Chicago City (part 1 of 57)

Fremont O. Bennett

Designed to be a Book of Reference and Authority for every important incident connected -with the early settlement of Chicago and Northern Illinois, containing data of City, State and National Con- Ventions, Campaigns, Elections and Administrations, important Public Meetings, complete Lists of Officials, Biographical Sketches of Noted Men, Valuable Public Records, Mayors' Messages, Resolutions of the Common Council. Official Election Returns, Tables of Population and of Voters by Wards and Nationalities, Occupations, Valuation, Taxation, Summary

Preface

Beginning with the arrival of the first actual settler of Chicago in 1779, an attempt has been made to give in the following pages, on political lines, a clear idea of the unprecedented advancement of this great center of Western civilization, the rapid increase of population, and the speedy building up of business and society on a well-laid and secure foundation. The book will be found a non partisan medium of reference for many facts, incidents and reminiscences of national, state and « city campaigns and conventions. It is hoped that it will com- ^ mend itself to every person identified with politics, or interested Cf in the political history of our country and of municipal gov- -J' ernment. Chicago is recognized as the great political center; r nearly the center of population - the "Convention City." Illi- '"' nois has furnished two of the greatest Presidents four terms, 7 and for a quarter of a century the greatest campaigns have centered here, radiating from Chicago. Next year will be the one hundredth since the adoption of the ordinance of 1787, whereby the Northwest Territory was ceded to the United States, out of which territory the State of Illinois was formed. On the 4th of <a March, 1887, Chicago will have been incorporated as a city fifty ^ years. We thus have both a centennial and semi-centennial an- Sh niversary worthy of commemoration. In this connection the book will be found to comprise a complete municipal history, aj from the organization of Cook county, the incorporation of the original town of Chicago, the foundation of the city govern- ^ ment in 1837 UP to an<^ including the municipal election of 1886, ^ with sketches of the various Mayors and administrations ; inaugural messages, resolutions and ordinances of the City Council, official election returns, redistriction of the city by wards, val- "3"^ uable statistical tables, an account of the building of the City !5T Hall, county statistics, etc., etc. The increase of population ^ from 4,170 in 1837 to 75°>000 m 1886, with no cessation in 01 growth, is evidence that Chicago is destined to be one of the greatest, if not the chief city on the American Continent. ^ > In the compilation of this work the author has consulted upward of 100 books, files, pamphlets, and records, and is under obligations to the Hon. George H. Fergus, Hon. John Wentworth, ^ Hon. J. Young Scammon, Hon. George W. Julian, Mr. D. W. Lusk, of Springfield, A. T. Andreas & Co., Chicago, and many other distinguished writers and publishers, for valuable matter ' - embodied herein.

Index To Content

Chapter I. - First Settler of Chicago, 5. Various Appellations of Chicago. .Garies' River, 6. The Main River Bed Changed. .Chicago in Virginia. .Treaty of Greenville. . Original Site of Chicago. .Illinois in Indiana Territory. .Fort Dearborn Established. .First Commandants of the Fort. .Massacre of 1S12, 7. Captain John and Lieutenant Wm. Whistler. .Memorial Meeting of Citizens, 9. Address of Thomas Hoyne, 10 . .Illinois Territory. .Provisions of the Ordinance of 1787. .Congressman Nathaniel Pope. . Illinois admitted to the Union.. Chicago in Various Counties. .Earliest Political Records. .Earliest Valuation, 11. First Election Ordered. .First Public Officials. .First Marriage, 12. First Clergyman. .Chicago Never in Vermillion County. .First Voting Precincts Formed. .First Taxpayers, 13 . .List of First Justices of the Peace.. First Poll-List, 14. Personal History of First Voters.. Daniel P. Cook, 15, 16. Grant for the Illinois and Michigan Canal. .Vote on Constitution Legalizing Slavery. .First Canal Commissioners. .First School Trustees .. Survey of the Town of Chicago. .First Tavern License, 17. First Local Improvements. .State Election of 1830. .Where Held. .Death of John Kinzie, 18. Personal History of Voters of 1830. .Special Elections, 19, 21. Mark Beaubien and His Fiddle, 22, 23. Arrival of Early Settlers. .Gurdon S. Hubbard. .First Militia Muster Roll. .First Mounted Troops, 24, 26. Cook County Organized. .First County Election, First Officials, First Commissioners' Court, Proceedings of Same, Election of 1838, 26, 28. Original Town of Chicago Incorporated. .First Board of Trustees, Proceedings, 29, 30, 31. Important Meetings of Citizens, 31. Gubernatorial Election of 1S34. .First Drawbridge and First Vessel Built at Chicago . .Their Builder. .First Shipment of Freight Down the Lakes. .First Public School Teacher, 32.

Chapter II. - Presidential Campaign of 1836. .City Charter Discussion TJie Charter Procured . .Charter Election Called. .Original Wards and Boundaries. .The Election. .Official Returns by Wards and Divisions, 33, 36. John H. Kinzie. Mayor, William B. Ogden, 37, 43 . . The City Seal, 43.. .Oldest Buildings. Land Deals. The Early Press, 44, 45. Settlement of Social and Political Lines, 46 Election of 1S38. . First Appearance in Chicago of Stephen A. Douglas, His Election to Congress. .National Campaign of 1840'. ."Hard Cider" Recollections. ."Old Tippecanoe's" popularity. .Chicago and Cook County Remain Democratic. .Chamblee and "Billy" Caldwell on-Gen. Harrison, 47, 50. Early Abolitionists, 50. First State Convention held in Chicago. .State and Congressional Election of 1842. . .National Campaign of 1S44. .Result in Chicago and Cook County, 51. Municipal Elections.. Mayor Buckner S. Morris, 52. Mayor Benjamin W. Raymond, 53. Mayor Alexander Lloyd.. Mayor Francis C. Sherman His First Inaugural Message, 54. Mayor Raymond's Second Election. .Action of the Democratic Convention. .Mayor Raymond's Inaugural Message, 55. Mayor Augustus Garrett.. His First Inaugural Message.. Retrenchment Recommended. .The " Underground Railroad" Criticised, 56, 57. Mayor Alson S. Sherman, 57. Augustus Garrett's Second Election and Inaugural. .Many Improvements Recommended, 5S. Mayors John P. Chapin and James Curtiss. .City Wards Increased to Nine, 59.

Chapter III. - The River and Harbor Convention of 1S47. .Eminent Men Connected Therewith. .Horace Greeley's Account of the Festivities. .Table of Population City and County 1840101845. Productions, etc., 60, 62. Presidential Campaign of 1848. .Split in the Democratic Party. .The Chicago Abolitionists Zebina Eastman, Hooper Warren, Dr. C. V. Dyer and John Jones.. Last Slave Disturbance. .A Great Free Soil Meeting. .Those Present and the Action Taken. . Nominations by the National Parties. . The Election, 62, 68. Vote on the New State Constitution an 1 For and Against the Negro Clause State Vote. . Rival City Conventions. .Vote in the Municipal Election of 1848. .Mayor James H. Wood- -worth .The City Marshal Censured by the Council. .Ordinance Against Gambling. Mayor Woodworth's Inaugural. .Number of Pupils Attending Public Schools. .The Mortality. . Number of Names in the Directory. .Operations of the Canal.. Mayor Woodworth re-Elected. .His Second Inaugural, 68, 73. Mayor Curtiss re-Elected 1850. .Agitation over the "Black Laws". .Action of the Common Council Condemning the Fugitive Slave Act. . Mass Meetings Held, 73, 75. Mayor Walter S. Gurnec.His Inaugural. .National Cam- paign of 1S52 .A Democratic Victory of Brief Duration. .Organization of the Republican Party. .Notable anti-Douglas Meeting al the Tremonl House. .The Kansas-Nebraska Movement. .The Campaign of 1856. .The. Result in Detail .. Congressional Elections and < !hanges of I Ustricts, 75, 79.

Chapter [V. - Lincoln and Shields Rivals for the United States Senatorship .. Election of Lyman Trumbull.. Trumbull Twice re-Elected. .Lincoln and Douglas Grow Aggressive . The Famous Joint Debates .. Lincoln's Nomination and Election to the Presidency Douglas' Patriotism. .Speeches at Springfield and Chicago. .Life and Services of Douglas.. Was Douglas Mobbed at Market Hall? . 1 1 is Enthusiastic Reception in 1861 . .His Death . .The Christian Men of Chicago Petition Lincoln to Proclaim Emancipation of the Slaves .. His Attitude on the Question, 80 to 96. . Mayor < diaries M. Gray. .Mayor Isaac L. Milliken Election of Mayor 1.. J). Roone by the "Know-nothings" .. I lis Administration . .The Lager Beer Riot. .Sketch of Mayor Boone, 97, 101.

CHAPTER V. - Municipal Campaign of 1S56. . Mayor Thomas Dyer. .Great Free State Meeting in the Court House Square. .Col. J. H. Lane's Famous Speech, 102, 104. John Wentworth the Republican Candidate for Mayor. .Trouble at the Rolls Mayor Wentworth's Inaugural Message .. I lis Administration, 105, 109. Sketch of John Wentworth, 109, in. Mayor John C. Haines. .Mayor Wentworth's Second Election and Inaugural, III, 117. Mayor Julian S. Rumsey. . Incidents of 1 1 is Administration, 117, 119. Constitutional Convention of r 861. .Campaign of 1S62.. Speech of Isaac N. Arnold. Sketch of Arnold. . Speech of Owen Lovejoy. .Congressional Election, 119, 122.

CHAPTER VI.- - New City Charter. .Extension of Territory. .Mayor Francis C. Sherman's Second and Third Terms. .The "Chicago Conspiracy". .The "Sons of Liberty". - Wrentworth and Vallandigham, 123, 126. Campaign of 1S64. . Repeal of the "Black Code". . Illinois in the War. .Death of Lincoln. .Mayor John B. Rice. .National Campaign of 186S. Lirst Fall City Flection, Mayor Roswell B. Mason, 126, 131. The Great Fire Message of Mayor Mason. .Efforts to Change the Location of the City Government. .Sketch of Mayor Mason, 131, 134.

CHAPTER VI I. - Constitutional Convention of 1869. .State Campaign 1S70. .A Noted Congressional Contest in Chicago. .Action of the Legislature for the Relief of Chicago The "Fire Proof " Ticket .. Official Returns, 135, 13S. Mayor Medill's Administration The Rolice Board Contest Saloon Troubles, 13S, 143. The "Reople's Party" .. Preliminary Meetings .The Kingsbury Hall Mass Meeting The Convention and Platform. . Position of the Democrats. City Treasurer David A. Gage's Defalcation. .The "Law and Order" Party. . The Election .. Official Returns, 143, 154. Mayor Colvin's Administration. His Message and Appointments. . Particulars of the Gage Deficit. City Finances .. The New Charter.. Incorporation under the General Law. .The Vote 154, 161.. .The Custom House Commission. .Changes in Departments. .The Wards Reduced.. The Exposition Building Mass Meeting. . Election of Thomas Hoyne. .The Reform Council and the Hoyne-Colvin Contest .Long and Short Terms in the Council. .Thomas Hoyne's Inaugural, 161, 167. Change in City Departments. . The Contest over the Comptroller. .Sketch of Harvey D. Colvin Sketch of Thomas Hoyne Death of Thomas Floyne, Resolutions of the Common Council, etc., 167, 180.

CHAPTER VIIL - The Great Whiskey Ring. .The Greeley Movement .. National and State 1 Campaign of 1872 -The Patrons of Husbandry- - Election of Oglesby to the U. S. Senate. . State and Congressional Election of 1874.. The Green backers, 181, 186. National ami State Campaign of 1876. .Election of David Davis to the U. S. Senate. .Sketch of Judge Davis, his Death and Funeral. .State Campaign of 1878. .The Socialists, 186, 190. Mayor Heath's Election to the "Short Term".. His Inaugural Contest over the Removal of Police Superintendent, M. C. Ilickey - First Spring Election .. Mayor Heath's second term.. City Finances .Operations of the City Council .The Hildreth-Riordan Contest. . Action on the death of Daniel O'Hara, 190, 199, City Certificate Emergency. . Message of Mayor Heath. .The Tax Fighters The Council Indorses Gen. James Shields. . Resolutions on the Death of John T. Corcoran and Mancel Talcott. .Comptroller Farwell on the Finances.. Mayor Heath's Pinal Message. . Sketch of Mayor Heath, 199, 209.

CHAPTER EX. - Municipal Campaign of 1S79. .Election of Carter II. Harrison. .The Socialist Ticket Mayor Harrison's Inaugural .. Appointments. . Sunday Saloon Closing .Mayor Harrison vs. Fire Marshal lienner. . The finances. . The Knights Templar and Grant Demonstrations .Veto of the Chicago and Western Indiana Franchise, 210, 218. The Parnell Reception. .Action on the death of S. S. Hayes. .Veto of the Annual Appropriation

Bill. .Aldermanic Election of iSSc.The Stauber-McGrath Contest. .Mayor Harrison's Annual Message, 219, 224. Republican National Convention of 1880 .Proceedings of the Convention. .The Illinois Contest. .Speeches of Raum, Anthony and Storrs. .Roscoe Conkling's Great Speech in Nomination of Grant. .Nomination of Garfield. .Washburn and Arthur for Vice-President .Arthur Nominated. .National and State Campaigns of tooj, 224 to 254.

Chapter X. - Municipal Election of 1881. .Harrison and Clark. .Veto of the Appropriation Bill. .Appointments. .Mayor Harrison's Second Inaugural, 255, 265. Assassination of Garfield.. Mayor's Address and Action of the City Council. .Action on the Death of Maj. Lannigan .. Mayor Harrison on the "Bridge Nuisance". .Visitors from New Orleans.. Mayor's Annual Message. .The Grand Jury_and Gambling. .Aldermanic Election of 1882 . Appointments. .The Mayor Visits Europe. .Resolutions on the Death of Peter Cunningham. .Mayor's Annual Message for 1882, 265,285. State Campaign of 1S82 . Election of Shelby M. Cullom to the U. S. Senate. .The "Harper Law". .The Female Suffrage Bill. . Municipal Campaign of 1883. .Harrison vs. Cary. .Appointments and Official Bonds.. Act-ion of Council on Death of Ex-Aid. William Wheeler, Aid. J. E. Geohegan, Aid. J. H. Foley and Ex-Aid. C. L. Woodman. . Aldermanic Election of 1884. .Mayor Harrison on Kiosques. .Annual Message for 1884. .Assassination of Aid. Michael Gaynor. .Action of the Council, 285 to 304.

Chapter XI. - National Canvass of 1884. .Both Great Parties Hold their Conventions in Chicago. .Proceedings of the Republican Convention. .John A. Logan placed in Nomination for President. .Speech of Shelby M. Cullom. .Logan Withdrawn, and Blaine Seconded. . The Vote of Illinois. .Blaine Nominated. . Democratic State Convention. .Carter H. Harrison Nominated for Governor Illinois Delegates for Grover Cleveland. .Historic Letter of Samuel J. Tilden. .Cleveland's Availability. .Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention. .Cleveland and Hendricks Nominated. .Action of the Independents Adverse to Blaine. Address of the Chicago Organization to Voters. .State and Congressional Campaign. .The Official Vote, 305 to 324. The Eighteenth Ward Election Fraud. .Indictment and trial of Mackin, Gallagher, Gleason, etal. .Great Senatorial Contest of 1885.. The Legislature a Tie. .Logan's coup de etat. .Municipal Campaign of 1SS5 . . Judge Sidney Smith and Carter H. Harrison Opponents for Election. .A Close Vote. .Theft of the Third Ward Ballot Box. .Action of the Council on Election Troubles. .The Sficth Ward Contest. . The Smith-Harrison Mayoralty Contest The Citizen's Election Law.. Its Adoption . The Election Commissioners . Mayor Harrison's Fourth Inaugural. .Memorial on the Death of Col. Dominick Welter. .Veto of the Equitable Gas Ordinance, 324 to 343.

Chapter XII. - Death of Gen. U. S. Grant, and Demonstration. . Mayor's Address and Action of the Council. .Addresses of Aldermen. .Death of Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks. .Address of the Mayor and Resolutions of the Council, 344, 352. The Council favors the Adoption of the New Election Law . Veto of the Appropriation Bill of 1SS6. . Sketch of Carter H. Harrison. .Aldermanic and Town Election of 1886, first under New Law. .Organization of Board of Election Commissioners. .Abstract of Election Law, 352, 360.

Chapter XIII. - Report. of Comptroller Gurney on Taxation. .The Town Governments. .Tax Assessment Troubles. .Table of Tax and Debt per Capita, Compared with other Cities.. List of City Comptrollers. .Table of Valuation and Income, City of Chicago, 1S37 to 1886. . List of Mayors of Chicago. .Table of Vote, School Census, Registration, etc., Table of Nativity of Voters. .Table Classifying City Occupations. .School Census of 1SS6 in Detail. . History of the Building of the City Hall and County Court House, 361 to 378.

Chapter XIV. - Socialism and Anarchism. .Growth of Socialism. .The Lehr und Wehr Verein. .Capt. Frank Bielfeld's Case. .The Militia Law Test Case. .The Silver Leaf Grove Riot. .The Herman Presser Case. .Federal Supreme Court Decision. .Action of the Anarchists in Connection with the Eight hour Labor Movement. .The "Black Road" Riot . The Anarchist Call to Arms .The Haymarket Massacre. .The Deadly Dynamite Bomb Thrown. .Suppression of the Arbeiter Zeitung and Arrest and Indictment of Spies, Parsons, Fielden, Schwab, Lingg, Neebe, Fischer, etal., the Anarchist Conspiracy Unearthed. . The Anarchist Trials. .Efforts to Obtain a Jury. .Scenes and Incidents. .Testimony of Gottfried Waller, the Informer .Testimony of William Seliger. . Lingg, the Bomb-maker. .Sensational Evidence of Detective Andrew C.Johnson .The Evidence in Detail . . Witness Harry L. Gilmer. .Discoveries of Capt. Schaack. .finding Infernal Machines. .Experiments with Bombs. .Parsons' Paper, the Alarm .Spies' Incendiary Utterances. . Extracts from the Anarchist Organs. .The Defense. .The Police Arraigned. . Evidence of Dr. James D. Taylor, of August Krumm..The Russian Correspondent, Malkoff. .The Eight Prisoners

Index To Contents

Examined in Their Own Behalf. A Funny Witness. . Letters from Anarchist Johann Most. .Arguments of Counsel for the State and for the Defense. .Capt. Black's Plea for the Defense. .State's Attorney Grinnell for the Prosecution. .Judge Gary's Instructions to the Jury.. The Verdict. . Sketches of the Condemned. .Sketches of the Jurors. . Official Police Department Report of Casualties at the Haymarket Story of the Conspiracy. . Rudolph Schnaubelt, the Bomb-thrower. The Grand Jury and their Report Sensational Evidence Heard. .Cost of the Anarchist Trials .Comments of the Arbeiter Zeitung. .The Socialists start a Political Movement. .Capt. Black Serves Notice for a New Trial. .The Arguments. . Remarkable Affidavits of Orrin Blossom and A. P. Love. .The Motion for a New Trial Overruled .The Condemned make Appeals in their own Behalf. .Speeches of Spies, Fischer, Schwab, Neebe, Lingg, Engel, Fielden and Parsons. .Sentence Pronounced. . Address of the Court. Sketch of Judge Cary, 379, 500.

Biographical Addenda

Efforts to release Joseph C. Mackin, 5S3; Conventions, fall of 18S6, labor platforms, 5S4 to 588; List of Chicago Congressmen; list of Cook County Sheriffs; Illinois delegates in Congress; County officials and salaries, 589,591; History of Presidential Elections, 591 to 594; Ages of Presidents; date of inauguration; Vice-Presidents, date of qualification; the Presidential vote for any year; letters of acceptance, 59410601; vote in Cook county in 1SS0; Revised Statutes bearing on elections and officials, 601 to 605; Senators and Representatives elected since 1857, 606 to 60S; General Assembly 1SS6-7, 60S; Fall Elections, 1SS6, complete returns; Mayor's Message. jSS6, statistics showing the importance of Chicago.

Chapter

Chicago's first settler - various appellations of Chicago - ordinance of i 787 treaty of greenville fort dearborn the massacre of 1 8 i 2 memorial meeting first

The first actual settler on the site of Chicago, of whom history gives any account, was a politician. Among our earliest and perhaps our first pioneers, was a clergyman, Pere James Marquette, who was here in 1673. The next comer was a trader, Robert C. LaSalle, after whom the street at the head of which the Board of Trade building stands was named, who arrived in 1680. Jean Baptiste Point au Sable arrived in the summer of 1779. He was an enterprising negro from San Domingo, and to "Billy" Caldwell the Sauganash, a local celebrity of later years, is attributed the Indian-Hibernicism that "the first white man in Chicago was a negro." Au Sable drifted up the shore of Lake Michigan in a log canoe, or, as some authorities have it, astride of a hollow log, and immediately upon his arrival went into caucus with the Indians. His political ambition was of great scope and a high order of merit, for it was his creditable desire to first ingratiate himself with the Indians and become recognized as a chief, and then plant a colony of San Domingoans here and rule as Grand Sachem. The untutored savages failed to take kindly to politics ; they refused to recognize Au Sable as a chief, and, with his ambition crushed, and full of the disappointment of political defeat, he removed to Fort Clark, now Peoria, where he died some years later. There were other pioneers in exploration, adventures, forays against the Indians, soldiers who commanded the fort, hardy spirits who cleared the forests and tilled the soil, who overcame surpassing difficulties and thus gained the respect of their fellow pioneers, and became recognized leaders of public sentiment, the first examples of that thrift and enterprise which has been a noted characteristic of the people of Chicago from the infancy of the city up to the present day. To give an adequate idea of the growth and requirements of our population, the extension of our limits and the views that crystalized into political movements by means of which improvements were carried forward, and the vast interests involved in the good government of the city were conserved, it is necessary to make brief mention of the manner in which the Fort Dearborn reservation, and later, the city site were secured, and of the men who were most active in the events of the time.

To the French belongs the honor of settling the entire Northwest. French Catholic Missionaries began locating posts westward from Canada and toward the Mississippi river as early as 1600. In 1700 they had thirty-five missionary and military stations extending from Frontenac, now Kingston, Canada, to New Orleans, Chicago being one of them. The name of this city has been variously spelled Chicagou, Chicagoux, Shecawgo, Chickago, Chicajo, Checagua, Checkagua and Chicago, its present appellation. The original name was evidently Indian and different authorities have given it a variety of meanings. Thus, one, and perhaps the most authentic, says it was originally an Indian village named after a celebrated chief, Chikagou, who is said in a letter to his superior, by Father Louis Vivier, who was at Kaskaskia in 1752, to have paid a visit to Paris and to have received from the Duchess of Orleans, at Versailles, a splendid snuff box, which he was proud to exhibit, on his return, to his brother redskins. Possibly, if the box contained snuff, the redskins gave their chief his sobriquet, from the sound of his sneeze after his return. Another theory is that the word means a strong odor like that of the polecat or wild onion, and still another that it is a place where the latter plant grew in profusion. Frauquelin's map of 1684 contains the name "Chicagou" in a place on Lake Michigan at about the present site of the city. In a letter of M. de Ligney, dated at Green Bay in 1 726, the name is spelled Chicagoux, and the final x is probably of French origin. The natives asserted in later years that the once celebrated Indian chief Chikagou was drowned in the river at the site of Fort Dearborn near the mouth of the stream. The North branch of the Chicago river was originally called Garie's River, after a Frenchman of that name who established a trading post some distance north of Wolf Point or the Forks. The main river originally turned southward east of a promontory where Rush street bridge now stands and again turning eastward, emptied into the lake about opposite the foot of Madison street. It was on the promontory mentioned that the stockade of Fort Dearborn was erected in 1804. Tradition has it that Au Sable's log cabin was east of the fort and on the then west bank of the river, but a more authentic statement is that it was on the north bank of the main stream, opposite the bend, and that it was purchased from Au Sable by John Kinzie, who subsequently lived in it with his family. Mr. Kinzie having arrived in 1804, Au Sable's term of residence was about twenty-five years, or he may have again visited the fort after going to Fort Clark.

The main river bed was extended in a straight line eastward to the lake in 1833 by the United States Civil Engineers, who had charge of the harbor improvements.

In 1778 the Legislature of Virginia, claiming this territory as a part of that State by virtue of the conquest of Gen. Rogers Clark, who wrested it from the British and Indians, created the County of Illinois, embracing all of the present state, and Chicago was then in Virginia, and so remained until the adoption of the ordinance of 1787, which ceded the Northwest Territory to the United States.

By the treaty between General Anthony Wayne and the Indians at Greenville, O., in 1795, the Pottawatomies, Miamis and allies relinquished the right to " one piece of land, six miles square, at the mouth of the Chicajo river emptying into the southwest end of Lake Michigan, where a fort formerly stood." The fort alluded to was a frontier defense of the early French explorers, and was probably first built about 1682, when La Salle, Hennepin and their followers explored the Mississippi river to its mouth and established defensive posts at convenient distances apart.

In 1800 Illinois was organized into a territory with Indiana, under the name of Indiana Territory, with Gen. William Henry Harrison as Governor, and the seat of government was at Vincennes, Ind. In 1804 a frontier military post was established at Chicago and a block fort was erected, named after Gen. Henry Dearborn, an officer in the Continental army during the American, Revolution, and afterward Secretary of War. Capt. John Whistler was placed in command with nine other officers and fifty-four privates. Capt. Nathan Heald succeeded to the command of the fort in 18 10, and was in command Aug. 15, 18 12, when the historic massacre took place. At this time the fort sheltered fifty-four regulars and twelve militia, with a number of women and children, according to a report made by Capt. Heald, dated Pittsburgh, Oct. 23,1812. Seventy-six regulars, all the militia, two women and twelve children were killed in the action, in which about 500 Indians, mainly Pottawatomies and Winnebagos were engaged. Lieut. Linai T. Helm, with twenty-five non-commis- sioned officers and privates and eleven women and children were taken prisoners, many of whom were subsequently butchered by the savages. The scene of the massacre was not far from the lake shore, to the south of the fort. A large cottonwood tree, yet standing at the foot of Eighteenth street, is said to mark the site. Capt. Heald's account of the massacre is the most authentic ever written, although others have given more details of the barbarities practiced by the Indians. "Niles' Weekly Register" of June 14, 1814, states that a Plattsburg, N.Y. paper contains nine names of members of the First Regiment U. S. Infantry, who had recently arrived at that place from Quebec, and who were believed to be the only survivors of those taken prisoners, except Lieut. Linai T. Helm, who was ransomed. The names were as follows : James Van Horn, Joseph Knowles, Paul Gum mow, Elias Mills, Joseph Bowen, Nathan Edson, Dyson Dyer, James Corbin and Phelim Corbin. John Kinzie, who arrived with Capt. Whistler in 1804, and assisted in the construction of the fort, is said by some authorities to have been engaged in the action, and to have assisted Capt. and Mrs. Heald to escape. Another account has it that he escaped with his family to Detroit prior to the massacre. At any rate he was imprisoned at Detroit in 1812 by the British General, Henry A. Proctor, on the charge of being a spy, but was subsequently released, and in 1816 he returned to Chicago with his family and rebuilt his home on the North side.

Another account has it that Capt. Heald was taken to St. Joseph by a friendly chief named Blackbird. Capt. Heald did not relate in his account of the massacre how he escaped, but simply states that Mrs. Heald and himself were taken to the mouth of the river St.Joseph, and that in a few days the Indians departed to take Fort Wayne, and that in their absence he engaged a Frenchman to take them to Michilimackinac, where, with one of his sergeants, they surrendered as prisoners of war to Capt. Roberts, the British officer in command.

Fort Dearborn, like most of the early outposts, was built mainly with the view of accommodating a small garrison of troops and affording shelter to the surrounding settlers in case of an Indian outbreak. It had bastions at the alternate southeast and northwest angles ; wide gates opening to the south and the north; small sally-ports, and an underground passage-way to the river, the fort proper being surrounded by high palisades. The fort was rebuilt and re-occupied about June, 1816, when Capt. Hezekiah Bradley assumed command, and so continued until 183?, when the post was evacuated and left in charge of the Indian

Agent, Dr. Wolcott, whose headquarters were the Agency House on the north side of the river. Capts. Whistler and Heald were Kentuckians, whose political sentiments sprouted from the soil of the Blue Grass State, and the inmates of the fort followed their leadership in all affairs, military as well as civil.

Hon. John Wentworth, who arrived in Chicago on the 25th of October, 1836, met Lieut. William Whistler, who was appointed a second lieutenant in the regular army June 8, 1801, and who served in the fort under command of his father, Capt. John Whistler, in 1804. Thus two generations span the entire history of Chicago. Mr. Wentworth was enabled to converse regarding Fort Dearborn and its occupants with one who was there. June 17, 1832, Major William Whistler was placed in command of the fort and remained in charge during the Black-Hawk war and the cholera season. His father was originally a British soldier and was made prisoner with Gen. Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, where Gen. Henry Dearborn, after whom Fort Dearborn was named, was serving as major. He afterward joined the American army and by hard fighting won his rank of Captain in the First Infantry in 1802, and Brevet-Major in 181 2. He died at Bellefontaine, Mo., in 1827. Lieutenant William Whistler was born in Hagerstown, Md., in 1784. His heigjit at maturity was 6 feet 2 inches, and his weight 260 pounds. He died at Newport, Ky., Dec. 4, 1863. He arrived here in the summer of 1803 with his young wife, whose maiden name was Julia Ferson, born in Salem, Mass., in 1787. Mrs. Whistler lived to be ninety years of age, dying Feb. it,, 1878, at Newport, Ky., leaving four daughters and one son, the latter, Gen. J. N. G. Whistler, stationed for some years at Fort Keogh, Montana. Thirty-seven grandchildren survived her. Mrs. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan is her grand niece.

Saturday afternoon, May 21, 1881, the site of Fort Dearborn was the scene of a memorable gathering of citizens and military, assembled to commemorate the building and destruction of the two forts by the unveiling of a tablet placed in the walls of the building which at present marks the site of the fort. The idea was devised in the Chicago Historical Society, and Mr. William M. Hoyt, whose firm occupies the building, voluntarily procured the tablet and inserted it in the north wall of the building, facing Rush street bridge, where it will remain a memorial to endure as long as the building stands. The meeting was called to order by the Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, and the Rev. Jeremiah Porter offered prayer. Mr. Robert J. Bennett, in behalf of

Io Politics And Politicians

Mr. Hoyt, formally presented the tablet to the Historical Society. Mr, Gurdon S. Hubbard unveiled the tablet; the military presented arms ; flags were waved, the bands struck up national airs, and the people cheered. The Hon. Thomas Hoyne responded in acceptance of the tablet on behalf of the Historical Society. Addressing Mr. Bennett, Mr. Hoyne said : " I have been selected by the Historical Society to return to you their profound and grateful thanks for the very appropriate and beautiful memento which, at your own cost, you have placed on this historical corner. It is a memento which, as every one will see at a glance, recalls centuries of time, and embodies almost the whole history of events. We stand upon historical ground. We stand upon the ground where, as you have very eloquently said, was planted the original germ of the population who to-day constitute the great commercial metropolis of not only the West, where the Fort was established in advance of civilization, but the commercial center of the country. We stand in the presence also, of things which bring to remembrance some of the most remarkable events of national history. On yonder shore of this same river two centuries ago - in the winter of 1674 - stood the first Christian missionary that ever visited this land, - the pious and humble Marquette, the discoverer of the Mississippi, who was the first white man that ever spent a winter on this river, or at this spot. And, sir, we stand upon the ground where, at the beginning of this century, a whole garrison marched out, and upon the shore of this lake, below here, were slaughtered mercilessly by the aboriginal inhabitants of this same land.

" We say to you, Mr. Bennett, and your friend, Mr. Hoyt, and others whose patriotism and enterprise have secured this monument, that you have set an excellent example; for, as the events are fast passing from the memory of the generation now coming up, it is essential that such monuments as this be erected by men like yourself to perpetuate what is associated with the foundation of this great commercial metropolis, wonderful in its rise, wonderful in its advance, and wonderful in its consummation."

Hon. John Wentworth, in behalf of the Historical Society, then delivered an exhaustive address of two hours' duration, in which he not only reviewed the history of the Fort and nearly every person connected with it, but referred to many of their descendants, thus combining past and present.*

* These proceedings were published nearly verbatim in the Chicago Tribune of Sunday, May 22, 18S1, and were subsequently revised and issued by the Fergus Printing Company in a neat pamphlet containing much matter of historical value.

The territory of Illinois was set off from Indiana in 1809, and Governor Edwards appointed Nathaniel Pope Secretary of the Territory. The territory then comprised but two counties, St. Clair, the northern, and Randolph, the southern portion.

In 1 8 16 Nathaniel Pope was elected delegate to Congress and served in that capacity until after the admission of Illinois to the Union. Nathaniel Pope was another Kentuckian. He was born in 1784, received a liberal education, and followed the law as a profession. The ordinance of 17S7 provided that the Northwest Territory should be divided into not less than three or more than five states, and that if Congress should find it expedient they should form one or two states in that part of the territory lying north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend of Lake Michigan. On this provision Wisconsin subsequently based a claim to the fourteen northern counties of Illinois. Our earliest representative in Congress, with wise foresight, prevented Cook county and Chicago from being located in Wisconsin by moving and supporting an amendment to the bill creating the state, a clause establishing the boundary line at the parallel of 42 degrees 30 minutes, north latitude. In support of this amendment Mr. Pope urged that it would give the proposed state a lake coast, afford additional security to t^ie perpetuity of the Union by connecting all of the Lake States by the great natural waterways, and the desirability of a canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois river, which should be entirely within one State jurisdiction, was enlarged upon. The amendment was adopted; the bill became a law April 13, 1818 ; in pursuance thereof a convention was called at Kaskaskia to form a constitution, and the State of Illinois was duly admitted to the Union by Congress, Dec. 3, 1818.

Chicago was successively located in the counties of St. Clair, Madison, Crawford, Clark, Pike, Fulton, Peoria and Cook. The earliest political data is found in the official records of Fulton county. Chicago's valuation in 1823 is shown by the following from the records of the Fulton County Court of June 3, 1823:

Ordered: That the Assessor levy a tax on all personal property (household furniture excepted) and on all town lots, of 50 cents upon the $100.

Ordered: That there be paid out of the County Treasury to Abner Eads, the sum of $11.42, in State paper, being the amount deducted from his account, for tax collected at Chicago. This shows that the valuation at Chicago in 1823 was $22.84.

The records of Fulton county show that June 17, 1823, Amherst C. Ransom was commissioned Justice of the Peace at Chicago, and on July 5 John Kinzie was commissioned a Justice. The same records show an order entered for an election to be held at John Kinzie's house for one major and company officers in the Seventeenth Regiment Illinois Militia; John Kinzie, Alexander Wolcott and John Hamlin to conduct the election on the last Saturday in September, 1823. This was September 2, and if such an election was duly held it was the first that ever occurred at Chicago.

Amherst C. Ransom, the Justice of the Peace, was also the first tax collector at Chicago, and he is supposed to have been a defaulter. The Fulton county records show the following :

July 5, 1823, Ordered, That the treasurer pay to A. C. Ransom the sum of four dollars, for taking a list of the taxable property at Chicago, in said county, and collecting the same, so soon as he (the said Ransom) shall pay the same over to the County Treasurer, in such money as he received.

September 3, 1823, Ordered, That Amherst C. Ransom hand over to County Treasurer amount of tax received and collected at Chicago, in same kind of money he received.

In all justice to this, our first collector of public moneys, it should be considered that he may have collected his taxes in furs, local money or produce, and refused to turn them over until he received his four dollars in cash. The records of Fulton county, of April 27, 1824, show that the Commissioners' Court ordered that Abner Eads, Sheriff, be released from paying the money tax collected at Chicago by Ransom. This collector could not have retained much money however, as it has already been shown that the valuation in 1823 was but nominal. Ransom came here from Ohio, where he was said to have been a banker. He was taxed as of Peoria in 1825, and died in Arkansas in a later year. Of this matter the Hon. John Wentworth said very bitterly in a lecture in 1876, "One election and one steal are all that the records of Fulton county show for Chicago." Subsequently Mr. Wentworth gave Mr. Ransom the benefit of the doubt, as already explained.

The Fulton county records show also that Dr. Alexander Wolcott and Ellen M. Kinzie, John Kinzie's daughter, were married by John Hamlin, J. P., July 20, 1823. Thus these founders of the first Chicago society performed services for each other ; the one by giving his friend his daughter in marriage, and one Justice of the Peace uniting his brother J. P. in the bonds of wedlock. It is claimed that this was the first marriage in Chicago. The earliest record of a marriage at Chicago by a minister of the Gospel is found in the Peoria county records, which set forth that the Rev. William See, a Methodist Evangelist, performed this interesting ceremony. The first resident clergyman was the Rev. Jeremiah Porter, who preached his first sermon in Fort Dearborn and who organized the First Chicago Presbyterian Church Society. Dr. Wolcott died in 1830, subsequently to July 24 of that year, for he voted on that date. He was a genial man, who was well liked and respected by the settlers, and while acting for a number of years as Indian Agent he made reliable friends of the redskins.

It has been claimed by some newspaper and pamphlet writers that Chicago was assessed in Vermillion county in 1827, and that Sheriff William Reed, of that county, rather than make the trip from Danville to Chicago, paid the amount of the assessment, $3, out of his own pocket. This is one of the doubtful early day stories, of the same class as that representing that an Arkansas gentleman journeying through Chicago was offered and refused the Sherman House site in exchange for a pair of boots.

The act forming Peoria county was approved January 13, 1825, and Chicago was assessed that year in Peoria county. No other assessment for Chicago, in Peoria, nor in Vermillion county, can be found ; but all the marriage licenses were taken out at Peoria, Judges of Election appointed there, and election returns made there, until the organization of Cook county; and the records of Vermillion county show no attempt at jurisdiction over Cook county. The west and the north boundaries of Vermillion county were the Illinois and Kankakee rivers.

While Chicago was a part of Peoria county, it was divided into four precincts or voting places. The first included all territory north of the confluence of the Du Page and Des Plaines rivers, and was called Chicago. Directly south of it was the second precinct, called Fox River ; south of which was the third precinct, caMed Peoria ; embracing all the neighboring settlements except Chicago and Fox River. There was also a fourth precinct, embracing all the territory west of the other three, known as Fever River, with a voting-place at or near what is now Galena. There were fourteen tax-payers in Chicago, and six in Fox River ; which included the present sites of Morris, Ottawa, La Salle and Peru.

$40.47 upon personal property appraised at $4,047, the land then not being taxable. These tax-payers were Antoine Ouilmette, Joseph Laframboise, Claude Laframboise, Jeremiah Clairemont, Alexander Robinson, John K. Clark, David McKee, John Baptiste Beaubien, John Kinzie, Jonas Clybourne, Alexander Wolcott, Archibald Clybourne, and Joseph Anderson. Successive Justices of the Peace at Chicago were commissioned under Peoria county as follows :

Stephen Forbes [Sheriff], Dec. 13, 1830. The records of Peoria county give the first known official account of any election at Chicago. The election was for Governor and Congressman, and was held August 7, 1826. The record shows the following names on the poll-list from the Chicago precinct in the order given :

The names attached to the returns of this election as judges were those of John Kinzie, J. B. Beaubien and Billy Caldwell ; Clerks, Archibald Clybourne and John K. Clark. The election was held at the Agency House. The entire thirty-five votes were cast for Vivian Edwards for Governor, Samuel H. Thompson for Lieutenant-Governor, and Daniel P. Cook for Congressman. Vivian Edwards was elected, but Thompson and Cook were defeated. All of these voters were Whigs and voted the Administration ticket, John Ouincy Adams then being President.

A brief personal history of some of these early settlers, who, aside from having taken interest enough in politics to become our first voters, became noted in connection with the material and social progress of Chicago, is essential to a record of this description.

Alexander Robinson - "Indian Robinson," or Che-che-bing, meaning "Winking Eye." His father was a French Canadian and his mother a full blooded Pottawatomie of the Tawas tribe. He said himself his father was a Scotch captain in the English army. He was born at Mackinaw in 1762, became chief of the Pottawatomies, married Manyon, a squaw, had five children, secured 1,280 acres of Government land for his services as an interpreter and signing treaty. Was at St. Joseph when the Fort Dearborn massacre took place, and is also said to have conducted Captain Heald and wife from there to Mackinaw, He lived to be 1 10 years old and died in 1872.

Cole Weeks, American, was a discharged soldier, had no family, worked for John Kinzie. He married the divorced wife -of Archibald Caldwell. Caldwell had a fondness for Indian hunting and trading, and for years was supposed to have gone off and died with them. Caldwell was living not long since, however, at Keshena, Shawano Co., Wisconsin. Caldwell's wife, who married Cole Weeks, was sister to Benjamin Hall, of Wheaton, Du Page Co., 111., and Caldwell was cousin to Archibald Clybourne, and came from the same place in Virginia.

Antoine Ouilmette is the person spoken of in Mrs. Kinzie's book, "Waubun." His daughter Elizabeth married, January 23, 1827, our first Irishman, Michael Welch.

Claude and Joseph Laframboise were brothers. The widow of the latter was living with her son-in-law, Medard B. Beaubien, at Silver Lake, Shawnee Co., Kansas, a few years since.

"Billy Caldwell, the Sauganash," was the son of an Irish Colonel in the British army stationed at Detroit, whose name he bore. His mother, by some authorities, is said to have been the renowned Tecumseh's own sister. He became chief of the Pottawatomies, and contended himself that his mother was a Pottawatomie, saying that Tecumseh, who was a Shawnee, had but one sister, Tecumapeance, older than the chief, whose husband, Wasegoboah, was killed at the battle of the Thames. Other facts regarding- Caldwell appear elsewhere in this history.

John K. Clark was half brother to Archibald Clybourne, and married Permelia, daughter of Stephen J. Scott, who lived later at Deerfield, Lake Co. Ill, with her daughter.

David McKee married, January 23, 1827, Wealthy, daughter of Stephen J. Scott, born at Hog Creek, Rewton, Loudoun Co., Va., in 1800, died at Aurora, 111., April 8, 1881.

Gen. John B. Beaubien was living at Mackinac, when the fort there was surrendered to the British in 181 2. He married a sister of Joseph Laframboise, the Indian Chief, and was brought to Chicago in 1819 by the American Fur Company to oppose Mr. Crafts, agent of the Northwest Company. He had several children, notably Mark Beaubien, of fiddle fame, and was one of the principal men in charge of the interests of the American Fur Company.

Jonas Clybourne came from Pearisburgh, Giles Co., Va., with his sons, Archibald and Henley. Archibald came in 1823 and went back to Virginia for his father's family. His wife was a Miss Galloway, from Marseilles, LaSalle Co., 111. Henley Clybourne married Sarah Benedict, and had two sons, recently living at Fort Scott, Kansas.

A majority of those having French names were employes of the American Fur Company, or hunted and traded for themselves. When Chicago was abandoned as a fur trading post, they went further into the frontier country, like Archibald Caldwell.

Daniel P. Cook, for whom Cook county was named, was born in Scott County, Kentucky, in 1794. He had a common school education, and after a brief mercantile experience he entered the law office of the. Hon. John Pope. Mr. Cook moved to Kaskaskia and purchased the "Intelligencer," a newspaper which became at once a political power. He was elected Clerk of the House of Representatives, at the second session of the second Territorial Legislature. He subsequently became a judge and married a daughter of Governor Edwards. He was elected Attorney General of the State in 1818, and in 18 19 was elected to Congress, defeating John McLean, a representative of the pro-slavery party. He was re-elected to the Seventeenth

Congress over E. K. Kane, another leading representative of pro-slavery ideas, and again to the Eighteenth Congress over Mr. McLean. In this session Mr. Cook made strenuous endeavors to get an appropriation to aid the State of Illinois to construct the Illinois and Michigan Canal. From 1822 to 1827 he made this his chief work and after many disappointments gained a great victory, the result of his labors being the passage of the act of March, 1827, granting in fee simple to the state the alternate five sections of land upon each side of the canal survey, comprising more than 300,000 acres, including the site of Chicago. The canal did more than any other agency to develop the resources of the state and add to the prosperity of Chicago.

When in 1823-4 the pro-slavery members of the Legislature carried a proposition to call a convention for the adoption of a new constitution legalizing slavery, Mr. Cook made a sturdy fight against the measure and it was rejected by a majority of 1,834 out of 11,764 votes ; the vote of Fulton county, which then comprised Cook, was but five votes for the measure, while sixty were polled against it. In 1824 Mr. Cook defeated ex-Governor Bond for Congress by over 3,000 majority, and in the House of Representatives, which then elected the presidents, he cast the vote of Illinois for John Quincy Adams. In 1826 he was -defeated for Congress by Gen. Joseph Duncan, of Jackson county. In 1827 he went to Cuba to recuperate lost health. Early in June he returned and for a season was a guest of Governor Edwards, at Belleville, and on October 16, 1827, he departed this life at his native place in Scott county, Kentucky, full of honors, at the youthful age of thirty-three years.

The legislature of 1829 appointed as Canal Commissioners Dr. Jayne, of Springfield, Edmund Roberts, of Kaskaskia, and Charles Dunn, to locate the canal, lay out towns, sell lots and apply the proceeds to the construction of the canal.

The first Trustees of the School Section were appointed December 8, 1829, and the record shows that Archibald Clybourne, Samuel Miller and John B. Beaubien were appointed Trustees of Sec. 16, Town 38, N., Range 14, E. 3d P. M.

The Canal Commissioners appointed James Thompson to survey and plat the town of Chicago, on Sec. 9, Township 39, Range 14. This survey was completed and the plat filed August 4, 1830, and those named thus became the official fathers of Chicago.

came to Chicago in July, 1828, and whose divorced wife, as has been shown, married Cole Weeks, a discharged soldier and one of the voters of 1826. The record of the license is as follows:

Ordered : That a license be granted to Archibald Caldwell, to keep a tavern at Chicago, and that he pay a tax of eight dollars, and be allowed the following rates, and give a bond with security for one hundred dollars:

The first official account of our road improvements and election expenses is contained in the following record of Chicago bills audited at Peoria :

June, 1830. - Archibald Caldwell, $5.50 for ironing a turnpike scraper. December 7, 1830. - -Henley Clybourne, $16, for one day's services as Clerk of Election, and bringing the returns from Chicago.

The State election of 1830 was held August 2, at the house of James Kinzie, Chicago precinct, Peoria county. This house was on the west side of the river near the forks. There was nothing on the South side at that time except the fort, the lighthouse building and the log cabins of the Beaubien brothers, one at the lake shore and one near the forks, with an impassable marsh between them ; connections being made by means of boats on the river. The Judges of the election were Russell E. Heacock, the first lawyer to settle in Chicago ; Gen. John B. Beaubien, one of the Judges in 1826, and James Kinzie. The Clerks were Medard B. Beaubien and Jesse Walker. Only six of the voters of 1826 voted at the general election of 1830, and these six were half-breed employes of the government. John Kinzie died in the interval between the elections, at the age of 65 years, his demise occurring January 6, 1828. While the list of the voters at the general election shows but thirty-two names, a decrease of three in four years, there were fifty-six voters at a special election for Justice of the Peace and Constable, held July 24, 1830. At another special election for Justice of the Peace, held November 25, there were but twenty-six votes polled. The names show a large number of Anglo-Saxons among the new comers and one Irishman, Michael Welch, believed to have been the first Celt here. Welch was a bugler and a discharged soldier. He voted the straight Jackson ticket and soon after joined Capt. Jesse Brown's Rangers and went on a campaign against the Indians. There was a notable change in the political sentiment of the settlement. The Jackson candidate for Governor, John Reynolds, received twenty-two out of the thirty-two votes cast. Of the six who voted at both elections, and voted for the Adams candidate for Governor in 1826, five voted for the Jackson candidate in 1830, consistently voting each time "with the fort," or with the administration. It has been claimed that this is the time Chicago became Democratic, having given a unanimous Whig vote in 1826, and now polling a Democratic vote of two to one in favor of the celebrated John Reynolds. The returns of the elections of 1831 and 1832, which were .entirely nonpartisan, fail to substantiate this claim, however, except as to the election of Joseph Duncan to Congress over Jonathan H. Pugh, Whig, in the latter year, when the change of political sentiment that made Chicago reliably Democratic for a period of twenty-two years set in. Voting was by viva voce ; the voter told the judges whom he wanted to vote for, and was so recorded. It is needless to say that under this primitive system there was no "ballot-box stuffing." Billy Caldwell, the " Sauganash," voted the Jackson ticket, and Joseph Laframboise, voted against it. There were four of the Laframboise family voting in 1826 and only one in 1830.

There are sixty-seven names upon the two voting lists of 1825 and 1830. Six voted at both elections, leaving sixty-one different names, which, with the four on the tax-list of 1825 who did not vote at either election, constitute the sixty-five persons from whom all our first families claiming early connections are descended, and it is for this reason that the personal history of the more prominent voters is given in brief.

Stephen J. Scott was born in Connecticut and moved to Chicago from Bennington, Wyoming Co., N. Y. He lived many years at Naperville and died there. His son Willard lived

Barney H. Laughton lived on the Aux Plaine river, near what is now Riverside. His wife was sister to the wife of Stephen Forbes, our first Sheriff.

James Kinzie was a son of John Kinzie. His mother and Archibald Clybourne's mother were sisters. His first wife was Rev. William See's daughter. His sister, Elizabeth Kinzie, married Samuel Miller, the hotel keeper. He died at Racine, where his second wife lived since.

Stephen Mack, son of Major Mack, of Detroit, married an Indian woman. He was a clerk in the employ of the American Fur Company, and finally settled in Pecatonica, Winnebago county, 111.

Jonathan A. Bailey was the father-in-law of the Postmaster, John S. C. Hogan. Mr. Hogan held the office until 1837, when Sidney Abell was appointed. He died in 1866 at Memphis, Term. His wife, Anna Maria, died November 15, 1838, aged 23 years.

Alexander McDale owned eighty acres of land at the Summit, in the early times known as Peter Kerns' lot, of JohnWentworth's farm. The canal and railroad run through it and it fronts the Archer Road.

In 1830-5 the State of Illinois was divided into military districts and the people elected the officers and it was through an election of this kind that John B. Beaubien gained the title of General. When the Cook county militia of 1834 was organized John B. Beaubien was chosen as Colonel, at an election held at the tavern kept by Stephen J. Scott, afterward owned by Barney H. Laughton, near Lyons, now Riverside, on the Desplaines river. Gen. Beaubien lived upon the Fort Dearborn reservation for several years, and on May 28, 1835, he purchased through the land office the entire reservation for the sum of $94.61. This added to his importance in the community, and by common consent fixed his title of General as securely as if he had been a graduate of West Point, and won his rank in the field. His title to the reservation was subsequently disputed in the courts and several years of litigation followed, resulting adversely to the claims of his heirs.

The following are the returns of a special election for Justice of the Peace and constable held at the house of James Kinzie in the Chicago precinct of Peoria county, State of Illinois, on Saturday, July 24, 1830 :

Twenty-four more votes were cast at this election than at the State election, held a week later, and it is probable that excitement ran high, as the rival candidates for Justice of the Peace were popular men, who would naturally inspire their friends to special effort in their behalf.

Another special election for Justice of the Peace was held at the house of James Kinzie, Chicago precinct, Peoria county, on Thursday, November 25, 1830, the following named persons voting:

Mr. Forbes was the second sheriff of Cook county, and married a sister of the wife of Barney H. Laughton. William See is mentioned in Mrs. Kinzie's "Waubun," and was a Methodist preacher.

The judges of this election were James Kinzie, John B. Beaubien, and Archibald Clybourne. The clerks were Russell E. Heacock and Stephen J. Scott.

All of the voters of 1830 are now dead, but three were known to be living in 1876. They were Medard B. Beaubien, son of Gen. John B. Beaubien, in later years interpreter and leading man among the Pottawatomie Indians in Kansas ; David McKee, whose history is given with that of the voters of 1826, and Mark Beaubien, Brother of Gen. John B. Beaubien, who reached Chicago from Detroit in 1826, on a visit to his brother. Subsequently he brought his family here and built a log house fronting the river on what was known later as the "Old Wigwam Lot," on the corner of Lake and Market streets. The house was built for hotel purposes and was the only dwelling house on the South side, except John B. Beaubien's. When the Indian chief, Sauganash, or "Billy" Caldwell on the poll-list, learned that the house was to be a tavern, he observed to Mr. Beaubien that Americans named their hotels after big men, and asked him what he was going to call his house. The builder was quick to take the hint and said, "I'll call it Sauganash," and the Sauganash it became. Mr. Beaubien was a famous fiddler, and Mark Beaubien's fiddle is now a treasured historical relic of early Chicago.

"He was an original fiddler," says Mr. Wentworth in his "Early Chicago," "having inherited the art in a natural way; and he will probably die one. In case of the absence of the music at any one of our parties in olden times, Mr. Beaubien was always sent for, and when one fiddle-string broke, he was good for the three ; and when another broke he could still keep up the music, and if there was only one string left a party would never go away disappointed if Mr. Beaubien was left to play upon it."

The first steamboat built in Chicago was named after Second Lieutenant James Allen, a popular young officer stationed at the fort, uncle of B. F. Allen, of DesMoines, la. It ran from Chicago to St. Joseph, and the young people used to have moonlight dances on the deck. A favorite refrain of theirs was:

Chicago, Cook County And Illinois. 2 T.

After a few years Mr. Beaubien built a large frame addition to his hotel and this was the first frame house built on the South side. In 1836 the house was kept by John Murphy, and it was here the tired pilgrim, "Long John" Wentworth took his first meal upon his arrival in that year, and it is with Landlord Murphy's widow that Mr. Wentworth to this date faithfully keeps an appointment to dine at least once a year.

Mark Beaubien established the first ferry at the forks of the river a short distance north of the present Lake street bridge. He was made quite famous by the newspapers in 1880, as our oldest living citizen, in connection with the annual reception of old settlers by the Calumet Club. Mr. Beaubien was present at the first reception, and was made the lion of the occasion. He exhibited with great pride and played with spirit the identical fiddle which he had bowed so miraculously at social gatherings nearly fifty years before. In a speech Gen. Henry Strong characterized him as the Apollo of the early settlers, and ex-Chief Justice John Dean Caton told in a facetious manner the story of how old Mark won a horse-race from Robert A. Kinzie, and of how, to use his (Mark's) own expression, he kept tavern "like hell." The Hon. John Wentworth called to memory several of the festive occasions upon which the veteran settler had employed his musical power to good effect ; and Gov. Bross reminded his hearers of the way in which the ancient tavernkeeper divided his time between " keeping tavern vigorously," working the ferry at Wolf Point, and running pony-races with his Indian neighbors.

Mr. Beaubien departed this life April n, 1881, at the house of George Matthews, his son-in-law, at Kankakee, 111. He gave his celebrated fiddle to the Hon. John Wentworth, who, on the 19th of May, 1 88 1, presented it to the Calumet Club, where it is regarded as a treasured heirloom. Mr. Beaubien claimed to have been born in 1800, but he was believed by many persons to be much older than this would make him. He was present when Detroit was surrendered in 181 2 by Gen. Hull, and was fond of singing songs in derision of Hull and his infamous surrender. Mark Beaubien undoubtedly supplied many of our later voters, for he had twenty-three children, and the influence of the family strain must have affected our society, for his grandchildren numbered fifty-three, when the great-grandchildren began to demand recognition.

While the earlier settlers and especially the attaches of the fort numbered many Kentuckians, they were speedily followed by the Virginians.

There were Jonas CI) bourne and his two sons - Archibald and Henley ; John K. Clark ; David McKee ; Rev. Jesse Walker ; Benjamin Hall ; David Hall ; Samuel Miller ; John Miller; Jacob Miller and Archibald Caldwell, all from Virginia.

The earliest New Englander here, who has descendants now living, was Stephen J. Scott, a voter of 1830, who arrived at Chicago, August 26, 1826, in the schooner Sheldon, Capt. Sherwood. His wife was Hadassah Trask, and they came from Connecticut. He died on board, ship, on his way from California, in 1852. At the time of the election of John B. Beaubien to the office of Colonel, at the tavern of Barney H. Laughton, at what is now Riverside, it was kept by Stephen J. Scott.

The next New Englander who voted here, prior to the organization of Cook county, who left descendants, was Russell E. Heacock, the first Chicago lawyer, born at Litchfield, Conn., in 1 78 1. He reached here from Buffalo, New York, in a sail vessel, July 4, 1827, and left numerous descendants.

Gurdon S. Hubbard came to Chicago when there were but two families outside of the fort, those of John Kinzie and Antoine Ouilmette. He related many interesting reminiscences of early Chicago. Mr. Hubbard was born August 22, 1802, and came West in the employ of the American Fur Company in 1818, and on November 1 came to the site of Chicago, and is the only man now living who was here at that time. After being engaged in the fur business he settled here in 1834, and has since that date been intimately identified with the city of which he is now the oldest and most honored inhabitant. On August 11, 1834, he was elected a Town Trustee ; was an early packer during the same year ; was an incorporator of the early Chicago Hydraulic Company ; was one of the early members of Engine Company No. 3 ; was a director of Chicago's first bank; in September, 1836, was the first insurance agent in the city ; was one of the prominent promoters of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, and was, in 1834, one of the organizers of St. James' Episcopal Church. From May 23 to June 23, 1832, he was Second Lieutenant in Captain Bailey's company of militia, and in 1861 was a prominent member of the War Finance Committee.

Chicago, Cook County, And Illinois

selves, for the time being, to Gholson Kerchival, Captain, and George W. Dole and John S. C. Hogan, First and Second Lieutenants, as commanders of the militia of the town of Chicago, until all apprehension of danger from the Indians may have subsided :

Samuel Ellis, The muster-roll of our first mounted troops is as follows : Muster-roll of a Company of Mounted Volunteers, in the service of the United States, in defense of the Northern frontier of the State of Illinois, against the Sac and Fox Indians, from the county of Cook, in said state, in the year 1832, under the command of Captain Joseph Naper :

Alanson Sweet, First-Lieutenant, afterward of Evanston, 111. Sherman King, Second-Lieutenant, lived at Brush Hill, 111. S. M. Salisbury, First-Sergeant, afterward Cook County Commissioner, from Wheeling, 111. John Manning, Second-Sergeant.

These two companies undoubtedly represent all the able-bodied men capable of bearing arms in Cook county at the date of their enrolment. Captain Gholson Kerchival was subsequently postmaster and represented the city in the legislature in 1838. He died in California, leaving a son, Walter Kerchival, a printer, who was a candidate on the Republican ticket for member of the General Assembly from the Second District in i88i,andwho died of pneumonia in 1882. The two lieutenants were also postmasters of this city in later years. After this organization, Governor John Reynolds sent Major Daniel Bailey to Chicago and he raised a battalion of four companies from the citizens of Northern Illinois. The pay-roll of these four companies of volunteers is preserved in the proper department at Washington, D. C, where it was sent for the purpose of securing land-warrants. The paper was probably drawn up by Colonel Richard J. Hamilton, stepfather of Judge Murray F. Tuley, who occupied the Superior Court bench in later years.

The act creating Cook county was passed and approved by the General Assembly of Illinois January 15, 1831, and by the same act the town of Chicago was made the county seat. Section 8 directs that an election be held at Chicago, in Cook county, on the first Monday in March for one Sheriff, one Coroner and three County Commissioners. In March, 1831, Cook county was duly organized, and it embraced, besides the present limits, what is now the counties of Lake, McHenry, DuPage and

Chicago, Cook County, And Illinois. 2 J.

The County Commissioners elected were Samuel Miller, Gholson Kerchival, and James Walker, who held the first Commissioner's Court in Chicago, March 8, and took the oath of office before Justice of the Peace John S. C. Hogan. William See was appointed clerk, and Archibald Clybourne treasurer. Galena and Chicago were then in the same Senatorial and Representative Districts. Col. James M. Strode was elected to the Senate and Benjamin Mills to the House, both being lawyers at Galena.

Elijah Wentworth, Jr., our first coroner, was born in Maine, and removed with his father, Elijah Wentworth, Sr., to Kentucky, thence to Dodgeville,Wis., and in 1830 came to Chicago. They rented a new hotel, then just completed by James H. Kinzie, which was located on the West side near the forks of the river, and was considered the best in Chicago. It was built of logs, with upright boards nailed upon the outside. Mr. Wentworth carried the mail from Chicago to Niles, Mich., once a month. While Mr. Wentworth lived at Dodgeville, a man who subsequently achieved prominence in the history of the country, Jefferson Davis, had charge of the construction of Fort Winnebago, about seventy-five miles distant. Lieut. Davis had been ordered to the frontier, in 1828, soon after his graduation at West Point, and he often visted Dodgeville to attend social events, and was well remembered by Mr. Wentworth's people. Mr. Wentworth, after having acceptably filled the office of coroner, the mortality of Chicago then being low and his duties consequently light, remained a prominent citizen for many years. He died at Galesburg, 111., November 18, 1875.

At the first session of the County Commissioners' Court three voting precincts were established, and their boundaries defined. They were designated as the Chicago precinct, Hickory Creek precinct and Du Page precinct. Grand and petit jurors were selected at this first session.

April 13, 1 83 1, a special term of the Commissioners' Court was held in Chicago and it was ordered that a tax of y2 per cent. be levied on town lots ; pleasure carriages ; distilleries, all horses, mules and neat cattle above the age of three years ; on watches, with their appurtenances, and all clocks. The first two tavern licenses granted by Cook county were to Elijah Wentworth for

$7, and to Samuel Miller for $5, and a schedule of rates was fixed for tavern keepers. Russell E. Heacock was licensed to " keep a tavern at his residence." Robert A. Kinzie, Samuel Miller and B. Laughton were licensed to sell merchandise, and James Kinzie was licensed as an auctioneer. A ferry was duly established at "the Forks," rates were fixed, and a scow was ordered bought of Samuel Miller for $65. The ferryman was required to give a bond of $200 and pay $50 into the county treasury. June 6, 1831, Mark Beaubien was appointed ferryman and James Kinzie became surety on his bond.

The second regular session of the court took place June 6. Several merchants were licensed to sell goods and the first steps were taken toward building county roads. Three roads were laid out, the first from the town of Chicago to the house of James Walker, on the Du Page river, and so on to the west line of the county ; the second " from the town of Chicago the nearest and best way to the house of widow Brown, on Hickory Creek," and the third, or Du Page road, essentially Madison street, to Ogden avenue, thence southwest to Riverside. The "Widow Brown Road" was State street to Archer avenue, and thence south and west. The first public land sale took place when the Canal Commissioners had deeded to Cook county a tract of ten acres, including, what is now the Court House square. A part of this was sold by the commissioners in July, 1831. James Kinzie acted as auctioneer, and the sales amounted to $1,153.75.

The Congressional Legislative and county election of August, 1 832, which was the first general election after the organization of Cook county, did not develop any strictly party lines. It is probable that but few votes were polled in the Chicago precinct, for the reason that the cholera panic had almost completely depopulated the city during July. The four precincts, Chicago, Hickory, Creek and DuPage. returned 114 votes, as follows:

Up to August, 1833, the people of Chicago were subject to the County Commissioners, and had no town government. A few leading spirits who desired the town to be incorporated moved in the matter and the result was the holding, August 5, of a memorable caucus at Mark Beaubien's house, where, after discussion of the momentous question a vote was taken, resulting, twelve votes in favor of incorporation, and one against. Edmund S. Kimberly, who acted as secretary of the meeting, was instructed to issue a notice for the election of trustees. That the notice was duly issued and the election held, the following official records show :

Election Notice. Public notice is hereby given that an election will be holden at the house of Mark Beaubien, on Saturday, the 10th of August, at 1 1 o'clock in the forenoon of that day, for the purpose of choosing ten Trustees of the town of Chicago.

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees for the Town of Chicago, holden at the Clerk's office of said county on Monday, the 1 2th day of August, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-Three. Present, Th. J. V. Owen, Medard B. Beaubien, Edmund S. Kimberly, George W. Dole, and John Miller.

The oath of office required to be taken by the said Trustees before entering upon the duties of their office by the Statute of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois, entitled an "Act to incorporate the inhabitants of such towns as may wish to be incorporated," approved February the 12th, 1831, was administered by Richard J. Hamilton, Notary Public of said county, whereupon the said Trustees organized themselves into a Board and appointed R. I. Hamilton Clerk pro tern., and elected Thomas J. V. Owen as their President and Isaac Harmon Clerk, of said Board for and during the term of one year, and until their successors shall be qualified to act.

Ordered, That the meetings of this Board be held at the house of Mr. Mark Beaubien in the Town of Chicago, on the first Wednesday in every month, at the hour of seven o'clock P. M. of said days, commencing with the first Wednesday in the month of September next.

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Town of Chicago, held at the house of Mark Beaubien, on the 3d day of September, 1833, pursuant to adjournment, Thos. J. V. Owen was present as President, and Isaac Harmon as Clerk. Also members present : John Miller, Edmund S. Kimberly, Medard Beaubien, and Geo. W. Dole.

Chicago, Cook County, And Illinois. 3 I.

tent of the powers of the Trustees of the Town of Chicago respecting- their jurisdiction over the surplus ground on North and South Water streets.

Ordered, That the Trustees of the Town of Chicago establish a free ferry across the river from Dearborn street, on South Water street, to Dearborn street, on North Water street, and that a committee of three members of the Board be appointed to make necessary arrangements for that purpose.

A meeting of citizens of Cook county was held at the Eagle Hotel, February 6, 1834, R. I. Hamilton in the chair and John S. C. Hogan acting as Secretary, to appoint delegates to represent the district of Chicago in a convention to be held at Ottawa on the first Monday in March, to nominate a Senator and Representatives to represent the district composed of the counties of La Salle, Cook, Jo Daviess, Rock Island^ Putnam and Peoria in the next ensuing General Assembly. John Dean Caton was appointed Delegate and P. F. W. Peck, J. H.Collins, Dr. E. S. Kimberly, Dr. W. Clark and A. W. Fullerton were chosen as a Corresponding Committee.

At an adjourned meeting, February 15, 1834, the delegate was instructed to vote for no individual not in favor of immediate construction of communication, either by canal or railroad, between Lake Michigan and the Illinois river.

It will be seen that at this date a new district had been formed, and that the Legislative district no longer extended westward to the Mississippi river.

On this same date (February 15, 1834), another meeting was held at the Eagle Hotel, at which Dr. John T. Temple was appointed a delegate to a convention to be held at Rushville, Schuyler county, for determining the most suitable place to be voted for at the meeting of the next General Assembly, as a permanent location of the seat of government. Dr. Temple was instructed to oppose to the utmost of his ability any measure tending to connect the location of the seat of government with the question of the construction of a canal or railroad between the Illinois river and Lake Michigan. T. J. V. Owen was chairman of this meeting and P. F. W. Peck, secretary. A committee was appointed, composed of J. D. Caton, R. I. Hamilton, T. H. Collins, E. S. Casey, Giles Spring and R. A. Kinzie, to draft a petition to Congress asking that the pre-emptive right be given actual settlers of quarter sections of land. This had reference to a bill introduced in Congress by Daniel P. Cook, ten years before, and which was one of the means of adding to his popularity and strength in Illinois.

For Governor, - Joseph Duncan, Democrat, of Jacksonville, 309 ; William Kinney, Whig, of Belleville, 201 ; Robert K. Mc- Laughlin, of Vandalia, 10 ; James Adams, of Springfield, 8. Total 528.

The honor of building the first draw-bridge and the first vessel at Chicago, belongs to Nelson R. Norton, who lived in later years at Alden, Freeborn county, Minnesota. Mr. Norton came to Chicago, November 16, 1833. He was born at Hampton, Washington county, N.Y., November 8, 1807. Soon after his arrival here he commenced cutting the lumber for a draw-bridge, on the land adjoining Michigan Avenue south of the city, afterward owned by Hiram Pearsons. He commenced building the bridge in March, 1834, and it was completed about the first of June. The bridge was at Dearborn street. Its length was about 300 feet ; width 16 feet ; with an opening of 60 feet, and having a double draw. The cost of the bridge is unknown. The first steamboat that passed through the draw of the bridge was the old Michigan, which had a double engine, and was commanded by Capt- C. Blake, and owned by Oliver Newberry of Detroit. Mr. Norton built the sloop Clarissa in the spring of 1835. This was the first sail vessel launched on the west side of Lake Michigan, if not the first on the lake. Mr. Norton left Chicago in the spring of 1839. The first shipment of freight down the lakes was in 1834, being a lot of hides from cattle slaughtered for the Government troops.

An early settler, and one eminently worthy of mention herein, was John Watkins, our first public school teacher. Mr. Watkins was a well-educated man having many fine traits of character and a genial disposition. He was a man of the best of morals, moreover, and in the year 1833 was Secretary of the first Temperance Society. He subsequently removed to the vicinity of Joliet, 111., where he died.

Lloyd, Sherman, Garrett, Chapin And Curtiss

In the Presidential campaign of 1836 there were 1,043 votes polled in Cook county, and the Whigs and Democrats had become nearly a tie in national politics. William Henry Harrison, Whig, received 524 votes, and Martin Van Buren, Democrat^ 19 votes. Chicago and Cook county had at this time practically become Democratic, for Harrison, who received only five majority, was a Western man and vastly more popular among the frontier settlers than Van Buren, who was regarded as the representative of strictly Eastern interests.

It was at about the time of the close of this campaign that the question of procuring a city charter and enlarging the government of the town began to be agitated by the citizens of Chicago. Influence was brought to bear on the Board of Town Trustees, and the last Board, of which Eli B. Williams was President, ordered a meeting to be called in the Saloon building for public discussion and consultation upon a city charter. The Saloon was the first public hall erected in Chicago. It was a large building at the southeast corner of Lake and Clark streets, and was built for Capt. John B. F. Russell. Capt. Russell was an officer in the regular army, and was here upon detached Indian service, and superintended the final removal of the Indians to their Western reservations. He resigned from the service in June, 1837, and was the first to establish an office in Chicago for the sale and purchase of real estate and the payment of taxes. For many years "The Saloon" building was the great place of public resort, where Justice Courts, public meetings and balls were held, and it became identified by name with nearly every public event, many of far more than local importance.

The Chicago American of January 21, 1837, says: "The interests of our town require a charter ; the constant example of our Eastern cities will justify us in altering it at every session until it meets the wants of a large commercial town. However much we may have neglected other privileges under our charter, we certainly have availed ourselves of that of "altering it at every session,' until it has become like the old lady's stocking, 'darned so much that none of the original remains.' "

The provisions of a city charter were finally agreed upon, and the Board of Town Trustees sent a messenger by stage coach with it to Vandalia, about 75 miles below Springfield, where the State Legislature was in session and it was speedily enacted into a law. Pursuant to its provisions the city was districted into wards, and the Board of Town Trustees called the first charter election for May 2, 1837. The ward boundaries were fixed as follows :

The Town Corporation proceedings containing the notice for the first city election, naming the inspectors and locating the polls, it is believed have not before been printed in any form since the city records were destroyed in the great fire. The proceedings were as follows :

Corporation Proceedings, April 8, 1 83 7

On motion it was ordered and appointed, That the first election for the Charter officers under the act entitled, "An Act to Incorporate the City of Chicago," shall be holden and take place on the first Tuesday of May, A. D. 1837, and the following named places of holding such first election, and the following persons for inspectors of said election, were also duly appointed, viz.:

As may be well imagined, the charter election was an event of great importance to the people, who had discovered that their necessities of government had outgrown the narrow limits of a town form and who were about to assume the dignity of a city. The proper provisions of a charter, under which the city could be satisfactorily governed, had been duly discussed in "town meetings," and it was not until the importance of the move had been considered in all its bearings that formal action was taken. A caucus of the citizens was then held, and the following ticket, called the Democratic ticket, was nominated:

William B. Ogden John Shrigley

A single caucus ticket placed in the field of course caused opposition, and another ticket, called the Whig ticket, containing the names of "Anti-caucus" candidates was placed before the voters. This ticket was made up as follows:

Alvin Calhoun

It will be observed that not much attention was paid to nationality lines in the make-up of our first city tickets. As for Mr. Kinzie, he was an early settler and extremely popular, but the election of Mr. Ogden showed that the voters of the future metropolis admired his spirit and enterprise, and were already imbued with the desire for rapid advancement of their material interests. Each ward was entitled under the charter to two aldermen to be elected annually, except the Third and Fifth wards, which were entitled to but one alderman each until 1839. The aldermen were by virtue of their offices Commissioners of Common Schools.

The above is the first absolutely correct statement of the votes cast at our first city election by wards and divisions, ever published. The balance of the Democratic ticket was elected by substantially the same majority as Mr. Ogden received.

John H. Kinzie was the son of John Kinzie, our earliest actual householder, who purchased from Point Au Sable, or built for himself, a log house on the North side nearly opposite the fort. John H. Kinzie was born in Sandwich, Upper Canada, July 7, 1803, one year before the construction of Fort Dearborn, and he was consequently nine years old at the time of the massacre. He had a vivid recollection of his father's flight with his family to Detroit, and wrote and published subsequently a "Narrative of the Massacre of Chicago," which brought him much notoriety and had a large sale. He is remembered as a man of genial qualities, who ever retained personal friendship, and he possessed in a great degree the sturdy traits 6f character for which his father, the brave and hardy pioneer, John Kinzie, was noted. Through the massacre, apprenticed to the American Fur Company, the first white man at Waukegan, Indian agent, elected Town Trustee on August 11, 1S34, pre-emptor of "Kinzie's Addition," Register of Public Lands in 1841, member and one of the directors of the Board of Trade at its organization, President of Chicago's first bank, Receiver of the Land Office from April 12, 1849, unt^ March 28, 1853, Paymaster of the army from 1861 to 1865, John H. Kinzie's name dwells among us now in the recollections awakened when the Kinzie school or Kinzie street are mentioned. From his earliest boyhood until his death on the cars near Pittsburg, Pa., June 19, 1865, he was more intimately identified with Chicago and its interests than any other man, with the possible exception of William B. Ogden.

The best biography extant of William B. Ogden is contained in the address of the Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, delivered before the Chicago Historical Society December 20, 1881. Mayor Ogden was the most prominent figure in the history of Chicago, from 1835 until his death in 1877. For the first forty years of our existence as a city, he was our representative man. His active mind originated most, and aided largely, in the execution of nearly all of our public improvements. He built, or caused to be built, the first drawbridge across the Chicago river. He laid out and opened many miles of streets in the north and west divisions of the city ; aided in digging the Illinois and Michigan Canal; advocated, with ability, laws necessary for its construction and enlargement ; projected and built hundreds, nay, thousands of miles of the railways which have built up Chicago ; he had much to do with our water-supply, our sewerage and park system, and, indeed, nearly all our great enterprises of public improvement.

He was born June 15, 1805, at Walton, a town in the wild and mountainous county of Delaware, New York, and died August 3, 1877, at n^s country-seat, Boscobel near High Bridge, on the Harlem. His father died while he was yet a lad, and, being the oldest son, he was early placed in a position of responsibility, as the head of a large family. His boyhood was passed among the picturesque valleys and hills of Delaware county. In 1834 he had become a leading man in his native county, of great and deserved popularity, and was selected to represent Delaware in the New York Legislature. Here, as a member of the Assembly, he became intimately acquainted with the able and distinguished men who, under the name of the "Albany Regency," so long controlled the politics of New York.

He was elected as the special advocate and champion of the New York and Erie Railroad, then lately projected, and made a most remarkable speech for that time, in which he said: "Continuous railways from New York to Lake Erie, and south of Lake Erie, through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to the waters of the Mississippi, and connecting with railroads running to Cincinnati, and Louisville in Kentucky, and Nashville in Tennessee, and to New Orleans, will present the most splendid system of internal communication ever yet devised by man."

In 1835 Mr. Ogden became associated with a company of Eastern capitalists, who under the name of the "American Land Company," were making very large investments at Chicago, and elsewhere in the West. At the instance of Charles Butler, who had large investments in Chicago, he removed to this city, to manage these large interests.

Until the erection of his own beautiful residence on Ontario street, Mr. Ogden lived at the old Lake House. This was a large brick structure, far in advance of the times, and would have been deemed a comfortable hotel even in these days of luxury and extravagance. It was built in 1835, and opened in 1836, situated on Rush street and, running through from Michigan to Kinzie street, it faced across the river, on the south, the neatlykept and bright whitewashed stockade, pickets, and buildings of old Fort Dearborn. The river was spanned by a rope-ferry, and across it was this military post, with its grass-plot shaded by the old historic honey locust, and within the pickets stood the granite boulder which tradition said "had been the Indian stone of sac-

Mr. Ogden was the father of the vast railway system in the Northwest, a system which has done so much to develop and build up this portion of our country. Beginning with the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, from Chicago to Fox river, with a far-seeing sagacity and bold enterprise, and a faith which led him to invest in these works not only his private fortune but his credit, he kept pace with, or anticipated, the growth of the West; until from the strap railway from Chicago to Elgin, he went on step by step until he was the President of the Union Pacific, being connected more or less with all the great roads from the East by the Lakes to the Mississippi, and on to Lake Superior.

In the spring of 1837 he was elected mayor - the first mayor of Chicago. From that time until his death, in 1877, he was constantly engaged in public works. He made miles upon miles of streets; he zealously advocated the public parks; he was leading contractor on the Illinois and Michigan canal, and ever one of its ablest and most efficient advocates ; he was President of the Board of Sewerage Commissioners ; and there is scarcely a railroad leading to or from Chicago, east, west, north or south, with which he has not had important association, and to which he did not render efficient service, so that his acts are written in lines of iron all over the West.

In early life he was, as he called himself, a Jeffersonian Democrat. He went into the New York Legislature as a Democrat. But he was never a partisan ; and when the question of slavery became prominent by the annexation of Texas, he was an earnest anti-slavery man. He was in full sympathy with those from Illinois who, in 1848, went to the Buffalo Convention and organized the Free Soil Party, and he headed the electoral ticket in this state, in favor of Van Buren and Adams ; and from that time on, to i860, he was an active member of the Free Soil and Republican parties. He supported Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency, and was elected to the Illinois Legislature on the same ticket.

Mr. Arnold says that between i860 and 1862 he seems to have fallen under influences which finally alienated him from the policy of Mr. Lincoln. He expressed fears that the Administration, by the exercise of what were called the "War Powers," was revolutionizing the government. He did not approve of the "Emancipation Proclamation." These considerations brought

Mr. Ogden's most notable trait of character was the power to attract men and inspire personal confidence and attachment. In a letter to Mr. Arnold, supplying- material for his address, Mr. O. B. Green relates that in 1856-7 while Mr. Ogden was traveling in Europe he met a wealthy Scotch lord, whom he so attracted as to bring from him, a few years later, when Mr. Ogden was in stringent financial surroundings, the following note :

"My Dear Mr. Ogden: - I hear you are in trouble. I have placed to your credit in New York, ^"100,000. If you get through I know you will return it; if you don't, Jeanie [his wife] and I will never miss it."

Mr. George P. A. Healy, the famous portrait painter, who executed the magnificent portrait of Mr. Ogden that now adorns the walls of the Historical Society, in a letter to Mr. Arnold, under date October 21, 1881, gives his estimate of Mr. O^den as follows, relating also an anecdote showing the enthusiastic estimate of the first Mayor of Chicago held by M. Guizot, the French historian :

"In the summer of 1855 Dr. Brainard presented me to Mr. Ogden, who also sat to me. I found him in conversation a worthy rival of the three best I ever met, viz.: Louis Phillippe, John Quincy Adams, and Dr. O. A. Bronson. M. Guizot once called at my atelier, in Paris, accompanied by the Due de Montebello, to see the whole-length portrait of Mr. Ogden, that was lost in the Chicago fire. Said the great historian and statesman, 'That is the representative American, who is a benefactor of his country, especially the mighty West ; he built and owns Chicago.'

Mr. Ogden may have well felt loth to return to the West after the great Chicago fire of 187 1. With his other numerous buildings, every vestige of his Chicago home, which, when erected in 1837, was the finest in Chicago, and ever after, until its destruction, distinguished for its hospitality, both to residents and visitants from abroad, had disappeared. He arrived in the city the day following the sweep of the fire through the North Division, and found nothing left of his buildings but smoking ruins; even his elegant residence gone. The following day he received news of the total destruction of his immense lumber establish- ment at Peshtigo. His individual loss in the two fires exceeded $2,000,000, but undaunted, with a firm and Christian spirit, he set to work immediately, to restore his shattered fortunes. He worked in his shirt sleeves from daylight to dark until his Peshtigo possessions began to reappear, he came to the city to help and encourage others, and at last, weary from the turmoil of an active and well spent life he settled down with his newly married wife, Miss Mary Anna Arnot, daughter of Judge Arnot, of Elmira, in a beautiful villa at High Bridge, on the banks of the Hudson, and enjoyed the latter days of existence in the peace and enjoyment that rewards life's mission well performed.

While there is no formal message of Mayor Ogden's known to be extant it is within the recollection of people still living, that he made many valuable suggestions as to public improvements, and always endeavored to make them of as permanent a character as possible, with an eye to the requirements of the Chicago of the future, for in the eventual greatness of the city he had the utmost confidence. In 1835, when Mr. Ogden came here Chicago was a very muddy, straggling village of about 1,500 inhabitants. In 1837, when he was elected Mayor, it had only about 3,500, and in 1847 when the first successful railroad enterprise west of Lake Michigan was entered upoa ; that of the Galena & Chicago Union, for which Mr. Ogden so earnestly and energetically labored, the population of the city was less than 17,000, and its assessed valuation did not amount to $6,000,000. There was no man in Chicago who could conveniently or was disposed to subscribe for more than $5,000 in the stock of the railroad company, and the enterprise not only required faith and energy, but the soliciting of subscriptions from every person who could take even one share of its stock. The Galena company had in its early day, 1,800 stockholders of one share each, all of its stock having been subscribed for as a public duty, and not as an investment.