This place became at one time a favorite settlement for French missionaries. However the spot is supposed to have been abandoned about 1763, after which date for about one hundred years white men avoided it.
In 1774 the site of Chicago, with all the surrounding country, became a part of Virginia, being conquered by a military expedition from that State.
In 1778 the region became known as County of Illinois, State of Virginia.
After the close of the Revolutionary war, Virginia "divided herself by the Ohio River," ceding all the territory beyond that boundary to the United States for the "common benefit of all the people."
In 1795 the Indians also ceded to the general government any rights which their tribes possessed to "one piece of land six miles square, at the mouth of Chekajo River, emptying into the southwest end of Lake Michigan, where a fort formerly stood." This extinguishment of the Indian t.i.tle in 1795, being in the nature of a quit-claim deed for lands, is sometimes called the earliest real estate transaction in Chicago.
Thus, she who was to become the "Queen City" of the West, made her _debut_ into the Union, where, possibly, she may yet,
"The fairest of her daughters,"
rule supreme.
In the midst of all the down-town rush, at a point where noise and confusion scarcely cease, one notices upon a decidedly modern building a white stone tablet which informs the stranger that it was upon this spot Fort Dearborn stood--the oldest landmark that remained to tell the tale of the wilderness. In 1804 two block-houses were built here and a subterranean pa.s.sage made from the parade to the river, the whole surrounded by a picket and furnished with three pieces of light artillery, the object being "to supply the Indian wants and control the Indian policy." The tribes of Pottawatomies overran the country round about and with the little group of French and Canadian settlers made the life of the isolated post. In 1809 Tec.u.mseh marked it out as one of his objects of vengeance, but fortunately other schemes occupied his attention, and it remained in comparative security until the war of 1812. Then, when all the country was disturbed and the Indians were making mischief everywhere, the commander of Fort Dearborn was betrayed by the Pottawatomies and every vestige of a settlement destroyed.
It was not until 1818, after Fort Dearborn was again demolished, that the pale face was courageous enough to establish his home at this point.
Nor was courage alone required, for the unfavorable position--on a mora.s.s where vehicles invariably floundered in its black loam, and where the air was necessarily unhealthy--was well known; but these first men whose rude homes const.i.tuted the embryo city must have possessed to a great degree that indomitable spirit which has become the very foundation of Chicago.
Nine years from this time a most unfavorable report of the place was sent to the Government and from this report the picture is called up of a wretched, unclean and disreputable community. But this state of affairs was not to last long. An event of importance took place here in 1833, when the United States commissioners and chiefs of the Pottawatomie, Chippewa and Ottawa tribes met, that the former might persuade the latter to give up more of their valuable land in Illinois and Michigan and ultimately to relinquish it altogether. The exact amount stipulated for was twenty millions of acres. Then population increased, for one of the points agreed upon, along with the land, was that the Indians should move west of the Mississippi. As a result, Chicago became the centre of much speculating. Eastern capitalists were interested, invested and lost heavily, but after the depression which inevitably followed, the people went to work in earnest and brought the town out of her trouble.
The one point of advantage that Chicago possessed--her possibilities as a commercial post--was put to the test, and so rapidly did she advance, that in 1842, after several remarkable advances, she sent out 600,000 bushels of wheat. She was already becoming a big cattle market, ranchmen further west driving their stock here and helping to increase the importance of the place as a centre of trade. At this time a ca.n.a.l was in process of construction, to connect the Illinois and Chicago rivers, thus making Chicago the centre for commerce between the Southwest and East, and giving her the opportunity to extend her business from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean.
This was a splendid opening, and, with the co-operation of the railroads which soon afterwards were extended to this point, the future prosperity of the place was secured. It then only remained for Chicago to improve her appearance and sanitary condition. This she did by having the streets drained, filled up and graded. Local pride was manifesting itself in various improvements and in private and public buildings, so that by 1871 there was plenty of fuel for the great fire which laid so much of the city waste.
The well-known origin of the conflagration was in a barn where "Mrs.
Scully"s cow" innocently turned over a lighted lantern on some dry hay.
Soon the barn was in flames and the fire quickly spread to the lumber yards along the river and from thence, the dry timber and wind favoring, leaped along and licked up the homes on the North Side and the business houses on the South Side.
The first stroke of the alarm sounded about nine o"clock in the evening of October 8, 1871. "By eleven o"clock 100,000 people were hurrying through the streets of the doomed city," spreading terror as they went.
"All over the city it was as light as day, and, in the remotest suburb fine print was read by the glare of the conflagration three or four miles away. By midnight nearly every vehicle in the city had been pressed into service, and the frightened animals attached to them, in many cases beyond control, went flying through the streets in all directions, making a racket and a rumble which, coupled with the hoa.r.s.e shouts of men, the moaning of the gale, the roar of the conflagration and the crash of falling buildings made a conglomeration of sight and sound so appalling that none who saw it, or were of it, are ever likely to forget. Few in the city took any notice of the break of day or the rising of the sun. These occurrences seemed to make little difference in the quant.i.ty of light. It was only now and then that Old Sol was visible through the almost impenetrable smoke clouds. Nothing could be seen but smoke, smoke, smoke, here and there interspersed by dark rolling ma.s.ses of flames. It was chaos come again. The earth was seemingly resolved into its original elements."
At the end of three days, 300,000 people were dest.i.tute, 100,000 were absolutely homeless, 200,000 were without water. The food supply was doubtful for all. Robbers and incendiaries were at work. The gas was gone--blown sky high. Churches, newspapers, police, telegraph offices and public inst.i.tutions were gone, while nineteen-twentieths of all the mercantile stock in the city was consumed.
The tract destroyed was about a mile in breadth, and the losses were roughly estimated at $200,000,000. Still, so alive was public sentiment and hope, that at the time of my horseback journey, five years later, scarcely a trace remained to tell the tale of this disaster, and that of 1874, except the records of history.
The story of just how Chicago proved herself a veritable Phoenix is a very interesting one.
On the evening of October ninth, only twenty-four hours after the commencement of the conflagration, a car-load of provisions arrived from Milwaukee. By the next morning fifty car-loads had come to the afflicted city. Donations of food and clothing kept pouring in until Chicago was fairly sated. By October eleventh every person had food enough and each one"s pressing physical necessities were attended to. On the eleventh, also, the Board of Trade met and resolved to require the honoring of all contracts. On the twelfth the bankers met and resolved to pay all depositors in full. The State sent an instalment of $3,000,000 with which it then voted to re-imburse the city for its expenditures for the ca.n.a.l enlargement, thus placing the city in the possession of much-needed funds. From all over the civilized world came contributions in money for the resurrected city. The amount so received within three months after the conflagration being about $4,200,000.
The Relief Society alone built four thousand houses within five weeks of those dreadful days when all seemed lost.
In two years after the fire, sixty-nine million, four hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars were expended in erecting buildings of brick, iron, and stone, while miles of humble frame houses were built, each costing from $500 to $10,000.
Now, in place of the original city of wood, there stands by the Great Lake, a city of stone and iron, able to vie with any other city in growth, enterprise and wealth, bearing the distinction of being the greatest grain and lumber market in the world, and boasting a population, at the time of my journey, of about five hundred thousand.
From the Atlantic to the Pacific I rode into no city that made such an impression of grandeur, business power and wealth as this youthful "Queen of the Lakes."
Chicago"s baptism of fire seemed but to prove an inspiration, goading the city to more activity, to greater success.
The aggregate amount of business done in the city the year after the fire--entirely excepting the building trades--greatly exceeds that done the previous year, as the following figures will show. During this one year the wholesale merchandise trade increased fifteen per cent.
Receipts of grain increased 8,425,885 bushels; receipts of live-stock by 872,866 head. Deposits in the city banks increased $1,910,000.
So much for the splendid pluck of Chicago.
The Pacific coast has Chicago for her smelting furnace, four large silver mills being located here.
From the Pacific coast also, she has a considerable trade in the productions of the Orient. In the first half of 1873, Chicago received a.s.signments of three-million pounds of tea, two million pounds of coffee, eight hundred thousand pounds of foreign wool, and three hundred and nine thousand, seven hundred and twenty four pounds of foreign silk.
Cotton came to her from the Pacific Isles, and nuts from South America.
Some idea of the commercial importance of Chicago"s trade may be reached by the amount of some of her exports by rail during 1872: namely, two hundred and thirty-four million pounds of meat; eighty million, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of lard; one million, nine hundred and sixty-five thousand whole swine; four hundred and eighty-four thousand head of cattle, and one hundred and sixty-two thousand head of sheep.
I found Chicago justly proud of her public schools. It was roughly estimated that in the city about fifty thousand children between six and twelve years of age received daily instruction.
The graded system employed in these schools is so advanced, and has proved so successful, that it has become a general model for all the schools of the great Northwest.
More than that, it has been adopted, in part, by the Minister of Education in France, and at the late Vienna Exposition a reward for progress, in the shape of a beautiful medal, was awarded to the school system of Chicago. Chicago claims for herself absolute superiority in two particulars over all the public schools in the United States, the "Hub" inst.i.tutions of Boston not excepted. _First:_ Perfect discipline is said to be attained without the use of corporal punishment. _Second:_ The musical culture of the school children is said to far excel anything attained before on this Continent.
I found that the city contained a number of colleges, theological seminaries and universities. The University of Chicago occupies one of the most elegant and commodious buildings in the West.
The Dearborn Observatory, which is a part of this University, contains the famous Clark Telescope, one of the most magnificent instruments of its kind in existence.
The Chicago Theological Seminary is noted for the beauty of its chapel and lecture rooms, and the extent and quality of its library. The Academy of Science was incorporated in 1865. It has a vast building, well stocked with natural curiosities.
The Historical Society organized in 1856 possesses a rare collection of public and private doc.u.ments, as well as a library of nearly one hundred thousand volumes.
There are two hundred and thirty-eight houses of public worship in Chicago; all of the great religious denominations, and perhaps some new ones, being well represented. Differing as they do, they are, as some one says: "Agreed on one point, namely, an uncommon sense of mutual toleration and mutual love for each other, and a feeling of
Peace and sweet good will to all mankind."
There is a good deal of fine pulpit oratory to be heard every Sabbath in Chicago; and the people of the surrounding country know it. It is no uncommon thing for the Sat.u.r.day night incoming trains to be crowded with young men, some of them from homes one hundred miles away, who are yet regular attendants at the religious services of the city. Having enjoyed these to the full, the Sunday evening sleeping cars are again crowded with the same youthful army, very sleepy, but very happy, making the return trip.
Chicago is justly proud of her streets. About eighty feet wide, and meeting at right angles, they present a beautiful object lesson to some of her elder Eastern sisters.
The city is said to contain thirteen million dollars" worth of hotel property. Perhaps no structure for which any part of this immense sum has been expended is more beautiful and remarkable than the Palmer House. This building is said to contain more bricks than any two hotels on the Continent, and more iron than most of them put together. The flooring contains ninety thousand square feet of marble tiling laid in ma.s.sive beds of cement. The beams are laid in beds of cement also.
The immense carriage court is entered by three _porte cocheres_. There are said to be one hundred miles of electric bell wires in the building.
The magnificent office is twenty-four feet in height. It is wainscoted with Italian marble, studded with panels of remarkably rich rose brocatelle marble, and with many natural mosaics of rare and curious beauty. The wainscoting of the counter is made of the same exquisite material. The grand staircase is made of the same.
Mr. C. M. Palmer travelled extensively for some time, before building, throughout Europe, making an especial study of continental hotels, with a determination to surpa.s.s the excellences of them all in his beloved Chicago.
Mr. Palmer"s spirit seems to be characteristic of all true Chicagoans.
To have their city excel, to have it something more extensive, more impressive, more famous, grander, n.o.bler than any other place which the sun shines on, this is their hearts" desire. Some one said to a great man:
"What paramount word of advice would you give to young men?"
The answer came,
"Aspire."