Chapter VI: Introduction: By Reuben G. Thwaites (4)

"On the banks of the Wabash" is one of the greater historic sites of the great Northwest. Of no great importance, at least commercially, to-day, it was once the seat of the empire of France in the Ohio Valley, and long before, possibly when Moses was leading his people out of bondage, the seat of an empire established by a race we now call prehistoric. When the Mound Builders came, whence they came, when they went away, or whither, will, in all probability never be determined; but they were surely here, and from the works they left behind, must have been here for centuries, and must have numbered millions. The site of their capital is not known, but if it was not on the spot where Vincennes now stands, certainly one of the most populous cities of their empire did stand here. In the immediate vicinity are several large mounds, and around them are hundreds of smaller mounds.

There must have been something attractive about this spot on the Wabash, for after the Mound Builders deserted it and the red men came to occupy the land, they, too, selected it for the site of one of their principal towns. No one knows what tribes have dwelt here, but when it was first visited by white men, the Pi-ank-a-shaws, one of the leading tribes of the great Miami Confederacy, organized to drive back eastward the Six Nations, occupied it as their principal village, and called it Chip-kaw-kay. As the red men depended upon the forests and streams for both food and clothing, this was for them an ideal spot. The finest forests in America were here, filled with buffalo, bear, deer, and other game; while the Wabash furnished them fish and gave them a highway easily traversed by which to visit friends in other sections or to make raids on hostile tribes.

The traditions of the Pi-ank-a-shaws indicate that they occupied the site for more than a century before the coming of the whites. Just when the first white man visited the spot cannot be determined. There is little doubt that La Salle passed up the Wabash about 1669, gave it the name of the Ouabache, and marked it on his maps.[8] Finding an Indian town, he probably stopped and, as was his wont, made friends with the tribes. A few years later the town was abandoned for a while, owing to the irruptions of the fierce Iroquois, who were extremely hostile to the French, and La Salle gathered all the other Indian tribes around his fort on the Illinois, where they remained until about 1711. When the Iroquois retired over the mountains the other tribes returned to their old homes; the Pi-ank-a-shaws to their village on the Wabash, the Weas erecting their wigwams near the mouth of the Tippecanoe, and the twightwees locating at the head of the Maumee. Afterward the Delawares took up their home in Central Indiana, the Shawnees in the eastern portion, and the Pottawatomies around the foot of Lake Michigan.

The Indians had hardly gotten back to their old hunting-grounds before the _coureurs des bois_ began to make excursions into the territory in search of peltries and adventures. Some of them penetrated as far as Chip-kaw-kay and dwelt for some time with the Pi-ank-a-shaws. Traditions tell of the visit of a missionary or two, but there is no certainty.

Rumors grew of English traders crossing the mountains, and as all the territory from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi was claimed by France because of the explorations of La Salle, the French authorities in Canada and Louisiana became alarmed, and in 1718 sent out Jean Baptiste Bissot, the Sieur de Vincent, from Canada to establish posts on the Wabash. He reached Ke-ki-on-ga, the town of the Twightwees, at the head of the Maumee, selected it for one of his posts, and for another, Wea town, below the mouth of the Tippecanoe.

At that time not all of the Ohio Valley was under the jurisdiction of Canada, but the lower half of what are now Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois belonged to the province of Louisiana. For this reason Bissot made no effort to establish posts farther down the Wabash than Wea town, afterward known as Ouiatenon. He died at Ke-ki-on-ga, in 1719. The incursions of the English growing bolder and more frequent, M. Broisbriant, Governor of Louisiana, about 1725, ordered François Margane, Sieur de Vincent, who had succeeded to the title of his uncle, Jean Baptiste Bissot, to prepare to repel the advance of the English and drive them back across the mountains. For this purpose Margane established a post at Chip-kaw-kay, and about seven years later a number of French-Canadian families settled there. This was the first settlement of whites in Indiana, although trading posts had previously been established at the head of the Maumee and at Ouiatenon. This was the beginning of Vincennes, which was called "the Post," "au Poste," and "Old Post," till in 1735 it received the present name. Margane commanded the Post until 1736, when he joined an expedition against the Indians on the Mississippi, and was captured and burned at the stake.

After his death till the territory was ceded in 1763 to the British, the Post was commanded by Lieutenant Louis St. Ange, who had assisted in establishing it. The French during this period lived in peace and friendship with the Indians, the Pi-ank-a-shaws giving the settlers a large tract of land around the Post for their use. This land was held in common by all the inhabitants. In the spring a certain portion was allotted to the head of each family, or to any one else willing to cultivate it, but when the harvest was over the fences were taken down and the land again became public property. After the accession of St. Ange to the command, he made to certain of the more important persons in the little settlement individual grants of some of this land, which later caused great confusion.

Lieutenant St. Ange had much influence with the Indians, and as the French made no attempts to claim the lands of the Indians, or to destroy their hunting-grounds by cutting down the forests, the little settlement at Vincennes lived without molestation or fear, until about 1751, when British agents stirred up some of the tribes to attempt the destruction of the French posts in the Ohio Valley. St. Ange put his post in a secure state of defence, and although a few friendly Indians were killed by the hostiles in the immediate neighborhood, the Post itself was not attacked.

When Canada was ceded to the British it took with it the posts at the head of the Maumee and Wea town. They were garrisoned by small detachments of British troops. Pontiac's conspiracy to drive the British out of the country included the capture and destruction of all the posts then held by the British west of the mountains. The two other posts in Indiana were captured, but Vincennes, being still under the command of St. Ange, was not attacked. Pontiac endeavored to enlist St. Ange in his warfare against the colonists, but that astute officer was proof against all his blandishments. When the treaty of 1763 was made known, St. Ange was transferred to the command of Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi, and left the affairs of Vincennes under the control of three of the more prominent citizens.

The British reoccupied Fort Miamis, at the head of the Maumee, and garrisoned Fort Chartres, but did not occupy Vincennes or assume control over its affairs. General Gage, commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, issued a proclamation to the people of Vincennes offering them the privilege of remaining or of removing to the French or Spanish possessions, assuring them that if they remained they should have the same religious privileges as had been granted to the people of Canada. In a later proclamation he informed the inhabitants that he would not recognize any claim they had to the lands in and around the Post.

The priest of the little parish and some of the leading citizens memorialized the General, showing that the lands had been held by them for many years under grants recognized by the French government, and that it would be a hardship now to deprive them of the rights they had so long enjoyed. On the receipt of this memorial General Gage ordered that all evidences of title be submitted to him at Boston. This, for various reasons, could not be done. Many of the written grants had, as was the custom in France, been left in charge of a notary, who had disappeared with them. In other cases, the grants had been verbal, title passing again, after a French fashion, by the giving of possession with certain ceremonies. While this matter was in contest between the citizens of Vincennes and General Gage, the first mutterings of the American Revolution brought the General duties of more pressing interest, and nothing further was done in regard to the land grants at Vincennes.

From 1763, when St. Ange left for Fort Chartres, until 1777, the people of Vincennes had no civil government except such as they exercised themselves. On May 19, 1777, Lieutenant-Governor Abbott, of Detroit, arrived and formally took possession of the place for the King, establishing a government and building a small stockade fort, which he named "Fort Sackville." He reported the "Wabache" as one of the finest rivers in the world, and spoke highly of the peaceful and correct attitude of the citizens of Vincennes. He also took supervision of the garrisons at Ouiatenon and Fort Miamis, and the work of the British agents in stirring up the Indians to active hostilities against the Americans began.

The arrival of Lieutenant-Governor Abbott, and the hostilities of the Indians he encouraged, gave rise to the most interesting chapter in the history of Vincennes, and one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of the United States. Through the influence of the British agents, the savages made a number of forays against the people of Kentucky, and brought about an event which added an empire to the United States.

In all American history there is no story more remarkable than that of George Rogers Clark, yet it is one of the least known. Some of the encyclopædias do not even mention him, while others dismiss with a few lines a man who gave an empire to the United States. He lived a remarkable life, performed great services for his country, and was then permitted to die in extreme poverty in his old age. His country neglected even to reimburse him for the expenses incurred while winning for it an empire.

In 1777 Clark was a citizen of Kentucky. The great question to the people of Kentucky was how best to defend themselves against the Indian forays. Clark, through reports of spies he had sent out, became satisfied that the Indian hostilities were fomented by the British at the various posts northwest of the Ohio River. He went to Virginia and laid the facts before Governor Patrick Henry. He pointed out that the best, if not the only, way to protect the people of Kentucky was to capture and hold the posts at Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit; that with those posts in the possession of the Americans they could overawe and hold in subjection the various Indian tribes. He offered in person to lead an expedition for their capture.

It was known to Governor Henry that the Spaniards west of the Mississippi had been secretly trying, with some encouragement, to induce the people of Kentucky to place themselves under Spanish protection. When Clark approached him with the suggestion to capture the posts northwest of the Ohio, Governor Henry at first regarded the project as chimerical. One day, after a long argument, Clark left his presence with the significant remark "that a country that was not worth defending was not worth possessing." Interpreting this remark to mean that if Virginia would not help to defend Kentucky the people there would seek protection from Spain, Governor Henry recalled Clark, and after a further conference, authorized him to recruit 350 men for the capture of the posts.

He gave him also a small supply of Virginia money and some ammunition. Returning to Kentucky, Clark hastily recruited a number of men, without divulging his purpose to them. They rendezvoused on an island in the Ohio River, opposite the site of Louisville. There he explained his full design, and all but about 150 refused to join the expedition. Undismayed, Clark floated the few men remaining with him down the river in boats prepared for the purpose, and captured Kaskaskia on the 4th of July, 1778. Hearing that the British had a large force at Vincennes, and had gathered around the fort a large number of Indians hostile to the Americans, he waited at Kaskaskia till he could get further information.

The cordial welcome which the French inhabitants of Kaskaskia gave the Americans led Clark to believe that the inhabitants of Vincennes would prove friendly. French in both places, they were easily led by their priests. The priest at Kaskaskia, Father Gibault, a warm partisan of Clark, offered to go to Vincennes, sound the inhabitants, and learn the strength of the British there. His offer was accepted, and with a single companion he made the journey. He found the French inhabitants, in the absence of the commander of the post, who had gone to Detroit, willing to welcome a change of rulers, and induced them to go in a body to the little church and take an oath of allegiance to the American colonies. After this they took possession of Fort Sackville, and garrisoned it with some of their own number. Father Gibault also induced the Indians to bury the hatchet and promise to live in peace with the Americans, now the friends, as he reminded them, of their great French father.

The news of his success was speedily sent to Clark. Though he had no troops to send to garrison the fort, he dispatched Captain Leonard Helm to assume direction of affairs. This was a fortunate selection, for Helm added to great courage, tact and an intimate knowledge of the Indian character.

It was not long before the British authorities at Detroit were informed of the change in the situation at Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and at once began preparations to recover the lost ground. At this time Colonel Henry Hamilton, of the British army, was Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit. He assembled a force of five hundred men--regulars, militia and Indians--and started for Vincennes. Captain Helm did not learn of the approach of this force until, about the middle of December, it was within three miles of the fort. His garrison consisted of one American and a few inhabitants of Vincennes. Seeing that it would be impossible to defend the fort, the inhabitants quietly dispersed to their homes, leaving Helm and his one American in the fort. Though he knew he could not successfully defend the fort, Helm put on a bold front, loaded his two cannon, and placed himself at one and his solitary soldier at the other. To Hamilton's demand for the surrender of the post, Helm replied that no man could enter the post until the terms of surrender were made known. Being promised the honors of war, he surrendered himself and his one man, to the chagrin of Hamilton, on discovering the size of the garrison.

The approach of the British had been so sudden that Helm was not able to dispatch a messenger to Clark, who in consequence remained for several weeks in ignorance of the change in the situation. The last word he had received from Helm was a request for more supplies. At that time Francis Vigo, a merchant of St. Louis, happened to be in Kaskaskia. Loving the Americans and hating the British, he volunteered to go to Vincennes and make arrangements to furnish the garrison with supplies. Vigo started on his journey at once, but was captured by the British just before he reached Vincennes, and taken before Hamilton. To his demand for immediate release on the score that he was a citizen of St. Louis, Hamilton was deaf, until the Roman Catholic priest, heading a delegation of citizens, notified Hamilton that they would furnish no supplies for the garrison unless Vigo were released.

Vigo was released, after promising against his will that "on his way to St. Louis he would do no act hostile to the British interest." He at once took a canoe and was rapidly paddled down the Wabash to the Ohio, then on to St. Louis. Keeping the letter of his pledge he did nothing hostile on his way to St. Louis, but on his arrival there he jumped from the boat to the land and then back into the boat, and pushed with all speed for Kaskaskia, where he told Clark of the condition of affairs.

Clark at once saw the danger surrounding him. The term of enlistment of most of his men was about to expire. By making them large promises he induced about 150 to extend their enlistment for a term of eight months, and recruited about fifty more from the inhabitants of Kaskaskia. He could get no reinforcements short of Virginia, even if he could obtain them there. If he waited until spring Hamilton would be largely reinforced, he would be driven from Kaskaskia, and his whole design frustrated. He determined to make a winter campaign. He sent forty-six of his men in boats carrying provisions and ammunition around by water, and with 170 set off February 5, 1779, to make a march of near two hundred miles. It was a fearful enterprise. The land for most of the way was level, and water, when it rained, or when the snow melted, lay in a broad sheet over the whole country. He did not know how many of his foes were before him. He had no tents to shelter his men and no way of transporting baggage; there were a few pack horses to carry what provisions and ammunition the men could not carry on their backs.

His men were all hardy frontiersmen; their leader had imbued them with his own heroic spirit; they feared no danger. Before they left the little settlement of Kaskaskia, the good priest gave them a blessing, and all the people accompanied them the first three or four miles of their journey. Scarcely had the farewells been said and the march begun when the rain began to fall, and for nearly twenty days there was but a brief glimpse of sunshine now and then.

Only a few miles had been covered when they struck a long stretch of overflowed land. Although the water was cold, into it they plunged, their gallant leader in front; and until the evening of the 22d they saw no dry land, except an occasional half-acre or so barely peeping above the flood of waters and furnishing a meagre resting-place. It can hardly be said they rested, for on several occasions they had to remain standing throughout the night, or were compelled to walk about to keep from freezing. When they came to a river that had overflowed its banks and was too deep to ford, they made canoes and rafts and floated over.

Always they found the water covered with a thin coating of ice in the morning, and through the ice and water they forced their way. When the water was deep the sergeant carried the drummer boy on his shoulders, and from that perch he beat his charge. Sometimes the water was only knee-deep; sometimes it reached the middle and often to the shoulders; but not one of the men thought of turning back. The boat with provisions that had been sent around by water failed to connect and to their other discomforts hunger was added.

On the morning of the 21st they came within sound of the morning gun at Fort Sackville, but it required two more days of wandering without provisions before they could cross the Wabash River. At last they captured some Indians and with them the half of a buffalo rump, which they made into a broth. On the 23d they arrived at the heights back of the town, and for the first time since their departure had an opportunity to dry their clothing. Clark sent a letter to the French inhabitants of the town, telling them of his presence, but warning them not to give any information to Hamilton. The news caused the greatest excitement; the French ran about the streets telling it with joy, for Hamilton had won their hatred. They sent out provisions to the hungry Americans, who that night marched into the town and by opening fire on the fort gave the first intimation to Hamilton and the garrison of the presence of an enemy. The firing was continued until about nine o'clock the next morning, when a surrender was demanded, accompanied by a threat that if the place had to be taken by storm the officers would be treated as murderers. A parley ensued, followed after a few hours by the surrender of the fort, and once more the American flag floated over Fort Sackville, which was then renamed Fort Patrick Henry.

Hamilton and the other officers were sent to Williamsburg, Va., where they were held in custody for a year or two. From papers found in the fort, Clark learned that reinforcements, bringing supplies and stores, were on the way, and at once sent a part of his little force to intercept and capture the reinforcements, which was promptly done.[9]

Vincennes was now the most important place in the Illinois country. When Colonel John Todd was appointed Lieutenant for the County of Illinois, he made Colonel Legrace his deputy for Vincennes, who established the first court the place ever had. Virginia ceded the territory to the United States, and by the Ordinance of 1787 a civil government was set up, Governor St. Clair sending Winthrop Sargent to assume direct jurisdiction at Vincennes. The French inhabitants were finally permitted to hold the lands to which they could show title, while all the rest were taken by the Government.

Clark added an empire to the domain of the colonies, made possible the Louisiana Purchase and the future extension of the country to the Pacific, and then in his extreme old age Virginia sent him only a sword when he asked for repayment of what he had disbursed for the country.

In 1800 Indiana Territory was established with Vincennes as its capital. The jurisdiction of the Territory then included what are now the States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota, and to this was afterward added for a short time the whole of the Louisiana Purchase.

On the 4th of July, 1800, the government of Indiana Territory was formally organized. The Governor, William Henry Harrison, was, however, not present. General John Gibson, who represented him, was one of the Revolutionary heroes. He had married a sister of Logan, the celebrated Mingo chief, and it was to his brother that Logan made his famous speech. On his arrival, Governor Harrison began the work of trading the Indians out of their lands. He made one treaty after another, until more than one half of the present Indiana, together with a good part of Illinois, was ceded. He erected the first brick house in all that section, perhaps the first west of the Alleghanies, in its day a structure so magnificent as to be called the "Governor's Palace." It is still standing, and near it the tree under which the Governor held his historic interview with Tecumseh, when the Indian chief planned the Governor's death.

In 1813 the territorial capital was removed to Corydon, and the political importance of Vincennes ceased. Already a university had been established, Congress giving to it a township of land, and the beginning was made for what is now one of the most valuable libraries in the West. The first church in the Northwest Territory was built in Vincennes about 1742, under the rectorship of Father Meurin, who had come from France to care for the spiritual wants of the settlers. In 1793 M. Rivet, a French priest, driven from his native country by the terrors of the Revolution, arrived at Vincennes and opened the first school taught in Indiana.

The Vincennes of to-day is a thriving, bustling city of ten thousand inhabitants. It has modern schools and modern churches, modern ideas and modern progressiveness. As a city it has had its ups and downs since it lost political prestige, but for some years it has steadily grown, until now it is classed as one of the beautiful cities of the State. Surrounded by a magnificent agricultural section, and with many manufacturing interests, it threw off long ago the old French habits and customs and took on a progressive spirit, which promises a bright future.

Vincennes has had a glorious past; it occupies a unique place among the historic towns of the country. Boston may have been the cradle of American independence; Philadelphia the place where that liberty was first announced; but after all Boston gave to the Union only Massachusetts, and Philadelphia only Pennsylvania. Vincennes gave us Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the great Middle West. But for the genius and perseverance of George Rogers Clark, when independence came the United Colonies would have stopped at the Alleghanies. The capture of Vincennes spread the jurisdiction of the colonies to the Mississippi, carrying with it American liberty, American progress, American ideas. More than this, it made possible the Louisiana Purchase, which in turn opened the way to the annexation of Texas, the securing of California and the Pacific coast, and the later acquisition of Hawaii and the Philippines. The capture of Vincennes carried American liberty to a domain stretching from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, yea even to the Orient--a domain which else would still be British or Spanish.

It was Indiana, of which Vincennes was the chief part, that stopped the extension of slavery at the Ohio River, and made all the Northwest free territory. It was at Vincennes that Aaron Burr received his first decided check in his great scheme to dismember the Union. It was Benjamin Parke, a citizen of Vincennes, who placed in the first constitution of the State the clause making it obligatory on the Legislature to provide for the care and treatment of the insane, the first provision of the kind made by any civilized government, a provision which has revolutionized the treatment of the insane throughout the world. Such is the story of Vincennes, no frontier town like Albany or Pittsburg, for when its history began Vincennes was hundreds of miles out in the wilderness beyond the frontier line, and was still hundreds of miles beyond when the great event occurred which changed it from a French settlement under the jurisdiction of Great Britain into the chief seat of American power west of the Alleghanies.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] La Salle, in drawing his maps, made the Ouabache to empty into the Mississippi at Cairo, According to him the Oyo (Ohio) was a tributary of the Ouabache. About 1702, one, M. Juchereau, sent to establish a post for the protection of the traders in peltries, reported that he had established a post about forty leagues above the mouth of the Ouabache. Some writers have taken that to mean Vincennes, and it is so recorded in some of the encyclopædias, but his post was on what is now called the Ohio, and not on the Wabash.

[9] Clark began at once to organize an expedition against Detroit, but it never started. Francis Vigo, who had let Clark have provisions and money for his expedition against Vincennes, aided in like manner in fitting out the new expedition, lending money to the amount of $8616, for which Clark gave him an order on Virginia. The order was never honored, and an appeal was made to Congress. Finally, in 1872, nearly a century after the debt was contracted, and nearly thirty-seven years after Vigo had died in extreme poverty, Congress referred the matter to the Court of Claims, which four years later allowed the claim, together with more than $41,000 in interest.

CHICAGO

LARGE IN EVERY WAY

BY LYMAN J. GAGE

The plotting of the site of Chicago was characteristic of the practical sentiment that has ever stimulated the city. No less a personage than Washington established the streets and boundaries of the national capital; religious romance presided at the founding of San Francisco; interesting legends cluster about the origin of other American communities; and in the old world demigods were supposed to have watched over the beginnings of ancient cities. Chicago, though neither hero nor fabled deity was present when its foundations were laid, had a start none the less imposing, for the genius of industry and trade fixed its metes and bounds. And in the growth of the city into perhaps the industrial capital of the continent there has been presented a supreme expression of that resourceful and triumphant ingenuity which has redeemed the American wilderness. The desolation upon which the plodding engineer planted his theodolite three-score-and-ten years ago is a colossal hive of human activity. A marsh has become a metropolis.

The promoters of the Illinois and Michigan Canal were not the first to see the possibility of water communication via the present site of Chicago between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.

In 1673, Joliet wrote to the authorities in Canada that by the cutting of a canal through half a league of prairie it would be possible for boats to "pass from the Lake of Illinois into the St. Louis River [the Illinois including the Desplaines] which empties into the Mississippi." One hundred years before our Republic was conceived, a mathematician, but no mere _visionnaire_, the son of a wheelwright of Quebec, realized that the "Portage of Checagau" was the meeting-place of the future traffic between the chain of inland seas and the rivers flowing toward the Mexican Gulf.

It is plain that nature located Chicago. The meeting-point between unparalleled watercourses could not but be a place for the distribution of commodities. To the north, awaiting the woodman, were the lumber regions of Michigan and Wisconsin; south and west and east stretched the prairie, to be developed into farms; in Illinois alone, thirty thousand square miles of coal fields were to be uncovered, while Pennsylvania's inexhaustible supply was to find a vast market at this centre of lake shipping; and the iron, red-stone, and copper regions of Lake Superior were to pile their output on Chicago docks. The natural meeting-place of grain, lumber, fuel, and iron would have become a city of commerce and manufactures, even if steam railroads and navigation had not come to assist in the unique development of this _entrepôt_, by making it the half-way house for transcontinental traffic. But though nature, as the Rev. Robert Collyer has said, "called the lakes, the forest, the prairies together in convention, and they decided that on this spot a great city should be built," Chicago has been singularly blessed in the alert and enterprising genius of her citizens. Her business men have worked with catholic outlook, knowing that what upbuilt the city in general would augment their individual projects.

The city has never been, even in its aboriginal beginnings, an abiding-place for visionaries. The Minneways were a picturesque tribe. Their chiefs assumed poetic names, and the young men cherished the traditions of their people; but the tribe did not take advantage of its strategic opportunities. Checagau to them was not a coign of vantage between great waters. At the shore of a vast lake, or the brink of a broad river, their dominion halted, for they were not navigators. In their dialect, "Checagau" meant "wild onion." As if to typify the force that was to dominate their region in later centuries, the Checagau country fell to the conquering "canoe men," the adventurous Pottawatomies, the Chippewas, the Sacs, and kindred tribes who, unafraid to venture on the water, turned to trade, exchanging furs and pelts with the French pioneers for food, blankets, and ornamental trinkets. They became the masters of the lake country, and the broken remnant of the uncommercial tribe fled to the Wabash, there to wail their plaintive songs.[10]

Meanwhile the conquering tribesmen, whose canoes paddled up the Mississippi and the Illinois to the "Checagau Portage," to barter with Canadian _voyageurs_, or glided thence across the Lakes, touching at the outposts of colonizers and missionary friars, were prefiguring the gigantic activities of civilized men who in a later age were to radiate from this same coveted point of distribution. But as they had won their Checagau country by might, and established their holdings by commercial enterprise, so they resisted the coming of their European rivals and masters. Although as early as 1795, by the treaty of Greenville, they ceded much domain to our country, including "one piece of land six miles square, at the mouth of the Checagau River," the intrigue of the powerful Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, led the tribes to disregard these and subsequent treaty stipulations. So that when, on the same day that saw the capitulation of Detroit, Fort Dearborn was burned and its garrison massacred,

"the last vestige," says Henry Adams, "of American authority on
the western lakes disappeared. Thenceforward the line of the
Wabash and the Maumee became the military boundary of the
United States in the northwest, and the country felt painful
doubt whether even that line could be defended."

For four years the unburied bones of the Fort Dearborn victims lay where the bodies had fallen. Then came peace, Christian interment of these pathetic human fragments, and a reorganization of the valuable fur trade of the region. The spot again became the centre of this industry. Trading posts were re-established on the Illinois River and the Kankakee with the Pottawatomies of the prairies; at Rock River with the Winnebagoes; at Milwaukee with the Menomonies, and at Le Large with the Kickapoos. Trains of pack horses carried the furs and peltries to Chicago, and in the spring vessels touching at that port bore these valuable cargoes to Mackinac, where the American Fur Company, organized by John Jacob Astor, had established its headquarters.

In 1821, Governor Lewis Cass of Michigan Territory and Solomon Sibley, with Henry R. Schoolcraft as their secretary, representing the United States, met three thousand Indian braves at Chicago. Topinebee and Meeta were spokesmen for the tribes. In consideration of five thousand dollars, to be paid annually for five years, the Pottawatomies and other tribes ceded to this Government 5,000,000 acres of land lying in Michigan and Illinois. The marvellous real estate transactions subsequently negotiated in Chicago, whereby citizens have multiplied their millions, have not eclipsed this profitable investment of the Federal Government in 1821.

Although some minds foresaw a possible future for Chicago in this centre of a rich domain owned by the Republic, there was no rush to the spot. In 1823, the officials of Fulton County, of which the village was then a part, levied a tax of five mills to the dollar upon property in the new port, with the result that there was carried back to the county treasury the sum of $11.42. Surely a small beginning to lead to taxes in 1900 amounting to $19,086,408.36. In 1823, when the sum of $11.42 was the aggregate of taxes collected from Chicago, the total assessed value of property was $2284. In 1900, the actual valuation of Chicago property was fairly $2,000,000,000.

No one, perhaps, of the few settlers who drifted to the place dreamed of such mighty possibilities, yet as early as 1831 the future of the city was a chosen topic of conversation among those enthusiastic pioneers. One of these, Dr. Elijah D. Harmon, true to his baptismal name, was singularly prophetic. He located in Chicago in 1831, acquired a section of land, built a sod fence about it, and there planted fruit trees of all descriptions. Mrs. Kinzie states that the south path to the settlement led by Dr. Harmon's nursery, and that as people passed he sought to impress upon them "the certain future importance of Chicago."

In 1830, lots were being sold at prices ranging from $10 to $50. In that year Thomas Hartzell purchased eighty acres (being the west half of the northeast quarter section) for $1.55 an acre. Low as these prices were, they were an advance upon valuations a few years before. In the archives of the Chicago Historical Society is a letter written to John Wentworth by Father St. Cyr, recounting how one Bonhomme sold the north half of Chicago to Pierre Ménard for $50, but that the latter, finding land cheaper near Peoria, and more fertile, repented of his bargain, and hurrying back unloaded what he believed to be a poor investment upon John Kinzie, who was not unwilling to take the property at the same figure at which Ménard had purchased it. By 1835, values had so increased that the investment had made Mr. Kinzie rich.

The belief which soon began to take possession of the minds of white men, that the little settlement was to be a city set in the midst of a new empire of civilization, had also aroused the celebrated Indian, Black Hawk. He was convinced that, unless the tribes could be federated into compact opposition to their conquering enemies, the hunting-grounds of his people would speedily be converted into the homes and cities of the paleface. Emulating the career of Tecumseh, Black Hawk in 1832 addressed a grand council, attended by representatives of fifty tribes. "Let all our tribes unite," said he, "and we shall have an army of warriors equal in numbers to the trees of the forest." The appeal was eloquent and moving, but Shawbonee, who had been with Tecumseh when that leader fell at the battle of the Thames, answered Black Hawk. "Your army," he cried, "would equal in number the trees of the forest, and you would encounter an army of palefaces as numerous as the leaves of those trees." The arguments of Shawbonee prevailed, the native attempt at coalition was defeated, and henceforward the activities of the white races in peopling the valley of the Mississippi and building to the northward, on the shore of Lake Michigan, its great metropolis, proceeded without any one to molest or make afraid. Thus Shawbonee (whose name is variously spelled), in successfully opposing the red men's far-reaching conspiracy, assisted materially in advancing the interests of Chicago. In token of this service, the Historical Society has given his portrait a place of honor, and has preserved the record of his deeds.

Late in July, 1833, three years after the canal surveyor, James Thompson, had surveyed and mapped out the town which was to be, a public meeting was held to decide whether incorporation should be effected. There were twelve votes in favor of incorporation, and one against, and the place made its start among historic towns. A few days later the following election notice was posted:

"Publick notice is hereby given that an election will be holden
at the house of Mark Beaubien, on Saturday, the 10th day of
August, at 11 o'clock in the forenoon of that day, for the
purpose of choosing five trustees of the Town of Chicago."

"CHICAGO, August 5, 1833.

"E.S. KIMBERLY, Town Clerk.

"N.B. The poll will close at one o'clock."

On the appointed day, twenty-eight electors, the full number of citizens entitled to suffrage in the new town, found their way to Mark Beaubien's house and availed themselves of the privilege of freemen. Thirteen of them announced their willingness to shoulder the responsibilities of office. The first business transacted by the trustees was the establishment of a free ferry across the river at Dearborn Street; the second, the reconstruction of the "estray pen" into a solid and sufficiently commodious log jail. These two programmes--the extension of commercial facilities and the stern suppression of lawlessness--have ever since been conspicuous in the city's history.

Then the town was born. Its development into a municipal Titan is one of the marvels of history. In 1830, P.F.W. Peck arrived on a schooner, bringing with him a small stock of goods. "He built," says Mr. Colbert, "a small log store near the fort, which made an important addition to the trade of Chicago." In the year 1900, just seventy years later, the amount of wholesale goods distributed from this centre throughout the country amounted to $741,000,000, the volume of drygoods alone being $143,000,000; groceries, $99,000,000; clothing, $35,000,000; shoes, $58,500,000; books and paper, $70,000,000, and other items in proportion; while the manufactured products sent forth aggregated in value $786,000,000, and the total business of the city reached the high figure of $1,963,000,000. The year that concluded the nineteenth century recorded transfers of real estate amounting in round numbers to $87,000,000, in striking contrast to that early transaction wherein Chicago's first investor repented him of paying $50 for the northern half of the city.

But the little town was not to achieve great things without a struggle. Fire, flood, panic, and pestilence had first to be faced and fought. The small band in the incorporated town started out determined to develop the settlement into a city, notwithstanding the dismal prophecies of certain learned men that a city would never rise on this unpropitious swamp. Professor William H. Keating, geologist and historiographer, had furnished the pioneer townsmen with the melancholy message:

"The dangers attending the navigation of the lake, and the
scarcity of harbors along the shore, must ever prove an
obstacle to the increase of the commercial importance of
Chicago. The extent of the sand banks which are formed on the
eastern and southern shore by the prevailing north and
northwesterly winds will likewise prevent any important works
from being undertaken to improve the port of Chicago."

In the light of this prediction it is interesting to note that in 1900 the vessels mooring or weighing anchor there numbered 17,553, and brought and carried away cargoes aggregating 14,236,190 tons. Nevertheless, for some years, because of the quagmire condition of streets and the frequent inundations from lake and river, Chicago was termed derisively the "amphibious town." By filling in the land, the city long since literally lifted itself out of the mud, the level of streets to-day being eight feet above the original marsh. But even before the transformation of the town into a city, it was plain that the founders had come to build it into a centre of trade and population. Encouraging progress was being made on the Illinois and Michigan Canal, the population of the town was increasing, neighboring prairies were being tilled, and the water carriers who drove their carts into the lake, filled their barrels, and then distributed water by the bucketful, were giving way to the Hydraulic Company. A new era was at hand, and Chicago on the 4th of March, 1837, became an organized municipality.

The first census, taken in July, 1837, showed a population in the city of 1800 men, 845 women, and 1344 children. With a colored population of 77, the grand total of inhabitants in this its first year's existence as a city was 4066. To-day its population is nearing the two-million mark.

O.D. Wetherell, ex-city Comptroller, recalls a letter, written at an early date by a citizen, in which the prediction was made that some day Chicago would become a city of 10,000 people! At the time, that prophecy seemed to be more wildly optimistic than would a prediction now that the city might ultimately harbor the amazing total of ten million persons.

The early promoters of Chicago were sanguine of a great future, but none dreamed of the amazing destiny in store. At a political gathering in 1838, addressed by Stephen A. Douglas and John T. Stuart, his competing candidate for Congress, a local orator, warmed by the enthusiasm of the occasion, uttered what was derisively referred to the next day as "flamboyant prophecy."

"The child is already born," he exclaimed, "who shall live to see Chicago a city of 50,000 souls."

"Town lots, town lots!" shouted the audience in amiable sarcasm, not wishing the visiting statesman to depart with the suspicion that dreams of real-estate speculation had destroyed the sanity of the whole community.

For three years the town had been the centre of a great land craze, one of the first real-estate booms that have played so important a part in the location and development of Western cities. Dr. Horace Chase, writing in 1883 from Milwaukee, says:

"Soon after the sale of lots in Chicago, in 1833, I think, Robert
Kinzie, on his way to Detroit, stopped at Marsh's trading post near
Coldwater. There happened to be several of us present and Bob began
to boast about Chicago and what a great city it would become. 'Why,'
said he, 'I bought some of the best lots in Chicago for twenty
dollars apiece, and those lots are worth sixty dollars apiece
to-day!' It seemed to us utterly absurd that a lot should be worth
sixty dollars, when two hundred dollars would buy one hundred and
sixty acres of the best quality. Not a single person in the crowd
believed Bob's yarn."

As an example of the spirit which animated these old pioneers who came in the early days to the great city that was to be, the story of one man furnishes an interesting illustration. The writer had it from the lips of the man himself, who recently died at the ripe age of eighty-two.

"I had heard of the West," he said, "in the little hamlet in
New England where I was born. My ambition was fired, and I
determined at all hazards to seek my fortune there. I soon
found myself in Buffalo with seven dollars in my pocket, and
with this I had to pay my transportation to the young city in
the West. After considerable 'higgling' with the captain of a
schooner I arranged for deck passage at a cost of three
dollars. Part of my money was then expended to get some cotton
cloth. This I sewed up in the shape of a bag, and into it I put
some shavings to soften the hard planks of the deck of the ship
at night. The balance of the money went for boiled ham, cheese,
and bread.

"I was twenty years old, had been a farm boy, and had attained
no special knowledge of any manual trade.

I arrived in Chicago and found it a dismal, swampy place, but
with every appearance of thrift and activity. My money was
exhausted, and work was indispensable. Going along the one
important street or road I found a man building a rather
pretentious boarding house. He asked me if I 'came off that
ship in the harbor,' and when I answered 'yes,' he inquired
whether there were any carpenters on board. I told him there
was none excepting myself. He wanted to know if I could 'lay
out work' so that his men could saw and hammer, which was all
they could do. It seemed to me that I could 'lay out work'
better than anything else, and engaged myself to him at four
dollars a day. Two days satisfied my new boss that my technical
knowledge was deficient, and he paid me off. I soon afterwards
found work in a harness shop, and by assiduity and attention I
acquired a knowledge of that business. Thus I got my start."

This man lived continuously in Chicago for more than sixty years. By early and judicious investments in real estate he acquired wealth. He bought a lot, now centrally located, for $400, and sold a part of it thirty years later for $62,500. He sold it too soon, however, for that same corner will bring at the present time not less than $500,000. At his death he left an estate valued at between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000.

Fortunes were made over night. In 1835 the Federal Government opened a land office, and this intensified the excitement. Boundless acres of outlying farmland changed hands in Chicago. Towns and cities that had no existence save on the blue prints of imaginative and wily promoters were plotted, and their mythical blocks sold to hasty and credulous investors. But the panic of 1837 brought both legitimate and illicit real-estate traffic to a close with a crash. The dishonest and the defrauded went down in a common ruin. By 1838 the sheriff was the only real-estate agent who could dispose of property, and at these forced sales the returns were meager. Panic paralyzing business, a mysterious disease like Asiatic cholera stopping progress on the canal, and a drought destroying crops, impoverishing streams, and spreading devastating fever in the city, was the calamitous record of 1838.

Chicago as a city began with $1993 in its treasury. The need for municipal improvement was imperative. Where to get money for sanitary drainage, for the paving of a few streets, and the purchase of two fire engines, was a problem. The Common Council appointed a finance committee with power to act.

Peter Bolles was made chairman. It was finally decided to borrow $25,000 from the State Bank of Illinois, pledging the city to redeem the obligation in five years. In due time the committee submitted as its report the following letter:

"STATE BANK OF ILLINOIS,

"SPRINGFIELD, May 31, 1837.

"PETER BOLLES, ESQ.,

"_Dear Sir_:

"Your letter of the 18th, addressed to the president of this
bank and proposing on behalf of the city of Chicago a loan
from this bank of the sum of $25,000, has been laid before the
directors of the bank, and, I regret to have to state,
declined.

"I am very respectfully,

"Your o'bt serv't,

"N.H. RIDGELY, Cashier."

In 1900 the city which sixty-three years before could not borrow $25,000, could boast of bank clearances amounting to $6,795,876,000.

The poverty and disasters of early days seemed only to nerve the city to renewed determination and prepare her to meet with stoic faith the appalling calamities of later years. In this résumé it is only possible to catalogue the misfortunes that visited her. Floods swept away her shipping, fire destroyed her accumulating industries, raging epidemics reduced her population--cholera alone in 1854 causing 1424 deaths--and financial panic again and again returned to manacle activities. Many times in Chicago's history citizens could well exclaim: "One woe upon another's heels doth tread, so fast they follow!"

Unconquerable in the presence of these recurrent visitations, the city pressed forward to her place as the metropolis of the Mississippi empire. At an early day "prairie schooners," pioneers of the great freight trains to come, laden with grain from the fertile areas round about began to line the prairie roads leading to Chicago. In 1839, two years after the city was begun, a crude grain elevator was constructed. The farmers, too poor to furnish sacks, brought their grain in sheets, blankets, and pieces of canvas. It was hoisted by hand with block and tackle to the elevator, and in the year mentioned 2900 bushels of wheat, consigned to Black Rock, New York, were dumped loose into the hold of the brig _Osceola_. From this primitive beginning has grown a mighty volume of trade in grain. In 1900 the wheat, corn, oats, rye, and barley shipped from Chicago amounted to 232,267,109 bushels, while the receipts aggregated 307,723,135 bushels.

It was not until 1843 that the Common Council came to the conclusion that the place was sufficiently advanced as a city to warrant the enactment of an ordinance declaring that hogs should no longer be permitted to run at large in the streets. In 1900, far from being unwelcome, over 8,000,000 hogs, safely penned in cars, arrived in the city and were sent to the slaughter.

In writing of Chicago it is customary to deal in superlatives, and this is necessary in the nature of things. Its Union Stock Yards cover 400 acres, nearly twice the area of the original town. Twenty miles of streets thread this meat-packing colony, which pays wages amounting to nearly $9,000,000 a year. In 1900 there were shipped to Chicago 277,205 carloads of hogs, cattle, sheep, etc. Its trade in grain leads every city in the world, while its general mercantile traffic is surpassed by few.

The first railroad at that time was the Galena and Chicago Union, which was chartered January 16, 1836. Galena at that time was believed to be destined far to outrival her neighbor, and therefore demanded and secured the place of honor in the title of the road. To-day thirty-nine distinct railroads enter Chicago, more than half the railway systems of America make that city their objective point, and the aggregate distance travelled by freight and passenger trains daily entering the metropolis is over 80,000 miles. In the thunder of this traffic the clamor of rivalry long since died away. The British critic, Mr. Archer, remarked that he was unable to detect the slightest evidence of competition with Chicago even in a "Pisgah view from the top of the Auditorium."