentic material we cannot undertake to follow this important question in detail to the time it ceased to engross attention and be a factor in the politics of the county. Like Banquo's ghost, it would never down. The reason was, that the sale was not believed by many to be certainly completed in law until some years afterward. There was continual uneasiness, a strong disposition to overturn, if possible, what had been done ; repeated threats concerning such an intention ; and prophetic declarations as to the issue, should it once be tried. The board of supervisors could not but be in a feverish state, and the subject was often warmly debated. Tallman was present during several of these sessions, at which all his art and persuasion, as well as those of his friends, including Judge Chamberlain, were required to appease the high state of feeling and subdue the determination to take such steps as would ultimately have made it a matter of judicial investigation.

We have often to recur to the fact that the people were beaten in their ulterior object in adopting township organization, and we have already stated how the contingency of such an event had been forestalled by a special act procured, conferring on the county court full powers for the control of the swamp lands. The people certainly were not looking for so surprising a thing as the sale of those lands on such terms by the first board of supervisors. Having had enough of that business with Morgan, and lost faith in the efficiency of the county court to manage that interest, had they not adopted township organization to take the control of it into their own hands through a board elected every year ? It is not to be wondered at that they were sorely displeased, if they were not amazed, at so irresolute a proceeding. All they could do, then, was to possess themselves in patience until a new board was elected. As soon as this was done notice was given convening the supervisors on May 18, 1857, for the purpose principally of making an appropriation to investigate the swamp land business. No record of this meeting is in existence, we believe, so it is impossible to outline the proceedings, but from collateral sources we are able to state that the question got an airing, which called out the editorial by Dr. Blades, from which 'we have made extracts. The board adjourned till June 16. The situation must have been felt to be critical, for Tallman was sent for to be present, to defend his interest. This subject was made the special order for two o'clock in the afternoon. An effort was made to obtain an order rescinding all former orders pertaining to the contract. Tallman was invited to explain how he became possessed of the lands, and did so in a lengthy speech, giving a history of the sale. He held that the county had no title of any value ; that it was unable to procure it, and that he and his friends stood a better chance of doing so through congress. Joseph Thomas and Judge Chamberlain followed him with substantially the same argument. The latter, also, took occasion to justify his motives and to defend himself against the aspersions of those who were trying to break the contract. James Fletcher, then the acknowledged head of the Iroquois bar, was employed to reply, which he did in an able manner, showing up the whole transaction. Then the board engaged in a full discussion, when a vote was taken, and the proposition lost by nine to three. Following is a record of the vote : Ayes - B. F. Brady, Chebanse ; Dr. E. K. Farmer, Milford ; Dr. William Miller, Crab Apple. Nays - Samuel Williams, Belmont ; George West, Middleport ; William Smith, Concord ; William B. Lyman, Beaver ; Thomas Maggee, Wygant ; Michael B. White, Ashkum ; R. W. Andrews, Onarga ; Wesley Harvey, Ash Grove ; James H. Major, Loda. The board then passed a resolution, by an exactly similar vote, indorsing in every particular the contract with Tallman. This was the third ratification of the sale by the supervisors. Messrs.

Brady, Farmer and Miller entered a formal protest against it. The spirit was bitter and the session stormy. The board continued its sitting well into the night, a sharp struggle going on in the endeavor to expunge the protest. Early the next morning Tallman called on Brady to learn the grounds of his hostility. He informed him, among other things, that he was standing by the sentiment of his town ; that the people who sent him believed the sale was an iniquity ; that the county was getting comparatively nothing for this magnificent land grant ; and that the county, besides, was in debt several thousand dollars for expenses incurred on account of the lands. Tallman simulated surprise at this last fact, and said at once that he would pay the amount (some $6,000) and clear the county from debt. In good faith he bound himself by contract with the supervisors (dated the 16th) to do it. This contract was lost in the fire of 1866, and all we know of it is what we learn from another, between Tallman and the county court, dated the 22d, and preserved in the swamp land record, ratifying it and engaging to fulfill all its requirements. Tallman agreed to pay the indebtedness due by the county to the state for the expense of selecting the swamp lands, some $2,500 ; and also to pay certain coupons due upon the county bonds previous to the first of September, 1856, amounting, according to reasonable inference, to $1,500 or $1,600, but not in excess of the latter sum. * The board, in this agreement, authorized the county court to carry out fully all contracts made or to be made with Tallman respecting the sale of the swamp lands, and to execute the necessary conveyances ; ' ' and to do all and every other act by which said Tallman shall enjoy the full benefit of his purchase and contracts. ' '

The grounds on which the board held the sale to be advantageous to the county at the time it was made, are stated by Dr. Blades (who was opposed to the sale), in the issue of the "Republican " of May 28. He says: "They set out with the proposition that the county was $50,000 [$47,000] in debt for stock in the Eastern Extension of the Peoria & Oquawka railroad ; that the people of the

* This will not make the $ 6,000. We are not able to account for that sum, and doubt if the amount was more than $4,000 ; though all our information (not purporting to be exact) puts it at $6,000, and we have so stated it. We subjoin this additional suggestion : When the surveyor-general, under the direction of the secretary of the interior, listed the swamp and overflowed lands to the governor, the state was charged, contrary to the law, with the cost of the lists and plats, which amount the governor paid under protest. The proportion which fell to Iroquois county was $3,814.50. This may have been included in Tallman's contract, in which case the aggregate reached about $7,000.

county were induced to assume that debt on account of the prospect that we should be able to pay that stock with the proceeds of the swamp lands ; that it came shortly to appear that as a large majority of those lands were contested, which necessarily put the county to considerable expense in defense, in many instances absorbing the value of the land, and in others the lands would be wholly lost ; that the commissioner of public lands had decided that every separate tract must be re-surve}^ed and proved up by at least two witnesses in person at the land office at Springfield, all of which tended strongly to show that the lands would not only be worse than valueless, but that in the end the county would be left with the onerous debt of $50,000 hanging over it with no other resource than that of special taxation wherewithal to meet that debt ; they very plausibly maintain that they were making a bargain which certainly appeared to be for the best interest of the county." We continue to quote from the same candid authority, in an article published more than a year earlier (May 8, 1856), being a notice of the first meeting of the board of supervisors held on the 2d and 3d, and before the first contract was entered into with Tallman. "The question as to the proper authorities to control the county swamp lands occupied much of the time, some members of the board being of the opinion that they had the legal right exclusively to manage the swamp lands as well as any other interest of the county, and that the interests of the county require the postponement of the coming land sale [May 6] ; that the lands are daily becoming more valuable, and that if sold on credit, or partly on credit with interest, the accruing interest could be used to meet the interest we are bound to pay semi-annually on our railroad bonds. A motion to apply for a bill of injunction on the former court or upon Judge Chamberlain, to prevent the approaching sale of such lands, was discussed and finally lost." The actual situation in regard to these lands before Tallman purchased them, was not nearly so alarming as it was made to appear when the sale had been accomplished, and "reasons" were in demand to excuse it. He got the lands and all the benefits accruing from them, which would indicate that the difficulties were either greatly magnified, or that his business ability was scarcely less in degree and far more practical and conspicuous than the combined wisdom of the county court and board of supervisors. Starting with the result and running back from eifect to cause, the impolicy of this sale and the puerility of the reasons assigned are so apparent that he who runs may read.

transactions of essential interest. At the January term of the county court Tallman presented twenty county bonds, together with his personal bond with three good sureties - J. B. Warner, Samuel Stocking, of Oneida county, New York, and W. P. Swift & Co., of Chicago - for the delivery of ten other bonds, in pursuance of his contract, and an order was entered to issue certificates for the lands. On the following day another order was made countermanding the first, together with the certificate of sale annexed on the record, another contract (marked B) having in the meantime been executed between Tallman and the county court. In substance the stipulations of this were that the contract of October 16, 1856, was "based on the condition that time should be given said Tallman in which to drain said lands [no such condition appears in the contract], inasmuch as many of the lands were under contest; and it being impossible to ascertain what lands, or how many, the county was entitled to by reason of an x>rder issued by the commissioner of the land office at Washington, permitting parties to contest away any of such lands," it was agreed that this should form a part of the above mentioned contract, and that the county court should get an amendment to the law extending the time for draining the lands as the law then stood, with the express understanding that the court should convey the lands to Tallman, conditioned that if it should be unable to procure such amendment, Tallman should pay over the expenses of draining the lands, which expenses were to be estimated by the county engineer ; or he might drain them after it should be found what lands were not under contest. In case there should be any informality in the conveyance the court guaranteed a perfect future one. The certifica'e of the county engineer or surveyor was to be the only evidence required as to the proper draining of the lands, and upon the production of such certificate he was thereupon to be discharged from any further liability in that regard. But no advantage was to be taken of him even if the lands sold to him by the contract of October 16 should not be drained within the time required by law.

A quit-claim was this day - January 3, 1857 - executed to Tallman for 44,029 acres for $30, 000, covered by the thirty bonds of $1,000 each. At the same time he made choice of the remaining interest of the county in the lands sold by the government, including those within six miles on either side of the Central railroad, or the proceeds of the same, and also the $50,000 of railroad stock for which he was to deliver the seventeen remaining and outstanding bonds. On the 5th he deposited his personal bond with two good securities (William P. Swift & Co. and A. J. Galloway), guaranteeing the delivery of the bonds.

In fulfillment of the contract just cited, Judge Chamberlain, seconded by Joseph Thomas and others, did secure an amendment to the law extending the time of drainage, which law took effect February 16, 1857. We will turn aside to remark that for the first two years the proceedings of the board of supervisors were not published. The county papers at that day were conducted for more general objects, and the editorial department received greater attention than is bestowed on similar publications now, and while they surpassed their successors in these features, they exhibited less local enterprise than is to be found in the press of to-day. This explains why even a synopsis of the official transactions of the county court and of the board of supervisors was never published. It is not surprising, then, that the sale to Tallman should not have come to the knowledge of the general public until the contract was copied from the records by Spottswood A. Washington, and published in the "Iroquois Republican" January 1, 1857", when the scheme was well matured and nigh accomplished for the legalizing of the sale in the act of February 16, already noticed.

The circumstances attending the passage of this act were such that they cannot be passed without notice. Franklin Blades was representative from Iroquois county in the general assembly at the time, and it was well known that he did not favor the sale, though he was by no means extreme in his opposition. In getting the law amended on the point of drainage the occasion was taken to encompass another, if not the principal, object, which was carefully concealed. Artful and gradual approaches were necessary not to awaken the suspicions of representative Blades. Joseph Thomas got Uri Osgood, of Joliet, to draft the bill "in an ambiguous and circuitous manner on purpose to escape detection," and assured Blades "that the only end sought in having the bill passed was merely to extend the time of drainage." A letter from Judge Chamberlain to Blades, the burden of which was drainage, contained this clause : ' ' We want an act amending the special law, already passed, with reference to the swamp lands of Iroquois county, extending the time, and also with regard to some other points of less importance." This feinting had the eifect to call off Blades' attention from the "points of less importance," and in the hurry of business, as he afterward admitted in a published explanation, he "took the bill and read it (we are now convinced too carelessly), and not detecting, through a mass of garbage and meaningless tautology and ambiguity, the clandestine clause legalizing the swamp land sale, we introduced it. We are certain that not one single member of either the house or the senate ever suspected the legal effect of that bill." In the running controversy between John "W. White, of Pike Creek, and Judge Chamberlain, the former indirectly charged that the bill was got through by "trickery or ledgerdemain," whereupon the judge replied by asserting that Blades knew all about it, and referred to the fact of their having had correspondence on the subject. This brought Blades out in astonishment that the judge should charge that he "did know all about the passage of the bill," which charge itself was cautiously worded and perhaps literally true, without his knowing "all about" the contents of the bill. Judge Chamberlain is entitled to the benefit of everything that can be said to his credit or in his defense. We aim to keep this object in view. In a published communication in answer to Mr. White he stated that he did not know that the bill contained the legalizing clause until he received a copy of it from Springfield. We have sought to find if Judge Chamberlain explained away the shadow of dark doings in this matter, but without success.

This discussion transpired in the campaign of 1857, when he was a candidate for reelection. On November 3 he received 758 votes, to 472 for his opponent, H. C. Bryant, which majority of 286, while being an apparent indorsement of the policy he had championed from the beginning, reflected not the less a nervous but groundless apprehension that, if elected, Bryant would involve the county in costly litigation. This was the superior harping-string of the canvass, as it was among the leading ones four years later. This' dread of going to law was co-extensive with the dissatisfaction prevailing ; and the most violent opposers of the sale shrunk from it ; even as prominent and outspoken a man of that number as John W. White said in one of his communications : "I, as a citizen of the county, am opposed to going to law in this matter if it can be possibly avoided ; it would be ruinous to the county." The student who has observed in the history and practical workings of politics, instances of a popular dread of unsettling or burdening the business interests of a community or state, not subject to fluctuations of danger and security, must have been struck with the uniformity with which the candidates who were looked upon in the light of disorganizes have been defeated. Of the very large class who doubted the wisdom of the financiering, but few thought anything could be gained by trying to abrogate the proceedings of the court and the board.