Early Chicago - A Lecture
The book Early Chicago. A Lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, at McCormick Hall, on Sunday afternoon, May 7th, 1876 by Hon. John Wentworth is available online for free viewing.
One year ago, I gave a lecture at this place, as I then
stated to you, "with a view of exciting among our people a
spirit of historical research which would result in recovering
lost newspapers and documents, and placing upon record the
experiences of our early settlers." I had no ambition to figure
as a lecturer, or as a historian. I waited until the regular
lecture course was finished. The proceeds were given with
pleasure to the Committee for the employment of men more at home
in the lecture field, as the proceeds of this lecture will
be,—such men as pass six months in preparing one, two, or three
lectures, and pass the next six months in delivering them. As
this is their sole means of living, it is right that they should
be well paid for them; and it is one of the noble objects of
this Association to furnish you, at an hour when you have no
worldly pursuits nor religious entertainments, for ten cents,
what other people on a week-day pay from fifty cents to a dollar
for.
I can think of no other object that would have brought me before
you with a written lecture. I felt that the duty peculiarly
devolved upon me, and I performed it with pleasure. There are
scarcely half a dozen persons, habituated to public speaking,
who were here before the city was incorporated. I was sole
conductor of a public press for twenty-five years lacking a few
months. It seemed proper that I should lead off in this
important matter.
The Chicago Democrat was commenced on the 26th of November,
1833, by the late John Calhoun, whose widow now resides in this
city. Augustine D. Taylor, now living in this city, saw the
press landed; and Walter Kimball, now living in this city, was a
visitor in the office, and saw the first number printed. That
paper fell into my hands in November, 1836, and contained not
only a history of current events, but also a vast amount of
information touching the early history of the entire Northwest.
It is a sad reflection that the same fire which swept away my
files, also swept away those of everyone else, and all our
public records. But there are copies of the Chicago Democrat
scattered all over the Northwest, as well as of other papers and
documents that will be of service in restoring our lost history.
No person should destroy any papers or documents of a date prior
to the fire. If there is no one who wants them, let them be sent
to me, and I will take care of them until our Chicago Historical
Society becomes reorganized. Our old settlers are fast passing
away. Some of the few remaining have very retentive memories.
Let them not be discouraged because they do not remember dates.
It is events that we want; and by comparing them with other
events, the dates of which we know, we can in time obtain the
exact dates of all of them.
While so many of our old settlers have passed away, there yet
may be remaining among their effects old papers whose value
their legal representatives do not appreciate. Many old packages
have been given to me, with the remark that they did not see of
what use they could be to me. One widow sent me some pieces of
newspapers, which the mice had kindly spared, with the remark
that she was ashamed to be sending such old trash to any one;
but from-them facts enough were gathered to save another widow
from being swindled out of her homestead. When I lectured
before, it was a matter of dispute what was the name of the
first steamboat that ever came to Chicago, and who was the
person in command. She came to bring the troops for the Black
Hawk War in 1832, and brought the cholera with them. All that
was known for a certainty was the place where they dug the pit
into which they most unceremoniously plunged the dead bodies.
That was remembered because it was the site of the old American
Temperance House, northwest corner of Lake street and Wabash
avenue; and many old settlers remembered that from the fact that
they always passed by the Temperance House on the other side,
and so could read the sign. The river and lake water, which we
had to drink in those days, was considered unhealthy. I made a
statement as to the name of that boat, based upon what I
considered the best authority. But when I had finished, a
gentleman came upon the stage and gave me another name, claiming
that he helped fit out the very vessel at Cleveland, and I
changed my manuscript to correspond. But some of the reporters
published the statement as I delivered it, and thus two
statements were before the public, as given by me. Thus
different persons, anxious to assist me in reestablishing the
landmarks of history, had an opportunity, by quoting the one
statement to provoke discussion by insisting that the other
statement was true, when they really did not know any more about
the matter than I did, and had perhaps consulted only one
authority, when I had previously consulted many. But a lady, in
looking over her old papers, found, where she least expected it,
a Chicago Democrat dated March 14, 1861, containing a letter
from Capt. A. Walker, giving a history of the whole expedition,
showing that both statements were correct. The United States
Government chartered four steamers to bring troops and supplies
to Chicago, and their names were the Superior, Henry Clay,
William Penn, and Sheldon Thompson; but the Superior and Henry
Clay were sent back when the cholera broke out on board. Capt.
Walker says, that when he arrived at Chicago, in July, 1832,
there were but five dwelling-houses here, three of which were
made of logs. There are other old newspapers yet to be found
settling questions equally as interesting.
All must admit, that there has been more said about the history
of Chicago, and more important publications made, the past year
than ever before. Booksellers inform me that they have had
within the past year, a greater demand than in all time before
for all works appertaining to the history of the Northwest, and
that they have had, all the while, standing orders for such
works as are out of print. And it is to encourage a still
further research that I address you to-day. And, if the result
of this year's researches is not satisfactory, I shall feel
myself in duty bound to address you again in a year from this
time. Many aged settlers have thanked me for bringing them into
a higher appreciation. One octogenarian lady informs me that,
for the past fifteen years, when any young company came to the
house, she was expected to leave the room. After my lecture, she
said she saw a gentleman approaching the house, and she left the
room as usual. But soon her granddaughter came out and said, "It
is you he wants." And this was the first gentleman caller-she
had had for fifteen years. When she entered the room, and he
told her he wanted to inquire about early Chicago, she felt as
if her youth had come again, and she told the others that it was
their time to leave the room. She said, "He has been to see me
six times, and has printed nearly all I said, and there is not
another member of our large family who-has ever said a word that
was thought of sufficient importance to be printed; and now I am
thinking over what I know about early Chicago, and letting the
newspapers have it." She observed with great force that the
young folks were constantly asking her how she used to get along
amid early privations, and she insisted that, if I ever lectured
again, I should assert that the early settlers of Chicago were
the happiest people in the world, as I believe they were. But a
strict regard for the real historical purposes of this lecture
will permit me to allude only incidentally to our early sources
of entertainment.
We are apt to speak of Chicago as a new city. But it is not so,
compared with the great mass of other cities in the United
States.
Take out Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans, and
what is there older, in the date of its incorporation, in the
West, extending to the Pacific? But when our city was organized
we had no Pacific possessions, save Oregon Territory, which we
then owned in common with Great Britain. The future historian of
America will not, however, take into consideration the date of
our incorporation. The ancient Romans were in the habit of
dating events from the foundation of their city. But "Urbs
condita" or "Chicago condita" will never be a reckoning point in
our city's history. Even in this assembly, there are not as many
who know in what year our city was incorporated as in one of our
public schools there are children who can spell Melchisedec,
notwithstanding modern politicians have kicked from the public
schools the Book that contained the eighth commandment.
From Washington's inauguration, in 1789, to Chicago's first
Mayor's inauguration, in 1837, we have but forty-eight years, a
period of time that the future historian of America, when
speaking of Chicago, will not notice. But a resident of Chicago
was not elected to Congress until 1843, and yet he became
associated not only with men prominent under every
Administration of the United States Government, and many of them
born before the inauguration of Washington, but with some born
even before the Declaration of Independence, and two, at least,
before the tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbor. John
Quincy Adams was born in 1767, and he was accustomed to tell us
that among his earliest recollections was that of hearing the
report of the guns at the battle of Bunker Hill. Benjamin
Tappan, Senator from Ohio, was born in 1773. Then there was
Henry Clay, Secretary of State while John Quincy Adams was
President, United States Senator as early as 1806, Speaker of
the House in 1811, born in 1777, nine months after the
Declaration of Independence, and one who could collect a larger
crowd and disperse it quicker and in better humor than any other
man who ever lived in America. I shall never forget my last
interview with Henry Clay, and its description is appropriate to
the history of Chicago. Our harbor was suffering for
appropriations. President Polk had vetoed them all. A change of
dynasties had been effected. Millard Fillmore was the acting
President, and he was a warm friend of our harbor. It was in the
spring of 1851. The Harbor bill had passed the House, and was
sent to the Senate at a late day, and the controlling spirits
had managed to keep it back until a still later day. The
Southern Senators, under the lead of Jefferson Davis, spoke
against time, declaring the bill unconstitutional. Clay did all
that man could do for us, but in vain. Our bill was talked to
death. Clay came on with us to New York City, to take a steamer
for New Orleans. As the vessel was about to sail, we went on
board to take our leave of him, and we all expressed a hope that
the next time he returned home he would go around by the lakes.
He replied, "I never go where the Constitution does not go.
Hence I must travel by salt water. Make your lakes
Constitutional. Keep up the war until your lake harbors get
their deserved appropriations, and then I will come out and see
you." We finally got the Constitution out here, but not until
after Henry Clay had paid the debt of nature.
Then there was John C. Calhoun, Vice-President while John Quincy
Adams was President in 1825; a member of Congress in 1811;
Secretary of War when the reconstruction of our fort was
completed in 1817; born in 1782, the year before Great Britain
acknowledged our independence. He said his name came once very
nearly being associated with Chicago,- as the new fort had been
completed while he was Secretary of War, and it was suggested
that it be called Fort Calhoun. But he did not think it right to
change the old name which had been given in honor of Gen. Henry
Dearborn, who was Secretary of War when the first fort was
built, in 1804. Official documents tell us that, in 1803, Capt.
John Whistler, then a Lieutenant at Detroit, was ordered here to
build the fort, that his troops came by land, and that he, with
his family and his supplies, came round by the lakes in the
United States schooner Tracy, with Dorr for Master. This
probably was the first sail-vessel that ever came to Chicago. I
can think of no business that could have brought one here
before. This Capt. John Whistler was father of Col. William
Whistler, who died in 1863, and was so favorably known by our
early settlers, and who was father-in-law of the late Robert A.
Kinzie, of this city.
Besides, there was Judge William Wilkins, of Pennsylvania, born
in 1779; Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, born in 1782; John J.
Crittenden, of Kentucky, born in 17863 and Judge Levi Woodbury,
of New Hampshire, born in 1789.
Then there were three men whose names are identified with the
history of the West. There was Lewis Cass, born in 1782,
appointed, in 1813, Governor of the Northwestern Territory, then
embracing Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and all west.
And William Woodbridge, born in 1780, appointed in 1814,
Secretary of the same Territory. These gentlemen where walking
histories of the Northwest. Then there was Thomas H. Benton,
born in 1782, Senator when Missouri was admitted in 1821, who
made his first trips to Washington on horseback. Add his
knowledge to that of Messrs. Woodbridge and Cass, and we have a
complete history of the entire West. Many now before me will
remember the patriotic lecture he delivered here in the spring
of 1857, upon the approaching crisis to this country, about a
year before his death, probably the last lecture of his life.
Nor should I fail to mention Gen. Henry Dodge, the Anthony
Wayne-of his period, born also in 1782, one of the first
Senators from Wisconsin.
A single member of Congress, and the first one elected from
Chicago, was associated in Congress with two members who served
in President Monroe's Cabinet, one in President J. Q. Adams',
three in President Jackson's, one in President Van Buren's, five
in President Harrison's, four in President Tyler's, four in
President Polk's, four in President Taylor's, seven in President
Fillmore's, four in President Pierce's, five in President
Buchanan's, and six in President Lincoln's; embracing a period
of American official history from 1817; and some of these men
were born before the tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbor.
For some years after Chicago elected her first member of
Congress, the widow of President Madison gave receptions at
Washington, and on the first of January her guests were shown
apartments where were suspended dresses which she had worn upon
all great occasions, including the receptions of Presidents
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and her husband. James Madison was
not only a member of the Continental Congress, but also a member
of the first Congress under the Constitution, and so continued
during the terms of Washington's Presidency; and was Secretary
of State under Mr. Jefferson's Administration. So this lady had
had ample opportunity to know the customs of every preceding
period of our Governmental history. Now, if her heirs bring out
these dresses for the Centennial (she had no children), the
public will be astonished at their remarkably small number, she
not having had, in over a quarter of a century, what the wife of
the average officeholder of these days will have in a single
year.
Then there was the widow of Gen. Alexander Hamilton, the
confidant of Gen. Washington in the Revolution, and his
Secretary of the Treasury, who was killed in a duel by Aaron
Burr. She was born in 1757, and died at Washington in 1854. She
was soliciting Congress to aid her in publishing her husband's
works. She could tell all about her father, Gen. Philip
Schuyler, of the American Revolution; the personal appearance of
Gen. Washington and his lady; and of almost all other public
persons of the Revolutionary period. In fact, when you sent your
first member of Congress to Washington, all society was redolent
with scenes of the Revolutionary period; and here in our midst
were several Revolutionary soldiers; and one, Father David
Keniston, who claimed to have been one of the party who threw
the tea overboard in Boston Harbor.
You will excuse me for digressing from the direct purpose of
this lecture if I here state to you, that since I commenced
writing it, I have received a letter from an old colleague in
Congress, who was born the same year Great Britain acknowledged
our independence, 1783,—as it will probably be the last
opportunity that many of you will ever have of hearing a letter
read from a man now living who is older than our Government; I
allude to the Hon. Artemas Hale, of Bridgewater, Mass. He is the
oldest ex-member of Congress now living, in his 93d year. Do you
want to hear what the veteran says?
My health, considering my age, is quite good. But my time for
taking any active part in public matters is past. Still,
however, I feel a deep interest in the welfare and prosperity of
our beloved country, and am pained to hear of the corruption and
frauds of so many of our public men. It appears to me that it is
of the highest importance that our circulating medium should
have a fixed and permanent value, which it cannot have but by a
specie basis. I should be very much pleased to receive a letter
from you, with your views of public matters.
I answered his letter in one word, "Amen !"
Thus you will see that our history laps so closely upon the
Revolutionary period that there is no precise point at which we
can say that Chicago began, unless it be in 1832, when the
marching of the troops of Gen. Scott to Rock Island, on the
Mississippi, called attention to the fertility of the soil and
the beautiful locations west of us. We often hear of different
men who have done much for Chicago, by their writings, their
speeches, or their enterprise. But I have never heard of a man
who has done more for Chicago than Chicago has done for him. God
made Lake Michigan and the country to the west of it; and, when
we come to estimate who have done the most for Chicago, the
glory belongs first to the enterprising farmers who raised a
surplus of produce and sent it here for shipment; and second, to
the hardy sailors who braved the storms of our harborless lakes
to carry it to market. All other classes - were the incidents,
and not the necessities, of our embryo city. Chicago is but the
index of the prosperity of our agricultural classes. And to this
day we hear Chicago mercantile failures attributed to the
inability of farmers to get their produce to market, when the
roads are in a bad condition. If we pass by the impetus given to
the agricultural development of the country west of Chicago by
the Black Hawk War of 1832, we must admit that we are passing
into the bi-centennial period. What did Chicago know of the
Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the Peace of
1783, or the inauguration of Washington, until years afterwards?
It is probable that Capt Whistler, when he came here to build
the fort of 1804, brought to Chicago the first information on
these subjects, and probably had to employ an interpreter to
explain it. It was probably his Chaplain that made the first
prayer for the President of the United States and all in
authority; and his vessel that first floated the Stars and
Stripes on Lake Michigan. But there were prayers here 200 years
ago, and a flag that did not denote our national independence,
but French territorial aggrandizement.
I have used my best efforts to find the earliest recognition of
Chicago by any official authority. Charlevoix and other French
writers make mention of the place, but I cannot find that the
French Government in any way recognized it. After the Canadas
were ceded to Great Britain, the whole Illinois country was
placed under the local administration of Canada by a bill which
passed the British Parliament in 1766, known as the "Quebec
Bill;” but there is nothing to prove that the Canadian
Government took any official notice of this place. It may be
interesting to know what was religious liberty in those days. At
the period of the change of Government from the French, under
the treaty of Paris, in 1763, Thomas Gage was Commander-in-Chief
of the British King's troops in North America; and in 1764, he
issued a proclamation authorizing the Roman Catholics of
Illinois to exercise the worship of their religion in the same
manner as they did in Canada, and to go wherever they pleased,
even to New Orleans.
In October, 1778, the House of Burgesses of Virginia created the
County of Illinois, appointed John Todd, of Kentucky, Civil
Commander, and authorized all the civil officers to which the
inhabitants had been accustomed, to be chosen by a majority of
the citizens of their respective districts. From this we should
infer that there were then settlements somewhere in the State.
But I can find nothing of Chicago while we belonged to Virginia.
The late Wm. H. Brown, of this city, in a lecture before our
Historical Society, in 1865, said: "The French inhabitants of
Kaskaskia, in 1818, the year in which I made my residence there,
claimed that that village was founded in 1707. There were
evidences at that time (the remains of former edifices, among
them the Jesuit College) that their chronology was substantially
correct."
In 1788, Gen. Arthur St. Clair became Governor of the entire
Northwestern Territory, and was the first man to fill that
position.
The seat of government for Chicago people was then at Marietta,
O. In 1790 he came to Kaskaskia (some writers say Cahokia) and
organized what is now the entire State of Illinois into a
county, which he named for himself. Besides this there were but
two counties in the whole Northwestern Territory—the County of
Knox, embracing Indiana, and the County of Hamilton, embracing
Ohio. But there is nothing to show that Chicago at that time was
known to the civil authorities. Besides consulting all the early
writers upon the subject, I have corresponded with all the men
in the country who I thought would know anything concerning it.
And I cannot find anyone who has any authority for stating that
there was any official recognition of Chicago until Gen. Wayne's
Treaty, made at Greenville in 1795, in which he acquired title
from the Indians to a tract of land, six miles square, at the
mouth of the Chicago River, where a fort formerly stood.
Greenville is in the southwestern part of Ohio, in Dark County,
upon the Indiana State line.
There is nothing to show that, at that time, Gen. Wayne came any
farther west, not even as far as Fort Wayne, although he appears
to have had the same knowledge of the importance of the position
of Fort Wayne as he did of that of Chicago. Why the fort at this
place, referred to, was built here, and who built it, I have not
been able to ascertain. As the French and Indians were always
allies, there is no reason why the French should have built such
a fort. It may be that it was built by one of the tribes of
Indians to defend the place from some other tribe. But
offsetting tradition against Gen. Wayne's official recognition
of a fort here, it may be that there was a mere trading and
store-house, surrounded by pickets. The prevailing impression is
that such was the character of all those places called forts
prior to the abdication of the French authority. Col. Gurdon S.
Hubbard, our oldest living settler, who was here in 1818, favors
this idea, and has reminded me of an almost forgotten, but at
one time extensively received, tradition, that this old fort, or
palisaded trading-post, was on the West Side, upon the North
Branch, near where Indiana street now crosses it; and it was
erected, or at least was at one time occupied, by a Frenchman
named Garie, and hence the tradition that our North Branch river
was one called "Garie's River."
There was a powerful chief of the Illinois named Chicagou, who
went to France in the year 1725. The Hon. Sidney Breese, who
settled at Kaskaskia in 1818, who was in the United States
Senate six years during my service in Congress, and who still
honors our Supreme Court, is the best informed man in Illinois
history now living. He writes me:
I know of no authorized recognition of Chicago as a place on
this globe, anterior to Wayne's treaty. I have a copy of a map,
which I made from one in the Congressional Library, which I
found among the papers of President Jefferson, made in 1685; in
which is a place on the lake shore, about where your city is,
marked "Chicagou;" and Father Louis Vivier, who was a priest at
Kaskaskia in 1752, in a letter to his Superior, says: "Chikagou
was a celebrated Indian chief, who went to Paris, and the
Duchess of Orleans, at Versailles, gave him a splendid
snuff-box, which he was proud to exhibit, on his return, to his
brother redskins."
Some have contended that our city was named from him. But
Charlevoix, in his History of New France, gives us that name as
early as 1671, in which year, he says, a French voyageur, named
Nicholas Perrot, went to Chicago, at the lower end of Lake
Michigan, where the Miamis then were. This was before Father
James Marquette came here.
The treaty of Greenville, at the time considered of no other
importance than as settling our difficulties with the Indians,
afterwards became a matter of very serious importance in the
settlement of our difficulties with Great Britain, while the
treaty of Ghent was being negotiated, 1814. When the
Commissioners met, the Americans were surprised by the British
Commissioners demanding the recognition of that treaty as the
basis of negotiations as to the western boundary of the United
States. The British at first refused to negotiate except upon
the basis of that treaty, and insisted upon the entire
sovereignty and independence of the Indian Confederacy. They
claimed the Indians as their allies, and considered themselves
bound to protect them in their treaty. It will be remembered
that the Indians had, for a long time, received annuities from
the French Government, and that these annuities were continued
by Great Britain after the treaty of cession in 1763; and that,
after our independence was acknowledged by Great Britain, the
Indians annually sent delegations to Canada to receive these
annuities.
During the pendency of these negotiations, it was ascertained
that there had been an alliance, offensive and defensive,
between the celebrated Chief Tecumseh and the British
authorities. After discussing the matter, and finding the
Americans peremptorily refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty
of the Indians, the British Commissioners proposed that the
United States and Great Britain should exercise a joint
protectorate over the Indians, and consider all the territory
not acknowledged to belong to the United States by the treaty of
Greenville as embraced within that protectorate. This would have
left the six miles square at the mouth of the Chicago River in a
permanently Indian country. The West would have been situated
similarly to Oregon, which was so long held under the joint
occupation of Great Britain and the United States; and the final
result of the joint occupation would have been the same as in
Oregon, a division of the territory; a part of it, perhaps
including Chicago, being attached, in the end, to the Canadian
provinces. The British Commissioners were so pertinacious on
this subject that it was thought at one time that negotiations
would have to be given up. And when the British Commissioners
finally yielded, the British Government received the bitter
curses of the Indians.
Billy Caldwell, better known in Chicago as Sauganash, who lived
here several years after I came here, and was well known to me
personally, had been the intimate friend of Tecumseh, and
declared that if Tecumseh had been living he would have aroused
all the Indians in the Northwest in a general warfare upon the
Canadian settlements, in retaliation for what he considered the
treachery at Ghent. Caldwell, to the day of his death, insisted
that Tecumseh, not long before he was killed, predicted that the
British in time would abandon them, and seriously meditated,
during the war of 1812, upon going over to the Americans with
all his forces. Caldwell was the son of an Irish Colonel in the
British army, stationed upon the Detroit frontier, whose name he
bore. His mother was Tecumseh's own sister. He ultimately went
to his tribe at the Pottawatomie Reservation in Shawnee County,
Kan., and died there.
When the Illinois territory was a part of Indiana, our seat of
government was at Vincennes. When it was set off from Indiana,
in 1809, the whole territory was organized into two counties,
St. Clair and Randolph. Judge Breese, whose home was in
Kaskaskia in 1818, informs me that his home was never in the
same county with Chicago, being in the southern County of
Randolph.
From St. Clair County, what is now Cook County, was set off in
the new County of Madison; thence in the new County of Crawford;
in 1819, in the new County of Clark; and so little was then
known of the northern country, that the act creating Clark
County extended it to the Canada line. In 1821, we were set off
in the new County of Pike; in 1823, in the new County of Fulton;
and in 1825, in the new County of Peoria. I have not only caused
the County records of these counties to be examined, but have
also corresponded with their earliest settlers, and I can find
no official recognition of Chicago until we reach Fulton County.
The Clerk of that County writes me, that the earliest mention of
Chicago in the records is the order of an election at the term
of the Fulton County Commissioners' Court, Sept. 2, 1823, to
choose one Major and company officers, polls at Chicago to be
opened at the house of John Kinzie. The returns of this election
cannot be found, if they were ever made. As the county was
organized in 1823, this, of course, was the first election under
the organization of the county. The same Court ordered, April
27, 1824, that the Sheriff, Abner Eads, be released from paying
the money tax collected at Chicago by Rousser. In those days the
Sheriffs were ex-officio collectors of taxes. The name indicates
that our Tax-Collector was then a Frenchman, or a mixed-breed
French and Indian. It seems that they had defaulters in those
days, as well as now. It would be a gratifying historical fact
if we could know how much this man Rousser collected, as showing
the financial resources of our population at that time, when all
the real estate belonged to the General Government. The numerous
followers of this man Rousser have shown their ingratitude to
the founder of their sect by their failure to erect any monument
to his memory, or to name after him a street, a school-house, or
a fire-engine house. These Rousserites are getting to be a
numerous body of men, and their motto is, "Keep what you
collect." One election and one steal are all that the records of
Fulton County show for Chicago!
The Clerk of Peoria County writes me, that his earliest records
commence March 8, 1825. From these records I learn that John
Kinzie was commissioned Justice of the Peace July 28, 1825. He
was the first Justice of the Peace resident at Chicago.
Alexander Wolcott, his son-in-law, and John B. Beaubien, were
commissioned Sept. 10, of the same year.
I have also the assessment-roll of John L. Bogardus, assessor of
Peoria County, for the year 1825, dated July 25, which is as
follows:
Tax-Payers' Names.; Valuation.; Tax.
1. Beaubien, John B; $1000; $10.00
2. Clybourne, Jonas; 625; 6.25
3. Clark, John K; 250; 2.50
4. Crafts, John; 5000; 50.00
5. Clermont, Jeremy; 100; 1.00
6. Coutra, Louis; 50; .50
7. Kinzie, John, 500; 5.00
8. Laframboise, Claude; 100; 1.00
9. Laframboise, Joseph; 50; .50
10. McKee, David; 100; 1.00
11. Piche, Peter; 100; 1.00
12. Robinson, Alexander; 200; 2.00
13. Wolcott, Alexander; 572; 5.72
14. Wilemet [Ouilmette], Antoine; 400; 4.00
[Page 16]
The entire valuation, land then being not taxable, of all the
property in Chicago was $9,047, and the rate was one per cent.
But the property of the American Fur Company was assessed to
John Crafts, its agent, at $5,000. He was a bachelor, and died
the next year, and Mr. Kinzie was appointed in his place.
Deducting the American Fur Co.’s assessment, we have only $4,047
as the personal property of Chicago, in 1825, $40.47 as the tax,
and thirteen as the number of the tax-payers.
The clerk sent me a copy of two poll-books used at Chicago - one
at an election held Aug. 7, 1826, containing thirty-five names;
the other at an election held Aug. 2, 1830, containing
thirty-two names; thus showing a decrease of three voters in
four years. I will read you the names of our voters in 1826, and
you will see that only ten of the fourteen tax-payers in 1825
then voted:
1 Augustin Banny. [Bannot?]
2 Henry Kelley.
3 Daniel Bourassea.
4 Cole Weeks.
5 Antoine Ouilmette. 1825
6 John Baptiste Secor.
7 Joseph Catie.
8 Benjamin Russell.
9 Basile Displattes.
10 Francis Laframboise, Sr.
11 Francis Laframboise, Jr.
12 Joseph Laframboise. 1825
13 Alexander Larant.
14 Francis Laducier.
15 Peter Chavellie.
16 Claude Laframboise. 1825
17 Jeremiah Clairmore [Clermont ?] ‘25
18 Peter Junio.
19 John Baptiste Lafortune.
20 John Baptiste Malast.
21 Joseph Pothier.
22 Alexander Robinson. 1825
23 John K. Clark. 1825
24 David McKee. 1825
25 Joseph Anderson.
26 Joseph Pepot.
27 John Baptiste Beaubien. 1825
28 John Kinzie. 1825
29 Archibald Clybourne.
30 Billy Caldwell.
31 Martin Vansicle.
32 Paul Jamboe.
33 Jonas Clybourne. 1825
34 Edward Ament.
35 Samuel Johnston.
I will now read, you the names of our voters in 1830, showing that only three of the fourteen tax-payers of 1825 then voted:
1 Stephen J. Scott.
2 John B. Beaubien. 1825, 1826
3 Leon Bourassea.
4 B. H. Laughton.
5 Jesse Walker,
6 Medard B. Beaubien.
7 John Baptiste Chavellea.
8 James Kinzie.
9 Russell E. Heacock.
10 James Brown.
11 Jos. Laframboise, 1825, 1826
12 John L. Davis.
13 William See.
14 John Van Horn.
15 John Mann.
16 David Van Eaton.
17 Stephen Mack.
18 Jonathan A. Bailey.
19 Alexander McDollo. [McDole?]
20 John S. C. Hogan.
21 David McKee. 1825, 1826
22 Billy Caldwell. 1826
23 Joseph Thibeaut.
24 Peter Frique.
25 Mark Beaubien.
26 Laurant Martin.
27 John Baptiste Secor. 1826
28 Joseph Bauskey.
29 Michael Welch.
30 Francis Laducier. 1826
31 Lewis Ganday.
32 Peresh Leclerc.
It is a remarkable commentary upon the fickleness of our
population, that only six of the men who voted in 1826 voted in
1830; and these six-were half-breeds or Government employes.
Father John Kinzie, however, died between the two elections,
upon the 6th of January, 1828, aged 65. But there were some not
voting at the second election, such as the late Archibald
Clybourne, his father Jonas, and half-brother John K. Clark, who
ended their days with us. The half-breeds and French who did not
vote may have been away on a hunting and trading expedition. The
voters in 1826 seem to have understood their true interest,
being dependents upon the fort, as every one of them voted the
Administration ticket, John Quincy Adams then being President.
If there were ever three men in the United States who
electrified the whole country with their fiery denunciations of
the military power, they were President John Quincy Adams, his
Vice-President John C. Calhoun, and his Secretary of State Henry
Clay. Neither of the three ever forget Gen. Jackson! It would
have seemed malicious, and yet quite pertinent, on the part of
the Chicago member of Congress to have asked either of these
gentlemen whether it was not a singular fact that, while Mr.
Adams was President, the people of Chicago unanimously voted
with the fort! Ninian Edwards for Governor, Samuel KL Thompson
for Lieutenant-Governor, Daniel P. Cook for Congressman, the
Administration candidates, each received thirty-five votes,
being all there were. The much-complained-of military power of
the present day has never secured a greater unanimity in the
colored vote of the South. But four years later, in 1830, when
Andrew Jackson was President, there was a material change in the
politics of the place. John Reynolds, the Jackson candidate for
Governor, received twenty-two out of the thirty-two votes cast.
Of the six who voted at both elections, and who voted for the
Adams candidate in 1826, five voted for the Jackson candidate in
1830; showing their consistency by each time Voting with the
Administration, or more properly with the fort. Billy Caldwell,
the Sauganash, the nephew of Tecumseh, voted the Jackson ticket;
while Joseph Laframboise, a noted Indian chief, stood out and
voted against it. Perhaps Gen. Jackson, in some of the early
Indian wars, had caused the death of some of Laframboise's
relatives or friends. Up to 1848, we had the viva voce system of
voting in the State of Illinois. Each man went up to the polls,
with or without a ticket in his hands, and told whom he wanted
to vote for, and the judges so recorded it. But in those days
the masses knew as little whom they were voting for as they do
now. For the judges often read off the names of the candidates
from the tickets, and the voter would nod his head. There was no
chance, however, for stuffing the ballot-box under the viva voce
system. It may account for the falling off of the vote between
1826 and 1830, that some persons would not vote the Jackson
ticket, and yet disliked to vote against the fort. There were
four of the Laframboise family voting in 1826, and only one in
1830. The names of voters in 1826 indicate that full
three-fourths of them were French and half-breeds. The judges in
1826 were Father John Kinzie, the late Gen. John B. Beaubien,
and Billy Caldwell. The clerks were the late Archibald Clybourne
and his half-brother John K. Clark. The election was held at the
Agency House, in Chicago Precinct, Peoria County. The Agency
House was on the North Side, and was the second house built in
Chicago, Mr. Kinzie's being the first. The Indian Agent was Dr.
Alexander Wolcott, who died in 1830, son-in-law of Mr. Kinzie.
The election of 1830, was held in the house of James Kinzie,
Chicago Precinct, Peoria County. This house was on the West
Side, near the forks of the river. The South Side had no status
at that time, there being nothing then on that side except the
fort and light-house building, and the log-houses of the two
Beaubien brothers,—one residing at the lake shore, and one near
the forks of the river, with such a marsh between, that, much of
the time, their most convenient, way of visiting each other was
in boats in the river.
The judges at the election of 1830, 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, well known in this city, now principal agent of the
Pottawatomie tribe of Indians at Silver Lake, Shawnee County,
Kansas, and Jesse Walker. The names of voters in 1830, indicate
a large influx of the Anglo-Saxon race; but among them was one
Irishman, probably the first Irishman who ever trod the Chicago
soil.
The first thought that occurred to me was, What could bring an
Irishman out here all alone? Who was to help him celebrate St.
Patrick's Day? Who was to attend his wake? His name was Michael
Welch. What have our many Irish Aldermen been thinking of, that
they have never given us, in honor of their first settler, a
Welch avenue, a Welch street, a Welch schoool-house, or a Welch
fire-engine? The next thought that occurred to me was, What
could he be doing out here all by himself? Now, what would an
Irishman naturally do when he found himself here all alone,
hundreds of miles distant from any other Irishman? He was a
bugler. He blew his horn. He was a discharged soldier, and,
having faithfully served out his time, he stopped long enough to
vote the straight Jackson ticket, and then joined Captain Jesse
Brown's Rangers and marched on to clear the Indians out of the
way of his coming countrymen, who were already aroused by his
bugle's blast, as his patron St. Patrick, centuries before, had
cleared the snakes out of his way in the land of his nativity.
Capt. Jesse Brown was a brother of the late Judge Thomas C.
Brown, of our Supreme Court, and was authorized by President
Jackson to raise a company of men, who were called "Brown's
Rangers," and was ordered to report to Gen. Stephen W. Kearney,
on the Western frontier.
There is a prevailing impression that Irishmen never go anywhere
except in squads. But the history of the American Continent will
prove that Irishmen have ventured as far alone upon hazardous
explorations as any other men. But he dislikes to stay alone.
Like the honey-bee, when he finds a good thing, he wants some
others to come and help him enjoy it. My original Congressional
district extended north to the Wisconsin line, west to the Rock
River Valley, south so as to embrace Princeton, LaSalle,
Bloomington, Urbana, and Danville. I had to travel all over this
district with a horse and buggy, and visit the spare
settlements. I often found an Irishman cultivating the soil
alone. But when I made a second visit, I found some more
Irishmen there, or else the original one had gone. Gov.
Winthrop, of Boston, in his journal under date of 1642, tells us
of one Darby Field, an Irishman, who could not rest contented
after his landing in America until he had climbed to the top of
the White Mountains. He was the first man to ascend Mount
Washington, and when asked why he went, replied, "Merely to take
a look at the country!"
[Page 20]
The official dispatches of one of the battles of the Mexican
War commended the conduct of Private Sullivan, of one of our
Chicago regiments. In the battle he had advanced before his
company, engaged in a single combat with a Mexican officer, and
killed him. I called President Polk's attention to the report,
and asked for Sullivan's promotion. He referred the matter to
the Adjutant- General. Time passed along, and no appointment was
sent to the Senate. I called upon the Adjutant-General, and he
read me a letter from Sullivan's superior officer, commending
his courage and general good conduct, but strongly protesting
against his appointment as Lieutenant in the regular army, on
account of his deficiency in West Point education. I appealed to
the President, and it did not take long to satisfy him that good
fighting in war- time would counterbalance all deficiencies in
education, and Sullivan was promoted. Some time after the close
of the war, his father called upon me, said he had not heard
from his son for a long time, and wanted me to find him. Many of
you will remember the father, Jeremiah Sullivan, at one time
Justice of the Peace,—a tall and well-proportioned gentleman,
with as prepossessing a general appearance as any gentleman who
walked our streets. I wrote to Washington, and received for
answer that Sullivan resigned his Lieutenancy at the close of
the war. Inside the official letter was a note marked "private
and unofficial." "Tell Sullivan's father to read the news from
Mexico. I enclose some scraps from a New Orleans newspaper, and
the Col. Sullivan therein mentioned is reported to be the late
Lieut. Sullivan of the regular army." Some time afterwards, an
officer of the army gave me the following account: After the
close of the war with Mexico, some of the officers were tarrying
late at dinner, when Lieut. Sullivan entered and was saluted
with "Will you join us, Lieut. Sullivan?" "Col. Sullivan, if you
please, gentleman," was the reply. Whereupon one of the officers
said, "It will not surprise us at all if you are Col. Sullivan.
If your killing that Mexican was of so much account as to put
you on an equality with us who have studied four years at West
Point, and have seen considerable active service, a little
personal favoritism might carry you still higher, and make you a
Colonel. Why, Lieut. Sullivan, if you should kill another
Mexican, those politicians at Washington would make you
Commander-in-Chief!" "Gentlemen," said Sullivan, "it is business
that brings me here. Here is my commission as Colonel in the
Mexican revolutionary army, and now you know my authority. And
now, here's my business in this paper, which I will read." He
then read a paper authorizing and requesting him to employ a
competent engineer upon his staff. The officers reminded him
that they knew nothing of the face of the Mexican country, had
no maps, knew not his route, and insisted that they could be of
no service to him.
"You do not understand me, gentlemen,” replied Sullivan; "it is
not for what I am going to do that I want any of your
assistance. I only want you to map it out after I have done it.
You are always talking about your military school, and what you
have studied, and the like of you will be at school hereafter,
and they will want to study Sullivan's Route to the Capital of
Mexico; and if ever I should be Emperor, whom would I want for
Secretary of War but my own Engineer?" Sullivan set out upon his
march with no one to map out his route. He penetrated regions
where no man had ever been before. He came out of forests where
men least expected him. He appeared to be everywhere, and the
inhabitants could make no calculation where he was not. They
either all joined him, or fled before him. He had everything his
own way, until, in his efforts to join the main army, he found
himself in the fortified country.
Here he missed his engineer and his military education. He was
wounded, taken prisoner, marched into the Plaza, a bullet
pierced his heart, and that was the last of Sullivan. But it
just took a Chicago Irish boy to teach the Emperor Maximilian
how to die the death of a soldier some twenty years afterwards;
and Sullivan had as much right in Mexico as Maximilian.
There are 67 names upon the two voting-lists of 1825, and 1830.
Six voted at both elections, leaving 61 different names, which,
with the four on the tax- list of 1825 who did not vote at
either election, constitute the 65 from whom our first families
are descended.
And as there may be some pride in after years in tracing one's
connection with our first families, the real Knickerbockers of
Chicago, 1 have taken some pains to obtain interviews or hold
correspondence with such of them as might be living, and with
the descendants of such as are dead. Of a very large proportion
of them I can obtain no knowledge whatever. I shall publish all
their names, and at some future time shall publish what I have
ascertained, or may hereafter ascertain, of their history and of
their descendants. When it was known, in 1860, that the Prince
of Wales was to make Chicago a visit, one of our society-men
suggested that it was my duty, as Mayor of the city, to select
about a hundred from our first families and give the Prince a
ball. I asked him to give the names of the hundred from the
first families. This he said he was unwilling to do. I asked him
then to give me the names of even ten of our first families,
meaning, of course, nine besides his own. This he also declared
himself unwilling to do.
But if, at any future time, any one of our society men should
wish to make a party from our first families, he may derive some
assistance from this lecture.
At this time I think there are but three of those voters-living.
One is Medard B. Beaubien, son of the late Gen. John B.
Beaubien, of this city, now the leading man among the
Pottawatomie Indians, in Kansas. The second is David McKee, now
living near Aurora, Ill. He was born in Virginia in 1800, and
went to Cincinnati when a young man, as a blacksmith. Under the
treaty of Chicago, made with the Indians by Gen. Cass, in 1821,
the Government was to keep a blacksmith here, who was to work
exclusively for the Indians.
Col. Benjamin B. Kerchival, then Indian Agent, afterwards a
prominent citizen of Detroit, went to Cincinnati and employed
McKee to come here in that capacity. McKee reached Fort Wayne,
and there waited for a guide. At that time the only mail Chicago
had was a monthly one to Fort Wayne. He did not wait long before
the exploring expedition of Maj. Stephen H. Long reached that
place, and he accompanied it to Chicago. Turning to the history
of that expedition, by Prof. William H. Keating, of the
University of Pennsylvania, I find that orders were issued to
Maj. Long, April 25, 1823, for him to commence at Philadelphia,
thence to proceed to Wheeling, thence to Chicago or Fort Wayne,
thence to Fort Armstrong or Dubuque lead mines, thence up the
Mississippi to Fort St. Anthony, etc. The expedition reached
Fort Wayne, May 26, 1823, and Prof. Keating speaks of the fort
then there as erected in 1814 on the site of the old fort, the
location of which had been designated by Gen. Anthony Wayne
after his victory over the confederated Indians on the 20th of
August, 1794, which gave rise to the treaty of Greenville in the
following year. The Professor says also, that the expedition
fortunately met at Fort Wayne the express sent from Chicago for
letters, and obtained him as guide.
They left Fort Wayne May 29th, 1823. Their cavalcade consisted
of seven persons, including the soldier, mail-carrier, and a
colored servant; and they had two horses loaded with provisions.
On the 5th of June they reached Fort Dearborn, Chicago, having
been eight days in traveling the distance of 216 miles, an
average of 27 miles a day, their distance exceeding the usual
allowance, by 16 miles, in consequence of their circuitous route
to avoid the Elkhart River. The railroad train now leaving here
at 9 a.m. reaches Fort Wayne at 2 p.m. The post at Chicago was
abandoned a few months after the party reached it, in
consequence of the rapid extension of the white population
westward, and the establishment of a chain of military posts
along the Mississippi River, rendering the continuance of the
force here unnecessary. An Indian Agent, Dr. Alexander Wolcott,
uncle of our present County Surveyor, of the same name, remained
here to keep up amicable relations with the Indians, and to
attend to their wants, daily becoming greater in consequence of
the increasing scarcity of game. Fort Dearborn was not occupied
by soldiers again, except temporarily in transit, until 1832,
when the Black Hawk troubles broke out. When Mr. McKee came here
there were but two houses: one belonging to John Kinzie, the
other to his son-in-law, Dr. Alexander Wolcott, the Indian
Agent,— Mr. Kinzie's having been built first. Both houses were
built of logs, and lined with cedar bark. The third house was
built by Joseph Pothier, a Frenchman, and one of the voters here
in 1826, and who until recently was a resident of Milwaukee. He
married an Indian half-breed, brought up by Mr. Kinzie, and was
striker for Mr. McKee in the blacksmith shop. Mr. McKee was
married by Mr. Kinzie, at Mr. Kinzie's house, and he built the
fourth house. All four houses were on the north side of the
river.
The inhabitants were soldiers, Frenchmen in the employ of the
American Fur Company, and Indians. When the fort was not
garrisoned, and the fur-traders were in the country making their
purchases, the Indians constituted almost the entire population.
In 1827-28, Mr. McKee carried the mail once a month to Fort
Wayne. As his Indian pony had to carry the mail-bag and the
blankets for him to sleep upon, he could not carry corn for the
pony and provisions for himself. He drove the pony in front of
him, and cut down an elm or basswood tree for the pony to browse
upon during the night. He carried a gun with which he killed the
game for his own food. His route was from here to Niles, Mich.,
thence to Elkhart, Ind., and thence to Fort Wayne. His average
trip from this place to Fort Wayne was fourteen days; the
quickest time he ever made was ten days. Gen. John McNiel, one
of the heroes in the battle of Lundy's Lane, commanded the fort
when Mr. McKee came to Chicago. Soon after his arrival, a
sailing vessel, called the Heartless, undertook to enter the
mouth of the river, ran ashore, and was beached in the sand.
They tried to cut her out, but she went to pieces. About a year
thereafter the first vessel entered the harbor, and anchored
opposite the fort. It was the United States revenue- cutter
Fairplay. When we speak of the first vessel coming to Chicago,
there is always a confusion between the vessels that anchored
outside and the vessels that actually came up into the river. It
is claimed that this United States revenue-cutter Fairplay was
the first one to actually enter the river. In 1826, there came
here a sailing vessel called the Young Tiger, to enter the
river, but she anchored out in the lake, slipped her cable, and
went ashore.
Mr. E. Buell, now residing in Clinton County, Iowa, near Lyons,
aged 75, claims that he was pilot and navigator on the schooner
Aurora, Capt. Titus, that came to Chicago in 1820 or 1821; but
he leaves the question unsettled as to whether or not he came up
into the river. The steamers which brought here the troops of
Gen. Scott, in 1832, had to anchor some distance outside. The
persons claiming to have been upon the first vessel that passed
over the Chicago bar and came up into the river, are even more
numerous than those claiming to be descendants of the persons
who had the first white child born in Chicago. I will not
discuss this matter now, as the mass of you care less about
those who had the first child than you do about those who are to
have the next one, and what is to become of it.
The third man now living who voted in Chicago Precinct, Peoria
County, in 1830, is our well-known fellow-citizen, Mark
Beaubien. He came here in 1826 to visit his brother, John B.
Beaubien, who was an employe of the American Fur Company, and
who lived in a log-house near the lake-shore, near the mouth of
the river, on the South Side. Mark returned to Detroit, and
brought his family here, and built him a log-house, fronting the
river, on what is known as the "Old Wigwam Lot," on the corner
of Lake and Market streets; it being at that time the only
dwelling-house on the South Side, except his brother's. He
constructed it for hotel purposes, and, when the Indian Chief
Sauganash learned his design, he told him that Americans named
their hotels after big men, and asked him what he was going to
call it. Mr. Beaubien took the hint, and said I’ll call it
Sauganash!" A few years afterwards, he built a large addition to
it, which was the first frame-house built on the South Side. It
was in this house that I took my first meal, on my arrival here
in 1836, it being then kept by John Murphy. Mr. Beaubien was
born in 1800, and in Detroit, where his father was also born;
but his grandfather was an emigrant from France. He established
the first ferry, at the forks of the river. He was an original
fiddler, having inherited the art in the natural way; and he
will probably die one. In case of the absence of the music at
any 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 were only one string left, a party would
never go away disappointed if Mr. Beaubien was left to play upon
it. He has done much to keep up our first families, having had
twenty-three children. His grandchildren had numbered
fifty-three when the great-grandchildren began to make their
appearance, and he stopped counting. I introduce him to you
to-day as the only man you will probably ever see who witnessed
the surrender of an American army. God grant that such an event
may never happen again! During the War of 1812, Mr. Beaubien's
father, hearing that the town (Detroit) was about to be
bombarded by the British army, had ordered his children to go
down into the cellar, when news came that Gen. Hull had
surrendered. Mark Beaubien saw Gen. Hull and his staff rowed
over to the Canadian shore, and then the soldiers were taken
over under the charge of the red-coat officials.
Cook County was set off from Peoria County under an act passed
in 1831. The first election was in Aug., 1832. The county was
named for the Hon. Daniel P. Cook, son-in-law of Gov. Ninian
Edwards, who was one of the first United States Senators from
this State.
Mr. Cook was a member of Congress from 1820 to 1827, and died in
1827, aged 32, one of the most talented men who ever lived in
this State. As our poll- lists of the first election, in 1832,
were burnt, I can no longer trace our first families, and those,
who wish to marry into them must look back to those who were
taxed in 1825, or voted in 1826 or 1830, if they do not wish
their honors disputed. Cook County then included the present
Counties of Lake, McHenry, DuPage, and Will, all west being
included in Jo Daviess County. The only voting-place of Cook
County at that time was at Chicago. The highest number of votes
cast for all the candidates for any one office in 1832 was 114,
against 32 in 1830, and 35 in 1826.
It seems to have been the practice then, as now, to take our
officers from Galena, and then, as now, they were very good men.
Galena and Chicago were then in the same Representative and
Senatorial Districts. Col. James M. Strode was elected to the
Senate, and Benjamin Mills to the House, both being
attorneys-at-law at Galena. Elijah Wentworth, Jr., who died at
Galesburg, Ill., on the 18th of November last, received all the
votes for Coroner at this election. He wrote me, just before his
death, that he went with his father, Elijah Wentworth, Sr., from
Maine to Kentucky; they moved thence to Dodgeville, Wis., where
he was living at the time Jefferson Davis was constructing Fort
Winnebago, about 75 miles distant. Davis had been ordered there
soon after his graduation at West Point in 1828, and he often
visited Dodgeville in attendance upon social parties, and is
well remembered by old settlers there, to this day. In 1830, Mr.
Wentworth and his father moved to Chicago, and rented a new
hotel of James Kinzie, then the best in Chicago, on the West
Side, near the forks of the river. It was a log-house, with
upright boards upon the outside. He carried the mail from
Chicago to Niles, once a month.
At the annual election in August, 1834, the highest number of
votes for all the candidates for any one office was 528, against
114 in 1832. Thus our population began to increase. This vote
was for the whole County of Cook. In 1835, the highest number of
votes in the entire county, for all the candidates for any one
office, was 1064. And religious enterprise and liberality had so
far advanced that, at the Ladies' Fair at the old St James, the
mother of Episcopacy in the Northwest, on the 18th of June in
that year, the receipts were $1,431. In the spring of 1837, at
our first municipal election, the city alone cast 709 votes.*
It seems not to be generally known that, up to the time of the
opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, Chicago was not at
all troubled with mosquitoes; a blessing which amply compensated
for many of our early deprivations.
*For list of names on the poll-book, see "Fergus' Directory for
1839."
[Page 27]
The history of Chicago furnishes one with a complete history
of an irredeemable paper-money system. Emigration was fast
tending westward in 1835. Government land was $1.25 per acre.
The emigrants had little or no-money, and would purchase land on
credit at greatly advanced prices. Eastern speculators flocked
here and took advantage of this, condition of things. The
Government money received for lands would be deposited in the
banks, credited to the Government, and then reloaned back to
speculators. Thus the Government had credits in banks to more
than the amount of their capital, and their assets consisted
almost entirely of the notes of Western speculators. The
Government was out of debt, and had no use for its surplus,
which was forming the basis of those large speculative loans,
and men became even more excited and reckless than were the
land-operators here in Chicago at the time of the recent panic.
Besides, money was taken from every branch of business to invest
in these Western speculations. The President of the United
States had no power to stop the sales of lands or to limit bank
discounts. He saw the immediate necessity of arresting this
condition of things, and he had no other way to do it than to
issue an order that nothing but gold and silver should be
received for the public lands. According to an invariable law, a
redundancy of paper had driven the precious metals out of the
country, and the banks had not the specie wherewith to redeem
their bills, which were fast being presented to obtain
land-office money. The banks all failed, and corporations and
individuals issued certificates of indebtedness, which were
interchanged as currency.
States, counties, and cities paid their debts in warrants upon
an empty treasury. The Canal Commissioners paid contractors in
scrip, and the contractors paid their laborers in a lesser
scrip, redeemable in the scrip of the Commissioners.
Nearly every man in Chicago doing business was issuing his
individual scrip, and the city abounded with little tickets,
such as "Good at our store for ten cents," "Good for a loaf of
bread," "Good for a shave," "Good for a drink," etc., etc. When
you went out to trade, the trader would look over your tickets,
and select such as he could use to the best advantage. The times
for a while seemed very prosperous. We had a currency that was
interchangeable, and for a time we suffered no inconvenience
from it, except when we wanted some specie to pay for our
postage. In those days it took 25 cents to send a letter East.
But after a while it was found out that men were over-issuing.
The barber had outstanding too many shaves; the baker too many
loaves of bread; the saloon- keeper too many drinks, etc., etc.
Want of confidence became general. Each man became afraid to
take the tickets of another. Some declined to redeem their
tickets in any way, and some absconded. And people found out, as
is always the case where there is a redundancy of paper money,
that they had been extravagant, had bought things they did not
need, and had run in debt for a larger amount than they were
able to pay. Of course, nearly everyone failed, and charged his
failure upon President Jackson's specie circular. In after
times, I asked an old settler, who was a great growler in those
days, what effect time had had upon his views of Gen. Jackson's
circular. His reply was that Gen. Jackson had spoiled his being
a great man. Said he, "I came to Chicago with nothing, failed
for $100,000, and could have failed for a million, if he had let
the bubble "burst in the natural way."
A single instance will illustrate to what various purposes those
little tickets of indebtedness could be put. A boy had a ticket
"Good for a drink." He dropped it into the church
contribution-box, and heard no more of it. He told another boy,
who did the same thing with the same result. That boy told his
sister, who told her mother, who told her husband, who deemed it
his duty to tell the Deacon. Meanwhile the boys were putting in
the tickets "Good for a drink," and telling the other boys to do
the same. The Deacon, alive to all the responsibilities of his
position, for the first time in his life entered a saloon;
called the barkeeper one side, and asked him to change a $1
scrip, well knowing he could not do so unless it were in
liquor-tickets. The saloon- keeper was afraid to offer such
tickets, and declined to make the change, until the Deacon gave
him a hint that, although he did not stimulate himself, he
thought he could use the tickets. Then, said the Deacon, "I have
a curiosity to know the extent of the circulation of these
tickets, and really wish you would put a private mark upon them,
and notify me when one returns." Think of a Deacon putting such
currency into a contribution-box! But he did it, and the boys
put in some more. On Monday afternoon, the Deacon was notified
that one of his tickets had been redeemed. Oh, what a chance for
a scandal case! Imagine that such a thing had happened in our
day!
Think of our enterprising newsgatherers calling upon a Deacon,
and asking him what was the average time of a liquor-ticket's
going from his church contribution-box to a saloon! With solemn
tread the Deacon made his way to his pastor's residence, and
asked him what disposition he made of the various tickets taken
from the contribution-box. The reply was that his wife assorted
them, strung them upon different strings, entered them upon a
book, and gave the church credit as she used any of them. "And
do you say, my dear brother," asked the Deacon, "that you have
no knowledge of the particular uses to which these tickets have
been put?" "I do say so," said the pastor. The Deacon breathed
freer. He had cleared his pastor, but I have no doubt he prayed,
"May the Lord have mercy on his poor wife!" The wife was called,
and her husband said, "The Deacon wishes us to give an account
of the proceeds of the contribution-box." "Not exactly so, my
dear sister," said the Deacon; "but I wish to know for what
purposes the liquor-tickets have been used." She comprehended
the matter at once, and promptly replied, "Why, Deacon, did you
want them? I never thought you were a drinking man. Now, as you
didn't have the tickets, will you share with us the proceeds?
Let us all take a drink!" She rushed to her pantry, brought out
a pitcher, with tumblers, and it was filled with milk! In making
the change with her milkman his eyes had fallen upon these
tickets, and he said he could use them. Thus throwing the
liquor- tickets into the contribution-box was but a repetition
of the old adage, "Evil be thou my good." They had discharged
all the functions of the modern greenback, even to furnishing a
poorly-paid clergyman's children with milk.
Not long after our Chicago citizens were victimized by another
irredeemable currency device. Michigan legislators thought that,
while there was not specie enough in the country for a banking
basis, there was land enough. So they passed what is known as
the "Real Estate Banking Law." They contended that real estate
was better than gold and silver, because a man could not run
away with real estate. Chicago merchants, business men, and
speculators generally, instead of paying their debts with their
money, bought Michigan wild lands, had them appraised, and then
mortgaged them for bills, which they brought home to pay their
debts with. Real estate, which is generally the first property
to feel the effects of inflated currency, soon rose in value,
and its owners paid Michigan another visit, secured a higher
appraisal of their lands, and exchanged the second mortgage for
some more bills. For about a year we had excellent times again
in Chicago. But then confidence began to weaken. Agents were
sent into the country to buy anything they could, provided
Michigan money would be taken. Merchants would post in their
windows a list of bills that they would receive for a given day,
and then revise the list for the next day. The bubble soon
burst, and every one was the poorer for the good times he had
enjoyed. Manual labor, which was the last thing to rise, was the
last resting- place of the worthless bills.
During all this excitement incident to our great variety of
irredeemable paper, our sufferings were the greatest for postage
money, which had always to be in specie, and specie was then at
from 50 to 100 per cent premium in our depreciated currency. But
postage was then reckoned by the sheet instead of by weight. The
result was that, although friends wrote but seldom, their
letters were a sort of daily journal. When anything occurred to
them, they would write it out; and when they had filled a sheet,
oftentimes writing crossways also, they mailed it as soon as
they could raise the postage. In traveling at the East, I have
fallen in with several of these letters written in early times,
whose publication would add materially to the early history of
our city. But their contents were so mixed up with private
matters appertaining to different families that it is impossible
to obtain possession of them. As our laboring men were paid in
currency, it often took more than a day's work to pay the
postage on a letter to an Eastern friend.
I will relate an anecdote to illustrate this matter. Soon after
my first election to Congress, a young man who had rendered me
material service, made me a call, and observed that postage was
very high; in which sentiment I concurred, and promised to labor
to reduce it. He then remarked that I would have the franking
privilege; to which I assented, and promised to labor to abolish
it. But all this did not seem to interest the young man, and I
was perplexed to know the drift of his conversation. Finally,
with great embarrassment, he observed that he was engaged to a
young lady at the East, and wanted to know if I could not frank
his letters. I explained that there was but one way to avoid the
responsibilities of the law, and that was for him to write his
letters to me, and then I could write a letter to her, calling
her attention to his; and she could have the same privilege. The
correspondence took this form until the Congressman from her
district asked me if, at the close of the session, I was going
home by the way of his district. I did not comprehend him until
he stated that he was well acquainted in the family of the lady
with whom I had been corresponding, and suggested that, if I was
going to be married before the next session, it would be
pleasant for us to board at the same house! This put a new phase
upon my way of dodging an abuse of the franking privilege, and I
wrote to my constituent that he must bring his courtship to a
close, and he did so. Four letters from him and three from her
covered the transaction, and I stand indebted to this day to the
"conscience-fund" of the Post-Office Department for $1.75. But
this was a very insignificant sum to pay for the securing of a
good Yankee girl to the West in those days. Besides, there are
seven in the family now, and one went to the War; and that $1.75
was an insignificant bounty to pay for a soldier. After all, the
best way to procure soldiers is to breed them yourself. But
every time any one speaks to me about the corruptions and
defalcations among public men of the present day, I see "mene,
mene, tekel, upharsin" written on the wall! I think of that
$1.75, and say nothing.
Not satisfied with the real estate banking experiment in
Michigan, of trying to make easy times without prompt specie
redemption, some of the speculators of Illinois thought that
they would try the Michigan system, with State bonds substituted
for lands. The result of this last experiment is too familiar to
the mass of our citizens to need an extended comment. Money was
borrowed, and State bonds were purchased. The most inaccessible
places in our State were sought out for the location of banks,
and bills were extensively issued. Money was abundant, prices of
everything advanced, and a financial millenium was once more
among us. The consequences of this system were quite as
disastrous as those of the real estate system of Michigan.
Considering its age, Chicago has been the greatest sufferer of
any place in the world from an irredeemable paper-money system.
Its losses in this respect will nearly approximate those from
the great fire. And when you talk to one of the early settlers
of Chicago about the advantages accruing from an irredeemable
money system, you waste your labor. He has been there! One of
our early amusements was that of wolf- hunting. Experienced
Indian ponies were plenty in our city. The last hunt I remember
had for its object the driving of as large a number of wolves as
possible up to the ice upon the lake shore, and as near the
mouth of the harbor as could be done. There was to be no
shooting until the wolves had got upon the ice. No person was to
fire unless his aim was entirely over ice, and then to the
eastward. Two parties started early in the morning, one
following the lake shore south, and the other the river, to meet
at a common centre not far from Blue Island. Then they were to
spread themselves out, cover as much territory as possible, and
drive the wolves before them. About 4 o'clock in the afternoon,
a wolf made his appearance in the outskirts of the city. The
news was spread, and our people turned out on foot, keeping
along the margin of the river, so as to drive the wolves upon
the ice of the lake shore.
One wolf after another made his appearance, and soon we saw the
horsemen. The number of wolves was about the same as that of
Samson's foxes. The men were so eager to get the first fire at a
wolf that the tramp of their horses broke the ice; and, as the
wind was rather brisk, it broke away from the shore, with the
wolves upon it, and drifted northeasterly, very much in the same
direction as that taken by the recent unfortunate balloon. But
the wolves, unlike the man in the balloon, took no reporter on
board. Men, women, and children lined the bank of the lake,
expecting to see the ice break in pieces and the wolves swim
ashore.
But it did not do so. Our people watched the ice, and could see
the wolves running from side to side, until they faded away from
view. When I took my last look, they appeared about the size of
mice.
About two weeks afterwards, a letter appeared in a Detroit paper
containing an account of some farm settlements, on the eastern
shore of Lake Michigan, being attacked by a large body of hungry
wolves. They destroyed fowls and cattle, and for several days
spread terror through the neighborhood. We always supposed that
those were our wolves, but our hunters never laid any claim to
them, as the news of their arrival was so long in reaching here.
And as an evidence of the tardy transit of merchandise and
mails, in those days, I will state that our newspapers of
September, 1835, announce the arrival of a schooner, with goods,
twenty days from New York City, the shortest time ever made. A
newspaper of Dec. 24, 1836, announces that President Jackson's
message to Congress was only twelve days on its route from
Washington. It was published here Saturday, but the editor says
he would have issued it on Thursday, but for the extreme cold
weather.
The first divorce suit in our city was brought in 1835.
Land speculation had become so brisk here in 1835, that from
Jan. 4th to Oct. 21st of that year, the papers announce that
Augustus Garrett (afterward mayor of the city) had sold land at
his auction-rooms to the amount of $1,800,000. Our people had
commenced litigation so much that at the commencement of Cook
county circuit court in May, 1836, there were 230 cases on the
civil docket, and the court sat two weeks. Litigation so
increased that in May, 1837, there were 700 cases on the civil
docket. The newspapers pointed to the alarming fact that over a
million dollars were involved in these cases.
The West Side was the last to advance in population. Although at
one time, prior to the city's incorporation, it undoubtedly had,
as it does now, the largest portion of our inhabitants, there
were only 97 voters on the whole West Side at our first
municipal election. These were mostly from our first families,
as there were living there about that time three Indian chiefs,
Sauganash, Laframboise, and Robinson, (whose Indian name was
Che-che-pin-gua), with occasional visits from Shaboneh; and any
number of Indians, French, and mixed breeds related to them. The
West Side was the last side to have a piano, but the strains of
the fiddle were always to be heard, and the war-dance was no
uncommon thing. I remember attending the wedding of one of
Laframboise's daughters. She was married to a clerk in the
post-office, and is now the wife of Medard B. Beaubien,
heretofore alluded to in this lecture. The clerk was the one who
delivered letters, and of course was well known to all our
citizens, and was remarkably popular.
He went to the printing office and had 50 cards of invitation
struck off. But when people went for their letters, they
politely hinted that they expected a card of invitation to the
wedding. So he was compelled to go to the printing office and
have 50 more struck off. These did not last long, and he had 100
more. Then he said that tickets were of no use, and everybody
might come; and about everyone did come. The ceremony was
performed by Rev. Isaac W. Hallam, pastor of the St. James'
Episcopal church of this city. Everything was high- toned, well
worthy of an Indian chiefs daughter. The house was of no
particular use, as it was full and surrounded with people. This
wedding made a strong impression on my mind, as it was the first
time I ever saw the Indian war-dance.
Some of the guests not only had their tomahawks and
scalping-knives, bows and arrows, but a few of them had real
scalps which they pretended they had taken in the various Indian
wars. Their faces were decorated with all the favorite pictures
of the Indians. And some of our young white men and ladies
played the part of the Indian so well that it was difficult to
distinguish them from the real ones. It has been a wonder to me
that, while our professors of music have been inventing so many
different kind of dances, none of them have reproduced the
Indian war-dance, which to me is much more sensible than
nine-tenths of those which are now practiced at so many of our
fashionable parties. I presume that the trouble is, that our
ladies consider that the Indian war-paint extemporized for the
occasion, would interfere with the original paint put on before
they left their homes, and which they wished to remain through
the evening. One of our young men claimed that, at this wedding,
amid the crowd, unperceived, he had clipped a lock from the
bride's long, flowing, raven hair. Some of this hair he had put
into a breast pin, and very soon thereafter, these Indian bridal
breast-pins were about as thick as were the manufactures from
our old court-house bell after the fire. One man who had worn
one for some years was suddenly taken sick, and expected to die.
He called his wife to his bedside, and told her he deemed it his
duty to state to her that he had been deceiving her for years,
and he could not die in peace until he had made a confession.
"I must tell you before I die, that the hair in that pin I have
been wearing so deceitfully, is not the hair of that Indian
chief's daughter, but your own."
With pitiful eyes he looked to his wife for forgiveness. "And is
that all that troubles you?" said she; "what you have just
revealed in your dying hour, only confirms my opinion of you. I
always supposed you thought more of me than you did of a squaw!"
And now I suppose you think that that man died in peace. But he
did not. He is alive now. There is occasionally an instance
where a man has survived a confession to his wife. But where, oh
where, is there an instance of a woman who has survived a
confession to her husband?
After the marriage of this Indian chiefs daughter, several of
our wealthy citizens (wealthy for those days) gave return
parties. I remember attending a very elegant one given at the
house of Medard B. Beaubien. I think the fashionable society of
Chicago subsisted for about two months upon that wedding. Mr.
Beaubien has given me several invitations, as he has others of
our old settlers, to visit him at his residence among the
Pottawatomies. He told me that I would be a big Pottawatomie! He
gave as a reason for abandoning Chicago, where he was a
merchant, that he would rather be a big Indian than a little
white man. He has the reputation of being the handsomest man
that was ever in this city. I met him at Washington, a few years
ago, and he attracted great attention for his remarkable
personal beauty.
The most of the families of wealth, education, and high social
position, about the time of our incorporation, were settled on
the North Side. The "Lake House" there was the first brick hotel
constructed in our city, and it was as well furnished and
conducted as any hotel west of New York city. Upon the South
Side were most of the business houses, and hotels that were kept
for the accommodation of farmers who came to Chicago with their
loads of grain. Business men without families, clerks, and
employes of business men, generally boarded at these hotels on
the South Side, often sleeping in the stores. We could not have
anything like a large party on the South Side without female
domestics. The fashionable people on the North Side would invite
our young men to their parties on that side; but when we had a
party on the South Side, instead of coming themselves the ladies
would send their domestics. And if I were, to go into details of
the origin of the fashionable society of Chicago of the present
day, I could satisfy our young men that whether they wanted to
make money or raise healthy children, the best thing they could
now do would be to imitate the example of some of our early
settlers, and marry a lady who dares discharge an impudent or
incompetent maid, and can do the work herself till she can get a
better one.
There was considerable ill-feeling at one time between the North
and South Sides in consequence of this discrimination. But
politics then, as now, proved a great leveler in society. There
was an elegant party given at the Lake House one evening, where
one of the most fashionable men on the North Side, who was a
candidate for office, thought he would throw an anchor to the
windward by dancing with a South Side dressing-maid, while he
supposed his wife was being entertained at the supper-table. But
she entered the ball-room while the dance was going on. At once
a proud heart was fired. Quicker than thought she spoke to a
carriage-driver who stood at the door looking in: "Can you
dance, Mike?" "It's only for the want of a partner," was the
response. Seizing him by the hand, she said, "Come on!" and
turning to the crowd she said, "This is a game that two can play
at," and immediately the dance went on, amid the applause of the
whole room; the man with the South Side dressing-maid, and his
wife with the South Side driver. And thus free suffrage began
its work against artificial social position.
Not long after my first election to Congress, upon opening my
mail at Washington, I found a letter dated in the-western part
of Iowa, then far in the wilderness, reading in this way:
"MY DEAR OLD CHICAGO FRIEND: I see you have been getting up in
the world, and it is so with myself, who am the sheriff's deputy
here, and I also keep hotel. I am the same one who made all the
fuss dancing with the lady at the Lake House ball, and you were
there; and the girl I married is the same domestic, her husband
danced with. The judge of the court boards at our house, and he
often dances with my wife at the big parties here, where we are
considered among the first folks, and I reckon my wife Bridget
would put on as many airs as the lady did at the Lake House, if
she should catch me dancing with domestics. I found out that
those people who made so much fuss at the Lake House were not
considered much where they came from. But they emigrated to
Chicago, and then set up for big folks. So I thought I would
marry Bridget and start for a new country where I could be as
big as anybody. And now remember your old Chicago friend, and
tell the President that I am for his administration, and would
like to get the post-office here."
I remember that, during that session of Congress I boarded at
the same house with Horace Greeley, and he was frequently in my
room; and I think that it was from this letter he borrowed his
sentiment, "Go west, young man!"
In our early times, it was customary to excommunicate members of
the church as publicly as they had been admitted. Now we hear of
admissions, but never of excommunications. Professor David Swing
has come as near filling that bill as anyone we have heard of
recently, but future historians will differ as to whether he
excommunicated the church or the church him. I remember in early
times here of a clergyman's dealing, at the close of his
service, with a member, one of our well-known citizens, somewhat
after this fashion: "You will remember, my hearers, that some
time ago Mr. Blank was proposed for admission to this church,
and after he had passed a favorable examination I called upon
everyone present to know if there was any objection, and no one
rose and objected. It becomes my painful duty now to pronounce
the sentence of excommunication upon him, and to remand him back
to the world again with all his sins upon his head." Whereupon a
gentleman rose in his pew and said: "And now the world objects
to receiving him!" On which bursts of laughter filled the house;
and the precise status of that man was never determined, as the
civil courts in those days had not begun to interfere in
ecclesiastical matters. In these times the church would
undoubtedly have called upon the courts to grant a mandamus upon
the world to receive him, or the world would have applied for an
injunction to prevent the church from excommunicating him.
In most new settlements there can always be pointed out some
particular class who give tone to the early society; such as the
Pilgrims and Puritans of New England, the Knickerbockers of New
York, the Huguenots of South Carolina, the Creoles of New
Orleans; and, in the later days, men identified with
manufacturing interests, mining interests, railroad interests,
or with seminaries of learning. But here in Chicago, in early
times, we had not any one prevailing class or interest; nor was
there any sufficient number of people from any particular
locality to exercise a controlling influence in moulding public
sentiment. We had people from almost every clime, and of almost
every opinion. We had Jews and Christians, Protestants,
Catholics, and infidels; among Protestants, there were
Calvinists and Armenians. Nearly every language was represented
here. Some people had seen much of the world, and some very
little. Some were quite learned, and some very ignorant. We had
every variety of people, and out of these we had to construct
what is called society. The winters were long; no railroads, no
telegraphs, no canal, and all we had to rely upon for news were
our weekly newspapers. We had no libraries, no lectures, no
theatres or other places of amusement. If a stranger attended a
gathering of any kind, the mass of attendants were equally
strangers with himself; and the gentlemen outnumbered the ladies
by about four or five to one. You ask what society lived upon in
those days? I answer, upon faith. But faith without works is
dead. From the close to the opening of navigation, nearly six
months in the year, we had nothing to do. Our faith consisted
principally in the future of Chicago. Nearly every one had laid
out a town, and men exchanged lots with each other, very much as
boys swap jack-knives. The greatest story-teller was about as
big a man: as we had. If a new story was told, it was soon
passed all round town, and due credit given to the originator.
If a new book appeared in our midst, that was loaned around
until another new one came to take its place.
Occasionally, one of our young men would go East and get him a
wife, and then we discussed her for a while. Dressmakers would
invariably make her the first call, examine her dresses, and
then go from door to door, like a modern census- taker or
tax-collector, soliciting orders according to the latest
fashions.
There was great prejudice between the emigrants from the
South and those from the East. All our Eastern people were
considered by the emigrants from the South as Yankees. The first
contest was about the convention system in politics. Southerners
denounced it vehemently as a Yankee innovation upon the old
system of allowing every man to run for office who wanted to do
so, and taking his chances. Their system was to solicit their
friends to solicit them to run for office, and then they
reluctantly consented, and placed themselves in the hands of
their friends. All Yankee customs, fashions, and innovations
upon their established usages were ridiculed as Yankee notions,
worthy only of the peddlers of wooden clocks and pewter spoons.
Thomas Ford, born in Uniontown, Penn., in 1800, who had lived in
Illinois from 1804, and whose father had been killed by the
Indians, came here as Judge, and did more than any other person
to mollify the prejudices of the South against the North. He
early foresaw that all that the early settlers of Illinois
needed, was the growth of more Yankee thrift among them; and he
early told his friends that while he stayed here he was going to
conform to all the Yankee notions, as fast as he could ascertain
what they were, and wanted his acquaintances to inform him what
he should do to prevent embarrassment by non- conformity. I met
him on his way to Court one morning, and he said he had just
been detained by a lady complaining that he did not attend her
party on a previous evening. He told her that he was very fond
of parties, and always attended them whenever he could, but that
he held Court that evening until it was too late to go. But this
did not satisfy her. She wanted to know, if he could not attend,
why he did not send a "regret." He did not understand the
matter, and made an excuse that the Court was waiting, informing
her that he would converse with her some other time. "But," said
he, "what's that? What did she want me to do when I couldn't
go?" I informed him that the lady had some sisters visiting her
from the East, and she had a pride in having them write home
that among her friends were the very best people in Chicago, and
among them the Judge of the Court; which in his absence, a
little note from him would establish.
"Capital, capital," said he. "Why you Yankees have a motive in
all you do. You turn everything to account. The longer I live
among Yankees the more I see why it is that they are getting
rich and overrunning the country. Nobody shall complain of me
hereafter in that respect. Ill have some note-paper in my desk,
and if the lawyers detain me, I'll send the Sheriff with one of
those little billet-doux. If there is any other thing that you
Yankees want me to do to testify my high appreciation of you,
please let me know." The next day the Judge called at my office
with a beautiful little note, on gilt-edged paper, addressed to
his wife, and reading as follows: "Judge Ford's compliments to
Mrs. Ford and the children, and regrets that he cannot be home
to have the pleasure of their society on Monday next." Below
this was the following postscript: "The above is one of the
Yankee notions, and when you want to go anywhere and cannot, you
must always send one of these, which they call a 'regret.'
Please tell this to the neighbors, and also tell them that when
I return I shall have a great many stories to tell them about
different Yankee notions."
Not long after, I was at Oregon, Ogle County, where he resided,
and where he was then holding Court. When it became time for the
Sheriff to adjourn the Court, the Judge said, "Mr. Sheriff,
don't forget that party at my house to- night." And the Sheriff
exclaimed, "Hear ye! Hear ye! The Judge of this Court requests
me to say, that he and his lady would be pleased to see you all
at his house to-night, both citizens and strangers! Now this
honorable Court stands adjourned until to-morrow morning at 9
o'clock."
It was wonderful to notice the mixture of people who
unceremoniously visited him that evening—attorneys, jurors,
suitors, and citizens generally, with their wives. One person
seemed as much at home as another. There was a grand welcome for
all. He was the very prince of hospitality. His small house
could not contain the crowd, and many stood outside and mingled
in the entertainments.
The Judge passed through the assembly with a waiter on which was
a decanter of Madeira wine, and wine-glasses. His wife passed
around with another waiter loaded with cake. Said the Judge to
some Yankee gentlemen, "This is the way we original Illinoisans
give a party. We invite all; the latch-string is out; all come
who can, and those who cannot come say nothing. They never write
any regrets. Indeed, a great many of our prominent men at the
South could not do it. I have known men in our Legislature who
could not write." Then he passed away into a group of people who
were natives of the South, and told them how he got himself into
trouble with a Chicago lady by not writing her a little
billet-doux explaining to her why he did not go to her party,
when he wanted to go more than she wanted to have him. He often
uttered the sentiment that he did not wish to live in a locality
where his house was not large enough to entertain his neighbors
without making selections. He said he must either build him a
larger house or move into a distant settlement. When I came away
I expressed the wish that I might soon have the pleasure of
seeing him and his neighbors in Chicago.
Whereupon the Judge jocosely observed, "We will either come and
see you or send you a billet-doux." But a Southern Illinoisan, a
native of North Carolina, exclaimed, "Yes, when you Yankee
peddlers are putting up wooden clocks and pewter spoons for this
region, tell them to put up a little gold- edged note-paper for
us, and have them to be sure that the gold isn't bronze!"
But the people of this State settled the house question for
Judge Ford. For, at the next Gubernatorial election, he was made
its Chief Magistrate, and as Governor he rendered his name dear
to every Illinoisan by his almost superhuman, but eminently
successful, efforts to complete the Illinois and Michigan Canal,
and to restore the lost credit of our State. He died not long
after the expiration of his term of office, and left to his
children only the proceeds of the copyright of his History of
Illinois,—a book which, when once commenced, no reader will lay
aside until he has finished it. In this work is the only
authoritative history of the settlement of the Mormons in this
State, and their final expulsion of it, with the assassination
of their leader, Joseph Smith.
In his preface he says: "The author has written about small
events and little men. And in all those matters in which the
author has figured personally, it will be some relief to the
reader to find that he has not attempted to blow himself up
into, a great man."
One of our most reliable places of entertainment was the
Post-Office while the mail was being opened. The Post-Office was
on the west side of Franklin street, cornering on South Water
street. The mail coach was irregular in the time of its arrival,
but the horn of the driver announced its approach. Then the
people would largely assemble at the Post-Office, and wait for
the opening of the mails, which at times, were very heavy. The
Postmaster would throw out a New York paper, and some gentleman
with a good pair of lungs and a jocose temperament would mount a
dry-goods box and commence reading. Occasionally I occupied that
position myself.
During exciting times, our leading men would invariably go to
the Post-Office themselves, instead of sending their employes.
The news would be discussed by the assemblage, and oftentimes
heavy bets would be made, and angry words passed. If it was
election times, there would be two papers thrown out, of
opposite politics, two reading stands established, two readers
engaged, and the men of each party would assemble around their
own reader. This condition of things would last until the mails
were opened, when the gathering would adjourn until the next
blowing of the driver's horn. This gathering afforded the best
opportunity for citizens to become acquainted one with another.
On one of these occasions, I was introduced to a Lieutenant in
the army who had just come to take charge of the Government
works in this city. He had great confidence in our future, and
expressed his intention to invest all his means here. He was
eventually ordered away to some other station, but kept up his
interest in Chicago. His taxes became high, too high in
proportion to his pay as an army officer and the support of his
family. His wife had once placed the price of a new dress in a
letter which was to leave by the return of a mail which brought
her husband an exorbitant tax-bill. He expressed his intention
of ordering, by the same mail, the sale of his Chicago property,
as his means could endure his taxes no longer. His wife ordered
her letter from the mail, took out the money, and, saying that
she preferred the Chicago property to a new dress, insisted that
he should use it to pay his Chicago taxes. The next summer he
visited our city, and rented his property for enough to pay the
taxes. That lady lost her dress for that year, but she gained
thereby one of the largest and most celebrated (Kingsbury)
estates in our city. I mention this fact to warn our ladies that
they should never ask for a new dress until they find their
husband's tax-receipt in his wallet; and, at the same time, I
would caution husbands not to try to carry so much real estate
as to make their poorly-clad wives and children objects of
charity when they make their appearance in the streets.
Our early settlers were distinguished for their liberal
patronage of all religious denominations, and we had one
clergyman who created as much sensation as any we have had since
his day. Like all really influential sensational preachers, he
was an original.
He dealt freely in pathos and in ridicule. If we cried once, we
were sure to laugh once, in every sermon. Unlike clergymen now
called sensational, he never quoted poetry, nor told anecdotes,
nor used slang phrases, for the purpose of creating a laugh.
There was nothing second-handed about him. I allude to Rev.
Isaac T. Hinton, a Baptist clergyman, who was the only settled
minister on the South Side when I came here in 1836. His
residence was near the corner of VanBuren street and Fifth
avenue, then in the outskirts of the city, and was shaded by
native oaks. He was a man who never seemed so happy as when he
was immersing converted sinners in our frozen river or lake. It
is said of his converts that no one of them was ever known to be
a backslider. If you could see the cakes of ice that were raked
out to make room for baptismal purposes, you would make up your
mind that no man would join a church under such circumstances
unless he joined to stay. Immersions were no uncommon thing in
those days. One cold day, about the first part of February,
1839, there were 17 immersed in the river at the foot of State
street. A hole about 20 feet square was cut through the ice, and
a platform was sunk, with one end resting upon the shore. Among
the 17 was our well-known architect, John M. VanOsdell,
alderman-elect, said to be now the only survivor. There are many
now living who were baptized by Mr. Hinton; among them is the
wife of Hon. Thomas Hoyne, mayor-elect. But recently our Baptist
friends have made up their minds that our lake has enough to do
to carry away all the sewerage of the city, without washing off
the sins of the people. It is also claimed for Mr. Hinton that
no couple he married was ever divorced. He was just as careful
in marrying as he was in baptizing; he wanted nobody to fall
from grace.
It was the custom in those days to give clergymen donation
parties. Now, we have surprise parties, where the lady is
expected to endanger her health by hard-working all day in order
to prepare her house for a surprise in the evening. The only
surprise about them is the magnificence of the preparations.
Then the party was advertised in the newspapers, and a notice
posted in the vestibule of the church.
It was customary in those days for all denominations to
patronize liberally the clergymen of other denominations.
Mr. Hinton had a family of children nearly grown up, and
consequently all the young people, as well as the old, would be
there to have a grand frolic at his donation party. There were
no religious services, and the house was completely taken
possession of by the multitude. People would send just what they
happened to have, and it would look at times as if Parson Hinton
was going into the storage business. Cords of wood would be
piled before the door; flour, salt, pork, beef, box-raisins,
lemons, oranges, herring, dry-goods, anything and everything.
After the donation party was over, there was always a large
quantity left which he did not need, but he knew exactly where
to place it— among the destitute of the city. Probably no
occasions are remembered with more pleasure by the old settlers
of this city than those gatherings at the hospitable mansion of
the jolly English preacher, with his attractive laugh, who
always enjoyed a good story, and could generally tell a better
one. There are many married couples in this city who will tell
you that there was where they first met.
The first Sabbath I passed in this city, my good boarding-house
mistress (Mrs. John Murphy, present on this platform to-day)
took me with her to his church, as was the custom of Christian
ladies with strange young men in those days. He told me that
godliness was profitable unto all things; and he was right.
Christian men and women have not kept up this good old custom of
taking young men, strangers in the city, to church with them,
and using their efforts to lead them to a high social position
with their religious instruction. Strange young men now in this
city are told that there is a moral infirmary opened here,
entirely for their benefit, where the seats are all free, and
men are supported expressly to save such as they are from
destruction. I never knew a young man to amount to anything if
he had no respect for his social position; and that position can
never be attained where young men are turned away for religious
instruction, to places to visit which they would not think of
inviting a young lady to leave a respectable church to accompany
them. All honor to those clergymen and Christians of Chicago who
have their weekly- church sociables, where young men are brought
forward into respectable social intercourse, as well as moral
development. The celebrated Indian chief, Black Hawk, covered
the whole ground when he said to Gen. Jackson, "You are a man,
and I am another!"
Not feeling able to sustain the expense of a whole pew, I
engaged one in partnership with an unpretending saddle and
harness maker (S. B. Cobb), who, by a life of industry, economy,
and morality, has accumulated one of the largest fortunes in our
city, and still walks our streets with as little pretense as
when he mended the harnesses of the fanners who brought the
grain to this market from our prairies. The church building in
those days was considered a first-class one, and we had a
first-class pew therein, and the annual expense of my half of
the pew was only $12.50 more than it would have been in our
Saviour's time. People wonder at the rapid increase in the price
of real estate at the west; but it bears no comparison with the
increase in the price of gospel privileges. A good clergyman is
well worth all that a liberal-hearted congregation may see fit
to pay him. But the people ought to cry out against the reckless
waste of money, steadily increasing, in the erection of
extravagant church edifices. And the pride in such matters seems
to eat up all other considerations. During the recent panic, a
Christian lady of this city, with a large family of children,
whose husband was suddenly reduced from opulence to penury,
astonished me by observing, with tears in her eyes, that her
most grievous affliction was that she would be compelled to give
up her pew in the church, which was one of the most expensive in
the city, and take one in a cheaper edifice. And yet our people
sing in every church, "God is present everywhere!"
At the close of service one day, Parson Hinton said he thought
Chicago people ought to know more about the devil than they did.
Therefore he would take up his history, in four lectures; first,
he would give the origin of the devil; second, state what the
devil has done; third, state what the devil is now doing; and
fourth, prescribe how to destroy the devil. These lectures were
the sensation for the next four weeks. The house could not
contain the mass that flocked to hear him, and it is a wonder to
me that those four lectures have not been preserved. Chicago
newspaper enterprise had not then reached here. The third
evening was one never to be forgotten in this city; as it would
not be if one of our most eminent clergymen, with the effective
manner of preaching that Mr. Hinton had, should undertake to
tell us what the devil is doing in this city to-day. The drift
of his discourse was to prove that everybody had a devil; that
the devil was in every store, and in every bank, and he did not
even except the church. He had the devil down outside and up the
middle of every dance; in the ladies' curls, and the gentlemen's
whiskers. In fact, before he finished, he proved conclusively
that there were just as many devils in every pew as there were
persons in it; and if it were in this our day, there would not
have been swine enough in the Stock-Yards to cast them into.
When the people came out of church, they would ask each other,
"What is your devil?" And they would stop one another in the
streets during the week, and ask, "What does Parson Hinton say
your devil is?" The fourth lecture contained his prescription
for destroying the devil. I remember his closing:
"Pray on, brethren and friends; pray ever. Fight as well as
pray.
Pray and fight until the devil is dead!
The world, the flesh, the devil,
Will prove a fatal Snare,
Unless we do resist him,
By faith and humble prayer."
In this grand contest with his Satanic Majesty, he, our leader,
fought gloriously, but he fell early in the strife. We, his
hearers, have kept up a gallant fight to this day, but, judging
by our morning papers, the devil is still far from being dead.
Yet we dealt him some heavy blows at the recent election!
An interesting institution was the ferry-boat between the North
and South Sides. It was a general intelligence office. Business
was done principally upon the South Side, while most of the
dwelling-houses were upon the North Side. The ferryman knew
about every person in town, and could answer any question as to
who had crossed. The streets had not then been raised to their
present grade, nor the river deepened or widened, and the boat
was easily accessible to teams. It was pulled across by a rope,
and was not used enough to kill the green rushes which grew in
the river. If a lady came upon the South Side to pass an
evening, she would leave word with the ferryman where her
husband could find her. Bundles and letters were left with him
to be delivered to persons as they passed. He was a sort of
superannuated sailor, and if he had not sailed into every port
in the world, he had a remarkable faculty of making people think
he had. His fund of stories was inexhaustible, and he was
constantly spinning his interesting yarns to those who
patronized his institution. Like most sailors, he could not pull
unless he sung, and to all his songs he had one refrain with a
single variation. His voice was loud and sonorous. If he felt
dispirited, his refrain was, "And I sigh as I pull on my boat."
If he felt jolly (and people took particular pains to make him
so), his refrain was, "And I sing as I pull on my boat." All
night long this refrain was disturbing the ears of those who
dwelt near the banks of the river. Song after song was composed
for him, in the hope of changing his tune, but it would not be
long before he would attach to it his usual refrain. One of our
musical composers composed a quadrille, which our young folks
used to dance in the evening on the ferry, during certain
portions of which they would all join in old Jack's refrain, and
sing, "And we'll dance as we ride on the boat." There was a
little boy who took great delight in Jack's company, whose
parents lived on the margin of the river near the ferry, and as
in the last of his sickness he was burning with a violent fever,
nothing would quiet him but the sound of old Jack's voice. Old
Jack had just sung, "And I sigh as I pull on my boat," when the
boy whispered his last words to his mother, "And I die while
Jack pulls on his boat!" Jack heard of this, and his lungs
became stronger than ever. Racking both his memory and his
imagination for songs, for weeks all night long he sung, with
his plaintive refrain “Charlie dies while Jack pulls on his
boat." A distinguished poetess traveling at the west about this
time, was tarrying at the Lake House, and heard of the incident.
She wrote for a New York magazine some beautiful lines
appropriate to the last words of the child and the
circumstances. These were reproduced in our Chicago papers, but
I have in vain sought to find them. Some of our old scrap-books
undoubtedly contain them, and I would like to be the instrument
of their republication.
Old Jack went to church one Sunday, and the clergyman preached
from the text, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and My words,
of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He shall come in His
own glory." After church was over, the clergyman took Jack to
task for making so much noise on his ferry-boat, and told him he
was going to have him removed. "You can't do it," said Jack.
"Why not?" said the clergyman. "Your sermon, sir, your sermon!
You said we must make a practical application of it." "How can
you apply that to your position?" "In this way," said Jack; "the
Mayor appoints a ferryman. I will just tell him, he that is
ashamed of me and of my boat, of him will I be ashamed when I go
to the polls on the day of election!" Jack was not removed. But
he went one fall to the south with the robins; but, unlike the
robins, he returned no more. He probably saw the coming bridge.
It was customary during the winter to give a series of
dancing-parties at central points between here and the Fox
River, along the line of some of our main traveled roads,
notices of which were generally given in the newspapers. We used
to have much more snow than we have now, and large sleigh-loads
of people would be fitted out from the city, to meet young
people from different parts of the country. People in the
country settlements were generally emigrants from the more
cultivated portions of the east.
United States Senator Silas Wright once told me that he could
enumerate a hundred families, the very flower of the
agricultural interest of St. Lawrence County, who had emigrated
to west of Chicago. These settlers were not always poor; they
were often men of large families who came here to obtain a large
quantity of contiguous land, so as to settle their children
around them. The custom at these parties was to leave Chicago
about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, take supper on the way out and
engage breakfast for the morning; and, after dancing all night,
getting back to the city about 9 or 10 o'clock.
The hotels in the country were frequently built of logs, but
whether of logs or boards, were generally built in one style.
Cooking-rooms, bar-room, sitting- rooms, were below, and above
was one large hall, which could be used for religious services
on Sunday, or public meetings on a weekday, and, by suspending
blankets, could be divided into sleeping-rooms. Above was the
attic, which could be used for storage when the hall was
cleared, and also for dressing-rooms at parties. Ladies and
gentlemen could more easily find their wearing apparel when
suspended from nails driven into the beams of the building than
they can now from the small dressing-rooms where the clothing is
in constant danger of being mixed together, I remember one of
those occasions when the country residents had begun the dance
before those from the city had reached there. Country ladies
were passing up and down the ladder to the dressing-room. But
the city ladies would not ascend the ladder until it had been
fenced around with blankets. There were always on these
occasions mothers present from the country, who attended the
young people to look after the care of their health, such as
seeing that they were properly covered on their going home from
a warm room, as physicians were very scarce in the country, and
it was a great distance for many of them to send for medicines.
These country matrons took it much to heart that the young
ladies from the city were so particular in having the ladder
fenced off, and were very free in the expression of their views
on the subject to the elderly gentlemen present. During the
evening a sleigh-load was driven up containing a French danseuse
from Chicago, of considerable note in those days; and it was not
long after she entered the hall before the floor was cleared for
her to have an opportunity to show her agility as a fancy
dancer. When she began to swing around upon one foot, with the
other extended, one of these country matrons, with a great deal
of indignation, ran across the hall to her son, and said, "I
don't think it is proper for our young folks to see any such
performance as this, and now you go right down and tell the
landlord that we want some more blankets," and the boy started
before the last part of the sentence was heard, "and I'll have
her fenced off by herself, as the city ladies did the ladder!"
Her remarks were passed from one to another, and the company was
loudly applauding them, when the applause was greatly increased
by the entrance of the landlord with some blankets under his
arm. The more the applause increased, the more animated became
the danseuse, who took it all for herself. The fancy dance was
finished, but the merriment had such an effect that one of our
city young men took down the blankets around the ladder, and for
the remainder of the evening the exposed ladder and the nimble
French danseuse ceased to attract attention.
I have thus made you a few selections from my large casket of
reminiscences of the amusements of early Chicago. But I give
them as a mere appendix to my historical lecture, and do not
wish them considered as any part of it, as I could have ended
without them, and then have given you a lecture of ordinary
length. If anyone thinks them inappropriate to this occasion, I
wish to say that I respectfully concur in his views. If,
however, they have served to compensate any of you for the
tedium of the more historical portion of it, I will waive the
question of their appropriateness, and express my gratification
at having given them.
[Page 50]
SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES.
After MR. WENTWORTH'S Lecture had been published in the
newspapers, he received the following information:
FROM FULTON COUNTY.
The County Commissioners' Court met, for the first time, 3 June,
1823. July 5, 1823, John Kinzie was recommended for Justice of
the Peace, at Chicago. Sept. 2, 1823, Ordered that an election
be held at John Kinzie's house, for one major and company
officers in 17th Regiment of Illinois Militia; John Kinzie,
Alexander Wolcott, and John Hamlin to conduct said election,
upon the last Saturday in September instant.
June 3, 1823, Ordered by the Court, that Amherst C. Rausam be
recommended to fill the office of Justice of the Peace, vice
Samuel Fulton, resigned. He qualified before the Clerk of the
Circuit Court of Fulton Co., July 2, 1823.
If he resided at Chicago, he robs John Kinzie of the honor of
being our first Justice of the Peace.
July 5, 1823, Ordered that the Treasurer pay to A. C. Rausam 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 Rausam) shall pay the same over to the County
Treasurer, in such money as he received.
Sept. 3, 1823, Ordered that Amherst C. Rouseur [Rausam?] hand
over to County Treasurer amount of tax received and collected at
Chicago, in same kind of money he received.
April 27, 1824, Sheriff Eads released from paying money-tax
collected at Chicago by Rousseur [Rausam?]
It is so hard to decypher these French names in American
manuscripts that this name may not be the correct one. There was
a Eustache Roussain and also a Captain Ransom in the employ of
the American Fur Company, in this region, in 1821.
It may be that he was not a defaulter, but collected his taxes
in furs, local money, etc., and refused to give them up until he
received his four dollars in cash. The same name appears as
grand juror, October, 1823.
Among the grand jurors, in October, 1823 and April, 1824, were
Elijah Wentworth, Sr. In Sept., 1824, Hiram, son of Elijah
Wentworth, Sr., was added. In March and Sept., 1824, Elijah
Wentworth, Jr. (our first Coroner), and John Holcomb (who
married his sister), were upon the petit jury. The Wentworths
were then living in what is now Fulton Co. Whence they removed
to Dodgeville, Wisconsin, and did not come to Chicago until
1830.
CHICAGO MARRIAGES RECORDED IN FULTON CO.
By John Hamlin, J. P., July 20, 1823, Alexander Wolcott and
Ellen M. Kinzie.
By same, October 3rd, 1823, John Ferrel and Ann Griffin.
[The Clerk sends this as a Chicago marriage; but I can learn
nothing of the parties.]
It is claimed that the marriage of Dr. Wolcott, Indian agent
here, in 1823, was the first in Chicago. He died in 1830, voting
on the 24th July, of that year. His widow, daughter of John
Kinzie, married George C. Bates, of Detroit, Mich. He is now
living in Salt Lake City. Col. Thomas Owens was afterwards
Indian agent, and may have succeeded him. Charles Jewett of
Kentucky, was Dr. Wolcott's predecessor, and our first Indian
agent.
John Hamlin died at Peoria, in April of this year. A writer in
the Peoria Transcript says, that in 1823, he accompanied William
S. Hamilton to Green Bay, where he had a contract to supply Fort
Howard with beef, and he arrived there July 2d, 1823. On his way
back, Mr. Hamlin performed the marriage ceremony. Whilst here,
he made an engagement with John Crafts to enter the service of
the American Fur Company, which frequently brought him to
Chicago.
NOTES UPON THE TAX PAYERS OF 1825.
1. Gen. John B. Beaubien was living at Macinac when the Fort
there was surrendered to the British, in 1812. He married a
sister of the Indian Chief, Joseph Laframboise, was brought here
in 1819, by the American Fur Company to oppose Mr. Crafts, had
several children (some of whom now live here), was one of the
principal men in the employ of the American Fur Co., and his
last wife with several of his children was upon the platform at
the delivery of this lecture. I attended the marriage of his
daughter, in early days, to N. D. Woodville.
2. Jonas Clybourne came from Pearlsburgh, Giles Co., Virginia,
with sons Archibald and Henley. Archibald came in 1823 and went
back to Virginia for his father's family. His widow, who was a
Miss Galloway, from the region now known as Marseilles, LaSalle
Co., Illinois, was on the platform at the delivery of this
lecture, and has several children. Henley Clybourne married
Sarah Benedict, and has two sons living at Fort Scott, Kansas.
Archibald Clybourne was Justice of the Peace in 1831.
3. John K. Clark, was half brother to Archibald Clybourne, and
married Permelia, daughter of Stephen J. Scott, who now lives,
his widow, at Deerfield, Lake Co., Ill., with her daughter.
There was no son to live to have children.
4. John Crafts was a trader sent here by Mr. Conant, of Detroit,
and had a trading house at Hardscrabble, near Bridgeport, and
monopolized the trade until the American Fur Company sent John
B. Beaubien here in 1819. In 1822, Mr. Crafts went into the
employment of the Fur Company as superintendant, Mr. Beaubien
being under him. He died here single in 1823, at Mr. Kinzie's
house, and he succeeded him. Prior to this, Mr. Kinzie was a
silver-smith and made trinkets for the Indians.
5. Jeremie Claremont was employed by the American Fur Company in
1821, for the trade of the Iroquois River.
8 & 9. Claude and Joseph Laframboise were brothers. The widow of
the latter was living, at last dates, with her son-in-law,
Medard B. Beaubien, at Silver Lake, Shawnee Co., Kansas.
11. Peter Piche, is believed to have been the one who lived at
Piche's Grove, near Oswego, Illinois, alluded to by Mrs. Kinzie
in her "Waubun."
14. Antoine Oilmette is the person spoken of in Mrs. Kinzie's
book, "Waubun." His daughter Elizabeth, married Jan. 23, 1827,
our first Irishman, Michael Welch.
NOTES UPON THE VOTERS OF 1826.
1. Augustine Banny, said to have been a travelling cattle
dealer, supplying Forts.
2. Henry Kelly, had no family here, worked for Samuel Miller.
4. Cole Weeks, American, was a discharged soldier, had no
family, worked for John Kinzie. He married the divorced wife of
Caldwell, brother of the first wife of Willis Scott. Caldwell
had a fondness for Indian hunting and trading, and is supposed
to have gone off and died with them. A man, answering his
description, by the name of Caldwell, was living, not long
since, at Kershena, Shawanaw Co., Wisconsin. Caldwell's wife,
who married Cole Weeks, was sister to Benjamin Hall, of Wheaton,
DuPage Co., Ill., and Caldwell was cousin to Archibald
Clybourne, and came from the same place in Virginia. 14. Francis
Laducier, had no family, died at Archibald Clybourne's.
21. Joseph Pothier, married Victor Miranda, a half breed, was
brought up in John Kinzie's family, was living recently at
Milwaukee.
24. David McKee, lives at Aurora, Kane Co., Ill., and married 23
January, 1827, Wealthy, daughter of Stephen J. Scott. He was
born on Hog Creek, Pewtown, Loudoun Co., Virginia, in 1800.
25. Joseph Anderson, had no family.
31. Martin VanSicle, was living recently near Aurora, Ill. He
had a daughter, Almira. Willis Scott remembers going to Peoria
for a marriage license for her.
34. Edward Ament, was living recently not far from Chicago; some
say in Kankakee Co., Ill.
The most of those having French names were employes of the
American Fur Company, or hunted and traded on their own
responsibility; and, when Chicago was abandoned as a Fur Trading
Post, they moved further into the frontier country, in pursuit
of their business.
NOTES UPON THE VOTERS OF 1830.
1. Stephen J. Scott was born in Connecticut, moved to Chicago
from Bennington, Wyoming Co., N.Y., lived many years at
Naperville, Ill., and died there, where his son Williard now
lives. His son Willis now lives in Chicago, and was upon the
platform when this lecture was delivered. Several of his
daughters are mentioned in these notes.
4. Barney H. Laughton, lived in his last days near what is now
Riverside, on the O'Plaine River, and his wife was sister to the
wife of our first Sheriff, Stephen Forbes.
5. Jesse Walker, was a Methodist preacher, finally settled at
Walker's Grove, now Plainfield, in this State.
8. James Kinzie, was natural son of John Kinzie. His mother and
Archibald Clybourne's mother were sisters. His first wife was
Rev. William See's daughter. He died at Racine, Wis., where his
second wife is said to be now living. His own sister Elizabeth
Kinzie married Samuel Miller, the hotel keeper.
9. Russell E. Heacock, died at Summit, Cook Co., Ill., in 1849,
and he has sons in this vicinity.
12. John L. Davis, said to have been an Englishman, and a
tailor.
17. Stephen Mack, son of Major Mack of Detroit, married an
Indian, was clerk in the employ of the American Fur Company, and
finally settled in Pickatonica, Winnebago Co., in this State.
18. Jonathan A. Bailey, was father-in-law to the Post Master,
John S. C. Hogan. Mr. Hogan held the office until 1837, when
Sidney Abell was appointed. Mr. Hogan died in Memphis, Tenn., in
1866. Mr. Bailey was Postmaster before Hogan.
19. Alexander Mc, is written plain enough; but whether the last
part is Dollo, Dole, Donell, Dowtard, etc., it is difficult to
tell, as it is written so differently in different places.
27 & 28. John Baptiste Secor and Joseph Bauskey, died of cholera
in 1832. Bauskey married a daughter of Stephen J. Scott.
32. Peresh LeClerc, was an Indian interpreter, brought up by
John Kinzie.
MORE RETURNS FROM PEORIA COUNTY.
The Clerk of Peoria Co. has sent me the following, which are not
alluded to in the lecture:
SPECIAL FLECTION
For Justice of the Peace and Constable, at the house of James
Kinzie, in the Chicago Precinct of Peoria County, State of
Illinois, on Saturday, 24th day of July, 1830.
Total, John S. C. Hogan, for Justice of the Peace, 33 votes,
Archibald Clybourne, 22 votes, Russell Rose, 1 vote. Total, 56.
For Constable, Horatio G. Smith, 32 votes, Russell Rose, 21
votes, John S. C. Hogan, 1 vote. Total, 54.
1 James Kinzie.
2 Jean Baptiste Beaubien. 1825, '26
3 Alexander Wolcott. 1825
4 Augustin Bannot. [Banny?] 1826
5 Medard B. Beaubien.
6 Billy Caldwell. 1826
7 Joseph Laframboise. 1825, 1826
8 John Mann.
9 John Wellmaker.
10 Stephen J. Scott.
11 Thomas Ayers.
12 Russell Rose.
13 Lewis Ganday or Louis Gauday.
14 Michael Welch.
15 William P. Jewett.
16 John VanHorn.
17 Gabriel Acay.
18 Joseph Papan.
19 Williard Scott.
20 Peter Wycoff.
21 Stephen Mack.
22 James Galloway, [father of Mrs, Archibald Clybourne.]
23 David VanStow. [VanEaton?]
24 James Brown.
25 Samuel Littleton.
26 Jean Baptiste Laducier.
27 Joseph Thibeaut.
28 Lewis Blow.
29 Jean Baptist Secor. 1826
30 Mark Beaubien.
31 Peresh Laclerc.
32 Matthias Smith.
33 James Garow.
34 Alexander Robinson. 1825, 1826
35 Samuel Miller. [Landlord.]
36 Jonas Clybourne. 1825, 1826
37 John Joyal.
38 Peter Frique.
39 Jean Bapt. Tombien. [Toubien?]
40 John L. Davis.
41 Simon Debigie.
42 A. Foster.
43 George P. Wentworth.
44 Alex. McDowtard. [McDole?]
45 Jonathan A. Bailey.
46 David M'Kee. 1825, 1826
47 Joseph Pothier. 1826
48 Henry Kelly. 1826
49 Antoine Ouilmette. 1825, 1826
50 David Hunter. [General.]
51 James Engle.
52 John K. Clark. 1825, 1826
53 Russell E. Heacock.
54 Leon Bourassea.
55 Archibald Clybourne. 1826
56 Horatio G. Smith.
John S. C. Hogan, the successful candidate for Justice of the
Peace, did not vote. Archibald Clybourne voted (for Justice) for
Russell Rose, who was the candidate for Constable, voted for
John S. C. Hogan, for the office of Constable.
But the two candidates for Constable came squarely up to the
mark, and voted for each other.
Mr. Hogan was Postmaster in Chicago prior to the election of
Martin VanBuren as President, who appointed Sidney Abell to
succeed him. He built the first frame house on the South Side.
It was near the north-west corner of Lake and Franklin streets.
The judges of this election were Alexander Wolcott, John B.
Beaubien, and James Kinzie. The clerks were Medard B. Beaubien
and Billy Caldwell, the Sauganash.
19 Williard Scott was a son of Stephen J. Scott; and now lives
at Naperville, Ill.
42 There was a Lieut. —— Foster here about that time.
50 General Hunter, U. S. Army, married Maria H. Kinzie, born
1807, the only child of John Kinzie, now living.
51 There was a Lieut. Engle stationed here about that time.
SPECIAL ELECTION
For Justice of the Peace, at the house of James Kinzie, Chicago
Precinct, Peoria County, State of Illinois, on Thursday, the
25th day of November, 1830.
1 Archibald Clybourne.
2 James Kinzie.
3 John Wellmaker.
4 John Mann.
5 Russell E. Heacock.
6 Peter Wycoff.
7 Billy Caldwell.
8 Jesse Walker.
9 Enoch Thompson.
10 Medard B. Beaubien.
11 David VanEaton.
12 John B. Beaubien.
13 Stephen J. Scott.
14 Matthias Smith.
15 David McKee.
16 William Jewett.
17 Horace Miner.
18 Samuel Miller.
19 Stephen Forbes.
20 William See.
21 Peter Muller.
22 Jonas Clybourne.
23 John B. Bradain.
24 John Shedaker.
25 Peter Frique.
26 John K. Clark.
Total, Stephen Forbes, 18. William See, 8.
Mr. Forbes was the first Sheriff of Cook Co., and married a
sister to the wife of Barney H. Laughton. William See is
mentioned in Mrs. Kinzie's "Waubun," and was a Methodist
preacher. Mr. & Mrs. Forbes taught school here in 1831.
In this contest, each candidate voted for his opponent.
The judges at this election were James Kinzie, John B. Beaubien,
and Archibald Clybourne. The clerks were Russell E. Heacock and
Stephen J. Scott.
6 Peter Wycoff, was a discharged soldier, and worked for
Archibald Clybourne.
9 There was a Lieut. Thompson stationed here about that time.
CHICAGO MARRIAGES, RECORDED IN PEORIA CO.
By John Kinzie. 24 April, 1826. Daniel Bourassea and Theotis
Aruwaiskie.
By John Kinzie. 29 July, 1826. Samuel Miller and Elizabeth
Kinzie. [Mr. Miller kept a hotel on the North Side, near the
forks, and near where Kinzie street crosses the River. He moved
to Michigan City, and died there. His wife was full sister to
James Kinzie, and natural daughter of John Kinzie. Her mother
was sister to Archibald Clybourne's mother.]
By John Kinzie. 28 September, 1826. Alexander Robinson and
Catherine Chevalier. [Che-che-pin-gua died on his reservation on
the O'Plaine River, in this county, where his daughter now
lives; his wife and sons being dead.]
By John B. Beaubien. 5 May, 1828. Joseph Bauskey and Widow
Deborah (Scott) Watkins. [He died of cholera in 1832. His wife
was daughter of Stephen J. Scott.]
By John B. Beaubien. 15 April, 1830. Samuel Watkins and Mary Ann
Smith.
By John B. Beaubien. n May, 1830. Michael Welch and Elizabeth
Ouilmette. [He was our first Irishman, and his wife was daughter
of Antoine Ouilmette, of Ouilmette's Reservation, in this Co.]
By John B. Beaubien. 18 May, 1830. Alvin Noyes Gardner and Julia
Haley. [He moved to Blue Island.]
By Rev. William See. 3 August, 1830. John Mann and Arkash
Sambli.
By Rev. William See. 1 November, 1830. Willis Scott and widow
Lovisa B. Caldwell. [They have been heretofore alluded to.]
By Rev. William See. 7 November, 1830. B. H. Laughton and Sophia
Bates. [They have been heretofore alluded to.]
GOV. FORD'S HOUSE.
Hon. Jas. V. Gale, an old settler of Oregon, Ogle Co., Ill.,
writes me: "that the house from which Thomas Ford was elected
Governor, was one storied, 16 or 18 by 38, had a parlor,
dining-room, and two bedrooms, with a small cooking room
attached. It has been taken down some years. He settled here as
early as 1836, and made a claim south of that of John Phelps. He
sold it to John Fridley, who now owns it; and the same log
cabin, which Judge Ford erected and occupied until he built his
frame house, still stands. It is 18 feet square and 11 logs
high. He was a man of small stature, careless in his dress, of
good talents, put on no airs, popular with all, a good neighbor,
able lawyer, congenial and sociable."
[Page 57]
INDEX TO "EARLY CHICAGO :"—Second Lecture,
(No. 7 of Fergus' Historical Series.)
BY HON. JOHN WENTWORTH, LL.D.,
Delivered Sunday, May 7, 1876.
[This Index was prepared by Mr. Wentworth, August, 1881.]
A.
Abel, Sidney, 53, 55.
Acay, Gabriel, 54.
Adams, John, 9.
Adams, John Quincy, 6, 7, 8, 17.
Ament, Edward, 16, 53.
Anderson, Joseph, 16, 53.
Aruwaiskie, Theotis, 56.
Aurora (schooner), 24.
Ayers, Thomas, 54.
B.
Bailey, Jonathan A., 16, 53, 54.
Banny, [Barry or Bannot;] Augustine, 16, 52, 54.
Bates, George C., 51.
Bates, Sophia, 56.
Bauskey, Joseph, 17, 54, 56.
Beaubien, John B., 15, 16, 18, 22, 24, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56.
Beaubien, Mark, 17, 24, 25, 54.
Beaubien, Medore B. [Medard B.], 16, 18, 22, 33, 35, 52, 54, 55.
Benedict, Sarah, 52.
Benton, Thomas H., 8.
Black Hawk (Indian chief), 4, 10, 44.
Blow, Lewis, 54.
Bogardus, John L., 15.
Bourassea, Daniel, 16, 56.
Bourassea, Leon, 16, 54.
Bradain [Beaubien], John B., 55.
Breese, Sidney, 12, 14.
Brown, James, 16, 54.
Brown, Jesse, 19.
Brown, Thomas C., 19.
Brown, William H., 11.
Buchanan, James, 8.
Buell, E., 24.
Burr, Aaron, 9.
C.
Caldwell, Archibald, 52, 53.
Caldwell, Billy, (Sauganash, Indian chief), 14, 16, 17, 18, 25,
33, 54, 55.
Calhoun, John, 3.
Calhoun, John C., 7, 17.
Caldwell, Lovisa B., 56.
Cass, Gen. Lewis, 8, 22.
Catie, Joseph, 16.
Chamblee (Shabonee, Indian chief), 33.
Charlevoix, Pierre Francois Xavir de, 10-13.
Chavellea, John Baptiste, 16.
Chavellie, Peter, 16.
Che-che-pin-qua (Alexander Robinson, Indian chief), 15, 16, 33,
54, 56.
Chevalier, Catherine, 56.
Chi-ka-gou (Indian chief), 12.
Clairmore [Clermont?], Jeremiah, 16.
Clark, John K., 15, 16, 17, 18, 52, 54, 55.
Clay, Henry, 7, 17.
Clermont [Clairmore?], Jeremiah, 15, 16, 52.
Clybourn, Archibald, 16, 17, 18, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56.
Clybourn, Henly, 52.
Clyboum, Jonas, 15, 16, 17, 51, 54, 55.
Cobb, Silas B., 44.
Conant, , 52.
Cook, Daniel P., 17, 25.
Coutra, Louis, 15.
Crafts, John, 15, 16, 51, 52.
Crittenden, John J., 8.
D.
Davis, Jefferson, 7, 26.
Davis, John L., 16, 53, 54.
Dearborn, Gen. Henry, 7.
Debigie, Simon, 54.
Displattes, Basile, 16.
Dodge, Gen. Henry, 8.
Dorr, Capt. of Schooner Tracy, 8.
E.
Eads, Abner, 15, 50.
Edwards, Gov. Ninian, 17, 25.
Engle, Lt. James, 54, 55.
F.
Fair Play (revenue cutter), 24.
Fergus, Robert, 26.
Ferrel, John, 51.
Field, Darby, 19.
Fillmore, Millard, 7, 8.
Forbes, Stephen, 53, 55.
Forbes, Mrs. Stephen, 55.
Ford, Gov. Thomas, 38, 39, 40, 56.
Foster, Lt. Amos, 54, 55.
Fridley, John, 56.
Frique, Peter, 16, 54, 55.
Fulton, Samuel, 50.
G.
Gage, Gen. Thomas, 11.
Gale, James V., 56.
Galloway, James, 54.
Galloway, Miss, married Archibald Clybourn, 52.
Ganday, Lewis, 17, 54.
Gardner, Alvin Noyes, 56.
Garie, ,12.
Garow, James, 54.
Garrett, Augustus, 33.
Griffin, Ann, 51.
H.
Hale, Artimas, 9.
Haley, Julia, 56.
Hall, Benjamin, 52.
Hallam, Rev. Isaac W., 33.
Hamilton, Mrs. Gen. Alexander, 9.
Hamilton, William S., 51.
Hamlin, John, 50, 51.
Harrison, Gen. William H., 8.
Heacock, Russell E., 16, 18, 53, 54, 55.
Heartless (schooner), 24.
Henry Clay (steamboat), 5.
Hinton, Rev. Isaac T., 42, 43, 45.
Hogan, John S. C, 16, 53, 54, 55.
Holcomb, John, 51.
Hoyne, Thomas, 43.
Hubbard, Gurdon S., 12.
Hull, Gen. William, 25.
Hunter, Gen. David, 54, 55.
J.
Jackson, Gen. Andrew, 8, 17, 28, 32, 44.
Jamboe, Paul, 16.
Jefferson, Thomas, 9, 12.
Jewett, William P., 54.
Jewett, William, 55.
Johnston, Samuel, 16.
Jowett [or Jewett], Charles, 51.
Joyal, John, 54.
Junio, Peter, 16.
K.
Kearney, Gen. Stephen W., 19.
Keating, William H., 22.
Kelley, Henry, 16, 52, 54.
Kennison, David, 9.
Kerchival, Benjamin B., 22.
Kimball, Walter, 3.
Kingsbury, Julius J. B., 42.
Kinzie, Elizabeth, 53, 56.
Kinzie, Ellen M., 51.
Kinzie, James, 16, 18, 26, 53, 54, 55, 56.
Kinzie, John, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56.
Kinzie, Mrs. Juliette A., 52, 55.
Kinzie, Maria H., 55.
L.
Laducier, Francis, 16, 17, 53.
Laducier, John Baptiste, 54.
Lafortune, John Baptiste, 16.
Lafromboise, Claude, 15, 16, 52.
Lafromboise, Francis, sr., 16.
Lafromboise, Francis, jr., 16.
Lafromboise, Joseph, 15, 16, 17, 33, 51, 52, 54.
Larant, Alexander, 16.
Laughton, Barney H., 16, 53, 55, 56.
LeClerc, Peresh (LeClair, Peter), 17, 54.
Lincoln, Abraham, 8.
Littleton, Samuel, 54.
Long, Stephen H., 22.
M.
Mack, Major, 53.
Mack, Stephen, 16, 53, 54.
Madison, James, 8, 9.
Madison, Mrs. James, 8, 9.
Malast, John Baptiste, 16.
Mann, John, 16, 54, 55, 56.
Martin, Laurant, 17.
Marquette, Rev. James, 13.
Maximillian, Emperor, 20.
McDole, Alexander, 16, 54.
McKee, David, 15, 16, 22, 23, 24, 53, 54, 55.
McNeil, John, 24.
Miller, Samuel, 53, 54, 55, 56.
Mills, Benjamin, 26.
Miner, Horace, 55.
Miranda, Victoria, 53.
Monroe, James, 8.
Muller, Peter, 55.
Murphy, John, 25, 44.
O.
Orleans, Duchess of, 13.
Ouilmette (Willmette), Antoine, 15, 16, 52, 54, 56.
Ouilmette, Elizabeth, 52, 56.
Owen, Thomas J. V., 51.
P.
Papan, Joseph, 54.
Pepot, Joseph, 16.
Perrot, Nicholas, 13.
Phelps, John, 56.
Piche, Peter, 15, 52.
Pierce, Franklin, 8.
Polk, James EL, 7, 8, 20.
Pothier, Joseph, 16, 23, 33, 53, 54.
R.
Ransom, Capt., 50.
Rausom, Amherst C., 15, 50.
Reynolds, Gov. John, 17.
Robinson, Alexander, (Che-che-pin-qua, Indian chief), 15, 16,
33, 54, 56.
Rose, Russell, 54, 55.
Roussain, Eustache, 50.
Rousser (Rausam), Amherst C, 15, 50.
Russell, Benjamin, 16.
S.
Sambli, Arkash, 56.
Sauganash (Billy Caldwell, Indian chief), 14, 16, 17, 18, 25,
33, 54, 55.
Scott, Deborah, 56.
Scott, Permelia, 52.
Scott, Stephen J., 16, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56.
Scott, Wealthy, 53.
Scott, Willard, 53, 54, 55.
Scott, Willis, 52, 53, 56.
Schuyler, Gen. Philip, 9.
Secor, Jolin Baptist, 16, 17, 54.
See, Rev. William, 16, 53, 55, 56.
Shabonee (Chamblee, Indian chief), 33.
Shedaker, John, 55.
Sheldon Thompson (steamboat), 5.
Smith, Horatio G., 54.
Smith, Joseph, 41.
Smith, Mary Ann, 56.
Smith, Matthias, 54, 55.
St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, 11.
Strode, James M., 26.
Sullivan, Jeremiah, 20.
Sullivan, Lt. , 20, 21.
Superior (steamboat), 5.
Swing, Rev. David, 37.
T.
Tappan, Benjamin, 6.
Taylor, Augustine D., 3.
Taylor, Zachary, 8.
Tecumseh (Indian chief), 13, 14, 17.
Thibeaut, Joseph, 16, 54.
Thompson, Lt. J. L., 55.
Thompson, Enoch, 55.
Thompson, Samuel, 11, 17.
Titus, Capt.-----, 24.
Todd, John, 11.
Tombien (or Toubien), Jean Baptiste, 54.
Tracy (schooner), 8.
Tyler, John, 8.
V.
VanBuren, Martin, 8, 55.
VanEaton, David, 16, 54, 55.
VanHorn, John, 16, 54.
VanOsdell, John M., 43.
VanSicle, Martin, 16, 53.
Van Side, Almira, 53.
VanStow, David, 54.
Vivier, Rev. Louis, 12.
W.
Wales, Prince of, 22.
Walker, Capt. A., 5.
Walker, Rev. Jesse, 16, 18, 53, 55.
Washington, Gen. George, 6, 9.
Watkins, Deborah (Scott), 56.
Watkins, Samuel, 56.
Wayne, Gen. Anthony, 8, 12, 22.
Webster, Daniel, 8.
Weeks, Cole, 16, 52.
Welch, Michael, 17, 19, 52, 54, 56.
Wellmaker, John, 54, 55.
Wentworth, Elijah, sr., 26, 51.
Wentworth, Elijah, jr., 26, 51.
Wentworth, George P., 54.
Wentworth, Hiram, 51.
Wentworth, John, 50.
Whistler, John, 7, 8, 10.
Whistler, William, 8.
Wilkins, William, 8.
William Penn (steamboat), 5.
Wilmette [Ouilmette], Antoine, 15, 16, 52, 54, 56.
Wilmette [Ouilmette], Elizabeth, 56.
Winthrop, Gov. John, 19.
Wolcott, Alexander, 15, 18, 23, 50, 51, 54, 55.
Woodbridge, William, 8.
Woodbury, Levi, 8.
Woodville, N. D., 51.
Wright, Silas, 47.
Wycoff, Peter, 54, 55.
Y.
Young Tiger (schooner), 24.
Contributed 25 Jan 2013 by Deb Haines
