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HISTORICAL 



ENCYCLOPEDIA 



OF 



ILLINOIS 

EDITED BY 

Newton Bateman, LL. D. Paul Selby, A. M. 




AND HISTORY OF 



OGLE COUNTY 



EDITED BY 

Horace G. Kauffman Rebecca H. Kauffman 



Volume I 



ILLUSTRATED 



CHICAGO 

MUNSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 
\\- 1909 



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Entered accoridng to act of Congress in the years 
i8gcj and tgoo by. 

WILLIAM W. MUNSELL 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington 



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TERRITORY DRAINED BY THE ILLINOIS RIVER. 



PREFACE. 



Why publish this book? There should be many and strong reasons to warrant such an 
undertaking. Are there such reasons? "What considerations are weighty enough to have 
induced the publishers to make this venture? and what special claims has Illinois to such a 
distinction? These are reasonable and inevitable inquiries, and it is fitting they should 
receive attention. 

In the first place, good State Histories are of great importance and value, and there is 
abundant and cheering evidence of an increasing popular interest in them. This is true of 
all such works, whatever States may be their subjects; and it is conspicuously true of Illi- 
nois, for the following, among many other reasons : Because of its great prominence in the 
early history of the West as the seat of the first settlements of Europeans northwest of the 
Ohio River — the unique character of its early civilization, due to or resulting from its early 
French population brought in contact with the aborigines — its political, military, and educa- 
tional prominence — its steadfast loyalty and patriotism — the marvelous development of its 
vast resources — the number of distinguished statesmen, generals, and jurists whom it has 
furnished to the Government, and its grand record in the exciting and perilous conflicts on 
the Slavery question. 

This is the magnificent Commonwealth, the setting forth of whose history, in all of its 
essential departments and features, seemed to warrant the bringing out of another volume 
devoted to that end. Its material has been gathered from every available source, and most 
carefully examined and sifted before acceptance. Especial care has been taken in collecting 
material of a biographical character ; facts and incidents in the personal history of men identi- 
fied with the life of the State in its Territorial and later periods. This material has been 
gathered from a great variety of sources widely scattered, and much of it quite inaccessible 
to the ordinary inquirer. The encyclopedic form of the work favors conciseness and com- 
pactness, and was adopted with a view to condensing the largest amount of information 
within the smallest practicable space. 

And so the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois was conceived and planned in the belief 
that it was needed; that no other book filled the place it was designed to occupy, or fur- 
nished the amount, variety and scope of information touching the infancy and later life of 
Illinois, that would be found in its pages. In that belief, and in furtherance of those ends, 
the book has been constructed and its topics selected and written. Simplicity, perspicuity, 
conciseness and accuracy have been the dominant aims and rules of its editors and writers. 
The supreme mission of the book is to record, fairly and truthfully, historical- facts ; facts of 
the earlier and later history of the State, and drawn from the almost innumerable source? 
connected with that history ; facts of interest to the great body of our people, as well as to 
scholars, officials, and other special classes; a book convenient for reference in the school, 
the office, and the home. Hence, no attempt at fine writing, no labored, irrelevant and 

3 



4 PKEFACE. 

long-drawn accounts of matters, persons or things, which, really need but a few plain words 
for their adequate elucidation, will be found in its pages. On the other hand, perspicuity 
and fitting development are never intentionally sacrificed to mere conciseness and brevity. 
Whenever a subject, from its nature, demands a more elaborate treatment — and there are 
many of this character — it is handled accordingly. 

As a rule, the method pursued is the separate and topical, rather than the chronological, 
as being more satisfactory and convenient for reference. That is, each topic is considered 
separately and exhaustively, instead of being blended, chronologically, with others. To pass 
from subject to subject, in the mere arbitrary order of time, is to sacrifice simplicity and 
order to complexity and confusion. 

Absolute freedom from error or defect in all cases, in handling so many thousands of 
items, is not claimed, and could not reasonably be expected of any finite intelligence ; since, 
in complicated cases, some element may possibly elude its sharpest scrutiny. But every 
statement of fact, made herein without qualification, is believed to be strictly correct, and 
the statistics of the volume, as a whole, are submitted to its readers with entire confidence. 

Considerable space is also devoted to biographical sketches of persons deemed worthy of 
mention, for their close relations to the State in some of its varied interests, political, gov- 
ernmental, financial, social, religious, educational, industrial, commercial, economical, mili- 
tary, judicial or otherwise; or for their supposed personal deservings in other respects. It 
is believed that the extensive recognition of such individuals, by the publishers, will not be 
disapproved or regretted by the public ; that personal biography has an honored, useful and 
legitimate place in such a history of Illinois as this volume aims to be, and that the omission 
of such a department would seriously detract from the completeness and value of the book. 
Perhaps no more delicate and difficult task has confronted the editors and publishers than 
the selection of names for this part of the work. 

While it is believed that no unworthy name has a place in the list, it is freely admitted 
that there may be many others, equally or possibly even more worthy, whose names do not 
appear, partly for lack of definite and adequate information, and partly because it was not 
deemed best to materially increase the space devoted to this class of topics. 

And so, with cordial thanks to the publishers for the risks they have so cheerfully 
assumed in this enterprise, for their business energy, integrity, and determination, and their 
uniform kindness and courtesy ; to the many who have bo generously and helpfully promoted 
the success of the work, by their contributions of valuable information, interesting reminis- 
cences, and rare incidents; to Mr. Paul Selby, the very able associate editor, to whom 
especial honor and credit are due for his most efficient, intelligent and scholarly services; to 
Hon. Harvey B. Hurd, Walter B. Wines, and to all others who have, by word or act, 
encouraged us in this enterprise — with grateful recognition of all these friends and helpers, 
the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, with its thousands of topics and many thousands of 
details, items and incidents, is now respectfully submitted to the good people of the State, 
for whom it has been prepared, in the earnest hope and confident belief that it will be found 
instructive, convenient and useful for the purposes for which it was designed. 





«• As\s\^ 



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PREFATORY STATEMENT 



Since the bulk of the matter contained in this volume was practically completed and 
ready for the press, Dr. Newton Bateman, who occupied the relation to it of editor-in-chief, 
has passed beyond the sphere of mortal existence. In placing the work before the public, it 
therefore devolves upon the undersigned to make this last prefatory statement. 

As explained by Dr. Bateman in his preface, the object had in view in the preparation 
of a "Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois" has been to present, in compact and concise form, 
the leading facts of Territorial and State history, from the arrival of the earliest French 
explorers in Illinois to the present time. This has included an outline history of the State, 
under the title, "Illinois," supplemented by special articles relating to various crises and eras 
in State history ; changes in form of government and administration ; the history of Consti- 
tutional Conventions and Legislative Assemblies ; the various wars in which Illinoisans have 
taken part, with a summary of the principal events in the history of individual military 
organizations engaged in the Civil War of 1861-65, and the War of 1898 with Spain; lists of 
State officers, United States Senators and Members of Congress, with the terms of each ; the 
organization and development of political divisions; the establishment of charitable and 
educational institutions ; the growth of public improvements and other enterprises which 
have marked the progress of the State ; natural features and resources ; the history of early 
newspapers, and the growth of religious denominations, together with general statistical 
information and unusual or extraordinary occurrences of a local or general State character — 
all arranged under topical heads, and convenient for ready reference by all seeking informa- 
tion on these subjects, whether in the family, in the office of the professional or business 
man, in the teacher's study and the school-room, or in the public library. 

While individual or collected biographies of the public men of Illinois have not been 
wholly lacking or few in number — and those already in existence have a present and con- 
stantly increasing value — they have been limited, for the most part, to special localities and 
particular periods or classes. Rich as the annals of Illinois are in the records and character 
of its distinguished citizens who, by their services in the public councils, upon the judicial 
bench and in the executive chair, in the forum and in the field, have reflected honor upon 
the State and the Nation, there has been hitherto no comprehensive attempt to gather 
together, in one volume, sketches of those who have been conspicuous in the creation and 
upbuilding of the State. The collection of material of this sort has been a task requiring 
patient and laborious research ; and, while all may not have been achieved in this direction 
that was desirable, owing to the insufficiency or total absence of data relating to the lives of 
many men most prominent in public affairs during the period to which they belonged, it is 
still believed that what has been accomplished will be found of permanent value and be 
appreciated by those most deeply interested in this phase of State history. 

The large number of topics treated has made brevity and conciseness an indispensable 
feature of the work; consequently there has been no attempt to indulge in graces of style or 

5 



6 PKEFATOKY STATEMENT. 

elaboration of narrative. The object has been to present, in simple language and concise 
form, facts of history of interest or value to those who may choose to consult its pages. 
Absolute inerrancy is not claimed for every detail of the work, but no pains has been 
spared, and every available authority consulted, to arrive at complete accuracy of statement. 

In view of the important bearing which railroad enterprises have had upon the extraor- 
dinary development of the State within the past fifty years, considerable space has been given 
to this department, especially with reference to the older lines of railroad whose history has 
been intimately interwoven with that of the State, and its progress in wealth and population. 

In addition to the acknowledgments made by Dr. Bateman, it is but proper that I 
should express -my persona] obligations to the late Prof. Samuel M. Inglis, State Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction, and his assistant, Prof. J. H. Freeman; to ex-Senator John 
M. Palmer, of Springfield; to the late Hon. Joseph Medill, editor of "The Chicago Tribune" ; 
to the Hon. James B. Bradwell, of "The Chicago Legal News"; to Gen. Green B. Raum, 
Dr. Samuel Willard, and Dr. Garrett Newkirk, of Chicago (the latter as author of the prin- 
cipal portions of the article on the "Underground Railroad") ; to the Librarians of the State 
Historical Library, the Chicago Historical Library, and the Chicago Public Library, for 
special and valuable aid rendered, as well as to a large circle of correspondents in different 
parts of the State who have courteously responded to requests for information on special 
topics, and have thereby materially aided in securing whatever success may have been 
attained in the work. 

In conclusion, I cannot omit to pay this final tribute to the memory of my friend and 
associate, Dr. Bateman, whose death, at his home in Galesburg, elsewhere recorded, was 
deplored, not only by his associates in the Faculty of Knox College, his former pupils and 
immediate neighbors, but by a large circle of friends in all parts of the State. 

Although his labors as editor of this volume had been substantially finished at the time 
of his death (and they included the reading and revision of every line of copy at that time 
prepared, comprising the larger proportion of the volume as it now goes into the hands of 
the public) , the enthusiasm, zeal and kindly appreciation of the labor of others which he 
brought to the discharge of his duties, have been sadly missed in the last stages of prepara- 
tion of the work for the press. In the estimation of many who have held his scholarship 
and his splendid endowments of mind and character in the highest admiration, his con- 
nection with the work will be its strongest commendation and the surest evidence of its 
merit. 

With myself, the most substantial satisfaction I have in dismissing the volume from my 
hands and submitting it to the judgment of the public, exists in the fact that, in its prepara- 
tion, I have been associated with such a co-laborer — one whose abilities commanded uni- 
versal respect, and whose genial, scholarly character and noble qualities of mind and heart 
won the love and confidence of all with whom he came in contact, and whom it had been my 
privilege to count as a friend from an early period in his long and useful career. 




*~4^a^ ty <z^£7' ^u^y 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Abraham Lincoln {Frontispiece) 1 

Annex Central Hospital for Insane, Jacksonville 84 

Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children, Lincoln 237 

Bateman, Newton (Portrait ) 3 

Board of Trade Building, Chicago 277 

"Chenn Mansion," Kaskaskia (1898), where La Fayette was entcrtai 1 in 1825 .... 315 

Chicago Academy of Sciences • 394 

Chicago Drainage Canal 94 

Chicago Historical Society Building 394 

Chicago Post Office (U. S. Gov. Building) 88 

Chicago Public Buildings 395 

Chicago Thoroughfares 89 

Chicago Thoroughfares 9:5 

Chief Chicagou (Portrait) 246 

Comparative Size of Great Canals 95 

Day after Chicago Fire 92 

Early Historic Scenes, Chicago 170 

Early Historic Scenes, Chicago (No. 2) 171 

Engineering Hall, University of Illinois 280 

Experiment Farm, University of Illinois 12 

Experiment Farm, University of Illinois — The Vineyard 13 

Experiment Farm, University of Illinois — Orchard Cultivation 13 

First Illinois State House, Kaskaskia (1818) 314 

Fort Dearborn from the West (1808) 246 

Fort Dearborn from Southeast (1808) 247 

Fort Dearborn (1853) . . . -. 247 

General John Edgar's House, Kaskasia , 315 

Henry de Tonty (Portrait) 240 

House of Governor Bond, Old Kaskaskia (1891) 315 

House of Chief Ducoign, the last of the Kaskaskias (1893) 314 

Home for Juvenile Female Offenders, Geneva. 23fi 

Illinois Eastern Hospital for Insane, Kankakee 85 

Illinois Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, Quincy 438 

Illinois State Normal University, Normal 504 

Illinois State Capitol (First), Kaskaskia 240 

Illinois State Capitol (Second), Vandalia 240 

Illinois State Capitol (Third), Springfield 240 

Illinois State Capitol (Present), Springfield 241 

Illinois State Building, World's Columbian Exposition, 1893 601 

Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet 306 

Illinois State Penitentiary — Cell House and Women's Prison 307 

Illinois State Reformatory, Pontiac 493 

7 



8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Institution for Deaf and Dumb, Jacksonville 300 

Interior of Room, Kaskaskia Hotel (1893) where La Fayette Banquet was held in 1825 314 

Institution for the Blind, Jacksonville 301 

Kaskaskia Hotel, where La Fayette was feted in 1825 (as it appeared, 1893) 314 

La Salle (Portrait) : 246 

Library Building, University of Illinois 334 

Library Building — Main Floor — University of Illinois 335 

Lincoln Park Vistas, Chicago 120 

Map of Burned District, Chicago Fire, 1871 276 

Map of Grounds, World's Columbian Exposition, 1893 600 

Map of Illinois Following Title Page 

Map of Illinois River Valley " " " 

McCormick Seminary, Chicago 362 

Monuments in Lincoln Park, Chicago 90 

Monuments in Lincoln Park, Chicago 206 

Monuments in Lincoln Park, Chicago 207 

Natural History Hall, University of Illinois 151 

Newberry Library, Chicago , 394 

Northern Hospital for the Insane, Elgin 402 

Old Kaskaskia, from Garrison Hill (as it appeared in 1893) 314 

Old State House, Kaskaskia (1900) 315 

Pierre Menard Mansion, Kaskaskia (1893) 314 

Remnant of Old Kaskaskia (as it appeared in 1898) 315 

Scenes in South Park, Chicago 604 

Selby, Paul (Protrait) 5 

bheridan Road and on the Boulevards, Chicago 121 

Soldiers' Widows' Home, Wilmington , 439 

Southern Hlinois Normal, Carbondale 505 

Southern Illinois Penitentiary and Asylum for Incurable Insane, Chester 492 

University Hall, University of Illinois 150 

University of Chicago 363 

University of Illinois, Urbana. (Group of Buildings) 540 

University of Illinois, Urbana. (Group of Buildings) 541 

View from Engineering Hall, University of Illinois 281 

View on Principal Street, Old Kaskaskia (1891) 315 

Views in Lincoln Park, Chicago 91 

Views of Drainage Canal , 96 

Views of Drainage Canal 97 

War Eagle (Portrait) 246 

Western Hospital for the Insane, Watertown „ 403 

World's Fair Buildings 605 



Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois. 



ABBOTT, (Lieut.-Gov.) Edward, a British 
officer, who was commandant at Post Vincennes 
(called by the British, Fort Sackville) at the 
time Col. George Rogers Clark captured Kaskas- 
kia in 1778. Abbott's jurisdiction extended, at 
least nominally, over a part of the "Illinois 
Country. " Ten days after the occupation of Kas- 
kaskia, Colonel Clark, having learned that 
Abbott had gone to the British headquarters at 
Detroit, leaving the Post without any guard 
except that furnished by the inhabitants of the 
village, took advantage of his absence to send 
Pierre Gibault. the Catholic V T icar-General of Illi- 
nois, to win over the people to the American 
cause, which he did so successfully that they at 
once took the oath of allegiance, and the Ameri- 
can flag was run up over the fort. Although 
Fort Sackville afterwards fell into the hands of 
the British for a time, the manner of its occupa- 
tion was as much of a surprise to the British as 
that of Kaskaskia itself, and contributed to the 
completeness of Clark's triumph. (See Clark, 
Col. George Rogers, also, Gibault, Pierre.) Gov- 
ernor Abbott seems to have been of a more 
humane character than the mass of British 
officers of his day, as he wrote a letter to General 
Carleton about this time, protesting strongly 
against the employment of Indians in carrying 
on warfare against the colonists on the frontier, 
on the ground of humanity, claiming that it was 
a detriment to the British cause, although he 
was overruled by his superior officer, Colonel 
Hamilton, in the steps soon after taken to recap- 
ture Vincennes. 

ABINGDON, second city in size in KnoxCounty, 
at the junction of the Iowa Central and the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroads; 10 
miles south of Galesburg, with which it is con- 
nected by electric car line ; has city waterworks, 
electric light plant, wagon works, brick and tile 
works, sash, blind and swing factories, two banks, 



three weekly papers, public library, fine high 
school building and two ward schools. Hedding 
College, a flourishing institution, under auspices 
of the M. E. Church, is located here. Population 
(1900), 2,022; (est. 1904), 3,000. 

ACCAULT, Michael (Ak-ko), French explorer 
and companion of La Salle, who came to the 
"Illinois Country" in 1780, and accompanied 
Hennepin when the latter descended the Illinois 
River to its mouth and then ascended the Mis- 
sissippi to the vicinity of the present city of St. 
Paul, where they were captured by Sioux. They 
were rescued by Greysolon Dulhut (for whom 
the city of Duluth was named), and having dis- 
covered the Falls of St. Anthony, returned to 
Green Bay. (See Hennepin.) 

ACKERMAN, William K., Railway President 
and financier, was born in New York City, Jan. 
29, 1832, of Knickerbocker and Revolutionary 
ancestry, his grandfather, Abraham D. Acker- 
man, having served as Captain of a company of 
the famous "Jersey Blues," participating with 
"Mad" Anthony Wayne in the storming of Stony 
Point during the Revolutionary War, while his 
father served as Lieutenant of Artillery in the 
War of 1812. After receiving a high school edu- 
cation in New York, Mr. Ackerman engaged in 
mercantile business, but in 1852 became a clerk 
in the financial department of the Illinois Central 
Railroad. Coming to Chicago in the service of 
the Company in 1860, he successively filled the 
positions of Secretary, Auditor and Treasurer, 
until July, 1876, when he was elected Vice-Presi- 
dent and a year later promoted to the Presidency, 
voluntarily retiring from this position in August, 
1883. though serving some time longer in the 
capacity of Vice-President. During the progress 
of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago 
(1892-93) Mr. Ackerman served as Auditor of the 
Exposition, and was City Comptroller of Chicago 
under the administration of Mayor Hopkins 



9 



10 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



(1893-95). He is an active member of the Chicago 
Historical Society, and has rendered valuable 
service to railroad history by the issue of two bro- 
chures on the "Early History of Illinois Rail- 
roads," and a "Historical Sketch of the Illinois 
Central Railroad." 

ADAMS, John, LL.D., educator and philan- 
thropist, was born at Canterbury, Conn. , Sept. 18, 
1772; graduated at Yale College in 1795; taught 
for several years in his native place, in Plain- 
field, N. J., and at Colchester, Conn. In 1810 he 
became Principal of Phillips Academy at An- 
dover, Mass., remaining there twenty-three 
years. In addition to his educational duties he 
participated in the organization of several great 
charitable associations which attained national 
importance. On retiring from Phillips Academy 
in 1833, he removed to Jacksonville, 111., where, 
four years afterward, he became the third Prin- 
cipal of Jacksonville Female Academy, remaining 
six years. He then became Agent of the Ameri- 
can Sunday School Union, in the course of the 
next few years founding several hundred Sunday 
Schools in different parts of the State. He re- 
ceived the degree of LL. D. from Yale College in 
1854. Died in Jacksonville, April 24, 1863. The 
subject of this sketch was father of Dr. William 
Adams, for forty years a prominent Presbyterian 
clergyman of New York and for seven years (1873- 
80) President of Union Theological Seminary. 

ADAMS, John McGregor, manufacturer, was 
born at Londonderry, N. H., March 11, 1834, the 
son of Rev. John R. Adams, who served as Chap- 
lain of the Fifth Maine and One Hundred and 
Twenty-first New York Volunteers during the 
Civil War. Mr. Adams was educated at Gorham, 
Me., and Andover, Mass., after which, going to 
New York City, he engaged as clerk in a dry- 
goods house at 8150 a year. He next entered the 
office of Clark & Jessup, hardware manufacturers, 
and in 1858 came to Chicago to represent the 
house of Morris K. Jessup & Co. He thus became 
associated with the late John Crerar, the firm of 
Jessup & Co. being finally merged into that of 
Crerar, Adams & Co. , which, with the Adams & 
West lake Co., have done a large business in the 
manufacture of railway supplies. Since the 
death of Mr. Crerar, Mr. Adams has been princi- 
pal manager of the concern's vast manufacturing 
business. 

ADAMS, (Dr.) Samuel, physician and edu- 
cator, was born at Brunswick, Me., Dec. 19, 1806, 
and educated at Bowdoin College, where lie 
graduated in both the departments of literature 
and of medicine. Then, having practiced as a 



physician several years, in 1838 he assumed the 
chair of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and 
Natural History in Illinois College at Jackson- 
ville, 111. From 1843 to 1845 he was also Pro- 
fessor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the 
Medical Department of the same institution, and, 
during his connection with the College, gave 
instruction at different times in nearly every 
branch embraced in the college curriculum, 
including the French and German languages. 
Of uncompromising firmness and invincible cour- 
age in his adherence to principle, he was a man 
of singular modesty, refinement and amiability 
in private life, winning the confidence and esteem 
of all with whom he came in contact, especially 
the students who came under his instruction. A 
profound and thorough scholar, he possessed a 
refined and exalted literary taste, which was 
illustrated in occasional contributions to scien- 
tific and literary periodicals. Among productions 
of his pen on philosophic topics may be enumer- 
ated articles on "The Natural History of Man in 
his Scriptural Relations;" contributions to the 
"Biblical Repository" (1844); "Auguste Comte 
and Positivism" ("New Englander," 1873), and 
"Herbert Spencer's Proposed Reconciliation be- 
tween Religion and Science" ("New Englander," 
1875). His connection with Illinois College con- 
tinued until his death, April, 1877 — a period of 
more than thirty-eight years. A monument to 
his memory has been erected through the grate- 
ful donations of his former pupils. 

ADAMS, George Everett, lawyer and ex-Con- 
gressman, born at Keene, N. H., June 18, 1840; 
was educated at Harvard College, and at Dane 
Law School, Cambridge, Mass. , graduating at the 
former in 1860. Early in life he settled in Chi- 
cago, where, after some time spent as a teacher 
in the Chicago High School, he engaged in the 
practice of his profession. His first post of pub- 
lic responsibility was that of State Senator, to 
which he was elected in 1880. . In 1882 he was 
chosen, as a Republican, to represent the Fourth 
Illinois District in Congress, and re-elected in 
1884, '86 and '88. In 1890 he was again a candi- 
date, but was defeated by Walter C. Newberry. 
He is one of the Trustees of the Newberry 
Library. 

ADAMS, James, pioneer lawyer, was born in 
Hartford, Conn., Jan. 26, 1803; taken to Oswego 
County, N. Y., in 1809, and, in 1821, removed to 
Springfield, 111., being the first lawyer to locate 
in the future State capital. He enjoyed an ex- 
tensive practice for the time; in 1823 was elected 
a Justice of the Peace, took part in the Winne- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



11 



bago and Black Hawk wars, was elected Probate 
Judge in 1841, and died in office, August 11, 1843. 

ADAMS COUNTY, an extreme westerly county 
of tbe State, situated about midway between its 
northern and southern extremities, and bounded 
on the west by the Mississippi River. It was 
organized in 1825 and named in honor of John 
Quincy Adams, the name of Quincy being given 
to the county seat. The United States Census of 
1890 places its area at 830 sq. m. and its popula- 
tion at 61,888. The soil of the county is fertile 
and well watered, the surface diversified and 
Mlly, especially along the Mississippi bluffs, and 
its climate equable. The wealth of the county is 
largely derived from agriculture, although a 
large amount of manufacturing is carried on in 
Quincy. Population (1900), 67,058. 

ADDAMS, John Huy, legislator, was born at 
Sinking Springs, Berks County, Pa., July 12, 
1822 ; educated at Trappe and Upper Dublin, Pa. , 
and learned the trade of a miller in his youth, 
which he followed in later life. In 1844, Mr. 
Addams came to Illinois, settling at Cedarville, 
Stephenson County, purchased a tract of land 
and built a saw and grist mill on Cedar Creek. 
In 1854 he was elected to the State Senate from 
Stephenson County, serving continuously in that 
body by successive re-elections until 1870 — first as 
a Whig and afterwards as a Republican. In 1865 
he established the Second National Bank of Free- 
port, of which he continued to be the president 
until his death, August 17, 1881. — Miss Jane 
(Addams), philanthropist, the founder of the "Hull 
House," Chicago, is a daughter of Mr. Addams. 

ADDISON, village, Du Page County; seat of 
Evangelical Lutheran College, Normal School 
and Orphan Asylum ; has State Bank, stores and 
public school. Pop. (1900), 591; (1904), 614. 

ADJUTANTS-GENERAL. The office of Adju- 
tant-General for the State of Illinois was first 
created by Act of the Legislature, Feb. 2, 1865. 
Previous to the War of the Rebellion the position 
was rather honorary than otherwise, its duties 
(except during the Black Hawk War) and its 
emoluments being alike unimportant. The in- 
cumbent was simply the Chief of the Governor's 
Staff. In 1861, the post became one of no small 
importance. Those who held the office during 
the Territorial period were: Elias Rector, Robert 
Morrison, Benjamin Stephenson and Wm. Alex- 
ander. After the admission of Illinois as a State 
up to the beginning of the Civil War, the duties 
(which were almost wholly nominal) were dis- 
charged by Wm. Alexander, 1819-21; Elijah C. 
Berry, 1821-28; James W. Berrv, 1828-39; Moses 



K. Anderson, 1839-57; Thomas S. Mather, 1858-61. 
In November. 1861, Col. T. S. Mather, who had held 
the position for three years previous, n-si^ned to 
enter active service, and Judge Allen C. Fuller 
was appointed, remaining in office until January 
1, 1865. The first appointee, under the act of 
1865, was Isham N. Haynie, who held office 
until his death in 1869. The Legislature of 1869, 
taking into consideration that all the Illinois 
volunteers had been mustered out, and that the 
duties of the Adjutant-General had been materi- 
ally lessened, reduced the proportions of the 
department and curtailed the appropriation for 
its support. Since the adoption of the military 
code of 1877, the Adjutant-General's office has 
occupied a more important and conspicuous posi- 
tion among the departments of the State govern- 
ment. The following is a list of those who have 
held office since General Haynie, with the date 
and duration of their respective terms of office: 
Hubert Dilger, 1869-73; Edwin L. Higgins, 
1873-75; Hiram Hilliard, 1875-81; Isaac H. Elliot, 
1881-84; Joseph W. Vance, 1884-93; Albert Oren- 
dorff, 1893-96; C. C. Hilton, 1896-97; Jasper N. 
Reece, 1897 — . 

AGRICULTURE. Illinois ranks high as an 
agricultural State. A large area in the eastern 
portion of the State, because of the absence of 
timber, was called by the early settlers "the 
Grand Prairie." Upon and along a low ridge 
beginning in Jackson County and running across 
the State is the prolific fruit-growing district of 
Southern Illinois. The bottom lands extending 
from Cairo to the mouth of the Illinois River are 
of a fertility seemingly inexhaustible. The cen- 
tral portion of the State is best adapted to corn, 
and the southern and southwestern to the culti- 
vation of winter wheat. Nearly three-fourths of 
the entire State — some 42,000 square miles — is up- 
land prairie, well suited to the raising of cereals. 
In the value of its oat crop Illinois leads all the 
States, that for 1891 being §31,106,674, with 3,068,- 
930 acres under cultivation. In the production 
of corn it ranks next to Iowa, the last census 
(1890) showing 7,014,336 acres under cultivation. 
and the value of the crop being estimated at 
$86,905,510. In wheat-raising it ranked seventh, 
although the annual average value of the crop 
from 1880 to 1890 was a little less than $29,000,- 
000. As a live-stock State it leads in the value of 
horses ($83,000,000), ranks second in the produc- 
tion of swine ($30,000,000), third in cattle-growing 
(*:!•_>, 000, 000), and fourth in dairy products, the 
value of milch cows being estimated at 824.000,- 
000. (See also Farmers' Institute.) 



12 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



AGRICULTURE, DEPARTMENT OF. A 

department of the State administration which 
grew out of the organization of the Illinois Agri- 
cultural Society, incorporated by Act of the 
Legislature in 1853. The first appropriation from 
the State treasury for its maintenance was §1,000 
per annum, "to be expended in the promotion of 
mechanical and agricultural arts." The first 
President was James N. Brown, of Sangamon 
County. Simeon Francis, also of Sangamon, was 
the first Recording Secretary ; John A. Kennicott 
of Cook, first Corresponding Secretary ; and John 
"Williams of Sangamon, first Treasurer. Some 
thirty volumes of reports have been issued, cover- 
ing a variety of topics of vital interest to agri- 
culturists. The department has well equipped 
offices in the State House, and is charged with 
the conduct of State Fairs and the management 
of annual exhibitions of fat stock, besides the 
collection and dissemination of statistical and 
other information relative to the State's agri- 
cultural interests. It receives annual reports 
from all County Agricultural Societies. The 
State Board consists of three general officers 
(President, Secretary and Treasurer) and one 
representative from each Congressional district. 
The State appropriates some §20,000 annually for 
the prosecution of its work, besides which there 
is a considerable income from receipts at State 
Fairs and fat stock shows. Between §20,000 and 
§25,000 per annum is disbursed in premiums to 
competing exhibitors at the State Fairs, and some 
§10,000 divided among County Agricultural 
Societies holding fairs. 

AKERS, Peter, D. D., Methodist Episcopal 
clergyman, born of Presbyterian parentage, in 
Campbell County, Va., Sept. 1, 1790; was edu- 
cated in the common schools, and, at the age 
of 16, began teaching, later pursuing a classical 
course in institutions of Virginia and North 
Carolina. Having removed to Kentucky, after a 
brief season spent in teaching at Mount Sterling 
in that State, he began the study of law and was 
admitted to the bar in 1817. Two years later he 
began the publication of a paper called "The 
Star," which was continued for a short time. In 
1821 he was converted and joined the Methodist 
church, and a few months later began preaching. 
In 1832 he removed to Illinois, and, after a year 
spent in work as an evangelist, he assumed the 
Presidency of McKendree College at Lebanon, 
remaining during 1833-34; then established a 
"manual labor school" near Jacksonville, which 
he maintained for a few years. From 1837 to 
1852 was spent as stationed minister or Presiding 



Elder at Springfield, Quincy and Jacksonville. In 
the latter year he was again appointed to the 
Presidency of McKendree College, where he 
remained five years. He was then (1857) trans- 
ferred to the Minnesota Conference, but a year 
later was compelled by declining health to assume 
a superannuated relation. Returning to Illinois 
about 1865, he served as Presiding Elder of the 
Jacksonville and Pleasant Plains Districts, but 
was again compelled to accept a superannuated 
relation, making Jacksonville his home, where 
he died, Feb. 21, 1886. While President of Mc- 
Kendree College, he published his work on "Bib- 
lical Chronology," to which he had devoted many 
previous years of his life, and which gave evi- 
dence of great learning and vast research. Dr. 
Akers was a man of profound convictions, exten- 
sive learning and great eloquence. As a pulpit 
orator and logician he probably had no superior 
in the State during the time of his most active 
service in the denomination to which he belonged. 

AKIN, Edward C, lawyer and Attorney-Gen- 
eral, was born in Will County, 111., in 1852, and 
educated in the public schools of Joliet and at Ann 
Arbor, Mich. For four years he was paying and 
receiving teller in the First National Bank of 
Joliet, but was admitted to the bar in 1878 and 
has continued in active practice since. In 1887 he 
entered upon his political career as the Republi- 
can candidate for City Attorney of Joliet, and was 
elected by a majority of over 700 votes, although 
the city was usually Democratic. The follow- 
ing year he was the candidate of his party for 
State's Attorney of Will County, and was again 
elected, leading the State and county ticket by 
800 votes — being re-elected to the same office in 
1892. In 1895 he was the Republican nominee 
for Mayor of Joliet, and, although opposed by a 
citizen's ticket headed by a Republican, was 
elected over his Democratic competitor by a deci- 
sive majority. His greatest popular triumph was 
in 1896, when he was elected Attorney-General 
on the Republican State ticket by a plurality 
over his Democratic opponent of 132,248 and a 
majority over all competitors of 111,255. His 
legal abilities are recognized as of a very high 
order, while his personal popularity is indicated 
by his uniform success as a candidate, in the 
face, at times, of strong political majorities. 

ALBANY, a village of Whiteside County, lo- 
cated on the Mississippi River and the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway (Rock Island 
branch). Population (1890), 611; (1900), 621. 

ALBION, county-seat of Edwards County, 
on Southern Railway, midway between St. Louis 









X 



73 



O 



_ 

73 





EXPERIMENT FARM (THE VINEYARD) UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. 




EXPERIMENT FARM (ORCHARD CULTIVATION) UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



L3 



and Louisville; seat of Southern Collegiate In- 
stitute; has plant for manufacture of vitrified 
shale paving brick, two newspapers, creamery, 
flouring mills, and is important shipping point 
for live stock; is in a rich fruit-growing district; 
has five churches and splendid public schools. 
Population (1900), 1,162; (est. 1904), 1,500. 

ALCORN, James Lusk, was born near Gol- 
oonda, 111., Nov. 4, 1816; early went South and 
held various offices in Kentucky and Mississippi, 
including member of the Legislature in each; 
was a member of the Mississippi State Conven- 
tions of 1851 and 1861, and by the latter appointed 
a Brigadier-General in the Confederate service, 
but refused a commission by Jefferson Davis 
because his fidelity to the rebel cause was 
doubted. At the close of the war he was one of 
the first to accept the reconstruction policy ; was 
elected United States Senator from Mississippi in 
1865, but not admitted to his seat. In 1869 he 
was chosen Governor as a Republican, and two 
years later elected United States Senator, serving 
until 1877. Died, Dec. 20, 1894. 

ALDRICH, J. Frank, Congressman, was born 
at Two Rivers, Wis.. April 6, 1853, the son of 
William Aldrich, who afterwards became Con- 
grassman from Chicago ; was brought to Chicago 
in 1861, attended the public schools and the Chi- 
cago University, and graduated from the Rensse- 
laer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N. Y., in 1877, 
receiving the degree of Civil Engineer. Later he 
engaged in the linseed oil business in Chicago. 
Becoming interested in politics, he was elected a 
member of the Board of County Commissioners 
of Cook County, serving as President of that body 
during the reform period of 1887; was also a 
member of the County Board of Education and 
Chairman of the Chicago Citizens' Committee, 
appointed from the various clubs and commer- 
cial organizations of the city, to promote the for- 
mation of the Chicago Sanitary District. From 
May 1, 1891, to Jan. 1, 1893, he was Commissioner 
of Public Works for Chicago, when he resigned 
his office, having been elected (Nov., 1892) a 
member of the Fifty -third Congress, on the 
Republican ticket, from the First Congressional 
District; was re-elected in 1894, retiring at the 
close of the Fifty-fourth Congress. In 1898 he 
was appointed to a position in connection with 
the office of Comptroller of the Currency at 
Washington. 

ALDRICH, William, merchant and Congress- 
man, was born at Greenfield, N. Y., Jan. 20, 1820. 
His early common school training was supple- 
mented by private tuition in higher branches of 



mathematics and in surveying, and by a term in 
an academy. Until he had reached the age of 26 
years he was engaged in farming and teaching, 
but, in 1846, turned his attention to mercantile 
pursuits. In 1851 he removed to Wisconsin, 
where, in addition to merchandising, he engaged 
in the manufacture of furniture and woodenware, 
and where he also held several important offices, 
being Superintendent of Schools for three years, 
Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors 
one year, besides serving one term in the Legisla- 
ture. In 1860 he removed to Chicago, where he 
embarked in the wholesale grocery business. In 
1875 he was elected to the City Council, and, in 
1876, chosen to represent his district (the First) in 
Congress, as a Republican, being re-elected in 1878, 
and again in 1880. Died in Fond du Lao, Wis., 
Dec. 3, 1885. 

ALEDO, county-seat of Mercer County; is in 
the midst of a rich farming and bituminous coal 
region; fruit-growing and stock-raising are also 
extensively carried on, and large quantities of 
these commodities are shipped here; has two 
newspapers and ample school facilities. Popula- 
tion (1890), 1,601; (1900), 2,081. 

ALEXANDER, John T., agriculturist and 
stock-grower, was born in Western Virginia, 
Sept. 15, 1820; removed with his father, at six 
years of age, to Ohio, and to Illinois in 1848. 
Here he bought a tract of several thousand acres 
of land on the Wabash Railroad, 10 miles east of 
Jacksonville, which finally developed into one of 
the richest stock-farms in the State. After the 
war he became the owner of the celebrated 
"Sullivant farm," comprising some 20,000 acres 
on the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad in 
Champaign County, to which he transferred his 
stock interests, and although overtaken by re- 
verses, left a large estate. Died, August 22, 1876. 
ALEXANDER, Milton K., pioneer, was born in 
Elbert County, Ga., Jan. 23, 179G; emigrated 
with his father, in 1804, to Tennessee, and, while 
still a boy, enlisted as a soldier in the War of 1812, 
serving under the command of General Jackson 
until the capture of Pensacola, when he entered 
upon the campaign against the Seminoles in 
Florida. In 1823 he removed to Edgar County. 
111., and engaged in mercantile and agricultural 
pursuits at Paris; serving also as Postmaster 
there some twenty-five years, and as Clerk of the 
County Commissioners' Court from 1826 to "37. 
In 1826 he was commissioned by Governor Coles, 
Colonel of the Nineteenth Regiment. Illinois 
State Militia: in 1830 was Aide-de-Camp to Gov- 
ernor Reynolds, and. inl832, took part in the Black 



14 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Hawk War as Brigadier-General of the Second 
Brigade, Illinois Volunteers. On the inception of 
the internal improvement scheme in 1837 he was 
elected by the Legislature a member of the first 
Board of Commissioners of Public Works, serving 
until the Board was abolished. Died, July 7, 1856. 
ALEXANDER, (Dr.) William M., pioneer, 
came to Southern Illinois previous to the organi- 
zation of Union County (1818), and for some time, 
while practicing his profession as a physician, 
acted as agent of the proprietors of the town of 
America, which was located on the Ohio River, 
on the first high ground above its junction with 
the Mississippi. It became the first county-seat 
of Alexander County, which was organized in 

1819, and named in his honor. In 1820 we find 
him a Representative in the Second General 
Assembly from Pope County, and two years later 
Representative from Alexander County, when he 
became Speaker of the House during the session 
of the Third General Assembly. Later, he 
removed to Kaskaskia, but finally went South, 
where he died, though the date and place of his 
death are unknown. 

ALEXANDER COUNTY, the extreme southern 
county of the State, being bounded on the west 
by the Mississipppi, and south and east by the 
Ohio and Cache rivers. Its area is about 230 
square miles and its population, in 1890, was 16,- 
563. The first American settlers were Tennessee- 
ans named Bird, who occupied the delta and gave 
it the name of Bird's Point, which, at the date of 
the Civil War (1861-65), had been transferred to 
the Missouri shore opposite the mouth of the Ohio. 
Other early settlers were Clark, Kennedy and 
Philips (at Mounds), Conyer and Terrel (at Amer- 
ica), and Humphreys (near Caledonia). In 1818 
Shadrach Bond (afterwards Governor), John G. 
Corny ges and others entered a claim for 1800 acres 
in the central and northern part of the county, 
and incorporated the "City and Bank of Cairo." 
The history of this enterprise is interesting. In 
1818 (on Comyges' death) the land reverted to the 
Government; but in 1835 Sidney Breese, David J. 
Baker and Miles A. Gilbert re-entered the for- 
feited bank tract and the title thereto became 
vested in the "Cairo City and Canal Company," 
which was chartered in 1837, and, by purchase, 
extended its holdings to 10,000 acres. The 
county was organized in 1819; the first county- 
seat being America, which was incorporated in 

1820. Population (1900), 19,384. 

ALEXIAN BROTHERS' HOSPITAL, located 
at Chicago; established in 1860, and under the 
management of the Alexian Brothers, a monastic 



order of the Roman Catholic Church. It was 
originally opened in a small frame building, but a 
better edifice was erected in 1868, only to be de- 
stroyed in the great fire of 1871. The following 
year, through the aid of private benefactions and 
an appropriation of $18,000 from the Chicago Re- 
lief and Aid Society, a larger and better hospital 
was built. In 1888 an addition was made, increas- 
ing the accommodation to 150 beds. Only poor 
male patients are admitted, and these are received 
without reference to nationality or religion, and 
absolutely without charge. The present medical 
staff (1896) comprises fourteen physicians and sur- 
geons. In 1895 the close approach of an intra- 
mural transit line having rendered the building 
unfit for hospital purposes, a street railway com- 
pany purchased the site and buildings for $250,- 
000 and a new location has been selected. 

ALEXIS, a village of Warren County, on the 
Rock Island & St. Louis Division of the Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy Railway, 12 miles east of 
north from Monmouth. It has manufactures of 
brick, drain-tile, pottery and agricultural imple- 
ments; is also noted for its Clydesdale horses. 
Population (1880), 398; (1890), 562; (1900), 915. 

ALGONQUINS, a group of Indian tribes. 
Originally their territory extended from about 
latitude 37° to 53° north, and from longitude 25° 
east to 15° west of the meridian of Washington. 
Branches of the stock were found by Cartier in 
Canada, by Smith in Virginia, by the Puritans in 
New England and by Catholic missionaries in the 
great basin of the Mississippi. One of the prin- 
cipal of their five confederacies embraced the 
Illinois Indians, who were found within the 
State by the French when the latter discovered 
the country in 1673. They were hereditary foes 
of the warlike Iroquois, by whom their territory 
was repeatedly invaded. Besides the Illinois, 
other tribes of the Algonquin family who origi- 
nally dwelt within the present limits of Illinois, 
were the Foxes, Kickapoos, Miamis, Menominees, 
and Sacs. Although nomadic in their mode of 
life, and subsisting largely on the spoils of the 
chase, the Algonquins were to some extent tillers 
of the soil and cultivated large tracts of maize. 
Various dialects of their language have been 
reduced to grammatical rules, and Eliot's Indian 
Bible is published in their tongue. The entire 
Algonquin stock extant is estimated at about 
95,000, of whom some 35,000 are within the United 
States. 

ALLEN, William Joshua, jurist, was born 
June 9, 1829, in Wilson County, Tenn. ; of Vir- 
ginia ancestry of Scotch-Irish descent. In early 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



15 



infancy he was brought by his parents to South 
ern Illinois, where his father, Willis Allen, be- 
came a Judge and member of Congress. After 
reading law with his father and at the Louisville 
Law School, young Allen was admitted to the 
bar, settling at Metropolis and afterward (1853) 
at his old home, Marion, in Williamson County. 
In 1855 he was appointed United States District 
Attorney for Illinois, but resigned in 1859 and re- 
sumed private practice as partner of John A. 
Logan. The same year he was elected Circuit 
Judge to succeed his father, who had died, but lie 
declined a re-election. He was a member of the 
Constitutional Conventions of 18G2 and 1869, serv- 
ing in both bodies on the Judicial Committee and 
as Chairman of the Committee on the Bill of 
Rights. From 1864 to 1888 he was a delegate to 
every National Democratic Convention, being 
chairman of the Illinois delegation in 1876. He 
has been four times a candidate for Congress, and 
twice elected, serving from 1862 to 1865. During 
this period he was an ardent opponent of the wai 
policy of the Government. In 1874-75, at the 
solicitation of Governor Beveridge, he undertook 
the prosecution of the leaders of a bloody "ven- 
detta" which had broken out among his former 
neighbors in Williamson County, and, by his fear- 
less and impartial efforts, brought the offenders to 
justice and assisted in restoring order. In 1886, 
Judge Allen removed to Springfield, and in 1887 
was appointed by President Cleveland to succeed 
Judge Samuel H. Tr,eat (deceased) as Judge of the 
United States District Court for the Southern 
District of Illinois. Died Jan. 26, 1901. 

ALLEN, Willis, a native of Tennessee, who 
removed to Williamson County, 111., in 1829 and 
engaged in farming. In 1834 he was chosen 
Sheriff of Franklin County, in 1838 elected Rep- 
resentative in the Eleventh General Assembly, 
and, in 1844, became State Senator. In 1841, 
although not yet a licensed lawyer, he was chosen 
Prosecuting Attorney for the old Third District, 
and was shortly afterward admitted to the bar. 
He was chosen Presidential Elector in 1844, a 
member of the Constitutional Convention of 1847, 
and served two terms in Congress (1851-55). On 
March 2, 1859, he was commissioned Judge of the 
Twenty-sixth Judicial Circuit, but died three 
months later. His son, William Joshua, suc- 
ceeded him in the latter office. 

ALLERTON, Samuel Waters, stock-dealer and 
capitalist, was born of Pilgrim ancestry in 
Dutchess County, N. Y., May 26, 1829. His 
youth was spent with his father on a farm in 
Yates County, N. Y. , but about 1852 he engaged 



in the live-stock business in Central and Western 
New York. In 1856 he transferred his operations 
to Illinois, shipping stock from various points to 
New York City, finally locating in Chicago. He 
was one of the earliest projectors of the Chicago 
Stock-Yards, later securing control of the Pitts- 
burg Stock-Yards, also becoming interested in 
yards at Baltimore, Philadelphia, Jersey City ami 
Omaha. Mr. Allerton is one of the founders and 
a Director of the First National Bank of Chicago, 
a Director and stockholder of the Chicago City 
Railway (the first cable line in that city), the 
owner of an extensive area of highly improved 
farming lands in Central Illinois, as also of large 
tracts in Nebraska and Wyoming, and of valuable 
and productive mining properties in the Black 
Hills. A zealous Republican in jxditics, he is a 
liberal supporter of the measures of that party, 
and, in 1893, was the unsuccessful Republican can- 
didate for Mayor of Chicago in opposition to 
Carter H. Harrison. 

ALLOUEZ, Claude Jean, sometimes called 
"The Apostle of the West," a Jesuit priest, was 
born in France in 1620. He reached Quebec in 
1658, and later explored the country around 
Lakes Superior and Michigan, establishing the 
mission of La Pointe, near where Ashland, Wis. , 
now stands, in 1665, and St. Xavier, near Green 
Bay, in 1669. He learned from the Indians the 
existence and direction of the upper Mississippi, 
and was the first to communicate the informa- 
tion to the authorities at Montreal, which report 
was the primary cause of Joliet's expedition. He 
succeeded Marquette in charge of the mission at 
Kaskaskia, on the Illinois, in 1677, where he 
preached to eight tribes. From that date to 1690 
he labored among the aborigines of Illinois and 
Wisconsin. Died at Fort St. Joseph, in 1690. 

ALLTN, (Rev.) Robert, clergyman and edu- 
cator, was born at Ledyard, New London County, 
Conn., Jan. 25, 1817, being a direct descend- 
ant in the eighth generation of Captain Robert 
Allyn, who was one of the first settlers of New 
London. He grew up on a farm, receiving his 
early education in a country school, supple- 
mented by access to a small public librarv, from 
which he acquired a good degree of familiarity 
with standard English writers. In 1837 he 
entered the Wesleyan University at Middletown, 
Conn., where he distinguished himself as a 
mathematician and took a high rank as a linguist 
and rhetorician, graduating in 1841. He im- 
mediately engaged as a teacher of mathematics 
in the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham. Mass., 
and, in 1846, was elected principal of the school, 



16 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



meanwhile (1843) becoming a licentiate of the 
Providence Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. From 1848 to 1854 he served as Princi- 
pal of the Providence Conference Seminary at 
East Greenwich, R. I., when he was appointed 
Commissioner of Public Schools of Rhode Island 
— also serving the same year as a Visitor to West 
Point Military Academy. Between 1857 and 1859 
he filled the chair of Ancient Languages in the 
State University at Athens, Ohio, when he ac- 
cepted the Presidency of the Wesleyan Female 
College at Cincinnati, four years later (1863) 
becoming President of McKendree College at 
Lebanon, 111., where he remained until 1874. 
That position he resigned to accept the Presi- 
dency of the Southern Illinois Normal University 
at Carbondale, whence he retired in 1892. Died 
at Carbondale, Jan. 7, 1894. 

ALTAMONT, Effingham County, is intersecting 
point of the Vandalia, Chicago & Eastern Illinois, 
Baltimore & Ohio S. W., and Wabash Railroads, 
being midway and highest point between St. 
Louis and Terre Haute, Ind. ; was laid out in 
1870. The town is in the center of a grain, fruit- 
growing and stock-raising district ; has a bank, 
two grain elevators, flouring mill, tile works, a 
large creamery, wagon, furniture and other fac- 
tories, besides churches and good schools. Popu- 
lation (1890), 1,044; (1900), 1,335. 

ALTGELD, John Peter, ex-Judge and ex-Gov- 
ernor, was born in Prussia in 1848, and in boy- 
hood accompanied his parents to America, the 
family settling in Ohio. At the age of 16 he 
enlisted in the One Hundred and Sixty-fourth 
Ohio Infantry, serving until the close of the war. 
His legal education was acquired at St. Louis and 
Savannah, Mo., and from 1874 to '78 he was 
Prosecuting Attorney for Andrew County in that 
State. In 1878 he removed to Chicago, where he 
devoted himself to professional work. In 1884 he 
led the Democratic forlorn hope as candidate for 
Congress in a strong Republican Congressional 
district, and in 1886 was elected to the bench of 
the Superior Court of Cook County, but resigned 
in August, 1891. The Democratic State conven- 
tion of 1892 nominated him for Governor, and he 
was elected the following November, being the 
first foreign-born citizen to hold that office in the 
history of the State, and the first Democrat 
elected since 1852. In 1896 he was a prominent 
factor in the Democratic National Convention 
which nominated William J. Bryan for Presi- 
dent, and was also a candidate for re-election to 
the office of Governor, but was defeated by John 
R. Tanner, the Republican nominee. 



ALTON, principal city in Madison County 
and important commercial and manufacturing 
point on Mississippi River, 25 miles north of 
St. Louis; site was first occupied as a French 
trading-post about 1807, the town proper being 
laid out by Col. Rufus Easton in 1817 ; principal 
business houses are located in the valley along 
the river, while the residence portion occupies 
the bluffs overlooking the river, sometimes rising 
to the height of nearly 250 feet. The city has 
extensive glass works employ : ng (1903) 4,000 
hands, flouring mills, iron foundries, manufac- 
tories of agricultural implements, coal cars, min- 
ers' tools, shoes, tobacco, lime, etc., besides 
several banks, numerous churches, schools, and 
four newspapers, three of them daily. A monu- 
ment to the memory of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who 
fell while defending his press against a pro-slav- 
ery mob in 1837, was erected in Alton Cemetery, 
1896-7, at a cost of §30,000, contributed by the 
State and citizens of Alton. Population (1890), 
10,294; (1900), 14,210. 

ALTON PENITENTIARY. The earliest pun- 
ishments imposed upon public offenders in Illi- 
nois were by public flogging or imprisonment for 
a short time in jails rudely constructed of logs, 
from which escape was not difficult for a prisoner 
of nerve, strength and mental resource. The 
inadequacy of such places of confinement was 
soon perceived, but popular antipathy to any 
increase of taxation prevented the adoption of 
any other policy until 1827. A grant of 40,000 
acres of saline lands was made to the State by 
Congress, and a considerable portion of the money 
received from their sale was appropriated to the 
establishment of a State penitentiary at Alton. 
The sum set apart proved insufficient, and, in 1831, 
an additional appropriation of $10,000 was made 
from the State treasury. In 1833 the prison was 
ready to receive its first inmates. It was built of 
stone and had but twenty-four cells. Additions 
were made from time to time, but by 1857 the 
State determined upon building a new peniten- 
tiary, which was located at Joliet (see Northern 
Penitentiary), and, in 1860, the last convicts were 
transferred thither from Alton. The Alton prison 
was conducted on what is known as ' 'the Auburn 
plan" — associated labor in silence by day and 
separate confinement by night. The manage- 
ment was in the hands of a "lessee," who fur- 
nished supplies, employed guards and exercised 
the general powers of a warden under the super- 
vision of a Commissioner appointed by the State, 
and who handled all the products of convict 
labor. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



17 



ALTON RIOTS. (See Lovejoy, Elijah Par- 
rish.) 

ALTONA, town of Knox County, on C, B. & Q. 
R. R., 16 miles northeast of Galesburg; has an 
endowed public library, electric light system, 
cement sidewalks, four churches and good school 
system. Population (1900), 633. 

ALTON & SANGAMON RAILROAD. (See 
Chicago & Alton Railroad.) 

AM BOY, city in Lee County on Green River, at 
junction of Illinois Central and C, B. & Q. Rail- 
roads, 95 miles south by west from Chicago ; has 
artesian water with waterworks and fire protec- 
tion, city park, two telephone systems, electric 
lights, railroad repair shops, two banks, two 
newspapers, seven churches, graded and high 
schools; is on line of Northern Illinois Electric 
Ry. from De Kalb to Dixon; extensive bridge 
and iron works located here. Pop. (1900), 1,826. 

AMES, Edward Raymond, Methodist Episcopal 
Bishop, born at Amesville, Athens County, Ohio, 
May 30, 1806; was educated at the Ohio State 
University, where he joined the M. E. Church. 
In 1828 he left college and became Principal of 
the Seminary at Lebanon, 111. , which afterwards 
became McKendree College. While there he 
received a license to preach, and, after holding 
various charges and positions in the church, in- 
cluding membership in the General Conference 
of 1840, '44 and '52, in the latter year was elected 
Bishop, serving until his death, which occurred 
in Baltimore, April 25, 1879. 

ANDERSON, Galusha, clergyman and edu- 
cator, was born at Bergen, N. Y., March 7, 1632; 
graduated at Rochester University in 1854 and at 
the Theological Seminary there in 1856; spent 
ten years in Baptist pastoral work at Janesville, 
Wis. , and at St. Louis, and seven as Professor in 
Newton Theological Institute, Mass. From 1873 
to '80 he preached in Brooklyn and Chicago; was 
then chosen President of the old Chicago Univer- 
sity, remaining eight years, when he again be- 
came a pastor at Salem, Mass., but soon after 
assumed the Presidency of Denison University, 
Ohio. On the organization of the new Chicago 
University, he accepted the chair of Homiletics 
and Pastoral Theology, which he now holds 

ANDERSON, George A., lawyer and Congress- 
man, was born in Botetourt County, Va., March 
11, 1853. When two years old he was brought by 
his parents to Hancock County, 111 He re- 
ceived a collegiate education, and, after studying 
law at Lincoln, Neb., and at Sedalia, Mo., settled 
at Quincy, Til., where he began practice in 1880. 
In 1884 he was elected City Attorney on the 



Democratic ticket, and re-elected in 1885 without 
opposition. The following year he was the suc- 
cessful candidate of his party for Congress, which 
was his last public service. Died at Quincy, 
Jan. 31, 1896. 

ANDERSON, James C, legislator, was born in 
Henderson County, 111., August 1, 1845; raised on 
a farm, and after receiving a common -school 
education, entered Monmouth College, but left 
early in the Civil War to enlist in the Twentieth 
Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in which he attained 
the rank of Second Lieutenant. After the war he 
served ten years as Sheriff of Henderson Count}-, 
was elected Representative in the General 
Assembly in 1888, '90, '92 and '96, and served on 
the Republican "steering committee" during the 
session of 1893. He also served as Sergeant-at- 
Arms of the Senate for the session of 1895, and 
was a delegate to the Republican National Con- 
vention of 1896. His home is at Decorra. 

ANDERSON, Stinson H., Lieutenant-Gover- 
nor, was born in Sumner County, Tenn., in 1800; 
came to Jefferson County, 111., in his youth, and, 
at an early age, began to devote his attention to 
breeding fine stock; served in the Black Hawk 
War as a Lieutenant in 1832, and the same year 
was elected to the lower branch of the Eighth 
General Assembly, being re-elected in 1834. In 
1838 he was chosen Lieutenant-Governor on the 
ticket with Gov. Thomas Carlin, and soon after 
the close of his term entered the United States 
Army as Captain of Dragoons, in this capacity 
taking part in the Seminole War in Florida. 
Still later he served under President Polk as 
United States Marshal for Illinois, and also held 
the position of Warden of the State Penitentiary 
at Alton for several years. Died,September,1857. — 
William B. (Anderson), son of the preceding, 
was born at Mount Vernon, 111., April 30, 1830; 
attended the common schools and later studied 
surveying, being elected Surveyor of Jefferson 
County, in 1851. He studied law and was admit- 
ted to the bar in 1858, but never practiced, pre- 
ferring the more quiet life of a farmer. In 1856 
he was elected to the lower house of the General 
Assembly and re-elected in 1858. In 1861 he 
entered the volunteer service as a private, was 
promoted through the grades of Captain and 
Lieutenant-Colonel to a Colonelcy, and, at the 
close of the war, was brevetted Brigadier-Gen- 
eral. In 1868 he was a candidate for Presidential 
Elector on the Democratic ticket, was a member 
of the State Constitutional Convention of 1869-70, 
and, in 1871, was elected to the State Senate, to 
fill a vacancy. In 1874 he was elected to the Forty • 



18 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



fourth Congress on the Democratic ticket. In 
1893 General Anderson was appointed by Presi- 
dent Cleveland Pension Agent for Illinois, con- 
tinuing in that position four years, when he 
retired to private life. 

ANDRUS, Rev. Reuben, clergyman and edu- 
cator, was born at Rutland, Jefferson County, 
N. Y., Jan. 29, 1824; early came to Fulton 
County, 111., and spent three years (1844-47) as a 
student at Illinois College, Jacksonville, but 
graduated at McKendree College, Lebanon, in 
1849 ; taught for a time at Greenfield, entered the 
Methodist ministry, and, in 1850, founded the Illi- 
nois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, of 
which he became a Professor; later re-entered 
the ministry and held charges at Beardstown, 
Decatur, Quincy, Springfield and Bloomington, 
meanwhile for a time being President of Illinois 
Conference Female College at Jacksonville, and 
temporary President of Quincy College. In 1867 
he was transferred to the Indiana Conference and 
stationed at Evansville and Indianapolis; from 
1872 to '75 was President of Indiana Asbury Uni- 
versity at Greencastle. Died at Indianapolis, 
Jan. 17, 1887. 

ANNA, a city in Union County, on the Illinois 
Central Railroad, 36 miles from Cairo ; is center 
of extensive fruit and vegetable-growing district, 
and largest shipping-point for these commodities 
on the Illinois Central Railroad. It has an ice 
plant, pottery and lime manufactories, two banks 
and two newspapers. The Southern '(HI. ) Hos- 
pital for the Insane is located here. Population 
(1890), 2,295; (1900), 2,618; (est. 1904), 3,000. 

ANTHONY, Elliott, jurist, was born of New 
England Quaker ancestry at Spafford, Onondaga 
County, N. Y., June 10, 1827; was related on 
the maternal side to the Chases and Phelps (dis- 
tinguished lawyers) of Vermont. His early years 
were spent in labor on a farm, but after a course 
of preparatory study at Cortland Academy, in 
1847 he entered the sophomore class in Hamilton 
College at Clinton, graduating with honors in 
1850. The next year he began the study of law, 
at the same time giving instruction in an Acad- 
emy at Clinton, where he had President Cleve- 
land as one of his pupils. After admission to the 
bar at Oswego, in 1851, he removed West, stop- 
ping for a time at Sterling, 111., but the following 
year located in Chicago. Here he compiled "A 
Digest of Illinois Reports"; in 1858 was elected 
City Attorney, and, in 1863, became solicitor of 
the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad (now the 
Chicago & Northwestern). Judge Anthony 
served in two State Constitutional Conventions — 



those of 1862 and 1869-70 — being chairman of the 
Committee on Executive Department and mem- 
ber of the Committee on Judiciary in the latter. 
He was delegate to the National Republican Con- 
vention of 1880, and was the same year elected a 
Judge of the Superior Court of Chicago, and was 
re-elected in 1886, retiring in 1892, after which he 
resumed the practice of his profession, being 
chiefly employed as consulting counsel. Judge 
Anthony was one of the founders and incorpo- 
rators of the Chicago Law Institute and a member 
of the first Board of Directors of the Chicago 
Public Library; also served as President of the 
State Bar Association (1894-95), and delivered 
several important historical addresses before that 
body. His other most important productions 
are volumes on "The Constitutional History of 
Illinois," "The Story of the Empire State" and 
"Sanitation and Navigation." Near the close of 
his last term upon the bench, he spent several 
months in an extended tour through the princi- 
pal countries of Europe. His death occurred, 
after a protracted illness, at his home at Evans- 
ton, Feb. 24, 1898. 

ANTI-NEBRASKA EDITORIAL CONVEN- 
TION, a political body, which convened at 
Decatur, Feb. 22, 1856, pursuant to the suggestion 
of "The Morgan Journal," then a weekly paper 
published at Jacksonville, for the purpose of for- 
mulating a policy in opposition to the principles 
of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Twelve editors 
were in attendance, as follows : Charles H. Ray 
of "The Chicago Tribune"; V. Y. Ralston of 
"The Quincy Whig"; O. P. Wharton of "The 
Rock Island Advertiser"; T. J. Pickett of "The 
Peoria Republican"; George Schneider of "The 
Chicago Staats Zeitung" ; Charles Faxon of "The 
Princeton Post"; A. N. Ford of "The Lacon Ga- 
zette"; B. F. Shaw of "The Dixon Telegraph" ; E. 
C. Daugherty of "The Rockford Register" ; E. W. 
Blaisdell of "The Rockford Gazette"; W. J. 
Usrey of "The Decatur Chronicle"; and Paul 
Selby of ' 'The Jacksonville Journal. " Paul Selby 
was chosen Chairman and W. J. Usrey, Secre- 
tary. The convention adopted a platform and 
recommended the calling of a State convention 
at Bloomington on May 29, following, appointing 
the following State Central Committee to take the 
matter in charge: W. B. Ogden, Chicago; S. M. 
Church, Rockford; G. D. A. Parks, Joliet; T. J 
Pickett, Peoria; E. A. Dudley, Quincy; William 
H. Herndon, Springfield; R. J. Oglesby, Deca- 
tur; Joseph Gillespie, Edwardsville ; D. L. Phil- 
lips, Jonesboro; and Ira O. Wilkinson and 
Gustavus Koerner for the State-at-large. Abra- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



19 



nam Lincoln was present and participated in the 
consultations of the committees. All of these 
served except Messrs. Ogden, Oglesby and Koer- 
ner, the two former declining on account of ab- 
sence from the State. Ogden was succeeded by 
the late Dr. John Evans, afterwards Territorial 
Governor of Colorado, and Oglesby by Col. Isaac 
C. Pugh of Decatur. (See Bloomington Conven- 
tion of 1856. ) 

APPLE RIVER, a village of Jo Daviess 
County, on the Illinois Central Railroad, 21 miles 
east-northeast from Galena. Population (1880), 
626; (1890), 572; (1900), 576. 

APPLINUTON, (Maj.) Zenas, soldier, was born 
in Broome County, N. Y., Dec. 24, 1815; in 1837 
emigrated to Ogle County, 111., where he fol- 
lowed successively the occupations of farmer, 
blacksmith, carpenter and merchant, finally 
becoming the founder of the town of Polo. Here 
he became wealthy, but lost much of his property 
in the financial revulsion of 1857. In 1858 he 
was elected to the State Senate, and, during the 
session of 1859, was one of the members of that 
body appointed to investigate the "canal scrip 
fraud" (which see), and two years later was one of 
the earnest supporters of the Government in its 
preparation for the War of the Rebellion. The 
latter year he assisted in organizing the Seventh 
Illinois Cavalry, of which he was commissioned 
Major, being some time in command at Bird's 
Point, and later rendering important service to 
General Pope at New Madrid and Island No. 10. 
He was killed at Corinth, Miss., May 8, 1862, 
while obeying an order to charge upon a band of 
rebels concealed in a wood. 

APPORTIONMENT, a mode of distribution of 
the counties of the State into Districts for the 
election of members of the General Assembly 
and of Congress, which will be treated under 
separate heads : 

Legislative. — The first legislative apportion- 
ment was provided for by the Constitution of 
1818. That instrument vested the Legislature 
with power to divide the State as follows: To 
create districts for the election of Representatives 
not less than twenty-seven nor more than thirty- 
six in number, until the population of the State 
should amount to 100,000; and to create sena- 
torial districts, in number not less than one-third 
nor more than one-half of the representative dis- 
tricts at the time of organization. 

The schedule appended to the first Constitution 
contained the first legal apportionment of Sena- 
tors and Representatives. The first fifteen 
counties were allowed fourteen Senators and 



twenty-nine Representatives. Each county 
formed a distinct legislative district for repre- 
sentation in the lower house, with the number of 
members for each varying from one to three; 
while Johnson and Franklin were combined in 
one Senatorial district, the other counties being 
entitled to one Senator each. Later apportion- 
ments were made in 1821, '26, '31, '36, '41 and "47. 
Before an election was held under the last, how- 
ever, the Constitution of 1848 went into effect, 
and considerable changes were effected in this 
regard. The number of Senators was fixed at 
twenty-five and of Representatives at seventy 
five, until the entire population should equal 
1,000. 000, when i'we members of the House were 
added and five additional members for each 500,- 
000 increase in population until the whole num- 
ber of Representatives reached 100. Thereafter 
the number was neither increased nor dimin- 
ished, but apportioned among the several coun- 
ties according to the number of white inhabit- 
ants. Should it be found necessary, a single 
district might be formed out of two or more 
counties. 

The Constitution of 1848 established fifty-four 
Representative and tw-enty-five Senatorial dis- 
tricts. By the apportionment law of 1854, the 
number of the former was increased to fifty-eight, 
and, in 1861, to sixty-one. The number of Sen- 
atorial districts remained unchanged, but their 
geographical limits varied under each act, while 
the number of members from Representative 
districts varied according to population. 

The Constitution of 1870 provided for an im- 
mediate reapportionment (subsequent to its 
adoption) by the Governor and Secretary of 
State upon the basis of the United States Census 
of 1870. Under the apportionment thus made, 
as prescribed by the schedule, the State was 
divided into twenty-five Senatorial districts (each 
electing two Senators) and ninety-seven Repre- 
sentative districts, with an aggregate of 177 mem- 
bers varying from one to ten for the several 
districts, according to population. This arrange- 
ment continued in force for only one Legislature 
— that chosen in 1S70. 

In 1872 this Legislature proceeded to reappor- 
tion the State in accordance with the principle of 
"•minority representation." which, had been sub- 
mitted as an independent section of the Constitu- 
tion and adopted on a separate vote. This 
provided for apportioning the State into fifty-one 
districts, each being entitled to one Senator and 
three Representatives. The ratio of representa- 
tion in the lower house was ascertained by divid- 



20 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



ing the entire population by 153 and each county 
to be allowed one Representative, provided its 
population reached three-fifths of the ratio ; coun- 
ties having a population equivalent to one and 
three-fifths times the ratio were entitled to two 
Representatives ; while each county with a larger 
population was entitled to one additional Repre- 
sentative for each time the full ratio was repeated 
in the number of inhabitants. Apportionments 
were made on this principle in 1872, '82 and '93. 
Members of the lower house are elected bienni- 
ally; Senators for four years, those in odd and 
even districts being chosen at each alternate 
legislative election. The election of Senators for 
the even (numbered) districts takes place at the 
same time with that of Governor and other State 
officers, and that for the odd districts at the inter- 
mediate periods. 

Congressional. — For the first fourteen years 
of the State's history, Illinois constituted but one 
Congressional district. The census of 1830 show- 
ing sufficient population, the Legislature of 1831 
(by act, approved Feb. 13) divided the State into 
three districts, the first election under this law 
being held on the first Monday in August, 1832. 
At that time Illinois comprised fifty-five coun- 
ties, which were apportioned among the districts 
as follows: First — Gallatin, Pope, Johnson, 
Alexander, Union, Jackson, Franklin, Perry, 
Randolph, Monroe, Washington, St. Clair, Clin- 
ton, Bond, Madison, Macoupin; Second — White, 
Hamilton, Jefferson, Wayne, Edwards, Wabash, 
Clay, Marion, Lawrence, Fayette, Montgomery, 
Shelby, Vermilion, Edgar, Coles, Clark, Craw- 
ford; Third — Greene, Morgan, Sangamon, 
Macon, Tazewell, McLean, Cook, Henry, La 
Salle, Putnam, Peoria, Knox, Jo Daviess, Mercer, 
McDonough, Warren, Fulton, Hancock, Pike, 
Schuyler, Adams, Calhoun. 

The reapportionment following the census of 
1840 was made by Act of March 1, 1843, and the 
first election of Representatives thereunder 
occurred on the first Monday of the following 
August. Forty -one new counties had been cre- 
ated (making ninety-six in all) and the number 
of districts was increased to seven as follows: 
First — Alexander, Union, Jackson, Monroe, 
Perry, Randolph, St. Clair, Bond, Washington, 
Madison; Second — Johnson, Pope, Hardin, 
Williamson, Gallatin, Franklin, White, Wayne, 
Hamilton, Wabash, Massac, Jefferson, Edwards, 
Marion; Third — Lawrence, Richland, Jasper, 
Fayette, Crawford, Effingham, Christian, Mont- 
gomery, Shelby, Moultrie, Coles, Clark, Clay, 
Edgar, Piatt, Macon, De Witt; Fourth — Lake, 



McHenry, Boone, Cook, Kane, De Kalb, Du Page, 
Kendall, Will, Grundy, La Salle, Iroquois, 
Livingston, Champaign, Vermilion, McLean, 
Bureau; Fifth — Greene, Jersey, Calhoun, Pike, 
Adams, Marquette (a part of Adams never fully 
organized), Brown, Schuyler, Fulton Peoria, 
Macoupin; Sixth — Jo Daviess, Stephenson, 
Winnebago, Carroll, Ogle, Whiteside, Henry, 
Lee, Rock Island, Stark, Mercer, Henderson, 
Warren, Knox, McDonough, Hancock; Seventh 
— Putnam, Marshall, Woodford, Cass, Tazewell, 
Mason, Menard, Scott, Morgan, Logan, Sangamon. 

The next Congressional apportionment (August 
22, 1852) divided the State into nine districts, as 
follows — the first election under it being held the 
following November: First — Lake, McHenry, 
Boone, Winnebago, Stephenson, Jo Daviess, Car- 
roll, Ogle ; Second — Cook, Du Page, Kane, De 
Kalb, Lee, Whiteside, Rock Island; Third — 
Will, Kendall, Grundy, Livingston, La Salle, 
Putnam, Bureau, Vermilion, Iroquois, Cham- 
paign, McLean, De Witt; Fourth — Fulton, 
Peoria, Knox, Henry, Stark, Warren, Mercer, 
Marshall, Mason, Woodford, Tazewell; Fifth 
— Adams, Calhoun, Brown, Schuyler, Pike, Mc- 
Donough, Hancock, Henderson; Sixth — Morgan, 
Scott, Sangamon, Greene, Macoupin, Montgom- 
ery, Shelby, Christian, Cass, Menard, Jersey; 
Seventh — Logan, Macon, Piatt, Coles, Edgar, 
Moultrie, Cumberland, Crawford, Clark, Effing- 
ham, Jasper, Clay, Lawrence, Richland, Fayette; 
Eighth — Randolph, Monroe, St. Clair, Bond, 
Madison, Clinton, Washington, Jefferson, Mar- 
ion; Ninth — Alexander, Pulaski, Massac, Union, 
Johnson, Pope, Hardin, Gallatin, Saline, Jack- 
son, Perry, Franklin, Williamson, Hamilton, 
Edwards, White, Wayne, Wabash. 

The census of 1860 showed that Illinois was 
entitled to fourteen Representatives, but through 
an error the apportionment law of April 24, 1861, 
created only thirteen districts. This was com- 
pensated for by providing for the election of one 
Congressman for the State-at- large. The districts 
were as follows: First — Cook, Lake; Second — 
McHenry, Boone, Winnebago, De Kalb, and 
Kane; Third — Jo Daviess, Stephenson, White- 
side, Carroll, Ogle, Lee; Fourth — Adams, Han- 
cock, Warren, Mercer, Henderson, Rock Island; 
Fifth— Peoria, Knox, Stark, Marshall, Putnam, 
Bureau, Henry; Sixth— La Salle, Grundy, Ken- 
dall, Du Page, Will, Kankakee; Seventh — 
Macon, Piatt, Champaign, Douglas, Moultrie, 
Cumberland, Vermilion, Coles, Edgar, Iroquois, 
Ford; Eighth — Sangamon, Logan, De Witt, Mc- 
Lean, Tazewell, Woodford, Livingston; Ninth — 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



21 



Fulton, Mason, Menard, Cass, Pike, McDonough, 
Schuyler, Brown; Tenth — Bond, Morgan, Cal- 
houn, Macoupin, Scott, Jersey, Greene, Christian, 
Montgomery, Shelby ; Eleventh — Marion, Fay- 
ette, Richland, Jasper, Clay, Clark, Crawford, 
Franklin, Lawrence, Hamilton, Effingham, 
Wayne, Jefferson; Twelfth — St. Clair. Madison, 
Clinton, Monroe, Washington, Randolph; 
Thirteenth — Alexander, Pulaski, Union, Perry, 
Johnson, Williamson, Jackson, Massac, Pope, 
Hardin, Gallatin, Saline, White, Edwards, 
Wabash. 

The next reapportionment was made July 1, 
1872. The Act created nineteen districts, as fol- 
lows: First — The first seven wards in Chicago 
and thirteen towns in Cook County, with the 
county of Du Page; Second — Wards Eighth to 
Fifteenth (inclusive) in Chicago; Third — Wards 
Sixteenth to Twentieth in Chicago, the remainder 
of Cook County, and Lake County; Fourth — 
Kane, De Kalb, McHenry, Boone, and Winne- 
bago; Fifth — Jo Daviess, Stephenson, Carroll, 
Ogle, Whiteside; Sixth — Henry, Rock Island, 
Putnam, Bureau, Lee; Seventh — La Salle, Ken- 
dall, Grundy, Will ; Eighth — Kankakee, Iroquois, 
Ford, Marshall, Livingston, Woodford; Ninth — 
Stark, Peoria, Knox, Fulton; Tenth — Mercer, 
Henderson, Warren, McDonough, Hancock, 
Schuyler; Eleventh — Adams, Brown, Calhoun, 
Greene, Pike, Jersey; Twelfth — Scott, Morgan, 
Menard, Sangamon, Cass, Christian ; Thirteenth — 
Mason, Tazewell, McLean, Logan, De Witt ; Four- 
teenth — Macon, Piatt, Champaign, Douglas, Coles, 
Vermilion; Fifteenth — Edgar, Clark, Cumber- 
land, Shelby, Moultrie, Effingham, Lawrence, 
Jasper, Crawford; Sixteenth — Montgomery, 
Fayette, Washington, Bond, Clinton, Marion, 
Clay; Seventeenth — Macoupin, Madison, St. 
Clair, Monroe ; Eighteenth — Randolph, Perry, 
Jackson, Union, Johnson, Williamson, Alex- 
ander, Pope, Massac, Pulaski; Nineteenth — 
Richland, Wayne, Edwards, White, Wabash, 
Saline, Gallatin, Hardin, Jefferson, Franklin, 
Hamilton. 

In 1882 (by Act of April 29) the number of dis- 
tricts was increased to twenty, and the bound- 
aries determined as follows : First — Wards First 
to Fourth (inclusive) in Chicago and thirteen 
towns in Cook County; Second — Wards 5th to 
7th and part of 8th in Chicago; Third — Wards 
'.ith to 14th and part of 8th in Chicago; Fourth 
— The remainder of the City of Chicago and of 
the county of Cook; Fifth — Lake, McHenry, 
Boone, Kane, and DeKalb; Sixth — Winnebago, 
Stephenson, Jo Daviess, Ogle, and Carroll; 



Seventh — Lee, Whiteside, Henry, Bureau, Put- 
nam; Eighth — La Salle, Kendall Grundy, Du 
Page, and Will; Ninth — Kankakee, Iroquois, 
Ford, Livingston, Woodford. Marshall; Tenth — 
Peoria, Knox, Stark, Fulton ; Eleventh — Rock 
Island, Mercer, Henderson. Warren, Hancock, 
McDonough, Schuyler; Twelfth — Cass, Brown. 
Adams, Pike, Scott. Greene, Calhoun, Jersey; 
Thirteenth — Tazewell, Mason, Menard, Sanga- 
mon, Morgan, Christian; Fourteenth — McLean, 
De Witt, Piatt, Macon, Logan; Fifteenth — 
Coles, Edgar, Douglas, Vermilion, Champaign ; 
Sixteenth — Cumberland. Clark, Jasper, Clay, 
Crawford, Richland, Lawrence, Wayne, Edwards, 
Wabash ; Seventeenth — Macoupin, Montgomery, 
Moultrie, Shelby, Effingham, Fayette; Eight- 
eenth — Bond, Madison, St. Clair, Monroe, Wash- 
ington; Nineteenth — Marion, Clinton Jefferson, 
Saline, Franklin, Hamilton, White, Gallatin, Har- 
din ; Twentieth — Perry, Randolph, Jackson, 
Union, Williamson, Johnson, Alexander, Pope, 
Pulaski, Massac. 

The census of 1890 showed the State to be entit- 
led to twenty-two Representatives. No reap- 
portionment, however, was made until June, 
1893, two members from the State-at-large being 
elected in 1892. The existing twenty-two Con- 
gressional districts are as follows: The first 
seven districts comprise the counties of Cook and 
Lake, the latter lying wholly in the Seventh dis- 
trict ; Eighth — McHenry, De Kalb, Kane, Du 
Page, Kendall, Grundy; Ninth — Boone, Winne- 
bago, Stephenson, Jo Daviess, Carroll, Ogle, Lee; 
Tenth — Whiteside, Rock Island, Mercer, Henry, 
Stark, Knox ; Eleventh — Bureau, La Salle, 
Livingston, Woodford; Twelfth — Will, Kanka- 
kee, Iroquois, Vermilion; Thirteenth — Ford, Mc- 
Lean, DeWitt, Piatt, Champaign, Douglas; Four- 
teenth — Putnam. Marshall, Peoria, Fulton, 
Tazewell, Mason ; Fifteenth — Henderson, War- 
ren, Hancock, McDonough, Adams, Brown, 
Schuyler ; Sixteenth — Cass. Morgan, Scott, 
Pike. Greene, Macoupin, Calhoun, Jersey 
Seventeenth — Menard, Logan, Sangamon, Macon, 
Christian; Eighteenth — Madison, Montgomery. 
Bond, Fayette, Shelby, Moultrie: Nineteenth — 
Coles, Edgar. Clark. Cumberland, Effingham. 
Jasper, Crawford. Richland, Lawrence; Twenti- 
eth — Clay, Jefferson, Wayne, Hamilton, Ed- 
wards. Wabash, Franklin, White, Gallatin, 
Hardin; Twenty first —Marion, Clinton, Wash- 
ington, St. Clair. Monroe, Randolph, Perry; 
Twenty second — Jackson, Union, Alexander, 
Pulaski, Johnson, Williamson, Saline, Pope. 
Massac. (See also Representatives iv Congress • 



22 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



ARCHER, William B., pioneer, was born in 
"Warren County, Ohio, in 1792, and taken to Ken- 
tucky at an early day, where he remained until 
1817, when his family removed to Illinois, finally 
settling in what is now Clark County. Although 
pursuing the avocation of a farmer, he became 
one of the most prominent and influential men in 
that part of the State. On the organization of 
Clark County in 1819, he was appointed the first 
County and Circuit Clerk, resigning the former 
office in 1820 and the latter in 1822. In 1824 he 
was elected to the lower branch of the General 
Assembly, and two years later to the State 
Senate, serving continuously in the latter eight 
years. He was thus a Senator on the breaking 
out of the Black Hawk War (1832), in which he 
served as a Captain of militia. In 1834 he was an 
unsuccessful candidate for Lieutenant-Governor ; 
was appointed by Governor Duncan, in 1835, a 
member of the first Board of Commissioners of 
ehe Illinois & Michigan Canal; in 1838 was 
returned a second time to the House of Repre- 
sentatives and re-elected in 1840 and '46 to the 
same body. Two years later (1848) he was again 
elected Circuit Clerk, remaining until 1852, and 
in 1854 was an Anti-Nebraska Whig candidate 
for Congress in opposition to James C. Allen. 
Although Allen received the certificate of elec- 
tion, Archer contested his right to the seat, with 
the result that Congress declared the seat vacant 
and referred the question back to the people. In 
a new election held in August, 1856, Archer was 
defeated and Allen elected. He held no public 
office of importance after this date, but in 1856 
was a delegate to the first Republican National 
Convention at Philadelphia, and in that body was 
an enthusiastic supporter of Abraham Lincoln, 
whose zealous friend and admirer he was, for the 
office of Vice-President. He was also one of the 
active promoters of various railroad enterprises 
in that section of the State, especially the old 
Chicago & Vincennes Road, the first projected 
•southward from the City of Chicago. His con- 
nection with the Illinois & Michigan Canal was 
the means of giving his name to Archer Avenue, 
a somewhat famous thoroughfare in Chicago 
He was of tall stature and great energy of char- 
acter, with a tendency to enthusiasm that com- 
municated itself to others. A local history has 
said of him that "he did more for Clark County 
than any man in his day or since," although "no 
consideration, pecuniary or otherwise, was ever 
given him for his services." Colonel Archer was 
one of the founders of Marshall, the county-seat 
of Clark County, Governor Duncan being associ- 



ated with him in the ownership of the land on 
which the town was laid out. His death oc- 
curred in Clark County, August 9, 1870, at the 
age of 78 years. 

ARCOL A, incorporated city in Douglas County, 
158 miles south of Chicago, at junction of Illinois 
Central and Terre Haute branch Vandalia Rail- 
road ; is center of largest broom-corn producing 
region i a the world ; has city waterworks, with 
efficient volunteer fire department, electric lights, 
telephone system, grain elevators and broom- 
corn warehouses, two banks, three newspapers, 
nine churches, library building and excellent free 
school system. Pop. (1890), 1,733; (1900), 1,995. 

AREJJZ, Francis A., pioneer, was born at 
Blankenberg, in the Province of the Rhein, 
Prussia, Oct. 31, 1800 ; obtained a good education' 
and, while a young man, engaged in mercantile 
business in his native country. In 1827 he came 
to the United States and, after spending two 
years in Kentucky, in 1829 went to Galena, where 
he was engaged for a short time in the lead 
trade. He took an early opportunity to become 
naturalized, and coming to Beardstown a few 
months later, went into merchandising and real 
estate; also became a contractor for furnishing 
supplies to the State troops during the Black Hawk 
War, Beardstown being at the time a rendezvous 
and shipping point. In 1834 he began the publi- 
cation of ' 'The Beardstown Chronicle and Illinois 
Bounty Land Register," and was the projector of 
the Beardstown & Sangamon Canal, extending 
from the Illinois River at Beardstown to Miller's 
Ferry on the Sangamon, for which he secured a 
special charter from the Legislature in 1836. He 
had a survey of the line made, but the hard times 
prevented the beginning of the work and it was 
finally abandoned. Retiring from the mercantile 
business in 1835, he located on a farm six miles 
southeast of Beardstown, but in 1839 removed to 
a tract of land near the Morgan County line 
which he had bought in 1833, and on which the 
present village of Arenzville now stands. This 
became the center of a thrifty agricultural com- 
munity composed largely of Germans, among 
whom he exercised a large influence. Resuming 
the mercantile business here, he continued it 
until about 1853, when he sold out a considerable 
part of his possessions. An ardent Whig, he was 
elected as such to the lower branch of the Four- 
teenth General Assembly (1844) from Morgan 
County, and during the following session suc- 
ceeded in securing the passage of an act by which 
a strip of territory three miles wide in the north- 
ern part of Morgan County, including the village 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



23 



of Arenzville, and which had been in dispute, 
was transferred by vote of the citizens to Cass 
County. In 1852 Mr. Arenz visited his native 
land, by appointment of President Fillmore, as 
bearer of dispatches to the American legations at 
Berlin and Vienna. He was one of the founders 
of the Illinois State Agricultural Society of 1853, 
and served as the Vice-President for his district 
until his death, and was also the founder and 
President of the Cass County Agricultural Soci- 
ety. Died, April 2, 1856. 

ARLINGTON, a village of Bureau County, on 
the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 92 
miles west of Chicago. Population (1880), 447; 
(1890), 436; (1900), 400. 

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS (formerly Dunton), a 
village of Cook County, on the Chicago & North- 
western Railway, 22 miles northwest of Chicago ; 
is in a dairying district and has several cheese 
factories, besides a sewing machine factory, 
hotels and churches, a graded school, a bank and 
one newspaper. Population (1880), 995; (1890), 
1,424; (1900), 1,380. 

ARMOUR, Philip Danforth, packer, Board of 
Trade operator and capitalist, was born at Stock- 
bridge, Madison County, N. Y., May 16, 1832. 
After receiving the benefits of such education as 
the village academy afforded, in 1852 he set out 
across the Plains to California, where he re- 
mained four years, achieving only moderate suc- 
cess as a miner. Returning east in 1856, he soon 
after embarked in the commission business in 
Milwaukee, continuing until 1863, when he 
formed a partnership with Mr. John Plankinton 
in the meat-packing business. Later, in conjunc- 
tion with his brothers — H. O. Armour having 
already built up an extensive grain commission 
trade in Chicago — he organized the extensive 
packing and commission firm of Armour & 
Co., with branches in New York, Kansas City 
and Chicago, their headquarters being removed 
to the latter place from Milwaukee in 1875. 
Mr. Armour is a most industrious and me- 
thodical business man, giving as many hours 
to the superintendence of business details as the 
most industrious day-laborer, the result being 
seen in the creation of one of the most extensive 
and prosperous firms in the country. Mr. 
Armour's practical benevolence has been demon- 
strated in a munificent manner by his establish- 
ment and endowment of the Armour Institute 
(a manual training school) in Chicago, at a cost 
of over $2,250,000, as an offshoot of the Armour 
Mission founded on the bequest of his deceased 
brother, Joseph F. Armour. Died Jan. 6, 1901. 



ARMSTRONG, John Strawn, pioneer, born in 
Somerset County, Pa., May 29, 1810, the oldest of 
a family of nine sons ; was taken by his parents 
in 1811 to Licking County, Ohio, where he spent 
his childhood and early youth. His father was a 
native of Ireland and liis mother a sister of Jacob 
Strawn, afterwards a wealthy stock-grower and 
dealer in Morgan County. In 1829, John S. came 
to Tazewell County, 111., but two years later 
joined the rest of his family in Putnam (now 
Marshall) County, all finally removing to La 
Salle County, where they were among the earli- 
est settlers. Here he settled on a farm in 1834, 
where he continued to reside over fifty years, 
when he located in the village of Sheridan, but 
early in 1897 went to reside with a daughter in 
Ottawa. He was a soldier in the Black Hawk 
War, has been a prominent and influential farm- 
er, and, in the later years of his life, has been 
a leader in "Granger" politics, being Master of his 
local "Grange," and also serving as Treasurer of 
the State Grange. — George Washington (Arm- 
strong), brother of the preceding, was born upon 
the farm of his parents, Joseph and Elsie (Strawn) 
Armstrong, in Licking County, Ohio, Dec. 9, 
1812; learned the trade of a weaver with his 
father (who was a woolen manufacturer), and at 
the age of 18 was in charge of the factory, 
Early in 1831 he came with his mother's family 
to Illinois, locating a few months later in La 
Salle County. In 1*32 he served with his older 
brother as a soldier in the Black Hawk War, was 
identified with the early steps for the construc- 
tion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, finally be- 
coming a contractor upon the section at Utica, 
where he resided several years. He then returned 
to the farm near the present village of Seneca, 
where he had located in 1833, and where (with 
the exception of his residence at Utica) he has 
resided continuously over sixty-five years. In 
1844 Mr. Armstrong was elected to the lower 
branch of the Fourteenth General Assembly, 
also served in the Constitutional Convention of 
1847 and, in 1858, was the unsuccessful Democratic 
candidate for Congress in opposition to Owen 
Lovejoy. Re-entering the Legislature in 1860 as 
Representative from La Salle County, he served 
in that body by successive re-elections until isos. 
proving one of its ablest and most influential 
members, as well as an accomplished parliamen- 
tarian. Mr. Armstrong was one of the original 
promoters of the Kankakee & Seneca Railroad. — 
William E. (Armstrong), third brother of this 
family, was born in Licking County, Ohio, Oct. 
25, 1814; came to Illinois with the rest of the 



24 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



family in 1831, and resided in La Salle County 
until 1841, meanwhile serving two or three terms 
as Sheriff of the county. The latter year he was 
appointed one of the Commissioners to locate the 
county-seat of the newly-organized county of 
Grundy, finally becoming one of the founders and 
the first permanent settler of the town of Grundy 
— later called Morris, in honor of Hon. I. N. Mor- 
ris, of Quincy, 111, at that time one of the Com- 
missioners of the Illinois & Michigan Canal. 
Here Mr. Armstrong was again elected to the 
office of Sheriff, serving several terms. So ex- 
tensive was his influence in Grundy County, that 
he was popularly known as "The Emperor of 
Grundy." Died, Nov. 1, 1850.— Joel W. (Arm- 
strong), a fourth brother, was born in Licking 
County, Ohio, Jan. 6, 1817 ; emigrated in boyhood 
to La Salle County, 111. ; served one term as 
County Recorder, was member of the Board of 
Supervisors for a number of years and the first 
Postmaster of his town. Died, Dec. 3, 1871. — 
Perry A. (Armstrong), the seventh brother of 
this historic family, was born near Newark, Lick- 
ing County, Ohio, April 15, 1823, and came to La 
Salle County, 111., in 1831. His opportunities for 
acquiring an education in a new country were 
limited, but between work on the farm and serv- 
ice as a clerk of his brother George, aided by a 
short term in an academy and as a teacher in 
Kendall County, he managed to prepare himself 
for college, entering Illinois College at Jackson- 
ville in 1843. Owing to failure of health, he was 
compelled to abandon his plan of obtaining a col- 
legiate education and returned home at the end 
of his Freshman year, but continued his studies, 
meanwhile teaching district schools in the winter 
and working on his mother's farm during the 
crop season, until 1845, when he located in Mor- 
ris, Grundy County, opened a general store and 
was appointed Postmaster. He has been in pub- 
lic position of some sort ever since he reached his 
majority, including the offices of School Trustee, 
Postmaster, Justice of the Peace, Supervisor, 
County Clerk (two terms), Delegate to the Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1862, and two terms as 
Representative in the General Assembly (1862-64 
and 1872-74). During his last session in the Gen- 
eral Assembly he took a conspicuous part in the 
revision of the statutes under the Constitution of 
1870, framing some of the most important laws 
on the statute book, while participating in the 
preparation of others. At an earlier date it fell 
io his lot to draw up the original charters of the 
Chicago & Rock Island, the Illinois Central, and 
the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroads. He 



has also been prominent in Odd Fellow and 
Masonic circles, having been Grand Master of the 
first named order in the State and being the old- 
est 32d degree Mason in Illinois ; was admitted to 
the State bar in 1864 and to that of the Supreme 
Court of the United States in 1868, and has been 
Master in Chancery for over twenty consecutive 
years. Mr. Armstrong has also found time to do 
some literary work, as shown by his history of 
"The Sauks and Black Hawk War," and a num- 
ber of poems. He takes much pleasure in relat- 
ing reminiscences of pioneer life in Illinois, one 
of which is the story of his first trip from 
Ottawa to Chicago, in December, 1831, when he 
accompanied his oldest brother (William E. 
Armstrong) to Chicago with a sled and ox- 
team for salt to cure their mast-fed pork, the 
trip requiring ten days. His recollection is, that 
there were but three white families in Chicago 
at that time, but a large number of Indians 
mixed with half-breeds of French and Indian 
origin. 

ARNOLD, Isaac IV., lawyer and Congressman, 
was born near Cooperstown, N. Y., Nov. 30, 1813, 
being descended from one of the companions of 
Roger Williams. Thrown upon his own resources 
at an early age, he was largely "self-made." 
He read law at Cooperstown, and was admitted 
to the bar in 1835. The next year he removed to 
Chicago, was elected the first City Clerk in 1837, 
but resigned before the close of the year and was 
admitted to the bar of Illinois in 1841. He soon 
established a reputation as a lawyer, and served 
for three terms (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and 
Twentieth) in the lower house of the Legisla- 
ture. In 1844 he was a Presidential Elector on 
the Polk ticket, but the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, with the legislation regarding Kan- 
sas and Nebraska, logically forced him, as a free- 
soiler, into the ranks of the Republican party, by 
which he was sent to Congress from 1861 to 1865. 
While in Congress he prepared and delivered an 
exhaustive argument in support of the right of 
confiscation by the General Government. After 
the expiration of his last Congressional term, Mr. 
Arnold returned to Chicago, where he resided 
until his death, April 24, 1884. He was of schol- 
arly instincts, fond of literature and an author of 
repute. Among his best known works are his 
"Life of Abraham Lincoln" and his "Life of 
Benedict Arnold." 

ARRINGTON, Alfred W., clergyman, lawyer 
and author, was born in Iredell County, N. C, 
September, 1810, being the son of a Whig mem- 
ber of Congress from that State. In 1829 he was 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS 



25 



received on trial as a Methodist preacher and 
became a circuit-rider in Indiana; during 1832-33 
served as an itinerant in Missouri, gaining much 
celebrity by his eloquence. In 1834 he began the 
study of law, and having been admitted to the 
bar, practiced for several years in Arkansas, 
where he was sent to the Legislature, and, in 1844, 
was the Whig candidate for Presidential Elec- 
tor. Later he removed to Texas, where he served 
as Judge for six years. In 1856 he removed to 
Madison, Wis. , but a year later came to Chicago, 
where he attained distinction as a lawyer, dying 
in that city Dec. 31, 1867. He was an accom- 
plished scholar and gifted writer, having written 
much for "The Democratic Review" and "The 
Southern Literary Messenger, " over the signature 
of "Charles Summerfield, " and was author of an 
"Apostrophe to Water," which he put in the 
mouth of an itinerant Methodist preacher, and 
which John B. Gough was accustomed to quote 
with great effect. A volume of his poems with a 
memoir was published in Chicago in 1869. 

ARROWSMITH, a village of McLean County, 
on the Lake Erie & Western Railway, 20 miles 
east of Bloomington; is in an agricultural and 
stock region; has one newspaper. Population 
(1890), 420; (1900), 317. 

ARTHUR, village in Moultrie and Douglas 
Counties, at junction of Chicago & Eastern Illi- 
nois and Terre Haute & Peoria Division Vandalia 
Line; is center of broom-corn belt; has two 
banks, a weekly newspaper. Population (1900), 
858; (est. 1904), 1,000. 

ASAY, Edward (*., lawyer, was born in Phila- 
delphia, Sept. 17, 1825; was educated in private 
schools and entered the ministry of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church ; later spent some time in the 
South, but in 1853 retired from the ministry and 
began the study of law, meantime devoting a part 
of his time to mercantile business in New York 
City. He was admitted to the bar in 1856, remov- 
ing the same year to Chicago, where he built up 
a lucrative practice. He was a brilliant speaker 
and became eminent, especially as a criminal 
lawyer. Politically he was a zealous Democrat 
and was the chief attorney of Buckner S. Morris 
and others during their trial for conspiracy in 
connection with the Camp Douglas affair of No- 
vember, 1864. During 1871-72 he made an ex- 
tended trip to Europe, occupying some eighteen 
months, making a second visit in 1882. His later 
years were spent chiefly on a farm in Ogle 
County. Died in Chicago, Nov. 24, 1898. 

ASBURY, Henry, lawyer, was born in Harri- 
son (now Robertson) County, Ky., August 10, 



1810; came to Illinois in 1834, making the jour- 
ney on horseback and finally locating in Quincy, 
where he soon after began the study of law witli 
the Hon. O. H. Brovning; was admitted to the 
bar in 1837, being ror a time the partner of Col. 
Edward D. Baker, afterwards United States 
Senator from Oregon and finally killed at Ball's 
Bluff in 1862. In 1849 Mr. Asbury was appointed 
by President Taylor Register of the Quincy Land 
Office, and, in 1864-65, served by appointment of 
President Lincoln (who was his close personal 
friend) as Provost-Marshal of the Quincy dis- 
trict, thereby obtaining the title of "Captain,"' 
by which he was widely known among his 
friends. Later he served for several years as 
Registrar in Bankruptcy at Quincy, which was 
his last official position. Originally a Kentucky 
Whig, Captain Asbury was one of the founders 
of the Republican party in Illinois, acting in co- 
operation with Abram Jonas, Archibald Williams, 
Nehemiah Bushnell, O. H. Browning and others 
of his immediate neighbors, and with Abraham 
Lincoln, with whom he was a frequent corre- 
spondent at that period. Messrs. Nicolay and 
Hay, in their Life of Lincoln, award him the 
credit of having suggested one of the famous 
questions propounded by Lincoln to Douglas 
which gave the latter so much trouble during 
the memorable debates of 1858. In 1886 Captain 
Asbury removed to Chicago, where he continued 
to reside until his death, Nov. 19, 1896. 

ASHLAND, a town in Cass County, at the 
intersection of the Chicago & Alton and the 
Baltimore & Ohio South-Western Railroad, 21 
miles west-northwest of Springfield and 200 
miles southwest of Chicago. It is in the midst of 
a rich agricultural region, and is an important 
shipping point for grain and stock. It has a 
bank, three churches and a weekly newspaper. 
Coal is mined in the vicinity. Population (1880), 
609; (1890), 1,045; (1900), 1,201. 

ASHLEY, a city of Washington County, at 
intersection of Illinois Central and Louisville & 
Nashville Railways, 62 miles east by southeast of 
St. Louis; is in an agricultural and fruit growing 
region; has some manufactures, electric light 
plant and excellent granitoid sidewalks. Popu- 
lation (1890), 1,035; (1900), 953. 

ASHMORE, a village of Coles County, on the 
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Rail- 
way, 9 miles east of Charleston; lias a newspaper 
and considerable local trade. Population (1890), 
446, (1900), 487; (1903), 520. 

ASHTON, a village of Lee County, on the Chi- 
cago & North- Western Railroad, 84 miles west of 



26 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OP ILLINOIS. 



Chicago ; has one newspaper. Population (1880), 
646; (1890), 680; (1900), 776. 

ASPINWALL, Homer F., farmer and legisla- 
tor, was born in Stephenson County, 111., Nov. 15, 
1846, educated in the Freeport high school, and, 
in early life, spent two years in a wholesale 
notion store, later resuming the occupation of a 
farmer. After holding various local offices, in- 
cluding that of member of the Board of Supervis- 
ors of Stephenson County, in 1892 Mr. Aspinwall 
was elected to the State Senate and re-elected in 
1896. Soon after the beginning of the Spanish- 
American War in 1898, he was appointed by 
President McKinley Captain and Assistant 
Quartermaster in the Volunteer Army, but 
before being assigned to duty accepted the Lieu- 
tenant-Colonelcy of the Twelfth Illinois Pro- 
visional Regiment. When it became evident that 
the regiment would not be called into the service, 
he was assigned to the command of the "Mani- 
toba," a large transport steamer, which carried 
some 12,000 soldiers to Cuba and Porto Rico with- 
out a single accident. In view of the approach- 
ing session of the Forty-first General Assembly, 
it being apparent that the war was over, Mr. 
Aspinwall applied for a discharge, which was 
refused, a 20-days' leave of absence being granted 
instead. A discharge was finally granted about 
the middle of February, when he resumed his 
seat in the Senate. Mr. Aspinwall owns and 
operates a large farm near Freeport. 

ASSUMPTION, a town in Christian County, on 
the Illinois Central Railroad, 23 miles south by 
west from Decatur and 9 miles north of Pana. 
It is situated in a rich agricultural and coal min- 
ing district, and has two banks, five churches, a 
public school, two weekly papers and coal mines. 
Population (1880), 706; (1890), 1,076; (1900), 1,702. 
ASTORIA, town in Fulton County, on Rock 
Island & St. Louis Division C, B. & Q. R. R. ; 
has city waterworks, electric light plant, tele- 
phone exchange, three large grain elevators, 
pressed brick works; six churches, two banks, 
two weekly papers, city hall and park, and good 
schools; is in a coal region; business portion is 
built of brick. Pop. (1890), 1,357; (1900), 1,684. 

ATCHISON, TOPEKA & SANTA FE RAIL- 
WAY COMPANY. This Company operates three 
subsidiary lines in Illinois — the Chicago, Santa 
Fe & California, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa 
Fe in Chicago, and the Mississippi River Rail- 
road & Toll Bridge, which are operated as a 
through line between Chicago and Kansas City, 
with a branch from Ancona to Pekin, 111., hav- 
ing an aggregate operated mileage of 515 miles, of 



which 295 are in Illinois. The total earnings and 
income for the year ending June 30, 1895, were 
$1,298,600, while the operating expenses and fixed 
charges amounted to §2,360,706. The accumu- 
lated deficit on the whole line amounted, June 30, 
1894, to more than $4,500,000. The total capitali- 
zation of the whole line in 1895 was $52,775,251. 
The parent road was chartered in 1859 under the 
name of the Atchison & Topeka Railroad ; but in 
1863 was changed to the Atchison, Topeka & 
Santa Fe Railroad. The construction of the main 
line was begun in 1859 and completed in 1873. 
The largest number of miles operated was in 
1893, being 7,481.65. January 1, 1896, the road 
was reorganized under the name of The Atchison, 
Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company (its present 
name), which succeeded by purchase under fore- 
closure (Dec. 10, 1895) to the property and fran- 
chises of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe 
Railroad Company. Its mileage, in 1895, was 
6,481.65 miles. The executive and general officers 
of the system (1898) are: 

Aldace F. Walker, Chairman of the Board, 
New York ; E. P. Ripley, President, Chicago ; C. 
M. Higginson, Ass't to the President, Chicago; 
E. D. Kenna, 1st Vice-President and General 
Solicitor, Chicago; Paul Morton, 2d Vice-Presi- 
dent, Chicago; E. Wilder, Secretary and Treas- 
urer, Topeka; L. C. Deming, Assistant Secretary, 
New York ; H. W. Gardner, Assistant Treasurer, 
New York; Victor Morawetz, General Counsel, 
New York; Jno. P. Whitehead, Comptroller, 
New York; H. C. Whitehead, General Auditor, 
Chicago ; W. B. Biddle, Freight Traffic Manager, 
Chicago; J. J. Frey, General Manager, Topeka; 
H. W. Mudge, General Superintendent, Topeka; 
W. A. Bissell, Assistant Freight Traffic Manager, 
Chicago; W. F. White, Passenger Traffic 
Manager, Chicago; Geo. T. Nicholson, Assistant 
Passenger Traffic Manager, Chicago; W. E. 
Hodges, General Purchasing Agent, Chicago; 
James A. Davis, Industrial Commissioner, Chi- 
cago ; James Dun, Chief Engineer, Topeka, Kan. ; 
John Player, Superintendent of Machinery, 
Topeka, Kan. ; C. W. Kouns, Superintendent Car 
Service, Topeka, Kan. ; J. S. Hobson, Signal 
Engineer, Topeka; C. G. Sholes, Superintendent 
of Telegraph, Topeka, Kan. ; C. W. Ryus, General 
Claim Agent, Topeka ; F. C. Gay, General Freight 
Agent, Topeka; C. R. Hudson, Assistant General 
Freight Agent, Topeka; W. J. Black, General 
Passenger Agent, Chicago; P. Walsh, General 
Baggage Agent, Chicago. 

ATHENS, an incorporated city and coal-mining 
town in Menard County, on the Chicago, Peoria 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



27 



& St. Louis R. R., north by northwest of Spring- 
field. It is also the center of a prosperous agri- 
cultural and stock-raising district, and large 
numbers of cattle are shipped there for the Chi- 
cago market. The place has an electric lighting 
plant, brickyards, two machine shops, two grain 
elevators, five churches, one newspaper, and good 
schools. Athens is one of the oldest towns in 
Central Illinois. Pop. (1890), 944; (1900), 1,535. 

ATKINS, Smith D., soldier and journalist, was 
born near Elmira, N. Y., June 9, 1836; came with 
his father to Illinois in 1846, and lived on a farm 
till 1850 ; was educated at Rock River Seminary, 
Mount Morris, meanwhile learning the printer's 
trade, and afterwards established "The Savanna 
Register" in Carroll County. In 1854 he began 
the study of law, and in 1860, while practicing at 
Freeport, was elected Prosecuting Attorney, but 
resigned in 1861, being the first man to enlist as a 
private soldier in Stephenson County. He served 
as a Captain of the Eleventh Illinois Volunteers 
(three-months' men), re-enlisted with the same 
rank for three years and took part in the capture 
of Fort Donelson and the battle of Shiloh, serv- 
ing at the latter on the staff of General Hurlbut. 
Forced to retire temporarily on account of his 
health, he next engaged in raising volunteers in 
Northern Illinois, was finally commissioned Col- 
onel of the Ninety-second Illinois, and, in June, 
1863, was assigned to command of a brigade in 
the Army of Kentucky, later serving in the Army 
of the Cumberland. On the organization of Sher- 
man's great "March to the Sea," he efficiently 
cooperated in it, was brevetted Brigadier-General 
for gallantry at Savannah, and at the close of the 
war, by special order of President Lincoln, was 
brevetted Major-General. Since the war, Gen- 
eral Atkins' chief occupation has been that of 
editor of "The Freeport Journal," though, for 
nearly twenty-four years, he served as Post- 
master of that city. He took a prominent part 
in the erection of the Stephenson County Sol- 
diers' Monument at Freeport, has been President 
of the Freeport Public Library since its organiza- 
tion, member of the Board of Education, and since 
1895, by appointment of the Governor of Illinois, 
one of the Illinois Commissioners of the Chicka- 
mauga and Chattanooga Military Park. 

ATKINSON, village of Henry C6unty, on the 
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway, 39 miles 
east of Rock Island; has an electric light plant, a 
bank and a newspaper. Pop. (1890), 534; (1900), 763. 

ATLANTA, a city of Logan County, on the 
Chicago & Alton Railroad, 20 miles southwest of 
Bloomington. It stands on a high, fertile prairie 



and the surrounding region is rich in coal, as. 
well as a productive agricultural and stock-rais- 
ing district. It has a water-works system, elec- 
tric light plant, five churches, a graded school, a 
weekly paper, two banks, a flouring mill, and is 
the headquarters of the Union Agricultural So- 
ciety established in 1860. Population (1900) 1 271 1. 

ATLAS, a hamlet in the southwestern part of 
Pike County. 1" miles southwest of Pittsfield and 
three miles from Rockport, the nearest station on 
the Quincy & Louisiana Division of the Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy Railroad. Atlas has an in- 
teresting history. It was settled by Col. William 
Ross and four brothers, who came here from 
Pittsfield, Mass., in the latter part of 1819, or 
early in 1820, making there the first settlement 
within the present limits of Pike County. The 
town was laid out by the Rosses in 1823, and the 
next year the county-seat was removed thither 
from Coles Grove — now in Calhoun County — but 
which had been the first county-seat of Pike 
County, when it comprised all the territory lying 
north and west of the Illinois River to the Mis- 
sissippi River and the Wisconsin State line. 
Atlas remained the county-seat until 1833, when 
the seat of justice was removed to Pittsfield. 
During a part of that time it was one of the 
most important points in the western part of the 
State, and was, for a time, a rival of Quincy. 
It now has only a postoffice and general store. 
The population, according to the census of 1890, 
was 52. 

ATTORNEYS-GENERAL. The following is a 
list of the Attorneys-General of Illinois under the 
Territorial and State Governments, down to the 
present time (1899), with the date and duration of 
the term of each incumbent: 

Territorial— Benjamin II. Doyle, July to De- 
cember, 1809; John J. Crittenden, Dec. 30 to 
April, 1810; Thomas T. Crittenden, April to 
October, 1810; Benj. M. Piatt, October, 1810-13; 
William Mears, 1813-18. 

State — Daniel Pope Cook, March 5 to Dec. 14, 
1819 ; William Mears, 1819-21 ; Samuel D. Lock- 
wood, 1821-23; .lames Turney. L823-29; George 
Forquer. 1829-33; .lames Semple, 1833-34; Ninia-n 
W. Edwards, 1834 35; Jesse B. Thomas, Jr., 
1835-36; Walter B. Scates, 1836-37; Usher F. 
Linder, L837 38; George W. Olney, 1838-39; Wick- 
liffe Kitchell, 1839-40; Josiah Lamborn, ism L3; 
James Allen McDougal, 1813-46; David B. Camp- 
bell, 1846-48. 

The Constitution of 1848 made no provision for 
the continuance of the office, and for nineteen 
years it remained vacant. It was re-created, 



2S 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



however, by legislative enactment in 1867, and 
on Feb. 28 of that year Governor Oglesby 
appointed Robert G. Ingersoll, of Peoria, to dis 
charge the duties of the position, which he con- 
tinued to do until 1869. Subsequent incumbents 
of the office have been: Washington Bushnell, 
1869-73; James K. Edsall, 1873-81; James McCart- 
ney, 1881-85; George Hunt, 1885-93; M. T. Moloney, 
1893-97; Edward C. Akin, 1897 — . Under the 
first Constitution (1818) the office of Attorney- 
General was filled by appointment by the Legisla- 
ture; under the Constitution of 1848, as already 
stated, it ceased to exist until created by act of 
the Legislature of 1867, but, in 1870, it was made 
a constitutional office to be filled by popular 
election for a term of four years. 

ATWOOD, a village lying partly in Piatt and 
partly in Douglas County, on the Cincinnati, 
Hamilton & Dayton R. R., 27 miles east of Deca- 
tur. The region is agricultural and fruit-grow- 
ing; the town has two banks, an excellent school 
and a newspaper. Pop. (1890), 530; (1900), 698. 

ATWOOD, Charles B., architect, was born at 
Millbury, Mass., May 18, 1849; at 17 began a full 
course in architecture at Harvard Scientific 
School, and, after graduation, received prizes for 
public buildings at San Francisco, Hartford and 
a number of other cities, besides furnishing 
designs for some of the finest private residences 
in the country. He was associated with D. H. 
Burnham in preparing plans for the Columbian 
Exposition buildings, at Chicago, for the World's 
Fair of 1893, and distinguished himself by pro- 
ducing plans for the "Art Building," the "Peri- 
style," the "Terminal Station" and other 
prominent structures. Died, in the midst of his 
highest successes as an architect, at Chicago, 
Dec. 19, 1895. 

AUBURN, a village of Sangamon County, on 
the Chicago & Alton Railroad, 15 miles south of 
Springfield ; has some manufactories of flour and 
farm implements, besides tile and brick works, 
two coal mines, electric light plant, two banks, 
several churches, a graded school and a weekly 
newspaper. Pop. (1890), 874; (1900), 1,281. 

AUDITORS OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS. The 
Auditors of Public Accounts under the Terri- 
torial Government were H. H. Maxwell, 1812-16; 
Daniel P. Cook, 1816-17; Robert Blackwell, (April 
to August), 1817; Elijah C. Berry, 1817-18. Under 
the Constitution of 1818 the Auditor of Public 
Accounts was made appointive by the legislature, 
without limitation of term ; but by the Constitu- 
tions of 1848 and 1870 the office was made 
elective by the people for a term of four years. 



The following is a list of the State Auditors 
from the date of the admission of the State into 
the Union down to the present time (1899), with 
the date and duration of the term of each: 
Elijah C. Berry, 1818-31; James T. B. Stapp, 
1831-35; Levi Davis, 1835-41; James Shields, 
1841-43; William Lee D. Ewing. x843-46; Thomas 
H Campbell, 1846-57; Jesse K. Dubois, 1857-64; 
Orlin H. Miner, 1864-69; Charles E. Lippincott, 
1869-77; Thomas B. Needles, 1877-81; Charles P. 
Swigert, 1881-89- C. W. Pavey, 1889-93; David 
Gore, 1893-97; James S. McCullough, 1897 — . 

AUGUSTA, a village in Augusta township, 
Hancock County, on the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy Railroad, 36 miles northeast of Quincy. 
Wagons and brick are the principal manufac- 
tures. The town has one newspaper, two banks, 
three churches and a graded school. The sur 
rounding country is a fertile agricultural region 
and abounds in a good quality of bituminous 
coal. Fine qualities of potter's clay and mineral 
paint are obtained here. Population (1890), 
1,077; (1900), 1,149. 

AUGUSTAN A COLLEGE, an educational insti- 
tution controlled by the Evangelical Lutheran 
denomination, located at Rock Island and founded 
in 1863. Besides preparatory and collegiate de- 
partments, a theological school is connected with 
the institution. To the two first named, young 
women are admitted on an equality with 
men. More than 500 students were reported in 
attendance in 1896, about one-fourth being 
women. A majority of the latter were in the 
preparatory (or academic) department. The col- 
lege is not endowed, but owns property (real 
and personal) to the value of $250,000. It has a 
library of 12,000 volumes. 

AURORA, a city and important railroad cen- 
ter, Kane County, on Fox River, 39 miles south- 
west of Chicago ; is location of principal shops of 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R., has fine 
water-power and many successful manufactories, 
including extensive boiler works, iron foundries, 
cotton and woolen mills, flour mills, silver-plat- 
ing works, corset, sash and door and carriage 
factories, stove and smelting works, establish- 
ments for turning out road-scrapers, buggy tops, 
and wood-working machinery. The city owns 
water-works and electric light plant; has six 
banks, four daily and several weekly papers, 
some twenty-five churches, excellent schools and 
handsome public library building; is connected 
by interurban electric lines with the principal 
towns and villages in the Fox River valley. 
Population (1890), 19,688; (1900), 24,147. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



29 



AUSTIN, a suburb of Chicago, in Cook County. 
It is accessible from that city by either the Chi- 
cago & Northwestern Railway, or by street 
railway lines. A weekly newspaper is issued, a 
graded school is supported (including a high 
school department) and there are numerous 
churches, representing the various religious 
denominations. Population (1880), 1,359; (1890), 
4,031. Annexed to City of Chicago, 1899. 

AUSTIN COLLEGE, a mixed school at Effing- 
ham, 111., founded in 1890. It has eleven teachers 
and reports a total of 312 pupils for 1897-98 — 162 
males and 150 females. It has a library of 2,000 
volumes and reports property valued at $37,000. 

AUSTRALIAN BALLOT, a form of ballot for 
popular elections, thus named because it was 
first brought into use in Australia. It was 
adopted by act of the Legislature of Illinois in 
1891, and is applicable to the election of all public 
officers except Trustees of Schools, School Direct- 
ors, members of Boards of Education and officers 
of road districts in counties not under township 
organization. Under it, all ballots for the elec- 
tion of c fficers (except those just enumerated) 
are required to be printed and distributed to the 
election officers for use on the day of election, at 
public cost. These ballots contain the names, 
on the same sheet, of all candidates to be voted 
for at such election, such names having been 
formally certified previously to the Secretary of 
State (in the case of candidates for offices to be 
voted for by electors of the entire State or any 
district greater than a single county) or to the 
County Clerk (as to all others), by the presiding 
officer and secretary of the convention or caucus 
making such nominations, when the party repre- 
sented cast at least two per cent of the aggregate 
vote of the State or district at the preceding gen- 
eral election. Other names may be added to the 
ballot on the petition of a specified number of the 
legal voters under certain prescribed conditions 
named in the act. The duly registered voter, on 
presenting himself at the poll, is given a copy of 
the official ticket by one of the judges of election, 
upon which he proceeds to indicate his prefer- 
ence in a temporary booth or closet set apart for 
his use, by making a cross at the head of the col- 
umn of candidates for whom he wishes to vote, if 
he desires to vote for all of the candidates of the 
same party, or by a similar mark before the name 
of each individual for whom he wishes to vote, in 
case he desires to distribute his support among 
the candidates of different parties. The object of 
the law is to secure for the voter secrecy of the 
ballot, with independence and freedom from dic- 



tation or interference by others in the exercise of 
his right of suffrage. 

AVA, a town in Jackson County (incorporated 
as a city, 1901), on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad 
(Cairo & St. Louis Division), 75 miles south- 
southeast from St. Louis. It has two banks and 
two newspapers. Pop. (1890), 807; (1900), 984. 

AVON, village of Fulton County, on C, B & Q. 
R. R. , 20 miles south of Galesburg; has drain- 
pipe works, two factories for manufacture of 
steam- and hot-%vater heaters, two banks and two 
newspapers; agricultural fair held here annu- 
ally. Population (1900), 809; (1904, est.), 1,000. 

AYER, Benjamin F., lawyer, was born in 
Kingston, N. H., April 22, 1825, graduated at 
Dartmouth College in 1846, studied law at Dane 
Law School (Harvard University), was admitted 
to the bar and began practice at Manchester, 
N. H. After serving one term in the New Hamp- 
shire Legislature, and as Prosecuting Attorney 
for Hillsborough County, in 1857 he came to Chica- 
go, soon advancing to the front rank of lawyers 
then in practice there ; became Corporation Counsel 
in 1861, and, two years later, drafted the revised 
city charter. After the close of his official career, 
he was a member for eight years of the law firm of 
Beckwith, Ayer & Kales, and afterwards of the 
firm of Ayer & Kales, until, retiring from general 
practice, Mr. Ayer became Solicitor of the Illinois 
Central Railroad, then a Director of the Company, 
and is at present its General Counsel and a potent 
factor in its management. 

AYERS, Marshall Paul, banker, Jacksonville, 
was born in Philadelphia, Pa., July 27, 1823; 
came to Jacksonville, 111., with his parents, in 
1830, and was educated there, graduating from 
Illinois College, in 1843, as the classmate of Dr. 
Newton Bateman, afterwards President of Knox 
College at Galesburg, and Rev. Thomas K. 
Beecher, now of Elmira, N. Y. After leaving col- 
lege he became the partner of his father (David 
B. Ayers) as agent of Mr. John Grigg, of Philadel- 
phia, who was the owner of a large body of Illi- 
nois lands. His father dying in 1850, Mr. Ayers 
succeeded to the management of the business, 
about 75,000 acres of Mr. Grigg's unsold lands 
coming under his charge. In December, 1852, 
with the assistance of Messrs. Page & Bacon, bank- 
ers, of St. Louis, he opened the first bank in Jack- 
sonville, for the sale of exchange, but which 
finally grew into a bank of deposit and has been 
continued ever since, being recognized as one of 
the most solid institutions in Central Illinois. In 
1870-71, aided by Philadelphia and New York 
capitalists, he built the "Illinois Farmers' Rail- 



30 



HISTOBICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



road" between Jacksonville and. Waverly, after- 
wards extended to Virden and finally to Centralia 
and Mount Vernon. This was the nucleus of the 
Jacksonville Southeastern Railway, though Mr. 
Ayers has had no connection with it for several 
years. Other business enterprises with which he 
has been connected are the Jacksonville Gas Com- 
pany (now including an electric light and power 
plant), of which he has been President for forty 
years; the "Home Woolen Mills" (early wiped 
out by fire), sugar and paper-barrel manufacture, 
coal-mining, etc. About 1877 he purchased a 
body of 23, 600 acres of land in Champaign County, 
known as "Broadlands, " from John T. Alexander, 
an extensive cattle-dealer, who had become 
heavily involved during the years of financial 
revulsion. As a result of this transaction, Mr. 
Alexander's debts, which aggregated $1,000,000, 
were discharged within the next two years. Mr. 
Ayers has been an earnest Republican since the 
organization of that party and, during the war, 
rendered valuable service in assisting to raise 
funds for the support of the operations of the 
Christian Commission in the field. He has also 
been active in Sunday School, benevolent and 
educational work, having been, for twenty years, 
a Trustee of Illinois College, of which he has 
been an ardent friend. In 1846 he was married 
to Miss Laura Allen, daughter of Rev. John 
Allen, D. D., of Huntsville, Ala., and is the father 
of four sons and four daughters, all living. 

BABCOCK, Amos C, was born at Penn Yan, 
N. Y., Jan. 20, 1828, the son of a member of Con- 
gress from that State ; at the age of 18, having 
lost his father by death, came West, and soon 
after engaged in mercantile business in partner- 
ship with a brother at Canton, 111. In 1854 he 
was elected by a majority of one vote, as an Anti- 
Nebraska Whig, to the lower branch of the Nine- 
teenth General Assembly, and, in the following 
session, took part in the election of United States 
Senator which resulted in the choice of Lyman 
Trumbull. Although a personal and political 
friend of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Babcock, as a matter 
of policy, cast his vote for his townsman, William 
Kellogg, afterwards Congressman from that dis- 
trict, until it was apparent that a concentration 
of the Anti-Nebraska vote on Trumbull was 
necessary to defeat the election of a Democrat. 
In 1862 he was appointed by President Lincoln 
the first Assessor of Internal Revenue for the 
Fourth District, and, in 1863, was commissioned 
by Governor Yates Colonel of the One Hundred 
and Third Illinois Volunteers, but soon resigned. 
Colonel Babcock served as Delegate-at-large in 



the Republican National Convention of 1868, 
which nominated General Grant for the Presi- 
dency, and the same year was made Chairman of 
the Republican State Central Committee, also 
conducting the campaign two years later. He 
identified himself with the Greeley movement in 
1872, but, in 1876, was again in line with his 
party and restored to his old position on the State 
Central Committee, serving until 1878. Among 
business enterprises with which he was con- 
nected was the extension, about 1854, of the Buda 
branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
Railroad from Yates City to Canton, and the 
erection of the State Capitol at Austin, Tex., 
which was undertaken, in conjunction with 
Abner Taylor and J. V. and C. B. Farwell, about 
1881 and completed in 1888, for which the firm 
received over 3,000,000 acres of State lands in the 
"Pan Handle" portion of Texas. In 1889 Colonel 
Babcock took up his residence in Chicago, which 
continued to be his home until his death from 
apoplexy, Feb. 25, 1899. 

BABCOCK, Andrew J., soldier, was born at 
Dorchester, Norfolk County, Mass., July 19, 1830; 
began life as a coppersmith at Lowell; in 1851 
went to Concord, N. H., and, in 1856, removed to 
Springfield, 111., where, in 1859, he joined a mili- 
tary company called the Springfield Greys, com- 
manded by Capt. (afterwards Gen. ) John Cook, of 
which he was First Lieutenant. This company 
became the nucleus of Company I, Seventh Illi- 
nois Volunteers, which enlisted on Mr. Lincoln's 
first call for troops in April, 1861. Captain Cook 
having been elected Colonel, Babcock succeeded 
him as Captain, on the re-enlistment of the regi- 
ment in July following becoming Lieutenant- 
Colonel, and, in March, 1862, being promoted to 
the Colonelcy "for gallant and meritorious service 
rendered at Fort Donelson." A year later he was 
compelled to resign on account of impaired 
health. His home is at Springfield. 

BACON, George E., lawyer and legislator, born 
at Madison, Ind., Feb. 4, 1851; was brought to 
Illinois by his parents at three years of age, and, 
in 1876, located at Paris, Edgar County; in 1879 
was admitted to the bar and held various minor 
offices, including one term as State's Attorney. 
In 1886 he was elected as a Republican to the 
State Senate and re-elected four years later, but 
finally removed to Aurora, where, he died, July 
6, 1896. Mr. Bacon was a man of recognized 
ability, as shown by the fact that, after the death 
of Senator John A. Logan, he was selected by his 
colleagues of the Senate to pronounce the eulogy 
on the deceased statesman. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



31 



BAGBY, John C, jurist and Congressman, was 
born at Glasgow, Ky., Jan. 24, 1819. After pas- 
sing through the common schools of Barren 
County, Ky., he studied civil engineering at 
Bacon College, graduating in 1840. Later he 
read law and was admitted to the bar in 1845. 
In 1840 he commenced practice at Rushville, 111., 
confining himself exclusively to professional work 
until nominated and elected to Congress in 1874, 
by t lie Democrats of the (old) Tenth District. In 
1885 he was elected to the Circuit Bench for the 
Sixth Circuit. Died, April 4, 189G. 

BAILEY, Joseph Mead, legislator and jurist, 
was born at Middlebury, Wyoming County, N. Y., 
June 22, 1833, graduated from Rochester (N. Y.) 
University in 1854, ami was admitted to the 
bar in that city in 1855. In August, 1856, he 
removed to Freeport, 111., where he soon built up 
a profitable practice. In 1866 he was elected a 
Representative in the Twenty-fifth General 
Assembly, being re-elected in 1868. Here he was 
especially prominent in securing restrictive legis- 
lation concerning railroads. In 1876 he was 
chosen a Presidential Elector for his district on 
the Republican ticket. In 1877 he was elected a 
Judge of the Thirteenth judicial district, and 
re-elected in 1879 and in 1885. In January, 
1878, and again in June, 1879, he was assigned to 
the bench of the Appellate Court, being presiding 
Justice from June, 1879. to June, 1880, and from 
June, 1881, to June. 1882. In 1879 he received 
the degree of LL.D. from the Universities of 
Rochester and Chicago. In 1888 he was elected 
to the bench of the Supreme Court. Died in 
office, Oct. 16, 1895. 

BAILHACHE, John, pioneer journalist, was 
born in the Island of Jersey, May 8, 1787 ; after 
gaining the rudiments of an education in his 
mother tongue (the French), he acquired a knowl- 
edge of English and some proficiency in Greek 
and Latin in an academy near his paternal home, 
when he spent five years as a printer's apprentice. 
In 1810 he came to the United States, first locat- 
ing at Cambridge, Ohio, but, in 1812, purchased a 
half interest in "The Fredonian" at Chillicotbe 
(then the State Capital), soon after becoming sole 
owner. In 1815 he purchased "The Scioto Ga- 
zette" and consolidated the two papers under the 
name of "The Scioto Gazette and Fredonian 
Chronicle." Here he remained until 1828, mean- 
time engaging temporarily in the banking busi- 
ness, also serving one term in the Legislature 
(1820), and being elected Associate Justice of the 
Court of Common Pleas for Ross County. In 
1828 he removed to Columbus, assuming charge 



of "The Ohio State Journal," served one term as 
Mayor of the city, and for three consecutive 
years was State Printer. Selling out "The Jour- 
nal" in 1836, he came west, the next year becom- 
ing part owner, and finally sole proprietor, of "The 
Telegraph" at Alton, 111., which he conducted 
alone or in association witli various partners until 
1854, when he retired, giving his attention to the 
book and job branch of the business. Heservedas 
Representative from Madison County in the Thir- 
teenth General Assembly (1842-44). As a man 
and a journalist Judge Bailhache commanded the 
highest respect, and did much to elevate the 
standard of journalism in Illinois. "The Tele- 
graph," during the period of his connection with 
it, being one of the leading papers of the State. 
His death occurred at Alton, Sept. 3, 1857, as the 
result of injuries received the day previous, by 
being thrown from a carriage in which lie was 
riding. — Maj. William Henry (Bailhache), son of 
the preceding, was born at Chillicotbe, Ohio, 
August 14, 1826, removed with his father to Alton, 
111., in 1836, was educated at Shurtleff College, 
and learned the printing trade in tl^e office of 
"The Telegraph," under the direction of his 
father, afterwards being associated with the 
business department. In 1855, in partnership 
with Edward L. Baker, he became one of the 
proprietors and business manager of "The State 
Journal" at Springfield. During the Civil War 
he received from President Lincoln the appoint- 
ment of Captain and Assistant Quartermaster, 
serving to its close and receiving the brevet rank 
of Major. After the war he returned to journal- 
ism and was associated at different times with 
"The State Journal" and "The Quincy Whig," 
as business manager of each, but retired in 1873 ; 
in 1881 was appointed by President Arthur, 
Receiver of Public Moneys at Santa Fe., N. M., 
remaining four years. He is now (1899) a resi- 
dent of San Diego, Cal., where he has been 
engaged in newspaper work, and, under the 
administration of President McKinley, has been 
a Special Agent of the Treasury Department. — 
Preston Heath (Bailhache), another son, was 
born in Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 21, 1835, served as 
a Surgeon during the Civil War, later became a 
Surgeon in the regular army and has held posi- 
tions in marine hospitals at Baltimore, Washing- 
ton and New York, and has visited Europe in the 
interest of sanitary and hospital service. At 
present (1899) he occupies a prominent position 
at the headquarters of the United States Marine 
Hospital Service in Washington. — Arthur Lee 
(Bailhache). a third son, born at Alton, 111., April 



32 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



12, 1839 ; at the beginning of the Civil War was 
employed in the State commissary service at 
Camp Yates and Cairo, became Adjutant of the 
Thirty-eighth Illinois Volunteers, and died at 
Pilot Knob, Mo., Jan. 9, 1862, as the result of 
disease and exposure in the service. 

BAKER, David Jewett, lawyer and United 
States Senator, was born at East Haddam, Conn. , 
Sept. 7, 1792. His family removed to New York 
in 1800, where he worked on a farm during boy- 
hood, but graduated from Hamilton College in 
1816, and three years later was admitted to the 
bar. In 1819 he came to Illinois and began prac- 
tice at Kaskaskia, where he attained prominence 
in his profession and was made Probate Judge of 
Randolph County. His opposition to the intro- 
duction of slavery into the State was so aggres- 
sive that his life was frequently threatened. In 
1830 Governor Edwards appointed him United 
States Senator, to fill the unexpired term of 
Senator McLean, but he served only one month 
when he was succeeded by John M. Robinson, 
who was elected by the Legislature. He was 
United States District Attorney from 1833 
to 1841 (the State then constituting but 
one district), and thereafter resumed private 
practice. Died at Alton, August 6, 1869. 
—Henry Southard (Baker), son of the pre- 
ceding, was born at Kaskaskia, 111., Nov. 10, 
1824, received his preparatory education at Shurt- 
leff College, Upper Alton, and, in 1843, entered 
Brown University, R. I., graduating therefrom 
in 1847; was admitted to the bar in 1849, begin- 
ning practice at Alton, the home of his father, 
Hon. David J. Baker. In 1854 he was elected as an 
Anti-Nebraska candidate to the lower branch of 
the Nineteenth General Assembly, and, at the 
subsequent session of the General Assembly, was 
one of the five Anti -Nebraska members whose 
uncompromising fidelity to Hon. Lyman Trum- 
bull resulted in the election of the latter to the 
United States Senate for the first time — the others 
being his colleague, Dr. George T. Allen of the 
House, and Hon. John M. Palmer, afterwards 
United States Senator, Burton C. Cook and Nor- 
man B. Judd in the Senate. He served as one of the 
Secretaries of the Republican State Convention 
held at Bloomington in May, 1856, was a Repub- 
lican Presidential Elector in 1864, and, in 1865, 
became Judge of the Alton City Court, serving 
until 1881. In 1876 he presided over the Repub- 
lican State Convention, served as delegate to the 
Republican National Convention of the same 
year and was an unsuccessful candidate for 
Congress in opposition to William R. Morrison. 



Judge Baker was the orator selected to deliver 
the address on occasion of the unveiling of the 
statue of Lieut. -Gov. Pierre Menard, on the 
capitol grounds at Springfield, in January, 1888. 
About 1888 he retired from practice, dying at 
Alton, March 5, 1897. — Edward L. (Baker), 
second son of David Jewett Baker, was born at 
Kaskaskia, 111., June 3, 1829; graduated at Shurt- 
leff College in 1847; read law with his father two 
years, after which he entered Harvard Law 
School and was admitted to the bar at Spring- 
field in 1855. Previous to this date Mr. Baker had 
become associated with William H. Bailhache, in 
the management of "The Alton Daily Telegraph," 
and, in July, 1855, they purchased "The Illinois 
State Journal," at Springfield, of which Mr. 
Baker assumed the editorship, remaining until 
1874. In 1869 he was appointed United States 
Assessor for the Eighth District, serving until 
the abolition of the office. In 1873 he received 
the appointment from President Grant of Consul 
to Buenos Ayres, South America, and, assuming 
the duties of the office in 1874, remained there 
for twenty-three years, proving himself one of 
the most capable and efficient officers in the con- 
sular service. On the evening of the 20th of 
June, 1897, when Mr. Baker was about to enter a 
railway train already in motion at the station in 
the city of Buenos Ayres, he fell under the cars, 
receiving injuries which necessitated the ampu- 
tation of his right arm, finally resulting in his 
death in the hospital at Buenos Ayres, July 8, 
following. His remains were brought home at 
the Government expense and interred in Oak 
Ridge Cemetery, at Springfield, where a monu- 
ment has since been erected in his honor, bearing 
a tablet contributed by citizens of Buenos Ayres 
and foreign representatives in that city express- 
ive of their respect for his memory. — David 
Jewett (Baker), Jr. , a third son of David Jewett 
Baker, Sr., was born at Kaskaskia, Nov. 20,1834; 
graduated from Shurtleff College in 1854, and was 
admitted to the bar in 1856. In November of 
that year he removed to Cairo and began prac- 
tice. He was Mayor of that city in 1864-65, and, 
in 1869, was elected to the bench of the Nineteenth 
Judicial Circuit. The Legislature of 1873 (by Act 
of March 28) having divided the State into 
twenty-six circuits, he was elected Judge of the 
Twenty-sixth, on June 2, 1873. In August, 1878, 
he resigned to accept an appointment on the 
Supreme Bench as successor to Judge Breese, 
deceased, but at the close of his term on the 
Supreme Bench (1879), was re-elected Circuit 
Judge, and again in 1885. During this period he 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



o3 



served for several years on the Appellate Bench. 
In 1888 he retired from the Circuit Bench by 
resignation and was elected a Justice of the 
Supreme Court for a term of nine years. Again, 
in 1897, he was a candidate for re-election, but 
was defeated by Carroll C. Boggs. Soon after 
retiring from the Supreme Bench he removed to 
Chicago and engaged in general practice, in 
partnership with his son, John W. Baker. He 
fell dead almost instantly in his office, March 13, 
1899. In all, Judge Baker had spent some thirty 
years almost continuously on the bench, and had 
attained eminent distinction both as a lawyer and 
a jurist. 

BAKER, Edward Dickinson, soldier and 
United States Senator, was born in London, 
Eng., Feb. 24, 1811; emigrated to Illinois while 
yet in his minority, first locating at Belleville, 
afterwards removing to Carrollton and finally to 
Sangamon County, the last of which he repre- 
sented in the lower house of the Tenth General 
Assembly, and as State Senator in the Twelfth 
and Thirteenth. He was elected to Congress as 
a Whig from the Springfield District, but resigned 
in December, 1846, to accept the colonelcy of the 
Fourth Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, in the 
Mexican War, and succeeded General Shields in 
command of the brigade, when the latter was 
wounded at Cerro Gordo. In 1848 he was elected 
to Congress from the Galena District; was also 
identified with the construction of the Panama 
Railroad; went to San Francisco in 1852, but 
J ater removed to Oregon, where he was elected 
to the United States Senate in 1860. In 1861 he 
resigned the Senatorship to enter the Union 
army, commanding a brigade at the battle of 
Ball's Bluff, where he was killed, October 21, 1861. 

BAKER, Jehn, lawyer and Congressman, was 
born in Fayette County, Ky., Nov. 4, 1822. At 
an early age he removed to Illinois, making his 
home in Belleville, St. Clair County. He re- 
ceived his early education in the common schools 
and at McKendree College. Although he did 
not graduate from the latter institution, he 
received therefrom the honorary degree of A. M. 
in 1858, and that of LL. D. in 1882. For a time 
he studied medicine, but abandoned it for the 
study of law. From 1861 to 1865 he was Master 
in Chancery for St. Clair County. From 1865 to 
1869 he represented the Belleville District as a 
Republican in Congress. From 1876 to 1881 and 
from 1882 to 1885 he was Minister Resident in 
Venezuela, during the latter portion of his term 
of service acting also as Consul-General. Return- 
ing home, he was again elected to Congress (1886) 



from the Eighteenth District, but was defeated 
for re-election, in 1888, by William S. Forman, 
Democrat. Again, in 1896, having identified 
himself with the Free Silver Democracy and 
People's Party, he was elected to Congress from 
the Twentieth District over Everett J. Murphy, 
the Republican nominee, serving until March 3, 
1899. He is the author of an annotated edition 
of Montesquieu's "Grandeur and Decadence of 
the Romans." 

BALDWIN, Elmer, agriculturist and legisla- 
tor, was born in Litchfield County, Conn., Marcli 
8, 1806; at 16 years of age began teaching a coun- 
try school, continuing this occupation for several 
years during the winter months, while working 
on his father's farm in the summer. He then 
started a store at New Milford, which he man- 
aged for three years, when he sold out on account 
of his health and began farming. In 1833 he 
came west and purchased a considerable tract of 
Government land in La Salle County, where the 
village of Farm Ridge is now situated, removing 
thither with his family the following year. He 
served as Justice of the Peace for fourteen con- 
secutive terms, as Postmaster twenty years and 
as a member of the Board of Supervisors of La 
Salle County six years. In 1856 he was elected 
as a Republican to the House of Representatives, 
was re-elected to the same office in 1866, and to 
the State Senate in 1872, serving two years. He 
was also appointed, in 1869, a member of the first 
Board of Public Charities, serving as President of 
the Board. Mr. Baldwin is author of a "His- 
tory of La Salle County," which contains much 
local and biographical history. Died, Nov. 18, 
1895. 

BALDWIN, Theron, clergyman and educa- 
tor, was born in Goshen, Conn., July 21, 1801; 
graduated at Yale College in 1827; after two 
years' study in the theological school there, was 
ordained a home missionary in 1829, becoming 
one of the celebrated "Yale College Band," or 
"Western College Society," of which he was Cor- 
responding Secretary during most of his life. He 
was settled as a Congregationalist minister at 
Vandalia for two years, and was active in pro- 
curing the charter of Illinois College at Jackson- 
ville, of which he was a Trustee from its 
organization to his death. He served for a 
number of years, from 1831, as Agent of the 
Home Missionary Society for Illinois, and, in 
1838, became the first Principal of Monticello 
Female Seminary, near Alton, which lie con- 
ducted five years. Died at Orange, N. J., April 
10. 1870. 



34 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



BALLARD, Addison, merchant, was born of 
Quaker parentage in Warren County, Ohio, No- 
vember, 1822. He located at La Porte, Ind., 
about 1841, where he learned and pursued the 
carpenter's trade; in 1849 went to California, 
remaining two years, when he returned to La 
Porte ; in 1853 removed to Chicago and embarked 
in the lumber trade, which he prosecuted until 
1887, retiring with a competency. Mr. Ballard 
served several years as one of the Commissioners 
of Cook County, and, from 1876 to 1882, as Alder- 
man of the City of Chicago, and again in the 
latter office, 1894-96. 

BALTES, Peter Joseph, Roman Catholic Bishop 
of Alton, was born at Ensheim, Rhenish Ba- 
varia, April 7, 1827 ; was educated at the colleges 
of the Holy Cross, at Worcester, Mass. , and of St. 
Ignatius, at Chicago, and at Lavalle University, 
Montreal, and was ordained a priest in 1853, and 
consecrated Bishop in 1870. His diocesan admin- 
istration was successful, but regarded by his 
priests as somewhat arbitrary. He wrote numer- 
ous pastoral letters and brochures for the guidance 
of clergy and laity. His most important literary 
work was entitled "Pastoral Instruction," first 
edition, N. Y., 1875; second edition (revised and 
enlarged), 1880. Died at Alton, Feb. 15, 1886. 

BALTIMORE & OHIO SOUTHWESTERN 
RAILWAY. This road (constituting a part of the 
Baltimore & Ohio system) is made up of two 
principal divisions, the first extending across the 
State from East St. Louis to Belpre, Ohio, and the 
second (known as the Springfield Division) extend- 
ing from Beardstown to Shawneetown. The total 
mileage of the former (or main line) is 537 
miles, of which 147^ are in Illinois, and of the 
latter (wholly within Illinois) 228 miles. The 
main line (originally known as the Ohio & Mis- 
sissippi Railway) was chartered in Indiana in 
1848, in Ohio in 1849, and in Illinois in 1851. It 
was constructed by two companies, the section 
from Cincinnati to the Indiana and Illinois State 
line being known as the Eastern Division, and 
that in Illinois as the Western Division, the 
gauge, as originally built, being six feet, but 
reduced in 1871 to standard. The banking firm 
of Page & Bacon, of St. Louis and San Francisco, 
were the principal financial backers of the enter- 
prise. The line was completed and opened for 
traffic, May 1, 1857. The following year the road 
became financially embarrassed ; the Eastern Di- 
vision was placed in the hands of a receiver in 
1860. while the Western Division was sold under 
foreclosure, in 1862, and reorganized as the Ohio 
& Mississippi Railway under act of the Illinois 



Legislature passed in February, 1861. The East- 
ern Division was sold in January, 1867; and, in 
November of the same year, the two divisions 
were consolidated under the title of the Ohio & 
Mississippi Railway. — The Springfield Division 
was the result of the consolidation, in December, 
1869, of the Pana, Springfield & Northwestern 
and the Illinois & Southeastern Railroad — each 
having been chartered in 1867 — the new corpo- 
ration taking the name of the Springfield & Illi- 
nois Southeastern Railroad, under which name 
the road was built and opened in March, 1871. In 
1873, it was placed in the hands of receivers ; in 
1874 was sold under foreclosure, and, on March 
1, 1875, passed into the hands of the Ohio & Mis- 
sissippi Railway Company. In November, 1876, 
the road was again placed in the hands of a 
receiver, but was restored to the Company in 1884. 
— In November, 1893, the Ohio & Mississippi was 
consolidated with the Baltimore & Ohio South- 
western Railroad, which was the successor of the 
Cincinnati, Washington & Baltimore Railroad, 
the reorganized Company taking the name of the 
Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway Com- 
pany. The total capitalization of the road, as 
organized in 1898, was $84,770,531. Several 
branches of the main line in Indiana and Ohio go 
to increase the aggregate mileage, but being 
wholly outside of Illinois are not taken into ac- 
count in this statement. 

BALTIMORE & OHIO & CHICAGO RAIL- 
ROAD, part of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 
System, of which only 8.21 out of 265 miles are in 
Illinois. The principal object of the company's 
incorporation was to secure entrance for the 
Baltimore & Ohio into Chicago. The capital 
stock outstanding exceeds $1,500,000. The total 
capital (including stock, funded and floating debt) 
is $20,329,166 or $76,728 per mile. The gross 
earnings for the year ending June 30, 1898, were 
$3,383,016 and the operating expenses $2,493,452. 
The income and earnings for the portion of the 
line in Illinois for the same period were $209,208 
and the expenses $208,096. 

BANGS, Mark, lawyer, was born in Franklin 
County, Mass., Jan. 9, 1822; spent his boy- 
hood on a farm in Western New York, and, after 
a year in an institution at Rochester, came to 
Chicago in 1844, later spending two years in farm 
work and teaching in Central Illinois. Return- 
ing east in 1847, he engaged in teaching for 
two years at Springfield, Mass., then spent 
a year in a dry goods store at Lacon, 111., 
meanwhile prosecuting his legal studies. la 
1851 he began practice, was elected a Judg* 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



35 



of the Circuit Court in 1859 ; served one session 
as State Senator (1870-72); in 1873 was ap- 
pointed Circuit Judge to fill the unexpired 
term of Judge Richmond, deceased, and, in 1875, 
was appointed by President Grant United States 
District Attorney for the Northern District, 
remaining in office four years. Judge Bangs was 
also a member of the first Anti-Nebraska State 
Convention of Illinois, held at Springfield in 1851; 
in 1862 presided over the Congressional Conven- 
tion which nominated Owen Lovejoy for Congress 
for the first time ; was one of the charter members 
of the "Union League of America," serving as its 
President, and, in 1868, was a delegate to the 
National Convention which nominated General 
Grant for President for the first time. After 
retiring from the office of District Attorney in 
1879, he removed to Chicago, where he is still 
(1898) engaged in the practice of his profession. 

BANKS0> T , Andrew, pioneer and early legis- 
lator, a native of Tennessee, settled on Silver 
Creek, in St. Clair County, 111., four miles south 
of Lebanon, about 1808 or 1810, and subsequently 
removed to Washington County. He was a Col- 
onel of "Rangers" during the War of 1813, and a 
Captain in the Black Hawk War of 1832. In 
1822 he was elected to the State Senate from 
Washington County, serving four years, and at 
the session of 1822-23 was one of those who voted 
against the Convention resolution which had for 
its object to make Illinois a slave State. He sub- 
sequently removed to Iowa Territory, but died, in 
1853, while visiting a son-in-law in Wisconsin. 

BAPTISTS. The first Baptist minister to set- 
tle in Illinois was Elder James Smith, who 
located at New Design, in 1787. He was fol- 
lowed, about 1796-97, by Revs. David Badgley and 
Joseph Chance, who organized the first Baptist 
church within the limits of the State. Five 
churches, having four ministers and 111 mem- 
bers, formed an association in 1807. Several 
causes, among them a difference of views on the 
slavery question, resulted in the division of the 
denomination into factions. Of these perhaps 
the most numerous was the Regular (or Mission- 
ary) Baptists, at the head of which was Rev. John 
M. Peck, a resident of the State from 1822 until 
his death (1858). By 1835 the sect had grown, 
until it had some 250 churches, with about 7,500 
members. These were under the ecclesiastical 
care of twenty-two Associations. Rev. Isaac 
McCoy, a Baptist Indian missionary, preached at 
Fort Dearborn on Oct. 9, 1825, and, eight years 
later, Rev. Allen B. Freeman organized the first 
Baptist society in what was then an infant set- 



tlement. By 1890 the number of Associations 
had grown to forty, witli 1010 churches. 891 
ministers and 8S,ss.j members. A Baptist Theo- 
logical Seminary was for some time supported at 
Morgan Park, but, in 1895, was absorbed by the 
University of Chicago, becoming the divinity 
school of that institution. The chief organ of the 
denomination in Illinois is "The Standard." pub- 
lished at Chicago. 

BARBER, Hiram, was born in Warren County, 
N. Y., March 24, 1835. At 11 years of age he 
accompanied his family to Wisconsin, of which 
State he was a resident until 1866. After gradu- 
ating at the State University of Wisconsin, at 
Madison, he studied law at the Albany Law- 
School, and was admitted to practice. After 
serving one term as District Attorney of his 
county in Wisconsin (1861-62), and Assistant 
Attorney-General of the State for 1865-66, in 
the latter year he came to Chicago and, in 1878, 
was elected to Congress by the Republicans of 
the old Second Illinois District. His home is in 
Chicago, where he holds the position of Master in 
Chancery of the Superior Court of Cook County. 

BARDOLPH, a village of McDonough County, 
on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 7 
miles northeast of Macomb; has a local paper. 
Population (1880), 409; (1890), 447; (1900), 387. 

BARNSBACK, George Frederick Julins, pio- 
neer, was born in Germany, July 25, 1781; came 
to Philadelphia in 1797, and soon after to Ken- 
tucky, where he became an overseer; two or 
three years later visited his native country, suf- 
fering shipwreck en route in the English Channel ; 
returned to Kentucky in 1802, remaining until 
1809, when he removed to what is now Madison 
(then a part of St. Clair) County, 111. ; served in 
the War of 1812, farmed and raised stock until 
1824, when, after a second visit to Germany, he 
bought a plantation in St. Francois County, Mo. 
Subsequently becoming disgusted with slavery, 
he manumitted his slaves and returned to Illinois, 
locating on a farm near Edwardsville, where he 
resided until his death in 1869. Mr. Barnsback 
served as Representative in the Fourteenth Gen- 
eral Assembly (1844-46) and, after returning from 
Springfield, distributed his salary among the poor 
of Madison County. — Julius A. (Barnsback), his 
son, was born in St. Francois County, Mo., May 
14, 1820; in 1846 became a mei'chant at Troy, 
Madison County; was elected Sheriff in 1860; in 
1864 entered the service as Captain of a Company 
in the One Hundred and Fortieth Illinois Volun- 
teers (100-days' men); also served as a member of 
the Twenty-fourth General Assembly (1865). 



36 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



BARNUM, William H., lawyer and ex-Judge, 
was born in Onondaga County, N. Y., Feb. 13, 
1840. When he was but two years old his family 
removed to St. Clair County, 111. , where he passed 
his boyhood and youth. His preliminary educa- 
tion was obtained at Belleville, 111., Ypsilanti, 
Mich., and at the Michigan State University at 
Ann Arbor. After leaving the institution last 
named at the end of the sophomore year, he 
taught school at Belleville, still pursuing his clas- 
sical studies. In 1862 he was admitted to the bar 
at Belleville, and soon afterward opened an office 
at Chester, where, for a time, he held the office 
of Master in Chancery. He removed to Chicago 
in 1867, and, in 1879, was elevated to the bench 
of the Cook County Circuit Court. At the expi- 
ration of his term he resumed prh^ate practice. 

BARRERE, Granville, was born in Highland 
County, Ohio. After attending the common 
schools, he acquired a higher education at Au- 
gusta, Ky . , and Marietta, Ohio. He was admitted 
to the bar in his native State, but began the prac- 
tice of law in Fulton County, 111., in 1856. In 
1872 he received the Republican nomination for 
Congress and was elected, representing his dis- 
trict from 1873 to 1875, at the conclusion of his 
term retiring to private life. Died at Canton, 
HI., Jan. 13, 1889. 

BARRINGT01V, a village located on the north- 
ern border of Cook County, and partly in Lake, 
at the intersection of the Chicago & Northwestern 
and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway, 32 miles 
northwest of Chicago. It has banks, a local paper, 
and several cheese factories, being in a dairying 
district. Population (1890), 848; (1900), 1,162. 

BARROWS, John Henry, D. D., clergyman 
and educator, was born at Medina, Mich., July 
11, 1847; graduated at Mount Olivet College in 
1867, and studied theology at Yale, Union and 
Andover Seminaries. In 1869 he went to Kansas, 
where he spent two and a half years in mission- 
ary and educational work. He then (in 1872) 
accepted a call to the First Congregational 
Church at Springfield, 111. , where he remained a 
year, after which he gave a year to foreign travel, 
visiting Europe, Egypt and Palestine, during a 
part of the time supplying the American chapel 
in Paris. On his return to the United States he 
spent six years in pastoral work at Lawrence and 
East Boston, Mass., when (in November, 1881) he 
assumed the pastorate of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Chicago. Dr. Barrows achieved a 
world-wide celebrity by his services as Chairman 
of the "Parliament of Religions," a branch of the 
"World's Congress Auxiliary," held during the 



World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 
1893. Later, he was appointed Professorial Lec- 
turer on Comparative Religions, under lectureships 
in connection with the University of Chicago en- 
dowed by Mrs. Caroline E. Haskell. One of these, 
established in Dr. Barrows' name, contemplated 
a series of lectures in India, to be delivered on 
alternate years with a similar course at the Uni- 
versity. Courses were delivered at the University 
in 1895-96, and, in order to carry out the purposes 
of the foreign lectureship, Dr. Barrows found it 
necessary to resign his pastorate, which he did in 
the spring of 1896. After spending the summer 
in Germany, the regular itinerary of the round- 
the-world tour began at London in the latter part 
of November, 1896, ending with his return to the 
United States by way of San Francisco in May, 
1897. Dr. Barrows was accompanied by a party 
of personal friends from Chicago and elsewhere, 
the tour embracing visits to the principal cities 
of Southern Europe, Egypt, Palestine, China and 
Japan, with a somewhat protracted stay in India 
during the winter of 1896-97. After his return to 
the United States he lectured at the University 
of Chicago and in many of the principal cities of 
the country, on the moral and religious condition 
of Oriental nations, but, in 1898, was offered 
the Presidency of Oberlin College, Ohio, which 
he accepted, entering upon his duties early in 
1899. 

BARRY, a city in Pike County, founded in 
1836, on the Wabash Railroad, 18 miles east of 
Hannibal, Mo., and 30 miles southeast of Quincy. 
The surrounding country is agricultural. The 
city contains flouring mills, porkpacking and 
poultry establishments, etc. It has two local 
papers, two banks, three churches and a high 
school, besides schools of lower grade. Popula- 
tion (1880), 1,392; (1890), 1,354; (1900), 1,643. 

BARTLETT, Adolphns Clay, merchant, was 
born of Revolutionary ancestry at Stratford, 
Fulton County, N. Y., June 22, 1844; was educated 
in the common schools and at Danville Academy 
and Clinton Liberal Institute, N. Y., and, coming 
to Chicago in 1863, entered into the employment 
of the hardware firm of Tuttle, Hibbard & Co., 
now Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co., of which, 
a few years later, he became a partner, and later 
Vice-President of the Company. Mr. Bartlett 
has also been a Trustee of Beloit College, Presi- 
dent of the Chicago Home for the Friendless and 
a Director of the Chicago & Alton Railroad and 
the Metropolitan National Bank, besides being 
identified with various other business and benevo- 
lent associations. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



37 



BASCOM, (Rev.) Flavel, D. D., clergyman, 
was born at Lebanon, Conn., June 8, 1804; spent 
bis boyhood on a farm until 17 years of age, mean- 
while attending the common schools; prepared 
for college under a private tutor, and, in 1824, 
entered Yale College, graduating in 1828. After a 
year as Principal of the Academy at New Canaan, 
Conn., he entered upon the study of theology 
at Yale, was licensed to preach in 1831 and, for 
the next two years, served as a tutor in the liter- 
ary department of the college. Then coming to 
Illinois (1833), he cast his lot with the "Yale 
Band," organized at Yale College a few years 
previous ; spent five years in missionary work in 
Tazewell County and two years in Northern Illi- 
nois as Agent of the Home Missionary Society, 
exploring new settlements, founding churches 
and introducing missionaries to new fields of 
labor. In 1839 he became pastor of the First 
Presbyterian Church of Chicago, remaining until 
1849, when he assumed the pastorship of the First 
Presbyterian Church at Galesburg, this relation 
continuing until 1856. Then, after a year's serv- 
ice as the Agent of the American Missionary 
Association of the Congregational Church, he 
accepted a call to the Congregational Church at 
Princeton, where he remained until 1869, when 
he took charge of the Congregational Church at 
Hinsdale. From 1878 he served for a consider- 
able period as a member of the Executive Com- 
mittee of the Illinois Home Missionary Society; 
was also prominent in educational work, being 
one of the founders and, for over twenty -five 
years, an officer of the Chicago • Theological 
Seminary, a Trustee of Knox College and one of 
the founders and a Trustee of Beloit College, 
Wis. , from which he received the degree of D. D. 
in 1869. Dr. Bascom died at Princeton, 111., 
August 8, 1890. 

BAT AVI A, a city in Kane County, on Fox 
River and branch lines of the Chicago & North- 
western and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
Railroads, 35 miles west of Chicago ; has water 
power and several prosperous manufacturing 
establishments employing over 1,000 operatives. 
The city has fine water-works supplied from an 
artesian well, electric lighting plant, electric 
street car lines with interarban connections, two 
weekly papers, eight churches, two public 
schools, and private hospital for insane women. 
Population (1900), 3,871; (1903, est.), 4,400. 

BATEMAN, Newton, A. M., LL.D., educator 
and Editor-in-Chief of the "Historical Encyclo- 
pedia of Illinois," was born at Fairfield, N. J., 
July 27, 1822, of mixed English and Scotch an- 



cestry ; was brought by his parents to Illinois in 
1833; in his youth enjoyed only limited educa- 
tional advantages, but graduated from Illinois 
College at Jacksonville in 1843, supporting him- 
self during his college course who'ly by his own 
labor. Having contemplated entering the Chris- 
tian ministry, he spent the following year at Lane 
Theological Seminary, but was compelled to 
withdraw on account of failing health, when he 
gave a year to travel. He then entered upon his 
life-work as a teacher by engaging as Principal 
of an English and Classical School in St. Louis, 
remaining there two years, when he accepted the 
Professorship of Mathematics in St. Charles Col- 
lege, at St. Charles, Mo., continuing in that 
position four years (1847-51). Returning to Jack- 
sonville, 111., in the latter year, he assumed the 
principalship of the main public school of that 
city. Here he remained seven years, during four 
of them discharging the duties of County Super- 
intendent of Schools for Morgan County. In the 
fall of 1857 he became Principal of Jacksonville 
Female Academy, but the following year was 
elected State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion, having been nominated for the office by the 
Republican State Convention of 1858, which put 
Abraham Lincoln in nomination for the United 
States Senate. By successive re-elections he con- 
tinued in this office fourteen years, serving con- 
tinuously from 1859 to 1875, except two years 
(1863-65), as the result of his defeat for re-election 
in 1862. He was also endorsed for the same office 
by the State Teachers' Association in 1856, but 
was not formally nominated by a State Conven- 
tion. During his incumbency the Illinois com- 
mon school system was developed and brought to 
the state of efficiency which it has so well main- 
tained. He also prepa red some seven volumes of 
biennial reports, portions of which have been 
republished in five different languages of Europe, 
besides a volume of "Common School Decisions," 
originally published by authority of the General 
Assembly, and of which several editions have 
since been issued. This volume has been recog- 
nized by the courts, and is still regarded as 
authoritative on the subjects to which it relates. 
In addition to his official duties during a part of 
this period, for three years he served as editor of 
"The Illinois Teacher," and was one of a com- 
mittee of three which prepared the bill adopted 
by Congress creating the National Bureau of 
Education. Occupying a room in the old State 
Capitol at Springfield adjoining that used as an 
office by Abraham Lincoln during the first candi- 
dacy of the latter for the Presidency, in 1860, a 



38 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



close intimacy sprang up between the two men, 
which enabled the "School-master," as Mr. Lin- 
coln playfully called the Doctor, to acquire an 
insight into the character of the future emanci- 
pator of a race, enjoyed by few men of that time, 
and of which he gave evidence by his lectures 
full of interesting reminiscence and eloquent 
appreciation of the high character of the ' 'Martyr 
President." A few months after his retirement 
from the State Superintendency (1875), Dr. Bate- 
man was offered and accepted the Presidency of 
Knox College at Galesburg, remaining until 1893, 
when he voluntarily tendered his resignation. 
This, after having been repeatedly urged upon 
the Board, was finally accepted ; but that body 
immediately, and by unanimous vote, appointed 
him President Emeritus and Professor of Mental 
and Moral Science, under which he continued to 
discharge his duties as a special lecturer as his 
health enabled him to do so. During his incum- 
bency as President of Knox College, he twice 
received a tender of the Presidency of Iowa State 
University and the Chancellorship of two other 
important State institutions. He also served, by 
appointment of successive Governors between 1877 
and 1891, as a member of the State Board of 
Health, for four years of this period being Presi- 
dent of the Board. In February, 1878, Dr. Bate- 
man, unexpectedly and without solicitation on his 
part, received from President Hayes an appoint- 
ment as "Assay Commissioner" to examine and 
test the fineness and weight of United States 
coins, in accordance with the provisions of the 
act of Congress of June 22, 1874, and discharged 
the duties assigned at the mint in Philadelphia. 
Never of a very strong physique, which was 
rather weakened by his privations while a stu- 
dent and Ms many years of close confinement to 
mental labor, towards the close of his life Dr. 
Bateman suffered much from a chest trouble 
which finally developed into "angina pectoris," 
or heart disease, from which, as the result of a 
most painful attack, he died at his home in Gales- 
burg, Oct. 21, 1897. The event produced the 
most profound sorrow, not only among his associ- 
ates in the Faculty and among the students of 
Knox College, but a large number of friends 
throughout the State, who had known him offi- 
cially or personally, and had learned to admire 
his many noble and beautiful traits of character. 
His funeral, which occurred at Galesburg on 
Oct. 25, called out an immense concoui'se of 
sorrowing friends. Almost the last labors per- 
formed by Dr. Bateman were in the revision of 
matter for this volume, in which he manifested 



the deepest interest from the time of his assump- 
tion of the duties of its Editor-in-Chief. At the 
time of his death he had the satisfaction of know- 
ing that his work in this field was practically 
complete. Dr. Bateman had been twice married, 
first in 1850 to Miss Sarah Dayton of Jacksonville, 
who died in 1857, and a second time in October, 
1859, to Miss Annie N. Tyler, of Massachusetts 
(but for some time a teacher in Jacksonville 
Female Academy), who died, May 28, 1878.— 
Clifford Rush (Bateman), a son of Dr. Bateman 
by his first marriage, was born at Jacksonville, 
March 7, 1854, graduated at Amherst College and 
later from the law department of Columbia Col- 
lege, New York, afterwards prosecuting his 
studies at Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris, finally 
becoming Professor of Administrative Law and 
Government in Columbia College — a position 
especially created for him. He had filled this 
position a little over one year when his career — 
which was one of great promise — was cut short by 
death, Feb. 6, 1883. Three daughters of Dr. Bate- 
man survive — all the wives of clergymen. — P. S. 

BATES, Clara Doty, author, was born at Ann 
Arbor, Mich., Dec. 22, 1838; published her first 
book in 1868; the next year married Morgan 
Bates, a Chicago publisher; wrote much for 
juvenile periodicals, besides stories and poems, 
some of the most popular among the latter being 
"Blind Jakey" (1868) and "^sop's Fables" in 
verse (1873). She was the collector of a model 
library for children, for the World's Columbian 
Exposition, 1893. Died in Chicago, Oct. 14, 1895. 

BATES, Erastus Newton, soldier and State 
Treasurer, was born at Plainfield, Mass., Feb. 29, 
1828, being descended from Pilgrims of the May- 
flower. When 8 years of age he was brought by 
his father to Ohio, where the latter soon after- 
ward died. For several years he lived with an 
uncle, preparing himself for college and earning 
money by teaching and manual labor. He gradu- 
ated from Williams College, Mass., in 1853, and 
commenced the study of law in New York City, 
but later removed to Minnesota, where he served 
as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 
1856 and was elected to the State Senate in 1857. 
In 1859 he removed to Centralia, 111., and com- 
menced practice there in August, 1862 ; was com- 
missioned Major of the Eightieth Illinois 
Volunteers, being successively promoted to the 
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel, and 
finally brevetted Brigadier-General. For fifteen 
months he was a prisoner of war, escaping from 
Libby Prison only to be recaptured and later 
exposed to the fire of the Union batteries at Mor- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



39 



ris Island, Charleston harbor. In 1866 he was 
elected to the Legislature, and, in 1868, State 
Treasurer, being re-elected to the latter office 
under the new Constitution of 1870, and serving 
until January, 1873. Died at Minneapolis, 
Minn., May 29, 1898, and was buried at Spring- 
field. 

BATES, George C, lawyer and politician, was 
born in Canandaigua, N. Y., anil removed to 
Michigan in 1834; in 1849 was appointed United 
States District Attorney for that State, but re- 
moved to California in 1800, where he became a 
member of the celebrated "Vigilance Committee" 
at San Francisco, and, in 1856, delivered the first 
Republican speech there. From 1861 to 1871, he 
practiced law in Chicago; the latter year was 
appointed District Attorney for Utah, serving 
two years, in 1878 removing to Denver, Colo., 
where he died, Feb. 11, 1886. Mr. Bates was an 
orator of much reputation, and was selected to 
express the thanks of the citizens of Chicago to 
Gen. B. J. Sweet, commandant of Camp Douglas, 
after the detection and defeat of the Camp Doug- 
las conspiracy in November, 1864 — a duty which 
he performed in an address of great eloquence. 
At an early day he married the widow of Dr. 
Alexander Wolcott, for a number of years previ- 
ous to 1830 Indian Agent at Chicago, his wife 
being a daughter of John Kinzie, the first white 
settler of Chicago. 

BATH, a village of Mason County, on the 
Jacksonville branch of the Chicago, Peoria & St. 
Louis Railway, 8 miles south of Havana. Popu- 
lation (1880), 439; (1890), 384; (1900), 830. 

BAYLIS, a corporate village of Pike County, 
on the main line of the Wabash Railway, 40 miles 
southeast of Quincy ; has one newspaper. Popu- 
lation (1890), 368; (1900), 340. 

BAYLISS, Alfred, Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, was born about 1846, served as a 
private in the First Michigan Cavalry the last 
two years of the Civil War, and graduated from 
Hillsdale College (Mich.), in 1870, supporting 
himself during his college course by work upon a 
farm and teaching. After serving three years as 
County Superintendent of Schools in La Grange 
County, Ind., in 1874 he came to Illinois and 
entered upon the vocation of a teacher in the 
northern part of the State. He served for some 
time as Superintendent of Schools for the city of 
Sterling, afterwards becoming Principal of the 
Township High School at Streator, where he was, 
in 1898, when he received the nomination for the 
office of State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion, to which he was elected in November follow- 



ing by a plurality over his Democratic opponent 
of nearly 70,000 votes. 

BEARD, Thomas, pioneer and founder of the 
city of Beardstown, 111., was born in Granville, 
Washington County, X. Y., in 179."), taken to 
Northeastern Ohio in 1800, and, in 1818, removed 
to Illinois, living for a time about Edwardsville 
and Alton. In 1820 he went to the locality of 
the present city of Beardstown, ami later estab- 
lished there the first ferry across the Illinois 
River. In 1827, in conjunction with Enoch 
March of Morgan County, he entered the land on 
which Beardstown was platted in 1829. Died, at 
Beardstown, in November, 1849. 

BEARDSTOWN, a city in Cass County, on the 
Illinois River, being the intersecting point for 
the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern and the Chi- 
cago, Burlington & Quincy Railways, and the 
northwestern terminus of the former. It is 111 
miles north of St. Louis and 90 miles south of 
Peoria. Thomas Beard, for whom the town was 
named, settled here about 1820 and soon after- 
wards established the first ferry across the Illi- 
nois River. In 1827 the land was patented by 
Beard and Enoch March, and the town platted, 
and, duriug the Black Hawk War of 1832, it 
became a principal base of supplies for the Illi- 
nois volunteers. The city has six churches and 
three schools (including a high school), two banks 
and two daily newspapers. Several branches of 
manufacturing are carried on here — flouring and 
saw mills, cooperage works, an axe-handle fac- 
tory, two button factories, two stave factories, 
one shoe factory, large machine shops, and others 
of less importance. The river is spanned here by 
a fine railroad bridge, costing some 8300,000. 
Population (1890), 4,226; (1900), 4,827. 

BEAUBIEN, Jean Baptiste, the second per- 
manent settler on the site of Chicago, was bora 
at Detroit in 1780, became clerk of a fur-trader on 
Grand River, married an Ottawa woman for Ins 
first wife, and, in 1800, had a trading-post at Mil- 
waukee, which he maintained until 1818. Ho 
visited Chicago as early as 1804, bought a cabin 
there soon after the Fort Dearborn massacre of 
1812, married the daughter of Francis La Fram- 
boise, a French trader, and, in 1818, becama 
agent of the American Fur Company, having; 
charge of trading posts at Mackinaw and else- 
where. After 1823 he occupied the building 
known as "the factory," just outside of Fort Dear* 
born, which had belonged to the Government, 
but removed to a farm on the DesPlaines in 1840. 
Out of the ownership of tliis building grew his 
claim to the right, in 1835, to enter seventy-five 



40 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



acres of land belonging to the Fort Dearborn 
reservation. The claim was allowed by the Land 
Office officials and sustained by the State courts, 
but disallowed by the Supreme Court of the 
United States after long litigation. An attempt 
was made to revive this claim in Congress in 
1878, but it was reported upon adversely by a 
Senate Committee of which the late Senator 
Thomas F. Bayard was chairman. Mr. Beaubien 
was evidently a man of no little prominence in 
his day. He led a company of Chicago citizens 
to the Black Hawk War in 1832, was appointed 
by the Governor the first Colonel of Militia for 
Cook County, and, in 1850, was commissioned 
Brigadier-General. In 1858 he removed to Nash- 
ville, Tenn., and died there, Jan. 5, 1863. — Mark 
(Beaubien), a younger brother of Gen. Beaubien, 
was born in Detroit in 1800, came to Chicago in 
1826, and bought a log house of James Kinzie, in 
which he kept a hotel for some time. Later, he 
erected the first frame building in Chicago, which 
was known as the "Sauganash," and in which he 
kept a hotel until 1834. He also engaged in mer- 
chandising, but was not successful, ran the first 
ferry across the South Branch of the Chicago 
River, and served for many years as lighthouse 
keeper at Chicago. About 1834 the Indians trans- 
ferred to him a reservation of 640 acres of land on 
the Calumet, for which, some forty years after- 
wards, he received a patent which had been 
signed by Martin Van Buren — he having previ- 
ously been ignorant of its existence. He was 
married twice and had a family of twent} r -two 
children. Died, at Kankakee, 111., April 16, 1881. 
— Madore B. (Beaubien), the second son of 
General Beaubien by his Indian wife, was born 
on Grand River in Michigan, July 15, 1809, joined 
his father in Chicago, was educated in a Baptist 
Mission School where Niles, Mich., now stands; 
was licensed as a merchant in Chicago in 1831, 
but failed as a business man; served as Second 
Lieutenant of the ISIaperville Company in the 
Black Hawk War, and later was First Lieutenant 
of a Chicago Company. His first wife was a 
■white woman, from whom he separatod, after- 
wards marrying an Indian woman. He left Illi- 
nois with the Pottawatomies in 1840, resided at 
Council Bluffs and, later, in Kansas, being for 
many years the official interpreter of the tribe 
and, for some time, one of six Commissioners 
employed by the Indians to look after their 
affairs with the United States Government. — 
Alexander (Beaubien), son of General Beau- 
bien by his white wife, was born in one of the 
buildings belonging to Fort Dearborn, Jan. 28, 



1822. In 1840 he accompanied his father to his 
farm on the Des Plaines, but returned to Chicago 
in 1862, and for years past has been employed on 
the Chicago police force. 

BEBB, William, Governor of Ohio, was born 
in Hamilton C&unty in that State in 1802 ; taught 
school at North Bend, the home of William Henry 
Harrison, studied law and practiced at Hamilton ; 
served as Governor of Ohio, 1846-48 ; later led a 
Welsh colony to Tennessee, but left at the out- 
break of the Civil War, removing to Winnebago 
County, 111., where he had purchased a large 
body of land. He was a man of uncompromising 
loyalty and high principle ; served as Examiner 
of Pensions by appointment of President Lincoln 
and, in 1868, took a prominent part in the cam- 
paign which resulted in Grant's first election to 
the Presidency. Died at Rockford, Oct. 23, 1873. 
A daughter of Governor Bebb married Hon. 
John P. Reynolds, for many years the Secretary 
of the Illinois State Agricultural Society, and, 
during the World's Columbian Exposition, 
Director-in-Chief of the Illinois Board of World's 
Fair Commissioners. 

BECKER, Charles St. N., ex-State Treasurer, 
was born in Germany, June 14, 1840, and brought 
to this country by his parents at the age of 11 
years, the family settling in St. Clair County, 111. 
Early in the Civil War he enlisted in the Twelfth 
Missouri regiment, and, at the battle of Pea 
Ridge, was so severely wounded that it was 
found necessary to amputate one of his legs. In 
1866 he was elected Sheriff of St. Clair County, 
and, from 1872 to 1880, he served as clerk of the 
St. Clair Circuit Court. He also served several 
terms as a City Councilman of Belleville. In 1888 
he was elected State Treasurer on the Republican 
ticket, serving from Jan. 14, 1889, to Jan. 12, 1891. 

BECKWITH, Corydon, lawyer and jurist, was 
born in Vermont in 1823, and educated at Provi- 
dence, R. I., and Wrentham, Mass. He read law 
and was admitted to the bar in St. Albans, Vt., 
where he practiced for two years. In 1853 he 
removed to Chicago, and, in January, 1864, was 
appointed by Governor Yates a Justice of the 
Supreme Court, to fill the five remaining months 
of the unexpired term of Judge Caton, who had 
resigned. On retiring from the bench he re- 
sumed private practice. Died, August 18, 1890. 

BECKWITH, Hiram Williams, lawyer and 
author, was born at Danville, 111., March 5, 1833. 
Mr. Beckwith's father, Dan W. Beckwith, a pio- 
neer settler of Eastern Illinois and one of the 
founders of the city of Danville, was a native of 
Wyalusing, Pa., where he was born about 1789, 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



41 



his mother heing, in her girlhood, Hannah York, 
one of the survivors of the famous Wyoming 
massacre of 1778. In 1817, the senior Beckwith, 
in company with his brother George, descend*'.! 
the Ohio River, afterwards ascending the Wabash 
to where Terre Haute now stands, but finally 
locating in what is now a part of Edgar County, 
111. A year later he removed to the vicinity of 
the present site of the city of Danville. Having 
been employed for a time in a surveyor's 
corps, he finally became a surveyor himself, and, 
on the organization of Vermilion County, served 
for a time as County Surveyor by appointment of 
the Governor, and was also employed by the 
General Government in surveying lands in the 
eastern part of the State, some of the Indian 
reservations in that section of the State being 
set off by him. In connection with Guy W. 
Smith, then Receiver of Public Moneys in the 
Land Office at Palestine, 111., he donated the 
ground on wliich the county-seat of Vermilion 
County was located, and it took the name of Dan- 
ville from his first name— "Dan." In 1830 he 
was elected Representative in the State Legisla- 
ture for the District composed of Clark, Edgar, 
and Vermilion Counties, then including all that 
section of the State between Crawford County 
and the Kankakee River. He died in 1835. 
Hiram, the subject of this sketch, thus left 
fatherless at less than three years of age, received 
only such education as was afforded in the com- 
mon schools of that period. Nevertheless, he 
began the study of law in the Danville office of 
Lincoln & Lamon, and w T as admitted to practice 
in 1854, about the time of reaching his majority. 
He continued in their office and, on the removal 
of Lamon to Bloomington in 1859, he succeeded 
to the business of the firm at Danville. Mr. 
Lamon — who, on Mr. Lincoln's accession to the 
Presidency in 1861, became Marshal of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia — was distantly related to Mr. 
Beckwith by a second marriage of the mother of 
the latter. While engaged in the practice of his 
profession, Mr. Beckwith has been over thirty 
years a zealous collector of records and other 
material bearing upon the early history of Illinois 
and the Northwest, and is probably now the 
owner of one of the most complete and valuable 
collections of Americana in Illinois. He is also 
the author of several monographs on historic 
themes, including "The Winnebago War, " "The 
Illinois and Indiana Indians," and "Historic 
Notes of the Northwest," published in the "Fer- 
gus Series," besides having edited an edition of 
"Reynolds' History of Illinois" (published by the 



same firm), wliich he has enriched by the addition 
of valuable notes. During 1895-96 he contributed 
a series of valuable articles to "The Chicago 
Tribune" on various features of early Illinois and 
Northwest history. In 1890 he was appointed by 
Governor Fifer a member of the first Board of* 
Trustees of the Illinois State Historical Library, 
serving until the expiration of his term in 1894, 
and was re-appointed to the same position by 
Governor Tanner in 1897, in each case being 
chosen President of the Board. 

BEECHER, Charles A., attorney and railway 
solicitor, was born in Herkimer County, N. Y., 
August 27, 1829, but, in 1836, removed with his 
family to Licking County, Ohio, where he lived 
upon a farm until he reached the age of 18 years. 
Having taken a course in the Ohio Wesleyan 
University at Delaware, in 1854 he removed to 
Illinois, locating at Fairfield, Wayne County, 
and began the study of law in the office of his 
bi-other, Edwin Beecher, being admitted to prac- 
tice in 1855. In 1867 he united with others in the 
organization of the Illinois Southeastern Rail- 
road projected from Shawneetown to Edge wood 
on the Illinois Central in Effingham County. 
This enterprise was consolidated, a year or two 
later, with the Pana, Springfield & Northwest- 
ern, taking the name of the Springfield & Illinois 
Southeastern, under which name it was con- 
structed and opened for traffic in 1871. (This 
line — which Mr. Beecher served for some time 
as Vice-President — now constitutes the Beards 
town & Shawneetown Division of the Baltimore 
& Ohio Southwestern.) The Springfield & Illi- 
nois Southeastern Company having fallen into 
financial difficulty in 1873, Mr. Beecher was 
appointed receiver of the road, and, for a time, 
had control of its operation as agent for the bond- 
holders. In 1875 the line was conveyed to the 
Ohio & Mississippi Railroad (now a part of the 
Baltimore & Ohio), when Mr. Beecher became 
General Counsel of the controlling corporation, 
so remaining until 1888. Since that date he has 
been one of the assistant counsel of the Baltimore 
& Ohio system. His present home is in Cincin- 
nati, although for over a quarter of a century he 
has been prominently identified with one of the 
most important railway enterprises in Southern 
Illinois. In politics Mr. Beecher has always been 
a Republican, and was one of the few in Wayne 
County who voted for Fremont in 1856, and for 
Lincoln in 1860. He was also a member of 
the Republican State Central Committee of 
Illinois from 1*60 for a period of ten or twelve 
vears 



42 



HISTOEIGAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



BEECHER, Edward, D. D., clergyman and 
educator, was born at East Hampton, L. I., 
August 27, 1803 — the son of Rev. Lyman Beech er 
and the elder brother of Henry "Ward ; graduated 
at Yale College in 1822, taught for over a year at 
Hartford, Conn., studied theology, and after a 
year's service as tutor in Yale College, in 
1826 was ordained pastor of the Park Street 
Congregational Church in Boston. In 1830 
he became President of Illinois College at 
Jacksonville, remaining until 1844, when he 
resigned and returned to Boston, serving as 
pastor of the Salem Street Church in that 
city until 1856, also acting as senior editor of 
"The Congregationalist' ' for four years. In 1856 
he returned to Illinois as pastor of the First Con- 
gregational Church at Galesburg, continuing 
until 1871, when he removed to Brooklyn, where 
he resided without pastoral charge, except 1885- 
89, when he was pastor of the Parkville Congre- 
gational Church. While President of Illinois 
College, that institution was exposed to much 
hostile criticism on account of his outspoken 
opposition to slavery, as shown by his participa- 
tion in founding the first Illinois State Anti- 
Slavery Society and his eloquent denunciation of 
the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy. Next to his 
brother Henry Ward, he was probably the most 
powerful orator belonging to that gifted family, 
and, in connection with his able associates in the 
faculty of the Illinois College, assisted to give 
that institution a wide reputation as a nursery 
of independent thought. Up to a short time 
before his death, he was a prolific writer, his 
productions (besides editorials, reviews and con- 
tributions on a variety of subjects) including 
nine or ten volumes, of which the most impor- 
tant are: "Statement of Anti-Slavery Principles 
and Address to the People of Illinois" (1837); 
"A Plea for Illinois College"; "History of the 
Alton Riots" (1838); "The Concord of Ages" 
(1853); "The Conflict of Ages" (1854); "Papal 
Conspiracy Exposed" (1854), besides a number 
of others invariably on religious or anti-slavery 
topics. Died in Brooklyn, July 28, 1895. 

BEECHER, William H., clergyman — oldest 
son of Rev. Lyman Beecher and brother of 
Edward and Henry Ward — was born at East 
Bampton, N. Y., educated at home and at An- 
dover, became a Congregationalist clergyman, 
occupying pulpits at Newport, R. I., Batavia, 
N. Y., and Cleveland, Ohio ; came to Chicago in 
his later years, dying at the home of his daugh- 
ters in that city, June 23, 1889. 

BEGGS, (Rev.) Stephen R., pioneer Methodist 



Episcopal preacher, was born in Buckingham 
County, Va., March 30, 1801. His father, who 
was opposed to slavery, moved to Kentucky in 
1805, but remained there only two years, when he 
removed to Clark County, Ind. The son enjoyed 
but poor educational advantages here, obtaining 
his education chiefly by his own efforts in what 
he called "Brush College." At the age of 21 he 
entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, during the next ten years traveling 
different circuits in Indiana. In 1831 he was 
appointed to Chicago, but the Black Hawk War 
coming on immediately thereafter, he retired to 
Plainfield. Later he traveled various circuits in 
Illinois, until 1868, when he was superannuated, 
occupying his time thereafter in writing remi- 
niscences of his early history. A volume of this 
character published by him, was entitled "Pages 
from the Early History of the West and North- 
west." He died at Plainfield, 111., Sept. 9, 1895, 
in the 95th year of his age. 

BEIDLER, Henry, early settler, was born of 
German extraction in Bucks County, Pa., Nov. 
27, 1812 ; came to Illinois in 1843, settling first at 
Springfield, where he carried on the grocery 
business for five years, then removed to Chicago 
and engaged in the lumber trade in connection 
with a brother, afterwards carrying on a large 
lumber manufacturing business at Muskegon, 
Mich., which proved very profitable. In 1871 
Mr. Beidler retired from the lumber trade, in- 
vesting largely in west side real estate in the city 
of Chicago, which appreciated rapidly in value, 
making him one of the most wealthy real estate 
owners in Chicago. Died, March 16, 1893. — Jacob 
(Beidler), brother of the preceding, was born in 
Bucks County, Penn., in 1815; came west in 
1842, first began working as a carpenter, but 
later engaged in the grocery business with his 
brother at Springfield, 111. ; in 1844 removed to 
Chicago, where he was joined by his brother four 
years later, when they engaged largely in the 
lumber trade. Mr. Beidler retired from business 
in 1891, devoting his attention to large real estate 
investments. He was a liberal contributor to 
religious, educational and benevolent institutions. 
Died in Chicago, March 15, 1898. 

BELFIELD, Henry Holmes, educator, was 
born in Philadelphia, Nov. 17, 1837; was educated 
at an Iowa College, and for a time was tutor in 
the same ; during the War of the Rebellion served 
in the army of the Cumberland, first as Lieuten- 
ant and afterwards as Adjutant of the Eighth 
Iowa Cavalry, still later being upon the staff of 
Gen. E. M. McCook, and taking part in the 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



43 



Atlanta and Nashville campaigns. While a 
prisoner in the hands of the rebels lie was placed 
under fire of the Union batteries at Charleston. 
Coming to Chicago in I860, he served as Principal 
in various public schools, including the North 
Division High School. He was one of the earli- 
est advocates of manual training, and, on the 
establishment of the Chicago Manual Training 
School in 1884, was appointed its Director — a 
position which he has continued to occupy. 
During 1891-92 he made a trip to Europe by- 
appointment of the Government, to investigate 
the school systems in European countries. 

BELKNAP, Hugh Keid, ex-Member of Congress, 
was born in Keokuk, Iowa, Sept. 1, 1800, being 
the son of W. W. Belknap, for some time Secre- 
tary of War under President Grant. After 
attending the public schools of his native city, 
he took a course at Adams Academy, Quincy, 
Mass., and at Phillips Academy, Andover, when 
he entered the service of the Baltimore & Ohio 
Railroad, where he remained twelve years in 
various departments, finally becoming Chief 
Clerk of the General Manager. In 1892 he retired 
from this position to become Superintendent of 
the South Side Elevated Railroad of Chicago. 
He never held any political position until nomi- 
nated (1894) as a Republican for the Fifty-fourth 
Congress, in the strongly Democratic Third Dis- 
trict of Chicago. Although the returns showed 
a plurality of thirty -one votes for his Democratic 
opponent (Lawrence McGann), a recount proved 
him elected, when, Mr. McGann having vohm- 
tarily withdrawn, Mr. Belknap was unanimously 
awarded the seat. In 1896 he was re-elected 
from a District usually strongly Democratic, 
receiving a plurality of 590 votes, but was 
defeated by his Democratic opponent in 1898, retir- 
ing from Congress, March 3, 1899, when he re- 
ceived an appointment as Paymaster in the Army 
from President McKinley, with the rank of Major. 

BELL, Robert, lawyer, was born in Lawrence 
County, 111., in 1829, educated at Mount Carmel 
and Indiana State University at Bloomington, 
graduating from the law department of the 
latter in 1855; while yet in his minority edited 
"The Mount Carmel Register," during 1851-52 
becoming joint owner and editor of the same 
with his brother, Victor D. Bell. After gradu- 
ation he opened an office at Fairfield, Wayne 
County, but, in 1857, returned to Mount Carmel 
and from 1864 was the partner of Judge E. B. 
Green, until the appointment of the latter Chief 
Justice of Oklahoma by President Harrison in 
1890. In 1869 Mr. Bell was appointed County 



Judge of Lawrence County, being elected to the 
same office in 189-4. He was also President 
of the Illinois Southern Railroad Company 
until it was merged into the Cairo & Vincennes 
Road in 1867; later became President of the St. 
Louis & Mt. Carmel Railroad, now a part of the 
Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis line, and 
secured the construction of the division from 
Princeton, Ind.. to Albion, 111. In 1876 he visited 
California as Special Agent of the Treasury 
Department to investigate alleged frauds in the 
Revenue Districts on the Pacific Coast; in 1878 
was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress on 
the Republican ticket in the strong Democratic 
Nineteenth District; was appointed, the same 
year, a member of the Republican State Central 
Committee for the State-at-large, and, in 1881, 
officiated by appointment of President Garfield, 
as Commissioner to examiiwe a section of the 
Atlantic & Pacific Railroad in New Mexico. 
Judge Bell is a gifted stump-speaker and is known 
in the southeastern part of the State as the 
"Silver-tongued Orator of the Wabash." 

BELLEVILLE, the county-seat of St. Clair 
County, a city and railroad center, 14 miles south 
of east from St. Louis. It is one of the oldest 
towns in the State, having been selected as the 
county-seat in 1814 and platted in 1815. It lies 
in the center of a rich agricultural and coal-bear- 
ing district and contains numerous factories of 
various descriptions, including flouring mills, a 
nail mill, glass works and shoe factories. It has 
five newspaper establishments, two being Ger- 
man, which issue daily editions. Its commercial 
and educational facilities are exceptionally good. 
Its population is largely of German descent. 
Population (1890), 15,361; (1900), 17,484. 

BELLEVILLE, CENTBALIA & EASTERN 
RAILROAD. (See Louisville, Evansville & St. 
Louis (Consolidated) Railroad.) 

BELLEVILLE & CARONDELET RAILROAD, 
a short line of road extending from Belleville to 
East Carondelet, 111., 17.3 miles. It was chartered 
Feb. 20, 1881, and leased to the St. Louis, Alton 
& Terre Haute Railroad Company, June 1, 1883. 
The annual rental is §30,000, a sum equivalent to 
the interest on the bonded debt. The capital 
stock 1 1895) is $500,000 and the bonded debt $485,- 
000. In addition to these sums the floating debt 
swells the entire capitalization to *9!).">,054 or $57,- 
317 per mile. 

BELLEVILLE & ELDORADO RAILROAD, 
a road 50.4 miles in length running from Belle- 
ville to Duquoin, 111. it was chartered Feb. 22, 
1861, and completed Oct, 31, 1871. On July 1, 



44 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



1880, it was leased to the St Louis, Alton & 
Terre Haute Railroad Company for 486 years, and 
has since been operated by that corporation in 
connection with its Belleville branch, from East 
St. Louis to Belleville. At Eldorado the road 
intersects the Cairo & Vincennes Railroad and 
the Shawneetown branch of the St. Louis & 
Southeastern Railroad, operated by the Louisville 
& N?shville Railroad Company. Its capital 
stock (1895) is $1,000,000 and its bonded debt 
$550,000. The corporate office is at Belleville. 

BELLEYILLE & ILL1NOISTOWN RAILROAD. 
(See St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad.) 

BELLEVILLE & SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 
RAILROAD, a road (laid with steel rails) run- 
ning from Belleville to Duquoin, 111., 56.4 miles 
in length. It was chartered Feb. 15, 1857, and 
completed Dec. 15, 1873. At Duquoin it connects 
with the Illinois Central and forms a short line 
between St. Louis and Cairo. Oct. 1, 1866, it was 
leased to the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute 
Railroad Company for 999 years. The capital 
stock is $1,692,000 and the bonded debt $1,000,- 
000. The corporate office is at Belleville. 

BELLMONT, a village of Wabash County, on 
the Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis Railway, 9 
miles west of Mount Carmel. Population (1880), 
350; (1890), 487; (1900), 624 

BELT RAILWAY COMPANY OF CHICAGO, 
THE, a corporation chartered, Nov. 22, 1882, and 
the lessee of the Belt Division of the Chicago & 
Western Indiana Railroad (which see). Its total 
trackage (all of standard gauge and laid with 66- 
pound steel rails) is 93.26 miles, distributed as fol- 
lows : Auburn Junction to Chicago, Milwaukee & 
St. PaulJunction, 15.9 miles; branches from Pull- 
man Junction to Irondale, 111., etc., 5.41 miles; 
second track, 14.1 miles; sidings, 57.85 miles. 
The cost of construction has been $524, 549 ; capi- 
tal stock, $1,200,000. It has no funded debt. 
The earnings for the year ending June 30, 1895, 
were $556,847, the operating expenses $378,012, 
and the taxes $51,009. 

BELYIDERE,an incorporated city, the county- 
seat of Boone County, situated on the Kishwau- 
kee River, and on two divisions of the Chicago & 
Northwestern Railroad, 78 miles west-northwest 
of Chicago and 14 miles east of Rockford; is con- 
nected with the latter city by electric railroad. 
The city has twelve churches, five graded schools, 
and three banks (two national). Two daily and 
two semi-weekly papers are published here. Bel- 
videre also has very considerable manufacturing 
interests, including manufactories of sewing ma- 
chines, bicycles, automobiles, besides a large 



milk-condensing factory and two creameries. 
Population (1890), 3,867; (1900), 6,937. 

BEMENT, a village in Piatt County, at inter- 
section of main line and Chicago Division of 
Wabash Railroad, 20 miles east of Decatur and 
166 miles south-southwest of Chicago; in agri- 
cultural and stock-raising district; has three 
grain elevators, broom factory, water- works, elec- 
tric-light plant, four churches, two banks and 
weekly paper. Pop. (1890), 1,129; (1900), 1,484. 

BENJAMIN, Reuben Moore, lawyer, born at 
Chatham Centre, Columbia County, N. Y., June 
29, 1833; was educated at Amherst College, Am- 
herst, Mass. ; spent one year in the law depart- 
ment of Harvard, another as tutor at Amherst 
and, in 1856, came to Bloomington, 111. , where, on 
an examination certificate furnished by Abraham 
Lincoln, he was licensed to practice. The first 
public office held by Mr. Benjamin was that of 
Delegate to the State Constitutional Convention 
of 1869-70, in which he took a prominent part in 
shaping the provisions of the new Constitution 
relating to corporations. In 1873 he was chosen 
County Judge of McLean County, by repeated 
re-elections holding the position until 1886, when 
he resumed private practice. For more than 
twenty years he has been connected with the law 
department of Wesleyan University at Blooming- 
ton, a part of the time being Dean of the Faculty ; 
is also the author of several volumes of legal 
text-books. 

BENNETT MEDICAL COLLEGE, an Eclectic 
Medical School of Chicago, incorporated by 
special charter and opened in the autumn of 
1868. Its first sessions were held in two large 
rooms; its faculty consisted of seven professors, 
and there were thirty matriculates. More com- 
modious quarters were secured the following 
year, and a still better home after the fire of 1871, 
in which all the college property was destroyed. 
Another change of location was made in 1874. 
In 1890 the property then owned was sold and a 
new college building, in connection with a hos- 
pital, erected in a more quiet quarter of the city. 
A free dispensary is conducted by the college. 
The teaching faculty (1896) consists of nineteen 
professors, with four assistants and demonstra- 
tors. Women are admitted as pupils on equal 
terms with men. 

BENT, Charles, journalist, was born in Chi- 
cago, Dec. 8, 1844, but removed with his family, 
in 1856, to Morrison, Whiteside County, where, 
two years later, he became an apprentice to the 
printing business in the office of "The Whiteside 
Sentinel." In June, 1864, he enlisted as a soldier 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS. 



45 



in the One Hundred and Fortieth Illinois (100- 
days' regiment) and, on the expiration of his term 
of service, re-enlisted in the One Hundred and 
Forty -seventh Illinois, being mustered out at 
Savannah, Ga., in January, 1866, with the rank 
of Second Lieutenant. Then resuming his voca- 
tion as a printer, in July, 1867, he purchased the 
office of "The Whiteside Sentinel," in which he 
learned his trade, and has since been the editor of 
that paper, except during 1877-79 while engaged 
in writing a "History of Whiteside County." 
He is a charter member of the local Grand Army 
Post and served on the staff of the Department 
Commander ; was Assistant Assessor of Internal 
Revenue during 1870-73, and, in 1878, was elected 
as a Republican to the State Senate for White- 
side and Carroll Counties, serving four years. 
Other positions held by him include the office of 
City Alderman, member of the State Board of 
Canal Commissioners (1883-85) and Commissioner 
of the Joliet Penitentiary (1889-93). He has also 
been a member of the Republican State Central 
Committee and served as its Chairman 1886-88. 

BEXTON, county-seat of Franklin County, on 
111. Cent, and Chi. & E. 111. Railroads; has electric- 
light plant, water-works, saddle and harness fac- 
tor}', two banks, two flouring mills, shale brick 
and tile works (projected), four churches and 
three weekly papers. Pop. (1890), 939; (1900), 1,341. 

BERDAN, James, lawyer and County Judge, 
was born in New York City, July 4, 1805, and 
educated at Columbia and Yale Colleges, gradu- 
ating from the latter in the class of 1824. His 
father, James Berdan, Sr. , came west in the fall 
of 1819 as one of the agents of a New York 
Emigration Society, and, in January, 1820, visited 
the vicinity of the present site of Jacksonville, 
111., but died soon after his return, in part from 
exposure incurred during his long and arduous 
winter journey. Thirteen years later (1832) his 
son, the subject of this sketch, came to the same 
region, and Jacksonville became his home for the 
remainder of his life. Mr. Berdan was a well- 
read lawyer, as well as a man of high principle 
and sound culture, with pure literary and social 
tastes. Although possessing unusual capabilities, 
his refinement of character and dislike of osten- 
tation made him seek rather the association and 
esteem of friends than public office. In 1849 he 
was elected County Judge of Morgan County, 
serving by a second election until 1857. Later 
he was Secretary for several years of the Tonica 
& Petersburg Railroad (at that time in course of 
construction), serving until it was merged into 
the St. Louis, Jacksonville & Chicago Railroad, 



now constituting a part of the Jacksonville di- 
vision of the Chicago & Alton Railroad; also 
served for many years as a Trustee of Illinois 
College. In the latter years of his life he was, for 
a considerable period, the law partner of ex-Gov- 
ernor and ex-Senator Richard Yates. Judge 
Berdan was the ardent political friend and 
admirer of Abraham Lincoln, as well as an inti- 
mate friend and frequent correspondent of the 
poet Longfellow, besides being the correspondent, 
during a long period of his life, of a number of 
other prominent literary men. Pierre Irving, 
the nephew and biographer of Washington Irving, 
was his brother-in-law through the marriage of a 
favorite sister. Judge Berdan died at Jackson- 
ville, August 24, 1884. 

BERGEN, (Rev.) John G., pioneer clergyman, 
was born at Hightstown, N. J., Nov. 27, 1790; 
studied theology, and, after two years' service as 
tutor at Princeton and sixteen years as pastor of 
a Presbyterian church at Madison, N. J., in 1828 
came to Springfield, 111., and assisted in the 
erection of the first Protestant church in the 
central part of the State, of which he remained 
pastor until 1848. Died, at Springfield, Jan. 
17, 1872. 

BERGGREN, Augustus W., legislator, born in 
Sweden, August 17, 1840; came to the United 
States at 16 years of age and located at Oneida, 
Knox County, 111., afterwards removing to Gales- 
burg; held various offices, including that of 
Sheriff oi Knox County (1873-81), State Senator 
(1881-89) — serving as President pro tern, of the 
Senate 1887-89, and was Warden of the Stale 
penitentiary at Joliet, 1SSS-91. He was for many 
years the very able and efficient President of the 
Covenant Mutual Life Association of Illinois, and 
is now its Treasurer. 

BERGIER, (Rev.) J, a secular priest, born in 
France, and an early missionary in Illinois. He 
labored among the Taniaroas. being in chargeof 1 1 le 
mission at Cahokia from 1700 to his death in 1710. 

BERRY, Orville P., lawyer and legislator, was 
born in McDonough County. 111., Feb. 16, L852; 
early left an orphan and, 'after working for some 
time on a farm, removed to Carthage, Hancock 
County, where he read law and was admitted to 
the bar in 1S77; in l*s:{ was elected Mayor of 
Carthage and twice re-elected; was elected to the 
State Senate in 1SSS and '92, and, in 1S91. took a 
prominent part in securing the enactment of the 
compulsory education clause in the common 
school law. Mr. Berry presided over the Repub- 
lican State Convent ion of 1896, the same year was 
a candidate for re-election to the State Senate, 



46 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



but the certificate was awarded to his Democratic 
competitor, who was declared elected by 164 
plurality. On a contest before the Senate at the 
first session of the Fortieth General Assembly, 
the seat was awarded to Mr. Berry on the ground 
of illegality in the rulings of the Secretary of 
State affecting the vote of his opponent. 

BERRY, (Col.) William W., lawyer and sol- 
dier, was born in Kentucky, Feb. 22, 1834, and 
educated at Oxford, Ohio. His home being then 
in Covington, he studied law in Cincinnati, and, 
at the age of 23, began practice at Louisville, Ky . , 
being married two years later to Miss Georgie 
Hewitt of Frankfort. Early in 1861 he entered 
the Civil War on the Union side as Major of the 
Louisville Legion, and subsequently served in 
the Army of the Cumberland, marching to the 
sea with Sherman and, during the period of his 
service, receiving four wounds. After the close 
of the war he was offered the position of Gov- 
ernor of one of the Territories, but, determining 
not to go further west than Illinois, declined. 
For three years he was located and in practice at 
Winchester, 111. , but removed to Quincy in 1874, 
where he afterwards resided. He always took a 
warm interest in politics and, in local affairs, 
was a leader of his party. He was an organizer of 
the G. A. R. Post at Quincy and its first Com- 
mander, and, in 1884-85, served as Commander of 
the State Department of the G. A. R. He organ- 
ized a Young Men's Republican Club, as he 
believed that the young minds should take an 
active part in politics. He was one of the com- 
mittee of seven appointed by the Governor to 
locate the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home for Illinois, 
and, after spending six months inspecting vari- 
ous sites offered, the institution was finally 
located at Quincy; was also Trustee of Knox 
College, at Galesburg, for several years. He was 
frequently urged by his party friends to run for 
public office, but it was so much against his 
nature to ask for even one vote, that he would 
not consent. He died at his home in Quincy, 
much regretted, May 6, 1895. 

BESTOR, George C, legislator, born in Wash- 
ington City, April 11, 1811; was assistant docu- 
ment clerk in the House of Representatives eight 
years; came to Illinois in 1835 and engaged in 
real-estate business at Peoria; was twice ap- 
pointed Postmaster of that city (1842 and 1861) 
and three times elected Mayor ; served as finan- 
cial agent of the Peoria & Oquawka (now Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy Railroad), and a Director of 
the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw ; a delegate to the 
Whig National Convention of 1852; a State 



Senator (1858-62), and an ardent friend of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. Died, in Washington, May 14, 

1872, while prosecuting a claim against the 
Government for the construction of gunboats 
during the war. 

BETHALTO, a village of Madison County, on 
the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis 
Railway, 25 miles north of St. Louis. Popula- 
tion (1880), 628; (1890), 879; (1900), 477. 

BETHANY, a village of Moultrie County, on 
Peoria Division 111. Cent. Railroad, 18 miles south- 
east of Decatur ; in farming district ; has one news- 
paper and four churches. Pop. , mostly American 
born, (1890), 688; (1900), 873; (1903, est.), 900. 

BETTIE STUART INSTITUTE, an institu- 
tion for young ladies at Springfield, 111., founded 
in 1868 by Mrs. Mary McKee Homes, who con- 
ducted it for some twenty years, until her death. 
Its report for 1898 shows a faculty of ten instruct- 
ors and 125 pupils. Its property is valued at 
$23,500. Its course of instruction embraces the 
preparatory and classical branches, together with 
music, oratory and fine arts. 

BEYERIDGE, James H., State Treasurer, 
was born in Washington County, N. Y., in 1828; 
served as State Treasurer, 1865-67, later acted as 
Secretary of the Commission which built the 
State Capitol. His later years were spent in 
superintending a large dairy farm near Sandwich, 
De Kalb County, where he died in January, 1896. 

BEYERIDGE, John L., ex-Governor, was born 
in Greenwich, N. Y., July 6, 1824; came to Illi- 
nois, 1842, and, after spending some two years in 
Granville Academy and Rock River Seminary, 
went to Tennessee, where he engaged in teaching 
while studying law. Having been admitted to 
the bar, he returned to Illinois in 1851, first locat- 
ing at Sycamore, but three years later established 
himself in Chicago. During the first year of the 
war he assisted to raise the Eighth Regiment Illi- 
nois Cavalry, and was commissioned first as Cap- 
tain and still later Major; two years later 
became Colonel of the Seventeenth Cavalry, 
which he commanded to the close of the war, 
being mustered out, February, 1866, with the 
rank of brevet Brigadier- General. After the war 
he held the office of Sheriff of Cook County four 
years; in 1870 was elected to the State Senate, 
and, in the following year, Congressrnan-at-large 
to succeed General Logan, elected to the United 
States Senate; resigned this office in January, 

1873, having been elected Lieutenant-Governor, 
and a few weeks later succeeded to the govern- 
orship by the election of Governor Oglesby to the 
United States Senate. In 1881 he was appointed. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



47 



by President Arthur, Assistant United States 
Treasurer for Chicago, serving until after Cleve- 
land's first election. His present home (189N), is 
near Los Angeles, Cal. 

BIENVILLE, Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur 
de, was born at Montreal, Canada, Feb. 23, 1(580, 
and was the French Governor of Louisiana at the 
time the Illinois country was included in that 
province. He had several brothers, a number of 
whom played important parts in the early history 
of the province. Bienville first visited Louisi- 
ana, in company with his brother Iberville, in 
1698, their object being to establish a French 
colony near the mouth of the Mississippi. The 
first settlement was made at Biloxi, Dec. 6, 1691), 
and Sanvolle, another brother, was placed in 
charge. The latter was afterward made Governor 
of Louisiana, and, at his death (1701), he was 
succeeded by Bienville, who transferred the seat 
of government to Mobile. Iu 1704 he was joined 
by his brother Chateaugay, who brought seven- 
teen settlers from Canada. Soon afterwards 
Iberville died, and Bienville was recalled to 
France in 1707, but was reinstated the following 
year. Finding the Indians worthless as tillers of 
the soil, he seriously suggested to the home gov- 
ernment the expediency of trading off the copper- 
colored aborigines for negroes from the West 
Indies, three Indians to be reckoned as equiva- 
lent to two blacks. In 1713 Cadillac was sent out 
as Governor, Bienville being made Lieutenant- 
Governor. The two quarreled. Cadillac was 
superseded by Epinay in 1717, and, in 1718, Law's 
first expedition arrived (see Company of the 
West), and brought a Governor's commission for 
Bienville. The latter soon after founded New 
Orleans, which became the seat of government 
for the province (which then included Illinois), in 
1723. In January, 1724, he was again summoned 
to France to answer charges; was removed in 
disgrace in 1726, but reinstated in 1733 and given 
the rank of Lieutenant-General. Failing in vari- 
ous expeditions against the Chickasaw Indians, 
he was again superseded in 1743, returning to 
France, where he died in 1768. 

BIGGS, William, pioneer, Judge and legislator, 
was born in Maryland in 1753, enlisted in the 
Revolutionary army, and served as an offiper 
under Colonel George Rogers Clark in the expe- 
dition for the capture of Illinois from the British 
in 1778. He settled in Bellefontaine (now Monroe 
County) soon after the close of the war. He was 
Sheriff of St. Clair County for many years, and 
later Justice of the Peace and Judge of the Court 
of Common Pleas. He also represented his 



county in the Territorial Legislatures of In- 
diana and Illinois. Died, in St. Clair County, 
in 1827. 

BIGGSYILLE, a village of Henderson County, 
on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 
15 miles northeast, of Burlington; lias a bank and 
two newspapers; considerable grain and live- 
stock are shipped here Population (1880), 358; 
(1890), 487; (1900), 417. 

BNJ MUDDY RIVER, a stream formed by the 
union of two branches which rise in Jefferson 
County. It runs south and southwest through 
Franklin and Jackson Counties, and enters the 
Mississippi about five miles below Grand Tower. 
Its length is estimated at 140 miles. 

BILLINGS, Albert Merritt, capitalist, was 
born in New Hampshire, April 19, 1814, educated 
in the common schools of his native State and 
Vermont, and, at the age of 22, became Sheriff of 
Windsor County, Vt., Later he was proprietor 
for a time of the mail stage-coach line between 
Concord, N. H., and Boston, but, having sold out, 
invested his means in the securities of the Chi- 
cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway and became 
identified with the business interests of Chicago. 
In the '50's he became associated with Cornelius 
K. Garrison in the People's Gas Company of Chi- 
cago, of which he served as President from 1859 
to 1888. In 1890 Mr. Billings became extensively 
interested in the street railway enterprises of Mr. 
C. B. Holmes, resulting in his becoming the pro- 
prietor of the street railway system at Memphis, 
Tenn., valued, in 1897, at $3,000,000. In early 
life he had been associated with Commodore 
Vanderbilt in the operation of the Hudson River 
steamboat lines of the latter. In addition to his 
other business enterprises, he was principal 
owner and, during the last twenty-five years of 
Ins life, President of the Home National and 
, Home Savings Banks of Chicago. Died, Feb. 7, 
1897, leaving an estate valued at several millions 
of dollars. 

BILLINGS, Henry W., was born at Conway, 
Mass., July 11, 1814, graduated at Amherst Col- 
lege at twenty years of age, and began the study 
of law with Judge Foote, of Cleveland, Ohio, was 
admitted to the bar two years later and practiced 
there some two years longer. He then removed 
to St. Louis, Mo., later resided for a time at 
Waterloo and Cairo, 111., but, in 1845, settled at 
Alton; was elected Mayor of that city in 1851, 
and the first Judge of the newly organized City 
Court, in 1859, serving in this position six years. 
In 1869 he was elected a Delegate from Madison 
County to the State Constitutional Convention of 



48 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



1869-70, but died before tbe expiration of the ses- 
sion, on April 19, 1870. 

BIRKBECK, Morris, early colonist, was born 
in England about 1762 or 1763, emigrated to 
.America in 1817, and settled in Edwards County, 
111. He purchased a large tract of land and in- 
duced a large colony of English artisans, laborers 
and farmers to settle upon the same, founding 
the town of New Albion. He was an active, un- 
compromising opponent of slavery, and "was an 
important factor in defeating the scheme to make 
Illinois a slave State. He was appointed Secre- 
tary of State by Governor Coles in October, 1824, 
but resigned at the end of three months, a hostile 
Legislature having refused to confirm him. A 
strong writer and a frequent contributor to the 
press, his letters and published works attracted 
attention both in this country and in Europe. 
Principal among the latter were: "Notes on a 
Journey Through France" (1815); "Notes on a 
Journey Through America" (1818), and "Letters 
from Illinois" (1818). Died from drowning in 
1825, aged about 63 years. (See Slavery and 
Slave Laics.) 

BISSELL, William H., first Republican Gov- 
ernor of Illinois, was born near Cooperstown, 
N. Y., on April 25, 1811, graduated in medicine at 
Philadelphia in 1835, and, after practicing a short 
time in Steuben County, N. Y., removed to Mon- 
roe County, 111. In 1840 he was elected a Repre- 
sentative in the General Assembly, where he soon 
attained high rank as a debater. He studied law 
and practiced in Belleville, St. Clair County, be- 
coming Prosecuting Attorney for that county in 
1844. He served as Colonel of the Second Illinois 
Volunteers during the Mexican War, and achieved 
distinction at Buena Vista. He represented Illi- 
nois in Congress from 1849 to 1855, being first 
elected as an Independent Democrat. On the pas- 
sage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, he left the Demo- 
cratic party and, in 1856, was elected Governor on 
the Republican ticket. While in Congress he was 
challenged by Jefferson Davis after an inter- 
change of heated words respecting the relative 
courage of Northern and Southern soldiers, 
spoken in debate. Bissell accepted the challenge, 
naming muskets at thirty paces. Mr. Davis's 
friends objected, and the duel never occurred. 
Died in office, at Springfield, 111., March 18, 1860. 

BLACK, John Charles, lawyer and soldier, 
born at Lexington, Miss., Jan. 29, 1839, at eight 
years of age came with his widowed mother to 
Illinois; while a student at Wabash College, Ind., 
in April, 1861, enlisted in the Union army, serv- 
ing gallantly and with distinction until Aug. 15, 



1865, when, as Colonel of the 37th 111. Vol. Inf., he 
retired with the rank of BrevetBrigadier-General ; 
was admitted to the bar in 1857, and after practic- 
ing at Danville, Champaign and Urbana, in 1885 
was appointed Commissioner of Pensions, serving 
until 1889, when he removed to Chicago ; served as 
Congressman-at-large (1893-95), and U. S. District 
Attorney (1895-99); Commander of the Loyal 
Legion and of the G. A. R. (Department of 
Illinois) ; was elected Commander-in-Chief of the 
Grand Army at the Grand Encampment, 1903. 
Gen. Black received the honorary degree of A.M. 
from his Alma Mater and that of LL. D. from Knox 
College; in January, 1904, was appointed by 
President Roosevelt member of the U. S. Civil 
Service Commission, and chosen its President. 

BLACKBURN UNIVERSITY, located at Car- 
linville, Macoupin County. It owes its origin to 
the efforts of Dr. Gideon Blackburn, who, having 
induced friends in the East to unite with him in 
the purchase of Illinois lands at Government 
price, in 1837 conveyed 16,656 acres of these 
lands, situated in ten different counties, in trust 
for the founding of an institution of learning, 
intended particularly "to qualify young men for 
the gospel ministry. ' ' The citizens of Carlinville 
donated funds wherewith to purchase eighty 
acres of land, near that city, as a site, which was 
included in the deed of trust. The enterprise 
lay dormant for many years, and it was not until 
1857 that the institution was formally incorpo- 
rated, and ten years later it was little more than 
a high school, giving one course of instruction 
considered particularly adapted to prospective 
students of theology. At present (1898) there 
are about 110 students in attendance, a faculty 
of twelve instructors, and a theological, as well as 
preparatory and collegiate departments. The 
institution owns property valued at 8110,000, of 
which §50,000 is represented by real estate and 
$40,000 by endowment funds. 

BLACK HAWK, a Chief of the Sac tribe of 
Indians, reputed to have been born at Kaskaskia 
in 1767. (It is also claimed that he was born on 
Rock River, as well as within the present limits 
of Hancock County.) Conceiving that his people 
had been wrongfully despoiled of lands belonging 
to them, in 1832 he inaugurated what is com- 
monly known as the Black Hawk War. His 
Indian name was Makabaimishekiakiak, signify- 
ing Black Sparrow Hawk. He was ambitious, but 
susceptible to flattery, and while having many of 
the qualities of leadership, was lacking in moral 
force. He was always attached to British inter- 
ests, and unquestionably received British aid of a 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS. 



49 



substantial sort. After his defeat lie was made 
the ward of Keokuk, another Chief, which 
humiliation of his pride broke his heart. He died 
on a reservation set apart for him in Iowa, in 
1838, aged 71. His body is said to have been 
exhumed nine months after death, and his articu- 
lated skeleton is alleged to have been preserved 
in the rooms of the Burlington (la.) Historical 
Society until 1855, when it was destroyed by fire. 
(See also Black Hawk War: Appendix.) 

BLACKSTONE, Timothy B., Railway Presi- 
dent, was born at Branford, Conn., March 28, 
1829. After receiving a common school educa- 
tion, supplemented by a course in a neighboring 
academy, at 18 he began the practical study of 
engineering in a corps employed by the New 
York & New Hampshire Railway Company, and 
the same year became assistant engineer on the 
Stockbridge & Pittsfield Railway. While thus 
employed he applied himself diligently to the 
study of the theoretical science of engineering, 
and, on coming to Illinois in 1851, was qualified 
to accept and fill the position of division engineer 
(from Bloomington to Dixon) on the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railway. On the completion of the main 
line of that road in 1855, he was appointed Chief 
Engineer of the Joliet & Chicago Railroad, later 
becoming financially interested therein, and 
being chosen President of the corporation on the 
completion of the line. In January, 1864, the 
Chicago & Joliet was leased in perpetuity to the 
Chicago & Alton Railroad Company. Mr. Black- 
stone then became a Director in the latter organi- 
zation and, in April following, was chosen its 
President. This office he filled uninterruptedly 
until April 1,1899, when the road passed into the 
hands of a syndicate of other lines. He was also 
one of the original incorporators of the Union 
Stock Yards Company, and was its President from 
1864 to 1868. His career as a railroad man was con- 
spicuous for its long service, the uninterrupted 
success of his management of the enterprises 
entrusted to his hands and his studious regard for 
the interests of stockholders. This was illustrated 
by the fact that, for some thirty years, the Chicago 
& Alton Railroad paid dividends on its preferred 
and common stock, ranging from 6 to 8% per cent 
per annum, and, on disposing of his stock conse- 
quent on the transfer of the line to a new corpora- 
tion in 1899, Mr. Blackstone rejected offers for his 
stock — aggregating nearly one-third of the whole 
—which would have netted him $1,000,000 in 
excess of the amount received, because he was 
unwilling to use his position to reap an advantage 
over smaller stockholders. Died, May 26, 1900. 



BLACKWELL, Robert S., lawyer, was born 
at Belleville, 111., in 1823. He belonged to a 
prominent family in the early history of the 
State, his father, David Blackwell, who was also 
a lawyer and settled in Belleville about 1^19, 
having been a member of the Second General 
Assembly (1820) from St. Clair County, and also 
of the Fourth and Fifth. In April, 1823, he was 
appointed by Governor Coles Secretary of State, 
succeeding Judge Samuel D. Lockwood, after- 
wards a Justice of the Supreme Court, who had 
just received from President Monroe the appoint- 
ment of Receiver of Public Moneys at the 
Edwardsville Land Office. Mr. Blackwell served 
in the Secretary's office to October, 1824, during 
a part of the time acting as editor of "The Illinois 
Intelligencer," which had been removed from 
Kaskaskia to Vandalia, and in which he strongly 
opposed the policy of making Illinois a slave 
State. He finally died in Belleville. Robert 
Blackwell, a brother of David and the uncle of 
the subject of this sketch, was joint owner with 
Daniel P. Cook, of "The Illinois Herald"— after- 
wards "The Intelligencer" — at Kaskaskia, in 
1816, and in April, 1817, succeeded Cook in the 
office of Territorial Auditor of Public Accounts, 
being himself succeeded by Elijah C. Berry, who 
had become his partner on "The Intelligencer," 
and served as Auditor until the organization of 
the State Government in 1818. Blackwell & Berry 
were chosen State Printers after the removal of 
the State capital to Vandalia in 1820, serving in 
this capacity for some years. Robert Blackwell 
located at Vandalia and served as a member of 
the House from Fayette County in the Eighth 
and Ninth General Assemblies (1832-36) and in 
the Senate, 1840-42. Robert S. — the son of David, 
and the younger member of this somewhat 
famous and historic family — whose name stands at 
the head of this paragraph, attended the common 
schools at Belleville in his boyhood, but in early 
manhood removed to Galena, where he engaged 
in mercantile pursuits. He later studied law 
with Hon. O. H. Browning at Quincy, beginning 
practice at Rushville, where he was associated 
for a time with Judge Minshall. In 1852 he 
removed to Chicago, having for his first partner 
Corydon Beckwith, afterwards of the Supreme 
Court, still later being associated with a number 
of prominent lawyers of that day. He is de- 
scribed by his biographers as "an able lawyer, an 
eloquent advocate and a brilliant scholar." 
"Blackwell on Tax Titles," from his pen, has been 
accepted by the profession as a high authority on 
that branch of law. He also published a revision 



50 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



of the Statutes in 1858, and began an "Abstract 
of Decisions of the Supreme Court," which had 
reached the third or fourth volume at his death, 
May 16, 1863. 

BLAIR, William, merchant, was born at 
Homer, Cortland County, N. Y., May 20, 1818, 
being descended through five generations of New 
England ancestors. After attending school in 
the town of Cortland, which became his father's 
residence, at the age of 14 he obtained employ- 
ment in a stove and hardware store, four years 
later (1836) coming to Joliet, 111., to take charge 
of a branch store which the firm had established 
there. The next year he purchased the stock and 
continued the business on his own account. In 
August, 1842, he removed to Chicago, where he 
established the earliest and one of the most 
extensive wholesale hardware concerns in that 
city, with which he remained connected nearly 
fifty years. During this period he was associated 
with various partners, including C. B. Nelson, 
E. G. Hall, O. W. Belden, James H. Horton and 
others, besides, at times, conducting the business 
alone. He suffered by the fire of 1871 in common 
with other business men of Chicago, but promptly 
resumed business and, within the next two or 
three years, had erected business blocks, succes- 
sively, on Lake and Randolph Streets, but retired 
from business in 1888. He was a Director of the 
Merchants' National Bank of Chicago from its 
organization in 1865, as also for a time of the 
Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company and the 
Chicago Gaslight & Coke Company, a Trustee of 
Lake Forest University, one of the Managers of 
the Presbyterian Hospital and a member of the 
Chicago Historical Society. Died in Chicago, 
May 10, 1899. 

BLAKELY, David, journalist, was born in 
Franklin County, Vt., in 1834; learned the print- 
er's trade and graduated from the University of 
Vermont in 1857. He was a member of a musical 
family which, under the name of "The Blakely 
Family," made several successful tours of the 
West. He engaged in journalism at Rochester, 
Minn., and, in 1862, was elected Secretary of 
State and ex-officio Superintendent of Schools, 
serving until 1865, when he resigned and, in 
partnership with a brother, bought "The Chicago 
Evening Post," with which he was connected at 
the time of the great fire and for some time after- 
ward. Later, he returned to Minnesota and 
became one of the proprietors and a member of 
the editorial staff of "The St. Paul Pioneer-Press." 
In his later years Mr. Blakely was President of 
the Blakely Printing Company, of Chicago, also 



conducting a large printing business in New 
York, which was his residence. He was manager 
for several years of the celebrated Gilmore Band 
of musicians, and also instrumental in organizing 
the celebrated Sousa's Band, of which he was 
manager up to the time of his decease in New 
York, Nov. 7, 1896. 

BLAKEMAN, Curtiss, sea-captain, and pioneer 
settler, came from New England to Madison 
County, 111., in 1819, and settled in what was 
afterwards known as the "Marine Settlement," of 
which he was one of the founders. This settle- 
ment, of which the present town of Marine (first 
called Madison) was the outcome, took its name 
from the fact that several of the early settlers, like 
Captain Blakeman, were sea- faring men. Captain 
Blakeman became a prominent citizen and repre- 
sented Madison County in the lower branch of 
the Third and Fourth General Assemblies (1822 
and 1824), in the former being one of the opponents 
of the pro-slavery amendment of the Constitution. 
A son of his, of the same name, was a Represent- 
ative in the Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth 
General Assemblies from Madison County. 

BLANC HARD, Jonathan, clergyman and edu 
cator, was born in Rockingham, Vt., Jan. 19, 
1811; graduated at Middlebury College in 1832; 
then, after teaching some time, spent two years 
in Andover Theological Seminary, finally gradu- 
ating in theology at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, 
in 1838, where he remained nine years as pastor 
of the Sixth Presbyterian Church of that city. 
Before this time he had become interested in 
various reforms, and, in 1843, was sent as a 
delegate to the second World's Anti-Slavery 
Convention in London, serving as the American 
Vice-President of that body. In 1846 he assumed 
the Presidency of Knox College at Galesburg, 
remaining until 1858, during his connection 
with that institution doing much to increase its 
capacity and resources. After two years spent in 
pastoral work, he accepted (1860) the Presidency 
of Wheaton College, which he continued to fill 
until 1882, when he was chosen President Emer- 
itus, remaining in this position until his death, 
May 14, 1892. 

BLAKDINSTILLE, a town in McDonough 
County, on the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Rail- 
road, 26 miles southeast of Burlington, Iowa, and 
64 miles west by south from Peoria. It is a ship- 
ping point for the grain grown in the surround- 
ing country, and has a grain elevatoi and steam 
flour and saw mills. It also has banks, two 
weekly newspapers and several churches. Popu- 
lation (l* 20 ^ 877; (1900). 995. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



51 



BLANEY, Jerome Van Zandt, early physician, 
born at Newcastle, Del., May 1, 1820; was edu- 
cated at Princeton and graduated in medicine at 
Philadelphia when too young to receive his 
diploma ; in 1842 came west and joined Dr. Daniel 
Brainard in founding Rush Medical College at 
Chicago, for a time filling three chairs in that 
institution; also, for a time, occupied the chair of 
Chemistry and Natural Philosophy in Northwest- 
ern University. In 1861 he was appointed Sur- 
geon, and afterwards Medical Director, in the 
army, and was Surgeon -in-Chief on the staff of 
General Sheridan at the time "of the battle of 
Winchester ; after the war was delegated by the 
Government to pay off medical officers in the 
Northwest, in this capacity disbursing over $600,- 
000 ; finally retiring with the rank of Lieutenant- 
Colonel. Died, Dec. 11, 1874. 

BLATCHFORD, Eliphalet Wickes, LL.D., 
son of Dr. John Blatchford, was born at Stillwater, 
N. Y., May 31, 1826; being a grandson of Samuel 
Blatchford, D.D., who came to New York from 
England, in 1795. He prepared for college at Lan- 
singburg Academy. New York, and at Marion 
College, Mo. , finally graduating at Illinois College, 
Jacksonville, in the class of 1845. After graduat- 
ing, he was employed for several years in the law 
offices of his uncles, R. M. and E. H. Blatchford, 
New York. For considerations of health he re- 
turned to the West, and, in 1850, engaged in busi- 
ness for himself as a lead manufacturer in St. 
Louis, Mo. , afterwards associating with him the 
late Morris Collins, under the firm name of Blatch- 
ford & Collins. In 1854 a branch was established 
in Chicago, known as Collins & Blatchford. After 
a few years the firm was dissolved, Mr. Blatch- 
ford taking the Chicago business, which has 
continued as E. W. Blatchford & Co. to the pres- 
ent time. While Mr. Blatchford has invariably 
declined political offices, he has been recognized 
as a staunch Republican, and the services of few 
men have been in more frequent request for 
positions of trust in connection with educational 
and benevolent enterprises. Among the numer- 
ous positions of this character which he has been 
called to fill are those of Treasurer of the North- 
western Branch of the United States Sanitary 
Commission, during the Civil War, to which he 
devoted a large part of his time ; Trustee of Illi- 
nois College (1866-75); President of the Chicago 
Academy of Sciences ; a member, and for seven- 
teen years President, of the Board of Trustees of 
the Chicago Eye and Ear Infirmary ; Trustee of 
the Chicago Art Institute; Executor and Trustee 
of the late Walter L. Newberry, and, since its 



incorporation, President of the Board of Trustees 
of The Newberry Library; Trustee of the John 
Crerar Library; one of the founders and Presi- 
dent of the Board of Trustees of the Chicago 
Manual Training School; life member of the 
Chicago Historical Society; for nearly forty 
years President of the Board of Directors of the 
Chicago Theological Seminary; during liis resi- 
dence in Chicago an officer of the New England 
Congregational Church; a corporate member of 
the American Board of Commissioners for For- 
eign Missions, and for fourteen years its Vice- 
President; a charter member of the City 
Missionary Society, and of the Congregational 
Club of Chicago; a member of the Chicago 
Union League, the University, the Literary and 
the Commercial Clubs, of which latter he lias 
been President. Oct. 7, 1858, Mr. Blatchford was 
married to Miss Mary Emily Williams, daughter 
of John C.Williams, of Chicago. Seven children — 
four sons and three daughters — have blessed this 
union, the eldest son, Paul, being to-day one of 
Chicago's valued business men. Mr. Blatchford's 
life has been one of ceaseless and successful 
activity in business, and to him Chicago owes 
much of its prosperity. In the giving of time 
and money for Christian, educational and benevo- 
lent enterprises, he has been conspicuous for his 
generosity, and noted for his valuable counsel and 
executive ability in carrying these enterprises to 
success. 

BLATCHFORD, John, D.D., was born at New- 
field (now Bridgeport), Conn., May 24, 1799; 
removed in childhood to Lansingburg, N. Y.. 
and was educated at Cambridge Academy and 
Union College in that State, graduating in 1820. 
He finished his theological course at Princeton, 
N. J., in 1823, after which he ministered succes- 
sively to Presbyterian churches at Pittstown and 
Stillwater, N. Y., in 1830 accepting the pastorate 
of the First Congregational Church of Bridge- 
port, Conn. In 1836 he came to the West, spend- 
ing the following winter at Jacksonville, 111. , and, 
in 1837, was installed the first pastor of the First 
Presbyterian Church of Chicago, where he 
remained until compelled by failing health to 
resign and return to the East. In 1841 he ac- 
cepted the chair of Intellectual and Moral Phi- 
losophy at Marion College, Mo., subsequently 
assuming the 1 'residency. The institution having 
been purchased by the Free Masons, in 1844, he 
removed to West Ely, Mo., and thence, in 1847, 
to Quincy, 111., where he resided during the 
remainder of his life. His death occurred in St. 
Louis. April 8, 1855. The churches he served 



52 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



testified strongly to Dr. Blatchford's faithful, 
acceptable and successful performance of his 
ministerial duties. He was married in 1825 to 
Frances Wickes, daughter of Eliphalet Wickes, 
Esq. , of Jamaica, Long Island, N. Y. 

BLEDSOE, Albert Taylor, teacher and law- 
yer, was born in Frankfort, Ky., Nov. 9, 1809; 
graduated at West Point Military Academy in 
1830, and, after two years' service at Fort Gib- 
son, Indian Territory, retired from the army in 
1832. During 1833-34 he was Adjunct Professor 
of Mathematics and teacher of French at Kenyon 
College, Ohio, and, in 1835-36, Professor of 
Mathematics at Miami University. Then, hav- 
ing studied theology, he served for several years 
as rector of Episcopal churches in Ohio. In 1838 
he settled at Springfield, 111. , and began the prac- 
tice of law, remaining several years, when he 
removed to "Washington, D. C. Later he became 
Professor of Mathematics, first (1848-54) in the 
University of Mississippi, and (1854-61) in the 
University of Virginia. He then entered the 
Confederate service with the rank of Colonel, 
but soon became Acting Assistant Secretary of 
War ; in 1863 visited England to collect material 
for a •work on the Constitution, which was pub- 
lished in 1866, when he settled at Baltimore, 
where he began the publication of "The Southern 
Review," which became the recognized organ of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Later 
he became a minister of the Methodist Church. 
He gained considerable reputation for eloquence 
during his residence in Illinois, and was the 
author of a number of works on religious and 
political subjects, the latter maintaining the 
right of secession; was a man of recognized 
ability, but lacked stability of character. Died 
at Alexandria, Ya., Dec. 8, 1877. 

BLODGETT, Henry Williams, jurist, was born 
at Amherst, Mass., in 1821. At the age of 10 
years he removed with his parents to Illinois, 
where he attended the district schools, later 
returning to Amherst to spend a year at the 
Academy. Returning home, he spent the years 
1839-42 in teaching and surveying. In 1842 he 
began the study of law at Chicago, being 
admitted to the bar in 1845, and beginning prac- 
tice at Waukegan, 111., where he has continued 
to reside. In 1852 he was elected to the lower 
house of the Legislature from Lake County, as 
an anti-slavery candidate, and, in 1858, to the 
State Senate, in the latter serving four years. 
He gained distinction as a railroad solicitor, being 
employed at different times by the Chicago & 
Northwestern, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 



Paul, the Michigan Southern and the Pittsburg 
& Fort Wayne Companies. Of the second named 
road he was one of the projectors, procuring its 
charter, and being identified with it in the sev- 
eral capacities of Attorney, Director and Presi- 
dent. In 1870 President Grant appointed him 
Judge of the United States District Court for the 
Northern District of Illinois. This position he 
continued to occupy for twenty-two years, resign- 
ing it in 1892 to accept an appointment by Presi- 
dent Cleveland as one of the counsel for the 
United States before the Behring Sea Arbitrators 
at Paris, which was his last official service. 

BLOOMINGDALE, a village of Du Page County, 
30 miles west by north from Chicago. Population 
(1880), 226; (1890), 463; (1900), 235. 

BLOOMINGTON, the county-seat of McLean 
County, a flourishing city and railroad center, 59 
miles northeast of Springfield ; is in a rich agri- 
cultural and coal-mining district. Besides car 
shops and repair works employing some 2,000 
hands, there are manufactories of stoves, fur- 
naces, plows, flour, etc. Nurseries are numerous 
in the vicinity and horse breeding receives much 
attention. The city is the seat of Illinois Wes- 
leyan University, has fine public schools, several 
newspapers (two published daily), besides educa- 
tional and other publications. The business sec- 
tion suffered a disastrous fire in 1900, but has been 
rebuilt more substantially than before. The prin- 
cipal streets are paved and electric street cars con- 
nect with Normal (two miles distant), the site of 
the "State Normal University" and "Soldiers' Or- 
phans' Home." Pop. (1890), 20,284; (1900), 23,286. 

BLOOMINGTON CONVENTION OF 1856. 
Although not formally called as such, this was 
the first Republican State Convention held in 
Illinois, out of which grew a permanent Repub- 
lican organization in the State. A mass conven- 
tion of those opposed to the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise (known as an "Anti-Nebraska 
Convention") was held at Springfield during the 
week of the State Fair of 1854 (on Oct. 4 and 5), 
and, although it adopted a platform in harmony 
with the principles which afterwards became the 
foundation of the Republican party, and appointed 
a State Central Committee, besides putting in 
nomination a candidate for State Treasurer — the 
only State officer elected that year — the organi- 
zation was not perpetuated, the State Central 
Committee failing to organize. The Bloomington 
Convention of 1856 met in accordance with a call 
issued by a State Central Committee appointed 
by the Convention of Anti-Nebraska editors held 
at Decatur on February 22, 1856. (See Anti-Neb- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



53 



raska Editorial Convention.) The call did not 
even contain the word "Republican," but was 
addressed to those opposed to the principles of 
the Nebraska Bill and the policy of the existing 
Democratic administration. The Convention 
met on May 29, 1856, the date designated by the 
Editorial Convention at Decatur, but was rather 
in the nature of a mass than a delegate conven- 
tion, as party organizations existed in few coun- 
ties of the State at that time. Consequently 
representation was very unequal and followed no 
systematic rule. Out of one hundred counties 
into which the State was then divided, only 
seventy were represented by delegates, ranging 
from one to twenty-five each, leaving thirty 
counties (embracing nearly the whole of the 
southern part of the State) entirely unrepre- 
sented. Lee County had the largest representa- 
tion (twenty-five), Morgan County (the home of 
Richard Yates) coming next with twenty dele- 
gates, while Cook County had seventeen and 
Sangamon had five. The whole number of 
delegates, as shown by the contemporaneous 
record, was 269. Among the leading spirits in 
the Convention were Abraham Lincoln, Archi- 
bald Williams, O. H. Browning, Richard Yates, 
John M. Palmer, Owen Lovejoy, Norman B. 
Judd, Burton C. Cook and others who afterwards 
became prominent in State politics. The delega- 
tion from Cook County included the names of 
John Wentworth, Grant Goodrich, George 
Schneider, Mark Skinner, Charles H. Ray and 
Charles L. Wilson. The temporary organization 
was effected with Archibald Williams of Adams 
County in the chair, followed by the election of 
John M. Palmer of Macoupin, as Permanent 
President. The other officers were: Vice-Presi- 
dents — John A. Davis of Stephenson; William 
Ross of Pike; James McKee of Cook; John H. 
Bryant of Bureau; A. C. Harding of Warren; 
Richard Yates of Morgan; Dr. H. C. Johns of 
Macon; D. L. Phillips of Union; George Smith 
of Madison; Thomas A. Marshall of Coles ; J. M. 
Ruggles of Mason ; G. D. A. Parks of Will, and John 
Clark of Schuyler. Secretaries — Henry S. Baker 
of Madison; Charles L. Wilson of Cook; Jobn 
Tillson of Adams; Washington Bushnell of La 
Salle, and B. J. F. Hanna of Randolph. A State 
ticket was put in nomination consisting of 
William H. Bissell for Governor (by acclama- 
tion); Francis A. Hoffman of Du Page County, 
for Lieutenant-Governor; Ozias M. Hatch of 
Pike, for Secretary of State; Jesse K. Dubois of 
Lawrence, for Auditor; James Miller of McLean, 
for Treasurer, and William H. Powell of Peoria, 



for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Hoff- 
man, having been found ineligible by lack of resi- 
dence after the date of naturalization, withdrew, 
and his place was subsequently filled by the 
nomination of John Wood of (^uincy. The plat- 
form adopted was outspoken in its pledges of 
unswerving loyalty to the Union and opposition 
to the extension of slavery into new territory. A 
delegation was appointed to the National Con- 
vention to be held in Philadelphia on June 17, 
following, and a State Central Committee was 
named to conduct the State campaign, consisting 
of James C. Conkling of Sangamon County ; 
Asahel Gridley of McLean; Burton C. Cook of 
La Salle, and Charles H. Ray and Norman B. 
Judd of Cook. The principal speakers of the 
occasion, before the convention or in popular 
meetings held while the members were present in 
Bloomington, included the names of O. H. Brown- 
ing, Owen Lovejoy, Abraham Lincoln, Burton 
C. Cook, Richard Yates, the venerable John 
Dixon, founder of the city bearing his name, and 
Governor Reeder of Pennsylvania, who had been 
Territorial Governor of Kansas by appointment 
of President Pierce, but had refused to carry out 
the policy of the administration for making 
Kansas a slave State. None of the speeches 
were fully reported, but that of Mr. Lincoln has 
been universally regarded by those who heard it 
as the gem of the occasion and the most brilliant 
of his life, foreshadowing his celebrated "house- 
divided-against-itself" speech of June 17, 1858. 
John L. Scripps, editor of "The Chicago Demo- 
cratic Press," writing of it, at the time, to his 
paper, said: "Never has it been our fortune to 
listen to a more eloquent and masterly presenta- 
tion of a subject. . . . For an hour and a half he 
(Mr. Lincoln) held the assemblage spellbound by 
the power of his argument, the intense irony of 
his invective, and the deep earnestness and fervid 
brilliancy of his eloquence. When he concluded, 
the audience sprang to their feet and cheer after 
cheer told how deeply their hearts had been 
touched and their souls warmed up to a generous 
enthusiasm." At the election, in November 
following, although the Democratic candidate 
for President carried the State by a plurality of 
over 9,000 votes, the entire State ticket put in 
nomination at Bloomington was successful by 
majorities ranging from 3.000 to 20,000 for the 
several candidates. 

BLUE ISLAM), a village of Cook County, on 
the Calumet River and the Chicago, Rock Island 
& Pacific, the Chicago & Grand Trunk and 
the Illinois Central Railways, 15 miles south of 



54 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Chicago. It has a high school, churches and two 
newspapers, besides brick, smelting and oil works. 
Population (1890), 2,521; (1900), 6,114. 

BLUE ISLAND RAILROAD, a short line 3.96 
miles in length, lying wholly within Illinois; 
capital stock $25,000; operated by the Illinois 
Central Railroad Company. Its funded debt 
(1895) was §100,000 and its floating debt, §3,779. 

BLUE MOUND, a town of Macon County, on 
the Wabash Railway, 14 miles southeast of De- 
catur;.; in rich grain and live-stock region; has 
three grain elevators, two banks, tile factory and 
one newspaper. Pop. (1890), 696; (1900), 714. 

BLUFFS, a village of Scott County, at the 
junction of the Quincy and Hannibal branches of 
the Wabash Railway, 52 miles west of Spring- 
field; has a bank and a newspaper. Population 
(1880), 162; (1890), 421; (1900), 539. 

BOAL, Robert, M.D., physician and legis- 
lator, born near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1806; was 
brought by his parents to Ohio when five years 
old and educated at Cincinnati, graduating from 
the Ohio Medical College in 1828; settled at 
Lacon, 111., in 1836, practicing there until 1862, 
when, having been appointed Surgeon of the 
Board of Enrollment for that District, he re- 
moved to Peoria. Other public positions held by 
Dr. Boal have been those of Senator in the 
Fourteenth and Fifteenth General Assemblies 
(1844-48), Representative in the Nineteenth and 
Twentieth (1854-58), and Trustee of the Institu- 
tion for the Deaf and Dumb at Jacksonville, 
remaining in the latter position seventeen years 
under the successive administrations of Gov- 
ernors Bissell, Yates, Oglesby, Palmer and Bever- 
idge — the last five years of his service being 
President of the Board. He was also President 
of the State Medical Board in 1882. Dr. Boal 
continued to practice at Peoria until about 1890, 
when he retired, and, in 1893, returned to Lacon 
to reside with his daughter, the widow of the 
late Colonel Greenbury L. Fort, for eight years 
Representative in Congress from the Eighth 
District. 

BOARD OF ARBITRATION, a Bureau of the 
State Government, created by an act of the Legis- 
lature, approved August 2, 1895. It is appointed 
by the Executive and is composed of three mem- 
bers (not more than two of whom can belong to 
the same political party), one of whom must be 
an employer of labor and one a member of some 
labor organization. The term of office for the 
members first named was fixed at two years; 
after March 1, 1897, it is to be three years, one 
member retiring annually. A compensation of 



$1,500 per annum is allowed to each member of 
the Board, while the Secretary, who must also be 
a stenographer, receives a salary of §1,200 per 
annum. When a controversy arises between an 
individual, firm or corporation employing not less 
than twenty-five persons, and his or its employes, 
application may be made by the aggrieved 
party to the Board for an inquiry into the 
nature of the disagreement, or both parties may 
unite in the submission of a case. The Board is 
required to visit the locality, carefully investi- 
gate the cause of the dispute and render a deci- 
sion as soon as practicable, the same to be at once 
made public. If the application be filed by the 
employer, it must be accompanied by a stipula- 
tion to continue in business, and order no lock-out 
for the space of three weeks after its date. In 
like manner, complaining employes must promise 
to continue peacefully at work, under existing 
conditions, for a like period. The Board is 
granted power to send for persons and papers and 
to administer oaths to witnesses. Its decisions 
are binding upon applicants for six months after 
rendition, or until either party shall have given 
the other sixty days' notice in writing of his or 
their intention not to be bound thereby. In case 
the Board shall learn that a disagreement exists 
between employes and an employer having less 
than twenty-five persons in his employ, and that 
a strike or lock-out is seriously threatened, it is 
made the duty of the body to put itself into 
communication with both employer and employes 
and endeavor to effect an amicable settlement 
between them by mediation. The absence of any 
provision in the law prescribing penalties for its 
violation leaves the observance of the law, in its 
present form, dependent upon the voluntary 
' action of the parties interested. 

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION, a body organ- 
ized under act of the General Assembly, approved 
March 8, 1867. It first consisted of twenty-five 
members, one from each Senatorial District. 
The first Board was appointed by the Governor, 
holding office two years, afterwards becoming 
elective for a term of four years. In 1872 the 
law was amended, reducing the number of mem- 
bers to one for each Congressional District, the 
whole number at that time becoming nineteen, 
with the Auditor as a member ex-officio, who 
usually presides. From 18S4 to 1897 it consisted 
of twenty elective members, but, in 1897, it was 
increased to twenty-two. The Board meets 
annually on the second Tuesday of August. The 
abstracts of the property assessed for taxation in 
the several counties of the State are laid before 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS. 



55 



it for examination and equalization, but it may 
not reduce the aggregate valuation nor increase 
it more than one per cent. Its powers over the 
returns of the assessors do not extend beyond 
equalization of assessments between counties. 
The Board is required to consider the various 
classes of property separately, and determine 
such rates of addition to or deduction from the 
listed, or assessed, valuation of each class as it 
may deem equitable and just. The statutes pre- 
scribe rules for determining the value of all the 
classes of property enumerated — personal, real, 
railroad, telegraph, etc. The valuation of the 
capital stock of railroads, telegraph and other 
corporations (except newspapers) is fixed by the 
Board. Its consideration having been completed, 
the Board is required to summarize the results of 
its labors in a comparative table, which must be 
again examined, compared and perfected. 
Reports of each annual meeting, with the results 
reached, are printed at the expense of the State 
and distributed as are other public documents. 
The present Board (1897-1901) consists by dis- 
tricts of (1) George F. McKnight, (2) John J. 
McKenna, (3) Solomon Simon, (4) Andrew Mc- 
Ansh, (5) Albert Oberndorf, (6) Henry Severin, 
(7) Edward S. Taylor, (8) Theodore S. Rogers, 
(9) Charles A. Works, (10) Thorrias P. Pierce, (11) 
Samuel M. Barnes, (12) Frank P. Martin, (13) 
Frank K. Robeson, (14) W. O. Cadwallader, (15) 
J. S. Cruttenden, (16) H. D. Hirshheimer, (17) 
Thomas N. Leavitt, (18) Joseph F. Long, (19) 
Richard Cadle, (20) Charles Emerson, (21) John 
W. Larimer, (22) William A. Wall, besides the 
Auditor of Public Accounts as ex-officio member 
— the District members being divided politically 
in the proportion of eighteen Republicans to four 
Democrats. 

BOARD OF PUBLIC CHARITIES, a State 
Bureau, created by act of the Legislature in 
1869, upon the recommendation of Governor 
Oglesby. The act creating the Board gives the 
Commissioners supervisory oversight of the 
financial and administrative conduct of all the 
charitable and correctional institutions of the 
State, with the exception of the penitentiaries, 
and they are especially charged with looking 
after and caring for the condition of the paupers 
and the insane. As originally constituted the 
Board consisted of five male members who em- 
ployed a Secretary. Later provision was made 
for the appointment of a female Commissioner. 
The office is not elective. The Board has always 
carefully scrutinized the accounts of the various 
State charitable institutions, and, under its man- 



agement, no charge of peculation against any 
official connected with the same has ever been 
substantiated; there have been no scandals, and 
only one or two isolated charges of cruelty to 
inmates. Its supervision of the county jails and 
almshouses has been careful and conscientious, 
and has resulted in benefit alike to the tax-payers 
and the inmates. The Board, at the close of the 
year 1898, consisted of the following live mem- 
bers, their terms ending as indicated in paren- 
thesis: J. C. Corbus (1898), R. D. Lawrence 
(1899), Julia C. Lathrop (1900), William J. Cal 
houn (1901), Ephraim Banning (1902). J. C. Cor- 
bus was President and Frederick H. Wines, 
Secretary. 

BOGARDUS, Charles, legislator, was born 
in Cayuga County, N. Y., March 28, 1841, and 
left an orphan at six years of age ; was educated 
in the common schools, began working in a store 
at 12, and, in 1862, enlisted in the One Hundred 
and Fifty-first New York Infantry, being elected 
First Lieutenant, and retiring from the service 
as Lieutenant-Colonel "for gallant and meritori- 
ous service" before Petersburg. While in the 
service he participated in some of the most 
important battles in Virginia, and was once 
wounded and once captured. In 1872 he located 
in Ford County, 111., where he has been a success- 
ful operator in real estate. He has been twice 
elected to the House of Representatives (1884 and 
'86) and three times to the State Senate (1888, 
'92 and '96), and has served on the most important 
committees in each house, and has proved him- 
self one of the most useful members. At the 
session of 1895 he was chosen President pro tern. 
of the Senate. 

BOGOS, Carroll C, Justice of the Supreme 
Court, was born in Fairfield, Wayne County. 
111., Oct. 19, 1844, and still resides in his native 
town; has held the offices of State's Attorney, 
County Judge of Wayne County, and Judge of 
the Circuit Court for the Second Judicial Circuit, 
being assigned also to Appellate Court duty. In 
June, 1897, Judge Boggs was elected a Justice of 
the Supreme Court to succeed Judge David J. 
Baker, his term to continue until 1906. 

BOLT WOOD, Henry L., the son of William 
and Electa (Stetson) Boltwood, was born at Am- 
herst, Mass., Jan. 17, 1831; fitted for college at 
Amherst Academy and graduated from Amherst 
College in 1853. While in college he taught 
school every winter, commencing on a salary of 
84 per week and "boarding round" among the 
scholars. After graduating he taught in acad- 
emies at Limerick. Me., and at Pembroke and 



56 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Derry, N. H., and in the high school at Law- 
rence, Mass. ; also served as School Commissioner 
for Rockingham County, N. H. In 1864 lie went 
into the service of the Sanitary Commission in 
the Department of the Gulf, remaining until the 
close of the war ; was also ordained Chaplain of a 
colored regiment, but was not regularly mustered 
in. After the close of the war he was employed 
as Superintendent of Schools at Griggsville, 111., 
for two years, and, while there, in 1867, organ- 
ized the first township high school ever organized 
in the State, where he remained eleven years. He 
afterwards organized the township high school at 
Ottawa, remaining there five years, after which, 
in 1883, he organized and took charge of the 
township high school at Evanston, where he has 
since been employed in his profession as a teacher. 
Professor Boltwood has been a member of the State 
Board of Education and has served as President 
of the State Teachers' Association. As a teacher 
he has given special attention to English language 
and literature, and to history, being the author 
of an English Grammar, a High School Speller 
and "Topical Outlines of General History," 
besides many contributions to educational jour- 
nals. He has done a great deal of institute work, 
both in Illinois and Iowa, and has been known 
somewhat as a tariff reformer. 

BOND, Lester L., lawyer, was born at Raven- 
na, Ohio, Oct. 27, 1829 ; educated in the common 
schools and at an academy, meanwhile laboring 
in local factories ; studied law and was admitted 
to the bar in 1853, the following year coming to 
Chicago, where he has given his attention chiefly 
to practice in connection with patent laws. Mr. 
Bond served several terms in the Chicago City 
Council, was Republican Presidential Elector in 
1868, and served two terms in the General Assem- 
bly— 1866-70. 

BOND, Shadrach, first Territorial Delegate in 
Congress from Illinois and first Governor of the 
State, was born in Maryland, and, after being 
liberally educated, removed to Kaskaskia while 
Illinois was a part of the Northwest Territory. 
He served as a member of the first Territorial 
Legislature (of Indiana Territory) and was the 
first Delegate from the Territory of Illinois in 
Congress, serving from 1812 to 1814. In the 
latter year he was appointed Receiver of Public 
Moneys ; he also held a commission as Captain in 
the War of 1812. On the admission of the State, 
in 1818, he was elected Governor, and occupied 
the executive chair until 1822. Died at Kaskas- 
kia. April 13, 1832.— Shadrach Bond, Sr., an uncle 
of the preceding, came to Illinois in 1781 and was 



elected Delegate from St. Clair County (then 
comprehending all Illinois) to the Territorial 
Legislature of Northwest Territory, in 1799, and, 
in 1804, to the Legislative Council of the newly 
organized Territory of Indiana. 

BOND COUNTY, a small county lying north- 
east from St. Louis, having an area of 380 square 
miles and a population 1900) of 16,078. The 
first American settlers located here in 1807, com- 
ing from the South, and building Hill's and 
Jones's forts for protection from the Indians. 
Settlement was slow, in 1816 there being scarcely 
twenty-five log cabins in the county. The 
county-seat is Greenville, where the first cabin 
was erected in 1815 by George Davidson. The 
county was organized in 1818, and named in 
honor of Gov. Shadrach Bond. Its original 
limits included the present counties of Clinton, 
Fayette and Montgomery. The first court was 
held at Perryville, and, in May, 1817, Judge 
Jesse B. Thomas presided over the first Circuit 
Court at Hill's Station. The first court house 
was erected at Greenville in 1822. The county 
contains good timber and farming lands, and at 
some points, coal is found near the surface. 

BONNET, Charles Carroll, lawyer and re- 
former, was born in Hamilton, N. Y., Sept. 4, 
1831 ; educated at Hamilton Academy and settled 
in Peoria, 111., in 1850, where he pursued the 
avocation of a teacher while studying law ; was 
admitted to the bar in 1852, but removed to Chi- 
cago in 1860, where he has since been engaged in 
practice; served as President of the National 
Law and Order League in New York in 1885, 
being repeatedly re-elected, and has also been 
President of the Illinois State Bar Association, as 
well as a member of the American Bar Associa- 
tion. Among the reforms which he has advo- 
cated are constitutional prohibition of special 
legislation; an extension of equity practice to 
bankruptcy and other law proceedings ; civil serv- 
ice pensions ; State Boards of labor and capital, 
etc. He has also published some treatises in book 
form, chiefly on legal questions, besides editing 
a volume of "Poems by Alfred W. Arrington, 
with a sketch of his Character" (1869. ) As Presi- 
dent of the World's Congresses Auxiliary, in 1893, 
Mr. Bonney contributed largely to the success of 
that very interesting and important feature of 
the great Columbian Exposition in Chicago. 

BOONE, Levi D., M. D., early physician, was 
born near Lexington, Ky., December, 1808 — a 
descendant of the celebrated Daniel Boone; re- 
ceived the degree of M. D. from Transylvania 
University and came to Edwardsville, 111., at an 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



5; 



early day, afterwards locating at Hillsboro and 
taking part in the Black Hawk War as Captain of 
a cavalry company ; came to Chicago in 1836 and 
engaged in the insurance business, later resuming 
the practice of his profession; served several 
terms as Alderman and was elected Mayor in 
1855 by a combination of temperance men and 
Know- Nothings; acquired a large property by 
operations in real estate. Died, February, 

ISS'J 

BOOXE COUNTY, the smallest of the "north- 
ern tier" of counties, having an area of only 290 
square miles, and a population (1900) of 15,791. 
Its surface is chiefly rolling prairie, and the 
principal products are oats and corn. The earli- 
est settlers came from New York and New Eng- 
land, and among them were included Medkiff, 
Dunham, Caswell, Cline, Towner, Doty and 
Whitney. Later (after the Pottawattomies had 
evacuated the country), came the Shattuck 
brothers, Maria Hollenbeck and Mrs. Bullard, 
Oliver Hale, Nathaniel Crosby, Dr. Whiting, H. 
C. Walker, and the Neeley and Mahoney families. 
Boone County was cut off from Winnebago, and 
organized in 1837, being named in honor of Ken- 
tucky's pioneer. The first frame house in the 
county was erected by S. F. Doty and stood for 
fifty years in the village of Belvidere on the north 
side of the Kishwaukee River. The county-seat 
(Belvidere) was platted in 1837, and an academy 
built soon after. The first Protestant church 
was a Baptist society under the pastorate of Rev. 
Dr. King. 

BOURBONN AIS, a village of Kankakee County, 
on the Illinois Central Railroad, 5 miles north of 
Kankakee. Population (1890), 510; (1900), 595. 

BOUTELL, Henry Sherman, lawyer and Con- 
gressman, was born in Boston, Mass., March 14, 
1856, graduated from the Northwestern Univer- 
sity at Evanston, 111., in 1874, and from Harvard 
in 1876; was admitted to the bar in Illinois in 
1879, and to that of the Supreme Court of the 
United States in 1885. In 1884 Mr. Boutell was 
elected to the lower branch of the Thirty -fourth 
General Assembly and was one of the "103" who, 
in the long struggle during the following session, 
participated in the election of Gen. John A. 
Logan to the United States Senate for the last 
time. At a special election held in the Sixth 
Illinois District in November, 1897, he was 
elected Representative in Congress to fill the 
vacancy caused by the sudden death of his pred- 
ecessor, Congressman Edward D. Cooke, and at 
the regular election of 1898 was re-elected to the 
same position, receiving a plurality of 1,116 over 



his Democratic competitor and a majority of 719 
over all. 

BOUTOX, Nathaniel S., manufacturer, was 
born in Concord, N. II., May 11, l s \! s : in his 
youth farmed ami taught school in Connecticut, 
but in 1*52 came to Chicago and was employed 
in a foundry firm, of which he soon afterwards 
became a partner, in the manufacture of car- 
wheels and railway castings. Later he became 
associated with the American Bridge Company's 
works, which was sold to the Illinois Central 
Railroad Company in 1857, when he bought the 
Union Car Works, which he operated until 1863 
He then became the head of the Union Foundry 
Works, which having been consolidated with 
the Pullman Car Works in 1886, he retired, 
organizing the Bouton Foundry Company. Mr. 
Bouton is a Republican, was Commissioner of 
Public Works for the city of Chicago two terms 
before the Civil War, and served as Assistant 
Quartermaster in the Eighty-eighth Illinois 
Infantry (Second Board of Trade Regiment) 
from 1862 until after the battle of Chickamauga. 

BOYD, Thomas A., was born in Adams County, 
Pa., June 25, 1830, and graduated at Marshall 
College, Mercersburg, Pa. , at the age of I s , 
studied law at Chambersburg and was admitted 
to the bar at Bedford in his native State, where 
he practiced until 1856, when he removed to Illi- 
nois. In 1861 he abandoned his practice to enlist 
in the Seventeenth Illinois Infantry, in which he 
held the position of Captain. At the close of t lie 
war he returned to his home at Lewistown, and 
in 1866, was elected State Senator and re-elected 
at the expiration of his term in 1870, serving in 
the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth and Twenty- 
seventh General Assemblies. He was also a 
Republican Representative from his District in 
the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses 
(1877-81). Died, at Lewistown, May 28, 1897. 

BRACEYILLE, a town in Grundy County, 61 
miles by rail southwest of Chicago. Coal mining 
is the principal industry. The town has two 
banks, two churches and good public schools. 
Population (1890), 2,150; (1900), 1,669. 

BRADFORD, village of Stark County, on Buda 
and Rushville branch Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy Railway; is in excellent farming region 
and has large grain and live-stock trade, excel- 
lent high school building, fine churches, good 
hotels and one newspaper. Pop. (1900), 773. 

BRADSHY. William H., pioneer and Judge, 
was born in Bedford County, Va. , July 12, ITS?. 
He removed to Illinois early in life, and was the 
first postmaster in Washington County (at Cov- 



58 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



ington), the first school-teacher and the first 
Circuit and County Clerk and Recorder. At the 
time of his death he was Probate and County 
Judge. Besides being Clerk of all the courts, he 
was virtually County Treasurer, as he had cus- 
tody of all the county's money. For several 
years he was also Deputy United States Surveyor, 
and in that capacity surveyed much of the south 
part of the State, as far east as Wayne and Clay 
Counties. Died at Nashville, 111, August 21, 
1839. 

BRADWELL, James Bolesworth, lawyer and 
editor, was born at Loughborough, England, April 
16, 1828, and brought to America in infancy, his 
parents locating in 1829 or '30 at Utica, N. Y. In 
1833 they emigrated to Jacksonville, 111., but the 
following year removed to Wheeling, Cook 
County, settling on a farm, where the younger 
Bradwell received his first lessons in breaking 
prairie, splitting rails and tilling the soil. His 
first schooling was obtained in a country log- 
school-house, but, later, he attended the Wilson 
Academy in Chicago, where he had Judge Lo- 
renzo Sawyer for an instructor. He also took a 
course in Knox College at Galesburg, then a 
manual-labor school, supporting himself by work- 
ing in a wagon and plow shop, sawing wood, 
etc. In May, 1852, he was married to Miss Myra 
Colby, a teacher, with whom he went to Mem- 
phis, Tenn., the same year, where they engaged 
in teaching a select school, the subject of this 
sketch meanwhile devoting some attention to 
reading law. He was admitted to the bar there, 
but after a stay of less than two years in Mem- 
phis, returned to Chicago and began practice. 
In 1861 he was elected County Judge of Cook 
County, and re-elected four years later, but 
declined a re-election in 1869. The first half of 
his term occurring during the progress of the 
Civil War, he had the opportunity of rendering 
some vigorous decisions which won for him the 
reputation of a man of courage and inflexible 
independence, as well as an incorruptible cham- 
pion of justice. In 1872 he was elected to the 
lower branch of the Twenty-eighth General 
Assembly from Cook County, and re-elected in 
1874. He was again a candidate in 1882, and by 
many believed to have been honestly elected, 
though his opponent received the certificate. He 
made a contest for the seat, and the majority of 
the Committee on Elections reported in his 
favor ; but he was defeated through the treach- 
ery and suspected corruption of a professed polit- 
ical friend. He is the author of the law making 
women eligible to school offices in Illinois and 



allowing them to become Notaries Public, and 
has always been a champion for equal rights for 
women in the professions and as citizens. He 
was a Second Lieutenant of the One Hundred and 
Fifth Regiment, Illinois Militia, in 1848 ; presided 
over the American Woman's Suffrage Associa- 
tion at its organization in Cleveland; has been 
President of the Chicago Press Club, of the Chi- 
cago Bar Association, and, for a number of years, 
the Historian of the latter ; one of the founders 
and President of the Union League Club, besides 
being associated with many other social and 
business organizations. At present (1899) he is 
editor of "The Chicago Legal News," founded by 
his wife thirty years ago, and with which he has 
been identified in a business capacity from its 
establishment. — Myra Colby (Bradwell), the wife 
of Judge Bradwell, was born at Manchester, Vt. , 
Feb. 12, 1831 — being descended on her mother's 
side from the Chase family to which Bishop 
Philander Chase and Salmon P. Chase, the latter 
Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court by appointment of Abraham 
Lincoln, belonged. In infancy she was brought 
to Portage, N. Y. , where she remained until she 
was twelve years of age, when her family re- 
moved west. She attended school in Kenosha, 
Wis. , and a seminary at Elgin, afterwards being 
engaged in teaching. On May 18, 1852, she was 
married to Judge Bradwell, almost immediately 
going to Memphis, Tenn. , where, with the assist- 
ance of her husband, she conducted a select school 
for some time, also teaching in the public schools, 
when they returned to Chicago. In the early 
part of the Civil War she took a deep interest in 
the welfare of the soldiers in the field and their 
families at home, becoming President of the 
Soldiers' Aid Society, and was a leading spirit in 
the Sanitary Fairs held in Chicago in 1863 and in 
1865. After the war she commenced the study 
of law and, in 1868, began the publication of 
"The Chicago Legal News," with which she re- 
mained identified until her death — also publishing 
biennially an edition of the session laws after 
each session of the General Assembly. After 
passing a most creditable examination, applica- 
tion was made for her admission to the bar in 
1871, but denied in an elaborate decision rendered 
by Judge C. B. Lawrence of the Supreme Court 
of the State, on the sole ground of sex, as 
was also done by the Supreme Court of the 
United States in 1873, on the latter occasion 
Chief Justice Chase dissenting. She was finally 
admitted to the bar on March 28, 1892, and was 
the first lady member of the State Bar Associ- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



59 



ation. Other organizations with which she was 

identified embraced the Illinois Stale Press 
Association, the Board of Managers of the Sol- 
diers' Home (in war time), the "Illinois Industrial 
School for Girls" at Evanston, the Washington ian 
Home, the Board of Lady Managers of the 
World's Columbian Exposition, and Chairman of 
the Woman's Committee on Jurisprudence of the 
World's Congress Auxiliary of 1893. Although 
much before the public during the latter years of 
her life, she never lost the refinement and graces 
which belong to a true woman. Died, at her 
home in Chicago, Feb. 14, 1894. 

BRAIDWOOD, a city in Will County, incorpo- 
rated in 1860 ; is 58 miles from Chicago, on the 
Chicago & Alton Railroad; an important coal- 
mining point, and in the heart of a rich 
agricultural region. It has a bank and a weekly 
newspaper. Population (1890), 4,641 ; (1900), 8,279. 

BRANSON, Nathaniel W., lawyer, was born in 
Jacksonville, 111., May 29, 1837; was educated in 
the private and public schools of that city and at 
Illinois College, graduating from the latter in 
1857 ; studied law with David A. Smith, a promi- 
nent and able lawyer of Jacksonville, and was 
admitted to the bar in January, 1860, soon after 
establishing himself in practice at Petersburg, 
Menard County, where he has ever since resided. 
In 1867 Mr. Branson was appointed Register in 
Bankruptcy for the Springfield District — a po- 
sition which he held thirteen years. He was also 
elected Representative in the General Assembly 
in 1872, by re-election in 1874 serving four years 
in the stormy Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth 
General Assemblies ; was a Delegate from Illinois 
to the National Republican Convention of 1876, 
and served for several years most efficiently as a 
Trustee of the State Institution for the Blind at 
Jacksonville, part of the time as President of the 
Board. Politically a conservative Republican, 
and in no sense an office-seeker, the official po- 
sitions which he has occupied have come to him 
unsought and in recognition of his fitness and 
capacity for the proper discharge of their duties. 

BRAYMAN, Mason, lawyer and soldier, was 
born in Buffalo, N. Y., May 23, 1813; brought up 
as "a farmer, became a printer and edited "The 
Buffalo Bulletin," 1834-35; studied law and was 
admitted to the bar in 1836; removed west in 
1837, was City Attorney of Monroe, Mich., in 1838 
and became editor of "The Louisville Adver- 
tiser" in 1841. In 1842 he opened a law office in 
Springfield, 111., and the following year was 
appointed by Governor Ford a commissioner to 
adjust the Mormon troubles, in which capacitj 



he rendered valuable service. In 1844-45 he was 

appointed to revise the statutes of the State 
Later he devoted much attention to railroad 
enterprises, being attorney of the Illinois Cent ral 
Railroad, 1851-55; then projected the construc- 
tion of a railroad from Bird's Point, opposite 
Cairo, into Arkansas, which was partially com- 
pleted before the war, and almost wholly de- 
stroyed during that period. In 1861 he entered 
the service as Major of the Twenty-ninth Illinois 
Volunteers, taking part in a number of the early 
battles, including Fort Donelson and Shiloh; 
was promoted to a colonelcy for meritorious eon- 
duet at the latter, and for a time served as 
Adjutant-General on the staff of General McCler- 
nahd; was promoted Brigadier-General in Sep- 
tember, 1862, at the close of the war receiving 
the brevet rank of Major-General . After the 
close of the war he devoted considerable atten- 
tion to reviving his railroad enterprises in the 
South; edited "The Illinois State Journal," 
1872 73; removed to Wisconsin and was ap- 
pointed Governor of Idaho in 1876, serving four 
years, after which he returned to Ripon, Wis. 
Died, in Kansas City, Feb. 27, 1895. 

BREESE, a village in Clinton County, on 
Baltimore & Ohio S. W. Railway, 39 miles east of 
St. Louis; has coal mines, water system, bank and 
weekly newspaper. Pop. (1890), 808. (1900), 1,571. 

BREESE, Sidney, statesman and jurist, was 
born at Whitesboro, N. Y., (according to the 
generally accepted authority) July 15, 1800. 
Owing to a certain sensitiveness about his age in 
his later years, it has been exceedingly difficult 
to secure authentic data on the subject; but his 
arrival at Kaskaskia in 1818, after graduating at 
Union College, and his admission to the bar in 
1820, have induced many to believe that the date 
of his birth should be placed somewhat earlier. 
He was related to some of the most prominent 
families in New York, including the Livingstons 
and the Morses, and, after his arrival at Kaskas- 
kia, began the study of law with his friend Elias 
Kent Kane, afterwards United States Senator. 
Meanwhile, having served as Postmaster at Kas- 
kaskia, he became Assistant Secretary of Stale. 
and, in December, 1820, superintended the re- 
moval of the archives of that office to Vandalia, 
the new State capital. Later he was appointed 
Prosecuting Attorney, serving in that position 
from 1822 till 1827, when he became United 
States District Attorney for Illinois. He was 
the first official reporter of the Supreme Court, 
issuing its first volume of decisions; served as 
Lieutenant-Colonel of volunteers during the 



60 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Black Hawk War (1832) ; in 1835 was elected to 
the circuit bench, and, in 1841, was advanced to 
the Supreme bench, serving less than two years, 
when he resigned to accept a seat in the United 
States Senate, to which he was elected in 1843 as 
the successor of Richard M. Young, defeating 
Stephen A. Douglas in the first race of the latter 
for the office. While in the Senate (1843-49) he 
served as Chairman of the Committee on Public 
Lands, and was one of the first to suggest the 
construction o* a transcontinental railway to the 
Pacific. He was also one of the originators and 
active promoters in Congress of the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad enterprise. He was Speaker of the 
Illinois House of Representatives in 1851 ; again 
became Circuit Judge in 1855 and returned to 
the Supreme bench in 1857 and served more than 
one term as Chief Justice, the last being in 
1873-74. His home during most of his public life 
in Illinois was at Carlyle. His death occurred 
at Pinckneyville, June 28, 1878. 

BRENTANO, Lorenzo, was born at Mannheim, 
in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany, Nov. 
14, 1813; was educated at the Universities of 
Heidelberg and Freiburg, receiving the degree of 
LL.D., and attaining high honors, both profes- 
sional and political. He was successively a 
member of the Baden Chamber of Deputies and 
of the Frankfort Parliament, and always a leader 
of the revolutionist party. In 1849 he became 
President of the Provisional Republican Gov- 
ernment of Baden, but was, before long, forced 
to find an asylum in the United States. He first 
settled in Kalamazoo County, Mich., as a farmer, 
but, in 1859, removed to Chicago, where he was 
admitted to the Illinois bar, but soon entered the 
field of journalism, becoming editor and part 
proprietor of "The Illinois Staats Zeitung." He 
held various public offices, being elected to the 
Legislature in 1862, serving five years as Presi- 
dent of the Chicago Board of Education, was a 
Republican Presidential Elector in 1868, and 
United States Consul at Dresden in 1872 (a gen- 
eral amnesty having been granted to the 
participants in the revolution of 1848), and 
Representative in Congress from 1877 to 1879. 
Died, in Chicago, Sept. 17, 1891. 

BRIDGEPORT, a town of Lawrence County, 
on the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railroad, 
14 miles west of Vincennes, Ind. It has a bank 
and one weekly paper. Population (1900), 487. 

BRIDGEPORT, a former suburb (now a part of 
the city) of Chicago, located at the junction of 
the Illinois & Michigan Canal with the South 
Branch of the Chicago River. It is now the 



center of the large slaughtering and packing 
industry. 

BRIDGEPORT & SOUTH CHICAGO RAIL- 
WAY. (See Chicago & Northern Pacific Railroad.) 

BRIGHTON, a village of Macoupin County, at 
the intersection of the Chicago & Alton and the 
Rock Island and St. Louis branch of the Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy Railways; coal is mined 
here; has a newspaper. Population (1880), 691; 
(1890), 697; (1900), 660. 

BRIMFIELD, a town of Peoria County, on the 
Buda and Rushville branch of the Chicago, Bur- 
lington & Quincy Railway, 38 miles south of 
Buda; coal-mining and farming are the chief 
industries. It has one weekly paper and a bank. 
Population (1880), 832; (1890), 719; (1900), 677. 

BRISTOL, Frank Milton, clergyman, was born 
in Orleans County, N. Y., Jan. 4, 1851; came 
to Kankakee, 111., in boyhood, and having lost 
his father at 12 years of age, spent the following 
years in various manual occupations until about 
nineteen years of age, when, having been con- 
verted, he determined to devote his life to the 
ministry. Through the aid of a benevolent lady, 
he was enabled to get two years' (1870-72) instruc- 
tion at the Northwestern University, at Evans- 
ton, afterwards supporting himself by preaching 
at various points, meanwhile continuing his 
studies at the University until 1877. After com- 
pleting his course he served as pastor of some of 
the most prominent Methodist churches in Chi- 
cago, his last charge in the State being at Evans- 
ton. In 1897 he was transferred to Washington 
City, becoming pastor of the Metropolitan M. E. 
Church, attended by President McKinley. Dr. 
Bristol is an author of some repute and an orator 
of recognized ability. 

BROADWELL, Norman M., lawyer, was born 
in Morgan County, 111., August 1, 1825; was edu- 
cated in the common schools and at McKendree 
and Illinois Colleges, but compelled by failing 
health to leave college without graduating ; spent 
some time in the book business, then began the 
study of medicine with a view to benefiting his 
own health, but finally abandoned this and, about 
1850, commenced the study of law in the office of 
Lincoln & Herndon at Springfield. Having been 
admitted to the bar, he practiced for a time at 
Pekin, but, in 1854, returned to Springfield, 
where he spent the remainder of his life. In 1860 
he was elected as a Democrat to the House of 
Representatives from Sangamon County, serving 
in the Twenty -second General Assembly. Other 
offices held by him included those of County 
Judge (1863-65) and Mayor of the city of Spring- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Gl 



field, to which last position he was twice elected 
(1867 and again in 1869). Judge Broadwell was 
one of the most genial of men, popular, high- 
minded and honorahle in all his dealings. Died, 
in Springfield, Feb. 28, 1893. 

BROOKS, John Havel, educator, was born 
in Oneida County, New York, Dec. 3, 1801 ; 
graduated at Hamilton College, 1828; studied 
three years in the theological department of Yale 
College; was ordained to the Presbyterian min- 
istry in 1831, and came to Illinois in the service 
of the American Home Missionary Society. 
After preaching at Collinsville, Belleville and 
other points, Mr. Brooks, who was a member of 
the celebrated "Yale Band," in 1837 assumed the 
principalship of a Teachers' Seminary at Waverly, 
Morgan County, but three years later removed to 
Springfield, where he established an academy for 
both sexes. Although finally compelled to 
abandon this, he continued teaching with some 
interruptions to within a few years of his death, 
which occurred in 1886. He was one of the Trus- 
tees of Illinois College from its foundation up to 
his death. 

BROSS, William, journalist, was born in Sus- 
sex County, N. J., Nov. 14, 1813, and graduated 
with honors from Williams College in 1838, hav- 
ing previously developed his physical strength 
by much hard work upon the Delaware and 
Hudson Canal, and in the lumbering trade. For 
five years after graduating he was a teacher, and 
settled in Chicago in 1848. Tli3re he first engaged 
in bookselling, but later embarked in journalism. 
His first publication was "The Prairie Herald," a 
religious paper, which was discontinued after 
two years. In 1852, in connection with John L. 
Scripps, he founded "The Democratic Press," 
which was consolidated with "The Tribune" in 
1858, Mr. Bross retaining his connection with the 
new concern. He was always an ardent free- 
soiler, and a firm believer in the great future of 
Chicago and the Noi-thwest. He was an enthusi- 
astic Republican, and, in 1856 and 1860, served as 
an effective campaign orator. In 1864 he was 
the successful nominee of his party for Lieuten- 
ant-Governor. This was his only official position 
outside of a membership in the Chicago Common 
Council in 1855. As a presiding officer, he was 
dignified yet affable, and his impartiality was 
shown by the fact that no appeals were taken 
from his decisions. After quitting public life he 
devoted much time to literary pursuits, deliver- 
ing lectures in various parts of the country. 
Among his best known works are a brief "His- 
tory of Chicago," "History of Camp Douglas," 



and "Tom Quick." Died, in Chicago, Jan. 27, 
1890. 

BROWN, Henry, lawyer and historian, was 
born at Hebron, Tolland County, Conn., May 13, 
1789 — the son of a commissary in the army of 
General Greene of Revolutionary fame; gradu- 
ated at Yale College, and. when of age, removed 
to New York, later studying law at Albany, 
Canandaigua and Batavia, and being admitted to 
the bar about 1813, when he settled down in 
practice at Cooperstown ; in 1*10 was appointed 
Judge of Herkimer County, remaining on the 
bench until about 1824. He then resumed, prac- 
tice at, Cooperstown, continuing until 1836, when 
he removed to Chicago. The following year he 
was elected a Justice of the Peace, serving two 
years, and, in 1842, became Prosecuting Attorney 
of Cook County. During this period he was 
engaged in writing a "History of Illinois," which 
was published in New York in 1844 This was 
regarded at the time as the most voluminous and 
best digested work on Illinois history that had as 
yet been published. In 1846, on assuming the 
Presidency of the Chicago Lyceum, he delivered 
an inaugural entitled "Chicago, Present and 
Future," which is still preserved as a striking 
prediction of Chicago's future greatness. Origi- 
nally a Democrat, he became a Freesoiler in 1848. 
Died of cholera, in Chicago, May 16, 1849. 

BROWN, James B., journalist, was born in 
Gilmanton, Belknap County, N. H., Sept. 1, 
1833 — his father being a member of the Legisla- 
ture and Selectman for his town. The son was 
educated at Gilmanton Academy, after which he 
studied medicine for a time, but did not gradu- 
ate. In 1857 he removed West, first settling at 
Dunleith, Jo Daviess County, 111., where he 
became Principal of the public schools; in 1861 
was elected County Superintendent of Schools 
for Jo Daviess County, removing to Galena two 
years later and assuming the editorship of "The 
Gazette" of that city. Mr. Brown also served as 
Postmaster of Galena for several years. Died, 
Feb. 13, 1896. 

BROWN, James N., agriculturist and stock- 
man, was born in Fayette County, Ky., Oct. 1, 
1806; came to Sangamon County, 111., in 1833, 
locating at Island Grove, where he engaged 
extensively in farming and stock-raising. He 
served as Representative in the General Assem- 
blies of 1840, '42, '46, and '52, and in the last was 
instrumental in securing the incorporation of the 
Illinois State Agricultural Society, of which he 
was chosen the first President, being re-elected in 
1*54. He was one of the most enterprising grow- 



62 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS 



ers of blooded cattle in the State and did much to 
introduce them in Central Illinois ; was also an 
earnest and influential advocate of scientific 
education for the agricultural classes and an 
efficient colaborer with Prof. J. B. Turner, of 
Jacksonville, in securing the enactment by Con- 
gress, in 1863; of the law granting lands for the 
endowment of Industrial Colleges, out of which 
grew the Illinois State University and institu- 
tions of like character in other States. Died. 
Nov. 16, 1S6S. 

BEOW>~. "William, lawyer and jurist, was born 
June 1, 1819.. in Cumberland. England, his par- 
ents emigrating to this country when he was 
eight years old, and settling in "Western Xew 
York. He was admitted to the bar at Eochester, 
in October. 1845, and at once removed to Rock- 
ford, HI, where he commenced practice. In 1852 
he was elected State's Attorney for the Four- 
teenth Judicial Circuit, and. in 1857, was chosen 
Mayor of Eockford. In 1ST0 he was elected to 
the bench of the Circuit Court as successor to 
Judge Sheldon, later was promoted to the Su- 
preme Court, and was re-elected successively in 
1873, in '79 and "So. Died, at Eockford, Jan. 15, 
1891. 

BROWN, "William H.. lawyer and financier, 
was born in Connecticut. Dec. 20, 1T96 ; spent- 
his boyhood at Auburn. X. Y. . studied law. and, 
in 1818, came to Illinois with Samuel D. Lock- 
wood (afterwards a Justice of the State Supreme 
Court), descending the Ohio Eiver to Shawnee- 
town in a flat-boat. Mr, Brown visited Kaskas- 
kia and was soon after appointed Clerk of the 
United States District Court by Judge Nathaniel 
Pope, removing, in 1820. to Yandalia. the new 
State capital, where he remained until 1835. He 
then removed to Chicago to accept the position of 
Cashier of the Chicago branch of the State Bank 
of Illinois, which he continued to fill for many 
years. He served the city as School Agent for 
thirteen years (1840-53), managing the city's 
school fund through a critical period with great 
discretion and success. He was one of the group 
of early patriots who successfully resisted the 
attempt to plant slavery in Illinois in 1823-24; 
was also one of the projectors of the Chicago & 
Galena Union Eailroad, was President of the 
Chicago Historical Society for seven years and 
connected with many other local enterprise:-. 
He was an ardent personal friend of President 
Lincoln and served as Eepresentative in the 
Twenty-second General Assembly (1860-62). 
While making a tour of Europe he died of paraly- 
sis at Amsterdam, June 17. 1867. 



BEOWN COFNTT, situated in the western 
part of the State, with an area of 300 square 
miles, and a population (1890) of 11.951: was cut 
off from Schuyler and made a separate county in 
May, 1S39, being named in honor of Gen. Jacob 
Brown. Among the pioneer settlers were the 
Yandeventers and Hanibaugbs. John and David 
Six, William McDaniel, Jeremiah Walker, 
Willis O'Xeil, Harry Lester, John Ausmus and 
Eobert H. Curry. The county-seat is Mount 
Sterling, a town of no little attractiveness. 
Other prosperous villages are Mound Station and 
Eipley. The chief occupation of the people is 
farming, although there is some manufacturing 
of lumber and a few potteries along the Illinois 
Eiver. Population 1 1900 >, 11.557. 

BE0W>T. Francis Fisher, editor and author, 
was born in South Halifax. Vt., Dec. 1, 1843, the 
son of Williani Goldsmith Browne, who was a 
teacher, editor and author of the song "A Hun- 
dred Years to Come." In childhood he was 
brought by his parents to Western Massachusetts, 
where he attended the public schools and learned 
the printing trade in his father's newspaper 
office at Chicopee. Mass. Leaving school in 1863, 
he enlisted in the Forty-sixth Eegiment Massa- 
chusetts Volunteers, in which he served one 
year, chiefly in North Carolina and in the Arrnv 
of the Potomac. On the discharge of his regi- 
ment he engaged in the study of law at Eoches- 
ter. X. Y=, entering the law department of the 
University of Michigan in 1866, but abandoning 
his intenton of entering the legal profession, 
removed to Chicago in 1867, where he engaged in 
journalistic and literary pursuits. Between 1869 
and '71 he was editor of "The Lakeside Monthly, " 
when he became fit erary editor of "The Alliance." 
but, in 1880, he established and assumed the 
editorship of "The Dial," a purely literary pub- 
lication which has gained a high reputation, and 
of which he has remained in control continuously 
ever since, meanwhile serving as the literary 
adviser, for many years, of the well-known pub- 
lishing house of McClurg & Co. Besides his 
journalistic work, Mr. Browne has contributed 
to the magazines and literary anthologies a num- 
ber of short lyrics, and is the author of "The 
Everyday Life of Abraham Lincoln" (1S86), and 
a volume of poems entitled, 'Yolunteer Grain" 
(1893). He also compiled and edited "Golden 
Poems by British and American Authors" (1881); 
"The Golden Treasury of Poetry and Prose" 
(1886), anrl the "Laurel Crowned' 'series of stand- 
ard poetry (1891-92). Mr. Browne was Chairman 
of the Committee of the Congress of Authors in 



HISTORICAL KXi V* Ij'I'EDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



63 



the World's e ss Auxiliary held in 

nection with The Columbian Exposition in 

BROWNE, Thoiua- 1 .. was i>orn in 

Kentucky, studied law there and. coming 

- . - in the lower branch 

of the Second Territorial Legislature <l s 14-10 
and in the Council - 18 eing ;'.ie tir>t law- 
yer to enter that body. In 1815 he was a; 
Prosecuting Atton I, on the admission of 

Illii is as Stal was promoted to the Supreme 
bench, being re-el y joint ballot of the 

L - - iture in 1825, and serving continuously 
until the reorganizati the Su] reme Court 

under the Constitution oi 3 1 period of over 
thirty v. its Browne's judicial character 

and abilities have been differently estimated. 
Though lacking in industry as a student, he is 
represented by the lal - John D. Caton, 

knew him personally, as a close thinker 
. _ idg men. Whil - I :n, if ever, 

stions in the conference 

room or write out his opinions, he had a capacity 

a himseb short, pungent 

- which indicated that he was a man of con- 

rable ability and had clear and distinct \ 

of his own. An attempt was made to impeach 

him before the Legislature of 1843 '"for want of 

the duties of his off. 

but it failed by an almost unanimous He 

ig in politics, but had some - 2 sup- 

• -rs among Democrats. In 1822 Judge Browne 

- one of the four candi lates for Governor — in 

a third on the list and, by 
dividing the vote of th< - »f a pro-slavery 

clause in tl. S Constitution, contributing 

the election of Governor Coles and the defeat 1 »f 
the pro-slavery party. See Coles, Edward, and 
try and Slave Lairs. In the latter part of 
fficial term Judge Brow si led at Ga- 

lena, but. in 1853, removed with his son-in-law, 
a ss man Joseph P. H oge San Fran- 

- . Cal.. where he died a few years la; — 
probably about 1S56 or 1858 

BROWNING, Orrffle Hickman, lawyer. United 
Stat-- S ktor and Attorney-General, was born 
in Ha it. inty. Ky. . in 1810. After receiv- 

ing a classical education at Augusta in his native 
he removed to Quincy, 111., and was 
r in 18 
in the Black Hawk War. and from 18 

1 member of the Legislatui 
houses. A personal friend and political adherent 
of Abraham Lincoln, he aided in the organization 
of the Republican party at the memorable 



n Convention of 1856. As a delegate 
to the Chi. nvention i: 31 he aided in 

ring Mr. Lincoln's nominati 
spicuous supporter of the Government in the 
Civil War. In 1861 he was appointed by ' 

■ - ted S - r to till Senator 

Douglas" unexpired term, serving until lN'>:i In 

3 i he became Secretary of the Interior by ap- 

itment of President John- r a time 

discharging the duties of Attorney-General 

Returning to Illinois, he was elected a membt 

the Constitutional Convention ot - . which 

was his last participation in public affairs, his 

time thereafter bei - his profession. 

lied at his home in Quincy, 111.. August 1". 

38 

BRYAN, >ilas Lillar.l. legislator and jivrist, 

in Culpepper County, Va.. Nov. 4. 1832; was 

rphan at an early age, and came west in 

a time with a brother near Troy, 

The following year he came to Marion 

111., where he attended school and 

work a farm; in 1845 entered McKen 

a bduating in 1849, and two years later 
was admitted to the bar. supi>orting himself 
meanwhile by teaching. He settled at Salem 
111., and. in l s ""2. was elecl - a Democrat to 

the Stab 3 ite, in which body he served for 
being re-elected in 1856. In 1861 he 
was elecl the bench of t S nd Judicial 

Circuit, and again chosen in 1867 5 s 

. expiring in 1873. While serving as Ju 

he was also elected a Delegate to the Constitu- 

J Convention of 18 He was an unsuc- 

ul candidate for Congress on the Gre 

tick- 372. Died at Salem, March 30, 1880.— 

William Jennings Bryan), son of the preceding, 

- born at Salem, 111.. March 19, 1860. The & 
life of young Bryan \ :it on his father's 

farm, but at the age of ten years he began to 
attend the public school in town: later .-jM^nt two 
a Whipple Academy, the preparatory 
department of Illi Liege at Jacksonville, 

and. in 188 iduated from the college proper as 

the valedictorian of his Then lie dev< 

two years to the study of law in the Union Law 
olatCl meanwhile acting as clerk and 

studying in the law office of • - itor Lyman 
Trumbull. Ila . in law in 1883, he 

soon entered upon the practice of his profe.— 
at Jacksonville as the j»artner of Judge E. P. 
Kirby, a well-known lawyer and prominent 

• hat city. Four years Liter | ' 
found him a citizen of Lincoln, Neb., which has 
home He took a prominent part 



64 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



in the politics of Nebraska, stumping the State 
for the Democratic nominees in 1888 and '89, and 
in 1890 received the Democratic nomination for 
Congress in a district which had been regarded 
as strongly Republican, and was elected by a 
large majority. Again, in 1892, he was elected 
by a reduced majority, but two years later 
declined a renomination, though proclaiming 
himself a free-silver candidate for the United 
States Senate, meanwhile officiating as editor of 
"The Omaha World-Herald." In July, 1896, he 
received the nomination for President from the 
Democratic National Convention at Chicago, on 
a platform declaring for the "free and unlimited 
coinage of silver" at the ratio of sixteen of silver 
(in weight) to one of gold, and a few weeks later 
was nominated by the "Populists" at St. Louis 
for the same office — being the youngest man ever 
put in nomination for the Presidency in the his- 
tory of the Government. He conducted an 
active personal campaign, speaking in nearly 
every Northern and Middle Western State, but 
was defeated by his Republican opponent, Maj. 
William McKinley. Mr. Bryan is an easy and 
fluent speaker, possessing a voice of unusual 
compass and power, and is recognized, even by 
his political opponents, as a man of pure personal 
character. 

BRYAN, Thomas Barbour, lawyer and real 
estate operator, was born at Alexandria, Va., 
Dec. 22, 1828, being descended on the maternal 
side from the noted Barbour family of that 
State ; graduated in law at Harvard, and, at the 
age of twenty-one, settled in Cincinnati. In 
1852 he came to Chicago, where he acquired ex- 
tensive real estate interests and built Bryan 
Hall, which became a popular place for en- 
tertainments. Being a gifted speaker, as well 
as a zealous Unionist, Mr. Bryan was chosen 
to deliver the address of welcome to Senator 
Douglas, when that statesman returned to 
Chicago a few weeks before his death in 1861. 
During the progress of the war he devoted his 
time and his means most generously to fitting out 
soldiers for the field and caring for the sick and 
wounded. His services as President of the great 
Sanitary Fair in Chicago (1865), where some 
8300,000 were cleared for disabled soldiers, were 
especially conspicuous. At this time he became 
the purchaser (at S3, 000) of the original copy of 
President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, 
which had been donated to the cause. He also 
rendered valuable service after the fire of 1871, 
though a heavy sufferer from that event, and was 
a leading factor in securing the location of the 



World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1890, 
later becoming Vice-President of the Board of 
Directors and making a visit to Europe in the 
interest of the Fair. After the war Mr. Bryan 
resided in Washington for some time, and, by 
appointment of President Hayes, served as Com- 
missioner of the District of Columbia. Possessing 
refined literary and artistic tastes, he has done 
much for the encouragement of literature and 
art in Chicago. His home is in the suburban 
village of Elmhurst. — Charles Page (Bryan), son 
of the preceding, lawyer and foreign minister, 
was born in Chicago, Oct. 2, 1855, and educated 
at the University of Virginia and Columbia Law 
School; was admitted to practice in 1878, and 
the following year removed to Colorado, where 
he remained four years, while there serving in 
both Houses of the State Legislature. In 1883 he 
returned to Chicago and became a member of the 
First Regiment of the Illinois National Guard, 
serving upon the staff of both Governor Oglesby 
and Governor Fifer; in 1890, was elected to the 
State Legislature from Cook County, being re- 
elected in 1892, and in 1894; was also the first 
Commissioner to visit Europe in the interest of 
the World's Columbian Exposition, on his return 
serving as Secretary of the Exposition Commis- 
sioners in 1891-92. In the latter part of 1897 he 
was appointed by President McKinley Minister 
to China, but before being confirmed, early in 
1898, was assigned to the United States mission to 
the Republic of Brazil, where he now is, Hon. 
E. H. Conger of Iowa, who had previously been 
appointed to the Brazilian mission, being trans- 
ferred to Pekin. 

BRYAJJT, John Howard, pioneer, brother of 
William Cullen Bryant, the poet, was born in 
Cummington, Mass., July 22, 1807, educated at 
the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, 
N. Y, ; removed to Illinois in 1831, and held vari- 
ous offices in Bureau County, including that of 
Representative in the General Assembly, to which 
he was elected in 1842, and again in 1858. A 
practical and enterprising farmer, he was identi- 
fied with the Illinois State Agricultural Society 
in its early history, as also with the movement 
which resulted in the establishment of industrial 
colleges in the various States. He was one of the 
founders of the Republican party and a warm 
personal friend of President Lincoln, being a 
member of the first Republican State Convention 
at Bloomington in 1856, and serving as Collector 
of Internal Revenue by appointment of Mr. Lin- 
coln in 1862-64. In 1872 Mr. Bryant joined in the 
Liberal Republican movement at Cincinnati, two 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



65 



years later was identified with the "Independent 
Reform" party, but has since cooperated with 
the Democratic party. He has produced two 
volumes of poems, published, respectively, in 1855 
and 1885, besides a number of public addresses. 
His home is at Princeton, Bureau County. 

BUCK, Hiram, clergyman, was born in Steu- 
ben County, N. Y., in 1818; joined the Illinois 
Methodist Episcopal Conference in 1843, and con- 
tinued in its service for nearly fifty years, being 
much of the time a Presiding Elder. At his 
death he bequeathed a considerable sum to the 
endowment funds of the "Wesleyan University at 
Bloomington and the Illinois Conference College 
at Jacksonville Died at Decatur, 111., August 
22, 1892. 

BUDA,a village in Bureau County, at the junc- 
tion of the main line with the Buda and Rush- 
ville branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
Railroad, and the Sterling and Peoria branch of 
the Chicago & Northwestern, 12 miles southwest 
of Princeton and 117 miles west-southwest of 
Chicago; has excellent water-works, electric- 
light plant, brick and tile factory, fine churches, 
graded school, a bank and one newspaper 
Dairying is carried on quite extensively and a 
good-sized creamery is located here. Population 
(1890), 990; (1900), 873. 

BUFORI), Napoleon Bonaparte, banker and 
soldier, was born in Woodford County, Ky., Jan. 
13, 1807 ; graduated at West Point Military Acad- 
emy, 1827, and served for some time as Lieutenant 
of Artillery; entered Harvard Law School in 
1831, served as Assistant Professor of Natural and 
Experimental Philosophy there (1834-35), then 
resigned his commission, and, after some service 
as an engineer upon public works in Kentucky, 
established himself as an iron-founder and banker 
at Rock Island, 111., in 1857 becoming President 
of the Rock Island & Peoria Railroad. In 18G1 
he entered the volunteer service, as Colonel of 
the Twenty-seventh Illinois, serving at various 
points in Western Kentucky and Tennessee, as 
also in the siege of Vicksburg, and at Helena, 
Ark., where he was in command from Septem- 
ber, 1863, to March, 1865. In the meantime, by 
promotion, he attained to the rank of Major- 
General by brevet, being mustered out in August . 
1865. He subsequently held the post of Special 
United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs 
(1868), and that of Inspector of the Union Pacific 
Railroad (1867-69). Died, March 28, 1883. 

BULKLEY, (Rev.) Justus, educator, was born 
at Leicester, Livingston County, N. Y., July 23, 
1819, taken to Allegany County, N. Y., at 3 



years of age, where he remained until 17, attend- 
ing school in a log school-house in the winter and 
working on a farm in the summer. His family 
then removed to Illinois, finally locating at 
Barry, Pike County. In 1842 he entered the 
preparatory department of Shurtleff College at 
Upper Alton, graduating there in 1847. He was 
immediately made Principal of the preparatory 
department, remaining two years, when he was 
ordained to the Baptist ministry and became 
pastor of a church at Jerseyville. Four years 
later he was appointed Professor of Mathematics 
in Shurtleff College, but remained only two 
years, when he accepted the pastorship of a 
church at Carrollton, which he continued to fill 
nine years, when, in 1864, he was called to a 
church at Upper Alton. At the expiration of 
one year he was again called to a professorship 
in Shurtleff College, this time taking the chair of 
Church History and Church Polity, which he 
continued to fill for a period of thirty-four years; 
also serving for a time as Acting President dur 
ing a vacancy in that office. During this period 
he was frequently called upon to preside as Mod- 
erator at General Associations of the Baptist 
Church, and he became widely known, not only 
in that denomination, but elsewhere. Died at 
Upper Alton, Jan. 16, 1899. 

BULL, Lorenzo, banker, Quincy, 111., was born 
in Hartford, Conn., March 21, 1819, being the 
eldest son of Lorenzo and Elizabeth Goodwin 
Bull. His ancestors on both sides were of the 
party who, under Thomas Hooker, moved from 
the vicinity of Boston and settled Hartford in 
1634. Leaving Hartford in the spring of 1833, he 
arrived at Quincy, 111., entirely without means, 
but soon after secured a position with Judge 
Henry H. Snow, who then held most of the 
county offices, being Clerk of the County Com- 
missioners' Court, Clerk of the Circuit Court, 
Recorder, Judge of Probate, Notary Public and 
Justice of the Peace. Here the young clerk 
made himself acquainted with the people of the 
county (at that time few in number), with the 
land-system of the country and with the legal 
forms and methods of procedure in the courts. 
He remained with Judge Snow over two years. 
receiving for his services, the first year, six dol- 
lars per month, ami, for the second, ten dollars 
per month, besides his board in Judge Snow's 
family. He next accepted a situation with 
Messrs. Holmes, Brown & Co., then one of the 
most prominent mercantile houses of the city, 
remaining through various changes of the firm 
until 1S44, when he formed a partnership with 



66 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



his brother under the firm name of L. & C. II. 
Bull, and opened a store for the sale of hardware 
and crockery, which was the first attempt made 
in Quincy to separate the mercantile business 
into different departments. Disposing of their 
business in 1861, the firm of L. & C. H. Bull 
embarked in the private banking business, which 
they continued in one location for about thirty 
years, when they organized the State Savings 
Loan & Trust Company, in which he held the 
position of President until 1898, when he retired. 
Mr. Bull has always been active in promoting the 
improvement and growth of the city ; was one of 
the five persons who built most of the horse rail- 
roads in Quincy, and was, for about twenty years, 
President of the Company. The Quincy water- 
works are now (1898) owned entirely by himself 
and his son. He has never sought or held political 
office, but at one time was the active President of 
five distinct business corporations. He was also 
for some five years one of the Trustees of Illinois 
College at Jacksonville. He was married in 1844 
to Miss Margaret H. Benedict, daughter of Dr. 
Wm. M. Benedict, of Milbury, Mass., and they 
have five children now living. In politics he is a 
Republican, and his religious associations are with 
the Congregational Church. — Charles Henry 
(Bull), brother of the preceding, was born in 
Hartford, Conn., Dec. 16. 1822, and removed 
to Quincy, 111., in June, 1837. He commenced 
business as a clerk in a general store, where 
he remained for seven years, when he entered 
into partnership with his brother, Lorenzo Bull, 
in the hardware and crockery business, to 
which was subsequently added dealing in 
agricultural implements. This business was 
continued until the year 1861, when it was 
sold out, and the brothers established them- 
selves as private bankers under the same firm 
name. A few years later they organized the 
Merchants' and Farmers' National Bank, which 
was mainly owned and altogether managed by 
them. Five or six years later this bank was 
wound up, when they returned to private bank- 
ing, continuing in this business until 1891, when 
it was merged in the State Savings Loan & 
Trust Company, organized under the laws of 
Illinois with a capital of $300,000, held equally 
by Lorenzo Bull, Charles H. Bull and Edward J. 
Parker, respectively, as President, Vice-Presi- 
dent and Cashier. Near the close of 1898 the 
First National Bank of Quincy was merged into 
the State Savings Loan & Trust Company with 
J. H. Warfield, the President of the former, as 
President of the consolidated concern. Mr. Bull 



was one of the parties who originally organized 
the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific Railroad Com- 
pany in 1869 —a road intended to be built from 
Quincy, 111., across the State of Missouri to 
Brownsville, Neb., and of which he is now 
(1898) the President, the name having been 
changed to the Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City 
Railway. He was also identified with the con- 
struction of the system of street railways in 
Quincy, and continued active in their manage- 
ment for about twenty years. He has been 
active in various other public and private enter- 
prises, and has done much to advance the growth 
and prosperity of the city. 

BUNKER HILL, a city of Macoupin County, on 
the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis 
Railroad, 37 miles northeast of St. Louis; has 
electric-lighting plant, telephone service, coal 
mine, flouring mill, wagon and various other 
manufactories, two banks, two newspapers, opera 
house, numerous churches, public library, a mili- 
tary academy and fine public schools, and many 
handsome residences ; is situated on high ground 
in a rich agricultural and dairying region and an 
important shipping-point. Pop. (1900), 1,279. 

BUNN, Jacob, banker and manufacturer, was 
born in Hunterdon County, N. J., in 1814; came 
to Springfield in 1836, and, four years later, began 
business as a grocer, to which he afterwards 
added that of private banking, continuing until 
1878. During a part of this time his bank was 
one of the best known and widely regarded as 
one of the most solid institutions of its kind in 
the State. Though crippled by the financial 
revulsion of 1873-74 and forced investments in 
depreciated real estate, he paid dollar for dollar. 
After retiring from banking in 187S, he assumed 
charge of the Springfield Watch Factoiy, in 
which he was a large stockholder, and of which 
he became the President. Mr. Bunn was, be- 
tween 1866 and 1870, a principal stockholder in 
"The Chicago Republican" (the predecessor of 
"The Inter-Ocean"), and was one of the bankers 
who came to the aid of the State Government with 
financial assistance at the beginning of the Civil 
War. Died at Springfield, Oct. 16, 1897.— John W. 
(Bunn), brother of the preceding and successor 
to the grocery business of J. & J. W. Bunn, has 
been a prominent business man of Springfield, 
and served as Treasurer of the State Agricultural 
Board from 1858 to 1898, and of the Illinois Uni- 
versity from its establishment to 1S93. 

BTJNSEN, George, German patriot and educa- 
tor, was born at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Ger- 
many, Feb. 18, 1794, and educated in his native 



HISTORICAL EXCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



city and at Berlin University; while still a 
student took part in the Peninsular War which 
resulted in the downfall of Napoleon, but resum- 
ing his studies in 1816, graduated three years 
later. He then founded a boys' school at Frank- 
fort, which he maintained fourteen years, when, 
having been implicated in the republican revolu 
tion of 1S33. he was forced to leave the country, 
locating the following year on a farm in St. Clair 
County, 111. Here he finally became a teacher in 
the public schools, served in the State Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1847. was elected School 
Commissioner of St. Clair County, and, having 
removed to Belleville in 1855, there conducted a 
private school for the instruction of teachers 
while discharging the duties of his office; later 
was appointed a member of the first State School 
Board, serving until i860, and taking part in the 
establishment of the Illinois State Normal Uni 
versity, of which he was a zealous advocate. He 
was also a contributor to "The Illinois Teacher.*' 
and, for several years prior to his death, served 
as Superintendent of Schools at Belleville without 
compensation. Died, November, 1872. 

BURCHARD, Horatio C, ex -Congressman, was 
born at Marshall, Oneida County. N. Y., Sept. 22, 
1825; graduated at Hamilton College, N. Y., in 
1850, and later removed to Stephenson County, 
111., making his home at Freeport. By profes- 
sion he is a lawyer, but he has been also largely 
interested in mercantile pursuits. From 1857 to 
1860 he was School Commissioner of Stephenson 
County ; from 1863 to 1866 a member of the State 
Legislature, and from 1869 to 1879 a Representa- 
tive in Congress, being each time elected as a 
Republican, for the first time as the successor of 
E. B. "Washburne. After retiring from Congress, 
he served for six years (1879-85) as Director of the 
United States Mint at Philadelphia, with marked 
ability. During the "World's Columbian Exposi- 
tion at Chicago (1893), Mr. Burchard was in 
charge of the Bureau of Awards in connection 
with the Mining Department, afterwards resum- 
ing the practice of his profession at Freeport. 

BURDETTE, Robert Jones, journalist and 
humorist, was born in Greensborough, Pa., July 
30, 1844. and taken to Peoria. 111., in early life, 
where he was educated in the public schools. In 
1862 he enlisted as a private in the Forty-seventh 
Illinois Volunteers and served to the end of the 
war; adopted journalism in 1869, being employ, 1 
upon "The Peoria Transcript" and other papers 
of that city. Later he became associated with 
"The Burlington (Iowa) Hawkeye." upon which 
he gained a wide reputation as a genial humor- 



ist. Several volumes of his sketches have beer 
published, but in recent years he has devoted hi- 
attention chiefly to lecturing, with occasional 
contributions to the literary press 

BUREAU COUNTY, set off from Putnam 
County in 1*37. near the center of the northern 
half of the State, Princeton being made the 
county-seat. Coal had been discovered in 1834, 
there being considerable quantities mined at 
Mineral and Selby. Sheffield also has an impor- 
tant coal trade. Public lands were offered t'.ir sale 
as early as 1835, and by l s 44 liad been nearly all 
sold. Princeton was platted in 1832, and. in I - 
contained a population of 3,396. The county has 
an area of 870 square miles, and. according to the 
census of 1900, a population of 41,112. The pio- 
neer settler was Henry Thomas, who erected the 
first cabin, in Bureau township, in 1828. He was 
soon followed by the Ament brothers (Edward. 
Justus and John L. ) , and for a time settlers came 
in rapid succession, among the earliest being 
Amos Leonard, Daniel Dimmick, John Hall. 
William Hoskins, Timothy Perkins, Leonard 

Roth, Bulbona and John Dixon. Serious 

Indian disturbances in 1831 caused a hegira of 
the settlers, some of whom never returned. In 
1833 a fort was erected for the protection of the 
whites, and, in 1836, there began a new and large 
influx of immigrants. Among other early set- 
tlers were John H. and Arthur Bryant, brothers 
of the poet. "William Cullen Bryant. 

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, estab- 
lished in 1^79, being an outgrowth of the agitation 
and discontent among the laboring classes, which 
culminated in 1 ^TT-TS. The Board consists of 
five Commissioners, who serve for a nominal 
compensation, their term of office being two 
years. They are nominated by the Executive 
and confirmed by the Senate. The law requires 
that three of them shall be manual laborers and 
two employers of manual labor. The Bureau is 
charged with the collection, compilation and 
tabulation of statistics relative to labor in Illi- 
nois, particularly in its relation to the commer- 
cial, industrial, social, educational and sanitary 
conditions of the working classes. The Com- 
mission is required to submit biennial reports. 
Those already published contain much informa- 
tion of value concerning coal and lead mines, 
convict labor, manufactures, strikes and lock- 
outs, wages, rent, cost of living, mortgage 
indebtedness, and kindred topics. 

BURGESS. Alexander. Protestant Episcopal 
Bishop of the diocese of Quincy, was born at 
Providence. R. I.. Oct. 31. 1819 He graduated 



68 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



from Brown University in 1838 and from the 
General Theological Seminary (New York) in 
1841. He was made a Deacon, Nov. 3, 1842, and 
ordained a priest, Nov. 1, 1843. Prior to his ele- 
vation to the episcopate he was rector of various 
parishes in Maine, at Brooklyn, N. Y., and at 
Springfield, Mass. He represented the dioceses 
of Maine, Long Island and Massachusetts in the 
General Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church from 1844 to 1877, and, in the latter year, 
was President of the House of Deputies. Upon 
the death of his brother George, Bishop of Maine, 
he was chosen by the clergy of the diocese to suc- 
ceed him but declined. When the diocese of 
Quincy. 111. was created, he was elected its first 
Bishop, and consecrated at Christ Church, Spring- 
field, Mass., on May 15, 1878. Besides publishing 
a memoir of his brother. Bishop Burgess is the 
author of several Sunday-school question books, 
carols and hymns, and has been a contributor to 
periodical church literature. His residence is at 
Peoria. 

BURLEY, Arthur Oilman, merchant, was born 
at Exeter, N. H., Oct. 4, 1812, received his edu- 
cation in the local schools, and, in 1835, came 
West, locating in Chicago. For some two years 
he served as clerk in the boot, shoe and clothing 
store of John Holbrook, after which he accepted 
a position with his half-brother, Stephen F. Gale, 
the proprietor of the first book and stationery 
store in Chicago. In 1838 he invested his savings 
in a bankrupt stock of crockery, purchased from 
the old State Bank, and entered upon a business 
career which was continued uninterruptedly for 
nearly sixty years. In that time Mr. Burley 
built up a business which, for its extent and 
success, was unsurpassed in its time in the West. 
His brother in-law, Mr. John Tyrrell, became a 
member of the firm in 1852, the business there- 
after being conducted under the name of Burley 
& Tyrrell, with Mr. Burley as President of the 
Company until his death, which occurred, August 

27, 1897.— Augustus Harris (Burley), brother of 
the preceding, was born at Exeter, N. H., March 

28, 1819 ; was educated in the schools of his native 
State, and, in his youth, was employed for a 
time as a clerk in Boston. In 1837 he came to 
Chicago and took a position as clerk or salesman 
in the book and stationery store of his half- 
brother, Stephen F. Gale, subsequently became a 
partner, and, on the retirement of Mr. Gale a 
few years later, succeeded to the control of the 
business. In 1857 he disposed of his book and 
stationery business, and about the same time 
became one of the founders of the Merchants' 



Loan and Trust Company, with which he has 
been connected as a Director ever since. Mr. 
Burley was a member of the volunteer fire depart- 
ment organized in Chicago in 1841 Among the 
numerous public positions held by him may be 
mentioned, member of the Board of PublicWorks 
(1867-70), the first Superintendent of Lincoln Park 
(1869), Representative from Cook County in the 
Twenty-seventh General Assembly (1870-72), City 
Comptroller during the administration of Mayor 
Medill (1872-73), and again under Mayor Roche 
(1887), and member of the City Council (1881-82). 
Politically, Mr. Burley has been a zealous Repub- 
lican and served on the Chicago Union Defense 
Committee in the first year of the Civil War, and 
was a delegate from the State-at-large to the 
National Republican Convention at Baltimore in 
1864, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the 
Presidency a second time. 

BTJRNHAM, Daniel Hudson, architect, was 
born at Henderson, N. Y., Sept. 4, 1846; came to 
Chicago at 9 years of age; attended private 
schools and the Chicago High School, after which 
he spent two years at Waltham, Mass. , receiving 
special instruction ; returning to Chicago in 1867, 
he was afterwards associated with various firms. 
About 1873 he formed a business connection with 
J. W. Root, architect, which extended to the 
death of the latter in 1891. The firm of Burnham 
& Root furnished the plans of a large number of 
the most conspicuous business buildings in Chi- 
cago, but won their greatest distinction in con- 
nection with the construction of buildings for the 
World's Columbian Exposition, of which Mr. 
Root was Supervising Architect previous to his 
death, while Mr. Burnham was made Chief of 
Construction and, later, Director of Works. In 
this capacity his authority was almost absolute, 
but was used with a discretion that contributed 
greatly to the success of the enterprise. 

BURR, Albert G., former Congressman, was 
born in Genesee County, N. Y., Nov. 8, 1829; 
came to Illinois about 1832 with his widowed 
mother, who settled in Springfield. In early life 
he became a citizen of Winchester, where he read 
law and was admitted to the bar, also, for a time, 
following the occupation of a printer. Here he 
was twice elected to the lower house of the Gen- 
eral Assembly (1860 and 1862), meanwhile serving 
as a member of the State Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1862. Having removed to Carrollton, 
Greene County, he was elected as a Democrat to 
the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses (1866 and 
1868), serving until March 4, 1871. In August, 
1877, he was elected Circuit Judge to fill a 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



G9 



vacancy and was re-elected for the regular term 
in June, 1879, but died in office, June 10, 1882. 

BURRELL, Orlando, member of Congress, was 
born in Bradford County, Pa.; removed with his 
parents to White County, 111., in 1834, growing 
up on a farm near Carmi; received a common 
school education; in 1850 went to California, 
driving an ox-team across the plains. Soon after 
the beginning of the Civil War (1861) he raised a 
company of cavalry, of which he was elected 
Captain, and which became a part of the First 
Regiment Illinois Cavalry; served as County 
Judge from 1873 to 1881, and was elected Sheriff 
in 1886. In 1894 he was elected Representative 
in Congress as a Republican from the Twentieth 
District, composed of counties which formerly 
constituted a large part of the old Nineteenth 
District, and which had uniformly been repre- 
sented by a Democrat. He suffered defeat as a 
candidate for re-election in 1896. 

BURROUGHS, John Curtis, clergyman and 
educator, was born in Stamford, N. Y. , Dec. 7, 
1818; graduated at Yale College in 1842, and 
Madison Theological Seminary in 1846. After 
five years spent as pastor of Baptist churches at 
Waterford and West Troy, N. Y., in 1852 he 
assumed the pastorate of the First Baptist Church 
of Chicago ; about 1856. was elected to the presi- 
dency of the Chicago University, then just 
established, having previously declined the 
presidency of Shurtleff College at Upper Alton. 
Resigning his position in 1874, he soon after 
became a member of the Chicago Board of Edu- 
cation, and, in 1884, was elected Assistant Super- 
intendent of Public Schools of that city, serving 
until his death, April 21, 1892. 

BUSEY, Samuel T., banker and ex-Congress- 
man, was born at Greencastle, Ind., Nov. 16, 
1835; in infancy was brought by his parents to 
Urbana, 111., where he was educated and has 
since resided. From 1857 to 1859 he was engaged 
in mercantile pursuits, but during 1860-61 
attended a commercial college and read law. In 
1862 he was chosen Town Collector, but resigned 
to enter the Union Army, being commissioned 
Second Lieutenant by Governor Yates, and 
assigned to recruiting service. Having aided in 
the organization of the Seventy-sixth Illinois 
Volunteers, he was commissioned its Lieutenant- 
Colonel, August 12, 1862 ; was afterward promoted 
to the colonelcy, and mustered out of service at 
Chicago, August 6, 1865, with the rank of Brevet 
Brigadier-General. In 1866 he was an unsuccess- 
ful candidate for the General Assembly on the 
Democratic ticket and for Trustee of the State 



University in 1888. From 1880 to 1889 he was 
Mayor and President of the Board of Education 
of Urbana. In 1867 he opened a private bank, 
which he conducted for twenty-one years. In 
1890 he was elected to Congress from the Fif- 
teenth Illinois District, defeating Joseph G. Can 
non, Republican, by whom he was in turn 
defeated for the same office in 1892. 

BUSHNELL, a flourishing city and manufac- 
turing center in McDonough County, 11 miles 
northeast of Macomb, at the junction or" two 
branches of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
with the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroads ; &as 
numerous manufactories, including wooden 
pumps, flour, agricultural implements, wagons 
and carriages, tank and fence-work, rural mail- 
boxes, mattresses, brick, besides egg and poultry 
packing houses; also has water- works and elec- 
tric lights, grain elevators, three banks, several 
churches, graded public and high schools, two 
newspapers and a public library. Pop. (1900), 2,490. 

BUSHNELL, Nehemiah, lawyer, was born in 
the town of Westbrook, Conn., Oct. 9, 1813; 
graduated at Yale College in 1835, studied law 
and was admitted to the bar in 1837, coming in 
December of the same year to Quincy, 111. , where, 
for a time, he assisted in editing "The Whig" 
of that city, later forming a partnership witli 
O. H. Browning, which was never fully broken 
until his death. In his practice he gave much 
attention to land titles in the "Military Tract" ; 
in 1851 was President of the portion of the North- 
ern Cross Railroad between Quincy and Gales- 
burg (now a part of the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy), and later of the Quincy Bridge Company 
and the Quincy & Palmyra (Mo.) Railroad. In 
1872 he was elected by the Republicans the 
"minority" Representative from Adams County 
in the Twenty-eighth General Assembly,, but 
died during the succeeding session, Jan. 31, 1873. 
He was able, high-minded and honorable in public 
and private life. 

BUSHNELL, Washington, lawyer and Attor- 
ney-General, was born in Madison County, N. Y., 
Sept. 30, 1825; in 1837 came with his father to 
Lisbon, Kendall County, 111., where he worked on 
a farm and taught at times ; studied law at Pough- 
keepsie, N. Y., was admitted to the bar and 
established himself in practice at Ottawa, 111. 
The public positions held by him were those of 
State Senator for La Salle County (1861-69) and 
Attorney-General (1869-73) ; was also a member 
of the Republican National Convention of 1S64, 
besides being identified with various business 
enterprises at Ottawa. Died, June 30, 1885. 



70 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



BUTLER, William, State Treasurer, was born 
in Adair County, Ky., Dec. 15, 1797; during the 
war of 1812, at the age of 16 years, served as the 
messenger of the Governor of Kentucky, carrying 
dispatches to Gen. William Henry Harrison in 
the field; removed to Sangamon County, 111., in 
1828, and, in 1836, was appointed Clerk of the 
Circuit Court by Judge Stephen T. Logan. In 
1859 he served as foreman of the Grand Jury 
which investigated the "canal scrip frauds" 
charged against ex-Governor Matteson, and it 
was largely through his influence that the pro- 
ceedings of that body were subsequently pub- 
lished in an official form. During the same year 
Governor Bissell appointed him State Treasurer 
to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of 
James Miller, and he was elected to the same 
office in 1860. Mr. Butler was an ardent sup- 
porter of Abraham Lincoln, whom he efficiently 
befriended in the early struggles of the latter 
in Springfield. He died in Springfield, Jan. 11, 
1876. 

BUTTERFIELD, Justin, early lawyer, was 
born at Keene, N. H., in 1790. He studied at 
Williams College, and was admitted to the bar 
at Watertown, N. Y.,.in 1812. After some years 
devoted to practice at Adams and at Sackett's 
Harbor, N. Y. , he removed to New Orleans, where 
he attained a high rank at the bar. In 1835 he 
settled in Chicago and soon became a leader in 
his profession there also. In 1841 he was appointed 
by President Harrison United States District At- 
torney for the District of Illinois, and, in 1849, by 
President Taylor Commissioner of the General 
Land Office, one of his chief competitors for the 
latter place being Abraham Lincoln. This dis- 
tinction he probably owed to the personal influ- 
ence of Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, 
of whom Mr. Butterfield was a personal friend 
and warm admirer. While Commissioner, he 
rendered valuable service to the State in securing 
the canal land grant. As a lawyer he was logical 
and resourceful, as well as witty and quick at 
repartee, yet his chief strength lay before the 
Court rather than the jury. Numerous stories 
are told of his brilliant sallies at the bar and 
elsewhere. One of the former relates to his 
address before Judge Nathaniel Pope, of the 
United States Court at Springfield, in a habeas- 
corpus case to secure the release of Joseph Smith, 
the Mormon prophet, who was under arrest under 
the charge of complicity in an attempt to assassin- 
ate Governor Boggs of Missouri. Rising to begin 
his argument, Mr. Butterfield said: "I am to 
address the Pope" (bowing to the Court), "sur- 



rounded by angels" (bowing still lower to a party 
of ladies in the audience), "in the presence of 
the holy apostles, in behalf of the prophet of 
the Lord." On another occasion, being asked if 
he was opposed to the war with Mexico, he 
replied, "I opposed one war" — meaning his 
opposition as a Federalist to the War of 1812 — 
"but learned the folly of it. Henceforth I am for 
war, pestilence and famine." He died, Oct. 25, 
1855. 

BTFORD, William H., physician and author, 
was born at Eaton, Ohio, March 20, 1817; in 1830 
came with his widowed mother to Crawford 
County, 111., and began learning the tailor's 
trade at Palestine; later studied medicine at 
Vincennes and practiced at different points in 
Indiana. Meanwhile, having graduated at the 
Ohio Medical College, Cincinnati, in 1850, he 
assumed a professorship in a Medical College at 
Evansville, Ind., also editing a medical journal. 
In 1857 he removed to Chicago, where he ac- 
cepted a chair in Rush Medical College, but two 
years later became one of the founders of the 
Chicago Medical College, where he remained 
twenty years. He then (1879) returned to Rush, 
assuming the chair of Gynecology. In 1870 he 
assisted in founding the Woman's Medical Col- 
lege of Chicago, remaining President of the 
Faculty and Board of Trustees until his death, 
May 21, 1890. He published a number of medical 
works which are regarded as standard by the 
profession, besides acting as associate of Dr. N. S. 
Davis in the editorship of "The Chicago Medical 
Journal" and as editor-in-chief of "The Medical 
Journal and Examiner," the successor of the 
former. Dr. Byford was held in the highest 
esteem as a physician and a man, both by the 
general public and his professional associates. 

BYRON, a village of Ogle County, in a pictur- 
esque region on Rock River, at junction of the 
Chicago Great Western and the Chicago, Mil- 
waukee & St. Paul Railways, 83 miles west-north- 
west from Chicago ; is in rich farming and dairy- 
ing district; has two banks and two weekly 
papers. Population (1890), 698; (1900), 1,015. 

CABLE, a town in Mercer County, on the Rock 
Island & Peoria Railroad, 26 miles south by east 
from Rock Island. Coal-mining is the principal 
industry, but there are also tile works, a good 
quality of clay for manufacturing purposes being" 
found in abundance. Population (1880), 572; 
(1890), 1,276; (1900). 697. 

CABLE, Benjamin T., capitalist and politician, 
was born in Georgetown. Scott County, Ky.. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



71 



August 11, 1853. When he was three years old 
his father's family removed to Rock Island, 111., 
where he has since resided. After passing 
through the Rock Island public schools, he matric- 
ulated at the University of Michigan, graduating 
in June, 1876. He owns extensive ranch and 
manufacturing property, and is reputed wealthy ; 
is also an active Democratic politician, and influ- 
ential in his party, having been a member of both 
the National and State Central Committees. In 
1890 he was elected to Congress from the Eleventh 
Illinois District, but since 1893 has held no public 
office. 

C AISLE, Ransom R., railway manager, was 
born in Athens County, Ohio, Sept. 23, 1834. 
His early training was mainly of the practical 
sort, and by the time he was 17 years old he was 
actively employed as a lumberman. In 1857 he 
removed to Illinois, first devoting his attention 
to coal mining in the neighborhood of Rock 
Island. Later he became interested in the pro- 
jection and management of railroads, being in 
turn Superintendent, Vice-President and Presi- 
dent of the Rock Island & Peoria Railroad. His 
next position was that of General Manager of the 
Rockford, Rock Island & St. Louis Railroad. His 
experience in these positions rendered him famil- 
iar with both the scope and the details of railroad 
management, while his success brought him to 
the favorable notice of those who controlled rail- 
way interests all over the country. In 1876 he 
was elected a Director of the Chicago, Rock 
Island & Pacific Railway. In connection with 
this company he has held, successively, the 
offices of Vice-President, Assistant to the Presi- 
dent, General Manager and President, being chief 
executive officer since 1880. (See Chicago, Rock 
Island & Pacific Railway.) 

CAHOKIA, the first permanent white settle- 
ment in Illinois, and, in French colonial times, 
one of its principal towns. French Jesuit mis- 
sionaries established the mission of the Tamaroas 
here in 1700, to which they gave the name of 
"Sainte Famille de Caoquias," antedating the 
settlement at Kaskaskia of the same year by a 
few months. Cahokia and Kaskaskia were 
jointly made the county -seats of St. Clair Count}-, 
when that county was organized by Governor St. 
Clair in 1790. Five years later, when Randolph 
County was set off from St. Clair, Cahokia was 
continued as the county-seat of the parent 
county, so remaining until the removal of the 
seat of justice to Belleville in 1814. Like its 
early rival. Kaskaskia, it has dwindled in impor- 
tance until, in 1890, its population was estimated 



at 100. Descendants of the early French settlers 
make up a considerable portion of the present 
population. The site of the old town is on the 
line of the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Rail- 
road, about four miles from East St. Louis. 
Some of the most remarkable Indian mounds in 
the Mississippi Valley, known as "the Cahokia 
Mounds." are located in the vicinity. (See Momnl- 
Builders, Works of the.) 

CAIRXES, Abraham, a native of Kentucky, in 
1816 settled in that part of Crawford County, 111., 
which was embraced in Lawrence County on the 
organization of the latter in 1821. Mr. Cairnes 
was a member of the House for Crawford County 
in the Second General Assembly (1820-22), and 
for Lawrence County in the Third (1822-24), in 
the latter voting against the pro-slavery Conven- 
tion scheme. He removed from Lawrence 
County to some point on the Mississippi River in 
1826, but further details of his history are un- 
known. 

CAIRO, the county-seat of Alexander County, 
and the most important river point between St. 
Louis and Memphis. Its first charter was ob- 
tained from the Territorial Legislature by Shad- 
rach Bond (afterwards Governor of Illinois), John 
G. Comyges and others, who incorporated the 
"City and Bank of Cairo. " The company entered 
about 1,800 acres, but upon the death of Mr. Comy- 
ges, the land reverted to the Government. The 
forfeited tract was re-entered in 1835 by Sidney 
Breese and others, who later transferred it to the 
"Cairo City and Canal Company," a corporation 
chartered in 1837, which, by purchase, increased 
its holdings to 10,000 acres. Peter Stapleton is 
said to have erected the first house, and John 
Hawley the second, within the town limits. In 
consideration of certain privileges, the Illinois 
Central Railroad has erected around the wain 
front a substantial levee, eighty feet wide. Dur- 
ing the Civil War Cairo was an important base 
for military operations. Its population, according 
to the census of 1900, was 12,566. (See also Ah ■>■- 
ander Comity.) 

CAIRO IJRIlXiE, THE, one of the triumphs of 
modern engineering, erected by the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad Company across the Ohio River, 
opposite the city of Cairo. It is the longest 
metallic bridge across a river in the world, being 
thirtj three feet longer than the Tay Bridge, in 
Scotland. The work of construction was begun. 
July 1, 1887, and uninterruptedly prosecuted for 
twenty-seven months, being completed, Oct. 29, 
1889. The firs! train to cross it was made up of 
ten locomotives coupled together. The ap- 



72 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



proaches from both the Illinois and Kentucky 
shores consist of iron viaducts and well-braced 
timber trestles. The Illinois viaduct approach 
consists of seventeen spans of 150 feet each, and 
one span of 106^ feet. All these rest on cylin- 
der piers filled with concrete, and are additionally 
supported by piles driven within the cylinders. 
The viaduct on the Kentucky shore is of similar 
general construction. The total number of spans 
is twenty-two — twenty-one being of 150 feet each, 
and one of 106^ feet. The total length of the 
metal work, from end to end, is 10,650 feet, 
including that of the bridge proper, which is 
4.644 feet. The latter consists of nine through 
spans and three deck spans. The through spans 
rest on ten first-class masonry piers on pneumatic 
foundations. The total length of the bridge, 
including the timber trestles, is 20,461 feet — about 
Zyi miles. Four-fifths of the Illinois trestle 
work has been filled in with earth, while that on 
the southern shore has been virtually replaced by 
an embankment since the completion of the 
bridge. The bridge proper stands 104.42 feet in 
the clear above low water, and from the deepest 
foundation to the top of the highest iron work is 
248.94 feet. The total cost of the work, including 
the filling and embankment of the trestles, has 
been (1895) between $3,250,000 and $3,500,000. 

CAIRO, VINCENNES & CHICAGO RAIL- 
ROAD, a division of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, 
Chicago & St. Louis Railway, extending from 
Danville to Cairo (261 miles), with a branch nine 
miles in length from St. Francisville, 111., to Vin- 
cennes, Ind. It was chartered as the Cairo & 
Vincennes Railroad in 1867, completed in 1872, 
placed in the hands of a receiver in 1874, sold 
under foreclosure in January, 1880, and for some 
time operated as the Cairo Division of the 
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway. In 1889, 
having been surrendered by the Wabash, St. 
Louis & Pacific Railway, it was united with the 
Danville & Southwestern Railroad, reorganized as 
the Cairo, Vincennes & Chicago Railroad, and, 
in 1890, leased to the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chi- 
cago & St. Louis Railway, of which it is known 
as the "Cairo Division." (See Cleveland, Cincin- 
nati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway.) 

CAIRO & ST. LOUIS RAILROAD. (See St. 
Louis & Cairo Railroad and Mobile & Ohio Rail- 
way. ) 

CAIRO & VINCENNES RAILROAD. (See 
Cairo, Vincennes & Chicago Railroad.) 

CALDWELL, (Dr.) George, early physician 
and legislator (the name is spelled both Cadwell 
and Caldwell in the early records), was born at 



Wethersfield, Conn., Feb. 21, 1773, and received 
his literary education at Hartford, and his pro- 
fessional at Rutland, Vt. He married a daughter 
of Hon. Matthew Lyon, who was a native of 
Ireland, and who served two terms in Congress 
from Vermont, four from Kentucky (1803-11), 
and was elected the first Delegate in Congress 
from Arkansas Territory, but died before taking 
his seat in August, 1822. Lyon was also a resi- 
dent for a time of St. Louis, and was a candidate 
for Delegate to Congress from Missouri Territory, 
but defeated by Edward Hempstead (see Hemp- 
stead, Edward). Dr. Caldwell descended the 
Ohio River in 1799 in company with Lyon's 
family and his brother-in-law, John Messinger 
(see Messinger, John), who afterwards became a 
prominent citizen of St. Clair County, the party 
locating at Eddyville, Ky. In 1802, Caldwell 
and Messinger removed to Illinois, landing near 
old Fort Chartres, and remained some time in 
the American Bottom. The former finally 
located on the banks of the Mississippi a few 
miles above St. Louis, where he practiced his 
profession and held various public offices, includ- 
ing those of Justice of the Peace and County 
Judge for St. Clair County, as also for Madison 
County after the organization of the latter. He 
served as State Senator from Madison County 
in the First and Second General Assemblies 
(1818-22), and, having removed in 1820 within the 
limits of what is now Morgan County (but still 
earlier embraced in Greene), in 1822 was elected 
to the Senate for Greene and Pike Counties — 
the latter at that time embracing all the northern 
and northwestern part of the State, including 
the county of Cook. During the following ses- 
sion of the Legislature he was a sturdy opponent 
of the scheme to make Illinois a slave State. His 
home in Morgan County was in a locality known 
as "Swinerton's Point," a few miles west of 
Jacksonville, where he died, August 1, 1826. 
(See Slavery and Slave Laws. ) Dr. Caldwell (or 
Cadwell, as he was widely known) commanded 
a high degree of respect among early residents of 
Illinois. Governor Reynolds, in his "Pioneer 
History of Illinois," says of him: "He was 
moral and correct in his public and private life, 
. . . was a respectable physician, and always 
maintained an unblemished character. " 

CALHOUN, John, pioneer printer and editor, 
was born at Watertown, N. Y., April 14, 1808; 
learned the printing trade and practiced it in his 
native town, also working in a type-foundry in 
Albany and as a compositor in Troy. In the fall 
of 1833 he came to Chicago, bringing with him 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



73 



an outfit for the publication of a weekly paper, 
and, on Nov. 26, began the issue of "The Chicago 
Democrat"— the first paper ever published in that 
city. Mr. Calhoun retained the management of 
the paper three years, transferring it in Novem- 
ber, 1836, to John Wentworth, who conducted it 
until its absorption by "The Tribune" in July, 
1861. Mr. Calhoun afterwards served as County 
Treasurer, still later as Collector, and, finally, as 
agent of the Illinois Central Railroad in procur- 
ing right of way for the construction of its lines. 
Died in Chicago, Feb. 20, 1859. 

CALHOUN, John, surveyor and politician, was 
born in Boston, Mass., Oct. 14, 1806; removed to 
Springfield, 111., in 1830, served in the Black 
Hawk War and was soon after appointed County 
Surveyor. It was under Mr. Calhoun, and by his 
appointment, that Abraham Lincoln served for 
some time as Deputy Surveyor of Sangamon 
County. In 1838 Calhoun was chosen Represent- 
ative in the General Assembly, but was defeated 
in 1840, though elected Clerk of the House at the 
following session. He was a Democratic Presi- 
dential Elector in 1844, was an unsuccessful 
candidate for the nomination for Governor in 
1846, and, for three terms (1849, '50 and '51), 
served as Mayor of the city of Springfield. In 
1852 he was defeated by Richard Yates (after- 
wards Governor and United States Senator) , as a 
candidate for Congress, but two years later was 
appointed by President Pierce Surveyor-General 
of Kansas, where he became discreditably con- 
spicuous by his zeal in attempting to carry out 
the policy of the Buchanan administration for 
making Kansas a slave State — especially in con- 
nection with the Lecompton Constitutional Con- 
vention, with the election of which he had much 
to do, and over which he presided. Died at St. 
Joseph, Mo., Oct. 25, 1859. 

CALHOUN, William J., lawyer, was born in 
Pittsburg, Pa., Oct. 5, 1847. After residing at 
various points in that State, his family removed 
to Ohio, where he worked on a farm until 1864, 
when he enlisted as a private in the Nineteenth 
Ohio Volunteer Infantry, serving to the end of 
the war. He participated in a number of severe 
battles while with Sherman on the march against 
Atlanta, returning with General Thomas to Nash- 
ville, Tenn. During the last few months of the 
war he served in Texas, being mustered out at 
San Antonio in that State, though receiving his 
final discharge at Columbus, Ohio. After the 
war he entered the Poland Union Seminary, 
where he became the intimate personal friend of 
Maj. William McKinley, who was elected to the 



Presidency in 1*96. Having graduated at the 
seminary, he came to Areola, Douglas County, 
111., and began the study of law, later taking a 
course in a law school in Chicago, after which he 
was admitted to the bar (1ST5) and established 
himself in practice at Danville as the partner of 
the Hon. Joseph B. Mann. In 1882 Mr. Calhoun 
was elected as a Republican to the lower branch 
of the Thirty-third General Assembly and, during 
the following session, proved himself one of the 
ablest members of that body. In May, 1897, Mr. 
Calhoun was appointed by President McKinley a 
special envoy to investigate the circumstances 
attending the death of Dr. Ricardo Ruiz, a nat- 
uralized citizen of the United States who had 
died while a prisoner in the hands of the Spaniards 
during the rebellion then in progress in Cuba. 
In 1898 he was appointed a member of the Inter- 
State Commerce Commission to succeed William 
R. Morrison, whose term had expired. 

CALHOUN COUNTY, situated between the 
Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, just above their 
junction. It has an area of 260 square miles, 
with a population (1900) of 8,917; was organized 
in 1825 and named for John C. Calhoun. Origi- 
nally, the county was well timbered and the 
earh- settlers were largely engaged in lumbering, 
which tended to give the population more or less 
of a migratory character. Much of the timber 
has been cleared off, and the principal business 
in later years has been agriculture, although coal 
is found and mined in paying quantities along 
Silver Creek. Tradition has it that the aborig- 
ines found the precious metals in the bed of this 
stream. It was originally included within the 
limits of the Military Tract set apart for the 
veterans of the War of 1812. The physical con- 
formation of the county's surface exhibits some 
peculiarities. Limestone blutfs, rising some- 
times to the height of 200 feet, skirt the banks of 
both rivers, while through the center of the 
county runs a ridge dividing the two watersheds. 
The side valleys and the top of the central ridge 
are alike fertile. The bottom lands are very 
rich, but are liable to inundation. The county- 
seat and principal town is Hardin, with a popula- 
tion (1890) of 311. 

CALLAHAN, Ethelbert, lawyer and legislator, 
was born near Newark, Ohio, Dec. 17, 1829; 
came to Crawford County, 111. , in 1849, where he 
farmed, taught school and edited, at different 
times, "The Wabash Sentinel" and "The Marshall 
Telegraph." He early identified himself with 
the Republican party, and, in 1864, was the 
Republican candidate for Congress in his dis- 



74 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



trict ; became a member of the first State Board 
of Equalization by appointment of Governor 
Oglesby in 1867 ; served in the lower house of the 
General Assembly during the sessions of 1875, '91, 
93 and '95, and, in 1893-95, on a Joint Committee 
to revise the State Revenue Laws. He was also 
Presidential Elector in 1880, and again in 1888. 
Mr. Callahan was admitted to the bar when past 
30 years of age, and was President of the State 
Bar Association in 1889. His home is at Robinson. 
CALUMET RIVER, a short stream the main 
body of which is formed by the union of two 
branches which come together at the southern 
boundary of the city of Chicago, and which flows 
into Lake Michigan a short distance north of the 
Indiana State line. The eastern branch, known 
as the Grand Calumet, flows in a westerly direc- 
tion from Northwestern Indiana and unites with 
the Little Calumet from the west, %]/ z miles from 
the mouth of the main stream. From the south- 
ern limit of Chicago the general course of the 
stream is north between Lake Calumet and Wolf 
Lake, which it serves to drain. At its mouth, 
Calumet Harbor has been constructed, which 
admits of the entrance of vessels of heavy 
draught, and is a shipping and receiving 
point of importance for heavy freight for 
the Illinois Steel Works, the Pullman Palace 
Car Works and other manufacturing establish- 
ments in that vicinity. The river is regarded as 
a navigable stream, and has been dredged by the 
General Government to a depth of twenty feet 
and 200 feet wide for a distance of two miles, 
with a depth of sixteen feet for the remainder of 
the distance to the forks. The Calumet feeder 
for the Illinois and Michigan Canal extends from 
the west branch (or Little Calumet) to the canal 
in the vicinity of Willow Springs. The stream 
was known to the early French explorers as "the 
Calimic," and was sometimes confounded by 
them with the Chicago River. 

CALUMET RIVER RAILROAD, a short line, 
4.43 miles in length, lying wholly within Cook 
County. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company 
is the lessee, but the line is not operated at present 
(1898). Its outstanding capital stock is §68,700. 
It has no funded debt, but has a floating debt of 
Si 16, 357, making a total capitalization of $185,087. 
This road extends from One Hundredth Street in 
Chicago to Hegewisch, and was chartered in 1883. 
(See Pennsylvania Railroad. ) 

CAMBRIDGE, the county-seat of Henry 
County, about 160 miles southwest of Chicago, 
on the Rock Island & Peoria Railroad. It is situ- 
ated in a fertile region chiefly devoted to 



agriculture and stock-raising. The city is a con- 
siderable grain market and has some manufac- 
tories. Some coal is also mined. It has a public 
library, two newspapers, three banks, good 
schools, and handsome public (county) buildings. 
Population (1880), 1,203; (1890), United States 
census report, 940; (1900), 1,345. 

CAMERON, James, Cumberland Presbyterian 
minister and pioneer, was born in Kentucky in 
1791, came to Illinois in 1815, and, in 1818, settled 
in Sangamon County. In 1829 he is said to have 
located where the town of New Salem (after- 
wards associated with the early history of Abra- 
ham Lincoln) was built, and of which he and 
James Rutledge were the founders. He is also 
said to have officiated at the funeral of Ann 
Rutledge, with whose memory Mr. Lincoln's 
name has been tenderly associated by his biog- 
raphers. Mr. Cameron subsequently removed 
successively to Fulton County, 111., to Iowa and 
to California, dying at a ripe old age, in the latter 
State, about 1878. 

CAMP DOUGLAS, a Federal military camp 
established at Chicago early in the War of the 
Rebellion, located between Thirty -first Street and 
College Place, and Cottage Grove and Forest 
Avenues. It was originally designed and solely 
used as a camp of instruction for new recruits. 
Afterwards it was utilized as a place of confine- 
ment for Confederate prisoners of war. (For 
plot to liberate the latter, together with other 
similar prisoners in Illinois, see Camp Douglas 
Conspiracy. ) 

CAMP DOUGLAS CONSPIRACY, a plot formed 
in 1864 for the liberation of the Confederate 
prisoners of war at Chicago (in Camp Douglas), 
Rock Island, Alton and Springfield. It was to be 
but a preliminary step in the execution of a 
design long cherished by the Confederate Gov- 
ernment, viz., the seizing of the organized gov- 
ernments of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and the 
formation of a Northwestern Confederacy, 
through the cooperation of the "Sons of Lib- 
erty. ' ' (See Secret Treasonable Societies. ) Three 
peace commissioners (Jacob Thompson, C. C. 
Clay and J. P. Holcomb), who had been sent 
from Richmond to Canada, held frequent 
conferences with leaders of the treasonable 
organizations in the North, including Clement L. 
Vallandigham, Bowles, of Indiana, and one 
Charles Walsh, who was head of the movement 
in Chicago, with a large number of allies in that 
city and scattered throughout the States. The 
general management of the affair was entrusted 
to Capt. Thomas H. Hines, who had been second 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA <>F ILLINOIS. 



75 



in command to the rebel Gen. John Morgan dur- 
ing his raid north of the Ohio River, while Col. 
Vincent Marmaduke, of Missouri, and G. St. Leger 
Grenfell (an Englishman) were selected to 
carry out the military program. Hines followed 
out his instructions with great zeal and labored 
indefatigably. Thompson's duty was to dis- 
seminate incendiary treasonable literature, and 
strengthen the timorous "Sons of Liberty" by 
the use of argument and money, both he and his 
agents being lavishly supplied with the latter. 
There was to be a draft in July, 1864, and it was 
determined to arm the "Sons of Liberty" for 
resistance, the date of uprising being fixed for 
July 20. This part of the scheme, however, was 
finally abandoned. Captain Hines located him- 
self at Chicago, and personally attended to the 
distribution of funds and the purchase of arms. 
The date finally fixed for the attempt to liberate 
the Southern prisoners was August 29, 1864, when 
the National Democratic Convention was to 
assemble at Chicago. On that date it whs 
expected the city would be so crowded that the 
presence of the promised force of "Sons" would 
not excite comment. The program also included 
an attack on the city by water, for which pur- 
pose reliance was placed upon a horde of Cana- 
dian refugees, under Capt. John B. Castleman. 
There were some 26,500 Southern prisoners in the 
State at this time, of whom about 8,000 were at 
Chicago, 6,000 at Rock Island, 7,500 at Spring- 
field, and 5,000 at Alton. It was estimated that 
there were 4,000 "Sons of Liberty" in Chicago, 
who would be largely reenforced. With these 
and the Canadian refugees the prisoners at Camp 
Douglas were to be liberated, and the army thus 
formed was to march upon Rock Island, Spring- 
field and Alton. But suspicions were aroused, 
and the Camp was reenforced by a regiment of 
infantry and a battery. The organization of the 
proposed assailing force was very imperfect, and 
the great majority of those who were to compose 
it were lacking in courage. Not enough of the 
latter reported for service to justify an attack, 
and the project was postponed. In the meantime 
a preliminary part of the plot, at least indirectly 
connected with the Camp Douglas conspiracy, 
and which contemplated the release of the rein! 
officers confined on Johnson's Island in Lake 
Erie, had been "nipped in the bud*' by the arrest 
of Capt. C. H. Cole, a Confederate officer in dis- 
guise, on the 19th of September, just as lie was 
on the point of putting in execution a scheme for 
seizing the United States steamer Michigan at 
Sandusky, and putting on board of it a Confeder- 



ate crew. November 8 was the date next selected 
to carry out the Chicago >< -heme — the day of Presi- 
dent Lincoln's second election. The same pre- 
liminaries were arranged, except that no water 
attack was to be made. But Chicago was to be 
burned and flooded, and its banks pillaged. 
Detachments were designated to apply the torch, 
to open fire plugs, to levy anus, and to attack 
banks. But representatives of the United States 
Secret Service had been initiated into the "Son- 
of Liberty," anil the plans of Captain Hines and 
his associates were well known to the authori- 
ties. An efficient body of detectives was put 
upon their track by Gen. B. J. Sweet, the com- 
mandant at Camp Douglas, although some of the 
most valuable service in running down the con- 
spiracy and capturing its agents, was rendered 
by Dr. T. Winslow Aver of Chicago, a Colonel 
Langhorne (an ex-Confederate who had taken 
the oath of allegiance without the knowledge of 
some of the parties to the plot), and Col. J. T. 
Shanks, a Confederate prisoner who was known 
as "The Texan." Both Langhorne and Shanks 
were appalled at the horrible nature of the plot 
as it was unfolded to them, and entered with 
zeal into the effort to defeat it. Shanks was 
permitted to escape from Camp Douglas, thereby 
getting in communication with the leaders of the 
plot who assisted to conceal him, while he faith- 
fully apprised General Sweet of their plans. On 
the night of Nov. 6 — or rather after midnight on 
the morning of the 7th — General Sweet caused 
simultaneous arrests of the leaders to be made at 
their hiding-places. Captain Hines was not 
captured, but the following conspirators were 
taken into custody: Captains Cantrill and Trav- 
erse; Charles "Walsh, the Brigadier-General of 
the "Sons of Liberty," who was sheltering them, 
and in whose barn and house was found a large 
quantity of arms and military stores; Cols. St. 
Leger Grenfell, W. R. Anderson and J. T. 
Shanks; R. T. Semmes, Vincent Marmaduke. 
Charles T. Daniel and Buckner S. Morris, the 
Treasurer of the order. They were tried by 
Military Commission at Cincinnati for conspir- 
acy. Marmaduke and Morris were acquitted; 
Anderson committed suicide during the trial; 
Walsh. Semmes and Daniels were sentenced to 
the penitentiary, and ('renfell was sentenced to 
be hung, although bis sentence was afterward 
commuted to life imprisonment at the Dry Tortu- 
gas, when- he mysteriously disappeared some 

years afterward, but whether he escaped or was 
drowned in the attempt to do so has never been 
known. The British Government had made 



76 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



repeated attempts to secure his release, a brother 
of his being a General in the British Army. 
Daniels managed to escape, and was never recap- 
tured, while Walsh and Semmes, after under- 
going brief terms of imprisonment, were 
pardoned by President Johnson. The subsequent 
history of Shanks, who played so prominent a 
part in defeating the scheme of wholesale arson, 
pillage and assassination, is interesting. While 
in prison he had been detailed for service as a 
clerk in one of the offices under the direction of 
General Sweet, and, while thus employed, made 
the acquaintance of a young lady member of a 
loyal family, whom he afterwards married. 
After the exposure of the contemplated uprising, 
the rebel agents in Canada offered a reward of 
$1,000 in gold for the taking of his life, and he 
was bitterly persecuted. The attention of Presi- 
dent Lincoln was called to the .service rendered 
by him, and sometime during 1865 he received a 
commission as Captain and engaged in fighting 
the Indians upon the Plains. The efficiency 
shown by Colonel Sweet in ferreting out the con- 
spiracy and defeating its consummation won for 
him the gratitude of the people of Chicago and 
the whole nation, and was recognized by the 
Government in awarding him a commission as 
Brigadier-General. (See Benjamin J. Sweet, 
Camp Douglas and Secret Treasonable Societies.) 

CAMPBELL, Alexander, legislator and Con- 
gressman, was born at Concord, Pa., Oct. 4, 1814. 
After obtaining a limited education in the com- 
mon schools, at an early age he secured employ- 
ment as a clerk in an iron manufactory. He soon 
rose to the position of superintendent, managing 
iron-works in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Mis- 
souri, until 1850, when he removed to Illinois, 
settling at La Salle. He was twice (1852 and 
1853) elected Mayor of that city, and represented 
his county in the Twenty-first General Assembly 
(1859). He was also a member of the State 
Constitutional Convention of 1862, and served 
one term (1875-77) as Representative in Congress, 
being elected as an Independent, but, in 1878, was 
defeated for re-election by Philip C. Hayes, 
Republican. Mr. Campbell was a zealous friend 
of Abraham Lincoln, and, in 1858, contributed 
liberally to the expenses of the latter in making 
the tour of the State during the debate with 
Douglas. He broke with the Republican party 
in 1874 on the greenback issue, which won for 
him the title of "Father of the Greenback." His 
death occurred at La Salle, August 9, 1898. 

CAMPBELL, Antrim, early lawyer, was born 
in New Jersey in 1814; came to Springfield, 111., 



in 1838; was appointed Master in Chancery for 
Sangamon County in 1849, and, in 1861, to a 
similar position by the United States District 
Court for that district. Died, August 11, 1868. 

CAMPBELL, James R., Congressman and sol- 
dier, was born in Hamilton County, 111., May 4, 
1853, his ancestors being among the first settlers 
in that section of the State; was educated at 
Notre Dame University, Ind., read law and was 
admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court in 1877 ; 
in 1878 purchased "The McLeansboro Times," 
which he has since conducted ; was elected to the 
lower house of the General Assembly in 1884, and 
again in '86, advanced to the Senate in 1888, and 
re-elected in '92. During his twelve years' 
experience in the Legislature he participated, as 
a Democrat, in the celebrated Logan-Morrison 
contest for the United States Senate, in 1885, and 
assisted in the election of Gen. John M. Palmer 
to the Senate in 1891. At the close of his last 
term in the Senate (1896) he was elected to Con- 
gress from the Twentieth District, receiving a 
plurality of 2,851 over Orlando Burrell, Repub- 
lican, who had been elected in 1894. On the 
second call for troops issued by the President 
during the Spanish-American War, Mr. Camp- 
bell organized a regiment which was mustered in 
as the Ninth Regiment Illinois Volunteers, of 
which he was commissioned Colonel and assigned 
to the corps of Gen. Fitzhugh Lee at Jackson- 
ville, Fla. Although his regiment saw no active 
service during the war, it was held in readiness 
for that purpose, and, on the occupation of Cuba 
in December, 1898, it became a part of the army 
of occupation. As Colonel Campbell remained 
with his regiment, he took no part in the pro- 
ceedings of the last term of the Fifty -fifth Con- 
gress, and was not a candidate for re-election in 
1898. 

CAMPBELL, Thompson, Secretary of State 
and Congressman, was born in Chester County, 
Pa., in 1811 ; removed in childhood to the western 
part of the State and was educated at Jefferson 
College, afterwards reading law at Pittsburg. 
Soon after being admitted to the bar he removed 
to Galena, 111., where he had acquired some min- 
ing interests, and, in 1843, was appointed Secre- 
tary of State by Governor Ford, but resigned in 
1846, and became a Delegate to the Constitutional 
Convention of 1847; in 1850 was elected as a 
Democrat to Congress from the Galena District, 
but defeated for re-election in 1852 by E. B. 
Washburne. He was then appointed by President 
Pierce Commissioner to look after certain land 
grants by the Mexican Government in California, 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



77 



removing to that State in 1853, but resigned this 
position about 1855 to engage in general practice. 
In 1859 he made an extended visit to Europe 
with his family, and, on his return, located in 
Chicago, the following year becoming a candidate 
for Presidential Elector-at-large on the Breckin- 
ridge ticket; in 18(51 returned to California, and. 
on the breaking out of the Civil War, became a 
zealous champion of the Union cause, by his 
speeches exerting a powerful influence upon the 
destiny of the State. He also served in the Cali- 
fornia Legislature during the war. and, in 1864, 
was a member of the Baltimore Convention 
which nominated Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency 
a second time, assisting most ably in the subse- 
quent campaign to carry the State for the Repub- 
lican ticket. Died in San Francisco, Dec. 6, 1868. 

CAMPBELL, William J., lawyer and politi- 
cian, was born in Philadelphia in 1850. When 
he was two years old his father removed to 
Illinois, settling in Cook County. After passing 
through the Chicago public schools, Mr. Camp- 
bell attended the University of Pennsylvania, for 
two years, after which he studied law, and was 
admitted to the bar in 1875. From that date he 
was in active practice and attained prominence 
at the Chicago bar. In 18T8 he was elected State 
Senator, and was re-elected in 1882, serving in all 
eight years. At the sessions of 1881, '83 and '85 
he was chosen President pro tempore of the 
Senate, and, on Feb. 6, 1883, he became Lieuten- 
ant-Governor upon the accession of Lieutenant- 
Governor Hamilton to the executive office to 
succeed Shelby M. Cullom, who had been elected 
United States Senator. In 1888 he represented 
the First Illinois District in the National Repub- 
lican Convention, and was the same year chosen 
a member of the Republican National Committee 
for Illinois and was re-elected in 1882. Died in 
Chicago, March 4, 1896. For several years 
immediately preceding his death, Mr. Campbell 
was the chief attorney of the Armour Packing 
Company of Chicago. 

CAMP POINT, a village in Adams County, at 
the intersection of the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy and the Wabash Railroads, 22 miles east- 
northeast of Quincy. It is a grain center, has 
one flour mill, two feed mills, one elevator, a 
pressed brick plant, two banks, four churches, a 
high school, and one newspaper. Population 
(1890). 1,150; (1900), 1,260. 

CANAL SCRIP FRAUD. During the session 
of the Illinois General Assembly of 1859, Gen. 
Jacob Fry. who, as Commissioner or Trustee, had 
been associated with the construction of the 



Illinois & Michigan Canal from 1837 to 1845, 
had his attention called to a check purporting to 
have been issued by the Commissioners in 1839, 
which, upon investigation, he became convinced 
was counterfeit, or had been fraudulently issued. 
Having communicated Ins conclusions to Hon. 
Jesse K. Dubois, the State Auditor, in charge of 
the work of refunding the State indebtedness, an 
inquiry was instituted in the office of the Fund 
Commissioner — a position attached to the Gov- 
ernor's office, but in the charge of a secretary — 
which developed the fact that a large amount of 
these evidences of indebtedness had been taken 
up through that office and bonds issued therefor 
by the State Auditor under the laws for funding 
the State debt. A subsequent investigation by the 
Finance Committee of the State Senate, ordered 
by vote of that body, resulted in the discovery 
that, in May and August, 1839, two series of 
canal "scrip" (or checks) had been issued by the 
Canal Board, to meet temporary demands in the 
work of construction — the sum aggregating 
8209.059— of winch all but 8316 had been redeemed 
within a few years at the Chicago branch of the 
Illinois State Bank. The bank officers testified 
that this scrip (or a large part of it) had, after 
redemption, been held by them in the bank vaults 
without cancellation until settlement was had 
with the Canal Board, when it was packed in 
boxes and turned over to the Board. After hav- 
ing lain in the canal office for several years in 
this condition, and a new "Trustee" (as the 
officer in charge was now called) having come 
into the canal office in 1853, this scrip, with other 
papers, was repacked in a shoe-box and a trunk 
and placed in charge of Joel A. Matteson, then 
( iovernor, to be taken by him to Springfield and 
deposited there. Nothing further was known of 
these papers until October, 1854, when 8300 of the 
scrip was presented to the Secretary of the Fund 
Commissioner by a Springfield banker, and bond 
issued thereon. This was followed in 1856 and 
1857 by larger sums, until, at the time the legis- 
lative investigation was instituted, it was found 
that bonds to the amount of $223,182.66 had been 
issued on account of principal and interest. 
With the exception of the 8300 first presented, it 
was shown that all the scrip so funded had been 
presented by Governor Matteson, either while in 
office or subsequent to his retirement, and the 
bonds issued therefor delivered to him — although 
none of the persons in whose names the issue was 
made were known or ever afterward discovered. 
The developments made by the Senate Finance 
Committee led to an offer from Matteson to 



78 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS. 



indemnify the State, in which he stated that he 
had "unconsciously and innocently been made 
the instrument through whom a gross fraud upon 
the State had been attempted." He therefore 
gave to the State mortgages and an indemnifying 
bond for the sum shown to have been funded by 
him of this class of indebtedness, upon which the 
State, on foreclosure a few years later, secured 
judgment for §255,000, although the property on 
being sold realized only §238,000. A further 
investigation by the Legislature, in 1861, revealed 
the fact that additional issues of bonds for similar 
scrip had been made amounting to §165,346, for 
which the State never received any compensa- 
tion. A search through the State House for the 
trunk and box placed in the hands of Governor 
Matteson in 1853, while the official investigation 
was in progress, resulted in the discovery of the 
trunk in a condition showing it had been opened, 
but the box was never found. The fraud was 
made the subject of a protracted investigation 
by the Grand Jury of Sangamon County in May, 
1859, and, although the jury twice voted to indict 
Governor Matteson for larceny, it as often voted 
to reconsider, and, on a third ballot, voted to 
"ignore the bill." 

CANBY, Richard Sprigg, jurist, was born in 
Green County, Ohio, Sept. 30, 1808 ; was educated 
at Miami University and admitted to the bar, 
afterwards serving as Prosecuting Attorney, 
member of the Legislature and one term (1847-49) 
in Congress. In 1863 he removed to Illinois, 
locating at Olney, was elected Judge of the 
Twenty-fifth Judicial Circuit in 1867, resuming 
practice at the expiration of his term in 1873. 
Died in Richland County, July 27, 1895. Judge 
Canby was a relative of Gen. Edward Richard 
Spriggs Canby, who was treacherously killed by 
the Modocs in California in 1873. 

CANNON, Joseph Gr., Congressman, was born 
at Guilford, N. C, May 7, 1836, and removed to 
Illinois in early youth, locating at Danville, Ver- 
milion County. By profession he is a lawyer, 
and served as State's Attorney of Vermilion 
County for two terms (1861-68). Incidentally, 
he is conducting a large banking business at 
Danville. In 1872 he was elected as a Republican 
to the Forty-third Congress for the Fifteenth Dis- 
trict, and has been re-elected biennially ever 
since, except in 1890, when he was defeated for 
the Fifty-second Congress by Samuel T. Busey, 
his Democratic opponent. He is now (1898) 
serving his twelfth term as the Representative 
for the Twelfth Congressional District, and has 
been re-elected for a thirteenth term in the Fifty- 



sixth Congress (1899-1901). Mr. Cannon has been 
an influential factor in State and National poli- 
tics, as shown by the fact that he has been Chair- 
man of the House Committee on Appropriations 
during the important sessions of the Fifty-fourth 
and Fifty -fifth Congresses. 

CANTON, a flourishing city in Fulton County, 
12 miles from the Illinois River, and 28 miles 
southwest of Peoria. It is the commercial me- 
tropolis of one of the largest and richest counties 
in the "corn belt"; also has abundant supplies 
of timber and clay for manufacturing purposes. 
There are coal mines within the municipal limits, 
and various manufacturing establishments. 
Among the principal outputs are agricultural 
implements, flour, brick and tile, cigars, cigar 
boxes, foundry and machine-shop products, fire- 
arms, brooms, and marble. The city is lighted 
by gas and electricity, has water- works, fire de- 
partment, a public library, six ward schools and 
one high school, and three newspapers. Popula- 
tion (1890), 5,604; (1900), 6,564. 

CAPPS, Jabez, pioneer, was born in London, 
England, Sept. 9, 1796 ; came to the United States 
in 1817, and to Sangamon County, 111., in 1819. 
For a time he taught school in what is now 
called Round Prairie, in the present County of 
Sangamon, and later in Calhoun (the original 
name of a part of the city of Springfield) , having 
among his pupils a number of those who after- 
wards became prominent citizens of Central 
Illinois. In 1836, in conjunction with two part- 
ners, he laid out the town of Mount Pulaski, the 
original county-seat of Logan County, where he 
continued to live for the remainder of his life, 
and where, during its later period, he served as 
Postmaster some fifteen years. He also served as 
Recorder of Logan County four years. Died, 
April 1, 1896, in the 100th year of his age. 

CARBONDALE, a city in Jackson County, 
founded in 1852, 57 miles north of Cairo, and 91 
miles from St. Louis. Three lines of railway 
center here. The chief industries are coal-min- 
ing, farming, stock-raising, fruit-growing and 
lumbering. It has two preserving plants, eight 
churches, two weekly papers, and four public 
schools, and is the seat of the Southern Illinois 
Normal University. Pop. (1890), 2,382; (1900), 3,318. 

CARBONDALE & SHAWNEETOWN RAIL- 
ROAD, a short line 17^ miles in length, ex- 
tending from Marion to Carbondale, and operated 
by the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad 
Company, as lessee. It was incorporated as the 
Murphysboro & Shawneetown Railroad in 1867; 
its name changed in 1869 to The Carbondale & 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA <>K ILLINOIS. 



79 



Shawneetown, was opened for business, Dec. 31, 
1871, and leased in 1886 for 980 years to the St. 
Louis Southern, through which it passed into the 
hands of the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Rail- 
road, and by lease from the latter, in 1896, became 
apart of the Illinois Central System (which see). 
CAREY j William, lawyer, was born in the town 
of Turner, Maine, Dec. 29, 1826; studied law with 
(Jeneral Fessenden and at Yale Law School, was 
admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of 
Maine in 1856, the Supreme Court of Illinois in 
1857, and the Supreme Court of the United 
States, on motion of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, in 
is?:!. .Judge Carey was a member of the State 
Constitutional Convention of 1869-70 from Jo 
Daviess County, and the choice of the Republicans 
in that body for temporary presiding officer; 
was elected to the next General Assembly (the 
Twenty-seventh), serving as Chairman of the 
House Judiciary Committee through its four ses- 
sions ; from 1873 to 1876 was United States Dis- 
trict Attorney for Utah, still later occupying 
various offices at Deadwood, Dakota, and in Reno 
County, Kan. The first office held by Judge 
Carey in Illinois (that of Superintendent of 
Schools for the city of Galena) was conferred 
upon him through the influence of John A. Raw- 
lins, afterwards General Grant's chief-of-staff 
during the war, and later Secretary of War — 
although at the time Mr. Rawlins and he were 
politically opposed. Mr. Carey's present resi- 
dence is in Chicago. 

CARLIN, Thomas, former Governor, was born 
of Irish ancestry in Fayette County, Ky., July 
18, 1789; emigrated to Illinois in 1811, and served 
as a private in the War of 1812, and as a Captain 
in the Black Hawk War. While not highly edu- 
cated, he was a man of strong common sense, 
high moral standard, great firmness of character 
and unfailing courage. In 1818 he settled in 
Greene County, of which he was the first Sheriff; 
was twice elected State Senator, and was Regis- 
ter of the Land Office at Quincy, when he was 
elected Governor on the Democratic ticket in 
1838. An uncompromising partisan, he never- 
theless commanded the respect and good-will of 
his political opponents. Died at his home in 
Carrollton, Feb. 14, 1852. 

CARLIN, William Passmore, soldier, nephew of 
Gov. Thomas Carlin, was born at Rich Woods, 
Greene County, 111., Nov. 24, 1829. At the age 
of 21 he graduated from the United States Mili- 
tary Academy at West Point, and, in 1855, was 
attached to the Sixth United States Infantry as 
Lieutenant. After several years spent in Indian 



lighting, he was ordered to California, where he 
was promoted to a captaincy and assigned to 
recruiting duty. On August 15, 1861, he was 
commissioned Colonel of the Thirty-eighth Illi- 
nois Volunteers. His record during the war was 
an exceptionally brilliant one. He defeated Gen. 
Jeff. Thompson at Fredericktown, Mo., Oct. 21, 
1861; commanded the District of Southeast Mis- 
souri for eighteen months; led a brigade under 
Slocum in the Arkansas campaign; served with 
marked distinction in Kentucky and Mississippi; 
took a prominent part in the battle of Stone 
River, was engaged in the Tullahoma campaign, 
at Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain and Mission- 
ary Ridge, and, on Feb. 8, 1*04, was commis- 
sioned Major in the Sixteenth Infantry. He also 
took part in the Georgia campaign, aiding in the 
capture of Atlanta, and marching with Sherman 
to the sea. For gallant service in the assault at 
Jonesboro, Tenn., Sept. 1, 1864, he was made 
Colonel in the regular army, and, on March 13, 
1865, was bre vetted Brigadier-General for meritori- 
ous service at Bentonville, N. C, and Major- 
General for services during the war. Colonel 
Carlin was retired with the rank of Brigadier- 
General in 1893. His home is at Carrollton. 

CARLINYILLE, the county-seat of Macoupin 
County; a city and railroad junction, 57 miles 
northeast of St. Louis, and 38 miles southwest of 
Springfield. Blackburn University (which see) 
is located here. Three coal mines are operated, 
and there are brick works, tile works, and one 
newspaper. The city has gas and electric light 
plants and water-works. Population (1880), 
3,117; (1890), 3,293; (1900), 3,502. 

CARLYLE, the county-seat of Clinton County, 
48 miles east of St. Louis, located on the Kaskas- 
kia River and the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern 
Railroad. The town has churches, parochial and 
public schools, water-works, lighting plant, and 
manufactures. It has a flourishing seminary for 
young ladies, three weekly papers, and a public 
library connected with the high school. Popula- 
tion (1890), 1,784; (1900), 1,874. 

CARMI, the county-seat of White County, on 
the Little Wabash River, 124 miles east of St. 
Louis and 3* west of Kvansville, Ind. The sur- 
rounding country is fertile, yielding both cereals 
and fruit. Flouring mills and lumber manufac- 
turing, including the making of staves, are the 
chief industries, though the city has brick and 
tile works, a plow factory and foundry. Popula- 
tion (1880), 2,512; (1890), 2,785; (1900), 2,939. 

CARPENTER, Milton, legislator and State 
Treasurer; entered upon public life in Illinois as 



80 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Representative in the Ninth General Assembly 
(1834) from Hamilton County, serving by succes- 
sive re-elections in the Tenth, Eleventh and 
Twelfth. "While a member of the latter (1841) 
he was elected by the Legislature to the office of 
State Treasurer, retaining this position until the 
adoption of the Constitution of 1848, when he was 
chosen his own successor by popular vote, but 
died a few days after the election in August, 
1848. He was buried in what is now known as 
the "Old Hutchinson Cemetery" — a burying 
ground in the west part of the city of Springfield, 
long since abandoned — where his remains still lie 
(1897) in a grave unmarked by a tombstone. 

CARPENTER, Philo, pioneer and early drug- 
gist, was born of Puritan and Revolutionary 
ancestry in the town of Savoy, Mass., Feb. 27, 
1805 ; engaged as a druggist's clerk at Troy, N. Y. , 
in 1828, and came to Chicago in 1832, where he 
established himself in the drug business, which 
was later extended into other lines. Soon after 
his arrival, he began investing in lands, which 
have since become immensely valuable. Mr. 
Carpenter was associated with the late Rev. 
Jeremiah Porter in the organization of the First 
Presbyterian Church of Chicago, but, in 1851, 
withdrew on account of dissatisfaction with the 
attitude of some of the representatives of that 
denomination on the subject of slavery, identify- 
ing himself with the Congregationalist Church, 
in which he had been reared. He was one of the 
original founders and most liberal benefactors of 
the Chicago Theological Seminary, to which he 
gave in contributions, during his life-time, or in 
bequests after his death, sums aggregating not 
far from $100, 000. One of the Seminary build- 
ings was named in his honor, "Carpenter Hall." 
He was identified with various other organiza- 
tions, one of the most important being the Relief 
and Aid Society, which did such useful work 
after the fire of 1871. By a life of probity, liber- 
ality and benevolence, he won the respect of all 
classes, dying, August 7, 1886. 

CARPENTER, (Mrs.) Sarah L.Warren, pio- 
neer teacher, born in Fredonia, N. Y., Sept. 1, 
1818 ; at the age of 13 she began teaching at State 
Line, N. Y. ; in 1833 removed with her parents 
(Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Warren) to Chicago, and 
soon after began teaching in what was called the 
"Yankee settlement," now the town of Lockport, 
Will County. She came to Chicago the following 
year (1834) to take the place of assistant of Gran- 
ville T. Sproat in a school for boys, and is said to 
have been the first teacher paid out of the public 
funds in Chicago, though Miss Eliza Chappell 



(afterwards Mrs. Jeremiah Porter) began teach- 
ing the children about Fort Dearborn in 1833. 
Miss Warren married Abel E. Carpenter, whom 
she survived, dying at Aurora, Kane County, 
Jan. 10, 1897. 

CARPENTERSVILLE, a village of Kane 
County and manufacturing center, on Lake Ge- 
neva branch of the Chicago & Northwestern Rail- 
road, 6 miles north of East Elgin and about 48 
miles from Chicago. Pop. (1890), 754; (1900), 1,002. 

CARR, Clark E., lawyer, politician and diplo- 
mat, was born at Boston, Erie County, N. Y., 
May 20, 1836 ; at 13 years of age accompanied his 
father's family to Galesburg, 111. , where he spent 
several years at Knox College. In 1857 he gradu- 
ated from the Albany Law School, but on return- 
ing to Illinois, soon embarked in politics, his 
affiliations being uniformly with the Republican 
party. His first office was that of Postmaster at 
Galesburg, to which he was appointed by Presi- 
dent Lincoln in 1861 and which he held for 
twenty-four years. He was a tried and valued 
assistant of Governor Yates during the War of 
the Rebellion, serving on the staff of the latter 
with the rank of Colonel. He was a delegate to 
the National Convention of his party at Baltimore 
in 1864, which renominated Lincoln, and took an 
active part in the campaigns of that year, as well 
as those of 1868 and 1872. In 1869 he purchased 
"The Galesburg Republican," which he edited 
and published for two years. In 1880 he was an 
unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomi- 
nation for Governor ; in 1884 was a delegate to the 
Republican National Convention, from the State- 
at-large, and, in 1887, a candidate for the caucus 
nomination for United States Senator, which was 
given to Charles B. Farwell. In 1888 he was 
defeated in the Republican State Convention as 
candidate for Governor by Joseph W. Fifer. In 
1889 President Harrison appointed him Minister 
to Denmark, which post he filled with marked 
ability and credit to the country until his resig- 
nation was accepted by President Cleveland, 
when he returned to his former home at Gales- 
burg. While in Denmark he did much to 
promote American trade with that country, 
especially in the introduction of American corn 
as an article of food, which has led to a large 
increase in the annual exportation of this com- 
modity to Scandinavian markets. 

CARR, Eugene A., soldier, was born in Erie 
County, N. Y., May 20, 1830, and graduated at 
West Point in 1850, entering the Mounted Rifles. 
Until 1861 he was stationed in the Far West, and 
engaged in Indian fighting, earning a First Lieu- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



81 



tenancy through his gallantry. In 1861 he 
entered upon active service under General Lyon, 
in Southwest Missouri, taking part in the engage- 
ments of Dug Springs and Wilson's Creek, 
winning the brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel. In 
September, 18G1, he was commissioned Colonel of 
the Third Illinois Cavalry He served as acting 
Brigadier-General in Fremont's hundred-day 
expedition, for a time commanding the Fourth 
Division of the Army of the Southwest. On the 
second day at Pea Ridge, although three times 
wounded, he remained on the field seven hours, 
and materially aided in securing a victory, for 
his bravery being made Brigadier-General of 
Volunteers. In the summer of 18G2 he was 
promoted to the rank of Major in the Regular 
Army. During the Vicksburg campaign he com- 
manded a division, leading the attack at Magnolia 
Church, at Port Gibson, and at Big Black River, 
and winning a brevet Lieutenant-Colonelcy in 
the United States Army. He also distinguished 
himself for a first and second assault upon taking 
Vicksburg, and, in the autumn of 1862, com- 
manded the left wing of the Sixteenth Corps at 
Corinth. In December of that year he was 
transferred to the Department of Arkansas, 
where he gained new laurels, being bre vetted 
Brigadier-General for gallantry at Little Rock, 
and Major-General for services during the war. 
After the close of the Civil War, he was stationed 
chiefly in the West, where he rendered good serv- 
ice in the Indian campaigns. In 1894 he was 
retired with the rank of Brigadier-General, and 
has since resided in New York. 

CARRIEL, Henry F., M.D., alienist, was born 
at Charlestown, N. EL, and educated at Marlow 
Academy, N. H., and W r esleyan Seminary, Vt. ; 
graduated from the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons, New York City, in 1857, and immedi- 
ately accepted the position of Assistant Physician 
in the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, 
remaining until 1870. Meanwhile, however, he 
visited a large number of the leading hospitals 
and asylums of Europe. In 1870, Dr. Carriel 
received the appointment of Superintendent of 
the Illinois Central Hospital for the Insane at 
Jacksonville, a position which he continued to 
fill until 1893, when he voluntarily tendered to 
Governor Altgeld his resignation, to take effect 
July 1 of that year.— Mrs. Mary Turner (Carriel), 
wife of Dr. Carriel, and a daughter of Prof. 
Jonathan B. Turner of Jacksonville, was elected 
a Trustee of the University of Illinois on the Repub- 
lican ticket in 1896, receiving a plurality of US, 039 
over Julia Holmes Smith, her highest competitor. 



CARROLL COUNTY, originally a pari of Jo 
Daviess County, hut set apart and organized in 
ls:j9, named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton. The 
first settlements were in and around Savanna, 
Cherry Grove and Arnold's Grove. The first 
County Commissioners were Messrs. L. II. Bor 
den, Garner Moffett and S. M. Jersey, who held 
their first court at Savanna, April 13, 1839. In 
1843 the county seat was changed from Savanna 
to Mount Carroll, where it yet remains. Town 
ships were first organized in 1850, and the 
development of the county has steadily pro 
gressed since that date. The surface of the land 
is rolling, and at certain points decidedly pictur- 
esque. The land is generally good for farming. 
It is well timbered, particularly along the Mis- 
sissippi. Area of the county, 440 square miles; 
population, 18,903. Mount Carroll is a pleasant, 
prosperous, wide-awake town, of about 2,000 
inhabitants, and noted for its excellent public 
ami private schools. 

CARROLLTON, the county-seat of Greene 
County, situated on the west branch of the Chi- 
cago & Alton and the Quincy, Carrollton & St. 
Louis Railroads, 33 miles north-northwest of 
Alton, and 34 miles south by west from Jackson- 
ville. The town has a foundry, carriage and 
wagon factory, two machine shops, two flour 
mills, two banks, six churches, a high school, and 
two weekly newspapers. Population (1890), 
2,258; (1900), 2,355. 

CARTER, Joseph N., Justice of the Supreme 
Court, was born in Hai-din County, Ky., March 
12, 1843; came to Illinois in boyhood, and. after 
attending school at Tuscola four years, engaged 
in teaching until lS(i3, when he entered Illinois 
College, graduating in 1866; in istjs graduated 
from the Law Department of the University of 
Michigan, the next year establishing himself in 
practice at Quincy, where he has since resided 
He was a member of the Thirty first and Thirty- 
second General Assemblies (1878-82), and, in 
June, 1894, was elected to the seat on the Supreme 
Bench, which he now occupies 

CARTER, Thomas Henry, United State's Sena 
tor, born in Scioto County, Ohio, Oct, 30, 1854; 
in his fifth year was brought to Illinois, his 
father locating at Pana, where he was educated 
in the public schools; was employed in farming, 
railroading and teaching several years, then 
studied law and was admitted to the bar, and, in 
1882, removed to Helena, Mont., where he en- 
gaged in practice; was elected, as a Republican 
the last Territorial Delegate to Congress from 
Idaho and the first Representative from the new 



82 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



State; was Commissioner of the General Land 
Office (1891-92), and, in 1895, was elected to the 
United States Senate for the term ending in 1901. 
In 1892 he was chosen Chairman of the Repub- 
lican National Committee, serving until the St. 
Louis Convention of 1896. 

CARTER VILLE, a city in Williamson County, 
10 miles by rail northwest of Marion. Coal min- 
ing is the principal industry. It has a bank, five 
churches, a public school, and a weekly news- 
paper. Population (1880), 692; (1890), 969; (1900), 
1,749; (1904, est.), 2,000. 

CARTHAGE, a city and the county-seat of 
Hancock County, 13 miles east of Keokuk, Iowa, 
on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and the Wa- 
bash Railroads ; has water- works, electric lights, 
three banks, four trust companies, four weekly 
and two semi-weekly papers, and is the seat of a 
Lutheran College. Pop. (1890), 1,654; (1900), 2,104. 

CARTHAGE COLLEGE, at Carthage, Hancock 
County, incorporated in 1871 ; has a teaching 
faculty of twelve members, and reports 158 pupils 
— sixty-eight men and ninety women — for 1897-98. 
It has a library of 5,000 volumes and endowment 
of §32,000= Instruction is given in the classical, 
scientific, musical, fine arts and business depart- 
ments, as well as in preparatory studies. In 1898 
this institution reported a property valuation of 
§41,000, of which $35,000 was in real estate. 

CARTHAGE & BURLINGTON RAILROAD. 
(See Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.) 

CARTWRIGHT, James Henry, Justice of the 
Supreme Court, was born at Maquoketa, Iowa, 
Dec. 1, 1842 — the son of a frontier Methodist 
clergyman; was educated at Rock River Semi- 
nary and the University of Michigan, graduating 
from the latter in 1867 ; began practice in 1870 at 
Oregon, Ogle County, which is still his home ; in 
1888 was elected Circuit Judge to succeed Judge 
Eustace, deceased, and in 1891 assigned to Appel- 
late Court duty ; in December, 1895, was elected 
Justice of the Supreme Court to succeed Justice 
John M. Bailey, deceased, and re-elected in 
1897. 

CARTWRIGHT, Peter, pioneer Methodist 
preacher, was born in Amherst County, Va., 
Sept. 1, 1785, and at the age of five years accom- 
panied his father (a Revolutionary veteran) to 
Logan County, Ky. The country was wild and 
unsettled, there were no schools, the nearest mill 
was 40 miles distant, the few residents wore 
homespun garments of flax or cotton ; and coffee, 
tea and sugar in domestic use were almost un- 
known. Methodist circuit riders soon invaded 
the district, and, at a camp meeting held at Cane 



Ridge in 1801, Peter received his first religious 
impressions. A few months later he abandoned 
his reckless life, sold his race-horse and abjured 
gambling. He began preaching immediately 
after his conversion, and, in 1803, was regularly 
received into the ministry of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, although only 18 years old. In 
1823 he removed to Illinois, locating in Sangamon 
County, then but sparsely settled. In 1828, and 
again in 1832, he was elected to the Legislature, 
where his homespun wit and undaunted courage 
stood him in good stead. For a long series of 
years he attended annual conferences (usually as 
a delegate), and was a conspicuous figure at 
camp-meetings. Although a Democrat all his 
life, he was an uncompromising antagonist of 
slavery, and rejoiced at the division of his 
denomination in 1844. He was also a zealous 
supporter of the Government during the Civil 
War. In 1846 he was a candidate for Congress 
on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated by 
Abraham Lincoln. He was a powerful preacher, 
a tireless worker, and for fifty years served as a 
Presiding Elder of his denomination. On the 
lecture platform, his quaintness and eccentricity, 
together with his inexhaustible fund of personal 
anecdotes, insured an interested audience. 
Numerous stories are told of his physical prowess 
in overcoming unruly characters whom he had 
failed to convince by moral suasion. Inside the 
church he was equally fearless and outspoken, 
and his strong common sense did much to pro- 
mote the success of the denomination in the 
West. He died at his home near Pleasant Plains, 
Sangamon County, Sept. 25, 1872. His principal 
published works are "A Controversy with the 
Devil" (1853), "Autobiography of Peter Cart- 
wright" (1856), "The Backwoods Preacher" 
(London, 1869), and several works on Methodism. 
CARY, Eugene, lawyer and insurance manager, 
was born at Boston, Erie County, N. Y., Feb. 20, 
1835; began teaching at sixteen, meanwhile 
attending a select school or academy at intervals ; 
studied law at Sheboygan, Wis., and Buffalo, 
N. Y., 1855-56; served as City Attorney and 
later as County Judge, and, in 1861, enlisted in 
the First Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers, serv- 
ing as a Captain in the Army of the Cumberland, 
and the last two years as Judge-Advocate on the 
staff of General Rousseau. After the war he 
settled at Nashville, Tenn., where he held the 
office of Judge of the First District, but in 1871 
he was elected to the City Council, and, in 1883, 
was the High-License candidate for Mayor in 
opposition to Mayor Harrison, and believed by 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



83 



many to have been honestly elected, but counts I 
out by the machine methods then in vogue. 

CASAD, Anthony Wayne, clergymen and phy- 
sician, was born in Wantage Township, Sussex 
County, X. J., May 2, 1791; died at Summerfield, 
111., Dec. 16, 1857. His father, Rev. Thomas 
Casad. was a Baptist minister, who, with his 
wife, Abigail Tingley, was among the early 
settlers of Sussex County. He was descended 
from Dutch-Huguenot ancestry, the family name 
being originally Cossart, the American branch 
having been founded by Jacques Cossart, who 
emigrated from Leyden to New York in 1C63. 
At the age of 19 Anthony removed to Greene 
County, Ohio, settling at Fairfield, near the site 
of the present city of Dayton, where some of his 
relatives were then residing. On Feb. 6, 1811, he 
married Anna, eldest daughter of Captain Samuel 
Stites and Martha Martin Stites, her mother's 
father and grandfather having been patriot sol- 
diers in the War of the Revolution. Anthony 
Wayne Casad served as a volunteer from Ohio in 
the War of 1S12, being a member of Captain 
Wm. Stephenson's Company. In 1818 he re- 
moved with his wife's father to Union Grove, St. 
Clair County, 111. A few years later he entered 
the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and during 1821-23 was stationed at Kaskaskia 
and Buffalo, removing, in 1823, to Lebanon, 
where he taught school. Later he studied medi- 
cine and attained considerable prominence as a 
practitioner, being commissioned Surgeon of the 
Forty-ninth Illinois Infantry in 1835. He was 
one of the founders of MeKendree College and a 
liberal contributor to its support; was also for 
many years Deputy Superintendent of Schools at 
Lebanon, served as County Surveyor of St. 
Clair Count}*, and acted as agent for Harper 
Brothers in the sale of Southern Illinois lands. 
He was a prominent Free Mason and an influ- 
ential citizen. His youngest daughter, Amanda 
Keziah, married Rev. Colin D. James (which see). 

< ASEY, a village of Clark County, at the inter- 
section of the Vandalia Line and the Chicago & 
Ohio River Railroad. 35 miles southwest of Terre 
Haute. Population (,1800), S44 ; (1900), 1,500. 

CASEY, Zadoe, pioneer and early Congressman, 
was born in Georgia. March 17, 1796, the you 
est son of a soldier of the Revolutionary War who 
removed to Tennessee about 1800. The subject 
of this sketch came to Illinois in l s 17. brin^ 
with him his widowed mother, and settling in 
the vicinity of the present city of Mount Vernon, 
in Jefferson County, where he acquired great 
prominence as a politician and became the heal 



of an influential family. He began preaching at 
an early age, and continued to do so occasionally 
through his political career. In 1810, he took a 
prominent part in the , .r^anization of Jefferson 
County, serving on the first Board of County 
Commissioners; was an unsuccessful candidate 
for the Legislature in 1820, but was elected 
Representative in 1822 and re-elected two years 
later; in 1826 was advance,} to the Senate, serv- 
ing until 1830, when he was elected Lieutenant 
Governor, and during his incumbency took part 
in the Black Hawk War. On March 1, 1833, be 
resigned the Lieutenant-Governorship to accept 
a seat as one of the three Congressmen from 
Illinois, to which he had been elected a few 
months previous, being subsequently re-elected 
for four consecutive terms. In 1*42 he was 
again a candidate, but was defeated by John A. 
McClernand. Other public positions held by him 
included those of Delegate to the Constitutional 
Conventions of 1847 and 1862, Representative in 
the Sixteenth and Seventeenth General Assem- 
blies (184*-">2), serving as Speaker in the former. 
He was again elected to the Senate in 1860, but 
died before the expiration of his term, Sept. 4, 
1862. During the latter years of his life he was 
active in securing the right of way for the Ohio 
A" Mississippi Railroad, the original of the Mis- 
sissippi division of the Baltimore, Ohio & South- 
western. He commenced life in poverty, but 
acquired a considerable estate, and was the donor 
of the ground upon which the Supreme Court 
building for the Southern Division at Mount 
Vernon was erected. — Dr. Xewton R. (Casey), 
son of the preceding, was born in Jefferson 
County, 111., Jan. 27, 1826, received his pri- 
mary education in the local schools and at Hill-- 
boro and Mount Vernon Academies; in 1842 
entered the Ohio Lniversity at Athens in that 
State, remaining until 1845, when he com- 
menced the study of medicine, taking a course 
of lectures the following year at the Louisville 
Medical Institute: soon after began practice, 
and. in lb47, removed to Benton, 111., returning 
the following year to Mount Vernon. In 
1856-57 he attended a second course of lectures at 
the Missouri Medical College, St. Louis, the Latter 
r removing to Mound City, where he rilled a 
number of positions, including that of Mayor 
from 1859 to 1864, when he declined a re-election 
In 1860, Dr. Casey served as delegate from Illi- 
nois to the Democratic National Convention at 
Charleston. S. C, and. on the establishment of 
the United States Government Hospital at Mound 
City, in 1861 acted for some time as a volunteer 



84 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



surgeon, later serving as Assistant Surgeon. In 
1866, he was elected Representative in the 
Twenty -fifth General Assembly and re-elected in 
1868, when he was an unsuccessful Democratic 
candidate for Speaker in opposition to Hon. S. M. 
Cullom; also again served as Representative in 
the Twenty-eighth General Assembly (1872-74). 
Since retiring from public life Dr. Casey has 
given his attention to the practice of his profes- 
sion. — Col. Thomas S. (Casey), another son, was 
born in Jefferson County, 111., April 6, 1832, 
educated in the common schools and at McKend- 
ree College, in due course receiving the degree of 
A.M. from the latter; studied law for three 
years, being admitted to the bar in 1854; in 1860, 
was elected State's Attorney for the Twelfth 
Judicial District; in September, 1862, was com- 
missioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Tenth 
Illinois Volunteer Infantry, but was mustered out 
May 16, 1863, having in the meantime taken part 
in the battle of Stone River and other important 
engagements in Western Tennessee. By this 
time his regiment, having been much reduced 
in numbers, was consolidated with the Sixtieth 
Illinois Volunteer Infantry. In 1864, he was 
again elected State's Attorney, serving until 
1868; in 1870, was chosen Representative, and, in 
1872, Senator for the Mount Vernon District for 
a term of four years. In 1879, he was elected Cir- 
cuit Judge and was immediately assigned to 
Appellate Court duty, soon after the expiration of 
his term, in 1885, removing to Springfield, where 
he died, March 1, 1891. 

CASS COUNTY, situated a little west of the 
center of the State, with an area of 360 square 
miles and a population (1900) of 17,222— named 
for Gen. Lewis Cass. French traders are believed 
to have made the locality of Beardstown their 
headquarters about the time of the discovery of 
the Illinois country. The earliest permanent 
white settlers came about 1820, and among them 
were Thomas Beard, Martin L. Lindsley, John 
Cetrough and Archibald Job. As early as 1821 
there was a horse-mill on Indian Creek, and, in 
1827, M. L Lindsley conducted a school on the 
bluffs. Peter Cartwright, the noted Methodist 
missionary and evangelist, was one of the earliest 
preachers, and among the pioneers may be named 
Messrs. Robertson, Toplo, McDonald, Downing, 
Davis, Shepherd, Penny, Bergen and Hopkins. 
Beardstown was the original county-seat, and 
during both the Black Hawk and Mormon 
troubles was a depot of supplies and rendezvous 
for troops. Here also Stephen A. Douglas made 
his first political speech. The site of the town, 



as at present laid out, was at one time sold by 
Mr. Downing for twenty-five dollars. The 
county was 'set off from Morgan in 1837. The 
principal towns are Beardstown, Virginia, Chand- 
lerville, Ashland and Arenzville. The county- 
seat, formerly at Beardstown, was later removed 
to Virginia, where it now is. Beardstown was 
incorporated in 1837, with about 700 inhabitants. 
Virginia was platted in 1836, but not incorporated 
until 1842. 

CASTLE, Orlando Lane, educator, was born at 
Jericho, Vt., July 26, 1822; graduated at Denison 
University, Ohio, 1846; spent one year as tutor 
there, and, for several years, had charge of the 
public schools of Zanesville, Ohio. In 1858, he 
accepted the chair of Rhetoric, Oratory and 
Belles- Lettres in Shurtleff College, at Upper 
Alton, 111., remaining until his death, Jan. 31, 
1892. Professor Castle received the degree of 
LL.D. from Denison University in 1877. 

CATHERWOOD, Mary Hartwell, author, was 
born (Hartwell) in Luray, Ohio, Dec. 16, 1844, 
educated at the Female College, Granville, Ohio, 
where she graduated, in 1868, and, in 1887, was 
married to James S. Catherwood, with whom she 
resides at Hoopeston, 111. Mrs. Catherwood is the 
author of a number of works of fiction, which 
have been accorded a high rank. Among her 
earlier productions are "Craque-o'-Doom" (1881), 
"Rocky Fork" (1882), "Old Caravan Days" 
(1884), "The Secrets at Roseladies" (1888), "The 
Romance of Dollard" and "The Bells of St. 
Anne" (1889). During the past few years she 
has shown a predilection for subjects connected 
with early Illinois history, and has published 
popular romances under the title of "The Story 
of Tonty," "The White Islander," "The Lady of 
Fort St. John," "Old Kaskaskia" and "The Chase 
of Sant Castin and other Stories of the French 
in the New World." 

CATON, John Dean, early lawyer and jurist, 
was born in Monroe County, N". Y., March 19, 
1S12. Left to the care of a widowed mother at 
an early age, his childhood was spent in poverty 
and manual labor. At 15 he was set to learn a 
trade, but an infirmity of sight compelled him to 
abandon it. After a brief attendance at an 
academy at Utica, where he studied law between 
the ages of 19 and 21, in 1833 he removed to 
Chicago, and shortly afterward, on a visit to 
Pekin, was examined and licensed to practice by 
Judge Stephen T. Logan. In 1834, he was elected 
Justice of the Peace, served as Alderman in 
1837-38, and sat upon the bench of the Supreme 
Court from 1842 to 1864, when he resigned, hav- 



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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



85 



ing served nearly twenty-two years. During 
this period lit more than once occupied the posi- 
tion of Chief-Justice. Being embarrassed by the 
financial stringency of 1837-88, in the latter year 
lie entered a tract of land near Plainfield. ami. 
taking his family with him, began farming. 
Later in life, while a resident of Ottawa, he 
became interested in the construction of telegraph 
lines in the West, which for a time bore his name 
;;,1 were ultimately incorporated in the "West- 
ern Union," laying the foundation of a large 
fortune. On retiring from the bench, he devoted 
himself for the remainder of his life to his private 
a Hairs, to travel, and to literary labors. Among 
his published works are "The Antelope and Deer 
of America," "A Summer in Norway," "Miscel- 
lanies," and "Early Bench and Bar of Illinois." 
Died in Chicago, July 30, 1895. 

CAYARLY, Alfred W., early lawyer and legis- 
lator was born in Connecticut, Sept. 15, 1793; 
served as a soldier in the War of is 12, and, in 
1822, came to Illinois, first settling at Edwards- 
ville, and soon afterwards at Carrollton, Greene 
County. Here he was elected Representative in 
the Fifth General Assembly (1820), and again to 
the Twelfth (1840) ; also served as Senator in the 
Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Assemblies 
(1842-48), acting, in 1845, as one of the Commis- 
sioners to revise the statutes. In 1844, he was 
chosen a Presidential Elector, and, in 1846, was a 
prominent candidate for the Democratic nomi- 
nation for Governor, but was defeated in conven- 
tion by Augustus C. French. Mr. Cavarly was 
prominent both in his profession and in the 
Legislature while a member of that body. In 
1853, he removed to Ottawa, where he resided 
until his death, Oct. 25, 1876. 

CENTERVILLE (or Central City), a village in 
the coal-mining district of Grundy County, near 
Coal City. Population (1880), 673; (1900), 290. 

CENTRAL HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE, 
established under act of the Legislature passed 
March 1, 1847, and located at Jacksonville, Mor- 
gan County. Its founding was largely due to the 
philanthropic efforts of Miss Dorothea L. Dix, 
who addressed the people from the platform and 
appeared before the General Assembly in behalf 
of this class of unfortunates. Const ruction of 
the building was begun in 1S4S. By L851 two 
wards were ready for occupancy, and the first 
patient was received in November of that year. 
The first Superintendent was Dr. J. M. Biggins, 
who served less than two years, when he was suc- 
ceeded by Dr. H. K. Jones, who had been Assist- 
ant Superintendent. Dr. Jones remained as 



Acting Superintendent for several months, when 
the place was filled by the appointment of Dr. 
Andrew McFarland of New Hampshire, his 
administration continuing until is7u i when he 
resigned on account of ill-health, bein^ su< iceeded 
by Dr. Henry F. Carriel of New .Jersey. I) r . 
Carriel tendered his resignation in 1893, and, 
after one or two further changes, in 1897 Dr. 
F. C. Winslow, who had been Assistant Superin- 
tendent under Dr. Carriel, was placed in charge 
of the institution. The original plan of construc- 
tion provided for a center building, five and a 
half stories high, and two wings with a rear 
extension in which were to be the chapel, kitchen 
and employes' quarters. Subsequently these 
win^s were greatly enlarged, permitting an 
increase in the number of wards, and as the 
exigencies of the institution demanded, appropri- 
ations have been made for the erection of addi- 
tional buildings. Numerous detached buildings 
have been erected within the past few years, and 
the capacity of the institution greatly increased 
— "The Annex" admitting of the introduction of 
many new and valuable features in the classifica- 
tion and treatment of patients. The number of 
inmates of late years has ranged from 1,200 to 
1,400. The counties from which patients are 
received in this institution embrace: Rock 
Island, Mercer, Henry, Bureau, Putnam, Mar- 
shall, Stark, Knox, Warren, Henderson, Hancock, 
McDonough, Fulton, Peoria, Tazewell, Logan, 
Mason, Menard, Cass, Schuyler, Adams, Pike, 
Calhoun, Brown, Scott, Morgan, Sangamon, 
Christian, Montgomery, Macoupin, Greene and 
Jersey. 

CEXTRALIA, a city and railway center of 
Marion County, 250 miles south of Chicago. It 
forms a trade center for the famous "fruit belt" 
of Southern Illinois; has a number of coal mines, 
a glass plant, an envelope factory, iron foundries, 
railroad repair shops, flour and rolling mills, ami 
an ice plant; also has water-works and sewerage 
system, a fire department, two daily papers, and 
excellent graded schools. Several parks afford 
splendid pleasure resorts. Population (1S90), 
4,763; (1900), 6.721; (1903, est.), 8,000. 

CENTRALIA & ALTAMONT RAILROAD. 
(See criitnilid <(• Chester Railroad I 

CENTRALIA & CHESTER RAILROAD, a rail- 
way line wholly within the State, extending 
from Salem, in Marion ( !ounty, to < !hester, on the 
Mississippi Liver (91.0 miles), with a lateral 
branch from Sparta to Koxborough I 5 miles), and 
trackage facilities over the Illinois Central from 
the branch junction to Centralis (2 9 miles) — 



86 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



total, 99.5 miles. The original line was chartered 
as the Centralia & Chester Railroad, in December, 
1887, completed from Sparta to Coulterville in 
1889, and consolidated the same year with the 
Sparta & Evansville and the Centralia & Alta- 
mont Railroads (projected); line completed 
from Centralia to Evansville early in 1894. The 
branch from Sparta to Rosborough was built in 
1895, the section of the main line from Centralia 
to Salem (14.9 miles) in 1896, and that from 
Evansville to Chester (17.6 miles) in 1897-98. 
The road was placed in the hands of a receiver, 
June 7, 1897, and the expenditures for extension 
and equipment made under, authority granted by 
the United States Court for the issue of Receiver's 
certificates. The total capitalization is §2,374,- 
841, of which $978,000 is in stocks and $948,000 in 
bonds. 

CENTRAL MILITARY TRACT RAILROAD. 
(See Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.) 

CERRO GORDO, a town in Piatt County, 12 
miles by rail east-northeast of Decatur. The crop 
of cereals in the surrounding country is sufficient 
to support two elevators at Cerro Gordo, which 
has also a flouring mill, brick and tile factories, 
etc. There are three churches, graded schools, a 
bank and two newspaper offices. Population 
(1890), 939; (1900), 1,008. 

CHADDOCK COLLEGE, an institution under 
the patronage of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
at Quincy, III., incorporated in 1878; is co-educa- 
tional, has a faculty of ten instructors, and 
reports 127 students — 70 male and 57 female — in 
the classes of 1895-96. Besides the usual depart- 
ments in literature, science and the classics, 
instruction is given to classes in theology, music, 
the fine arts, oratory and preparatory studies. It 
has property valued at 8110,000, and reports an 
endowment fund of §8,000. 

CHAMBERLIN, Thomas Crowder, geologist 
and educator, was born near Mattoon, 111., Sept. 
25, 1845; graduated at Beloit College, Wisconsin, 
in 1866: took a course in Michigan University 
(1868-69); taught in various Wisconsin institu- 
tions, also discharged the duties of State 
Geologist, later filling the chair of Geology at 
Columbian University, Washington, D. C. In 
1878, he was sent to Paris, in charge of the edu- 
cational exhibits of Wisconsin, at the Interna- 
tional Exposition of that year — during his visit 
making a special study of the Alpine glaciers. 
In 1887, he was elected President of the Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin, serving until 1892, when he 
became Head Professor of Geology at the Univer- 
sity of Chicago, where he still remains. He is 



also editor of the University "Journal of Geol- 
ogy" and President of the Chicago Academy of 
Sciences. Professor Chamberlin is author of a 
number of volumes on educational and scientific 
subjects, chiefly in the line of geology. He 
received the degree of LL.D. from the Univer- 
sity of Michigan, Beloit College and Columbian 
University, all on the same date (1887). 

CHAMPAIGN, a flourishing city in Champaign 
County, 128 miles southwest of Chicago and 83 
miles northeast of Springfield ; is the intersecting 
point of three lines of railway and connected 
with the adjacent city of Urbana, the county- 
seat, by an electric railway. The University of 
Illinois, located in Urbana, is contiguous to the 
city. Champaign has an excellent system of 
water-works, well-paved streets, and is lighted by 
both gas and electricity. The surrounding coun- 
try is agricultural, but the city has manufac- 
tories of carriages and machines. Three papers 
are published here, besides a college weekly con- 
ducted by the students of the University. The 
Burnham Hospital and the Garwood Old Ladies' 
Home are located in Champaign. In the resi- 
dence portion of the city there is a handsome 
park, covering ten acres and containing a notable 
piece of bronze statuary, and several smaller parks 
in other sections. There are several handsome 
churches, and excellent schools, both public and 
private. Population (1890), 5,839; (1900), 9,098. 

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, situated in the eastern 
half of the central belt of the State; area, 1,008 
square miles; population (1900), 47,622. The 
county was organized in 1833, and named for a 
county in Ohio. The physical conformation is 
flat, and the soil rich. The county lies in the 
heart of what was once called the "Grand 
Prairie." Workable seams of bituminous coal 
underlie the surface, but overlying quicksands 
interfere with their operation. The Sangamon 
and Kaskaskia Rivers have their sources in this 
region, and several railroads cross the county. 
The soil is a black muck underlaid by a yellow 
clay. Urbana (with a population of 5,708 in 
1900) is the county-seat. Other important points 
in the county are Champaign (9,000), Tolono 
(1,000), and Rantoul (1,200). Champaign and 
Urbana adjoin each other, and the grounds of the 
Illinois State University extend into each corpo- 
ration, being largely situated in Champaign. 
Large drifted masses of Niagara limestone are 
found, interspersed with coal measure limestone 
and sandstone. Alternating beds of clay, gravel 
and quicksand of the drift formation are found 
beneath the subsoil to the depth of 150 to 300 feet. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS 



s: 



CHAMPAIGN, HAVANA & WESTERN RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Illinois Central Railroad.) 

CHANDLER, Charles, physician, was born at 
West Woodstock, Conn., .Inly 2, 1806; graduated 
with the degree of M.D. at Castleton, \ t., and, 
in 1829, located in Scituate, R. !. ; in 1832, started 
with the intention of settling at Fort Clark (now 
Peoria), 111., but was stopped at lieardstown by 
the "Black Hawk War," finally locating on the 
Sangamon River, in Cass County, where, in 1S4S, 
he laid out the town of Chandlerville — Abraham 
Lincoln being one of the surveyors who platted 
the town. Here he gained a large practice, 
which he was compelled, in his later years, par- 
tially to abandon in consequence of injuries 
received while prosecuting his profession, after- 
wards turning his attention to merchandising 
and encouraging the development of the locality 
in which he lived by promoting the construction 
of railroads and the building of schoolhouses and 
churches. Liberal and public-spirited, his influ- 
ence for good extended over a large region. 
Died, April 7, 1879. 

CHANDLER, Henry B., newspaper manager, 
was born at Frelighsburg, Quebec, July 12, 1836; 
at 18 he began teaching, and later took charge of 
the business department of "The Detroit Free 
Press"; in 1861, came to Chicago with Wilbur F. 
Storey and became business manager of "The 
Chicago Times"; in 1870, disagreed with Storey 
and retired from newspaper business. Died, at 
Yonkers, N. Y., Jan. 18, 1896. 

CHANDLERVILLE, a village in Cass County, 
on the Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Railroad, 7 
miles north by east from Virginia, laid out in 
1848 by Dr. Charles Chandler, and platted by 
Abraham Lincoln. It has a bank, a creamery, 
four churches, a weekly newspaper, a tiour and a 
saw-mill. Population (1890), 910; (1900), 940. 

CHAPIN, a village of Morgan County, at the 
intersection of the Wabash and the Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy Railroads, 10 miles west of 
Jacksonville. Population (1890), 450; (1900), 514. 

CHAPPELL, Charles H., railway manager, 
was born in Du Page County, 111. , March 3, 1841. 
With an ardent passion for the railroad business, 
at the age of 16 he obtained a position as freight 
brakeman on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
Railroad, being steadily promoted through the 
ranks of conductor, train-master and dispatcher, 
until, in 1865, at the age of 24, he was appointed 
General Agent of the Eastern Division of the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. Other railroad 
positions -which Mr. Chappell lias since held are: 
Superintendent of a division of the Union Pacific 



(1869-70); Assistant or Division Superintendent 
of the Chicago, Burlington <S Quincy, or some of 
its branches (1870-74); General Superintendent 
of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (1874 
Superintendent of the Western Division of the 
Wabash (1877-79). In 1880, he accepted the 
position of Assistant General Superintendent of 
the Chicago & Alton Railroad, being advanced in 
the next three years through the grades of 
General Superintendent and Assistant General 
Manager, to that of General Manager of the 
entire system, which he has continued to till for 
over twelve years. Quietly and without show or 
display. Mr. Chappell continues in the discharge 
of his duties, assisting to make the system with 
which he is identified one of the most successful 
and perfect in its operation in the whole country. 

CHARLESTON, the county-seat of Coles 
County, an incorporated city and a railway junc- 
tion, 46 miles west of Terre Haute, Ind. It lies 
in the center of a fanning region, yet has several 
factories, including woolen and flouring mills, 
broom, plow and carriage factories, a foundry 
and a canning factory. Three newspapers are 
published here, issuing daily editions. Population 
(1890), 4,135; (1900), 5.488. The Eastern State 
Normal School was located here in 1895. 

CHARLESTON, \E0UA & ST. LOUIS RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Toledo, St. Louis d- Kansas City 
Railroad.) 

CHARLEVOIX, Pierre Francois Xavier de, 
a celebrated French traveler and an early 
explorer of Illinois, born at St. Quentin, France, 
Oct. 29, 1682. He entered the Jesuit Society, 
and while a student was sent to Quebec 
( 16H5), where for four years he was instructor in 
the college, and completed his divinity studies. 
In ITO'.l he returned to France, but came again to 
Quebec a few years later. He ascended the St. 
Lawrence, sailed through Lakes Ontario and Erie, 
and finally reached the Mississippi by way of the 
Illinois River. After visiting ( 'ahokia and the 
surrounding county (1720-21), he continued down 
the Mississippi to New Orleans, and returned to 
France by way of Santo Domingo. Besides some 
works on religious subjects, he was the author of 
histories of Japan, Paraguay and San Domingo. 
His great work, however, was the "History of 
New France," which was not published until 
twenty years after his death. His journal of his 
\jnerican explorations appeared about the same 
time. His history has long been cited by 
scholars as authority, but no English translation 
was made until 1865, when it was undertaken bv 
Shea. Died in France, Feb. 1. 1761. 



88 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



CHASE, Philander, Protestant Episcopal 
Bishop, was born in Cornish, Vt., Dec. 14, 1775, 
and graduated at Dartmouth in 1795. Although 
reared as a Congregationalist, he adopted the 
Episcopal faith, and was ordained a priest in 
1799, for several years laboring as a missionary 
in Northern and Western New York. In 1805, 
he went to New Orleans, but returning North in 
1811, spent six years as a rector at New Haven, 
Conn. , then engaged in missionary work in Ohio, 
organizing a number of parishes and founding an 
academy at Worthington; was consecrated a 
Bishop in 1819, and after a visit to England to 
raise funds, laid the foundation of Kenyon 
College and Gambier Theological Seminary, 
named in honor of two English noblemen who 
had contributed i large portion of the funds. 
Differences arising with some of his clergy in 
reference to the proper use of the funds, he 
resigned both t ■ Bishopric and the Presidency 
of the college in 1831. and after three years of 
missionary labor in Michigan, in 1835 was chosen 
Bishop of Illinois. Making a second visit to 
England, he succeeded in raising additional 
funds, and, in 1838, founded Jubilee College at 
Robin's Nest, Peoria County, 111., for which a 
charter was obtained in 1847. He was a man of 
great religious zeal, of indomitable perseverance 
and the most successful pioneer of the Episcopal 
Church in the West. He was Presiding Bishop 
from 1843 until his death, which occurred Sept. 
20, 1852. Several volumes aj red from his pen, 
the most important being "/ \ for the West" 
(1826), and 'Reminiscences: . *i Autobiography, 
Comprising i Tistory of the Principal Events in 
the Author'? ^ife" (1848). 

CHATHAM, a village Of Sangamon County, on 
the Chicago & Alton Railroad, 9 miles south of 
Springfield. Population (1890), 482; (1900), 629, 

CHATSWORTH, town in Livingston County, 
on 111. Cent, and Toledo, Peoria & Western Rail- 
ways, 79 miles east of Peoria; in farming and 
stock-raising district ; has two banks, three grain 
elevators, five churches, a graded school, two 
weekly papers, water works, electric lights, paved 
streets, cement sidewalks, brick works, and other 
manufactories. Pop. (1890), 827; (1900), 1,038. 

CHEBANSE, a town in Iroquois and Kankakee 
Counties, on the Illinois Central Railroad, 64 
miles south-southwest from Chicago; the place 
has two banks and one newspaper. Population 
(1880), 728; (1890), 616; (1900), 555. 

CHENEY, Charles Edward, Bishop of the Re- 
formed Protestant Episcopal Church, was born in 
Canandaigua, N. Y., Feb. 12, 1836; gi-aduated at 



Hobart in 1857, and began study for the ministry 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Soon after 
ordination he became rector of Christ Church, 
Chicago, and was prominent among those who, 
under the leadership of Assistant Bishop Cum- 
mins of Kentucky, organized the Reformed Epis- 
copal Church in 1873. He was elected Missionary 
Bishop of the Northwest for the new organiza- 
tion, and was consecrated in Christ Church, 
Chicago, Dec. 14, 1873. 

CHENEY, John Vance, author and librarian, 
was born at Groveland, N. Y., Dec. 29, 1848, 
though the family home was at Dorset, Vt.. 
where he grew up and received his primary edu- 
cation. He acquired his academic training at 
Manchester, Vt., and Temple Hill Academy, 
Genesee, N. Y., graduating from the latter in 
1865, later becoming Assistant Principal of the 
same institution. Having studied law, he was 
admitted to the bar successively in Massachusetts 
and New York; but meanwhile having written 
considerably for the old "Scribner's Monthly" 
(now "Century Magazine"), while under the 
editorship of Dr. J. G. Holland, he gradually 
adopted literature as a profession. Removing to 
the Pacific Coast, he took charge, in 1887, of the 
Free Public Library at San Francisco, remaining 
until 1894, when he accepted the position of 
Librarian of the Newberry Library in Chicago, 
as successor to Dr. William F. Poole, deceased. 
Besides two or three volumes of verse, Mr. Cheney 
is the author of numerous essays on literary 
subjects. His published works include "Thistle- 
Drift," poems (1887); "Wood-Blooms," poems 
(1888), "Golden Guess," essays (1892); "That 
Dome in Air," essays (1895); "Queen Helen," 
poem (1895) and "Out of the Silence," poem 
(1897). He is also editor of "Wood Notes Wild, " 
by Simeon Pease Cheney (1892), and Caxton Club's 
edition of Derby's Phcenixiana. 

CHENOA, an incorporated city of McLean 
County, at the intersecting point of the Toledo, 
Peoria & Western and the Chicago & Alton Rail- 
roads, 48 miles east of Peoria, 23 miles northeast 
of Bloomington, and 102 miles south of Chicago. 
Agriculture, dairy farming, fruit-growing and 
coal-mining are the chief industries of the sur- 
rounding region. The city also has an electric 
light plant, water-works, canning works and tile 
works, besides two banks, seven churches, a 
graded school, two weekly papers, and telephone 
systems connecting with the surrounding coun- 
try. Population (1890), 1,226; (1900), 1,512. 

CHESBROUGH, Ellis Sylvester, civil engineer, 
was born in Baltimore, Md., July 6, 1813; at the 




CHICAGO THOROUGHFARES. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS. 



S!< 



age of thirteen was chainman to an engineering 
party on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, being 
later employed on other roads. In 1837, he was 
appointed senior assistant engineer in the con- 
struction of the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charles- 
ton Railroad, and, in 1846, Chief Engineer of the 
Boston Waterworks, in 1850 becoming sole Com- 
missioner of the Water Department of that city. 
In 1855, he became engineer of the Chicago Board 
of Sewerage Commissioners, and in that capacity 
designed the sewerage system of the city — also 
planning the river tunnels. He resigned the 
office of Commissioner of Public Works of 
Chicago in 1879. He was regarded as an author- 
ity on water-supply and sewerage, and was con- 
sulted by the officials of New York, Boston, 
Toronto, Milwaukee and other cities. Died, 
August 19, 1886. 

CHESNUT, John A., lawyer, was born in Ken- 
tucky, Jan. 19, 1816, his father being a native of 
South Carolina, but of Irish descent. John A. 
was educated principally in his native State, but 
came to Illinois in 1836, read law with P. H. 
Winchester at Carlinville, was admitted to the 
bar in 1837, and practiced at Carlinville until 
1855, when he removed to Springfield and engaged 
in real estate and banking business. Mr. Ches- 
nut was associated with many local business 
enterprises, was for several years one of the 
Trustees of the Institution for the Deaf and 
Dumb at Jacksonville, also a Trustee of the 
Illinois Female College (Methodist) at the same 
place, and was Supervisor of the United States 
Census for the Sixth District of Illinois in 1880. 
Died, Jan. 14, 1898. 

CHESTER, the county-seat of Randolph 
County, situated on the Mississippi River, 76 
miles south of St. Louis. It is the seat of the 
Southern Illinois Penitentiary and of the State 
Asylum for Insane Convicts It stands in the 
heart of a region abounding in bituminous coal, 
and is a prominent shipping point for this com- 
modity ; also has quarries of building stone. It 
has a grain elevator, flouring mills, rolling mills 
and foundries. Population (1880), 2,580; (1890), 
2,708; (1900), 2,832. 

CHETLA1N, Augustus Louis, soldier, was born 
in St. Louis, Mo., Dec. 26, 1824, of French Hugue- 
not stock — his parents having emigrated from 
Switzerland in 1823, at first becoming members 
of the Selkirk colony on Red River, in Manitoba. 
Having received a common school education, he 
became a merchant at Galena, and was the first 
to volunteer there in response to the call for 
troops after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, in 



1861, being chosen to the captaincy of a company 
in the Twelfth Regiment of Illinois Volunteers, 
which General Grant had declined; participated 
in the campaign on the Tennessee River which 
resulted in the capture of Fort Donelson and the 
battle of Sliiluh, meanwhile being commissioned 
Lieutenant-Colonel; also distinguished himself at 
Corinth, where he remained in command until 
May, 1803, and organized the first colored regi- 
ment raised in the West. In December, 1863, he 
was promoted Brigadier-General and placed in 
charge of the organization of colored troops in 
Tennessee, serving later in Kentucky and being 
brevetted Major-General in January, 1864. From 
January to October, 1865, he commanded the 
post at Memphis, and later the District of Talla- 
dega, Ala., until January, 1866, when he was 
mustered out of the service. General Chetlain 
was Assessor of Internal Revenue for the District 
of Utah (1867-69), then appointed United States 
Consul at Brussels, serving until 1872, on his 
return to the United States establishing himself 
as a banker and broker in Chicago. 

CHICAGO, the county -seat of Cook County, 
chief city of Illinois and (1890) second city in 
population in the United States. 

Situation.— The city is situated at the south- 
west bend of Lake Michigan, 18 miles north of 
the extreme southern point of the lake, at the 
mouth of the Chicago River; 715 miles west of 
New York, 590 miles north of west from Wash- 
ington, and 260 miles northeast of St. Louis. 
From the Pacific Coast it is distant 2,417 miles. 
Latitude 41° 52' north; longitude 87° 35' west of 
Greenwich. Area (1898), 186 square miles. 

Topography.— Chicago stands on the dividing 
ridge between the Mississippi and St. Lawrence 
basins. It is 502 feet above sea-level, and its 
highest point is some 18 feet above Lake Michi- 
gan. The Chicago River is virtually a bayou, 
dividing into north and south branches about a 
half-mile west of the lake. The surrounding 
country is a low, flat prairie, but engineering 
science and skill have done much for it in the 
way of drainage. The Illinois & Michigan Canal 
terminates at a point on the south branch of 
the Chicago River, within the city limits, and 
unites the waters of Lake Michigan with those 
of the Illinois River. 

Commerce.— The Chicago River, with its 
branches, affords a water frontage of nearly 60 
miles, the greater part of which is utilized for 
the shipment and unloading of grain, lumber, 
stone, coal, merchandise, etc. Another navigable 
stream (the Calumet River) also lies within the 



90 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



corporate limits. Dredging has made the Chi- 
cago River, with its branches, navigable for 
vessels of deep draft. The harbor has also been 
widened and deepened. Well constructed break- 
waters protect the vessels lying inside, and the 
port is as safe as any on the great lakes. The 
city is a port of entry, and the tonnage of vessels 
arriving there exceeds that of any other port in 
the United States. During 1897, 9,156 vessels 
arrived, with an aggregate tonnage of 7,209,442, 
while 9,201 cleared, representing a tonnage of 
7,185,324. It is the largest grain market in the 
world, its elevators (in 1897) having a capacity 
of 32, 550, 000 bushels. 

According to the reports of the Board of Trade, 
the total receipts and shipments of grain for 
the year 1898 — counting flour as its grain equiva- 
lent in bushels — amounted to 323,097,453 bushels 
of the former, to 289,920,028 bushels of the latter. 
The receipts and shipments of various products 
for the year (1898) were as follows: 



Flour (bbls.) 

Wheat (bu.) 

Corn " . 

Oats " . 

Rye " . 

Barley " . 

Cured Meats (lbs.) 

Dressed Beef " . 

Live-stock — Hogs 
Cattle 
Sheep 



Receipts. 

5,316,195 

35,741,555 

127,426,374 

110,293,647 

4,935,308 

18,116,594 

229,005,246 

110,286,652 

9,360,968 

2,480,632 

3,502,378 



Shipments. 

5,032,236 

38,094,900 

130,397,681 

85.057,636 

4,453,384 

6,755,247 

923,627,722 

1,060,859,808 

1,334,768 

864,408 

545,001 



Chicago is also an important lumber market, 
the receipts in 1895, including shingles, being 
1,562,527 M. feet. As a center for beef and pork- 
packing, the city is without a rival in the amount 
of its products, there having been 92,459 cattle 
and 760,514 hogs packed in 1894-95. In bank 
clearings and general mercantile business it 
ranks second only to New York, while it is also 
one of the chief manufacturing centers of the 
country. The census of 1890 shows 9,959 manu- 
facturing establishments, with a capital of $292,- 
477,038; employing 203,108 hands, and turning 
out products valued at §632,184,140. Of the out- 
put by far the largest was that of the slaughter- 
ing and meat-packing establishments, amounting 
to 8203,825,092; men's clothing came next ($32,- 
*f?,226) ; iron and steel, $31,419,854; foundry and 
machine shop products, $29,928,616; planed 
lumber, $17,604,494. Chicago is also the most 
important live-stock market in the United States. 
The Union Stock Yards (in the southwest part of 
the city) are connected with all railroad lines 
entering the city, and cover many hundreds of 



acres. In 1894, there were received 8,788,049 
animals (of all descriptions), valued at $148,057,- 
626. Chicago is also a primary market for hides 
and leather, the production and sales being both 
of large proportions, and the trade in manufac- 
tured leather (notably in boots and shoes) 
exceeds that of any other market in the country. 
Ship-building is a leading industry, as are also 
brick-making, distilling and brewing. 

Transportation, etc. — Besides being the chief 
port on the great lakes, Chicago ranks second to 
no other American city as a railway center. The 
old "Galena & Chicago Union," its first railroad, 
was operated in 1849, and within three years a 
substantial advance had been scored in the way 
of steam transportation. Since then the multi- 
plication of railroad lines focusing in or passing 
through Chicago has been rapid and steady. In 
1895 not less than thirty-eight distinct lines enter 
the city, although these are operated by only 
twenty-two companies. Some 2,600 miles of 
railroad track are laid within the city limits. 
The number of trains daily arriving and depart- 
ing (suburban and freight included) is about 
2,000. Intramural transportation is afforded by 
electric, steam, cable and horse-car lines. Four 
tunnels under the Chicago River and its branches, 
and numerous bridges connect the various divi- 
sions of the city. 

History.— Point du Sable (a native of San 
Domingo) was admittedly the first resident of 
Chicago other than the aborigines. The French 
missionaries and explorers — Marquette, Joliet, 
La Salle, Hennepin and others — came a century 
earlier, their explorations beginning in 1673. 
After the expulsion of the French at the close of 
the French and Indian War, the territory passed 
under British control, though French traders 
remained in this vicinity after the War of the 
Revolution. One of these named Le Mai followed 
Point du Sable about 1796, and was himself suc- 
ceeded by John Kinzie, the Indian trader, who 
came in 1803. Fort Dearborn was built near the 
mouth of the Chicago River in 1804 on land 
acquired from the Indians by the treaty of 
Greenville, concluded by Gen. Anthony Wayne 
in 1795, but was evacuated in 1812, when most of 
the garrison and the few inhabitants were massa- 
cred by the savages. (See Fort Dearborn. ) The 
fort was rebuilt in 1816, and another settlement 
established around it. The first Government 
survey was made, 1829-30. Early residents were 
the Kinzies, the Wolcotts, the Beaubiens and the 
Millers. The Black Hawk War (1832) rather 
aided in developing the resources and increasing 



CO 

p_ 

(? 
CO 
P 

c 

to 




HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



91 



the population of the infant settlement by draw- 
ing to it settlers from the interior for purposes of 
mutual protection. Town organization was 
effected on August 10, 1832, the total number of 
votes polled being 28. The town grew rapidly 
for a time, but received a set-back in the financial 
crisis of 1837. During May of that year, how- 



ever, a charter was obtained and Chicago became 
a < - ity. The total number of votes casl at that 
time was 703. The census of the city for the 1st 
of July of that year showed a population of 4,180. 

The following tabic shows the names and term 
of office of the chief city officers from 1837 to 
1899: 



Year. 



1837 
1838 
1839 
1840 
1841 
1842 
1843 
1844 
1845 
1846 
1847 
1848 
1849 
1850 
ISM 
1852 
1853 
1854 
1855 
1856 
1857 
1858 
1s.,:i 
1860 
1861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 
18(i6 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1870 
1871 
1872 
1873 
1874 
1875 
1876 

1877-78 
1879-80 
1881-82 
1883-84 
1885-86 
1887-88 
1889-90 
1891-92 
1893 94 

1895-96 
1897-98 
1899 



Mayor. 



W r m. B. Ogden 

Buckner S. Morris 

Benj. W. Baymond 

Alexander Lloyd 

P. C. Sherman 

Benj. W. Baymond 

Augustus Garrett 

Aug. Garrett, Alson S.Shermant 4) 
Aug.Garrett.AIsonS.Sherman(4) 

John P. Chapin 

James Curtiss 

James H. Woodworth 

James H. Woodworth 

James Curtiss 

Walters. Gurnee 

Walters. Gurnee 

Charles M. Gray 

Ira L Milliken 

Levi D. Boone 

Thomas Dyer 

John Wentworth 

John C. Haines 

John C. Haines 

John Wentworth 

Julian S. Bumsey. , 

P. C. Sherman 

F C. Sherman 

P. C. Sherman 

John B. Rice 

John B. Rice 

John B. Bice 

John B. Bice 

John B. Bice (8) 

R. B. Mason 

R. B. Mason 

Joseph Medill 

Joseph Medill 

Harvey D. Colvin 

Harvey D. Colvin 

Monroe Heath, (9) H. D. Colvin, 

Thomas Hoyne 

Monroe Heath 

Carter H. Harrison 

Carter H. Harrison 

Carter H. Harrison 

Carter H. Harrison 

John A. Boche 

De witt C. Cregier 

Hempstead Washburne 

Carter H. Harrison, Geo. B. 

Swift/ll) John P. Hopkins.fll ) 

Geo. B. Swift 

Carter H. Harrison, Jr 

Carter H. Harrison, Jr 



City Clerk. 



C'TY ATTORNEY. 



I. N. Arnold, Geo. Davis (1). 

Geo. Davis 

Wm. H. Brackett 

Thomas Hoyne 

Thomas Hoyne 

J. Curtis 

James M. Lowe 

E. A. Bucker 

E. A. Bucker,Wm.S.Brown(5 1 

Henry B. Clarke 

Henry B. Clarke 

Sidney Abed 

Sidney Abell 

Sidney Abell 

Henry W. Zimmerman 

Henry W. Zimmerman 

Henry W. Zimmerman 

Henry W. Zimmerman 

Henry W. Zimmerman 

Henry W. Zimmerman 

H. Kreisman 

H. Kreisman 

H. Kreisman 

Abraham Kohn 

A. J. Marble 

A. J. Marble 

H.W.Zimmerman 

H. W. Zimmerman 

Albert H. Bodman 

Albert H. Bodman 

Albert H. Bodman 

Albert H. Bodman 

Albert H. Bodman 

Charles T. Hotchkiss 

Charles T. Hotchkiss 

Charles T. Hotchkiss 

Charles T. Hotchkiss 

Jos. K. C. Forrest 

Jos. K. C. Forrest 

Caspar Butz 

Caspar Butz .- 

P. J. Howard 

P. J. Howard 

John G. Neumeister 

C. Herman Plautz 

D. W. Nickerson 

Franz Amberg 

James R. B. Van Cleave 

Chas. D. Gastfield 

James R. B. Van Cleave 

William LoenMer 

William LoefHer 



N. B. Judd 

X B. Judd 

Samuel L. Smith 

Mark Skinner 

Geo. Manierre 

Henry Brown 

G. Manierre. Henry Brown. 3) 

Henry W. Clarke 

Henry W. Clarke 

Charles H . Larrabee 

Patrick Ballingall 

Giles Spring 

O. R. W. Lull 

Henry H. Clark 

Henry H. Clark 

Arno Voss 

Arno Voss 

Patrick Ballingall 

J. A. Thompson 

J. L Marsh 

John C. Miller 

Elliott Anthony 

Geo. F. Crocker 

John Lvle King 

Ira W. Buel 

Geo. A. Meech 

Francis Adams 

Francis Adams 

Daniel D. Driscoll 

Daniel D. Driscoll 

Hasbrouck Davis 

Hasbrouck Davis 

Hasbrouck Davis 

Israel N. Stiles 

Israel N. Stiles 

Israel N. Stiles 

Israel N. Stiles 

Egbert Jamieson 

Egbert Jamieson 

R. S. Tuthill 

R. S. Tuthill 

Julius S. Grinnell 

Julius S. Grinnell 

Julius S. Grinnell 

Hempstead Washburne 

Hemps!. :nl Washburne 

Geo. F. Sugg 

Jacob J. Kem.O.A.TrudeilO) 

Geo. A. Trude 

Roy O. West 

Miles J. Devine — 

Andrew J. Ryan 



City Treasurer. 



1 1 irnin Pearsons. 

Hiram Pearsons. 

Geo. W. Dole. 

W.S. Gurnee, N. H. Bolles(2) 

N. H. Bolles. 

F ( '. Sherman. 

Walter S. Gurnee. 

Walter S. Gurnee. 

Wm. l. Church. 

Wm. L. Church. 

Andrew < letzler. 

Wm. L. Church. 

Wm. I.. Church. 

Edward Manierre. 

Edward Manierre. 

Edward Manierre. 

Edward Manierre. 

Uriah 1'. Harris. 
Wm. F De Wolf. 

(). J. Bus" 

C. x Holden. 
Alonzo Harvey. 
Alonzo Harvey. 

AU. n/... Hurvey,C.W.Hunt(6) 

W. H. Bice. 

F. H. Cutting, W. H. Rice(7) 

David a. • lage. 

David A. Gage. 

A. G. Throop. 

A. G. Throop. 

Wm F. Wentworth. 

Wm. F. Wentworth. 

Wm F. Wentworth. 

David A. Gage. 

David A. Gage. 

David A. Gage. 

David A. Gage. 

Daniel O'Hara. 

Daniel O'Hara. 

Clinton BrlggS. 
(bus. B. Larrabee. 
w. c Seipp. 
Budolph Brand. 
John M. Dunphy. 
Win M. Devine. 
C Herman l'lautz. 
Bernard Roesing. 
Peter Kiolbassa. 

Michael J. Bransfield. 
Adam Wolf. 
Ernst Hummel. 
Adam Ortseifen. 



(1) 
(2. 
(3) 
(4) 
(5) 
(6) 
(7) 
(8) 

(9) 



(10) 
HI) 



I. N. Arnold resigned, and Geo. Davis appointed, October, 1837. 

Gurnee resigned, Bolles appointed his successor, April. 1840. 

Manierre resigned, Brown appointed his successor. July, 1843. 

Election of Garrett declared illegal, and Sherman elected at new election, held April, 1844. 

Brown appointed to fill vacancy caused by resignation of Rucker. 

Harvey resigned and Hunt appointed to fill vacancy. 

Cutting having failed to qualify, Rice, who was already in office, held over. 

Legislature changed date of election from April to November, the persons in office at beginning of 1869 remaining in office 
to December of that year. 

City organized under general Incorporation Act in 1875, and no city election held until April. 1876. The order for a new 
election omitted the office of Mayor.yet a popular vote was taken which gavea majority to Thomas Hoyne. The Council 
then in office refused to canvass this vote, but its successor, at its first meeting, did so. declaring Hoyne duly elected 
Colvin, the incumbent, refused to surrender the office, claiming the right to " bold over;" Hoyne then made a> contest 
for the office, which resulted In a derision bv the supreme Court denying the claims of both contestants when a new 
election was ordered by theCitv Council. July 12, 1876, at Which Monroe Heath was elected, serving out the term. 

City Attorney Kern, having resigned November 21, 1892, Geo. A. Trude was appointed to serve out the remainder of the 
term. 

Mayor Harrison, having been assassinated. October 28, 1893, the City Council at its next meeting ("November 6. 1893) 
elected Geo. B Swift .an Alderman from the Eleventh W ird Ma; Em. At a special election held December 19, 

1893, John P. Hopkins was elected to fill out tin? unexpired term .r Mayor Harrison. 



92 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



The Fire of 1871. — The city steadily grew in 
beauty, population and commercial importance 
until 1871. On Oct. 9 of that year occurred the 
"great fire" the story of which has passed into 
history. Recuperation was speedy, and the 2, 100 
acres burned over were rapidly being rebuilt, 
when, in 1874, occurred a second conflagration, 
although by no means so disastrous as that of 
1871. The city's recuperative power was again 
demonstrated, and its subsequent development 
has been phenomenal. The subjoined statement 



s growth 
1837 


in pc 


jpula 


,tion : 

4,179 


1840 






4,470 


1850 






28,269 


1860 






. 112,162 


1870 






. 298,977 


1880 






. 503,185 


1890 






. 1,099,850 


1900 


• 




. 1,698,575 



Notwithstanding a large foreign population and 
a constant army of unemployed men, Chicago 
has witnessed only three disturbances of the 
peace by mobs — the railroad riots of 1877, the 
Anarchist disturbance of 1886, and a strike of 
railroad employes in 1894. 

Municipal, Administration. — Chicago long 
since outgrew its special charter, and is now 
incorporated under the broader provisions of the 
law applicable to "cities of the first class," under 
which the city is virtually autonomous. The 
personnel, drill and equipment of the police and 
fire departments are second to none, if not supe- 
rior to any, to be found in other American cities. 
The Chicago River, with its branches, divides the 
city into three principal divisions, known respec- 
tively as North, South and West. Each division 
has its statutory geographical boundaries, and 
each retains its own distinct township organiza- 
tion. This system is anomalous; it has, how- 
ever, both assailants and defenders. 

Public Improvements. — Chicago has a fine 
system of parks and boulevards, well developed, 
well improved and well managed. One of the 
parks (Jackson in the South Division) was the 
site of the "World's Columbian Exposition. The 
water supply is obtained from Lake Michigan by 
means of cribs and tunnels. In this direction 
new and better facilities are being constantly 
introduced, and the existing water system will 
compare favorably with that of any other Ameri- 
can city. 

Architecture.— The public and office build- 
ings, as well as the business blocks, are in some 
instances classical, but generally severely plain. 



Granite and other varieties of stone are used in 
the City Hall, County Court House, the Board of 
Trade structure, and in a few commercial build- 
ings, as well as in many private residences. In 
the business part of the city, however, steel, 
iron, brick and fire clay are the materials most 
largely employed in construction, the exterior 
walls being of brick. The most approved 
methods of fire-proof building are followed, and 
the "Chicago construction" has been recognized 
and adopted (with modifications) all over the 
United States. Office buildings range from ten 
to sixteen, and even, as in the case of the Masonic 
Temple, twenty stories in height. Most of them 
are sumptuous as to the interior, and many of the 
largest will each accommodate 3,000 to 5,000 
occupants, including tenants and their employes. 
In the residence sections wide diversity may be 
seen ; the chaste and the ornate styles being about 
equally popular. Among the handsome public, 
or semi-public buildings may be mentioned the 
Public Library, the Newberry Library, the Art 
Institute, the Armour Institute, the Academy of 
Sciences, the Auditorium, the Board of Trade 
Building, the Masonic Temple, and several of the 
railroad depots. 

Education and Libraries. — Chicago has a 
public school system unsurpassed for excellence 
in any other city in the country. According to 
the report of the Board of Education for 1898, the 
city had a total of 221 primary and grammar 
schools, besides fourteen high schools, employing 
5,268 teachers and giving instruction to over 
236,000 pupils in the course of the year. The 
total expenditures during the year amounted to 
$6,785,601, of which nearly $4,500,000 was on 
account of teachers' salaries. The city has 
nearly $7,500,000 invested in school buildings. 
Besides pupils attending public schools there are 
about 100,000 in attendance on private and 
parochial schools, not reckoning students at 
higher institutions of learning, such as medical, 
law, theological, dental and pharmaceutical 
schools, and the great University of Chicago. 
Near the city are also the Northwestern and the 
Lake Forest Universities, the former at Evanston 
and the latter at Lake Forest. Besides an exten- 
sive Free Public Library for circulating and refer- 
ence purposes, maintained by public taxation, 
and embracing (in 1898) a total of over 235,000 
volumes and nearly 50,000 pamphlets, there 
are the Library of the Chicago Historical Society 
and the Newberry and Crerar Libraries — the last 
two the outgrowth of posthumous donations by 
public-spirited and liberal citizens — all open to 




DAY AFTER CHICAGO FIRE. 



,if»~ 




CHICAGO THOROUGHFARES. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



93 



the public for purposes of reference under certain 
conditions. This list does not include the exten- 
sive library of the University of Chicago and those 
connected with the Armour Institute and the 
public schools, intended for the use of the pupils 
of these various institutions. 

CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE, one of the 
leading commercial exchanges of the world. It 
was originally organized in the spring of 1843 as 
a voluntary association, with a membership of 
eighty -two. Its primary object was the promo- 
tion of the city's commercial interests by unity 
of action. On Feb. 8, 1849, the Legislature 
enacted a general law authorizing the establish- 
ment of Boards of Trade, and under its provisions 
an incorporation was effected — a second organi- 
zation being effected in April, 1850. For several 
years the association languished, and at times its 
existence seemed precarious. It was, however, 
largely instrumental in securing the introduction 
of the system of measuring grain by weight, 
which initial step opened the way for subsequent 
great improvements in the methods of handling, 
storing, inspecting and grading cereals and seeds. 
By the close of 1856, the association had overcome 
the difficulties incident to its earlier years, and 
the feasibility of erecting a permanent Exchange 
building began to be agitated, but the project lay 
dormant for several years. In 1856 was adopted 
the first system of classification and grading of 
wheat, which, though crude, formed the founda- 
tion of the elaborate modern system, which has 
proved of such benefit to the grain-growing 
States of the West, and has done so much to give 
Chicago its commanding influence in the grain 
markets of the world. In 1858, the privilege of 
trading on the floor of the Exchange was limited 
to members. The same year the Board began 
to receive and send out daily telegraphic market 
reports at a cost, for the first year, of $500,000, 
which was defrayed by private subscriptions. 
New York was the only city with which such 
communication was then maintained. In Febru- 
ary, 1859, a special charter was obtained, confer- 
ring more extensive powers upon the organization, 
and correspondingly increasing its efficiency. An 
important era in the Board's history was the 
Civil War of 1861-65. During this struggle its 
attitude was one of undeviating loyalty and gener- 
ous patriotism. Hundreds of thousands of dollars 
were contributed, by individual members and 
from the treasury of the organization, for the work 
of recruiting and equipping regiments, in caring 
for the wounded on Southern battlefields, and 
•Providing for the families of enlisted men. In 



1864, the Board waged to a successful issue a war 
upon the irredeemable currency with which the 
entire West was then flooded, and secured such 
action by the banks and by the railroad and 
express companies as compelled its replacement 
by United States legal-tender notes and national 
bank notes. In 1865, handsome, large (and. as 
then supposed, permanent) quarters were occu- 
pied in a new building erected by the Chicago 
Chamber of Commerce under an agreement with 
the Board of Trade. This structure was destroyed 
in the fire of October, 1871, but at once rebuilt, 
and made ready for re-occupancy in precisely 
one year after the destruction of its predecessor. 
Spacious and ample as these quarters were then 
considered, the growing membership and increas- 
ing business demonstrated their inadequacy 
before the close of 1877. Steps looking to the 
erection of a new building were taken in 1881, 
and, on May 1, 1885, the new edifice — then the 
largest and most ornate of its class in the world 
— was opened for occupancy. The membership 
of the Board for the year 1898 aggregated con- 
siderably in excess of 1,800. The influence of the 
association is felt in every quarter of the com- 
mercial world. 

CHICAGO, BURLINGTON & NORTHERN 
RAILROAD. (See Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy Railroad. ) 

CHICAGO, BURLINGTON & QUINCY RAIL- 
ROAD (known as the "Burlington Route") is 
the parent organization of an extensive system 
which operates railroads in eleven Western and 
Northwestern States, furnishing connections 
from Chicago with Omaha, Denver, St. Paul and 
Minneapolis, St. Louis and Kansas City, Chey- 
enne (Wyo. ), Billings (Mont.), Deadwood (So. 
Dak,), and intermediate points, and having con- 
nections by affiliated roads with the Pacific Coast. 
The main line extends from Chicago to Denver 
(Colo.), 1,025.41 miles. The mileage of the 
various branches and leased proprietary lines 
(1898) aggregates 4,627.06 miles. The Company 
uses 207.23 miles in conjunction with other 
roads, besides subsidiary standard-gauge lines 
controlled through the ownership of securities 
amounting to 1,440 miles more. In addition to 
these the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy controls 
179 miles of narrow-gauge road. The whole 
number of miles of standard-gauge road operated 
by the Burlington system, and known as the 
Burlington Route, on June 30, 1899, is estimated 
at 7,419, of which 1,509 is in Illinois, all but 47 
miles being owned by the Company. The system 
in Illinois connects many important commercial 



94 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



points, including Chicago, Aurora, Galesburg, 
Quincy, Peoria, Streator, Sterling, Mendota, Ful- 
ton, Lewistown, Rushville, Geneva, Keitlisburg, 
Rock Island, Beardstown, Alton, etc. The entire 
capitalization of the line (including stock, bonds 
and floating debt) amounted, in 1898, to §234,884,- 
600, which was equivalent to about §33,000 per 
mile. The total earnings of the road in Illinois, 
during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1898, 
amounted to §8,724,997, and the total disburse- 
ments of the Company within the State, during 
the same period, to §7,469,456. Taxes paid in 
1898, §377,968.— (History). The first section of 
the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad was 
constructed under a charter granted, in 1849, to 
the Aurora Branch Railroad Company, the name 
being changed in 1852 to the Chicago & Aurora 
Railroad Company. The line was completed in 
1853, from the junction with the old Galena & 
Chicago Union Railroad, 30 miles west of Chi- 
cago, to Aurora, later being extended to Mendota. 
In 1855 the name of the Company was changed 
by act of the Legislature to the Chicago, Burling- 
ton & Quincy. The section between Mendota and 
Galesburg (80 miles) was built under a charter 
granted in 1851 to the Central Military Tract 
Railroad Company, and completed in 1854. July 
9, 1856, the two companies were consolidated 
under the name of the former. Previous to this 
consolidation the Company had extended aid to 
the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad (from Peoria to 
the Mississippi River, nearly opposite Burlington, 
Iowa), and to the Northern Cross Railroad from 
Quincy to Galesburg, both of which were com- 
pleted in 1855 and operated by the Chicago, Bur- 
lington & Quincy. In 1857 the name of the 
Northern Cross was changed to the Quincy & 
Chicago Railroad. In 1860 the latter was sold 
under foreclosure to the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy, and, in*1863, the Peoria & Oquawka was 
acquired in the same way — the former constitut- 
ing the Quincy branch of the main line and the 
latter giving it its Burlington connection. Up 
to 1863, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy used 
the track of the Galena & Chicago Union Rail- 
road to enter the city of Chicago, but that year 
began the construction of its line from Aurora to 
Chicago, which was completed in 1864. In 1872 
it acquired control, by perpetual lease, of the 
Burlington & Missouri River Road in Iowa, 
and, in 1880, extended this line into Nebraska, 
now reaching Billings, Mont., with a lateral 
branch to Deadwood, So. Dak. Other branches 
in Illinois, built or acquired by this corporation, 
include the Peoria & Hannibal ; Carthage & Bur- 



lington ; Quincy & Warsaw ; Ottawa, Chicago & 
Fox River Valley; Quincy, Alton & St. Louis, 
and the St. Louis, Rock Island & Chicago. The 
Chicago, Burlington & Northern — known as the 
Northern Division of the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy — is an important part of the system, 
furnishing a connection between St. Louis on 
the south and St. Paul and Minneapolis on the 
north, of which more than half of the distance of 
583 miles between terminal points, is in Illinois. 
The latter division was originally chartered, Oct. 
21, 1885, and constructed from Oregon, 111., to St. 
Paul, Minn. (319 miles), and from Fulton to 
Savanna, 111. (16.72 miles), and opened, Nov. 1, 
1886. It was formally incorporated into the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy line in 1899. In 
June of the same year the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy also acquired by purchase the Keokuk & 
Western Railroad from Keokuk to Van Wert, 
Iowa (143 miles), and the Des Moines & Kansas 
City Railway, from Des Moines, Iowa, to Caines- 
ville, Mo. (112 miles). 

CHICAGO, DANYILLE & VINCENNES RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Chicago & Eastern Illinois Rail- 
road. ) 

CHICAGO DRAINAGE CANAL, a channel or 
waterway, in course of construction (1892-99) 
from the Chicago River, within the limits of the 
city of Chicago, to Joliet Lake, in the Des Plaines 
River, about 12 miles above the junction of the 
Des Plaines with the Illinois. The primary object 
of the channel is the removal of the sewage of 
the city of Chicago and the proper drainage of 
the region comprised within what is called the 
"Sanitary District of Chicago." The feasibility 
of connecting the waters of Lake Michigan by 
way of the Des Plaines River with those of the 
Illinois, attracted the attention of the earliest 
French explorers of this region, and was com- 
mented upon, from time to time, by them and 
their successors. As early as 1808 the subject of 
a canal uniting Lake Michigan with the Illinois 
was discussed in a report on roads and canals by 
Albert Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury, 
and the project was touched upon in a bill relat- 
ing to the Erie Canal and other enterprises, intro- 
duced in Congress in 1811. The measure continued 
to receive attention in the press, in Western 
Territorial Legislatures and in official reports, 
one of the latter being a report by John C. Cal- 
houn, as Secretary of War, in 1819, in which it is 
spoken of as "valuable for military purposes." 
In 1822 Congress passed an act granting the 
right of way to the State through the public 
lands for such an enterprise, which was followed, 



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COMPARATIVE SIZE OF NOTED CANALS. 






HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS. 



05 



five years later, by a grant of lands for the pur- 
pose of its construction. The work was begun in 
1836, and so far completed in 1848 as to admit of 
the passage of boats from the Chicago basin to La 
Salle. (See Illinois & Mivhiyun Canal.) Under 
an act passed by the Legislature in 1805, the work 
of deepening the canal was undertaken by the 
city of Chicago with a view to furnishing means 
to relieve the city of its sewage, the work being 
completed some time before the fire of 1871. This 
scheme having failed to accomplish the object 
designed, other measures began to be considered. 
Various remedies were proposed, but in all the 
authorities were confronted with the difficulty 
of providing a fund, under the provisions of the 
Constitution of 1870, to meet the necessary cost 
of construction. In the closing months of the 
year 1885, Hon. H. B. Hurd, who had been a 
member of a Board of "Drainage Commission- 
ers," organized in 1855, was induced to give 
attention to the subject. Having satisfied him- 
self and others that the difficulties were not 
insurmountable with proper action by the Legis- 
lature, the City Council, on Jan. 27, 1886, passed 
a resolution authorizing the Mayor to appoint a 
Commission, to consist of "one expert engineer of 
reputation and experience in engineering and 
sanitary matters," and two consulting engineers, 
to constitute a "drainage and water-supply com- 
mission" for the purpose of investigating and 
reporting upon the matter of water-supply and 
disposition of the sewage of the city. As a 
result of this action, Rudolph Hering, of Philadel- 
phia, was appointed expert engineer by Mayor 
Harrison, with Benezette Williams and S. G. 
Artingstall, of Chicago, as consulting engineers. 
At the succeeding session of the General Assem- 
bly (1887), two bills — one known as the "Hurd 
bill" and the other as the "Winston bill," but 
both drawn by Mr. Hurd, the first contemplating 
doing the work by general taxation and the issue 
of bonds, and the other by special assessment — 
were introduced in that body. As it was found 
that neither of these bills could be passed at that 
session, a new and shorter one, which became 
known as the "Roche-Winston bill," was intro- 
duced and passed near the close of the session. 
A resolution was also adopted creating a com- 
mission, consisting of two Senators, two Repre 
sentatives and Mayor Roche of Chicago, to further 
investigate the subject. The later act, just 
referred to, provided for the construction of a cut- 
off from the Des Plaines River, which would 
divert the flood- waters of that stream and the 
North Branch into Lake Michigan north of the 



city. Nothing was done under this act, however. 
At the next session (1*89) the commission made a 
favorable report, and a new law was enacted 
embracing the main features of the Hurd hill, 
though changing the title of the organization to 
be formed from the "Metropolitan Town,*' as 
proposed by Mr. Hard, to the "Sanitary Dis- 
trict." The act, as passed, provided for the 
election of a Board of nine Trustees, their powers 
being confined to "providing for the drainage of 
the district," both as to surplus water and sew 
age. Much opposition to the measure had been 
developed during the pendency of the legislation 
on the subject, especially in the Illinois valley, 
on sanitary grounds, as well as fear of midsum- 
mer flooding of the bottom lands which are 
cultivated to some extent: but this was overcome 
by the argument that the channel would, when 
the Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers were improved 
between Joliet and La Salle, furnish a new and 
enlarged waterway for the passage of vessels 
between the lake and the Mississippi River, and 
the enterprise was indorsed by conventions held 
at Peoria. Memphis and elsewhere, during the 
eighteen months preceding the passage of the 
act. The promise ultimately to furnish a flow of 
not less than 000,000 cubic feet per minute also 
excited alarm in cities situated upon the lakes, 
lest the taking of so large a volume of water from 
Lake Michigan should affect the lake-level 
injuriously to navigation; but these apprehen- 
sions were quieted by the assurance of expert 
engineers that the greatest reduction of the lake- 
level below the present minimum would not 
exceed three inches, and more likely would not 
produce a perceptible effect. 

At the genei - al election, held Nov. 5, 1889, 
the "Sanitary District of Chicago" was organ- 
ized by an almost unanimous popular vote 
— the returns showing 70,958 votes for the 
measure to 242 against. The District, as thus 
formed, embraces all of the city of Chicago 
north of Eighty-seventh Street, with forty- 
three square miles outside of the city limits 
but within the area to be benefited by the 
improvement. Though the channel is located 
partly in Will County, the district is wholly in 
Cook and hears the entire expense of construc- 
tion. The first election of Trustees was held at a 

special election. Dec. 12, 1889, the Trustees thee 
elected to hold their offices for live years and 
until the following November. The second 
election occurred. Nov. 5. 1895, when the Board, 
as now constituted (IS!)!)), was chosen, viz. • 
William Boldenweck, Joseph C. Braden, ZinaR. 



90 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Carter, Bernard A. Eckhart, Alexander J. Jones, 
Thomas Kelly, James P. Mallette, Thomas A. 
Smyth and Frank Wenter. The Trustees have 
power to sell bonds in order to procure funds to 
prosecute the work and to levy taxes upon prop- 
erty within the district, under certain limitations 
as to length of time the taxes run and the rate 
per cent imposed. Under an amendment of the 
Drainage Act adopted by the Legislature in 1897, 
the rate of assessment upon property within the 
Drainage District is limited to one and one-half 
per cent, up to and including the year 1899, but 
after that date becomes one-half of one per cent. 
The bed of the channel, as now in process of 
construction, commences at Robey Street and the 
South Branch of the Chicago River, 5.8 miles 
from Lake Michigan, and extends in a south- 
westerly direction to the vicinity of Summit, 
where it intersects the Des Plaines River. From 
this point it follows the bed of that stream to 
Lockport, in "Will County, where, in consequence 
of the sudden depression in the ground, the bed of 
the channel comes to the surface, and where the 
great controlling works are situated. This has made 
necessary the excavation of about thirteen miles 
of new channel for the river — which runs parallel 
with, and on the west side of, the drainage canal 
— besides the construction of about nineteen 
miles of levee to separate the waters of the 
canal from the river. The following statement 
of the quality of the material excavated and the 
dimensions of the work, is taken from a paper by 
Hon. H. B. Hurd, under the title, "The Chicago 
Drainage Channel and Waterway," published in 
the sixth volume of "Industrial Chicago" (1896): 
"Through that portion of the channel between 
Chicago and Summit, which is being constructed 
to produce a flow of 300, 000 cubic feet per minute, 
which is supposed to be sufficient to dilute sew- 
age for about the present population (of Chicago), 
the width of the channel is 110 feet on the bot- 
tom, with side slopes of two to one. This portion 
of the channel is ultimately to be enlarged to the 
capacity of 600,000 cubic feet per minute. The 
bottom of the channel, at Robey Street, is 24.448 
feet below Chicago datum. The width of the 
channel from Summit down to the neighborhood 
of Willow Springs is 202 feet on the bottom, with 
the same side slope. The cut through the rock, 
which extends from the neighborhood of Willow 
Springs to the point where the channel runs out 
of ground near Lockport, is 160 feet wide at the 
bottom. The entire depth of the channel is 
substantially the same as at Robey Street, with 
the addition of one. foot in 40,000 feet. The rock 



portion of the channel is constructed to the full 
capacity of 600,000 cubic feet per minute. From 
the point where the channel runs out of ground 
to Joliet Lake, there is a rapid fall; over- this 
slope works are to be constructed to let the water 
down in such a manner as not to damage Joliet. ; ' 

Ground was broken on the rock-cut near 
Lemont, on Sept. 3, 1892, and work has been in 
progress almost constantlv ever since. The prog- 
ress of the work was greatly obstructed during 
the year 1898, by difficulties encountered in secur- 
ing the right of way for the discharge of the 
waters of the canal through the city of Joliet, 
but these were compromised near the close of the 
year, and it was anticipated that the work would 
be prosecuted to completion during the year 
1899. From Feb. 1, 1890, to Dec. 31, 1898, the 
net receipts of the Board for the prosecution of 
the work aggregated §28,257,707, while the net 
expenditures had amounted to §28,221.864.57. Of 
the latter, $20,099,284.67 was charged to construc- 
tion account, $3,156,903.12 to "land account" 
(including right of way), and $1,222,092.82 to the 
cost of maintaining the engineering department. 
When finished, the cost will reach not less than 
$35,000,000. These figures indicate the stupen- 
dous character of the work, which bids fair to 
stand without a rival of its kind in modern 
engineering and in the results it is expected to 
achieve. 

CHICAGO GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY. 
The total mileage of this line, June 30, 1898, was 
1,008 miles, of which 152.52 miles are operated 
and owned in Illinois. The line in this State 
extends west from Chicago to East Dubuque, the 
extreme terminal points being Chicago and 
Minneapolis in the Northwest, and Kansas City 
in the Southwest. It has several branches in Illi 
nois, Iowa and Minnesota, and trackage arrange- 
ments with several lines, the most important 
being with the St. Paul & Northern Pacific (10.56 
miles), completing the connection between St. 
Paul and Minneapolis ; with the Illinois Central 
from East Dubuque to Portage (12.23 miles), and 
with the Chicago & Northern Pacific from Forest 
Home to the Grand Central Station in Chicago. 
The company's own track is single, of standard 
gauge, laid with sixty and seventy-five-pound 
steel rails. Grades and curvature are light, and 
the equipment well maintained. The outstand- 
ing capital stock (1898) was $52,019,054; total 
capitalization, including stock, bonds and miscel- 
laneous indebtedness, $57,144,245. (History). The 
road was chartered, Jan. 5, 1892, under the laws 
of Illinois, for the purpose of reorganization of 




VIEWS OF DRAINAGE CAXAL. 




VIEWS OF DRAINAGE CANAL. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLol'KDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



97 



the Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City Railway 
Company on a stock basis. During 1895, the 
De Kalb & Great Western Railroad (5.81 miles) 
was built from De Kalb to Sycamore as a feeder 
of this line. 

CHICAGO, HARLEM & BATAVIA RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Chicago & Northern Pacific Rail- 
road. ) 

CHICAGO, HAVANA & WESTERN RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Illinois Central Railroad.) 

CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY, organized, 
April 24, 1856, for the purposes of (1) establishing 
a library and a cabinet of antiquities, relics, etc. ; 
(2) the collection and preservation of historical 
manuscripts, documents, papers and tracts; (3) 
the encouragement of the discovery and investi- 
gation of aboriginal remains, particularly in Illi- 
nois; (4) the collection of material illustrating 
the growth and settlement of Chicago. By 1871 
the Society had accumulated much valuable 
material, but the entire collection was destroyed 
in the great Chicago fire of that year, among the 
manuscripts consumed being the original draft 
of the emancipation proclamation by Abraham 
Lincoln. The nucleus of a second collection was 
consumed by fire in 1874. Its loss in this second 
conflagration included many valuable manu- 
scripts. In 1877 a temporary building was 
erected, which was torn down in 1892 to make 
room for the erection, on the same lot, of a 
thoroughly fire-proof structure of granite, 
planned after the most approved modern systems. 
The new building was erected and dedicated 
under the direction of its late President, Ed- 
ward G. Mason, Esq., Dec. 12, 1896. The Society's 
third collection now embraces about twenty-five 
thousand volumes and nearly fifty thousand 
pamphlets; seventy-five portraits in oils, with 
other works of art; a valuable collection of 
mauuscript documents, and a large museum of 
local and miscellaneous antiquities. Mr. Charles 
Evans is Secretary and Librarian. 

CHICAGO HOMEOPATHIC MEDICAL COL- 
LEGE, organized in 1876, with a teaching faculty 
of nineteen and forty-five matriculates. Its first 
term opened October 4, of that year, in a leased 
building. By 1881 the college had outgrown its 
first quarters, and a commodious, well appointed 
structure was erected by the trustees, in a more 
desirable location. The institution was among 
the first to introduce a graded course of instruc- 
tion, extending over a period of eighteen vears. 
In 1897, the matriculating class numbered over 200. 

CHICAGO HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND 
CHILDREN, located at Chicago, and founded in 



1865 by Dr. Mary Harris Thompson. Its declared 
objects are: "To afford a home for women and 
children among the respectable poor in need of 
medical and surgical aid ; to treat the same 
classes at home by an assistant physician; to 
afford a free dispensary for the same, and to 
train competent nurses." At the outset the 
hospital was fairly well sustained through pri- 
vate benefactions, and, in 1870, largely through 
Dr. Thompson's efforts, a college was organized 
for the medical education of women exclusively. 
(See Northwestern University Woman's Medical 
School.) The hospital building was totally 
destroyed in the great fire of 1871, but temporary 
accommodations were provided in another sect i< m 
of the city. The following year, with the aid of 
$25,000 appropriated by the Chicago Relief and 
Aid Society, a permanent building was pur- 
chased, and, in 1885, a new, commodious and well 
planned building was erected on the same site, at 
a cost of about §75,000. 

CHICAGO, MADISON & NORTHERN RAIL- 
ROAD, a line of railway 231.3 miles in length, 140 
miles of which lie within Illinois. It is operated 
by the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and is 
known as its "Freeport Division." The par value 
of the capital stock outstanding is $50,000 and of 
bonds $2,500,000, while the floating debt is 
$3,620,698, making a total capitalization of 
$6,170,698, or $26,698 per mile. (See also Illinois 
Central Railroad. ) This road was opened from 
Chicago to Freeport in 1888. 

CHICAGO MEDICAL COLLEGE. (See North- 
western University Medical College.) 

CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL RAIL- 
WAY, one of the great trunk lines of the North- 
west, having a total mileage (1898) of 6,153.83 
miles, of which 317.94 are in Illinois. The main 
line extends from Chicago to Minneapolis. 420 
miles, although it has connections with Kansas 
City, Omaha, Sioux City and various points in 
Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas. The Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company enjoys 
the distinction of being the owner of all the lines 
operated by it, though it operates 245 miles of 
second tracks owned jointly with other lines. 
The greater part of its track is laid with 
60, 75 and 85-lb. steel rails. The total capital 
invested (1898) is $220,005,901, distributed as 
follows: capital stock, $77,845,000; bonded debt, 
$135,285,500; other forms of indebtedness, 
$5,572,401. Its total earnings in Illinois for 
189S were $5,205,244, and the total expendi- 
tures, $3,320,248. The total number of em- 
ployes in Illinois for 1898 was 2,293, receiving 



98 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



§1,746,827.70 in aggregate compensation. Taxes 
paid for the same year amounted to $151,285. — 
(History). The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
Railway was organized in 1863 under the name 
of the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. The Illi- 
nois portion of the main line was built under a 
charter granted to the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul Railway Company, and the Wisconsin por- 
tion under charter to the Wisconsin Union Rail- 
road Company; the whole built and opened in 
1872 and purchased by the Milwaukee & St. Paul 
Railway Company. It subsequently acquired by 
purchase several lines in Wisconsin, the whole 
receiving the present name of the line by act of 
the Wisconsin Legislature, passed, Feb. 14, 1874. 
The Chicago & Evanston Railroad was chartered, 
Feb. 16, 1861, built from Chicago to Calvary (10.8 
miles), and opened, May 1, 1885; Avas consolidated 
with the Chicago & Lake Superior Railroad, 
under the title of the Chicago, Evanston & Lake 
Superior Railroad Company, Dec. 22, 1885, opened 
to Evanston, August 1, 1886, and purchased, in 
June, 1887, by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul Railway Company. The Road, as now 
organized, is made up of twenty-two divisions 
located in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, 
North and South Dakota, Missouri and Michigan. 

CHICAGO, PADUCAH & MEMPHIS HAIL- 
ROAD (Projected), a road chartered, Dec. 19, 
1893, to run between Altamont and Metropolis, 
111., 152 miles, with a branch from Johnston City 
to Carbondale, 20 miles — total length, 172 miles. 
The gauge is standard, and the track laid with 
sixty-pound steel rails. By Feb. 1, 1895, the road 
from Altamont to Marion (100 miles) was com- 
pleted, and work on the remainder of the line has 
been in progress. It is intended to connect with 
the Wabash and the St. Louis Southern systems. 
Capital stock authorized and subscribed, $2,500,- 
000; bonds issued, 81,575,000. Funded debt, 
authorized, 815,000 per mile in five per cent first 
mortgage gold bonds. Cost of road up to Feb. 1, 
1895, 820,000 per mile ; estimated cost of the entire 
line, §2,000,000. In December, 1896, this road 
passed into the hands of the Chicago & Eastern 
Illinois Railroad Company, and is now operated to 
Marion, in Williamson County. (See Chicago cfc 
Eastern Illinois Railroad.) 

CHICAGO, PEKIN & SOUTHWESTERN RAIL- 
ROAD, a division of the Chicago & Alton Rail- 
road, chartered as the Chicago & Plainfield 
Railroad, in 1859; opened from Pekin to Streator 
in 1873, and to Mazon Bridge in 1876; sold under 
foreclosure in 1879, and now constitutes a part of 
the Chicago & Alton system. 



CHICAGO, PEORIA & ST. LOUIS RAILROAD 

COMPANY (of Illinois), a corporation operating 
tAvo lines of railroad, one extending from Peoria 
to Jacksonville, and the other from Peoria to 
Springfield, with a connection from the latter 
place (in 1895), over a leased line, with St. Louis. 
The total mileage, as officially reported in 1895, 
was 208.66 miles, of which 166 were owned by 
the corporation. (1) The original of the Jackson- 
ville Division of this line was the Illinois River 
Railroad, opened from Pekin to Virginia in 1859. 
In October, 1863, it was sold under foreclosure, 
and, early in 1864, was transferred by the pur- 
chasers to a new corporation called the Peoria, 
Pekin & Jacksonville Railroad Company, by 
whom it was extended the same year to Peoria, 
and, in 1869, to Jacksonville. Another fore- 
closure, in 1879, resulted in its sale to the 
creditors, followed by consolidation, in 1881, 
with the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway. 
(2) The Springfield Division was incorporated in 
1869 as the Springfield & Northwestern Railway ; 
construction was begun in 1872, and road opened 
from Springfield to Havana (45.20 miles) in 
December, 1874, and from Havana to Pekin and 
Peoria over the track of the Peoria, Pekin & 
Jacksonville line. The same year the road was 
leased to the Indianapolis, Bloomington & West- 
ern Railroad Company, but the lease was for- 
feited, in 1875, and the road placed in the hands 
of a receiver. In 1881, together with the 
Jacksonville Division, it was transferred to the 
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway, and by 
that company operated as the Peoria & Spring- 
field Railroad. The Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific 
having defaulted and gone into the hands of a 
receiver, both the Jacksonville and the Spring- 
field Divisions were reorganized in February, 
1887, under the name of the Chicago, Peoria & 
St. Louis Railroad, and placed under control of 
the Jacksonville Southeastern Railroad. A 
reorganization of the latter took place, in 1890, 
under the name of the Jacksonville, Louisville & 
St. Louis Railway, and, in 1893, it passed into the 
hands of receivers, and was severed from its 
allied lines. The Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis 
Railroad remained under the management of a 
separate receiver until January, 1896, when a 
reorganization was effected under its present 
name — "The Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Rail- 
road of Illinois." The lease of the Springfield 
& St. Louis Division having expired in Decem- 
ber, 1895, it has also been reorganized as an 
independent corporation under the name of the 
St. Louis, Peoria & Northern Railway (which see)- 



HISTORICAL K\CY( LoPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



99 



CHICAGO RIVER, a sluggish stream, draining 
a narrow strip of land between Lake Michigan 
and the Des Plaines River, the entire watershed 
drained amounting to some 470 square miles. It 
is formed by the union of the "North" and 
the "South Branch," which unite less than a mile 
and a half from the mouth of the main stream. 
At an early day the former was known as the 
"Guarie" and the latter as "Portage River." The 
total length of the North Branch is about 20 miles, 
only a small fraction of which is navigable. The 
South Branch is shorter but offers greater facilities 
for navigation, being lined along its lower por- 
tions with grain-elevators, lumber-yards and 
manufactories. The Illinois Indians in early daj T s 
found an easy portage between it and the Des 
Plaines River. The Chicago River, with its 
branches, separates Chicago into three divisions, 
known, respectively, as the "North" the "South" 
and the "West Divisions." Drawbridges have 
been erected at the principal street crossings 
over the river and both branches, and four 
tunnels, connecting the various divisions of the 
city, have been constructed under the river bed. 

CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & PACIFIC RAIL- 
WAT, formed by the consolidation of various 
lines in 1880. The parent corporation (The 
Chicago & Rock Island Railroad) was chartered 
in Illinois in 1851, and the road opened from Chi- 
cago to the Mississippi River at Rock Island (181 
miles), July 10, 1854. In 1853 a company was 
chartered under the name of the Mississippi & 
Missouri Railroad for the extension of the road 
from the Mississippi to the Missouri River. The 
two roads were consolidated in 1866 as the Chi- 
cago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, and the 
extension to the Missouri River and a junction 
with the Union Pacific completed in 1869. The 
Peoria & Bureau Valley Railroad (an important 
feeder from Peoria to Bureau Junction — 46.7 
miles) was incorporated in 1853, and completed 
and leased in perpetuity to the Chicago & Rock 
Island Railroad, in 1854. The St. Joseph & Iowa 
Railroad was purchased in 1889, and the Kansas 
City & Topeka Railway in 1891. The Company 
has financial and traffic agreements with the 
Chicago, Rock Island & Texas Railway, extending 
from Terral Station, Indian Territory, to Fort 
Worth, Texas. The road also has connections 
from Chicago with Peoria; St. Paul and Minne- 
apolis; Omaha and Lincoln (Neb.); Denver, Colo- 
rado Springs and Pueblo (Colo. ), besides various 
points in South Dakota, Iowa and Southwestern 
Kansas. The extent of the lines owned and 
operated by the Company ( "Poor's Manual, ' ' 1898) , 



is 3,568.15 miles, of which 236.. 11 miles are in 
Illinois, 189. 52 miles being owned by the corpo- 
ration. All of the Company's owned and 
leased lines are laid with steel rails. The total 
capitalization reported for the same year was 
$116,748,211, of which $50,000,000 was in stock 
and $58,830,000 in bonds. The total earnings and 
income of the line in Illinois, for the year ending 
June 30, 1898, was $5,851,875, and the I 
expenses $3,401,165, of which $233,129 was in the 
form of taxes. The Company has received under 
Congressional grants 550, l'.U acres of land, exclu- 
sive of State grants, of which there had been sold, 
up to March 31, 1894, 548,609 acres. 

CHICAGO, ST. PAUL A FOND DU LAC RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Chicago <V- Northwestern Railway.) 

CHICAGO, ST. PAIL & KANSAS (II V RAIL- 
WAY. (See Chicago Great Western Railway.) 

CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS A PADUCAH RAIL- 
WAY, a short road, of standard gauge, laid with 
steel rails, extending from Marion to Brooklyn, 
111., 53.64 miles. It was chartered, Feb. 7, 1887, 
and opened for traffic, Jan. 1, 1889. The St. 
Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad Company is 
the lessee, having guaranteed principal and inter- 
est on its first mortgage bonds. Its capital stock 
is $1,000,000, and its bonded debt §2,000,000, 
making the total capitalization about $56,000 per 
mile. The cost of the road was $2,950,000; total 
incumbrance (1895), §3,016,715. 

CHICAGO TERMINAL TRANSFER RAIL- 
ROAD, the successor to the Chicago & Northern 
Pacific Railroad. The latter was organized in 
November, 1889, to acquire and lease facilities to 
other roads and transact a local business. The 
Road under its new name was chartered, June 4, 
1897, to purchase at foreclosure sale the property 
of the Chicago <fe Northern Pacific, soon after 
acquiring the property of the Chicago & Calumet 
Terminal Railway also. The combination gives 
it the control of 84.r>:5 miles of road, of which 
70.76 miles are in Illinois. The line is used for 
both passenger and freight terminal purposes, 
and also a belt line just outside the city limits. 
Its principal tenants are the Chicago Great West 
em, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Wisconsin Central 
Lines, and the Chicago, Hammond & Western 
Railroad. The Company also has control of the 
ground on which the Grand Central Depot is 
located. Its total capitalization (1898) was $44,- 
553,044, of winch $30, 000,000 was capital stock 
and $13,394,000 in the form of bonds. 

CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, organ- 
ized, Sept. 26, 1854, by a convention of Congre- 
gational ministers and laymen representing seven 



■ - 



100 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Western States, among which was Illinois. A 
special and liberal charter was granted, Feb. 15, 
1855. The Seminary has always been under 
Congregational control and supervision, its 
twenty-four trustees being elected at Triennial 
Conventions, at which are represented all the 
churches of that denomination west of the Ohio 
and east of the Rocky Mountains. The institu- 
tion was formally opened to students, Oct. 6, 
1858, with two professors and twenty-nine 
matriculates. Since then it has steadily grown 
in both numbers and influence. Preparatory and 
linguistic schools have been added and the 
faculty (1896) includes eight professors and nine 
minor instructors. The Seminary is liberally 
endowed, its productive assets being nearly 
$1,000,000, and the value of its grounds, build- 
ings, library, etc., amounting to nearly $500,000 
more. No charge is made for tuition or room 
rent, and there are forty-two endowed scholar- 
ships, the income of which is devoted to the aid 
of needy students. The buildings, including the 
library and dormitories, are four in number, and 
are well constructed and arranged. 

CHICAGO & ALTON RAILROAD, an impor 
tant railway running in a southwesterly direc- 
tion from Chicago to St. Louis, with numerous 
branches, extending into Missouri, Kansas and 
Colorado. The Chicago & Alton Railroad proper 
was constructed under two charters — the first 
granted to the Alton & Sangamon Railroad Com- 
pany, in 1847, and the second to the Chicago & 
Mississippi Railroad Company, in 1852. Con- 
struction of the former was begun in 1852, and 
the line opened from Alton to Springfield in 
1853. Under the second corporation, the line was 
opened from Springfield to Bloomington in 1854, 
and to Joliet in 1856. In 1855 a line was con- 
structed from Chicago to Joliet under the name 
of the Joliet & Chicago Railroad, and leased in 
perpetuity to the present Company, which was 
reorganized in 1857 under the name of the St. 
Louis, Alton & Chicago Railroad Company. For 
some time connection was had between Alton 
and St. Louis by steam-packet boats running in 
connection with the railroad ; but later over the 
line of the Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad — 
the first railway line connecting the two cities — 
and, finally, by the Company's own line, which 
was constructed in 1864, and formally opened 
Jan. 1, 1865. In 1861, a company with the 
present name (Chicago & Alton Railroad Com- 
pany) was organized, which, in 1862, purchased 
the St. Louis, Alton & Chicago Road at fore- 
closure sale. Several branch lines have since 



been acquired by purchase or lease, the most 
important in the State being the line from 
Bloomington to St. Louis by way of Jacksonville. 
This was chartered in 1851 under the name of the 
St. Louis, Jacksonville & Chicago Railroad, was 
opened for business in January, 1868, and having 
been diverted from the route upon which it was 
originally projected, was completed to Blooming- 
ton and leased to the Chicago & Alton in 1868. 
In 1884 this branch was absorbed by the main 
line. Other important branches are the Kansas 
City Branch from Roodhouse, crossing the Mis- 
sissippi at Louisiana, Mo. ; the Washington 
Branch from Dwight to Washington and Lacon, 
and the Chicago & Peoria, by which entrance is 
obtained into the city of Peoria over the tracks 
of the Toledo, Peoria & Western. The whole 
number of miles operated (1898; is 843.54, of 
which 580.73 lie in Illinois. Including double 
tracks and sidings, the Company has a total 
trackage of 1,186 miles. The total capitalization, 
in 1898, was $32,793,972, of which $22, 230, 600 was 
in stock, and $6,694,850 in bonds. The total 
earnings and income for the year, in Illinois, were 
$5,022,315, and the operating and other expenses, 
$4,272,207. This road, under its management as 
it existed up to 1898, has been one of the most uni- 
formly successful in the country. Dividends 
have been paid semiannually from 1863 to 1884, 
and quarterly from 1884 to 1896. For a number 
of years previous to 1897, the dividends had 
amounted to eight per cent per annum on both 
preferred and common stock, but later had been 
reduced to seven per cent on account of short 
crops along the line. The taxes paid in 1898 
were $341,040. The surplus, June 30, 1895, 
exceeded two and three-quarter million dollars. 
The Chicago & Alton was the first line in the 
world to put into service sleeping and dining cars 
of the Pullman model, which have since been so 
widely adopted, as well as the first to run free 
reclining chair-cars for the convenience and 
comfort of its passengers. At the time the 
matter embraced in this volume is undergoing 
final revision (1899), negotiations are in progress 
for the purchase of this historic line by a syndi- 
cate representing the Baltimore & Ohio, the 
Missouri Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the 
Missouri, Kansas & Texas systems, in whose 
interest it will hereafter be operated. 

CHICAGO & AURORA RAILROAD. (See 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. ) 

CHICAGO & EASTERN ILLINOIS RAIL- 
ROAD. This company operates a line 516.3 miles 
in length, of which 278 miles are within Illinois. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



10] 



The main line in this State extends southerly 
from Dolton Junction (17 miles south of Chicago) 
to Danville. Entrance to the Polk Street Depot 
in Chicago is secured over the tracks of the 
Western Indiana Railroad. The company owns 
several important branch lines, as follows: From 
Momence Junction to the Indiana State Line; 
from Cissna Junction to Cissna Park ; from Dan- 
ville Junction to Shelbyville, and from Sidell to 
Rossville. The system in Illinois is of standard 
gauge, about 108 miles being double track. The 
right of way is 100 feet wide and well fenced. 
The grades are light, and the construction 
(including rails, ties, ballast and bridges), is 
generally excellent. The capital stock outstand- 
ing (1895) is $13,594,400; funded debt, $18,018,000; 
floating debt, §916,381; total capital invested, 
$32,570,781; total earnings in Illinois, $2,592,072; 
expenditures in the State, $2,595,631. The com- 
pany paid the same year a dividend of six per 
cent on its common stock ($286,914), and reported 
a surplus of $1,484,762. The Chicago & Eastern 
Illinois was originally chartered in 1865 as the 
Chicago, Danville & Vincennes Railroad, its main 
line being completed in 1872. In 1873, it defaulted 
on interest, was sold under foreclosure in 1877, 
and reorganized as the Chicago & Nashville, but 
later in same year took its present name. In 
1894 it was consolidated with the Chicago & 
Indiana Coal Railway. Two spurs (5.27 miles in 
length) were added to the line in 1895. Early in 
1897 this line obtained control of the Chicago, 
Paducah & Memphis Railroad, which is now 
operated to Marion, in Williamson County, (See 
Chicago, Paducah & Memphis Railroad.) 

CHICAGO & GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY. Of 
the 335.27 miles of the Chicago & Grand Trunk 
Railroad, only 30.65 are in Illinois, and of the 
latter 9.7 miles are operated under lease. That 
portion of the line within the State extends from 
Chicago easterly to the Indiana State line. The 
Company is also lessee of the Grand Junction 
Railroad, four miles in length. The Road is 
capitalized at $6,600,000, lias a bonded debt of 
$12,000,000 and a floating debt (1895) of $2,271,425, 
making the total capital invested, $20,871,425. 
The total earnings in Illinois for 1895 amounted 
to $660,393; disbursements within the State for 
the same period, $345,233. The Chicago & Grand 
Trunk Railway, as now constituted, is a consoli- 
dation of various lines between Port Huron, 
Mich., and Chicago, operated in the interest of 
the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. The Illi- 
nois section was built under a charter granted in 
1878 to the Chicago & State Line Railway Com- 



pany, to form a connection with Valparaiso, Ind. 
This corporation acquired the Chicago & South- 
ern Railroad (from Chicago to Dolton), and the 
Chicago & State Line Extension in Indiana, all 
being consolidated under the name of the North- 
western Grand Trunk Railroad. In 1880, a final 
consolidation of these lines with the eastward 
connections took place under the present name — 
the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway. 

CHICAGO & GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY. 
(See Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis 
Railway.) 

CHICAGO & GREAT SOUTHERN RAILROAD. 
(See Peoria, Decatur & Evansville Railway. ) 

CHICAGO & ILLINOIS SOUTHERN RAIL- 
WAY. (See Peoria, Decatur & Evansville Rail- 
way. ) 

CHICAGO & MISSISSIPPI RAILROAD. (See 
Chicago & Alton Railroad.) 

CHICAGO A NASHVILLE RAILROAD. (See 
Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad.) 

CHICAGO & NORTHERN PACIFIC RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Chicago Terminal Transfer Rail- 
road. ) 

CHICAGO & NORTHWESTERN RAILWAY, 
one of the great trunk lines of the country, pene- 
trating the States of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michi- 
gan, Iowa, Minnesota and North and South 
Dakota. The total length of its main line, 
branches, proprietary and operated lines, on May 
1, 1899, was 5,076.89 miles, of which 594 miles are 
operated in Illinois, all owned by the company. 
Second and side tracks increase the mileage 
to a total of 7,217.91 miles. The Chicago & 
Northwestern Railway (proper) is operated in 
nine separate divisions, as follows: The Wis- 
consin, Galena, Iowa, Northern Iowa, Madison, 
Peninsula, Winona and St. Peter, Dakota and 
Ashland Divisions The principal or main lines 
of the "Northwestern System,*' in its entirety, 
are those which have Chicago, Omaha, St. Paul 
and Minneapolis for their termini, though their 
branches reach numerous important points 
within the States already named, from the shore 
of Lake Michigan on the east to Wyoming on the 
west, and from Kansas on the south to Lake 
Superior on the north. — (History.) The Chi- 
cago & Northwestern Railway Company was 
organized in 1859 under charters granted by the 
Legislatures of Illinois and Wisconsin during 
that year, under which the new company came 
into possession of the rights and franchises of the 
Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac Railroad Com- 
pany. The latter road was the outgrowth of 
various railway enterprises which had been pro 



102 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



jected, chartered and partly constructed in Wis- 
consin and Illinois, between 1848 and 1855, 
including the Madison & Beloit Eailroad, the 
Rock River Valley Union Railroad, and the Illi- 
nois & Wisconsin Railroad — the last named com- 
pany being chartered by the Illinois Legislature 
in 1851, and authorized to build a railroad from 
Chicago to the Wisconsin line. The Wisconsin 
Legislature of 1855 authorized the consolidation 
of the Rock River Valley Union Railroad with the 
Illinois enterprise, and, in March, 1855, the con- 
solidation of these lines was perfected under the 
name of the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac 
Railroad. During the first four years of its exist- 
ence this company built 176 miles of the road, of 
which seventy miles were between Chicago and 
the Wisconsin State line, with the sections con- 
structed in Wisconsin completing the connection 
between Chicago and Fond du Lac. As the result 
of the financial revulsion of 1857, the corporation 
became financially embarrassed, and the sale of its 
property and franchises under the foreclosure of 
1859, already alluded to, followed. This marked 
the beginning of the present corporation, and, in 
the next few years, by the construction of new 
lines and the purchase of others in Wisconsin and 
Northern Illinois, it added largely to the extent 
of its lines, both constructed and projected. The 
most important of these was the union effected 
with the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, 
which was formally consolidated with the Chi- 
cago & Northwestern in 1864. The history of 
the Galena & Chicago Union is interesting in 
view of the fact that it was one of the earliest 
railroads incorporated in Illinois, having been 
chartered by special act of the Legislature during 
the "internal improvement" excitement of 1836. 
Besides, its charter was the only one of that 
period under which an organization was effected, 
and although construction was not begun under 
it until 1847 (eleven years afterward), it was the 
second railroad constructed in the State and the 
first leading from the city of Chicago. In the 
forty years of its history the growth of the Chi- 
cago & Northwestern has been steady, and its 
success almost phenomenal. In that time it has 
not only added largely to its mileage by the con- 
struction of new lines, but has absorbed more 
lines than almost any other road in the country, 
until it now reaches almost every important city 
in the Northwest. Among the lines in Northern 
Illinois now constituting a part of it, were several 
which had become a part of the Galena & Chicago 
Union before the consolidation. These included 
a line from Belvidere to Beloit, Wis. ; the Fox 



River Valley Railroad, and the St. Charles & 
Mississippi Air Line Railroad — all Illinois enter- 
prises, and more or less closely connected with 
the development of the State. The total capi- 
talization of the line, on June 30, 1898, was 
$200,968,108, of which §66,408,821 was capi- 
tal stock and $101,603,000 in the form of 
bonds. The earnings in the State of Illinois, 
for the same period, aggregated $4,374,923, 
and the expenditures $3,712,593. At the present 
time (1899) the Chicago & Northwestern is build- 
ing eight or ten branch lines in Wisconsin, Iowa, 
Minnesota and South Dakota. The Northwestern 
System, as such, comprises nearly 3,000 miles of 
road not included in the preceding statements of 
mileage and financial condition. Although owned 
by the Chicago & Northwestern Company, they 
are managed by different officers and under other 
names. The mileage of the whole system covers 
nearly 8,000 miles of main line. 

CHICAGO & SPRINGFIELD RAILROAD. 
(See Illinois Central Railroad. ) 

CHICAGO & TEXAS RAILROAD, a line 
seventy-three miles in length, extending from 
Johnston City by way of Carbondale westerly to 
the Mississippi, thence southerly to Cape Girar- 
deau. The line was originally operated by two 
companies, under the names of the Grand Tower 
& Carbondale and the Grand Tower & Cape Girar- 
deau Railroad Companies. The former was 
chartered in 1882, and the road built in 1885 ; the 
latter, chartered in 1889 and the line opened the 
same year. They were consolidated in 1893, and 
operated under the name of the Chicago & Texas 
Railroad Company. In October, 1897, the last 
named line was transferred, under a twenty-five 
year lease, to the Illinois Central Railroad Com- 
pany, by whom it is operated as its St. Louis & 
Cape Girardeau division. 

CHICAGO & WESTERN INDIANA RAIL- 
ROAD. The main line of this road extends from 
Chicago to Dolton, 111. (17 miles), and affords ter- 
minal facilities for all lines entering the Polk St. 
Depot at Chicago. It has branches to Hammond, 
Ind. (10.28 miles) ; to Cragin (15.9 miles), and to 
South Chicago (5.41 miles); making the direct 
mileage of its branches 48.59 miles. In addition, 
its second, third and fourth tracks and sidings 
increase the mileage to 204.79 miles. The com- 
pany was organized June 9, 1879 ; the road opened 
in 1880, and, on Jan. 26, 1882, consolidated with 
the South Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad 
Company, and the Chicago & Western Indiana 
Belt Railway. It also owns some 850 acres in fee 
in Chicago, including wharf property on the 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



103 



Chicago River, right of way, switch and transfer 
yards, depots, the Indiana grain elevator, etc. 
The elevator and the Belt Division are leased to 
the Belt Railway Company of Chicago, and the 
rest of the property is leased conjointly by the 
Chicago & Eastern Illinois, the Chicago & Grand 
Trunk, the Chicago & Erie, the Louisville, New 
Albany & Chicago, and the Wabash Railways 
(each of which owns $1,000,000 of the capital 
stock), and by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. 
These companies pay the expense of operation 
and maintenance on a mileage basis. 

CHICAGO & WISCONSIN RAILROAD. (See 
Wisconsin Central Lines.) 

CHILDS, Robert A., was born at Malone, 
Franklin County, N. Y., March 22, 1845, the son 
of an itinerant Methodist preacher, who settled 
near Belvidere, Boone County, 111., in 1852. His 
home having been broken up by the death of his 
mother, in 1854, he went to live upon a farm. In 
April. 1861, at the age of 16 years, he enlisted in 
the company of Captain (afterwards General) 
Stephen A. Hurlbut, which was later attached to 
the Fifteenth Illinois Volunteers. After being 
mustered out at the close of the war, he entered 
school, and graduated from the Illinois State 
Normal University in 1870. For the following three 
years he was Principal and Superintendent of 
public schools at Amboy, Lee County, meanwhile 
studying law, and being admitted to the bar. In 
1873, he began the practice of his profession at 
Chicago, making his home at Hinsdale. After 
filling various local offices, in 1884 he was 
chosen Presidential Elector on the Republican 
ticket, and, in 1892, was elected by the narrow 
majority of thirty-seven votes to represent the 
Eighth Illinois District in the Fifty-third Con- 
gress, as a Republican. 

CHILLICOTHE, a city in Peoria County, situ- 
ated on the Illinois River, at the head of Peoria 
Lake; is 19 miles northwest of Peoria, on the 
Peoria branch of the Chicago, Rock Island & 
Pacific Railroad, and the freight division of the 
Atkinson, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. It is an 
important shipping-point for grain ; has a can- 
ning factory, a button factory, two banks, five 
churches, a high school, and two weekly news- 
papers. Population (1890), 1,632; (1900), 1,699. 

CHINIQUY, (Rev.) Charles, clergyman and 
reformer, was born in Canada, July 30, 1809, of 
mixed French and Spanish blood, and educated 
for the Romish priesthood at the Seminary of St. 
Nicholet, where he remained ten years, gaining a 
reputation among his fellow students for extraor- 
dinary zeal and piety. Having been ordained 



to the priesthood in 1833, he labored in various 
churches in Canada until 1851, when he accepted 
an invitation to Illinois with a view to building 
up the church in the Mississippi Valley. Locat- 
ing at the junction of the Kankakee and Iroquois 
Rivers, in Kankakee County, he was the means 
of bringing to that vicinity a colony of some 
5.000 French Canadians, followed by colonists 
from France, Belgium and other European 
countries. It has been estimated that over 
50,000 of this class of emigrants were settled in 
Illinois within a few years. The colony em- 
braced a territory of some 40 square miles, with 
the village of St. Ann's as the center. Here 
Father Chiniquy began his labors by erecting 
churches and schools for the colonists. He soon 
became dissatisfied with what he believed to be 
the exercise of arbitrary authority by the ruling 
Bishop, then began to have doubts on the question 
of papal infallibility, the final result being a 
determination to separate himself from the 
Mother Church. In this step he appears to have 
been followed by a large proportion of the colo- 
nists who had accompanied him from Canada, but 
the result was a feeling of intense bitterness 
between the opposing factions, leading to much 
litigation and many criminal prosecutions, of 
which Father Chiniquy was the subject, though 
never convicted. In one of these suits, in which 
the Father was accused of an infamous crime, 
Abraham Lincoln was counsel for the defense, 
the charge being proven to be the outgrowth of 
a conspiracy. Having finally determined to 
espouse the cause of Protestantism, Father 
Chiniquy allied himself with the Canadian Pres- 
bytery, and for many years of his active clerical 
life, divided his time between Canada and the 
United States, having supervision of churches in 
Montreal and Ottawa, as well as in this country. 
He also more than once visited Europe by special 
invitation to address important religious bodies 
in that country. He died at Montreal. Canada. 
Jan. 16. 1S9 1 .), in the 90th year of his age. 

CHOUARTj Medard, (known also as Sieur des 
Groseilliers). an early French explorer, supposed 
to have been born at Touraine, France, about 
1621. Coming to New France in early youth, he 
made a voyage of discovery with his brother-in- 
law, Radisson, westward from Quebec, about 
1654-56, these two being believed to have been 
the first white men to reach Lake Superior. 
After spending the winter of 1658-59 at La 
Pointe, near where Ashland, Wis,, now stands, 
they are believed by some to have discovered the 
Upper Mississippi and to have descended that 



104 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



stream a long distance towards its mouth, as 
the}" claimed to have reached a much milder 
climate and heard of Spanish ships on the salt 
water (Gulf of Mexico). Some antiquarians 
credit them, about this time (1659), with having 
visited the present site of the city of Chicago. 
They were the first explorers of Northwestern 
•Wisconsin and Minnesota, and are also credited 
with having been the first to discover an inland 
route to Hudson's Bay, and with being the 
founders of the original Hudson's Bay Company. 
Groseillier's later history is unknown, but he 
ranks among the most intrepid explorers of the 
"New World" about the middle of the seventh 
century. 

CHRISMAN, a city of Edgar County, at the 
intersection of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chi- 
cago & St. Louis and the Cincinnati, Hamilton & 
Dayton Railroads, 24 miles south of Danville ; has 
a pipe-wrench factory, grain elevators, and 
storage cribs. Population (1890), 820; (1900), 905. 

CHRISTIAN COUNTY, a rich agricultural 
county, lying in the "central belt," and organized 
in 1839 from parts of Macon, Montgomery, 
Sangamon and Shelby Counties. The name first 
given to it was Dane, in honor of Nathan Dane, 
one of the framers of the Ordinance of 1787, but 
a political prejudice led to a change. A pre- 
ponderance of early settlers having come from 
Christian County, Ky., this name was finally 
adopted. The surface is level and the soil fertile, 
the northern half of the county being best 
adapted to corn and the southern to wheat. Its 
area is about 710 square miles, and its population 
(1900), was 32,790. The life of the early settlers 
was exceedingly primitive. Game was abun- 
dant; wild honey was used as a substitute for 
sugar; wolves were troublesome; prairie fires 
were frequent; the first mill (on Bear Creek) 
could not grind more than ten bushels of grain 
per day, by horse-power. The people hauled their 
corn to St. Louis to exchange for groceries. The 
first store was opened at Robertson's Point, but 
the county -seat was established at Taylorville. A 
great change was wrought in local conditions by 
the advent of the Illinois Central Railway, which 
passes through the eastern part of the county. 
Two other railroads now pass centrally through 
the county — the "Wabash" and the Baltimore & 
Ohio Southwestern. The principal towns are 
Taylorville (a railroad center and thriving town 
of 2,829 inhabitants), Pana, Morrisonville, Edin- 
burg, and Assumption. 

CHURCH, Lawrence S., lawyer and legislator, 
was born at Nunda, N. Y., in 1820; passed his 



youth on a farm, but having a fondness for study, 
at an early age began teaching in winter with a 
view to earning means to prosecute his studies in 
law. In 1843 he arrived at McHenry, then the 
county-seat of McHenry County, 111., having 
walked a part of the way from New York, paying 
a portion of his expenses by the delivery of lec- 
tures. He soon after visited Springfield, and 
having been examined before Judge S. H. Treat, 
was admitted to the bar. On the removal of the 
county-seat from McHenry to Woodstock, he 
removed to the latter place, where he continued 
to reside to the end of his life. A member of the 
Whig party up to 1856, he was that year elected 
as a Republican Representative in the Twentieth 
General Assembly, serving by re-election in the 
Twenty-first and Twenty-second; in 1860, was 
supported for the nomination for Congress in the 
Northwestern District, but was defeated by Hon. 
E. B. Washburne; in 1862, aided in the organiza- 
tion of the Ninety-fifth Illinois Volunteers, and 
was commissioned its Colonel, but was compelled 
to resign before reaching the field on account of 
failing health. In 1866 he was elected County 
Judge of McHenry County, to fill a vacancy, and, 
in 1869 to the Constitutional Convention of 1869-70. 
Died, July 23, 1870. Judge Church was a man of 
high principle and a speaker of decided ability. 

CHURCH, Selden Marvin, capitalist, was born 
at East Haddam, Conn., March 4, 1804; taken by 
his father to Monroe County, N. Y., in boyhood, 
and grew up on a farm there, but at the age of 
21, went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he engaged 
in teaching, being one of the earliest teachers in 
the public schools of that city. Then, having 
spent some time in mercantile pursuits in Roches- 
ter, N. Y., in 1835 he removed to Illinois, first 
locating at Geneva, but the following year 
removed to Rockford, where he continued to 
reside for the remainder of his life. In 1841, he 
was appointed Postmaster of the city of Rock- 
ford by the first President Harrison, remaining 
in office three years. Other offices held by him 
were those of County Clerk (1843-47), Delegate to 
the Second Constitutional Convention (1847), 
Judge of Probate (1849-57), Representative in 
the Twenty-third General Assembly (1863-65), 
and member of the first Board of Public Charities 
by appointment of Governor Palmer, in 1869, 
being re-appointed by Governor Beveridge, in 
1873, and, for a part of the time, serving as Presi- 
dent of the Board. He also served, by appoint- 
ment of the Secretary of War, as one of the 
Commissioners to assess damages for the Govern- 
ment improvements at Rock Island and to locate 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



in:. 



the Government bridge between Rock Island and 
Davenport. During the latter years of his life lie 
was President for some time of the Rockford 
Insurance Company ; was also one of the origina- 
tors, and, for many years, Managing Director of 
the Rockford Water Power Company, which lias 
done so much to promote the prosperity of that 
city, and, at the time of his death, was one of the 
Directors of the Winnebago National Bank. Died 
at Rockford, June 23, 1892. 

CHURCHILL, George, early printer and legis- 
lator, was born at Hubbardtown, Rutland 
County, Vt., Oct. 11, 1789; received a good edu- 
cation in his youth, thus imbibing a taste for 
literature which led to his learning the printer's 
trade. In 1806 he became an apprentice in the 
office of the Albany (N. Y.) "Sentinel," and, 
after serving his time, worked as a journeyman 
printer, thereby accumulating means to purchase 
a half-interest in a small printing office. Selling 
this out at a loss, a year or two later, he went to 
New York, and, after working at the case some 
five months, started for the West, stopping en 
route at Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Louisville. 
In the latter place he worked for a time in the 
office of "The Courier," and still later in that of 
"The Correspondent," then owned by Col. Elijah 
C. Berry, who subsequently came to Illinois and 
served as Auditor of Public Accounts. In 1817 
he arrived in St. Louis, but, attracted by the fer- 
tile soil of Illinois, determined to engage in agri- 
cultural pursuits, finally purchasing land some 
six miles southeast of Edwardsville, in Madison 
County, where he continued to reside the re- 
mainder of his life. In order to raise means to 
improve his farm, in the spring of 1819 he 
worked as a compositor in the office of "The 
Missouri Gazette" — the predecessor of "The St. 
Louis Republic. ' ' While there he wrote a series 
of articles over the signature of "A Farmer of St. 
Charles County," advocating the admission of 
the State of Missouri into the Union without 
slavery, which caused considerable excitement 
among the friends of that institution. During 
the same year he aided Hooper Warren in 
establishing his paper, "The Spectator," at 
Edwardsville, and, still later, became a frequent 
contributor to its columns, especially during the 
campaign of 1822-24, which resulted, in the latter 
year, in the defeat of the attempt to plant slavery 
in Illinois. In 1822 he was elected Represent- 
ative in the Third General Assembly, serving in 
that body by successive re-elections until 1832. 
His re-election for a second term, in 1824, demon 
strated that his vote at the preceding session, in 



opposition to the scheme for a State Convention 
to revise the State Constitution in the interest of 
slavery, was approved by his constituents. In 
1838, he was elected to the Stair Senate serving 
four years, and. in 1844, was again elected to the 
House — in all serving a period in both Souse 
sixteen years. Mr. Churchill was never married 
He was an industrious and systematic collector of 
historical records, and. at the time of his death in 
the summer of 1872, loft a mass of documents and 
other historical material of great value (See 
Slavery ami Since Laws; Warren, Hooper, and 
Coles, Edward.) 

CLARK (Gen.) George Rogers, soldier, was 
horn near Monticello, Albemarle County, Va., 
Nov. 19, 1752. In his younger life he was a 
farmer and surveyor on the upper Ohio. His 
first experience in Indian fighting was under 
Governor Dunmore, against the Shawnees (1771 
In 1775 he went as a surveyor to Kentucky, and 
the British having incited the Indians against 
the Americans in the following year, he was 
commissioned a Major of militia. He soon rose 
to a Colonelcy, and attained marked distinction 
Later he was commissioned Brigadier-General, 
and planned an expedition against the British 
fort at Detroit, which was not successful. In 
the latter part of 1777, in consultation with Gov. 
Patrick Henry, of Virginia, he planned an expe- 
dition against Illinois, which was carried out 
the following year. On July 4, 1778, he captured 
Kaskaskia without firing a gun, and other 
French villages surrendered at discretion. The 
following February he set out from Kaskaskia to 
cross the "Illinois Country" for the purpose of 
recapturing Vincennes, which had been taken and 
was garrisoned by the British under Hamilton. 
After a forced march characterized by incredible 
suffering, his ragged followers effected the cap 
ture of the post. His last important military 
service was against the savages on the Big 
Miami, whose villages and fields he laid waste. 
His last years were passed in sorrow and in com- 
parative penury. He died at Louisville, Ky., 
Feb. 18, 1818. and his remains, after reposing in a 
private cemetery near that city for half a cen- 
tury, were exhumed and removed to Cave Hill 
Cemetery in 1869. The fullest history of General 
Clark's expedition and his life will be found in 
the "Conquest of the Country Northwest of the 
Ohio River. 1774-1783, and Life of Gen. George 
Rogers Clark" (2 volumes, 1896). by the late 
William H. English, of Indianapolis. 

CLARK, Horace S., lawyer and politician, was 
born at Huntsburg. Ohio. August 12, 1840. At 



106 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



the age of 15, coming to Chicago, he found 
employment in a livery stable ; later, worked on 
a farm in Kane County, attending school in the 
winter. After a year spent in Iowa City attend- 
ing the Iowa State University, he returned to 
Kane County and engaged in the dairy business, 
later occupying himself with various occupations 
in Illinois and Missouri, but finally returning to 
his Ohio home, where he began the study of law 
at Circleville. In 1861 he enlisted in an Ohio 
regiment, rising from the ranks to a captaincy, 
but was finally compelled to leave the service in 
consequence of a wound received at Gettysburg. 
In 1865 he settled at Mattoon, 111., where he was 
admitted to the bar in 1868. In 1870 he was an 
unsuccessful candidate for the Legislature on the 
Republican ticket, but was elected State Senator 
in 1880, serving four years and proving himself 
one of the ablest speakers on the floor. In 1888 
he was chosen a delegate-at-large to the National 
Republican Convention, and has long been a con- 
spicuous figure in State politics. In 1896 he was 
a prominent candidate for the Republican nomi- 
nation for Governor. 

CLARK, John M., civil engineer and merchant, 
was born at "White Pigeon, Mich., August 1, 1836; 
came to Chicago with his widowed mother in 
1847, and, after five years in the Chicago schools, 
served for a time (1852) as a rodman on the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad. After a course in the 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, N. Y., 
where he graduated in 1856, he returned to the 
service of the Illinois Central. In 1859 he went to 
Colorado, where he was one of the original 
founders of the city of Denver, and chief engi- 
neer of its first water supply company. In 1862 
he started on a surveying expedition to Arizona, 
but was in Santa Fe when that place was captured 
by a rebel expedition from Texas; was also 
present soon after at the battle of Apache Canon, 
when the Confederates, being defeated, were 
driven out of the Territory. Returning to Chi- 
cago in 1864, he became a member of the whole- 
sale leather firm of Gray, Clark & Co. The 
official positions held by Mr. Clark include those 
of Alderman (1879-81), Member of the Board of 
Education, Collector of Customs, to which he 
was appointed by President Harrison, in 1889, 
;um1 President of the Chicago Civil Service Board 
by appointment of Mayor Swift, under an act 
passed by the Legislature of 1895, retiring in 1897. 
In 1881 he was the Republican candidate for Mayor 
of Chicago, but was defeated by Carter II. Harri- 
son. Mr. Clark is one of the Directors of the Crerar 
Library, named in the will of Mr. Crerar. 



CLARK COUNTY, one of the eastern counties 
of the State, south of the middle line and front- 
ing upon the Wabash River; area, 510 square 
miles, and population (1900), 24,033; named for 
Col. George Rogers Clark. Its organization was 
effected in 1819. Among the earliest pioneers 
were John Bartlett, Abraham Washburn, James 
Whitlock, James B. Anderson, Stephen Archer 
and Uri Manly. The county-seat is Marshall, the 
site of which was purchased from the Govern- 
ment in 1833 by Gov. Joseph Duncan and Col. 
William B. Archer, the latter becoming sole pro- 
prietor in 1835, in which year the first log cabin 
was built. The original county-seat was Darwin, 
and the change to Marshall (in 1849) was made 
only after a hard struggle. The soil of the 
county is rich, and its agricultural products 
varied, embracing corn (the chief staple), oats, 
potatoes, winter wheat, butter, sorghum, honey, 
maple sugar, wool and pork. Woolen, flouring 
and lumber mills exist, but the manufacturing 
interests are not extensive. Among the promi- 
nent towns, besides Marshall and Darwin, are 
Casey (population 844), Martinsville (779), West- 
field (510), and York (294). 

CLAY, Porter, clergyman and brother of the 
celebrated Henry Clay, was born in Virginia, 
March, 1779; in early life removed to Kentucky, 
studied law, and was, for a time, Auditor of 
Public Accounts in that State ; in 1815, was con- 
verted and gave himself to the Baptist ministry, 
locating at Jacksonville, 111., where he spent 
most of his life. Died, in 1850. 

CLAY CITY, a village of Clay County, on the 
Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railroad, 12 
miles west of Olney ; has one newspaper, a bank, 
and is in a grain and fruit-gi - owing region. 
Population (1890), 612; (1900), 907; (1903), 1,020. 

CLAY COUNTY, situated in the southeastern 
quarter of the State ; has an area of 470 square 
miles and a population (1900) of 19,553. It was 
named for Henry Clay. The first claim in the 
county was entered by a Mr. Elliot, in 1818, and 
soon after settlers began to locate homes in the 
county, although it was not organized until 1824. 
During the same year the pioneer settlement of 
Maysville was made the county-seat, but immi- 
gration continued inactive until 1837, when 
many settlers arrived, headed by Judges Apper- 
son and Hopkins and Messrs. Stanford and Lee, 
who were soon followed by the families of Coch- 
ran, McCullom and Tender. The Little Wabash 
River and a number of small tributaries drain 
the county. A light-colored sandy loam consti- 
tutes the greater part of the soil, although "black 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



107 



prairie loam" appears here and there. Railroad 
facilities are limited, but sufficient to accommo- 
date the county's requirements. Fruits, 
especially apples, are successfully cultivated. 
Educational advantages are fair, although largely 
confined to district schools and academics in 
larger towns. Louisville was made the county- 
seat in 1840, and, in 1890, had a population of 
637. Xenia and Flora are the most important 
towns. 

CLAYTON, a town in Adams County, on the 
Wabash Railway, 28 miles east-northeast of 
Quincy. A branch of the Wabash Railway ex- 
tends from this point northwest to Carthage, 111., 
and Keokuk, Iowa, and another branch to 
Quincy, 111. The industries include flour and feed 
mills, machine and railroad repair shops, grain 
elevator, cigar and harness factories. It has a 
bank, four churches, a high school, and a weekly 
newspaper. Population (1890), 1,038; (1900), 996. 

CLEAVER, William, pioneer, was born in Lon- 
don, England, in 1815; came to Canada with his 
parents in 1831, and to Chicago in 1834; engaged 
in business as a chandler, later going into the 
grocery trade; in 1849, joined the gold-seekers in 
California, and, six years afterwards, established 
himself in the southern part of the present city 
of Chicago, then called Cleaverville, where he 
served as Postmaster and managed a general 
store. He was the owner of considerable real 
estate at one time in what is now a densely 
populated part of the city of Chicago. Died in 
Chicago, Nov. 13, 1896. 

CLEMENTS, Isaac, ex-Congressman and Gov- 
ernor of Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Danville, 
111., was born in Franklin County, Ind., in 1837; 
graduated from Asbury University, at Green- 
castle, in 1859, having supported himself during 
his college course by teaching. After reading 
law and being admitted to the bar at Greencastle, 
he removed to Carbondale, 111., where he again 
found it necessary to resort to teaching in order 
to purchase law-books. In July, 1861, he enlisted 
in the Ninth Illinois Infantry, and was commis- 
sioned Second Lieutenant of Company G. He 
was in the service for three years, was three 
times wounded and twice promoted "for meri- 
torious service." In June, 1867, he was ap- 
pointed Register in Bankruptcy, and from 1 S T:'> 
to 1875 w T as a Republican Representative in the 
Forty-third Congress from the (then) Eighteenth 
Disti'ict. He was also a member of the Repub 
lican State Convention of 1880. In 1889, he. 
became Pension Agent for the District of Illinois, 
by appointment of President Harrison, serving 



until 1893. In the latter part of 1*9*, ]„■ was 
appointed Superintendent of the Soldiers' 
Orphans' Home, at Normal, but served only a 
few months, when he accepted the position of 
( tovernor of the new Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, 
at I tanville. 

CLEVELAND, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO & ST. 
LOUIS RAILWAY. The total length of this 

tern (1898) is 1,807.34 mil. vs. f which 478.39 miles 
are operated in Illinois. Thai portion of the main 
line lying within the State extends from Easl St. 
Louis, northeast to the Indiana State line, 181 
miles. The Company is also the lessee of the 
Peoria & Eastern Railroad (132 miles), and oper- 
ates, in addition, other lines, as follows: The 
Cairo Division, extending from Tilton, on the 
line of the Wabash, 3 miles southwest of Dan- 
ville, to Cairo ('259 miles)- the Chicago Division, 
extending from Kankakee southeast to the 
Indiana State line (34 miles) ; the Alton Branch, 
from Wann Junction, on the main line, to Alton 
(4 miles). Besides these, it enjoys with the Chi- 
cago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, joint owner- 
ship of the Kankakee & Seneca Railroad, which 
it operates. The system is uniformly of standard 
gauge, and about 280 miles are of double track. 
It is laid with heavy steel rails (sixty-live, sixty- 
seven and eighty pounds), laid on white oak ties, 
and is amply ballasted with broken stone and 
gravel. Extensive repair shops are located at 
Mattoon The total capital of the entire system 
on June 30, 1898 — including capital stock and 
bonded and floating debt— was $97,149,361. The 
total earnings in Illinois for the year were 
§3,773,193, and the total expenditures in the State 
83,611,437. The taxes paid the same year were 
§124,196. The history -of this system, so far as 
Illinois is concerned, begins with the consolida- 
tion, in 1889, of the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. 
Louis & Chicago, the Cleveland, Columbus, Cin- 
cinnati & Indianapolis, and the Indianapolis & 
St. Louis Railway Companies. In 1890, certain 
leased lines in Illinois (elsewhere mentioned) 
were merged into the system. (For history of 
the several divisions of this system, see St. Louis. 
Alton & Terre Haute, Peoria & Eastern, Cairo 
& Vincennes, and Kankakei & Seneca Railroads I 
CLIMATOLOGY. Extending, as it does, through 
six degrees of latitude. Illinois affords a great 
diversity of climate, as regards not only the 
range of temperature, hut also the amount 
rainfall. In both particulars it exhibits several 
points of contrast to states lying between the 
same parallels of latitude, but nearer the Atlan- 
tic. The same statement applies, as well, to all 



108 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



the North Central and the Western States. 
Warm winds from the Gulf of Mexico come up 
the Mississippi Valley, and impart to vegetation 
in the southern poi - tion of the State, a stimulat- 
ing influence which is not felt upon the seaboard. 
On the other hand, there is no great barrier to 
the descent of the Arctic winds, which, in 
winter, sweep down toward the Gulf, depressing 
the temperature to a point lower than is custom- 
ary nearer the seaboard on the same latitude. 
Lake Michigan exerts no little influence upon the 
climate of Chicago and other adjacent districts, 
mitigating both summer heat and winter cold. 
If a comparison be instituted between Ottawa 
and Boston — the latter being one degree farther 
north, but 570 feet nearer the sea-level — the 
springs and summers are found to be about five 
degrees warmer, and the winters three degrees 
colder, at the former point. In comparing the 
East and West in respect of rainfall, it is seen 
that, in the former section, the same is pretty 
equally distributed over the four seasons, while 
in the latter, spring and summer may be called 
the wet season, and autumn and winter the dry. 
In the extreme West nearly three-fourths of the 
yearly precipitation occurs during the growing 
season. This is a climatic condition highly 
favorable to the growth of grasses, etc., but 
detrimental to the growth of trees. Hence we 
find luxuriant forests near the seaboard, and, in 
the interior, - grassy plains. Illinois occupies a 
geographical position where these great climatic 
changes begin to manifest themselves, and where 
the distinctive features of the prairie first become 
fully apparent. The annual precipitation of 
rain is greatest in the southern part of the State, 
but, owing to the higher temperature of that 
section, the evaporation is also more rapid. The 
distribution of the rainfall in respect of seasons 
is also more unequal toward the south, a fact 
which may account, in part at least, for the 
increased area of woodlands in that region. 
While Illinois lies within the zone of southwest 
winds, their flow is affected by conditions some- 
what abnormal. The northeast trades, after 
entering the Gulf, are deflected by the mountains 
of Mexico, becoming inward breezes in Texas, 
southerly winds in the Lower Mississippi Valley, 
and southwesterly as they enter the Upper 
Valley. It is to this aerial current that the hot, 
moist summers are attributable. The north and 
northwest winds, which set in with the change 
of the season, depress the temperature to a point 
below that of the Atlantic slope, and are 
attended with a diminished precipitation. 



CLINTON, the county-seat of De Witt County, 
situated 23 miles south of Bloomington, at inter- 
section of the Springfield and the Champaign- 
Havana Divisions with the main line of the Illinois 
Central Railroad ; lies in a productive agricultural 
region; has machine shops, flour and planing 
mills, brick and tile works, water works, electric 
lighting plant, piano-case factory, banks, three 
newspapers, six churches, and two public schools. 
Population (1890), 2,598; (1900), 4,452. 

CLINTON COUNTY, organized in 1824, from 
portions of Washington, Bond and Fayette Coun- 
ties, and named in honor of De Witt Clinton. It 
is situated directly east of St. Louis, has an area 
of 494 square miles, and a population (1900) of 
19,824. It is drained by the Kaskaskia River and 
by Shoal, Crooked, Sugar and Beaver Creeks. Its 
geological formation is similar to that of other 
counties in the same section. Thick layers of 
limestone lie near the surface, with coal seams 
underlying the same at varying depths. The 
soil is varied, being at some points black and 
loamy and at others (under timber) decidedly 
clayey. The timber has been mainly cut for fuel 
because of the inherent difficulties attending 
coal-mining. Two railroads cross the county 
from east to west, but its trade is not important. 
Agriculture is the chief occupation, corn, wheat 
and oats being the staple products. 

CLOUD, Newton, clergyman and legislator, 
was born in North Carolina, in 1805, and, in 1827, 
settled in the vicinity of Waverly, Morgan 
County, 111., where he pursued the vocation of a 
farmer, as well as a preacher of the Methodist 
Church. He also became prominent as a Demo- 
cratic politician, and served in no less than nine 
sessions of the General Assembly, besides the 
Constitutional Convention of 1847, of which he 
was chosen President. He was first elected 
Representative in the Seventh Assembly (1830), 
and afterwards served in the House during the 
sessions of the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Thir- 
teenth, Fifteenth and Twenty-seventh, and as 
Senator in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth. He 
was also Clerk of the House in 1844-45, and, 
having been elected Representative two years 
later, was chosen Speaker at the succeeding ses- 
sion. Although not noted for any specially 
aggressive qualities, his consistency of character 
won for him general respect, while his frequent 
elections to the Legislature prove him to have 
been a man of large influence. 

CLOWRY, Robert C, Telegraph Manager, was 
born in 1838 ; entered the service of the Illinois & 
Mississippi Telegraph Company as a messenger 



HISTORICAL K.M YCLOPEDLA OF ILLINOIS. 



109 



boy at Joliet in 1852, became manager of l he 
office at Lockport six months later, at Springfield 
in 1853, and chief operator at St. Louis in 1S54. 
Between 1859 and '03, he held highly responsible 
positions on various Western lines, but the latter 
year was commissioned by President Lincoln 
Captain and Assistant Quartermaster, and placed 
in charge of United States military lines with 
headquarters at Little Rock, Ark. ; was mustered 
out in May, 1866, and immediately appointed 
District Superintendent of Western Union lines 
in the Southwest. From that time his promotion 
was steady and rapid. In 1875 he became 
Assistant General Superintendent ; in 1878, Assist- 
ant General Superintendent of the Central Divi- 
sion at Chicago; in 1880, succeeded General 
Stager as General Superintendent, and, in 1885, 
was elected Director, member of the Execu- 
tive Committee and Vice-President, his terri- 
tory extending from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. 

COAL AND COAL-MIXING. Illinois contains 
much the larger portion of what is known as the 
central coal field, covering an area of about 
37,000 square miles, and underlying sixty coun- 
ties, in but forty-five of which, however, opera- 
tions are conducted on a commercial scale. The 
Illinois field contains fifteen distinct seams. 
Those available for commercial mining generally 
lie at considerable depth and are reached by 
shafts. The coals are all bituminous, and furnish 
an excellent steam-making fuel. Coke is manu- 
factured to a limited extent in La Salle and some 
of the southern counties, but elsewhere in the 
State the coal does not yield a good marketable 
coke. Neither is it in any degree a good gas 
coal, although used in some localities for that 
purpose, rather because of its abundance than on 
account of its adaptability. It is thought that, 
with the increase of cheap transportation facili- 
ties, Pittsburg coal will be brought into the State 
in such quantities as eventually to exclude local 
coal from the manufacture of gas. In the report 
of the Eleventh United States Census, the total 
product of the Illinois coal mines was given as 
12,104,272 tons, as against 6,115,377 tons reported 
by the Tenth Census. The value of the output 
was estimated at §11,735,203, or §0.97 per ton at 
the mines. The total number of mines was 
stated to be 1,072, and the number of tons mined 
was nearly equal to the combined yield of the 
mines of Ohio and Indiana. The mines are 
divided into two classes, technically known as 
"regular" and "local." Of the former, there 
were 358, and of the latter, 714. These 358 regular 



mines employed 23.934 men and boys, of whom 
21,350 worked below ground, besides an office 
force of 389, and paid, in wages, $8 694,397. The 
total capital invested in these 35s mines was 
$17,630,351. According to the report of the State 
Bureau of Labor Statistics for lsO.S, 881 mines 
were operated during the year, employing 35,026 
men and producing 18,599,299 tons of coal, which 
was 1,473,459 tons less than the preceding year — 
the reduction being due to the strike of 1897. 
Five counties of the State produced more than 
1,000,000 tons each, standing in the following 
order: Sangamon, 1,763,863; St. Clair, 1,600, 752; 
Vermilion, 1,520,699; Macoupin, 1.264,926; La 
Salle, 1,165,490. 

COAL CITY, a town in Grundy County, on the 
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway, 29 miles 
by rail south-southwest of Joliet. Large coal 
mines are operated here, and the town is an im- 
portant shipping point for their product. It has a 
bank, a weekly newspaper and five churches. 
Pop. (1890), 1,672 ; (1900), 2,607 ; (1903), about 3,000. 

COBB, Emery, capitalist, was born at Dryden, 
Tompkins County, N. Y., August 20, 1831; at 16, 
began the study of telegraphy at Ithaca, later 
acted as operator on Western New York lines, 
but, in 1852, became manager of the office at 
Chicago, continuing until 1865, the various com- 
panies having meanwhile been consolidated into 
the Western Union. He then made an extensive 
tour of the world, and, although he had intro- 
duced the system of transmitting money by 
telegraph, he declined all invitations to return to 
the key-board. Having made large investments 
in lands about Kankakee, where he now resides, 
he has devoted much of his time to agriculture 
and stock-raising; was also, for many years, a 
member of the State Board of Agriculture, Presi- 
dent of the Short-Horn Breeders' Association, 
and, for twenty years (1873-93), a member of the 
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 
He has done much to improve the city of his 
adoption by the erection of buildings, the con- 
struction of electric street-car lines and the 
promotion of manufactures. 

COBB, Silas B., pioneer and real-estate opera- 
tor, was born at Montpelier, Vt., Jan. 23, 1812; 
came to Chicago in 1833 on a schooner from Buf- 
falo, the voyage occupying over a month. Being 
without means, he engaged as a carpenter upon a 
building which James Kinzie, the Indian trader, 
was erecting; later he erected a building of his 
own in which he started a harness-shop, which 
he conducted successfully for a number of years. 
He has since been connected with a number 



110 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



of business enterprises of a public character, 
including banks, street and steam railways, but 
his largest successes have been achieved in the line 
of improved real estate, of which he is an exten- 
sive owner. He is also one of the liberal bene- 
factors of the University of Chicago, "Cobb 
Lecture Hall," on the campus of that institution, 
being the result of a contribution of his amount- 
ing to S150,000. Died in Chicago, April 5, 1900. 

COBDEN, a village in Union County, on the 
Illinois Central Railroad, 42 miles north of Cairo 
and 15 miles south of Carbondale. Fruits and 
vegetables are extensively cultivated and shipped 
to northern markets. This region is well tim- 
bered, and Cobden has two box factories employ- 
ing a considerable number of men; also has 
several churches, schools and two weekly papers. 
Population (1890), 994; (1900,) 1,034. 

COCHRAN, William Granville, legislator and 
jurist, was born in Ross County, Ohio, Nov. 13, 
1844; brought to Moultrie County, 111., in 1849, 
and, at the age of 17, enlisted in the One Hundred 
and Twenty-sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteers, 
serving in the War of the Rebellion three years 
as a private. Returning home from the war, he 
resumed life as a farmer, but early in 1873 began 
merchandising at Lovington, continuing this 
business three years, when he began the study of 
law; in 1879, was admitted to the bar, and has 
since been in active practice. In 1888 he was 
elected to the lower house of the General 
Assembly, was an unsuccessful candidate for the 
Senate in 1890, but was re-elected to the House 
in 1894, and again in 1896. At the special session 
of 1890, he was chosen Speaker, and was similarly 
honored in 1895. He is an excellent parliamen- 
tarian, clear-headed and just in his rulings, and 
an able debater. In June, 1897, he was elected 
for a six years' term to the Circuit bench. He is 
also one of the Trustees of the Soldiers' Orphans' 
Home at Normal. 

CODDING, Ichabod, clergyman and anti- 
slavery lecturer, was born at Bristol, N. Y., in 
1811; at the age of 17 he was a popular temper- 
ance lecturer; while a student at Middlebury, 
Vt., began to lecture in opposition to slavery; 
after leaving college served five years as agent 
and lecturer of the Anti-Slavery Society; was 
often exposed to mob violence, but always retain- 
ing his self-control, succeeded in escaping 
serious injury. In 1842 he entered the Congrega- 
tional ministry and held pastorates at Princeton, 
Lockport, Joliet and elsewhere; between 1854 
and '58, lectured extensively through Illinois on 
the "Kansas-Nebraska issue, and was a power in 



the organization of the Republican party. Died 
at Baraboo, Wis., June 17, 1866. 

CODY, Hiram Hitchcock, lawyer and Judge; 
born in Oneida County, N. Y. , June 11, 1824 ; was 
partially educated at Hamilton College, and, in 
1843, came with his father to Kendall County, 
111. In 1847, he removed to Naperville, where 
for six years he served as Clerk of the County 
Commissioners' Court. In 1851 he was admitted 
to the bar; in 1861, was elected County Judge 
with practical unanimity , served as a member of 
the Constitutional Convention of 1869-70, and, 
in 1874, was elected Judge of the Twelfth Judi- 
cial Circuit. His residence (1896) was at Pasa- 
dena, Cal. 

COLCHESTER, a city of McDonough County, 
on the Chicago, Burlington & .Quincy Railroad, 
midway between Galesburg and Quincy ; is the 
center of a rich farming and an extensive coal- 
mining region, producing more than 100,000 tons 
of coal annually. A superior quality of potter's 
clay is also mined and shipped extensively to 
other points. The city has brick and drain-tile 
works, a bank, four churches, two public schools 
and two weekly papers. Population (1890), 
1,643; (1900), 1,635. 

COLES, Edward, the second Governor of the 
State of Illinois, born in Albemarle County, Va., 
Dec. 15, 1786, the son of a wealthy planter, who 
had been a Colonel in the Revolutionary War; 
was educated at Hampden-Sidney and William 
and Mary Colleges, but compelled to leave before 
graduation by an accident which interrupted his 
studies ; in 1809, became the private secretary of 
President Madison, remaining six years, after 
which he made a trip to Russia as a special mes- 
senger by appointment of the President. He 
early manifested an interest in the emancipation 
of the slaves of Virginia. In 1815 he made his 
first tour through the Northwest Territory, going 
as far west as St. Louis, returning three years 
later and visiting Kaskaskia while the Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1818 was in session. In 
April of the following year he set out from his 
Virginia home, accompanied by his slaves, for 
Illinois, traveling by wagons to Brownsville, Pa. , 
where, taking flat-boats, he descended the river 
with his goods and servants to a point below 
Louisville, where they disembarked, journeying 
overland to Edwardsville. While descending 
the Ohio, he informed his slaves that they were 
free, and, after arriving at their destination, 
gave to each head of a family 160 acres of land. 
This generous act was, in after years, made the 
ground for bitter persecution by his enemies. At 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Ill 



Edwardsville he entered upon the duties of 
Register of the Land Office, to which lie had 
been appointed by President Monroe. In 1823 
he became the candidate for Governor of those 
opposed to removing the restriction in the State 
Constitution against the introduction of slavery, 
and, although a majority of the voters then 
favored the measure, he was elected by a small 
plurality over his highest competitor in conse- 
quence of a division of the opposition vote 
between three candidates. The Legislature 
chosen at the same time submitted to the people 
a proposition for a State Convention to revise the 
Constitution, which was rejected at the election 
of 1824 by a majority of 1,668 in a total vote of 
11,612. While Governor Coles had the efficient 
aid in opposition to the measure of such men as 
Judge Samuel D. Lockwood, Congressman Daniel 
P. Cook, Morris Birkbeck, George Forquer, 
Hooper "Warren, George Churchill and others, he 
was himself a most influential factor in protecting 
Illinois from the blight of slavery, contributing 
his salary for his entire term (§4,000) to that end. 
In 1825 it became his duty to welcome La Fay- 
ette to Illinois. Retiring from office in 1826, he 
continued to reside some years on his farm near 
Edwardsville, and, in 1830, was a candidate for 
Congress, but being a known opponent of Gen- 
eral Jackson, was defeated by Joseph Duncan. 
Previous to 1833, he removed to Philadelphia, 
where he married during the following year, and 
continued to reside there until his death, July 7, 
1868, having lived to see the total extinction of 
slavery in the United States. (See Slavery and 
Slave Laws. ) 

COLES COUNTY, originally a part of Crawford 
County, but organized in 1831, and named in 
honor of Gov. Edward Coles— lies central to the 
eastern portion of the State, and embraces 520 
square miles, with a population (1900) of 34,146. 
The Kaskaskia River (sometimes called the 
Okaw) runs througb the northwestern part of the 
county, but the principal stream is the Embarras 
(Embraw). The chief resource of the people is 
agriculture, although the county lies within the 
limits of the Illinois coal-belt. To the north and 
west are prairies, while timber abounds in the 
southeast. The largest crop is of corn, although 
wheat, dairy products, potatoes, hay, tobacco, 
sorghum, wool, etc., are also important products. 
Broom-corn is extensively cultivated. Manufac- 
turing is carried on to a fair extent, the output 
embracing sawed lumber, carriages and wagons, 
agricultural implements, tobacco and snuff, boots 
•vnd shoes, etc. Charleston, the county-seat, is 



centrally located, and lias a number of handsome 
public buildings, private residences and business 

blocks. It was laid out in 1N31, and incorporated 
in 1X65; in 1900, its population was 5,488. 
Mattoon is a railroad center, situated some 130 
miles east of St. Louis. It has a population of 
9,622, and is an important shipping point for 
grain and live-stock. Other principal towns are 
Ashmore, Oakland and Lerna. 

COLFAX, a village of McLean County, on the 
Kankakee and Bloomington branch of the Illinois 
Centi-al Railroad. 23 miles northeasl of Blooming- 
ton. Farming and stock-grow ing are the leading 
industries; lias two banks, one newspaper, three 
elevators, and a coal mine. Pop. (1900), 1,153. 

COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS, 
located at Chicago, and organized in 1881. Its 
iirst term opened in September, 1882, in a build- 
ing erected by the trustees at a cost of $60,000, 
with a faculty embracing twenty-five professms. 
with a sufficient corps of demonstrators, assist- 
ants, etc. The number of matriculates was 152. 
The institution ranks among the leading medical 
colleges of the West. Its standard of qualifica- 
tions, for both matriculates and graduates, is 
equal to those of other first-class medical schools 
throughout the country. The teaching faculty, 
of late years, has consisted of some twenty-five 
professors, who are aided by an adequate corps of 
assistants, demonstrators, etc. 

COLLEGES, EARLY. The early Legislatures of 
Illinois manifested no little unfriendliness toward 
colleges. The first charters for institutions of 
this character were granted in 1833, and were for 
the incorporation of the "Union College of Illi- 
nois," in Randolph County, and the "Alton Col- 
lege of Illinois," at Upper Alton. The first 
named was to be under the care of the Scotch 
Covenanters, but was never founded. The 
second was in the interest of the Baptists, but 
the charter was not accepted. Both these acts 
contained jealous and unfriendly restrictions, 
notably one to the effect that no theological 
department should be established and no pro- 
fessor of theology employed as an instructor, nor 
should any religious test be applied in the selec- 
tion of trustees or the admission of pupils. The 
friends of higher education, however, made com- 
mon cause, and. in 1835, secured the passage of 
an "omnibus bill" incorporating four private 
colleges — the Alton; the Illinois, at Jacksonville; 
tin' McKendree, at Lebanon, and the Jonesboio. 
Similar restrictive provisions as to theological 
teaching were incorporated in these charters, and 
a limitation was placed upon the amount of 



112 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



property to be owned by any institution, but in 
many respects the law was more liberal than its 
predecessors of two years previous. Owing to 
the absence of suitable preparatory schools, these 
institutions were compelled to maintain prepara- 
tory departments under the tuition of the college 
professors. The college last named above ( Jones- 
boro) was to have been founded by the Christian 
denomination, but was never organized. The 
three remaining ones stand, in the order of their 
formation, McKendree, Illinois, Alton (afterward 
Shurtleff ) ; in the order of graduating initial 
classes — Illinois, McKendree, Shurtleff. Pre- 
paratory instruction began to be given in Illinois 
College in 1829, and a class was organized in the 
collegiate department in 1831. The Legislature 
of 1835 also incorporated the Jacksonville Female 
Academy, the first school for girls chartered in 
the State. From this time forward colleges and 
academies were incorporated in rapid succession, 
many of them at places whose names have long 
since disappeared from the map of the State. It 
was at this time that there developed a strong 
party in favor of founding what were termed, 
rather euphemistically, "Manual Labor Col- 
leges." It was believed that the time which a 
student might be able to "redeem" from study, 
could be so profitably employed at farm or shop- 
work as to enable him to earn his own livelihood. 
Acting upon this theory, the Legislature of 1835 
granted charters to the "Franklin Manual Labor 
College," to be located in either Cook or La Salle 
County; to the "Burnt Prairie Manual Labor 
Seminary," in White County, and the "Chatham 
Manual Labor School," at Lick Prairie, Sanga- 
mon County. University powers were conferred 
upon the institution last named, and its charter 
also contained the somewhat extraordinary pro- 
vision that any sect might establish a professor- 
ship of theology therein. In 1837 six more 
colleges were incorporated, only one of which 
(Knox) was successfully organized. By 1840, 
better and broader views of education had 
developed, and the Legislature of 1841 repealed 
all prohibition of the establishing of theological 
departments, as well as the restrictions previously 
imposed upon the amount and value of property 
to be owned by private educational institutions. 
The whole number of colleges and seminaries 
incorporated under the State law (1896) is forty- 
three. (See also Illinois College, Knox College, 
Lake Forest University, McKendree College, Mon- 
mouth College, Jacksonville Female Seminary, 
Monticello Female Seminary, Northwestern Uni- 
versity, Shurtleff College.) 



COLLIER, Robert Laird, clergyman, was bom 
in Salisbury, Md., August 7, 1837; graduated at 
Boston University, 1858; soon after became an 
itinerant Methodist minister, but, in 1866, united 
with the Unitarian Church and officiated as 
pastor of churches in Chicago, Boston and Kan- 
sas City, besides supplying pulpits in various 
cities in England (1880-85). In 1885, he was 
appointed United States Consul at Leipsic, but 
later served as a special commissioner of the 
Johns Hopkins University in the collection of 
labor statistics in Europe, meanwhile gaining a 
wide reputation as a lecturer and magazine 
writer. His published works include: "Every - 
Day Subjects in Sunday Sermons" (1869) and 
"Meditations on the Essence of Christianity" 
(1876). Died near his birthplace, July 27, 1890. 

COLLINS, Frederick, manufacturer, was born 
in Connecticut, Feb. 24, 1804. He was the young- 
est of five brothers who came with their parents 
from Litchfield, Conn , to Illinois, in 1822, and 
settled in the town of Unionville — now Collins- 
ville — in the southwestern part of Madison 
County. They were enterprising and public- 
spirited business men, who engaged, quite 
extensively for the time, in various branches of 
manufacture, including flour and whisky. This 
was an era of progress and development, and 
becoming convinced of the injurious character 
of the latter branch of their business, it was 
promptly abandoned. The subject of this sketch 
was later associated with his brother Michael in 
the pork-packing and grain business at Naples, 
the early Illinois River terminus of the Sangamon 
& Morgan (now "Wabash) Railroad, but finally 
located at Quincy in 1851, where he was engaged 
in manufacturing business for many years. He 
was a man of high business probity and religious 
principle, as well as a determined opponent of the 
institution of slavery, as shown by the fact that 
he was once subjected by his neighbors to the 
intended indignity of being hung in effigy for the 
crime of assisting a fugitive female slave on the 
road to freedom. In a speech made in 1834, in 
commemoration of the act of emancipation in the 
West Indies, he gave utterance to the following 
prediction : "Methinks the time is not far distant 
when our own country will celebrate a day of 
emancipation within her own borders, and con- 
sistent songs of freedom shall indeed ring 
throughout the length and breadth of the land." 
He lived to see this prophecy fulfilled, dying at 
Quincy, in 1878. Mr. Collins was the candidate of 
the Liberty Men of Illinois for Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor in 1842. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



113 



COLLINS, James H., lawyer and jurist, was 
born in Cambridge, Washington County, N. Y., 

but taken in early life to Vernon, Oneida County, 
where he grew to manhood. After spending a 
couple of years in an academy, at the age of I s 
he began the study of law, was admitted to the 
bar in 1824, and as a counsellor and solicitor in 
1827, coining to Chicago in the fall of is:}:!, mak- 
ing a part of the journey by the first stage-con c • 1 1 
from Detroit to the present Western metropolis. 
After arriving in Illinois, he spent some time in 
exploration of the surrounding country, but 
returning to Chicago in 1834, he entered into 
partnership with Judge John D. Caton, who had 
been his preceptor in New York, still later being 
a partner of Justin Butterfield under the firm 
name of Butterfield & Collins. He was con- 
sidered an eminent authority in law and gained 
an extensive practice, being regarded as espe- 
cially strong in chancery cases as well as an able 
pleader. Politically, he was an uncompromising 
anti-slavery man, and often aided runaway 
slaves in securing their liberty or defended others 
who did so. He was also one of the original 
promoters of the old Galena & Chicago Union 
Railroad and one of its first Board of Directors. 
Died, suddenly of cholera, while attending court 
at Ottawa, in 1854. 

COLLINS, Loren C, jurist, was born at Wind- 
sor, Conn., August 1, 1848; at the age of 18 
accompanied his family to Illinois, and was 
educated at the Northwestern University. He 
read law, was admitted to the bar, and soon 
built up a remunerative practice. He was 
elected to the Legislature in 1878, and through 
his ability as a debater and a parliamentarian, 
soon became one of the leaders of his party on 
the floor of the lower house. He was re-elected 
in 1880 and 1882, and, in 1883, was chosen Speaker 
of the Thirty -third General Assembly. In 
December, 1884, he was appointed a Judge of the 
Circuit Court of Cook County, to fill the vacancy 
created by the resignation of Judge Barnum, was 
elected to succeed himself in 1885, and re-elected 
in 1891, but resigned in 1894, since that time 
devoting his attention to regular practice in the 
city of Chicago. 

COLLINS, William H., retired manufacturer, 
born at Collinsville, 111., March 20, 1831; was 
educated in the common schools and at Illinois 
College, later taking a course in literature, 
philosophy and theology at Yale College ; served 
as pastor of a Congregational church at La Salle 
several years; in 1858, became editor and propri- 
etor of "The Jacksonville Journal," which he 



conducted some four years. The Civil War hav- 
ing begun, he then accepted tlic chaplaincy of 
(lie Tenth Regiment Illinois Volunteers, but 
resigning in 1863, organized a company of the 
One Hundred and Fourth Volunteers, of which 
he was chosen Captain, participating in the 
battles of Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain and 
Missionary Ridge. Later he served on the stalF 
of Gen. John M. Palmer and at Fourteenth Army 
Corps headquarters, until after the fall of 
Atlanta. Then resigning, in November, 1804, he 
was appointed by Secretary Stanton Provost- 
Marshal for the Twelfth District of Illinois, con- 
tinuing in this service until the close of 1 65 
when he engaged in the manufacturing business 
as head of the Collins Plow Company at Quincy. 
This business he conducted successfully some 
twenty-five years, when he retired. Mr. Collins 
has served as Alderman and Mayor, ml interim, 
of the city of Quincy; Representative in the 
Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth General Assem- 
blies — during the latter being chosen to deliver 
the eulogy on Gen. John A. Logan ; was a promi- 
nent candidate for the nomination for Lieutenant 
Governor in 1888, and the same year Republican 
candidate for Congress in the Quincy District; 
in 1894, was the Republican nominee for State 
Senator in Adams County, and, though a Repub- 
lican, has been twice elected Supervisor in a 
strongly Democratic city. 

COLLINSVILLE, a city on the southern border 
of Madison County, 13 miles (by rail) east-north- 
east of St. Louis, on the "Vandalia Line" (T. H. 
& I. Ry.), about 11 miles south of Edwardsviile. 
The place was originally settled in 1817 by four 
brothers named Collins from Litchfield, Conn., 
who established a tan-yard and erected an ox-mill 
for grinding corn and wheat and sawing lumber 
The town was platted by surviving members of 
this family in 1836. Coal-mining is the principal 
industry, and one or two mines are operated 
within the corporate limits. The city has zinc 
works, as well as flour mills and brick and tile 
factories, two building and loan associations, a 
lead smelter, stock bell factory, electric street 
railways, seven churches, two banks, a high 
school, and a newspaper office. Population 
(1890), 3,498; (1900), 4,021; (1903, est.), 7,500. 

COLLYER, Robert, clergyman, was born at 
Keighly. Yorkshire, England, Dec. 8, 1823; left 
school at eight years of age to earn his living in 
a factory; at fourteen was apprenticed to a black- 
smith and learned the trade of a hammer-maker. 
His only opportunity of acquiring an education 
during this period, apart from private study, was 



114 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



in a night-school, which he attended two winters. 
In 1849 he became a local Methodist preacher, 
came to the United States the next year, settling 
in Pennsylvania, where he pursued his trade, 
preaching on Sundays. His views on the atone- 
ment having gradually been changed towards 
Unitarianism, his license to preach was revoked 
by the conference, and, in 1859, he united with 
the Unitarian Church, having already won a 
wide reputation as an eloquent public speaker. 
Coming to Chicago, he began work as a mission- 
ary, and, in 1860, organized the Unity Church, 
beginning with seven members, though it has 
since become one of the strongest and most influ- 
ential churches in the city. In 1879 he accepted 
a call to a church in New York City, where he 
still remains. Of strong anti-slavery views and 
a zealous Unionist, he served during a part of the 
Civil "War as a camp inspector for the Sanitary 
Commission. Since the war he has repeatedly 
visited England, and has exerted a wide influence 
as a lecturer and pulpit orator on both sides of 
the Atlantic. He is the author of a number of 
volumes, including "Nature and Life" (1866) ; 
"A Man in Earnest : Life of A. H. Conant" (1868) ; 
"A History of the Town and Parish of likely" 
(1886), and "Lectures to Young Men and Women" 
(1886). 

COLTON, Chauncey Sill, pioneer, was born at 
Springfield, Pa., Sept. 21, 1800; taken to Massachu- 
setts in childhood and educated at Monson in that 
State, afterwards residing for many years, dur- 
ing his manhood, at Monson, Maine. He came to 
Illinois in 1836, locating on the site of the present 
city of Galesburg, where he built the first store 
and dwelling house; continued in general mer- 
chandise some seventeen or eighteen years, mean- 
while associating his sons with him in business 
under the firm name of C. S. Colton & Sons. Mr. 
Colton was associated with the construction of 
the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad from 
the beginning, becoming one of the Directors of 
the Company; was also a Director of the First 
National Bank of Galesburg, the first organizer 
and first President of the Farmers' and Mechan- 
ics' Bank of that city, and one of the Trustees of 
Knox College. Died in Galesburg, July 27, 1885. 
— Francis (Colton), son of the preceding; born 
at Monson, Maine, May 24, 1834, came to Gales- 
burg with his father's family in 1836, and was 
educated at Knox College, graduating in 1855, 
and receiving the degree of A.M. in 1858. After 
graduation, lie \v;is in partnership with his father 
some seven years, also served as Vice-President 
of the First National Bank of Galesburg, and, in 



1866, was appointed by President Johnson United 
States Consul at Venice, remaining there until 
1869. The latter year he became the General 
Passenger Agent of the Union Pacific Railroad, 
continuing in that position until 1871, meantime 
visiting China, Japan and India, and establishing 
agencies for the Union and Central Pacific Rail- 
ways in various countries of Europe. In 1872 he 
succeeded his father as President of the Farmers' 
and Mechanics' Bank of Galesburg, but retired in 
1884, and the same year removed to Washington, 
D. C. , where he has since resided. Mr. Colton is 
a large land owner in some of the Western States, 
especially Kansas and Nebraska. 

COLUMBIA, a town of Monroe County, on 
Mobile & Ohio Railroad, 15 miles south of St. 
Louis; has a machine shop, large flour mill, 
brewery, five cigar factories, electric light plant, 
telephone system, stone quarry, five churches, 
and public school. Pop. (1900), 1,197; (1903), 1,205. 

COMPANY OF THE WEST, THE, a company 
formed in France, in August, 1717, to develop 
the resources of "New France," in which the 
"Illinois Country" was at that time included. 
At the head of the company was the celebrated 
John Law, and to him and his associates the 
French monarch granted extraordinary powers, 
both governmental and commercial. They were 
given the exclusive right to refine the precious 
metals, as well as a monopoly in the trade in 
tobacco and slaves. Later, the company became 
known as the Indies, or East Indies, Company, 
owing to the king having granted thern conces- 
sions to trade with the East Indies and China. 
On Sept. 27, 1717, the Royal Council of France 
declared that the Illinois Country should form a 
part of the Province of Louisiana ; and, under the 
shrewd management of Law and his associates, 
immigration soon increased, as many as 800 
settlers arriving in a single year. The directors 
of the company, in the exercise of their govern- 
mental powers, appointed Pierre Duque de Bois- 
briant Governor of the Illinois District. He 
proceeded to Kaskaskia, and, within a few miles 
of that settlement, erected Fort Chartres. (See 
Fort Chartres. ) The policy of the Indies Company 
was energetic, and, in the main, wise. Grants of 
commons were made to various French villages, 
and Cahokia and Kaskaskia steadily grew in size 
and population. Permanent settlers were given 
grants of land and agriculture was encouraged. 
These grants (which were allodial in their char- 
acter) covered nearly all the lands in that part of 
the American Bottom, lying between the Missis- 
sippi and the Kaskaskia Rivers. Many grantees 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



115 



held their lands in one great common field, each 
proprietor contributing, pro rata, to the mainte* 
nance of a surrounding fence. In 1721 the Indies 
Company divided the Province of Louisiana into 
nine civil and military districts. That of Illinois 
was numerically the Seventh, and included not 
only the southern half of the existing State, but 
also an immense tract west of the Mississippi, 
extending to the Rocky Mountains, and embrac- 
ing the present States of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa 
and Nebraska, besides portions of Arkansas and 
Colorado. The Commandant, with his secretary 
and the Company's Commissary, formed the 
District Council, the civil law being in force. In 
1732, the Indies Company surrendered its charter, 
and thereafter, the Governors of Illinois were 
appointed directly by the French crown. 

CONCORDIA SEMINARY, an institution lo- 
cated at Springfield, founded in 1879 ; the succes- 
sor of an earlier institution under the name of 
Illinois University. Theological, scientific and 
preparatory departments are maintained, al- 
though there is no classical course. The insti- 
tution is under control of the German Lutherans. 
The institution reports $125,000 worth of real 
property. The members of the Faculty (1898) 
are five in number, and there were about 171 
students in attendance. 

CONDEE, Leander D., lawyer, was born in 
Athens County, Ohio, Sept. 26, 1847; brought 
by his parents to Coles County, 111. , at the age of 
seven years, and received his education in the 
common schools and at St. Paul's Academy, Kan- 
kakee, taking a special course in Michigan State 
University and graduating from the law depart- 
ment of the latter in 1868. He then began prac- 
tice at Butler, Bates County, Mo., where he 
served three years as City Attorney, but, in 1873, 
returned to Illinois, locating in Hyde Park (now 
a part of Chicago), where he served as City 
Attorney for four consecutive terms before its 
annexation to Chicago. In 1880, he was elected 
as a Republican to the State Senate for the 
Second Senatorial District, serving in the Thirty- 
second and the Thirty-third General Assemblies. 
In 1892, he was the Republican nominee for Judge 
of the .Superior Court of Cook County, but was 
defeated with the National and the State tickets 
of that year, since when he has given his atten- 
tion to regular practice, maintaining a high rank 
in his profession. 

CONNER, Edwin Hurd, lawyer and diploma- 
tist, was born in Knox County, 111., March 7, 1843; 
graduated at Lombard Universit}', Galesburg. in 
1865. and immediately thereafter enlisted as a 



private in the One Hundred and Second Illinois 
Volunteers, serving through the war and attain- 
ing the rank of Captain, besides Ix-ing bre vetted 
Major for gallant service. Later, he graduated 
from the Albany Law School and practiced for a 
time in Galesburg, but, in 1868, removed to Iowa, 
where he engaged in farming, stock-raising and 
banking; was twice elected County Treasurer of 
Dallas County, and. in 1880, State Treasurer, 
being re-elected in 1882; in 1^86, was elected to 
Congress from the Des Moines District, and twice 
re-elected (1888 and '90), but before the close of 
his last term was appointed by President Harri- 
son Minister to Brazil, serving until 1893. In 
1896, he served as Presidential Elector for the 
State-at-large, and, in 1897, was re-appointed 
Minister to Brazil, but, in 1898, was transferred 
to China, where (1899) he now is. He was sue 
ceeded at Rio Janeiro by Charles Page Bryan of 
Illinois. 

COMiREGATIONALISTS, THE. Two Congre- 
gational ministers — Rev. S. J. Mills and Rev. 
Daniel Smith — visited Illinois in 1814, and spent 
some time at Kaskaskia and Shawneetown, but 
left for New Orleans without organizing any 
churches. The first church was organized at 
Mendon, Adams County, in 1833, followed br- 
others during the same year, at Naperville, Jack- 
sonville and Quincy. By 1836, the number had 
increased to ten. Among the pioneer ministers 
were Jabez Porter, who was also a teacher at 
Quincy, in 1828, and Rev. Asa Turner, in 1830, 
who became pastor of the first Quincy church, 
followed later by Revs. Julian M. Sturtevant 
(afterwards President of Illinois College), Tru- 
man M. Post, Edward Beecher and Horatio Foci. 
Other Congregational ministers who came to t^e 
State at an early day were Rev. Salmon Gridlej . 
who finally located at St. Louis; Rev. John M. 
Ellis, who served as a missionary and was instru- 
mental in founding Illinois College and the Jack- 
sonville Female Seminary at Jacksonville; Revs. 
Thomas Lippincott, Cyrus L. Watson, Theron 
Baldwin, Elisha Jenney. William Kirby, the two 
Lovejoys (Owen and Elijah P.), and many more 
of whom, either temporarily or permanently, 
became associated with Presbyterian churches. 
Although Illinois College was under the united 
patronage of Presbyterians and Congregational 
ists. the leading spirits in its original establish 
ment were Congregationalists, and the same was 
true of Knox < 'ollege at Galesburg. In 1835, at 
Big Grove, in an unoccupied log-cabin, was 
convened the Brsl < 'ongregational Council, known 
in the denominational history of the State as 



116 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



that of Fox River. Since then some twelve to 
fifteen separate Associations have been organized. 
By 1890, the development of the denomination 
had been such that it had 280 churches, support- 
ing 312 ministers, with 33,126 members. During 
that year the disbursements on account of chari- 
ties and home extension, by the Illinois churches, 
were nearly §1,000,000. The Chicago Theological 
Seminary, at Chicago, is a Congregational school 
of divinity, its property holdings being worth 
nearly $700,000. "The Advance" (published at 
Chicago) is the chief denominational organ. 
(See also Religious Denominations. ) 

CONGRESSIONAL APPORTIONMENT. (See 
Apportionment, Congressional; also Represent- 
atives in Congress. ) 

CONKLING, James Cook, lawyer, was born in 
New York City, Oct. 13, 1816; graduated at Prince- 
ton College in 1835, and, after studying law and 
being admitted to the bar at Morristown, N. J., in 
1838, removed to Springfield, 111. Here his first 
business partner was Cyrus Walker, an eminent 
and widely known lawyer of his time, while at a 
later period he was associated with Gen. James 
Shields, afterwards a soldier of the Mexican "War 
and a United States Senator, at different times, 
from three different States. As an original 
Whig, Mr. Conkling early became associated 
with Abraham Lincoln, whose intimate and 
trusted friend he was through life. It was to 
him that Mr. Lincoln addressed his celebrated 
letter, which, by his special request, Mr. Conk- 
ling read before the great Union mass-meeting at 
Springfield, held, Sept. 3, 1863, now known as the 
"Lincoln-Conkling Letter." Mr. Conkling was 
chosen Mayor of the city of Springfield in 1844, 
and served in the lower branch of the Seven- 
teenth and the Twenty-fifth General Assemblies 
(1851 and 1867). It was largely due to his tactful 
management in the latter, that the first appropri- 
ation was made for the new State House, which 
established the capital permanently in that city. 
At the Bloomington Convention of 1856, where 
the Republican party in Illinois may be said to 
have been formally organized, with Mr. Lincoln 
and three others, he represented Sangamon 
County, served on the Committee on Resolutions, 
and was appointed a member of the State Central 
Committee which conducted the campaign of 
that year. In 1860, and again in 1804, his name 
was on the Republican State ticket for Presiden- 
tial Elector, and, on both occasions, it became his 
duty to cast the electoral vote of Mr. Lincoln's 
own District for him for President. The intimacy 
of personal friendship existing between him and 



Mr. Lincoln was fittingly illustrated by his posi- 
tion for over thirty years as an original member 
of the Lincoln Monument Association. Other 
public positions held by him included those of 
State Agent during the Civil War by appointment 
of Governor Yates, Trustee of the State University 
at Champaign, and of Blackburn University at 
Carlinville, as also that of Postmaster of the city 
of Springfield, to which he was appointed in 1890, 
continuing in office four years. High-minded 
and honorable, of pure personal character and 
strong religious convictions, public-spirited and 
liberal, probably no man did more to promote 
the growth and prosperity of the city of Spring- 
field, during the sixty years of his residence there, 
than he. His death, as a result of old age, 
occurred in that city, March 1, 1899. — Clinton L. 
(Conkling), son of the preceding, was born in 
Springfield, Oct. 16, 1843; graduated at Yale 
College in 1864, studied law with his father, and 
was licensed to practice in the Illinois courts in 
1866, and in the United States courts in 1867. 
After practicing a few years, he turned his atten- 
tion to manufacturing, but, in 1877, resumed 
practice and has proved successful. He has 
devoted much attention of late years to real 
estate business, and has represented large land 
interests in this and other States. For many 
years he was Secretary of the Lincoln Monument 
Association, and has served on the Board of 
County Supervisors, which is the only political 
office he has held. In 1897 he was the Repub- 
lican nominee for Judge of the Springfield Cir- 
cuit, but, although confessedly a man of the 
highest probity and ability, was defeated in a 
district overwhelmingly Democratic. 

CONNOLLY, James Austin, lawyer and Con- 
gressman, was born in Newark, N. J., March 8, 
1843; went with his parents to Ohio in 1850, 
where, in 1858-59, he served as Assistant Clerk of 
the State Senate ; studied law and was admitted 
to the bar in that State in 1861, and soon after 
removed to Illinois; the following year (1862) he 
enlisted as a private soldier in the One Hundred 
and Twenty-third Illinois Volunteers, but was 
successively commissioned as Captain and Major, 
retiring with the rank of brevet Lieutenant- 
Colonel. In 1872 he was elected Representative 
in the State Legislature from Coles County and 
re-elected in 1874; was United States District 
Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois 
from 1876 to 1885, and again from 1889 to 1893; 
in 1886 was appointed and confirmed Solicitor of 
the Treasury, but declined the office; the same 
year ran as the Republican candidate for Con- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



117 



gress in the Springfield (then the Thirteenth) 
District in opposition to Wm. M. Springer, and 
was defeated by less than 1,000 votes in a district 
usually Democratic by 3,000 majority. He 
declined a second nomination in 1888, but, in 1894, 
was nominated for a third time (this time for the 
Seventeenth District), and was elected, as he was 
for a second term in 1896. He declined a renomina- 
tion in 1898, returning to the practice of his pro- 
fession at Springfield at the close of the Fifty-fifth 
Congress. 

CONSTABLE, Charles H., lawyer, was born at 
Chestertown, Md.,July 6, 1817; educated at Belle 
Air Academy and the University of Virginia, 
graduating from the latter in 1838. Then, having 
studied law, he was admitted to the bar, came to 
Illinois early in 1840, locating at Mount Carmel, 
Wabash County, and, in 1844, was elected to the 
State Senate for the district composed of Wabash, 
Edwards and Wayne Counties, serving until 1848. 
He also served as a Delegate in the Constitutional 
Convention of 1847. Originally a Whig, on the 
dissolution of that party in 1854, he became a 
Democrat; in 1856, served as Presidential 
Elector-at-large on the Buchanan ticket and, 
during the Civil War, was a pronounced oppo- 
nent of the policy of the Government in dealing 
with secession. Having removed to Marshall, 
Clark County, in 1852, he continued the practice 
of his profession there, but was elected Judge of 
the Circuit Court in 1861, serving until his death, 
which occurred, Oct. 9, 1865. While holding 
court at Charleston, in March, 1863, Judge Con- 
stable was arrested because of his release of four 
deserters from the army, and the holding to bail, 
on the charge of kidnaping, of two Union officers 
who had arrested them. He was subsequently 
released by Judge Treat of the United States 
District Court at Springfield, but the affair cul- 
minated in a riot at Charleston, on March 22, in 
which four soldiers and three citizens were killed 
outright, and eight persons were wounded. 

CONSTITUTIONAL CONTENTIONS. Illinois 
has had four State Conventions called for the 
purpose of formulating State Constitutions. Of 
these, three— those of 1818, 1847 and 1869-70— 
adopted Constitutions which went into effect, 
while the instrument framed by the Convention 
of 1862 was rejected by the people. A synoptical 
history of each will be found below : 

Convention of 1818. — In January, 1818, the 
Territorial Legislature adopted a resolution 
instructing the Delegate in Congress (Hon. 
Nathaniel Pope) to present a petition to Congress 
requesting the passage of an act authorizing the 



people of Illinois Territory to organize a State 
Government. A bill to this effect was intro- 
duced, April 7, and became a law, April 18, follow- 
ing. It authorized the people to frame a 
Constitution and organize a State Government — 
apportioning the Delegates to be elected from 
each of" the fifteen counties into which the Ter- 
ritory was then divided, naming the first Monday 
of July, following, as the day of election, and the 
first Monday of August as the time for the meet- 
ing of the Convention. The act was conditioned 
upon a census of the people of the Territory (to 
be ordered by the Legislature) , showing a popu- 
lation of not less than 40,000. The census, as 
taken, showed the required population, but, as 
finally corrected, this was reduced to 34,620 — 
being the smallest with which any State was ever 
admitted into the Union. The election took 
place on July 6, 1818, and the Convention assem- 
bled at Kaskaskia on August 3. It consisted of 
thirty-three members. Of these, a majority were 
farmers of limited education, but with a fair 
portion of hard common-sense. Five of the 
Delegates were lawyers, and these undoubtedly 
wielded a controlling influence. Jesse B. 
Thomas (afterwards one of the first United 
States Senators) presided, and Elias Kent Kane, 
also a later Senator, was among the dominating 
spirits. It has been asserted that to the latter 
should be ascribed whatever new matter was 
incorporated in the instrument, it being copied 
in most of its essential provisions from the Con- 
stitutions of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. The 
Convention completed its labors and adjourned, 
August 26, the Constitution was submitted to 
Congress by Delegate John McLean, without the 
formality of ratification by the people, and Illi- 
nois was admitted into the Union as a State by 
resolution of Congress, adopted Dec. 3, 1818. 

Convention of 1847.— An attempt was made in 
1822 to obtain a revision of the Constitution of 
1818, the object of the chief promoters of the 
movement being to secure the incorporation of a 
provision authorizing the admission of slavery 
into Illinois. The passage of a resolution, by the 
necessary two-thirds vote of both Houses of the 
General Assembly, submitting the proposition to 
a vote of the people, was secured by the most 
questionable methods, at the session of 1822, hut 
after a heated campaign of nearly two years, it 
was rejected at the election of 1824. (See 
Slavery and Slave Laws; also Coles. Edward.) 
At the session of is|u-li. another resolution on 
the subject was submitted to the people, but it 
was rejected by the narrow margin of 1 039 



118 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



votes. Again, in 1845, the question was submit- 
ted, and, at the election of 1846, was approved. 
The election of delegates occurred, April 19, 1847, 
and the Convention met at Springfield, June 19, 
following. It was composed of 162 members, 
ninety-two of whom were Democrats. The list 
of Delegates embraced the names of many who 
afterwards attained high distinction in public 
affairs, and the body, as a whole, was represent- 
ative in character. The Bill of Rights attached 
to the Constitution of 1818 was but little changed 
in its successor, except by a few additions, 
among which was a section disqualifying any 
person who had been concerned in a duel from 
holding office. The earlier Constitution, how- 
ever, was carefully revised and several important 
changes made. Among these may be mentioned 
the following: Limiting the elective franchise 
for foreign-born citizens to those who had 
become naturalized ; making the judiciary elect- 
ive; requiring that all State officers be elected 
by the people ; changing the time of the election 
of the Executive, and making him ineligible for 
immediate re-election; various curtailments of 
the power of the Legislature; imposing a two- 
mill tax for payment of the State debt, and pro- 
viding for the establishment of a sinking fund. 
The Constitution framed was adopted in conven- 
tion, August 31, 1847; ratified by popular vote, 
March 6, 1848, and went into effect, April 1, 1848. 
Convention of 1862. — The proposition for 
holding a third Constitutional Convention was 
submitted to vote of the people by the Legislature 
of 1859, endorsed at the election of 1860, and the 
election of Delegates held in- November, 1861. In 
the excitement attendant upon the early events 
of the war, people paid comparatively little 
attention to the choice of its members. It was 
composed of forty-five Democrats, twenty-one 
Republicans, seven "fusionists" and two classed 
as doubtful. The Convention assembled at 
Springfield on Jan. 7, 1862, and remained in ses- 
sion until March 24, following. It was in many 
respects a remarkable body. The law providing 
for its existence prescribed that the members, 
before proceeding to business, should take an 
oath to support the State Constitution. This the 
majority refused to do. Their conception of 
their powers was such that they seriously deliber- 
ated upon electing a United States Senator, 
assumed to make appropriations from the State 
treasury, claimed the right to interfere with 
military affairs, and called upon the Governor 
for information concerning claims of the Illinois 
Central Railroad, which the Executive refused to 



lay before them. The instrument drafted pro- 
posed numerous important changes in the organic 
law, and was generally regarded as objectionable. 
It was rejected at an election held, June 17, 1862, 
by a majority of over 16,000 votes. 

Convention of 1869-70. — The second attempt 
to revise the Constitution of 1848 resulted in 
submission to the people, by the Legislature of 
1867,' of a proposition for a Convention, which was 
approved at the election of 1868 by a bare major- 
ity of 704 votes. The election of Delegates was 
provided for at the next session (1869), the elec- 
tion held in November and the Convention 
assembled at Springfield, Dec. 13. Charles 
Hitchcock was chosen President, John Q. Har- 
mon, Secretary, and Daniel Shepard and A. H. 
Swain, First and Second Assistants. There were 
eighty-five members, of whom forty-four were 
Republicans and forty-one Democrats, although 
fifteen had been elected nominally as "Independ- 
ents." It was an assemblage of some of the 
ablest men of the State, including representatives 
of all the learned professions except the clerical, 
besides merchants, farmers, bankers and journal- 
ists. Its work was completed May 13, 1870, and 
in the main good. Some of the principal changes 
made in the fundamental law, as proposed by the 
Convention, were the following: The prohibi- 
tion of special legislation where a general law 
may be made to cover the necessities of the case, 
and the absolute prohibition of such legislation 
in reference to divorces, lotteries and a score of 
other matters ; prohibition of the passage of any 
law releasing any civil division (district, county, 
city, township or town) from the payment of its 
just proportion of any State tax; recommenda- 
tions to the Legislature to enact laws upon 
certain specified subjects, such as liberal home- 
stead and exemption rights, the construction of 
drains, the regulation of charges on railways 
(which were declared to be public highways), 
etc. , etc. ; declaring all elevators and storehouses 
public warehouses, and providing for their legis- 
lative inspection and supervision. The mainte- 
nance of an "efficient system of public schools" 
was made obligatory upon the Legislature, and 
the appropriation of any funds — State, municipal, 
town or district — to the support of sectarian 
schools was prohibited. The principle of cumu- 
lative voting, or "minority representation," in 
the choice of members of the House of Represent- 
atives was provided for, and additional safe- 
guards thrown around the passage of bills. The 
ineligibility of the Governor to re-election for a 
second consecutive term was set aside, and a 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



110 



two-thirds vote of the Legislature made necessary 
to override an executive veto. The list of State 
officers was increased by the creation of the 
offices of Attorney-General and Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, these having been previ- 
ously provided for only by statute. The Supreme 
Court bench was increased by the addition of 
four members, making the whole number of 
Supreme Court judges seven; Appellate Courts 
authorized after 1874, and County Courts were 
made courts of record. The compensation of all 
State officers — executive, judicial and legislative 
— was left discretionary with the Legislature, 
and no limit was placed upon the length of the 
sessions of the General Assembly. The instru- 
ment drafted by the Convention was ratified at 
an election held, July 6, 1870, and went into force, 
August 8, following. Occasional amendments 
have been submitted and ratified from time to 
time. (See Constitutions, Elections and Repre- 
sentation; also Mi nor it u Representation.) 

CONSTITUTIONS. Illinois has had three con- 
stitutions — that of 1870 being now (1898) in force. 
The earliest instrument was that approved by 
Congress in 1818, and the first revision was made 
in 1847 — the Constitution having been ratified at 
an election held, March 5, 1848, and going into 
force, April 1, following. The term of State 
officers has been uniformly fixed at four years, 
except that of Treasurer, which is two years. 
Biennial elections and sessions of the General 
Assembly are provided for, Senators holding their 
seats for four years, and Representatives two 
years. The State is requh'ed to be apportioned 
after each decennial census into fifty-one dis- 
tricts, each of which elects one Senator and three 
Representatives. The principle of minority rep- 
resentation has been incorporated into the 
organic law, each elector being allowed to cast as 
many votes for one legislative candidate as there 
are Representatives to be chosen in his district ; 
or ho may divide his vote equally among all the 
three candidates or between two of them, as he 
may see fit. One of the provisions of the Consti- 
tution of 1870 is the inhibition of the General 
Assembly from passing private laws. Munici- 
palities are classified, and legislation is for all 
cities of a class, not for an individual corpora- 
tion. Individual citizens with a financial griev- 
ance must secure payment of their claims under 
the terms of some general appropriation. The 
sessions of the Legislature are not limited as to 
time, nor is there any restriction upon the power 
of the Executive to summon extra sessions. 
(See also Constitutional Conventions; Elections; 



Governors and other stole Officers; Judicial 
System; Suffrage, Etc) 

COOK, Burton C, lawyer and Congressman, 
was born in Monroe County, X. V., .May 11, 1819; 
completed his academic education at the Collegi- 
ate Institute in Rochester, ami after studying 
law, removed to Illinois (1835), locating tirst at 
Hennepin and later at Ottawa. Here he b( 
the practice of his profession, and. in L846, was 
elected by the Legislature State's Attorney for 
the Ninth Judicial District, serving two years, 
when, in 1848, he was re-elected by the people 
under the Constitution of that year, for four 
years. From 1852 to 1860, he was State Senator, 
taking part in the election which resulted in 
making Lyman Trumbull United State- Senator 
in 1855. In 1801 he served as one of the Peace 
Commissioners from Illinois in the Conference 
which met at Washington. He may be called 
one of the founders of the Republican party in 
this State, having been a member of the State 
Central Committee appointed at BJoomington in 
1856, and Chairman of the State Central Com- 
mittee in 1802. In 1864, he was elected to Con- 
gress, and re-elected in 1866, '68 and *7u. but 
resigned in 1871 to accept t he solicitorship of the 
Northwestern Railroad, which he resigned in 
1886. He was an intimate friend of Abraham 
Lincoln, serving as a delegate to both the National 
Conventions which nominated him for the Presi- 
dency, and presenting his name at Baltimore in 
1864. His death occurred at Evanston, August 
IS, 1894. 

COOK, Daniel Tope, early Congressman, was 
born in Scott County, Ky., in 17!)."). removed to 
Illinois and began the practice of law at Kaskas- 
kia in 1815. Early in 1816, he became joint owner 
and editor of "The Illinois Intelligencer, ' and at 
the same time served as Auditor of Public 
Accounts by appointment of Governor Edwards; 
the next year (1*17) was sent by President Mon- 
roe as bearer of dispatches to John Quincy Adams, 
then minister to London, and. on his return, was 
appointed a Circuit Judge. On the admission of 
the State he was elected the first Attorney- 
General, but almost Immediately resigned and, 
in September. 1819, was elected to Congress, serv- 
ing as Representative until 1 SJ7. Saving married 
a daughter of Governor Edwards, he became a 
resident of Edwardsville. He was a conspicuous 
opponent of the proposition to make Illinois a 
slave State in 1823-24, and did much to prevent 
the success of that scheme. He also bore a 
prominent part while in Congress in securing the 
donation of lands tor the construction of the 



120 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Illinois & Michigan Canal. He was distinguished 
for his eloquence, and it was during his first 
Congressional campaign that stump-speaking was 
introduced into the State. Suffering from 
consumption, he visited Cuba, and, after return- 
ing to his home at Edwardsville and failing to 
improve, he went to Kentucky, where he died, 
Oct. 16, 1827. — John (Cook), soldier, born at 
Edwardsville, 111., June 12, 1825, the son of 
Daniel P. Cook, the second Congressman from 
Illinois, and grandson of Gov. Ninian Edwards, 
was educated by private tutors and at Illinois 
College ; in 1855 was elected Mayor of Springfield 
and the following year Sheriff of Sangamon 
County, later serving as Quartermaster of the 
State. Raising a company promptly after the 
firing on Fort Sumter in 1861, he was commis- 
sioned Colonel of the Seventh Illinois Volunteers 
— the first regiment organized in Illinois under 
the first call for troops by President Lincoln ; was 
promoted Brigadier-General for gallantry at Fort 
Donelson in March, 1862 ; in 1864 commanded the 
District of Illinois, with headquarters at Spring- 
field, being mustered out, August, 1865, with the 
brevet rank of Major-General. General Cook was 
elected to the lower house of the General Assem- 
bly from Sangamon County, in 1868. During 
recent years his home has been in Michigan. 

COOK COUNTY, situated in the northeastern 
section of the State, bordering on Lake Michigan, 
and being the most easterly of the second tier of 
counties south of the Wisconsin State line. It 
has an area of 890 square miles ; population (1890), 
1,191,922; a900), 1,838,735; county-seat, Chicago. 
The county was organized in 1831, having origi- 
nally embraced the counties of Du Page, Will, 
Lake, McHenry and Iroquois, in addition to its 
present territorial limits. It was named in 
honor of Daniel P. Cook, a distinguished Repre- 
sentative of Illinois in Congress. (See Cook, 
Daniel P. ) The first County Commissioners were 
Samuel Miller, Gholson Kercheval and James 
Walker, who took the oath of office before Justice 
John S. C. Hogan, on March 8, 1831. William 
Lee was appointed Clerk and Archibald Clybourne 
Treasurer. Jedediah Wormley was first County 
Surveyor, and three election districts (Chicago, 
Du Page and Hickory Creek) were created. A 
scow ferry was established across the South 
Branch, with Mark Beaubien as ferryman. Only 
non-residents were required to pay toll. Geolo- 
gists are of the opinion that, previous to the 
glacial epoch, a large portion of the county lay 
under the waters of Lake Michigan, which was 
connected with the Mississippi by the Des Plaines 



River. This theory is borne out by the finding 
of stratified beds of coal and gravel in the eastern 
and southern portions of the county, either under- 
lying the prairies or assuming the form of ridges. 
The latter, geologists maintain, indicate the exist- 
ence of an ancient key, and they conclude that, 
at one time, the level of the lake was nearly forty 
feet higher than at present. Glacial action is 
believed to have been very effective in establish- 
ing surface conditions in this vicinity. Lime- 
stone and building stone are quarried in tolerable 
abundance. Athens marble (white when taken 
out, but growing a rich yellow through exposure) 
is found in the southwest. Isolated beds of peat 
have also been found. The general surface is 
level, although undulating in some portions. The 
soil near the lake is sandy, but in the interior 
becomes a black mold from one to four feet in 
depth. Drainage is afforded by the Des Plaines, 
Chicago and Calumet Rivers, which is now being 
improved by the construction of the Drainage 
Canal. Manufactures and agriculture are the 
principal industries outside of the city of Chi- 
cago. (See also Chicago. ) 

COOK COUNTY HOSPITAL, located in Chi- 
cago and under control of the Commissioners of 
Cook County. It was originally erected by the 
City of Chicago, at a cost of $80,000, and was 
intended to be used as a hospital for patients 
suffering from infectious diseases. For several 
years the building was unoccupied, but, in 1858, 
it was leased by an association of physicians, who 
opened a hospital, with the further purpose of 
affording facilities for clinical instruction to the 
students of Rush Medical College. In 1863 the 
building was taken by the General Government 
for military purposes, being used as an eye and 
ear hospital for returning soldiers. In 1865 it 
reverted to the City of Chicago, and, in 1866, was 
purchased by Cook County. In 1874 the County 
Commissioners purchased a new and more spa- 
cious site at a cost of $145,000, and began the erec- 
tion of buildings thereon. The two principal 
pavilions were completed and occupied before the 
close of 1875; the clinical amphitheater and 
connecting corridors were built in 1876-77, and an 
administrative building and two additional 
pavilions were added in 1882-84. Up to that date 
the total cost of the buildings had been $719,574, 
and later additions and improvements have 
swelled the outlay to more than $1,000,000. It 
accommodates about 800 patients and constitutes 
a part of the county machinery for the care of 
the poor. A certain number of beds are placed 
under the care of homeopathic physicians. The 



o 
o 



co 





ALONG SHERIDAN ROAD AND ON THE BOULEVARDS. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



121 



present (1896) allopathic medical staff consists of 
fifteen physicians, fifteen surgeons, one oculist 
and aurist and one pathologist ; the homeopathic 
staff comprises five physicians and five surgeons. 
In addition, there is a large corps of internes, or 
house physicians and surgeons, composed of 
recent graduates from the several medical col- 
leges, who gain their positions through competi- 
tive examination and hold them for eighteen 
months. 

COOKE, Edward Dean, lawyer and Congress- 
man, born in Dubuque County, Iowa, Oct. 17, 
1849; was educated in the common schools and 
the high school of Dubuque ; studied law in that 
city and at Columbian University, Washington, 
D.C, graduating from that institution with the 
degree of Bachelor of Laws, and was admitted to 
the bar in Washington in 1873. Coining to Chi- 
cago the same year, he entered upon the practice 
of his profession, which he pursued for the 
remainder of his life. In 1882 he was elected a 
Representative in the State Legislature from 
Cook County, serving one term ; was elected as a 
Republican to the Fifty-fourth Congress for the 
Sixth District (Chicago), in 1894, and re-elected in 
1896. His death occurred suddenly while in 
attendance on the extra session of Congress in 
Washington, June 24, 1897. 

COOLBAUGH, William Findlay, financier, was 
born in Pike County, Pa., July 1, 1821; at the 
age of 15 became clerk in a dry-goods store in 
Philadelphia, but, in 1842, opened a branch 
establishment of a New York firm at Burlington, 
Iowa, where he afterwards engaged in the bank- 
ing business, also serving in the Iowa State 
Constitutional Convention, and, as the candidate 
of his party for United States Senator, being 
defeated by Hon. James Harlan by one vote. In 
1862 he came to Chicago and opened the banking 
house of W. F. Coolbaugh & Co. , which, in 1865, 
became the Union National Bank of Chicago. 
Later he became the first President of the Chi- 
cago Clearing House, as also of the Bankers' 
Association of the West and South, a Director of 
the Board of Trade, and an original incorporator 
of the Chamber of Commerce, besides being a 
member of the State Constitutional Convention 
of 1869-70. His death by suicide, at the foot of 
Douglas Monument, Nov. 14, 1877, was a shock to 
the whole city of Chicago. 

COOLEY, Horace S., Secretary of State, was 
born in Hartford, Conn., in 1806, studied medi- 
cine for two years in early life, then went to Ban- 
gor, Maine, where he began the study of law ; in 
1840 he came to Illinois, locating first at Rushville 



and finally in the city of Quincy ; in 1842 took a 
prominent part in the campaign which resulted 
in the election of Thomas Ford as ( rovernor— also 
received from Governor Carlin an appointment as 
Quartermaster-General of the State. On the 
accession of Governor French in December, 1846, 
he was appointed Secretary of Stat.- and elected 
to the same office under the Constitution of 1848, 
dying before the expiration of his term, April 2, 
1850. 

CORBUS, (Dr.) J. C, physician, was born in 
Holmes County, Ohio, in 18:53, received his pri 
mary education in the public schools, followed 
by an academic course, and began the study of 
medicine at Millersburg, finally graduating from 
the Western Reserve Medical College at Cleve- 
land. In 1855 he began practice at Orville, Ohio, 
but the same year located at Mendota, 111., soon 
thereafter removing to Lee County, where he 
remained until 1862. The latter year he was 
appointed Assistant Surgeon of the Seventy-fifth 
Illinois Volunteer Infantry, but was soon pro- 
moted to the position of Surgeon, though com- 
pelled to resign the following year on account of 
ill health. Returning from the army, he located 
at Mendota. Dr. Corbus served continuously as a 
member of the State Board of Public Charities 
from 1873 until the accession of Governor Altgeld 
to the Governorship in 1893, when he resigned. 
He was also, for fifteen years, one of the Medical 
Examiners for his District under the Pension 
Bureau, and has served as a member of the 
Republican State Central Committee for the 
Mendota District. In 1897 he was complimented 
by Governor Tanner by reappointment to the 
State Board of Charities, and was made President 
of the Board. Early in 1899 he was appointed 
Superintendent of the Eastern Hospital for the 
Insane at Kankakee, as successor to Dr. William 
G. Stearns. 

CORNELL, Paul, real-estate operator and capi- 
talist, was born of English Quaker ancestry in 
Washington County, N. Y., August 5, 1822; at 9 
years of age removed with his step-father, Dr. 
Barry, to Ohio, and five years later to Adams 
County, 111. Here young Cornell lived the life of 
a farmer, working part of the year to earn money 
to send himself to school the remainder; also 
taught for a time, then entered the office of W. A. 
Richardson, at Rushville, Schuyler County, as a 
law student. In 1845 he came to Chicago, but 
soon after became a student in the law office of 
Wilson & Henderson at Joliet, and was admitted 
to practice in that city. Removing to Chicago in 
1847. he was associated, successively, with the late 



122 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



L. C. P. Freer, Judge James H. Collins and 
Messrs. Skinner & Hoyne ; finally entered into a 
contract with Judge Skinner to perfect the title to 
320 acres of land held under tax-title within the 
present limits of Hyde Park, which he succeeded 
in doing by visiting the original owners, thereby 
securing one-half of the property in his own 
name. He thus became the founder of the village 
of Hyde Park, meanwhile adding to his posses- 
sions other lands, which increased vastly in value. 
He also established a watch factory at Cornell 
(now a part of Chicago), which did a large busi- 
ness until removed to California. Mr. Cornell 
was a member of the first Park Board, and there- 
fore has the credit of assisting to organize Chi- 
cago's extensive park system. 

COR WIN, Franklin, Congressman, was born at 
Lebanon, Ohio, Jan. 12, 1818, and admitted to the 
bar at the age of 21. While a resident of Ohio he 
served in both Houses of the Legislature, and 
settled in Illinois in 1857, making his home at 
Peru. He was a member of the lower house of 
the Twenty-fourth, Twenty-fifth and Twenty- 
sixth General Assemblies, being Speaker in 1867, 
and again in 1869. In 1872 he was elected to 
Congress as a Republican, but, in 1874, was 
defeated by Alexander Campbell, who made the 
race as an Independent. Died, at Peru, 111. , June 
15, 1879. 

COUCH, James, pioneer hotel-keeper, was born 
at Fort Edward, N. Y., August 31, 1800; removed 
to Chautauqua County, in the same State, where 
he remained until his twentieth year, receiving a 
fair English education. After engaging succes- 
sively, but with indifferent success, as hotel-clerk, 
stage-house keeper, lumber-dealer, and in the dis- 
tilling business, in 1836, in company with his 
younger brother, Ira, he visited Chicago. They 
both decided to go into business there, first open- 
ing a small store, and later entering upon their 
hotel ventures which proved so eminently suc- 
cessful, and gave the Tremont House of Chicago 
so wide and enviable a reputation. Mr. Couch 
superintended for his brother Ira the erection, at 
various times, of many large business blocks in 
the city. Upon the death of his brother, in 1857, 
he was made one of the trustees of his estate, and, 
with other trustees, rebuilt the Tremont House 
after the Chicago fire of 1871. In April, 1892, 
while boarding a street car in the central part of 
the city of Chicago, he was run over by a truck, 
receiving injuries which resulted in his death 
the same day at the Tremont House, in the 92d 
year of his age. — Ira (Couch), younger brother of 
the preceding, was born in Saratoga County, 



N. Y., Nov. 22, 1806. At the age of sixteen he 
was apprenticed to a tailor, and, in 1826, set up 
in business on his own account. In 1836, while 
visiting Chicago with his brother James, he 
determined to go into business there. With a 
stock of furnishing goods and tailors' supplies, 
newly bought in New York, a small store was 
opened. This business soon disposed of, Mr. 
Couch, with his brother, obtained a lease of the 
old Tremont House, then a low frame building 
kept as a saloon boarding house. Changed and 
refurnished, this was opened as a hotel. It was 
destroyed by fire in 1839, as was also the larger 
rebuilt structure in 1849. A second time rebuilt, 
and on a much larger and grander scale at a cost 
of $75, 000, surpassing anything the West had ever 
known before, the Tremont House this time stood 
until the Chicago fire in 1871, when it was again 
destroyed. Mr. Couch at all times enjoyed an 
immense patronage, and was able to accumulate 
(for that time) a large fortune. He purchased 
and improved a large number of business blocks, 
then within the business center of the city. In 
1853 he retired from active business, and, in con- 
sequence of impaired health, chose for the rest of 
his life to seek recreation in travel. In the 
winter of 1857, while with his family in 
Havana, Cuba, he was taken with a fever which 
soon ended his life. His remains now rest in a 
mausoleum of masonry in Lincoln Park, Chi- 
cago. 

COULTERVILLE,a town of Randolph County, 
at the crossing of the Centralia & Chester and 
the St. Louis & Paducah branch Illinois Central 
Railways, 49 miles southeast of St. Louis. Farm- 
ing and coal-mining are the leading industries. 
The town has two banks, two creameries, and a 
newspaper. Population (1890), 598; (1900), 650. 
COUNTIES, UNORGANIZED. (See Unorgan- 
ized Counties.) 

COWDEN, a village of Shelby County, at the 
intersection of the Baltimore & Ohio Southwest- 
ern and the Toledo, St. Louis & Western Rail- 
ways, 60 miles southeast of Springfield. Con- 
siderable coal is mined in the vicinity; has a 
bank and a weekly paper. Population (1880), 
350; (1890), 702; (1900), 751. 

COWLES, Alfred, newspaper manager, was 
born in Portage County, Ohio, May 13, 1832, grew 
up on a farm and, after spending some time at 
Michigan University, entered the office of "The 
Cleveland Leader" as a clerk; in 1855 accepted a 
similar position on "The Chicago Tribune, " which 
had just been bought by Joseph Medill and 
others, finally becoming a stockholder and busi- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



123 



ness manager of the paper, so remaining until his 
death in Chicago, Dec. 20, 1889. 

COX, Thomas, pioneer, Senator in the First 
General Assembly <»(' Illinois ( 1818-22) from I Inion 
County, and a conspicuous figure in early State 
history; was a zealous advocate of the policj of 
making Illinois a slave State ; became one of the 
original proprietors and founders of the city of 
Springfield, and was appointed the first Register 
of the Land Office there, but was removed under 
charges of misconduct ; after his retirement from 
the Land Office, kept a hotel at Springfield. In 
1836 he removed to Iowa (then a part of Wiscon- 
sin Territory), became a member of the first 
Territorial Legislature there, was twice re-elected 
and once Speaker of the House, being prominent 
in 1840 as commander of the "Regulators" who 
drove out a gang of murderers and desperadoes 
who had got possession at Bellevue, Iowa. Died, 
at Maquoketa, Iowa, 1843. 

COY, Irus, lawyer, was born in Chenango 
County. N. Y., July 25, 1832; educated in the 
common schools and at Central College, Cortland 
County, N. Y., graduating in law at Albany in 
1857. Then, having removed to Illinois, he 
located in Kendall County and began practice ; in 
1868 was elected to the lower house of the General 
Assembly and, in 1872, served as Presidential 
Elector on the Republican ticket; removed to 
Chicago in 1871, later serving as attorney of the 
Union Stock Y r ards and Transit Company. Died, 
in Chicago, Sept. 20, 1897. 

CRAFTS, Clayton E., legislator and politician, 
born at Auburn, Geauga County, Ohio, July 8, 
1848; was educated at Hiram College and gradu- 
ated from the Cleveland Law School in 1868, 
coming to Chicago in 1869. Mr. Crafts served in 
seven consecutive sessions of the General Assem- 
bly (1883-95, inclusive) as Representative from 
Cook County, and was elected by the Democratic 
majority as Speaker, in 1891, and again in '93. 

CRAIG, Alfred M., jurist, was born in Edgar 
County, 111., Jan. 15, 1831, graduated from Knox 
College in 1853, and was admitted to the bar in 
the following year, commencing practice at 
Knoxville. He held the offices of State's 
Attorney and County Judge, and represented 
Knox County in the Constitutional Convention 
of 1869-70. In 1873 lie was elected to the bench 
of the Supreme Court, as successor to Justice 
C. B. Lawrence, and was re-elected in '82 and 
'91; his present term expiring with the century. 
He is a Democrat in politics, but has been 
three times elected in a Republican judicial 
district. 



CRAWFORD, Charles B., lawyer and legisla- 
tor, was born in Bennington, Vt., but reared in 
Bureau and I. a Salle Counties, 111. ; has practiced 

law for twenty yen-. i,i ( liicago, and lieen three 
times elected to the State Senab — 1884 '88 and 
'94— and is author of the Crawford Primary I 
t ion Law. enacted in 1^ s "> 

CRAWFORD COUNTY, a southeastern county, 
bordering on the Wabash, 190 miles nearly due 
south of Chicago — named for William If. (raw- 
lord, a Secretary of War. It has an area of 452 
square miles; population (1900), 19,240. The 
first settlers were the French, but later came 
emigrants from New England. The soil is rich 
and well adapted to the production of corn and 
wheat, which are the principal crops. The 
county was organized in 1817, Darwin being 
the first county-seat. The present county-seat 
is Robinson, with a population (1890) of 1,387; 
centrally located and the point of intersection of 
two railroads. Other towns of importance are 
Palestine (population, 734) and Hutsonville (popu- 
lation, 582). The latter, as well as Robinson, is 
a grain-shipping point. The Embarras River 
crosses the southwest portion of the county, and 
receives the waters of Big and Honey Creeks and 
Bushy Fork. The county has no mineral 
resources, but contains some valuable woodland 
and many well cultivated farms. Tobacco, 
potatoes, sorghum and wool are among the lead- 
ing products. 

CREAL SPRINGS, a village of Williamson 
County, on the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute 
Railroad; has a bank and a weekly paper. Popu- 
lation (1890), 539; (1900), 940. 

CREBS, John M., ex-Congressman, was born in 
Middleburg, Loudoun County. Va., April 7. 1830. 
When he was but 7 years old his parents removed 
to Illinois, where he ever after resided. At the 
age of 21 he began the study of law, and. in 1852, 
was admitted to the bar, beginning practice in 
White County. In 1862 he enlisted in the 
Eighty-seventh Illinois Volunteers, receiving a 
commission as Lieutenant-Colonel, participating 
in all the important movements in the Mississippi 
Valley, including the capture of Vicksburg, and 
in the Arkansas campaign, a part of the time 
commanding a brigade. Returning home, he 
resumed the practice of his profession. In 1866 
lie was an unsuccessful candidate for state 
Superintendent of Public Instruction on the 
Democratic ticket. Tie was elected to Congress 
in 1868 and re-elected in 1X70. and. in IXXO, was a 
delegate to the Democratic State Convention 
Died. June 26, 1890. 



124 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



CRE1GHTON, James A., jurist, was born in 
White County, 111., March 7, 1846; in childhood 
removed with his parents to Wayne County, and 
was educated in the schools at Fairfield and at 
the Southern Illinois College, Salem, graduating 
from the latter in 1868. After teaching for a 
time while studying law, he was admitted to the 
bar in 1870, and opened an office at Fairfield, but, 
in 1877, removed to Springfield. In 1885 he was 
elected a Circuit Judge for the Springfield Cir- 
cuit, was re-elected in 1891 and again in 1897. 

CRERAR, John, manufacturer and philanthro- 
pist, was born of Scotch ancestry in New York 
City, in 1827 ; at 18 years of age was an employe 
of an iron-importing firm in that city, subse- 
quently accepting a position with Morris K. 
Jessup & Co., in the same line. Coming to 
Chicago in 1862, in partnership with J. McGregor 
Adams, he succeeded to the business of Jessup & 
Co. , in that city, also becoming a partner in the 
Adams & Westlake Company, iron manufactur- 
ers. He also became interested and an official in 
various other business organizations, including 
the Pullman Palace Car Company, the Chicago 
& Alton Kailroad, the Illinois Trust and Savings 
Bank, and, for a time, was President of the Chi- 
cago & Joliet Railroad, besides being identified 
with various benevolent institutions and associ- 
ations. After the fire of 1871, he was intrusted 
by the New York Chamber of Commerce with 
the custody of funds sent for the relief of suffer- 
ers by that calamity. His integrity and business 
sagacity were universally recognized. After his 
death, which occurred in Chicago, Oct. 19, 
1889, it was found that, after making munificent 
bequests to some twenty religious and benevolent 
associations and enterprises, aggregating nearly 
a million dollars, besides liberal legacies to 
relatives, he had left the residue of his estate, 
amounting to some 52,000,000, for the purpose of 
founding a public library in the city of Chicago, 
naming thirteen of his most intimate friends as 
the first Board of Trustees. No more fitting and 
lasting monument of so noble and public-spirited 
a man could have been devised. 

CRETE, a village of Will County, on the Chi- 
cago & Eastern Illinois Railroad, 30 miles south 
of Chicago. Population (1890), 642; (1900), 760. 

CROOK, George, soldier, was born near Day- 
ton, Ohio, Sept. 8, 1828 ; graduated at the United 
States Military Academy, West Point, in 1852, and 
was assigned as brevet Second Lieutenant to the 
Fourth Infantry, becoming full Second Lieuten- 
ant in 1853. In 1861 he entered the volunteer 
service as Colonel of the Thirty-sixth Ohio Infan- 



try ; was promoted Brigadier-General in 1862 and 
Major-General in 1864, being mustered out of the 
service, January, 1866. During the war he 
participated in some of the most important 
battles in West Virginia and Tennessee, fought at 
Chickamauga and Antietam, and commanded 
the cavalry in the advance on Richmond in the 
spring of 1865. On being mustered out of the 
volunteer service he returned to the regular 
army, was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the 
Twenty-third Infantry, and, for several years, was 
engaged in campaigns against the hostile Indians 
in the Northwest and in Arizona. In 1888 he 
was appointed Major-General and, from that time 
to his death, was in command of the Military 
Division of the Missouri, with headquarters at 
Chicago, where he died, March 19, 1890. 

CROSIAR, Simon, pioneer, was born near 
Pittsburg, Pa., in the latter part of the last 
century ; removed to Ohio in 1815 and to Illinois 
in 1819, settling first at Cap au Gris, a French 
village on the Mississippi just above the mouth 
of the Illinois in what is now Calhoun County ; 
later lived at Peoria (1824), at Ottawa (1826), at 
Shippingport near the present city of La Salle 
(1829), and at Old Utica (1834); in the mean- 
while built one or two mills on Cedar Creek in 
La Salle County, kept a storage and commission 
house, and, for a time, acted as Captain of a 
steamboat plying on the Illinois. Died, in 1846. 

CRYSTAL LAKE, a village in McHenry 
County, at the intersection of two divisions of 
the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 43 miles 
northwest of Chicago. Population (1880), 546; 
(1890), 781; (1900), 950. 

CUBA, a town in Fulton County, distant 38 
miles west-southwest of Peoria, and about 8 miles 
north of Lewistown. The entire region (includ- 
ing the town) is underlaid with a good quality of 
bituminous coal, of which the late State Geologist 
Worthen asserted that, in seven townships of 
Fulton County, there are 9,000,000 tons to the 
square mile, within 150 feet of the surface. Brick 
and cigars are made here, and the town has two 
banks, a newspaper, three churches and good 
schools. Population (1890), 1,114; (1900), 1,198; 
(1903, school census), 1,400. 

CULLEN, William, editor and Congressman, 
born in the north of Ireland, March 4, 1826 ; while 
yet a child was brought by his parents to Pitts- 
burg, Pa. , where he was educated in the public 
schools. At the age of 20 he removed to 
La Salle County, 111, and began life as a farmer. 
Later he took up his residence at Ottawa. He 
has served as Sheriff of La Salle County, and held 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



125 



other local offices, and was for many years a part 
owner and senior editor of "The Ottawa Repub- 
lican." From 1881 to 1885, as a Republican, he 
represented the Eighth Illinois District in Con- 
gress. 

CULLOM, Richard Northcraft, farmer and 
legislator, was born in the State of Maryland, 
October 1, 1795, but early removed to Wayne 
County, Ky., where he was married to Miss 
Elizabeth Coffey, a native of North Carolina. In 
1830 he removed to Illinois, settling near Wash- 
ington, Tazewell County, where he continued to 
reside during the remainder of his life. Although 
a farmer by vocation, Mr. Cullom was a man of 
prominence and a recognized leader in public 
affairs. In 1836 he was elected as a Whig Repre- 
sentative in the Tenth General Assembly, serving 
in the same body with Abraham Lincoln, of 
whom he was an intimate personal and political 
friend. In 1840 he was chosen a member of the 
State Senate, serving in the Twelfth and Thir- 
teenth General Assemblies, and, in 1852, was 
again elected to the House. Mr. Cullom's death 
occurred in Tazewell County, Dec. 4, 1872, his 
wife having died Dec. 5, 1868. Mr. and Mrs. 
Cullom were the parents of Hon. Shelby M. 
Cullom. 

CULLOM, Shelby Moore, United States Sena- 
tor, was born in Wayne County, Ky., Nov. 22, 
1829. His parents removed to Tazewell County, 
111., in 1830, where his father became a member 
of the Legislature and attained prominence as a 
public man. After two years spent in Rock 
River Seminary at Mount Morris, varied by some 
experience as a teacher, in 1853 the subject of 
this sketch went to Springfield to enter upon the 
study of law in the office of Stuart & Edwards. 
Being admitted to the bar two years afterward, 
he was almost immediately elected City Attor- 
ney, and, in 1856, was a candidate on the Fill- 
more ticket for Presidential Elector, at the same 
time being elected to the Twentieth General 
Assembly for Sangamon County, as he was again, 
as a Republican, in 1860, being supported alike by 
the Fillmore men and the Free-Soilers. At the 
session following the latter election, he was 
chosen Speaker of the House, which was his first 
important political recognition. In 1862 he was 
appointed by President Lincoln a member of the 
War Claims Commission at Cairo, serving in this 
capacity with Governor Boutwell of Massachu- 
setts and Charles A. Dana of New York. He was 
also a candidate for the State Senate the same 
year, but then sustained his only defeat. Two 
years later (1864) he was a candidate for Con- 



gress, defeating his former preceptor, Hon. John 
T. Stuart, being re-elected in 1866, and again in 
1868, the latter year over B. S. Edwards. He 
was a delegate to the National Republican Con- 
vention of 1872, and, as Chairman of the Illinois 
delegation, placed General Grant in nomination 
for the Presidency, holding the same position 
again in 1884 and in 1892; was elected to the Illi- 
nois House of Representatives in 1872 and in 1874, 
being chosen Speaker a second time in 1873, as he 
was the unanimous choice of his party for 
Speaker again in 1875 ; in 1876 was elected Gov- 
ernor, was re-eiected in 1880, and, in 1883, elected 
to the United States Senate as successor to Hon. 
David Davis. Having had two re-elections since 
(1889 and '95), he is now serving his third term, 
which will expire in 1901. In 1898, by special 
appointment of President McKinley, Senator 
Cullom served upon a Commission to investigate 
the condition of the Hawaiian Islands and 
report a plan of government for this new division 
of the American Republic. Other important 
measures with which his name has been promi- 
nently identified have been the laws for the sup- 
pression of polygamy in Utah and for the creation 
of the Inter-State Commerce Commission. At 
present he is Chairman of the Senate Committee 
on Inter-State Commerce and a member of those 
on Appropriations and Foreign Affairs. His 
career has been conspicuous for his long public 
service, the large number of important offices 
which he has held, the almost unbroken uniform- 
ity of his success when a candidate, and his com- 
plete exemption from scandals of every sort. No 
man in the history of the State has been more 
frequently elected to the United States Senate, 
and only three — Senators Douglas, Trumbull and 
Logan — for an equal number of terms; though 
only one of these (Senator Trumbull) lived to 
serve out the full period for which he was 
elected. 

CUMBERLAND COUNTY, situated in the 
southeast quarter of the State, directly south of 
Coles County, from which it was cut off in 1842. 
Its area is 350 square miles, and population (1900), 
16,124. The county-seat was at Greenup until 
1855, when it was transferred to Prairie City, 
which was laid off in 1854 and incorporated as a 
town in 1866. The present county-seat is at 
Toledo (population, 1890, 676). The Embarras 
River crosses the county, as do also three lines of 
railroad. Neoga, a mining town, has a popula- 
tion of 829. The county received its name from 
the Cumberland Road, which, as originally pro 
jected, passed through it. 



126 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



CUMMINS, (Rev.) David, Bishop of the Re- 
formed Protestant Episcopal Church, was 
born near Smyrna, Del., Dec. 11, 1822; gradu- 
ated at Dickinson College, Pa., in 1841, and 
became a licentiate in the Methodist ministry, 
but, in 1846, took orders in the Episcopal 
Church; afterwards held rectorships in Balti- 
more, Norfolk, Richmond and the Trinity 
Episcopal Church of Chicago, in 1866 being con- 
secrated Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of 
Kentucky. As a recognized leader of the Low- 
Church or Evangelical party, he early took issue 
with the ritualistic tendencies of the High-Church 
party, and, having withdrawn from the Episcopal 
Church in 1873, became the first Bishop of the 
Reformed Episcopal organization. He was zeal- 
ous, eloquent and conscientious, but overtaxed his 
strength in his new field of labor, dying at Luth- 
erville, Md., June 26, 1876. A memoir of Bishop 
Cummins, by his wife, was publishedin 1878. 

CUMULATIVE VOTE. (See Minority Repre- 
sentation.) 

CURTIS, Harvey, clergyman and educator, was 
born in Adams, Jefferson County, N. Y., May 30, 
1806; graduated at Middlebury College, Vt., in 
1831, with the highest honors of his class ; after 
three years at Princeton Theological Seminary, 
was ordained pastor of the Congregational 
church at Brandon, Vt., in 1836. In 1841 he 
accepted an appointment as agent of the Home 
Missionary Society for Oln' and Indiana, between 
1843 and 1858 holding istorates at Madison, 
Ind., and Chicago. In t e latter year he was 
chosen President of Knox College, at Galesburg, 
dying there, Sept. 18, 1862. 

CURTIS, William Elroy, journalist, was born 
at Akron, Ohio, Nov. 5, 1850; graduated at 
Western Reserve College in 1871, meanwhile 
learning the art of typesetting ; later served as a 
reporter on "The Cleveland Leader" and, in 1872, 
took a subordinate position on "The Chicago 
Inter Ocean," finally rising to that of managing- 
editor. While on "The Inter Ocean" he accom- 
panied General Custer in his campaign against 
the Sioux, spent several months investigating 
the "Ku-Klux" and "White League" organiza- 
tions in the South, and, for some years, was "The 
Inter Ocean" correspondent in Washington. 
Having retired from "The Inter Ocean," he 
became Secretary of the "Pan-American Con- 
gress" in Washington, and afterwards made the 
tour of the United States with the South and 
Central American i - epi - esentatives in that Con- 
gress. During the World's Columbian Exposition 
in Chicago he had general supervision of the 



Latin-American historical and archaeological 
exhibits. Mr. Curtis has visited nearly every 
Central and South American country and has 
written elaborately on these subjects for the 
magazines and for publication in book form ; has 
also published a "Life of Zachariah Chandler'' 
and a "Diplomatic History of the United States 
and Foreign Powers." For some time he was 
managing editor of "The Chicago News" and is 
now (1898) the Washington Correspondent of 
"The Chicago Record." 

CUSHMAN, (Col.) William H. W., financier 
and manufacturer, was born at Freetown, Mass., 
May 13, 1813 ; educated at the American Literary, 
Scientific and Military Academy, Norwich, Vt. ; 
at 18 began a mercantile career at Middlebury, 
and, in 1824, removed to La Salle County, 111., 
where he opened a country store, also built a mill 
at Vermilionville ; later was identified with many 
large financial enterprises which generally 
proved successful, thereby accumulating a for- 
tune at one time estimated at §3,000,000. He was 
elected as a Democrat to the Thirteenth and 
Fourteenth General Assemblies (1842 and '44) 
and, for several years, held a commission as 
Captain of the Ottawa Cavalry (militia). The 
Civil War coming on, he assisted in organizing 
the Fifty -third Illinois Volunteers, and was com- 
missioned its Colonel, but resigned Sept. 3, 1862. 
He organized and was principal owner of the 
Bank of Ottawa, which, in 1865, became the First 
National Bank of that city; was the leading 
spirit in the Hydraulic Company and the Gas 
Company at Ottawa, built and operated the 
Ottawa Machine Shops and Foundry, speculated 
largely in lands in La Salle and Cook Counties — 
his operations in the latter being especially large 
about Riverside, as well as in Chicago, was a 
principal stockholder in the bank of Cush- 
man & Hardin in Chicago, had large interests in 
the lumber trade in Michigan, and was one of 
the builders of the Chicago, Paducah & South- 
western Railroad. The Chicago fire of 1871, 
however, brought financial disaster upon him, 
which finally dissipated his fortune and de- 
stroyed his mental and physical health. His 
death occurred at Ottawa, Oct. 28, 1878. 

DALE, Michael (*., lawyer, was born in Lan- 
caster, Pa. , spent his childhood and youth in the 
public schools of his native city, except one year 
in West Chester Academy, when he entered 
Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg, graduating 
there in 1835. He then began the study of law 
and was admitted to the bar in 1837; cominsr to 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS. 



127 



Illinois the following year, he was retained in a 
suit at Greenville. Bond County, which led to his 
employment in others, and finally to opening an 
office there. In 1839 he was elected Probate 
Judge of Bond County, remaining in office four- 
teen years, meanwhile being commissioned Major 
of the State Militia in 1844, and serving as mem 
her of a Military Court at Alton in 1847; was also 
the Delegate from Bond County to the State ( <>n 
stitutional Convention of 1847. In 1853 he re- 
signed the office of County Judge in Bond County 
to accept that of Register of the Land office at 
Edwardsville, where he continued to reside, fill- 
ing the office of County Judge in Madison County 
five or six terms, besides occupying some subordi- 
nate positions. Judge Dale married a daughter 
of Hon. William L. D. Ewing. Died at Edwards- 
ville, April 1, 1895. 

DALLAS CITY, a town of Hancock County, at 
the intersection of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa 
Fe and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Rail- 
roads, 16 miles south of Burlington. It has man- 
ufactories of lumber, buttons, carriages and 
wagons, and two weekly newspapers. Popula- 
tion (1880), 829; (1890), 747; 1900), 970. 

DANENHOWER, John Wilson, Arctic explorer, 
was born in Chicago, Sept. 30, 1849 — the son of 
W. W. Danenhower, a journalist. After passing 
through the schools of Chicago and Washington, 
he graduated from the United States Naval Acad- 
emy at Annapolis in 1870, was successively com- 
missioned as Ensign, Master and Lieutenant, and 
served on expeditions in the North Pacific and in 
the Mediterranean. In 1878 he joined the Arctic 
steamer Jeannette at Havre, France, as second in 
command under Lieut. George W. De Long; pro- 
ceeding to San Francisco in July, 1879, the 
steamer entered the Arctic Ocean by way of 
Behring Straits. Here, having been caught in an 
ice-pack, the vessel was held twenty-two months, 
Lieutenant Danenhower meanwhile being dis- 
abled most of the time by ophthalmia. The crew, 
as last compelled to abandon the steamer, dragged 
their boats over the ice for ninety-five days until 
they were able to launch them in open water, 
but were soon separated by a gale. The boat 
commanded by Lieutenant Danenhower reached 
the Lena Delta, on the north coast of Siberia, 
where the crew were rescued by natives, landing 
Sept. 17. 1881. After an ineffectual search on 
the delta for the crews of the other two boats, 
Lieutenant Danenhower, with his crew, made 
the journey of 6,000 miles to Orenburg, finally 
arriving in the United States in June, 1882. He 
has told the story of the expedition in "The 



Narrative of the Jeannette," published in 1832. 
Died, at Annapolis. Ml., April 20, 1887. 

DAN VERS, a village of McLean County, on the 
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis 
Railway. The section is agricultural. The town 
has a bank and a newspaper. Population (1880), 
460; (1890), 506; (1900), 607. 

DANVILLE, the county-seat of Vermilion 
County, on Vermilion River and on live impor- 
tant lines of railroad; in rich coal-mining 
district and near large deposits of shale and 
soapstone, which are utilized in manufacture of 
sewer-pipe, paving and fire-clay brick. The city 
has car-shops and numerous factories, water- 
works, electric lights, paved streets, several 
banks, twenty -seven churches, five graded schools 
and one high school, and six newspapers, three 
daily. A Soldiers' Home is located three miles 
east of the city. Pop. (1890), 11,491 ; (1900), 16,354 

DANVILLE, OLNEY, & OHIO RIVER RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Chicago & Ohio River Railroad. < 

DANVILLE, URBANA, BLOOMINGTOX & 
PEKIN RAILROAD. (See Peoria & Eastern 
Railroad. ) 

D'ARTAKJUIETTE, Pierre, a French com- 
mandant of Illinois from 1734 to 1736, having 
been appointed by Bienville, then Governor of 
Louisiana. He was distinguished for gallantry 
and courage. He defeated the Natchez Indians, 
but, in an unsuccessful expedition against the 
Chickasaws, was wou led, captured and burned 
at the stake. 

DAVENPORT, Geo ge, soldier, pioneer and 
trader, born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1783, 
came to this country in 1S04, and soon aftei 
enlisted in the United States army, with the rani 
of sergeant. He served gallantly on various 
expeditions in the West, where he obtained a 
knowledge of the Indians which was afterward 
of great value to him. During the War of 1812 
his regiment was sent East, where he partici- 
pated in the defense of Fort Erie and in other 
enterprises. In 1815, his term of enlistment hav- 
ing expired and the war ended, he entered the 
service of the contract commissary. He selected 
the site for Fort Armstrong and aided in planning 
and supervising its construction. He cultivated 
friendly relations with the surrounding tribes, 
and, in 1818, built a double log house, married, 
and engaged in business as a fur-trader, near the 
site of the present city of Rock Island. He had 
the confidence and respect of the savages, was 
successful and his trading posts were soon scat- 
tered through Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. In 
1823 he piloted the first steamboat through the 



128 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



upper Mississippi, and, in 1825, was appointed the 
first postmaster at Eock Island, being the only 
white civilian resident there. In 1826 he united 
his business with that of the American Fur Com- 
pany, in whose service he remained. Although 
he employed every effort to induce President 
Jackson to make a payment to Black Hawk and 
his followers to induce them to emigrate across 
the Mississippi voluntarily, when that Chief 
commenced hostilities, Mr. Davenport tendered 
his services to Governor Reynolds, by whom he 
was commissioned Quartermaster-General with 
the rank of Colonel. Immigration increased 
rapidly after the close of the Black Hawk War. 
In 1835 a company, of which he was a member, 
founded the town of Davenport, opposite Rock 
Island, which was named in his honor. In 1837 
and '42 he was largely instrumental in negoti- 
ating treaties by which the Indians ceded their 
lands in Iowa to the United States. In the 
latter year he gave up the business of fur-trading, 
having accumulated a fortune through hard 
labor and scrupulous integrity, in the face often 
of grave perils. He had large business interests in 
nearly every town in his vicinity, to all of Avhich 
he gave more or less personal attention. On the 
night of July 4, 1843, he was assassinated at his 
home by robbers. For a long time the crime was 
shrouded in mystery, but its perpetrators were 
ultimately detected and brought to punishment. 

DAVIS, David, jurist and United States 
Senator, was born in Cecil County, Md., March 
9, 1815 ; pursued his academic studies at Kenyon 
College, Ohio, and studied law at Yale. He settled 
at Bloomington, 111., in 1836, and, after practicing 
law there until 1844, was elected to the lower house 
of the Fourteenth General Assembly. After 
serving in the Constitutional Convention of 1847, 
he was elected Judge of the Eighth Judicial 
Circuit under the new Constitution in 1848, being 
re-elected in 1855 and '61. He was a warm, per- 
sonal friend of Abraham Lincoln, who, in 1862, 
placed him upon the bench of the United States 
Supreme Court. He resigned his high judicial 
honors to become United States Senator in 1877 
as successor to Logan's first term. On Oct. 13, 
1881, he was elected President pro tern, of the 
Senate, serving in this capacity to the end of his 
term in 1885. He died at his home in Blooming- 
ton, June 26, 1886. 

DAVIS, George R., lawyer and Congressman, 
was born at Three Rivers, Mass., January 3, 1840; 
received a common school education, and a 
classical course at Williston Seminary, Easthamp- 
ton, Mass. From 1862 to 1865 he served in the 



Union army, first as Captain in the Eighth 
Massachusetts Infantry, and later as Major in the 
Third Rhode Island Cavalry. After the war he 
removed to Chicago, where he still resides. By 
profession he is a lawyer. He took a prominent 
part in the organization of the Chicago militia, 
was elected Colonel of the First Regiment, 
I. N. G. , and was for a time the senior Colonel in 
the State service. In 1876 he was an unsuccessful 
Republican candidate for Congress, but was 
elected in 1878, and re-elected in 1880 and 1882. 
From 1886 to 1890 he was Treasurer of Cook 
County. He took an active and influential part 
in securing the location of the "World's Columbian 
Exposition at Chicago, and was Director-General 
of the Exposition from its inception to its close, 
by his executive ability demonstrating the wis- 
dom of his selection. Died Nov. 25, 1899. 

DAVIS, Hasbrouck, soldier and journalist, was 
born at Worcester, Mass., April 23, 1827, being 
the son of John Davis, United States Senator and 
Governor of Massachusetts, known in his lifetime 
as "Honest John Davis." The son came to Chi- 
cago in 1855 and commenced the practice of 
law ; in 1861 joined Colonel Voss in the organiza- 
tion of the Twelfth Illinois Cavalry, being elected 
Lieutenant-Colonel and, on the retirement of 
Colonel Voss in 1863, succeeding to the colonelcy. 
In March, 1865, he was brevetted Brigadier-Gen- 
eral, remaining in active service until August, 
1865, when he resigned. After the war he was, 
for a time, editor of "The Chicago Evening Post, " 
was City Attorney of the City of Chicago from 
1867 to '69, but later removed to Massachusetts 
Colonel Davis was drowned at sea, Oct. 19, 1870, 
by the loss of the steamship Cambria, while on a 
voyage to Europe. 

DAVIS, James M., early lawyer, was born in 
Barren County, Ky., Oct. 9, 1793, came to Illinois 
in 1817, located in Bond County and is said to 
have taught the first school in that county. He 
became a lawyer and a prominent leader of the 
Whig party, was elected to the Thirteenth Gen- 
eral Assembly (1842) from Bond County, and to 
the Twenty-first from Montgomery in 1858, hav- 
ing, in the meantime, become a citizen of 
Hillsboro ; was also a member of the State Consti- 
tutional Convention of 1847. Mr. Davis was a 
man of striking personal appearance, being over 
six feet in height, and of strong individuality. 
After the dissolution of the Whig party he identi- 
fied himself with the Democracy and was an 
intensely bitter opponent of the war policy of 
the Government. Died, at Hillsboro, Sept. 17. 
1866. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



129 



DAVIS, John A., soldier, was born in Craw- 
ford County, Pa., Oct. 25, 1823; came to Stephen- 
son County, 111., in boyhood and served as 
Representative in the General Assembly of 1857 
and '59; in September, 1861, enlisted as a private, 
was elected Captain and, on the organization of 
the Forty-sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteers, at 
Camp Butler, was commissioned its Colonel. He 
participated in the capture of Fort Donelson, 
and in the battle of Shiloh was desperately 
wounded by a shot through the lungs, but 
recovered in time to join his regiment before the 
battle of Corinth, where, on Oct. 4, 1862, he fell 
mortally wounded, dying a few days after. On 
receiving a request from some of his fellow-citi- 
zens, a few days before his death, to accept a 
nomination for Congress in the Freeport District, 
Colonel Davis patriotically replied: "I can serve 
my country better in following the torn banner 
of my regiment in the battlefield." 

DAVIS, Levi, lawyer and State Auditor, was 
born in Cecil County, Md., July 20, 1806; gradu- 
ated at Jefferson College, Pa., in 1828, and was 
admitted to the bar at Baltimore in 1830. The 
following year he removed to Illinois, settling at 
Vandalia, then the capital. In 1835 Governor 
Duncan appointed him Auditor of Public 
Accounts, to which office he was elected by the 
Legislature in 1837, and again in 1838. In 
1846 he took up his residence at Alton. He 
attained prominence at the bar and was, for 
several years, attorney for the Chicago & Alton 
and St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad 
Companies, in which he was also a Director. 
Died, at Alton, March 4, 1897. 

DAVIS, Nathan Smith, M.D., LL.D., physi- 
cian, educator and editor, was born in Chenango 
County, N. Y., Jan. 9, 1817; took a classical and 
scientific course in Cazenovia Seminary ; in 1837 
graduated from the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons, winning several prizes during his 
course; the same year began practice at Bing- 
hamton; spent two years (1847-49) in New York 
City, when he removed to Chicago to accept the 
chair of Physiology and General Pathology in 
Rush Medical College. In 1859 he accepted a 
similar position in the Chicago Medical College 
(now the medical department of Northwestern 
University), where he still remains. Dr. Davis 
has not only been a busy practitioner, but a volu- 
minous writer on general and special topics con- 
nected with his profession, having been editor at 
different times of several medical periodicals, 
including "The Chicago Medical Journal," "The 
Medical Journal and Examiner," and "The 



Journal of the American Medical Association." 
He has also been prominent in State, National 
and International Medical Congresses, and is one 
of the founders of the North western University, 
the Chicago Academy of Sciences, the Chicago 
Historical Society, the Illinois State Microscopi- 
cal Society and the Union College of Law, besides 
other scientific and benevolent associations. 

DAVIS, Oliver L., lawyer, was born in New 
York City, Dec. 20, 1819; after being in the 
employ of the American Fur Company some 
seven years, came to Danville, 111., in 1841 and 
commenced studying law the next year; was 
elected to the lower branch of the Seventeenth 
and Twentieth General Assemblies, first as a 
Democrat and next (1856) as a Republican; 
served on the Circuit Bench in 1861-66, and again 
in 1873-79, being assigned in 1877 to the Appellate 
bench. Died, Jan. 12, 1892. 

DAWSON, John, early legislator, was born in 
Virginia, in 1791; came to Illinois in 1827, set- 
tling in Sangamon County ; served five terms in 
the lower house of the General Assembly (1830, 
'34, '36, '38 and '46), during a part of the time 
being the colleague of Abraham Lincoln. He 
was one of the celebrated "Long Nine" who repre- 
sented Sangamon County at the time of the 
removal of the State capital to Springfield ; was 
also a member of the Constitutional Convention 
of 1847. Died, Nov. 12, 1850. 

DEAF AND DUMB, ILLINOIS INSTITU- 
TION FOR EDUCATION OF, located at Jack- 
sonville, established by act of the Legislature, 
Feb. 23, 1839, and the oldest of the State 
charitable institutions. Work was not begun 
until 1842, but one building was ready for 
partial occupancy in 1846 and was completed 
in 1849. (In 1871 this building, then known 
as the south wing, was declared unsafe, and 
was razed and rebuilt.) The center building 
was completed in 1852 and the north wing in 
1857. Other additions and new buildings have 
been added from time to time, such as new dining 
halls, workshops, barns, bakery, refrigerator 
house, kitchens, a gymnasium, separate cot- 
tages for the sexes, etc. At present (1895) the 
institution is probably the largest, as it is un- 
questionably one of the best conducted, of its class 
in the world. The number of pupils in 1894 was 
716. Among its employes are men and women of 
ripe culture and experience, who have been con- 
nected with it for more than a quarter of a 
century. 

DEARBORN, Luther, lawyer and legislator, 
was born at Plymouth, N. H., March 24, 1820, 



130 



IIISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



and educated in Plymouth schools and at New 
Hampton Academy ; in youth removed to Dear- 
born County, Ind., where he taught school and 
served as deputy Circuit Clerk; then came to 
Mason County, 111. , and, in 1844, to Elgin. Here 
he was elected Sheriff and, at the expiration of 
his term, Circuit Clerk, later engaging in the 
banking business, which proving disastrous in 
1857, he returned to Mason County and began the 
practice of law. He then spent some years in 
Minnesota, finally returning to Illinois a second 
time, resumed practice at Havana, served one 
term' in the State Senate (1876-80); in 1884 
became member of a law firm in Chicago, but 
retired in 1887 to accept the attorneyship of the 
Chicago & Alton Railway, retaining this position 
until his death, which occurred suddenly at 
Springfield, April 5, 1889. For the last two years 
of his fife Mr. Dearborn's residence was at 
Aurora. 

DECATUR, the county-seat of Macon County; 
39 miles east of Springfield and one mile north 
of the Sangamon River — also an important rail- 
way center. Three coal shafts are operated out- 
side the city. It is a center for the grain trade, 
having five elevators. Extensive car and repair 
shops are located there, and several important 
manufacturing industries flourish, among them 
three flouring mills. Decatur has paved streets, 
water- works, electric street railways, and excel- 
lent public schools, including one of the best and 
most noted high schools in the State. Four 
newspapers are published there, each issuing a 
dailv edition. Pop., (1890), 16,841; (1900), 20,754. 

DECATUR EDITORIAL CONVENTION. (See 
Anti-Nebraska Editorial Convention. ) 

DECATUR & EASTERN RAILWAY. (See 
Indiana, Decatur & Western Railway.) 

DECATUR, MATTOON & SOUTHERN RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Peoria, Decatur & Evansville 
Railway. ) 

DECATUR, SULLIVAN & MATTOON RAIL- 
ROAD. (See Peoria, Decatur & Evansville 
Railway.) 

DEEP SNOW, THE, an event occurring in the 
winter of 1830-31 and referred to by old settlers 
of Illinois as constituting an epoch in State his- 
tory. The late Dr. Julian M. Sturtevant, Presi- 
dent of Illinois College, in an address to the "Old 
Settlers" of Morgan County, a few years before 
his death, #avp the following account of it: "In 
the interval between Christmas, 1830, and Janu- 
ary, 1831, snow fell all over Central Illinois to a 
depth of fully three feet on a level. Then came 
a rain with weather so cold that it froze as it 



fell, forming a crust of ice over this three feet of 
snow, nearly, if not quite, strong enough to bear 
a man, and finally over this crust there were a 
few inches of snow. The clouds passed away 
and the wind came down upon us from the north- 
west with extraordinary ferocity. For weeks — 
certainly not less than two weeks — the mercury 
in the thermometer tube was not, on any one 
morning, higher than twelve degrees below zero. 
This snow T -fall produced constant sleighing for 
nine weeks." Other contemporaneous accounts 
say that this storm caused great suffering among 
both men and beasts. The scattered settlers, un- 
able to reach the mills or produce stores, were 
driven, in some cases, to great extremity for 
supplies ; mills were stopped by the freezing up 
of streams, while deer and other game, sinking 
through the crust of snow, were easily captured 
or perished for lack of food. Birds and domestic 
fowls often suffered a like fate for want of sus- 
tenance or from the severity of the cold. 

DEERE, John, manufacturer, was born at 
Middlebury, Vt., Feb. 7, 1804; learned the black- 
smith trade, which he followed until 1838, when 
he came west, settling at Grand Detour, in Ogle 
County; ten years later removed to Moline, and 
there founded the plow-works which bear his 
name and of which he was President from 1868 
until his death in 1886. — Charles H. (Deere), son 
of the preceding, was born in Hancock, Addison 
County Vt., March 28, 1837; educated in the 
common schools and at Iowa and Knox Acad- 
emies, and Bell's Commercial College, Chicago; 
became assistant and head book-keeper, travel- 
ing and purchasing agent of the Deere Plow 
Company, and, on its incorporation, Vice-Presi- 
dent and General Manager, until his father's 
death, when he succeeded to the Presidency. He 
is also the founder of the Deere & Mansur Corn 
Planter Works, President of the Moline Water 
Power Company, besides being a Director in 
various other concerns and in the branch houses 
of Deere & Co., in Kansas City, Des Moines, 
Council Bluffs and San Francisco. Notwith- 
standing his immense business interests, Mr. 
Deere has found time for the discharge of public 
and patriotic duties, as shown by the fact that he 
was for years a member and Chairman of the 
State Bureau of Labor Statistics ; a Commissioner 
from Illinois to the Vienna International Exposi- 
tion of 1873; one of the State Commissioners of 
the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893; a 
Presidential Elector for the State-at -large in 1888, 
and a delegate from his District to the National 
Republican Convention at St. Louis, in 1896. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



L31 



DEERINdc, William, manufacturer, was born 
at Paris, Oxford County, Maine, April 26, 182G, 
completed his education at the Readfield high 
school, in 1843, engaged actively in manufactur- 
ing, and during his time has assisted in establish- 
ing several large, successful business enterprises, 
including wholesale and commission dry-goods 
houses in Portland, Maine, Boston and New York. 
His greatest work has been the building up of the 
Deering Manufacturing Company, a main feature 
of which, for thirty years, has been the manu- 
facture of Marsh harvesters and other agricultural 
implements and appliances. This concern began 
operation in Chicago about 1870, at the present 
time (1899) occupying eighty acres in the north 
part of the city and employing some 4,000 hands. 
It is said to turn out a larger amount and greater 
variety of articles for the use of the agriculturist 
than any other establishment in the country, 
receiving its raw material from many foreign 
countries, including the Philippines, and distrib- 
uting its products all over the globe. Mr. Deer- 
ing continues to be President of the Company 
and a principal factor in the management of its 
immense business. He is liberal, public-spirited 
and benevolent, and his business career has been 
notable for the absence of controversies with his 
employes. He has been, for a number of years, 
one of the Trustees of the Northwestern Univer- 
sity at Evanston, and, at the present time, is 
President of the Board. 

DE KALB, a city in De Kalb County, 58 miles 
west of Chicago. Of late years it has grown 
rapidly, largely because of the introduction of 
new industrial enterprises. It contains a large 
wire drawing plant, barbed wire factories, foun- 
dry, agricultural implement works, machine 
shop, shoe factory and several minor manufac- 
turing establishments. It has banks, four news- 
papers, electric street railway, eight miles of 
paved streets, nine churches and three graded 
schools. It is the site of the Northern State Nor- 
mal School, located in 1895. Population (1880), 
1,598; (1890), 2,579; (1900), 5,904; (1903, est.), 8,000. 

DE KALB COUNTY, originally a portion of 
La Salle County, and later of Kane ; was organized 
in 1837, and named for Baron De Kalb, the 
Revolutionary patriot. Its area is 650 square 
miles and population (in 1900), 31,756. The land 
is elevated and well drained, lying between Fox 
and Rock Rivers. Prior to 1835 the land belonged 
to the Pottawatomie Indians, who maintained 
several villages and their own tribal government. 
No sooner had the aborigines been removed than 
white settlers appeared in large numbers, and, 



in September, 1835, a convocation was held on 
the banks of the Kishwaukee, to adopt a tempo- 
rary form of government. The public lands in tin- 
county were sold at auction in Chicago in 1843 
Sycamore (originally called Orange) is the 
county-seat, and, in 1890, had a population of 
2,987. Brick buildings were first erected at 
Sycamore by J. S. Waterman and the brothers 
Mayo. In 1854, H. A. Hough established the 
first newspaper, "The Republican Sentinel." 
Other prosperous towns are De Kalb (population, 
2,579), Cortland, Malta and Somonauk. The sur- 
face is generally rolling, upland prairie, with 
numerous groves and wooded tracts along the 
principal streams. Various lines of railroad trav- 
erse the county, which embraces one of the 
wealthiest rural districts in the State. 

DE KALB & UREAT WESTERN RAILROAD. 
(See Chicago Great Western Railway.) 

DELAY AN, a thriving city in Tazewell County, 
on the line of the Chicago & Alton Railroad, at 
the point of its intersection with the Peoria and 
Pekin Division of the Illinois Central Railway, 34 
miles west-southwest of Bloomington and 24 
miles south of Peoria. Grain is extensively 
grown in the adjacent territory, and much 
shipped from Delavan. The place supports two 
banks, tile and brick factory, creamery, and two 
weekly papers. It also has five churches and a 
graded school. Pop. (1890), 1,176, (1900), 1,304. 

DEMENT, Henry Dodge, ex-Secretary of State, 
was born at Galena, 111., in 1840 — the son of 
Colonel John Dement, an early and prominent 
citizen of the State, who held the office of State 
Treasurer and was a member of the Constitu- 
tional Conventions of 1847 and 1870. Colonel 
Dement having removed to Dixon about 1845, the 
subject of this sketch was educated there and at 
Mount Morris. Having enlisted in the Thirteenth 
Illinois Volunteer Infantry in 1861, he was elected 
a Second Lieutenant and soon promoted to First 
Lieutenant — also received from Governor Yates a 
complimentary commission as Captain for gal- 
lantry at Arkansas Post and at Chickasaw 
Bayou, where the commander of his regiment, 
Col. J. B. Wyman, was killed. Later he served 
with General Curtis in Mississippi and in the 
Fifteenth Army Corps in the siege of Vicksburg. 
After leaving the army he engaged in the manu- 
facturing business for some years at Dixon. Cap- 
tain Dement entered the State Legislature by 
election as Representative from Lee County in 
1872, was re-elected in 1874 and, in 1876. was pro- 
moted to the Senate, serving in the Thirtieth and 
Thirty-first General Assemblies. In 1880 he was 



132 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



chosen Secretary of State, and re-elected in 1884, 
serving eight years. The last public position held 
by Captain Dement was that of "Warden of the 
State Penitentiary at Joliet, to which he was 
appointed in 1891, serving two years. His 
present home is at Oak Park, Cook County. 

DEMENT, John, was born in Sumner County, 
Tenn., in April, 1804. "When 13 years old he 
accompanied his parents to Illinois, settling in 
Franklin County, of which he was elected Sheriff 
in 1826, and which he represented in the General 
Assemblies of 1828 and '30. He served with 
distinction during the Black Hawk "War, having 
previously had experience in two Indian cam- 
paigns. In 1831 he was elected State Treasurer 
by the Legislature, but, in 1836, resigned this 
office to represent Fayette County in the General 
Assembly and aid in the fight against the removal 
of the capital to Springfield. His efforts failing 
of success, lie removed to the northern part of the 
State, finally locating at Dixon, where he became 
extensively engaged in manufacturing. In 1837 
President Van Buren appointed him Receiver of 
Public Moneys, but he was removed by President 
Harrison in 1841; was reappointed by Polk in 
1845, only to be again removed by Taylor in 1849 
and reappointed by Pierce in 1853. He held the 
office from that date until it was abolished. He 
was a Democratic Presidential Elector in 1844; 
served in three Constitutional Conventions (1847, 
'62, and '70), being Temporary President of the 
two bodies last named. He was the father of 
Hon. Denry D. Dement, Secretary of State of Illi- 
nois from 1884 to 1888. He died at his home at 
Dixon, Jan. 16, 1883. 

DENT, Thomas, lawyer, was born in Putnam 
County, 111. , Nov. 14, 1831 ; in his youth was 
employed in the Clerk's office of Putnam County, 
meanwhile studying law; was admitted to the 
bar in 1854, and, in 1856, opened an office in Chi- 
cago; is still in practice and has served as 
President, both of the Chicago Law Institute and 
the State Bar Association. 

DES PLAINES, a village of Cook County, at the 
intersection of the Chicago & Northwestern and 
the Wisconsin Central Railroads, 17 miles north- 
west from Chicago ; is a dairying region. Popu- 
lation (1880), 818; (1890), 986; (1900), 1,666. 

DES PLAINES RIVER, a branch of the Illinois 
River, which rises in Racine County, "Wis., and, 
after passing through Kenosha County, in that 
State, and Lake County, 111., running nearly 
parallel to the west shore of Lake Michigan 
through Cook County, finally unites with the 
Kankakee, about 13 miles southwest of Joliet, by 



its confluence with the latter forming the Illinois 
River. Its length is about 150 miles. The 
Chicago Drainage Canal is constructed in the 
valley of the Des Plaines for a considerable por- 
tion of the distance between Chicago and Joliet. 

DEWEY, (Dr.) Richard S., physician, alienist, 
was born at Forestville, N. Y. , Dec. 6, 1845 ; after 
receiving his primary education took a two years' 
course in the literary and a three years' course in 
the medical department of the Michigan Univer- 
sity at Ann Arbor, graduating from the latter in 
1869. He then began practice as House Physician 
and Surgeon in the City Hospital at Brooklyn, 
N. Y., remaining for a year, after which he 
visited Europe inspecting hospitals and sanitary 
methods, meanwhile spending six months in the 
Prussian military service as Surgeon during the 
Franco-Prussian "War. After the close of the 
war he took a brief course in the University of 
Berlin, when, returning to the United States, he 
was employed for seven years as Assistant Physi- 
cian in the Northern Hospital for the Insane at 
Elgin. In 1879 he was appointed Medical Super- 
intendent of the Eastern Hospital for the Insane 
at Kankakee, remaining until the accession of 
John P. Altgeld to the Governorship in 1893. 
Dr. Dewey's reputation as a specialist in the 
treatment of the insane has stood among the 
highest of his class. 

DE WITT COUNTY, situated in the central 
portion of the State ; has an area of 405 square 
miles and a population (1900) of 18,972. The land 
was originally owned by the Kickapoos and Potta- 
watomies, and not until 1820 did the first perma- 
nent white settlers occupy this region. The first 
to come were Felix Jones, Prettyman Marvel, 
"William Cottrell, Samuel Glenn, and the families 
of Scott, Lundy and Coaps. Previously, how- 
ever, the first cabin had been built on the site of 
the present Farmer City by Nathan Clearwater. 
Zion Shugest erected the earliest grist-mill and 
Burrell Post the first saw-mill in the county. 
Kentuckians and Tennesseeans were the first im- 
migrants, but not until the advent of settlers from 
Ohio did permanent improvements begin to be 
made. In 1835 a school house and Presbyterian 
church were built at "Waynesville. The county 
was organized in 1839, and — with its capital 
(Clinton) — was named after one of New York's 
most distinguished Governors. It lies within the 
great "corn belt," and is well watered by Salt 
Creek and its branches. Most of the surface is 
rolling prairie, interspersed with woodland. 
Several lines of railway (among them the Illinois 
Central) cross the county. Clinton had a popu- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



133 



lation of 2,598 in 1890, and Farmer City, 1,367. 
Both are railroad centers and have considerable 
trade. 

DE WOLP', Calvin, pioneer and philanthropist, 
was born in Luzerne County, Pa., Feb. 18, 1815; 
taken early in life to Vermont, and, at 19 years of 
age, commenced teaching at Orwell, in that 
State; spent one year at a manual labor school 
in Ashtabula County, Ohio, and, in 1837, came to 
Chicago, and soon after began teaching in Will 
County, still later engaging in the same vocation 
in Chicago. In 1839 he commenced the study of 
law with Messrs. Spring & Goodrich and, in 1843, 
was admitted to practice. In 1854 he was 
elected a Justice of the Peace, retaining the 
position for a quarter of a century, winning for 
himself the reputation of a sagacious and incor- 
ruptible public officer. Mr. De Wolf was an 
original abolitionist and his home is said to have 
been one of the stations on the "underground 
railroad" in the days of slavery. Died Nov. 28, '99. 
DEXTER, Wirt, lawyer, born at Dexter, Mich., 
Oct. 25, 1831 ; was educated in the schools of his 
native State and at Cazenovia Seminary, N. Y. 
He was descended from a family of lawyers, his 
grandfather, Samuel Dexter, having been Secre- 
tary of War, and afterwards Secretary of the 
Treasury, in the cabinet of the elder Adams. 
Coming to Chicago at the beginning of his profes- 
sional career, Mr. Dexter gave considerable 
attention at first to his father's extensive lumber 
trade. He was a zealous and eloquent supporter 
of the Government during the Civil War, and 
was an active member of the Relief and Aid 
Society after the fire of 1871. His entire profes- 
sional life was spent in Chicago, for several years 
before his death being in the service of the Chi- 
cago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company as 
its general solicitor and member of the executive 
committee of the Board of Directors. Died in 
Chicago, May 20, 1890. 

DICKEY, Hugh Thompson, jurist, was born in 
New York City, May 30, 1811; graduated from 
Columbia College, read law and was admitted to 
the bar. He visited Chicago in 1836, and four 
years later settled there, becoming one of its 
most influential citizens. Upon the organization 
of the County Court of Cook County in 1845, 
Mr. Dickey was appointed its Judge. In Septem- 
ber, 1848, he was elected Judge of the Seventh 
Judicial Circuit, practically without partisan 
opposition, serving until the expiration of his 
term in 1853. He was prominently identified 
with several important commercial enterprises, 
was one of the founders of the Chicago Library 



Association, and one of the first Trustees of the 
Illinois General Hospital of the Lakes, now Mercy 
Hospital. In 1885 he left Chicago to take up his 
residence in his native city, New York, where he 
died, June 2, 1892. 

DICKEY, Theophilus Lyle, lawyer and jurist, 
was born in Bourbon County, Ky., Nov. 12, 1812, 
the grandson of a Revolutionary soldier, gradu- 
ated at the Miami (Ohio) University, and re- 
moved to Illinois in 1834, settling at Macomb, 
McDonough County, where he was admitted to 
the bar in 1835. In 1836 he moved to Rushville, 
where he resided three years, a part of the time 
editing a Whig newspaper. Later he became a 
resident of Ottawa, and, at the opening of the 
Mexican War, organized a company of volun- 
teers, of which he was chosen Captain. In 1861 
he raised a regiment of cavalry which was 
mustered into service as the Fourth Illinois 
Cavalry, and of which he was commissioned 
Colonel, taking an active part in Grant's cam- 
paigns in the West. In 1865 he resigned his 
commission and resumed the practice of his 
profession at Ottawa. In 1866 he was an 
unsuccessful candidate for Congressman for the 
State-at-large in opposition to John A. Logan, 
and, in 1868, was tendered and accepted the posi- 
tion of Assistant Attorney-General of the United 
States, resigning after eighteen months' service. 
In 1873 he removed to Chicago, and, in 1874, was 
made Corporation Counsel. In December, 1875, 
he was elected to the Supreme Court, vice W. K. 
McAllister, deceased ; was re-elected in 1879, and 
died at Atlantic City, July 22, 1885. 

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, THE, known also as 
the Christian Church and as "Campbellites, " 
having been founded by Alexander Campbell. 
Many members settled in Illinois in the early 
30's, and, in the central portion of the State, the 
denomination soon began to flourish greatly. 
Any one was admitted to membership who made 
w r hat is termed a scriptural confession of faith 
and was baptized by immersion. Alexander 
Campbell was an eloquent preacher and a man of 
much native ability, as well as a born conver- 
sationalist. The sect has steadily grown in 
numbers and influence in the State. The United 
States Census of 1890 showed 641 churches in the 
State, with 368 ministers and an aggregate mem- 
bership of 61,587, having 550 Sunday schools, with 
50,000 pupils in attendance. The value of the 
real property, which included 552 church edifices 
(with a seating capacity of 155,000) and 30 parson- 
ages, was $1,167,675. The denomination supports 
Eureka College, with an attendance of between 



134 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



400 and 500 students, while its assets are valued 
at $150,000. Total membership in the United 
States, estimated at 750,000. 

DIXON, an incorporated city, the county-seat 
of Lee County. It lies on both sides of Rock 
River and is the point of intersection of the Illi- 
nois Central and the Chicago & Northwestern 
Railroads; is 98 miles west of Chicago. Rock 
River furnishes abundant water power and the 
manufacturing interests of the city are very ex- 
tensive, including large plow works, wire-cloth 
factory, wagon factory; also has electric light 
and power plant, three shoe factories, planing 
mills, and a condensed milk factory. There are 
two National and one State bank, eleven 
churches, a hospital, and three newspapers. In 
schools the city particularly excels, having sev- 
eral graded (grammar) schools and two colleges. 
The Chautauqua Assembly holds its meeting here 
annually. Population (1890), 5,161; (1900), 7,917. 
DIXON, John, pioneer — the first white settler 
in Lee County, 111., was born at Rye, "West- 
chester County, N. Y., Oct. 9, 1784; at 21 removed 
to New York City, where he was in business some 
fifteen years. In 1820 he set out with his family 
for the "West, traveling by land to Pittsburg, 
and thence by flat-boat to Shawneetown. Having 
disembarked his horses and goods here, he pushed 
out towards the northwest, passing the vicinity 
of Springfield, and finally locating on Fancy 
Creek, some nine miles north of the present site 
of that city. Here he remained some five years, 
in that time serving as foreman of the first Sanga- 
mon County Grand Jury. The new county of 
Peoria having been established in 1825, he was 
offered and accepted the appointment of Circuit 
Clerk, removing to Fort Clark, as Peoria was 
then called. Later he became contractor for 
carrying the mail on the newly established route 
between Peoria and Galena. Compelled to pro- 
vide means of crossing Rock River, he induced a 
French and Indian half-breed, named Ogee, to 
take charge of a ferry at a point afterwards 
known as Ogee's Ferry. The tide of travel to the 
lead-mine region caused both the mail-route and 
the ferry to prove profitable, and, as the half- 
breed ferryman could not endure prosperity, Mr. 
Dixon was forced to buy him out, removing his 
family to this point in April, 1830. Here he 
established friendly relations with the Indians, 
and, during the Black Hawk War ,two years later, 
was enabled to render valuable service to the 
State. His station was for many years one of 
the most important points in Northern Illinois, 
and among the men of national reputation who 



were entertained at different times at his home, 
may be named Gen. Zachary Taylor, Albert Sid= 
ney Johnston, Gen. Winfield Scott, Jefferson 
Davis, Col. Robert Anderson, Abraham Lincoln, 
Col. E. D. Baker and many more. He bought the 
land where Dixon now stands in 1835 and laid off 
the town ; in 1838 was elected by the Legislature 
a member of the Board of Public Works, and, in 
1840, secured the removal of the land office from 
Galena to Dixon. Colonel Dixon was a delegate 
from Lee County to the Republican State Con- 
vention at Bloomington, in May, 1856, and, 
although then considerably over 70 years of age, 
spoke from the same stand with Abraham Lin- 
coln, his presence producing much enthusiasm. 
His death occurred, July 6, 1876. 

DOANE, John Wesley, merchant and banker, 
was born at Thompson, "Windham County, Conn. , 
March 23, 1833; was educated in the common 
schools, and, at 22 years of age, came to Chicago 
and opened a small grocery store which, by 1870, 
had become one of the most extensive concerns 
of its kind in the Northwest. It was swept out 
of existence by the fire of 1871, but was re-estab- 
lished and, in 1872, transferred to other parties, 
although Mr. Doane continued to conduct an 
importing business in many lines of goods used in 
the grocery trade. Having become interested in 
the Merchants' Loan & Trust Company, he was 
elected its President and has continued to act in 
that capacity. He is also a stockholder and a 
Director of the Pullman Palace Car Company, 
the Allen Paper Car "Wheel Company and the 
Illinois Central Railroad, and was a leading 
promoter of the "World's Columbian Exposition of 
1893 — being one of those who guaranteed the 
$5,000,000 to be raised by the citizens of Chicago 
to assure the success of the enterprise. 

DOLTON STATION, a village of Cook County, 
on the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, the Chicago & 
"Western Indiana, and the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, 
Chicago & St. Louis Railroads, 16 miles south of 
Chicago ; has a carriage factory, a weekly paper, 
churches and a graded school. Population (1880) 
448; (1890), 1,110; (1900), 1,229. 

DONGOLA, a village in Union County, on the 
Illinois Central Railroad, 27 miles north of Cairo. 
Population (1880), 599; (1890), 733; (1900), 681. 

DOOLITTLE, James Rood, United States 
Senator, was born in Hampton, Washington 
County, N. Y., Jan 3, 1815; educated at Middle- 
bury and Geneva (now Hobart) Colleges, admitted 
to the bar in 1837 and practiced at Rochester and 
Warsaw, N. Y. ; was elected District Attorney of 
Wyoming County, N. Y., in 1845. and. in 1851. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



135 



removed to Wisconsin ; two years later was 
elected Circuit Judge, but resigned in 1850, and 
the following year was elected as a Democratic- 
Republican to the United States Senate, being 
re-elected as a Republican in 1863. Retiring 
from public life in 1869, he afterwards resided 
chiefly at Racine, Wis., though practicing in the 
courts of Chicago. He was President of the 
National Union Convention at Philadelphia in 
1866, and of the National Democratic Convention 
of 1872 in Baltimore, which endorsed Horace 
Greeley for President. Died, at Edgewood, R. I., 
July 27, 1897. 

DORE, John Clark, first Superintendent of 
Chicago City Schools, was born at Ossipee, N. H. , 
March 22, 1822; began teaching at 17 years of age 
and graduated at Dartmouth College in 1847; 
then taught several years and, in 1854, was 
offered and accepted the position of Superintend- 
ent of City Schools of Chicago, but resigned two 
years later. Afterwards engaging in business, 
he served as Vice-President and President of 
the Board of Trade, President of the Com- 
mercial Insurance Company and of the State 
Savings Institution ; was a member of the State 
Senate, 1868-72, and has been identified with 
various benevolent organizations of the city of 
Chicago. Died in Boston, Mass., Dec, 14, 1900. 

DOUGHERTY, John, lawyer and Lieutenant- 
Governor, was born at Marietta, Ohio, May 6, 
1806; brought by his parents, in 1808, to Cape 
Girardeau, Mo. , where they remained until after 
the disastrous earthquakes in that region in 
1811-12, when, his father having died, his mother 
removed to Jonesboro, 111. Here he finally read 
law with Col. A. P. Field, afterwards Secretary 
of State, being admitted to the bar in 1831 and 
early attaining prominence as a successful 
criminal lawyer. He soon became a recognized 
political leader, was elected as a member of the 
House to the Eighth General Assembly (1832) 
and re-elected in 1834, '36 and '40, and again in 
1856, and to the Senate in 1842, serving in the 
latter body until the adoption of the Constitution 
of 1848. Originally a Democrat, he was, in 1858, 
the Administration (Buchanan) candidate for 
State Treasurer, as opposed to the Douglas wing 
of the party, but, in 1861, became a strong sup- 
porter of Abraham Lincoln. He served as Presi- 
dential Elector on the Republican ticket in 1864 
and in 1872 (the former year for the State- at- 
large), in 1868 was elected Lieutenant-Governor 
and, in 1877, to a seat on the criminal bench, 
serving until June, 1879. Died, at Jonesboro, 
Sept. 7, 1879. 



DOUGLAS, John M., lawyer and Railway 
President, was born at Plattsburg, Clinton 
County, N. Y., August 22, 1819; read law three 
years in his native city, then came west and 
settled at Galena, 111., where h" was admitted to 
the bar in 1841 and began practice. In 1856 he 
removed to Chicago, and, t lie following year, 
became one. of the solicitors of the Illinois Central 
Railroad, with which he had been associated as 
an attorney at Galena. Between 1861 and 1876 
he was a Director of the Company over twelve 
years; from 1865 to 1871 its President, and again 
for eighteen months in 1875-76, when he retired 
permanently. Mr. Douglas' contemporaries speak 
of him as a lawyer of great ability, as well 
as a capable executive officer. Died, in Chicago, 
March 25, 1891. 

DOUGLAS, Stephen Arnold, statesman, was 
born at Brandon, Vt., April 23, 1813. In conse- 
quence of the death of his father in infancy, 
his early educational advantages were limited. 
When fifteen he applied himself to the cabinet- 
maker's trade, and, in 1830, accompanied Lis 
mother and step-father to Ontario County, N. V. 
In 1832 he began the study of law, but started for 
the West in 1833. He taught school at Win- 
chester, 111., reading law at night and practicing 
before a Justice of the Peace on Saturdays. He 
was soon admitted to the bar and took a deep 
interest in politics. In 1835 he was elected Prose- 
cuting Attorney for Morgan County, but a few 
months later resigned this office to enter the 
lower house of the Legislature, to which lie was 
elected in 1836. In 1838 he was a candidate for 
Congress, but was defeated by John T. Stuart, his 
Wing opponent; was appointed Secretary of 
State in December, 1840, and, in February. 1841, 
elected Judge of the Supreme Court. He was 
elected to Congress in 1842, '44 and '46, and, in 
the latter year, was chosen United States Sena- 
tor, taking his seat March 4, 1847, and being 
re-elected in 1853 and '59. His last canvass was 
rendered memorable through his joint debate, in 
1858, before the people of the State with Abraham 
Lincoln, whom he defeated before the Legisla- 
ture. He was a candidate for the presidential 
nomination before the Democratic National 
Conventions of 1852 and '56. In 1860, after having 
failed of a nomination for the Presidency at 
Charleston, S. C, through the operation of the 
"two thirds rule." lie received the nomination 
from the adjourned convention held at Baltimore 
six weeks later — though not until the delegates 
from nearly all the Southern States had with- 
drawn, the seceding delegates afterwards nomi- 



136 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



nating John C. Breckenridge. Although defeated 
for the Presidency by Lincoln, his old-time 
antagonist, Douglas yielded a cordial support to 
the incoming administration in its attitude 
toward the seceded States, occupying a place of 
honor beside Mr. Lincoln on the portico of the 
capitol during the inauguration ceremonies. As 
politician, orator and statesman, Douglas had 
few superiors. Quick in perception, facile in 
expedients, ready in resources, earnest and 
fearless in utterance, he was a born "leader of 
men." His shortness of stature, considered in 
relation to his extraordinary mental acumen, 
gained for him the sobriquet of the "Little 
Giant." He died in Chicago, June 3, 1861. 

DOUGLAS COUNTY, lying a little east of the 
center of the State, embracing an area of 410 
square miles and having a population (1900) of 
19,097. The earliest land entry was made by 
Harrison Gill, of Kentucky, whose patent was 
signed by Andrew Jackson. Another early 
settler was John A. Richman, a West Virginian, 
who erected one of the first frame houses in 
the county in 1829. The Embarras and Kas- 
kaskia Rivers flow through the county, which is 
also crossed by the "Wabash and Illinois Central 
Railways. Douglas County was organized in 
1857 (being set off from Coles) and named in 
honor of Stephen A. Douglas, then United States 
Senator from Illinois. After a sharp struggle Tus- 
cola was made the county-seat. It has been 
visited by several disastrous conflagrations, but 
is a thriving town, credited, in 1890, with a 
population of 1,897. Other important towns are 
Areola (population, 1,733), and Camargo, which 
was originally known as New Salem. 

DOWNERS GROVE, village, Du Page County, 
on C, B. & Q. R. R., 21 miles south- southwest from 
Chicago, incorporated 1873 ; has water- works, elec- 
tric lights, telephone system, good schools, bank 
and a newspaper. Pop. (1890), 960; (1900), 2,103. 

DOWNING, Finis Ewing, ex-Congressman and 
lawyer, was born at Virginia, 111., August 24, 
1846 ; reared on a farm and educated in the public 
and private schools of his native town ; from 1865 
was engaged in mercantile pursuits until 1880, 
when he was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court 
of Cass County, serving three successive terms ; 
read law and was admitted to the bar in Decem- 
ber, 1887. In August, 1891, he became interested 
in "The Virginia Enquirer" (a Democratic 
paper), which he has since conducted; was 
elected Secretary of the State Senate in 1893, 
and, in 1894, was returned as elected to the Fifty- 
fourth Congress from the Sixteenth District by a 



plurality of forty votes over Gen. John I. Rinaker, 
the Republican nominee. A contest and recount 
of the ballots resulted, however, in awarding the 
seat to General Rinaker. In 1896 Mr. Downing 
was the nominee of his party for Secretary of 
State, but was defeated with the rest of his ticket. 

DRAKE, Francis Marion, soldier and Governor, 
was born at Rushville, Schuyler County, 111., 
Dec. 30, 1830; early taken to Drakesville, Iowa, 
which his father founded; entered mercantile 
life at 16 years of age ; crossed the plains to Cali- 
fornia in 1852, had experience in Indian warfare 
and, in 1859, established himself in business at 
Unionville, Iowa ; served through the Civil War, 
becoming Lieutenant-Colonel and retiring in 
1865 with the rank of Brigadier-General by 
brevet. He re-entered mercantile life after the 
war, was admitted to the bar in 1866, subsequently 
engaged in railroad building and, in 1881, contrib- 
buted the bulk of the funds for founding Drake 
University; was elected Governor of Iowa in 
1895, serving until January, 1898. 

DRAPER, Andrew Sloan, LL.D., lawyer and 
educator, was born in Otsego County, N. Y., 
June 21, 1848 — being a descendant, in the eighth 
generation, from the "Puritan," James Draper, 
who settled in Boston in 1647. In 1855 Mr. 
Draper's parents settled in Albany, N. Y., where 
he attended school, winning a scholarship in the 
Albany Academy in 1863, and graduating from 
that institution in 1866. During the next four 
years he was employed in teaching, part of the 
time as an instructor at his alma mater ; but, in 
1871, graduated from the Union College Law 
Department, when he began practice. The rank 
he attained in the profession was indicated b}^ 
his appointment by President Arthur, in 1884, 
one of the Judges of the Alabama Claims Com- 
mission, upon which he served until the conclu- 
sion of its labors in 1886. He had previously 
served in the New York State Senate (1880) and, 
in 1884, was a delegate to the Republican National 
Convention, also serving as Chairman of the 
Republican State Central Committee the same 
year. After his return from Europe in 1886, he 
served as State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion of New York until 1892, and, in 1889, and 
again in 1890, was President of the National 
Association of School Superintendents. Soon 
after retiring from the State Superintendency in 
New York, he was chosen Superintendent of 
Public Schools for the city of Cleveland, Ohio, 
remaining in that position until 1894, when he 
was elected President of the University of Illinois 
at Champaign, where he now is. His adminis- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



137 



tration has been characterized by enterprise and 
sagacity, and has tended to promote the popular- 
ity and prosperity of the institution. 

DRESSER, Charles, clergyman, was born at 
Pomfret, Conn., Feb. 24, 1800; graduated from 
Brown University in 1823, went to Virginia, 
where he studied theology and was ordained a 
minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In 
1838 he removed to Springfield, and became rector 
of St. Paul's Episcopal Church there, retiring in 
1858. On Nov. 4, 1842, Mr. Dresser performed the 
ceremony uniting Abraham Lincoln and Mary 
Todd in marriage. He died, March 25, 1865. 

DRUMMOND, Thomas, jurist, was born at 
Bristol Mills, Lincoln County, Maine, Oct. 16, 
1809. After graduating from Bowdoin College, in 
1830, he studied law at Philadelphia, where he was 
admitted to the bar in 1833. He settled at 
Galena, 111., in 1835, and was a member of the 
General Assembly in 1840-41. In 1850 he was 
appointed United States District Judge for the 
District of Illinois as successor to Judge Nathaniel 
Pope, and four years later removed to Chicago. 
Upon the division of the State into two judicial 
districts, in 1855, he was assigned to the North- 
ern. In 1869 he was elevated to the bench of the 
United States Circuit Court, and presided over 
the Seventh Circuit, which at that time included 
the States of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. In 
1884 — at the age of 75 — he resigned, living in 
retirement until his death, which occurred at 
Wheaton, 111., May 15, 1890. 

DUBOIS, Jesse Kilgore, State Auditor, was 
born, Jan. 14, 1811, in Lawrence County, 111., 
near Vincennes, Ind., where his father, Capt. 
Toussaint Dubois, had settled about 1780. The 
latter was a native of Canada, of French descent, 
and, after settling in the Northwest Territory, 
had been a personal friend of General Harrison, 
under whom he served in the Indian wars, 
including the battle of Tippecanoe. The son 
received a partial collegiate education at Bloom- 
ington, Ind., but, at 24 years of age (1834), was 
elected to the General Assembly, serving in the 
same House with Abraham Lincoln, and being 
re-elected in 1836, '38, and '42. In 1841 he was 
appointed by President Harrison Register of the 
Land Office at Palestine, 111. , but soon resigned, 
giving his attention to mercantile pursuits until 
1849, when he was appointed Receiver of Public 
Moneys at Palestine, but was removed by Pierce 
in 1853. He was a Delegate to the first Repub- 
lican State Convention, at Bloomington, in 1856, 
and, on the recommendation of Mr. Lincoln, was 
nominated for Auditor of Public Accounts, 



renominated in 1860, and elected both times. In 
1864 he was a candidate for the nomination of 
his party for Governor, but was defeated by 
General Oglesby, serving, however, on the 
National Executive Committee of that year, and 
as a delegate to the National Convention of 1868. 
Died, at his home near Springfield, Nov. 22, 1876. 
— Fred T. (Dubois), son of the preceding, was 
born in Crawford County, 111., May 29, 1851; 
received a common-school and classical educa- 
tion, graduating from Yale College in 1872 ; was 
Secretary of the Illinois Railway and Warehouse 
Commission in 1875-76; went to Idaho Territory 
and engaged in business in 1880, was appointed 
United States Marshal there in 1882, serving until 
1886; elected as a Republican Delegate to the 
Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses, and, on the 
admission of Idaho as a State (1890), became 
one of the first United States Senators, his term 
extending to 1897. He was Chairman of the 
Idaho delegation in the National Republican 
Convention at Minneapolis in 1892, and was a 
member of the National Republican Convention 
at St. Louis in 1896, but seceded from that body 
with Senator Teller of Colorado, and has since 
cooperated with the Populists and Free Silver 
Democrats. 

DUCAT, Arthur Charles, soldier and civil 
engineer, was born in Dublin, Ireland, Feb. 24, 
1830, received a liberal education and became a 
civil engineer. He settled in Chicago in 1851, 
and six years later was made Secretary and Chief 
Surveyor of the Board of Underwriters of that 
city. While acting in this capacity, he virtually 
revised the schedule system of rating fire-risks. 
In 1861 he raised a company of 300 engineers, 
sappers and miners, but neither the State nor 
Federal authorities would accept it. Thereupon 
he enlisted as a private in the Twelfth Illinois 
Volunteers, but his ability earned him rapid 
promotion. He rose through the grades of Cap- 
tain, Major and Lieutenant-Colonel, to that of 
Colonel, and was brevetted Brigadier-General in 
February, 1864. Compelled by sickness to leave the 
army, General Ducat returned to Chicago, 
re-entering the insurance field and finally, after 
holding various responsible positions, engaging 
in general business in that line. In 1875 he was 
entrusted with the task of reorganizing the State 
militia, which he performed with signal success. 
Died, at Downer's Grove, 111., Jan. 29, 1896. 

DUELS VXD ANTI-DUELING LAWS. Al- 
though a majority of the population of Illinois, 
in Territorial days, came from Southern States 
where the duel was widely regarded as the proper 



138 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OP ILLINOIS. 



mode for settling "difficulties" of a personal 
character, it is a curious fact that so few "affairs 
of honor" (so-called) should have occurred on 
Illinois soil. The first "affair" of this sort of 
which either history or tradition has handed 
down any account, is said to have occurred 
between an English and a French officer at the 
time of the surrender of Fort Chartres to the 
British in 1765, and in connection with that 
event. The officers are said to have fought with 
small swords one Sunday morning near the Fort, 
when one of them was killed, but the name of 
neither the victor nor the vanquished has come 
down to the present time. Gov. John Reynolds, 
who is the authority for the story in his "Pioneer 
History of Illinois," claimed to have received it 
in his boyhood from an aged Frenchman who 
represented that he had seen the combat. 

An affair of less doubtful authenticity has come 
down to us in the history of the Territorial 
period, and, although it was at first bloodless, it 
finally ended in a tragedy. This was the Jones- 
Bond affair, which originated at Kaskaskia in 
1808. Rice Jones was the son of John Rice Jones, 
the first English-speaking lawyer in the "Illinois 
Country." The younger Jones is described as an 
exceptionally brilliant young man who, having 
studied law, located at Kaskaskia in 1806. Two 
years later he became a candidate for Represent- 
ative from Randolph County in the Legislature 
of Indiana Territory, of -which Illinois was a part. 
In the course of the canvass which resulted in 
Jones' election, he became involved in a quarrel 
with Shadrach Bond, who was then a member of 
the Territorial Council from the same county, 
and afterwards became Delegate in Congress 
from Illinois and the first Governor of the State. 
Bond challenged Jones and the meeting took 
place on an island in the Mississippi between 
Kaskaskia and St. Genevieve. Bond's second 
was a Dr. James Dunlap of Kaskaskia, who 
appears also to have been a bitter enemy of Jones. 
The discharge of a pistol in the hand of Jones 
after the combatants had taken their places 
preliminary to the order to "fire," raised the 
question whether it was accidental or to be 
regarded as Jones' fire. Dunlap maintained the 
latter, but Bond accepted the explanation of his 
adversary that the discharge was accidental, and 
the generosity which he displayed led to expla- 
nations that averted a final exchange of shots. 
The feud thus started between Jones and Dunlap 
grew until it involved a large part of the com- 
munity. On Dec. 7, 1808, Dunlap shot down 
Jones in cold blood and without warning in 



the streets of Kaskaskia, killing him instantly. 
The murderer fled to Texas and was never heard 
of about Kaskaskia afterwards. This incident 
furnishes the basis of the most graphic chapter 
in Mrs. Catherwood's story of "Old Kaskaskia." 
Prompted by this tragical affair, no doubt, the 
Governor and Territorial Judges, in 1810, framed a 
stringent law for the suppression of dueling, in 
which, in case of a fatal result, all parties con- 
nected with the affair, as principals or seconds, 
were held to be guilty of murder. 

Governor Reynolds furnishes the record of a 
duel between Thomas Rector, the member of a 
noted family of that name at Kaskaskia, and one 
Joshua Barton, supposed to have occurred some- 
time during the War of 1812, though no exact 
dates are given. This affair took place on the 
favorite dueling ground known as "Bloody 
Island," opposite St. Louis, so often resorted to 
at a later day, by devotees of "the code" in Mis- 
souri. Reynolds says that "Barton fell in the 
conflict. ' ' 

The next affair of which history makes men- 
tion grew out of a drunken carousel at Belleville, 
in February, 1819, which ended in a duel between 
two men named Alonzo Stuart and William 
Bennett, and the killing of Stuart by Bennett. 
The managers of the affair for the principals are 
said to have agreed that the guns should be loaded 
with blank cartridges, and Stuart was let into the 
secret but Bennett was not. When the order to 
fire came, Bennett's gun proved to have been 
loaded with ball. Stuart fell mortally wounded, 
expiring almost immediately. One report says 
that the duel was intended as a sham, and was so 
understood by Bennett, who was horrified by the 
result. He and his two seconds were arrested for 
murder, but Bennett broke jail and fled to 
Arkansas. The seconds were tried, Daniel P. 
Cook conducting the prosecution and Thomas H. 
Benton defending, the trial resulting in their 
acquittal. Two years later, Bennett was appre- 
hended by some sort of artifice, put on his trial, 
convicted and executed — Judge John Reynolds 
(afterwards Governor) presiding and pronouncing 
sentence. 

In a footnote to "The Edwards Papers," 
edited by the late E. B. Washburne, and printed 
under the auspices of the Chicago Historical 
Society, a few years ago, Mr. Washburne relates 
an incident occurring in Galena about 1838, while 
"The Northwestern Gazette and Galena Adver- 
tiser" was under the charge of Sylvester M. 
Bartlett, who was afterwards one of the founders 
of "The Quincy Whig." The story, as told by 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



L39 



Ii Washburne, is as follows: "David G. Bates 
(a Galena business man and captain of a packet 
plying between St. Louis and Galena) wrote a 
short communication for the paper reflecting on 
the character of John Turney, a prominent law- 
yer who had been a member of the House of 
Representatives in 1828-30, from the District 
composed of Pike, Adams, Fulton, Schuyler, 
Peoria and Jo Daviess Counties. Turney de- 
manded the name of the author and Bartlett gave 
up the name of Bates. Turney refused to take 
any notice of Bates and then challenged Bartlett 
to a duel, which was promptly accepted by Bart- 
lett. The second of Turney was the Hon. Joseph 
P. Hoge, afterward a member of Congress from 
the Galena District. Bartlett's second was 
William A. Warren, now of Bellevue, Iowa." 
(Warren was a prominent Union officer during 
the Civil War.) "The parties went out to the 
ground selected for the duel, in what was then 
Wisconsin Territory, seven miles north of Galena, 
and, after one ineffectual fire, the matter was 
compromised. Subsequently, Bartlett removed 
to Quincy, and was for a long time connected 
with the publication of 'The Quincy Whig.'" 

During the session of the Twelfth General 
Assembly (1841), A. R. Dodge, a Democratic 
Representative from Peoria County, feeling him- 
self aggrieved by some reflections indulged by Gen. 
John J. Hardin (then a Whig Representative 
from Morgan County) upon the Democratic party 
in connection with the partisan reorganization 
of the Supreme Court, threatened to "call out" 
Hardin. The affair was referred to W. L. D. 
Ewing and W. A. Richardson for Dodge, and 
J. J. Brown and E. B. Webb for Hardin, with 
the result that it was amicably adjusted "honor- 
ably to both parties." 

It was during the same session that John A. 
McClernand, then a young and fiery member 
from Gallatin County — who had, two years 
before, been appointed Secretary of State by 
Governor Carlin, but had been debarred from 
taking the office by an adverse decision of the 
Supreme Court — indulged in a violent attack 
upon the Whig members of the Court based upon 
allegations afterwards shown to have been fur- 
nished by Theophilus W. Smith, a Democratic 
member of the same court. Smith having joined 
his associates in a card denying the truth of the 
charges, McClernand responded with the publi- 
cation of the cards of persons tracing the allega- 
tions directly to Smith himself. This brought a 
note from Smith which McClernand construed into 
a challenge and answered with a prompt accept- 



ance. Attorney-General Lamborn, having got 
wind of the affair, lodged a complaint with a 
Springfield Justice of the Peace, which resulted 
in placing the pugnacious jurisi under bonds to 

keep the peace, when lie took his departure for 

Chicago, and the "affair" ended. 

An incident of greater historical interest than 
all the others yet mentioned, was the affair in 
which James Shields and Abraham Lincoln — the 
former the State Auditor and the latter at that 
time a young attorney at Springfield — were con- 
cerned. A communication in doggerel verse had 
appeared in "The Springfield Journal" ridiculing 
the Auditor. Shields made demand upon the 
editor (Mr. Simeon Francis) for the name of the 
author, and, in accordance with previous under- 
standing, the name of Lincoln was given. (Evi- 
dence, later coming to light, showed that the real 
authors were Miss Mary Todd — who, a few im mths 
later, became Mrs. Lincoln — and Miss Julia Jayne, 
afterwards the wife of Senator Trumbull.) 
Shields, through John D. Whiteside, a former 
State Treasurer, demanded a retraction of the 
offensive matter — the demand being presented to 
Lincoln at Tremont, in Tazewell County, where 
Lincoln was attending court. Without attempt- 
ing to follow the affair through all its complicated 
details — Shields having assumed that Lincoln was 
the author without further investigation, and 
Lincoln refusing to make any explanation unless 
the first demand was withdrawn — Lincoln named 
Dr. E. H. Merriman as his second and accepted 
Shield's challenge, naming cavalry broadswords 
as the weapons and the Missouri shore, within 
three miles of the city of Alton, as the place. 
The principals, with their "friends," met at the 
appointed time and place (Sept. 22, 1842, opposite 
the city of Alton): but, in the meantime, mutual 
friends, having been apprised of what was going 
on, also appeared on the ground and brought 
about explanations which averted an actual con- 
flict. Those especially instrumental in bringing 
about this result were Gen. John J. Hardin of 
Jacksonville, and Dr. R. W. English of Greene 
County, while John D. Whiteside. W. L. D. 
Ewing and Dr. T. M. Hope acted as represent- 
atives of Shields, and Dr. E. II. Merriman, 
Dr. A. T. Bledsoe and William Butler for Lincoln. 

Out of this affair, within the next few days, 
followed challenges from Shields to Butler and 
Whiteside to Merriman ; hut. although these were 
accepted, yet owing to some objection on t lie part 
of the challenging party to the conditions named 
by the party challenged, thereby resulting in de- 
lay, no meeting actually took place. 



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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Another affair which bore important results 
without ending in a tragedy, occurred during the 
session of the Constitutional Convention in 1847. 
The parties to it were O. C. Pratt and Thompson 
Campbell — both Delegates from Jo Daviess 
County, and both Democrats. Some sparring 
between them over the question of suffrage for 
naturalized foreigners resulted in an invitation 
from Pratt to Campbell to meet him at the 
Planters' House in St. Louis, with an intimation 
that this was for the purpose of arranging the 
preliminaries of a duel. Both parties were on 
hand before the appointed time, but their arrest 
by the St. Louis authorities and putting them 
under heavy bonds to keep the peace, gave them 
an excuse for returning to their convention 
duties without coming to actual hostilities — if 
they had such intention. This was promptly 
followed by the adoption in Convention of the 
provision of the Constitution of 1848, disqualify- 
ing any person engaged in a dueling affair, either 
as principal or second, from holding any office of 
honor or profit in the State. 

The last and principal affair of this kind of 
historic significance, in which a citizen of Illinois 
was engaged, though not on Illinois soil, was that 
in which Congressman William H. Bissell, after- 
wards Governor of Illinois, and Jefferson Davis 
were concerned in February, 1850. During the 
debate on the "Compromise Measures" of that 
year, Congressman Seddon of Virginia went out 
of his way to indulge in implied reflections upon 
the courage of Northern soldiers as displayed on 
the battle-field of Buena Vista, and to claim for 
the Mississippi regiment commanded by Davis 
the credit of saving the day. Replying to these 
claims Colonel Bissell took occasion to correct the 
Virginia Congressman's statements, and especi- 
ally to vindicate the good name of the Illinois and 
Kentucky troops. In doing so he declared that, 
at the critical moment alluded to by Seddon, 
when the Indiana regiment gave way, Davis's 
regiment was not within a mile and a half of the 
scene of action. This was construed by Davis as 
a reflection upon his troops, and led to a challenge 
which was promptly accepted by Bissell, who 
named the soldier's weapon (the common army 
musket), loaded with ball and buckshot, with 
forty paces as the distance, with liberty to 
advance up to ten — otherwise leaving the pre- 
liminaries to be settled by his friends. The evi- 
dence manifested by Bissell that he was not to be 
intimidated, but was prepared to face death 
itself to vindicate his own honor and that of his 
comrades in the field, was a surprise to the South- 



ern leaders, and they soon found a way for Davis 
to withdraw his challenge on condition that 
Bissell should add to his letter of acceptance a 
clause awarding credit to the Mississippi regi- 
ment for what they actually did, but without dis- 
avowing or retracting a single word he had 
uttered in his speech. In the meantime, it is said 
that President Taylor, who was the father-in-law 
of Davis, having been apprised of what was on 
foot, had taken precautions to prevent a meeting 
by instituting legal proceedings the night before 
it was to take place, though this was rendered 
unnecessary by the act of Davis himself. Thus, 
Colonel Bissell's position was virtually (though 
indirectly) justified by his enemies. It is true, 
he was violently assailed by his political opponents 
for alleged violation of the inhibition in the State 
Constitution against dueling, especially when he 
came to take the oath of office as Governor of 
Illinois, seven years later; but his course in "turn- 
ing the tables' ' against his fire-eating opponents 
aroused the enthusiasm of the North, while his 
friends maintained that the act having been 
performed beyond the jurisdiction of the State, 
he was technically not guilty of any violation of 
the laws. 

While the provision in the Constitution of 1848, 
against dueling, was not re-incorporated in that 
of 1870, the laws on the subject are very strin- 
gent. Besides imposing a penalty of not less than 
one nor more than five years' imprisonment, or a 
fine not exceeding $3,000, upon any one who, as 
principal or second, participates in a duel with a 
deadly weapon, whether such duel proves fatal 
or not, or who sends, carries or accepts a chal- 
lenge: the law also provides that any one con- 
victed of such offense shall be disqualified for 
holding "any office of profit, trust or emolument, 
either civil or military, under the Constitution or 
laws of this State." Any person leaving the 
State to send or receive a challenge is subject to 
the same penalties as if the offense had been 
committed within the State ; and any person who 
may inflict upon his antagonist a fatal wound, as 
the result of an engagement made in this State to 
fight a duel beyond its jurisdiction— when the 
person so wounded dies within this State — is held 
to be guilty of murder and subject to punishment 
for the same. The publishing of any person as a 
coward, or the applying to him of opprobrious or 
abusive language, for refusing to accept a chal- 
lenge, is declared to be a crime punishable by 
fine or imprisonment. 

DUFF, Andrew D. ? lawyer and Judge, was 
born of a family of pioneer settlers in Bond 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



141 



County, 111., Jan. 24, 1820; was educated in the 
country schools, and, from 1842 to 1847, spent his 
time in teaching and as a farmer. The latter 
year he removed to Benton, Franklin County, 
where he began reading law, but suspended his 
studies to enlist in the Mexican War, serving as a 
private; in 1849 was elected County Judge of 
Franklin County, and, in the following year, was 
admitted to the bar. In 1861 he was elected 
Judge for the Twenty-sixth Circuit and re- 
elected in 1807, serving until 1873. He also 
served as a Delegate in the State Constitutional 
Convention of 1862 from the district composed of 
Franklin and Jackson Counties, and, being a 
zealous Democrat, was one of the leaders in 
calling the mass meeting held at Peoria, in 
August, 1864, to protest against the policy of the 
Government in the prosecution of the war. 
About the close of his last term upon the bench 
(1873), he removed to Carbondale, where he con- 
tinued to reside. In his later years he be- 
came an Independent in politics, acting for 
a time in cooperation with the friends of 
temperance. In 1885 he was appointed by joint 
resolution of the Legislature on a commission to 
revise the revenue code of the State. Died, at 
Tucson, Ariz., June 25, 1889. 

DUNCAN, Joseph, Congressman and Gov- 
ernor, was born at Paris, Ky., Feb. 22, 1794; 
emigrated to Illinois in 1818, having previously 
served with distinction in the War of 1812, and 
been presented with a sword, by vote of Congress, 
for gallant conduct in the defense of Fort Stephen- 
son. He was commissioned Major-General of 
Illinois militia in 1823 and elected State Senator 
from Jackson County in 1824. He served in the 
lower house of Congress from 1827 to 1834, when 
he resigned his seat to occupy the gubernatorial 
chair, to which he was elected the latter year. He 
was the author of the first free-school law, 
adopted in 1825. His executive policy was con- 
servative and consistent, and his administration 
successful. He erected the first frame building 
at Jacksonville, in 1834, and was a liberal friend 
of Illinois College at that place. In his personal 
character he was kindly, genial and unassuming, 
although fearless in the expression of his convic- 
tions. He was the Whig candidate for Governor 
in 1842, when he met with his first political 
defeat. Died, at Jacksonville, Jan. 15, 1844, 
mourned by men of all parties. 

DUNCAN, Thomas, soldier, was born in Kas- 
kaskia, 111., April 14, 1809; served as a private in 
the Illinois mounted volunteers during the Black 
Hawk War of 1832 ; also as First Lieutenant of 



cavalry in the regular army in the Mexican War 
(1846), and as Major and Lieutenant-Colonel 
during the War of the Rebellion, still later doing 
duty upon the frontier keeping the Indians in 
check. He was retired from active service in 
1873, and died in Washington, Jan. 7, 1887. 

DUNDEE, a town on Fox River, in Kane 
County, 5 miles (by rail) north of Elgin and 47 
miles west-northwest of Chicago. It has two 
distinct corporations — East and West Dundee — 
but is progressive and united in action. Dairy 
farming is the principal industry of the adjacent 
region, and the town has two large milk-con- 
densing plants, a cheese factory, etc. It has good 
water power and there are flour and saw-mills, 
besides brick and tile-works, an.extensive nursery, 
two banks, six churches, a handsome high school 
building, a public library and one weekly paper. 
Population (1890), 2,023; (1900), 2,765. 

DUNHAM, John High, banker and Board of 
Trade operator, was born in Seneca County, 
N. Y., 1817; came to Chicago in 1844, engaged in 
the wholesale grocery trade, and, a few years 
later, took a prominent part in solving the ques- 
tion of a water supply for the city ; was elected to 
the Twentieth General Assembly (1856) and the 
next year assisted in organizing the Merchants' 
Loan & Trust Company, of which he became the 
first President, retiring five years later and re- 
engaging in the mercantile business. While 
Hon. Hugh McCullough was Secretary of the 
Treasury, he was appointed National Bank 
Examiner for Illinois, serving until 1866. He 
was a member of the Chicago Historical Society, 
the Academy of Sciences, and an early member 
of the Board of Trade. Died, April 28, 1893, 
leaving a large estate. 

DUNHAM, Ransom W., merchant and Con- 
gressman, was born at Savoy, Mass., March 21, 
1838 ; after graduating from the High School at 
Springfield, Mass., in 1855, was connected with 
the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Com- 
pany until August, 1860. In 1857 he removed 
from Springfield to Chicago, and at the termina- 
tion of his connection with the Insurance Com- 
pany, embarked in the grain and provision 
commission business in that city, and, in 1882. 
was President of the Chicago Board of Trade. 
From 1**3 to 1889 ho represented the First Illinois 
District in Congress, after the expiration of his 
last term devoting his attention to his large 
private business. His death took place suddenly 
at Springfield, Mass.. August 19, 1896. 

DUNLAPj <«eorge Lincoln, civil engineer ami 
Railway Superintendent, was born at Brunswick, 



142 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Maine, in 1828 ; studied mathematics and engineer- 
ing at Gorham Academy, and, after several 
years' experience on the Boston & Maine and the 
New York & Erie Railways, came west in 1855 
and accepted a position as assistant engineer on 
what is now the Chicago & Northwestern Rail- 
road, finally becoming its General Superintend- 
ent, and, in fourteen years of his connection with 
that road, vastly extending its lines. Between 
1872 and '79 he was connected with the Montreal 
& Quebec Railway, but the latter year returned 
to Illinois and was actively connected with the 
extension of the Wabash system until his retire- 
ment a few years ago. 

DUNLAP, Henry M., horticulturist and legis- 
lator, was born in Cook County, 111., Nov. 14, 
1853 — the son of M. L. Dunlap (the well-known 
"Rural"), who became a prominent horticulturist 
In Champaign County and was one of the found- 
ers of the State Agricultural Society. The family 
having located at Savoy, Champaign County, 
about 1857, the younger Dunlap was educated in 
the University of Illinois, graduating in the 
scientific department in 1875. Following in the 
footsteps of his father, he engaged extensively 
in fruit-growing, and has served in the office of 
both President and Secretary of the State Horti- 
cultural Society, besides local offices. In 1892 he 
was elected as a Republican to the State Senate 
for the Thirtieth District, was re-elected in 1896, 
and has been prominent in State legislation. 

DUNLAP, Mathias Lane, horticulturist, was 
born at Cherry Valley, N. Y., Sept. 14, 1814; 
coming to La Salle County, 111., in 1835, he 
taught school the following winter ; then secured 
a clerkship in Chicago, and later became book- 
keeper for a firm of contractors on the Illinois & 
Michigan Canal, remaining two years. Having 
entered a body of Government land in the western 
part of Cook County, he turned his attention to 
farming, giving a portion of his time to survey- 
ing. In 1845 he became interested in horticulture 
and, in a few years, built up one of the most 
extensive nurseries in the West. In 1854 he was 
chosen a Representative in the Nineteenth Gen- 
eral Assembly from Cook County, and, at the 
following session, presided over the caucus which 
resulted in the nomination and final election of 
Lyman Trumbull to the United States Senate for 
the first time. Politically an anti-slavery Demo- 
crat, he espoused the cause of freedom in the 
Territories, while his house was one of the depots 
of the "underground railroad." In 1855 he pur- 
chased a half-section of land near Champaign, 
whither he removed, two years later, for the 



prosecution of his nursery business. He was an 
active member, for many years, of the State Agri- 
cultural Society and an earnest supporter of the 
scheme for the establishment of an "Industrial 
University, ' ' which finally took form in the Uni- 
versity of Illinois at Champaign. From 1853 to 
his death he was the agricultural correspondent, 
first of "The Chicago Democratic Press," and 
later of "The Tribune," writing over the nom de 
plume of "Rural." Died, Feb. 14, 1875. 

DU PAGE COUNTY, organized in 1839, named 
for a river which flows through it. It adjoins 
Cook County on the west and contains 340 square 
miles. In 1900 its population was 28,196. The 
county-seat was originally at Naperville, which 
was platted in 1842 and named in honor of Capt. 
Joseph Naper, who settled upon the site in 1831. 
In 1869 the county government was removed to 
Wheaton, the location of Wheaton College, 
where it yet remains. Besides Captain Naper, 
early settlers of prominence were Bailey Hobson 
(the pioneer in the township of Lisle), and Pierce 
Downer (in Downer's Gi - ove). The chief towns 
are Wheaton (population, 1,622), Naperville 
(2,216), Hinsdale (1,584), Downer's Grove (960), 
and Roselle C450). Hinsdale and Roselle are 
largely populated by persons doing business in 
Chicago. 

DU QUOIN, a city and railway junction in 
Perry County, 76 miles north of Cairo; has a 
foundry, machine shops, planing-mill, flour mills, 
salt works, ice factory, soda-water factory, 
creamery, coal mines, graded school, public 
library and four newspapers. Population (1890), 
4,052; (1900), 4,353; (1903, school census), 5,207. 

DURBOROW, Allan Cathcart, ex-Congress- 
man, was born in Philadelphia, Nov. 20, 1857. 
When five years old he accompanied his parents 
to Williamsport, Ind., where he received his 
early education. He entered the preparatory 
department of Wabash College in 1872, and 
graduated from the University of Indiana, at 
Bloomington, in 1877. After two years' residence 
in Indianapolis, he removed to Chicago, where he 
engaged in business. Always active in local 
politics, he was elected by the Democrats in 1890, 
and again in 1892, Representative in Congress 
from the Second District, retiring with the close 
of the Fifty-third Congress. Mr. Durborow is 
Treasurer of the Chicago Air-Line Express Com- 
pany. 

DUSTIN, (Gen.) Daniel, soldier, was born in 
Topsham, Orange County, Vt., Oct. 5, 1820; 
received a common-school and academic educa- 
tion, graduating in medicine at Dartmouth Col- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



143 



lege in 184G. After practicing three years at 
Corinth, Vt. , lie went to California in 1850 and 
engaged in mining, but three years later resumed 
the practice of his profession while conducting a 
mercantile business. He was subsequently chosen 
to the California Legislature from Nevada 
County, but coming to Illinois in 1858, he 
engaged in the drug business at Sycamore, De 
Kalb County, in connection with J. E. Elwood. 
On the breaking out of the war in 1861, he sold 
out his drug business and assisted in raising the 
Eighth Regiment Illinois Cavalry, and was com- 
missioned Captain of Company L. The regiment 
was assigned to the Army of the Potomac, and, 
in January, 18G2, he was promoted to the position 
of Major, afterwards taking part in the battle of 
Manassas, and the great "seven days' fight" 
before Richmond. In September, 1862, the One 
Hundred and Fifth Regiment Illinois Volunteer 
Infantry was mustered in at Dixon, and Major 
Dustin was commissioned its Colonel, soon after 
joining the Army of the Cumberland. After the 
Atlanta campaign he was assigned to the com- 
mand of a brigade in the Third Division of the 
Twelfth Army Corps, remaining in this position 
to the close of the war, meanwhile having been 
brevetted Brigadier-General for bravery displayed 
on the battle-field at Averysboro, N. C. He was 
mustered out at Washington, June 7, 1865, and 
took part in the grand review of the armies in 
that city which marked the close of the war. 
Returning to his home in De Kalb County, he 
was elected County Clerk in the following 
November, remaining in office four years. Sub- 
sequently he was chosen Circuit Clerk and ex- 
officio Recorder, and was twice thereafter 
re-elected — in 1884 and 1888. On the organization 
of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Quincy, in 
1885, he was appointed by Governor Oglesby one 
of the Trustees, retaining the position until his 
death. In May, 1890, he was appointed by 
President Harrison Assistant United States 
Treasurer at Chicago, but died in office while on 
a visit with his daughter at Carthage, Mo. , March 
30, 1892. General Dustin was a Mason of high 
degree, and, in 1872, was chosen Right Eminent 
Commander of the Grand Commandery of the 
State. 

DWIGIHT, a prosperous city in Livingston 
County, 74 miles, by rail, south-southwest of Chi- 
cago, 52 miles northeast of Bloomington, and 22 
miles east of Streator ; has two banks, two weekly 
papers, six churches, five large warehouses, two 
electric light plants, complete water-works sys- 
tem, and four hotels. The city is the center of a 



rich farming and stock-raising district. Dwight 
has attained celebrity as the location of the first 
of "Keeley Institutes," founded for the cure of 
the drink and morphine habit. Population 
(1890), 1,354; (1900), 2,015. These figures do not 
include the floating population, which is 
augmented by patients who receive treatment 
at the "Keeley Institute." 

DYER, Charles Volney, M.D., pioneer physi- 
cian, was born at Clarendon, Vt., June 12, 1808; 
graduated in medicine at Middlebury College, in 
1830; began practice at Newark, N. J., in 1831, 
and in Chicago in 1835. He was an uncomprom- 
ising opponent of slavery and an avowed sup- 
porter of the "underground railroad," and, in 
1848, received the support of the Free-Soil party 
of Illinois for Governor. Dr. Dyer was also one 
of the original incorporators of the North Chicago 
Street Railway Company, and his name was 
prominently identified with many local benevo- 
lent enterprises. Died, in Lake View (then a 
suburb of Chicago), April 24, 1878. 

EARLYILLE, a city and railway junction in 
La Salle County, 52 miles northeast of Princeton, 
at the intersecting point of the Chicago, Burling- 
ton & Quincy and the Chicago & Northwestern 
Railroads. It is in the center of an agricultural 
and stock-raising district, and is an important 
shipping-point. It has seven churches, a graded 
school, one bank, two weekly newspapers and 
manufactories of plows, wagons and carriages. 
Population (1880), 963; (1890), 1,058; (1900), 1,122. 

EARLY, John, legislator and Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, was born of American parentage and Irish 
ancestry in Essex County, Canada West, March 
17, 1828, and accompanied his parents to Cale- 
donia, Boone County, 111., in 1846. His boyhood 
was passed upon his father's farm, and in youth 
he learned the trade (his father's) of carpenter 
and joiner. In 1852 he removed to Rockford, 
Winnebago County, and, in 1865, became State 
Agent of the New England Mutual Life Insur- 
ance Company. Between 1863 and 1866 he held 
sundry local offices, and, in 1869, was appointed 
by Governor Palmer a Trustee of the State 
Reform School. In 1870 he was elected State 
Senator and re-elected in 1874, serving in the 
Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, Twenty-ninth 
and Thirtieth General Assemblies. In 1873 he 
was elected President pro tern, of the Senate, and, 
Lieut-Gov. Beveridge succeeding to the executive 
chair, he became ex-officio Lieutenant-Governor. 
In 1875 he was again the Republican nominee for 
the Presidency of the Senate, but >vas defeated 



144 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



by a coalition of Democrats and Independents. 
He died while a member of the Senate, Sept. 2, 
1877. 

EARTHQUAKE OF 1811. A series of the 
most remarkable earthquakes in the history of 
the Mississippi Valley began on the night of 
November 16, 1811, continuing for several months 
and finally ending with the destruction of Carac- 
cas, Venezuela, in March following. While the 
center of the earlier disturbance appears to have 
been in the vicinity of New Madrid, in Southeast- 
ern Missouri, its minor effects were felt through 
a wide extent of country, especially in the 
settled portions of Illinois. Contemporaneous 
history states that, in the American Bottom, then 
the most densely settled portion of Illinois, the 
results were very perceptible. The walls of a 
brick house belonging to Mr. Samuel Judy, a 
pioneer settler in the eastern edge of the bottom, 
near Edwardsville, Madison County, were cracked 
by the convulsion, the effects being seen for more 
than two generations. Gov. John Reynolds, then 
a young man of 23, living with his father's 
family in what was called the "Goshen Settle- 
ment," near Edwardsville, in his history of "My 
Own Times," says of it: "Our family were all 
sleeping in a log-cabin, and my father leaped out 
of bed, crying out, 'The Indians are on the house. 
The battle of Tippecanoe had been recently 
fought, and it was supposed the Indians would 
attack the settlements. Not one in the family 
knew at that time it was an earthquake. The 
next morning another shock made us acquainted 
with it. . . . The cattle car ->, running home 
bellowing with fear, and all p .nals were terribly 
alarmed. Our house cracke c aid quivered so we 
were fearful it would fall to the ground. In the 
American Bottom many chimneys were thrown 
down, an the church bell at Cahokia was 
sounded by the agitation of the building. It is 
said a shock of an earthquake was felt in Kaskas- 
kia in 1804, but I did not perceive it." Owing to 
the sparseness of the population in Illinois at that 
time, but little is known of the effect of the con- 
vulsion of 1811 elsewhere, but there are numerous 
"sink-holes" in Union and adjacent counties, 
between the forks of the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers, which probably owe their origin to this or 
some similar disturbance. "On the Kaskaskia 
River below Athens," says Governor Reynolds in 
his "Pioneer History," "the water and white sand 
were thrown up through a fissure of the earth." 

EAST DUBUQUE, an incorporated city of Jo 
Daviess County, on the east bank of the Missis- 
sippi, 17 miles (by rail) northeast of Galena. It 



is connected with Dubuque, Iowa, by a railroad 
and a wagon bridge two miles in length. It has 
a grain elevator, a box factory, a planing mill 
and manufactories of cultivators and sand drills. 
It has also a bank, two churches, good public 
schools and a weekly newspaper. Population 
(1880), 1,037; (1890), 1,069; (1900), 1,146. 

EASTON, (Col.) Rufus, pioneer, founder of the 
city of Alton; was born at Litchfield, Conn., 
May 4, 1774; studied law and practiced two 
years in Oneida County, N. Y. ; emigrated to St. 
Louis in 1804, and was commissioned by President 
Jefferson Judge of the Territory of Louisiana, 
and also became the first Postmaster of St. Louis, 
in 1808. From 1814 to 1818 he served as Delegate 
in Congress from Missouri Territory, and, on the 
organization of the State of Missouri (1821), was 
appointed Attorney-General for the State, serving 
until 1826. His death occurred at St. Charles, 
Mo., July 5, 1834. Colonel Easton's connection 
with Illinois history is based chiefly upon the 
fact that he was the founder of the present city 
of Alton, which he laid out, in 1817, on a tract of 
land of which he had obtained possession at the 
mouth of the Little Piasa Creek, naming the 
town for his son. Rev. Thomas Lippincott, 
prominently identified with the early history of 
that portion of the State, kept a store for Easton 
at Milton, on Wood River, about two miles from 
Alton, in the early " '20's." 

EAST ST. LOUIS, a flourishing city in St. Clair 
County, on the east bank of the Mississippi di- 
rectly opposite St. Louis; is the terminus of 
twenty-two railroads and several electric lines, 
and the leading commercial and manufacturing 
point in Southern Illinois. Its industries include 
rolling mills, steel, brass, malleable iron and 
glass works, grain elevators and flour mills, 
breweries, stockyards and packing houses. The 
city has eleven public and five parochial schools, 
one high school, and two colleges; is well sup- 
plied with banks and has one daily and four 
weekly papers. Population (1890), 15,169; (1900), 
29,655; (1903, est.), 40,000. 

EASTERN HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE. 
The act for the establishment of this institution 
passed the General Assembly in 1877. Many 
cities offered inducements, by way of donations, 
for the location of the new hospital, but the site 
finally selected was a farm of 250 acres near Kan- 
kakee, and this was subsequently enlarged by the 
purchase of 327 additional acres in 1881. Work 
was begun in 1878 and the first patients received 
in December, 1879. The plan of the institution 
is, in many respects, unique. It comprises a 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



145 



general buildinsr. three stories high, capable of 
accommodating 300 to 400 patients, and ;i number 
of detached buildings, technically termed cot- 
tages, where various classes of insane patients may 
be grouped and receive the particular treatment 
best adapted to ensure their recovery. The plans 
were mainly worked out from suggestions by 
Frederick Howard Wines, LL.D., then Secretary 
of the Board of Public Charities, and have 
attracted generally favorable comment both in 
this country and abroad. The seventy -five build- 
ings occupied for the various purposes of the 
institution, cover a quarter-section of land laid off 
in regular streets, beautified with trees, plants 
and flowers, and presenting all the appearance of 
a flourishing village with numerous small parks 
adorned with walks and drives. The counties 
from which patients are received include Cook, 
Champaign, Coles, Cumberland, De Witt, Doug- 
las, Edgar, Ford, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, 
La Salle, Livingston, Macon, McLean, Moultrie 
Piatt, Shelby, Vermilion and Will. The whole 
number of patients in 1898 was 2,200, while the 
employes of all classes numbered 500. 

EASTERN ILLINOIS NORMAL SCHOOL, an 
institution designed to qualify teachers for giving 
instruction in the public schools, located at 
Charleston, Coles County, under an act of the 
Legislature passed at the session of 1895. The 
act appropriated §50,000 for the erection of build- 
ings, to which additional appropriations were 
added in 1897 and 1898, of $25,000 and $50,000, 
respectively, with $56,216.72 contributed by the 
city of Charleston, making a total of $181,216.72. 
The building was begun in 1896, the corner-stone 
being laid on May 27 of that year. There was 
delay in the progress of the work in consequence 
of the failure of the contractors in December, 
1896, but the work was resumed in 1897 and 
practically completed early in 1899, with the 
expectation that the institution would be opened 
for the reception of students in September fol- 
lowing. 

EASTMAN, Zebina, anti-slavery journalist, 
was born at North Amherst, Mass., Sept. 8, 1815; 
became a printer's apprentice at 14, but later 
spent a short time in an academy at Hadley. 
Then, after a brief experience as an employe in 
the office of "The Hartford Pearl," at the age of 
18 he invested his patrimony of some $2,000 in 
the establishment of "The Free Press" at Fayette- 
ville, Vt. This venture proving unsuccessful, in 
1837 he came west, stopping a year or two at 
Ann Arbor, Mich. In 1839 he visited Peoria by 
way of Chicago, working for a time on "The 



Peoria Register, " but soon after joined Benjamin 
Lundy, who was preparing to revive his paper, 
"The Genius of Universal Emancipation," at 
Lowell, La Salle County. This scheme was 
partially defeated by Lundy s early death, but, 
after a few months' delay, Eastman, in conjunc- 
tion with Hooper Warren, began the publication 
of "The Genius of Liberty" as the successor of 
Lundy's paper, using the printing press which 
Warren had used in the office of "The Commcr 
cial Advertiser, "in Chicago, a year or so before. In 
1842, at the invitation of prominent Abolitionists, 
the paper was removed to Chicago, where it w;is 
issued under the name of "The Western Citizen," 
in 1853 becoming "The Free West," and finally, 
in 1856, being merged in "The Chicago Tribune." 
After the suspension of "The Free West," Mr. 
Eastman began the publication of "The Chicago 
Magazine," a literary and historical monthly, 
but it reached only its fifth number, when it was 
discontinued for want of financial -upport. In 
1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln 
United States Consul at Bristol, England, where 
he remained eight years. On his return from 
Europe, he took up his residence at Elgin, later 
removing to Maywood, a suburb of Chicago, 
where he died, June 14, 1883. During the latter 
years of his life Mr. Eastman contributed many 
articles of great historical interest to the Chi- 
cago press. (See Lundy, Benjamin, and Warren, 
Hooper. ) 

EBERHART, John Frederick, educator and 
real-estate operator, was born in Mercer County, 
Pa., Jan. 21, 1^9; commenced teaching at 16 
years of age, an, -pi 1853, graduated from Alle- 
gheny College, at ,„.>adville, soon after becoming 
Principal of Albright Seminary at Berlin, in the 
same State ; in 1855 came west by way of Chicago, 
locating at Dixon and engaging in ec" prial work ; 
a year later established "The Northwestern 
Home and School Journal," which he published 
three years, in the meantime establishing and 
conducting teachers' institutes in Illinois, Iowa 
and Wisconsin. In 1859 he was elected School 
Commissioner of Cook County — a position which 
was afterwards changed to County Superintend- 
ent of Schools, and which he held ten years. Mr. 
Eberhart was largely instrumental in the estab 
lishment of the Cook County Normal School. 
Since retiring from office he has been engaged in 
the real-estate business in Chicago. 

ECKHART, Bernard A., manufacturer and 
President of the Chicago Drainage Board, was 
born in Alsace, France (now Germany), brought 
to America in infancy and reared on a farm in 



146 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Vernon County, Wis. ; was educated at Milwau- 
kee, and, in 1868, became clerk in the office of the 
Eagle Milling Company of that city, afterwards 
serving as its Eastern agent in various seaboard 
cities. He finally established an extensive mill- 
ing business in Chicago, in which he is now 
engaged. In 1884 he served as a delegate to the 
National "Waterway Convention at St. Paul and, 
in 1886, was elected to the State Senate, serving 
four years and taking a prominent part in draft- 
ing the Sanitary Drainage Bill passed by the 
Thirty-sixth General Assembly. He has also been 
prominent in connection with various financial 
institutions, and, in 1891, was elected one of the 
Trustees of the Sanitary District of Chicago, was 
re-elected in 1895 and chosen President of the 
Board for the following year, and re-elected Pres- 
ident in December, 1898. 

EDBROOKE, Willoughby J., Supervising 
Architect, was born at Deerfield, Lake County, 
111., Sept. 3, 1843; brought up to the architectural 
profession by his father and under the instruc- 
tion of Chicago architects. During Mayor 
Roche's administration he held the position of 
Commissioner of Public Works, and, in April, 
1891, was appointed Supervising Architect of the 
Treasury Department at Washington, in that 
capacity supervising the construction of Govern- 
ment buildings at the World's Columbian Exposi- 
tion. Died, in Chicago, March 26, 1896. 

EDDY, Henry, pioneer lawyer and editor, 
was born in Vermont, in 1798, reared in New 
York, learned the printer's trade at Pittsburg, 
served in the War of 1812, and was wounded in 
the battle of Black Rock, near Buffalo ; came to 
Shawneetown, 111., in 1818, where he edited "The 
Illinois Emigrant," the earliest paper in that 
part of the State ; was a Presidential Elector in 
1824, a Representative in the Second and Fif- 
teenth General Assemblies, and elected a Circuit 
Judge in 1835, but resigned a few weeks later. 
He was a Whig in politics. Usher F. Linder, in 
his "Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar 
of Illinois," says of Mr. Eddy: "When he 
addressed the court, he elicited the most profound 
attention. He was a sort of walking law library. 
He never forgot anything that he ever knew, 
whether law, poetry or belles lettres." Died, 
June 29, 1849. 

EDDY, Thomas Mears, clergyman and author, 
was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, Sept. 7, 
]-"■!■',: educated at Greensborough, Ind., and, from 
1842 to 1853, was a Methodist circuit preacher 
in that State, becoming Agent of the American 
Bible Society the latter year, and Presiding 



Elder of the Indianapolis district until 1856, when 
he was appointed editor of "The Northwestern 
Christian Advocate," in Chicago, retiring from 
that position in 1868. Later, he held pastorates 
in Baltimore and Washington, and was chosen 
one of the Corresponding Secretaries of the Mis- 
sionary Society by the General Conference of 
1872. Dr. Eddy was a copious writer for the 
press, and, besides occasional sermons, published 
two volumes of reminiscences and personal 
sketches of prominent Illinoisans in the War of 
the Rebellion under the title of "Patriotism of 
Illinois" (1865). Died, in New York City, Oct. 
7, 1874. 

EDGAR, John, early settler at Kaskaskia, was 
born in Ireland and, during the American Revo- 
lution, served as an officer in the British navy, 
but married an American woman of great force 
of character who sympathized strongly with the 
patriot cause. Having become involved in the 
desertion of three British soldiers whom his wife 
had promised to assist in reaching the American 
camp, he was compelled to flee. After remaining 
for a while in the American army, during which 
he became the friend of General La Fayette, he 
sought safety by coming west, arriving at Kas- 
kaskia in 1784. His property was confiscated, but 
his wife succeeded in saving some S12,000 from 
the wreck, with which she joined him two years 
later. He engaged in business and became an 
extensive land-owner, being credited, during 
Territorial days, with the ownership of nearly 
50,000 acres situated in Randolph, Monroe, St. 
Clair, Madison, Clinton, Washington, Perry and 
Jackson Counties, and long known as the "Edgar 
lands." He also purchased and rebuilt a mill 
near Kaskaskia which had belonged to a French- 
man named Paget, and became a large shipper of 
flour at an early day to the Southern markets. 
When St. Clair County was organized, in 1790, he 
was appointed one of the Judges of the Common 
Pleas Court, and so appears to have continued 
for more than a quarter of a century. On the 
establishment of a Territorial Legislature for the 
Northwest Territory, he was chosen, in 1799, one 
of the members for St. Clair County — the Legis- 
lature holding its session at Chillicothe, in the 
present State of Ohio, under the administration 
of Governor St. Clair. He was also appointed a 
Major-General of militia, retaining the office for 
many years. General and Mrs. Edgar were 
leaders of society at the old Territorial capital, 
and, on the visit of La Fayette to Kaskaskia in 
1825, a reception was given at their house to the 
distinguished Frenchman, whose acquaintance 



HISTORICAL KM Y< LOI'HDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



147 



the} - had made more than forty years before. He 
died at Kaskaskia, in 1832. Edgar County, in the 
eastern part of the State, was named in honor of 
General Edgar. He was Worshipful Master of 
the first Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted 
Masons in Illinois, constituted at Kaskaskia in 
1806. 

EDGAR COUNTY, one of the middle tier of 
counties from north to south, lying on the east- 
ern border of the State; was organized in 1823, 
and named for General Edgar, an early citizen of 
Kaskaskia. It contains 630 square miles, with 
a population (1900) of 28,273. The county is 
nearly square, well watered and wooded. Most 
of the acreage is under cultivation, grain-growing 
and stock-raising being the principal industries. 
Generally, the soil is black to a considerable 
depth, though at some points — especially adjoin- 
ing the timber lands in the east — the soft, brown 
clay of the subsoil comes to the surface. Beds of 
the drift period, one hundred feet deep, are found 
in the northern portion, and some twenty-five 
years ago a nearly perfect skeleton of a mastodon 
was exhumed. A bed of limestone, twenty -five 
feet thick, crops out near Baldwinsville and runs 
along Brouillet's creek to the State line. Paris, the 
county-seat, is a railroad center, and has a popu- 
lation of over 6,000. Vermilion and Dudley are 
prominent shipping points, while Chrisman, 
which was an unbroken prairie in 1872, was 
credited with a population of 900 in 1900. 

EDINBURG, a village of Christian County, on 
the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway, 18 
miles southeast of Springfield; has two banks 
and one newspaper. The region is agricultural, 
though some coal is mined here. Population 
(1880), 551; (1890), 806; (1900), 1,071. 

EDS ALL, James Eirtland, former Attorney 
General, was born at Windham, Greene County, 
N. Y., May 10, 1831. After passing through the 
common-schools, he attended an academy at 
Prattsville, N.Y., supporting himself , meanwhile, 
by working upon a farm. He read law at Pratts- 
ville and Catskill, and was admitted to the bar at 
Albany in 1852. The next two years he spent in 
Wisconsin and Minnesota, and, in 1854, removed 
to Leavenworth, Kan. He was elected to the 
Legislature of that State in 1855, being a member 
of the Topeka (free-soil) body when it was broken 
up by United States troops in 1856. In August, 
1856, he settled at Dixon, 111., and at once 
engaged in practice. In 1863 he was elected 
Mayor of that city, and, in 1870, was chosen State 
Senator, serving on the Committees on Munic- 
ipalities and Judiciary in the Twenty-seventh 



General Assembly. In 1872 lie was elected 
Attorney-General on the Republican ticket and 
re-elected in 1876. At the expiration of his 
second term he took up his residence in < Chicago, 
where he afterwards devoted himself to the prac- 
tice of his profession, until his death, which 
occurred, June 20, 1892. 

EDUCATION. 

The first step in the direction of the establish- 
ment of a system of free schools for the region 
now comprised within the State of Illinois was 
taken in the enactment by Congress, on May 20, 
1785, of "An Ordinance for Ascertaining the 
mode of disposing of lands in the Western Terri- 
tory." This applied specifically to the region 
northwest of the Ohio River, which had been 
acquired through the conquest of the "Illinois 
Country" by Col. George Rogers Clark, acting 
under the auspices of the State of Virginia and 
by authority received from its Governor, the 
patriotic Patrick Henry. This act for the first 
time established the present system of township 
(or as it was then called, "rectangular") surveys, 
devised by Capt. Thomas Hutchins, who became 
the first Surveyor-General (or "Geographer," as 
the office was styled) of the United States under 
the same act. Its important feature, in this con- 
nection, was the provision "that there shall be 
reserved the lot No. 16 of every township, for the 
maintenance of public schools within the town- 
ship. " The same reservation (the term "section" 
being substituted for "lot" in the act of May 18, 
1796) was made in all subsequent acts for the sale 
of public lands — the acts of July 23, 1787, and 
June 20, 1788, declaring that "the lot No. 16 in 
each township, or fractional part of a township," 
shall be "given perpetually for the purpose con- 
tained in said ordinance" (i. e., the act of 1785), 
The next step was taken in the Ordinance of 17S7 
(Art. III.), in the declaration that, "religion, 
morality and knowledge being necessary for the 
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of 
education shall forever be encouraged." The 
reservation referred to in the act of 1785 (and 
subsequent acts) was reiterated in the "enabling 
act" passed by Congress, April 18, 1818, authoriz- 
ing the people of Illinois Territory to organize a 
State Government, and was formally accepted by 
the Convention which formed the first State 
Constitution. The enabling act also set apart one 
entire township (in addition to one previously 
donated for the same purpose by act of Congress 
in 1804) for the use of a seminary of learning, 



148 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



together with three per cent of the net proceeds 
of the sales of public lands within the State, "to 
be appropriated by the Legislature of the State 
for the encouragement of learning, of which one- 
sixth part" (or one-half of one per cent) "shall 
be exclusively bestowed on a college or univer- 
sity." Thus, the plan for the establishment of a 
system of free public education in Illinois had its 
inception in the first steps for the organization of 
the Northwest Territory, was recognized in the 
Ordinance of 1787 which reserved that Territory 
forever to freedom, and was again reiterated in 
the preliminary steps for the organization of the 
State Government. These several acts became 
the basis of that permanent provision for the 
encouragement of education known as the "town- 
ship," "seminary" and "college or university" 
funds. 

Early Schools. — Previous to this, however, a 
beginning had been made in the attempt to estab- 
lish schools for the benefit of the children of the 
pioneers. One John Seeley is said to have taught 
the first American school within the territory of 
Illinois, in a log-cabin in Monroe County, in 1783, 
followed by others in the next twenty years in 
Monroe, Randolph, St. Clair and Madison Coun- 
ties. Seeley's earliest successor was Francis 
Clark, who, in turn, was followed by a man 
named Halfpenny, who afterwards built a mill 
near the present town of Waterloo in Monroe 
County. Among the teachers of a still later period 
were John Boyle, a soldier in Col. George Eogers 
Clark's army, who taught in Randolph County 
between 1790 and 1800; John Atwater, near 
Edwardsville, in 1807, and John Messinger, a sur- 
veyor, who was a member of the Constitutional 
Convention of 1818 and Speaker of the first House 
of Representatives. The latter taught in the 
vicinity of Shiloh in St. Clair County, afterwards 
the site of Rev. John M. Peck's Rock Spring 
Seminary. The schools which existed during 
this period, and for many years after the organi- 
zation of the State Government, were necessarily 
few, widely scattered and of a very primitive 
character, receiving their support entirely by 
subscription from their patrons. 

First Free School Law and Sales op 
School Lands. — It has been stated that the first 
free school in the State was established at Upper 
Alton, in 1821, but there is good reason for believ- 
ing this claim was based upon the power granted 
by the Legislature, in an act passed that year, to 
establish such schools there, which power was 
never carried into effect. The first attempt to 
establish a free-school system for the whole State 



was made in January, 1825, in the passage of a 
bill introduced by Joseph Duncan, afterwards a 
Congressman and Governor of the State. It 
nominally appropriated two dollars out of each one 
hundred dollars received in the State Treasury, 
to be distributed to those who had paid taxes or 
subscriptions for the support of schools. So 
small was the aggregate revenue of the State at 
that time (only a little over $60,000), that the 
sum realized from this law would have been but 
little more than $1,000 per year. It remained 
practically a dead letter and was repealed in 1829, 
when the State inaugurated the policy of selling 
the seminary lands and borrowing the proceeds 
for the payment of current expenses. In this 
way 43,200 acres (or all but four and a half sec- 
tions) of the seminary lands were disposed of, 
realizing less than $60,000. The first sale of 
township school lands took place in Greene 
County in 1831, and, two years later, the greater 
part of the school section in the 1 heart of the 
present city of Chicago was sold, producing 
about $39,000. The average rate at which these 
sales were made, up to 1882, was $3.78 per acre, 
and the minimum, 70 cents per acre. That 
these lands have, in very few instances, produced 
the results expected of them, was not so much 
the fault of the system as of those selected to 
administer it — whose bad judgment in premature 
sales, or whose complicity with the schemes of 
speculators, were the means, in many cases, of 
squandering what might otherwise have furnished 
a liberal provision for the support of public 
schools in many sections of the State. Mr. W. L. 
Pillsbury, at present Secretary of the University 
of Illinois, in a paper printed in the report of the 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction for 
1885-86 — to which the writer is indebted for many 
of the facts presented in this article — gives to 
Chicago the credit of establishing the first free 
schools in the State in 1834, while Alton followed 
in 1837, and Springfield and Jacksonville in 1840. 
Early Higher Institutions. — A movement 
looking to the establishment of a higher institu- 
tion of learning in Indiana Territory (of which 
Illinois then formed a part), was inaugurated by 
the passage, through the Territorial Legislature at 
Vincennes, in November, 1806, of an act incorpo- 
rating the University of Indiana Territory to be 
located at Vincennes. One provision of the act 
authorized the raising of $20,000 for the institu- 
tion by means of a lottery. A Board of Trustees 
was promptly organized, with Gen. William 
Henry Harrison, then the Territorial Governor, 
at its head ; but, beyond the erection of a building, 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



149 



little progress was made. Twenty-one years 
later (1827) the first successful attempt to found 
an advanced school was made by the indomitable 
Rev. John M. Peck, resulting in the establish- 
ment of his Theological Seminary and High 
School at Rock Springs, St. Clair County, which, 
in 1831, became the nucleus of Shurtleff College at 
Upper Alton. In like manner, Lebanon Semi- 
nary, established in 1828, two years later 
expanded into McKendree College, while instruc- 
tion began to be given at Illinois College, Jack- 
sonville, in December, 1829, as the outcome of a 
movement started by a band of young men at 
Yale College in 1827 — these several institutions 
being formally incorporated by the same act of 
the Legislature, passed in 1835. (See sketches of 
these Institutions.) 

Educational Conventions. — In 1833 there 
was held at Vandalia (then the State capital) the 
first of a series of educational conventions, which 
were continued somewhat irregularly for twenty 
years, and whose history is remarkable for the 
number of those participating in them who after- 
wards gained distinction in State and National 
history. At first these conventions were held at 
the State capital during the sessions of the Gen- 
eral Assembly, when the chief actors in them 
were members of that body and State officers, 
with a few other friends of education from the 
ranks of professional or business men. At the 
convention of 1833, we find, among those partici- 
pating, the names of Sidney Breese, afterwards a 
United States Senator and Justice of the Supreme 
Court ; Judge S. D. Lockwood, then of the Supreme 
Court; W. L. D. Ewing, afterwards acting Gov- 
ernor and United States Senator ; O. H. Browning, 
afterwards United States Senator and Secretary 
of the Interior; James Hall and John Russell, 
the most notable writers in the State in their day, 
besides Dr. J. M. Peck, Archibald Williams, 
Benjamin Mills, Jesse B. Thomas, Henry Eddy 
and others, all prominent in their several depart- 
ments. In a second convention at the same 
place, nearly two years later, Abraham Lincoln, 
Stephen A. Douglas and Col. John J. Hardin 
were participants. At Springfield, in 1840, pro- 
fessional and literary men began to take a more 
prominent part, although the members of the 
Legislature were present in considerable force. 
A convention held at Peoria, in 1844, was made 
up largely of professional teachers and school 
officers, with a few citizens of local prominence; 
and the same may be said of those held at Jack- 
sonville in 1845, and later at Chicago and other 
points. Various attempts were made to form 



permanent educational societies, finally result- 
ing, in December, 1854, in the organization of the 
"State Teachers' Institute," which, three years 
later, took the name of the "State Teachers' 
Association" — though an association of the Bame 
name was organized in L836 and continued in 
existence several years. 

State Superintendent and School Jour- 
nals. — The appointment of a Stale Superintend- 
ent of Public Instruction began to be agitated as 
early as 1837, and was urged from time to time in 
memorials and resolutions by educational conven- 
tions, by the educational press, and in the State 
Legislature; but it was not until February, 1854, 
that an act was passed creating the office, when 
the Hon. Ninian W. Edwards was appointed by 
Gov. Joel A. Matteson, continuing in office until 
his successor was elected in 1856. "The Common 
School Advocate" was published for a year at 
Jacksonville, beginning with January, 1837; in 
1841 "The Illinois Common School Advocate" 
began publication at Springfield, but was discon- 
tinued after the issue of a few numbers. In 1855 
was established "The Illinois Teacher." This 
was merged, in 1873, in "The Illinois School- 
master," which became the organ of the State 
Teachers' Association, so remaining several years. 
The State Teachers' Association has no official 
organ now, but the "Public School Journal" is 
the chief educational publication of the State 

Industrial Education.— In 1851 was insti- 
tuted a movement which, although obstructed for 
some time by partisan opposition, has been 
followed by more far-reaching results, for the 
country at large, than any single measure in the 
history of education since the act of 1785 setting 
apart one section in each township for the support 
of public schools. This was the scheme formu- 
lated by the late Prof. Jonathan B. Turner, of 
.Jacksonville, for a system of practical scientific 
education for the agricultural, mechanical and 
other industrial classes, at a Farmers' Convention 
held under the auspices of the Buel Institute ran 
Agricultural Society), at Granville, Putnam 
County, Nov. 18, 1851. While proposing a plan 
for a "State University'" for Illinois, it also advo- 
cated, from the outset, a "University for the 
industrial classes in each of the States." by way 

Of supplementing the work which a "National 
Institute of Science," such as the Smithsonian 

Institute at Washington, was expected to accom- 
plish. The proposition attracted the attention 

of persons interested in the cause of industrial 
education in othei States, especially in New 

York ami some of the New England States, and 



L50 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



received their hearty endorsement and cooper- 
ation. The Granville meeting was followed by a 
series of similar conventions held at Springfield, 
June 8, 1852; Chicago, Nov. 24, 1852; Springfield, 
Jan. 4, 1853, and Springfield, Jan. 1, 1855, at 
which the scheme was still further elaborated. 
At the Springfield meeting of January, 1852, an 
organization was formed under the title of the 
"Industrial League of the State of Illinois," with 
a view to disseminating information, securing 
more thorough organization on the part of friends 
of the measure, and the employment of lecturers 
to address the people of the State on the subject. 
At the same time, it was resolved that "this Con- 
vention memorialize Congress for the purpose of 
obtaining a grant of public lands to establish and 
endow industrial institutions in each and every 
State in the Union." It is worthy of note that 
this resolution contains the central idea of the 
act passed by Congress nearly ten years after- 
ward, making appropriations of public lands for 
the establishment and support of industrial 
colleges in the several States, which act received 
the approval of President Lincoln, July 2, 1862 — 
a similar measure having been vetoed by Presi- 
dent Buchanan in February, 1859. The State 
was extensively canvassed by Professor Turner, 
Mr. Bronson Murray (now of New York) , the late 
Dr. E. C. Rutherford and others, in behalf of the 
objects of the League, and the Legislature, at its 
session of 1853, by unanimous vote in both houses, 
adopted the resolutions commending the measure . 
and instructing the United States Senators from 
Illinois, and requesting its Representatives, to 
give it their support. Though not specifically 
contemplated at the outset of the movement, the 
Convention at Springfield, in January, 1855, pro- 
posed, as a part of the scheme, the establishment 
of a "Teachers' Seminary or Normal School 
Department, " which took form in the act passed 
at the session of 1857, for the establishment of 
the State Normal School at Normal. Although 
delayed, as already stated, the advocates of indus- 
trial education in Illinois, aided by those of other 
States, finally triumphed in 1862. The lands 
received by the State as the result of this act 
amounted to 480,000 acres, besides subsequent do- 
nations. (See University of Illinois; also Turner, 
Jonathan Baldwin.") On the foundation thus 
furnished was established, by act of the Legisla- 
ture in 1867, the "Illinois Industrial University" 
— now the University of Illinois — at Champaign, 
to say nothing of more than forty similar insti- 
tutions in as many States and Territories, based 
upon the same general act of Congress. 



Free-School System. — While there may be 
said to have been a sort of free-school system in 
existence in Illinois previous to 1855, it was 
limited to a few fortunate districts possessing 
funds derived from the sale of school-lands situ- 
ated within their respective limits. The system 
of free schools, as it now exists, based upon 
general taxation for the creation of a permanent 
school fund, had its origin in the act of that 
year. As already shown, the office of State 
Superintendent of Public Instruction had been 
created by act of the Legislature in February, 
1854, and the act of 1855 was but a natural corol- 
lary of the previous measure, giving to the people 
a uniform system, as the earlier one had provided 
an official for its administration. Since then 
there have been many amendments of the school 
law, but these have been generally in the direc- 
tion of securing greater efficiency, but with- 
out departure from the principle of securing 
to all the children of the State the equal 
privileges of a common-school education. The 
development of the system began practically 
about 1857, and, in the next quarter of a 
century, the laws on the subject had grown 
into a considerable volume, while the number- 
less decisions, emanating from the office of the 
State Superintendent in construction of these 
laws, made up a volume of still larger proportions. 

The following comparative table of school 
statistics, for 1860 and 1896, compiled from the 
Reports of the State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, will illustrate the growth of the 
system in some of its more important features: 

I860. 1896. 

Population 1,711,951 (eat.) 4,250,000 

No. of Persons of School Age ( be- 
tween 6 and 21) *549.604 1,384,367 

No. of Pupils enrolled *472.247 898,619 

School Districts 8,956 11,615 

" Public Schools 9,162 12,623 

Graded " 294 1,887 

" Public High Schools 272 

•' School Houses built during 

the year 557 267 

Whole No. of School Houses 8,221 12,632 

No. of Male Teachers 8,223 7,057 

Female Teachers 6,485 18,359 

Whole No. of Teachers in Public 

Schools 14,708 25,416 

Highest Monthly Wages paid Male 

Teachers $180.00 $300.00 

Highest Monthly Wages paid 

Female Teachers 75.00 280.00 

Lowest Monthly Wages paid Male 

Teachers 8.00 14.00 

Lowest Monthly Wages paid 

Female Teachers 4.00 10.00 

Average Monthly Wages paid Male 

Teachers 28.82 57.76 

Average Monthly Wages paid 

Female Teachers 18.80 50.63 

No. of Private Schools 500 2,619 

No. of Pupils in Private Schools.... 29,264 139,969 
Interest on State and County Funds 

received $73,450.38 $65,583.63 

Amount of Income from Township 

Funds 322,852.00 889,614.20 

♦Only white children were included in these statistics for 
1860. 



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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF [LLINOIS. 



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I860. 1-"':. 
Amount received from State Tax.. ? 690,000.00 J 1,000 
" " Special Dis- 
trict Taxes 1,265,137.00 13,133,809.61 

Amount received from Bonds dur- 

Ingtheyear 517,960.93 

Total Amount received during the 

year by School Districts 2,193,455.00 15,607,172.50 

Amount paid Male Teachers 2,772,829.32 

•• Female " 7,186,11 i.67 

Whole amount paid Teachers.... 1,542,211.00 y,95s,934.s>y 

Amount paid for new school 

Houses 348,728.00 1,873,757.25 

Amount paid for repairs and im- 
provements 1,070,755.09 

Amount paid for School Furniture. 24,837.00 154,836.64 
" " " " Apparatus 8,563.00 164,298.92 
" " " Books for Dis- 
trict Libraries 30,124 00 13,664.97 

Total Expenditures 2.259,868.00 14,614,627.3] 

Estimated value of School Property 13,304,S92.U0 42.780.2B7.00 

" Libraries.. 377,819.00 

" " Apparatus 607,389.00 

The sums annually disbursed for incidental 
expenses on account of superintendence and the 
cost of maintaining the higher institutions estab- 
lished, and partially or wholly supported by the 
State, increase the total expenditures by some 
§600,000 per annum. These higher institutions 
include the Illinois State Normal University at 
Normal, the Southern Illinois Normal at Carbon- 
dale and the University of Illinois at Urbana ; to 
which were added by the Legislature, at its ses- 
sion of 1895, the Eastern Illinois Normal School, 
afterwards established at Charleston, and the 
Northern Illinois Normal at De Kalb. These 
institutions, although under supervision of the 
State, are partly supported by tuition fees. (See 
description of these institutions under their 
several titles.) The normal schools — as their 
names indicate — are primarily designed for the 
training of teachers, although other classes of 
pupils are admitted under certain conditions, 
including the payment of tuition. At the Uni- 
versity of Illinois instruction is given in the clas- 
sics, the sciences, agriculture and the mechanic 
arts. In addition to these the State supports four 
other institutions of an educational rather than a 
custodial character — viz. : the Institution for the 
Education of the Deaf and Dumb and the Insti- 
tution for the Blind, at Jacksonville; the Asylum 
for the Feeble-Minded at Lincoln, and the Sol- 
diers' Orphans' Home at Normal. The estimated 
value of the property connected with these 
several institutions, in addition to the value of 
school property given in the preceding table, will 
increase the total (exclusive of permanent funds) 
to $47,155,374.95, of which $4,375,107.95 repre- 
sents property belonging to the institutions above 
mentioned. 

Powers and Duties of Superintendents 
and Other School Officers. — Each county 
elects a County Superintendent of Schools, whose 
duty it is to visit schools, conduct teachers' insti- 
tutes, advise with teachers and school officers and 



instruct them in their respective duties conduct 
examinations of persons desiring to become 
teachers, and exercise general supervision over 
school affairs within his county. Tin- subordi- 
nate officers are Township Trustees, a Township 
Treasurer, and a Board of District Directors or — 
in place of tin ■ latter in cities and villages — Boards 
of Education. The two last named Boards have 
power to employ teachers and, generally, t<< super- 
vise the management of schools in districts. The 
state Superintendent is entrusted with general 
supervision of the common-school system of the 
State, and it is his duty to advise and a 
County Superintendents, to visit State Charitable 
institutions, to issue official circulars to teachers, 
school officers and others in regard to their rights 
and duties under the general school code, to 
decide controverted questions of school law, com- 
ing to him by appeal from County Superintend- 
ents and others, and to make full and detailed 
rexwrts of the operations of his office to the 
Governor, biennially. He is also made ex-officio 
a member of the Board of Trustees of t he 1 "niver- 
sity of Illinois and of the several Normal Schools, 
and is empowered to grant certificates of two 
different grades to teachers — the higher grade to 
be valid during the lifetime of the holder, and 
the lower for two years. Certificates -ranted by 
County Superintendents are also ,,f two grades 
and have a tenure of one and two years, respec 
tively, in the county where given. The conditions 
for securing a certificate of the first (or two- 
years') grade, require that the candidate shall l»e 
of good moral character and qualified to teach 
orthography, reading in Knglish, penmanship, 
arithmetic, modern geography, English grammar. 
the elements of the natural sciences, the history 
of the United States, physiology and the laws of 
health. The second grade ,.>r one-year) certifi- 
cate calls for examination in the branches just 
enumerated, except the natural sciences, physi- 
ology and laws of health; but teachers employed 

exclusively in giving instruction ill music, draw- 
ing, penmanship or other special branches, may 

take examinations in these branches alone, but 
are restricted, in teaching, to those in which they 
have been examined. — County Boards are 
empowered to establish County Normal Schools 
for the education of teachers for the common 

schools, and the management Of SUCh normal 
schools is placed in the hands of a County Board 
of Education, to consist of not less than five nor 
more than eight persons, of whom the Chairman 
of the County Board and the County Superin- 
tendent of Schools shall be ex-officio members 



152 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Boards of Education and Directors may establish 
kindergartens (when authorized to do so by vote 
of a majority of the voters of their districts) , for 
children between the ages of four and six years, 
but the cost of supporting the same must be 
defrayed by a special tax. — A compulsory pro- 
vision of the School Law requires that each child, 
between the ages of seven and fourteen years, 
shall be sent to school at least sixteen weeks of 
each year, unless otherwise instructed in the 
elementary branches, or disqualified by physical 
or mental disability. — Under the provisions of an 
act, passed in 1891, women are made eligible to 
any office created by the general or special school 
laws of the State, when twenty -one years of age 
or upwards, and otherwise possessing the same 
qualifications for the office as are prescribed for 
men. (For list of incumbents in the office of 
State Superintendent, see Superintendents of 
Public Instruction. ) 

EDWARDS, Arthur, D.D., clergyman, soldier 
and editor, was born at Norwalk, Ohio, Nov. 23, 
1834; educated at Albion, Mich., and the Wes- 
leyan University of Ohio, graduating from the 
latter in 1858 ; entered the Detroit Conference of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church the same year, 
was ordained in 1860 and, from 1861 until after 
the battle of Gettysburg, served as Chaplain of 
the First Michigan Cavalry, when he resigned to 
accept the colonelcy of a cavalry regiment. In 
1864, he was elected assistant editor of "The 
Northwestern Christian Advocate" at Chicago, 
and, on the retirement of Dr. Eddy in 1872, 
became Editor-in-chief, being re-elected every 
four years thereafter to the present time. He 
has also been a member of each General Confer- 
ence since 1872, was a member of the Ecumenical 
Conference at London in 1881, and has held other 
positions of prominence within the church. 

EDWARDS, Cyrus, pioneer lawyer, was born 
in Montgomery County, Md., Jan. 17, 1793; at the 
age of seven accompanied his parents to Ken- 
tucky, where he received his primary education, 
and studied law ; was admitted to the bar at Kas- 
kaskia, 111., in 1815, Ninian Edwards (of whom he 
was the youngest brother) being then Territorial 
Governor. During the next fourteen years he 
resided alternately in Missouri and Kentucky, 
and, in 1829, took up his residence at Edwards- 
ville. Owing to impaired health he decided to 
abandon his profession and engage in general 
business, later becoming a resident of Upper 
Alton. In 1832 he was elected to the lower house 
of the Legislature as a Whig, and again, in 1840 
and '60, the last time as a Republican; was State 



Senator from 1835 to '39, and was also the Whig 
candidate for Governor, in 1838, in opposition to 
Thomas Carlin (Democrat), who was elected. He 
served in the Black Hawk War, was a member of 
the Constitutional Convention of 1847, and espe- 
cially interested in education and in public chari- 
ties, being, for thirty-five years, a Trustee of 
Shurtleff College, to which he was a most 
munificent benefactor, and which conferred on 
him the degree of LL. D. in 1852. Died at Upper 
Alton, September, 1877. 

EDWARDS, Ninian, Territorial Governor and 
United States Senator, was born in Montgomery 
County, Md., March 17, 1775; for a time had the 
celebrated William Wirt as a tutor, completing 
his course at Dickinson College. At the age of 19 
he emigrated to Kentucky, where, after squander- 
ing considerable money, he studied law and, step 
by step, rose to be Chief Justice of the Court of 
Appeals. In 1809 President Madison appointed 
him the first Territorial Governor of Illinois. 
This office he held until the admission of Illinois 
as a State in 1818, when he was elected United 
Sates Senator and re-elected on the completion of 
his first (the short) term. In 1826 he was elected 
Governor of the State, his successful administra- 
tion terminating in 1830. In 1832 he became a 
candidate for Congress, but was defeated by 
Charles Slade. He was able, magnanimous and 
incorruptible, although charged with aristocratic 
tendencies which were largely hereditary. Died, 
at his home at Belleville, on July 20, 1833, of 
cholera, the disease having been contracted 
through self-sacrificing efforts to assist sufferers 
from the epidemic. His demise cast a gloom 
over the entire State. Two valuable volumes 
bearing upon State history, comprising his cor- 
respondence with many public men of his time, 
have been published ; the first under the title of 
"History of Illinois and Life of Ninian Edwards, " 
by his son, the late Ninian Wirt Edwards, and 
the other "The Edwards Papers," edited by the 
late Elihu B. Washburne, and printed under the 
auspices of the Chicago Historical Society. — 
Ninian Wirt (Edwards), son of Gov. Ninian 
Edwards, was born at Frankfort, Ky., April 15, 
1809, the year his father became Territorial 
Governor of Illinois ; spent his boyhood at Kas- 
kaskia, Edwardsville and Belleville, and was 
educated at Transylvania University, graduating 
in 1833. He married Elizabeth P. Todd, a sister 
of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, was appointed Attor- 
ney-General in 1834, but resigned in 1835, when 
he removed to Springfield. In 1836 he was 
elected to the Legislature from Sangamon 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF [LLINOIS. 



153 



County, as the colleague of Abraham Lincoln, 
being one of the celebrated "Long Nine," and 
was influential in securing the removal of the 
State capital to Springfield. He was re-elected 
to the House in 1838, to the State Senate in 1844, 
and again to the House in 1848; was also a mem- 
ber of the Constitutional Convention of 1847. 
Again, in 1850, he was elected to the House, but 
resigned on account of his change of politics 
from Whig to Democratic, and, in the election to 
fill the vacancy, was defeated by James C. Conk- 
ling. He served as Superintendent of Public 
Instruction by appointment of Governor Matte- 
son, 1854-57, and, in 1861, was appointed by 
President Lincoln, Captain Commissary of Sub- 
sistence, which position he filled until June, 1865, 
since which time he remained in private life. He 
is the author of the "Life and Times of Ninian 
Edwards" (1870), which was prepared at the 
request of the State Historical Society. Died, at 
Springfield, Sept. 2, 1889. — Benjamin Stevenson 
(Edwards), lawyer and jurist, another son of Gov. 
Ninian Edwards, was born at Edwardsville, 111., 
June 3, 1818, graduated from Yale College in 
1838, and was admitted to the bar the following 
year. Originally a Whig, he subsequently 
became a Democrat, was a Delegate to the Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1862, and, in 1868, was 
an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in opposi- 
tion to Shelby M. Cullom. In 1869 he was elected 
Circuit Judge of the Springfield Circuit, but 
within eighteen months resigned the position, 
preferring the excitement and emoluments of 
private practice to the dignity and scanty salary 
attaching to the bench. As a lawyer and as a 
citizen he was universally respected. Died, at 
his home in Springfield, Feb. 4, 1886, at the time 
of his decease being President of the Illinois 
State Bar Association. 

EDWARDS, Richard, educator, ex-Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction, was born in Cardi- 
ganshire, Wales, Dec. 23, 1822; emigrated with 
his parents to Portage County, Ohio, and began 
life on a farm; later graduated at the State 
Normal School, Bridgewater, Mass., and from 
the Polytechnic Institute at Troy, N. Y., receiv- 
ing the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Civil 
Engineer ; served for a time as a civil engineer 
on the Boston water works, then beginning a 
career as a teacher which continued almost unin- 
terruptedly for thirty-five years. During this 
period he was connected with the Normal School 
at Bridgewater ; a Boys' High School at Salem, 
and the State Normal at the same place, coming 
west in 1857 to establish the Normal School at St. 



Louis, Mo., still later becoming Principal of tin 
St. Louis Bigh School, and, in 1862, accepting the 
Presidency of the State Normal University, at 
Normal, 111. It was hen- where Dr. Edwards 
remaining fourteen years, accomplished his 
greatest work and left his deepest impress upon 
the educational system of the State by personal 
contact with its teachers. The next nine years 
w.-re spent as pastor of the First Congregational 
church at Princeton, when, after eighteen 
months in the service of Knox College as Fii 
cial Agent, lie was again called, in 1886, to a 
closer connection with the educational field l>y 
his election to the office of State Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, serving until 1891, when. 
having failed of a re-election, he soon aftei 
assumed the Presidency of Blackburn University 
at Carlinville. Failing health, however, com- 
pelled his retirement a year later, when he 
removed to Bloomington, which is now (189S) 
his place of residence. 

EDWARDS COUNTY, situated in the south- 
eastern part of the State, between Richland and 
White on the north and south, and Wabash and 
Wayne on the east and west, and touching the 
Ohio River on its southeastern border. It was 
separated from Gallatin County in 1814, during 
the Territorial period. Its territory was dimin- 
ished in 1824 by the carving out of Wabash 
County. The surface is diversified by prairie 
and timber, the soil fertile and well adapted to 
the raising of both wheat and corn. The princi- 
pal streams, besides the Ohio, are Bonpas ('reek, 
on the east, and the Little Wabash River on the 
west. Palmyra (a place no longer on the map) 
was the seat for holding the first county court, 
in 1815, John Mcintosh. Seth Gard and William 
Barney being the Judges. Albion, the present 
county-seat (population, 937), was laid out by 
Morris Birkbeck ami George Flower (emigrants 
from England), in 1819, and settled largely by 
their countrymen, but not incorporated until 
1860. The area of the county is 230 square 
miles, and population, in 1900, 10,345. Grayville. 
with a population of 2.000 in 1890. is partly in 
this county, though mostly in White. Edwards 
County was named in honor of Ninian Edwards 
the Territorial Governor of Illinois. 

EDWARDSVILLE, the county -seat of Madison 
County, settled in 1812 and named in honor of 
Territorial Governor Ninian Edwards; is on four 
lines of railway and contiguous to two others. 18 
miles northeast of St. Louis. Edwardsville was 
the home of some of the most prominent men in 
the history of the State, including Governors Ed- 



154 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OP ILLINOIS. 



wards, Coles, and others. It has pressed and 
shale brickyards, coal mines, flour mills, machine 
shops, banks, electric street railway, water-works, 
schools, and churches. In a suburb of the city 
(LeClaire) is a cooperative manufactory of sani- 
tary supplies, using large shops and doing a large 
business. Edwardsville has three newspapers, 
one issued semi-weekly. Population (1890), 3,561 ; 
(1900), 4,157; with suburb (estimated), 5,000. 

EFFINGHAM, an incorporated city, the county- 
seat of Effingham County, 9 miles northeast from 
St. Louis and 199 southwest of Chicago; has four 
papers, creamery, milk condensory, and ice fac- 
tory. Population (1890), 3,260; (1900), 3,774. 

EFFINGHAM COUNTY, cut off from Fayette 
(and separately organized) in 1831 — named for 
Gen. Edward Effingham. It is situated in the 
central portion of the State, 62 miles northeast of 
St. Louis ; has an area of 490 square miles and a 
population (1900) of 20,465. T. M. Short, I. Fanchon 
and William I. Hawkins were the first County 
Commissioners. Effingham, the county-seat, was 
platted by Messrs. Alexander and Little in 1854. 
Messrs. Gillenwater, Hawkins and Brown were 
among the earliest settlers. Several lines of rail- 
way cross the county. Agriculture and sheep- 
raising are leading industries, wool being one of 
the principal products. 

EGAN, William Bradshaw, M.D., pioneer phy- 
sican, was born in Ireland, Sept. 28, 1808; spent 
some time during his youth in the study of sur- 
gery in England, later attending lectures at Dub- 
lin. About 1828 he went to Canada, taught for 
a time in the schools of Quebec and Montreal 
and, in 1830, was licensed by the Medical Board 
of New Jersey and began practice at Newark in 
that State, later practicing in New York. In 
1833 he removed to Chicago and was early recog- 
nized as a prominent physician ; on July 4, 1836, 
delivered the address at the breaking of ground 
for the Illinois & Michigan Canal. During the 
early years of his residence in Chicago, Dr. Egan 
was owner of the block on which the Tremont 
House stands, and erected a number of houses 
there. He was a zealous Democrat and a delegate 
to the first Convention of that party, held at 
Joliet in 1843; was elected County Recorder in 
1844 and Representative in the Eighteenth Gen- 
eral Assembly (1853-54). Died, Oct. 27, 1860. 

ELBURN, a village of Kane County, on the 
Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 8 miles west 
of Geneva. It has banks and a weekly news- 
paper. Population (1890), 584; (1900), 606. 

ELDORADO, a town in Saline County, on the 
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis, the 



Louisville & Nashville, and the St. Louis, Alton 
& Terre Haute Railroads; has a bank and one 
newspaper; district argicultural. Population, 
(1900), 1,445. 

ELDRIDGE, Hamilton N., lawyer and soldier, 
was born at South Williamstown, Mass., August, 
1837 ; graduated at Williams College in the class 
with President Garfield, in 1856, and at Albany 
Law School, in 1857; soon afterward came to 
Chicago and began practice ; in 1862 assisted in 
organizing the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh 
Illinois Volunteers, of which he was elected 
Lieutenant-Colonel, before the end of the year 
being promoted to the position of Colonel; dis- 
tinguished himself at Arkansas Post, Chicka- 
mauga and in the battles before Vicksburg, 
winning the rank of Brevet Brigadier-General, 
but, after two years' service, was compelled to 
retire on account of disability, being carried east 
on a stretcher. Subsequently he recovered suffi- 
ciently to resume his profession, but died in 
Chicago, Dec. 1, 1882, much regretted by a large 
circle of friends, with whom he was exceedingly 
popular. 

ELECTIONS. The elections of public officers 
in Illinois are of two general classes : (I) those 
conducted in accordance with United States 
laws, and (II) those conducted exclusively under 
State laws. 

I. To the first class belong: (1) the election of 
United States Senators; (2) Presidential Elect- 
ors, and (3 ) Representatives in Congress. 1. 
(United States Senators). The election of 
United States Senators, while an act of the State 
Legislature, is conducted solely under forms pre- 
scribed by the laws of the United States. These 
make it the duty of the Legislature, on the second 
Tuesday after convening at the session next pre- 
ceding the expiration of the term for which any 
Senator may have been chosen, to proceed to 
elect his successor in the following manner: 
Each House is required, on the day designated, in 
open session and by the viva voce vote of each 
member present, to name some person for United 
States Senator, the result of the balloting to be 
entered on the journals of the respective Houses. 
At twelve o'clock (M.) on the day following the 
day of election, the members of the two Houses 
meet in joint assembly, when the journals of both 
Houses are read. If it appears that the same 
person has received a majority of all the votes in 
each House, he is declared elected Senator. If, 
however, no one has received such majority, or 
if either House has failed to take proceedings as 
required on the preceding day, then the members 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



L55 



of the two Houses, in joint assembly, proceed to 
ballot for Senator by viva, voce vote of members 
present. The person receiving a majority of all 
the votes cast— a majority of the members of 
both Houses being present and vol ing — is declared 
elected; otherwise the joint assembly is renewed 
at noon each legislative day of the session, and at 
least one ballot taken until a Senator is chosen. 
When a vacancy exists in the Senate at the time 
of the assembling of the Legislature, the same 
rule prevails as to the time of holding an election 
to fill it; and, if a vacancy occurs during the 
session, the Legislature is required to proceed to 
an election on the second Tuesday after having 
received official notice of such vacancy. The 
tenure of a United States Senator for a full term 
is six years — the regular term beginning with a 
new Congress — the two Senators from each State 
belonging to different "classes," so that their 
terms expire alternately at periods of two and 
four years from each other. — 2. (Presidential 
Electors). The choice of Electors of President 
and Vice-President is made by popular vote 
taken quadrennially on the Tuesday after the 
first Monday in November. The date of such 
election is fixed by act of Congress, being the 
same as that for Congressman, although the State 
Legislature prescribes the manner of conducting 
it and making returns of the same. The number 
of Electors chosen equals the number of Senators 
and Representatives taken together (in 1899 it 
was twenty-four), and they are elected on a gen- 
eral ticket, a plurality of votes being sufficient to 
elect. Electors meet at the State capital on the 
second Monday of January after their election 
(Act of Congress, 1887), to cast the vote of the 
State. — 3. (Members of Congress). The elec- 
tion of Representatives in Congress is also held 
under United States law, occurring biennially 
(on the even years) simultaneously with the gen- 
eral State election in November. Should Congress 
select a different date for such election, it would 
be the duty of the Legislature to recognize it by 
a corresponding change in the State law relating 
to the election of Congressmen. The tenure of a 
Congressman is two years, the election being by 
Districts instead of a general ticket, as in the 
case of Presidential Electors — the term of each 
Representative for a full term beginning with a 
new Congress, on the 4th of March of the odd 
years following a general election. (See Con 
gressional Apportionment. ) 

II. All officers under the State Government— 
except Boards of Trustees of charitable and penal 
institutions or the heads of certain departments, 



whicb arc made appointive by the < rovernor— are 
elected by popular vote. A.par1 from county 
officers they consisl of three class* I jisla- 
2 Executr Judicial — which are 

chosen at different times and fordifferenl periods 
1. (Legislature). Legislative officers consist of 
Senators and Represental ives, chosen al elections 
held on the Tuesday after the first Monday of 
November, biennially. The regular term of a 
Senator (of whom there are fifty-one undei 
present Constitution) is four years; twenty five 
(those in Districts hearing even numbers) I" 
chosen on the years in which a President and 
' Governor are elected, and the other twenty -six at 
the intermediate period two years later. Thus 
one-half of each State Senate is composed of what 
are called "hold-over" Senator^. Represental ives 
are elected biennially at the November election, 
and hold office two years. The qualifications as 
to eligibility for a seat in the State Senate require 
that the incumbent shall be 25 years of age, 
while 21 years renders one eligible to a seat in 
the House — the Constitution requiring that each 
shall have been a resident of the State for five 
years, and of the District for which he is chosen, 
two years next preceding his election. (See 
Legislative Apportionment and Minority Repre- 
sentation.) — 2. (Executive Officers). The 
officers constituting the Executive Department 
include the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, 
Secretary of State, Auditor of Puhlic Accounts, 
Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, 
and Attorney-General. Each of these, except the 
State Treasurer, holds office tour years and — with 
the exception of the Treasurer and Superintend- 
ent of Public Instruction — are elected at the 
general election at whicb Presidential Electors 
are chosen. The election ot state Superintendent 
occurs on the intermediate i even | j ear- and that 
of State Treasurer every two years coincidently 
with the election of ( rovernor and Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, respectively. 
tire Officers.) In addition to the State of] 
already named, three Trustees of the University 
of Illinois are elected biennially at the general 
election in November, each holding office for 
six years. These trustees (.nine in numl 

with the Governor, President of the state Hoard 
of Agriculture and the Superintendent of Public 
Instruction, constitute the Board of Trustees of 
the University of Illinois. 8 (Judiciary). The 
.Judicial Department embraces Judges of the 
Supreme, circuit and County Courts, and such 
other subordinate "tii.-ials as maybe connected 
with the administration of justice. For the 



156 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



election of members of the Supreme Court the 
State is divided into seven Districts, each of 
which elects a Justice of the Supreme Court for 
a term of nine years. The elections in five of 
these — the First, Second, Third, Sixth and 
Seventh — occur on the first Monday in June every 
ninth year from 1879, the last election having 
occurred in June, 1897. The elections in the 
other two Districts occur at similar periods of nine 
years from 1876 and 1873, respectively — the last 
election in the Fourth District having occurred 
in June, 1893, and that in the Fifth in 1891. — 
Circuit Judges are chosen on the first Monday in 
June every six years, counting from 1873. Judges 
of the Superior Court of Cook County are elected 
every six years at the November election. — Clerks 
of the Supreme and Appellate Courts are elected 
at the November election for six years, the last 
election having occurred in 1896. Under the act 
of April 2, 1897, consolidating the Supreme 
Court into one Grand Division, the number of 
Supreme Court Clerks is reduced to one, although 
the Clerks elected in 1896 remain in office and have 
charge of the records of their several Divisions 
until the expiration of their terms in 1902. The 
Supreme Court holds five terms annually at Spring- 
field, beginning, respectively, on the first Tuesday 
of October, December, February, April and June. 

(Other Officers), (a) Members of the State 
Board of Equalization (one for every Congres- 
sional District) are elective every four years at 
the same time as Congressmen, (b) County 
officers (except County Commissioners not under 
township organization) hold office for four years 
and are chosen at the November election as 
follows: (1) At the general election at which 
the Governor is chosen — Clerk of the Circuit 
Court, State's Attorney, Recorder of Deeds (in 
counties having a population of 60,000 or over), 
Coroner and County Surveyor. (2) On inter- 
mediate years — Sheriff, County Judge, Probate 
Judge (in counties having a population of 70,000 
and over), County Clerk, Treasurer, Superintend- 
ent of Schools, and Clerk of Criminal Court of 
Cook County, (c) In counties not under town- 
ship organization a Board of County Commission- 
ers is elected, one being chosen in November of 
each year, and each holding office three years, 
(d) Under the general law the polls open at 8 
a. m., and close at 7 p. m. In cities accepting an 
Act of the Legislature passed in 1885, the hour of 
opening the polls is 6 a. m. , and of closing 4 p. m. 
(See also Australian Ballot.) 

ELECTORS, QUALIFICATIONS OF. (See 
Suffrage.) 



ELGIN, an important city of Northern Illinois, 
in Kane County, on Fox River and the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul and Chicago & Northwest- 
ern Railroads, besides two rural electric lines, 36 
miles northwest of Chicago; has valuable water- 
power and over fifty manufacturing establish- 
ments, including the National Watch Factory and 
the Cook Publishing Company, both among the 
most extensive of their kind in the world; is also 
a great dairy center with extensive creameries 
and milk-condensing works. The quotations of 
its Butter and Cheese Exchange are telegraphed 
to all the great commercial centers and regulate 
the prices of these commodities throughout the 
country. Elgin is the seat of the Northern (Illi- 
nois) Hospital for the Insane, and has a handsome 
Government (postoffice) building, fine public 
library and many handsome residences. It has 
had a rapid growth in the past twenty years. 
Population (1890), 17,823; (1900), 22,433. 

ELGIN, JOLIET & EASTERN RAILWAY. The 
main line of this road extends west from Dyer on 
the Indiana State line to Joliet, thence northeast 
to Waukegan. The total length of the fine (1898) 
is 192.72 miles, of which 159.93 miles are in Illi- 
nois. The entire capital of the company, includ- 
ing stock and indebtedness, amounted (1898), to 
§13, 799, 630— more than §71 , 000 per mile. Its total 
earnings in Illinois for the same year were $1,212,- 
026, and its entire expenditure in the State, 
§1,156,146. The company paid in taxes, the same 
year, §48,876. Branch lines extend southerly 
from "Walker Junction to Coster, where connec- 
tion is made with the Cleveland, Cincinnati, 
Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, and northwesterly 
from Normantown, on the main line, to Aurora. 
— (History). The Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Rail- 
way was chartered in 1887 and absorbed the 
Joliet, Aurora & Northern Railway, from Joliet to 
Aurora (21 miles), which had been commenced in 
1886 and was completed in 1888, with extensions 
from Joliet to Spaulding, 111. , and from Joliet to 
McCool, Ind. In January, 1891, the Company 
purchased all the properties and franchises of the 
Gardner, Coal City & Normantown and the 
Waukegan & Southwestern Railway Companies 
(formerly operated under lease). The former of 
these two roads was chartered in 1889 and opened 
in 1890. The system forms a belt line around 
Chicago, intersecting all railroads entering that 
city from every direction. Its traffic is chiefly 
in the transportation of freight. 

ELIZABETHTOWN, the county-seat of Hardin 
County. It stands on the north bank of the Ohio 
River, 44 miles above Paducah, Ky., and about 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



157 



125 miles southeast of Belleville; has a brick and 
tile factory, large tie trade, two churches, two 
flouring mills, a bank, and one newspaper. Pop- 
ulation (1890), 652; (1900), 668. 

ELKHART, a town of Logan County, on the 
Chicago & Alton Railroad, 18 miles northeast of 
Springfield; is a rich farming section ; has a coal 
shaft. Population (1890), 414; (1900), 553. 

ELKIN, William F., pioneer and early legisla- 
tor, was born in Clark County, Ky., April 13, 
1792; after spending several years in Ohio and 
Indiana, came to Sangamon County, 111., in 1825; 
was elected to the Sixth, Tenth and Eleventh 
General Assemblies, being one of the "Long 
Nine" from Sangamon County and, in 1861, w r as 
appointed by his former colleague (Abraham 
Lincoln) Register of the Land Office at Spring- 
field, resigning in 1872. Died, in 1878. 

ELLIS, Edward E. W., soldier, was born at 
Wilton, Maine, April 15, 1819; studied law and 
was admitted to the bar in Ohio ; spent three years 
(1849-52) in California, serving in the Legislature 
of that State in 1851, and proving himself an 
earnest opponent of slavery ; returned to Ohio the 
next year, and, in 1854, removed toRockford, 111., 
where he embarked in the banking business. 
Soon after the firing on Fort Sumter, he organ- 
ized the Ellis Rifles, which having been attached 
to the Fifteenth Illinois, he was elected Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel of the regiment ; was in command at 
the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862, and was killed 
while bravely leading on his men. 

ELLIS, (Rev.) John Millot, early home mis- 
sionary, was born in Keene, N. H., July 14, 1793; 
came to Illinois as a home missionary of the 
Presbyterian Church at an early day, and served 
for a time as pastor of churches at Kaskaskia and 
Jacksonville, and was one of the influential 
factors in securing the location of Illinois Col- 
lege at the latter place. His wife also conducted, 
for some years, a private school for young ladies 
at Jacksonville, which developed into the Jack- 
sonville Female Academy in 1833, and is still 
maintained after a history of over sixty years. 
Mr. Ellis was later associated with the establish- 
ment of Wabash College, at Crawfordsville, Ind., 
finally returning to New Hampshire, where, in 
1840, he was pastor of a church at East Hanover. 
In 1844 he again entered the service of the Soci- 
ety for Promoting Collegiate and Theological 
Education in the West. Died, August 6, 1855. 

ELLSWORTH, Ephraim Elmer, soldier, first 
victim of the Civil War, was born at Mechanics 
ville, Saratoga County, N. Y., April 23, 1837. He 
came to Chicago at an early age, studied law, 



and became a patent solicitor. In 1860 he raised 
a regiment of Zouaves in Chicago, which became 
famous for the perfection of its discipline and 
drill, and of which he whs commissioned Colonel. 
In 1861 he accompanied President Lincoln to 
Washington, going from there to New York, 
where he recruited and organized a Zouave 
regiment composed of firemen. He became its 
Colonel and the regiment was ordered to Alexan- 
dria, Va. While stationed there Colonel Ells- 
worth observed that a Confederate flag was 
flying above a hotel owned by one Jackson. 
Rushing to the roof, he tore it down, but before 
he reached the street w r as shot and killed by 
Jackson, who was in turn shot by Frank H. 
Brownell, one of Ellsworth's men. He was the 
first Union soldier killed in the war. Died, May 
24, 1861. 

ELMHURST (formerly Cottage Hill), a village 
of Du Page County, on the Chicago Great Western 
and 111. Cent. Railroads, 15 miles west of Chicago; 
is the seat of the Evangelical Seminary ; has elec- 
tric interurban line, two papers, stone quarry, 
electric light, water and sewerage systems, high 
school, and churches. Pop. (1900), 1,728. 

ELMWOOI), a town of Peoria County, on the 
Galesburg and Peoria and Buda and Rushville 
branches of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
Railroad, 26 miles west-northwest of Peoria; the 
principal industries are coal-mining and corn and 
tomato canning; has a bank and one newspaper. 
Population (1890), 1,548; (1900), 1,582. 

EL PASO, a city in Woodford County, 17 miles 
north of Bloomington, 33 miles east of Peoria, at 
the crossing Illinois Central anil Toledo, Peoria & 
Western Railroads; in agricultural district; has 
two national banks, three grain elevators, two 
high schools, two newspapers, nine churches. 
Pop. (1890), 1,353; (1900), 1,441; (1903, est.), 1,600. 
EMBARRAS RIVER, rises in Champaign 
County and runs southward through the counties 
of Douglas, Coles and Cumberland, to Newton, in 
Jasper County, where it turns to the southeast, 
passing through Lawrence Comity, and entering 
the Wabash River about seven miles below Yin 
cennes. It is nearly 150 miles long. 

EMMERSON, Charles, jurist, was born at North 
Haverhill. Grafton County. N. U . April 15, 1811; 
came to Illinois in 1883, first settling at Jackson 
ville, where he spent one term in Illinois College, 
then studied law at Springfield, and. having been 
admitted to the bar. began practice at Decatur, 
where lie spent the remainder of Ids life except 
three years (1847 50) 'luring which he resided at 
Paris, Edgar County. In 1850 he was elected to 



158 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



the Legislature, and, in 1853, to the Circuit bench, 
serving on the latter by re-election till 1867. The 
latter year he was a candidate for Justice of the 
Supreme Court, but was defeated by the late 
Judge Pinkney H. Walker. In 1869 he was 
elected to the State Constitutional Convention, 
but died in April, 1870, while the Convention was 
still in session. 

EXFIELD, a town of White County, at the 
intersection of the Louisville & Nashville with 
the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railway, 10 
miles west of Carmi; is the seat of Southern Illi- 
nois College. The town also has a bank and one 
newspaper. Population (1880), 717; (1890), 870; 
(1900), 971; (1903, est.), 1,000. 

ENGLISH, Joseph G., banker, was born at 
Rising Sun, Ind., Dec. 17, 1820; lived for a time 
at Perrysville and La Fayette in that State, finally 
engaging in merchandising in the former; in 
1853 removed to Danville, 111., where he formed 
a partnership with John L. Tincher in mercantile 
business ; later conducted a private banking busi- 
ness and, in 1863, established the First National 
Bank, of which he has been President over twenty 
years. He served two terms as Mayor of Dan- 
ville, in 1872 was elected a member of the State 
Board of Equalization, and, for more than twenty 
years, has been one of the Directors of the Chicago 
& Eastern Railroad. At the present time Mr. 
English, having practically retired from busi- 
ness, is spending most of his time in the West. 

ENOS, Pascal Paoli, pioneer, was born at 
Windsor, Conn., in 1770; graduated at Dartmouth 
College in 1794, studied law, and, after spending 
some years in Vermont, where he served as High 
Sheriff of Windsor County, in September, 1815, 
removed West, stopping first at Cincinnati. A 
year later he descended the Ohio by flat-boat to 
Shawneetown, 111., crossed the State by land, 
finally locating at St. Charles, Mo., and later at 
St. Louis. Then, having purchased a tract of land 
in Madison County, 111., he remained there about 
two years, when, in 1823, having received from 
President Monroe the appointment of Receiver of 
the newly established Land Office at Springfield, 
he removed thither, making it his permanent 
home. He was one of the original purchasers of 
the land on which the city of Springfield now 
stands, and joined with Maj. Elijah lies, John 
Taylor and Thomas Cox, the other patentees, in 
laying out the town, to which they first gave the 
name of Calhoun. Mr. Enos remained in office 
through the administration of President John 
Quincy Adams, but was removed by President 
Jackson for political reasons, in 1829. Died, at 



Springfield, April, 1832.— Pascal P. (Enos), Jr., 
eldest son of Mr. Enos, was born in St. Charles, 
Mo., Nov. 28, 1816; was elected Representative in 
the General Assembly from Sangamon County in 
1852, and served by appointment of Justice 
McLean of the Supreme Court as Clerk of the 
United States Circuit Court, being reappointed 
by Judge David Davis, dying in office, Feb. 17, 
1867.— Zimri A. (Enos), another son, was born 
Sept. 29, 1821, is a citizen of Springfield — has 
served as County Surveyor and Alderman of the 
city. — Julia R., a daughter, was born in Spring- 
field, Dec. 20, 1832, is the widow of the late O. M. 
Hatch, Secretary of State (1857-65). 

EPLER, Cyrus, lawyer and jurist, was born 
at Charleston, Clark County, Ind., Nov. 12, 
1825; graduated at Illinois College, Jackson- 
ville, studied law, and was admitted to the 
bar in 1852, being elected State's Attorney 
the same year; also served as a membet 
of the General Assembly two terms (1857-61; 
and as Master in Chancery for Morgan County, 
1867-73. In 1873 he was elected Circuit Judge 
for the Seventh Circuit and was re-elected 
successively in 1879, '85 and '91, serving four 
terms, and retiring in 1897. During his entire 
professional and official career his home has been 
in Jacksonville. 

EQUALITY, a village of Gallatin County, on 
the Shawneetown Division of the Louisville & 
Nashville Railroad, 11 miles west-northwest of 
Shawneetown. It was for a time, in early days, the 
county -seat of Gallatin County and market for 
the salt manufactured in that vicinity. Some 
coal is mined in the neighborhood. One weekly 
paper is published here. Population (1880), 500; 
(1890), 622; (1900), 898. 

ERIE, a village of Whiteside County, on the 
Rock Island and Sterling Division of the Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 30 miles north- 
east of Rock Island. Population (1880), 537; 
(1890), 535; (1900), 768. 

EUREKA, the county-seat of Woodford County, 
incorporated in 1856, situated 19 miles east of 
Peoria; is in the heart of a rich stock-raising and 
agricultural district. The principal mechanical 
industry is a large canning factory. Besides 
having good grammar and high schools, it is also 
the seat of Eureka College, under the control of 
the Christian denomination, in connection with 
which are a Normal School and a Biblical Insti- 
tute. The town has a handsome courthouse and 
a jail, two weekly and one monthly paper. 
Eureka became the county-seat of Woodford 
County in 1896, the change from Metamora being 



EISTORICAI ENCYCLOPEDIA OF [LLINOIS 



1.VJ 



due to the central location and more convenient 
accessibility of the former from all parts of the 
county. Population (1880), 1,185; (1890), 1,481; 
(1900), 1,661. 

EUREKA COLLEGE, located at Eureka, Wood- 
ford County, and chartered in 1855, distinctively 
under the care and supervision of the ''Christian'" 
or "Campbellite" denomination. The primary 
aim of its founders was to prepare young men for 
the ministry, while at the same time affording 
facilities for liberal culture. It was chartered in 
1855, and its growth, while gradual, has been 
steady. Besides a preparatory department and a 
business school, the college maintains a collegiate 
department (with classical and scientific courses) 
and a theological school, the latter being designed 
to fit young men for the ministry of the denomi- 
nation. Both male and female matriculates are 
received. In 1896 there was a faculty of eighteen 
professors and assistants, and an attendance of 
some 325 students, nearly one-third of whom 
were females. The total value of the institution's 
property is $144,000, which includes an endow- 
ment of $45,000 and real estate valued at $85,000. 

EUSTACE, John V., lawyer and judge, was 
born in Philadelphia, Sept. 9, 1821; graduated 
from the University of Pennsylvania in 1839. and, 
in 1842, at the age of 21, was admitted to the bar, 
removing the same year to Dixon, 111., where he 
resided until his death. In 1856 he was elected 
to the General Assembly and, in 1857, became 
Circuit Judge, serving one term; was chosen 
Presidential Elector in 1864, and, in March, 1878, 
was again elevated to the Circuit Bench, vice 
Judge Heaton, deceased. He was elected to the 
same position in 1879, and re-elected in 1885, but 
died in 1888, three years before the expiration of 
his term. 

EVANGELICAL SEMINARY, an institution 
under the direction of the Lutheran denomina- 
tion, incorporated in 1865 and located at Elm 
hurst, Du Page County. Instruction is given in 
the classics, theology, oratory and preparatory 
studies, by a faculty of eight teachers. The 
number of pupils during the school year (1895-96) 
was 133 — all young men. It has property valued 
at $59,305. 

EVANS, Henry II., legislator, was born in 
Toronto, Can., March 9, 1836; brought by his 
father (who was a native of Pennsylvania) to 
Aurora, 111., where the latter finally became fore- 
man of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy ma- 
chine shops at that place. In 1862 young Evans 
enlisted in the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth 
Illinois Volunteers, serving until the close of the 



war. Since the war be lias become most widely 
known as a member of the General Assembly, hav- 
ing been elected first to the House, in 1876, and 
subsequently to the Senate every four year- from 
1880 to the year 1898, giving him over twenty 
years of almost continuous service, lie is a !. 

owner of real estate and has been prominently 
connected with financial and other business 
enterprises at Aurora, including the Aurora inl- 
and Street Railway Companies; also served with 
the rank of Colonel on the staffs of Governors 
Cullom, Hamilton, Fifer and Oglesby. 

EVANS, (Rev.) Jervice G lucator and re 

former, was born in Marshall County, 111., Dec. 
19, 1833; entered the ministry of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church in 1854, and, in 1872, accepted 
the presidency of Hedding College at Abingdon, 
which be filled for six years. He then became 
President of ( 'haddock College at Quincy, but the 
following year returned to pastoral work. In 
1889 he again became President of Hedding Col- 
lege, where (1898) he still remains. Dr. Evans is 
a member of the Central Illinois (M. E.) Confer 
ence and a leader in the prohibition movement; 
has also produced a number of volumes on reli- 
gious and moral questions. 

EVANS, John, M.D., physician and Governor, 
was born at Waynesville, Ohio, of Quaker ances- 
try, March 9, 1814; graduated in medicine at 
Cincinnati and began practice at Ottawa, 111., 
but soon returned to Ohio, finally locating at 
Attica, Ind. Here he became prominent in the 
establishment of the first insane hospital in In- 
diana, at Indianapolis, about 1841-42, becoming a 
resident of that city in 1845. Three years later, 
having accepted a chair in Rush Medical College, 
in Chicago, he removed thither, also serving for 
a time as editor of "The Northwestern Medical 
and Surgical Journal." He served as a member 
of the Chicago City Council, became a successful 
operator in real estate and in the promotion of 
various railroad enterprises, and was one of the 
founders of the Northwestern University, at 
Evanston, serving as President of the Hoard of 
Trustees over forty years. Dr. Evans was one of 
the founders of the Republican party in Illinois, 
and a strong personal friend of President Lincoln, 
from whom, in 1862, he received the appointment 
of Governor of the Territory of Colorado, con- 
tinuing in office until displaced by Andrew John- 
son in 1865. In Colorado he became a Leading 
factor in the construction of SOme of the most 
important railroad lines in that section, including 
the Denver, Texas A: Gulf Road, of which he was 
for many years the President. He was also 



160 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



prominent in connection with educational and 
church enterprises at Denver, which was his home 
after leaving Illinois. Died, in Denver, July 3, 1897. 
EVANSTON, a city of Cook County, situated 12 
miles north of Chicago, on the Chicago, Milwau- 
kee & St. Paul and the Chicago & Northwestern 
Railroads. The original town was incorporated 
Dec. 29, 1863, and, in March, 1869, a special act 
was passed by the Legislature incorporating it as 
a city, but rejected by vote of the people. On 
Oct. 19, 1872, the voters of the corporate town 
adopted village organizations under the General 
Village and City Incorporation Act of the same 
year. Since then annexations of adjacent terri- 
tory to the village of Evanston have taken place 
as follows : In January, 1873, two small districts 
by petition ; in April, 1874, the village of North 
Evanston was annexed by a majority vote of the 
electors of both corporations; in April, 1886, 
there was another annexation of a small out-lying 
district by petition ; in February, 1892, the ques- 
tion of the annexation of South Evanston was 
submitted to the voters of both corporations and 
adopted. On March 29, 1892, the question of 
organization under a city government was sub- 
mitted to popular vote of the consolidated corpo- 
ration and decided in the affirmative, the first 
city election taking place April 19, following. 
The population of the original corporation of 
Evanston, according to the census of 1890, was 
12,072, and of South Evanston, 3,205, making the 
total population of the new city 15,967. Judged 
by the census returns of 1900, the consolidated 
city ' has had a healthy growth in the past 
ten years, giving it, at the end of the 
century, a population of 19,259. Evanston is 
one of the most attractive residence cities in 
Northern Illinois and famed for its educational 
advantages. Besides having an admirable system 
of graded and high schools, it is the seat of the 
academic and theological departments of the 
Northwestern University, the latter being known 
as the Garrett Biblical Institute. The city has 
well paved streets, is lighted by both gas and 
electricity, and maintains its own system of 
water works. Prohibition is strictly enforced 
within the corporate limits under stringent 
municipal ordinances, and the charter of the 
Northwestern University forbidding the sale of 
intoxicants within four miles of that institution. 
As a consequence, it is certain to attract the 
most desirable class of people, whether consisting 
of those seeking permanent homes or simply 
contemplating temporary residence for the sake 
of educational advantages. 



EWING, William Lee Davidson, early lawyer 
and politician, was born in Kentucky in 1795, and 
came to Illinois at an early day, first settling at 
Shawneetown. As early as 1820 he appears from 
a letter of Governor Edwards to President Mon- 
roe, to have been holding some Federal appoint- 
ment, presumably that of Receiver of Public 
Moneys in the Land Office at Vandalia, as con- 
temporary history shows that, in 1822, he lost a 
deposit of $1,000 by the robbery of the bank there. 
He was also Brigadier-General of the State militia 
at an early day, Colonel of the "Spy Battalion" 
during the Black Hawk War, and, as Indian 
Agent, superintended the removal of the Sacs 
and Foxes west of the Mississippi. Other posi- 
tions held by him included Clerk of the House of 
Representatives two sessions (1826-27 and 1828-29) ; 
Representative from the counties composing the 
Vandalia District in the Seventh General Assem- 
bly (1830-31), when he also became Speaker of the 
House; Senator from the same District in the 
Eighth and Ninth General Assemblies, of which 
he was chosen President pro tempore. While 
serving in this capacity he became ex-officio 
Lieutenant-Governor in consequence of the resig- 
nation of Lieut. -Gov. Zadoc Casey to acqept a 
seat in Congress, in March, 1833, and, in Novem- 
ber, 1834, assumed the Governorship as successor 
to Governor Reynolds, who had been elected to 
Congress to fill a vacancy. He served only fifteen 
days as Governor, when he gave place to Gov. 
Joseph Duncan, who had been elected in due 
course at the previous election. A year later 
(December, 1835) he was chosen United States 
Senator to succeed Elias Kent Kane, who had 
died in office. Failing of a re-election to the 
Senatorship in 1837, he was returned to the House 
of Representatives from his old district in 1838, 
as he was again in 1840, at each session being 
chosen Speaker over Abraham Lincoln, who was 
the Whig candidate. Dropping out of the Legis- 
lature at the close of his term, we find him at the 
beginning of the next session (December, 1842) in 
his old place as Clerk of the House, but, before 
the close of the session (in March, 1843), appointed 
Auditor of Public Accounts as successor to James 
Shields, who had resigned. While occupying the 
office of Auditor, Mr. Ewing died, March 25, 1846. 
His public career was as unique as it was remark- 
able, in the number and character of the official 
positions held by him within a period of twenty- 
five years. 

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS. (See State officers 
under heads of "Governor," "Lieutenant- Gov- 
ernor, ^ etc.) 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



1G1 



EYE AND EAR INFIRMARY, ILLINOIS 
CHARITABLE. This institution is an outgrowth 
of a private charity founded at Chicago, in 1858, 
by Dr. Edward L. Holmes, a distinguished Chi- 
cago oculist. In 1871 the property of the institu- 
tion was transferred to and accepted by the State, 
the title was changed by the substitution of the 
word "Illinois" for "Chicago," and the Infirmary 
became a State institution. The fire of 1871 
destroyed the building, and, in 1873-74, the State 
erected another of brick, four stories in height, 
at the corner of West Adams and Peoria Streets, 
Chicago. The institution receives patients from 
all the counties of the State, the same receiving 
board, lodging, and medical aid, and (when neces- 
sary) surgical treatment, free of charge. The 
number of patients on Dec. 1, 1897, was 160. In 
1877 a free eye and ear dispensary was opened 
under legislative authority, which is under charge 
of some eminent Chicago specialists. 

FAIRBURY, an incorporated city of Livings- 
ton County, situated ten miles southeast of Pon- 
tiac, in a fertile and thickly-settled region. Coal, 
sandstone, limestone, fire-clay and a micaceous 
quartz are found in the neighborhood. The 
town has banks, grain elevators, flouring mills 
and two weekly newspapers. Population (1880), 
2,140; (1890), 2,324; (1900), 2,187. 

FAIRFIELD, an incorporated city, the countj'- 
seat of Wayne County and a railway junction, 
108 miles southeast of St. Louis. The town has 
an extensive woolen factory and large flouring 
and saw mills. It also has four weekly papers 
and is an important fruit and grain-shipping 
point. Population (1880), 1,391; (1890), 1,881; 
(1900), 2,338. 

FAIRMOUNT, a village of Vermilion County, 
on the Wabash Railway, 13 miles west-southwest 
from Danville; industrial interests chiefly agri- 
cultural; has brick and tile factory, a coal mine, 
stone quarry, three rural mail routes and one 
weekly paper. Population (1890), 649 ; (1900), 928. 

FALLOWS, (Rt. Rev.) Samuel, Bishop of Re- 
formed Protestant Episcopal Church, was born at 
Pendleton, near Manchester, England, Dec. 13, 
1835; removed with his parents to Wisconsin in 
1848, and graduated from the State University 
there in 1859, during a part of his university 
course serving as pastor of a Methodist Episcopal 
church at Madison; was next Vice-President of 
Gainesville University till 1861, when he was 
ordained to the Methodist ministry and became 
pastor of a church at Oshkosh. The following 
year he was appointed Chaplain of the Thirty- 



second Wisconsin Volunteers, but later assisted 
in organizing the Fortieth Wisconsin, of which 
he became Colonel, in 1865 being brevetted Briga 
dier-General. On his return to civil life he 
became a pastor in Milwaukee; was appointed 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction for 
Wisconsin to fill a vacancy, in 1*71, ami was twice 
re-elected. In 1874 he was elected President of 
the Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, 
111., remaining two years; in 1875 united with the 
Reformed Episcopal Church, soon after l>ecaine 
Rector of St. Paul's Church in Chicago, and was 
elected a Bishop in 1876, also assuming the 
editorship of "The Appeal," the organ of the 
church. He served as Regent of the University 
of Wisconsin (1864-74), and for several years has 
been one of the Trustees of the Illinois State 
Reform School at Pontiac. He is the author of 
two or three volumes, one of them being a "Sup- 
plementary Dictionary.'' published in 1884. 
Bishop Fallows has had supervision of Reformed 
Episcopal Church work in the West and North 
west for several years ; has also served as Chaplain 
of the Grand Army of the Republic for the 
Department of Illinois and of the Loyal Legion, 
and was Chairman of the General Committee of 
the Educational Congress during the World's 
Columbian Exposition of 1893. 

FARINA, a town of Fayette County, on the 
Chicago Division of the Illinois Central Railroad, 
29 miles northeast of Centralia. Agriculture and 
fruit-growing constitute the chief business of the 
section; the town lias one newspaper. Popula- 
tion (1890), 618; (1900), 693; (1903, est.), 800. 

FARMER CITY, a city of I)e Witt County. 20 
miles southeast of Bloomington, at the junction 
of the Springfield division of the Illinois Central 
and the Peoria division of the Cleveland, Cincin- 
nati, Chicago & St. Louis Kail ways. It is a 
trading center for a rich agricultural and stock- 
raising district, especially noted for rearing finely 
bred horses. The city has hanks, two news 
papers, churches of four denominations and good 
schools, including a high school. Population 
(1880), 1,289; (1890 . 1,367; (1900), 1,664 

FARMERS' INSTITUTE, an organization 
created by an act. approved June 24, l*'.'"i. de- 
signed to encourage practical education among 
fanners, and to assist in developing the agricul- 
tural resources <>t" the state. Its membership 
consists of three delegates from each county in 
the state, elected annually by the Farmers' 
Institute in such county Its atrairs are managed 
by a Board of Directors constituted a- follows 
The Superintendent of Public Instruction the 



162 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Professor of Agriculture in the University of Illi- 
nois, and the Presidents of the State Board of 
Agriculture, Dairymen's Association and Horti- 
cultural Society, ex-officio, with one member from 
each Congressional District, chosen by the dele- 
gates from the district at the annual meeting of 
the organization. Annual meetings (between 
Oct. 1 and March 1) are required to be held, 
which shall continue in session for not less than 
three days. The topics for discussion are the 
cultivation of crops, the care and breeding of 
domestic animals, dairy husbandry, horticulture, 
farm drainage, improvement of highways and 
general farm management. The reports of the 
annual meetings are printed by the State to the 
number of 10,000, one-half of the edition being 
placed at the disposal of the Institute. Suitable 
quarters for the officers of the organization are 
provided in the State capitol. 

FARMFNGTON, a city and railroad center in 
Fulton County, 12 miles north of Canton and 22 
miles west of Peoria. Coal is extensively mined 
here; there are also brick and tile factories, a 
foundry, one steam flour-mill, and two cigar 
manufactories. It is a large shipping-point for 
grain and live-stock. The town has two banks 
and two newspapers, five churches and a graded 
school. Population (1890), 1,375; (1903, est.), 2,103. 

FARNSWORTH, Elon John, soldier, was born 
at Green Oak, Livingston County, Mich., in 1837. 
After completing a course in the public schools, 
he entered the University of Michigan, but left 
college at the end of his freshman year (1858) to 
serve in the Quartermaster's department of the 
army in the Utah expedition. At the expiration 
of his term of service he became a buffalo hunter 
and a carrier of mails between the haunts of 
civilization and the then newly-discovered mines 
at Pike's Peak. Returning to Illinois, he was 
commissioned (1861) Assistant Quartermaster of 
the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, of which his uncle 
was Colonel. (See Farnsworth, John Franklin.) 
He soon rose to a captaincy, distinguishing him- 
self in the battles of the Peninsula. In May, 
1863, he was appointed aid-de-camp to General 
Pleasanton, and, on June 29, 1863, was made a 
Brigadier-General. Four days later he was killed, 
while gallantly leading a charge at Gettysburg. 

FARNSWORTH, John Franklin, soldier and 
former Congressman, was born at Eaton, Canada 
East, March 27, 1820; removed to Michigan in 
1834, and later to Illinois, settling in Kane 
County, where he practiced law for many years, 
making his home at St. Charles. He was elected 
to Congress in 1856, and re-elected in 1858. In 



September of 1861, he was commissioned Colonel 
of the Eighth Illinois Cavalry Volunteers, and 
was brevetted Brigadier-General ia November, 
1862, but resigned, March 4, 1863, to take his seat 
in Congress to which he had been elected the 
November previous, by successive re-elections 
serving from 1863 to 1873. The latter years of 
his life were spent in Washington, where he died, 
July 14, 1897. 

FAR WELL, Charles Benjamin, merchant and 
United States Senator, was born at Painted Post, 
N. Y., July 1, 1823; removed to Illinois in 1838. 
and, for six years, was employed in surveying 
and farming. In 1844 he engaged in the real 
estate business and in banking, at Chicago. He 
was elected County Clerk in 1853, and re-elected 
in 1857. Later he entered into commerce, becom- 
ing a partner with his brother, John Villiers, in 
the firm of J. V. Farwell & Co. He was a mem- 
ber of the State Board of Equalization in 1867 ; 
Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Cook 
County in 1868 ; and National Bank Examiner in 
1869. In 1870 he was elected to Congress as a 
Republican, was re-elected in 1872, but was 
defeated in 1874, after a contest for the seat which 
was carried into the House at "Washington. 
Again, in 1880, he was returned to Congress, 
making three full terms in that body. He also 
served for several years as Chairman of the 
Republican State Central Committee. After the 
death of Gen. John A. Logan he was (1887) 
elected United States Senator, his term expiring 
March 3, 1891. Mr. Farwell has since devoted 
his attention to the immense mercantile busi- 
ness of J. V. Farwell & Co. 

FARWELL, John Villiers, merchant, was born 
at Campbelltown, Steuben County, N. Y., July 
29, 1825, the son of a farmer ; received a common- 
school education and, in 1838, removed with his 
father's family to Ogle County, 111. Here he 
attended Mount Morris Seminary for a time, but, 
in 1845, came to Chicago without capital and 
secured employment in the City Clerk's office, 
then became a book-keeper in the dry- goods 
establishment of Hamilton & White, and, still 
later, with Hamilton & Day. Having thus 
received his bent towards a mercantile career, he 
soon after entered the concern of Wadsworth & 
Phelps as a clerk, at a salary of $600 a year, but 
was admitted to a partnership in 1850, the title of 
the firm becoming Cooley, Farwell & Co., in 1860. 
About this time Marshall Field and Levi Z. Leiter 
became associated with the concern and received 
their mercantile training under the supervision 
of Mr. Farwell. In 1865 the title of the firm 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS 



163 



became J. V. Farwell & Co., but, in 1891, the firm 
was incorporated under the name of The J. V. 
Farwell Company, his brother, Charles B. Far- 
well, being a member. The subject of this sketch 
has long been a prominent factor in religious 
circles, a leading spirit of the Young Men's 
Christian Association, and served as President of 
the Chicago Branch of the United States 
Christian Commission during the Civil War. 
Politically he is a Republican and served as Presi- 
dential Elector at the time of President Lincoln's 
second election in 1864 ; also served by appoint- 
ment of President Grant, in 1869, on the Board of 
Indian Commissioners. He was a member of the 
syndicate which erected the Texas State Capitol, 
at Austin, in that State ; has been, for a number 
of years, Vice-President and Treasurer of the 
J. V. Farwell Company, and President of the 
Colorado Consolidated Land and Water Company. 
He was also prominent in the organization of the 
Chicago Public Library, and a member of the 
Union League, the Chicago Historical Society 
and the Art Institute. 

FARWELL, William Washington, jurist, was 
born at Morrisville, Madison County, N. Y., Jan. 
5, 1817, of old Puritan ancestry; graduated from 
Hamilton College in 1837, and was admitted to 
the bar at Rochester, N. Y., in 1841. In 1848 he 
removed to Chicago, but the following year went 
to California, returning to his birthplace in 1850. 
In 1854 he again settled at Chicago and soon 
secured a prominent position at the bar. In 1871 
he was elected Circuit Court Judge for Cook 
County, and, in 1873, re-elected for a term of six 
years. During this period he sat chiefly upon 
the chancery side of the court, and, for a time, 
presided as Chief Justice. At the close of his 
second term he was a candidate for re-election as 
a Republican, but was defeated with the re- 
mainder of the ticket. In 1880 he was chosen 
Professor of Equity Jurisprudence in the Union 
College of Law (now the Northwestern Univer- 
sity Law School), serving until June, 1893, when 
he resigned. Died, in Chicago, April 30, 1894. 

FAYETTE COUNTY, situated about 60 miles 
south of the geographical center of the State; 
was organized in 1821, and named for the French 
General La Fayette. It has an area of 720 square 
miles; population (1900), 28,065. The soil is fer- 
tile and a rich vein of bituminous coal underlies 
the county. Agriculture, fruit-growing and 
mining are the chief industries. The old, historic 
"Cumberland Road," the trail for all west-bound 
emigrants, crossed the county at an early date. 
Perryville was the first county-seat, but this town 



is now extinct. Vandalia, the present seat of 
county government (population, 2,144), Btands 
upon a succession of hills upon the west bank of 
the Kaskaskia. From 1820 to 1839 it was the 
State Capital. Besides Vandalia the chief towns 
are Ramsey, noted for its railroad ties and tim 
ber, and St. Elmo. 

FEEBLE-MINDED CHILDREN, ASYLUM 
FOR. This institution, originally established as 
a sort of appendage to the Illinois [nstitution tor 
the Deaf and Dumb, was started at Jacksom [lie, 
in 1865, as an "experimental school, for tin- 
instruction of idiots and feeble-minded children.' 1 
Its success having been assured, the school was 
placed upon an independent basis in 1871, and. 
in 1875, a site at Lincoln, Logan County, covering 
forty acres, was donated, and the erection of 
buildings begun. The original plan provided for 
a center building, with wings and a rear ext> in- 
sion, to cost $124, 77o. Besides a main or admin i- 
tration building, the institution embrace^ a 
school building and custodial hall, a hospital and 
industrial workshop, and, during the past year a 
chapel has been added. It has control of 890 
acres, of which 400 are leased for farming pur- 
poses, the rental going to the benefit of the insti 
tution. The remainder is used for the purposes 
of the institution as farm land, gardens or i ma- 
ture, about ninety acres being occupied by 1 1 it- 
institution buildings. The capacity of the insti- 
tution is about 700 inmates, with man}- applica- 
tions constantly on file for the admission of 
others for whom there is no room. 

FEEHAN, Patrick A., D.D., Archbishop of 
the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Chicago, and 
Metropolitan of Illinois, was born at Tipperarv. 
Ireland, in 1829, and educated at Maynooth 
College. He emigrated to the United States in 
1852, settling at St. Louis, and was at one- 
appointed President of the Seminary of Caronde- 
let. Later he was made pastor of the Church ot' 
the Immaculate Conception at St. Louis, where 
he achieved marked distinction. In 1865 he was 
consecrated Bishop of Nashville, managing the 
affairs of the diocese with great ability. In i^ s " 
Chicago was raised to an archiepiscopal >ee, with 
Suffragan Bishops at Alton and Peoria, and 
Bishop Feelian was consecrated its first Arch 
bishop. His administration has been conserva- 
tive, yet efficient, and the archdiocese has greatly 
prospered under his rule. 

FELL, Jesr<e YV„ lawyer and real estate opera 
tor, was horn in Chester County, Pa., about L808; 
started west on foot in 1828, ami. after spending 
some pears at Steubenville, Ohio, came t.. Dela 



164 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



van, 111., in 1832, and the next year located at 
Bloomington, being the first lawyer in that new 
town. Later he became agent for school lands 
and the State Bank, but failed financially in 
1837, and returned to practice; resided several 
years at Payson, Adams County, but returning 
to Bloomington in 1855, was instrumental in 
securing the location of the Chicago & Alton 
Railroad through that town, and was one of the 
founders of the towns of Clinton, Pontiac, Lex- 
ington and El Paso. He was an intimate personal 
and political friend of Abraham Lincoln, and it 
was to him Mr. Lincoln addressed his celebrated 
personal biography; in the campaign of 1860 he 
served as Secretary of the Republican State Cen- 
tral Committee, and, in 1862, was appointed by 
Mr. Lincoln a Paymaster in the regular army, 
serving some two years. Mr. Fell was also a zeal- 
ous friend of the cause of industrial education, 
and bore an important part in securing the 
location of the State Normal University at Nor- 
mal, of which city he was the founder. Died, at 
Bloomington, Jan. 25, 1887. 

FERGUS, Robert, early printer, was born in 
Glasgow, Scotland, August 4, 1815; learned the 
printer's trade in his native city, assisting in his 
youth in putting in type some of Walter Scott's 
productions and other works which now rank 
among English classics. In 1834 he came to - 
America, finally locating in Chicago, where, 
with various partners, he pursued the business of 
a job printer continuously some fifty years — 
being the veteran printer of Chicago. He was 
killed by being run over by a railroad train at 
Evanston, July 23, 1897. The establishment of 
which he was so long the head is continued by 
his sons. 

FERNWOOD, a suburban station on the Chi- 
cago & Eastern Illinois Railroad, 12 south of ter- 
minal station ; annexed to City of Chicago, 1891. 

FERRY, Elisha Peyre, politician, born in 
Monroe, Mich., August 9, 1825; was educated in 
his native town and admitted to the bar at Fort 
Wayne, Ind., in 1845; removed to Waukegan, 
111., the following year, served as Postmaster and, 
in 1856, was candidate on the Republican ticket 
for Presidential Elector; was elected Mayor of 
Waukegan in 1859, a member of the State Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1862, State Bank Com- 
missioner in 1861-63, Assistant Adjutant-General 
on the staff of Governor Yates during the war, 
and a delegate to the Republican National Con- 
vention of 1864. After the war he served as 
direct-tax Commissioner for Tennessee; in 1869 
was appointed Surveyor-General of Washington 



Territory and, in 1872 and '76, Territorial Gov- 
ernor. On the admission of Washington as a 
State, in 1889, he was elected the first Governor. 
Died, at Seattle, Wash., Oct. 14, 1895. 

FEYRE RIVER, a small stream which rises in 
Southern Wisconsin and enters the Mississippi in 
Jo Daviess County, six miles below Galena, which 
stands upon its banks. It is navigable for steam- 
boats between Galena and its mouth. The name 
originally given to it by early French explorers 
was "Feve" (the French name for "Bean"), 
which has since been corrupted into its present 
form. 

FICKLIN, Orlando B., lawyer and politician, 
was born in Kentucky, Dec. 16, 1808, and 
admitted to the bar at Mount Carmel, Wabash 
County, 111., in March, 1830. In 1834 he was 
elected to the lower house of the Ninth General 
Assembly. After serving a term as State's 
Attorney for Wabash County, in 1837 he removed 
to Charleston, Coles County, where, in 1838, and 
again in '42, he was elected to the Legislature, as 
he was for the last time in 1878. He was four 
times elected to Congress, serving from 1843 to 
'49, and from 1851 to '53; was Presidential Elector 
in 1856, and candidate for the same position on 
the Democratic ticket for the State-at-large in 
1884; was also a delegate to the Democratic 
National Conventions of 1856 and '60. He was 
a member of the Constitutional Convention of 
1862. Died, at Charleston, May 5, 1886. 

FIELD, Alexander Pope, early legislator and 
Secretary of State, came to Illinois about the 
time of its admission into the Union, locating in 
Union County, which he represented in the Third, 
Fifth and Sixth General Assemblies. In the 
first of these he was a prominent factor in the 
ejection of Representative Hansen of Pike County 
and the seating of Shaw in his place, which 
enabled the advocates of slavery to secure the 
passage of a resolution submitting to the people 
the question of calling a State Constitutional 
Convention. In 1828 he was appointed Secretary 
of State by Governor Edwards, remaining in 
office under Governors Reynolds and Dun- 
can and through half the term of Governor 
Carlin, though the latter attempted to secure 
his removal in 1838 by the appointment of 
John A. McClernand — the courts, however, 
declaring against the latter. In November, 1840, 
the Governor's act was made effective by the 
confirmation, by the Senate, of Stephen A. Doug- 
las as Secretary in place of Field. Douglas 
held the office only to the following February, 
when he resigned to take a place on the Supreme 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



L65 



bench and Lyman Trumbull was appointed to 
succeed him. Field (who had become a Whig) 
was appointed by President Harrison, in 1841, 
Secretary of Wisconsin Territory, later removed 
to St. Louis and finally to New Orleans, where he 
was at the beginning of the late war. In Decem- 
ber, 1863, he presented himself as a member of 
the Thirty-eighth Congress for Louisiana, but 
was refused his seat, though claiming in an elo- 
quent speech to have been a loyal man. Died, in 
New Orleans, in 1877. Mr. Field was a nephew 
of Judge Nathaniel Pope, for over thirty years on 
the bench of the United States District Court. 

FIELD, Eugene, journalist, humorist and poet, 
was born in St. Louis, Mo., Sept. 2, 1850. Left an 
orphan at an early age, he was reared by a rela- 
tive at Amherst, Mass. , and received a portion of 
his literary training at Monson and Williamstown 
in that State, completing his course at the State 
University of Missouri. After an extended tour 
through Europe in 1872-73, he began his journal- 
istic career at St. Louis, Mo., as a reporter on 
"The Evening Journal, 1 ' later becoming its city 
editor. During the next ten years he was succes- 
sively connected with newspapers at St. Joseph, 
Mo., St. Louis, Kansas City, and at Denver, Colo., 
at the last named city being managing editor of 
"The Tribune." In 1883 he removed to Chicago, 
becoming a special writer for "The Chicago 
News," his particular department for several 
years being a pungent, witty column with the 
caption, "Sharps and Flats." He wrote con- 
siderable prose fiction and much poetry, among 
the latter being successful translations of several 
of Horace's Odes. As a poet, however, he was 
best known through his short poems relating to 
childhood and home, which strongly appealed to 
the popular heart. Died, in Chicago, deeply 
mourned by a large circle of admirers, Nov. 4, 
1895. 

FIELD, Marshall, merchant and capitalist, was 
born in Conway, Mass., in 1835, and grew up on 
a farm, receiving a common school and academic 
education. At the age of 17 he entered upon a 
mercantile career as clerk in a dry-goods store at 
Pittsfield, Mass., but, in 1856, came to Chicago 
and secured employment with Messrs. Cooley, 
Wadsworth & Co. ; in 1860 was admitted into 
partnership, the firm becoming Cooley, Farwell 
& Co., and still later, Farwell, Field & Co. The 
last named firm was dissolved and that of Field, 
Palmer & Leiter organized in 1865. Mr. Palmer 
having retired in 1867, the firm was continued 
under the name of Field, Leiter & Co., until 1881, 
when Mr. Leiter retired, the concern being since 



known as Marshall Field & Co. The growth of 
the business of this great establishment is shown 
by the fact that, whereas its sales amounted 
before the lire to some §12,000,000 annually, in 
1895 they aggregated $40,000,000. Mr. Field's 
business career has been remarkable for its suc- 
cess in a city famous for its successful business 
men and the vastness of their commercial oper- 
ations. He has been a generous and discrimi- 
nating patron of important public enterprises, 
some of his more conspicuous donations being the 
gift of a tract of land valued at §300,00(1 and 
§100,000 in cash, to the Chicago University, and 
§1,000,000 to the endowment of the Field Colum- 
bian Museum, as a sequel to the World's Colum- 
bian Exposition. The latter, chiefly through the 
munificence of Mr. Field, promises to become one 
of the leading institutions of its kind in the 
United States. Besides his mercantile interests 
Mr. Field has extensive interests in various finan- 
cial and manufacturing enterprises, including 
the Pullman Palace Car Company and the Rock 
Island & Pacific Railroad, in each of which he is 
a Director. 

FIFER, Joseph W., born at Stanton, Va., Oct. 
28, 1840; in 1857 he accompanied his father (who 
was a stone-mason) to McLean County, 111., and 
worked at the manufacture and laying of brick 
At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted as a 
private in the Thirty-third Illinois Infantry, and 
was dangerously wounded at the assault on .lack- 
son, Miss., in 1863. On the healing of his wound, 
disregarding the advice of family and friends, he 
rejoined his regiment. At the close of the war. 
when about 25 years of age, he entered the Wes- 
leyan University at Bloomington, where, by dint 
of hard work and frugality, while supporting 
himself in part by manual labor, he secured a 
diploma in 1868. He at once began the study of 
law, and, soon after his admission, entered upon a 
practice which subsequent ly proved both success- 
ful and lucrative. He was elected Corporation 
Counsel of Bloomington in 1871 and States Attor- 
ney for McLean ( lounty in 1 S 7"J. holding the latter 
office, through re-election, until 1880, when he 
was chosen State Senator, serving in the Thirty- 
second and Thirty-t bird General Assemblies. In 
1888 he was nominated and elected Governor ou 
the Republican ticket, but, in 1S92, was defeated 
by John P. Altgeld, the Democratic nominee. 
though running in advance of the national and 
the rest of the State ticket. 

FINEKTY, John F., ex-Congressman and 
journalist, was lvirn in Galway, Ireland, Sept. 
10, 1846. His studies were mainly prosecuted 



166 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



under private tutors. At the age of 16 he entered 
the profession of journalism, and, in 1864, coming 
to America, soon after enlisted, serving for 100 
days during the Civil War, in the Ninety-ninth 
New York Volunteers. Subsequently, having 
removed to Chicago, he was connected with "The 
Chicago Times" as a special correspondent from 
1876 to 1881, and, in 1882, established "The Citi- 
zen, ' ' a weekly newspaper devoted to the Irish- 
Anierican interest, which he continues to pub- 
lish. In 1882 he was elected, as an Independ- 
ent Democrat, to represent the Second Illinois 
District in the Forty-eighth Congress, but, run- 
ning as an Independent Republican for re-election 
in 1884, was defeated by Frank Lawler, Democrat. 
In 1887 he was appointed Oil Inspector of Chi- 
cago, and, since 1889, has held no public office, 
giving his attention to editorial work on his 
paper. 

FISHER, (Dr.) George, pioneer physician and 
legislator, was probably a native of Virginia, 
from which State he appears to have come to 
Kaskaskia previous to 1800. He became very 
prominent during the Territorial period; was 
appointed by William Henry Harrison, then 
Governor of Indiana Territory, the first Sheriff of 
Randolph County after its organization in 1801 ; 
was elected from that county to the Indiana 
Territorial House of Representatives In 1805, and 
afterwards promoted to the Territorial Council; 
was also Representative in the First and Third 
Legislatures of Illinois Territory (1812 and '16), 
serving as Speaker of each. He was a Dele- 
gate to the Constitutional Convention of 1818, but 
died ^on his farm near Kaskaskia in 1820. Dr. 
Fisher participated in the organization of the 
first Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in Illi- 
nois at Kaskaskia, in 1806, and was elected one 
of its officers. 

FISHERIES. The fisheries of Illinois center 
chiefly at Chicago, the catch being taken from 
Lake Michigan, and including salmon trout, 
white fish (the latter species including a lake 
herring), wall-eyed pike, three kinds of bass, 
three varieties of sucker, carp and sturgeon. The 
"fishing fleet" of Lake Michigan, properly so 
called, (according to the census of 1890) con- 
sisted of forty-seven steamers and one schooner, 
of which only one — a steamer of twenty-six tons 
burthen — was credited to Illinois. The same 
report showed a capital of 836,105 invested in 
land, buildings, wharves, vessels, boats and 
apparatus. In addition to the "fishing fleet" 
mentioned, nearly 1,100 sail-boats and other vari- 
eties of craft are employed in the industry, 



sailing from ports between- Chicago and Macki- 
nac, of which, in 1890, Illinois furnished 94, or 
about nine per cent. All sorts of apparatus are 
used, but the principal are gill, fyke and pound 
nets, and seines. The total value of these minor 
Illinois craft, with their equipment, for 1890, was 
nearly $18,000, the catch aggregating 722,830 
pounds, valued at between §24,000 and $25,000. 
Of this draught, the entire quantity was either 
sold fresh in Chicago and adjacent markets, or 
shipped, either in ice or frozen. The Mississippi 
and its tributaries yield wall-eyed pike, pike 
perch, buffalo fish, sturgeon, paddle fish, and 
other species available for food. 

FITHIAN, George W., ex -Congressman, was 
born on a farm near Willow Hill, 111., July 4, 1854. 
His early education was obtained in the common 
schools, and he learned the trade of a printer at 
Mount Carmel. While employed at the case he 
found time to study law, and was admitted to the 
bar in 1875. In 1876 he was elected State's 
Attorney for Jasper County, and re-elected in 
1880. He was prominent in Democratic politics, 
and, in 1888, was elected on the ticket of that 
party to represent the Sixteenth Illinois District 
in Congress. He was re-elected in 1890 and 
again in 1892, but, in 1894, was defeated by his 
Republican opponent. 

FITHIAN, (Dr.) WiUiam, pioneer physician, 
was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1800; built the 
first houses in Springfield and Urbana in that 
State; in 1822 began the study of medicine at 
Urbana ; later practiced two years at Mechanics- 
burgh, and four years at Urbana, as partner of 
his preceptor; in 1830 came west, locating at 
Danville, Vermilion County, where he became a 
large land-owner; in 1832 served with the Ver- 
milion County militia in the Black Hawk War, 
and, in 1834, was elected Representative in the 
Ninth General Assembly, the first of which 
Abraham Lincoln was a member; afterwards 
served two terms in the State Senate from the 
Danville District (1838-46). Dr. Fithian was 
active in promoting the railroad interests of 
Danville, giving the right of way for railroad 
purposes through a large body of land belonging 
to him, in Vermilion County. He was also a 
member of various medical associations, and, 
during his later years, was the oldest practicing 
physician in the State. Died, in Danville, 111., 
April 5, 1890. 

FLAGG, Gershom, pioneer, was born in Rich- 
mond, Vt., in 1792, came west in 1816, settling in 
Madison County, 111., in 1818, where he was 
known as an enterprising farmer and a prominent 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



L67 



and influential citizen. Originally a Whig, he 
became a zealous Republican on the organizal ion 
of that party, dying in 1857. — Willard Cutting 
(Flagg), son of the preceding, was born in Madi- 
son County, 111., Sept 16, 1829, spent his earl}- life 
on his father's farm and in the common schools; 
from 1844 to '50 was a pupil in the celebrated 
high school of Edward Wyman in St. Louis, 
finally graduating with honors at Yale College, 
in 1854. During his college course he took a 
number of literary prizes, and, in his senior year, 
served as one of the editors of "The Yale Literary 
Magazine." Returning to Illinois after gradu- 
ation, he took charge of his father's farm, engaged 
extensively in fruit-culture and stock-raising, 
being the first to introduce the Devon breed of 
cattle in Madison County in 1859. He was a 
member of the Republican State Central Com- 
mittee in 1860 ; in 1862, by appointment of Gov. 
Yates, became Enrolling Officer for Madison 
County ; served as Collector of Internal Revenue 
for the Twelfth District, 1864-69, and, in 1868, 
was elected to the State Senate for a term of four 
years, and, during the last session of his term 
(1872), took a prominent part in the revision of 
the school law ; was appointed a member of the 
first Board of Trustees of the Industrial Univer- 
sity (now the University of Illinois) at Cham- 
paign, and reappointed in 1875. Mr. Flagg was 
also prominent in agricultural and horticultural 
organizations, serving as Secretary of the State 
Horticultural Society from 1861 to '69, when he 
became its President. He was one of the origi- 
nators of the "farmers' movement," served for 
some time as President of "The State Farmers' 
Association," wrote voluminously, and delivered 
addresses in various States on agricultural and 
horticultural topics, and, in 1875, was elected 
President of the National Agricultural Congress. 
In his later years he was a recognized leader in 
the Granger movement. Died, at Mora, Madison 
County, 111., April 5, 1878. 

FLEMING, Robert K., pioneer printer, was 
born in Erie County, Pa., learned the printers' 
trade in Pittsburg, and, coming west while quite 
young, worked at his trade in St. Louis, finally 
removing to Kaskaskia, where he was placed in 
control of the office of "The Republican Advo- 
cate," which had been established in 1823, by 
Elias Kent Kane. The publication of "The 
Advocate" having been suspended, he revived it 
in May, 1825, under the name of "The Kaskaskia 
Recorder," but soon removed it to Yandalia (then 
the State capital), and, in 1827, began the publi- 
cation of "The Illinois Corrector," at Edwards- 



ville. Two years later he returned to Kaskaskia 
and resumed the publication of "The Recorder," 
but, in 1833, was induced to remove his office to 
Belleville, where tie commenced the publication 
of "TheSt. Clair Gazette," followed by "The Si 
Clair Mercury," both of which had a brief exist 
ence. About 1843 he returned to the newspaper 
business as publisher of "The Belleville Advo 
cate," which he continued for a number of years 
He died, at Belleville, in 1 S 7I. Leaving two - 
who have been prominently identified with the 
history of journalism in Southern Illinois, at 
Belleville and elsewhere. 

FLETCHER, Job, pioneer and earlj legislator, 
was born in Virginia, in 1793, removed to Sat 
mon County, 111., in 1819; was elected Represent- 
ative in 1826, and, in 1834, to the State Senate, 
serving in the latter body six years. He was our 
of the famous "Long Nine" which represented 
Sangamon County in the Tenth General Assem- 
bly. Mr. Fletcher was again a member of the 
House in 1844-45. Died, in Sangamon Count v 
in 1872. 

FLORA, a city in Harter Township, Clay 
County, on the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern 
Railroad, 95 miles east of St. Louis, and Ins ,,,;!,.. 
south-southeast of Springfield; has barrel factory, 
flouring mills, cold storage and ice plant, three 
fruit-working factories, two banks, six churches 
and a weekly newspaper. Population (1890), 
1,695; (1900), 2,811 ; (1903, est. i. li.OOO. 

FLOWER, George, early English colonist, was 
born in Hertfordshire, England, about l? v " 
came to the United States in 1817, and was associ- 
ated with Morris Birkbeck in founding the 
"English Settlement" at Albion, Edwards 
County, 111. Being in affluent circumstances, he 
built an elegant mansion and stocked an exten 
sive farm with blooded animals from England 
and other parts of Europe, but met with reverses 
which dissipated his wealth. In common with 
Mr. Birkbeck, he was one of the determu 
opponents of the attempt to establish slavery in 
Illinois in 1824, and did much to defeat that 
measure. He and Ins wife lie 1 on the same day 
(Jan. 15, 1862), while on a visit to a daughter at 
Grayville. 111. A book written by him— "History 
of the English Settlement in Edwards County, 
111." — and published in 1883, is a valuable contri- 
bution to the early history of that portion of the 
State.— Edward Fordhams (Flower), son of the 
preceding, was born in England, dan. 31, 16 
but came with his father to Illinois in early life; 
later he returned to England and spent nearly 
half a century at Stratford-on Avon where he 



168 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



was four times chosen Mayor of that borough 
and entertained many visitors from the United 
States to Shakespeare's birthplace. Died, March 
26, 1883. 

FOBES, Philena, educator, born in Onondaga 
County, N. Y., Sept. 10, 1811; was educated at 
Albany and at Cortland Seminary, Rochester, 
N. Y. ; in 1838 became a teacher in Monticello 
Female Seminary, then newly established at 
Godfrey, 111., under Rev. Theron Baldwin, Prin- 
cipal. On the retirement of Mr. Baldwin in 1843, 
Miss Fobes succeeded to the principalship, 
remaining until 1866, when she retired. For 
some years she resided at Rochester, N. Y., and 
New Haven, Conn., but, in 1886, she removed to 
Philadelphia, where she afterwards made her 
home, notwithstanding her advanced age, main- 
taining a lively interest in educational and 
benevolent enterprises. Miss Fobes died at Phila- 
delphia, Nov. 8, 1898, and was buried at New 
Haven, Conn. 

FOLEY, Thomas, Roman Catholic Bishop, born 
in Baltimore, Md., in 1823; was ordained a priest 
in 1846, and, two years later, was appointed Chan- 
cellor of the Diocese, being made Vicar-General 
in 1867. He was nominated Coadjutor Bishop of 
the Chicago Diocese in 1869 (Bishop Duggan hav- 
ing become insane), and, in 1870, was consecrated 
Bishop. His administration of diocesan work was 
prudent and eminently successful. As a man 
and citizen he won the respect of all creeds and 
classes alike, the State Legislature adopting 
resolutions of respect and regret upon learning 
of his death, which occurred at Baltimore, in 
1879. 

FORBES, Stephen Van Rensselaer, pioneer 
teacher, was born at Windham, Vt., July 26, 1797; 
in his youth acquired a knowledge of surveying, 
and, having removed to Newburg (now South 
Cleveland), - Ohio, began teaching. In 1829 he 
came west to Chicago, and having joined a sur- 
veying party, went to Louisiana, returning in 
the following year to Chicago, which then con- 
tained only three white families outside of Fort 
Dearborn. Having been joined by his wife, he 
took up his abode in what was called the "sut- 
ler's house" connected with Fort Dearborn; was 
appointed one of the first Justices of the Peace, 
and opened the first school ever taught in Chi- 
cago, all but three of his pupils being either 
half-breeds or Indians. In 1832 he was elected, as 
a Whig, the first Sheriff of Cook County; later 
preempted 160 acres of land where Riverside 
now stands, subsequently becoming owner of 
some 1,800 acres, much of which he sold, about 



1853, to Dr. W. B. Egan at $20 per acre. In 
1849, having been seized with the "gold fever," 
Mr. Forbes joined in the overland migration to 
California, but, not being successful, returned 
two years later by way of the Isthmus, and, hav- 
ing sold his possessions in Cook County, took up 
his abode at Newburg, Ohio, and resumed his 
occupation as a surveyor. About 1878 he again 
returned to Chicago, but survived only a short 
time, dying Feb. 17, 1879. 

FORD, Thomas, early lawyer, jurist and Gov- 
ernor, was born in Uniontown, Pa. , and, in boy- 
hood, accompanied his mother (then a widow) to 
Missouri, in 1804. The family soon after located 
in Monroe County, 111. Largely through the 
efforts and aid of his half-brother, George 
Forquer, he obtained a professional education, 
became a successful lawyer, and, early in life, 
entered the field of politics. He served as a 
Judge of the Circuit Court for the northern part 
of the State from 1835 to 1837, and was again 
commissioned a Circuit Judge for the Galena 
circuit in 1839 ; in 1841 was elevated to the bench 
of the State Supreme Court, but resigned the 
following year to accept the nomination of his 
party (the Democratic) for Governor. He was 
regarded as upright in his general policy, but he 
had a number of embarrassing questions to deal 
with during his administration, one of these 
being the Mormon troubles, in which he failed to 
receive the support of his own party. He was 
author of a valuable 'History of Illinois," (pub- 
fished posthumously). He died, at Peoria, in 
greatly reduced circumstances, Nov. 3, 1850. The 
State Legislature of 1895 took steps to erect a 
monument over his grave. 

FORD COUNTY, lies northeast of Springfield, 
was organized in 1859, being cut off from Vermil- 
ion. It is shaped like an inverted "T," and has 
an area of 490 square miles; population (1900), 
18,359. The first County Judge was David Pat- 
ton, and David Davis (afterwards of the United 
States Supreme Court) presided over the first 
Circuit Court. The surface of the county is level 
and the soil fertile, consisting of a loam from one 
to five feet in depth. There is little timber, nor 
is there any out-cropping of stone. The county 
is named in honor of Governor Ford. The county- 
seat is Paxton, which had a population, in 1890, of 
2, 187. Gibson City is a railroad center, and has a 
population of 1,800. 

FORMAN, (Col.) Ferris, lawyer and soldier, 
was born in Tioga County, ,N. Y. , August 25, 
1811 ; graduated at Union College in 1832, studied 
law and was admitted to the bar in New York in 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



L69 



1835, and in the United States Supreme Court in 
1836; the latter year came west and settled at 
Vandalia, 111., where he began practice; in 1844 
was elected to the State Senate for the district 
composed of Fayette, Effingham, Clay and Rich- 
land Counties, serving two years; before the 
expiration of his term (1846) enlisted for the 
Mexican War, and was commissioned Colonel of 
the Third Regiment Illinois Volunteers, and, 
after participating in a number of the most 
important engagements of the campaign, was 
mustered out at New Orleans, in May, 1847. Re- 
turning from the Mexican War, he brought with 
him and presented to the State of Illinois a 
six-pound cannon, which had been captured by 
Illinois troops on the battlefield of Cerro Gordo, 
and is now in the State Arsenal at Springfield. 
In 1848 Colonel Forman was chosen Presidential 
Elector for the State-at large on the Democratic 
ticket ; in 1849 went to California, where he prac- 
ticed his profession until 1853, meanwhile serving 
as Postmaster of Sacramento City by appointment 
of President Pierce, and later as Secretary of 
State during the administration of Gov. John B. 
Weller (1858-60); in 1861 officiated, by appoint- 
ment of the California Legislature, as Commis- 
sioner on the part of the State in fixing the 
boundary between California and the Territory 
of Utah. After the discharge of this duty, he 
was offered the colonelcy of the Fourth California 
Volunteer Infantry, which he accepted, serving 
about twenty months, when he resigned. In 
1866 he resumed his residence at Vandalia, and 
served as a Delegate for Fayette and Effingham 
Counties in the Constitutional Convention of 
1869-70, also for several years thereafter held the 
office of State's Attorney for Fayette County. 
Later he returned to California, and, at the 
latest date, was a resident of Stockton, in that 
State. 

FORMAN, William S., ex-Congressman, was 
born at Natchez, Miss., Jan. 20, 1847. When he 
was four years old, his father's family removed to 
Illinois, settling in Washington County, where 
he has lived ever since. By profession he is a 
lawyer, and he takes a deep interest in politics, 
local, State and National. He represented his 
Senatorial District in the State Senate in the 
Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth General Assem- 
blies, and, in 1888, was elected, as a Democrat, to 
represent the Eighteenth Illinois District in the 
Fifty-first Congress, being re-elected in 1890, and 
again in '92, but was defeated in 1894 for renomi- 
nation by John J. Higgins, who was defeated at 
the election of the same year by Everett J. Mur- 



phy. In 1896 Mr. Forman was candidate of the 
"Gold Democracy" for Governor of Illinois, 
receiving 8,100 votes. 

FORQUER, George, early State officer, was 
born near Brownsville, Pa., in 1794— was the son 
of a Revolutionary soldier, and older half-brother 
of Gov. Thomas Ford. Il<- settled, with his 
mother (then a widow), at New Design, 111 , in 
1804. After learning, and, for several y< 
following the carpenter's trade at St. Louis, he 
returned to Illinois and purchased the trait 
whereon Waterloo now stands. Subsequently In- 
projected the town of Bridge water, on the Mis- 
sissippi. For a time he was a partner in trade of 
Daniel P. Cook. Being unsuccessful in business, 
he took up the study of law, in which he attained 
marked success. In 1824 he was elected to repre 
sent Monroe County in the House of Represent 
atives, but resigned in January of the following 
year to accept the position of Secretary of State. 
to which he was appointed by Governor Coles, 
as successor to Morris Birkbeck, whom the 
Senate had refused to confirm. One ground for 
the friendship between him and Coles, no doubt, 
was the fact that they had been united in their 
opposition to the scheme to make Illinois a slave 
State. In 1828 he was a candidate for Congress 
but was defeated by Joseph Duncan, afterwards 
Governor. At the close of the year he resigned 
the office of Secretary of State, but, a few weeks 
later (January, 1829), he was elected by the 
Legislature Attorney-General. This position he 
held until January, 1833, when he resigned, hav- 
ing, as it appears, at the previous election, been 
chosen State Senator from Sangamon County, 
serving in the Eighth and Ninth I reneral Assem- 
blies. Before the close of his term as Senator 
(1835), he received the appointment of Register 
of the Land Office at Springfield, which appears 
to have been the hist office held by him, as he 
died, at Cincinnati, in 1837. Mr. Forquerwasa 
man of recognized ability and influence, an elo- 
quent orator and capable writer, but, in common 

with some of the ablest lawyers of that time 

seems to have been much embarrassed by the 

smallness of his in ie, in spite of his ability 

and the fact that he was almost continually in 
office. 

FORREST, a village in Livingston County, at 
the intersection of the Toledo, Peoria & Western 
and the Wabash Railways, 75 miles east of Peoria 
and 16 miles southeast of Pontiac. Considerable 
grain i> shipped from this point to the Chicago 
market. The village has several churches and a 
graded school. Population (1880 875; (1900), 952. 



170 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



FORREST, Joseph K. C, journalist, was born 
in Cork, Ireland, Nov. 26, 1820 ; came to Chicago 
in 1840, soon after securing employment as a 
writer on "The Evening Journal," and, later on, 
"The Gem of the Prairies," the predecessor of 
"The Tribune," being associated with the latter 
at the date of its establishment, in June, 1847. 
During the early years of his residence in Chi- 
cago, Mr. Forrest spent some time as a teacher. 
On retiring from "The Tribune," he became the 
associate of John Wentworth in the management 
of "The Chicago Democrat," a relation which 
was broken up by the consolidation of the latter 
with "The Tribune," in 1861. He then became 
the Springfield correspondent of "The Tribune," 
also holding a position on the staff of Governor 
Yates, and still later represented "The St. Louis 
Democrat" and "Chicago Times," as Washington 
correspondent; assisted in founding "The Chicago 
Republican" (now "Inter Ocean"), in 1865, and, 
some years later, became a leading writer upon 
the same. He served one term as Clerk of the 
city of Chicago, but, in his later years, and up to 
the period of his death, was a leading contributor 
to the columns of "The Chicago Evening News" 
over the signatures of "An Old Timer" and "Now 
or Never." Died, in Chicago, June 23, 1896. 

FORRESTON, a village in Ogle County, the 
terminus of the Chicago and Iowa branch of the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and 
point of intersection of the Illinois Central and 
the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railways; 107 
miles west by north from Chicago, and 12 miles 
south of Freeport ; founded in 1854, incorporated 
by special charter in 1868, and, under the general 
law, in 1888. Farming and stock-raising are the 
principal industries. The village has a bank, 
water-works, electric light plant, creamery, vil- 
lage hall, seven churches, a graded school, and a 
newspaper. Population (1890), 1,118 ; (1900), 1,047. 

FORSYTHE, Albert P., ex- Congressman, was 
born at New Richmond, Ohio, May 24, 1830; 
received his early education in the common 
schools, and at Asbury University. He was 
reared upon a farm and followed farming as his 
life-work. During the War of the Rebellion he 
served in the Union army as Lieutenant. In 
politics he early became an ardent Nationalist, 
and was chosen President of the Illinois State 
Grange of the Patrons of Industry, in December, 
1875, and again in January, 1878. In 1878 he was 
elected to Congress as a Nationalist, but, in 1880, 
though receiving the nominations of the com- 
bined Republican and Greenback parties, was 
defeated by Samuel W. Moulton, Democrat. 



FORT, Greenbury L., soldier and Congress- 
man, was born in Ohio, Oct. 17, 1825, and, in 1834, 
removed with his parents to Illinois. In 1850 he 
was elected Sheriff of Putnam County ; in 1852, 
Clerk of the Circuit Court, and, having mean- 
while been admitted to the bar at Lacon, became 
County Judge in 1857, serving until 1861. In 
April of the latter year he enlisted under the first 
call for troops, by re-enlistments serving till 
March 24, 1866. Beginning as Quartermaster of 
his regiment, he served as Chief Quartermaster of 
the Fifteenth Army Corps on the "March to the 
Sea," and was mustered out with the rank of 
Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General. On his 
return from the field, he was elected to the State 
Senate, serving in the Twenty -fifth and Twenty- 
sixth General Assemblies, and, from 1873 to 1881, 
as Representative in Congress. He died, at 
Lacon, June 13, 1883. 

FORT CHARTRES, a strong fortification 
erected by the French in 1718, on the American 
Bottom, 16 miles northwest from Kaskaskia. 
The soil on which it stood was alluvial, and the 
limestone of which its walls were built was 
quarried from an adjacent bluff. In form it was 
an irregular quadrangle, surrounded on three 
sides by a wall two feet two inches thick, and on 
the fourth by a ravine, which, during the spring- 
time, was full of water. During the period of 
French ascendency in Illinois, Fort Chartres was 
the seat of government. About four miles east 
soon sprang up the village of Prairie du Rocher 
(or Rock Prairie). (See Prairie du Rocher.) At 
the outbreak of the French and Indian War 
(1756), the original fortification was repaired and 
virtually rebuilt. Its cost at that time is esti- 
mated to have amounted to 1,000,000 French 
crowns. After the occupation of Illinois by the 
British, Fort Chartres still remained the seat of 
government until 1772, when one side of the 
fortification was washed away by a freshet, and 
headquarters were transferred to Kaskaskia. 
The first common law court ever held in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley was established here, in 1768, by 
the order of Colonel Wilkins of the English 
army. The ruins of the old fort, situated in the 
northwest corner of Randolph County, once con- 
stituted an object of no little interest to anti- 
quarians, but the site has disappeared during the 
past generation by the encroachments of the 
Mississippi. 

FORT DEARBORN, the name of a United 
States military post, established at the mouth of 
the Chicago River in 1803 or 1804, on a tract of 
land six miles square conveyed by the Indians in 




EARLY HISTORIC SCENES. CHICAGO. 




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EARLY HISTORIC SCENES, CHICAGO. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



171 



the treaty of Greenville, concluded by General 
Wayne in 1795. It originally consisted of two 
block houses located at opposite angles (north- 
west and southeast) of a strong wooden stockade, 
with the Commandant's quarters on the east side 
of the quadrangle, soldiers' barracks on the south, 
officers' barracks on the west, and magazine, 
contractor's (sutler's) store and general store- 
house on the north — all the buildings being con- 
structed of logs, and all, except the block-houses, 
being entirely within the enclosure. Its arma- 
ment consisted of three light pieces of artillery. 
Its builder and first commander was Capt. John 
Whistler, a native of Ireland who had surrendered 
with Burgoyne, at Saratoga,, N. Y., and who 
subsequently became an American citizen, and 
served with distinction throughout the War of 
1812. He was succeeded, in 1810, by Capt. 
Nathan Heald. As early as 180G the Indians 
around the fort manifested signs of disquietude, 
Tecumseh, a few years later, heading an open 
armed revolt. In 1810 a council of Pottawato- 
mies, Ottawas and Chippewas was held at St. 
Joseph, Mich., at which it was decided not to 
join the confederacy proposed by Chief Tecumseh. 
In 1811 hostilities were precipitated by an attack 
upon the United States troops under Gen. 
William Henry Harrison at Tippecanoe. In 
April, 1812, hostile bands of Winnebagos appeared 
in the vicinity of Fort Dearborn, terrifying the 
settlers by their atrocities. Many of the whites 
sought refuge within the stockade. Within two 
months after the declaration of war against 
England, in 1812, orders were issued for the 
evacuation of Fort Dearborn and the transfer of 
the garrison to Detroit. The garrison at that 
time numbered about 70, including officers, a 
large number of the troops being ill. Almost 
simultaneously with the order for evacuation 
appeared bands of Indians clamoring for a dis- 
tribution of the goods, to which they claimed 
they were entitled under treaty stipulations. 
Knowing that he had but about forty men able 
to fight and that his march would be sadly 
hindered by the care of about a dozen women and 
twenty children, the commandant hesitated. 
The Pottawatomies, through whose country he 
would have to pass, had always been friendly, and 
he waited. Within six days a force of 500 or 600 
savage warriors had assembled around the f< art 
Among the leaders were the Pottawatomie chiefs, 
Black Partridge, Winnemeg and Topenebe. Of 
these, Winnemeg was friendly. It was he who 
had brought General Hull's orders to evacuat.- 
and, as the crisis grew more and more dangerous, 



he offered sound advice. He urged instantaneous 
departure before the Indians had time 1" agree 
upon a line of action. But Captain Ileal 1 
decided to distribute the stores among the sav- 
ages, and thereby secure from them a friendly 
escort to Fort Wayne. To this the aborigines 
readily assented, believing that thereby all the 
whisky and ammunition which they knew to be 
within the enclosure, would fall into their hands 
Meanwhile Capt. William Wells, Indian Agent at 
Fort Wayne, had arrived at Fort Hearborn with 
a friendly force of Miaiuis to act as an escort. 
He convinced Captain Heald that it would be the 
height of folly to give the Indians liquor and gun 
powder. Accordingly the commandant emptied 
the former into the lake and destroyed the latter 
This was the signal for war. Black Partridge 
claimed he could no longer restrain his young 
braves, and at a council of the aborigines it was 
resolved to massacre the garrison and settlers. 
On the fifteenth of August the gates of the fort 
were opened and the evacuation began. A band 
of Pottawatomies accompanied the whites under 
the guise of a friendly escort. They soon desert . 1 
and, within a mile and a half from the fort. 
began the sickening scene of carnage known as 
the "Fort Dearborn Massacre."' Nearly 500 
Indians participated, their loss being less than 
twenty. The Miami escort fled at the tir^t 
exchange of shots. With but four exceptions 
the wounded white prisoners were dispatched 
with savage ferocity and promptitude. Those 
not wounded were scattered among various tribes. 
The next day the fort with its stockade \\ as 
burned. In 1816 (after the treaty of St. Louis) 
the fort was rebuilt upon a more elaborate scale. 
The second Fort Dearborn contained, besides bar- 
racks and officers' quarters, a magazine and 
provision-store, was enclosed by a square stock 
ade, and protected by bastions at two of its 
angles. It was again evacuated in 1828 and 
re-garrisoned in 1828. The troops were once 
more withdrawn in 1831, to return the following 
year during the Black Hawk War. The final 
evacuation occurred in 1886. 
FORT tJAGE, situated on the eastern bluffs of 

the Kaskaskia River, opposite the village of Kas 
kaskia. It was erected and occupied by the 
British in 1772. It w :i s built of heavy, square 
timbers and oblong in shape, its dimensions being 
290x251 feet. On the night of July I. 1778, it was 
captured by a detachment of American troops 
commanded by Col. George Rogers Clark, wh<? 
held a commission from Virginia. The soldiers, 

with Simon Kenton at their head, were secretly 



172 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



admitted to the fort by a Pennsylvanian who 
happened to be within, and the commandant, 
Rocheblave, was surprised in bed, while sleeping 
with his wife by his side. 

FORT JEFFERSON. I. A fort erected by Col. 
George Rogers Clark, under instructions from 
the Governor of Virginia, at the Iron Banks on 
the east bank of the Mississippi, below the mouth 
of the Ohio River. He promised lands to all 
adult, able-bodied white males who would emi- 
grate thither and settle, either with or without 
their families. Many accepted the offer, and 
a considerable colony was established there. 
Toward the close of the Revolutionary War, Vir- 
ginia being unable longer to sustain the garrison, 
the colony was scattered, many families going to 
Kaskaskia. II. A fort in the Miami valley, 
erected by Governor St. Clair and General Butler, 
in October, 1791. Within thirty miles of the 
post St. Clair's army, which had been badly 
weakened through desertions, was cut to pieces 
by the enemy, and the fortification was aban- 
doned. 

FORT MASSAC, an early French fortification, 
erected about 1711 on the Ohio River, 40 miles 
from its mouth, in what is now Massac County. 
It was the first fortification (except Fort St. 
Louis) in the "Illinois Country," antedating 
Fort Chartres by several years. The origin of 
the name is uncertain. The best authorities are 
of the opinion that it was so called in honor of 
the engineer who superintended its construction ; 
by others it has been traced to the name of the 
French Minister of Marine ; others assert that it 
is a corruption of the word "Massacre," a name 
given to the locality because of the massacre 
there of a large number of French soldiers by the 
Indians. The Virginians sometimes spoke of it 
as the "Cherokee fort." It was garrisoned by 
the French until after the evacuation of the 
country under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. 
It later became a sort of depot for American 
settlers, a few families constantly residing within 
and around the fortification. At a very early 
day a military road was laid out from the fort to 
Kaskaskia, the trees alongside being utilized as 
milestones, the number of miles being cut with 
irons and painted red. After the close of the 
Revolutionary War, the United States Govern- 
ment strengthened and garrisoned the fort by 
way of defense against inroads by the Spaniards. 
With the cession of Louisiana to the United 
States, in 1803, the fort was evacuated and never 
re-garrisoned. According to the "American 
State Papers," during the period of the French 



occupation, it was both a Jesuit missionary 
station and a trading post. 

FORT SACKYILLE, a British fortification, 
erected in 1769, on the Wabash River a short 
distance below Vincennes. It was a stockade, 
with bastions and a few pieces of cannon. In 
1778 it fell into the hands of the Americans, and 
was for a time commanded by Captain Helm, 
with a garrison of a few Americans and Illinois 
French. In December, 1778, Helm and one 
private alone occupied the fort and surrendered 
to Hamilton, British Governor of Detroit, who 
led a force into the country around Vincennes. 

FORT SHERIDAN, United States Military 
Post, in Lake County, on the Milwaukee Division 
of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, 24 miles 
north of Chicago. (High wood village adjacent 
on the south.) Population (1890), 451 ; (1900), 1,575. 

FORT ST. LOUIS, a French fortification on a 
rock (widely known as "Starved Rock"), which 
consists of an isolated cliff on the south side of 
the Illinois River nearly opposite Utica, in La 
Salle County. Its height is between 130 and 140 
feet, and its nearly round summit contains an 
area of about three-fourths of an acre. The side 
facing the river is nearly perpendicular and, in 
natural advantages, it is well-nigh impregnable. 
Here, in the fall of 1682, La Salle and Tonty 
began the erection of a fort, consisting of earth- 
works, palisades, store-houses and a block house, 
which also served as a dwelling and trading post. 
A windlass drew water from the river, and two 
small brass cannon, mounted on a parapet, com- 
prised the armament. It was solemnly dedicated 
by Father Membre, and soon became a gathering 
place for the surrounding tribes, especially the 
Illinois. But Frontenac having been succeeded 
as Governor of New France by De la Barre, who 
was unfriendly to La Salle, the latter was dis- 
placed as Commandant at Fort St. Louis, while 
plots were laid to secure his downfall by cutting 
off his supplies and inciting the Iroquois to attack 
him. La Salle left the fort in 1683, to return to 
France, and, in 1702, it was abandoned as a 
military post, though it continued to be a trad- 
ing post until 1718, when it was raided by the 
Indians and burned. (See La Salle. ) 

FORT WAYNE & CHICAGO RAILROAD. 
(See Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway.) 

FORT WAYNE & ILLINOIS RAILROAD. (See 
New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railway.) 

FORTIFICATIONS, PREHISTORIC. Closely 
related in interest to the works of the mound- 
builders in Illinois — though, probably, owing their 
origin to another era and an entirely different 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



173 



race — are those works which bear evidence of 
having been constructed for purposes of defense 
at some period anterior to the arrival of white 
men in the country. While there are no works 
in Illinois so elaborate in construction as those to 
which have been given the names of "Fort 
Ancient" on the Maumee in Ohio, "Fort Azatlan" 
on the Wabash in Indiana, and "Fort Aztalan" 
on Rock River in Southern Wisconsin, there are 
a number whose form of construction shows that 
they must have been intended for warlike pur- 
poses, and that they were formidable of their 
kind and for the period in which they were con- 
structed. It is a somewhat curious fact that, 
while La Salle County is the seat of the first 
fortification constructed by the French in Illinois 
that can be said to have had a sort of permanent 
character ( see Fort St. Louis and Starved Rock), 
it is also the site of a larger number of prehistoric 
fortifications, whose remains are in such a state 
of preservation as to be clearly discernible, than 
any other section of the State of equal area. One 
of the most formidable of these fortifications is 
on the east side of Fox River, opposite the mouth 
of Indian Creek and some six miles northeast of 
Ottawa. This occupies a position of decided 
natural strength, and is surrounded by three lines 
of circumvallation, showing evidence of consider- 
able engineering skill. From the size of the trees 
within this work and other evidences, its age has 
been estimated at not less than 1,200 years. On 
the present site of the town of Marseilles, at the 
rapids of the Illinois, seven miles east of Ottawa, 
another work of considerable strength existed. 
It is also said that the American Fur Company 
had an earthwork here for the protection of its 
trading station, erected about 1816 or '18, and 
consequently belonging to the present century. 
Besides Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock, the out- 
line of another fort, or outwork, whose era has 
not been positively determined, about half a mile 
south of the former, has been traced in recent 
times. De Baugis, sent by Governor La Barre, of 
Canada, to succeed Tonty at Fort St. Louis, is said 
to have erected a fort on Buffalo Rock, on the 
opposite side of the river from Fort St. Louis, 
which belonged practically to the same era as the 
latter. — There are two points in Southern Illinois 
where the aborigines had constructed fortifica- 
tions to which the name "Stone Fort" has been 
given. One of these is a hill overlooking the 
Saline River in the southern part of Saline 
County, where there is a wall or breastwork five 
feet in height enclosing an area of less than an 
acre in extent. The other is on the west side of 



Lusk's Creek, in Pope County, where a breast 
work has been constructed by loosely piling up 
the stones across a ridge, or tongue of land, with 
vertical sides and surrounded by a bend of the 
creek. Water is easily obtainable from the creek 
below the fortified ridge. — The remains of an old 
Indian fortification were found by early settlers 
of McLean County, at a point called "Old Town 
Timber," about 1822 to 1825. It was believed 
then that it had been occupied by the Indians 
during the War of 1812. The story of the Indians 
was, that it was burned by General Harrison in 
1812; though this is improbable in view of the 
absence of any historical mention of the fact. 
Judge H. W. Beckwith, who examined its site in 
1880, is of the opinion that its history goes back 
as far as 1752, and that it was erected by the 
Indians as a defense against the French at Kas- 
kaskia. There was also a tradition that there 
had been a French mission at this point. — One of 
the most interesting stories of early fortifications 
in the State, is that of Dr. V. A. Boyer, an old 
citizen of Chicago, in a paper contributed to the 
Chicago Historical Society. Although the work 
alluded to by him was evidently constructed after 
the arrival of the French in the country, the 
exact period to which it belongs is in doubt. 
According to Dr. Boyer, it was on an elevated 
ridge of timber land in Palos Township, in the 
western part of Cook County. He says: "I first 
saw it in 1833, and since then have visited it in 
company with other persons, some of whom are 
still living. I feel sure that it was not built dur- 
ing the Sac War from its appearance. ... It 
seems probable that it was the work of French 
traders or explorers, as there were trees a century 
old growing in its environs. It was evidently 
the work of an enlightened people, skilled in the 
science of warfare. ... As a strategic point it 
most completely commanded the surrounding 
country and the crossing of the swamp or 'Sag'. " 
Is it improbable that this was the fort occupied 
by Colonel Durantye in 1695? The remains of a 
small fort, supposed to have been a French trad- 
ing post, were found by the pioneer settlers of 
Lake County, where the present city of Waukegan 
stands, giving to that place its first name of 
"Little Fort." This structure was seen in 1825 
by Col. William S. Hamilton (a son of Alexander 
Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury), who 
had served in the session of the General Assembly 
of that year as a Representative from Sangamon 
County, and was then on his way to Green Bay, 
and the remains of the pickets or palisades were 
visible as late as 1835. While the date of its 



174 



HISTOKICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



erection is unknown, it probably belonged to the 
latter part of the eighteenth century. There is 
also a tradition that a fort or trading post, erected 
by a Frenchman named Garay (or Guarie) stood 
on the North Branch of the Chicago River prior 
to the erection of the first Fort Dearborn in 1803. 

FOSS, George Edmund, lawyer and Congress- 
man, was born in Franklin County, Vt., July 2, 
1863; graduated from Harvard University, in 
1885; attended the Columbia Law School and 
School of Political Science in New York City, 
finally graduating from the Union College of Law 
in Chicago, in 1889, when he was admitted to the 
bar and began practice. He never held any 
political office until elected as a Eepublican to 
the Fifty-fourth Congress (1894), from the 
Seventh Illinois District, receiving a majority of 
more than 8,000 votes over his Democratic and 
Populist competitors. In 1896 he was again the 
candidate of his party, and was re-elected by a 
majority of over 20,000, as he was a third time, 
in 1898, by more than 12,000 majority. In the 
Fifty-fifth Congress Mr. Foss was a member of the 
Committees on Naval Affairs and Expenditures in 
the Department of Agriculture. 

FOSTER, (Dr.) John Herbert, physician and 
educator, was born of Quaker ancestry at Hills- 
borough, N. H., March 8, 1796. His early years 
were spent on his father's farm, but at the age 
of 16 he entered an academy at Meriden, N. H., 
and, three years later, began teaching with an 
older brother at Schoharie, N. Y. Having spent 
some sixteen years teaching and practicing 
medicine at various places in his native State, in 
1832 he came west, first locating in Morgan 
County, 111. While there he took part in the 
Black Hawk War, serving as a Surgeon. Before 
the close of the year he was compelled to come to 
Chicago to look after the estate of a brother who 
was an officer in the army and had been killed by 
an insubordinate soldier at Green Bay. Having 
thus fallen heir to a considerable amount of real 
estate, which, in subsequent years, largely 
appreciated in value, he became identified with 
early Chicago and ultimately one of the largest 
real-estate owners of his time in the city. He 
was an active promoter of education during this 
period, serving on both City and State Boards. 
His death occurred, May 18, 1874, in consequence 
of injuries sustained by being thrown from a 
vehicle in which he was riding nine days previous. 

FOSTER, John Wells, author and scientist, 
was born at Brimfield, Mass., in 1815, and edu- 
cated at Wesleyan University, Conn ; later studied 
law and was admitted to the bar in Ohio, but 



soon turned his attention to scientific pursuits, 
being employed for several years in the geological 
survey of Ohio, during which he investigated the 
coal-beds of the State. Having incidentally 
devoted considerable attention to the study of 
metallurgy, he was employed about 1844 by 
mining capitalists to make the first systematic 
survey of the Lake Superior copper region, upon 
which, in conjunction with J. D. Whitney, he 
made a report which was published in two vol- 
umes in 1850-51. Returning to Massachusetts, he 
participated in the organization of the "American 
Party" there, though we find him soon after 
breaking with it on the slavery question. In 
1855 he was a candidate for Congress in the 
Springfield (Mass.) District, but was beaten by a 
small majority. In 1858 he removed to Chicago 
and, for some time, was Land Commissioner of 
the Illinois Central Railroad. The latter years of 
his life were devoted chiefly to archaeological 
researches and writings, also serving for some 
years as Professor of Natural History in the (old) 
University of Chicago. His works include "The 
Mississippi Valley ; its Physical Geography, Min- 
eral Resources," etc. (Chicago, 1869) ; "Mineral 
Wealth and Railroad Development," (New Yoivk, 
1872) ; "Prehistoric Races of the United States," 
(Chicago, 1873), besides contributions to numer- 
ous scientific periodicals. He was a member of 
several scientific associations and, in 1869, Presi- 
dent of the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science. He died in Hyde Park, 
now a part of Chicago, June 29, 1873. 

FOUKE, Philip B., lawyer and Congressman, 
was born at Kaskaskia, 111., Jan. 23, 1818; was 
chiefly self-educated and began his career as a 
clerk, afterwards acting as a civil engineer ; about 
1841-42 was associated with the publication of 
"The Belleville Advocate," later studied law, 
and, after being admitted to the bar, served as 
Prosecuting Attorney, being re-elected to that 
office in 1856. Previous to this, however, he had 
been elected to the lower branch of the Seven- 
teenth General Assembly (1850), and, in 1858, 
was elected as a Democrat to the Thuty-sixth 
Congress and re-elected two years later. While 
still in Congress he assisted in organizing the 
Thirtieth Regiment Illinois Volunteers, of which 
he was commissioned Colonel, but resigned on 
account of ill-health soon after the battle of Shiloh. 
After leaving the army he removed to New 
Orleans, where he was appointed Public Adminis- 
trator and practiced law for some time. He then 
took up the prosecution of the cotton-claims 
against the Mexican Government, in which he 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



175 



was engaged some seven years, finally removing 
to Washington City and making several trips to 
Europe in the interest of these suits. He won 
his cases, but died soon after a decision in his 
favor, largely in consequence of overtaxing his 
brain in their prosecution. His death occurred 
in Washington, Oct. 3, 187(5, when he was buried 
in the Congressional Cemetery, President Grant 
and a number of Senators and Congressmen acting 
as pall-bearers at his funeral. 

FOWLER, Charles Henry, Methodist Episcopal 
Bishop, born in Burford, Conn., August 11, 1837; 
was partially educated at Rock River Seminar}', 
Mount Morris, finally graduating at Genesee 
College, N. Y., in 1859. He then began the study 
of law in Chicago, but, changing his purpose, 
entered Garrett Biblical Institute, at Evanston, 
graduating in 1861. Having been admitted to 
the Rock River Methodist Episcopal Conference 
he was appointed successively to Chicago churches 
till 1872; then became President of the North- 
western University, holding this office four years, 
when he was elected to the editorship of "The 
Christian Advocate" of New York. In 1884 he 
was elected and ordained Bishop. His resilience 
is in San Francisco, his labors as Bishop being 
devoted largely to the Pacific States. 

FOX RIVER (of Illinois)— called Pishtaka by 
the Indians — rises in Waukesha County, Wis., 
and, after running southward through Kenosha 
and Racine Counties in that State, passes into 
Illinois. It intersects McHenry and Kane Coun- 
ties and runs southward to the city of Aurora, 
below which point it flows southwestward, until 
it empties into the Illinois River at Ottawa. Its 
length is estimated at 220 miles. The chief 
towns on its banks are Elgin, Aurora and Ottawa. 
It affords abundant water power. 

FOXES, an Indian tribe. (See Sacs and 
Foxes. ) 

FRANCIS, Simeon, pioneer journalist, was 
born at Wethersfield, Conn., May 14, 1796, 
learned the printer's trade at New Haven, and, in 
connection with a partner, published a paper at 
Buffalo, N. Y. In consequence of the excitement 
growing out of the abduction of Morgan in 1828, 
(being a Mason) he was compelled to suspend, 
and, coming to Illinois in the fall of 1831, com- 
menced the publication of "The Sangamo" (now 
"The Illinois State") "Journal" at Springfield, 
continuing his connection therewith until 1855, 
when he sold out to Messrs. Bailhache & Baker. 
Abraham Lincoln was his close friend and often 
wrote editorials for his paper. Mr. Francis was 
active in the organization of the State Agricul- 



tural Society (1853), serving as its Recording 
Secretary for several years. In 1859 he moved to 
Portland, Ore., where he published "The Oregon 
Farmer," and served as President of the Oregon 
State Agricultural Society; in 1861 was ap- 
pointed by President Lincoln, Paymaster in the 
regular army, serving until 1870, when he retired 
on half-pay. Died, at Portland, Ore., Oct. 25, 
1872. — Allen (Francis), brother of the preceding, 
was horn at Wethersfield, Conn., April 14, 1815; 
in 1834, joined his brother at Springfield, 111., and 
became a partner in the publication of "The 
Journal" until its sale, in 1855. In 1861 he was 
appointed United States Consul at Victoria, B. C, 
serving until 1871, when he engaged in the fur 
trade. Later he was United States Consul at 
Port Stanley, Can., dying there, about 1887. — 
Josiah (Francis), cousin of the preceding, born 
at Wethersfield, Conn., Jan. 17, 1804; was early 
connected with "The Springfield Journal"; in 
1836 engaged in merchandising at Athens, Menard 
County ; returning to Springfield, was elected to 
the Legislature in 1840, and served one term as 
Mayor of Springfield. Died in 1867. 

FRANKLIN, a village of Morgan County, on 
the Jacksonville & St. Louis Railroad, 12 miles 
southeast of Jacksonville. The place has a news- 
paper and two banks ; the surrounding country 
is agricultural. Population (1880), 316; (1890), 
578; (1900), 687. 

FRANKLIN COUNTY, located in the south- 
central part of the State; was organized in 1818, 
and has an area of 430 square miles. Population 
(1900), 19,675. The county is well timbered and 
is drained by the Big Muddy River. The soil is 
fertile and the products include cereals, potatoes, 
sorghum, wool, pork and fruit. The county-seat 
is Benton, with a population (1890) of 939. The 
county contains no large towns, although large, 
well-cultivated farms are numerous. The earli- 
est white settlers came from Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee, and the hereditary traditions of generous, 
southwestern hospitality are preserved among 
the residents of to-day. 

FRANKLIN GROVE, a town of Lee County, on 
Council Bluffs Division of the Chicago & North- 
western Railway, 88 miles west of Chicago. 
Grain, poultry, and live-stock are shipped from 
here. It has banks, water-works, high school, 
and a weekly paper. Population (1890), 736; 
(1900). 681. 

FRAZIER, Robert, a native of Kentucky, who 
came to Southern Illinois at an early day and 
served as State Senator from Edwards County, in 
the Second and Third General Assemblies, in the 



176 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



latter being an opponent of the scheme to make 
Illinois a slave State. He was a farmer by occu- 
pation and, at the time he was a member of the 
Legislature, resided in what afterwards became 
Wabash County. Subsequently he removed to 
Edwards County, near Albion, where he died. 
"Frazier's Prairie," in Edwards County, was 
named for him. 

FREEBURG, a village of St. Clair County, on 
the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad, 8 
miles southeast of Belleville. Population (1880), 
1,038; (1890), 848; (1900), 1,214. 

FREEMAN, Norman L., lawyer and Supreme 
Court Reporter, was born in Caledonia, Living- 
ston County, N. Y., May 9, 1823; in 1831 accom- 
panied his widowed mother to Ann Arbor, Mich., 
removing six years afterward to Detroit ; was edu- 
cated at Cleveland and Ohio University, taught 
school at Lexington, Ky., while studying law, 
and was admitted to the bar in 1846 ; removed to 
Shawneetown, 111., in 1851, was admitted to the 
Illinois bar and practiced some eight years. He 
then began farming in Marion County, Mo., but, 
in 1862, returned to Shawneetown and, in 1863, 
was appointed Reporter of Decisions by the 
Supreme Court of Illinois, serving until his 
death, which occurred at Springfield near the 
beginning of his sixth term in office, August 23, 
1894. 

FREE MASONS, the oldest secret fraternity in 
the State — known as the "Ancient Order of Free 
and Accepted Masons" — the first Lodge being 
instituted at Kaskaskia, June, 3, 1806, with Gen. 
John Edgar, Worshipful Master; Michael Jones, 
Senior Warden; James Galbraith, Junior War- 
den ; William Arundel, Secretary ; Robert Robin- 
son, Senior Deacon. These are names of persons 
who were, without exception, prominent in the 
early history of Illinois. A Grand Lodge was 
organized at Vandalia in 1822, with Gov. Shad- 
rach Bond as first Grand Master, but the organi- 
zation of the Grand Lodge, as it now exists, took 
place at Jacksonville in 1840. The number of 
Lodges constituting the Grand Lodge of Illinois 
in 1840 was six, with 157 members; the number 
of Lodges within the same jurisdiction in 1895 
was 713, with a membership of 50,727, of which 
47,335 resided in Illinois. The dues for 1895 
were $37,834.50; the contributions to members, 
their widows and orphans, $25,038.41; to non- 
members, $6,306.38, and to the Illinois Masonic 
Orphans' Home, $1,315.80. — Apollo Commandery 
No. 1 of Knights Templar — the pioneer organi- 
zation of its kind in this or any neighboring 
State — was organized in Chicago, May 20, 1845, 



and the Grand Commandery of the order in Illi- 
nois in 1857, with James V. Z. Blaney, Grand 
Commander. In 1895 it was made up of sixty- 
five subordinate commanderies, with a total 
membership of 9,355, and dues amounting to 
$7,754.75. The principal officers in 1895-96 were 
Henry Hunter Montgomery, Grand Commander ; 
John Henry Witbeck, Grand Treasurer, and Gil- 
bert W. Barnard, Grand Recorder. — The Spring- 
field Chapter of Royal Arch-Masons was organized 
in Springfield, Sept. 17, 1841, and the Royal Arch 
Chapter of the State at Jacksonville, April 9, 
1850, the nine existing Chapters being formally 
chartered Oct. 14, of the same year. The number 
of subordinate Chapters, in 1895, was 186, with a 
total membership of 16,414. — The Grand Council 
of Royal and Select Masters, in 1894, embraced 32 
subordinate Councils, with a membership of 
2,318. 

FREEPORT, a city and railway center, the 
county-seat of Stephenson County, 121 miles west 
of Chicago ; has good water-power from the Peca- 
tonica River, with several manufacturing estab- 
lishments, the output including carriages, 
wagon-wheels, wind-mills, coffee-mills, organs, 
piano-stools, leather, mineral paint, foundry pro- 
ducts, chicken incubators and vinegar. The Illi- 
nois Central Railroad has shops here and the city 
has a Government postofiice building. Popula- 
tion (1890), 10,189; (1900), 13,258. 

FREEPORT COLLEGE, an institution at Free- 
port, 111., incorporated in 1895; is co-educational; 
had a faculty of six instructors in 1896, with 116 
pupils. 

FREER, Lemuel Covell Paine, early lawyer, 
was born in Dutchess County, N. Y., Sept. 18, 
1815 ; came to Chicago in 1836, studied law and 
was admitted to the bar in 1840 ; was a zealous 
anti-slavery man and an active supporter of the 
Government during the War of the Rebellion; 
for many years was President of the Board of 
Trustees of Rush Medical College. Died, in 
Chicago, April 14, 1892. 

FRENCH, Augustus C, ninth Governor of 
Illinois (1846-52), was born in New Hampshire, 
August 2, 1808. After coming to Illinois, he 
became a resident of Crawford County, and a 
lawyer by profession. He was a member of the 
Tenth and Eleventh General Assemblies, and 
Receiver, for a time, of the Land Office at Pales- 
tine. He served as Presidential Elector in 1844, 
was elected to the office of Governor as a Demo- 
crat in 1846 by a majority of nearly 17,000 over 
two competitors, and was the unanimous choice of 
his party for a second term in 1848. His adminis- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



177 



tration was free from scandals. He was appointed 
Bank Commissioner by Governor Matteson, and 
later accepted the chair of Law in McKendree 
College at Lebanon. In 1858 he was the nominee 
of the Douglas wing of the Democratic party for 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 
ex-Gov. John Reynolds being the candidate of 
the Buchanan branch of the party. Both were 
defeated. His last public service was as a mem- 
ber from St. Clair County of the Constitutional 
Convention of 1862. Died, at Lebanon, Sept. 4, 
1864. 

FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. The first 
premonition of this struggle in the West was 
given in 1698, when two English vessels entered 
the mouth of the Mississippi, to take possession 
of the French Territory of Louisiana, which then 
included what afterward became the State of 
Illinois. This expedition, however, returned 
without result. Great Britain was anxious to 
have a colorable pretext for attempting to evict 
the French, and began negotiation of treaties 
with the Indian tribes as early as 1724, expecting 
thereby to fortify her original claim, which was 
based on the right of prior discovery. The 
numerous shif tings of the political kaleidoscope in 
Europe prevented any further steps in this direc- 
tion on the part of England until 1748 49, when 
the Ohio Land Company received a royal grant 
of 500,000 acres along the Ohio River, with exclu- 
sive trading privileges. The Company proceeded 
to explore and survey and, about 1752, established 
a trading post on Loramie Creek, 47 miles north 
of Dayton. The French foresaw that hostilities 
were probable, and advanced their posts as far 
east as the Allegheny River. Complaints by the 
Ohio Company induced an ineffectual remon- 
strance on the part of Virginia. Among the 
ambassadors sent to the French by the Governor 
of Virginia was George Washington, who thus, 
in early manhood, became identified with Illinois 
history. His report was of such a nature as to 
induce the erection of counter fortifications by 
the British, one of which (at the junction of the 
Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers) was seized 
and occupied by the French before its completion. 
Then ensued a series of engagements which, 
while not involving large forces of men, were 
fraught with grave consequences, and in which 
the French were generally successful. In 1755 
occurred "Braddock's defeat" in an expedition to 
recover Fort Duquesne (where Pittsburg now 
stands), which had been captured by the French 
the previous year, and the Government of Great 
Britain determined to redouble its efforts. The 



final result was the termination of French domi- 
nation in the Ohio Valley. Later came the down- 
fall of French ascendency in Canada as the result 
of the battle of Quebec ; but the vanquished yet 
hoped to be able to retain Louisiana and Illinois. 
But France was forced to indemnify Spain for the 
loss of Florida, which it did by the cession of all 
of Louisiana lying west of the Mississippi (includ- 
ing the city of New Orleans), and this virtually 
ended French hopes in Illinois. The last military 
post in North America to be garrisoned by French 
troops was Fort Chartres, in Illinois Territory, 
where St. Ange remained in command until its 
evacuation was demanded by the English. 

FRENCH GOVERNORS OF ILLINOIS. French 
Governors began to be appointed by the Company 
of the Indies (which see) in 1722, the "Illinois 
Country" having previously been treated as a 
dependency of Canada. The first Governor ( or 
"commandant") was Pierre Duque de Boisbriant, 
who was commandant for only three years, when 
he was summoned to New Orleans (1725) to suc- 
ceed de Bienville as Governor of Louisiana. Capt. 
du Tisne was in command for a short time after 
his departure, but was succeeded by another 
Captain in the royal army, whose name is vari- 
ously spelled de Liette, de Lielte, De Siette and 
Delietto. He was followed in turn by St. Ange 
(the father of St. Ange de Bellerive), who died in 
1742. In 1732 the Company of the Indies surren- 
dered its charter to the crown, and the Governors 
of the Illinois Country were thereafter appointed 
directly by royal authority. Under the earlier 
Governors justice had been administered under 
the civil law ; with the change in the method of 
appointment the code known as the "Common 
Law of Paris" came into effect, although not 
rigidly enforced because found in many particu- 
lars to be ill-suited to the needs of a new country. 
The first of the Royal Governors was Pierre 
d' Artaguiette, who was appointed in 1734, but was 
captured while engaged in an expedition against 
the Chickasaws, in 1736, and burned at the stake. 
(See D' Artaguiette.) He was followed by 
Alphonse de la Buissoniere, who was succeeded, 
in 1740, by Capt. Benoist de St. Claire. In 1742 
he gave way to the Chevalier Bertel or Bertlict 
but was reinstated about 1748. The last of the 
French Governors of the "Illinois Country" was 
Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, who retired to St. 
Louis, after turning over the command to Cap- 
tain Stirling, the English officer sent to supersede 
him, in 1765. (St. Ange de Bellerive died, Dec. 
27, 1774.) The administration of the French 
commandants, while firm, was usually conserva- 



178 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



tive and benevolent. Local self-government was 
encouraged as far as practicable, and, while the 
Governors' power over commerce was virtually 
unrestricted, they interfered but little with the 
ordinary life of the people. 

FREW, Calvin Hamill, lawyer and State Sena- 
tor, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, educated at 
Finley (Ohio) High School, Beaver (Pa.) Academy 
and Vermilion Institute at Hayesville, Ohio. ; in 
1862 was Principal of the High School at Kalida, 
Ohio, where he began the study of law, which he 
continued the next two years with Messrs. Strain 
& Kidder, at Monmouth, 111., meanwhile acting 
as Principal of a high school at Young America ; 
in 1865 removed to Paxton, Ford County, which 
has since been his home, and the same year was 
admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Illi- 
nois. Mr. Frew served as Assistant Superintend- 
ent of Schools for Ford County (1865-68) ; in 1868 
was elected Representative in the Twenty-sixth 
General Assembly, re-elected in 1870, and again 
in '78. While practicing law he has been con- 
nected with some of the most important cases 
before the courts in that section of the State, and 
his fidelity and skill in their management are 
testified by members of the bar, as well as 
Judges upon the bench. Of late years he has 
devoted his attention to breeding trotting horses, 
with a view to the improvement of his health 
but not with the intention of permanently 
abandoning his profession. 

FRY, Jacob, pioneer and soldier, was born in 
Fayette County, Ky., Sept. 20, 1799; learned the 
trade of a carpenter and came to Illinois in 1819, 
working first at Alton, but, in 1820, took up his 
residence near the present town of Carrollton, in 
which he built the first house. Greene County 
was not organized until two years later, and this 
border settlement was, at that time, the extreme 
northern white settlement in Illinois. He served 
as Constable and Deputy Sheriff (simultaneously) 
for six years, and was then elected Sheriff, being 
five times re-elected. He served through the 
Black Hawk War (first as Lieutenant-Colonel and 
afterwards as Colonel), having in his regiment 
Abraham Lincoln, O. H. Browning, John Wood 
(afterwards Governor) and Robert Anderson, of 
Fort Sumter fame. In 1837 he was appointed 
Commissioner of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, 
and re-appointed in 1839 and '41, later becoming 
Acting Commissioner, with authority to settle up 
the business of the former commission, which 
was that year legislated out of office. He was 
afterwards appointed Canal Trustee by Governor 
Ford, and, in 1847, retired from connection with 



canal management. In 1850 he went to Cali- 
fornia, where he engaged in mining and trade 
for three years, meanwhile serving one term in 
the State Senate. In 1857 he was appointed Col- 
lector of the Port at Chicago by President Buch- 
anan, but was removed in 1859 because of his 
friendship for Senator Douglas. In 1860 he 
returned to Greene County ; in 1861, in spite of his 
advanced age, was commissioned Colonel of the 
Sixty-first Illinois Volunteers, and later partici- 
pated in numerous engagements (among them the 
battle of Shiloh), was captured by Forrest, and 
ultimately compelled to resign because of im- 
paired health and failing eyesight, finally becom- 
ing totally blind. He died, June 27, 1881, and 
was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery, near Spring- 
field. Two of Colonel Fry's sons achieved dis- 
tinction during the Civil War. — James Barnet 
(Fry), son of the preceding, was born at Car- 
rollton, 111., Feb. 22, 1827; graduated at West 
Point Military Academy, in 1847, and was 
assigned to artillery service ; after a short experi- 
ence as Assistant Instructor, joined his regiment, 
the Third United States Artillery, in Mexico, 
remaining there through 1847-48. Later, he was 
employed on frontier and garrison duty, and 
again as Instructor in 1853-54, and as Adjutant of 
the Academy during 1854-59; became Assistant 
Adjutant-General, March 16, 1861, then served as 
Chief of Staff to General McDowell and General 
Buell (1861-62), taking part in the battles of Bull 
Run, Shiloh and Corinth, and in the campaign in 
Kentucky; was made Provost-Marshal-General 
of the United States, in March, 1863, and con- 
ducted the drafts of that year, receiving the rank 
of Brigadier-General, April 21, 1864. He con- 
tinued in this office until August 30, 1866, during 
which time he put in the army 1,120,621 men, 
arrested 76,562 deserters, collected $26,366,316.78 
and made an exact enrollment of the National 
forces. After the war he served as Adjutant- 
General with the rank of Colonel, till June 1, 
1881, when he was retired at his own request. 
Besides his various official reports, he published a 
"Sketch of the Adjutant-General's Department, 
United States Army, from 1775 to 1875, " and "His- 
tory and Legal Effects of Brevets in the Armies of 
Great Britain and the United States, from their 
origin in 1692 to the Present Time, " (1877). Died, 
in Newport, R. I., July 11, 1894.— William M. 
(Fry), another son, was Provost Marshal of the 
North Illinois District during the Civil War, and 
rendered valuable service to the Government. 

FULLER, Allen Curtis, lawyer, jurist and 
Adjutant-General, was born in Farmington, 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



179 



Conn., Sept. 24, 1822; studied law at Warsaw, 
N. Y., was admitted to practice, in 1846 came to 
Belvidere, Boone County, 111., and, after practic- 
ing there some years, was elected Circuit Judge 
in 1861. A few months afterward he was induced 
to accept the office of Adjutant-General by 
appointment of Governor Yates, entering upon 
the duties of the office in November, 1861. At 
first it was understood that his acceptance was 
only temporaiy, so that he did not formally 
resign his place upon the bench until July, 1862. 
He continued to discharge the duties of Adjutant- 
General until January, 1865, when, having been 
elected Representative in the General Assembly, 
he was succeeded in the Adjutant-General's office 
by General Isham N. Haynie. He served as 
Speaker of the House during the following ses- 
sion, and as State Senator from 1867 to 1873 — 
in the Twenty-fifth. Twenty-sixth and Twenty- 
seventh General Assemblies. He was also elected 
a Republican Presidential Elector in 1860, and 
again in 1876. Since retiring from office, General 
Fuller has devoted his attention to the practice of 
his profession and looking after a large private 
business at Belvidere. 

FULLER, Charles E., lawyer and legislator, 
was born at Flora, Boone County, 111., March 31, 
1849 ; attended the district school until 12 years 
of age, and, between 1861 and '67, served as clerk 
in stores at Belvidere and Cherry Valley. He 
then spent a couple of years in the book business 
in Iowa, when (1869) he began the study of law 
with Hon. Jesse S. Hildrup, at Belvidere, and 
was admitted to the bar in 1870. Since then 
Mr. Fuller has practiced his profession at Belvi- 
dere, was Corporation Attorney for that city in 
1875-76, the latter year being elected State's 
Attorney for Boone County. From 1879 to 1891 
he served continuously in the Legislature, first 
as State Senator in the Thirty-first and Thirty- 
second General Assemblies, then as a member of 
the House for three sessions, in 1888 being 
returned to the Senate, where he served the 
next two sessions. Mr. Fuller established a high 
reputation in the Legislature as a debater, and 
was the candidate of his party (the Republican) 
for Speaker of the House in 1885. He was also a 
delegate to the Republican National Convention 
of 1884. Mr. Fuller was elected Judge of the 
Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Circuit at the 
judicial election of June, 1897. 

FULLER, Melville Weston, eighth Chief Jus- 
tice of the United States Supreme Court, was 
born at Augusta, Maine, Feb. .11, 1833, graduated 
from Bowdoin College in 1853, was admitted to 



the bar in 1*."), and became City Attorney of his 
native city, but resigned and removed to Chicago 
the following year. Through his mother's 
family he traces his descent hack to the Pilgrims 
of the Mayflower. His literary and legal attain- 
ments are of a high order. In politics he has 
always been a strong Democrat. He served as a 
Delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 
1862 and as a member of the Legislature in 1863, 
after that time devoting his attention to the 
practice of his profession in Chicago. In 1888 
President Cleveland appointed him Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court, since which time he has 
resided at Washington, although still claiming a 
residence in Chicago, where he has considerable 
property interests. 

FULLERTON, Alexander N., pioneer settler 
and lawyer, born in Chester, Yt., in 1804, was 
educated at Middlebury College and Litchfield 
Law School, and, coming to Chicago in 1833, 
finally engaged in real-estate and mercantile 
business, in which he was very successful. II is 
name has been given to one of the avenues of 
Chicago, as well as associated with one of the 
prominent business blocks. He was one of the 
original members of the Second Presbyterian 
Church of that city. Died, Sept. 29, 1880. 

FULTON, a city and railway center in White- 
side County, 135 miles west of Chicago, located 
on the Mississippi River and the Chicago & 
Northwestern, the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy, and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
Railways. It was formerly the terminus of a 
line of steamers which annually brought millions 
of bushels of grain down the Mississippi from 
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, returning 
with merchandise, agricultural implements, etc., 
but this river trade gradually died out, having 
been usurped by the various railroads. Fulton 
has extensive factories for the making of stoves, 
besides some important lumber industries. The 
Northern Illinois College is located here. Popu- 
lation (1890), 2,099; (1900), 2,685. 

FULTON COUNTY, situated west of and bor- 
dering on the Illinois River ; was originally a part 
of Pike County, but separately organized in 1823 
— named for Robert Fulton. It has an area of 870 
square miles with a population (1900) of 46,201. 
The soil is rich, well watered and wooded. Drain- 
age is effected by the Illinois and Spoon Rivers 
(the former constituting its eastern boundary) 
and by Copperas Creek. Lewistown became the 
county-seat immediately after county organi- 
zation, and so remains to the present time (1899). 
The surface of the county at a distance from the 



180 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



river is generally flat, although along the Illinois 
there are bluffs rising to the height of 125 feet. 
The soil is rich, and underlying it are rich, work- 
able seams of coal. A thin seam of cannel coal 
has been mined near Avon, with a contiguous 
vein of fire-clay. Some of the earliest settlers were 
Messrs. Craig and Savage, who, in 1818, built a 
saw mill on Otter Creek; Ossian M. Ross and 
Stephen Dewey, who laid off Lewistown on his 
own land in 1822. The first hotel in the entire 
military tract was opened at Lewistown by Tru- 
man Phelps, in 1827. A flat-boat ferry across the 
Illinois was established at Havana, in 1823. The 
principal towns are Canton (pop. 6, 564), Lewistown 
(2,166), Farmington (1,375), and Vermont (1,158). 

FULTON COUNTY NARROW-GAUGE RAIL- 
WAY, a line extending from the west bank of the 
Illinois River, opposite Havana, to Galesburg, 
61 miles. It is a single-track, narrow-gauge 
(3- foot) road, although the excavations and 
embankments are being widened to accommodate 
a track of standard gauge. The grades are few, 
and, asq>rule, are light, although, in one instance, 
the gradient is eighty-four feet to the mile. 
There are more than 19 miles of curves, the maxi- 
mum being sixteen degrees. The rails are of 
iron, thirty-five pounds to the yard, road not 
ballasted. Capital stock outstanding (1895), 
§636,794; bonded debt, §484,000; miscellaneous 
obligations, $462,362; total capitalization, $1,583,- 
156. The line from Havana to Fairview (31 miles) 
was chartered in 1 878 and opened in 1880 and the 
extension from Fairview to Galesburg chartered 
in 1881 and opened in 1882. 

FUNK, Isaac, pioneer, was born in Clark 
County, Ky., Nov. 17, 1797; grew up with meager 
educational advantages and, in 1823, came to Illi- 
nois, finally settling at what afterwards became- 
known as Funk's Grove in McLean County. 
Here, with no other capital than industry, per- 
severance, and integrity, Mr. Funk began laying 
the foundation of one of the most ample fortunes 
ever acquired in Illinois outside the domain of 
trade or speculation. By agriculture and dealing 
in live-stock, he became the possessor of a large 
area of the finest farming lands in the State, 
which he brought to a high state of cultivation, 
leaving an estate valued at his death at not less 
than 82.000,000. Mr. Funk served three sessions 
in the General Assembly, first as Representative 
in the Twelfth (1840-42), and as Senator in the 
Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth (1862-66), dying 
before the close of his last term, Jan. 29, 1865. 
Originally a Whig in politics, he became a Repub- 
lican on the organization of that party, and gave 



a liberal and patriotic support to the Government 
during the war for the preservation of the Union. 
During the session of the Twenty -third General 
Assembly, in February, 1863, he delivered a 
speech in the Senate in indignant condemnation 
of the policy of the anti-war factionists, which, 
although couched in homely language, aroused 
the enthusiasm of the friends of the Government 
throughout the State and won for its author a 
prominent place in State history. — Benjamin F. 
(Funk), son of the preceding, was born in Funk's 
Grove Township, McLean County, 111., Oct. 17, 
1838. After leaving the district schools, he 
entered the Wesleyan University at Blooming- 
ton, but suspended his studies to enter the army 
in 1862, enlisting as a private in the Sixty-eighth 
Illinois Volunteers. After five months' service 
he was honorably discharged, and re-entered the 
University, completing a three-years' course. 
For three years after graduation he followed 
farming as an avocation, and, in 1869, took up 
his residence at Bloomington. In 1871 he was 
chosen Mayor, and served seven consecutive 
terms. He was a delegate to the National 
Republican Convention of 1888, and was the suc- 
cessful candidate of that party, in 1892, for Repre- 
sentative in Congress from the Fourteenth Illinois 
District. — Lafayette (Funk), another son of Isaac 
Funk, was a Representative from McLean County 
in the Thirty -third General Assembly and Sena- 
tor in the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth. Other 
sons who have occupied seats in the same body 
include George W. , Representative in the Twenty- 
seventh, and Duncan M., Representative in the 
Fortieth and Forty-first Assemblies The Funk 
family have been conspicuous in the affairs of 
McLean County for a generation, and its mem- 
bers have occupied many other positions of im- 
portance and influence, besides those named, under 
the State, County and municipal governments. 

GAGE, Lyman J., Secretary of the Treasury, 
was born in De Ruyter, Madison County, N. Y., 
June 28, 1836 ; received a common school educa- 
tion in his native county, and, on the removal of 
his parents, in 1848, to Rome, N. Y., enjoyed the 
advantages of instruction in an academy. At 
the age of 17 he entered the employment of the 
Oneida Central Bank as office-boy and general 
utility clerk, but, two years afterwards, came to 
Chicago, first securing employment in a planing 
mill, and, in 1858, obtaining a position as book- 
keeper of the Merchants' Loan and Trust Com- 
pany, at a salary of $500 a year. By 1861 he had 
been advanced to the position of cashier of the 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



181 



concern, but, in 18G8, he accepted the cashiership 
of the First National Bank of Chicago, of which 
he became the Vice-President in 1881 and, in 
1891, the President. Mr. Gage was also one of the 
prominent factors in securing the location of the 
World's Fair at Chicago, becoming one of the 
guarantors of the §10,000, 000 promised to be raised 
by the city of Chicago, and being finally chosen 
the first President of the Exposition Company. 
He also presided over the bankers' section of the 
World's Congress Auxiliary in 1893, and, for a 
number of years, was President of the Civic Feder- 
ation of Chicago. On the assumption of the 
Presidency by President McKinley, in March, 
1897, Mr. Gage was selected for the position of 
Secretary of the Treasury, which he has con- 
tinued to occupy up to the present time (1899). 

GALATf A, a village of Saline County, on the 
Illinois Central Railroad, 40 miles southeast of 
Duquoin; lias a bank; leading industry is coal- 
mining. Population (1890), 519; (1900), 642. 

GALE, George Washington, D.D., LL.D., 
clergyman and educator, was born in Dutchess 
County, N. Y., Dec. 3, 1789. Left an orphan at 
eight years of age, he fell to the care of older 
sisters who inherited the vigorous character of 
their father, which they instilled into the son. 
He graduated at Union College in 1814, and, hav- 
ing taken a course in the Theological Seminary 
at, Princeton, in 1816 was licensed by the Hudson 
Presbytery and assumed the charge of building 
up new churches in Jefferson County, N. Y., 
serving also for six years as pastor of the Presby- 
terian church at Adams. Here his labors were 
attended by a revival in which Charles G. Fin- 
ney, the eloquent evangelist, and other eminent 
men were converts. Having resigned his charge 
at Adams on account of illness, he spent the 
winter of 1823-24 in Virginia, where his views 
were enlarged by contact with a new class of 
people. Later, removing to Oneida County, 
N. Y., by his marriage with Harriet Selden he 
acquired a considerable property, insuring an 
income which enabled him to extend the field of 
his labors. The result was the establishment of 
the Oneida Institute, a manual labor school, at 
Whitesboro, with which he remained from 1827 
to 1834, and out of which grew Lane Seminary 
and Oberlin and Knox Colleges. In 1835 he con- 
ceived the idea of establishing a colony and an 
institution of learning in the West, and a com- 
mittee representing a party of proposed colonists 
was appointed to make a selection of a site, which 
resulted, in the following year, in the choice of 
a location in Knox County, 111., including the 



site of the present city of Galesburg, which was 
named in honor of Mr. Gale, as the head of the 
enterprise. Here, in 1837, were taken the first 
practical steps in carrying out plans which had 
been previously matured in New York, for the 
establishment of an institution which first 
received the name of Knox Manual Labor Col- 
lege. The manual labor feature having been 
finally discarded, the institution took the name 
of Knox College in 1857. Mr. Gale was the lead- 
ing promoter of the enterprise, by a liberal dona 
tion of lands contributing to its first endowment, 
and, for nearly a quarter of a century, being 
intimately identified with its history. From 
1840 to '42 he served in the capacity of acting 
Professor of Ancient Languages, and, for fifteen 
years thereafter, as Professor of Moral Philosophy 
and Rhetoric. Died, at Galesburg, Sept. 31, 1861. 
— William Selden (Gale), oldest son of the preced- 
ing, was born in Jefferson County, N. Y., Feb. 
15, 1822, came with his father to Galesburg, 111., 
in 1836, and was educated there. Having read 
law with the Hon. James Knox, he was admitted 
to the bar in 1845, but practiced only a few years, 
as he began to turn his attention to measures for 
the development of the country. One of these 
was the Central Military Tract Railroad (now the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy), of which he was 
the most active promoter and a Director. He 
was also a member of the Board of Supervisors of 
Knox County, from the adoption of township 
organization in 1853 to 1895, with the exception 
of four years, and, during the long controversy 
which resulted in the location of the county -seat 
at Galesburg, was the leader of the Galesburg 
party, and subsequently took a prominent part 
in the erection of public buildings there. Other 
positions held by him include the office of Post- 
master of the city of Galesburg, 184.9-53; member 
of the State Constitutional Convention of 1862, 
and Representative in the Twenty-sixth General 
Assembly (1870-72); Presidential Elector in 1872; 
Delegate to the National Republican Convention 
of 1880; City Alderman, 1872-82 and 1891-95; 
member of the Commission appointed by Gov- 
ernor Oglesby in 1885 to revise the State Revenue 
Laws; by appointment of President Harrison, 
Superintendent of the Galesburg Government 
Building, and a long term Trustee of the Illinois 
Hospital for the Insane at Rock Island, by 
appointment of Governor Adtgeld. He lias also 
been a frequent representative of his part\ 
(the Republican) in State and District Conven- 
tions, and, since 1*01. lias been an active and 
leading member of the Board of Trustees of 



182 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OE ILLINOIS. 



Knox College. Mr. Gale was married, Oct. 6, 
1845, to Miss Caroline Ferris, granddaughter of 
the financial representative of the Galesburg 
Colony of 1836, and has had eight children, of 
whom four are living. Died Sep. 1, 1900. 

GALENA, r the county-seat of Jo Daviess County, 
a city and po'rt of entry, 150 miles in a direct line 
west by northwest of Chicago; is located on 
Galena River, about 43^ miles above its junction 
with the Mississippi, and is an intersecting point 
for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the North- 
western, and the Illinois Central Railroads, with 
connections by stub with the Chicago Great 
Western. It is built partially in a valley and 
partially on the bluffs which overlook the river, 
the Galena River being made navigable for ves- 
sels of deep draught by a system of lockage. The 
vicinity abounds in rich mines of sulphide of lead 
'galena), from which the city takes its name. 
Galena is adorned by handsome public and priv- 
ate buildings and a beautiful park, in which 
stands a fine bronze statue of General Grant, and 
a symmetrical monument dedicated to the sol- 
diers and sailors of Jo Daviess County who lost 
their lives during the Civil War. Its industries 
include a furniture factory, a table factory, two 
foundries, a tub factory and a carriage factory. 
Zinc ore is now being produced in and near the 
city in large quantities, and its mining interests 
will become vast at no distant day. It owns an 
electric light plant, and water is furnished from 
an artesian well 1,700 feet deep. Galena was one 
of the earliest towns in Northern Illinois to be 
settled, its mines having been worked in the lat- 
ter part of the seventeenth century. Many men 
of distinction in State and National affairs came 
from Galena, among whom were Gen. U. S. 
Grant, Gen. John A. Rawlins, Gen. John E. 
Smith, Gen. John C. Smith, Gen. A. L. Chetlain, 
Gen. John O. Duer, Gen. W. R. Rowley, Gen. E. 
D. Baker, Hon. E. B. Washburne, Secretary of 
State under Grant, Hon. Thompson Campbell, 
Secretary of State of Illinois, and Judge Drum- 
mond. Population (1890), 5,635; (1900), 5,005. 

GALENA & CHICAGO UNION RAILROAD. 
(See Chicago & Northwestern Railway.) 

GALESBURG, the county-seat of Knox County 
and an important educational center. The first 
settlers were emigrants from the East, a large pro- 
portion of them being members of a colony organ- 
ized by Rev. George W. Gale, of Whitesboro, 
N. Y., in whose honor the original village was 
named. It is situated in the heart of a rich 
agricultural district 53 miles northwest of Peoria, 
99 miles northeast of Quincy and 163 miles south- 



west of Chicago; is an important railway center, 
being at the junction of the main line with two 
branch lines of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, 
and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroads. 
It was incorporated as a village in 1841, and as a 
city by special charter in 1857. There are beauti- 
ful parks and the residence streets are well 
shaded, while 25 miles of street are paved with 
vitrified brick. The city owns a system of water- 
works receiving its supply from artesian wells 
and artificial lakes, has an efficient and well- 
equipped paid fire-department, an electric street 
car system with three suburban lines, gas and 
electric lighting systems, steam-heating plant, 
etc. It also has a number of flourishing mechan- 
ical industries, including two iron foundries, agri- 
cultural implement works, flouring mills, carriage 
and wagon works and a broom factory, besides 
other industrial enterprises of minor importance. 
The manufacture of vitrified paving brick is quite 
extensively carried on at plants near the city 
limits, the city itself being the shipping-point 
as well as the point of administrative control. 
The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad 
Company has shops and stockyards here, while 
considerable coal is mined in the vicinity. The 
public buildings include a courthouse, Govern- 
ment postoffice building, an opera house, nine- 
teen churches, ten public schools with a high 
school and free kindergarten, and a handsome 
public library building erected at a cost of $100,- 
000, of which one-half was contributed by Mr. 
Carnegie. Galesburg enjoys its chief distinction 
as the seat of a large number of high class liter- 
ary institutions, including Knox College (non- 
sectarian), Lombard University (Universalist), 
and Corpus Christi Lyceum and University, and 
St. Joseph's Academy (both Roman Catholic). 
Three interurban electric railroad lines connect 
Galesburg with neighboring towns. Pop. (1890), 
15,264; (1900), 18,607. 

GALLATIN COUNTY, one of three counties 
organized in Illinois Territory in 1812 — the others 
being Madison and Johnson. Previous to that 
date the Territory had consisted of only two coun- 
ties, St. Clair and Randolph. The new county 
was named in honor of Albert Gallatin, then 
Secretary of the Treasury. It is situated on the 
Ohio and Wabash Rivers, in the extreme south- 
eastern part of the State, and has an area of 349 
square miles; population (1900), *?.5,836. The first 
cabin ei'ected by an American settler was the 
home of Michael Sprinkle, who settled at Shaw- 
neetown in 1800. The place early became an 
important trading post and distributing point. 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



183 



A ferry across the Wabash was established in 
1803, by Alexander Wilson, whose descendants 
conducted it for more than seventy-five years. 
Although Stephen Rector made a Government 
survey as early as 1807, the public lands were not 
placed on the market until 1818. Shawneetown, 
the county-seat, is the most important town, 
having a population of some 2,200. Bituminous 
coal is found in large quantities, and mining is 
an important industry. The prosperity of the 
county has been much retarded by floods, particu- 
larly at Shawneetown and Equality. At the 
former point the difference between high and 
low water mark in the Ohio River has been as 
much as fifty-two feet. 

GALLOWAY, Andrew Jackson, civil engineer, 
was born of Scotch ancestry in Butler County, 
Pa., Dec. 21, 1814; came with his father to Cory- 
don, Ind. , in 1820, took a course in Hanover Col- 
lege, graduating as a civil engineer in 1837 ; then 
came to Mount Carmel, White County, 111., with 
a view to employment on projected Illinois rail- 
roads, but engaged in teaching for a year, having 
among his pupils a number who have since been 
prominent in State affairs. Later, he obtained 
employment as an assistant engineer, serving for 
a time under William Gooding, Chief Engineer of 
the Illinois & Michigan Canal ; was also Assistant 
Enrolling and Engrossing Clerk of the State 
Senate in 1840-41, and held the same position in 
the House in 1846-47, and again in 1848-49, in the 
meantime having located a farm in La Salle 
County, where the present city of Streator stands. 
In 1849 he was appointed Secretary of the Canal 
Trustees, and, in 1851, became assistant engineer 
on the Illinois Central Railroad, later superin- 
tending its construction, and finally being trans- 
ferred to the land department, but retiring in 
1855 to engage in real-estate business in Chicago, 
dealing largely in railroad lands. Mr. Galloway 
was elected a County Commissioner for Cook 
County, and has since been connected with many 
measures of local importance. 

GALYA, a town in Henry County, 45 miles 
southeast of Rock Island and 48 miles north- 
northwest of Peoria; the point of intersection of 
the Rock Island & Peoria and the Chicago, Bur- 
lington & Quincy Railways. It stands at the 
summit of the dividing ridge between the Missis- 
sippi and the Illinois Rivers, and is a manufac- 
turing and coal-mining town. It has eight 
churches, three banks, good schools, and two 
weekly newspapers. The surrounding country 
is agricultural and wealthy, and is rich in coal. 
Population (1890), 2,409; (1900), 2,682. 



GARDNER, a village in Garfield Township, 
Grundy County, on the Chicago & Alton Rail- 
road, 05 miles south-southwest of Chicago and 26 
miles north-northeast of Pontiac; on the Kanka- 
kee and Seneca branch of the "Big Four, " and 
the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern R. R. Coal-mining 
is the principal industry. Gardner has two 
banks, four churches, a high school, and a weekly 
paper. Population (1890), 1,094; (1900), 1,036. 

GARDNER, COAL CITY A NORMANTOWN 
RAILWAY. (See Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Rail 
way.) 

GARY, Joseph Easton, lawyer and jurist, was 
born of Puritan ancestry, at Potsdam, St. Law- 
rence County, N. Y., July 9, 1821. His early 
educational advantages were such as were fur- 
nished by district schools and a village academy, 
and, until he was 22 years old, he worked at the 
carpenter's bench. In 1843 he removed to St. 
Louis, Mo., where he studied law. After admis- 
sion to the bar, he practiced for five years in 
Southwest Missouri, thence going to Las Vegas, 
N. M., in 1849, and to San Francisco, Cal., in 
1853. In 1856 he settled in Chicago, where he 
has since resided. After seven years of active 
practice he was elected to the bench of the 
Superior Court of Cook County, where he has sat 
for thirty years, being four times nominated by 
both political parties, and his last re-election — for 
a term of six years, occurring in 1893. He pre- 
sided at the trial of the Chicago anarchists in 
1886 — one of the causes celebres of Illinois. Some 
of his rulings therein were sharply criticised, but 
he was upheld by the courts of appellate jurisdic- 
tion, and his connection with the case has given 
him world-wide fame. In November, 1888, the 
Supreme Court of Illinois transferred him to the 
bench of the Appellate Court, of which tribunal 
he has been three times Chief Justice. 

CASSETTE, Norman Theodore, real-estate 
operator, wasbornatTownsend.Vt., April 21, 1839, 
came to Chicago at ten years of age, and, after 
spending a year at Shurtleff College, took a prepar- 
atory collegiate course at the Atwater Institute, 
Rochester, N. Y. In June, 1861, he enlisted as 
a private in the Nineteenth Regiment Illinois 
Volunteers, rising in the second year to the rank 
of First Lieutenant, and, at the battle of Chicka- 
mauga, by gallantry displayed while serving as 
an Aid-de-Camp, winning a recommendation 
for a brevet Lieutenant-Colonelcy. The war 
over, he served one term as Clerk of the Circuit 
Court and Recorder, but later engaged in the real- 
estate and loan business as the head of the exten- 
sive firm of Norman T. Gassette & Co. He was i. 



184 



HISTOEICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



Republican in politics, active in Grand Army 
circles and prominent as a Mason, holding the 
position of Eminent Grand Commander of 
Knights Templar of Illinois on occasion of the 
Triennial Conclave in Washington in 1889. He 
also had charge, as President of the Masonic 
Fraternity Temple Association of Chicago, for 
some time prior to his decease, of the erection of 
the Masonic Temple of Chicago. Died, in Chi- 
cago, March 26, 1891. 

GATE WOOD, William Jefferson, early lawyer, 
•was born in Warren County, Ky., came to 
Franklin County, 111., in boyhood, removed to 
Shawneetown in 1823, where he taught school 
two or three years while studying law; was 
admitted to the bar in 1828, and served in five 
General Assemblies — as Representative in 1830-32, 
and as Senator, 1834-42. He is described as a man 
of fine education and brilliant talents. Died, 
Jan. 8, 1842. 

GAULT, John C, railway manager, was born 
at Hooksett, N. H., May 1, 1829; in 1850 entered 
the local freight office of the Manchester & Law- 
rence Railroad, later becoming General Freight 
Agent of the Vermont Central. Coming to Chi- 
cago in 1859, he successively filled the positions 
of Superintendent of Transportation on the 
Galena & Chicago Union, and (after the consoli- 
dation of the latter with the Chicago & North- 
western), that of Division Superintendent, 
General Freight Agent and Assistant General 
Manager; Assistant General Manager of the 
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul; General Mana- 
ger of the Wabash (1879-83) ; Arbitrator for the 
trunk fines (1883-85), and General Manager of 
the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific 
(1885-90), when he retired. Died, in Chicago, 
August 29, 1891. 

GENERAL ASSEMBLIES. The following is a 
list of the General Assemblies which have met 
since the admission of Illinois as a State up to 
1898— from the First to the Fortieth inclusive — 
with the more important acts passed by each and 
the duration of their respective sessions : 

First General Assembly held two sessions, 
the first convening at Kaskaskia, the State Capi- 
tal, Oct. 5, and adjourning Oct. 13, 1818. The 
second met, Jan. 4, 1819, continuing to March 31. 
Lieut-Gov. Pierre Menard presided over the Sen- 
ate, consisting of thirteen members, while John 
Messinger was chosen Speaker of the House, 
containing twenty-seven members. The most 
important business transacted at the first session 
was the election of two United States Senators— 
Ninian Edwards and Jesse B. Thomas, Sr.— and 



the filling of minor State and judicial offices. At 
the second session a code of laws was enacted, 
copied chiefly from the Virginia and Kentucky 
statutes, including the law concerning "negroes 
and mulattoes," which long remained on the 
statute book. An act was also passed appointing 
Commissioners to select a site for a new State 
Capital, which resulted in its location at Van- 
dalia. The sessions were held in a stone building 
with gambrel-roof pierced by dormer-windows, 
the Senate occupying the lower floor and the 
House the upper. The length of the first session 
was nine days, and of the second eighty -seven — 
total, ninety-six days. 

Second General Assembly convened at Van- 
dalia, Dec. 4, 1820. It consisted of fourteen 
Senators and twenty -nine Representatives. John 
McLean, of Gallatin County, was chosen Speaker 
of the House. A leading topic of discussion was 
the incorporation of a State Bank. Money was 
scarce and there was a strong popular demand 
for an increase of circulating medium. To 
appease this clamor, no less than to relieve traders 
and agriculturists, this General Assembly estab- 
lished a State Bank (see State Bank), despite 
the earnest protest of McLean and the executive 
veto. A stay-law was also enacted at this session 
for the benefit of the debtor class. The number 
of members of the next Legislature was fixed at 
eighteen Senators and thirty-six Representatives 
— this provision remaining in force until 1831. 
The session ended Feb. 15, having lasted seventy- 
four days. 

Third General Assembly convened, Dec. 2, 

1822. Lieutenant-Governor Hubbard presided in 
the Senate, while in the organization of the 
lower house, William M. Alexander was chosen 
Speaker. Governor Coles, in his inaugural, 
called attention to the existence of slavery in 
Illinois despite the Ordinance of 1787, and urged 
the adoption of repressive measures. Both 
branches of the Legislature being pro-slavery in 
sympathy, the Governor's address provoked 
bitter and determined opposition. On Jan. 9, 

1823, Jesse B. Thomas was re-elected United 
States Senator, defeating John Reynolds, Leonard 
White and Samuel D. Lockwood. After electing 
Mr. Thomas and choosing State officers, the 
General Assembly proceeded to discuss the major- 
ity and minority reports of the committee to 
which had been referred the Governor's address. 
The minority report recommended the abolition 
of slavery, while that of the majority favored 
the adoption of a resolution calling a convention 
to amend the Constitution, the avowed object 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



185 



being to make Illinois a slave State. The latter 
report was adopted, but the pro-slavery party in 
the House lacked one vote of the number neces- 
sary to carry the resolution by the constitutional 
two-thirds majority. What followed has always 
been regarded as a blot upon the record of the 
Third General Assembly. Nicholas Hansen, who 
had been awarded the seat from Pike County 
at the beginning of the session after a contest 
brought by his opponent, John Shaw, was un- 
seated after the adoption of a resolution to 
reconsider the vote by which he had been several 
weeks before declared elected. Shaw having 
thus been seated, the resolution was carried by 
the necessary twenty-four votes. Mr. Hansen, 
although previously regarded as a pro-slavery 
man, had voted with the minority when the 
resolution was first put upon its passage. Hence 
followed his deprivation of his seat. The triumph 
of the friends of the convention was celebrated 
by what Gov. John Reynolds (himself a conven- 
tionist) characterized as "a wild and indecorous 
procession by torchlight and liquor." (See 
Slavery and Slave Laws.) The session adjourned 
Feb. 18, having continued seventy-nine days. 

Fourth General Assembly. This body held 
two sessions, the first being convened, Nov. 15, 
1824, by proclamation of the Executive, some 
three weeks before the date for the regular 
session, in order to correct a defect in the law 
relative to counting the returns for Presidential 
Electors. Thomas Mather was elected Speaker 
of the House, while Lieutenant-Governor Hub- 
bard presided in the Senate. Having amended 
the law concerning the election returns for Presi- 
dential Electors, the Assembly proceeded to the 
election of two United States Senators — one to 
fill the unexpired term of ex-Senator Edwards 
(resigned) and the other for the full term begin- 
ning March 4, 1825. John McLean was chosen 
for the first and Elias Kent Kane for the second. 
Five circuit judgeships were created, and it was 
provided that the bench of the Supreme Court 
should consist of four Judges, and that semi- 
annual sessions of that tribunal should be held at 
the State capital. (See Judicial Department.) 
The regular session came to an end, Jan. 18, 1825, 
but at its own request, the Lieutenant-Governor 
and acting Governor Hubbard re-convened the 
body in special session on Jan. 2, 1826, to enact a 
new apportionment law under the census of 1825. 
A sine die adjournment was taken, Jan. 28, 1826. 
One of the important acts of the regular session 
of 1825 was the adoption of the first free-school 
law in Illinois, the measure having been intro- 



duced by Joseph Duncan, afterwards Governor of 
the State. This Legislature was in session a total 
of ninety-two days, of which sixty-live were 
during the first session and twenty-seven during 
the second. 

Fifth General Assembly convened, Dec. 4, 
1826, Lieutenant-Governor Kinney presiding in 
the Senate and John McLean in the House. At 
the request of the Governor an investigation into 
the management of the bank at Edwardsville was 
had, resulting, however, in the exoneration of its 
officers. The circuit judgeships created by the 
preceding Legislature were abrogated and their 
incumbents legislated out of office. The State 
was divided into four circuits, one Justice of the 
Supreme Court being assigned to each. (See 
Judicial Department.) This General Assembly 
also elected a State Treasurer to succeed Abner 
Field, James Hall being chosen on the ninth 
ballot. The Supreme Court Judges, as directed 
by the preceding Legislature, presented a well 
digested report on the revision of the laws, which 
was adopted without material alteration. One of 
the important measures enacted at this session 
was an act establishing a State penitentiary, the 
funds for its erection being obtained by the 
sale of saline lands in Gallatin County. (See 
Alton Penitentiary; also Salt Manufacture.) 
The session ended Feb. 19 — having continued 
seventy-eight days. 

Sixth General Assembly convened, Dec. 1. 
1828. The Jackson Democrats had a large major- 
ity in both houses. John McLean was, for the 
third time, elected Speaker of the House, and, 
later in the session, was elected United States 
Senator by a unanimous vote. A Secretary of 
State, Treasurer and Attorney-General were also 
appointed or elected. The most important legis- 
lation of the session was as follows : Authorizing 
the sale of school lands and the borrowing of the 
proceeds from the school fund for the ordinary 
governmental expenses; providing for a return 
to the viva voce method of voting; creating a 
fifth judicial circuit and appointing a Judge 
therefor ; providing for the appointment of Com- 
missioners to determine upon the route of the 
Illinois & Michigan Canal, to sell lands and com- 
mence its construction. The Assembly adjourned, 
Jan. 23, 1829, having been in session fifty-four days. 
Seventh General Assembly met, Dec. 6, 1830. 
The newly-elected Lieutenant-Governor, Zadoc 
Casey, and William L. D. Ewing presided 
over the two houses, respectively. John Rey- 
nolds was Governor, and, the majority of the 
Senate being made up of his political adversaries, 



186 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



experienced no little difficulty in securing the 
confirmation of his nominees. Two United 
States Senators were elected: Elias K. Kane 
being chosen to succeed himself and John M. 
Robinson to serve the unexpired term of John 
McLean, deceased. The United States census of 
1830 gave Illinois three Representatives in Con- 
gress instead of one, and this General Assembly 
passed a re-apportionment law accordingly. The 
number of State Senators was increased to 
twenty-six, and of members of the lower house 
to fifty-five. The criminal code was amended by 
the substitution of imprisonment in the peni- 
tentiary as a penalty in lieu of the stocks and 
public flogging. This Legislature also authorized 
the borrowing of $100,000 to redeem the notes of 
the State Bank which were to mature the follow- 
ing year. The Assembly adjourned, Feb. 16, 1831, 
the session having lasted seventy-three days. 

Eighth General Assembly. The session 
began Dec. 3, 1832, and ended March 2, 1833. 
William L. D. Ewing was chosen President pro 
tempore of the Senate, and succeeded Zadoc 
Casey as Lieutenant-Governor, the latter having 
been elected a Representative in Congress. 
Alexander M. Jenkins presided over the House as 
Speaker. This Legislature enacted the first gen- 
eral incorporation laws of Illinois, their provisions 
being applicable to towns and public libraries. 
It also incorporated several railroad companies, 
— one line from Lake Michigan to the Illinois 
River (projected as a substitute for the canal), 
one from Peru to Cairo, and another to cross the 
State, running through Springfield. Other char- 
ters were granted for shorter lines, but the incor- 
porators generally failed to organize under them. 
A notable inci dent in connection with this session 
was the attempt to impeach Theophilus W. Smith, 
a Justice of the Supreme Court. This was the first 
and last trial of this character in the State's his- 
tory, between 1818 and 1899. Failing to secure a 
conviction in the Senate (where the vote stood 
twelve for conviction and ten for acquittal, with 
four Senators excused from voting), the House 
attempted to remove him by address, but in this 
the Senate refused to concur. The first mechan- 
ics' lien law was enacted by this Legislature, 
as also a law relating to the "right of way" fov 
"public roads, canals, or other public works.'' 
The length of the session was ninety days. 

Ninth General Assembly. This Legislature 
held two sessions. The first began Dec. 1, 1834, 
and lasted to Feb. 13, 1835. Lieutenant-Governor 
Jenkins presided in the Senate and James Semple 
was elected Speaker of the House without oppo- 



sition. On Dec. 20, John M. Robinson was re- 
elected United States Senator Abraham Lincoln 
was among the new members, but took no con- 
spicuous part in the discussions of the body. The 
principal public laws passed at this session were : 
Providing for the borrowing of $500,000 to be 
used in the construction of the Illinois & Michi- 
gan Canal and the appointment of a Board of 
Commissioners to supervise its expenditure; 
incorporating the Bank of the State of Illinois ; 
and authorizing a loan of $12,000 by Cook County, 
at 10 per cent interest per annum from the 
county school fund, for the erection of a court 
house in that county. The second session of this 
Assembly convened, Dec. 7, 1835, adjourning, Jan. 
18, 1836. A new canal act was passed, enlarging 
the Commissioners' powers and pledging the faith 
of the State for the repayment of money bor- 
rowed to aid in its construction. A new appor- 
tionment law was also passed providing for the 
election of forty-one Senators and ninety-one 
Representatives, and W. L. D. Ewing was elected 
United States Senator, to succeed Elias K. Kane, 
deceased. The length of the first session was 
seventy-five days, and of the second forty -three 
days — total, 118. 

Tenth General Assembly, like its predeces- 
sor, held two sessions. The first convened Dec. 5, 
1836, and adjourned March 6, 1837. The Whigs 
controlled the Senate by a large majority, and 
elected William H. Davidson, of White County, 
President, to succeed Alexander M. Jenkins, who 
had resigned the Lieutenant-Governorship. (See 
Jenkins, Alexander M.) James Semple was 
re-elected Speaker of the House, which was 
fully two-thirds Democratic. This Legislature 
was remarkable for the number of its members 
who afterwards attained National prominence. 
Lincoln and Douglas sat in the lower house, both 
voting for the same candidate for Speaker — New- 
ton Cloud, an independent Democrat. Besides 
these, the rolls of this Assembly included the 
names of a future Governor, six future United 
States Senators, eight Congressmen, three Illinois 
Supreme Court Judges, seven State officers, and 
a Cabinet officer. The two absorbing topics for 
legislative discussion and action were the system 
of internal improvements and the removal of the 
State capital. (See Internal Improvement Policy 
and State Capitals. ) The friends of Springfield 
finally effected such a combination that that city 
was selected as the seat of the State government, 
while the Internal Improvement Act was passed 
over the veto of Governor Duncan. A second 
session of this Legislature met on the call of the 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



187 



Governor, July 10, 1837, and adjourned July 22. 
An act legalizing the suspension of State banks 
was adopted, but the recommendation of the ( rov- 
ernor for the repeal of the internal improvement 
legislation was ignored. The length of the first 
session was ninety-two days and of the second 
thirteen — total 105. 

Eleventh General Assembly. This body 
held both a regular and a special session. The 
former met Dec. 3, 1838, and adjourned March 4, 
1839. The Whigs were in a majority in both 
•houses, and controlled the organization of the 
Senate. In the House, however, their candidate 
for Speaker — Abraham Lincoln — failing to secure 
his full party vote, was defeated by W. L. D. 
Ewing. At this session §800,000 more was appro- 
priated for the "improvement of water-ways and 
the construction of railroads, " all efforts to put an 
end to, or even curtail, further expenditures on 
account of internal improvements meeting with 
defeat. An appropriation (the first) was made 
for a library for the Supreme Court ; the Illinois 
Institution for the Education of the Deaf and 
Dumb was established, and the further issuance 
of bank notes of a smaller denomination than $5 
was prohibited. By this time the State debt had 
increased to over $13,000,000, and both the people 
and the Governor were becoming apprehensive as 
to ultimate results of this prodigal outlay. A 
crisis appeared imminent, and the Governor, on 
Dec. 9, 1839, convened the Legislature in special 
session to consider the situation. (This was the 
first session ever held at Springfield; and, the new 
State House not being completed, the Senate, the 
House and the Supreme Court found accommo- 
dation in three of the principal church edifices.) 
The struggle for a change of State policy at this 
session was long and hard fought, no heed being 
given to party lines. The outcome was the vir- 
tual abrogation of the entire internal improve- 
ment system. Provision was made for the calling 
in and destruction of all unsold bonds and the 
speedy adjustment of all unsettled accounts of 
the old Board of Public Works, which was legis- 
lated out of office. The special session adjourned 
Feb. 3, 1840. Length of regular session ninety- 
two days, of the special, fifty -seven — total, 149. 

Twelfth General Assembly. This Legisla- 
ture was strongly Democratic in both branches. 
It first convened, by executive proclamation, 
Nov. 23, 1840, the object being to provide for pay- 
ment of interest on the public debt. In reference 
to this matter the following enactments were 
made: Authorizing the hypothecation of $300,000 
internal improvement bonds, to meet the intei'est 



due Jan. 1, 1841; directing the issue o I bonds to 
be sold in the open market and the proceeds 
applied toward discharging all amounts due on 
inl crest account for which no other provision w;is 
made; levying a special tax of ten cents on the 
8100 to meet the interest on the last mentioned 
class of bonds, as it matured. For the comple- 
tion of the Northern Cross Railroad (from Spring- 
field to Jacksonville) another appropriation oi 
§100,000 was made. The called session adjourned, 
sine die, on Dec. 5, and the regular session began 
two days later. The Senate was presided over by 
the Lieutenant-Governor (Stinson H. Anderson >. 
and William L. D. Ewing was chosen Speaker of 
the House. The most vital issue was the propri- 
ety of demanding the surrender of the charter of 
the State Bank, with its branches, and here 
party lines were drawn. The Whigs finally 
succeeded in averting the closing of the institu- 
tions which had suspended specie payments, and 
in securing for those institutions the privilege of 
issuing small bills. A law reorganizing the judi- 
ciary was passed by the majority over the execu- 
tive veto, and in face of the defection of some of 
its members. On a partisan issue all the Circuit 
Judges were legislated out of office and five Jus- 
tices added to the bench of the Supreme Court. 
The session was stormy, and the Assembly ad- 
journed March 1, 1841. This Legislature was in 
session ninety-eight days — thirteen during the 
special session and eighty-five during the regular. 
Thirteenth General Assembly consisted of 
forty-one Senators and 121 Representatives; con- 
vened, Dec. 5, 1842. The Senate and House were 
Democratic by two-thirds majority in each. 
Lieut.-Gov. John Moore was presiding officer of 
the Senate and Samuel Hackelton Speaker of the 
House, with W. L. D. Ewing, who had been 
acting Governor and United States Senator, as 
Clerk of the latter. Richard Yates, Isaac N. 
Arnold, Stephen T. Logan and Gustavus Koerner, 
were among the new members. The existing 
situation seemed fraught with peril. The State 
debt was nearly $14,000,000; immigration had 
been checked; the State and Shawneetown banks 
had gone down and their currency was not worth 
fifty cents on the dollar ; Auditor's warrants were 
worth no more, and Illinois State bonds were 
quoted at fourteen cents. On Dec. 18, Judge 
Sidney Breese was elected United States Senator, 
having defeated Stephen A. Douglas for the 
Democratic caucus nomination, on the nineteenth 
ballot, by a majority of one vote. The State 
Bank (in which the State had been a large share- 
holder) was permitted to go into liquidation upon 



188 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



the surrender of State bonds in exchange for a 
like amount of bank stock owned by the State. 
The same conditional release was granted to the 
bank at Shawneetown. The net result was a 
reduction of the State debt by about $3,000,000. 
The Governor was authorized to negotiate a 
loan of $1,600,000 on the credit of the State, for 
the purpose of prosecuting the work on the canal 
and meeting the indebtedness already incurred. 
The Executive was also made sole "Fund Com- 
missioner" and, in that capacity, was empowered 
(in connection with the Auditor) to sell the 
railroads, etc., belonging to the State at public 
auction. Provision was also made for the redemp- 
tion of the bonds hypothecated with Macalister 
and Stebbins. (See Macalister and Stebbins 
Bonds.) The Congressional distribution of the 
moneys arising from the sale of public lands was 
acquiesced in, and the revenues and resources of 
the State were pledged to the redemption "of 
every debt contracted by an authorized agent for a 
good and valuable consideration." To establish 
a sinking fund to meet such obligation, a tax of 
twenty cents on every §100, payable in coin, was 
levied. This Legislature also made a re-appor- 
tionment of the State into Seven Congressional 
Districts. The Legislature adjourned, March 6, 
1843, after a session of ninety-two days. 

Fourteenth General Assembly convened 
Dec. 2, 1844, and adjourned March 3, 1845, the ses- 
sion lasting ninety-two days. The Senate was 
composed of twenty-six Democrats and fifteen 
Whigs; the House of eighty Democrats and 
thirty-nine Whigs. David Davis was among the 
new members. William A. Richardson defeated 
Stephen T. Logan for the Speakership, and James 
Semple was elected United States Senator to suc- 
ceed Samuel McRoberts, deceased. The canal 
law was amended by the passage of a supple- 
mental act, transferring the property to Trustees 
and empowering the Governor to complete the 
negotiations for the borrowing of $1,600,000 for 
its construction. The State revenue being in- 
sufficient to meet the ordinary expenses of the 
government, to say nothing of the arrears of 
interest on the State debt, a tax of three mills on 
each dollar's worth of property was imposed for 
1845 and of three and one-half mills thereafter. 
Of the revenue thus raised in 1845, one mill was 
set apart to pay the interest on the State debt 
and one and one-half mills for the same purpose 
from the taxes collected in 1846 "and forever 
thereafter." 

Fifteenth General Assembly convened Dec. 
7, 1846. The farewell message of Governor Ford 



and the inaugural of Governor French were lead- 
ing incidents. The Democrats had a two-thirds 
majority in each house. Lieut. -Gov. Joseph B. 
Wells presided in the Senate, and Newton Cloud 
was elected Speaker of the House, the compli- 
mentary vote of the Whigs being given to Stephen 
T. Logan. Stephen A. Douglas was elected 
United States Senator, the whigs voting for Cyrus 
Edwards. State officers were elected as follows : 
Auditor, Thomas H. Campbell; State Treasurer, 
Milton Carpenter — both by acclamation; and 
Horace S Cooley was nominated and confirmed 
Secretary of State. A new school law was 
enacted ; the sale of the Gallatin County salines 
was authorized ; the University of Chicago was 
incorporated, and the Hospital for the Insane at 
Jacksonville established; the sale of the North- 
ern Cross Railroad was authorized; District 
Courts were established ; and provision was made 
for refunding the State debt. The Assembly 
adjourned, March 1, 1847, after a session of 
eighty -five days. 

Sixteenth General Assembly. This was the 
first Legislature to convene under the Constitu- 
tion of 1847. There were twenty-five members 
in the Senate and seventy-five in the House. 
The body assembled on Jan. 1, 1849, continu- 
ing in session until Feb. 12 — the session being 
limited by the Constitution to six weeks. Zadoc 
Casey was chosen Speaker, defeating Richard 
Yates by a vote of forty -six to nineteen. After 
endorsing the policy of the administration in 
reference to the Mexican War and thanking the 
soldiers, the Assembly proceeded to the election 
of United States Senator to succeed Sidney 
Breese. The choice fell upon Gen. James Shields, 
the other caucus candidates being Breese and 
McClernand, while Gen. William F. Thornton led 
the forlorn hope for the Whigs. The principle of 
the Wilmot proviso was endorsed. The Governor 
convened the Legislature in special session on 
Oct. 22. A question as to the eligibility of Gen. 
Shields having arisen (growing out of his nativity 
and naturalization), and the legal obstacles hav- 
ing been removed by the lapse of time, he was 
re-elected Senator at the special session. Outside 
of the passage of a general law authorizing the 
incorporation of railroads, little general legisla- 
tion was enacted. The special session adjourned 
Nov. 7. Length of regular session forty-three 
days ; special, seventeen — total sixty. 

Seventeenth General Assembly convened 
Jan. 6, 1851, adjourned Feb. 17 — length of 
session forty-three days. Sidney Breese (ex- 
Senator) was chosen Speaker. The session was 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS 



18'J 



characterized by a vast amount of legislation, not 
all of which was well considered. By joint reso- 
lution of both houses the endorsement of the 
Wilmot proviso at the previous session was 
rescinded. The first homestead exemption act 
was passed, and a stringent liquor law adopted, 
the sale of liquor in quantities less than one quart 
being prohibited. Township organization was 
authorized and what was virtually free-banking 
was sanctioned. The latter law was ratified by 
popular vote in November, 1851. An act incorpo- 
rating the Illinois Central Railroad was also 
passed at this session, the measure being drafted 
by James L. D. Morrison. A special session of 
this Assembly was held in 1852 under a call by 
the Governor, lasting from June 7 to the 23d — 
seventeen days. The most important general 
legislation of the special session was the reappor- 
tionment of the State into nine Congressional 
Districts. This Legislature was in session a total 
of sixty days. 

Eighteenth General Assembly. The first 
(or regular) session convened Jan. 3, 1853, and 
adjourned Feb. 14. The Senate was composed of 
twenty Democrats and five Whigs; the House, of 
fifty-nine Democrats, sixteen Whigs and one 
"Free-Soiler. " Lieutenant-Governor Koerner 
presided in the upper, and ex-Gov. John Reynolds 
in the lower house. Governor Matteson was 
inaugurated on the 16th ; Stephen A. Douglas was 
re-elected United States Senator, Jan. 5, the 
Whigs casting a complimentary vote for Joseph 
Gillespie. More than 450 laws were enacted, the 
majority being "private acts." The prohibitory 
temperance legislation of the preceding General 
Assembly was repealed and the license system 
re-enacted. This body also passed the famous 
"black laws" Resigned to prevent the immigration 
of free negroes into the State. The sum of 
$18,000 was appropriated for the erection and 
furnishing of an executive mansion ; the State 
Agricultural Society was incorporated; the re- 
mainder of the State lands was ordered sold, and 
any surplus funds in the treasury appropriated 
toward reducing the State debt. A special session 
was convened on Feb. 9, 1854, and adjourned 
March 4. The most important measures adopted 
w r ere : a legislative re-apportionment, an act pro- 
viding for the election of a Superintendent of 
Public Instruction, and a charter for the Missis- 
sippi & Atlantic Railroad. The regular session 
lasted forty-three days, the special twenty-four 
— total, sixty-seven. 

Nineteenth General Assembly met Jan. 1, 
1855, and adjourned Feb. 15 — the session lasting 



forty-six days. Thomas J. Turner was elected 
Speaker of the House. The political complexion 
of the Legislature was much mixed, among the 
members being old-line Whigs, Abolitionists, 
Free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, Pro-slavery Demo- 
crats and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. The 
Nebraska question was the leading issue, and in 
reference thereto the Senate stood fourteen 
Nebraska members and eleven anti-Nebraska ; the 
House, thirty-four straight-out Democrats, while 
the entire strength of the opposition was forty- 
one. A United States Senator was to be chosen 
to succeed Gen. James Shields, and the friends of 
free-soil had a clear majority of four on joint 
ballot. Abraham Lincoln was the caucus nomi- 
nee of the Whigs, and General Shields of the Demo- 
crats. The two houses met in joint session Feb. 8. 
The result of the first ballot was, Lincoln, forty- 
five; Shields, forty-one; scattering, thirteen; 
present, but not voting, one. Mr. Lincoln's 
strength steadily waned, then rallied slightly on 
the sixth and seventh ballots, but again declined. 
Shields' forty-one votes rising on the fifth ballot 
to forty-two, but having dropped on the next 
ballot to forty-one, his name was withdrawn and 
that of Gov. Joel A. Matteson substituted. Mat- 
teson gained until he received forty-seven votes, 
which was the limit of his strength. On the 
ninth ballot, Loncoln's vote having dropped to 
fifteen, his name was withdrawn at his own 
request, his support going, on the next ballot, to 
Lyman Trumbull, an anti-Nebraska Democrat, 
who received fifty-one votes to forty-seven for 
Matteson and one for Archibald Williams — one 
member not voting. Trumbull, having received 
a majority, was elected. Five members bad 
voted for him from the start. These were Sena- 
tors John M. Palmer, Norman B. Judd and Burton 
C. Cook, and Representatives Henry S. Baker and 
George T. Allen. It had been hoped that they 
would, in time, come to the support of Mr. Lin- 
coln, but they explained that they had been 
instructed by their constituents to vote only for 
an anti-Nebraska Democrat. They were all sub- 
sequently prominent leaders in the Republican 
party. Having inaugurated its work by accom- 
plishing a political revolution, this Legislature 
proceeded to adopt several measures more or less 
radical in their tendency. One of these was the 
Maine liquor law, with the condition that it lie 
submitted to popular vote. It failed of ratifica- 
tion by vote of the people at an election held in 
the following June. A new common school law- 
was enacted, and railroads were required to fence 
their tracks. The Assembly also adopted a reso- 



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lution calling for a Convention to amend the Con- 
stitution, but this was defeated at the polls. 

Twentieth General Assembly convened Jan. 
5, 1857, and adjourned, sine die, Feb. 19. A 
Republican State administration, with Governor 
Bissell at its head, had just been elected, but the 
Legislature was Democratic in both branches. 
Lieut. -Gov. John Wood presided over the Senate, 
and Samuel Holmes, of Adams County, defeated 
Isaac N. Arnold, of Cook, for the Speakership of 
the House. Among the prominent members were 
Norman B. Judd, of Cook; A. J. Kuykendall, of 
Johnson ; Shelby M. Cullom, of Sangamon ; John 
A. Logan, of Jackson; William R. Morrison, of 
Monroe ; Isaac N. Arnold, of Cook ; Joseph Gilles- 
pie, of Madison, and S. W. Moulton, of Shelby. 
Among the important measures enacted by this 
General Assembly were the following: Acts 
establishing and maintaining free schools; estab- 
lishing a Normal University at Normal ; amending 
the banking law ; providing for the general incor- 
poration of railroads ; providing for the building 
of a new penitentiary ; and funding the accrued 
arrears of interest on the public debt. Length of 
session, forty-six days. 

Twenty-first General Assembly convened 
Jan. 3, 1859, and was in session for fifty-three 
days, adjourning Feb. 24. The Senate consisted 
of twenty-five, and the House of seventy-five 
members. The presiding officers were: — of the 
Senate, Lieut. -Gov. Wood; of the House, W. R. 
Morrison, of Monroe County, who defeated his 
Republican opponent, Vital Jarrot, of St. Clair, 
on a viva voce vote. The Governor's message 
showed a reduction of §1,166,877 in the State debt 
during two years preceding, leaving a balance of 
principal and arrears of interest amounting to 
$11,138,454. On Jan. 6, 1859, the Assembly, in 
joint session, elected Stephen A. Douglas to suc- 
ceed himself as United States Senator, by a vote 
of fifty-four to forty-six for Abraham Lincoln. 
The Legislature was thrown into great disorder 
in consequence of an attempt to prevent the 
receipt from the Governor of a veto of a legisla- 
tive apportionment bill which had been passed by 
the Democratic majority in the face of bitter 
opposition on the part of the Republicans, who 
denounced it as partisan and unjust. 

Twenty-second General Assembly convened 
in regular session on Jan. 7, 1861, consisting of 
twenty-five Senators and seventy-five Represent- 
atives. For the first time in the State's history, 
the Democrats failed to control the organization 
of either house. Lieut. -Gov. Francis A. Hoffman 
presided over the Senate, and S. M. Cullom, of 



Sangamon, was chosen Speaker of the House, the 
Democratic candidate being James W. Singleton. 
Thomas A. Marshall, of Coles-County, was elected 
President pro tern, of the Senate over A. J. Kuy- 
kendall, of Johnson. The message of the retiring 
Governor (John Wood) reported a reduction of 
the State debt, during four years of Republican 
administration, of §2,860,402, and showed the 
number of banks to be 110, whose aggregate cir- 
culation was §12,320,964. Lyman Trumbull was 
re-elected United States Senator on January 10, 
receiving fifty-four votes, to forty-six cast for 
Samuel S. Marshall. Governor Yates was inau- 
gurated, Jan. 14. The most important legislation 
of this session related to the following subjects : 
the separate property rights of married women ; 
the encouragement of mining and the support of 
public schools ; the payment of certain evidences 
of State indebtedness ; protection of the purity of 
the ballot-box, and a resolution submitting to the 
people the question of the calling of a Convention 
to amend the Constitution. Joint resolutions were 
passed relative to the death of Governor Bissell ; 
to the appointment of Commissioners to attend a 
Peace Conference in Washington, and referring 
to federal relations. The latter deprecated 
amendments to the United States Constitution, but 
expressed a willingness to unite with any States 
which might consider themselves aggrieved, 
in petitioning Congress to call a convention 
for the consideration of such amendments, at the 
same time pledging the entire resources of Illi- 
nois to the National Government for the preser- 
vation of the Union and the enforcement of the 
laws. The regular session ended Feb. 22, having 
lasted forty-seven days. — Immediately following 
President Lincoln's first call for volunteers to 
suppress the rebellion, Governor Yates recon- 
vened the General Assembly in special session to 
consider and adopt methods to aid and support 
the Federal authority in preserving the Union and 
protecting the rights and property of the people. 
The two houses assembled on April 23. On April 
25 Senator Douglas addressed the members on the 
issues of the day, in response to an invitation con- 
veyed in a joint resolution. The special session 
closed May 3, 1861, and not a few of the legislators 
promptly volunteered in the Union army. 
Length of the regular session, forty-seven days ; 
of the special, eleven — total fifty -eight. 

Twenty-third General Assembly was com- 
posed of twenty-five Senators and eighty-eight 
Representatives. It convened Jan. 5, 1863, and 
was Democratic in both branches. The presiding 
officer of the Senate was Lieutenant-Governor 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



101 



Hoffman; Samuel A. Buckmaster was elected 
Speaker of the House by a vote of fifty-three to 
twenty-five. On Jan. 12, William A. Richardson 
was elected United States Senator to succeed 
S. A. Douglas, deceased, the Republican nominee 
being Governor Yates, who received thirty-eight 
votes out of a total of 103 cast. Much of the time 
of the session was devoted to angry discussion of 
the policy of the National Government in the 
prosecution of the war. The views of the oppos- 
ing parties were expressed in majority and minor- 
ity reports from the Committee on Federal 
Relations — the former condemning and the latter 
upholding the Federal administration. The 
majority report was adopted in the House on 
Feb. 12, by a vote of fifty-two to twenty-eight, 
and the resolutions which it embodied were at 
once sent to the Senate for concurrence. Before 
they could be acted upon in that body a Demo- 
cratic Senator — J, M. Rodgers, of Clinton County 
— died. This left tbe Senate politically tied, a 
Republican presiding officer having the deciding 
vote. Consequently no action was taken at the 
time, and, on Feb. 14, the Legislature adjourned 
till June 2. Immediately upon re-assembling, 
joint resolutions relating to a sine die adjourn- 
ment were introduced in both houses. A disagree- 
ment regarding the date of such adjournment 
ensued, when Governor Yates, exercising the 
power conferred upon him by the Constitution in 
such cases, sent in a message (June 10, 1863) 
proroguing the General Assembly until "the 
Saturday next preceding the first Monday in 
January, 1865." The members of the Republican 
minority at once left the hall. The members of 
the majority convened and adjourned from day 
to day until June 24, when, having adopted an 
address to the people setting forth their grievance 
and denouncing the State executive, they took a 
recess until the Tuesday after the first Monday of 
January, 1864. The action of the Governor, hav- 
ing been submitted to the Supreme Court, was 
sustained, and no further session of this General 
Assembly was held. Owing to the prominence 
of political issues, no important legislation was 
effected at this session, even the ordinary appro- 
priations for the State institutions failing. This 
caused much embarrassment to the State Govern- 
ment in meeting current expenses, but banks and 
capitalists came to its aid, and no important 
interest was permitted to suffer. The total 
length of the session was fifty days — forty-one 
days before the recess and nine days after. 

Twenty-fourth General Assembly convened 
Jan. 2, 1865, and remained in session forty-six 



days. It consisted of twenty-rive Senators and 
eighty-five Representatives. The Republicans 
had a majority in both houses. Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor Bross presided over the Senate, and Allen 
C Fuller, of Boone County, was chosen Speaker 
of the House, over Ambrose M. Miller, Democrat, 
the vote standing 4* to 23. Governor Yates, in 
his valedictory message, reported that, notwith- 
standing the heavy expenditure attendant upon 
the enlistment and maintenance of troops, etc., 
the State debt had been reduced $987,780 in four 
3 r ears. On Jan. 4, 1865, Governor Yates was 
elected to the United States Senate, receiving 
sixty-four votes to forty three cast for James C. 
Robinson. Governor Oglesby was inaugurated Jan. 
16. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United 
States Constitution was ratified by this Legisla- 
ture, and sundry special appropriations made. 
Among the latter was one of 83,000 toward the 
State's proportion for the establishment of a 
National Cemetery at Gettysburg; $25,000 for 
the purchase of the land on which is the tomb 
of the deceased Senator Douglas; besides sums 
for establishing a home for Soldiers' Orphans and 
an experimental school for the training of idiots 
and feeble-minded children. The first act for 
the registry of legal voters was passed at this 
session. 

Twenty-fifth General Assembly. This 
body held one regular and two special sessions. 
It first convened and organized on Jan. 7, 1867. 
Lieutenant-Governor Bross presided over the 
upper, and Franklin Corwin, of La Salle County, 
over the lower house. The Governor (Oglesby), 
in his message, reported a reduction of $2,607,958 
in the State debt during the two years preceding, 
and recommended various appropriations for pub- 
lic purposes. He also urged the calling of a Con- 
vention to amend the Constitution. On Jan. 15, 
Lyman Trumbull was chosen United States Sena- 
tor, the complimentary Democratic vote being 
given to T. Lyle Dickey, who received thirty - 
three votes out of 109. The regular session lasted 
fifty-three days, adjourning Feb. 28. The Four- 
teenth Amendment to the United States Constitu- 
tion was ratified and important legislation enacted 
relative to State taxation and the regulation of 
public warehouses; a State Board of Equalization 
of Assessments was established, and the office of 
Attorney-General created. (Under this law 
Robert G. Ingersoll was the first appointee.) 
Provision was made for the erection of a new 
State House, to establish a Reform School for 
Juvenile Offenders, and for the support of other 
State institutions. The first special session con- 



192 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



vened on June 11, 1867, having been summoned 
to consider questions relating to internal revenue. 
The lessee of the penitentiary having surrendered 
his lease without notice, the Governor found it 
necessary to make immediate provision for the 
management of that institution. Not having 
included this matter in his original call, no ne- 
cessity then existing, he at once summoned a 
second special session, before the adjournment 
of the first. This convened on June 14, remained 
in session until June 28, and adopted what is 
substantially the present penitentiary law of the 
State. This General Assembly was in session 
seventy-one days — fifty-three at the regular, 
three at the first special session and fifteen at the 
second. 

Twenty-sixth General Assembly convened 
Jan. 4, 1869. The Republicans had a majority in 
each house. The newly elected Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, John Dougherty, presided in the Senate, 
and Franklin Corwin. of Peru, was again chosen 
Speaker of the House. Governor Oglesby sub- 
mitted his final message at the opening of the 
session, showing a total reduction in the State 
debt during his term of $4,743,821. Governor 
John M. Palmer was inaugurated Jan. 11. The 
most important acts passed by this Legislature 
were the following: Calling the Constitutional 
Convention of 1869; ratifying the Fifteenth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution ; 
granting well behaved convicts a reduction in 
their terms of imprisonment ; for the prevention 
of cruelty to animals ; providing for the regula- 
tion of freights and fares on railroads; estab- 
lishing the Southern Normal University; pro- 
viding for the erection of the Northern Insane 
Hospital; and establishing a Board of Com- 
missioners of Public Charities. The celebrated 
"Lake Front Bill," especially affecting the 
interests of the city of Chicago, occupied a 
great deal of time during this session, and 
though finally passed over the Governor's veto, 
wus repealed in 1873. This session was inter- 
rupted by a recess which extended from March 
12 to April 13. The Legislature re-assem- 
bled April 14, and adjourned, sine die, April 20, 
having been in actual session seventy-four days. 

Twenty-seventh General Assembly had 
four sessions, one regular, two special and one 
adjourned. The first convened Jan. 4, 1871, and 
mljourned on April 17, having lasted 104 days, 
when a recess was taken to Nov. 15 following. 
The body was made up of fifty Senators and 177 
Representatives. The Republicans again con- 
trolled both houses, electing William M. Smith, 



Speaker (over William R. Morrison, Democrat), 
while Lieutenant-Governor Dougherty presided in 
the Senate. The latter occupied the Hall of Rep- 
resentatives in the old State Capitol, while the 
House held its sessions in a new church edifice 
erected by the Second Presbyterian Church. 
John A. Logan was elected United States Sena- 
tor, defeating Thomas J. Turner (Democrat) by a 
vote, on joint ballot, of 131 to 89. This was the 
first Illinois Legislature to meet after the adoption 
of the Constitution of 1870, and its time was 
mainly devoted to framing, discussing and pass- 
ing laws required by the changes in the organic 
law of the State. The first special session opened 
on May 24 and closed on June 22, 1871, continu- 
ing thirty days. It was convened by Governor 
Palmer to make additional appropriations for the 
necessary expenses of the State Government and 
for the continuance of work on the new State 
House. The purpose of the Governor in sum- 
moning the second special session was to provide 
financial relief for the city of Chicago after the 
great fire of Oct. 9-11, 1871. Members were sum- 
moned by special telegrams and were in their 
seats Oct. 13, continuing in session to Oct. 24 
— twelve days. Governor Palmer had already 
suggested a plan by which the State might 
aid the stricken city without doing violence 
to either the spirit or letter of the new Con- 
stitution, which expressly prohibited special 
legislation. Chicago had advanced §2,500,000 
toward the completion of the Illinois & Michigan 
Canal, under the pledge of the State that this 
outlay should be made good. The Legislature 
voted an appropriation sufficient to pay both 
principal and interest of this loan, amounting, in 
round numbers, to about $3,000,000. The ad- 
journed session opened on Nov. 15, 1871, and came 
to an end on April 9, 1872 — having continued 147 
days. It was entirely devoted to considering and 
adopting legislation germane to the new Consti- 
tution. The total length of all sessions of this 
General Assembly was 293 days. 

Twenty-eighth General Assembly convened 
Jan. 8, 1873. It was composed of fifty-one Sena- 
tors and 153 Representatives; the upper house 
standing thirty-three Republicans to eighteen 
Democrats, and the lower, eighty-six Republicans 
to sixty-seven Democrats. The Senate chose 
John Early, of Winnebago, President pro tempore, 
and Shelby M. Cullom was elected Speaker of the 
House. Governor Oglesby was inaugurated Jan. 
13, but, eight days later, was elected to the United 
States Senate, being succeeded in the Governor- 
ship by Lieut. -Gov. John L. Beveridge. An 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OP ILLINOIS. 



193 



appropriation of .$1,000,000 was made for carrying 
on the work on the new capitol and various other 
acts of a public character passed, the most impor- 
tant being an amendment of the railroad law of 
the previous session. On May 6, the Legislature 
adjourned until Jan. 8, 1874. The purpose of the 
recess was to enable a Commission on the Revision 
of the Laws to complete a report. The work was 
duly completed and nearly all the titles reported 
by the Commissioners were adopted at the 
adjourned session. An adjournment, sine die, 
was taken March 31, 1874 — the two sessions 
having lasted, respectively, 119 and 83 days — 
total 202. 

Twenty-ninth General Assembly convened 
Jan 6, 1875. While the Republicans had a plu- 
rality in both houses, they were defeated in an 
effort to secure their organization through a 
fusion of Democrats and Independents. A. A. 
Glenn (Democrat) was elected President pro tem- 
pore of the Senate (becoming acting Lieutenant- 
Governor), and Elijah M. Haines was chosen 
presiding officer of the lower house. The leaders 
on both sides of the Chamber were aggressive, 
and the session, as a whole, was one of the most 
turbulent and disorderly in the history of the 
State. Little legislation of vital importance 
(outside of regular appropriation bills) was 
enacted. This Legislature adjourned, April 15, 
having been in session 100 days. 

Thirtieth General Assembly convened Jan. 
3 ; 1877, and adjourned, sine die, on May 24. The 
Democrats and Independents in the Senate united 
in securing control of that body, although the 
House was Republican. Fawcett Plumb, of La 
Salle County, was chosen President pro tempore 
of the upper, and James Shaw Speaker of the 
lower, house. The inauguration of State officers 
took place Jan. 8, Shelby M. Cullom becoming 
Governor and Andrew Shu man, Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor. This was one of the most exciting years 
in American political history Both of the domi- 
nant parties claimed to have elected the President, 
and the respective votes in the Electoral College 
were so close as to excite grave apprehension in 
many minds. It was also the year for the choice 
of a Senator by the Illinois Legislature, and the 
attention of the entire country was directed 
toward this State. Gen. John M. Palmer was 
the nominee of the Democratic caucus and John 
A. Logan of the Republicans. On the twenty- 
fourth ballot the name of General Logan was 
withdrawn, most of the Republican vote going 
to Charles B. Lawrence, and the Democrats going 
over to David Davis, who, although an original 



Republican and friend of Lincoln, and Justice of 
the Supreme Court by appointment of Mr. Lin- 
coln, had become an Independent Democrat. On 
the fortieth ballot (taken Jan. 25), Judge Davis 
received 101 votes, to 94 for Judge Lawrence 
(Republican) and five scattering, thus securing 
Davis' election. Not many acts of vital impor- 
tance were passed by this Legislature. Appellate 
Courts were established and new judicial districts 
created; the original jurisdiction of county 
courts was enlarged; better safeguards were 
thrown about miners; measures looking at once 
to the supervision and protection of railroads were 
passed, as well as various laws relating chiefly to 
the police administration of the State and of 
municipalities. The length of the session was 
142 days. 

Thirty-first General Assembly convened 
Jan. 8, 1879, with a Republican majority in each 
house. Andrew Shuman, the newly elected Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, presided in the Senate, and 
William A. James of Lake County was chosen 
Speaker of the House. John M. Hamilton of 
McLean County (afterwards Governor), was 
chosen President pro tempore of the Senate. 
John A. Logan was elected United States Senator 
on Jan. 21, the complimentary Democratic vote 
being given to Gen. John C. Black. Various 
laws of public importance were enacted by this 
Legislature, among them being one creating the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics ; the first oleomargar- 
ine law; a drainage and levee act; a law for the 
reorganization of the militia; an act for the 
regulation of pawnbrokers; a law limiting the 
pardoning power, and various laws looking 
toward the supervision and control of railways. 
The session lasted 144 days, and the Assembly 
adjourned, sine die, May 31, 1879. 

Thirty second General Assembly convened 
Jan. 5, 1881, the Republicans having a majority 
in both branches. Lieutenant-Governor Hamil- 
ton presided in the Senate, William J. Campbell 
of Cook County being elected President pro tem- 
pore. Horace H. Thomas, also of Cook, was 
chosen Speaker of the House. Besides the rou- 
tine legislation, the most important measures 
enacted by this Assembly were laws to prevent 
the spread of pleuropneumonia among cattle; 
regulating the sale of firearms; providing more 
stringent penalties for the adulteration of food, 
drink or medicine; regulating the practice of 
pharmacy and dentistry; amending the revenue 
and school laws; and requiring annual statements 
from official custodians of public moneys. The 
Legislature adjourned May 30, after having been 



194 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



in session 146 days, but was called together again 
in special session by the Governor on March 23, 
1882, to pass new Legislative and Congressional 
Apportionment Laws, and for the consideration 
of other subjects. The special session lasted 
forty-four days, adjourning May 5 — both sessions 
occupying a total of 190 days. 

Thirty-third General Assembly convened 
Jan. 2, 1883, with the Republicans again in the 
majority in both houses. William J. Campbell 
was re-elected President pro tempore of the 
Senate, but not until the sixty-first ballot, six 
Republicans refusing to be bound by the nomina- 
tion of a caucus held prior to their arrival at 
Springfield. Loren C. Collins, also of Cook, was 
elected Speaker of the House. The compliment- 
ary Democratic vote was given to Thomas M. Shaw 
in the Senate, and to Austin O. Sexton in the 
House. Governor Cullom, the Republican caucus 
nominee, was elected United States Senator, Jan. 
16, receiving a majority in each branch of the 
General Assembly. The celebrated "Harper 
H:"gh-License Bill," and the first "Compulsory 
School Law" were passed at this session, the 
other acts being of ordinary character. The 
Legislature adjourned June 18, having been in 
session 168 days. 

Thirty-fourth General Assembly convened 
Jan. 7, 1885. The Senate was Republican by a 
majority of one, there being twenty-six members 
of that party, twenty-four Democrats and one 
greenback Democrat. William J. Campbell, of 
Cook County, was for the third time chosen 
President pro tempore. The House stood seventy- 
six Republicans and seventy -six Democrats, with 
one member — Elijah M. Haines of Lake County — 
calling himself an "Independent." The contest 
for the Speakership continued until Jan. 29, 
when, neither party being able to elect its nomi- 
nee, the Democrats took up Haines as a candidate 
and placed him in the chair, with Haines' assist- 
ance, filling the minor offices with their own 
men. After the inauguration of Governor 
Oglesby, Jan. 30, the first business was the elec- 
tion of a United States Senator. The balloting 
proceeded until May 18, when John A. Logan re- 
ceived 103 votes to ninety-six for Lambert Tree and 
five scattering. Three members — one Republican 
and two Democrats — had died since the opening 
of the session ; and it was through the election of 
a Republican in place of one of the deceased 
Democrats, that the Republicans succeeded in 
electing their candidate. The session was a 
stormy one throughout, the Speaker being, much 
of the time, at odds with the House, and an 



unsuccessful effort was made to depose him. 
Charges of bribery against certain members were 
preferred and investigated, but no definite result 
was reached. Among the important measures 
passed by this Legislature were the following : A 
joint resolution providing for submission of an 
amendment to the Constitution prohibiting con- 
tract labor in penal institutions; providing by 
resolution for the appointment of a non-partisan 
Commission of twelve to draft a new revenue 
code ; the Crawford primary election law ; an act 
amending the code of criminal procedure ; estab- 
lishing a Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, subse- 
quently located at Quincy ; creating a Live-Stock 
Commission and appropriating §531,712 for the 
completion of the State House. The Assembly 
adjourned, sine die, June 26, 1885, after a session 
of 171 days. 

Thirty-fifth General Assembly convened 
Jan. 5, 1887. The Republicans had a majority of 
twelve in the Senate and three in the House. 
For President pro tempore of the Senate, August 
W. Berggren was chosen; for Speaker of the 
House, Dr. William F. Calhoun, of De Witt 
County. The death of General Logan, which 
had occurred Dec. 26, 1886, was officially an- 
nounced by Governor Oglesby and, on Jan. 18, 
Charles B. Farwell was elected to succeed him as 
United States Senator. William R. Morrison and 
Benjamin W. Goodhue were the candidates of 
the Democratic and Labor parties, respectively. 
Some of the most important laws passed by this 
General Assembly were the following: Amend 
ing the law relating to the spread of contagious 
diseases among cattle, etc. ; the Chase bill to 
prohibit book-making and pool-selling; regulat- 
ing trust companies; making the Trustees of 
the University of Illinois elective; inhibiting 
aliens from holding real estate, and forbidding 
the marriage of first cousins. An act virtually 
creating a new State banking system was also 
passed, subject to ratification by popular vote. 
Other acts, having more particular reference to 
Chicago and Cook County, were: a law making 
cities and counties responsible for three-fourths 
of the damage resulting from mobs and riots ; the 
Merritt conspiracy law; the Gibbs Jury Commis- 
sion law, and an act for the suppression of 
bucket-shop gambling. The session ended June 
15, 1887, having continued 162 days. 

Thirty-sixth General Assembly convened 
Jan. 7, 1889, in its first (or regular) session, the 
Republicans being largely in the majority. The 
Senate elected Theodore S. Chapman of Jersey 
County, President pro tempore, and the House 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



195 



Asa C. Matthews of Pike County, Speaker. Mr. 
Matthews was appointed First Comptroller of the 
Treasury by President Harrison, on May 9 (see 
Matthews, Asa C. ), and resigned the Speakership 
on the following day. He was succeeded by 
James H. Miller of Stark County. Shelby M. 
Cullom was re-elected to the United States Senate 
on January 22, the Democrats again voting for 
ex-Gov. John M. Palmer. The "Sanitary Drain- 
age District Law," designed for the benefit of the 
city of Chicago, was enacted at this session ; an 
asylum for insane criminals was established at 
Chester ; the annexation of cities, towns, villages, 
etc., under certain conditions, was authorized; 
more stringent legislation was enacted relative to 
the circulation of obscene literature ; a new com- 
pulsory education law was passed, and the em- 
ployment on public works of aliens who had not 
declared their intention of becoming citizens was 
prohibited. This session ended, May 28. A 
special session was convened by Governor Fifer 
on July 24, 1890, to frame and adopt legislation 
rendered necessary by the Act of Congress locat- 
ing the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. 
Mr. Miller having died in the interim, William G. 
Cochran, of Moultrie County, was chosen Speaker 
of the House. The special session concluded 
Aug. 1, 1890, having enacted the following meas- 
ures ; An Act granting the use of all State lands, 
(submerged or other) in or adjacent to Chicago, to 
the World's Columbian Exposition for a period to 
extend one year after the closing of the Exposi- 
tion; authorizing the Chicago Boards of Park 
Commissioners to grant the use of the public 
parks, or any part thereof, to promote the objects 
of such Exposition ; a joint resolution providing 
for the submission to the people of a Constitu- 
tional Amendment granting to the city of Chicago 
the power (provided a majority of the qualified 
voters desired it) to issue bonds to an amount not 
exceeding $5,000,000, the same to bear interest 
and the proceeds of their sale to be turned over 
to the Exposition Managers to be devoted to the 
use and for the benefit of the Exposition. (See 
also World's Columbian Exposition.) The total 
length of the two sessions was 150 days. 

Thirty-seventh General Assembly convened 
Jan. 7, 1891, and adjourned June 12 following. 
Lieut. -Gov. Ray presided in the Senate, Milton 
W. Matthews (Republican), of Urbana, being 
elected President pro tem. The Democrats had 
control in the House and elected Clayton E. 
Crafts, of Cook County, Speaker. The most 
exciting feature of the session was the election of 
a United States Senator to succeed Charles B. 



Farwell. Neither of the two leading parties had 
a majority on joint ballot, the balance of power 
being held by three ••Independent" members of 
the House, who had been elected as represent- 
atives of the Farmers' Mutual Benevolent Alli- 
ance. Richard J. Oglesby was the caucus 
nominee of the Republicans and John M. Palmer 
of the Democrats. For a time the Independents 
stood as a unit for A. J. Streeter, hut later two of 
the three voted for ex-Gpvernor Palmer, finally, 
on March 11, securing his election on the 154th 
ballot in joint session. Meanwhile, the Repub- 
licans had cast tentative ballots for Alson J. 
Streeter and Cicero J. Lindley, in hope of draw- 
ing the Independents to their support, but without 
effective result. The final ballot stood — Palmer, 
103 ; Lindley, 101, Streeter 1. Of 1,296 bills intro- 
duced in both Houses at this session, only 151 
became laws, the most important being: The 
Australian ballot law, and acts regulating build- 
ing and loan associations ; prohibiting the employ- 
ment of children under thirteen at manual labor ; 
fixing the legal rate of interest at seven per cent ; 
prohibiting the "truck system'' of paying em- 
ployes, and granting the right of suffrage to 
women in the election of school officers. An 
amendment of the State Constitution permitting 
the submission of two Constitutional Amend- 
ments to the people at the same time, was sub- 
mitted by this Legislature and ratified at the 
election of 1892. The session covered a period of 
157 days. 

Thirty-eighth General Assembly. This 
body convened Jan. 4, 1893. The Democrats were 
in the ascendency in both houses, having a 
majority of seven in the Senate and of three in 
the lower house. Joseph R. Gill, the Lieutenant- 
Governor, was ex-officio President of the Senate, 
and John W. Coppinger, of Alton, was chosen 
President pro tem. Clayton E. Crafts of Cook 
County was again chosen Speaker of the House. 
The inauguration of the new State officers took 
place on the afternoon of Tuesday, Jan. 10. This 
Legislature was in session 164 days, adjourning 
June 16, 1893. Not very much legislation of a 
general character was enacted. New Congres- 
sional and Legislative apportionments were 
passed, the former dividing the State into twenty- 
two districts; an Insurance Department was 
created; a naval militia was established; the 
scope of the juvenile reformatory was enlarged 
and the compulsory education law was amended. 

Thirty-ninth General Assembly. This 
Legislature held two sessions — a regular and a 
special. The former opened Jan. 9, 1895, and 



196 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



closed June 14, following. The political com- 
plexion of the Senate was — Republicans, thirty- 
three; Democrats, eighteen; of the House, 
ninety -two Republicans and sixty-one Democrats. 
John Meyer, of Cook County, was elected Speaker 
of the House, and Charles Bogardus of Piatt 
County, President pro tern, of the Senate. Acts 
were passed making appropriations for improve- 
ment of the State Fair Grounds at Springfield ; 
authorizing the establishment of a Western Hos- 
pital for the Insane ($100,000); appropriating 
$100,000 for a Western Hospital for the Insane; 
$65,000 for an Asylum for Incurable Insane; $50,- 
000, each, for two additional Normal Schools — one 
in Northern and the other in Eastern Illinois; 
$25,000 for a Soldiers' Widows' Home— all being 
new institutions — besides $15,000 for a State 
exhibition at the Atlanta Exposition; $65,000 to 
mark, by monuments, the position of Illinois 
troops on the battlefields of Chickamauga, Look- 
out Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Other acts 
passed fixed the salaries of members of the Gen- 
eral Assembly at $1,000 each for each regular 
session; accepted the custody of the Lincoln 
monument at Springfield, authorized provision 
for the retirement and pensioning of teachers in 
public schools, and authorized the adoption of 
civil service rules for cities. The special session 
convened, pursuant to a call by the Governor, on 
June 25, 1895, took a recess, June 28 to July 9, 
re-assembled on the latter date, and adjourned, 
sine die, August 2. Outside of routine legisla- 
tion, no laws were passed except one providing 
additional necessary revenue for State purposes 
and one creating a State Board of Arbitration. 
The regular session continued 157 days and the 
special twenty-nine — total 186. 

Fortieth General Assembly met in regular 
session at Springfield, Jan. 6, 1897, and adjourned, 
sine die, June 4. The Republicans had a major- 
ity in both branches, the House standing eighty- 
eight Republicans to sixty-three Democrats and 
two Populists, and the Senate, thirty-nine Repub- 
licans to eleven Democrats and one Populist, 
giving the Republicans a majority on joint ballot 
of fifty votes. Both houses were promptly organ- 
ized by the election of Republican officers, Edward 
C. Curtis of Kankakee County being chosen 
Speaker of the House, and Hendrick V. Fisher, 
of Henry County, President pro tem. of the Sen- 
ate. Governor Tanner and the other Republican 
State officers were formally inaugurated on 
Jan. 11, and, on Jan. 20, William E. Mason 
(Republican) was chosen United States Senator 
to succeed John M. Palmer, receiving in joint 



session 125 votes to seventy -seven for John P. 
Altgeld (Democrat) . Among the principal laws 
enacted at this session were the following: An 
act concerning aliens and to regulate the right to 
hold real estate, and prescribing the terms and 
conditions for the conveyance of the same; 
empowering the Commissioners who were ap- 
pointed at 'the previous session to ascertain and 
mark the positions occupied by Illinois Volunteers 
in the battles of Chickamauga, Lookout Moun- 
tain and Missionary Ridge, to expend the remain- 
ing appropriations in their hands for the erection 
of monuments on the battle-grounds ; authorizing 
the appointment of a similar Commission to 
ascertain and mark the positions held by Illinois 
troops in the battle of Shiloh ; to reimburse the 
University of Illinois for the loss of funds result- 
ing from the Spaulding defalcation and affirming 
the liability of the State for "the endowment 
fund of the University, amounting to $456,712.91, 
and for so much in addition as may be received 
in future from the sale of lands"; authorizing 
the adoption of the "Torrens land-title system" in 
the conveyance and registration of land titles by 
vote of the people in any county ; the consolida- 
tion of the three Supreme Court Districts of the 
State into one and locating the Court at Spring- 
field; creating a State Board of Pardons, and 
prescribing the manner of applying for pardons 
and commutations. An act of this session, which 
produced much agitation and led to a great deal 
of discussion in the press and elsewhere, was the 
street railroad law empowering the City Council, 
or other corporate authority of any city, to grant 
franchises to street railway companies extending 
to fifty years. This act was repealed by the 
General Assembly of 1899 before any street rail- 
way corporation had secured a franchise under it. 
A special session was called by Governor Tanner 
to meet Dec. . 7, 1897, the proclamation naming 
five topics for legislative action. The session 
continued to Feb. 24, 1898, only two of the meas- 
ures named by the Governor in his call being 
affirmatively acted upon. These included: (1) an 
elaborate act prescribing the manner of conduct- 
ing primary elections of delegates to nominating 
conventions, and (2) a new revenue law regulat- 
ing the manner of assessing and collecting taxes. 
One provision of the latter law limits the valuation 
of property for assessment purposes to one-fifth 
its cash value. The length of the regular session 
was 150 days, and that of the special session 
eighty days — total, 230 days. 

(JENESEO, a city in Henry County, about two 
miles south of the Green River. It is on the Chi- 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



197 



cago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway, 23 miles 
east of Rock Island and 75 miles west of Ottawa. 
It is in the heart of a grain-growing region, and 
has two large grain elevators. Manufacturing is 
also carried on to a considerable extent here, 
furniture, wagons and farming implements con- 
stituting the chief output. Geneseo has eleven 
churches, a graded and a high school, a col- 
legiate institute, two banks, and two newspapers, 
one issuing a daily edition. Population (1890), 
3,182; (1900), 3,356. 

GENEVA, a city and railway junction on Fox 
River, and the county -seat of Kane County; 35 
miles west of Chicago. It has a fine courthouse, 
completed in 1892 at a cost of $250,000, and 
numerous handsome churches and school build- 
ings. A State Reformatory for juvenile female 
offenders has been located here. There is an ex- 
cellent water-power, operating six manufac- 
tories, including extensive glucose works. The 
town has a bank, creamery, water-works, gas 
and electric light plant, and two weekly news- 
papers. The surrounding country is devoted to 
agriculture and dairy farming. Population 
(1880), 1,239; (1890), 1,692; (1900), 2,446. 

GENOA, a village of De Kalb County, on 
Omaha Division of the Chi., Mil. & St. Paul, the 
111. Cent, and Chi. & N. W. Railroads, 59 miles west 
of Chicago. Dairying is a leading industry ; has 
two banks, shoe and telephone factories, and two 
newspapers. Population (1890), 634; (1900), 1,140. 

GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. The geological 
structure of Illinois embraces a representation, 
more or less complete, of the whole paleonic 
series of formations, from the calciferous group 
of the Lower Silurian to the top of the coal meas- 
ures. In addition to these older rocks there is a 
limited area in the extreme southern end of the 
State covered with Tertiary deposits. Over- 
spreading these formations are beds of more 
recent age, comprising sands, clays and gravel, 
varying in thickness from ten to more than two 
hundred feet. These superficial deposits may be 
divided into Alluvium, Loess and Drift, and con- 
stitute the Quaternary system of modern geolo- 
gists. 

Lower Silurian System. — Under this heading 
may be noted three distinct groups: the Calcifer- 
ous, the Trenton and the Cincinnati. The first 
mentioned group comprises the St. Peter's Sand- 
stone and the Lower Magnesian Limestone. The 
former outcrops only at a single locality, in La 
Salle County, extending about two miles along 
the valley of the Illinois River in the vicinity of 
Utica. The thickness of the strata appearing 



above the surface is about 80 feet, thin bands of 
Magnesian limestone alternating with layers of 
Calciferous sandstone. Many of the layers con- 
tain good hydraulic rock, which is utilized in the 
manufacture of cement. The entire thickness of 
the rock below the surface has not been ascer- 
tained, but is estimated at about 400 feet. The 
St. Peter's Sandstone outcrops in the valley of 
the Illinois, constituting the main portion of the 
bluffs from Utica to a point beyond Ottawa, and 
forms the "bed rock" in most of the northern 
townships of La Salle County. It also outcrops 
on the Rock River in the vicinity of Oregon City, 
and forms a conspicuous bluff on the Mississippi 
in Calhoun County. Its maximum thickness in 
the State may be estimated at about 200 feet. It 
is too incoherent in its texture to be valuable as 
a building stone, though some of the upper strata 
in Lee County have been utilized for caps and 
sills. It affords, however, a fine quality of sand 
for the manufacture of glass. The Trenton 
group, which immediately overlies the St. Peter's 
Sandstone, consists of three divisions. The low- 
est is a brown Magnesian Limestone, or Dolomite, 
usually found in regular beds, or strata, varying 
from four inches to two feet in thickness. The 
aggregate thickness varies from twenty feet, in 
the northern portion of the State, to sixty or 
seventy feet at the bluff in Calhoun County. At 
the quarries in La Salle County, it abounds in 
fossils, including a large Lituites and several 
specimens of Orthoceras, Maclurea, etc. The 
middle division of the Trenton group consists of 
light gray, compact limestones in the southern 
and western parts of the State, and of light blue, 
thin-bedded, shaly limestone in the northern por- 
tions. The upper division is the well-known 
Galena limestone, the lead-bearing rock of the 
Northwest. It is a buff colored, porous Dolomite, 
sometimes arenaceous and unevenly textured, 
giving origin to a ferruginous, sandy clay when 
decomposed. The lead ores occur in crevices, 
caverns and horizontal seams. These crevices were 
probably formed by shrinkage of the strata from 
crystallization or by some disturbing force from 
beneath, and have been enlarged by decomposi- 
tion of the exposed surface. Fossils belonging to 
a lower order of marine animal than the coral are 
found in this rock, as are also marine shells, 
corals and crustaceans. Although this limestone 
crops out over a considerable portion of the terri- 
tory between the Mississippi and the Rock River, 
the productive lead mines are chiefly confined to 
Jo Daviess and Stephenson Counties. All the 
divisions of the Trenton group afford good build- 



198 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



ing material, some of the rock being susceptible 
of a high polish and making a handsome, durable 
marble. About seventy feet are exposed near 
Thebes, in Alexander County. All through the 
Southwest this stone is known as Cape Girardeau 
marble, from its being extensively quarried at 
Cape Girardeau, Mo. The Cincinnati group 
immediately succeeds the Trenton in the ascend- 
ing scale, and forms the uppermost member of 
the Lower Silurian system. It usually consists of 
argillaceous and sandy shales, although, in the 
northwest portion of the State, Magnesian lime- 
stone is found with the shales. The prevailing 
colors of the beds are light blue and drab, 
weathering to a light ashen gray. This group is 
found well exposed in the vicinity of Thebes, 
Alexander County, furnishing a durable building 
stone extensively used for foundation walls. 
Fossils are found in profusion in all the beds, 
many fine specimens, in a perfect state of preser- 
vation, having been exhumed. 

Upper Silurian System. — The Niagara group 
in Northern Illinois consists of brown, gray and 
buff magnesian limestones, sometimes evenly 
bedded, as at Joliet and Athens, and sometimes 
concretionary and brecciated, as at Bridgeport and 
Port Byron. Near Chicago the cells and pockets 
of this rock are filled with petroleum, but it has 
been ascertained that only the thirty upper feet 
of the rock contain bituminous matter. The 
quarries in Will and Jersey Counties furnish fine 
building and flagging stone. The rock is of a 
light gray color, changing to buff on exposure. 
In Pike and Calhoun Counties, also, there are out- 
croppings of this rock and quarries are numerous. 
It is usually evenly bedded, the strata varying in 
thickness from two inches to two feet, and break- 
ing evenly. Its aggregate thickness in Western 
and Northern Illinois ranges from fifty to 150 
feet. In Union and Alexander Counties, in the 
southern part of the State, the Upper Silurian 
series consists chiefly of thin bedded gray or 
buff-colored limestone, silicious and cherty, flinty 
material largely preponderating over the lime- 
stone. Fossils are not abundant in this formation, 
although the quarries at Bridgeport, in Cook 
County, have afforded casts of nearly 100 species 
of marine organisms, the calcareous portion hav- 
ing been washed away, 

Devonian System.— This system is represented 
in Illinois by three well marked divisions, cor- 
responding to the Oriskany sandstone, the Onon- 
daga limestone and the Hamilton and Corniferous 
beds of New York. To these the late Professor 
Worthen, for many years State Geologist, added, 



although with some hesitancy, the black shale 
formation of Illinois. Although these comprise 
an aggregate thickness of over 500 feet, their 
exposure is limited to a few isolated outcroppings 
along the bluffs of the Illinois, Mississippi and 
Rock Rivers. The lower division, called "Clear 
Creek Limestone," is about 250 feet thick, and is 
only found in the extreme southern end of the 
State. It consists of chert, or impure flint, and 
thin-bedded silico-magnesian limestones, rather 
compact in texture, and of buff or light gray 
to nearly white colors. When decomposed by 
atmospheric influences, it forms a fine white clay, 
resembling common chalk in appearance. Some 
of the cherty beds resemble burr stones in poros- 
ity, and good mill-stones are made therefrom in 
Union County. Some of the stone is bluish-gray, 
or mottled and crystalline, capable of receiving 
a high polish, and making an elegant and durable 
building stone. The Onondaga group comprises 
some sixty feet of quartzose sandstone and 
striped silicious shales. The structure of the 
rock is almost identical with that of St. Peter's 
Sandstone. In the vicinity of its outcrop in 
Union County are found fine beds of potter's clay, 
also variegated in color. The rock strata are 
about twenty feet thick, evenly bedded and of a 
coarse, granular structure, which renders the 
stone valuable for heavy masonry. The group 
has not been found north of Jackson County. 
Large quantities of characteristic fossils abound. 
The rocks composing the Hamilton group are the 
most valuable of all the divisions of the Devonian 
system, and the outcrops can be identified only by 
their fossils. In Union and Jackson Counties it is 
found from eighty to 100 feet in thickness, two 
beds of bluish gray, fetid limestone being sepa- 
rated by about twenty feet of calcareous shales. 
The limestones are highly bituminous. In Jersey 
and Calhoun Counties the group is only six to 
ten feet thick, and consists of a hard, silicious 
limestone, passing at some points into a quartzose 
sandstone, and at others becoming argillaceous, 
as at Grafton. The most northern outcrop is in 
Rock Island County, where the rock is concretion- 
ary in structure and is utilized for building pur- 
poses and in the manufacture of quicklime. 
Fossils are numerous, among them being a few 
fragments of fishes, which are the oldest remains 
of vertebrate animals yet found in the State. 
The black shale probably attains its maximum 
development in Union County, where it ranges 
from fifty to seventy-five feet in thickness. Its 
lower portion is a fine, black, laminated slate, 
sometimes closely resembling the bituminous 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



199 



shales associated with the coal seams, which cir- 
cumstance has led to the fruitless expenditure of 
much time and monej 7 . The bituminous portion 
of the mass, on distillation, yields an oil closely 
resembling petroleum. Crystals of iron pyrites 
are abundant in the argillaceous portion of the 
group, which does noi, extend north of the coun- 
ties of Calhoun, Jersey and Pike. 

Lower Carboniferous System. — This is di- 
visible into five groups, as follows : The Kinder- 
hook group, the Burlington limestone, and the 
Keokuk, St. Louis and Chester groups. Its 
greatest development is in the southern portion 
of the State, where it has a thickness of 1,400 or 
1,500 feet. It thins out to the northward so rapidly 
that, in the vicinity of the Lower Rapids on the 
Mississippi, it is only 300 feet thick, while it 
wholly disappears below Rock Island. The Kinder- 
hook group is variable in its lithological charac- 
ter, consisting of argillaceous and sandy shales, 
with thin beds of compact and oolitic limestone, 
passing locally into calcareous shales or impure 
limestone. The entire formation is mainly a 
mechanical sediment, with but a very small por- 
tion of organic matter. The Burlington lime- 
stone, on the other hand, is composed almost 
entirely of the fossilized remains of organic 
beings, with barely enough sedimentary material 
to act as a cement. Its maximum thickness 
scarcely exceeds 200 feet, and its principal out- 
crops are in the counties of Jersey, Greene, Scott, 
Calhoun, Pike, Adams, Warren and Henderson. 
The rock is usually a light gray, buff or brown 
limestone, either coarsely granular or crystalline 
in structure. The Keokuk group immediately 
succeeds the Burlington in the ascending order, 
with no well defined line of demarcation, the 
chief points of difference between the two being 
in color and in the character of fossils found. At 
the upper part of this group is found a bed of 
calcareo-argillaceous shale, containing a great 
variety of geodes, which furnish beautiful cabinet 
specimens of crystallized quartz, chalcedony, 
dolomite and iron pyrites. In Jersey and Monroe 
Counties a bed of hydraulic limestone, adapted to 
the manufacture of cement, is found at the top of 
this formation. The St. Louis group is partly 
a fine-grained or semi-crystallized bluish-gray 
limestone, and partly concretionary, as around 
Alton. In the extreme southern part of the State 
the rock is highly bituminous and susceptible of 
receiving a high polish, being used as a black 
marble. Beds of magnesian limestone are found 
here and there, which furnish a good stone for 
foundation walls. In Hardin County, the rock 



is traversed by veins of fluor spar, carrying 
galena and zinc blonde. The Chester group is 
only found in the southern part of the State, 
thinning out from a thickness of eight hundred 
feet in Jackson and Randolph Counties, to about 
twenty feet at Alton. It consists of hard, gray, 
crystalline, argillaceous limestones, alternating 
withsandy and argillaceous shales and sandstones, 
which locally replace each other. A few species 
of true carboniferous flora are found in the are- 
naceous shales and sandstones of this group, the 
earliest traces of pre-historic land plants found in 
the State. Outcrops extend in a narrow beU 
from the southern part of Hardin County to the 
southern line of St. Clair County, passing around 
the southwest border of the coal field. 

Upper Carboniferous System. — This includes 
the Conglomerate, or "'Mill Stone Grit"' of Euro- 
pean authors, and the true coal measures. In the 
southern portion of the State its greatest thick- 
ness is about 1,200 feet. It becomes thinner 
toward the north, scarcely exceeding 400 or 500 
feet in the vicinity of La Salle. The word "con- 
glomerate" designates a thick bed of sandstone 
that lies at the base of the coal measures, and 
appears to have resulted from the culmination of 
the arenaceous sedimentary accumulations. It 
consists of massive quartzose sandstone, some- 
times nearly white, but more frequently stained 
red or brown by the ferruginous matter which 
it contains, and is frequently composed in 
part of rounded quartz pebbles, from the size 
of a pea to several inches in diameter. When 
highly ferruginous, the oxide of iron cements 
the sand into a hard crust on the surface 
of the rock, which successfully resists the de- 
nuding influence of the atmosphere, so that the 
rock forms towering cliffs on the banks of the 
stream along which are its outcrops. Its thickness 
varies from 200 feet in the southern part of the 
State to twenty-five feet in the northern. It has 
afforded a few species of fossil plants, but no 
animal remains. The coal measures of Illinois 
are at least 1,000 feet thick and cover nearly 
three-fourths of its entire area. The strata are 
horizontal, the dip rarely exceeding six to ten 
feet to the mile. The formation is made up of 
sandstone, shales, thin beds of limestone, coal, 
and its associated fire clays. The thickness of 
the workable beds is from six to twenty-four 
inches in the upper measures, and from two to 
five feet in the lower measures. The fire clavs. 
on which the coal seams usually rest, probably 
represent t lie ancient soil on which grew the 
trees and plants from which the coal is formed. 



200 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OP ILLINOIS. 



When pure, these clays are valuable for the 
manufacture of fire brick, tile and common 
pottery. Illinois coal is wholly of the bitumi- 
nous variety, the metamorphic conditions which 
resulted in the production of anthracite coal in 
Pennsylvania not having extended to this State. 
Fossils, both vegetable and animal, abound in 
the coal measures. 

Tertiary System. — This system is represented 
only in the southern end of the State, where cer- 
tain deposits of stratified sands, shales and con- 
glomerate are found, which appear to mark the 
northern boundary of the great Tertiary forma- 
tion of the Gulf States. Potter's clay, lignite and 
silicious woods are found in the formation. 

Quaternary System. — This system embraces 
all the superficial material, including sands, clay, 
gravel and soil which overspreads the older for- 
mations in all portions of the State. It gives 
origin to the soil from which the agricultural 
wealth of Illinois is derived. It may be properly 
separated into four divisions: Post-tertiary 
sands, Drift, Loess and Alluvium. The first- 
named occupies the lowest position in the series, 
and consists of stratified beds of yellow sand and 
blue clay, of variable thickness, overlaid by a 
black or deep brown, loamy soil, in which are 
found leaves, branches and trunks of trees in a 
good state of preservation. Next above lie the 
drift deposits, consisting of blue, yellow and 
brown clays, containing gravel and boulders of 
various sizes, the latter the water-worn frag- 
ments of rocks, many of which have been washed 
down from the northern shores of the great 
lakes. This drift formation varies in thickness 
from twenty to 120 feet, and its accumulations 
are probably due to the combined influence of 
water currents and moving ice. The subsoil 
over a large part of the northern and central 
portions of the State is composed of fine brown 
clay. Prof. Desquereux (Illinois Geological Sur- 
vey, Vol. I. ) accounts for the origin of this clay 
and of the black prairie soil above it, by attribut- 
ing it to the growth and decomposition of a 
peculiar vegetation. The Loess is a fine mechan- 
ical sediment that appears to have accumulated in 
some body of fresh water. It consists of marly 
sands and clays, of a thickness varying from five to 
sixty feet. Its greatest development is along the 
bluffs of the principal rivers. The fossils found 
in this formation consist chiefly of the bones and 
teeth of extinct mammalia, such as the mam- 
moth, mastodon, etc. Stone implements of 
primeval man are also discovered. The term 
alluvium is usually restricted to the deposits 



forming the bottom lands of the rivers and 
smaller streams. They consist of irregularly 
stratified sand, clay and loam, which are fre- 
quently found in alternate layers, and contain 
more or less organic matter from decomposed 
animal and vegetable substances. When suffi- 
ciently elevated, they constitute the richest and 
most productive farming lands in the State. 

GEORGETOWN, a village of Vermilion County, 
on the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis 
Railway, 10 miles south of Danville. It has a 
bank, telegraph and express office and a news- 
paper. Population (1890), 662; (1900), 988. 

GERMAN EVANGELICAL SCHOOL, located at 
Addison, Du Page County ; incorporated in 1852 ; 
has a faculty of three instructors and reports 187 
pupils for 1897-98, with a property valuation of 
§9,600. 

GERMANTOWN, a village of Vermilion County, 
and suburb of Danville ; is the center of a coal- 
mining district. Population (1880), 540; (1890), 
1,178; (1900), 1,782. 

GEST, William H., lawyer and ex-Congress- 
man, was born at Jacksonville, 111., Jan. 7, 1838. 
When but four years old his parents removed to 
Rock Island, where he has since resided. He 
graduated from Williams College in 1860, was 
admitted to the bar in 1862, and has always been 
actively engaged in practice. In 1886 he was 
elected to Congress by the Republicans of the 
Eleventh Illinois District, and was re-elected in 
1888, but in 1890 was defeated by Benjamin T. 
Cable, Democrat. 

GIBAULT, Pierre, a French priest, supposed to 
have been born at New Madrid in what is now 
Southeastern Missouri, early in the eighteenth 
century; was Vicar-General at Kaskaskia, with 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the churches at 
Cahokia, St. Genevieve and adjacent points, at 
the time of the capture of Kaskaskia by Col. 
George Rogers Clark in 1778, and rendered Clark 
important aid in conciliating the French citizens 
of Illinois. He also made a visit to Vincennes and 
induced the people there to take the oath of allegi- 
ance to the new government. He even advanced 
means to aid Clark's destitute troops, but beyond 
a formal vote of thanks by the Virginia Legisla- 
ture, he does not appear to have received any 
recompense. Governor St. Clair, in a report to 
Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, dwelt 
impressively upon the value of Father Gibault's 
services and sacrifices, and Judge Law said of 
him, "Next to Clark and (Francis) Vigo, the 
United States are indebted more to Father 
Gibault for the accession of the States comprised 



HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS. 



201 



in what was the original Northwest Territory 
than to any other man." The date and place of 
his death are unknown. 

GIBSON CITY, a town in Ford County, situ- 
ated on the Lake Erie & Western Railroad, 34 
miles east of Bloomington, and at the intersec- 
tion of the Wabash Railroad and the Springfield 
Division of the Illinois Central. The principal 
mechanical industries are iron works, canning 
works, a shoe factory, and a tile factory. It has 
two banks, two newspapers, nine churches and 
an academy. A college is projected. Popula- 
tion (1890), 1,803; (1900), 2,054; (1903, est.), 3,165. 

GILL, Joseph B., Lieutenant-Governor (1893- 
97), was born on a farm near Marion, Williamson 
County, 111., Feb. 17, 1862. In 1868 his father 
settled at Murphysboro, where Mr. Gill still 
makes his home. His academic education was 
received at the school of the Christian Brothers, 
in St. Louis, and at the Southern Illinois Normal 
University, Carbondale. In 1886 he graduated 
from the Law Department of the Michigan State 
University, at Ann Arbor. Returning home he 
purchased an interest in "The Murphysboro Inde- 
pendent," which paper he conducted and edited 
up to January, 1893. In 1888 he was elected to 
the lower house of the Legislature and re-elected 
in 1890. As a legislator he was prominent as a 
champion of the labor interest. In 1892 he was 
nominated and elected Lieutenant-Governor on 
the Democratic ticket, serving from January, 
1893, to '97. 

GILLESPIE, a village of Macoupin County, on 
the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis 
Railway, 10 miles southwest of Litchfield. This 
is an agricultural, coal-mining and stock-raising 
region ; the town has a bank and a newspaper. 
Population (1890), 948; (1900), 873. 

GILLESPIE, Joseph, lawyer and Judge, was 
born in New York City, August 22, 1809, of Irish 
parents, who removed to Illinois in 1819, settling 
on a farm near Edwardsville. After coming to 
Illinois, at 10 years, he did not attend school over 
two months. In 1827 he went to the lead mines 
at Galena, remaining until 1829. In 1831, at the 
invitation of Cyrus Edwards, he began the study 
of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1837, 
having been elected Probate Judge in 1836. He 
also served during two campaigns (1831 and '32) 
in the Black Hawk War. He was a Whig in 
politics and a warm personal friend of Abraham 
Lincoln. In 1840 he was elected to the lower 
house of the Legislature, serving one term, and 
was a member of the State Senate from 1847 to 
1859. In 1853 he received the few votes of the 



Whig members of the Legislature for United States 
Senator, in opposition to Stephen A. Douglas, 
and, in 1860, presided over the second Republican 
State Convention at Decatur, at which elements 
were set in motion which resulted in the nomi- 
nation of Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency 
for the first time, a week later. In 1861 he was 
elected Judge of the Twenty-fourth Judicial 
Circuit, and re-elected in 1867 for a second term, 
serving until 1873. Died, at his home at Edwards- 
ville, Jan. 7, 1885. 

GILLETT, John Dean, agriculturist and stock- 
man, was born in Connecticut, April 28, 1819; 
spent several years of his youth in Georgia, but, 
in 1838, came to Illinois by way of St. Louis, 
finally reaching "Bald Knob," in Logan County, 
where an uncle of the same name resided. Here 
he went to work, and, by frugality and judicious 
investments, finally acquired a large body of 
choice lands, adding to his agricultural operations 
the rearing and feeding of stock for the Chicago 
and foreign markets. In this he was remarkably 
successful. In his later years he was President 
of a National Bank at Lincoln. At the time of 
his death, August 27, 1888, he was the owner of 
16,500 acres of improved lands in the vicinity of 
Elkhart, Logan County, besides large herds of 
fine stock, both cattle and horses. He left a large 
family, one of his daughters being the wife of 
the late Senator Richard J. Oglesby. 

GILLETT, Philip Goode, specialist and edu- 
cator, born in Madison, Ind., March 24, 1833; was 
educated at As