Illinois, the origins [microform] : an address

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University of Illinois Library at

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AUTHOR: Alvord, Clarence

-

TITLE:

DATE:

Walworth
Illinois, the
origins

PLACE: Pontiac, III.

1909

UIUC Master Negative 95-4398

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University Library
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Alvord, Clarence Walworth, 1868-1928.

Illinois, the origins : an address / by Clarence Walworth Alvord.

[Pontiac, 111.] : Illinois State Reformatory Print, [1909?]

21 p. : port. ; 24 cm.

Military tract papers ; no. 3

"Before the trustees, faculty, and students of the Western Illinois State Normal School,
Friday, December 3, 1909."

Illinois—History.

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MILITARY TRACT PAPERS

No. 3.

ILLINOIS: THE ORIGINS

AN ADDRESS BY

CLARENCE WALWORTH ALVORD, PH. D.,

Associate Professor of History,
University of Illinois

BEFORE THE TRUSTEES, FACULTY,
AND STUDENTS

OF THE
WESTERN ILLINOIS STATE NORMAL SCHOOL

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1909

.L

CLARENCE WALWORTH ALVORD, Ph. D.

CLARENCE WALWORTH ALVORD, Ph. D.

.

ILLINOIS-THE ORIGINS

Within recent years an interesting phenomenon within
the schools of Illinois as well as in the state at large is forc-
ing itself on our attention. I refer to the ever increasing
activity in the celebration of important events in the history
of the territory that has come to be known as the State of
Illinois. The forces back of these recurring celebrations,
although we are more or less unconscious of them, have
sprung from a feeling of state unity and state personality; a
feeling that has grown rather late in the West. We have
not been surprised in the past when such states as Massa-
chusetts, New York, and Virginia, held celebrations in honor
of their great men and the events that are land marks in
their development, because in these eastern states there was
nurtured during the colonial period a particularism which
gave to each of them an almost national existence at the
time they entered the Union; but within these states of the
great Mississippi Valley, there was no long period of terri-
torial unity preceding the condition of statehood and the en-
trance into national relations. The boundary lines that run
this way and that upon the map of the West are generally
artificial in character, and have been drawn for the most
part by men that were not directly connected in any way
with the states which have thus been marked off. Take the
case of Illinois itself. To the average Illinoisans there has
been very little significance that a line separated us from our
sister state to the east, for the peaceful increase of the two
communities, thus divided by an artificial line, has run so sim-
ilar a course that no event in the past of either has given
cause for a very material differentiation. The immigrants
who have settled to the east or to the west of that particular
line have been of the same stock, and the reasons for fixing
any particular settlement on this side or that side of the line
have been accidental in character, and have not in any way
emphasized a difference between the people.

The development of a state personality, this feeling of
solidarity, has taken place in Illinois, not during her terri-
torial period, but during her period of statehood. And now

p 31121

.

|

6

that almost a century has run its course since the time when
this territory was declared of age, this consciousness of the
distinct personality of the great Prairie State has stored up
sufficient force to arouse in us a feeling of pride in our past,
as something in which other states have not participated.
One of the forms by which this consciousness exhibits itself
is in the celebration of anniversities, such as has drawn us
together tonight.

There is another way in which we are proclaiming our
pride in the past of our state that is equally significant,
namely, through the work of our historians. Perhaps in no
state in the Union is there greater activity in the study of
local history than is found in Illinois. Our State Historical
Society is among the largest. The State Historical Library
is showing an activity which rivals the work of any other
institution of similar kind and is, I hope, wisely expending
the appropriations made by the legislature. There is a
praiseworthy activity in the local historical societies; and the
individuals who are working upon Illinois history are in-
creasing in numbers every year. The state legislature, aside
from its appropriation to the State Historical Library, has
displayed its interest in another way, by passing a bill re-
quiring a knowledge of state history from all candidates for
teachers positions. This action on the part of the legisla-
ture may be open to criticism; but, from our view-point to-
night, it is an exhibition of state pride, of the consciousness
of a past, the knowledge of which is regarded as a valuable
acquisition for the citizens of this community.

This development of an appreciation of the state's past
among our people should be a cause of congratulation, for
the result of this energy, although it may be occasionally
misdirected, will finally exercise great influence upon our
citizens, when our true history is better known, because we
have a past that has been of great value to humanity, a past
which, on the whole, we may contemplate with pride.

The event which we celebrate here this evening is one
that marks a distinct epoch in the history of Illinois, a change

1

.

in life that is of such a character that we may say that the
whole previous history of the territory had but little effect
thereafter; for the entrance of Illinois into the Union was
not an event closely connected with the 18th century events
of this particular region. Up until 1809, we may regard Illi-
nois as simply a portion of the great western area, the des-
tinies of which were still to be determined. The particular
locality known as Illinois had not differentiated itself in any
material way from other parts of the western territory; and
in writing the early history of the state, one is obliged to
ignore later state lines. We have to tell the history of the
Northwest, or the history of the Central West, or the his-
tory of the whole Mississippi Valley, not the history of Illi-
nois. Take the important figures in the history of the region
during this earlier period, and you will find that in every
case they do not belong particularly to Illinois, but to the
greater area of which this district was but a part. We can
advance no exclusive claim to Joliet, Marquette, LaSalle,
the great discoverers of the Mississippi basin, any more
than can our sister states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio,
Indiana. The events that led to the first settlement of Illi-
nois by Frenchmen were closely connected with the imperial
policy of the court of Louis XIV, aii all inclusive policy
which would colonize the whole Mississippi basin, and re-
garded the planting of the little villages of Cahokia and
Kaskaskia as but the advance posts of a great French com-
munity. That these were within Illinois meant nothing to
the French; and the founders of the settlements, the priests
first and the later soldiers, belonged not to Illinois but to the
whole Mississippi Valley, where they and their contempor-
aries planted similar missions, villages, and forts. This
lack of real territorial history is also true of the period of
the English and Virginia control of the country. The parti-
cular English merchants and officers who occupied Kas-
kaskia, Fort de Chartres, Cahokia, were not men that may
be claimed by Illinois alone, but belonged to a great number
of other states. George Rogers Clark, the greatestlhero of

•

•

8

them all, the man, who was one of the instruments of Provi-
dence in saving for the new state that was being born the
Great Northwest, belongs to the people of Kentucky and
Indiana, as well as to us.

So coming down the line, we do not find any point in
which the Illinois territory may be said to have a peculiar
history until the separation of this territory from Indiana
by act of Congress in 1809. And even then, from 1809 until
the state was admitted to the Union in 1818, the active forces
that were to make Illinois the state she has become were
not completely developed; for it was not until the actual
entrance of the state into the Union that the full flood of
immigration, which was to raise the territory from insignif-
icance to prominence, occurred. Therefore, although 1809
might rival the date of 1818 as the barrier between the past
of Illinois and her future, still the more important event of
the entrance of the territory into the United States may
more justly be acknowledged as marking that wonderful
change of which we today are conscious.

It is my purpose this evening to sketch roughly the
population of Illinois at the moment that she passed from the
territorial state, at the moment that she shook oil' her connec-
tion with her past, at the moment when she ceased to be but
a part of a greater whole, and became ILLINOIS. At that
time, there were but few elements in the state that gave
great promise of the future development. The settlements
that went to make up the Illinois of that day were confined
to the southeastern part of the present territory and were
distributed in somewhat of a half moon shape along the Illi-
nois, Mississippi and Ohio rivers, stretching from Peoria to
Shawneetown and extending inland from the river banks but
a few miles. The elements of this population are of such a
character that it is not so very difficult for us to analyze it
in order to gain an understanding of what was this Illinois
of 1818, which passed from her territorial estate into that of
full statehood.

9

The oldest element in the region was the French. It is
a problem, not yet solved, to discover exactly what were the
influences upon the later development of Illinois that have
come from the French population scattered along the Amer-
ican Bottom; but tonight I shall venture to advance an
hypothesis. The history of these French villages was al-
ready over a century old in 1818. Cahokia had been estab-
lished as a mission station of the Seminary of Quebec as
early as March 1699, and Kaskaskia was made a mission
station of the Jesuits in the following year. From that time
there was a slow infiltration of population, largely from
Canada, although some few families of the American Bottom
traced their origin directly to France, via New Orleans. And
yet, the population was never large. Perhaps in the most
prosperous days of the French regime the French population
in the American Bottom did not number over two thousand.
But that period was before the King of France had ceded in
1763 all claims to the eastern bank of the Mississippi to the
British King. From the time of the arrival of the English
soldiers in the country of the Illinois, in October 1765, there
was an ever increasing emigration from the eastern to the
western bank. At first the enterprise of Laclede and Chou-
teau in founding St. Louis attracted many of the French to
the more favorable situation on the western bank; but after
the first excitement caused by the announcement that the
Illinois country was no longer French, the population of the
American Bottom remained practically stationary, although
there are indications of some re-immigration from St. Louis
to Kaskaskia and Cahokia, after the French learned that
France had also ceded the western bank to Spain. This sit-
uation was unchanged until 1778. By the arrival of George
Rogers Clark and the Virginians, on a July night of that
year, the immigration from the eastern bank to the western
bank became much more rapid. The history of the contact
of these Frenchmen of Roman Catholic religion and Gallic
culture with the large framed, energetic, uncultured Ameri-
can pioneers, was dramatic in character. The story of the

10

tyranny they suffered as the French tell it themselves in the
Kaskaskia and Cahokia Records thrills today our hearts and
arouses our sympathy. Shortly after the arrival of Clark,
the prominent and influential Frenchmen began to leave the
villages and established themselves on the Spanish side. It
is a mistake to think of the Illinois French of the mid-eigh-
teenth century as unenterprising, ignorant, superstitious,
terms of disparagement that are used in describing them by
writers of the last years of the 18th or the beginning of the
19th century. Those who remained on the eastern bank did
not represent the best elements in the French population.
The great leaders of the French, leaders in their economic
and political development, had deserted them and had trans-
ferred their citizenship to Spain. The census of the Missouri
side that was drawn up by the Spanish Commandants in the
early nineties reads today like a census of Southern Illinois of
1778. You find in the villages of Missouri the names of the
men who had sympathized with the American cause, who
had sided with George Rogers Clark, who had made it pos-
sible for him to hold the Northwest, who had given of their
property for his support, and who had marched with him
over the flooded ground of Illinois to conquer Vincennes.
Here in the Spanish villages you find Gabriel Cerre, Charles
Gratiot, the families of the Saucier, of the Brazeaux, of the
Beauvais, of the Charlevilles, men who were the leaders of
the Illinois country when the Virginians made that famous
march from the Ohio River and occupied the villages of the
American Bottom.

This emigration began in Kaskaskia earlier than it did
in the northern village of Cahokia, because in the former
village was stationed the garrison left by Clark and in its
neighborhood settled the Americans who first found their way
into the Northwest as immigrants. The oppression of the
Virginians, therefore, fell upon the Kaskaskia French much
more severely than upon their northern neighbors, and des-
pair of better conditions drove them sooner to the Spanish
bank. Between -1^78 and 1790 about 70% of the population

11

of Kaskaskia fled before the advancing Americans, and there
was left in the village only a few families of the less enter-
prising class.

The village of Cahokia, on the other hand, had been able
to maintain order during these trying years, and its French
citizens had displayed a remarkable capacity for local self
government. Here for years there was practically local
autonomy, and the citizens supported an efficient administra-
tion, which suppressed disorders in the community and even
compelled the few American pioneers who found their way
into the neighborhood to obey the laws. On the whole, Ca-
hokia led a peaceful life during the same years that were such
trying ones for her southern neighbor; and at the end of the
period her population showed a slight increase. After the
United States had established in 1790 her government over
this region, the number of English speaking pioneers in-
creased slightly. These men of our backwoods were aggres-
sive, self-reliant, and were much more capable of taking care
of themselves than the French; nor were they willing to ac-
cept the authority of the older settlers, whom they held in
considerable contempt. Without question, also, the re-
ligious differences played a part, and the Scotch-Irish
Protestant refused to obey a Roman Catholic Frenchman.
For these reasons there was an almost immediate change in
the personnel of the official class after 1790. The names are
generally English, German, Irish, while the number of
French names was diminishing to the vanishing point.

This new government established under the United States
was inefficient and proved itself incapable of maintaining
order in the communities, nor was it able to ward off the at-
tacks of the Indians. At the same time, Spain was making
earnest efforts to induce immigration into her Mississippi
possessions, and in particular had great hopes of alluring
the French from their allegiance. Similar in religion, and
accustomed to the same kind of government, there was rea-
son to believe that under proper encouragement the French
would cross the river and that the eastern bank might be

UNIVERSITY OF

ILLINOIS LIBRARY

AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN

12

completely deserted. The diplomacy used by the Spanish
was eminently successful. The priests of the American
Bottom, such as Father LeDru, Father St. Pierre, Father
Gibault, were persuaded to leave the shrinking population
of the American villages and to identify themselves with the
growing communities on the Spanish shore. The three
priests accepted the parishes at St. Louis, St. Genevieve,
and New Madrid. Besides thus discouraging the French
by taking away their spiritual leader, the Spanish encour-
aged the Indians in their attacks upon the American villages,
and then to make assurance doubly sure, they offered large
tracts of land to enterprising Frenchmen who would come to
them. The result was that the many Frenchmen who still
lingered on the American side, particularly the men who had
managed to maintain good order at Cahokia, gradually passed
over the river, so that by the end of the century the number
of these oldest settlers on the American Bottom was very
small; and their influence upon the politics, upon the econ-
omic conditions, and even upon the social life had become
almost a negligable quantity. There remained of the French
occupation of the American Bottom, little more than a mem-
ory. Here and there a few families still lingered in their
old homes, but the prominent French names of the early
19th century, such as Menard and Jarrot, belonged to men
who are not descendants of the old French families, but are
new comers, who had adjusted themselves to American pio-
neer conditions, and by this adjustment had won the esteem
of their fellow Americans. Since the year 1800 there is
scarcely a public name of any prominence in Illinois history
that belonged to the old French families of the American
Bottom. The Illinois of the 19th century was thus cut off
from that influence that is so marked in St. Louis and in
some of the smaller towns of the western bank; and the
French Creoles have never played a part in Illinois affairs
in anything like the way that they have done in the villages
across the river.

Before the United States had established the govern-

13

ment in Illinois territory in 1790, a few American families
had found their way to this region. These had come in the
wake of George Rogers Clark's army. Possibly a few of
Clark's soldiers also had settled in the locality, although the
muster lists of Clark's troops do not contain very many of
the names of the early Illinois pioneers. In 1780 several
frontiersmen under the leadership of Henry Smith, evidently
coming from Virginia, reached Kaskaskia, and were per-
mitted by Col. Montgomery, one of the officers of George
Rogers Clark, to settle on the bluffs at a place then known
as Belle Fontaine. They built a small stockade fort, and
were able to defend themselves here for a decade, until the
United States took possession. Another small community,
a few years later, settled at Grand Ruisseau, a few miles
south of Cahokia, and acknowledged the court of that place
as the government of their little community. Up and down
the American Bottom there were scattered also a few farms
and stockades. We have a list of these early Americans in
the region, a list that contains the signatures of 131 settlers
Some of these may have been small boys, probably were,
but they are the names of the first English speaking citizens
of the Illinois territory, and from them were sprung some of
our later well known families; for example, the Oglesbys and
Bonds.

These new comers could obtain lands in two ways, one
illegally, and the other legally. The illegal manner was to
petition the court of Kaskaskia or of Cahokia for grants.
Neither of these courts had the least authority to take cog-
nizance of such petitions, but the exigencies of the case
seemed to demand action; and, therefore, both did grant to
many Americans farms of 400 acres. The Cahokia court,
which was more careful in its legal acts, made their grants
subject to the condition of confirmation by the proper author-
ities. The Kaskaskia court, which was more disorganized
and more nearly controlled by the newcomers, seems to have
acted without much thought of right or legality. The legal
manner of obtaining lands was to buy them from the French;

14

and this was not very difficult since so many of the French
were migrating to the western shore.

As you may see from the figures that I have given, the
number of American settlers, 131 in all, was not very large
in 1790. It formed, however, the advance guard of the later
immigration. This advance guard was slow in being strength-
ened by recruits. American immigrants came to Illinois
between the years 1790 and 1800 only in sufficient numbers
to bring the population slightly above the figure it had
reached in the most prosperous times of the French regime,
fifty years before. After a century of occupation the terri-
tory of Illinois could count within its borders a little under
2500 people.

To us moderns who view the fertile fields of grain ex-
tending in every direction through the state and who know
the mineral wealth below the surface of the ground, it seems
amazing that there was not a rush of settlers to the region
in spite of the difficulties that confronted them. These dif-
ficulties were, however, very real, and we must pause a
moment to take account of them, for otherwise we shall
never appreciate the various causes which made the entrance
of Illinois into the Union such a significant turning point in
her history.

The first difficulty that deterred immigrants from com-
ing to the territory was the prairies that have proved in the
end her richest possession. The pioneer looking for lands
had a rule of thumb for selecting lands. It was this.
Where the largest and tallest trees grow, there lies the most
fertile land. Illinois is a prairie state. The greatest part
of her territory was treeless. The natural inference was
that the land that could not produce trees must be worthless
as farm land. If you will read the journal of George Wash-
ington's trip to the West, you will notice how enthusiastic

he grows over the land of tall timber. '
the rule known to all westerners. In

He was but applying
1786 James Monroe,

the later president, wrote of the Nort/hwest; "A great part
of the territory is miserably poor, especially that near Lakes

15

Michigan and Erie, and that upon the Mississippi and the
Illinois consists of extensive plains which have not had from
appearances, and will not have, a single bush on them for
ages. The districts, therefore, within which these fall will
never contain a sufficient number of inhabitants to entitle
them to membership in the confederacy." Historians have
frequently asserted that Clark's soldiers gave such glowing
accounts of Illinois that they attracted thither many settlers.
The number of Americans drawn to Illinois by these so-
called glowing accounts do not appear in the records, save
for the few that have been noted. There may have been
1500 Americans all told when the 19th century began. Cer-
tainly not all Clark's companions were favorably impressed
with the territory, or we should have found a larger popula-
tion. John Todd, appointed in 1779 county lieutenant for
this region, one of Clark's best friends, said he preferred
Kentucky to Illinois, "either for the ambitious man, the
retired farmer, or the young merchant." He found the
climate particularly unwholesome. Another quotation — and
this time from the citizens of Illinois themselves — will show
how universal was the unfavorable opinion of the land. In
a memorial written by the people of Illinois in 1805 occurs
this statement. Because of the extensive prairies between
Illinois and Vincennes, "a communication between them and
the settlements east of the river (the Wabash) can not in the
common course of things, for centuries yet to come, be sup-
ported with the least benefit, or be of the least moment to
either of them."

Besides this traditional low estimate of the value of
prairie lands there were real obstacles to their occupation.
The only means of easy communication with the other states
was by water, so that if a farmer or merchant expected to
send his products to a distant market he must settle near a
stream. Hence the early settlements of Illinois were placed
like fringes along the river banks. Prom such a location
the farmer had another advantage, for the banks of the
streams were wooded, and it was with wood that he built his

16

house and barns, and it was with wood fires that he cooked
his meals and kept warm in winter, for the period of the
general use of coal had not yet arrived.

The above reasons were sufficiently weighty to deter
settlement on these supposed wastes and it was not until
1814, four years before Illinois was admitted to the Union,
that the first daring pioneers penetrated into the prairies
and set up their log cabins and barns, the precursors of the
farm buildings of the modern era.

Closely connected with the above retarding forces was
the tradition widely spread throughout the country that
Illinois was particularly unhealthy. The evidence for this
seemed to be conclusive for the French had always suffered
from malaria and the first comers among the American
pioneers suffered from the same complaint. There was very
good reason for this general experience. The French had
chosen the bottom lands where there were always standing
pools of stagnant water, the breeding places of malarial
bearing mosquitoes. Even on the undrained prairies simi-
lar breeding places were numerous, so that it is not sur-
prising that the first experience of the early inhabitants
was the "shakes" for which recourse was had to quinine and
whiskey.

The reasons thus given were not, however, insurmount-
able nor would they have had prohibitive force sufficient to
account for the slow infiltration of immigrants. Other
causes were more effective. The first of which was the dif-
ficulty in obtaining titles to lands. The American Bottom
had practically been granted away during the French
Regime. What was ungranted had been illegally given to
immigrants by the British military commandants and the
Virginia courts. Most of these land grants were written in
the French language, and drawn according to French law,
a cause of difficulty to the agents of the United States sent
to settle the various legal questions arising from them.
The illegality of the numerous land grants increased the dif-
ficulty, particularly as Congress had passed a blanket con-

17

firmation of all grants that might have been made in good
faith. To this there was added an act by the Continental
Congress in 1788 and another in 1791 by the United States
Congress granting land to the settlers already in Illinois.
In this way the utmost confusion resulted and no one was
assured of a good title to any property he might purchase.
This difficulty was not overcome until almost the date of the
entrance of Illinois into the Union.

This confusion retarded immigration more completely
because this granted land was the only purchasable land in
Illinois. Squatters might settle here and there, but no one
was able to secure any kind of a title except to the land
which had been granted before 1791. Matters seemed to
take a more favorable turn, when in 1804 a land office was
established in Kaskaskia; but unfortunately no land was to
be offered for sale until existing private claims were adjusted.
Now began a systematic attempt to bring order out of chaos;
but the subject was a difficult one and delay after delay was
granted, so that it was not until 1814 that the sales of public
land in Illinois began and immigration was really encour-
aged by the possibility of purchasing indisputable titles
to the fertile fields. Notice that this again was only four
years before the admission of the state to the Union.

From this time on every encouragement to settlement
was given by the national government. At the very time
that the public lands were thrown on the market a new act
of importance went into effect, by which squatters in Illi-
nois were granted the right of preempting a quarter section
and of entering the land upon the payment of one-fourth of
the purchase price. This meant that those who had already
improved lands in the expectation of purchase as soon as the
land office began operations had the first right.

This delayed opening of the land in Illinois by the
United States was no intended slight to the territory, for
there was no land in the territory which the national govern-
ment had a right to sell. The United States had adopted
the policy of obtaining by cession from the Indian claimants

x

18

all lands before opening it to entrance by settlers. Before
1803, the surface of Illinois was covered by the Indian claims,
except the region around the French villages and five small
tracts in various parts of the territory, which had been ob-
tained for the purpose of building forts. With the year 1803
began the first series of Indian treaties which was finally to
drive the Indians from the border of the state. The first
treaty was naturally enough with the Illinois confederations
whose claim to the southern part was extinguished in 1803;
and in 1804 the Sauks and Foxes ceded the territory west of
the Illinois and Fox rivers; and in 1805, the land on the
Wabash claimed by the Piankashaws was also purchased.
This practically ended the first series of Indian treaties and
nothing more was attempted until after the close of the War
of 1612, when by another series, the most important treaty
of which was with the powerful Kickapoos in 1819, all Illi-
nois except the extreme north was opened for settlement.
It was therefore not until the time when Illinois entered the
Union that conditions were really favorable to immigration.
The influence of these retarding factors in Illinois is
conspicuous in the census reports as far as we have them.
We have already seen that at the time France ceded the
West and Canada to England in 1763, there were about 2000
white settlers in the Illinois country. At the time of the
occupation of the territory by George Rogers Clark the
population was probably a scant 1500. By 1790 this number
had fallen to below 1000 on account of the emigration of the
French to Missouri. Although there are no figures the de-
crease in the French population during the next decade was
very marked, but there was compensation for this in the
immigration of Americans and Canadian French. During
this time the Morrisons, the Reynolds, the Menards, came
to Illinois. In 1801 the population had passed the maximun
of French settlement and reached almost 2500. Compare
this with the population of other western states. Kentucky
in 1801 boasted a population of 220,000 and Ohio 45,000.
Indiana which had suffered from the same retardation as Illi-

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nois contained also about 2500 people. The next census,
that of 1810, shows the result of the extinguishing of Indian
titles and the promised land sales, for Illinois population
numbered over 12 000. But the next eight years saw the
actual opening of the land office, the further extinguishing
of the Indian land titles, and the beginning of settlements on
the prairies. The forces retarding immigration were at last
removed. Under the favoring influence of these conditions
the population leaped to almost 40,000, an increase of about
28,000 in eight years.

One naturally asks whence came this influx of new men?
What drove_them to the frontier border to make new homes?
The answer is not so very difficult, although much investiga-
tion into the origins of our early population remains to be
done by our historians The route to Illinois generally used
was by the Ohio, its branches, or by land along its banks,
for no longer was the route from the lakes, which was in
such constant use by the Canadians, often traveled. Not
yet was the Erie Canal opened, which was to bring a tide of
immigration from New York and New England. On the
Ohio in arks, rafts, and other crafts — the age of the steam-
boat was not yet come — or else along the banks on horse-
back or by foot, came the immigrants who were to make the
great state of Illinois. The easiest route to Illinois deter-
mined the character of its earliest population. The immigrants
came from Pennsylvania and the south, and the south in-
cluded not only the seaboard states but also Kentucky and
Tennessee. Conditions in these older states drove many to
seek for newer lands. A drought in North Carolina in 1816
and the land boom in Kentucky may be cited as subsidiary
causes of emigration. A more important factor was the in-
creasing production of cotton in the South and the resulting
extension of the plantation system with its slave labor. The
small farmer was slowly driven to the uplands or forced to
emigrate. The more enterprising took the latter course.
With these small farmers there went now and then a large
landowner who wished to free himself from the system of
slavery. Such was Edward Coles.

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These new arrivals made their way to Shawnee Town,
which was the centre whence the roads to the various parts
of the territory diverged. Here was a small log cabin vil-
lage incapable of supplying the necessities of the floating
population. Situated on the banks of an unfriendly river
which threatened yearly to wash the village out of existence,
Shawnee Town continued to thrive on immigrant trade and
because it was the chief export point for the agricultural
products in the extreme south. At Shawnee Town the im-
migrant made his purchase of land by depositing his first
payment and then with his family and all his household
goods journeyed to the new farm.

Thus, Illinois was first settled by southern men and the
character of the population of the southern part of the state
is still that of the south rather than of the north. Streams
of immigration from other sources had already begun when
the state entered the Union. For instance, Birkbeck and
Flower had already begun their English settlement. In 1817
John M. Peck brought his family from Connecticut; but the
influence of these important pioneers of Illinois belong to
the period of statehood rather than the earlier years. The
family histories of our early governors, senators, represent-
atives, and other officials prove the origin of our population.
These are almost exclusively of southern birth. Up to 1842,
all the governors were southern born or educated. The
northern influence belongs to the middle of last century.
The true pioneer period is southern.

It is time to close. The purpose of this address has
been to show how new was the era in our history that began in
1818. The men who attended the birth of the new state were
almost as new as the state herself. They were unconnected
with and ignorant of the past development of the region.
The long drawn out eighteenth century with its romance
and its peculiar hardships was a thing of the past The hand-
ful of French families scattered along the river banks were
a negligible quantity, scarcely known and not understood by

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the new comers. The past held no traditions for the new
state. Her future lay in the hands of those who had just
come and those who were to follow. The future was full of
hope, the past was as if it had never occurred.