Chapter IV: Illinois During Its Territorial Period. 1809 to 1818

I. The Land and Indian Questions.

Probably nothing affected settlement in Illinois from 1809 to 1818 more profoundly than did changes in the land question, for during this period Congress passed important acts relative to land sales, and this was also the period of the first sales of public lands in the territory. It seems strange that such sales should have been so long delayed, yet the settlement of French claims, although begun by the Governor of the Northwest Territory at an early day, and continued by commissioners authorized by Congress and appointed in 1804, was incomplete when Illinois became a separate territory, and the United States government adhered to its policy of selling no land in the territory until the claims were finally adjudicated. When a list of decisions reported by the commissioners to Congress late in 1809 was confirmed in the following May,(225) and the next year a long list of rejected claims arising chiefly from the work of professional falsifiers, was reported,(226) it seemed probable that the work was nearing completion, but a final settlement was still delayed, and the long-suffering Illinois squatters were bitterly disappointed when, in February, 1812, in accordance with a resolution presented by the Committee on Public Lands, Congress made provision for the appointment of a committee to revise the confirmations made by the Governor years before.(227) The first legislature of Illinois met in the succeeding November, and adopted a memorial to Congress in which it was pointed out that the establishment of a land-office in the territory, several years before, had led to the opinion that the public land would soon be sold, and that because of this opinion those who constituted the majority of the inhabitants of the territory had been induced to settle, hoping that they would have an opportunity to purchase land before they should have made such improvements as would tempt the competition of avaricious speculators. The fulfillment of this hope having been long deferred, many squatters had now made valuable improvements which they were in danger of losing, either at the public sales of land or through the designs of the few speculators who had bought from the needy and unbusinesslike French most of the unlocated claims. For the relief of the squatters a law was desired that would permit actual settlers to enter the land on which their improvements stood, and requiring persons holding unlocated claims to locate them on unimproved lands lying in the region designated by Congress for that purpose. It was also hoped that as Congress had given one hundred acres of land to each regular soldier, as much would be granted to each member of the Illinois militia, since the militiaman had not only fought as bravely as the regular, but had also furnished his own supplies. If such a donation was not made it was hoped that a right of preëmption would be given to the militia, or failing even this, that they might be given the right, legally, to collect from anyone entering their land, the value of their improvements.(228) In proof of the fact stated in the memorial, that speculators had bought many French claims, it may be noted that William Morrison had ninety-two of the claims granted at Kaskaskia, his affirmed claims comprising more than eighteen thousand acres, exclusive of a large number of claims measured in French units, while John Edgar received a satisfactory report on claims aggregating more than forty thousand acres, in addition to a number of claims previously affirmed to him.(229)

A few days after preparing the above memorial, the legislature prepared an address to Congress, in which reference was made to the arrangement made between Congress and Ohio by the Act of April 30, 1802, granting to Ohio two salt springs on condition that the state should agree not to tax such public lands as should be sold within her borders, until after five years from the date of sale. Illinois wished in similar fashion to gain control of the salt springs on Saline creek. The Illinois delegate in Congress was instructed that if the bargain could not be made, he should attempt to secure an appropriation for opening a road from Shawneetown to the Saline and thence to Kaskaskia. It was also desired that the Secretary of the Treasury should authorize the designation of the college township reserved by the Ordinance of 1787 and by the Act of 1804, and because “labor in this Territory is abundant, and laborers at this time extremely scarce,” it was hoped that slaves from Kentucky or elsewhere might be employed at the salines for a period of not more than three years, after which they should return to their masters.(230) Each prayer of this address was granted. The enabling act and the Illinois constitution ceded the salt springs to the state and agreed that public lands sold in Illinois should be exempt from taxation for five years from date of sale; the Illinois Constitution provided for the employment of slaves at the salt works; an act provided for the location of the college township; and in 1816 the making of the desired road was authorized, although at the beginning of 1818 the route had been merely surveyed and mapped.(231)

The memorial which preceded the address was also in large measure successful. An act of February, 1813, granted to the squatters in Illinois the right of preëmpting a quarter section, each, of the lands they occupied, and of entering the land upon the payment of one-twentieth of the purchase money, as was then required in private sales.(232) This act was of prime importance. For more than thirty years settlers in Illinois had improved their lands at the risk of losing them. Since the appointment, in 1804, of commissioners to settle the French land claims, the settlers had been expecting the public lands, including those they occupied, to be offered for sale; thus it was inevitable that anxiety concerning the right of preëmption should increase as the settlement of claims neared completion, and contemporaries record that the inability to secure land titles seriously retarded settlement;(233) now, however, the granting of the right of preëmption, before any public lands in Illinois were offered for sale, ended the long suspense of the settlers. Years before this, Kentucky, now selling its public lands at twenty cents per acre, had passed liberal preëmption laws, and they were repeatedly renewed,(234) facts which increased the anxiety of Illinois.

Year after year the settlement of land claims dragged on, thus delaying the sales of land.(235) In an official report of December, 1813, it is stated that: “In the Territory of Illinois, two land-offices are directed by law to be opened; one at Kaskaskia, the other at Shawneetown, so soon as the private claims and donations are all located, and the lands surveyed, which are in great forwardness.”(236) A tract of land was set apart in April, 1814, to satisfy the claims recommended by the commissioners for confirmation.(237) A report of November, 1815, said that the commissioners hoped to open the land-office at Kaskaskia on May 15, 1816; and finally, in a report on the public lands sold from October 1, 1815, to September 30, 1816, we find that about thirty-four thousand acres have been sold at Shawneetown and somewhat less than thirteen thousand acres at Kaskaskia, the price at the latter place being precisely the two dollars per acre which was then the minimum, while that at Shawneetown was slightly higher,(238) presumably due to the sale of town lots, which had been authorized in 1810, although no sales took place earlier than 1814.(239)

The long delay in opening the land-offices in Illinois was fatal to an early settlement of the region, because the old states had public lands which they offered for sale at low rates, thus depriving Illinois of a fair chance as a competitor. In 1779 Kentucky granted to each family which had settled before January 1, 1778, the right of preëmption—four hundred acres if no improvement had been made and one thousand acres if a hut had been built. The preëmptor, by a law of 1786, was to pay 13_s_. 4_d._ per one hundred acres.(240) In 1781 the sheriffs of Lincoln, Fayette, and Jefferson counties, Virginia, were authorized to survey not more than four hundred acres for each poor family in Kentucky, for which twenty shillings per one hundred acres should be paid within two and one-half years.(241) In 1791 more than three and one-half millions of acres were sold in New York at eight pence per acre, while many thousands of acres in addition were sold for less than four shillings per acre—many for less than two shillings.(242) Pennsylvania offered homestead claims, in 1792, at seven pounds ten shillings per hundred acres.(243)

In December, 1796, Kentucky sheriffs were ordered to sell no more land for taxes until directed by the legislature to do so.(244) In 1800, and again in 1812, Kentucky offered land at twenty cents per acre, and in 1820 at fifteen cents per acre,(245) while during the interval preëmption acts were repeatedly passed.(246) Land in Tennessee sold at from twelve and one-half to twenty-five cents per acre in 1814, and in 1819 at fifty cents.(247)

In 1816 various classes of claimants were given increased facilities and an extension of time for locating their claims in Illinois. The business of satisfying claims was to linger for years, but with the opening of the land-offices it ceased to be a potent factor in retarding settlement.(248)

One writer says of Illinois: “The public lands have rarely sold for more than five dollars per acre, _at auction_. Those sold at Edwardsville in October, 1816, averaged four dollars. Private sales at the land-office are fixed by law, at two dollars per acre. The old French locations command various prices, from one to fifty dollars. Titles derived from the United States government are always valid, and those from individuals rarely false.”(249) At this time emigrants were going in large numbers to Missouri, and the Illinois river country, not yet relieved of its Indian title, was being explored.(250)

Reports concerning the sales of public lands give the quantity of land sold in Illinois toward the close of the territorial period, the figures for 1817 and 1818 being as follows:

Acres in Acres in Jan. 1, Sept. 30,
1817. 1818. 1818. 1818.
Shawneetown 72,384 216,315 $291,429 $637,468
Kaskaskia 90,493 121,052 209,295 406,288
Edwardsville(251) 149,165 121,923 301,701 451,499(252)
312,042 459,290 $802,425 $1,495,255

The percentage of debt showed a marked increase in the first nine months of 1818. There were received in three-quarters of 1817 and 1818, respectively:

1817. 1818. At Shawneetown $32,837 $112,759 At Kaskaskia 41,218 68,975 At Edwardsville 41,426 78,788

During this same period the receipts at Steubenville, Marietta, and Wooster, Ohio, decreased,(253) showing that Illinois was beginning to surpass Ohio as an objective point for emigrants wishing to enter land.

The Indian question was interwoven with the land question during the territorial period. In 1809 the Indians relinquished their claim to some small tracts of land lying near the point where the Wabash ceases to be a state boundary line.(254) No more cessions were made until after the war of 1812. Although the population of Illinois increased, during the territorial period, from some eleven thousand to about forty thousand, the increase before the war was slight, and thus it came about that during the war the few whites were kept busy defending themselves from the large and hostile Indian population. So well does the manner of defence in Illinois illustrate the frontier character of the region that a sketch of the same may be given. When, in 1811, the Indians became hostile and murdered a few whites, the condition of the settlers was precarious in the extreme. Today the term city would be almost a favor to a place containing no more inhabitants than were then to be found in the white settlements in Illinois. Moreover, few as were the whites, they were dispersed in a long half-oval extending from a point on the Mississippi near the present Alton southward to the Ohio, and thence up that river and the Wabash to a point considerably north of Vincennes. This fringe of settlement was but a few miles wide in some places, while so sparse was the population near the mouth of the Ohio that the communication between northern and southern Indians was unchecked. Carlyle was regarded as the extreme eastern boundary of settlements to the westward; a fort on Muddy River, near where the old Fort Massac trace crossed the stream, was considered as one of the most exposed situations; and Fort La Motte, on a creek of the same name above Vincennes, was a far northern point. The exposed outside was some hundreds of miles long, and the interior and north were occupied by ten times as many hostile savages as there were whites in the country, the savages being given counsel and ammunition by the British garrisons on the north.(255) Under conditions then existing, aid from the United States could be expected only in the event of dire necessity. Stout frontiersmen were almost ready to seek refuge in flight, but no general exodus took place, although in February, 1812, Governor Edwards wrote to the Secretary of War: “The alarms and apprehensions of the people are becoming so universal, that really I should not be surprised if we should, in three months, lose more than one-half of our present population. In places, in my opinion, entirely out of danger, many are removing. In other parts, large settlements are about to be totally deserted. Even in my own neighborhood, several families have removed, and others are preparing to do so in a week or two. A few days past, a gentleman of respectability arrived here from Kentucky, and he informed me that he saw on the road, in one day, upwards of twenty wagons conveying families out of this Territory. Every effort to check the prevalence of such terror seems to be ineffectual, and although much of it is unreasonably indulged, yet it is very certain the Territory will very shortly be in considerable danger. Its physical force is very inconsiderable, and is growing weaker, while it presents numerous points of attack.”(256)

To the first feeling of fear succeeded a determination to hold the ground. Before the middle of 1812, Governor Edwards had established Fort Russell, a few miles northwest of the present Edwardsville, bringing to this place, which was to be his headquarters, the cannon which Louis XIV. had had placed in Fort Chartres;(257) and two volunteer companies had been raised, and had “ranged to a great distance—principally between the Illinois and the Kaskaskia rivers, and sometimes between the Kaskaskia and the Wabash—always keeping their line of march never less than one and sometimes three days’ journey outside of all the settlements”(258)—which incidentally shows what great unoccupied regions still existed even in the southern part of Illinois. As the rangers furnished their own supplies, the two companies went out alternately for periods of fifteen days. Sometimes the company on duty divided, one part marching in one direction and the other in the opposite, in order to produce the greatest possible effect upon the Indians. Settlers on the frontier—and that comprised a large proportion of the population—“forted themselves,” as it was then expressed. Where a few families lived near each other, one of the most substantial houses was fortified, and here the community staid at night, and in case of imminent danger in the daytime as well. Isolated outlying families left their homes and retired to the nearest fort. Such places of refuge were numerous and many were the attacks which they successfully withstood.

Rangers and frontier forts were used with much effect, but the great dispersion of settlement and the large numbers of Indians combined to make it wholly impossible to make such means of defence entirely adequate. In August, 1812, the Governor wrote to the Secretary of War: “The principal settlements of this Territory being on the Mississippi, are at least one hundred and fifty miles from those of Indiana, and immense prairies intervene between them. There can, therefore, be no concert of operations for the protection of their frontiers and ours.... No troops of any kind have yet arrived in this Territory, and I think you may count on hearing of a bloody stroke upon us very soon. I have been extremely reluctant to send my family away, but, unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a few rangers, I shall bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and stand my ground as long as possible.”(259) The “bloody stroke” predicted by the Governor fell on the garrison at Fort Dearborn, where Chicago now stands. Some regular troops were subsequently sent to the territory, but the war did not lose its frontier character. One of the most characteristic features was that troops sometimes set out on a campaign of considerable length, in an uninhabited region, without any baggage train and practically without pack horses, the men carrying their provisions on their horses, and the horses living on wild grass.(260) Unflagging energy was shown by the settlers, several effective campaigns being carried on, and by the close of 1814 the war was closed in Illinois.(261)

Extinction of Indian titles to land was retarded by the war and also by the policy of the United States, which was expressed by Secretary of War Crawford, in 1816, as follows: “The determination to purchase land only when demanded for settlement will form the settled policy of the Government. Experience has sufficiently proven that our population will spread over any cession, however extensive, before it can be brought into market, and before there is any regular and steady demand for settlement, thereby increasing the difficulty of protection, embarrassing the Government by broils with the natives, and rendering the execution of the laws regulating intercourse with the Indian tribes utterly impracticable.”(262) Some progress, however, was made in extinguishing Indian titles during the territorial period after the close of the war. In 1816, several tribes confirmed the cession of 1804 of land lying south of an east and west line passing through the southern point of Lake Michigan, and ceded a route for an Illinois-Michigan canal.(263) At Edwardsville, on September 25, 1818, the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Michigamia, Cahokia, and Tamarois ceded a tract comprising most of southern and much of central Illinois.(264) The significance of this cession would have been immense had it not been that it was made by weak tribes, while the powerful Kickapoo still claimed and held all that part of the ceded tract lying north of the parallel of 39°—a little to the north of the mouth of the Illinois river. This Kickapoo claim included the fertile and already famous Sangamon country, in which the state capital was eventually to be located, and squatters were pressing hard upon the Indian frontier, yet the Indians still held the land when Illinois became a state.

During the territorial period, Illinois gained the long-sought right of preëmption; the French claims ceased to retard settlement; some progress was made in the extinction of Indian titles, and the sale of public land was begun. The new state was to find the Indian question a pressing one, and some changes in the land system were yet desired, but the crucial point was passed.

II. Territorial Government of Illinois. 1809 to 1818.

The act for the division of Indiana Territory provided that Illinois, during the first stage of its territorial existence, should have a government similar to that of the Northwest Territory under the Ordinance of 1787. In 1809 there were in Illinois two distinct and hostile parties, which had been formed on questions arising in Indiana Territory before division. It was with sound judgment, therefore, that the President, going outside of Illinois, appointed as Governor, Ninian Edwards of Kentucky, a native of Maryland, who successfully resisted all efforts to involve him in party quarrels.(265)

Laws for the government of the territory were to be chosen by the Governor and the judges from the laws of the states. The judges were Jesse B. Thomas and William Sprigg, natives of Maryland, and Alexander Stuart, a native of Virginia. It is worthy of note that of the twelve laws chosen before the meeting of the first territorial legislature, five were from Kentucky, three from Georgia, two from Virginia, one from South Carolina, and one from Pennsylvania.(266) A people practically southern in origin was being governed by officials from the south under southern laws.

Illinois entered the second grade of territorial government in 1812, electing its first legislature in October.(267) In the preceding May, Congress had passed an act making radical and most important extensions in the suffrage in Illinois, over that which had been prescribed by the Ordinance of 1787. The new provision was: “Every free white male person who shall have attained the age of twenty-one years, and who shall have paid a county or territorial tax, and who shall have resided one year in said Territory previous to any general election, and be at the time of any such election a resident thereof, shall be entitled to vote for members of the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the said Territory.” Each county was to elect one member of the Legislative Council, to serve for four years. The territorial delegate to Congress was also made elective by the citizens.(268) One has but to consider what a complete revolution this act brought about to appreciate its great significance. Previously the Legislative Council had been appointive by the President of the United States, from nominees of the territorial House of Representatives, the nominees being twice the number necessary; the delegate to Congress had not been chosen by popular vote; and a freehold qualification for the elective franchise had obtained. Early petitions show how much the people complained of a landed aristocracy,(269) and letters written by Governor Edwards early in 1812 show how well founded was the complaint. No preëmption act had yet been passed, and of the more than twelve thousand inhabitants of Illinois some two hundred and twenty possessed a freehold of fifty acres, thus giving the balance of power, if the territory should enter the second grade under the old provision, to one hundred and eleven persons. Nearly one-third of the entire population lived either near the Ohio or between it and the Kaskaskia, and among them there were not more than three or four freeholders, and not one who possessed two hundred acres—the necessary qualification for a representative. With no public lands yet offered for sale, with no right of preëmption, with a freehold qualification for the suffrage, this law enfranchising squatters was of prime importance.(270)

The first legislature had few French members, and was apparently southern in nativity.(271) After more than three years and a half of legislation by the Governor and judges, the inhabitants at last had an elective legislature. The journals of the two houses indicate that the belief that had been expressed in petitions to Congress some years before that such a body would provide an efficient government, was well founded. The laws passed were eminently practical for the frontier conditions under which they were to operate.(272) A man contemplating settlement in Illinois could now be sure that he would be governed by Illinois men whom he had a share in electing.

The rude character of the facilities for transportation is indicated by the fact that the earlier laws of the territory deal with ferries only rarely and with bridges not at all, while as time progresses and population increases, ferries multiply and bridges begin to be constructed. By 1817-18 the desire for banks and for internal improvements, which was to be disastrous to the state at a later period, began to show itself. As examples, the Bank of Cairo and the Illinois Navigation Company will suffice. Nine men purchased the low peninsula lying near the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and were incorporated by “An Act to Incorporate the City and Bank of Cairo.” A site for a city comprising at least two thousand lots, with streets eighty feet wide, was to be laid out. The lots were to be sold at one hundred and fifty dollars each and were to be not less than one hundred and twenty by sixty-six feet in size. Of the purchase money, two-thirds should go into the stock of the Bank of Cairo, and one-third to a fund to build dykes to keep the city from being flooded.(273) Considering the time and the location, the scheme was utterly impracticable. “An Act to Incorporate the Stockholders of the Illinois Navigation Company” authorized the formation of a company with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, for the purpose of cutting a canal through the peninsula between the Ohio and the Mississippi. Within twelve years a canal sufficiently large for the passage of a vessel of twenty tons burden should be completed. The company was given the right of eminent domain.(274) Here again the character of the project was unsuited to existing conditions. Population was increasing rapidly at the time these laws were passed, but they required for their success an increase much more rapid. They were, however, pleasing to the settlers and the prospective settlers of the day.

On January 16, 1818, Mr. Pope, of Illinois, was appointed chairman of a select committee to consider a petition from the Illinois legislature praying for a state government. One week later the committee reported a bill to enable Illinois to form such a government, and to admit the state into the union. When the enabling act came up for discussion, Mr. Pope offered the amendment which changed the northern boundary of Illinois from a line due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, as provided by the Ordinance of 1787, to a line running from that lake to the Mississippi on the parallel of 42° 30’. “The object of this amendment, Mr. Pope said, was to gain, for the proposed state, a coast on Lake Michigan. This would offer additional security to the perpetuity of the union, inasmuch as the state would thereby be connected with the states of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, through the lakes. The facility of opening a canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, said Mr. Pope, is acknowledged by every one who has visited the place. Giving to the proposed state the port of Chicago (embraced in the proposed limits), will draw its attention to the opening of the communication between the Illinois River and that place, and the improvement of that harbor. It was believed, he said, upon good authority, that the line of separation between Indiana and Illinois would strike Lake Michigan south of Chicago, and not pass west of it, as had been supposed by some geographers....” Although an avowed violation of the Ordinance of 1787, the amendment was adopted without division or recorded debate. Mr. Pope also secured an amendment to the effect that the state’s proportion of the proceeds of the sales of public lands, instead of being applied to the making of roads and canals in the state, should be used in making roads leading to the state, and for the encouragement of learning, two-fifths being applied to the former purpose. Pope pointed out that people would build roads as they needed them, much more readily than they would supply schools, and that waste school lands in a new country would produce slight revenue. Subsequent history of the state justified both statements. The enabling act met with little opposition and was signed by President Monroe on April 18, 1818.(275)

One of the provisions of the enabling act was that, in order to become a state, Illinois must have as many as forty thousand inhabitants. In anticipation of such a provision, the territorial legislature had passed a law in January, 1818, providing that a census of the territory should be taken between April 1 and June 1. A supplemental act provided that as a great increase in population might be expected between June 1 and December, census takers should continue to take the census in their districts of all who should remove into them between June 1 and December 1. The law as framed gave an opportunity to count not only immigrants, but to re-count all who moved from one county to another (such moving being common), and to count in each successive county persons passing through the state. There is no reasonable doubt that at the time the census was taken, the territory had fewer than forty thousand inhabitants. Dana gives a census of 1818, in which the number is given as thirty-four thousand six hundred and sixty-six, and adds: “Another enumeration having been taken a few months after, the amount of population returned was forty thousand one hundred and fifty-six, which exceeded the number entitling the territory to become a state.”(276)

In August, 1818, the Constitution of Illinois was completed. Its provisions most likely to influence settlement were those concerning the elective franchise and slavery. It provided that “In all elections, all white male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the state six months next preceding the election, shall enjoy the right of an elector; but no person shall be entitled to vote except in the county or district in which he shall actually reside at the time of the election.” Slaves could not hereafter be brought into the state, but existing slavery was not abolished, and existing indentures—and some were for ninety-nine years—should be carried out, although future indentures should not run for a longer term than one year. Male children of slaves or indentured servants should be free at the age of twenty-one, and females at eighteen. Slaves from other states could be employed only at the Saline Creek salt works, and there only until 1825.(277)

During the congressional debate on the acceptance of the Illinois Constitution, objection to admitting the state was made on the ground that the number of inhabitants was doubtful, and that slavery was not distinctly prohibited, Tallmadge, of New York, who later wished to restrict slavery in Missouri, being the chief objector. The state was admitted, however, and on December 4, 1818, the representatives and senators from Illinois took their seats in Congress.(278)

Between 1809 and 1818, Illinois passed from a non-representative territorial government to a liberal state government. The energy of the settlers had done much to hasten the change, and the change, in turn, did much to hasten settlement.

IV. Transportation and Settlement, 1809 to 1818.

At the close of the War of 1812, an unparalleled emigration to the frontiers of the United States began. Contemporary accounts speak of its great volume. “Through New York and down the Alleghany River is now the track of many emigrants from the east to the west. Two hundred and sixty waggons have passed a certain house on this route in nine days, besides many persons on horseback and on foot. The editor of the Gennessee Farmer observes, that he himself met on the road to Hamilton a cavalcade of upwards of twenty waggons, containing one company of one hundred and sixteen persons, on their way to _Indiana_, and all from one town in the district of Maine. So great is the emigration to _Illinois_ and _Missouri_ also, that it is apprehended that many must suffer for want of provisions the ensuing winter.”(279) “Nothing more strongly proves the superiority of the western territory than the vast emigration to it from the eastern and southern states; during the eighteen months previous to April, 1816, fifteen thousand waggons passed over the bridge at Cayuga, containing emigrants to the western country.”(280) “Old America seems to be breaking up, and moving westward.... The number of emigrants who passed this way [St. Clairsville, Ohio], was greater last year than in any preceding; and the present spring they are still more numerous than the last. Fourteen waggons yesterday, and thirteen today, have gone through this town. Myriads take their course down the Ohio. The waggons swarm with children. I heard today of three together, which contain forty-two of these young citizens.”(281) From Hamilton, New York: “It is estimated, that there are now in this village and its vicinity, three hundred families, besides single travellers, amounting in all to fifteen hundred souls, waiting for a rise of water to embark for ‘the promised land.’ ”(282) “The numerous companies of emigrants that flock to this country, might appear, to those who have not witnessed them, almost incredible. But there is scarce a day, except when the river is impeded with ice, but what there is a greater or less number of boats to be seen floating down its gentle current, to some place of destination. No less than five hundred families stopped at Cincinnati at one time, and many of them having come a great distance, and being of the poorer class of people, before they could provide for themselves, were in a suffering condition; but to the honor of the citizens of Cincinnati, they raised a donation and relieved their distress.”(283) Of the remote districts, Missouri and Michigan were receiving crowds of immigrants.(284)

The changes in government and in the land question in Illinois were typical of changes in other frontier regions, but although worthy of note as helping to make a more attractive place for settlement, they are by no means sufficient to account for the great migration to the westward. Why that migration took place and how it was accomplished are interesting and important questions.

Emigration from New England resulted largely from financial and industrial disorganization caused by the close of the war, and a year of such continued cold weather as to produce a famine. This movement was interesting, dramatic, and large in volume, but its influence upon Illinois was slight, because the tide was stayed to the eastward of that state.(285) Migration from the South was also large, and it was from this source that most of the immigrants to Illinois came. In 1816 there was a severe drought in eastern North Carolina, and many planters cut their immature corn for their cattle, while great numbers sold their property and joined the emigrants.(286) Kentucky, still a favorite place for settlement, was in the midst of a land boom which reached such proportions as to cause a large volume of emigration to Illinois, Missouri, and the southwest. The buyer of Kentucky land was often a neighbor who wished to enlarge his farm and work on a larger scale, or some well-to-do immigrant who preferred the location to a more remote region. Land sold on credit and at fictitious prices, the seller in turn buying land for which he frequently could make only the first payment. Retribution did not come, however, until after 1820, and for some years it seemed as if Kentucky was to become a source of population, for it was to Illinois and Missouri, and to a lesser degree to Alabama, what New England was to Ohio.(287) Probably chief among the reasons for migration from the South was the increase of slavery, with the resulting changes in industrial and social conditions. Early in the century the growing importance of the cotton crop began to hasten a stratification of opinion which was determined by physiographic areas. The western parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the northern part of Georgia, and the eastern parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, respectively, being hilly and less fertile than the coastal plain, became the center of the southern anti-slavery sentiment. On the plain settled the wealthy planters, and later the poorer Germans and Quakers settled in the uplands. Only when cotton-raising became very profitable was slavery to intrude upon the latter location.(288)

During the war the production of cotton in the United States had been almost constant in amount and less than in preceding years, but 1815 saw an increase of over forty-two per cent and 1816 an increase of twenty-four per cent,(289) while in the latter year South Carolina, after an interval of thirteen years, resumed its slavery legislation by passing the first of a series of acts which show that the slavery problem was becoming increasingly difficult. Similar legislation took place in Tennessee, and to a lesser degree in Kentucky.(290) Increased production of cotton was accompanied by an increase in price, middling upland cotton selling at New York at 15 cents per pound in 1814, at 21 cents in 1815, at 29-½ cents in 1816, at 26-½ cents in 1817, and at 34 cents in 1818, while South Carolina sea-island cotton sold at Charleston in 1816 at 55 cents a pound.(291) An increase in cotton production meant an increase of the plantation system with its slaves, this meant an increased demand for large farms, and also a strengthening of the antagonism between pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties. Even in 1812, a man who wished to sell, lease, or rent his manufacturing establishment in the northwestern part of Virginia, Frederick county, lamented in his advertisement that “some good men of strict moral or religious principles should object against forming settled abodes in Virginia” or other slave states.(292) Census reports show that the proportion of negroes to whites increased in the western counties of North Carolina during the decade 1810 to 1820 over the proportion in 1800 to 1810. Conditions above described naturally led to the emigration of at least four classes of people: those who were anti-slavery, those who did not wish to change from small farming to the plantation system, the poor whites who found themselves increasingly disgraced and who at the same time found that their land was in demand, the slave-holder who wished a large tract of virgin soil. It is very important to note that these forces were merely beginning to operate in the time from 1814 to 1818, and that they did not reach their maximum of influence until after 1830, yet as the population of Illinois increased less than twenty-eight thousand from 1810 to 1818, it is altogether probable that a considerable proportion were influenced by the causes suggested. It is also true that some pioneers moved merely from habit, without any well-defined cause.

Although it is true that the first steamboat that passed down the Ohio and Mississippi made its trip in the winter of 1811-12, and by 1816 an enterprising captain had made a successful experiment of running a steamboat with coal for fuel, also that the speed of steamboats in eastern waters was a matter for enthusiastic comment, yet it is also true that immigrants to Illinois did not usually arrive by steamer.(293) The development of steamboat navigation in western waters was slow, the first steamboat reaching St. Louis on August 2, 1817.(294) Peter Cartwright wrote of his trip from the West to the General Conference in Baltimore, in 1816: “We had no steamboats, railroad cars, or comfortable stages in those days. We had to travel from the extreme West on horseback. It generally took us near a month to go; a month was spent at General Conference, and nearly a month in returning to our fields of labor.”(295)

Some instances of the manner and cost of emigration may be given. A man with his wife and brother having arrived at Philadelphia from England, _en route_ to Birkbeck’s settlement(296) in Illinois, the party was directed to Pittsburg, which they reached after a wearisome journey of over three hundred miles across the mountains. At Pittsburg they bought a little boat for six or seven dollars, and came down the Ohio to Shawneetown, whence they proceeded on foot.(297) In the summer of 1818, a party of eighty-eight came over the same route in much the same manner, using flat-boats on the river.(298) In 1817, John Mason Peck, with his wife and three children, went from Litchfield, Connecticut, to Shawneetown, Illinois, in a one-horse wagon. The journey was begun on July 25 and Shawneetown was reached on the sixth of November. “Nearly one month was occupied in passing from Philadelphia through the State of Pennsylvania over the Alleghany Mountains, till on the 10th of September he passed into Ohio. Three weeks he journeyed in that State, and on the 23d of October recrossed the Ohio River into the State of Kentucky ..., and on the 6th of November again crossed the Ohio River, into the then Territory of Illinois, at Shawneetown.”(299) Here the family was delayed by floods which rendered the roads impassable. Leaving the horse and wagon at Shawneetown to be brought on by a friend, they proceeded to St. Louis in a keel-boat, paying twenty-five dollars fare, and arrived at their destination on the first of December.(300)

Shawneetown was a sort of center from which emigrants radiated to their destinations. It owed much to its location, being on the main route from the southern states to St. Louis and what was then called the Missouri, and being also the port for the salt works on Saline Creek. It was the seat of a land-office. The town thus had a business which was out of all proportion to the number of its permanent inhabitants. In 1817 it consisted of but about thirty log houses, a log bank, and a land-office. When a certain traveler came to the place from the South, in 1818, he found the number of wagons, horses, and passengers waiting to cross the Ohio, on the ferry, so great that he had to wait “a great part of the morning” for his turn.(301)

During the latter part of the territorial period freight charges from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, by land, were from seven to ten dollars per hundredweight;(302) from Pittsburg to Shawneetown, one dollar; from Louisville to Shawneetown, thirty-seven cents; and from New Orleans to Shawneetown, four dollars and a half.(303) The use of arks was common. These were flat-bottomed boats of a tonnage of from twenty-five to thirty tons, covered, square at the ends, of a uniform size of fifty feet in length and fourteen in breadth, usually sold for seventy-five dollars, and would carry three or four families. A common practice was to re-sell them at a somewhat reduced price to someone going further down the river. Two dollars was the charge for piloting an ark over the falls of the Ohio.(304)

There is much truth in the remarks made by a German traveler in 1818-19. He said: “The State of Illinois is from one thousand to twelve hundred miles distant from the sea ports. The journey thither is often as costly and tedious, for a man with a family, as the sea passage. Any father of a family, unless he is well-to-do, can certainly count on being impoverished upon his arrival in Illinois. At Williamsport, on the Susquehanna, I found a Swiss, who, with his wife and ten children, had spent one thousand French crown-dollars for their journey. In the village of Williamsport, an old German schoolmaster, who seems to have been formerly a merchant in Nassau, told me that the passage of himself and family had cost thirteen hundred dollars. For an adult the fare is seventy-five dollars—one dollar is equal to one thaler, ten groschen, Prussian—for children under twelve years, half so much, for children of two years, one-fourth so much, and only babes in arms go free.”(305)

It can now be understood why people emigrated to the West, and also why many went overland. A family too poor to go by water could go in a buggy or wagon, and if poorer still they might walk, as many actually did. The immigration to Illinois, which was but a small fraction of the great westward movement, was still largely southern in origin, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and even New York still staying, in large measure, the tide from New England. In New England it was the “Ohio fever” and not the Illinois fever which carried away the people, and the designation is geographically correct. The men prominent in Illinois politics at the close of the territorial period, and at the beginning of the state period, were natives of southern states, a fact hardly conceivable if New England had been largely represented in Illinois. Then, too, the natural routes from the South led to, or near to, Illinois, the great road from the South crossing the Ohio River at Shawneetown, and the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers being natural water routes. Another fact to be noticed is that much of the emigration was of relatives and friends to join those who had gone before, and as Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and even Georgia, had furnished a large number of early settlers to Illinois, this was a powerful inducement to continued emigration from the same sources. Similarly Ohio and Michigan had early received settlers from the East.

Immigration to Illinois was not large in comparison to that to neighboring states or territories. Indians still held the greater part of Illinois, and the inconveniences incident to frontier life were more pronounced as the distance from the East increased. Pro-slavery men, and anti-slavery men as well, were still in doubt as to the ultimate fate of slavery in Illinois. This had a deterrent effect upon immigration.

IV. Life of the Settlers.

According to the marshal’s return the manufactures in Illinois, in 1810, were as follows:

Spinning-wheels, $630 Looms, 460; cloth produced, 90,039 yards, $54,028 Tanneries, 9; leather dressed, $7,750 Distilleries, 10,200 gallons, $7,500 Flour, 6,440 barrels, $32,200 Maple sugar, 15,600 lbs., $1,980(306)—$104,088

This list incidentally indicates the average price of several manufactured articles. For the first six months of 1814, the internal revenue assessed in Illinois was:

Licenses for stills and boilers, $490.14 Carriages, $62.00 Licenses to retailers, $835.00 Stamps, $5.60—$1392.74

Of this amount ($1392.74), $1047.37 had been paid by October 10, 1814.(307) For the period from April 18, 1815, to February 22, 1816, the following were the internal duties:

Hats, caps, and bonnets, $ 66.50-½ Saddles and bridles, $65.25 Boots and bootees, $7.26 Leather, $184.35-½—$323.37

This was the smallest sum listed in any part of the United States, except Michigan Territory.(308) For 1818:

Licenses for stills, $214.91 Licenses at 20c. per gal., $549.23 Duty on spirits at 25c. per gal., $701.26 On eighteen carriages, $36.75 Licenses to retailers, $1248.80 On stamped paper and bank-notes, $4.50 Manufactured goods, $220.14—$2975.59

Of this amount, $1966.41 was paid, only Indiana and Missouri territories paying a smaller proportion of their assessment.(309) The small proportion paid in these three territories may have been due to the poverty of their inhabitants.

Most of the manufactured articles were consumed within the territory. Both cotton and flax were raised and made into cloth; maple sugar was sometimes sold and exported, but a large proportion of the supply was used as a substitute for sugar, another substitute much used being wild honey. A certain Smith’s Prairie was celebrated for the numerous plum and crabapple orchards that grew around its borders. The large red and yellow plums grew there in such abundance that people would come from long distances and haul them away by the wagon-loads, and would preserve them with honey or maple sugar, which was the only sweetening they had in pioneer times.(310)

Previous to the War of 1812, little commerce was carried on, although a few trips had been made to New Orleans with keel-boats or pirogues, and some goods were occasionally brought over the Alleghany Mountains by means of wagons. The round trip to New Orleans and back then required six months; the trip down was easy and required a comparatively short time, but the return trip was slow. It was entirely a barter trade, money being almost unknown. Furs, wild honey, and other commodities of Illinois, as well as lead from the Missouri mines, were carried down and exchanged for groceries, cloth, and other articles of a large value and small bulk. As a natural consequence of having to be transported up stream, goods of that nature were extremely dear, the common price of tea being sixteen dollars a pound, of coffee fifty cents, and of calico fifty cents per yard.(311) To go up the Mississippi from St. Louis to Prairie du Chien, in 1815, required from twelve days to a month, while the return trip was made in from six to ten days.(312)

In the great American Bottom of the Mississippi, extending from the mouth of the Kaskaskia almost to the mouth of the Illinois, cattle raising was a leading industry, the cattle being driven to the Philadelphia or Baltimore markets.(313) Towards the close of the period land could easily be secured by government entry. The fertility of the land was such as must have been new to those immigrants who came from the poorer parts of the older states. Land was subject to a tax of a little more that two cents per acre, the tax being about equally divided between the territory and the county.(314) Public lands were not to be taxed by the state, after 1818, until five years from the date of their sale. Governor Edwards, who was a large landowner, offered to pay three dollars per acre for plowing.(315) Prairies were not yet settled to any considerable extent, but it is worthy of note that a traveler of 1818-19 suggested what was eventually to be the solution of the question of prairie settlement. He wrote: “It will probably be some time before these vast prairies can be settled, owing to the inconvenience attending the want of timber. I know of no way, unless the plan is adopted of ditching and hedging, and the building of brick houses, and substituting the stone coal for fuel. It seems as if the bountiful hand of nature, where it has withheld one gift has always furnished another; for instance, where there is a scarcity of wood, there are coal mines.”(316) The remedy suggested was the one adopted, except that brick houses did not become common.

Really good roads were entirely lacking. Most of the settlements were connected by roads that were practicable at most seasons for packers and travelers on horseback, but in times of flood the suspension of travel by land was practically complete. A post-road had been established between Vincennes and Cahokia in 1805, and in 1810 a route was established from Vincennes, by way of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia, to St. Louis. At this time and place, however, a post-route does not necessarily imply anything more than a bridle-path. Mail was received at irregular intervals, although the trips were regularly made in good weather. The post-office nearest Chicago was Fort Wayne, Indiana, whence a soldier on foot carried the mail once a month.(317) A report for the first six months of 1814 shows, in Illinois, nine post-offices, three hundred and eighty-eight miles of post-roads, about $143 received for postage, and $1002 paid for transportation of mail—a balance of some $859 against the United States.(318) At this time even Cleveland, Chillicothe, and Marietta received mail but twice per week.(319)

Books were very scarce,(320) and no newspapers had been published in Illinois before its separate territorial organization. Between 1809 and 1818 there were founded the _Illinois Herald_ and the _Western Intelligencer_, at Kaskaskia, the latter becoming the _Illinois Intelligencer_ on May 27, 1818; and the _Shawnee Chief_, at Shawneetown.(321) In 1816 the citizens of Shawneetown gave notice through the papers of Kaskaskia, Frankfort, Kentucky, and Nashville, Tennessee, that they would apply to the Legislature of Illinois for the establishment of a bank.(322) This may indicate that the papers of the places named had a considerable circulation in Illinois.

The character of the immigrants left much to be desired. A good observer wrote: “After residing awhile in White County, Tennessee, I migrated in May, 1817, to the southern part of the then Territory of Illinois, and settled in Madison County, twenty-five miles east of St. Louis, which town then contained about five thousand inhabitants. The surrounding country, however, was quite sparsely settled, and destitute of any energy or enterprise among the people; their labors and attention being chiefly confined to the hunting of game, which then abounded, and tilling a small patch of corn for bread, relying on game for the remaining supplies of the table. The inhabitants were of the most generous and hospitable character, and were principally from the southern states; harmony and the utmost good feeling prevailed throughout the country.”(323) Naturally this description was not of universal application, but the source of the population and the reasons for removing from the old homes make it probable that it was widely appropriate.

If it was difficult for an emigrant to reach Illinois, and if, after reaching it, he was inconvenienced by the poor facilities for commerce, the bad roads, the infrequency of mails, the scarcity of schools and churches, he at least found it easy to obtain a living, and to some of the immigrants of the territorial period it was worth something not to starve, even though living was reduced to its lowest terms. The poorest immigrant had access to land on the borders of settlement, because the laws against squatting were not enforced. This same class could procure game in abundance, while maple sugar, wild honey, persimmons, crabapples, nuts, pawpaws, wild grapes, wild plums, fish, mushrooms, “greens,” berries of several kinds, and other palatable natural products known to the Illinois frontiersman, were to be had in most, if not all, of the localities then settled. Hogs fattened on the mast. Log houses could be built without nails. The problem of clothing was probably more difficult at first than that of food, but although clothing could not be picked up in the woods, the materials for making it could be grown in the fields. Spinning, and the processes necessarily preceding and following it, involved a certain amount of labor. Taxes were not high, nor were tax laws rigidly enforced. It is thus easy to understand the reasoning that may have led a large proportion of the immigrants during this period to leave their old homes.