Illinois history stories, for the use of seventh and eighth grade pupils in the schools of Illinois

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE

I. The Physiography of the State 9

II. The Early Inhabitants 22

Preface

The stories about Illinois grouped together in this little booklet were used by the author in several classes before he had any thought of putting them into print. At the suggestion of a number of teachers who, doubtless with more good will than critical judgment, believed they might be as acceptable to other pupils as they had proven in the classes observed, the task of preparing them for the printer was undertaken and completed.

The work has been done in the midst of a multitude of other duties which forbade more than an hour or two of continuous attention. A book produced under such circumstances must show many marks of haste, lack of close connection in places, unfortunate choice of phraseology and, perhaps, some mistakes in statements of facts. The above explanation is our apology for these faults.

It is hoped that the book may be useful as supplementary reading matter in the seventh and eighth grades of the grammar schools, and may also be an aid and incentive in the hands of the teachers of the lower grades for doing some oral teaching in the most interesting study of our own state geography and history.

In the preparation of this book thousands of pages have been read covering all the accessible sources of information upon the Illinois country. It would be easy to compile a much larger book and any one else would doubtless make a different selection of topics, but it seemed to the writer that for the purposes intended the subjects selected cover the ground briefly and completely and emphasize the important epochs in the history of the state.

For the facts contained in these pages we are "debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians;" to the cultured essays and papers of such men as Mason, Caton and Parrish, and to the rude stories told by the frontiersmen who occupied the prairies and timbered valleys of LaSalle County, where as a child we became familiar with the endless reaches of waving grass and corn and listened with openeyed wonder to the fireside stories of early deeds of daring and privation. We are particularly indebted to Secretary of State James A. Rose for permission to reproduce for these pages some of the maps which appeared in the Blue Book, prepared under his supervision and through which many of our dates and facts have been verified. We also wish to acknowledge our indebtedness to Mr. C. E. Siebenthal of the U. S. Geological Survey, from photographs of whose relief casts of the Chicago plain the two maps were reproduced. The map illustrating the route of Black Hawk was reproduced, with permission from McClure's Magazine, illustrating Tarbell's Life of Lincoln.

In parting with the copyright of the book the author has agreed with the purchasers thereof to make all necessary corrections and revisions that may be suggested for future editions. It will be considered a favor if our friends who read or use the book will call attention to such errors or essential omissions as may chance to occur to them.

The preparation and arrangement of these stories has been a source of great pleasure, and their presentation to the classes where they have been tested has been among the most enjoyable experiences we have had in the class room.

Believing that the stories of heroism and consecration to duty that gather about the prairies and river valleys of Illinois are as interesting and as worthy a place in the pupils' book of remembrance as are the more distant and vague stories of foreign lands and Atlantic coast colonizations, we send this little book out without any great anticipations yet with the hope that it may find a place and welcome awaiting it in the schools of the state.

W. H. Campbell.

D. S. Wentworth School, 70th and Sangamon Sts., Chicago, III., March, 1908.

SKETCHES OF ILLINOIS HISTORY

Chapter I The Physiography Of The State

When we speak of a man, of what is it that we think ? Is it of his body and head and hands and feet? Or is it of his mind and power to think and say? Or is it of his disposition and habits and social life? Now it may be of any one of these or of all combined in the one person. We recognize the many manifestations in the same individual. But under all the manifestations, giving to them definiteness and meaning, is the physical man. So intimate is the relation between mind and body that whatever affects one reacts upon the other. We expect to find a strong vigorous mind in a strong vigorous body. Habits of life that tend to weaken or destroy muscle and nerve tissue leave their impress upon the mental activities. Somehow our mental and spiritual forces are interwoven with the flesh and blood and nerves of the body. So true is this that when a man's thoughts are being presented to us we would like to see the man. It is not enough to hear the words; we want to see the form, we want to hear the utterance.

What is true of the term "man" is equally true of the word "state." What is a state? Is it a certain number of square miles of hill and valley and plain? The state of Illinois elected a governor. What elected him? The hills and valleys?

"What constitutes a state?

Not high raised battlement or labored mound,

No: — Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued,

In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude —

Men who their duties know, Know too their rights, and knowing, dare maintain." The people, in their collective capacity, make the state.

Then again we think of the state as a hive of industry, — its shuttles flying, its locomotives whistling and puffing, its mills blacking the heavens with their smoke, its cattle, its coal, its grain entrained for distant points, — and it is the industrial manifestations only that we see. Yet it is true that no matter whether it be the people in their sovereign capacity speaking through their laws and suffrages, or whether it be the courts speaking in the name of the sovereign people, or whether it be the industrial and commercial spirit, or whether it be its historic past, — under it all giving definiteness and comprehension is the physical make-up of the state, — the hills and valleys shut in by certain well defined and legalized limits. All the life of the state is so interwoven with the natural features that we must come back to them for our final anchoring place, — for our reason why.

The physiography of any country eventually affects the character of the people. Sublimity and beauty of scenery inspires to full expansion of lungs and to force of circulation. Dullness and monotony cramps and stunts. The ancient Greeks among their hills and near the boundless sea, and the Swiss amid their towering mountains, are fair illustrations of the effect of nature upon a people.

If this be true, it is well worth our while to study the physical make-up of our state and to become somewhat acquainted with its general characteristics and sources of strength before attempting to go into the incidental stories and narratives that have woven themselves around these hills and valleys of Illinois.

One of the most marked physiographic facts that presents itself when we come to study the maps and the charts is the comparatively low altitude of Illinois. Its average height above the sea is six hundred thirty-two feet. That of Indiana is seven hundred feet; of Missouri, eight hundred feet; of Michigan, nine hundred feet; of Wisconsin, one thousand fifty feet; of Iowa, one thousand one hundred feet. If we erect proportional lines to indicate this we shall have a series somewhat as follows :

J 4 J d i i i i

X

A

V ch.

When the tops of these lines are connected we see what a basin Illinois seems to form among the adjoining states. What would be the natural inference from this lay of the land? The rivers from all sides are directed toward this state. Of the boundary line, five hundred fifty miles of it is made by the Mississippi, three hundred miles by the Ohio and Wabash and sixty miles by Lake Michigan.

Not only does the state have a long extent of water boundary, but it has numerous rivers within its own territory. The following outline will show at a glance the principal streams with their outlets :

ii

Drainage System.

St. Lawrence — Lake Michigan, j Calumet Apple.

Plum.

{Pecatonica.

Kishwaukee.

Green.

Edwards.

Henderson.

Des Plaines.

Mississippi.

Illinois.

Kankakee.

Fox.

Vermilion.

Spoon.

Mackinaw. w Sangamon.

Kaskaskia.

Big Muddy.

( Cache.

Ohio. ] Saline.

( Wabash.

T Little Wabash. \ Embarrass.

This outline at once suggests that the state is well watered and well drained. A region of country so intersected by streams, with their many tributaries, can have no place for arid sections. It suggests also that there must be a number of natural valleys and divides. A glance at a relief map of the state shows this to be true.

During the early geological periods the various formations of rock were laid down and in the many changes that occurred were partly washed away. In the process of formation these layers of primitive rocks were slightly wrinkled by pressure and in places lifted up a little above the average level of the surrounding section. As we cross the state in different directions we find the outcroppings of these partially eroded formations obtruding from the drift and soil which cover most of the surface of the state. On the Rock river, near Oregon, we find an outcropping of the St. Peter's sandstone, which gives to that region a most picturesque and attractive scenery. There is probably no section of the state in which the natural scenery is more inviting than in the neighborhood of Oregon. On the Illinois river, around Ottawa, there is another outcropping of this same sandstone, giving another region of unusual variety and beauty. Starved Rock, Deer Park, and the many beautiful canons of LaSalle county are all formed in the St. Peter's sandstone group. At Joliet and near Rock Island and in Calhoun county, and in several other localities, we find decided exposures of the Niagara limestone group. In other places we find the sub-carboniferous and the carboniferous, bearing coal, exposed to view. In all parts of the state if borings are sunk deep enough the primary rock may be found.

Why are not these rock formations exposed in all parts of the state ? Why is it that in most places, in digging for water, we have to bore through many feet of sand, gravel and boulders before coming to the bed rock? In many places this layer on top of the main rock is thirty feet deep ; in some places it is from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet deep. How did all this come about? This introduces us to another phase of the physical make-up of the state.

Long after the primary rock formations had been laid down, after they had many times been lifted above the waters and sunk again, after the lower Silurian limestone around Galena had been filled with lead, and the fields covering the central parts of the state had been stored with sufficient coal to keep all the fires of the world burning for centuries, there came a great change over the face of the earth. No man knows exactly how or why it came about, but it grew very cold. For hundreds of years the plants and animals that had flourished where we now live were frozen out. Nothing could grow in all this northern region of the world. A cold barren reach of ice and snow gradually covered the land. It grew heavier and thicker, collecting upon the high lands of Canada and the regions to the north as it now collects upon the highest parts of the Alps in Europe, or of the coast range in our own Alaska. These great fields of ice, as they grew larger and heavier, began to move slowly towards the lower lands. As they moved down they pushed all obstructions before them. A grove of trees was less than a cobweb in their path. A projection of rock sticking up from the surface a hundred feet or more would be ground into fragments and carried along with the great ice mass moving toward the south. This great ice plow not only swept the surface bare as it went, but it dug into the earth, carving out holes hundreds of feet deep and thousands of miles in area. The rocks it carried along were rolled over and over again under the great ice mass until they were ground into huge marbles or boulders.

But this ice march could not go on forever. There must come a place where the heat of the sun was sufficient to melt the front edge of this ice field. In Illinois this place was reached about sixty miles north of Cairo. Here the ice began to melt, and the dirt and gravel and sand it had ground up and carried along were dropped upon the old primary rock formations. Where the glacier stopped, all along its front end, a ridge of gravel and clay was built up and left. It is there today, so we can stand upon it and compare it with the land north and south of it, and know for ourselves that we are standing upon soil brought down by this great ice wagon from the north. Not only once, but twice and three times, perhaps oftener, did this happen, except that each time the front edge of the ice river stopped sooner than the time before. So over the northern part of the state three, at least, of these great glaciers swept, covering the old rock in places very deep. This is why we have to dig through sand and gravel and boulders so many feet before striking the solid rock. This is why boulders, almost round, from six inches to five feet in diameter, can be found scattered over the surface of the state. This is why, chiefly, that we have Lake Michigan and all the other northern lakes. The great holes scooped out by the moving ice fields were filled with water, when the glaciers melted, and there they are to this day.

The loads of dirt carried were in some cases dropped in the beds of old rivers, filling them up so completely and solidly that when the glaciers were gone things had been so changed that the rivers had to dig out new channels. This was true of the Mississippi river near Rock Island and for forty or more miles below that point. This was true of the Illinois river near Hennepin. Many other cases can be shown where this happened. In places these terminal moraines formed basins, the dirt being piled up on all sides, thus shutting in thousands of acres of land. These areas could not get good drainage and became the swamp lands that our farmers are still draining with tile. In some of these basins the best kind of soil has been deposited by growth and decay and the small streams seeping into them until now, when drained by the farmer, they are the richest lands to be had. There are farmers in northern Illinois who are reaping sixty and seventy bushels per acre from fields in which they went duck hunting or swimming when they were boys.

It is now time for us to look at a map of the state upon which these moraines are located. We see that the first moraine extends westward from near the point where the Wabash' river leaves the Illinois state boundary. This moraine has been called the Shelbyville moraine. You notice the Embarrass river has cut through it in order to reach its natural outlet. The second moraine is shaped something like an elbow, reaching from the eastern part of the state a few miles north of the Shelbyville moraine bending to the north at about the forty-first degree of latitude, and ending in the state of Wisconsin. This is known as the Champaign moraine. This is by far the largest and most prominent one in the state. You notice how the Illinois river has cut its way across this moraine. The third follows Lake Michigan and is located only a few miles to the west of its southern part. This is called the Valparaiso moraine; the Des plaines river had to cut its way across it. Should we take the Illinois Central railroad at Chicago and travel to Cairo, we would cross the Valparaiso moraine, then the valley drained by the Kankakee and Vermilion rivers, then the Champaign moraine, then, following the ridge that divides the Embarrass from the Kaskaskia, we would enter the basin of the Big Muddy river, and in this basin would come to and cross that southern uplift known as the Ozark Highlands. South of these highlands there is no drift. This Ozark ridge of hills is not more than ten or twelve miles wide, but reaches across the state from Shawneetown on

V?

the Ohio to Grand Tower on the Mississippi. In places the elevations reach an altitude of seven or eight hundred feet, and in one place to one thousand forty-seven feet.

One other little section of the state seems to have been left untouched by the great ice rivers. This is the extreme northwestern part of the state, a little corner comprising Jo Daviess county. Here we have the highest point of land in the state, Charles Mound, which rises to an altitude of twelve hundred fifty-seven feet.

A study of this map will show us that there are seven distinct drainage basins in the state. These are drained respectively by the Rock River, the Illinois river, the Kaskaskia river, the Big Muddy river, the Embarrass river, the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and Lake Michigan. Perhaps the smallest of all these areas is that drained by the lake. In the ice age the waters from the lake region poured out through the Illinois valley to the Mississippi, and thence to the Gulf. But as the height of the waters sank, the little elevation to the west cut the waters of the lake off in that direction and forced them to find an outlet by way of the north. The Chicago drainage channel has opened up this old waterway, giving the waters of Lake Michigan an outlet to the Gulf.

In the places where the drift material was not deposited, the old rock formations are at the top, making rugged scenery and furnishing picturesque building sites. In many such places even the abutments for bridges can be spared, as the natural formation gives ample support. We find the drift in other sections piled up in great mounds, as if done by hand. Joliet Mound, near Joliet, was a good example of this until the Rock Island railway company decided a few years ago that the material was needed for ballast. Where this drift covers the state, canal digging and railroad building can be done with comparative ease. There seems to have been considerable regularity in the deposition of the drift. It did not all drop down in a heap, but the heavier parts settled down first, then the lighter were deposited layer after layer, something as the leaves of a book.

In an early day the waters of Lake Michigan filled all the plain where the city of Chicago is now built, reaching to the edge of the Valparaiso moraine. In the midst of these ancient waters, Stony Island and Blue Island were spots of dry land, — oases in the desert of waters. As the waters receded, the lake shrunk toward its present outline, and room was made for the building of the great city of the West.

There are vast regions of Illinois almost as level as a floor. There are thousands of acres from which the first farmers did not have to cut a tree nor dig a stump before putting the plow to work. The natural drainage with the wonderfully rich soil marks out these great reaches of prairie land as one of the best agricultural regions of the earth. An immense population could be supported from the fields of this state.

We will look at another map before passing from this part of our subject. The storm maps of the United States show

J9 that most of the storms, the winds, the rains, the changes of temperature, follow three well-defined routes. One of these clings to the Atlantic seaboard. Another, beginning in the southwest, crosses the country diagonally to Maine. This route crosses Illinois along the Kaskaskia valley. The third begins in the Pacific ocean, or in the mountain regions of our Northwest, and crosses the country in an easternly direction to Maine. This route crosses Illinois in the latitude of Chicago. You notice that there is no state except Illinois that is crossed by two of these storm routes until we reach New England. This will help us to understand why Illinois has such a variety of weather and perhaps more sudden changes of temperature than any other state in the Union.

We should examine, also, two other charts, one showing the average temperature and the other the average rainfall for the state. In all such charts the same temperature is represented by very crooked lines. The altitude, the conformation of the drainage basins, the forests and .prairies and the amount of rainfall all have an influence upon the temperature. Hardly any two places are exactly alike in these respects, so we should not expect to find many places alike in temperature records. In the extreme north part of the state the average temperature is forty-six degrees, while in the extreme south it is fifty-eight degrees. This is a difference of twelve degrees and means a difference of about three weeks in the season.

On the chart showing the average rainfall we will see that there is quite a variation, reaching all the way from twenty-eight to forty-five inches per year. The average for the state is about thirty-eight inches.

Now, we have attempted to get before us the physical outlook of the state, showing how it was made, of what its bone and muscle consist, whence its soil came, how its moisture and drainage are provided, and the consequent possibilities of this region for civilization and culture. We have seen what nature has done for this region. What has man done to perfect her work ?

Chapter II The Early Inhabitants

This was a beautiful prairie land reaching far and far away beyond the power of the eye to see. Miles and miles of it were almost as level as a floor. The drainage was nearly perfect. There was enough of timber to give variety to the landscape and to furnish the necessary building material for a moderate population of simple people. The soil left by the glaciers and added to by the natural growth of vegetation was as rich as a garden. Surely such a field as this was destined to a history of stirring events and of industrial life. What people first owned these lands, and how came they to leave them, and by whom were they succeeded? The native inhabitants were Indians. When Columbus added the western world to the geography of the middle ages, in 1492, he found a land that was beyond value in its resources and in its possibilities; but the people acquired with the land were of little value to the world's history. They have been the means of putting to shame the records of Spanish, English and American explorers, colonists, and statesmen whose hands have been drenched in the blood of innocent savages, and whose treaties have been violated with impunity because made with these helpless children of the forest. But they have been a hopeless problem in all efforts to civilize them. They have not the inherited instincts of the white man, and do not want to live as the white man lives. They were in possession of these boundless plains and interminable woods from Maine to California and from the Gulf of Mexico to the frozen regions of Alaska. They had their own institutions, their own manner of life, and their own religious beliefs and superstitions, as simple as the life they lived. They had their families, their tribes and their great clans, distinguished one from the other, as were the nations of Europe, by differences of dialect, language and customs.

There is no satisfactory evidence that any race of people preceded the Indians in the occupation of this country. Some years ago the scientists thought there had been an older race of people, whom they called Mound Builders, who had erected great mounds in many sections of the country. These mounds still exist, such of them as have not been destroyed, most of them in river valleys not far removed from the streams. This one fact suggests a possible explanation of their origin, — they may have been devised for the purpose of protecting the people from the great overflows of the rivers, which were probably much greater than now. We have seen one of these mounds some twelve miles or more from the usual channel of the Mississippi river in Missouri, built upon with corn cribs, barns, sheds and dwellinghouse, the only spot above water for a distance of five miles in any direction. The farmer had taken advantage of one of the old Indian mounds for the same purpose for which the Indians had erected it, — to keep himself above the Mississippi overflow in the month of February. Many of these mounds have been found to contain skeletons, pottery and various other things, and from the remains found scattered about, a sort of culture, religious and industrial, has been supposed and defended. Nothing, however, has been found and nothing proven that might not apply to the Indian tribes as they were in the olden times.

A glance at a map will help us to understand that at the time of the earliest white occupation of the country, North America was peopled by three great classes or grades of

Indians. To the extreme north" and west, beyond the Rocky mountains, were the savage nations. These lived wholly on the results of the chase and the streams, with what fruits and roots they could gather. They made no pretense at cultivating the ground, nor did they have any of the conveniences of life. To the east of the Rocky mountains, extending to the Atlantic and to the Gulf of Mexico, were the barbarous tribes. These depended not alone upon the hunt and the streams, but made some rude attempts at cultivation. They grew fields of corn and beans and tobacco. They gathered their harvests and stored the grain for winter use. They used the bow and arrow pointed with flint, or hurled the spear, similarly pointed, in the chase or in war. For pastime they danced around their camp-fires, or their young men ran races or played at games of ball on the open fields. These were the Indians with whom the English and French had to do in this country. To the southwest and extreme south, reaching through Mexico and Central America, were the half-civilized races. These had a much higher degree of civilization. They had a system of counting and writing. They kept records of events and had a rude astronomy. They were skilled builders in stone, and some of their structures are the wonder of antiquarians today. These were the races with whom the Spaniards came in contact in Mexico and whose land they overran and whose civilization they destroyed without appreciating it.

We see, then, that the Indians who occupied the country where we live were of the barbarous races. These Indians belonged chiefly to three great families or clans. These were the Iroquois, whose principal lands were in New York ; the Algonquins, who covered an immense territory reaching from Labrador to the Mississippi, completely surrounding the Iroquois ; and the Sioux, the latter living chiefly west of the Mississippi. Each of these families was divided up into a number of tribes. In Illinois we have for the most part the tribes of the Illinois, the Miamis, Pottawattomies, Kickapoos and Winnebagoes. All these except the Winnebagoes belonged to the great Algonquin family. The Winnebagoes were of the Sioux family. Of all the Indians in North America, the Algonquins were the most amenable to civilization. The Sioux were the most warlike and unapproachable. They have always been a proud, warring people. Sitting Bull, who lead his braves to the massacre of General Custer's little army a few years ago, was a Sioux Chief.

A couple of maps showing the arrangement of the Indian tribes of Illinois in 1760 and again in 1760 will illustrate how they shifted from place to place and how the tribes seemed to shrink as war and the exigencies of protection and food came upon them. Notice the territory of the Illinois tribe in the two maps. The Sioux sometimes crossed the river and made war upon the more peaceable Algonquins on the Illinois side. The warlike Iroquois from near Lake Ontario often took the warpath and, trailing the forests for more than five hundred miles, slaughtered the tribes in the valley of the Illinois and laid their fields waste, leaving their villages but smoking ruins.

It was a cruel way of life, but it was all they knew. To this life they had been born, and their fathers for generations had known nothing better, nor did they wish for any other. They were willing to live their rude lives, much of the time in hunger and cold, and to die under the scalpingknife or under the dreadful torture of the stake. In these valleys of the Rock river, the Illinois, the Kaskaskia, the Big Muddy, the Embarrass, and in the Chicago plain, the smoke from hundreds of little Indian villages rose to the clouds, and along these streams the rude savage caught his fish or his game, and here the squaws tilled the fields of squash and Indian corn. Here they chased the buffalo and the deer, and after the successful big hunt in the autumn they had their dances and feasts lasting for days at a time. Here their children grew to manhood and womanhood, their sons and daughters were married and given in marriage. The cradle and the grave were there as they are with us, to mark the two most eventful epochs in a human life. The Indian had his way of looking at it as we have ours.