He decorates her shining brow with sh.e.l.ls, And then retires to see how fine she looks, Then, proud, runs up to kiss her."
TRAVERSING THE PRAIRIE LAND.
VI.
TRAVERSING THE PRAIRIE LAND.
The Northwest Territory -- Beaver River -- Fort McIntosh -- Mahoning Valley -- Steubenville -- Youngstown -- Canton -- Ma.s.sillon -- Columbus -- Scioto River -- Wayne Defeats the Miamis -- Sandusky River -- Findlay -- Natural Gas Fields -- Fort Wayne -- Maumee River -- The Little Turtle -- Old Tippecanoe -- Tec.u.mseh -- Battle of Tippecanoe -- Harrison Defeats the Prophet -- Tec.u.mseh Slain in Canada -- Indianapolis -- Wabash River -- Terre Haute -- Illinois River -- Springfield -- Lincoln"s Home and Tomb -- Peoria -- The Great West -- Lake Erie -- Tribe of the Cat -- Conneaut -- The Western Reserve -- Ashtabula -- Mentor -- Cleveland -- Cuyahoga River -- Moses Cleaveland -- Euclid Avenue -- Oberlin -- Elyria -- The Fire Lands -- Sandusky -- Put-in-Bay Island -- Perry"s Victory -- Maumee River -- Toledo -- South Bend -- Chicago -- The Pottawatomies -- Fort Dearborn -- Chicago Fire -- Lake Michigan -- Chicago River -- Drainage Ca.n.a.l -- Lockport -- Water Supply -- Fine Buildings, Streets and Parks -- University of Chicago -- Libraries -- Federal Steel Company -- Great Business Establishments -- Union Stock Yards -- The Hog -- The Board of Trade -- Speculative Activity -- George M. Pullman -- The Sleeping Car -- The Pioneer -- Town of Pullman -- Agricultural Wealth of the Prairies -- The Corn Crop -- Whittier"s Corn Song.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
Beyond the Allegheny ranges, which are gradually broken down into their lower foothills, and then to an almost monotonous level, the expansive prairie lands stretch towards the setting sun. From their prolific agriculture has come much of the wealth and prosperity of the United States. The rivers flowing out of the mountains seek the Mississippi Valley, thus reaching the sea through the Great Father of Waters. Among these rivers is the Ohio, and at its confluence with the Beaver, near the western border of Pennsylvania, was, in the early days, the Revolutionary outpost of Fort McIntosh, a defensive work against the Indians. All about is a region of coal and gas, extending across the boundary into the Mahoning district of Ohio, the Mahoning River being an affluent of the Beaver. Numerous railroads serve its many towns of furnaces and forges. To the southward is Steubenville on the Ohio, and to the northward Youngstown on the Mahoning, both busy manufacturing centres. Salem and Alliance are also prominent, and some distance northwest is Canton, a city of thirty thousand people, in a fertile grain district, the home of President William McKinley.
Ma.s.sillon, upon the pleasant Tuscarawas River, in one of the most productive Ohio coal-fields, preserves the memory of the noted French missionary priest, Jean Baptiste Ma.s.sillon, for all this region was first traversed, and opened to civilization, by the French religious explorers from Canada who went out to convert the Indians.
In the centre of the State of Ohio is the capital, Columbus, built on the banks of the Scioto River, a tributary of the Ohio flowing southward and two hundred miles long. This river receives the Olentangy or Whetstone River at Columbus, in a region of great fertility, which is in fact the characteristic of the whole Scioto Valley. The Ohio capital, which has a population of one hundred and twenty thousand, large commerce and many important manufacturing establishments, dates from 1812, and became the seat of the State Government in 1816. The large expenditures of public money upon numerous public inst.i.tutions, all having fine buildings, the wide, tree-shaded streets, and the many attractive residences, have made it one of the finest cities in the United States. Broad Street, one hundred and twenty feet wide, beautifully shaded with maples and elms, extends for seven miles. The Capitol occupies a large park surrounded with elms, and is an impressive Doric building of gray limestone, three hundred and four feet long and one hundred and eighty-four feet wide, the rotunda being one hundred and fifty-seven feet high. There are fine parks on the north, south and east of the city, the latter containing the s.p.a.cious grounds of the Agricultural Society. Almost all the Ohio State buildings, devoted to its benevolence, justice or business, have been concentrated in Columbus, adding to its attractions, and it is also the seat of the Ohio State University with one thousand students. Railroads radiate in all directions, adding to its commercial importance.
In going westward, the region we are traversing beyond the Pennsylvania boundary gradually changes from coal and iron to a rich agricultural section. As we move away from the influence of the Allegheny ranges, the hills become gentler, and the rolling surface is more and more subdued, until it is smoothed out into an almost level prairie, heavily timbered where not yet cleared for cultivation. This was the Northwest Territory, first explored by the French, who were led by the Sieur de la Salle in his original discoveries in the seventeenth century. The French held it until the conquest of Canada, when that Dominion and the whole country west to the Mississippi River came under the British flag by the treaty of 1763. After the Revolution, the various older Atlantic seaboard States claiming the region, ceded sovereignty to the United States Government, and then its history was chequered by Indian wars until General Wayne conducted an expedition against the Miamis and defeated them in 1794, after which the Northwest Territory was organized, and the State of Ohio taken out of it and admitted to the Union in 1803, its first capital being Chillicothe. It was removed to Zanesville for a couple of years, but finally located at Columbus.
Beyond the Scioto the watershed is crossed, by which the waters of the Ohio are left behind and the valley of Sandusky River is reached, a tributary of Lake Erie. Here is Bucyrus, in another prolific natural gas region, the centre of which is Findlay. At this town, in 1887, the inhabitants, who had then had just one year of natural gas development, spent three days in exuberant festivity, to show their appreciation of the wonderful discovery. They had thirty-one gas wells pouring out ninety millions of cubic feet in a day, all piped into town and feeding thirty thousand glaring natural gas torches of enormous power, which blew their roaring flames as an accompaniment to the oratory of John Sherman and Joseph B. Foraker, who were then respectively Senator and Governor of Ohio. The soldiers and firemen paraded, and a mult.i.tude of bra.s.s bands tried to drown the Niagara of gas which was heard roaring five miles away, while the country at night was illuminated for twenty miles around. But the wells have since diminished their flow, although the gas still exists; while another field with a prolific yield is in Fairfield County, a short distance southeast of Columbus. Over the State boundary in Indiana is yet another great gas-field covering five thousand square miles in a dozen counties, with probably two thousand wells and a yield which has reached three thousand millions of cubic feet in a day. This gas supplies many cities and towns, including Chicago, and it is one of the greatest gas-fields known. In the same region there are also large petroleum deposits.
Not far beyond the State boundary is Fort Wayne, the leading city of Northern Indiana, having forty thousand population, an important railway centre, and prominent also in manufactures. It stands in a fertile agricultural district, and being located at the highest part of the gentle elevation, beyond the Sandusky Valley, diverting the waters east and west, it is appropriately called the "Summit City."
Here the Maumee River is formed by the confluence of the two streams St. Joseph and St. Mary, and flows through the prairie towards the northeast, to make the head of Lake Erie. The French, under La Salle, in the eighteenth century established a fur-trading post here, and erected Fort Miami, and in 1760 the British penetrated to this then remote region and also built a fort. During the Revolution this country was abandoned to the Indians, but when General Wayne defeated the Miamis in 1794 he thought the place would make a good frontier outpost to hold the savages in check, and he then constructed a strong work, to which he gave the name of Fort Wayne. Around this post the town afterwards grew, being greatly prospered by the Wabash and Erie Ca.n.a.l, and by the various railways subsequently constructed in all directions. All this prairie region was the hunting-ground of the Miamis, whose domain extended westward to Lake Michigan, and southward along the valley of the Miami River to the Ohio. They were a warlike and powerful tribe, and their adherence to the English during the Revolution provoked almost constant hostilities with the settlers who afterwards came across the mountains to colonize the Northwest Territory. Under the leadership of their renowned chief Mishekonequah, or the "Little Turtle," they defeated repeated expeditions sent against them, until finally beaten by Wayne.
Subsequently they dwindled in importance, and when removed farther west, about 1848, they numbered barely two hundred and fifty persons.
OLD TIPPECANOE.
Some distance westward is the Tippecanoe River, a stream flowing southwest into the Wabash, and thence into the Ohio. The word Tippecanoe is said to mean "the great clearing," and on this river was fought the noted battle by "Old Tippecanoe," General William Henry Harrison, against the combined forces of the Shawnees, Miamis and several other tribes, which resulted in their complete defeat. They were united under Elskwatawa, or the "Prophet," the brother of the famous Tec.u.mseh. These two chieftains were Shawnees, and they preached a crusade by which they gathered all the northwestern tribes in a concerted movement to resist the steady encroachments of the whites.
The brother, who was a "medicine man," in 1805 set up as an inspired prophet, denouncing the use of liquors, and of all food, manners and customs introduced by the hated "palefaces," and confidently predicted they would ultimately be driven from the land. For years both chiefs travelled over the country stirring up the Indians. General Harrison, who was the Governor of the Northwest Territory, gathered his forces together and advanced up the Wabash against the Prophet"s town of Tippecanoe, when the Indians, hoping to surprise him, suddenly attacked his camp, but he being prepared, they were signally defeated, thus giving Harrison his popular t.i.tle of "Old Tippecanoe," which had much to do with electing him President in 1840. Some time after this defeat the War of 1812 broke out, when Tec.u.mseh espoused the English cause, went to Canada with his warriors, and was made a brigadier-general. He was killed there in the battle of the Thames, in Ontario Province, and it is said had a premonition of death, for, laying aside his general"s uniform, he put on a hunting-dress and fought desperately until he was slain. Tec.u.mseh was the most famous Indian chief of his time, and the honor of killing him was claimed by several who fought in the battle, so that the problem of "Who killed Tec.u.mseh?" was long discussed throughout the country.
The State of Indiana was admitted into the Union in 1816, and in its centre, built upon a broad plain, on the east branch of White River, is its capital and largest city, Indianapolis, having two hundred thousand population. This is a great railway centre, having lines radiating in all directions, and it also has extensive manufactures and a large trade in live stock. The city plan, with wide streets crossing at right angles, and four diagonal avenues radiating from a circular central square, makes it very attractive; and the residential quarter, displaying tasteful houses, ornate grounds and shady streets, is regarded as one of the most beautiful in the country. The State Capitol, in a s.p.a.cious park, is a Doric building with colonnade, central tower and dome, and in an enclosure on its eastern front is erected one of the finest Soldiers" and Sailors" Monuments existing, rising two hundred and eighty-five feet, out-topping everything around, having been designed and largely constructed in Europe. There are also many prominent public buildings throughout the city.
Indianapolis, first settled in 1819, had but a small population until the railways centred there, the Capitol being removed from Corydon in 1825. The Wabash River, to which reference has been made, receives White River, and is one of the largest affluents of the Ohio, about five hundred and fifty miles long, being navigable over half that length. It rises in the State of Ohio, flows across Indiana, and, turning southward, makes for a long distance the Illinois boundary.
Its chief city is Terre Haute, the "High Ground," about seventy miles west of Indianapolis, another prominent railroad centre, having forty-five thousand people, with extensive manufactures. It is surrounded by valuable coal-fields, is built upon an elevated plateau, and, like all these prairie cities, is noted for its many broad and well-shaded streets. It was founded in 1816.
THE GREAT WEST.
Progressing westward, the timbered prairie gradually changes to the gra.s.s-covered prairie, spreading everywhere a great ocean of fertility. Across the Wabash is the "Prairie State" of Illinois, its name coming from its princ.i.p.al river, which the Indians named after themselves. The word is a French adaptation of the Indian name "Illini," meaning "the superior men," the earliest explorers and settlers having been French, the first comers on the Illinois River being Father Marquette and La Salle. At the beginning of the eighteenth century their little settlements were flourishing, and the most glowing accounts were sent home, describing the region, which they called "New France," on account of its beauty, attractiveness and prodigious fertility, as a new Paradise. There were many years of Indian conflicts and hostility, but after peace was restored and a stable government established, population flowed in, and Illinois was admitted as a State to the Union in 1818. The capital was established at Springfield in 1837, an attractive city of about thirty thousand inhabitants, built on a prairie a few miles south of Sangamon River, a tributary of the Illinois, and from its floral development and the adornment of its gardens and shade trees, Springfield is popularly known as the "Flower City." There is a magnificent State Capitol with high surmounting dome, patterned somewhat after the Federal Capitol at Washington. Springfield has coal-mines which add to its prosperity, but its great fame is connected with Abraham Lincoln. He lived in Springfield, and the house he occupied when elected President has been acquired by the State and is on public exhibition. After his a.s.sa.s.sination in 1865, his remains were brought from Washington to Springfield, and interred in the picturesque Oak Ridge Cemetery, in the northern suburbs, where a magnificent monument was erected to his memory and dedicated in 1874. About sixty miles north of Springfield, the Illinois River expands into Peoria Lake, and here came La Salle down the river in 1680, and at the foot of the lake established a trading-post and fort, one of the earliest in that region. When more than a century had elapsed, a little town grew there which is now the busy industrial city of Peoria, famous for its whiskey and glucose, and turning out products that annually approximate a hundred millions, furnishing vast traffic for numerous railroads. It is the chief city of the "corn belt," and is served by all the prominent trunk railway lines.
Like the pioneers of a hundred years ago, we have left the Atlantic seaboard, crossed the Allegheny Mountains and entered the expansive "Northwest Territory," which in the first half of the nineteenth century was the Mecca of the colonist and frontiersman. This was then the region of the "Great West," though that has since moved far beyond the Mississippi. Its agricultural wealth made the prosperity of the country for many decades, and its prodigious development was hardly realized until put to the test of the Civil War, when it poured out the men and officers, and had the staying qualities so largely contributing to the result of that great conflict. Gradually overspread by a network of railways, the numerous "cross-roads" have expanded everywhere into towns and cities, almost all patterned alike, and all of them centres of rich farming districts. Coal, oil and gas have come to minister to its manufacturing wants, and thus growing into mature Commonwealths, this prolific region in the later decades has been itself, in turn, contributing largely to the tide of migration flowing to the present "Great Northwest," a thousand miles or more beyond. It presents a rich agricultural picture, but little scenic attractiveness. Everywhere an almost dead level, the numerous railways cross and recross the surface in all directions at grade, and are easily built, it being only necessary to dig a shallow ditch on either side, throw the earth in the centre, and lay the ties and rails. Nature has made the prairie as smooth as a lake, so that hardly any grading is necessary, and the region of expansive green viewed out of the car window has been aptly described as having "a face but no features," when one looks afar over an ocean of waving verdure.
LAKE ERIE.
This vast prairie extends northward to and beyond the Great Lakes, and it is recorded that in the early history of the proposed legislation for the "Northwest Territory," Congress gravely selected as the names of the States which were to be created out of it such ponderous conglomerates as "Metropotamia," "a.s.senispia," "Pelisipia" and "Polypotamia," t.i.tles which happily were long ago permitted to pa.s.s into oblivion. Northward, in Ohio, the region stretches to Lake Erie, the most southern and the smallest of the group of Great Lakes above Niagara. It is regarded as the least attractive lake, having neither romances nor much scenery. Yet, from its favorable position, it carries an enormous commerce. It is elliptical in form, about two hundred and forty miles long and sixty miles broad, the surface being five hundred and sixty-five feet above the ocean level. It is a very shallow lake, the depth rarely exceeding one hundred and twenty feet, excepting at the lower end, while the other lakes are much deeper, and in describing this difference of level it is said that the surplus waters poured from the vast _basins_ of Superior, Michigan and Huron, flow across the _plate_ of Erie into the deep _bowl_ of Ontario. This shallowness causes it to be easily disturbed, so that it is the most dangerous of these fresh-water seas, and it has few harbors, and those very poor, especially upon the southern sh.o.r.e. The bottom of the lake is a light, clayey sediment, rapidly acc.u.mulated from the wearing away of the sh.o.r.es, largely composed of clay strata. The loosely-aggregated products of these disintegrated strata are frequently seen along its coast, forming cliffs extending back into elevated plateaus, through which the rivers cut deep channels. Their mouths are clogged by sand-bars, and dredging and breakwaters have made the harbors on the southern sh.o.r.e, around which have grown the chief towns--Dunkirk, Erie, Ashtabula, Cleveland, Sandusky and Toledo. The name of Lake Erie comes from the Indian "tribe of the Cat," whom the French called the "Chats," because their early explorers, penetrating to the sh.o.r.es of the lake, found them abounding in wild cats, and thus they gave the same name to the cats and the savages. In their own parlance, these Indians were the "Eries," and in the seventeenth century they numbered about two thousand warriors. In 1656 the Iroquois attacked and almost annihilated them.
The Lake Erie ports in the "Buckeye State" of Ohio, so called from the buckeye tree, are chiefly harbors for shipping coal and receiving ores from the upper lakes, their railroads leading to the great industrial centres to the southward. Near the eastern boundary of Ohio is Conneaut, on the bank of a wide and deep ravine, formed by a small river, broadening into a bay at the sh.o.r.e of the lake, the name meaning "many fish." Here landed in 1796 the first settlers from Connecticut, who entered the "Western Reserve," as all this region was then called. On July 4th of that year, celebrating the national anniversary, "they pledged each other in tin cups of lake water, accompanied by a salute of fowling-pieces," and the next day began building the first house on the Reserve, constructed of logs, and long known as "Stow Castle." Conneaut is consequently known as the "Plymouth of the Western Reserve," as here began the settlements made by the Puritan New England migration to Ohio. On deep ravines making their harbors are Ashtabula, an enormous _entrepot_ for ores, and a few miles farther westward, Painesville, on Grand River, named for Thomas Paine. Beyond is Mentor, the home of the martyred President Garfield, whose large white house stands near the railway. All along here, the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie is a broad terrace at eighty to one hundred feet elevation above the water, while farther inland is another and considerably higher plateau. Each sharp declivity facing northward seems at one time to have been the actual sh.o.r.e of the lake when its surface before the waters receded was much higher than now.
The outer plateau having once been the overflowed lake bed, is level, excepting where the crooked but attractive streams have deeply cut their winding ravines down through it to reach Lake Erie.
THE CITY OF CLEVELAND.
Thus we come to Cleveland, the second city in Ohio, having four hundred thousand people, and extensive manufacturing industries. It is the capital of the "Western Reserve" and the chief city of Northern Ohio, its commanding position upon a high bluff, falling off precipitously to the edge of the water, giving it the most attractive situation on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie. Shade trees embower it, including many elms planted by the early settlers, who learned to love them in New England, and hence it delights in the popular t.i.tle of the "Forest City." Were not the streets so wide, the profusion of foliage might make Cleveland seem like a town in the woods. The little Cuyahoga River, its name meaning "the crooked stream," flows with wayward course down a deeply washed and winding ravine, making a valley in the centre of the city, known as "the Flats," and this, with the tributary ravines of some smaller streams, is packed with factories and foundries, oil refineries and lumber mills, their chimneys keeping the business section constantly under a cloud of smoke. Railways run in all directions over these flats and through the ravines, while, high above, the city has built a stone viaduct nearly a half-mile long, crossing the valley. Here are the great works of the Standard Oil Company, controlling that trade, and several of the petroleum magnates have their palaces in the city.
Old Moses Cleaveland, a shrewd but unsatisfied Puritan of the town of Windham, Connecticut, became the agent of the Connecticut Lead Company, who brought out the first colony in 1796 that landed at Conneaut. They explored the lake sh.o.r.e, and selecting as a good location the mouth of Cuyahoga River, Moses wrote back to his former home that they had found a spot "on the bank of Lake Erie which was called by my name, and I believe the child is now born that may live to see that place as large as old Windham." In little over a century the town has grown far beyond his wildest dreams, although it did not begin to expand until the era of ca.n.a.ls and railways, and it was not so long ago that the people in grateful memory erected a bronze statue of the founder. One of the local antiquaries, delving into the records, has found why various original settlers made their homes at Cleveland. He learned that "one man, on his way farther West, was laid up with the ague and had to stop; another ran out of money and could get no farther; another had been to St. Louis and wanted to get back home, but saw a chance to make money in ferrying people across the river; another had $200 over, and started a bank; while yet another thought he could make a living by manufacturing ox-yokes, and he stayed." This earnest investigator continues: "A man with an agricultural eye would look at the soil and kick his toe into it, and then would shake his head and declare that it would not grow white beans--but he knew not what this soil would bring forth; his hope and trust was in beans, he wanted to know them more, and wanted potatoes, corn, oats and cabbage, and he knew not the future of Euclid Avenue."
On either side of the deep valley of "the Flats" stretch upon the plateau the long avenues of Cleveland, with miles of pleasant residences, surrounded by lawns and gardens, each house isolated in green, and the whole appearing like a vast rural village more than a city. This pleasant plan of construction had its origin in the New England ideas of the people. Yet the city also has a numerous population of Germans, and it is recorded that one of the early landowners wrote, in explaining his project of settlement: "If I make the contract for thirty thousand acres, I expect with all speed to send you fifteen or twenty families of prancing Dutchmen." These Teutons came and multiplied, for the original Puritan stock can hardly be responsible for the vineyards of the neighborhood, the music and dancing, and the public gardens along the pleasant lake sh.o.r.e, where the crowds go, when work is over, to enjoy recreation and watch the gorgeous summer sunsets across the bosom of the lake which are the glory of Cleveland. Upon the plateau, the centre of the city, is the Monumental Park, where stand the statue of Moses Cleaveland, the founder, who died in 1806, and a fine Soldiers" Monument, with also a statue of Commodore Perry. This Park is an attractive enclosure of about ten acres, having fountains, gardens, monuments and a little lake, and it is intersected at right angles by two broad streets, and surrounded by important buildings. One of the streets is the chief business highway, Superior Street, and the other leads down to the edge of the bluff on the lake sh.o.r.e, where the steep slope is made into a pleasure-ground, with more flower-beds and fountains and a pleasant outlook over the water, although at its immediate base is a labyrinth of railroads and an ample supply of smoke from the numerous locomotives. A long breakwater protects the harbor entrance, and out under the lake is bored the water-works tunnel.
There extends far to the eastward, from a corner of the Monumental Park, Cleveland"s famous street--Euclid Avenue. The people regard it as the handsomest highway in America, in the combined magnificence of houses and grounds. It is a level avenue of about one hundred and fifty feet width, with a central roadway and stone footwalks on either hand, shaded by rows of grand overarching elms, and bordered on both sides by well-kept lawns. This is the public highway, every part being kept scrupulously neat, while a light railing marks the boundary between the street and the private grounds. For a long distance this n.o.ble avenue is bordered by stately residences, each surrounded by ample gardens, the stretch of gra.s.s, flowers and foliage extending back from one hundred to four hundred feet between the street and the buildings. Embowered in trees, and with all the delights of garden and lawn seen in every direction, this grand avenue makes a delightful driveway and promenade. Upon it live the multi-millionaires of Cleveland, the finest residences being upon the northern side, where they have invested part of the profits of their railways, mills, mines, oil wells and refineries in adorning their homes and ornamenting their city. This splendid boulevard, in one way, is a reproduction of the Parisian Avenue of the Champs Elysees and its gardens, but with more attractions in the surroundings of its bordering rows of palaces. Here live the men who vie with those of Chicago in controlling the commerce of the lakes and the affairs of the Northwest. Plenty of room and an abundance of income are necessary to provide each man, in the heart of the city, with two to ten acres of lawns and gardens around his house, but it is done here with eminent success. About four miles out is the beautiful Wade Park, opposite which are the handsome buildings of the Western Reserve University, having, with its adjunct inst.i.tutions, a thousand students. Beyond this, the avenue ends at the attractive Lake View Cemetery, where, on the highest part of the elevated plateau, with a grand outlook over Lake Erie, is the grave of the a.s.sa.s.sinated President Garfield. His imposing memorial rises to a height of one hundred and sixty-five feet.
CLEVELAND TO CHICAGO.
Thirty-five miles southwest of Cleveland, and some distance inland from Lake Erie, is Oberlin, where, in a fertile and prosperous district, is the leading educational foundation of Northern Ohio--Oberlin College--named in memory of the noted French philanthropist, and established in 1833 by the descendants of the Puritan colonists, to carry out their idea of thorough equality in education. It admits students without distinction of s.e.x or color, and has about thirteen hundred, almost equally divided between the s.e.xes, occupying a cl.u.s.ter of commodious buildings. To the westward is the beautiful ravine of Black River, which gets out to the lake by falling over a rocky ledge in two streams, and on the peninsula formed by its forks is the town of Elyria. Maria Ely was the wife of the founder of the settlement, who named it after her in this peculiar reversible way. This romantic stream bounds the "Fire Lands" of the Western Reserve, a tract of nearly eight hundred square miles ab.u.t.ting on the lake sh.o.r.e, which Connecticut set apart for colonization by her people, who had been sufferers from destructive fires in the towns of New London, Fairfield and Norwalk on Long Island Sound. They secured this wilderness in the early part of the nineteenth century, and their chief town is Sandusky, with twenty-five thousand population. Here lived most of the Eries, the Indian "tribe of the Cat," who fished in Sandusky Bay, its upper waters being an archipelago of little green islands abounding with water fowl. They were known to the adjoining tribes as the "Neutral Nation," for they maintained two villages of refuge on Sandusky River, between the warlike Indians of the east and the west, and whoever entered their boundaries was safe from pursuit, the sanctuary being rigidly observed. The early French missionaries who found them in the seventeenth century speak of these anomalous villages among the savages as having then been long in existence.
The name of Sandusky is a corruption of a Wyandot word meaning "cold-water pools," the French having originally rendered it as Sandosquet. The sh.o.r.es are low, but there is a good harbor and much trade, and here is located the Ohio State Fish Hatchery. The railroads are laid among the savannahs and lagoons, and one of the suburban stations has been not inaptly named Venice. There are extensive vineyards on the flat and sunny sh.o.r.es of the bay, and this is one of the most prolific grape districts in the State. Sandusky Bay is a broad sheet of water, in places six miles wide, and about twenty miles long. Sandusky has a large timber trade, being noted for the manufacture of hard woods. Out beyond the bold peninsula, protruding into the lake at the entrance to the bay, is a group of islands spreading over the southwestern waters of Lake Erie, of which Kelly"s Island is the chief, an archipelago formed largely from the _detritus_ washed out of the Detroit, Maumee and various other rivers flowing into the head of the lake. Here the Erie Indians had a fortified stronghold, whose outlines can still be traced. The most noted of the group is Put-in-Bay Island, now a popular watering-place, which got its name from Commodore Perry, who "put in" there with the captured British fleet at the naval battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813. It was from this place, just after his victory, that he sent the historic despatch, giving him fame, "We have met the enemy and they are ours."
The killed of both fleets were buried side by side near the beach on the island, the place being marked by a mound. The lovely sheet of water of Put-in-Bay glistens in front, having the towns of villa-crowned Gibraltar Island upon its surface. Vineyards and roses abound, these islands, like the adjacent sh.o.r.es, being noted for their wines.
The Maumee River, coming up from Fort Wayne, flows into the head of Lake Erie, the largest stream on its southern coast. It comes from the southwest through the region of the "Black Swamp," a vast district, originally mora.s.s and forest, which has been drained to make a most fertile country. This "miserable bog," as the original settlers denounced it, when they were jolted over the rude corduroy roads that sustained them upon the quaking mora.s.s, has since become the "prolific garden" and "magnificent forest" described by the modern tourist. The Maumee Valley was an almost continual battle-ground with the Indians when "Mad Anthony Wayne" commanded on that frontier, he being called by them the "Wind," because "he drives and tears everything before him." For a quarter of a century border warfare raged along this river, then known as the "Miami of the Lakes," and its chief settlement, Toledo, pa.s.sed its infancy in a baptism of blood and fire.
It was at the battle of Fallen Timbers, fought in 1794, almost on the site of Toledo, that Wayne gave his laconic and noted "field orders."
General William Henry Harrison, then his aide, told Wayne just before the battle he was afraid he would get into the fight and forget to give "the necessary field orders." Wayne replied: "Perhaps I may, and if I do, recollect that the standing order for the day is, charge the rascals with the bayonets." Toledo is built on the flat surface on both sides of the Maumee River and Bay, which make it a good harbor, stretching six miles down to Lake Erie. There are a hundred thousand population here, and this energetic reproduction of the ancient Spanish city has named its chief newspaper the _Toledo Blade_. The city has extensive railway connections and a large trade in lumber and grain, coal and ores, and does much manufacturing, it being well served with natural gas. A dozen grain elevators line the river banks, and the factory smokes overhang the broad low-lying city like a pall. To the westward, crossing the rich lands of the reclaimed swamp, is the Indiana boundary, that State being here a broad and level prairie, which also stretches northward into Michigan. The chief town of Northern Indiana is South Bend, named from the sweeping southern bend of St. Joseph River, on which it is built. This stream rises in Michigan, and flows for two hundred and fifty miles over the prairie, going down into Indiana and then back again to empty into Lake Michigan. South Bend is noted for its carriage- and wagon-building factories, and has several flourishing Roman Catholic inst.i.tutions, generally of French origin. To the westward spreads the level prairie, with scant scenic attractions, though rich in agriculture, to the sh.o.r.es of Lake Michigan, being gridironed with railways as Chicago is approached.
THE GREAT CITY OF THE LAKES.
The second city in the United States, with a population approximating two millions, Chicago, the metropolis of the prairies, seems destined for unlimited growth. It has absorbed all the outlying towns, and now embraces nearly two hundred square miles. It has a water-front on Lake Michigan of twenty-six miles, and its trade constantly grows. It pushes ahead with boundless energy, attracting the shrewdest men of the West to take part in its vast and profitable enterprises, and is in such a complete manner the depot and storehouse for the products and supplies of goods for the enormous prairie region around it, and for the entire Northwest, and the country out to the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Ocean, that other Western cities cannot displace or even hope to rival it. Yet it is a youthful giant, of quick and marvellous development, but few of its leading spirits having been born within its limits, nearly all being attracted thither by its paramount advantages. The prominent characteristics of Chicago are an overhanging pall of smoke; streets crowded with quick-moving, busy people; a vast aggregation of railways, vessels, elevators and traffic of all kinds; a polyglot population drawn from almost all races; and an earnest devotion to the almighty dollar. Its name came from the river, and is of Indian origin, regarded as probably a corruption of "Cheecagua," the t.i.tle of a dynasty of chiefs who controlled the country west and south of Lake Michigan. This also was a word applied in the Indian dialect to the wild onion growing luxuriantly on the banks of the river, and they gave a similar name to the thunder which they believed the voice of the Great Spirit, and to the odorous animal abounding in the neighborhood that the white man knew as the "polecat." These were rather incongruous uses for the same word, but the suggestion has been made that all can be harmonized if Chicago is interpreted as meaning "strong," the Indians, being poorly supplied with words, usually selecting the most prominent attribute in giving names. All these things are in one way or another "strong," and it is evident that prodigious strength exists in Chicago.
As elsewhere throughout the Northwest, the French missionaries were here the earliest explorers, Father Marquette coming in 1673, and afterwards Hennepin, Joliet and La Salle, whose names are so numerously reproduced in the Northwestern States. The French built at the mouth of the river Fort Chicagou, for a trading-post, and held it until the English conquered Canada. When the earlier American settlers ventured to this frontier, the Indians on Lake Michigan were the Pottawatomies, and were hostile. The Government in 1804 built Fort Dearborn, near the mouth of the Chicago River, to control them. These Indians joined in the crusade of the Prophet and Tec.u.mseh, and when the war with England began in 1812, attacked and captured the fort, ma.s.sacring the garrison. The post was subsequently re-established, and the Indians were ultimately removed west of the Mississippi. Not long afterwards it was said the first purchase of the site of Chicago took place, wherein a large part of the land now occupied was sold for a pair of boots. When the town plot was originally surveyed, twelve families were there in addition to the garrison of Fort Dearborn, and in 1831 it had one hundred people. In 1833 the town government was organized, and it had five hundred and fifty inhabitants and one hundred and seventy-five buildings. Five trustees then ruled Chicago, and collected $49 for the first year"s taxes. Collis P. Huntington, the Pacific Railway manager, says that in 1835, being possessed of a good const.i.tution and a pair of mules, but little else, he was out that way prospecting, and found at Chicago nothing but a swamp and a few dest.i.tute farmers, all anxious to move. One of these farmers came to him with the deed of his farm of two thousand acres, and offered to trade it for his pair of mules. Huntington adds: "I was not very favorably impressed with the settlement and declined his offer, and finally continued my travel west, and that farm is to-day the business centre of Chicago."
In 1837 Chicago got its first city charter, and it then had about forty-two hundred people. The rapid growth since has been unparalleled, especially when, after 1850, its commercial enterprise began attracting wide attention, the population then being about thirty thousand. In 1855, to get above the swamp and improve the drainage, the level of the entire city was raised seven feet, huge buildings being elevated bodily while business was progressing, an enterprise mainly accomplished by the ingenious devices which first gave prominence to the late George M. Pullman. The population almost quadrupled and its trade increased tenfold in the decade 1850-60, and in 1870 the population was over three hundred thousand, and it had become a leading American city. Yet Chicago has had terrible setbacks in its wonderful career, the most awful being the fire in October, 1871, the greatest of modern times, which raged for three days, burned over a surface of nearly four square miles and until practically nothing remained in the district to devour, destroyed eighteen thousand buildings, two hundred lives, and property valued at $200,000,000, leaving a hundred thousand people homeless--a calamity that excited the sympathies of the world, which gave relief contributions aggregating $7,000,000. Yet while the embers were smoking, this enterprising people set to work to rebuild their city with a will and a progress which caused almost as much amazement as the original catastrophe. The recovery was complete; the city which had been of wood was rebuilt of brick and stone and iron and steel, and its progress since has developed an energy not before equalled. It has been beautified by grand parks and boulevards, and by the construction of palatial residences and business blocks, and of enormous office buildings, the tall "sky-sc.r.a.pers" having been first invented and built in Chicago. In 1893 the World"s Columbian Exhibition, to celebrate the discovery of America, was held at Chicago on a vast scale and with remarkable success. The city has long been, also, a favorite meeting-place for the great political Conventions nominating candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, its large hotel capacity and immense halls giving advantages for these enormous a.s.semblages.
CHICAGO"S ADMIRABLE LOCATION.
The position of Chicago at the southwestern extremity of Lake Michigan, with prairies of the greatest fertility stretching hundreds of miles south and west, makes the city the primary food-gatherer and supply-distributor of the great Northwest, and this has been the chief cause of its growth. In September, 1833, the Pottawatomies agreed to sell their prairie homes to the United States and migrate to reservations farther West, and seven thousand of them a.s.sembled in grand council at Chicago, and sold the Government twenty millions of acres of these prairies around Lake Michigan, in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, for $1,100,000. Thus was this fertile domain opened to settlement. In the Indian dialect, Michigan means the "great water,"
and it is the largest lake within the United States, being three hundred and twenty miles long and seventy broad, and having an average depth of one thousand feet, with the surface elevated five hundred and seventy-eight feet above the ocean level. On the Chicago side this extensive lake has but a narrow watershed, the Illinois River, draining the region to the westward, being formed only sixty-five miles southwest of the lake by the junction of the Kankakee and Desplaines Rivers. This narrow and very low watershed, considered in connection with the enormous capacity of the Illinois River valley, which is at a much lower level and appears as if worn by a mighty current in former times, is regarded by geologists as an evidence of the probability that the Lake Michigan waters may in past ages have found their way to that outlet and flowed through the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf. The diminutive bayou of the Chicago River, with its two short and tortuous branches, made Chicago the leading lake port, and thus brought trade, so that early in the race it far outstripped all its Western rivals. Every railroad of prominence sought an outlet or a feeder at Chicago, and the t.i.tle of a "trunk line" was adopted for a line of rails between Chicago and the seaboard. The surrounding prairie for miles is crossed in all directions by railways, and a large part of the city and suburbs is made up of huge stations, car-yards, elevators, storehouses and cattle-pens, almost overwhelming visitors with the prodigious scale of their elaborate perplexity. The maze of railways and streets on the level surface, all crossing at grade, as it has spread over miles of prairie and grown into such enormous proportions, presents a most serious problem, with which the city and the railways are now dealing on a comprehensive plan, by which it is hoped that before long the grade-crossings will be eliminated.
Another problem, found even more serious as the city grew, was the drainage. In former years the sewage was discharged into the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. The river became a most malodorous stream in consequence, and as it had practically no descent, the current would scarcely flow, and the lake, from which the city water-supply was drawn, was more and more polluted. With the customary enterprise of these wonderful people, however, they decided to make the only change feasible, which was to take advantage of the descending watershed towards Desplaines River and change their sewerage system so that it would all discharge in that direction. The problem was solved by the construction of the most expensive drainage works in the world, and a complete change of the sewers, at a cost altogether approximating $40,000,000. St. Louis and the towns along the Desplaines fought the scheme, and there was protracted litigation, but the very existence of Chicago depended on the result. The great drainage ca.n.a.l was completed connecting the Chicago River South Branch with Desplaines River at Lockport, twenty-eight miles southwest, where it discharges the outflow from Lake Michigan, which then flows past Joliet, and ultimately into Illinois River. This huge ca.n.a.l, opened in January, 1900, reverses the flow of the Chicago River, which now draws in about three hundred thousand cubic feet of water per minute from Lake Michigan and flushes the ca.n.a.l, which is also to be made available for shipping. Thus the Chicago River flows towards its source with a free current, and Lake Michigan has been purified. The ca.n.a.l has quite a descent to Lockport, and the water-power is to be availed of in generating electricity. The city water-supply is drawn from cribs out in the lake through four systems of tunnels, aggregating twenty-two miles, furnishing an ample service, and pumping-stations in various locations elevate the water in towers to secure sufficient head for the flow into the buildings. The chief of these towers, a solid stone structure alongside the lake, rises one hundred and sixty feet, the huge pumping-engines forcing a vast stream constantly over its top.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lincoln Monument, Lincoln Park, Chicago_]