PEORIA, July 8th.
_My dear E._--We were detained during the night by a heavy fog, and
instead of reaching Peoria at six, found at breakfast we were many miles
this side of it. Breakfast over, I have seated myself upon the guards, a
sort of balcony which runs around the outside of the steamboat, and with
note-book in hand am prepared to give you a faithful picture of all I
see. The river is still and bright, reflecting every little twig and
leaf. There is no villa, or ruins, or lordly mansion to embellish the
scenery, but it is indebted to its wild forests alone for its
loveliness. It flows and bends in a very graceful manner around the soft
green islets, or low points fringed with trees of new and unknown form
and beauty. Frowning above the trees in the back ground are the cliffs,
waterworn as if once the river’s ancient bound. Occasionally our track
lay close to the shore, and we gazed into the forest’s deep recesses;
now a dark jungle is before us, haunt of the wolf and the panther; and
again, a noble grove of witch elms, or long vistas through which the
early morning sun was streaming, or a patch of brilliant smooth sward
surrounded by a circle of trees, the papaw, or the silvery barked white
maple, its bright green leaves turning up their silver lining to the
breeze. Sometimes a little bay appeared between two promontories,
covered with yellow and white water lillies, and the perfumed nymphea
odorata, the home of the swan or the wild fowl. The willow here occurs
frequently, dipping its leaves in the stream; sometimes the shining
willow with its long and slender brilliant leaves. The locust is
frequent; many varieties of oak, the red bud, cotton wood, and many
other trees festooned with vines of every tint and variety.
I wished much to see a prairie wolf, and looked out eagerly among the
forests in vain. Just now a man who was looking to the shore exclaimed
‘There’s a wolf!’ he pointed to the spot, where some dark animal was
cowering under a log. My companion declared it was a pig, and some one
else a dog, whatever it was, it soon run away into the forest. I
declared it should be a wolf, and to please me, it was unanimously voted
a prairie wolf. A deer I looked for in vain; the noise made by our
puffing high pressure engine, being sufficient to scare every animal
away from our path. We passed Hennepin during the night, and this
morning Lacon and Rome, both small places, situated upon those elevated
banks or plateaus, which alternate with the woodlands along the river.
The two first are both in Putman county containing two hundred and
fifty-two square miles, and a population of two thousand one hundred
and thirty-one. The stream which had become narrower, about a quarter
of a mile in width; now swelled out in an expanse two miles broad and
twenty long, called Peoria lake, by the indians Pin-a-ta-wee. It abounds
with fish we were told, as sturgeon, buffalo, perch, pickerel, and cat
fish and the alligator, garr, seven feet long, covered with scales, the
former we had often seen during the morning, spring from the water, and
plunge back again leaving a silvery circle growing wider and wider upon
the polished surface of the river. The water was now unruffled by a
ripple, the shore at our left covered with forests throwing their
shadows over the water while upon a high bank at our right, was the
pretty town of Peoria. It was a very sweet and tranquil picture. This
has ever been a favorite haunt of the Indians and French. In 1779 a
village stood here called La Ville de Maillet, inhabited by French
courier des bois, Indian hunters, and fur traders, a stopping place for
the French upon the lakes and their settlements on the Mississippi.
Subsequently Fort Clarke was erected here for the United States troops,
and now a pretty town with six houses of worship, several acadamies,
market houses, shops, hotels, breweries, mills, and dwellings and a
handsome court-house with pillared portico and tin covered cupola have
arisen upon the bank. The shore is composed of pebbles, about twenty
feet high, extending back one quarter of a mile, where another step of
six or ten feet brings you to a fine prairie, leading to the bluffs. A
row of buildings surmounted the banks principally shops, but among them
we observed several small taverns, as the Napoleon Coffee House, Union
Hotel, and Washington Hall. Upon a brick house farther in town my
companion espied the sign of the Clinton Hotel, which being the house to
which he had been recommended, he accepted the services of the porters
of that establishment, who with those of the other houses had been
soliciting his custom. How to land, was the next consideration, for upon
rivers which have so great a rise and fall, it is difficult to construct
wharves. After grounding, backing fastening a stake in the mud for a
rope, which immediately came out again, we were at last stationary. A
plank was then projected to the shore, down which we were all trundled.
We had now reached the end of our journey, one hundred and seventy miles
from Chicago, and took leave of the Chicago line, being left to our own
devices to wander farther. We found the Clinton hotel a good house, and
charges low, being only one dollar and twenty-five cents a day each. The
host is a very gentlemanly person, and the ladies of the family well
educated and agreeable. We partook of a very good dinner of native
produce, even to the wild raspberry tarts, which appeared at desert. I
like this much more than being fed upon foreign dainties which one can
procure any where. There was a picture in our dining room which was a
complete _sign of the times_; upon it was painted a cider barrel, from
which a man was drawing ‘hard cider,’ bearing the motto, ‘Old Tip’s
claims to the White House cannot be jumped.’ This had been borne as a
banner by the Peoria delegation at the whig convention of Fort Meigs. If
one might judge by what one sees, Gen. Harrison will have the votes of
all the west, as he seems to be very popular as far as we have been.
Upon returning to the parlor we found a centre table containing
annuals, and several excellent volumes of the best authors, bearing the
names of the young ladies of the house. While I looked over these, my
companion took up the Peoria Democrat, and expressed his surprise to see
such a paper in so new a place, and in it such proofs of the trade of
the place. The type and paper were as good as any in our city, and
contained advertisements of goods, drugs, wines, fruits, and other
articles, which makes one wonder how such things could find their way
there. Another column explains this, where are notices of steamboats
which ply between this place and St. Louis, but three or four days
voyage to New Orleans; consequently, one may command any thing here. In
three years the Michigan canal will be finished, which will open a
communication with the Atlantic through the lakes and the New York
canals. Peoria cannot fail of being a place of much business, for
besides the above named advantages, the land around it is rich prairie,
interspersed with wood land, or timber, as they call it here, crossed by
several mill streams. It is but seventy miles from Springfield, the
capitol of Illinois, a large and handsome town, doing a great deal of
business, and situated in the celebrated county of Sangamon.
Over the level country around Peoria good roads are laid out in every
direction. A railroad is in contemplation from hence to the Mississippi
at Warsaw, while another, the Bloomington and Peoria railroad, is soon
to be laid down from this to the Mackinaw river, forty miles. It is on
the high road from the gulf of Mexico to the north, and already
travellers are taking this route to the eastern States. We found here a
young lady and her father who had come from Mobile. They left there in a
steamboat for New Orleans, from thence other steamboats brought them up
the Mississippi to Quincy, from whence they rode in a stage to Peoria.
They were on their way to New York, and had taken this rout from its
novelty. In the afternoon we ramble down to the shores, where I found
some very pretty pieces of agate, jasper, and other pretty pebbles, and
gathered several singular shells and flowers. The shells were
principally large muscle, lined with pearl, some of them beautifully
irredescent. A neat cottage on the bank with its door open looked so
inviting that we ventured to enter and ask for a glass of water. The
woman willingly filled a pitcher from a cool spring near, and invited us
to sit down. She looked ill, and the children around her were thin and
pale. I asked her the cause, and heard a sad story of fever and ague
sickness. They had removed from Pennsylvania, and had all been ill as
soon as they arrived, but had hopes of being after a while acclimated.
The cause of their sickness was as usual, their exposure to the heavy
fogs which arise from this river at night, which strangers should avoid
for a year at least--and probably other imprudence. Her husband was a
carpenter, who had sufficient employment where they had lived, and there
they were well and happy. To my question of the cause of their removal
she answered, ‘Oh, he had heard of the west, where every one is sure to
get rich, and so he came.’ Most of the emigrants we have met with could
give us no better reason for removing hither than this woman. They hear
the west spoken of as a great, rich, and rising country; pull up their
household by the roots, and, ‘westward hold their way.’ I believe no one
but our people can thus readily leave their homes, and the graves of
their fathers to seek a residence in new and untried regions. Among the
emigrants, we were often surprised to see so many from the neighboring
States. Hoffman met a man during his ‘winter in the west,’ who had
removed his household from one end of the State of Michigan to the
other, merely because, the mould was a foot richer at Kalamazoo--his own
being eighteen inches. A man removes from the eastern border to the west
of Pennsylvania. Perhaps he there erects a house and in a few years sees
a good farm around him; another wishing to remove west, offers him a sum
for it, so much larger than his original outlay, that he is tempted to
sell, and emigrate farther west. He with this money purchases a place of
a man in Ohio, who sells in the same way and passes on. In a few years
the Pensylvanian again sells, and again removes, so that there is a
constant stream going step by step to fill up the immense plains and
valleys which here abound. Fashions for emigration prevail; a place
becomes popular; every one is excited by the accounts of this new
_Dorado_, and westward ho! is the cry. Boon’s, Lick in Missouri, Salt
river, Platte river, Oregon, Rock river, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa,
each have had its run, and its partisans. But there is ‘more than meets
the ear,’ in this; fortunately their destinies are not left to the
guidance of their own variable fancies. There is an overruling Power, at
whose command their steps are hither bent. When I see them on their
march; people from every nation, men, women, and little ones, and cattle
winding down the road in their wagons, filling the steamboats, and
crowding the stages, all pressing in large bodies towards the land of
milk and honey, they remind me of the Hebrews plucked up from an
over-grown country, and led with an Almighty hand, to the land of
promise. May these travellers, study the eventful journey of the
Palestine emigrants, and shun those errors by which they were driven
forth from its fair fields. The Hebrews were told, if they would obey
their heavenly leader, ‘the land shall yield her increase, and the trees
of the field shall yield their fruit’--and ‘ye shall eat your bread to
the full and dwell in the land safely,’ and ‘ye shall lie down and none
shall make you afraid’; ‘I will be your God and ye shall be my
people.’[17] What magnificent promises! And how powerful the promiser!
Oh that these people would lay these words to their heart, and consider
well the Hebrew’s fate! They were also promised to be made ‘high above
all nations which He hath made, in praise, in name, and in honor.’[18]
There be those who predict this for our country; let these read the
conditions by which this maybe obtained, and dread curses[19] which
await a failure! We continued our stroll, back of the town across the
prairie, or _steppe_ upon which it is built, to another about twelve or
fifteen feet above it. From thence is a fine plateau which reaches to
the bluffs. As we sat upon this eminence the view was very pretty. The
sun had been long gone, but a delicate amber shaded with purple tinted
every thing. Below us, was the green prairie crossed with dark purple
paths over which the ‘lowing herds’ were winding slowly, as if loth to
leave their free pastures for the confinement of a barn yard. The
cattle raised upon prairie grass are very fat, and the Illinois beef
commands a ready sale in the New Orleans markets. The butter and milk we
met with here was uncommonly rich, equal to our first rate Goshen
butter. Beyond the prairie is the town, beneath which, flows the quiet
Illinois, bounded by dark forests and elevated bluffs. While we were
thus sitting enjoying the ‘coming on of grateful evening mild,’ the deep
silence was broken by the sweet sound of a church bell, echoing over the
river and the still forests. At once these words of Milton so very
appropriate to our situation sprang to our lips;
“On a plat of rising ground
I hear the far off Curfew sound,
Over some wide watered shore,
Swinging slow with solem roar.”
There was apparently an evening meeting about to be held, and we
rejoiced we should be enabled to enter the courts of the Lord, a
privilege we had been denied for some time. Our path to the town lay
past several very pretty cottage residences, ornamented with shrubbery
and flowers--thence, following the sound of the bell we found ourselves
before a small meeting house. It happened fortunately to be the meeting
which enjoyed the administration of the Rev. Mr. S----g, of the
presbyterian persuasion, whom we found to be a very pleasing,
intelligent, and pious man. We were very much gratified with his
discourse, which we found very appropriate. He spoke of man as a
traveller, the end of whose journey must certainly one day approach, and
earnestly bade us to take thought for that event, as there were many
there who ‘before the frost is spread over our prairie, may be lying
under its sod.’ He reminded us much of Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, for
his similies were all drawn from rural objects--the sun, the clouds, the
prairie, the river, and the scenery around him. We no longer wondered at
the accounts we had received of the high religious and moral standing of
the place, and the great amount of good done in it. This last year,
twenty-three thousand dollars were contributed by the people of Peoria
towards charitable and religious institutions. We walked home under a
bright moon, our hearts much refreshed by all we had heard, and we were
rejoiced the Lord had placed such a faithful servant in these fair
prairies, to uphold his name.
* * * * *
_July 9th._--While wandering along the shore this morning, we descried
the smoke of our expected steamboat, and hastened back to the hotel to
pack our trunks. It was the Home, from Peru to St. Louis, and we were to
take passage in her for Alton, on the Mississippi. We bade adieu to
sweet Peoria with regret. The remembrance of it will long ‘perfume our
minds,’ as old Izaak Walton says. Its situation, its excellent society,
and religious privileges, and its good schools, must certainly make it a
desirable place of residence, or of trade. It is two hundred miles from
St. Louis, and one hundred and seventy from Chicago. When in the saloon
of the Home we were presented with a book in which to write our names,
place of residence, whither bound, and _our politics_. While leaving
this, our eyes fell upon a piece of pink satin, framed, which hung
against the wall, upon which was printed the rules of the boat. Among
other things it forbid ‘any gentleman to go to table without his coat,
or any other garb to disturb the company. No gentleman must pencil-work
or otherwise injure the furniture.’ (I suppose whittling was meant. Upon
our lake boat we saw the boxes of merchandize and barrels on deck, fast
disappearing under the whittling knife. A piece a foot long and two
inches wide would be torn from the box and cut to pieces by a restless
passenger.) Beside these, we were told ‘no gentleman was to lie down in
a berth with his boots on, and none enter the ladies’ saloon without
permission from them.’ We found in this boat, three indications of being
near the south, liquors upon the table, gambling in the gentlemen’s
cabin, and a black chambermaid _slave_ to the captain. Among the
passengers, were a man with his wife and sons, unlike the most I had
met, going west, but making a retrograde motion to the east. They were
driven away they said by the fever and ague, from which they had been
suffering ever since their removal west. Their yellow gaunt appearance
fully testified to the truth of this. He had been a shop keeper in the
State of New York, who experiencing some reverses, was persuaded to
remove to this golden region by his wife, who was now no longer able to
lead the village fashions. He bought a lot, and mill privilege, in an
embryo town--their house was situated under the boughs of a forest
impenetrable to the sunbeams, surrounded by decaying leaves, moist new
soil, and a mill pond. The town’s people were too busily occupied in
building banks and hotels, to dig wells, and drinking out of the marshy
springs, of course all fell ill by turns. Their boy, they said, had been
at ‘death’s door,’ and now, although better, was afflicted with an _ague
cake_, which they wished me to feel in his side. I am convinced a
little prudence and knowledge, will keep many ‘healthy, wealthy, and
wise,’ who, without it are easily discouraged, fall into difficulties,
and wish to try a new place. We have met many upon the road, who have
nearly equalled the old woman on the prairie, who had begun the world
seven times.
The other female passenger was a young girl who had come down the river
in the boat, her home being on the prairie, back of Peru. She was a
pretty innocent country lassie about sixteen, travelling alone, on a
visit to a brother living on the river, whose wife was ill and required
her services. Her travelling dress was a muslin striped with pink; and
her hat one of that description we call Dutch bonnets, made of
pasteboard covered with pink glazed gingham. She was rejoiced to examine
my wardrobe, and cut new patterns, as she lives far from the haunts of
men and mantua-makers. My Mosaic brooch pleased her much, and she asked
me if I had bought it of the pedlar who she heard had lately arrived in
that part of the country with a lot of new goods, and whom she was eager
to see. I was obliged to say I had not purchased it from that
fashionable depositary. She then proposed to show me her clothes; mine
being new to her, she supposed her’s must be new and desirable to me. At
her request the chamber-maid drew from the state-room a huge chest of
black walnut, which she opened, and, among other things, displayed a
pretty straw bonnet trimmed with gay ribbons and flowers. That was her
Sunday bonnet. She also drew forth a topaz pin which had reached here in
a pedlar’s cart, and was a present to her by her brother. ‘This pin has
lasted wonderfully,’ she said, ‘considering how much it has been
borrowed. At every dance or party when I do not go, some of the girls
borrow and wear it. It has been lent for ten miles around.’ This young
lady had been brought when quite young, by her family, from Ohio, whence
they emigrated here. They had all suffered much from the fever and ague,
but were now acclimated, or rather had corrected the causes of their
agues, and she had become fat and rosy. I have remarked in several
instances, that the children born here, or brought here young, grow up
strong and ruddy, and their parents suffer the most. It is only the
first generation who lose their health, as the land improves and
diseases vanish about their homes by the time their children are grown.
This family live upon a large and productive farm which yields, among
other things, according to her account, four hundred bushels of peaches.
In the season of this delicious fruit her mother gives a peach feast,
inviting all their friends and acquaintances, who, after eating as much
as they like, carry away each a basket full. Her family sell several
barrels of dried peaches every year.
Twelve miles below Peoria we stopped at the town of Pekin, built upon a
bank elevated fifteen feet above the water during high tide; but now,
all these places are much higher. The captain told us he should be here
some time taking in merchandize, and we employed the interval in seeing
the lions of the town. I told the little country girl our intention.
‘Lions!’ she said, ‘I guess you mean wolves; there are no lions in these
parts.’
Pekin is a small place and only contains eight or nine hundred
inhabitants, and five or six streets. The shops seemed well filled with
goods, and presented a goodly show of tin, iron-ware, dry-goods,
crockery, provisions, etc. I purchased a green gauze veil here and
several small articles, all of which I found much more expensive than in
our Atlantic shops, freight being high on the Mississippi. In paying for
them I found a new currency here, my shillings and sixpences being
transformed into _bits_ and _pics_ or picayunes. The Pekin Express lay
upon the counter which we amused ourselves looking over while waiting
for change. The person who kept the shop turned out to be the oldest
inhabitant of the place, that important personage who, in a storm,
always determines if there has been ever a greater one or no. He might
very well be the oldest, as the town is but ten years in existence.
‘Pekin,’ he said, ‘would have been ere this far ahead of any town upon
the river, were it not that there were two parties among the
commissioners who were to lay it out; these pulling different ways the
town was nearly lost between them. The rich country behind, and the
river in front, had befriended them, and they soon expected to have
their branch of the railroad finished to Mackinaw river, whose water
power and timber bluffs were very valuable.’ We remarked as we walked, a
large hotel nearly finished; a presbyterian, methodist, and several
other meeting-houses; office of the ‘Tazewell Telegraph’; academy, and
some dwellings. We lay here four hours with a hot sun reflecting from
the sandy bank, impatiently watching the barrels of flour which seemed
as they would never cease rolling from the large store-house upon the
bank, down to our vessel. These barrels are from the steam flour mills,
which turn out two hundred barrels a day. Beside these, we took in a
hundred sacks of corn, and some other merchandize. The captain seemed
well pleased with his morning’s work, saying he had a _streak of luck_
that day. Three miles below this he had another ‘streak.’ At the mouth
of Mackinaw river scows were waiting him, loaded with bundles of laths
and staves, and long dark boards, which I took for mahogany, but which
proved to be black-walnut. The Mackinaw is a clear stream, having rich
bottom land, bounded by bluffs covered with white oak and cedar. The
prairies through which it flows, are rolling and tolerable land with
several mill seats.
The Illinois looked beautiful this afternoon. Its glassy waters scarcely
moved, and it seemed so content with its sweet resting place, and at the
silent admiration of those stately trees, which were sending their cool
flickering shadows over her and gazing down at loveliness, that it would
fain linger upon its course, as some young languid beauty, conscious of
a graceful position which is winning admiring glances from every
beholder.
Among the trees, beside the usual elm, oak and maple, we observed
several enormous wild cherry trees, nearly one hundred feet in height,
and at least fifteen feet in circumference, and the paw paw, the coffee
nut, the red ash, American nettle, a tall, slender tree, with pretty red
berries, and many unknown to us, or to those around us. The islands in
this river are small but covered with soft, luxurious herbage. The birds
and wild fowl were out, enjoying themselves, chattering, pluming their
wings, and visiting each other from tree to tree. Among the wild fowl,
we observed teal and brant, and wild ducks, skimming over the water, or
wheeling in flocks over our heads. One, apparently in a spirit of
daring, would set out to cross our path--leaving his little cove, he
would glide with the utmost rapidity over the river in front of us,
leaving a silver line on the smooth surface of the stream, and after we
had passed, glide back, bobbing up and down upon the waves in our wake.
When he arrived at home, what a quacking and chattering and fluttering
was heard! In one little cove, or bayou, was a little island, covered
with rich grass, and shaded from the sun by the dense grove whose
branches met over it--this seemed to be quite a colony of ducks, who
were going and coming in rapid but graceful evolutions from the main
land. A young man who stood near us named the place Quackville, and
declared when he returned home he would publish a map, and sell off the
lots. We passed several towns to day, as Liverpool, Havanna,
Beardstown--the former a small settlement, but which its inhabitants
intend to make larger, as they have already a railroad in contemplation
across the Mississippi. Beardstown is a place of some importance. It is
a county town, and its commerce greater than any upon the river.
Mechanics of all descriptions are to be found here, as bakers, shoe
makers, tailors, blacksmiths, cabinet makers, silver smiths, carpenters,
joiners, coopers, painters &c. &c. see Peck. There are also here steam
flour mills, saw mills, breweries, distilleries, &c. A canal is
projected here, to connect the Illinois with the Wabash, (which divides
the state of Illinois from Indiana,) by means of the Sangamon and
Vermillion forks. While passing these towns one is surprised at their
rapid growth, for when Schoolcraft rowed his canoe up this river twenty
years since, it was a wilderness only inhabited by Indians. Opposite
Havanna, the Spoon river enters the Illinois. Its Indian name is
Amequeon, which means _ladle_, and is much prettier than its present
name. It is one hundred and forty miles in length, navigable most of the
way, and capable of being cleared further. The soil is dry undulating
prairie, with considerable timber--and some of it upon the forks of the
Spoon is the richest in the state--its forks and tributaries affording
good mill seats. It is in the military bounty land, which commences just
above it, and terminates at the junction of the Illinois with the
Mississippi, making a triangle of five million three hundred and sixty
thousand acres, about ninety miles along the Illinois, and the base of
the triangle, ninety miles across to the Mississippi, near Quincy. This
is appropriated by Congress to the soldiers of the regular army in the
war between the United States and Great Britain. Two thirds of this land
is prairie, and the rest timbered, crossed by a variety of rivers and
creeks. The soil is generally a black vegetable mould from fifteen to
thirty inches deep. Much of the best of this land has been bought up by
a company who have opened an office at Quincy, where they sell it from
three to ten dollars an acre, while other parts are sold at the price
government established for its lands all over the States, one dollar and
twenty-five cents an acre. Government has given to the State of Illinois
every other section. Sangamon river comes gliding down over its pebbly
floor, a pure transparent stream, between Liverpool and Havanna. It runs
through Sangamon county, of whose fertility, beautiful scenery, crowded
population, rich prairies, numerous streams, and valuable timber groves,
we have heard such flourishing accounts. By the way, I can never get
reconciled to the western custom of calling woods timber, woodland, or
groves, or forest, timberland. My young country girl, Maria, in relating
an interesting romantic event which had occurred in her region of
country, instead of speaking of a ramble in the woods said ‘we had gone
to walk in the timber.’ In this famed county is Springfield, the capital
of the State. The Sangamon river is one hundred and eighty miles long,
and navigable nearly to the capitol, seventy-five miles, by small
steamboats. With a small expense it can be cleared. We do not see the
Illinois in all its grandeur, as the water is low. It falls, our captain
says, one and a half inches a day, and has fallen eight feet since June.
It will arise in the autumn, and when its present channel is full
overflows the bottom land to the bluffs. This makes the river shore,
unless very elevated, rather unhealthy, and consequently uninhabited.
Soon after passing the Sangamon, we stopped to take in wood, and we
embraced the opportunity to take a sunset stroll in the forest. A small
cottage embowered among woodpiles, inhabited by a woodman and his
family, were the only signs of human life we saw. These sylvan solitudes
however, are not without their denizens, for the birds were skipping
from bough to bough, the turtle were romantically reclining upon the
logs beside the water, the wild fowls, and the paroquets were chattering
in concert with the mocking bird. There the squirrel also
“Sits partly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking.”
Here however in these pretty nooks he sits undisturbed, for no boys
‘with crooks and bags’ can molest his quiet haunts. We enjoyed the deep
forest walk very much having been now so long cramped in a steamboat,
and wandered along among the stately beech and graceful linden, the
black walnut and locust, swung upon the festoons of the enormous vines
which hung down from the trees, and breathed with much satisfaction the
perfume from the dewy herbage, grape vine buds, and yellow jassamin
which climbed the boughs around us. The steamboat bell recalled us to
the shore in time to see a steamboat pass, being the second we had met
this morning.
There is much travelling upon this river during the summer months. Our
captain told us he had made fifty-eight trips last year from St. Louis
to Peru, carrying ten thousand passengers. This seems a great number,
but we are a travelling people, and with the emigrants going west, it
may be true. I am chary of repeating things heard upon the road as I
know my country people delight in quizzing travellers. I have had some
awful examples of this lately, sufficient to make me cautious, in regard
to certain tourists from abroad to this country; and when told any thing
dubious, remember the _three miles of roast pig_; the _drunken ladies of
Boston_; the _piano with pantalets_ upon its legs; the canvass bags to
hold specie in times of bank troubles, etc. etc. Pretty Maria’s
travelling bonnet, which I described to you, also reminds me of the
misconceptions to which travellers are liable, who take a hasty glance
and go not to the best sources for information. As proof of the poverty
of the country, low style of dress and manners, an European traveller
tells his readers the richest ladies wear hats of their own manufacture,
made of pasteboard covered with calico or gingham. And so they do; but
only to run in the garden, or to a neighbor in the county, for you know
we all, when in the county, use these as garden hats, as they shelter
the face so well from the sun. I wish you could transport yourself here
at this moment, and seat yourself by me upon the hurricane deck, and see
how perfectly the forest shore is reflected upon the quiet polished
Illinois. This stream cannot be called a flowing one for it has scarcely
any current, but reposes in its bed with the tranquility of a lake. Now
it lies in evening’s deep shadow, while, as we look above, the topmost
plumage is tipt with gold--this gradually disappears,--darkness
succeeds, except where one struggling moon-beam, from the Indians Tibic
geezis, _night sun_, streams down the long forest vista, and lies like a
silver ribbon across the river. I always go to bed with the chickens
while on board a steamboat, as a light attracts mosquetoes, and here
river fog forbids us to sit out of doors--so good night.
* * * * *
_July 10._--Off Meredosia. This is a thriving town, built upon one of
those elevated terraces which occur frequently along the river as if on
purpose to raise the settlements above the damp alluvion, and to give
them a pretty effect. It is in a good situation to rise, as it is a sort
of business port to Jacksonville, to which a railroad of twenty-three
miles is in operation; and Morgan county, upon which it is situated, is
a thickly peopled district, having good timbered lands, mill streams,
quarries of lime and free stone; and is watered by many streams.
Jacksonville is a large town where there are several churches, a court
house, mills and shops. The Quincy and Danville railroad passes through
Meredosia, to the Wabash river, two hundred and twenty miles. Through
this river, communication is held with the lakes. Their exports are
between two and three hundred thousand dollars, and imports five hundred
thousand dollars. Here we took in several passengers. Six miles below
Meredosia is Naples, a small collection of shops and dwellings, situated
upon a high bank. Upon one house, larger than the rest, I read the name
‘Napoleon Coffee House.’ I looked around for Vesuvious, but saw it not,
nor any other Neopolitan traces. The names upon this river are very
ludicrous, and striking monuments of the want of taste in those who
bestowed them. One would imagine, from reading my last letter, I had
been travelling in seven league boats, or in a balloon, as I have
touched at Peru, Pekin, Havanna, Liverpool, Naples, Brussels, Rome,
(part in the night,) &c. While the Indian names are so pretty, why are
they neglected for such worn out European designations. Peoria, and
Illinois, and Ottowa are very pretty; Hennipen is very well, as given in
honor of one of the early discoverers of this county from France, and it
might be thought a debt of gratitude, but every pioneer has not so good
a name, and if this custom is followed, it saddles us with such names as
already abound, viz: Jo Davies’ County, Pike, Cook, Higgonbottom,
Hancock, Buggsville, Toddtown, Dodgeville. Moreover, the Indians were
the first explorers, and if any, they are entitled to this honor. To
obviate this it has been proposed to take something local, but unless
persons of taste are consulted, we shall hear of more Bigbonelicks,
Bloodyruns, Mud Lakes or Crab Orchard’s. I wish Congress would take the
matter in hand, and form a committee of nomanclature to name every new
settlement.
We are constantly passing steamboats. In 1836, at Beardstown, there were
four hundred and fifty arrivals and departures, and at Naples their
account was the first year, 1828, nine; from March to June, 1832, one
hundred and eight, and now, of course all these figures must be doubled.
Among our passengers we have an old Kentucky woman, who has been living
several years upon this river. She was so rejoiced to see a slave again,
that soon she and Violette, our chambermaid, became quite intimate
friends. She frequently borrowed her pipe to have a comfortable smoke
out upon the guards, where, with Violette beside her, she would smoke
and chat for hours. A lady on board, who had lately become a convert to
temperance cause, was extremely offended at the sight of spirits upon
the dining table. Her husband argued for their use upon the ground of
frequent impure water, and fever and ague, from which the stomach is
fortified. The wife, however, was not convinced; when, in the midst of a
high argument, our old woman put her head in at the door, and taking out
her pipe, after slowly puffing off her smoke, uttered this oracular
sentence: ‘For my part, I think there are lots of gnats strained at, and
lots of camels swallowed,’--and disappeared. The husband left the
argument for the card table, whence he arose sometime after, grumbling
at his losses, and galled by the discovery that the winner was a well
known black legg, whose practice was to live in steamboats during
summer, to fleece such silly sheep as himself. In the winter he returned
upon his laurels, to New Orleans or St. Louis, to revel upon his
winnings.
This morning we passed one of those machines employed by government,
during low water for the purpose of clearing away the sandbars. It is a
large wooden ark, worked by steam. A great shovel takes up the mud,
brings it up, and throws it into the scow at the other side which is
emptied upon the shores. The State has appropriated $100,000 to
improvements upon this river. There are several sandbars, and below
Ottowa ledges of sandstone which, if removed, would render the
navigation unimpeded at all seasons of the year quite to Ottowa, two
hundred and ten miles above the mouth of the river. We stopped so often
to take in freight and passengers, that we began to be fearful we should
not reach the mouth of the river and behold its junction with the
stately Mississippi before dark--however, ‘we came a good jog’ this
morning, to use our old Kentucky lady’s phrase, and now after tea we are
sitting upon the guards watching for it. We are continually passing
streams which run into this river--Crooked creek, comes down about one
hundred miles through a very fertile region of country with a soil of
argillaceous mould from one to four feet deep.[20] Its banks are lined
with oak, maple, hickory, black walnut and much other valuable timber.
Bituminous coal, and free stone quarries are also found there. Apple
creek, at whose mouth is a small settlement; Macoupin creek, its name
taken from the Indian Maquapin, a water plant, whose smooth leaf floats
upon the bayous and lakes in this region; its esculent root, after being
baked under heated stones is a favorite food with the native tribes.
There is a settlement upon this last named stream commenced in eighteen
hundred and sixteen, which then was the most northern white settlement
of Illinois. The population of the State four years after, in eighteen
hundred and twenty, was fifty-five thousand two hundred and eleven, and
now, eighteen hundred and forty, it is four hundred and twenty three
thousand nine hundred and thirty four, a great increase in twenty years.
We have now upon each hand, the two last counties which border the
Illinois. Green, on the east, contains excellent land, well settled by
eastern families, many from Vermont. It is one of the richest portions
of land in the State, traversed by fine water courses and bounded by two
large rivers,--containing beautiful prairies, and excellent timber. In
the cliffs which border the Mississippi on this county, bituminous coal
is found among the sandstone and limestone strata, and crystal springs
flow from their sides. Calhoun county on our right is the southern point
of the triangle containing the military bounty lands. The point where
the Mississippi and Illinois meet is low prairie subjected to inundation
and consequently unhealthy; coal has been found here, and the large
trees are famous for their honey. As we were near the mouth of the
river, and my little fellow voyager, Maria, had not yet landed, I asked
her how far we were from her brother’s residence. She said she had been
looking out for it, but every place had a different name from that of
her brother. I recommended her to ask the captain; he sent her word we
had passed it twenty miles back. Poor Maria seemed overwhelmed with
consternation. The town, we found upon enquiry, was in the interior, the
passengers landing at an old tree upon the shore and we all now
remembered a plain country-man, upon the bank who made numerous signs to
the steamboat, flourishing his arms frantically. Maria with the rest
supposed he was in jest, or a madman, but now remembered he was like her
brother, who must have seen her and motioned her to stop. Maria had
expected a town, and did not imagine that her stopping place. As our
boat was so uncertain in its movements the poor man must have spent the
day upon the shore, and was now doubtless very anxious about his young
sister. There was nothing for her to do now but stop in the steamboat at
St. Louis until its return trip. I felt sorry for the poor girl, only
fifteen, and thus left to the tender mercy of the world. We spoke to the
captain and chambermaid, who both promised to take charge of her and
land her at her brothers when he returned next week. The afternoon is
beautiful; we are peeping up the forest glades, as the channel runs near
the shore, or inhaling the rich perfume which the summer breeze shakes
out from the trees. Suddenly the forest is passed and we gaze over the
low prairie which lies between the two rivers, bounded by a line of
round green hills which range across the country. ‘The bluffs of the
Mississippi!’ exclaimed my companion, ‘and we soon shall see its famous
waters.’ We hastened up to the hurricane deck, and placed ourselves in a
good situation for beholding the scenery; a little excited at the
thought of looking upon the grand and celebrated stream. The Illinois
flowed as straight and still as a canal, about four hundred yards wide,
we glided over its waters and soon found ourselves in a broad majestic
stream which came rolling down between a range of bluffs; here, a mile
broad, upon whose bosom some lonely islands stretched across from the
mouth of the Illinois. The view was delightful upon each side; the fair
plains of Missouri at our right, and upon the Illinois side, bold
beautiful cliffs, or green cone like hills, covered with a soft carpet
of verdure, sinking down upon the east side into lovely green dells.
This style of hill is called by the French, Mamelle. In one of these
pretty nooks, nestled at the foot of a bluff, is the town of Grafton,
from whose balconies the inhabitants obtain a fine view up the
Mississippi. This town is only a few years old, but expects soon to
rival Alton, as most of the travelling from the interior to the Missouri
towns opposite, is through it. It has already laid out upon paper a
railroad to Springfield, the capitol. The rapid tide of the ‘father of
waters,’ presented a great contrast to the languid Illinois. The color
is brown, but of a different tint from the Illinois, being a dark coffee
brown, but clear and sparkling. We looked a last farewell to the fair
Illinois, upon whose banks, or on whose water we had travelled for four
days and four nights, a distance of nearly four hundred and fifty miles,
if we include the Des Plaines. The loveliness of the scenery all this
distance merits the encomiums made upon it by the early French writers.
This was a favorite river with the French, and La Salle, Charlevoix, and
Marquette, describe the beauty of its shores in glowing terms.
The bluffs upon the Illinois shore, as we descend the Mississippi,
become more bare and precipitous, and have a waterworn appearance as if
the water had once flowed along their summits. The regular
stratification of the sandstone and limestone of these cliffs, present
the appearance of mason work, crowning the heights with castellated
resemblances, so that we might imagine we were passing beneath some
mountain fastness, with its frowning walls, dungeon keep, and warder’s
tower. Occasionally masses of white limestone are strewed along the
shore, or grouped upon the green sloping bank, as if some large city had
there arisen upon the river’s side. Turning a sharp angle of one of
those bluffs we found ourselves before a large imposing looking town,
built upon the bank of the river, which came sloping down from the
bluffs behind. This we learned was Alton. While our crew were mooring
our boat upon the steep bank, we gazed with great curiosity and interest
upon this place, larger than any we had seen since leaving Detroit
fourteen hundred miles behind. To the left the rocks were crowned by a
large solid looking building which we were told was the penitentiary. In
front was a row of high ware-houses made of limestone, filled with goods
and men; while a mass of houses and steeples at our right were brightly
reflecting the rays of the sinking sun. The shore presented a busy
scene; men and carts and horses were transporting goods or luggage, or
busily employed Macadamizing the bank--a great improvement upon the
wharves we had passed. A large brick building at our right hand, with a
white porch and steps, bearing the sign of ‘Alton House,’ being our
place of destination, we directed our course towards it. The keeper of
the house being absent, and it being no one’s business to take care of
us, we spent some time wandering about the well furnished parlors, and
staring at the waiters who were washing up the tea things in the
dining-room, ere we could find any one to listen to our wants. We had
left behind us the land where a living is only to be obtained by effort,
and where the landlord and porters are on the alert in order to catch
the stranger and take him in. Here, the cool American manner obtains;
and although to the hungry, tired traveller rather annoying, yet, when
we reflect upon the peace, and independence, and plenty, which produces
this indifference, he will do as we did, throw himself upon a sofa, keep
cool, and quietly await the arrival of somebody.
While amusing ourselves looking around at the furniture, we observed a
portrait of, as we afterwards learned, the master of the house. As much
as we had heard of the wild independence, the _devil-me-care_ manners of
our western brethren, we were here taken by surprise. He was without his
coat--actually painted in his shirt sleeves--having upon his head an old
straw hat! It was probably a warm day, or he was in too much of a hurry
to put on his coat when he went to sit; and besides, it was nobody’s
business but his own how he was dressed, or if he were dressed at all,
and I suppose we may be thankful he retained his white robe ‘any way.’
Luxury, refinement, and conventual forms may be carried to excess; but I
am not prepared to say the other extreme is better. A boarder in the
house happening to stray in, we told our wants, and he kindly sent a
waiter for the master of the house. He came instantly and with the
greatest alacrity and wish to oblige, took us up stairs. All the rooms
proving full or engaged, except one too small, we were directed to
another house, which, after a short moonlight walk, we reached. The
Eagle tavern, a favorite name for hotels, I think, in our country, was a
comfortable house, although not pretending to the style and fashion of
the Alton House. And now having finished these last few lines, while our
supper was preparing, I hasten to bid you good-night.