I L I B RARY OF THE U N IVERSITY or ILLINOIS 917.344 VG4cv v-l i I ininois Historical Surwj A 7 LIBHahY OF THE UNIVERSITV Of ILMNOI'.- QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY History and Representative Men DAVID F. WILCOX Supervising Editor JUDGE LYMAN McCARL Chairman of Advisory Board Assisted by the Following Board of Advisory Editors JOS. J. FREIBURG THOMAS S. ELLIOTT GEORGE W. CYRUS HEXRY RORXMAXX ILLUSTRATED VOLUME I THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 1919 7 / /• J>1^ V-"- / PREFACE The geogi'aphical position of Adams Couuty gave it historical promiiieiiee from the time of its first settlement ; so forcibly was this evident that in not a few of the events and movements which have been of national import, Adams County and its stanch citizenship have wielded decisive influence. Quincy, its beautiful county seat, occupying a coiinuanding site on tiie banks of the Mississippi, on the western confines of Central Illinois, which here juts into the border territory of the South, was early recognized as a community where disputants over Slavery, States Rights and Mormonism would be accorded justice and even uutramded discussion. Althougii its lead- ers have never lacked positiveness and forceful expression of their opinions, Adams County earned a name for liberality and charity in its very infancy and has always maintained it. That statement ap- plies to both its men and women, one of the pioneer organizations in the United States for "the emancipation of the weaker sex" having originated in Quincy and there developed, with the progress of the times, as a representative body of American womanhood. In politics, in social matters, in educational influence, in patriotic works and in industrial and counuercial expansion, Quincy and Adams County have constituted a credit to the state and the nation. The Soldiers' Home, the Chamber of Commerce, churches, farmers and their splendidly conserved iiiterests, the factories and stores, and all the fine men and women, comprise subjects of interest and pride for the writers and compilers of this history. They do not pretend to liavc (lone any of such subjects full justice, but have been honest in their endeavor. In bringing these wonders to i)ass, no class or iiationality has been pre-eminent. Xo section of Illinois or tlie nation has been more truly American than Adams County; and especially has this been made manifest in the acid and fiery test of these days of fearful stress and war. A considerable portion of this history, however, luis been de- voted to the influence of the German element upon the developmnt of Quincy and the territory tributary to it, and the .supervising editor, with his advisory as.sociates, takes jileasurc in spreading the record over many pages charged with intere.st and instruction. No citizen of Quincy could have been better prepared to undertake and complete this exposition than Henry Bornmann. Those who know him well, and tlie man.v personalities who have been woven into his narrative, need be told that Adams County does owe a great debt to the pioneer Ger- mans, who migrated to free America, from tlie country which l)0und iii 979073 iv PREFACE them with shackles and whose intelligent and patriotic descendants, reaping the fruits of their racial industry and thrift amid the very conditions and institutions which their fathers sought, have long since forgotten that they have any blood in them but American. The supervising editor, David P. Wilcox, also wishes to extend his thanks to the members of the Advisory Board, Lyman McCarl, chair- man. Judge of the County Court, and Joseph J, Freiburg, of Quincy : to George W. Cyrus, of Camp Point, and Thomas S. Elliott, of Payson. for their invaluable assistance, both in the collating of the necessary data for the history and in the revision of the manuscripts after they had been prepared. The newspaper men and women of the county, the eitj- and county officials, the clergymen of the city and coiinty, its prominent and charitable women, and the managements of the Chamber of Commerce, the Soldiers and Sailors Home and other in- stitutions, have also been helpful in every way. Believing that the history of Adams County, and of its beautiful county seat, should be pi'eserved, and feeling that all available mater- ial has been used to that end, the publishers submit these volumes to the public with the hope that they may be of interest to the present generation and of great value to the generations which are to follow. The preparation of these volumes was a task carried on while the nation was engaged in war. The generation that receives them need not be told of the conditions which restricted and made difSciilt the printing and publishing business. The war imposed, without option, certain variations from accepted standards of matei'ial. The publisliers believe that no essential quality has been lost in the present books on that account, but offer this explanation for any lack of uni- formity that may be attributed to war-time requirements. CONTENTS CHAPTER I IN A STATE OF NATURE Area, Drainage and Springs — Uplands, Prairies and Bottom Lands — Surface Geology Related to Natural Wealth — Alluvial Deposits — The Loess — The Real Drift — Formation and Dis- tribution OF THE Drift — Glacial Mo\'ements and Ice Sueets — Origin of the Prairies — Swamp Lands Transformed into Prairie — The Coal ]Measures — The Commercial Clays — Soils and Their Natural Products — Healthful Climate — Bird Life IX Adams County — Friends of the Farmer 1 CHAPTER II WEALTH BASED ON THE SOIL The Rich Corn Belt — Early Attempts at Fruit Raising — Hog Raising and Pork Packing — Adams County Agricultural So- ciety — County Farmers' Institute Organized — The County's Farm AD\^sER — Work of the County Farm Improvement Asso- ciation — Present and Future ok Agriculture 17 CHAPTER III PREDECESSORS OF THE WHITES Prehistoric Mounds in the "American Bottom" — Archaeological Remains in Adams County — The Illinois Indian Confederacy — "Poor Old Ivickai-(m) Me" 31 CHAPTER IV COUNTY IILSTORY L\ THE MAKLXO Under French Dominion — Joliet and Marquette on Tu^inois Soil — Legendary Monsters of the Mississippi Valley — The "Piasa" Bird — Marqueite and Joliet Get Desired Information — Return vi CONTENTS Via the Illinois River — Last Days op Marquette — La Salle Consolidates French Empire in America— Brave and Faithful ToNTi — Commercial Venture into Illinois Country — Afloat on the Kankakee — La Salle Meets the Kaskaskia Indians — Builds Fort Crevecoeur Below Peoria— Sends Father Henne- pin to Upper Mississippi — The Disasters at Starved Rock AND Fort Crevecoeur— La Salle's Second Voyage— At the Mouth of the Mississippi — Messenger Sent to France — Deaths OP La Salle and Tonti — Permanent Pioneer Settlements of Illinois— Fort Chartres, Center op Illinois District— First Land Grant nsr District — Life at the Pioneer French Illinois Settlements — Under the Crown and the Jesuits — Kaskaskia, Illinois Jesuit Center — Fortunate and Progressive Illinois — The English Invade the Ohio Valley — French Rebuild Fort Chartres — Illinois Triumphs Over Virginia — New Fort Chartres in British Hands— First English Court op Law in Illinois Country— Pontiac Buried at St. Louis— Last op Fort Chartres— "Long Knives" Capture Kaskaskia — Did Not War on "Women and Children" — Bloodless Capture op Cahokia and Vincennes — Clark's Little Army Reorganized — Combined Military and Civil Jurisdiction — County of Illinois, West op THE Ohio River— Col. John Todd, County Lieutenant- American Civil Government Northwest of the Ohio — Illinois as a Territory — Bond Law Protects Home Seekers — State j\Ia- CHiNERY Set in Motion — Illinois Counties in 1818 — Wild Cat Banking — Slavery Question Again— The Famous Sangamon Country — Duncan and the Free School Law — Illinois Inter- nal Improvements — Capital Moved to Springfield — Remains of Internal Improvement System — Constitution op 1848 — Legis- lative Lessons Through Experience — Real Wi* Cat Banks — National Banks Force Out Free Banks — The Constitution of 1870 38 CHAPTER V SOME YEARS PRECEDING COUNTY ORGANIZATION Illinois Bounty Land Tract and :Madison County— Old Pike County— Wood and Keyes "Meet Up"— The Tillsons Speak op Quincy's FouNDERSr— The First Man and the First Woman —Agreeable All 'Round — The Old Wood Place— Mrs. Jere- miah Rose, First Quincy White Woman — Keyes and Droulard Settle— The County's First Physician— Gov. John Wood — WiLLARD Keyes— Jeremiah Rose — Asa Tyrer— Old Pike County Votes "No Convention" — Thomas Carlin — County* op Adams Created — Ix)cating the Seat of Justice — John Quincy Adams Compi-etely Immortalized ^^ CONTENTS vii CHAPTER VI COUNTY GOVERNMENT AND INSTITUTIONS The County's Creative Act — First Court and Its Seal. — County Se.\t Site Entered — Quincy Ordered Platted — First Sale op QuiNCY Lots — First Log Courthouse — Burial Ground Re- served — First Te.\cher and First Preacher — Providing for Judge Snow's Expansion — Woodland CiaJETERY — A. F. Hub- bard's Claim to Fame— The Ghost Walks Again — Courthouse OP 1838-75 — Dangers op Chronic Office Holding — A Jail Thought Expedient ;\nd Necessary — Original Election Pre- cincts — Columbus Fights for the County Seat — JIarquette AND Highland Counties — Judiclvl Reform and Slavery — Town- ship Organization Ad — Lindsay Church Home — The Blessing Hos- pital — The Anna Brown Home — Old People's Home (Das Al- tenheim) — Detention Home 510 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER XIV CHURCHES AND SOCIETIES FiBST Union Congregation^vl Church — Vermont Street Metho- dist Episcopal — Central Baptist Church — St. Boniface and St. Peter's Cuurciie.s — St. John's Parish and Cathedral — Ev.vngelical Lutheran Church of St. John — Fir.st Presby- terian- Church — Second Congregational Unitarian Church — Kentucky Street JIethodist Episcopal Church — The Salem Evangelical Church — The Christian Churches — St. Jacobi Evangelical Lutheran Church — Congregation K. K. Bnai Sholem — St. Francis Solanus Parish — St. Francis Solanus College — Father Anselm — The Colored Churches — St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran — St. JIary's Ro.man Cath- olic Church — Bethel Germ.vn Methodist Episcopal Church — St. Paul's Evangelical Church — St. John's Roman Catholic Church — United Brethren Church — First Church of Christ Scientist — Luther ^Memorial Church — St. Rose of Lima Chitrch — Grace Methodist Episcop.vl Church — Church Fed- eration — Social, Industrial, Secrf.t and Benevolent Societies — The Masons of Quincy — Scottish Rite ]\I.\sonry in Quincy — Building op the Temple — Other High Masonic Bodies — The Independent Order of Odd Fellows — The Knights of Pythias — The ROY.VL Arcanum Council — Knights of Columbus — The Eagles and Other Societies — The Western Catholic Union — Quincy Turn Verein — Quincy Country Club 540 CHAPTER XV INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL Oldest Existing Industries — Classification of Today — The Quincy Chamber of Commerce — The Quincy Freight Bureau — The Banks of Quincy — Branch of the State Bank — Flagg & Savage Open a Bank — Several Failures — Old Bank op Quincy — Quincy Savings Bank — John Wood and H. F. J. RiCKER — L. & C. II. Bull Enter the Banking Field — E. J. Parker's Bank — Order of Seniority — Consolidation of the Bull and Parker Interests — State Savings, Loan and Trust Company' — Robert W. Gard.ner and Edward J. Parker — Death op Lorenzo Bull — The Ricker National Bank and its Founder — Quincy N.vtional Bank — Illinois St.vte Bank — Other Banks 579 xii CONTENTS CHAPTER XVI CAMP POINT Early Settlements ix Township — Peter B. Garrett and Thomas Bailey — Pioneer Churches — Rise op Garrett's Mill — Camp Point Platted — Influence op Thomas B.uley — Bailey Park AND THE Opera House — The Maplewood High School — Other Residence Essentials — The Camp Point Journal — The Two Banks — The Churches — Fraternity Temple and Societies — The Independent Order op Odd Fellows Lodges — Women's Organizations 590 CHAPTER XVII CLAYTON AND GOLDEN Early Settlers op Clayton Township — The McCoys Found the Village — Moving the Old Town to the Country — The Village OP Today — Banks — Churches and Societies — Northeast Town- ship — Founding of Keokuk Junction — The Junction Platted — The Golden of Today — School and Newspaper — The Churches op Golden 601 CHAPTER XVIII mendon and LORAINE Pioneers of Mendon Township — Mendon Village Platted — Early Political Center — Churches and Lodges — ]\Iendon Incor- porated AS A Village — The Local Newspaper — The Banks — Keiene Township Settled — The Steiner Family — Loraixe Village 612 CHAPTER XIX PAYSON AND PLAINVILLE Pioneer Horticulturists — Founding of Payson Village — Noted Early Schools — Other Village Institutions — Village of Plainville 621 CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER XX OTHER TOWNSHiry AND VILLAGES iNDlSTRinS AND PrODICTS OP HONEY CREEK TOWNSHIP FrOCGY Prairie — Coatsburg, Qiincy's Rival — Paloma and the Good- INGS — Fall Creek Township — .Marblehead and F^vll Creek — Lima Township and Village — Liberty — Gilmer Township and Fowler — The Old Thompson Settlement — Old and New Ursa — Mercelline — Columbus — Burton Township and Its Villages — Houston Township — Beveri.y Township and Its Villages — Ellington Township and Bloomfield — ;McKee Township and Kkli-ekvii.i.e — Richfield Village 6.]0 CHAPTER XXI CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS AND HISTORIES Why Adams County Could Appropriately Celebr.\te — County Centennial Commission Formed — Celebrations in the County — Liberty Township Centennial Picnic — Ellington, Burton, JIendon, Richfield, Golden. Camp Point, Payson, Houston, Columbus, Gilmer, Honey Creek, Concord, Melrose and Fall Creek Townships — Centennial History of Liberty Township (By W. a. Robinson, Historian) — History of Burton Town- ship (Contributed) — History op Richfield Township (Con- tributed) — Honey Creek Township (By W. S. Gray) 640 CHAPTER XXII OTHER HISTORIC CELEBRATIONS The Masque of Illinois — A Brief Synopsis of the Pageant — At QuiNCY — Outside op Quincy — Centennial Celebration at the County Seat — "Hiawatha" in Quincy — Military Day — Rei^vtives of World War Soldiers — Patriotic Demonstration — PEitsHiNo's Beauties, a Feature — Sergeant Weyman's Elo- Qi^ENT War Speech — The Historical Displ.\y — Dedication of . THE Gold Star Flag 680 xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER XXIII ADAMS COUNTY WORLD WAR PERSONNEL Those Who Gave Their Lives — How the Mex Were Raised and Distributed — Many Joined Old Guard Units — History of the Dr.\et Boards — Recruiting Offices Kept Busy — Names Not All Completed — Quincy Men Inducted by Exemption Board — How Most of the Men Were Distributed — Some Quincy Men Who Volunteered — Roster of National Guardsmen Who Left Quincy — Some County Men Who Enlisted in the Army — Naval Volunteers Going from Quincy — Latest Figures on the County 's Contribution op Men 689 History of Ouincy and Adams County CHAPTER I IN A STATE OF NATURE Akea, Drainage and Springs — Uplands, Prairies and Bottom Lands — Surface Geology Related to Natural Wealth — Alluvial Deposits — The Loess — The Real Drift — Formation and Dis- tribution OP the Drift — Glacial Movements and Ice Sheets — Origin of the Pr.uries — Swamp Lands Transformed into Prairie — The Coal Measures — The Commercial Clays — Soils AND Their Natural Products — Healthful Climate— Bird Life IN Adams County — Friends of the Farmer. Adams is one of the Mississippi River ooiiiities. west of the center of the State, and lies a trifle away from the great routes of discovery and exploration into the interior of the countrj- which were marked out by the great French adventurers and Catholic priests. As it is not far north of the historic valley of the Illinois, the region soon came within the scope of these activities, especially when the lower reaches of the Mississippi, which were supjMJsed to lead toward the South or Oriental Seas, had been carelessly explored, and the upper waters of the great river beckoned to the revealers of the New World. What is now Adams County was then passed and repassed by gi'eat men, but they did not linger on its soil, as it was watered and fertilized by no large or attractive stream ; that is, as all the majestic, bewildering and my.sterious rivers of America were subject to their choice, there was no waterway in what is now Adams County which could attract them overpoweringly to its soil. Area, Drainage and Springs The county embraces an area of about 830 sfpiare miles, divided into twenty-two political towniships, sixteen of wliich are of the regu- lation thirty-six sections each ; which accounts for 576 square miles of the total area. The irregular townships Imrder on the Mississippi River, one onlj- (Mendon) being in the second tier to tlic east. The Vol. I— 1 2 2 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY tributaries to the great river which forms its western boundary are Bear, Ursa and Crooked creeks, which drain the northern portions of the county ; Rock and McGee creeks, which water the central and east- ern townships, and Mill, Fall, McCraney's and Hadley's creeks, which meander through the southern sections. These streams furnished, in early times, a small amount of water power for mills and machinery and an abundant supply of water for live stock. Fine springs are abundant in some portions of the county, more especially in the south- ern and western townships where the Burlington or Quincy limestone is the prevailing rock. That formation is somewhat cavernous and admits the free passage of subterranean waters through it, until they finally find an outlet at the surface in the form of living springs of clear filtered water. Uplands, Prairies and Bottom Lands The uplands in this county are nearly equally divided into timber and prairie, the timber portions being mainly restricted to the broken lands in the vicinity of the streams. The prairies are generally quite rolling, except in the northeastern part of the county where they are comparatively level. The general elevation of the prairie region above the level of the Mississippi at low water is from 200 to 280 feet. Along the w^estern border of the county there is a belt of alluvial bottom lands from 1 to 5 miles in width extending the whole length of the county from north to south, except for about two miles in the vicinity of Quincy, where the bluffs approach near to the river bank. A portion of these alluvial lands is quite dry, being only overflowed by the highest floods in the river. They have a very rich and productive soil, which is partly prairie, especially the higher portions adjacent to the river bluffs. The low bottom lands are partly covered with timber. Those north of Quincy toward the Hancock County line were, in the early times, intersected with numerous bayous, and in the northwestern corner of Adams County one of them widened into what was known as Lima Lake. Systematic drainage has since almost obliterated that body of water, and brought under cultivation large tracts of lands which were considered worthless. Surface Geology Related to Natural Wealth The geological formations exposed in Adams County comprise the lower carboniferous limestone about 300 feet in thickness, 100 feet of the lower part of the coal series and deposits of a more recent age. Outside the field of science — in other words, to the average person — the last named are of more interest and importance than the more aged strata which lie deeper and are more solid. Surface geology, which deals with the soils and subsoils from which man draws his physical life and wealth, explains the origin and properties of nature's raw material from which are evolved through her mysterious processes QUINCY AND ADAMS COIXTY 3 guided by the cunning mind and hand of man, those many forms of vegetation whit-h are at the basis of human existence. These invaluable eoiitributioiis by nature include the surface soil and the subsoil of the uplands, in Adams County ; the alluvial deposits of the river valleys; the Loess along the Mississippi bluffs; the drift proper, including all the thick beds of unstratified clay and gravel and inclosing boulders of large size, and the subordinate clays, usually stratified, which rest immediately on the stratified rocks. Allitvi^vl Deposits The alluvial deposits of the Mississippi Valley consist of partially stratified sands, alternating with dark bluish-gray, or chocolate-brown clays, deposited by the annual floods of the river. In the vicinity of the bluffs these deposits are annually increased by the wash from the adjacent hills and the sediments that are carried down by the small streams during their overflows. The Valley of the Mississippi has been excavated in solid limestone strata to the depth of from 150 to 300 feet and from 5 to 10 miles in width; and as we frequently find some portions of the valley still occupied by the l)eds of unaltered drift material, like that which covers the adjacent highlands, we have evidence that it was not formed by the river, which now, in part, occupies it, but is due to some agency much older and more widespread. It is evident, that the surface of the strati- fied rocks in this portion of the state has been subjected to the pow- erful denuding forces of periods long antedating the deposit of super- ficial materials and .soils, as in many localities the rocks have been cut into deep valleys which form the permanent river courses, or have been filled with drift. The Loess The next older division of this system is the Loess, a term originally applied to a similar formation which caps the bluffs of the Rhine in Germany. In Adams County, it is a deposit of marly sand and clay, ranging in thickness from ten to forty feet. It attains its greatest development where it caps the river bluffs, thinning rapidly toward the adjacent highlands. The Loess is usually of a light buff brown, or ashen gray color, frequently showing distinct lines of stratification and always overlies the drift clays when both are present in the same section. It is usually quite sandy on the upper surfaces of the cliffs but as the beds get thinner it becomes calcareous. The Loess is well expo.sed in the bluffs at Quincy, where it is forty feet in thickness and overlies .some beds of plastic clay and i>and. Immediately above the limestone at this locality is a few feet of what is called "local drift," consisting of angidar fragments of chert embedded in a brown clay. This is overlaid by a few feet of blue plastic clay and stratified sands on which the Loess is deposited. 4 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY The Real Drift The real Drift in Adams County is composed of yellowish-brown or bluish clays, with sand, gi'avel and large boulders of watei'-worn I'oek, the whole mass usually showing little or no trace of stratification, and ranging in thickness from thirty to eighty feet. It is a mass of water-worn fragments of all the stratified rocks that are known to occur for several hundred miles to the northward, and embedded in brown or blue clays, and most of the boulders are of sandstone, granite and various igneous rock found on the borders of the Great Lakes. Associated with the latter are also smaller and rounded boulders de- rived from the stratified rocks of Illinois and adjacent states. Inter- mingled with these masses are fragments of native copper, lead, coal and iron, which does not indicate that such minerals were ever mined in any near section of the country, for they have often been transported hither from far-distant localities by the same powerful agencies to which the Drift itself owes its origin. The old coal shaft at Coatsburg penetrated the thickest bed of drift whicli has ever been imcovered in Adams County. The sections were of the following thickness: Soil and yellowish clay, 6 feet; bluish- colored clay and gravel, 45 feet; clay, with large boulders, 40 feet; black soil, 2i/2 feet; clay (stratified), 6 feet; very tough blue clay, 20 feet. The bed thus analyzed contains therefore eighty-five feet of what may be considered true Drift, consisting of unstratified clays intermixed with gravel and boulders. The upper six feet of the forma- tion probably represents the age of the Loess, and its origin is ex- plained by Professor Lesquereaux in his chapter on the formation of the prairies, which will be hereafter noted. FORM.VTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE DrIFT A pause is here taken in the simple descriptive narrative to dwell somewhat at length on the probable origin of those variegated deposits grouped as Drift, which form the solid basis of the aljuvial and surface soils from which spring the germs and finished products of the vegetable world. The greatest agents in the formation and distribution of the Drift and the general modification of the surface of the earth, have been glaciers and ice sheets ; and this statement applies with partic- ular significance to Illinois. When it is remembered that these ice sheets were hundreds and possibly thousands of feet thick, and were hundreds of miles in width and length, some adequate idea may be formed of their power to plow up and completely change the surface stnicture of the earth. The debris which they brought from the Laurentian ilountains of Canada was distributed over Illinois generally, greatly to the enrichment of its soils. This material, which eventually liecame the wonderfully productive soil in all the glacial areas, was transported in several ways. Much of it was pushed along mechanically in front of the advancing l^riNCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 5 ife-slii-et, so that wIk-m tho forward iiiovtMueiit lifjraii to be retardccl, this material was left scattered along the edges of the advaneing body. -Miicii material was carried along under the iee-sheet and was grounded and distributed over the glacial area. Other material, again, was carried to the surface of the ice-sheet, and often deeply inbedded in it. ^Yhen the movement was finally checked, the superimposed ma- terial becoming heated by the sun, worked its way through the ice and rested on the ground, the whole body of ice eventually melting. Vast quantities of material were also carried by the streams which continually flowed from tiie melting ice. iluch of the detritus was left on the broad, llat prairies, but much was carried into the streams which overflowed their banks and deposited as alluvium. The material which these glaciers brought into the State of Illinois, as the basis of her vast material wealth, goes under the general name of Drift. Its composition varies, but its main constituents are clay, sand and boulders. This drift is sometimes found stratified, but more generally is without definite layer formation. Gl.\CI.\L ilOVEME.VTS AND ICK SUEETS Without going into details as to authorities, it may be stated that, in North America, there seems to have been three great centers of glacial movement — one known as the Labrador ice sheet; a second called the Kewatin ice sheet, and the third, the Cordilloran ice sheet. The first sheet had its center of movement near the central point of the peninsula of Labrador; the second, near the western shore of Hudson Bay, and the third moved from the Canadian Rockies. The ice sheet, the center of which rested on the Labrador peninsula, moved northeast, northwest, south and southwest, the movement in the direction last named starting a large section of the vast body toward what is now the State of Illinois. The Labradorean sheet reached its extreme southern limit in Southern Illinois, some 1,600 miles from the point of departure. Th-? advancing front in Illinois took the form of a gigantic crescent, and its extreme southern reach, according to the most recent geological surveys, may be traced from Randolph County southeast, through the southern side of Jackson eastward through Southern Williamson, east and northeast through Southeast- ern Saline, northeastward to the Waba.sh through the northwest corner of Gallatin and Southeastern White. That line also marks the southern limit of the prairie areas, and is coincident with the northern foot- hills of the Ozark Mountains, which trend east and west across the state through Union, Johnson. Pope and Hardin. According to the more recent investigations, Illinois was sub.ject to at least four ice-sheet invasions. In the order of time, these were (a) the Illinois sheet, which covered nearly the entire state: (10 the lowan sheet, moving over the area bounded by the Rock River on the west, Wisconsin on the north. Lake Michigan on the east, and on the 6 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY south by a parallel extended from the southerly bend of that body of water; (c) the Earlier Wisconsin, covering the northeastern fourth of Illinois, and (d) the Later Wisconsin, plowing out the western borders of Lake iliehigan and extending some fifty or sixty miles west- ward. The Illinois ice-sheef is the one, obviously, which included Adams County in its operations. Origin of the Prairies Nothing in the New World was more interesting to the European than the broad prairies between the Mississippi and the Ohio. In 1817 Gov. Edward Coles, then a young man returning from a diplo- matic mission to Russia, stopped in France and England. He was a Virginian, but had traveled through the West and had himself been greatly charmed by the rich grandeur of the prairie lands. The French and the English never tired of liis graphic descriptions of them, and among his charmed auditors was Morris Birkbeck, a prosperous tenant farmer of England, who was thereby induced to come to America and settle in Edwards County, Southeastern Illinois. In later years Dickens went into raptures over his first sight of a "western" prairie, revealing his sentiments in his "Notes on America." When the first French explorers reached the Mississippi Valley, they Avere amazed at the great sweep of timberless areas, although they originally applied their word, "prairie," to describe the fiat bottom lands of the river valleys. Nor is the application of the word to such tracts inappropriate, as it has been shown by geologists that the forma- tion of the prairies of Illinois is identical in character with the formation of the bottom lauds along the Mississippi, the Ohio, and other .smaller rivers. When the first settlers came to Illinois country they are said to have found about one-fourth of it timbered and the remainder timber- less, or prairie lands. They designated the largest timberless area the Grand Prairie, and it was virtually limited by the great watershed which divides the basins of the Mississippi and the Ohio. It extends from the northwestern part of Jackson County through Perry, part of Williamson, Washington, Jefferson, Marion, Fayette, Effingham, Coles, Champaign and Iroquois, crosses the Kankakee River and extends to the southern end of Lake Michigan. Adams County was therefore just west of the Grand Prairie, in the broad Mississippi Valley ; and therefore of rather a composite nature. The origin of the prairies has been a debatable question for many decades. Three general theories have been advanced to account for their existence at the time of the coming of the earliest settlers into the limits of Illinois. One explanation is that the great prairie fires which annually swept over the Grand Prairie effectually kept the trees from making any headway. But there are two scientific explanations which seem to go more to the. bedrock of the matter. QriXCY AND ADAMS COUXTV 7 Swamp Lands Transformed into Prairie Says a later writer on this subject, "Professor Whitney holds to tiie theory that the treeless prairies have had their origin in the char- acter of the original deposits, or soil formation. He does not deny, in fact admits, the submersion of all prairie lands formerly as lakes or swamps, but he holds that while the lands were so submerged there was deposited a vcrj- fine soil, which he attributes, in part, to the underlying rocks, and in part to the accumulation in the bottom of immense lakes, of a sediment of almost impalpable fineness. This soil in its physical, and probably in its chemical composition, prevents the trees from natin-ally getting a foothold in the prairies. "Professor Lesquereux holds to the theory simply stated that all areas properly called prairies were formed by the redemption of what was once lake regions and later swamp territory. He points out that trees grow abundantly in moving water, but that when water is dammed the trees always d:e. His theory is that standing water kills trees bj' preventing the oxygen of the air from reaching their roots. He further shows that the nature of the soil in redeemed lake regions is such that without the help of man trees will not grow in it. But he further shows that by proper i^lantiug the entire prairie area may be covered with forest trees. "As rich as was the soil of our prairies, the first emigrants seldom settled far out on these treeless tracts, ilost of the early comers were from the timber regions of the older states and felt they could not make a living very far from the woods. Coal had not come into use aiul wood was the univei-sal fuel. There was a wealth of mast in the timber upon which hogs could live a large part of the year. Again, our forefathers had been used to the springs of New England, Ken- tucky, Teunes.see and Virginia, and they did not think they could live where they could not have access to springs. The early comer, back in the '30s, therefore, rode over the prairies of Central Hlinois, and tiien entered 160 in the timber, where he cleared his land and opened his farm." In line with the Lesquereux theory Adams County, with the gradual disappearance of its swamp lands, is gradually becoming a prairie tract. After a careful investigation of the subject, some of the most eminent geologists of Illinois have arrived at the conclusion that the extensive prairies of the West, with their peculiar soil, have been formed in the past pretty much as prairies on a smaller scale are being formed at the present day. The black, friable mold, of which the prairie soil is composed is due to the growth and deca\- of successive crops of coarse swamp grasses, submerged in spring, and growing luxuriantly in summer, only to be submerged again, and returned, in a rotten condition, to the annual accumulations before made. It is not difficult to believe that in a few hundred years, more or less, as the great sheet of water that once covered the entire valley of the Missis- sippi and tributaries, gradually receded to tiie present water courses. 8 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY and left the prairies in the condition of alternate wet and dry swails, that a black, mucky soil was produced to the depth now found upon the prairies. In process of time, by more complete recession of the waters, the surface of the prairies became dry, and adapted to the wants of animals and men. The fact of there being no trees on the prairies is accounted for on the ground that such a condition of the soil as is here described is not favorable to their growth, as may be often noticed in the marshy spots of timbered regions. The Coal Measures Although geology recognizes "coal measures" in Adams County, no carboniferous deposits have been commercially developed. Upper seams, or outcroppings, have been stripped in a small way from such localities as the south fork of Bear Creek, Little Missouri Creek and other small streams near Clayton, in the neighborhoods of Columbus and Camp Point and along Mill Creek, as well as near the Pike County line. It is estimated that about one-half the area of Adams County is underlaid with coal measures, its central and eastern sec- tions being considered the most promising from an economic or com- mercial standpoint. The Limestones op the County The coal measures rest on three main strata of limestone — the St. Louis, Keokuk and the Burlington. The first named is a light or brownish gray variety, and contains many beautiful fossil corals and marine shells. Noteworthy outcrops of the St. Louis limestone have been found along McGee Creek near Columbus, at Coatsburg and in the vicinity of Mendon. The Keokuk group is usually bluish-gray or grayish-brown, and presents remarkable specimens of crystallized min- erals. It comes to the surface at Coatsburg, along the creeks men- tioned, and a few miles northeast of Quiney. That variety has been quarried considerably, furnishing the foundation for Governor Wood's historic mansion. From Quiney to the north line of the comity it out- crops at various points along the bluffs, and is well exposed on Bear Creek, near the Lima and Quiney Road, where it forms a mural cliff from 40 to 50 feet in height. It is also found along all the small streams in the western part of the county as far south as Mill Creek, on the forks of that stream. The regularly bedded lime- stones of the Keokuk group are mainly composed of organic matter; the calcareous portions of the molluscs, crinoids, corals and other small forms of marine animals which' swarmed in the ocean depths. The Burlington limestone, which underlies the lower stratum of the Keokuk group, differs but little from the latter. It is usually of a lighter gray color, variegated with beds of buff or brown stone, and devoid of the bands of .shale which separate the strata of the Keokuk series. The Burlington variety outcrops at Mill Creek, a few miles southeast of QriXCY AN'O ADAMS COUNTY 9 Quincy, and from that point to the south line of the county it comes to the surface quite continuously. Conunercially, the Burlin^on limestone is usually considered the most valuable of the three varieties. It has been rather extensively quarried at and near Quincy, and as the afrgregate thickness of the group averages 100 feet, nearly all of which may be used as building stone, the Burlington is considered virtually inexhaustible. It cuts easily when free from chert, and is considered an excellent stone for dry walls, as well as for caps and sills. The buff and brown layers contain a small percent of iron and magnesia, and the surface be- comes more or less stained by exposure to the atmosphere, but the light gray beds are nearly pure carbonate of lime and generally retain their original color. The brown magnesian limestone of the St. Louis group is an evenly stratified rock, well adapted for use in foundation walls, bridge abutments and culverts, where a rock is re(iuire(l to witii- stand the combined actions of frost and moisture. Most of the stone used in the manufacture of quick lime is obtained from the Burlington limestone, near Quincy, although the l)luish-gi-ay strata of the Keokuk group and the upper beds of the St. Louis series have been utilized considerably. Thk Commercial Clays The clays of the county have been developed economically to some extent, although some of the potteries in which they have been used are outside of its limits. The best deposits of fire and potter's clays are found in the shape of light blue shale between the coal seams. On exposure it becomes a fine plastic clay, or good material for the man- ufacture of fire brick. The subsoils intermingled with the fine sand of the Loess form an excellent material for the manufacture of com- mon brick. The combination may be found almost anywhere in the western part of the county, and there are few localities in the state which have produced a better variety of Iniilding brick than that man- ufactured in the neighborhood of Quincy. In the eastern part of the county, where the Loess is wanting, the sand may be obtained in tiie alluvial valleys of most of the small streams. S01L.S AND Their Xatkral Products But when all has been said, a return is made to the original state- ment — that the great contribution made by natur(> to the comfort and happiness of man is in her virtual guarantee that he shall not suffer if he depends primarily upon her returns to his labor and skill. Con- fining the survey of such natural advantages to Adams County, it may be said that its western portions include a belt of country from .5 to 10 miles in width adjacent to the bluffs of the Mis.sissippi, and extend- ing throughout its entire length from north to south, which is under- lain with marl}' sands and days of Loess. It possesses a soil of 10 QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY remarkable fertility, with au undulating surface which furnishes a free drainage, so that with a rather porous subsoil it is less subject to the deleterious influences of remarkably dry or wet seasons than the other upland soils of the county. The natural growth of timber on this variety of soil consists principally of red, white and black oak, I^ignut and shell-bark hickory, elm, black and white walnut, sugar maple, linden, wild cherry and honey locust. These lands are also well adapted to the growth of fruit. On the banks of McGee's Creek and its tributaries the surface of the country is considerably broken, and the soil, which is mainly de- rived from the drift clays, is a stiff c4ay loam, better adapted to the growth of wheat and gi-ass than almost any crop usually grown in this latitude. The growth of timber on this kind of soil consists of two or three varieties of oak and hickory, which are characteristic of the so-£alled "oak ridges" which are so frequently seen along the small streams in Adams County and other section of Illinois. In the northeastern portion of the county is a considerable area of com- parativelj' level prairie, covered with a deep black soil rich with the annual decay of the surface shrubs and grasses. This black prairie soil is underlaid with a fine silicious brown clay, which does not permit the surface water to pass freely through it and, until drained, the lands are so flooded during the wet season as to be very difficult of cultivation. When the season is favorable, or after they have been well drained, there are no lands in the county which grow better crops of cereals, both as to quantity and quality. The alluvial bot- tom lands bordering the Mississippi are generally similar in their char- acter to those in Pike County and are heavilv timbered with the same varieties. Where these bottom lands are elevated above the annual overflow of the river, or pi'operly drained, they, also, are exceedingly productive. Healthful Climate There is another blessing for which the people of Adams County are indebted to mother nature ; that is their climate, which is, on the whole, equable and pleasant. Healthful, cool breezes usually circu- late through the Mississippi Valley, which keep it comparatively free of fogs and miasmatic mists. The rainfall is generally season- able and abundant, averaging about thirty-eight inches, and droughts of severity are rare. There are exceptions to these rules, of course; but as the years come and go this section of the state is conducive to good health, good crops and all-around blessings. Bird Life in Adams County The Mississippi Valley is the great natural highway of travel for the United States. Not only the Mound Builders have scattered evi- dences of their migrations along its mighty courses, and the Indian QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 11 tribes of history floated ou its waters or wandered and warred along its shores, but the very birds of the air have made it their great trunk line iu their search for tilting habitations in which to live and rear their families. All the Mississippi River counties, especially if they possess such a variety of topography and lands as Adams, are therefore rich iu bird life. "With the progress of natural history and scientific farming, the feathered kind have been found to be not only fascinating studies, but agents of valuable protection to the cereals, fruits and vegetables. Of course, the}' have keen appetites and eat some things of value, but all-in-all the farmers are commencing to fully realize that they much more than "pay for their keep." C. L. Kraber, whose father was one of the pioneers of Quincy — a carpenter who built the courthouse and other well known structures of an early date — lived on the old homestead farm just northeast of the county seat for some sixty years. Very observant and especially fond of birds, Mr. Kraber has written considerably regarding those who have frequented Adams County during his long period of resi- dence within its borders. He has noted at least one hundred varieties, among the chief of which he lists the paroquets, wild Muscovy ducks, the green head mallard, the blue coot, the pineated woodpecker, red- headed woodpecker, blackbirds, red-eyed wild pigeon, sand hill cranes, plovers, the Canadian wild goose, the brant, wild turkey, grossbeck, English sparrow, turtle dove, cardinal, bluebird, the brown thrush, French robin (cuckoo), whippoorwill, will-o-the-wisp, red-winged blackbird, meadow larks, cow-blackbirds, black crow, i-ohin red breast, cat bird, quails, oriole, wren, pheasants, swallow, turkey buzzard, blue heron, humming bird, crossbills, bald eagle, owl, scarlet lanager, wild white swan, butcher bird, the pewee, kingfisher, hawk, ground sparrow and an army of other small birds. Some of these are now rare, or nearly extinct. In the early days, the Mississippi bottoms near Quincy contained numerous paraquets, or green parrots ; but they appear to have departed with the Indians. The wild Muscovy duck is now very rare, but the mallard is the game duck of the open season. The following is a well-put paragraph from Mr. Kraber 's pen : "The old reliable red headed woodpecker is an active worker, and stops the career of thousands of insects in the embryo state from fur- ther developing into pests of the soil, and from adding to the dis- comfort of mankind. Flying from one tree to another with its red head and white marked wings, it is easily seen. It is not a wild bird, and can be studied at pleasure. His near relative, the yellow hammer, or flicker of the 'high roller' of E. P. Roe, is another bird to study with reference to habits, etc., since they have many traits worthy of emulation by the human family. The flicker and its mate will edge up to each other on the limb of a tree and go through more fantastic motions than any quixotic people. It would bo hard to describe them, as the.v sit there swinging back and forth in unison, their heads up and moving from side to side, and all the while chat- tering to each other something verv interesting to themselves. At 12 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY such time it does not take a veiy close observer to see that it is bird sentiment being expressed in its most amorous and innocent way. The}' mean every word they say, and lay it off so positively to one another that one can hardly help looking on and listening, and under- standing just what they are talking about. It is interesting to have it made so plain that they are one in sentiment, and agree so well in their out-of-door domestic life."' Up to the '60s, the red-eyed wild pigeons appeared in Adan: County during their migrations southward as to break the forest trees and darken the sun, taking the cour.se of the river bluffs in the spring and fall. They are now extinct in this part of the world. Flocks of plovers, often taken for wild pigeons, still occasionally fiy across country from southwest to northeast. Even the honk of the Canadian wild geese, which once bred in such numbers in the north- western part of the county, in the region of Lima Lake, is seldom heard. "Their habit," says Mr. Kraber, "was to leave the lakes and rivers by the hundreds before sunrise, and settle down into the wheat and com iields upon the bluffs and further inland until about ten o'clock in the morning. Then all would return to the river and lakes until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when they would again enter the fields and feed until after dark; then go back to the water for the night with much noise. They were very regular about it until late in the fall, and sometimes all winter if the weather was mild. They domesticated very readily, and became quite tame, but when so are only waiting to try their wings for a final good-bye. They are des- tined to early extinction." The wild turkey has quite disappeared fi-om the locality. The Mississippi River is the home of the gulls. They spend much time on the wing over the water, never flying very high. They are both scavengers and eaters of fi-esli fish. Friends of the Farmer But it is the land birds in which we take the practical interest; the destroyers of insect pests destructive to vegetation ; the real friends of the agriculturist. What these insects are and the special varieties of birds which seem created to assist in their extermination was thus told not long ago to a State Farmers' Institute by 0. 'Si. Schantz, president of the Illinois Audubon Society : ' ' The State of Illinois is 378 miles long in its greatest length and 210 miles wide. Owing to its length and its peculiar position, it has almost as great a range of climatic influences, geographical influences, and so on, as any state in the union. Therefore, its flora and fauna, its animal and vegetable life are extremely varied. The northern part is entirely different in its geogi-aphy and its animal life from the southern part. By its location, part of it touching Lake Michigan and the rest of it being tributary to the great Mississippi Valley, ex- cept for the water fowl of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, more migra- QLIXL'V AND ADAMS COLXTV 13 tory birds pass tIiroup:li the Mississippi Valley than through any other part of the United States. "In the consideration of a question of so great importance to the Illinois farmer as the relation of birds to farm eeonomj', it is very necessary to make clear in the most direct manner possible just how and why the farmer is to be benefited. "The projicr time to j)laiit, seasonable weather during the grow- ing season and also for the harvesting of crops, are, naturally the most evident factors in successful farming. "The old-fashioned, iinprogressive farmer gave little thought to other and less noticeable handicaps, such as plant diseases and the myriads of insects that were the natural enemies of both his fruit and cereal crops. With the rai)id increase in the value of farm lands, the competition for markets, and so forth, it has become ab.solutely neces- sary for a farmer to know every factor that may enter farm economy, or he fails to win out. "The lax use of powers of observation is rapidly disappearing, and today our farmers are growing more and more alive to the fact that a knowledge of scientific farming is the only way to make 150 to 250 acres yield a profit. "The agricultural colleges of many states, and the Federal De- partment of Agriculture, have for many years past conducted most exhaustive research a.s to the los.ses due to noxious insects, and the most effective means of curtailing these losses. "We have, by cultivation and removal of forests, disturbed the nat- ural balance of nature. We have made conditions extremely favorable for the rapid increase of certain noxious insects. Insect life increases at such an incredible rate that with no check of any kind everything green would soon disa]ipear, and in a sliort time the land would be uninhabitable. "On the other hand, it is a well known fact that certain of our most useful birds incrca.se as a result of the settlement of land. "Many birds are very tolerant of man, if reasonably protected and allowed to rear their young undisturbed. "In the earlier years of the settlement of the country, there did not exist the same need for watchfulness that is necessary today. "The problem of adef|uate food supply for the world is a part of the problem of the United States. One hundred years ago, very few men devoted even a small portion of their time to the studj' of insects in their relation to the food supply, or to the careful study of birds as the most effective check on the spreading of injurious insects. Today thousands of men and women are preparing earnestly for these very important studies, and the biological departments of our colleges and universities are of the most importance and popular in all parts of the United States. "The Illinois Audubon Society was organized less than twenty years ago by a few very earnest bird lovers in Chicago. Their pri- mary object was no doubt a humane desire to protect from dcstruc- \ 14 QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY tiou the many beautiful birds that came in such great numbers to the woodlands and parks in and around Chicago. The time has come when a much greater field is open for it and similar societies, for in- telligent work for the protection of birds, not only for their beauty and wonderful songs, but as a vital factor in the economics of the country's food supply. ' ' The problem of the city bird lover is largely different from that of the farmer and the people of the smaller cities and villages. "The larger cities, particularly Chicago, are flooded with thou- sands of immigrants, to whom the United States means all sorts of liberty. License to kill birds, we understand, is in some parts of Southern Europe held out as a great inducement to prospective emi- grants in connection with cheaper living. Cheap firearms are sold everywhere, and Sundays and holidays during the summer mouths see each day a veritable 'armed host' scouring the prairies and woodlands ready to kill anything that flies. "Where transportation is cheap, these irresponsible shooters reach the farms, and not only trespass on the fields of growing grain, but shoot thousands of the farmers' best friends, the birds, or if no birds can be found, his domestic chickens, ducks or turkeys. "The problems of Illinois are those of Iowa and the other adjoin- ing prairie states. "No crop raised by the farmer is immune from insect foes. Many of these insects are so minute that they ordinarily escape the notice of the casual observer, yet the damage annually done on a single farm by these inconspicuous insects may run into large sums of money. ' ' The diif erent aphides or plant lice, whose life cycle is only a few days, increase with such astounding rapidity that the figures startle. "These soft small insects, of M-hich thousands could be held in one's hand, frequently cover the stems of their host plants completely. "The greatest enemy of the different aphides is the warbler fam- ily, which numbers among the twenty-five or thirty varieties that visit us many of our smallest birds. The number of insects that a pair of these little birds will consume for a single meal is almost beyond comprehension. "To better understand the ability of birds to check insects, it is necessary to know something of their marvelous powers of digestion. Birds fill themselves to running over with either weed seeds or insects so that frequently they are replete up to the bill. The process of diges- tion is so powerful and rapid that they can eat almost without stopping, many birds consuming an amount of food each day equal to about one-third of their own weight. "The temperature of birds and their circulation is much greater than that of other animals, consequently it is largely a matter of fuel enough to keep the machinery going properly. "Much painstaking work has been done recently in the State of Massachusetts in order to ascertain the effect that wild birds have on QUIXCY AXn ADAMS COUNTY 15 the awful insect pests wliieh have become so serious a piobicui in that state. "While the conditions in Illinois are vastly different from those in Massachusetts, the residts of the investigation should be of great interest to Illinois farmers. "It has been proven that almost without exception all birds have a good balance to their credit over and above the damage they do ; that even such conspicuously aggressive birds as the bluejay, grackle and crow have a large credit in assisting to destroj' both larvae and adults of the gypsy and brown-tailed moths. Such birds as feed on fruits — robins, catbirds, cedar birds and others — also devour enough insect pests to have the balance in their favor. "Many birds are peculiarly adapted to attend certain insects, and the birds have been very happily alluded to by one writer as the police of the orchard and garden. "The seed-eating birds, which include the sparrows and finches, destroy weeds by the million. Three morning doves' stomachs con- tained by actual count a total of 23,100 weed seeds, consumed at one meal. "All of the thrush family, of which the robin and bluebird are the best known members, are valuable insect destroyers. The fly- catchers, headed by tlic kingbird and phoebe, and containing about eighty nearly related species, the .swallows, martins, night hawk and chimneyswifts, are policemen of the air. "The towhee and many sparrows forage on the ground; the nut- hatches, woodpeckers and brown creepers take care of the trunk and branches; and the warblers and vireos examine the leaves and buds. The entire tree or shrub is thoroughly guarded. Out in the open, the meadow lark, bobolink, bobwhite, prairie chicken and many others keep tab on grasshoppers, crickets and myriads of other insects. No insect family escapes; it has an ardent, relentless foe in some bird. "Now, what is your duty to your bird friends? Make your prem- ises attractive. Furnish bird boxes or nests, feed the birds in winter; exterminate .stray cats; plant vines and shrubbery bearing fruits agreeable to birds; help to legislate against shooting; train the small boy to respect and love the birds and not to collect birds' eggs; teach him also to shoot with a field or opera glass. If a bird helps itself to a little of your fruit, before destroying the bird look up its record and see what insects he preys upon. "Observe closely the birds at nesting time and note the tireless energy with which the young birds eat, and then do a little calculat- ing by multiplying the number of times fed by the insects fed at a meal. "Read literature on the subject of bird conservation. Result: Sure and lasting conversion to the side of the birds. "Scientific men look with alarm'at the rapidly decreasing bird pop- ulation. The rapid increase of population, encroaching more and more 16 QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY on the nesting places, lessens the available woodland and prairie where the birds may nest and not be disturbed. "Intelligent planting of shrubbery and vines along roadsides, as is contemplated by the Lincoln Highway movement, will in part over- come this condition. "Concerted efforts by states and at Washington for better bird protection, the education of all classes as to the beneficial part the bird has in our daily life, vigorous prosecution for violation of our present game laws, the taxing of cats, the encouragement of organiza- tions for bird study — all these are'necessai-y and important features of the gi'owing intelligent effort for bird conservation. "See that some one attends to the purchasing of good bird books for your public library ; offer prizes to your children for best observa- tions or well wi'itten papei's about birds, their habits and usefulness — these papers, or the best of them, to be published iu your local paper. "There is no reason why, iu this tremendous state, a powerful and concerted effort should not be made for bird conservation and pro- tection which would place the State of Illinois in the first rank in the Union for such work. "Nowhere in the entire United States is there a greater and more interesting bird migration, both spring and fall, than in this state. The state's length gives it a wonderfully interesting plant life and variety of climate. This, in part, explains its variety of bird life. "A very small sum as an individual contribution, if given by enough people, would maintain a paid expert whose duty might be that of state ornithologist. "There is a man in Massachusetts who gives his entire life and energy to this very important work, and whose book, 'Useful Birds and Their Protection,' is the last word in bird conservation." CHAPTER II WEALTH BASED OX THE SOIL The Kich Corx Belt — Eauly Attempts at Fruit Raising — Hog Raising and Pork Packing — Adams County Agricultural So- ciety — County Farmers' Institute Organized — The County's Farm Adviser — Work of the County Farm Improvement Asso- ciation — Present and Future of Agriculture. Numerous ageucies have been involved in the development of the industries of Adams County, based on the natural riehes of its soil, its good drainage and climatic advantages. In the earlier times, be- cause of the sparsely settled population and comparative poverty of the pioneers, all the efforts made toward the improvement of agri- cultural methods and the betterment of farming conditions were put forth by individuals — each man for himself. As the population and general prosperity increased, agricultural and horticultural societies were organized, the live stock men met and conferred as to the most approved ways of raising their hogs, cattle and sheep ; fairs were lield in different parts of the county, attended by the farmei-s and their families ; under Congressional laws the swamp lands in the American bottom commenced to come into the market and be systematically drained, while the county took up the matter, in behalf of the farms, in that and other tracts naturally subject to overflow, and lands formerly considered worthless were transformed into valuable farms; the farmers' institutes were founded ami ex- panded rapidly as educational forces in matters connected both with farming and the domestic life of rural communities; the good roads movement was born and developed in Adams County, first, tlirough rather dissipated efforts of neighborhoods and county legislation, and finally under the superintendent of highways; telephones and auto- mobiles became familiar objei-ts to hundreds of hou.sehokls, so that every member of a rural family was brought close to his neighbors and at the same fiine was in constant healthful contact with Nature, and finally Ijicle Sam himself, as he has a hearty way of doing, offered his warm hand and his efficient .services in the widespread co- operative measures which hail been gathering force during a period of eighty years and donated the county farm advi.ser, with the Farm Improvement Association and the Home Improvement As.sociation, as a vital factor in the great work of extracting every advantage and blessing pnssil)le from the fanner's effurts and the farmer's life. Vol. 1—2 1 - 18 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY The Rich Corn Belt Adams County is in the geographical center of the great corn belt which extends across Northern and Central Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. The soil is especially rich in nitrogen, that of the bottom lands containing nearly 8,000 pounds per acre. The bluff and prairie lands also carry about three-fourths as much nitrogen ; so that the county is one of the banner com sections of the state. It has been found that by such a rotation of crops as corn, oats, wheat, clover, and then "repeat," the soil may be kept live and fertile without applying commercial fertilizers to any marked extent. The average acreage of pasture lands is more than 50,000. Early Attempts at Fruit Raising Fruits were cultivated in Adams County about as early as corn and as soon as the first settlers commenced to raise hogs; but they Exhibit of Adams County Corn never flourished in any marked degi'ee as a leading and standard industry based on the soil. In the spring of 1820 John Wood made a journey on foot to a St. Louis orchard and brought home a pint of apple seed for which he paid a good dollar. He planted the lot and three of them took root. Afterwards he gathered seed from an orchard owned by a Frenchman on the other side of the river; or rather he extracted it from the apple pulp of a cider mill. Mr. Wood also obtained another lot from a poor family in the neighborhood to whom he had given a large quantity of maple sugar. From such sources he started the first orchard in the county on land at Quincy which he owned, between what are now Twelfth and Fourteenth and State and Kentucky streets. About the same time he planted some yriNCY AND ADA.MS (UU-NTV 19 peach stones, which were set out in his orchard in 1824, ami three years afterward was gathering fruit from both varieties of trees. Before the year 1832 Major Rose, Willard Keyes, James Dunn, Silas Beehe and others of the early settlers, including several in the eastern part of the county, had planted apple orchards. These trees were all seedlings, except about a dozen in Mr. Wood's orchard, and many of them were obtained from him. George Johnson, of Coluin- • bus. Deacon A. Scarborough and Clark Chatten, of Fall Creek, were among the pioneer fruit raisers. Mr. Scarborough introduced the Concord grape. Mr. Chatten was for thirty years the leading horti- culturist in the county, and in 1867 had the largest orchard in the state. At that time he had 240 acres devoted to apple trees and 187 acres, to peaches. The largest nursery was owned and conducted by "William Stewart, of Paj'son, who dealt in apple and peaeli trees, ornamental shrubs, flower seeds, etc. In 1852 he started a branch at Quincy. Although not large in quantity, Adams County fruit took pre- miums in exhibits made at the State Fair and before the American Pomologieal Society. In the early '60s Clark Chatten took the first J premium offered by the Illinois Agricultural Society for "the best cultivated orchard," and Henry Claj' Cupp, also of Fall Creek, shared the honors with him as the leading orehardist in the county. The horticulturists of Adams County, however, were few as com- pared with the fanners and raisers of live stock. Although several made a marked financial success at fruit raising, it was always con- sidered safer to follow it as a side line than as a regular avocation. A horticultural society was formed in 1867, but it languished, and later Jlr. Cupp formed the Mississippi Apple Growers Association at Quincy. Hog Raising and Pork Packing But from the earliest times, corn and hogs were considered "stand- bys." That combination made Quincy and the county quite famous as trade and commercial centers for many years. The most prom- inent figure in that field for several years was Capt. Nathaniel Pease, who came from Cleveland in 1833, although his family lived in Boston. He was an energetic, enterprising and popular Yankee, and his trip to Cleveland and Quincy gave him his first western experience. The captain purchased 300 hogs at Quincy, for which he paid about $15,000. He then had them slaughtered and packed, and sold the pork in the ea.stern markets at a handsome profit. This was the first exportation of pork from Adams County. In the fall of 1834 Captain Pease returned to Quincy with his family and settled permanently. During the packing season he put up 2,500 hogs, for which he paid from one to two cents a pound. His death occurred in 1836, and it was sincerely mourned by the home people with whom he had gained general respect and friendship. The next regular pork packer was 20 QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Joel Eice, and Artemus Ward succeeded him. A hog averaged about 200 pounds in those days, but gradually increased in weight. In the fall of 1836-37 prices also advanced, and fanners were no longer satisfied with Bi/o cents per pound for their pork. But other places were destined to far outstrip Quincy as a packing center, and in the very heyday of her fame the figures were not star- tling. The number of hogs packed during the fifteen years, 1833-48, was as follows : 1833-34, 400 ; 1834-35, 3,500 ; 1835-36, 3,000 ; 1836-37, 5,000; 1837-38, 7,000; 1838-39, 6,000; 1839-40, 10,000; 1840-41, 10,000; 1841-42, 11,000; 1842-43, 12,000; 1843-44, 18,000; 1844-45, 10,000; 1845-46, 15,000; 1846-47, 12,000; 1847-48, 20,000. Adams County Ageicultur.vl Society The first organized movement among the farmers and citizens of Adams County to consolidate their sentiment regarding the ad- vancement of their affairs was in January, 1838. On the sixth of that month a meeting was organized at Columbus for the purpose of forming an agricultural society, at which Maj. J. H. Holton was appointed president and Richard W. Starr, secretary. Hon J. H. Ralston explained the object of the meeting and, with Dunbar Aldrich, Daniel Harrison, Lytle Griffing, Colman Talbot, Stephen Bootlie and James ^lurphy, was named to formulate a constitution. It was pre- sented and adopted at the same meeting, and the following officers were elected: Maj. J. H. Holton, president; J. H. Ralston, Daniel Harrison and Stephen Boothe, vice presidents ; R. W. Starr and Dun- bar Aldrich, secretaries; Col. M. Shuey, treasurer. It would appear that the society was largely of a social organization, and that little effort was at first made to prepare exhibits, as object lessons of progress made and suggestions of future improvements, and it was not until 1854 that the first regular fair was held under its auspices. On October 18th and 19th of that year a vacant tract between Sixth and Eighth, just north of Broadway, inclosed with a pile of fallen trees and brushwood, and closeh- guarded against the invasion of the village boys, was opened to the public. The exhibits and attendance were fully up to expectations, and for a number of years fairs were held by the society at various points in the county. But as time progressed sectional jealousies sapped the strength of the society, and the preponderance of the Quincy element brought about the or- ganization of the Quincy Fair Association. The latter, which pur- chased its own grounds many years ago, vii'tually crowded out the county organization. County Farmers' Institute Organized Tlie second striking advance in agricultural education was made in 1881 at the suggestion of the State Board of Agriculture, when "the Adams Count v Farmers' Institute was organized, bv the election QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 21 of George W. Dean as president, C. S. Hooth, secretary, and A. K. Wallace, treasurer. Mr. Dean himself writes a.s follows: "We had no way to support it except by the encouragement of such men as P. S. Judy (known as "Uncle Phil"), A. K. Wallace, W. A. Booth. S. N. Black and a number of others. With this support it became popular, and instructive meetings were held in October and ilay of each year. We used mostly home talent, securing an expert when we could do so. Our success encouraged other counties to organize and thus an interest was created throughout the state. But being satisfied that it would be impossible to get the best results from a farmei-s' institute at individual expense, a number of interested farm- ers met at the Leland Hotel, Springfield. Illinois, during the Thirty- Tk.\ctor .\t Work ox Adams County F\k.m ninth General Assembly and formulated the bill which chartered the. Illinois Farmers' Institute by an act of the General Assembly. This bill was placed in the hands of Col. Charles F. Mills to look after its passage. Colonel Mills placed the bill in charge of Hon. George W. Dean, then a member of the General As.sembly, with instructions to use all honorable means in his power to have it become a law. The bill was passed. It provided for a Farmers' Institute to be held in each county, not less than two days in each year. The next General As.sembly appropriated $50 to every county in the state that held an institute and holds one or more institutes each year. In every state in the Union the farmers' institute is protected by law. "The farmers employ the best available talent at their institutes, which makes it expensive, costing from $30 to $2")0 each. Considering this, the P"'orty-sceond General Assembly increase.:. ■■^ » <•• i^i^^^^ '•"'" HjUPfeliii - ^mm^ mm> ^msf^ j^p;. • ► ^^ Jtf' ilHi^ in^ 1^ ista^^ Arrow Heads from the Mississippi Valley commands a sweeping view of the city from the south, with the ^lis- sissippi River in the background. As to these structures of the days and ages long gone, illustrated by local remains, the late Gen. John Tillson, of Quincy, has written as follows, his paper being called forth by an editorial in the Quincy Commercial Review commenting on certain statements made by Doctor Rice before the Wisconsin Historical Society: "Editor Re- view — In your issue of February 16th reference is made to a report of Doctor Rice, of Wisconsin, in regard to the origin and use of the so-ealled mounds scattered throughout the Mississippi Valley, in which he asserts that the.y are the remains of huts — residences — and that their use as places of sepulture was by a later race than that which erected them. It is also said that this is a new theory. There is therefore a good deal that is probable and considerable that is in- correct. First, as to the novelty of the theory; it is not new. It has been the belief of the earlier examiners of these remains, long prior QUINCY AND ADA3IS COUNTY 33- to the birth of Doctor Rice of the Wisconsin Historical Society, that the great mass of the mouuds found in the "West (with an exception to be noted hereafter) were built for and used as residences — places for living — with occasionally a larger one for public use, such as a fort, place of worship or council. "The material of their construction may have been wood — now completely decayed — but much more probably was of earth, as, near most of the mounds, can be observed an excavation like that near a brick-kiln or a railroad embankment, from which the soil appears to have been removed. Jlost of these mounds have a depression in the center, just such as would appear where tlie walls of a building bad crumbled down and the roofs, of lighter material and less bulk, had dropped when less supported. If this theory is to be considered, the walls were of great thickness, for the reason that they were both the Jiouses and defenses of the frail, scattered fragments of an almost exterminated race — the race which research has almost conclusively proven of higher civilization than their successors — swept from ex- istence by the Indian. "The exception to which I allude above is this: That the iso- lated, conical mounds on high points of the bluffs were undoul)tedIy for burial purposes only. They were the monumental resting places of honored and eminent men ; and Doctor Rice is no doubt correct in his statement that the moldercd huts of these long-gone builders were used by a succeeding race as places of burial. This is an Indian cus- tom almost to the present day. But as to the other mounds, those not on the bluff peaks, their outline, so far as can be ascertained, is usually rectangular, with. the depression in the center above named. Their location, like those found near Bear Creek, Jlill Creek and in the Redmond field south of Quincy on land just above overflow, was ac- cessible from the river and yet concealed therefrom. The utensils found therein, and all the surroundings, point to the plausibility of their having been domestic abodes. "Another feature, sometimes noticeable, is that the tree growth from these mounds is often of a character unlike that found in the adjacent country ; the evident product of some nuts, seeds or vege- table l)rought from afar and left in the hut, sprouting and growing clusters of trees not natural to the soil around. "The examination of these vestiges of a long-gone race made half a century or more ago was more exhaustive and better based than any that can be made now. It was made by skilful, learned and curious men who saw them in far lietter preservation than they are at pres- ent, before civilization had aided time in their destruction and when, as is not the ease now, all the Indian traditional historj* was at hand to throw its wavering light upon the subject. The best-based theory heretofore generally accepted as to the past occupation of this con- tinent is that races existed here advanced in civilization beyond any that have succeeded them, until its discover^' by Europeans; races contemporan- in improvement with Greece and Rome, but f;ir oaMier 34 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY in point of time; and that they were swept from supremacy by a vandalism such as burst upon Europe centuries ago; that, just as theirs was inferior to European civilization, so more effectually have their memorials been extinguished and, unlike European civilization, no sufScient vitality remained to conquer their conquerors. "The mound builders were the probable successors of a more highly cultivated stock, the remains of whose existence are found throughout Southern North America. In time, they were swept from the land by the modern Indian, whose centuries of existence, even before the withering presence of the white man premonished his extermination, have been marked by no solitary evidence of ad- vancement (Not applicable to the present statue of the educated Indian of Oklahoma and other sections of the United States — Ed- itor). That the Indian built none of these mounds except those on the heights before mentioned is almost sure; that they have made use of those built by their predecessors is equally certain; and that most of these mounds were houses or forts is more than probable. ' ' It is recorded that Marquette and Joliet met many Indian tribes in their journeys of discovery in the Mississippi Valley, whose vil- lages were scattered along its high eastern bluffs, and it is certain that about July, 1673, the pious and intrepid priest at least passed the site of the present city of Quincy. Whether he actually landed in tliat locality is not known. The Indians found in Illinois by Marquette and Joliet belonged to the Algonquin family ; and there was undying hatred between the Iroquois of the East and Algonquius of the Northwest. The Illixois Indian Confederacy The Illinois Indians formed a loose confederacy of about half a dozen tribes, the chief of which were the Metchigamis, the Kaskas- kias, the Peorias, the Cahokias and the Taraaroas. In addition, there were the Piankashaws, the Weas, the Kickapoos, the Shawnees and probably other tribes, or remnants, who occupied Illinois soil for longer or shorter periods. The first iive tribes are probably all who should be included in the Illinois Confederacy. The Metchigamies were found along the Mis.sissippi River. Their principal settlement was near Fort Chartres. They also lived in the vicinity of Lake Michigan, to which they gave their name. They were allies of Pontiac in the war of 1764, and perished with other members of the Illinois Confederacy on Starved Rock, in 1769. The Kaskaskias were originally found along the upper courses of the Illinois River, and it was among the members of this tribe that Marquette planted the first mission in Illinois. They moved from the upper Illinois to the mouth of the Kaskaskia River in 1700, and founded there the old City of Kaskaskia, which eventually became the center of French life in the interior of the continent. During the following century the Kaskaskias occupied the region at and Illinois Indians at Beginning of the Nineteenth Century 36 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY about their city, but in 1802 were almost exterminated by the Shaw- nees at the battle near the Big Muddy, Saline County. The Kaskas- kias afterward moved to a reservation on the lower Big Muddy, and eventually to the Indian Territory. The Cahokia and Tamaroa ti-ibes were merged with the Kaskaskias under one chief. The Peorias made their home in the region of Lake Peoria and were always quiet and peaceable. The Piaukashaws, a small tribe of the iliami confederation, first resided in Southeastern Wisconsin, and after the misadventure at Starved Rock moved to the Wabash River, and eventually to a Kansas reservation and to the Indian Territory. They were alwaj's very friendly to the white settlers. Although the Miamis and the Pottawatomies were familiar to the early settlers of Western Illinois and Adams County, they were not settled representatives of the red men in those sections of the state, but rather made their appearance as warriors or hunters. The Kickapoos seemed to have been intimatelj- associated with the Miamis and Pottawatomies in the Indian campaigns against St. Clair, Wayne and Taylor. They were bold marauders and warriors, and were in special force at the batttle of Tippecanoe. They were scattered throughout the Illinois country, but for fifty years before the Edwardsville treaty of 1819 held strong sway over the eastern part of what is now the state, and in the late '20s, when the bulk of the first permanent white settlers were arriving in the present Adams County, still occupied the soil of that region with undis- puted title to its possession among the people of their own race. They were also located at some localities along the Mississippi. The Kickapoos, as a tribe, first acknowledged the authority of the United States at the treaty mentioned, which was signed July 30, 1819. A month later, the Government concluded a treatj^ at Vin- eennes with a smaller division of the Kickapoos, known as the tribes of the Vermilion River, who chiefly claimed territoi'y embracing the county by that name. Thus relinquishing all title to their lands in Illinois, the Kickapoos honorably observed their contracts and moved as a body to their western lands, although weak remnants of the tribe lingered until the early '30s on several favorite camping grounds. A few' of them were also found wandering along the shores of the Mis- sissippi. The location of the mounds in the neighborhood of the Quiney bluffs points to the facts that its commanding site gave it favor as a residence and center of primitive people. When the first settlers commenced to locate in the early '20s the Indians were quite nu- merous in the neighborhood, and some time before they had quite a village there. It had been often sighted by the lumbermen as they floated past on their rafts as well as by half-breed boatmen and their Indian crews. The latter were usually composed of Sacs and Kicka- poos. It is probable that the Indian village on the site of Quiney consisted largely of Kickapoos, Ql'IXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY ' 37 "Poor One Kickapoo Me" A story is told by one of the early river men who frequeuted the locality before Quiiicy was placed on the map that upon one occasion in coming up the Mississippi River, about opposite the present site of the place, the Sac boatmen (and they were all of that tribe, ex- cept one Kickapoo) heard that one of their people had been killed by the Kickapoos. It was solemnly decided by the Saukces that the solitary Kickapoo among them must be killed in retaliation. So they informed the trembling Indian that be must die. He was allowed to go into the woods (the boat then being tied up at the shore) and sing his death song, his captors watching him closely to be sure that he did not escape. The white man, who was the owner of the cargo of goods and who told the story, said that he never heard such doleful strains as came from the poor Kickapoo, who supposed he was sing- ing his death song. The words, in broken English, were mainly these: "O-o-o. poor one Kickapoo mc; whole heap of Saukcel O-o-o, poor one Kickapoo me, whole, whole heap of Saukee ! O-o-o, poor one Kickapoo me, whole, whole, whole heap of Saukee!" The nar- rator did not at first realize the bloody intentions of the Sacs, but, when he did, managed to effect the escape of "poor one Kickapoo me." Commenting on this story, a writer sympathetically adds: "I have never, since hearing tliis story, seen a crowd set upon one man without any justification, but what I have thought of that one poor Kickapoo surrounded by a whole heap of Saukees." CHAPTER IV COUNTY HISTORY IX THE MAKING Under French Dominion — Joleet and I\Iarquette on Illinois Soil — ^Legendary I\Ionsters of the Mississippi Valley — The "Piasa" Bird — Marquette and Joliet Get Desired Information — Return Via the Illinois River — Last Days op RLvrquette — La S^ille Consolidates French Empire in America — Brave and F^uthful ToNTi — Commercial Venture into Illinois Country — Afloat on THE Kankakee — La Salle Meets the ILvskaskia Indians — Builds Fort Crevecoeur Below Peoria— Sends Father Henne- pin to Upper IMississippi — The Disasters at Starved Rock and Fort Crevecoeur — La Salle's Second Voyage — At the Mouth of the Mississippi — Messenger Sent to France — Deaths of La Salle and Tonti — Permanent Pioneer Settlements of Illinois — Fort Chartres, Center of Illinois District — First Land Grant in District — Life at the Pioneer French Illinois Settlements — Under the Crown and the Jesuits — Kaskaskia, Illinois Jesuit Center — Fortunate and Progressive Illinois — The English Invade the Ohio V.u^ley — French Rebuild Fort Chartres — Illinois Triumphs Over Virginl\ — New Fort Chartres in British Hands — First English Court of Law in Illinois Country — Pontiac Buried at St. Louis — L.vst of Fort Chartres — "Long Knives" Capture Kaskaskia — Did Not War on "Women ^ustd Children" — Bloodless Capture op Cahokia AND VlNCENNES — ClARk's LiTTLE ArMY REORGANIZED COMBINED Military and Civil Jurisdiction — County of Illinois, West of the Ohio River — Col. John Todd, County Lieutenant- American Civil Government Northwest of the Ohio — Illinois as a Territory — Bond Law Protect^ Home Seekers — State Ma- chinery Set in IMotion — Illinois Counties in 1818 — Wild Cat Banking — Slavery Question Again — The Famous Sangamon Country — Duncan and the Free School Law — Illinois Inter- nal Improvements — Capital Moved to Springfield — Remains of Internal Improvement System — Constitution of 1848 — Legis- lative Lessons Through Experience — Real Wild Cat Banks — National Banks Force Out Free Banks — The Constitution of 1870. As tlie greater includes the less, the past enlightens the present and, with the enveloping background kept in mind, the present is prophetic of the future, the study even of somewhat restricted history has gath- 38 QUIXCY AXU ADAilS COUNTY 39 ercd both dignity and charm. Therefore it is that to fully uiuicrstaiid the storj' of Adams County development, the writer of today feels called upon to preface it by creating a background of general history dealing with the explorations and discoveries of the Mississippi Valley, and the evolution therein of French, English and American phases of civilization. Thus the Illinois Country, Illinois County, Illinois Ter- ritorj', Illinois State and Adams County gradually evolve, and the reader is prepared to consider the details of that section of the com- monwealth with broad understanding and a deeper interest than if he had been suddenly cast into the minutise of the subject. Under French Dominion What was the old Northwest Territory, between the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, and what are now the State of Illinois and Adams County remained under French dominion for nearly a century — from the historic voyages of ^larquette and Joliet, in 1672-73, to the sur- render of Fort Chartres to the English in 1765. These pioneers of French discovery revealed to the world two great waterways from their northern domain to the portentous Father of Watei-s, which was discovered to cleave a new continent in twain, instead of being either diverted to the South Seas or the Atlantic Ocean. Their as- cent of the Illinois, on their return voyage, as a shorter and easier route between the Great Lakes and the Great River, was significant of the commencement of an era which marked the trend of the most wonderful development in North America of everj- material and in- tellectual force which advances the civilization of the white man of the "Western Hemisphere. The grand march of French exploration and discover}' up the valley of the St. Lawrence, through Cartier and Cliamplain; around the fringes of the upper Great Lakes and gradually into the out- lying country by the same far-seeing, brave and patriotic Chaini)laiii ; the wonderful combination of church and state, which penetrated the wilderness, subdued its savages both by the mysteries of Catholi- cism, gentle and brotherly offices and the pageantry of a gorgeous government — all these successive steps leading to the voyages of Mar- quette and Joliet which drove the wedge into the very center of the American continent and commenced to let in the light of the world, have been so often told that they comprise the common knowledge of the reading universe. Joliet .\nd ^I.vrquette on Illinois Soil A landing on Illinois soil wa.s effected on their trip down the Mississippi, in June, 1673. On the 17th of that month their canoes, containing Joliet, Marquette, five French l)oatmen, or voyagours, and two Indian guides, shot from the mouth of th<' Wiseonsin into the broad Mississippi. The voyagers were filled with a joy unspeakable. ^Iarquettk in the Illinois (.uuntky QUIXCY AND ADA^klS COUNTY 41 The jouruey now begau down the stream without any ceremony. Marquette made accurate observations of the lay of the land, the vegetation and the animals. Among the animals he mentions are deer, moose, and all sorts of tisli, turkeys, wild cattle, and small game. Somewhere, probably below Rock Island, the voyagers discovered footprints and they knew that the Illinois were not far away. Mar- quette and Joliet left their boats in the keeping of the live French- men and after prayers they departed into the interior, following the tracks of the Indians. They soon came to an Indian village. The chiefs received the two whites with very great ceremony. The peace pipe was smoked and Joliet, who was trained in all the Indian lan- guages, told them of the purpose of their visit to this Illinois country. A chief responded and after giving the two whites some presents, among which were a calumet and an Indian slave boy, the chief warned them not to go further down the river, for great dan- gers awaited them. ^larquette replied that they did not fear death and nothing would please them more than to lose their lives in God's sers'ice. After promising the Indians they would come again, they retired to their boats, accompanied by 600 warriors from the village. They departed from these Indians about the last of June and were soon on their journey down the river. Legendary Monsters op the Mississippi V.vlley As they moved southward the bluffs became quite a marked feature of the general landscape. After passing the mouth of the Illinois River, they came to unusually high bluffs on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. At a point about six miles above the present City of Alton, they discovered on the high smooth-faced bluffs a very strange object, which Marquette describes as follows: "As we coasted along the rocks, frightful for their height and length, we saw two monsters painted on these rocks, which startled us at tirst, and on which the boldest Indian dare not gaze long. They are as large as a calf, with horns on the head like a deer, a frightful look, red eyes, bearded like a tiger, the face somewhat like a man's, the body covered with scales and the tail so long that it twice makes the turn of the body, passing over the head and down between the legs, and ending at last in a fish's tail. Green, red, and a kind of black are the colors employed. On the whole, these two monsters are so well painted that we could not believe any Indian to have been the designer, as good painters in France would find il hard to do as well ; besides this, they are so high upon the rock that it is hard to get conveniently at them to paint them." The "Pias.v" Bird In an early day in Illinois, the description of these monsters was quite current in the western i)art "f the state. So also was a tra- 42 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY dition that these monsters actually inhabited a great cave near. It described, however, but a single monster and but a single picture. The tradition said that this monster was a hideous creature with wings, and great claws, and great teeth. It was accustomed to devour every living thing which came within its reach; men, women, and children, and animals of all kinds. The Indians had suffered great loss of their people from its i-avages, and a council of war was held to devise some means by which its career might be ended. Among other schemes for its extermination was a proposition by a certain young warrior to the effect that upon the departure of the beast on one of its long flights for food he would volunteer to be securely tied to stakes on the ledge in front of the mouth of the cave, and that a sufficient number of other warriors of the tribe should be sta- tioned near with their poisoned arrows so that when the bird should return from its flight they might slay it. The Piasa Bird This proposition was accepted and on a certain day the bird took its accustomed flight. The young warrior who offered to sacrifice his life was securely bound to strong stakes in front of the mouth of the cave. The warriors who were to slay the beast were all safely hidden in the rocks and debris near. In the afternoon the monster was seen returning, from its long journey. Upon lighting near its cave, it discovered the young warrior and immediately attacked him, fastening its claws and teeth in his body. The thongs held him securely and the more it strove to escape with its prey the more its claws became entangled in the thongs. At a concerted moment the warriors all about opened upon the monster with their poisoned arrows, and before the beast could extri- cate itself, its life blood was ebbing away. Its death had been com- passed. The warriors took the body and, stretching it out as to get a good picture of it, marked the form and painted it as it was seen by Marquette. Because the tribes of Indians had suffered such QIIXCV AND ADA.MS COUNTY 43 destruction of life by tiiis monster, an edict went forth that every warrior who went by this bluff should discharge at least one arrow at the painting. This the Indians continued religiously to do. In later yeai-s when guns displaced the arrows among the Indians, they continued to shoot at the painting as they passed and thus it is said the face of the painting was greatly marred. Judge Joseph Gillespie, of Kdwardsville, Illinois, a proliHe writer and a man of unimpeachable character wrote in 1883 as follows: "I saw what was called the picture sixty years since, long before it was marred by quarrymen or the tooth of time, and I never saw any- thing which would have impressed my mind that it was intended to represent a bird. I saw daubs of coloring matter that I supposed exuded from the rocks that might, to very impressible people, bear some resemblance to a bird or a dragon, after they were told to look at it in that light, just as we fancy in certain arrangements of the stars we see animals, etc., in the constellations. I did see the marks of the bullets shot by the Indians against the rocks iu the vicinity of the so-called picture. Their object in shooting at this I never could comprehend. I do not think the story had its origin among the Indians or was one of their supei-stitions, but was introduced to the literary world by John Russell, of Bluff Dale, Illinois, who wrote a beautiful story about it." The bluff has long since disappeared through the use of the stone for building purposes. Marquette .\xd Joliet Get Desired Ixform.vtion As Marquette and Joliet proceeded down the river they passed the mouth of the Missouri, which at that time was probably subject to a great flood. When considerably below the mouth of the Kaskaskia River they came to a very noted object — at least the Indians had many stories about it. This is what is known today as the Grand Tower. This great rock in the Mississippi causes a gi'cat commotion in the water of the river and probabh- was destructive of canoes in those days. On they went down the river past the mouth of the Ohio, into the region of semi-tropical sun and vegetation. The cane-brakes lined the banks, and the mosquitoes became plentiful and very annoying. Here also, probably in the region of ^reinphis, they stopped and held councils with the Indians. They found the Indians using guns, axes, Iioes, knives, beads, etc., and when questioned as to where they got these articles, they said to the eastward. These Indians told the trav- elers that it was not more than ten days' travel to the mouth of the river. They proceeded on down the river till they reached Choctaw Bend, in latitude 33 degrees and 40 mimites. Here they stopped, held a conference, and decided to go no fuither. They justified their return in the following maimer: First, they were satisfied that the Missis-sippi emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, 44 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY and not into the Gulf of California, nor the Atlantic Ocean in Vir- ginia. Second, they feared a conflict with the Spaniards, who occu- pied and claimed the Gulf coast. Third, they feared the Indians of the Lower Mis.sissippi, for they used firearms and might oppose their further progress south. Fourth, they had acquired all the informa- tion they started out to obtain. Return via the Illinois River And so, on the 17th of July, 1674, they turned their faces home- ward. They had been just two months, from May 17th to July 17th, on their journey. They had traveled more than a thousand miles. They had faced all forms of danger and had undergone all manner of hardships. Their provisions had been obtained en route. France owed them a debt of gratitude which will never be fully paid. Indeed not only France, but the world is their debtor. Nothing of interest occurred on their return journey until they reached the mouth of the Illinois River. Here they were told by some Indians that there was a much shorter route to Green Bay than by way of the Upper Mississippi and the Wisconsin and Fox portage. This shorter route was up the Illinois River to the Chicago poi'tage, thence along Lake Michigan to Green Bay. Marquette and Joliet proceeded up the Illinois River. When passing by Peoria Lake they halted for three days. While here Marquette preached the gospel to the natives. Just as Marquette was leaving they brought him a dying child which he baptized. When in the vicinity of Ottawa, they came to a village of the Kas- kaskia Indians. Marquette says there were seventy-four cabins in the village and that the Indians received them kindly. They tarried but a short time and were escorted from this point up the Illinois and over the Chicago portage by one of the Kaskaskia chiefs and several young warriors. While in the village of the Kaskaskias, Marquette told the story of the Cross to the natives, and they were so well pleased with it that they made him promise to return to teach them more about Jesus. Marcjuette and Joliet reached Green Bay in the month of September, 1673. Probably they both remained here during the ensuing winter. In the summer of 1674, Joliet returned to Quebec to make his report to the governor. On his way down the St. Lawrence, his boat upset and he came near losing his life. He lost all his maps, papers, etc., and was obliged to make a verbal report to the governor. Last Days op Marquettte Father Marquette remained in the mission of St. Francois Xavier through the summer of 1674; and late in the fall started on his jouniey back to Kaskaskia. The escort consisted of two Frenchmen and some Indians. They reached the Chicago portage in the midst Ql'INCY AND ADA.MS COUNTY 4.3 of discouraging uiriumstaneo.s. The weather was severe and Father Marquette, sick uuto death, was unable to proceed further. On the banks of the Chicago Kivcr they built some huts and here the part}' remained till spring. During the winter Father Marquette did not suffer for want of attention, for he was visited bj- a number of Indians and iiy at least two prominent Frenchmen. By the la.st of ]\Iarch he was able to travel. He reached the Kas- kaskia Village .Monday, April 8, 1675. He was received with gi-eat joy by the Indians. He established the mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Seeing he could not possibly live long, he returned to St. Iguace by way of the Kankakee portage. He never lived to reach Mackinaw. He died the 18th of ^May, 1675. This expedition by ilarquette and Joliet had carried the lilies of France nearly to the Gulf of Mexico. The Indians in the great plains between the Great Lakes and the gnlf had been visited and the re- sources of the countrj- noted. There remained but a slight strip of territory over which the banner of France had not floated, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. If this short dis- tance were explored, then the French government would have com- pletely surrounded the English colonies in North America. Chevalier de La Salle came to America in the year 1667. Shortly after arriving in this country he established himself as a fur trader at a trading post called La Chine, on the Island of Jlontreal. Here he came. in contact with the Indians from the Far West. Within two years he had departed on an exploration. For the next two or three years he had probably visited the Ohio River and had become quite familiar with the country to the south and west of the Great Lakes. L.\ S-VLLE CONSOLID.MES FrENCH EmPIRE IX AMERIC.V Count Frontenac built a fort on the shore of Lake Ontario where the lake sends its waters into the St. Lawrence River. La Salle was put in charge of this fort. He named it Fort Frontenac. The pur- pose of this fort was to control the fur trade, especially that from up the Ottawa, and prevent it from going to New York. In 1674 La Salle went to France and while there was raised to the rank of a nol)le. The king was greatly pleased with the plans of La Salle and readily granted him the seigniory- of Fort Fi-ontenae, together with a large quantity of land. For all this La Salle promised to keep the fort in repair, to maintain a garrison equal to that of Montreal, to clear the land, put it in a state of cultivation, and continually to keep arms, ammunition and artillery in the fort. He further agived to pay Count Frontenac for the erection of the fort, to build a church, attract Indians, make grants of land to settlers and to do all for the ultimate purpose of furthering the interest of the French government. La Salle returned from France and was perhaps at Fort Frontenac when Joliet passed down the lakes in the summer of 1674. The next 46 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY year he began the improvement of his fort. For two years he pros- ecuted a thriving trade with the Indians and also engaged in farming, ship-building, cattle-raising, and study. The fall of 1678 found him in France with a request that the king grant him permission to explore the western part of New France and if possible find the mouth of the Mississippi River. La Salle had matured plans by which New France was to be connected with the western country by a line of strong fortifications. Fort Prontenac was the first step in this plan. He there explained how easy it would be to reach the region of the Great Lakes by the St. Lawrence route or by the Mississippi. There is no doubt that both Frontenac and La Salle wished to transfer the emphasis from the converting of the Indians to that of the conquest of teri-itory for France, and to the more profitable business, as they saw it, of commerce. Frontenac had therefore strongly endorsed La Salle and his plans. Through Colbert and his son. La Salle succeeded in getting his patent from the king. Brave and Faithful Tonti While in France La Salle met Henri de Tonti, an Italian who had just won distinction in the French army. His father had been engaged in an insurrection in Italy and had taken refuge in France where he became a great financier, having originated the Tontine system of life insurance. Henri de Tonti had lost a hand in one of the campaigns, but he was nevertheless a man of great energj', and destined to win for himself an honored name in the New World. La SaUe returned to New France in 1678, bringing with him about thirty craftsmen and mariners, together with a large supply of military and naval stores. It can readily be seen that La Salle would be opposed by the merchants and politicians in the region of Quebec and Montreal. He had risen rapidly and was now ready to make one of the most pretentious eiforts at discovery and exploration that had been undertaken in New France. Late in the fall of 1678, probably in December, he sent Captain La Motte and sixteen men to select a suitable site for the building of a vessel with which to navigate the upper lakes. Captain La Motte stopped at the rapids below Niagara Falls and seems to have been indifferent to his mission. La Salle and Tonti arrived the 8th of January, 1679. The next day La Salle went above the falls, probably at Tonawanda Creek, and selected a place to construct the vessel. Tonti was charged with building the vessel. It was launched in May, 1679, and was christened the Griffin (Griffon). It was forty- five to fifty tons burden and carried a complement of five cannon, and is supposed to have cost about $10,000. An expedition of traders had been dispatched into the Illinois country for the purpose of traffic, in the fall of 1678. Tonti and a small party went up Lake Erie and were to await the coming of the La Salle Starts for the Illinois CouNTRy 48 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Griffin at the head of the lake. The Griffin weighed anchor August 7, 1679, amid the booming of cannon and the chanting of the Te Deum. It arrived at what is now Detroit on the 10th, and there found Tonti and his party. The vessel reached Mackinaw on the 27th of August. Here La Salle found the men whom he had dispatched the year before to traffic with the Indians. He found they had been dissuaded from proceeding to the Illinois country by the report that La Salle was visionary and that his ship would never reach Mackinaw. Tonti was given the task of getting these men together, and while he was thus engaged, La Salle sailed in the Griffin for Green Bay. Green Bay had been for several years a meeting place between white traders and explorers, and the Indians. When La Salle reached the point, he found some of the traders, whom he had sent ahead the year before. These traders had collected from the Potta- watomies large quantities of furs. For these furs La Salle exchanged a large stock of European goods with Vhich the Griffin was loaded. It is said that he made a large sum of money in this transaction. The Griffin was loaded with these furs and made ready to return to the warehouses at Niagara. « Commercial Venture into Illinois Country On September 18th, the Gi'iffiu, in charge of a trusted pilot, a supercargo and five sailors, started on the return voyage. La Salle on the 19th of September, 1679, with a company of fourteen persons in four birch bark canoes, loaded with a blacksmith's forge, car- penter's tools, merchandise, arms, provisions, etc., started on his journey for the Illinois country. He coasted along the western shore of Lake iliehigau. Their provisions were exhausted before they reached the present site of Milwaukee. They had been forced ashore three times to save their boats and their lives. They now went in search of food and fortunately found a deserted Indian village with plenty of corn. They appropriated the corn, but left some articles as pay. The next day the Indians returned and fol- lowed the whites to their boats and it was only by presenting the calumet that La Salle was able to appease them. From Milwaukee they coasted south past the mouth of the Chicago River and following the southerly bend of the lake reached the mouth of the St. Joseph River November 1, 1679. ' This had been appointed as the meeting place of the two expeditions — the one under La Salle and the one under Tonti. La Salle was anxious to get to the Illinois country, but he also desired the help of Tonti, and as the latter had not yet arrived, La Salle occupied the time of his men in building a palisade fort which he named Fort Miami. Near by, he erected a bark chapel for the use of the priests, and also a storehouse for the goods which the Griffin was to bring from Niagara on its return. Tonti arrived at Fort Miami on the 12th of November with only a portion of his company, the rest remaining behind to bring word QUIXCY AND AD.\iIS COUNTY 49 of the GriflSn. La Salle was not impatient to proceed, and dispatch- ing Tonti for the rest of his crew waited for his return. The ice began to form and fearing the freezing over of the river, La Salle ascended the St. Joseph in search of the portage between the Kan- kakee and the St. Joseph. He went up the St. Joseph beyond the portage and while searching for it was overtaken by a courier who told him Tonti and his party were at the portage farther down the river. This point is supposed to have been near the present city of South Bend, Indiana. Here was now assembled the party which was to become a very historic one. There were in all twenty-nine Frenchmen and one Lidian. Among them were La Salle, De Tonti, Fatliers Louis Hennepin, Zonobc :Membre, Gabriel de La Ribourde, La Metairie (a notary) and De Loup, the Indian guide. They crossed the portage of three or four miles under great difficulties, dragging their canoes and their burdens on sledges. The ice was getting thick and a heavy snow storm was raging. Afloat on the Kank.vkee By the 6th of December. 1679, the expedition wa.s afloat on the Kankakee. For many miles the eountiy was so marshy that scarcely a camping place could be found, but soon its members emerged into an open region of the country, with tall grass and then they knew they were in the Illinois eountrj-. They suffered from lack of food, having killed only two deer, one buffalo, two geese, and a few swans. As they journeyed on they pas.sed the mouths of the Iroquois, the Des Plaines, and the Fox. They passed the present site of Ottawa and a few miles below they came to the Kaskaskia village where ilar- quette had planted the mission of the Immaculate Conception in the summer of 1675. Father Allouez had succeeded Marquette and had spent some time at the Ka.skaskia village in 1676. and in 1677 he returned. But on the approach of La Salle, Allouez had departed, for it was understood that almost all of the Jesuit priests were opposed to La Salle's plans of commercializing the interior of North America. The Kaskaskia Indians were themselves alisent from the village on an expedition to the Southland, as was their winter custom. La Salle Meets the Kaskaskia Ixdiaxs This Kaska.skia village of four hundred lodges was uninhabited. The huts were built by covering a long arbor-like frame work with mats of woven rushes. In each lodge there was room for as many as ten families. In their hiding places, the Indians had secreted large quantities of corn for the spring planting and for sustenance until another crop could be raised. La Salle's party was so sorely in need of this com that he decided to appropriate as much as they needed. This he did. taking 30 minots. On January 1. 1680. after ma.ss by Father Hennepin, they departed do\ni the Illinois River. On the Vol. 1-4 50 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY morning of the 5th they had arrived at the outlet of what we call Peoria Lake. Here they saw large numbers of boats and on the banks wigwams and large numbers of Indians. The Indians were much disconcerted upon seeing La Salle's party land, and many fled while a few held communication with the new comers. La Salle held a consultation with the chiefs and told them of his taking their corn and said that if he were compelled to give up the com he would take his blacksmith and his tools to the next tribe, the Osages, whereupon the Indians gladly accepted pay for the corn taken and offered more. La Salle told them he wished to be on friendly terms with them, but that they must not expect him to engage in conflicts with the Iroquois whom his king regarded as his children. But if they would allow him to build a fort near, that he would defend them, the Kas- kaskias, against the Iroquois if they were attacked. He also told them he wished to know whether he could navigate a large boat from that point to the mouth of the Mississippi River, since it was very difficult as well as dangerous to bring such European goods as the Indians would like to have from New France by way of the Great Lakes, and that it could not well be done by coming across the Iroquois country, as they would object, since the Illinois Indians and the Iroquois were enemies. The Kaskaskia chiefs told La Salle that the mouth of the Missis- sippi was only twenty days' travel away and that there were no, obstructions to navigation. Certain Indian slaves taken in battle said that they had been at the mouth of the river and that they had seen ships at sea that made noises like thunder. This made La Salle more anxious to reach the mouth of the river and take possession of the country. The chiefs gave consent to the construction of the fort and La Salle had a bright vision before him. This vision was sadly clouded on the morrow when an Indian revealed to him the visit to the chiefs, on the night before, of a Miami chief by the name of Monso who tried to undermine the influence of La Salle. He said La Salle was deceiving them. In a council that day he revealed his knowledge of the visit of ^lonso and by great diplomacy won the Kaskaskia chief to his cause the second time. It was supposed this chief Monso was sent at the suggestion of Father Allouez. Four of La Salle's men deserted him and returned to the region of Lake Michigan. Builds Fort Crevecoeur Below Peori.\ La Salle, fearing the influence of the stories among the Indians, upon his men, decided to separate from them and go further down the river where he could construct his fort and built his boat. On the evening of the 15th of January, 1680, La Salle moved to a point on the east side of the river three miles below the present site of Peoria. There on a projection from the bluffs he built with considerable labor Ql'INCY AND ADAMS COUXTY 51 a fort whicli received the name of Creveeoeur. This was the fourth of the great chain of forts which La Salle had constructed, namely: Fort Frontenac at the outlet of Lake Ontario; Fort Tonti on the Niagara River; Fort ^liami at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, and Creveeoeur below Lake Teoria on the Illinois River. Fort Creveeoeur is currently believed to have been so named because of the disheartened frame of mind of La Salle, but this would not be complimentary to the character of the man. It is now rather believed to have been so named in honor of Tonti, since as a soldier in the Netherlands he took part in the destruction of Fort Creveeoeur near the Village of Bois le Due in the year 1672. In addition to the building of the fort, La Salle began the con- struction of a vessel with which to complete his journey to the mouth of the river. The lumber was sawed from the timber and rapid progress was made. The keel was 42 feet long, and the beam was 12 feet. While this work was in progress and during the month of Februarj' several representatives of tribes from up the ^lissis-sippi and down the Mississippi, as well as from the ^liamis to the North- east, came to consult with La Salle. His presence in the Illinois country was known near and far. The Indians from the Upper Mississippi brought tempting descriptions of routes to the western sea, and al.so of the wealth of beaver with which their country abounded. Sends Father Hennepin to Upper Mississippi La Salle desired to make a visit to Fort Frontenac for sails, cordage, iron, and other material for his boat; besides he was very an.xious to hear something definite about the Griflfin and its valuable cargo. But before embarking on his long journey he fitted out an expedition consisting of IMichael Ako, Antony Auguel, and Father Hennepin, to explore the Upper Mississippi. Michael Ako was the leader. They started February 29th, passed down the Illinois River and thence up the Mississippi. They carried goods worth a thou- sand livre.s, which were to be exchanged for furs. Father Hennepin took St. Anthony for his patron saint, and when near the falls which we know by that name he set up a post, upon which he engraved the cross and the coat of arms of France. He was shortly captured by the Indians, and was later released by a French trader, De Lhut. He then returned to France. The Dis.vster .\t St.\rved Rock .\nd Fort CRE^'EcoEt'R Before starting for Frontenac, La Salle commissjoiifd Tonti to have charge of the Creveeoeur fort, and also to build a fort at Starved Rock. On March 1st, the day following the departure of Ako and Hennepin for the Tapper Mississippi, La Salle departed, with three companions, for Fort Frontenac. This was a long, dangerous, and 52 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY discouraging journey. Every venture wliieli he had engaged in seems to have failed. After finally getting together supplies such as were needed he started on his return journey. He was continually hearing stories from the travelers of the desertion of Crevecoeur. When he came within a few miles of the Kaskaskia village he began to see signs of destruction. On arriving at the village, nothing but a few blackened posts remained. The Iroquois Indians had made a campaign against the Illinois Indians, aud their trail could be traced by death and destruction. When La Salle left the locality of Starved Rock for Fort Creve- coeur, on his way from Canada, he passed the Iroquois on one side of the river, and the Illinois on the other. He searched everywhere for Tonti, but could find no trace of him. He came to Crevecoeur about December 1, 1680, and found the fort deserted and the store- house plundered; the boat, however, was without damage. La Salle went to the mouth of the Illinois River in search of Tonti, but with- out success. He returned to Fort Miami in the spring of 1681. Here he began the organization of all the Indian tribes into a sort of confederation. La S-^lle's Second Voyage Upon the approach of the Iroquois, shortly after the departure of La Salle from Fort Crevecoeur, in March, 1680, Tonti and his party were scattered far and near. Tonti and Father Membre made their way to Green Bay, and from there to Mackinaw. La Salle heard of them here and went immediately to them. Another expedi- tion was organized. La Salle, Father Membre and Tonti visited Fort Frontenac, where supplies were procured, and late in December, 1681, the expedition had crossed the Chicago portage. There were in this company fifty-four people — twenty-three Frenchmen and thirty- one Indians. They passed the Kaskaskia Village near Starved Rock, but it was in ruins. On January 25, 1682, they reached Fort Crevecoeur. The fort vtSLS in fair condition. Here they halted six days, while the Indians made some linn bark canoes. They reached the Mississippi February 6th. After a little delay the}'- proceeded down the river, passed the mouth of the ^Missouri, and shortly after that a village of the Tamaroa Indians. The village contained 120 cabins, but they were all deserted. La Salle left presents on the posts for the villagers when they returned. Grand Tower was passed; later, the Ohio. At the Mouth op the Mississippi The trip to the mouth of the Mississippi was without special interest. They reached the mouth of the river in April, and on the 9th of that month erected a post, upon which they nailed the arms of France wrought from a copper kettle. A proclamation was QUINCY AND ADAilS COUNTY 53 prepared by the notary, Jacques de la Mctairie, and read. It recited briefly their journey to the country drained by tlie Mississippi and its tributaries. On April 10th the party began the return journey. La Salle was stricken with a severe illness and was obliged to remain at Fort Prudhomme. whicli liad been erected on the Chickasaw blulTs, just above Vicksburg. Touti was sent forward to look after his leader's interests. He went by Fort Miami, but found everything in order. He reached Mackinaw July 22d. Messenger Sent to Fr.\nce La Salle reached Creveeoeur on his way north. He left eight Frenchmen here to hold this position. He reached Fort Miami, and thence passed on to ^lackinaw. He then sent Father ^loubre to France to report his discovery to the king, while he himself set about the building of Fort St. Louis, at Starved Rock, on the Illinois. The detachment left by La Salle at Creveeoeur was ordered north to Fort St. Louis, and he began to grant his followers small areas of land in recognition of their services with him in the past few years. The fort was completed and in March, 1683, the ensign of France floated to the breeze. The tribes for miles in circuit came to the valley about the fort and encamped. La Salle patiently looked for French settlers from New France, but they did not come. During the absence of La Salle at the mouth of the ^lississippi, Count Frontenae had been superseded by Sieur de la Barre, who had assumed the duties of his office October 9, 1782. He was not friendly to La Salle's schemes of extpnding the possessions of France in the New World. La Salle suspected, in the summer of 1683, that the new governor was not in sympathy with him. After a great deal of fruitless correspondence with the new governor, La Salle repaired to France to lay before the king his new discoveries, as well as plans for the future. De.\ths op La Salle and Tonti Tonti was displaced as commander at Fort St. Louis and ordered to Quebec. La Salle not only secured a fleet for the trip to the mouth of the Mississippi, but also had Tonti restored to command at Fort St. Louis. La Salle sailed to the Gulf in the spring of 1685. He failed to find the mouth of the river and landed in what is now Texas. After hardships and discouragements almost beyond belief, he was murdered by some of his own men the latter part of March, 1687. La Salle went to France in the summer of 168.3 and left Tonti in charge of his interests in the Illinois country. Tonti was active in the defense of his superior's interests. In this duty he was forced to defend the Illinois country against the Iroquois and to struggle 54 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY against La Salle's fenemies iii New France. He made expeditions of trade and exploration throughout all the western country, took part in a great campaign against the Iroquois, and was the life of a growing community around Fort St. Louis. The death of La Salle occurred in the spring of 1687. Just one year previous to this Tonti had made a trip to the Gulf in search of La Salle, but, failing to find him, returned sorrowfully to Fort St. Louis. In September, 1688, Tonti heard definitely of the death of La Salle. In December of that year he organized an expedition to rescue the colonists whom La Salle had left on the coast of the Gulf. This expedition also proved a failure. For the next ten years Tonti remained in the region of the lakes, but when Bienville began planting new settlements near the mouth of the Mississippi River, Tonti abandoned Fort St. Louis and joined the new settlements. He died near Mobile in 1704. Permanent Pioneer Settlements of Illinois The death of La Salle in 1687 and of Tonti in 1704 concluded the most romantic chapter of the early French explorations which prepared the way for permanent settlement and the solid satisfac- tion of home-building. Without going into the rather intricate claims as to the priority of the pioneer settlements of Illinois which assumed permanence, it will be conceded that Kaskaskia was for several generations the most notable. The Mission of the Immaculate Con- ception founded there by Father Marquette, with the fertile lands in that region, eventuated in drawing thither not only the soldiers of the cross, but French traders and agriculturists. The Indians and Frenchmen who came to Kaskaskia in the eighteenth century built their huts by weaving grasses and reeds into frameworks of upright poles set in rectangular form. The roofs were thatched. The ground was very rich, and a sort of rude agriculture was begun. In those days the French were just taking possession of the mouth of the Mississippi, and Kaskaskia became quite an important inter- mediate port of call for fresh supplies. The trading with the Indians was also a large factor in the building up of the place, which was located on the west bank of the Kaskaskia, six miles from the IMississippi. Cahokia, its rival, situated a short distance below the present city of East St. Louis, was also a mission and a trading post, but it met with a setback quite early in its history. The village was first built on the east bank of the Mississippi, on a little creek which flowed across the rich alluvial bottoms, but by 1721 the river had carved a new channel westwai-d, leaving the village half a league from free water communication. The little creek also took another course, and Cahokia was left decidedly inland. The Mississippi River has swept away even the site of Kaskaskia, and Cahokia is little more than a name. QUINCY AND ADAilS COUNTY 55 Fort Ciiartres. Center of Illinois District Fort Chai'tres, which was situated sixteen miles nortliwest of Kaskasia, was founded in 1718 and became the military and the civil center of the Illinois district of Louisiana, and so continued for nearly half a century. As completed, its outer structure con- sisted of two rows of parallel logs tilled between with earth and limestone, the latter quarried from an adjacent cliff. It was sur- rounded on three sides l)y this two-foot wall, and on the fourth by a ravine, which during the springtime was full of water. The fort was barely completed when there arrived one Renault, a representative of the Company of the West (a creation of the famous John Law), the director-general of the mining operations of that concern, which were designed to reinforce the uncertain finances of France, laborers, and a full complement of mining utensils. Among his force were also several hundred San Domingo negroes, whom he had bought on his way to Louisiana to work the mines and plantations of the province. Those whom he brought to the Illinois district were the original slaves of the State of Illinois. Renault made Fort Chartres his headquarters for a short time, and from here he sent his expert miners and skilled workmen in every direction, hunting for the precious metals. The bluffs skirt- ing the American Bottoms on the east w'ere diligently searched for minerals, but nothing encouraging was found. In what is now Jackson, Randolph, and St. Clair counties the ancient traces of furnaces were visible as late as 1850. Silver Creek, which runs south and through iladison and St. Clair counties, was so named on the supposition that silver metal was plentiful along that stream. Failing to discover any metals or precious stones, Renault turned his attention to the cultivation of the land in order to support his miners. First Land Grant in District On May 10. 1722, the military commandant. Lieutenant Bois- briant, representing the king, and Des Usins, representing the Royal Indies Company (the Company of the West), granted to Charles Davie a tract of land five arpents wide (58.35 rods) and reaching from the Kaskaskia on the east to the Jlississippi on the west. This is said to have been tlie fii-st grant of land made in the Illinois district in Louisiana. The next year, June 14th, the same officials made a grant to Renault of a tract of land abutting or facing on the Mississippi more than three miles. This tract contained more than 13.000 acres. It reached back to the bluffs, probably four to five miles. It is said the grant was made in consideration of the labor of Renault's slaves, probably upon some work belonging to the Company of the West. This grant was up the Jlissi.ssippi three and a half miles above Fort 56 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Chartres. The village of St. Phillipe was probably started before the grant was made — at least, the village was on the grant. As soon as Fort Chartres was complete there grew up a village near by, which usually went by the name of New Chartres. About the year 1722 the village of Prairie du Kocher was begun. It was located near the bluffs, due east from Fort Chartres about three and a half miles. It is said that some of the houses were built of stone, there being an abundance of that material in the bluffs just back of the village. To this village there was granted a very large "common," which it holds to this day. The common is about three miles square and lies back of the village, upon the upland. There were probably, as early as 1725, five permanent French villages in the American Bottom, namely : Cahokia, settled not earlier than 1698, and not later than 1700; Kaskaskia, settled in the later part of the year 1700 or in the beginning of the year 1701 ; New Chartres, the village about Fort Chartres, commenced about the same time the fort was erected, 1720; Prairie du Rocher, settled about 1722, or possibly as late as the grant to Boisbriant, which was in 1733; St. Phillipe, settled very soon after Renault received the grant from the Western Company, which was 1723. The villages were all much alike. They were a straggling lot of crude cabins, built with little, if any, reference to streets, and con- structed with no pretension to architectural beauty. The inhabitants were French and Indians and negroes. Life at the Pioneer French Illinois Settlements The industrial life of these people consisted of fishing and hunt- ing, cultivation of the soil, commercial transactions, some manu- facturing, and mining. The fishing and hunting were partly a pas- time, but the table was often liberally supplied from these sources. The soil was fertile and j-ielded abundantlj^ to a very indifferent cultivation. Wheat was grown and the grain ground in crude water mills, usually situated at the mouths of the streams as they emerged from the bluffs. And it is said one windmill was erected in the bottom. They had swine and black cattle, says Father Charlevoix, in 1721. The Indians raised poultry, spun the wool of the buffalo and wove a cloth, which they dyed black, yellow, or red. In the first thirty or forty years of the eighteenth century there was considerable commerce carried on between these villages and the mouth of the river. New Orleans was established in 1718 and came to be in a very early day an important shipping point. The gi-ist mills gi'ound the wheat which the Illinois farmers raised on the bottom lands, and the flour was shipped in keel boats and flat- boats. Fifteen thousand deer skins were sent in one year to New Orleans. Buffalo meat and other products of the forest, as well as the produce of the farms, made up the cargoes. Considerable lead was early shipped to the mother country. The return vessel brought &t Uutil // kr-^^ yi.u- OF Amekicax Buttum and Old French Villages 58 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY the colomsts rice, sugar, coffee, mauufactured articles of all kiuds, tools, implements, and munitions of war. Under the Crown and the Jesuits In 1720 a financial i^anic struck France, and John Law was forced to flee from the country. The Company of the Indies kept up a pretense of carrying on its business, but in 1732, upon petition by the company, the king issued a proclamation declaring the com- pany dissolved and Louisiana to be free to all subjects of the king. There were at this time (1732) about 7,000 whites and 2,000 negro slaves within the limits of the Louisiana territory. The rules of the "Western Company had been so exacting that many of the activities of the people had been repressed. Every one seems to have been held in a sort of vassalage to the company. Now the territory was to come directly under the crown. In 1721 the whole of the Mississippi Valley had been divided into nine civil jurisdictions, as follows : New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Alabama, Natchez, Yazoo, Natchitoches, Arkansas, and Illinois. "There shall be at the headquarters in each district a commandant and a judge, from whose decisions appeals may be had to the superior council established at New Biloxi." Breese's "Histoiy of Illinois" gives a copy of an appeal of the inhabitants of Kaskaskia to the pro- vincial commandant and judge relative to the grants of lands to individuals and to the inhabitants as a whole. The religious life of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and other French vil- lages was quite free from outside influence. By the third article of the ordinance issued by Louis XV in 1724, all religious beliefs other than the Catholic faith were forbidden. The article reads as follows : ' ' We prohibit any other religious rites than those of the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church; requiring that those who violate this shall be punished as rebels, disobedient to our com- mands." This ordinance also made it an offense to set over any slaves any overseers who should in any way prevent the slaves from professing the Roman Catholic religion. Kaskaskia, Illinois Jesuit Center ' By an ordinance issued in 1722 by the council for the company, and with the coasent of the Bishop of Quebec, the province of Louisiana was divided into three spiritual jurisdictions. The first comprised the banks of the ilississippi from the Gulf to the mouth of the Ohio, and including the region to the west. The Capuchins were to officiate in the churches, and their superior was to reside in New Orleans. The second spii'itual district comprised all the terri- tory noi'th of the Ohio, and was assigned to the charge of the Jesuits, whose superior should reside in the Illinois, presumably at Kaskaskia. The third district lay south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi QUIXCY AND ADA^ilS COUNTY 59 River, and was assigned to tlie Carmelites, the residence of tlie supe- rior being at Jlobile. Each of the three superiors was to be a grand vicar of tho Bishop of Quebec. The Carmelites remained in charge of their territory south of the Ohio ouly till the following fall. December, 1722, when they turned over their work to the Capuchins and returned to France. As evidence of the activity of the Jesuits in the territory which was assigned to them, we are told they had already, in 1721, cstal)- lished a monastery in Kaskaskia. It is stated in Monette's "Missis- sippi Valley" that a college was also there about the year 1721. Charlevoix, quoted by Davidson and Stuve, says: "I pa.ssed the night with the missionaries (at Cahokia), who are two ecclesiastics from the seminary at Quebec, formerly my disciples, but they must now be my masters. Yesterday I arrived at Kaskaskia about 9 o'clock. The Jesuits have a very flourishing mission, which has lately been divided into two." All descriptions which have come down to us of the conditions in the Illinois country- in the first part of the eighteenth centurj- represent the church as most aggressive and pros- perous. Civil government certainly must have passed into "innocu- ous desuetude" by 1732. The government was very simple, at least until about 17:J0. Fi'om the settlement in 1700 up to the coming of Crozat there was virtually no civil government. Controversies were few, and the priest "s influ- ence was such that all disputes which arose were settled by that personage. Recently documents have been recovered from the court- house in Chester which throw considerable light upon the question of government in the Fi-eneh villages, but as yet they have not been thoroughly sorted and interpreted. The Company of the West realized that its task of developing the Territory of Louisiana was an unprofitable one, and they sur- rendered their charter to the king, and Louisiana became, as we are accustomed to say, a royal province by proclamation of the king, April 10, 1732. FORTUX.VTE .\N'D PROGRESSIVE ILLINOIS The two efforts, the one by Crozat and the other hy the Company of the West, had both resulted in failure so far as profit to either was concerned. Crozat had spent 425,000 livres and realized in return only 300,000 livres. And although a rich man, the venture ruined him financially. The Company of the AVest put thousands of dollars into the attempt to develop the territory, for which no money in return was ever received. But the efforts of both were a lasting good to the territorj' itself. Possibly the knowledge of the geography of the country which resulted from the explorations in search of precious metals was not the least valuable. Among other things these two efforts brought an adventurous and energetic class of people into Illinois. 60 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY For many years after 1732, wlieu Louisiana became a royal province, the Illinois country, or district, was spared many of the hardships of war which so distressed and retarded the French domain both north and south of it. The massacre at Natchez and the cam- paigns against the Natchez and Chickasaw Indians, which ravaged the southern country for a decade, were events of this character. The French and the Indians north of the Ohio were on very good terms, and the settlements in the Illinois country grew rapidly, especially after 1739, with the subjugation of the turbulent Indians who had so interfered with the free navigation of the Mississippi. Neither did King George's war, which broke out between France and England in 1714, disturb the even progress of the western country. In the fall of 1745 the rice crop of Lower Louisiana was almost ruined by storms and inundation, which misfortune worked to the advantage of Illinois by creating an unusual demand for its wheat and flour. The English Invade the Ohio V.illey . King George's war, which had its origin in European political complications, closed in 1748. The treaty which closed the war pro- vided for the return of Louisburg to the French, and all other possessions of England and France in America to remain as they were prior to the war. It could easily be seen that the next struggle between the French and the English would be for the permanent control of the Ohio Valley and the adjacent territory east of the Mississippi River. The English had never relaxed in their deter- mination to possess the Ohio Valley. In 1738 a treaty was made at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, between English commissioners and three Indian chiefs representing twelve towns in the vicinity of the Wabash. The piirpose of the treaty was to attach the Indians north of the Ohio to the English cause. The Ohio Land Company was formed in 1738. It contained residents of England and Virginia. It received from King George II a grant of a half million acres of land on and about the Ohio River. They were given the exclusive right of trading with' the Indians in that region. In 1749 the governor general of Canada sent Louis Celeron, a knight of the Military Order of St. Louis, to plant lead plates along the valley of the Ohio, which might eventually prove French pri- ority of occupation of this territory. Several of the plates were afterward unearthed. In 1750 Celeron wrote a letter to the governor of Pennsylvania, warning him of the danger of his people who might trespass upon the French possessions along the Ohio. In 1752 agents of the Ohio Company established a trading post within a few miles of the present site of Piqua, Ohio. In the sa;ne year the French and Indian allies destroyed this post, killing fourteen Twightwees Indians, who were under a treaty with the English. Logstown, about eighteen miles below the forks of the Ohio, was settled in 1748 by QUIXCY AND ADAJ^IS COUNTY Gl the English, and in 1752 a treaty was made tliere in which the Indians ceded certain rights and privileges to the English. The iYench began in 1753 to build a line of forts from the lakes to the Mississippi by way of the Ohio and its tributaries from the North. The first fort was located at Presque Isle (now Erie, Penn- sylvania) ; the second one was Fort Le Boeuf, on French Creek, a branch of the Alleghany. The third was called Venango, at the mouth of the French Creek. From here they pushed south and found some Englishmen building a fort at the junction of the Alle- ghany and Monongahcla. The French drove the Englishmen from the place and finished the fort and named it Fort Dmiuesne. This was the fourth fortification in the line of forts reaching from the lakes to the 5Ii.ssissippi River. The French and Indian war was now fairly l>egun, and we shall return to the Illinois to see wliat part this region was to play in this final contest for supremacy between the two great powers of the Old World. Frexch Rebuild Fort Chartres "We have called attention to the activity of the French in I)uilding forts on the Upper Ohio to secure that region from the English. The same activity marked their preparations in the West for the impending struggle. Fort Chartres had been originally of wood. There never were manj' soldiers stationed there at a time — only a few score soldiers and officers — but following King George's war it was decided to rebuild Fort Chartres on a large scale. The old fort had been hastily constructed of wood. The new fort wa.s to be of stone. It was planned and constructed by Lieut. Jean B. Saussier, a French engineer, whose descendants lived in Cahokia many years, one of whom. Dr. John Snyder, recently lived in Virginia, Ca.ss County, Illinois. When complete it was the finest and most costly fort in America. The cost of its construction was about ."Isl, 500,000, and it .seriously embarra-s-sed the French exchequer. The stones were hewn, squared, and numl)ered in the quarries in the bluff just opposite, about four miles distant, and conveyed across the lake to the fort in boats. The massive stone walls enclosed about four acres. They were 18 feet high and about 2 feet thick. The gateway was arched, and 15 feet high ; a cut-stone platform was aJ>ove the gate, with a stair of nineteen steps and balustrade leading to it: there were four bastians, each with forty-eight loopholes, eight embrasures, and a sentiy box, all in cut stone. Within the walls stood the storehouse, 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, two stories high: the guardhouse, with two rooms almve for chapd and missionary quarters; the government house. 84 by 32 feet, with iron gates and a stone porch; a coach house, pigeon house, and large well, walled up with the finest of dressed rock: the intendant's house; two rows of barracks, each 128 feet long: the magazine, which is still .stand- ing and well prescr\-ed. 35 by 38 and 13 feet high: bake ovens; four 62 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY prison cells of cut stone; one large relief gate on the north. Such was the pride of the French empire, and the capital of New France. Illinois Triumphs Over Virginia The fort was scarcely completed when the French and Indian war broke out. In May, 1754, George Washington and his Virginia riflemen surprised the French at Great ileadows, where Jumonville, the French commander, was killed. A brother of the slain French commander, who was stationed at Fort Chartres, secured leave from Makarty, in command there, to avenge liis death. Taking his com- pany with him, they proceeded to Fort Duquesne, and there, gather- ing some friendly Indians, they attacked Washington at Fort Neces- sity, which was surrendered on July 4th. This was the real beginning of the old French war. Flushed with victory, the little detachment returned to Fort Chartres and celebrated the triumph of Illinois over Virginia. In the French and Indian war the demand upon Makarty at Fort Chartres for men and provisions became incessant — in fact, Fort Chartres became the principal base of supplies in the West. In 1755 Captain Aubrj' was sent to reinforce Fort Duquesne with 400 men. The fort held out for some time, but later Colonel Washington compelled its abandonment. New Fort Chartres in BRmsH Hands The power of the French began to wane. They maintained the struggle gallantly, however, and made one more desperate effort to raise the siege of Fort Niagara. They failed. The flower of Fort Chartres went down at Niagara. The surrender of Canada soon followed, but Fort Chartres, now called New Fort Chartres, still held out for the French king. They hoped that they would still be considered with Louisiana and remain in French territory. Their disappointment was bitter when they learned that on Feb- ruary 10, 1763, Louis XV had ratified the treaty transferring them to Great Britain. While the French at Fort Chartres were waiting for a British force to take possession, Pierre Laclede arrived from New Orleans to settle at the Illinois, bringing with him a company representing merchants engaged in the fur trade. Learning of the treaty of ces- sion, he decided to establish his post on the west side of the Mississippi, which he still believed to be French soil. He selected a fine bluff sixty miles north of Fort Chartres for the site of his post, and returned for the winter. In the spring he began his colony, and was enthusiastic over its prospects. Many of the French families followed him, wishing to remain under the French flag. Their dis- appointment was still more bitter when they learned that all the French possessions west of the Mississippi had been ceded to Spain. This is now St. Louis. QUIXCY AND ADA.MS COUNTY 63 The elder St. Ange, who had been at Vinccnnes, returned to take part in the last aet. Though the temtory had been transferred to King George, the white flag of the Bourbons continued to fly at Fort Chartres, the last place in Ameriea. The Indian chief Pontiac was another power not taken into confidence at the treaty. Pon- tiac loved the French, but detested the English. "When the English companies, under Loftus, Pitman, and Morris, respect ivelj', came to take ])ossession, each was balked by the wily red man. Chief Pontiac gathered an army of red men and proceeded to Fort Chartres, where he met St. Ange and boldly proposed to assist him in repelling the English. St. Ange plainly told him that all was over, and advised him to make peace with the English. Fort Chartres was finally surrendered to Captain Stirling on October 10, 1765. The red cross of St. George replaced the lilies of France. St. Ange and his men took a boat for St. Louis, and there enrolled in the garrison under the Spanish, which St. Ange was appointed to command. First English Court of L.\w in the Illinois Country The first court of law was established at Fort Chartres in Decem- ber, 1768, Fort Chartres becoming the capital of the British province west of the Alleghanies. Colonel AVilkins had a.ssumed command under a proclamation from General Gage, and, with seven judges, sat at Fort Chartres to administer the law of England. After the surrender by the French the church records were removed to Kas- kaskia. The records of the old French court were also removed there. Pontiac Buried at St. Louis A constant warfare had been kept up by the Indians until Pontiac was killed near Cahokia by an Illinois Indian. Pontiac 's warriors pursued the Illinois tribe to the walls of Fort Chartres, where many of them were slain, the British refusing to assist them. St. Ange recovered the body of Pontiac, and it was buried on the spot now occupied by the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, a memorial plate marking the place. Last of Fort Ciiaktres In 1772 high water swc])t away one of the bastions and a part of the western wall of Fort Chartres. The British took refuge at Kaskaskia, and the fort was never occupied again. Congress, in 1778, reserved to the Goveniment a tract one mile square, of which the fort was the center. But this reservation was opened to entry in 1849, no provision being made for the fort. "Long Knives" C.vpture Kaskaskia What manner of military rule and civil government the English established over the Illinois countrj- has been described in general; 64 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY theii' dominion lasted but thirteen years. During the progress of the Revolutionary war it became evident to the American colonies that the capture of the British military posts northwest of the Ohio River was a step which could not long be delayed, and Governor Patrick Henry, in behalf of Virginia, authorized Lieut.-Col. George Rogers Clark to organize an expedition for that purpose in Januarj', 1778. In May, with seven companies of fifty meu each, recruited in Western Virginia and Kentucky, he commenced his journey down the Monongahela and Ohio, and in the following month disembarked at old Fort Ma.ssac, ten miles below the mouth of the Tennessee River, on the north side of the Ohio. He hid his boats in the mouth of a small stream which enters the Ohio from Massac- County a short distance above the fort. The expedition now made preparations to march overland to Kaskaskia, aboiit a hundred miles distant. Because of the inefSciency or treachery of the guides, the expedition did not reach Kaskaskia until the fourth day of their departure from Fort Massac, at 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Clark divided his anny into two divisions, one of which was to scatter throughout the town QUI.VCY AXD ADA.MS COUNTY 65 and keep the people iu their houses, aud the other, which Clark himself commanded, was to capture the fort, iu which the commander, Chevalier d* Roehel)lave, was asleep. In a very short time the task wa-s tiuished and the people disarmed. The soldiers were instructed to pass up and down the streets, and those who could speak French were to inform tiie inhabitants to remain within their houses. The Virginians aud Kentuckians were in the meantime keeping up an unearthly yelling, for the people of Kaskaskia had understood that Mrginians were more savage than the Indians had ever been, and Clark was desirous that they should retain this impression. The French of Kaskaskia called the Virginians "Long Knives." Did Not W.\r on "Women and Children" On the morning of the 5th the principal citizens were put in irons. Shortly after this Father Gibault and a few aged men came to Clark and begged the privilege of holding services in the church, that they might bid one another good-bye before they were separated. Clark gave his permission in a verj'^ crabbed way. The church bell rang out over the quiet but sad village, and immediately every one who could get to church did so. At the close of the service Father Gibault came again with some old men to beg that families might not be separated and that they might be privileged to take .some of their personal effects with them for their support. Clark then cxjilaincd to the priest that Americans did not make war on women and children, but that it was only to protect their own wives and children that they had come to this stronghold of British and Indian barbarity. He went further and told them that the French king and the Americans had just made a treaty of alliance and that it was the desire of their French father that they should join their interests with the Americans. This had a wonderfully conciliatory effect upon the French. And now Clark told them they were at perfect liberty to conduct them.selves as usual. His influence had been so powerful that they were all induced to take the oath of allegiance to the State of Virginia. Their arms were given back to them and a volunteer company of French militiamen was formed. Kaskaskia was captured on July 4, 1778. On the morning of the 5th occurred the incident previously referred to, relative to the conduct of the priest. Evidently very early in the day quiet was restored and better relations were established between captoi-s and captives. The treaty of alliance between France aud the Cnifed States was explained, and immediately the oath of allegiance to Virginia was taken by the people. Bloodless C.\PTrRE of Cahokia and Vincennes On the same 5th of July an expedition was planned fur the capture of Cahokia. Captain Bowman, with his company, or prob- Vol. 1—5 Bronze Statue of George Rogers Clark, Quincy l^riXCY AND ADAMS lOFXTY 67 al)ly a portion of it, ami a (k-taphim'iit of the French militia, under Freneh officers, together with a niunber of Kaskaskia citizens, made up the armj'. Reynolds .says they rode French ponies. The dis- tanec was sixty miles, and the trip was made by the afternoon of the 6th. At first the people of ("ahokia were greatly agitated and cried, "Long Knives!" "Long Knives!" But the Kaskaskia citi- zens soon quieted them and explained what had happened at Kas- kaskia only two days before. The fort at C'ahokia may have cdiitained a few British soldiers or some French militia. In oitlier case they (juietly surrendered. The oath of allegiance was administered to the people, and the citizens returned to Kaskaskia. For the first few days of Clark's stay in Kaskaskia he and his men talked about the fort at the falls of Ohio and of a dctaciiment of soldiers they were expecting from there every day. This was done for the purpose of making an impression upon the people of Kaskaskia. Clark was a slu'cwd diplomat, as well as a good soldier, and lie suspected tiiat Fatlicr (iiliault was at iieart on the side of the Americans. By conversation Clark learned that the priest was the regular shepherd of the flock at Vincenncs, and evif)ut the village, for he had come with Clark in the campaign of 1778. when the Illinois country was captured from the British. lie is said to have been a soldier with Clark and to have been the first to enter the fort which Roeheblave surrendered. Be that as it may. he arrived now with the authority of the Commonwealth of Virginia behind him. On June 15. 1779. he issued a proclamation wliich provided that no more settlements should be nuide in the bottom lands, and further that each person to whom grants had been made must report his 70 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY claim to the proper officer and have his laud recorded. If his land had come to him througli transfers, then all such transfers must be recorded and certilied to. This was done to prevent those adven- turers who would shortly come into the country from dispossessing the rightful owners of those lands. The country to which Col. John Todd came as county lieutenant was in a very discouraging condition. It had reached the maxi- mum of prosperity about the time the French turned it over to the English, in 1765. Very many of the French went to New Orleans or to St. Louis during the British regime. The English king had attempted to keep out the immigrant. The cultivation of the soil was sadly neglected. The few French who remained were engaged in trading with the Indians. Many came to be expert boatmen. Trade was brisk between the P^rench settlements in the Illinois coun- try and New Orleans. Previous to the coming of Clark and the French gentlemen, Chevalier de Eocheblave, who was holding the country in the name of the British government, had been not only neglectful but really very obstinate and self-willed about carrying on civil affairs. He allowed the courts, organized by Colonel Wilkins, to fall into disuse. The merchants and others who had need for courts found little sat- isfaction in attempts to secure justice. During the time between the coming of Clark and of Todd there were courts organized, but the military operations were so overshadowing that probably little use was made of them. It appears from the records of Colonel Todd that on May 14, 1779, he organized the military department of his work, by appoint- ing the officers of the militia at Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher. and Cahokia. Richard Winston, Jean B. Barbeau, and Francois Trotier were made commandants and captains in the three villages, respect- ively. The next step was to elect judges provided for in the act creating the county of Illinois. Judges were elected at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and at Vincennes, and court was held monthly. There seems to have been a scarcity of properly qualified men for the places, as in many instances militia officers were elected judges, and in one case the ■" deputy commandant at Ka.skaskia filled also the office of sheriff." Colonel Todd found enough work to keep him busy, and it is doubtful if it was all as pleasant as he might have wished. The records which he kept, and which are now in the possession of the Chicago Historical Society, show that severe penalties were inflicted in those days. Colonel Todd held this position of county lieutenant for about three years. During that time he established courts, held popular elections, and executed the law with vigor. There was a deputy county lieutenant, or deputy commandant, in each village, and when Colonel Todd was absent the reins of QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 71 goverumeiit were in tlie hands of one of these deputies. On the oecasion of his al>senee at the time of his death he had left, it seems, Timothy Demountbrun as eounty lieutenant. This man .seems to have been the only cue authorized to rule until the coming of St. Clair in 1790. Americ.\n Civil Government Northwest of the Ohio Virginia ceded her western lands in 1783; in the following year Congress pa.ssed an ordinance which established a preliminary form of civil government north of the Ohio; in 1785 a national system of surveys was adopted, and in 1787 wa.s pa.ssed the famous Ordi- nance of 1787, by which the territory northwest of the Ohio was "made one district for temporary government and provision made for a definite form of government." The first county created by Governor St. Clair, in July of that year, was Wa.shington, with Marietta the seat of government. In January, 1788, the governor and the newly appointed judges visited Losantiville (Cincinnati) and created the county of Hamilton, with that place as the seat of government. Then the governor and secretary proceeded west- ward and. reaching Kaskaskia on March 5, 1790, erected the County of St. Clair, with Cahokia as the county seat. On their return to Jlarietta, Kno.\ County was organized, with Vincennes as the county seat. The St. Clair County thus established included all the territory north and east of the Ohio and the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, and west of a line running from Fort Massac through the mouth of the Mackinaw Creek a short distance below the City of Peoria. The county was divided into three districts, with Ka.ska.skia, Prairie du Rochcr, and Cahokia as centers of administration. Hefore leav- ing. Governor .St. Clair created tlie otifices of slicrift', judges of the court, probate judge, justice of the peaee, coroner, notary, clerk and recorder, surveyor and various military officers, and named the appointees. In 1795, Judge Turner, one of the three Federal judges, came to hold court, and from a contention which he had with the governor, St. Clair County was divided by a line running cast and west through New Design. Cahokia was established as the county seat of the north half, or St. Clair County, and Kaskaskia the seat of govern- ment of the south half, Kandolph County. The Ordinance of 1787 provided that when there should be 5.000 free male whites of the age of twenty-one years in the Northwest Territory they might organize a legislature on the basis of one representative for each 500 whites of the age of twenty-one. This was done in the year 1798. Sliadraeh Bond was elected to represent St. Clair county, and John Edgar. HandoI])h county. The Legis- lature met at Cincinnati on Fcl)ruary 4, 1799. There were twenty- two members in the lower house, representing eleven counties. William 72 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY H. Harrison, who had succeeded Sargeut as secretary of the North- west Territory, was elected a delegate to Congress. In the session of Congress in the winter of 1779-1800 the proposi- tion to di\'ide the Northwest Territory into two territories was referred to a committee of which Harrison was chairman. The report was favorably received by Congress, and on May 7, 1800, The Northwest Territory, 1787 an act was passed dividing the Northwest Territory by a line run- ning from the Ohio to Fort Eecovery, and thence to the line separat- ing the territory from Canada. The western part was to be known as the Indiana .Territory, and its government was to be of the first cla.ss. Its capital was located at Vincennes, and the governor was William Henry Harrison. The eastern division was called the Northwest Territory, its capital was Chillicothe, and Governor St. Clair was still the chief executive. QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 73 The east division was admitted as a state Feliruary 19, 1802. Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and -Mii-higan now became the Indiana Territory. Illinois as a Territory Illinois remained a portion of Indiana Territory from February, 1802, until February, 1801). During that period Viucennes was the capital. The congressional act of February 3, 1809, set off the Territory of Illinois from Indiana by a dividing line running north from Vincennes to Canada. A prominent argument in favor of the division was that the people in the Illinois region were favorable to slavery, while the Indiana people were indifferent to the subject. Several efforts had been made to either strike out the clause in the Ordinance of 1787 forbidding slavery within the Northwest Terri- tory, or suspend its operation for a stated period. By the creative act, Illinois was made a territorj- of the first class, and thus remained until May, 1812, when, under authority of the Ordinance of 1787. it entered the second cla.ss, thus enfran- chising all males over twenty-one years of age, instead of allowing only freeholders to vote. Ninian Edwards, formerly a Kentucky judge, was appointed governor of the new territory, and Nathaniel Pope, secretary, on April 24, 1809. Jlr. Pope was a resident of St. Genevieve, ilissouri, but practiced law in Illinois. Illinois as a territory did not participate in the battle of Tippe- canoe or the War of 1812. but Governor Edwards left nothing \nulone to protect its soil against Indian depredations or British expe. Of course, the constitution j>rovided for the regular division of the Government gUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 77 into legislative, executive and jndicial departments, and the election or appointment of the officials designed to fulfill thi-ir functions. Governor Bond was elected without opposition, largely on the sti'cngth of his authorship of the Pre-emption Act while serving as a territorial delegate of Congress. Following the announcement of the acceptance of the constitution hy Congress, Governor Bond called the Legislature in special session for January 4, 181!). The machinery of the fii-st state government was thus set in motion. In his short and unassuming message the gover- nor recommended the early completion of the canal connecting the headwaters of the Illinois River with Lake Michigan ; the passage of measures to relieve the state treasury, and a modification of the crimi- nal laws in force during the territorial period. But the Legislature went ahead, in its own way, and passed such measures as a code of laws based on the Virginia and Kentucky statutes; levying taxes ou lands owned by nonresidents, and on slaves and indentured servants, and moving tiie capiteauty of the landscape, which nature has here painted in primeval freshness.' " It was most fitting that this beautiful, fertile and invigorating region of Illinois should be first settled by an energetic, enterprising class of freemen and women, constitutionally opposed to the introduc- tion of any form of slavery into their virgin land. DuxcAX AND Free School, Law Joseph Duncan of Jacksonville, afterward congressman aud gov- ernor, secured the passage of the free school law of 1825, -which was the basis of the system of today. For its support, taxes were to be collected on the property of the people in the district, and provision was made for a board of directors who were to have control of the schools and buildings, examine the teachers and have general local oversight of all educational matters of a public nature. In 1826-27 the Legislature provided for better securities from those who were borrowing the money for which the school lands had been sold. But in 1829 the Legislature repealed the part of the Duncan law of 1825 which gave 2 per cent of the net revenue of the State to the schools. Every commendable feature of the Duncan law was now repealed and the schools lay prostrate till 1855. QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 81 The Legislature of 1828-29 also adopted the plan of selling the sehool and seminary lands. The law provided that the sixteenth sec- tion of each township niigh le sold whenever nine-tenths of the inhab- itants (evidently voters) were in favor of the sale. Later thy law allowed the sale if three-fourths were in favor of it. The immigrants coming into an unsettled township were always eager to dispose of the sixteenth section, as it made a fund with which the authorities might assist the schools. But this section when sold for $1.25 per acre, the regular Government price, would bring only .S800, and this at 10 per cent interest would bring only $80 per year. This would not be of much service when distributed among the schools of the township. Joseph Duncan stepped from Congress into the governorship, in 1834, and during his administration was chiefly engaged in wrestling with banking and internal improvement problems, which were so inti- mately connected. In 1837 the state bank, with other similar insti- tutions of the country, suspended specie payments, and in 1843 the Legislature passed a law "to diminish the State debt and put the State Bank into liquidation." The bank was given four years in which to wind up its business. Illinois Ixterxal Improa'ements While the affairs of the state bank and its branches were in chaos, an ambitious system of internal improvements was assumed by the state, despite the opposition of Governor Duncan and the Council of Revision. The bill as prepared by the Vandalia conven- tion to consider internal improvements became a law. It appropriated $10,000,000 for tlia following objects: Improvement of the Wabash, the Illinois, Rock, Kaskaskia and Little Wabash rivers, and the West- ern Mail Route $9,350,000; for railroads— Cairo to Galena. $3,500,000. Alton to :\rount Carmel, $1,600,000; Quiney to Indiana line, $1,800,- 000; ShelbvA'ille to Terre Haute, $650,000; Peoria to Warsaw, $700. 000; Alton to Central Railroad. $600,000; Belleville to Mount Carmel, $150,000; Bloomington to Pekin, $350,000. and Vinccnnes to St. Louis, $250,000; $200,000 "to pacify disappointed counties" which had failed to be promised any improvement whatsoever by the state. In addition, the sale of $1,000,000 worth of canal lands and the issuance of $500,000 in canal bonds were authorized, the proceeds to be used in the construction of the Illinois & ^lichigan Canal. $500,000 of this amount to be t-xtendcd in 1838. A competent historian graphically tells what happened: "Work began at once. Routes were surveyed and contracts for construction let, and an era of reckless speculation began. Large sums were rapidly expended and nearly $6,500,000 quickly added to the State debt. The system was soon demonstrated to be a failure and wa.s abandoned for lack of funds, some of the 'improvemi'nts' already made being sold to private parties at a heavy loss. This scheme furnished the basis of the State debt under which 82 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Illinois labored for mauy years and which, at its maximum, reached nearly $17,000,000." Although as a whole the internal improvements scheme was a dis- aster to the state as a promoter of public works, it was the means of furthering tlie project of a great railroad to be built through central Illinois from north to south, it eventually materialized into one of the splendid railroad systems of the country, being kept alive through private promotion and management. It meant much to Adams County, as will be seen hereafter. Capital Moved to Springfield It was at the same session which originated the internal improve- ments scheme that the Legislature voted to move the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield, Sangamon Count}'. Jacksonville, Peoria and Alton were also competitors. Lincoln led the Sangamon County delegation to victory, its solid support of internal improvements hing- ing largely on the outside backing received as a candidate for the state capital. The legislative act by which the removal was accom- plished went into effect July 4, 1839, and the Legislature convened at the new capitol in December of that year. Remains of Internal Improvements System In 1840 the Legislature abolished the Board of Fund Commis- sioners and the Board of Public Works which had in charge the in- ternal improvements of the state and that loose-jointed system col- lapsed. One fund commissioner was then appointed who was author- ised to act, but was without jiower to sell bonds or to borrow money on the credit of the state. Another Board of Public Works was also created, which, with the fund commissioner, was to wind up pending business without delay, to operate any roads which were near com- pletion, complete the work on the Illinois & Michigan Canal and bum all bonds remaining unsold. The Great Northern Cross Railroad, which was planned to be constructed from Springfield to Quincy, half way across the state to the Mississippi River, had actually been built from the state capi- tal to Meredosia, Morgan County, on the eastern bank of the Illinois River, fifty-eight miles distant. This road, which became a part of the Wabash system, was sold in 1847 to Nicholas H. Ridgly of Spring- field for about $21,000. After the defeat of the convention in 1824 nothing was done toward reviving or amending the state constitution until 1840-41. In the Legislature of that year a resolution was adopted calling on the voters to express themselves relative to a convention at the coming state election in August. The democrats favored such a convention, but when a bill passed the Legislature abolishing the Circuit Court judges and creating five new jiidges on the Supreme bench, all of which QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 83 places were filleil by demoerats, the need of a convention did not seem so apparent. The democrats now controlled the Legislature, the executive and the courts. When the election was held in August the democrats generally voted against the proposition to hold a convention ; hut the whigs later passed another act calling on the people to vote on the (juestion of convention at the general election in August, 1846. The proposition was strongly urged uj)on the people by the democratic press and it was not very generally opposed, and so it carried. Constitution of 1848 The act providing for the constitutional convention determined the number of delegates which should sit therein, the date of their election, which was fixed for the third Monday in April. 1847, and the date of the meeting of the delegates in the convention, the first Monday in June, 1847. There was no special argument against a convention, but several were urged in its favor. There were a number of other changes which were considered dur- ing the canvass i)rocediiig the election in April. When the members came together June 7, 1847, it was found that the whigs and demo- crats were about evenly divided. The convention organized by elect- ing Newton Cloud president and Henry W. Moore .secretary. There were 162 delegates in this body. In the legislative department the following features may be noted in the constitution of 1848 : No member of the General Assembly shall be elected to any other office during his term as a legislator. The Senate shall consist of twenty-five members and the House of seventy- rive members till the state ?hall contain 1,000,000 people. After that an addition of five in each House shall be made for every increase of oOO.OOO until thei-e shall he iiO senators and 100 representatives, when the inimber shall remain stationary. The governor must be a citizen of the United States and tliirty- five years of age, shall be a citizen of the T'nited States fourteen years and have resided in Ihe state ten years. The governor must reside at the seat of government. He shall have the veto power. His salary was .^l.oOO — no more. The secretary of state, auditor and treas- urer shall be elected at the .'•ame time as the governor and lieutenant- governor are chosen. The governor shall i.ssue all commissions. The constitution was completed on August 31, 1847. On March 6, 1848, it was submitted to the jteoplc for ratification. The vote on the constitution stood nearly 60.000 for and nearly 16,000 against. It was declared in force April 1, 1848. By the terms of the document it- self an election .should be held on Tuesday after the first Monday in .November, 1848, for governor and other executive officers, as well as for members of the Legislature. In compliance therewith, in Novem- ber, 1848, Governor French was rc-clcctcd governor for four years from January 1, 1849. 84 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY The new coustitutiou authorized the Legislature to provide for township organization. lu pursuance thereof a law was passed in 1849 which allowed counties, when authorized by a vote of the people, to organize under this new system. This new system of county organ- ization is distinctly a New England product, and was therefore championed by the northern counties, which had been largely settled by immigrants from New England and the Middle States. The Legis- lature on February 12, 1849, passed a general law governing all coun- ties under township organization. This first law was somewhat imper- fect, and has therefore been subject to amendments up to the present time. Legislative Lessons Through Experience In the thirty yeare which had passed since the adoption of its first constitution, the State of Illinois had leai'ued several lessons through the impressive process of distressing experience. Perhaps the most im- portant thus instilled were those connected with reckless expansion of the financial institutions and the public utilities within her borders. I'nder the constitution of 1818 the credit of the state might be used to foster such enterprises as banks, railroads and canals. But the constitution of 1848 says : 'No State bank shall hereafter be created, nor shall the State own or be liable for any stock in any corporation or joint stock association for banking purposes to be hereafter created." It was not possible, therefore, for the state to engage in any banking business or improvement schemes, but it might grant charters, or pass laws, in the encouragement of such enterprises. Further safeguards are thrown around the state, as witness this provision: "No act of the General Assembly, authorizing corporations or associations with banking powers, shall go into effect or in any manner be enforced, unless the same shall be submitted to the people at the general election next succeeding the passage of the same, and be approved by a majority of the votes east at such election for and against such law." Another section of the same article (X) provides that all stockholders in bank- ing associations issuing bank notes should be individually responsible proportionately to the stock held by each for all liabilities of the corporation or association. Since the winding up of the affairs of the old State Bank and the Bank of Illinois there were no banks of issue in the state. The money in circulation comprised gold and silver and paper money issued by banks in other states. Ke-\l Wild Cat Banks Following the ratification of the Constitution of 1848, there began, almost immediately, an agitation for banks of issue in Illinois. The New Yoi-k free banking law had been in operation for a decade. The bank bills were secured by bonds of the United States or state, or mortgages approved by the statue comptroller, in whose hands the (^riXCV AND AUA.MS CULNTV 85 securities were placed. That official issued the bills put in circula- tion, which were (.ountcrsigiied by the bank officers. The bank bills were to be redeemed when presented by the holders within a reasonable time and, if necessary, the comptroller was authorized to sell the bonds deposited with him for that pui-pose aJid wind up the affaii-s of the bank. In the session of 1851 the Legislature passed a law founded on the New York system, and it was ratified at the general election in Novem- ber. Under it, also, no bank could be organized with a smaller issue of bills than $50,000. It was also provided that if any bank refused to redeem its issue, it was liable to a tine of I2V2 per cent on the amount presented for redemption. On the face of it, the law seemed fairly to protect both tlic bank noteholder and the st-ate; but various schemes were worked to keep the people from presenting their bills for redemption. One of the most ingenious was the interchanging of bills between banks in widely sep- arated sections of the country. A bank, say. in Springfield. Illinois, would send $25,000 of its own issue to a bank in ^lassachusetts, say in Boston ; the Boston bank returning a like amount to the Springfield bank. Each bank would then pay out this money over its counter in small quantities and in this way the Springfield bank is.sue would become scattered all over New England and no person holding but a few dollars would think of coming to Springfield to get his bills re- deemed. The issue of the Boston bank would be scattered through the "West. In this way, and in other ways, the money of Illinois be- came scattered in other states, while in the ordinary business trans- action in the state one would handle a large number of bills daily which had been issued in other states. Xo doubt many corporations went into the banking business under this law with clean hands and carried on a properly conducted bank- ing business, but there were ways by which irresponsible and dis- honest men might go into the banking business and make large sums of money without very much capital invested. These banks were known as wild-cat banks. The name is said to have originated from the picture of a wild cat engraved on the bills of one of these irresponsible banks in Michigan. However, they may have been named from the fact that the words "wild cat"' were often applied to any irresponsible venture or scheme. There were, in Illinois, organized under this law. 115 banks of issue. Up to 1860 the "ultimate security" was sufficient at any time to redeem all outstanding bills, but when the Civil war came on the securities of the southern ^■tates, on deposit in the auditor's office, depreciated greatly in value. The banks were going into liquidation rapidly. They redeemed their bills at all prices from par down to 49 cents on the dollar. It is estimated that the bill-holders lost about $400,000. but that it came in such a way that it was not felt seriously. This system of banking was followed by the national banking system with which we are acquainted today. 86 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY The 115 bauks of issue which were iu operatiou iu Illinois just prior to the Civil war issued uearly 1,000 different kinds of bank bills. Because of the large number of kinds counterfeiting was easy, and it is said that much of the money in circulation was counterfeit. Banks received reports as to the condition of financial institutions over the state daily. One never knew when he presented a bill in payment of a debt whether it was of any value. Often the merchant would accept this paper money only when heavily discounted. The agitation of the slavery question, which had centered around the debates on the Missouri Compi'omise and the efforts of the Free Soilers at least to restrict the spread of the institution, swept through Western Illinois, where both Lincoln and Douglas were not unfa- miliar figures. In 1858 they also electioneered in their famous contest for the United States Senate, and one of their most famous debates was held iu Washington Park, Quincy. National Banks Force Out Free Banks In February, 1863, Congress passed an act creating a natioual Ijauking system, and in that year several of the free banks of Illinois changed accordingly. All free banks which had their notes secured by bonds of the seceding states were obliged to furnish additional security, or redeem their notes and suspend. Thus the free banks began to disappear. In March, 1865, Congress passed a law which placed a ta.x on all bills issued by the state banks, which had the effect of forcing the remainder of the free banks out of business, or inducing them to join the ranks of the National banks. The National Banking Law of 1863 is the basis of the system of today. It has been greatly reinforced of late years by the statutes by which bauks are chartered and regulated by the state, and by the National enactments of even later data by which the National banks co-operate and pro- tect the entire financial .system of the countrj:- and especially promote and conserve the vast agricultural interests of the nation. The Constitution of 1870 The coming and progress of the Civil war, and how Adams County participated in it, is told in another chapter. Perhaps the next broad event affecting the county at many points was the adoption of the State Constitution of 1870. It is divided into twenty sections. Briefly, it provides for minority representation and for free schools ; prohibits the paying of money by any civil corporate body in aid of any church or parochial school ; creates fifty-one senatorial districts, each of which is entitled to one senator and three representatives; declares the inviolability of the Illinois Central Railroad tax; lays the basis of the present railroad and warehouse laws; prohibits the sale or lease of the Illinois & Michigan Canal without a vote of the people ; prohibits municipalities from subscribing for any stock in any QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 87 railroad or private corporation ; limits the rate of taxation and amount of indebtedness that may be incurred; prohibits special legislation; authorizes the ercatioii of appellate courts, and fixes th^ salaries of state officers by legislative cnactnu-nt. Since the adoption of the Constitution of 1870, the state as a topic has been broken into so many fragments that it is impracticable to treat it as a whole, and even the history of the county since that time is so divided and subdivided as to be strictly modern in its aspect. It is a most natural and logical ending to this chapter. CHAPTER V SOME YEARS PRECEDING COUNTY ORGANIZATION Illinois Bounty Land Teact and Madison County — Old Pike County — Wood and Keyes "Meet Up" — The Tillsons Speak of Quincy's Founders — The First Man and the First Woman —Agreeable All 'Round — The Old Wood Place — Mrs. Jere- miah Rose, First Quincy White Woman — Keyes and Droulard Settle — The County's First Physician — Gov. John Wood — WiLLARD Keyes— Jeremiah Rose — Asa Tyrer — Old Pike County Votes "No Convention" — Thomas Carlin — County" of Adams Created — IjOcating the Seat of Justice — John Quincy Adams Completely Immortalized. The territory now embraced within the limits of Adams County was originally a very small part of the ^Militai-j- Bounty Land Traet, which was created by Congress in ila}% 1812, and embraced all the country lying between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers as far up as fifteen north of the base line. With other lands in the territories of Michigan and Louisiana (afterward Missouri and Arkansas), that tract was set apart as a bounty to the non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Patriot army, each of whom was entitled to 160 acres, or a quarter section of land. Illinois Bounty Land Tract and JIadison County The Illinois Bounty Land Tract (which comes still closer home) was surveyed by the LTnited States Government during the yeai's 1815 and 1816. The title to that domain remained with the United States until after the distribution of the lands by patents to the respective soldiers entitled thereto. The entire tract, however, was not patented to the soldiers; a large portion of it was subsequently sold by the Government to purchasers outside of that class. The County of Madison, which was organized by proclamation of Governor Edwards March 14, 1812, embraced the entire Illinois ^lili- tary Traet — that is, the country in the present state north of a line beginning on the Mississippi River with the second township above Cahokia, and running ea.st to the Indiana Territory. Old PnjE County An act to form a new county from the Illinois bounty lands was approved on January 21, 1821. It was created as Pike County and 88 QUIXCY AliD ADAMS COUNTY 89 its bouiularii'S were deHiicd as "bcgiiuiing at the mouth of the Illinois River and running thence up the middle of said river to the fork of the same, thence up the fork of the said river until it strikes the state line of Indiana, thence north with said line to the north boundary line of this state, thence west with said line to the west boundary line of this state, and thence with said boundary line to the place of be- ginning." Pike County llitis bounded was to form part of the First Judicial Circuit. The election for county officers which completed the or- PlONEER i.\ii: IX Old Pike t'orxTv ganization nl' (Ud Pike, took place at Cole's Grove (now Gilead), Calhoun County. April 21. 1821. B\- a legislative act ai)j)r()ved December 30, 1822, the County of Pike was again bounded so as to include not only all of the Military Bounty Land Tract south of the ba.seline, but all the rest of the territory within its original limits was still attached to the county for .iudicial and political jxirposes until otherwise disposed of by the General Assembly of the state. From the foregoing record it is evident that from the organization of Madison County in 1812 to the creation of Old Pike in 1821, deeds for lands lying in the Pounty Land Tract were properly recorded in 90 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Madison County; afterward, until the formation of new counties, in Old Pike. When the boundaries of the latter were fixed in Januarj-, 1821, the entire population of that great country could not have ex- ceeded 100 whites, including a few French families on the Illinois River. Wood and Keyes "Meet Up" In the meantime, the founders of Quincy and Adams County were on their way to the new country bordering on the Mississippi. John Wood, a native of Cayuga County, New York, and Willard Keyes, a son of Vermont, young, hardy, ambitious and single, coming west to explore and settle ''met up," as the old phrase runs, in the winter of 1819, and decided, with the opening of navigation, to board a lumber raft and float down the river in a preliminary trip of inspec- tion. As ilr. Keyes says, in a lecture delivered many years afterward before the New England Society: "We floated past the model city (Quincy) on the lOtli of ilay, 1819, unconscious of our future des- tiny in its eventful history." They decided on making camp about thirty miles south of that locality in the American Bottom, and there built a log cabin in what was then ]\Iadison County, subsequently Old Pike. From that vantage point the two young adventurers sallied forth for two or three years and became so familiar with the country, in their quest for permanent homes for themselves, that their paid services were in wide demand to act as guides to strangers seeking locations, or endeavoring to reach tracts alreadj' selected. In February, 1820, with several others. Wood and Keyes started on an exploration through the southern part of the Military Tract. This journey occupied several weeks and carried them along the sec- tions adjoining the Illinois River as far north as the base line, and thence east and south toward the junction of the two rivers. The young leaders wished to inspect that locality, as the published maps of the country, defective though they were, all indicated a high bluff on the river at that point, which would always be above overflow and therefore the only really available locality north of the mouth of the Illinois River for the founding of a town. Wood and Keyes rode borrowed horses, and were fully prepared to lead their party to the promised land, but although it was piloted to the bluff's, their con- fidence and enthusiasm could not be so instilled into their co- travelers so as to induce them to actually visit the proposed site of a new town. On their southern return, the exploring party passed through the belt of timber stretching out into the prairie and known as Indian Camp Point. The locality was a favorite gathering place for fugitive Indians for several years after white settlers were quite numerous. The Wood-Keyes explorers therefore passed within about twelve miles of the present site of Quincy, and when they reached their rendez\'Ous thirty miles south they had been gone eleven days. QUINCY AND ADAMS COrXTV 91 TilE TlLLSUNS Sl'KAK OF (.^L'INX'Y's FoiNDERS The father of the late General Tillsun, who resided in the southern part of the Military Tract at this period, met the founders of Quincy iu the course of his own investigations, and made the following record in one of his journals: "Passed the night with two young baclielors from northern New York, Wood and Keyes by name. These young men propose to be permanent settlers, and have all the requisites of character to make good citizens, such as will add to the character of a community and the development of landed values about them." General Tillson himself, in his "Ili-story of (juincy," continues: "It was on one of the land-seeking excursions, as above named, in February, 1821, that Wood at last struck upon the Inng-tliought-of El Dorado. Piloting two men, Moffatt and Flynn, in search of a quarter section of land owned by the latter, it proved to be the ((uarter section immediately east of and adjoining his present (written in 1857) residence, on the corner of Twelfth and State streets. The primitive beauties of the location touched his fancy ; and lie de- termined that it was just what he desired, and should lie secured, if within his power. It was a disai)p()intment to Flynn, who was im- pres.sed with its loneliness, and said he would not have a neighbor in fifty years. He carried awa\- with him these feelings of dissatis- faction. "On Wood's return to his cabin, he lost no time in pouring into the eager ears of his partner his enthusiastic impressions, and his in- tention of returning to jilant himself for life. Catching the infec- tion, which so blended with his own predilections and desires, Keyes, at his fii"st convenience, borrowed a horse from his nearest neighl)or eight miles distant, going up alone to look at the promised land and -see for himself; he needed but a glance to become convinced that he should seek no further, or, to use his own words, that 'not the half had been told." lie laid out for the night at the foot of tiie hlutf near the river, returned on the following day, aiul thenceforth the purposes of the young adventurers were fixed. Their home was chosen, the site of the future city was selected, and they waited only the opi)ortunity to establish themselves. "These details are given as indicative of the ideas that stinnilated our ancestors in their settlement of the place. Circumstances, as has been seen, conspired to lead them to conceal the profound satisfac- tion which they entertaineerty was in doubt. The Government claimed the land ; so did Mr. Wood, who had purchased his title from Flynn and had made all the improve- ments upon it. He was phmning and preparing to farm it in the spring of 1823, although his legal .status was that of a "squatter," or trespas.ser. Had he been a soldier, with a patent title to this tract of Military- Bounty Lands, his claim would have been beyond question. Lands othcrwi.se occupied in this section were not suljject to entry or purchase until 1820. After the organization of Fulton County January 28, 1823, deeds for lands in the Military Tract, and all east of the fourth principal meridian, were properly recorded in that county until the organization of counties north of Fulton. 94 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Mrs. Jeremiah Rose, First Quincy White Woman 111 March, 1823, Maj. Jei-emiah Rose moved from Pike County, with his wife and child, and moved into Wood's cabin. Mrs. Rose was the first white woman to settle in Quincy and her daughter, afterward ]\Irs. George W. Brown, the first child. Mr. Wood boarded with the famil}', and the change from his own cooking and general domestic service to the home life offered him by the Rose family was doulitless welcome. In the spring the men broke and put under tillage about thirty acres of the land which Wood had purchased of Flynn and which he had fenced. This tract, which was first to be cultivated in the vicinit.v, was located on what would now be on both sides of State Street just east of Twelfth. During the year 1823 there was little immigration, although a few settlers dropped in at scattered points throughout the county. Asa Tyrer, who had been searching a location in the American Bottom since the summer of 1820 and taken passage for a point below on the Western Engineer, the first steamboat that ever stopped at the Quincy riverfront, located a homestead in Melrose Township, southeast of the present site, and erected a little blacksmith shop there. Rather it was part of the log cabin, to which he brought his family in the fol- lowing year. Keyes and Droulard Settle In 1824, also, Willard Keyes returned to the locality and erected a cabin on the part of the tract which he had obtained from Flynn, near what is now- Vermont and Front streets. John Droulard, an- other real accession to the neighborhood, settled at about the same time, fixing his residence near the corner of Seventh and Hampshire streets. Referring to Keyes and Droulard, General Tillson says: "This settlement of Keyes was a 'squat'; the term in those days applied to a location or residence on Government land not yet subject to entry, and was in opposition to laws which forbid such settlement and occupation. Mr. Keyes hoped, however, to obtain a pre-emption under the law which would entitle him to priority in purchase when the land became subject to sale. But the fact of its being fractional and the subsequent taking it for the county seat under the provisions of a law which reserved any quarter section from private entry that had been selected as a county seat, before its offer for sale, spoiled the hopes of the pioneer. He cared little about this, because it was mainly through him that the county seat was located where it now is, to the sacrifice of his immediate interests in the land on which he lived. This rough, little cramped cabin became a prominent build- ing, because put to many public uses in those early days. It was the 'temple of justice' where the first courthouse was held. It was the place for public assemblages where the early officials met and the QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 95 primitive organizations were matured. Sometimes it served lor re- ligious meetings (like Wood's eabin. half a mile south). It was a general free hotel for the wanderer and the wayfarer, and the tempo- rary stopping plaee of the immigrant with his family, until he could make his permanent location in the neighborhood. This was the second house built in (^lincy. "In the fall of this year (1824) came John Droulard, a French- man and a shoemaker by trade, who had served in the army. lie became the owner of the northeast quarter of Section 2, Township 2 south. Range 9 west — the 160 acres now in the center of the city lying immeiliately east of the fractional quarter on whidi Keyes had settled ; bounded by Broadway and Twelfth Street on the north and east, on the west by the alley runninfr from Maine to Hampshire between Si.xth and Seventh streets, and on the south by a line nearly half way between Kentucky and York streets. This was a choice piece of property which, in a few years. Droulai-d frittered away. Tic erected a cabin near the northeast corner of what is now Jersey and Eighth streets, a little west of w!iere the gas works are situated. These three houses — Wood's, Keyes' and Droulard's — were the only build- ings in the place in 1824." The County's Fir.st Physici.\n A Dr. Thomas Baker, the first physician to settle in Adams County, arriv.'d during the summer of 1S24, and established himself about two miles .south of the blufV. He was a learned and skillful man. A few years later, he moved north into what is now Mercer County, and shortly afterward was kicked to death by his horse. Tliere were less than 100 settlers in the country within a range of thirty miles from Messrs. Wood, Keyes, Rose (with his family), Drou- lard and Doctor Baker. In fact, the census taken during the follow- ing year gave the combined population of Adams and Hancock coun- ties as only 192. It is evident that Messrs. Wood, Keyes and Rose comprised, dur- ing the pioneer years preceding county organization and for .some time afterward, the local Triumvirate of leadership, and a pause is here taken to .set forth their lives somewhat in detail. Governor John Wood John Wood, who jH-oveil to be the largest figure of tlie three, was the first settler of Quincy, a leader in all constructive movements in the advancement of the town, cit.v and count.v, and when in his seven- tieth year served a.s governor of tlie .state, its 'luarteriiiaster general during the Civil war and commander of a Union brigade at the front. He was a man of unbowndi'd energy, as well as of generosity, and his financial ability enabled him to follow almost to the limit of his de- sires the humane and benevolent bent of his disposition. Governor 06 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Wood was born in Moravia, Cayuga County, New York, on December 20, 1798, and was the only son of Dr. Daniel and Catherine (Crouse) Wood. His father was an officer in the Revolutionary war, a man of large attainments as a scholar and a linguist, and after the close of the war settled in Cajiiga County, where he died in his ninety- third year. In after years, his body was exhumed by his son and deposited in Woodland Cemetery. In November, 1818, the future governor and general, as a young man of twenty, left his New York home with the intention of settling in the South, preferably in Ten- nessee or Alabama. His plan was to first tour the West, and, in line with that intention, he passed the winter of 1819 in Cincinnati, the summer of that year in Shawneetown, Illinois, and the winter of 1820 in Calhoun (then part of Madison) County. As stated, in March, 1820, with Willard Keyes he located thirty miles southeast of what is now Quincy, and for about two years busied himself in fanning and locating parties who desired to buy land in the American Bottoms or adjacent interior country. During the spring of 1821 ]\Ir. Wood first visited the present site of Quincy, and soon afterward purchased a quarter section of land near by, and in the fall of 1822 erected a log cabin — the first building in Quincy, though not within the original town, ilajor Rose and family resided in this house, for some time, while Mr. Wood was a bachelor. For several years prior to the election of the first Monday in August, 1824, thei'e was a considerable party in the state which favored the calling of a convention, the avowed object of which should be the changing of its constitution so as to admit slaves. The elec- tion of that date was to decide whether the convention should be called or not. Mr. Wood was greatly interested in the contest, and went up as far as Montibello (now Nauvoo) to rally the voters against the proposed change. He was so successful that he appeared at the Atlas precinct as "boss" of 100 suffragists. Evidently, the full ballot was not cast, but the calling of the convention was lost in that voting precinct by ninety-seven to three; and, as has been seen, "For Con- vention" was buried out of sight throughout the state. Governor Wood was always proud of his work in that line. Governor Wood led the movement which resulted in the creation of Adams County. In 1827 he temporarily resided at the Galena lead mines, but his permanent home was Quincy from 1822, until his death June 4, 1880, or for a period of fifty-eight years. In 1848, wath his two elder sons, he visited California, and remained nearly a year on the Pacific Coast, a witness to the historic rush of emigra- tion to that section of the United States, and twenty years later took an overland trip to the Coast, when he was able to realize that the country was destined to develop into permanent and prodigious riches and not end its promising career of the earlier years with a series of "booms." It is said that "Moral or physical fear John W^od never had. When on a trip to the Pacific Coast, the steamer on which he and his » s ss s, > !::^ » t. 00 1*. ?-l C5 00 w «■ o_ S 2 B t g - ' i g 3? ^ ■? lO 00 '-' (L= *- - ts » • 5 r" r =^ - 2 O ^ < o O O c 5 o Vol. I— r 98 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY wife were traveling from San Francisco to a port in Southern Cali- fornia ran upon a rock and was wrecked. The captain, an experi- enced and capable officer, sustained the discipline of the ship, so difficult on such occasions to maintain, and was aided by the com- manding bearing of Governor Wood. When the boats were pre- pared, and the women and children placed in them, the captain, standing by the gangway, said : ' Now, Governor Wood, you take your place. ' The answer was : ' Send these young folks first. I 'm seventy yeai-s old. Save the young.' " Throughout all the succeeding years after his first settlement. Gov- ernor Wood was almost constantly kept in public position. He was one of the vohmteers in the Black Hawk War of 1832, but in that regard he was no exception to every other able-bodied man in Adams County. He was one of the early town trustees; was often a member of the city council; served as mayor in 1844-48, 1852-54 and 1856; in 1850 was elected to the State Senate ; in 1856 was chosen lieutenant governor and, on the death of Governor Bissell in 1859, succeeded to the gubernatorial chair. Governor Yates, a man of the same rugged character, had the greatest admiration for the Old Roman, and in Februar3% 1861, selected him as one of the five delegates from Illi- nois to the Peace Convention which convened in Washington; and, after war broke upon the county, selected him as quartermaster gen- eral of the state. The governor performed the duties of the latter position with remarkable energy' and ability, during the earlier period of the war, and in June, 1864, left Quincy for ^lemphis, Tennessee, at the head of the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Illinois Infantry (a 100-days regiment). In the following mouth he was assigned to the command of the Third Brigade, engaged in picket duty on the Hernando road. His regiment was attacked by the enemy, while he was on a sick bed, but he took command, rallied his brigade and the onset was repulsed. A friend said of Governor Wood: "His liberality and benefac- tions were boundless. His public generosity is proverbially known, but no count can be made of the private open-handedness that ran through his fifty years of affluence. On his town, his city, feeling it almost his own, his interest and pride forever rested. His nature was bold and frank. He had no disgiiises, no dissimulations, no fears. 'What his heart forges, that his tongue must utter, and, being armed, he even does forget there's such a thing as death,' could never be applied to one better than to him. Singularly susceptible to physical suffering, the lightest pain being to him an acute agony, his spirit nevertheless was intrepidity itself. This led him in his matured age and position, which might well have excused him therefrom, to yearn with patriotic ardor, for personal participation in the late and sec- tional strife when the Nation's life was threatened." Governor Wood's first wife was Miss Ann M. Streeter, daughter of Joshua Streeter, formerly of Washington County, New York. The wedding occurred at Quincy January 25, 1826. ]\Irs. Wood died Ql'INCV AND ADAMS COVXTV 99 Oftober 8, 1863, leaving as surviving offspring: Mrs. Ann E. Tillson, who married Col. John Tillson, and died in Omaha, Xebra.ska, March 25, 1905; Daniel C. Wood, who had married Miss i\Iary J. Abl)ernethy; John Wood, Jr., whose wile was Miss Josephine Skinner; and Joshua S. Wood, whose wife was Miss Annie Bradlej-. Governor Wooil's second marriage occurred at Quincy June 6, 1865, the lady being Jlrs. iMary A. Holmes, widow of Joseph T. Holmes. Mrs. Wood was born in Glousterbury, Connecticut, 2\Iarch 5, 1806, and died at (^uincy. January 20, 1887, nearly seven years after the death of her beloved and distinguished husband. WiLL.vRD Keyes Willard Keyes, long Mr. Wood's co-worker in local and county enterprises and always his warm friend, was six years older than the Governor. He was a Vermont man, born in Windham County, October 28, 1792. Originally, the family was from Massachusetts. The boy worked on the homestead farm, attcudeil district school when he could, mastered the trade of a wool dyer, and as a young man taught school for several winters before, at the age of twenty-five, he decided to see what the West was like. He writes in his diary that "On the second of June, A. D., 1817, being impelled by curiosity and a desire to see other places than those in the vicinity of my native town, I, Willard Keyes, started from Newfaue, Vermont, intending to travel into the western parts of the United States." Traveling by various means through Canada and by the northern lakes, he reached Prairie du Chien on the 30th of August. 1S17. There he remained in teaching, milling and other pursuits, until the spring of 1819, when, with one companion, he started on a raft for St. Louis, floating by the site of guincy, May 10, 1819. "In ^larch, 1820," the diary continues, "John Wood and myself formed a partnership to go on the frontiers and commence farming together; accordingly prepared ourselves with pro- visions, farming utensils, etc., as well as our slender means would per- mit — two small yoke of steers, a yotuig cow and a small, though promising lot of swine — our whole amount of property did not probably exceed $250. Paid $50 and $60 per yoke for small four-year old steers, $10 for small heifer, Gi/j cents per pound for fresh pork, 75 cents per bushel for corn. $8 per barrel for flour, $4 per bushel for salt, and other things in proportion." At this place in old Pike County, Mr. Keyes remained until the spring of 1824, when he moved to Quincy and built the second cabin of the place — 16 by 16 feet in size — which was afterward used as the first court room. At the formation of the county in 1825 he was chosen one of the eounty commissioners, and acted earnestly and usefully for the interests of the infant settlement for many years. He was one of the members of the first Church Association formed at Quincy in 1830, of which he remained a deacon for forty-two years, ^fr. Keyes died on February 7, 1872, having been twieo married — first to Miss Laura 100 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Harkuess, December 22, 1825, aud her death occurred ]\Iay 8, 1832, and secondly to ]Miss Mary C. Folsom, who died in November, 1864. Jeremiah Rose Maj. Jeremiah Rose was a New York man, born in the same year as his friend ilr. Kej'es. He was reared upon his father 's eastern farm, and it is said was noted for his feats of agility and strength ia which he excelled all his young companions. In 1815 he married Miss Margaret Brown, daughter of Maj. Daniel Brown, of his native town aud county, and in the fall of 1821 he moved to Atlas, Pike County, with his wife and young daughter. In the following year he formed a partnership with John Wood to build a log cabin on the site of a portion of the present site of Quincy ; but before he could commence work he became iU and hired a man to take his place aud assist Mr. "Wood. In the spring of 1823 he moved into it and boarded Mr. Wood, the Rose family representing the first woman and the first child to reside in Quincy. The latter afterward married George W. Brown. Mr. Rose resided in the log cabin thus built until 1826, when he sold out to Mr. Wood aud bought a farm just north of Quincj', upon which he resided for ten years. When the Adams County Militia was organized he was elected its major, which gave him the title by which he was generally known. In 1833 he united with the First Congrega- tional Church of Quincy in which he was always a leader while resid- ing in the city. In 1836 he moved to Henderson County, residing there on his farm for fourteen years. In 1850, however, he retunied to Quincy, where he died nine years later at the age of sixty-seven. Al- though quite retiring. Major Rose was a man of strong and positive character, being especially active and locally prominent as an Aboli- tionist and supporter of all Christian missions. His was not as broad a character as that of Governor Wood, but none of the early settlers stood as a better example of the true, industrious, uuobstrusive and ever faithful Christian. As.\ Tyrer Late in the year 1836 occurred the deaths of the first two perma- nent settlei-s of Adams Countj' — Daniel Lisle and Justus Perigo. Asa Tyrer, the first coroner of Adams County, was a native of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, born October 17, 1788. He first visited the Illinois country in 1818, that he might locate a quarter section of land in the Military Bounty Tract, which he had purchased from a soldier of the War of 1812 for the sum of $300. At the time of his visit there were no steamboats, or other public conveyances, to be used in reaching Illinois. He provided himself with knapsack and provisions, M-ith flint, steel and punk, and, after wearisome days of travel, reached St. Louis. There he crossed the Mississippi River and started northward for his intended home, afoot and alone. Reaching o o o M m ?o "») w Kl 2 O 102 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY the Illinois River, he met a mau who had camped on the bank, and who was ou his way to some point about 150 miles above, journeying in a skiff which contained as cargo, a barrel of whisky. Mr. Tyrer spent the night with them all, and the next morning was rowed across the river, thanking his good luck as he resumed his journey up the Mississippi Valley. After several days travel he reached the beautiful bluffs upon which Quincy now stands, having consulted various maps and ascertained that the land which he owned and was endeavoring to locate was situated in that locality. As the Government surveyors had but recently traced the lines of the lands in that area, Mr. Tyrer found no difficulty in definitely locating his tract, and on the following day started on his return to St. Louis. Near one of the Government lines he had discovered "Watson's spring, afterward quite famous, and, on both trips to the Quincy bluffs and back to St. Louis, he saw and heard of numerous bands of Indians, herds of deer and abundance of all sorts of wild game. In the year 1822 Mr. Tyrer returned to his land on the Bluffs and built a log cabin on his tract, which was located about two miles southeast of where the courthouse in Quincy now stands. Two years afterward the entire family settled upon it. They came up the river in skiffs, two being lashed together, which served as a foundation for a platform. The structure as a whole constituted a house boat, which safely, if slowly, transported the Tyrer familj- to the landing at the bluffs. When he first located, or soon afterward, Mr. TjTcr set up a blacksmith shop and a corn grinder, or mill, on his place, which for a long time thereafter were the only institutions of the kind in Adams County. In 1825, at the organization of the county government, he became its first coroner, and served in that ofSce for two terms. He resided near Quincy for a number of years and then, during the lead- mining excitement, lived for a time at Galena. But he alwaj's held his land at his original location, and some years before his death on August 6, 1873, returned to the homestead in the Quincy neighbor- hood, where he passed the remainder of his life. Old Pike County Votes "No Convention" It was during the momentous year of 1824 that Adams County appears above the horizon of historj\ For two years the state had been stirred over the prospect that a new constitution might be adopted recognizing slavery ; but fortunately the measure calling for a conven- tion was defeated. The No Convention, or Free State party, swept the northern and western counties of Illinois at the election in August of 1824. There were but four votes in Quincy, and in what is now Adams County were a score or more. Old Pike County which then extended as far north as the base line six miles above Quincy, was thoroughly canvassed, as was the entire country as far as Rock Island. The voters turned out to a man and on Sunday mornng the day before the election, nearlv fiftv had gathered at the Bluffs, as the place was QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 103 then called. They rode to Atlas forty miles south, swiinniing the creeks which were at high water, and cast their votes on the following day. Of the one hundred votes polled at Atlas, ninety-seven were for "no convention." Thomas Cvrlin At this same elwtion, Nicholas Hanson, who had been ejected from the previous Legslatiire of Illinois was rechosen by a decisive vote, but resigned his seat before his term expired, and returned to New York, his native state. Thomas Carlin (afterward governor) was elected state senator. He held a seat in the upper legislative body for eight years, soon after came to Quincy as receiver of the Land OfiSce, and in 1838 was chosen governor. County of Ad.uis Cre.\ted On the 14th of September, 1824, the month following the election named, and in the midst of the presidential canvass in which figured Jackson, Clay, Crawford and John Quincy Adams, John Wood in- serted the following no'tice in the Edwardsville Spectator: "A peti- tion will be presented to the General Assembly of the State of Illinois at its next session praying for the establishment of a new county to be formed from the County of Pike and the parts attached, the southern boundary of which shall be between towns three and four, south of the base line." The notice having been published twelve times, as required by law, the General As.semblj' passed a bill in con- formity with the petition, which was appi'oved bj' the governor Januarj- 18, 1825. The act read as follows: "Be it enacted, that all that tract of country within the following boundaries, to-wit: beginning at the place where the township line between towniships three south and four south touches the Mississippi river, thence east on said line to the range line between ranges four and five west, thence north on said range line to the northeast corner of township two north, range five we.st, thence west on said township line to the ^Mississippi River to the place of beginning, shall constitute a county to be called the county of Adam.s." The result of the presidential election in the preceding November had determined the name of the new county. On the day appointed to choose electors for president and vice-president, the .settlers living in and around that portion of the "Kingdom of Pike" now called Adams County, determined to hold the election on home ground; otherwise they would be called upon to make the long trip to Atlas in order to east their ballots as American citizens. John Wood had come up from that place the day before with a list of the Adams electors. It is said that nobody knew the names of the Clay or Craw- ford electors; but everybody wanted to vote — even some Missourians who had crossed the river for the luirpose. So an election precinct 104 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY was organized, with judges and clerks, and the twenty or more votes cast were unanimous for John Quincy Adams. The Adams elector chosen was William Harrison. There was no suggestion of going behind the returns which, on the face of them, indicated an over- whelming sentiment in favor of John Quincy. It was therefore sug- gested to the Legislature, which had already been petitioned to carve out a new county from Old Pike, that the county to be formed should be named Adams. And Adams it was named. Locating the Seat of Justice The act of January, 1825, creating Adams County appointed as commissioners to locate its permanent seat of justice, the following: Seymour Kellogg, Morgan County ; Joel Wright, Montgomery County, A Water Wheel of Old Adams County and David Sutton, Pike County. They were directed to meet at the house of Ebenezer Harkness on the first Monday in April, or within seven days therefrom; and "after taking the oath before a justice of the peace to locate the seat of justice for the future accommoda- tion and convenience of the people, shall proceed to fix the seat of justice, and when fixed it shall be the permanent seat of justice of said county; and the commissioners shall forthwith make out a copy of their proceedings and file them in the office of the recorder of Pike County; and the said commissioners shall receive the sum of two dollars per day for each day spent by them in the discharge of their duties, and for each day spent in going or returning from the same, to be paid out of the first money paid into the treasury of said cormty of Adams after its organization." On the 30th of April, 1825, Messrs. Kellogg and Dutton, two of the commissioners, came to the Town Site, as Quincy was then called, QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 105 prepared to locate the county seat. Their original plan was to place it at the geographical center of the county, and they engaged ^Ir. Keyes as a guide to assist them in carrying out that intention. It may be that their guide had his own Town Site in mind as a most likely county seat; at all events, he led the locating commissioners a merry chase through the bogs and quagmires of ilill Creek, and at nightfall they were glad to find shelter and solid footing on the crest of the bluffs. On the following morning, without another suggestion as to the geographical center of Adams Count}^, they led a proce.ssion com- posed of all the able-bodied inliabitants of the Bluffs to the Iok 7,00 Lot 7, block 14, Levi IlacUey 6.00 Lot 8, block 14, Levi Iladley 9 50 Lot 4, block 13, Levi Hadlcy 11.00 Lot 5, block 13, Levi Hadley 18.00 Lot 6, block 13, Samuel Seward 20.00 Lot 7, block 13, Levi Hadley 9.OO Lot 4, block 20, Peter Journey 16.25 Lot 5, block 20, Peter Journey 8.00 Lot 8, block 19, Jeremiah Rose 14.00 Lot 7, block 19, Jeremiah Kose 16.00 Lot 6, block 19, Rufus Brown 14.00 Lot 5, block 19, H. H. Snow 18.00 Lot 8, block 18, Asa Tyrer 14.50 Lot 7, block 18, Doctor McMillen 14.25 Lot 6, block 18, Levi Hadley 12.50 Lot 5, block 18, Levi Hadley 14.50 Lot 8, block 17, John L. Soule 10.00 Lot 7, block 17, John L. Soule 10.00 Lot 6, block 17, Daniel Moore 5.50 Lot 5, block 17, Rufus Brown 5.00 It is related that one of the old citizens of the county in comment- ing years afterward upon the opportunities presented in Quincy to acquire wealth by real estate investments, made the remark, "I remember when I could have purchased the whole of the lot on which the Quincy House now stands for a pair of boots." "Why," said the person whom he addressed, "did you not make the purchase?" "For a very good rea.soii," he answered: "it was a ca.sh offer, and T hadn't the boots." ViRST Log Courthouse After the election of otificcrs and the platting of the county scat, the most pressing matter which remained unaccomplished wa.s to provide permanent headquarters for the County Government and a home for the administration of justice through the courts. The pioneer citizens and officials of Adams County would not have put it thus impressively ; they would have said: "Next, we had to have a courthoase." Look- ing practically toward that end, on Friday, December 16, 1825, the County Commissioners' Court instructed tho sheriff to offer to the lowest bidder the building of a courthou.se of the following descrip- tion: "To be twenty-two feet long and eighteen feet wide and to be built of hewn logs seven inches thick ; to be laid as close together as they are in IVIr. Rose's house, with stone to be placed under the corners and the middle of each sill not less than eight inches high, and to be two stories high, the lower story to be eight feet high and the upper story five feet, with nine joists and eight sleepers; the 112 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY building to be covered with oak clapboards, four feet long and laid close together, and three boards thick, to be completed by the 15th of March, 1826." The structure was to contain a door and eight win- dows — four of twelve lights each and four of six lights. It was to have a double flooring of planks, each one and a quarter inches, laid on hewn puncheons. The center of the upper story was to be made of sawed planks, boards of clapboards, and that portion of the court- house was to be reached by two flights of steps. The plans called for a good stone chimney, with fireplaces in both stories, the larger one (31/2 feet wide at the back) in the lower story. First Log Courthouse The work of placing the logs was let to John Soule for $79 ; who also built the stairways. Willard Keyes put in the windows and doors, and Levi Hadley built the chimney. The first courthouse was completed according to contract, and dur- ing the following decade was used not only for the purposes planned, but as a church, schoolhouse and public hall. At one period in its history court sat downstairs and the upper story was given over to carpentry and various clerical matters. Pioneer County Legislation About the time the log courthouse was thrown open to the county at large, George Logan, the first permanent lawyer of the county, settled at Quincy and commenced practice. Through the records of the County Commissioners Court other pioneer events may also be traced. QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 113 In 1826 that body granted the first hotel license at tlie county scat to Kut'us Brown; and lie could not do business until he had paid into the country treasury the sum of $1, with clerk's fees, and had his permit stowed away in his jeans, or other safe place. At the Marcii term of the court the following rates for hotel feed and drink were fixed with all the nonchalance of the powers-that-be in 1918: For each meal of vituals, 25 cents; lodging for night, 121.4 cents; one-half a pint of whiskey, 12yo cents; half a pint of brandy, STi/o cents; half a pint of rum, 8% cents; half a pint of wine, 371/2 cents; bottle of wine, $1.00; bottle of gin, 18% cents; horse feed per night, fodder and grain, 25 cent^; single horse feed, 12iv. cents. Brown opened his cabin hotel at the corner of Fourth and Maine, where the Newcomb House now stands, and later in the year George W. Ilight opened a tavern under the hill on Front Street. One of the first rules of the County Commissioners Court, adopted September 4, 1826, was as follows: "That this court alwaj-s give their opinioft in writing on any case of controversy, and that there shall be no argument after the decision of the court is given. The court shall, in all such cases of controversy, consult together privately or otherwise, as a majority of them shall think proper ; and further, that either number of the court shall have the privilege of entering his protest, as a matter of record, to any opinion given by a majority of his court. All of which seemed businesslike and fair." Burial Ground Reserved On December 4th of that year the south half of what is now called Jefferson Square and which is the present site of the courthouse, was reserved as a burial ground for the people of Adams County, and the lot on Fifth Street immediately north was set aside for school purposes. The former tract was used as a cemetery for about nine years, when the ground at the southeast corner of ilaine and Twenty- fourth streets was purchased for that purpose, and no internments were afterward made in Jefferson Square. Although many bodies were moved to the new grounds, some of the graves could not be identified and their contents were left undisturbed. These include several of the pioneers, whose descendants still reside in the city, as well as a number of travelers passing through the town who died en route. Governor Hubbard, the second governor of the state, was among those who were interred in the old cemeterj' and whose grave could not be identified. Through the north half ot the block, which was set aside for school purposes, originally ran a deep ravine. The title to that tract was long in dispute between the city and county, but finally their differ- ences were settled, the ravine was filled up, the entire square improved and the 1876 courthouse was erected thereon. But we are far out- running the chronologj' of the story. 114 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY First Teacher and First Preacher Hardly had the little log courthouse been completed in the spring of 1826, before the few families at Quincy decided to open a school therein for the benefit of their children. Finally, somewhat late in 1827 they engaged as teacher a Presbyterian clergyman, from Abing- ton, Massachusetts, who had journeyed thus far West in hope of strengthening a feeble constitution. He was a graduate of a New England college, and a man of more than ordinary culture and char- acter. When his class had been completed it was found that its mem- bers were of all ages, some of the older scholars being young men and women as old as their teacher. The Porter School soon became one of Quincy 's most noted institutions, and about a year after it was opened, in 1828, its head commenced the first regular preaching in town, the meeting place being also the courthouse. Mi'. Porter died about 1832, and was long remembered for his talents and fine Chris- tian character. * Providing for Judge Snow's Expansion Although the County Board had ordered a jail built as early as the spring of 1827, it was not completed until some years later; and during that period there seems to have been more need of a church building than a jail. In December of that year the commissioners perceived that the public service required a separate clerk's office, as Judge Henry H. Snow was at that time holding the offices of probate judge, recorder and county and circuit clerk, and had spread himself and his official belongings all over the second story of the courthouse. The pressing question in 1S27 was to provide for the expansion of Judge Snow. Woodlavfn Cemetery Until 1836 there had been no other public burial ground than the south half of the present Jefferson Square, which had been reserved for this purpose when the town was platted in 1825. A meeting of citizens was called on June 26th of that year to consider the estab- lishment of another cemetery, which, in the following year, resulted in the purchase of the town from E. B. Kimball of about 8I/2 acres at the southeast corner of Maine and Twenty-fourth streets, now Mad- ison Park. The price paid was $642. There had probably been three hundred or more burials in the first named cemetery up to the time of its discontinuance, and most of them, as has been noted, were trans- ferred to the other cemetei-y. Many of these, at a later date, were buried in Woodland Cemetery. A. F. Hubbard's Claim to Fame As also stated, among the unidentified graves in the old cemetery was that which contained the remains of A. F. Hubbard, lieutenant- QUINCy AND ADA3IS COUNTY 115 governor of Illinois from 1822 to 1826 — "a queer charajcter," says the late Gen. John Tillson, "wliose tlaim to fame lies more on what he was not, than on what he was, and who by this accident of an undis- covered grave obtained a more widely published notoriety than any- thing his merits of public service could have secured. His residence here was brief, and his public career marked only by his absurd and futile attempts to supplant Governor Coles during the latter 's tem- poraiy absence from the state. He sought the governorship in 1826, but failed. The following slice from one of his speeches illustrates his capacity and character: 'Fellow citizens, I am a candidate for governor. I don't pretend to be a man of extraordinary talents, nor claim to be equal to Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte, and I ain't as great a man as my opponent, Governor Edwards. Yet I think 1 can govern you pretty well. I don"t think it will reijuire a very extra smart man to govern you; for to tell the truth, fellow citizens, I don't think j-ou'll be hard to govern, no how.' He was well described by Governor Coles as a 'historic oddity.' A well enough meaning man, of shallow bearings, but inordinate aspirations, type of a class which we today see still survives. ]\len whom the shrewd and sarcastic Judge Purple used to speak of as 'fellows who forced themselves on the public, claiming that they have a mission to fill, which they most always Fool-fill.' " TiiE Ghost Walks Again The ghost of the opposition to Quincy as the county seat first walked in the year 1835 and materialized in the following year. The opposition was based on the phantom advantage designated by the term "geographical center of the county," which had slight sub- stance while the country was quite raw and roads and other trans- portation facilities were negligible considerations. But even at that time, the center of the county's population was nearer Quincy than the geographical center, and although there was a strong sentiment in favor of the latter theory, it was overbalanced by those who really considered the question from the standpoint of "the greatest good to the greatest number." Accordingly, at the August election of 1835 the vote throughout the county stood: For Quincy, 618; for "com- missioners' .stake," 492. The "commissioners' .stake," while purport- ing to be in the geographical center of the county was not really so. They are said to have first decided on the southwest quarter of section 10, range 1 south, 7 west, which location is now in Gilmer Township. The locality was quite widely advertised as Adara.sburg, but when the commissioners actually arrived on the ground to fix the stake, the proprietors of the proposed seat of justice had left the state; so the former i)lanted their stake two miles and a half further east, at or near the subsequent site of Columbus. The Second Adams County Courthouse Completed iii 1838 ; Burned in 1875. The Building Stood Opposite Washington Square on Fifth Street. Here Douglas Presided as Circuit Judge, 1841-43. QUINX'Y AND ADAMS COUNTY 117 Courthouse of 1835-75 But, as stated, the people of the couuty deeidcd that thej- were, on the whole, satisfied with the location of Quiucy as their seat of justice, and in September, 1836, the County Commissioners Court invited proposals for the oonstruction of a new courthouse, to be built of "brick of the best quality and in the neatest manner, the carpenters' and joiners' work to be -of the best materials and finished in the most fashionable stylo." It was completed in 1838 and occu- pied until its destruction by fire in 1875. Three months afterward the old log courthouse went the same way. Dangers of Chronic Office Holding It should be stated that at the general election of August, 1836, Earl Pierce was chosen sheriff of the county for the sixth time. It is said that he suddenly left for Texas under a cloud ; that, though natu- rally frank and good-hearted, his long period of oflBce-holding and his free-and-easy ways got the better of his honesty. Pierce had been sheriff since 1826 and at the time of his departure was also brigadier general of the State Militia. The 1836 election also placed in county offices Thomas C. King as i-oroner and A. W. Shinu, George Taylor and John B. Young, as county commissioners. A Jail Thought Expedient and Necessary The year following the (Completion of the courthouse official steps were taken to build a jail, which had previously progressed no further than suggestions. In the proceedings of the County Commissioners Court of June 6. 1839, an order was made to build the jail which stood in the rear of the courthouse on Fifth Street and was burned in 1873. Such order read: "A\'hcreas, there is no jail or place of confinement for criminals in the County of Adams, it is therefore thought expedi- ent and neeessarj' that a jail should be built in said County of Adams for the confinement and safekeeping of criminals. It is therefore ordered that a jail be built in the Town of Quiney on the east part of the lot on which the courthouse now stands; said jail to be built with the front facing to the south and to range with the .south side of the courthouse ; said jail to be built after, and agreeable to a draft as now on file in the clerk's office. "Ordered, that the sum ^.t one thousand dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated to Joseph T. ITolmes and J. 0. "Woodruff or bearer, for the purpose of commencing and carrying on the building of a jail in Quiney. The above sum to be issued in orders of not less than fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars each, the orders to draw twelve per cent per annum interest from the time they are taken out of the office until rcdocincd ; said orders to be redeemed in twelve months after their date." 118 QriXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY The Original Election Precincts During the June meeting of 1839 the County Commissioners Court also divided the county into ten election precincts: The Northeast Precinct, for which elections were to be held at the house of Zacheus Dean, who, with Elliott Combs and Jonathan Browning, was appointed a judge thereof; Clayton Precinct, with Cj-rus Cupen, George Mc- Murray and Shannon Wallace judges of election, the house of David M. Campbell to be the polling place; Kingston Precinct, elections to be held at the house of "William Hendricks, with George AV. "Williams, Azariah Maj^eld and Richard Buffington as judges; Liberty Precinct, the house of D. P. Meaeham to be the polling place and John "Wigle, "William Hart and Jacob Hunsaker, judges; Payson Precinct, with Thomas Crocker, Alexander Furst and David Collins, judges, and the store of J. C. Bernard the polling place; Quincy Precinct, "the old judges to sei've, " and no mention made as to the place for holding elections ; Burton Precinct, for which the house of M. H. Daniels was named as the polling place and E. M. King, John Dotj- and John G. Himpkrey judges of elections ; Columbus Precinct, elections to be held in the schoolhouse at the \^llage of Columbus, with M. D. McCann, John Thomas and George Smith, judges of elections; Houston Pre- cinct, elections for which were to be held at the house of H. A. Cyrus, with David Strickler, John "W. McFarland and Richard Seaton judges, and "Woodville Precinct, all elections to be held at the village by that name under the supen-ision of Benjamin Robertson, JIartin Shurry and Simeon Curtis, judges. Columbus Fights for the County Seat In March of that year (1839) Columbus, the village at the approx- imate center of the county, was incorporated, and the Advocate started by Frank Higbee as an avowed champion of that place for the county seat as against Quincy. The election which was to test the relative strength of the candidates was held August 2, 1841, and on the face of the returns Columbus won by a vote of 1,636 to 1,545. A com- mittee of Quincy citizens was at once appointed to contest the vote. It consisted of Joel Rice, J. H. Luce, Jolm Wood and J. T. Holmes, and Abraham Wheat and Andrew Johnston, as legal counsel, rep- resented them in the proceedings before the County Commissioners Court. The first petition of the Quincy Committee was presented to William Richards, George Smith and Eli Seehorn, the county com- missioners, on September 7, 1841, and claimed that although the apparent majority in favor of Columbus was 91, in reality more than 100 illegal votes had been east for the location of the county seat at Columbus. Messrs. Richards and Seehorn gave it as their opinion that the commissioners had the legal right to hear the contest ; to go behind the returns and judge of the legality of the votes cast in the election. Commissioner Smith dissented from their opinion, and Willard Graves QUIXCY AND ADA^klS COUNTY 119 and others, reprcsontiug Columbus, through Neheuiiah Bushuell, their counsel, formally appealed from the decision of the majority of the County Commissioners Court. The appeal was granted on condition that the representative of the Columbus people bond himself in the sum of $100, to be paid provided the majority opinion should be affirmed by the higher court. Judge Stephen A. Douglas, of the Circuit Court, ordered the re- moval of the official records from Quincy to Columbus in the month following the election, but Messrs. Richards and Seehom refused to obey liis writ of inandainus. Then, in ilarch, he issued a peremptory writ, and the Quincy people appealed to the State Supreme Court. It was argued before that body in July by George C. Dixon for the commissionei-s and Archibald Williams for the Columbus claimants, and the decision was ordered deferi-ed until December. ilARQCETTE AXD HlGHL^lND COUXTIES At this point, we again fall back upon General Tillson's annals. "Immediately after the August election of 1842," he says, "the con- test took a new shape, and a bombshell was thrown into the Columbus camp which broke its unity and resulted in the full defeat of all its aspirations. At a meeting held in Quincy on the 26th of October the proposition was agreed to that the Legislature should be asked to divide the county by cutting off the ten townships on the eastern side of Adams, and thereby form a new county. Columbus was asked to unite with this movement, but refused. In fact. Columbus could not safely agree to it, for the reason that the town lies on the extreme western edge of the proposed new county — a part of it being in Gilmer Township — and the village would thus be cut in two. The same ob- jection would then lie against Columbus as a county seat — 'away at one side of the county ' — that had before been used against Quincy. "This project stirred into activity everj- local interest in the county and proved that the previous movement had not been based on a preference for Columbus merely, but for a county center. A half score of plans were started for outlining new counties, most of them not favoring a division of the county, but demanding, if a division of the county should be made, that it should be so outlined as to make a central point the county seat, most generally ignoring Columbus. Some of these proposed to take in part of Hancock, some part of Schuyler, and some part of Brown or Pike: and all seemed to have forgotten about Columbus. The end was not difficult to foresee. "This movement, adroitly originated for a division of the county, so as to compromise the differences between eastern and western sec- tions, practically decided, at the very outset, that the county seat ultimately would remain at Quincy. Time had been gained, and the issue transferred itself again to the State Legislature, which then convened everj- two years on the first Monday in December. "As carlv as the 19th of December, at the session of 1842-43, 120 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Mr. Wheat, one of the representatives from Adams County, intro- duced a bill for the division of tlie county based upon the proposition which had been made and adopted at tlie meeting at Quiney on the 26th of October. Upon this, there followed a flood of petitions for and remonstrances against the proposed action, coming from all parts of the county, with eveiy variety of project, proposition and sugges- tion. It was made a matter of long, bitter and doubtful discussion, and came to a final determination in the early part of 1843, resulting in a nominal division of the county, which separation stood as of a record which was never practically completed throughout the following five years. ' ' The act creating Marquette from the eastern part of Adams was approved February 11, 1843, and provided that the justices of the peace within the limits of the original territory, as well as Daniel Harrison, school commissioner ; George Smith, one of the countj- com- missioners, and Jonas Grubb, coroner — all of whom resided in old Adams County — should hold over as officials of the newly erected county. The State Supreme Court decided in a test case, which An- drew Redman (who had been elected a justice of the peace for the Columbus Precinct, Marquette County) brought against Nicholas Wren, clerk of Adams County, to compel the latter to issue Redman a certificate of election — that Marquette Countj^ was an independent political body and absolutely separate from Adams. That was the decision of Judge Thomas, the successor of Judge Douglas to the Circuit Bench. But though elections took place in Marquette County, at stated times and places, no officers ever qualified and it paid no taxes to either state or county for the term of five years; and during these several years of contention over the county seat and Marquette County, Co- lumbus continued actually the seat of justice. But E. H. Buckley, a law;s-er of Columbus and one of its strongest champions, was elected to the Legislature in 1846 and appeared in his seat therein when the session opened in December. He prepared a bill, and overcame strong opposition to it, changing the name of Marqiiette, and creating from its old territoiy, with the addition of a small portion of Gilmer Township, the County of Highland. His bill became a law in February, 1847, and he afterward represented Highland County in the Legislature. The two counties were reunited in 1846 under the good old name of Adams County. Judicial Reform and Slavery The next event of importance to vitally affect Adams County was the promulgation of the constitution of 1848. In March of that year the instrument which had been framed at Springfield in the summer of 1847 was submitted to the people for ratification. The features which had caused the most discussion were those in regard to the elective judiciary of the Circuit Bench and the creation of a sep- QUI.NX'Y AXD ADA-MS fOUXTY ]21 arate State Supreme Court; barring slaves from Illinois, and the pro- posed tax of two mills on the dollar to be applied to the reduction of the public debt. lu Adams County, out of a total of 2,241, the majority for the constitution proper was 923. Township Organization Adopted Under the constitution of 1848, Adams was one of the first coun- ties in the state to adopt the system of township organization. Under the old system most of the local business was transacted by three commissioners in each county, who constituted a County Court which held quarterly sessions. During the period ending with the constitutional convention of 1847, a large portion of the state had been settled by a population of New England birth or character, daily growing more and more compact and dissatisfied with the compara- tively arbitrary and inefficient county system. Under the stress of this feeling, the constitutional provisions of 1848, and the law of 1849 extending them, were enacted, permitting counties to adopt town- ship organization. Those north of the Illinois River, comprising the bulk of the New England population, adopted the change earlier than those in the southern portion of the state, which clung more tenaciously to the more aristocratic form of county government which originated in the Old Dominion. In December, 1849, Adams County effected its transformation from the old county system, centering in the Coimty Commissioners Court, to the plan of township representation as embodied in the Board of Supervisors. On the sixth of that month, the court appointed Thomas Enlow, Augustus E. Bowles and William Berry- as commis- sioners to divide the countj- into townships. They reported on the eighth of the following IMarch (1850), with the following township divisions, twenty in all : Clayton. — The whole of Congressional Township, 1 north, 5 west. North East. — The whole of Congressional Township. 2 north, 5 west. Camp Point. — The whole of Congressional Township, 1 north, 6 west. Houston. — The whole of Congressional Town.ship, 2 north, 6 west. Honey Creek. — The whole of Congressional Township, 1 north, 7 •west. Keene. — The whole of Congressional Township, 2 north, 7 west. Ursa. — The whole of Congressional Township, 1 north, 8 west, and of fractional township 1 north, 9 west, and all that portion of countrj* in townships 2 north, 8 west and 2 north, 9 west, which lies south of Bear Creek. Lafa.vette. — All that portion of country in townships 2 north, 8 west. 2 north, 9 west, and fractional township 2 nortii, 10 west, which lies south of .said Bear Creek. Jackson. — The whole of Congressional Township 1 south, 5 west, and the north half of Congressional Township 2 south. 5 west. 122 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Beverly .^The whole of Congressional Township 3 south, 5 west, and the south half of Congressional Township 2 south, 5 west. Columbus. — The whole of Congressional Township 1 south, 6 west. Liberty. — The whole of Congressional Township 2 south, 6 west. Kichland. — The whole of Congressional Township 3 south, 6 west. Dover. — The whole of Congressional Township 1 south, 7 west. Burton. — The whole of Congressional Township 2 south, 7 west. Payson. — The whole of Congressional Township 3 south, 7 west. EUington. — The whole of Congressional Township 1 south, 8 west, and fractional to\\^lship 1 south, 9 west, except that portion of said fractional township included in the corporate limits of the City of Quiney. Melrose. — The whole of Congressional TowTiship 2 south, 8 west, and fractional township 2 south, 9 west, except that portion of said fractional township included within the corporate limits of the City of Quiney. Benton. — The whole of Congressional Township 3 south, 8 west, and fractional township 3 ^outh, 9 west. Quiney. — The whole of the coi'porate limits of the City of Quiney. First Board of Supervisors The first Board of Supervisors of Adams County met in the old courthouse on June 3, 1850, and those present were John P. Bobbins, John M. Ruddell, Grason Orr, Baptist Hardy, Jabez Lovejoy, John T. Battell, Joseph Kern, Alexander M. Smith, David Wolf, Willistou Stephens, Solomon Cusiek, Thomas Bailey, William H. Tandy, Robert G. Kay, Thomas Crocker, Stephen F. Safford and Edward Sharp. Mr. Tandy was chosen chairman and the following changes were made in the names of townships : From Lafayette to Lima, Benton to Fall Creek, Dover to Gilmer, Richland to Richfield, and Jackson to Con- cord. Various tax matters were settled; the paupers of the county provided for; it was resolved that the board "grant no license to any one to sell ardent spirits in the county," and the grand and petit jurors were named for the October term of the Circuit Court. The report of the county treasurer for three months of 1850 indicates that he had received a trifle over $2,744 from all sources and expended all but 35 cents of it. That official was ordered to borrow $1,500 to meet expenses, at a rate of interest not to exceed 10 per cent. The Twenty Polling Precincts The Board of Supervisors at its next meeting, November 1, 1850, divided the county into twenty precincts, with judges and polling places as follows: Quiney. — Polling place, courthouse, with Adam Schmitt, Lorenzo Bull and William B. Powers judges of election for the first poll, and J. D. Morgan, Christopher Dickhute and Robert S. Benneson, judges of the second poll. QUINCY AND ADA.MS COUNTY 123 Ellington.— Polling place, stone house known as the "old Jacobs place"; Samuel Jameson, A. E. Bowles and William C. Powell, judges of election. Ursa. — Polling place, the Ui-sa Schoolhouse; judges of election, William Loughlin, Gabriel Keath and Joel Frazier. Lima. — Polling place, Beebc House, Village of Lima; judges of election, E. P. Wade, Henry .Xulton and Thomas Hillui-n. Honey Creek. — Polling place, schoolhouse on section 16; judges of election, John A. White, John Johnson and L. A. Weed. Keene. — Polling place, schoolhouse on section 16; judges of elec- tion, William H. Robertson, R. L. Thurman and James Shannon. Houston. — Polling place, brick schoolhouse on section 16; judges of election, David Strickler. Samuel Woods and John Kern. Northeast. — Polling place, Franklin Schoolhouse; judges of elec- tion, Elliott Combs, E. B. Hoyl and William Robins. Camp Point. — Polling place, JIcFarland Schoolhouse: judges of election, John Robertson, Lewis ilcFarland and William Thompson. Clayton. — Polling place, postoflSce in Clayton Village; judges of election, Hiram Boyle, Thomas Curry and James C. Carpenter. Concord. — Polling place, house of Elisha Turner; judges of elec- tion, John Ansemuse, David Hobbs and Elisha Turner. Columbus. — Polling place, red schoolhouse in Village of Colum- bus; judges of election, Francis Turner, James Thomas and Geoi'ge Johnson. Gilmer. — Polling place, McNeil Schoolhouse; judges of election, Thomas D. Warren, John Lummis and John I. Gilmer. Jr. Liberty. — Polling place, schoolhouse in Village of Liberty; judges of election, Ira Pierce, Ebenezcr Chaplin and Lewis J. Thompson. Beverly. — Polling place, house of Solomon Perkins; judges of elec- tion, Isaac Perkins, James Sykes, Jr., and George W. Williams. Richfield. — Polling place, center schoolhouse; judges of election, James Woods, Henry Farmer and Isaac Cleveland. Burton. — Polling place, wagon shop of llr. Enlow; judges of election, Samuel G. Blivens, William Richards and Joseph Lcverctte. Payson. — Polling place, house of Benjamin Hoar, Village of Pay- son ; judges of election, Thomas J. Shepherd, William Shinn and John 0. Bernard. Fall Creek. — Polling place, center schoolhouse; judges of election, Silas Beebe, John Bean and Joseph Journey. Melrose. — Polling jilace, schoolhouse near Amos Bancroft's; judges of election, Xoah Swain, John Wood and Amos Bancroft. OfPICI.\L ACCOMIIODATIONS EXTENDED Several years after the county had thus been divided into town- ships and organized, civilly and politically, under the township .system, the authorities decided to do something toward the improvement of the official accommodations. To be more exact, in 1853 the old brick 124 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY courthouse ou the east side of Washington Square was extended in the rear, and by an arrangement between the city and county, the municipality obtained the use of one of the large lower rooms for a council chamber and clerk's office, which was thus occupied during the succeeding fourteen years. Fire Forces Building of New Courthouse Agitation over the question of a presentable courthouse had com- menced among the county solons and citizens in general, several years before the structure was completed; and then it might not have been finished had not the old courthouse been rendered useless by fire. The matter was discussed in the local press and by public-spirited citizens some time in 1868 before the County Board took official cognizance of it. At the December term of that body a committee was appointed to attend the Legislature and secure authority to issue bonds and take other steps to build a new courthouse and jail. Its members were Perry Alexander, Silas Bailey, A. "W. Blakesly, Benjamin Bei'rian and James H. Hendriekson. The object of their visit was accomplished, but in Februarj', 1869, the Board of Supervisors refused to approve the bill passed by the Legislature. The project seemed to rest most quiescent until on the ninth of January, 1875, when flames licked up most of the framework of the old courthouse, fortunately t^paring the books and records which were moved to neighborhood buildings. The jail, at the rear of the court- house, also escaped, although some of the sheriff's boarders were escorted to the city police station to be perfectly safe and provided for possible contingencies. After holding several meetings the County Board decided to pro- vide quarters for the sherifi', county and circuit clerks and the several courts in the partially destroyed courthouse. Portions of the first floor were repaired for these pui-poses, and, although the accommo- dations were anj^thing but convenient and comfortable, especially in the summer months, the county officials, judges and the' public made the best of an unavoidably bad situation. While the repairs were progressing, the county and circuit clerks had their offices in Dill's Block, between Sixth and Seventh streets. The temporaiy official quartei'S were occupied until the new courthouse was completed in 1877. CoATSBURG Subsides Numerous meetings were held on the issue for or against removal of the count}^ seat, which was to be decided at the coming election in November. Coatsburg was the only place in the running against Quiney, and its claims for the advisability of making the change were its more central location, the probable saving of expense if the new courthouse should be built at that point, and the large number of QLIXLV AND ADAMS fUUNTV TJO voters who had signed the petition for removal. The speakers for Quiuey were largely in the majority. Such as Col. William A. Rich- ardson, Hon. A. H. Browning and lion. J. W. Carter, with numerous lesser lights, pressed home their points for Quincy, while John Hen- drickson held the fort for Coatsburg. The entire vote polled was 7,281, and the majority against removal was 4,172, which seemed to lay the pretensions of Coatsburg in the dust as far as the county seat was concerned. Jefferson Squ.x^re Selected as Site Although various sites were offered for the proposed new county buildings, the contest finally settled down to a rivalry between Jeffer- son Square and Washington Park. In May after the fire the County Board received a communication from the City Council offering to deed Jefferson Square to the county, in ease an agreement could be made to build a courthouse thereon. Later the County Board voted in favor of Washington Pai-k, but at its September meeting (1875) accepted the city's proposition and declared, by seventeen ayes and fourteen nays, that Jefferson Square was preferable. A further reso- lution was adopted requesting the City Council of Quincy to prepare the deeds conveying the square to the county and have them approved by the county attorney : linally, that the deeds be deposited in the hands of a third party, and in the event of the removal of the county seat to Coatsburg. or any other point outside the City of Quincy, the papers mentioned should be returned to the party making the same. In the meantime V. S. Penfield had been in custody of the papers conveying the citj-'s interest in Jefferson Square to the county, in case the seat of justice remained at Quincy. Now it was perfectly safe to pass them over. Therefore, although the deed to the north half of Jefferson Square was executed October 1, 1875. by Robert S. Benneson, president of the Board of Education, and Albert Demaree, clerk, it was not received and entered of record on the count}' clerk's books until at the special December meeting of the Board of Super- visors in tliat year. Steps ix Buildixg of Present Courthouse In the meantime the plan of John S. McKean had been accepted out of three submitted, after several doubtful points regarding the strengrth of the main supports had been settled by Captain Eads in favor of the architect. A majority of the Building Committee of the board submitted a detailed report of plans and specifications in Jan- uary, 1876, and further recommended the construction of a jail in the ba.sement of the new courthouse at a cost of .$20,000. which would probably bring the entire cost of the building to .$215,000 or $220,000. Pending the consideration of this report, the board was notified of the death of William A. Richardson, one of the supervisors. -<©f a o Eh fe O H cc O o a m a QUIXCY AND ADA.MS COUNTY 127 At the Febniary meeting in 1876 a communication was received from the mayor ol' Quiney, suggesting the Fourtli of July as an appro- priate day for laying the corner-stone of the new courthouse. The bond of Architect IMcKean for $10,000 was also received and ap- proved. In pursuance of an order issued by the Board of Supervi.sors and a vote of popular approval at the fall election of 1876, an issue of $200,- 000 eight per cent bonds was autliorized to aid in the building of the courthouse. In July of the following year it was ordered that half of that amount, which had been printed but not issued, be destroyed, and that a new issue be put out — one-half payable in March, 1881, and one-half in March, 1882. At the same time, Messrs. Larkworthy and Burge tendered to the use of the board the use of the courthouse for that session, with the proviso, on the part of that body, that an ac- ceptance of such offer should not be construed as an acceptance of the building. On the ninth of July, 1877, the Board of Supervisors held its first meeting in the new courthouse, and a few days afterward it was form- ally accepted as satisfactorj- from the hands of its builders. The cost of its construction had considerably exceeded the original estimates, amounting to nearly $290,000; and yet, in resigning as chairman of the Board of Supei"\'isors, several months after the courthouse had been occupied, Ira Tj-ler wrote to his co-workers as follows : ' ' Fur the last two years your duties have been very arduous and difficult. Witliin that period you have constructed a courthouse and jail, which is one of the most substantial, beautiful and economically constructed liuildings in the West, and at so small a cost for that class of a building, that scarcely a tax-payer in the county is dissatisfied. So low have been the bids that it is believed that no contractor has made a fair profit, w^hile some have lost money." As completed, the handsome structure, two stories and basement, was of brick faced with cut .stone, 105 by 175 feet in dimensions. A massive and ornate dome rose above the slate roof to a height of ninety feet and at the four extreme angles of the building were four turreted towers. The style of exterior architecture may be called an adaptation of the Corinthiaif order, or Renaissanoe. In each of the four fronts is a spacious double portico, approached by a wide staircase which gives access to the first storj\ The basement, eleven feet in height, con- tained the jail, with the heating apparatus for the courthouse. On the first floor were the offices of the county and circuit clerks, the county treasurer, sheriff, recorder, collector and surveyor. The sec- ond story was devoted to a chamber for the Board of Supervisors, the County Courtroom and the Circuit Court, and private rooms for the judge and juries, and the first sitting of the latter body was held Oc- tober 22. 1877. Since the completion of the courthouse in 1877, many changes for the better have been made in its interior accommodations and arrange- ments to meet the growing demands of the years as to sanitation, eon- 128 QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY venience and comfort. The county superintendent of schools has his cfSces in the second story. In 1878, the next year after the courthouse was built, the pastors of Quincy filed an objection with the Board of Supervisors to using the basement as a county jail, and every exam- ination by the state auditors has criticised that arrangement. "How- ever," says Judge Lyman McCarl, in one of his historical addresses, "the basement has been used as a jail from the time of its construction, thirty-eight years ago (delivered in 1916), and during all that time not a single death has occurred as the result of a disease contracted in this jail." All the interior surroundings of the courthouse are modern and sanitary, and the well-kept grounds without, which rise gradually from the four thoroughfares bounding the square, make an attractive and imposing setting for the structure which is stately of itself. Representatives of the County Adams County has had many able representatives both in the county and the state governments, as the following roster will show. In the earlier years, when the population was meager, most of the able citizens of the county were drawn into public affairs of more or less prominence, but with the increase of settlers it was not nec- essary to call upon the same lot continuously. Judge Henry H. Snow, Earl Pierce, Asa Tyrer, William H. Tandy and others, who had almost a monopoly on office-holding for many years, walked from the scene and their successors were legion. County Officers, 1825-69 James Black, recorder July 8, 1825 Levi Headley, sheriff August 30, 1825 Asa Tyrer, coroner August 30, 1825 Henry H. Snow, judge probate September 15, 1825 Henry H. Snow, judge probate January 23, 1826 Henry H. Snow, recorder January 23, 1826 Hugh White, surveyor. . ; .-January 23, 1826 Earl Pierce, sheriff September 6, 1826 Asa Tyrer, coroner September 6, 1826 Heman Wallace, coroner September 6, 1828 Earl Pierce, sheriff December 5, 1828 Earl Pierce, sheriff November 27, 1830 Thomas Moon, coroner November 27, 1830 Earl Pierce, sheriff September 5, 1832 William P. Reader, coroner September 5, 1832 H. Patton, surveyor April 28, 1834 Harris Patton, surveyor , June 2, 1834 J. M. Wliiting, coroner August 22, 1834 Earl Pierce, sheriff August 29, 1834 QUINCV AND ADAM.S lOLXTV 1^9 Harris Patton. surveyor Dot-omlier 24, 1834 C. M. Billiugton, recorder August 22, 1835 Harris Patton, surveyor August 22, .1835 Thomas C. King, coroner August 24, 1836 Earl Pierce, sheriff AugiLst 24, .1836 Wm. G. Flood, probate judge February 17, 1837 Will. II. Tandy, sheriff Xovoinljcr 29, 1837 Wni. II. Tandy, sheriff Augu.st 21, 1838 Jas. JI. Hattan, coroner Augu.st 23, 1838 Jno. II. Ilolton, recorder August 17, 1839 Joel G. Williams, surveyor August 17, 1839 Thomas Jasper, sheriff August 12, 1840 John T. Gilmer, coroner August 12, 1840 Jonas Grubb, coroner August 12, 1842 "Wm. H. Tandy, sheriff August 13. 1842 John H. Ilolton, recorder August 29, 1843 Thos. J. Williams, surveyor August 29, 1843 James il. Pittman, sheriff August 12, 1844 L. Frazt-r. coroner Augu.st 16, 1844 James .M. Pittman, sheriff August 18, 1846 Thaddeus Monroe, coroner August 18, 1846 John II. Ilolton, recorder August 19, 1847 Washington Wren, sheriff August 16, 1848 Thaddeus Monroe, coroner August 16, 1848 Philo A. Goodwin, county judge .Xovember 17, 1849 J. C. Bernard, county clerk Xovember 22, 1849 Peter Lott, circuit clerk September 4, 1848 Abner K. TIninphrey, sheriff Xovember 20, 1850 Thaddeus .Monroe, coroner Xovember 20, 1850 B. I. Chatten, surveyor Xovember 22, 1851 Levi Palmer, sheriff Xovember 20, 1852 Thaddeus Monroe, coroner Xovember 20, 1852 C. M. Woods, circuit clerk Xovember 20, 1S52 G. W. Luch. county clerk Xovember 21, 1853 W. H. Cather, county judge Xovember 20, 1853 A. Touzalin, .school commissioner February 21. 1854 John Field, county clerk April 11. 1854 William Lane sheriff Xovember 15, 1854 Thaddeus Mojiroe, coroner Xovember 15, 1854 15. I. Chatten, surveyor November 15. 185.") John P. Cadogan, sheriff November 12, 1856 Thaddeus Monroe, coroner November 12. 1856 Thomas W. Macfall, circuit clerk November 14, 1856 Wm. II. Cather. county judge Xovember 21, 1857 Alex. Johnson, county clerk Xovember 21, 1857 B. I. Chatten. county surveyor Xovember 21, 1857 Wilson Lance, treasurer November 3. 1857 A.sa W. Blake.sly, .school eommi.ssioner Xovember 3. 1857 Vol. I— » 130 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY J. H. HendricksoD, sheriff November 10, 1858 Thaddeus Monroe, coroner November 10, 1858 N. T. Lane, school commissioner 1859 Eli Seehorn, county treasurer 1859 B. I. Chatten county surveyor 1859 Wm. M. Avis, school commissioner December 25, 1860 Maurice Kelly, sheriff November 26, 1860 W. S. M. Anderson, circuit clerk November 26, 1860 James Wimean, coroner November 26, 1860 E. B. Baker, county judge November 18, 1861 Alex. Johnson, county clerk November 18, 1861 Peter Smith, county surveyor November 18, 1861 John Steinagel, sheriff November 28, 1862 Geo. D. Watson, coroner November 28, 1862 F. G. Johnson, county treasurer November 13, 1863 Peter Smith, county surveyor November 13, 1863 H. S. Davis, school commissioner 1863 Samuel T. Brooks, circuit clerk November 28, 1864 "Wm. L. Humphrey, sheriff November 28, 1864 Geo. D. Watson, coroner November 28, 1864 Chas. H. Morton, county clerk November 15, 1865 Thos. J. Mitchell, county judge .November 22, 1865 Seth W. Grammer, superintendent of schools November 22, 1865 Chas. Petrie, county surveyor November 25, 1865 Thos. W. Gaines, county treasurer November 25, 1865 Henry C. Craig, sheriff November 25, 1866 John W. jMorehcad, circuit clerk November 26, 1866 Alex. Brown, coroner November 28, 1866 Peter Smith, surveyor November 28, 1867 Joseph Lummis, treasurer November 22, 1867 J. M. Earel, sheriff November 17, 1868 John W. Morehead, circuit clerk November 19, 1868 Alex. Brown, coroner November 30, 1868 Thos. J. Mitchell, county judge November (2) 23, 1869 Chas. H. Morton, county clerk November (2) 10, 1869 N. Morehead. circuit clerk Wm. Fletcher, treasurer November (2) 30, 1869 B. I. Chatten, surveyor November (2) 18, 1869 Jno. H. Black, superintendent of schools November (2) 29, 1869 The Decade, 1870-79 1870 — Napoleon ilorehead, circuit clerk: John M. Kreitz, sheriff; Alexander Brown, coroner. 1871 — Edwin Cleveland, treasurer ; Philip Fahs, surveyor. 1872 — ^W. G. Ewing, state's attorney; George Brophy, circuit clerk; G. C. Trotter, sheriff; Alexander Brown, coroner. 1873 — J. C. Thompson, county judge; Willis Hazelwood, county clerk. QllXCY AND A DA. MS colXTY 131 1^7-1 — George W. Craifr. .sheriff: Alex. Brown, coroner. 1875 — S. G. Earel, trea.surer; 8eth. J. Morey, surveyor. 1876— William H. Govert, state's attorney; George Brophy, cir- • iiit clerk: John 8. Pollotk, sheriff; Elihu Seehorn, coroner; Philip Fahs, surveyor. 1877— Benjamin F. Berrian, county judge: Willis Ilazelwood, county clerk ; Anton Binkert, treasurer; John II. Black, superintendent of schools. 1878— Edwin Cleveland, county treasurer ; John H. Black, super- intendent of .schools. 1879 — Henry Ording, sheriff; Elihu Scchorii, coroner. Covering 1882-1918 County Treasurers— 1882, John 8. Cruttenden ; 1886. John B. Kreitz; 1890. James B. Corrigau; 1894, George :\rcAdams; 1898, James -McKinnay; 1902. Frank Sonnet; 1906, HIatcliford A. McCoy; 1910, Joseph L. Thomas; 1914-18, E. W. Peter. Surveyors— 1880, Peter Smith ; 1885, John R. Xevins: 1888, Fergu- son A. Grover; 1896, Edward C. Wells; 1900, F. L. Hancock; 1904 W. H. UeGroot: 1912-15, Lilburn Richard.son (deputy under ;\Ir. De- Groot, died in June, 1915, v, hile in office) ; II. D. Mueller appointed to fill out unexpired term in 1915. and elected in 1916 (still in office). Coroners— 1888, Tchabod H. .Miller; 1892, Michael Ryan; 1896, William K. Ilasclwood : 1900. Benjamin B. Lummis ; 1904. W. R. Thomas; 1908, Michael J. Ilealey; 1916, Lawrence Amen. State's Attorneys— 1884. Oscar P. Bonney: 1890. Carl E. Epler, filled out Bonney 's term; 1892, Albert Akers; 1896, George H. Wil- son; 1900, Clay Crewdson ; 1904, William B. Sheets; 190S. John T. Gilmer: 1912, Fred G. Wolfe: 1916. J. LcRoy Adair. Circuit Clerks— 1896, Joseph L. Sheridan; 1900. Hiram R. Wheat: 1904, Sanford C. Pitney ; 1908. Erde W. Beatty (still in office^. George Brophy served as circuit clerk from 1876 to 1896. County Clerks — 1897, Jackson R. Pierce; 1910, John A. Connery; 1914, W. J. Smith (in office). Willis Ilasclwood was county clerk from 1877 to 1897. County Judges— 1894, Carl E. Epler; 1902, Charles B. McCrory; Judge McCrory resigned in the spring of 1910 and, under appointment from the governor. J. Frank (iarner served until December of that year; Lj-man JleCarl, since that month. Circuit Judges— 1879, John II. Williams; 1885, William Marsh; 1891, Oscar P. Bonney; 1897. John C. l?roady ; 190:i. Albert Akers (still on the bench). Judge Joseph Sibley was on the circuit Vnch from 18.55 to 1879. Sheriffs— 1880, R. M. Gray: 1882, Ben Heckle; 1886. Richard Sea- ton; 1890, J. W. Vancil; 1894. Adolph F. Roth; 1898, John Roth; 1902, Ed Smith; 1906. Bennett W. Thomas: 1910, Joseph If. Lipps; 1914, John Coens (in office). 132 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Recorders— 1892, Ben. Heckle; 1896, Rolla McNeall; 1900, Ben. Heckle; 1904, David P. Lawless; 1908, James M. Buffington (iu office). Legislative Representatives (Unless otherwise stated from Adams County) State Senators— Elected in 1818, George Caldwell, of Madison Coimty ; 1822, Theophilus W. Smitli, of Madison ; 1826, Thomas Car- lin, of Greene ; 1828, Henry J. Ross, Pike ; 1832, Archibald Williams ; 1836. 0. H. Browning; 1840, James H. Ralston; 1844, Jacob Smith: 1848, Hugh L. Sutphen, Pike; 1850, John Woods; 1853, Solomon Parsons. Pike ; 1854, William H. Carlin ; 1858, Austin Brooks ; 1862, B. T. Schofield, Hancock; 1S66, Samuel R. Chittenden; 1870, J. N. Richardson ; 1870, Jesse Williams, Hancock ; 1872, George W. Burns ; 1873, Maurice Kelly; 1874, Bernard Arntzen; 1878-85, JIaurice Kelly (resigned August 5, 1885) ; 1886-90, George W. Dean; 1890-97, Albert W. Wells (died and succeeded by John Mc Adams) : 1897-1902. John McAdams ; 1902, Thomas Meehan, Scott ; 1904, Thomas Bare, Cal- houn ; 1908, Campbell S. Hearne, who died in 1914 and was succeeded bj' the present encumbent, Chas. R. McNay. Representatives — 1818. Abraham Prickett, Madison County ; 1818, Samuel Whitesides, Monroe ; 1818, John Howard ; 1820, Nathaniel Buckmaster, Madison ; 1820, William Otwell ; 1820, Joseph Bronaugh ; 1822, X. Hansom, Pike (ejected) ; 1826, Henry J. Ross, Pike; 1826, Levi J. Roberts; 1828, John Turney, Peoria; 1828, John Allen, Joe Daviess: 1828, A. W. Caverly, Greene; 1830, Joel Wright, Fulton: 1830, Samuel C. Pearce, Calhoun; 1830, Charles Gregory: 1832, Wil- liam G. Flood; 1832, Philip W. Martin; 1834, William Ro.ss, Pike; 1834, Thomas H. Owen; 1836, George Galbraith ; 1836, James H. Ralston; 1837. Archibald Williams; 1838, A. Williams; 1838, William G. Flood ; 1840, Robert Star ; 1840, William Laughlin ; 1842, John G. Humphrey; 1842, 0. H. Browning; 1842, A. Jonas: 1842, R. W. Star: 1842, P. B. Garrett; 1842, A. Wheat: 1844, Peter Lott; 1844, William Hendrix; 1844, William Miller; 1846, I. N. Morris; 1846, William Hendrix: 1846. James H. Seehorn; 1846, E. H. Buckley. :\Iarr|nette (then attached to Adams) ; 1848, 0. C. Skinner; 1848, John ilarriott: 1850, J. R. Hobbs ; 1850, J. M. Pittman ; 1851, J. W. Singleton, Brown ; 1852. John Moses, Brown; 1852, J. Wolf; 1853. J. W. Singleton. Brown ; 1853, H. Boyle ; 1854, Eli Seehorn : 1854, H. V. Sullivan ; 1856, Samuel Holmes; 1856-58, M. M. Bane: 1858, W. Metcalf ; 1860, J. W. Singleton. Browai ; 1860, "\V. C. Harrington; 1862. A. E. Wheat; 1862. William Brown ; 1864, Thomas Redmond ; 1864, William T. Yeargain ; 1866, Henry L. Warren; 1866, P. G. Corkins; 1868. Thomas Jasper; 1868, John E. Downing: 1870, George J. Richardson: 1870, H. S. Trimble: 1870, Maurice Kelly; 1872, Ira M. Moore: 1872, Charles Ballon; 1872, N. Bushnell: 1873, John Tillson ; 1873. A. G. Griffith: uriN( V AND ADA.MS ((ilXTY 133 1874, Ira M. Moore; 1874, R. H. Downing; 1874, J. C. Bates; 1876, H. S. Davis; 1876, J. II. Hendriukson ; 1876, Thoma.s G. IMack; 1878, Alisaloin Saiiuiols; 1878, Joseph \. Carter; 1878, Samuel Miloliaiii; 1880, Joseph X. Carter; 1880, John MeAdams; 1880, William A. Rieh- ardson; 1882, Thomas G. Bhuk: 1882. James E. Purnell; 1882. James E. Downing': 1884, Fred 1". Taylor; 1SS4. Sainiiel Mileliam ; 1S84- 88, William H. Collin.s; 1886-90, Albert W. Wells; 1886-90, Ira Tyler; 1888, A. S. McDowell: 1890, Jonathan Parklun-st ; 1890-94. George C. MeCroiie ; 1892, :Mitcliell Dazey ; 1892. Joel W. Bonney ; 1894-8, fharles F. Kincheloe; 1894-1900, Elmer E. Perry, Brown County: 1894, George W. Dean; 1896, George W. :Montg(miery ; 1898-1904. William Schlagcnhauf; 1898-1904, Jacob Groves; 1900, John :\I. Murphy, Brown County ; 1902-06, Irvin D. Webster, Pike County ; 1904, Camp- bell S. Ilearn: 1904, R. B. Echols; 1906-10. Chas. E. Bolin. Pike; 1906, Chauncey II. Castle; 1906, Campbell 8. Hearn; 1908, Jacob Groves; 1908-14, George II, Wilson; 1910-14. Win. II. Hoffman; 1912-16, E. T, Strubinger, Pike; 1916. R. ^]. Wagner. RuR.\L Lands .\nd Crrv Properties With the progress of agricultural methods and the contiiuious im- provement of farming properties, the value of the rural lands has long since overtaken that of city properties (generally designated in the a.ssessors" reports as "lots"), the figures of 1917 being given as follows : Personal Total As.ses.sed Townships Lands Clayton $ 464,355 North East 462,820 Camp Point 886,805 Houston 420,305 Honey Creek 333,210 Keene 243,445 Mendon 424,790 Lima 320,530 Ursa 525,305 Concord 23fl.240 McKee 104 215 Beverly 258,825 Columbns 220,125 Liberty 225,965 Richfield 254,670 Gilmer ^ 391.020 Burton 334.205 Payson 439,452 Ellington 611.600 Melrose 744,975 Lots Property Value .$ 69,580 $ 167,317 .$ 701,252 98,715 220,822 782,357 134,490 140,485 661,780 94,115 514,420 29,020 101,265 463,495 36,030 106.555 386,030 94,890 235,762 755,442 17,550 91,740 429,820 30,870 209,015 766,190 .52,090 291,330 1,825 4;5,330 151,370 7,172 87,000 352,997 6,!»35 46.414 273.474 26,840 115.61.-. 368.420 77.245 331,915 13.815 101.190 506.025 5.940 95.275 435,420 55,720 200,480 695,652 800 191,645 807,045 .344,175 1,089,150 134 QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Townships Lauds Fall Creek $ 428,690 Riverside 333,590 Quincy Lots $ 6,455 17,190 7,590,595 Personal Total Assessed Property Value $ 418,550 $ 853,685 67,891 418,671 3,059,528 10,650,123 Total in county.... $8,172,137 $653,827 $3,209,976 $12,035,940 Total in city and county $8,244,422 $6,269,504 $22,686,063 As an offset to these figures may be presented the assessed value of real and personal property within the county in 1878, or forty years previous. The tax returns for that year indicated that the total assessed value of all lands (farms), amounting to 528,005 acres, was $9,205,718 ; of which area 383,008 acres comprised improved land^. The town and city lots, amounting to 10,163 acres, were assessed at $6,531,297. The per.sonal property was valued at $3,538,176 ; railroad property, $159,182; land, both improved and unimproved, $9,205,718, as stated, and town and city property, $6,531,297. The total value of all taxable property was therefore $19,434,373. Population 1890, 1900, 1910 Probably for the past twenty years there has been little change in the average assessed value of i-eal estate throughout the county, since the tendency of the population, as in most of the smaller counties in the Mississippi Valley, has been downward. The only increase in population noted from the figures of 1900 was in the City of Quincj' and the Village of Loraine. The tables are presented herewith : Civil Divisions 1910 1900 1890 64,588 67,058 61,888 Beverly Township 890 1,051 982 Burton Township 779 1,007 1,174 Camp Point Township (including Camp Point Village) 1,845 2,126 2,003 Camp Point Village 1,148 1,260 1,150 Clayton Township 1,682 1,822 1,912 Clayton Village 940 996 1,033 Columbus Township (including part of Columbus Village) 792 951 1,000 Columbus Village (part of) 104 136 149 Total of Columbus Village in Columbus and Gilmer townships 134 196 201 Concord Township 749 907 1,059 Ellington Township 1,200 1,278 1,233 Fall Creek Township 876 983 884 QL'INCV AM) ADAMS COLXTY 135 Civil Divisions 1910 1900 1890 64,588 67,058 61,888 Gilmer Township (includiug part of Colum- bus Village) 916 1,066 1,126 Columbus Village (part of) 30 GO 52 Honey Creek Township (ineluding Coats- burg Village) 1,144 1,259 1,287 Coatsburg Village 262 321 308 Houston Township 758 822 981 Keene Township (including Loraine Vil- lage) 1,106 1,168 1,280 Loraine Village 417 349 327 Liberty Township Lima Township (including Lima Village) 1,282 1,554 1,404 Lima Village 797 280 251 McKee Township 869 1,059 1,065 Melrose Township (exclusive of part of Quincy City) 1.915 2,117 2,077 Jlendon Township (including Mendon ^'il- lage) 1,332 1,361 1,489 Jfendon Village 640 627 640 North East Townshiji (including (!olden and LaPrairie villages) 1,523 1,511 1,488 Golden Village 579 516 466 LaPrairie Village 187 182 194 Payson Township (including Payson and Plainv-ille villages) 1,508 1,697 1,819 Payson Village 467 465 Plainville Village 251 296 Quincy City in Melrose and Riverside town- ships 36,587 36,252 31,494 Ward 1 5.276 Ward 2 5.036 Ward 3 5.231 Ward 4 6.507 Ward 5 6,767 Ward 6 4.992 Ward 7 2.778 Richfield Township 897 1.010 1,114 Riverside Township (exclusive of part of Quincy City) 3,546 3,432 2,168 Ursa Township 1,381 1,486 1,614 The total taxes levied in the county for 1917 amounted to the fol- lowing: School tax, $391,796.32; state tax, $211,633.55; county, $155,408.79; high school, .$2,364.68; town. $11,765.30; road and bridge. $75,967.62; corporation. .$229..346.97 ; bond interest tax and sinking 136 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY fund, $14,447.08 ; uou-high school, $14,759 ; permaueut road fund, $1,259.87; back tax, $43.90; total, $1,108,793.91. Adams County Home Adams County was no exception to the general rule set forth in Holy Writ as a universal fact, not to be gainsaid — ' ' The poor ye have always with ye." As the world has also come to the conclusion that poverty is no sin, and often not even a fault, individuals, govern- ments and institutions endeavor to keep in the background of the lives of those who are public charges all suggestions that they are in any way disgraced. Such a policy both lightens an existence which is apt to be monotonous, if not weary, and also tends to stimulate ambition and permanent reformation of character. Therefore old-time terms; savoring of harshness, if not contempt, such as Poor House, Alms House and Poor Farm, have been largely eliminated from the phraseology of such county institutions in favor of County Home, County Infirmary, etc. At first the deserving poor in Adams County were relieved by benevolent settlers in the localities of their residence. But the great objection to this plan was that those to whom assistance was thus extended became objects of charity, and, even when capable of work- ing, employment for them was not often at hand. In 1847, there- fore, the County Commissioners' Court decided to purchase a farm upon which the able-bodied could be employed, and many varieties of light work found for both sexes. For that purpose the eighty-acre farm of H. T. Ellis was purchased near the center of Honey Creek Townsliip ; the transfer was made March 16, 1847, the consideration for which was $700. At the time of the purchase the land was in a fair state of cultivation, and upon the premises were a two-story frame house, a barn, blacksmith shop and other out-houses. The poor for whom the county were then caring were moved to that property and sustained there until May, 1855. In the meantime township organiza- tion had gone into effect under the new constitution and other arrange- ments were being considered. At a session of the Board of Super- visors held in January, 1856, a committee consisting of William Laughlin, A. H. Dean and Baptist Hardy, was appointed by that body to select a larger farm and arrange to erect more suitable buildings for the care of the county's charges. In June of that year they re- ported that they had purchased of John P. Battell the 160 acres com- prising the northeast quarter of section II, Gilmer Township, for $5,000. The committee also reported at the same meeting the pur- chase of 50,000 brick and other material with which to erect buildings thereon. During the following year (1857) the farm was rented and the former inmates were supported at a specified price per week per capita ; but when the buildings were completed in 1858 they were moved to the County Farm, where they were afterward maintained. In 1874 the City of Quincy adopted township organization, and the (^riNlV AND ADAMS COUXTY l:i7 poor of tlie niimicipality. wliu had previmisly liceii careil for by a com- mittee eoinprisiiig: one alderman from each ward aud an overseer, were transferred to the county institution. This additional burden rendered its accommodations inailc<|uatc. and, as a tcmjiorary ex- pedient, the County Board arranged for their care with the Charitable Aid and Hospital Association of Quiney. The agreement extended from July, 1S74, to April 30, 1876. and duriufr the last year of that arrangement there were upon the books of the association an average of 314 persons monthly, representing 226 families, who received relief. In December. 187'), a new building three stories high. 32 by 43 feet, had been completed on the I'ounty Farm at a cost of about $8,000. The steam heating system and other modern appliances to conserve the health and comfort of the inmates probably added some $2,000 to that amount, ilore than twenty years afterward, in 1897, becau.se of the great increase of insane patients, another building for their special care was erected. Its dimensions were 24 by 40 feet and cost aljout $10,000. Then came various outbuildings, a new heating plant and other improvements made necessary by the growth of the population and modern demands. The grounds of the County Home now comprise 160 acres, five acres of which are in orchard. The aver- age numl)er of inmates accommodated is about eighty. The first superintendent of the County Farm, or County Home, as it has been called for a number of years pa.st, was D. L. Hair, appointed by the County Board of Supervi.sors in 1860. Mr. Hair served six years; his successor, A. L. Shiphard, seven ; A.sbuiy Elliott, six; a ^Ir. Doren, one year; W. Beecott, one; il. Doren, two years; Mrs. Doren. six years after the death of her hu.sband ; "William Bates, six; Dave L. Hair, six; Jacob W. Wolfe, four; Elmer J. Earel, three; John Schwaiik, the present superintendent since January 1, 1910. CHAPTER VII PROFESSIONAL SKETCHES Evolution of Judiciary Systems — First Circuit Court Sits — Wood vs. Lisle, Sure-Enough Slander — The Jovial Judge Sawyer^ Samuel D. Lockwood, Illinois' First Lawyer — Peter Lott — Opportunity for Stephen A. Douglas — Richard :M. Young — James H. Ralston — Congressional Fight Betweeos' Douglas AND Browning — Jesse B Thomas — Norman H. Purple — William A. Minshali, — New Judicial Circuit Formed — Onias C. Skinner — Early Circuit Judges — Charles B. Lawrence — Joseph Sib- ley — Other Circuit Judges — The Probate and County Judges — Judge B. F. Berrian — Hangings, Legai, and Illegal — The Luckett-Magnor Murder Trial — A Slander Suit with a Mor.vl — The Killing op Major Prentiss — Famous Eels Slave Case — The Pioneer Members of the Bar — Archibald Williams — Calvin A. Warren — Nehemiah Bushnell — Isaac N. Morris — Philo a. Goodwin — Edward H. Buckley — Almeron Wheat — Hope S. Davis — Col. Willl\m A. Richardson — Willlvm G. EwiNG — Col. William H. Benneson — Gen. James W. Single- ton — Joseph N. Carter — Bern.uid Arntzen — Jackson Grimshaw — Sterling P. Delano — Lawyers in 1869 — The Quincy Bar As- sociation — Uriah H. Keath, Oldest' Living Lawyer — Veter^v^t Lawrence E. Emmons — When Bench and Bar Were Pictur- esque — The Physicians — Cholera in 1833 — The Cholera Epi- demic op 1849 — Adams County ]\Iedical Society — Edward G. Castle — In the Union Service — City Board of He-^lth Created. The pioneers of Adams County were drifting tliither soon after the first state constitution was promulgated and through which the first courts of Illinois were organized. Under the Constitution of 1818 the judicial power of the state was vested in the Supreme Court, comprising a chief justice and three associates, with such inferior courts as the Legislature might establish. When Adams County was set off from old Pike in 1825, it was in first of the five judicial cir- cuits. By the constitution, the terms of office of supreme judges were to expire with the close of the year 1824. The Legislature re-organized the judiciary by creating both Circuit and Supreme courts. The state was divided into five judicial circuits, providing two terms of court annuall.y in each county. The salaries were fixed at $600. The 138 yLl.\( V AND AOA.MS LULXTV 139 following circuit jiiditres were chosen : Jolin Y. Sawyer, Samuel Mc- Koberts, Kichard M. Young. James Hall and John O. Wattles, named in the order of their respective circuits. Pike County had been organized in 1821, and Fulton, Peoria, Hancock, Henry, Kno.x and Warren in 1823-25; .McDonough in 1826, and Joe Daviess in 1827. Tiiat multiplication of counties overta.xed the four Supreme Court .justices whose duty it wa.s to hold Circuit courts in the counties of the state. The Sixth Legislature that convened at Vaudalia on December 1, 1828, came to their relief by pa.ssing an act on January 8, 182!). fomiing a fifth .judicial dis- trict comprising all the territory west and uorth of the rivei- within the state's limits. The Legislature then elected Richard M. Young judge of that circuit with a salary of sjiTOO a year to be paid in (luar- terly instalments; and fifteen days later, January 23rd, he received his commission from Governor Edwards, who probably experienced no sorrow in thus committing liim to exile. For the next six years Judge Young was the only circuit judge elected and commissioned in Illinois. With his usual energy and en- thusia.sm he immediately commenced the work of his new office with William Thoma.s, of Morgan County, as state's attorney, who was commissioned on the same day as himself. Mr. Thomas was succeeded a.s state's attorney of that fifth district by Thomas Ford, on March 15, 1830, who was again appointed on February 15, 183L Ford was succeeded by Wm. A. Richardson on February 13, 1835, who .served until February 25, 1839. when he was followed by Wni. Elliott, Jr. In the autumn of 1839 Judge Young left Kaskaskia and located in Galena, then at the zenith of its lead-mining industry, and the most I)opulous and busy town in the state. Judge Samuel D. Lockwood. of the Supreme Court, who resided in Jacksonville, had held court at Galena, Quincy. Peoria and Lewiston. but gladly relinquished that part of his circuit to the newly elected judge. In 1831 the Seventh General A.ssembly organized and added to Judge Young's circuit the counties of Cook, Rock Island and La Salle, completing the area of his jurisdiction from Galena to Lake Michigan, thence down the Illinois River to its confluence with the ^lissi.ssippi. Desiring a quieter place of residence for his family than Galena, then on the extreme frontier and little more than a mining camp infested with speculators, gamblers, and every variety of .social out- casts who respected neither moral nor civil law. Judge Young moved to Quincy in the spring of 1831. Evolution op Judicial Systems The Legislature of 1840-41 again took a hand in manipidating the judicial system of the state. By the act which pa.s.sed that body and was approved Fcbniary 10, 1841. all acts were repealed authorizing the elc'-tion of circuit judges by the Legislature. It also provided for the appointment of five additional associate judges of the Supreme 140 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Court, making nine iu all; reimposed the eii-cuit duties on the mem- bers of the State Supreme Court and divided the state iuto uiue cir- cuits. The continuity of the county judiciary inferior to the Circuit Court is carried along through the probate and county systems, with the justices of the peace as useful and, at times, very busy auxiliaries. In fact, under the Constitution of 1818, and for thirty years thereafter, matters usually classed as probate and those not assigned to justices of the peace, were under the jurisdiction of what were denominated probate justices of the peace. The Constitution of 1848- made all judicial officers elective by the people, and provided for a Supreme Court of three judges ; also for Circuit, County and Justices' courts, and conferred upon the Legis- lature power to create inferior Municipal courts. Since that time all probate matters are adjudicated by the County Court in Adams. Under the Constitution of 1348 appeals lay from the Circuit Court to the Supreme Court for the particular division in which the county might be located. The term of office for S\ipreme Court judges was nine years and for circuit judges, six. Vacancies were to be filled by popular election, unless the unexpired term of the deceased or retiring incumbent was less than one year, in which case the governor was authorized to appoint. Circuit courts were vested with appellate jurisdiction from inferior tribunals, and each was required to hold at least two terms annually in each county, as might be fixed by statute. The Constitution of 1870 retained the popular elective feature of the judiciary and the terms of office of the Supreme and Circuit Court judges as fixed by the Constitution of 1848. The number of Supreme Court judges was increased to seven, as at present. In 1873 the state was divided into twenty-seven circuits and in 1874, into thirteen. Under the provisions of the latter year, while the twenty-six judges already in office were retained, an additional judge wa.s authorized for each district to serve two years, making the entire circuit judiciary to consist of thirty-nine judges. In all this legislation Cook County was in a class by itself, constituting one circuit ; the same is true re- garding the act of 1897, which increased the number of circuits to seventeen (exclusive of Cook County), while the number of judges in each circuit remained the same. The Constitution of 1870 provided for the organization of Appel- late courts after 1874. The Legislature established four of these tribu- nals. Each Appellate Court is held by three Circuit Court judges named by the State Supreme Court, each assignment covering three years, and no judge is allowed to receive extra compensation or sit in review of his own rulings or decisions. Two terms are held in each district yearly. The Appellate courts have no original jurisdiction. After the reorganization of the Appellate Court, by legislative enactment, in 1877, and the redistricting of the state, the counties of Brown, Hancock, Fulton, Schuyler, Pike, McDonough and Adams were formed into another circuit. (^LINXV AND ADA-M8 COUNTY 141 First Circuit Colrt Sits With the groundwork of the judicial systems tiius laid in Adams County, the personal and local details calculated to briuj; home the picture of the bench and bar of this part of the state arc marshaled at this point. The first session of the Circuit Court of Adams County, or of any court whatever in the county, was held in August, 1825. in Willard Keyes' log house. This first temple of justice wa.s a cabin about si.xteen feet square, situated at what would now be the foot of Vermont Street. The main room was for the court, over which pre- sided John Yorke Sawyvr, witli J. Turncy as circuit attorney and John H. Snow as clerk. A small outside porch was set aside for the Petit jury, while the Grand jury was to retire to the shade of a large oak tree not far from the courthouse. The lists of citizens who had been drawn to sit upon any liusiness which might be brought before them, and decide upon the rcasunable- ness of bringing various matters and persons to trial, were as follows: Grand Jury — ilorrill Martin, Lewis Kinney, Daniel Whipple, Joshua Strecter. John L. Soule, Samuel Goshong, John Wood, John Droulard, Ira Pierce, .Amos Bancroft, Daniel Moore, John Thomas, 2d, William Burritt, Abijah Caldwell, Zephaniah Ames, Peter Jour- ney. Ebenezer Ilarkness, Cyrus Ilibbard, Thomas ^IcCrary, Luther Whitney, Hiram R. Ilawley, IJenjamin ilcN'itt, Samuel Stone and Levi Wells. Petit Jury — Willard Kcycs, Lewis C. K. Hamilton, Hezekiah Spill- man, William Journey, Elias Adams, Earl Wilson, Curtis Caldwell, Samuel Seward, Truman Streeter, James Moody, Evan Thomas, Silas Brooks, James Greer, George Campbell. Peter Williams, Henry Jacobs, Thomas Freeman, Riell Crandall, William Snow, David Ray and David Beebe. Wood vs. Lisle, Slre-Enougu Sl.vnder As nearly all the citizens of the county were included in the lists of the jurors, or the roster of officials, the Grand jury found few in- dictments. A couple of the male inhabitants were ordered into court for i|uarrcling on election day, and among the few cases actually tried was an exciting suit for slander brought by John Wood against Daniel Li.sle. It seems that Lisle had charged Mr. Wood with having drowned a horse thief in Bear Creek. The basis for the story was the fact that Messrs. Wood and Keyes had bought .some hogs from a stranger, who had afterward sneaked away and been accused of horse stealing. If "honest John Wood"' had known of the charge at the time of his dealings with the unknown he would undoubtedly have arrested him ; i)Ut the stranger com])letely dropped out of sight ; it was said that he was a horse thief; the energetic .Mr. Wood was known to be very bitter against that class of criminals. Lisle was an undoubted bu.sy-body with a rapid tongue — and there you have the combination that started ^""^« i^^ J ^5 o c C z a; 'S o = Z -» o p B O c = CO o --^ a: 00 ^ CO M CO s •CC (1^ be a O cs ft o p-i •- * CO OJ n r; o O t S Ql'IXCY AND ADAMS CorXTY 143 the trouble. But there was nothing to the ease when it was brought into court. The Jovial Judge S.vwyer It is said that on the 31st of October a more businesslike term of the Circuit Court was held than that of August, which was more a formal and an initial .sitting designed to oil the legal machinery and get it in motion. As Jutlge Sawyer would force the scales well up to 400 pounds, it is reasonable to suppose that some little time was re- quired to get him in motion. He was of a jolly nature and. as he was also honest and a man of ability and wit, he was respected and popular during his two years' term. •'Madam," said he, upon one oeeasion to an old Quincy landlady, •'aren't your cows of different color?" "Yes," she answered, "we've got 'em black, red, white and spotted." "I thought so,"' concluded the judge. "Your butter speckles that way." Judge Sawyer was a Vermont Yankee, whose name first ap- pears enrolled as a lawyer on l)cccnil»er 7, 18'20. After leaving the bench in 1827 he resumed his profession at Vandalia and died March 13, 1836. at which time he was editor of the \'andalia Advocate. S.\ML'EL D. LocKwooD, Illixoi.s' First L.VWYER Judge Sawyer was succeeded liy Saiiiucl 1). Lockwood. one of the Supreme judges, whose name stands recorded as the first lawyer to commence practice in Illinois. licensed Jlay 14, 1819. Judge Lock- wotul was born in Central New York and came to Illinois in liSl8, when statehood had just been adopted. He first stopped at Kaskaskia, but finally settled at Jacksonville, making that place his home until his final retirement from the bench in 1848. He then moved to Matavia, Kane County, where he died about 1873. One of his professional friends thus speaks of him: "He had an excellent education, a very relined mind, studious habits and ]iroverbial j)urity of character. Lifted early in life to the Supreme liencli. he honored the ermine as few others have. His appearance was ap])ropriate and imposing — white-haired while yet young, of graceful form, ilignitied and courteous in demeanor, he was a model jurist and, if not pos.se.ssing the higher native intellect of .some who graced the Supreme l)Cnch. in the aggre- gate of qualifications he was une.\celled. No public man of Illinois pa.s-sed under a longer period of constant observation and has been clothed with as much of general confidence and respect." RiCH.VRD M. Yot'NG Judge Lockwood was successively a whig and a republican, and his successor, Richard M. Young, was his opposite both in polities and general character. Judge Young ascended the bench in 1831, when, because of the increase of business devolving on the Supreme Ittrt QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY judges, a fifth judicial circuit was created in Illinois. He was a Keutuckiau by birth, settled in the state when it was yet verj- j'oung, and for many years held public positions of great prominence. He was a man of strong common sense and much dignity ; had virtually no elasticitj' or magnetism, and seemed, at times, almost dull. Yet he steadily forged ahead of associates who seemed far abler than he, and whatever he accomplished added to the general confidence reposed in him. His politics were of the stei-n Jaeksonian demoei'aey. Judge Young 's service on the circuit bench ceased in 1837, when he took a seat in the United States Senate to which he had been elected during the previous winter. Filling out his full term of six years, during which period he was appointed by Governor Carlin state agent, he visited Europe in the latter capacity. Later, he was appointed to the Supreme bench, and became successively clerk of the House of Representatives and commissioner of the General Land Office. Later he was engaged in a legal and agency business and although he spent several of the last months of his life under medical treatment in the Government Hos- pital for the Insane at AVashington, he partially regained his mentality but finally died of physical exhaustion in November, 1861. He was buried in the Congressional Cemetery at the National Capital. James H. Ralston The seat on the circuit bench vacated by Judge Young in 1837 was filled by the appointment of James H. Ralston, who for several years had been an active practicing lawyer of Quincy, and member of the Legislature. Unlike Judge Young, he seemed to have no talents for politics, although unduly ambitious iu that field, and it was the gen- eral opinion among his friends and professional associates that he would have attained far more success had he confined his industry and undoubted abilities to the province of the law. He was a tall, rather ungraceful man, and not attractive as a speaker, so that his reputation on the bench exceeded that which he made at the bar. James H. Ralston was born in Bourbon Coimty, Kentucky, in 1807, and soon after attaining his majority moved to Quincy and entered upon the practice of the law. He served in the Black Hawk war, and subsequently represented his district in the lower house of the State Legislature at a time when Lincoln, Douglas, Hardin, Shields and Baker were members of that body. After serving as circuit judge from 1837 to 1839, he resigned from the bench, and in 1841 was elected to the State Senate. Judge Ralston took an active interest in politics until the Mexican war, when he was commissioned captain and placed in command of the Alamo at San Antonio, Texas. From that point all supplies and munitions of war were forwarded to the American army operating in . Northern Mexico. Soon after the close of the Mexican war he moved to California, and was a member of its first State Senate. In 1856 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the chief justiceship of Cali- Qr-IXCV AM) ADAMS roCXTV 14.') fornia. Ronioviug to Xevadu in 1860, he became prominent as a public character in the formative period of that commonwealth and died near Austin in 1864, the ^ear of statcbirth. Petek Lott Peter Lott's service of two years brought credit to the judge per- sonally and to the Circuit Court as an institution. As a lawy.r, he was genial almost to the point of indolence, but iiad a naturally keen legal mind balanced by sound judgment. A native of New Jersey, Judge Lott came to Illinois from that state in 18;5.j and located for practice at Carthage, Hancock County. A few months later he movcii to (^uincy. where he resided during the succeeding four years as a lawyer engaged in somewhat indifferent practice, because of his tem- (icramcntal drawbacks noted heretofore. His many friends and ad- mirers, however, believed that he would make a good judge; and they were not mistaken, although he was retired from the bench under the operations of the law of 1S41. In his prime Judge Lott is described as above the medium height, powerfully built, of light complexion and hair, with a broad face singularly expressive of humor. Like Judge Ralston, he was a whig until i bout 1886. when he joined the democratic I)arty. of which he became a state leader. After his retirement from the bench. Judge Lott resumed legal practice, was elected to the lower house of the Legislature in 1844: enli.sted in Colonel Bissell's regiment of Illinois infantrj- on the out- break of the Mexican war. soon after became captain, and acijuired credit at the battle of Buena Vista. At bis return from Mexico, in 1848, he was elected circuit clerk and recorder, and shortly after the expiration of his four-year term he went to California. He wa.s placed in charge of the I'nited States mint at San Francisco, and died a few years later. OPPORTrNTTY FOR STEPHEN A. DOIGI-.^S It is said that the I'hangc in the state judiciary, brought about by the Legislature of 1840-41, was caused by the dissatisfaction of the democratic party with its personnel. As the State Supreme Court then stood, three of its judges were whigs and only one a democrat; an In the palmy early days when Earl Pierce was .sheriff of Adams County occurred the first and the last execution in that part of the state. It was also the first hanging in the Military Tract, so far as known. In the month of December, 1834. one Bennett was executed in Quincy for the murder of one Baker, poor wretches whose fiimily names only have come down to the present. The killing was at Ben- nett's cabin above town, on or near the bay. where both f>f the prin- cipals had been carousing for some days. The case was clear against 154 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY him, and at 10 o'clock A. ^1. of that winter's day, the militia of the town and neighborhood was paraded under the command of Captain Hedges and others to form a guard at the execution. JNIany spec- tators, including a number of women, attended. Bennett was a tall, lean old man, and when brought out of the old log jail, dressed in a long white shroud and cap, he walked behind the wagon (driven bj' old John aiy, who was dressed in a buckskin hunting shirt) to the gallows. All were impressed with the firm, Indian like tread and carriage of the murderer. He behaved with the utmost firmness and dignified resignation. It is said that his last words of regret and admonition drew many tears from the crowd of spectators. An old settler who witnessed the execution adds to his account of it: "That day six fights occurred in town. Not one of the offenders was arraigned or fined. The writer, who had been there only about a month, began to think Quincy a hard place." After the execution of Bennett, the gallows were not again called into requisition to expiate the crime of any Adams County criminal for more than a quarter of a century. In 1861 Attisou and Nelson Cunningham murdered a feeble old man named Harrison, who lived some miles south of Quincy and was supposed to possess some money. For this crime Attison Cunningham, the leader in the terrible aft'air, swung from the gallows in the rear of the courthouse, Friday morn- ing, November 29, 1861. The hanging of Rose, the bushwhacker, in 1865, by a Quincy mob, is the only instance in the history of Adams Count}* in which lynch law has been applied to an offender. He was accused of having shot a Mr. Trimble, a prominent democrat of Marcelline. Rose was taken from the jail by some of the convalescent soldiers in the hospital at Quincy and. aided by a number of other citizens of little prominence, met an illegal death at the hands of the maddened rioters. The Luckett-Magnor Murder Tri.vl This was one of the most sensational criminal ca.ses ever brought into the Adams County courts. Thurston J. Luckett and William Magnor were local printers, in 18-17, the former with quite wealthy connections. The.y were intimate friends before a woman came between them and caused jealous su.spicions and mortal hatred. Finally the.y had a quarrel in the Clay Hotel and Magnor was stabbed to death. Browning & Bushnell were engaged to defend Luckett and no money was spared to clear him ; public sentiment also inclined toward the defendant, and the members of the bar were especially partial to him. Such circumstances rather tended to weaken the morale of the prosecution, its chief official representative even leav- ing the city during the progress of the trial and his assistant handling the situation rather feebly. The killing was done in the spring and the trial was conducted at the October term of the Circuit Court. The feature of the case which made it noteworthy, aside from the standing QL'INCY AND ADAMS CuL'XTV 155 of tlie priucipals in the tragedy, was O. II. Browning's address to the jurj', ill defense of Luekett, wJiieh from all aeeounts of those who heard it was one of the most masterly appeals ever made by that master of eloquence and persuasion. After its delivery the last vestige of doubt as to the outcome of the trial disappeared; Luekett was promptly acquitted. A Slander Suit with a Moral The j'ear 18-19 is marked by two events which were brought into court and causccf more than local interest. The Hi-st was a slantler trial which was conducted during the June term of the Circuit Court, and was the outcome of bitter j)ersonal a.s well as political quarrels. S. M. Hartlett, editor of the Whig, brought the suit against C. M. Woods, publisher of the Herald. Woods and Austin Brooks were the Herald proprietors, and Brooks was the editor who had written the articles alleged to be slanderous, but the suit was brought against Woods as being eulnr and esteemed citi- zen. In this ease Austin West, who was charged with the offense, was 156 QULXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY tried iu the following year and sentenced to three years in the peni- tentiary'. It was evidently an unpremeditated homicide, the killing perhaps being the result of a hot-blooded quarrel incited by promis- cuous conviviality. The court records show that West was indicted for the murder of Major Prentiss at the May term of the Circuit Court, 1850 ; that William A. Minehell was judge and R. S. Blackwell, prosecuting attorney. Famous Eels Slave Case It was not until 1853 that the famous fugitive slave case which so harassed the life of Dr. Richard Eels was decided in his favor, and the decision rendered that he had been unjustly convicted by the lower court sixteen years before. He died in the West Indies about the time the suit was determined. To begin at the beginning of the trouble — one evening, in the late summer of 1837, a tall and rather lean black man arrived in Quincy from Missouri. He swam the Mississippi River and was, of course, as wet as a half-drowned rat. A colored agent of the Underground Railway, Barryman Barnet, communicated his arrival to Doctor Eels. The doctor had a good buggy and a fast horse and, after giving the black man a dry shirt and a pair of pantaloons, started north with him ; no doubt expect- ing to reach the next station, where other friendly parties would forward the escaping slave to his next stopping place. But his master had arrived in Quincy and organized a pursuing party, some of whom met Doctor Eels and the fugitive negro and ordered them to halt. Instead, the doctor stirred up his steed and outdistanced his pursuers for the time being. Another squad overtook him, how- ever, and, hiding the black in a corn field, he circled around toward home. But the slave was caught by Sara Pearson, and a party of pursuers followed the doctor to his residence where they found the buggy containing the towel, linen shirt and l>reeches of the negro still wet with Mississippi water. On the following day a warrant was sworn out by the master of the slave before Henry Asbury, justice of the peace, and a preliminary trial was held at the courthouse to determine whether the doctor should be held to bail to answer the charge of "hai-boring and aiding a fugitive to escape from the service of his master." Says Squire Asbury: "The examination took place in the courthouse and was largely at- tended, with able lawyers on each side. The doctor was held to bail. The case was afterward tried in the Circuit Court, I believe before Judge Douglas (Judge Skinner — Editor), and Eels was convicted and fined. The case thence went to the Supreme Court of tlie State and finally to the Supreme Court of the United States. Both deci- sions may be found. The justice of the peace delivered a written opinion, and he is almost sorry to saj' that all the courts above him took substantially the same views of the case as he had taken. The Ql'INCV AND ADAMS COUXTY 157 affair cost Doctor Eels many thousands of dollars and almost broke him up, but the great notoriety of the Eels case, especially when it reached tlie Supreme Coprt of the United States, no doubt brought some of the anti-slavery people of New England forward with money to assist in the defense." As stated, the controversy over the Eels case, as it affected the doctor pei-sonally and disturbed the friendly relations between Quincy and the Missouri side of the river, was decided by Judge Skinner, of the Circuit Court, in an opinion which he delivered on .Taiuiary 21, 1853. It was to the effect that the authorities of the United States only had jurisdiction over suits concerning runaway slaves. A public meeting had previously been held in Marion County, Mis.souri, unan- imously resolving to sever all business intercourse with Quincy on account of the disposition of so many of its people to aid the escape of runaway slaves. The question agitated on the Illinois side of the river was a.s to the obligation of citizens in this matter, under the provisions of the Black laws incorporated into the constitution of 1848, and how far the legal machinery of the state could be made subservient to the demand for the return of the fugitive slaves. Judge Skinner's decision placed the cognizance of such cases with the I'nited States Government, which seemed to cut the claws of the State of Illinois in its dealings with the masters of runaway negroes. The Pioneer Members of the B.\r The first lawyer to make Quincy his residence was Louis Mas- y way of Atlas. Very soon after the original plat of Quiney was filed in the oflBce of Henry II. Snow, county clerk, probate judge, etc., that anient offiee holder was also appointed ])ostma.ster; which was in 18'jr>. Judge Snow kept the postoHiee at John Wood's house as his own was fully occupied with other official business. Quiney was then the northernmost postoffice in the Mississi]ii>i Valley and expre.s.ses were sent to that point for the military posts as far up as St. Peters, Minnesota. The local office was kept in a stout pine chest in Jlr. "Wood's house, and two soldiers usually called for the mail destined for northern points above C^uincy. So, even at that early day, the people of Adams County were getting in loose touch with quite a stretch of country ; and they rejoiced accordingly. .An Oi.D-TiMK -Mam. Coach As the years went by Quiney achieved the triumph of .securing a regular weekly mail from Atlas and the South, and, of course, if the settlers had any good reason to expect communications through I'ncle Sam they could make the trip and get them, without waiting for the official carrier. In those days of scarce and hard-earned money, post- age was an item which meant considerable in the economics of the average pioneer; for instance, in 1885, the rates on "a single letter, composed of one piece of paper." for any distance not exceeding thirty miles, were 6 cents; over thirty miles and not exceeding eighty, 10 cents; over eighty and not exceeding 150, 12^^ cents; over 150 and not exceeding 40f), 18-'4 cents; over 400. 25 cents. It is safe to say that in 1885 the settlers of Quiney and Adams counties received few letters with the me.s.sage "inclosed find stamjjs for reply," and it is equally safe to add that they .seldom made the self-sacrifice them- selves. 182 QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY Iluxois A2n) Missouri Bound by Ferry The Quincyites looked longingly across the ilississippi at their fellow ^Missourians, but it was some years before they commenced to operate a ferry and thus have comparatively free communication with them. Steamboats plied up and down the ilississippi Eiver, row and sail boats moved across as occasion required, and as early as 1827 the commissioners granted Ira Pierce the right to operate a ferrj- be- tween the two shores. The County Board even went so far as to estab- lish the rates for ferrying across the Slississippi, loaded and unloaded wagons drawn by horses or oxen, pleasure wagons or carriages dra^vu by either animals, foot passengers and all kinds of live stock other than human. But nothing came of these attempts to bring the eastern and west- ern shores of the ilississippi together at this point until in May, 1S38, when "Woodford Lawrence, in company with two other men, built the first ferry boat that ever crossed the ilississippi Eiver in the vicinity of Quincy. It was constructed of two canoes, a platform connecting them, around which a railing was built to keep the animals and other passengers from falling off into the water. The first passengers were three horses which were safely carried across, one at a time. The ferry 's eastern terminus was the mouth of Mill Creek, and its special design was to carry horses over the river for those starting on trips along the ilissouri shores — or \iee versa. Northern Cross Railroad, Old and New Before this primitive horse ferry had commenced its trips across the Mississippi, enough able and far-seeing men had gathered at Quincy to participate with a controlling influence in the movement to bind Chicago and the East with the ilississippi Valley, by way of Northern Illinois. That movement was a part of the proposed internal improvement system inaugurated by the state in 1837. Various lines of railroad were prescribed by the Legislature, among which was the "Northern Cross Railroad from Quincy on the ilississippi River, via Columbus and Clayton in Adams County, ilt. Sterling in Brown County, ileredosia and Jacksonville in ilorgan County, Springfield in Sangamon County, Decatur in ilacon County, Sidney in Champaign County and Danville in Vermillion County ; thence to the state line in the direction of Lafayette, Indiana." Under this system and act the state commenced the construction of railroads in various sections of the state, but in the course of three or four years, after an expenditure of some $8,000,000. and the placing in operation of only sixty miles of inferior road from ileredosia to Springfield, the project was abandoned as a state enterprise and the railroad sold at public auction. On the 10th of February, 1849, the Legislature passed an act in- corporating the Northern Cross Railroad Company, with James il. Pitman, Samuel Holmes, John Wood, C. A. "Warren. Gershom B. Dim- QL'IXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 183 ock, Hiram Boyle and Isaac X. Morris of Adams County, and James Brockman and James W. Singleton of Bro\vn County and "'their asso- ciates, successors, assigns," etc., empowered to '"construct, maintain and use a railroad from the west bank of the Illinois River, opposite the town of Meredosia, to the ilississippi River at Quincy." Under the legislative act of October. 1S49, Governor French offered that sec- tion of the old Northern Cross Railroad for sale, and it was purchased for $1,850 by James W. Singleton, Samuel Holmes, Horace S. Cooley, Calvin A. Warren, James M. Pitman and Isaac N. Morris, most of whom were among the incorporators of the new Northern Cross Rail- road Company. On the line thus purchased, the state had expended more than $500,000 in preliminary surveys, gradings, etc. At a meeting of the proprietors on February- 19, 1850, it was rec- ommended "to the present owners of the road to subscribe $10,000 of the capital stock of the same in proportion to their respective inter- ests therein." In pursuance with that recommendation, books were opened and the proprietors subscribed the following shares, the list of which indicates the comparative strength of their interests : I. N. Morris, J. TV. Singleton. James M. Pitman and Samuel Holmes, fifteen shares each; Calvin A. Warren, ten; 0. C. Skinner, N. Bushnell and H. S. Cooley, five each ; Amos Green, four ; Bartlett & Sullivan, New- ton Flagg and E. Moore, three each : Henry Asburj-. two. Making 100 shares, which at $100 per share, amounted to $10,000, the amount required to enable the company to legally organize. With this funda- mental preliminary concluded, the following were elected as directors and oflBcers: I. N. Morris, president; Ebenezer Moore, treasurer; Samuel Holmes, secretary; James W. Singleton, James iL Pitman, N. Bushnell and N. Flagg. The company now purchased from the proprietors the road which the latter had bought from the state and the chain of transactions was legally complete. But the work could not practically move without more capital, and that was obtained in the winter of 1850-51, when an arrangement was effected between the company and the citizens of Quincy by which the city subscribed $10TLT Sl'SPEXDED Under the new organization the company went vigorously to work, locating and grading the road from Quincy to Clayton and contracting for the necessan,- iron to line that section. The road was also located to Mt. Sterling and contracts for the work made with responsible parties, when, some dissatisfaction having arisen in Brown County, the company was tmable to secure the bonds previotisly subscribed by that 184 QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY county. That circumstauce, with the fact that the Sangamon & Morgan Railroad Company had always been opposed to a connection with the Northena Cross line, satisfied the company that any further effort to reach the Illinois River at that time was useless. Therefore it was that operations on the road between Quiney and Meredosia were reluctantly suspended. Outlet Further North It was at this time that the company resolved to have a railroad outlet for Quiney nortliward. In 1851 it had pi-ocured an act from the Legislature authorizing the building of a lateral road, branching off from the main line in Adams County toward Chicago, and when the Quincy-Meredosia project had to be abandoned, it entered into a con- tract with the Central Military Tract Railroad Company, then organ- ized, to build a line north from Galesburg. The contract provided that neither company would contract with any parties for construction purposes who would not bind themselves to build both lines, thus in- suring a through route from Quiney to Chicago. Previous to that arrangement, parties interested in the Michigan Central Railroad had acquired control of the Aurora Branch Railroad extending from Chicago to ]Mendota, and were desirous of reaching the Mississippi River. In November, 1852, therefore, Nehemiah Bush- nell, president of the Northern Cross Railroad Company, proceeded to Detroit with a view of interesting J. W. Brooks and James F. Joy, who represented the controlling interests of the Aurora Branch Road, and co-operating with them in the construction of the through line from Quiney to Chicago. At this decisive stage in the railroad project the City of Quiney made a further subscription of $100,000, and its citizens also sub- scribed .$100,000. Other donations were made by residents and prop- erty owners all along the line, but the raising of the necessary funds was not accomplished without persistent and hard work. Connection With Chicago Complete The culmination of these many years of strivings after fairly ade- quate railway communications with what was then the Far West metropolis and the gateway to the East was the completion of the through line to Galesburg on the last day of January, 1856. That section had been finished and was operated as far as Avon on the first of January and a short gap between this point and that portion of the road that was being built from Galesburg southward, was filled in on the above date, making the connection with Chicago complete. It was a jubilee occasion for Quiney, and the atmosphere of the time is well illustrated by an article in the local press, headed by the ponderous design of a locomotive and rrain and big black letters across the page spelling : t^riNCY AND ADAMS COUNTY 185 •'Through to Chicago. A Railroad Connection with tiie Atlantic Cities. All Aboard!" The article reads: "We have the high satisfaction of ainiouneing the completion (if the Northern I'ro.ss Railroad. The last rail is upon the ties and the last spike is driven, and another iron arm reaches from the great West into the Atlantic. '"The event is an important one antl inaugurates a new era in the history of Quincy. For years our citizens have been looking with an intense interest to the consummation of this enterj)rise which was to open, and which has opened to (Quincy. a future radiant with every promise of prosperity. A new vitality ami a new strength has been given to our city, apparent in the immense increase of business in all departments transacted during the past season, and in the extensive preparations that are marking for substantial improvements in the way of buildings that are to go up this year. We have every reason to congratulate ourselves upon the present and prospective prosperity of our beautiful and flourishing city." Not long after the completion of the Northern Cross line appears a card in one of the city papers bearing the "acknowledgments of the editor and of llr. Samuel Holmes to Major Holton for a fine, fresh codfish right from ^lassachusetts Bay, the first arrival of the kind in Quincy. After partaking of the same, we pronounce it a 'creature comfort of the first water,' and tender our thanks." All of the gentle- men concerned were Yankee-born and fully alive to all the best tra- ditions of New England, including an overwhelming conviction that the codfish was .supreme among the finny tribe. Express Lines E.xtexded During the same month that Quincy got into railway connection with Chicago and the East, there was also established Godfrey & Snow's express running from the home town to Chicago. Their enter- prise had originated in an express business with St. Louis by boat and for a time the enterprise was profitable as being a real public con- venience; but when the project was extended to Chicago, and wealthy companies entered the field, it expanded beyond their facilities and they withdrew entirely. From the time the Northern Cross Railroad Company was reor- ganized in 1851, during the period of the construction of the line from Quincy to Galesburg, and up to the consolidation as the Chicago, Bur- lington & Quincy Railroad in 1861, Neheniiah Hushnell continued as president of the organization, with Lorenzo Bull, James D. Morgan, Hiram Rogers, John Wood and James M. Pitman as directors. The W.^b.^sh "When the long-desired railroad communication with Chicago had been secured, with its attendant stimulus to busine.ss and general 186 QUIXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY growth, the people of Quincy and Adams County began to seek other advantages of a like nature. One was a revival of the old Northern Cross line, through a charter obtained by James W. Singleton, under the name of the Quincy & Toledo Railroad, and the road finally con- structed through the persistence of General Singleton sei-ved as a direct eastern route from Camp Point, Adams County, to the Illinois River at Meredosia, where it connected with the line pushing west- ward from Toledo. It was considered a branch of the new Northern Gross Railroad which had been completed to Galesburg. At the Illi- nois River it connected with what was called the Great Western Rail- road, which carried the route to Toledo and the seaboard. From Camp Point to Quincy its trains used the track of the Chicago, Buiiing- ton & Quincy, and thus was another route provided from the last named point to the East. In 1856 several Ohio and Indiana companies were consolidated as the Toledo, Wabash & Western Railroad, and two years later a reorganization was effected as the Great Western Railroad Company. The Wabash System, which, in turn, absorbed the Great Western was mainly an outgrowth of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific, the consolidation of its eastern and western divisions, under the former name, being efi'ected in 1889. First Voting op Railroad Bonds While railroad building was the order of the day, Quincy always voted overwhelmingly iu favor of subscribing for such enterprises. The first vote to subscribe $100,000 to aid the Northern Cross line be- tween the Mississippi and Illinois rivera was taken March 1, 1851, and resulted in the casting of 1,074 ballots in favor of the proposition and only 19 against it. Accordingly, on the 12th of that mouth the mayor, in behalf of the municipality, delivered to the railroad company as security for the payment of that amount twenty-year six per cent city bonds, $80,000 bearing date January 1, 1852, and $20,000 on July 1st of that year. In July, 1853, the city voted an additional $100,000, also guaranteed by twenty-year six per cent bonds, and in May, 1856, subscribed for $200,000 of Northern Cross stock, secured by twenty-year eight per cent bonds, to be used in the con- struction of the line from Camp Point to the Illinois River. At the latter election the vote was 1,541 for and 71 against the proposition. In the following August the issuing of the bonds was formally legal- ized by the City Council, and in January, 1857, the Legislature took a hand in legalizing the proceedings by passing the "Act to incor- porate the Quincy & Toledo Railroad Company; to legalize the sub- scription of the City of Quincy and the County of Brown to the capital stock of the Northern Cross Railroad Company, and the bonds issued and to be issued by said city and county in payment of said stock ; to amend the charter of the Great Western Railroad Company of the State of Illinois, and legalize and confirm the contract of said com- pany with James W. Singleton." The action of the City Council QUIXCY AND ADAMS LOUXTY 187 taken in August, 1856, authorizing Mayor Wood to sul>scribe the $200,000 and issuing city bonds for that sum, and all other proceed- ings taken in connection therewith, were legalized in the legislative act of January 31, 1857 — "Provided, that said bonds shall be and remain in the hands of Isaac 0. Woodruff of said city (Quincy) until said road is graded from Camp Point, in the County of Adams, to Mt. Sterling, in Brown County. Thereupon, the said Isaac 0. Woodruff shall deliver $100,000 of said bonds and retain tlie remainder thereof in his hands until said road is graded to tiie Illinois River, "Provided, that nothing in this act shall be so construed as to prevent the City Council of said city from authorizing an earlier de- livery of said bonds if, in their judgment, the interest of the city requires it ; and the said City Council are hereby authorized and em- powered to levy and collect a special tax for the payment of the in- terest on said bonds." The Quincy & Toledo Railroad Company The Quincy & Toledo Railroad Company, incorporated by that act, and which had absorbed that portion of the Northern Cross line from Camp Point to the Illinois River, assumed the name of the Toledo, Wabash & Western in i\Iay, 1857, and is now known as the Wabash System. This second $200,000 of bonds have been commonly called Quincy & Toledo R. R. bonds, to distinguish them from the first issue of $200,000, always known as Northern Cross bonds. Railroad Connections West of the Misslssippi The Hannibal & St. Joe Railroad, which has long been a part of the Cliicago, Burlington & Quincy system, was originally built to make Hannibal, Missouri, its eastern terminus. But energetic citizens of Quincy saved it from this narrow fate by organizing the Quincy & Palmyra Railroad Company in 1856 and, three years afterward, com- pleting the short line between these two points bj' which the Hannibal & St. Joe lost its local character as part of the great Quincy system. By the act of January 30, 1857, the City of Quincy was authorized to subscribe for $100,000 of the capital stock of the Quincy & Palmyra Railroad Company, tlie line extending from a point on the west bank of the Mississippi opposite Quincy to Palmyra, Missouri. The election to vote upon the question, held on April 4th following, showed that 942 votes had been cast for it and 11 votes against. The bonds thereupon issued matured in twenty years and Iwre eight per cent interest. At the election held June 27, 1868, the voters decided favorably on the question of subsr-ribing $100,000 to aid in the construction of a railroad from West Quincy in a northwesterly direction, connecting the city with the ilissouri Air Line, known more fully as the Missis- sippi & Missouri River Air Line. The vote for the proposition was 651 188 (^ULXCY AND ADAMS COUNTY and against it, 198. There were considerable delaj-s both in the is- suing of the bonds and the building of the road to Canton, the last of them not being delivered to the railroad company until August, 1870. At a meeting of the City Council held December 5, 1870, an agree- ment was read to that body signed by the officers of the road, pledging the company, in consideration of the subscription, to make Quincy the southern terminus of the line during the existence of the charter under which the construction was undertaken. But the Mis.sissippi & Mis- souri River Air Line was never built and the money subscribed by Quincy to pi'omote it was a total loss. The Quincy, Missouri & Pacific Railroad Company was organized in June, 1869, for the special purpose of constructing a railroad from a point on the Mississippi River opposite Quincj' to a point on the Missouri River opposite Brownsville, Nebraska, the length of the pro- posed line being 230 miles. That was largely a Quincy enterprise and three days before the company was legally organized the City Council, by resolution, approved an issue of .$250,000 in municipal bonds to aid the enterprise. But the advantages of the proposed road to Quincy grew in the public mind, and at the urgent suggestion of a committee appointed by the railroad board of directors, the Council subsequently passed measures recommending an increase of the subscription to $500,000 and the calling of a special election to obtain the decision of the voters on the subject. Their decision, recorded August 7, 1869, was 1,949 in favor of the proposition and 185 opposed to it. Half of the $500,000 in city bonds was to be delivered to the railroad com- pany responsible when subscriptions in Missouri or Nebraska, along the line of the road were obtained to the amount of $800,000, and the remaining $250,000 with the collection of another $800,000 in the states mentioned. As there was no general law, however, authorizing the city to become a stockholder in such a company, or to vote upon the question, and as the discussion of a new state constitution was then well under way, the City Council deferred the issiiance of the bonds. Without going into multitudinous details, which are accessible but not pertinent, the State Constitution of 1870 incorporated a section forbidding any city from doing exactly what Quincy had done, but through the influence of the strong delegation from Adams Count}' an exception was made in the '-ase of that city, provided that none of the indebtedness so incurred should be assumed by the state. The General Assembly thereupon authorized the subscription made and the city bonds to be issued. In July, 1871, the president of the Quincy, Mis- souri & Pacific Railroad Company, presented evidence to the City Council that more than $1,118,000 had been subscribed along its line and that thirty miles of the road from West Quincy westward had been graded and bridged. City bonds amounting to $250,000 were therefore at once issued to the railroad compan.y ; but the second $250,000 were longer in being delivered. The building of the road was slow, citizens began to realize the heavy responsibilities which they had taken upon themselves, grave doubts had entered the minds of many as to the (^riXCY AND ADAMS COrXTY 189 respoiisibilit.v of many of the reported subseriptioiis and the matter was finally carried into the State Supreme Court over an injunction obtained by Isaac X. Morris by the Circuit Court ri'sfraininis!: the mayor and City Count-il from issuing: the seconil $2.')il,000 in bonds. This is not the place to discuss legal questions, but to state results as concisely as is consistent witli clearness. The Supreme Court decided aiiainst the lower court and. altiioutfh tlu' citizens of C^uincy who had their investments wrapped up in the railroad west of the Mississippi were not convinced that all of the subscriptions on the other side of the river were bona tide, they fciircd that if tliey were too critical the en- tire enterprise would go by the board and they would be heavily, if not disastrously involved. In August, 1877, therefore, a resolution was adopted to deliver to the railroad company the additional $250,000 in installments, conditional on the progres.sive completion of various sections of the road— $75,000 to be paid in 1S77, $125,000 in 1S7S, and $50,000 in 187!), provided tiie stipulated conditioas had been complied with. Thus was finally completed what is now known as the Quiuey, Omaha & Kansas City line — O. K. for short — a part of the Missouri Pacific sy.stem. The Quincy & Carthage Railroad was created in 1870, and 0. C. Skinner was elected president. J. W. Bishop, secretary, and H. G. Ferris, treasurer. The road runs north from Quincy, passing through Mendon and Keene towuships. Adams County, thence through Han- cock County to Carthage and Burlington. This is now known as the Carthage branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. and runs to Burlington, Iowa. The Carthage branch and the Louisiana branch were provided to be built at the same time and Adams County appropriated $200,000 for each road; but on account of the Louisiana branch being diverted down the bottom instead of out through ]Melrose, Payson and Fall Creek townships, as originally propo.scd, the county refu.sed to pay its appropriation of $200,000. and won its contention in a suit brought against it to collect its suKscription. The Quincy, Alton & St. Louis Railroad was organized in Septem- ber. 1869. with J. W. Singleton. R. S. Bcnneson, A. J. F. Prevost. William Bowles. C. H. Curtis, Edward Wells. Eli Seehorn. Perry Alexanilcr and C. S. Higbee as directors. Mr. Singleton was elected president and T. T. Woodruff, .secretary and treasurer. The line is a section of the Quincy System, the original line having l)een completed in 1872. Its western terminus is East Louisiana, Mis.souri. R.MLRo.vD Bridges Across the Ri\'er In order to link tbe railway lines which already terminated at Quincy with those on the other side of the river it became neces- sary to build a substantial bridge acro.ss the great waterway which separated them. That important achievement was realized in October, 1868, when the first railroad bridge was thrown across the river at mi 3 > > « &. o ■m .SI OS w a W H b. O a a X o z