Vermilion County, Illinois - Chapter 5: Origin of the Prairies, 1879

Chapter 5: Origin of the Prairies

The prairies have ever been a wonder, and their origin the theme of much curious speculation. The vast extent of these natural meadows would naturally excite curiosity, and invite the many theories which, from time to time, have been advanced by writers holding conflicting opinions as to the manner in which they were formed. Major Stoddard, H. M. Brackenridge and Governor Reynolds, whose personal acquaintance with the prairies, eastward of the Mississippi, extended back prior to the year 1800, and whose observations were supported by the experience of other contemporaneous residents of the west, held that the prairies were caused by fire. The prairies are covered with grass, and were probably occasioned by the ravages of fire ; because wherever copses of trees were found on them, the grounds about them are low and too moist to admit the fire to pass over it ; and because it is a common practice among the Indians and other hunters to set the woods and prairies on fire, by means of which they are able to kill an abundance of game. They take secure stations to the leeward, and the fire drives the game to them.*

The plains of Indiana and Illinois have been mostly produced by the same cause. They are very different from the Savannahs on the seaboard and the immense plains of the upper Missouri. In the prairies of Indiana I have been assured that the woods in places have been known to recede, and in others to increase, within the recollection of the old inhabitants. In moist places, the woods are still standing, the fire meeting here with obstruction. Trees, if planted in these prairies, would doubtless grow. In the islands, preserved by accidental causes, the progress of the fire can be traced ; the first burning would only scorch the outer bark of the tree; this would render it more susceptible to the next, the third would completely kill. I have seen in places, at present completely prairie, pieces of burnt trees, proving that the prairie had been caused by fire. The grass is generally very luxuriant, which is not the case in the plains of the Missouri. There may, doubtless, be spots where the proportion of salts or other bodies may be such as to favor the growth of grass only.f

Governor Reynolds, who came to Illinois at the age of thirteen, in the year 1800, and lived here for over sixty years, the greater portion of his time employed in a public capacity, roving over the prairies in the Indian border wars or overseeing the affairs of a public and busy life, in his interesting autobiography, published in 1855, says: "Many learned essays are written on the origin of the prairies, but any attentive observer will come to the conclusion that it is fire burning the strong, high grass that caused the prairies. I have witnessed the growth of the forest in these southern counties of Illinois, and know there is more timber in them now than there was forty or fifty years before. The obvious reason is, the fire is kept out. This is likewise the reason the prairies are generally the most fertile soil. The vegetation in them was the strongest and the fires there burnt with the most power. The timber was destroyed more rapidly in the fertile soil than in the barren lands. It will be seen that the timber in the north of the state, is found only on the margins of streams and other places where the prairie fires could not reach it."

The later and more satisfactory theory is, that the prairies were formed by the action of water instead of fire. This position was taken and very ably discussed by that able and learned writer, Judge James Hall, as early as 1836. More recently, Prof. Lesquereux prepared an article on the origin and formation of the prairies, published at length in vol. 1, Geological Survey of Illinois, pp. 238 to 254, inclusive ; and Dr. Worthen, the head of the Illinois Geological Department, referring to this article and its author, gives to both a most flattering indorsement. Declining to discuss the comparative merits of the various theories as to the formation of the prairies, the doctor " refers the reader to the very able chapter on the subject by Prof. Lesquereux. whose thorough acquaintance, both with fossil and recent botany, and the general laws which govern the distribution of the ancient as well as the recent flora, entitles his opinion to our most profound consideration." *

Prof. Lesquereux' article is exhaustive, and his conclusions are summed up in the declaration " that all the prairies of the Mississippi Valley have been formed by the slow recessions of waters of various extent ; first transformed into swamps, and in the process of time drained and dried ; and that the high rolling prairies, and those of these bottoms along the rivers as well, are all the result of the same cause, and form one whole, indivisible system."

tions. While assenting to the received conclusion that the prairies - the land itself - have been formed under water, except the decomposed animal and vegetable matter that has been added to the surface of the lands since their emergence, the judge dissents from Prof. Lesquereux, in so far as the latter holds that the presence of ulmic acid and other unfavorable chemicals in the soil of the prairies, rendered them unfit for the growth of trees; and in extending his theory to the prairies on the uplands, as well as in their more level and marshy portions. The learned judge holds to the popular theory that the most potent cause in keeping the prairies as such, and retarding and often destroying forest growth on them, is the agency of fire. Whatever may have been the condition of the ground when the prairie lands first emerged from the waters, or the chemical changes they may have since undergone, how many years the process of vegetable growth and decay may have gone on, adding their deposits of rich loam to the original surface, making the soil the most fertile in the world, is a matter of mere speculation ; certain it is, however, that ever within the knowledge of man the prairies have possessed every element of soil necessary to insure a rapid and vigorous growth of forest trees, wherever the germ could find a lodgment and their tender years be protected against the one formidable enemy, fire. Judge Caton gives the experience of old settlers in the northern part of the state, similar to that of Brackenridge and Reynolds, already quoted, where, on the Vermillion River of the Illinois, and also in the neighborhood of Ottawa many years ago, fires occurred under the observation of the narrators, which utterly destroyed, root and branch, an entire hardwood forest, the prairie taking immediate possession of the burnt district, clothing it with grasses of its own ; and in a few years this forest land, reclaimed to prairie, could not be distinguished from the prairie itself, except from its «;reater luxuriance.

Judge Caton's illustration of how the forests obtain a foot-hold in the prairies is so aptly expressed, and in such harmony with the experience of every old settler on the prairies of eastern Illinois and western Indiana, that we quote it.

" The cause of the absence of trees on the upland prairies is the problem most important to the agricultural interests of our state, and it is the inquiry which alone I propose to consider, but cannot resist the remark that wherever we do find timber throughout this broad field of prairie, it is always in or near the humid portions of it, - as along the margins of streams, or upon or near the springy uplands. Many most luxuriant groves are found on the highest portions of the uplands, but always in the neighborhood of water. For a remarkable example I may refer to that great chain of groves extending from and including the Au Sable Grove on the east and Holderman's Grove on the west, in Kendall county, occupying the high divide between the waters of the Illinois and the Fox Rivers. In and around all the groves flowing springs abound, and some of them are separated by marshes, to the very borders of which the great trees approach, as if the forest were ready to seize upon each yard of ground as soon as it is elevated above the swamps. Indeed, all our groves seem to be located where water is so disposed as to protect them, to a great or less extent, from the prairie fire, although not so situated as to irrigate them. If the head-waters of the streams on the prairies are most frequently without timber, so soon as they have attained sufficient volume to impede the progress of the fires, with very few exceptions we find forests on their borders, becoming broader and more vigorous as the magnitude of the streams increase. It is manifest that land located on the borders of streams which the fire cannot pass are only exposed to one-half the fires to which they would be exposed but for such protection. This tends to show, at least, that if but one-half the fires that have occurred had been kindled, the arboraceous growth could have withstood their destructive influences, and the whole surface of what is now prairie would be forest. Another confirmatory fact, patent to all observers, is, that the prevailing winds upon the prairies, especially in the autumn, are from the west, and these give direction to the prairie fires. Consequentlv, the lands on the westerly sides of the streams are the most exposed to the fires, and, as might be expected, we find much the most timber on the easterly sides of the streams."

"Another fact, always a subject of remark among the dwellers on the prairies, I regard as conclusive proof that the prairie soils are peculiarly adapted to the growth of trees is. that wherever the fires have been kept from the groves by the settlers, they have rapidly encroached upon the prairies, unless closely depastured by the farmers' stock, or prevented by cultivation. This fact I regard as established by careful observation of more than thirtv-five years, during which I have been an interested witness of the settlement of this country, - from the time when a few log cabins, many miles apart, bnilt in the borders of the groves, alone were met with, till now nearly the whole of the great prairies in our state, at least, are brought under cultivation by the industry of the husbandman. Indeed, this is a fact as well recognized by the settlers as that corn will grow upon the prairies when properly cultivated. Ten vears ago I heard the observation made bv intelligent men, that within the preceding twenty-five years the area of the timber in the prairie portions of the state had actually doubled by the sponta- neous extension of the natural groves. However this may be, certain it is that the encroachments of the timber upon the prairies have been universal and rapid, wherever not impeded by fire or other physical causes."

"When Europeans first landed in America, as they left the dense forests east of the Alleghanies and went west over the mountains into the valleys beyond, anywhere between Lake Erie and the fortieth degree of latitude, approaching the Scioto River, they would have seen small patches of country destitute of timber. These were called openings. As they proceeded farther toward the Wabash the number and area of these openings or barrens would increase. These last were called by the English savannahs or meadows, and by the French, prairies. Westward of the Wabash, except occasional tracts of timbered lands in northern Indiana, and fringes of forest growth along the intervening water-courses, the prairies stretch westward continuously across a part of Indiana and the whole of Illinois to the Mississippi. Taking the line of the Wabash railway, which crosses Illinois in its greatest breadth, and beginning in Indiana, where the railway leaves the timber, west of the Wabash nearMarshfield, the prairie extends to Quincy, a distance of more than two hundred and fifty miles, and its continuity the entire way is only broken by four strips of timber along four streams running at right angles with the route of the railway, namely the timber on the Vermillion River, between Danville and the Indiana state-line, the Sangamon, seventy miles west of Danville near Decatur, the Sangamon again a few miles east of Springfield, and the Illinois River at Meredosia; and all of the timber at the crossing of these several streams, if put together, would not aggregate fifteen miles against the two hundred and lift}7 miles of prairie. Taking a north and south direction and parallel with the drainage of the rivers, one could start near Ashley, on the Illinois Central railway, in Washington county, and going northward, nearly on an air-line, keeping on the divide between the Kaskaskia and Little Wabash, the Sangamon and the Vermillion, the Iroquois and the Vermillion of the Illinois, crossing the latter stream between the mouths of the Fox and Du Page and travel through to the state of Wisconsin, a distance of nearly three hundred miles, without encountering five miles of timber during the whole journey. Mere figures of distances across the " Grand Prairie," as this vast meadow was called by the old settlers, fail to give an adequate idea of its magnitude.

Let the reader, in fancy, go back fifty or sixty years, when there were no farms between the settlement on the North Arm Prairie, in Edgar county, and Ft. Clark, now Peoria, on the Illinois River, or between the Salt Works, west of Danville, and Ft. Dearborn, where Chicago now is, or when there was not a house between the Wabash and Illinois Rivers in the direction of La Fayette and Ottawa ; when there was not a solitary road to mark the way ; when Indian trails alone led to unknown places, where no animals except the wild deer and slinking wolf would stare, the one with timid wonder, the other with treacherous leer, upon the ventursome traveler; when the gentle winds moved the supple grasses like waves of a green sea under the summer's sky; - the beauty, the grandeur and solitude of the prairies may be imagined as they were a reality to the pioneer when he first beheld them.

There is an essential difference between the prairies eastward of the Mississippi and the great plains westward necessary to be borne in mind. The western plains, while they present a seeming level appearance to the eye, rise rapidly to the westward. From Kansas City to Pueblo the ascent is continuous ; beyond Ft. Dodge, the plains, owing to their elevation and consequent dryness of the atmosphere and absence of rainfall, produce a thin and stunted vegetation. The prairies of Illinois and Indiana, on the contrary, are much nearer the sealevel, where the moisture is greater. There were many jDonds and sloughs which aided in producing a humid atmosphere, all which induced a rank growth of grasses. All early writers, referring to the vegetation of our prairies, including Fathers Hennepin, St. Cosme, Charlevoix and others, who recorded their personal observations nearly two hundred years ago, as well as later English and American travelers, bear uniform testimony to the fact of an unusually luxuriant growth of grasses.

Early settlers, in the neighborhood of the author, all bear witness to the rank growth of vegetation on the prairies before it was grazed by live stock, and supplanted with shorter grasses, that set in as the country improved. Since the organization of Edgar county in 1823, - of which all the territory north to the Wisconsin line was then a part, - on the level prairie between the present sites of Danville and Georgetown, the grass grew so high that it was a source of amusement to tie the tops over the withers of a horse, and in places the height of the grass would nearly obscure both horse and rider from view. This was not a slough, but on arable land, where some of the first farms in Vermillion county were broken out. On the high rolling prairies the vegetation was very much shorter, though thick and compact ; its average height being about two feet.

Prairie Fires

ror, before the devouring element. Such pictures are overdrawn. Instances of loss of human life, or animals, may have sometimes occurred. The advance of the fire is rapid or slow, as the wind may be strong or light ; the flames leaping high in the air in their progress over level ground, or burning lower over the uplands. When a tire starts under favorable causes, the horizon gleams brighter and brighter until a fiery redness rises above its dark outline, while heavy, slow-moving masses of dark clouds curve upward above it. In another moment the blaze itself shoots up, first at one spot then at another, advancing until the whole horizon extending across a wide prairie is clothed with flames, that roll and curve and dash onward and upward like waves of a burning ocean, lighting up the landscape with the brilliancy of noon-day. A roaring, crackling sound is heard like the rushing of a hurricane. The flame, which in general rises to the height of twenty feet, is seen rolling its waves against each other as the liquid, tier}' mass moves forward, leaving behind it a blackened surface on the ground, and long trails of murky smoke floating above. A more terrific sight than the burning prairies in early days can scarcely be conceived. Woe to the farmer whose fields extended into the prairie, and who had suffered the tall grass to grow near his fences ; the labor of the year would be swept away in a few hours. Such accidents occasionally occurred, although the preventive was simple. The usual remedy was to set fire against fire, or to burn off a strip of grass in the vicinity of the improved ground, a beaten road, the treading of domestic animals about the inclosure of the tanner, would generally afford protection. In other cases a few furrows would be plowed around the field, or the grass closely mowed between the outside of the fence and the open prairie.*

No wonder that the Indians, noted for their naming a place or thing from some of its distinctive peculiarities, should have called the prairies Mas-ko-tia, or the place of fire. In the ancient Algonquin tongue, as well as in its more modern form of the Ojibbeway (or Chippeway, as this people are improperly designated), the word scoutay means fire ; and in the Illinois and Pottowatamie, kindred dialects, it is scotte and scutay, respectively.f It is also eminently characteristic that the Indians, who lived and hunted exclusively upon the prairies, were known among their red brethren as " Maskoutes," rendered by the French writers, Maskoutines, or People of the Fire or Prairie Country.

prairie, - always excepting the thin curtain of timber draping the water-courses ; and all that part of Indiana lying north and west of the Wabash, embracing fully one-third of the area of the state, is essentially so.

Of the twenty-seven counties in Indiana, lying wholly or partially west and north of the Wabash, twelve of them are prairie ; seven are mixed prairies, barrens and timber, the barrens and prairie predominating. In five, the barrens, with the prairies, are nearly equal to the timber, while only three of the counties can be characterized as heavily timbered. And wherever timber does occur in these twenty-seven counties, it is found in localities favorable to its protection against the ravages of fire, by the proximity of intervening lakes, marshes or water-courses. We cannot know how long it took the forest to advance from the Scioto : how often capes and points of trees, like skirmishers of an army, secured a foothold to the eastward of the lakes and rivers of Ohio and Indiana, only to be driven back again by the prairie fires advancing from the opposite direction ; or conceive how many generations of forest growth were consumed by the prairie fires before the timber-line was pushed westward across the state of Ohio, and through Indiana to the banks of the Wabash.

The prairies of Illinois and Indiana were born of water and preserved by fire for the children of civilized men, who have come and taken possession of them. The manner of their coming, and the difficulties that befell them on the way, will hereafter be considered. The white man, like the forests, advanced from the east. The red man, like the prairie fires, as we shall hereafter see, came from the west.