The vote of 1824 against calling a const.i.tutional convention marked the end of the slavery question as an obstacle to the immigration of an anti-slavery population. Slaveholders, never a large proportion of the immigrants, practically ceased to come to the state, while the immigration of anti-slavery southerners continued, and the aggregate immigration greatly increased. The population of the state was 55,162 in 1820; 72,817, in 1825; and 157,445 in 1830. Missouri, more populous than Illinois by more than 11,000 in 1820, was less so by 17,000 in 1830.(529) Governor Coles, in his message of January 3, 1826, said: "The tide of emigration, which had been for several years checked by various causes, both general and local, has again set in, and has afforded a greater accession of population during the past, than it had for the three preceding years.
This addition to our population and wealth has given a new impulse to the industry and enterprise of our citizens, and has sensibly animated the face of our country. And as the causes which have impeded the prosperity of the state are daily diminishing, and the inducements to emigration are increasing, we may confidently antic.i.p.ate a more steady and rapid augmentation of its population and resources."(530)
From 1820 to 1825 the increase of population in Illinois was 17,655, while from 1825 to 1830 it was 84,628. Contemporaries have left some interesting records of immigration during the latter five years-a period in which the population of the state increased more than 116 per cent. Immigration had begun to be brisk by the fall of 1824. At the general election in August, 1820, there were 1132 votes cast in Madison county, while at a similar election in August, 1824, there were 3223 votes cast in the same territory, Madison county having been divided into Madison, Pike, Fulton, Sangamon, Morgan and Greene counties. A Madison county newspaper said: "That country bordering on the Illinois River is populating at this time more rapidly than at any former period. Family wagons with emigrants are daily pa.s.sing this place [Edwardsville], on their way thither."(531) During the five weeks ending October 28, 1825, about two hundred and fifty wagons, with an average of five persons to each, pa.s.sed through Vandalia, bound chiefly for the Sangamo country.(532) The unsettled condition of the slavery question from 1820 to August, 1824, is given as the cause of the slight increase in population during that period, and the settlement of the question is thought to have been a chief cause for the increase after 1824.(533) It must not be supposed, however, that any one cause excludes all others. The country as a whole had scarcely recovered from the great financial depression of 1819; Kentucky was in turmoil over her bank, land t.i.tles and old and new courts;(534) early in 1825 over 65,000 acres in a single county in Tennessee were advertised for sale for the delinquent taxes of 1824;(535) and in 1826 a great drought in North Carolina caused a marked emigration from that state.(536)
In 1829 emigration was great. Some forty English families from Yorkshire came by way of Canada and settled near Jacksonville, Illinois. They brought agricultural implements and some money.(537) The _Kentucky Gazette_ lamented the fact that a large number of the best families of Lexington were removing to Illinois.(538) An Illinois newspaper reported: "The number of emigrants pa.s.sing through our Town [Vandalia] this fall, is unusually great. During the last week the waggons and teams going to the north amounted to several hundred. At no previous period has our State encreased so rapidly, as it is now encreasing."(539) Another editor estimated the annual increase in population from 1826 to 1829 at not less than 12,000(540)-a figure which was almost certainly too low. In 1830 a meeting of gentlemen from the counties of Hampshire and Hampden (Ma.s.sachusetts) was held at Northampton to consider the expediency of forming a colony to remove to Illinois. After a discussion it was voted to adjourn to meet on the 10th of October at Warner"s Coffee House in Southampton. Similar meetings were held at Pawtucket and Worcester.(541)
The immigration to Illinois was but part of a general westward movement.
From Charleston, Virginia, we hear: "The tide of emigration through this place is rapid, and we believe, unprecedented. It is believed that not less than eight thousand individuals, since the 1st September last [written on November 6, 1829], have pa.s.sed on this route. They are princ.i.p.ally from the lower part of this state and South Carolina, bound for Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.-They jog on, careless of the varying climate, and apparently without regret for the friends and the country they leave behind, seeking forests to fell, and a new country to settle."
The editor attributes this movement to the fact that slavery had rendered white labor disreputable.(542) Three thousand persons bound for the West arrived at Buffalo in one week and six thousand per week were reported as pa.s.sing through Indianapolis, bound for the Wabash country alone.(543) The great northern tide was chiefly bound to Ohio and Michigan,(544) northern Illinois not being open to settlement. Five years after Detroit received three hundred arrivals per week, Chicago had about a dozen houses, besides Fort Dearborn. This was the Chicago of 1830.(545)
CHAPTER VII. SUCCESSFUL FRONTIERSMEN.
The character of the men who succeed in gaining the favor of those among whom they live indicates the character of those whose favor has been gained. Preachers, land dealers, lawyers, town builders, and politicians can not thrive in a hostile community. It is worth while in studying Illinois in its frontier stage to notice some of the chief traits of its leaders.
No better type of the pioneer preacher need be sought than the Rev. Dr.
Peter Cartwright. He preached in the West for nearly seventy years, during which time he delivered some eighteen thousand sermons, baptized some fifteen thousand persons, received into the church nearly twelve thousand members, and licensed preachers enough to make a whole conference. He was for fifty years a presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal church. His home was in Illinois from 1824 until his death in 1872. Aside from his ministerial duties he twice represented Sangamon county in the Illinois House of Representatives; was a candidate for congressman against Abraham Lincoln in 1846; and was a member of an historical society founded as early as 1827.
Cartwright had a number of traits that attracted frontiersmen. In person he was about five feet ten inches high, and of square build, having a powerful physical frame and weighing nearly two hundred pounds. "The roughs and bruisers at camp-meetings and elsewhere stood in awe of his brawny arm, and many anecdotes are told of his courage and daring that sent terror to their ranks. He felt that he was one of the Lord"s breaking plows, and that he had to drive his way through all kinds of roots and stubborn soil.... His gesticulation, his manner of listening, his walk, and his laugh were peculiar, and would command attention in a crowd of a thousand. There was something undefinable about the whole man that was attractive to the majority of the people, and made them linger in his presence and want to see him again." He had a remarkable power to read men, his first impressions being quickly made and almost always correct.
He was often gay, but never frivolous; often eccentric, but never silly. A c.u.mberland Presbyterian, after attending a communion service administered by Cartwright and at which the Baptist, Rev. John M. Peck, was present, wrote: "After meeting, I invited these two men to spend the night with me, which they did; and such a night!-of all Western anecdotes and manners, flow of soul and out-spoken brotherhood-we had never seen, and never expect to enjoy again. These were, then [1824 c.], the two strongest men of mark in the ministry, in this State [Illinois]." Cartwright"s vitality was remarkable. In the sixty-sixth year of his ministry, and the eighty-sixth of his life, he dedicated eight churches, preached at seventy-seven funerals, addressed eight schools, baptized twenty adults and fifty children, married five couples, received fifteen into the church on probation and twenty-five into full connection, raised twenty-five dollars missionary money, donated twenty dollars for new churches, wrote one hundred and twelve letters, delivered many lectures, and sold two hundred dollars worth of books. Many frontier preachers of the time were lacking in common sense, but they were not popular. This is the testimony of a contemporary (1828) writer whose a.n.a.lysis of western character has rarely been excelled.(546)
John Edgar, a native of Ireland, was one of the largest landholders who ever lived in Illinois. At the outbreak of the American Revolution he was a British officer living at Detroit, but becoming implicated in the efforts of his American wife to aid British soldiers in deserting, he was imprisoned. He escaped, and in 1784 settled in Kaskaskia, where his wife joined him two years later, having saved from confiscation some twelve thousand dollars. This made Edgar the rich man of the community. "In very early times, he erected, at great expense, a fine flouring mill on the same site where M. Paget had built one sixty years before. This mill was a great benefit to the public and also profitable to the proprietor. Before the year 1800, this mill manufactured great quant.i.ties of flour for the New Orleans market which would compare well with the Atlantic flour."
Edgar built a splendid mansion in Kaskaskia and entertained royally. At a time when hospitality was common he improved upon it. His home was the fashionable resort for almost half a century. It was here that Lafayette was entertained. In addition to his flour mill, which attracted settlers to its vicinity near Kaskaskia and which for many years did most of the merchant business in flour in the country, Edgar owned and operated salt works near the Mississippi, northwest of Kaskaskia, and also invested largely in land. Before the commissioners appointed to settle land claims he claimed thirty-six thousand acres in one claim as the a.s.signee of ninety donation-rights, while he and John Murry St. Clair claimed 13,986 acres which proved upon survey to cover almost thirty thousand acres. In territorial times Edgar paid more taxes than any one else in the territory. In 1790 Edgar was appointed chief justice of the Kaskaskia district of St. Clair county; in 1800 he was "Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the First Regiment of Militia of the County of Randolph"; in 1802 he was commissioned an a.s.sociate judge of the Criminal Court of Randolph county, by Governor Harrison. He had never studied law "but common sense, a good education, and experience in business with perfect honesty made him a very respectable officer." Edgar"s correspondence with Clark and Hamtramck show him to have been a leader in Illinois during its period of anarchy preceding the establishment of government in 1790. He offered to board a garrison on the credit of the United States, if a garrison should be sent to protect Illinois. At a time when slaveholding was regarded as eminently respectable by the people of Illinois, Edgar held slaves, and in 1796 he was one of four who pet.i.tioned Congress to introduce slavery into the territory. He was a member of the legislature of the Northwest Territory, was worshipful master of the first Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in Illinois, const.i.tuted at Kaskaskia in 1806, and was major-general of militia, in which capacity he presided at reviews with much dignity. In person Gen. Edgar was large and portly. He was definitely charged with forgery by the commissioners to settle land t.i.tles at Kaskaskia. In one case a letter signed in a fair hand by one who had made his mark to a deed was produced by Edgar. The letter was an offer of the illiterate owner to sell his land to Edgar. There is no indication that this conduct of the hospitable and popular man changed the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries.(547)
John Rice Jones, the first lawyer in Illinois, was eminently successful.
He was born in Wales in 1759, received a collegiate education at Oxford, England, and afterward took regular courses in both medicine and law. In 1783 he was a lawyer in London and owned property in Wales. The next year he came to Philadelphia where he practiced law and became acquainted with Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, Myers Fisher, and other distinguished men. In 1786 he came to Kentucky and joined Clark"s troops against the Wabash Indians. A garrison was irregularly established at Vincennes and Jones was made commissary-general. He sold seized Spanish goods to partially indemnify those whose goods had been seized by the Spanish. In 1790 Jones removed to Kaskaskia, bringing to his residence on the frontier a mind well trained by education and experience. He early became a large landowner, in 1808 paying taxes on 16,400 acres in Monroe county alone.
The list of offices held by Jones shows him to have been prominent wherever he went. He was attorney-general of the Northwest Territory, a member and president of the legislative council of the same, joint-revisor with John Johnson, of the laws of Indiana Territory, one of the first trustees, as well as a chief promoter, of Vincennes University, official interpreter and translator of French for the commissioners appointed to settle land claims at Kaskaskia, and after his removal to Missouri, about 1810, a member of the Missouri Const.i.tutional Convention of 1820, and, upon the admission of the state, justice of its Supreme Court until his death in February, 1824. In Missouri he engaged in lead mining and smelting with Moses Austin and later with Austin"s sons. He made an exhaustive report on the lead mines of Missouri in 1816. Jones was well versed in English, French and Spanish law, especially in regard to land t.i.tles. He was an excellent mathematician, and had also a thorough acquaintance with the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, English, and Welsh languages. The pioneers recognized his peculiar fitness for a legal career on the frontier. Governor Reynolds, a fellow-townsman of Jones, says: "Judge Jones lived a life of great activity and was conspicuous and prominent in all the important transactions of the country ... His integrity, honor, and honesty were always above doubt or suspicion. He was exemplary in his moral habits, and lived a temperate and orderly man in all things."(548)
The founding of the towns of Mt. Carmel, Alton and Springfield ill.u.s.trates the work of successful town building on the frontier. Mt. Carmel was laid out in 1817, Alton in 1818, and the land where Springfield now stands was entered in 1823.
The town of Mt. Carmel was founded by three ministers, Thomas S. Hinde, William McDowell and William Beauchamp, the first two being proprietors and the last agent and surveyor. McDowell probably never settled in Illinois. Hinde and Beauchamp were men of more than ordinary ability. The former was a son of the well-known Dr. Hinde, of Virginia, who was a surgeon in the British navy during the French and Indian war. Dr. Hinde moved to Kentucky and there the boy Thomas grew up. At one time he was a neighbor of Daniel Boone, and later of Simon Kenton. He was in the office of the Superior Court of Kentucky for some time, during which he became well acquainted with Governor Madison and his nephew, John Madison, kinsmen of President James Madison. He was well informed as to some of the obscure movements of Aaron Burr. This led him to send copies of the _Fredonian_, which he published in order to oppose Burr, to Henry Clay, then secretary of state, although the copies later unaccountably disappeared; and, in 1829, to write to James Madison, who was reported as contemplating the writing of a political history, offering to furnish information which he possessed at first hand concerning the conspiracy.
Madison denied any intention of writing a history, but asked Hinde to furnish an account of Burr"s transactions to be filed with Madison"s papers. This was done. In 1806, Hinde moved to Ohio to get away from slavery.
William Beauchamp was born in Kent county, Delaware, in 1772. He became a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794, but located in 1801 on account of ill health. His ministry had been markedly successful and he had been stationed in New York and Boston. In 1807 he settled on the Little Kanawha River in Virginia, and in 1815 moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, where he acted as editor of the _Western Christian Monitor_, Hinde being a contributor. Beauchamp knew Latin, Greek and Hebrew, was a writer of considerable ability, and was well fitted to be editor. In 1816, however, the General Conference decided to establish a magazine, and in the following year Beauchamp retired from the editorship of the _Monitor_, having successfully established the first Methodist magazine in America.
Beauchamp, Hinde and McDowell were now fellow-townsmen. They resolved to establish a town where their ideas of rect.i.tude might be applied.
The site chosen for the town was a point on the west bank of the Wabash opposite the mouth of the White River, and twenty-four miles southwest of Vincennes. This point was selected because of the available water power and of the likelihood that main roads from east to west would pa.s.s here.
The town became a railroad and manufacturing center and justified the wisdom of its founders. An elaborate circular, called the "Articles of a.s.sociation, for the City of Mount Carmel," was issued at Chillicothe in 1817. The purpose of the a.s.sociation was announced to be "to build a city on liberal and advantageous principles, and to const.i.tute funds for the establishment of seminaries of learning and for religious purposes." The proprietors reserved for themselves one-fourth of the lots, these being called "proprietors" lots;" one-fourth were called "public donation lots;"
and one-half were called "private donation lots." The plan of survey and sale was described as follows: "The front street is 132 feet wide; the others 99. The in-lots are six poles in front, and eleven and a half back; containing each sixty-eight perches, nearly half an acre. The most of the out-lots contain four acres and eight square poles; some of them more, (five and six acres on the back range); and a few of them less. There are 748 in-lots, and 331 out-lots-1079 in the whole.
"The lots are offered at private sale, at the following prices:
In-Lots On Front Street.
Corners, $150 each Not corners, 100
The Rest Of The In-Lots.
Corners, $120 each Not corners, 80 The out-lots, $100 each
"The payments are to be made in four annual instalments; the first at the time of sale.
"A bank is to be const.i.tuted by the sale of the lots.
"One-fourth of the lots are appropriated to the use of schools and religious purposes.
"One-half of the lots are to be given away to those who will improve them according to the articles of a.s.sociation. A person may have as many gift, or private donation out-lots, as he has such in-lots; the out-lots not required to be improved. The gift lots are to be disposed of on the following terms: the persons receiving them pay the prices above stated, and receive for the money thus paid, stock in the aforesaid bank. They are to improve the in-lots thus given to them, by building one dwelling-house for every such in-lot; one-half of the houses to be built within five years, and the other half within ten years, from the sale of said lots. The houses to be framed, brick, or stone, and to contain two rooms, and two fire-places each."
The bank referred to was "The Bank of Mount Carmel." Its shares were ten dollars each. The proprietors might put into the stock one-half of the money received from the sale of proprietors" lots; all the money received for public donation lots was to be divided into three equal parts, one part to be funded in the bank in the name of the trustees (to be appointed) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the proceeds to be applied to the building of "Methodist Episcopal meeting houses in the city of Mount Carmel, and to other religious purposes," not including ministers"
salary; the second part to be funded in the name of the trustees (to be appointed) of a male academy; the third part to be similarly funded for a female academy; the money from private donation lots to be funded in the name of the purchasers, after deducting ten per cent for expenses, which ten per cent should remain in the bank as permanent stock. The articles of a.s.sociation were elaborate. The 18th article became known as the "Blue Laws." It read as follows: "ART. 18. No theatre or play-house shall ever be built within the bounds of this city. No person who shall be guilty of drunkenness, profane swearing or cursing, Sabbath breaking, or who shall keep a disorderly house, shall gamble, or suffer gambling in his house, or raise a riot, or break the peace within the city, or be guilty of any other crime of greater magnitude in guilt than those here mentioned, and shall be convicted thereof before the mayor, council, or any other court having cognizance of such crime or crimes, shall be eligible to any office of the city of Mount Carmel or its bank, or be ent.i.tled to vote for any such officer, within three years after such conviction, notwithstanding anything in these articles to the contrary."
The plan for a town was successful. Beauchamp was surveyor, pastor, teacher, and lawyer in the beginning of settlement. By 1819 a school was established; four or five years later a school-house was built; by 1820 Mt. Carmel circuit of the M. E. church had been formed; in 1825 a brick church was erected; the same year the town was incorporated by the state on the plan laid down in the articles of a.s.sociation; in 1827 the annual conference of the Illinois Conference was held at Mt. Carmel.
Beauchamp"s health having improved he reentered the ministry in 1822, and at the General Conference two years later he lacked but two votes of being chosen bishop. He died in 1824.
Hinde, in 1825, was a member of the Wabash Navigation Company, consisting of seventeen prominent Indiana and Illinois men, and having a capital stock of one million dollars. He was one of the nine directors for the first year. He continued to be a contributor to periodical literature and became the biographer of his friend Beauchamp. In a letter from Mt.
Carmel, of May 6, 1842, Hinde says: "I have just returned from the East, having visited the Atlantic cities generally for the first time, after forty-five years pioneering in the wilderness of the West. I have been three times a citizen of Kentucky, twice of Ohio, and twice of Illinois."
Hinde died in 1846 and was buried at Mt. Carmel. Among his writings is found one of the most acute a.n.a.lyses of frontier character that has appeared. The writer points out that eastern ministers have often been unsuccessful and eastern immigrants unpopular, because they have underrated the people of the West, among whom there are many people of culture. They prefer "the _useful_ to the shining or showy talent." In the West the best work has been done by westerners. The English spoken in the West is the purest to be found, because the various provincialisms of the immigrants are mutually corrective. The Virginian, who retained his unbounded hospitality, was the most prominent character in the West. "If we expect to find on crossing the mountains a people either illiterate or ignorant as a body, we will a.s.suredly, in many instances, be happily disappointed. It too often happens, that one puffed up with self importance, and possessing a conceited and heated imagination, will form wild conjectures as to men and things. We have been amused at the bewildered minds of such, with the "whys" and "wherefores"; and one of the most ridiculous whims of some, is to endeavour to press every thing into their own _mould_; and shape it, be it what it may, if possible, after their own manner, custom, or operation, forgetting that "we have to take the world as it is, and not as we would have it to be." The fact is, an emigrant should come forth as an inquirer, and set himself down to learn at the threshold of experience. On this rock thousands have been injured, and none have suffered more than the English emigrants. Oh! with what poignant grief have I heard the English emigrant exclaim with the bitterest invectives on his own course and conduct, as to this particular.
Conceiving that he knew every thing, when he came here to test his experience, he soon found that he "knew nothing." This circ.u.mstance I have found too to have its bearings upon American emigrants from different states; upon families, upon individuals, and upon preachers also. How often have I heard the old settler complaining, (who having himself learned by _experience_) of the impertinent conduct of an emigrant, who sometimes carries his local policy through all the ramifications of his life, and often into the religious society, as well as elsewhere; he wishing every thing done, as he saw it done in Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and very often "Old England" and "Ireland!" as if men who have to act, and reflect upon the circ.u.mstances of the case, different from any ever before presented except among themselves, are to be governed by acts and doings of people in the moon!"(549) A man who thus knew the frontier was fitted to be the founder of a western town.
Rufus Easton was the founder of the town of Alton. Like Hinde, he brought to his work a fund of experience gained on the frontier and in public affairs. Easton was born at Washington, Litchfield county, Connecticut, in 1774. He descended from pioneers, being a direct descendant of Joseph Easton, who came from England to Newtowne, now Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, about 1633, and was later one of Rev. Thos. Hooker"s colony which founded Hartford, Connecticut, of which Easton was an original proprietor. In 1792 Rufus Easton"s father, a Tory, obtained a large grant of land near Wolford, now Easton Corners, Ontario. Rufus received a good education before studying law. In 1798 he was practicing law in Rome, New York, then a frontier town. November, 1801, Easton, with thirteen other prominent men, held a banquet to celebrate the election of Thos. Jefferson as President. The prominence of the young lawyer at this time is shown by the fact that he was consulted in regard to federal appointments, and that he was in 1803 a confidential correspondent of De Witt Clinton. The winter of 1803-4 Easton spent in Washington, where he became a friend of Aaron Burr, Postmaster-General Granger, and others. In the spring of 1804 he started for New Orleans. Aaron Burr gave him a letter of introduction to Abm. R.
Ellery, Esq., of New Orleans, in which he said: "You will certainly be greatly amused to converse with a man who has pa.s.sed the whole winter in this city-who has had free intercourse with the officers of Govt. & members of Congress-who has discernment to see beyond the surface, and frankness and independence enough to speak his own sentiments." Easton did not, however, go to New Orleans. He stopped for a short time at Vincennes and then located at St. Louis. He was appointed by Jefferson judge of the Territory of Louisiana and first postmaster of St. Louis. In September, 1805, Burr, Wilkinson and Easton had a conference at St. Louis. Easton turned a deaf ear to Burr"s questionable proposals and from this time Wilkinson was hostile to Easton. Easton corresponded with Jefferson and Granger concerning the Burr conspiracy. Jefferson appointed him United States attorney, 1814-18 he was delegate to Congress from Missouri, 1821-26 he was attorney-general of Missouri. Easton was very prominent, entertaining almost all visitors of note. Edward Bates, Lincoln"s attorney-general, read law in Easton"s office.
Soon after coming to St. Louis, Easton began to buy up claims to land in Missouri and Illinois. When seeking to find a suitable place for a town in Illinois, he selected a point on the east bank of the Mississippi, twenty-five miles north of St. Louis and twenty miles south of the mouth of the Illinois. There was here a good landing place for boats, and also extensive beds of coal and limestone. The town was named Alton in honor of the founder"s son. One hundred lots in the new town were donated to the support of the gospel and public schools, one-half of the proceeds to be devoted to each. This provision was confirmed by the act of incorporation of January 30, 1821, and the trustees were given the right to tax undonated lots for the support of schools. This latter provision was in advance of public sentiment and two years later it was repealed. Alton, like Mt. Carmel and to a much greater extent, proved the wisdom of its location. It has long been noted for its manufactures and is a thriving modern city.(550)
The town of Springfield, since 1839 the capital of Illinois, was laid out in 1822, before the land upon which it stood was offered for sale. When the land was sold in November, 1823, the section upon which the town stood was bought by Elijah Iles, Pascal Paoli Enos, Thomas c.o.x, and Daniel P.
Cook, each purchasing one quarter, but the t.i.tle being vested by agreement in Iles and Enos. Cook, like McDowell in the founding of Mt. Carmel, seems to have been a non-resident proprietor.
Elijah Iles was a child of the wilderness. He was born in Kentucky in 1796, and died at Springfield, Illinois, in 1883, leaving valuable reminiscences of his long experience on the frontier. His mother was Elizabeth Crockett Iles, a relative of David Crockett. Elijah attended school two winters and taught two winters. In 1812, although but sixteen years of age, he acted as deputy for his father, who was sheriff of Bath county, Kentucky. Some three years later his father gave him three hundred dollars, with which he bought one hundred head of yearling cattle. For three years he herded these cattle among the mountains of Kentucky, about twenty miles from civilization, having as his only companions his horse, dog, gun, milk cow, and the cattle. His meals usually consisted of a stew made of bear meat, venison, or turkey, and a piece of fat bacon. At the end of the three years the cattle were sold for about ten dollars a head, and the youthful dealer having attained his majority went to Missouri and became a land agent for eastern speculators, and soon began to speculate for himself. In 1821, concluding that Missouri was too far from a market, he sold some of his land and resolved to move to Illinois. At that time the site upon which Springfield was to stand had been chosen as the temporary county seat of Sangamon county, because eight men, some of whom had families, lived within a radius of two miles from the site, and at no other place in the county could the lawyers and judge secure board and lodging. Iles quickly discerned the advantages of the Sangamon country as a place of settlement, and straightway built a log store sixteen feet square, went to St. Louis and bought fifteen hundred dollars worth of goods, which he loaded on a keel-boat and had towed up the Mississippi and the Illinois by six men, whom he paid seventy-five dollars for their services. When the land was offered for sale, in 1823, Iles bought a quarter-section.
Another quarter-section of the town site was bought by Pascal Paoli Enos.
The fact that the frontier is a great social leveler is well ill.u.s.trated by the combination of Enos and Iles as joint owners of a town site. The Enos family had come from England in 1648, and Pascal Paoli Enos, son of Major-General Roger Enos, was born in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1770. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1794, studied law, was a member of the Vermont legislature in 1804, married in Vermont and moved to Cincinnati in 1815, later to St. Charles, Missouri, then to St. Louis, then to Madison county, Illinois, and in 1823 was appointed by President Monroe receiver of public moneys for the land-office in the District of Sangamo. Thus the elderly scholar joined the shrewd but youthful frontiersman.
Col. Thomas c.o.x was the third of the trio of the resident proprietors of Springfield. He had signed a pet.i.tion for the division of Randolph county in 1812, represented Union county as a senator in the first general a.s.sembly of Illinois, and in 1820 was appointed register of the land-office at Vandalia. In 1823 he came to Springfield as register of the land-office at that place. Col. c.o.x was six feet tall, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, and was a drunkard within a short time after the founding of Springfield.
The most important thing about the founding of the town is the heterogeneous character of its founders. A few incidents in their subsequent history will emphasize this, and also show how well they worked together when surrounded by the same conditions. When the commissioners came to locate a permanent county seat Springfield, then called Calhoun, had a formidable rival for the honor. Iles and Enos managed to have a mutual friend engaged as guide to the commissioners. The guide conducted them to the rival settlement by a long and rough route and upon being requested to take them back over a shorter route he took a course more difficult still. The commissioners decided that the rival settlement was inaccessible. Iles was twice state senator, major in the Winnebago war, and captain in the Black Hawk war, in which he served with Zachary Taylor, Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln, John T. Stuart, Robt. Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, and others. Iles was also a large stock dealer, selling hogs and cattle in St. Louis and mules in Kentucky, until 1838, in which year he lost ten thousand dollars on hogs packed at Alton. In 1838-9 he built the American House in Springfield. This was then the largest hotel in the state and its erection created a great sensation. He was four times state senator, and was an officer of the Bank of Edwardsville. Enos held his position as receiver until removed for political reasons by Jackson in 1829. c.o.x had an eventful career. He was removed from his position of register, under charges of misconduct, early in 1827; the next year he was keeping a hotel in Springfield; later he removed to Iowa, then Wisconsin, having secured a contract for the survey of public lands. He was three times a member of the Iowa territorial House of Representatives and twice a member of the territorial Council. A band of murderers, horsethieves, counterfeiters, and blacklegs, having gained possession of the town of Bellevue, on the Mississippi, in Jackson county, Iowa, Col. c.o.x led the citizens in a successful attack in which seven men were killed outright and some ten or fifteen wounded. At this time c.o.x was recognized as a p.r.o.nounced drunkard, but his undoubted courage, ability to command, and strong physique secured him a following.(551)
Shadrach Bond, the first governor of Illinois, and Pierre Menard, the first lieutenant-governor, were both poorly educated, but they had a good knowledge of men and a large fund of information concerning practical affairs.(552) Edward Coles, the second governor of the state, is a good example of the polished, well-educated gentleman succeeding with a rude const.i.tuency. Coles was born in 1786, in Albemarle county, Virginia, fitted for college by private tutors, educated at Hampden Sidney and later at William and Mary College. His father"s home was visited by Patrick Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, the Randolphs, Tazwell, Wirt, and others. For six years Coles was the private secretary of President Madison, and during this time he became an intimate friend of Nicholas Biddle. In 1815 he visited Illinois in what must have seemed at that time great state, for he traveled not only with a horse and buggy, but with a servant and a saddle-horse as well. In 1816-17 he was sent as a special messenger to Russia, stopping at Paris on his return, meeting Louis XVIII.
of France and becoming a friend of Lafayette. In 1819 he came to Edwardsville, Illinois, emanc.i.p.ated his slaves, and a.s.sumed his duties as register of the land-office. The rough pioneers were very anxious to get a t.i.tle to their lands. "When the settler reached Edwardsville, dressed in jeans and wearing moccasins, with his money in his belt, having traveled on foot or on horseback long distances, and first presented himself to the Register of the Land Office, there he found Edward Coles, who had recently emigrated into the State from Virginia. It was known to some of them that he had been the private secretary for President Madison, and had been on an important mission to Europe.
"They found him a young man of handsome, but somewhat awkward personal appearance, genteelly dressed, and of kind and agreeable manners. The anxious settler was at once put at ease by the suavity of his address, the interest he appeared to feel in aiding him, and the thoroughly intelligent manner in which he discharged his duty. No man went away who was not delighted with his intercourse with the "Register." And herein is ill.u.s.trated the great mistake so often made by politicians and candidates for popular favor. Too many candidates for the suffrage of the people in our early political contests thought it necessary, in order to make themselves popular, to affect slovenly and unclean dress and vulgar manners in their campaigns. There was never a greater mistake. However rough, ill-clothed and unintelligent the voter might be, he always preferred to vote for the man who was dressed and acted like a gentleman to the one who dressed like and acted like himself."(553) Coles was always dignified, always gentlemanly, and always respected. His brief residence in Illinois affected its history for all time to come. Like Coles in several respects was his successor as governor, Ninian Edwards. Born in Maryland in 1775, educated by the celebrated William Wirt, and later graduating from d.i.c.kinson College, Pennsylvania, at nineteen years of age he came to Kentucky. Here he served two terms in the Kentucky legislature, was presiding judge of the general court, circuit judge, and chief-justice of the court of appeals. Henry Clay gave as Edwards" marked characteristics, good understanding, weight of character, and conciliatory manners. In his campaign for governor of Illinois, Edwards presented himself as the highest type of a polished and well-dressed gentleman, always riding in his own carriage and driven by his negro servant, and dressing in all the style of an old-fashioned gentleman with broad-cloth coat, ruffled shirt, and high-topped boots. The people were not repelled by such a display, but considered it an honor to vote for such a man. The egotistical Adolphus Frederick Hubbard, who was one of the two opponents of Edwards, intermingled bad grammar and poor attempts at wit in his electioneering speeches, and received less than one-tenth of the number of votes cast for either of the two other candidates.(554)