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Full text of "History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois"

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LIBRARY OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 



977c39 
P42h 



I o H o b o 




HISTORY 



OF 



JjJj 



XAIER, Union Al POLASRI CODNTIES, 



IKL.INOIS. 



B33ITEX> ,3Y AAT'IXjIjIJ^Iid: HElTR-y X'ER/R/IIT. 



ILLUSTRATE.D 



CHICAGO: 

O. L. BASKIN & CO., HISTORICAL PUBLISHERS, 

183 Lake Street. 

1883. 






PREFACE. 



rpHE history of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, after months of persistent toil and 
-L research, is now completed, and it is believed that no subject of universal public impor- 
tance or interest has been omitted, save where protracted effort failed to secure reliable results- 
We are well aware of our inability to furnish a perfect history from meager public documents 
and numberless conflicting traditions, but claim to have prepared a work fully up to the standard 
of our promises. Through the courtesy and assistance generously afforded by the residents of 
these counties, we have been enabled to trace out and put on record the greater portion of the 
important events that have transpired in Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, up to the 
present time. And we feel assured that all thoughtful people in these counties, now and in 
future, will recognize and appreciate the importance of the work and its permanent value. 

A dry statement of events has, as far as possible, been avoided, and incidents and anecdotes 
have been interwoven with facts and statistics, forming a narrative at once instructive and inter- 
esting. 

We are indebted to John Grear, Esq., for the history of Jonesboro and Precinct; to Dr. J 
H. Sanborn for the history of Anna and Precinct; to Dr. N. R. Casey for the history of Mound 
City and Precinct, and to George W. Endicott, Esq., of Villa Ridge, for his chapter on Agricult- 
ure and Horticulture of Pulaski County. Also to H. C. Bradsby, Esq., for his very able and 
exhaustive history of Cairo, as well as the general history of the respective counties, and to the 
many citizens who furnished our corps of writers with material aid in the compilation of the 
facts embodied in the work. 

September, 1883 Tjjg PUBLISHERS. 



s 

§0 



^ 



00 



852588 



CONTENTS 



PART I. 



CAIRO. 

PAGE. 

<^'>I AFTER I.— City of Cairo— The First Steamboat on West- 
ern Waters — Great Eartliquake of l.'^ll — First Settle- 
ment of Cairo— Hoibrook's Schemes — A Mushroom 
( ity and the Bubble Bursted — Early Navigation of 
Western Rivers — Capt. Henry M. Shreve, etc., etc 11 

CHAPTER II.— Crash of the Cairo City and Canal Company 
in 1841 — The Exodus of the People— Pastimes and 
Social Life of Those Who Remain — Judge Cilbert — 
How a Riot was Suppressed — Bryan Shaunessy — 
Gradual Growth of the Town Again — The Record 
Brought Down to 1.^53, etc .SI 

( HAPTER III.— Cairo Platted— First Sale of Lots— The 
Foundation of a City Laid — Beginning of Work on 
the Central Railroad — S. Staats Taylor^City Gov- 
ernment Organized and Who Were Its Officers — In- 
crease of Population — The War — Soldiers in Cairo — 
Battle of Belmont— Waif of the Battle-tield— " Old 
Rube ■' — Killing of Spencer — Overflow of '58 — Wash 
Graham and Gen. (irant — A Few More Practical 
Jokes, etc., etc 47 

( HAPTER IV.— Decidedly a Cairo chapter— Cairo and Its 
Different Bodies, Politic and Corporate — Cairo City 
and Bank of Cairo — Cairo and Canal Company — Cairo 
, < ity Property— Trustees of the Cairo Trust Property 
— The Illinois Exporting Company — D. B. Holbrook 
—Justin Butterfield— Recapitulation, etc., etc 67 

(HAI'TER v.— The Levees— How the Territorial Legisla- 
ture by Law Placed the Natural Town Site Above 
C»verflows — First Efibrts at Constructing Levees — 
Engineer's Reports on the Same — Estimated Height 
and Costs — The Floods — The City Overflowed — Great 
Disaster, the f'ause and Its Effects— The Levees are 
Reconstructed and They Defy the Greatest Waters 
Ever Known 90 

CHAPTER VI.— The Press— Its Power as the Great Civil- 
izer of the Age — Cairo's First Editorial Ventures- 
Birth and Death of Newspapers Innumerable — The 
Bohemians — Who They Were and What They Did — 
" Bull Run " Russell— Harrell, Willett, Faxon and 
Others — Some of the "Intelligent Compositors" — 
Quantum Sufficit 126 

( HAPTER VII.— Societies: Literary, Social and Benevolent 
—The Ideal League — Lyceimi — Masonic Fraternity — 
Its Great Antiquity— Odd Fellowship — The Cairo 
Casino — Other Societies, etc ISS 



CHAPTER VIII.— Cairo— Her Condition -in 1861-187S-1>;.><:; 
— The Ebb and Flow of Business and Population — 
War and the Panic Which Followed — Steamboat.s— 
Mark Twain— Pilots — .Some Steamboat Disasters— And 
a Joke or Two by Way of Illustration, etc W' 

CHAPTER IX.— The Church History— St. Patrick's— Ger- 
man Lutheran — Presbyterian — Baptist — Methodist 
and Other Dcnomination.s — The Different Pastors — 
Their Flocks, Temples, the City .Schools, etc., etc 17G 

CHAPTER X.— Railroads — The Illinois Central —Cairo 
Short Line — The Iron Mountain — Cairo & St. Louis — 
The Wabash— Mobile & Ohio— Texas A St. Louis— The 
Great Jackson Route — Roads Being Built, etc., etc.... 19.5 

CHAPTER XL— Conclusion— The Future of the City Con- 
sidered—Her Present Status and Growth — Present 
City Officials, etc 217 



PART II. 

UNION COUNTY. 

CHAPTER I.— Intro<luction — Geology— Importance of Edu- 
cating the People on This Subject — The Limestone 
District of Illinois — Keononiical (ieology of Union, 
Alexander and Pulaski Counties — Medical .Sprjngs, 
Building Material, Soil, etc.— Wonderful Wealth of 
Nature's Bounties — Topograi)hy and Cliniato of this 
Region, etc "^'i-? 

CHAPTER 11.— Pre-historic Races— The Mound-Buildera— 
Fire Worshipers — Relics of these Unknown People — 
Mounds, Workshops and Battle-<i rounds in Ufllijn, 
Alexander and Pulaski Counties — Visits of Noxious 
Insects— History Thereof, etc 244 

CHAPTER III.— The Daring Discoveries and Settlements 
by the French— The Catholic Missionaries— Discov- 
ery of the Mississippi River — .Some Corrections in 
History — A World's Wonderful Drama of Nearly 
Three Hundred Years' Duration, etc 2.5'i 

CHAPTER IV.— 1 ollowing the Footsteps of the First Pio- 
neers — Who They Were— How They Came— Where They 
Stopped— From 179.J to 1810— Cordeling— Bear Fight- 
First Schools, Preachers, and the Kind of People they 
Were— John Orammar, the Father of Illinois State- 
Craft, etc '^^* 

CHAPTER v.— Settlers in Union, Alexander and Pulaski— 
Lean Venison and Fat Bear— Primitive Furniture— A 



CONTENTS. 



Pioneer Boy .Sees a Plastered House — ilow People 
F'orted — Their Dress and Amusements — Witchcraft, 
Wizards, etc. — No Law nor Church— Sports, etc. — fiov. 
Dougherty — Philip Shaver and the Cache Massacre — 
Families in the Order they I'ame, etc., etc '21o 

CHAPTER VI.— Organization of Union County— Act of 
Legislature Forming It — The County Seal — Commis- 
sioners' Court — Abner Field — A List of Families — Cen- 
sus from 1820 to ISSO— Dr. Brooks— The Flood of 1844— 
Willard Family — Col. Henry L. Webb — Railroads — 
Schools — Moralizing, etc., etc 285 

CHAPTER VIL— The Bench and Bar— Gov. Reynolds- 
Early Courts— First Term and Officers— Daniel P. Cook 
— Census of 1818— County Officers to Date— Abner and 
Alexander P. Field— Winsted Davie — Young and Mc- 
Roberts — Visiting and Resident Lawyers — Grand .Juries 
Punched — Ilunsaker's Letter — War Between Jouesboro 
and Anna— County Vote, etc., etc 301 

CHAPTER VIIL— The Pre-ss- Finley and Evans, and the 
First Newspaper — " Union County Democrat'' — John 
Grear— The "Record," "Herald," and Other Publica- 
tions—How the Telegraph Produced Drought— Dr. S. S. 
Conden— Present Publishers and Their Able Papers, etc. 318 

CHAPTER IX.— Military History— "Wars and Rumors of 
Wars" — And Some of the (lenuine Article — Revolu- 
tionary .Soldiers— Mexican War- Our Late Civil Strife 
—Union County's Honorable Part In It— The One Hun- 
dred and Ninth Regiment — Its Vindication in History, 
etc., etc 82.3 

CHAPTER X.— Agriculture— Similarity of Union County 
to the Blue Grass Region of Kentucky— Adaptability to 
Stock-Raising — Fair Associations — Horticulture — Its 
Rise, Wonderful Progress and Present Condition— Va- 
rieties of Fruit and Their Culture— The Fruit Garden 
of the West— Vegetables — Shipments— Statistics, etc., 
etc 334 

CHAPTER XL— Jonesboro Precinct — Topography and 
Physical Features— Coming of the Whites— Pioneer 
Hardships— Early Industries— Roads, Bridges, Taverns, 
etc.— Religious and Educational— State of .Society- 
Progress and Improvements, etc- 3.52 

CHAPTER XII.— City of Jonesboro— .Selected and Sur- 
veyed as the County Seat— Its Healthy Location— Early 
Citizens— Some who Remained and Some who Went 
Away— First Sale of Lots— Growth of the Town— Mer- 
chants and Business Men— Town Incorporated — .Schools 
and ( hurches — .Secret .Societies, etc 351 

CHAPTER XIII.- Anna Precinct— (ieneral Description 
and Topography— Early .Settlement— The Cold Year- 
Organization of Precinct— Incident of the Telegraph- 
Schools and Churches— Bee-Keei)ing, Dairying, etc.— 
Crop Statistics— A Hail-Storm, etc 363 

CHAPTER XIV.— City of Anna— The Laying-out of a 
Town— Its Name— Early Growth and Progress— Incor- 
porated— Fires— Notable Events— Societies, Schools and 
Churches— Manufactures— Organized as a City— Hos- 
pital for the Insane- City Finances 371 



CHAPTER XV.— South Pass, or Cobden Precinct— Its To- 
pographical and Physical Features— Early Settlement of 
White Peoi)le— Where They Came From and a Record 
of Their Work— tJrowth and Development of the Pre- 
cinct-Richard Cobden— The Village: What it Was, 
What It Is, and What It Will Be— Schools, Churches, 
etc., etc 392 

CHAPTER XVI. — Dongola Precinct — Surface, Timber, 
Water-Courses, Products, etc. — Settlement — Pioneer 
Trials and Industries — Schools and Churches — Mills— 
Dongola Village : Its Growth and Development— Leav- 
enworth— What He Did for the Town, etc 402 

CHAPTER XVIL— Ridge or Alto Pass Precinct— Surface 
Features, Boundaries, and Timber Grown — Occupation 
of the Whites — Pioneer Trials — Industries, Improve- 
ments, etc.— The Knob — Churches and Schools— Vil- 
lages, etc., etc 410 

CHAPTER XVIIL— Rich Precinct— Description, Bounda- 
ries and Surface Features — .Settlement of the Whites— 
W^here They Came From and Where They Located— 
Lick Creek Post office— .Schools and Churches — Caves, 
Sulphur !*pring3, etc 414 

CHAPTER XIX.— Stokes Precinct— Topography and Boun- 
daries — Coming of the Pioneers — Their Trials and 
Tribulations— Mills and Other Improvements — Mount 
Pleasant laid out as a Village — Churches, Schools, 
etc., etc 41'J 

CHAPTER XX. — Saratoga Precinct — Its Formation and De- 
scription — Topography, Physical Features, etc. — Early 
.Settlement— The Wild Man of the Woods— Mills- 
Saratoga Village —Sulphur .Springs — An Incident — 
Roads and Bridges — Schools, Churches, etc., etc 42-5 

CHAPTER XXL— Mill Creek Precinct— Its Natural Char- 
acteristics and Resources— One of the Earliest Settle- 
ments in the County — Pioneer Improvements — Schools 
and Churches— Villages, etc 431 

CHAPTER XXII.— Meisenheimer Precinct — Its Surface 
Features, Timber, .Streams and Boundaries — Settle- 
ment of the Whites — Early Struggles of the Pioneers 
— Schools and Schoolhouses— ^Religious — Mills, Roads, 
etc.. etc 433 

CHAPTER XXIIL— Preston and Union Precincts— Their 
Geographical and Topographical Features — Early 
Pioneers — Where They Came From, and How They 
Lived — The Aldridges and Other " Fir.st Families" — 
Swamps, Bullfrogs and Mosquitoes — Schools, Churches, 
etc V i^i-'> 



PART III. 

ALEXANDER COUNTY. 

CHAPTER I.— First .'Settlement of the County— The Way 
the People Lived — Growth and Progress — Geology and 
Soils — The Mound-Builders — Trinity — America — Col. 
Rector, Webb and Others — Wilkinsonville — Caledonia 
— Unity — Many Interesting ICveuts— etc., etc., etc 44-5 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

( IIAITKK II.— The Act Creating the County— How it was 
Named — Some Interesting Extracts from Pr. Alexan- 
der's Letters — The rroniinent People — Col. John S. 
Hacker — Official Doings of the Courts — County Officers 
in Succession — Different Removals of the County .Seat 
— Treacher Wofford — etc., etc 4.54 

CHAl'TER III. — Census of Alexander County Considered — 
The Kind of I'eople They Were — How They Improved 
the ( ountry — Who Built the Mills — Dogs Versus Sheep 
— Periods of Comparative Immigration — Acts of the 
Legislature Efi'ectiug the County, etc., etc 46fi 

CHAPTER IV.— War Record— 1812-15— Blaek Hawk War- 
Some Account of It, and ('apt. Webb's Company- 
Roster of the Company— War witli Mexico — Our Late 
Civil War — Politics — Representatives and Other 
Officials — John Q. Ilarniou— State Senators, etc. — Some 
Slanders Upon the People Repelled, etc., etc 472 

CHAPTER V. — Bench and Bar of Alexander County — State 
Judiciary and Early Laws Concerning It — Judicial 
Courts — How Formed — First Justices of the Supreme 
Court — Who Came and Practiced Law — Judges Mul- 
key. Baker, I. N. Haynie, Allen, Green, Wall, Yocura, 
Linegar and Lansden — Local Lawyers, etc 479 

CHAPTER VL— The Precincts of Alexander County— To- 
pography and Boundaries — Their Early Settlement — 
Dangers and Hardships of the Pioneers — Villages — 
Schools and Churches — Modern Improvements, etc 491 



PAET IV. 

PULASKI COUNTY. 

CHAPTER I. — Geology, Meteorology, Topography, Timber, 
Water, Soil, etc. — Great Fertility of the Land — Its Ag- 
ricultural and Ilortieultural Advantages — What Far- 
mers are Learning — Address of I'arker Earle, etc 503 

CAAITER II. — Organization of the County— The Facts 
That Led to (he Same — Act of the Legislature — Estab- 
lishment of the <'ourts— the First Officers — Kemoval 
of the Seat of Justice -The Census — Precinct Organi- 
zation — Lawyers — Schools, Churches, etc., etc., etc 510 

CHAPTER III. — About Early Leading Citizens — tJeorge 
Cloud, H. M. Smith, Capt. Riddle, Justus Post— Pulaski 
in War— Black Hawk, Mexican and the Late Civil 
War— History of the .Men Who Took Part— A. C. 
Bartlesou, Price, Athertou — Mr. Clemson's Farm, etc., 
etc 5i;i 

( IIAPTER IV.— Agriculture— Early Mode of Farming in 
Pulaski County— Incidents— Stock-Kaising— Present 
Improvements- Horticulture— First Attempts at 
Fruit-* irowing— Apples— Tree Pe<ldlers— Strawberries 
—Peaches — Grapes and Wine— Other Fruits, Vegeta- 
ble.?, etc., etc .520 

CHAPTER v.— Mound <ity— Early History of the Place— 
The Indian Massacre— Joseph Tibbs and Some of the 



Early Citizens of " The Mounds "—Gen. Rawlings— 
First Sale of Ix)ts— The Emporium Company— How 
It Flourished and Then Played Out— The Marine 
Ways— Government Hospital— The National Ceme- 
lery. etc 535 

CHAPTEl! VL— Mound (ity— Decline and Death of the 
Emporium Company— Overflow of the Ohio in 1858— 
Flood of 1802, 1S<>7, 1882 and ISS.'i— leveeing the City 
—Bonds for the Payment of the Same— .\ Few Mur- 
ders, With a Taste of Lynch Law, etc .553 

CHAPTER VIL— Mound City— It Becomes the County Seat 
County Officials— Jud,ge Mansfield— Lawyers— F. M. 
Kawlings and Others— Jo Tibbs Again— The Press— 
" National Emporium "—Other Papers— First Physi- 
cians of the City— Schools— Teachers and Their Sala- 
ries, etc., etc .561 

CHAPTER VIII.— Mound City— Its ( hurch History— Catho- 
lic Church— The Methodists, etc.— Colored Churches- 
Fires and the Losses whicli Hesultcd— Manufactories 
— .Secret and Benevolent Societies— Something of the 
Mercantile Business— Population of the City— Its 
Officers and Government, etc 570 

CHAPTER IX.— Election Precincts Aside from Mound City 
—Boundaries, Topographical Features, etc.— Advent 
of the White People and their .Settlements— How they 
Lived— Progress of Churches and .Schools— Growth 



and Development of the County.. 



PAET V. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

Cairo ; :: 

Cairo- Extra 56a 

Union County.— Anna Precinct .57 

.Tone.sboro Precinct 92 

Cobden Precinct 118 

Alto Pass Precinct 153 

Dongola Precinct 170 

Meisenheimer Precinct 182 

Stokes Precinct -jgo 

Saratoga Precinct 197 

Rich I'recinct 204 

Union Precinct 209 

Preston Precinct ojl 

Mill Creek Precinct 212 

Anna and Jonesboro — Extra 214 

Alexander County.- Elco Precinct 218 

Thebes Precinct 228 

East Cape Girardeau Precinct 2;!.5 

II n ity Precinct 239 

Clear Creek Precinct 243 

Santa F'e i'recinct 247 

r.eeeh }£idge Precinct 249 

Lake Millikin Precinct 2.50 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

PiT.AS^Ki County.— Mound City Precinct 251 

Villa Ridge Precinct 282 

Grand CJiain Precinct 298 

Ohio Precinct ^^^ 

Wetaug Precinct ^^^ 

UUin Precinct 326 

Pulaski Precinct 3^1 

Burkville Precinct 3** 



PORTRAITS. 

Arter, I) ^^3 

Casey, N. B 547 

Casper, P. H 241 

Clemson. .1. Y 9^ 

Pavie, Winstead 223 

Endicott, G. \V • 529 

Finch, E. H 151 

Oaunt, J. W 259 

(irear, John ■'''^^ 



PAGE. 

Hambleton, W. L 565 

Hess, John 1^' 

Hight, W. A 511 

Hileman, Jacob ^31 

Hoftner,C ^ ^3 

Hughes, M. L ;;••: 277 

Leavenworth, E ^1 

Mason, B. F ; 295 

Meyer, G. F 205 

Miller, Caleb ^l-^ 

Morris, James S ^''^ 

Paruily, John -157 

Ros», B. F -103 

Saflbrd, A. B 25 

Sanborn, J. H 385 

Scarsdale, F. E 169 

Spencer, H. H US 

Stokes, M 421 

Toler, J. M 79 

Wardner, H 367 

Weaver, John 475 

Williams, A. G 493 




^^^ 



HISTOEY OF 



EXANDER, UNION AND PULASKI 



COUNTIES. 



PART I. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO, 



BY H. C. BRADSBY. 



CHAPTER I. 



CITY OF CAIRO— THE FIRST STEAMBOAT ON WESTERN AVATERS— GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF 1811- 

FIRST SETTLEMENT OF CAIRO— HOLBROOK'S SCHEMES— A MUSHROOM CITY AND 

THE BUBBLE BURSTEU — EARLY NAVIGATION OF WESTERN 

M. SHREVE, ETC., ETC. 



RIVERS— CAPT. HENRY 

"And leaves the world to solitude and me." — Gray. 

THE earliest settlement of Cairo, on the 
promontory of land formed by the junc- 
tion of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, dates 
back only sixty-six years ago. There are 
persons yet living, not only who were born 
then, but who can even remember events of 
that time with distinctness. But these clear- 
headed old people are nearly all gone, and 
in a very few years there will be nothing left 
us but the traditions of 1817, unless the pres- 
ent opportunity is conserved, and the facts 
placed in a permanen.t form while it is yet 
possible to obtain them from those who not 
only saw, but were a part of the long-ago 
events that have led to the present changed 
condition of affairs. The tooth of time eats 
away the living evidences of what occurred 
more than fifty years ago with unerring 
swiftness. 

The life of a nation or city, compared to 
time, is but a breath, although it may sur- 
vive generations and centurie.'?, and how in- 
conceivably brief, then, is the longest space 
of a single human life. 



Man'rf nature is such that he is deeply 
concerned in the movements of those who 
have gone before him. Whether his fore- 
fathers were wise or foolish, he wants to 
learn all he can about them; to study their 
customs, habits and general movements. 
And while those are yet left who were par- 
ticipants in the earliest gathering of a peo- 
ple in any particular locality, it is easy 
enough to sit down by the fireside and listen 
to the story of the father«; of their trials, 
their triumphs, their failiues, their ways of 
thought and their genei'aj actions; but in a 
moment, and before you have had time to re- 
flect upon the loss, they are all gone, and the 
places that knew them so well will know them 
no more forever; and then it is the chronicler, 
who puts in permanant form all these once 
supposed trifling details, has performed an 
invaluable, if not an imperishable, seivice. 
The proper study of mankind is man. It is 
the one inexhaustible fountain of real knowl- 
edge ; and the " man" that is best studied is 
your own immediate forefathers or predeces- 
sors. To learn and know them well is to 



13 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



know all you can learn of the human family. 
To solve the complex problem of the human 
race does not so much consist in trying to 
study all the living and the dead, as in 
mastering, in ^^o far as it is possible, the 
chosen few. 

Many thousands of years ago, preparations 
first began to be made for a habitation for 
man upon the very spot now occupied by the 
city of Cairo. The uplift of the rocks that 
formed the first dry laTi I upon the continent 
in and about the Huron region had pro- 
ceeded slowlv \.\ their southwesterly direc- 
tion for a very long time. This was then a 
part of the Gulf of Mexico, and it was slow 
and very gradual the uplift went on, and the 
waters of the Gulf receded south of the junc- 
tion of the two rivers, and the Lower Missis- 
sippi River began to form. From Freeport 
southward, along the line of the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad, there is a gi-adual descent to 
the valley of the Big Muddy River, in Jack- 
son County, where the level of the railroad 
grade is only fifty-five feet above that of the 
river at Cairo. At that point, there is a sud- 
den rise of nearly seven hundred feet, the 
only true mountain elevation in Illinois. It 
runs entirely across the southei'u portion of 
the State, finally crosses the Ohio, in the 
vicinity of Shawneetown, and then is [lost 
beneath the coal measures of Kentucky. 
The forces beneath the surface made this up- 
lift, and it is supposed by geologists that 
this must have taken place before the Gulf 
receded below the present junction of the 
rivers. 

Caii-o stands upon an alluviiun and drift of 
about thirty feet in depth, and while it prob- 
ably was many centi:vfies ingathering here so 
as to rise above the face of the waters, yet it 
has been here a comparatively long time, as 
is evidenced by the immense trees of oak, 
and walnut, and many others that do not 



grow in swamps or grounds that more than 
occasionally ovei'flow, and beneath these 
great trees that have braved the storms of 
hundreds of years has been found the re- 
mains, deep in the soil, of other great forests 
that had preceded the one found here by the 
first discoverers. It takes the geological 
seons to prepare the way for man's coming, 
and man can only come when the prepara- 
tions for his reception are complete. 

Mr. Jacob Klein, the brick-maker of Cairo, 
and who has carried on this business success- 
fully the past nineteen years, determined 
three years ago to try the experiment of get- 
ting pure water by digging. He has sunk 
three wells; the first was sixty-five feet deep 
where it struck [a heavy bed of gravel and 
promised an abundant supply of water, but 
the very dry season of three years ago his 
water supply was short. He then had the 
second well sunk. This is 100 feet deep, 
and, like the first, stopped in the gravel. 
Not still satisfied, Mr. K. contracted for 
the third Well, to be put down with a two 
and a half inch pipe. The contract called 
for a well 300 feet deep. The contractor 
went down 206 feet and stopped, and then 
IMi'. Klein took up the work himself and car- 
ried it to 218 feet, when he struck the rock. 
A bed of white clay was encountered, five feet 
thick, resting upon the rock. Here, clearly, 
was once the bed of the river. From the clay, 
which is 213 feet below the surface, the strata 
are coarse sand and seams of coarse gravel 
until the alluvium of the surface is reached. 
Mr. Klein reached an inexhaustible supply of 
pure, soft water, which stands within fifteen 
feet of, the siu-f ace at all seasons of the year, 
I and for all pui'poses is as fine water as was 
I ever found. It is described to be as soft as 
! rain water and clear and cold, and is never 
I affected by the stage of waters in ^the river. 
It never flows during a long stage of high 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



13 



water, as do the shallow wells when the town 
begins tx) fill with sipe water, ^li-. Klein is 
satisfied that fron^ten to twenty feet farther 
do\^n, which will pass through the rock he 
has now reached, will give him a flowing 
artesian well, and this improvement he has 
in contemplation of making the present or 
next year. This is the first real effort ever 
made here to get pure well water, and has 
demonstrated* the fact that it is beneath us, 
in inexhaustible quantities and of the very 
best quality. 

Without the attention being specially 
called to the fact, there are very few people 
who would! suppose that the white man had 
come almost in what is a subui'b now of 
Cairo, and built his fort and fought the 
" redskins " one hundred and two years ago; 
yet such is the fact. Fort Jefferson is one of 
the favorite picnic i-esorts of the people of 
Cairo. It is only six miles below here, and 
across on the Kentucky shore. To the gay 
party starting out for a festival day, it is but 
little, if anything, more than merely cross- 
ing the river into Kentucky to go to Fort 
Jefferson. How many of all oui- people, es- 
pecially the young, know, when they wander 
about the place, that they are upon historic 
ground? Let us tell them something of its 
tragic story, and when they next stroll about 
in its grateful shades and resting places, let 
them look for the fast fading landmarks of 
the old fort, and remember that Mrs. Capt. 
Piggott and many other noble souls lie buried 
there; and also let them recall the heroic 
efforts of those, not only who died that ^we 
might live, but of those who so heroically 
struggled to drive back the red fiends. 

This fort was erected by George Rogers 
Clark, under the direction of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, in 1781. Jefferson was then 'Governor 
of Virginia, and, being advised the Spanish 
Crown would attempt to set up a claim to 



the country east of the Mississippi River, 
he took this step to foil the design. 

Immediately after the erection of the fort, 
Clark was called away to the frontiers of 
Kentucky, but was succeeded by Capt. J ames 
Piggott. 

Immigration to the fort was encouraged, 
and several families settled at once in its 
vicinity, and for a living proceeded to culti- 
vate the soil. For a short time, the settle- 
ment flourished. During 1781, however, the 
Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians became ex- 
ceedingly incensed at the encroachments of 
the whites (their consent for the [erection of 
the fort not having been obtained), and they 
commenced an attack upon the settlers in the 
neighboi'hood. The whole number of war- 
riors belonging to these tribes at that time 
was about twelve hundred, including the 
celebrated Scotchman Calbert, whose pos- 
terity figured as half-breeds. As soon as it 
was decided an attack would be made upon 
the fort by the Indians, a trusty messenger 
was dispatched to the Falls of the Ohio for 
further supplies of ammunition and provisions. 

The settlement and fort were in great dis- 
tress — at the point of starvation, indeed — 
and succor could not be obtained short of the 
Falls or Kaskaskia. 

The Indians 'approached the settlement at 
fii'st in small parties, and succeeded in kill- 
ing a number of the settlers before they 
could be moved to the fort. Half the people, 
both in the fort and its vicinity, were help- 
less from sickness, and the famine was so dis- 
tressing that it is said pumpkins were eaten 
as soon as the blossoms had fallen off the 
vines. The Indians continued their mui'der- 
ous visits in squads for about two weeks be- 
fore the main army of " braves" reached the 
fort. The soldiers aided and received into 
the fort all the white population that could 
be moved. 



14 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



In the skirmishes to which we have al- 
luded, a white man was taken prisoner by 
the Indians, who, to save his life, exposed 
the true state of the garrison. The infor- 
mation seemed to add fury to the passions of 
the savages. 

After the arrival of the main body of the 
savages, under Calbert, the fort was besieged 
three days and nights. Dvu-ing this time, the 
suffering and misery of the garrison were ex- 
t'-emely great. The water had almost given 
out; the river was falling rapidly, and the 
water in the wells receded with the river. 
The supply of provisions was qiiite exhausted, 
and sickness raged to such an extent that a 
veiy large number could not be moved from 
their beds. The wife of Capt. Piggott and 
several others died, and were bui'ied within 
the walls of the fort while the savages were 
besieging the outside. It seemed reduced to 
a certainty, at this junctui'e, that, unless re- 
lief came speedily, the garrison would fall 
into the hands' of the Indians and be mur- 
dered. 

The white prisoner now in the hands of 
the Indians detailed the true state of the 
fort He told his captors that more than 
half its inmates were sick, and that each man 
had not more than three rounds of ammuni- 
tion, and that the garrison was quite desti- 
tute of water and provisions. On receiving 
this information, the whole Indian army re- 
tired about two miles to hold a council. In 
a few hours, Calbert and three chiefs, with 
a flag of truce, were sent back to the fort. 

When the inmates of the fort discovered 
the flag, they sent out Capt. Piggott, Mr. 
Owens and another man, to meet the Indian 
delegation. The parley was conducted under 
the range of the guns of the garrison. 

Calbert demanded a surrender of the fort 
at discretion, urging that the Indians knew 
its weak condition, and that an unconditional 



surrender might save much bloodshed. He 
further said that he had sent a force of war- 
riors up the Ohio, to intercept the succor for 
which the whites had sent a messenger. He 
gave the assurance that he would do his best 
to save the lives of the prisoners, except in 
the case of a few whom the Indians had 
sworn to butcher. He gave the garrison one 
hour to form a conclusion. 

The delegates from the whites promised 
that if the Indians would leave the country, 
the inmates of the fort would abandon it with 
all haste. Calbert'agreed to submit this prop- 
osition to the council, and was at the point 
of returning when a Mr. Music, whose fam- 
ily had been cruelly murdered, and another 
man at the fort, fired upon him and wounded 
him somewhat severely, 

The warriors were engaged a long time in 
council, and, by almost a seeming interposi- 
tion of Providence, the long- wished- for suc- 
cor arrived during the time in safety from 
the "Falls." The Indians had struck the 
river too high up, and thereby the boat es- 
caped The provisions and men were hui-ried 
into the iort, a new spirit seemed to possess 
every one, and active exertions were at once 
made to place the fort in position for a stcut 
resistance. The sick and the small children 
were placed beyond the reach of harm, and 
all the women and the 'children of any con- 
siderable size were instructed in the art of 
defense. 

Shortly after dark, the Indians attempted 
to steal on the fort and capture it; but in 
this being most decidedly frustrated, they 
assaulted the garrison and tried to storm it. 
The cannon had been placed in proper posi- 
tion to rake the walls, so when the " red- 
skins " mounted the ramparts, the ^cannon 
swept them off in heaps. The Indians, with 
hideous yells, and loud and savage demon- 
strations, kept up a streaming fii'e from their 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



15 



rifles upon the garrison, which, however, did 
but little execution. In this manner the bat- 
tle raged for hours; but at last the Indians 
were forced to fly fi-om the deadly cannon of 
the fort to save themselves from destruction. 
Calbert and other chiefs rallied them again, 
but the same result followed; they were 
again forced to fly, and all further efforts to 
rally them proved ineffectual. 

The whites were in constant fear that the 
fort would be fired by the Indians. This, 
indeed, was their gi-eatest fear. At one time 
a huge savage, painted for the occasion, 
gained the top of one of the block-hoiises and 
was applying fire to the roof, when he was 
shot dead by a white soldier. His body fell 
on the outside of the wall, and was can-ied 
off by his comi-ades. 

The Indians, satisfied they could not capt- 
ure the fort, abandoned the siege entirely, 
and, securing their dead and wounded, left 
the country. A large number of them had 
been killed and wounded, while none of the 
whites had been killed, and only a few 
wounded. The whites were 'rejoiced at this 
turn in affairs, as the number of Indians, 
and their ability to continue the siege, were 
calculated to terrify them. 

AVith all convenient speed, the fort was 
abandoned. Many of the soldiers, together 
with settlers who had taken refuge in the 
fort, moved to Kaskaskia. They proved the 
first considerable acquisition of American 
population in Illinois. Since then, Fort Jef- 
ferson has remained abandoned, and is now 
but marked by here and there certain shape- 
less moiuids and piles of debris that are in- 
distinguishable unless pointed out to the 
stranger. But this spot will ever retain a 
great interest to Americans, at least as long 
as the struggles and privations of those who 
pioneered the valley of the Mississippi retain 
a place in the memory of the American people. 



While it is true that this first attempt of the 
white men to make a habitation and a home 
within the immediate neighborhood of Cairo 
was abandoned and the people dispersed, the 
most of them coming to Illinois and making 
their homes in Kaskaskia, it was not wholly 
a failure in behalf of civilization. The little 
band, as brave and true heroes as ever fought 
upon the immortal fields of Thermopylae, 
had accomplished a great purpose — they had 
withstood the murderous midnight attack of 
the bloody, yelling fiends and drove them 
off. They taught him a bloody lesson, yet 
that is the only school a savage will learn in. 
This siege and battle were the first great step 
in making the shores of these rivers habit- 
able, and even though the fort was dismantled 
and abandoned, it is quite true it taught the 
savage to respect the power of the white 
man. It was not a long time after this de- 
ciding battle that we find the white man in 
his flat-boats, and soon in his keel-boats, in a 
small way commencing to carry on that great 
commerce that has since so filled the rivers, 
and dotted their shores with the pleasing evi- 
dences of civilization. This commerce of 
the flat-boat, the keel boat and the pirogue, 
continued to slowly increase and perform the 
scanty commerce of the day, until finally the 
steamboat ^ came, bearing upon its decks the 
great human revolution, that stands un- 
equaled in importance, and that will go on 
in its gi-eat effects forevei'. 

In 1795, William Bird, then a mere child, 
in company with his father's family, landed 
at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers. This family remained here only a 
short time, and then went to Cape Girardeau, 
where they resided, and in 1817 William 
Bird applied at the land office in Kaskaskia 
and entered the land mentioned in another 
part of this chapter. This family were the 
first white people, so far as can be now as- 



16 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



certained, that "ever put foot upon the spot 
now called Cairo. 

December 18, 1811. — The anniversary of 
this day the people of Cairo and its vicinity 
should never forget. It was the coming of 
the first steamboat to where Cairo now is — 
the New Orleans, Capt. Roosevelt, Command- 
ing. It was the severest day of the great 
throes of the New Madrid earthquake; at the 
same time, a fiery comet was rushing athwart 
the horizon. 

In the year 1809, Robert Fulton and Chan- 
cellor Livingston had commenced their im- 
mortal experiments to navigate by steam the 
Hudson River. As soon as this experiment 
was crowned with success, they turned their 
eyes toward these great Western water-ways. 
They saw that here was the greatest inland 
sea in all the world, but did they, think you, 
prolong their vision 'to the present time, and 
realize a tithe of the possibilities they were 
giving to the world ? They unrolled the map 
of this continent, and they sent Capt. Roose- 
velt to Pittsburgh, to go over the river from 
there to New Orleans, and report whether they 
could be navigated or not. He made the in- 
spection, and his favorable report resulted in 
the immediate construction of the steamer 
New Orleans, which was launched in Pitts- 
burgh in December, 1811. 

Could Capt. Roosevelt now come to us in 
his natural life, and call the good people of 
Cairo together and relate his experiences of 
the day he passed where Cairo now stands, 
it would be a story transcending, in thrilling 
interest, anything ever listened to by any now 
living. All fiction ever conceived by busy 
brains would be tame by the side of his truth- 
ful narrative. His boat passed out of the 
Ohio River and into the Mississippi River 
in the very midst of that most remarkable 
convulsion of nature ever known — the great 
New Madrid earthquake. As the boat came 



down the Ohio River, it had moored opposite 
Yellow Banks to coal, this having been pro- 
vided some time previously, and, while load- 
ing this on, the voyagers were approached by 
the squatters of the neighborhood, who in- 
quired if they had not heard strange noises 
on the river and in the woods in the course 
of the preceding day, and perceived the 
shores shake, insisting they had repeatedly 
felt the earth tremble. The weather was very 
hot; the air misty, still and dull, and though 
the sun was visible, like an immense glowing 
ball of copper, his rays hardly shed more 
than a mournful twilight on the surface of 
the water. Evening di'ew nigh, and with 
it some indications of what was passing 
around them became evident, for ever and 
anon they heard a rushing sound, violent 
splash, and finally saw large portions of the 
shore tearing away from the land and laps- 
ing into the watery abyss. An eye-witness 
says: " It was a startling scene — one could 
have heard a pin drop on deck. The crew 
spoke but little; they noticed, too, that the 
comet, for some time visible in the heavens, 
had suddenly disappeared, and every one on 
board was thunderstruck." 

The next day the portentous signs of this 
terrible natural convulsion increased. The 
trees that remained on shore were seen wav- 
ing and nodding without a wind. The voy- 
agers had no choice but to pursue their course 
down the stream, as all day this violence 
seemed only to increase. They had usually 
brought to, under the shore, but at all points 
they saw the high banks disappearing, over- 
whelming everything near or under them, 
particularly |many of the siuall craft that 
were in use in those days, carrying down to 
death many and ;many who had thus gone to 
shore in the hope of escaping. A large island 
in mid-channel, which had been selected 
by the pilot as the better alternative, was 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



17 



sought for in vain, having totally disap- 
peared, and thousands of acres, constituting 
the surrounding country, were found to have 
been swallowed up, with their gigantic 
growths of forest and cane. 

Thus, in doubt and terror, they proceeded 
hour after hour until dark, when they 
found a small island, and rounded to, moor- 
ing at the foot of it Here they lay, keeping 
watch on deck dm'ing the long night, listen- 
ing to the sound of waters which roared and 
whirled wildly around them, hearing, also, 
from time to time, the rushing earth slide 
from the shore, and the commotion of the 
falling mass as it became engulfed in the 
river. Thus, this boat, during the intensity 
of the earthquake, was moored almost in 
sight of Cairo; practically, it was at Cairo 
during the worst of the thi-ee worst nights. 

Yet the day that succeeded this awful night 
brought no solace in its dawn. Shock fol- 
lowed shock, a dense black cloud of vapor 
overshadowed the land, through which no sun- 
beam found its way to cheer the desponding 
heart of man. It seems incredible to us that 
the bed of the river could be so agitated as to 
lash the waters into yeasty foam, until the 
foam would gather in great bodies, said to 
be larger than floiir barrels, and float away. 
Again, it is still more incredible to be told 
that the waters of the two rivers were turned 
back upon themselves in swift streams, but 
these, and much more, are well-established 
facts. It is impossible now to depict all the 
wonderful phenomena of this world's won- 
der. There were wave motions, and perpen- 
dicular motions of the earth's surface, and 
there were, judging from eftects, as well as 
testimony of those who witnessed it, sudden 
risings and bursting of the earth's crust, from 
whence would shoot into the air many feet 
jets of water, sand and black shale. 

Just below New Madrid, a flat-boat belong- 



ing to Eichard Stump was swamped, and six 
men were drowned. Large trees disappeared 
under the ground, or were cast with fright- 
ful violence into the river. At times the 
waters of the river were seen to rise like a 
wall in the middle of the stream, and then 
suddenly rolling back, would beat against 
either bank with terrific force. Boats of con- 
siderable size were " high and dry" upon the 
shores of the river. Frequently a loud roar- 
ing and hissing were heard, like the escape 
of steam from a boiler. The air was impreg- 
nated with sulphurous effluvium, and a taste 
of sulphur was observed in the water of the 
river and the neighboring springs. Each 
shock was accompanied by what seemed to be 
the reports of heavy artillery. A man who 
was on the river in a boat at the time of one 
of the shocks declared that he saw the mighty 
Mississippi cut in twain, while the waters 
poured down a vast chasm into the bowels of 
the earth. A moment more and the chasm 
was tilled, but the boat which contained this 
witness was crushed in the tumultuous 
effort of the flood to regain its former level. 
The town of New Madrid, that had stood upon 
a blufif fifteen or twenty feet above the high- 
est water, sank so low, that the next rise of 
the water covered it to the depth of five feet. 
So far as can now be ascertained, but one 
person has put upon record his observations 
who saw it upon land. This was Mr. Bring- 
•ier, an engineer, who related what he saw 
to Sir Charles Lyell, in 1846. This account 
represents that he was on horseback near 
New Madrid, when some of the severest 
shocks occurred, and that, as the waves ad- 
vanced, he saw the trees bend down, and 
often, the instant afterward, when in the act 
of recovering their position, meet the boughs 
of other trees similarly inclined, so as to be- 
come interlocked, being prevented from 
rio-hting themselves again. The transit of the 



18 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



waves through the woods was marked by the 
crashing noise of countless branches, first 
heard on one side and then the other; at the 
same time, powerful jets of water, mixed 
with sand, loam, and bituminous shale, were 
cast up with such impetuosity that both 
horse and rider might have perished had the 
swelling and upheaving ground happened to 
burst immediately beneath them. Some of 
the shocks were perpendicular, while others, 
much more desolating, were horizontal, or 
moved along like great waves; and where the 
principal fountains of mud and water were 
throwD up, circular cavities, called "sink 
holes," were formed. One of the lakes thus 
formed is over sixty miles long and from 
three to twenty miles wide, and in places 
fifty to one hundred feet deep. In sailing 
over the sui'face of this lake, one is struck 
with astonishment at beholding the gigantic 
trees of the forest standing partially exposed 
amid the waste of waters, like gaunt, mysteri- 
ous monsters; but this mystery is still in- 
creased on casting the eye into the depths, 
to witness cane-brakes covering its bottom, 
over which a mammoth species of tortoise is 
sometimes seen dragging its slow length 
along, while millions of fish sport through 
the aquatic thickets — the whole constituting 
one of the remarkable features of American 
scenery. 

In that part of the country that borders 
upon what is called the "sunk country" — that 
is, depressions upon which lakesdidnot form 
— all the trees prioi: to the date of the'great 
earthquake are dead. Their leafless, barkless, 
and finally branchless bodies stood for many 
years as noticeable objects and monuments of 
the earth's agitation, that was to that terrific 
extent as to break them and wholly loosen 
from them the supporting soil. 

As before stated, the severest shocks were 
the first three days, but they lasted for thi-ee 



months. In many sections, the people dis- 
covered the opening seams ran generally in 
a parallel course, and they took advantage of 
this by felling trees at right angles, and in 
severe shocks even the children learned to 
cling upon these, and thus many were saved. 

Were we wrong in stating that the coming 
of the first steamboat to Cairo was a most 
memorable event? 

Such, indeed, faintly described, were some 
of the smToundings amid which the steamer 
New Orleans rode out of the troubled waters 
of the Ohio and into the yet worse troubled 
waters of the Mississippi Siver. It was 
natiu'e's grandest exhibition. It was the 
coming of the first steamboat in such awful 
surroundings that made such a strange meet- 
ing of the excited energies of nature and a 
human thought — a silent thought of man's 
brain fashioned into a steam engine, propel- 
ling a boat by this new idea upon the West- 
ern waters! What grandeur, and awful force 
and terror in the one, and, compared to it 
how feeble and insignificant the human prod- 
uct! How one, in its terrific grandeur, could 
change the whole face of our country in a 
moment, and make the feeble steamboat ap- 
pear as insignificant as the cork upon the 
storm-tossed ocean. A strange meeting of 
the two — those two things in the world which 
are so misread, and have been so long mis- 
understood by men! When nature puts on 
her suit of riot and force and begins the 
play of those fantastic tricks, men's souls 
are affrighted, and they fall upon their knees 
— rthose, often, who never did so before — and 
their feeble voices of supplication would ap- 
pease the storm or stop the earth's throes. 
The unusual display of the forces of nature 
appal men, and they worship what they con- 
ceive to be irresistible power. Hence, a 
country of earthquakes, tornadoes, cyclones 
and storms is very religious, and generally 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



19 



full of superstition. A couDtry where lurks 
danger and perils upon every hand unseen — 
dangers that accumulate like the horrors of 
the nightmare — will produce in the human 
mind little else than superstition and quak- 
ing fears; the horrible di'ead ingulfs them 
like a living hell, till the very soul responds 
to the hideous surroundings. Man is so con- 
stituted, he will bow down and worship what 
he fears, especially when it is an unseen, re- 
sistless power, displayed in such appalling 
force as to enfeeble and dwarf his intellect. 

The ignorant squatters along the river — 
that is, some of them — had only known that 
the first steamboat and the great eai'thquake 
had come here together. It was firmly be- 
lieved that it was this flying in the face of 
God, and making a boat run with " bilin' 
water," that caused the earthquake. " Pre- 
sumptuous man had boiled the water, when, 
if God had wanted it to boil, he would have 
so made it. " People had navigated the river 
in flat-boats, keel-boats and canoes, and under 
these the glad rivers went singing to the sea. 
But Jman must come with his fire boat, and 
the earth went into convulsions, and ten'or 
and desolation brooded over the land. God 
was mysterious, and man presumptuous. 
The earth indeed trembled when He frowned, 
and man must learn to be meek and humble; 
he was but as the grass that was mowed down 
by the scythe — a breath, a passing vapor. 

But even the less ignorant of men — could 
he comprehend that in this boat was a great 
human thought, a wonderful invention of 
man? He could see the weak hands of men 
guiding and controlling it. It's a mere toy 
and child's play, and he looks at it a moment 
in childish curiosity, perhaps smiles ap- 
provingly upon it. It's all a momentary 
pastime with him. It's too feeble to do more 
than receive a passing notice. 



Think of it! The thoughts and inventions 
of genius are the one only powerful thing 
among men — they and their effects alone 
endure forever. All else passes away and is 
forgotten. In a little while, only the' traces 
of the great'earthquake, even, can be found 
and pointed out, while the steam engine has 
been the first, the great power that has done 
more for civilization and human advancement 
in the past fifty years than all else combined. 
From this one feeble, imperfect boat has 
come the world's Armada, that now plows 
the waves of every river and sea, until the 
busy world upon the waters and its wealth 
of nations almost equals that upon land. It 
is ever present — ever living — ever growing 
in might, power and the welfare of the whole 
human family. The earthquake, in its efifects 
upon mankind, compared to the engine, was 
as the mote to a world — a di-op of water com- 
pared to the ocean. No one thing in the his- 
tory of the human family has so contributed to 
the good of the human race, as the engine be- 
cause it opened the way and made possible the 
sweeping advance of the past three-quarters of 
a century. Remember, since the engine came, 
the average of human life has been increased 
ten years; man knows now, where he guessed 
and feared before. In no century, in all the 
world's history, has civilization made such 
great strides forward as this. It made possible 
all those comforts and necessities we now en- 
joy. It has lightened the laboi's and burdens of 
men, and given the mind a chance to work. It 
has cheapened food, clothing, books and in- 
telligence itself, and is gathering momentum 
as it goes. "Who may guess, who may dream 
of the ^'et benign and good effects to man 
that lay hidden in that gi-and and sublime 
thought of Fulton's that gave us the power 
of steam ? 

Then, indeed, what a great, what an im- 



20 



HISTOKY OF CAIRO. 



mortal thing, was the first steamboat upon 
the Western waters! What a temporary 
thing was the earthquake that received it! 

Had the 18th day of December, 1811, only 
been signaled by any one of the three events 
above referred to, it would have constituted 
it a memoi'able day. But the wonderful com- 
bination of events makes it out most prom- 
inently in the calendar, as a day calling up 
the most vivid and important recollections of 
any other in the country's history. Suitable 
monuments along the river from Pittsburgh 
to New Orleans should be placed sacred to 
the memory of Capt. Roosevelt. 

As soon as the steamboat New Orleans had 
made its successful trip from Pittsburgh to 
New Orleans and return, the commerce of 
the Western waters really began to grow, and 
although it was six years after this success- 
ful steam voyage on the Ohio before a steam- 
boat attempted the waters of the Upper Mis- 
sissippi as far as St. Louis, yet Cairo soon 
began to attract the attention of river and 
commercial men as an important trans-ship- 
ping point. 

The steamboat Orleans was furnished 
with a propelling wheel at the stern and two 
masts; for Fulton believed, at that time,|,that 
the occasional use of sails would be indis- 
pensable. Her capacity was a hundred tons. 

The first appearance of this steamboat 
upon Western waters produced, as the reader 
may suppose, not a little excitement and 
admiration. A steamboat, to common observ- 
ers, was almost as great a wonder as a flying 
angel would be at present. The banks of 
the river, in some places, were thronged with 
spectators, gazing, in speechless astonish- 
ment, at the puffing and smoking phenome- 
non. The average speed of this boat was 
only about three miles per hour. Before her 
ability to move through the water without 
the aid of sails or oars had been exemplified, 



comparatively few persons believed she could 
possibly be made to answer any purpose of 
real utility. In fact, she had made several 
voyages before the general prejudice began 
to subside, and for some months many of the 
river merchants preferred the old mode of 
transportation with all its risks, delays and 
extra expense, rather than make use of such 
a contrivance as a steamboat, which, to their 
apprehensions, appeared too marvelous and 
miraculous for the business of every-dav life. 
How slow are the masses of mankind to 
adopt improvements, even when they appear 
to be most obvious and unquestionable! 

The second steamboat of the West wars a 
diminutive vessel called the Comet. She was 
rated at twenty-five tons. Daniel D. Smith 
was the owner and D. French the builder of 
this boat. Her machinery was on a plan for 
which French had obtained a patent in 1809. 
She went to Louisville in the summer of 

1813, and descended to New Orleans in the 
spring of 1814 She afterward made two 
voyages to Natchez, and was then sold, taken 
to pieces, and the engine was put up in a 
cotton factory. 

The Vesuvius was the next boat in the 
record. She was built by Fulton in Pitts- 
burgh, for a company, the members of which 
resided in New York, Philadelphia and New 
Orleans. She was under Capt. Frank Ogden, 
and went to New Orleans in the spring of 

1814. From New Orleans, she started for 
Louisville in July of the same year, but was 
grounded on a bar, seven hundred miles up 
the river, where she remained until the 3d 
of December following, when, being floated 
off by the tide, she returned to New Or- 
leans. In 1815-16, she made trips, for sev- 
eral months, from New Orleans to Natchez, 
under the command of Capt. Clement. 
This gentleman was succeeded by Capt, 
John De Hart, and while approaching New 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



21 



Orleans with a valuable cargo on board, she 
took fire and burned to the water's edge. 
After being submerged several months, the 
hull was raised and refitted. She was after- 
ward in the Louisville trade, and condemned 
in 1819. 

The Enterprise was the next boat in the 
West. She was built at Brownsville, Penn., 
by D. French, under his patent, and was 
owned by several residents of that place. 
This was a small boat of seventy-five tons. 
She made two voyages to Louisville in 1814, 
under the command of Capt. J. Gregg. On 
the 1st of December in the same year, she con- 
veyed a cai'go of ordnance stores from Pitts- 
burgh to New Orleans. While at the last- 
named port, she was pressed into seiwice by 
Gen. Jackson. When engaged in the public 
service, she was eminently useful in trans- 
porting troops, arms, ammunition and stores 
to the seat of war. She left New Orleans for 
Pittsburgh on the 6th of May, 1815, and 
reached Louisville after a passage of twenty- 
five days, thus completing the fii'st steam- 
boat voyage ever made from New Orleans to 
Louisville. But from the fact that the 
waters were very high, and she run all the 
cut-offs and over fields, etc., this experi- 
mental trip was not satisfactory, the public 
being still in doubt whether a steamboat 
could ascend the Mississippi when the river 
was confined within its banks, and the cur- 
rent as rapid as it generally is. 

Such was the state of public opinion when 
the steamboat Washington commenced her 
career. This vessel, the fifth in the cata- 
logue of Western steamboats, was constructed 
under the personal superintendence and 
direction of Capt. Henry M. Shreve. The 
hull was built at Wheeling, Va., and the 
engines were made at Brownsville, Penn. 
The entire construction of the boat couiprised 
various innovations, which were 



suggested 



by the ingenuity and experience of Capt. 
Shreve. The Washington was the first "two 
decker" on the Western waters. The cabin 
was placed between the decks. It had 
been the general practice for steamboats to 
carry their engines in the hold; in this par- 
ticular Capt. Shreve made a new arrange- 
ment, by placing the boiler of the Washing- 
ton on deck, and this plan was such an ob- 
vious improvement that all the steamboats 
on the waters retain it to the present day. 
The engines constructed under Fulton's pat- 
ent had upright and stationary cylinders; in 
French's engines vibrating cylinders were 
used. Shreve caused the cylinders of the 
Washington to be placed in a horizontal 
position, and gave the vibrations to the pit- 
man, Fulton and French used single low- 
pressure engines; Shreve employed a double 
high-pressure engine, with cranks at right 
angles, and this was the first engine of that 
kind ever used on the Western waters. Mr. 
David Prentice had previously used cam 
wheels for working the valves of the cylinder. 
Capt Shi'evo added his great invention of 
the cam cut-off, with flues to the boilers, by 
which three-fifths of the fuel was saved. 
These impr vements originated with Capt, 
Shreve, but although they have been in uni- 
versal use for a long [time, their origin has 
not been properly credited to the rightful 
inventor. 

On the 24th day of September, 1816, the 
Washington passed over the Falls of Ohio on 
her first trip to New Orleans, and returned to 
Louisville November following. While at 
New Orleans, the ingenuity of her construc- 
tion excited the admiration of the most in- 
telligent citizens of that place. Edward 
Livingston, after a critical examination of 
the boat and her machinery, remarked to Capt. 
Shi'eve, "You deserve well of your country, 
young man; but we [referring to Fulton 



32 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



and Livingston's monopoly] shall be com- 
pelled to beat you [in the courts] if we can." 

An accumulation of ice in the Ohio com- 
pelled the Washington to remain at the 
Falls until March 12, 1817. On that day she 
commenced her second trip to New Orleans. 
She accomplished this trip and returned to 
Shippingsport, at the foot of the Falls, in 
forty-one days. The ascending voyage was 
made in twenty-five days, and from this voy- 
age all historians date the commencement of 
steam navigation in the Mississippi Valley. 
It was now practically demonstrated, to the 
satisfaction of the public in general, that 
steamboats could ascend this river in less 
than one-fourth the time which the bai'ges 
and keel boats had required for the same 
purpose. This feat of the Washington pro- 
duced almost as much popular excitement 
and exultation in that region as the battle of 
New Orleans. The citizens of Louisville 
gave a public dinner to Capt. Shreve, at 
which he predicted the time would come 
when the trip from New Orleans to Louis- 
ville would be made in ten days. Although 
this may have been regarded as a boastful 
declaration at that time, the prediction has 
been more than fulfilled; for as early as 
1853, the trip was made in four days and 
nine hours. 

After that memorable voyage of the Wash- 
ington, all doubts and prejudices in reference 
to steam navigation were removed. Shipyards 
began to be established in every convenient lo- 
cality, and the business of steamboat build- 
ing was vigorously prosecuted. But a new 
obstacle now presented itself, which for a 
time threatened to give an effectual check 
to the spirit of enterprise and progression 
which had just been developed. We refer to 
the claims made by Fulton and Livingston 
to the exclusive right of steam navigation on 
the rivers of the United States. This claim 



being resisted by Capt. Shreve, the Washing- 
ton was attached at New Orleans, and taken 
possession of by the Sheriff. When the case 
came for adjudication before the District 
Court of Louisiana, that tribunal promptly 
negatived the exclusive privileges claimed 
by Livingston and Fulton, which were decided 
to be unconstitutional. The monopoly claims 
of L. and F. were finally withdrawn in 1819, 
and the last restraint on the steamboat 
navigation of the Western rivers was thus 
removed, leaving AVestern enterprise and 
energy full liberty to carry on the great work 
of improvement. This work has been so 
progressive, that at one time no less than 800 
steamboats were in operation on the Ohio and 
Mississippi Rivers; and here this mode of 
navigation has been carried on to a degree 
of perfection unrivaled in any other part of 
the world. 

In the year 1818, William Bird, now de- 
ceased, entered the extreme point of land on 
the peninsula formed by the junction of the 
two rivers, and known in the Congressional 
Survey as the southeast quarter of Section 
25, and all of Fractional Section 36, the two 
tracts aggi'egating about three hundred and 
sixty acres; but for some years the land lay 
unimproved and neglected. From this 
ownership by Mr. Bird, the locality took the 
name of Bird's Point, by which name it was 
designated for nearly twenty years. 

Shortly after Bird's entry, a company was 
formed, at the head of which was a man 
named Comegys, and apparently in good 
faith set about the work of building a city 
here that should anticipate the wants of 
men and commerce for all time to come. 
They obtained a charter for that purpose, 
under the name and style of the "City and 
Bank Company of Cairo." This company 
foresaw the Illinois Central Eailroad, and 
here, so far as the facts can now be gathered, 



HISTOKY OF CAIRO. 



23 



was the first tangible idea of this great rail- 
road put forth to the world. There was no 
Chicago then to build a road to; there was 
little or nothing in the central or northern 
portion of the State demanding highway 
privileges and commercial rights, and yet 
the idea was formulated that, in the course of 
time, was worked out to h most successful issue. 
The particulars of this corporation, and its 
struggles and its end, are given in another 
chapter. Sufficient to say here, that the com- 
pany ceased to exist, and had left untouched 
the great old forest trees that covered the 
town site when first discovered. This first 
failure had hardly attracted any public at- 
tention to Cairo. The majority who had 
come to know the country believed that a 
city would arise somewhere here on the pen- 
insula, but they were mostly convinced that 
it must be built back upon the hills, and not 
upon the point that all could see was subject 
to frequent inundations. Henry L. Webb 
and a few others, therefore, had started, as 
far back as 1817, the town of Trinity, at the 
mouth of Cache River, six miles above Cairo, 
on the Ohio River. This had grown to be a 
steamboat landing, and in very early times 
the place could boast a boat store, a tavern, a 
bar and a billiard soloon, but for ten years 
after this first abortive attempt to settle, 
" the smoke of no adventurer's hovel gave 
gloom to Cairo's canopy," and the unbroken 
silence remained with the " neck of the 
woods," where the future Cairo was to be. 

In 1828, John and Thompson Bird, the 
sons of William Bird, made the first improve- 
ment here. They selected the spot a few 
hundred 'feet south of the present Halliday 
House, and, bringing their slaves over from 
Missouri, threw up a sufficient embankment 
to protect a building which they erected 
about twenty-five by thirty-five feet in 
dimensions, and in a short time after the^ 



erected another building, between this and 
the river, which was about twenty feet 
square, and was placed on piles, as a security 
against the water. The first building was a 
tavern, and the latter a store, and for several 
years it was only the chance flat- boatman that 
circumstances compelled to land here and 
get a few supplies for his crew that fur- 
nished customers to these Alexander Selkirks. 
Bacon, whisky and flour were the only com- 
modities wanted by any of the customers of 
those days. The next season after the Birds 
had taken possession, a wood-chopper put up 
a shanty near their imjuovement, and in this 
he lived and chopped wood, and piled it on 
the bank, waiting for some boat to come 
along and want it. The wood-chopper made 
a very little impression on the big trees 
around him, and the Birds had only a small 
spot cleared and cleaned off, so as to have a 
little breathing room, as well as a place to 
receive and pass out the goods they handled. 
In 1831, only about five acres had been cut 
away, and this lay in a narrow strip along 
the banks of the Ohio, and extended no 
fui'ther north than to about where is now 
Second street. Until 1835, Trinity continued 
to be the commanding and promising point. 
In this year, Messrs. Breese, Swanwick, 
Baker, Gilbert and others began to give the 
point their open attention, and they entered 
several thousand acres of land, including all 
that portion between the two rivers up to 
and beyond Cache River. They had in view 
the future possibilities of the place as a point 
for a city, but having secvu'ed the land, mat- 
ters remained quiet for some time. The next 
step taken was on the IGth day of January, 
1830, when a charter was granted a com- 
pany, by the Illinois Legislature, to build 
the Illinois Central Railroad. 

February 27, 1837. the State of Illinois 
passed the General Improvement Bill — better 



24 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



known to the immediate posterity of these 
early statesmen as the General Insanity Bill 
— which resulted in a wide-spread bankruptcy, 
and seriously threatened, at one time, to ruin 
the State for nearly all time to come. This 
State scheme df making all the improvements 
swallowed up all charters that had been 
granted to private parties, and, among the 
others, the charter for the construction of th6 
Illinois Central Railroad; and, as a specimen 
of what aji insane State could do, the 
Legislatui'e appropriated (not having a dol- 
lar, it seems, in the treasury) $3,500,000 for 
the building of this last-named road. 

On the 4th day of March, 1S37, the Cairo 
City & Canal Company was chartered by 
the Illinois Legislature. This was the final 
act and organization that led to founding a 
city here, and of the charter and laws and the 
official acts of the company, and their 
failures, etc. , we refer the reader to another 
chapter, where these matters are given in 
their order and at length. 

This company purchased, on credit, vast 
bodies of land, including the Bird tract, and 
pretty much all lands on the peninsula, to 
and beyond Cache River. The master-spirit 
of the enterprise, as soon as it was success- 
fully started, was Darius B. Holbrook, of 
Boston. The company, apparently, cared 
not what price it agreed to pay for the land; 
so the title was secured, that seemed enough. 
The daring, and doubtless unscrupulous, 
leader of this company, even in those days of 
little money and natural economy, seemed to 
talk and think of money in sums of never 
less than millions. He expected to borrow 
immense sums, and stake these over-bar- 
gained lands as the security for the vast 
amount of money wherewith to improve the 
lands and build the city; and, remarkable as 
it may be, did so borrow money, and had 
arranged for it to be advanced by the million, 



sure enough. While such success shows 
there must have been method in his madness, 
yet his whole idea, after he had secured the 
money, was a piece of madcap folly. When 
he found it possible to find other men to 
furnish the money for him to expend, he was 
at once seized with the idea that, with money 
enough, he could build a great city, and the 
whole thing, when completed, would be as 
much of a private piece of property as would be 
a large factory, steam mill, or, for that matter, 
a block of private residences. His theory 
was to se] 1 no property about the town, except 
the bonds and stocks. No one could buy a 
lot and build upon it and own it. You could 
not buy an inch of the city grounds; but you 
could buy the bonds, and, upon this insane 
idea, he went to Europe and hypothecated 
the city bonds to the amount of more than 
$2,000,000, and returned to Cairo with the 
first installment of this money, and com- 
menced the stupendous work upon a stupen- 
dous scale. The only parallel to the vast 
scheme was the State's craze on the internal 
improvement folly. It is amusing to conjec- 
ture what Holbrook would have done had he 
been backed by a limitless supply of money. 
He evidently would have left some wrecks 
here, the like of which the world had never 
seen, while his cold, selfish, Yankee instincts 
would have made a heavy per cent of all the 
money that passed through his hands stick 
in his fingers. Thus, iu the end, he would 
have grown immensely rich; but it is not at 
all certain he ever would have erected a town 
here. 

When he roturned from Europe, he issued 
a flaming address — a kind of open letter ad- 
dressed to all the world — full of as much 
fulsome nonsense and after the style of Na- 
poleon's address to his soldiers. It can only 
be guessed why he issued these flaming ad- 
dresses. He was not seeking purchasers for 





o^ 



/ 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



his town property, for he had nothing to sell, 
and the addresses were not got up to draw 
renters. The only excuse there can be for 
their existence was to brag on himself, and, 
in the common slang, "blow his own horn." 

If Cairo has had any parallel, either in its 
commencement or in much that has occurred 
in its history during its progress, we are not 
aware of it. Its very first building was a 
tavern, its second a store, and then came the 
first natural growth — the woodman' s shanty. 
Then the next effort was to found a city by 
starting a wild-cat bank, and then came Hoi- 
brook and his idea of a city and the inhabitants 
all stockholders, while he and his company 
were the real owners. But Holbrook was at 
least in earnest about the building of levees 
around the town, to keep out the water. As 
soon as be secm-ed the money, he made con- 
tracts with S. & H. Howard, J. H. McMurry, 
Murphy and others, and these contractors 
brought on laborei's here in large numbers. 
Many of these brought their families, and, 
in hastily constructed shanties and huts, they 
went to living, "keeping boarders," and put- 
ting on those airs which belong to a city that 
has grown in a night. Mr. Walter Falls had 
a store on a boat, moored at the levee, but its 
capacity for furnishing supplies was wholly 
inadequate, and passing boats were called 
upon to help fm'nish the people with some of 
the necessaries of life. The State also threw 
a large number of men here to work on the 
Illinois Central Railroad, so that the demand 
for flour, bacon and coffee was still increased 
to that extent that often loaded flat-boats 
would stop here, and sell out the cargoes 
they had intended for farther south. 

A population reaching 2.000 souls were 
thus thrown suddeuly together, and affairs 
had much the appearance of one of those 
mining towns that jump into existence so 
suddenly, and sometimes seem to jump out 



quite as quickly. But the people believed 
everything was permanent; they, therefore, 
proceeded in due form to organize a regular 
form of government, and appoint the neces- 
sary officers to carry out its edicts. As Jus- 
tices of the Peace, Mr. Mai'sh and ]Mr. Mc- 
Cord were chosen, and two lawyers decorated 
a couple of shanty doors with their shin- 
gles; these were Mr. Gass (good legal name) 
and a JNIr. McCrillis. A post office was at 
once established, and Squire Marsh was ap- 
pointed Postmaster. In addition to being 
Postmaster, he had to receive and forward all 
mails, and in a short time this task was 
worth three or foiu* times the whole salary of 
the office. A Dr. Cummings hung out his 
banner on the outer walls, and called the sick 
and afflicted to come to him for quinine and 
calomel. The Catholic element, mindful of 
their religious obligations, set about the prep- 
aration of a place for the public worship 
of God. As they were limited alike in means 
and building materials, and as they desired 
to siibserve only a temporary purpose, they 
satisfied themselves with a rough, board- 
roofed shanty in the depths of the convenient 
woods. In the forks of one of the trees over- 
shadowing their unpretending chvu'ch build- 
ing, they suspended a bell, and this, every 
Sunday morning and evening, rang out 
through the deep woods and over the face of 
the suiTounding waters the call of " Come, 
and let us worship." • Such was the first 
organization of municipal, governmental and 
church matters in Cairo, as well as the first 
lawA'ers. and the first doctor and the first 
people. Such was the young city at the 
commencemeut of the year 1841. At this 
time, the firm of Bellews, Hathaway & Gil- 
bert secui'ed a charter for iron works, and 
they opened their establishment. It was filled 
with all the finest machinery that could be 
procured in England. At the time, it ranked 



38 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



among the completest establishments of its 
kind in the United States, and as it was run 
to its fullest capacity, it gave Jabor to a large 
force of men. These works were erected about 
where is now the corner of Twelfth street and 
the Ohio levee. Near the iron works were 
two large saw mills, of great capacity each, 
and they were busily at work converting the 
big trees of the adjacent forest into lumber 
for building jDurposes and railroad timbers. 
The company had revived the old City Bank 
of Cairo — a bank of issue, and, by law, was 
temporarily located at Kaskaskia, and this 
money was scattered profusely about the 
town. By some favored arrangement, the 
money of this wild-cat bank was taken at the 
Kaskaskia Land Office, while much better 
money from Indiana and Ohio was refused 
there. The company had erected a long 
frame hotel at the point— its great length, 
and its verandas extending fi'om one end to 
the other, all painted white, made it a con- 
spicuous landmark in approaching Cairo. Its 
landlord was a man named Jones, and in 
these flush times it was at all times thronged 
with the chief men of the town and travelers 
awaiting the arrival and departure of boats 
to carry them on their intended way. A 
planing mill of mammoth proportions was 
erected near the corner of Eighth and Com- 
mercial streets. Two brick-yards, each sup- 
plied with the latest patents for turning out 
brick by the many thousand daily, from diy, 
compressed earth, were erected. These were 
then located in what is called Upper Cairo. 
The company had erected a dry dock, at a 
cost of over $35,000, and notwithstanding 
a heavy force of carpenters were erecting 
buildings in every direction, yet, so m-gent 
was the demand for houses of any and every 
kind, that Col. Falls had moored at the levee 
the hull of the steamer Peru, and a IVIr. 
Thompson had also brought the steamer 



Asia to the wharf for the same purpose. In 
short, the entire levee soon became a compact 
mass of wharf- boat hotels, stores, residences, 
boarding-houses and business places of every 
kind. Here was a little busy city on boats 
moored to the shore. Everything and every- 
where about Cairo bespoke a_marvelous thrift 
— all was at high pressure, and the wonder 
of the age had come at last. And all over 
the land the contagion spread. Along the 
rivers, from Pittsbui'g and St. Louis to Xew 
Orleans its name grew, and crossing the 
Alleghanies and over the Eastern States, and, 
pushed by the great banking-house of Wright 
& Co., of London, which had taken over 
$2,000,000 in the Cairo bonds, and who were 
interested in advertising it all over Europe 
in the most unqualified and extravagant 
terms, until apparently the large portion of 
the civilized world looked, at least, and as- 
certained where this remarkable young city 
was located on the world's map. Never was 
more thorough, elaborate or expensive adver- 
tising done for any place than that for Cairo. 
Flaming prospective views of the city in 
splendid lithographs were hung upon the 
walls of steamboats, hotels, halls and other 
public places, and to all these were added 
the potency of a great young State, advertis- 
ing, by its legislative acts, this great South Sea 
Bubble, or, as Cairo was modestly then 
called in the proclamations of Holbrook, the 
" great commercial and manufacturing mart 
and emporium." 

The State had literally bankrupted itself, 
and perforce wound up its Utopian schemes. 
Its folly had very nearly universally bank- 
rupted the entire people. The whole coun- 
try was ripe for a panic and contraction, and 
the probe of a solid specie basis pricked, of 
course, the Cairo bubble, and the crash of 
tumbling air castles, and the haK-comj)leted 
real ones, carried everything with them, and 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



29 



left the Cairo City k Canal CompaBy 
biiried beneath a mountain of debris. We 
have already shown the inherent defects 
there were in the Holbrook idea of founding 
and building a great city, but in a sketch by 
M. B. Harrell, published in 1864, he gives 
the following as his conclusions as to the 
immediate and remote causes of the collapse 
of the town: 

" There are many causes," he says, "which 
contributed to the downfall of Cairo, but the 
chief cause alleged is the failui'e of the house 
of Wright & Co., London, through whom 
the company anticipated continued loans. 
But this is by no means the sole cause. The 
suspension of work on the Illinois Central 
Railroad, the great artery of trade and traffic 
upon which so much depended, and the gen- 
eral abandonment of the system of public 
works inaugurated by the State in 1837, 
seemed to affect the piablic at large, and 
so seriously enervated the enterprise of Cairo. 
And, again, it is directly taught, by the his- 
tory of the whole country, that no man, set of 
men or corporation, can create and success- 
fully conduct such a monstrous monopoly as 
that attempted at the contiuence of these 
rivers by D. B. Holbrook & Co. Even per- 
sonal liberty and freedom of thought were 
broucjht in direct antafjconism to this sinofu- 
lar undertaking. The proje^it amounted to 
no more nor less than an attempt on the part 
of these men to build, own and direct a city 
at the mouth of the Ohio River. At no price, 
in no shape or form, could a resident of this 
city, under the Holbrook auspices, become a 
freeholder. He could not piirchase, he could 
not lease, or otherwise acquire a title in a 
single foot of ground within the proposed 
city. If he occupied a dwelling, this com- 
pany owned it, and consequently he lived in 
it only during the pleasiu'e of this * Lord of 
the manor.' If ordered to vacate, he could 



not quarter himself in a hotel or boarding- 
house and bid his persecutor defiance, for 
even that was held by the all- pervading 
power. No house or hotel anywhere within 
the prescribed limits of the corporation could 
be erected or destroyed, imless Holbrook ex- 
ercised the power of controlling the manner 
and means, and designating the time and 
place for such erection or destruction. And 
his powers, or what is the same thing, 
the powers of the Cairo City & Canal Com- 
pany, terminated not here. A coi'rupt or an 
imbecile Legislature conferi-ed upon that 
company the dangerous authority to establish 
all the rules and regulations for the govern- 
ment of the municipality that a ^Ihyor and a 
Board of Councilmen, selected from amongst 
the people might, as a body, establish. It 
was for D. B. Holbrook, or what is the same, 
the Cairo City & Canal Company, to define 
offenses and prescribe their punishment; to 
declare, by fixing wharfage at a rate that 
would amount to a prohibition, that steam- 
boats should cease landing at this delta: to 
say what style of living or existing should 
amount to vagabondage, and affix the penal- 
ty; to declare a levy of taxes, and enforce its 
collection; and to expend these taxes as he 
elected, whether for the advantage of the 
piiblic or the fiu-therauce of the aims of his 
bantling, the Cairo City & Canal Company. 
In short, D. B. Holbrcjok, as the Cairo City 
& Canal Company, at a late hour in his 
career here, to wit, on the 17th February, 
1871, were clothed by the then sitting, 
thoughtless or villainous Legislature of 
Illinois, with all the powers conferi-ed upon 
the Board of Aldei-men of the City of Quincy, 
as defined between the First and Forty-fifth 
Sections of the charter of that city; an<l these 
grants of power the same Legislature con- 
firmed for a period of ten years. It is, per- 
haps true that he never exercised any legal 



30 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



despotism, or felt any disposition to exercise 
it, but the mere reposition of such alarming 
privileges in one man, and that man charged 
with the control of the material affairs of the 
city, could have but exercised a most enervat- 
ing and desti-uctive influence upon the proj- 
ect in hand, and of itself ultimately insured 
the overthrow and destruction of the enter- 
prise." 

From 1839 to 1841, a little more than two 
years of Cairo's first glory, there ^ was spent 
here by Holbrook's company, or the founda- 
tions laid for spending, the whole of the 
$1,250,000 that he had arranged for in 
Europe, and when to this is added the actua 1 
expenditures made by the State, and the pros ■ 
pective future expenditure of the $3,500,000 
by the State on the Illinois Central road, 
the wonder is ^there were not more than two 
thousand people gathered here. Nearly every 
one of these must have been needed as em- 
ployes in the vast enterprises commenced 
and projected. When the work was stopped 
by Holbrook's company, the two levees run- 
ning along the shores of eacli river, joining at 
the south end and forming a levee, were com- 
pleted, and were of a height and strength then 
determined by the company' s engineers to be 
amply sufficient for protection from inunda- 
tion. The base of the levee was forty feet, a 
top width of twelve feet, with an easy descent 
on the outside of one foot perpendicularly to 
seven feet horizontally. In 1843, Mr. M. A. 
Gilbert constructed the cross levee. As said 
above, a splendid dry dock and ship -yard 
had been established, and, under the super- 
intendence of Capt. Garrison, a well-known 
river man, the steamer Tennessee Valley had 
fceen built, and the iron work for this vessel 
had been turned out by the Cairo Foundry 
Works, and thus a complete vessel, of first- 
class quality, had been fitted out and wholly 
completed by Cairo skill alone. 



As the existence of Cairo, under Holbrook's 
auspices, ran only through about three years, 
and as much of that time was exhausted in 
the procurement of lands and means to im- 
prove them, and in the erection of saw mills 
and the opening of quarries and brick-yards 
to provide building materials, but few build- 
ings were erected, whether for residence or 
business houses. According to the best data 
to be obtained, we have it represented that 
the first building put up by the company was 
the additioE to the Cairo Hotel, situated on 
the point; then the Bellews House was erected 
next; then the machine shops; Holbrook's 
spacious residence, on the spot now occupied 
by the Halliday House; the planing mills, 
and some twenty cottages. These, with a 
number of shanties, that stood at the mercy 
of Holbrook, as his order to tear them down 
at any time would have been like the edict of 
a tyrant, were the sum total of Cairo's im- 
provements in this line even in this zenith of 
her glory. But a great many others were 
contemj)lated, and a few had been commenced 
before the crash came. An immense stone 
foundation, near what is now the corner of 
Sixth street and the Ohio levee, was nearly 
completed, upon which was to be erected the 
" Great London Warehouse, " that was to 
eclipse, in point of size, elegance and general 
finish, the monster warehouse of like name 
in the City of London. 

The intentions of Holbrook's company, in 
regard to future building operations, is prob- 
ably truthfully shadowed forth in the follow- 
ing extract from one of the circulars issued 
about the time when the prospects for the 
town were the fairest: 

" The demand for bailding for every pur- 
pose and every description, encourages the 
company to use all the labor and force which 
can be advantageously employed to meet 
these apiilieations — in fact, the conclusion is 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



31 



iresistible, that the proper and requisite 
number of dwellings and places for business 
ai-e only wanting at Cairo to seom-e a popula- 
tion equal in number and character to any 
town in the West; and it will be evideot to 
every one that the advantages which the com- 
pany possess for building are very great, 
having their own forests of timber, saw mills, 
quarries of stone, lime and brick yards, and 
every other material required is obtainable 
in large quantities, and consequently at a 
reduced price ; and eveiy kind of labor which 
can be done, to save advantage, by use of 
steam power and machinery, will be adopted 
by the company and made available." 

This is appropriately chapter one of the 
history of Cairo. Abortive as the grand 



effort, or "splurge," to use a more truthful 
description of the occasion, was, it was the 
one final effort to lay the foundation upon 
which the present superstructure stands. A 
generation has passed away since that time, 
and of all the struggling, active, busy throng 
that were parties to this stirring [and hope- 
ful period, there are but very few now left 
us to tell over the story, and recall the hopes 
and fears and trials and triumphs that ani- 
mated their bosoms in those young days of 
their lives and of the city's life. The story 
is a remarkable one and fiill of interest, and 
contains a lesson, when properly 'read, that 
none can afford to pass by unnoticed, and that 
all may contemplate with pleasui'e and 
profit. 



CHAPTER 11. 



CRASH OF THE CAIRO CITY AND CANAL COMPANY IN 1841— THE EXODUS OF THE PEOPLE- 
PASTIMES AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THOSE WHO REMAIN— JUDGE GILBERT— HOW A RIOT 
WAS SUPPRESSED— BRYAN SHANNESSY— GRADUAL GROWTH OF THE 
TOWN AGAIN— THE RECORD BROUGHT DOWN TO 1853, ETC. 



IN the preceding chapter we told of the 
first gathering of the people here, and on 
what a grand scale they went to work to 
build a great city. How the Cairo City & 
Canal Company literally took charge of 
everything, and, by a profuse display of 
money, and work and high wages, it in- 
duced many hundreds of people to come and 
cast their fortunes with the rising young city; 
and how in a moment, when all seemed the 
most promising and cheerful, the whole 
thing vanished like a pricked bubble, and 
leaving nothing but grief and pain for 
promised joy to the many himdreds who felt 
they had been lured into the wilds by false rep- 
resentations, and bitterness and disappoint- 



ment took the place of hope and promise' 
As already intimated, when the crash came 
there had gathered here about two thousand 
people, and they were proceeding rapidly to 
gather about them all the appliances of civil- 
ized and municipal life. A man named T. 
J. Gass, mentioned in the preceding chapter, 
was teaching the first school in Cairo. It 
was a pay school, taught in a hastily con- 
structed building near where is now the cox-- 
nerof Twelfth street and Washington avenue. 
But when the failure of the city company 
came, everything of a public natiu-e, and 
even every private enterprise, stopped, and 
the work of depopulating at once set in and 
went forward with almost as much celerity as 



32 



HISTOKY OF CAIKO. 



had its gathering of people the year before. 
The post office, Col. Walter Falls, Postmas- 
ter, continued. It is said, as an evidence 
that the few left here were not writing to 
their friends for money to get away, that his 
salary often amounted to as much as $2. 15 
per^quarter. The Catholic Church, the only 
one regularly established here at that time, 
continued its work. The foundry tried to 
brave the storm, and continued to run when 
all else had apparently stopped forever, but 
the cross levee was not yet constructed, and 
the floods came in 1842, and, on the 22d day 
of March of that year, it put out its fur- 
naces, and forever afterward partook of the 
universal abandonment to quietude and decay. 
Col. Falls did continue his store, on his 
wharf-boat and his wharf-boat business until 
1846 or 1847, when he quitted the town and 
removed to a place once called " Ohio City," 
on the Missouri shore, a short distance 
below Cairo. 

So rapidly did the process of depopulation 
go on that in a few months there were not 
more than a score of families left. The flam- 
ing forges, the flying wheels, the clangor of 
machinery and the "music of the hammer 
and the saw" had died away, and given place 
to a quiet that could not have been far sur- 
passed had nature set upon the city the very 
signet of eternity . 

And now commenced, on the part of those 
who held unsatisfied claims against the com- 
pany, a legal effort to secure their own. 
Judgments were rendered, executions issued, 
and every article of movable property left 
or abandoned by the company, not excepting 
the fine machinery of the mills, shops and 
foundries, was seized upon and sold for a 
mere trifle under the hammer at public sale. 
The dry dock was either cut loose, or the 
high waters of 1842 swept it away in the 
flood, and as it approached the Kentucky 



shore it was seized under an execution for 
debt, sold, and taken to New Orleans and 
used at Algiers until the war, when the rebels 
converted it into one of their first formidable 
war vessels. 

For more than a year, the Cairo City & 
Canal Company, as if overpowered by their 
complete failure, appeared utterly careless of 
the wreck they had left behind them. The 
company had gone and chaos came, and there 
seemed to be no one left to look after or care 
for its property or its rights here. People 
moved into the houses that were deserted at 
will, where they had no landlord, no rents, 
no taxes, nor no care how soon it fell into 
decay or was used piece-meal for kindling the 
matutinal fires. The same with the land; 
whoever first fancied to take possession and 
cultivate any cleai*ed portion, did so without 
let or hindi'ance. We have spoken of the 
dangerous powers the Legislatui'e had placed 
in Holbrook's hands. Upon the sudden dis- 
appearance of this autocrat, with his excess 
of law and authority, the people were left at 
the other extreme, and possession now was 
sovereign, and, as a rule, every man was a 
law unto himself. 

Judge Miles A. Gilbert was the first per- 
son to come to Cairo after the collapse, and 
act as agent and representative of the com- 
pany, to the extent of protecting its property 
and his own, of which he had large quanti- 
ties, as well as a considerable holder in the 
stocks of the company. A detailed account 
of what he found here, and the spirit and 
moods of the people in their anger at Hol- 
brook and his company, could they be fully 
given, would read like a Western early-day 
romance. And of all the men it was possible 
to send here to speak peace to the brewing 
storm, and stay the uplifted hands of vio- 
lence, he was the only one. His unflinching 
integrity, his ripe judgment, and his mild. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



33 



and firm and fair treatment of all questions 
that arose between the people and the com- 
pany were productive of results that must 
have saved even bloodshed at times, and at 
all times it was a protection to the property of 
the place, as well as to the angered and out- 
raged people who clamored for the pay due 
them. 

Judge Gilbert may justly be regarded as 
one of the active and leading spirits engaged 
in the early enterprise of founding the city 
of Cairo, and the only one of the early 
founders of the city now living. He was 
born in Hartford, Conn., January 1, 1810; 
came to Kaskaskia, 111., June 8, 1832, with 
a large stock of goods; merchandized there 
eleven yeai-s; November 17, 1836, married 
Ann Eliza Bakei', eldest daughter of Hon. 
David J. ^Baker, Sr., at Kaskaskia, 111. 
April, 1843, he removed to Cairo, and took 
charge of all the property there owned by 
the Cairo City & Canal Company, as their 
agent. The company had just failed, and a 
great number of men, in consequence, thrown 
out of employment, were in a wild, ungovern- 
able state, making a great noise about their 
pay. Judge Gilbert's gi-eat- grandfather was 
Abraliam Gilbert, who died at Hamden in 
1718, and was the grandson of Josiah Gil- 
bert, who, with three other brothers, came 
from Norfolk, England, to America in 1640, 
and settled near New Haven, Conn. ; so that 
Judge Gilbert's lineage is traceable directly 
back to the " Gilberts of Norfolk," England, 
whose coat of arms bore the motto Tenax 
propositi — firm of pni-pose; and there is, per 
haps, nothing more illustrative of this trait 
of character in Judge Gilbert, in his long, 
honorable and active life, or better illustra- 
tive of the condition of affairs at Cairo, im- 
mediately following the failvu'e of the Cairo 
City & Canal Company, than his bold, de- 
termined and successful defense of the prop- 



erty of the company he came to Cairo to 
protect and preserve, as against the enraged 
mob of workmen he found fiercely demand- 
ing everything, and threatening an open out- 
break, and, by mob violence, to seize and 
sacrifice all within reach. This was the con- 
dition of affairs when Judge Gilbert arrived 
in the spring of 1843, and his first work was 
to set about the most active efforts to thwart 
the threatened mob. Had he reached the 
grounds sooner, it is probable he could have 
influenced the leaders and prevented an out- 
break. Here were a great number of men sud- 
denly thrown out of employment; they had 
grown clamorous and turbulent, and they de- 
termined to break into the company's machine 
and carpenter shops, a large building, 
150x200 feet in dimensions, and filled with 
the most expensive machinery, which was 
attached to and formed part of the building, 
and in law formed a part of the realty, and 
had to be so treated as regards attachments 
or executions. The tui-bulents went to Judge 
Gilbert, and demanded that he allow them to 
enter the building and detach the machinery 
and sell it under execution. He had n6 
authority to grant the request, and so in- 
formed them. They swore they would take 
it at all hazards, when he informed them he 
was here to protect the property, and he 
would do so against friend or foe. The 
leaders retired in great anger from the in- 
terview, and at once began to gather their 
mob. Judge Gilbert, realizing what was 
coming, selected four laboring men, upon 
whom he could fully rely, hired them and 
armed them, and the five men entered the 
building and hastily barricaded the doors and 
windows as best they could, and took their 
respective positions at ^such places as the at- 
tacking party would have to approach. They 
had hardly had time to do so when the mob, 
in gi-eat force, approached the front or main 



34 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



entrance; failing to open this, they tried the 
windows, but finding them secm-ely fastened 
they procured a ladder. Judge Gilbert, from 
the second story window, addressed the 
crowd, and his quiet, firm, yet pleasant man- 
ner secured their close attention. ITe told 
them he was their friend, and not their 
enemy; that it would deeply pain him to 
hurt or injiu-e any one of them in any way, 
but that he had been placed there to protect 
the property, and protect it he would, to the 
extent of his life. He advised them to go 
peaceably home, and await the results of the 
negotiations of the President of the com- 
pany, who was then in New York, and nego- 
tiating for money wherewith to pay every one 
of them every cent the company owed them. 
He showed them that they were violating the 
law, and that, instead of- thus righting their 
wrongs, they were putting themselves in the 
position to be punished by law; that the law 
was his protection; it was with him in his 
effort to protect property, and this made his 
apparent helplessness and weakness strong 
enough to resist and riepel even their over- 
powering numbers. He frankly told them 
they could not come into the building while 
he was alive, and that for them to kill him 
in order to get in would be murder, for which 
they would be hung. He m'ged them to 
peaceably go away, and concluded by in- 
forming them that he would kill the ih'st 
man who entered the building. This quiet 
and sensible talk had a marked influence on 
the crowd; the leaders called them away, 
and they retired a short distance to hold a 
council. After much parleying, and a 
bounteous supply of fighting whisky, they re- 
turned to the charge, more fiuuous than ever. 
They surrounded the building, cursing, 
swearing and howling their rage, like in- 
furiated beasts, and calling upon each other 
to kill Judge Gilbert and his four faithful 



companions and take the machinery and con- 
tents and destroy the building. The front of 
the building was upon or against the levee, 
and the rear of it stood about ten feet above 
the ground, and here was a large trap -door, 
used for the purpose of taking in and pass- 
ing out the most curaberseme articles of 
goods. The mob succeeded in breaking and 
pushing up and open this trap-door, and 
then they attempted to "boost" their men up 
through this. Judge Gilbert was at the spot 
by the time they had the trap open, and again 
appealed personally to some of the leaders 
and begged them to go away. He showed 
them he was armed with firearms and a stout 
hickory club, and told them he alone coald 
kill them as fast as they could show their 
heads above the floor, and informed them he 
would certainly do so. Several ventured to 
put up their hands and clasp the upper side 
of the floor, but a sharp rap from the hickory 
club made them quickly take them down 
again. Finally, after trying all manner of 
means to efifect an entrance, they persuaded 
one poor fellow, who was much under the in- 
fluence of liquor, to let them push him up 
through the floor. He was warned, as he 
started up, not to attempt it, but, nothing 
daunted, he allowed himself to be shoved 
forward. He received a light blow from the 
club, and it affected him so little that the 
crowd cheered and pushed him the harder. 
The club was then rained upon his head fast 
and furious, and finally he yelled in agony 
to be lowered instantly or he would be killed 
sure enough, and he was let down. This 
man's dreadful experience sobered him, and 
also seems to have had the effect of sobering 
the crowd. A feeble effort was made to call 
out other volunteers to go up, but to this there 
was no response. They began to fall away 
in small squads, but the majority lingered 
around the building until after dark, when 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



35 



they all left, and quiet reigned supreme once 
more. Judge Gilbert and bis four men re- 
mained on guard all night, and it can well 
be imagined they did not even sleep by 
relays. They stayed close upon duty for 
several days, until the leaders of the mob 
(something they should have thought of tirst) 
advised vrith attorneys, and concluded a mob 
v^as not the true remedy for their wrongs. 

This episode is properly a histoiy of the 
trying times in Cairo, but it well answers the 
double purpose of illustrating the temper of 
the people when Judge Gilbert came here 
to take possession of the Cairo City Canal 
Company's interests, as well as something of 
the iron there was in the Judge's nature, and 
which constituted him the right man in the 
right place. 

Judge Gilbert had the cross levee built in 
1843, and had the Ohio and Mississippi 
levees repaired, inclosing about six hundred 
acres of land, so strong and permanent that 
it secured Cairo from inundation during the 
great flood of 1844. He remained there for 
three years; was one of the original pur- 
chasers of the land, from Government, on 
which the city is now biiilt; was identified 
with all the charter railroads and organiza- 
tions of the city, as either Pi-esident, Direc- 
tor or stockholder, up to the appointment of 
Samuel Staats Taylor as agent of the Trustees 
(Thomas S. Taylor and Charles Davis), He 
then moved to Ste. Genevieve County, Mo. , 
where he had large landed interests; laid oflf 
a town thereon, and called it "Ste. Mary," 
now a flourishing village of several hundred 
inhabitants, where he has resided ever since, 
and still resides at his homestead, "Oakwood 
Villa," situated upon a beautiful hill over- 
looking the village, on the banks of the 
Mississippi River, with a splendid view of 
the river for many miles each way. He has 
been an active, energetic man ail his life; 



has been for many j-ears, and still is, though 
now over seventy-three years of age, one of 
the leading and most influential citizens of 
Ste. Genevieve County, with a high character 
for honesty and integrity, and [n kindness, 
hospitality and generosity poverbial among 
those who know him. He was elected Judge 
of the County and Probate Courts of the 
county three successive terms — twelve years 
— and so well did he manage the afifairs and 
finances of the county and discharge the du- 
ties of the ofiice that he was strongly urged 
to accept another election to the office, but 
declined. In politics, Judge Gilbert, since 
the disruption of the old Whig party, has 
been a Democrat, but strongly opposed the 
secession movement in Missouri. The first 
Union resolutions in his county were drav^n 
up by him, advocating to "stick to the Union," 
and that "secession would prove the death- 
knell of slairery." 

In 1800, during the secession excitement 
in Missouri, the State Convention was called, 
to detei'mine whether Missoui'i should secede 
or remain in the Union, Judge Gilbert took 
an active part in seciu'ing Union delegates 
from his district, against powerful opposi- 
tion, and it was largely through the , influ- 
ence of his pen and management that Union 
delegates were elected from his Congression- 
al District. At the Congressional District 
Convention, it is said that he sat up all 
night, wrote the Union circular address to 
the people, got it printed, and had it circu- 
lated all over the district by 12-o'clock next 
day, and before the secessionists (and 
seceders from that convention) had their 
circular printed. 

Judge Gilbert still holds large interests in 
Cairo and Alexander County; has two sons 
living in Cairo — William B. and Miles 
Frederick Gilbert — practicing law there. 
His wife is also still living, and he has one 



36 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



married daughter — Sarah F., wife of Thomas 
B. Whitledge, residing with him at Ste. 
Mary, and a prominent lawyer of that place. 
Judge Gilbert makes frequent visits to 
Cairo, and takes great interest in the pros- 
perity of the place, and still has a lively 
faith in the future greatness of the city. 

The presence and control of the company's 
interests here by Judge Gilbert was a great 
surprise to many who began to look upon 
themselves as old settlers. It was the first 
intimation that the abandonment had not 
been so complete as they had for some time 
supposed. "When he had completed the cross 
levee, and had so strengthened the others as 
to protect the city, even from the extraordi- 
nary high waters of the Mississippi in the 
year 1844, when Cairo was the only dry spot 
from St. Louis to New Orleans, and when 
these duties were discharged, he would re- 
turn to business that called him to other 
places, and, therefore, his government of the 
people here amounted to no more than the 
mere assertion of the company's title and 
possession to moveable property, so the 
Cairoites continued to occupy at will the houses 
and so much of the land as they pleased, 
without rents or question. And they were 
soon inclined to hoot at the idea of any one 
collecting rent from them. Was it not 
enough to live in such a place as Cairo! And 
thus they assured each other. Thus occupied, 
the property fell far short of furnishing the 
means of paying the annual taxes levied 
against it. For about thirteen years — from 
1841 to 1853 — there was little of change in 
Cairo, except that of slow decay. 

Mose Harrell is authority for the assertion 
that the little handful of people here — 
as the shelter they enjoyed, the ground 
they cultivated, and the general privileges 
they exercised, cost them nothing, — prob- 



ably enjoyed themselves. This inference is 
strengthened by the recollection that daring- 
all this time, they did, or had, but little else 
to do, and Harrell, therefore, asserts (he was 
one of the jolly crowd) " they enjoyed them- 
selves to a degree beyond -ajiy other people, 
so far as he knew or could hear or read about. " 
In the course of time, after the crash, the mea- 
ger population left, of about fifty souls, had 
increased to nearly two hundred, and the town 
seemed to run to wharf-boats, flats and all 
manner of water craft. The business was 
nearly all upon the water's edge, and there 
was quite a period when it really looked as 
though, as soon as the few houses rotted 
down, or were used up for kindling-wood, 
the entire population and business would 
crawl over outside the levee, and become a 
real floating city. Here were the gathering 
places, eating places, drinking places and the 
center of all the fun or excitement. People 
wanted to see the steamboats land; they 
wanted to go on board, look around, and, by 
examining the passengers, recall recollections 
of when they were innocent members of the 
civilized world. 

There were three wharf-boats moored in 
front of the town, and, strange as it may 
seem, all were doing a fair business, and 
some of them made money. The Louisiana, 
Henry Simmons, proprietor, lay about oppo- 
site what is now Second street; the Ellen 
Kirkman, Rodney & Wright, proprietors, was 
just below this, and the Sam Dale, T. J. 
Smith & Co., proprietors, lay below where 
the Halliday House stands. " On the hill," 
as the top of the levee was then called, were to 
be found the Cairo Hotel, by S. H. Candee, the 
stores of B. S. Harrell and Oliver S. Sayre, 
the office of the Cairo Delta newspaper, the 
saloon of George L. Rattlemueller, and the 
bakery of George Baumgard. The five last- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



37 



mentioned were all in the buildings erected 
by Jones & Holbrook on the ground now oc- 
cupied by the Halliday House. 

About the total population that was left 
here after the exodus, as the names were 
furnished us by Mr. Robert Baird, who was 
here as early as I83l>, are the following — 
premising there are some, of course, thai Mr. 
Baird cannot now recall, or has wholly for- 
gotten, and further stating the explanatory 
fact that, of all the earliest comers of Cairo, 
the only persons now living of those who 
did not leave the city in its first panic, are 
Robert Baird, Nick Devore and Mrs. Pat 
Smith — just three persons. Here is the now 
imperfect list of the 1839-40 comers: Squire 
Marsh, Constable Lee, Dr. Cummings, T. J. 
Glass, Mr. Jones, Thomas Eagan, Mrs. Pat 
Smith, D. W. Thompson, who had moved 
down the hull of the Asia and converted it 
into a wharf -boat and hotel, afterward taking 
oflf the cabin of the boat and moving it to 
Blandville, Ky. , where he made another hotel 
of it, which was about the first house in that 
place; Hathaway & Garrison, the latter went 
to California and grew quite wealthy; Mr. 
McCoy, who afterward went to Iowa; Dr. 
Gilpin and family, kept a boarding-house 
near where is now the corner of Sixth and 
levee; Thomas Feely, kept dairy, near cor- 
ner of Eighth and levee; Mi'. Adkins, a 
butcher; Mr. Ferdon, a carpenter, whose 
grown young daughter was afflicted with at- 
tacks of occasional insanity. In one of these 
moods she wandered off, and some distance 
north of town she came to an old, deserted 
hut, and as it was night she entered it and 
found two deer inside, and, closing the door, 
kept them there, and in this strange company 
the girl passed the night, unharmed and in 
seeming content. The next morning she 
stepped out and fastened the door, and re- 
porting her adventure to her father, he, in com- 



pany with some friends, among whom was our 
informant, Mr. Baird, repaired to the hut and 
secured the venison; next, a Mr. Lyles, the 
father-in-law of Mr. Miles F. Parker, a 
citizen of Cairo; Mr. Shutleff, a foreman in 
the shops; Tom Brohan, a teamster and con- 
tractor; Jacob Weldon and family, his 
widow afterward marrying Judge Shannessy; 
Isaac Lee, whose son Bill was for many 
years a Cairo landmark; John Riggs, a ma- 
chinist, left here afterward and went to Cali- 
fornia; Ed McKinney, machinist; John Sulli- 
van, tailor; Mr. Kehoe, carpenter and kept a 
boarding-house; Walter Falls, kept bar at the 
hotel and afterward wharf-boat and store; 
John Addison, carpenter and boarding- 
house; John Wesley, shoe-maker; William 
Holbrook and family; Henry Ours, baker and 
saloon; George L. Rattlemueller, saloon. 

Pat Smith married Miss Hennessy, the 
wedding taking place at the residence of 
Mrs. Weldon. It was late in the afternoon, 
and at the chui-ch door Smith left his new 
wife to go along with the crowd, while he 
went to get up his cows (he seems to have 
alwa}'s had milch cows). He got his cows, 
milked, and bethought himself to look up his 
wife, and she had gone visiting among her 
friends, enjoying herself very much indeed, 
and partly to annoy and plague her husband, 
and partly for fun; so well did she hide her- 
self that it was late at night before he found 
her, although he had traveled the town over. 
No proper history of Cairo will ever be 
written that omits the conspicuous mention 
of the name of Judge Bryan Shannessy; nay 
more, it must account well for some of his 
acts, and much of the remarkable peculiari- 
ties of character that possessed him. For 
the true history of all people is chiefly in the 
candid picturing of the extraordinary or 
leading characters, who were among the chief 
promoters or factors of that society's exist- 



38 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



ence. By this we do not mean the old notion 
of the history of a people, where the histo- 
rian had filled his whole duty when he told 
all the minutiae of the kings, princes, the 
queens and princesses, and how they were 
dressed, dined, wined, and the cost of the 
latter; how they were sick, or died, or were 
buried, or were born, or with other details 
ad nauseum. Or of battles, defeats, and 
slaughters and sieges; of famines; of chm-ch 
dignitaries and State rulers. These things, 
during the centuries alone, were history. 
Had Voltaire and Buckle not lived, this 
might have been so yet, and continued indefi- 
nitely. 

But now, the history of a people, State or 
nation means the common people as well as 
the notorious — the history of all alike. Of 
course it is impossible to individually men- 
tion each of the masses, as this would make 
it a mere directory of names, but to portray 
the extraordinary characters of those who 
were of the masses, who mingled with and 
were a part of them, who, as it were, were 
the very outgrowth; the immediate develop- 
ment of that community itself, is to bring to 
the reader's knowledge one of the best and 
clearest hints of what the great mass of the 
people were, how they acted, thought and 
were influenced. 

Such a representative we deem Mr. Shan- 
nessy to be. He came here with the rush of 
1840, as unpretentious and unassuming an 
Irishman as th« humblest knight of the wheel- 
barrow in all the crowd that were drawn here 
by the mighty schemes of the founders of 
Cairo. But there was that stuff in him, 
sometimes called fate, faith or a star, which 
made him shape his course very differently 
indeed from the common crowd. He was one 
of the very few who did not flee when the 
memorable crash of 1841 came, and reduced 
the city, in a few weeks, from a prosperous 



and busy population of over two thousand to 
less than fifty souls, with no work, no busi- 
ness, nothing, in short, to do except to oc- 
cupy "the deserted houses of the desolate city. 
Then Shannessy, like the man who said if all 
the world were dead he would go to Phila- 
delphia and open a big hotel, he opened a 
boarding-house, and in 1853, while but little 
better than cockle and jimson weeds had un- 
disputed possession here, we find him the 
happy lord of a dingy boarding-house, a 
saloon, a Squire's shop, a drug store, the 
post office and a doctor's ofiice. There was 
nothiog else in the place, or he would have 
had that. It is said the few natives of the 
place thought of calling on him to preach to 
them, but when they talked it over among 
themselves they got afraid of the fiery thun- 
derbolts he would launch at them in all his 
seiTQons, mixed with brogue and brimstone. 
He continued to hold office all his long life. 
When the city had waxed great, he became 
Associate County Judge, and he was Police 
Magistrate in this city so long that " five 
dollars and costs " was as natural to his 
tongue and his existence as breath. 

He was a shrewd, original, strong-minded 
man, who " never went back on a friend. " 
This last trait is well told by the story of a 
prominent lawyer, who desired to bring a 
certain suit, bat felt doubtful about the issue; 
80 he went to the Squire and told him freely 
his dilemma, and stated what he supposed to 
be the facts of the case. The Squire told 
him " that sifter would hold water, dead 
sure. " The suit was brought, but on trial 
the defendant introduced evidence that utter- 
ly destroyed every vestige of plaintiff's case. 
The court finally gave his decision in an 
elaborate and learned opinion, reasoned 
about the law, the evidence, the world's his- 
tory, the flood, the pandects, the quadrilater- 
al and the Schleswig-Holstein difficulty, and 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



39 



concluded by giving judgment, for the plain- 
tiff. Everybody was amazed, even the plain- 
tiff's attorney. Afterward, to this attorney, 
he remarked: " That was a very close case, 
very close. The closest case I ever decided 
in my life. In fact, I believe the law and 
the evidence were both dead against you; but 
I never go back on a friend. " 

He loved his friends as well as he loved 
office, and he believed in being just to them, 
and this sometimes made strangers think they 
had to suffer. But altogether he was full of 
good, kind traits of character. This is evi- 
denced by the fact that these outre decisions 
never alienated his friends so as to defeat 
him at an election. He reared a large family, 
of the very highest respectability, and de- 
parted this life at a ripe old age and full of 
honors, and his fame is growing greener in 
the memories of all his numerous friends 
than is that of, probably, any other man's. 

It was this decade of years in Cairo's life 
that it acquired a wide — if not a world-wide 
— reputation, as being one of the " hardest '* 
places known. Partly, this was owing to the 
natural reflex swing of the pendulum that 
had been pushed too far the other way by 
Holbrook & Co., in their extraordinary 
puffing of the place in its first heyday, but 
it is doubtful if this was one of the largest 
factors that resulted in such gross injustice 
to Cairo. The wi-iter distinctly recollects 
that the first he ever heard of Cairo and 
Mound City' was in the scorching lampoons 
that at that time were passing between Mose 
Harrell and Len Faxon, on the two rival 
towns. Doubtless, like thousands of othei's, 
he formed his idea of the two places, 
although he knew, of course, they were the 
essence of extravagance, from these mutual 
attacks. If he stopped to think about it at 
all, he must have known that the lanfruajre 
was Pickwickian in the extreme; yet, per- 



haps, like all the world, who knew nothing 
of their own knowledge, he must have sup- 
posed they understood each other's weak 
points, and made the attacks accordingly. 
For instance, the Mound City Emporium 
prints the following neighborly notice: 

"A number of Cairoites, impelled, per- 
haps, by a desire to see dry land — to stand 
once more on terra firma — visited Mound 
City last Friday, ou the tug-boat Pollard. 
They were a cadaverous, saffron-colored lot 
of mortals, most terribly afflicted with bad 
hats and the smell of onions. These poor 
people inhaled the pure atmosphere of our 
highlands with an almost ravenous greedi- 
ness, and on their wan features would occa- 
sionally play a flush of health as they did so 
that betokened they were sucking in a flow, 
to their physical and spiritual parts, of some 
of that strong, buoyant principle of life 
possessed by every Mound Cityite. But from 
this delightful recuperative process they 
were summoned by the tap of the boat bell. 
Descending from the elevation our city oc- 
cupies to the landing, they boarded the 
craft, and then, descending the Ohio to its 
mouth, they stopped and made a further 
descent of sixteen feet or more, which placed 
them in Cairo. A further descent of sixteen 
feet could not be made on account of heat, 
smoke and the smell of brimstone! That's 
just the distance between the two places!" 

To this the Times and Delta replies: "The 
Buckeye Belle came down from Mound City 
last Saturday, having on board quite a num- 
ber of people from that delectable village; 
but the quarantine officers of our city enforced 
the ordinance relative to steamboats landinsr 
with sick people on board, and would not 
permit her to touch, whereupon, after mak- 
ing sundry ineffectual attempts to land at 
each wharf-boat, she shoved out into the 
river, whei'e all hands set up one indignant 



40 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



yell of defiance, and, 'cussing,' proceeded 
back to Mound City, where, we presume, tbe 
passengers were remanded back to their re- 
spective hospitals." 

The Cairo paper thus topographically talks 
of its neighbor: 

"At last accounts from Mound City, the 
principal portion of the inhabitants were 
roosting in trees. Some of them sleep with 
skiffs by their bedsides. One of these deter- 
mined not to be treed, procui'ed two quarts 
of 'crow whisky,' some bread and bacon, and 
induced one or two inhabitants to go with 
him, and they have fortified themselves on 
the ' carbuncle,' or mound — the only dry 
place in the town — where they intend to 
stay until the waters subside. 

" The principal occupation of the inhabit- 
ants for the past three weeks has been every 
half hour to proceed to the river, punch a 
stick in the ground at the water's edge, see 
how much the water has come up and. then 
go home and move their cooking iitensils 
and ' steds ' into the second stories of their 
houses. Where there are no second stories, 
*as we said before,' they 'clum' trees." 

From the same source, here are a few re- 
marks on health: 

" The Mayor of Mound City, in his inau- 
gural address, says to the Council: 'It will 
soon be your duty to purchase, and fit for 
use, a sufficient ground for a public ceme- 
tery. It will take half of the town plat for 
that pui'pose.' The Mayor means, we sup- 
pose, by ' fitting for use,' that portions of the 
swamp should be fenced and filled up with 
dirt, so as to give it a bottom." 

Or this: " We saw a couple betting high 
at draw poker the other night. The ante was 
two negroes, and the little one had run up 
the pot to a cotton plantation and three 
stern-wheel boats. 



" ' I'll go you the City of Sandoval better,' 
said the big one. 

" 'I'll see you with Mound City and call 
you.' said t'other. 

"'Psahw! That ain't money enough,' 
said big bones. 

" 'Well, I'll take that back, and bet you 
a keg of tar and a blind horse.' 

" ' That'll do,' said big bones, ' but don't 
try to ring in Mound City again, for I want 
to play a decent game! ' " 

And in this way, for about three years, 
the " sparring " in the two papers went on, 
never abating in severity or intensity of ex- 
pression from the first day, until all that 
could be said mean of the two places was 
blown upon every wind, and, upon the prin- 
ciple of the dropping water wearing away 
the hardest stone, so these persistent lam- 
poons had, doubtless, their effect upon the 
minds of the outside world. Then, to those 
who visited and saw the town, there was 
that unfinished, half-commenced hole dug 
here, and half-formed moiinds thrown up 
there, that made up its quota of reasons for 
assisting any rising prejudices in the mind 
of the beholder, that also aided in creating 
prejudices against the place. Then, there 
was still another reason for the bad reputa- 
tion of Cairo, that is so curious, so extraor- 
dinary, that, were it not vouched for by the 
best of authority that was here, and knew 
whereof it affirms, we could not believe it, 
and would give it no notice in these columns. 
We again refer to M. B. Harrell, as authority 
on this matter, only premising that in much 
of the practical jokes he was nearly always 
in the thickest of the fray: 

" Cairo then, and up to a much later 
period, unjustly bore a hard reputation. 
Stories of fiendish murders and robberies of 
travelers stopping in the place were so cur- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



41 



rent over the country that the poor Cairoite 
who would attempt to contradict or correct 
them was laughed and derided into painful 
silence. Knowing they could not refute such 
a general and well-settled impression, they 
' turned tack,' and whenever they saw travel- 
ers exhibiting foolish appi'ehensions of per- 
sonal danger, they would at once set about 
operating upon them. ' just,' as they would 
say, ' to get even with them.' For instance: 
" Two consumate dandies [being ' dan- 
dies,' it seems, was the great crime they were 
guilty of] fi'om Pittsburgh, stopped upon one 
of the wharf-boats, to await a passage to 
New Orleans, they having arrived on a boat 
that was bound for St. Louis. At once it 
became evident that these young men had 
been fed upoa stories of Cairo horrors; but 
they tried fo show, nevertheless, that they 
could not be scared by anything, however 
dreadful. Both had revolvers and bowie- 
knives, but that they were unused to them 
could be told by the practiced eye of a 
Cairoite. These weapons were freely ex- 
hibited, and always worn so as partly to be 
seen while concealed about their persons. 
Diligently did these young men try to im- 
press it upon the people that they would be 
'ugly customers' in a hand-to-hand encoun- 
ter.. To show that they were familiar with 
rough life, they would swear voluminously, 
and occasionally they would drink brandy, 
etc., etc." These were hue subjects for vic- 
tims, and the hoodlums of tho village 
gathered about them in full force, and then 
hours of confidential talk among them would 
occur — care being taken that the intended 
victims should overhear every word, about as 
follows : 

"I'll be , Tom," remarked a rough- 
looking customer, as he slammed down an 
empty boot box beside the counter, "I hain't 
had nothin' as has sot so hard onto mv 



feelio's as the killia' of that boy, sense the 
day I hit my old woman in the breast with 
the hatchet. He was a smart boy, and, by 

, you know he was; and just to think I 

could git mad enough at him, cos he failed 
to lift the stranger's wallet, to smash his 
skull with a oar, is positive distressin'. But 
I'll tell ye, Tom — give us a drink — that boy 
"Waxey shall be buried right. The human 
left into me will see to that. The cat-fish 
fed onto the old woman, but d — n the bite 
shall they git of "Waxey. And now, Tom, 
have you a longer box than this? Waxey is 
five feet long, and this is only four. Hain't 
got none, hey? "Well, 'tis little 'gainst a 
father's feelin's, but this box must coffin 
him. I couldn't do no better, Tom, and you 
know it, so I'll go home now and saw off his 
legs!" 

Taking another di'ink, the distressed fa- 
ther (?) shouldered the box, and left the 
wharf-boat, chuckling at the efitect his story 
had produced upon the strangers. 

And now night had gathered around, and 
the usual crowd collected at Louis' bar-room, 
which, it must be known, was in the store 
and adjoining the depository for baggage. 
The strangers continued guard over their 
baggage, and viewed, with trembling, the 
growing multitude. Drinking followed the 
arrival of each character, and after several 
glasses had been emptied, the following con- 
versation ensued, and all for the strangers' 
benefit, and so arranged that they could hear 
every word of it : 

"Well. Boggie, if ever thar war a nicer 
time'n last night, I'm not posted. Them two 
strangers what we hornswoggled with us, and 
who danced with Spike-foot, ain't now 'sash- 
aying' around here much. But now, Boggie, 
them men fought tigerish, I tell you! I 
didn't know, till Bob, here, told me, that we 
were a-goin' to mince 'em. I didn't, now. 



42 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



darned ef I did! And of course, jest as soon 
as he told me that we war a-goin' to mince 
'em, why, I stabbed the old one right in the 
small of the back, like. 3e had floored 
Wash Wiggins, and I guess was a-chokin' of 
Wash, but when he felt my knife ronch 
against his spinal bone, why, it diverted his 
attention. He cum at me savage; struck out 
thickly, and kep' me clear out of reach of 
him; but Dave, who had got a swingle- tree, 
seein' how matters was, dropped it on the old 
one's cranium, and a groan, a gurgle and a 
little splash of brains was all there was that 
followed. The old man dropped, and I, 
thinkin' he might revive and suffer, separ- 
ated his jugular and let him bleed some. 
But the other, I tell you he was a snorter! 
He knocked Clark Ogden clean through the 
winder, followed, and before anybody knowed 
it, dressed him off confounded handsome. 
As we all had nothin' to do, then, but to make 
way with this chicken, we at once set about 
it. His first cut I give him; the next punch 
you made, and then he cut dirt and humped 
himself. Zofe, there, caught him near the 
river, but havin' no weapons, he just held 
him and hollered until weapons was forth- 
coming. The swipe that let out his innards 
would 'a saved him; but Dave, you know, 
stabbed him six times afterward, all over the 
breast and body. He fell then, and right thar 
I saw him lyin' not more'n an hour ago. 
Take the scrape altogether, Boggie," con- 
tinued the speaker, casting a meaning glance 
at the strangers, " I think it just about as in 
terestin' as any we' 11 have 'tween this and the 
mornin'." 

Such was the substance of the rigmarole 
intended to directly affect the strangers, and 
it is easy enough to believe the assertion that 
they believed every word they heard; and 
the further fact that they had seen one of the 
desperate men steal a pocket-book from 



another's pocket (a pre-arranged affair, too), 
all combined, left the two young men ap- 
palled with horror. Even this devil-may-care 
crowd noticed, from the actions of the young 
men, that they had probably carried the joke 
too far, and there was danger of them pluQg- 
ing into the river in order to avoid the worse 
fate they felt certain was in store for them. 
It was about decided to explain the joke to 
them, but it was dangerous to approach thera 
to attempt an explanation, as such an ap- 
proach would be a signal for them to jump 
into the waters. Fortunately, at this moment 
a boat approached and touched at the land- 
ing, and instantly the two young men 
boarded her, and hid themselves in the cabin 
until the boat pulled out. The vessel was on 
its way to St. Louis, and they were going to 
New Orleans, but so intense was their alarm 
that they would have taken a boat for any 
point in the world to get away from Cairo. 

It is said that a short time after this, a 
Pittsburgh paper reached Cairo, in which was 
a letter, dated from St. Louis, describing, 
with shocking details, the bloody murders at 
Cairo, which we have given above, the 
writers not only attesting that they saw them 
committed, but they had shot dead two of the 
murderers themselves, in a perilous effort to 
stay the butcheries. The story of the boy 
corpse and the short boot box went the rounds 
of the papers of the country, and in seven- 
leagued boots, the Cairo horrors traveled 
about the world. « 

We have given an account of this in- 
stance pretty fiilly. It was only one among 
hundreds, until the horrible stories from 
Cairo had been familiarized pretty much over 
the civilized world. The Cairo people did 
all this, they said, in revenge for the many 
gross falsehoods that had been circulated 
about them and their town. It was a unique 
mode of revenge, and was of doubtful virtue, 






/ 




HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



45 



for the outside world only too readily be- 
lieved all tliey thus saw, but more, too, and 
it soon fixed itself in the minds of men as a 
shocking reality. Here was another cause 
of the blighted reputation of the place. 
Add this to the causes recited above, and 
when tney are combined it is wonderful that 
all men did not shun the place as they 
would the lepers' grounds. There is but one 
strong reason why they did not. Cairo was 
the one gateway between the North and the 
South, and through here all must pass in 
nearly all communications between these two 
regions. This forced men to come. Even 
the timid and trembling were compelled 
thus to face the fearful imaginary dangers of 
the place, and when thus forced into the 
town, they were like the boy who finally 
saw the preacher, and remarked to his mother, 
in disgust, "Why, he's nothin' but a man;" 
so the Cairo people were found by these com- 
pulsory visitors to be nothing but human 
beings; as quiet, civil, well-behaved and 
honest as any people in the world. But 
while a slander flies upon tireless wings. 
truth crawls in gyves and hobbles, and while 
it is true that " when crushed to earth will 
rise again," yet there is no day nor horn- 
fixed for the " rising " to be done, and as 
" the eternal years are hers," she generally 
takes up the most of them in running down 
a lie and putting the truth triumphantly in 
its place. 

[j t,The only school taught here between 1842 
and 1848 was a pay school, and only for a 
few months, by Mrs. Peplow. In 1848, a 
Sabbath school was started. It was held in 
the Cairo Chapel — an up-stairs room in the 
Holbrook House — but after a few weeks of 
meager attendance and listless interests it 
permanently closed up for repairs and the 
want of patronage. On the 4th of July, 1848, 



under the auspices of Mrs. Peplow's school, 
the town held its first national celebration. 
Dr. C. L. Lind was the Orator of the Day, 
and Bailey S. Harrell read the Declaration of 
Independence. 

This year, too, came the singing-master — 
the king of the tuniag-fork, who could read 
the " square notes," and who was born with 
a hawk-nose, chewing plug tobacco, and had 
been forever trying to marry the belle sun- 
flower of every school he had taught or at- 
tended. This particular one is described as 
a " cadaverous, bacon-colored old curmudy- 
oen named Winchester. " He left the town 
in great disgust, so complete was his at- 
tempted school a failure, and it is supposed 
Cairo survived this calamity with greater 
equanimity than any of her other inflictions; 
we have no hesitation in calling his depart- 
ure a calamity, because from the above de- 
scription it will be seen he had many of the 
ear-marks of a gi'eat and good singing-school 
master, and yet he could not sing his "squai-e 
notes" in Cairo. His experience here may 
have given rise to the little legend, "I'm sad- 
dest when I sing." 

About the only relief to the monotony of 
Cairo life began to come as early as 1848, in 
the promised revival of the building of the 
Illinois Central Railroad. The subject was 
stirred more or less at every session of the 
Legislatm-e, and when the news would reach 
Cairo of what was being done, a tremor of 
excitement would pass around, and the wisest 
heads would say, "Wait till next spring, and 
the engineers will then be along." There 
seemed to be no question of the great work 
being ultimately done. On this point there 
was neither dispute nor argument, but all 
questioning turned upon the one pivot, 
When ? And here the Cairoites centered their 
future hopes. But year by year came and 

3 



46 



HISTOKY OF CAIRO. 



went, and no engineers showed themselves, 
and the hopes and fears of the people would 
rise and fall with the seasons. 

In the meantime, Cairo grew a little — just 
a little more than the natural increase of 
population. The few there were here found, 
eventually, plenty to do, and the steamboat 
trade had gradually gi'own to be of the great- 
est importance. In the winter season, par- 
ticularly when navigation on the upper rivers 
would be stopped by the ice, the people of 
Cairo would find themselves overwhelmed 
by people, suddenly stopped on their way, 
until all houses would be filled to overflow- 
ing, and often hundreds of them woald go 
into camp, and be 'compelled to wait for 
weeks for the breaking- up of the ice and to 
resume their journey. Often a boat would 
thus land and parties would hire rigs and 
thus go on to St. Louis. Sometimes others 
would purchase saddle-horses, or a wagon and 
team, and depend upon selling for what they 
could get when at the end of their journey. 
The boats going and coming soon got so they 
all touched at this point, and in those days 
there were great numbers of people travel- 
ing on deck, and these would rush ashore in 
great cx'owds for supplies at the baker's, 
butcher's and at the boat stores. 

Grp,dually, too, Cairo came to be quite 
a re-shipping point for St. Louis, and Louis- 
ville, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh freights, and 
this gave abundant and profitable business 
to the wharf -boats. In these and a hundred 
ways, business thrived, and money was dis- 



tributed among the people sometimes in 
plentiful abundance, and there] were hard- 
working, attentive business men among them, 
and all such not only made a living, but 
generally were on the highway to independ- 
ence and wealth. The social life of the 
place was much like that of the average 
small river towns, except the wags and prac- 
tical jokers noticed elsewhere, and with this 
further and marked exception, they were a 
big, warm-hearted, hospitable, independent, 
and a mind-youi'-own-business kind of peo- 
ple. Perhaps no community was ever more 
wholly free from that tea-table, back-biting 
species of gossip and slander, and prying 
into other people's private aflairs, than were 
the people of Cairo. They were a just, gen- 
erous and true people, and so marked was 
this characteristic from the first, that they 
have left their impress in these respects, ap- 
parently, upon the town. The first comers 
are nearly all gone, the descendants of only 
a few remain; and yet, whosoever knows the 
people of Cairo well, may count as his friend 
many as true people as were ever got 
together before in the same sized "commu- 
nity. 

This concludes the second natural division 
in the eras of Cairo's history, to wit, the 
decade between the collapse of the Cairo City 
& Canal Company and the revival of the 
prospects of Cairo by the actual commence- 
ment of work on the Central Railroad, and, 
therefore, is an appropriate ending of the 
chapter. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



47 



CHAPTER III. 



Cairo platted— first sale of lots— the foundation of a city laid— beginning of 

WORK ON the central RAILROAD— S. STAATS TAYLOR — CITY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED 

AND WHO WERE ITS OFFICERS — INCREASE OF POPULATION — THE WAR— SOLDIERS 

IN CAIRO— BATTLE OF BELMONT— WAIF OF THE BATTLE-FIELD— " OLD RUBE" 

— RILLING OF SPENCER — OVERFLOW OF 08- WASH GRAHAM AND 

GEN. GRANT — A FEW MORE PRACTICAL JOKES, ETC, ETC. 



IN the preceding chapter.s we have traced the 
efforts to found and build a city here, and 
the social and business life of the people, as best 
we could, down to the year 1852. We found 
that from 1841 to 1851 — more properly to 1853 
— was the long period of stagnation, marked 
only by the natural decay of time, and the 
small damages that it was possible to accrue to 
the place from a succession of high waters in 
the rivers. Miserable little levees, about eight 
feet high, girdled about the town, winding with 
the bends of the stream, or jogged into short 
angles, in the language of a Mound City paper 
of the earl}- times, the " broken ribs" levee. 
From the first attempted founding of the cit}' 
by the Cairo Cit}- & Canal Company down 
to 1851, the company clung pertinaciously to 
Holbrook's first idea of never selling a foot of 
the land — only leasing upon the most rigid 
and arbitrary terms. The agent and attor- 
ney-in-fact of the propeil}' trustees, S. Staats 
Taylor, Esq., arrived in Cairo, September, 1851. 
He came with instructions and the power to 
inaugurate some new and healthy ideas for the 
compan}^ and for the good of the people and 
the town. But his first and most difficult task 
was to obtain peaceable possession of the com- 
pany's property. The residents had much of 
it in possession, and so long had they occupied 
it without landlord, rents or taxes that they 
felt encouraged to treat the company's preten- 
sions to ownership with indifference and con- 
tempt. Then, other parties from the outside 



had noticed the apparent abandonment of the 
place by the company in 1841, and they 
pounced upon the rich flotsam like buzzards 
upon a dead carcass, and bj- all manner of 
Sheriffs titles, tax deeds, and even bogus 
deeds, attempted to secure both possession and 
title, some to the whole and some to large por- 
tions of the land within the city limits. One 
instance, called the ■' Holmes claim," may 
serve as an illustration of some of the many 
difficulties that the company encountered in 
regaining what they had apparently aban- 
doned. The company had acquired title to a 
large portion of the southern part of the city 
by purchase from the heirs of Gov. Bond. 
These heirs had made separate deeds, one of 
them, Elizabeth Bond, had executed her j)rop- 
er deed to her interests in the land and this 
deed Holbrook had carelessly carried in his 
pocket and neglected to put it upon the record, 
until, in the course of time, it was mislaid and 
forgotten. Holmes was a brother-in-law of 
Miss Bond, and in some way he ascertained 
p]lizal)elh's deed was not on record. He went 
to Thebes, then the count}' seat, examined 
the records, and, being dul}- prepared, at once 
placed a deed upon record from Elizabeth 
Bond to himself, conve3'ing all her right, title 
and interest in Cairo. This conveyance in- 
cluded about one hundred acres in the south- 
west portion of the city. The corapaii}- ap- 
pealed to the courts ; the case went into the 
United States Court, and there it stayed for 



48 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



twenty-three years before being finally adjudi- 
cated and settled. Five different trials before 
juries resulted in three verdicts in favor of the 
compan3\ and two in favor of Holmes — as the 
boys would sa\-, " the best three in five." 
There was no question but the chain in the re- 
cord-title was with Holmes, but the compau}' 
based their claim and relied wholl}' upon color 
of title and seven years' possession and the 
payment of taxes.- Upon this claim the Su- 
preme Court of the United States gave the 
company the land and settled the question for- 
ever. 

As said, 1851 dawned a new era upon Cairo. 
It came to be known that the law had passed 
the Congress of the United States that would 
at last secure the building of the Illinois Cen- 
tral Eailroad, and this was cheering news to the 
good people of the town, and of the whole 
State. In 1851, the advance guard — the en- 
gineers — put in their cheerful appearance, and 
bright and early one morning a squad of them 
were to be seen trimming out a passage wa}' 
in the bush and undergrowth and hoisting flag- 
poles here and there, and peeping knowingh' 
through instruments, and the children shouted 
to each other that the railroad had come at 
last. The almost expiring hopes of the older 
people were revived to the highest pitch once 
more. Yet the onward move of the towu itself 
loitered, and, until 1854, there was no change 
among the residents, and but few accessions to 
the population or improvements of the town. 
The causes for this were the difficulties about 
the possession and titles above noticed. Here 
were three years in the historical life of the 
city that may be briefl}- passed over, the real 
history-, if any, that was made during that 
time, was exclusively concerning the Central 
Railroad, and will be found in the chapter giv- 
ing an account of that enterprise. 

Mose Harrell, in his sketch of Cairo, justly, 
we think, insists that for the ••'real commence- 
ment of Cairo we are not authorized to go be- 



hind that period " (1854). The many years 
consumed by monopolies in futile attempts to 
build up fhe place, and the greater number of 
years of non-action, cannot be fairl}- added to 
the real age of the place, as during the whole 
of that time public capital and energ\- were 
not onlj' not invited to come to Cairo, but ab- 
solutely forbidden an}- kind of foothold what- 
ever. Fairness, then, will fix the birth of the 
cit}' at that exact period when it became 
possible and allowable for those essential ele- 
ments of prosperity to take hold of the under- 
taking, and to operate without fetter or tram- 
mel — and not before that period. 

The Agent, Mr. Taylor, had finally got such 
sufficient possession of the property, and had 
platted and laid oft' the town anew, that on the 
4th day of September, 1854, the lots were of- 
fered for sale. On the morning of that day, 
Peter Stapleton purchased the lot on the cor- 
ner of Third street and Commercial avenue, 
where he at once erected a substantial and per- 
manent residence and business house. This 
was the first sale ever made of a lot in Cairo ; 
it was the first step in the real cit}' building 
that has gone on steadily from that day to the 
present time. The price paid for the lot was 
SI, 250, not far from what the unimproved lot 
would be rated at now. This purchase was 
soon followed by others, including Mrs. Can- 
dee, John Howlev. M. B. Harrell and the 
grounds on which were erected the Taylor 
House (burned down with several other build- 
ings in i8G0). The people were now buying 
the lots and building up the town, and it was 
no longer Holbrook and his iron-cast monopo- 
h" ; and now the good work went on with ra- 
pidity, and within a year from the day that 
Stapleton purchased his lot, so actively had 
the work gone on. that a large number of build- 
ings were erected and in the course of erection. 
and the streets and avenues come to be well 
defined by the buildings that reared their fronts 
alons: the streets and at the corners. But 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



49 



at this time no improvements had been erected 
on the Ohio levee. The company saw proper 
to put restrictions hei'e, and would onlj- stipu- 
late that no other building except brick, iron 
or stone should be built thereon. All these 
front lots wei'e regarded as the valuable ones 
of the town. Williams' brick block had been 
put up on the levee, and it stood alone until 
quite an amount of buildings had been placed 
on Third and Fourth streets and Commercial 
avenue. Time soon demonstrated the foolish- 
ness of these restrictions, as few purchasers, be- 
fore becoming acquainted with the city, its busi- 
ness, the character and permanency of its pro- 
tective embankments, the health of the people, 
etc., felt disposed to erect either ver}' fine or 
expensive buildings, and these barriers were 
brushed away and the lots on the levee put 
upon sale upon the same terms as the others 
of the town. 

Then came the- hosts of eager purchasers, in 
response to the word that went out that lots in 
Cairo were upon the market without restric- 
tions, and upon terms that were regarded as 
just and liberal. Another proof, were an}- 
proof needed, that no man in New York, 
Philadelphia, or London can manage and build 
a great city either out here in Cairo or any- 
where else, where he is not present and a part 
of the community. As seen by the purchase 
price of Stapleton's lot, the property was gen- 
erall}' placed at a high figure, but when the 
property on the levee was thrown, unrestricted, 
upon the market, the figures were increased, 
and were, in fact, enormously high ; yet the 
sales were numerous, the most buying for 
improvement, and man}- for speculation, even 
at these high figures. Then, indeed, came the 
race in putting up buildings — the wants of 
builders putting to the test the numerous saw 
mills in the county, and calling fi'om abroad 
hosts of mechanics and laborers. A great vari- 
ety'of business enterprises were inaugui'ated, 
business, both commercial and mechanical, 



grew apace ; drays and other vehicles rattled 
over the wharf and the streets, and the features 
of a young and thrifty city began to be visible 
everywhere. 

In another part of this work we have given 
some account of the rather loose and inefficient 
general city government that had been adopted 
by the people, after the dethronement of the 
Czar of all the Cairos, Holbrook. and the tak- 
ing of the reins of government into the hands 
of the few people left here. Early in 1855, so 
rapid had been the growth of the place, and so 
apparent the gi'owing necessit}', that the 
citizens met in mass convention, in the Central 
Railroad depot, and there determined that until 
a special charter could be obtained from the 
Legislature, that the cit}^ should be incorpor- 
ated under the general incorporation laws. 

In pursuance of this determination, the fol- 
lowing were chosen, at a general election. 
Trustees for the ensuing 3'ear : S. Staats Tay- 
lor, John Howley, Peter Stapletou, Lewis W. 
Young, B. Shannessy and M. B. Harrell. 

This board, at once proceeded to put in place 
the wheels and pulleys and bauds and cogs of 
an elaborate and complete general government. 
It enacted voluminous ordinances and fulmi- 
nated its edicts. The quiet and health of the 
cit}- was their one ambition. Mose Harrell 
commenced to stud}-, with avidity, the laws of 
hygiene under Shannessy, and John Howley 
and Stapletou purchased diagrams and charts 
of the Constitution of the United States, with a 
view, perhaps, of settling, by a great com- 
promise, the questions that were agitating the 
wharves and wharf-boats, mails, transfers, etc. 
But the people, from some inscrutable cause, 
would continue to look upon the whole proceed- 
ing as a " good joke," and the ordinances 
were not enforced — remained, in a monumental 
way, a dead letter upon the journal of the 
board's proceedings. 

On iSIarch 9, 1856, imperious necessity called 
out another eflfort at a cit}' Government — 



50 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



spelled with a big Gr — and anotlier electiou was 
held, when, besides a Board of Trustees, a 
Police Magistrate was elected, in the person of 
Robert E. Yost, Esq. At the first meeting of 
the board, Thomas Wilson, Esq., was made 
President ; James Kenedy, Marshal ; Isaac L. 
Harrell, Clerk; George D. Gordon, Wharf- 
master, and all other matters closely scru- 
tinized, to put the machinery of the government 
into successful operation. 

But again, this year, there was not a great 
deal of government in active play, except in 
the matter of the ordinance department : these 
were ably composed, and they did '' sound so 
grand " on the river's bank, but with the ex- 
ception of a Marshal, to run in a few unfortu- 
nates before the Police Magistrate — these two 
officers reporting, as their year's work, the 
munificent collection of fines, etc., of $355 — 
and this was added to the Wharfmaster's year's 
report of $331.50 wharfage, making in all, for 
those three officers, the munificent sum of 
$686.50; of itself, not a verj- enormous salaiy, 
but then there were the honors, which may 
run the sum total into the thousands. 

In addition to the fines and wharfage, the 
city this 3-ear derived, from grocer}- and other 
licenses, $2,250.50 ; from taxes, 12,325.78. 

The entire real and personal property of 
the citv then was valued, for the purpose of 
taxation, at a fraction over $450,000. There 
were twenty-eight licensed saloons in the city, 
two billiard saloons, and nine licensed drays. 
The records tell the story of how rapidly 
a solid and flourishing city was rising out of 
the debris of the wreck of 1841, when the City 
of Cairo & Canal Company carried all down 
in its general wreck and ruin. The music of 
the hammer and the saw was heard upon every 
side, and to all these was added the cheering 
scream of the locomotive whistle, and the 
heyda}' of flush times once more began to 
come to Cairo. 

Before passing again, however, to the 



material aflairs of the cit}-, we choose to incor- 
porate here the details of the most notable 
occurrence that disturbed the quiet or marred 
the dignity of Cairo. This was the mobbing 
of the desperate negro, Joseph Spencer, which 
took place in the autumn of the year 1855. A 
citizen of Cairo, George D. Gordon, we believe, 
had instituted legal proceedings against the 
negro for trespass, and a writ had been issued 
for his apprehension. It was served upon him 
and he informed the officer that he would be at 
the Justice's office in a few minutes. Instead 
of quietl}- submitting himself to the law, like a 
rational being, he procured a keg of powder, 
and with this under his arm he repaired to the 
court of justice. This office was in a room on 
the first floor of the Cairo Hotel, the upper rooms 
being occupied by guests, including many 
women and children. Arrived at the Squire's 
office, and seating himself upon the keg, and 
immersing the muzzle of a cocked pistol far 
into the powder, the audacious negro dictated 
his own terms to the officer, which were, that 
judgment should be instantly pronounced in 
his favor, and the suit thrown out of court, or 
he would " fire, and blow to h — 11 the building 
and every one in it ! " It was evident, from 
his wicked eye that he would do as he said, 
and scores of unsuspecting persons in the 
rooms above would have been blown to atoms. 
The hangers-on in the court room, as well as 
the officers present, adjourned themselves out 
of the doors and windows in rapid confusion. 
Word of this infernal outrage being generally 
circulated, a lai'ge number of citizens and 
strangers gathered, and determined that, at 
least, such a dangerous character should at 
once leave the city. The negro had a hotel 
wharf-boat moored to the shore, where he kept 
a tavern of no mean pretensions, and where 
many of the sojourners here in their travels 
have stopped and been entertained. But the 
reputation of the place was becoming infamous, 
and circumstances had caused manv to sus- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



51 



pect that in the name of caring for travelers, 
crimes of the deepest cast had long been going 
on in Spencer's boat. Strangers had been 
known to repeatedl}' stop there and were never 
seen or heard of again after going to bed. The 
bedrooms ran along the building on either 
side, with a hallway in the center, and it was 1 
ascertained that under each bed, in every room, 
was a trap-door, with the cai'pet so neatly fitted 
over this that it could not be discovered with- i 
out the closest inspection, and by this arrange- 
ment a person could enter, from the hull below, 
and pass from one room to the other without 
ever going in or out at a room door. 

Spencer was waited upon b}' a few represent- 
ative citizens and informed of the determination 
of the people, and at the same time he was as- 
sured that he should be safely conve3^ed across 
the river. The negro consented to this, pro- 
vided one or two of the delegation, whom he 
named, would go in the skiff with him, and to 
this they agreed. In the meantime a great 
crowd had gathered on the levee above Spen- 
cer's boat. Some parties in the crowd, when 
they learned that these men were going to cross 
the river with the negro, went to them and ad- 
vised them not to do so, and thereupon they 
declined to go, and then Spencer not only de- 
clined to go, but mocked and defied the people 
he had so signally outraged. An hours time 
was given him for preparation to leave — then 
another hour ; but instead of employing the 
time for such an end, he used it in preparing 
himself for resistance. He now concealed him- 
self in his boat and refused to have intercourse 
with any one. The crowd grew greatly incensed 
and they determined to force the negro to leave 
at all hazards. They made a rush for the room 
where he was concealed and forced the door, 
but he had escaped through his secret trap- 
door as they entered. The^' were soon notified, 
however, of his whereabouts, by the report of his 
shot-gun from another room, the charge of the 
gun taking effect in the breast and shoulder of 



one of the party, producing a wound of which the 
man died some time after. We can find no one 
now able to recall the name of this man, he being 
almost an entire stranger. He was a river man, 
and either a pilot or engineer. When this shot 
was fired, the crowd rushed to the room and 
broke it open, but the room was vacant ; and 
while the assailants were bewildered about the 
negro's second strange disappearance, the re- 
port of his gun was again heard. This shot 
wounded the well-known citizen, Ed Willett,who 
was innocently on board the boat, not joining in 
the assault, but endeavoring to save the furni- 
ture. This last shot enraged the people in an 
instant into a fierce mob that cried aloud for 
blood and that now nothing else would appease. 
The boat was torn from its moorings and towed 
out into the river, and in full view of at least 
a thousand people set on fire, and in less than 
thirty minutes burned to the waters' edge. 
But while this work was in progress the desper- 
ate and now doomed negro was not idle. He 
evidently felt that he must die, but seemed de- 
termined to sell his life dearly. Upon those 
who towed his boat into the stream, upon those 
who applied the torch, and upon those who 
filled the scores of skiffs which dotted the Ohio 
River, he fired repeated rounds and scarcely ever 
without effect. Exhausting his shot or projec- 
tiles, he charged his piece with stone-coal and 
fired that upon his assailants, as long as the 
eager flames allowed him to resist at all. And 
now the advancing element had fully shrouded 
the upper works of the boat, leaving only a plat- 
form on the stern to be enveloped. Many had 
concluded the wretched creature had perished 
in the flames, and as they were about to turn 
from the sickening sight there was a crash 
of glass heard in the great bulk of flame. In 
an instant afterward Spencer appeared upon 
the stern, in full view of the great crowd, and of 
[ his wife upon the wharf-boat, and, looking defi- 
antly at all, he placed his hand upon his breast 
, and leaped headlong into what he then must 



52 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



have considered the '• friendl}^ waters of the 
Ohio." Long and anxiously the crowd looked 
for his appearance to the surface, but the wa- 
ters had closed over him once and forever. 
Thus, calling destruction on his own head, per- 
ished the desperate negro, Joseph Spencer. 

For weeks and months afterward the news- 
papers of the country made allusion to the affair 
as a '' characteristic mob," giving it more shapes 
than Proteus, every writer who took it in hand, 
molding it exactly to his own liking. Mose 
Harrell, who was an eye witness to the whole 
sad affair, and who was daily receiving in his 
exchange papers from all over the couutr}^ at- 
tempted to summarize the accounts and recon- 
cile them all into one straight, consistent story, 
and here is the remarkable result : 

*' Joseph Spencer, an eminent colored divine, 
whose desperate character made him the terror 
of the community, and whose deeds of blood 
and acts of Christian piety gave him great emi- 
nence, was recently killed by a mob in Cairo 
under the following justifiable and bloodthirsty 
circumstances : Mr. Spencer, while conducting 
a prayer meeting on his boat, which was reek- 
ing in the blood of his murdered victims, was 
shot down by a disguised mob of well known 
citizens, who, without premeditation, had assem- 
bled shortly after dark on the morning of the 
bloody day for the hellish and authorized pur- 
pose. These negro drivers, who had just 
arrived on a Mississippi steamer, then seized 
him while in the act of getting down to a game 
of " old sledge" with a distinguished Method- 
ist minister from Cincinnati, tied him to a 
convenient tree, and there burned him until the 
waters of the Ohio closed over him forever. 
His boat,"upon which he remained until the last 
moment, was then towed to the middle of the 
Ohio River, where it sunk against the Ken- 
tucky shore, b}' applying the flaming torch to 
the cabin. 

" A more diabolical and fiendish act of mer- 
ited punishment never disgraced a community 



of incarnate fiends of high respectability more 
signall}' than has this act of damnable but 
richly deserved retribution disgraced all con- 
cerned in it, not excepting the victim himself, 
who was seen at Memphis receutlj^, swearing 
vengeance dire against his sanctimonious mur- 
derers." 

Thus, from Joe Spencer to Eliza Pinkston, 
the " bloody shirt" floated in ample folds all 
over the North, while the " mud-sills" and the 
"corner-stone of slavery," equally ripened 
and flourished at the South. And of a nation's 
throes, coming of these infinitesimal circum- 
stances, a Lincoln's fame was born, and the way 
was prepared for that " ambitious 3'outb who 
fired the Ephesian dome," to assassinate Lin- 
coln in a theater, on G-ood Friday, of 1865 ; and 
the hanging of an innocent woman ; and the 
second assassination of a President, and the 
hanging of an insane man. These are the skele- 
ton, surface results, but beneath that ghastly 
covering who will ever know, who can ever in his 
wildest imaginings conceive the blighted virtue, 
the ruined names, the crushed hearts, the 
ghastly corpses, the unspeakable agony and 
woe, that ran over this people like a consum- 
ing conflagration ! It is well for the mental 
health of the human race that the charity of 
oblivion rests so deeply upon the sickening 
story that it ma}' never be told. Joe Spencer 
was nothing but a wretched, desperate, igno- 
rant and brutal negro, whose life was a constant 
menace to all with whom he came in contact ; 
yet the century had been preparing the way 
for even this vile wretch, and it culminated in 
his self-sought destruction into a power for 
evil which may run on for 3'et a hundred years. 
Nothing is clearer than that it was the right 
way, the high and solemn duty of the people 
of Cairo to either drive off or kill the danger- 
ous, bad negro. They should have done this 
long before they did, and if it was necessary to 
kill him in order to get rid of him, he was en- 
titled to no more considex-ation than a snake 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



58 



or a rabid clog. But when he could stand at 
bay no longei*, he placed heav}- irons about his 
neck and plunged into the river, with his dead- 
ly gun in his hands, and, thus prepared, he 
fully determined never to rise again, but his 
conjured ghost was impressed into the service 
of aiding in the bloody preparations for the 
carnival of death that was so soon to follow 
after his destruction. 

In a preceding chapter, we had occasion to 
notice the penchant, the genius rather, of the 
young men of Cairo, that was so fully devel- 
oped in those dull years following the disper- 
sion of the people here in 1841. So ingi-ained 
had this become, that now, when the flush 
times again came to Cairo, and work and busi- 
ness crowded upon them from every side, they 
would steal these golden moments whenever 
opportunit}' presented itself to again indulge 
in their favorite pastime. 

The Legislature had organized a Court of 
Common Pleas for Cairo, and appointed Isham 
N. Haynie, Judge. He came to Cairo to hold 
his first term of court, and a court room had 
been secured in the Springfield Block. He had 
not more than fairly opened the session when 
the " boys" opened a similar court in the other 
end of the block, and they had all the officials 
and paraphernalia of a most August court. 
The officer of Judge Haynie's Court would 
stick his head out of the window and call a 
juror, attorne}', or witness, and so would the 
official at the moot court, only the bogus one 
would call louder, oftener, and a greater num- 
ber of names, and the bailiffs were flying 
around the streets summoning witnesses, 
jurors and parties to come into court instan- 
ter. The bogus grand jury held prolonged 
sessions, and as the bailiffs well understood 
who to summon as witnesses, and as the jurors 
well understood what questions to ask such 
witnesses, it was a roaring farce from morn 
till night, particularly the revelations the}' 
drew out of an old chap whose shebang was 



down on the point, and who sold ice principal- 
1}'. From day to da^- this immense burlesque 
went on. and many names of the best people 
began to be compromised ^dly. Judge 
Haynie finall}- took notice of the matter, and a 
United States Marshal making his appearance 
with writs, frightened the " boys" seriously, 
and, in fact it resulted in driving several of 
them temporarily out of town, until the matter 
was finally fixed up in some wa}', and their 
thoughtless acts were excused. 

A more innocent and comical joke was 
worked ofl" by John Q. Harmon and Mose 
Harrell. They were both j'oung fellows, and 
Mose was clerking in his brother's store — a 
place of great resort for the old fellows who 
delighted to loaf, and chew tobacco and " swap 
lies," and absorb the heat of the stove in cold 
weather. To move these fellows from the 
warm fire and clear the 8tore-roon» was the 
project set about by these boys. Harmon had 
got a suppl}' of sand and had it carefull}' 
wrapped in a good sized bundle, and seeking 
the time when the loafers were thickest about 
the store, he walked in with his package in his 
hand. He addressed Mose, in a tone that all 
could hear, telling him he was going hunting, 
that he had all the powder he wanted, display- 
ing his three or four pounds of sand, and went 
on to tell Harrell that he wanted some shot and 
would pay for it in a few days, etc. 

" No sir !" said Harrell, " if 3"0U have no 
money, you cannot get an}- shot." 

"Well," says Harmon, "you need not be so 
short about it. I'll pay 3'ou next week." 

And from the first the words grew more 
bitter and loud, and soon the two quarrelers 
had the entire attention of the house. In the 
meantime, Harmon had wedged his vra,y close 
up to the door of the red-hot stove, when, Lhe 
quarrel going on still, he opened the stove 
door and bitterly said : " Well, if I can't get 
any shot, I don't want any powder !" and 
heaved the bundle into the stove. Such a 



54 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



hurried exit — some of them not taking time to 
rise from their chairs to run, but tumbling 
backward and rolling to the door, and all 
were upon the streets in such a frightful race 
to get awa}' they did not take time to look 
back at the building which every instant they 
expected would be blown sky high, until the}' 
ran so far they were fagged out. In the 
meantim'e, John and Mose were fairly rolling 
over the floor in explosions of laughter. It 
was several days before the old loafers would 
venture within half a mile of Harrell's store. 

During the winter of 1857, the city was 
specially incorporated by the Legislature, *and 
on the 9th day of March following the first 
Council, under the charter, met for organiza- 
tion and business. The following gentlemen 
formed the Council : 

Maj'or, S. Staats Taylor ; Aldermen, Peter 
Stapletor^ Peter Neff, Patrick Burke, Roger 
Finn, John Howle}^, Harry Whitcamp, C. Os- 
terloh, C. A. Whaley, William Standing, Cor- 
nelius Manly, Martin Eagan and T. N. Graff- 
ney. 

As the city officers were not elected by the 
people at that time, the Council elected John 
Q. Harmon, City Clerk ; H. H. Candee, Treas- 
urer ; and Thomas Wilson, Marshal. 

The Board of Aldermen disapproving of the 
work of their predecessors, by a simple resolu- 
tion, wiped from the books every general and 
special enactment found in force, leaving no 
vestige of the old board's wisdom or folly in 
operation, save only such enactments as con- 
ferred rights or privileges for a specified time or 
special nature. The whole city government 
was remodeled — an entire new set of ordi- 
nances, relating /to ever}' legitimate subject, 
being framed and adopted. They assumed all 
responsibility, willing to take the credit arising, 
or the shower of condemnation following the 
new order of things. The charter was broad 
and liberal in its provisions, and under it, with 
ver}' few and immaterial amendments, the 



usual work doubtless of " governing too much" 
has gone on smoothl}-^ ever since. 

S. Staats Ta3'lor filled the oflflce of Mayor six 
times, viz. : During 1857-58-59-60 and 63. 

H. Watson Webb was Mayor during 1862, 
being elected without opposition. J. H. Ober- 
ly in 1869. 

In 1864, David J. Baker, one of the present 
Judges of the Circuit Court, wa,^ elected Mayor. 

During the years 1857-58-59-60 and 61, 
John Q. Harmon held the office of City Clerk. 
He was succeeded by A. H. Irvin, who held it 
seven 3'ears. J. P. Fagan, elected 1868 ; Pat- 
rick Mockler, 1869 ; Mockler was suspended 
and T. Nail}', appointed to fill out his term ; 
John Brown was then elected. N. J. Howley, in 
1870, held it four terras ; 1872, W. H.Hawkins; 
1875, W. K. Ackley; James W. Stewart, 1876; 
John B. Phillis, 1877 ; D. J. Fpley, 1879 ; re- 
elected in 1881, and again in 1883. 

The following were the City Treasurers in the 
order in which they are named : H. H. Candee, 
Louis Jorgensen, John H. Brown, B. S. Harrell, 
A. C. Holden, Peter Stapleton, John Howley, 
J. B. Taylor, who held the office until 1872, 
and was succeeded by Robert A. Cunningham ; 
in 1875, B. F. Blake was elected ; then F. M. 
Stockfleth, and then B. F. Parke ; in 1879, E. 
Zezonia ; 1881, Thomas J. Curt. 

The City Marshals were Thomas Wilson, D. 
C. Stewart, P. Corcoran, R. H. Baird, Martin 
Egan, John Hodges, Jr. 

In addition to the City Marshals above given 
we may mention M. Bambrick, Andrew Kane- 
City Attorneys — H. Watson Webb, who filled 
the office for four successive terms, and was 
again re-elected in 1863 and 1864. In 1871, P. 
H. Pope was elected, and re-elected in 1872. In 
1873, H. Watson Webb was again elected. In 
1875, H. H. Black, was elected, and re-elected in 
1876 ; 1877, William Q. McGee ; 1879, W. E. 
Hendricks, and re-elected the next term. 

Police Magistrates —B. Shannessy, who held 
the office successively from 1857 to 1864, Fred- 



HISTOKY OF CAIRO. 



' 55 



oline Bross was elected in 1865. In 1876, 
two Police Magisti-ates were elected to this 
office. J. J. Bird in 1880 ; Bird resigned and 
George E. Olmstead was elected ; in 1881, 
Alfred Comings was elected. 

In 1863, for the first time the Council pro- 
vided for the office of Cit)' Surve3-or, and the 
Board elected August F. Taylor to that posi- 
tion. Mr. Thrupp has filled the position almost 
continually. 

In addition to the Mayors above enumerated, 
Thomas Wilson filled the office in 1870 ; John 
M. Lansden, 1871 ; re-elected in 1872 ; in 1873, 
John Wood ; 1874, B. F. Blake ; 1875, Henry 
Winters ; re-elected 1877 ; and in 1879, M. B. 
Thistlewood was elected and re-elected in 1881. 
The present officers just elected, will be found 
complete in another chapter. 

Cairo was always "diabolically Democratic," 
at least until the " man and brother" from the 
cotton-fields and jungles of the South parted 
company with the swamp alligators and tooth- 
some possoms of that region and came upon 
the town like the black ants of his native Af- 
rica. The town sits upon that point of land in 
Illinois that is wedged away down between 
what wei'e the two slave States of Missouri and 
Kentucky. So cosmopolitan were the Cairo 
people that they were impatient of the bawl- 
ings and crockodile tears of the Abolitionists, 
and the equally idiotic oaths about the divine 
institution of slaver}'. And hence the}' were 
equally abused by both sides of the fanatics 
and fools. Among other most horrid slanders 
that ran their perennial course through the col- 
umns of many Northern papers, was the one 
that Cairo was ready and eager to mob and kill 
every " loyal " man who happened to be found 
in the place. One flaming story was added to 
the Spencer mobbing, about a little preacher 
named Ferree, who attempted to make an Abo- 
lition speech in Cairo and was odorously egged, 
etc. The whole thing was only one of the man}' 
slanders upon Cairo. 



In the campaign of 1856, a noted negroite, 
from the office of the Chicago Tribune, came to 
Cairo to make a Fremont speech. His paper had 
published tomes of the Cairo slanders, and 
dwelt long and lovingly on the Spencer and 
Ferree mobs. After the distinguished orator 
arrived in Cairo he ran his eye over the columns 
of his paper, of which he carried a file that was 
filled with .sectional slanders, and he became nerv- 
ous, and actually worked upon his own fears un- 
til he began to seriously believe many of his 
own published lies. He thought the people would 
mob him. He locked himself in his room and 
sent for the Republican leaders, and informed 
them he was afraid to attempt to speak in Cairo. 
These men assured him there was no danger, 
but he would not be satisfied until nearly every 
leading Democrat in the town had been sent 
for, and they all pledged themselves'and staked 
their lives upon his entire safety and immunity 
from all danger. Then, though still nervous, 
he consented to go on with the meeting. When 
the hour for the meeting had come the hall was 
packed with people, although there were not a 
score of Republicans in the place. The speaker, 
with his escort, appeared upon the platform, 
was introduced and received with hearty cheers. 
He commenced his speech, and the attention of 
the crowd was close and respectful, and upon the 
speaker's slightest allusion to anything patriotic 
or of a spread-eagle nature, prolonged cheers 
would greet his words. His exordium had been 
splendidly pronounced and speaker and audi- 
ence were en rapport, and thus encouraged the 
orator was rising to the occasion in some of the 
most eloquent slanders of the South that ever 
greeted eager and lengthened ears, when all 
at once, Sam Hall, who sat nearly in the front 
row of benches, jumped to his feet, turned 
around with his back to the speaker and facing 
the audience, and placing his hand significantly 
to his hip pocket, in a clear and distinct voice, 
said : " I'll shoot the first son-of-a-sea-cook that 
throws an egg ! " These words struck the ora- 



56 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



tor's ears like the crack of doom ; his big 
speech, even articulation, was frightened out of 
him ; he was so nervous that he could no longer 
stand, and silence, with an exceptional here and 
there men clearing their throats and suppress- 
ing the " audible smiles " of those who knew 
what the inveterate wag, Sam Hall, meant, was 
intense, and the speaker hurriedly passed out 
of the rear door of the hall, and made fast time 
to his hotel, and was on the first train out of 
town, and for weeks the Chicago Tribune wrung 
the changes on " Another Cairo Mob — Free 
Speech Suppressed," etc. 

Among the early and long time institutions 
of Cairo was " Old Rube," the innocent ad- 
vance guard of the whole " coon " tribe, that 
have since been inflicted upon Cairo. Old 
Rube was a rather quiet, well-behaved darkey, 
who did chores about town, acted as "mud- 
clerk " for most of the saloons, was always, 
when he could catch an audience or listener on 
the street, talking learnedly about the Scriptures, 
and had a great weakness for chicken-roosts. 
" Old Rube " was a more modest Ethiopian 
than his modern kind, at least he never at- 
tempted to turn the Cairo white children out 
of their schools, and have himself installed in 
their places. His extraordinar}' ideas, and his 
amusing way of putting them, made him not 
only tolerated b}- all young and old of the 
place, but they afforded much innocent pas- 
time. He was one morning doing his usual 
clerking in the new telegraph office, when it 
was run by Mose Harrell. The only telegraph 
instruments in those days were the old- 
fashioned kind, that were wound up, and used 
long strips of paper. In sweeping about the 
instrument, which was wound up, in some way 
he touched it, and it commenced to run down. 
He realized what he had done and was greatly 
frightened as he saw the weight slowly descend 
toward the floor. In some way he got it into 
his woolly pate that when the weight struck the 
floor an explosion would follow, and he thought 



it would blow the whole world into smithereens. 
On a full run he started to hunt Mose, and 
when he found him, told him what was going 
on. Mose in apparent fright, rushed back 
with Rube to the office, and just as they entered 
the machine had run down and stopped, of 
course, just before the weight touched the floor. 
He made Rube believe he was just there at 
the last moment, and conflrmed the darkey's 
idea and enlarged them greatly b}^ showing 
him how the explosion, commencing at Cairo, 
would have blown awa}' entirely St. Louis, 
Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and in fact all 
the leading cities of the world. For the re- 
mainder of Rube's life he told over this thrill- 
ing stor}- in which he and Mose Harrell were 
such conspicuous actors, always adding some 
embellishments to the story, and ever}' time 
going a little more learnedly into the scientific 
intricacies of electricity. In discussing the 
Scriptures, he evidently believed that the' story 
of Jonah and the whale, and Noah and his ark, 
were about the sum total of the whole busi- 
ness. He believed it a religious duty to 
smoke a strong pipe, because had Jonah 
not had his pipe and matches in his pocket, 
after the whale swallowed him, and was swim- 
ming oflT for a general frolic with the other 
whales, he would never have been cast ashore. 
Explaining one day on the streets all about 
how Noah constructed the Ark, how long it 
took him, and how much material there was in 
it. The question was asked, ''Where did he 
get his nails ? " " Wh}-, in Pittsburgh, of course, 
you fool you! Whar could he get 'em if not dar?" 
He believed heaven a place made up exclusive- 
ly of chicken roosts, and where there was 
nothing higher for them to roost upon than a 
common rail fence. Every one kindly tolerated 
the ignorant and innocent old man, gave him 
alwa3'S plenty to eat, and he dressed himself 
j'ear in and out with the old clothes of which 
he always had an immense supply. In his 
young days, he had been one of the innumera- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



57 



ble servants of George Washington, at all 
events he had told the story until he un- 
doubtedl}' believed it, and he al\va3-s respect- 
fully spoke of him as " Mas'r George." He was 
a stanch Republican from the formation of 
that part}', and was a regular attendant upon 
its meetings in Cairo, j'et his associates and 
friends were exclusivel}' Democrats. He never 
expected or apparently' wanted to vote, and 
sometimes, like perhaps a majorit}' of the white 
voters, got his religion and politics so mixed 
up that he could not disentangle them. x\nd 
often when the question was suddenly sprung 
upon him he could not tell " Mas'r Linkum " 
from the ark, nor Noah from the whale, but, 
to his credit be it said, this mental, political 
and religious confusion but rarely took pos- 
session of the old man, except after he had 
cleaned and righted up, and purified and 
sweetened his usual morning round of the dog- 
geries. He has long since, if his theories were 
all correct, had a touch of experience of those 
other worlds, about which while here he talked 
so much, and dreamed such vague and incoher- 
ent dreams. He rests beneath the willow tree. 
1^58 — Cairo Inundated. — For the second 
time a widespread disaster overwhelmed Cairo, 
and under circumstances in some respects very 
similar to that of 1841. But this time it was 
water. On Saturday, June 13, 1858, at about 
the hour of 5 P. M., the levee gave away on 
the Mississippi side of the town, near its inter- 
section with the embankment of the Illinois 
Central Railroad. For several days previous 
it had been predicted b}' many who had closel}' 
watched the progi-ess of the flood, and who 
were familiar with the character of the levees, 
that the town was in constant danger. The 
people were warned of the peril ; but lulled into 
a feeling of security by the fact that during the 
fifteen j-ears past they had escaped sul)mersion, 
and by assurances of the reckless that all was 
safe, they paid no attention whatever to the 
warning regarding it, only as the bugbear of 



panic-makers. As a consequence, the flood 
came upon many of the people unexpectedly, 
leaving them only time to escape with their 
lives. 

The break, it is now known, resulted from the 
defective construction of the works by the un- 
principled contractor who made the embank- 
ment. The water was more than a foot below the 
top of the Igvee, and up to the moment of the 
break gave no sign of the coming disaster. 
The waters rushed through with a great roar, 
carrying with them the embankment in great 
sections, and in places with such force and 
violence as to uproot trees and stumps in its 
course. 

A force of 500 men were as soon as possible 
placed upon what is known as the " Old Cross 
Levee," an embankment running from the Ohio 
to the Mississippi in the upper portion of the 
city, with the hope that they would be able to 
fill up the openings which had been cut on the 
line of the streets and stop the flood of this 
embankment. But the waters poured in so 
rapidly and came with such a strong current 
that this attempt was reluctantly but necessa- 
ril}' abandoned. 

A lady resident, still of the citj' of Cairo, 
who was here at the time, gave the writer a 
most graphic description of the scenes imme- 
diately following the break in the levee. Gen- 
erally the women and children only were at 
the houses — the men at their business, many 
trying to move their goods and perishable arti- 
cles to safe places in upper stories, where they 
could get these, and 3'et man}- others were out 
upon the levees trying in vain to stop the 
waters. It was after G o'clock when a man 
came galloping down the main street, horse 
and rider covered with mud and calling out at 
the top of his voice, " The levee is broken — 
flee for your lives !" In a few minutes the 
waters were seen stealing along the sewers and 
low places in the streets, winding about the 
houses and the people like an anaconda. The 



58 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



poor women and children were generally wring- 
ing their hands and crying in utter helplessness. 
She says she saw one poor woman with a piece 
of stove-pipe under one arm and a cheap look- 
ing-glass under the other, on her way to the 
Ohio Levee, followed by a brood of five or six 
children, and all weeping in the greatest dis- 
tress. Confusion was turned loose, and while 
all were in the greatest fear and apprehension, 
yet it was those whose houses were low, one- 
storied concerns and in low places, that death 
to them and their little dependent ones seemed 
staring them in the face. Generally those who 
were in houses of two stories concluded to stay 
at home and were busy moving everything into 
the second stor}". 

Soon through the streets in great force came 
the muddy waters, carrying upon its bosom logs, 
fences, trees and lumber, and presenting a scene 
that oppressed the stoutest heart ; and night 
settled upon the sad scene, and in the darkness 
and soon in the water itself, were families mak- 
ing their way to the Ohio Levee. By daylight 
Sunday morning, there was no dr}^ land to be 
seen inside the levees, and bj- noon of that day 
the waters inside were of the height of the 
rivers. As far as the eye could see the spec- 
tator behold naught but a sea of turbid water 
and a scene of confusion and ruin. 

Some of the one-stor}- buildings in the low 
grounds of the town presented only their roofs 
above the water ; a few light and frail ones 
had left their foundations, and yet a few othei's 
had careened, while every building of this 
character had been abandoned at an early hour 
by their occupants. 

In ever}- quarter of the city skiffs, canoes 
and floats of every kind plied industriously 
from house to house and were engaged in re- 
moving women and children, furniture, goods, 
etc., to the Ohio Levee. The plank walks were 
sawed into convenient sections and used as 
floats, and every imaginable species of craft 
were improvised for the occasion. 



Altogether about 500 persons were driven 
from their homes, and the little strip of the 
Ohio Levee, the only dr^' spot for miles around, 
was crowded with men, women and children, 
dogs, cattle, plunder, wagons, cars, etc., from 
one end to the other. Every nook and corner 
of the warehouses were crowded to excess 
with the houseless and their plunder, and the 
cars on the railroad track were all similarly 
occupied. Many made their way in rafts 
and skiffs and also left on steamboats for the 
highlands, and many of these stood aloof from 
" health and fortune " by making their absence 
permanent. 

Some families were made destitute by the 
flood, but these were so promptly- provided for 
by the more fortunate citizens that no real 
cases of suffering ensued. Charity was offered 
the people from other cities, but the plucky 
Cairoites said "No ; we can and are providing 
for our own people." 

We can get no reliable estimate of the dam- 
age financially that the people of the town suf- 
fered. Many poor people whose loss in dollars 
and cents was small, yet to them it was great 
because it was their all. But under the cir- 
cumstances, and considering that the visitation 
was upon the entire town, and each one lost 
more or less, the aggregate was not large, not 
near so large in property- as in the disrupting 
of established business, the destruction of con- 
fidence and the general bad odor it attached to 
Cairo's already grievous burdens in this respect. 
It was the suffering by the cit}', as a cit}-, that 
brought more damage than all the water in- 
flicted. The general revulsion that followed, 
the depreciation of property, the loss of con- 
fidence — these formed a sum of damages that 
cannot be estimated in dollars. 

There was no perceptible rise in the rivers 
after the breaking of the levee, and the waters 
began rapidly to recede. In less than two 
weeks the city was dry again, and every da}- 
the citizens were returning to their homes; logs 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



5» 



and rubbish were cleared from the streets, 
houses were repaired and re painted, and fences 
re-built, and but a few months had passed 
when the prominent marks of the flood had 
been cleared away — wiped out forever. 

The two 3'ears following the submersion of 
Cairo formed probabh- the most trying period 
of her histor}-. Real estate dropped its former 
high figures, and purchasers could buy at al- 
most their own figures, but the shock public 
confidence had received pi'evented investments, 
and business being in a measure deadened, there 
was no incentive for improvement strong 
enough to move to action those who had for- 
merly invested. Rival interests eagerly pro- 
claimed the downfall of the city, and confident- 
ly predicted it would never attempt to rise 
again, and there were many in Cairo and out of 
it who were ready to believe the blow had 
proved effectually crushing. But the repair- 
ing, widening and strengthening the levees and 
expending vast sums in this work, soon created 
abetter feeling at home and helped to inspire 
confidence abroad, and by the end of the sec- 
ond year after the overflow, property had about 
regained its former value and the business of 
the place its accustomed tone; and as time 
wore on, and the heights and proportions of 
the levees increased, confidence in the habita- 
bleness of the locality gained its original 
standard. 

In 1861, Cairo had recovered wholly from 
the overflow, and her population had increased 
to a little over 2,000 souls, the census of 18(10 
showing a population for Alexander County of 
a little over 4,000. The town had recovered 
slowly, but its foundations had been solidly 
built and the levees had been made the strong- 
est and safest in the world. 

In April, 18G1, the great civil war was fully 
inaugurated. The majority of the people 
of Cairo " knew no North, no South, no East, no 
West, but the Union, the whole Union, one and 
inseparable, now and forever." They had 



hoped, up to the last hour, that in some way 
the bloody issue would be spared the country 
once more. A military company, armed and 
uniformed, and composed of nearly all the 
young men of the town, met and drilled at 
their hall regularly every week. They met one 
evening, and after their usual exercises they 
engaged in a social meeting and talked over 
the then absorbing subject of the war. It was 
evident that it was then upon the country. 
Lincoln had called for 75,000 troops, and 
Seward had proclaimed that it would be fought 
out in ninety days. Several of the Cairo braves 
made "talks," and the meeting finall}' passed 
some " armed neutralit}' " resolutions and ad- 
journed. During all that night the incoming 
trains were freighted with United States sol- 
diers, and when the Cairo soldiers got up in the 
morning, the streets and woods were full of 
them. And the Cairo companj- never met 
again. It is due the Cairo boys to say that 
about every one of them joined the Union 
arm}-, and, still more to their credit, it is said 
tliat every one of them rose to honorable, and 
many of them to eminent promotions. 
The immediate effect of the occupation 
of the place by the militar}- was to check im- 
provements and paralyze business. This 
largel}- resulted from the fact that some of the 
early commandants of the place were ignorant 
fanatics, and who proposed to treat ever}' 
Democrat as a traitor, and visit all with a 
heavy hand. Then, the further fact, that 
neither the Government nor troops had any 
money here at that time, and the business 
means of the city were absorbed in advancing 
supplies on credit. But when the Government 
commenced distributing money here to the 
troops and its creditors, then a far more grat- 
ifying condition of affiirs was at once inaugu- 
rated. Our merchants, mechanics and laborers 
were reimbursed for what they had advanced, 
and at once an unusual activity not only 
marked every department of business, but new 



60 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



branches of trade were introduced, the old 
ones were multiplied and a vigor, which had 
never before been felt, characterized the entire 
city. Cairo was the great gateway between 
the North and the South. It was a military 
post of vast importance. Thousands of soldiers 
were stationed here, forts erected, and 
still other thousands of soldiers were 
daily passing through the place. Green- 
backs were plenty and morals became scarce. 
Many unblushing outrages, which were never 
punished, were committed upon citizens by 
the demoralized soldiers. But the war adver- 
tised Cairo more than had all else in her his- 
tory as an important and commanding point 
on the continent, and business and capital was 
attracted here in an unparalleled degree. And 
by the spring of 1863, Cairo was, for the third 
time, in the glories of flush times. New houses 
were going up on every hand that were always 
rented before finished, and, for a village,^ often 
at enormous figures ; but the new-comers were 
on a race for some place to shelter their fam- 
ilies, and they rarely hesitated about the price 
of the rent. Everybody was making money, 
and spending it freely and lavishly. The evi- 
dences of this were well given in the swarms of 
gamblers that came here and were busy 
plying their vocation, until finally, so systemat- 
ically were they robbing the soldiers, that rigid 
military orders were issued in regard to them, 
and some were put in irons. 

Gen. Prentiss came here, we believe, in 
charge of the first arrivals of soldiers, and 
assumed the command of the post. He was 
superseded by Gen. Grant, who was here so 
long that he almost became a citizen. He had 
his oflSce in the bank building, on Ohio levee, 
now occupied as a law office by Green & Gil- 
bert. The present old settlers of Cairo all 
came to know Grant quite well while he was 
here. John Rawlins came here with Grant and 
was his factotum in office headquarters, and 
"Washington Graham, a citizen and business 



man of Cairo, was Grant's factotum outside. 
Graham had extensive business ambition, and 
he was shrewd enough to know and under- 
stand Gen. Grant and quickly formed the 
closest intimacy with him. He spent his money 
on the General like a prince, and he was soon 
the power behind the throne. He bought the 
best of cigars b}' the wholesale, and constantly 
kept the liquid commissary department at 
headquarters abundantly supplied. Wash- 
ington Graham, had he lived during the war, 
would have, beyond doubt, extended his in- 
fluence and power just as Grant was advanced 
along the line of promotion. He was a man of 
genial nature, strong social powers, and shrewd 
sense — exactly- the kind of man who liked to be 
the power behind the throne, and wielding that 
power, when opportunitj' ofiered. to put money 
in- his purse, and to make the fortune of his 
friends and pull down remorselessly' his 
enemies. He soon became essential to the 
Grant party in all its junketing on the rivei's, 
and was a member of headquarters' mess on 
the steamboat in the expedition to Paducah 
and to Fort Donelson. Grant liked him and 
his liberal ways from the first of their acquaint- 
ance, and when he was stricken down with con- 
sumption and went to his friends in 
St. Louis to die, it must have seemed to 
Gen. Grant a serious aflliction. The 
General must have loved all jolly, liberal men. 
No man in the world could play his role better 
than Washington Graham. Gen. Grant's family 
were here for some time with him, and had 
living-rooms across the hall from his head- 
quarters. At that time the family seemed to 
be very plain, unpretending people. Bill 
Shuter's extensive establishment was the alma 
mater of much of the enthusiastic patriot- 
ism of those days, as well as some of the 
early strategic movements of the war in the 
West. 

Among the first military movements of Gen. 
Prentiss after he was placed in command of the 





v 




U'^^/enuz^^ 



^t 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



63 



forces at Cairo, numbering 4,800 men, was to 
formally demand the arms of the Cairo Guards. 
As the compan}' had dissolved into the air im- 
mediately upon the coming of the soldiers, the 
General could find no one to respond to 
his flag of truce demanding an unconditional 
surrender of the ordnances. But he found the 
keys to the armory, and the deadly weapons of 
war were taken possession of in the name of the 
United States and turned over to arm the 
Union soldiers. 

The next and much more important move- 
ment was to look out for the steamers C. E. 
Hillman and John D. Perry, which he had been 
notified by Gov. Yates had been loaded with 
arms and ammunition and were on their way 
South with their cargoes. When the boats' 
reached Cairo they were boarded and brought 
to the wharf A large number of arms and 
ammunition were'seized and confiscated — a pro- 
ceeding, at the time informal, but it was after- 
ward approved by the Secretary' of War. 

Gen. Grant's first battle in the war was Bel- 
mont, Mo., a point nearly opposite Columbus, 
K3'., where the rebels were in strong force, and 
had detached a small portion of the Columbus 
forces to occupy Belmont. Gen. Grant conclud- 
ed it would be an immense piece of strategy- 
to capture Belmont, and thus relieve that por- 
tion of Missouri, and to some extent intercept all 
communications between the rebel forces of 
Kentucky and Missouri. So a fleet of boats 
sailed down the river, and a part of the force 
marched down by land from Bird's Point — 
the force from the river to land and attack in 
front, and the land force to come up in the rear, 
and thus pocket the enem}'. The whole scheme 
was well devised, and the river force, reaching 
the grounds long before the land force, and 
so eager were oflBcers and men for blood 
and glory, that they at once attacked. The 
river forces were under the immediate com- 
mand of Gen. Grant. They were hastily 
deploved from the boats, a short distance above 



Belmont, formed in battle line, opened fire, and 
charged upon the enem3''s encampment and 
captured it. But the teats were empt}-, mostly, 
and all hands were in deep indignation at the 
enemy for running awa3' in such a dastardl}' 
manner. And the soldiers fell to work ripping 
up fhe tents, and prying into the culinar}' affairs 
of the enem3''s camp, and exulting over their 
easj' victory. Just when they had become 
prett}' well scattered over the grounds, the 
enemy suddenly' emerged from the woods, and 
at short range, opened a galling fire. The ad- 
vance of the land forces just then appeared, 
and for a few minutes the battle raged fiercely 
— the rebels charged, and the Union forces fled 
to the boats, and in a dreadfull}' un-dress-pa- 
rade fashion, and amid flying bullets the boats 
were loaded and steamed back io Cairo. From 
the manner in which the boats had been sprin- 
kled with shot, from buckshot to birdshot, and 
from many of the wounds in the clothes of the 
federals, the enemy must have been mostly- 
armed with shotguns and fowling pieces. The 
land forces continued to return in straggling 
squads, to Bird's Point for a week, as some of 
them got lost in the river bottoms. The fed- 
eral forces had simply walked into a trap that 
had been set for them, and the}' escaped b}' the 
" skin of the teeth." 

An incident of this battle is worth relating. 
When the Union forces captured the enemy's 
camp, as stated above, the}' found nobody at 
home, but they did find a female baby 
about three months old, sleeping peacefully on 
the bare ground, amid the roar of battle and 
the whistling bullets that played thick and fast 
all around it. There was no one to claim it, 
and a good Caii'o citizen took the babe in his 
arms and brought it to Cairo, whei'e it was 
taken in charge by Father Lambert, and a 
home provided for the little trophy of war. 
Nothing could ever be learned concerning the 
child, although every exertion was made to do 
so. It was duly christened a Christian, and 



64 



HISTORY OF CAIEO. 



named " Belmont Lambert." The supposition 
is, that in the attack and firing upon the camp, 
the mother of the child had been killed, and as 
the father must have been a rebel soldier, it is 
probable he was killed in this battle, or in 
some other soon after, and it may be that no 
one of this father, mother and babe ever knew 
what became of the others. We know nothing 
of the history of Belle Lambert, after she was 
provided for here in Cairo, as an infant. If 
alive now, she is a gi-own woman, twenty-two 
years old. What a dream the strange story of 
her life must be to her. How she must have 
employed heavy hours of her young life in 
peering at every lineament of her features in 
the glass, trying to discover traces of her un- 
known father and mother, and having fixed 
them in her mind, as she supposed, how eagerly 
would she scan every strange face she met, in 
the vain hope, in all this multitude, of finding 
the long-lost and ideally formed and loved 
mother or father. Is there a mothers heart in 
all the world that is not melted at the story of 
this lost babe — the little angel waif, found un- 
harmed in the midst of slaughter and blood — a 
little flower of peace and love, sleeping sweetly 
amid all its hideous surroundings. 

But to refer again, briefly, to the Belmont 
battle : There is a part of that storj' that is 
furnished us b}' a prominent and reliable gen- 
tleman of Cairo, William Lornegan, who was 
acting mate on the transport, Montgomery, that 
has never been told in print, and that will some 
day be essential to the truth of history. He 
says that one afternoon while the Montgomery 
was anchored in front of Cairo. Wash Oraham 
came on board and ordered the Captain to coal 
at once, and drop down to Fort Holt,on the Ken- 
tucky side, and that when he received the signal 
from the flag-boat he was to swing out into the 
stream and follow. The Captain asked Graham 
what the signal was to be, and was answered, 
"five whistles." Then, for the first time, word 
passed around with the crew that they were 



going to attack Columbus. Before that, they 
supposed the}- were going to be loaded with 
soldiers, and take them to Cape Girardeau, as 
they had made a trip or two of this kind al- 
ready. These troops, it was afterwai'd known, 
were to march by land, and come upon Bel- 
mont, in conjunction with the water forces, and 
the Bird's Point forces. A force had been sent 
out from Fort Holt to make a similar detour 
upon Columbus from the east. Thus, by three 
columns, a land force on each side of the river 
and a fleet of transports and two gunboats by 
the river, the two places, Columbus and Bel- 
mont, were both to be captured. In accordance 
with instructions, the flag-boat passed down by 
Fort Holt about 4 o'clock, P. M., and gave the 
*five-whistle signal, and the fleet of five trans- 
ports and two gunboats sailed down the river. 
Going about half way to Columbus, the}' round- 
ed to and tied up for the night. The next 
morning the fleet dropped down in full view of 
the Columbus bluflfs, all over which were 
mounted the rebel cannon, commanding the 
river. About 9 o'clock in the morning, the 
forces were disembarked, and were marched 
toward Belmont. The gunboats dropped down 
a short distance below the fleet, and fired upon 
Columbus, the guns from the fort promptly re- 
sponding, sending their balls, from the first shot, 
closely about the transports — one ball falling 
just at the stern of the Montgomery, and splash- 
ing the water over the deck. The fleet moved 
out from this point, and took a position two 
and a half miles further up the river in a safe 
bend, and there listened at the progress of the 
fight at Belmont. The opening musketry was 
not of long duration, and then there was a long 
cessation, and the firing again commenced. 
Mr. L. tells us that he saw nothing of the fight 
at Belmont, and only learned from hearing the 
soldiers talk about it, that the enemy threw a 
force across the river from Columbus, and re- 
newed the fight. He says the first signs he 
noticed from the battle-ground was about sun- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



65 



down, when two soldiers appeared at the boat, 
one leading and helping the other, who had 
been wounded in the arm. Thej- reported that 
the rebels had crossed over from Columbus, and 
were " cutting our men all to pieces.' The 
transports at once dropped down to the point 
where they had landed the night before, so as 
to permit our forces, whom the}' learned were 
in full retreat before the enemy, to get on' 
board. By the time the\- had landed it was 
dark, and b}' this time, our forces were coming, 
pell-mell — rank and file — officers and privates, 
in one indiscriminate mass on board the boats. 
In the confusion, some one from the hurricane 
deck gave the mate the order to haul in his gang 
plank and cast loose. This was only done, 
when the Captain of the boat ordered the gang 
I)lank run out again, so as to permit the fast- 
coming soldiers to get on board. This was 
done, and then almost immediately the order 
was again given to cast loose, and this was 
obej-ed, and the boat steamed up the river. 
The whole fleet was on its way, and the banks 
of the river were lined with rebels, pouring 
a hot fire into the boats. The rebels sent 
a battery across a bend up the river, intend- 
ing by this movement to capture or sink 
the entire fleet. As good fortune would 
have it, they only reached their position 
just as the boats passed, but so closel}' 
had the}- pursued them that they fired a num- 
ber of shots at the fleet. Mr. L. thinks that 
had the fleet been dela3-ed thirty minutes longer, 
the capture of the Union army and fleet would 
have been complete. A number of soldiers 
were left on the bank, and they made their way 
to Bird's Point, as best they could, and for days 
and days these stragglers were coming in. Mr. 
L. says the fact of our forces not all being able 
to get on the boats was painfull}- manifested to 
his mind at the time by a conversation he 
heard Gen. Logan have with some other officer. 
Logan denounced what he called deserting these 
men to their fate, and was insisting the fleet 



should return and lake them on board. Mr. L. 
says when he heard this, he made up his mind 
he would swim ashore and walk home, rather 
than go back. 

Wash Graham seems to have been the acting 
Admiral of the fleet, and so far as its actions 
were concerned, he managed his part of the battle 
with skill and success. Upon the return of the 
army to Cairo, everybody seemed to be laboring 
for several days under a general kind of nebulous 
demoralization. But in a short time the troops 
were called back to Cairo, Bird's Point and Fort 
Holt, and the most of them put upon transports 
and sent to Paducah, Ky. The history of 
Grant's expedition up the river and the fights at 
Fort Henry, Heiman and Fort Donelson are a 
part of the war history of the country, and 
are not properly to be considered as an essential 
part of the history of Cairo ; although Cairo 
was the base from which the expedition started 
and on which it relied for material support. 
And although it is also true that there are men 
still living in Cairo who were in thatexpedition? 
and who were boat officers on the boat that car- 
ried Gen. Grant, Wash Graham and staff", and 
whose recollection of much of the behind-the- 
curtain facts that took place on that boat, are 
essential to the truth of history, yet we do not 
care to lumber the story of the city of Cairo 
with them, but to the war historians who are to 
come — those who do not care to write a partisan 
account of the war, there may be found val- 
uable mines of truth among the war survivors 
at Cairo. 

In another chapter, we give a toleralily broad 
insinuation of the kind of men among the first 
commandants of the post Cairo had during the 
early war times. Col. Boohfort was a crank 
and in his dotage ; he was a silly old vicious 
creature. threatening everybody — "I'll have you 
shot, sir ! Have you shot ! " or in his more 
rational moods threatening to put them in irons. 
He had a whole company of his own men ar- 
rested one day and was going to have them shot 



66 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



as usual, because in ridiug b}- their camp he 
heard them singing " My Mary Ann, "' when it 
turned out that that was his wife's name. A 
Cairo butcher's team ran awaj- one day and at 
full speed, the driver trying his best to stop 
them, they ran across his parade grounds, and 
when the old man saw his sacred grounds thus 
sacrilegiously invaded, he screamed at the poor, 
helpless driver as far as he could see him, " I'll 
have you shot ! Arrest that man ! etc. " The 
people, however, soon learned that he was as 
vain as he was weak, and they wound him 
around their finger by a little fulsome flattery 
and bragging on him as being the greatest Gen- 
eral in all the world. Yet his presence was a 
dreadful affliction to the place. They 
greatly feared and despised him, and there 
were few in the town but that rejoiced when he 
was taken away. His successor was, we believe. 
Gen. ^leredith, of Indiana — a soldier and a 
gentleman, and better still, a man of good sound 
sense. His presence gave cheer and hope again 
to the people, and once more men could go and 
come from their homes to their business with- 
out fear and trembling. The result was, the 
business and the prospects of the town were 
soon in the most flourishing condition. Then, 
some of the commandants of the post in the 
town were sometimes cursed with painfully offi- 
cious and dishonest Provost Marshals. And 
when one of these fellows was in command of 
the Provost guards that patroled the city, and 
did police duty, he had it in his power and some- 
times did perpetrate scandulous outrages upon 
private citizens. The}" were blackmailers, 
clothed with power to compel terms from their 
victims. The people had to appease these sharks 
bj- frequent voluntari/ subscriptions to buy pres- 
ents from their admirers, in the way of fine 
swords, horses, watches, and champagne, cigars 
and whisky. These subscriptions were taken 
up b}- passing around a subscription paper, and 
each man would put down his name and not 
less than S5, and thus he paid his tax 



to be let alone so that he could carry on his 
business. It is incredible how many ways these 
rascals could invent to bring men face to face 
with the alternatives of blood-moue}', or iron 
manacles. A specimen that may illustrate all: 
A large lot of rebel prisoners were passing 
through town, after the Fort Donelson fight, 
and they were standing in front of the business 
houses on the levee; the weather was wretched, 
and the poor creatures were the picture of dis- 
comfort ; they wanted clothing, food, and, es- 
pecialh', tobacco. At a tobacco store where 
several prisoners had begged a little tobacco, 
two or three rebel officers entered "and wanted 
some of the weed, and all the mone}- they had 
was Confederate bills. The tobacco was^iven 
to them, onl}- a few plugs, and the Confederate 
money was taken as a curiosity. The Provost- 
Marshal a few days after arrested the members 
of the firm and fined them $100 for 
taking Confederate money. They paid the 
bill, and, of course, the Government never saw 
a cent of the money. " Oh, patriotism ! patriot- 
ism ! what atrocities have been committed in 
thy name." Another instance of legal honesty 
will suffice for our purpose, without any further 
reference to the thousands of others of a char- 
acter incomparably worse : An official ap- 
proached a merchant and wanted to buy fort}- 
or fifty suits of clothes. He said he did not 
care what they were so they were cheap, very 
cheap, anything, any style, second-hand or 
rebel captured uniforms, or anything else that 
could be classed as suits. The goods were 
promptly got ready for delivery at about §2 50 
a suit. The officer looked at them, took them 
and instructed the merchant to make out his 
bill at §22.50 a suit. And upon his paying in 
cash the difference in the real price and the 
bill, he received his voucher for the whole 
amount. 

When the Union forces wrested the Missis- 
sippi river from the grasp of the rebels, and 
made this orreat hi^hwav again a free channel 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



67 



of travel and commerce, then, indeed, were the 
floodgates of prosperity once more opened to 
Cairo, and the town as the gateway between the 
Mississippi Valley and the South was the busiest 
place of its size on the continent. On every 
train and on ever}' steamboat the tide of hu- 
manity poured through the town. The steam- 
boats, freighted to the very waters edge, going 
and coming, filled the rivers, and da}- and night 
they were struggling and almost fighting for 
room at our wharves to load and unload their 
cargoes. The Ohio levee, from one end to the 
other, was covered with freight in great rows 
and piles in bewildering quantities. The marine- 
ways and docks from here to Pittsburgh were 
building boats as fast as they could, and every 
da}', almost, new and elegant ones rounded to 
at our wharf, and yet they were wholly inad- 
equate to carry the immense merchandise that 
was awaiting shipments. The railroads were 
taxed until they cried " peccavi ! " And it is a 
well-known fact that property amounting to 
millions of dollars awaited shipment over the 
Illinois Central Railroad, at stations where there 
being no room in the depots, it was exposed to 
the weather and rotted. To all this there came 



a corresponding horde of people to Cairo — per- 
manent and temporary sojourners. The hotels, 
boarding houses, tenement and everything in 
the shape of a house was crowded to suffocation ; 
new houses were at once being rapidly con- 
structed and the universal cry was for more. 
Rents went to fanciful figures, and in a short 
time it was impossible to tell how many people 
were here. Lots, leases, houses, rents and 
nearly all Cairo property went balooning away 
in a gay style — sailing up and up as grandly 
and to as dizzy heights as a Fourth of July 
orator's eagle. As said, the transient pop- 
ulation was immense. In 1864, it was even es- 
timated, counting the^floating population, that 
there were nearly 12,000 people here, although 
the vote at that time had never reached a thou- 
sand. In other words, the population was 
estimated greater then than the census has smce 
shown it to be, although the last general elec- 
tion showed there were over 1,800 voters. In 
other words, the census of 1880 shows a pop- 
ulation of a little less than 10,000 people. And it 
is estimated now that the actual number of in- 
habitants here is a fraction over 12,000. 



CHAPTER IV. 



DECIDEDLY A CAIRO CHAriER— CAIRO AND ITS DIFFERENT BODIES POLITIC AND CORPoRATE- 

CAIRO CITY AND BANK OF CAIRO — CAIRO AND CANAL COMPANY — CAIRO CITY 

PROPERTY— TRUSTEES OF THE C.\IRO TRUST PROPERTY— THE ILLINOIS 

EXPORTING COMPANY — D. B. HOLBROOK— JUSTIN BUTTEll- 

FI ELD— RECAPITULATION, ETC., ETC. 



AT a time simultaneous with, or just prior 
to, the coming of the nineteenth century, 
the delta formed by the jimction of the Mis- 
sissippi and Ohio Rivers began to attract the 
attention of far-seeing men, as one of the 
futiu'e important points upon the continent. 
And from the time the fii'st white man's eyes 



ever beheld it, 210 years ago, as Joliet and 
Marquette and their little party, consisting 
of five men besides themselves, floated around 
the point of land that forms the extreme 
southern limit of Illinois, and with joy and 
gladness beheld the beautiful blue Ohio 
River, and by this, their marvelous voyage 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



of discovery, placed this great Mississippi 
Valley under the segis of France and Papal 
Christendom, and thereby inaugurated that 
tremendous world's drama that continued 
during more than ninety years, in which 
France and the Church were such conspicuous 
actors; we say, from this date on, the little strip 
of land on which the city of Cairo stands at- 
tracted the attention of men, and presented 
something of its prospective importance to the 
entire Christian world. At the time of its 
discovery, nearly all nations were more or 
less involved in wars of conquest and in- 
vasion — those mighty struggles for suprem- 
acy in civilization, that were the most im- 
portant factors in the present advanced state 
of mankind, and especially that splendid 
civilization that has been spread broadcast 
over the world by the Anglo-Saxon race. 
Hence, for more than a century after the dis- 
covery of the point of junction of the two 
great rivers, situated almost in the center of 
the inhabitable portions of the continent of 
North America, its transcendent importance, 
in a military point of view, were studied and 
well comprehended by all the military 
powers of Europe. Its wonderful undevel- 
oped and almost unclaimed commercial value 
and inexhaustible productions were but little 
considered until the long Revolutionary war 
had been fought out, and peace had begun to 
win those triumphs that have resulted in the 
present rich and prosperous nation of more 
than fifty millions of people. 

A lai'ge number of incorporation acts, dat- 
ing back even to the TeiTitorial times of 
Illinois, have been enacted, and a somewhat 
extended notice of these legislative doings 
is made of great importance, from the fact 
that in the attempt to make laws for found- 
ing a city here there resulted the most im- 
portant legislation, in both the State Legis- 
lature and the Congress of the United States, 



for the entii'e State of Illinois, that have 
ever been placed upon the statute books; 
wise laws, that have brought Illinois from 
a sparsely settled, banki'upt and unpromis- 
ing waste and wilderness, to the position of 
the first State in the Union in many of the 
leading agricultiu-al products, as well as in 
railroads and all that tends to make a rich, 
prosperous and happy people. 

On the 9th day of January, 1818, the Ter- 
ritorial Legislature concluded the time had 
come that imperatively demanded that a city 
be founded here, and on that day it passed 
an act for the incorporation of the "City and 
Bank of Cairo in the State of Illinois;" the 
incorporators, consisting of John G. Comyges, 
Thomas H. Harris, Thomas F. Herbert, 
Shadrach Bond, Michael Jones, "Warren 
Brown, Edward Humphreys and Charles W. 
Hunter, who had entered a certain tract of 
land between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers 
and near the junction of the same. This 
land included Fractional Sections 14, 15, 22, 
23, 24, 25, 26, and the northeast fractional 
quarter of Section 27, Town 17 south. Range 
1 west, and contained about 1,800 aci*es. 
The act of incoi'poration is ushered into the 
world by the following grandiloquent stump 
speech: " And whereas, the said proprietors 
represent that there is, in their opinion, no 
position in the whole extent of these "Western 
States better calculated, as it respects com- 
mercial advantages and local supply, for a 
great and important city, than that afi'orded 
by the junction of those two great highways, 
the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. But that 
nature, having denied to the extreme point 
formed by their union, a sufi&cient degree of 
elevation to protect the improvements made 
thereon, from the ordinary inundations of 
the adjacent waters, such elevation is to be 
found only upon the tract above mentioned 
and described. [It must be borne in mind 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



that this is one way of putting it that the 
town site only commenced at the north line 
of Bird'p land, which was not included in 
the town plat.] So that improvements and 
property made and located thereon [no sem- 
blance of levees then made] may be deemed 
perfectly safe and absolutely secure from all 
such ordinary inundations, and liable to injury 
only from the concurrence of unusually high 
and simultaneous inundations in both of said 
rivers, an event which is alleged but rarely 
to happen, and the injurious consequenijes of 
which it is considered practicable, by proper 
embankments, wholly and effectually and 
permanently to obviate. And whereas, there 
is no doubt that a city erected at, or as near 
as practicable, to the junction of the Ohio 
and Mississippi Rivers, provided it be thus 
secured by sufi&cient embankments, or in 
such other way as experience may prove most 
efficacious for that purpose, from every such 
extraordinary inundation, must necessarily 
become a place of vast consequence to the 
prosperity of this growing Territory, and, in 
fact, to that of the greater part of the in- 
habitants of these Western States. And 
whereas, the above-named proprietors are 
desirous of erecting such city, under the 
sanction and patronage of the Legislature 
of this TeiTitory, and also of providing by 
law for the security and prosperity of the 
same, and to that end propose to appropriate 
one-third part of all money arising from the 
sale and disposition of the lots into which 
the same be surveyed, as a fund for the con- 
struction and preservation of such dykes, 
levees and other embankments as may be 
necessary to render the same perfectly 
secui-e; and also, if such fund shall be 
deemed sufficient thereto, for the erection of 
public edifices and such other improvements 
in the said city as may be, from time to time, 
considered expedient and practicable, and to 



appropriate the two-thirds part of the said 
purchase- moneys to the operation of bank- 
ing. And whereas, it is considered that an 
act to incorporate the said proprietors and 
their associates, viz., all such persons as 
shall, by purchase or otherwise, hereafter 
become proprietors of the tract above men 
tioned and described, as a body corporate 
and politic, while it guarantees to all those 
who may become freeholders or residents 
within the said city the fullest security as 
to their habitations and property, will at the 
same time concentrate the views and facili- 
tate the operations of the said proprietors 
and their said associates in rendering the 
said city secure from all such inundations as 
aforesaid, and in promoting the internal 
prosperity of the same. " After this extraor- 
dinary line of whereases, the Legislature pro- 
ceeds to regularly incorporate the " City and 
Bank of Cairo" — the city to be here, at the 
junction of the rivers, and the bank tempo- 
rarily to be, and transact business in, the town 
of Kaskaskia, giving the body corporate the 
title of the " President, Directors and Com- 
pany of the Bank of Cairo, " requiring John 
Gr. Comyges and his associates, within the 
space of nine months from the passing of this 
act, to proceed to lay off, on such town site, 
a city, to be known and distinguished by the 
name of Cairo; which shall consist of not 
less than 2,000 lots, each lot being not less 
than sixty-six feet wide and 120 feet deep, 
and the streets of said city to be not less than 
eighty feet wide, and to run, as near as may 
be, at right angles to each other; that the 
price of the said lots shall be fixed and 
limited at $150 each, and appropriating the 
money arising from the sale of lots as fol- 
lows. Two-thirds part thereof, that is to 
say, the sum of $100 on each lot sold, shall 
constitute the capital stock of the bank; 
dividing the capital stock into twice as many 



70 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



shares as there are lots, the one-half of which 
shares shall belong to the purchasers of said 
lots, in the proportion of one share to each 
lot, and the remaining of the shares shall 
be the property of the said John G. Corny ges 
and his associates, their heirs and assigns, in 
proportion to the interest they may hold in 
the same respectively; the remaining one- 
third part of the piu'chase- money to consti- 
tute a fund to be exclusively appropriated to 
the security and improvement of said city; 
the said Comyges and associates are author- 
ized to appoint so many commissioners as 
they may deem necessary, to receive sub- 
scriptions for the purchase of lots; they are 
required, upon any person applying to 
make such purchase of subscription, to direct 
the person so applying to deposit to the credit 
of the Bank of Cairo, in the Bank of the 
United States, or in the nearest chartered 
bank, one-third of the purchase money, in 
three and six months' payments. Then it 
provides that no subscription shall be re- 
ceived from any person for more than ten of 
said lots. When oOO lots have been sub- 
scribed for, the Commissioners are to call a 
meeting of such subscribers at Kaskaskia, and 
elect from their body thirteen Directors, who 
were to hold office one year, and then these 
Directors are to choose, by ballot, a Presi- 
dent; authorizing them to prescribe by-laws 
and regulations, and defining the duties of 
the officers; the Directors are at once to dis- 
tribute by lot among the subscribers, the 
niimber each is entitled to receive, anc? to 
make deeds therefor upon full and final 
payment, and they are imperatively required 
to receive all moneys deposited to their credit 
in other banks, and thereupon to "commence 
their operations as a banking company." 
Provision is then made that the total amount 
of debts which the bank may at any time 
owe shall not exceed twice the amount of 



the capital stock actually paid into said bank; 
making the bills of credit, under the seal of 
the corporation, assignable by indorsement, 
as well as making all bills or notes which 
may be issued by the corporation, in pay- 
ment, though not under seal, binding and 
obligatoi'y as upon any private person or per- 
sons; the bank is required to make half-year- 
ly dividends of profits; requiring each Cash- 
ier, before entering upon the duties of his 
office, to give bond and security to the amount 
of SlOjOOO, and each clerk in the bank to 
give, like bond to the amount of .f 2,000; lim- 
its the interest on loans made by the bank 
to six per cent. It then provides for the ap- 
pointment of three of the Directors, a Com- 
mittee, to have the charge and management 
of all that portion of the purchase moneys 
above set apart, and appropriated as a fund 
for the security and improvement of said 
city; and which fund, or such portion there- 
of as the said Committee shall deem proper 
and advisable, shall be invested in stock of 
said bank, the said Directors being author- 
ized and required to add to the capital stock 
so many shares as shall be sufficient to take 
in the same, at the par value of the stock. 
Section 20 explicitly requires that it shall be 
the duty of the Directors, immediately after 
their election, to appoint tiu'ee persons not 
of their own body, but who shall be remov- 
able at the pleasure of the Directors, who 
shall be citizens of Illinois, and even res- 
idents of Cairo, if competent and judicious 
persons can be found in the city, who shall 
be styled " The Board of Secm-ity and Im- 
provement of the City of Cairo," which 
board, or a majority thereof, shall, under 
the sanction of the Directors of the said 
bank first had and obtained, direct and 
superintend the construction and preserva- 
tion of such dykes, levees and embankments 
as may be necessary for the security of the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



71 



city of Cairo, and every part thereof, from 
all and every inundation which can possibly 
affect or injiu'e the same; and the erection, 
fiom time to time, of such public works and 
improvements as the state of such fund will 
justify. They ai-e authorized to increase the 
cai')ital stock, but it shall never exceed the 
sum of $500,000. Section 23 commands 
that the corporation shall not at any time 
suspend, or refuse payment in'gold and silver 
for any of its notes, bills or obligations, nor 
any moneys received on deposit in the bank 
or in its office of discount and deposit, and 
if at any time such default is made, then 
the bank shall forfeit 12 per cent per annum 
from the time of such demand. The twenty- 
foui'th and last section declares this to be a 
public act, "and that the same be construed in 
all courts and places benignly and favor- 
ably." 

Such was the gi'and scheme of the Illinois 
Territory for founding here a city. To some 
extent, it was running counter to the world's 
experience, namely, to start the bank and 
the embryo city at one and the same time, 
and require the bank to build the city and 
the city make rich and strong the bank. It 
was a species of legislative financial wisdom 
that might be likened unto the old saying of 
making one hand wash the other. They pro- 
longed their vision into their future and our 
present time, and dreamed golden day-dreams 
of all Illinois — at least all the part of it 
soiith of Kaskaskia. They thought, perhaps, 
of Romulus and Eome and the she- wolf ; of 
St. Petersburg and Peter the Great; of Ven- 
ice and her gondoliers, and her soft moon- 
light and music; of Alexandi'ia, in Lower 
Egypt, with her great forests of masts in her 
harbor, and her temples and towers and 
steeples and minarets glittering in the morn- 
ing sun — the proud mistress of the world, in 
wealth, commerce, intelligence, prowess and 



glory — and their souls were fired with no 
less an ambition than to rival and surpass all 
these, and, therefore, to found and build here 
a great and eternal city. They knew of the 
Egyptian Cairo, lying midway between Eu- 
rope, Asia, the Mediterranean Sea and the 
north of Africa; of St. Petersbiu-g, where the 
Gulf of Finland, , the Black Sea and the 
White Sea, the Baltic and the Caspian pour 
in their wealth upon *^her, through the Dnie- 
per and Dniester, the Neva, the Dwina and 
the Volga, with all their ten thousand reser- 
voirs, by the help of her great canal system, 
giving her a direct navigation of 4,000 miles, 
fi'om St. Petersburg to the borders of China. 
They looked upon New York and her vast 
navigation; upon New Orleans, whose waters 
di'ained a great empii'e. They, doubtless, 
unrolled the world's map, and 'there noticed 
that there are certain points that engage the 
attention of mankind; that these^'points are 
centers of civilization, and in all time they 
have been found where vast bodies of water 
meet, and large, populous and fertile terri- 
tories converge, giving the most favorable 
conditions for colonization, supply and de- 
fense. There cannot be a doubt that, in the 
estimate they put upon the natural point at 
Cairo, they were wholly cori'ect, however 
much they may have been mistaken in the 
legislative machinery they deemed it wise to 
put in motion to start into being the young 
city. 

John R. Corny ges was the moving and mas- 
ter spirit in the inception and origin of the 
" City and Bank of Cairo" scheme. He at- 
tended upon the Legislature, and unfolded 
his vast enterprise in such glowing terms that 
that body made haste to grant his every re- 
quest. He must have inspired those won- 
derfully-constructed " whereases " that were 
enacted into a law. And it must have been 
his busy brain that conceived the dashing 



73 



HISTOEY OF CAIRO. 



idea of first founding a wild-cat bank in the 
wild jungles, the oozing mai-shes and among 
the festive frogs of the Delta, and upon this 
South Sea Bubble to lay the foundation of a • 
great city, where men should " build for the 
ages unafraid. " 

This, the earliest effort to start a city here, 
to fix a " base whereon these ashlars, well 
hewn, may be laid," although so generously 
aided by the Territorial Legislature, came to 
naught, by the death of Comyges, just as he 
was about to visit the capitalists of Europe, 
to enlist their aid and interests in the grand 
and promising scheme. The company had 
entered the land on the old credit system, 
and had sui'veyed and platted the town, and 
were pushing every department under favor- 
ing prospects, when the sudden death of their 
organizer and leader, when there was no one 
to take his place, spread such general doubts 
and dismay among the stockholders, that the 
enterprise collapsed and passed away, and 
the title to the land reverted to the Govern- 
ment. 

A pai't of the interest that now attaches to 
this original Cairo Company is the record it 
made as to the knowledge men possessed 
sixty-five years ago, as to the high waters in 
our rivers, and how much we have learned by 
the intervening experiences between then ana 
now. In the prospectus, it stated to the world : 
"It remains only to be shown that the want, 
in this tract, of sufficient material elevation 
presents but an inconsidrable obstacle to its 
future greatness. To prove this fact, it be- 
comes necessary to advert to the provisions 
contained in the charter and the report of 
the Surveyor, Maj. Duncan, who, at the re- 
quest of the proprietors, undertook to run 
the exterior limits and to ascertain the eleva- 
tion of the ground; from which report it 
will appear that an embankment of the 
average height of five feet will secure it 



effectually against the highest swells in both 
rivers. It may here be proper to state that 
much of this tract is already high, and quite 
as eligible for warehouses and other build- 
ings as many of the most flourishing stations 
on the Ohio." They carefully estimated, 
from their engineers' reports, that $20,000 
would build all the levees around Cairo to 
forever secure it against any possible waters 
in the rivers. 

Cairo City & Canal Company. — On the 
4th of March, 1837, the Illinois Legislatui-e 
incorporated Darius B. Holbrook, Miles A. 
Gilbert, John S. Hacker, Alexander M. Jen- 
kins, Anthony Olney and William M. Wal- 
ker as a body corporate and politic, under 
the name of the "Cairo City & Canal Com- 
pany;" giving the usual powers of a charter 
company, and to own and hardle real estate, 
but providing that " the real estate owned 
and held by said company shall not exceed 
the quantity of land embraced in Fractional 
Township 17, in Alexander County, and the 
said corporation are hereby authorized to piu-- 
chase said land, or any part thereof, but 
more particularly the tract of land incorpo- 
rated as the city of Cairo, and may proceed 
to lay off said land, or any part of the land of 
said Township 17, into lots for a town, to be 
known as the city of Cairo, and whenever a 
plan of said city is made, the company shall 
deposit a copy of the same, with a full de- 
scription thereof, in the Recorder of Deeds' 
office in the C unfy of Alexander. * * * 
And the said corporation may construct 
dykes, canals, levees and embankiuents for 
the sec;u-ity and preservation of said city and 
land and all improvements thereon, from all 
and every inundation which can possibly 
affect or injui*e the same, and may erect such 
works, buildings and improvements which 
they may deem necessary for promoting the 
health and prosperity of said city. And for 



HISTORY OF CAIKO. 



73 



draining said city, and other purposes, said 
corporation may lay off and construct a canal, 
to unite with Cache Kiver, at such point of 
such river as the company may deem most 
eligible and proper, and may use the water of 
sa^id river for said canal, running to and 
through said city of Cairo, as said company 
may direct. * * * * The capital stock 
of the company shall consist of 20,000 shares, 
and no greater assessment shall be laid upon 
any shares in said company of a greater 
amount than §100 each share. And the im- 
mediate government and direction, of the 
affairs of said company shall be vested in 
a board of not less than five Directors, who 
shall be chosen by the members of the cor- 
poration in manner hereinafter provided, a 
majority of whom shall form a quorum for 
the transaction of business; shall elect one 
of their number to be President of the 
Board, who shall also be President of the 



company. 



* * * * 



The President and 



Directors for the time being are hereby au- 
thorized and empowered, by themselves or 
their agents, to execute all powers herein 
gi'anted to the company, and all such other 
powers and authority for the management of 
the affairs of the company not heretofore 
granted, as may be proper and necessary to 
carry into effect the object of this act, and to 
make such equal assessments, from time to 
time, on all shares of said company as they 
may deem expedient and necessary, and 
direct the same to be paid m to the Treasurer 
of the company; and the Treasurer shall give 
notice of all such assessments, and in case 
any subscriber shall neglect to pay his as- 
sessment for the spice of thirty days due 
notice by the Treasurer of said company, the 
Directors may order the Treasurer to sell 
such share or shares at public auction, after 
giving due notice thereof, to the highest 
bidder, and the same shall be transferred to 



the purchaser, and such delinquent subscriber 
shall be held accountable to the company for 
the balance. * * * * ^ toll is hereby 
granted and established, for the benefit of 
said company, upon all passengers an d prop- 
erty of all descriptions which may be con- 
veyed or transported upon the canal of the 
company, upon such terms as may be agreed 
upon and established, from time to time, by 
the Directors of said company. That the 
company shall not be authorized by this act 
to erect or construct any dam or dams upon 
or across Cache River, for the purpose afore- 
said, until they shall first have obtained the 
consent of the County Commissioners' Court 
of Alexander County, which consent . so ob- 
tained shall be entered upon the recoi'ds of 
said court; and whenever the route on said 
canal shall be located, the company shall 
have recorded a plan and description thei*eof 
in the office of the Recorder of Deeds and 
the office of said County Commissioners' 
Court, in Alexander County. The said com- 
pany shall be holden to pay all damages that 
may arise to any person or corporation, by 
taking their land for said canal or any other 
invrpose when it cannot be obtained by volun- 
tary agreement, to be estimated and re- 
covered in 4he manner provided by law, for 
the recovering of damages happening by lay- 
ing out highways. When the lands, or 
other property or estate of any femme-covert, 
infant or person non comj)os mentis, shall be 
wanted for the purposes and objects of the 
company, the guardian of said infant or per- 
soni non compos mentis, or husband of such 
femme-covert, may release all damage and 
interest for and in such lands or estate 
taken for the company as they ^might do if 
the same were holden by them in their own 
right respectively This act shall be deemed 
and taken as a public act. It shall continue 
in force for the term of twenty-five years 



74 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



from the passage thereof. The final section 
requires that -unless §20.000 is expended on 
the canal within five years from the date of 
the act, it shall be forfeited. In February, 
1839, the Legislature amended that act as 
follows: " "that the said Cairo City & 
Canal Company shall not be obliged, as au- 
thorized by its charter, to lay ofi" and con- 
struct a canal to unite with Cache River, 
should the same be deemed injurious to the 
health of the city — and the twelfth section of 
said act. which requires a certain amount to 
be expended on said canal within five years, 
is hereby repealed." 

We have given verbatim enough of this 
remarkable charter, in its ultimate results 
one of the most important that .was ever 
gi-anted by the State of Illinois, for the 
reader to see for himself that it is one of 
two things, namely, either the most amazing 
in the complete simplicity of its author's 
ideas, or Machiavelian in its transcendant 
ability to hide the iron hand beneath the vel- 
vet glove. No State document was ever 
drafted that could look more innocent, and 
at the same time appropriate to itself com- 
plete and sovereign and autocratic powers, 
in the name of building a canal from the 
mouth of Cache River to and through the 
city of Cairo to the extreme southern point 
of land. If the company ever thought of 
building a canal from the mouth of Cache 
through the city, they would not only have 
to curve it several times on its route, to keep 
the canal from running into the river, but 
they must have known they would Lave to 
erect great and sti'ong artificial levees on 
both sides of their canal to prevent both rivers 
from rushing from their long-occupied beds, 
with an angry roar, souse into the canal. On 
the other hand, if they never did contemplate 
building the canal, then, indeed, is its mas- 
terly shrewdness patent at a glance. Cer- 



tainly, even an Illinois Legislature would 
have discovered the cat in the meal-tub had 
the incorporators gone before them and 
asked for a charter to found a city, and, 
without any canal attachment, asked for such 
complete powers of the right of eminent 
domain over private property, real and per- 
sonal! If they ever intended to build a 
canal, they were soon cured of that hallucina- 
tion, as is shown by the amendment of 1S39, 
which simply permits the whole canal scheme 
to be dropped, and yet leaves all the great 
powers that were originally gi-anted the com- 
pany intact. So far as can now be ascer- 
tained, the company never abused or exer- 
cised to the ill of any one these powers con- 
ferred by the charter. If there was a pur- 
pose Im'king beneath the fair face of the 
fundamental law of the new city, it, perhaps, 
was not in the idea of its author to use it to 
wrong or oppress any private citizen, and it 
would only be invoked as a last resort to pro- 
tect the vital welfare of the future city. 

As stated above, this Caii'o City & Canal 
Company charter became a law March 4, 
1837, and not March 4, 1838, as probably 
the compositor made Mose Harrell say, in a 
sketch of early Cairo that he published a few 
years ago. The date is important, because 
on June 7, 1837, "The Illinois Central Rail- 
road Company," which had been incorpor- 
ated January 16, 1836, and authorized to 
construct a railroad, commencing at or near 
the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers, and extending to Galena, released all 
its rights back to the State of Illinois, con- 
ditioned, however, that "the State of Illinois 
shall commence the conetruction of said rail- 
road within a reasonable |time, and to com- 
mence at the city of Cairo and build north 
to Galena." 

On the 27th day of June, 1837, there was 
an agreement entered into between the orig- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



75 



inal Illinois Central Kailroad, by A. M. 
Jenkins, its President, and the Cairo City 
& Canal Company, by D. B. Holbrook, its 
President, by which it was stipulated the 
railroad to be constructed by the Illinois 
Central Railroad " shall be commenced at 
such point in the city of Cairo as the Cairo 
City & Canal Company may fix and direct. 
This release of the Central Railroad of its 
franchise back to the State was caused by 
the wild craze that had taken possession of 
the entire State on the great internal im- 
provement system, that bo quickly landed the 
Commonwealth in bankruptcy, and abruptly 
stopped all State progress fox several years. 
This was a sad and severe lesson to the 
young State, but probably in the end it was 
for the best. On the same day of the above 
agreement, namely, 20th June, 1837, the Cairo 
& Canal Company having obtained, by 
purchase, the lands in Town 17 south, Range 
1 west, on a portion of which had been laid 
out the city of Cairo, mortgaged the entire 
property to the New York Life Insurance 
& Trust Company, to secvu*e certain loans 
and moneys advanced by English capitalists. 
The release made by the Illinois Central 
Railroad Company was accepted by the 
State, on the conditions imposed, and the 
State commenced at Cairo the construction 
of the railroad, which the railroad company 
had been authorized to construct to Galena; 
and the Cairo City & Canal Company 
pressed forward the improvements it was 
making, upon which, up to February 1, 
1S40, it had expended, of boiTowed money, 
about $1,000,000. It had erected mills, 
various workshops atfl houses for its em- 
ployees, and there had congregated here about 
1,500 souls. But on February 1, 1840, the 
great internal improvement system, which 
had been inaugiu'atod by the infatuated State 
Legislature of 1837, was repealed, and the 



work upon the Illinois Central stopped, after 
the State had expended, as stated, over 
$1,000,000. While the bursting of this 
bubble seriously crippled, financially, the 
entire people of the State, it was especially 
disastrous at Cairo. It was the work upon 
the railroad that had brought the people 
here, and when not only the State was bank- 
rupt, but the Cairo City & Canal Company 
was insolvent, the railroad defunct, the 
banker of the company in England had 
failed, and all work and improvements were 
abandoned, the people fled, and desolation 
brooded over the town, where now "the 
spider might weave, unmolested, his web in 
her palaces, and the owl hoot his watch song 
in her temples." 

On March 6, 1843, the Legislatm-e passed 
an act to incorporate the Great Western 
Railway Company. "While this was a rail- 
road charter, authorizing the construction of 
a railroad upon the line of the original 
Illinois Central Railroad, yet it was, in fact, 
a re-incorporation of the Cairo City & 
Canal Company. After the enacting clause, 
it says: "That the President and Directors 
of the Cairo City & Canal Company (in- 
corporated by the State of Illinois) and their 
successors in office be and they are hereby 
made a body corporate and politic under the 
name and style of the ' Great Western Rail- 
way Company,' and under that name and 
style shall bo and are hereby made capable, 
in law and equity, to sue and be sued, de- 
feud and be defended, in any court or place 
whatsoever, to make, have and use a common 
seal, the same to alter and renew at pleasure, 
and by that name and style be capable in 
law of contracting and being conti acted 
with, of purchasing, holding and conveying 
away of real estate and personal estate for 
the pui-poses and uses of said corporation; 
and shall be and are herebv invested with 



76 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



all the powers, privileges and immunities, 
which are or may be necessary to carry into 
eflect the object .and pui-poses of ^this act, as 
hereinafter set forth; and the said corpora- 
tion ai*e hereby authorized and empowered to 
locate, construct and finally complete a rail- 
road, commencing at the city of Cairo, 
thence north by way of Vandalia, etc.," 
almost exactly as specified in the charter of 
the original Illinois Central Railroad. 

This act of incorporation was mei'ely the 
grafting into the Cairo City & Canal Com- 
pany a railroad franchise, which in no single 
clause diminished the original powers of the 
Cairo City & Canal Company, but enlarged 
and extended them throughout the entire 
length of the State. So completely were the 
two companies made one, indeed, so fully was 
the railroad merged into and absorbed by 
the canal company, that the officers of the 
city company, including the President and 
Directors, were made the officers of the rail- 
road by the legislative act. It should be 
borne in mind that the State had expended 
over $1,000,000 in work upon the Illinois 
Central Railroad, and all this was turned 
over to the Cairo City & Canal Company 
and the Great Western Railroad (all one and 
the same thing) and this was turned over to 
the new company in the following rather 
loose language, in Section 12 of the incor- 
poration act: "The frovernor of this State is 
hereby authorized and required to appoint 
one or more* competent persons to estimate 
the present value of any work done, at the 
expense of the State, on the Central Rail- 
road; also of any materials or right of way; 
and whatever sum shall be fixed upon as the 
value thereof, by said persons, shall be paid 
for by the company, in the bonds or other 
indebtedness of the State, any time during 
the progress of the road to completion, and 
any contract entered into under the seal of 



the State, signed by the Governor thereof, 
shall be legal and binding, to the full intent 
and purpose thereof, on the State of Illinois," 

Section 14, with equal State liberality and 
vagueness, goes on to specify that whenever 
the whole indebtedness of the company shall 
be paid and liquidated, the Legislature of 
the State ^ of Illinois, thereafter then in 
session, shall have the power to alter, amend 
or modify this act, as the public good shall 
require, and also that of the City of Cairo 
& Canal Company; and the eleventh section 
of the act incorporating the said Cairo Citi/ 
& Canal Company, which limits its charter 
to twenty years, be and the said section is 
hereby repealed, and this act be and is de- 
clared a public act, and as such shall be 
taken notice of by all courts of justic ■ in the 
State, etc. 

Two years after this, March 3, 1845, the 
Legislature repealed the act incoi-porating 
the Great Western Railroad Company. This 
repealing law like all other legislation upon 
that subject, was no doubt passed at the in- 
stance of the railroad company, or rather of 
the Cairo Cit}^ & Canal Company. On its 
face, it has the appearance of a design to 
give back to the State all its rights and 
privileges except those pertaining to the 
founding of a city here and the construction 
of a canal from Cache to and through Cairo. 

But on February 10, 1849, the Legislature 
passed another law, which repealed the re- 
pealing act, and starts out by saying that 
the President and Directors of the Cairo City 
& Canal Company, under the name and 
style of the " Great Western Railway Com- 
pany," chartered Mf^eh 6. 1843, and that 
William F. Thornton, Willis Allen, Thomas 
G. C. Davis, John Moore, John Huffman, 
John Green, Robert Blackwell, Benjamin 
Bond, Daniel H. Brush, George W. Pace, 
Walter B. Scates, Samuel K. Casey, Albert 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



77 



G. Caldwell, Humphrey B. Jones, Charles 
Hoyt, Ira Minarcl. Charles S. Hempstead, 
John B. Chapin, Uri Osgood, H. D. Berley, 
Hemy Corwith, I. C. Pugh, John J. Mc- 
Graw, Onslow Peters, D. D. Shumway, Jus- 
tin Butterfield, John B. Turner, Mark Skin- 
ner and Gavion D. A. Parks be associates 
with said company in the construction of 
said railroad, and are empowered and 
reinstated, with all the powers and privileges 
contained in said act of incorpoi-ation, 
and are also subject to all restrictions 
contained in said act of incoporation — the 
act in force March 3. 1845, which repealed 
the charter of the company, to the contrary 
notwithstanding. This reviving act then 
proceeds to extend the privileges of the Cairo 
City & Canal Company in a most liberal 
manner. It authorizes them to construct the 
Great Western Eailroad from the teiTaina- 
tion set forth in the said charter, at or near 
the termination of the Illinois & Michigan 
Canal to the city of Chicago. Section 3 is 
important enough to give it entire, as follows: 
"And the right of way the State may have 
obtained, together with all the work and sur- 
veying done at the expense of the State, and 
materials connected with said road, Mng be- 
tween the termination of the Illinois & 
Michigan Canal and Cairo City, are hereby 
granted to said company upon conditions as 
follows: Said company shall take posses- 
sion of ^said road within two years of the 
passage of this act, and as far as practicable 
preserve the same from injury and dilapida- 
tion; and said company shall, within two 
years from the passage of this act, expend 
$100,000 in the construction of said road, 
and $200,000 for each year thereafter, until 
said road shall have been completed from the 
city of Cairo to the city of Chicago. 

Sec 4. The Governor of the State of 
Illinois is hereby authorized and empowered I 



to contract with and agree to hold iu trust, 
for the use and benefit of said Great West- 
ern Railway Company, whatever lands may 
be donated or thereunto seciu-ed to the State 
of Illinois by the General Government, to 
aid in the completion of the Central or Great 
Western Railroad from Cairo to Chicago, 
subject to the conditions and provisions of 
the bill granting the lands by Congi-ess, 
and the said company is hereby authorized 
to receive, hold and dispose of any and all 
lands secui'ed to said company by donation, 
pre-emption or otherwise; subject, however, 
to the provisions of the eighteenth section of 
its charter. [This clause was to the effect 
that all lands coming into the hands of the 
company, not required for use, security or 
construction, should be sold by the company 
within live years, or revert to the Govern- 
ment.] Provision was then further made that 
the Governor should, from time to time, as 
the company progressed with the work, des- 
ignate in writing the proportion of such 
lands donated by Congress to be sold and dis- 
posed of. 

In order to complete the list of incorpo- 
ration acts, that had a direct reference to the 
owners and proprietors of the city of Caii'o, 
it is proper here to explain that on January 
18, 1836, the Legislature incorporated the 
Illinois Exporting Company. The act states 
that "all such persons as shall become sub- 
scribers to the stock hei-eiuafter described, 
shall be and they are hereby constituted and 
declared a body politic and corporate." It 
proceeds to enable the President and Direct- 
ors of the company to "carry on the manu- 
facture of agricultural products; erect mills 
and buildings; export their products and 
manufactures, and enter into all contracts 
concerning- the management of their prop- 
erty. The capital stock is §150,000, and 
may be increased to $500,000; meetings and 



78 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



general places of business of the company to 
be at Alton ; may select any other place of 
business; may erect mills, etc., in any county 
in the State, by permission of the County 
Commisisoners' Court. James S. Lane, 
Thomas G. Howley, Anthony Olney, John 
M. Krum and D. B. Holbrook are appointed 
Commissioners to obtain subscription to the 
capital stock of the company; any one could 
become a subscriber by paying $1. Provided, 
the provisions of this act shall in no case 
extend to the counties of Edgar, Green and 
St. Clair, etc., etc. 

On September 29, 1846, in consequence of 
the general and financial disasters, resulting 
from panic and widespread bankruptcy 
throughout the commercial world, the pai'ties 
interested in Cairo, the mortgagees, judg- 
ment creditors, owners in fee and otherwise 
interested, after a series of consultations, 
agi-eed and did form and create the " Trust 
of the Cairo City Property," conveying the 
property to Thomas Taylor, of Philadelphia, 
and Charles Davis, of New York, as Trustees. 

On May 10, 1876, the Trustees of the Cairo 
City property, having expended in making 
material improvements about Cairo $1,307,- 
021.42, of which $184,505.64 was expended 
upon the levee running along the Ohio River, 
and $149,973.23 upon the levee running 
along the Mississippi River, and $70,445.06 
upon the protection of the Mississippi River 
bank, and $571,534.08 upon general improve- 
ments, and $330,553.41 upon taxes and as- 
sessments, found themselves unable to pay 
two loans obtained from Hiram Ketchum, 
of New York — one on October 1, 1863, for 
$250,000, and the other on October 1, 1867, 
for $50,000, to secure which, mortgages, of 
the dates given, had been executed. The 
mortgages were, therefore, foreclosed, and 
the property of the Trust of the Cairo City 
Property sold to the bondholders under the 



mortgage, and a new, and the present, trust 
was formed, called the Cairo Trust Property, 
under the control and management oE Col. 
S. Staats Taylor and Edwin Parsons, the 
Trustees. 

On the 14th of February, 1841, the Legis- 
lature passed an act conferring upon the 
Cairo City & Catial Company "all the 
powers conferred upon the Board of Alder- 
men of the City of Quincy, as defined be- 
tween the fii'st and forty-fifth sections ol the 
charter of that city," and these grants were 
confirmed for ten years. 

It is possible there were other laws passed 
for the benefit of the many charter companies 
that depended and hinged upon the Cairo 
City & Canal Company, but we have not, 
so far, found them. But in all these acts 
and doings, one fact is distinctly seen : Many 
people believed that it was all, practically, 
the work of D. B. Holbrook, and that, as a 
rule, up to the time that his path was crossed 
by Judge Douglas, the names of D. B. Hol- 
brook and the Cairo City & Canal Company 
were practically one and the same thing. 
He was certainly a man of great activity of 
intellect, shrewdness and untiring industry, 
and while all conceded him this, yet many 
deemed him utterly selfish, and indifferent 
to all interests except his own, and that he 
was a shrewd and dangerous marplot, who 
brought evil to Cairo by his reckless greed 
of power and money. In speaking of the 
crash that came upon Cairo in 1841, Mose 
Harrell, among other things, enumerated, as 
the chief cause thereof, to have been the fail- 
ure of the banking-house of Wright & Co., 
London, through which continuous loans to 
the City Company were anticipated; the sus- 
pension of work on the Illinois Central Rail- 
road, upon which so much trade depended, 
and the general abandonment of the system 
of public works inaugurated by the State in 



'^.i- 



im^ 



4 



/J i>f^' 



m-L^.cM, X-/ix^ 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



81 



1837, and he says: " Possibly another reason 
was the monopoly of which Holbrook was the 
head. Under his rule, no person could be- 
come a freeholder in the city; ground there 
could not be purchased or leased; all the 
dwellings were owned by the company; no 
one could live in the city, unless at the pleas- 
ure of Holbrook, as even the hotels were the 
property of the company. More than that, 
the company were empowered (with) all the 
rules and regulations for the municipal gov- 
ernment, such as a Mayor and Common 
Council might establish. The company could 
declare a levy of taxes and enforce its col- 
lection, and could expend the money as it 
chose." In a letter published in the New 
York Herald, and of date October 3, 1850, 
we extract the following: " In 1835, Mr. D. 
B. Holbrook, originally from Boston, pro- 
cured from the Legislature of the State of 
Illinois his first charter for the Cairo City 
& Canal Company, and he also procured a 
charter for the Central Kailroad Company, 
from Cairo to Galena. He subsequently ob- 
tained a third charter, for the Illinois Ex- 
porting Company, with authority to carry on 
transportation by land and water, and to in- 
sure against risks from fii'e and water, and 
to carry on manufacturing business gener- 
ally. He also purchased and revived a de- 
funct bank charter, known as the Cairo Bank, 
and one or two others I cannot specify. Mr. 
Holbrook at once organized the Cairo City 
& Canal Company; took the stock himself, 
and had himself elected President; also or- 
ganized the Central Railroad Company, by a 
nominal payment of -SI per share (which was 
never paid in, but a note given in lieu of the 
money), and elected himself President. He 
also organized the Illinois Exporting Com- 
pany, in the same mode; and also organized 
the Cairo Bank, and put one of his instru- 
ments at the head of it. Subsequently, D. 



B. Holbrook, as President of the Cairo City 
& Canal Company, entered into a contract 
with D. B. Holbrook, as President of the 
Central Bailroad Company; and D. B. Hol- 
brook, as President of the Central Railroad 
Company, further contracted with D. B. Hol- 
brook, of the Illinois Exporting Company, 
and D. B. Holbrook, as President of that 
company, contracted with D. B. Holbrook, as 
President of each of the other companies, 
that each of said companies might exercise all 
and singular, the rights, privileges and 
powers conferred by law upon either; by 
which all companies were to be consolidated 
into one, and exercise the several powers con- 
ferred upon each. * * * * jn 1S36, 
the Illinois Legislature adopted its mam- 
moth system of internal improvement, and 
among other enterprises, commenced the 
construction of a Central Railroad as a State 
work, Mr. Holbrook having surrendered 
his charter for that purpose. After having 
spent about $1,000,000 on |the road, the 
credit of the State failed, and the system was 
abandoned. A charter was subsequently 
granted bj' the Legislature to the Cairo City 
& Canal Company, by which that company 
was authorized to construct the Central Rail- 
road. At the last regular session of the 
Legislatm-e, while a bill was pending before 
Congress, making" a grant of land to the 
State, in aid of the construction of the rail- 
road, a law was passed, transferring to the 
said company the right of way, and all the 
work which had been executed by the State 
at the cost of $1,000,000, together with all 
the lands which had been, or should here- 
after be, granted by Congress to the State in 
aid of the constniction of said railroad. 
How this act was passed remains a mystery, 
as its existence was not known in Illinois 
until Judge Douglas brought it to light in a 
speech at Chicago in October last. In that 



83 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



speech, Judge Douglas denounced the whole 
transaction as a fraud upon the Legislature 
and the people of the State, and declared 
that he would denounce it as such in the 
Senate of the United States, if an application 
was ever made to that body for a grant of 
land, whilst the Holbrook charters, and es- 
pecially the act referred to, remained in 
force." 

Tlae letter proceeds to give an account of 
how Judge Douglas finally compelled Hol- 
brook and his company to execute a complete 
release of their charter to the State, and 
then says: "But for the execution of the re- 
lease by Mr. Holbrook, and the surrender of 
all claims to any railroad charter, or rights 
and privileges under any act of the Illinois 
Legislature on the subject, the grant of land 
would never have been ,made by Congi-ess. 
Thus it appears that Mr. Holbrook has no 
charter for a railroad in Illinois, and no 
claims to the lands which have been granted, 
unless the State of Illinois refuses to accept 
the release, or makes a new grant to D. B. 
Holbrook, which, unless its members are 
crazy, it is not likely to do. I have deemed 
it necessary to make this exposition of the 
facts in the case, in order ,that capitalists in 
New York and elsewhere may not labor under 
eiToneous impressions in regaixl to so impor- 
tant a matter, affecting alike the honor of the 
State of Illinois and that of Congress." 

A full and complete account of the nego- 
tiations, correspondence, etc., that ^resulted 
in this important transaction, will be found 
in another chapter in the account of the 
building of the Illinois Central Railroad. 
We give here these extracts from the letter of 
"An Illinois Bondholder," merely to show 
the tenor of the attacks that were in that day 
made upon Holbrook, and the wide and pro- 
found sensation the appearance of this ex- 
traordinary financier made all over the coun- 



try. The reader (^can now readily see there 
are many historical inaccuracies in the let- 
ter, yet, at the time it was published, it was 
a strong document, and had evidently been 
carefully prepared by some one who had 
studied well the subject. It is possible the 
writer was a jealous rival of Holbrook's, and 
one who conceived that his own success could 
only be accomplished by first pulling down 
Holbrook and his company. Certainly, there 
is too much feeling displayed in these attacks 
upon this remarkable man by his cotempo- 
raries, to cause all their statements about his 
unholy purposes to be now implicitly re- 
ceived, and given to the world as attested 
facts. A patient and impartial investigation 
of the times, and the general circumstances 
surrounding D. B. Holbrook and his asso- 
ciates in the Cairo City & Canal Company, 
leads to the conclusion that they were seek- 
ing sincerely to improve the great West, and 
to build here in Illinois great cities and rail- 
roads, and that neither the glory nor the 
blame, nor the wise and beneficial acts, nor 
the mistakes of the company properly be- 
longed wholly to Holbrook, as were so widely 
charged in his day of activity here. His as- 
sociates and co-Jncorporators in the Cairo 
City & Canal charter were among the most 
eminent, patriotic and just men in the State 
in their day. They have mostly passed from 
earth, and all have ceased from the active 
struggles of life, and of Breese, and Casey, 
and Judge Jenkins and Miles A. Gilbert, the 
only one living, and the many other co- 
laborers in the early work of improvements 
in Illinois, their untarnished [memories will 
ever remain a rich legacy to the people of 
Illinois. The finger marks of these men will 
ever remain upon the early history of the 
i State. Each one of them worked in his own 
chosen or allotted sphere, yet in harmony 
with his other incorporators, and together 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



S3 



they thought out and worked out causes here, 
whose effects Avill endiu'e perpetually. 

As remarked in the early j)ortion of this 
chapter, the act granting the charter of the 
City of Cairo & Canal Company was the 
first step in attracting the attention of many 
of the leading men of the nation to this great 
natui'al commercial point, and that attention 
once arrested, and the lakes of the North and 
the waters of the great rivers at once made 
plain the fact that they must be joined 
together by railroads, had set busy minds to 
thinking how this immense work could best 
be done, or, for that matter, done at all. 
Men were stiidying the maps with the care 
and diligence which warriors give these 
things with reference to their marches, re- 
treats or battle grounds. 

In the latter days of Judge Breese's life, 
he claimed that he had promulgated the idea 
of a Government land-grant in aid of the 
construction of the Illinois Central Railroad. 

There is an abundance of evidence that 
not only Judge Breese, but that many others 
were giving it close attention. But, com- 
mencing with Judge Breese, and following 
along all the now existing records, lottei's 
and publications, we find they, one and all, 
fell short in the full completion of the idea 
of a land donation in this: They advocated 
donating the lands by pre-emption, and not 
as in the form the act was finally passed by 
Judge Douglas as a direct and absolute 
transfer of the title in fee to the railroad, 
upon its conforming to the prescribed condi- 
tions. Nearly all the people of Illinois bad 
discussed the subject in social life, in the 
press and in public meetings held in .the 
counties along the route of the pi'oposed 
railroad, but the pre-emption-donation idea 
only prevailed, and the first time the thought 
of a direct title in fee was put forth by 
Mr. Justin Butterfield, January 18, 1848, in 



a public meeting of the citizens of Chicago, 
which he had called for the purpose of con- 
sidering the feasibility of constructing h rail- 
road to connect the Tpper and Lower Mis- 
sissippi with the Great Lakes of the North, 
and to recommend to Congress that a grant of 
lands should be made to the State of Illinois 
for that purpose. The meeting was presided 
over by Thomas Dyer, Esq. , and Dr. Brainord 
acted as Secretary. Col. K. J. Hamilton, 
Justin Butterfield, M. Skinner, A. Hunting- 
ton and E. B. AVilliams were appointed, by 
the chair, a Committee to report resolutions, 
and they reported the following, which had 
been prepared by Mr. Butterfield. which 
were unanimously adopted: 

Resolved, That the great and almost in- 
credible increase in wealth, population and 
commerce of the great valley of the West, 
duriiig the last ten years, as clearly exhibited 
by oflficial reports submitted to the Congress 
of the United States, appears to recjuire. on 
the part of that enlightened body, a cori-e- 
sponding* attention to its wants an 1 necessi- 
ties. 

Resolved, That the grant of public lands 
by Congress, for the purpose of opening or 
improving avenues of commerce in their 
State jurisdiction, has been approved by the 
wisest and most experienced of our states- 
men, and has been eminently beneficial to 
the States and the Union. 

Resolved, That a railroad, to connect the 
Upper and Lower Mississippi with the great 
lakes, would be a work of great importance, 
not only to the agricultural and commercial 
interests of the State, but to all portions of 
the United States interested in the commerce 
of the lakes and the Western rivers. 

Resolved, That, in a military point of view, 
as well as for the speedy and economical 
transportation of the mails (objects eminent- 
ly connected with the general welfai'e and 
common defense), such a road would be un- 
questionably of national importance, and 
therefore deserving of aid from the National 
Legislature. 

Resolved, That om- Senators and Repre- 



84 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



sentatives in Congress of the United States 
be requested to use their best exertions to 
secure the passage of a law, granting to the 
State of Illinois the right of way and public 
lands, for the constraction of a railroad to 
connect the Upper and Lower Mississippi 
with the lakes at Chicago, equal to every al- 
ternate section for five miles wide on each 
side of said road. 

Upon these resolutions, Mr. Butterfield de- 
livered an able address, which he read from 
manuscript; from which we make the fol- 
lowing extracts: "The locomotive, whose 
speed almost annihilates time and distance, 
has introduced a new era in travel, in trans- 
portation and fn commercial interchanges. 
It is in successful operation in most of the 
nations of Europe, and in most of the Ameri- 
can States, Illinois excepted — a level, cham- 
paign country, better adapted by natm'e for 
its use than any other State or country of 
equal extent in the world. Why we should 
be so far behind the age, in the adoption of 
this great improvement, it is unnecessary 
now to inquire. Suffice it to say, that in the 
years 1836 and 1837, when we were compara- 
tively weak and feeble in population, in pro- 
ductive industry and pecuniaiy resources, we 
madly and wildly rushed into a gigantic and 
ill-digested system of internal improvements 
altogether beyond our ability. We j^rojected 
more than thirteen hundred miles of railroad; 
we borrowed millions of money, and sowed 
it broadcast; our money was soon expended, 
and our credit gone; in the great re-action of 
1839 and 1840, desolation swept over the 
land, and the moldering ruins and crumbling 
monuments of public works are all that now 
remain of our once magnificent system of in- 
ternal improvements. * * * * 

" The extent of steam navigation upon the 
Mississippi and its tributaries is rising of 
16,000 miles, giving a coast of over 32,000 
miles, * * a large portion of which is as 



fertile as the Valley of the Nile, and capable 
of sustaining a population as dense as that 
of England, and is now settling and im- 
proving with unparalleled rapidity. The 
Middle and Eastern States, and many of the 
nations of Europe, are the great hives that 
are sending forth their swarms to populate 
our Western lands; year after year, in ever- 
increasing numbers, they come, and truly 
demonstrate that ' Westward the march of 
empire takes its way.' But who can foresee, 
who can calculate, the immense trade, travel 
and commerce that will be done upon the 
Western lakes and rivers when their banks 
and coasts shall be settled with half the 
density with which Europe is populated? 

" It is proposed to construct a railroad to 
connect the Upp^r and Lower Mississippi 
with the Great Lakes; this railroad to com- 
mence at the confluence of the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi Rivers at Cairo, * * * * 

" Cairo is the most favorable point for th e 
southern tei'minus of this road, as the navi- 
gation of both the Ohio and Mississippi 
Rivers, above Cairo, is often obstructed by 
ice in the winter and by low water in the 
summer; but from Cairo to New Orleans 
there is an uninterrupted navigation all sea- 
sons of the year. * * * * The i-ailroad 
is important to our national defense. I be- 
lieve it is regarded by military men, that in 
case of a war with a maritime power, like 
England, the Gulf of Mexico on the south, 
and that portion of our country bordering 
upon Canada in the north are our weakest 
frontiers; and in the event of such a war, it 
will be necessary for our defense to marshal 
our naval forces, so as to maintain our mari- 
time ascendency in the Gulf and on the lakes. 
That it is viewed in this light by the Govern- 
ment, may be inferred from the fact that 
about three years ago the project of the 
United States constructing a ship canal, be- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



85 



tween Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, 
was agitated in Congress, and resulted in 
the Secretary of the Navy sending out one of 
our most distinguished naval commanders, 
and the chief of the Engineer Corps, to in- 
vestigate the practicability of the meas- 

i-iY^fi ^ "T^ ■^ ■^ 

" AVe ask the Government to make a dona- 
tion of public lands to the State of Illinois, 
to aid in the construction of this railroad, 
equal to every alternate section, for a space 
of five miles wide on each side of it. * * * 
"We do not ask for this land to be given to 
any private or chartered company, that they 
make gain or speculation out of it, but we 
ask for it to be donated • to this State, in 
trust, to be used in the constiiiction of a 
great public work, that will shed its benefits 
upon the whole of our common country, that 
will bind us together in the golden bands of 
commerce, and be om* greatest blessing in 
time of peace, as well as our surest defense 
in time of war." * * * 

The address concludes with the following 
sentence : " In the winter season there ac- 
cumulates upon the hands of our merchants 
produce to the amount of about one-half mill- 
ion of dollars, which lies dead-weight upon 
their hands for three or four months, until 
the opening of the navigation of the lakes. 
Our merchants, in the meantime, receive in- 
formation by telegi-aph of the rise and fall 
of produce, but cannot avail themselves of 
the benefits of the lightning, either to buy 
or sell. Here the produce is, and must re- 
main, under the inexorable decree of nature, 
locked up bj the ice. Construct this rail- 
road, give Chicago a southern outlet for her 
produce in the winter, and it is all she asks." 

The resolutions adopted by this meeting, 
and the speech made by Mr. Butterfield, 
were printed in pamphlet form^ and were 
sent to the different counties along the line 



of the proposed road, with requests that i)ub- 
lic meetings should be held at each county 
seat, for the pm'pose of creating a public 
sentiment in favor of the Congressional land- 
grant project, and of requesting the Illinios 
Delegates in Congress to support it. This 
work among the people of Illinois, in order 
to influence to activity the members of Con- 
gress, was necessary and proper, and attended 
with much labor and considerable expense, 
and the preceding circumstances that brought 
both of these about were the following: The 
Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania, 
located at Philadelphia, had become the 
owner of large interests in "Western real es- 
tate, as well as a large number of the bonds 
of the Cairo City & Canal Company, and the 
holder of much of the land of the company 
as security for loans advanced. It was, there- 
fore, largely interested in Cairo. In the 
year 1843, it sent its confidential clerk. S. 
Staats Taylor, to the West, to look after its 
interests. Mr. Taylor made his head(^uarter8 
in Chicago, and had his office, during that 
time, with Justin Butterfield. This, prob- 
ably, was the main cause of deeply interest- 
ing the latter in the railroad project from 
Chicago to Cairo. Then, the bank's interests 
in the "West caused it to take a deep concern 
in the progress of the State of Illinois, and 
especially of Cairo and its vicinity, and it 
therefore provided the necessary funds to de- 
fray these first and necessary expenses. In 
fact, it is now well understood that the start- 
ing point in the building of the Central road 
and the city were made originally a tangible 
fact and the expenses defrayed in getting the 
law passed by Congress, by the hypotheca 
tion of a strip of land in the city of Cairo, 
running from river to river, and long known 
as the "Holbrook strip." This strip of land 
is what is now Tenth street to Twelfth street, 
inclusive. 



86 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Mr. Justin Butterfield was one of the 
large-minded, public-spirited men of Illinois, 
who was profoundly interested in the de- 
velopment and welfare of his adopted State, 
and while he did not lay claim to the patern 
ity of the advanced idea that perfected the 
land-grant to the railroad, and made it such 
a great and complete success, yet as he had 
stated to his office companion, Col. Taylor, 
he bad first heard the idea advanced at some 
of the county meetings he had held, and his 
active mind was ready to take it at once in its 
entirety, to see its value and to boldly and 
ably push it forward to its final triumph. 
Certainly, the Central road had no better or 
abler friend than was Justin Butterfield, who, 
singularly enough, was the Commissioner of 
the GeneralLand Office during the building 
of the railroad, and in that position was con- 
stantly called upon to guard the State's, the 
road's and the Government's interest in the 
matter of the land grant of the road. Prob- 
ably for his incorruptible discharge of these 
duties, he was savagely attacked in some of 
the public jirints, and on April 24, 1852, he 
repelled these slanders in an open letter to 
the country, which opens with the following 
explanatory sentence: " During the past 
and present months, various publications 
have appeared in the Chicago Democrat 
(John "Wentworth's paper), charging J. 
Butterfield, Commissioner of the General 
Land Office, with having been actuated by 
deadly hostility against the Illinois Central 
Railroad Company; of unwarrantably delay- 
ing and procrastinating the adjustment of 
the grant of lands; of attempting to kill the 
Chicago branch, by deciding that it should 
have diverged from the main trunk at the 
junction of the canal and river at Peru, and 
that the act of the Legislatm-e, providing 
that it should not diverge from any point 
north of 39 degrees, 30 minutes, was void; 



and of corruptly making various other de- 
cisions in the progress of the adjustment of 
that grant, adverse to the rights of that com- 
pany, from which an appeal was taken to the 
Secretary, and Mr. Butterfield overruled in 
all his objections; but that things went on 
so slowly, that the Directors of the company 
laid their case before the President, who at 
once wdered Mr. Butterfield to put the whole 
force of his office upon the work, if necessary 
to its execution; and that after this Mr. B. 
changed his whole course of conduct, etc. " 

After giving this summary of the charges 
against him, he proceeds to say in reply: 
" Had these publications been confined to the 
scurrilous sheets issued by the notorious 
editor of that paper, I should not have 
noticed them; bat these falsehoods are told 
with such apparent candor and circumstan- 
tial detail, that some respectable papers, I 
observe, have been imposed upon, and copied 
them." He then gives a brief and succinct 
history of the grant, and the transactions un- 
der it, and then sums up the six distinct 
falsehoods in the charges, denies and refutes 
j them in detail, and thus concludes his inter- 
1 esting letter: " The route of the old Central 
Railroad, as established in 1836, was from 
i Cairo, via Vandalia, Shelbyville, Decatur, 
: Bloomington, Peru and Dixon, to Galena; it 
did not touch within about one hundred 
' miles of Chicago. 

" A project was devised and published, in 

the latter part of 1847, for a railroad leading 

directly from Cairo to Chicago, and from 

thence to Galena, recommending an applica- 

'■ tion to Congress for a grant of lands to be 

made to the State, in alternate sections, to 

aid in its construction. Judge Dickey, 

j James H. Collins, Thomas Dyer and hun- 

j di-eds of other citizens of Chicago and other 

1 portions of the State, will recollect who was 

' the author of the project! To whom did 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



87 



the newspapers of that day ascribe it? 
"Who, at his own expense, got up and circu- 
lated petitions far and wide to Congress 
for a donation of lands to the State for this 
purpose ? Who called the first meeting that 
was ever held in the State on the subject of 
a railroad direct from Cairo to Chicago? 
An address which I had the honor to make 
on that occasion, giving my views of the im- 
mense importance of the work and urging 
its prosecution, was published and circu- 
lated. 

" Those who have, for years past, known 
my sentiments and humble services in favor 
of internal improvements, and especially for 
a direct communication between Chicago 
and Cairo by railroad, can judge of the prob- 
ability of my having attempted to strangle 
the project on the eve of its accomplishment! 
The charge emanates from one whose name 
and character, wherever he is known, is a 
sovereign antidote for all the poison he can 
distill. 

" Although famous at the Capitol, in the 
adjustment of ' Congressional stationery,' in 
which vocation 'he can't be beat,' he is evi- 
dently a great novice in the adjustment of 
railroad grants." 

Recapitulation. — In their chronological 
order, we give the corporation acts, as they 
were passed by the different Legislative bod- 
ies, that had in view the buildincj of the 
city of Cairo, and that are refen-ed to at 
length in the preceding part of this chapter. 

January 9, 1817 — John G. Comyges and 
associates were incorporated by the Territo- 
rial Legislature of Illinois, as the "President, 
Directors and Company of the Bank of 
Cairo," and authorized to build a city upon 
the lands entered by them. 

January- 16, 1836— D. B. Holbrook, A. M. 
Jenkins, M. A. Gilbert and others were in- 



corporated by the Legislature of Illinois as 
the "Illinois Central Railroad Company." 
authorizing the company to construct a rail- 
road, " commencing at or near the mouth of 
the Ohio River, and thence north, to a point 
on the Illinois River, at or near the termina- 
tion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal," with 
the privilege of extending the road from the 
Illinois River to Galena. 

February 27, 1837 — Act passed by the 
Legislatui-e, of Illinois, " to establish and 
maintain a General System of Internal Im- 
provement," and "providing for a Board of 
Public Works," and directing and ordering 
the construction of a raih'oad from the city 
of Cairo, at or near the confluence of the 
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, to ^some point 
at or near the southern termination of the 
Illinois & Michigan Canal, via Vandal ia, 
Shelby ville, Decatur and Bloomington, thence 
via Savanna to Galena, and appropriating for 
the construction of said railroad the sum of 
$8,500,000. 

March 4, 1837— A. M. Jenkins, D. B. Hol- 
brook, M. A. Gilbert and others were incor- 
porated as the Cairo City & Canal Company, 
and were authorized to pui'chase and sell land 
in Township 17 south, Range 1 west, in Alex- 
ander County, and to build a city thereon, to 
be called the city of Cairo. This act 
amended February, 1839. 

June 7, 1837 — The Illinois Central Rail- 
road Company released and' gave back to the 
State the right to constnict " a railroad, com- 
mencing at or near the confluence of the 
Ohio and Mississippi Rivei"S, and extending 
to Galena, conditional, however, that the said 
State of Illinois shall commence the con- 
struction of said railroad, within a reasonable 
time, from the city of Cairo." 

June 26, 1837 — Anagi-eement entered into 
between the Illinois Central Railroad, by its 
President, A. M. Jenkins, and the Cairo City 



88 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



& Canal Company, by D. B. Holbrook, its 
President, that the railroad to be constructed 
by the Illinois Central Railroad Company 
" shall commence at such point or place in 
the city of Cairo, as the Cairo City & Canal 
Company may fix and direct." 

June 26, 1837— The Cairo City & Canal 
Company mortgaged its lands in Township 
17 south. Range 1 west, of the Third Principal 
Meridian, on a portion of which the city of 
Cairo had been platted and laid out, to the 
New York Life Insurance & Trust Company, 
as security for loans secured from English 
capitalists. 

February 1, 1840 — The act to establish 
and maintain a General System of Internal 
Improvements, passed February 27, 1837, 
was repealed by the Legislatiu-e, and the 
work on the Illinois Central Railroad 
stopped; building a city here stopped, and, to 
complete Cairo's disasters, the company's 
banker in London failed, and the Cairo City 
& Canal Company were hopelessly bankrupt, 
and the nearly fifteen hundred people that 
had gathered here dispersed, and desolation 
brooded over the land. 

March 6, 1843— The President and Direct- 
ors of the Cairo City & Canal Company were 
incorporated as the Great Western Railway 
Company, and authorized to construct a 
railroad, " commencing at the city of Cairo, 
in Alexander County, 111., and thence north, by 
way of Vandalia, Shelbyville, Decatur and 
Bloomington, to a point on the Illinois 
River at or near the termination of the 
Illinois & Michigan Canal," and to extend 
the main road to Galena. 

March 6, 1845 — The last above-mentioned 
act repealed by the Legislature. 

September 29, 1846— The bondholders, 
creditors and owners of the City of Cairo & 
Canal Company franchise, organized The 
Trust of the Cairo Property, and all the com- 



pany's property in Town 17 south, Rauge 1 
west, was conveyed to Thomas Taylor, of 
Philadelphia, and Charles Davis, [of New 
York, as Trustees of the Cairo City Prop- 
erty. 

February 10, 1849— The President and 
Directors of the Cairo City & Canal Com- 
pany, with others, rechartered and rein- 
stated as the Great Western Railway Com- 
pany, with all the powers conferred by the 
act of March 6, 1843, and the Governor of 
the State authorized to hold in trust for the 
Great Western Railway Company whatever 
lands might be donated or thereafter secured 
to the State of Illinois b_y the General Gov- 
ernment to aid in the construction and com- 
pletion of the Illinois Central or the Great 
Western Railroad from Cairo to Chicago. 

December 24, 1849 — Release executed by 
the Cairo City & Canal Company to the State 
of Illinois, of the charter of the Great West- 
ern Railway Company, upon the condition 
that the State would build "within ten years 
from January 1, 1850, a railroad from Cairo 
to Chicago, and that the southern terminus 
should be the city of Cairo. 

September 20, 1850 — An act of Congress, 
granting to the State of Illinois the alternate 
sections of land, for sixteen sections in 
width, on each side of the railroad and its 
branches, for the construction of a railroad 
from the southern terminus of the Illinois & 
Michigan Canal to a point at or near the 
junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, 
with branches to Chicago and Galena. 

September 20, 1850 — Release by the Cairo 
City & Canal Company of the charter of the 
Great Western Railway Company to the 
State, and the acceptance of the same by the 
State of Illinois. 

February 30, 1851 — The act of incorpora- 
tion of the Illinois Central Railroad passed 
by the Legislature, and providing for the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



89 



conveyance to Trustees the lands donated by 
the General Government to the State. 

Jnne 11, 1851 — An agreement between the 
Illinois Central Railroad and the Trustees of 
the Cairo City Property, for the railroad to 
construct and maintain levees around the 
City of Cairo, in consideration of conveyance 
to the railroad company of certain lands in 
the city of Cairo, specifying the levees were 
to be about seven miles long, and to inclose 
about thirteen hunch'ed acres of laud on the 
point. 

September 15, 1853 — The city of Cairo 
was platted and laid out and recorded by the 
Cairo City Property, and the first lot sold to 
Peter Stapleton. 

October 15, 1853 — Deed executed by the 
Trustees of the Cairo City Property, to the 
Illinois Central Railroad, for the land speci- 
fied in the agreement of the road to construct 
and maintain levees. 

May 31, 1855 — An additional agreement 
entered into between the Cairo City Property 
and the Central road, by which the road 
agreed to "construct and maintain new pro- 
tective embankment, to prevent the abrasion 
of the Mississippi levee." This agreement 
materially changed that of June 11, 1851. 

June 12, 1858 — This new embankment, 
constructed on the Mississippi River, gave 
way, and the city was inundated. 

October 12, 1858- The Illinois Central 
Railroad, having restored the levees to the 
condition they were in before the overflow, 
were informed that the reconstruction of the 
levees did not fulfill their agreement, and the 
road was notified to widen and strengthen 
the works to at least a width of twenty feet 
on the top of the levees, with a slope on each 
side of one foot perpendicular to five feet 
horizontal, and the entire levees to be raised 
two feet higher than the old levees. 

October 29, 1858~Foi-mal notice given by 



the Trustees of the Cairo City Property to 
the Illinois Central i-oad, that, in, conse- 
quence of the road's failure and refusal to 
strengthen the levees, according to their con- 
tract, the Trustees would at once proceed to 
do the work and hold the railroad company 
responsible for the reimbursement of all 
costs of the same, with interest. 

October 1, 1863 — Mortgage executed, by 
the Trustees of Cairo City Property, to Hiram 
Ketchum, Trustee, to all the property of the 
Trust of the Cairo City Property, as a secur- 
ity for a loan of $250,000. 

October 1, 1867 — An additional mortgage, 
by the same parties last above-named, upon 
the same propei'ty, for an additional loan of 
150,000. 

July 18, 1872 — Suit commenced by the 
Cairo City Property against the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad, for $250,000, money expended 
by the city company upon the levees. The 
suit was compromised by the payment by the 
railroad of $80,000, and the conveying back 
by deed to the Cairo City Property, of 397 
acres of the 487 acres that had been conveyed 
to the railroad, in consideration that the road 
would construct protective levees. By this 
settlement, the railroad was released from 
any further obligations in regard to the 
levees. 

May 10, 1876— The Cairo City Property, 
being unable to pay the loans negotiated in 
1863 and 1867, the mortgages were fore- 
closed, and the property of the Trust sold to 
the bondholders under the mortgage. 

January 20, 1876 — A new Trust formed, 
called the Cairo City Trust Property, under 
which the property is now managed by S. 
Staats Taylor . and Edwin Parsons, Trustees. 

The finale of all this is, there was much 
more legislation than city or railroads con- 
structed It is an evidence that the way 
cities are built is not by cunning or strong 



90 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



legislative acts, but by strong, enterprising, 
busy men; not by powerful, speculative cor- 
porations, but by independent individuals; 
not by anticipating the incomiug rush of the 
thousands who make it a metropolis, and dis- 
counting in advance the per capita profits of 
their coming, but by voluntary acts of each 
one, actinor in ignorance and unconcern of 



what the future is or may be of the place — 
the busy, enterprising men of small capital 
and vast energy. These are the broad and 
strong foundations of all great cities that 
have ever yet been built in this country. It 
is the antipodes, in everything of a movement 
to found a city, to be, when completed, the 
property of a chartered corporation. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE LEVEES— HOW THE TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE BY LAW PLACED THE NATURAL TOWN SITE 
ABOVE OVERFLOWS— FIRST EFFORTS AT CONSTRUCTING LEVEES— ENGINEER'S REPORTS ON 
THE SAME— ESTIMATED HEIGHT AND COSTS— THE FLOODS— THE CITY OVERFLOWED 
—GREAT DISASTER, THE CAUSE AND ITS EFFECTS— THE LEVEES ARE RECON- 
STRUCTED AND THEY DEFY THE GREATEST WATERS EVER KNOWN. 



IN the preceding chapter we have at- 
tempted to give a succinct account of the 
many charter and other corporation laws 
passed in reference to founding the city of 
Cairo, commencing with the first act of the 
Illinois Territorial Legislature, of June 9, 
1818, and in chronological order tracing 
these acts down to date. Following this, in 
the natural order, would be a similar account 
of the construction of the city's levees, from 
the first little rude embankments of William 
Bird around his little trading house, to the 
present more than seven miles of the finest, 
and probably the most solid, protective em- 
bankments in the world. 

In the year 1828, John and Thompson 
Bird brought their slaves over from Missoui-i, 
and built an embankment around the hotel 
that then was the solitary building in Cairo; 
which stood a short distance below the pres- 
ent Halliday House. It was a frame build- 
ing, about twenty-five by thirty-five feet in 
dimensions. This levee seems to have ful- 
filled its purposes well, and for years kept 
out the waters. The same parties soon after 



erected another building, for a store, and as 
this was just outside the levee, it was perched 
on posts that were high enough to keep it 
from the raging waters. 

For the particulars of the next attempt to 
construct levees we are indebted to the now 
venerable Judge Miles A. Gilbert, of Ste. 
Mary's, Mo., who gives us his recollections 
of the acts and doings of the old City & 
Bank of Cairo Company. He says: " John 
C. Comyges, the master spirit of this enter- 
prise, had just perfected his plans to go over 
to Holland, and bring to Cairo a shipload of 
Dutch laborers, to build the dykes or levees 
around the city, when he was taken sick and 
soon died, when the other incorporators, 
becoming discouraged, the enterprise was 
finally abandoned. In those days (1818), the 
public lands were purchased from the Gov- 
ernment, under a credit system of $2 per 
acre— 50 cents in cash paid, and $1.50 on 
timp. If the $1.50 was not promptly paid 
at maturity, the land reverted to the Govern- 
ment, and the 50 cents per acre paid was 
forfeited, and the land became again subject 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



91 



to entry. In 1835, Judge Sidney Breese, 
Miles A. Gilbert and Thomas Swanwiok re- 
entered these lands, the object being to revive 
the old charter of the City & Bank of Cairo 
Company, of 1818, which had not yet expired 
by limitation of its charter. In order to gain 
influence to eft'ect this purpose, Miles A. Gil- 
bert and Thomas Swanwick sold an undivided 
interest to Hon. David J. Baker, Hon. Elias 
K. Kane. PieiTe Mesnard and Darius B. Hol- 
brook." [Then follows an account of the 
chartering of the original Illinois Central 
Railroad, and the Internal Improvement Sys- 
tem, and the final release of the railroad 
charter to the State. For particulars see pre- 
ceding chapter. — En.] " Judge Gilbert in- 
forms us that one of the conditions of the 
Central's release to the State was, the State 
should build a road upon the proposed line 
and establish a depot in the city limits, and 
the city company was to deed the railroad 
t«;n acres of land for depot purposes, which 
deed was duly made. 

"In 1838, D. B. Holbrook, the President of 
the Cairo City & Canal Company, went to 
England and negotiated a loan or hypotheca- 
tion of the company's bonds, to the amount 
of 155,800 pounds sterling. On his return, 
he revived and organized the Cairo City 
Bank, which was, as required by law, for the 
time being, located at Kaskaskia, when work 
was commenced at Cairo upon a large and 
extravagant scale. Anthony Olney was ap- 
pointed General Superintendent. A large 
force was set to work, building the levees 
around the city. 

" Foundries, machine shops, workshops, 
boarding-houses and dwellings went up as if 
by magic. But in the midst of this general 
and cheerful prosperity, the banking-house 
of Wright &Co., of London, failed. The im- 
mediate cause of the suspension at Cairo 
was the failure of Wright & Co. to meet the 



di'af ts then drawn on them by the Cairo City 
& Canal Company, and that were on their 
way to England. Had the failure been ]X)st- 
poned sixty days longer, and the existing 
drafts been honored, the Cairo Company 
could have met all its contracts thereafter 
incurred, by a little prudence, and the com- 
pany have been made self-sustaining. D. B. 
Holbrook made every effort in his power to 
raise means to pay and secure those whom 
the company owed at Cairo, but distrust had 
seized every one, and the result was the com- 
pany, bank, and all work su-spended. Fol- 
lowing this, recklessness and mob law 
reigned supreme" — idleness, rioting, de- 
moralization and drunkenness held sway, 
and the seethingr, roaring mob were as a den 
of mixed wild beasts, where only the fierce 
and bloodthirsty passions were manifested or 
to be met. Here was the rapidly gathered 
together young city, of about two thousand 
people, plain laborers mostly, many skilled 
mechanics, boarding-house keepers, engineers, 
merchants, traders, contractors, and the 
women and children. Their incipient city 
fringed along the banks of the Ohio Kiver, 
where the gi'eat old forest trees had been 
felled along the edges of the river bank to 
make room for this little border of mosaic 
work of civilization in the far West. The 
young town was in all its bewildering new- 
ness and freshness — that unfinished confusion 
on a fresh bank of earth here, a ditch there ; a 
rough, stumpy, newly blazed road or trail, 
hardly yet cut by its first wagon tracks, lead- 
ing nowhere; newly- built houses dotted here 
and there as though di-opped at random from 
the skies, without reference to their ever tak- 
ing their positions in streets or regularity, so 
new, too, were they, that a blanket, a jiiece of 
cai'pet or a quilt did duty for a door, and upon 
every hand were other still newer houses in 
every stage of building, fi'om the few half- 



9-2 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



hewn logs that lay scattered over the ground 
and obstructing the* passage-ways, to those 
with the new board roof being nailed on; 
workshops, boarding-houses, hotels, foun- 
dries, in short, a great city was almost 
magically being built in the wild forests, 
and simultaneously a great railroad was 
being built in the city, and happy and busy 
men were working out this apparently inex- 
tricable confusion, and bringing order and 
symmetry out of disorder, when the crash 
came, and hope and confidence fled from the 
people; all labor instantly ceased, and whole 
families swarmed from their homes, cabins 
and tents, after the fashion of angry bees 
when a stick is thrust into their hive. Hol- 
brook's fair promises were scouted, the law 
of the land ridiculed, and pell-mell the mob 
commenced an indiscriminate sacking of all 
public or city company property. They 
mostly must have found but little comfort in 
this, as there was little or nothing that could 
be converted to private use that would be of 
any value, and hence the robberies or appro- 
priations must often have been after the 
fashion of the soldier, who started on the 
march to Georgia, and the first day out dis- 
covered the highways and the by-ways, the 
fields and the woods were full of bummers, 
who were stealing everything as they went. 
Piqued at his being behind ^the early birds, 
he looked about him for something to steal, 
when the only thing he could find left was a 
plow. This he shouldered, and in happiness 
resumed his march. After tusrscins: in sore 
agony and distress under his load of loot for 
a few miles, he overhauled his elder patriotic 
brother, stranded by the wayside from a 
grindstone that he had appropriated a few 
miles back. These two patriots, as it ia right 
and proper they should be, are now on the 
penson list, for permanent disability — not 
for wounds received in battle, but for strains 



in transporting from the Southern Confeder- 
acy the sinews of war. 

Mr; Anthony Olney, the Superintendent, 
attempted to stay the storm and protect the 
property, but soon saw how futile his efforts 
were, and he quit serious efforts in that di- 
I'ection. He died a short time after this. 

Soon those to whom the Cairo City & 
Canal Company was indebted began to make 
efforts to collect their money by law. They 
attached everything they could find belonging 
to the company, which was sold at public 
sale for a mere trifle. For nearly two years 
the place was abandoned by all the repre- 
sentatives of the company, and the mob and 
the officers of the laws had effectually dis- 
posed of all the company's property. 

In 1838, just previous to the commence- 
ment of the improvements noted above, the 
city company issued the following circular: 

" The President of the Cairo City & Canal 
Company, having made arrangements in 
England for the funds requisite to carry on 
their contemplated improvements in the city 
of Cairo, upon the most extensive and liberal 
scale, it is now deemed proper to 'give pub- 
licity to the objects, plans and other matters 
connected with this great work, in order that 
every one who feels an interest or has pride in 
the success of this magnificent public enter- 
prise, may properly understand and appre- 
ciate the motives and designs of the project- 
ors. 

" The company, from the commencement 
determined to withhold from sale, at any 
price, the corporate property of the city, un- 
til it should be made manifest to the most 
doubting and skeptical, the perfect practica- 
bility of making the site of the city of Cairo 
habitable. This being now fully established, 
by the report of the distinguished engineers, 
Messrs. Strickland & Taylor, of Pennsyl- 
vania, and also by that of the principal en- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



93 



gineers of the State works of Illinois, the 
company are (?) proceeding in the execution 
of their ( ?) plans, as set forth in their pros 
pectus, viz.: To make the levees, streets 
and embankments of the city; to erect ware- 
houses, stores and shops convenient for every 
branch of commercial business; diy docks; 
also buildings adapted for every useful me- 
chanical an manufacturing purpose, and 
dwelling-houses of such cost and description 
as will suit the taste and means of every 
citizen — which course has been adopted as 
the most certain to secure the destined popu- 
lation of Cairo, within the least possible 
time. The company, however, wish it fully 
understood, that it is far from their desire 
or intention to monopolize, or engage in any 
of the various objects of entei'prise, trade or 
business which must of necessity spring up 
and be carried on with great and singular 
success in this city; it being their governino- 
motive to offer every reasonable and proper 
encouragement to the enterprising and skill- 
ful artisan, manufactui-er, merchant and pro- 
fessional man to identify his interests with 
the growth and i)rosperity of the city. When 
the company makes sales or leases of prop- 
erty, it will be on such liberal terms as no 
other toAvn or city can offer, possessing like 
advantages for the acquisition of that essen- 
tial means of human happiness — wealth. 
The President of the company is fully em- 
powered, whenever he shall deem it expedi- 
ent, to sell or lease the property, and other- 
wise to represent the general interests and 
aflairs of the company." 

This proclamation was the work of the 
President, Holbrook, and it was the aims, 
hopes, ambitions and intentions of the com- 
pany, as he was willing and eager for all the 
world to see and know them. In this mani- 
festo, Mr. Holbrook feels constrained, in the 
name of the company, to say, " that it is far 



from their desire or intention to monopolize 
or engage in any of the various objects of 
enterprise, trade or business, which must of 
necessity spring up, etc. " It was only after 
the calamitous crash came that people re- 
membered there had been anything reallv 
said in the President's circular except that 
" the President of the Cairo City & Canal 
Company, having made arrangements in 
England for the funds requisite to carry out 
their contemplated improvements in the city 
of Cairo, upon the most extensive mid iiberal 
scale, etc." 

The subject of "funds" was all that caught 
the eye of the hopeful comer to Cairo, and 
the liberal and extensive works of buildim^- 
thfi foundations of the city, that caused the 
money to pour out to the people in a golden 
stream, were abundant evidences to all the 
Avorld that the company had not only got the 
money, but were honestly putting it to the 
purposes for which they said " they had 
secui-ed it " in their circular. But in the 
great financial wreck, that carried dowoi such 
a wide circle of public and private enter- 
prises, and that came like a clap of thunder 
from a clouldess sky, the larger portion of 
the laborers that suffered from the visitation 
looked no further for the source of their woe 
than to Holbrook and his circular. And no 
doubt that here was the origin of the distrust 
of this man and his schemes, that eventually 
widely spread, and entered deeply into the 
minds of men all over our country, even to 
that extent that his usefulness ceased, and 
he returned to his Boston home to retire- 
ment from his struggles, to privacy and 
death. 

When Holbrook got the money from Eng- 
land, he put his engineers at once to work 
to ascertain the wants of the town site in the 
way of protective embankments from the 
waters of the two rivers that laved the three 



94 



HISTOHY OF CAIRO. 



sides of its shores, and when they reported, 
he put 1, 500 laborers upon this work, which 
he was pushing vigorously when the crash 
came. The levees along the two rivers had 
been regularly made and joined together at 
the southern extremity, but the cross levee 
on the north, to connect the two levees on 
the shores, and thus encircling the entire city, 
had not been constructed, and thus, practically, 
all the work completed was of little or no 
value without the completion of the north 
cross -levee. 

As stated above, the Cairo City & Canal 
Company, and their Superintendent, Mr. 
Olney, had abandoned the town and their 
property, and, eventually, so did nearly all 
the 2,000 people that had gathered here, 
and so complete was this exodus that it is 
stated less than fifty of them permanently re- 
mained. These seem to have been an easy, 
devil-may-care class of men, who found 
themselves the happy possessors, and for all 
purposes of use and occupation, the owners 
of a great young city, or the half-finished 
ground-plans thereof. 

The sudden coming together of what all 
the world thought to be a young and prom- 
ising great city was equaled only by its sud- 
den, almost complete desertion when the 
storm of adversity broke upon it. 

The completed improvements in the town 
were the iron works of Bellews, Hathaway & 
Gilbert, which were supplied with the best 
English machinery, which were in full oper- 
ation, and turning out much valuable prod- 
ucts. This institution continued its busi- 
ness, running its machinery to its full capac- 
ity until the 22d of March, 18-1:2, when the 
floods of that year, owing to the unfinished 
condition of the levees, washed it away. This 
flood at the same time swept away the dry 
dock, which had been erected at a cost of 
over S35,000, when it was seized by credit- 



ors, taken to New Orleans and sold. The 
City Company had made a large addition to 
the Cairo Hotel, which was thronged with 
guests at all times, many of them being 
tourists, attracted here by the wide name and 
fame of Cairo. Two large saw mills were 
turning out building lumber and steamboat 
timbers. A three-story planing mill was 
running to its fullest capacity. This was 
situated on the corner of Eighth street and 
the Ohio levee. The steamer Asia and the 
hull of the steamer Peru had been moored in 
front of the city, and were made into wharf- 
boats and hotels. Holbrook had erected a 
spacious and elegant residence on the spot 
now occupied by the Halliday House. The 
company had erected twenty neat and com- 
modious cottages during the season of 1841. 

Then the numerous shanties, cabins and 
pole-huts, together with the unfinished levees 
and an unfinished railroad, were the heirlooms 
that became the possessions of the happy-go- 
lucky fifty people that remained here amid 
the general wreck and ruin. 

In April, 1843, Miles A. Gilbert was ap- 
pointed Agent of the Cairo City & Canal 
Company, to take possession, care and gen- 
eral control of its property in the city. The 
condition in which he found matters upon his 
arrival here, the mood and temper and claims 
of the people, the lawless spirit of the mob, 
and their primitive notions of the vested 
rights to everything that their occupancy had 
given them, the episodes Mr. Gilbert en- 
countered, that drove him to that " last re- 
sort of nations," ai-e fully told in the bio- 
graphical sketch of him in another part of 
this work. 

As soon as Mr. Gilbert had vindicated his 
right to the possession and control of the 
property, he put a force of laborers at work 
constructing the cross-levee, from the Ohio 
to the Mississippi levee, and this was com- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



95 



pleted during the year 1843. He also re- 
paired, strengthened, raised and leveled 
the old levees running along the river banks. 
The levees, as now completed, inclosed 
about six hundred acres of ground. Their 
average height above the natural surface of 
the land was between seven and eight feet. 

Their efficacy as embankments to keep out 
the waters is well told in the following from 
Mr. Miles A. Gilbert: " They kept out the 
great flood in the Missisippi of June, 1844. 
Cairo was the only diy spot in the river bot- 
toms to be found between St. Louis and 
New Orleans. That season, I had a field of 
corn, of many acres, planted inside the Cairo 
levee, which gi-ew to maturity and ripened 
into a good crop, although the water sur- 
rounding the city was about eight feet higher 
than the surface of the corn-field." 

The flood in the Mississippi River of the 
spring of 1844 was historical, and remains 
to this day, as marking the extreme height 
to which the waters of that river have attained 
since its discovery. The writer remembers 
standing upon the high blufl's opposite St. 
Louis, when the waters of the river stretched 
from the base of the hills like a great sea, 
and as he looked west over the expanse of 
waters, could see no dry land except Monk's 
Mound, which was covered with domestic 
animals. From Alton to New Orleans, the 
river extended from the hills on one side to 
the hills on the o})posite side, and probably 
averaged in width between fifteen and 
twenty miles. The destruction of human 
life, the devastation of property, in all this 
strip of wide country, for twelve hundred 
miles, was appalling. Houses, fences and 
buildings of all kinds were washed away, and 
a wide track of desolation marked the whole 
course of the river— -except within the levee 
of the city of Cairo. Here, Miles A. Gril- 
bert's field of corn was vigorously pushing 



up its heads, to look and smile, perhaps, 
upon the angry fljod that surrounded it. 
What a triumph for the young city, to fol- 
low, as it did, so closely in time upon the 
tracks of the financial disaster that had swept 
over it, and against which no levees or em- 
bankments could protect it! What a laurel 
wreath it was for Miles A. Gilbert and his 
co-laborers in their heroic determination to 
overcome all obstacles, and build a city here! 

Fi'om the hour that Mr. Gilbert finished 
and inclosed the city with a levee, there 
has come to the town no disaster from the 
high waters in the Mississippi River; and 
yet the highest floods ever known in that 
river came while the levees were so con- 
structed and finished by INIr. Gilbert, and 
before they had been raised to their present 
height, which is an average of about twelve 
feet above the surface of the ground all 
around the city, or, in other words, five feet 
in height had been added to the original 
levees. 

It is a well-established fact that even the 
fii'st levees built here would have been an 
abundant protection from any waters in the 
Mississippi River. While this wonderful 
river, in its onward surge to the sea, defies 
and baffles the piiny arm of man to guide, 
check or control it, yet nature has so arranged 
the topography o£ the country, thiough 
which tht> river runs between this point and 
St. Louis, that its gi'eatest floods can do 
no hai-m at Cairo. At Grand Chain, the 
river has cut its bed down through the solid 
rocks many hundreds of feet, and the great, 
water-seamed cliffs stand facing each other, 
forming the narrowest point, and the highest 
perpendicular rocky bluffs on either side of 
any other place in^the Lower Mississippi. 
This narrow gorge holds back the water 
above, and allows it only to pass through in 
such quantities, that the wide bottoms that 



96 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



commence here take them off as fast as they 
can come. 

While this is true of the Mississippi River, 
it is not the case with the Ohio Eiver. The 
same Grand Chain crosses the Ohio, and 
passes into Kentucky a few miles above here; 
yet the river channel has not been so con- 
fined by steep, rocky shores, but, upon the 
contrary, there is quite a sufficient space for 
the waters in uninterrupted [volume,'even at 
the highest stages. 

But recent experiences teach there has been 
a materia] change in the frequency and force 
of the high waters, especially in the Ohio 
River. The great freshets in the Mississippi 
are usually known as the " June rise," and 
generally come from the melting snows in 
the Rocky Mountain regions, while the Ohio 
Eiver is almost wholly influenced by long- 
continued heavy rains in the Mississippi 
Valley. Since 1860, the drainage of the en- 
tire agricultural country in the Valley has 
been greatly increased, until lagoons and 
marshes and ponds that ouce held the rain- 
fall, and • allowed it to pass off only by 
evaporation, are now dry and well-tilled 
farms. So wide and thorough has general 
drainage been inaugurated, in sm-face, and 
subsoil and tile drainage, that it must greatly 
affect the gathering of the waters to the large 
rivers, and is, no doubt, one of the large 
factors in producing the change that has 
taken place in the annual freshets in our rivers. 
Still another alleged influence is the clearing 
out of the forests all over tbe country, and thus 
taking from the atmosphere and the soil one 
large source of gathering and holding back 
the waters. But this last theory is somewhat 
fuddled by the often- advanced philosophical 
idea that the cutting away of the forests re- 
duces the rainfall, and heoce the great 
droughts which so severely afflict the country 
at now frequent intervals. One or the other, 



perhaps both, of these theories are false, yet 
there is one thing well established, namely, 
that a heavily- timbered country always be- 
speaks a large rainfall there, while the treeless 
desert as certainly tells of a cloudless sky 
and no rainfall. So, if the trees do not pro- 
duce an increase in the rain, the rain cer- 
tainly does increase the tree growth. 

When Miles F. Gilbert had completed his 
levees around the city of Cairo, in 1843, he 
had walled the waters out, and fenced in the 
ragged squad of fifty men, women and chil- 
dren that constituted the population of the 
forlorn city. This tattered remnant of peo- 
ple had taken and held possession of the 
houses, and the first choice of hut, shanty, 
cottage, Holbrook's handsome residence, or 
mill, or factory, was to the swift of foot, who, 
when the exodus commenced, could get there 
first, and acquire ownership by possession. 
They evidently looked upon Mr. Gilbert with 
some distrust and ill-will, as he was " not 
regular" in this; he claimed there were yet 
property rights here of the Cairo & Canal 
Company, and he further believed in the 
majesty and supremacy of the law of the 
land. He ^ave his time and labored faith- 
fully, never, for a moment, so doubting his 
eyes and senses as to lose faitli in the future 
great destiny of Cairo. From 1843 to 1851 
did he continue thus to "hold the fort," 
and protect the town and build up its inter- 
ests. In those eight long years of decay and 
dilapidation, the population increased only 
from 50 to 200 souls. Except for the 
efforts of Mr. Gilbert, there was an interreg- 
num here, and a prostration of the hopes of 
the lown quite as profound as was the finan- 
cial and commercial panic in the country 
generally. And all over the West this pros- 
tration lasted until the passage by Congress 
of the bill for the building of the Illinois 
Central Railroad, in February, 1851. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



99 



April 15, 1851, S. Staats Taylor succeeded 
M. A. Gilbert, as Agent of the Trustees of 
the Cairo City Property. At that time, only 
about fifty acres, along the Ohio River, near 
its confluence with the Mississippi Eiver 
were cleared. The rest of the grounds were 
mostly covered with a dense growth of tim- 
ber. The buildings and other improvements 
made by the city company, from 1837 to 
1842, had nearly all fallen and decayed, or 
been removed. Only a few buildings re- 
mained, and they were in a tumble-down 
condition. The Central Railroad had made 
arrangements to commence the construction 
of its road, and desiring privileges within 
the city of Cairo, and the right of way from 
the north to the south limits of the town, on 
June 11, 1851, Thomas S. Taylor and 
Charles Davis, the Trustees, living in New 
"York, entered into a contract with the rail- 
road company to construct and maintain 
levees around the city. The consideration 
paid the railroad, in addition to the right of 
way through the city, was 487 acres of land, 
this land mostly on each side of the track 
and the levees around the city, with certain 
tracts extending to the rivers on each side of 
the city. This agreement provided that the 
railroad company should encompass the city 
with a levee or embankment of adequate 
height to exclude the waters of the rivers 
at any then known stage or rise of the same; 
that this embankment or levee should be so 
formed or graded as to furnish a street or 
roadway, as nearly level, transversely, as 
might be deemed proper, of not less than 
eighty feet in width, and, beyond the street 
or roadway, to slope toward the river, on a 
descent of one foot in five, to the natural 
surface of the land, which [slope was to have 
been continued toward the river, to low water 
mark. 

As this agreement and contract was event- 



ually the most important to the city com- 
pany, to the town and to the railroad, and 
led finally to misuodorstandings and lawsuits 
between the two companies, and to much dis- 
cussion and disputes among property holders 
in the city, and as they have never been 
properly understood by the many interested 
therein, we give them hei-e entire, together 
with the correspondence arising therefrom 
between the railroad, the city company and 
the property holders: 

" AGREEMENT. 

" The Illinois Central Railroad Company, 
with the Trustees of the Cairo City 
Property. June 11, 1S51. 

" Memorandum of an agreement made pro- 
visionally, this 11th day of June, 1851. be- 
tween Thomas S. Taylor and Charles Davis, 
of the first part, and the Illinois Central 
Railroad Company of the second part. 

"1. It is hereby mutually agreed, that 
proper deeds, conveyances and instruments 
necessary to secure the performance of this 
agreement, shall bo executed by the respect- 
ive parties hereto, when prepared in due 
form of law and with accurate descriptions. 

" 2. It is also agreed, that the site of 
Cairo City, substantially as shown on a map 
thereof made by H. C. Long, dated June, 
1851, and annexed hereto, "shall be estab- 
lished by the parties of the first part, and 
maintained by them against the abrasion and 
wear of the waters of the rivers, and that all 
the constructions, of whatever nature, for the 
purposes of forming, maintaining and pro- 
tecting the site of the city, shall be made by 
and at the cost of the parties of the first 
part. 

" 3. It is agreed, that this site shall be 
encompassed entirely by a levee or embank - 
mpnt of adequate height to exclude the 
waters of the rivers at any stage or rise of 
the same now known, to be established, for 



100 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



the purposes of this agreement, by the en- 
gineers of both parties, which shall be so 
formed and graded as to furnish a street or 
roadway as nearly level, transversely, as may 
be deemed proper, of not less than eighty 
feet in width, and, beyond the width 
adopted for the level _ street or roadway, to 
slope toward the rivers, on a descent of one 
foot in five, to the uatiu-al surface of the land 
— which slope is to be continued toward the 
river, to a point to be selected by the en- 
gineers at low water mark; but a level sur- 
face (transversely) may be introduced between 
the slope of the levee or embankment and 
the slope down to the low water mark, in case 
the width of the bank between the water and 
the levee should make it necessary or expedi- 
ent, and it should be so arranged by the en- 
gineers of both parties. All of which em- 
bankment, or levee, or slopes, and inter- 
mediate level, if any there be, shall be 
made, formed and graded by and at the cost 
of the parties of the second part. 

" 4. It is agreed, that the location of the 
levee or embankment shall be such as will 
supply, from the excavation and removal of 
the earth forming the slope to the low water 
mark, all the earth necessary for the forma- 
tion, grading and construction of the levee 
or embankment, with only such variations in 
the places as the engineers of both parties 
may agree upoQ as absolutely necessary. 

" 5. It is agi-eed, that when the levee 
street is formed and graded, of a width of 
not less than eighty feet on top, and the 
slope of the levee wharf formed and graded, 
that the same shall be considered as com- 
pleted under this agi'eement, and that no 
further protection or construction, such as 
paving, planking, etc., shall be required of 
the parties of the second part; biit all re- 
pairs, works or constructions which may 
thereafter become essential or necessary for 



the preservation, maintenance and rej^air 
of the levee or embankment shall be made by 
and at the cost of the parties of the second 
part; and such as may be essential and neces- 
sary for the preservation, maintenance and 
repair of the level in front of the levee or em- 
bankment, and of the slopes or levee-wharf, 
shall be made by and at the cost of the parties 
of the first part, except in front of those parcels 
of land to be appropriated to the parties of 
the second part, extending r,o and into the 
waters of the rivers, where the level, slopes 
or levee-wharf shall be maintained and re- 
paired by and at the cost of the parties of 
the second part, but not so far as to dis- 
charge the parties of the first part from the 
agreement to establish and maintain the site 
of the city No. 2. 

" 6. It is agreed, that the parties of the 
second part may, whenever they may see fit, 
lay do\vn, construct and operate a single or 
double line of rails, of such form or rail, 
gauge and manner of construction as they 
may deem judicious, upon or along the levee 
or embankment or any part thereof; and 
may use the same for the transportation of 
passengers, goodf and merchandise, by steam 
or other power — subject only to such reason- 
able and just rules and regulations, as to 
the use of their tracts, as may be made and 
imposed by the proper authorities of Cairo 
City for the time being, but no rules or reg- 
ulations shall be imposed, or if imposed 
need be respected, which, in effect, would 
essentially eflfectually impair or entirely de- 
stroy its right of constructing and operating 
the tracks on the levee or embankment. 

" 7. It is agreed, that cross-levees or em- 
bankments shall be made and maintained by 
and at the cost of the parties of the second 
part, of adequate height and width for the 
purposes proposed for them, which shall 
cross from the levee or embankment on the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



101 



Mississippi to that on the Ohio, one of them 
on and upon the strip of land marked on the 
map A, and the other on the strip of land at 
the northern boundary of the city, marked 
B; but no public streets or highways are to 
be laid out upon these levees or embank- 
ments, except to cross the same nearly or 
exactly at right angles; and the tracks and 
rails laid thereon are not to be subject to any 
rules or regulations other than those Avhich 
are imposed upon the parties of the second 
part by their act of incorporation aod the 
laws of the land. 

" 8. It is agreed, that the parties of the 
second part shall proceed with due diligence 
in the construction of the crosslevee or em- 
bankment on the lower strip marked A, and 
of the levee or embankment below the same, 
and entirely around the point of the city, at 
the confluence of the rivers, as shown on the 
map; but that they may postpone to such 
time as they may deem reasonable and 
proper, the construction of the cross-levee or 
embankment on the upper strip of land, 
marked B. and the levees or embankments 
to connect with those previously constnicted 
on the lower portion of the city. 

"9. It is agi'eed, that the parties of the 
second part may locate their railroad gfrom 
the northern line of Cairo City, upon the 
line of the width of roadway [shown on the 
annexed map, being 100 feet, to a point to 
be established and fixed by the engineers of 
the two parties, in the northern line of the 
cross strip of land, marked A on the annexed 
map, and below and south of that point on 
and over all the land colored blue on said 
map, to be surveyed and described by metes 
and bounds; and also on and over all the 
lands colored blue on the annexed map, 
above the northerly line of the strip marked 
A, on each river to the northerly line of the 
city; and also on and over the strip of laud 



marked B, including in the preceding de- 
scription the station lots, depot grounds and 
levee wharves shown on the said map. 

" 10. It is agreed, that when the above 
location shall have been made according to 
law, that the deeds of release and cession 
shall be made, executed and delivered by the 
parties of the first part, to the parties of the 
second part, inthe consideration of the agree- 
ment on their part for the construction and 
maintenance of the levees, embankments and 
slopes above described, of all the lands and 
premises to which refei'ence has heretofore 
been made, and which are to be particularly 
smweyed and accurately located and de- 
scribed, to hold the same absolutely in fee 
simple, for the uses and purposes of the said 
railroad and its business, and for the trans- 
portation of passengers, goods and merchan- 
dise and the station accommodations, storage, 
receipt, delivery and safe keeping of the 
same, and for the machine and repair shops, 
engine and car houses, turn-tables, water 
tanks, and generally for all the wants and 
requirements of the railroad service, so \oncr 
as the said parties of the second part shall 
continue to use, occupy and operate tlie same 
for the purposes above intended. 

"11. It is agreed, that the parties of the 
second part may lay down, maintain and 
operate their lines of tracks and rails, upon 
the above -described lands, in such manner 
and form as they may deem proper; ami mav 
use thereon steam, or other power of any 
kind, subject only to the general liabilities of 
land -owners as to the use of their propt'rtv, 
but exempt from any special rules or obliga- 
tions imposed or attempted to be imposed by 
the parties of the first part, or any and every 
grantees or grantee of the Cairo City Proper- 

ty. 

" 12. It is agreed, that the tracks or lines 
of rails of the parties of the second pavt, 



102 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



to be laid down on tlie strip of land, of 100 
feet in width, running entirely around the 
city, shall be laid, as nearly as may be, at 
and under each street crossing, upon the 
natural level or grade of the land, in order 
to gain as much elevation as possible under 
the bridges to bo erected by the parties of 
the first part, and each at every street cross- 
ing, but the grade may vary from the natural 
surface at all other points, as the parties of 
the second part may see fit. 

"13. It is agreed, that the cross streets 
are to be located by the parties of the first 
part, across and over the strip of land men- 
tioned in the preceding article, with a space 
of at least 400 feet between them; and are 
to be graduated so as to cross the strip of 
land on bridges, with at least sixteen feet 
above the rails of the parties of the second 
part, for the passage of engines, and that no 
crossing shall be laid out to cross the tracks 
in any other way "than with sufficient space 
below it for the passage of engines, and that 
no crossing through or upon any of the sta- 
tion or depot lands. 

" 14. It is agreed, that the parties of the 
first part are to build and maintain all 
the bridges or street crossings, at their ex- 
pense and cost, and that the parties of the 
second part ai-e to drain and protect the strip 
of land above-mentioned, by sewers, drains, 
culverts and fences, at their expense and 
costs. 

" 15. It is agreed, that the parties of the 
second part shall release and convey to the 
parties of the first part, all their right, title 
and interest of, in and to a certain depot lot 
in the city of Cairo, containing ten acres of 
land, conveyed to them by the State of 
Illinois by deed dated the 24th day of 
March, 1851, and also of, in and to all the 
roadway of the railroad heretofore located 
in the city of Cairo and also conveyed to 



them by the above-mentioned indenture, so 
far as the same may not be included within 
the boundaries of the lands and premises, 
which are intended to be conveyed to the 
parties of the second part, under this agi'ee- 
ment. 

" 16. Finally, it is agreed, that in case 
of the necessity of any further covenants 
or aiTangements, to carry out the pui'poses 
of this agreement, or eq^lanatory of the 
same, but not essentially to impair or mod- 
ify the same, that both parties will proceed 
to adjust and execute the same, in the full 
spirit of mutual confidence in which this 
agi-eement has been negotiated and settled, 
and that in the event of any misunderstand- 
ing or disagreement of any kind, or in any 
way connected with this agreement, its pur- 
poses and objects, that the points of disagree- 
ment and dispute shall be reduced to writ- 
ing, and in that form submitted to the arbit- 
rament and decision of three I'efei-ees, to be 
chosen in the usual manner. " 

This agreement was duly signed by Robert 
Schuyler, President of the Illinois Central 
Railroad Company, and by T. S. Taylor and 
Charles Davis, Trustees of the Cairo City 
Property. 

In addition to the foregoing vast consider- 
ation of lands and privileges granted to the 
Illinois Central Railroad Company, 5,000 
shares of the Cairo City stock were conveyed 
to the order of the Directors of that com- 
pany, by the Trustees of the Cairo City Prop- 
erty, as appears by the following extract 
from a circular published by them in Novem- 
ber, 1854, for the information of the share- 
holders, and of all others interested, or wish- 
ing to become interested therein: 

"In the year 1851, the Trustees made the 
most advantageous arrangements for the 
property, by which they secured the con- 
struction of the Illinois Central Railroad, 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



108 



from Cairo, as its southern terminus, to 
Chicago and Galena; and by which they 
also secured the completion of the levees of 
the most permanent character, and inclosing 
the whole site of Cairo, by the said Illinois 
Central Railroad Company, and at its ex- 
pense. These arrangements were perfected 
by the Trustees, by an authorized expend- 
itui-e or issue of 5,000 new shares in the 
'Cairo City Property,' and by donations of 
the land at Cairo needed for railroad and 
other purposes." 

On May 31, 1855, the following additional 
memorandum of an agreement was made and 
entered into between Thomas S. Taylor, of the 
city of Philadelphia, and Charles Davis, of 
the city of New York, Trustees of the Cairo 
City Property, of the first part, and the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad Company of the 
second part: 

" "Whereas, the said parties did, on the 
11th day of June, 1851, make and enter into 
a certain agreement with each other, relative 
to the 'deeding and conveying certain prop- 
erty at Cairo, by the said first to the said 
second party, and in consideration thereof 
for the construction of certain levees and 
works, for the protection of the said city of 
Cairo from the waters of the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi Rivers, by the said party of the 
second part; and 

" Whereas, the said deed and conveyances 
have been executed, delivered and accepted, 
and a part of the levee to be constructed, on 
the Ohio River, had been begun and partly 
completed, and in other respects said con- 
tract remains to be executed; and 

" Whereas, for the purpose of obviating 
misunderstanding, as well as because re- 
monstrances seem to render it expedient, it 
has been deemed best to modify the said con- 
tract in one or two particulars, as well as to 



render more clear its meaning in others; 
now, therefore, 

" This Indenture icitnesseth, That, for the 
consideration named in said agi-eement, and 
in consideration of tbe premises, and of $1 
by each of the parties hereto paid to the 
others, the receipt whereof is mutually con- 
fessed, it is agi-eed by the said parties as fol- 
lows, to wit: 

^^ First. The said second party agrees that 
the levee on the Ohio River, now under con- 
struction, shall be completed to low water 
mark, which has been designated and fixed 
by the engineers of both parties, at a point 
forty -two feet below the grade line of the 
levees, as soon as the condition of the river 
will permit, and the paving in front of the 
lots of land conveyed by the first parties to 
the said second parties, under the agreement 
of the 11th of June, required to be done by 
the parties of the second part before men- 
tioned, shall be prosecuted and completed by 
the second pai'ties with all convenient dis- 
patch; and the first parties shall, in like 
manner, prosecute and complete the pave- 
ment in front of the remainder of the said 
levee, when completed as above. 

" Second. The said fii'st party agrees, that 
the completion of the remaining parts of the 
levee agi'eed upon and described in the said 
agreement of June 11, and the constniction 
of which was therein undertaken by the said 
second parties, as is herein agreed, but in no 
way modifying the s&id original agi-eement in 
this respect, except as to the time of con- 
structing and completing said levees, and 
that upon the condition of the construction 
of protective embankments, as hereinafter 
agreed. 

" Third. The said party of the second part 
agree to maintain in good repair the protec- 
tive embankment, now existing, from the 



104 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



point of the confluence of the Rivera Ohio and 
Mississippi to the old cross embankment, to 
the height of the newly- constructed levee on 
the Ohio River, except so far as the engineers 
of both parties shall deem it advisable to 
deviate from the present course of the same; 
and in case it shall be deemed advisable to 
deviate from it at any point, the , new em- 
bankment required to be constructed by the 
said direction shall be constructed and main- 
tained by the said party of the second part, 
to the same height and in the same manner as 
tliey are a'equired to maintain the present 
embaukment. 

" The said second party shall and will also 
construct and maintain a new protective em- 
bankment upon the Mississippi River, from 
a point at the westerly end of the old cross 
embankment, to be fixed by the engineers of 
both parties, upon a location to be determined 
by said engineers, to connect with the ti'ack 
of the Illinois Central Railroad, at or near 
the strip of land marked 'A' upon the map 
or plan fixed to said agreement of the 11th 
of June, A. I). 1851 ; and the mark to be re- 
quired for the construction and i-epair of the 
embankments herein mentioned, shall be com- 
pleted before. the 1st day of December next. 
" Fourth. The embankments above pro- 
vided, but which are only provisional and 
temporary, sitbstituted for the levees agreed 
to be constructed by the said second parties, 
shall be maintained and kept in repair by 
the said party of the second part, until the 
levees by them agreed to be constructed shall 
be built in the manner and form as prefaced 
in the said agreement of 11th June, 1851. 
And the said second parties agree to construct 
and complete the said levees as fast as ^the 
business of the Illinois Central Railroad re- 
quires the extension of the track over and 
upon any portion of the bank of the Missis- 
sippi River, which is to be protected by such 



embankment, whether upon the levee or on 
the inner track, and shall in like jnanner 
construct a similar levee or levees, upon the 
banks of the Ohio, between the land by the 
strij) marked 'A' upon the said map or plan, 
and the levee already constructed upon the 
bank of said river, as the business of the 
city of Cairo shall require it, and the parties 
of the first part, or their successors, shall re- 
quire it to be done. 

******* 

^^ Eighth. The parties of the second part 
shall examine the Mississippi bank, on the 
tract of land conveyed to them for a station, 
and take all necessary steps to protect the 
same from further abrasion until the con- 
struction of the permanent levees, according 
to the said agreement of the 11th June, 1851, 
at their own expense. 

" They shall, in like manner, examine and 
protect the point of the Mississippi River, 
where the abrasion has affected the old em- 
bankment, and do what is necessary to pro- 
tect it for the same period, at their own ex- 
pense. 

" They shall also survey the Mississippi 
River banks opposite the point nearest the 
Cache River, and shall dn at their ex- 
pense, what is in the report of the sm-veyors 
necessary to protect the same from further 
abrasion or inroads; provided such work shall 
not exceed in expense the sum of $20,000; 
and provided also, all the work herein pro- 
vided for, as well as the said provisional 
temporary embankment, shall be constructed 
under the joint superintendence of the en- 
gineers of the two parties, and be proceeded 
with as early as practicable." 

This agreement concludes by specifying 
that the original agreement is to remain in 
full force, except where modified by this> 

It is then duly signed and acknowledged 
by W. H. Osborn, President of the Illinois 



IILSTOKY OF CAIRO. 



105 



Central Railroad, and by the Cairo City 
Property. 

There were many causes occm-ring, be- 
tween the dates of this first and second 
agreement, that led, finally, to the adoption 
of the additional and explanatory second 
agreement between the two interested par- 
ties, the leading ones of which are yet the un- 
written though important part of the city's 
history. 

In accordance with the terms of the first 
agreement of 1851, the Illinois Central Rail- 
road, in a short time after the adoption of 
the articles, proceeded about the work of 
making new levees, "and to construct these ac- 
cording to the terms of the contract. 

In order to the better understanding of 
the work done by the road, it is proper to ex- 
plain that the levees, as completed under 
the BUj)ervision of Miles A. Gilbert, were 
constructed near the banks of the two rivers, 
ai-d circling and coming together at the south 
upon the line now occupied by the levee. 
The north cross- levee was upon a ridge of 
ground commencing near the present Illinois 
Central Railroad stone depot (about Tenth 
street), and running directly west to the Mis- 
sissippi River, inclosing about six hundred 
acres. By the contract with the Central 
road, the north cross-levee was to be ex- 
tended, or caii'ied north, so that the levees 
would inclose about thirteen hundred acres 
of ground, or to the position substantially as 
DOW consti'ucted. 

The new levees along the rivers were lo- 
cated inside the old levees, and, whei'e prac- 
ticable, their dirt was used on the new ones. 

The President and Directors of the Illinois 
Central Railroad Company were, unques- 
tionably, in good faith anxious to fulfill their 
contract; construct strong and really protect- 
ive levees; stop the abrasion of the natural 
bank on the Mississippi side, and fui'ther the 



interest of their road and the city, and help 
build a great city here. But their work upon 
the levees soon began to di'ag; to meet un- 
accountable obstructions; to work at loose 
pui'poses, and often to assume the appear- 
ances of undoing good work that had been 
before done, and tearing down instead of 
building up. This inexplicable course of 
circumstances would often menace the very 
existence of the city; greatly astound and 
exasperate the Cairo City Property, as well 
as the President and Directors of the Central 
road. 

The secret of these studied wrongs that so 
greatly injured the city, and fi'om the evil 
effects of some of them it has hardly re- 
covered yet, was this: The Chief Engineer 
of the Central Railroad — a man named Ash- 
ley — and it is alleged other ofiicers, and 
among them R. B. Mason, the Superintend- 
ent, had conceived a daring scheme of specu- 
lation, whereby they purchased a great deal 
of real estate in and around Mound City, 
and in order to make this valuable they un- 
dertook to destroy Cairo, and thereby make 
Mound City the actual terminal point of the 
road. And Engineer Ashley evidently an- 
ticipated that his official position in con- 
trolling the work in Cairo would enable him 
to carry out this poi'pose. 

That such was their cunning scheme, which 
Ashley boldly attempted, is strongly evi- 
denced by this incident, as well as many 
others that occurred in the year 1854, as 
follows: 

A contractor upon the levee work, named 
Dutcher, brought on a force of six hundred 
or more laborers to wox'k on the road and 
levees, and commenced to cut down the old 
levees, and, as he stated, for the purpose 
of erecting the new ones. But the new ones 
were left with gi-eat gaps, and often there 
were long stretches where there were no ap- 



106 



HISTORY OF CAIEO. 



pearance of new embankments going up. 
In the meantime, the high waters began to 
come down the rivers, and the agent of the 
Cairo City Propex'ty began to realize that 
Dutcher was exposing the city. He said all 
he could to change the course of the work, 
but Dutcher would only promise and do noth- 
ing. When it became plain something must 
be done quickly, IMr. Taylor employed 300 
men to work at night, and bank off ,the ris- 
ing waters, where the levees had been cut 
down. They would go to work in the even- 
ing, wheD Dutcher's men would quit work. 
After this had gone on two or three nights, 
Mr. Dutcher claimed the city company were 
interfering with his work, and he abandoned 
his contract, and turned adrift his force of 
600 men, all of whom, of coui'se, were given 
to understand that the city company had 
brought about the troubles. On the third 
night, when the night laborers repaired to 
their work — the waters eveiy moment now 
becoming very dangerous — they found their 
works and tools in the possession of a mob of 
Dutcher's men, and they were vowing and 
swearing that no man should do a stroke of 
work unless their whole force was also em- 
ployed, and paid at the rate of $3 each per 
night Such was the emergency, that even to 
delay and parley was to sacrifice the town, and 
the agent of the Cairo City Property ordered 
one and all to go to work. They did so, and 
this disastrous mob attack, at a critical mo- 
ment, when it could not be resisted, was after 
all, the means that saved the city and kept out 
the waters. The strip of levee between the 
old and new levee was the weak spot in the 
works, and so rapidly did the waters come 
during the night, that on this place the men 
worked for hoiu's in water over twenty inches 
in depth. To understand this, it is neces- 
sary to state that there was an old levee out- 
side of this, and that when the water broke 



over the outside levee, it came to the new one 
in a swirl or circle, so that the tendency of 
the current was not over the new levee. But 
so great was the emergency, and, thanks to 
the mob, so abundant were the laborers, that 
men were placed upon the endangered spot, 
and actually so thickly were they crowded, 
that human flesh formed an embankment, and 
kept back the waters until dirt was placed 
there, and the levee made high and stroug 
enough to stay the waters. The riotous labor- 
ers lingered about the town, often threatening 
the men at work on the levees with violence; 
openly threatening to bui-n and destroy the 
town, and they were several times caught at- 
te'mpting to cut the levees and, let in the 
water. The regular laborers had aruied, as 
well as they could possibly, with pistols and 
guns, and one night the rioters fired a num- 
ber of pistol shots in the direction of the 
workmen, and it is most fortunate that they 
did not hit or hurt any of them, for the rea- 
son that the laborers had their instruction 
to pay no attention to their assailants unless 
some of their men were hurt, and in that 
event to charge upon them and spare not, 
but kill all they came to. Many of the peo- 
ple in the town took sides against the com- 
pany, and tui-bulence continued to spread and 
intensify and grow, and finally the company 
telegraphed to St. Louis for a few boxes of 
muskets, and when the mob saw these arrive, 
and noticed they were taken to the com- 
pany's ofiice, the next morning the roads, the 
by-ways and the brush, even, were full of 
Dutcher's laborers, with their .little bundles 
on their shoulders, getting out of town as 
fast as they could. Dutcher, when he threw 
up his contract, repaired to the nearest hills, 
up the line of the railroad, and there awaited 
news of the drowning or burning of Cairo, 
and vapored and blowed his wrath at the 
town, threatening to sue and collect many 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



1C7 



millions of dollars damages for interfering 
with bis contract work. 

There are many other circumstances that 
go to establish the fact that Ashley was not 
only disloyal to the railroad company that 
employed him, but that he was willing to 
sacrifice not only Cairo, but the best inter- 
ests of the road in his schemes of speculation 
and selfishness. So plain did this eventually 
become, that the authorities of the railroad 
became aware of his tricks, and they per- 
emptorily and curtly dismissed him from 
their service. Instead of the city company 
being sued and made to pay immeasurable 
damages for employing this large force of 
men to work at night and save the city, the 
agent, Mr. Taylor, made out a bill against the 
road for every dollar he had expended, and 
the I'oad paid it, because it was convinced 
that, instead of interfering with Butcher's 
contract work, the company, by their agent, 
w^as simply doing the work the road had 
bound itself, by solemn contract, to do. 

Strange as it may seem, this dastardly at- 
tempt to destroy the town, and probably all 
in it, was not understood at the time by the 
people; in fact, many so completely misun- 
derstood the daring moves of the unholy con- 
spirators, that they not only did not see how 
they and theirs had been saved, but they took 
sides, and many were vehement partisans of 
Ashley and his followers. They believed that 
the city company had stood about the town 
like a dog in the manger, and refused to let 
the railroad build the levees; and when the 
arrival of the muskets had dispersed the riot- 
ous laborers, and di'iven them in panic away, 
there were citizens left to take up their quar- 
rel, and threaten the city company. 

Another par incident, only on a more ex- 
tended scale, was when the United States 
Marshal came down from Springfield to serve 
writs upon the " heads of the town " — lead- 



ing citizens, as it were, who, like pretty 
much all of the residents, were defiant tres- 
passers upon the company's property, and 
the few leaders of whom the company had 
commenced ' proceedings against in the 
United States Court. When the Marshal ar- 
rived, there was a flutter of excitement, and 
the mutterings of the threatened storm were 
all around the sky. But the Marshal was 
quiet and gentlemanly; in truth, he seemed to 
be about the only one not heated with great 
excitement. He waited upon the parties for 
whom he had writs; told them that he was 
going up the river for two days, and then he 
would return, and they must give bail, or 
he would be compelled to perform the pain- 
ful duty of putting them in jail. That night, 
a meeting of the people was called; some 
brave, short speeches were made, and finally 
the meeting resolved that the city company 
had no right nor title to any property within 
the city, and that they would not obey the 
writs of the United States Court. Here was 
insurrection and civil war! Oi', as it turned 
out, a roaring farce, that surpassed the Three 
Tailors of Bow Street, when they issued 
their proclamation to an astonished world, 
and announced that " We, the People of 
England, etc." 

When the oflScer returned, and the 
" rebels " took a second look at him, they 
concluded to recognize his writs, and, under 
solemn protests, gave bail and escaped the 
bastile. 

The embankments constructed by the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad, under their contract, 
did not prove to be protective embankments 
or levees. On June 12, 1858, they gave way, 
and the city was inundated; this inimdation 
was the result solely of the imperfect con- 
struction of the embankment. Logs and 
stumps had been put in the levees, and this 
furnished a route for the waters until the 



108 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



dirt became so soft and giving,that it ceased 
to be an obstruction to the waters, and the 
flood came. This destructive overflow led to 
ithe following correspondence between the 
Illinois Central Railroad Company and the 
Cairo City & Canal Company, and which 
furnishes the only complete explanation of 
the facts, and the views of the different in- 
terested parties at the time that we can now 
procure: 

July 13, 1858, Charles Davis, Esq., one of 
the Trustees, addressed the President and 
Directors of the Central road, substantially 
as follows: " The recent inundation of Cairo 
has particularly directed the attention of the 
Trustees of the Cairo City Property to their 
agreements with the Illinois Central Rail- 
road Company, relative to the construction 
and maintenance of levees or protective em- 
bankments around the city of Cairo. 

" At the time of making those agreements, 
the Trustees understood, and have ever since 
understood, and have uniformly and repeated- 
ly been advised by various counsel, that 
these agreements were, on the part of your 
company, not only a legal undertaking to 
construct levees or protective embankments, 
to the extent and in the manner prescribed in 
said agreements, but were also a continuing 
and perpetual legal undertaking to maintain 
the same after they had been constructed. 

" The Trustees have received, both from 
their beneficiaries and from purchasers of land 
at Cairo, very many expressions of regret that 
the levees and protective embankments have 
proved insufficient for the pui'pose of their con- 
struction, and very many statements of great 
actual and prospective loss and damage to 
such beneficiaries and purchasers, and many 
inquiries whether the Illinois Central Com- 
pany had performed their agreements before- 
mentioned. Their beneficiaries have com- 
municated to the Trustees the opinion of said 



beneficiaries, that the duty of the Trustees to 
the said beneficiaries required them to de- 
mand, and by all means in their power to en- 
force, a full and continual performance of 
said agreements, and urgently request the 
Trustees to give immediately, and in the fut- 
ure continue to give, their attention to this 
matter. 

" Without now adverting to any omissions 
in the past, the recent inundation has done 
much damage to the levees and embankments, 
which, under said agreements, it is the duty 
of your company to repair. The Trustees 
have a telegram from Mr. S. S. Taylor, 
dated at Cairo, 6th inst. , informing them 
that the sewers were all open, and a portion 
of the city dry, so that work on the levees 
and embankments could be resumed. 

" The Trustees do hereby, in conformity to 
the requests of their beneficiaries, and in as- 
sertion of their rights under said agreements, 
request the President and Directors of the 
Illinois Central Railroad Company to repair 
the damage which has been done, and also to 
perform at once whatever has been omitted 
that is required to be performed, under said 
agreements for the construction and main- 
tenance of levees and protective embank- 
ments around the city of Cairo. 

"When the Trustees consider the importance 
of the performance of these agreements to the 
compamy itself, but much more "when they 
consider the innumerable and the very heavy 
liabilities to which the company is needlessly 
exposed by every omission to perform agree- 
ments of such general and public concern, 
the Trustees can scarcely believe that the 
President and Directors of the company will 
delay unnecessarily, or even voluntarily 
neglect to do all that the company has by 
said agi'eements undertaken." ^ 

To this, under date 15th July, 185^, Mr. 
Osborn, the President of the Central I'oad, 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



109 



replies, acknowledging the receipt of the let- 
ter, and stating " it is the intention of the 
company to repair the damage occasioned 
by the late freshet to the works at Cairo, as 
far as is incumbent upon it under the con- 
tracts with your company. I am not aware 
of any omission in the performance of the 
contract, and do not understand that clause 
of your letter which requests this company 
to perform at once whatever has been omit- 
ted that is required to, be performed under 
said agreement for the construction and 
maintenance of levees and protective em- 
bankments, etc." 

Under date 22d, the same month, Mr. Os- 
born again writes to Mr. Davis, and among 
other things says : " I am desirous to meet 
the views and wishes of your shareholders, 
but the difficulty is the ready money. Capt. 
McClellan^has decided to accept, if not al- 
ready done, the proposition of Mr. Edwards, 
to whom the price of the unfinished work was 
referred, payable, $5,000 upon the 1st day 
of September, and the balance (about $(3,000) 
on the 1st day of December. If you will be 
good enough to postpone those payments un- 
til the 15th of January, I will at once give 
directions to have a force make the repairs 
to the levee and embankments with all prac- 
ticable dispatch." 

On the same day, by written communica- 
tion, Mr. Davis accepted the terms and con- 
ditions proposed by Mr. Osborn. 

Under same date, S. Staats Taylor, in re- 
ply to letter of inquiry from the Trustee, Mr. 
Davis, writes: " I would state that, in my 
opinion, an embankment twenty feet wide on 
the top, with a slope on each side of one foot 
perpendicular to five (or even four) feet 
horizontal, would be sufficiently strong to 
resist the pressui'e of any water that cjuld be 
brought against it, provided it was properly 
constructed. The late high water at Cairo 



has demonstrated that the levees are not hisrh 
enough, and to make them safe in this par- 
ticular they should be at least two feet (if 
not three feet) higher. Where the levees 
were up to grade, the water in the Ohio was 
within (me foot seven and a half inches of the 
top of the levees, and on the Mississippi side 
it was still higher, bringing it within a 
very few inches of the grade. 

" I have reason to believe that the embank- 
ment at the place where it bi'oke was ren- 
dered weak and insecm'e by logs being buried 
in or under it, and a considerable portion of 
the new protective embankment, both on the 
Mississippi and Ohio Kivers, was con- 
structed without the natural sm-face being 
properly prepared by grubbing and plowing, 
so as to allow the artificial embankment to 
amalgamate and firmly combine with the 
natural ground. From a neglect to do this, 
the water during the late high water perco- 
lated, and found a passage in many places in 
considerable quantities, between the artificial 
embankment, and the natural gi'ound. This 
neglect to properly prepare the gi'ound ex- 
isted at the time of building the new levee 
on the Mississippi last winter, and the ground 
was not only not grubbed or plowed, but 
largiB stumps were allowed to remain in that 
levee, and are there now, notwithstanding my 
notification at the time to Capt. McClelland 
that they were so allowed to remain there. 
The contractor employed by the railroad 
company last winter was detected by myself 
in bmying large logs in that embankment, 
not merely allowing those to remain that had 
fallen, when the embankment was to be con- 
structed, but actually rolling others in from 
other places. When detected, those that 
were in view were removed, but as a portion 
of the embankment was constructed before 
his practices were known, the probability is 



no 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



that others are yet in the embankment, de- 
tracting, of course from its strength and 
security. " 

A communication from 'Mr. S. S. Taylor, 
which was read at the meeting of the Trustees 
on the 29th September, 1858, is, to some ex- 
tent, a semi-official account of the overflow 
of the town in 1858, and as such deserves to 
be placed upon a permanent record. It is 
dated Cairo, September 6, 1858. " After the 
last meeting of the stockholders, in Septem- 
ber, 1857, our city continued to increase in 
population, and improvements continued to 
be made, the improvements, owing to the 
financial crisis, being fewer in number than 
during the previous spring and winter. The 
increase in population was, nevertheless, 
gi-eater than at any previous period, every 
house and structure capable of protecting 
population from the elements becoming filled 
to repletion. This increase continued dur- 
ing the winter and spring, so that at the 
municipal election in February last, in which 
there was no such particular interest taken 
by the people as to bring out a full vote, 
there were over [four hundred votes polled, 
and at the same time it was known that there 
were about two hundi-ed and fifty residents 
who did not vote, some by reason of not 
being entitled, and others for want of inter- 
est. 

" It was thus ascertained, with a consider- 
able degree of accuracy, that at the time of 
the election in February last, we had at least 
650 men residents here. It is generally con- 
ceded that one in seven of a population is a 
large allowance of voters, in many places it 
not being more than one in ten. But giving 
us the largest allowance, and that may be 
proper, inasmuch as in a new place there is 
always a preponderance of men, this calcula- 
tion will afford us a population of 4,500, 
Shortly after this time, some inconven- 



ience from the accumulation of water within 
our levees began to be felt. This accumula- 
tion arose from excessive rains. These rains 
interfered somewhat with the filling in and 
grading of the Ohio levee, and in the early 
part of December we were obliged to close 
our sewers, from the waters in the rivers 
having risen to a level with their outside 
mouths, and, with the exception of a few 
days in the early spring, they remained 
closed until they were re-opened after the 
overflow. 

" This state of things continued until, and 
was in existence at, the time the breach in 
our levees occm'red on the 12th of June last. 

"As you are aware, this breach, whereby 
the water was first let into the tovni, oc- 
curred on the Mississippi, at the point where 
the levee on that river leaves the river bank, 
on the curve toward the Ohio River, and 
about half a mile from the junction of the 
two levees. 

" At this point where the crevasse fii-st oc- 
curred, the levee was very high, the filling 
of earth being not less than twelve feet high. 

" In the neighborhood of the crevasse, the 
soil appears to be sandy, and an undue quan- 
tity of that kind of soil may have entered 
into the composition of tlie levee at that 
point. An inspection of the crevasse also 
shows that the groimd was not properly 
prepared for the reception of the embank- 
ment, it not having been properly grubbed, 
as appears by the roots and stumps still 
standing in it, in the ground where the em- 
bankment is washed off. When the levee 
broke, no one was in sight of it, that I can 
ascertain. Capt. McClelland, the Vice Presi- 
dent and Chief Engineer of the Central Eail- 
road and myself had passed over it on foot 
within two hours before it occurred, and a 
watchman, whose duty it was to look after it, 
was over it about twenty minutes before, but 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Ill 



to none of us was there any appearance of 
weakness. After leaving the location about 
twenty minutes, and being distant less than 
one- fourth of a mile, the watchman heard the 
roaring of the waters running through the 
crevasse, and when I reached it, three- fourths 
of an hour afterward, the water was running 
through to the full width of 300 feet, and in 
an unbroken stream, as if it was to the full 
depth of the embankment. The probability 
is, I think, that, aided by the stumps and 
roots in the embankment, and it is possible 
some other extraneous substances, the water 
had found its way through the base of the 
embankment, and had so far saturated it as 
to destroy its cohesion with the natural 
ground below, and then the weight of the 
waters on the outside had pushed it away. 

" As you are aware, when the contracts for 
building the different divisions of gthe Illinois 
Central road wei-e originally let, in June, 1852, 
that for the construction of the lower cross- 
levee and the levees below it, on both the Ohio 
and Mississippi Rivers, was included in the 
letting, and was given out to _Mr. Richard 
Ellis. Under this contract, work was com- 
menced and prosecuted at various points, on 
both the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, from 
September to December, 1852, when the con- 
tractor failed, and the work was abandoned 
until December, 1853, except on that pov- 
tion along the Ohio River above the freight 
depot. On that section it was continued, 
with a view, apparenth', of constructing an 
embankment for the accommodation of their 
railroad track, rather than for the purpose of 
protecting the town from inundation, the em- 
bankment having been built in the same 
manner as their ordinary railroad embank- 
ments. The instructions given by their en- 
gineer in charge of their work at the time it 
was done were the same as those issued in 
other cases for the construction of railroad 



embankments, viz., that while the filling 
was over four feet, the stumps were not to be 
removed, and no grubbing done, and I am 
told by the engineer in charge at the time 
the work was done that these instructions 
were followed, and that the embankments 
along the Ohio River, above the freight de- 
pot, was thus built without the stumps being 
removed or grubbing done. A portion of this 
bank, at or near the curve on the Ohio near 
the junction of the levee, is quite narrow, 
and after our late experience I should think 
it was far from being secui'e. 

" At the time of the overflow, a very large 
portion of our population were obliged to go 
away, from inability to procure accommoda- 
tions here. Some, who had two-stoi'ied 
houses, remained in the upper story, but 
most were obliged to desert their dwellings. 
The population thus mostly scattered into 
the neighboring towns and country, with the 
exception of those whoi^rocured accommoda-' 
tion on the wharf and flat-boats and barges 
at the levee. A large portion of those who 
thus went away have already returned ; others 
are coming back daily, and if employment to 
justify their return can be found, I am sat- 
isfied the great bulk of our population will 
shortly be back here again. I think our 
population ia at least three thousand now, 
if not more. 

" Early in the last spring, the foundry 
buildings took fire, and were entirely con- 
sumed. The ["establishment was just begin- 
ning to transact a very successful and pro- 
fitable business. 

" During the last spring, a good ferry was 
established between Cairo and the adjoining 
States of Missouri and Kentucky, by the 
Cairo City Feny Company, and a good steam 
ferry-boat fui*nished, which makes regular 
trip? between those States and Cairo, bring- 
ing ti'ade and produce to it. Before the de- 



112 



HISTORY or CAIRO. 



struction, by the late high water, of the prod- 
uce of the farms alonor the rivers, a very 
perceptible increase in the business of the 
city took place from this cause, and a re- 
suscitation of the business of the adjoining 
country on the opposite sides of the river 
will, by the aid of the ferry, be attended with 
a corresponding effect here. 

" Portions of the roads in the adjoining 
States are so far finished that, by the 1st of 
November, we shall have a continuous rail- 
road from here to New Orleans, with the ex- 
ception of the river travel between here and 
Columbus City, sixteen miles from here. 
This road is now finished, with the exception 
of two gaps, of eighteen and six miles re- 
spectively, and these are being rapidly filled. 
A steam ferry-boat will commence running 
from here to Coliimbus, on the 1st of the 
next month, in connection with this road, 
and when the road is completed, as it will be 
by November 1, we shall be within two days' 
travel of New Orleans. 

" The first section of the Cairo & Fulton 
Eailroad, in Missouri, is now pushed for- 
ward with energy, and that portion between 
Bird's Landing, opposite here, and Charles- 
ton, a village about fourteen miles from the 
river (Mississippi), will be in operation by 
the 1st of December next Charleston is a 
thrivin gvillage, in a well-settled, well-culti- 
vated and flourishing section of Missouri, 
and our connection with it by railroad will 
tend to increase considerably the business 
and trade of our town. As you are aware, a 
road was cut out along the bank of the Ohio 
Eiverto Moimd City last fall, and a bridge • 
across Cache River was commenced then, but 
has been delayed since by the high water. 
The construction of this bi'idge has been 
since re-coramenced, and the contractor in- 
forms me that it will be ready for use one 
week from next Saturday. This will give us 



a good road to Mound City, and, by connec- 
tion with roads there, will give us free com- 
munication with the country and villages be- 
yond, and thus give us a good deal of trade 
from those quarters. 

" In consequence of the great destruction 
of property by high water in the country 
about us, the farmers have but little to sell, 
and this, connected with the general depres- 
sion of trade, has made it rather dull here; 
notwithstanding which, some improvements 
are still going on in our city. The distillery 
which was commenced last spring is being 
pushed to completion, and will be ready for 
operation by the 1st of next month. Two 
houses — one a dwelling, twenty-five by forty, 
two stories high, the other for a German 
tavern, twenty-five by seventy-five, and three 
stories high — both commenced before the 
overflow, are in process of completion. Two 
others, one twenty-five by seventy and three 
stories high, have been contracted for and 
begun since the overflow, and are nearly 
finished; and one other, a dwelling-house, 
contracted for since the overflow but not yet 
begun. 

" The work of macadamizing the Ohio levee, 
and building the protecting wall at the base, 
has so far advanced, that about one thousand 
feet of the wall, extending from the lower 
side of Fourth street to the lower side of 
Eighth street, has been completed, and for 
about six hundred feet in length additional, 
the broken rock is placed for about one 
hundi-ed and twenty -five feet from the toj) of 
the levee. The gi-ading of the levee with 
earth, within the same limits, has also been 
prosecuted, as the waters in the rivers would 
permit. A few weeks of favorable weather 
and a favorable stage of water would enable 
us to complete the whole of the grading and 
macadamizing of the whole of the 1,000 feet 
above the passenger depot. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



113 



" Most of tliis rock work was done pre- 
viously to January 1, 1858, when the com- 
munication with the quarries was interrupted 
by ice in the INHssissippi; after this difficulty 
was removed, the water was so high as to 
cover the quarries, and has continued so un- 
til the last week, with a brief interval, dur- 
ing which we were enabled to get down two 
barge loads of stone, and last week the water 
had so far receded at the quarry as enabled 
us to make regular trips with the steamb )at 
and barges. During the spring and summer, 
the water has been too high, most of the 
time, to admit of much work on the filling 
and grading of the Ohio levee, between the 
depots, according to our arrangements with 
the railroad company, to complete for them the 
unfinished work. But at intervals, we were 
enabled to do something, and worked moder 
ately, as the weather and water would per- 
mit, until, within the last four weeks, when 
we have pushed the work vigorously. 

" The bank building belonging to Gov. 
Matteson has been [completed for several 
weeks, but there do not appear to be any in- 
dications of an early opening of the establish- 
ment, although I am told the note-plates 
have all been prepared, the officers engaged 
and all other arrangements completed months 
ago for the opening. This delay is to be I'e- 
gretted, especially as, if the ground had not 
been occupied by. Gov. Matteson, or rather if 
his declared intention had not gone abroad 
through the whole country round about, a 
good bank would have been established here 
last fall, by Mr. E. Norton, one of our old 
citizens, in connection with his brother, the 
Cashier of the Southern Bank of Kentucky, 
established at Russellville, Ky. 

" In conclusion, it is very evident that 
had the Illinois Central Railroad constructed 
the levees, as they should be constructed, and 
not have substituted for them the common 



railroad embankments, that this interruption 
to the onward pi-ogress of Cairo would not 
have taken place. " 

Some robust correspondence was inaugu- 
rated by the Cairo property owners of 
Springfield, 111., after the overflow of June, 
1858, and as they discuss some questions 
that have been mooted by our people at vari- 
ous times, we give extended extracts from 
both sides of the discussion. 

On the 17th June. 1858, J. A. Matteson, 
Johnson & Bradford, R. F. Ruth, John E. 
Ousley, W. D. Chenery, H. Walker, T. S. 
Mather and fifteen others of the leading 
citizens of Springfield, addi-essed a joint- letter 
to S. Staats Taylor, " Resident Agent," from 
which letter we extract such sentences as 
these : " We are apprised most fully of the 
great calamity which has befallen Cairo. 
Had we supposed such ruin possible, we 
could never have been induced to expend the 
large amounts of money which we have, nor 
could we have used our influence as an in- 
ducement for others to do so. 

" The large sum of $318,000 has been ex- 
pended by ourselves, and others of Spring- 
field, in the purchase of property and its 
impi'overnent at Cairo; and the people of 
Springfield themselves, under the strong as- 
surances made to them by the Cairo City 
Company, have invested, and induced others 
to invest, no less than from S150,000 to 
8200,000 in buildings alone. 

" By this calamity, which might have been 
prevented if the compauy had thrown around 
the city such complete protection as they 
were bound by interest and by legal con- 
tract with purchasers, to do, this property 
has been rendered comparatively valueless. 
Nothing but prompt action and judicious 
plans, on your part, can save your city and 
yoiu" property alike, with that of others, from 
utter ruin, or at least from such a set-back 



114 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



as will require the work of years to regain. 
" Already is the sentiment fast gaining 
ground upon the public mind that Cairo is 
hopelessly ruined. This sentiment must be 
at once met, and contradicted at whatever 

cost. 

* ii^ * * * * * 

" We feel that the company are both legal- 
ly and vioralhj hound to fully restore those 
who have sustained the damage to their 
former position before the flood. Independ- 
ent of their legal obligations, we deem it to 
be the highest interest of the company to 
institute thp most prompt and vigorous 
measures, not only to restore to those who 
have suffered loss, but to so act as to satisfy 
the public mind at once that the company 
themselves are not disheartened, but that they 
are ready, promptly, to do justice to every one 
who has sustained damage by the overflow of 
water. * * * * In our judgment, the 
company should seek to inspire all those who 
had made Cairo their home, and who had 
made improvements there, however trivial 
in amount, that they will be immediately 
aided and fully restored to their property. 
This would establish confidence against 
which no tide could successfully flow. But 
this must be done promptly; tnust he done at 
once. The people who have settled there 
should not be suffered to scatter, if possihle 
to prevent it. They should be aided and en- 
couraged at once with the idea that the 
storm is over, and the floods are past ; they 
shall be made good again, and their future 
secured beyond a contingency, 

" Many of the subscribers to this letter 
own stock in the Cairo Hotel Company, and 
we think that, as soon as the waters subside, 
you ought to rebuild the fallen building, at 
least to a point to where the company had 
carried it before the levee gave way. * * 

" Public sympathy might now be relied 



upon to a large extent. Cairo, though worse 
afflicted, has been overtaken by a calamity 
which has befallen almost every city and 
town in the Mississippi Valley to a greater 
or less extent. This superior affliction may, 
by timely action, be made to bear rather 
favorably than otherwise; and the waiers of 
public opinion, which now inundate the pros- 
pects of Cairo, may be made to subside as 
rapidly as those of the Mississippi will retire 
now that the storms are past." 

The object of this carefully constructed 
letter, signed by so many of the leading men 
of Springfield, was to get money from the 
company to compensate them for damages 
sustained. 

The company, however, in substance, an- 
swers as follows: 

"1. There was no such contract ever made. 
Honest opinions and conscientious repi-esent- 
atious were made, of which the parties pur- 
chasing were always able to judge, having 
the city of Cairo with all its defenses before 
them, and all the agreements with the Illinois 
Central Railroad Company lying open for 
their inspection. 

" 2. Ample confirmation is found here, as 
» to the mischievous character of the news- 
paper reports complained of. 

"3. All that is recommended and more 
will be done. See the resolutions adopted at 
the meeting of September 29, 1858. 

" 4. The gentlemen whose names are af- 
fixed to this letter will find their leading views 
corroborated by the proceedings referred to 
above, though the facts relied upon, the 
points urged and the legal questions in- 
volved, are very differently understood by the 
Trustees and their Counsel. 

" 5. The population have not been suffered 
to scatter, as will be seen by the report of 
the General Agent, and the most liberal 
course of action has been recommended by the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



117 



Executive Committee, and authorized by 
Si/XK'i votes:' 

Other, and, if possible, stronger letters, 
were written the company by N. W. Edwards 
and also by "William Butler. President of the 
Cairo City Hotel Company. Then. July S, 
iSaS, Mr. William Butler, President, and 
James C. Conklin, Secretary, addiessed a 
joint-letter to S. S. Taylor, and in it they 
say: " We notice the stockholders of Cairo 
City are requested to meet at Philadelphia 
on the 15th inst. We presume one of their 
objects is to take into consideration the 
course of action to be adopted by them con- 
cerning the damages which resulted from the 
recent flood. In behalf of the Cairo Hotel 
Company, we desire they should not only 
consider the communication heretofore trans- 
mitted by us to you, which was. general in its 
character, and had reference, more partcular- 
ly, to what might be deemed politic on the 
part of the Cairo City Company, but we wish 
to propose now, more distinctly for their con- 
sideration, the position of the Cairo City 
Hotel Company. 

" In the publications made by the Cairo 
City Company, under date of January 1 5, 
1S55, and in their pamphlet issued in 1S56, 
various inducements were held out to capi- 
talists to invest at Cairo City : and the strong- 
est language was used in regard to the sta- 
bility and permanency of its levees. It was 
said that they would afford a complete pro- 
tection from overflow at any stage of water, 
however high: that the expense of the levees 
was provided for by the Trustees of the City 
Property; that it would entirely encompass 
the city, and was to be eighty feet wide on 
the top. and that an inundation was an 
impossibility, and that human ingenuity 
had successfully opposed a barrier, even to 
the chance of an overflow, and that gigantic 
works had marked the Rubicon which even 



the mighty- Father of Waters could not 
overstep. 

These works, it was represented, had 
been commenced, and progress had been 
made in their construction, ' for tho interests 
of property holders." * * * * 

These representations were published to 
the world, and extraordinary efforts were 
made to impress the minds of the community 
that Cairo was beyond the reach of any con- 
tingency arising from floods, uiltil the con- 
viction was well-established, and it was gen- 
erally believed that the Cairo City Company 
had effectually provided against any danger 
that might be apprehended from this source. 

The events of the last few weeks, however, 
abundantly testify that said embankments 
were not seciu*e, that the company had not 
fully pretected the interests of property hold- 
ers in said city, etc., etc. * * * « 

In consideration of the premises, the un- 
designed, in behalf of the hotel company, 
would respectfully represent to the stock- 
holders of Cairo City, that said stockholders 
ought to assume the responsibility of said 
loss and damage, that this is the just and 
reasonable view of the case, and that the 
claim of the hotel company is not only 
founded upon sound reason and good faith, 
but that, by the established rules of law. the 
Cairo City Company and their Trustees are 
bound to indemnify the hotel company for 
all the losses sustained by reason of the in- 
sufficiency of the levee to protect the city. 

To this the Board of Directors and the 
Trustees answer substantially as follows, in 
addition to previous answers to similar com- 
munications from pai'ties in Springtield: 

1. All the promises were prospective, and 
founded upon a justifiable belief. 

2. And this, their belief, was founded 
upon all past experience, upon careful sur- 
veys, many times repeated by eminent engi- 

7 



118 



HISTOHY OF CAIRO. 



neers, and upon the testimotiy of unimpeach- 
able witnesses. Their expectations were 
well-founded, and not unreasonable, as the 
adverse parties knetv, and acknowledged by 
their acts, for they were able to judge for 
themselves, and asked for no other deed than 
that which had always been given. And 
what, after all, do the Trustees promise in 
the publication cited? Only that certain 
things "would be done" thereafter; and 
that^ when done, there would be no possible 
danger from overflow. And they say the 
same thing now. They expected the levee to 
be completed by the Illinios Central Rail- 
road, as promised and paid for ; and they 
tried, in every way, to have it done, short 
of bi'inging them into a court of law, while 
under ovei*whelming embaiTassment; and if 
they had fulfilled their undertaking, it is 
clear, beyond all question, as tl^e foregoing 
documents prove, that Cairo would not have 
been flooded in June last, notwithstanding 
the unexampled rise of both rivers. * * 

4. Under all the circumstances, the fault 
being that of the Illinois Central Railroad, 
and not of the Cairo City Property or their 
Trustees, would this be a just or reasonable 
expectation? etc., etc. 

The shareholders of the Cairo City Prop- 
erty, as per call noticed above, met in Phila- 
delphia on the 15th of July, 1858, and, 
among other proceedings, passed the follow- 
ing resolution: 

" Resolved, That the Executive Committee 
be requested to confer with the President and 
Directors of the Illinois Central Railroad 
Company, to ascertain if some arrangement 
cannot be made to repair the damage to 
Cairo, and if that cannot be accomplished, 
then to request the Trustees of Cairo City 
Property to authorize the agent, S. Staats 
Taylor, to cause the proper repairs to be 
made, and to institute legal proceedings 



against the railroad company for the amount 
expended, and for all damages sustained by 
the overflow caused by the neglect of the said 
railroad company. 

The shai'eholders had appointed an Execu- 
tive Committee, to consider matters in refer- 
ence to the inundation of Cairo. This com- 
mittee held a meeting in New York, and in 
their report they say: " Believing that they 
could not properly and thoroughly discharge 
their duty, under the resolutions referred to, 
without a personal examination of Cairo, and 
the General Agent, Mr. S. S. Taylor, being 
of opinion that a visit by the whole Execu- 
tive Committee, or by a sub-committee of this 
board, would greatly encourage the people 
of Cairo, tned to allay their apprehensions, 
and check, if it did not put a stop at once 
and forever, to the mischievous falsehoods 
and gross exaggerations which, under a show 
of authority, and as admissions made by par- 
ties deeply interested in the reputation and 
welfare of Cairo, were gradually taking pos- 
session of the public mind, both at home and 
abroad, your committee delegated Mr. Bald- 
win, of Syracuse, and Mr. Neal, of Maine, 
to visit Cairo, and make such personal inves- 
tigation upon the ground as would enable 
them to report understandingly upon the 
present condition and wants of the city. 
* * * And to take such immediate meas- 
ures as might, in their judgment, be needed 
for the safety of the city, before the whole 
board could be brought together. " 

When this sub-committee arrived in Cairo, 
they looked carefully over the gi'ounds, and 
on the 6th of August, 1858, a public meeting 
of the inhabitants of Cairo was called, with 
a view to a full understanding of all ques- 
tions at issue; and of this meeting the com- 
mittee said in their report: 

" The meeting was large, for the popula- 
tion, and very quiet, and the addresses of 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



119 



your sub- committee, together with explana- 
tions and assurances, in behalf of the share- 
holders and proprietors, were well received. 
It was stated that shareholders, to the 
amount of nearly two millions and a half, 
at the par value of the stock, were assembled 
at Philadelphia, on the 15th of July, where 
they chose an Executive Committee of six, 
who afterward chose from their number two, 
as a sub- committee to visit Cairo in person, 
look into the condition of the city and the 
wants of the people, and report at the next 
yearly meeting, on the 29th of September. 

" The people of Cairo were encouraged to 
believe that, if they were faithful to them- 
selves, the Tnistees, and shareholders and 
proprietors were determined to pursue a 
liberal course of action, and they might con- 
sider the C. C. P. pledged to the full amount 
of all their interests in Cairo to carry out 
whatever they believed to be for the advan- 
tage of all parties; and the meeting ended at 
last with mutual congratulations and assur- 
ances that Cairo should not be left to the 
guardianship of treacherous friends or un- 
principled foes; but to the watchful care of 
those who had something at stake in her rep- 
utation and welfare. " 

The sharp bend in the Mississippi River, 
just belc w the north line of the city, throws 
the water almost straight across to the Illinois 
shore, and the abrasion of this shore threat 
ened to cut its way, eventually, entirely across 
to the Ohio River, unless in some way con- 
trolled. Between the years 1875 and 1880 
the General Government expended on the 
protective works on the Mississippi, opposite 
this city, the sum of $113,351.43. This work 
extends along the face of the river bank, from a 
point below where the Mississippi River levee 
runs away from the river bank at least three- 
quarters of a mile, to a point up the river at 
least two miles above the upper limits of the 



city. When the water is at a low stage in 
the Mississippi, the current thrown, as stated, 
against the Illinois shore, begins to under- 
mine the banks, which are nearly always 
perpendicular and composed mostly of de- 
posits made by the silt-bearing water of the 
river in flood times. This undermining proc- 
ess goes on at the surface of the water, un- 
til the superincumbent mass of the bank falls 
into the river, and is carried away by tho 
stream. Then the undermining process 
commences again, and proceeds to precisely 
similar results. In this way, at this point, 
the river has heretofore undermined the 
banks of the Mississippi River, dropping 
them slowly into the stream, and iinally 
digging under portions of the levees and 
carrying them away into the river. Here has 
been one of the severest problems in the mat- 
ter of protecting the city from the waters, 
this erosive -action in low water goino- on re- 
gardless of any possible heights of levees 
placed upon the shores. This abrasion of the 
shore has necessitated the building of a new 
levee on the Mississippi side, about a mile in 
length, which is of an average of twelve feet 
high, measuring from the surface on which 
it is constructed; is twelve feet wide on the 
top, with a slope on its outside of one foot 
perpendicular to live feet horizontal, and on 
its inside of one foot to two and a half feet, 
making an average width of fifty feet; and 
its top is fifty-four feet above low water 
mark. The average height of the other 
portions of the levee, standing on the bank 
of the Mississippi River, from its junction 
with the new levee on the bank of the Ohio 
River, is one foot and three inches above 
the high water mark. This is measuring 
only to and not including the ties of the 
Cairo & St. Louis Railroad track. The 
Cairo & St. Louis Railroad has the right of 
way along its top, from the Ohio River to a 



120 



HISTOKY OF CAIRO. 



point beyond and outside of where the new 
levee makes a junction with the levee owned 
by the Trustees. Where this right of way 
exists, the railroad company is obliged, by 
reservations and penalties in its deed, to 
maintain the levee at its original height, of 
fifty- three feet and three inches, and to its 
original width on top of sixteen feet. 

There has been much work done, by the 
"United States Government and by the Trust- 
ees of the city company, in protecting from 
the erosive action of the current the Missis- 
sippi River bank. The manner of doing this 
was to place large mattresses, made of wil- 
lows and tree branches; these were loaded 
with rock, and sunk to the bottom, at the 
bank where the current was cutting un- 
der the superstructure, and upon this mat- 
tress was then sunk another one, and another 
one on top of that, until a stone wall was 
formed for the waters to beat against, extend- 
ing from the bottom of the river to above 
the surface of the water. There were about 
two miles and a half of these stone-anchored 
mattress walls conslructed, extending north 
from a point nearly opposite [the lower end 
of the new levee. On the top of these mat- 
tress-walls, medium sized stone were placed 
against the bank, to nearly the top thereof, 
thus facing the river bank with a stone re- 
vetment. Previous to this work being done 
by the Government, the city company had 
some years ago revetted nearly three-quarters 
of a mile in length. So there is now standing, 
against the face of the bank of the Missis- 
sippi, and extending from a point below 
where the levee runs away from the river, up 
the river about three and a half miles, to a 
point about two miles above the upper limits 
of the city, the revetments extending from 
the bottom of the river, and up along the 
face of the shore from fifty to sixty feet. 
There has been here expended $196,806.49, 



of which $113,351.43 was by the General 
Government. 

July 18, 1872, after the Trustees had spent 
large amounts of money in widening, raising 
and strengthening the levees, and had 
brought suit for $250,000 against the Central 
road for money thus expended, which suit 
was eventually compromised and 397 acres of 
the 497 acres were re-conveyed by the rail- 
road to the city company, and the payment 
of $80,000 in money, and the release to the 
Cairo City Property all its original rights to 
the collection of wharfage, etc. And the 
railroad was released from all obligations in 
reference to maintaining and repairing the 
levees, except that portion actually occupied 
and used by them. 

In 1878, in consideration of the vacation of 
Levee street, above Eighteenth, by the city, 
and the granting of privileges upon the 
same to the Illinois Central road, the road 
deeded the 100- foot strip, running from 
Thirty-fourth street to the point, and parallel 
with the Ohio levee to the city. 

The City Council recently ordered the 
Ohio levee to be raised, commencing with a 
raise of two feet at or near the stone depot, 
grading to the present height at Second 
street, and with this increase of the height of 
this levee, the entire levees of the city will 
be above the highest water mark ever known. 
The Hon. D. T. Linegar, the present mem- 
ber of the Illinois Legislature, has secured 
the passage of two bills, that are now attract- 
ing the attention of the people of Cairo. 
The titles of the bills indicate largely the 
purpose of the same — the Levee Bill and the 
High Grade Bill. The fundamental idea of 
the two evidently is to enable the city to raise 
the levees and the lots within the city limits 
to any height or grade they may wish. We 
are informed that the levee bill authorizes 
the city authorities, whenever they shall 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



121 



deem it necessary for the protection of the 
city, to order the owners of any part of the 
levee to raise and strengthen the same, in 
such manner as the city may think best, and 
iipon a failm*e to comply with this order, the 
city may proceed and do the work, and sell 
the property and pay its bill, and nearly a 
similar authority is given as to all lots, 
whether they belong to public institutions or 
are private property. 

The remarkably high waters of 1SS2 and 
1883 go to show that probably from one foot to 
eighteen inches should be added to the 
levees around the city, and, as soon as possi- 
ble, revetments extending entirely around and 
against the embankments of both rivers, and 
thus made strong and permanent, and Cairo 
need never fear or di-ead any high water that 
can ever come against its bulwarks. 

The city has triumphantly passed through 
the flood crisis of the two years of 1882-83, 
that poured oiit the greatest floods of water 
ever witnessed in the rivers at this point; 
and it is now a remarkable historical fact 
that the only town from the source of the 
Ohio River to the mouth of the Mississippi 
River, that passed unscathed and unharmed 
by the floods, was Cairo. The rivers, north 
and south of here, bore devastation upon 
their raging bosoms. Pittsburgh, Cincin- 
nati, Louisville, New Albany, Lawi*encebui-g, 
Shawneetown and many other places have 
suffered immeasurably from the high waters 
of the past two years. Often, the floods in 
the Mississippi have so crippled and confined 
the business of St. Louis, that at intervals it 
was prostrated. But Cairo, so widely be- 
lieved by many to be the worst water- afflicted 
city in the United States, has experienced 
none of the troubles of the other river towDS. 
The past two years, the early spring freshets 
have driven thousands from their homes in 



Cincinnati, Louisville, Shawneetown and 
other places; business houses were flooded 
and washed away; and manufacturing estab- 
lishments were compelled to "shutdown;" 
railroad communication with them was de- 
stroyed, and " the widespread distress filled 
the land with its wail, and the charity of the 
nation was appealed to for aid for the flood 
sufferers. With a flood-line marking a height 
never before attained by any of the floods of 
the past, the citizens of Cairo, while taking 
all precautions to keep the great levees which 
surround her intact, have transacted their 
business, but little disturbed by the threaten- 
ing Avatei's. Not a mill nor a manufacturing 
establishment of any kind has been " shut 
down" for a moment on account of the 
tloods, and the Illinois Central Railroad, 
which makes connection here with its south- 
ern division by a " transfer steamboat " for 
New Orleans, has never missed a train, or 
been compelled to abandon any of its track 
for a single hour. No cry of disti-ess has 
ever gone out to the country from the j^eople 
of Cairo, but when the last waters were high- 
est, and the croakers against Cairo were 
loudest, a public meeting of the people re- 
sponded to theory for helj) from their neigh- 
bors at Shawneetown by a cash subscription 
of $1,000. The truth is- -established by the 
severest test ever known — that Cairo, the 
much maligned and slandered Cairo, is, in 
any flood that may or can come down the 
rivers, the city of refuge — the place of safety, 
and the only reliable one, from St. Louis or 
Pittsburgh to New Orleans. 

On the 26th of February, 1882, the flood- 
line at Cairo was fifty -one feet ten and a half 
inches above low water mark. On the 26th 
of February, 1883, exactly one year to a day, 
the flood-line at Cairo was fifty-two feet two 
inches above low water mark In these two 



122 



HISTOKY OF CAIRO. 



unprecedented stages of water, as before re- 
marked, Cairo was the only river town that 
passed unharmed. 

People wonder, and muse, and talji much 
about these two years, and their great waters, 
and the conclusion is a common one, that it 
is the general system of draining in ^11 the 
coTintiT north of this, both open and tile 
draining, the cutting of the forests and open- 
ing the sluice-ways for the surface water, 
that has been one great cause of the higher 
waters in late years than was ever known 
formerly. Again, it is said that the towns 
and railroads and other improvements upon 
the river banks, tend to confine the waters, 
and thus swell the height of its flow; and the 
fact is cited that where a few years ago were 
ponds and pools of water, sometimes stand- 
ing the whole season through, are now often 
well-tilled farms, with a drainage so perfect 
that no water ever remains more than a few 
hours upon any of its surface. It looks rea- 
sonable that there is something in these 
theories — there probably is — biit the fact 
that the waters were higher at the source of 
the river than here at the mouth (of the 
Ohio), would go far to contradict this theory. 
At Cincinnati this year (1883), the water was 
five fept higher than ever before known. As 
early as the 12th of last February, the rise 
in the Ohio had utterly paralyzed business, 
and had deprived 20,000 working people of 
Cincinnati, Covington and Newport of the 
means of livelihood. Five square miles of 
Cincinnati were covered with water from one 
inch to twenty feet deep. Many lives were 
lost, and many millions of dollars worth of 
property was destroyed, and along the Upper 
Ohio hundreds of thousands of people suf- 
fered inconvenience or loss from the wide- 
spread river overflows. In the Kentucky 
bottoms, opposite Shawneetown, the water 
was three and a half feet higher than ever 



before known since the settlement of the 
country; while at Cairo the water of the year 
only exceeded that of last year by three and 
a half inches. There must have been other 
causes than cutting the trees or draining, 
for the floods of this year (1883), one pecu- 
liarity of them being that ihoy were re- 
stricted to no particular locality, but seem to 
have been general, and to extend nearly over 
the whole world. The long-continued rainn 
in the valley of the Ohio, that fell upon the 
frozen and ice covered grounds, where not a 
drop was absorbed into the earth, and started 
the raging torrent at the fountain-heads, 
were the palpable, prime cause of the unusual 
waters. In Europe the rain-storm started 
that did so much damage here. It flooded 
the Theiss and Danube, the Ehine, in Ger- 
many, and the Ehone and all the rivers of 
France, and sent them, like the Ohio, boom- 
ing out of their banks and doing widespread 
damage. The course of the storm across the 
Atlantic could be distinctly traced to its out- 
burst in the region of the Upper Ohio and 
the lakes, and spreading rapidly all over our 
continent, until every section, often the most 
retired villages, far up in the mountains, and 
miles away from any lake or river, seemed 
scarcely safe. Indeed, one of the most awful 
calamities of the long list of disasters of this 
year was. that which took place out in the 
open prairie near Braidwood, 111., where the 
rain had piled up the waters three feet into 
a lake, which, breaking through a mine, 
drowned the unfortunate miners within. 
Every tributary of the Ohio and Mississipj^i 
■ Rivers was rising at the same time; the 
Allegheny, Monongahela, Licking, Kentucky 
and Cumberland were all at flood-tide; the 
Wabash was out of its bed, and can-ying de- 
struction on its course. The rivers pouring 
into the lakes were also raging; the Miami 
flooded a large portion of Toledo; the Cuya- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



123 



hoga has twice this year inundated Cleve- 
land, and even the Atlantic slope tells the 
same sad story, and in the far West it is 
again repeated. 

We have told of the inundation of Cairo 
in 1858. The damage to the property of the 
town, except the falling of the hotel wall 
(and that was evidently from the imperfect 
building of the foundation more than the 
water) did not amount to $1,000. There was 
not a house, excepting the merest shanties, 
that was materially injured. The largest 
sufferer, in a pecuniary way, was Bailey Har- 
rell, whose stock of goods was injured to the 
extent of a few hundred dollars. The people 
of Cairo felt no suffering from actual want, 
and indeed they refused any outside aid 
when such assistance was tendered them. 
In one sense, the actual and material injury 
to the place was most insignificant and tri- 
fling; and yet, in another sense, by a singular 
chain of circumstances, it was almost an ir- 
reparable calamity to the interests of the city. 
In the most exaggerated way it was blown 
in the face of all the world, until men 
never after heard of Cairo except to 
shudder or shrug the shoulders, and 
either express the sentiment or believe it, 
that its very name meant floods, and drown- 
ings, and wreck and ruin. There is not a 
xiver-town from St. Louis ^or Pittsburgh to 
New Orleans but that has suffered from in- 
undations incomparably worse than has Cairo, 
and yet their raging waters are hardly passed 
away when the people seem to forget it all, and 
their calamity is not again whispered until 
the next high water and its devastation. 

We have shown how trifling and insignifi- 
cant was the only overflow Cairo has ever 
had since she has been walledabout by her 
levees. In contrast to this, look at the fol- 
lowing description, by an eye-witness, of the 
Upper Ohio in last February: 



" The proportions of the calamity that is 
upon the j)eople of the Ohio Valley are hour- 
ly increasing. There are suffering, desola- 
tion and death in each inch of the awful rise 
of the river upon a stage of water absolutely 
without precedent, and the details of distress 
which called for symjjathy in the floods of 
Europe, except as to loss ^of life, are largely 
repeated in this section to-day. * * * * 
For thirty miles, beginning with the upper 
suburb of Cincinnati, and ending with Law- 
I'enceburg, Ind., twenty-five miles below, the 
damage, destitution and distress are unparal- 
leled in American history. Below Lawrence- 
bm-g, and to Louisville [equally true if he 
had said to Cairo — Ed.] the situation is the 
same. Beginning with the upper suburb of 
Cincinnati, on the Ohio side, are Columbia, 
Pendleton, Fulton and , then Cincinnati, 
Sedamsville, Riverside, Fernbank, Lawrence- 
burg, Aiu'ora, Rising Sun, Patriot, Vevay 
and Madison. On the Kentucky side are 
the towns of Dayton, Bellevue and Newport, 
and Covington, opposite Cincinnati, Ludlow, 
Bromley, Petersbui-g, Hamilton, Warsaw, 
Ghent, Carrollton, Milton, Westport and 
Louisville. At Patriot and Vevay, the river 
is five or six miles wide, and at all these 
points it simply extends from the Ohio to the 
Kentucky hills, covering all the rich bottom 
lands. Its average width is from one to two 
miles — a sea of yellow waters. At all these 
points more or less damage is done. No 
statistics are available, but a cool guess 
would place the number of people either 
homeless or imprisoned, at not less than 
50,000. There are 15,000 at Newport alone, 
and 5,000 in Lawrenceburg; at Louisville, 
New Albany and Jeffersonville, it is in many 
respects even worse. 

" The east end, up in Fulton and Colum- 
bia, has eight feet of water flowing thi-ough 
the main street. Many houses have been 



124 



HISTORY OF CATEO. 



swept away, and many more are expected to 
follow. If the weather was not warm and 
pleasant, the suffering worfld be intense. 
The water is five miles wide from Columbia 
to the other shore of the Little Miami River, 
and all the houses on the bottom have disap- 
peared, not even the roofs being visible. 
Western avenue, on the western side of the 
city, along Mill Creek Valley, has been de- 
clared unsafe, and travel on it is stopped. 
The American Oak & Leather Company's 
tannery, the largest in the world, was sub- 
merged at 1 o'clock this morning (February 
15). Along Mill Creek Valley are most of 
the packing houses. One packer has 3,000,- 
000 pounds of meat under water, and from 
10,000,000 to 15,000,000 pounds of dry- 
salted meats are in the same condition. No 
one has dared to make an estimate of the 
total loss here (Cincinnati), but they will be 
millions." 

Of Lawrenceburg, Ind., an official report, 
among other things, specifies: " There never 
was," so they report, " in all history of the 
floods in the Ohio Valley, a city, town or 
hamlet so completely at the mercy of the an- 
gry element as is Lawrenceburg. For three 
days, the citizens ^vere almost without a 
morsel to eat. In the lower portion of the 
city, everything is destroyed, save the dwell- 
ings, and they, of coiu'se, must be badly 
damaged. Hundreds of the houses are from 
ten to fifty feet under water. The people, 
driven from their homes, fled to the public 
buildings. All they possessed is destroyed. 
We steamed alongside the court house, 
woolen mills, churches, furniture factories 
and public school buildings. All of the 
above-named buildings were crowded with 
people rescued from watery gi-aves. 

" In the large and more secure residences, 
families have been driven to the second and 



third stories. On the principal streets, the 
water ranges from seven to twenty-five feet 
deep. Few of the merchants saved any of 
their goods, and although precautions were 
taken, yet nearly all furniture is ruined. A 
great many houses in low lands have been 
swept away, and houses and contents are lost 
forever to the owners. 

" The damage to factories cannot be esti- 
mated. In the city there are a great many 
furniture factories, all of which had on hand 
large stocks of lumber; in many cases this 
has all been swept away. 

" The machinery in some, if not all. the 
factories and mills, has been badly damaged, 
and mostly ruined. The county records have 
all been saved, they having been carried to 
the top stories of the court house. The rich 
and the poor are upon a common level, and 
indiscriminately huddled together. In one 
part of the court house, death was claiming 
its victims, while in another new lives were 
being ushered into the world. * * * * 
The reports of the condition of the people 
have not been exaggerated. In fact, the half 
has not been told. The entire city, with a 
population of some 5,000, are in want, and 
are at the mercy of the public. Distress ex- 
tends from one end of the city to the other. 
The town has been without communication 
with the outside world for days, except by 
boats, and no regular packets are running. 
The telegraph offices are flooded, and the 
wires are down. The telephone office is in 
several feet of water. In short, there is not 
a dry square foot of ground in the place. 

" The situation of the citizens of Law- 
renceburg, imprisoned in the conrt house, is 
constantly growing more dangerous. Added 
to the irregularity of the food supply, and 
the crowded quarters, is the possibility that 
the court house may collapse, from the un- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



125 



dermining of its foundation by the flood of 
waters. Should that occur, the loss of life 
certainly will be great." 

"We forbear to extend these sad and har- 
rowing details, nor have we given the worst 
side of the picture, as drawn by correspond- 
ents who visited the different towns along 
the Ohio Kiver. 

While this terrible page of history was 
being written of every river town above this 
point, Cairo was peacefully and securely pur- 
suing her avocations; her railroads making 
their regular trips; not a wheel in any of 
her factories impeded for even a moment. 

The ordinaiy business of the day was 

transacted in confidence and safety. No one 

was alarmed even in Cairo, except the negroes 

and a few nervous and timid "tenderfoots," 

who, when they would go upon the levee and 

look out upon the broadest expanse of waters 

they had ever seen, would quake, for fear 

Cairo's great levees would give way, and no 

Noah's ark was at hand to take them in. 

^Vhile Cairo was the one dry spot, the city of 

refuge to which came the sufferers from 

above and from below, the j^fol lowing appeal 

to the world's charity was being issued from 

nearly every town from here to Pittsburgh : 

SuAWNEETOWN, 111., via Evansville, Feb. 24. 
To Marshall Field & Co., Chicago: 

Our people are overwhelmed with the most ap- 
palliiiLc misfortune ever visited upon any locality. 
The Ohio River is five feet higher than ever known, 
and still rising. Our wealth has gone down with 



the angry waves. Hundreds are destitute, penni- 
less and suffering. We must have help. The river 
is from three to thirty-five miles wide, and carrying 
utter destruction before it. The loss in this imme- 
diate vicinity will reach $250,000 at least. We ap- 
peal to the charitable for assistance in this time of 
need. We have been under water for nearly three 
weeks, and ' it will take four weeks for it to subside. 
(Signed) Swofford Bugs., 

Allen & Harrington, 
M. M. Pool, 
Thomas IS. Ridgeway, 
I. M. Millspaugh, Mayor. 

The very next day, February 25, Cairo sent 
out the following: " The river was fifty-two 
feet one inch at 6 P. M. , and on a stand. 
Our levees are holding out splendidly, and 
no fears of trouble from that source are ex- 
pected." 

AVhile Cairo deeply deplored the calami- 
ties to her sister towns, and was ready and 
did lend a generous and helping hand to the 
sufferers, yet why should she not rejoice in 
that prudent care and forethought that 
placed these strong battling walls around 
her, that defied the angry waters, and un- 
shaken, stood guard over the peaceful slum- 
bers, the lives and the property of her peo- 
ple? 

The oft-repeated question, can levees be 
built that will secure your town against any 
water ? has been most triumphantly an- 
swered, both in the year 1882 and 1883. It 
is no longer a theory nor a guess, but a 
demonstration, as plain and strong as Holy 
Writ. 



126 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE PRESS— ITS POWER AS THE GREAT CIVILIZER OF THE AGE— CAIRO'S FIRST EDITORIAL 
VENTURES— BIRTH AND DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS INNUMERABLE— THE BOHEMIANS— 
WHO THEY WERE AND AVHAT THEY DID— " BULL RUN" RUSSELL— HARRELL, 
WILLETT, FAXON AND OTHERS— SOME OF THE "INTELLI- 
GENT COMPOSITORS"— QUANTUM SUFFICIT. 



" A history which takes no account of what was said 
by the Press in memorable emergencies befits an earlier 
age than ours." — Horace Greeley. 

IN the order of making settlements in the 
Mississippi Valley, it was the hunter and the 
trapper, the trader and the merchant, the ham- 
let, village or the mushroom cit}^ and then the 
newspaper. Here it waited not, like of old, for 
that ripened civilization that was supposed to 
come of the centuries, that left people hungry, 
if not perishing, for that rich, juicy and nutri- 
tious mental pabulum that the editor was 
always supposed to furnish. 

The Press is the Third Estate in this coun- 
try — it has been called the palladium of Amer- 
ican liberties. One thing is quite certain, that 
the wisest and best thing our forefathers did 
was to establish a " free press," nominally, if 
not actually. True, it is absolutely free so far 
as the Government is concerned, but sometimes 
it is not so free from militar}- dictation or from 
mob rule, and a few instances have occurred, 
in the histor}' of the country, where there has 
been a foolish, violent and fanatical public sen- 
timent, grossly wrong in all its parts, that has 
ci'ushed out the truth, and actually suppressed 
the only true friend the people had — the local 
press. But in return, the press can say it has 
committed outrages upon the public quite as 
often or oftener than have wrongs been perpe- 
trated against it. The averages, say, are even ; 
then if two wrongs can make a right, a reason- 
able justice has been done, and the great pal- 



ladium remains, and the Government did wisely 
foresee the eventual wants of mankind in this 
respect. And under the benign rays of their 
wisdom, the American people enjoy a free press, 
and this means free speech, free schools, free 
religion, and, supremest, and best of all, free 
thought ; for here is where the world has suf- 
fered most, because as a man's thoughts are 
the highest part of him — that which makes 
him the superior to the ox that grazes upon 
the hill — it is here that he can suffer infinitely 
the most ; where wrongs may be inflicted that 
are ineffaceable, incurable and shocking. For 
it was thought, and nothing else but thought, 
that has produced the present civilization and 
all its joys and pleasures — all that marks the 
difference in us and those miserable crea- 
tures who once were here, owning and possess- 
ing all this grand country, and whose mode 
and manner of life may all be drawn from the 
simple fact that they would bury the live wife 
in the same grave with the dead husband. 
This is a historic fact, although it occurred 
among a prehistoric people. The}' had no 
free speech, free press or free thought. They 
may have had a strong government, a govern- 
ment of iron and lead, and they may have wor- 
shiped that government as dutiful children 
worship a cruel father, but they have never 
had a free thought, except one of the basest 
kind, but the fact remains that they were a 
despicable people, because the}' had none of 
that civilization that eventuates in a free press. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO, 



127 



It was the great invention of movable t3'pes 
that has made the present greatness of the 
press possible. " The types are." remarked 
one of the greatest men the world has pro- 
duced, "as ships which pass through the vast 
seas of time, and make ages to participate of the 
wisdom, illuminations and inventions, the one 
of the other ; for the image of men's wits remain 
in books, exempted from the wrongs of time, 
and capable of perpetual renovation, neither 
are they fitly to be called images, because they 
generate stili and cast their seeds in the minds 
of others, provoking and causing infinite action 
and opinions in succeeding ages. We see, 
then, how far the monuments of wit and 
learning are more durable than the monuments 
of power or of the hands. For have not the 
verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred 
3'ears or more, without the loss of a syllable or 
letter ? during which time, infinite palaces, 
temples, castles, cities, have decayed or been 
demolished. That whereunto man's nature 
doth most aspire, which is immortality or 
continuance ; for to this tendeth generation, 
and raising of houses and families ; to this 
buildings, foundations and monuments ; to 
this tendeth the desire of memory, fame and 
celebration, and in effect the strength of all 
other human desires." The types do infinitely 
more than this ; they are men's highest source 
of unalloyed enjoyment in this world. They 
may be made to contribute more to his real 
pleasures than anything else. While they are 
the most enduring thing of life, the joy and 
pleasures they bring, which they give for the 
asking, they give food and pleasure to the 
mind. For in life what pleasure equals that of 
the acquisition of new truths ? This is not 
only the greatest pleasure to the healthy 
mind, but it is the most enduring. It is the 
perennial fountain of knowledge, where the 
thirsty mind may drmk deeply, drink draughts 
of which all the nectar the gods ever quaffed 
are but puddle water. And it is not alone to 



the mind thirsting for the deep draughts of 
knowledge that its blessings are confined, but 
it gives equally to all — the thinker, the worker, 
the idle, the dissolute, the rich, the poor, the 
king and the outcast, a3-e, even the wretched 
leper to whom the work of the types are all in 
this world that can save him from a living 
tomb. It is the philosopher's touch-stone, the 
Aladdin's lamp, the genial ray of sunshine 
that penetrates all dungeons, that will go and 
abide forever wherever human life can exist. 
In the dingy printing oflSce is the epitome of 
the world of action and of thought — the best 
school in Christendom — the best church. Here 
is where divine genius perches and pauses, and 
plumes its wings for those loft}- flights that 
attract and awe all mankind and in all ages — 
here are kindled and fanned to a flame the fires 
of genius that sometimes blaze and dazzle like 
the central sun, and that generate and renew 
the rich fruitage of 'benign civilization. The 
press is the drudge and pack-horse — the 
crowned king of all mankind. The gentle click 
of its types is heard around all the world ; 
thej; go sounding down the tide of time, bear- 
ing upon their gentle waves the destinies of 
civilization, and the immortal smiles of the 
pale children of thought, as they troop across 
the fair face of the earth in their entrances and 
exits from the unknown to the unknown, 
scattering here and there immortal blessings, 
that the dull blind types have patientl}- gath- 
ered, to place them where they will live forever. 
It is the earth's S3'mphon3' which endures, which 
transcends that of the " morning when the stars 
sang together," and when its chords are swept 
by the fingers of the immortals, it is the echo 
of those anthems that float up forever to the 
throne of God. Of all that man can have in 
this world, it is the one blessing, whose rose 
need have no thorn, whose stveet need have no 
bitter. It is freighted with man's good, his hap- 
piness and the divine blessings of civilization. 
B}- means of the press, the lowliest cabin equals 



128 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



the lordliest palace in the right and authority 
to bid enter its portals, . and be seated in the 
famil}' circle, the sweet singer of Scotland — the 
delightfiill}' immortal Burns — who died at 
thirty-seven, and over whose grave his mis- 
taken, foolish country-men were relieved of the 
poor outcast and sot ; they thought they were 
burying an outcast, when the clods that 
covered his poor body hid the warm sunlight 
of Scotland. Or bid the crowned monarch of 
mankind come in, and with wife, children and 
friends tarry until bed-time, and tell the real 
story of Hamlet ; or Lord Macaulay will lay 
aside titles and dignity, and with the poor 
cotter's family hold familiar discourse in those 
rich resounding sentences that flow on forever 
like a great and rapid river ; or Charles Lamb, 
whose heart was saddest, whose wit was sweet- 
est, whose life was a mingling of smiles and 
tears, and let him tell the children and the 
grandsires the story of the invention of the 
roast pig ; or Johnson, his boorishness and 
roughness all gone now, in trenchant sentences 
pour out his jeweled thoughts to eager ears ; 
or bid Pope tell somethingof the story of man's 
inhumanity to man ; or poor, poor delightful 
Poe, with his bird of evil omen, croaking, 
croaking, " nevermore !" Or Dickins, George 
Elliott, Bunyan or Voltaire, or any of the 
thousands of others, when all may be fed to 
fullness. 

Thanks, then, a million times thanks, to our 
I dear old Revolutionary sires for giving us the 
great boon of a free press. If our Government 
endures, and the people continue free, here will 
be much of the reason thereof, for, mark you, 
freedom, though once never so well established, 
will not maintain and prepetuate itself, because 
by the laws of heredity that lurks in ever}- man, 
more or less, the latent customs or habits or 
mental convictions of a barbarous ancestry 
leave the seeds of monarchy and despotism. 
True, the Americans have this (speaking in 
reference to a democratic form of government) 



less than any other people in the world ; they 
are farther removed from an ancestry that 
worshiped under kingly rulers — an ancestry 
that perhaps honestly worshiped an autocrat 
and that would have almost let out its own 
blood, had they known they would produce a 
posterity that would cease to worship at the 
same shrine, or even emigrate to some foreign 
country, and learn to detest and hate all im- 
perial pretensions. Hence, we say, the 
American people have this tendency to return 
to monarchy less than any other people in the 
world, and yet even here it is as true now as 
when uttered, that " eternal vigilance is the 
price of liberty." The press, therefore, is 
essential to the perpetuation of free institutions 
in America. 

That the press can do no wrong, it is not our 
intention in the remotest way to assert. So 
great an institution, so varied its interests, 
so numerous its controllers and its guides, that 
it would be a foolish man indeed who would 
even hope that it ever would become infallible. 
A wise people, therefore, will jealously watch 
it, while it is standing upon the. watch-tower, 
hunting for the ambitious usurper to catch and 
slay him. This is the very genius of free 
institutions — vigilance and untiring watchful- 
ness upon the part of all. 

But it is of the coming of the press, the 
printers, the editors, the writers, publishers, 
and others brought here in connection with the 
press, even including that strange creature, 
who always accompanies those pious and verj' 
moral gentleman, the " devil," that it is our 
purpose to immediately speak. They were 
altogether a remarkable set, who published 
remarkable papers, and some still more remark- 
able articles. They, as has always been the 
case everywhere, had their differences, their 
quarrels even, but be it said to their credit, no 
matter from what cause it came, the disputes 
never resulted in anything more serious than a 
few bitter paragraphs, and then their injured 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



129 



honor was appeased, and the entente cordiale 
once more prevailed. Here the whole thing 
was like the rise and fall of the Roman empire, 
except there was more of them. Cairo reached 
the astounding population of 2,000 souls before 
an attempt was made to start a paper here— 
something that could not possibly happen now, 
as probably 300 is the extreme limit that the 
l3^nx-eyed printer of this age will allow to 
gather together without starting at least one 
paper, and often two. In the year 1841, just 
when Cairo was in the zenith of her first term 
of greatness and just before she fell from that 
height and past to her first nadir, that one Mc- 
Neer came here and brought a small press and 
started a paper. It was in the first flush times 
of Cairo, when Holbrook was the master and 
autocrat of all, when his company were spend- 
ing money by the millions, and were building 
everything and doing everything. McNeer was 
a stranger to aflfairs, and showed his utter want 
of judgment by not asking Holbrook if he 
might come. Indeed, worse than this, when 
he started his paper he had the audacity to 
criticize that great ruler, and he soon acknowl- 
edged his error by leaving town and taking his 
paper with him. The unholy monster monopoly 
had crushed him, and no other daring advent- 
urer followed, for the simple reason that in a 
few months the dynasty, the town, and every- 
thing pretty much about it had gone much 
worse bursted and crushed than had poor 
McNeer. 

In June, 1848, Add Saunders established the 
Cairo Delta, neutral in politics, and although 
Cairo had only 142 souls, yet the breezy new- 
ness of such a thing soon gave him a circula- 
tion of 800 copies. But whether because he saw 
the storm coming or from what cause we do not 
know, he closed the concern in October, 1849, 
left Cairo, went to Evansville, and consolidated 
with the Evansville Journal. 

And then another interregnum occurred in 
the newspaper world of Cairo. This continued 



until April 10, 1851, when Frank Rawlings, of 
Emporium, or Mound City, started the Cairo 
Sun here. It was full of good enough Democ- 
racy, but was supposed to be really in the inter- 
ests of the Emporium City Company, if not 
actually started by it. This was a company 
started at Mound City for the purpose of break- 
ing down Cairo and building the great city at 
that point. It was this perhaps as much as 
anything else that caused the paper to die of 
starvation just one year to a day from the time 
of its starting. There are now pretty strong 
evidences that this was the true fact in the case, 
as, within the year of the paper's publication, 
Gren. Rawlings, the father of Frank, had come 
to Cairo, and in the name of some tax-titles or 
Sheriff's deeds or a combination of these and even 
other things, had tried to capture the entire town 
of Cairo, or a larger portion of it. An old settler 
here still remembers seeing the old General in 
solemn state carefully- ride around the city, 
taking possession of his demesne. If there 
were other instances at all similar to this it 
makes it plausible that the good people of Cairo 
feared that " my son Frank " was really little 
else than a well-got-up sp}-. 

Just here it should be noted that it was a 
singular fact that the Cairo & City Canal 
Company, or perhaps better to sa}' Holbrook, 
in all his vast schemes of grabbing after rail- 
roads, canals, wild cat banks and the greatest 
commercial city in the world and untold mill- 
ions of hard dollars from Europe, and what 
little else the balance of mankind had, should 
never have thought to start a paper in his own 
private interest. Was this the fatal spot in 
the heel where he was at last wounded unto 
death ? A personal organ in those daj^s prob- 
ably' had not been tried, but this is precisely 
the reason it ought to have suggested itself to 
Holbrook. 

Cairo Times. — After another reign of silence 
from the news world, Len G. Faxon and W. 
A. Hacker started the Cairo Times. Hacker was 



130 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



the heav}' editor, while Faxon, with a dreadful 
long-pointed sharp stick, stirred up the animals. 
The paper was a weekly, and of the old bour- 
bon barefooted Democrac}- — the kind that 
would have cried out to its million readers, at 
the outbreak of the war (it never had 300, you 
know) to maintain an armed neutralit}' and 
save the nation from bloodshed and war. 
Hacker had good talents, but he was not a 
journalist ; he did not seek to be one. He was 
a politician and a lawyer, and he soon retired 
from the newspaper to his favorite pursuits. 
On the other hand, journalism was as natural 
to Faxon as water is to a duck, and there was 
but one thing that ev'er prevented him gain- 
ing the highest eminence in his profession, and 
that may best be designated as general insta- 
bility. " He was a fellow of infinite jest," and 
a sharp and vigorous pen, but as to using it he 
preferred to be with the boys. He made no 
professions to profundit}' of writing, but he was 
always sparkling and readable. He did not re- 
main a very long time in Cairo, but perhaps as 
long as he has remained anywhere since he be- 
came a Bohemian, and after leaving here he 
has drifted about the world and finalh' is now 
in Paducah, K}-., where he went in his 
regular trade, and after making himself the 
master bantam of that town, we believe he 
dropped his faber and is now seeking other and 
more promising schemes. But it is not worth 
while to bid him adieu yet from the profession, 
for almost an^' moment j'ou ma}' hear of him 
breaking out afresh in some new, strange and 
most unexpected journalistic wa\-. But we 
have not concluded our account of Faxon in 
Cairo 3'et, which we will now proceed to do. 
He severed his connection with the Times earl}' 
in the year 1855, being with the paper a 
little less than one year, and Ed Willett, the 
poet, journalist and erratic young man, took 
his place. And it was then Hacker & Willett 
who were steering the Times along the troubled 
waters of the journalistic sea. They continued 



the publication until the following November, 
when the paper was merged with the Ddta, and 
Hacker, so far as we know, retired forever fi'om 
the vexations, the trials, the strains and glories 
of the editorial life. And as we will say no 
more of Hacker in this department, we will dis- 
miss the subject of his ability, style and excel- 
lence as a writer b}' quoting the remark of 
" Mose" Harrell, in a published account of the 
press of Cairo in 1864. In speaking of this 
very paper that we have just followed to 
its grave, he says : " This hebdomadal was 
Democratic in politics, ever}' number betraying 
the impress of the engaging ponderosity of 
Hacker's pen," etc. — the '• engaging ponderosi- 
ty"^is rather neat, but of Mr. Hacker in his real 
place in life, we will have occasion to speak at 
more length when we come to the chapter on 
the bench and bar. 

Cairo Delta. — On the -ith of July, 1855, 
Faxon started this paper. It had but little 
politics in it, but it wielded a free lance for 
every comer, and poked and prodded and put 
on a long-tailed coat and would tread majesti- 
call}' around dragging this behind and begging 
some man to tread on it. It had onh' a short 
existence of four months, when Faxon, dis- 
covering what he lacked in Willett, and Willett 
discovering certain essential qualities him- 
self in Faxon, they wooed and wedded and 
joined their two papers together, and this 
happy union resulted in the 

Times and Delta. — And so anotlier paper 
was launched upon the journalistic sea, the 
first issue of which was in November. 1855. 
It floui'ished finely under its dual title, because 
it combined the materials of an almost certain 
success in its publishers. The publication con- 
tinued until 1859. 

Cairo Egyptian. — Established in 1856. bv 
Bond & McGrinnis. This was Ben Bond, the 
youngest son of the first Governor of Illinois, 
who was one of the earliest men to see here in 
Cairo great future possibilities. His faith in 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



131 



the place perhaps induced Ben to come here 
and try the wheel of fortune in what turned 
out to be a rash venture. The paper was of 
course an uncompromising Democrat in poli- 
tics. It could hardly have been anything else 
with the name of any one of the numerous 
Bond boys to it. The paper soon passed to 
the control of S. S. Brooks, and its name 
changed to the 

Cairo Gazette, and its publication con- 
tinued under this rather brilliant newspaper 
man for nearly two A'ears. Brooks, when he 
closed out his paper interest here, went to 
Quinc}^ 111., where he established the Her- 
ald, in which he made an extensive reputation, 
which reputation, our recollection is, was some- 
thing after the style of G. D. Prentice, that is, 
in Prentice's double meaning paragraphs. 
In 1858, Brooks sold out to John A. Hull and 
James Hull, and they continued the publica- 
tion until the month of August, 1859, when it 
was purchased by M. B. Harrell, who published 
the paper until the spring of 1864, when he 
sold it out to the Cairo News Company, a Re- 
publican concern, organized chiefly by the 
efforts of John H. Barton. 

Cairo Journal — A German paper, the 
first of the kind attempted here, was issued 
in 1858. A weekh' paper and the few Ger- 
mans there were here to patronize it valued it 
quite highl\-, 3'et it lingered in a state of great, 
destitution and died after a few months. 

Cairo Zeitung. — Its name tells its nativity 
This was a semi-weekh" paper, issued from the 
office of the Gazette in 1859. It was an am- 
bitious little Dutchman, as is evidenced by the 
fact that it started in as semi-weekly. It fair- 
1}' " donnei'ed de wedder" the first few weeks 
of its existence, but it was all to no purpose, it 
sickened and died, aged four months, and its 
happ3' shade is now in the krout business in 
the happy hunting grounds set apart for dead 
Cairo papers. 

Egyptian Obelisk. — In IRtU. William Hunter 



and a few other infatuated souls, concluded 
Cairo was ripe to be Christianized by a great 
daily Republican paper, to let in some light 
upon Egj'ptian darkness. As this was a free 
countr}- — all except Cairo, which was inten^^ely 
Democratic — no one interfered with their gi- 
gantic project, and upon a fixed hour it was 
launched upon an astounded world. Its rug- 
ged course of life lasted through just two 
issues, when its little slippers were put away, 
with the consoling I'emark, " whom the gods 
love die young."' 

Cairo Daily News — A Republican paper, es- 
tablished in 1863, b}' a joint-stock compan}', 
the head of which company', the writer's rec- 
ollection is, was John W. Trover. This was 
quite a pretentious, and in many respects, a 
paper that was a credit to Cairo. It was prob- 
ably the first paper in the town that ever took 
the Associated Press dispatches. It had a 
general and local editor, and published con- 
siderable river and financial news. But its 
specialt}' was the army and navv and '• loyalty," 
with a strong penchant for watching the trait- 
ors, or which was then the same thing, 
the Democrats. It piped its own loyalty, and 
the arrant treason of every one who differed 
from it. Its first editor was Dan Munn, known 
far and wide as a brother of Ben's. Dan was 
an offshoot of the remarkable establishment 
that flourislied here as a part of the great war 
times, known as the house of Munn, Pope & 
Munn. To Dan's credit be it said he never 
was a journalist. His forte la}- in other direc- 
tions, and in a ver}' short time he retired and 
was succeeded as editor by John A. Hull, 
whose industry soon showed that there was a 
marked change in the depai-tment. Hull never 
was brilliant, because he did not have much 
faith in that kind of editing, and to tliis da}' 
we believe that if anything could have made 
the News a success, it was the steady -going, 
even-tempered mode of editing pursued by 
Mr. Hull. 



132 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Before the paper was a 3'ear old, it became 
apparent that Trover was rapidly tiring of 
footing the deficiency bills, and the ]\^ews com- 
pany notified the boys in the office, or at least 
action to that eflfect was had, and the usual 
process of rats deserting the ship was again 
enacted in the world's history. 

At one time Birney Mai'shall and James 0. 
Durff ran it until the first week's bill for the 
Associated Press dispatches came in, when they 
declared the great house temporarily closed. 
Still others were induced to put in enough 
money, and when it had good luck it would 
run a week, and then again twenty-four hours 
would wind it up. But finally, in 1865, at a 
little over the age of two years, and filled with 
mere changes and vicissitudes than an}' similar 
thing that ever existed, it breathed its last. 
It had been dead so long before it acknowl- 
edged it that it is doubtful if it ever had any 
funeral. Marshall and DurflT both died a few 
years ago in Memphis. 

Cairo Democrat — By Thomas Lewis, a daily 
and weekl}' Democratic paper. The office was 
removed from Springfield, 111., to this 
place, and the publication of a nine-column 
daily paper commenced on the 3d da}^ of 
August, 1863. 

This was about the first effort to establish a 
real metropolitan dail}' paper, giving all, even 
the great amount of war news then prevalent 
in the country-. It was brought here at great 
expense, run with a full force of editors, re- 
porters and printers, and was published under 
great disadvantages. Cairo was literall}- a fort 
of the -Union Ai'my, the town full of soldiers and 
under martial law ; provost guaixls were the 
police of the town, and a military' man was not 
only Mayor and Governor, but supreme auto- 
crat, whose will was law even unto death, and 
there were only a few of them who doubted his 
own abilit}', not onlj' to discharge his military 
office, but to edit at least all the Democratic 
papers published within the United States. 



The result was there was sometimes that kind 
of meddling that was exceedingly unpleasant 
to publishers. Orders would come some- 
times daily, either from the Provost Marshal's 
office, or from headquarters, giving directions 
how to run the paper, what to publish and 
what not to publish. Practically, you were 
paying the heavy expenses of a printing office, 
and some one else was editing it — such edit- 
ing as it was. At times an order would come 
—a standing order, mark you — to submit all 
matter intended for the paper to inspection, 
before it could be printed. 

The writer hereof remembers an amusing in- 
cident of those strange times. He had written 
and published a short, silh' story about a man 
who kept a pea-nut stand on the street, and 
how he first " knocked down" the profits, and 
finally the capital and clandestinely closed his 
establishment and crawled under the sidewalk, 
just beneath where his store had been, and left 
his creditors to whistle. Then went on with a 
lot of stuff about how all the first detectives in 
the world were put upon the fugitive's tracks, 
chartering steamers, railroads, telegraphs, 
etc.", and how they peered around and peeked 
into the North pole in the pursuit, and how he 
lay snoring under the sidewalk all the time. 

It is hard to imagine anything more silly to 
be put into print, but there may have been 
some excuse at that day, from the fact that 
some manliad just defaulted in New York for 
a large amount, and supposing he would flee 
to the uttermost parts of the earth the detec- 
tives acted accord ingh\ Whereas, in fact, he 
only moved to a new boarding house, and 
rested there content. It seems he could not be 
found because he 'had not fled. 

For this the writer was jerked up and asked 
to explain it all. He frankly confessed that it 
was wholh' meaningless — confessed upon his 
sacred honor it was not a cipher dispatch to 
the Southern Confederacy, and was ready to 
swear with up-lifted hand, that he thought if 



^^id&A 





HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



13o 



Jeflf Davis ever was compelled to read it, or b}' 
an\' chance should read it, that it would kill 
him in five minutes. 

This happ}- explanation closed the doors of 
the threatening bastile, with the happy victim 
on the outside and not inside. 

We cannot here enumerate all the annoyances 
that it was possible to and that actually were 
thrown in the way of the publication of the 
Democrat, but the}' were many, vexatious and 
sorely trjMug. But just here we wish distinct- 
ly to remark that it was not a universal prac- 
tice with the military to act such silly roles. 
The commauding officer was often changed, 
and it may be said, on behalf of the majority 
of them, that they were intelligent and clever 
gentlemen, and from all such there was no 
more annoyance than from an}' private gentle- 
man. Indeed many of them were of that cult- 
ured and agreeable kind that all the society 
people of Cairo much enjoyed their stay among 
them. But when the meddlers did come, their 
folly was only the more illy borne by the con- 
trast that the others made. 

Mr. Lewis is entitled to all the credit that 
can come of persistence in the face of such 
obstacles as we have named. Of course, there 
were many others, but so there are under any 
circumstances in starting an enterprise of this 
kind. 

The paper had a warm support throughout 
all Southern Illinois, and a partial support from 
both Kentucky and Missouri, but in these two 
last-mentioned places there were so few mail 
facilities, and there were guerrillas frequently 
in those localities, that the circulation of the 
paper was in that direction infinitesimal. 
Without giving figures, it is probably a fact 
that the daily and weekly Democmt, within a 
year of the commencement of publication, had, 
combined, the largest circulation of any paper 
published in Cairo. 

The first editor was H. C. Bradsby, assisted 
in the local department by C. C. Phillipps. and 



John W. McKee. Mr. Bradsby continued in his 
position about one year, and having accepted a 
position of correspondent of the Missouri Re- 
puhUcan and afterward the Chicago Times, re- 
tired, and was succeeded by J. Birney Mar- 
shall, of Kentucky. Mr. Marshall continued for 
some months as editor, and, retiring, was suc- 
ceeded by Joel G-. Morgan, who came here for 
that purpose, from Jonesboro, 111., and 
after a short time Mr. Morgan retired and was 
replaced by John H. Oberly. 

The paper lived along until 1878, when it 
passed into the hands of a joint-stock 
company and joined and consolidated with the 
Cairo Times. The new concern retained the name 
of Cairo Democrat, H. L. Goodall. General 
Superintendent, and John H. Oberly, editor. 

It was the hope of its friends that this ar- 
rangement would relieve both papers of all em- 
barrassments and make one strong, self-sus- 
taining paper. It was ably and expensively 
operated under the new arrangement, and cer- 
tainly a common, strong efl!brt was made to 
make a paper that would draw to itself a good 
support. But after the first month, its very ex- 
istence was precarious, and after fifteen 
months of heroic struggles it was sold by the 
Sheritf, and John H. Oberly became the pur- 
chaser, and thus ended the long struggle for 
existence by a daily paper in Cairo, the long- 
est made by any of the hosts that have come, 
flourished their brief hour and expired. 

Tlie War Eagle — Was a soldier's paper pub- 
lished at Columbus, Ky., by H. L. 
Goodall, who moved the entire concern to 
Cairo in 1864, and made a vigorous, spicy 
little Republican paper of it. It was so suc- 
cessful and was attracting so wide an influence, 
that parties here induced Mr. Goodall to en- 
large his sphere of action, which he did by pur- 
chasing a fine outfit for a large office, moving 
into new and spacious quarters (from the 
Eagle's roost in the barracks). And the en- 
larged new paper was the 



186 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Cairo Times — A daily Republican paper, 
commenced in the latter part of 1866. The 
Eagle was a little unpretentious weekl}', but 
the Phoenix that rose from its ashes, was a 
large, handsome, well-constructed daily. The 
paper was well patronized, but we very much 
doubt if Mr. Goodall ever saw the day, after 
the first six months, that he was glad of the 
change. The Times had none of the Eagles 
scream. Maj. Caffrey was its general editor — 
a man of considerable ability, a strong Repub- 
lican and good fellow. He remained with Mr. 
Goodall until politics had ceased to be a feat- 
ure, when he sought other pastures. At latest 
accounts he was in Kansas City, Kan., pub- 
lishing a weekly Republican paper. 

The Union — A Republican weekly, started 
in 1866, by H. L. Goodall, as a side-show, per- 
haps, to his great and flourishing daily. The 
editor of this inoffensive political organ was 
Mr. Hutchinson. It was soon sold to J. H. 
Barton and its publication discontinued. 

The Sunday Leader — A literary paper, 
started in 1866, by Ed S. Trover, issued every 
Sunday morning. There were many marks of 
real merit about this periodical. The sole 
writer for it was its editor, but he was well 
known in the city from his position of local on 
the News, where he had made his mark as a 
promising boy. 

City Item — A little five-column weekly- local 
paper, was started into existence in the early 
part of 1866, by Bradsby & Field (Bourne). 
It was independent in politics and prett}' much 
everything else. It was only intended to cir- 
culate in Cairo. 

This paper was the suggestion of John Field, 
who had for a long time been foreman in the 
Democrat office, and, leaving that place, he 
went to Bradsb}' with his scheme ; that he 
would do all the work, Bradsb}' to do the 
writing ; to rent a case in one of the printing 
offices and hire the press work done. It was 
to be all original matter, set solid, and to con- 



tain no "ad" more than ten lines long, and no 
display advertisements. It was no serious 
effort at a paper, and b^' common consent, the 
whole com m unit}' looked upon it as a joke, 
and. that really was about all there was of it, 
and it was perhaps luck}- for the criminal that 
this was so. It lived something over a 3'ear 
and then quit. 

Olive Branch — By Mrs. Mary Hutchinson, a 
famil}' paper, with an olive wreath about its 
brow. It lived about one year. It commenced 
and died in 1867. 

Cairo Times. — Revived in 1868, by H. L. 
Goodall. A strong daily and weekl}- Repub- 
lican paper. Its regular publication continued 
until the early part of 1871, when Mr. 
Goodall evidently tired of the newspaper busi- 
ness in Cairo, wound up his concern, sold out 
all Cairo interests and went to Chicago. 

Cairo Daily Bulletin — A Democratic paper 
started by John H. Oberly, in November, 1868. 
J. H. Oberly, chief editor, M. B. Harrell, as- 
sociate. The paper started under most favor- 
able and promising circumstances, but just as 
its promise seemed fairest, the office and con- 
tents burned to the ground, and to add to ita 
calamities there was no insurance on the con- 
cern. This fire occurred in December, 1868, 
when the establishment was only a little more 
than a month old. An entire new outfit was 
immediatel}' procured and the publication re- 
sumed, and is to this day still a daily morning 
paper. 

The reader can hardly imagine what a joy 
and relief it is to at last come to one in the 
long line that is alive, prosperous and happy. 
The long preceding list is so much like a call- 
ing the roll of the dead, that the change from 
the funeral to the festival is inexpressibly 
pleasant. 

Mr. Oberly and Harrell continued to push 
the paper successfull}- for some years. Its 
job department had grown to large proportions 
and eventual!}' promised to support well the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



187 



newspaper part of the establishment, but in 
1878, matters began to grow perplexed and 
embarrassments began to beset the institution. 
Among other calamities, the 3'ellow fever had 
visited the town and all business was pros- 
trate. 

About this time the arrangements were made 
to lease the office to Mr. Burnett, the present 
proprietor. This took effect Jul}-, 1878, and 
it is probable the absolute stoppage of the 
paper was thus avoided. Mr. Burnett con- 
tinued as lessee until January 1, 1881, when 
b}' purchase he became the absolute and sole 
owner, in which position he has not onh' been 
able to make the paper self-sustaining, but has 
so carefully attended to matters that it is rapid- 
1)- becoming a first-class paying propert}-. 

Mr. Burnett has worked his wa}- from "in 
charge of the circulation." in March, 1868, to 
that of sole owner and proprietor. For two 
years he was book-keeper, and was then made 
general manager. This position he held until 
1867, when he left the office and took employ- 
ment in the Illinois Central Railroad office, in 
this cit}-, where he remained about eighteen 
months. He then returned to the office of the 
Bulletin as lessee. The first 3-ear's earnings of 
the institution were slightl}' in excess of ex- 
penses, even after deducting considerable 
necessar}' additional materials ; the second 
year was not so good, but by this time Mr. 
Burnett had so systematized matters that it 
has been eas}* sailing in placid waters since. 
It is located on the levee in the proprietor's own 
building, and the constant additions and im- 
provements being added will soon make it one 
of the leading solid institutions of the kind in 
the countr}-. 

The first few years after Mr. Burnett took 
control of the Bulletin, it was edited by M. B. 
Harrell, and. when the latter went to Chicago, 
the editorial work was done by Mr. Ernst i 
Theilecke, who was connected with the office i 
for a long time. Mr. Theilecke is now in Lock- 1 



haven, Penn., and occupying much the same 
position there that he did here. 

The present local and assistant writer upon the 
Bulletin is Mr. E. W. Theilecke, who has oc- 
cupied his present place the last two years. 
He is quite a young man, who gives ever}- evi- 
dence of usefulness and ability. 

In as few words as we could possibly make 
it, this is history of one of the very few success- 
ful papers of the many started in Cairo. It 
leaves this as a demonstration and conclusion : 
When the papers of Cairo eventually come in- 
to exactly the right hands, they then, and then 
only, become permanent and valuable institu- 
tions. 

Cairo Sun — A weekly Republican paper, 
started by D. L. Davis in 1869. After running 
it a few months as a weekly, it took the form 
of a daily paper, and in this shape in a short 
time was sold by Mr. Davis to the Joy Bros., 
who continued the publication until January 1, 
1881, when, for some reason best known to the 
publishers, they voluntarily killed off the Sun 
and started a new paper, the News, which 
worked along in fair weather and in foul just 
one year, and ceased to exist January 1, 1882. 

Radical Republican — Its name indicates its 
political proclivities, was issued for a short 
time from the Sun office. Its publisher was 
Louis L. Davis. It never had much vitality, 
and perished in 1880. 

The Three States — Colored ; politics un- 
known. Died February, 1883. 

Gazette — Colored ; W. T. Scott, proprietor 
and publisher. A weekly paper that is one of 
the few that has not ceased to exist. 

Thr Camp Register — A dail}- sheet for sol- 
diers raostl}-. Was published during May, 
June and Jul}-, 1861. 

2'he Daily Dramatic News — Was puljlished by 
H. L. Goodall during the winter of 1864-65 in 
the interests of Crump & Co., the builders and 
first proprietors of the Cairo Athen^um. 

Cairo Paper — A vigorous and able Demo- 



138 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



cratic paper, established by M. B. Harrell in 
1871. Not liking the name, he changed it in a 
short time to Cairo Gazette, and thus returned 
to his first love in the Cairo papers. In this 
style the publication was continued until 1876, 
when it was sold by the proprietor and moved 
to Clinton, Ky. 

Cairo Daily ^r^us— Independent daily pa- 
per, by H. F. Potter, publisher, and Walt F. 
McKee, editor. Was first issued in its present 
form November 15, 1878. Seventeen years 
ago, Mr. Potter took possession as owner and 
publisher of the Mound City Journal, which 
he has conducted from that day to this success- 
fully. Eight years ago, deeming his old fields 
of operations somewhat circumscribed, and 
looking about for an opportunity to enlarge 
them, he conceived the happy idea of a combi- 
nation of Cairo and Mound City interests, and 
so he issued the Cairo Argus and Mound City 
Journal, the work being done at the commence- 
ment in the Mound City office, with a local 
agent and office in Cairo, but no printing mate- 
rial in Cairo. In one year after starting this 
enterprise he moved his office to Cairo, and 
continued the publication, simply reversing the 
local office and the printing office as to their 
places. After the office was in Cairo a few 
months, the title of the paper was changed into 
the Argus- Journal, and was still issued at Cairo 
and Mound City weekly. Then, as above 
stated, in 1878, November 15, he issued directly 
the Cairo Daily Argus, and still continues to 
publish the Mound City Journal, which, upon 
the appearance' of the Daily Argus, resumed its 
old name, and, certainly, a very high compliment 
to Mr. Potter's foresight, the Journal, through 
all its marrying and journeyings, retains every 
one of its old Pulaski County friends, and at 
the same time had so managed its Cairo patrons 
to the weekly paper that when tlie daily was 
started it already had its subscription list made 
up. 3Ir. Potter's past experience, his good, 
strong judgment, his energy and faithfulness to 



his business, and his known integrity, deserve 
an ever-increasing success in his venture into 
a field where so many, so bright and so worth}' 
have heretofore nearly one and all completelj' 
failed. He well understood all these failures 
before he looked toward Cairo as a field of 
operations. He had known Cairo as well dailv 
for the past twenty years as though he had 
been a citizen during all that time. He knew, 
personally, all of these men, and had watched 
their wrecking, and, doubtless, it is well for him 
he had the benefit of others' sad experience, as 
it enabled him to la}' his plans the better, and 
the caution he has displayed when he was eight 
long years in reaching the point of having a 
daily paper in Cairo shows a species of method, 
determination, sound judgment and persistence 
of purpose that is certainly a sufficient guaran- 
tee to the people of Cairo that they need not 
hesitate a moment in giving his concern their 
fullest confidence. We mean by all this that 
they need not fear to trust the man or his busi- 
ness, and they need not be influenced by the 
many failures in the lives of paper ])ublications 
they have seen, and, therefore, class the Daily 
Argus as being only another one that, in a short 
time, is to follow in the already beaten ti*ack of 
the many. 

His selection of an assistant and editor has 
been equally fortunate with his other move- 
ments in the establishment upon a permanent 
basis of his paper. We refer, of course, to 
Walt F. McKee, than whom no more reliable 
man lives. He has resided in Cairo since boy- 
hood, and during nearly all that time has oc- 
cupied responsible and confidential positions 
for organizations and institutions, which are 
known to give trust only to the most trust- 
worthy. Mr. McKee entered the office of the 
Argus with but a limited knowledge of the bus- 
iness, but as his employer foresaw he would 
learn, and he has learned until to-day he is 
quite as well informed of the duties of his 
position as are those who consider themselves 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



139 



the par excellence leaders and teachers in this 
most tr3ing and arduous profession. 

We gladly dismiss this long column of dis- 
mal failures, consisting of over thirt}- papers, 
onh' three of which are now living to gladden 
the eyes of their friends. But should we drop 
the subject and pass to other themes, and say 
no more than we have said of the men who 
were the actors and doers in this curious news- 
paporial world, the list would be but a skeleton, 
and not a pleasant one at that. 

The Bohemians. — We confess we can find no 
other word under which we can group the au- 
thors, correspondents, editors, reporters and 
contributors, who were of and at one time a 
part of Cairo, so well as the one we have 
adopted. Could we group these as one fair 
picture and show the people who it is that has 
come and gone, attracted to Cairo, some of 
them, in the hunt of permanent homes and bus- 
iness, others brought here as war correspond- 
ents at the time when Cairo was the great 
central news point in the United States, others 
here permanently as the representatives of 
man}-, in fact, nearl}' all the great leading 
dail}- papers of the countr}-. We sa}', had we 
the pen and the necessarj- facts to make this 
gx'ouping, the people would rise from the perusal 
amazed if not delighted. But the knowledge 
of these men by the writer of these lines is 
imperfect, as some of them he never knew, and 
many others, whom he vividly remembers the 
faces and their peculiar cast of mind, their 
names have passed out of mind. 

The first man nearly in point of time, cer- 
tainly in point of fame, who visited Cairo " to 
write," was Charles Dickens. He was here in 
18-lr2. He took his notes, went home and wrote 
JIartin Chuzzlewit. So far as his attempt to 
describe Cairo itself is concerned it is like 
everything else Dickens wrote — fiction. But 
there are some things he said he saw here that 
can hardly be in his usual strain of extrava- 
gance. For instance, any old settler can tell 



you that the first crash in Cairo had come be- 
fore Dickens' visit and that like a stricken city 
the decimation of people from 2,000 to less 
than fift}- had come like a cyclone from a cloud- 
less sky. The historian, too, has no hesitation 
in telling you that the few left could not oc- 
cup3' the houses, and that when the canal com- 
pan}- failed they were left with almost nothing 
to do. Still there is scarcel}- a doubt that no 
matter how bad Dickens found matters, his pen 
would have been palsied if he had not " lied 
just a little." The writer has not seen the 
work in which he tells how Mark Tapley visited 
Cairo and had the ague, and how he and his 
companion were visited by the leadnig politi- 
cian and stump speakers of Southern Illinois ; 
how the stump speaker talked in the '• Home- 
in-the-Settin'-Sun " st3'le, and then spit over the 
prosti'ate Martin, at a crack in the floor ten 
feet awa}' and hit the crack, and assured him he 
might lie easy on his blanket, as he would not 
spit on him, etc., etc. When we read all this 
rather coarse kind of stuif as a boy, we thoi^ght 
it rather smart and funn}'. Mark and his friend, 
it seems, came to Cairo in order to have the 
chills — all the way from England. A long dis- 
tance to come for what they could have pro- 
cured a much stronger article of thousands of 
miles nearer home. But the}' were here for 
that purpose, says the veracious author, and 
while here they described the kind of acquaint- 
ances they associated with and formed. Now 
any Cairoite can to-day go to London and find, 
if his tastes so run, an infinitely worse crowd, 
more vile, more squalid, dirtier, and in short 
the very abomination and indescribable dregs 
of humanity. What a traveler's eyes sees de- 
pends upon the traveler, much more than on 
what is spread before him, panorama-like as 
he moves along. Out of all the Southern Illi- 
nois and Cairo people the traveler met and 
associated with here, there is not the picture of 
one that any here would read and say that is 
so-and-so. even Maj. Challop, the Home-iu-the- 



140 



HISTOEY OF CAIRO. 



Settin'-Sun fellow, the leading politician with 
whoin the travelers conversed in a very 
idiotic fashion ou Grovernment, is an unrec- 
ognizable, not known to a living soul ; but when 
the traveler walked ashore and describes the 
empty building (the}' were certainly here in 
1842), and says " the most abject and forlorn 
among them was called, with great propriety, 
the Bank and National Credit Office. It had 
some feeble props about it, but was settling 
deep down in the mud. past all recover}'." 
That is not a very extravagant picture of the 
real case of Holbrook's bank and where it went 
to. So deeply was that South Sea Bubble hur- 
ried, exploded or evaporated, about the very 
time Dickens penned these lines, that its ghost 
has never been seen even in the region or at 
the hour when " graveyards yawn." And if 
Dickens was right about its settling in the mud 
and ooze, so be it. One thing is certain, this 
is the only real account of what did ever be- 
come of that enormous swindle. 

The man next in order, and, perhaps, the 
next in celebrity, who was at one time a tempo- 
rary resident of Cairo, was W. H. Russell, bet- 
ter known all over this country as Bull Bun 
Bussell, the celebrated war correspondent of 
the London Times. He was stationed here in 
1861. and because he was an Englishman, or 
because he represented the far-off London 
Times, or because this country just at that time 
was deeply engaged in playing sycophant for 
fear of the growl of the English lion, or may- 
hap for all these reasons combined, our mast- 
fed military commanders in and about Cairo 
were doing the very best toadying to this John 
Bull that they could conceive of. They must 
have supposed that Bull Bun would write to 
the Queen, and especially mention the fact that 
Colonel or General So-and-so was a great friend 
of England, and the only way to keep him in a 
good humor and prevent his getting " mad " 
and eventually eating Britain's Isle, would be to 
recosfnize him or the United States, or both, and 



not to recognize Jeff Davis, who was all the 
time hanging on a " sour apple tree." For all 
this coarse, clumsy, and rather disgusting syco- 
phancy, Bussell wrote to the London Times 
fairly taking the hide off these fellows, describ- 
ing them, giving the names of many of the 
most prominent, as coarse, vulgar, ignorant 
louts, who smelt of the stables, even through 
all their new, cheap tinsel and military toggery. 
He criticized unmercifully, and, no doubt, 
justly, their display of military knowledge in 
every department. In the high privates of the 
army he thought he could plainly see the germ 
from which a strong army might be made, but 
evidently in the commanders he could not 
speak of them without thinking of the toady- 
ing they had just been giving him, and his 
patience was at once goue. 

As to the uatives, or the home talent, or 
the native casual Cairoites, we may divide 
them, for convenience' sake, into the two fol- 
lowing natural divisions: the ante-bellum 
crowd, and then the remainder to the pres- 
ent day. 

And of the first, we may designate M. B. 
Harrell, L. G. Faxon and Ed Willett as the 
three names that always come to the lips 
when speaking of the early newspapers. 
Certainly, three more distinct characters, in 
the same line or profession, never met. They 
may be said to have practically been here 
together from the veiy first, and of all these, 
Harrell, so far as we can learn, was here some 
time before the other two were. He must 
have been here early in the " forties." His 
brother, Bailey Harrell, was one of the very 
earliest leading merchants here, and "Mose," 
as he is more widely known than by any other 
designation, was, perhaps, a boy about his 
brother's store when he was quite young, and 
it is reasonable to suppose that he took his 
first lessons in composition in copying or 
finally writing advertisements for the store. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



141 



We only claim to be guessing at all this, but 
if here was where he got his education, then 
he went to a school that has been seldom 
equalled. In the old files of a Cairo j)aper, 
we find an advertisement of B. S. Harrell's 
store, and the whole thing convinces us that 
either Mose or Bailey wrote it. 

There were biit two merchants here, rivals, 
and both doing business under the same roof. 
One was a Yankee, the other Harrell. The 
Yankee brought on a lai'ge stock, and adver- 
tised in the Cairo Delta, that he had bought 
his stock for cash, and could, therefore, sell 
lower by far than any one else. In the very 
next paper, Harrell's advertisement appeared, 
in these words: "Now, these goods I can and 
will sell lower than my competitor, for the 
simple reason that I bought them all on 
credit, and that, too, without the slightest 
intention of ever paying a cent for them. " 

Mose was here during the long reign of 
idleness, when the whole community was 
given over to practical joking and fun of all 
kinds. He was the first telegi'aph operator, 
when but a single wire stretched its way to 
this then outside of the telegraphic world. 
He says he was at last relieved from the ar- 
duous duties of receiving the two or three 
dispatchs that sometimes came daily, " for 
shutting up the office" and going courting 
one night. It is much more probable tha^ 
he was discharged for some of his pranks, of 
which his supply was inexhaustible, as the 
following specimen may show: A boat had 
landed on its way fi'om New Orleans to St. 
Louis. Among the many deck passengers who 
sought the top of the levee for supplies, 
bread, bologna, etc., was one poor fellow 
whom the boat left. He had failed to reach 
the wharf in time to get aboard. He was in 
sore distress; his family were on board the 
boat, and what would he do? Mose, of 
course, met him like a good Samaritan; 



showed him the wire and the poles, and ex- 
plained that it was made on purpose to send 
things to St. Louis. The institution was 
new then, and little understood. The man 
listened, and begged Mose to send him on at 
once. Mose explained to him how he would 
have to jump at each pole, and the man 
thought he could do it. The dupe was then 
prepared for the trip by his friend. The 
bread, cheese, bologna, etc., were made into 
a pack and carefully tied upon ,his back. 
The telegraph-climbers were placed upon his 
feet, in order that he might climb to the wire 
and get on. But for the life of him he 
could not climb the pole; he worked by the 
hour, sometimes digging into the pole and 
sometimes in his own legs, and only from 
sheer exhaustion did he finally give up in 
despair. Mose then told him to go up town 
and find Corcoran, who was the keeper of the 
ladder that was used by the ladies .to climb 
with when they wanted to travel by tele- 
graph. The poor fellow hunted until he 
found Corcoran, and told him what he 
wanted. He was informed that the ladder 
had been broken the day befoi-e by Barnum's 
fat woman going up on it, and finally per- 
suaded the dupe that the wire was considered 
dangerous ever since the fat woman and her 
seven Saratoga trunks had passed over it, 
and that he had probably better wait until 
another boat came along, and then he could 
go to St. Louis in peace and safety. 

Mound City at one time — very foolish it 
all now looks — concluded to rival Cairo, not 
rival, but simply distance and build all the 
great city up there. They probably found 
some man, as Cairo found Holbrook, and at 
it they went, spending money x'ight and left 
at an immense rate. \Vhoever was running 
Mound City was smarter than the one that 
ran Cairo, because, as soon as matters were 
under full 'headway, he imported a news- 



143 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



paper outfit, came to Cairo, and hired M. B. 
HaiTell at a big salary to go up there and 
abuse Cairo. Although the salary was large, 
Harrell earned every dollar, and more too; 
for instance: 

" We attended a meeting of the Cairo City 
Council Monday night. The room being 
well warmed, and a bottle of Fair's Ague 
Tonic being provided for each Alderman, 
and an ounce of quinine for the Board gen- 
erally (from which the Clerk would occasion- 
ally take a spoonful). The fever and ague by 
which the majority were at the tiiue afflicted, 
interfered only immaterially with the buoi- 
ness. If anybody wants to see 'great shakes, ' 
let 'em attend a Cairo Council meeting." 

Or this : 

" The Cairoites, in imitation of the Yankee 
at sea, have provided themselves with a good 
supply of soap, so that, if the river over- 
whelms them, they can wash themselves 
ashore. If they should be compelled to use 
it, the town of Columbus, just below, would 
be overflowed by an awful nasty sea of soap- 
suds." 

Or again: 

" A fire company has been organized at 
Cairo, and where's the necessity for it ? In 
case of a fire, just let them knock the plugs 
out of the levee sewers, and the river water 
will fly all over the village." 

Cairo employed Faxon to stand in front of 
these projectiles, and do the best he could to 
defend Cairo, but this all only resulted in the 
two rival towns coming out like the Kilkenny 
cats, only so much the worse that there evi- 
dently was not so much as the bob-end of a 
tail left to either. It was all quite comical 
at the time, and no doubt the people of the 
two towns looked forward eagerly each week 
to see what next was coming. The serious 
side of the story was, that often the worst of 
these squibs were taken up and reprinted 



over the North, as true pictures of Cairo and 
Mound City, as drawn by their own people. 
Up to the war, this trio, Harrell, Faxon and 
Willett, were the Cairo and Mound City 
editors. They started papers, changed sides, 
and bobbed around, but it was one contin- 
uous circle, and generally all on the Cairo 
press, and they seem to have indulged, to 
their hearts' content, in lampooning each 
other and each other's towns, when they hap- 
pened to be in dififerent villages. 

The compositors of that day seemed to 
deem it a duty devolving upon them to fur- 
nish their full quota of unaccountable human 
beings. They had probably caught the in- 
fection fi'om ^either Willett, Faxon or Har- 
rell. A few specimens: 

A printer who worked here as early as 
1848, was said to have been the fastest hand- 
pressman of his time in the United States. 
He was said to have worked off 800 impres- 
sion of a sheet 24x36, on a Washington 
hand- press, in two hours and twenty minutes. 
This was equivalent to an impression every 
ten and two-fifths seconds. It is probably 
well there were no other such pressmen, or 
there would never have arisen the necessity 
fur the perfected Hoe press. 

A compositor in the Sun office in Cairo, in 
1850, named Frank Urguhart, could set 15, - 
000 long primer and brevier in ten hours, 
and always got roaring drunk after supper, 
but would appear at his case as usual the 
next morning, ready to do as big a day's 
work as ever. He was wholly worthless, 
however. He married a Cairo girl in a short 
time after he came here, lived with her two 
weeks, then abandoned her and has never 
been heard of since. 

E. F. Walker a compositor who worked 
immediately before and during the early 
years of the war, was quite a character. 
For six months or more he was planning a 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



143 



week's hunt in the neighboring woods of 
Missouri. Practicing great economy, he 
finally fonnd himself the possessor of $80. 
He bought a $1.50 shot-gun, four ounces of 
powder and a pound of shot. He then sup- 
plie<l his commissai'y department with a half- 
dozen pigs' feet, a pound of crackers, two 
gallons of whisky, a horse-blanket and a 
second-hand wheelbaiTow. Thus equipped, 
on the morning of July 4, 1862, he bade the 
office boys good-bye, and started for the 
ferry-boat. He halted his wheelbarrow be- 
fore every saloon on the jlevee, stepped in 
to take a drink and bid the boys good-bye. 
The ensuing night, he tumbled into the 
office, drunk as a lord, swearing he could 
not get oflF, because the fenyboat I'efused to 
cany his ammunition ! Nest morning, he and 
his wheelbarrow were again making the 
rounds of the levee. The day again closed 
on a drunken Walker. He explained that 
the ferry-boat multiplied itself so often, and 
ran in so many different directions, he was 
afraid he might take the wrong boat and lose 
his wheelbarrow. On the third day, he got 
drunk again, but, to .the end that he might 
start early and sober, he slept all night on 
the wharf in his wheelbarrow. The fourth 
and fifth days were a repetition of his first 
and second, but on the seventh day he kept 
himself drunk all day and all night, waiting, 
he said, for the arrival of a ferry-boat that 
was not given to the insane habit of running 
' sideways. ' Early on the morning of 'the 
eighth day, he happened to leave his wheel- 
barrow and accouterments unguarded Re- 
turning to search for them, they were not to 
be found. Ed Willett had triindled them 
across the wharf boat, and to this day they 
lie on the bottom of the Ohio Eiver, where 
he dumped them. Walker, having only 40 
cents of his $80 left, couldn't secure another 
outfit, sobered up, and returned to his case I 



again. He was abundantly satisfied with re- 
sults, however, and always afterward, when 
speaking of festive occasions, would Jdeclare 
his ' great seven days' hunt in the Missom-i 
bottoms ' the happiest interval of his exist- 
ence. AValker was a congenial soul; some- 
what en-atic, but always harmless. He has 
long since passed over to the happy hunting 
ground, for the full enjoyment of which, it is 
quite apparent, he was only preparing him- 
self in his great hunt here. 

In the early days of the war, Jimmy 
Stockton, afterward editor of the Grand 
Tower Item, was a compositor in M. B. Har- 
rell's Gazette office. At the time the officer 
in command of the post in Cairo had tried 
to suppress the Gazette, and had ordered the 
editor to submit all matter to him (a full ac- 
count of Avhich we give in another column), 
and the way Hai-rell got around the dilem- 
ma, so tickled poor Stockton, that he got 
more than glorious. He had spent the even- 
ing at Dr. Jim McGuire's, and had repaired 
to his room rather late, which was on the 
fourth floor, just above the composition 
room. 

The printers reported the following cir- 
cumstances: About 11 o'clock at night, a 
compositor, working at his case, heard a 
whiz, and saw a dark object flit past his win- 
dow, which was in the thii-d story. Hasten- 
ing down stairs to see what had happened, 
what was his amazement to find Jimmy 
Stockton, stretched at full length on the top 
of a pile of empty barrels, and sound 
asleep! While leaning out of the fourth 
story window, he had lost his balance; fall- 
ing a distance of about twenty feet, he struck 
the roof of a two-story addition, and rolling 
off, alighted on the barrels and went to sleep. 
But for his limberness, he would have been 
crushed to a pulp, but no serious injury was 
sustained. "Well, now, do you know," said 



144 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Jimmy, when the boys had finally aroused 
him and got him down off the barrels, " that 
I di-eamed I was on top of a tall ladder; that 
a sow uptripped it— and now I come to think 
of it, it wasn't all a dream, boys! but where's 
that sow — and the ladder?" 

The fever of life has passed with poor 
Stockton, and" to those who knew him best, 
the memory of his big heart and warm soul 
will always come sunshiny throughout their 
lives. 

It was poor old Sam Hart, peace to his re- 
mains, who was hard of hearing, and was 
always imagining, when he could not hear 
what was being said, that the other boys 
were talking about him, and over this he was 
in constant hot water. He was getting old, 
and was very nervous and sometimes peevish. 
He would imagine more than enough, but 
then the others, perceiving his oddities, would 
constantly add to his sources of worry and 
vexation. Matters finally culminated in Hart 
making up his mind absolutely to challenge 
to the death Joe "Wiley, as he appeared to be 
about the worst, and was the fittest, in the 
old man's estimation, for an example. He 
called upon his friend, another 'printer, and 
told him his unalterable resolution, and re- 
quested his assistance. This was promptly 
given, and all the minutiae arranged for the 
combat, which was to take place just outside 
the Mississippi levee after sundown. Two 
immense horse- pistols were procured, and the 
parties were to repair to the spot in a" state 
of scatteredness, for fear of drawing the at- 
tention of the polic^e. It seems all were in 
the joke except poor Hart. Parties were 
placed for the fight, and Hart was awful 
nervous, and he told j^his friend he expected 
his time had come. AVhen the weapons were 
handed them, it was with difficulty Hart 
could hold his in both his hands, so very 
nervous had he become. They were ordered 



to stand and await orders to fire, but Hart 
knew ^he could not hear good, and so, the 
moment he got his, he raised it in both 
hands andblaz — no, snapped. But matters 
were again adjusted, 'and he was told he must 
wait for the word to fire. The pistol was 
again placed in his hands, and again he pro- 
ceeded at once to raise it with both hands, 
and fi — no, snap again, and he dropped the 
weapon and fled for life toward town. He 
told his second two or three different stories 
about the matter. First, he was positive 
there was a general conspiracy to mui'der 
him, and, second, that he saw the police com- 
ing, and he thought it all great foolishness, 
anyhow. 

But of the trio of the original Cairo journal- 
ists— Harrell, Faxon and Willetfc. It is diffi- 
cult to di-aw any comparison or parallel be- 
tween any number of men, all of whom are 
wholly unlike. These three men were alike in 
this only — they were all writers. The writer 
of these lines never knew Willett personally, 
yet, in some way, he has formed the opinion 
of the man, to the effect that he was purely 
a literary man in his nature, and always 
thought his chief talent was as a poet, and 
hence he wrote poetry for pleasure, and as a 
rule it turned out to be mere doggerel, but 
that, upon literary subjects, where he some- 
times drove his pen with a master's hand, 
he always felt he was a mere drudge, debas- 
ino- the fine horse Pegasus into the meanest 
of dray horses. That he was of a nervous, 
sensitive turn of mind, and the rough-and- 
tumble bouts that Harrell and Faxon some- 
times gave him nearly killed him. Willett 
left Cairo before or during the very early 
part of the war, and is said now to be on the 
staff of the New York Herald. 

Of Faxon we know more, both personally 
and by reading his writings. His pen 
bristled like the "fretful porcupine," and he 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



145 



shot the pointed quills sometimes in every 
direction. His talents were good, his nature 
genial and full of sunshine. He is living 
now in 'Paducah, Ky., as stated elsewhere, 
and may he be yet spared to develop fully to 
the world what we believe to be truly in him 
in the way of literary talent. 

Of M. B. Harrell it may well be said, there 
is no name yet so impressed upon Cairo and 
its very existence as his — its mark is, every- 
where, and must co -exist with the city. After 
a long and thorough acquaintance with him, 
we have no hesitation in pronouncing him of 
the highest order of talent among the writers 
of his day. Of all the hosts that have vent- 
ui'ed their editorial fortunes in Cairo, they 
found Harrell the Nestor when they came, 
and they left him in undisputed possession 
of his title and crown. 

Mr. Harrell came to Cairo about 1845, a 
mere boy, to do errands about his brother's 
store and learn to be a clerk, if he developed 
talent enough for such promotion. His in- 
stincts [took him, at an early day, to the 
printing office, and here he went to school, 
and soon mastered the business to that ex- 
tent that he was an invaluable part of the 
office. "When the war broke out, he was 
editor and proprietor of the Cairo Gazette, 
and quietly continued its publication after 
the military had |taken possession of Cairo. 

As to some of his experiences at that 
time, we permit IVIr. Harrell to tell himself: 

" In the early stages of the war, when 
nearly every prominent Democrat was in the 
Old Capitol Prison, and Logan was watched, 
and suspicioned Democratic editors in Egypt 
had a rough time of it. I was seated at my 
desk in the Gazette office one morning, when 
in stalked Col. Buford, attended by an Ad- 
jutant, and both of them in the dangling, 
jangling war accouterments in which showy 
warriors were wont to array themselves. ' Is 



the editor in ?' asked the Colonel, in a tone 
of voice suggestive of hissing bombs, sword- 
whizzes and the spluttering of fired grenade 
fuzes. 'He is^ sir,' I replied, with a not- 
able tremor of voice; 'I respond to that de- 
signation. What is your pleasui'e, sir?' 'I 
have this to say to you, sir, and mark me 
well, that there may be no misunderstanding. 
These are perilous times, sir; we have 
enemies at our front, sir, and more cowardly 
ones in our rear, even in our midst. Upon 
these latter I am resolved to lay a strong 
hand. 1 have to say to you, then, that if you 
publish anything in your paper that shall 
tend to discourage enlistments, encourage 
desertions, or in any manner reflect upon the 
war policies of the administration, I shall 
take possession of youi- office, sir, and put 
you in irons.' 

" ' I beg to assure you. ' I replied, as soon 
as I could command composure enough to 
speak at ail, ' I feel no inclination to offend 
in that direction; but how can I shape my 
editorial labors so as to have a guarantee of 
your approval ? ' 

" ' Submit your matter to me, sir. If I find 
it unobjectionable, I'll return it; otherwise, 
I'll destroy it.' 

" Then, with the bearing of a Scipio — a 
' see-the-conquering-herocomes ' gait and 
caiTiage — the Colonel and his Adjutant left 
the office. 

" The next day, and the next, and the day 
after that, I laid before the Colonel a great 
deal more selected matter than I had pub- 
lished during the previous quarter. I clipped 
columns of stuff I had no idea of pub- 
lishing; tore several leaves from the Census 
Eetui-ns of 1860; levied heavy contributions 
from the stah.i jokes found in Ayers' Al- 
manac; long editorials from the Si Louis 
Rejjublican : full pages from De Bow's Sta- 
tistical Review of the Southern Cotton Crop; 



146 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



'takes' of Ed Willett's newspaper poetry, 
and massive rolls of matter that I felt certain 
nobody ever had or ever could read without 
mental retching, and all this stuff I ' respect- 
fully submitted for the Colonel's perusal and 
approval.' Palpable as they were, the Col- 
onel, evidently, did not ' tumble ' to my tac- 
tics. On the evenings of the first and 
second days, the installments were duly re- 
tiurned, stamped with evidence of approval. 
On the evening of the third day, the roll of 
copy was returned unopened, but accompan- 
ied by the following explanatory and ad- 
monitory note. 

"Editor Oazette: Finding that a close pre- 
supervision of the contents of your paper involves 
an expenditure of more paper and labor than I can 
bestow, and much more than I anticipated, I return 
to-day's installment unopened; exercise your cus- 
tomary discretion and allow the latent Unionism in 
j'our composition to assert itself, and the result, I 
dare say, will be as satisfactory to me as it will be 
creditable to j'^ourself . 

(Signed) B. 

In the early part of the war, Cairo devel- 
oped to be just what its very first discoverers 
foresaw, namely, that in case of war it would 
be the one great, important strategic point — 
the key to all the military movements in the 
vast Mississippi Valley. Daniel P. Cook, the 
Delegate from the Territory of Illinois in 
Congress, and who framed the bill for its 
admission as a State into the Union, based 
his report and his spepch in that behalf, 
upon the peculiar position of the Territory, 
and as clearly foretold, as did the Avar 
demonstrate, that Illinois was the natiiral 
keystone State to the gi-eat Northwest. From 
the early part of 1863 until the conclusion 
of the late war, the whole world looked with 
eager interest to Cairo. It was here that all 
eyes turned, in the hope of some word that 
would decisively settle the great and bloody 
questions that were raging so fiercely. 

This brought here a swarm of correspond- 
ents, men representing at one time nearly every 



leading paper in the whole country; and to 
give some idea of the magnitude of the in- 
crease of news that was fvumished at this 
point, it is only necessary to say that from 
four to six telegraph operators were found 
necessary, and that often and often the news 
wires were doubled, and kept busily running 
night and day, and then frequently great 
rolls of copy were taken from the hook the 
next day that it was impossible to pass over 
the wires in time for the paper to go to press. 
The writer of these lines well remembers 
that at one time there were twenty-five men 
here who represented these difierent news- 
papers, and whose sole business was to allow 
nothing to escape them, and send it by light- 
ning dispatch to their respective papers. 
There were great jealousies and rivalries 
among the different representatives of rival 
papers. A correspondent would about as 
soon die as to allow his rival, or anybody 
else, to get up a " scoop " on him while he 
slept or closed his ears, and there was an 
equal rivalry among the respective papers 
backing each one of them. These corre- 
spondents, many of them, had instructions to 
spare no expense in getting news. " If 
necessary to get the latest and important 
news, charter an engine or a steamboat, and 
draw on this office," was substantially [the 
instructions that several of these news- 
gatherex-s had. It was the correspondent 
who failed to get the latest important news 
— no matter how much money he saved — who 
was always summarily dismissed. And of 
course at that time, in this country, the New 
York Herald had the prestige for enterprise 
among all the papers. There was no other 
institution in the country until the war, that 
thought it worth while to try to compete with 
James Gordon Bennett; but the war brought 
much change iiere as well as in other things, 
and made many papers quite as daring in 



I. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



14-; 



enterprise as the Herald. One of the pranks 
sometimes played by correspondents upon 
each other, was to race for the telegraph 
office, say just after a battle, and the first 
one who got the wire, by the rules of the 
office, could hold it until his 'entire dispatch 
was sent. They would thus have a tremen- 
dous race as to who should get there first, 
and then it was an immense joke if he could 
hold it until, say, 4 o'clock next morning, 
when the morning jDapers all had to go to 
press. All the people of Cairo will remem- 
ber Frank Chapman, who came to Cairo as 
the correspondent of the New York Herald. 
This story was told of him: There had been 
a battle, and it was ten miles away to the 
telegi-aph office. He happened to be 
mounted on the fastest horse, and under whip 
and spur started as soon as the result of the 
fight was known. He was followed Jin full 
chase by the others, and it was a break-neck 
race; but Chapman got there first, but it was 
only by a few moments; in short, he was so 
closely followed, that he rushed into the 
office (none of them had their dispatches 
written out yet), and looking about, the only 
thing he saw was a copy of the Bil)le lying 
there. He seized that; opened at the fiist 
chapter of Genesis, and hastily with his pen- 
cil wrote above " To the New York Herald" 
and passing it to the operator, said simply, 
" Send that," and then sat down leisurely to 
write out his dispatch. It is difficult to 
imagine what must have been the thoughts 
of the news editor of the Herald, when the 
Bible was thus being fired at it over the 
wires, as it came chapter after chapter; in that 
regular order that indicated that probably the 
whole book was behind. But when Chapman 
had written out his account, he passed that 
to the operator, and it is very probable the 
first word of the real account of the battle 



told the story of the trick to the New York 
office. 

Poor Frank Chapman! The war over, he 
settled down, and tried to make a livinc in 
Cairo, by first one thing and then another. 
He organized the first Cairo Board of Trade, 
and was the first Secretary. Most unfortu- 
nately for him he was a splendid ventriloquist. 
In 1870, he went to Chicago, and there, after 
long suffering and great privations, died. 
The Herald had here, and in the field ad- 
jacent to this place, at one time or another, 
a dozen or more different correspondents. 
Among them the writer well remembers I. N. 
Higgins, now the editor of the San Francisco 
Morning Call. A brilliant writer, and one 
of the most genial fellows in the world. 
Newt! all hail! Another member of the 
Herald force was a Mr. Knox, who has since 
traveled pretty much all over the world, and 
published several books, one or more of 
which were written for the edification of the 
youths of the nation, and have earned a wide 
and solid fame for him. 

Ralph Kelly was the Cairo war correspond- 
ent of the New Orleans Picayune ; one of the 
most deceiving and one of the most brilliant 
and genial fellows that ever graced the town 
of Cairo. The writer of these lines had 
noticed Mr. Kelly in passing about the 
streets, and he was so very odd-lookino- in 
his make-up, that he gut to inquiring of 
every one he met, Who is that? After a long 
pursuit of this kind, he gained the desired 
information, and his informant not only 
gave the information, but followed it up with 
an introduction. Mr. Kelly was of Milesian 
extraction (which was plainly to be seen), 
and had been reared from early boyhood in 
the Picayune office, until he was about as 
much one of its fixtm-es as was any other part 
of the establishment. His whole life was 



148 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



centered there; be knew no other home, 
guardian, parents, or, apparently, place to 
go, either before or after quitting this world. 
He probably did not form twenty intimate or 
general acquaintances while in Cairo. In 
the presence of strangers, he stood mute, and 
sometimes appeared almost idiotic, and if, 
under such circumstances, he tried to talk and 
make himself intelligible, he apparently only 
made matters so much the worse; yet, locked 
up in a room with some congenial, well-un- 
derstood friend, or place before him pen and 
paper and instantly he was much as one in- 
spired. To know Ralph Kelly even slightly, 
was to read over and over, every day you 
were with him, the story of Oliver Goldsmith, 
and to recall what Johnson said, when he 
called him the " poll-parrot who wrote like 
inspiration. " 

Ralph Kelly! Have you gone with the 
fleeting years, and, like them, gone forever? 
If so it be, we would place one little faded 
flower to thy memory, typical of as pure a 
friendship as ever one being held for another. 

E. H. Whipple was the Cairo war corre- 
spondent of the Chicago Tribune. We re- 
member him as a good-looking, round-faced 
young man, full of the energy and wakeful- 
ness that always got the latest news, and was 
certain it should reach the Tribune before he 
would sleep. He seemed to be a very retir- 
ing, quiet young man, and much to his 
credit it was, too, he did not join much in 
the convivialities that marked the existence 
of the Cairo life of most of the Bohemians. 
Mr. Whipple is now in some way connected 
with a detective agency in Chicago, a ad long 
since has given his Fabers to his babies for 
toys. 

L. Curry represented the Cincinnati Com- 
mercial. A man of an eventful and a very 
sad domestic history. His wife, whom he 
married at the age of eighteen, when he was 



barely twenty-one, dying with her child 
in about twelve months after marriage, un- 
der the saddest circumstances. Mr. Curry 
was a young man of good education, and had 
been reared under the most fortunate circum- 
stances. He was an excellent wi'iter, a warm- 
hearted and most exemplary young man in 
bis habits. He made so few acquaintances 
in Cairo — owing to the facts above referred 
to — that there are very few people here who 
will remember him. His history, after leav- 
ing here, is not known to the writer. 

Charles Phillips represented the Chicago 
Times. He was quite a young man, but his 
writings came from his pen rapidly, and as 
finished, almost, as a stereotype. His cult- 
ure was unusual for one of his age — prob- 
ably twenty-four. The writer knows nothing 
of his history, except what he saw of him in 
Cairo. A more unassuming young man never 
lived, and his talents in his chosen line of 
profession were of the very highest order. 
He was a consistent, practical and conscien- 
tious Christian. He was very quiet in his 
manners, and his whole nature was such that 
he could not intrude his opinions or person. 
He died in the early part of 1864, we believe, 
at the home of his parents or friends, some- 
where near Metropolis, 111., but of this (that 
is, the residence of his friends) we are not 
certain. He died of consumption; and for 
months, befoi'e he left Cairo and went home 
to die, we confess it was one of the saddest 
sights we ever saw, to see him suffering, 
working and wasting away, yet uncomplain- 
ingly working on, until his pen fell from his 
nerveless grasp, and the young life that 
would have been worth so much to the world 
went to sleep in death. Charley Phillips, 
may your sad and cruel wrongs, sufferings 
and untimely taking-off here in this world, 
have been a million of million times com- 
pensated in the next! 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



149 



H. C. Bradsby succeeded Mr. Phillips as 
the representative of the Chicago Times, and 
also enlarged the duties, and represented the 
Missouri Republican. His duties to the lat- 
ter were to furnish at least two letters by 
mail per week, in addition to duplicating 
the Times and Republican dispatches. We 
would not further speak of him here, but we 
realize a public sentiment will expect it, and 
to some extent, therefore, reqiiire it. He had 
none of Mr. Phillips religion or morals, 
and but little of his culture. He was at 
times (very brief) brilliant, but as a rule 
was more marked for daring than genius. 
It would be difficult to find two men more 
the perfect opposites of each other than were 
these two correspondents of the Times. Mr. 
B. continued to represent his two papers until 
after the war was all over, and Cairo had 
long ceased to be a great [news point. He 
was then, awhile, editing or writing for first 
one paper and then another, and at one time 
or another edited or wrote for every paper pub- 
lished in Cairo during his residence here, 
except the Olive Branch. In his writings, 
he sometimes made people laiigh, sometimes 
stare, and sometimes squirm, and he seemed 
ever equally indiflferent as to which result 
flowed out from his pen. His character 
always seemed an inconsistent one; at one 
moment, perhaps, a great egotist, at the next, 
the picture of self-humility; and these were 
often and often exemplified in his writings. 
He had the art complete of making enemies, 
and holding them, when once made, perpet- 
ually; and his friends, therefore, were never 
numerous, but in a jVery few instances firm 
and stanch. What education he got (though 
nominally a collegiate) was in the columns 
of the different papers he worked upon dur- 
ing the twenty-five years intervening between 
his first experience upon the proofs of a 
country press and the present time. He gave 



considerable attention, in a scattered, inco- 
herent kind of way, to the scientific writers 
of the past quarter of a century; and has just 
now learned enough to cease to be dogmatic 
in his opinions — to believe little and know 
less. 

W. B. Kerney was a long time in Cairo, 
commencing here as the agent of the As- 
sociated Press; afterward represented the 
Chicago Evening Journal, and then the 
Chicago Tribune. He was an odd little 
fellow, and quite as clever, when you came 
to know him better, as the best of them. 
He seems to have been, all his young life, 
much given to fall in with isms, and when 
once he had given anything of this kind his 
approval, he, for awhile, at least followed 
it with remarkable devotion. He was an 
honest, thoroughly good man in every re- 
spect. He was very industrious, and atten- 
tive to his bu.siness, and was probably the 
most even-tempered man that ever lived. 
Nothing could swerve him from the even tem- 
per of his way, or provoke him into an angry 
retort. He and his good little wife could 
almost always be seen together, and it was 
beautiful to see the rivalry between them, as 
to which could most admire the other. They 
were childless, and firm believers in the effi- 
cacy of the cold water cure for all the ills of 
life. They had been most unfortunate, in 
losing .several children dying in infancy. 
Upon one occasion, the man and wife were 
fcick, and they were doctoring each other with, 
water, and eating about an apple each a day. 
Fortunately for them both, Dr. Dunning 
happened to be called in. He took in the 
situation, and ordered a good- sized sirloin 
beefsteak, overlooked its preparation, and 
made them eat it. To their amazement, they 
liked it, and they were soon well — better, in 
fact, than they had been for years — con- 
tinued to eat good, nutritious food, and the 



150 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



last accounts the writer had of them, they had 
three or four as fine, healthy childi-en as you 
would want to see. 

In all this vast amount of newspaper 
births and deaths, there were developed but 
two men who were pui'ely and only publish- 
ers. Men who gave this department their 
undivided attention, and depended wholly 
upon hiring all the writing that they wanted. 
These were Thomas Lewis and H. L. Good- 
all. Each had a long career here, and each 
gave many evidences that under different cir- 
cumstances and suiToundings they might 
have built up great institutions. Goodall 
could do the best combining and planning, 
but Lewis had the nerve for any venture that 
promised, even remotely, to pay as an invest- 
ment. When Mr. Lewis quit his old favorite, 
the Democrat, he seems to have made up his 
mind to quit the business, but not so with 
Mr. Goodall. He is now in Chicago, and is 
still a publisher, and we are more than glad 
to learn, at last a successful one. May his 
shadow never grow less! 

In its proper place, perhaps, but the truth 
is, the very last place in the rear column, 
was always the best place for " Old Rogers," 
one of the most remarkable tramp printers 
even Cairo ever had, with all its hosts of distin- 
guished characters in this line. Rogers 
was a very good workman, but his habits 
were to prefer dirt and filth to fine linen 
and the breezes of Araby. He was a 
tramp printer, with all the term implies, and 
a great deal more, too. He was here about 
1S60, and made Cairo a central point in his 
rounds. Everybody then knew him, and un- 
derstood well that he considered it would be 
a hanging crime in himself to be caught 
even passably clean in his person, and so- 
briety and cleanliness were much the same 
thing with old Rogers. Yet at periods, he 
had to sober uj) enough to work, but this 



necessity never arose as to his habits of per- 
son. He was smart, quick-witted, and much 
enjoyed telling how he often astonished and 
disgusted strangers, and if he was kicked off 
a train or boat, he relished telling the cir- 
cumstance immensely. 

On one occasion, he had just arrived in 
Cairo from Evansville, and was surrounded 
by Postmaster Len Faxon, Deputy Bob Jen- 
nings, Sam Hall, Joe Abell and two or three 
others, all anxious to hear Rogers tell some of 
his recent experiences. " I'm just in from 
Evansville, boys," said Rogers, ",and, great 
Caesar, I'm hungry. I was put ashore from 
a flat-boat at Golcouda, because, as the crew 
said, I was too rich for their blood, and so 
I've just footed it all the way from there to 
Cairo, and if I've eaten a mouthful in four 
days, why, then I've eaten a whole army 
mule in the last two minutes. By George, 
to come right down to it, boys, I'm starv- 
ing." 

" Well," said Willett, giving the boys a 
wink, " if I was real hungry, I'd call on 
Capritz; order a baked bass; a fry of oysters; 
a plain omelet, and " 

"But," chimed in Rogers, "I ain't got any 
money." 

" If I were you," said Sam Hall, paying 
no attention to Rogers' impecuniosity, " I'd 
step into Weldon's; get a porterhouse steak 
with mushrooms or onions, some boiled eggs, 
milk toast, and " 

" Oh, boys, don't," cried Rogers, in evi- 
dent agony; "you don't know how you're 
torturing me. I'm awful hungry, but I hain't 
got any " 

" I don't know," interrupted Abell, " but 
a good lay-out for a real hungry man would 
be quail, nicely browned, on toast; quail on 
toast, mind you; a cujd of good, hot choco- 
late; white hot rolls, with country butter, 
and " 




^^^^^i^^ 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



153 



" Oh, ynra — um — yiim!" muttered Rogers, 
laying his hands upon his stomach, and look- 
ing as if he would Jtrade his hope in heaven 

for even a raw turnip; "oh, boys, " 

. " Or," quickly added Jennings, " a cup of 
hot coffee — amber-colored Mocha — with gen- 
uine cream; a fried squirrel, or baked prairie 
chicken; cranberry sauce, of course, and a 
rich oyster stew to commence on, would be, 
for a real hungry man, mind you, about as 
toothsome a " 

" Oh, boys, " exclaimed the tortured 
Rogers, "hush! hush! for God's sake; for 
you'i'e killing me! " And it much appeared 
as if, for once in his life, the poor man was 
telling' the truth about somethingr to eat. 
But an hour later, Rogers was the happiest 
man in town. The boys had staked him with 
a quarter, and with this he had got a pig's 
foot and three 5 -cent di'inks. His hunger 
had been appeased, and calling Joe Abell 
aside, he asked him, in the strictest confi- 
dence, if he knew of a cheap shebang, where 
a pig's foot would be considered a legal ten- 
der for a glass of whisky. 

Among the many different reporters on 
the Democrat was one named Beatty, who 
will be remembered by the old Cairoites 
as a round, red-faced young man. He 
commenced his career in this place as 
foreman of the Morning News, and was for 
some time local, under John A. Hull, on that 
paper, and was then transferred to the Demo- 
crat. He left Cairo in the early part of 
1866, and found employment as a reporter on 
the Indianapolis Journal. He died in In- 
dianapolis in 1867. 

Gen. Schenck was stationed here a good 
while, and then seemed to loaf around some 
time after his post duties had ceased. Al- 
ways, when introduced, he would inform his 
new acquaintance that he was a near relative 
of Gen. Schenck's, of Ohio. For a longtime. 



he had been confidentially telling everybody 
in Cairo that he was expecting an important 
appointment from the President. He was 
watching the papers daily. One day. Gen. 
Sheridan and his escort fleet of steamers 
came up from New Orleans, and Gen. 
Schenek had a grand salute fired from the 
forts and all the guns in port, in honor of 
the great arrival. It so happened, that same 
day and about the same horn* of Sheridan's 
arrival, there came news that California had 
gone Democratic at an important election 
just held. The 'correspondent of the Times 
sent a flaming dispatch to his paper, which 
was duly published, announcing that Gen. 
Schenck was then firing a national salute in 
honor of the California victory, Schenck 
would, after this, tell over and over again, 
how his appointment had just gone to the 
Senate and while it was under considera- 
tion, the Chicago Times arrived, and, in the 
nick of time, forever ruined him. But there 
were many worse men in the army than poor 
Schenck, and if the correspondent' s si lly joke 
did really injure him, he has regretted it a 
thousand times. 

A reporter named Pratt was for some 
time connected with the Cairo papers, com- 
mencing with the Democrat, and continuing 
longer in that place than anywhere else. 
He sometimes wrote little innocent pieces of 
poetry, and the whole thing, probably, may 
be estimated by the title of one of his pieces, 
which was called "A Crack in the Win- 
dow." "When business grew dull in Cairo, 
Mr. Pratt we believe, went to some point 
in IMissouri, and was there a member of the 
rural press. 

John H. Oberly came here from Ohio, a 
young man, and by trade a practical printer. 
His first employment was on the Democrat, 
as general foreman of the press and job 
rooms; and after the retirement of Joel G. 

9 



154 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Morgan from the editorial chair, Mr. Oberly 

assumed this position, and for some time at- 
tended to both departments, and proving so 
successful a writer, he soon quit entirely the 
mechanical department, and became the gen- 
eral editor. With but limited school advanta- 
ges in early life, and having married when 
quite young, he was forced to early exertions 
for the support of a large young household,and 
at the same time prepare himself for those 
advances in his trade and profession that he 
has achieved. He was blest with one misfort- 
une to himself as a journalist; he could talk 
naturally well — we mean as a public speaker 
— and this soon inclined him to the stump, 
politics, and even some pretensions to state- 
craft, and he wasted some of the best years 
of his school life as a writer, in the State 
Legislature, and was afterward, by the ap- 
pointment of the Governor, one of the Rail- 
road Commissioners for the State of Illinois. 
His natural qualifications are good— much 
above the average. He is now engaged in 
publishing a daily Democratic paper in 
Bloomington, III, where, we learn, he is 
meeting with merited success. As a public, 
off-hand speaker, Mr. Oberly is much above 
the average — in fact, frequently strong, brill- 
iant and fascinating. This flatter talent 
seems to have been natural to him, and he 
has put it to much use the past few years, 
being called to many parts of the State to 
lecture and address public assemblies. For 
his real development in either line, his tal- 



ents have been too versatile, and in some re- 
spects this has been one of his misfortunes, 
as the human mind has always been so con- 
stituted that to achieve great success, it must 
focus upon one- single thing and burn itself 
out there, in order to invest it with those in- 
tellectual calcium lights that attract the 
world's attention. His social qualities and 
ties of friendship are strong, lasting and al- 
ways as true as steel ; but, on the other hand, 
when his ill-will has been once aroused, he 
fills the warmest wish of Dr. Johnson, who 
said he "loved a good hater." He was always 
very popular with the people of Cairo, as is 
evidenced by the fact that they gave him 
every oflfice, commencing with Mayor of the 
city, that he ever asked for. Mr. Oberly 
stayed in Cairo much longer than did the 
average writers or editors who were here and 
have gone; his success while here was, too, 
above the average of them; yet, purely as 
writers, there were several, at one time or 
another, that were his superior in point of 
cultivation, in their chosen line, a fact that 
leads us to the conclusion, that in the West 
the profession has hardly yet been separated 
and made a distinct and independent one ; 
that is, one where nothing but the most care- 
ful training -and preparation can qualify or 
enable the candidate to enter and compete 
for the high honors that it will, at some time, 
bestow, 

A reflection that admonishes us to hurried- 
ly close this chapter. 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



155 



CHAPTER VII. 



SOCIETIES: LITERARY, SOCIAL AND BENEVOLENT— THE IDEAL LEAGUE— LYCEUM— MASONIC 

FRATERNITY— ITS GREAT ANTIQUITY— ODD FELLOWSHIP— THE CAIRO 

CASINO— OTHER SOCIETIES, ETC. 



'Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren 
to dwell together in unity." — Psalms, cxxxiii., 1. 

THE Ideal League. — We go to school from 
the cradle to the gi-ave, and this is one of 
the inexorable laws of our being. These 
schools or fountains of education are nearly in- 
finite in variety, and have little in common save 
the imperfections that pervade all. The 
schoolmaster and the birch twigs are the 
real schools only in name; in fact, it is 
doubtful if they are not 2 stupendous and 
prolonged mistake that has, to some extent, 
blockedthe way of true education. Such old- 
fashioned schools were grood trainingf-rooms 
but nothing more. 

A careful investigation of the controlling 
influences of the mind go far to demonstrate 
the fact that real education comes with our 
plays, our pleasures, our joys and that sweet 
social intercourse of congenial spirits, that 
is the mark of the highest type of our 
civilization. The mind must be developed as 
is the perfect physical nature. It is not 
hard, dull work that molds the child into 
beauty and strength, perfection and grace, 
but, on the contrary, too much of this 
dwarfs and warps and stunts the young into 
ungainliness of person and feature. Btit it 
is the happy, light young heart, the hilarious 
romp and that sweetest music in all the 
world, the rippling laughter of innocent 
childhood, that fashions that beauty of per- 
sons whose every movement is the " poetry 



of motion." The child must have the en- 
ergy to play, and play with that abandon 
and bubbling joy that gives an exquisite rel- 
ish to existence itself. And just so is men- 
tal strength and beauty created. It is im- 
possible for it to come from the task-master 
and the rod. A strong, active, gi-aceful and 
well-poised intellect is created only of the 
pleasures of life. It is impossible for knowl- 
edge to come to the mind in any other way. 
This is self-evident when you reflect a moment 
upon the fact that to the mind of culture, 
the most enduring pleasures of life are the 
acquisition of new truths. The activity of 
the mind depends upon the degree and in- 
tensity of its enjoyment. This i.s its food 
and healthy stimulant, and the improvement 
and new truths that come to it thus are its 
seeds of knowledge, that flourish and grow 
into such magnificence and wondrous beauty. 
Let us qualify this, lest the superficial may 
conclude we mean to say that mental indo- 
lence and rest is true education. We 
mean exactly the opposite. We mean 
that intense mental activity that comes of the 
keen zest of mental play-work, of that social 
and intellectual life that is made up of the 
associations of congenial companions " where 
youth and pleasure meet," at the weekly 
trysts of the Ideal League in the cozy parlors 
of Mr. and Mrs. George Parsons. 

The Ideal League was organized March 
13, 1883, and although one of the youngest 



156 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



institutions in Cairo, yet it is already the j 
conspicuous figure in the intellectual and so- i 
cial life of the city. As best stated by itself, 
" the objects of this association are musical, ^ 
literary, di-amatic and social enjoyment, the ^ 
promotion of a spirit of good-fellowship , 
among the members; the attainment of a 
higher mental culture, imd a steady growth 
and progressiveness toward enlarged useful- 
ness. " The officers are as follows : President, 
Mr. George Parsons; First Vice President, 
Mrs W. F. Macdowell; Second Vice Presi- 
dent, Miss M. Adella Gordon; Secretary and 
Treasurer, Miss Fannie L. Barclay. 

The charter members: Mr. and Mrs. 
George Parsons, Mr. and ^Mrs. W. F. Mac- 
dowell, Miss M. Adella Gordon, Mr. John 
Horn, Dr. J. A. Benson, Dr. E. C. Strong, 
Mr. Scott White, Mr. E. C. Halliday, Misses 
Mamie and Eida Corlis, Miss Fannie L. 
Barclay, Mr. E. G. Crowell, Mr. J. L. Sar- 
ber, Miss Hattie McKee, Miss Effie Coleman, 
Mr. F. W. Allen, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Wells, 
Mr. ^Marx Black, Mr. G. T. Car ens, Mr. 
William Burkett, Mr. F. G. Metcalf, Miss 
Montie Metcalf, :Mr. George E. Ohara, Mr. 
Edward Reno, Misses Phyllys and Katie 
Howard, Capt. T. W. Shields, Miss Ella 
Armstrong, Prof. G. A. M. Storer, Mr. Guy 
Morse, Mr. Henry Hughes, IVIr. W. E. 
Spear, Miss Maud Eittenhouse, Mr. Will- 
iam Williamson, jMr. William Korsmeyer 
and Miss Bettie Korsmeyer. 

The members added since the organization 
are Mr. Albert Galigher, ISIr. James Lock- 
ridge and Mrs. Stephen T. McBride. 

The Ideal League has simply supplied a 
long- felt want in Cairo. The membership 
was wisely limited to forty members, and 
this full number was made up almost from 
the first meeting. The real founders and or- 
ganizers of this pleasant and profitable club 
judged wisely when they determined that the 



harvest was ripe and ready for the gleaners in 
Cairo. The necessity of limiting the member- 
ship of the club is easily understood when the 
fact is mentioned that the meetings of the 
Ideal League are, so far, parlor entertain- 
ments, at which there are only limited capaci- 
ties. 

The work of the Ideal League speaks for 
itself, and while it is among the latest efibrts 
of forming a literarj- and social club, it is al- 
ready crowned with that success that betokens 
a long and useful life, as well as a continual 
source of pleasure and profit to the young 
people of Cairo. 

The Lyceum is an older society than the 
League, and, so far as we can learn, deserves 
thn first place in history, but our investiga- 
tors and seekers after facts have thus far 
wholly failed to find the essential facts and 
dates that will enable us to more than state 
it exists, but whether as an intellectual vol- 
cano, that is, in a state of activity or not, we 
cannot say. So we must content ourselves 
with the statement of the fact of its exis- 
tence, and, with the farther remark that 
Cairo has in all her history to date to some 
extent neglected the improvement of this 
avenue of social and intellectual life. Cir- 
cumstances, and not the absence of an abund- 
ance and the best of material, has been the 
source of all this. It is to be hoped now, 
that this will no longer be the case, as the 
subject has the past winter and spring, by a 
fortunate circumstance, been brought so 
prominently before the people in discussions 
in social circles and much more so in the 
daily papers. 

The Masons — The history of Masonry is 
more or less familiar to all the civilized, and, 
as the order claims, to many of the semi-civ- 
ilized, and even good Masons are to be 
found among barbarous peoples. Among its 
claimed chief merits and glories are its great 



HISTORY or CAIRO. 



157 



age — the oldest organization in the world, 
antedating all sects, religions and even all 
organized social life since the coming of 
Adam and Eve. Again, it is sometimes 
given as the history of its foundation, that, 
as its name indicates, it was founded and 
organized among the workmen for mutual 
protection at the building of that historical 
structure — Solomon's Temple. But like 
everything else, it has adapted itself to the 
inevitable that follows the workings and 
growth of the human mind, and now they 
have attached to the order well-regulated 
benefit associations, and distribute much real 
and beneficial charity and aid to fellow-mem- 
bers and the widows and orphans of deceased 
brethren. The cardinal ideas of Masonry 
have, perhaps, always been a high morality 
founded on the Bible, and a law of mutual 
protection of a brother toward a brother. 

A lodge was chartered in 1857, appoint- 
ing Charles D. Arter, William Standing, J. 
AV. McKenzie, John L. Smith, Robert E. 
Yost, C. Stewart and Robert H. Baird as 
charter members. 

In 1874, the two Cairo lodges — the Delta 
and Lodge 237 — were consolidated and 
formed under the name of the Delta Lodge. 

The order of the Council was chartered 
October 5, 1866. The charter members were 
J. B. Fulton, J. W. Morris, George E. Louns- 
bury, Orlando Wilson, Charles Morris, W. 
H. Walker, E. P. Smith, L. Jorgensen, 
Most Fobs, L. H. Elbrod, William Stand- 
ing, H. Elbrod, E. P. Smith, Charles Minni- 
que. Isadore Meiner, E. S. Davis, C. Ger- 
ricko, A. Harrick, S. J. Jackson, P. H. Pope, 
I. W. Waugh, C. S. Hartough F. F. Dun- 
bar, J. C. Guff, H. T. Bridges, S. Hess, 
William Perkins, J. Joseph and C. R. Wood- 
ward. 

The Odd Fellows — The secret societies 
above now attach much importance to the 



term " ancient," and the very warm stick- 
lers for this are the Masons, followed closely 
by the Odd Fellows. This last-named order 
came to Cairo October 13, 1857. The char- 
ter bearing that date is issued to John Green- 
wood, Abe Williams, G. W. McKenzie, H. 
W. Bacon, John A. Reed, John Antrim and 
L. G. Faxon. 

At the commencement of the late wai*, Joha 
Q. Harmon was the N. G. of the order, and 
for some reason unknown to us he returned 
the charter in 1861, and the society was no 
more a working Cairo institution. 

On October the 3d, 1862, the following 
parties met and determined to have another 
organization efi'ected and the beautiful prin- 
ciples of charity to the loved society once 
more in full operation here, to wit: F. Bross, 
J. S. Morris, H. F. Goodyear, M. Malinski, 
C. S. Hutcheson, I. P. McAuley, Joseph 
McKenzie and C. M. Osterloh. On the 7th 
of the same month, at another meeting, the 
following additional members' names ap- 
pear on the rolls: John T. Rennie, W. V. 
McKee, and A. Halley. After this rest of 
nearly ten years, the members, it seems, 
went to work, determined to make up for 
lost time, and in a little while the member- 
ship had so grown that the I. O. O. F. ex- 
ceeded any society in the town in point of 
membership, and they had fitted up a nice 
hall and furnished it well. The society now 
is in a flourishing condition, and their ele- 
gant hall is on Commercial avenue, opposite 
Seventh street, and here, as of old, upon the 
sacred altars of their sires, the eastern wor- 
shipers turned their faces and devotions. 
So it is with many of the members, and 
their meetings are largely and regularly at- 
tended by nearly all the members, and from 
here every Christmas goes out to the widows 
and orphans of deceased members the holy 
remembrances upon that sacred day. No so- 



InS 



HISTORY OF CATKO. 



ciety is more liberal than this in the extent 
of its benefactions, and while the gifts go so 
bountifully, they are not charity doled out to 
those receiving it, but are dues from the so- 
ciety to those whose fathers and husbands 
were once brothers, and ungrudgingly they 
go to all — ^the rich as well as the poor. They 
have a fund called the widows' and orphans 
fund, that now amounts to something over 
$500, notwithstanding the almost constant 
drain made upon it. The money and hall 
furniture, etc., amounts to over $3,000. At 
the burial of any member of Ihe order, the 
whole is, when agreeable to the relatives, 
taken charge of by the order, and $75 set 
apart to the family to defray funeral ex- 
penses. 

The membership now is 128. Since the 
organization, in different years, there have 
been received 232 members. 

There was at one time two consecutive 
years when no death occurred in the mem - 
bership or their families, and at the expira- 
tion of the two years, and then during three 
months, two members and the wife of each 
were buried by the organization. 

Knights of Honor meet in the I. O. O. 
F. hall, on the second and foui'th Tuesday 
evenings of each month. While this order 
is comparatively a modern one, yet it may be 
classed among the most flourishing of the 
country. The order throughout the United 
States is composed of the Supreme Lodge. 
and, as its name indicates, is the supreme 
authority over all others. Then the Grand 
Lodge, that has a State jurisdiction and 
supervision; then the subordinate lodges, and 
these are the local ones. 

When a member joins this society, a cer- 
tificate is issued to him, called a widow's and 
orphans' fund certificate, the amount of 
which is $2,000. The ages for receiving 
new members is between eighteen and fifty 



years of age. There are three degrees, called 
Infancy, Youth and Manhood, and the last 
only is entitled to any benefits. Half -rate 
certificates are issued, and upon these only 
half -rate assessments are paid and $1,000 
only is paid upon death occurring. Assess- 
ments only one in twenty days, and the rate 
upon each death to those between the ages 
of eighteen and forty-five years, $1 ; forty- 
five to forty-six, $1.05; forty-six to forty- 
seven, $1.10; forty-nine to fifty $1.50. 

The present membership of the Cairo so- 
ciety is 105, and the enrollment 140. 

The society was organized February 24, 
1879, with the following charter members: 
W. M. Williams, W. R. Smith, Elmer 
Krauth, L. H. Saup, James F. Miller, G. 
M. Fraser, Henry Baird, C. F. Rudd, N. W. 
Hacker, W. H. Axe, James A. Phillis, George 

B. Ramsey, Oscar Haythorn, A. G. Royse, 
Charles Pink, M. W. Parker, F. F. Gholson, 
M. T. Fulton, Thomas B. Farren, W. B. 
Pettis, George B. Sergeant, John S. Hacker, 
Frank Cassidy, George W. Chellet, Charles 
H. Baker, Henry Winters, Charles Ediker, H. 

C. Loflin, C. W. Dunning, H. Meyers, Henry 
Elliott, P. W. Barclay, R. H. Baird, Ru- 
dolph Hebsacker, William Smith, C. B. S. 
Pennebaker, J. George Steinhouse, J. G. 
Arrington, George W. Yocum, and James 
Quinn. 

The first officers in the election held by 
the society were C. W. Dunning, P. D. ; W. M. 
Williams, D.; James F. Miller, V. D. ; James 
A. Phillis, A. D. ; Hei'man Meyers, Guide; 
C. H. Baker, R.; A. G. Royse, F. B.; Charles 
Pink, T.; H. Winters, C. ; R. H. Baird, G. ; 
and W. B. Pettis, S. 

The present (1883) officers of the lodge are 
Samuel J. Humm, P. D. ; Charles Cuning- 
ham,D. ; T. B. Holmes, V. D. ; George B.Ram- 
sey, A. D. ; R. S. Yocum, R.; A. G. Royse, 
F. R.; A. G. Errington, T. ; J. F. Miller, 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



159 



Guide; C. B. S.Pennebaker C; Rudolph Heb- 
sacker, C. ; Charles D. Young, S. 

The trustees are Herman Meyers, Oscar 
Haythorn and E. A. Buder. 

The deaths among the members since the 
order was founded have been James W. Stew- 
art, January 31, 1881; S. S. Tarrey, July 
3, 1882; James W. Gash, November 2, 
1882; Gerge R. Lentz, May, 1883. 

The finances of the order are cash, $600, 
and in property, $206.95. 

The Cairo Casino — A German benevolent 
and social society, was organized on the 14th 
of December, 1867. As the name indicates, 
the order is benevolent, and by various means 
distributes its faid, fix'st to the families of 
those who have been members, and the sur- 
plus to those worthy and in need of their as- 
sistance. It is peculiarly a German institu- 
tion, as its name further indicates, and the 
casinos of America are offshoots of the fa- 
therland. While a large majority of the names 
of those who founded the Cairo Casino are 
German, yet a careful examination of the list 
will show names that are American, En- 
glish, Italian and French. Among the main 
purposes of the club are music, lager beer, wine 
and an annual picnic and dancing and that 
species of social life so characteristic of the 
German race when they meet in family 
groups, in which may be found all ages from 
the infant to the octogenarian. 

The persons who originally met together, 
as mentioned above, to organize, are the fol- 
lowing: Robert Breibach, Charles Feuchter, 
Phillip Laurent, F. M. Stockfleth, Ferdinand 
Koehler, Jacob Walter, Charles Helfrick, A. 
Korsmeyer, John Scheel, Frank Pohle, Louis 
Koehler, Amandus Jaekel, Baltus Reiff, Au- 
gust Kramer. William Alba, W. T. Beer 
wart 

The first officers of the society were Robert 
Breibach, President; Charles Feuchter, Vice 



President; Phillip Laurent, Treasurer; F. 
M. Stockfleth, Sec. ; August Kramer, Assist- 
ant Sec. 

On June 15, 1873, the society obtained a 
regular charter, with fifty- nine regular mem- 
bers. Since that date it has lost eleven 
members by death and thirty of the charter 
members either removed from Cairo or re- 
signed their membership. Sixteen new 
members have joined, and its present mem- 
bership is thirty-four, and of this number 
eighteen are active and worthy members of 
the society, who were of the charter members, 
as follows: Charles Feuchter, Charles Hel- 
frick, Herman Schmitzstorf, John George 
Keller, Jacob Walter, Louis Herbert, John 
Koehler, Herman Meyer, Jacob Kline, John 
Reese, Henry Wallschmidt, Henry Hasen- 
yeager, Louis Driestmann, Henry Walker, 
Leo Kleb, Jacob Goldstein and Jean 

Ogg. 

Turner'' s Society. — As early as 1856, there 
were Germans enough to start in this society, 
with a charter membership numbering forty- 
five, with Henry Aspern, President, Dr. Kick- 
bach, Sec. The society purchased five lots 
and erected a high, close fence about the 
same, and built cheap, temporary frame 
houses as a place of protection to their prop- 
erty. These improvements were hardly more 
than completed, when the floods of June, 
1858, came and washed everything away, 
leaving their lots as bare as the old bald 
head who ever secured the front seat at a per- 
formance of Fisk's Blondes. 

The society then rented the third story in 
the Springfield Block, where they chuckled, 
took swei glass and sang "Wacht am Rhine," 
when the fire came — burned the block and 
everything in the world the society had; but 
not wholly demoralized, the Turner- Phoenix 
rose from the ashes and again purchased lots 
on Fifteenth and Cedar streets, and again 



160 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



fenced with a high fence and built a plain but 
neat building, and when they had the grounds 
all improved m good shape (this was in 1861), 
the soldiers came and made quite as clean a 
sweep of everything belonging to the club as 
had the water or fire. And finally, to add 
insult to injury — to kill out effectually what 
could not, or would not be crushed, the head 
society in the United States sent a formal 
circular to each member, notifying him that 
all Turners must join the Republican party, 



when each one returned the circular, sent 
back their constitution and charter and dis- 
banded, sine die. 

One of the original and active, but finally 
indignant members, remarked to the writer, 
as he finished the above account, that after 
the last election, especially in Cincinnati,every 
Turner society in the United States. Germany 
and Holland, had probably returned their 
charters and made things, " donner and 
blitsen" all around the sky. 



CHAPTEK VIII. 



C\IRO— HER <X)NDITION IN 1S(;1-1878-1883— THE EBB AND FLOW OF BUSINESS AND POPULATION 

— WAR AND THE PANIC WHICH FOLLOWED— STEAMBOATS— MARK TWAIN— PILOTS— SOME 

STEAMBOAT DISASTERS-AND A JOKE OR TWO BY WAY OF ILLUSTRATION, ETC. 



IN a previous chapter we brought the so- 
cial and political life of Cairo as fully as 
we could, to the year 1863, when again the 
prosperity of the town had ascended into 
another zenith. But the most solid advance- 
ment the city has really ever made was from 
the latter part of 1859-60 and the early part 
of 1861. During this period, there was no 
similarly situated town in population, wealth 
or manufactories in the world that equaled or 
approached Cairo in her commercial im- 
portance and glory. The Illinois Central 
Railroad had been long enough completed to 
begin to manifest her importance in the 
commercial world. The road was a young 
and mighty giant, and was in the hands of 
men who could comprehend the wants of the 
great empire to be developed, and with large 
and generous ideas, they turned their atten- 
tion to the Delta city, and her mingling 
waters of the Mississippi and Ohio as they 
went singing to the sea. Here was the termi- 
nus of the road, as well as the terminus of 
continuous navigation in the finest system of 



rivers in the world. They saw here the cen - 
tral and attractive point for the greatest 
scope of country, unparalleled in its wealth of 
soil and climate; they saw the rich wilderness 
that was to bloom into immeasureable com- 
merce and productiveness, and to develop 
some day into that superb type of civiliza- 
tion that pushes forward the human race — 
resources incalculable, and a growth of 
wealth immeasureable, all pointing to this 
spot as their natural place of meeting and 
exchanges. Here were mines, not only inex- 
haustible, but ever growing and increasing 
in their yield, and not to be dug and delved 
for into the primeval rocks that retain the 
bowels of the earth, but spread with the un- 
sparing hand of Omnipotence over all the 
fair face of the earth and the waters. Here 
were the greatest rivers the greatest railroad 
and the meeting of the three sister States of 
Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri. 

Was there a young city on the continent 
with an equal extent of country tributary to 
the coming commercial men of Cairo? Here 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



161 



was all Southern Illinois, nearly all of Ken- 
tiieky, and all South and a large portion of 
Eastern Missouii, all of Arkansas, West Ten- 
nessee, Texas and Louisiana, and, in fact, 
south to the galf and southeast to the Pa- 
cific Ocean, that would come to the Cairo 
merchant for their supplies and trade. In 
the North there was no rival that might at 
all compete with Cairo until Chicago was 
reached, and then Cincinnati in the north- 
east and St. Louis in the northwest. The 
flour, corn, pork, beef, the products of the 
dairy, all north of Cairo, from the Allegha- 
nies to the Rockies, should come to Cairo 
for their natiu'al exchanges, for the cotton, 
sugar, tobacco and rice of the South. This 
was the natural oi'der of things, and only 
the most untoward events could abrogate 
this law of God. 

The South was rich and prosperous, and 
only cared to exchange her gold for every- 
thing that was produced north of Cairo. The 
North had emerged from the gloom of bank- 
ruptcy, and her agriculture and manufact- 
ories were beginning to multiply and grow 
to the amazement of mankind. The peoj^le 
looking to the South for their markets and 
the South looking to the North for her sup- 
plies and from Maine to the Rio Grande, 
fi'om Oregon to Florida, was peace, plenty, 
prosperity, happiness. Commerce created the 
demand for a line of steamers from Cairo to 
New Orleans, and, like all the imperious de- 
mands of trade, that want was supplied, 
and, commencing, two of the largest steam- 
boats were loaded weekly in Cairo for New 
Orleans, and in the early part of 1861, tri 
weekly steamers were loaded in the same 
trade. Here was the commencement of what 
was to be, had it not been interrupted, the 
natural growth of an incomparable trade and 
exchanges. The Ohio boats and the Upper 
Mississippi and Missouri River boats would 



have been content to contine their trade to 
their separate rivers. The growth of this 
would have brought the railroads from the 
East and the West, radiating from Cairo 
like a golden halo, and hence the true and 
natural development of the Mississippi Val- 
ley would have gone on and on, and the West 
would have focused aboiit Cairo. This 
obedience to the natijral laws would have 
been as beneficial to the larger portions of 
this great valley as to Cairo. What a won- 
derful world we would have had here ere 
this, had this commencement been peacefully 
followed out! Ruthless, indeed, was the 
hand that struck down this bright hope of 
the human race, and the memory of the au- 
thors of such ruin deserve eternal execration. 
But war. bloody, brutal war, was precipitat- 
ed upon the country, and the North and the 
South, instead of giving and receiving the 
blessing of peace and trade, stopped the flow 
of kindness, brotherly love, rich abundance 
and happiness, and tiu'ned upon each other 
like enraged beasts, and bartered, exchanged 
and trafficked in blood and death, and the 
infant life of such fair promises was crushed 
out under the heel of war and the skeleton 
of desolation and unutterable woe took its seat 
in every family circle in the South. And the 
wai' made millionaires in the North who begin 
to bud in the fat army contracts that were 
shoveled out to the fortunate, to those who 
bribed their way to colossal fortunes. The 
South was wounded, maimed,killed and almost 
perpetually ruined. The North grew rich, 
demoralized, triumphant, fierce and inap- 
peasable, and deep beneath the pomp and 
show of preternatural glitter and wealth, 
was, in fact, but little better ofif from the in- 
curable poison and pangs of real suflfering 
than was the South. 

But the appalling revolution in the Mis- 
sissippi country was complete. The com- 



162 



IIISTOHY or CAIRO. 



manding avenues of trade, commerce and 
travel had beeo as completely changed as 
could have resulted from a change of the 
topography of the whole country. The 
dreadful blow fell the heaviest upon South- 
ern Illinois, Cairo and the Lower Mississippi 
River. At first when Cairo was made an 
armed fortification and the river blockaded, 
the Illinois Central ^Railroad, no longer 
taxed to its utmost capacity, carrying the fruits 
of industry and peace, was merely an avenue 
for the transporation of ai'mies and war sup- 
plies. Then the town was paralyzed and 
the whole community was thrown out of 
employment. After a season, the paymaster 
came, and he began to scatter money in im- 
mense amounts among the soldiers. Then 
what was called business again came into life 
and the town was converted into a busy sut- 
ler's tent; the camp-followers flooded the 
place, the floating population came, the vile 
with the good, tent theaters, dives and bells 
on earth held high carnival by day and by 
night. The contractor, the soldier, the spec- 
ulator, the gambler, the thief, the highway 
robber — the vicious of every sex, age and 
condition, jostled each other in the street 
throngs, and plied their vocations defiantly. 
And the fools in their heart said " the war 
has helped, not hurt, Cairo." They saw the 
flow of cheap money, and they shut their 
eyes to the avalanche of demoralization. 
Eventually, as the war progressed, the river 
was opened from Cairo to New Orleans. Once 
more Union armies with bristling forts com- 
manded the river at all the towns and cities, 
and the rebel flying batteries, slipping in 
between the fortified points at every oppor- 
tunity and firing upon helpless steamers, 
and doing small damage as a rule. The 
railroads in the South were all destroyed, 
and tne demands for transportation for the 
army, as well as for a country stripped bare 



by war, were immense, and at once steamboat 
stock became the most desirable property. 
The northern docks and ways were put to 
work and the finest and largest boats that 
had ever plied the waters were pushed to 
completion, and all this was grists to Cairo's 
mill. To such an extraordinary extent did 
this necessity push the steamboat business, 
that for one year the daily average of boats 
at the Cairo wharf reached thirty-five, out- 
side of the local packets that made daily 
trips or more. This was much the condi- 
tion of afifairs all over the North; million- 
aires sprung into existence, and demoraliza- 
tion fed upon the vitals of the country like a 
secret consuming fire. 

The war was fought and ended, and spec- 
ulation and peculation took its place, until it 
became a venial misdemeanor to be laughed at 
as a joke to speculate in the coffins, grave- stones 
and decaying bodies of the dead soldiers, and 
in the breathing bodies of their living families 
The rich grew richer, the poor poorer, and 
the cheap money and the calloused con- 
sciences of the nation pursued their reckless 
course of evil. The South lay a prostrate 
people, without money, without credit, and 
often without food; there Government bayo- 
nets and negroes were supreme, and the voice 
of the people was not the voice of God. The 
North was bloated with Government bonds at 
thirty-five cents on the dollar, and a cheap 
money that flowed through the hands of the 
rich as from a ceaseless fountain. There 
being no longer fat war contracts, they en- 
tered upon still fatter Government railroad 
contracts — robbing the Government of its 
credit, bonds and lands, in amounts wholly 
incomprehensible. And the Northern cities 
that were in this current — a current largely 
changed from North to South to the East and 
West, grew and spread and gathered mighty 
powers, and threw out the strong arm of 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



163 



railroads, and in a day became wonderful 
and magnificent cities. 

This is the faintest outline shadow over 
which men grew wild, joyous and gleesome, 
and sang their pyeans and shouted their ac- 
claims, and pronounced the saddest page in 
the book of time, a blessed era of unmixed 
joy, so good that it beatified the deaths of 
the millions who perished in the war and 
the many more than millions who worse than 
perished. 

This sporadic prosperity of all lines of 
business in Cairo continued for quite three 
years after the close of the war; but this was 
the settling of the muddied waters, and at 
the beginning of the year 1869, it had about 
all passed away and the railroad and river 
business was at its ebb. Business was 
largely again, as at the commencement of 
the war, to be re-organized and started in 
accord with the new surroundings. The 
population of the town slowly decreased, and 
the crush for houses, both business and 
private, had changed to occasional empty 
ones, and unconsciously Cairo began to get 
ready for the unparalleled panic and bank- 
ruptcy that was fast coming to the country — 
settling day, merely, for the carnival decade; 
when business men of the country cried out 
for a bankrupt law, by which they could pay 
their debts with an oath or two, and the 
threshold of these courts presented the mar- 
velous spectacle of a rush and crush of busi- 
ness men to get to the ear of the court first, 
that perhaps exceeded anything the world 
ever saw. And an army of a million tramps 
marched over all the country, devouring the 
people's substance and making no more com- 
pensation therefor than do the devastating 
grasshoppers. Then Cairo suffered only in 
common with pretty much all the country, 
but she was less prepared than a few other 
places, particularly her rivals that had stolen 



the golden -egged goose during the war, and 
therefore, instead of merely standing still 
during these long, painful years, she lost 
much that it took years to replace. Some of 
the effects of the war may be understood 
better when it is stated that M. B. Harrell 
estimated, in the year 1864, that there were 
12,000 people in the city. When the town 
emerged from the panic, the sanguine only 
claimed a population of 6,000, and it is very 
doubtful if there were more than 4,000 in- 
habitants, if the negro population had been 
excluded from the estimate. The war found 
Cairo with a population of 5,000 souls and a 
solid growth, business and prospects that 
could not be mistaken. The war and the 
panic left her with about the same popula- 
tion, and all business demoralized and pros- 
trated. The fifteen years had witnessed her 
gilded but unsubstantial zenith and her 
dreary nadir. The descent was great, but it 
was best that solid bottom should be reached, 
severe as the trial was, before stopping. In 
1879, after people had been long enough on 
" bed rock " to fully realize the situation of 
affairs, there started up, once more, a day of 
prosperity for the city. Not a spasmodic 
jump that makes men dizzy and sets the peo- 
ple wild, but a steady, healthy growth that 
is always fair and full of promise. A healthy 
business set in; new enterprises were started, 
and the gradual and permanent increase of 
citizenship was soon inaugurated; real es- 
tate, while it rose in price but little, yet it 
found a market, and those generally wanting 
to sell could easily find a cash customer. And 
this cheerful state of affairs has continued to 
this hour, and from this last and really se- 
verest of Cairo's ordeals has come the fol- 
lowing permanent and substantial improve- 
ments : 

The Elevator. — And since this real revival, 
there has come to the place many marked 



16i 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



and valuable improvements, among which we 
may enumerate the elevator, built by the Il- 
linois Central road. There is no liner struct- 
ure of the kind in the country, and it will 
long stand upon the bank of the river as a 
conspicuous monument to Cairo's commerce. 
It has a capacity of 800,000 bushels and is 
so constructed that additional buildings, 
doubling its present capacity ,may at any time 
be added. It has every modern improve- 
ment and the latest appliances for its pur 
poses, and cost about $300,000. The men 
who projected this magnificent structure are 
in a position to know the wants of the local- 
ity, and they wei'e not anticipating the prob- 
abilities of years, but answering the call of 
the present. 

The Singer Seiving Machine Company — 
Have put up extensive works and are now en- 
gaged in adding still more and greater im- 
provements. The purpose here is the con- 
struction of cabinets for its machines. Its 
extensive works at South Bend, Ind., had 
become insiiffioient for its purposes, and an 
agent was sent out to select a new location. 
After a careful examination of numerous 
points in the Southwest, Cairo was found to 
possess greatly superior advantages over all 
other puints. Among the advantages of the 
place are: 

1st. Lumber can be rafted to the door of 
the factory via the Tennessee, Cumberland, 
Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri Kivers and 
their tributaries at a saving of about $10 
per thousand feet over present cost, of 
freight to South Bend. 

2d. Some of the most important centers of 
the Singer Company's trade, such as St. 
Louis, Kansas City, New Orleans, Cincin- 
nati, Pittsburgh and other points, can receive 
finished work by river from Cairo. The 
Elizabethport factory, which takes one-quar- 
ter of the product of the South Bend works, 



can be supplied by river to Pittsburgh, thence 
by rail into the company's yards at Eliza- 
bethport. Boston, Philadelphia and other 
eastern depots can be supplied by the same 
route, or by steamer via New Orleans. 

3d. Eight railroads enter at Cairo diverg- 
ing east, south and west, securing additional 
facilities for obtaining lumber and other 
supplies at low rates, besides giving the city 
unusual advantages as a distributing point. 
If desired, finished work can be shipped East, 
all rail, at much lower rates than from South 
Bend, owing to the competition in rail freights. 
The immense quantit}^ of hardware and trim- 
mings required by the Singer Company can 
be laid down in Cairo from the east cheaper 
than in South Bend. Last but not least, the 
enormous quantity of cabinet work demanded 
by the Em'opean trade can be shipped by 
water via New Orleans, and laid down at the 
company's Glasgow factory — at which all 
machines for the European trade are made — 
as cheap as they can now be sent from South 
Bend to the American coast. 

Immense tracts of hardwood timber sur- 
round the city in all directions, and the Sin- 
ger Company has already secured control of 
the timber on a tract of eighteen square 
miles, all of which can be delivered by 
wagon at the works — the longest haul not 
exceeding six miles. 

The Singer factory have secui'ed a factory 
site of twenty-four acres, including a valua- 
ble river front — and is one of five corporations 
owning all the river front surrounding Cairo 
on both rivers — and has now one brick build- 
ing 80x65, three stories, another 100x70, 
another 50x48. These are to be used only 
for cutting their lumber and gluing it into 
form, the motive power being a double- 
cylinder engine and four Babcock & Wilcox 
sectional boilers of 75-horse- power each. 

The cabinet works proper when completed 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



165 



will consist of five buildings, each 60x500 feet 
three stories high, with ample space be- 
tween for protection, and connected, at each 
story self-supporting ridges; all elevatoi's 
and stair cases will be on the outside of the 
buildings which will be divided by tire walls 
every hundred feet. The motive power of 
this immense bee-hive of industry will be 
supplied by eight Babcock & Wilcox boilers 
of 180-horse-power capacity each, and an 800- 
horse-power engine. There will be twelve 
dry kilns, each holding 50,000 feet of lum- 
ber. Employment will be given to 1,000 
hands. 

Halliday House. — This surpasses a hotel 
in all the meaning of that word as applied 
to small cities. It is simply a magnificent 
hostelry that is one of Cairo's institutions. 
It is understood by those who have not vis- 
ited it, that it is the old St. Charles Hotel 
repaired and fixed up in regal style. It is 
much more than this; it is a new hotel, elegant, 
substantial, with a complement of every 
modern perfection of the most elegant hotels 
in even the largest cities of the country. 
More massive houses have been built, and 
that, perhaps, had more expensive outside 
ornamentation or inside filagree work, but 
none more solid and wholly comfortable than 
this, and this applies as well to the intei-nal ap- 
pliances and the furnishing as well as to the 
main building. And we have no hesitation in 
pronouncing the dining room, with its three 
entire sides lit up by spacious windows for 
light and ventilation, as the most complete 
and cozy that we ever sat down to in a hotel. 

The Halliday House stands where the St. 
Charles stood, and that is about all the connec- 
tion between them. The present proprietor, 
Ml. Parker, whose life work and study has 
been how to keep the finest hotel, spent a 
long time traveling through the different 
cities of the country, examining the best 



hostelries and noting every valuable late im- 
provement or invention in the same, and 
when he had obtained all possible informa- 
tion in this line the work on the Halliday 
House was commenced, and each and every 
improvement noted was added without regard 
to labor or expense, and when all was fin- 
ished, the doors were thrown open to the 
public in the full conviction that he had the 
completest, if not the lai'gest hotel in the 
world. 

A Neiv Enterprise. — Taking front rank 
among the business enterprises of the city 
of Cairo are the market gardening and floral 
interests of Mr. G. Des Rocher. This gen- 
tleman came to the vicinity of Cairo in 1872, 
and on a limited scale, having no capital, 
began what has since developed into a lucra- 
tive and very attractive business. Two years 
later, he leased forty acres of land of the 
Cairo City Property Company, and^since that 
date he has constantly increased his facilites 
for carrying on his immense enterprise. His 
first impulse was to supply the city demand 
for garden vegetables, but finding that it 
was insufficient to his trade, he turned his 
attention to Chicago shipment, and has 
shipped as much as two car loads of vege- 
tables in a day. He gives employment to a 
large force of hands of the laboring class 
annually, distributing among this class 
about $4,000 of Chicago's money, which fact 
alone merits the encouragement of every 
thinking mind in Caii*o. 

Not only has he sought to supply the exist- 
ing wants of the people, but knowing well 
the science of business, has sought to create 
a want, that he might supply it. The better 
to accomplish this desire, he added a floral 
department to his business, which, while 
pi'oducing an income, goes far toward culti- 
vating a taste for the beautiful in nature, 
offering a resort alike to the young and old, 



166 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



where the mind of the matured, laden with 
business cares, or fraught with the sorrows 
of life, as well as the minds of the young, 
occupied with the lighter and more trivial 
things, are transported from the beauties of 
nature up to nature's God. He has six green- 
houses, having an aggregate of 6,000 square 
feet of glass surface; these houses, as well 
as his extensive hot-houses, are supplied with 
a complete system of cisterns and under- 
groaad piping, the whole famished with 
water from a drive well centrally located. A 
matter in connection with his business, 
worthy of the attention of the agriculturist, 
is his system of converting every particle of 
waste vegetable growth into a valuable fertil- 
izing medium. 

While his enterprise is not a railroad or a 
national bank, it is one that requires a bus- 
iness energy, a vast amount of actual toil, 
and is an important factor in the intricate 
list of Cairo's financial resources for which 
we think words of commendation are due to 
Mr. Des Rocher. 

Cotton Oil Mill. — These extensive works 
found Cairo the best point in the South or 
West for the construction o : a mill for the 
production of this oil, that is destined soon 
to be one of the great industries of the world. 
American invention has pried out the fact 
that from the cotton seed — a mere waste 
heretofore — can be made one of the very fin- 
est oils in the world. 

Ice Factory. — This splendid factory was 
constructed by an incorporated company, the 
leading members of which are Charles Gal- 
ligher, George E. O'hara and Frank L. Gal- 
igher. The cost of the construction and 
fixtures was 150,000, and has a capacity of 
fifty tons a day. Although just started, it 
Las revolutionized the ice trade here and well 
may it have done this so readily, as its work 
shows for itself, as they make ice wholly 



from distilled water and its superiority over 
the natural production is so plain and palpa- 
ble that there can be no comparison between 
them. 

Flouring Mills. — There are two, Galigher's 
and Halliday's. Mr. Galigher's is the older 
of the two, and yet it is rather a modern insti- 
tution, and most extensive and perfect, with 
all modern improvements. The Halliday Mill 
has just been overhauled, enlarged and sup- 
plied with all the latest roller processes. The 
extent of this improvement may be inferred 
when we state they were put in at an expense 
of $40,000, and has a capacity of 600 bar- 
rels a day. 

Halliday^s Saw Mill is another late and 
immense Cairo improvement, said by com- 
petent judges to be the completest thing of 
its kind in the world, and in this connection 
we may mention Halliday's coal dump — 
Maj. Halliday's own invention — as the most 
complete and perfect thing of the kind in the 
country. 

Opera House. — The old Athenaeum, a frame^ 
has been torn away, and one of the neatest 
and coziest little theaters in the country has 
taken its place. It is the pride of the peo- 
ple and the admiration of the actors who 
have visited it. 

Commission Houses. — The extensive com- 
mission houses of Halliday Bros., How Bros., 
J. M. Philips & Co., Thistlewood & Co., 
and the great amount of business transacted 
by each, shows that with the many other of 
the old and solid pioneer commission mer- 
chants here, Caii'o is becoming a very impor- 
tant shipping point again. 

The patent brick machine of McClure & 
Coleman, together with the very large yard 
of Mr. Jacob Klein, sufficiently evidences the 
fact that such building material in Cairo 
finds an extensive market. 

No less than six fii-st-class railroads have 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



167 



come to Cairo since 1878. A splendid union 
depot has been constructed and here are ac- 
commodated the Wabash, the SL Louis & 
Cairo, the Mobile & Ohio, the Iron Mountain 
and the Texas & St. Luuis. The Mobile & 
Ohio Railroad has erected at the foot of 
Eighth street, a local freight depot that is a 
spacious and elegant building. The Alex- 
ander County Bank, in its first-class bank 
building, is also one of Cairo's very substan- 
tial and solid institutions. 

Improvements that may be considered as 
now started and on their way, and that are 
certain to be completed at an early day are, 
among many others, the Cairo Public Li- 
brary, to b« known as the Safford Memorial 
Hall, the grounds of which are on Washing- 
ton and Seventeenth streets. This is due, we 
believe, entirely to Mrs. A. B. Safford, and 
when completed will give Cairo a building 
that will stand appropriately to the memory 
of her husband, A. B. Safford, deceased. 
The wholesale hardware houses, including 
about everything made of iron, are Mr. Bross' 
and Mr. Woodward's; and in drugs the house 
of Barclay Bros., and that of Paul G. Schuh. 
There are four wholesale dry goods houses, 
the heaviest of which are Goldstein & Rosen- 
water, and that of C. R. Stewai-t, the New 
York store, Patier proprietor, although a very 
young house in business, has already sold at 
wholesale $250,000 worth of goods in a year. 
The beer bottling, soda and seltzer and min- 
eral trade has grown to immense proportions 
here recently. Mr. A. Lohr and Henry 
Brei^han each have extensive concerns, and a 
wide market to supply in this and adjoining 
States. Mr. John Sproat carries on the 
same, and he adds to this the trade in fresh 
butter, eggs and vegetables. He loads his 
own cars and sends them to New Orleans, 
Mobile and other Southern cities, the seal of 
the car only broken when it arrives at its 



final destination. No less than three planing 
mills are busy preparing the lumber for the 
carpenters of Cairo and the surrounding 
country, to wit, that of Lancaster & Rice, 
Mr. Walters and Mr. Trigg. Mr. Eichohff's 
furniture factory and wholesale and retail 
esablishment is an institution worthy the at- 
tention of house-builders and housekeepers 
far and wide. 

We only claim here to give a few of the 
leading recent improvements in Cairo. There 
are many others, all going to show that just 
now the city is at last beginning to take its 
proper position as a wholesale manufactur- 
ing emporium— that it has facilities for 
bringing together the raw material and the 
factory and the markets where the manufact- 
ured goods are to be sold, that is possessed 
by few places in the West. Think of it! 
here are over thirty thousand miles of tribu- 
tary shores upon our navigable rivers, and 
already eight railroads are built, with Cairo 
as the terminus of the majority of them, and 
all this great railroad development is of a 
very recent date. In a very short time it 
must become as important a railroad point 
as it has always been in point of navigable 
waters. Soon it will possess the shortest 
route to the Atlantic seaboard over the Ches- 
apeake & Ohio Railroad, this road forming 
one continuous line as soon as a small gap 
is completed, and on which the work is being 
pushed. In a few months, it will communi- 
cate direct ^\ith the City of Me:iico over a 
direct line of one continuous railroad from 
Cairo to that city. A railroad from here 
running a little east of north, is under con- 
struction, connecting Cairo with the Toledo, 
Cincinnati <fe St. Louis Narrow Guage Rail- 
road, and this will give it still another di- 
rect New York connection in addition to the 
several now possessed. 

Steamboats. — Among the many pilots who 



168 



HISTOKY OF CAIRO. 



have stood at the wheel and guided the boat 
to the Cairo " throw-out-the-gang-plank 
place," was no less a character than the hu- 
morist, Mark Twain. It is not certain but 
that the wag f/ot his first lesson in spinning 
characteristic yarns when he was a cub, list- 
ening to the old pilots, while waiting in port, 
spin " river yarns," some of which were of 
immense size, and some again very amusing, 
and when the older heads had run over their 
oft-told stock stories and the " kid " was in- 
duced to try his prentice hand, and failed 
most funerealy, the old fellows laughed out of 
sympathy and politeness, and this proved 
the boy's ruin. It was a fatal encourag^e- 
ment that transformed Mark from what 
might have been a valuable and noble 
life at the wheel, to a miserable, heartbreak- 
ing, continual weeping fountain, and he 
never stopped until he has just now bm-- 
dened the " Father of Waters " with a book 
entitled " Life on the Mississippi." A re- 
viewer of this book says: " He was born on 
the banks of the gr^at stream. The river 
shaped the course of his youth and his life 
upon its bosom as pilot's apprentice and pi- 
lot gave him the Hxperienee and associations 
that fitted him when time and opportunity 
came to step into his rightful place as a 
really great and typical American humorist." 
Now, from a long acquaintance with pilots, 
we have no hesitation in saying that Mark 
might, had he continued with them, have 
eventually become not only a pilot, but a 
jokist of no mean pretensions. For instance, 
we remember on one occasion during the war 
of being one of a party seated in a yawl on 
our way to one of the new gunboats an- 
chored opposite Cairo. The commander of 
the gunboat and several officers were of the 
party, and those who were guests had been 
invited to go on board the boat, as she was 
ready to go up the Ohio for a short trial run, 



and was going to test a 400-pound gun that 
was mounted in the turret. It was a jolly 
party, all anticipating a mcst pleasant day. 
But the writer noticed one man in the crowd 
who was the picture of despair and sullen- 
ness. His attention was arrested by the 
fierceness of this man's gloomy mood. After 
we had reached the vessel and an opportun- 
ity presented itself, the melancholy gentle- 
man was gradually approached, when at a 
point no one else could hear and the ques- 
tion asked: "My friend, you seem to be 
much troubled ; what's the matter ? " In the 
best yellow-back slang, his dark eyes flashed 
and between his set teeth (not a false set) he 
hissed like an escaping volcano, " Matter! 
matter! Helen Blazes! I'm arrested! pressed! 
as a pilot on this limpin' Lazarus of an old 
gunboat, and Government will only pay 
$350 a month for pilots, and I can git five 
and six hundred on the boats. Isn't that mat- 
ter enough ?" Now here, Mark, was a true 
pilot joke, you see, with a $150 to $200 a 
month moral in it. You can see for yourself 
what you have missed. A half-dozen such 
efforts as that and see what your fortune 
now would be. Do your own figuring; say six 
jokes, $200 per month each, for thirty years. 
Any old Cairoite will recognize the follow- 
ing in reference to raft life of the early days 
on the river: "In the heyday of the steam- 
boating prosperity, the river, from end to 
end, was flanked with coal fleets and timber 
rafts, all managed by hand and employing 
hosts of rough characters. Processions of 
migthy rafts — an acre or so of white, sweet- 
smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two 
dozen men or more, thx'ee or four wigwams 
scattered about the raft' s vast level space for 
storm quarters — and the rude ways and tre- 
mendous talk of their big crews, the ex- 
keelboatmen and their admiringly patroniz- 
ing successors; for we used to swim out a 




^ 



a^ (S', <^.e cci.^c^, 




HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



171 



quarter or a third of a mile and get on these 
rafts and have a ride." 

By way of illustrating this keelboat talk 
and manners, and that now departed and 
hardly remembered raft life, the author 
throws in a chapter from a book which he 
" has been working on by fits and starts during 
the past five or six years, and may possibly 
finish in the coiu'se of five or six more." It 
is a story detailing some passages in the life 
of an ignorant village boy. son of the town 
drunkard of the author's time out West. 
The boy had run away, together with a slave, 
and in floating down the river at high water 
and in dead summer time on a fragment of 
a raft, they got lost in the fog and passed 
Cairo without knowing it. So the boy swims 
out to a huge raft in the dark, hoping to 
gain the information by listening to the 
talk of the men. The odd, rude life of the 
raftsmen, as thus witnessed by the boy, is 
graphically described. After singing, drink- 
ing and dancing, two of the men begin to 
quarrel, and the following is a sjjecimen of 
the language of one of the men in getting 
ready : 

" He jumped up in the air three times and 
cracked his heels together every time. Ho 
flung oS a buckskin coat that was all hung 
with fringes, and says ' you lay thar till the 
chawin'-up's done;' and flung his hat down, 
which was all over ribbons and says, ' You 
lay thar till his sufferin's is over.' 

" Then he jumped up in the air and cracked 
his heels together again and shouted out: 

" ' Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron- 
jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse - 
maker from the wilds of Arkansaw! Look at 
me! I'm the man they call Suddeu Death 
and General Desolation ! Sired by a hurri- 
cane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother 
to the cholera, nearly related to the small- 
pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I 



take nineteen alligators and a bar'l of 
whisky for breakfast when I'm in robust 
health and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a 
dead body when I'm ailing! I split the 
everlasting rocks with my glance, and I 
squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo- 
oop ! stand back and giYe me room according 
to my strength! Blood's my natural drink 
and the wails of the dying is music to my 
ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen, and 
lay low and hold your breath, for I'm 'bout 
to turn myself loose!' 

" All the time he was getting this off he was 
shaking his head and looking fierce and kind 
of swelling around in a little circle, tucking 
up his wristbands and now and then straight- 
ening up and beating his breast with his 
fist, saying: ' Look at me, gentleman! I'm 
the bloodiest son of a wild cat that lives!' 

" Then the man that started the row tilted 
his old slouch hat down over his right eye; 
then he bent forward with his back sagged 
and his south end sticking out far, and his 
fists a shoving out and drawing to in front 
of him, and so went around in a little circle 
about three times, swelling himself up and 
breathing hard, and he began to shout like 
this: 

" ' Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, 
for the kingdom of sorrow's a coming. Hold 
me down to the earth, for I feel my powers 
a- working! Whoop! I'm a child of sin, don't 
let me get a start! Smoked glass here for all! 
Don't attempt to look at me with the naked 
eye, gentlemen. When I'm playful, I use 
the meridians of longitude and the parallels 
of latitude for a seine and drag the Atlantic 
ocean for whales! I sci-atch my head with 
the lightning and purr myself to sleep with 
the thunder! When I'm cold, I bile the gulf 
of Mexico aud bathe in it; when I'm hot, 
I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when 
I'm thirsty, I reach up and suck a cloud dry, 

10 



173 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



like a sponge; when I range the earth, hun- 
gry famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-op! 
Bow your neck and spread. I put my hand 
on the sun's face and make it night on the 
earth; I bite a piece out of the moon and 
hurry the season; I shake myself and crum- 
ble the mountains! Contemplate me through 
leather — donH use the naked eye! I'm the 
man with a petrified heart and boiler -iron 
bowels! Whoooop! Bow your neck and 
spread, for the pet-child of calamity's a com- 
ing.'" 

The narrative goes on to show how a little 
black whiskered chap cooled off their rage 
and thrashed them both for a couple of 
chicken-livered cowards. 

That child of Sudden Death and General 
Desolation was the missing "link," that 
leads us by most plainly marked footsteps 
up to the pilot joker, and back to his pre 
historic ancestors, the Cave (of Gloom) 
Dwellers. No reference here, Mark, to that 
settled and incurable gloom that is noted in 
the best medical works as characterizing the 
wrecked lives of your readers. 

But the following very happy description 
of high water will be recognized by many 
a Cairo "tenderfoot" as a side-splitting joke: 

" The big rise brought a new world under 
my vision. By the time the river was over 
its banks, we had forsaken our old paths, and 
were hourly climbing over banks that had 
stood ten feet out of water before; we were 
shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot 
of Madrid bend, which I had always seen 
avoided before; we were clattering through 
chutes like that of 82, where the opening at 
the foot was an unbroken wall of timber, 
till our nose was almost at the very spot. 
Some of these chutes were utter solitudes. 
The dense, untouched forest overhung both 
banks of the crooked little crack, and one 
could believe that human creatures had never 



intruded there before. The swinging grape- 
vines, the grassy nooks and vistas glimpsed 
as we swept by, the flowering creepers wav- 
ing their red blossoms from the tops of dead 
trunks and all the spendthrift richness of 
the forest foliage were wasted and thrown 
away there. The chutes were lovely places to 
steer in; they were deep except at the head; 
the current was gentle; under the ' points,' 
the water was absolutely dead, and their vis- 
ible banks so bluff that where the tender wil- 
low thickets projected, you could bury your 
boat's broadside in them as you tore along, 
and then you seemed fairly to fly." 

But altogether Cairo remembers with much 
pride the fact that Sam Clemens (Mark 
Twain) was at one time among the number 
of pilots that belonged to her trade. And 
the numerous fraternity here will read his 
book with great interest, as it is a story 
whose incidents often occurred in the com- 
pany of men still at the wheel. While no 
other Cairo pilot, perhaps, has gained the 
celebrity that has Mark Twain, yet there are 
some who have merited a more lasting im- 
mortality as great heroes — standing at the 
wheel and going down bravely to death in 
the sublime act of protecting and saving the 
lives of those who were in their safe keeping. 
The fraternity of pilots are well known to 
most of the people of Cairo. They are a sin- 
gular class of men, and their lives have not 
been a careless holiday. But it was during 
the war the lives of many of them were filled 
with terrifying troubles. A couple of in- 
stances will illustrate our meaning: On one 
occasion, as the fleet was transporting the 
troops to Fort Donelson, and^ the stage of 
the water and the point in the river had been 
reached by the flag -boat, where it was dan- 
gerous navigation, the officers of the boat 
desired to tie up for daylight, but the mili- 
tary authorities demurred to this. It was 



HISTOEY OF CAIKO. 



173 



very dark, and the boat became entangled, 
and in backing and starting up she was rnn 
into an overhanging tree and the chimneys 
knocked down. The usual wild consterna- 
tion followed, and the affrighted soldiers 
imagined everything bad. But after awhile, 
when they found the boat was not sunk in 
the bottom of the river, they set about hunt- 
ing for the cause of the disaster. In some 
way, they learned the pilot lived in Louis - 
ville, and this was enough, he was a rebel 
and had deliberately conspired to destroy 
them all by sinking the boat. In a moment 
it was a mob. Now an ordinary mob is the 
silliest monster that ever lived, yet a soldier 
mob makes a common one appear as Solomon 
and Patience enthroned on that historical 
monument. The pilot saved his life by se- 
creting himself. Of course, the soldiers had 
no evidence against the pilot, for none ex- 
isted. The truth afterward turned out to be 
that he had rung the engineer to go ahead 
when he made the mistake and backed. 

Another incident happened in the river in 
front of Cairo. The small boat, Echo, was 
coming down the Ohio River laden with sol- 
diers, and struck one of the iron-clad gunboats \ 
that split her hull and she was hopelessly 
wrecked. The wreck floated a mile or so 
below town and lies on the Kentucky bar yet. 
No lives were lost, but the soldiers at once 
jumped to the conclusion the pilot purposely 
did it and they howled for his blood. In 
fact, the clamor was so great that Wilson 
Dunn, the pilot, was arrested and tried by a 
court martial. As he was clearly innocent, 
it is probable the trial saved his life. The 
fact that these gunboats (turtles) had sunk a 
number of boals cut no figure with the sol- 
diers, and the further fact that the pilot was 
an officer of the Government, as true and 
loyal and patriotic as ever lived, but he did 
not wear an infantry or cavalry uniform and 



the idiots therefore believed he was a 
traitor. 

The present distinguished engineer, J. B. 
Eads, was another man who made his start 
in life among the Cairo river men. He lived 
for some years here, and came here, we be- 
lieve, some time in the forties as a member of 
the firm of Eads & Nelson. Mr. Eads' his- 
tory is so identified with the Mississippi 
River that one cannot be given without the 
other, his vast enterprises, commencing as 
they did in Cairo, have so extended his name 
and fame throughout the world. 

In a preceding chapter, we gave an account 
of the coming down the Ohio River of the 
steamer New Orleans, Capt. Roosevelt — 
the first boat that ever floated upon Western 
waters, A few words in reference to the his- 
tory of this historical boat may not be out 
of place here. She was built in the Fulton 
& Livingston's ship yards, Pittsburgh: ca- 
pacity, one hundred tons; was furnished with 
propelling wheel to the stern and two masts. 
Mr. Fulton at that time believet3 that sails 
would be indispensable to a steamboat. The 
boat was placed in the New Orleans and 
Natchez trade, and continued in this trade 
for a short time, when she struck a snag near 
Baton Rouge and sunk. The passage of this 
first steamboat down the river, making her 
landings and obtaining fuel, etc., at an aver- 
age rate of three miles an hour, loft in her 
wake an excitement that could not have been 
exceeded had a flying angel appeared to the 
people. 

The second boat that ever came by the 
doors of Cairo — before the doors were here — 
was the Comet, Daniel D. Smith, owner, D. 
French, builder. Her machinery was con- 
structed on a plan invented by French, in 
1809. She descended the river in 1814. 
She was only a twenty-five-ton boat. She 
reached New Orleans and made two voyages 



174 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



to Natchez and return and was then sold and 
taken to pieces and her engine and machin- 
ery were put in a cotton factory. 

The Vesuvius was the third boat built at 
Pittsbuvgh, and came down the Ohio, and also 
in the year 1814, 'under command of Capt. 
Frank Ogden. After reaching New Orleans, 
she started to return, July 14, and grounded 
on a bar about 700 miles above New Orleans, 
where she remained until December 3, when 
the waters rising, she floated ofl" and re- 
turned to New Orleans. During 1815-16, 
this boat continued to make regular trips be- 
tween New Orleans and Natchez. She was 
first commanded by Capt. Clement, and he 
was succeeded by Capt. John De Hart. In 
the latter part of 181 6, as the boat approached 
New Orleans with a valuable cargo, she took 
fire and burned. The hulk was afterward 
raised and refitted and ran in the New Or- 
leans and Louisville trade until 1819, when 
she was condemned. 

The fourth boat was the Enterprise, built 
at Brownsville, Penn., by D. French, and his 
patent engine supplied. This was a seven- 
ty-five-ton boat. She made two voyages to 
Louisville in 1814, under Capt. Gregg. She 
was loaded with ordnances and stores for 
New Orleans, and while there, Gren. Jackson 
pressed her into the Government service. 
The Enterprise loaded and left New Orleans 
for Louisville in May, 1815, and arrived at 
Louisville safely, making the trip in twenty- 
five days. This was the first trip ever made 
by a steamboat from between these two 
points. 

The next boat in order of appearance was 
the Washington, constructed by Henry M. 
Shreve. The hull was built in Wheeling 
and engines at Brownsville, Penn. This 
was the first double " decker " ever con- 
structed, the cabin being placed between the 
decks, and the boilers placed on deck. This 



daring innovation made the Washington look 
very much as steamboats do now. Tbeu in 
French's patent the engines were vibrating, 
but Capt. Shreve caused the cylinder to be 
placed horizontally. All engines were the 
single, low-pressure engines. The great in- 
vention of the cam cut- oflf was Capt. Shreve's, 
and this was added to the machinery of the 
Washington. When thus completed and 
launched, the new steamer, not only new in 
contraction but in such new and great im- 
provements in her machinery, that it leaves 
it a question whether Fulton or Shreve was 
the greater inventor. 

On the 24th of September, 1816, the 
steamer Washington passed successfully 
over the falls at Louisville, and made a suc- 
cessful trip to New Orleans, and returned to 
Louisville in November following. While 
the boat was lying at the wharf in New Or- 
leans, she was visited and carefully inspected 
by Edward Livingstone, who was in the 
West, determined to assert in the coiu'ts the 
exclusive right of Fulton & Livingston to 
navigate all the waters of the United States, 
a right they claimed under their patents. 
After Livingston had inspected the Wash- 
ington, he addi'essed Capt. Shreve as follows: 
" You deserve well of your country, young 
man, but we [referring to Fulton & Living- 
ston's monopoly of all the rivers] shall be 
compelled to beat you [in the courts] if we 
can." 

The Washington was compelled by ice to 
remain at the Falls all winter and on March 
12, 1817, she commenced her second voyage 
to New Orleans. On her return she made 
thw trip with a full cargo to Louisville in 
twenty-five days. And from this time all 
historians may date the real commencement 
of navigation. The wonderful feat of the 
boat produced almost as much excitement as 
did the battle of New Orleans. Louisville 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



175 



gave a public dinner to Capt. Shreve, and in 
a speech he predicted that the trip from 
New Orleans to Louisville would yet be 
made in ten days. People smiled with gen- 
tle incredulity at this, and were willing to 
forgive him that or almost anything else for 
what he had done. How soon after this it 
was made inside of live days Capt. Shreve 
lived to see and all the world knows full well. 
In 1852, the steamer Shotwell made the trip in 
a little over four days. In 1869, the Natchez 
and the R. E. Le^ made their celebrated 
race from New Orleans to St. Louis. The 
record time to Cairo was the fastest ever 
made, but some stanch old river men claim 
that, including stoppages, etc., the J. M. 
White, built by Capt. Swan, a noted 
builder of noted boats, made the best record 
time ever yet marked between New Orleans 
and Cairo. 

The most shocking steamboat accident in 
the world's history occurred in 1864, when 
the steamer Sultana exploded her boilers 
just above Memphis, when on her way from 
some point in Arkansas to Cairo. There 
were, it is estimated. 2,350 souls aboard — 
nearly all soldiers — ^^and over 2,000 perished. 
It was in the night, and the explosion was 
the most terriffic and the wreck the most 
complete ever known. The explosion was 
followed by fire, which soon consumed the lit- 
tle of the wi'eck remaining above water. 
Capt. J. C. Swann was killed. 

The steamer Majestic, Capt. J. C. Swann 
and W. C. Kennett, Chief Clerk, William 
Ferree, Chief Engineer, on the 25th day of 
May, 1835, just as the wheel turned to round 
out from the wharf, exploded her boilers. 
She was on her way North, and was crowded 
with deck passengers, many of whom were 
Germans, and constituted some of the Ger- 
mans who settled in and around Belleville, 
111. The flues of the larboard boiler col- 



lapsed, it is supposed, by the passengers all 
passing to the shore or starboard side of the 
vessel and thus careening the boat until the 
boiler on the opposite side became dry. The hot 
water and steam scalded about sixty of ihe deck 
passengers, about forty of whom died at once 
or within twenty- four hours, and were buried 
at Memphis. The injm-ies and fatalities 
were confined to the deck passengers, or 
those who happened to be there. 

Among the survivors of that shocking 
catastrophe is William Lornegan, of Cairo, 
a gentleman well and long known to the 
people of the city. To look at Mr. Lor- 
negan we would be inclined to doubt that 
he was a real survivor of a steamboat ex- 
plosion which occurred over forty-eight years 
ago. 

The circumstances were these: He 
was an infant at that time, a little more than 
one year old, and the father, mother and 
child constitiited the family. In the wild din 
and horror following the <^xplosion, Mr. Lor- 
negan ran to the yawl and pulling it up, 
jumped in. He then pulled the yawl up to 
the deck and the mother, wrapping the baby 
in a shawl, tossed it to the father, who stood 
up to catch it. The motion of the craft 
threw him just at the moment the baby was 
started and in this critical instant the father 
th ew up his feet and in this way protected 
the child's fall and saved it. He then drew 
up the yawl and the mother and several 
others were soon safely in it. Then there 
was a rush of the excited people, and they 
would unquestionably have swamped the 
yawl except for the forethought again of Mr. 
Lornegan, who cut the rope and the craft 
floated away. As there were no paddles in 
it, the occupants had to trust to the current, 
but the boat soon touched a sand bar on the 
Tennessee side, and all were safely landed. 
The steamer floated a short distance and also 



17ti 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



lodged on the Tennessee side, the damaged 
boiler repaired and she continued her route 
to St. Loiiis. 



The fine steamer, J. M. White, referred 
to above, was sunk just below Cape Girar- 
deau, March 28,1843. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE CHURCH HISTORY — ST. PATRICK'S — GERMAN LUTHERAN — PRESBYTERIAN — BAPTIST — 

METHODIST AND OTHER DENOMINATIONS— THE DIFFERENT PASTORS— THEIR 

FLOCKS, TEMPLES, THE CITY SCHOOLS, ETC., ETC. 



"How beautiful are the feet of them that preach 
the Gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good 
things." 

THE German Lutheran Church. — This 
church was organized in the year 1866, 
the Rev. J. Dunsing officiating. There were 
between fifteen and twenty members. It was 
named the Evangelical Lutheran Emanual 
Gemeinde of Cairo. The first pastor, Dun- 
sing, officiated from October, 1866, to Oc- 
tober, 1869, and was succeeded by Rev. 
Gustave P. Heilbig, who remained in charge 
until February, 1873. Then Rev. C. 
Durshner was placed in charge, and he 
remained pastor until January 1, 1879. 
During his administration, the congregation 
concluded to build a brick addition so as to 
enlarge the church facilities and provide a 
suitable school room. The entire building 
was enlarged and raised, and a brick base- 
ment added, and a part of the addition was 
fitted up for a store room, arranging the up- 
per rooms for the pastor' s residence, etc. The 
expense of these additions to the building 
was $2,500 on the residence and business 
portions of the building, and from $1,000 to 
$1,500 expended on the church proper. In 
1879, E. Knappe was installed as pastor of 
the chvurch, and he remained in the faithful 
and efficient discharge of his duties until 
November, 1881. Since August, 1882, the pres- 



ent able and efficient pastor, Rev. C. Sehuch- 
ard has filled the position of shepherdl^to his 
flock with signal ability and the great satis- 
faction of his people. 

The Sunday school of this church is in a 
flourishing condition, numbering from sev- 
enty-five to one hundred pupils in constant 
attendance. The pious pastor of the church 
was the Superintendent, assisted by Andrew 
Lohr, until 1880, when Andrew Lohr was 
elected Superintendent. Mr. Lohr remained 
in this position until the present year (1883), 
when he resigned, and the present pastor, 
Schuchard, again assumed his old place and 
continues the Superintendent and manager 
of the Sunday school. 

The church also has a ladies' society, 
called the Freund and Jungfrauen Verein, 
that was organized in the year 1871, under 
the direction and control of the minister, 
Heilbig. The aims and purposes of this or- 
ganization are the good of the church and 
its flock. It has a membership averaging 
sixty good and efficient Christians. 

The church grounds are two lots, and were 
purchased by the members of the church in 
1878, of S. Staats Taylor, agent of the 
Cairo Trust Property, at the price of $100 
per lot, and is situated on Thirteenth street, 
between Washington avenue and Walnut 
street 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



ITi 



The present board of trustees consists of 
H. Schultz and Andrew Lohr. 

The basement or brick portion of the 
church is noT\ used, the front part as a 
school room, and the rear as a parsonage for 
the minister, and the entire upper or frame 
part of the building is dedicated to church 
purposes. There is a fine pipe organ in the 
main room, and from the main building as- 
cends the cupola, where hangs the church 
bell, that in deep, musical tones upon the 
holy Sabbath calls the people to " come to 
the house of God and worship. " 

The Christian Church was organized in 
Cairo in May, 1865, the original members 
consisting of IVIr. and Mrs. A. B. Fenton, Mr. 
and Mrs. S. R. Hay, J. C. Talbott, Mrs. 
Gilkey and daughter, Mrs. Sarah Clark, Mr. 
R. J. Cundiff, and others whose names can- 
not now be ascertained. In the organization, 
there were about twenty members. A little 
earnest band of devout Christians, planting 
the cross of their Master in His vineyard and 
consecrating a spot where they could gather 
in response to the "come let us worship." 
Of all those who constituted that little band 
who first assembled together here, but two 
are left namely, Mr. J. C. Talbott and Mrs. 
Sarah Clark. In 1866, the Cairo City Prop- 
erty Company donated the church four lots 
on Eighteenth street, between Washington 
and Walnut streets, and during the same 
year the church building now occupied was 
erected. It is a frame, 36x55, and cost 
$4,500. The pastors, in the order named, 
have" occupied the pulpit: Rev. L. Brown, 
of Ohio; John Friend, of Pennsylvania; R. 
B. Tremble, of Kentucky. For some years 
they have had no regular preaching and no 
Sunday school. There are meetings, how- 
ever, every Sunday of a social and spiritual 
character. The oflficers of the church are: 
Trustees, S. R. Hay, G. M. Alden, Charles 



Armstrong, J. C. Talbott, Mr. Saul; Elders, 
J. R. Hay, William McClosky; Deacons, A. 
B. Fenton and J. C. Talbott. 

St. Patrick''s — Catholic — is situated on 
the corner of Ninth street and Washington 
avenue; was built in 1855 by Rev. Father 
McCabe, who was its first pastor. The build- 
ing is a substantial frame on a rock base- 
ment, and cost $3,600, most of which was 
collected from the hands employed in the 
construction of the Central Railroad during 
the years 1853 and 185-4. The basement, 
up to 1882, was used as a parochial school. 
The lots upon which the building stands 
were donated by Col. S. S. Taylor. In the 
latter part of 1857, Rev. Father McCabe was 
succeeded in the pastorate by Rev. Thomas 
Walsh, who, on Sunday, the 15th day of 
March, 1861, and while addressing his con- 
gregation on the heinousness of the sin of 
blasphemy, was suddenly attacked with par- 
alysis of the heart, and which in a few 
hours terminated in death. His remains 
lie buried beneath the altar from which he 
loved so well to offer up the holy sacrifice. 
May he rest in peace. At this time, Rev. L. 
A. Lambert was appointed to fill the vacancy 
occasioned by the demise of Father Walsh, 
and continued to serve the congregation un- 
til October, 1867, at which time, his health 
becoming impaired, he received permission 
to go to New York. He ia at present in 
charge of a parish in Waterloo, in that State. 
The bishop at once supplied the spiritual 
wants of his people by the appointment of 
Rev. P. Brady, who faithfully attended to 
the wants of his flock until the latter part of 
1869, when he was appointed to another 
parish. He is now pastor in the city of 
Springfield, 111. Father Brady was imme- 
diately succeeded by Rev. P. J. O'Hallo- 
ran, who continued in charge until Novem- 
ber, 1873, when he was sent to East St. 



ITS 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Louis to take the place of Rev. Francis Za- 
bel, who was assigned to the Cairo pastorate. 
His parishioners and the citizens of Cairo 
generally will bear cheerful testimony to 
his worth as a Christian minister, in remain- 
ing at this post of duty night and day during 
the terrible yellow-fever epidemic of 1878. 
At his own request he was, in 1 879, trans - 
f erred to a parish at Bunker Hillj this State, 
where he now resides. 

To supply the place made vacant by 
Father Zabel's departure, Rev. Thomas Mas- 
terson was sent from Mound City, but the 
malarial atmosphere'of Egypt soon made sad 
work with a physically delicate constitution. 
He left his flock for a more healthful location 
in the town of Paris, HI., his present address. 
In the latter part of 1882, Rev. J. Murphy 
assumed charge and is the present incumbent. 
St. JosejMs Catholic Church. — In the year 
1870, the Catholic congregation having 
wholly outgrown the capacities of St. Pat- 
rick's Chui'ch, a few of the leading members 
determined to build a new one. This move- 
ment was finally made by the Germans for 
two reasons: 1st. St. Patrick's Church was 
too small for the congregation, and second, 
the Germans desired to have a church of 
their own, in which they hoped to have serv- 
ices in their native language. The princi- 
pal movers in this, and those who made the 
principal donations for the new church were 
Peter Saup, William Kluge, Hemy Lattner, 
Valentine Riser, Jacob Klein, George Latt- 
ner, Jacob Lattner, Nicholas Veithe, L. 
Saunders, William Weber, Joseph Bross, 
Joseph Bruikle and William Brendle. 

The organization was effected in 1870, and 
the church commenced and the building com- 
pleted in 1871, being an elegant brick build- 
ing, 65x100 feet, and cost $23,000, and is by 
far the finest church in the city, and has an 
elegant organ. 



Father ^Hoffman was the first pastor, and 
soon grew in the love and confidence of his 
people, until he became a great favorite. 
The present pastor is the Rev. Father 
O'Hara. 

Presbyterian Church. — This church build- 
ing was erected in January, 1856. The 
Rev. Robert Stewart, through whose efforts 
the building had been erected, preached the 
dedication sermon. It cost about $2,796. 
The three lots upon which it stands were do- 
nated by the trustees of the Cairo City Prop- 
erty. The funds for building the church were 
raised mostly abroad, through the efforts of 
Rev. Robert Stewart, who was building agent 
of the Alton Presbytery. It was turned over 
to the trustees of the first Presbyterian so- 
ciety of Cairo, free from debt. The ladies of 
the Alton Presbyterian Church donated the 
carpet for the aisles, a Bible for the pulpi t 
and the chandelier and lamps 

This was the first Protestant church 
erected in Cairo. A Presbyterian society 
was formed on the 9th of January, 1856. 
The constitution was signed by the following 
members: C. D. Finch, Marion Hall, R. H. 
Cunningham, William T. Finch, J. D. Mc- 
Coughtry, John C. White, D. Hui'd, Edward 
Willett, Frank Shipman, S. Staats Taylor, 
H. H. Candee, E. Norton, C. A. Bullock, B. 
S. Harrell, Julia A. Harrell and Maria A. 
White. 

The first board of trustees consisted of 
Dr. Coffee, M. Hall, C. D. Finch, Edward 
Willett and William T. Finch. The latter 
was elected chairman and Edward Willett 
Secretary. The church building and prop- 
erty and society were fully equipped now, 
but there was still no church proper and no 
pastor. Steps were taken by the society to 
remedy this defect, and Mr, Kenware was 
called to act as the first pastor. Mr. Kenware 
stayed only eight months, when becoming 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



179 



afflicted with a bronchial afiection, he ten- 
dered his resignation, Avhich was accepted. 

The Rev. A. L. Payson was then called at 
a salaiy of $1,000 a year, and accepted. Yet 
there was one act necessary to make a com- 
plete church, and that was the signing of 
the articles of faith and covenant. This 
was done, and thus a complete organization 
effected, ten persons signing, to wit: Will- 
iam T. Finch, Mrs. Rosanna White, Mrs. 
Catharine Stewart, Mrs. Maiy Jane Stewart, 
Mrs. S. L. Bowers, Miss Harriet A. Paine, 
James Degear, Mrs. Sarah Ann Belle w, Mrs. 
Lucy A. Leftcowitcb and Mrs. A. P. Ryan. 

The Rev. Payson seems, by the church re- 
cords, to cut no other figure than being called 
and accepting. Possibly he was washed out 
in the June flood of that year, and this is 
suggested by a resolution of November, 1858, 
passed as a feeler, to confer with Rev. A. G. 
Martin and ascertain if he would accept a 
call at $500 a year. At all events Mr. Mar- 
tin accepted the $500 proposition and came 
on, and for two years labored faithfully with 
his flock. He organized a Sunday school, 
which is said to be the first ever organized 
in Cairo, but the truth is there was a school 
of the kind here in 1848. The first Sunday 
of the Presbyterian school there were only 
fifteen pupils pi-esent, but since that time it 
has grown to more than 300. 

Under the ministrations of Mr. Martin, 
eleven members were added to the church — 
ten of these by letters. This minister re- 
signed in January, 1861. The church was 
without a pastor until June, 1862. The 
war was here, and men's thougths seemed to 
run in other channels. But the Central 
Railroad had arranged to pass preachers free 
to Cairo to hold services, and many came 
from a distance and services were tolerably 
regular. 

An incident in the life of this church, as 



well as in the life of Commodore Foote, is 
well worth relating: After the capture of 
Fort Henry, Commodore Foote returned to 
Cairo to cai'e for his wounded and to get ready 
for the Fort Donelson fight, and as he sjient 
Sunday in the city, as was his wont, he went 
to his loved chruch — the Presbyterian — of 
which he was a zealous member. On this 
particular Sunday the congregation assem- 
bled, but the minister who was expected 
failed to come. After waiting awhile, the 
audience began to grow impatient. At this 
juncture the Commodore arose and walked 
deliberately to the pulpit, and, making some 
remark as to the duty of letting one's light 
shine, there, in the full trappings of his uni- 
form of war, conducted the services in regu- 
lar order. He read his text and addressed 
the congregation in a most earnest manner, 
and closed the exercises with a fervent and 
touching prayer. He died in 1863, as 
faithful a soldier of Jesus Christ as he was 
of his country. This remarkable incident is 
well remembered by many citizens of Cairo 
who were present in church on that Sunday 
in February. 

In June, 1862, Rev. Robert Stewart was 
called to attend the spiritual wants of the 
congregation, and for two years filled the 
place to the great satisfaction of his flock. 
Mr, Stewart preached his farewell sermon 
November 6, 1864. It was during his pas- 
torate that the frame portion of the parson- 
age was erected, and he secured this money, 
as he had for the church, mostly from 
abroad. 

January 1, 1865, Rev. H. P. Roberts be- 
came the pastor of the church. He had re- 
ceived a collegiate education, and when the 
war came he went into the army as a Lieu- 
tenant; was wounded severely. He served 
as pastor for the years 1865-66. He received 
a salary of $1,500 per annum, and ceased hi 



180 



HISTORY OF CAIEO. 



connection with the church as its minister in 
the early part of 1867. 

Rev. Charles H. Foote succeeded him, and 
he continued in the position until 1871. 

The brick parsonage was erected in 1867, 
at a cost of $2,363.70, and in 1868 a line 
organ was purchased. 

Rev. H. B. Thayer took charge as pastor 
in January, 1872, and remained until March, 
1875, and he was succeeded by the present 
pastor, the Rev. B. Y. George, who has al- 
ready been with this chiirch more than seven 
years. None of his predecessors gained a 
stronger hold upon the affection of his peo- 
ple. 

In the autumn of 1878, Cairo was visited 
by that terrible scourge, the yellow fever. 
There were a few cases in August — all fatal. 
A number of cases in September, nearly all 
fatal, and still more in October, about one- 
half of them fatal; several cases in Novem- 
ber, but most of them mild. In all there 
were about 100 cases in Cairo and about one- 
half proved fatal. 

In September, INIr. George was in Colum- 
bia, Mo., with his family, taking his annual 
vacation. When the news reached him that 
the disease had broken out again and in a 
virulent form in Cairo, and that the town 
was in a panic and hundreds fleeing to places 
of safety, and that all prudent people who 
could get away from the town were doing so, 
we say, upon learning this dreadful state of 
affairs, he left his family in Missouri and 
came here, and remained during the epi- 
demic, visiting sick, comforting the dying 
and burying the dead. 

The whole number of persons connected 
with the church during the twenty-five years 
of its existence is 372. Mrs. Rosanna White 
is the only one out of the original ten mem- 
bers that is now living in Cairo. 

[We desire to return our thanks to Mr. 



George Fisher, from whose extensive history 
of the Presbyterian Church we gather the 
above data. — Ed.]. 

Episcopal Church. — There were members 
of this church in Cairo from the time or be- 
fore the founding of the city. But like the 
general Protestant people, the number was 
not enough to organize a church body for a 
long time, and the history of the Presbyterian 
Church shows that these select few would 
identify themselves often with some other 
church and assist them in the holy work, 
awaiting the arrival of enough of their own 
to form their separate organization. In this 
way the curious fact is several times illus- 
trated in the Presbyterian Church that there 
would be a reduction in their number in the 
face of an increase in the population. 

Diiring the early forties, when there were 
only four or five families in the place who 
were communicants in the Episcopal Church, 
occasional services were conducted in a little 
chapel in one of the Holbrook houses, by the 
Rev. J. p. T. Ingraham, now of St. Louis. 
Mr. Ingraham was a resident of Cairo as 
early as 1840. Daring all his time here, 
there were not members enough to officer a 
society even, much less a church, and it was 
only at rare intervals that the few people of 
that chui'ch met. After the calamity of 
1841, the number was so reduced that it was 
only when some of their friends would join 
them in attendance that they could get 
enough together to have even the simplest 
chui'ch services. There was a slow increase 
up to 1850, when several families came and 
once more the early settlers began to look 
forward to the day when they would have a 
prosperous church here. During these times, 
the Rev. Mr. Clark often conducted the 
church services. 

In the year 1857, a movement was made, 
for the members to separate themselves from 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



ISl 



the other churches, and by combining to- 
gether they hoped to form the nucleus around 
which a church would soon grow. And in 
the early part of 1858, grounds were secured 
and steps taken to erect a church building. 
The place selected was the lot on which now 
stands the elegant office of the Cairo Trust 
Property. A large lot of material was de- 
livered upon the ground, such as brick, 
stone, lime and other material, when the 
flood of June, 1858, came and left such de- 
struction in its wake that for the nonce the 
project was abandoned. 

During the war, Chaplain S. McMasters 
who was stationed here, frequently held 
services for the congregation in the Presby- 
terian Church building, and the congregation 
constantly grew and strengthened. Novem- 
ber 3, 1852, there was a preliminary meet- 
ing held at the office of Col. S. S. Taylor, 
and there were present at this meeting Rev. 
I. P. La Baugh, S. S. Taylor, Walter Falls, 
Capt. McAllister, Charles Thrupp, J. C. 
White, H. H. Candee, John Rosenberg, W. 
H. Morris, L. Jorgensen, J. B. Humphrey 
and others. Rev. La Baugh was made 
chairman, and J. B. Humphreys Secretary. 
Vestrymen were elected as follows: S. S. 
Taylor, Senior Warden; H. H. Candee, Junior 
Warden; and J. B. Humphreys, Charles 
Thrupp, Capt. Pennock, Col. A. E. "Watson, 
AV. H. Mon-is, A. B. Saflford, J. C. White, 
R. M. Jennings and Walter Falls, Vestryme n 

The second attempt, and a successful one, 
too, to build a church was commenced in 
1861, the building now occupied on Four- 
teenth street, between Washington avenue 
and Walnut street. This building cost about 
$7,000, and is the most elegantly finished 
inside and furnished of any church in the 
city. They have an organ costing $2,000. 

November 5, 1862, Rev. I. P. La Baugh 
was called to the pastorate and accepted, and 



for more than two years he continued in 
that position, winning the good will and love 
of his entire people in an eminent degree. 
His successor was Rev. Thomas Lyle, who 
was installed as pastor in charge in January, 
1864. 

In 1863, J. C. White was Senior AVarden, 
and H. H. Candee, Junior Warden, and the 
Vestrymen were A. B. Safford, J. Q. Har- 
man, J. B. Humphreys, W. P. Halliday, A. 
M. Pennock, S. B. Halliday, S. Staats Tay- 
lor, A. E. WatsoD, W. H. Morris and A. H. 
Irvin. 

April 25, 3864, there was a re -organization 
of the parish, and on November 24 of that 
year, the church was completed and conse- 
crated by Bishop Whitehouse. And the Ves- 
trymen were: Senior Warden, J. C. White; 
Junior Warden, H. H. Candee; and A. E. 
Watson, A. J. Irvin, J. B. Humphreys. A. 
B. Safiford, S. B. Halliday, W. P. Halliday, 
H. Lifferts and L. Jorgensen. 

Rev. Lyle was succeeded in 1867 by W. W. 
Rafter, who, for a little more than one year, 
discharged the high functions of his office 
with eminent ability and piety. 

In 1868, Rev. James W. Cole was called, 
and he also remained about one year. 

Rev. Edward (loan was his successor. His 
pastorate, for three years, the time he was 
with his church here, was marked by good 
works and a building-up of God's temple. 
His administration was eminently satisfac- 
tory to the congregation, and the love and 
prayers of his flock followed him when he 
retired in 1872, 

Rev. Charles A. Gilbert was his successor , 
and for five years he labored for God's king- 
dom and glory 'among the good people of 
Cairo. He was an unselfish, pious and holy 
man, and his stay here will long be remem- 
bered by his people. 

In April, 1877, Rev. M. R. St. J. Dillon 



182 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Lee was called, and at once entered upon his 
sacred mission among his people. But in 
the midst of his good work he sickened and 
died, May 30, 1879. 

Rev. D. A. Bonnar accepted the position 
of pastor, and was installed in the early part 
of the year 1879, where he remained a dili- 
gent, faithful and able minister to his flock 
until January, 1881, when he resigned. 

He was immediately succeeded by Rev. F. 
P. Davenport, the present incumbent, and 
it is the hope of all that he may be long 
spared to his people and the church he loves 
so well, and his works are already doing so 
much for the cause of morality and religion. 

The present officers of the church are: H. 
H. Candee, Senior Warden; W. B. Gilbert, 
Junior Warden; and M. F. Gilbert, D. J. 
Baker, E. L. Manager, Frank L. Galigher, 
John H. Janes and Charles Pink, Vestiymen. 

A Sunday school was established in 1863, 
and H. H. Candee was made Superintendent, 
a position that he has held continuously wver 
since and still holds, of itself a sufficient 
testimony that he is the right man in the 
right place. Among the earliest of the Sunday 
school teachers were W. H. Morris, Mrs. W. 
R. Smith, Miss Josie Taylor (Halliday), Miss 
Remington and Mrs. Elizabeth White. From 
the first to the present day, the school has 
been one of the flourishing and successful 
ones of the city. Among its first youthful 
scholars are now found some of its most val- 
ued teachers, and others have here imbibed 
in their young lives their first and deepest 
lessons in the simple and sublime story of 
the God- Man, and have gone out in the 
world bearing testimony to the faith that 
■was in them. 

The Methodist Church. — Through the kind- 
ness and labors of Rev. J. A. ScaiTitt, pres- 
ent pastor, we were enabled to gather the 
following notes of the coming and building 



up of the church in this city. There were 
Methodists here as citizens as soon almost as 
there was anybody else. In the earliest set- 
tlement of the town, when three or four fam- 
ilies constituted all there were in the place, 
Rev. T. C. Lopas and H. C. Blackwell would 
occasionally visit the town and held regular 
services and preach to the little flock, liter- 
ally in the name of where " two or three are 
gathered together." Then Ephraham Joy, 
the Presiding Elder, made two visits here, and 
on a recent occasion on writing to Rev. Mr. 
Scarritt, he gives some of his long- time- ago 
impressions of Cairo, and some account of 
the early efforts of the church people. He 
says in substance: The Cairo Mission was 
traveled by Henry C. Blackwell, the circuit 
embracing Alexander County. Then Rev. 
Lopas was sent to take his place. There 
were only six or eight families or members 
of the church at this time in the place, and 
these were mostly of the transient population. 
The first quarterly meeting was appointed 
for Cairo, January 1 and 2, 1853, but Brother 
Lopas left there about a week before this 
and attended a quarterly meeting of the 
Thebes Mission, about fourteen miles south 
of Jonesboro. As soon as possible, I sup- 
plied Cairo with Rev. J. S. Armstrong, who 
remained about three months, and then it 
was left out for awhile. Efforts were made 
to have Rev. Lopas visit it from his Thebes 
Mission, but failed. The scheme was then 
adopted to have the minister from the ad- 
joining work — Thebes or Pulaski or Caledo- 
nia — visit Cairo, but these efforts were like, 
the Elder says, trying to sit down on two 
chairs and slipping between them. The 
place was left deserted by the church for 
two years. The Elder in the meantime vis- 
ited Cairo twice, in April and in August. 
He traveled down the country in his buggy. 
The appearance of the place on his first 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



183 



visit he graphically describes. He says he 
carefully counted everything — houses and 
boats — in which human beings were livinor. 
His recollections are the boats and houses 
about equaled each other, and there were but 
few of either, and some of the houses 
were the merest shanties — the boats mostly 
small craft tied to the shore, some in the 
water and some on dry land — some lying, 
just as the water left them, and others had, 
after a fashion, been propped up and were 
stranding tolerably level. He again says: 
Bishop Ames presided over our conference 
in 1852, and visited us at the conference at 
Mount Carmel. He told me that he passed 
Cairo on his way, and remarked, " I wonder 
what we sent a man there for." The Mis- 
sion Committee at their next conference gave 
it as their opinion that one quarterly install- 
ment uf appropriation (for Cairo) should be 
refunded, and the Elder says: "I covered it 
into the treasury, although I felt that I 
much needed it." The two visits referred 
to above by the Elder were made during his 
first year. He again, in the fourth year of 
his office, visited it twice. He says that this 
time he came by the I'ailroad. During 
that year it was connected with the Pulaski 
Mission for quarterly meeting purposes, and 
Pulaski embraced what had been Thebes and 
Caledonia Circuits. That year. Rev, Hughey 
spent most of the year traveling and solic- 
iting funds to erect a church in Cairo. He 
succeeded well in procuring funds, but could 
do but little in building up the congregation. 
Elder Joy had secured two lots for the 
chui'ch building, and these afterward were 
exchanged for those now occupied by the 
church by Rev. Hughey. The Elder again 
says: " I preached in Cairo dui'ing my visit 
in August, 1853. I do not i-emember where 
the preaching was — perhaps in some room in 
a hotel. In April, 1855, I was there and 



preached. The meeting was held in a school- 
house, back in the woods. I think this 
building has since been used as the African 
Methodist Episcopal Church. I think dur- 
ing the summer of 1855, O. Kellogg, then in 
ttie Jonesboro work, visited the place one or 
more 'times, and I corresponded with Bishop 
Ames, proposing to connect it with Jones- 
boro. I thought the arrangement doubtful, 
as a circuit lay between. Bishop Ames con- 
sented to the work, but it was not effected." 
When the good old Elder comes to the effort 
to recall the early Methodist families, he 
quaintly says: " I cannot call up any of the 
names of the first members. There was the 
wife of a hotel keeper — a Pole or Spaniard 
or some kind of a foi'eigner — with an unpro- 
nounceable name. [This must have been 
old Rattlemueller. — Ed.] They called him 
for convenience, Martin. [This was where 
Mark Twain got his idea when in Eui-ope of 
calling each one of his guides Furgeson. — 
En.] The two or three families in Cairo 
were anxious for regular preaching and I as 
anxious to supply them. * * * On one 
of my visits, I stopped on a boat (hotel). 
The landlord was not a Methodist, but very 
clever to us. He told me of one G. who had 
been a Baptist, a Methodist and a Presbyte- 
rian, and who at one time proposed to be a 
preacher. He boarded a long time at this 
hotel, and the last the landlord saw of him, 
he was wending his way up the levee, carrying 
his bundle and said he was hunting a cheaper 
hotel. The jolly landlord laughed when he 
said he did not know where he could find 
such, as he never paid him a cent." 

In a letter from Rev. R. H. Manier, we 
are permitted to extract the following his- 
orical facts: "I was stationed in Cairo in 
1856. Brother G. \V. Hughey was my pred- 
ecessor. When I took charge, the church 
was inclosed and the roof on. The trustees 



184 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



were in debt, and the workmen wanting 
money. I spent the iirst Sabbath after con- 
ference in Cairo, and on Monday following 
struck out to raise money. From that time 
until the church was finished I was on the 
wing. It required $1,200 to pay what was 
due and finish the church, I had succeeded 
in raising about $800, when the church was 
completed and left only S400 in debt, which 
we hoped to raise on the day of dedication, 
which was early in February, but postponed 
on account of small-pox breaking out in a 
boarding house on a corner opposite the 
church, until the latter part of March. Dr. 
Akers preached the dedication sermon — I 
cannot recall the text. * * * AVe had 
bad luck on the day of dedication. When 
Dr. A.kers had only fairly commenced his 
sermon, a strong March wind started dowD 
the flue, and the coal smoke poured out in 
the room and drove the people out, most of 
whom went home, and the Doctor finished his 
discourse to empty benches. The collection 
was an utter failure. I started out again 
and did not return until I had the money to 
pay off the debt. * * * The member- 
ship when I went there consisted, as I now 
remember, of S. S. Brooks and family, W. 
P. Trunnion and wife, Miss Emma Robert- 
son, Sister Martin, Dr. J. G. D. Pettijohn, 
Sister Finch and James Degear. " 

The pastors in charge and in the order of 
their ministering to the congregation in Cairo 
were as follows: First regular pastor, G. W. 
Hughey, October 1, 1855; R. H. Manier, 
1856; J. A. Scan-itt, 1857; Carlyle Babbitt, 
1858; G. \V. Jenks, 1859; L. Hawkins, 1860; 
J. W. Lowe, 1861; (one year unknown); G. 
W. Hughey, 1863, and re- appointed; H. 
Sears, 1865; A. M. Brybon, 1866; John 
VanCleve, 1867; C. Lothrop, 1868; F. M. 
Van Trees, 1869-70; F. L. Thompson, 1871 
-72; J. L. Waller, 1874^75; J. D. Gilham, 



1876; A. P. Morrison, 1877; W. F. Whit- 
taker, 1878-79 and 1880; J. A. Scarritt, 
1882, and is the present incumbent. 

]VIr. Scarritt is a native of Madison County, 
111., boi-n Juno 23, 1827. His parents, Na- 
than and Letty (Aulds) Scarritt, both of New 
England, came to Illinois in 1820, and re- 
sided in Madison County. There were ten 
children in the family, Mr. J. A. being the 
tenth child. He entered the ministry in 
1851, and since that time has belonged to the 
conference he joined. He married Harriet 
Meldrum; the issue of this marriage was 
three children, only one now living — Mrs. 
George Parsons, of Cairo. 

The Baptisi Church was organized October 
26, 1880. Though this church has not yet 
completed the third year of its existence, the 
causes that led to and are connected with its 
institution date back several years. Thei'e 
being no records that are accessible, we can- 
not speak particvilarly of the work previous 
to March, 1877. At the time named above, 
the remnant of Baptists in the city was re- 
enforced by a few others who came to make 
this their home, and after a number of con- 
sultations to devise ways and means for the 
establishment of some organization that 
would be the means, of disseminating Baptist 
principles, it was finally determined that a 
Sunday school be organized as a nucleus 
or rallying point fi'om which to direct other 
efforts when the time should be ripe for them. 
February 10, 1878. the first session of the 
Sunday school was held. Twenty persons 
were present — including all ages. Mr. 
George W. Strode was elected Superintendent, 
which office he has filled to the satisfaction of 
the school since that time. Mrs. Joseph W. 
Stewart (since deceased) was chosen Sec- 
retary and Treasurer. Mr. and Mrs. George 
W. Strode, Mr. C. B. S. Pennebaker. 
Mr. James W. Stewart, Mrs. O. N. Brain- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



185 



ard and Miss A. Rogers were appointed 
teachers. Papers, necessary Sabbath school 
helps, and an organ were speedily pro- 
cured, and the growth of the school, 
though slow at first, was steady and con- 
stant, both in numbers and interest; dur- 
ing its second year, it received an important 
accession to its working force in the persons 
of Mrs. and Miss W. C. Augur, of Hartford, 
Conn., whose active labors are still enlisted 
in the interest of the church and school. 
While the Sunday school prospered, hav- 
ing reached during its third year an atten- 
dance of seventy- five to one hundred, the 
question of organizing a Baptist Church was 
often and anxiously considered, and October 
26, 1880, this long desired object was accom- 
plished. After a sermon by Rev. W. F. 
Kone, pastor at the First Baptist Church at 
Huntsville, Ala., a council consisting of Revs. 
W. F. Kone, of Huntsville, Ala., G. L. Tal- 
bert and A. J. Hess, of Columbus, Ky., was 
convened, and the church duly recognized 
according to the custom in such cases. The 
charter members comprised the following 
persons: George W. Strode and wife, Mrs. 
Marj' P. Strode, C. B. S. Pennebaker, Isaac 
N. Smith and wife, IVIi-s. Louisa E. Smith, 
A. J. Alden and wife, Mrs. B. E. Alden, H. 
Leighton, Mrs. Sarah E. Parks, Mrs. M. J. 
Dewey, Mrs. Whittaker, Mrs. William Mor- 
ton, W. C. Augur and wife, Mrs. Julia C. 
Augur, Mrs. N. E. Coster and Mrs. Sarah 
S. Stickney — sixteen in all. The new or- 
ganization assumed the name, Cairo Baptist 
Church. George W. Strode, who had been or- 
dained Deacon of the Columbus, Ky., church, 
was recognized to the same office in the new 
chiu'ch. C. B. S. Pennebaker was chosen 
Clerk, which office he still holds. A call was 
extended to Rev. A. J. Hess, which he ac- 
cepted, generously proposing to visit Cairo 
once each month and minister to the chui-ch 



without definite promise of compensation un- 
til ai-rangements cuuld be made to secure 
that object. The upper room of " Temper- 
ance Hall " was rented as the regular place 
of meeting for the church and Sunday school. 

In November following the organization, 
Rev. W. F. Kone, who had been granted 
leave of absence by his church for that pur- 
pose, returned to Cairo and with the assist- 
ance of Revs. A. J. Hess, pastor, and G. L. 
Talbert, of Columbus. Ky., held a series of 
meetings with the church, which resulted in 
eight additions by letter and fourteen by 
baptism, a success that gave the new church 
a very encouraging start on its mission. 
About this time, the Baptist General Asso- 
ciation of the State came to the assistance of 
the church to the extent of secui'ing the serv- 
ices of its pastor for one Sabbath each 
month, and a few months later the " Clear 
Creek Association " of Southern Illinois 
promised additional aid, which enabled the 
church to obtain the services of Rev. Mr. 
Hess for two Sabbaths each month, an ar- 
rangement which continued until January, 
1883. 

The greatest need was a house, and many 
plans were conceived and discussed, Jooking^ 
to the accomplishment of that object. Pend- 
ing these discussions, the chiu'ch was visited 
by Rev. 1. N. Hobart, Superintendent of 
Missions for the Baptist General Association 
of Illinois, whose kindly interest was then,, 
and has since been, successfully exerted* in 
behalf of the work in Cairo. Through his 
recommendation, the church was afterward 
enabled to secure financial assistance, in the 
way of a loan — referred to in another part 
of this sketch — which aided it to place its 
property in very secure shape. Dr. Hobart's 
successor. Rev. E. S. Graham, present Sup- 
erintendent of Missions, has also manifested 
much interest in the Cairo work, and has. 



186 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



done much to enlist the sympathy and assist- 
ance of the local and general associations in 
its favor. 

Failing to secure desirable lots on which 
to erect a building, the church, through its 
Trustees, George ^\. Strode, Isaac N. Smith 
and C. B. S. Pennebaker, accepted the propo- 
sition of the Turner Society to sell their 
property, three lots, and a neat, well-built 
hall, comparatively new, 30x65 feet, with 
audience room 30x50 feet, and smaller rooms 
at end facing Poplar street. The price 
agreed upon was $2, 500. At the time of the 
purchase, the church had less than $100 in 
its treasury, but with the contributions of its 
members, and the generous assistance of 
freinds, in the city and abroad, about $1,700 
was raised, which, with a loan from " The 
American Baptist Home Mission Society," 
enabled the Trustees to pay for the property 
before the expiration of the thirty days al- 
lowed them by the Tm-ners. During the first 
year, including the purchase of property and 
necessary changes and ' repairs, more than 
$3,000 were expended, leaving an indebted- 
ness of $1,300, about $300 of which has 
since been paid off, so that the present in- 
debtedness is about $1,000. 

The church was re -painted, outside and 
inside, new pews, pulpit, baptistry, di-essing- 
rooms, etc., provided, and other improvements 
and furniture added, until their church 
home, though still wanting in some respects, 
is one of which the members feel justly 
proud, when they remember that so recently 
they were homeless. In September, 1881, 
Rev. W. F. Kone again visited Cairo, and 
assisted Rev. A. J. Hess, pastor, in a series of 
meetings, resulting in four additions by 
letter, and seventeen by baptism — thus in- 
creasing the membership to sixty-seven, 
a gain of forty-one during the year. In the 
following spring, the anxiety and apprehen- 



sion on account of the threatened overflow of 
the city, and the annoyance from the unusual 
accumulation of "sipe" water, had a depress- 
ing effect on the chvirch and Sabbath school 
work, as well as of the material interests of 
many of those interested in it, several of 
whom removed from the city, so that until 
recently the membership of the church had 
not increased in the aggregate, the acces- 
sions and losses being about equal. At the 
close of the second year, tbe church invited 
Rev. A. J. Hess, who had faithfully preached 
for it twice each month since the organiza- 
tion, to become its pastor for the whole of 
his time, but as the aid promised by the as- 
sociation was not sufficient to assui'e an 
adequate salary from the church, while the 
church at Charleston, Mo., the home of Mr. 
Hess, was prepared to offer him full support, 
he was compelled to decline the jnvitation 
from Cairo. This left the Cairo chm-ch 
without a pastor from January to May, 1883, 
during which time it suffered the usual de- 
cline in interest under such circumstances, 
though all its social and business meetings 
and the Sunday school were promptly at- 
tended to by the members. During April, 
1883, Rev. A. W. McGaha, of the " Southern 
Baptist Theological Seminary," Louisville, 
Ky. , was invited to take charge of the church 
as pastor, and accepted with the understand- 
ing that his labors should terminate with 
the commencement of the next session of the 
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in 
the event that he should decide to return to 
that institution. Mr. McGaha commenced 
his labors with the church here the tii'st Sab- 
bath in May, and in the short time that he 
has been in Caii'o bas exhibited a degree of 
earnestness and zeal that has gained the con- 
fidence and esteem of all with whom he comes 
in contact. Since the 16th of May, he has 
been engaged in a series of meetings with 




M^' 




lyry 







HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



189 



the church, in which he has had the assist- 
ance of the Pui'ser brothers, Rev. D. J. and 
John F., evangelists, of Mississippi, the 
success of whose labors in many other cities 
gave promise of a good work in Cairo, which 
has been realized. The meetings were held 
at the church every afternoon and evening, 
from the above date until Sunday evening, 
June 9, 1883 — nearly four weeks — resulting 
in thirty-six additions to the church; live by 
letter, twenty-seven by baptism, three under 
watch -care and one awaiting baptism, mak- 
ing the total membership at this time ninety- 
nine, and three under watch-care. The Sun- 
day school has a present average attendance 
of about one hiindred and twenty, under the 
following officers and teachers: 

George W. Strode, Superintendent; C. B. 
S. Pennebaker, Assistant Superintendent; 
Arthur Lemen, Secretary; AY. C. Augur, 
Treasvu-er. 

Teachers — George A^^ Strode, Mrs. Mary 
P. Strode, Mrs. W. C. Augui-, C. B. S. Pen- 
nebaker, Mrs. Carrie S. Hudson (infant 
class), Mrs. M. A. Walker, Mrs. Robert 
Baird, Mrs. Thomas Wilson, and the pastor's 
Glass for study of characters in the Old 
Testament, just organized. 

All the expenses of the church, including 
pastor's salary, are paid from a common fund, 
raised by subscription and voluntary con- 
tributions of the members. 

Though the membership of the church is, 
perhaps, weaker, financially, than any of the 
other leading societies in the city, the special 
efforts it has put forth to build up and per- 
manently establish and secure the cause of 
the denomination in Cairo, have brought it 
prominently before the public, and done 
much to acquaint the people with Baptist 
faith and practices. 

Considering its growth in the past few 
years, its present condition and future pros- 



pects, it would seem that the Baptists have 
at last succeeded in establishing their cause 
in Cairo, with a reasonable assurance of per- 
manence and prosperity. 

The Schools. — In a preceding chapter, we 
have told of the incipient efforts in Cairo, 
commencing with Glass' first pay-school, 
and briefly traced them along in their suc- 
cession to the time that the State had pro- 
vided for free public schools, which auspi- 
cious event occurred in Cairo in the year 
1854. 

The throwing open the schoolroom doors, 
free to all the world of school age, should 
mark an era and prove an auspicious hour for 
mankind. The admonition, " put money in 
thy purse," has out-traveled the electricity, 
and long enough been the controlling, cen- 
tral idea of all races of men; and the public 
free school was the idea, at least, of that on- 
ward step to put knowledge in the head. 
The world's gains in wealth, and comforts, 
and leisure, are necessary first steps to real 
education, because this alone is that wonder- 
ful law or force that separates the toiler from 
the thinker, a line of distinction among most 
men not pleasant to contemplate, yet it is 
one of the inscrutable laws of God. Good 
men dream of ^that better time coming, of 
that equality among all, and the obliterating 
of all lines that may possibly distinguish all 
idea of classes. The foolish believe this not 
only possible, but that it is the "open 
sesame" to complete happiness. Mental and 
social equality are not desirable things, even 
were they possible of attainment. Look 
about you, and see if it is the order of nature 
to make things alike. You will see that the 
prefection of the whole is the universal 
variety, the endless dissimilarity, the infinite 
differences, the impossibility, in short, of 
any two things in all nature being exactly 

similar, that constitutes the oneness and 

1 1 



lyO 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



grandeur of the infiuite universe. But men 
dream of equality, of a brotherhood of maa- 
kind, when they idealize only a similarity, 
and this is the perfection for which they 
yearn. 

The childi-en are the child's school teacher; 
the young people educate each other, and 
they all have social joys in the communion of 
thoughts ripened by observation and experi- 
ments. This is the order of nature, and it 
never has, nor never will be, changed. For 
over seventeen hundred years, the pietistic 
schools have been earnestly engaged in edu- 
cating the ever-rising generations— sowing 
the seeds of knowledge in the young minds 
that were to blossom and bear fruit for that 
fabled Golden Age that has never come— a 
rtopia of which we may di-eam sweet day- 
dreams, but never taste. A boy goes to col- 
lege, or the academy, and through the cur- 
riculum, graduates with high honors, and 
sometimes spend the remainder of their lives 
rendering praise to their Alma Mater, and 
die in the sincere faith that it was the vener- 
able President and Professors who educated 
them. This innocent mistake comes from the 
oversight that it was his Professor that 
trained him only, while it was his associates 
nearly always, good books, outside of his 
school, text books, sometimes, that had done 
the real work of education. In other words, 
the old train the young, while the real edu- 
cation of the young is in the social life, the 
intimate and friendly associations of the 
young with their equals in age— the contact 
of minds with minds, where a nearly com- 
plete conhdence and congeniality exists. The 
venerable grandsires, in their great interest 
and eager love, deliver their maturest 
thoughts in epigrams, and "wise saws" to 
the loved human kittens, who are, apparently, 
all respectful attention, but who are eager for 
tbat romp and play with their playmates, and 



this again teaches old age a lesson it will not 
learn, that it is in the merry shout and rip- 
pling laughter of merry childhood that 
brings that happy Commission of budding 
souls of which comes healthy minds and edu- 
cated intellects. 

Among the oldest schools in history was 
that of Epicurus, in Athens, and that of the 
sweet and lovely girl of Alexandria, Hvpatia. 
The school of Epicurus was a social club, 
that wandered, and lounged, and conversed 
in the winding walks and grateful shades of 
the gardens: and the gifted and beautiful 
girl. Hypatia. from the porches of Alexan- 
dria discussed those great and unanswered 
questions, "Who am I? Where am I? 
Whither am I going?" 

This remarkable girl was torn in pieces by 
a fanatic mob, for discussing these great 
and, so far, insoluble questions; it is to be 
hoped that in this nineteeath century blaze 
of liberty of discussion, we may not be sim- 
ilarly served for asking similar questions, but 
concerning the less vital interests of the 
soul, but the yet greatest of all temporal 
ones, that of education: Where is it? What 
is it? Where can it be obtained? 

To answer the first of the above questions 
intellio-ently, it is essential first to fully un- 
derstand the second one — Education, What 
is it? All talk about it, and it runs glibly 
over the tongue of the youngest and oldest, 
the learned and the unlearned, and nine- 
tenths of all civilized peoples would stare at 
you, were you in seriousness to ask them the 
question. The dictionaries all define the 
word, and everybody fully understands it, 
yet, What is education ? The wi'iter remem- 
bers hearing the simple question asked of a 
Teachers' Institute, and most painfully does 
he recollect that they did not and could not 
tell, although there were professors there 
who were supposed to be eminent in the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



191 



rjinks of educators. Educators, and not 
know what education is! it's something of a 
travesty. Had this institute been composed 
of very ignorant men, not only ignorant but 
unculturetl, each member could have an- 
swered the question in a moment, and showed 
supreme contempt for the poor fool that 
would ask such a question. For more than 
seventeen hundred years, the present systems 
cr ideas have prevailed in the school room. 
We do not mean that the same things are 
taught now that were in the olden time, but 
that the present system, the cardinal ideas 
all through it, are based upon the first 
schools founded in Egypt so many centuries 
ago, and that at their foundation were one of 
the greatest advances of civilization. The 
first schools were solely for the purpose of 
memorizing the 'precepts and philosophies of 
the fathers, in whose sayings were all wis- 
dom and all good; in short, it was then a 
process of committing to memory and it is 
exactly this now. The manner and forms 
have all undergone wonderful changes, but 
the substance, as found in the school room of 
to-day, and those of the long ages ago, are 
identical. The earliest educator's supposed 
that training the mind was education, and 
that, therefore, a training-room was a school; 
whereas it is a fact you may commit, were 
this a possibility, every book, manuscript and 
tradition in the world to memory, and still 
you may not be at all educated. Could you 
retain them all after they were memorized, 
you would have a wonderful storehouse — 
mostly trash and rubbish — yet what an inex- 
haustible supply of facts, and many of the 
greatest thoughts fi-om the busiest and best 
brains. Could you separate the wheat from 
the chaff in this storehouse, and make a prac- 
tical, everyday use of it all, you might be 
the best informed man in the world, and still 
not educated. But few men, owing to the 



general vagueness of their ideas, can draw 
any distinction between training and educa- 
tion, and hence it is that so few in the world 
ever give a thought to the subject of what 
real education is. This is an inexhaustible 
theme, and we do not purpose to do more 
than to look briofiy xipon its most outward 
boundaries, in the hope that a hint may be 
dropped that will attract the attention of 
some mind that will push the investigation 
to its final issue. 

What is education ? It is getting knowledge. 
And what is knowledge? It is the under- 
standing of the mental and physical laws. 
To yet bi'oaden, and simplify the definition 
— to understand the natural laws. We 
mean the laws that govern mind and matter. 

These terms and definitions must not be 
confounded in the mind of the reader, or our 
words will be worse than in vain. To most 
people it looks like a'very simple, if not con- 
tfimptible, proposition to talk about under- 
standing the natural laws — laws that govern 
mind and matter. Yet this once accom- 
plished, and you are possessed of the knowl- 
edge of Omniscience, the wisdom of the true 
God. Knowledge, therefore, is not the 
ability to read Latin, Greek and Hebrew, or 
to solve all the problems in mathematics, or 
to talk glibly, and give in detail other men's 
thoughts. In fact, the fundamental idea of 
the college and university is such, that the 
most learned man may be truly the most ig- 
norant. W^o do not say that of necessity it 
is so, but that such a case is possible. 
Learning and knowledge — when learning 
means memorizing — have so little in com- 
mon, that it is simj)ly amazing that, for such 
a long reach of time, they could have been 
confounded as being synonymous terms. To 
think intelligently npnu this subject, the dis- 
tinctions between a training-school and a 
school for educational purposes, it must be 



192 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



borne in mind, are vastly different things. 
And that parent only is competent to super- 
intend the education of the child, who clear- 
ly comprehends what education is. 

But we are told, from age to age, that the 
school is not created for the purpose of im- 
parting knowledge to the child, but to de- 
velop and strengthen the mind and show it 
how to grow strong; to put the instruments 
within its reach, and in after life it may use 
them at will; to be a mental gymnasium, 
and to criss-cross the mental limbs, so to 
speak, with great rolls of muscles of strength, 
as are the athlete's arms and limbs developed 
in the physical gymnasium. Well, let us 
glance at this a moment. Does your child 
need be shown how to grow into physical 
strength and beauty? Were not those 
fathers fools who supposed they could put 
their children in strait-jackets, to form 
them on a plan better than the strong im- 
pulses of their nature ? If exercise in the 
way of tasks — and we know of no system of 
labor in the world where tasks universal pre- 
vails ^s in the school room — if this is the way 
to develop the physical, why should a child 
ever be allowed to play, but make it work. 
The most ignorant "parents well understand 
that the very young child put to work is de- 
formed in its gi-owth, and often killed. And 
yet the healthy young child is a perfect cub- 
bear. It looks incredible how long their lit- 
tle bodies can endure the apparently most 
fatiguing plays. Let the grown man at- 
tempt, for a few hours, to follow a romping 
boy, and make as many steps, and subject his 
body to all the trials of strength and strains 
the boy does, and he would fall by the way 
exhausted. Yet reverse it, and let the boy 
attempt the steady, tiresome labor of the 
man, and how soon would he fall and expire. 
Watch a half-dozen children, from the wee 
toddler to the nearly grown, romping, scream- 



ing, shouting their unaccountable delight in 
their furious plays, and then reflect for but 
a moment, and you will realize that they are 
only growing, developing in the natural, 
only way they can be developed into strong, 
brave men and queenly, beautiful women. 
Do you imagine you could build a room, and 
hire a teacher, and crowd them in there and 
teach them how to develop their physical 
systems? True, you know but little about 
their physical systems, and may well excuse 
yourself on that ground but then you know 
absolutely nothing about their mental sys- 
tem. And yet you proceed about the rigid 
control, and mastery and direction of the 
mind, as though you possessed more than 
Omniscient wisdom on this one point. To 
look upon the young babe in its mother's 
arms, is to love at once the blesse4 little 
bundle of squirming, idiotic innocence and 
angelic purity, for " of such is the [kingdom 
of heaven," and yet it is to shudder for the 
possibilities of broken parental hearts, and 
the unspeakable woe that may yet come of 
that innocence and purity, through mistaken 
ignorance in its training and education. We 
are not extravagant, then, when we say that 
the training and education of the coming 
generations is the one great, transcendent 
subject of life. To be mistaken here is to 
risk more than your own life, and the life 
and happiness of all you hold dear on this 
earth. 

The proposition is to us self-evident that 
the infant mind can no more be developed 
into health and strength by work than can 
the body. Either mental or physical work, 
to the young and tender, is the highway to 
imbecility and deformity. Let the child 
play — watching over and so directing it, 
without its knowl edge of your doing so, as 
to protect and keep it from absolutely injur- 
ing itself by thoughtless exposures and in- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



193 



discreet taxings, and yon may laugh at the 
doctor and his nostrum'? and his bills to save 
the lives of yoiu* childi'en. And if you have 
ever spent a day with a child, you will know 
that it wants to take its exercise in the open 
air, not in the well-warmed schoolroom or 
nursery. Every instinct and impulse of the 
child as naturally leads it to its mental as to 
its bodily development. But one is as much 
a play with it as the other. Its young mind 
is as active as its precious little body. It 
will ask questions until the father or mother 
will impatiently beg it to stop or it will kill 
them. Is not this the identical result, when 
a grown person commences to play with a 
child? The adult will tire in a few moments, 
and beg to be let alone, when the child feels 
it has hardly commenced. It is ordered by 
authority, to " be still." Watch the cloud 
pass over its bright face as it breathes softly 
and tries to obey, when it can no more con- 
trol its impulsive yielding to that higher law 
than it can stop breathing, and then it turns 
to its real schoolmaster, its equal and play- 
mate, and, stealing away from the angry face, 
they resume the work of physical and mental 
growth. 

We hold this to be true, and we speak from 
experience, that you may commence teaching 
your child as soon as it can prattle, always 
as play and never as a task, and by the time 
it can talkj'plain, you can have it to both 
read and wi'ite and sjiell correctly the name 
of nearly every one of its playthings and the 
articles of fiirnitm'e about the house. We do 
not attach any value to this very young play- 
education, yet, if it is play that it enjoys 
with the keen zest of infancy, it will not 
probably hurt it. This can be done with 
any ordinarily "bright child, and yet foolish 
fathers and mothers will tell you they are 
always too biisy to teach their children any- 
thing at home. It is not that they are too 



busy, but only too ignorant. They are, may- 
hap, both graduates of some institution of 
learning, and yet so ignorant that they will 
undertake to rear a family, when incompe- 
tent, really, for the position of caring for 
blind puppies. 

We champion the cause of outraged inno- 
cence and blessed childhood. We would war 
to the death upon that monster, ignorance, 
whether " learned ignorance " or that more 
excusable, inherited and common, if not uni- 
versal, kind. We would enact it a capital 
crime to task a child. It is simply the most 
inexcusable and infernal species of slavery. 
It is soul-polluting, and enslaving and de- 
grading your own flesh and blood, and where 
such a wretched practice prevails, it is mar- 
velous that mankind does not relapse into 
brutal barbarism. We know of but one 
thing meaner, more degrading or infamous, 
and that is whipping ,yom' child. In the 
schools — we blush for the age of which this 
must be written — they call it "corporal pun- 
ishment," and flatter themselves that that 
great compound word can cover the blotch 
and deep damnation of the monster act. 

But we stop abruptly in this line of 
thought, appalled at the immensity of the 
subject, as it grows in the succession of ideas 
as they follow each other. Assuming, as we 
may, that the most important subject in this 
life is the education of the young, we might 
be justified in disregai'ding all else, and fol- 
lowing these merest hints to their final and 
inevitable conclusions, and elaborating them, 
at least, in a manner that might make plain 
to tlie comprehension of all the views of 
the writer. To conviucf intelligent thinkers 
that this important institution deserves to be 
ever examined and watched, and that it is a 
foolish people who sit supinely down in the 
faith that the fathers jiossessed all wisdom, 
and had so arranged ouv schoolrooms, that 



194 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



any further questioning of the system is a 
folly, if not a crime. In heaven's name, 
No! We would not wi-ite the schools down, 
but up. We would correct the wrongs, if 
any, and improve and perfect the good. And, 
above all, if we have not real schools of true 
education, we would never stop until we had 
made them such, if this were possible. 

The first public free school was commenced 
in 1854, in the present Eleventh Street 
Schoolhouse. This was a plain, one- story, 
one- room, frame building, and one teacher, 
and meager as were these school facilities 
they supplied the demand of that day, and 
continued to do so until 1SG5. In 3S64:, the 
three- story brick building on the corner of 
Thirteenth and Walnut streets was erected. 
It has five rooms, two on each floor, except 
the third, which is in one room. The colored 
schoolhouse (responsive to the negroes' sen- 
sitiveness on the pigment points) was erected. 
This is a two-story frame, with four rooms, 
and is situated on the corner of Nineteenth 
and Walnut streets. Then was erected the 
present elegant high school building, on the 
comer of Walnut and Twenty-first streets. 
This is a three-story brick, and has five 
rooms. The School Board has rented a 
schoolroom for the past two years. This is 
across the street from the high school. The 
past school year, the board has employed 
seventeen teachers; there were 1,100 pupils; 
the highest salary was $1,200 a year, and the 
lowest $30 per month. The number of chil- 
dren, of ages under twenty one, is, males, 
2, 036, females, 2,024; thenum})er of school age 
is, males, 1,394, females, 1,447; total, 2,841. 
The assessment for school purposes, the present 
and past few years, has been $10,000. There 
has for some time been but one male teacher in 
the white schools — the Superintendent — and 
one male in the negro schools. For some 
time, the seating capacity iu the school rooms 



and the supply of children have been out of 
all i^roportion, and the result is that the 
primary rooms were so overrun that the 
board was compelled to allow only half-days' 
attendance, and we make no doubt but this 
necessity will result in the discovery that 
half a day is a plenty for the little children to 
be mewed up in the schoolroom. 

The newspapers of the country, of a few 
months ago, were laden with dispatches from 
Cairo, giving the full details of what were 
called the negro raids upon the public 
schools. It seems they were not satisfied ro 
be alone in their own schoolrooms, and so 
they counseled together, and, by concert of 
action, met at their 'churches and school- 
rooms, and in bodies marched upon the white 
schools. Their principal point of attack 
seemed to be the hio^h school buildino-. The 
motly processions were headed by the most 
venerable old gray headed bucks and wenches, 
and tapered down to the most infantile, un- 
washed, bow-legged picaninnies; and tbey 
all said, " I rocken we'uns wants to gradiate 
as well as white trash." It all resulted in 
nothing more serious than a great annoyance 
and interruption to the schools. Some of the 
brave girls that were teaching saw the savory 
mob a]:)proaching. and barred the doors and 
kept them out; while in other rooms they 
efiected a lodgment, and proposed to stay. 
The writer had the curiosity to interview the 
Tax Collector of this school district, and 
was informed that the whole tax paid by the 
negroes was not enough to pay for the fuel 
used in the negro schools. But these young 
Solomons of Africa probably would have paid 
small heed to that, had it been presented to 
them. 

Loretfo Academy. — This is a, female con- 
vent school, under the auspices of the Sis- 
ters of Loretto. It was founded in 1863, 
under the superintendency of Mother Eliza- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



195 



beth Hayden, a sister of Bishop Spaulding, 
of Kentucky. It cost over 18,000, and when 
the frame was up, and ready for inciosure, 
it was wrecked by a storm. It was again put 
up, and soon was one of the most floui-ishiag 
female academies in the country. Four 
years ago, the entire building was burned to 
the ground, inflicting a great loss, as well as 
an interriTption to the school. It was soon 
rebuilt, and in the rebuilding it was enlarged 
and greatly improved, and has now fully re- 
gained its lost ground. This institution of 
learning has been much prized by the people 
of Cairo, and many of the daughters of some 
of the best people have been educated there. 
Frei Deufsch Schnle. — This has long been 
one of the noted schools of Cairo. To a Ger- 
man, the name is quite enough explanation 



as to what it is: a free school, for the pur- 
pose of teaching German, and without re- 
ligious bias. Their building is on Four- 
teenth, between "Washington and "Walnut 
streets. They have about seventy-five 
pupils, and the institution is maintained 
wholly by private subscription. This free 
school was opened in 1863; its founders and 
principal supporters were F. Bross, H. 
Meyers, P. G. Schuh, Ed Buder, Charles 
Feuchter, Peter Each, Juhn Reese, Peter 
Neft', Leo Klepp, Charles Meyner, John 
Scheel and Jacob Banning. The house cost 
$4,500. and among the largest contributors 
to build it were A. B. Saflford and AVill- 
iam Schutter. The principal teachers have 
been Mr. Apple, Wirsching, Kroeger, and 
assistant, Miss Yocum. 



CHAPTER X 



RA1LK0AD8— THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL— CAIRO SHORT LINE— THE IRON MOUNTAIN— CAIRu .-t ST. 

LOUIS— THE WABASH— MOBILE ^^ OHIO— TEXAS \ ST. LOUIS— THE GREAT JACKSON 

ROUTE— ROADS BEING BUILT, ETC., ETC. 



"Mine eyes, that I might question my con- 
ductor." — Longfellow. 

IN the opening chapter of the history of 
Cairo, we noted that the event of trans- 
cendent importance, not only to Cairo but 
the entire Mississippi Valley, was the coming 
of the first steamboat — the first that ever 
stirred the waters west of the Alleghany 
Mountains, being the Orleans, Capt. Roose- 
velt, which, passing down the Ohio, rode 
out into the Mississippi River on the 18th 
day of Deceml^er, 1811. Compared with the 
floating palaces that have since plowed these 
rivers, it was but a rude craft — yet it was a 
steamboat — a true type of an immortal hu- 



man conception, that was freighted and bal- 
lasted with the weal of civilization. 

The railroad is but the steamer running on 
dry land. But far-seeing minds looked at 
the steamboat as it stemmed the current and 
the winds with its enormous loads of mer- 
chandise, and they thought that wheels could 
be made to take the place of the paddles, 
and thus the propelling engine would carry 
the same precious cai'goes over valley and 
plain, hills and mountains that it did on the 
water. The great invention of Fulton's had 
cast its seed in other men's minds and then 
the thought goes on forever; starting like 
the little rivulet over the white sand and 



196 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



gravel, so insignificant at first that a straw 
wonld turn or obstruct its course, yet passing 
on and on, and gathering accessions and vol- 
ume here and there until it swells into the 
great and resistless river, bearing upon its 
heaving bosom the Armada of the world as 
in majesty it rushes into the great sea that 
rolls around all the world. Just so is a great 
thought matm-ed, fashioned and grown; it is 
the slow growth of ages, perhaps, as it has 
gathered accretions from millions of minds. 
It comes not springing forth a full gi'own 
Phofinix fro n the ashes, but in the nature of 
things, the greater the conception the slower 
has been its formation; but once the seed has 
commenced to germinate, and the warm fruc- 
tifying rays from the mind of genius have 
touched it into life, nothing can prevent or 
check its progress, and it will mature and 
bear fruit for the human race and for all 
time. What a travesty upon men are all 
the Napoleons, Csesars, Alexanders, and all 
the warriors, rulers and potentates of the 
earth, when stood up beside the serene, the 
great Fulton! They are the toads and bats 
and vampires — sucking rivers of blood, and 
see them picking the shreds of human flesh 
from their bloody talons, wiping their beaks 
of the fresh stains of quivering hearts, and 
behold them blink and shrink back in the 
presence of the bright day and sunshine cast 
from the peaceful and benign countenances 
of these gi'eat men who have lived and 
thought and starved and died for the good 
of their fellow -men. 

When the thoughts of genius burst into 
blossom, they till the world with hope like the 
spring time, and of this ripened fruit come 
those grand advances of civilization that 
alone distinguish us from the beasts of bur- 
den and prey. A human invention that 
started away back in the past ages, by whom 
the world will never know generally, has 



slowly grown and ripened as minds have ad- 
ded to it in the years, until it becomes per- 
fected into a living force, is the supremest 
production of the earth. It surpasses that 
" perfect creature, man," as the gods do the 
groundlings. These slow- growing and per- 
fected thoughts come rarely and slowly into 
this world, but they are the only true mark 
and measure of our civilization. And there- 
fore, could their history be truly given, with 
something of each great mind that played its 
rays of light upon the subject, and the work- 
ing impulses of that mind, they would be the 
most interesting, profound and edifying 
words that were ever placed upon paper. 
This, indeed, would be history — history 
containing philosophy, science, civilization — 
all knowledge, all good, all enduring pleas- 
ure possible to man. It is present in its im- 
measureable effects always, while its causes 
are in the " deep bosom of the ocean buried:" 
and it is the ignorance and unweeded barbar- 
ism yet lingering in mankind that works this 
injustice to its true benefactors and great 
men, and that has crowned witii laurel 
wreaths the butchers and the shams, and 
that has told the story of the world's bloody 
sacrifices to mean ambition in immortal epic, 
and consigned to forgetfulness the works of 
genius that are the very sunlight of the 
crowning type of civilization. 

There is no one thing in the history of Cairo, 
or for that matter, the entire State of Illinois, 
that exceeds in importance the building of 
the Illinois Central Railroad. The idea of 
a railroad running from this point to the 
north line of the State began to be enter- 
tained by a few far-seeing minds almost sim- 
ultaneously with the first settlement of the 
place. 

The Legislature elected August, 1836, was 
supplemented by a State Internal Improve- 
ment Convention, composed of many of the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



197 



ablest men in the State, which was to meet at 
the seat of government simultaneously with 
the Legislature. This convention devised a 
general system of internal improvement, the 
leading characteristics of which were " that 
it should be commensurate with the wants of 
the people." This convention was an irre- 
sponsible body, determined to succeed in its 
one object, regai'dless of consequences. 
Possibilities were argued into probabilities, 
and the latter into infallibilities. The Leg- 
islatm-e was duly impressed with the public 
sentiment that had been worked up. 

A bill for the construction of nine rail- 
roads, including $3,500,000 for the Central 
Kailroad from the mouth of the Ohio to Ga- 
lena, was the largest of these entei-prises, 
and the importance of reaching the naviga- 
ble rivers at Cairo is well outlined by the 
concluding paragraph of the committee's re- 
port, which was submitted to the Legislature. 
It says : " In the present situation of the 
country, the products of the interior, by rea- 
son of their remoteness from market, are 
left upon the hands of the producer or sold 
barely at the price of the labor necessary to 
raise and prepare them for sale. But if the 
contemplated system should be carried into 
effect, these fertile and healthy districts, 
which now languish for the want of ready 
markets for their pi'oductions, would find a 
demand at home for them during the prog- 
ress of the works, and after their completion 
would have the advantages of a cheap tran- 
sit to a choice of markets on the various nav- 
igable streams. These would inevitably 
tend to build towns and cities along the 
routes and at the terminal points of the re- 
spective railroads." 

The theory of the effect upon the State 
that would come from the building of rail- 
roads were not dreams, even if their ideas 
as to how this consummation was to be 



brought about was a huge and almost fatal 
blunder. 

The improvement convention mapped out 
nine railroads, as mentioned, and the Legisla- 
ture not only responded fully to their com- 
mands, but proceeded to show that its mem- 
bers had ideas, too, in regard to the State tak- 
ing hold of this beautiful Aladdin's Lamp. 
After making all the appropriations called 
for, it proceeded to hunt out the small 
streams, forsooth, often the wet-weather riv- 
ulets, and appropriate money by the thou- 
sands to make them navigable rivers, or to 
improve them by locks and dams. Because 
there was no money in the treasury, they de- 
termined to spend money with the most per- 
fect abandon. This was reckless legislation 
— shocking financiering, but it showed great 
energy and industry, and ending in the ap- 
parent total destruction of the very objects 
and purposes it had in view. The Central 
Railroad was scotched, not killed, and soon 
new schemes for its construction came in 
view; but all of them lacked vitality until the 
passage of the act of Congress of September, 
1850, granting to the State the munificent 
donation of nearly 3,000,000 acres of land 
through the heart of Illinois in aid of its 
completion. The year 1850 was truly a his- 
torical one for the nation. That year wit- 
nessed the throes and convulsive tremors at- 
tending the great adjustment measures, dur- 
ing that long and exciting session of Con- 
gress. And amid the exciting struggle for 
national life the bill which finally created 
the Illinois Central Railroad passed, and, in 
the Wefet, gave the people's mind some di- 
version from the all absorbing national topics. 
At that time the entire railroad in Illinois 
consisted of the Northern Cross Railroad 
from Meredosia and Naples on the Illinois 
River, to Springfield; the Chicago & Galena, 
from the former city as far as Elgin, and a 



198 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



six-mile track across the American bottom 
from opposite St. Louis to the mines in the 
bluffs. The essence of the Congressional 
act consisted in gi'antiug, not to the road, but 
to the State of Illinois, the public lands to 
the extent of the even-numbered sections for 
the distance of six sections deep on each side 
of the track, including the contemplated 
trunk and branches of the road from Cairo 
to Galena, with a branch to Chicago; for 
the lands sold or pre-empted within this des- 
ignated twelve- mile strip, enough might be 
taken from even-numbered sections for the 
distance of lifteen miles on either side of 
the tracks to be equal in quantity to them. 
The act granted to the railroad the right of 
WE}- through public lauds of the width of 200 
feet. The construction of the road was 
to be simultaneously commenced at its north- 
ern and southern termini, and when com- 
pleted the branches were to be constructed, 
the whole to be completed within ten years, 
in default of which, the unsold lands were 
to revert to the Government, and for those 
sold the State was to pay the Government 
price. The minimum price of the alternate 
or odd numbers was raised from $1.25 to 
$2.50 per acre. Here were 3,000,000 acres 
of land given away at an immense profit, as 
by this doubling the price of the remaining 
half, the gain in time in the sales and the 
increase of population of the State are beyond 
computation. The land was taken out of 
market for two years, and when restored in 
the fall of 1852, it in fact brought an aver- 
age of $5 per acre. The purposes of Con- 
gress in donating this land to the State was 
the construction of the raih'oad, and that 
the State should use it only for that purpose, 
and the Government required the State to 
make the road subject always to remain a 
public highway for the use of the Govern- 
ment of the United States, free from all tolls 



or other charges for the transportation of 
any troops, munitions, ov other property of the 
General Government. This is a plain pro- 
vision in the Congressional act, and yet when 
the war came, almost upon the completion of 
the road, this restriction was construed not 
to apply to the rolling stock, but only to the 
rails, and, therefore, it only gave the Govern- 
ment the right to i)ut its own rolling stock 
and run them over the road free, otherwise 
it had to pay as well as any private 
citizen. The act of Congress contemplated 
the extension of the road south from Cairo 
to Mobile, and the same provisions were ex- 
tended to the States of Alabama and Missis- 
sij^pi. This was the substance of the first 
subsidy ever made by Congress to aid in the 
construction of a railroad, and wise, just and 
good as was the measure, it opened a Pan- 
dora's box that has well nigh despoiled the 
country of its public domain. 

At the same session. Congress passed an 
act OT'anting to the State of Arkansas the 
swamp and overflowed lands unfit for culti- 
vation and remaining unsold within i ts borders, 
the benefits whereof were extended by Sec- 
tion 4, to each of the other States in which 
there might be such lands situated. By 
this act the State of Illinois received 1,500,- 
000 acres more. These lands were subse- 
quently turned over to the respective counties 
where located, with the condition that they 
be drained and used for school purposes. 

Mr. Douglas prepared a petition, signed 
by the Congressional delegations of all the 
States along the I'oute of the road fi-om Mo- 
bile north, describing the probable location 
of the road and its branches through Illinois 
and requesting the President to order the 
suspension of land sales along the lines des- 
ignated, which was immediately done. 

The Legislature oi Illinois was to meet in 
January, 1851, and the whole people of the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



199 



State, but especially those along the contem- 
plated line and branches, began to discuss 
thp probabilities of what that body would do 
and what it of right should do. The point 
of departure of the branch from the main 
line was au open one, and rival towns began 
to push forward their claims, and much dis- 
cussion and contention pervaded the press of 
the State. The La Salle interests wanted 
the branch for Chicago taken off at that 
point: Bloomington was making a vigorous 
struggle in the same way, and unfortunate 
Shelbyville, which was a fixed point in the 
old charters, feeling secui'e on that point, 
also grasped for the branch deflection from 
that point, and in the end missed both the 
main line and branch. The route proposed 
was a direct line from Cairo, making di- 
rectly to Mount Vernon and making the sep- 
aration at that point, and from Mount Ver- 
non the main line to run to Carlyle, Green- 
ville, Hillsboro, Springfield, Peoria, Galena 
and over to Dubuque. But by this route the 
belt of vacant land would have failed to give 
the required donation, and hence the author- 
ities of the road would not adopt it. 

In a previous chapter we have spoken at 
some length of several charters obtained 
under the name of the Illinois Central, and 
the Great Western Transportation Company 
and the Cairo City & Canal Company, all 
looking to the building or securing the rail- 
road as it is now constructed substantially. 
All this multifarious legislation was obtained 
under what is now known as the Holbrook 
regime, and the many chai'ters, amendments, 
repeals and re-enactments affecting this sub- 
ject came to be known as the Holbrook char- 
ters. Holbrook was the chief factotum of 
the Cairo Company, and eventually undtsr 
the name of a charter for the Great Western 
Company he secured for the Cairo City 
Company the franchise of the Illinois Cen- 



tral Railroad. And in the charter it was 
provided that " all lands that may come into 
the possession of said company, whether by 
donation or purchase," were pledged and 
mortgaged in advance in security for the 
payment of the bonds and obligations of the 
company authorized to be issued and con- 
tracted under the provisions of the charter. 
By act of March 3, 1845, thf charter of the 
Great Western Railway Company was le- 
pealed; by an act of February 10, 184:9, it was 
revived for the benefit of tbe Cairo City & 
Canal Company. The company thus revived 
was authorized in the construction of the Cen- 
tral Railroad to extend it on from the southern 
terminus of the canal — La Salle — to Chicago, 
" in strict conformity to all obligations, re- 
strictions, powers and privileges of the act 
of 1843.'' Holbrook's railroad scheme then 
gently took tbe Governor into a quiet partner- 
ship, to the extent of authorizing that oflicia) 
to hold in trust for the use and benefit of said 
company whatever lands might be donated to 
the State by the General Government, to aid 
said road, subject to the conditions and pro- 
visions of the bill (then pending before Con- 
gress and expected to become a law) grant- 
ing the subsidy of 3,0(X),000 acres of land. 
This was a nice scheme to have the grabbing 
all done in advance. In the light of the long 
years that are past, there can now be but 
one construction put upon the " Holbrook 
charters." They were not honest, and char- 
ity alone may protect the Legislature from 
an equally severe judgment by saying they 
were ignorant Holbrook in some unaccount- 
able way had impressed even such men as 
Judge Breese and Gov. Casey that he 
was a great and pure financier, and they were 
ready to confess they could see no signs of a 
cat in the meal tub. The Legislature 
seemed to delight in dancing attendance 
upon his slightest wishes, and so far as in 



300 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



their power, they seemed ready to lay the 
State at his feet. But most fortunately for 
Illinois, Judge Douglas was alive and at this 
time a United States Senator from Illinois, 
and he could not be hoodwinked by the 
plausible schemes against the vital interests 
of his State. Daring the session of the Illi- 
nois Legislature of 1849, he appeared be- 
fore that body (a special session) and in an 
able and effective speech, which he delivered 
October 23, he showed the Legislature that 
a palpable fraud had been practiced upon it 
in its session of the preceding winter in pro- 
curing from it this charter; and that had the 
bill in Congress met with no delay on ac- 
count of this fraud, this vast property would 
have gone into the hands of Holbrook & Co. 
to enrich those scheming corporators, with 
little assm-ance, as they represented no 
wealth, and gave no assurances that the 
road would ever be built; that Con- 
gress had an insuperable objection to 
making the grant for the benefit of a pri- 
vate corporation. The connection of these 
Holbrook companies with the Central Rail- 
road in the estimation of Congress, presented 
an impassable barrier to the grant But the 
same Legislature that had granted the char- 
ter refused to repeal it even after it had been 
thus exposed by Judge Douglas. Thus mat- 
ters stood and the schemers supposed their 
triirmph complete until the fact finally was 
brought to their attention that Judge Doug- 
las would never permit Congress to pass the 
bill in any shape whereby • the Holbrooks 
could reap all the benefits. Judge Douglas 
simply said he preferred the bill should 
never pass than that the State and the Gov- 
ernment should be robbed, and then no cer- 
tainty the road would ever be built. This 
was unexpected difficulties for the schemers, 
and Holbrnok's genius at once set about the 
way of getting up a plausible dodge to 



bridge the trouble. Il was ascertained that 
Mr. Douglas insisted as a condition prece- 
dent that Holbrook & Co. should release to 
the State not only their charter, but all 
claims to the benefits of the Congressional 
enactment. On December 15, 1849, Mr. 
Holbrook, as President of the company, exe- 
cuted a protest of release to the Governor, a 
duplicate of which was transmitted to Mr. 
Douglas at Washington. Bat the Senator 
declined to accept this as a document of any 
value or binding force upon the company of 
which Holbrook was Px'esident, as it was 
without the sanction of the stockholders or 
even the board of directors. While he did 
not impute any such motive, the company, 
he believed, was still in the condition which 
would enable it to take all the lands granted, 
divide them among its stockholders and re- 
tain its chartered privileges without build- 
ingthe road. He was unwilling to give his 
approval to any arrangement by which the 
State could be deprived possibly of any of 
the benefits resulting from the expected 
grant. For the protection of the State and 
as an assurance to Congress, the execution 
of a full and complete lease of all rights and 
privileges and a surrender of the Holbrook 
charters and all acts, or parcels of acts, sup- 
plemented or amendatory thereof, or relating 
in anywise to the Central Railroad, so as to 
leave the State, through its Legislature, free 
to make such disposition of the lands and 
such arrangement for the construction of the 
road as might be deemed best, was de- 
manded . 

Judge Douglas' requirements were finally 
fully complied with, but only after the effort 
had been made to get him to accept an in- 
sufficient release and one that, no doubt, 
had he accepted, would have resulted in again 
bankrupting the State, and perhaps indefinite- 
ly delaying the building of the Illinois Central 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



201 



Railroad. Then Congress passed the act mak 
ing the donation of land. No sooner had the 
act passed than did Holbrook in many ways, 
among others by letters to parties in Illinois 
which were published, set about making 
the pretense that his company still was the 
only rightful claimants to the land grant, 
and had the only charter that covered the 
ground on which the road must be built. 
In a letter from him, dated New York, Sep- 
tember 25, 1850, to a citizen of Illinois, he 
said: " I can truly say that I am under ob- 
ligations to those who with Gov. Casey 
prevented the repeal of the charter of the 
Great "Western Railway Company. It was 
granted in good faith and under no other 
that the State can now grant. * * * i 
am now organizing the company to com- 
mence the work this fall and put a large part 
of the road under contract as soon as possi- 
ble. We shall make the road on the old 
line, etc. , etc. " This letter was widely pub- 
lished, as Holbrook probably designed it 
should be. A Chicago paper in the interests 
of Holbrook published an editorial, taking 
even stronger gi'ounds than did Holbrook, 
and almost said in so many words that IMr. 
Douglas had been deceived — that he was a 
fool, and that now Holbrook & Co. had all in 
their hands they would proceed to do the 
work and defy IVIi-. Douglas. 

The suffering of the people fi'om the in- 
ternal impi'ovement swindle had been too 
severe and too recent to allow them to be in- 
different to these old pretensions of Hol- 
brook «& Co. The alarm ran over the State 
and iutensitied as the time came for the 
assembling of the Legislature that was to have 
in its hands the splendid government gift.* 

In November, before the meeting of the 

*It should he here btatcd that this Great Western CharttT was 
the new one ami incliileij at lenst one pr >miDeiit mm in nearly 
every county in tlie State, and it was never 8upposed ail these were 
influenced by evil designs upon the State. 



Legislature, Waiter B. Scates, one of the 
new corporators of the Great Western Rail- 
road Company of 184^, addressed a letter 
of invitation to all his co- corporators, duly 
named, to meet at Springfield, January 6, 
1851, for the pm-pose of taking such action 
as might be deemed expedient for the public 
good by surrendering up their charter to the 
State, or such other com-se as might be de- 
sired by the General Assembly, to remove all 
doubts and questions relative to the com- 
pany's rights and powers, and to disembar- 
rass that body with regard to the disposal of 
the gi-aat of land from Congress for the 
building of the much-needed Central Rail- 
road. 

With the opening of the General Assembly 
appeared at Springfield Mr. Robert Rautoul, 
of Boston, who being the duly accredited 
agent of Robert Schuyler, George Griswold, 
Gov. Morris, Jonathan Sturgis, George W. 
Ludlow and John F. Sandford, of New 
York, and David A Neal, Franklin Haven 
and Robert Rantoul, Jr., of Boston, presented a 
memorial to the Legislatui'e, embracing a 
most just and liberal proposition to build the 
road. The memorialists stated that they 
had examined the act of Congress in refer- 
ence to the road, and- had examined the re- 
som-ces of the country through which the 
proposed road was to pass, and estimated the 
cost and time necessary to build the road ; that 
they proposed to form a joint-stock com2:)any 
of themselves and such others as they might 
associate with them, and as they say "includ- 
ing among their number persons of large 
experience in the construction of several of 
the priucipal railroads of the United States, 
and of the means and credit sufficient to 
place beyond doubt their ability to perform 
what they hereinafter propose, etc." They 
then offer to perform all the requirements of 
the act of Congi'ess under the directiou of 



302 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



the State, and to build the road on or before 
the 4th of July, 1854. That the road should 
be in all respects equal to the Boston & Albany 
Kailroad, and conclude as follows: 

"And the said company from and after the 
completion of said road, will pay to the 

State of Illinois annually per cent of 

the gross earnings of said road, without de- 
duction or charge for expenses, or for any 
other matter or cause; provided, that the State 
of Illinois will gi-ant to the subcribers a charter 
of incorporation, with terms mutually advan- 
tageous, with powers and limitations as they 
in their wisdom may think fit, and as shall be 
accepted by the said company and as will 
sufficiently remunerate the subscribers for 
their care, labor and expenditure in that be- 
half incurred, and will enable them to avail 
themselves of the lands donated by the said 
act, to raise the funds or some portion of the 
funds necessary for the construction and 
equipment of said road. " 

This memorial, coming as it did from such 
eminent and strong financial men, was well 
received by the Legislature. The time for 
the completion of the road was much shorter 
than any one ever had then contemplated, yet 
Mr. Kantoul was willing to adjust the con- 
tract so as to prevent a failure, not only on 
this point, but to give any secui'ity that the 
proceeds arising from the lands would be 
faithfuly applied to their intended purpose. 
It was so fair to all parties concerned that 
it was eventually made the basis for the 
charter of the railroad. At this time there 
was developed over the State an opposition 
to turning over to a private corporation the 
great donation of laud. Some of the fossils 
of the State folly wanted the State to keep the j 
land, build the road, pay off the State debt, and | 
a hundred other wild and silly schemes were 
offered and suggested. Then there is but j 
little question but that Holbrook & Co. had ! 



friends in the Legislature, and their hope lay 
in inaction and a refusal to accept the prop- 
osition of Mr. Rantoul and the other memo- 
rialists. When the bill was introduced, many 
amendments were offered, such as requiring 
payment" for right of way to pre-emptionists 
or squatters on the public land, without re- 
gard to benefits, etc. Then there was an op- 
portunity for much wrangling over the point 
of divergence of the branch from the main 
line, but which was finally left with the com- 
pany to fix anywhere " north of the parallel 
39° 3" of north latitude." Much discussion 
was had as to the points in the main line, 
and what towns it should touch, but all 
intennediate points finally failed except the 
northeast corner of Town '21 north, Range 
2 east, Third Principal Meridian, from which 
the road in its course should not vary more 
than five miles, which was effer'ted by Gren. 
Gridley of the Senate, and by which the 
towns of Decatur, Clinton and Bloomington 
were assured of the road. 

One of the mysteries that developed while 
the railroad bill was lingering, Avas a scheme 
for swallowing the road, the State, and much 
of everything else, that was absolutely so 
startling and unique that its paternity has 
always been in doubt. The bold originality 
and the unknown paternity of the bantling 
gave it something of a kinship to Junius' 
letters, with all of Junius' ability left out. 
It appeared on every member's table one 
morning in January, in the shape of a volu- 
minous printed bill for a charter, the pro- 
vision whereof, closely scrutinized, con- 
tained about as hard a bargain as creditor 
ever offered bondsman. It was cooll}' pro- 
posed, among other provisions, that the State 
appoint commissioners to locate the road, 
survey the route for the main stem and 
branches and select the land granted by 
Congress, all at the expense of the State; 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



203 



agents were to be appointed by the Governor 
to apply to land-holders along the route who 
might be benefited by the road, for sub- 
scriptions, also at the expense of the State. 

" All persons subcribing and advancing 
money for said purpose shall be entitled to 
draw interest upon the sums at — ■ per cent 
per annum from the day of said advances, 
and shall be entitled to designate and regis- 
ter an amount of ' new internal improve- 
ment stock of this State,' equal to four times 
the amount so advanced, or stock of this 
State 'known as ' Interest bonds,' equal to 
three times the money so advanced, and said 
stock so described may be registered at the 
agency of the State of Illinois, to the city of 
New York, by the party subscribing or by 
any other person to whom they may assign 
the right at any time after paying the sub- 
scription, in proportion of the amount paid; 
and said stock shall be indorsed, registered 
and signed by the agent appointed by the 
Governor for the puipose, and a copy of said 
register shall be tiled in the office of the Au- 
ditor of Public Accounts, as evidence to show 
the particular stock secured or provided for 
as hereinafter mentioned." 

The donation from the Government to the 
State was to be conveyed by the State to the 
company, to be by it offered for sale upon 
the completion of sections of sixty miles, 
the expenses to be paid by the State; the 
money was to go to the managers of this ter- 
rible railroad, but the State was to receive 
certificates of stock for the same; two of the 
acting managers were to receive salaries of 
$2,500, and the others $1,500, the company 
with the sanction of the Governor to pur- 
chase iron, etc., pledging the road for pay- 
ment, and the road, property and stock to be 
exempt from taxation. The bill also em- 
braced a bank in accordance with the provis- 
ions of the general free banking law adopted 



by the State, making the railroad stock the 
basijj. It also provided that if the constitu- 
tion was amended (which failed to carry) 
changing the two-mill tax to a sinking fund, 
to be generally applied in redemption of the 
State debt, that then the stock registered un- 
der the act should also participate in the 
proceeds thereof. 

This was the scheme, and while the im- 
mortality due the inventor, because he has 
remained unknown, has been withheld, we 
propose to lift the veil and let the author's 
name receive the laurel crown. Any one who 
will come to Cairo and carefully study Hol- 
brook's tracks all around the city, will at 
once conclude that nature never made but 
one man who could have conceived such a 
scheme and launched it at the heads of the 
Illinois Legislature, and Holbrook was that 
man. There is but one thing about it that 
casts the slightest doubt upon its paternity 
and that is where he proposes to divide the 
salaries with mox'e than one — thi"? is unac- 
countable and to some extent incomjirehensi- 
ble. 

It will be noticed in the quotation that we 
give above from the memorialist's proposi- 
tion, that they offered, among other things, 
to pay the State annually a certain per cent 
of the gross earnings of the road without de- 
ductions for expenses or otherwise. The. 
amount was left blank in their pi'oposition, 
and the well understood fact was at that 
time they anticipated it would be fixed at ten 
per centum of the gross earnings. But after 
they had secured substantially the accept- 
auce of their projio.sition by the Legislature, 
they set about getting this blank tilled in at 
as low a tigure as possible. W. H. Bissell 
was then a Repi-esentative in Congress from 
Illinois, and although he was by profession 
a doctor, and not a lawyer, yet these shrewd 
capitalists employed him as their attorney, 



204 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



knowing it was his great personal popularity 
that would serve their purposes much better 
than all the legal lore in the world, in the 
peculiar business they just then had in hand. 
Mr. Bissel left his seat in Congress and at- 
tended upon the session of the Illinois Leg- 
islature as a lobbyist, and the unfortunate 
results to the State were that the State con- 
ceded a reduction of three per cent and the 
amount was fixed at seven per cent of the 
gross proceeds. 

In the Legislature, after all manner of de- 
lays and procrastinations, until the heel of 
the session, Mr. J. L. D. Morrison, of the Sen- 
ate, brought in a substitute for the pending 
bill, which, after being amended several 
times, was finally passed — two votes dissent- 
ing — and shortly after, and without amend- 
ment, the house also passed it, and thus, on 
the 10th day of February, 1851, it became a 
law. The final passage of the bill was cel- 
ebrated in Chicago by the firing of cannon 
and other civic demonsti'ations in honor of 
the event. 

There was some delay in the connnence- 
ment of the work on the road, in conse- 
quence of the ruling of Mr. Justin Butter- 
field, Commissioner of the Greneral Land 
Ofiice, but the President reversed the Secre- 
tary's decision and the transfer of the land 
was duly made, and in March, 1852, the 
contracts were let and the work commenced 
and rapidly pushed to completion. 

This brings us to the completion of that 
important part of the life of a railroad, 
namely, the bringing it into existence and 
successfully putting it on its feet, or, in 
other words, the organization of a chartered 
company, under a liberal and just funda- 
mental law, and the providing ways and 
means that put money into the hands of the 
corporation to carry on its work. Ail this 
had been done, and the good people of 



Cairo had great occasion to rejoice and feel 
glad. It was the realization of a long de- 
fered hope, where promise had been the 
brightest and failure and disappointment the 
most complete. The improvement of na- 
tional importance, and upon which hung all 
Cairo's hopes for the future, was assured. 

Much of the credit, and therefore a meed 
of praise, for securing the building of this 
road, is due to Stephen A. Douglas, Judge 
Breese, Hon. David J Baker, Miles A. Gil- 
bert, D. B. Holbrook, the old Cairo City & 
Canal Company, Judge Jenkins, Justin 
Buttertield and many others of Cairo and 
other portions of the country. And so far 
as we know, all were content to rest their 
claims to the honors in the work to the keep- 
ing of a grateful posterity except Judge 
Breese. The rejoicing over its success had 
not abated its first noisy enthusiasm when 
the voice of Judge Breese was raised, assert- 
ing his exclusive right to the paternity of the 
enterprise, and he based his claim to the 
credit upon the fact that he had projected 
the whole thing in 1835, and that when in 
the Senate he had tried to do exactly what 
Judge Douglas was afterward enabled to do 
by his previous labors. It was a conception 
and labor certainly worth the pride of any 
man. Visions of fame, immortality and 
emoluments and office were easily discover- 
able in it. 

Judge Breese had been a Senator up to 

1849, when he was succeeded by Gen. 
Shields. In 1850, Breese was in the State 
Legislatui'e. Under date of December 23, 

1850, among other things, in a reply to the 
Illinois State Register regarding his favor- 
ing the " Holbrook charters," he says: 

" The Central Railroad has been a con- 
trolling object with me for more than fifteen 
years, and I would sacrifice all my personal 
advantages to see it made. These fellows who 







/e^^-L^-^ 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



207 



are making such an ado about it now, have 
been -whipped into its support. They are 
not for it now, and do not desire to have it 
made because I get the credit of it. This is 
inevitable. I must have the credit of it for I 
originated it in 1835, and. when in the Sen- 
ate, passed three different bills through that 
body to aid in its construction. My suc- 
cessor had an easy task, as I had opened the 
way for him. It was the argument made in 
my report on it that silenced all opposition 
and made the passage easy. I claim the 
credit, and no one can take it from me." 

"When this came to the attention of Judge 
Douglas in "Washington, he took occasion 
to reply, on January 5, 1851, at length, giv- 
ing a detailed history of all the efforts made 
in Congress to procure the pre-emption or 
grant of land in aid of building this road, 
saying: "You were the champion of the pol- 
icy of granting pre-emption rights for the 
benefit of a private company [the Holbrook] 
and I was the advocate of alternate sections 
to the State." The letter is long and full of 
interesting facts in relation to the acts and 
doings in Congress relative to the Illinois 
Central Railroad. Judge Breese rejoined, 
under date of January 21, 1851, through the 
columns of the same paper, at gi-eat length, 
claiming that besides seeking to obtain pre- 
emption aid he was also the first to introduce 
"a bill for the absolute grant of the alternate 
sections for the Central and Northern Cross 
Railroads," but finding no favorable time 
to call it up, it failed. " It was known 
from my first entrance into Congi-ess that 
I would accomplish the measure, in some 
shape, if possible." But the Illinois mem- 
bers of the House, he asserts, took no 
interest in the passage of any law for the 
benefit of the Central Railroad, either by 
grant or pre-emption. He claims no 
share in the passage of the law of 1850. 



" Your (Douglas') claim shall not, with my 
consent, be disparaged, nor those of your 
associates. I will myself weave your chap- 
let, and place it, with no envious hand, 
upon your brow. At the same time history 
shall do me justice. I claim to have first 
projected this road in my letter of 1835. and 
in the judgment of impartial and disinter- 
ested men my claim will be allowed. I have 
said and written more in favor of it than any 
other. It has been the highest of my am- 
bitions to accomplish it, and when my last 
resting place shall be marked by the cold 
marble which gratitude or affection may 
erect, I desire for it no other inscription than 
this, that he who sleeps beneath it projected 
the Central Railroad." 

He also at length cited his letter of October 
16, 1835, to John Y. Sawyer in which the 
plan of the Central Railroad was fii-st fore- 
shadowed, which opens as follows: "Having 
some leisure from the labor of my circuit, I 
am induced to devote a portion of time in 
giving to the public a plan, the outline of 
which was suggested to me by an intelligent 
friend in Bond County a few days since." 

To this Douglas, under date of Washing- 
ton, February 22, 1851, surrejoins at con- 
siderable length, and in reference to this 
opening sentence in the Sawyer letter, ex- 
claims: " How is this! The father of the 
Central Railroad, with a Christian meekness 
worthy of all praise, kindly consents to be 
the reputed parent of a hopeful son begotten 
for him by an intelligent friend in a neigh- 
boring county. I forbear pushing this in- 
quiry further. It involves a question of 
morals too nice, of domestic relations too 
delicate for me to expose to the public gaze. 
Inasmuch, however, as you have furnished 
me with becoming gravity, the epitaph which 
you desire engrossed upon your tomb when 
called upon to pav the last debt of nature, 

12 



208 



HISTOKY OF CAIRO. 



you will allow me to suggest that as such an 
inscription is a solemn and a sacred thing, 
and truth its essential ingredient, would it 
not be well to make a slight modification, so 
as to correspond with the facts as stated in 
your letter to Mr. Sawyer, which would 
make it read thus in your letter to me : It 
has been |the highest object of my ambition 
to accomplish the Central Railroad, and 
when my last resting place shall be marked 
by the cold marble which gratitude or affec- 
tion may erect, I desire for it no other in- 
scription than this: He who sleeps beneath 
this stone voluntarily consented to become 
the putative father of a lovely child called 
the Central Railroad, and begotten 'for him 
by an] intelligent friend in the County of 
Bond." 

The question as to " who killed Cock 
Robin f " seems to have here stopped, and 
Judge Breese probably retired from the 
controversy, feeling that he had asserted his 
Sparrowship rather prematurely, and that 
the " cold marble of gratitude or affection " 
may never tell the story just as he fondly 
hoped it would. The truth is the student of 
the history of Illinois will come to the con- 
clusion that Judge Breese never made a 
greater mistake than when he entered poli- 
tics, and imagined he was a statesman, and 
allowed his political disappointments to sour 
and cloud his life. His egregious error in 
this respect reminds one of the interviews be- 
tween Fredrick the Great and Voltaire. They 
were great friends, and often Voltaire was 
called to the court and entertained for weeks 
and months. The king much wanted to 
talk to Voltaire because the statesman really 
believed his true gi'eatness lay in literature 
and poetiy, and Voltaire wanted to talk to 
the king because he never doubted that his 
own true genius was all in the line of state- 
craft and military affairs. And when they 



met Voltaire would talk military all the 
time, because that was something he knew 
nothing about, and the king would with equal 
persistence read his poems and talk literature 
all the time, because he knew as little of 
that as Voltaire did of empire or war. They 
would complacently exchange sides, and 
leaving those fields in which each stood pre- 
eminent, they would talk the most profound- 
ly idiotic, and invariably separate, denounc- 
ing each other as hopeless idiots, to meet 
again in great friendship the next morning 
and renew the incurable folly. 

Breese, no doubt, believed his talents, 
genius and (education made him a great states- 
man, and that it was merely rusting out a 
great life to chain it to the woolsack. He 
probably estimated that Douglas would have 
made an estimable Justice of the Peace, but 
it was farcical to hoist him over his (Breese's) 
head as a statesman. The truth is, the peo- 
ple understood Judge Breese much better 
than he understood himself, and they put 
him exactly where he was best fitted to be, 
and he will go into history as an eminent 
jui'ist. He made the gi'eat mistake of start- 
ing life as a politician, and he reached the 
United States Senate, but when he was over- 
shadowed there by his junior colleague, the 
" dapper little schoolteacher from Win- 
chester," and actually defeated for a second 
term by a wild Irishman with brogue a mile 
thick, he returned to Illinois, heart-broken, 
and in desperation accepted a place upon 
the bench, where he worked until the day of 
his death. His short political life was not 
a fortunate one, and, in fact, was pretty 
much a mere blunder from beginning to end, 
while this judicial cai'eer was brilliant and 
eminent. 

Judge Douglas was the better poised mind 
of the two, yet there is but little doubt he 
would have as completely failed on the bench 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



209 



as had Breese in politics. He tried a brief 
term as Judge, and? realizing his failure, he 
got out of it as soon as possible, never to re- 
turn. He would have been a great lawyer, 
but he never could have made a judge. He 
may not have been a statesman, we do not 
assert that he was, but if not, he approached it 
close enough to be one of the most superb 
demagoges the country has produced. We 
do not use the word demagogue in an offen- 
sive sense. If Douglas fell short of that 
breadth and profundity that marks the line 
between the demagogue and statesman, then 
by what name in heaven's sake shall we des- 
ignate all the other little great men of Illi- 
nois ? — the political buzzards that have been 
with us almost as numerously as the locusts 
in Egypt. In short, who is Illinois' great 
man, if not Douglas? Who will the histo- 
rian of a hundred years hence, when without 
bias or prejudice or judgment formed for 
him by others or a popular hurrah, will, 
with severe discrimination, unmask the 
shams and cheap frauds, and dispassionately 
examine what each one did do, and strike 
the balance sheet and hold forth the results, 
without mercy and without fear, we say who 
will he name as the suitable irontispiece to 
the history of Illinois up to this time. One 
thing alone is certain to come pure and 
bright from this alembic, and that is the fact 
that Illinois to-day owes more to Judge 
Douglas than to all her other notorious men 
put togethex*. He gave the country the Illi- 
nuis Central Railroad, and in the grand 
scheme he not only refused to be corrupted, 
but he crushed and annihilated the swai'ming 
Credit Mobilier robbers that sprung up in al- 
most countless numbers all along its path. 
They could neither corrupt him, intimidate 
him, nor crush him out, and the grand re- 
sult is a marvel in the history of legislation 
upon this continent, there is no parallel to 



this great and benign act. It was the open- 
ing wedge to the whole Mississippi Valley 
foi the millions of happy, prosperous people, 
teeming with content and well paid lives 
that have made the rich wilderness truly 
to blossom as the rose. And in the honesty 
and purity that marked the whole transac- 
tion, it stands alone in American history. 
He knew that he was a poor man — one who 
had served his country, and instead of com- 
mencing poor and retiring rich, had com- 
menced rich and would retire a pauper, 
and that a nod of his head woiild have 
put ill-gotten millions in his easy 'reach, 
and he stood unflinchingly between the 
people's treasiu-e and the ravenous horde, 
and every day, every hour, every citizen of 
Illinois — nay, more than twenty millions of 
the people of the West — are rea})ing the 
fruits, enjoying the comforts and realizing, 
in some way, the wisdom of his guardianship 
of their interests at a critical moment of the 
country's life, and before a majority of those 
now living were born. 

In the year 1852, the necessary survey 
having been completed, chiefly by Charles 
Thrup, of Cairo, under the direction of Col, 
Ashley, Division Engineer, and the timber 
having been cleared from the route of the 
railroad, the work of construction at the 
Cairo end of the road was vigorously com- 
menced. 

Messrs. Ellis, Jenkins & Co. became con- 
tractors, their contracts extending from 
Cairo to the north line of Union County. 
The law required the work to be commenced 
simultaneously at the north and south ter- 
mini of the road. The contractors speedily 
had about foui' hundred men here at work, 
and the heavy timber was cleared from the 
track and the work commenced; and other 
men were brought by them as fast as they 
could be procured, and in the city and above 



210 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



the city and on the Cache another force were 
soon clearing away the timber, and within 
Alexander County there wero between seven 
hundred and a thousaud laborers at work. 
Cairo was bustling, then, again with busy 
life. Ellis, Jenkins & Co. failed and sur- 
rendered their work, when Maurice Brodprick 
became the contractor, and under his direc- 
tion the Cairo levees, nearly as they are now 
(except the Mississippi levee), were con- 
structed. These were the long- anticipated, 
flush times in Cairo once more. The sudden 
influx of people trebled at once her popula- 
tion, ^ve business an unparalleled activity 
and called into existence a number of new 
business institutions, particularly doggeries, 
groceries, l)oarding-houses and supply places, 
etc. Everybody made money. The stores 
had all the business their keepers could sat- 
isfactorily give attention to; the boarding- 
houses were literally running over, and Mose 
Harrell declares that after the second " pay 
day," every saloon-keeper in town had a gold 
fob-chain; an evidence that both bar-tender 
and proprietor are raking in the ducats under 
a fair and just divide. 

Fights at fisticuffs, and arrangements 
with " shillalahs," were the favorite past- 
time and fun among the levee hands, but as 
a general thing they resulted in nothing more 
serious than disfigured countenances, or the 
temporary enlargement of the phrenological 
bumps. Only a single riot, having a fatal 
termination, took place in Cairo during the 
progress of these improvements. This occurred 
during a "pay day." The old foundiy was used 
as an ofiice by the contractors, and here they 
paid off their hands. The room was crowded 
with laborers, eager for settlement, as well as 
those who had furnished supplies, etc. They 
were so crowded and clamorous, that it was 
found difiicult for the clerks to transact the 
business, Mr. Stephens ordered them all to 



leave the room. Of course they gave no heed 
to his order; observing this, he rushed among 
them with a bowie-knife, and commenced 
cutting right and left, utterly regardless of 
consequences. An ax being at hand, one of the 
assaulted crowd seized it and seeing that life 
and death were the alternatives, aimed a 
blow at Stephens, which cleft to the brain. 

The work upon the line from here to the 
north part of Union County was pushed 
vigorously ahead, with the forces distributed 
at all the points where the heavy work was 
to be done. 

On the 7th day of August, 1855, the first 
train of cars over the Illinois Central Rail- 
road reached the city of Cairo. A locomo- 
tive, under the charge of Joe Courtway, draw- 
ing a half-dozen platform cars, whereon were 
seated about one hundred citizens of Jones- 
boro and intermediate points, formed the 
train and passengers. Beyond Jonesboro 
the road was not finished, but the work was 
so near completion, that in a few weeks the 
trains were enabled to pass over the entire 
main line. 

On the 1st day of January, 1856, the first 
passenger train, on schedule time, passed over 
the Central road from Chicago to Cairo, and 
a large delegation of leading people of Chica- 
go were the passengers. The people of Cairo 
gave them a hearty reception, and literally 
Chicago and Cairo — the two extremes of the 
State, and the two best located cities in Illi- 
nois — shook hands and kissed in mutual love 
and admiration. The Chicago visitors were 
royally entertained at the "Taylor House," 
and all were glorying over the auspicious event 
After spending the day in shaking hands and 
looking about the town, they were entertained 
in the evening by two large and separate 
balls and suppers, at which speeches were 
made, toasts drunk, and a generally happy 
and hilarious time was prolonged to the end 



i 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



211 



of the visitors' stay. Manifestations of kin- 
dred feeling over the completion of the road 
were to be seen everywhere along the route, 
the people correctly believing that the time 
marked the commencement of a glorious and 
more prosperous era for the Prairie State 
and her people. 

The Chicago, St. Louis & New Orleans 
Railroad, or what was better known as the 
"Great Jackson Route," a railroad from Cairo 
direct to New Orleans, was, in the year 
1882, consolidated and made part of the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad, and is now the South- 
ern Division of the Illinois Central Railroad, 
a continuous line from Chicago to New Or- 
leans. Trains are passed over the river at 
Cairo by the transfer boat, H. I. McComb. 
So complete and perfect is this part of the 
work pRrformed, that passengers cross the 
river and are speeded on their way north or 
south often, without an interruption to their 
slumbers. 

Cairo & St. Louis Railroad. — Originally, 
this was wholly a Cairo enterprise, and it 
was started [under very favorable auspices. 
The charter was enacted by the Legislature, 
February 16, 1865, the incorporators being 
Sharon Tyndale, Isham N. Haynie, Samuel 
Staats Taylor, John Thomas, William H. 
Logan, William P. Halliday and Tilman B. 
Cantrell, who, by the terms of the charter, 
were " vested with powers, privileges and 
immunities which are or may be necessary to 
construct, complete and operate a railroad, 
from the city of Cairo to any point opposite 
the city of St. Louis." The capital stock 
authorized was $3,000,000, and which 
" may be inci'eased to not exceeding $5,000,- 
000." The law makes Sharon Tyndale, 
Isham N. Haynie, Samuel Staats Taylor, John 
Thomas, William H. Logan, William P. 
Halliday and Tilman B. Cantrell the first 
Board of Directors, and requires them to 



elect officers of the corporation from their 
body. Section 5 of the act is in the follow- 
ing words: " Nothing contained in this act, 
or any law of this State, shall authoi'izo said 
company to take, for the uses and purposes 
of the company, or otherwise, or to impair 
any portion of the levees, or embankment 
already constructed or erected by the 
Trustees of the Cairo City Property, or by 
any person or corporation, under existing 
agreements with them, except by the consent 
of said Trustees and of the city of Cairo." 

This charter is a neat, short, compact, 
and yet comprehensive document, and is ad- 
mirably suited for the purposes for which it 
was intended. It names only two points — 
Cairo and some point opposite St. Louis. As 
short as it is, it grants every power wanted, 
and hampers the company with none of the 
usual provisions and directions and un- 
necessary minutise in controlling the action 
of the company, except vSection 5, which we 
give entire, and out of which has arisen some 
complications with the city of Cairo. The 
municipalities along the line are authorized 
to donate lands and subscribe for stock. 

S. Staats Taylor was elected President at 
the meeting for organization of the charter 
directors. In 1874, he was succeeded by 
F. E. Cauda, of Chicago. 

The municipalities along the line, from 
Cairo to Columbia, in Monroe County, voted 
$1,050,000 in aid of the enterprise, and the 
contract to construct the entire ;line was 
awarded to H. R. Payson & Co., of Chicago. 
Work was commenced in 1872, at the St. 
Louis end, or rather at East Carondelet, and 
under many difficulties, pushed to comple- 
tion in 1874, to Murphysboro, and the work 
stopped. This result came from the inability 
of the contracfx^rs to go any further, and they 
were thus crippled by the municipalities 
latterly refusing to pay their donations. The 



ni 



HLSTOIIY OF CAIRO. 



contractors had invested over $1,000,000 of 
their own funds, and failing to get the 
money donated, according to the terms of 
the vote of the people, they were too much 
crippled, or did not feel like risking any 
more expenditure iu the enterprise. The 
road, so far as built, was at once stocked and 
operated, being run from East Carondelet to 
East St. Louis — a distance of about five 
miles — over the Conlogue road. From the 
very first, it was a financial success, as a 
purely local road, and much more than paid 
expenses. It tapped the very finest country 
lying east and south of St. Louis, passing 
through ihe southwest corner of St. Clair, 
and entering Monroe, and through the center 
of this and into Randolph and Jackson Coun- 
ties, and ,'giving all this rich and populous 
section direct and easy communication with 
St. Louis. But the people of Cairo could 
not see where this was benefiting them any, 
and communication was opened with the com- 
pany with a view of extending it, as the 
charter specified, to Cairo; and Union 
County, being as deeply interested as Cairo, 
joined in ofifering inducements to have the 
work completed. Alexander County had sub- 
scribed $100,000, and the city of Cairo a 
similar amount; Union County had sub- 
scribed $100,000, and the city of Jonesboro 
$50,000. Alexander County and the city of 
Cairo paid their subscriptions to the last dol- 
lar, and kept their faith; Union County paid 
a portion of hers, and Jonesboro paid one- 
half, or $25,000 of her subscription; and on 
March 1, 1875, the road was completed from 
East Carondelet to Cairo, making an entire 
line from Cairo to East St. Louis. We may 
here remark that Jonesboro, after getting 
the road, repudiated the remainder of her 
donation, and was sued upon the bonds, and 
before the local court of Union County easily 
got a judgment acquitting her of the debt; 



but the case was removed into the United 
States Court, and recently this decision sum- 
marily reversed, and the probabilities are she 
will have to pay the debt with the accumu- 
lated interest. It was a case of voting aid by 
the wholesale, and, except Alexander County 
and Cairo, repudiation with equal facility 
and complacency. Our State constitution 
now prohibits the people giving donations to 
railroads. It should never have permitted it. 
It is vicious legislation, and the corruption 
of the people and banishing all sense of 
honor from municipalities starts a train of 
descent that, in the end, reaches the in- 
dividuals who compose the corporate bodies. 

The contractors had entered into the usual 
obligations, namely, to take the donations, 
and in the end the corporation and all its be- 
longings as pay for building, and in the end 
became the sole proprietors of the road. The 
complications arising from the failure to get 
the donations, as mentioned, deeply involved 
the road in debt, and, as the only way out of 
it, on the 7th of December, 1877, Mr. H. W. 
Smithers was appointed Receiver of the road, 
and at once took possession and operated un- 
der the protection of the courts. This, it 
seems, was a fortunate appointment, and 
under his management he repaired, stocked 
and fixed the line in good running order. He 
constructed depots, and in East St. Louis 
built a round-house with seven stalls, ma- 
chine shops and spacious freight and passen- 
ger depots. He made of it a very good line 
of road, whereas when he took charge of it, 
it was in a dilapidated condition from one 
end to the other. 

The road was sold, under the decree of the 
court, in January, 1882, and on February 1, 
of the same year, was re-organized, with the 
following as the new Board of Directors: C. 
W. Schaap, W. T. Whitehouse, S. C. Judd, 
L. M. Johnson, E. B. Sheldon, H. B. White- 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



213 



house, J. M. Mills and E. H. Fishburn. The 
present Board is W. F. Whitehouse, L. M. 
Johnson, Ex. Norton, Fred Bross, John B. 
Lovington, C. W. Schaap, H. B. Whitehoiise, 
Jos i ah H. Horsey and S. Corning Judd. 
The officers of the road consist of AV. F. 
Whitehonse, President; L. M. Johnson, Vice 
President; Charles Hamilton, General Sup- 
erintendent; S. Corning Judd, Gen. Sol.; 
William Ritchie, Secretary; George H. 
Smith, General Freight and Passenger 
Agent, and Lewis Enos, Auditor and Cash- 
ier. The new organization at once set about 
building their own road into East St. Louis 
from Carondelet, and this was completed dur- 
ing the present year. In the year 1881, the 
road "was engaged in completing its line into 
Cairo, in accordance with the terms of its 
arrangements to build on the strip of land 
of the Cairo Trust Pi'operty, on the Missis- 
sippi side; a part of that arrangement being 
that, for this privilege, it was to keep in re- 
pair and raise aud strengthen the levee run- 
ning along the Mississippi River, and on the 
south of the city. This work was only fairly 
commenced, when the city of Cairo went into 
court, and prayed an injunction to prevent 
the road crossing Washington avenue. 
The point where the road comes in contact 
with this avenue is some distance north of 
the north levee, and where neither a road, 
avenue or highway exists, except on the city 
plat. No dray, carriage, buggy or dog- cart 
or foot passenger will, probably, want to 
use that particular portion of Washington 
avenue for the next hundred years. The in- 
junction was granted, prohibiting the road 
from crossing this avenue, and Judge Baker 
has made the injunction [perpetual. The 
road laade the best temporary arrangement 
it could, and has a track on the Mississippi 
levee, and in this way is enabled to reach the 
Vnion Depot. These complications are un- 



fortunate for the road, as it practically cuts 
it out of a permanent terminus here, and 
prevents it making those contemplated im- 
provements, as well as making any solid and 
advantageous connecting arrangements with 
other roads from Cairo south. It practically 
cuts off its Cairo freight business from the 
north. And one item of very great impor- 
tance to the people and business is, that this 
unfortunate state of affairs prevents the road 
shipping to this market the Jackson County 
coal, that is so much needed here for the 
manufactories that may be yet built in Cairo, 
as well as for the local and river trade. 
Here are altogether a remarkable state of 
facts. During all the struggle for existence, 
the city extended to it a princely, liberal 
hand, and it was the people's money of Cairo 
that enabled the projectors to ever build the 
road. After it was built, from some griev- 
ance not visible in the court papers, she 
turns upon and badly cripples that particular 
portion of the road in which the town is 
deeply interested. There has been short- 
sighted management somewhere. The man- 
agers of the road, and particularly the con- 
tractors, who were saved from hopeless 
banki'uptcy by the action of Cairo, when the 
other municipalities were repudiating their 
donations, must have, at one time, felt very 
kindly to Cairo, and the S20(),000 put in 
there by the city and county, certainly could 
have controlled and brought here the ma- 
chine shops, round-house and such other and 
valuable improvements as the road has now 
made in East St. Louis, and others it will yet 
make. In the law the city triumphs, but 
where are her gains? Look at the results: 
The road has no reliable entrance into Cairo. 
During the past twelve months, there were 
three months that no train over that road 
came into Cairo; yet its trains ran regularly 
into East St. Louis, and came down to Hodge' s 



214 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



Park, a few miles north of Cairo, the 
road all the time doing a good local business, 
and the managers showed the writer hereof 
their books during the time of the interrup- 
tion of trains, and there was no falling off in 
the revenues of the road. That left Cairo in 
the condition of having given $200,000 to 
build a railroad to tap the country in her im- 
mediate vicinity, and take her natural trade 
away from her very door, and carry all to St. 
Louis — a species of commercial suicide, as 
the farmers and business men along the line, 
from Bodge' 8 Park to St. Louis, were cut off 
from Cairo as completely as if the town was 
in the moon, and the doors to St. Louis 
thrown open to them. A similar policy on 
the other roads would soon sow the streets of 
the town with cockle and dog- fennel, to 
flourish in unmolested glory. The city gave 
its best sti'eet to another road, entirely 
through the main and business part of the 
town, where it now runs its trains to the 
great distress of the people, and at the same 
time enjoins the Cairo &St. Louis road from 
crossing Washington avenue at a place in the 
swamps north of the city proper, where that 
highway, probably, will never be utilized, 
except by ducks and frogs, or, in very dry 
seasons, the " lone fisherman." 

The Cairo & St.L ouis Railroad has no con- 
necting interests here with any other railroad. 
It is now a purely local St. Louis 'road, 
bringing little or nothing to Cairo, and tak- 
ing as little away. A talk with the managers 
will at once convince yovithat they feel little 
if any interest in the town. When it is so 
they can, without any inconvenience, they 
run their trains into the place; when they 
cannot do this they don't care. At the St. 
Louis end, they have running connection with 
the Toledo Narrow-Gauge Railroad; $200,- 
000 of the people's money has gone into the 
enterprise, and now the city and the road are 



like the old fellow, when he announced 
" Betsy and I are out." They rush into law, 
and the outcome is a triumph for the city, 
but it. is somewhat like the victory of the 
wife, who has her husband fined for whip- 
ping her, and while he enjoys himself in jail, 
she washes to raise the money to pay his 
fine. The lion was taking a drink in the 
stream, and some distance below the lamb 
was crossing. The lion straightway killed 
the lamb for muddying the waters up where he 
was drinking. The managers profess pro- 
found ignorance of why Cairo should turn 
upon and rend her own offspring. The peo- 
ple of Cairo generally profess the same ig- 
norance, and we know they individually feel 
kindly toward the road. They realize that it 
should be, and naturally is, one of the most 
valuable lines that came into Cairo, and they 
regret these unfortunate circumstances that 
have nearly neutralized its good effects upon 
the town. If there was any serious question to 
form the bone of contention, it would be 
altogether different, and then the war might 
go on, and neither the road nor the people 
would grumble. True, people here sometimes 
shake their heads, and say, look at our 
many great railroads that add their im- 
mense values to the natural lines of com- 
merce and Cairo, and yet there is no suffi- 
cient advance in the city's march forward to 
keep pace with these encouraging signs. On 
the surface, there are no reasons for this state 
of affairs, and yet a look below — where the 
real facts lie — might reveal a state of 'affairs 
that would make all plain enough. 

But these matters will soon be adjusted; 
propositions, we are glad to learn, are now 
passing, looking to a full settlement, and it 
is to be hoped they will be consummated at 
an early day, and the road and the city will 
be just and profitable to each other. 

Cairo Short Line. — This is another Cairo & 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



2 IS 



St. Louis Railroad. It was projected and built 
originally as a southern line for the Indian- 
apolis & St. Louis Railroad, and was built 
from East St. Louis to Duquoin, when it 
was purchased and became a part of the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad. It runs upon the 
Central to Duquoin, and there branches off 
to St. Louis. It is really the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad from Cairo to St. Louis, making 
the second direct St. Louis & Cairo Railroad. 

The Wabash was originally chartered as the 
Cairo & Vincennes Raih'oad, the incorpora- 
tion bearing date March 6, 1867. The incor- 
porators were Green B. Raum, D. Hiu*d, N. 
R. Casey, AV. P. Halliday, J. B. Chasman. 
A. J. Kuykendall, John W. Mitchell, S. 
Staats Taylor, W. R. Wilkinson, John il. 
Crebbs, Walter L. Mayo, Robert Mick, Samuel 
Hess, George Mertz, V, Rathbone, D. T. 
Linegar, Aaron Shaw, James Tackney, W. 
W. McDowell, Isaac B. Watts and Isham N. 
Haynie. They were authorized to construct 
a railroad from the city of Cairo, by the way 
of Mound City, to some point on or near the 
line between Illinois- and Indiana, at or near 
Vincennes. Donations were here liberally 
voted, and Gen. Burnside became the gen- 
eral contractor, and represented fully the 
interests of the capitalists. 

In October, 1881, it was consolidated, and 
became a part of the Wabash system of rail- 
roads, in which management it is now con- 
ducted. On the 10th December, 1872, the 
road was completed from Vincennes to Cairo, 
and a through passenger train arrived in 
Cairo, bringing a lai-ge delegation of prom- 
inent citizens, among whom was Gen. Burn- 
side, who was the chief officer and builder of 
the road. The visitors were entertained 
royally, and banqueted in the evening. 

The original contractors for the entire line 
were Dodge, Lord k Co. The city of Cairo 
and the county of Alexander had each sub- 



scribed and taken S100,CK)0 of stock in the 
road, paying therefor in their bonds. Finan- 
cial diflSculties of the company compelled 
the contractors to stop work in 1869, and 
this stoppage continued until 1871, when 
Winslow <fc Wilson contracted for. and com- 
pleted the work of construction. After the 
completion of the road, Messrs. A. B. Safford 
and Mr. Morris were appointed Receivers, 
and they were afterward succeeded by Messrs. 
Morgan & Tracey, who continued in control 
of its destinies to the time it passed into the 
Wabash system of railroads. 

Mobile <& Ohio Railroad. — This road was in 
contemplation as a line from Cairo to Mo- 
bile, as an extension, in fact, of the Illinois 
Central Railroad. In accordance with the 
wise provisions of Congress, work was com- 
menced at the Mobile end of the road, and 
the work completed to Columbus, Ky, and a 
transfer boat used in connection with the 
trains between this point and Cairo. The 
war coming on, not only the work of com- 
pleting the road to Cairo was stopped, but it 
soon Ceased to be a road at all, as portions of 
it were in the hands of the Union forces, and 
parts in the hands of the rebels. The i-ails 
were torn up, carried away, and often heated 
and bent out of all shape. The rolling stock 
was destroyed, as well as the most of the 
station houses, buildings and shops. After 
the war was over, and the people of the 
South had again begun the work of recover- 
ing their lost fortunes, the enterprise was 
taken hold of by captalists, and the work of 
rebuilding the line and extending the road 
on to Cairo was pressed to completion. 

The Texas d: St. Louis Railroad is des- 
tined some day to become one of the most 
important and valuable of all the roads lead- 
ing into Cairo. It will be, when completed, 
a direct and continuous line from Cairo to 
the Ci*y of Mexico. 



216 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



The Texas & St. Louis Bail way Company 
have recently concluded passenger and 
freight traffic aiTangements with the Illinois 
Central Kailroad Company, which is to exist 
for a period of fifty years, the essence of 
which is that the Illinios Central is to take 
complete control of the northern, western 
and eastern passenger and freight business 
of the Texas & St. Louis, and vice versa the 
trade of the Illinois Central, as far as 
it pertains to the country traversed by this 
new road. The Texas & St. Louis is part 
of a system of railway which is to run direct 
from Cairo to the City of Mexico, and em- 
braces a distance of 2,000 miles; 600 miles 
of' the system is already in operation, and it 
is said by those who have made a tour of in- 
spection, that it is as finely built and 
equipped a road as there is in the United 
States. It has been built by foreign capital, 
not to sell, but as a permanent investment, 
and therefore the elegant road and magnificent 
equipage. The inclines, for transfer of cars 
from Bird's Point to Cairo, are completed, 
and a first-class transfer boat is now being 
operated. The business for St. Louis will 
be done over the Cairo & St. Louis Short 
Line. The road bearing the name of the 
Texas & St. Louis will open up a vast, rich 
country to the trade of Cairo, which has had 
heretofore little or no outlnt, and its business 
will, doubtless, render it a marvel in point of 
financial success. The road runs direct from 
Bird's Point, opposite Cairo, to Texarkana, 
thence to Waco, thence to Gatesville, and 
thence to the Rio Grande, connecting there 
with the Mexican Central. Maj. G. B. Hib- 
bard, chief contractor, with headquartei-s at 
Cairo, is pushing the work with all possible 
speed, and he confidently believes the entire 
2,000 miles will be completed and in success- 
ful operation within two years. 

The Iron Mountain Railroad is now a 



regular Cairo railroad, by an extension from 
Charleston, Mo., to Bird's Point, giving the 
town an additional highway to St. Louis and 
the South. This is one of the valuable Mis- 
souri railroads, and was constructed and 
operated for years with the idea that it could 
afford to pass within a few miles of Cairo 
and ignore its existence. But time, and the 
growth and trade of the place, eventually 
compelled them to build into Cairo and estab- 
lish a transfer boat, and thus reach some of 
the rich harvest that awaited their coming. 

Here are eight completed first-class rail- 
roads into Cairo, and the anticipations of the 
next few months are that the Chesapeake & 
Ohio Railroad will be added to the Cairo list 
of roads, and thus form a direct line from 
the city to the Atlantic Ocean at Norfolk, Ya., 
making, by many miles, the most direct road 
to the seashore. The value of this line, if 
carried out as now contemplated, would be 
incalculable to the whole Mississippi Yalley. 
It would compel the building of a direct rail- 
road from Cairo West to the Pacific coast, or 
at least to a connection with the Southern 
Pacific Railroad. The Cincinnati & Cairo 
Narrow Gauge Railroad is now in course of 
construction. The road will run direct from 
Cincinnati to Cairo, passing entirely across 
the southern portion of Indiana, and have a 
length of 220 miles. This will bring a rich 
portion of the country to the Cairo trade. 

The Toledo & St. Louis Narrow Gauge is 
now completed, and the construction of a 
branch from some point in Shelby or Edgar 
County to Cairo is being rapidly pushed to 
completion. This important link is essential 
to the filling out of the gi'eat net-work of nar- 
row gauge roads that are now being completed 
from New York City to the City of Mexico. 

Thus may we not now hope that the 
commanding commercial position of Cairo 
will yet compel the making here of a great 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



217 



railroad and transportation and travel center, 
that nature evidently intended from the first 
it should become. At the least, here is light 



and hope ahead for the people who have 
toiled and struggled and hoped so long and 
so faithfully. 



CHAPTER XL 



CONCLUSION—THE FUTURE OF 



THE CITY CONSIDERED— HER PRESENT 
PRESENT CITY OFFICIALS, ETC. 



STATUS AND GROWTH— 



"While others may think of the times that are gone, 
They are bent by the years that are fast rolling on. " 

A BRIEF retrospect, and a short sum- 
ming-up of Cairo as it is, will con- 
chide oxar account of its history; and in this 
retrospect we much wish we could answer, 
to oiu- own satisfaction, the' oft-repeated 
question that the people have propounded to 
us in regard to the future of the city: "What 
is the city's outlook?" No town site has 
been more especially favored by natiu'e, and 
few, if any, have been so sorely afflicted with 
untoward circumstances. And often the most 
heroic exertions in her behalf, by some of 
her people here, have re-acted to the apparent 
real injury to the prospects of the place. 
Her foundation was laid in a Soixth Sea Bub- 
ble, by a visionary, impracticable, baulcrupt 
corporation that gathered the first people 
here rapidly, and then tumbled over their 
own air castles and left the people in distress 
and despair. In a night, almost, a thrifty 
young city of 2,000 liusy, bustling people 
was turned into an idle mob, wandering about 
the Ohio levee, and ready — and did attempt 
— to take by force the fii'st steamer that 
touched at the wharf, and appropriate it to 
the purpose of taking the many workers, who 
bad been thrown out of employment, away 
from the place. The officers only saved their 
property by hastily drawing out into the 
stream. Then, after the levees were built, 



the waters came and washed them away, and 
drowned out the town, and gloom and desola- 
tion marked its tracks. But above, and perhaps 
far greater causes of evils that have beset Cairo 
all its life, and of which it is not yet wholly 
exempt, have been the corporate and private 
monopolies that have sucked out much of that 
vitality that it so much needed for its own 
development. It altogether impresses us 
with the fact, that the remarkable natm-al 
wealth of advantages of the place have been 
among its misfortunes. As in some spots of 
the globe the wealth of soil, climate and 
vegetable and animal growth are so rank and 
profuse, that they overcome the energies of 
man, and remain a wilderness, the home of 
an u.nparalleled growth of vegetation, filled 
with ferocious beasts and poisonous insects. 
For instance, the wonderful land of Brazil, 
in South America, a scope of country larger 
than the United States, and the richest in 
climate and soil in the world, so rich and so 
prolific, that it defies the puny arm of man 
to conquer and become the master of its riot 
of power in productiveness of vegetable and 
animal life. From the very force and power of 
its abundance, it is made as uninhabitable as 
are the arid wastes of the sandy desert. In 
looking over the short life of the city, we 
cannot but be impressed with the fact that 
it has been one of its misfortunes in present- 
ing so many natural advantages as to temj)t 



218 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



the schemers and the unsci'upulous to com- 
bine and attempt to gather in to their own, 
benefits and advantages that were placed 
here by nature in quantities sufficient for al- 
most a young empire. Great cities in this 
country have not been built by corporations, 
backed ;by stringent or powerful laws of the 
State Legislatiu'es. They need no combina- 
tions, companies or heavy capitalists in their 
young and growing days. It wants only the 
free play of individual effort, where each 
business man may see a hope to realize 
wealth and position by his efforts, and to know 
that in such a struggle he will not be 
crushed by a public or private monopoly. 
Hence, Cairo's first calamity was a charter 
granted for its building. Cairo, and its past 
histor}^, and its destiny, are singular subjects 
to contemplate. There is, looking from one 
standpoint, no reason why there should not 
be as many people and as much wealth here 
as there is in Chicago, and, tiu'ning to the 
other side of the picture, the wonder arises 
why the 10,000 people who are now here 
ever came, or stayed when they did come. 
It has demonstrated what many wise heads 
believed impossible, namely, the erection of 
levees and embankments that would protect, 
not only against the "highest known waters," 
but against the unparalleled floods of 1882 and 
1883. It has been the only dry land along 
the river, but it was an island in the waste 
of waters, and the overflow of the present year 
has demonstrated that it is not alone enough 
to keep the water out of the city, but the 
merchants and business men are now realiz- 
ing that they must keep up communication 
with the agricultural communities surround- 
ing the place, or business will stagnate, and 
hard times will come. Again, the levees 
have always presented vexatioiis questions, 
that were injurious because unsettled ques- 
tions. People have divided upon the policies 



to be pursued in reference to grading up the 
town and the levees, and continued that un- 
settled state of the public mind that has 
caused injury to the permanent gi'owth and 
especially the manufacturing interests of the 
place. A world-wide misapprehension and 
a common stock-slander on the extreme South- 
ern Illinois, has been in regard to the 
healthfulness of this section of the country. 
To the citizens, there is the patent fact that 
there is no healthier place in the Mississippi 
Valley. The general appearance of the peo- 
ple, the overflow of the school rooms with 
ruddy, chubby-faced, happy children, tell the 
whole story as to the health of the people; 
but the traveler sees a pond of sipe water, 
the low, swampy land about the city, and. 
being impressed before he comes with the 
common slander, imagines he needs a medi- 
cated sponge tied over his nose in order 
that he may not breathe in death in passing 
hurriedly through the place, and 'he writes 
a letter to the great city paper, telling the 
world of the dangers that he passed, and the 
providential escape he made, in passing 
through Southern Illinois. It is immaterial 
what the health statistics may show, these 
the affrighted slanderer will not see, particu- 
larly as they give the He direct to his manu- 
factured stories; but if they did, upon the 
contrary, show a great death rate here, then, 
indeed, would these tables be quoted and re- 
quoted the year round, in great, fat display 
type, that all the world might see, 

Cairo was the natural crossing point for 
the immigration and travel east and west, 
north and south. This point of crossing, in 
the center of the continent, was, by the war 
and fother untoward circumstances, moved 
300 miles north of this, and the south half 
of the Union, for commercial purposes, was 
wiped from the map of the country for a dec- 
ade or more, and the railroads built, and the 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



219 



cities sprung up, and commerce adjusted to 
this northern line, until it may now be for- 
ever impossible to change it. The very fact 
that Illinois penetrated, from the northern 
lakes, like a wedge, down into the Southern 
States, forming, as Daniel P. Cook argued, 
the keystone of the great union of States, 
has been turned, in the unfortunate quarrels 
of the late war, into a base whereon to place 
this end of the State in the same categoiy, 
for the unholy sneers and slanders that were 
heaped upon all the South, and aided much 
in spreading her discredit world-wide. Then, 
the city is confronted with such questions 
as, Will the rivers continue to mark the 
flood line higher and higher, as has been the 
case the past two years? If so, indeed, then, 
what of the morrow? It is urged that the 
constant improvement in draining that is 
going on north of us — tile draining, espe- 
cially — that in many places is becoming so 
universal, and to these are remembered the 
fact that the forests are being cleared away, 
and that these facts, added to the levees 
thrown up at many places as railroad beds, 
must cause the waters to continue to rise 
higher and higher, until, in the end, there 
will be no such things as fencing them out 
with embankments. There were features of 
the last flood that fail to bear out this rea- 
soning. The waters at Cincinnati were five 
feet higher than ever known; at Cairo, only 
a few inches. Then, the hope and purpose 
of the river improvement now going on is to 
deepen the bed of the river by naiTOwiug 
the current in the shallow and wide places in 
the river, and increasing the current (it is 
claimed, upon experiments, that this deepen- 
ing can be made to an average of twelve 
feet), and this increase of current and depth 
of the river's bed must lower materially the 
flood line of any high waters that may come 
down the rivers. The unequaled advantages 



of Cairo for nearly all our manufacturing 
industries are beginning to be understood 
throughout the country. The accessions to 
the city in important factories in the 
past few years, show that shrewd men see 
here the best place in all the West to get the 
raw material and the machinery for its fash- 
ioning together, and then, when the article 
is made, with the easiest and best outlets 
to the markets of the world — transportation 
that can never combine or pool its business, 
to the detriment of the manufacturer or mer- 
chant. Then, why are not all the great 
manufacturing industries of the country rep- 
resented here, crowding the levees of the 
Ohio and Mississippi with their "flaming forges 
and flying spindles," and the roar and hum 
of machinery, and " the music of the hammer 
and the saw?" In shoi't, why is not Cairo 
the great manufacturing city of America? 
Nature has offered illimitable bounties to 
bring them here; why have they not come? 
Perhaps each one can tigm-e out for himself 
the why and the wherefore of this. We 
believe the reasons to be partially artificial 
(these might be removed), and partly natural. 
One thing we may truthfully say of Cairo 
and her surrounding countiy: The locality 
has never been advertised to the world. A 
tithe of the money wasted from time to time, 
if it had been judiciously invested in adver- 
tising the superior advantages of this sec- 
tion of country, would have brought many 
more people here than are now citizens. 
Men sit ai'ound, and croak about capital com- 
ing here. This is not the way cities are 
built; but it is the men starting in trade and 
commerce; men who are possessed, often, 
of small means and great activity and nerve, 
that come to a new place, perhaps commence 
business in a tent or shanty; that push 
along, and eventually erect great business 
houses, and great factories, and build rich 



220 



HISTORY OF CAIRO. 



cities. The capitalists will only follow 
where these men have shown the way. 
We therefore think it probably an unwise act 
in the city authorities making so large a dis- 
trict of the city as the fire limits for build- 
ing purposes. It is very doubtful wisdom to 
obstruct the man of small means from build- 
ing. A town full of cheap houses is one of 
the best indications of coming prosperity. If 
they biu-n, they will take their insiirance 
money, and only build a better grade of 
houses in the place of the old. The man 
wants all his money in his business, and it is 
only when he feels comparatively rich will 
he build fine or extensive establishments. 
To sum up the evils that have beset Cairo, 
we need only name the floods and fire, epi- 
demics and monopolies. These are her main 
grievances. To these may be added some 
mistaken legislation on the part of the city 
authorities, and particularly the grave mis- 
take of keeping the filling and grading ques- 
tions always open, and in an unsettled con- 
dition. This deters men from building, as 
well as others from coming here and putting 
up extensive manufacturing and commercial 
establishments. 

It is better to settle it in some way, and let 
that be a permanent settlement. 

Cairo has passed her greatest trials, and 
whilst her triumph, even, has left her behind 
in the race with other cities that possessed 
hardly a tithe of her natiiral advantages, yet 



her prospects just now are far better than 
they have ever been before. She has a per- 
manent population: they are creating the 
wealth that some day will do much toward 
building here a city. The wholesale trade 
of the merchants has sprung up in a very 
few years, and if good wagon roads are made 
to all the surrounding country, and kept up, 
a few years will mark a splendid and solid 
advancement of the town. 

The social and intellectual activity of the 
community in recent years, is well indicated 
by a public free library, that is now prepar- 
ing a permanent and beautiful home for 
itself, and the two book and news stores of 
the city that are so largely patronized by 
the people, and the elegant and spacious 
Government Post Ofiice and Custom House. 

The present city officials are Thomas 
W. Halliday, Mayor; Denis J. Foley, City 
Clerk; Charles, F. Nellis, Treasurer; L. H. 
Myers, Marshal ; W. B. Gilbert, Corporation 
Counsel ; Wil Ham E. Hendricks, City Attorney ; 
M. J. Howley, City Comptroller; A. Comings, 
Police Magistrate. Aldermen— First Ward, 
William McHale and Hemy Walker ; Second 
Ward, Jesse Hinckle, C. N. Hughes; Third 
Ward, B. F. Blake, E. A. Smith; Foui-th 
Ward, C. A. Patier, A. Swoboda; Fifth 
Ward, Charles Lancaster, Henry Stout; 
Street Superintendent, Nicholas Devore; As- 
sistant Chief of Fire Department, Joseph 
Steagala. 




PAET II. 



HISTORY OF UION" COUNTY, 



MM 



wm 




\l, 



■/« 



^ ? 






aa^^ 



PART II. 



History of Union County, 



BY H. C. BRADSBY. 



CHAPTER I, 



INTRODUCTION— GEOLOGY— IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATING THE PEOPLE ON THIS SUBJECT— THE 
LIMESTONE DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS— ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY OF UNION, ALEXANDER 
AND PULASKI COUNTIES— MEDICAL SPRINGS, BUILDING MATERIAL, SOIL, 
ETC.— WONDERFUL WEALTH OF NATURE'S BOUNTIES— TOPOG- 
RAPHY AND CLIMATE OF THIS REGION, I:TC. 



History is philosophy teaching bj' example. 

THIS and the two succeeding chapters 
include the district composed of Union, 
Alexander and Pulaski Counties. The whole 
was once Union County, and the first three 
chapters bring the history down to the for- 
mation of Alexander County. 

For school j)urposes — for the purpose of 
giving the people a most important education 
in the practical life interests — there is no 
question of such deep interest as the geolog- 
ical history of that particular portion of the 
country in which they make their homes. 
The peojDle of Southern Illinois are an agri- 
cialtural one in their pursuits. Their first 
care is the soil and climate, and it is here 
they may find an almost inexhaiistible fund 
of knowledge, that will ever put money in 
their purses. All mankind are deeply in- 
terested in the soil. From here comes all 
life, all beauty, pleasure, wealth and enjoy- 
ment Of itself, it may not be a beautiful 



thing, but from it comes the fragrant fiower, 
the golden fields, the sweet blush of the 
maiden's cheek, the flash of the lustrous eye 
that is more powerful to subdue the heart of 
obdurate man tlian an army with banners. 
From here comes the great and rich cities 
whose towers and temples and minarets kiss 
the early morning sun, and whose ships, with 
their precious cai'goes, fleck every sea. In 
short, it is the nom'ishing mother whence 
comes oui' high civilization — the wealth of 
nations, the joys and exalted pleasures of 
life. Hence, the corner-stone upon which all 
of life rests is the farmer, who tickles the 
earth and it laughs with tbe rich harvests 
that so bountifully bless mankind. Who, 
then, should be so versed in the knowledge 
of the soil as the farmer? What other infor- 
mation can be so valuable to him as the mas- 
tery of the science of the geology, at least that 
much of it as applies to that part of the earth 
where he h' t cast his fortunes and cultivates 

13 



226 



HISTOKY OF UNIOK COUNTY. 



the soil. We talk of educating the farmer, 
and ordinarily this means to send yom' boys 
to college, to acquire what is termed a class- 
ical education, and they come, perhaps, as 
graduates, as incapable of telling the geolog- 
ical story of the father's farna as is the 
veriest bumpkin who can neither read nor 
write. How much more of practical value it 
would have been to the young man had he 
never looked into the classics, and instead 
thereof had taken a few practical lessons in 
the local geology that would have told him 
the story of the soil around him, and enabled 
him to comprehend how it was formed, its 
different qualities and from whence it came, 
and its constituent elements. The farmer 
grows to be an old man, and he will tell you 
that he has learned to be a good farmer only 
by a long life of laborious experiments, and 
if you should tell him that these experiments 
had made him a scientific farmer, he would 
look with a good deal of contempt upon your 
supposed effort to poke ridicule at him. He 
has taught himself to regard the word 
" science" as the property only of book- worms 
and cranks. He does not realize that every 
step in farming is a purely scientific opera- 
tion, because science is made by experiments 
and investigations. An old farmer may ex- 
amine a soil, and tell you it is adapted to 
wheat or corn, that it is warm or cold and 
heavy, or a few other facts that his long ex- 
periments have taught him, and to that ex- 
tent he is a scientific farmer. He will tell 
you that his knowledge has cost him much 
labor, and many sore disappointments. Sup- 
pose that in his youth a well-digested chap- 
ter on the geological history, that would have 
told him, in the simplest terms, all about the 
land he was to cultivate, how invaluable the 
lesson would have been, and how much in 
money value it would have proved to him. 
In other words, if you could g' ^ e your boys 



a practical education, made up of a few les- 
sons pertaining to those subjects that im- 
mediately concern their lives, how invaluable 
such an education might be, and how many 
men would thus be saved the pangs and pen- 
alties of ill-directed lives. .The parents often 
spend much money in the education of their 
children, and from this they build great 
hopes upon their future, that are often 
blasted, not through the fault, always, of the 
child, but through the error of the parent in 
not being able to know in what real, practi- 
cal education consists. If the schools of the 
country, for instance, could devote one of 
the school months in each year to rambling 
over the hills and the fields, and gathering 
practical lessons in the geology and botany 
of the section of country in which the chil- 
idren were born and reared, how incompar- 
ably more valuable and useful the time thus 
spent would be to them in after life, than 
would the present mode of shu.tting out the 
joyous sunshine of life, and expending both 
life and vitality in studying metaphysical 
mathematics, or the most of the other text- 
books that impart nothing that is worth the 
carrying home to the child's stock of knowl- 
edge. At all events, the chapter in a 
county's history that tells its geological for- 
mation is of first importance to all its people, 
and if properly prepared it will become a 
source of great interest to all, and do much 
to disseminate a better education among the 
people, and thus be a perpetual blessing to 
the community. 

The permanent effect of the soil on the 
people is as strong and certain as upon 
the vegetation that springs from it. It is a 
maxim in geology that the soil and its un- 
derlying rocks forecast unerringly to the 
trained eye the character of the people, the 
number and the quality of the civilization 
of those who will, in the coming time, occuj^y 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



227 



it. Indeed, so close are the relations of 
the geology and the people, that this law is 
plain and fixed, that a new countiy may 
have its outlines of history written when first 
looked upon, and it is not, as so many sup- 
pose, one of those deep, abstruse subjects 
that are to be given over solely to a few great 
investigators and thinkers, and to the masses 
must forever i*emain a sealed book. The 
youths of your country may Jearn the impor- 
tant outlines of the geology of their country 
with no more difficulty than they meet in 
mastering the multiplication table or th« 
simple rule of three. And we make no ques- 
tion that a youth need not "possess one-half 
of the mental activity and shrewdness in 
making a fair geologist of himself that he 
would find was required of him to become 
a successful jockey or a trainer of retriever 
dogs. 

On the geological structure of a country 
depend the pm-suits of its inhabitants, and 
the genius of its civilization. Agriculture is 
the outgrowth of a fertile soil; mining results 
from mineral resoiu'ces, and from navigable 
rivers spring navies and commerce. Every 
great branch of industry requires, for its 
successful development, the cultivation of 
kindred arts and sciences. Phases of life 
and modes of thought are thus induced, 
which give to difierent communities and 
states characters as various as the diverse 
rocks that underlie them. In like manner, 
it may be shown that their moral and intel- 
lectual qualities depend on materal con- 
ditions. Where the soil and subjacent rocks 
are profuse in the bestowal of wealth, man is 
indolent and effeminate: where effort is re- 
quired to live, he becomes enlightened and 
virtuous. A perpetually mild climate and 
bread-growing upon the trees, will produce 
only ignorant savages. The heaviest mis- 
fortune that has so long environed poor, per- 



secuted L-eland has been her ability to pro- 
duce the potato, and thus subsist wife and 
children upon a small patch of ground. 
Statistics tell us that the number of mar- 
riages are regulated by the price of corn, 
and the true philosopher has discovered that 
the invention of gunpowder did more to 
civilize the world than any one thing in its 
history. 

Geology traces the history of the earth 
back through successive stages of develop- 
ment, to its rudimental condition in a state 
of fusion. The sun, and the planetary sys- 
tem that revolves aroand it, were originally 
a common mass, that became separated in a 
gaseous state, and the loss of heat in a 
planet reduced it to a plastic state, and thus 
it commenced to write its own history, and 
place its records upon these imperishable 
books, where the geologist may go and read 
the strange, eventful story. The earth was 
a wheeling ball of fire, and the cooling event- 
ually formed the exterior crust, and in th« 
slow process of time prepared the way for 
the animal and vegetable life it now contains. 
In its center the fierce flames still rage, with 
undiminished energy. Volcanoes are outl.its 
for these deep-seated tires, where are gener- 
ated those tremendous forces, an illustration 
of which is given in the eruptions of Vesu- 
vius, which has thrown a jet of lava, resem- 
bling a column of flame, 10,000 feet high. 
The amount of lava ejected at a single erup- 
tion from one of the volcanoes of Iceland 
has been estimated at 40,000,000,000 tons, a 
qiTantity sufficient to cover a large city with 
a mountain as high as the tallest Alps. Our 
world is yet constantly congealinsr, just as 
the process has been going on for billions of 
years, and yet the rocky crust that rests upon 
this internal fire is estimated to be only be- 
tween thirty and forty miles in thickness. 
In the silent depths of the stratified rocks 



228 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



are the former creation of plants and ani- 
mals, which lived and died during the slow, 
dragging centui'iesof their formation. These 
fossil remains are fragments of history, 
which enable the geologist to extend his re- " 
searches far back into the realms of the past, 
and not only determine their former modes 
of life, but study the contemporaneous his- 
tory of their rocky beds, and group them into 
systems. And such has been the profusion 
of life, that the great limestone fonnations 
of the globe consist mostly of animal re- 
mains, cemented by the infusion of animal 
matter. A large part of the soil spread over 
the earth's surface "has been elaborated in 
animal organisms. First, as nourishment 
it enters into the structure of plants, and 
forms vegetable .tissue, passing thence, as 
food, into the animal it becomes endowed 
with life, and when death occurs it retiu-ns 
into the soil and imparts to it additional 
elements of fertility. 

The counties of Union, Alexander and Pu- 
laski contain an area of 812 square miles, em- 
bracing all that south end of the State from 
the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio 
Eiver, extending north to the north line of 
Union, and from the Mississippi River to the 
east line of Pulaski County. 

The general trend of the line of uplift .in 
this section of country is from northwest to 
southeast, and the dip, with -some local vari- 
ations, is to the northeastward. Hence the 
escarpments on the south and west sides of 
the ridges are steeper and more rugged than 
those of the north and east. The river bluffs 
along the Mississippi are high and rocky, 
and are frequently cut up into ragged de- 
clivities and sharp summits, and are formed 
by the chert limestones of Upper Silurian 
and Devonian age, which constitute the more 
soiithern extension of the bluffs into Alexan- 
der County. Commencing in the northeast- 



ern portion of Union County is a sandstone 
ridge, which forms the water-shed between 
the streams running northward into the Big 
Muddy, and those running south into the 
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. This ridge 
presents a perpendicular escarpment on its 
southern face, indicating it was once a bluff 
to some river, although its course is nearly at 
right angles to the present water-courses. 
Its summit is formed by conglomerate sand- 
stone, and its base by the Lower Carbonif- 
erous limestone. South of this chain of 
bluffs, and extending along the line of the 
Illinois Central Railroad, from Cobden to 
the bottom-lands of Alexander County, is a 
broad beltgf couatiy underlaid by the Lower 
Carboniferous limestone, in which the ridges 
are less abrupt and the surface so gently 
rolling as to be susceptible of the highest 
cultivation. There are in this belt an abun- 
dance of most elegant springs, and this will 
some day be the great blue-grass district 
of Southern Illinois, that will equal in 
value, for dairy, sheep-growing and the 
production of line stock, the celebrated blue 
i grass region of Kentucky, if it does not 
siu-pass it. All it wants to induce a spon- 
taneous growth of blue grass is for the un- 
dergrowth to be cleared up and put to past- 
ure. Here are water, soil, climate and 
rocks tliat clearly indicate what must some 
day inevitably come. Men must come, or 
grow up here, who understand fully the geo- 
logical formations of this belt, to make it one 
of the most beautiful, as well as the most 
productive, portions of the State. 

For nearly eighty years, the people have 
lived and farmed this land in their little 
patches of corn, wheat and oats, much after 
the fashion they would have managed their 
farms had they been in the woods of Tennes- 
see or "Middle Illinois. Because they could 
do quite as well as their neighbors in this or 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



229 



the adjoining States, they have been content. 
They knew their land would produce wheat 
that would command a premium in all the 
markets of the world, and that their crops 
never totally failed, as they often did in 
other places, and they contentedly concluded 
it was exclusively a wheat- gi-owing countiy. 
The intelligent geologist could have told 
them, two generations ago, that their won- 
derful soil was better adapted to that better 
farming where there are no such things as 
evil effects from rains or di'oughts, early 
frosts or late springs ; where wealth was 
absolutely certain, and where the profits and 
pleasui'es of farming' would [make it one of 
the most elevating, refining and elegant piu'- 
suits of life; where life upon the farm was 
divested of that di'udgery and unrequited toil 
that too often drive the young men from the 
farms to the even more wretched life of a pre- 
carious clerkship in the towns and villages. 
Farming is much as any of the other pursuits 
of life. A certain locality will make of the 
farmers the most elegant a^l refined of peo- 
ple, and their lives will be siu'rounded by the 
comforts and luxuries of the world. Their 
sons and daughters will attend the best 
schools, and will complete their education 
with travels in foreign countries, and thus 
attaining that refinement and cultui'e that 
will make them the foremost people in the 
country. Fortunes are made cultivating 
wheat and corn, but only by the hardest work 
and closest economy, and such fortunes are 
generally gained at the expense of all self- 
cultui-e among the families that thus work 
their way along their slow, heavy road. 
There are few things more pitiable in life 
than to go into a family where there is wealth 
and ignorant gieed combined — that mockery 
of all the civilizing influences that wealth 
should bring, and the stupid conviction that 
ignorance is adorned by a bank account, and 



gentility and sense are only intended for 
people who have no money. The truth is, 
wealth should always be a blessing to its pos- 
sessor; yet how generally is it a curse, be- 
cause its acquisition has been at the expense 
of that self-cultm-e that the inexorable laws 
of nature require at every man's hands. 

The Lower Carbonifei'ous limestone men- 
tioned above ab a belt extending nearly en- 
tirely across Union and through Alexander 
to the bottom lands above Cairo, extend into 
the northern and northwestern portions of 
Pulaski County, and forms gently sloping 
low hills, with a fertile soil, a rich, are- 
naceous loam. The hills, as is the case in 
Union and Alexander Counties, are covered 
with heavy timber, consisting principally of 
white oak, black oak, pigniit hickory, scaly- 
bark hickory, yellow poplar, black gum, 
black walnut and dogwood. They slope 
generally to the southwest, in the direction 
of the nearest stream. 

The rich river bottoms along the Missis- 
sippi are of an average of nearly five miles 
in width, and are as rich in vegetable food 
as is the valley of the celebrated Nile in 
Egypt. The bottoms were originally covered 
with forest trees that often attained to enor- 
mous size. Except that these bottoms are 
subject to overflow at high stages of water 
in the river, there would be no farms in the 
world more productive than would here be 
found . 

The main body of the iipland of Pulaski 
County, between Cache and the Ohio Rivers, 
is underlaid with Tertiary strata, and may 
be called oak barrens. They consist of al- 
ternations gently sloping, more or less sharp- 
ly rolling or broken ridges. Their soil is a 
yellow finely arenaceous loam, which extends 
to a considerable depth. The gi'owth in the 
central portion, and extending nearly 
through the whole width of the county, is 



2:5C 



HISTORY OF UN^I0:N^ COUNTY. 



characterized by an abundance of small, 
brushy, bitter oak, an upland variety of the 
Spanish oak, a tree which is hardly "found 
anywhere farther north, and replaces the 
black oak and f black jack. The bitter oak 
usually forms a dense underbrush, together 
with an abundance of hazel, sassafras and 
sumac, with some white oak, black oak 
barren hickory, pignut hickory, black 
gum, and in some places small yellow poplar. 
These oak barrens are only now beginning 
to be understood. They were called the 
" barrens," and the name indicated all the 
people supposed they were good for as agricult- 
ural lands. Thrifty settlers avoided them, 
and the coon-skin tribe of early settlers were 
too often ready to adopt these unfavorable 
judgments of these lands, and offer that as 
an excuse for their own laziness and igno- 
rance of a soil that was really very strong in 
all the elements of fertility, and capable of 
being made the rich garden spot of Illinois. 
But the ipast decade has -brought a revela- 
tion to this valuable part of the State, and a 
new style of farming has rapidly taken the 
place of the old, and the farmers are learn- 
ing that for wheat their country is unap- 
proachable; that their crops never fail, and 
there is hardly anything, either of the North 
or the South, but that they can produce to 
great profit. A "single instance may suffice 
to illustrate our meaning. Only three or 
foui- years ago an enterprising farmer, sim- 
ply because he was too poor to buy teams 
and the modern expensive agricultural imple- 
ments, planted sweet potatoes. The yield 
was over three hundred [bushels to the acre, 
and these he sold for $4 per barrel. This 
chance experiment taught the people that 
they could raise sweet potatoes in as great 
abundance, and of as fine quality, as could 
be produced anywhere, and the profits of 
this crop were simply immense. Sweet pota- 



toes are now a staple product of Pulaski 
County, and in a few years, we make no 
doubt, the yield will be very large. 

There are no true coal-bearing rocks in the 
limits of the three counties of Union, Alex- 
ader and Pulaski, and hence there is no rea- 
sonable expectation of finding extensive or 
paying deposits of coal. From time to time, 
much labor has been expended in digging 
for coal west of Jonesboro, in the black slate 
of the Devonian series; but as this slate lies 
more than a thousand feet below the horizon 
of any true coal -bearing strata, the labor and 
means so expended were only in vain. There 
are some thin streaks of coal, but it only ap- 
pears locally, as it is interstratified with the 
shales of the Chester series; but it has 
never been found so developed as to be of 
any practical value. 

The brown Hematite ore exists in Union 
and the upper portions of Alexander and the 
northwestern part ;^of Pulaski, but so far no 
deposit of this kind has been discovered suffi- 
ciently extensive -jand free from extraneous 
matter to justify mining it and erecting 
furnaces for its reduction, and the iron ore 
is generally so intermingled with chert, that 
its per cent of metallic iron is small. 

The sulphuretof lead, or galena, has been 
found in small quantities in the cherty lime- 
stones of the Devonian series. On Huggins 
Creek, on the southwest quarter of Section 1, 
Township 11, Range 3 west, it has been 
found near Mr. Gregory's. The galena 
occurs here, associated with calcspar, filling 
small pockets in the rock. If this ore is 
ever found in quantities in this portion of 
Illinois, it will be in pockets, and it is very 
doubtful if it will ever be discovered in suffi- 
cient quantities to pay for the digging. 

An excellent article of potter's clay occurs 
in many localities in the three counties. In 
Section 2, Town 12 south, Range 2 west, a very 



HISTORY OF UN^ION COUNTY. 



231 



fine white pipe-clay is found, which is used 
by Mr. Kirkpatrick, of Anna, for the manu- 
facture ' of common stone- ware, by mixing 
with a common clay found near the town of 
Anna. This pipe-clay is nearly white in 
color, with streaks of purple through it, and 
appears, from its^olors, to have been derived 
from the striped shales known locally in this 
part of the State as " calico rock." Except 
for the coloring matter which it contains, this 
clay seems to be of a quality suited for the 
manufacture of a fine .article of white ware. 
The clays of the Tertiary formation are found 
in abundance, and they are valuable for the 
manufacture of potter's ware, and for years 
one variety has been in use at Santa F6. It 
is of a gray color, and is sufficiently mixed 
with sand to be used without any farther ad- 
dition of that material. Before burning, the 
ware is washed with the white clay, to im- 
prove its color, and the inside of the vessel 
is washed with Mississippi mud to improve 
the glazing. The white clays near Santa ¥6 
are supposed to be well adapted to the man- 
ufacture of white ware, but they have not 
been properly tested. The white clays result 
from the decomposition of the siliceous beds 
of the Devonian series. The Devonian sand- 
stone found in the northeast portion of Un- 
ion County is often quite pure and free from 
coloring matter, and is well adapted to the 
manufacture of glass. 

Those portions of Pulaski and Union 
County that are underlaid with limestone 
have a rich, light, warm soil, which yields 
the most ample rewards for the labor be- 
stowed upon it. The southern latitude makes 
it favorable to nearly every crop that has 
ever been tried upon it, and almost every 
year experiments show that its range of pro- 
duction is most extensive. Many years ago, 
it was discovered that all this portion of Illi- 
nois was fertile in the yield of peaches, 



apples and the small fruits, and lately it has 
demonstrated that in all garden vegetables it 
was unsurpassed, and just now it is coming 
to light that the barren ridges promise the 
best results, the yellow loam being one of 
the finest and most inexhaustible soils in the 
world. On the wide bottoms of Cache River 
is found very superior land, as is indicated 
by the timber growth upon it. The low bot- 
tom ridges or swells have a black, sandy soil, 
which is more or less mixed with clay, and 
they produce most bountifully. They are 
above the flood level, but are surrounded by 
low lands, which are wet and often impassable 
and frequently overflowed. One difficulty in 
these bottom ridges is pure, healthy water, 
but this defect could be supplied by cisterns. 
The low lands are very rich, are also very 
fertile, but somewhat heavy soil. In the 
course of time these will become very valu- 
able. The timber is heavy, and is being 
rapidly cut out to supply the extensive saw 
mills on the railroads and Cache River. The 
removal of the timber has a drying efifect on 
the soil, and places which a few years ago 
were continuous swamps are now becoming 
dry, and are capable of growing fine crops of 
corn. This influence will be more and more 
felt as time goes on, and once the channel of 
the river is cleared of obstructions, and the 
soil is broken with the plow, large stretches 
of now swamp land will be reclaimed and 
converted into a tine agricultui'al district. 
With this will be correspondingly improved 
the health of that part of the country. Some at- 
tempts have been made to drain the extensive 
cypress swamps of Pulaski County, as well 
as in Alexander and Union Counties. Some 
years ago, a ditch was cut from Swan's Pond, 
situated in Sections 22, 23, 20 and 27, Town- 
ship 14, Range 2 east, to Post Creek, which 
empties into Cache River, in order to dry 
the pond; but those who planned the 'work 



•J32 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



were incompetent engineers; the necessary- 
preliminary levelings seem not to have been 
executed at all, or badly exncuted; for when 
the ditch was completed, it conducted the 
water the wrong way — that is, from the river 
to the pond, instead of from the pond to the 
river. Accurate topographical surveys would 
readily point out a way to drain the swamp 
lands of the Cache River, and thus reclaim 
a very large and rich agricultural section. 
All over this district is found a soil from 
three feet to one hundred feet in depth, that 
will never be exhausted by the husbandman. 
In even the uplands and in the oak barrens 
the subsoil, when taken from a depth of fif- 
teen or twenty feet, needs but a short time to 
mellow and then produces nearly as well as 
the Bui-face soil. The richness of the land, 
and the wonderful store of elements of fertil- 
ity can, therefore, not be doubted. All that 
is needed is to keep it stirred, and as the 
skimmed surface is exhausted simply culti- 
vate a little deeper, and here is a bank 
against which the farmer may draw his 
checks that will always be honored. There 
is a just mixture of sand in the upland soils 
that makes them warm, rich and porous, caus- 
ing them to produce an unlimited variety of 
vegetation, to defy the droughts as well as 
the drowning rains. Hence the too little 
known fact that two years ago, when an un- 
usually diy summer followed a wet spring, 
the crops in neai'ly all the Mississippi Valley 
failed, and yet the wheat and corn in the 
oak barrens of Pulaski County produced a 
good average crop. Corn, we are told by rep- 
utable farmers in that district, was raised 
that produced forty bushels to the acre, that 
was rained on only once between planting 
and maturity. No industrious farmer need 
be afraid to trust such a soil with his labor; 
he may be certain of being repaid, with 
large interest; but the tendency to cultivate 



over-large tracts, slovenly, proves injurious 
to the land, and this great mistake has 
caused many to misjudge the land, and even 
pronounce it of inferior quality. Here is a 
wonderful and only partially developed coun- 
try, destined, some time, to be the most 
valuable spot on the continent; capable of 
producing tobacco, cotton, sweet potatoes, 
fruits, garden vegetables, corn, wheat and 
blue grass; supplied with magnificent springs 
abundantly; the Mecca of the coming farmer; 
the home of blooded stock of all kinds, and 
eventually a race of people who may take 
their places in the front ranks of the splendid 
civilization of the Western Hemisphere. The 
shiftless half farmei', half coon-skin hunter, 
and the slave of ignorance and a life of mis- 
guided toil, disease and suffering, will pass 
away, as have the red wild men of the forest, 
and here will take their places a type of re- 
finement, intelligence, cultui'e, enterprise, 
wealth and comfort that produces the noblest 
races of men and women. Natui'e's bounties 
have been poured out upon this land in 
boundless profusion, and the evil, so far, has 
only come from the plethora of ignorance 
that has tried in vain to utilize this excess 
of nature's rich profusion, and this has often 
given gi'iefs and pain where only should have 
come the promised joys. It will, at the 
rate intelligence has progressed since the 
dawn of history, be a long time yet, perhaps, 
before ignorance ceases to afflict mankind. 
And it should be borne in mind, that all 
pains in this world are the penalties we pay 
to ignorance. It is hardly possible for a pang 
to come from any other source. The most of 
us are incapable of understanding or inves- 
tigating nature's laws. Hence, we come 
into the world law-breakers, and thus make 
of this otherwise bright and beautiful and 
joyovis home a penal colony for the children 
of men, where we war and struggle for exist- 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



238 



ence, and suffer long and die, and the fitful 
fever is over, and the unchangeable and in- 
exorable laws of God go on, exactly as they 
have always gone on without beginning, and 
as they will forever without ending 

Building Stone and Marble. — The whole 
southern extremity of Illinois has an abun- 
dant supply of superior building stone, and 
some day the quarries will be properly 
opened, and then the amount and (quality of 
the material they will afford will be better 
known. Here will then be a vast and profit- 
able industry developed. First in impor- 
tance, pefhaps, not only from the thickness 
of the formation, and consequently the large 
amount of material it will afford, is the 
Trenton Limestone, which has outcropped 
more extensively on the river blufis below 
Thebes than anywhere else. This formation 
is about seventy feet in thickness above the 
low water level of the river, and consists of 
white and bluish-gray limestone, partly in 
heavy beds of from two to three feet in thick- 
ness. It is generally free from siliceous or 
fen-uginous matter, can be easily cut into any 
desired form, and is susceptible of a high 
polish, and is adaj)ted to various uses as a 
marble. It has been extensively quarried at 
Cape Girardeau, since the earliest settlement 
of the country, both for lime and for the 
various purposes for which a fine building 
stone is required, and is widely known and 
appreciated as the "Cape Girardeau Marble" 
along the river. For the consti'uction of 
fine buildings and the display of elaborate 
architectural designs, this rock has no su- 
perior in the West. 

The mottled beds of the Upper Silurian 
series consists of hard, compact limestone, 
and are susceptible of a fine polish, and 
make a beautiful marble. The prevailing 
colors are red, buff and gray, vai-ying some- 
what at different localities. The rock is some- 



what siliceous, and consequently harder to 
work than the white limestone of the Trenton 
group, but it ,will,. no doubt, retain a fine 
polish much longer than a softer material, 
and the varieties of colors which it affords 
renders it well adapted to many uses as an 
ornamental stone, for which the other woald 
not bo required. Thpse mottled layers vary 
from ten to twenty feet in thickness, and 
can be most economically quarried where 
the overlying strata have been removed by 
erosion. For table-tops, mantels, etc., this 
is one of the handsomest rocks at present 
found in the country. 

The St. Louis limestone affords a good 
building material, especially the upper and 
lower divisions. At the quarries west of 
Jonesboro, the rock is a massive, nearly 
white, limestone, free from chert, and 
dresses well, and in a dry wall will prove to 
be dm'able, but splits when used for curbing, 
or whenever it is subject to the action of 
water and frost. The middle of this division 
is a dark gray cherty limestone, that might 
answer well for rough walls, but would not 
dress well, in consequence of the cberty mat- 
ter so generally disseminated through it. 
The upper division of this stone quarried 
east of Anna, is a light gray, massive lime- 
stone, tolerably free from chert, and in qual- 
ity similar to the quany rock just west of 
Jonesboro. 

The best limestone for the manufacture of 
quicklime, is found in the upper portion of 
the St. Louis groiip, and is extensively quar 
ried in the eastern part of Anna Precinct, 
and in the edge of the village of Anna, 
where several kilns are constantly in opera- 
tion. The rock is a crystalline, and partly 
o Uitic, light-gray limestone, nearly a pure 
carbonate of lime in its composition, and 
makes a fine, white lime, similar in quality 
to the Alton lime, made from the same for- 



234 



HISTORY OF UI^TON COUNTY. 



mation. Much of Central and Southern Illi- 
nois and the South is supplied from these 
kilns. The supply of this stone is almost in- 
exhaustible. 

The Thebes sandstone affords an excellent 
dimension stone and material adapted to the 
construction of foundation walls, culverts, 
etc. It dresses well, and is durable. Some 
of the beds are of suitable thickness, and 
make good flagstones. All these beds out- 
crop along the banks and in the vicinity of 
the Mississippi River, and consequently may 
be made available, at a small cost, to all the 
lower country bordering on the Mississippi 
River that is destitute of svich material, 
which is the case with the entire country 
from Cairo to New Orleans. 

Millstones. — The en jrmous masses of chert 
rock contained in the Clear Creek limestones 
afford, at some points, a buhr stone that ap- 
pears to be nearly equal, if not quite equal, 
in quality to the celebrated French buhr 
stones so extensively used for millstones in 
this country. Some of the specimens ob- 
tained here seem to possess the requisite 
hai'dness an(i porosity, and some millstones 
have been obtained from 'the chert beds of 
Bald Knob that are said to have answered 
a good purpose, and have been used in the 
neighboring mills. But these were made 
from the rock that had been long exposed at 
the surface, and perhaps were not taken f rorn 
the best part of that; while the beds lying 
beyond the reach of atmospheric influences 
have not been tested. 

Grindstones. — Some of the evenly-bedded 
sandstones of the Chester group, and es- 
pecially the lower beds of the series, are fre- 
quently developed in thin, even layers, that 
could be readily manufactured into grind- 
stones. The rock has a fine, sharp grain ^ 
and if too soft when freshly quarried, would 
harden sufficiently on exposm-e to give them 



the necessary durability. Some beds of the 
conglomerate sandstone also have a sharp 
grit, and when sufficiently compact in text- 
ure and even bedded will make good grind- 
stones. 

Mineral Siyrings, at Western Saratoga, in 
Union County, were widely known as far back 
as the recollection of man reaches in this sec- 
tion. In the eai'ly times, it was a noted 
" deer lick, " and the deer would gather here 
in great numbers to quench their thirst and 
feed at their " licks." It was a noted Indian 
camping-ground, where they would come and 
hunt. That the waters possessed mineral 
properties was known to the earliest settlers, 
and as early as 1830 people began visiting 
the place from Jonesboro and the country 
north to Kaskaskia. In 1838, Dr. Penoyer, 
who, perhaps, had lived in Union County 
some little time, purchased a tract of 160 
acres, and proceeded to lay out a city, of 
which the springs were to form the center, 
and gave it the name of Saratoga. Penoyer 
made the mistake of platting his town and 
dedicating, in its center, a square to the 
public, and this precluded any one from tak- 
ing hold of it and developing it as it de- 
served. Another error, that was fatal to the 
development of the place, was placing upon 
the lots so high a price that no one felt they 
could afford to invest. However, about 1840, a 
man named Bradley purchased a small tract, 
and erected a boarding-house. This stood 
until 1878, when it was burned. Dr. Penoyer 
and a man named Harkness, whom the Doc- 
tor had associated with him, built a bath- 
ing-house, about forty rods from the spring, 
and connected with it by a series of pipes. 
This bathing-house was about one hundred 
feet long and nine feet wide. This was used 
for some time, but gi'adually falling into dis- 
use it rotted down. As long as people could 
get accommodation, they flocked here in great 



HISTORY OF I'NIOX COUNTY. 



23") 



numbers. They came from all directions, 
but especially from the Southern States, Mis- 
souri. Mississippi and Louisiana. For many 
summers, the boarding-houses, and all who 
would accommodate boarders, had all and 
more than they could accommodate, and 
many were sometimes turaed back by learn- 
ing they could not get accommodations. The 
price of lots still continued exorbitantly 
high, and so wretched were the meager ac- 
commodations, people ceased to come, and 
the place fell into decay. A spring house, 
which was under way, was left to its fate un- 
finished, and the timbers now lie around the 
spring in a decaying condition. When too 
late, the Doctor discovered his mistake, and 
had what he called a deed from the public to 
himself made, conveying the spring back to 
himself. This cui'ious document was signed 
by the visitors who, from time to time, were 
attracted to the place, and, as legal wisdom 
spread among the people, it eventually came 
to be looked upon as fraudulent. Armed 
with this document, the Doctor set about try- 
ing to sell the springs. ' He made a sale to a 
St. Louis and also to a Chicago firm, but 
when, in each case, the abstract of title was 
made out, the trade fell through. At present 
the springs are uncared-for in the public 
square, and at times the wayfarer comes, 
drinks of the Pool of Siloam, and is benefit- 
ed. Over one-half of the original town plat, 
including the park, lies in the farm of Mr. 
Taylor Dodd. The remainder is owned by 
a few of the older inhabitants, most of whom 
look forward to better times coming for the 
place. Dx'. T. J. Rich resides upon part of 
the old town plat, and cultivates his fruit 
trees where once it was intended to erect 
large brick, stone and iron houses. 

The property is located in Section 1, 
Township 12 south. Range 1 west. It is a 
tolerably strong sulphur water, and contains 



sulphureted hydrogen, a small quantity of 
sulphate of lime, carbonate of soda, chloride 
of sodium, and, perhaps, a little alumina and 
magnesia. The water is said to be a specific 
for dyspepsia and chronic diseases of the 
skin. It is also said to be beneficial in cases 
of scrofula. The water is strongest during 
the dry season of the year, being then less 
afi'ected |by the admixture of surface water. 

Dr. Penoyer seems to have been a poor 
manager, and yet the waters, were shipped 
and sold by him, in quantities, to many parts 
of the country. For some years he made a 
practice of boiling it down and bottling and 
peddling it about the country, and shipping 
to those wanting it at a distance. 

In conversation with Dr. T. J. Rich, the 
following additional facts were learned; The 
chief ingredients of the water are soda, sul- 
phuret, patash and traces of iron and iodine. 
The odor which is noted upon drinking the 
water is caused by the presence of sulphuret 
of hydrogeo; this is said to pass away entire- 
ly when the water is allowed to stand an 
hoiu' or two. 

The Doctor's method of boiling the water 
was to take 100 gallons, and boil it until 
only one'" remained. This one gallon was 
quite thick, and tasted like soft soap-suds, 
or very strong soda-water. It was about the 
time that the Doctor was engaged in making 
this medicine, probablj^ about 1850, that 
there was an epidemic of flux. It was very 
fatal, and the physicians gave up many cases, 
which Dr. Penoyer was able to cure with his 
medicine, in every instance in which it was 
given a fair trial. 

That the water contains ingredients that 
are full of strong curative powers in many of 
the human ailments, is beyond all reasonable 
doubt, and nothing short of Dr. Penoyer' s 
folly could have prevented this place from 
loner asro becomins: one of the most noted 



23G 



HISTORY OF UXIOX COUNTY. 



health rpsorts in the coimtiy. In many 
chronic ailments, and in all skin diseases, 
and for old sores, it has, in so many in- 
stances, and unfailingly, cured, that it may 
be said to be a specific. 

Road Material. — An inexhaustible amount 
of the very best material for the construction 
of turnpike or common roads, abounds on all 
the watercourses that intersect the uplands 
of this district, and is derived from the 
cherty limestones of the Upper Silurian and 
Devonian age. It consists of a brown flint 
or chert, finely broken for use, and occurs 
abundantly, tilling the valleys of the small 
streams that intersect the limestones above 
named. This has been used at St. Louis for 
the manufacture of "concrete stone," and is 
found equal to the best English flint for this 
purpose. The material with which^ this ex- 
periment was made was obtained in Union 
County, bat it differs in no way from the flint 
found in Pulaski and Alexander Counties. 

Next to the immense deposits of coal, the 
St. Louis limestone is reckoned one of the 
most important formations. It receives its 
name from the city where its lithological 
character was first studied. Imbedded in 
its layers are found Crinoids,* in a profusion 
found nowhei'e else in the world. Though 
untold ages have elapsed since their incar- 
ceration in the rocks, so perfect has been 
their preservation, their structure can be de- 
termined with almost as much precision as 
if they had perished but yesterday. 

The soil was originally .formed by the de- 
composition of rocks. These, by long ex- 
posure to the air, water and frost, became 
disintegrated, and the comminuted material 
acted upon by vegetation, forms the fruitful 
mold of the surface. When of local origin, 
it varies in composition with changing ma- 

* Crinoidea — An order uf lily-shaped marine auiuials. They 
generally grow attached to the hottom of the sea by a pointtd stem, 
analagouB to the growth of plants. 



terial from which it is derived. If sand- 
stone prevails, it is too porous to retain fer- 
tilizing agents; if limestone is in excess, it 
is too hot and dry, and if slate predominates, 
the resulting clay is too wet and cold. 
Hence, it is only a combination of these and 
other ingredients that can properly adapt the 
earth to the growth of vegetation. Happily 
for nearly all the Mississippi Valley, the 
origin of its surface formations precludes the 
possibility of sterile extremes arising from 
local causes. And these causes are more 
abundant in the south end of Illinois than 
in probably any other place in the great val- 
ley. The surface of the country is a stratum 
of drift, formed by the decomposition of 
every variety of rock in its distribution. 
This immense deposit, varying from fifteen 
to two hundred feet in thickness, requires 
for its production physical conditions which 
do not exist now. We must go far back in 
the history when the polar world was 
a desolation of icy wastes. From these 
dreary realms of endui'ing frosts, vast 
glaciers, reaching southward, dipped into the 
waters of an inland sea, extending over a 
large 'part of the Upper Mississippi Valley. 
The ponderous masses, moving southward 
with an irresistible power, tore immense 
bowlders from their parent ledges and in- 
corporated them in their structure. By 
means of these, in their further progress, 
they grooved and planed down the subjacent 
rocks, gathering up and caiTying with them 
part of the abraded material, and strewing 
their track, for hundi-eds of miles, with the 
remainder. On reaching the shore of the in- 
terior sea, huge icebergs were projected from 
their extremities into the waters, which, 
melting as they floated into the warmer lati- 
tudes, distributed the detrital matter they 
contained over the bottom. Thus, long be- 
fore the plains of Illinois clanked with the 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY 



237 



din of railroad trains, these ice-formed navies j 
plowed the seas in which they were sub- 
merged, and distributed over them cargoes : 
of soil-producing sediment. No mariner i 
walked their crystal decks to direct their 
course, and no pennon, attached to their glit- 
tering masts, trailed in the winds that urged 
them forward; yet they might, perhaps, have 
sailed under flags of a hundred succeeding em- 
pires, each as old as the present nationalities 
of the earth, during the performance of their 
labors. This splendid soil-forming deposit 
is destined to make Illinois the great center 
of American wealth and population. Per- 
haps no other country of the same extent on 
the face of the globe can boast a soii so 
ubiquitous in its distribution, and so univer- 
sally productive. And here, on the southern 
point of land that forme the extreme South- 
ern Illinois, is a soil enriched to an extraor- 
dinary depth by all the minerals in the crust 
of the earth, and it contains an unequaled 
variety of the constituents of plant food. 
Since plants differ so widely in the elements 
of which they are composed, this multiplic- 
ity of composition is the means of gi'owing a 
great variety of crops, and the amount pro-^ 
duced is coiTespondingly large. So gi'eat is 
the fertility that years of continued cultiva- 
tion do not materially diminish the yield, 
and should sterility be induced by excessive 
working, the subsoil can be made available. 
The cultivation of the soil in all ages has 
furnished employment for the largest and 
best portions of mankind; yet the honor to 
which they are entitled has never been fully 
acknowledged. Though their occupation is 
the basis of national prosperity, and upon its 
progress more than any other branch of in- 
dustry, depends the march of civilization, yet 
its history remains, to a great extent, un- 
written. Historians duly chronicle the feats 
of the warrior who ravages the face of the 



earth and beggars its inhabitants, but leaves 
unnoticed the labors of him who causes the 
desolated country to bloom again, and heals, 
with balm of plenty, the miseries of war. 
When true worth is duly recognized, instead 
of the mad ambition which subjugates na- 
tions to acquire power, the heroism which 
subdues the soil and feeds the world will be 
the theme of the poet's song and the orator's 
eloquence. 

The counties of Union, Alexander and 
Pulaski form the extreme south end of the 
State, occupying nearly all that point of land 
south of the grand chain that extends across 
the lower end of the State, and are in height 
from 500 to 700 feet, and that make a strong 
line of difference in the geological forma- 
tions that extend to the bottom lands near 
Cairo, as well as exercising a strong influ- 
ence upon the meteorological changes that 
occur in this district. The timber, soil, 
drainage and climate of this district cannot 
be excelled. Nature has strewn here rich 
and inexhaustible, and formed a land capable 
of sustaining a greater population to the 
area than any other district in the country. 
"When cultivated and tended, as it will be 
some day, to its full capacity, there is more 
dollars per acre here than, perhaps, in any 
other spot on the globe. Only think for a 
moment, it is no experiment to make fi'om 
$300 to $500 net on a single acre of ground, 
and that, too, on land that you can buy at 
from $5 to $20 per acre. It is, too, most 
fortunately situated as to markets. Markets 
that can never be overstocked are at your 
door; at least, so near at ihand that transpor- 
tation is merely nominal. Cincinnati, 
I Chicago and St. Louis, in fact all the North, 
I and especially the growing giant, the North- 
west Mississippi Valley, whose climate will 
make it always come here as the best of cus- 
i tomers, and then there is the entire South, 



23 8 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY 



to the Gulf, that will be perpetual customers 
for all youi* corn, hay, flour and all domestic 
animals, with railroads to take the perish- 
able goods ;vith dispatch to their destination, 
and both railroad and the great rivers to take 
the bulky and more durable stuff to all the 
world. The climate alone is an incalculable 
fortune, a perennial fountain of gold, as it 
combines the advantages of the North and 
the South, enabling yoii to produce the ear- 
liest fruits and vegetables of all descriptions, 
thus putting you in the mai'ket when com- 
petition is impossible, and at the same time 
you can grow, to the best advantage, not only 
winter wheat, but all the cereals, as well as 
compete with any spot in the country in rais- 
ing of all kinds of stock. Then, too, you are 
equally fortunate in the topography of your 
county, both for tillage and for health. The 
hills, undulations and rolling bottom lands 
giving you the very best natural di'ainage, and 
here you will be equally blest with health 
and rugged, happy people, as soon as the 
heavy timbers in the bottoms and near the 
lakes are a little more cut off, and the pene- 
trating sunlight, as it always has done and 
always will, drives away all malaria and 
miasma. Your excellent natural drainage 
will protect you from the drowning spring 
waters that so often visit the central and 
northern portions of the State, and this very 
drainage will be almost a specific against the 
drouths that sometimes visit nearly all por- 
tions of our country with such a heavy hand. 
Thpse truths about Southern Illinois 
should be widely disseminated. Only see 
what wonders have been performed by the 
railroads in peopling the treeless, windy, 
diy, grasshopper regions that were once 
known as the Great American Desert. That 
land of alkali, sage-brush, coyotes, cow- boys, 
scalping Indians and desolate dogtowns. 
Th^y blew their horns, and cried aloud from 



the housetops; they advertised, spent thou- 
sands of dollars, and have been repaid in 
millions. Here is the difference: Northenr 
Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska are situ- 
ated in the natural line of travel for the old 
Eastern States, and for that wonderful tide 
of immigration poui'ing constantly into this 
country from Europe, thus this part of Illi- 
nois has had her light, so far as emigration 
was concerned, hid under a bushel. Her 
unapproachable sources of wealth and her 
incomparable beauties and advantages have 
been unseen and unheeded. 

But little or nothing has ever been done to 
remedy this evil. On the 9th of last Decem- 
ber, a meeting was held in Cairo, composed 
of representative men from Alexander, Jack- 
son, Johnson, Massac, Perry, Pulaski, Will- 
iamson and Union Counties, to consider the 
question of organizing an Emigration Society 
for Southern Illinois. They concluded to 
organize under the corporation law of the 
State, with a capital stock of $10,000. They 
seemed to realize it as a fact, known to ail 
intelligent people in Southern Illinois, that 
we have sufi"ered grievously from wi'ong im- 
pressions, years ago spread abroad over the 
country, with regard to our climate, soil and 
general material conditions, the consequences 
of which are, we have not attracted the at- 
tention of immigrants that our merits de- 
served, and these promoters of a community's 
wealth and prosperity have passed this sec- 
tion by and gone West, and fared infinitely 
worse. They go into the arid wastes of the 
West, and suffer untold hardships. The 
facts are, there is not an emigrant that em- 
barks for America that has ever heard of 
Southern Illinois; but he puts on his hob- 
nailed shoes and starts for the laud of free- 
dom and hope, in the firm conviction that 
Nebraska, Kansas and the Texas Pan-Handle 
are the real United States — the land of peace, 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



33 9! 



plenty, hope and happiness. His pockets 
are stuffed with glowing literatiu'e extolling 
these places, and the cunning railroads have 
hired the most brilliant writers to picture, in 
flowing and fascinating terms, these places 
that catch the swift-coming tide of immigra- 
tion. If the outside world does hear anything 
from this favored and incomparable section of 
country, it is the cheap stock-slander about 
" EgyP^ ^^^ i^s darkness and ignorance," 
until frightened simpletons, who swallow 
those slanders, are tempted to travel out of 
their way, in order to not pass through this 
section of " ignorant barbarians. " A silly 
lie can always outtravel the truth, particu- 
larly when the slandered community treat the 
slander with silent contempt, and make no 
effort to correct the story and present the 
facts. This outside prejudice against this 
section must be overcome, and the truth dis- 
seminated in its place. Why, if you could, 
by some magic, transport this part of Illi- 
nois, with every physical fact sm-rounding, 
exactly as the facts now exist, the soil, the 
production, the facilities for markets, the 
health, the climate, everything, in fact, ex- 
actly as it is, except the removal, to the 
northern or middle portion of the State, the 
land that now sells for $10 or $15 per acre, 
could not, in three months after the change 
in locality, and with no other change, mark 
you, be bought for $500 per acre, no, nor for 
$1,000 per acre. And then, in a very few 
years. Cook County would be the only county 
in the State that would equal this section in 
population. Immigrants going to a new coun- 
try are much like a flock of sheep crossing a 
fence. They follow the bell-sheep without 
looking to the right or left. Of course, there- 
fore, it is more difficult to aiTest their atten- 
tion now, and to show them that they are 
sadly deceived, and are passing b}', in ignor- 
ance, the most favored spot on earth, and 



going to not the most favored place, even, 
in this Western country. We see the poor- 
est country in America, exactly like a quack 
doctor, can grow great and prosperous, and 
smile at its betters, by simply advertising 
itself — using printer's ink. This is the 
magic ring — the Aladdin's lamp that brings 
wealth and prosperity to its friends and pa- 
trons. The ubiquitous, restless, dashing, 
energetic, audacious and tireless Yankee of 
the North has always keenly realized this, 
and has subsidized it to his use and complete 
control, and when he got a land-grant for a 
railroad, he cared not what the country was 
where he built his road and got his lands; 
he printed books, pictures, placards, chro- 
mos, handbills and " dodgers" by the mill- 
ion, and told all the world, and soon con- 
vinced it, too, that by coming to him they 
were on the only road to an earthly paradise. 
Could the outside world be divested of its 
unjust prejudices about this locality, and 
could the simple truth — the plain, palpable 
facts — be made known to them, what a quick 
revolution it would produce here — what a 
transformation scene would take place. 

We have spoken of the advantage of soil, 
climate and commerce; we have only spoken 
of the soil, climate, agricultural, commercial 
and market advantages. In all these you are 
not only unequaled, but you are simply un- 
apjiroachable. You can laugh at rivalry in 
each and every one of these things. In fact, 
there is no possibility of rivalry fi-om any 
other section for anything you can produce 
to the best advantage. Your wheat commands 
a royal premium in all the markets of the 
world; your corn cannot be excelled in qual- 
ity; your potatoes are not only excellent, but 
they go to the Northern market at a season 
when you can always dictate your own price 
per bushel. 

The topographical advantages seem to be 



240 



HISTORY OF UNIOJ^ COUNTY 



as little understood by the people as is the 
geology of this locality. The geology and 
topography of the country are singularly pe- 
culiar, the remarkable fact being that these 
two features — especially the topography — 
place in your hands advantages that will for- 
ever exclude competition from any other 
section of the country. It is situated just 
south of the only true mountain range in 
Illinois, the spur crossing the State fi'om the 
Ozark Mountains and traceable into Ken- 
tucky. This not only protects it fi'om the 
severest part of the " blizzards " that visit 
every portion of the West each winter, but 
it gives it warmth of soil that enables you to 
raise early fruits, potatoes and garden veg- 
etables, and place them in the markets at 
immense advantage. You thus have the 
healthy, bracing air of the Xorth. that im- 
parts a tonic and vigor to all animal life, as 
well as the genial warmth of more southern 
localities — combiningr the bracingr Northern 
atmosphere and the early fructifying tropical 
warmth. Your advantages in this line are 
already demonstrated in reference to fruits 
and early vegetables of all kinds, and the 
same great truths will be some day equally 
well demonstrated in regard to another and 
vastly profitable industry for the people, 
namely, the raising of blooded cattle and the 
establishment of creameries and butter manu- 
factories. Here is an unexplored mine of 
incalculable wealth, where it is again most 
fortunate indeed. We know of no point in 
the country where a creamery would yield as 
much profit on the capital invested as here. 
The cold spring waters, pure air and superior 
pasturage would make the greatest yield of 
butter of the " gilt-edge " quality, and then 
you are where you could command the 
choicest of the butter trade of the entire 
South. And in this respect there is as little 
danger of competition from other sections of 



the country as there is in your fruits and 
vegetables for shipment North. For instance, 
Cairo is always ready to pay about 10 cents 
per pound more for choice butter than the 
Chicago price. They never can make good 
butter south of this part of Illinois, and 
hence, you are at their door with all the fa- 
cilities and advantages of any Northern point 
in production, and the immense advantage 
of being the favored ones in the valuable 
Southern trade. Thus the profits are multi- 
plied each way. And is it not plain that if 
the creameries of Northern Illinois are a 
source of gi-eat profit, both to the factories 
and to all the farmers for a wide circuit of 
miles around them, would they not be im- 
mensely more profitable and beneficial if lo- 
cated in Union County? This is not all the 
profits that are to be made oflf domestic cattle 
here. This disti-ict is the home of the nutri- 
tious grasses that enter into the business of 
stock-raising — producing these in gi-ea<est 
abundance and of the finest quality. Show 
the world the truth, just as it exists, and you 
will soon see your county filled with graded 
cattle, when the industry of butter-making 
alone would, of itself, make your people 
prospei'ous and rich. Your command of the 
great and best mai'kets in the world — the 
South for your butter, eggs and poultry, is 
one of those peculiar advantages of climate, 
soil and topography that makes it a favored 
locality. Eggs and butter may yet become 
a fountain of more wealth to the county than 
are now the wheat and corn of any county in 
the State. Thus, this point of Illinois is the 
doorway of the world's best markets, particu- 
larly the North and the South, where it will 
practically always remain without competi- 
tion. 

One day last winter there was a car-load 
of mules and horses that had been pur- 
chased in Anna, and were on the switch at 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



243 



the depot preparatory to starting to Nebraska, 
and while they stood there, the freight train 
passed, going South, and had several car- 
loads of horses and mules that had been 
gathered up in the central portion of the 
State for the Southern markets. 

A few years ago, some Germans came into 
Union County from Pennsylvania, and 
among their purchases were some of the old- 
est farms in the county; farms that had been 
badly cared for, and "skinned" and washed 
until they were supposed to be nearly worth- 
less. Great gullies had been plowed through 
the fields in every direction by the waters, 
and the rich soil had disappeared. These 
thrifty and industrious people, nothing 
dau.nted, went to work, and now the soil is 
restored, the gullies and washouts are filled, 
and the finest and largest crops every year 
are the rich rewards of their careful foresight 
and industry. The geologist will tell you 
that your land will never wear out under in- 
telligent treatment, because there is stored 
in the subsoil an inexhaustible source of 
wealth — a bank that will never break nor run 
away with the deposits, upon which the 
farmer may draw checks that will always be 
honored, and paid in glittering gold. The 
same geologist will tell you that the geolog- 
ical formation of a county always determines 
the quantity, quality and value of its popu- 
lation — not only the numbers of the people 
that will some day live upon it, but will pre- 
figure their comforts, wealth, enjoyments and 
the possibilities of their enlightenment and 
civilization. Hence, what is beneath the sur- 
face of your land is of the very greatest im- 
portance to all. 

In Pulaski County is a similar experiment 
of what a little intelligent treatment may do 
for a farm that had been pronounced worn 
out by the " skinning" process of farming, 
on the farm occupied by Dr. G .AV. Bristow, 



near New Grand Chain. The Doctor has 
only required foui* years to convert it into 
one of the best f ai'ms in the county, and richer 
than it was when the virgin soil was first 
turned by the plow. 

The past winter fui'nished some remarkable 
testimony as to the meteorological advan- 
tages this end of Illinois possesses in cli- 
matic arrangements. The Northeast, the 
West and Southwest — in fact, the entire coun- 
try — was visited by some remarkable winter 
storms, sometimes termed "blizzards," that 
passed over the country, carrying, often, de- 
struction to man and beast. In the cattle and 
sheep regions of the "West and Southwest, 
there was great loss of stock from these 
storms. The fierce winds were almost like a 
tornado, and they carried the blinding snow 
and frost at such a rate as to send the ther- 
mometer down from forty to sixty degrees 
in a few hours. Several of these storms were 
unparalleled in intensity, and so widespread 
were they that much stock was destroyed as 
far South as Central Texas. The repord of 
the thermometer on one of these occasions' 
marked 17^ below zero at St. Louis, and 5° 
below zero at Dallas, Tex., and at the same 
time it barely reached zero in any of this 
part of the State south of the north line of 
Union County. At no time, dm'ing the entire 
winter, did the mark go below zero here, 
when it passed below that point six or seven 
hundred miles south of this. And during the 
cold storms, on more than one occasion, there 
was a difference of fifteen or twenty degrees 
between this place and any point forty or 
fifty miles north of this. This remarkable 
state of facts results from the topography 
of this part of Illinois. The mountain chain, 
six or seven hundred feet high, passing across 
the State, just north of this district, forms 
a barrier to the tierce winds from the north, 
and deflects them to the west or east, or 

14 



244 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



raises them so high, that they pass above us 
and produce little or no efifect. Then, again, 
the great river, leading directly from the 
Gulf, forms a complete isothermal line, that 
is unobstructed in its course until it strikes 
this mountain range, when it stops, and, to 
some extent, recoils upon the northern part 
of Union County. 

These are some of the geological, meteoro- 
logical and topographical advantages 
Union, Alexander and Pulaski Counties pos- 
sess over all other portions of the great and 
and rich State of Illinois, and in the 



interests of truth and justice, and in vindica- 
tion of a long-neglected, misunderstood and 
grossly misrepresented portion of our be- 
loved native State, we have attempted briefly 
to explain the more important facts. To give 
the skeleton oulines of such well-established 
truths as will enable the people to go look 
for themselves, and to continue the investi- 
gation in all its detail, and the conclusion in 
every case, whether a friend or a prejudiced 
foe of this southern end of Illinois, he will 
rise from the investigation ready to exclaim, 
" the half has not been told." 



CHAPTER II. 



"For the truth is, that time seemeth to be of 
the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down 
to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh 
and drowneth that which is weighty and solid."— 
Bacon. 

AS to the many different peoples that have 
occupied all this portion of the coun- 
try, in the long-baried ages of the past, are 
questions that have long been, and are now, 
of deep interest to archaeologists. How many 
different and distinct races; how many cent- 
uries intervened between their rise and ex 
tinction; what manner of people they were, 
and how they came and then passed away — 
many of them, perhaps, leaving no wrack 
behind, while others built the mounds, the 
military posts of defense, the burial monu- 
ments, the flint instruments of the chase, and 
the varieties of pottery that are dug up here 
and there, as the mute but eloquent story of 
an unknown people, who here, at some time 



PRE-HISTORIC RACES— THE MOUND BUILDERS— FIRE WORSHIPERS— RELICS OF THESE UNKNOWN 

PEOPLE— MOUNDS, WORKSHOPS AND BATTLE-GROUNDS IN UNION, ALEXANDER AND 

PULASKI COUNTIES— VISITS OF NOXIOUS INSECTS— HISTORY THEREOF, ETC. 

in the world's history, lived, flourished, 
struggled and died. Could we unravel the 
strange, eventful story of these different peo- 
ples, what fairy-like legends they would be. 
Thus, the busy investigators are digging in 
the mounds, visiting the battle-fields and 
delving in the burial places, and laboriously 
and patiently trying to unravel and gather 
up their histories, and rescue them from the 
oblivion that has so long rested upon their 
memories. 

Until within a period considerably less 
than a century ago, few, comparatively, of 
even the thinking and investigating portion 
of mankind, were much concerned about the 
question of the antiquity of the race. The 
church maintained, through centuries, that 
the Bible was the only authentic and trust- 
worthy record of antiquity, and maintained, 
equally, that itself was the only authorized 
interpreter of this record and on this basis 



HISTORY OF UNIOX COUNTY 



345 



certain vague chronology, which did not, in 
its various forms, agree with itself by some 
three or four thousand years, and this vague 
belief as to time, which fixed the origin of 
man and of the globe he inhabits at a period 
now some six thousand years ago, was gener- 
ally accepted as not to be disputed. Now and 
again some thinker, bolder than his fellows, 
formulated some theory which looked toward 
a far greater antiquity for the race. As 
early as 1734, Mahudel, and at a later period 
Mercatl, ventui-ed the suggestion that the 
flints found pretty much all over the globe, 
" from Paris to Nineveh, from China to Cam- 
boja, from Greenland to the Cape of Good 
Hope," were the weapons of the men who 
lived " before the flood." But these were 
looked upon, when they received any atten- 
tion at all, as merely fanciful, not to say 
ridiculous, speculations. Even when Buffon, 
in 1788, " affirmed again that the first men 
began by sharpening into the form of axes 
these hard flints, jades or thunderbolts, 
which were believed to have fallen from the 
clouds and to be formed by the thunder, but 
which, said he, ' are merely the first move- 
ments of the art of man in a state of nature,' 
the simple and just theory, upon the sub- 
stantial truth of \^hich all scientific men are 
now agreed, was allowed to pass without 
notice." Later, Mr. Bouche de Perthes was 
virtually laughed at upon the presentation 
of an account of his discoveries, and the 
theories he deduced from them, to the French 
Institute, and it was not until the lapse of 
fifteen or twenty years from th^ time when 
he first called the attention of that body to 
these discoveries and theories that they were 
given any serious consideration. Even then, 
the attention was not what a purely scientitic 
question should have. De Perthes himself 
says: " A poi-ely geological question was 
made the subject of religious controversy. 



Those who threw no doubt upon any religion 
accused me of rashness; an unknown archae- 
ologist, a geologist without a diploma, I was 
aspiring, they said, to overthi-ow a whole 
system confirmed by long experience and 
adopted by so many distinguished men. 
They declared that this was a strange pre- 
sumption on my part. Strange, indeed; but 
I had not then, and I never have had, any 
such intentions. I revealed a fact; conse- 
quences were deduced from it, but I had not 
made them. Truth is no man's work; she 
was created before us, and is older than the 
world itself; often sought, more often re- 
pulsed, we find but do not invent her. Some- 
times, too, we seek her wrongly, for truth is 
to be found not only in books; she is every- 
where; in the water, in the air, on the earth; 
we cannot make a step without meeting her, 
and when we do not perceive her it is be- 
cause we shut our eyes or turn away our 
head. It is our prejudices or our ignorance 
which prevent us from seeing her — from 
touching her. If we do not see her to-day, 
we shall see her to-morrow; for, strive as 
we may to avoid hei", she will appear when 
the time is ripe." These are very simple 
truths, and yet it is only the man who has 
the courage to see facts who is also capable 
of seeing these truths of reason. The change 
froiu that day to this is remarkable indeed. 
Neither ridicule nor disbelief is now the por- 
tion of the believer in that antiquily of the 
race which goes back. of a supposed Biblical 
chronology. Even upon the point of that 
chronology itself, scientific men and the most 
learned theologians alike are almost or quite 
ao-reed to coincide with Sylvestre de Sacy, 
himself a savant and devout Christian also, 
who said: "People perplex their minds 
about Biblical chronology, and the discrep- 
ancies which exist between it and the dis- 
coveries of modern science. They are great- 



246 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY 



ly in error, for there is no Biblical chronol- 
og}'." While this is true of the thinking 
people of the world, it is in far less degree 
true of the unthinking masses, and the liberal 
thinker is even yet looked upon by many as 
a sort of monster. This is not, however, a 
fact that ought to produce any uneasiness, 
since it is the opinion of the thinkers which, 
sooner or later, makes the opinion of the 
world. 

This territory, including the three coun- 
ties of Alexander, Union and Pulaski, are 
rich in these remains and relics of men of a 
time reaching back to the paleolithic and 
the neolithic civilizations, or rather of the 
slow evolution of civilization in those divis- 
ions of the so-called stone age, of which those 
" fairy tales of science" that were started 
into life dm-ing the past quarter of a century 
were written. The mounds, and the great 
workshops for the manufacture of flint in- 
struments, the battle-grounds and the burial- 
places, indicate that some one race of these 
stone-age people probably made their na- 
tional headquarters in the upper portion of 
Alexander County, and from this point they 
extended their habitations- and working 
places in every direction, into Kentucky, 
jVfissouri and- the uppor portion of Illinois. 
The most recent " finds " have been so traced 
as to plainly point out that from here they 
must have traveled into and through Mexico 
and into South America, and that in making 
this extended voyage they passed directly 
southwest from this point, and in returning 
they came from the Gulf toward the lower 
portion of the Ohio River, on the east side 
of the Mississippi, and the improvement 
■ made in the few flio t instruments, and again 
in the pottery vessels, mark as well the ad- 
vances these pre-historic races made as the 
course of their slow travels over the con- 
tinent. If the cave people were here in these 



hills of Southern Illinois, their resorts or 
dwelling-places have not yet been discovered, 
yet the hunt for them has hardly com- 
menced, as the investigations are so far con- 
fined to the mounds and the graves, as well 
as the flint instruments that are plowed up 
in the fields and found nearly everywhere 
over the face of the country. The topog- 
raphy of the country has, most probably, in- 
vited here, at some time, the cave-dwellers. 
The action of man himself should be well 
considered in seeking the causes which have 
brought about the filling of the caves ; for in 
many cases they have served as dwellings, as 
refuges, as the rendezvous of hunters, as 
meeting places or tombs to the earliest popu- 
lations of these districts. It is, therefore, 
not surprising that they should have left in 
them their mortal remains, the fragments of 
their daily meals, their weapons, their tools — 
in a word, the still simple products of their 
dawning industry. Unfortunately, we can- 
not always be sui*e that these objects are of 
the same date as the bones of extinct species 
with which they are found. Accidental dis- 
turbances of the soil, occuring at widely- 
separated jpeiiods, may have mixed the pro- 
ductions of human industry with the bones 
of a very difi"erent date. This is evidently 
the case in the cave of Fausan (Herault), where 
Marcel de Sevres found a fragment of enameled 
glass embedded in a skull of Ursus Spelaeus ; 
specimens of fire-baked pottery, relatively 
quite modern, were found at Bize, by the 
same naturalist, side by side with other ves- 
sels of unbaked clay and of far ruder work- 
manship. Similar facts, which may have oc- 
casioned many mistakes, have been observed 
in several other caves, among which it is 
sufficient for the moment to cite those of 
Herm and Auvignac. We cannot, therefore, 
always, and as a matter of course, conclude 
that the human bones found in company with 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



247 



the remains of extinct animals were contem- 
poraiy with each other. But doubt is no 
longer reasonable when the bones of animals 
and those of om- own species, uniformly 
mixed, imbedded ;in the same sediment, and 
which have undergone the same alterations, 
are, moreover, covered by a thick layer of 
stalagmite; when objects of a completely 
primitive industry occupy the same bed with 
bones belonging to extinct species; when the 
latter bear the evident marks of human 
workmanship; finally, when we find in the 
diluviau strata of the valleys manufactured 
objects and bones exactly like those dis- 
covered in caves of the same date. Now, all 
these circumstances occitr together in the 
valleys of the Somme, the Khine, the 
Thames, etc. , as well as in certain caves of 
France, England, Belgimn, Italy, Sicily, etc. 
Dr. W. R. Smith, of Cairo, informs us 
that he has extensively examined the 
mounds, burial-places and workshops of 
Southern Illinois, and across the river into 
Kentucky and Missouri. He finds within 
this scope of country the biu'ial mounds, tem- 
ple mounds, altar mounds and mounds of 
observation, the distinction in them being 
clear and distinct, and he finds many facts 
corroborating the belief that the upper part 
of Alexander, or the lower portion of Union 
County, was the center or gi-eat meeting 
place of the surrounding tribes. In the tem- 
ple mounds are many evidences that they 
were erected by the fire- worshipers. The 
Lake Millikin mound, in Dogtooth Bend, is 
the third largest mound in size in the United 
States. A large number of mounds in th« 
western and southern parts of Union, and in 
the upper part of Alexander County, are all 
bui-ial mounds, and one very large one in 
Alexander is composed of chert stone, and 
was evidently the point where they manu- 
factured their rude implements of industry 



and the chase, and, most singularly, it seems, 
they carried the flinty chert rock to their 
working place instead of moving their work- 
ing place to the hills where ihey dug out the 
chert used in the manufactm-e. This mound 
has every appearance of having been fonned 
as chip mounds are formed near the wood 
piles where the wood is chopped, and the 
chips left to rot and accumulate. The im- 
mensity of the works may be imagined when 
the workmen's chips would accumulate into a 
large-sized mound that would remain through 
all these ages, and another most singular cir- 
cumstance is the fact that no implements can 
be found at these points where they were evi- 
dently made. Across in Kentitcky is an ex- 
tensive region underlaid with remnants of 
pottery, and the grounds about Fort Jefifer- 
son seem to have been the main headquarters 
for this industry, the bm-ned fragments, in 
some places, underlying the thin surface soil 
to a considerable depth. In Kentucky and 
Missouri, near Cairo, a gi-eat many pieces of 
pottery have been found, in a perfect state 
of preservation, particularly some perfectly 
formed water jugs, that are so true and per- 
fect in construction that skilled workmen 
who have examined them have believed they 
could only have been made upon a potter's 
wheel. Dr. Smith suggests that they shaped 
or fashioned their flint implements, and were 
enabled to chip and break them into the 
many forms they did, by means of heat, and 
then deftly touching with a wet stick at just 
those points which they wished to scale oflf. 
It is possible that in this way they made 
their flint or chert darts and arrow-heads, 
while other rocks show they were shaped by 
rubbing and the slow process of fi'iction. 

Ethnology has hardly yet begun to be a 
science, and yet its progress is sufiicient to 
demonstrate that, in the slow progi-ess of 
evolution, many millions of years have 



348 



HISTORY OF rXIOX COUNTY 



passed away since man, in some form, ap- 
peared upon our continent. But why a 
numerous people should appear in the world, 
live out their allotted time, and wholly dis- 
appear, and in the long course of time be 
followed by another and yet a distinct race 
of people. Did they come at fixed periods, 
think you, after the manner of the seventeen- 
year locusts? Evidently not; as the old 
law of transmigration of souls would have 
to be revived, in order to account for those 
long periods of absence of each race from the 
earth. In the investigations thus far, these 
two points only are established; that is: 
That distinct races have come, lived their 
brief time upon the earth, and then passed 
away eutirely, to be succeeded by another 
race of human beings, and this by still an- 
other. How many of these have played their 
separate parts in this wonderful world's 
drama we may never know, and so blended 
now are the remains and traces they have 
left, that it may be forever impossible to ar- 
rive at the numbers of the difierent races, 
much less to fix the period of the coming of 
the first, or the length of time intervening 
between the disappearance of one and the ap- 
pearance of the other. Indeed, so little can 
we yet positively know, that it may even be 
conjectui'ed that one people would come and 
displace those they found here, much as the 
white man has superseded the Indian, and in 
the course of long centuries have driven 
them from the face of the earth. 

In the northeast part of Pulaski County, 
where the river bank is rugged and rocky, 
the sandstone rocks have been washed bare, 
in the solid rocks are the footprints of three 
persons, a man, woman and a child, the child 
supposed to have been about six years old. 
The impressions of the feet are clear, and 
every outline sharply defined, and are sunk 
into the rock nearly an inch in depth. They 



are ordinary sized feet, and indicate arched 
instep and wide and long toes — feet, evi- 
dently, that had never been cramped by tight 
shoes. The position of the tracks would in- 
dicate the man and woman (and it is only 
supposed to be a woman's track because 
somewhat more delicate and smaller than 
the other) stood facing each other, and five 
or six feet apart, and the child stood to the 
man's lef t^ a few feet. A few feet from these 
are plainly marked, on the same rock, tui'key 
tracks, and these you can trace where the 
tiu-key walked out and circled and returned 
by the same way that it came. The surface 
soil at one time had covered this rock three 
or foui' feet in depth. 

Insect Plagues. — At irregular periods, in 
nearly ail portions of the world, appear those 
extraordinary visitations of insects, that sud- 
denly come, and often as suddenly disap- 
pear, and we can no more tell from whence 
they come than we can tell whither they go. 
All of the southern and central portions of 
Illinois, particularly this extreme southern 
end of the State, received one of these un- 
accountable visits this year (1883), in the 
foiTu of innumerable caterpillars. They over- 
ran the country in immense numbers, and as 
they came with the early tree leaves, they 
left the apple trees and certain kinds of 
forest trees, upon which they fed, as barren 
of foliage as the middle of winter. The 
forest ti'ees upon which they would feed were 
the walnut and sweet gum and the red oak. 
The injury these insects caused was not 
regularly inflicted upon all the orchards, as 
there wei'e places where they did not seem to 
go, and thus some orchards escaped their 
visitations, while in other localities it is much 
feared the trees are permanently injm*ed. 
They were called caterpillars, and yet they 
were a different variety from the regular old 
orchard insect that weaves its web and 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



249 



hatches its young to feed upon the leaves, 
and more or less of which we have every 
year. They were like those noxious insects 
that have from time immemorial visited the 
world, that are to the insect world much as 
the wandering comets to the heavenly bodies. 
The sudden appearance, and the no less sud- 
den disappearance, of noxious insects, have 
given rise to much speculation concerning 
their cause. They have been common in all 
countries, from the equator to those nearest 
the poles. The earliest historians took note 
of them. Moses has described the insect 
plagues of ancient Egypt, and Greek and 
Roman writers furnish graphic accounts of 
the ravages of insects in other countries of 
antiquity. In times when religious and 
superstitious beliefs were stronger than they 
are at present, it was generally thought that 
insects were sent to various jjarts of the earth 
to inflict punishments for the sins of the peo- 
ple. It appears certain that the coming of 
large numbers of noxious insects has been 
accompanied with outbreaks of epidemic 
diseases among human beings and domesti- 
cated animals. Possibly the climatic condi- 
tions that favored the production of these in- 
sects were unfavorable to the health of ani- 
mals, human beings included. When some 
of the vegetation was destroyed, it was but 
natural that the physical condition of the 
animals that gained their sustenance from 
them should be reduced. The sudden de- 
struction of vast numbers of insects would be 
likely to vitiate the air and to render water 
unlit to drink. If we can credit ancient his- 
torians, the sudden appearance of large num- 
bers of insects, especially of those not com- 
mon to the country, was generally accompa- 
nied by earthquakes, floods and various other 
calamities. No natural connection, of course, 
exists between the flight of locusts and an 
upheaval of the earth. The early accounts 



of insect plagues are generally meager, and 
probably very inaccurate. 

About the year 141, we are told that " de- 
vastation from every variety of the insect 
tribe " presaged the outbreak of an awful 
pestilence at Rome in that year. In 158, all 
the grain in Scotland was destroyed, famine 
ensuing. An ecclesiastical chronicler relates 
that when the King of Persia was besieging 
Nisibin in 260, swarms of gnats suddenly 
appeared, and attacked his elephants and 
beasts of burden so furiously as to kill or dis- 
able most of them. The siege had to be 
raised in consequence, a step which ultimate- 
ly led to the discomfiture of the Persian 
Army. In 406, multitudes of grasshoppers 
infested Egypt. They are said to have been 
so numerous that the putrifaction of their 
dead bodies occasioned a plague in the coun- 
try. It is not improbable that locusts are the 
insects meant, for we frequently find old 
writers calling locusts grasshoppers; and, 
besides, there are many instances of the 
advent of locusts in a country beino- fol- 
lowed by a pestilence. In 1807, after 
a shower of blood in England, Grafton 
says that there " ensued a great and exceed- 
ing number and multitude of flies, the which 
were so noxious and contagious that they 
slew many people." What might be the nat- 
ure of these deadly flies we are unable to 
conjecture. 

The army of Philip of France, while at 
Gerona, in 1283, was attacked by swarms of 
flies, the poisonous stings of which were 
fatal both to the men and the horses. The 
insects are described as being the size of 
acorns. Two species have been suggested as 
likely, neither of them, however, indigenous 
to Spain, viz., the Simulum reptans, a native 
of Eastern countries, and Chrj/sops coecu- 
tiens, an African fly, which is said to attack 
horses. The French Armv lost about four 



250 



HISTORY OF UNI0:N^ COUNTY. 



thousand men, and as many horses, through 
the attacks of this insect The plague was 
attributed to a miracle wrought by St. Nar- 
cissus. In 128'), "a curious worm, with a tail 
like a crab," appeared in numbers in Prussia. 
The sting of the creatiu'e was fatal to animals 
within three days. 

Riverius, a medical writer, mentions that 
in April and May, 1580, prodigious swarms 
of insects obscured the daylight, and were 
crushed on the roads by the million. The 
species is not indicated, but they were sup- 
posed to have risen out of the earth. In 1612, 
previous to the outbreak of epidemic pestilence 
in Germany, Goelenius relates that " a sud- 
den and amazing number of spiders ap- 
peared." It is curious that the same phe- 
nomenon occurred at Seville nearly a century 
afterward. In 1708, just before the plague 
broke out in that city, imrpiense swarms of 
insects appeared, most conspicuous among 
which were spiders. Why spiders in par- 
ticular should herald pestilence it is difficult 
to understand. In the summer of 1664, the 
ditches in England were filled with frogs 
and various kinds of insects, the houses liter- 
ally swarmed with flies, and ants were so 
numerous that they might have been taken 
in handfuls from the highways. This abund- 
ance of insect life was said to foreshadow 
the great plague of London which followed. 
Five years later, a remarkable swarm of 
"ant-flies" alighted at Litchfield and other 
places. They appeared over the city about 
noonday, and were so thick that they dark- 
ened the sky. On alighting, they "filled 
the houses, stung many people and put all 
the horses mad." All who happened to be 
out of doors had to flee. The market people 
packed up their goods and made off, and 
those in the harvest field were all driven 
home. After remaining on the ground for 
three hours, the swarm took flight in a 



northerly direction. So many of the insects 
were left dead on the streets that their bodies 
were swept into great heaps. 

In 1679, the little town of Czierko, in 
Hungary, was the scene of a curious visita- 
tion. During the summer, a winged insect, 
of an unknown species, made its appearance, 
and inflicted mortal wounds upon men, 
horses and oxen with its sting. Thirty-five 
men and a great number of animals wore 
killed. In the case of the men, the insect 
inserted its [sting wherever the skin was un- 
protected, i, e., the face, neck and hands. 
Shortly after the infliction of the wound, a 
tumor was formed. Unless the poison was 
extracted at once, the victims died within a 
few days. The Poles, it seems, were the 
chief sufiferers, on account of their habit of 
wearing short hair, and thus exposing their 
necks. It is remarkable that the insects 
confined their ravages to Czierko, a circum- 
stance which caused many people to regard 
them as a divine punishment. 

Sir Thomas Molyneux, in the " Natural 
History of Ireland," gives an account of an 
invasion of cockchaflfers, which occurred in 
1088. He says: "They appeared on the 
southwest coast of the county of Galway, 
brought thither by a southwest wind." Pass- 
iog inland toward Headford, " multitudes of 
them showed themselves among the trees and 
hedges in the day-time, hanging by the 
boughs, thousands together, in clusters, 
sticking to the back one of another, as in the 
manner of bees when they swarm. Those 
that were traveling on the roads, or abroad 
in the fields, found it very uneasy to make 
their way through them, they would so ])eat 
and knock themselves against their faces in 
their flight, and with such force as to smart 
the place they hit, and leave a slight mark 
behind them. A short while after their com- 
ing, they had so entirely eaten up and de- 



HISTORY OF UXION COUNTY. 



251 



stroyed all the leaves of the trees for some 
miles about, that the whole country, though 
it was the middle of summer, was left as 
bare and naked as if it had been the depth 
of winter, making a most unseemly, and, in- 
deed, frightful appearance; and the noise 
they made, whilst they were seizing and 
devouring this their prey, was as surprising, 
for the grinding of the leaves in the mouths 
of this vast multitude altogether, made a 
sound very much resembling the sawing of 
timber. Out of the gardens they got into the 
houses, where numbers of them, crawling 
about, were very irksome." 

The ensuing spring (1689) brought but 
little improvement, for the young of the in- 
sect, " lodged under the ground, next the up- 
per sod of the earth," did great mischief by 
devouring the roots of the corn and grass. 
These indispensable crops having failed, the 
people were reduced to the necessity of cook- 
ing the cockchaffers and eating them, while 
the hungry " swine and poultry of the coun- 
try at length grew so cunning as to watch 
under 'the trees for their falling." The 
plague was fortunately checked by high winds 
and wet weather, which was so disagreeable 
to the insects that many millions of them 
died in one day's time. Smoke was also dis- 
tasteful to them, and some places were pro- 
tected from their ravages by making fires of 
weeds and heath. Some years after this, 
the dead insects lay in such quantities on 
the Galway shore as to form at least forty or 
fifty horse loads. In 1697, they reached the 
Shannon, and some of them crossed the river 
and entered Leinster; but there they were 
met by an " army of jackdaws, that did much 
damage among them, killing and devom'ing 
great numbers. Their main body still kept 
in Connaught, and took up their quarters at 
a well-improved English plantation, where 
they found plenty of provisions, and did a 



great deal of mischief by stripping the 
hedges, gardens and groves of beech quite 
naked of all their leaves. " The cockchaffer, 
which is called in Irish Primpelan, still ex 
ists in the countr}\ 

Immediately after the destruction of Port 
Royal (Jamaica), in June, 1692, by an 
earthquake, great numbers of mosquitoes and 
flies appeared. The same thing has been ob- 
served after earthquakes and volcanic erup- 
tions elsewhere. Thus, in 1783, after a 
tremendous eruption of the volcano Skaptar 
Jokul, in Iceland, the pastures swarmed 
with little winged insects, of blue, red, yel- 
low and brown colors, which belonged to a 
species until then unknown in the island. 
They were not at all destructive, but caused 
considerable inconvenience to the haymakers, 
who were covered with them from head to 
foot. The cause of the sudden appearance 
of insects at such times may be the rise of 
temperature due to volcanic activity induc- 
ing premature development. The so-called 
new species may possibly have been one in- 
digenous to the island at a remote period, 
when its climate was different, some long- 
buried larvpe of which the volcanic heat serve 
to develop. 

In the year 1858, there was a visitation, in 
pretty much all Southern Illinois, of the 
" army worm. " In places, they almost cov- 
ered the face of the earth, and often a person 
could not walk along the highway without 
crushing them under his feet. They seemed 
to be constantly traveling in the hunt of 
timothy grass or the wheat fields. They 
would leave the grass fields looking much as 
though a fire had passed over them, and, if 
the wheat had well "headed out," they 
would feed upon the leaves of the stalk and 
do no harm. In fact, many farmers believed 
that, under these circumstances, they were a 
benefit to the wheat. Chickens, turkeys, 



252 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY 



birds and hogs would devour the army worm 
in great quantities, yet they came in such 
numbers that such enemies made no apparent 
impression upon their volume, and farmers 
would dig trenches about the timothy and 
field of young corn, and then they would 
tumble into the trench until it was nearly 
full, would hitch a horse to a log and drag 
it along the trench, and thus crush them by 
millions, and yet, by the time he would thus 
go around his field, the ditch would again be 
full. 

The locusts have made their irregular, and 
yet somewhat regular, visitations to all parts 
of the State, and this portion of Illinois; 
being all heavily timbered, they have come 
hero in much greater numbers than in 
many other parts of Illinois. They are an 
arboreal insect, and although capable of ex- 
tended flight, yet they do not care to travel 
farther than from tree to tree, at very short 



distances. They inflict much injury to 
orchards, as well as some of the forest 
trees, in the process of depositing their eggs 
in the young twigs. They always come about 
the middle of spring, when the leaves are 
unfolded and the new and tender twigs of 
the limbs of the tree are growing. They 
select this new growth to bore into and de- 
posit their eggs. They find a place, and 
bore two holes into the wood, and these holes 
circle and come together, this junction al- 
ways being toward the body of the tree. Sp 
perfectly is the work done, that the twig will 
soon break, the leaves will die, and after a 
certain time it will fall to the ground, carry- 
ing every egg with it, and this falling of the 
dead twig is timed exactly to the time when 
the egg is ready to hatch out a grub, and 
at once it goes into the ground on its thir- 
teen or seventeen year trip, according to the 
kind to which it belongs. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE DARING DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS BY THE FRENCH -THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIE.S- 

DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER— SOME CORRECTIONS IN HISTORY— A WORLDS 

WONDERFUL DRAMA OF NI^ARLY THREE HUNDRED YEARS' DURATION, ETC. 



"Should you ask me, whence these stones, 
Whence these legends and traditions 
With the odors of the forests, 
With the curling smoke of wigwams, 
With the rushing of great rivers 

I repeat them as I heard them." — Longfellow. 

THE truth of history in regard to the great 
Mississippi Valley is only just now being 
examined closely by the impartial investiga- 
tors, and the facts in relation thereto are slowly 
coming to light. For this empire of mag- 
nificent proportions, the great powers of the 
Old World contended for nearly three hundred 
years, and it is a singular fact that these 



warlike nations that only struggled for wealth 
and empire by the power of the sword, were 
in nearly all instances guided and pointed 
the way into the heart of the New World, and 
the home of the powerful savage tribes by 
the missionaries of the Catholic Church, who 
carried nothing more formidable for defense 
or attack than their prayer books and rosaries, 
and the word, "peace on earth and good 
will to men." The French Catholic mission- 
aries were as loyal to their Government as 
they were true to their God. They planted 
the lilies of France and erected the cross of 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



253 



the Mother Church in the newly discovered 
countries, and chanted the solemn mass that 
soothed the savage breast, and spoke peace 
and good vs^ill, and smoked the calumet with 
wild men of the woods. 

The settlement of the West and the iivst 
discoveries were made by the French, and it 
was long afterward the country passed into 
the permanent possession of the English; the 
latter people wrote the histories and tinged 
them from first to last with their prejudices, 
and thus promulgated many serioiis errors of 
history. Time will always produce the icon- 
oclast who will dispassionately follow out the 
truth regardless of how many fictions it may 
brush away in its course. Thus, history is 
being continually re- written, and the truth is 
ever making its approaches; and the glorious 
deeds of the noble sons of France are becom- 
ing manifest as the views of our history are 
brought to light, particularly their occupancy 
of the valley of the Father of Waters. As 
early as 150-t the French seamen, from Brit- 
tany and Normandy visited the fisheries of 
Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. These bold 
and daring men traversed the ocean through 
the dangers of ice and stormsto pursue the oc- 
cupation of fishery, an enterprise which to-day 
has developed into one of gigantic magnitude. 

France, not long after this, commissioned 
James Cartier, a distinguished mariner, to 
explore America. In 1535, in pursuance of 
the order, they planted the cross on the 
shores of the New World, on the banks of 
the St. Lawrence, bearing a shield witb the 
lilies of France. He was followed by other 
adventurous spirits, and among them the im- 
mortal Samuel Champlain, a man of great 
enterprises, who founded Quebec in 1608. 
Champlain ascended the Sorel Eiver; ex- 
plored Lake Champlain, which bears his 
name to-day. He afterward penetrated the 
forest and found his grave on the bleak 



shores of Lake Huron. He was unsurpassed 
for bravery, indefatigable in industry, and 
was one of the leading spirits in explorations 
and discoveries in the New W^orld. 

In the van of the explorations on this con- 
tinent were found the courageous and pious 
Catholic missionaries, meeting dangers and 
death with a crucifix upon their breasts, bre- 
viary in hand, whilst chanting their matins 
and vespers, along the shores of our majestic 
rivers, great lakes and unbroken forests. 
Their course was marked through the track- 
less wilderness by the carving of their em- 
blems of faith upon the roadway, amidst 
perils and dangers, without food, but pounded 
maize, sleeping in the woods without shelter, 
their couch being the ground and rock; their 
beacon light, the cross, which was marked 
upon the oak of the forest in their pathway. 

After these missionaries had selected their 
stations of worship, the French hunters, 
couriers de bois, voyagers and traders, opened 
their traffic with the savages. France, when 
convenient and expedient, erected a chain of 
forts along the rivers and lakes, in defense 
of Christianity and commerce. 

France, from 1608, acquired in this conti- 
nent a territory extensive enough to create a 
great empire, and was at that time untrod by 
the foot of the white man, and inhabited by 
roving tribes of the red man. As early as 
1615, we find Father Le Carron, a Catholic 
priest, in the forests of Canada, exploring 
the country for the purpose of converting the 
savages to the Christian religion. The fol- 
lowing year he is seen on foot traversing the 
forests amongst the Mohawks, and reaching 
the rivers of the Ottawas. He was followed 
by other missionaries along the basin of the 
St. Lawrence and Kennebec Rivers, where 
some met their fate in frail barks, whilst 
others perished in the storms of a dreadful 
wilderness. 



254 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



In 1635, we find Father Jean Brebeauf, 
Daniels and Gabriel Lallamand leaving 
Quebec with a few Huron braves to explore 
Lake Huron, to establish chapels along its 
banks, from which sprung the villages of St. 
Joseph, St. Ignatius and St. Louis. To 
reach these places it was necessary to follow 
the Ottawa River through a dangerous and 
devious way to avoid the Mohawks, Oneidas, 
Cayugas, Senecas and Iroquois, fonning a 
confederacy as the ''Five Nations," occupy- 
ing a territory then known as the New York 
colony, who were continually at war with the 
Hurons, a tribe of Indians inhabiting Lake 
Huron territory. 

As early as 1639, three Sisters of Charity, 
from France, arrived at Quebec, dressed in 
plain black gowns with snowy white collars, 
whilst from their girdle hung the rosary. They 
proceeded to the chapel, led by the Governor 
of Canada, accompanied by braves and war- 
riors, to chant the Te Deum. These holy 
and pious women, moved by religious zeah 
immediately established the Ursuline Con- 
vent for the education of girls. In addition 
to this, the King of France and nobility of 
Paris endowed a seminary in Quebec for the 
education of all classes of persons. A public 
hospital was built by the generous Duchess 
of D'Arguilon, with the aid of Cardinal 
Eichelieu, for the unfortunate emigrants, to 
the savages of all tribes, and afflicted of all 
classes. A missionary station was established 
as early as 1641, at Montreal, under a rude 
tent, from which has grown the large city of 
to-day, with its magnificent cathedral and 
churches, its massive business houses, audits 
commerce. 

The tribes of Huron Lake and neighboring 
savages, in 1641, met on the banks of the 
Iroquois Bay to celebrate the " Festival of 
the Dead." The bones and ashes of the dead 
had' been gathered in coffins of bark, whilst 



wrapped in magnificent furs, to be given an 
affectionate sepulture. At this singular fes- 
tival of the savages the chiefs and braves of 
different tribes chanted their low, mournful 
songs day and night, amidst the wails and 
gi-oans of their women and children. During 
this festival appeared the pious missionai'ies, 
in their cassocks, with beads to their girdle, 
sympathizing with the red men in their de- 
votion to the dead, whilst scattering their 
medals, pictures of oiu* Savior, and blessed 
and beautiful beads, which touched and won 
the hearts of the sons of the forest. What a 
beautiful spectacle to behold, over the graves 
of the fierce warriors, idolatry fading before 
the Son of God! Father Charles Raymbault 
and the indomitable Isaac Joques, in 1641, 
left Canada to explore the cotintry as far as 
Lake Superior. They reached the Falls of 
St. oMary's, and established a station at 
Sault de Ste. Mai'ie, where were assembled 
many warriors and braves from the great 
West, to see and hear these two apostles of 
religion and to behold the cross of Chris- 
tianity. These two missionaries invoked 
them to worship the true God. The savages 
were struck with the emblem of the cross 
and its teachings, and exclaimed : " We 
embrace you as brothers ; come and dwell in 
our cabins. " 

When Father Joques and his party were 
returning from the Falls of St. Mary's to 
Quebec, they were attacked by the Mohawks, 
who massacred the chief and his braves who 
accompanied him, whilst they held Father 
Joques in captivity, showering upon him a 
great many indignities, compelling him to run 
the gantlet throitgh their village. Father 
Brussini at the same time was beaten, muti- 
lated, and made to walk barefooted through 
thorns and briars, and then scotirged by a 
whole village. However, by some miracu- 
lous way, they were rescued by the generous 



HISTORY OF UNI0:N COUNTY 



255 



Dutch of New York, and both afterward re- 
turned to France. Father Joques again re- 
turned to Quebec, and was sent as an envoy 
amongst the "Five Nations." Contrary to 
the savage laws of hospitality, he was ill- 
treated, and then killed as an enchanter, his 
head hung upon the skirts of the village, and 
his body thrown into the Mohawk River. 
Such was the fate of this courageous and 
pious man, leaving a monument of martyr- 
dom more enduring than the Pyi-amids of 
Egypt. 

The year 1645 is memorable, owing to a 
congress held by France and the "Five Na- 
tions," at the Three Rivers, in Canada. 
There the daring chiefs and warriors and the 
gallant officers of France met at the great 
council fires. After the war-dance and numer- 
ous ceremonies, the hostile parties smoked the 
, calumet of peace. The Iroquois said: "Let 
the clouds be dispersed and the sun shine on 
all the land between us." The Mohawks 
exclaimed: "We have thrown the hatchet so 
high into the air and beyond the skies that 
no man on eairth can reach to bring it down. 
The French shall sleep on our softest blankets, 
by the warm fire, that shall be kept blaz- 
ing all night." Notwithstanding the elo- 
quent aud fervent language and appearance 
of peace, it was but of short duration, for 
soon the cabin of the white man was in 
flames, and the foot-prijit of blood was seen 
along the St. Lawrence, and once more a 
bloody war broke out, which was disastrous 
to France, as the Five Nations returned to the 
allegiance of the English colonies. 

The village of St. Joseph, near Huron 
Lake, on the 4th of July, 1648, whilst her 
warriors were absent, was sacked, and its 
people murdered by the Mohawks. Father 
Daniel, who officiated there, whilst endeavor- 
ing to protect the children, women and old 
men, was fatally wounded by numerous ar- 



rows, and killed. Thus fell this martyr in 
the cause of religion and progress. 

The next year, the villages of St. Ignatius 
and St. Louis were attacked by the Iroquois. 
The village of St. Ignatius was destroyed, 
and its inhabitants massacred. The village 
of St. Louis shared the same fate. At the 
latter place, Father Brebeauf and Lalle- 
mand were made prisoners, tied to a tree, 
stripped of their clothes, mutilated, burnt 
with fagots and rosin bark, and then scalped. 
They perished in the name of France and 
Christianity. 

Father de la Ribourde, who had been the 
companion of La Salle on the Griffin, and 
who officiated at Fort Creve Cceur, 111., 
whilst returning to Lake Michigan, was lost 
in the wilderness. Afterward, it was learned 
he had been murdered in cold blood by three 
young warriors, who carried his prayer-book 
and scalp as a trophy up north of Lake Su- 
perior, which afterward fell into the hands of 
the missionaries. Thus died this martyr of 
religion, after ten years' devotion in the cab- 
ins of the savages, whose head had become 
bleached with seventy winters. Such was 
also the fate of the illustrious Father Rine 
Mesnard, on his mission to the southern 
shore of Lake Superior, where, in after years, 
his cassock and breviary were kept as amu- 
lets among the Sioux, After these atrocities, 
these noble missionaries never retraced their 
steps, and new troops pressed forward to 
take their places. They still continued to 
explore our vast country. The history of 
their labors, self sacrifice and devotion is 
connected with the origin of every village or 
noted place in the North and great West. 

France ordered, by Colbert, its great min- 
ister, that an invitation be given to all tribes 
West for a general congress. This remark- 
able council was held in May, 1671, at the 
Falls of St. Mary's. There was found the 



256 



HISTORY OF UNIOX COUNTY 



chiefs and braves of many nations of the 
West, decorated in their brightest feathers 
and furs, whilst the French officers glistened 
with their swords and golden epaulets. In 
their midst stood the undaunted missionaries 
from all parts of the country. In this re- 
markable congress rose a log cedar cross, and 
upon a staff the colors of France. 

In this council, after many congratvilations 
offered, and the war dances, the calumet was 
smoked and peace declared. France secured 
here the friendship of the tribes, and domin- 
ion over the great West. 

Marquette, while on his mission in the 
West, leaves Mackinac on the 13th of May, 
1673, with his companion. Joliet, and five 
Frenchmen and two Indian guides, in two 
bark canoes, freighted with maize and smoked 
meat, to enter into Lake Michigan and Green 
Bay until they reached Fox River io Illinois, 
where stood on its banks an Indian village oc- 
cupied by the Kickapoos, Mascoutins and 
Miamis, where the noble Father Allouez offi- 
'ciated. Marquette in this village preaches 
and announces to them his object of discover- 
ing the great river. They are appalled at 
the bold proposition. They say: "Those 
distant nations never spare the strangers ; 
their mutual wars fill their borders with 
bands of warriors. The great river abounds 
in monsters which devour both men and 
canoes. The excessive heat occasions death." 

From Fox Kiver across the portage with 
the canoes they reach the Wisconsin River. 
There Marquette and Joliet separated with 
their guides, and, in Marquette's language, 
" Leaving us alone in this unknown land in 
the hands of Providence," they float down 
the Wisconsin whose banks are dotted with 
prairies and beautiful hills, whilst sur- 
rounded by wild animals and the buffalo. 
After seven days' navigation on this river, 
their hearts bound with gladness on behold- 



ing, on the 17th day of June, 1673, the broad 
expanse of the great Father of Waters, and 
upon its bosom they float down. About sixty ■ 
leagues below this they visit an Indian vil- 
lage. Their reception from the savages was 
cordial. They said : "We are Illinois, that 
is, we are men. The whole village awaits 
thee ; then enter in peace our cabins. " After 
six days' rest on the couch of furs, and 
amidst abundance of game, these hospitable 
Illinois conduct them to their canoes, whilst 
the chief places around Marquette's neck the 
calumet of peace, being beautifully decorated 
with the feathers of birds. 

Their canoe again ripples the bosom of the 
great river (Mississippi), when further down 
they behold on the high bluffs and smooth 
rock above (now Alton), on the Illinois shore, 
the figures of two monsters painted in vari- 
ous colors, of frightful appearance, and the. 
position appeared to be inaccessible to a 
painter. They soon reached the tui-bid wa- 
ters of the Missouri, and thence floated down 
to the mouth of the Ohio. 

Farther down the river stands the village 
of Mitchigamea, being on the west side of the 
river. When approaching this place its 
bloody warriors, with their war cry, embark 
in their canoes to attack them, but the calu- 
met, held aloft by Marquette, pacifies them. 
So they are treated with hospitality, and es- 
corted by them to the Arkansas River. They 
sojourn there a short time, when Marquette, 
before leaving this sunny land, cele- 
brates the festival of the church. Marquette 
and Joliet then turn their canoe northward to 
retrace their way back until they reach the 
Illinois River, thence up that stream, along 
its flowery prairies. The Illinois braves con- 
duct them back to Lake Michigan, thence 
k) Green Bay, where they arrived in Septem- 
ber, 1673. 

Marquette for two year's officiated along 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



257 



Lake Michigan; afterward visited Mackinaw; 
from thence he enters a small river in Mich- 
igan (that bears his name), when, after say- 
ing mass, he withdraws for a short time to 
the woods, where he is found dead. Thus 
died this illustrious explorer and remarkable 
priest, leaving a name unparalleled as a 
brave, good and virtuous Christian. 

Robert Caraiin La Salle, a native of Nor- 
mandy, an adventurer from France, arrived 
in Canada about 1670. Being ambitious to 
distinguish himself in making discoveries on 
this continent, he returned to France to so- 
licit aid for that purpose. He was made 
chevalier, upon the condition that he would 
repair Fort Frontenac, located on Lake On- 
tario, and open commerce with the savages. 
In 1678, he again retui-ned to France, when 
in July, 1677, with Chevalier Tonti, his 
Lieutenant, with thirty men, he left Rochelle 
for Quebec and Fort Frontenac. Whilst at 
Quebec, an agreement was made by the Gover- 
nor of Canada with La Salle to establish forts 
along the northern lakes. At this time he 
undertook with great activity to increase the 
commerce of the "West, by building a bark 
of ten tons to float on Lake Ontario. Shortly 
afterward, he built another vessel, known as 
the Griffin, above Niagara Falls, for Lake 
Erie, of sixty tons, being the first vessel seen 
on the Northern lakes. The Griffin was 
launched and made to float on Lake Erie. 
"On the prow of this ship, armorial bearings 
were adorned by two griffins as supporters; " 
upon her deck she carried two brass cannon 
for defense. On the 7th of August, 1679, 
she spread her sails on Lake Erie, whilst on 
her deck stood the brave naval commander 
La Salle, accompanied by Fathers Hennepin, 
Ribourdo and Zenobi, surrounded by a crew 
of thirty voyageurs. On leaving, a salute 
was tired, whose echoes were heard to the as- 
tonishment of the savages, who named the 



Griffin "The Great Wooden Canoe." This 
ship pursued her course through Lakes Erie, 
St. Clair and Huron to Mackinaw, thence 
thi'ough that strait into Lake Michigan, thence 
to Green Bay, where she anchored in safety. 
The Griffin, after being laden with a cargo 
of peltries and fiu's, was ordered back by La 
Salle to the port from whence she sailed, but 
unfortunately on her return she was wrecked. 
La Salle, during the absence of the Griffin, 
determined with fourteen men to proceed to 
the mouth of the Mi amis, now St. Joseph, 
where he built a fort, from which place he 
proceeded to Rock Fort in La Salle County, 
111. La Salle hearing of the disaster and 
wreck of the Griffin, he builds a fort on the 
Illinois River called Creve CcBur (broken 
heart). This brave man, though weighed 
down by misfortune, did not despair. He 
concluded to retm'n to Canada, but before 
leaving sends Father Hennepin, with Piscard, 
Du Gay and Michael Aka, to explore the 
sources of the Upper Mississippi. They 
leave Creve Coeur February 29, 1680, float- 
ing down the Illinois Rivei', reaching the 
Mississippi March 8, 1680; then explored 
this river up to the Falls of St. Anthony; 
from there they penetrated the forests, which 
brought them to the wigwams of the Sioux, 
who detained Father Hennepin and compan- 
ions for a short time in captivity; recovering 
their liberties, they retiu-ned to Lake Superior 
in November, 1680, thence to Quebec and 
France. During the explorations of Father 
Hennepin, La Salle, with a courage unsur- 
passed, a constitution of iron, returns to 
Canada, a distance of 1,200 piiles, his path- 
way being through snows, ice and savages 
along the Lakes Michigan, Erie and Ontario 
Reaching Quebec, he finds his business in a 
disastrous condition, his vessels lost, his 
goods seized and his men scattered. Not 
being discouraged, however, he returns to his 



258 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



forts in Illinois, which he finds deserted; 
takes new courage; goes to Mackinaw; finds 
his devoted friend Chevalier Tonti in 1681, 
and is found once more on the Illinois River 
to continue the explorations of the Missis- 
sippi, which had been explored by Father 
Marquette to the Arkansas River, and by Fa- 
ther Hennepin up to the Falls of St. Anthony, 
La Salle, from Fort Creve Cceur, on the Illi- 
nois River, with twenty-two Frenchmen, 
amongst whom was Father Zenobi and Chev- 
alier Tonti, with eighteen savages and two 
women and three children, float down until 
they reached the Mississippi on F ebruary 6, 
1682. They descend this mighty river until 
they reach its mouth April 6, 1682, where 
they are the first to plant the cross and the 
banners of France. La Salle, with his com- 
panions, ascends the Mississippi and returns 
to his forts on the Illinois; returns again to 
Canada and France. 

La Salle is received at the French court 
with enthusiasm. The King of France orders 
foui- vessels, well equipped, to serve him, 
under Beaugerr, commander of the fleet, to 
proceed to the Gulf of Mexico, to discover the 
Balize. UnEoi'tunately for La Salle, he fails 
in discovering it, and they are thrown into 
the bay of Matagorda, Texas, where La Salle, 
with his 280 persons, are abandoned by 
Beaugerr, the commander of the fleet. La 
Salle here builds a fort, then undertakes, by 
land, to discover the Balize. After many 
hardships, he returned to his fort, and again 
attempts the same object, when he meets a 
tragical end, being murdered by the desper- 
ate Duhall, one of his men. During the 
voyage of La Salle, Chevalier Tonti, his 
friend, had gone down the Mississippi to its 
mouth, to meet him. After a long search in 
vain for the fleet, he returned to Rock Fort, 
on the Illinois. After the unfortunate death 
of La Salle, great disorder and misfortune 



occurred to his men in Texas. Some wan- 
dered amongst the savages, others were taken 
prisoners, others perished in the woods. 
However, seven bold and brave men of La 
Salle's force determined to return to Illinois, 
headed by Capt. Joutel, and the noble Father 
Anatase. After six months of exploration 
through the forest and plain, they cross Red 
River, where they lose one of their comrades. 
They then moved toward the Arkansas River, 
where, to their great joy, they reached a 
French fort, upon which stood a large cross, 
where Couture and Delouny, two Frenchmen, 
had possession, to hold communication with 
La Salle. This brave band, with the excep- 
tion of young Bertheley, proceeded up the 
Mississippi to the Illinois forts ; from thence 
to Canada. 

This terminated La Salle's wonderful ex- 
plorations over oiu" vast lakes, great rivers 
and territory of Texas. He was a man of 
stern integrity, of undoubted activity and 
boldness of character, of an iron constitution, 
entertaining broad views, and a chivalry un- 
surpassed in the Old or New World. 

France, as early as possible, established 
along the lakes permanent settlements. One 
was that of Detroit, which was one of the 
most interesting and lovely positions, which 
was settled in 1701, by Lamotte de Cardillac, 
with one hundred Frenchmen. 

The discovery and possession of Mobile, 
Biloxi and Dauphine Island induced the 
French to search for the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi River, formerly discovered by La- 
Salle. Lemoine d'Iberville, a naval officer of 
talent and great experience, discovered the 
Balize, on the 2d of March, 1699; proceeded 
up this river and took possession of the 
country known as Louisiana. D'Iberville 
returned immediately to France to announce 
this glorious news. Bienville, his brother, 
was left to take charge of Louisiana during 



^*S5i ^ 








HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



261 



his absence. D'lberville returned, when 
Bienville and St. Denis, with a force, was 
ordered to explore Ked River and thence to 
the borders of Mexico. La Harpe also as- 
cended Red River in 1719 built a fort called 
Carlotte; also took possession of the Arkan- 
sas River; afterward floated down this river 
in pirogues, finding on its banks many thriv- 
ing Indians villages. France, in September, 
1712, by Letters Patent, gi-anted Louisi- 
ana to Crozas, a wealthy Frenchman, who 
relinquished his rights and power in 1717 to 
the Company of the West, established by the 
notorious banker, John Law. Under a fever 
of great speculations, great efforts were made 
to advance the population and wealth of 
Louisiana. New Orleans was mapped out in 
1718, and became the important city of 
Lower and Upper Louisiana. The charter 
and privileges of ' ' Company of the West, " 
after its total failure, was resigned to the 
crown of France in 1731. The country, era- 
bracing Louisiana, was populated by numer- 
ous tribes of savages. One of these tribes 
was known as the Natchez, located on a high 
bluff, in the midst of a glorious climate, 
about 300 miles above New Orleans, on the 
river bank. The Natchez had erected a re- 
markable temple, where they invoked the 
''Great Spirit," which was decorated with 
yarious idols moulded from clay baked in the 
sun. In this temple burned a living tire, 
where the bones of the brave were burned. 
Near it. on a high mound, the Chief of the 
Nation, called the Sun, resided, where the 
warriors chanted their war songs and held 
their great council fires. The Natchez had 
shown great hospitality to the French. The 
Governor of Louisiana built a fort near them 
in 1714, called Fort Rosalie. ChOpart, after- 
ward commander of this fort, ill-treated them 
and unjustly demanded a part of their vil- 
lages. This unjust demand so outraged their 



feelings that the Natchez in their anger 
lifted up the bloody tomahawk, headed by 
the "Great Sun,'' attacked Fort Rosalie No- 
vember 28, 1729, and massacred every French- 
man in the fort and the vicinity. During 
these bloody scenes the chief amidst this car- 
nage stood calm and unmoved, whilst Cho- 
part's head and that of his officers and sol- 
diers were thrown at his feet, forming a pyra- 
mid of human heads. This caused a bloody 
war, which, after many battles fought, termi- 
nated in the total destruction of the Natchez 
nation. In these struggles the chief and his 
400 braves were made prisoners, and after- 
ward inhumanly sold as slaves in St. Domin- 
go- 

The French declared war in 1736 against 
the Chickasaws, a warlike tribe, that in- 
habited the Southern States. Bienville, 
commander of the French, ordered a re-union 
of the troops to assemble on the 10th of May, 
1736, on the Tombigbee river. The gallant 
D'Artaquette from 1^'ort Chartres, and the 
brave Vincennes from the Wabash River, with 
a thousand warriors, were at their post in 
time; but were forced into battle on the 20th 
of May without the assistance of the other 
troops; were defeated and massacred. Bien- 
ville shortly afterward, on the 27th of May, 
1736, failed in his assault upon the Chickasaw 
forts on the Tombigbee, where the English 
flag waved, and was forced to retreat, with 
the loss of his cannons, which forced him to 
return to New Orleans. In 1740, the French 
built a fort at the mouth of the St. Francois 
River, and moved their troops into Fort As- 
sumption, near Memphis, where peace was 
concluded with the Chickasaws. 

The oldest permanent settlement on the 
Mississippi was Kaskaskia, first visited by 
Father Gravier. date unknown; but he was 
in Illinois in 1693. He was succeeded by 
Fathers Pinet and Binetan. Pinet became 



263 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



the founder of Cahokia, where he erected a 
chapel, and a goodly number of savages as- 
sembled to attend the great feast. Father 
Gabriel, who had chanted mass through Can- 
ada, officiated at Cahokia and Kaskaskia in 
1711. The missionaries in 1721 established 
a college and monastery at Kaskaskia. Fort 
Chartres, in Illinois, was built in 1720; be- 
came an important post for the security of the 
French, and a great protection for the com- 
merce on the Mississippi.' "The Company 
of the West " sent an expedition under Le 
Sieui* to the Upper Louisiana about 1720, in 
search of precious metals, and proceeded up 
as far as St. Croix and St. Peters Rivers, 
where a fort was built, which had to be 
abandoned owing to the hostilities of the 
savages. 

The French, as early as 1705, ascended the 
Missouri River to open traffic with theMissou- 
ris and to take possession of the country. M. 
Dutism, from New Orleans, with a force, 
arrived in Saline River, below Ste. Genevieve, 
moved westward to the Osage River, then 
beyond this about 150 miles, where he found 
two large villages located in fine prairies 
abounding with wild game and buffalo. 

France and Spain, in 1719, were contend- 
ing for dominion west of the Mississippi. 
Spain, in 1720, sent from Santa Fe a large 
caravan to make a settlement on the Missouri 
River, the design being to destroy the Missou- 
ris, a tribe at peace with France. This car- 
avan, after traveling and wandering, lost their 
way, and marched into the camp of the 
Missouris, their enemies, where they were all 
massacred, except a priest who, from his dress, 
was considered no warrior. After this expe- 
dition from Santa Fe upon Missouri, France, 
under M. DeBoui-gment, with a force in 1724 
ascended the Missouri, established a fort above, 
on an island above the Osage River, 
named Fort Orleans. This fort was after- 



ward attacked and its defenders destroyed 
and by whom was never ascertained. 

The wars between England and France 
more or less affected the growth of this con- 
tinent. The war in 1689, known as " King 
William's war," was concluded by the treaty 
of Ryswick, 1697. "Queen Anne's war," 
terminated by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. 
" King George's war "concluded by the treaty 
of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748. These wars 
gave England supremacy in the fisheries, the 
possession of the Bay of Hudson, of New- 
foundland and all of Nova Scotia. 

The French and Indian wars, between 1754 
and 1763. The struggle between England 
and France as to their dominion in America 
commenced at this period. It was a disas- 
trous and bloody war, where both parties en- 
listed hordes of savages to participate in a 
warfare conducted in a disgraceful manner 
to humanity. France at this time had erected 
a chain of forts from Canada to the great 
lakes and along the Mississippi Valley. The 
English controlled the territory occupied by 
her English colonies. The English claimed 
beyond the Alleghany Mountains to the Ohio 
River. The French deemed her right to this 
river indisputable. Virginia had granted to 
the "Ohio Company" an extensive territory 
reaching to the Ohio. Dinwiddle, Governor 
of Virginia, through George Washington, re- 
monstrated against the encroachment of the 
French. St. Pierre, the French commander, 
received Washington with kindness, returned 
an answer, claiming the territory which 
France occupied. The " Ohio Company " 
sent out a party of men to erect a fort, at the 
confluence of the Alleghany and Mononga- 
hela rivers. These men had hardly com- 
menced work on this fort when they were 
driven away by the French, who took posses- 
sion and established a "Fort Du Quesne." 
AVashington, with a body of provincials 



HISTORY OF UNIOX COUNTY. 



2t)3 



from Virginia, marched to the disputed ter- 
ritory, when a party of French, under Jumon- 
ville, was attacked and all either killed or 
made prisoners. Washington after this 
erected a fort called Fort Necessity. From 
thence Washington proceeded with 400 men 
toward Fort Du Quesne, where, hearing of 
the advance of M. DeVilliers, with a large 
force, he returned to Fort Necessity, where 
after a short defense Washington had to 
capitulate with the honorable terms of re- 
turning to Virginia. 

On the 4th of July, 1 754, the day that 
Fort Necessity surrendered, a convention of 
colonies was held at Albany, N. Y. , for 
a union of the colonies proposed by Dr. Ben. 
Franklin, adopted by the delegates, but de- 
feated by the English Government. How- 
ever, at this convention a treaty was made 
between the colonies and the ' ' Five Nations," 
which proved to be of great advantage to 
England. Gen. Braddock, with a force of 
2,000 soldiers, marched against Fort Du 
Quesne. Within seven miles of this fort, he 
was attacked by the French and Indian allies 
and disastrously defeated, when Washington 
covered the retreat and saved the army from 
total destruction. 

Sir William Johnson, with a large force, 
took command of the army at Fort Edward. 
Near this foi't, Baron Dieskan and St. Pierre 
attacked Col. Williams and troop where the 
English were defeated, but Sir Johnson com- 
ing to the rescue defeated the French, who 
lost in this battle Dieskan and St. Pierre. 

On August 12, 1756, Marquis Montcalm, 
commander of the French Army, attacked 
Fort Ontario, garrisoned by 1,400 troops 
capitulated as prisoners of war, with 134 
cannon, several vessels and a large amount of 
military stores. Montcalm destroying this 
fort returned to Canada. 

By the treaty of peace of Aix la Chapelle 



of October, 1748, Arcadia, known as Nova 
Scotia, and Brunswick, had been ceded by 
France to England. When the war of 1754 
broke out, this territory was occupied by nu- 
merous French families. England fearing 
their sympathy for France, cruelly confiscat- 
ed their property, destroyed their humble 
homes and exiled them to their colonies in 
the utmost poverty and distress. 

In August, 1757, Marquis Montcalm, with 
a large army, marched on Fort William Hen- 
r}-, defended by 3,000 English troops. The 
English were defeated, and sm'renderd on 
condition that they might march out of the 
fort with their arms. The savage allies, as 
they marched out, in an outrageous manner 
plundered them and massacred some in cold 
blood, notwithstanding the efforts of the 
French officers to prevent them. The mili- 
tary campaign so far had been very disas- 
trous to the English, which created quite 
a sensation in the colonies and in Eng- 
land. At this critical period, the illustrious 
IVIr. Pitt, known as Lor<l Chatham, was 
placed at the helm of state on account of 
his talent and statesmanship, and he sent a 
large naval armament and numerous troops 
to protect the colonies. 

July 8, 1758, Gen. Abercrombie, with an 
army 15,000, moved on Ticonderoga, defend- 
ed by Marquis Montcalm. After a great 
struggle, the English were defeated with a 
loss of 2,000 dead and wounded. 

August 27, 1758, Col. Bradstreet, with a 
force, attacked the French fort. Fort Fronte- 
nac, on Lake Ontario, took it with nine 
armed vessels, sixty cannon and a quantity 
of military stores, while Gen. Forbes moved 
on Fort Du Quesne, who took it, which fort 
was afterward called Pittsburgh, in honor of 
Mr. Pitt. 

In 1759, the French this year evacuated 
Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Niagara. Gen. 



364 



HISTORY OF UNIOX COUNTY. 



Wolf e advanced against Quebec, then defend- 
ed by the gallant Montcalm, where a terri- 
ble and bloody battle took place between 
the two armies. Gen. Wolfe was killed 
and a great number of English officers. 
When the brave Wolfe was told the English 
were victorious, he said he " died contented." 
Mont<;alm, when told his wound was 
mortal said, "So much the better: I shall 
not live to see the surrender of Quebec,'' 
which city surrendered September 18, 1759, 

In 1760, another battle was fought near 
Quebec, which drove the English into their 
fortifications, and were only relieved by the 
Encrlish squadron. Montreal still contended to 
the last, when she was compelled to surren- 
der, which gave Canada to the English. 

Treaty of peace, February 10, 1763. By 
this France ceded to England all her posses- 
sions on the St. Lawi-ence River, all east of 
the Mississippi River, except that portion 
south of Iberville River and west of the 
Mississippi. At the same time, all the terri- 



tory here reserved being west of the Missis- 
sippi, and the Orleans territory, was trans- 
ferred to Spain. France, after all her la- 
bors, toil and expenditures, and great loss of 
life surrendered to England and Spain her 
great domain in North America. The histo- 
ry of France, embracing a term of 228 years, 
is replete with interest and with thrilling 
events in this country up to 1763. The de- 
feats of the French in North America great- 
ly led to the establishment of the United 
States Government. The accomplishment of 
such a glorious end was largely due to the 
gallant Frenchmen. As long as the anni- 
versary of the American Independence shall 
be celebrated, the names of Washington and 
Lafayette will ever be remembered by a 
grateful people. We can but congratulate 
ourselves, as citizens of this great valley, 
that owing to the sympathy of France and 
her people under the great Napoleon and the 
immortal Jeffersou, that we to day are a por- 
tion of this grand republic. 



CHAPTER IV, 



FOLLOWING THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FIRST PIONEERS— WHO THEY WERE— HOW THEV CAME— 

WHERE THEY STOPPED— FROM 1795 TO 1810— CORDELING— BEAR FIGHT— FIRST 

SCHOOLS, PREACHERS AND THE KIND OF PEOPLE THEY WERE—JOHN 

GRAMMER.THE FATHER OF ILLINOIS STATE-CRAFT. ETC. 



'• Yet even these bones from insult to protect, 
Implore the passing tribute of a sigh.'' — Gray. 

More than two hundred years ago, a large 
portion of the territory of the Missis- 
sippi Valley passed nominally at least from 
under the exclusive dominion of the savage 
races and the wild beasts to that of the tri-color 
of France and the benign sway of the Catholic 
Church. In the year 1673, those bold ex- 
plorers, Joliet and Marquette, with their 



small company of five white men and thi-ee 
Indian guides, floated down the Mississippi 
River and within the bounds of the territory 
that is now Union County. It is not at all 
probable that they rounded to their frail, 
light crafts and placed their feet upon the 
actual soil of Union County, yet they were 
upon our waters, and as they floated down 
the " Father of Waters " they took possession 
by virtue of discovery, Joliet in the name of 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



265 



France and Marquette in the name of his 
chiirch. This voyage of discovery resulted 
in the French settlement of Kaskaskia, and 
afterward of Cahokia — five miles below St. 
Louis, on the Illinois side. It is not at all 
probable that any of the early Kaskaskia 
settlers ever ventured as far away from their 
fort and fortifications as to come into the 
county, even upon hunting expeditions. The 
nest nearest settlement of the white men was 
at Fort Massac, on the Ohio Kiver, about 
thirty-six miles above Cairo. This was 
founded in 1711, and in the course of time 
became the only trading point for the earliest 
pioneers of the extreme southern limits of 
Illinois. It was for many years called 
Fort Massacre, and it got this blood-curdling 
name from some Indian strategy that re- 
sulted in the massa^^re of every man in the 
fort. The Indians dressed themselves in 
bear skins and appeared on the Kentucky 
side of the river, in full view of the fort, 
walking and acting like beai's, when the 
soldiers and people, after watching their 
antics for some time, made up a company, 
including the most of the men in the fort, 
gathered their guns and crossed tihe river in 
skifi's for a great bear hunt. The few per- 
sons who did not go in the hunt were gath- 
ered upon the river bank watching with ea- 
ger interest their friends as they crossed the 
river. The moment the Indians saw their 
trick was successful, they retired to the brush 
from view, and, making a hasty detour, 
crossed the river unseen, in a bend a short 
distance above, and by a small circuit reached 
the fort from the rear and entering when 
there was not a soul left, secured the few re- 
maining guns and then commenced the mas- 
sacre, which only stopped when no white 
person was left alive in or about the fort. 
They then sacked and burned the buildings. 
A few years after, it was rebuilt and called 



for a long time Fort Massacre, but in the 
coui'se of time it again resumed its original 
name, Fort Massac, by which it is known to 
this day. 

For some years after the trappers, fishers 
and pioneers began to skirt with sparse cab- 
ins the Ohio River and the Cache River, 
Fort Massac was the only point within reach 
where these people could resort for the little 
trading in those essential supplies of ammu- 
nition, etc., that they were compelled to have. 
For a long time, too, this place was the land- 
ing point for all those pioneers from the 
Carolinas, Virginia and Kentucky, that 
came down or crossed the Ohio River on 
their way to Kaskaskia or Cahokia. At first 
this was a route for nearly all the immigra- 
tion into Southern Illinois, much of which 
came down the Ohio River on batteaus, pi- 
rogues and canoes and skifi's, while some 
crossed the river at Shawneetown and some at 
Fort Massac. In the year 1 797, some years 
before any white man had ventured into 
what is now Union County, in the hunt of a 
permanent home, a colony of Virginians, 
numbering 126 persons, landed at Fort Mas- 
sac, and pursued their toilsome and tedious 
way through the dense forests to New De- 
sign. The distance thus traversed was only 
about 135 miles, yet the little colony was 
twenty-six days on the road, and so great 
was their toil and exposure that within a few 
months after reaching their destination a 
majority of them died. These emigi'ants 
may have touched the northeastern portion 
of the county on their way through the ter- 
ritory to their destination. If they passed 
through any portion of Union County, then 
they were the first here after the long lapse 
of years since Joliet and Marquette had 
passed down the Mississippi, and in the 
name of France and Papal Christendom 
started that tremendous drama that lasted 



266 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



for more than ninety years, and in which 
France and the chtu'ch were the principal 
actors. New Design, in the present county 
of Monroe, was established in 178/*, and un- 
til the time of the advent of this Virginia 
colony, it was the attractive point in the 
territory for immigrants. But the news of 
the calamities that befel this colony were 
carried back to the old States, and for some 
years the impression widely prevailed that 
all this territory was a mere plague spot 
where civilized people could hardly hope to 
loner survive a removal to it, and this re- 
tarded the heavy immigration that afterward 
came. 

In the year 1803 — just eighty years ago — 
the first white settlement was made in the 
territory now comprising Union County. 
This feeble colony thus braving the wilds, 
the dense forests and its almost impenetra- 
ble undergrowth, consisted of two families, 
namely, Abram Hunsaker's and George 
Wolf's. They had come down the Ohio 
River and up the Cache, hunting and fish- 
ing, and finally started on an overland route, 
intending, it is supposed, to strike the Mis- 
sissippi River and ascend the same to the 
settlements of Kaskaski a and Cahokia. Those 
wanderers camped one night a short distance"' 
from where Jonesboro now is, and the next 
morning the men found that they had to re- 
plenish their meat supply, and they shouldered 
their guns and in a few minutes killed a 
large and fat bear, and in a little while after 
getting the bear they added a fine turkey 
gobbler to their store. They were so de- 
lighted with the land of plenty, both of game 
and excellent water, that they concluded to 
rest a few days, and before the few days had 
expired the men were busy at work building 
cabins in which to house their families and 
make this their permanent home. Just 
eighty years! How feeble this little begin- 



ning of the white man and civilization must 
have appeared in the face of the riot of un- 
bridled strength of wilderness, the wild 
beast and the more deadly and treacherous 
savage. For two years, in all that region 
then included in Johnson County, these 
were the only white settlers. They knew of 
no neighbors in the Illinois Territory, and 
the nearest white settlements were at Kas- 
kaski a and Cahokia, which, for any purpose 
of trade or communication, had as well been 
at the farthest ends of the earth. For years 
they saw no white face except the members 
of their own families. They held no inter- 
course with their fellow-men; they had placed 
behind them the comforts and blessings of 
civilization. 

There is a tradition, not well authenti- 
cated, that in the year 1804 a man whose 
name will never now be known, had fixed his 
residence in the hills of the northwest part 
of the county and here alone he lived for 
some years. The story is that he had se- 
lected this wild spot that he might hide him- 
self from his fellow-men, because at some 
time he had committed a great crime and 
was a fugitive from justice; that he fled as 
soon as he ascertained there had been a set- 
tlement in this part of the country, and it 
was only by the discovery of his deserted 
cabin long after he had gone, and probably 
there were some things found, either old 
files of papers or something else to give cur- 
rency to the stories as to who he was and 
why he thus fled from the presence of all 
men. 

The next year, 1805, David Green came 
with his little family and built his cabin in 
the Mississippi bottom, about a half mile 
north of what is known as the Big Barn. 
He was a Virginian, and had been engaged 
in navigating the rivers in the early flat-boat 
days, and in waiting upon the banks of the 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY, 



267 



river and hunting for game he came upon 
the spot where he afterward lived, and re- 
turned to his family and brought them with 
him to his new home. It was a long time 
before he knew the Hunsakers and Wolfs 
were his nearest neighbors. 

There was an Indian trail that, as was 
generally the case, was following a buffalo 
path that passed diagonally across the lower 
portion of the State and passed near where 
Jonesboro now is but a little to the south. 

During even the early part of the eight- 
eenth century there were white men passing 
up and down the Ohio River, and the govern- 
ments that at different periods had posses- 
sions had erected [Fort Massac, Fort Wil- 
kinson and Fort Jefferson and here were sta- 
tioned soldiers, but these were merely guard 
posts of armed men for the purpose of keep- 
ing the possession and retaining the owner- 
ship of the country. And often the Indians 
would gather in great force and besiege the 
place and bloody battles would ensue, and then 
for years the place would be evacuated and left 
untenanted. The tenure of these possossions 
was frail and uncertain, as they were often 
the prizes to contend for among unfriendly 
whites as well as with the native savages. 

Skirting along the Ohio River from Fort 
Massac to the junction of the rivers, there 
were temporary settlements or camps of pio- 
neers on the banks as early as 1795. At the 
junction where Caii'o now is, William Bird, 
in company with his parents, remembered in 
his lifetime of stopping and camping a 
short time at the point where the two rivers 
join, but after a rest of a few days the fam- 
ily proceeded up the river and settled near 
Cape Girardeau. He bearing in mind the 
impression the junction of the two great riv- 
ers had made, returned, being then hardly 
grown, to the place, in the year 1817, and 
made a permanent and the first settlement of 



Caii-o. Thus during all the early years the 
extreme point of land at the confluence of 
the two rivers was known as Bird's Point, 
and it was only in years after it came to be 
known as Cairo, and the name Bird's Point 
crossed the river when the Bird family made 
their resid«^nce at that place. 

James Conyers with his family came down 
the river from Kentucky and camped where 
Cairo now stands. His son, Bartlett Con- 
yers, was then seven years old. He is now 
an active, well-to-do man, eighty-five years 
old and lives in Menard County, 111. 

Through the politeness of Mr. Potter, of 
the Argus, we were shown a letter from Mr. 
Bartlett Conyers, of June, 1881, in which he 
gives some of his recollections of the country 
now composed of Alexander and Pulaski Coun- 
ties. Among other things he says: "We made 
our first halt and went into camp where 
Cairo now is. We had moved from Livings- 
ton County, Ky. It was then a wilderness, 
and wild game, such as turkey, deer, wolves 
and bears, was plenty." He says he killed 
a number of bears as well as other game in 
what is now the city boundaries. He tells 
of an encounter he had as follows: " I went 
out hunting and had only two balls for m}' 
gun. The first shot I killed a very large 
bear dead in his tracks; with my second ball 
I slightly wounded another. Although I 
was but sixteen years old, I thought I could 
kill him with my knife, so I followed him 
up and went into the fight in earnest, but 
after a short tussle in which neither got 
much worsted, I beat a hasty reti-eat. The 
bear retreated at the same time I did, but 
for some strange cause, retreated in the same 
direction I did, and only a few feet behind 
me, but I soon got out of his way. I then 
cut a good, short club and followed'him up, 
but was more cautious. I soon came up 
with him, and after a little maneuvering hit 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



him a fair lick on the head. I expected to 
Bee him fall, buf. all the effect it had was to 
make him take right after me again. In this 
way we continued the tight foi at least an 
hour, when I accidentally hit him on the 
back of the head, which knocked him down. 
For the first time my knife came in good 
play, and I soon finished him. " 

Mr. Conyers remembers spending five 
years hunting exclusively, and all this time 
had only Indians for associates and bed- fel- 
lows. He says his father, James Conyers, 
located twelve miles from the mouth of the 
Ohio in 1805, at a point which was after- 
ward America, now Pulaski County. This 
was the first white family in that county. 
The Indians were friendly and often visited 
the house. The next settlement in the coun- 
ty was Jesse Perry and family. His place 
was two miles above Conyers.' The nearest 
settlement to these two families at that time 
was one near Jonesboro, in Union County. 

Mr. Conyers says they had no communica- 
tion with the outside world; each family de- 
pended solely upon itself for everything. The 
little bread they used was pounded in a mor- 
tar or eventually ground on a hand mill, 
depending wholly on game for meat, which 
was plenty. In 1807, Thomas Clark settled 
where Mound City now stands. And in a 
short time a man named Humphrey came 
and settled where Caledonia now stands. 

Solomon Hess next came and settled at the 
mouth of what was afterward called Hess 
Bayou. A man named Kennedy was living 
on Clark's place in 1812, when the Indian 
Massacre occui-red. George Hacker was the 
first settler on Cache River; he came there 
in 1806; soon after, John Shaver settled near 
him, and, about the year 1810, Rice and 
William Sams located on the Cache. This 
includes every soul in all that region prior 
to the war of 1812. The people wei'e not 



troubled for years in holding elections or 
paying any taxes. The war of 1812 stopped 
all immigration for some years, and the In- 
dians became troublesome, and the citizens, 
for self -protection, had to gather together, and 
the house of James Conyers was selected for 
the rendezvous and converted into a fort or 
block-house, and the settlers all " forted " 
there. 

The Indians had a regular crossing about 
one mile above Conyers' place, and it was 
here Tecumseh crossed the river when he 
went south to incite the Creek and other 
tribes to go to war. This crossing may yet 
be found, as it is at the mouth of a little 
creek about one mile above America. 

Mr. Conyers furaishes us some new facts 
in reference to the first attempt to settle the 
point of land at the junction of the two riv- 
ers. His recollection is distinct that it was 
a man named Drakeford Gray. He built his 
house on posts or stilts, and above the high 
waters. During very high water, the build- 
ing caught fire and biu-ned. A boat hap- 
pened to be passing, and took the people off, 
otherwise, there is hardly a doubt they 
would have all perished. 

The earliest settlements naturally were 
made along the Ohio Rivei*, and a short dis- 
tance up its tributaries. The pioneer river 
men became the pioneer settlers, and the 
name of Cache River is a history of itself, of 
those who came there and why they came. A 
" cache" is thus described in Irving's " Asto- 
ria:" "A place for the cache is situated 
near a running stream, a circular sod is cut 
out and laid aside, a hole is then dug wider 
at the bottom than at the top, the earth is 
thrown into the stream, the cache filled with 
such goods as are to be concealed and the 
sod carefully replaced." The earliest set- 
tlements, or rather encampments of settlers, 
at the mouth and a short distance up this 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



26 9 



stream, date back to 1795. In 1809, four 
familievS had settled in what is now Dogtooth 
Bend. They were named Han-is, Crane, 
Wade and Powers. They built a school- 
house, the first so far as can be now ascer- 
tained in this section of the State. The lit- 
tle house was made of a cottonwood tree that 
had been split into rails, and the first teacher 
was an unknown Irishman. He took his 
toddy and shed the light of his birch rods 
with no scanty or light hand. One of his 
pupils was John S. Hacker, who, it seems, here 
laid the foundations for those political tilts 
that he was afterwai'd to engage in with 
John Grammer. ^lany of the immigrants 
into this part of Illinois had fled for safety 
to these high hills from the great earth- 
quake of 1811. This brought ex-Gov. John 
Dougherty, a small child at that time; he re- 
moved to near Cape Girardeau and after- 
ward to Union County. The earliest settlers 
along the river were supplied with salt, iron, 
ammunition, etc., by keel -boats. The fol- 
lowing description of keel boating was fur- 
nished Rev. E. B. Olmstead by Col. John S. 
Hacker, who had often acted as bowsiuan in 
trips up and down the river: The hull was 
much like a modern barge or small steam- 
boat; a mast about forty feet high was erect- 
ed near the bow, to the top of which a line 
nearly two hundred yards long was attached. 
The men, with the line on their shoulders, 
walked on the bank, drawing the load slowly 
against the cuiTent. To the tow line a line 
was attached about thirty feet long, called a 
stirrup; the end next the boat passed through 
a ring on the tow line, so as to be within 
reach of the bowman, who' by this means 
kept the boat from swinging out, and with a 
pole kept it oif the banks. In this he was 
aided by the pilot or helmsman at the steer- 
ine: oar. This was called c«)rdeling. When 
the current of the river was very strong. 



warping was resorted to. A line was sent 
ahead, fastened to a tree and the boat di-awn 
up; as the line was drawn in, another was 
paid out and sent ahead. Often two to four 
miles was all the advance a day's hard work 
yielded. But ten miles could frequently be 
made, and when the wind allowed a sail to 
be unfurled it proved a blessing to the men. 
It required ninety days to make the trip 
from New Orleans to Louisville, and forty 
men to man the boat. Wages were $100 for 
the trip up, and freight was $5 per hundred 
pounds. The adventurous and daring navi- 
gators saw the beautiful country along the 
banks of the river and marked them for their 
future homes. Prominent among these was 
Capt. James Riddle, of Cincinnati. He was 
afterward one of the proprietors of Trinity, 
America and Caledonia, and still later of the 
Mounds. 

In 1816, James Riddle, Nicholas Berth- 
end, Elias Rector and Hem-y Bechtle entered 
lands extending from below the mouth of 
Cache River to the Third Principal Meridian, 
and by a general subdivision established 
Trinity. No town lots were sold, but James 
Beny and afterward Col. H. L. Webb, in 
about the year 1817, coumenced a hotel here 
and commenced a trading and supply busi- 
ness. Goods were shipped here for St. 
Louis, and as early as 1818 a town was laid 
out on an extensive scale. The propri- 
etors were James Riddle, Henry Bechtle and 
Thomas Sloo, of Cincinnati, and Stephen and 
Henry Rector, of St. Loiiis. The agent of the 
proprietors was William M. Alexander, who 
then resided at America. The agent of Mr. 
Riddle was John Dougherty, whose son Will- 
iam is a citizen of Mound City. Mr. Alexander 
was one of the extraordinary men of the 
early day. A physician of great eminence, 
and immediately upon the formation of Al- 
exander Cotinty, was elected its first Represen- 



270 



HISTORY OF UNIOX COUNTY. 



tativG in the General Assembly, and was 
chosen Speaker of the House. Dr. Alexan- 
der was here when Union County did'not ex- 
ist; he was here and traversing the entire 
county, and was well known to all the peo- 
ple in the district when Union County em- 
braced all of the now three counties. His 
reputation extended throughout the State, 
and he was intent upon building a great city 
•at or near the confluence of the two great 
rivers. Something of what was going on in 
the way of city building may be gleaned 
from an extract or two of the Doctor's letters. 
In one dated ]" Town of America, April 4, 
1818," to James Riddle, of Cincinnati, he 
says: " The survey and additions will be 
completed in probably two weeks; nothing 
but a desire to promote the prosperity of the 
place could justify us in selling property 
which must become erelong of immense 
valu^." In another letter dated March 10, 
1819, not quite one short year, he says: "The 
present is the crisis of its [the town's] fate. 
I wish you could be at America and view 
with your own eyes the necessity for somo 
exertion. Only see what has been effected 
by my feeble exertions since the 1st of De- 
cember. I say it with difiidence, but I must 
say it, if I had not gone there at that criti- 
cal time, America must have fallen in a 
long sleep. The public mind of the coun- 
try was prejudiced against it. I opened 
Ohio street as far as Washington, Washington 
as far as the public square, a road to Jonesboro 
and one to Cape Girardeau. Had all the timber 
from the mouth of the creek leveled down 
with the earth, set the first example of erect- 
ing a house, have so conciliated the good 
will of the citizens that they have petitioned 
to have America made the seat of justice. 
Now all may bid defiance to opposition, but 
let us not sleep. What I have said of my- 
self is not by way of boasting, but to show 



the effect of limited means, to show what 
youi* superit)r ability could effect if exerted. 
The Commissioners for fixing the seat of jus- 
tice were selected by myself, and will of 
course be favorable to our views. The con- 
dition of its establishment will be the pay- 
ment of $4,000 in installments for public 
buildings. I have completely abandoned 
the idea of making an immediate specula- 
tion. We must wait patiently for the im- 
provement of the towD. We must dig a well, 
build a free bridge over the Cache, so as to 
draw the trade of the Dutch in Union Coun 
ty Send us down mechanics of all sorts. 
As the Legislature has made the County 
Commissioners one of the most influential and 
respected offices in Ihe State, I shall be a 
candidate for that office in Alexander Coun- 
ty, which is the name the Legislature has 
given the new county. If I am elected, I 
will bend the whole county to such improve- 
ments as will promote the interests of Amer- 
ica. I shall take immediate steps for tne 
erection of the public buildings." 

William M. Alexander soon left America 
and Union County and resided at some time 
in Kaskaskia. He was determined to join 
his fate to some new Western town that 
would grow at once into a great and pros- 
perous city, and the fates seemed to pursue 
him. America went " to sleep," as the Doc- 
tor feared it would in one of his letters, and 
he was hardly more than fixed in Kaskaskia 
when the capital of the State was moved to 
Vandalia, and that old town followed the 
fate of its more humble contemporary, Amer- 
ica. After residing in Kaskaskia, he went 
South and died. 

In the year 1809, in the south part of what 
is now Union County, the family of Law- 
rences, thi-ee in number, and William Clapp, 
making four families, settled. They lived 
on Mill Creek In a short time after this, 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



271 



John Stokes, William Gwinn, George Evans 
and Thomas Standard settled in the last part 
of the county in what has long been known 
as the Stokes settlement. 

Hon. John Grammer. — About this time, it 
may have been earlier, as the most diligent 
search has failed to fix the date, and which is 
much to be regretted, there came to this 
county John Grammer, the model, the won- 
derful, the extraordinary pioneer; the fisher, 
hunter, trapper, politician and statesman. 
So little was his appearance an index to the 
man that he was an old settler before any 
one there knew that such a being existed. 
His presence was heralded by no star in the 
east or west to point him out and say to all 
the world " behold the man!" The inferences 
from the early records are that he was accom- 
panied by his brother William in his com- 
ing. It cannot be ascertained what his age 
was when he came, or where he was from. 
We only know that among the early and re- 
markable productions of the county, Johnson 
County then embracing all the territory of 
Union, Alexander and Pulaski Counties, 
was the Hon. John Grammer, who settled in 
what is now Union County, a little south of 
Jonesboro. He was one of the first offi- 
cials in the county, representating John- 
son County in the first Territorial Legis- 
lature as early as 1812, when there were but 
five counties in the State, and the entire Assem- 
bly would gather about a good-sized table in 
Kaskaskia and talk in a coversational way 
for an hour or two, and then join in one of 
those exciting games of " crack-loo " for the 
drinks, and in this august assembly Gram- 
mer was a statesman of the rough diamond, 
barefoot persuasion. He was as illiterate as 
he was indifferent to fine clothes and per- 
fumed soap; as slouchy, careless and xin- 
couth in manners mostly as he was reckless 
and indifi'erent in the use of the King's Eng- 



lish, when pouring forth from the stump one 
of his towering philippics. He came 
among the early simple hunters and trap- 
pers of Union County like an Aurora in 
soiled linen or an unshod, burr-tailed colt 
from the mountain " deestrict," and he 
waked the echoes of the primeval forests, and 
as a politician bore down all opposition, as 
he rode in triumph into the affections of the 
voters and into high official positions. In 
the very first election ever held in the coun- 
ty he was made a Justice of the Peace, from 
which foothold he essayed and accomplished 
dizzy flights to higher positions, until he was 
elected to the State Senate, which position 
he filled time and again, from which vantage- 
point his name and fame extended through 
the entire State, until " as -John Grammer 
says '■ became a by-word from Galena to 
Cairo. He was no common man in any- 
thing; he was no man's man, bitt strong, 
original, honest and incorruptible, he trod 
alone, sword in hand, his great life pathway, 
with an eye that never quailed and heart for 
every fate. He was unlearned in the books, 
i but original and strong in intellect. It was 
from the rude, simple, illiterate John Gram- 
mer that the statesmen of Em-ope learned 
that when a legislator is called upon to vote 
in a legislative body, if he don't fttlly under- 
stand the question, to always vote "no." 
This was John Grammer s rule, from which he 
never deviated in the Illinois Senate. Nor had 
he any of that false pride and silly fear of be - 
ing laitghed at that so often makes weaker 
minded men assume to know all things 
brought before them, and to hide their igno- 
rance in silence. This was John Grammer's 
cardinal idea of statesmanship; the idea and 
practice was his invention or discovery, and 
the great Frenchman De Tocqueville, when 
studying this government, was attracted to 
Grammer, and in his book on American insti- 



372 



HISTOKY OF UNION COUNTY. 



tutions, the Frenchman called the attention 
of Europe to it in terms of highest commen- 
dation. 

What other statesman has America pro- 
duced that has been thus handsomely started 
on the road to a deserved immortality, to 
equal this unwashed, unkempt, illiterate 
backwoodsman? Early Illinois produced 
many remarkable men, but none so strongly 
original, so uncouth, so illiterate, or so in- 
teresting as John Grammer. As said before", 
he borrowed nothing from the books, and 
his illiteracy was so marked that it amounted 
to a gift or talent. He borrowed or copied 
from nothing. He never hesitated for a word, 
for when he wanted one he would coin it 
upon the instant. When addressing the 
Senate, he would shake his frowsy locks 
and point his finger at the chair and exclaim: 
" Mr. President, I give you a 'pernipsis' of 
that bill. " All other business stopped while he 
was giving his promised synopsis. When 
thoroughly warmed up, his eloquence was a 
Niagara of words, until sometimes his tongue 
would trip and he would land souse in a 
" tangled priminary," as he always called a 
dilemma, when he would appeal to the 
brother "siniters" to help him out of the 
difficulty, which some of them would always 
do, when with unruffled plumes he would 
sail away' again so grandly, with such gor- 
geous home-made rhetoric as would have 
paled the meteoric glories of even Sir Boyle 
Roche himself. Something of his greatness, in 
fact, lay in his ready aptness in word-coin- 
ing and phrase -making, and it was no trav- 
esty upon grammar — the science of lan- 
guage — when his patronymic was solemnly 
recorded as John Grammer, the father of 
Illinois true Statecraft, the author of amus- 
ing bulls, quaint mistakes and pat phrases 
that deserve to live forever in connection 
with, his name. The heaviest constitutional 



questions had no terrors for him, and when 
he found a fellow-senator attempting some 
real or fancied innovation upon the funda- 
mental laws, he snuffed the battle afar off 
and clothed his neck with thunder. Upon 
an occasion of this kind, he controlled his 
patience as long as he could, when he arose, 
and in a voice that pierced the marrow in 
members' bones, exclaimed, " You can't do 
that. It's fernent the compack! " and the 
country was saved, and John Grammer sat 
down immortal and to this day in all South- 
ern Illinois, when a thing is " fernent the 
compack," it is a dead cock in the pit. 

Many of the early statesmen in Union 
County, in fact in all this then very large 
Senatorial district, have been sadly worsted 
in their attempts to supersede him among 
the voters. They found him wily, tough, 
stubborn and full of resources. He under- 
stood the people. He did not, when in a 
campaign, or any other time for that matter, 
array himself in purple and fine linen; nor 
did he drive a tandem team of blooded trot- 
ters with gold-mounted harness. A log 
wagon bull team, trimmed with bark and 
hickory withes was the most sumptuous go- 
to meetin' rig he ever possessed or used. 
And when dressed in his best on such oc- 
casions, he Avas generally barefoot, and thus 
arrayed it only seemed fo add force and fire 
to his vehement eloquence, if his breeches 
were rolled up to the knees, and a twist of 
tobacco in one pocket and the Democratic 
platform in the other. He was Nature's un- 
adorned progeny — rather broad and liberal 
in his mode of thought, either in politics or 
religion, as well as his customs, manners, 
morals and habits. Like pretty much all of 
his day and time, he would sometimes in- 
dulge his appetite beyond stern pm-itan 
ideas, but he seldom went so far in this way 
as not to keep an eye on the main chance. 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



273 



An instance of this is given when on one oc- 
casion there was a great political rally, for 
the benefit of candidates, down in the north 
part of Alexander County, and Grammer was 
posted for a big speech. He reached the 
grounds some time before speaking was to 
commence, and before that hour had arrived 
he was out of all condition, and he realized 
this so fully that he reported himself sick, 
and sought seclusion, where he would soon 
brace up ard be all right for the ordeal. 
The crowd foolishly gathered about him 
densely, when his rival pushed into the 
crowd and shouted: " Stand back, men; give 
him air!" Grammer rolled his helpless head, 
eyed his rival and understood he only 
wanted to expose him, and he said: " D — n 
you, I understand you. I'll be thar or bust 
yet," and so he did, and made one of his 
iiiOst effective speeches. 

As did all men in those days, he hunted a 
great deal. On one occasion he was out in 
the rain all day, getting very wet; at night 
he hung his powder-horn on one side of the 
large open fire-place, so that the large tow 
string by which he swung it over his shoulder 
might dry. During the night, the " fore- 
stick " burned in two in the middle, and 
the end flipped up and set the tow string on 
fire. It burned off" and the horn fell into the 
coals, and soon the sleeping household- was 
startled by the explosion, which scattered the 
fire all over the room, and even on the bed 
where the man and wife slept. The woman 
soon brushed and swept up the coals, and all 
was safe and serene again. But Grammer 
didn't return to bed, but walked the floor in 
great distress, his hands clasped across his 
stomach. Finally his wife, in great alarm, 
asked what was the matter. " Oh, Lord! 
Oh, Lord! " exclaimed the poor man; " it is 
not the loss of the powder, or the horn. I 
could stand all that; but, Sal, suppose it 



purtends a sign!" And again and again 
the distressed man moaned like the sad, wet 
winds. 

In the simplicity of his soul, he dreaded 
a "sign," a portent from a displeased heaven. 
Here was greatness and childish simplicity 
and credulity that brings to mind the agony 
of fear that is sometimes said to seize the 
huge elephant upon seeing a ridiculous little 
mouse. 

He was a peculiar bundle of wisdom and 
weak and childish fears and superstitions; a 
medley of strange contradictions; a man 
who, perhaps, amid other surroundings, 
would never have emerged from the profound 
obscurity that surrounded his early life, and 
it now strikes the ear of the reader like the 
happy fictions of the romance writers, when 
they are told that this obscure, illiterate 
man, at the first moment an opportunity pre- 
sented itself in the State, to ofler his services 
as a law-maker to the people, and they read- 
ily accepted the offer. How did this silent 
hunter, this illiterate recluse, ever come to 
know that Illinois had been advanced to a 
second grade Territory, and would want, as 
early as 1812, the people to elect a Legisla- 
ture, to go to Kaskaskia and enact laws, and 
fix the governmental machinery that was to 
bear aloft the weal and destiny of the young 
giant State. He read no newspapers, aud the 
obscurity that envelopes the first years of kis 
life in these wild woods, indicates that he 
held no converse or communication with liv- 
ing thing, except with the wild game, to 
which he spoke with the keen crack of his 
rifle, and its reverberating echoes among the 
hills. But when his adopted State called for 
statesmen he stepped forth, regal in coon- 
skin and deer-skin clothes, and filled the be- 
hest and was immortal. No proper history 
of Illinois will ever be written which omits 
the name of John Grammer. The fu*st Ter- 



274 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



ritorial Legislature convened Novembei' 25, 
1812, and adjourned December 25 of the 
same year. The second session met and com- 
pleted its session and adjourned on the 8th 
day of November, 1813. A prominent, if 
not pre-eminent, member of that body was 
John Grammer. He then retired from the 
legislative halls for one session, and then 
was elected in 1816 again. When Illinois 
became a State, he was elected to the State 
Senate. In the Territorial times, the Legis 
lative Assembly consisted of a Council and 
House of Eepresentatives. In the first As- 
6eml)ly — 1812 — John Grammer was a mem- 
ber of the House of Representatives, repre- 
senting one of the five counties, St. Clair, 
Randolph, Gallatin, Madison and Johnson, 
that then constituted the State. In 1816, he 
was elected again, but was promoted to a 
member of the Council (now called the Sen- 
ate), and was re-elected to the session of the 
same body for the session of 1817-18. He 
was again elected to the State Senate in 
1822-24, and again to the Assembly of 1824- 
26, and again re-elected Senator to the As- 
sembly of 1880-32, and again 1832-34. 
Here was a long service in the legislative de- 
partment of the State. The importance 
with which he was esteemed is fairly illus- 
trated by the fact that, while he was a mem- 
ber of the Senate, the first compilation of 
the 'Illinois laws was made, and among the 
people they were distinguished by the name 
of the " Grammer laws. " It is reported that 
a certain Judge Block was holding court in 
Vienna in the earl}, rude times. Jeptha 
Hardin was arguing a case before him, and 
when he undertook to fortify himself by read- 
ing from a book which he held in his hand, 
" What book is that yoa are reading from ?" 
demanded Judge Block, sternly. " May it 
please the court," said Hardin, blandly, " it 
is Chitty on Contracts." "Chitty!" said 



the Judge, " Chitty! Take it away, sir! take 
it away! What did our fathers fight for ? 
Take it away; we will try this case by the 
Grammer laws! " 

In Stuv6 and Davidson's history of Illi- 
nois, John Grammer is mentioned as the 
father of Illinois demagogues. This is an in- 
justice to that sturdy, honest-minded old 
pioneer. The charge is an injustice to his 
memory. He simply voted "No," and had 
the moral courage to oppose the public craze 
of 1837, on the subject of internal improve- 
ments, and for this wise stand in defense of 
the people he lost the affection of the voters, 
and was then, for their first time, defeated at 
the polls. Had he been a demagogue, he 
would have played the demagogue's part, and 
simply trimmed his sails to the popular breeze, 
and only have increased his power, not lost it. 
The same historj' relates an anecdote of 
Grammer, and while it is nut well-authen- 
ticated, nor is it, on its face, a reasonable 
story, yet we give the substance of it, be- 
cause it, to some extent, explains his humble 
beginning in life. When he was first elected 
to the Legislature— so the story runs — there 
was much counseling and financiering in his 
own and his neighbors' families as to how a 
suit of clothes could be got for him to go to 
Kaskaskia in. Eventually, he and family 
gathered nuts and carried them to Fort 
Massac trading post, and exchanged them 
for a few yards of "blue drilling." This 
was carried home, and the neighbors called 
in to cut and make the clothes. After meas- 
uring, tuiming, twisting and stretching, the 
cloth was short and finally it was cut into a 
hunting shirl and then there was only enough 
left to make a pair of high "leggins," and 
thus arrayed 'he served his term in the Leg- 
islature. 

This is something of the life and times 
and character of John Grammer — a hiHtorical 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



275 



landmark in the early history of Illinois — a 
study and a delight for the coming children of 
men. He left numerous descendants, but his 
scepter of power, originality and invention 
passed away forever with the breath from his 
body. He was a just man in his judgment 
it seems, and wholly fearless in following 
the convictions that took hold of him. It 
appears that he about equally divided his time 
in a rigid and exemplary membership of the 
church, and then a jolly, won't-go-home-till- 
morning with his good friends and neigh- 
bors, and whether it was one or the other, he 
allowed no grass to grow under his feet, as 
his enez'gy and industry kept even pace with 
his quick mother wit, shrewd good sense or 
bad grammar. He never made a long speech 
in his life, but he never took his seat after 
an effort of the kind without having made 
just such a speech, particularly in words, 



quaint phrases, construction, and sometimes 
ideas, as no other man in the world could 
have imitated, miich less made. His was a 
rich and incomparable vein of originality — 
often the most humorous when he felt the 
most solemn, as at other times he was as 
funereal as a hearse when he fancied his wit 
and humor the most sparkling. He always 
opened a stumping campaign by announcing 
that he believed there were men " more fitner" 
for the office than he was, but his friends 
would "anommate" him " wherer or no," 
and " thairfore" he would make the race, 
and, if elected, would do the best he could; 
and thus he would beat his eloquent huzzy- 
guzzy and sound his thew-gag down the 
banks of the Mississippi and up the Ohio, 
till the deep-tangled wildwood echoed his 
eloquent refrain, and victory floated out 
upon his banners. 



CHAPTER V. 



SETTLERS IN UNION. ALEXANDER AND TULASKI— LEAN VENISON AND FAT BEAR— PRIMITIVE 

' FURNITURE— A PIONEER BOY SEES A PLASTERED HOUSE — HOW PEOPLE PORTED— 

THEIR DRESS AND AMUSEMENTS— AVITCHCRA FT, WIZARDS, ETC.— NO LAW 

NOR CHURCH- SPORTS, ETC. —GOV. DOUGHERTY— PHILIP 

SHAVER AND THE CACHE MASSACRE — FAMILIES 

IN THE ORDER THEY CAME, ETC., ETC. 



"The sound of the war-whoop oft woke the 
sleep of the cradle." 

THERE is much of romance in the story 
of the first settlers upon this southern 
point of Illinois, which is now comprised in 
the three counties — Union, Alexander and 
Pulaski. The first white men that were here 
trod the soil of St. Clair County, then em- 
bracing the State— 1790. Then they were 
citizens of Randolph Coiinty; then Johnson 
County, then Union Covmty. and from the 



teiTitory of this last-named county was 
formed Alexander County, and eventually' 
Pulaski — mostly from Alexander County, but 
partly from Pope and Johnson Counties. 

The spirit of adventure allured these pio- 
neers to come into this vast wilderness. The 
beauty of the country gratified the eye, its 
abundance of wild animals the passion for 
hunting. They were surrounded by an enemy 
subtle and wary. But those wild borderers 
flinched not from the contest ; even their 



276 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY 



women and childi'en often performed deeds 
of heroism in the land where " the sound 
of the war-whoop oft woke the sleep of the 
cradle," from which the iron nerves of man- 
hood might well have shrunk in fear. 
• They had no opportunity for the cultiva- 
tion of the arts and elegancies of refined life. 
In their seclusion, amid danger and peril, 
there arose a peculiar condition of society, 
elsewhere unknown. The little Indian 
meal brought with them was often expended 
too soon, and sometimes for weeks or months 
they lived without bread. The lean venison 
and the breast of wild turkey thoy taught 
themselves to call bread. The flesh of the 
bear was denominated meat. This was a 
wretched artifice, and resulted in disease and 
sickness when necessity compelled them to in- 
dulge in it too long, preceded by weakness 
and a feeling constantly of an empty 
stomach, and they would pass the dull hours 
in watching the potato tops, pumpkin and 
squash vines, hoping from day to day to get 
something to answer the place of bread. 
What a delight and joy was the first young 
potato! What a jubilee when at last the 
young corn could be pulled for roasting ears, 
only to be still intensified when it had at- 
tained sufiicient hardness to be made into a 
johnny cake by the aid of a tin grater. 
These were the harbingers from heaven, that 
brought health, vigor and content with the 
surroundings, poor as they were. 

The first settlers along the rivers and 
among these hills of Southern Illinois 
judged the soil upon their first coming here 
by what they knew of North Carolina, Vir- 
ginia and Tennessee; and that, with a few 
years' cultivation, it would wear out and have 
to be abandoned. We now know they were 
utterly mistaken in this I'espect. The 
grounds, when pastured, soon produced rich 
grasses, that afforded pasture for the cattle, 



by the time the wood range was eaten out, 
as well as to protect the soil from being 
washed away by rains, so often injurious 
to hilly countries. 

The difiiculties these people encountered 
were very great. They were in a wilderness, 
remote from any cultivated region, and am- 
munition, food, clothing and implements of 
industry were obtained with great difficulty. 
Then, as early as 1810, the merciless savage 
had begun to paint himself for war and put 
on his tomahawk and scalping-knife, and 
there was then only increased danger, toil 
and suffering foi' the few and widely separ- 
ated settlers. 

The furniture for the table for several 
years after the settlement of the country 
consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and 
sometimes spoons, wooden bowls, trenchers 
and noggins, gourds and hard- shelled 
squashes, that were brought from the old 
States, along with the salt and iron, on pack- 
horses. '" Hog and hominy" were the viands 
that were served upon this table furniture. 
Johnny-cake and pone bread were in use for 
dinner and breakfast; at supper milk and 
mush was the standard dish. Ask any of 
these very old settlers you meet if, in his 
)'Outh, he did not have many a scramble, and 
often a battle-royal, with his brothers and 
sisters, for the "scrapings" of the mush-pot. 

Dr. Doddi'idge, in 1824, said in his diary: 
" I well recollect the first time I ever saw a 
teacup and saucer, and tasted coffee. My 
mother died when I was six years old; my 
father then sent me to Mai-yland. to school. 
At Bedford, everything was changed. The 
tavern at which I stopped was a stone house, 
and to make the change still more complete, 
it was plastered on the Id side, both as to the 
walls and ceiling. On going into the dining 
room, I was struck with astonishment at the 
appearance of the house. I had no idea there 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



279 



was a house in the world not built of lo^s; 
but here I looked around the house and could 
see no logs, and above I could see no joists. 
Whether such a thing had been made so by 
the hands of man, or grown so of itself, I 
could not conjecture. I had not the courage 
to inquire anything about it. I watched at- 
tentively to see what the big folks would do 
with their little cups and spoons. I imitated 
them, and found the taste of the coffee naus- 
eous beyond anything I had ever tasted in 
my life. I continued to drink, as the rest 
of the company did, with tears streaming 
from my eyes; but when it was to end I was 
at a loss to know, as the little cups were 
filled immediately after being emptied. This 
circumstance distressed me very much, and 
I durst not say I had enough. Looking at- 
tentively at the grand persons, I saw one 
person turn his cup bottom upward and put 
his little spoon across it. I observed after 
this his cup was not filled again. I followed 
ijis example, and, to my great satisfaction, 
the result, as to my cup, was the same." 

The hunting-shirt was universally worn. 
This was a loose frock, reaching half way 
down the thighs, with large sleeves, open 
before, and so wide as to lap over when 
belted. It generally had a large cape, and 
was made of cloth or buckskin. The bosom 
of this shirt served as a wallet, to hold bread, 
jerk, tow for wiping the barrels of his rifle, 
or any other necessary article for the warrior 
or hunter. The belt, which was tied behind, 
answered several purposes besides that of 
holding the dress together. Moccasins for 
the feet and generally a coon-skin cap were 
the fashion. In wet weather, the moccasins 
were only a '* decent way of going bare- 
footed," and were the cause of much rheu- 
matism among the people. The linsey petti- 
coat and bed-gown were the dress of the 
women in early times, and a Sunday dress' 



was completed by a pair of home-made shoes 
and handkerchief. 

The people "forted" when the Indians 
threatened them. The stockades, bastions, 
cabins and block-house were furnished with 
port-holes. The settlers would occupy 
their cabins, and would reluctantly move 
into the block-house when an alarm was 
given. The couriers would pass ai'ound in the 
dead hours of the night, and warn the people 
of the danger, and in the silence of death 
and darkness the family would hastily dress 
and gather what few things they could lay 
their hands on in the darkness, and hurry to 
the fort. 

For a long time after the first settlement, 
the inhabitants married young. There were 
no distinctions in rank, and but little of fort- 
une. A wedding often engaged the atten- 
tion of the whole neighborhood, and the 
frolic was anticipated by old and young with 
eager expectation. This was natural, a its 
was the only party which was not accompa- 
nied with the labor of log-rolling, building a 
cabin or planning some scout or campaign. 
On the morning of the wedding, the groom 
and his friends would assemble at tlie house 
of his father, and they would proceed to 
the house of the bride, reaching there by 
noon, and hei'e they would meet the friends 
of the bride, and a bottle race would ensue, 
and the joy of life was in full sway. The 
gentlemen, dressed in shoe-packs, moccasins, 
leather breeches, leggins, linsey huntinu-- 
shirts, and all home-made; the ladies dressed 
in linsey petticoats and linsey or linen bed- 
gowns, coarse shoes, stockings and handker- 
chiefs, and all home-made. After dinner, 
the dancing commenced, and would generally 
last until daylight next morning. About 10 
o'clock in the evening, a deputation of youno- 
ladies would steal off the bride, and ascend 
the ladder to the loft, and passing softly over 

16 



280 



HISTORY or UNION COUNTY 



the loft floor, which was made of clapboards, 
lying loose, put the bride to bed. A deputa- 
tion of young men would then steal off the 
groom, and similarly put him to bed, and 
below the dance went on. The next day, 
the " infair" went on at the house of the 
bride, much as it had at the house of the 
groom, and sometimes this feasting and 
dancing was continued for days. 

A grater, the hominy block, the hand- 
mills and the sweep, were the order of the 
coming of the mechanic arts in bread-mak- 
ing. Pretty much each family was its own 
tanner, weaver, shoe-maker, tailor, carpenter, 
blacksmith and miller. The first water-mill 
was a grand advance in the comforts of civili- 
zation. They were often called tub-mills, 
and consisted of a perpendicular shaft, to the 
lower end of which a horizontal wheel of four 
or five feet in diameter was attached. 

Amusements are, in many instances, either 
imitations of the business of life, or at least 
of some of its particular objects of pursuit. 
Many of the sports of the early settlers were 
imitative of the exercises and stratagems of 
hunting and war. Boys were taught the use 
of the bow and arrow at an early age, and ac- 
quired considerable expertness in their use. 
One important pastime of the boys was that 
of imitating the noise of every bird and beast 
in the woods. This faculty was a very nec- 
essary part of education, on account of its 
utility in certain circumstances. The imita- 
tion of gobbling and other calls of the turkey 
often brought these keen-eyed denizens of the 
forest within reach of the rifle. The bleat- 
ing of the fawn brought its dam to her death 
in the same way. The hunter often collected 
a company of mopish owls to the trees about 
his camp, and amused himself with their 
hoarse screaming. His howl would raise and 
obtain a response from a pack of wolves, so 
as to inform him of their neighborhood, as 



well as to guard him against their depreda- 
tions. This imitative faculty sometimes was 
requisite as a measure of precaution in war. 
The Indians, when scattered about in a 
neighborhood, often collected together, by 
imitating turkeys by day and wolves by night. 
And sometimes a whole people would be 
thrown into consternation by the screeching 
of an owl. Throwing the tomahawk was 
another sport, in which many acquired great 
skill. The tomahawk, with its handle a cer- 
tain length, will make a given number of 
turns in a given distance. At one certain 
distance, thrown in a certain way, it will 
stick in a tree with the handle down, and at 
another distance with the handle up. Prac- 
tice would enable the boy to measiu'e with his 
eye the distance so accurately, that he could 
throw the ax and stick it into the tree any way 
he might choose. Wrestling, running and 
jumping were the athletic sports of the young 
men. A boy when twelve or thirteen years 
of age, when it was possible so to do, was 
furnished with a light rifle, and, in killing 
game, he soon could handle it expertly. Then 
he was a good fort soldier, and was assigned 
his port-hole in case of an attack. Dancing, 
quiltings, singing schools and "meetin's" 
soon were the amusements of the yoimg of 
both sexes. Shooting at a mark was a com- 
mon diversion of the men, when their stock 
of ammunition would allow ; this, however, 
was far from being always the case. The 
modern mode of shooting off-hand was not 
then in practice. This mode was not consid- 
ered as any trial of the value of a gun ; nor, 
indeed, as much of a test of the skill of the 
marksman. Such was their regard to accuracy 
in those sportive trials of their rifles, and in 
their own skill in the use of them, that they 
often put moss, or some other soft substance, 
on the log or stiunp from which they shot, 
for fear of having the bullet thi-own from the 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



281 



mark by the spring of the barrel. When the 
rifle was held to the side of the tree, it was 
pressed lightly for the same reason. 

The belief in witchcraft was so prevalent 
among the early settlers as to be a sore afflic- 
tion. To the witch was ascribed the power 
of inflicting strange and incurable diseases, 
particularly on children ; of destroying cattle 
by shooting them with hair balls, and a grreat 
variety of other means of destruction ; of put- 
ting upon guns spells, and of changing men 
iato horses, and after bridlinor and saddling 
them, riding them at full speed over hill and 
dale, to their frolics and places of rendez- 
vous. The power of the witches was ample, 
hideous and destructive. Wizards were men 
supposed to possess the same mischievous 
power as the witches ; but these were seldom 
exercised for bad purposes. The powers of 
the wizards were exercised almost exclusively 
for the purpose of counteracting the malevo- 
lent influences of the witches of the other 
sex. They were called witch-masters, who 
made a profession of curing the diseases in- 
flicted by the influence of witches, and they 
practiced their profession after the manner 
of physicians. Instead of "pill-bags, " they 
carried witch balls made of hair, and in 
strange manner they moved these over the 
patient, and muttered an unknown jargon, 
and exorcised the evil spirits. One mode of 
cure was to make the picture of the supposed 
witch on a stump, and fire at it a bullet with 
a small portion of silver in it. This silver 
bullet transferred a painful, and sometimes 
mortal spell, on that part of the witch cor- 
responding with the part of the portrait 
struck by the bullet. Another method was 
to cork up in a vial, or bottle, the patient's 
urine, and hang it up in the chimney. This 
gave the witch strangury, which lasted as 
long as the vial hung in the chimney. The 
witch had but one way of relieving herself 



of any spell inflicted on her in any way, 
which was that of borrowing something, no 
matter what, of the family to which the sub- 
ject of the exercise of her witchcrait be- 
longed. And thus often was the old woman 
of a neighborhood surpi-ised at the refusal of 
a family to loan her some article she had ap- 
plied for, and go home almost broken-heart- 
ed, when she learned the cause of the refusal. 
When cattle or dogs were supposed to be un- 
der the influence of witchcraft, they were 
burned in the forehead by a branding- iron, 
or when dead, burned wholly to ashes. This 
inflicted a spell upon the witch, which could 
only be removed by borrowing, as above de- 
scribed. Witches were often said to milk the 
cows. This they did by fixing a new pin in 
a new towel for each cow intended to be 
milked. This towel was hung over her own 
door, and by means of certain incantations, 
the milk was extracted from the fringes of 
the towel, after the manner of milking a cow. 
This only happened when the cows were too 
poor to give much milk. Once upon a time, 
the German glass-blowei's drove the witches 
out of their furnaces, by throwing living 
puppies into them. 

Voudouism was one of the miserable su- 
perstitions of witchcraft that was largely be- 
lieved in early times. The distinction 
between this and the original belief iu 
witches is in the fact that it applies wholly 
to the negro conjuring. An African slave 
by the name of Moreau, was, about the year 
1790, hung on a tree, a little south of Caho- 
kia. He was charged with this imaginary 
crime. He had acknowledged, it is said, 
that by his power of devilish incantation, 
" he had poisoned his master; but that his 
mistress proved too powerful for his necro- 
mancy," and this, it seems, was fully be- 
lieved, and he was executed. In the same 
village, ignorantly inspired by a belief in the 



283 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



existence of this dread power of diabolism, 
another negro's life was offered up to the 
Moloch of superstition, by being shot down 
in the public streets. One of the first acts of 
the first civil Governor of Illinois Territory, 
Lieut. Tod, was an order to take a convict 
nec^ro to the water's edge, burn him and scat- 
ter his ashes to the touv winds of heaven, for 
the crime of voudouism. It was a very com- 
mon feeling among the French to dread to 
incur in any way the displeasure of certain 
old colored people, imder the vague belief 
and fear that they possessed a clandestine 
power by which to invoke the aid of the evil 
one to work mischief or injury to person or 
property. Nor was the belief confined to the 
French, or this power ascribed wholly to 
negroes. The African belief in fetishes, and 
the power of their divination, is well known. 
Many superstitious negroes have claimed the 
descent to them of fetish power ; the in- 
fatuation regarding voudouism is itill to be 
found among the ignorant blacks and whites. 
In 1720, Mr. Eeuault, agent of the " Com- 
pany of the West," bought in San Domingo 
500 slaves, which he brought direct fi'om 
Africa to Illinois. Mankind have been prone 
to superstitious beliefs ; there are many per- 
sons now who are daily governed in the mul- 
tiplied affairs of life by some sign, omen or 
augury. 

The red children of the forest seem to 
have been as ignorant as the whites upon this 
subject. The one-eyed Prophet, a brother of 
Tecumseh, who, commanded at the battle of 
Tippecanoe, in obedience, as he said, to the 
commands of Manitou, the G-reat Spirit, ful- 
minated the penalty of death against those 
who practiced the black art of witchcraft or 
magic. A number of Indians were tried, 
convicted, condemned, tomahawked and con- 
sumed on a pyre. The chief's wife, his 
nephew, Billy Patterson, and one named 



Joshua, were accused of witchcraft; the two 
latter were convicted and executed by burn- 
ing ; but a brother of the chief's wife boldly 
stepped forward, seized his sister and led her 
from the council house, and then returned 
and harangued the savages, exclaiming : 
"Manitou, the evil spirit has come in our 
midst and we are murdering one another. ' ' 
It is a sad confession to make that no white 
man had the sense and courage to thus save 
his friends and family and rebuke the miser- 
able murders that were being perpetrated in 
the name of witchcraft. 

For some time this was a country with 
"neither law nor Gospel," and for a long 
time the people knew nothing of churches, 
courts, lawyers, magistrates, Sheriffs or Con- 
stables. Every one was, therefore, at liberty 
" to do whatsoever was right in his own eyes." 
Public opinion answered the place of church 
and State. The turpitude of vice and the 
majesty of virtue were then far more apparent 
than now, and people held these crimes in 
greater aversion then than now. Industry 
in working and hunting, bravery in war, 
candor, hospitality, honesty and steadiness of 
deportment, received their full reward of pub- 
lic honor and public confidence among these 
om'rude forefathers, to a degree that has not 
been sustained by their more polished de- 
scendants. The punishments they inflicted 
upon offenders were unerring, swift and in- 
exorable in their imperial court of public 
opinion and were wholly adapted for the ref- 
ormation of the culprit or his expulsion 
from the community. They had no law for 
the collection of debts, and yet every man 
was rigidly compelled to sacredly keep his 
promises. Any petty theft was punished 
with all the infamy that could be heaped 
on the offender. A man on a campaign stole 
from his comrade a cake out of the ashes, in 
which it was baking. He was immediately 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



283 



named " the bread rounds." This epithet of 
reproach was bandied about in this way; when 
he came in sight of a group of men, one of 
them would call, "Who comes there?" 
another would answer, " The bread rounds." 
Another would say, "Who stole a cake out 
of the ashes?'' when another would reply 
giving the name of the man in full. And 
this he would hear during the campaign and 
after his return home. If a theft was de- 
tected, the thief was tried by his neighbors, 
and if guilty severely whipped and ordered 

out of the country. 

With all their rudeness, these people 
were given to hospitality, and freely divided 
their rough fare with a neighbor or stranger 
and would have been offended at the offer 
of pay. In their settlements and forts, 
they lived, they worked, they fought and 
feasted, or suffered together in cordial har- 
mony. They were warm and constant 
in their friendships. On the other hand, 
they were revengeful in their resentments. 
And the point of honor sometimes led 
to personal combats. If one man called 
another a liar, he was considered as having 
given a challenge which the person who re- 
ceived it must accept, or be deemed a coward, 
and the charge was generally answered with 
a blow. If the injured person was quite un- 
able to fight the aggressor, he might get 
a friend to do it for him. The same 
thing took place on a charge of cowardice or 
any other dishonorable action, a battle must 
follow, and the person who made the charge 
must fight either the fterson against whom he 
made the charge, or any champion who chose 
to espouse his cause. This accounts for the 
great difference in then and now in speaking 
evil of your neighbors. 

In a preceding chapter we have given an 
account of those who came into the territory 
now comprising Union, Alexander aad Pu- 



laski Counties prior to the year 1810. and 
where the fii'st settlements were made. The 
tide of immigration was then checked by the 
growing hostility of the Indians toward the 
whites, and the prospect of a general war 
which did commence in 1812. Indian mas- 
sacres and outbreaks commenced in 1811, and 
early in 1812 a most shocking butchery of 
all the settlers on Lower Cache occurred. A 
full account of this will be found in the 
chapter on Mound City and Precinct. 

Mr, George James came to this part of 
Illinois in 1811, and settled west of Jones- 
boro, but he had hai'dly fixed his location 
when he was warned by the Indians, and he 
returned to his old home in Kentucky, and 
after the war was over and a peace had been 
conquered from the Indians, he returned to 
what is now Union County. 

Ex- Lieut. Gov. John Dougherty came to 
this part of Illinois, in company with his 
parents, in the year 1811. Like most of the 
immigrants who came to Illinois that year, 
they were flying to the hills fi'om the great 
earthquakes. John Dougherty was of poor 
parents, and when a lad was apprenticed to 
a hatter to learn the trade, at which he 
worked for some years. He married the 
daughter of George James, and lived out a 
long life among the people of Soixthern 
Illinois, practicing law, and fulfilling the 
many arduous duties of a politician and 
office-holder. He was State Senator, Circuit 
Judge and Lieutenant Governor, besides fill- 
ino- several minor positions of trust. His 
politics was intensely Democratic until after 
the breaking-out of the war. In 1860, he 
was a candidate for a State office on what 
Judge Douglas called the Danite party's 
ticket. This party was known in Illinois as 
the " Breckenridge party," and they bitterly 
opposed Douglas, because his Democracy was 
' ' too weak on the slavery question. " Out of 



284 



HISTORY OF UNiON COUNTY. 



nearly half a million votes, Dougherty got 
something over 4,000. The election over, he 
issued through a Cairo paper an address to 
the world, reading Douglas and his quarter 
million of deluded followers out of the 
Democratic party, and solemnly warned the 
approaching Charleston Convention not to 
admit the Democratic (Douglas) Delegates 
from Illinois. Mr. Dougherty attended the 
Charleston Convention, and, it is said, made, 
from the steps of the hotel, after that conven • 
tion had dissolved, a most able and fiery 
address to the Southern people on the subject 
of the state of the country. He ran upon the 
Republican ticket for Lieutenant Governor, 
and was elected and served out his term with 
great fidelity to his party. 

When the war of 1812-15 was over, the 
stream of Illinois immigration again set in, 
and except occasional trouble from Indians, 
continued uninterrupted, and we note the 
following as the arrivals in what is now 
Union County, in the order of their coming: 

1812— Thomas D. Patterson, Phillipp 
Shaver, Adam Clapp, Edmund Vancil. 

Phillipp Shaver was one of the parties that 
was in the Cache massacre of 1812, and the 
only one who escaped alive. He was badly 
wounded by a blow from an Indian's toma- 
hawk, and pursued by two savages, and swam 
the icy bayou, and on foot made his way to 
the neighborhood south of where Jonesboro 
now stands. 

Thomas Standard, John Gwin, John N. 
Stokes, settled in Section 12, Range 1 east, in 
the year 1811. Robert Hargrave came the 
same year. 

1814 — The arrivals included the following 
heads of the households and their families: 
George Lawrence, John Harriston, John 
Whitaker, A. Cokenower, Giles Parmelia, 
Samuel Butcher, Robert W. Crafton, Jacob 
Wolf, Michael Linbaugh, Alexander Boren, 



Hosea Boren, Richard McBride, Thomas 
Green, Emanuel Penrod, George Hunsaker, 
George Smiley, Daniel Kimmel, Robert Har- 
grave, John Whitaker, David Cother, David 
Brown, Alexander Brown, Alexander Boggs, 
Daniel F. Coleman, Benjamin Menees and 
Jacob Littleton. 

October 22, 1814, Thomas D. Patterson 
entered the northeast quarter, of Section 33, 
Township 11 south, range 1 east, the first 
entry ever made in the county. C. A. Smith 
settled near Cobden in 1815. 

Jesse Echols, who was appointed by the 
Legislature to fix the seat of justice in Union 
County, came to Illinois in 1809, and settled 
at Caledonia, and afterward m(;ved into what 
is now Union County. 

Two brothers, Joseph and Ben Lawrence, 
came here on a trapping and hunting expe- 
dition in 1807. They were so pleased with 
the country that they selected a home on Mill 
Creek, and one of them returned to his old 
home and brought Adam Clapp and family. 

Jacob Lingle, it is supposed, came in 1807. 
His son lives west of Cobden. In company 
with two other families, the Lingles came 
down the Ohio River in batteaus, and landed 
near where Caledonia now stands, and slowly 
continued their way to their future home in 
Union County. Among the th-st settlers in the 
eastern and southern part of county was Geoi'ge 
Evans and family Then came John Brad- 
shaw, and Bradsbaw's Creek bears his name. 
In 1808. John McGinnis and family settled 
near Mt. Pleasant. 

James McLaln was born January 8, 1783, 
in Rowan County, N. C, and died May 15. 
1870, aged eighty -seven years and four 
months. He came to Illinois and settled 
near Shawneetown in 1808, and in 1810 came 
to what is Union County, and lived here 
sixty years. He was for years a Justice of 
the Peace, and Associate Judge of the County 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



285 



Court, and had long acted as a Constable. In 
his last years, he was a pleasant picture of a 
bright and cheery old man, who was a friend 
to everybody, and nothing more pleased him 
than to get a good listener, when he would 
tell over by the hour the story of pioneer life 
in Illinois, when in the long ago he had to 
make trips over all this vast territory that 
was then under one jurisdiction. He carried 
his hotel with him in his saddle-bags, as 
often it was fifty miles or more between 
houses. He would stop when darkness over- 
took him and stake his horse, and his saddle for 
a pillow, bivouac beneath the twinkling stars, 



his lullaby the howl of the wolves. Like all 
travelers in those days, even on horseback, 
he had to carry with him a hand ax, to cut 
his way through the dense, tangled under- 
growth that often obstructed his way. He 
stood upon the banks of the Ohio, and saw 
the soldiers on their way to New Orleans to 
whip Packenham. McLain was a useful cit- 
izen, and much resj)ected by all who knew 
him. In his death, there passed away one of 
the landmarks that divide the past from the 
present. He will long be remembered for 
his many sterling qualities and his social 
disposition. 



CHAPTER VI 



ORGANIZATION OF UNION COUNTY— ACT OF LEGISLATUKE FORMING IT— THE COUNTY SEAL- 
COMMISSIONERS' COURT— ABNER FIELD— A LIST OF FAMILIES— CENSUS FROM 1820 TO 
1880— DR. BROOKS— THE FLOOD OF 1844— WILLARD FAMILY— COL. HENRY 
L. WEBB— RAILROADS-SCHOOLS— MORALIZING— ETC., ETC. 



''I "* HE act creating Union County bears date 
-^ of January 2, 1818. It is entitled 
*' An act adding a part of Pope County to 
Johnson County, and forming a new county 
out of JotuBison County." 

Section 1 defines the boundaries of the 
new county of Johnson. 

" Section 2. And be further enacted, that 
all that tract of country lying within the fol- 
lowing boundary, to wit: Beginning on the 
range line between Kanges 1 and 2 east, 
at the corner of Townships 10 and 11 south, 
thence north along said range line eighteen 
miles to the corner of Towns 13 and 14 
south, thence west along the boundary 
line between Townships 13 and 14 south, to 
the Mississippi River, thence up the Missis- 
sippi River to the mouth of the Big Muddy 



River, thence up the Big Muddy River to 
where the township line, between Towns 10 
and 11 south, crosses the same, thence east 
along said township line to the place of be- 
ginning, shall constitute Union County ; 
Provided, that all that tract of country lying 
south of Township 13 south to the Ohio 
River, and west of the range line between 
Ranges 1 and 2 east, shall, until the same 
be formed into a separate county, be attached 
to and be a part of Union County. " 

Section 3 provides that the courts for 
the county shall be held at the house of 
Jacob Hunsaker, Jr. , until a permanent seat 
of Justice shall be established and a court 
hoTise erected. 

Section 4 provides for the appointment 
of Commissioners to fix the seat of justice, 



286 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



and, without explaining why, provides for 
two sets of these officials. It starts out by 
declaring that William Fatridge, James 
Bane and Isaac D. Wilcox be appointed 
Commissioners to fix the permanent seat of 
justice. It then proceeds to say that George 
AVolf, Jessee Echols and Thomas Cox are 
appointed Commissioners to fix the perma- 
nent seat of justice, etc. 

The first-named Commissioners are not 
recognized as of the old settlers of Union 
County, while the other Commissioners are. 
And in addition to this, Wolf, Echols and 
Cox did proceed at once to fulfill the position 
as their report following shows : 

To the HonoTabLe the Jusliceg of the Cowitij Court nf 

Union : 

The undersigned Commissiones, appointed by the 
Legislature of Illinois Territory, for the purpose of 
designating a seat of justice for said county, report as 
follows : That, they met at the time and place men- 
tioned in the law establishing said county, and pro- 
ceeded to examine and to take into view the most cen- 
lal, convenient and eligible spot for the same, that 
they have chosen and designated to (your?) Honors, 
the northwest quarter of Section No. 30, in Township 
12, Range 1 west, and that they have received a deed 
of conveyiince for twenty acres, the donation required 
by law, to which you are referred for particulars. 

They also beg leave to designate and recommend the 
center of said donation as the suitable place for the 
erection of the public buildings. Given under our 
liundsand seals this 2oth day of February, 1818. 
(Signed) .1. Echols, 

George Wolf, 
' Thomas Cox. 

The first Commissioners were not residents 
of the county of Union, and as the bounda- 
ries of Johnson and Pope had been dis- 
turbed in order to fix the new county, it is 
probable they were to look after any change 
that might be necessary to make in these 
older counties. 

It will be noticed that the first part of the 
act describes the boundaries of Union County 
exactly as they are now, and it calls this 



original boundary lino as including Union 
County, and then the proviso goes on to 
attach to this county and make a part thereof, 
" until a new county is formed," all of what 
is now Alexander County, and a large por- 
tion of Pulaski County. Union County, there- 
fore, extended to the junction of the rivers at 
Cairo and the major part of Pulasl^i County 
until Alexander County was formed, which 
act passed the Legislature March 4, 1819, at 
which time Union County assumed exactly 
the boundary lines that she now has. 

The land mentioned in the report of the 
Commissioners above given for a county seat 
belonged to John Grammer. On the 25th of 
February, 1818, be and his wife, Jviliet, duly 
executed a deed donating ' ' to the Justices of 
the County Court of Union County," the 
following described lands : "Being a part of 
the northeast quarter oi Section 30, Town 
12, Range 1 west; beginning near the north- 
west corner of said section at a stake and a 
dogwood tree; thence running south 6 poles 
2 links; thence east 18 poles 24 links; thence 
south 21 poles 2 links; thence east 28 poles 
23 links; thence north 60 poles; thence west 
to the beginning." This is the tract of land 
that the Commissioners, fixing the county 
town, say they, " beg leave to designate, 
and recommend the center of said donation as 
the suitable place for the erection of the 
public buildings." 

The county seal when explained, tells how 
the county came to be named Union. The 
figures upon the seal represents two men 
standing up and shaking hands. One of 
them is dressed in the old-fashioned shad- 
bellied coat and vest, broad brimmed hat, 
and long hair. The other is in the conven- 
tional ministerial suit. It represents a meet- 
ing of a Baptist preacher named Jones, and 
George Wolf, aDunkard preacher, mentioned 
in another place, asone of two men, first in 



HISTOEY OF UNION COUNTY. 



287 



this county. Jones had been holding a re- 
mai'kable series of meetings, and Wolf and he 
met, shook hands, and agreed to hold or con- 
tinue the meeting, the two joining in the work, 
and calling it a Union Meeting. This was 
held in what is now the southeast portion of 
the county. The seal illustrating this his- 
toric incident in the county was designed 
and adopted by the County Commissioners in 
1850, and it was, it is said, the suggestion of 
Gov. Dougherty. The meeting of these pio- 
neer preachers that thus became historical, 
probably occurred about 1816 or 1817. 

A County Commissioners' Coui-t for the new 
county was elected, and consisted of Jesse 
Echols, John Grammer, George Hunsaker, 
Abner Keith and Rice Sams. They met, 
organized and held the first court at Hunsak- 
er's house, as the law directed, March 2, 
1818. The com-t's first official act was to 
accept John Grammer' s donation, and name 
the town Jonesboro. 

Abner Field was Clerk of this court, and 
Joseph Palmer was the first Sherifl" of the 
county. The Clerk certifies that on the 2d 
day of February, 1818, George Hunsaker, 
William Pyle, John C. Smith, Rice Sams, 
Abner Keith, Jesse Echols and John Brad- 
shaw were each commissioned by the Gover- 
nor as Justice of the Peace for Union County, 
and the oath was taken and they entered upon 
their official duties. Robert Twidy was the 
first Constable. 

The court declared the road leading from 
Elvira to Jackson and from Penrod's to El- 
vira, public roads, and David Arnold, Will- 
iam Pyle, George Hunsaker, Ephraim Voce 
and Henry Larmer appointed Road Overseers 
and Viewers. Robert H. Loyd was licensed 
to open a tavern. The first county order 
ever issued was one for $2 to Samuel Penrod 
for a wolf scalp. The Constables for the 
county were John Wenea, William Shelton, 



Samuel Butcher, Samuel Hunsaker and Wil- 
lie Sams. This court realized that the main 
stay of life was " suthin " to eat and drink, 
and with a wise forethought that is to be for- 
ever commended, they oi'dered that the price 
of whisky should be 12^ cents per half pint; 
rum, 50 cents ; brandy 50 cents; dinner, sup- 
per and breakfast, 25 cents each; bed, 12| 
cents; horse to stand at hay and corn all night, 
Zl^ cents. 

Thus, the young county was full blown, 
and was well started on her future great 
career. Courts and officei's were in their po- 
sitions, and the roads arranged for, and the 
price of meat and drink regulated to a nicety. 
Who was here to enjoy all its blessings, fell 
the great forest trees and open farms, kill 
the wolves and wild animals and tame and 
civilize and make habitable for their descend- 
ants this great wilderness? 

A record of "marks and brands," opened 
at once after the county was organized, sh : we 
the following were here and were interested 
in domestic animals. Jacob Wolf, George 
Wolf, Edmund Vancil, William Dodd, 
Samuel Hunsaker, Michael Linbough, David 
Brown, William Thornton, Wilkinson Good- 
win, Edmond Hallimon, Joseph Hunsaker, 
William Pyle. William Grammer, Rice Sams, 
Abram Hunsaker, Thomas Sams, Benjamin 
Menees, John Mcintosh, George Hunsaker, 
James Brown, Jeremiah Brown, John Weigle, 
Christopher Hansin, Isaac Vancil, R. W. 
Crofton, John Cruse, James Jackson, George 
Smiley. Joseph Palmer, George James, Rob- 
ert Hargrave, John Hargrave, John Hunsaker, 
John AVhitaker, Johnson Som^rs, Charles 
Dougherty, Joel Boggess, Jonas Vancil, 
Emanuel Penrod, John Stokes, Samuel Pen 
rod, Cliflf Hazlewoo 1 and John Kimmell. 

Those who had entered land that lies 
within the county up to and including the 
year 1818 were John Yost, Wilkinson Good- 



288 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



win, George Hunsaker, William Thornton- 
John Huusaker, John Miller, George Law- 
rence, Henry Clutts, Christian Miller, James 
Mesam, John Harriston, John Kimmell, John 
Frick, Edmond Holeman, Adam Clapp. John 
Miller, George Devolt, Michael Dillon, John 
Grammer, Benjamin Memees, John Miller, 
Michael Halhouser, John Hartline, Anthony 
Lingle, John Whitaker, Phillipp Shaver, 
Phillipp Paulus, William Worthington, John 
Bradshaw, John Saunders, John R. McFar- 
land, John Tyler, Joseph Waller, Joseph 
Walker, A. Cokenower, Andrew Irwin, Giles 
Parmelia, Samuel Butcher, Samuel Penrod, 
Eobert W. Grafton, Edward Vancil, John 
Gregory, Jacob Lingle, Israel Thompson, 
Adam Cauble, Jacob Rentleman, Jacob Wei- 
gle, George Wolf, Miehean Linbough, Jon- 
athan Hasky, Joseph Barber, Lost Cope, 
John Cope, Barber, Isaac Biggs. Alexander 
Biggs, the Meisenheimers, John Eddleman, 
Thomas Mcintosh, Cornelius Anderson, Du- 
vall Lence, John Lence, Benedict Mull, Pe- 
ter Casper, John Wooten, Anthony Lingle, 
David Crise, William Morrison, Robert Crof- 
ton, Jacob Hileman, David Miller, A. Cruse, 
Abraham Brown, John Knupp, Andrew 
Smith, David Meisenheimer, Josej)h Smith, 
Thomas H. Harris, Richard McBride, S, 
Lewis, Thomas Green, Benjamin J. Harris, 
Jacob Trees, Joseph Palmer, Thomas Green, 
David Kimmel, Alexander P. Field, Anthony 
Morgan, James Ellis, Joseph McElhany 
Abner Field, Thomas Deen, Rice Sams, Dan- 
iel Spence, William Craigle, David Miller, 
George Cripe, Isaac Cornell, Nicholas Wil- 
son. Henry Bechtle, Thomas Bechtle, Thomas 
Lanes, John Uri, Stephen Donahue, Jacob 
Littleton and S. W. Smith. 

From the best estimation we have been en- 
abled to make, there was here, in what is now 
Union County, a population of 1,800 souls. 
About one-third of the families were at that 
time freeholders. 



The official census of 1820 shows a popu- 
lation of 2,362. In the year 1830, it had 
increased to 3,239; in 1840, to 5,524; in 
1850, the population rose to 7,615; in 1860. 
to 11,181; in 1870, to 16,518, and in 1880, 
to 18,100. The smallest increase was from 
1820 to 1830, which was a little over 1,000, 
and the largest increase of any decade, from 
1860 to 1870, was 5,337. This is ac- 
counted for by the fact that it was the period 
of the coming of the railroad — a ray of light 
let in upon the eternal darkness. The com- 
pletion of the Illinois Central Railroad, in 
August. 1855, from Anna to Cairo, and 
finally to Dubuque, and then on the 1st day 
of January, 1856, the time of the first through 
train on schedule time, from Chicago to 
Cairo, was an era in the county's history. 

The tide of emigration here was never in 

a strong: and swollen stream, as it was in the 

. . . . * 

northern portion of Illinois, and yet it was 

constant and increasing, as the census re- 
turns above given show. The county's growth 
has been a slow, yet a steady and healthy 
one, and it has never suffered from what is 
often a serious condition of affairs in locali- 
ties where the rush of people has been very 
great, and a sudden turn in affairs would 
produce a widespread distress and suffering, 
and a turbulent and restless population. 

The first marriage nu the county records 
was John Murry and Elizabeth Latham, by 
John Grammer, on the 26th of February, 
1818. On the 7th of April, 1818, John Wel- 
don, Esq., certifies that he married James 
Latham and Margaret Edwards, on the 2d. of 
March. Joseph Painter and Elizabeth Brown 
were manned on the 26th of April, 1818, by 
George Hunsaker. Samuel Morgan and Re- 
becca Casey were married by Abner Keith, 
Esq., on the 28th of May, 1818. July 3, 
1818, Francis Parker and Catharine Clapp 
were married by George Wolf, the Dunkard 
preacher, and, by the records, the first min- 



HISTORY OF UNTOX COUNTY. 



280 



ister who performed the ceremony in the 
-coiinty. August 6, same year, Allen Crawl 
and Catharine Vancil were married by the 
same minister. September 24, 1818, John 
Rupe and Lydia Brown were married by 
John Grammer. December, same year, Eli 
Littleton and Ede Hughes were married by 
AVolf. This includes the entire list of mar- 
riages of 1818, as the record shows. 

The next year, 1819, there was quite a 
falling oif in the activity of the marriage 
market, there being but two weddings the 
•entire year. These were David Callahan and 
Elizabeth Roberts, February 25, and Isaac 
Finley and Polly Hargrave, March 17. 

In looking further along in the records, we 
lind the Dunkard preacher Wolf had per- 
formed four marriages in 1818, and he only 
made his returns to the County Clerk in 1820. 
His certificate reads as follows: "I did, on 
7th of June, 1818. join in marriage, as man 
and wife, William McDonald and Mary Mc- 
Lane, and Henry Johnston and Nancy Ath- 
erton. all of the aforesaid county." Strictly 
speaking, the good old Dunkard married the 
double couple as men and trives, and not, as 
he states, as ''man and wife." But we are 
told the marriage return was good and strong 
enough, and each couple picked themselves 
out of the jumble, and were happy and con- 
tent. 

The year 1820, however, showed a cheer- 
ful state of activity in the line of courting 
and marrying. We can account for this be- 
cause it was leap year, and the dear girls 
were resolved to "make hay while the sun 
shines." John Russell and Percy Huston 
opened the ball, by marrying on the 3d of 
February; Daniel Ritter and Elizabeth Iseno- 
gle, March 2; Peter Sifford and Leyah Mull, 
February 20; Jacob Hunsaker and Elizabeth 
Brown, March 9; A. H. Brown and Sarah 
Mathes, June 19; William Ridge and Esther 



Penrod, July 30; Abraham Hunsaker and 
Polly Price, May 20; George Dougherty and 
Rachean Hunsaker, August 3; John Biggs 
and Sarah Cope, September 1; William 
Clapp and Phoebe Wetherton, September 8; 
George Lemen and Susan Lasley, October 
2; John Price and Nancy Vancil, Octol^er 5; 
John Leslie and Catharine Wigel, and Peter 
Wolf and Margaret James, Messiah O'Brien 
and Charlott Hotchkiss, Daniel T. Coleman 
and Lucy Craft, Samuel Dillon and Margaret 
Lingle, December 26. 

In the year 1835, the county had the cen- 
sus taken, and a careful count showed there 
were 4,147 persons in the county — 2,100 
males, and the remainder females. There 
were forty-seven negroes. Only one person 
over eighty years of age, five shoe-makers and 
saddlers, one tailor, two wagon -makers, two 
carpenters, and one cabinet-maker (supposed 
to be a man named Bond), two hatters (one of 
whom was James Hodge) eleven black- 
smiths, three tan-yards (one Jaccord's, 
south of Jonesboro, and the other, 
Randleman's, north of the town), twelve 
distilleries, two threshing machines, one 
cotton gin, one wool-carding machine (Jake 
Frick's), one horse and ox saw mill, eighteen 
horse and ox grist mills, two water sawmills, 
and five water grist mills. Of the shoe- 
makers, were John Blatzell, David Spence, 
John Thames and Wesley G. Nimmo. The 
tailor probably was William Kaley, and 
George Krite and David Masters were the 
wagon-makers, and John Rinehart was one of 
the carpenters. 

The venerable Mrs. Mcintosh came to the 
county in 1817, settling south of Jonesboro. 
Her husband, John Mcintosh and one child, 
now Mrs. Malinda Provo, constituted the 
family. There were two others. Mrs. Mc- 
intosh was a married woman with a child 
seven years old when she came to this wild 



290 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY 



territory. She has lived here sixty-four 
years, and her physical strength is unusual, 
considering her great age. Her neighbors, 
she remembers at first, were John Grammer, 
Robert Hargrave, Samuel Hunsaker, Rice 
Sums, Thomas Sams, Daniel Kimmel, James 
Ellis, George Wolf, Jacob Wolf, Winsted 
Davie, Joseph McElhany, John Meuees, Har- 
ris Randleman, Willis, Elijah and William 
Willard, Geoi'ge Weigle, Wiley Davidson, 
David Miller, J. S, Cabb, Jei-emiah Brown 
and Mr. Verble. 

Her recollection is that the nearest carding 
machine, and where they had to go to get 
their wool carded, was at Jackson, Mo. — a 
trip that it took three days to make. Mr. 
Verble had a water grist mill seven miles 
southeast of Jonesboro. The only lumber 
then was cut with whip-saws. The woods 
were full of an undergrowth of the pea vine. 
A man named Griffin taught a school near 
the spring south of Jonesboro, in a small 
log cabin ; af tex'ward Winstead Davie taught 
the same school, and then Willis Williard 
taught there for some time. 

Dr. B. W. Brooks lived about half a mile 
south of Jonesboro. He was a man pos- 
sessed of a thorough classical education, and 
had traveled and mingled with cultured so- 
ciety, and read and studied the best authors un- 
til he was an accomplished scholar and was a 
well-informed physician. His family were 
possessed of ample means, and it must have 
been a singular impulse for the fascinations 
of the wilderness that could have induced 
him to woo fortune here and spend his life 
among a rough and unlettered })eople. A 
strong mind, a finished classical and profes- 
sional education, of polished and courtly 
manners, when he felt the necessity of so be- 
ing, it seems strange that he preferred the 
rough and hard life of a pioneer, and was 
often ready to lay all his accomplishments 



aside, and with the keenest zest enjoy his un- 
couth surroundings. He was possessed of a 
fine vein of humor, and his practical jokes, 
sometimes very rough indeed, were inex- 
haustible. He had an extensive practice all 
over this part of the country, and his reputa- 
tion as a physician was wide and of the high- 
est order. He was one of the early County 
Commissioners, was a member of the Legis- 
lature, and filled numerous minor official 
positions. His love of fun and his keen 
sense of the ridiculous were evenly balanced, 
and it was the delight of his life to get some 
Yahoo into a conversation and put the whole 
village into a roar over his making-up with 
his new acquaintance and so shrewdly would 
he quiz the fellow that he would soon con- 
vince him that he was a native of the particular 
neighborhood that " greeny " had come from, 
and finally that they were close blood relatives. 
Often he would call a stranger into the tav- 
ern and agree to give him $5 to let him 
abuse him as much as he pleased for one 
hour. The conditions being that if the 
stranger tired of his bargain and did not 
stand out the hour that he was to give back 
the money. It is said he always got his 
money back in the course of ten or fifteen 
minutes, and sometimes a fight to boot; and 
the Doctor would enjoy one about as well as 
the other. One of the first Irishmen that 
came to Union Covmty had the usual ready 
Irish wit and repartee, and he was a great 
admirer of Dr. Brooks, and many was the 
bout at chaffing that they had when the Irish- 
man would come to town. One day the Doc- 
tor told him how they caught the wild Irish, 
by putting potatoes in a barrel with a bole 
just large enough for them to get their hand 
in, and they would reach in and grab a po- 
tato,and with this in their hand they were tight 
and fast. By the time the story was told the 
Irishman was fighting mad. 



HISTORY OF UXIOJ^ COUXTY 



291 



In looking over some of Dr. Brooks' old 
papers are found the following graphic and 
interesting account of the high waters in the 
Mississippi: "The Mississippi commenced 
rising on the 18th of May, 1844, and con- 
tinued rising at the rate of two feet to thirty 
inches in twenty-four hours, until the 1st of 
June, at which time it stood within eight 
inches of the flood line of 1808. By the 
10th of June it fell five or six feet, and left 
the farms in the bottom all free of water. 
The bottom farms had been more or less cov 
ered with water except that of Jacob Trees. 
On the 11th of June, the waters commenced 
to rise again, the flood coming down the Mis- 
souri and Mississippi Rivers, and this time 
it rose from one foot to eighteen inches in 
twenty-four hours. This rise steadily con- 
tinued until it overflowed the bottom land in 
Union County from eighteen to thirty feet 
deep. This was the depth of the water on 
- ihe road to Littleton's old ferry, and also to 
Willard's landing. Stock, crops, houses and 
fences were carried away in th« raging 
waters. The people made great efforts to 
save their stock, and called to their aid ferry 
and coal boats and all floating craft, but 
soon they found they could only hope to save 
a few of their household effects, and the stock 
was left to its fate and the people fled to the 
hills. This rise continued steadily until 
June 29, when it came to a stand. On the 
1st of July it commenced slowly to recede. 
This was higher water than that of 1808 by 
ton or twelve feet. It was higher than was 
ever known, except in 1785, which Beck says 
in his history was the highest waters in 150 
years. Mr. Cerre, one of the oldest French 
settlers of St. Louis, said: 'The flood was 
higher by four or five feet in 1785 than in 
1844. In 1844. the steamer Indiana trans- 
ported the nuns from the Kaskaskia Convent 
to St. Louis. The boat recei\'^d them from 



the door of Pierre Menard's residence, the 
water in front of the house being fifteen feet 
in depth. Two hundred people went from 
Kaskaskia on the Indiana, and about 300 
found shelter at Menard's, while yet others 
were sheltered in tents on the blufis. The 
loss in the bottoms was at least $1,000,000. 
From Alton to Cairo there were 288,000 
acres of land overflowed. In Randolph 
County is a document soliciting a grant of 
lots from the crown of France, and m-ging as 
a reason the great flood of 1724, which over- 
flowed the village and destroyed it. Great 
overflows occurred in 1542, 1724 and 1785, 
and in 1844. The Mississippi bottoms are 
now very clean, as everything is washed off 
and many of the small trees are killed." 

Dr. Brooks died September 12, 1845, aged 
fifty-three years. His widow, Lucinda 
Brooks, survived and died in 1881, 16th of 
July, aged eighty- one years. 

Mrs. Nancy Hileman came in 1817, with 
her father's (George Davis) family. She was 
then twelve years old, and for an active, 
healthy old lady, her long life here of sixty- 
six years tells a strong story in behalf of the 
health of Union County. 

Elijah Willard came to Union County 
in the year 1820, a poor boy, with a scanty 
education, and he was the only support of his 
widowed mother and three small children. 
The coming of this family was the most val- 
uable acquisition to the community it prob- 
ably over made. At a glance, this boy realized 
the imperative wants of a rude people, and 
he laid the foundations of society upon which 
have been reared the structure we behold to- 
day. He was the architect and founder that 
converted an almost unorganized and igno- 
rant gathering of trappers and hunters into a 
commercial and agricultural community, with 
all the arts and science of a splendid civili- 
zation. Before Elijah Willard came, the 



293 



HISTORY OF UNIOX COUNTY. 



people hunted game for food, and exchanged 
peltries and honey for the few articles of 
commerce that were necessary to their sim- 
ple, scanty lives. He saw that highways to 
the world's market were the only road to the 
change that must be brought among the peo- 
ple, and he therefore obtained leave and built 
the tiirnpike across the bottom to the river, 
and opened " Willard's Ferry," and showed 
the people that they could raise produce and 
export it, and that by selling and buying in 
the markets they could surround themselves 
with all the comforts of life. He not only 
pointed out the way. but he worked out his 
designs, and by opening the largest and best 
farm in the county demonstrated that there 
were higher walks in life than baiting bears 
and gathering coon-skins. He led the way, 
and the people followed, and he lived, short 
as was his great life, long enough to see the 
merchandise that could once be carried in its 
importation on a pack-mule, rise to such pro- 
portions that his anmial sales were more than 
$100,000. When would the people without 
Willard have discovered that the key to civ- 
ilization and a powerful community of farm- 
ers, merchants, laborers, manufactui'ers, and 
the arts and sciences lay in the direction of 
the open doors of such markets as St. Louis, 
New Orleans, Cincinnati and New York? 
And he opened the way. We now look upon 
the great change, and how few know to whom 
they owe these blessings? In the little more 
than twenty years of his active life, he gave the 
people ideas and public improvements that 
will continue to be invaluable benefits for 
generations yet to come. He was the master 
spirit of Union County while he lived, and 
his influence will be here when we are all 
gone and forgotten. How incomparably 
greater is such a life than are all the Napo- 
leons, Bismarcks or Alexanders that Aver 
lived! His life was as different and as much 



greater than these men as it is better than the 
modern millionaires of the Gould kind who 
gather in colossal fortunes by gambling — 
pulling down and not building up a people. 
He had saved from a small salary $250, and 
with this he laid the foundation of the house 
of Willard & Co., and had so perfectly reared 
the superstructure that at his death his 
brother was enabled to carry out his designs. 

It would only bespeak on the part of the 
people of Union County a just appreciation 
of the benefits the life of Elijah Willard 
has been to them to place in some of its 
public buildings a full-sized portrait of him. 
No act could be more appropriate to his mem- 
ory. No public expression of gratitude could 
be more just. 

Willis Willard. — Jonathan Willard, a sol- 
dier in the war of 1812, came down the Ohio 
River from Pittsburgh, and landed at Bird's 
Point in 1817. From here he went to Cape 
Girardeau, where he died the same year, 
and left his widow, Nancy, with four children 
— Elijah, Willis, Anna and William. The 
widow with her children came to Jonesboro, 
and in great poverty commenced the serious 
struggle for life. Elijah was old enough to 
commence clerking in a store in Jonesboro, 
and in a few years he bought out his employer 
and associated with himself his brother Wil- 
lis. In 1836, Elijah was made Internal Im- 
provement Commissioner for the State of 
Illinois. He died in 1848, of consumptiun. 

The Williard family is of English origin, 
and dates back in this country to the first col- 
onists of Massachusetts, Simon Willard hav- 
ing landed in Boston in 1634. 

Willis Willard was born in Windsor Coun- 
ty, Vt., March 20, 1805. He died May 
12, 1881. He was but eleven years old when 
he came West, and had but little schooling, 
and but few opportunities for educating him- 
self in this new country. His mother came 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



293 



to Jonesboro in 1820, and he was a clerk for 
different merchants until he was twenty-one 
years old. He took charge of his brother's 
business at his death, and rapidly rose to be 
the greatest merchant in Southern Illinois. 
He continued to merchandise for forty-three 
years, and the fame of the house of Willard 
& Co. extended over the entire country. He 
sold goods and operated extensively in real 
estate. At one time he owned 13,000 acres 
of land in Union County. He retired from 
active business in 1873, the owner of 4,000 
acres of the choicest lands in the county, and 
other property, making a total of over 
$500,000. 

For a long lifetime, he was the foremost 
man, not only in his county, but in Southern 
Illinois, in every enterprise tending to pro- 
mote the material and intellectual interests 
of the people. He erected many of the best 
business and private houses in Jonesboro. 
In 1836, he built the first steam saw and 
grist mill that was ever in the county. In 
1853, realizing the wants of Union County, 
he built at his own expense a female semi- 
nary in Jonesboro, and sent to Boston and 
brought two lady teachers to take chai'ge of 
the institution. For years this was a flour- 
ishing school, and gave the people excellent 
facilities for educating their daughters, with- 
out being compelled to send them to the dis- 
tant and expensive seminaries of the country. 
His enterprise and benevolence went hand in 
hand. He was not a politician, and although 
often tempted and persiiaded, could never be 
induced to accept office; yet, in local politics, 
he often took a deep interest, and here, when 
he so desired, he wielded a master hand. He 
was a consistent Democrat all his life, but in 
political friend or foe he respected iionor 
and woi-th, and despised all frauds and 
shams, and for pretentious demagogues he 
had neither respect nor patience. 



In 1835, he was married to Frances Webb, 
and of this marriage there were eleven chil- 
dren, live of whom died in infancy. Henry, 
the eldest, who had become a successful mer- 
chant in Jonesboro, died in 1865, aged 
twenty- eight years. 

Willis Willard's princely fortune was the 
accumulations that come of those sterling 
lousiness qualities and sound judgment that 
wronged no man, but tended to aid and build 
up all around him. His word was never 
questioned, his good advice and ripe judg- 
ment was freely extended to all, the humblest 
as well as the highest. To his many em- 
ployes, he was a most generous master, and 
a duty well performed was not overlooked, 
but remembered and rewarded. After a life 
of unreniittinc: toil and tireless energrv, the 
declining years allotted him were spent in 
that quiet retirement which he so well had 
earned. And when the summons that awaits 
us all finally came, he folded in peaceful 
content those once strong and bounteous 
hands upon a breast stilled of the desires, 
hopes, loves and hates of this world, and 
went peacefully to his fathers. May his 
memory linger for aye, as a benison to the 
good people of Union County. 

Mrs. Nancy Willard, the mother of Wil- 
lis Willard, died February 12, 1874, 
aged ninety-nine years ten months and five 
days, one of the noblest women that ever 
came West. Left poor, with four young chil- 
di'en her whole life was her children's, with 
a devotion that never ceased, and in the rising 
fortunes of her children and grand-children 
was her whole life-thought and labor. For 
half a century she was widely known as 
"Mother Willard," and probably above all 
women that ever lived in Union County de- 
served that appellation of love. She was 
wise, earnest, active and charitable; she was 
the friend, the " mother " indeed of all who 



294 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



needed aid and comfort. She sought and 
cared for the poor orphans with ceaseless 
anxiety, and it is said in her just praise that 
no human being ever appealed to her for aid 
in vain. In every relation of life she was 
conspicuous and great; a lovfng mother, a 
dear friend, an earnest, good Christian, full 
of charity and forgiveness for all. For sev- 
enteen years before death, she was blind; 
her other faculties were unimpaired. Her 
end was peace and joy. She had wanted to 
fill out the even hundred years of life, but 
the summons came only a few days before 
the full century was reached, but she was 
ready and willing to go; she had prepared 
"or it moie than fifty years before it came. 
A long life, a valuable life, a life the world 
could but illy have spared. What a sweep 
of great events and changes that one life 
witnessed. She well remembered the sur- 
render of Yorktown, and the rejoicing over 
the acknowledgment of our nation's inde- 
pendence by Great Britain, in 1783. She was 
sixteen years old when our national Consti- 
tution was adopted, and thirty -one years old 
when Napoleon ceded to the United States 
the French possessions in America. She was 
forty- two years old when Napoleon was ban- 
ished to St. Helena, and fifty-three when La- 
fayette visited America. She had seen Illi- 
nois grow from a wilderness of wild beasts 
and Indians to a great State of over three 
millions of people. She had seen those who 
saw the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth 
Rock, from the Mayflower. Blessed " Mother 
Willard!" Hail, and farewell! 

The manner of home life and labor about 
the cabins of the early settlers is to some ex- 
tent well illustrated by the following account 
of a piece of goods shown us by Judge Daniel 
Hileman. It is a cotton -linen bed spread, 
and made sixty-five years ago in this county 
by his mother and sister. "With their own 



unaided hands these good women planted the 
seed, both of the cotton and the flax, tended, 
gathered and did everything in the prepar- 
ation of the fiber in order to make it into 
cloth, and then wove and bleached it, and 
although it is now sixty-five years old, it is 
as white as driven snow and soft and strong 
of texture, and as smuoth as any goods that 
can be made by the best of modern improve- 
ments. The nimble fingers that so deftly 
spun and wove this now interesting relic 
have been still upon their pulseless bosoms 
these many years, and, we confess, in con- 
templating the piece of goods we were car- 
ried back to those ancient days when the 
humble cabins of our fathers, each and all 
presented these scenes of " the good dames, 
well content, handling the spindle and the 
flax." This relic, telling its simple story of 
the dead, is now more precious than fine 
gold; of itself it is a history of the domestic 
life of those brave and hardy people who im- 
periled their lives in the preparation of this 
smiling land of happy homes for us and ours, 
and it is hoped that when Judge Hileman's 
family can no longer keep and care for this 
precious memento it may go into the care of 
the Government, the State, or some historical 
society, or, perhaps best of all, into the care 
of Union County, and be encased in glass, 
with a carefully prepared history of it, even 
to the minutest details, where it may be kept 
as a reminder and a monitor for the genera- 
tions to come in the future centuries. 

There are not many facts now attainable 
by which we are enabled to write the history 
of the growth of those ideas that have carried 
our people forward in civilization. We can 
only guess, mostly, about those important 
events that worked strong influences upon 
the general mind. They were a people that 
made as few records for our study and in- 
spection as possible. It seems strange, that 




¥il 



" "t' "■^•'l'' 




HISTORY OF UN^ION COUNTY. 



297 



among all those early pioneers there was so 
little care for what their posterity might be 
able to learn about them. That there was 
no Herodotus to jot down the details of every 
movement of the people, and realize that the 
most trilling and tiresome details would now 
be of intense interest So far as we can now 
learn, in the three counties of Union, Alex- 
ander and Pulaski, there were only two men 
who wrote down their observations and ac- 
counts of events that passed before their 
eyes — Dr. B. W. Brooks and Col. Henry L. 
Webb. Dr. Brooks' papers and records are 
scattered, and many, doubtless, lost; and we 
almost accidentally came across his account of 
the high water of 1844, which we publish else- 
where. And we are indebted to Mrs. M. M. 
Goodman, of Jonesboro, for some invaluable 
reminiscences of Col. Henry L. Webb, which 
he had written out concerning the early set- 
tlement of what is now Pulaski County, and 
for the perusal of which we refer the reader 
to the history of that county, in another part 
of this work. 

The living but seldom realize in what light 
their humble lives may be reflected upon 
posterity. They know that they are deeply 
interested in the story of their fathers, but 
they never dream that such will also some 
day be the case of their own descendants 
about them. To their minds their fathers 
were important, great and good men, while 
they themselves and their suiToundings are 
insignificant and wholly worthless. Hence 
tbe vagueness and imperfection of any his- 
tory of the human race that can ever be wi-it- 
ten. And just here comes in the one great- 
est loss to the human race. To know the 
true history of mankind is to have nearly all 
knowledge; for, indeed, this "history is phi- 
losophy teaching by example." It is not the 
dates and days of supposed great events that 
constitute any part of history. Battles, earth- 



quakes, floods, famines, the birth of empires 
and the death of kings, are interesting events 
to know, but they are little or no part of 
true history, because real history is an ac- 
count of the human mind — how it has been 
affected, what influenced it to march forward 
in the path of civilization, or caused it to 
recede or stand still and stagnate. It is the 
doings of the mind, and not so much the acts 
of the body, that constitute history. And 
what data has the student now for the gain- 
ing of this divine knowledge ? Could such a 
book be written, it would be worth a million 
times all that ever yet came from tbe print- 
ing press. The present century has produced 
two or three minds that weie great enough 
to grasp this truth, and the work of re-writing 
the world's history has now commenced. 
And the scant marerials will some day be 
worked out and fashioned by great minds. 
If we had a complete chronology, or the full 
statistics of all the nations that have lived, 
there would soon come men who could write 
almost the true history — the tragic storv^ of 
the ebb and flux of civilization. Hence the 
loss, the irreparable loss, of all those details 
and statistics about a people that constitute, 
not their histoiy, but their chronoloo-y — the 
instruments and materials which, in the 
hands of a real historian, can be made into 
history— a text-book superseding all the 
school books, the schools, colleges and uni- 
versities in the world. True, with all the 
materials ready to hand, no mere chronicler 
could then write history, because he must be 
a philosoper, indeed, in order to trace cause 
and effect upon the general mind; not only 
such things as had strong effects, but to go 
deep enough to attach cause and effect together, 
wherein circumstances or events are to the 
ordinary mind, not only widely separated, 
but so distant as to apparently have no pos- 
sible connection. 



298 



HISTORY OF UXIOX COUNTY. 



By all this disconnected moralizing we 
only desire to impress upon the reader that 
some time it may be many years after he has 
passed away, there will come the future his 
torian, who will be prying into the circum- 
stances of his times, and even with a sharper 
interest than we are now tm-ning over, perusing 
and gathering up all the details of those who 
have preceded us, and putting it in a story 
for the pleasure and instructions of the yet 
unborn generations. Preserve old files and 
records and papers; then, and yet more, when- 
ever there is an accident, an unusual season, 
an event of any kind, even trifling circum- 
stances, go and do as Capt. Cuttle, " when 
found, make a note on't. " 

An extended account of the two railroads 
passing through TTninn County may be found 
in the chapter on railroads, in the history of 
Cairo, in another part of this volume. A fact 
illustrating how the most trifling circum- 
stances sometimes produce important results 
is given in the first operations of building 
the Illinois Central Railroad. The engineers 
had sm'veyed the line just where the road 
runs. The people of Jouesboro, that is, a 
few of them, became solicitous about the road 
not being suiweyed through Jonesboro. A 
self-appointed committee of two or three 
of the people of that ancient town waited on 
the engineer, Ashley, and had an extended 
interview with him. They explained what they 
wanted, and insisted that from the " pass " 
where the road would cross the hills north 
of this, a shorter and as good a line could be 
found via Jonesboro, as by the sui'vey made. 
Mr. Ashley finally agreed that if the town 
would pay §50 to defray the expense of a 
survey by that route, he would order one 
made. The committee reported to the 
people, but so confident were they that the 
road must touch their town, that they would 
not contribute a cent for the survey. They 



felt certain the survey as made and this offer 
of a new one, was only a weak attempt to 
get money from them for nothing. They re- 
fused to give the money, and the result is the 
town of Anna came into existence, and has 
finally outstripped the old town in the race of 
life. Had the road been built through Jones- 
boro, it is easy enough to believe that it 
would have had many more people in it to- 
day than there are now in both the towns. 
For many years, Jouesboro was the leading 
town in Southern Illinois. It has lost that 
prestige. It is possible it could not have 
kept in the van under any circumstances, but 
one thing is certain, had the road been 
built there it would have made a thrifty, 
rich and prosperous little city. This would 
have gi'eatly benefited the whole county, as 
it would have tended to bring people here of 
energy, capital and enterprise, and the farm- 
ers of the county would have kept pace to 
some extent with the prosperity of the town. 
In the end. Jonesboro lost the Central road, 
and in years after subscribed S50,000 to the 
Cairo & St. Louis Railroad, that now passes 
through the place, but as if fate was against 
it, there has sprung up several little towns 
about it that more or less divide the trade of 
the place instead of helping to build it up. 

Schools. — In another chapter we have 
spoken at some length of the early schools in 
the first settlement of the county. They were 
somewhat slow to come, and they did not 
seem to grow and floui'ish to any great extent 
when they did come. 

The law requires that school directors shall 
report the number of persons between twelve 
and twenty-one years of age who cannot read 
and write. The United States census of 18S0, 
and the school census, show a strange incon- 
sistency on this point. The former report 
the number of persons under twenty-one in 
the county at 9,878. The school census re- 



HISTORY OF rXlOX COUNTY. 



299 



ports it at 9,564. The school census reports 
the number of persons who cannot read and 
wi'ite between the ages of twelve and twenty- 
one at 130. The Government census reports 
this class of persons at 658, the last t^ives 
those between the ages of ten and twenty- 
one. This is a glaring discrepancy, and we 
have no hesitation in adopting the Govern- 
ment report as much nearer the truth. Union 
County is not any worse in this respect than 
the counties of the State generally. Not nearly 
so bad as many. For instance, Jasper re- 
ports twenty-three illiterates, and the Gov- 
ernment reports for that county 534, who can- 
not read and write. We do not believe in 
compulsory education, and yet we con- 
fess it is not a cheering sign to see a large 
per cent of illiterates. It is a misfortune for 
any people to have very many who cannot read 
and wi'ite, but it is a greater misfortune to 
the individual sufifererthan the body politic; 
but so is it a misfortune to have poor health, 
poor teeth or a bald head. It is a misfortune 
to have young men grow to maturity without 
any of those refinements and polish that make 
social life so pleasant, but you cannot legis- 
late away the clowns and roughs, though their 
presence may mar society never so much. We 
have too much law concerning the schools 
already and too little education. A compul- 
sory school law has been practiced in this 
country and in Europe for generations. It 
can hardly be said to be an experiment. If 
it corrects the evil of illiteracy, and in return 
gives us the much greater ills of a paternal 
government, where are the benefits? There 
are always a class of men who are infinitely 
more dangerous to society than are those who 
cannot read and write. These are the reform 
fanatics, who would legislate away all evils, 
and legislate into force all morals. They see 
a real or an imaginary wrong esistirg, and 
they fiy to the Legislature and call for a police- 



man to remedy the wrong. They know no 
power for good except the brute force of gov- 
ernment. The same class of men a few \ears 
ago were in power in most of the governments. 
They made the blue laws of New England, 
and talked in a heavenly, pious twang, and 
burned poor old helpless women for witches, 
and murdered hundreds of thousands of other 
people for the shocking crime of heresy. 
Power in the hands of such lunatics is indeed 
a menace to mankind. They have no more 
idea of the part and province of a o"overn- 
ment than has an enraged bull- dog of human- 
ity and justice. It is not a great while since 
these fanatics had a compulsory church at 
tendence law in Scotland, and policemen ap- 
pointed to visit the houses and see that every 
one attended. Did they have a doubt, think 
you, that they could legislate people into 
heaven ? The work of forming strong pater- 
nal governments has been going on for six 
thousand years, at least, and the supreme 
evil that has afflicted mankind in all these 
centuries has been over- legislation — too much 
law, too much interference with the people, 
too many government officials, too much of 
governments trying to do what only individ- 
uals can do for themselves. Tliat man is not fit 
for the noble duty of self-government who 
thinks government ever did or ever can legis- 
late men either into morals, religion or educa- 
tion. That man is insufferably ignorant who 
does not know that the only way to make men 
good, and to cleanse him from all evils is to 
first remove his ignorance. It is ignorance 
that has brought into this world all our woe. 
An ignorant man is a menace to a community. 
But simply to know how to read and write is 
not a proof of the absence of ignorance. If 
people had the correct ideas of schools and 
education, there would not be a child (except 
idiots) that would grow to the age of twelve 
in the land but that could read and write. It 



300 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



is no more trouble to teach any child to do 
this than it is to teach it to eat with a knife 
and fork. When people's ignorance is re- 
moved, they will no more grow children 
that cannot read and write than they will 
who cannot dress themselves, or talk, or 
play the innocent and healthy plays of chil- 
dren. A compulsory law to wash the child's 
face and comb its hair might now be neces- 
sary in say an average of one family to a 
coimty. Reading and writing are not edu- 
cating; they are simply a species of training 
and of themselves of no higher grade than 
those of ordinary acts of politeness, cleanli- 
ness or decency. An ignorant, savage peo- 
ple must have a school, if their children ever 
learn to read and wi'ite, but no civilized fam- 
ily has to have any such assistance. And 
you may mark it well, that the day is either 
now here or it is very near, when such a 
thing as people sending their children to 
school to learn to read and write will be as 
unknown as is now the custom of sending 
them out to be washed and their heads 
cleaned. The reader who feels his own con- 
victions outraged by these sentiments is most 
respectfully requested to turn back and ex- 
amine carefully over again the definition of 
the word education. What is it ? Not as the 
dictionaries will tell you e from, and duco to 
lead. You can get no idea from the defini- 
tion you will find in the dictionaries of wbat 
the real meaning of the word is. " To 
lead from ignorance " is like the old defini- 
tion of heat as the absence of cold, and cold, 
then, would be the absence of heat. You 
might study such definitions a thousand 
years and you would not have nearly so good a 
definition of heat as the child when it tells 
you " it burns." Ask any man you meet 



what education is, and the chances are ninety- 
nine in a hundred he will tell you so-and-so 
is highly educated, because he can read Latin 
and Greek, when the facts are a man may 
read all the dead and living languages of the 
world and still not be educated at all — still 
be very, very ignorant. You cannot think, 
much less talk, intelligently about education 
unless you first know the full and true mean- 
ing of the word. Education is getting knowl- 
edge, and knowledge is understanding the 
mental and physical laws. We start you on 
the way of mastering the understanding of 
the word education. You can pursue it and 
follow it out to its complete understanding if 
you so desire. 

The School Superintendent of Union Coun- 
ty, W. C. Rich, in a report to the State 
Superintendent in 18S4, says: 

" Irregularity of attendance in country 
schools — this can only be met by a compul- 
sory act. The object of the free school sys- 
tem is to give every child of school age a 
common school education, but in the absence 
of a compulsory law, the object of a free 
school system will never be accomplished." 

In Union County there are three brick 
schoolhouses, sixty frame houses and eleven 
loghouses, making a total number of school- 
houses seventy four. One new one was built 
in 1882; of these are seven graded schools. 
Number of male teachers in graded schools, 
10; females, 15. Number of male teachers in 
uncrraded schools, 52; number of females, 20; 
making the total number of teachers in the 
county 97. 

Certainly a creditable showing as to both 
the number of houses, teachers and pupils in 
a county of only a little over 18,000 popula- 
tion. 



HISTORY or UNION COUNTY, 



301 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE BENCH AND BAR — GOVERNOR REYNOLDS— EARLY COURTS — FIRST TERM AND OFFICERS- 
DANIEL P. COOK— CENSUS OF 1818— COUNTY OFFICERS TO DATE— ABNER AND ALEXANDER 
P. FIELD— WINSTED DAYIE— YOUNG AND M' ROBERTS— VISITING AND RESIDENT 
LAWYERS — GRAND JURIES PUNCHED— HUNSARER'S LETTER —WAR BE- 
TWEEN JONESBORO AND ANNA — COUNTY VOTE, ETC., ETC. 



"Ambition sighed; she found it vain to trust 
The faitliless column, and the crumbling bust." 

TN the early organization of a county, 
-*- especially away back in the history of 
Illinois to 1817, the date of the formation of 
this county, the coui'ts, and their short bi- 
ennial sessions, the judges, the judges' great. 
ness and dignity that those people readily 
conceded the judicial toga, the lawyers, as 
they traveled over the large circuits, through 
the many large and sparsely settled counties, 
were objects of much awe and admiration 
among the people. Even the Clerks of the 
Courts, the Sheriffs, the foreman of the grand 
jury, as well as other petty officers about the 
court house, who, by virtue of their official 
positions, could, on tei-m? of apparent great 
familiarity, exchange a few words with the 
Judge and the lawyers, were temporarily 
greatly enlarged and magnified, and perhaps 
envied sometimes by the common crowd. 
But soon after the organization of each 
county came the local lawyer, the permanent 
dweller at the county seat, and thus some of 
the glamour that invested the profession of 
the law passed away. Their numbers in- 
creased, and as law and politics were then 
synonymous terms, and they still more mixed 
among the people, and coaxed and wheedled 
them out of their votes, kissing the babies, 
pattfng the frowzled-headed, dirty- faced 
youths on the head, talking taffy to the vain 
old mothers, hugging, like a very brother. 



the voters, and dividing with them their 
plug tobacco, and making spread-eagle stump 
speeches everywhere and upon all occasions, 
and upon the slightest opportunities, and 
thus still more of the awe-inspiring great- 
ness of the profession passed away. Thus, in 
the long process of time, a lawyer came to be 
only a human being, and even the high Judge, 
as the boy said about the preacher, "nothing 
but a man." But the fact remains that in 
the early settlement of the State, and in the 
formation of the county municipalities, these 
legal gentlemen had very much to do in 
those initiatory steps that have shaped and 
fashioned the destiny of both the State and 
the counties that transformed this wilderness 
of wild men and wild beasts into the fourth 
commonwealth in this cluster of great and 
growing States, and from this vantage-point 
our State is entered in the race for the tliird 
place, then the second place, and then the 
great goal of first place in the galaxy of 
States. The finger-marks of these founders, 
and largely the architects of the early State 
polity that has so swiftly led to these as- 
tounding results, are to be seen everywhere, 
and the meed of praise is justly theirs for 
this beneficent foresight, patriotism and un- 
yielding integrity that have stood like beacon 
lights upon the troubled waters, when the 
storms raged and beat upon the ship of 
State. 

Amonij the earliest of the Illinois lawyers, 



302 



HISTOKY OF UNION COUNTY. 



who at one time lived in the county that then 
included what is now Uoion County, was 
John Reynolds- -the Old Ranger. The ap- 
pellation of Old Ranger was given him for 
his great services in the soldiery that fought 
the Indians. In the early days, these soldiers 
were mounted men, and often they were 
designated in their military capacity as 
rangers. 

Gov. John Reynolds was a native of Penn- 
sylvania, and came to Illinois and located in 
Kaskaskia in the year 1800. Only eighteen 
years after the first American flag had been 
unfurled over all this territory, and the land 
had become a part and parcel of the posses- 
sions of the United States, under Lieut. 
Todd, who had been commissioned by Gov. 
Patrick Henry to come here, take possession 
in the name of the United States, and put in 
force aod operation the principles of our 
present free and enlightened Government. 
Gov. Henry wrote this important document 
within hearing of the booming of the guns 
of the Revolution. The Governor appointed 
a messenger to bear the important commis- 
sion to Lieut. Todd, who was fighting the 
Indians and British somewhere in the North- 
west, and it took the bearer nearly or quite 
a year to find Todd and invest him with 
the important authority of organizing and 
establishing upon an enduring basis the 
benign government that now blesses so many 
people of the great Mississippi Valley. Thus 
it was the soldier, Lieut. Todd, who laid the 
foundations of a free government here, and 
upon this foundation has risen the grand 
superstructure we now behold, and, as before 
remarked in this work, a great deal of credit 
is due the early lawyers of Southern Illinois, 
and among the earliest and mo"3t valuable of 
these, to the then young Territory, was John 
Reynolds, whose life, after he came here, was 
spared to us sixty-five years. He was a re- 



markable man in many respects. The writer 
hereof first saw him in 1844, and to his boy- 
ish eyes the Old Ranger was the one great 
man that he ever expected to see. He was 
tall, slim, erect, with classical features, soft, 
white hair, moderate mutton-chop whiskers 
of the same color, with a wonderfully pene- 
trating, restless gray eye. It was a warm day, 
and he had his coat off, and his shirt collar 
unbuttoned, and was battling for Polk for 
President. He talked rapidly, and held the 
closest attention of the men, women and chil- 
dren present, ever and anon appealing per- 
sonally and by name to some voter in the 
audience, and always addressing him by his 
given name, and so adroitly did he manage 
this, that by the time he would finish his 
speech he had thus appealed to about every 
voter in his audience. It was told of him, 
that in aboiit every county in Southern Il- 
linois he could pass through them on an elec- 
tioneering tour, and shake hands with every 
voter he met, and call him, by his given 
name. His knowledge of men, his ready wit, 
his practical, shrewd sense, his big, warm and 
generous heart, and incorruptible integrity 
both in private and public life, were the 
som-ces of his invincible power among the 
people. When the least bit embarrassed, he 
had a singular way of rubbing his hand down 
over his face and at the same time giving his 
nose a slight pull. His speeches were some- 
what in a familiar conversational manner, 
and interjected with side remarks that were 
explanatory and often intensely amusing. In 
many respects he was admirably equipped 
for a great and successful demagogue, and 
for sixty- five years he plied his vocation to 
such an advantage that he occupied from 
time to time nearly all the exalted positions 
in the State, as well as Financial Agent of 
the State in negotiating the Internal Im- 
provement Loan of $4,000,000 to Europe. 



HISTORY OF UNIOX COUNTY. 



303 



It is not proposed here to give a detailed 
biography of the Old Ranger, for this is a 
familiar subject to all our people. His last 
years among us was the happy rounding out 
of a well-spent and valuable life. And when 
started once upon his favorite^ theme, the 
venerable old kindly face would kindle and 
flame with recollections of the pioneer times 
and people, and his talk became as intensely 
interesting as his fund of incident and anec- 
dote seemed inexhaustible, and of him and 
about him there was current among the people 
nearly an equal fund of anecdote. These 
the old Govex'nor never referred to in his 
conversations, especially that one in refer- 
ence to his sentencing, while on the circuit 
bench, a man to be hung: "Mr. Green," said 
the Judge, addressing the prisoner, " the jury 
and the law have found you guilty of murder. 
I am very sorry for you Mr. Grreen. I wish 
you would send word to your friends down on 
Flat Creek that it was the jury and the law, 
and not me, that sentenced you to be hung. 
What day would suit you best to be hung, 
Mr. Green? Well, 1 will do all I can for 
you. The law permits me to extend your life 
four weeks and I will give you all the time I 
can." Then addressing the clerk he said : 
* ' Mr. Clerk, I wish you would look at the 
almanac and see If next Friday four weeks 
comes on Sunday"? " " You see, I don't want 
to hang you on Sunday, Mr. Green." And 
thus this really sad and afflicting duty of this 
kind-hearted official was gotten through with. 
Green was duly hung, but his friends on Flat 
Creek, as Green exhorted them from the 
scaffold to do, always afterward voted for the 
Old Ranger unanimously. 

The old Governor would often in his 
speeches, especially if there were ladies 
present, tell the story about his riding along 
the road one day in the early time, and coming 



and wagon. He finally asked her opinion of 
the counti-y. "Oh; well," said the good 
dame, " it seems to be good enough for men 
and dogs, but is powerful tryin' on women 
and oxen." 

The first term of the Circuit Court convened 
in Union County was in Jonesboro, at the house 
of Jacob Hunsaker, May 11, 1818; Daniel 
P. Cook, Presiding Judge. A picture of 
this pioneer court room and the gathering of 
the people in this humble log house of jus- 
tice, in their hunting shirts, coon-skin caps, 
and generally each man with his shot-pouch 
hanging to his side, and early as it was in 
the spring, many of them barefoot, and the 
others with deer-skin moccasins; when the 
grand jury, after being charged by the court 
with the affairs of the county and the weal 
or woe of litigants or criminals, filed out in 
solemn silence in the charge of an officer of 
the com't, who conducted them a short dis- 
tance in the woods to their grand jury room, 
which consisted simply of a log lying be- 
neath the old forest trees; and then, after a 
hot trial as to whom the meat belonged to of 
a certain wild hog that one hunter had shot 
and another had captured, to see the petit 
jmy similarly file out to another log in 
another part of the woods to be "locked up," 
or rather seated on another log to deliberate 
on their verdict. We say, this in a picture 
would now look curious and very rude in- 
deed. And so it was in some respects, and 
yet when more deeply studied and under- 
stood, it would be seen that there were here 
in this log court house, with all its primitive 
surroundings, men of ability, education, 
and forensic talents, that might have adorned 
the most elevated or historical woolsacks in 
the world. 

Daniel P. Cook will take his place in the 
history of Illinois as second to no other man 



U ) \7.j1 I 



woman who was driving an ox teamin the State except Stephen A. Douglas. He 



304 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



came from Missouri to Kaskaskia a very 
young man and in very delicate health; stud- 
ied law with his uncle, Nathaniel Pope; was 
admitted to the bar, and at once took his 
position among the great lawyers of his day; 
was the Territorial Delegate in Congress, 
and framed the measure and passed it 
through Congress admitting the State into 
the Union; in 1819, was elected Attorney 
General of the State, and afterward a mem- 
ber of Congress, defeating McLean in a con- 
test extending all over Southern Illinois, and 
that was conducted by joint discussions, and, 
it is said, was never excelled for displaying 
great talents, unless it was in the campaign 
of Douglas and Lincoln in 1858. In the bill 
to admit Illinois, the committee reported the 
north boundary line of the State to run due 
west on a line parallel with the southern 
bend of Lake Michigan, and it is due to 
Judge Cook that this was changed to its 
present line, and thus the fourteen northern 
counties, including the city of Chicago, were 
taken from the Territory of Wisconsin. He 
showed Congress that the lakes of the North 
and constant navigation at the confluence of 
the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers must not be 
separated by dividing State lines — that 
Illinois must be made a Keystone State of 
the Mississippi Valley. He then foresaw 
would come the great questions between the 
North and the South that did come, and his 
wise forethought was the architect of the 
^Yest and of the Union as we now have it, 
and it is highly px'obable that his action here 
did more ultimately to preserve the integi'ity 
of the union of States in the late civil war 
than any other one thing in our history. 

Such was something of the magnificent 
record of a man who sank into his grave at 
the age of thirty-seven years, and who nearly 
all his life was an invalid and sufferer. His 
bi'ief life, his wonderful achievements, his 



lingering death from consumption upon the 
threshold of his manhood, are, indeed, "a 
strange, eventful story." His was one of 
the few lives that adorned the morning of 
the nineteenth century, and was a blessing to 
American civilization that only ignoble de- 
scendants will ever forget or cease to cherish. 

At this, the first term of the court, the 
Sheriff returned the following grand jury: 
James Westbrook, George Woo If, John Riton, 
John Weigle, John Mcintosh, Michael Lin- 
burg, Thomas Sams, Joel Boggis, Alexander 
Beggs, Benjamin McCravens, James Murphy, 
John Whitaker, Nicholas Wilson, Samuel 
Spi-ood, Rice Sams, David Mclntuff, Benja- 
min Worthenton, Adam Clapp, Richard Mc- 
Bride, George Godwin, Hemy Lamer, John 
Crise, David Penrod, and Owen Evans. John 
Whitaker was appointed foreman. 

James Evans, Esq., on exhibiting license 
from the Superior Court, was admitted as an 
attorney at law. 

This was then known as the Western Dis- 
trict of the Territory of Illinois. 

The first day's proceedings were a contin- 
uance of the case of Daniel Ritter vs. Joseph 
Taylor, action on the case. Letters of ad- 
ministration were granted John Bradshaw, 
on the estate of Charles Murphy. The case 
of Joseph Taylor vs. Thomas Giles, con- 
tinued. A judgement taken upon confession 
against John Stokes, one of the defendants, 
for $1.10. 

The grand jury returned into court an in- 
dictment against John C. Thomas, felony. 
The court disposed of case of " Milly, a black 
woman," on habeas corpus, was dismissed. 

On the second day, the case of John C. 
Thomas, continued for the term. The next 
criminal case was the indictment against 
Samuel G. Penrod for retailing liquors 

The seccmd term of the court was held by 
Judge John Warnock. 



HISTORY OF TmiON COUNTY. 



305 



Johnson Renny was, at the September term, 
May, 1818, admitted to practice law. At this 
term of the court, William Russell is ad- 
mitted as an attorney. Mr. E. K. Kane also 
appeared as an attorney. At this term, John 
Reynolds, the " Old Ranger," appeared as an 
attorney. 

At a term court, May 13, Richard M. 
Young produced license and was admitted 
as an attorney. On Tuesday, September 
14, 1819, David T. Maddox was ad- 
mitted as an attorney. At this term of 
the court, Daniel T. Coleman prosecuted his 
suit for divorce against his wife, Judah. A 
jury was called and the divorce granted. 

At April term, on April 10, 1820, Charles 
Dunn produced in court a license to practice 
law and was duly enrolled. Thomas Rey- 
nolds was acting as Circuit Attorney. 

April term, 1821, Thomas C. Browne was 
the Presiding Judge. David J. Baker appears 
as an active and practicing attorney at this 
term. 

In another chapter, we have given the order 
of the organization of the County Commis- 
sioners' Court, the platting of the town of 
Jonesboro, and the election and appointment 
of the county officers, and the commenee- 
inent of the work of putting into operation 
the county machinery, which constituted the 
coxmty's government. When the little county 
ship of State was duly launched, it was in 
power over the. large territory that now em- 
braces Union, Alexander and Pulaski Coun- 
ties, and contained a population in 1818 of 
2,482 souls, and was in the number of its in- 
habitants the fifth county in the State. The 
counties outnumbering it were Gallatin, with 
3,256 people; Madison, 5,456; Randolph, 
2,939; and St. Clair, 4,519. The total pop- 
ulation of Illinois at that time was 40,156. 

Joseph Palmer, as stated, was the first 
Sheriff of the county, and he and the Com- 



missioners' Court, upon a settlement, could 
not agree, and the court i!laimed he was $260 
behind in his payments of money collected, 
and they entered judgments for that amount, 
and also assessed the State penalty, which 
was that such delinquents were to pay twelve 
per cent per month from the rendering of 
Buch judgments until the judgment should be 
paid. The case was in litigation some time, 
and finally compromised by the court allow- 
ing a part of Palmer's set-offs, and his pay- 
ing the remainder. In 1821, George Hun- 
saker was the Sheriff of the county. Abner 
Field was acting as County and Circuit Clerk, 
and his entire salary for performing the 
duties of the two offices for one year was $60. 
He resigned. 

Winstead Davie, at the April term, 
1822, of the Circuit Court, was ap- 
pointed Clerk, by Judge Browne, Presiding 
Judge. And at the March term, 1823, there 
appears upon the records the following : 
" Winstead Davie having been before ap- 
pointed Clerk, in the place of Abner Field, 
resigned, he presented his bond as Clerk of 
the Circuit and County Court, Recorder and 
Notary Public." The bond was approved. 
There is no man whose history is more 
closely interwoven with the early accounts of 
the county, or whose history is more interest- 
ing and instructive, than that of Winstead 
Davie. A complete story of his life would 
read like a well-constructed romance. Born 
with physical infirmities' that rendered him 
a cripple for life — requiring the constant use 
of two crutches — he commenced in poverty 
the struggle for existence, and worked out a 
career that points him out as • the child of 
destiny. He was the crippled, helpless in- 
valid child of poor parents, with a large 
family of children. It is told of him, that 
in hie youth he overheard his parents talking 
and lamenting over his affliction and his 



306 



HISTOEY OF UNION COUNTY 



gloomy outlook for the future. They agreed 
he would be a burden upon them as long as 
he or they lived ; that they would tenderly 
care for him as long as they lived, then in- 
voke the protecting mercies of heaven, and 
resign him to this not very charitable world. 
The hearing of this conversation was the 
turning point in the youth's life. Every 
word had sunk deeply in his heart, and, 
young and crippled as he was, he looked 
fortune in the face, and resolved that he 
would go out into the world and tight his own 
battles of life. He commenced to educate 
himself, and in a yeai' or two concluded he 
was prepared to teach school. It is told of 
him that the first house he visited for the 
pui-pose of making up his school, the family 
saw the poor cripple hobbling toward their 
door, and, supposing he was a beggar, 
slammed the door in his face, and he was 
compelled to turn away. But he persevered, 
and became a school teacher. In 1817, he 
came to Illinois, and among those rough peo- 
ple commenced a school a short distance be- 
low Jonesboro. Afterward he was put in 
possession of a small stock of goods in Jones- 
boro, to sell on commission. For many years 
he was Recorder, .County and Circuit Clerk, 
and Probate Judge, and he was eventually 
able to purchase the stock of goods that he 
had been managing on commission. So in- 
timately had his life become interwoven with 
the courts of the county, that when it came 
to adopt the design for the county seal, 
it appropriately was formed representing 
Davie sitting at a desk writing, showing 'his 
crooked and crippled lower limbs, and crossed 
and forming an arch above the desk were his 
two crutches. It is now to be regi*etted that 
this design was ever changed and a new seal 
adopted, as was done, and an account of 
which appears in the preceding chapter. 
When Mr. Davie had purchased the little 



store, he then commenced his true career, and 
he extended, enlarged and pushed the busi- 
ness, successfully fighting his way against 
Willis Willard, his brother-in-law, or any 
and all competition that could come against 
him, and he retired from ofl&ce and gave his 
entire attention to his business, which soon 
grew to vast proportions. He possessed an 
energy, clear, strong judgment and a fore- 
sight in all business affairs that were never 
at fault. His physical defects were more 
than compensated for in his active and pow- 
erful intellect, and he amassed great wealth, 
and at one time had more employes and de- 
pendents than any other man in the county. 
His master mind guided and controlled and 
managed much of the business affairs of the 
county, and hej-e he was even more valuable 
to the growing young community than he had 
been as an officer and executive in the official 
matters of the county. His charity was ex- 
pansive and just, and while he ruled with 
firm decision and strong emphasis, he scrupu- 
lously rewarded merit and never overlooked, 
even in his humblest dependents, true worth. 
Nature had so equipped him for life that the 
very misfortunes that environed him were 
converted into stimulants to urge him forward 
to the accomplishment of great enterprises, 
where others under the same circumstances 
would have despaired and turned their faces 
to the poor house. 

He married Anna Milliard and it is whis- 
pered that at this important period of his life 
he met the same troubles that attended his 
first effort to secure a school. The same old 
objection was made, that he was a cripple and 
poor, and here again came back and was re- 
newed the great resolve of his boyhood, that 
he would have a fortune that should equal or 
sm-pass that of those who urged these objec- 
tions against him, and he did. 

Like the generality of cripples, he was 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



30'; 



very sensitive on the subject, and never al- 
luded to it. When it was spoken of by others 
in his presence, he would change the subject, 
and any attempt to force sympathy upon him 
was sternly rejected. On one occasion, after 
he had sold a customer a large bill of goods, 
and all was satisfactorily settled, the custom- 
er commenced the usual story of his sorrow 
and sympathy for Davie's misfortunes. Da- 
vie made several efiforts to turn the subject, 
and when his patience was exhausted he gave 
the man a most meaning look and answered, 
' ' Yes, yes, but after all it is better to be crip- 
pled in the legs than in the head." 

Some years ago, Mr. Davie divided the bulk 
of his large property among his children and 
retired from business life. His great mind 
had burned out its strength and brightness, 
and a recluse and an invalid he day by day 
and now almost hour by houi' calmly awaits 
that summons from the high court of God 
that will come to us all. 

Richard M. Young was among the earliest 
lawyers in Union County. He was appointed 
pro tern. Circuit Attorney at the March term 
of the Circuit Court in 1823. Judge Young 
was a bright young man, and had the gift of 
fine colloquial powers, and in his intercourse 
with men was smooth and urbane, and al- 
together an address well calculated to im- 
press all he met as a man of excellence and 
worth, in which lay the secret of his success, 
rather than in the force, vigor and compass 
of intellect. His talents were respectable, 
and above mediocrity. He was a Kentuckian, 
of spare build, rather tall, educated, and a 
lawyer by profession. In 1824, he was 
elected by the Legislatui'e one of live Circuit 
Judges, and assigned to the Second Circuit. 
He was elected to succeed Gen. W. L. D. 
Ewing in the United States Senate, and 
served out a full term, from March 4, 1837, 
to March 4, 1843. Samuel McRoberts was 



his principal opponent ; Ai'chie Williams 
and Gen. Ewing also received some votes, 
the former twenty-one and the latter thirteen. 
In 1839, Judge Young was appointed by Gov. 
Carlin one of the State agents, in connection 
with Gov. Reynolds, to negotiate the §4,000,- 
000 canal loan, for which purpose they re- 
paired to Europe, and their advances of $1,- 
000,000 in Illinois bonds to the house of 
Wright & Co., of London, proved a heavy loss 
to the State. Yet, under party opei-ations, be- 
fore his Senatorial term expired, he was made, 
February 3, 1842, a Supreme Judge, a posi- 
tion which he held until 1847. He died in 
Washington in an insane asylum. 

Alexander and Abner Field were here at 
the very commencement of the county's ex- 
istence. They were men of strong charac- 
ters, and Alexander Field's long life career 
clearly points out that he was no ordinary 
man. He took from the very first of his en- 
try into the bar a commanding position. 
A good lawyer, sound reasoner and a brilliant 
orator, either at the bar or on the stump. 
He won his way to a large law practice, and 
from county otlHces was appointed Secretary 
of State December 31, 1828, and with a con- 
stant war upon him of rival candidates for 
that office, he held it until November 30, 
1840. When he became Secretary of State, 
he changed his residence to Vandalia and 
Springfield, and for years he was one of the 
" circuit riders " of the Illinois bench and 
bar, and continued to add to his already ex- 
tended reputation as one of the celebrated 
lawyers of that time that was noted for its 
remarkable men. He seems to have been of 
a roving, restless disposition. He removed 
his home to St. Louis, and for some yeai's 
was among the foremost lawyers of that city. 
Then he went to New Orleans, and there 
made his home until his death, a few years 
ago, at an advanced age* 



310 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



2>ro tern., Prosecuting Attorney. May, 1842, 
John A. McClernand appeared among the 
attorneys. In 1842, Thomas Hodges was 
Sheriff, S. S. Condon, Clerk, and H. F. 
Walker, Coroner. W. A. Denning was Pros- 
ecuting Attorney in 1845. 

In 1844, Daniel Hileman was Probate 
Judge of the county. At September term, 
1847, AV. A. Denning was the presiding 
Judge; John Grear was County Coroner. In 
1849. Thomas Hileman became Clerk of the 
Circuit Court. Master in Chancery, and Pro- 
bate Judge. The last two offices he has held 
ever since, and when he fills out his present 
term of office, will have held the positions 
thirty-six years — an average life-time. May, 
1851, Alexander J. Nimmo was Sheriff, W. 
K. Parish, State's Attorney, and John C. 
Albright, Coroner. May, 1852, James W. 
Bailey was County Clerk. In 1853, Syrean 
Davis was Sheriff, John A. Logan, Prosecut- 
ing Attorney, W. K. Parish, Judge, A. J. 
Nimmo, Sheriff. 1858, M. C. Crawford was 
State's Attorney. 1859, Thomas J. Finley, 
County Clerk, A. M. Jenkins, Judge, Nimmo, 
Sheriff, Hileman, Clerk, and A. P. Corder, 
Prosecuting Attorney. 1861, Lorenzo P. 
Wilcox, Sheriff. At the May term, 1863, 
Thomas J. Finley, Sheriff, and at the Octo- 
ber term of the same year, William C. Rich 
was the Sheriff. 1864, John H. Mulkey, 
Judge, W. C. Rich, Sheriff, M. C. Crawford, 
Attorney, and Hileman, Clerk. At May term, 
1865, George W. Wall was Prosecuting At- 
torney, and A. J. Nimmo. Clerk. 1866, W. 
H. Green, Presiding Judge. October term, 
1867, M. C. Crawford, Judge, Joseph McEl- 
hany. Sheriff. 1869, W. C. Rich, Sheriff. 
1871, Jacob Hileman, Sheriff, Jackson Frick. 
Prosecuting Attorney, and A. Polk Jones, 
Clerk. Jones died about one month after 
entering upon the duties of his office for the 
third term. The Court appointed Henry P. 



Cozby Clerk pro tern., who continued to fill 
the place until the election of the present 
incumbent, Ed. M. Barnwell. In 1878, there 
were elected for this judicial district Judges 
Daniel M. Browning, Oliver A. Harker. and 
David J. Baker. 

Among the attorneys resident of the coun- 
ty, we have given an extended account of the 
earliest who were here, including Gov. 
Dougherty. Succeeding these were M. C. 
Crawford, John E. Nail, James H. Smith, 
David L. Phillipps, W. A. Hacker, W. L. 
Doughert_y, Wesley Davidson, Semple G. 
Parks, who is now Judge of the County Court 
of Perry County. 

W. A. Hacker was a native of this county^ 
and was educated at West Point. He re- 
moved to Alexander County, and died there 
a few years later. 

W. L. Dougherty was a son of Gov. 
Dougherty, and was considered one of the 
promising young attorneys of the county. 
Wesley Davidson was a school-mate of the 
writer of these lines at McKeadrea College. 
He was a good, average bright student, but 
was impulsive and inclined to be erratic. He 
was di'owned a few years ago. 

John E. Nail was a common law and chan- 
cery practitioner of good abilities. Read 
law with J. H. Smith, of Chicago. Located 
in Union County, and commenced the prac- 
tice of his profession. Married Sarah J. 
Dishon. 

Alexander N. Dougherty studied law in 
his father's (Gov. Dougherty's) office. Was 
admitted to the bar in 1863, and died in 
Jonesboro in 1878. 

W. A. Spann was a native of Union Coun- 
ty, now of Johnson County. He has been 
twice in the Legislature from his district 

W. S. Day is a native of Tennessee. He 
came to Union County when very young, 
studied law with Judge Crawford, and has 



HISTORY OF UXIOX COUNTY. 



311 



already reached a prominent position at the 
bar. 

Eobert W. Townes, a native of Illinois, 
was admitted to the bar in 1861, and imme- 
diately went to the war as Orderly Sergeant 
in Company C, Eighteenth Illiaois Volun- 
teers. He was soon transferred to the Thir- 
ty-first Regiment and made Adjutant thereof, 
acting as Acting Adjutant General to Gen. 
Logan in the Fort Donelson battle. He 
was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. When 
he returned from the war, he located in 
Duquoin, and engaged in the active practice 
of his profession. He was elected Prosecut- 
irg Attorney for the Third Judicial District, 
and served the term with ability and great 
fidelity. He was at one time Secretary of 
the Illinois State Senate. 

David L. Brooks, a son of Di-. B. W. 
Brooks, was a member of the Union County 
bar as far back as 1852. He was a very 
bright young lawyer. He died in 1845. 

Jackson Frick, son of Caleb Frick, was 
born in Jonesborn in 1849. He graduated 
at Yale College, and was universally consid- 
ered a most promising and brilliant young 
man. He studied law with Judge Crawford. 
He died on the very threshold of his young 
life in 1877. 

Mathew J. Inscore, a native of Robinson 
County, Tenn. Was admitted about 1860, 
and has commanded a large practice. 

Thomas H. Phillipps, a native of St. Clair 
County, 111. His biography will be found in 
another column. 

William C. Moreland, born in Tennessee, 
studied law with Col. Bob Townes, and was 
admitted in 1877. 

Hon. Sidney Greer is a native of Union 
County, studied law with Gov. Dougherty; 
was licensed as attorney in 1879, and is now 
serving a term in the Legislature as a Repre- 
sentative. 



David W. Karraker, the present County At- 
torney, is a native of Union County, read law 
with Gov. Dougherty, and was admitted to 
the bar in 1879. 

W. C. Rich was admitted in 1880 to the 
practice of the law. He has served the peo- 
ple as County Treasurer and also as County 
Superintendent of Schools. 

Hugh Andrews, one of the present practic- 
ing attorneys of the county. His biography 
will be found in another part of this work. 

Jesse Ware is a native of Ohio, and was 
licensed as a lawyer in 1857. He came to the 
State in 1855, and studied law with Judge 
Reeves, of Bloomington, 111. He has served 
two terms in the State Senate, commencing 
in 1872 and retiring in 1880. 

W. B. Maxey came to the county when 
three years old, and has lived in Union Coun- 
ty. He studied law with W. S. Day and was 
admitted to the practice in 3882. 

H. F. Bussey, a native of St. Louis, came 
to Anna in 1877. He is thirty-one years old; 
studied law with M. J. Inscore, and was ad- 
mitted in 1881. 

Judson Phillipps is a native Illinoisian, 
only recently admitted to the bar, and has 
opened an ofiice in Anna. 

Townsend W. Foster, of Cobden, was ad- 
mitted in 1881. 

This includes the prominent facts of the 
bench and bar of Union County. The rem- 
iniscences and anecdotes and remarkable cir- 
cumstances of the earliest day of the legal 
life of the county are now mostly forgotten, 
and are buried with those who were here and 
were actors, but have now passed away. Pre- 
vious to the organization of Union Couijty, 
there was here a community which grew to 
more than two thousand people, and were 
literally without " law or gospel "—without 
schools, churches or officers of the law. Their 
courts and police and marshals were only 



310 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



pro tern., Prosecuting Attorney. May, 1842, 
John A. McClernand appeared among the 
attorneys. In 1842, Thomas Hodges was 
Sheriff, S. S. Condon, Clerk, and H. F. 
Walker, Coroner. W. A. Denning was Pros- 
ecuting Attorney in 1845. 

In 1844, Daniel Hileman was Probate 
Judge of the county. At September term, 
1847, W. A. Denning was the presiding 
Judge; John Grear was County Coroner. In 
1849, Thomas Hileman became Clerk of the 
Circuit Court, Master in Chancery, and Pro- 
bate Judge. The last two offices he has held 
ever since, and when he fills out his present 
term of office, will have held the positions 
thirty-six years — an average life-time. May, 
1851, Alexander J. Nimmo was Sheriff, W. 
K. Parish, State's Attorney, and John C. 
Albright, Coroner. May, 1852, James W. 
Bailey was County Clerk. In 1853, Syrean 
Davis was Sheriff, John A. Logan, Prosecut- 
ing Attorney, W. K. Parish, Judge, A. J. 
Nimmo, Sheriff. 1858, M. C. Crawford was 
State's Attorney. 1859, Thomas J. Finley, 
County Clerk, A. M. Jenkins, Judge, Nimmo, 
Sheriff, Hileman, Clerk, and A. P. Corder, 
Prosecuting Attorney. 1861, Lorenzo P. 
Wilcox, Sheriff. At the May term, 1863, 
Thomas J. Finley, Sheriff, and at the Octo- 
ber term of the same year, William C. Rich 
was the Sheriff. 1864, John H. Mulkey, 
Judge, W. C. Rich, Sheriff, M. C. Crawford, 
Attorney, and Hileman, Clerk. At May term, 
1865, Georgce W. Wall was Prosecuting At- 
torney, and A. J. Nimmo, Clerk. 1866, W. 
H. Gi'een, Presiding Judge. October term, 
1867, M. C. Crawford, Judge, Joseph McEl- 
hany. Sheriff. 1869, W. C. Rich, Sheriff. 
1871, Jacob Hileman, Sheriff, Jackson Frick, 
Prosecuting Attorney, and A. Polk Jones, 
Clerk. Jones died about one month after 
entering upon the duties of his office for the 
third term. The Court appointed Henry P. 



Cozby Clerk pro tern., who continued to fill 
the place until the election of the present 
incumbent, Ed. M. Barnwell. In 1878, there 
were elected for this judicial district Judges 
Daniel M. Browning, Oliver A. Harker, and 
David J. Baker. 

Among the attorneys resident of the coun- 
ty, we have given an extended account of the 
earliest who were here, including Gov. 
Dougherty. Succeeding these were M. C. 
Crawford, John E. Nail, James H. Smith, 
David L. Phillipps, W. A. Hacker, W. L. 
Dougherty, Wesley Davidson, Semple G. 
Parks, who is now Judge of the County Court 
of Perry County. 

W. A. Hacker was a native of this county, 
and was educated at West Point. He re- 
moved to Alexander County, and died there 
a few years later. 

W. L. Dougherty was a son of Gov. 
Dougherty, and was considered one of the 
promising young attorneys of the county. 
Wesley Davidson was a school-mate of the 
writer of these lines at McKeadrea College. 
He was a good, average bright student, but 
was impulsive and inclined to be erratic. He 
was drowned a few years ago. 

John E. Nail was a common law and chan- 
cery practitioner of good abilities. Read 
law with J. H. Smith, of Chicago. Located 
in Union County, and commenced the prac- 
tice of his profession. Married Sarah J. 
Dishon. 

Alexander N. Dougherty studied law in 
his father's (Gov. Dougherty's) office. Was 
admitted to the bar in 1863, and died in 
Jonesboro in 1878. 

W. A. Spann was a native of Union Coun- 
ty, now of Johnson County. He has been 
twice in the Legislature from his district, 

W. S. Day is a native of Tennessee. He 
came to Union County when very young, 
studied law with Judge Crawford, and has 



HISTORY OF U:n^ION COUNTY. 



311 



already reached a prominent position at the 
bar. 

Robert W. Townes, a native of Illinois, 
was admitted to the bar in 1861, and imme- 
diately went to the war as Orderly Sergeant 
in Company C, Eighteenth Illiaois Volun- 
teers. He was soon transferred to the Thir- 
ty-first Regiment and made Adjutant thereof, 
acting as Acting Adjutant General to Gen. 
Logan in the Fort Donelson battle. He 
was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. When 
he returned from the war, he located in 
Duquoin, and engaged in the active practice 
of his profession. He was elected Prosecut- 
irg Attorney for the Third Judicial District, 
and served the term with ability and great 
fidelity. He was at one time Secretary of 
the Illinois State Senate. 

David L. Brooks, a son of Dr. B. W. 
Brooks, was a member of the Union County 
bar as far back as 1852. He was a very 
bright young lawyer. He died in 1845. 

Jackson Frick, son of Caleb Frick, was 
born in Jonesboro in 1849. He graduated 
at Yale College, and was universally consid- 
ered a most promising and brilliant young 
man. He studied law with Judge Crawford. 
He died on the very threshold of his young 
life in 1877. 

Mathew J. Inscore, a native of Robinson 
County, Tenn. Was admitted about 1860, 
and has commanded a large practice. 

Thomas H. Phillipps, a native of St. Clair 
County, 111. His biography will be found in 
another column. 

William C. Moreland, born in Tennessee, 
studied law with Col. Bob Townes, and was 
admitted in 1877. 

Hon. Sidney Greer is a native of Union 
County, studied law with Gov. Dougherty, 
was licensed as attorney in 1879, and is now 
serving a term in the Legislature as a Repre- 
sentative. 



David W. Karraker, the present County At- 
torney, is a native of Union County, read law 
with Gov. Dougherty, and was admitted to 
the bar in 1879. 

W. C. Rich was admitted in 1880 to the 
practice of the law. He has served the peo- 
ple as County Treasurer and also us County 
Superintendent of Schools. 

Hugh Andrews, one of the present practic- 
ing attorneys of the county. His biography 
will be found in another part of this work. 

Jesse Ware is a native of Ohio, and was 
licensed as a lawyer in 1857. He came to the 
State in 1855, and studied law with Judge 
Reeves, of Bloomington, 111. He has served 
two terms in the State Senate, commencing 
in 1872 and retiring in 1880. 

W. B. Maxey came to the county when 
three years old, and has lived in Union Coun- 
ty. He studied law with W. S. Day and was 
admitted to the practice in 1882. 

H. F. Bussey, a native of St. Louis, came 
to Anna in 1877. He is thirty-one years old; 
studied law with M. J. Inscore, and was ad- 
mitted in 1881. 

Judson Phillipps is a native Illinoisian, 
only recently admitted to the bar, and has 
opened an office in Anna. 

Townsend W. Foster, of Cobden, was ad- 
mitted in 1881. 

This includes the prominent facts of the 
bench and bar of Union County. The rem- 
iniscences and anecdotes and remarkable cir- 
cumstances of the earliest day of the legal 
life of the county are now mostly forgotten, 
and are buried with those who were here and 
were actors, but have now passed away. Pre- 
vious to the organization of Union Couijty, 
there was here a community which grew to 
more than two thousand people, and were 
literally without "law or gospel "—without, 
schools, churches nr officers of the law. Their 
courts and police and marshals were only 



312 



HISTOKY OF UNION COUNTY 



public opinion, and a few simple modes of 
punishing bad men that were mild, swift, 
certain and effective. All crimes above a cer- 
tain grade, such as are now here grand and 
petit larceny, were punished by banishment, 
and others by whipping, and still others by 
the contempt and manifest loathing toward 
the guilty by the entire community. 

The establishing of the new order of things 
came strangely to these people. We believe 
it was Gov. Eeynolds who tells of an early 
court. The grand jury found a true bill 
against a man for hog stealing. The jury 
had not the assistance of trained lawyers to 
write their indictments, and they had no idea 
how to word it. They searched among the 
records and law books, and finally found an 
indictment for murder. They copied this, 
merely substituting the thief's name for that 
of the murderer, where it occurred in the in- 
strument, and depended on an "aside remark" 
to the court to explain that that particular 
case was hog murder and not human slaugh- 
ter. And upon this indictment the man was 
tried, convicted, whipped and ordered out of 
the country, with as much justice, accuracy, 
and with as certain bringing out of the truth 
in the case as was ever done in a court where 
the most learned and noted lawyer had 
drawn all the miserable verbiage and idiotic 
iteration and reiteration that would make 
a perfect indictment, It is an old story that 
necessity is the mother of invention. In 
this necessity of this jury was made a true 
discovery, but it was allowed to sleep and be 
forgotten. Its memory passed away and left 
no impression. The reader can see for him- 
self the moral force of the incident. It dem- 
onstrated that the idea of the old common 
law indictment and its technicalities, and 
quibs, and quibbles are mere nonsense, and 
that their day of usefulness has passed away 
centuries ago. The vast intricacies, machin- 



ery, subtleties, formalities, red tape and child- 
ish puerilities of our ignorant ancestors of 
the dark ages — the dreary ages of feudalism 
and slavery — are brought down to afflict and 
curse the people, and the courts, legislators 
and lawyers cling to these barbarisms with a 
tenacity that makes our highest courts and 
most learned law-makers the objects of the 
sneers and contempt of all men of sense. The 
result is that the law that should only protect 
and guard the people's rights and liberties 
is a vast machinery of oppression, outrage 
and wrong. The courts are largely the refuge 
of scoundrels, and the dread and horror of 
good men. Can any man tell why we retain 
the grand jury — a secret star chamber — that 
is a menace to the rights and privileges of 
every good man in community ; with its pre- 
miums and rewards to every sneak, coward 
and scoundrel in the world to go and stab his 
neighbor in the dark and assassinate his fair 
name, and make the people foot the bills of 
his diabolical acts. This clinging to old bar- 
barisms and abominations for centuries are 
an index, that cannot be mistaken, that the 
majority of men are mere creatures of custom 
and habits, and are no more given to look at 
things and reflect about them than is a nest 
of blind mice. 

1818 — The convention to adopt the State 
Constitution assembled at Kaskaskia in July. 
Adjourned August 26, of same year. There 
were thirty-three delegates. The Constitu- 
tion was adopted without being submitted to 
the people. Approved by Congress Decem- 
ber 3, 1818. The members from Union 
County were William Echols and John Whit- 
aker. 

In the State Legislature of the same year 
Thomas Cox was Senator, and Jesse Echols, 
Representative. 

1820— Edmund B. W. Jones, Senator, and 
Samuel Omelveny, Representative. 







'x^^^aJ 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



315 



1822 — John Grammer, Senator; Alexander 
P. Field, Representative. 

1824 — Alexander P. Field, of Union, was 
a Presidential Elector. In 1828 Richard M. 
Young was an elector, and in 1852 Edward 
Omelveny. 

Assembly, 1824-26 — John Grammer was 
Senator for Union and Alexander ; John S. 
Hacker and John Whitaker, Representatives. 

Assembly, 1826-28 — George Hunsaker, Sen- 
ator, and Alexander P. Field, Representative. 

1830-32 — John Grammer, Senator, from 
Union, Johnson and Alexander Counties, and 
Joseph L. Priestly, Representative from 
Union. 

1832-34 — John Dougherty, Representative 
from Union. 

1834-36 — John S. Hacker, Senator, Brazil 
B. Craig, Representative. 

1836-38 — John Dougherty, Representa- 
tive, 

1838-40 — John S. Hacker, Senator, and 
Jacob Zimmerman, Representative. 

1840-42 — John Dougherty Representative. 

1842-44 — John Dougherty, Senator, and 
John Cochran, Representative. 

1846-48 — John Dougherty, Senator, Mat- 
thew Stokes, Representative. 

1848-50 — John Cochran, Representative. 

1850-52 — Cyrus G. Siramonds, Repre- 
sentative. 

1852-54 — John Cochran, Representative. 

1856-58 — John Dougherty, Representative. 

1858-60 — W. A. Hacker, Representative. 

1862-64 — James H. Smith, Representative. 

1864-66— W. H. Green, Senator, H. W. 
Webb, Representative. 

1868-70 — John Dougherty, President of 
the Senate; Lieutenant Governor. 

1872-74— Jesse Ware, Senator, M. J. 
Inscore, Representative. 

1880 — Sidney Grear, Representative. 

In the Constitutional Convention of 1847, 



Samuel Hunsaker represented Union County. 
In the Convention of 1862, W. A. Hacker 
represented Alexander, Union and Pulaski 
Counties. In the Convention of 1870, W. 
J. Allen represented the same counties. 

The following letter will be read with 
universal interest, and is an admirable illus- 
tration of the ideas of a government as 
entertained by our fathers. It is from the 
Hon. Samuel Hunsaker, and was written 
while in attendance at Springfield upon the 
Constitutional Convention of 1847, and is ad- 
dressed to Judge T. Hileman. 

Springfield. 111., July 17, 1847. 

Dear Sir: I received your kind letter of the 10th 
Inst, on yesterday, and will proceed to give you all 
that I have of interest, though it is but little. We 
are moving along but slowly in framing a constitu- 
tion for the people. I am entirely disappointed in 
my calculations, knowing as I did that I had but 
one motive in coming to this convention, and that 
was, to do the will of the people in making such 
changes as would be conducive to their interests and 
promote their future welfare. I reasonably con- 
cluded that at least a majority of the members 
would feel a like disposition, but, sad and strange to 
tell, it appears entirely different, for whenever any- 
thing is brought up that looks like retrenchment it 
is jumped on by lawyers and doctors and young 
politicians and strangled instantly. We have gone 
through the executive and legislative reports in 
committee of the whole, made some changes, but if 
we can get them through the convention as they 
are, I think they will do some good, though they 
are not according to my mind. The Governor is to 
be elected once in four years, salary, $1,250, appoint 
his own Secretary, with a salary of $800; the num- 
ber of members in the Legislature, seventy-five in the 
House and twenty-five in the Senate, with |2 per day 
for the first forty-two days, and $1 per day after that ; 
10 cents per mile for travel; elections to be on the 
first Monday in November, which we of the south are 
entirely opposed to, and will use every exertion to 
have changed. The report of the Committee on 
the Judiciary will come up on Monday, which I 
presume will occupy at least a week ; it is very ob- 
jectionable, I think, in some of its features; it 
creates three Supreme Judges and twelve Circuit 
Judges, the Supreme Judges to receive $1,200 and 
Circuit Judges $1,000 per annum. I suppose the 



316 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



salary would not be much too high, but their num- 
ber is too great; it also provides that one term of the 
Supreme Court shall be held yearly in each Judicial 
Circuit, the Judges, Clerks and all, to be elected by 
the people. I have no idea now that we shall get 
away from here before September, and when I look 
forward and see the amount of business before us, 
and look back on what we have done, it appears as 
though we would not get through in twelve months, 
but I still hope for the better. I still think they 
will get tired after awhile, and become willing to do 
things up and go home. I think that I shall never 
have any desire to be in such a body again, but I 
will try to perform my duty faithfully, to the best 
of my abilities this time. I am enjoying reasonable 
good health. I have lost no time from the House. 
Give my respects to all, and accept for yourself my 
true friendship. (Signed) Samuel Hunsaker. 

A letter from Jonesboro, published in tlie 
Cairo Bulletin, of December 9, 1870, tells of 
an episode that throws much light on the 
loQg-drawn struggle of rivalry between the 
towns of Jonesboro and Anna. The letter, 
among other things, says : " Yesterday was 
a day of intense excitement in Jonesboro and 
Anna. It is known that a spirit of opposi- 
tion and rivalry exists between the two places. 
Two years ago an effort was made in our 
State Legislature to submit the question of 
the removal of the county seat from Jones- 
boro to Anna to a vote of the people of 
Union County. This effort failed through 
the schemes, etc., of certain parties. The 
County Court, at a recent session, ordered 
Mr. Keonig, County Surveyor, to prepare 
plans and specifications for building a new 
jail. The people of Anna, etc., were opposed 
to building a jail until the location of the 
county seat had been decided by the people 
at the ballot box, and prepared a petition, 
very numerously signed, to be presented to 
the County Court. Yesterday was the day 
appointed to receive the report of Mr. Keo- 
nig; whereupon Charles M. Willard, Esquire 
Bohanan and Mr. Lence came over from 
Anna, appeared before the court and asked 



permission to present their petition. Per- 
mission was granted, and Mr. Willard read 
it. Soon as he concluded the reading, the 
County Judge fined Messrs. Willard, Bo- 
hanan and Lence $50 each, and ordered them 
to remain in the custody of the Sheriff until 
the tines were paid, for contempt of court. 
The Deputy Sheriff immediately marched 
them to the jail. Upon arrival at the gloomy, 
desolatn and filthy old stone hut, Mr. Wil- 
lard, on account of ill health, concluded not 
to pass its iron grates, and paid his fine. 
Bohanan and Lence, on the contrary, marched 
into the felon's cell with a firm step and a 
determination to await their fate. When 
Mr. Willard returned to Anna and gave an 
account of the affair, the excitement beggared 
description. ' Let us go over and tear down 
the jail and liberate Bohanan and Lence,' 
said one. 'Oh, what an ouirage,' said an- 
other. ' Did not our fathers fight the Revo- 
lution for the right of petition?' was fre- 
quently asked. Attorneys left immediately 
for Cairo with a petition to Judge Baker for 
a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of the pris- 
oners." 

Of course these martyrs in the " old stone 
bastile " wei-e in the end liberated — the ex- 
cited people of Anna slept off their anger 
and " grim-visaged war smoothed his wrink- 
led front," but the rivalry and opposition of 
the two towns have kept their fires still burn- 
ing brightly upon the watch-towers. In the 
matter of moving the coanty seat, Jones- 
boro is in possession, and with the "nine 
points of law," she has been able to thwart 
the plans of Anna thus far. 

A little incident in theoflfice of the County 
Clerk is deemed worthy of mention: Andrew 
Deordoff succeeded Davie as County Clerk 
in 1841, and served one term. He was suc- 
ceeded by Wilcox, who served one term. 
Randolph V. Marshall was then elected 



HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY. 



317 



Clerk, and had served one term, and was so 
popiilar that he was re-elected, ar)d just after 
he had entered upon his second term he ran 
away, and was never heard of again. Judge 
Hileman appointed Wesley Davidson to fill 
out his term until an election was held, when 
Thomas Finley was elected to the office, in 
which he remained until 1861, when A. J. 
Nimmo was elected, and the next term James 
Evans was elected, and the Governor refused 
as long as he could to issue Evans' certilicate 
of election, because he deemed him disloyal. 
Evans' disloyalty, it seems, consisted in be- 
ing the Democratic editor of the county at 
one time, and a strong and vigorous writer; 
he had lashed without mercy the lielknaps, 
Babcocks and Dorseys of the other party, 
and therefore he was disloyal. Nimmo was 
elected Clerk again in 1869, and at the end 
of his term William Hanners was elected, and 
continued in the office until 1883, when the 
present incumbent, J. H. Hilboldt,was elected. 

The circumstances attending the sudden 
disappearance of Marshall were somewhat 
singular. He was a man of pleasant address 
and great piety, a leading member of the 
church and Sunday school His morals were 
considered most exemplary. In some way or 
other he came into the possession of a coun- 
terfeit 120 bill. He had passed it once and 
it was returned to him. He had offered it 
to a Jonesboro merchant, who judged it to 
be counterfeit. He then passed it upon a 
preacher, who was. a book agent, who sent it 
to Baltimore, when it was returned and 
marked "counterfeit," and again it confront- 
ed Marshall. By this time the grand jury 
was about to assemble, and Marshall fled. 

The following references to all the laws 
passed by the Illinois Legislature in refer- 
ence to Union County, may prove a valuable 
aid to any one desirous of looking up or in 
vesligating these subjects: 



County to share in proceeds of Gallatin 
Salines; L. February 16, 1831, 14; borrow 
money to complete coimty buildings; L. Feb- 
ruary 1, 1840, 75; A. Deardoff, acts as Coun- 
ty Clerk, legalized: L. February 26, 1845, 
295; management of school fund; Id. March 
3, 321 ; taxes of 1844 remitted in part, ac- 
count of loss by high water; Id. February 21, 
353; borrow $1,000 to repair court house; 
L. February 11, 1853, 234; borrow $2,500, 
to build jail; Fr. L.March 4, 1854, 167; bor- 
row $5,000 to build courthouse; Pr. L. Janu- 
ary 19, 1857, 25; Sheriff discharged from 
liability for failing to collect land tax; L. 
March 27, 1819, 300; Isaac Worley indicted 
for murder, change of venue; Pr. Laws, Jan- 
uary 24, 1827, 17; road, America to Vanda- 
lia, re-location, L. January 7, 1831, J41; ex- 
amination of said road between Jonesboro 
and county line south, Pr. L. December 20, 
1832-33, 199; same, Jonesboro to Snider's Fer- 
ry, a State road, L. February 13, 1835, 122; 
same, Manville's Mills to Saratoga, and Jones- 
boro to Fredouia, locations, L. February 20, 
1843, 252; Champion Anderson, $28.17, for 
selling bank property, L. February 7, 1835, 
78. School lands, Town 12 — 3, sale of; L. De- 
cember 19, 1835-36, 130. Saratoga changed 
to Western Saratoga, L. January 21, 1843,297. 
Hygean Spjingat West Saratoga chartered; L. 
March 1, 1845, 113. County charcoal road 
chartered, Pr. L. February 28, 1817, 160. An- 
drew Deardoff, $32.67 repaid; Id. February 
24, 181; Union Turnpike Co., chartered, Pr. 
L. February 12, 1849, 104; Jonesboro Pla|k 
Road chartered, Pr. L. February 13, 1851, 
112; Amended, Pr. L. February 14, 1855, 
467; County Agricultural and Mechanical 
Society chartered. Id. January 30, 110; Va- 
cated, Pr. L. February 9, 1857, 310; Rand 
J. Stacy convicted of larceny, restored; L. 
February 24, 1859, 18; Joseph G. Webb re- 
stored to citizenship; 2 Pr. L. February 21, 



318 



HISTOKY OF UNION COUNTY 



1867, 812; J. H. McElhaney robbed of 
$9,363.68; time of payment extended, L. 
March 13, 1869, 337; D. Gow released from 
judgment, on recognizance, Id. April 7, 
840. 

The total vote of Union County, 1880, was 
3,418. In 1882 it was 3,160. Hancock's 
majority in the county for President, 1880, 



was 1,120. The total vote of the precincts 
were: Anna, 577; Cobden, 473; Alto Pass, 
415; Dongola, 523; Jonesboro, 575; Mill 
Creek, 109; Rich, 218; Stokes, 181; Preston, 
42; Union, 152; Saratoga, 201; Meisen- 
heimer, 112. In the election for Congress- 
man, 1882, Murphy (D.) 1954; Thomas (R.) 
993; McCartney (Pro.) 86.