The northern part of Illinois is beautifully diversified with groves of
timber and rolling prairies. The timber consists of the various kinds
of oak, rock and white maple, beach, locust, walnut, mulberry, plum,
elm, bass wood, buckeye, hackberry, sycamore, spice wood, sassafras,
haws, crab apple, cherry, cucumber, pawpaw, &c. There is some cedar,
but little pine. The shores of Michigan have a large supply of pine
timber, and from this source the lumber for buildings at Chicago is
obtained.
The prairies are sometimes level, sometimes gently undulating, and
sometimes hilly; but no where mountainous. The soil is three or four
feet deep; then you come to a bed of clay two or three feet in depth,
and then gravel. The soil is a rich, black loam; and when wet, it
sticks to the feet like clay. Manure has no beneficial effect upon it;
but where it has been cultivated, it produces an abundant crop, the
first year, not quite as good as succeeding years; and it seems to be
quite inexhaustible.
The prairies are covered with a luxuriant growth of native grass,
which, when it gets its full growth is generally about as high as a
man's shoulders.--They are destitute of trees, shrubs, or stones; and
although the surface may be undulating, yet it is so smooth, that they
can be mown as well as the smoothest old field in New-England. In the
spring of the year, a great variety of beautiful flowers shoot up
among the grass; so that the face of nature exhibits the appearance of
an extended flower garden. The prairie grass is unlike any kind I have
seen at the north; but it affords excellent fodder for horses, neat
cattle and sheep. A finer grazing country I had never seen. The grass
appears to have more nourishment in it, than at the north. I saw beef
cattle, fatted on the prairie grass alone, and I challenge Brighton to
produce fatter beef, or finer flavored.
Towards the lake, the land is gently undulating; farther west, on Fox
and Rock rivers, it is rolling; and as you approach Galena on the
Mississippi, it becomes more hilly and broken. All this country seems
to lack, is timber and water. There are rivers enough, but not many
small streams and springs. But both of these defects can in a good
measure be remedied. Good water can be obtained almost any where by
digging wells from twenty to thirty feet in depth; and fuel must be
supplied by the coal, which is found generally in abundance throughout
the State. Bricks can be used for building; and hedge rows for fences.
The coal is excellent for the grate. It burns free, and emits such a
brilliant light, that any other in a room is hardly necessary. It is
now used in many places, in preference to wood, although that is now
plenty. Blacksmiths use it for the forge; and at one shop, the man
told me he could dig and haul enough in half a day to last him a month.
The government of the United States granted to the State of Illinois
a tract of land ten miles in width and eighty miles in length,
extending from Chicago to Ottawa, for the purpose of making a canal
to connect the waters of the lake with the Illinois river, and within
these limits, it is supposed the canal will pass. This tract has been
surveyed, put into market and much of it sold; but most of the land in
the northern part of the State had not even been surveyed when I was
there. Not a survey had been made on Fox river. The settlers took as
much land as they pleased, and where they pleased; and as there was an
abundance for all, none found fault. Before this time, I presume, the
land has been surveyed; and the peace and quietness of the Fox river
settlement, may have been a little disturbed by the _carelessness_ of
the United States' surveyors, in running lines somewhat diverging from
the stakes and fences which its early settlers had set up as the bounds
of their farms.
But a large portion of the northern half of the State, is not in the
market, and perhaps may not be for two years to come. This very land,
however, is settling every day. All a man has to do, is to select his
land and settle down upon it. By this act he gains a _pre-emption
right_ to one hundred and sixty acres; and before the auction sale,
enters his land at the land office, pays a dollar and a quarter an
acre, and receives his title. When land has once been through the
auction and not sold, it can be taken at any time, by paying a dollar
and a quarter an acre, and receive a title.
Upon the whole, I think the upper part of Illinois offers the greatest
inducements to the emigrant, especially from the northern States. It
is a high, healthy, beautiful country; and there are now plenty of
good locations to be made. A young man, with nothing but his hands
to work, may in a few years obtain a competency. The whole country
produces great crops of wheat, corn and potatoes, and all the fruits
and vegetables of the north. Apple and peach trees grow faster and more
vigorous here than at the east; and there is a native plum tree, which
bears excellent fruit.
I took much pains to ascertain whether it was subject to the fever and
ague; and from the inquiries I made, and the healthy appearance of the
people, I am persuaded it is not. I found only one person sick with
that disease, in all the upper country, and she was an old woman from
Indiana; and she told me she had it before she left that State.--There
is plenty of game--the prairie hen, about the size of the northern hen,
deer, ducks, wild turkies, and squirrels; also an abundance of wild
honey.
There is another reason why the northern part of the State is
preferable. Chicago of itself is, and will be, something of a market
for produce; but it is the best spot in the whole State, to carry
produce to be transported to a northern market. From this, it is
carried all the way by water to New-York city; and the distance is
no greater than from the middle and lower parts of the State to
New-Orleans, and the expense of transportation the same.
But after all, there is no such place as a perfect elysium on earth;
and to this bright picture of the new world, there must be added some
slight shades. In the first place there are many prairie wolves all
over the country, so that it is almost impossible to keep sheep. In
travelling over the country, I have started half a dozen in a day; they
did not appear to be very wild; but they seldom or never attack a man,
unless retreat is cut off, or sorely pressed by hunger. They are of a
brown color, and of the size of a large dog. The men have a good deal
of sport in running them down, and killing them.--They take a stick,
mount a fleet horse, soon come up with them, and knock them on the head.
A man on Fox river told me he made a wolf pen over a cow that got
accidentally killed, and caught twelve wolves in one week! As the
country becomes settled they will disappear. There are but few bears;
the country is too open for them. I had one or two meals of bear
meat, but it is not at all to my taste. Then, there are the prairie
rattlesnakes, about a foot long. Their bite is not considered very
dangerous. There is a weed, growing universally on the prairie, that
is a certain cure for it. They are not, however, plenty. Men told me,
that they had passed a whole year without seeing one.
Then, to prey upon the fields of the husbandman, there are the
blackbirds and squirrels. They are the same in kind with those of the
north, and their rapacity seems to have lost nothing, by living at the
west. The blackbird is not a bird of the forest; it only follows close
upon the heels of population.
The winters are as cold, perhaps, as at the north, but of shorter
duration. They commence later and end earlier. The Indians make their
poneys get their living in the winter; and cattle will live if they
can have a range in the woods; but the farmer can have as much hay as
he chooses, only for the cutting; the good husbandman will, therefore,
have enough to keep his cattle in good heart during the winter.
Men are apt to judge of a new country by the impulse of feeling. The
enthusiastic admirer of nature, when he beholds the extended prairies,
lofty groves and pellucid streams, represents it as a perfect paradise.
But those who think more of good roads, good coaches, good houses
and good eating, than they do of the beauties of nature, curse the
whole country and quit it in disgust. But to prevent all mistakes,
be it known to all whom it may concern, that in this new country,
fields do not grow ready fenced and planted, and elegant houses beside
them; pancakes are not found on trees, or roasted pigs, running about
squealing to be eaten.
The jaundiced eye sees nothing in its true light.
----"The diff'rence is as great between
The optics seeing, as the object seen;
Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies,
Contracts, inverts, and gives a thousand dyes."
Many anecdotes were told me, of the different views the same individual
would have of the same place, under different circumstances. An
emigrant from Vermont, with his wife, children and goods, started for
the western world in a wagon. The country was new, and the roads so bad
that their progress was slow and fatiguing. At length, after enduring
many privations and hardships in a journey of twelve hundred miles,
they safely arrived in Illinois, and located themselves on a fine, rich
spot of ground, in the interior. He hastily threw up a temporary hut
for their present accommodation; but they were all too much wearied and
worn, vigorously to exert themselves. He became sad himself; his wife,
unable to restrain her feelings, began to sob aloud, and the children
joined the concert. They could not divert their thoughts from the home,
neighbors and friends they had left. The prairie and wild wood had no
charms for them. After three or four days of despondency, they picked
up their goods, loaded their wagon, and trudged all the way back again
to Vermont. Vermont had, however, lost _some_ of its charms. It did
not appear quite so fine as they had expected. After spending another
cold winter there, they began to think Illinois, upon the whole, was
the better place; and that they had been very foolish in leaving it.
So, they picked up their duds again, returned to the same spot they
had left, and were satisfied, contented and happy. The man has now an
excellent farm, good house, and an abundance of the necessaries and
conveniences of life. In short, he is an independent farmer, and would
not now, upon any consideration, return to Vermont.
An instance, in some respects similar to this, occurred some years ago,
in an emigrant from the western part of the State of New-Hampshire.--He
sold his farm, and started for Ohio. His wife and children, and a
portion of his furniture, he put into a large wagon, drawn by three or
four yoke of oxen; and three cows of a peculiar breed, he also took
with him. They proceeded on about five hundred miles, probably as far
as Buffalo, when they all became weary, and so excessively fatigued
with their journey, that they lost all relish for the western country,
and wished themselves back again. At this time, they held a council,
and agreed, without a dissenting voice, to return to New-Hampshire.
They accordingly wheeled about, cows and all, and trudged back to the
town they had left; having performed a journey of a thousand miles with
an ox-team, at great expense, and apparently to no beneficial purpose
whatever. He did not, however, like the Vermonter, again return.
But the result of the trip was not so disastrous as had been
anticipated. At the very time of their return, a much better farm than
the one he had left was offered for sale for ready money. He bought
it at a reduced price, and immediately settled upon it. He then made
a calculation upon his present and former condition; and after taking
into consideration the expenses of his journey, the sale of one farm
and purchase of another, he found himself worth at least a thousand
dollars more than he was previous to the transaction!
And here, I would give a caution to the emigrant who intends to
settle in the western country, not to place implicit confidence in
what the inhabitants of one section may say of other portions of it.
If they mean to be honest in giving an opinion, self-interest as in
other places, strangely warps their judgment. Land holders and actual
settlers are anxious to build up their own village and neighborhood;
and therefore, they praise their own section and decry the others. At
Detroit, we are told that Monroe is a very sickly place; at Monroe,
Detroit is unhealthy; and both will concur that Chicago is too
unhealthy for an emigrant to think of enjoying life in it. In Michigan,
that is the most healthy, pleasant and best portion of the West; in
Illinois, that becomes the promised land. Indeed, so contradictory
are their statements, that little reliance ought to be placed upon
them; and the better way for the emigrant is, if he cannot obtain the
necessary information from disinterested travellers, to go and examine
for himself. Eastern people, who travel no farther than Michigan,
generally form an unfavorable opinion of Chicago and Illinois; but were
they to travel over that State, they would soon change their opinion.