Jefferson County, Illinois - Chapter 21, 1883 (part 3 of 3)

Demagogism had an early development. One John Grammar (only in name), elected to the Territorial and State Legislatures of 1816 and 1836, invented the policy of opl)osing every new thing, saying, " If it succeeds, no one will ask who voted against it. If it proves a failure, he could quote its record." In sharp contrast with Grammar was the character of D. P. Cook, after whom the county containing Chicago was named. Sucli was his transparent integrity and remarkable ability that his vvill was almost the law of the State. In Congress, a young man, and from a poor State, he was made Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He was pre-eminent for standing by his committee, regardless of consequences. It was liis integrity that elected John Qiiinc}' Adams to the Presidency. There were four candidates in 1824, Jackson, Clay, Crawford, and John Quincy Adams. There being no choice by tliepeiple, the election was thrown into the House. It was so balanced that it turned on his vote, and that he cast for Adams, electing him ; then went home to face the wrath of the Jackson party in Illinois. It cost him all but character and greatness. It is a sufff^estive comment on the times, that there was no legal interest till 1830. It often reached 150 per cent., usually 50 percent. Then it was reduced to 12, and now to 10 per cent.

Physical Features Of The Peaieie State

In area the State has 55,410 square miles of territory. It is about 150 miles wide and 400 miles long, stretcliing in latitude from Maine to Xorth Carolina. It embraces wide variety of climate. It is tempered on the north b}- the great inland, saltless, tideless sea, which keeps the thermometer from either extreme. Being a table land, from 600 to 1,200 feet above the level of the sea, one is prepared to find on the health maps, prepared by the general government, an almost clean and perfect record. In freedom from fever and malarial diseases and consumptions, the three deadly enemies of the American Saxon, Illinois, as a State, stands without a superior. She furnishes one of the essential conditions of a great people - sound bodies. I suspect that this fact lies back of that old Delaware word, Illini, superior men.

The great battles of history that have been determinative of dynasties and destinies have been strategical battles, chiefly the question of position. Thermopylae has been the war-cry of freemen for twenty-four centuries. It only tells how much there may be in position. All this advantage belongs to Illinois. It is in the heart of the greatest valley in the world, the vast region between the mountains - a valley that could feed mankind for one thousand years. It is well on toward the center of the continent. It is in the great temperate belt, in which have been found nearly all the aggressive civilizations of history. It has sixty-five miles of frontage on the head of the lake. With the Mississippi forming the western and southern boundarv, with the Ohio running along the southeastern line, with the Illinois river and canal dividing the State diagonally from the lake to 'the lower Mississippi, and with the Rock and Wabash rivers, furnishing altogether 2,000 miles of water front, connecting with, and running through, in all about 12,000 miles of navigable water.

But this is not all. These waters are made most available by the fact that the lake and the State lie on the ridge running into the great valley from the east. Within cannon-shot of the lake, the water runs awav from the lake to the gulf. The lake now empties at both ends, one into the Atlantic and one into the gulf of Mexico. The lake thus seems to hang over the land. This makes the dockage most serviceable; there are no steep banks to damage it. Both lake and river are made for use.

tliaii lialf a dozen exceptions. It produces every great nutriment of the world except bananas and rice. It is liardly too much to say that it is the most productive spot known to civilization. With the soil full of bread and the earth lull of minerals; with an upper surface of food and an under layer of fuel; with perfect natural drainage, and abundant springs and streanis and navigable rivers; halfway between the forests of the north and the fruits of the south ; witliin a day's ride of the great deposits of iron, coal, copper, lead and zinc; eontaining and controlling the great grain, cattle, pork and lumber markets of the world, it is not strange that Illinois has the advantage of jjosition.

This advantage has been supplemented by the character of the population. In the early days when Illinois was first admitted to the union, her population were chietly from Kentucky and Virginia. But, in the conflict of ideas concerning slavery, a strong tide of emigration came in from the East, and soon changed this composition. In 1870 her non-native population were from colder soils. Xew York furnished 133,290; Ohio gave 102,623; Pennsylvania sent on 98,352; the en ti^-e South gave us only 20f!,T34. In all her cities, and in all her German and Scandinavian and other foreign colonies, Illinois has only about one-fifth of her people of foreign birth.

Progress Of Development

One of the greatest elements in the early development of Illinois is the Illinois and Michigan Canal, connectinar the Illinois and Mississip])i Rivers with the lakes. It was of the utmost importance to the Suite. It was i. con mended by Gov.

Bond, the first governor, in his first message. In 1821, the Legislature appropriated $10,000 for surveying the route. Two bright young engineers surveyed it, and estimated the cost at §600,000 or STOU.OOO. It finally cost §8,000,000. In 1825, a4aw was passed to incorporate the Canal Company, but no stock was sold. In 1826, upon the solicitation of Cook, Congress gave 800,000 acres of land on the line of the work. In 1828, another law - commissioners appointed, and work commenced with new survey and new estimates. lu 1834-35, George Farquhar made an able report on the whole matter. This was, doubtless, the ablest report ever made to a western legislature, and it became the model for subsequent reports and action. From this, the work went on till it was finished in 1848. It cost the State a large amount of money; but it gave to the industries of the State an impetus that pushed it up into the first rank of greatness. It was not built as a speculation any more than a doctor is emploj'ed on a speculation. But it has paid into the treasury of the State an average annual not sum of over $111,000.

Pending the construction of the canal, the land and town-lot fever broke out in the State, in 1834-35. It took on the malignant type in Chicago, lifting the town up into a city. The disease spread over the entire State and adjoining States. It was epidemic. It cut up men's farms without regard to locality, and cut up the purses of the purchasers without regard to consequences. It is estimated that buildins lots enough were sold in Indiana alone to accommodate every citizen then in the United States.

Eaijly History Of Illinois

Towns and cities were exported to the Eastern market by the ship-load. There was no hick of bnvers. Every np-siiip came freif^iiteil with speculators and their nione}'.

This distempter seized upon the Legislature in 1836-37, and left not one to teil the tale. They enacted a system of internal improvement without a parallel in the gi-andeur of its conception. They ordered the construction of 1,300 miles of railroad, crossing the State in all directions. This was surpassed by the river and canal improvements. There were a few counties not touched by either railroad or river or canal, and those were to be comforted and compensated by the free distribution of $200,000 among them. To inflate this balloon beyond credence, it was ordered that work should be commenced on both ends of each of these railroads and rivers, and at each river crossing, all at the same time. The appropriations for these vast improvements were over $12,000,000, and commissioners were appointed to borrow the money on the credit of the State. Remember that all this was in the early days of railroading, when railroads were luxuries; that the State had whole counties with scarcely a cabin; and that the population of the State was less than 400,000, and yon can form some idea of the vigor with which these brave men undertook tha work of making a great State. In the light of history I am compelled to say that this was only a premature throb of the power that actually slumbered in the soil of the State. It was Hercules in the cradle.

In 1840, all hope seemed gone. A population of 480,000 were loaded with a debt of $14,000,000. It had only six small cities, really only towns, namely: Chicago, Alton, Springfield, Quincy, Galena, Nauvoo. This debt was to be cared for when there was not a dollar in the treasury, and when the State had borrowed itself out of all credit, and when there was not good money enough in the hands of all the people to pay the interest of the debt for a single year. Yet, in the presence of all these difficulties, the young State steadily refused to repudiate. Gov. Ford took hold of the problem and solved it, bringing the State througli in triumph.

Having touched lightly upon some of the more distinctive points in the history of the development of Illinois, let us next briefly consider the

Material Resources Of The State

It is a garden four hundred miles long and one hundred and fifty miles wide. Its soil is chiefly a bla^ck sandy loam, from six inches to sixty feet thick. On the American bottoms it has been cultivated for one hundred and fifty years without renewal.

About the old French towns it has yielded corn for a century and a half without rest or help. It produces nearly everything green in the temjierate and tropical zones. She leads all other States in the number of acres actually under plow. Her products from 25,000,000 of acres are incalculable. Her mineral wealth is scarcely second to hev agricultural power. She has coal, iron, lead, copper, zinc, many varieties of bnikliTiw stone, fire clay, cnma clay, common brick clay, sand of all kinds, gravel, mineral paint - everything needed for a high civilization. Left to herself, she has the elements of all greatness. The single item of coal is too vast for an appreciative handling in figures. We can handle it in oreneral terms like alsjebraical signs, but long before we get up into the millions and billions the human mind drops down from comprehension to mere symbolic apprehension.

When I tell you that nearly four-fifths of the entire State is underlaid with a deposit of coal more than forty feet thick on the average (now estimated by recent surveys, at seventy feet thick), you can get some idea of its amount, as you do of the amount of the national debt. There it is! 41,000 square miles - one vast mine into which you could put any of the States; in which yon could bury scores of European and ancient empires, and have room all round to work without knowing that they had been sepulchered there.

Put this vast coal-bed down by the other great coal deposits of the world, and its importance becomes manifest. Great Britain has 12,000 square miles of coal ; Spain, 3,000; France, 1719; Belgium, 578; Illinois about twice as many square miles as all combined. Virginia has 20,000 square miles; Pennsylvania. ir),O00; Oliio, 12.000. Illinois has 41,000 square miles. Oneseventh of all the known coal on this continent is in Illinois.

Could we sell the coal in this single State for one-seventh of one cent a ton, it would pay the national debt. Converted into power, even with the wastage in our common engines, it would do more work than could be done by the entire race, beginning at Adam's wedding and working ten hours a day through all the centuries till the present time, and right on into the ftiture at the same rate for the next 000,000 years.

Great Britain uses enough mechanical power to-day to give to each man, woman, and child in the kingdom, the help and service of nineteen untiring servants. No wonder she has leisure and luxuries. No wonder the home of the common artisan has in it more luxuries than could be found in the palace of good old King Arthur. Think if you can conceive of it, of the vast army of servants that slumber in the soil of Illinois, impatientlj' awaiting the call of Genius to come forth to minister to our comfort.

At the present rate of consumption England's coal supply will be exhausted in 250 years. When this is gone she must transfer her dominion either to the Indies, or to British America, which I would not resist; or to some other people, which I would regret as a loss to civilization.

Coal Is King

At the same rate of consumption (which far exceeds our own), the deposit of coal in Illinois will last 120,000 years. And her kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom.

Let us turn now from this reserve power to the annual lyrodncAs of the State. We shall not be humiliated in this field. Here we strike the secret of our national credit. Nature provides a market in the constant appetite of the race. Men must eat,- and if we can furnish the provisions we can command the treasure. All that a man hath will he ifive for iiis life.

According to the last census Illinois produced 30,000.000 of bushels of wheat. That is more wheat than was raised hy any other State in tlie union. She raised in 1875, 130,000.000 of bushels of corn - twice as much as any other State, and one- sixth of all tlie corn raised in the United States. She harvested 2,747,000 tons of hay, nearly one-tenth of all the haj' in the republic. It is not generally appreciated, but it is true that the hay crop of the country is wortli more than the cotton crop. Tlie liay of Illinois equals the cotton of Louisiana. Go to Charleston, S. C, and see them peddling handfuls of hay or grass, almost as a curiosity, as we regard Chinese gods or the cryolite of Greenland; drink your coffee and coiid'Cnsed 7nilk; and walk back from the coast for many a league through the sand and burs till you get up into the better atmosphere of the mountains, without seeing a waving meadow or a grazing herd; then you will begin to appreciate the meadows of the Prairie State, where the grass often grows sixteen feet high.

The value of her farm implements is $211,000,000, and the value of her live stock is only second to the great State of New York. In 1875 she had 25,000,000 hogs, and packed 2,113,8-45, about one-half of all that were packed in the United States. This is no insignificant item. Pork is a growing demand of the old world. Since the laborers of Europe have gotten a taste of our bacon, and we have learned how to pack it dry in boxes, like dry goods, the world has become the market.

The hog is on the march into the future. His nose is ordained to uncover the secrets of dominion, and his feet shall be guided by the star of empire.

Depth and richness of soil ; per cent, of good ground; acres of improved land; large farms - some farms contain from 40,000 to 60,000 acres of cultivated land. 40,000 acres of corn on a single farm; number of farmers; amount of wheat, corn, oats and honey produced; value of animals for slaughter; number of hogs; amount of pork; number of horses - three times as many as Kentucky, the horse State.

Illinois excels all other States in miles of railroads and in miles of postal service, and in money orders sold per annum, and in the amount of lumber sold in her markets.

Illinois is only second in many important matters. This sample list comprises a few of the moreimjiortant: Permanent school fund (good for a young State); total income for educational purposes; number of publishers of books, maps, papers, etc.; value of farm products and implements, and of live stock; in tons of coal mined.

The shipping of Illinois is only second to New York. Out of one port during the business hours of the season of navigation she sends forth a vessel every ten minutes. This does not include canal boats, which go one every five minutes. No wonder she is only second in number of bankers and brokers or in physicians and surgeons.

She is fifth in value of real and personal property, in theological seminaries and colleges exclusively for women, in milk sold, and in boots and shoes manufactured, and in book-binding.

She is only seventh in the production of wood, while she is the twelfth in area. Surely that is well done for the Prairie State. She now has much more wood and growing timber than she had thirty years ago.

A few leading industries will justify emphasis. She manufactures $205,000,000 worth of goods, which places her well up toward New York and Pennsylvania. The number of her manufacturing establishments increased from 1860 to 1870, 300 percent; capital employed increased 350 per cent, and tiie amount of product increased 400 percent She issued 5,500,000 copies of commercial and financial newspapers - only second to New York. She has 6,759 miles of railroad, thus leading all other States, worth $636,458,000, using 3,245 engines, and 67,712 cars, making a train long enough to cover one- tenth of the entire roads of the State. Her stations are only five miles apart More than twothirds of her land is within five miles of a railroad, and less than two per cent is more than fifteen miles away.

The State has a large financial interest in the Illinois Central railroad. The road was incorporated in 1850, and the State gave each alternate section for six miles on each side, and doubled the price of the remaining land, so keeping herself good. The road received 2,595,000 acres of land, and pays to the State one-seventh of the gross receipts. Add to this the annual receipts from the canal, $111,000, and a large per cent, of the State tax is provided for.

The Religion And Morals

of tlie State keep step with her productions and growth. She was born of the missionary spirit. It was a minister who secured for her the ordinance of 1787, by which she has been saved from slavery, ignorance, and dishonesty. Rev. Mr. Wiley, pastor of a Scotch congregation in Randolph County, petitioned the Constitutional Convention of 1818 to recognize Jesus Christ as king, and the scriptures as the only necessary guide and book of law. The convention did not act in the case, and the old covenanters refused to accept citizenship. They never voted until 1824, when the slavery question was submitted to the people; then they all voted against it and cast the determining votes. (Conscience has predominated whenever a great moral question has been submitted to the people.

But little mob violence has ever been felt in the State. In 1817 regulators disposed of a band of horse-thieves that infested the Territory. The Mormon indignities finallv awoke the same spirit. Alton was also the scene of a pro-slavery mob, in which Lovejoy was added to the list of martyrs. The moral sense of the people makes the law sui)reme, and gives to the State unruffled peace.

"With $22,300,000 in church property, and 4,298 church organizations, the State has that divine police, the sleepless patrol of moral ideas, that alone is able to secure perfect safety. Conscience takes the knife from the assassin's hand and tlie bludgeon from the grasp of the highwayman. We sleep in safety, not because we are behind bolts and bars - these only fence against the innocent; not because a lone officer drowses on a distant corner of a street; not becanse a sheriff may call his posse from a remote part of the county; bnt because conscience guards the very portals of the air and stirs in the deepest recesses of the public mind. This spirit issues within the State 9,500,000 copies of religious papers annually, and receives still more from without. Thns the crime of the State is only one fourth that of New York and one half that of Pennsylvania.

Illinois never had but one duel between her own citizens. In Belleville, in 1820, Alphonso Stewart and William Bennett arranged to vindicate injured honor. The seconds agreed to make it a sham, and make them shoot blanks. Stewart was in the secret. Bennett mistrusted something, and unobserved, slipped a bullet into his gun and killed Stewart. He then fled the State. After two years he was caught, tried, convicted, and, in spite of friends and political aid, was hung. This fixed the code of honor on a Christian basis, and terminated its use in Illinois.

The early preachers were ignorant men, who were accounted eloquent according to the strength of their voices. But they set the stvle for all public speakers. Lawyers and political speakers followed this rule. Gov. Ford says : " Nevertheless, these first preachers were of incalculable benefit to the country. They inculcated justice and morality. To them are we indebted for the first Christian character of the Protestant portion of the people."

In education Illinois surpasses her material resources. The ordinance of 1787 consecrated one thirty-sixth of her soil to common schools, and the law of 1818, the first law that went upon her statutes, gave three per cent of all the rest to

Education

The old compact secures this interest forever, and by its yoking morality and intelligence it precludes the legal interference with the Bible in the public schools. With such a start it is natural that we should have 11,050 schools, and that our illiteracy should be less than New York or Pennsylvania, and only about one half of Massachusetts. We are not to blame for not having more than one half as many idiots as the great States. These public schools soon made colleges inevitable. The first college, still flourishing, was started in Lebanon in 1828, by the M. E. church, and named after Bishop McKendree. Illinois College, at Jacksonville, supported by the Presbyterians, followed in 1830. In 1832 the Baptists built Shurtleff" College, at Alton. Then the Presbyterians built Knox College, at Galesburg, in 1838, and the Episcopalians built Jubilee College, at Peoria, in 1847. After these earlv years, colleges have rained down. A settler could hardly encamp on the prairie but a college would spring up by his wagon. The State now has one very well endowed and equipped university, namely, the Northwestern University, at Evanston, with six colleges, ninety instructors, over 1,000 students, and $1,500,000 endowment.

1820. and left his impress on the State. Before 183" onh' party papers were piiblislied, but Mr. Peck published a Gazetteer of Illinois. Soon after John Russell, of Blutfdale, published essays and tales showiu<( genius. Judge James Hall published The Illinois Monthly Magazine with great ability, and an annual called The Western Sourenir, which gave him an enviable fame all over the United States. From these beginnings, Illinois has gone on till she has more volumes in public libraries even than Massachusetts, and of the 44,- 500,000 volumes in all the public libraries of the United States, she has one thirteenth. In newspapers she stands fourth. Her increase is marvelous.

The War Record Of Illinois

I hardly know where to begin, or how to advance, or what to say. I can at best give you only a broken synopsis of her deeds, and you must put them in the order ol glory for yourself. Her sons have always been foremost on fields of danger. In 1832-33, at the call of Gov. Reynolds, her sons drove Blackhawk over the Mississippi.

When the Mexican war came, in May, 1846, 8,370 men offered themselves when only 3,720 could be accepted. The fields of Buena Vista and Vera Cruz, and the storming of Cerro Gordo, will carry the glory of Illinois soldiers long after the causes that led to that war have been forgotten. But it was reserved till our day for her sons to find a field and cause and foemen that could fitly illustrate their spirit and heroism. Illinois put into her own regiments for the United States government

256.000 men, and into the army through otiier States enough to swell the number to 290,000. This far exceeds all the soldiers of the Federal government in all the war of the Revolution. Her total years of service were over 600,000. She enrolled men from eighteen to forty-five years of age when the law of Congress in 1S(!4 - the test time - only asked for those from twenty to forty-five. Iler enrollment was otherwise excessive. Her people wanted to go, and did not take the pains to correct the enrollment. Thus the basis of fixing the quota was too great, and then the quota itself, at least in the trying time, was far above any other State.

Thus the demand on some counties, as Monroe, for example, took every able-bodied man in the county, and then did not have enough to fill the qnota. Moreover, Illinois sent 20,844 men for ninety or one hundred da^'s, for whom no credit was asked. When Mr. Lincoln's attention was called to the inequality of the quota compared with other States, he replied : " The country needs the sacrifice. We must put the whip on the free horse." In spite of all these disadvantages Illinois gave to the country 73,000 years of service above all calls. AVith one thirteenth of the population of the loyal States, she sent regularly one tenth of all the soldiers, and in the peril of the closing calls, when patriots were few and weary, she then sent one eighth of all that were called for by her loved and honored son in the White House. Her mothers and daughters went into the fields to raise the grain and keep the children together, while the fathers and older sons went to the harvest fields of the world. I knew a father and four sons who agreed that one of them must stay at home ; and they pulled straws from a stack to see who might go. The father was left. The next day he came into the camp, saying : " Mother says she can get the crops in, and I am soins, too." 1 know large Methodist churches from which every male member went to the army. Do you want to know what these heroes from Illinois did in the field ? Ask any soldier with a good record of his own, who is able to judge, and he will tell you that the Illinois men went in to win. It is common history that the greater victories were won in the West. "When everything else looked dark Illinois was irainins victories all down the river, and dividing the Confederacy. Sherman took with him on his great march fortyfive regiments of Illinois infantry, three companies of artillery, and one company of cavalry. He could not avoid

Going To The Sea

If he had been killed, I doubt not the men would have gone right on. Lincoln answered all rumors of Sherman's defeat with, "It is impossible; there is a mighty sight of fight in 100,000 Western men." Illinois soldiers brought home 300 battleflags. The first United States flag that floated over Richmond, was an Illinois flag. She sent messengers and nurses to every field and hospital, to care for her sick and wounded sons. She said, " these suffering ones are mj' sons, and I will care for tiieni."

When individuals had given all, then cities and towns came forward with their credit to the extent of many millions, to aid these men and their families.

One other name from Illinois comes up in all minds, embalmed in all hearts, that must have the supreme place in this story of our glory and of our nation's honor; that name is Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois.

In this age we look with admiration at his uncompromising honesty. And well we may, for this saved us. Thousands throughout tlie length and breadth of our country, who knew him only as " Honest Old Abe," voted for him on that account; and wisely did tiiey choose, for no other man could have carried us through the fearful night of the war. When his plans were too vast for our comprehension, and his faith in the cause too sublime for our participation; when it was all night about us, and all dread before us, and all sad and desolate behind us; when not one ray shone upon our cause; when traitors were haughty and exultant at the South, and tierce and blasphemous at the North; when tiie loj'al men here seemed almost in the minority; when the stoutest heart quailed, the bravest cheek paled, when generals were defeating each other for place, and contractors were leeching out the very heart's blood of the prostrate republic; when every thing else had failed us, we looked at this calm, patient man, standing like a rock in the storm, and said: "Mr. Lincoln is honest, and we can trust him still." Holding to this single point with the energy of faith and despair we held togetlier, and, under God, he brought us through to victory.

wonder of all lands. With such certainty did Mr. Lincoln follow causes to their ultimate effects, tliat his foresight of con - tijigencies seemed almost prophetic.

He is radiant with all the great virtues, and his memory shall shed a glory upon this age, that shall fill the eyes of men as they look into history. Other men have excelled him in some point, but, taken at all points, all in all, he stands head and shoulders above every other man of 6,000 years. An administrator, he saved the nation in the perils of unparalleled civil war. A statesman, he justified his measures by their success. A philanthropist, he gave liberty to one race and salvation to another. A moralist, he bowed Irom the summit of human power to the foot of the Cross, and became a Christian. A mediator, he exercised mercy under the most absolute abeyance to law. A leader, he was no partisan. A commander, he was untainted with blood. A ruler in desperate times, he was unsullied with crime. A man, he has left no word of passion, no thought of malice, no trick of craft, no act of jealousy, no ])urpose of selfish ambition. Thus perfected, without a model and without a peer, he was dropped into these troubled years to adorn and embellish all that is good and all that is great in our humanity, and to present to all coming time the representative of the divine idea ot free government.

It is not too much to say that away down in the future, when the re])ul>lic has fallen from its niche in the wall of time; when the great war itself shall have faded out in the distance like a mist on the horizon; when the Anglo Saxon language shall be spoken only by the tongue of the stranger; then the generations looking this way

It is impossible in our brief space to give more than a meager sketch of such a city as Chicago, which is in itself the greatest marvel of the Prairie State. This mysterious, majestic, mighty city, born first of water, and next of fire; sown in weakness, and raised in power; planted among the willows of the n:arsh, and crowned with the glory of the mountains, sleeping on the bosom of the prairie, and i-ocked on the bosojn of the sea; the youngest city of the world, and still the eye of the prairie, as Damascus, the oldest city of the world, is the eye of the desert. With a commerce far exceeding that of Corinth on her isthmus, in the highway to the East; with the defenses of a continent piled around her by the thousand miles, making her far safer than Home on the banks of the Tiber; with schools eclipsing Alexandria and Athens; with liberties more conspicuous than those of the old republics; witli a heroism ecpial to the first Carthage, and with a sanctity scarcely second to that of Jerusalem - set your thoughts on all this, lifted into the eyes of all men by the miracle of its growth, illuminated by the flame of its fall, and transfigured by the divinity of its resurrection, and you will feel, as I do, the utter impossibility of compassing this subject as it deserves. Some impression of her importance is received from the shock her burning gave to the civilized world.

When the doubt of her calamity was removed, and the horrid fact was accepted, there went a shudder over all cities, and a quiver over all lands. There was scarcely a town in the civilized world that did not shake on the brink of this opening chasm. The flames of our homes reddened all skies. The city was set upon a hill, and could not be hid. All ejes were turned upon it. To have struggled and suffered amid the scenes of its fall is as distinguishing as to have fought at Tliermopjlffi, or Salamis, or Hastings, or Waterloo, or Bunker Hill.

The early history of the city is full of interest, just as the early history of such a mau as Washington or Lincoln becomes public property, and is cherished by every patriot.

Starting with 560 acres in 1833, it embraced and occupied 23,000 acres in 1869, and having now a population of more tlian 600,000, it commands general attention.

The first settler - Jean Baptiste Pointe au Sable, a mulatto from the West Indies - came and began trade with the Indians in 1796. John Kinzie became his successor in ISO-t, m which year Fort Dearborn was erected.

A mere trading-post was kept here from that time till about the time of the Blackhawk war, in 1832. It was not the city. It was merely a cock crowing at midnight. The morning was not yet. In 1833 the settlement about the fort was incorporated as a town. The voters were divided on the propriety of such corporation, twelve voting for it and one against it. Four years later it was incorporated as a city, and embraced 560 acres.

1837. The first exportation by way of e.x;periment was in 1839. Exports exceeded imports first in 1812. The Board of Trade was organized in 1818, but it was so weak that it needed nursing till 1855. Grain was purchased by the wagon-load in the street.

I remember sitting with my father on a load of wheat, in the long line of wagons along Lake street, while the buyers came and untied the bags, and examined the grain, and made their bids. That manner of business had to cease with the day of small things. One tenth of all the wheat in the United States is handled in Chicago. Even as long ago as 1853 the receipts of grain in Chicago exceeded those of the goodly city of St. Louis, and in 1851 the exports of grain from Chicago exceeded those of N"ew York and doubled those of St. Petersburg, Archangel, or Odessa, the largest grain markets in Europe.

The manufacturing interests of the city are not contemptible. In 1873 manufactories employed 15,000 operatives; in 1876, 60,000. The manuftictured product in 1875 was worth $177,000,000.

No estimate of the size and power of Chicago would be adequate that did not put large emphasis on the railroads. Before they came thundering along our streets, canals were the hope of our country. But who ever thinks now of traveling by canal packets? In June, 1852, there were only forty miles of railroad connected with the city. The old Galena division of the Northwestern ran out to Elgin. But now, who can count the trains and measure the roads that seek a terminus or connection in this city? The lake stretches away to the north, gathering into this center all the harvests that might otherwise pass to the north of us. If you will take a map and kx)k at the adjustment of railroads, you will see, first, that Chicago is the great railroad center of the world, as New York is the commercial city of this continent; and, second, that the railroad lines form the iron spokes of a great wheel whose hub is this city. The lake furnishes the only break in the spokes, and this seems simply to have pushed a few spokes together on each shore. See the eighteen trunk lines, exclusive of eastern connections.

Pass round the circle, and view their numbers and extent. There is the great Northwestern, with all its branches, one branch creeping along the lake shore, and so reaching to the north, into the Lake Superior regions, away to the right, and on to the Northern Pacific on the left, swingini;- around Green Bay for iron and copper and silver, twelve months in the year, and reaching out for the wealth of the great aarricultural belt and isothermal line traversed by the Northern Pacific. Another branch, not so far north, feeling for the heart of the Badger State. Another pushing lower down the Mississippi - all these make many connections, and tapping all the vast wheat regions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and all the regions tliis side of sunset. There is that elegant road, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, running out a goodly number of branches, and reaping the great fields this side of the Missouri River. I can only mention the Chiciigo, Alton & St. Louis, ow Illinois Central, described elsewhere, and the Ciiica<ro & Eock Island. Further around we come to the lines connecting us with all the Eastern cities. The Chicago, Indianapolis & St. Louis, the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, and the Michigan Central and Great Western, give us many highways to the seaboard. Thus we reach the Mississippi at five points, from St. Paul to Cairo and the Gulf itself by two routes. We also reach Cincinnati and Baltimore, and Pittsburg and Philadelphia, and New York. North and south run the water courses of the lakes and the rivers, broken just enough at this point to make a pass. Through this, from east to west, run the long lines that stretch from ocean to ocean. This is the neck of the glass, and the (Tolden sands of commerce must pass into our hands. Altogether we have more than 10,000 miles of railroad, directly tributary to this city, seeking to unload their wealth in our coffers. All these roads have come themselves by the infallible instinct of capital. Not a dollar was ever given by the city to secure one of them, and only a small per cent, of stock taken originally by her citizens, and that taken simply as an investment. Coming in the natural order of events, they will not be easily diverted. There is still another showing to all this. The connection between New York aiul San Francisco is by the middle route. This passes inevitably through Chicago. St. Louis wants the Southern Pacific or Kansas Pacific, and pushes it out through Denver, and so on up to Cheyenne. But before the road is fairly under way, the Chicago roads shove out to Kansas City, Tuakingeven the Kansas Pacific a feeder, and actually leaving St. Louis out in the cold. It is not too much to expect that Dakota, Montana, and Washington Territory will find their great market in Chicago.

But these are not all. Perhaps I had better notice here the ten or fifteen new roads tliat have just entered, or are just entering, our city. Their names are all that is necessary to give. Chicago & St. Paul, looking up the Red River country to the British possessions ; the Chicago, Atlantic & Pacific ; the Chicago, Decatur & State line ; the Baltimore & Ohio ; the Chicago, Danville & Vincennes ; the Chicago & La Salle Railroad ; the Chicago, Pittsburgh & Cincinnati ; the Chicago and Canada Southern ; the Chicago and Illinois River Railroad. These, with their connections, and with the new connections of the old roads, already in process of erection, give to Chicago not less than 10,000 miles of new tributaries from the richest land on the continent. Thus there will be added to the reserve power, to the capital within reach of this city, not less than $1,000,000,- UOO.

Add to all this transporting power the ships that sail one every nine minutes of the business hours of the season of navigation; add, also, the canal boats that leave one every five minutes during the same time - and you will see something of the business of the city.

The Commerce Of This City

has been leaping along to keep pace with the growth of the country around us. In 1852, our commerce reached the hopeful sum of $20,000,000. In 1870 it reached $400,000,000. In 1871 it was pushed up above $i50,000,000, and in 1875 it touched nearly double that.

to employ a semi-weekly line of steamers of 3,000 tons capacity. This branch is not likely to be greatly developed. Even after the great Welland Canal is completed we shall have only fourteen feet of water. The ereat ocean vessels will continue to control the trade.

The schools of Chicago are unsurpassed in America. Out of a population of 300,- 000, there were only 186 persons between the ages of six and twenty-one unable to read. This is the best known record.

In 1831 the mail system was condensed into a half-breed, who went on foot to Niles, Mich., once in two weeks, and brought back what papers and news he could find. As late as 1846 there was often only one mail a week. A post-office was established in Chicago in 1833, and the post-master nailed up old boot-legs on one side of his shop to serve as boxes for the nabobs and literary men.

The improvements that have characterized the city are as startling as the city itself In 1831, Mark Beaubien established a ferry over the river, and put himself under bonds to carry all the citizens free for the privilege of charging strangers. Now there are twenty-four large bridges and two tunnels.

In 1833 the government expended $30,- 000 on the harbor. Then commenced that series of maneuvers with the river that has made it one of the world's curiosities. It used to wind around in the lower end of the town, and make its way rippling over the sand into the lake at the foot of Madison street. They took it up and put it down where it now is. It was a narrow stream, so narrow that even moderately small crafts had to go up through the wil-

In 1844 the quagmires in the streets were first pontooned by plank roads, which acted in wet weather as public squirt-guns. Keeping you out of the mud, they compromised by squirting the mud over you. Tlie wooden-block pavements came to Chicago in 1857. In 1840 water was delivered by peddlers in carts or by hand. Then a twenty-five horse-power engine pushed it through hollow or bored logs along the streets till 1854, when it was introduced into the houses by new works. The first fire-engine was used in 1835, and the first steam tire-engine in 1859. Gas was utilized for lighting the city in 1850. The Young Men's Christian Association was organized in 1858, and horse railroads carried them to their work in 1859. The alarm telegraph adopted in 1864. The opera-house built in 1865. The city grew from 560 acres in 1833 to 23,000 in 1869. In 1834, the taxes amounted to $48.90, and the trustees of the town borrowed $60 more for opening and improving streets. In 1835, the Legislature authorized a loan of $2,000, and the treasurer and street commissioners resigned rather than plunge the town into such a gulf.

One third of the city has been raised up an average of eight feet, giving good pitch to the 263 miles of sewerage. The water of the city is above all competition. It is received through two tunnels extending to a crib in the lake two miles from shore. The first tunnel is five feet two inches in diameter and two miles long, and can deliver 50,000,000 of gallons per day. The second tunnel is seven feet in diameter and six miles long, running four miles under the city, and can deliver 100,000,000 of gallons per day. This water is distributed through 410 miles of watermains.

The three grand engineering exploits of the city are : First, lifting the city up on jack-screws, whole squares at a time, without interrupting the business, thus giving us good drainage ; second, running the tunnels under the lake, giving us the best water in the world ; and third, the turning the current of the river in its own channel, delivering us from the old abominations, and making decency possible. They redound about equally to the ci-edit of the engineering, to the energy of the people, and to the health of the city.

That which really constitutes the city, its indescribable spirit, its soul, the way it lights up in ever}' feature in the hour of action, has not been touched. In meeting strangers, one is often surprised how some homely women marry so well. Their forms are bad, their gait uneven and awkward, their complexion is dull, their features are misshapen and mismatched, and when we see them there is no beauty that we should desire them. But when once they are aroused on some subject, they put on new proportions. They light up into great power. The real person comes out from its unseemly ambush, and captures us at will. They have power. They have ability to cause things to come to pass. We no longer wonder why they are in such high demand. So it is with our city.

There is no grand scenery except the two seas, one of water, the other of prairie. Nevertheless, there is a spirit about it, a push, a breadth, a power, that soon makes it a place never to be forsaken. One soon ceases to believe in impossibilities. Balaams are the only prophets that are disappointed. The bottom that has been on the point of falling out has been there so long that it has grown fast. It can not fall out. It has all the capital of the world itching to get inside the corporation.

The two great laws that govern the growth and size of cities are, first, the amount of territory for which they are the disti-ibuting and receiving points ; second, the number of medium or moderate dealers that do this distributing. Monopolists build up themselves, not the cities. They neither eat, wear, nor live in proportion to their business. Both these laws help Chicago.

The tide of trade is eastward - not up or down the map, bat across the map. The lake runs up a wingdam for 500 miles to gather in the business. Commerce can not ferry up there for seven months in the year and the facilities for seven months can do the work for twelve. Then the great region west of us is nearly all good,productive land. Dropping south into the trail of St. Louis, you fall into vast deserts and rocky districts, useful in holding the world together. St. Louis and Cincinnati, instead of rivaling and hurting Chicago, are her greatest sureties of dominion. They are far enough away to give sea-room - farther off than Paris is from London - and yet they are near enough to prevent the springing up of any other great city between them.

St. Louis will be helped by the opening of the Mississippi, but also hurt. That will put New Orleans on her feet, and with a railroad runnino; over into Texas and so

West, she will tap the streams that now crawl up the Texas and Missouri road. The current is East, not North, and a seaport at New Orleans can not permanently help St. Louis.

Chicago is in the field almost alone, to handle the wealth of one fourth of the territory of this great republic. This strip of seacoast divides its margins between Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Savannah or some other great port to be created for the South in the next decade. But Chicago has a dozen empires casting their treasures into her lap. On a bed of coal that can run all the machinery of the world for 500 centuries; in a garden feed the race by the thousand years; at the head of the lakes that give her a temperature as a summer resort equaled by no great city in the land; with a climate that insures the health of her citizens; surrounded bj' all the great deposits of natural wealth in mines and forests and herds, Chicago is the wonder of to-day, and will be the city of the future.

Massacee At Fort Dearboen

During the war of 1S12, Fort Dearborn became the theater of stirring events. The garrison consisted of fifty-four men under command of Captain Nathan Heald, assisted by Lieutenant Helm (son-in-law of Mrs. Kinzie) and Ensign Ronan. Dr. Yoorhees was surgeon. The only residents at the post at that time were the wives of Captain Heald and Lieutenant Helm, and a few of the soldiers, Mr. Kinzie and his family, and a few Canadian voya^eurs, with their wives and children. The soldiers and Mr. Kinzie wereon most friendly terms with the Pottawatomies and Win-

One evening in April, 1812, Mr. Kinzie sat playing on his violin and his children were dancing to the music, when Mrs. Kinzie came rushing into the house pale with terror, and exclaiming: "The Indians! the Indians!" *' What? where? " eagerly inquired Mr. Kinzie. " Up at Lee's, killing and scalping," answered the frightened mother, who, when the alarm was given, was attending Mrs. Barnes (just conMned) living not far oif. Mr. Kinzie and his family crossed the river and took refuge in the fort, to which place Mrs. Barnes and her infant not a day old, were safely conveyed. The rest of the inhabitants took shelter in tlie fort. This alarm was caused by a scalping party of Winnebagoes, who hovered about the fort several days, when they disappeared, and for several weeks the inhabitants were undisturbed.

On the 7th of August, 1812, General Hull, at Detroit, sent orders to Captain Heald to evacuate Fort Dearborn, and to distribute all the United States property to the Indians in the neighborhood - a most insane order. The Pottawatomie chief who brought the dispatch had more wisdom than the commanding general. He advised Captain Heald not to make the distribution. Said he: "Leave the fort and stores as tiiey are, and let the Indians make distribution for themselves; and while they are engaged in the business, the white people may esca])e to Fort Wayne."

informed that treacherv was designed - that the Indians intended to murder the white people in the council, and then destroy those in the fort. Captain Heald, however, took the precaution to open a port-hole displaying a cannon pointing directly upon the council, and by that means saved his life.

Mr. Kinzie, who knew the Indians well, begged Captain Heald not to confide in their promises, nor distribute the arms and munitions among them, for it would only put power into their iiands to destroy the whites. Acting upon this advice, Heald resolved to withhold the munitions of war; and on the night of the 13th after the distribution of the other property had been made, the powder, ball and liquors were thrown into the river, the muskets broken up and destroyed.

Black Partridge, a friendly chief, came to Captain Heald and said: "Linden birds have been singing in my ears to-day; be careful on the march you are iroino' to take." On that night vigilant Indians had crept near the fort and discovered the destruction of their promised booty going on within. The next morning the powder was seen floating on the surface of the river. The savages were exasperated and made loud complaints and threats.

On the following day when preparations were making to leave the fort, and all the inmates were deeply impressed with a sense of impending danger, Capt. Wells, an uncle of Mrs. Heald, was discovered upon the Indian trail among the sand hills on the borders of the lake, not far distant, with a band of mounted Mianiis, of whose tribe he was chief, having been ado]ited bv the famous Miami warrior, Little Turtle.

"When news of Hull's surrender reached Fort Wayne, he had started with this force to assist Heald in defending Fort Dearborn. He was too late. Every means for its defense had been destro3'ed the night before, and arrangements were made for leaving the fort on the morning of the 15th.

It was a warm, bright morning in the middle of August. Indications were positive that the savages intended to murder the white people; and when they moved out of the southern gate of the fort, the march was like a funeral procession. The band, feeling the solemnity of the occasion, struck up the Dead March in Saul.

Capt. Wells, who had blackened his face with gun-powder in token of his fate, took the lead with his band of Miamis, followed by Captain Heald with his wife by his side on horseback. Mr. Kinzie hoped by his personal influence to avert the impending blow, and therefore accompanied them, leaving his family in a boat in charge of a friendly Indian, to be taken to his trading station at the site of Niles, Michigan, in the event of his death.

The procession moved slowly along the lake shore till they reached the sand hills between the prairie and the beach, when the Pottawatomie escort, under the leadership of Blackbird, tiled to the right, placing those hills between them and the white people. Wells, with his Miamis, had kept in the advance. They suddenly came rushing back, Wells exclaiming, "They are about to attack us; form instantly." These words were quickly followed by a storm of bullets which came whistling over the little hills which the treacherous savages had made the covert for their murderous attack. The white troops charged upon the Indians, drove them back to the prairie, and then the battle was waged between fifty-four soldiers, twelve civilians and three or four women (the cowardly Miamis having fled at the outset) against five hundred Indian warriors. The white people, hopeless, resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Ensign Ronan wielded his weapon vigorously, even after falling upon his knees weak from the loss of blood. Capt. Wells, who was by the side of his niece, Mrs. Heald, when the conflict began, behaved with the greatest coolness and courage. He said to her, " We have not the slightest chance for life. We must part to meet no more in this world. God bless you." And then he dashed forward. Seeing a young warrior, painted like a demon, climb into a wagon in which were twelve children, and tomahawk them all, he cried out, unmindful of his personal danger, " If that is your game, butchering women and children, I will kill too." He spurred his horse tow-ards the Indian camp, where they had left their squaws and papooses, hotly pursued by swift-footed young warriors, who sent bullets whistling after him. One of these killed his horse and wounded him severely in the leg. With a yell the young braves rushed to make him their prisoner and reserve him for torture. He resolved not to be made a captive, and by the use of the most provoking epithets tried to induce them to kill him instantly. He called a fiery young chief a sqiuiw, when the enraged warrior killed Wells instantly with his tomahawk, jumped upon his body, cut out his heart, and ate a portion of the warm morsel with savage delight !

conspicuous part. Mrs. Heald was an excellent equestrian and an expert in the use of the rifle. Slie fought the savajres bravely, receiving several severe wounds. Though faint from the loss of blood, she managed to keep her saddle. A savage raised his tomahawk to kill her, when she looked him full in the face, and with a sweet smile and in a gentle voice said, in his own language, "Surely you will not kill a squaw !" The arm of the savage fell, and the life of the heroic woman was saved.

Mrs. Helm, the step-daughter of Mr. Kinzie, had an encounter with a stout Indian, who attempted to tomahawk her. Springing to one side, she received the glancing blow on her shoulder, and at the same instant seized the savage round the neck with her arms and endeavored to get hold of his scalping knife, which hung in a sheath at his breast. While she was thus struiTgling she was drao;o;ed from her antaijonist by another powerful Indian, who bore her, in spite of her struggles, to the margin of the lake and plunged her in. To her astonishment she was held by him so that she would not drown, and she soon perceived that she was in the hands of the friendly Black Partridge, who had saved her life.

The wife of Sergeant Holt, a large and powerful woman, behaved as bravely as an Amazon. She rode a fine, high-spirited horse, whicli the Indians coveted, and several of them attacked her with the butts of their guns, for the purpose of dismounting her; but she used the sword which she had snatched from her disabled husband so skillfully that she foiled them; and, suddenly wheeling her horse, she dashed over the prairie, followed by the savages shouting, "The brave woman! the brave woman! Don't hurt her!" They finally overtook her, and while she was fighting them in front, a ])0werful savage came up behind her, seized her by the neck and dragged her to the ground. Horse and woman were made captive. Mrs. Hok was a long time a captive among the Indians, but was afterward ransomed.

In this sharp conflict two thirds of the white people were slain and wounded, and all their horses, baggage and provision were lost. Only twentv-eight stragsliug men now remained to fight five hundred Indians rendered furious by the sight of blood. They succeeded in breaking through the ranks of the murderers and gaining a slight eminence on the ])rairie near the Oak Woods. The Indians did not pursue, but gathered on their flanks, while the chiefs held a consultation on the sand-hills, and showed signs of willingness to parley. It would have been madness on the part of the whites to renew the fight; and so Capt. Heald went forward and met Blackbird on the open prairie, where terms of surrender were agreed upon. It was arranged that the white people should give up their arms to Blackbird, and that the survivors should become prisoners of war, to be exchanged for ransoms as soon as practicable. With this understanding captives and captors started for the Indian camp near the fort, to which Mrs. Helm liad been taken bleeding and sufi'ering by Black Partridge, and had met her step-father and learned that her husband was safe.

A new scene of horror was now opened at the Indian camp. The wounded, not being included in the surrender, as it was interpreted by the Indians, and the British general, Proctor, having offered a liberal bounty for American scalps, delivered at Maiden, nearly all the wounded men were killed and scalped, and price of the trophies was afterward paid by the British government.

This celebrated Indian chief, Shabbona, deserves more than a passing notice. Although he was not so conspicuous as Tecumseh or Black Hawk, yet in point of merit he was superior to either of them.

Shabbona was born at an Indian village on the Kankakee River, now in Will County about the year 1775. While young he was made chief of the band, and went to Shabbona Grove, now De Kalb County, where they were found in the early settlement of the county.

In the war of 1812, Shabbona, with his warriors, joined Tecumseh, was aid to that great chief, and stood by his side when he fell at the battle of the Thames. At the time of the Winnebago war, in 1827, he visited almost every village among the Pottawatomies, and by his persuasive arguments prevented them from taking part in the war. By request of the citizens of Chicago, Shabbona, accompanied by Billy Caldwell (Sauganash), visited Big Foot's village at Geneva Lake, in order to pacify the warriors, as fears were entertained that they were about to raise the tomahawk against the whites. Here Shabbona was taken prisoner by Big Foot, and his life threatened, but on the following day was set at liberty. From that time the Indians (through reproach) styled him " the white man's friend," and many times his life was endangered.

by his influence prevented his people from taking part with the Sacs and Foxes. After the death of Black Partridge and Senachwine, no chief among the Pottawatomies exerted so much influence as Shabbona. Black Hawk, aware of this influence, visited him at two different times, in order to enlist him in his cause, but was unsuccessful. While Black Hawk was a prisoner at Jefferson Barracks, he said, had It not been for Shabbona the whole Pottawatomie nation would have joined his standard, and he could have continued the war for 3'ears.

To Shabbona many of the early settlers of Illinois owe the preservation of their lives, for it is a well-known fact, had he not notified the people of their danger, a large portion of them would have fallen victims to the tomahawk of savages. By saving the lives of whites he endangered his own, for the Sacs and Foxes threatened to kill him, and made two attempts to execute their threats. The}' killed Pj'peogee, his son, and Pyps, his nephew, and hunted him down as though he was a wild beast.

Shabbona had a reservation of two sections of land at his Grove, but by leaving it and going West for a short time, the Government declared tlie reservation forfeited, and sold it the same as other vacant land. On Shabbona's return, and finding his possessions gone, he was very sad and broken down in spirit, and left the Grove forever. The citizens of Ottawa raised money and bought him a tract of land on the Illinois Kiver, iibove Seneca, in Grundy County, on which they built a house, and supplied him with means to live on. He lived here until his death, which occurred on the 17th of July, 1859, in the eighty- fourth year of liis age, and was buried with creat pomp in tlie cemetery at Morris. His squaw, Pokanoka, was drowned in Mazon Creek, Grundy County, on the 30th of November, 1864, and was buried by his side.

many of the river towns, to erect a monument over tlie remains of Shabbona, but the war breaking out, the enterprise was abandoned. Only a plain marble slab marks the resting-place of this friend of the white man.