The Indian and Land Questions.
One of the most important cessions of land in Illinois ever made by the
Indians was that made by the Kickapoo in 1819, of the vast region lying
north of the parallel of 39—a little north of the mouth of the Illinois
River, and southeast of the Illinois River.(324) Settlement had been
crowding hard upon this region and many squatters anxiously awaited the
survey and sale of the land, especially of that in the famous Sangamon
country. In northern Illinois settlement was still retarded by the
presence of Indians. In 1825, the Menominee, Kaskaskia, Sauk and Fox,
Potawatomi, and Chippewa tribes claimed over 5,314,000 acres of land in
Illinois,(325) and there was a licensed Indian trader at Sangamo, one at
the saline near the present Danville, and two on Fever River.(326) Two
years later there were three such traders at Fever River, and two at
Chicago,(327) and in 1827-28 there was one at Fever River with a capital
of about $2000.(328) In February, 1829, there were Indian agents at
Chicago, Fort Armstrong, Kaskaskia, and Peoria, as well as others near the
borders of Illinois.(329) At this time, the Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatomi,
Kaskaskia, and Winnebago claimed land in the state, although only about
6000 of the more than 25,000 members of these tribes resided in the state.
The eight members of the Kaskaskia tribe held a small reservation near the
Kaskaskia River. Of the twenty-two hundred members of the Kickapoo tribe,
which had relinquished all claim to land east of the Mississippi, about
two hundred still lived on the Mackinaw River, but they were expected to
move in a few weeks.(330) By a treaty of July 29, 1829, the Chippewa,
Ottawa, and Potawatomi ceded their claims in northern Illinois.(331) There
still remained the Winnebago tribe, and not until 1833 was Illinois to be
free from Indian claims.(332)
A war with the Winnebago tribe was imminent in 1827. Settlers in the
northern part of the state either fled to the southward or collected at
such points as Galena or Prairie du Chien. “This was a period of great
suffering at Galena. The weather was inclement and two or three thousand
persons driven suddenly in, with scant provisions, without ammunition or
weapons encamped in the open air, or cloth tents which were but little
better, were placed in a very disagreeable and critical position.”(333)
The prompt action of Governor Lewis Cass, of Michigan, averted what would
in all probability have been a bloody war, if prompt action had not been
taken.(334)
To September 30, 1819, the record of land sales in Illinois was as
follows:
Acres Unsold. Acres Sold. Price.
Shawneetown 4,561,920 562,296 $1,153,897
Kaskaskia 2,188,800 407,027 1,781,773
Edwardsville 2,625,960 394,730 795,531(335)
The balances unpaid by purchasers of public lands steadily increased from
1813 to 1819 until on September 30, 1819, there was due from purchasers of
land in the area of the old Northwest Territory nearly ten million
dollars.(336) An increase would have resulted merely from an increased
sale of public lands under the credit system, but it is also true that the
difficulty of collecting the unpaid balances became so great that the
government at last abolished the credit system, by the act of April 24,
1820. The act provided that after July 1, 1820, no credit whatever should
be given to the purchasers of public lands; that land might be sold in
either sections, half-sections, quarter-sections, or eighth-sections; that
the minimum price should be reduced from two dollars to one dollar and
twenty-five cents per acre; and that reverted lands should be offered at
auction before being offered at private sale.(337) At least two of the
provisions of this act had long been desired by Illinois in common with
other frontier regions: the reduction of the minimum price and the sale in
smaller tracts. Under the new law a man with one hundred dollars could buy
eighty acres of land, while previously the same man would have had to pay
eighty of his one hundred dollars as the first payment on one hundred and
sixty acres, the smallest tract then sold. The great danger had been that
the second, third, and fourth payments could not be made. In Illinois,
before July 1, 1820, there had been sold 1,593,247.53 acres of the public
land at an average price of about $2.02 per acre. Some of this reverted
from non-payment.(338)
[Illustration: Indian Cessions.]
During the third quarter of 1820, all sales in Illinois were at the
minimum price and a considerable proportion were of the minimum area. At
the same time, some of the land in Ohio, and a very few tracts in Indiana,
sold at a higher price, one tract in Ohio, but only one, selling for more
than seven dollars per acre.(339) To October 1, 1821, the land-offices in
Illinois reported:
Acres Sold. Surveyed, but
Unsold.
Shawneetown 592,464 2,401,936
Kaskaskia 419,898 1,615,942
Palestine 714 2,880,720
Edwardsville 437,993 2,696,727
Vandalia 7,923 2,545,677
All land in the districts of Shawneetown and Kaskaskia had been surveyed,
but the remaining districts were still indefinite on the north.(340) At
this time, Illinois money passed in the state at par, and the Bank of
Illinois was among those whose notes were received in payment for public
lands.(341)
As more and more land was opened to settlement, a new difficulty arose and
became increasingly troublesome. All public land was to be entered at the
same minimum price, and as a natural result, the poorest land was not
taken up and settlement became widely dispersed on the best tracts of
land. In December, 1824, the Illinois legislature sent a memorial to
Congress portraying the evils of sparse settlement, and asking that land
that had been offered for sale for five years or more might be sold at
fifty cents per acre. Better roads, better markets, and better
institutions were expected to result from such sales.(342) Two years
later, another memorial was sent. This asked that land be offered for sale
at prices graduated according to the quality of the land, suggested that
the poorest land might well be donated to settlers, and declared that
settlement was retarded by the high minimum price of land.(343) Governor
Ninian Edwards pointed out that in 1790, Hamilton had recommended that
public lands be sold at twenty cents per acre, which “was the price at
which Kentucky, long afterward, sold her lands.”(344) In 1828, the
Committee on Public Lands recommended that public lands unsold at public
sale be first offered at one dollar per acre, and if still unsold, that
the price be reduced twenty-five cents per acre each two years until sold
or reduced to twenty-five cents per acre; that eighty-acre homestead
claims be given to such persons as would cultivate and occupy them for
five years; and that lands unsold at twenty-five cents per acre be ceded
to the states in which they lay, upon payment of the cost of survey and
twenty-five cents per acre. At this time, there was in Illinois 1,403,482
acres surveyed and sold; 19,684,186 acres surveyed and unsold, of the
39,000,000 acres estimated to be in the State.(345) Still another memorial
from the legislature was sent to Congress in 1829. It pointed out, in
strong terms, the inconvenience arising from the high price at which
public land was offered for sale. Unsold public land could neither be
taxed nor legally settled. It was stated that of the forty millions of
acres in Illinois, little over one and one-half millions had been sold at
public sales. A granting of the right of preemption, which implies the
presence in the state of squatters, is suggested.(346)
The implication of the presence of squatters was well founded. When Peter
Cartwright, in 1823, visited a settlement in the Sangamon country, he
found it a community of squatters, on land which had been surveyed, but
was not yet offered for sale. Money was hoarded up to enter land when
Congress should order sales. Cartwright paid a squatter two hundred
dollars for his improvement and his claim, bought some stock, and rented
out the place, to which he was to remove from Kentucky the following
year.(347) This squatting on surveyed land, and even on unsurveyed land,
was a regular procedure. It added much to the difficulty of governing the
state—hence the memorials to Congress, and hence the great significance to
Illinois of an act of May 29, 1830, which gave to all settlers who had
cultivated land in 1829 the right to preempt not more than one hundred and
sixty acres.(348) This law was of general application. Even now the
Illinois legislature sent another petition concerning preemption to
Congress, because one of the provisions of the act of May, 1830, was that
the plat of survey should have been filed in the land-office, and this
provision debarred about one thousand Illinois squatters from the benefit
of the act. A modification in their favor was desired.(349)
The land claims of the ancient settlers, as they are called in government
documents, continued to occupy the attention of Congress, in a desultory
way, throughout the period, but their influence upon settlement had
practically ceased with the opening of the public land-offices.(350)
Among the obstacles to settlement was the holding of land by
non-residents. Such lands were subject to a triple tax in case of
delinquency, and when sold for taxes and costs frequently did not bring
enough for that purpose, in which event they reverted to the state and the
state paid the costs. Redemption, although possible, was rare.(351) In
1823, about nine thousand quarter-sections of land in the Military Tract,
lying between the Illinois and the Mississippi, were advertised for sale,
because of the non-payment of taxes by non-resident landholders.(352) At
this time, two of the prominent men of the state who wished to dispose of
a large amount of state paper, advertised that they would pay such
delinquent taxes at twenty-five per cent discount.(353) In 1826,
thirty-eight pages of the _Illinois Intelligencer_ were filled with a
description, in double column, of lands owned by non-residents, the lands
being for sale for taxes. In 1829, a similar list filled thirty-two
pages.(354) Much discontent was manifested in the state on account of the
laws concerning the public lands, and Governor Edwards’ message to the
legislature, in 1830, elaborated a theory that all public lands belonged
of right to the states in which they lay.(355)
Illinois early understood that an Illinois-Michigan canal would help to
people her northern lands. This led to many efforts to secure such a
waterway. In 1819 a favorable topographical report concerning the route
for the proposed canal was made,(356) and in 1822 the state was authorized
to construct the canal, but no tangible aid was given.(357) In 1825 the
legislature petitioned Congress for a grant of the townships through which
the canal would pass. A committee report of March, 1826, which was almost
identical with another presented in February, 1825, pointed out that the
cost of transporting a ton of merchandise from Philadelphia, New York, or
Baltimore was about ninety dollars, and required from twenty to twenty-two
days. The probable cost by the proposed canal, the Lakes, and the Erie
Canal, from St. Louis to New York was from sixty-three to sixty-five
dollars per ton, and the time from twelve to fifteen days. The canal would
bind Illinois and Missouri to the North.(358) Congress received a memorial
from the legislature on the same subject in January, 1827, requesting the
grant of “two entire townships, along the whole course of the canal,” and
declaring that markets at New Orleans fluctuated because of speculators,
and that grain and goods sent from the West to the Atlantic ports by way
of New Orleans was exposed to the dangers of both the southern climate and
the sea.(359) A few weeks later the desired grant was made, the state
being given one-half of five sections in width on each side of the canal,
the United States reserving the alternate sections.(360) The canal
commissioners promptly platted the original town of Chicago and sold lots
at from twenty to eighty dollars each, but no immediate settlement
followed the land sale, and Chicago remained for some years longer an
Indian town. The prospect of having a canal doubtless had some influence
upon settlement, but at the close of 1830 the actual construction of the
canal was still a thing of the future. By the close of 1828, Congress had
donated to Illinois, for various purposes, chiefly for schools and
internal improvements, 1,346,000 acres.(361)
The salt springs had been vested in the state of Illinois with the
provision that no part of the reservations should be sold. Large
reservations were made at the Saline River salt works and at the Vermilion
saline near Danville, the object being to reserve a supply of wood for the
making of salt. Upon the discovery of coal near the springs the state was
permitted to sell not more than thirty thousand acres of the Saline River
reservation.(362)
Illinois as a landowner sometimes mingled church and state. The original
proprietors of Alton having donated one hundred lots, one-half for the
support of the gospel, and one-half for the support of a public school,
the state vested the donated lots in the trustees of the town, upon its
incorporation in 1821. A similar donation made by the proprietors of Mt.
Carmel was confirmed in the same manner.(363) The Cumberland Presbyterians
having built a church on a school section, the state provided that for
ninety-nine years the building should be used as a schoolhouse also, the
school being under the joint direction of the trustees of the township and
the church society.(364)
The receipts for public lands in 1828 and 1829, respectively, were:
1828 1829.
Kaskaskia $ 4,639.82 $ 10,503.99
Shawneetown 7,250.28 16,058.79
Edwardsville 23,536.49 38,001.35
Vandalia 4,489.71 24,258.13
Palestine 25,671.62 59,026.81
Springfield 56,507.63 108,175.47
$122,095.55 $256,024.54(365)
The receipts for 1828 were for 96,092.91 acres; of 1829, for 196,324.92
acres.(366) From October 1, 1829, to September 30, 1830, sales, receipts,
and prices were:
Acres. Average Price
per Acre.
Illinois 291,401.28 $364,369.87 $1.2504
Indiana 413,253.63 521,715.13 1.2624
Alabama 233,369.27 291,715.20 1.25
Missouri 182,929.63 228,748.12 1.2505
Michigan 106,201.28 132,751.68 1.25
Ohio 160,182.14 201,923.50 1.2606
Mississippi 103,795.61 130,475.87 1.257(367)
The northward movement of population in Illinois is well indicated by the
figures for 1828 and 1829. The Indian barrier was being pushed back, and
the Sangamon country, with its land-office at Springfield, was a favorite
place for settlement. The rapid increase in the amount of land sold is
also striking. As the third decade of the century closed Indiana was the
favorite place for frontier settlement. The sales of public lands in Ohio
were diminishing. A prophetic glance would have seen that as the
ever-shifting frontier passed westward Illinois was to overtake and then
to far surpass Indiana in number of settlers.
The period from 1818 to 1830 saw the Indian title to a great fertile tract
of land in Illinois extinguished, the price of all public lands lowered
and the land offered for sale in smaller tracts, the right of preemption
granted to squatters who had settled before 1830, considerable grants of
land made to the state for internal improvements, the great salt spring
reservations reduced. These changes did much to make Illinois a more
attractive place for settlement. When a committee of workingmen in
Wheeling, Virginia, made a report, in October, 1830, on a method of
escaping from the ills of workingmen, they presented an elaborate plan for
buying land and forming a colony in Illinois.(368) The experience of the
squatter who settled with four or five sows for breeders and in four years
or less drove forty-two fat hogs to market and sold them for $135, with
which he bought eighty acres of land and paid his debts, was not a rare
one.(369)
As 1830 closed there were still problems connected with the land to solve.
The Indian question persisted, non-resident landholders were troublesome,
and the state would still seek grants for internal improvements, but none
of these was to be long a serious impediment to settlement.
The Government and Its Representatives, 1818 to 1830.
In some respects the character of the state government of Illinois shows
the character of the settlers. The nativity of the governors and the
congressmen of the state indicates that the South was the origin of a
majority of the population. Before the end of 1830 there had been no
northern-born representative of the state in the national House of
Representatives; the first northern-born senator was chosen in the last
month of 1825, and the first northern governor in 1830.(370) Pierre
Menard, a French Canadian, the first lieutenant-governor, came to Illinois
in 1790, and can not fairly be cited as a type of the French descendants
of the first white settlers of Illinois.(371) As a matter of fact, the
French element was not a political factor of importance. Nor is it true
that all southerners were pro-slavery, for the most noted anti-slavery
governor of Illinois, and her governor during the Civil War, were from the
South, while her first northern senator was pro-slavery. The great influx
of immigrants from New England and the rest of the North did not come
until after 1830. It was retarded, after the opening of the Erie Canal
(1825), by the Winnebago and Black Hawk wars, and did not reach its height
until the latter war had closed and the Indian claims to land in northern
Illinois had been extinguished. Immigration from the northern states
increased proportionally, however, after 1820.
Illinois men in Congress give a number of indications of the feeling of
the people on questions having a more or less intimate relation to
settlement. Constant and insistent demands for more land-offices, more
post-roads, more pensions, donations of land for poor settlers, grants of
land for internal improvements, the right of preëmption for squatters, and
the reduction of the price of public lands show that the frontier was in
favor of a liberal governmental expenditure.(372) Congressmen from
Illinois, without exception, favored the tariff bills of 1824 and
1828.(373) In 1828, the only senator from Illinois who voted on the
question, voted for the bill abolishing imprisonment for debt on processes
issuing from a United States court.(374) Since Illinois early abolished
such imprisonment, it is interesting to note that three hundred and
thirty-eight persons were committed to the Essex county jail in New
Jersey, for debt, in the year ending April 1, 1823, of whom one hundred
and forty-one were in close confinement. The aggregate of debt was
fifty-five thousand dollars.(375)
Within the state one of the phenomena which has characterized frontier
regions appeared about the year 1821. A desperate gang of immigrants had
robbed and plundered until, after a most notable robbery, “a public
meeting was held, and among other things, a company was formed, consisting
of ten law-abiding men of well-known courage, who bound themselves
together, under the name of the Regulators of the Valley, to rid the
country of horse thieves and robbers.... A regular constitution was drawn
up and subscribed to.” After the leader of the desperadoes had been killed
the remainder fled.(376) A frontier condition is indicated also by the
fact that when Sangamon county was formed, on January 30, 1821, a special
law provided that housekeepers in the county should perform the duties and
receive the privileges of freeholders. The same provision was made for
Morgan county two years later. As land sales in the Sangamon country, in
which these counties lay, did not begin until November, 1823, these laws
probably resulted from the formation of counties whose entire population
consisted of squatters.(377) The persistence of wolf bounties bears
testimony to continued wild surroundings.(378) In 1829 alien Irish, and
presumably all other aliens, could vote at all elections. An election law
of this year provided that voting should be by the voter’s approaching the
bar, in the election room, and naming in an audible voice the persons for
whom he voted, or, if the voter preferred, by delivering to the judges a
ballot which should be read aloud by them, the alternative being for the
benefit of illiterate voters. Voting had previously been by ballot.(379)
Although frontier conditions obtained, there were evidences of their
gradual amelioration. A law of 1823 provided that counterfeiting, which,
in the territorial period, had been punishable by death, should be
punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, whipping with
not fewer than one hundred nor more than two hundred lashes, imprisonment
for not more than twelve months, and being rendered forever infamous.(380)
The state established a system of common schools to be supported, in part,
by the state, in 1825; but in 1829 the sections of the act which provided
that two per cent of all money received into the state treasury, and
five-sixths of the interest of the school fund, should be for the support
of public schools, were repealed,(381) taxation for such a purpose not
being then in accord with public sentiment. A mechanic’s lien law, passed
in 1825, provided that in case of a contract between a landowner and a
mechanic, the mechanic should have a lien upon the product of his labor
for three months, after which the lien lapsed unless suit had been
commenced. Three years later an unsuccessful attempt to secure such a law
was made in New York.(382)
Two accounts on the records of the state are of sufficient interest to
give at length. The first gives the amount of money received into the
treasury during the two years ending December 27, 1822:
“The amount paid into the treasury by the different sheriffs
within the two years ending as aforesaid, is $ 7,121.09
The amount of a judgment obtained against the former sheriff of
Randolph [County] for non-resident tax of 1818, is 147.14
The amount from non-residents for the two preceding years,
including back taxes, redemptions, interest, &c., is 38,437.75
The amount from non-residents’ bank stock, is 97.77
The amount from the Saline on the Ohio, is 10,563.09
The amount from the Saline on Muddy river, is 200.00
The amount from the sale of Lots in the town of Vandalia, is
5659.86
Total amount of money paid at the Treasury between the 1st of
January, 1821, and the 27th of December, 1822, $62,226.70”
The balance in the treasury was $33,661.11, but Governor Edwards, in his
message of December 2, 1828, reported a state indebtedness of $44,140.03
and taxes in Illinois as precisely eight times as high as those in
Kentucky which were payable in the same kind of currency.(383) The rage
for internal improvements was partly responsible, and for this in turn the
wide dispersion of the settlements in Illinois, caused by the fact that
all public lands were offered at the same minimum price and that the
prairies were in large measure shunned, furnishes a partial explanation.
The second account of the state, above referred to, shows that in 1822 it
cost $151.82 to make a trip from Vandalia to Shawneetown and return, and
one from Vandalia to Kaskaskia and return, to convey to the capital some
money paid by the United States on the three per cent fund due the state.
The former trip occupied fourteen days, the latter eight days.(384)
Governor Cass’ protection of Galena during the Winnebago War of 1827 may
have been influenced by its uncertain governmental status. In 1828 miners
in what is now southwestern Wisconsin voted for members of Congress from
Illinois, and in 1829 Galena was enumerated among the thriving towns of
Huron or Ouisconsin Territory. November 29, 1828, one hundred and
eighty-seven inhabitants of Galena and vicinity sent a memorial to
Congress asking that a separate territory be formed, the territory to be
bounded on the south by a line drawn due west from the southern point of
Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, and by the northern boundary of
Missouri. The memorial began: “The undersigned, inhabitants of that
portion of the ‘Territory Northwest of the Ohio,’ lying north of a due
east and west line drawn through the southernmost end of Lake Michigan,
and west of that lake to the British possessions, comprehending the mining
district, more generally known as the Fever River Lead Mines.” The
petitioners referred to the violation of the Ordinance of 1787, and also
stated that they were subject to two separate governments, each some
hundreds of miles from them, and each unacquainted with their needs. The
petition was read and tabled.(385) It is true that the situation of Galena
was peculiarly difficult. No mail could be carried along the rude trail
from Peoria to Galena during the wet season, and when the Illinois
legislature, seeking to give relief, passed a bill for laying out a road
between the “Illinois settlements and Galena,” it was vetoed by the
governor and council because the road would pass through lands of the
United States and of the Indians. When the river was frozen provisions
were very high, and mail was sent forward from Fort Edwards once a month.
These conditions were more aggravating as the number of inhabitants
increased, and in 1827, notwithstanding the trouble with the Winnebago
Indians, there were about four thousand men at Galena, and they mined
about fifteen times as much lead as had been mined in 1823. In January,
1828, a congressional committee reported favorably on a proposition to
open a road to Galena.(386) In a letter written one year later by the
delegate from Michigan Territory, to the committee on territories, the
suggestion is made that a new territory, to be called Huron, should be
formed, because the region at Galena was said to have received hundreds of
settlers during the preceding summer and to have at the time of writing
ten thousand or more, and government in the lead region could not be
properly carried on from Detroit, which was eight hundred or one thousand
miles distant, by the routes commonly traveled. The legislature of
Michigan was said to be compelled to meet in the summer in order to enable
delegates to attend and that was the busy time at the mines.(387) A
congressional act of February, 1829, provided for the laying out of a
village at Galena. The plat was not to exceed one section of land, no lot
was to be larger than one-fourth of an acre, unimproved lots were to be
sold at not less than five dollars, improved lots were to be graded,
without reference to their improvements, into three grades, to sell at the
rate of twenty-five, fifteen, and ten dollars, respectively, per acre, the
occupants having the right of preëmption.(388) Another mode of relief,
which the inhabitants were working out for themselves, is described in a
Galena paper of September 14, 1829: “Mr. Soulard’s wagon and mule team
returned, a few days since, from Chicago, near the southernmost bend of
Lake Michigan; to which place it had been taken across the country, with a
load of lead. This is the first wagon that has ever passed from the
Mississippi River to Chicago. The route taken from the mines was, to
Ogee’s ferry, on Rock River, eighty miles; thence an east course sixty
miles, to the Missionary establishment on the Fox River of the Illinois;
and thence a north-easterly course sixty miles to Chicago, as travelled,
two hundred miles. The wagon was loaded with one ton and a half of lead.
The trip out was performed in eleven, and the return trip in eight days.
The lead was taken, by water, from Chicago to Detroit. Should a road be
surveyed and marked, on the best ground, and the shortest distance, a trip
could be performed in much less time. And if salt could be obtained at
Chicago, from the New York Salt Works, it would be a profitable and
advantageous trade.”(389)
As the life history of an individual recapitulates the history of the
development of a species, so does the history of Galena, in respect to the
difficulties of its early settlers, recapitulate the history of the
several parts of the United States in their early days. As Illinois had
sent petitions for relief to the governments of the Northwest Territory,
of Indiana Territory, and of the United States, so did Galena send similar
petitions to the governments of Illinois, of Michigan Territory, and of
the United States. In each case the prayers of the petitioners were but
partially granted. In each case the difficulties from Indians, lack of
facilities for commerce, distance from the seat of government, inability
to secure lands, were gradually mitigated until the steady onward sweep of
settlement engulfed the outlying region and it ceased to be the frontier,
and turned its energies to other questions—different, although probably as
difficult. Galena, even at the close of 1830, was a frontier region on the
outskirts of Illinois settlement.
Transportation.
Transportation was long a difficult problem, although it became gradually
less so. Travel by either water or land was slow and difficult. When a
party of about one hundred men, conducted by Colonel R. M. Johnson, went,
in six or eight boats, from St. Louis to the site of the present Galena,
in 1819, to make an arrangement with the Indians which would permit the
whites to mine lead, the upward voyage occupied some twenty days.(390)
Doubtless the journey of Edward Coles from Albemarle county, Virginia, to
Illinois, in 1819, was typical of that of the better class of immigrants.
At the Virginia homestead, slaves, horses and wagons were prepared for the
long journey. A trusty slave was put in charge of the caravan of emigrant
wagons and started out on the long journey over the Alleghanies to
Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Mr. Coles started a few days later, overtook
the party one day’s journey from Brownsville, and upon arriving at that
place bought two flat-bottomed boats, upon which negroes, horses and
wagons, with their owner, were embarked. The drunken pilot was discharged
at Pittsburg, and Coles acted as captain and pilot on the voyage of some
six hundred miles down the Ohio to a point below Louisville, whence, the
boats being sold, the journey was continued by land to Edwardsville,
Illinois.(391)
April 5, 1823, a party of forty-three started from Cincinnati in a
keel-boat, arriving at Galena, June 1, 1823. Twenty-two days were required
to stem the flooded Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to St. Louis,
and twenty of these were rainy days.(392) In 1822 the English settlement
in Edwards county sent several flat-boats loaded with corn, flour, beef,
pork, sausage, etc., to New Orleans.(393) Improvement of the Wabash was
entrusted to an incorporated company in 1825, and several years earlier a
canal across the peninsula at the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi
was contemplated.(394)
Many immigrants came overland. The following is typical: “In the year 1819
a party of six men, and families of three of them, started from Casey
County, Kentucky, for Illinois.... The first three were young unmarried
men, the last three had their wives and children with them. They came in
an old-fashioned Tennessee wagon, that resembled a flat-boat on wheels.
The younger readers of this sketch can form but a faint idea of the
curious and awkward appearance of one of these old fashioned wagons,
covered over with white sheeting, the front and rear bows set at an angle
of forty-five degrees to correspond with the ends of the body, and then
the enormous quantity of freight that could be stowed away in the hole
would astonish even a modern omnibus driver! Women, children, beds,
buckets, tubs, old fashioned chairs, including all the household furniture
usually used by our log-cabin ancestors; a chicken coop, with ‘two or
three hens and a jolly rooster for a start,’ tied on behind, while, under
the wagon, trotted a full-blood, long-eared hound, fastened by a short
rope to the hind axle. Without much effort on your part, you can, in
imagination, see this party on the road, one of the men in the saddle on
the near horse, driving; the other two, perhaps on horseback, slowly
plodding along in the rear of the wagon, while the boys ‘walked ahead,’
with rifles on their shoulders ‘at half-mast,’ on the lookout for
squirrels, turkey, deer, or ‘_Injin_.’ ”(395) Muddy roads sometimes caused
emigrants to make long detours in the hope of finding better ones, and if
the roads became impassable water transportation might be resorted to when
the locality permitted.(396) The fear of breaking down was omnipresent and
danger from professional bandits(397) was not lacking. There was also
danger of being lost on the enormous prairies in Illinois.(398)
The best road from North Carolina to Indiana, for loaded wagons, was that
which crossed the Blue Ridge at Ward’s Gap, in Western Virginia, led
through East Tennessee and Kentucky, and reached the Ohio River at
Cincinnati,(399) and this was a part of the route for some of the Illinois
immigrants. Illustrations of the moving instinct, the ever-present desire
to go frontierward, were constantly appearing.(400) Although the greater
proportion of immigrants came by either wagon or boat, some came on
horseback and some on foot.(401) One pioneer wrote: “My mother was a
delicate woman and in the hope of prolonging her life, my father, in 1830,
broke up his home at Windsor, Connecticut, and started overland for
Jacksonville, Illinois. Most of the household furniture was shipped by
water, _via_ New Orleans and did not reach its destination until a year
afterwards, six months after our arrival. The wagon for my mother was made
strong and wide, drawn by three horses, so that a bed could be put in it
and most of the way she lay in this bed. Most of the time the drive was
pleasant but over the mountains it was rough and over the national
corduroy road of Indiana, it was perfectly horrible.”(402) A journey was
made in 1827 in about four weeks over the same route that it had taken the
same traveler seven and a half weeks to cover in 1822.(403)
Within the state changes in facilities for transportation were constant.
From Shawneetown to St. Louis, by way of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, passed the
great western road. There was also a road from Shawneetown, by way of
Carmi, to Birkbeck’s settlement in Edwards county.(404) Frontier roads to
different places seem to have been designated by different numbers of
notches cut in the trees along the wayside.(405) New roads were in
constant demand. In February, 1821, the legislature authorized the
building of a turnpike road, one hundred feet wide, from the Mississippi,
opposite St. Louis, across the American Bottom to the Bluffs. Toll was to
be regulated by the county commissioners, but it must be not less than
twelve and one-half cents for a man and horse, twenty-five cents for a
one-horse wagon or carriage, six and one-fourth cents for each wheel and
each horse of other wagons and carriages, six and one-fourth cents for
each single horse or head of cattle, and two cents for each hog or sheep.
If at any time the county should pay the cost of the road, plus six per
cent, the county should become the owner.(406) A traveler writing late in
1822 says that a public road had just been opened between Vandalia and
Springfield.(407) During the same year, Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, one of
the most active of the agents of the American Fur Company in Illinois,
established a direct path or track from Iroquois Post to Danville. In 1824
this path, which was known as “Hubbard’s Trail,” was extended northward to
Chicago, and southward to a point about one hundred and fifty miles
southwest of Danville. Along this trail trading-posts were established at
intervals of forty or fifty miles. The southern extremity of the trail was
Blue Point, in Effingham county.(408) This became the regularly traveled
route between points connected by it.
Springfield was the northern terminus of the mail route early in 1823, and
the next year Sangamon county, in which the village lay, was almost
entirely without ferries, bridges, or roads.(409) In 1830 mail was carried
between Vincennes and St. Louis thrice a week; between Maysville and St.
Louis, and between Belleville and St. Charles twice a week. No point in
Illinois, not on one of these routes, received mail oftener than once a
week. There was at this time a mail route from Peoria to Galena.(410) The
legislatures of Indiana and Illinois petitioned Congress for an
appropriation to improve the mail route from Louisville, Kentucky, to St.
Louis, Missouri. The length of that part of the route which lay between
Vincennes and St. Louis was one hundred and sixty miles, but a more direct
route, recently surveyed by authority of the legislature of Illinois,
reduced the distance to one hundred and forty-five miles. The distance
between Vincennes and St. Louis was made up of about one-fourth of timber
land and three-fourths of prairies, from five to twenty miles across. “The
settlements are therefore scattered, and far between, and confined to the
vicinity of the timbered land. More than nineteen-twentieths of the land,
over which the road passes, is the property of the Federal Government. To
make the necessary causeways and bridges, and to keep the road in a proper
state of repair, is beyond the capacity of the people who reside upon it.”
Another writer says of the route: “It must, for many years, be the channel
of communication, through which the Government shall transmit, and
receive, all its intelligence relative to the mines in the region of
Galena, and Prairie Du Chien, the Military Posts of the Upper Mississippi,
Missouri, and their tributary streams, and the whole northwestern Indian
frontier.”(411)
Galena remained much isolated. A man who had horses and cattle, purchased
in southern Illinois and driven to Galena, by way of Springfield and
Peoria, in 1823, says that there was no settlement between Peoria and
Fever River. A year before, a traveler who went from St. Louis to Galena,
on horseback, arrived in time to assist in completing the second cabin in
the place.(412) Two travelers who walked from Upper Alton to Galena, in
January and February, 1826, had to camp out several nights, because no
residence was in reach. Much of the way no trail existed.(413) About 1827
it was common for men to go with teams of four yoke of oxen, and strong
canvas-covered wagons from southern Illinois to the lead regions. In those
regions they spent the summer in hauling from the mines to the furnaces or
from the furnaces to the place of shipment, usually Galena, and taking
back to the mines a load of supplies. In the fall the teamsters returned
to their homes, sometimes, in the early days, taking a load of lead to St.
Louis. These men lived in their wagons, and cooked their own food. The
oxen lived by browsing at night.(414)
Transportation rates can be only approximately given, because they varied
with the condition of the weather or of the roads, and were frequently
agreed upon by a special bargain. In 1817 steamboats are said to have
descended the Ohio and the Mississippi at the rate of ten miles per hour,
and to have charged passengers six cents per mile. Freight, by steamboat,
from New Orleans to Shippingport (Falls of the Ohio), and thence by boats
to Zanesville, was about $6.50 per 100 pounds.(415) It took about one
month to make the trip from New Orleans to Shawneetown—June 6 to July 10
in a specific case. Nine-tenths of the trade was still carried on in the
old style—by flat-boats, barges, pirogues, etc.(416) In December, 1817,
freight from Shawneetown to Louisville was $1.12-½ per hundred weight; to
New Orleans, $1.00; to Pittsburg, $3.50; to Shawneetown from Pittsburg,
$1.00; from Louisville, $0.37-½; from New Orleans, $4.50. The great
difference between the rates up stream and those down stream was due to
the difficulty of going against the current.(417) Cobbett estimated that
Birkbeck’s settlement, fifty miles north of Shawneetown, could be reached
from the eastern seaboard for five pounds sterling per person.(418) In
1819, the passenger rate, by steamboat, from New Orleans to Shawneetown,
was $110; the freight rate $0.04-½ to $0.06 per pound, the high charges
being attributed to a lack of competition, which the many new boats then
building were expected to remedy.(419) A party of nine people with
somewhat more than six thousand pounds of luggage, wishing to start from
Baltimore for Illinois, in July, 1819, learned that the water was so low
that large boats could with difficulty pass from Pittsburg to Wheeling.
They accordingly went from Baltimore to Wheeling, a distance of two
hundred and eighty miles, by land. They had two wagons with six horses and
a driver to each wagon. The price for transportation was three hundred and
fifty dollars. At Wheeling a contract was made for transportation to
Louisville, six hundred miles distance. For this, fifty dollars was paid,
the passengers agreeing to help navigate the boat. At Louisville an ark
was bought for twenty-five dollars, and two men were hired for eighteen
dollars and their board, to take the party to Shawneetown, about three
hundred miles distant. At Shawneetown the master of a keel-boat was
engaged to take the luggage of six thousand pounds to a point about eleven
miles from Birkbeck’s settlement, for 37-½ cents per hundred pounds. The
travelers proceeded on foot. The time occupied in the journey was: From
Baltimore to Wheeling, sixteen days; from Wheeling to Shawneetown,
thirty-eight days; from Shawneetown to the Birkbeck settlement, four
days.(420) A traveler in Illinois, in 1819, said that the usual price of
land carriage was fifty cents per hundred pounds for each twenty miles;
sometimes higher, never lower, and that it would not pay to have corn
transported twenty miles.(421) In 1820, the charge for carrying either
baggage or persons from Baltimore to Wheeling was reported as from five to
seven dollars per hundred weight. Persons wishing to travel cheaply had
their luggage transported while they walked.(422)
In 1823 the following passenger rates, by steamboat, were quoted: From
Cincinnati to New Orleans, $25.00; to Louisville, $4.00; to Pittsburg,
$15.00; to Wheeling, $14.00; from New Orleans to Cincinnati, $50.00; from
Louisville to Cincinnati, $6.00; from Pittsburg to Cincinnati, $12.00;
from Wheeling to Cincinnati, $10.00. The time quoted for passage up stream
was never less than twice that for passage down stream.(423) Early in 1825
the _Louisiana Gazette_ (presumably of New Orleans) reported that a
steamboat had made the 2200 miles from Pittsburg in sixteen days,(424) and
a few weeks later another steamer arrived at Shippingport, at the Falls of
the Ohio about two miles below Louisville, thirteen days from New Orleans,
this time including three days detention from the breaking of a
crank.(425) Rates quoted in 1826, per one hundred pounds, were: From
Pittsburg to St. Louis, in keel-boats, $1.62-½; to Nashville, $1.50; to
Louisville, $0.75; to Cincinnati, $0.62-½; to Maysville, $0.50; to
Marietta, $0.40; to Wheeling, $0.18-3/4; in wagons, from Pittsburg to
Philadelphia, $1.00 to $1.12-½; from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, $3.00;
from Philadelphia to Wheeling, $3.50.(426) A Columbus, Ohio, editor
declared that it required thirty days and cost $5.00 per hundred to
transport goods from Philadelphia to Columbus, while it required but
twenty days and $2.50 to transport from New York.(427) No explanation was
given, but the most probable one is the opening of the Erie Canal.
Illinois buyers could, of course, take advantage of the cheaper rate as
well as the inhabitants of Columbus. The freight schedule agreed upon by
the owners, masters, and agents of steamboats in July, 1830, was, per 100
pounds, as follows: Pittsburg to Cincinnati, $0.45; Pittsburg to
Louisville, $0.50; Wheeling to Cincinnati, $0.40; Wheeling to Louisville,
$0.45; Cincinnati to Louisville, $0.12-½; in the reverse direction rates
were the same, except that the rate from Louisville to Cincinnati was
$0.16. Freight on pork, from Cincinnati to Louisville was $0.20 per
barrel, and on flour and light (probably meaning empty) barrels, $0.15 per
barrel. The schedule rates were not, however, generally adhered to, many
boats carrying freight at from 2-½ to 5 cents lower than the quoted
rate.(428) At this time there were 213 steamboats in use in western
waters—an increase of about three-fold since 1820.(429) Improved
transportation caused a better market price for produce in the West. In
1819, at Cincinnati, flour sold at $1.37-½ per barrel, corn at from $0.10
to $0.12 per bushel, and pork at $0.10-½ per pound,(430) while in 1830, in
the same market, flour from wagons sold at $2.65 per barrel, or from store
at $3.00; corn at $0.18 to $0.20, and pork at $0.05 per pound ($10.00 to
$10.50 per barrel).(431) The influence of improved transportation on
emigration is obvious. In regard to steamboat navigation it should be
noted that in 1817 rates up-stream were more than three times as high as
rates down-stream, in 1823 the former were less than twice the latter, and
in 1830 the two were about equal. During the same period the time of
up-stream passage was diminished more than one-half. Steamboats had not
driven out the ruder crafts, but more and more use was being made of the
more expeditious means of transportation, and its effect on the future
economic activity of the West could already be seen.
Naturally the difference in price of the same commodity in two different
markets was dependent in large measure on the ease or difficulty of
transportation. In the latter part of 1817, corn was $0.24 to $0.30 and
wheat $0.75, in Illinois, while corn was $0.50 and wheat $0.75 at
Cincinnati.(432) In 1825 wheat was worth hardly $0.25 per bushel, while it
sold for $0.80 to $0.87-½ in Petersburg, Virginia, and flour was $6.00 per
barrel at Charleston, South Carolina, and was scarce even at that price in
Nashville, Tennessee. At the same time corn sold for from $0.08 to $0.10
in Illinois, and for $1.75 to $2.00 in Petersburg, Virginia.(433) In 1826
wheat sold in Illinois at $0.37-½, and in England at $2.00 (nine
shillings).(434) In 1829 flour was scarce at Galena. A supply from the
more southern settlements in Illinois sold at $8.00 per barrel, and the
farmers were urged to bring more.(435) This was in October. In November
flour was quoted at Galena at $9.00 to $10.00 per barrel, while it sold at
St. Louis for $4.50 to $5.50. In December, Cincinnati flour was from
$10.00 to $10.50 and Illinois flour from $8.00 to $8.50, at Galena,
whereas in the succeeding August they were $5.00 and $4.00, respectively.
In November, 1829, the one article of food that was quoted as cheaper at
Galena than at St. Louis was potatoes. They were $0.25 per bushel, at
Galena, and from $0.37-½ to $0.50 at St. Louis. Butter was $0.25 to
$0.37-½ at Galena, and $0.12-½ to $0.20 at St. Louis; corn, $0.50 at
Galena, and $0.25 to $0.31 at St. Louis; beef, $0.03-½ to $0.04-½ at
Galena, and $0.01-½ to $0.02 at St. Louis; whisky, $0.62-½ per gallon at
Galena, and $0.30 to $0.33 at St. Louis.(436)
Life of the People.
Of the 13,635 persons who were following some occupation in Illinois in
1820, nearly 91 per cent (12,395) were engaged in agriculture.(437) To
this pursuit the state was naturally well adapted. One of the most
observant of German travelers in America wrote that the meaning of
“fertile land” was very different in this region from its meaning in
Germany. In America fertile land of the first class required no fertilizer
for the first century and was too rich for wheat during the first decade,
while fertile land of the second class needed no fertilizer during the
first twelve to twenty years of its cultivation. Bottom-lands belonged to
the first class.(438) The prairies remained unappreciated by the
Americans, although some foreign farmers preferred to settle in Illinois,
because there they could avoid having to clear land, and could raise a
crop the first year, while coal could serve as fuel,(439) and a ditch and
bank fence, requiring little wood, could be constructed, or a hedge could
be grown.(440) A traveler of 1819 speaks of one of the largest prairies as
not well adapted to cultivation, because of the scarcity of wood, and in
the fall of 1825 there was but one house on the way from Paris to
Springfield, leading across eighty miles of a prairie ninety miles in
length.(441)
It was easy to obtain land. After 1820 it could be bought from the
government of the United States at $1.25 per acre, it could be
rented—sometimes for one peck of corn per acre per year(442)—, or the
claim of a squatter could be purchased. When Peter Cartwright moved from
Kentucky to Illinois in 1824, he gave as reasons for moving the fact that
he had six children and but one hundred and fifty acres of land, and that
Kentucky land was high and rising in value; the increase of a disposition
in the South to justify slavery; the distinction in Kentucky between young
people reared without working and those who worked; the danger that his
four daughters might marry into slave families; and the need of preachers
in the new country.(443) The land being obtained, the first cultivation
was difficult. Writers often give the idea that after a year or two the
land which had been heavily timbered was left free from trees, stumps, or
roots, but many a pioneer plowed for twenty years among the stumps. Stump
fields are today no novelty in Illinois, and farming has not retrograded.
Usually the settler’s first need was a crop, and in order to hasten its
production the trees were girdled, a process which might either precede or
follow the planting, according to the time of year in which the immigrant
arrived. If prairie land was plowed six horses, or their equivalent of
power in oxen, were required for the first breaking, and a summer’s fallow
usually followed in order to allow the roots to decay. In 1819 five
dollars per acre was paid for the first plowing of the prairie, and three
or four dollars for the second.(444)
Agricultural products exhibited considerable variety, although corn was
the chief article raised, because it furnished food for man and beast, it
gave a large yield, and it was more easily harvested than wheat. Wheat was
raised without any great degree of care as to its culture, being
frequently sowed upon ground that was poorly prepared, and being threshed
in a most wasteful manner. Both wheat and flour were exported.
Flour-mills, often of a rude sort, were found at inconveniently long
distances from each other. Ferdinand Ernst, traveling in 1819, found a
turbine wheel at the mill of Mr. Jarrott, a few miles from St. Louis, and
mentioned the fact as a peculiar feature.(445) Some of the settlers in
Sangamon county had to go sixty miles to mill in 1824.(446) In 1830 the
first flour mill in northern Illinois was erected on Fox River. It was
operated by the same power that ran a saw-mill, and the millstones were
boulders, laboriously dressed by hand.(447) Tobacco of excellent quality
was grown, and sometimes formed an article of export.(448) Cotton was an
important article for home consumption. In the early years of the state
hopes were entertained that cotton might become an article of export, but
it was found that the crop required so much labor as to make raising it in
large quantities unprofitable. It was after 1830, however, that it ceased
to be cultivated in the state. It was raised at least as far north as the
present Danville, about one hundred and twenty-five miles south of
Chicago.(449) A woman whose parents moved to Sangamon county in 1819 says
that when in that county they raised, picked, spun, and wove their own
cotton. The children had to seed the cotton before the fire in the long
winter evenings. The importance of cotton as a factor in inducing
immigration may have been considerable.(450) Large quantities of castor
oil were made in the state from home-grown castor beans.(451) Vegetables
were large, although not always of good flavor.(452) Peaches, apples,
pears, quinces and cherries were cultivated successfully, while grapes,
plums, crabapples, persimmons, mulberries, strawberries, raspberries and
blackberries grew wild.(453) An agricultural society was formed in 1819, a
chief purpose being to rid the state of stagnant water.(454)
It is not easy to exaggerate the simplicity of the farming of pioneer
times. When one reads that in 1817 a log cabin of two rooms could be built
for from $50.00 to $70.00; a frame house, ten by fourteen feet, for
$575.00 to $665.00; a log kitchen for $31.00 to $35.50; a log stable for
$31.00 to $40.00; a barn for $80.00 to $97.75; a fence for $0.25 per rod,
and a prairie ditch for $0.29 to $0.44 per rod; that a strong wagon cost
$160.00; that a log house, eighteen by sixteen feet, was made by contract
for $20, and ceiled and floored with sawn boards for $10 more; that a cow
and calf cost $12.00 to $16.00, and a breeding sow, $2.00 or $3.00; that
laborers received $0.75 per day without board, and a man and two horses
$1.00 per day; and that various other useful articles could be procured at
certain prices, care is needed in order to avoid the conclusion that an
immigrant must have had several dollars, if not a few hundreds of them.
This need for care is increased by the fact that the most detailed
statistical data for early Illinois is given by Birkbeck or his visitors,
and is applicable to the English settlement in Edwards county—a settlement
with enough unique features to make the data almost more of an obstacle
than a help. As a matter of fact, many immigrants before 1820 had only
enough money to make the first payment on their land ($80.00), or after
July 1, 1820, only enough to buy the minimum tract offered for sale
($100.00), while in both periods hundreds had not even as much money as
$80.00 or $100.00, and had to become squatters. A log house, and
practically all of the first houses were of logs, was usually built
without the expenditure of one cent in cash, being erected by the family
which was to occupy it, or, if neighbors were within reach, on the
“frolic” system. Ceilings and floors were both rare, and if a floor
existed it was usually made of puncheons. The number of pioneers who
actually paid as much as $31.00 for a log stable must have been small
indeed. First fences were often of brush, or brush and logs, and many
times crops were raised unfenced. Territorial laws prohibited allowing
stock to run at large during the crop season. An immigrant often brought
his cow and sow, and if not he either did without, which in the latter
case was small privation in a region almost crowded with game, or secured
the desired animals by barter or by working for a few days. Men frequently
traded work, but the payment of cash wages was rare, the cheapness of land
and the ease of securing a living leaving small inducement to anyone to
become a day laborer;(455) while for the same reason those who were
professional laborers were often of an undesirable type.(456) Foreigners
were sometimes shocked at the utter carelessness of Illinois farmers. A
soil of great fertility, a region so abundantly supplied with game and
wild products as to make it almost possible to live from the forest alone,
combined with a lack of efficient means of transportation, made such a
temptation to a life of idle ease as many pioneers did not resist. Be it
remembered, also, that although towns, retail trade, and export trade had
begun in Illinois by 1830, these changes were not simultaneous throughout
the state. As 1830 closed Illinois still had squatters many miles from a
mill, it still had Indians, it still had unbridged streams, it still had
regions far from a market—in a word, it had still persisting in some part
of its wide extent each of the ills that had at various times confronted
it in respect to personal danger and lack of inducements to farmers. The
minority of really progressive farmers overcame the difficulties
confronting them by raising cattle or hogs and driving them to distant
markets, the price received being almost clear profit, or by constructing
their own boats and shipping their produce.(457)
Although the great majority of the population of Illinois was engaged in
agriculture, there were salt works in the southeast and lead mines in the
northwest. The salt industry was important. Far the greater part of the
salt made in the state was made at the Gallatin county saline, near
Shawneetown. In 1819 the indefinite statement was made that these springs
furnished between 200,000 and 300,000 bushels of salt annually, the salt
being sold at the works at from fifty to seventy-five cents per
bushel.(458) In 1822, the price of salt in Illinois was reported to have
fallen from $1.25 to $0.50, because of the discovery of copious and strong
salt wells.(459) The next year a strong well was reported twenty miles
east of Carlyle.(460) In 1825, a visitor to the Vermilion county saline
found twenty kettles in operation, producing about one hundred bushels of
salt per week.(461) In 1828, an official report of the superintendent of
the Gallatin county saline stated that about 100,000 bushels of salt was
made annually, and sold at from $0.30 to $0.50 per bushel. The lessees
paid $2,160.50 rent during the year.(462) In 1830, the salt works in
Gallatin county had a capital of $50,000; a product of from 100,000 to
130,000 bushels, selling at from $0.40 to $0.50; and three hundred
employees. The saline in Vermilion county had a capital of $3500; a
product of 3000 to 4000 bushels, selling at $1.25 to $1.50 per bushel; and
eight employees. The works in Jackson county produced 3000 to 4000
bushels, selling at $0.75 to $1.00; and had from six to eight employees.
The difference in price is noteworthy as indicating what must have been
the difficulty of transporting salt from Gallatin county to either
Vermilion or Jackson counties. At the Gallatin county works fuel was
becoming scarce and water had to be carried some distance in pipes, thus
increasing the cost of production. At the springs in Indiana salt was
$1.25 per bushel, and in Kentucky it was $0.50 to $1.00. The states of New
York, Virginia, Massachusetts and Ohio, respectively, produced more salt
than did Illinois.(463)
The lead industry at Galena was still in its infancy, notwithstanding the
fact that the richness of the mines was early known.(464) In 1822, a
number of persons went to Galena from Sangamon county.(465) For some years
it was a common practice to go to the mines in the summer and return to
the older settlements for the winter.(466) The population of Galena was 74
in August, 1823;(467) about 100 on July 1, 1825; 151 on December 31, 1825;
194 on March 31, 1826; 406 on June 30, 1826;(468) and 1000 to 1500 in
1829.(469) In 1826 a part of Lord Selkirk’s French-Swiss colony on the Red
River moved to Galena and became farmers in that region.(470) The rush to
the lead region began in 1826 and became intense in the next year.(471) In
1827, a rude log hut, sixteen by twenty feet, rented for $35.00 per month.
Galena had then about two hundred log houses,(472) and in the same year
the first framed house was raised.(473) In July, 1828, five hundred lead
miners were wanted at $17.00 to $25.00 and board per month.(474)
A pursuit that was once common and profitable is described by a lawyer who
traveled the first Illinois circuit, consisting of the counties of Greene,
Sangamon, Peoria, Fulton, Schuyler, Adams, Pike and Calhoun, in 1827, as
follows: “On this circuit we found but little business in any of the
counties—parties, jurymen and witnesses were reported in all the counties
after Peoria, as being absent bee and deer hunting—a business that was
then profitable, as well as necessary to the sustenance of families during
the winter.”(475)
Not until after 1830 was a common school system with effective provision
for its support established, although subscription schools existed some
years before the close of the eighteenth century. Instruction given in the
earliest schools was slight, and in 1818 a most competent observer
declared that he believed that in Missouri “at least one-third of the
schools were really a public nuisance, and did the people more harm than
good; another third about balanced the account, by doing about as much
harm as good; and perhaps one-third were advantageous to the community in
various degrees. Not a few drunken, profane, worthless Irishmen were
perambulating the country, and getting up schools; and yet they could
neither speak, read, pronounce, spell, or write the English
language.”(476) These schools closely resembled those of Illinois.
Schoolbooks were rare and children carried to school whatever book they
chanced to have, the Old Testament with its long proper names sometimes
serving in lieu of a chart or primer.(477) In some schools pupils studied
aloud. Reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic were the only branches
commonly taught, although as early as 1806 surveying was taught in a
“seminary” near the present Belleville.(478) In 1827 Rock Spring Seminary,
now Shortleff College, was opened by Baptists, and the following year
instruction was begun in what was to become McKendree College
(Methodist).(479) The teacher of the first school in McLean county (1825)
received $2.50 per pupil for the term of four months.(480) The next year a
teacher in Jacksonville was to be paid in cash or produce, or in pork,
cattle, or hogs at cash prices, and to pay board in similar commodities at
the rate of one dollar per week. This included washing, fuel and lights.
School was open ten, and often twelve, hours per day.(481)
Religious societies were early organized, but the building of churches was
not then common. In 1796 a Baptist society was organized, and previous to
this time both Baptists and Methodists, without organized societies, had
united in holding prayer-meetings in which the Bible and published sermons
were read, prayers offered, and hymns sung.(482) Before the close of the
century the Methodists organized. The Presbyterians were prominent in the
early years of statehood, but in 1818 they were just beginning their work
in Illinois.(483) Meetings were usually held in private houses until such
time as the congregation felt that a church building should be erected, or
at least until some one felt the need, for the first church was sometimes
built by a few individuals.(484) Ministers were of two types—those who
devoted all of their time to religious work and traveled over large areas,
and those who combined ministerial duties with farming, hunting, or some
other frontier occupation. Neither class received much money. Peter
Cartwright, one of the most famous pioneer preachers, received $40 one
year (1824-25) and $60 the next—and this he considered good wages.(485)
Pioneer energy was displayed in the overcoming of difficulties. For more
than ten years the Baptists held meetings on alternate months at two
places thirty-six miles apart, and several families regularly traveled
that distance to the two-days’ meeting, even in unfavorable weather—and
this, too, after Illinois had become a state.(486) In 1829, the
Presbyterians, true to their missionary spirit, occupied the extreme
frontier at Galena.(487) Catholicism increased but slowly.(488) Divisions
such as were found in the East or South reached Illinois, and at one time
the Baptists were divided into three factions, which had about the same
kind of fraternal relations as the Jews and the Samaritans. The chief
questions for contention were whether or not missionaries should be sent
out by the church and whether fellowship with slaveholders should be
maintained.(489) An association of anti-slavery Baptists was formed, as
also Bible societies and temperance societies.(490) Camp-meetings, with
their well-known phenomena, were common in the early years of statehood,
and it is no reflection upon their value to say that they were one of the
chief diversions for the pioneers.