of the President entitled him to it. Nothing can be true metaphorically
which is not so naturally, and under this view of the proposed title it
belongs with more propriety to the man in the moon than anybody else as
his station (when we have the honor of seeing him) is certainly the most
exalted of any we know of. Gentlemen may say this is fanciful. Would
they wish to see the subject in the most serious point of view that it
is possible to place it? Rome, after being benighted for ages in the
darkest gloom of ecclesiastical and aristocratic tyranny, beheld a
reformer [Rienzi] in the fourteenth century who, preaching from stocks
and stones and the busts and fragments of ancient heroes, lighted up the
lamp of liberty to meridium splendor. Intoxicated with success, he
assumed a string of titles, none of which, in my recollection, was
equally absurd with the one before you; in consequence of which and of
his aping some other symbols of nobility and royalty, he fell and pulled
down the whole republican structure along with him; marking particularly
the subject of titles as one of the principal rocks on which he was
shipwrecked. As to the latter part of the title, I would only observe
that the power of war is the organ of protection. This is placed in
Congress by the Constitution. Any attempt to divest them of it, even
with George Washington, is treason against the United States or, at
least, a violation of the Constitution.”
XVI.
SENATE FAVORS TITLES.
With a view to “cutting up the whole matter by the roots” the
anti-titleists moved a general postponement of the Senate report on
titles—and the motion was carried. But with a tenacity worthy of a
better cause, Lee insisted on placing the report on the files of the
House as indicating that the Senate was in favor of titles. Carroll
opposed this on the ground that an imperfect resolution should not be
filed. He was seconded by Maclay as the filing carried with it the idea
of adoption. This part of the motion was lost by a general postponement.
Even after the subject had been postponed, the Senators persisted in the
discussion. Morris rose and said that he disliked the title “Highness
and Protector of the Rights of America” as protection lay with Congress.
He was told that the question of postponement had been carried. Then
Carroll rose, said he disliked the first part of the motion which stated
the acts of the Senate to be in favor of titles. But, as a matter of
fact, no such resolution had been passed in the Senate.
Maclay then rose and moved a division on the motion and was seconded by
Carroll. This precipitated another long debate on titles. Ellsworth went
over the field again; Johnson “spoke much more to the point, Paterson
said that a division should take place at the word ‘Senate’ and on this
point he was supported by Morris and Maclay, the latter withdrawing his
motion and seconding Paterson’s for a division at the word ‘Senate.’ The
division was full enough to answer all purposes which they avowed,
taking it at this place.” It was apparent, however, that the titleists
still clung to their hope and even went so far as to charge the Lower
House with affecting simplicity.
Carroll declared that it was well known that all the Senators were not
for titles, yet the idea held forth was that the Senate favored titles.
He wished to have the yeas and nays placed on record and “let the world
judge.” Senator Few said that it was too late for the yeas and nays as
they should have been called for when the report against titles was
rejected. Finally the question was put and it stood “eight with us; ten
against us. Mr. Carroll called for the yeas and nays.” None rose with
him except Senator John Henry of Maryland and Maclay “and for want of
another man we lost them”—Rule 15 of the Senate holding that the yeas
and nays can be placed on the journal of the House only when called for
by one-fifth of the senators present.
XVII.
WASHINGTON’S ATTITUDE.
It will be interesting to note Washington’s bearing on the subject of
titles while it was under debate in Congress. His position was most
embarrassing and called for tact and equanimity as the first title
considered was that for the President. On its fate depended the granting
of titles for the lesser officers of the government. That Washington
conducted himself with his usual fortitude, impartiality and
broad-mindedness is fully attested by the following entry in Maclay’s
journal: “Through the whole of this base business [granting titles] I
have endeavored to mark the conduct of General Washington. I have no
clew that will fairly lead me to any just conclusion as to his
sentiments. I think it scarce possible but he must have dropped
something on a subject which has excited so much warmth. If he did, it
was not on our side or I would have heard it. But no matter. I have, by
plowing with the heifer of the other House, completely defeated them.”
XVIII.
NO TITLES “FOR THE PRESENT.”
And so ended the momentous debate in the first United States Senate on
the subject of titles which, in one form or another, “engaged almost the
whole time of the Senate from the 23d of April, the day that our
Vice-President began it,” until May 14 when the Senate, by a vote of ten
to eight decided that they, “for the present,” would not press the
subject of titles but so arranged the records as to give the impression
that they sanctioned them. When it came to reading the minutes on the
following day, Friday, May 15, Few moved that the minute on the division
of Lee’s motion be struck out because, as it stood, it had the
appearance of unanimity. Lee opposed. Few was supported by Carroll,
Ellsworth and Maclay—but the minute stood.
One hundred and eighteen years have lapsed since this debate on a title
for the President of the United States—and the consequent “ennobling” of
the lesser officials of the “new” government—took place. That debate
left the situation as follows: the House of Representatives rejected
titles of any kind most positively. The Senate, finding that it could
not bring the whole Congress to the point of giving titles, fell back to
the position that the President and the Senate were the only fountain
heads of titles and that, merely as a matter of accommodation, “for the
present” they waived the question but put themselves on record—by
placing on the files of the Senate a resolution which never was
passed—as being in favor of appellations of nobility.
IRISH PIONEERS OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY—JOHN WOOD, THE FIRST REAL
PIONEER SETTLER—FOUNDER OF QUINCY, MODEL STATE EXECUTIVE AND
PATRIOT—HEROIC SETTLERS IN VARIOUS STATES.
BY MR. MICHAEL PIGGOTT, QUINCY, ILL.
After many thousand years separation at the cradle of their race, in
India, it was the coming together and blending of pure Celtic and
Teutonic families that finally gave order and civilization to Europe
after the fall of Greece and Rome produced the dark ages. It was the
further mingling and blending of the same kindred blood in America that
produced the men, who, in 1776, gave the governments and civilizations
of the world their brightest jewel in the Declaration of American
Independence, a new civic chart to inspire and guide all nations on the
highway of justice, freedom and equality to the highest civilization. It
was a further blend of the same virile and liberty-loving blood that
enabled the immortal Lincoln to save the Republic in 1861 and place it
at the head of the nations, without a peer in ancient or modern history.
It was the marriage of an Irishman and a German woman in the Mohawk
Valley of New York in 1795 that gave America, in the person of John
Wood, one of her best and bravest sons; the Mississippi Valley, its
first real pioneer settler; Quincy, its beloved founder; Illinois, a
model executive and the republic a patriotic defender.
Governor John Wood was born in Moravia, New York, December 20th, 1798.
He was the second child and only son of Doctor Daniel Wood, and
Catherine (Crouse) Wood. His father, a surgeon and captain under
Washington during the war of freedom from British despotism, was of
Irish descent, being the grandson of Timothy Wood, of Longford, Ireland.
Doctor Daniel Wood was a man of unusual attainments as a scholar and
linguist. He was proficient in several languages; his medical books in
French and German, with his own marginal notes, indicate the high
standard of his professional acquirements.
At the close of the revolution, he settled in Cayuga County, on a large
tract of land which he received as a bounty from the government, where
he died at the ripe age of ninety-two years. His body was exhumed by his
son and brought to Quincy and buried in Woodland Cemetery on a high
natural knoll overlooking the waters of the Mississippi, in view of
George Rogers Clark’s monument, designed by a son of General Mulligan
and erected by the State of Illinois during the past year. Irish
patriotism and valor are here well represented by the names of Clark,
Wood and Mulligan.
The mother of Governor Wood, who died while he was under five years of
age, was a woman of unusual beauty and was several years younger than
her husband. She was of old “Mohawk Dutch” stock, and while well
informed could only speak the “Dutch” language.
In 1818, John Wood came West in quest of home and fortune. He spent two
years exploring the advantages offered to young men in the valleys of
Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, also in southern Ohio and Indiana. In
1820, while at Cincinnati, he met a young man by the name of Willard
Keyes, a native of Vermont and two years older than himself. Keyes had
spent a year at Prairie du Chien, on the Upper Mississippi, teaching
French and Indian half-breeds. They entered into a partnership to go on
the frontier and commence farming. They secured between them some young
steers, a heifer and a few swine, a plow and a limited supply of
provisions, then treked across the country into the wilderness of the
great Northwest to find a suitable location, finally stopping at a place
about thirty miles southeast of Quincy, where they established a rude
bachelors’ hall and raised three crops.
In the spring of 1821, Wood, while hunting for game, met two Irishmen
named Peter Flynn and James Moffatt, soldiers of 1812, who had located
government warrants on the banks of the Mississippi, west of the Wood
and Keyes locations. John Wood visited the Flynn and Moffatt locations
and, being a keen observer and a natural lover of beauty, admiring their
high advantages and beautiful surroundings, immediately resolved to make
his home with them.
In the fall of that year, Jeremiah Rose, wife and five-year-old daughter
came to the Wood and Keyes settlement. He was of Irish descent, born in
Rensselear County, New York. In the fall of 1822, Wood and Rose arranged
to locate at the Flynn and Moffatt settlements, but Rose took sick and
remained with his family, while Wood went on, and with the assistance of
Flynn and Moffatt built a log cabin eighteen by twenty feet, the first
white man’s home in this section of Illinois, as Flynn and Moffatt had
built no cabins on their locations but camped with the Indians who lined
the river banks north and south for several miles. John Wood being
unmarried, the Rose family occupied his cabin and remained with him
until 1826, when Rose located a mile back from the river and about a
mile north, on what is now known as Twelfth Street.
In the spring of 1824, Williard Keyes came and built a cabin sixteen by
sixteen feet at the foot of what is now Vermont Street. In the same
fall, John Drulard, a Frenchman, built a cabin a short distance south of
Wood, making a white man’s village of three cabins where Indians had
held dominion and war dances for ages. Between the cabins of Wood and
Keyes, on the high bluffs where Main Street has been cut through to the
river, there was a “Sauk” village of friendly Indians. They lingered in
the vicinity for several years, coming back annually until after the
Black Hawk war to decorate and worship at the graves of their fathers.
In the fall of 1824, John Wood caused to be inserted in the Edwardsville
Spectator a notice that application would be made at the next session of
the legislature, for the organization of a new county, defining its
boundaries. In 1825 the Legislature authorized its establishment, fixing
the boundaries described in Wood’s notice and as they now exist. Three
commissioners were appointed to locate the county seat. After going over
the boundaries, they selected the place suggested by John Wood as the
most suitable. They christened the new town Quincy and the county Adams,
in honor of the president. Thenceforth the little village of three log
cabins rejoiced in a name. A space four hundred feet square was reserved
in the center of the town for a public square, now known as Washington
Park, the home of the friendly squirrels and birds that sport in safety
amid its elms, shrubs and fountains. The first election for officers of
the county was held July 2, 1825, when forty votes were polled.
From 1825 to 1830, the growth of Quincy was very slow, caused by the
privations incident to a pioneer’s life. The little settlement was many
miles distant from mills or places where necessary family supplies could
be obtained. Instead of coffee the settlers used okra seeds, which they
cultivated for that purpose and sweetened with wild honey found in great
abundance in the neighboring woods. Their nearest blacksmith was at
Atlas, forty miles distant, where they carried their plows to be
sharpened, swung upon horses’ backs.
Among the voters who took part in the election for county officers in
July, 1825, appear the Celtic names of George Frazier, Michael Dodd,
Thomas McCreary, Louis Kinney, Daniel Moore, H. Hawley and Ben McNitt,
besides the others above mentioned. Below appear the names of the Irish
pioneers who came after the county and the town were organized.
From the beginning, John Wood was the moving spirit of the young
settlement. Its subsequent growth and prosperity were due to his
untiring zeal which he maintained to the end of his long and useful
life.
In 1827, John Wood visited the lead mines at Galena, but maintained his
home at Quincy and was constantly identified with its progress, serving
as its mayor four times and a number of years as one of its councilmen.
His influence was not confined to Quincy alone. He was early recognized
throughout the State as a rising man of mark. The manner in which he
organized Adams County and defeated a movement of men from Kentucky,
who, in 1824, desired a convention for a new constitution to allow them
to bring their slaves to Illinois, gave him prominence among the
politicians of the State.
At the time John Wood built his Quincy cabin, St. Louis and Missouri
were the attractive places of the opening West, but the black gangrene
of human slavery repelled John Wood and caused him to prefer the free
soil of Illinois. When the question was submitted to the people, John
Wood made a canvass of the Bounty Land or Military Tract as it was
called, and out of one hundred and three votes cast secured all but four
against a change. He regarded with equal disfavor the political
organization known as the abolitionists, considering them civic
disturbers.
[Illustration:
THOMAS F. RYAN, ESQ.,
Of New York City.
Life Member of the Society.
]
In 1832 John Wood served as a volunteer in the Blackhawk War. In 1848,
with two sons, he went to California, but remained there only a year. In
1850 he was elected to the State Senate and in 1856 was elected
Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, and became governor of the State in
1859 on the death of Governor Bissell. He was one of the five delegates
who, in February, 1861, represented Illinois at the peace convention in
Washington. On the breaking out of the rebellion he was appointed
Quartermaster General of Illinois, and served with great efficiency
until June, 1864, when, at the age of sixty-six years, he went to the
field of war as Colonel of the One Hundredth and Thirty-Seventh
Illinois. At Memphis, Tennessee, he was assigned to the command of a
brigade and discharged his duties gallantly while under fire.
The value of Governor Wood’s services to State and Nation were
handsomely acknowledged in 1868 by Illinois’ great war governor, Richard
Yates, then United States Senator, in a letter to Governor Wood. Senator
Yates wrote: “I have never expressed to you, though I have many times
spoken of it to others, my grateful remembrance of your great assistance
during those trying times. Often when discouraged, as we all were, I
believe, except you, I have been cheered and sustained by your
confidence and what many persons told me of your kindly mention of my
acts as governor. This, I assure you, my dear Governor, is one of the
pleasant memories connected with those eventful and trying times, and it
is not too late, I hope, for me to express my unfeigned gratitude. It
has always afforded me pleasure, when friends have given me the credit,
to tell them the truth, how vastly the State was indebted to Governor
Wood for the great energy he displayed in his office, which was the most
trying office of us all, and for his warm and enthusiastic words for his
country in those days of doubt and trial. I hope you will not consider
these words flattering, but as a grateful expression of your true
friend, Richard Yates.”
Governor Wood “was a superb specimen of the highest human type; six feet
in height; hair and beard flowing and as white as snow; ruddy face;
strong cut features; muscular frame and a pleasing dignity gave him the
appearance of a Roman Senator, causing Governor Yates and others to
refer to him frequently as the “Old Roman from Adams.” His nature was
bold, frank and generous. He was a stranger to moral or physical fear. A
few years before his death, with his wife, and a party of Quincy
friends, he visited California. While on a steamer visiting places in
Southern California, he was wrecked by the boat running on a rock. The
Captain, after placing women and children safely on boats, said: “Now,
Governor Wood, you take your place.” His answer was that of a hero.
“Send the young folks first. I am seventy years old. Save the young.””
Before 1858, Governor Wood resided in a large two-story frame dwelling
with pilastered portico, which that year he moved across Twelfth Street
into his old orchard, and on the old site he erected a magnificent
sandstone palace, the finest then in the State, costing $125,000. It is
now used as a boy’s school by the Methodist Church, while the old frame
dwelling is owned by the Quincy Historical Society, both, with immense
tracts of land within the city limits, having passed from the Governor
shortly before his death through the unfortunate speculations of his
sons on the Chicago Board of Trade; he surrendered everything to pay
their debts.
He died in Quincy, June 4th, 1880, full of honor, at the ripe age of
eighty-two years, and was buried by the side of his patriotic father in
Woodland Cemetery, on a high knoll facing the magnificent waters of the
Mississippi and within four blocks of where he built his log cabin in
1822. Immediately south of Woodland lies Indian Mound Park, and a mile
north is Riverview Park, where George Rogers Clark’s monument stands in
repose with a Continental hat in hand and arms folded, looking out in
admiration on the lands his valor had saved for American freemen. There
are numerous Indian mounds, both in the cemetery and parks, and they
extend for many miles along the bluffs, North and South of Quincy.
A life-sized bronze statue of Governor Wood is in Washington Park,
located in the business center of the city, erected by the city which he
founded, nursed through infancy with care to the full maturity of the
“Gem City” of the Mississippi, with a prosperous population of
forty-five thousand intelligent people, whom he honored by a patriotic
and a stainless Christian life.
Before the election of Governor Wood, Illinois had three governors of
Celtic descent—Duncan, Carlin and Ford. Both Ford and Carlin, previous
to their election, had resided in Quincy.
In 1812, the territory between the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers,
was set aside by Congress as a military or bounty land district, wherein
the soldiers of the War of 1812 might locate their warrants for a one
hundred and sixty-acre land grant as a bounty from the government.
Quincy was made one of the land offices for that purpose, which brought
many of the ex-soldiers, especially from Tennessee and Kentucky, to
Adams County. The names of those who were Irish, or of Irish descent,
holding warrants issued in 1817 and 1818 and located in Adams County
before 1836, were the following: Peter Flynn, James Moffatt, Patrick
Nugent, John McDade, David Higgins, John W. McFadon, John O’Roork,
Williams McCauley, John Arthur, David Bagley, John Patterson, Nicholas
Farrell, John McKenzie, David McIntire, Hugh Cannon, John Smith, John
McIlvain, Dennis Sweeny, James Murry, Thomas Boyd, Peter Long, Thomas
Smith, Arch McCrea, Joseph Carter, David Smith, Samuel Thayer, Joseph
Clark, Butler Powers, John Thompson, Henry Kelly, William Keen, John
Manning, James Kernan, Thomas Moore, Joseph Cady, Thomas Matthews,
Thomas Rankins, James Connor, Dennis Darling, Charles Mooney, Hugh
Riley, Patrick Callahan, Robert McRey, James Doty, John Russell, John
Blevins, James Denning, Patrick Coyle, Felix McNalley, Patrick Reardon,
Dennis Kelley, Bernard Murphy, Nicholas Conner, Maurice O’Conner, Anson
Kennedy, John Dempsey, John McClure, William Currey, George McIntire,
Arch McLaughlin, James Clark, Isaac Gleason, Donald McQuinn, John
Collins, John Murry, Martin Finnagin, Daniel Daugherty, John McInelley,
John Carter, Solomon McKinney, James Welsh, John Campbell, Michael
Smith, M. Garvin, William Steward, William Hynes, Robert McCulley, James
Miles, James Flanigan, James Downey, William Green, Patrick Barrett,
Dennis Carvin, Thomas Wall, Thomas Cochran, John Hayes, James Donaldson,
William Bryant, James McKeen, Peter O’Donnel, John Fitzgerald, William
Furguson, Hugh Neely, Ben Connelley, Patrick McGaugh, James Mullen, W.
Bradley, J. H. Lancaster, James McDonald, Arthur Campbell, Michael
McGuire, John Campbell, Michael McDermott, Timothy Shields, John Smith,
Mathew Williams, Dennis Connor, Cornelius Kelly, John Ray, Simon
Bradley, William Flynn, Peter Curry, Patrick McBrierly, Michael Moore,
John Green, Jeremiah McChesney, Michael O’Cain, Hugh Brown, Barney
McHatten, John Kincaid, Jeremiah Fallon, Samuel Cochran, Thomas Redmon,
James Brannon, Daniel McDonald, Michael McKay, Daniel McNutt, Robert
Bradley, Peter Kennedy, Barney O’Neil, John Dunn, George McConley, Henry
McCleary, Thomas Burke, William Hughes, Patrick Haffey, Morris Walsh,
Martin Eaton, Jeremiah Sullivan, Daniel McWright, Gago Murphy, Isaac
Hughes, John Murphy, James Kirkpatrick, Thomas Kavin, Mathew Campbell,
Jacob McMahon, Samuel McEvans, William Clemens, George McCoy, James
Daugherty, David Hanes, James Doty, William Kelley, William McCassell,
Patrick Hart, John McKinzey, Patrick Holland, John McCurdy, George
Mahon, Richard Moody, James Kelley, Richard Harrington, William McClure,
Thomas Higgins, Owen McGaffery, Thomas Powers, Cornelius McMahon, Edward
Murphy, Hugh McDermott, John Fitzpatrick, John Butler, John Pickett,
Richard Daily, William Clark, William McCullough, John Lawrence and
William Haslett.
Many of those who located their warrants on land in Adams County before
1836, afterwards became prominent business men in Quincy, while others
immediately after filing claims sold their locations to land sharks for
a few dollars, and moved north to the lead mines at Galena.