[Illustration THE DEARBORN MONUMENT. _Frontispiece._]
American Historic Towns
HISTORIC TOWNS
OF
THE WESTERN STATES
Edited by
LYMAN P. POWELL
Illustrated
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1901
COPYRIGHT, October, 1901
BY
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
[Illustration]
PREFACE
In presenting to the reading public this fourth volume in the series of
_Historic Towns_, a volume which brings the series to a close, it is in
order for the editor to call attention to the necessarily large measure of
liberty accorded to the contributors in their treatment of the records of
the several towns. With several of his co-laborers the editor has on one
point or another found himself at variance. Examples of such difference of
conclusions are presented in the references to the Mormons and to the
Mound-builders.
The editor bears in mind, however, the essential difference between
editorial responsibilities and those belonging to the writers of the
papers. It was his duty to choose as contributors not writers who
necessarily share his own view, but those who are most fairly
representative of the towns described, who possess the necessary
familiarity with the historic records, and whose narratives would be
assured of an appreciative and sympathetic reception from their
fellow-townsmen,--men who love their town
"with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present."
In the studies of Western history made by the editor during the past ten
years, two historians have been his inspiration: Francis Parkman, of
blessed memory, revered by all who love good literature and good history;
and Theodore Roosevelt, now by the will of God President of the United
States, and a trustworthy and inspiring writer of our nation's history long
before he took his place among its distinguished makers.
In offering to the public this final volume of _American Historic Towns_,
the editor ventures to hope that by thus focalizing and localizing Western
history, the publishers, authors, and editor are contributing somewhat to
the popular knowledge of and interest in the history of the Great West
which Parkman and Roosevelt first made possible.
Since with this volume the series is brought to a close, the editor trusts
that the publishers, Messrs. G.P. Putnam's Sons, will lay aside their
reluctance to be mentioned in the Preface, and will permit the editor to
express his admiration and indebtedness for their share, larger than is
usual with publishers, in the production of the series. To his wife,
Gertrude Wilson Powell, acknowledgment is also due for aid given in this as
in the earlier volumes, the full value of which cannot here be indicated.
Besides making two important contributions to the volume, Messrs. R.G.
Thwaites and Harold Bolce have ever been ready with suggestion and counsel,
always valued and almost always followed. To Doctors Talcott Williams,
Albert Shaw, and George Petrie, the editor would speak this last word of
gratitude for cordial and skilled assistance in connection not alone with
this book but with the whole undertaking. This closing volume now goes out,
with the editor's best-wishes, to the earlier friends of the series and to
the new friends yet to be gained for it.
LYMAN P. POWELL.
ST. JOHN'S RECTORY,
LANSDOWNE, PENNSYLVANIA,
September 21, 1901.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION Reuben G. Thwaites xix
MARIETTA Muriel Campbell Dyar 1
CLEVELAND Charles F. Thwing 31
CINCINNATI Milton E. Ailes 55
DETROIT Silas Farmer 87
MACKINAC Sara Andrew Shafer 121
INDIANAPOLIS Perry S. Heath 147
VINCENNES William Henry Smith 169
CHICAGO Lyman J. Gage 197
MADISON Reuben G. Thwaites 235
MINNEAPOLIS } Charles B. Elliott 265
AND ST. PAUL }
DES MOINES Frank I. Herriott 301
ST. LOUIS William Marion Reedy 331
KANSAS CITY Charles S. Gleed 375
OMAHA Victor Rosewater 401
DENVER John Cotton Dana 425
SANTA FÉ Frederick Webb Hodge 449
SALT LAKE CITY James Edward Talmage 479
SPOKANE Harold Bolce 509
PORTLAND Thomas L. Cole 535
SAN FRANCISCO Edwin Markham 569
MONTEREY Harold Bolce 617
LOS ANGELES Florence E. Winslow 645
INDEX 685
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE DEARBORN MONUMENT _Frontispiece_
MARIETTA
MARIETTA 3
GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM 7
OLD BLOCKHOUSE, MARIETTA 9
THE MILLS HOMESTEAD, MARIETTA 17
HARMAN BLENNERHASSETT 19
MRS. BLENNERHASSETT 21
MARIETTA COLLEGE BUILDINGS 23
MOUND CEMETERY, MARIETTA 25
OHIO COMPANY'S LAND OFFICE 27
OLD TWO HORN CHURCH 29
CLEVELAND
VIEW IN GORDON PARK 33
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, CLEVELAND 35
SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT, CLEVELAND 38
ARMORY OF THE CLEVELAND GRAYS 42
LAKE IN WADE PARK, SHOWING ADELBERT COLLEGE IN THE
DISTANCE 45
PERRY'S MONUMENT, WADE PARK, CLEVELAND 48
CHARLES F. BROWNE ("ARTEMUS WARD") 49
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON 50
GARFIELD MEMORIAL, CLEVELAND 52
CINCINNATI
TYLER-DAVIDSON FOUNTAIN 59
ENTRANCE TO SPRING GROVE CEMETERY 65
RACE STREET, CINCINNATI 69
CITY HALL, CINCINNATI 73
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, CINCINNATI 77
SUSPENSION BRIDGE 79
RESERVOIR, EDEN PARK 83
DETROIT
CADILLAC SQUARE SHOWING CITY HALL AND MAJESTIC
BUILDING 89
THE DETROIT RIVER FROM "WINDMILL POINT," 1838 93
From a Pencil Drawing.
WEST GRAND CIRCUS PARK 97
WAYNE COUNTY BUILDING, FACING CADILLAC SQUARE 103
COLONEL ARENT SCHUYLER DE PEYSTER 112
EVACUATION DAY TABLET, ON POST-OFFICE 113
GENERAL GRANT'S HOME IN DETROIT 115
HURLBUT MEMORIAL GATE ENTRANCE TO WATER-WORKS
PARK 117
MACKINAC ISLAND
OLD MISSION CHURCH (CIRCA) 1823, MACKINAC ISLAND 123
ARCH ROCK, MACKINAC ISLAND 127
SUGAR LOAF ROCK, MACKINAC ISLAND 131
OLD BLOCKHOUSE (1780) OVERLOOKING THE LAKE 135
"OLD STONE QUARTERS," FORT MACKINAC, 1780 137
SIGNATURES OF THE CHIPPEWA CHIEFS, WHO, IN 1781,
DEEDED THE ISLAND TO KING GEORGE III 139
From "Mackinac," by John R. Bailey, M.D., Brevet
Lieut.-Col., U.S.V., by whose kind permission they
are here reproduced.
FORT MACKINAC, AND THE CANNON CAPTURED BY COMMODORE
PERRY 141
REV. ELEAZAR WILLIAMS 143
Reproduced from Latimer's "Scrap-Book of the Revolution,"
by permission of A.C. McClurg & Co.
INDIANAPOLIS
THE OLD STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS 149
THE NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY, INDIANAPOLIS 151
BENJAMIN HARRISON 153
STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS, EAST FRONT 155
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, INDIANAPOLIS 159
MARION COUNTY COURT HOUSE 161
COLUMBIA CLUB, INDIANAPOLIS 163
THE HENDRICKS MONUMENT 165
VINCENNES
EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS AT VINCENNES 175
FORT SACKVILLE, 1779 179
CLARK AND HIS MEN CROSSING THE RIVER 181
GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 187
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 192
ST. XAVIER'S CHURCH, 1779 193
CHICAGO
THE DEARBORN MONUMENT 203
THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BUILDING, CHICAGO 207
AUDITORIUM HOTEL, CHICAGO 211
THE ART INSTITUTE, CHICAGO 215
STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 219
By St. Gaudens.
RUINS OF THE GREAT FIRE, CHICAGO 223
PUBLIC LIBRARY, CHICAGO 231
MADISON
THE STATE HOUSE, MADISON 237
THE FIRST EXECUTIVE RESIDENCE (STILL STANDING) IN USE
BY GOVERNOR DOTY 241
PROFILE ROCK ON LAKE MENDOTA 244
VIEW OF MADISON ACROSS LAKE MONONA 247
THE FIRST STATE HOUSE, MADISON 251
MADISON FROM THE STATE HOUSE, SHOWING UNIVERSITY
BUILDINGS IN THE DISTANCE 253
PROFESSOR WILLIAM FRANCIS ALLEN 254
UNIVERSITY HALL, STATE UNIVERSITY 257
STATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY BUILDING 259
GENERAL LUCIUS FAIRCHILD 262
Ex-Minister to Spain.
MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL
THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY ABOUT 1850 267
TOWER AT FORT SNELLING 269
The Original "Fort" now used as a Guard-House.
ALEXANDER RAMSEY 272
COURT HOUSE AND CITY HALL, MINNEAPOLIS 275
FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY DURING HIGH WATER 279
THE MILLING DISTRICT 281
PUBLIC LIBRARY, MINNEAPOLIS 284
OLE BULL MONUMENT IN LORING PARK 286
LORING PARK, MINNEAPOLIS 289
THE FALLS OF MINNEHAHA 291
THE CAPITOL, ST. PAUL 295
A CALM EVENING 299
DES MOINES
FORT DES MOINES IN 1844 303
KEOKUK AT THE AGE OF 67 307
From a Daguerreotype taken in 1847.
IOWA SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT 315
GOVERNOR SAMUEL J. KIRKWOOD 319
HON. JOHN A. KASSON 324
THE CAPITOL, DES MOINES 325
THE IOWA HISTORICAL LIBRARY 327
ST. LOUIS
COLONEL AUGUSTE CHOUTEAU, ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF
ST. LOUIS 334
From a painting in Missouri Historical Society Collection.
THE OLD CHOUTEAU MANSION, BUILT FOR LACLEDE IN 1765 336
From a Daguerreotype in Missouri Historical Society
Collection.
OLD FRENCH POST-HOUSE, BUILT IN 1770, INHABITED UNTIL
1870 341
OLD MOUND, ST. LOUIS. REMOVED IN 1869 346
From a photograph in Missouri Historical Society Collection.
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AS PROJECTED, NOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION 359
ST. LOUIS IN 1854 365
From a print in Missouri Historical Society Collection.
EADS BRIDGE AT ST. LOUIS 367
FOREST PARK, ST. LOUIS 369
UNION STATION, ST. LOUIS 371
KANSAS CITY
KANSAS CITY FROM THE SOUTH 377
JACKSON COUNTY COURT HOUSE, KANSAS CITY 379
CONVENTION HALL, KANSAS CITY 383
THE CITY HALL, KANSAS CITY 387
THE POST OFFICE, KANSAS CITY 391
A BIT OF GLADSTONE BOULEVARD, KANSAS CITY 393
THE STOCK YARD EXCHANGE, KANSAS CITY 396
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, KANSAS CITY 397
OMAHA
ALFRED D. JONES 402
WILLIAM P. SNOWDEN, OMAHA'S FIRST WHITE SETTLER 404
A TYPICAL OMAHA INDIAN 407
Reproduced by permission of F.A. Rinehart, Omaha.
THE HIGH SCHOOL, OMAHA, ON THE SITE OF THE OLD
CAPITOL 411
Reproduced by permission of Heyn, Omaha.
THE CITY HALL 414
RETURN OF THE FIRST NEBRASKA VOLUNTEERS, AUG. 30, 1899 417
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, OMAHA 419
THE OMAHA EXPOSITION, 1898 421
Reproduced by permission of F.A. Rinehart, Omaha.
DENVER
SOURCES OF TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION IN COLORADO 427
DENVER, COLORADO 429
"SMOKY" JONES 431
THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER, THE PROPER CREST FOR THE COAT-OF-ARMS
OF THE WEST 433
FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE IN DENVER 435
FACSIMILE LETTER FROM WM. N. BYERS, THE FOUNDER OF
THE "ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS" 439
PROSPECTING PARTY, RICO, COLORADO, 1880 441
RICO, COLORADO, IN 1880, A TYPICAL MINING CAMP 443
WILLIAM GILPIN 444
THE CAPITOL, DENVER 445
SANTA FÉ
THE SO-CALLED OLDEST HOUSE IN SANTA FÉ 451
FORT MARCY AND THE PARROQUIA, SANTA FÉ 455
SAN MIGUEL CHAPEL BEFORE ITS RESTORATION 457
SAN MIGUEL CHAPEL IN 1899 465
From a photograph by A.C. Vroman, Pasadena, Cal.
CHRISTOPHER ("KIT") CARSON 467
THE OLD PALACE AT SANTA FÉ 471
SANTA FÉ IN 1846 473
THE TERRITORIAL CAPITOL, COMPLETED IN 1900 474
SALT LAKE CITY
PAVILION OF SALTAIR, GREAT SALT LAKE 481
BRIGHAM YOUNG 483
Founder of Salt Lake City.
EAST TEMPLE STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE TEMPLE 485
JEDEDIAH M. GRANT, FIRST MAYOR OF SALT LAKE CITY 491
EAGLE GATE 492
BRIGHAM YOUNG MONUMENT 495
MAIN STREET IN 1861 497
HOUSE BUILT IN 1847 WITHIN THE OLD FORT 499
MORMON TEMPLE 501
MORMON TABERNACLE 503
CITY AND COUNTY BUILDING, SALT LAKE CITY 505
LION AND BEE-HIVE HOUSES 506
SPOKANE
THE COUNTY COURT HOUSE, SPOKANE 511
THE LAST CHIEF TO INTIMIDATE THE INHABITANTS OF
SPOKANE 516
THE CITY HALL, SPOKANE 519
J. KENNEDY STOUT 522
THE "SPOKESMAN-REVIEW" BUILDING 525
MIDDLE FALLS, SPOKANE 529
MIDDLE FALLS, ECHO FLOUR MILLS, AND OLD POWER
HOUSE 531
PORTLAND
JOHN JACOB ASTOR 537
ASTORIA IN 1811 541
Based on a print in Gray's "History of Oregon."
FORT VANCOUVER, 1833 545
THE CITY HALL, PORTLAND 555
PORTLAND IN 1850 557
THE PORT OF PORTLAND 559
JUDGE MATTHEW P. DEADY 560
VIEW OF PORTLAND, 1900 561
A CORNER IN CHINATOWN 563
THE PORTLAND 565
SAN FRANCISCO
VIEW NORTHWEST FROM SPRECKEL'S BUILDING 571
THE DISCOVERY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY 575
From the painting by A.F. Mathews.
MISSION DOLORES, BUILT IN 1776 577
SEAL OF THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE 588
UNION DEPOT 597
CHINESE PHARMACY 599
CHINESE GROCERY STORE 603
SMOKING ROOM, CHINESE RESTAURANT 604
A BUSINESS CENTRE 605
PRAYER-BOOK CROSS, GOLDEN GATE PARK 608
SEAL ROCK AND CLIFF HOUSE 609
CITY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO 611
LELAND STANFORD 612
THOMAS STARR KING 613
HENRY GEORGE 615
MONTEREY
JUNÍPERO SERRA, FOUNDER OF MONTEREY 618
CARMEL MISSION (RESTORED) 620
TWILIGHT, MONTEREY BAY 621
SAN CARLOS CHURCH 624
OLD MEXICAN JAIL 630
FISHING VILLAGE 636
ANCIENT CYPRESS AT CYPRESS POINT 637
STATUE OF JUNÍPERO SERRA 638
OLD MEXICAN CUSTOM-HOUSE 641
ANCIENT ADOBE CABIN, MONTEREY 642
LOS ANGELES
BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL 647
SAN DIEGO MISSION, FOUNDED 1769 649
THE PUEBLO OF LOS ANGELES. EARLY SPANISH PLAN 653
Suertes from C. to E.
DON PIO PICO 655
The Last Mexican Governor.
DON ANTONIO F. CORONEL, WITH SPANISH CANNON BROUGHT
TO SAN DIEGO BY SERRA IN 1769 657
THE OLD PLAZA CHURCH, LOS ANGELES 659
A TYPICAL COTTAGE 663
JOHN C. FRÉMONT 666
OLD ADOBE, FRÉMONT'S HEADQUARTERS 671
FIRST STAGE IN THE ASCENT OF MT. LOWE, CONNECTING
WITH ELECTRIC ROAD ON ECHO MOUNTAIN 673
A MODERN RESIDENCE 677
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL 679
THE COURT HOUSE, LOS ANGELES 681
IMPROVED HARBOR OF SAN PEDRO, PORT OF LOS ANGELES 683
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION
BY REUBEN G. THWAITES
The first two volumes of this series--those devoted to the historic towns
of New England and the Middle States--dealt with communities each group of
which has had for the most part a common origin, has progressed along
practically parallel lines, and possesses characteristics closely akin. The
volume upon the towns of the South brought closely to view the cosmopolitan
character of the population which has settled our continent to the South
and Southwest of the Appalachian wall. The stories of Baltimore,
Washington, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and St. Augustine bring into
view widely-different origins, experiences, and interests along a single
stretch of coast; while Mobile and New Orleans, Knoxville, Nashville, and
Louisville, Vicksburg and Little Rock, are groups representing chapters in
our history which appear to have but slight connection save in the view of
those who have closely studied the mainsprings of American development.
The present volume represents even a wider range of historical interest.
The attentive reader will, however, discover that although these towns of
the far-stretching trans-Alleghany region have sprung from curiously
divergent beginnings, and are apparently incongruous in composition and in
aims, there really is and has been much in common among them.
In order to understand Western history, one must first have knowledge of
the details of the titanic struggle for settlement in North America, made
respectively by Spain, France, and England. The early decline of Spanish
power north of the Red and the Arkansas, save for the later temporary
holding of Louisiana; the protracted tragedy which ended on the Plains of
Abraham in the Fall of New France; the Revolution of the English colonists,
and its portentous results; the Louisiana Purchase of 1803; the Mexican
War, the episode of California, the story of Texas, with their consequent
ousting of Spain from lands north of the Rio Grande and the Gila--all these
are factors bearing the closest relation to the history of the West, and
consequently of many of the historic towns whose stories have been grouped
within these covers.
With these episodes of national rivalry, and consequent diplomacy and war,
were intimately concerned the French fur-trade outposts of Detroit,
Mackinac, Vincennes, and St. Louis, links in the forted chain which bound
Canada and Louisiana, and by means of which it was sought to form a barrier
against the Westward growth of the English colonies; also the Spanish
stations of San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles, and Santa Fé, which were
at once political vantage points and mission seats, for the spread of
Spanish power and civilization from Mexico, among the brown barbarians of
the North. St. Louis experienced both French and Spanish régimes, while
Mackinac, Detroit, and Vincennes were much affected by the period of
English occupancy.
As settlement grew upon the Atlantic coast, the English frontier was
inevitably pushed farther and farther from tidewater. The hunter followed
his game westward; so the forest trader, seeking the ever-receding camps of
the aborigines, and, in due course, the raiser of cattle, horses, and swine
who needed fresh pastures for his herds as tillage steadily encroached upon
the wild lands of the border. At first timorously occupying the valleys and
foothills of the eastern slopes, hunter, trader, and grazier, each in his
turn, cautiously followed buffalo traces and Indian war-paths over the
crest of the great range, and hailed with glee waters descending into the
mysterious West. Not less formidable than the barriers reared by nature
were those interposed by the savage, who with dismay saw his hunting
grounds fast dwindling under the sway of the land-grabbing English; and by
the jealous machinations of the military agents and fur traders of New
France, who brooked no rivalry in their commercial exploitation of the
forest.
When New France fell, the English crown strictly forbade further settlement
in the back country. This order was issued upon the representations of
London merchants interested, as had been the merchant adventurers of
France, in preserving the forest for the Indians and the fur trade; the
ministry were not unmindful also that the bold and liberty-loving
frontiersmen who crossed the mountains might come to consider English
political control as unessential to their being.
This policy was, however, diametrically opposed to the policy of the
border. The fertile fields of the West were far from the observation of
London officials, the spirit of unrest and the desire for gain laughed at
royal proclamations, and the trans-Alleghany movement but gathered force.
By the opening of the Revolution, Kentucky and Tennessee were practically
staked out; by its close, Americans were sole white masters of the West to
the east of the Mississippi, save for a brief holding by the British of
Detroit, Mackinac, and other upper lake posts, as security for treaty
obligations as yet unfulfilled.
It had been the custom of England to grant lands for military service; the
American colonies had likewise liberally rewarded their defenders in the
Indian wars; Revolutionary soldiers were now given free access to the broad
acres of the West, the direct result of this policy being the settlements
of Marietta and Cleveland.
Water courses have ever been of the highest importance in determining the
lines of continental settlement. The river St. Lawrence and the great lakes
offered to the people of New France a continual invitation to explore the
regions whence they flowed. It was not long before the French found that
the sources of south and west-flowing waters were not far from the banks
of the eastering waterways upon which they dwelt. By ascending short
tributaries, and carrying their light craft along practicable paths, or
portages, first used by the Indians, they could re-launch into strange and
devious paths which led to all parts of the continental interior--the
Ohio, the Mississippi, the Assiniboine, and their multifarious affluents
and connections. Thus easily did New France spread along the St. Lawrence
and the lakes, over into the Ohio and the Mississippi, and down their
gliding channels to New Orleans and the sea.
In crossing the Alleghanies, the English sought the Ohio and its
tributaries--the Alleghany, the Monongahela, the Cumberland, the Tennessee,
the Kanawha, the Big Sandy. The Ohio was long the chief gateway to the
West. Upon this royal path into the wilderness, the Ohio Company sent
Christopher Gist to prospect and report; for its possession, France and
England came to final blows through the action at Fort Necessity of Major
Washington, than whom no man knew the Ohio better; it was an approach to
Kentucky more inviting than Boone's Wilderness Road, through Cumberland
Gap; Clark's flotilla came swooping down the great river to conquer
Kaskaskia and Vincennes; and, the Revolution ended, Rufus Putnam and his
fellow veterans from New England claimed their military land grants along
this continental highway, at Marietta. Cincinnati, also, was an outpost
deliberately planted upon the great pathway to the West, although otherwise
differing in genesis. It was by the Great Lakes, that other principal
approach to the West, that Moses Cleaveland founded the settlement of
Revolutionary soldiers who were redeeming their land warrants in New
Connecticut, or the Western Reserve--an incident closely connecting Ohio
with colonial history.
Early in the Western experiences of the new nation, came Indian wars. These
resulted in treaties whereunder the defeated tribesmen were either
forbidden to enter defined areas of settlement, or were confined within
specific reservations. This necessitated the construction of rude but
effective frontier forts, which not unfrequently proved the nuclei of
hamlets that grew into considerable towns. Sometimes these forts were
essential to the direct protection of the white settlers, who, upon
occasion of alarm, flew to cover within the log palisades, which were stout
enough to resist a barbaric foe unpossessed of artillery; such was Fort
Washington, which in time became Cincinnati.
The forest trade was long the chief and only commercial interest in the
West, and at certain points garrisoned forts were necessary to serve the
traders as depôts and as havens of refuge; this was the part played by
Detroit, Mackinac, Chicago, St. Paul, Vincennes, and St. Louis. In the
case of Des Moines, the fort was established for the protection of a group
of reservation Indians who might otherwise have fallen victims to a
superior savage foe.
Agricultural settlers rapidly took up lands. Battle against it as he
would,--and the early history of the border is a piteous tale of man's
inhumanity to man,--the dispossessed savage found this army of occupation
impregnable. As the frontier moved to the westward of the Mississippi, it
was accompanied by the Indians and the fur trade. Territories were erected
by Congress out of the lands of the ousted Iroquois and Algonkins, and
these political divisions were soon admitted to the Union as states; mines
were exploited, forests were depleted, miscellaneous industries were
created, and these new interests not only profoundly affected the old
towns, but gave rise to a new order of cities.
Indianapolis and Madison are examples of town sites staked out in virgin
forests by ambitious and imaginative speculators, and, before a house could
be built, set aside by statute as capitals of their respective young
commonwealths. It is not always that towns thus artificially planted have
similarly thriven. Under normal conditions, a successful city is as much a
matter of natural growth as a tree, whose germ has chanced to fall in
favored soil. Many, perhaps most, Western towns of importance, that were
planted before the days of the railroad, when waterways were highways, are
upon the sites of early villages of aborigines, who made their stands at
natural vantage points--at a river mouth, convenient for transportation, or
close to considerable fishing grounds; at a waterfall, because here fish
are plenty, and canoes must be carried around the obstruction, so that the
villagers are masters of the highway; upon a portage path, because of ease
in reaching and controlling divergent water systems; upon a bluff
overlooking waterways, for facility of observation and control; upon a
fertile river bottom, because of good corn lands. In due time, whites came
to such a centre of population and established a trading post; here and
there, as at Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Vincennes, and Kansas City
(Westport), the post in due time developed into a garrisoned fort; and the
surrounding community, at first dependent on the fur trade or the military,
under modern conditions became a town of importance. Scores, possibly
hundreds, of such examples might be cited; and even when some thrifty towns
of the West appear at first sight to have no connection with such a past,
antiquarians have not infrequently discovered evidences that substantially
the same reasons which before the railway era had led civilized men to
select the site, caused its previous occupancy by aborigines--sometimes at
so early a day that the only remaining relics are the curious earthworks
which the progenitors of our Western Indians, prompted by religious fervor,
constructed anywhere from two and a half to ten centuries ago.
Minneapolis and Spokane, both of them old Indian sites, are the direct
outgrowth of the superb waterpowers which have given them pre-eminence in
the industrial world.
We have seen that the Great Lakes and the great rivers were the paths to
the Mississippi basin in the days of the canoe, the bateau, and the
pack-horse. The early movement of population over the trans-Mississippi
plains and through the passes of the Rockies was by means of wagons along
well-worn buffalo traces, which Indians had followed in the pursuit of
game. Where rivers intersected these overland trails, ferries were
instituted, their keepers doing a thriving business in helping upon their
way fur traders, explorers, miners, and settlers. Such was the origin of
Kansas City and Omaha, which naturally developed, with the rush of
immigration, into great centres of distribution. In every quarter of our
land, from the earliest colonial days, the frontier ferryman, with his
tavern and trading house, has been a town builder.
The discovery of precious metals in the hills of Colorado gave life to the
mining camp of Denver, which in time became the metropolis of a wide
district, to which irrigation brought a wealth more enduring than gold and
silver.
Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are the open doors of the Pacific
Coast, and their growth is thus easily accounted for. Prophecies are
current of the possible commercial supremacy of these Pacific-coast towns,
as a consequence of our new interests in the Far East. It is curious, in
this connection, to remember that Spain's motive in founding her California
colonies, four generations ago, was, on the temporal side, the more
strongly to establish herself in the Philippines.
Strangest of all stories is that of Salt Lake City, the product of
religious zeal seeking a supposedly inaccessible desert as a haven from
persecution. Finally, when the laborious development of the wilderness has
brought rich fruitage, this hermit city finds itself a station on one of
the world's most-travelled highways.
The coming of the railway, and the consequent practical abandonment of the
waterway, wrought a profound change in the fortunes of the Western towns.
The railway paid small heed to watercourses, save in mountainous country;
it struck out upon short-cuts over the plains and prairies, almost
regardless of topography. Hundreds of staid and promising river and lake
towns received a staggering blow when, for various reasons,--sometimes
their own failure to encourage the enterprise,--the railway passed them by
and entered rival and often less pretentious communities, which now were
quickened into new vigor. A more favorable situation for a bridge across
the stream was often the determining factor which caused several towns upon
a river to die and the fortunate one to be transformed into a metropolis.
The arbitrary erection throughout the West of new paths of commerce, of new
centres of distribution, during the decade and a half before the War of
Secession, was of itself a revolutionary element in urban history.
Almost as profound in its effects was the practically contemporaneous
dispersion through this vast territory of millions of European immigrants,
who came to open farms, to practise trades, and in city and in village to
carry forward, often to inaugurate, hundreds of new commercial and
industrial enterprises. The new-comers brought strange habits of thought
and social customs; some of the most desirable of these they engrafted upon
their American neighbors, while at the same time they themselves were being
consciously or unconsciously remoulded into American citizens--who,
whatever may be said, will always be essentially but transplanted
Englishmen modified by environment and political education.
Of the many nationalities of the European continent which have planted
stakes in North America, the Germans and the Scandinavians, closely allied
to our Anglo-Saxon stock, have been the most numerous and have exercised
the greatest influence. Many considerable towns, like Cincinnati, Detroit,
St. Louis, and Omaha, have become strongly German, with not a few of the
characteristics of old Germany, such as are evinced in a general fostering
of music and rational outdoor recreation. The Scandinavian element vies
good-naturedly with the German, as at Madison and Chicago; while
Minneapolis may be considered as the centre of Scandinavian influence,
fostering sturdy democracy and tenacious enterprise.
In the large towns which have their roots planted in New France, the French
element is no longer of considerable importance. The French borderer was a
vivacious, fun-loving, easy-going fellow, and upon the road to modern
opulence and power has long since been passed; to-day, as an urban dweller,
he is not seriously reckoned with by the politician, and this is a safe
guide to the relative standing of a race in any American city. The towns
which we have more recently inherited from Spain still possess, in their
older quarters, strong characteristics to link them with the past. Here and
there, as with the French, individual Spaniards or mixed-bloods rise into
prominence in our modern life--but only through the channel of
Americanization, which means effacement of the old régime. Spanish traits
have left permanent traces on the Southwest and the Pacific, as some French
traits are a part of the lasting heritage of the Old Northwest; but
Spaniards and Frenchmen as such are rapidly fading from our historic towns.
A half-century ago, few of the twenty-one Western towns whose stories are
herein collected had taken upon themselves the characteristics which to-day
chiefly distinguish them. We have seen that the advent of the railway was
for many the starting-point upon the road to prosperity; the arrival of
European immigrants, with traditions of toil and thrift, proved the turning
stage for others, and strengthened all. The War of Secession shook the
Republic to its foundations; but from it the North rose with fresh vigor,
and rapidly developed in growth and ambition, with the ensuing commercial
and industrial conditions which we encounter to-day. Nowhere has this
development been quite so noticeable as in the towns of the West.
Pioneer men and women are necessarily too closely engaged in taming the
wilderness to have either thought or leisure for any but the most
elementary education. But now that the West is no longer the frontier, and
mines, forests, fisheries, manufactures, and scientific agriculture have
brought wealth and comparative leisure, there is among her people no lack
of aspiration for culture. In no section of the United States are study
clubs relatively more numerous, in town and country; university extension
courses and the lyceum prosper everywhere; the common-school systems,
capped by the fast-growing State universities with their thousands of
students, are exhibiting a healthy growth along the most approved lines
under the guidance of teachers of national reputation; excellent private
academies and colleges are numerous in every commonwealth. Several of the
towns mentioned in this volume have won wide reputation as educational
centres--notably Cleveland, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and
San Francisco.
From these Western towns there issues no note of decadence. Theirs is the
glowing ambition of youth. Each of our several authors is quite confident,
and properly so, that his town is the handsomest, brightest, and most
prosperous of all; or, if it is not, that it is soon to be. Its commerce
ever widens, its industries expand in capacity and number, its railways
connect it each year with some new sphere of trade; and, what is better, it
is making strides, in breezy Western fashion, in the cultivation of the
higher things of life, in its churches, its schools, its libraries and
museums, its charities, its parks, its popular conveniences, its insistence
upon moral and material municipal cleanliness. It is pleasant and
profitable to trace the careers of communities such as this; to note, for
instance, by what means the Indian village became a trading post, then a
fort, next a hamlet, and at last comes to be pulsating with the ambitions
and struggling with the multifarious problems of a great modern city.
Herein is a record of urban development crowded into the span of a single
human life, that in the Old World it took centuries to accomplish.
It is often flippantly asserted that America has no history; and even
well-informed Americans, who have come to appreciate their national history
at large, are apt to fancy that, in any event, the West has had a prosaic
career, being simply an overflow or outgrowth from the East. But a perusal
of these pages will surely convince the thoughtful reader that Western
history is not so easily disposed of. It will be found a chronicle
abounding in complexities, aglow with life and color, freighted with
significance to the continent at large. The chief towns of this historic
West have come down to us from many sorts of beginnings, have travelled by
differing and devious paths, often encountering curious adventures by the
way, until, quickened by modern resources and demands, they have each in
its kind come creditably to serve mankind in some useful way.
HISTORIC TOWNS OF THE
WESTERN STATES
[Illustration]
HISTORIC TOWNS OF THE WESTERN STATES
MARIETTA
THE PLYMOUTH OF THE WEST
BY MURIEL CAMPBELL DYAR
"The paths from the heights of Abraham led to Independence
Hall, Independence Hall led finally to Yorktown, and Yorktown
guided the footsteps of your Fathers to Marietta."--_Daniels._
At the point where the Muskingum empties into the Ohio, the River
Beautiful, across whose waters the Ohio hills look tenderly away into the
distances of West Virginia, there was sown, in 1788, the tiny seed for the
development of the Northwest Territory. Here, on the memorable seventh of
April, landed forty-eight New England pioneers; here stayed the keel of the
second _Mayflower_, bearing as her burden not only the men whose names have
become immortal in American history, but, more than these, the Ordinance of
1787 with its momentous articles of compact--an ordinance ranking "next to
the Declaration of Independence in the establishment of Constitutional
liberty in the United States." Here was founded that other Plymouth,
Marietta, the brave little gateway through which the nation's civilization
journeyed onward from the Atlantic seaboard to the fallow empires of the
West.
[Illustration MARIETTA.]
No seer was needed to foreshadow the success the Marietta colony was to
have. Two years before its coming, the character of the colony was presaged
when there met in Boston, at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, whose gilded sign
creaked temptingly in her high salt winds, a convention called by General
Rufus Putnam and General Benjamin Tupper for the formation of the Ohio
Company, with the purpose of founding a new State in the territory
northwest of the Ohio River. The Company was composed of high-minded men,
largely officers in the late war. In their petition to Congress for the
purchase of western land they stipulated, for its organization, law and
order, provision for education and for the maintenance of religion and the
total exclusion of slavery. For these compacts, some of the greatest
statesmen in the young Republic brought to bear the power of their genius;
for these, the quiet Ipswich clergyman, Manasseh Cutler, as agent of the
Ohio Company, pleaded with matchless eloquence in Congress; for these,
Rufus Putnam, the "Father and Founder of Ohio," gave the largess of his
ability and rugged force.
"An interlude in Congress," says Mr. Bancroft, "was shaping the
character and destiny of the United States of America. Sublime
and humane and eventful as was the result, it will not take
many words to show how it was brought about. For a time wisdom
and peace and justice dwelt among men, and the great Ordinance
which alone could give continuance to the Union came in
serenity and stillness. Every man that had a share in it seemed
to be moved by an Invisible Hand to do just what was wanted of
him; all that was wrongfully undertaken fell by the wayside;
whatever was needed for the happy completion of the work
arrived opportunely and at the right moment moved into its
place."
To the forty-eight men sent into the wilderness by the Ohio Company history
gives a generous and well-merited praise. They were of the same race and of
the same upright faith as the brave Englishmen who in 1620 landed on the
bleak, gray rock of Plymouth. All that was true and forceful in the
Plymouth faith was theirs; they had the same love of law and religion, the
same genius for order and a firm self-government, the same courage of
conviction, the same independence of thought and action. They possessed,
too, much of that ancient war-ready temper which had shorn the English King
of his divine right and had created for the English people the House of
Commons. Their heroism had adorned every battlefield of the Revolution;
their roll included generals, majors, colonels and captains.
"No colony in America," said Washington, with that cautious,
unerring judgment of his, "was ever settled under such
favorable auspices as that about to commence at the Muskingum.
Information, property and strength will be its characteristics.
I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were
men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a
community."
"I know them all," cried the Marquis de La Fayette, his fine French voice
trembling with emotion when the list of their names was read to him on his
visit to Marietta. "I knew them at Brandywine, Yorktown and Rhode Island.
They were the bravest of the brave." General Putnam himself was at their
head, the "impress of whose character is strongly marked on the population
of Marietta in their business, institutions and manners." Here were Samuel
H. Parsons, the distinguished general, the able writer, the accomplished
jurist; James M. Varnum, the brilliant scholar, the gallant officer;
Abraham Whipple, the brave commodore, to whom belongs the glory of firing
the first naval gun in the cause of American independence, an act that gave
birth to the American navy. Here were Winthrop Sargent, the Secretary of
the Territory, Benjamin Tupper, the hero of many battles and the devoted
friend of Putnam in the forming of the Ohio Company; Return Jonathan Meigs,
afterwards Governor of Ohio. Here were Nye, Buell, Cutler, Fearing, Foster,
Sproat, Cushing, Goodale, Dana, True, Devol and others no less worthy and
distinguished, whose names are the richest heritage of their descendants.
[Illustration GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM.]
The story of the coming of the pioneers is a twice-told tale to the student
of our nation's history. In the disheartening gray dawn of a December
morning, 1787, the first little band paraded before Manasseh Cutler's own
church at Ipswich, and, after the firing of a salute, started "for the
Ohio country," as their leading wagon proclaimed. Another joined this at
Danvers, and yet another, pushing on from famous old Rutland, started from
Hartford, Ct., led by the beloved and always inspiring General Putnam. The
toilsome journey overland, along an old Indian trail through Connecticut
and Pennsylvania, at that season of the year white with winter, ended at
last at the Ohio River. Here, at Sumrill's ferry, out of timber that still
sang of the forests, was built the _Mayflower_, her bows raking like a
galley, her burthen fifty tons--a humble enough namesake of the famous
Pilgrim vessel. As the pioneers went onward down the river, the snow, which
at first lay heavy in the hollows of the hills, melted into thin patches
here and there, until, when they reached Fort Harmar, at the fair mouth of
the Muskingum, April bourgeoned into unexpected beauty about them. It was a
golden augury for the little town, to which its soldier founders gave the
name of Marietta, in grateful remembrance of the sympathy of Marie
Antoinette for the colonies during the weary period of their Revolution, a
name which still keeps her citizens lovers of that ill-fated Queen of
France.
[Illustration OLD BLOCKHOUSE, MARIETTA.]
Enthusiastic news of the first summer of the colony went back over the
mountains to Ipswich and Rutland. "The climate is exceeding healthy,"
blithely carols one of the old letters, "not a man sick since we have been
here. We have started twenty buffalo in a drove--deer are plenty as sheep
in New England. Turkeys are innumerable. We have already planted a field of
one hundred and fifty acres in corn." Another settler drips from his
ecstatic, and, we trust, veracious quill, "The corn has grown nine inches
in twenty-four hours for two or three days past." The garrison, very soon
erected for defence and called the Campus Martius in academic quaintness,
is described as the "handsomest pile of buildings this side of the
Alleghanies," and as presenting an appearance of almost mediæval
stateliness and strength, bastioned as it was with great blockhouses and
surrounded by a stout double wall of palisades. The Fourth of July was
celebrated by a great "banquet," eaten in a bowery set up on the banks of
the Muskingum; its menu tickles even a jaded modern palate--venison
barbecued, buffalo steaks, bear-meat, roasted pigs, "the choicest delicacy
of all," and a great pike, six feet long, the largest ever caught in the
river. "We kept it up till after twelve o'clock at night," succinctly
observes one of the participants, "and then went home and slept until
after daylight." On the fifteenth of July, a yet more memorable occasion,
General St. Clair, the first Governor of the Northwest Territory, was
welcomed with great ceremonies, and the Ordinance of 1787 was read with
much solemnity in the midst of profound silence. In early August a pleasant
little ripple of diversion was caused by the arrival of the families of the
pioneers. In the latter part of the same month, Dr. Cutler made a visit to
the settlement, and delivered the first sermon ever preached at Marietta.
In September was opened the first Court of Common Pleas in the Territory.
It was an august spectacle. The sheriff, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, of the
Massachusetts line, preceded by a military escort, marched with his drawn
sword and wand of office ahead of the governor, judges, secretary and
others, to the blockhouse where the court was held. As the picturesque
little procession wound its way along the river banks, the friendly
Indians, loitering about the new city, admired immensely the mighty form of
Colonel Sproat, who, being six feet four inches tall, towered conspicuously
above his companions. Ever thereafter they called him Hetuck, or Big
Buckeye, and ever since then the natives of Ohio have been dubbed
"Buckeyes."
Great provisions were made for good order in the settlement; almost before
the seeds of New England harvests had germinated in the virgin soil,
Marietta had her pillory, whipping post and stocks for the discipline of
evil-doers, instruments of torture which lingered as late as 1812. Every
man was ordered to "entertain emigrants, visit the sick, feed the hungry,
attend funerals, cabin-raisings, log-rollings, huskings and to keep his
latch-string always out." Once during the fruitful summer the settlers
assembled to attend a funeral, for the first death in the colony occurred
in August, when little Nabby Cushing, daughter of Major Cushing, passed
away. She was buried tenderly in the alien soil, where, in an unmarked
grave, she is slumbering still. Although many years have come and gone
between, a vague pity stirs to-day at the thought of that little pioneer
baby, whose feet so soon grew weary in the vast wilderness.
The hospitality of the latch-strings was put to the test two years later,
when a hapless colony of Frenchmen took shelter in the town, lured into the
wilderness by the unscrupulous agent of a land company, with the promise
that they should find a land where there were no taxes to pay, no military
services to be performed, where frost, even in winter, was entirely unknown
and where candles grew ready-made on the bushes and sugar dripped
spontaneously from the trees. They were a curious crew: carvers, gilders,
wig-makers and hair-dressers from Paris, even a Viscount of broken-down
fortunes and a young Marquis, with a few peasants as helpless as themselves
in the new conditions,--hardly a mother's son of them able to plough or
reap or chop for himself, and many a man without a sou in his pocket. The
major part of them drifted down the river that winter to what is now
Gallipolis, the City of the Gauls, where they at once began to give balls
in the cabins which the Marietta settlers helped them build, and proceeded
to spend what little money they had in hiring American hunters to bring
them game! A few became citizens of Marietta, notably Monsieur Thiery, a
Parisian baker and confectioner, who quickly adapted himself to the new
life, and made toothsome little sweet-cakes and bread for the
settlement,--there is a tradition that while Louis Philippe was whiling
away his exile in the United States, he visited Marietta, where he had the
pleasure of eating a fair wheaten loaf of his countryman's baking, and
Monsieur Cookie, bred to no trade, very short and very stout, who wore at
all times and in all seasons a very tall steeple-crowned hat which once
saved his life, when the Indians, catching sight of it bobbing up and down
in the paw-paw bushes, fired at it in a vain attempt to hit the head
within.
After the sober jollity of the first summer, the Marietta colonists
experienced the hardships which every early settlement knows. They had
their "sick years, their times of famine and their Indian wars." The sick
years played a sad havoc in their numbers by dreadful scourges of epidemic
diseases. The famous starving-time came in the spring and summer of 1790.
A black frost falling out of due season ruined their crops, and the
Indians, already beginning their hostilities, had driven from the forest
every startled wild thing within their reach. It was a period that tried
the Puritan mettle, for the solace of religion may prove vain if the
stomach be empty. The only food was nettle-tops and the tender shoots of
the pigeon-berry, boiled with a little corn pounded on the hominy block.
Occasionally a hunter, faring far afield, brought in a bit of bear-meat or
a wild turkey, which made a feast at least fitting if not full. The heroic
matrons sipped spice-bush tea, unsweetened, in lieu of a more stimulating
beverage. Many a heart turned back in homesick longing to where the blue
haze curled comfortably from New England kitchens, but hope returned with
the early squashes. The new corn crop was abundant, and from that day to
this, whatever may have been their vicissitudes of fortune, the citizens of
Marietta have never again been reduced to a starvation diet.
A much graver calamity, coming not long after, was the Indian wars, which
were not to end for five long, weary years. During this time the town was
strained to its generous capacity to receive under the shelter of the
Campus Martius the men, women and children from remoter settlements. The
settlers worked in the fields like the Israelites at the rebuilding of the
walls of Jerusalem,--every man with his weapon in his hand. On the puncheon
cabin-floors, mothers rocked their babies in the first cradles of Ohio,
while often, on some far-off hill, they could see savage warriors
brandishing their blood-stained hatchets in defiance at the fort.