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The  Life  of  Jesse  W.  Fell 


FRANCES  MILTON  I.   MOREHOUSE,  A.M. 


FOREWORD 

There  are  few  men  in  any  generation  who  see  their  lives 
in  relation  to  the  accomplishment  of  that  generation.  Few 
realize,  altho  all  profess  to  believe,  that  appraisal  of  worth 
must  be  according  to  the  proportion  of  a  man's  part  in  the 
advance  of  his  day ;  and  that  all  honors  and  distinctions  fall 
away  from  men  when  they  stand  before  the  bar  of  years,  to  be 
judged  in  the  stark  light  of  truth  as  to  character  and  service.. 
All  men  acknowledge  this  true,  but  the  men  are  rare  indeed 
who  apply  it  to  their  own  lives,  and  make  it  the  basis  of  their 
individual  schedule  of  values.  Many  men  assert  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  soul,  but  few  can  conceive  themselves  in  any  scheme 
of  time  which  transcends  the  limits  of  their  own  lives;  or  con- 
tent themselves  to  labor  without  reward,  because  they  believe 
that  in  the  fulness  of  time  all  souls  must  find  full  compensation. 

In  writing  the  story  of  a  man  whose  part  in  the  life  of  his 
generation  might  in  itself  bring  him  some  meed  of  remem- 
brance,  I  am  nevertheless  most  anxious  that  his  rare  quality  of 
>  indifference  to  such  rewards  as  men  might  give,  of  steadfastness 
1  to  ideals  not  generally  held  in  his  day,  of  faith  in  ultimate 
things,  should  stand  out  as  the  true  reason  for  his  being  brought 
as  fully  as  possible  before  men.  Here  was  one  who  steadily 
ignored  or  refused  honor  and  fame,  who  despised  no  quiet  and 
unrecognized  labor,  who  was  not  turned  aside  from  his  steady 

Paim  by  the  pressure  of  circumstance;  in  short,  whose  belief  in 
the  future  was  interpreted  in  all  the  doings  of  his  busy  life. 
«j    This  is  the  sufficient  reason  for  writing  a  life  of  Jesse  W.  Fell. 

—  FRANCES  M.  MOREHOUSE. 

ft 

IP 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    Early  Years,  1808-1836 9-21 

II.  Business  Ventures  and  Home  Life,  1834-1856 22-35 

III.  The  Journalist,  1836-1858 36-38 

IV.  Founding  the  Normal   School,   1853-1860 39-40 

V.     Political  Activities,  1840-1860 50-62 

VI.    The  Years  of  the  Civil  War 63-72 

VII.     Public  Service  After  the  Civil  War 73-84 

VIII.     Railroads  85-91 

IX.    The  Religious   Liberal 92-95 

X.    Local  Political  Activities _ 96-105 

XI.    The  Tree  Planter 106-111 

XII.    Last   Years 1 12-1 18 

Bibliography  119-121 

Index  _ 123 


CHAPTER   I 

EARLY  YEARS,  1808-1836 

The  Fell  farm  in  New  Garden  Township,  Chester  County, 
Pennsylvania,  lay  mainly  upon  a  high  ridge,  which  was  known 
by  the  Indian  name  of  Toughkenamon,  or  Fire  Brand  Hill.  It 
is  a  region  rich  in  historical  associations,  not  far  from  Brandy- 
wine  battlefield.  The  house  was  built  of  stone,  and  in  later 
years  was  remodeled  into  a  handsome  country  residence.  Here 
Jesse  W.  Fell  was  born,  November  10,  1808.  His  parents  were 
Friends,  of  ancient  and  honorable  English  lineage,  but  of  lim- 
ited means  and  simple  tastes.  His  father  was  a  hatter,  his 
mother  a  preacher  of  the  Hicksites.  Because  he  had  much  skill 
in  song,  his  father,  when  he  later  united  with  the  Methodists, 
became  a  choir  leader;  and  he  sometimes  turned  his  resonant 
speaking  voice  to  account  in  crying  sales.  There  was  a  large 
family;  Jesse,  named  for  his  father,  was  the  third  child. 

When  he  was  eight  years  old,  the  family  moved  to  another 
town  in  New  Britain  Township,  and  subsequently  to  Downing- 
ton.  In  the  country  Jesse  attended,  with  his  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, the  neighborhood  subscription  schools  maintained  among  the 
Friends  of  Pennsylvania ;  for  there  were  then  no  public  schools 
in  the  state.  These  schools,  within  the  limited  scope  of  their 
courses  of  study,  were  usually  good,  and  the  Fell  children  re- 
ceived a  solid  foundation  in  the  elementary  subjects.  The  elder 
brothers  were  apprenticed,  upon  reaching  the  proper  age,  to  a 
blacksmith  and  a  wheelwright  respectively.  As  Jesse  was  not 
a  robust  lad,  the  parents  and  other  relatives  thought  it  best  to 
apprentice  him  to  a  tailor,  and  cast  about  for  a  skilful  master 
who  might  teach  him  this  trade.  But  the  boy  himself  objected 
so  strenuously  that  the  plan  was  abandoned.  He  "would  learn 
a  better  business, ' '  he  declared ;  and  his  parents,  not  wishing  to 
coerce  him,  waited  for  some  definite  talent  or  liking  to  appear, 
which  might  guide  their  son  in  deciding  upon  his  vocation.  As 
yet  the  boy  had  no  plan,  save  that  of  becoming  wiser  than  he 
was.  He  wanted  to  go  to  some  school  that  would  teach  him 
more  than  the  country  subscription  schools  offered. 

9 


10  JESSE  W.   FELL  [274 

Joshua  Hoopes  conducted  a  boarding  school  for  boys  in 
Downington  at  the  time,  which  was  the  best  school  in  that  part 
of  Pennsylvania.  It  was  remarkable  in  that,  at  a  time  when 
the  classics  formed  the  core  of  instruction  in  almost  all  sec- 
ondary schools,  it  emphasized  the  natural  sciences.  The  master 
was  an  enthusiastic  botanist,  a  popular  lecturer  on  astronomy, 
and  sufficiently  adept  at  mathematics  to  win  the  admiration  of  his 
community.  These  subjects  he  had  mastered  by  dint  of  sys- 
tematic application  of  his  really  brilliant  mind  to  printed  treat- 
ises, and  by  giving  rein  to  an  originality  which  the  higher 
schools  of  those  days  did  not  greatly  encourage.  Free  from 
the  traditions  of  schools,  this  village  schoolmaster  gave  to  his 
boys  a  type  of  education  destined  to  become  popular  afterward, 
but  in  other  places  practically  unknown  to  his  own  day.  He 
taught  of  plants  and  animals,  of  husbandry  and  astronomy,  of 
literature  and  mathematics,  with  a  wealth  of  practical  applica- 
tion which  linked  books  with  life  and  study  with  pleasure. 

Jesse  Fell  wanted  to  attend  this  school  but  lacked  funds. 
He  applied  for  admission,  however,  offering  to  pay  for  his  tui- 
tion by  any  kind  of  work  that  he  could  do.  An  arrangement 
was  made  by  which  Jesse  was  to  work  in  the  master's  kitchen- 
garden  and  help  about  the  house  in  return  for  his  board  and 
tuition.  The  work  was  hard,  but  not  unpleasant.  His  master 
introduced  him  to  the  joy  of  intelligent  gardening,  took  him 
for  long  tramps  in  the  woods,  and  allowed  him  the  freedom  of 
his  library.  The  books  were  a  mine  of  riches  to  the  boy,  and 
Joshua  Hoopes'  enthusiastic  love  of  plant  life  stirred  to  re- 
sponse a  kindred  feeling  in  the  heart  of  his  pupil.  There  grew 
out  of  this  pleasant  period  in  the  life  of  the  boy  that  love  of 
trees  which,  in  the  man  grown,  was  to  give  so  richly  to  the 
prairies  of  the  West.1 

That  West  continually  called  him.  The  idea  of  going  into 
the  new  country  beyond  the  mountains  grew  in  him  during  the 
two  years  of  his  stay  at  Joshua  Hoopes'  school.  When  he  had 
finished  the  course  of  study,  Friend  Hoopes  wished  him  to  enter 
into  a  partnership  with  him  in  a  vineyard  enterprise  which  he 
was  then  planning.  Jesse  Fell  declined,  not  being  willing  to 
relinquish  his  dreams  of  a  larger  career  in  a  new  country ;  and 
Friend  Hoopes  abandoned  the  scheme  "for  want  of  a  suitable 
partner."  To  further  his  plan  of  going  west,  Fell  taught  school 
for  a  period  of  about  two  years,  from  1826  to  1828.  The  schools 

Richard  Edwards,  Jesse  W.  Fell,  3- 


275]  EARLY   TEARS  11 

he  taught  were  near  his  home,  at  Buckingham,  Colerain, 
Brown's,  and  Little  Britain.  As  he  understood  surveying  and 
other  branches  of  higher  mathematics,  he  was  able  to  command 
a  higher  salary  than  the  customary  one  of  two  dollars  per  quar- 
ter in  cash.  In  the  intervals  of  teaching  he  "kept  store"  for 
Issachar  Price  of  Callaghersville,  while  that  country  merchant 
was  away  crying  sales ;  and  in  all  his  spare  time  he  was  reading 
diligently. 

The  two  years  of  teaching  were  a  time  of  growth  and  devel- 
opment for  the  slim,  blue-eyed  Quaker  boy.  He  tested  his 
powers,  enlarged  his  knowledge,  broadened  his  interests.  Altho 
he  later  considered  himself  "but  an  indifferent  pedagogue,"  he 
was  thought  very  efficient  by  those  who  employed  him,  except 
at  Colerain.  This  was  an  extremely  rigid  Presbyterian  com- 
munity, with  a  school  in  which  the  New  Testament  had  been 
the  sole  text  in  reading  for  a  long  time.  Mr.  Fell  suggested  that 
his  pupils  bring  other  books  that  the  reading  might  be  varied, 
whereupon  he  was  denounced  from  the  local  pulpit  as  a  Hick- 
site  who  had  "expelled  the  Bible  from  his  school."  Without 
denying  the  first  part  of  this  charge,  which  was  true,  Jesse  Fell 
asked  that  the  second  accusation  might  be  inquired  into  offi- 
cially, and  when  it  was  repeated  without  investigation,  he  closed 
the  school,  very  hurt  and  very  indignant. 

It  was  while  teaching  that  he  had  his  first  great  lesson 
in  the  uses  of  force  and  diplomacy.  A  school  bully,  larger  than 
himself,  had  defied  him  and  had  been  whipped.  After  the 
whipping  he  administered  a  lecture,  so  tinctured  with  kindness 
and  well-directed  flattery — "what  all  men  like  if  skilfully  ap- 
plied," said  Mr.  Fell  in  telling  afterward  of  this  experience — 
that  the  boy  resolved  to  reform  his  ways.  He  became  later  a 
Methodist  Episcopal  minister  of  fine  character  and  widespread 
influence. 

At  this  time,  also,  Fell  began  to  speak  in  public,  and 
especially  to  debate  whenever  opportunity  offered.  At  the  little 
country  school-houses  there  were  held  political  debates,  as  well 
as  other  neighborhood  meetings;  and  at  these  debates  Fell, 
when  he  was  only  seventeen  years  of  age,  made  for  himself  a 
name  as  a  speaker,  particularly  upon  the  tariff,  that  subject  so 
dear  to  the  Pennsylvanian.2 

2The  principal  source  of  information  for  Fell's  early  life  is  the  un- 
finished manuscript  biography  begun  by  Richard  Edwards  from  notes 
dictated  by  Mr.  Fell,  and  already  noted.  It  is  among  the  Fell  MSS.,  as 
are  all  papers,  not  otherwise  placed,  in  the  following  pages. 


12  JESSE  W.   PELL  [276 

In  the  fall  of  1828,  having  saved  a  little  money  and  bor- 
rowed more  from  his  brother  Joshua,  Jesse  Fell  started  for  the 
West.  He  was  twenty  years  of  age,  still  slight  and  rather  frail 
in  physique,  and  unacquainted  with  the  world.  He  was  going 
to  seek  his  fortune  in  an  unknown  country,  with  no  definite 
trade  or  profession  as  an  asset.  His  family,  with  a  helpful 
confidence  in  his  ability  to  do  what  he  wished  to  do,  bade  him 
godspeed.  He  spent  the  last  night  before  starting  for  the  West 
with  a  dear  friend,  R.  Henry  Carter,  with  whom  he  talked  far 
into  the  night,  of  old  days  and  days  to  come.  In  the  morning 
he  set  out  for  Pittsburg.  A  young  man  by  the  name  of  Drum- 
mond,  from  Washington,  started  with  him,  but  soon  became 
discouraged  and  returned  to  his  home.3 

This  first  stage  of  the  journey  was  accomplished  on  foot, 
except  for  a  few  miles  at  the  end,  when,  very  footsore,  Fell 
wavered  in  his  resolve  not  to  spend  his  money  until  he  was 
started  upon  the  farther  pilgrimage.  He  entered  Pittsburg 
upon  the  deck  of  a  little  canal  boat.  This  city  was  then  the 
clearing  house  of  all  western  enterprise,  the  gateway  to  the  new 
land,  and  a  center  for  securing  employment.  Here  Jesse  Fell 
met  a  Mr.  Reese,  who  employed  him  as  a  book  agent.  He  was 
to  take  orders  for  Malte  Brun's  Geography,  Rollin's  Ancient 
History,  Josephus'  works,  and  one  other  book,  the  name  of 
which  Mr.  Fell  afterward  forgot.  Armed  with  this  means  of 
defraying  expenses,  he  boarded  a  steamer  for  Wheeling,  where 
he  soon  fell  in  with  a  certain  Mr.  Howell,  the  publisher  of  the 
Eclectic  Observer.  Mr.  Howell  conceived  a  fancy  for  the  young 
Quaker,  and  wished  to  interest  him  in  his  paper.  This  was  a 
journal  of  protest  against  slavery,  capital  punishment,  and  any 
other  institution  which,  in  the  eyes  of  the  editor,  deserved  cen- 
sure. Jesse  Fell  again  decided  against  the  half -gods;  he  was 
bound  for  the  newer  and  greater  West. 

While  canvassing  Wheeling,  however,  he  found  time  to 
write  his  first  contribution  to  a  periodical.  The  subject  was  one 
upon  which  he  had  often  grown  eloquent  in  the  country  school 
debates  of  Chester  County:  "The  Abolition  of  Imprisonment 
for  Debt."  Howell  was  delighted  with  its  force  and  fervor. 
Here  was  material  worth  the  working — what  an  abolitionist  he 

8R.  Henry  Carter  to  E.  J.  Lewis,  Mar.  8,  1887.  Grace  Hurwood  to 
Fannie  Fell,  Mar.  16,  1913.  The  latter  includes  notes  of  facts  related  to 
Miss  Hurwood  by  Mr.  Fell.  Franklin  Price  in  the  Fell  Memorial  (MS.), 
9-10. 


277]  EARLY   YEARS  13 

would  make !  He  offered  him  an  assistant  editorship.  But  Fell 
declined,  and  went  on  with  his  own  plans.  They  carried  him, 
with  his  books,  over  the  National  Road,  opened  at  that  time 
as  far  as  Zanesville.  He  met  interesting  people  on  the  road, 
notably  the  Honorable  Benjamin  Ruggles,  United  States  senator 
from  Ohio  from  1815  to  1833. 

But  the  people  along  the  National  Road,  being  busily  en- 
gaged in  making  homes  in  the  wilderness,  had  no  great  thirst 
for  Josephus  and  Rollin.  Mr.  Fell  perceived  that  the  business 
of  selling  books  would  give  him  no  very  speedy  or  considerable 
help  in  winning  his  way  to  the  West.  An  illness  took  his  small 
savings.  Consequently,  as  the  winter  of  1829-30  drew  near, 
he  made  his  way  back  to  Wheeling,  where  he  spent  the  cold 
months  in  Mr.  Howell's  office,  setting  type,  writing  for  the 
Eclectic  Observer,  and  learning  the  tricks  of  a  literary  trade. 
At  this  time  he  asked  his  father  for  money  to  invest  in  a  part 
interest  in  the  Amulet,  for  which  he  had  been  agent.  Very 
fortunately,  as  he  himself  said  afterward,  his  father  was  not 
able  to  help  him  at  that  time,  and  the  idea  of  this  partnership 
was  given  up. 

When  the  spring  returned,  he  set  off  again  with  his  books 
under  his  arm,  up  the  Ohio  and  toward  the  north,  through  the 
counties  of  Jefferson  and  Columbiana  (where  were  people  of 
his  own  religious  faith,  upon  whose  friendly  interest  he  might 
confidently  depend),  and  back  to  Pittsburg,  the  headquarters 
of  his  book  house.  Throughout  the  journey  he  had  kept  a  note- 
book, which  was  later  lost.  The  uncertain  fortunes  of  a  travel- 
ing agent,  his  illness  of  the  year  before,  and  the  knowledge  of 
the  world  which  his  experience  was  giving  him,  crystallized 
what  had  before  been  but  a  vague  ambition  into  a  settled  deter- 
mination. He  would  prepare  himself  for  a  profession,  which 
in  those  days  even  more  generally  than  at  the  present  time,  led 
to  honor,  influence  and  power.  He  would  be  a  lawyer.4 

With  this  resolution  in  mind,  but  with  his  agent's  para- 
phernalia still  in  hand,  he  turned  his  face  westward  again  in 
the  spring  of  1830.  He  had  gone  as  far  as  Steubenville  when 
the  event  occurred  which  was  to  prove  the  means  of  accomplish- 
ing his  desire.  Walking  along  the  sidewalk  with  an  agent's 
ready  eye  for  a  possible  buyer,  he  espied  a  young  man  busily 

4Elwood  Brown  to  Jesse  W.  Fell,  Dec.  20,  1829.  Jesse  Fell  to  Jesse 
W.  Fell,  Jan.  16,  1830.  Hannah  Fell  (an  aunt)  and  Rebecca  Fell  (his 
mother)  to  Fell,  Feb.  6,  1830. 


14  JESSE  W.   PELL  [278 

chopping  wood.  He  looked  not  averse  to  good  reading,  and  the 
agent  approached  him  in  the  interests  of  Josephus,  Rollin,  and 
Pell.  But  the  woodchopper  was  as  poor  as  Fell  himself,  and 
the  two,  finding  a  common  interest  in  their  common  situation, 
fell  to  discussing  ways,  means,  and  prospects.  The  woodchopper 
was  studying  law,  he  said,  in  the  office  of  a  local  firm  of  excel- 
lent reputation.  He  would  like  to  buy  books,  but  needed  every 
cent  he  could  make  for  bare  living  expenses.  After  he  had  been 
admitted  to  the  bar,  he  was  to  pay  for  his  tuition ;  and  then  he 
would  need  all  surplus  funds  for  his  law  library.  There  was  a 
place  for  one  more  student  with  Stokeley  and  Marsh,  and  he 
would  introduce  Fell  to  the  firm.5 

Fell  soon  made  arrangements  for  his  law  course.  He  was 
to  pay  his  way  in  part  by  doing  office  work  for  the  firm,  and 
partly  by  such  odd  jobs  as  he  might  find  to  do  in  that  frontier 
community,  where  there  was  usually  work  for  all.  His  two 
elder  brothers  helped  him  from  time  to  time  as  their  limited 
means  permitted.  Stokeley  and  Marsh  soon  came  to  value  him 
very  highly,  while  he  regarded  both  the  partners  with  the 
greatest  affection.  About  a  year  after  beginning  his  studies  in 
their  office,  he  made  a  visit  to  his  old  home,  and  was  present  at 
the  wedding  of  his  brother  Joshua,  on  January  16,  1831.  On 
the  return  journey  his  father  brought  him  as  far  as  Shippens- 
burg,  a  point  some  forty  miles  west  of  Harrisburg. 

For  another  year  the  law  lessons  in  the  office  of  Stokeley 
and  Marsh  went  on.  The  young  men  in  the  office  had  practice 
in  public  speaking,  for  they  were  eligible  to  membership  in  The 
Forum,  a  society  whose  object  was  the  improvement  of  its 
members  "in  speaking  and  general  culture".  Jesse  Fell  made 
his  first  speech  before  this  body  upon  his  old  theme  of  the 
abolition  of  imprisonment  for  debt.  The  presiding  officer,  a 
Mr.  Wright,  who  had  been  a  congressman  and  was  later  a  judge, 
praised  his  speech;  and  Fell  tried  again.  Mr.  Stokeley  was  a 
local  leader  in  the  ranks  of  the  Whigs,  who  were  at  that  time 
actively  opposing  Jackson.  There  were  innumerable  stump 

5Fell  to  Jesse  Fell,  June  26,  1830.  The  story  as  told  by  Edwards 
implies  that  the  idea  of  becoming  a  lawyer  did  not  occur  to  Fell  until 
the  time  of  his  interview  with  the  woodchopper.  But  a  letter  to  his 
parents,  dated  June  6,  1830,  indicates  that  the  idea  had  been  with  him  for 
some  time;  while  Franklin  Price  states  (Fell  Memorial,  9)  that  he  had 
read  Blackstone  while  still  in  Chester  County. 


279]  EARLY  YEARS  15 

speeches  to  be  made,  and  Mr.  Stokeley  gave  to  Jesse  Fell  his 
share  in  the  work.  The  younger  man  conceived  a  great  admi- 
ration for  Henry  Clay,  which  guided  his  political  opinions  and 
activities  while  Clay  lived.  A  youth  working  in  Trumbull's 
bookstore,  and  at  that  time  a  Clay  enthusiast  with  the  rest, 
became  his  friend.  This  boy  was  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  afterward 
secretary  of  war  under  Lincoln. 

The  autumn  of  1832,  when  Jesse  Fell  was  preparing  for 
his  bar  examination,  was  an  especially  busy  season.  He  took 
these  examinations,  with  three  other  aspirants,  on  the  first  of 
October,  passed  them  successfully,  was  admitted,  and  started 
on  foot  for  the  West  about  a  fortnight  later.6  It  was  a  some- 
what risky  enterprise,  for  the  payment  of  his  debts  took  most 
of  his  money,  leaving  very  little  for  the  outfit  and  for  traveling 
expenses.  His  family  helped  him  as  they  could,  but  this  was 
not  much.  Mr.  Marsh,  regretting  to  lose  a  youth  who  gave  so 
great  promise,  had  offered  him  a  partnership  if  he  would  stay 
with  him,  his  own  partnership  with  Mr.  Stokeley  having  recently 
been  dissolved.  Again  Fell  chose  to  answer  the  call  of  the  ulti- 
mate mission.  His  plan  was  to  travel  through  parts  of  Ohio 
which  he  had  not  yet  visited  and  through  Indiana  and  Illinois* 
He  seems  not  to  have  thought  of  settling  at  once,  as  he  suggested 
to  his  father  at  the  time  that  he  "  might  return  by  steamboat 
from  St.  Louis,  as  this  may  be  done  with  little  expense."  He 
seems  also  to  have  left  with  Mr.  Marsh  the  idea  of  possibly  re- 
turning to  enter  into  a  partnership  at  a  later  time. 

Traveling  on  foot  through  Ohio  and  Indiana,  Mr.  Fell  came 
to  Eastern  Illinois  in  November,  1832.  The  presidential  election 
had  been  held  the  day  before  he  entered  the  state.  At  Danville 
he  met  Judge  McRoberts,  a  prominent  citizen  of  those  days,  who 
told  him  of  a  village  then  but  lately  founded,  named  Blooming- 
ton.  Its  location  Judge  McRoberts  thought  good ;  it  was  a  "com- 
ing" town.  In  Decatur,  the  next  considerable  place  which  Fell 
visited,  this  report  of  Bloomington  was  repeated.  At  Jackson- 
ville, Judges  Lockwood  and  Smith  made  out  for  him  his  certifi- 
cate of  admission  to  the  bar  of  Illinois.7 

In  Springfield  Fell  was  to  talk  to  John  T.  Stuart,  to  whom 
he  had  letters  of  introduction,  and  whose  advice  he  wished  be- 

•Certificate  of  admission  to  Ohio  Bar  (James  Ross  Wells,  clerk), 
dated  Oct.  13,  1832.  Fell  to  some  member  of  his  family,  Sept.  23,  1832. 
Jesse  or  Rebecca  Fell  to  Fell,  Sept.  2,  1832. 

7Nov.  I,  1832.    This  certificate  is  also  among  the  Fell  MSS. 


16  JESSE   W.   PELL  [280 

fore  deciding  upon  a  location.  At  sunset  of  a  warm  day  in  late 
November,  he  arrived  in  the  city  which  was  afterward  to  be  the 
capital  of  Illinois.  John  Todd  Stuart  was  sitting  before  the  door 
of  his  house  when  Fell  approached,  carrying  the  stout  stick  and 
carpet-bag  which  were  his  worldly  possessions.  Many  young 
men  so  accoutred  trod  the  streets  of  the  new  cities  of  the  West 
in  those  days,  and  Stuart  with  a  characteristic  friendliness  spoke 
cordially  to  this  newcomer  and  asked  him  what  he  might  do  for 
him.  Fell  answered  that  he  was  looking  for  John  T.  Stuart,  and 
would  like  to  be  directed  to  his  house.  Upon  learning  that  he  was 
speaking  to  Mr.  Stuart,  Fell  produced  a  letter  from  one  of  Stu- 
art's clients  in  Philadelphia,  introducing  the  Pennsylvanian  and 
asking  the  favor  of  advice  and  help  for  him.  The  two  men  sat 
down  then  and  there  to  discuss  the  question  of  location  and  op- 
portunity.8 

Mr.  Stuart  spoke  especially,  as  had  Fell's  previous  advisors, 
of  the  new  county  of  McLean,  lately  created  by  the  legislature, 
and  its  county  seat  of  Bloomington.  It  was,  he  said,  a  very  new 
town,  and  he  was  quite  sure  that  there  was  no  lawyer  there  as 
yet.  With  the  quick  decision  which  was  one  of  his  characteris- 
tics, Fell  determined  to  go  at  once  to  Bloomington,  and  rose  to 
depart.  Stuart  invited  him  to  stay  the  night,  but  so  eager  was 
Fell  to  reach  his  destination,  that  he  declined  the  proffered  rest 
and  entertainment,  and  trudged  that  night  many  miles  on  his 
way  to  Bloomington.  At  New  Salem,  pausing  for  food  and  rest, 
he  first  heard  the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  when  the  townspeo- 
ple told  him  of  the  company  they  had  sent  to  the  Black  Hawk 
War.  From  there  he  went  to  Pekin,  and  then  sixteen  miles 
farther  to  Dillon,  since  called  Delavan,  in  Tazewell  County.  Here 
he  stopped  to  visit  at  the  home  of  William  Brown,  members  of 
whose  family  he  had  known  in  Pennsylvania.  He  was  almost 
without  money,  but  came  "carrying  a  knapsack  and  feeling  as 
big  as  King  Solomon  in  all  his  glory, ' '  and  full  of  that  buoyancy 
and  faith  in  the  future  which  made  him  both  representative  and 
leader  in  his  day  and  place." 

William  Evans  built  the  first  house  in  Bloomington  in  1826. 
Four  years  later,  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December,  1830,  McLean 
County  was  created.  The  first  sale  of  town  lots  was  on  July  4, 

8These  facts  were  related  to  the  writer  by  Judge  James  Ewing  of 
Bloomington,  Dec.  4,  1912.  Mr.  Stuart  had  himself  told  them  to  Judge 
Ewing.  See  also  Fell  to  David  Davis,  Dec.  16,  1885. 

"Joshua  Brown  to  E.  J.  Lewis,  Dec.,  1896. 


281]  EARLY   YEARS  17 

1831.  At  the  close  of  1832  the  town  numbered  about  one  hun- 
dred people,  while  the  neighboring  settlement  of  Blooming  Grove 
had  fully  two  hundred  and  fifty.  General  Gridley,  lately  re- 
turned from  the  Black  Hawk  War,  was  the  leading  citizen. 
When  Jesse  Fell  arrived,  William  Evans  had  but  lately  sold  his 
house  to  James  Allin,  who  opened  a  store  in  it,  and  laid  out  the 
town  in  lots.  There  was  no  resident  clergyman  at  that  time,  no 
newspaper,  and  no  lawyer. 

Fell's  survey  of  the  situation  satisfied  him  that  there  existed 
a  favorable  opening  for  him,  and  he  returned  to  Delavan,  where 
William  Brown  offered  him  employment  for  the  winter  as  a  tutor 
to  his  children.  Mr.  Brown  was  the  great  man  of  his  locality — 
a  man  who  had  glass  panes  in  the  windows  of  his  cabin,  whose 
family  had  "come  west"  in  a  carriage,  and  who  employed  a 
teacher  to  instruct  his  children.  He  had  brought  his  family  from 
Pennsylvania  in  1828.  Later,  he  became  known  in  central  Illi- 
nois as  "Joseph,"  because  in  a  year  of  crop-failure  he  had  sold 
his  good  crop  of  corn  for  a  dollar  a  bushel,  the  normal  price  of 
grain  in  early  days  in  Illinois.  People  for  many  miles  around 
came  to  him  for  food  and  seed.  His  home  was  a  social  center. 
From  it  the  young  people  started  on  long  rides  to  lectures  or 
parties  at  Pekin  or  at  distant  farmhouses  and  settlements.  The 
eldest  son,  Joshua,  was  the  leading  spirit  among  the  younger 
men.  Eliza,  the  eldest  of  the  sisters,  was  a  girl  of  rare  loveli- 
ness and  ability,  whose  early  death  a  few  years  later  brought 
great  sorrow  to  the  whole  neighborhood.  The  children  of  two 
other  families  attended  Jesse  Fell's  classes  that  winter.  In  the 
Brown  home  he  found  congenial  friends,  encouragement,  and 
good  counsel,  as  well  as  the  material  help  he  needed.10 

When  the  spring  came  he  went  back  to  Bloomington,  and 
opened  his  office  in  a  small  brick  building  at  the  northeast  cor- 
ner of  Main  and  Front  streets.  The  small  legal  library,  which 
Mr.  Marsh  had  agreed  to  send  him  when  he  was  located,  to  be 
paid  for  when  practice  gave  him  means,  arrived  during  the 
spring,  after  a  long  journey  down  the  Ohio  and  up  the  Missis- 
sippi and  the  Illinois  to  Pekin,  whence  it  was  carted  overland  to 
Bloomington.  Fell  boarded  with  James  Allin,  who,  in  addition 
to  his  other  activities,  kept  the  only  inn  of  that  locality,  at  what 
came  afterward  to  be  known  as  "the  old  Stipp  place." 

With  the  growth  of  population  and  the  inevitable  troubles 

10E.  M.  Prince,  "Hester  Vernon  (Brown)  Fell",  in  Historical  Ency- 
clopedia of  Illinois  and  History  of  McLean  County,  II,  1024-27. 


18  JESSE  W.   FELL  [282 

in  adjusting  titles  and  claims  to  lands,  there  came  legal  business 
in  plenty  to  Bloomington 's  first  lawyer.11  On  the  second  of  May, 
1833,  he  made  his  initial  appearance  in  an  Illinois  courtroom. 
This  was  at  the  third  session  of  the  Circuit  Court  in  McLean 
County,  which  sat  for  three  days,  and  disposed  of  several  cases. 
Fell  was  attorney  in  two  of  these  cases,  securing  favorable  judg- 
ment in  both  by  default.  At  the  next  session,  in  September,  he 
had  a  number  of  cases,  which  he  managed  so  well  that  his  posi- 
tion and  clientele  were  henceforth  assured.12 

John  T.  Stuart  continued  to  be  his  friend,  furnishing  him 
letters  of  introduction  and  recommending  him  to  clients.  He  be- 
came known  as  a  good  judge  of  land,  and  located  innumerable 
farms  for  his  clients,  making  the  entries  at  the  land  office  in  Dan- 
ville. Before  long  he  began  to  acquire  land  for  himself,  and  to- 
exhibit  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  prosperity.  He  bought 

"John  T.  Stuart  told  Judge  James  Ewing  that  when  he  attended 
court  in  Bloomington  six  months  after  Fell  had  settled  there,  Fell 
told  him  he  was  worth  about  $60,000  above  all  debts.  The  statement  is 
manifestly  inaccurate,  as  to  the  time  of  the  occurrence;  but  it  gives, 
some  idea  of  the  rapidity  with  which  fortunes  were  built  up  in  the  pros- 
perous days  of  the  early  land-exchange.  Fell  was  "worth  $60,000"  in  1837. 

The  first  professional  card  used  by  Mr.  Fell  gives  as  references  the 
following  lawyers  :  Richard  Dorsey,  Baltimore ;  William  Dorsey,  Richard' 
Sturgeon  and  Amos  Jeans,  Philadelphia ;  William  P.  Dixon,  New  York ; 
Willis  Hall,  Albany,  New  York;  D.  B.  Leight  and  Company,  Louisville; 
Hon.  John  C.  Wright  and  Hon.  Samuel  Stokeley,  Ohio;  and  Hon.  John 
T.  Stuart,  Illinois. 

"The  first  session  of  Circuit  Court  in  McLean  County  was  held 
Sept.  22,  1831,  at  Mr.  Allin's  house,  but  with  no  docket;  at  the  second,, 
held  Sept.  27,  1832,  the  jury  tried  one  appealed  case,  dismissed  several 
on  the  docket,  and  continued  one.  Record  i,  Circuit  Court,  McLean 
County,  1-14.  Fell  to  his  parents,  Nov.  17,  1833. 

An  incident  related  by  Fell  to  Miss  Grace  Hurwood,  and  repeated 
from  her  notes  in  the  letter  of  March  16,  1913,  referred  to  elsewhere, 
goes  to  show  that  although  a  Quaker,  Fell  was  not  averse  to  defending 
himself  in  traditional  ways.  He  and  another  young  lawyer  became  en- 
gaged in  an  altercation  in  which  his  opponent  accused  him  of  lying.  "I 
told  him  that  would  have  to  be  settled  outside  the  courtroom,  so  when 
court  adjourned,  we  promptly  went  out  to  settle  it  in  the  time-honored 
way.  Neither  of  us  gained  much  advantage  over  the  other,  as  while  he 
was  the  stronger,  I  was  the  quicker,  and  we  were  parted  before  we  could 
finish.  We  had  fought  hard  enough  however  to  be  willing  to  shake  hands. 
In  the  morning  we  were  indicted  for  fighting  'to  the  disturbance  and 
alarm  of  the  people'.  My  defense  was  that  nobody  was  at  all  alarmed,, 
much  to  Lincoln's  amusement,  and  the  indictment  was  quashed." 


283]  EARLY   YEARS  19 

his  first  horse,  McLean,  on  which  he  took  those  long  night  rides 
to  Danville,  Springfield,  Urbana  and  Vandalia,  that  soon  began 
to  tell  sadly  upon  his  health.  His  restless  energy  responded  to 
the  insistent  demands  of  a  growing,  changing,  developing 
country.  Some  prophetic  idea  of  its  possibilities,  and  much  boy- 
ish eagerness  to  realize  his  dreams  speedily,  urged  him  to  an  ac- 
tivity which  was  the  continual  wonder  of  all  his  friends.  He  was 
interested  in  everything  that  promised  to  help  the  country  of  his 
adoption,  and  developed  early  that  loyalty  to  Bloomington  and 
McLean  county  which  characterized  him  in  so  much  that  he  did. 

An  instance  of  this  loyalty  to  Bloomington  occurred  early 
in  his  career.  In  1834  an  effort  was  made  to  take  from  McLean 
County  its  territory  west  of  the  third  principal  meridian,  and 
add  it  to  Tazewell  County.  This  would  have  made  the  western 
boundary  line  of  McLean  County  scarce  eight  miles  from  Bloom- 
ington, thus  changing  its  central  location  to  a  western  one,  and 
so  furnishing  a  possible  reason  for  removing  the  county  seat  to 
another  town  at  some  future  time.  Mr.  Fell  opposed  the  move- 
ment valiantly  from  the  first.  Fearing  that  its  friends  might 
push  the  measure  through  the  legislature  if  that  body  were  left 
unguarded,  he  spent  most  of  the  winter  of  1834-35  in  Vandalia, 
where  his  efforts  and  influence  were  such  that  the  project  failed 
of  realization.  McLean  County  owes  to  him,  consequently,  and 
to  those  who  worked  with  him,  the  distinction  of  being  the 
largest  county  in  the  state.13 

The  winter  in  Vandalia  had  results  other  than  the  preser- 
vation of  the  territorial  integrity  of  McLean  County.  John  T. 
Stuart  of  Springfield  and  Abraham  Lincoln  of  New  Salem  were 
both  at  that  time  members  of  the  legislature  from  Sangamon 
County.  The  two  men  roomed  together,  and  Jesse  Fell  lived  in 
the  same  house.  These  men  were  very  interesting  to  the  east- 
erner, who  noted  the  sharp  contrast  between  Stuart's  attractive 
person  and  polished  manners  and  Lincoln's  big-boned,  angular, 
wrinkled  face  and  direct  ways.  Stuart  introduced  Fell  to  Lin- 
coln, and  the  two  became  almost  at  once  great  friends,  for  there 
was  in  them  a  fundamental  likeness  which  transcended  all  dif- 
ferences of  creed,  training  or  destiny.  The  friendship  of  the 
trio  lasted  to  the  death  of  the  president  in  1865,  and  was  ce- 
mented by  much  mutual  service.  In  1838,  when  Stuart  was  a 
candidate  for  Congress  against  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  both  Fell 

13Fell  to  David  Davis,  Dec.  15,  1885.  Lewis,  Life,  3.  Lawrence 
Weldon,  "Memorial  of  Jesse  W.  Fe^l"  in  Pell  Memorial. 


20  JESSE  W.   PELL  [284 

and  Lincoln  exerted  themselves  to  the  utmost  to  insure  his  elec- 
tion. Douglas  and  Fell  also,  in  spite  of  the  vigorous  opposition 
of  the  latter  on  this  and  other  occasions,  were  good  friends, 
serving  each  other  in  many  ways  with  the  greatest  cordiality.1* 

Mr.  Fell  almost  immediately,  in  spite  of  his  youth  and  inex- 
perience, seems  to  have  become  a  leading  citizen.  This  was 
partly  due,  of  course,  to  the  fact  that  he  was  Bloomington 's 
first  regularly  trained  and  capable  lawyer ;  but  it  must  also  have 
been  largely  owing  to  innate  qualities  of  leadership  and  to  that 
singular  charm  and  adaptability  to  which  many  of  his  generation 
have  borne  witness.  In  1833,  Benjamin  Mills  wrote  to  him  ask- 
ing for  support  for  his  candidacy  to  represent  the  third  con- 
gressional district  in  the  next  Congress.  He  interested  himself 
in  securing  a  mail  route  from  Bloomington  to  Springfield,  con- 
cerning which  Governor  Joseph  Duncan  wrote  encouragingly  in 
the  spring  of  1834.  He  was  in  requisition  for  Fourth  of  July 
orations,  citizens'  mass  meetings,  and  debating-clubs.  In  1834 
he  became,  by  appointment,  commissioner  of  school  lands  for 
McLean  County.  The  county  records  of  that  and  the  succeeding 
year  show  many  mortgages  which  he  drew  up  with  the  school 
money,  both  for  town  lots  and  for  farms.  The  last  of  these  was 
made  in  October  of  1835.15 

Early  in  that  year  the  state  legislature  chartered  the  State 
Bank  of  Illinois,  of  which  Mr.  Fell  became  an  agent.  This  insti- 
tution consisted  of  a  "parent  bank"  at  Springfield,  with 
branches  scattered  over  the  state,  and  had  a  capital  of  one  and 
a  half  million  dollars.  During  1835  and  1836  the  bank  made 
seventy-seven  mortgages  in  the  city  and  vicinity  of  Bloomington, 
to  most  of  which  Fell's  name  is  signed  as  witness  to  instrument. 
The  bank  passed  out  of  existence  in  February,  1842,  having  sus- 

14Fell  to  Lincoln,  July  20,  1838.  Lincoln  to  Fell,  undated,  about  July 
25,  1838.  Douglas  to  Fell,  March  21,  1844. 

"School  money  in  Illinois  was  at  this  time  unappropriated  to  its 
ultimate  use.  Benjamin  Mills  to  Fell,  Feb.  22,  1833.  (Mills  was  opposed 
in  this  election  by  W.  L.  May,  another  personal  friend  of  Fell.)  Joseph 
Duncan  to  Fell,  Apr.  4,  1834.  The  manuscript  of  a  Fourth  of  July  ora- 
tion, delivered  in  1833  or  1834,  is  interesting  in  that  it  contains,  besides 
the  usual  congratulatory  and  patriotic  sentiments,  a  strong  plea  for  free 
public  schools.  Fell  delivered  this  same  oration  again  in  Clinton  many 
years  later,  at  which  time  he  noted  the  presence  of  two  or  three  Revo-- 
lutionary  soldiers. 


285]  EARLY  YEARS  21 

pended  specie  payment  in  May,  1837,  with  its  bills  at  fifteen  per 
cent  discount.16 

The  records  of  these  and  other  enterprises  show  that  by  1840 
Fell  had  become  a  man  of  position  and  prominence  in  Central 
Illinois.  He  was  known  chiefly  for  his  dealings  in  real  estate, 
and  of  these  it  is  meet  to  speak  more  fully. 

"N.  H.  Ridgley  to  Fell,  Oct.  30,  Nov.  2,  Nov.  6,  Nov.  13,  1835;  May 
3,  1836.  E.  J.  Phillips  to  Fell,  May  10,  1836.  Ridgley  to  Fell,  Oct.  11,  Oct. 
29,  Nov.  18,  1836.  Phillips  to  Fell,  Nov.  26;  Ridgley  to  Fell,  Oct.  26 
and  29,  1836.  See  Thompson,  "A  Study  of  the  Administration  of  Gov- 
ernor Thomas  Ford,"  in  Governors'  Letter-Books,  1840-1853,  xii-1, 
(///.  Hist.  Col.  VII)  ;  Ford,  History  of  Illinois,  igi  ff. 


CHAPTER  II 

BUSINESS  VENTURES  AND  HOME  LIFE,  1834-1856 

The  preemption  law  of  1830,  practically  reenacted  in  1834, 
provided  that  when  two  men  settled  on  the  same  quarter-section 
of  government  land,  each  of  them  might  preempt  an  additional 
eighty  acres  anywhere  in  the  same  land  district.1  These  claims 
were  called  "floats."  Many  poor  men  were  induced  by  capital- 
ists to  lend  their  names  for  floats,  later  to  sell  the  claims  so  ac- 
quired for  enough  to  pay  for  the  land  they  lived  on.  In  this 
way  many  hard-pressed  pioneers  were  enabled  to  gain  a  title  to 
their  farms,  while  such  land-buyers  as  were  shrewd  enough  and 
had  the  requisite  ready  money,  secured  much  fine  land  in  Illi- 
nois during  the  '30 's.  Mr.  Fell,  who  first  visited  the  village  of 
Chicago  late  in  1833,  afterward  remarked  to  friends  that  land 
in  that  locality  might  be  secured  in  this  way,  and  that  it  would 
be  a  paying  investment,  as  a  great  city  would  eventually  stand 
on  the  lake-front  at  that  point.  His  friends  laughed  at  him,  as 
much  of  the  land  for  which  he  prophesied  immense  future  values 
was  covered  with  water  during  most  of  the  year. 

But  one  man  in  Bloomington,  William  Durley,  declared  that 
he  believed  Fell  right  in  his  estimate  of  Chicago's  future,  and 
loaned  him  money  for  real-estate  operations  there.  He  de- 
manded a  high  rate  pf  interest  as  compensation,  or  if  he  pre- 
ferred it  when  the  time  of  settlement  came,  half  of  the  land. 
"With  this  money  Fell  secured  four  floats  in  the  fall  of  1834,  the 
land  being  within  the  limits  of  the  present  city.  When  the  notes 
were  due,  Mr.  Durley  chose  half  the  land  as  his  share.  Part  of 
the  two  "eighties"  which  came  to  him,  Fell  laid  out  in  town 
lots.2  The  rest  of  the  land  he  sold  to  David  Davis,  Dr.  John  An- 

12ist  Cong.  Sess.  L,  Acts  of  the  United  States,  Chap.  209,  §  2.  (May 
29,  1830.)  23rd  Cong.  Sess.  I.,  Acts  of  the  United  States,  Chap.  54,  §§  2-3. 
(June  19,  1834.)  Treat,  The  National  Land  System,  1785-1820,  306,  386. 
Fell  to  his  parents,  Nov.  17,  1833. 

2Lewis  states  {Life,  26)  that  they  comprised  "Fell's  addition  to  Ca- 
nalport".  The  property  lies  between  26th  and  3ist  streets,  and  west  of 
the  tracks  of  the  former  Pittsburg,  Fort  Wayne  and  Chicago  R.  R.  (now 
part  of  the  Pennsylvania  System). 

22 


287]  BUSINESS  VENTURES   AND  HOME  LIFE  23 

derson,  James  Allin,  M.  L.  Covell  and  0.  Covell  for  eight  thou- 
sand dollars,  taking  their  notes  for  the  amount.  After  the  crash 
of  1837  he  took  back  the  land  and  surrendered  the  notes  at  the 
earnest  entreaty  of  the  purchasers.  His  purpose  was  to  hold  the 
land  for  the  advance  which  he  knew  would  follow  when  better 
times  had  restored  confidence.  But  altho  he  held  out  against 
the  storm  longer  than  many,  his  liabilities  were  such  finally 
that  he  had  to  sacrifice  even  this  resource.  He  mortgaged  the 
"eighties"  for  eight  hundred  dollars  each,  the  mortgages  being 
foreclosed  by  David  Davis  and  others.3 

While  he  owned  land  in  and  around  Milwaukee,  Fell  was 
much  interested  in  the  development  of  that  city  and  of  the 
state  of  Wisconsin.  Governor  John  Reynolds,  writing  to  him 
from  Washington  in  1836,  sent  the  pleasant  news  of  assured  fed- 
eral aid  for  a  lighthouse  in  Milwaukee  harbor,  a  survey  of  the 
harbor,  and  a  "road  to  start  from  that  point  running  west  to 
the  Mississippi."  William  L.  May,  having  been  elected  to  the 
National  House  of  Representatives,  attempted  at  Fell's  earnest 
solicitation  to  secure  a  post-office  at  Chippewa,  but  failed,  be- 
cause Chippewa  was  then  still  in  the  Indian  country.  Fell 
owned  lands  "up  the  river  from  Cassville"  in  Wisconsin,  in 
1837,  and  made  an  inspecting  tour  among  the  Indians  in  "the 
pine  country"  in  the  autumn  of  that  year.4 

But  these  operations  in  real  estate  in  places  far  distant  from 
his  own  home,  were  insignificant  when  compared  with  Fell's 
part  in  the  development  of  Central  Illinois.  Gaining  a  reputa- 
tion as  a  judge  of  land  in  connection  with  his  business  of  locat- 
ing tracts  for  settlement  and  investment,  and  becoming  thor- 
oly  acquainted  with  the  topography  of  the  country  and  with 
land  values,  through  his  work  of  loaning  school  funds  and  State 
Bank  funds,  he  entered  early  into  extensive  operations  in  Illinois 
lands  for  himself  and  others.  He  had  great  faith  in  land.  When 
a  boy,  spending  unhappy  hours  picking  the  stones  from  the 
rocky  farm  in  Pennsylvania,  he  had  dreamed  of  the  prairie,  and 

8Lewis,  Life,  25-27.  Fell  was  at  this  time  unable  to  borrow  money 
•of  Eastern  capitalists,  while  Davis  had  friends  from  whom  he  secured 
the  funds.  William  L.  May  to  Fell,  Feb.  28,  1838. 

4 John  Reynolds  to  Fell,  June  28  and  July  6,  1836.  (Reynolds  was 
financially  interested  in  the  lands  dealt  in  by  Durley  and  Fell.)  Fell  to 
Hester  Vernon  Brown,  July  30,  1837 :  "from  the  Plain  River,  Cook  County, 
Wisconsin."  Fell  to  Wm.  Brown,  Aug.  24,  1837. 


24  JESSE  W.   FELL  [288 

wished  that  he  might  own  farms  in  the  land  where,  travelers 
said,  there  were  no  stones  in  the  fields.  He  was  in  a  position, 
during  those  halcyon  years  between  his  arrival  in  Illinois  and  the 
great  panic  of  1837,  to  satisfy  this  early  ambition.  He  did  so  on 
a  scale  which  only  the  low  land  values  and  the  easy  speculation 
of  the  day  made  possible.  He  was  one  of  a  generation  of  men  of 
large  faith  and  far  vision,  who  believed  in  their  states,  who  fore- 
saw the  empire  of  the  West  that  was  to  be,  and  who  supported 
their  faith  by  generous  investments.  There  were,  besides  men  of 
such  a  stripe,  any  number  of  mere  adventurers,  wildcat  specula- 
tors, who  also  contributed  to  the  false  feeling  of  security  and  pros- 
perity that  preceded  the  panic  of  1837.  The  General  Assembly,  in 
1836  and  1837,  entered  into  an  ambitious  series  of  internal  im- 
provements, which  while  it  saddled  the  state  with  a  debt  of  more 
than  fourteen  million  dollars,  was  nevertheless  a  strong  stimu- 
lant to  progress.  The  period  was  one  of  rapid  development. 
Merely  to  have  been  upon  the  market,  to  have  been  bought  and 
sold,  to  have  a  price,  gave  value  and  prominence  to  the  western 
lands  and  to  western  enterprise.  When  in  addition  to  this  towns- 
were  founded  and  eastern  people  settled  upon  the  prairie  farms, 
when  mail  routes  and  railroads  were  projected  and  built  across 
the  wastes  that  separated  the  frontier  cities,  when  schools  and 
churches  and  shops  gave  to  western  life  an  approximation  of 
conditions  "back  East,"  the  goal  of  the  builders  of  the  West 
seemed  in  sight.6 

In  this  work  of  nation-building  Jesse  Fell  had  no  small  part 
in  that  region  which  he  adopted  for  his  home.  He  worked  mainly 
in  Central  Illinois,  with  Bloomington  as  a  center,  but  branched" 
out  wherever  opportunity  offered.  Clinton  was  among  the  first 
towns  in  which  he  became  interested.  He  founded  the  town, 
with  James  Allin,  in  1835,  naming  it  for  DeWitt  Clinton.  Mr. 
Fell  had  entered  a  goodly  amount  of  land  about  the  site  of  his 
proposed  town  before  laying  it  out,  and  made  a  handsome  profit 
from  the  sale  of  town  lots.  The  town  owes  to  him,  as  did  all  the 
places  where  he  had  a  chance  to  plant,  its  early  growth  of  trees. 

Fell  did  not  escape  paying  the  price  for  what  he  accom- 
plished. His  restless  energy  led  him  to  overwork,  and  in  June, 

8Mail  routes  were  established  by  Congress  in  response  to  petitions 
from  citizens  of  the  localities  to  be  served.  In  1838,  for  instance,  the 
people  of  McLean  and  Tazewell  counties  asked  for  a  mail  route  from 
Bloomington  to  Lacon.  It  was  not  granted  at  once,  but  came  after  some- 
delay.  Richard  M.  Young  to  Fell,  Feb.  21,  1839. 


289]  BUSINESS  VENTURES  AND   HOME  LIFE  25 

1835,  he  became  very  seriously  ill.  He  was  in  Chicago  at  the 
time  of  his  seizure,  on  the  twenty-third  of  the  month,  and  started 
on  the  next  day  for  Bloomington,  hoping  to  reach  his  friends  be- 
fore the  malady  developed  into  one  requiring  constant  care.  He 
succeeded  in  reaching  the  home  of  Dr.  Gay  lord  at  Oxbow  Prairie 
in  Putnam  County,  where  he  was  taken  in  and  cared  for  while  he 
lay  helplessly  ill  for  three  weeks.  At  the  end  of  that  time  he 
was  placed  in  a  carriage  and  taken  to  Bloomington,  not  without 
further  injury  to  his  health,  and  was  unable  to  attend  to  his  us- 
ual duties  until  about  the  end  of  July.  Early  in  August,  how- 
ever, he  made  a  long  trip  to  St.  Louis,  stopping  at  the  Brown 
home  in  Delavan  on  the  way.  He  himself  attributed  his  illness 
to  exposure  and  overwork,  explaining  to  his  family  that  in  the 
six  months  preceding  it  he  had  ridden  not  less  than  five  thou- 
sand miles,  going  sixty,  seventy,  eighty,  and  even  eighty-five 
miles  a  day.  These  journeys,  he  further  pointed  out,  he  had  made 
in  every  kind  of  weather,  hot  and  cold,  wet  and  dry,  swimming 
his  horse  through  streams  and  afterward  riding  in  wet  clothes 
for  hours,  and  making  long  rides  at  night.  But  the  end  for 
which  he  had  endured  these  hardships  was  by  that  time  gained, 
and  he  registered  a  vow  never  again  to  abuse  his  health  and 
strength  in  this  manner.  He  had  made,  he  said,  not  only  what 
he  himself  needed,  but  also  a  surplus  with  which  to  aid  those 
who  had  long  aided  him.6 

Having  thus  earned  a  rest,  in  the  autumn  of  that  year  he 
went  back  to  his  old  home  for  the  first  time  since  settling  in  the 
West,  stopping  on  the  way  for  a  visit  at  the  home  of  his  brother 
Thomas  in  Lancaster,  Ohio.  In  Pennsylvania  he  suffered  a  re- 
turn of  his  former  illness,  lying  ill  at  his  brother  Robert's  in  Lit- 
tle Britain  for  over  a  month.  In  the  spring  of  1836,  however,  he 
was  back  in  Bloomington,  not  only  looking  after  his  own  inter- 
ests, but  planning  for  his  brother  Kersey.  He  had  entered  land 
for  his  brother  Joshua  during  the  preceding  year,  and  this  was 
deeded  to  him  in  May,  1836.  Kersey  Fell,  after  a  period  of 
clerkship  for  Covell  and  Gridley,  was  made  clerk  of  the  newly 
erected  DeWitt  County  with  power  to  organize  it.  He  was  later 
admitted  to  the  McLean  County  bar  and  practised  for  many 
years  in  Bloomington.  Thomas  left  Ohio  for  the  same  place  af- 
ter his  brother's  visit  in  the  autumn  of  1835.  Rebecca  Fell,  a 

6Fell  to  some  member  of  his  family,  Aug.  3,  1835.  When  Kersey 
Fell  arrived  in  Bloomington  the  next  spring,  he  was  told  that  his  brother 
was  "one  of  the  richest  men  in  town".  Lewis,  Life,  25. 


26  JESSE  W.   FELL  [290 

favorite  sister,  was  being  educated  at  Kimberton  Boarding 
School,  and  later  became  a  teacher  in  McLean  County.7  In  1837 
all  of  Fell's  family  who  were  not  already  in  the  West  came  to 
Bloomington,  where  they  made  their  home  subsequently. 

Two  years  after  his  family  had  followed  him  to  Illinois,  Mr. 
Fell  married  Hester  Vernon  Brown,  a  daughter  of  that  home 
which  had  first  welcomed  him  to  the  West.  She  had  been  "fin- 
ished" at  a  boarding  school  in  Springfield  since  the  days  when 
Fell  had  been  tutor  in  the  Brown  home.  Rev.  Nathaniel  Wright  of 
Tremont,  a  Universalist  clergyman,  performed  the  marriage  cere- 
mony, for  both  bride  and  bridegroom  had  become  somewhat 
liberal  as  to  Quaker  ways  and  Quaker  customs.8  The  wed- 
ding day  was  January  26,  1838.  Mr.  Fell's  parents  were  not 
present,  but  his  sister  Rebecca  and  his  brother  Kersey  attended, 
and  his  close  friend  David  Davis  was  best  man.  Joshua  Brown, 
brother  of  Hester,  who  was  also  a  friend  much  valued,  came  to 
the  wedding  from  his  home  in  Edwards  County,  and  afterwards 
helped  to  move  the  household  goods  into  the  cottage  that  Mr.  Fell 
had  built  in  Bloomington.  This  cottage,  later  enlarged  by  many 
additions,  was  on  the  land  which  Fell  subsequently  sold  to  David 
Davis.  In  the  accomplishments  of  Jesse  Fell  his  wife  had  no 
small  part.  She  was  a  notable  "manager,"  in  the  comprehen- 
sive sense  in  which  that  word  is  used  in  speaking  of  housewives. 
She  was  courageous,  capable,  and  independent.  In  her  own 
home  and  in  the  community  she  seconded  the  efforts  of  her  hus- 
band with  sympathy  and  ability.  Outliving  him  by  twenty 
years,  she  was  privileged  to  carry  out  some  of  the  plans  which  he 
himself  had  left  unfinished;  and  in  the  same  time  she  demon- 
strated the  force  of  her  own  personality,  which  for  so  many  years 
she  had  chosen  to  make  second  to  his. 

After  the  first  few  years  in  Bloomington  Fell  neglected  his 
law  practice  in  favor  of  the  more  congenial  work  of  buying  and 

''McLean  County  Historical  Society  Transactions,  II,  35.  Fell  to 
Hester  V.  Brown,  Feb.  28,  1837.  Rebecca  Fell  to  Fell,  Nov.  20,  1836. 
In  this  letter  Fell's  sister  expresses  the  greatest  love  for  and  gratitude 
to  him.  It  is  finely  written  and  quaintly  composed,  but  unbends  in  places 
to  a  degree  of  childish  carelessness  and  even  to  one  faint  suspicion  of 
slang.  Other  letters,  models  of  an  art  carefully  taught  in  girls'  board- 
ing schools  of  that  day  and  showing  both  strength  of  character  and  an 
irrepressible  sense  of  humor,  are  dated  June  10,  Sept.  25,  Oct.  23,  and 
Christmas,  1836. 

8Rachel  Sharpless  (a  great-aunt)  to  Hester  Brown.  Undated,  but 
about  1836. 


291]  BUSINESS   VENTURES   AND   HOME   LIFE  27 

selling  land.  In  1836  he  sold  out  both  books  and  practice  to 
David  Davis,  altho  he  continued  to  use  the  same  office  with 
him  for  some  time.  Davis  had  come  from  Maryland  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1835,  and  settled  in  Pekin.  The  chills  and  fever  of  the 
early  prairie  days  so  sapped  his  strength  that  he  had  about  de- 
cided to  leave  Illinois,  when  Jesse  Fell,  alert  for  a  good  lawyer 
to  whom  he  might  turn  over  his  now  burdensome  practice,  per- 
suaded him  to  go  to  Bloomington.  He  offered  his  own  books, 
office  and  whatever  financial  aid  might  be  necessary,  as  an  in- 
ducement ;  and  kept  through  a  long  life  his  promise  of  friendship 
and  help.  With  the  practice  and  office,  Fell  sold  him  several  hun- 
dred acres  of  land,  at  the  prevalent  price  of  eight  dollars  per  acre, 
and  this  land  became  the  nucleus  of  Davis'  subsequently  consid- 
erable fortune.9 

His  real  estate  and  other  business  took  Fell  frequently  to 
the  eastern  cities.  In  1841  he  made  such  a  trip,  of  which  inter- 
esting details  are  to  be  found  in  various  letters.  Bidding  his 
wife  good-bye  at  Pekin,  whence  she  went  to  her  father's  home 
with  her  son  Henry,  to  stay  until  her  husband's  return,  he 
boarded  the  Glaugus  for  St.  Louis.  There  he  waited  from 
Monday  until  Wednesday  for  a  boat  to  Cincinnati,  taking  then 
the  Goddess  of  Liberty,  which  he  declared  "  a  splendid  boat," 
and  which  reached  the  city  on  Sunday  evening.  On  Monday 
morning  he  took  passage  in  the  Tioga  for  Wheeling,  thence  by 
stage  to  Baltimore,  where  he  arrived  June  20,  1841.  Two  days 
later  he  was  in  Washington. 

In  that  city  he  met,  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  his  old 
preceptor  and  friend,  General  Stokeley  of  Steubenville.  He  in- 
terested Stokeley  in  the  manuscript  of  a  book  he  had  with  him, 
which  had  been  copyrighted  in  March ;  and  the  two  men  ar- 
ranged for  its  publication.  It  was  a  digest  of  laws  and  forms 
relative  to  real  estate,  evidently  intended  to  be  used  as  a  refer- 
ence or  text  book.  No  further  reference  is  made  to  it  after  1841, 
and  it  was  never  published.  Fell  wrote  to  his  wife  at  the  time 
that  he  had  secured  favorable  attention  from  some  of  the  best 

9The  Bloomington  Observer  and  M'Lean  County  Advocate  of  April 
22,  1837,  contains  the  professional  card  of  "David  Davis,  Attorney  and 
Counsellor  at  Law.  .  .  Office  on  Front  street,  with  J.  W.  Fell,  Esq.  .  ." 
The  same  newspaper  contains  the  card  of  Thomas  Fell,  vendue  crier. 
Fell  in  the  Pantograph,  June  29,  1886. 


28  JESSE   W.   PELL  [292 

lawyers  in  the  country  concerning  it.  "We  think  we  shall  be  able 
to  make  some  money  out  of  it,"  he  added.10 

Jeremiah  Brown,  a  member  of  the  House,  was  another  old 
friend  whom  it  was  a  pleasure  to  greet.  The  Westerner  found 
much  entertainment  in  visiting  sessions  of  Congress,  and  wrote 
his  wife  faithful  accounts  of  what  he  saw  there.  Clay  had  intro- 
duced his  bank  bill,  which  many  thought  would  pass,  ' '  although 
some  fear."  Fell  heard  him  make  a  strong  plea  for  it,  which, 
he  wrote  home,  was  ' '  a  great  effort ; "  he  still  thought  Clay  a  very 
great  man,  but  had  decided  that  noted  men  are  in  general  like 
others — "distance  lends  enchantment  ..."  "I  yesterday  vis- 
ited the  President  and  Post  Office  Department — and  had  a  cou- 
ple of  local  postmasters  dismissed.  The  President  [Tyler]  is  a 
clean,  good  sort  of  man — but  'ugly  as  sin.'  '  He  predicted  the 
creation  of  a  national  bank,  the  repeal  of  the  sub-treasury  law, 
the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  public  lands, 
a  slight  modification  of  the  tariff — events  that  any  loyal  Whig 
might  easily  persuade  himself  that  he  saw  upon  the  political 
horizon. 

From  Washington  he  returned  to  Baltimore,  and  took  pass- 
age in  a  steamboat  down  Chesapeake  Bay  to  the  eastern  shore  of 
Maryland,  where  he  visited  Frank  Brattan,  an  old  Bloomington 
friend.  Returning  to  Baltimore,  he  went  the  next  day  to  Phil- 
adelphia, noting  the  fact  that  it  required  but  five  hours  to  go  a 
hundred  miles.  In  Philadelphia  he  was  most  impressed,  to  judge 
by  the  space  given  to  the  matter  in  one  of  his  punctiliously  fre- 
quent letters  to  his  wife,  by  a  new  "bonnett"  being  worn  by  the 
Quaker  girls  of  that  city.  "I  have  concluded,"  he  wrote  her, 
' '  when  I  get  ready  to  start  home  to  buy  thee  a  Bonnett,  if  I  can 
muster  money  enough  to  spare — of  a  very  pretty  fashion  lately 
introduced.  If  I  get  one  I  will  get  the  materials  to  make  some 
more  of  the  same  kind.  ...  I  have  almost  fallen  in  love  with 
the  Quaker  bells  of  Chestnut  Street  on  account  of  their  pretty 
bonnetts.  Not  perhaps  entirely  on  account  of  their  bonnetts 
either — but  because  they  are  in  the  first  place  in  themselves  very 
pretty — and  secondly  because  their  dress  and  deportment  is  so 

10The  complete  title :  Digest  of  the  Statute  Laws  of  the  States  and 
Territories  of  the  United  States  concerning  the  promissory  notes  and 
bills  of  exchange — the  limitations  of  actions — the  conveyance  of  real  es- 
tate and  the  appropriate  modes  of  authenticating  deeds,  devistes,  letters 
of  attorney,  etc.  Copyright  Office  Records,  U.  S.  D.  C.  MISC.,  March 
6,  1841 ;  District  of  Illinois.  Fell  to  his  wife,  June  22  and  July  6,  1841. 


293]  BUSINESS   VENTURES   AND   HOME  LIFE  29 

neat  and  modest.  Of  all  the  city  girls  in  the  world  commend 
me  to  the  Philadelphians. "  He  promised  his  son  Henry  books 
and  toys  in  the  same  letter. 

During  his  stay  in  Philadelphia,  besides  attending  to  the 
business  which  had  taken  him  to  the  East,  he  visited  a  close 
friend,  Joseph  J.  Lewis,  at  Westchester.  The  return  trip  was 
made  by  way  of  New  York  City  and  the  Great  Lakes.  Fell  ex- 
pected to  reach  his  home  by  the  first  of  August  or  thereabouts; 
there  is  no  record  of  the  exact  date  of  his  return.  The  details 
of  this  trip  to  the  East  have  been  given  with  some  degree  of  ful- 
ness, not  only  because  they  serve  to  illustrate  many  of  Fell's  in- 
terests, but  because  this  was  the  first  of  many  similar  journeys; 
for  until  old  age  forced  him  to  limit  his  activities,  he  made  one 
or  two  trips  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard  each  year. 

The  real  estate  business,  indeed,  entailed  far  more  absence 
from  home  than  suited  Fell,  but  it  also  took  him  much  into  the 
open,  which  was  with  him  a  strong  consideration.  Its  financial 
returns  were  greater  than  those  of  law  practice,  and  it  brought 
him  into  constant  contact  with  many  men,  and  with  the  very 
heart  and  spirit  of  the  growth  of  the  West.  But  the  panic  of  1837 
put  a  stop  to  real  estate  operations,  as  to  all  other  business.  Fell 
lost  all  that  he  had  gathered  together,  and  was  compelled  to  take 
benefit  of  the  bankruptcy  law  of  1841.  Surrendering  all  his  lands, 
he  was  discharged  from  his  indebtedness  (which  was  later  en- 
tirely repaid),  and  began  again,  as  penniless  as  when  he  first 
came  to  Illinois  in  1832.  As  the  bankruptcy  court  offered  much 
business  for  lawyers,  he  took  up  his  old  profession  again,  re- 
luctantly but  with  marked  success.  The  sessions  were  held  in 
the  United  States  court  at  Springfield,  and  the  work  brought  Fell 
again  into  his  old  strenuous  habits.  He  invariably  prepared  his 
cases  in  Bloomington,  that  he  might  be  with  or  near  his  family 
as  much  as  possible ;  then  leaving  his  home  at  sunset,  he  would 
appear  in  court  the  next  morning,  ready  after  his  all-night  drive 
to  prosecute  the  business  of  the  day.11 

"Certificate  of  admission  to  the  Illinois  District  Court,  Feb.  10,  1842. 
In  an  interview  with  Richard  Edwards  long  afterwards,  Fell  explained 
his  dislike  of  law  by  saying  that  he  wished  to  be  able  to  use  his  powers 
of  persuasion  where  conviction  urged,  and  not  for  money  from  clients ; 
and  that  he  disliked  to  live  indoors.  "A  few  years  later,  having  accu- 
mulated some  property,  he  voluntarily  paid  all  his  indebtedness,  although 
not  legally  liable."  E.  M.  Prince,  "Jesse  W.  Fell;"  Lewis,  Life,  34. 


30  JESSE  W.   FELL  [294 

But  the  practice  of  law  was  as  irksome  to  him  as  it  had  been 
before,  and  he  planned  to  escape  from  it  as  soon  as  possible.  Since 
real  estate  offered  no  means  at  that  time,  he  resolved  to  try  farm- 
ing, and  for  that  purpose  moved  in  1844  to  a  new  home,  which 
was  known  then  and  for  many  years  after  as  Fort  Jesse.  Some 
people,  appalled  at  its  distance  of  four  miles  from  the  town, 
called  it  Fell's  Folly.  It  had  been  entered  for  Joseph  J.  Lewis, 
and  was  far  from  any  other  habitation,  having  but  one  house 
between  it  and  Bloomington.  There  was  a  stream  upon  the 
place,  which  in  rainy  seasons  of  the  year  became  too  swollen  to 
be  forded.  Here  Fell  made  a  cabin,  and  broke  the  virgin  prairie 
in  very  real  pioneer  fashion.  He  rejoiced  in  the  opportunity  to 
plant  trees,  and  put  out  many  of  the  black  locusts  which  were  re- 
garded at  that  time  as  particularly  well  fitted  to  Illinois  condi- 
tions, since  they  grew  rapidly  and  produced  a  very  hard  and  dur- 
able wood.  The  borer,  which  makes  the  black  locust  an  enemy 
to  all  other  trees  and  a  nuisance  in  a  community,  had  not  then 
appeared.12 

The  life  of  the  Fells  at  Fort  Jesse  was  the  life  of  a  typical 
pioneer  family.  Nightly  there  burned  in  their  window  the 
candle  which  pioneer  custom  prescribed  as  a  guide  for  travel- 
ers; and  nightly,  there  howled  around  it  the  prairie  wolves. 
Henry  Clay  Fell  relates  an  incident  which  illustrates  the  condi- 
tions under  which  the  prairie  farm  became  a  home.  Mr.  Fell 
and  his  wife  had  gone  to  Bloomington,  and  while  they  were  ab- 
sent a  storm  had  swollen  the  stream  so  that  it  became  impass- 
able. Two  children,  Henry  and  Eliza,  had  been  left  at  the  farm, 
and  at  the  coming  of  the  storm  they  became  much  frightened. 
While  they  crouched  in  a  corner,  a  big  grey  wolf  thrust  in  his 
head  at  the  window,  where  a  pane  of  glass  had  been  broken  out. 
Henry,  altho  then  but  seven  years  of  age,  had  the  courage  of 
pioneer  children,  and  threw  a  footstool  at  the  wolf's  head,  which 
frightened  him  away.  The  pet  deer,  which  the  children  had 
brought  into  the  cabin,  and  which  attracted  the  wolves,  was  later 
given  to  a  son  of  General  Gridley.18 

In  1845  Fell  bought  a  farm  of  one  hundred  acres  near  Pay- 
son,  Adams  County,  to  which  he  moved  from  Fort  Jesse  that  au- 
tumn. About  forty  acres  of  the  farm  were  in  timber ;  and  thirty 
acres  of  that  under  cultivation  were  set  out  to  trees,  Fell's  inten- 
tion being  to  establish  a  nursery  which  should  cater  to  the  mar- 

12Jacob  Spawr  in  Pantograph,  July  i,  1881.    Lewis,  Life,  35. 
"Lewis,  Life,  35.     Interview  with  Henry  Fell,  May  31,  1913. 


295]  BUSINESS   VENTURES   AND   HOME   LIFE  31 

ket  afforded  by  the  increasing  settlements  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Quincy.  The  nursery  business  did  not  meet  his  expectations, 
altho  he  sold  enough  fruit  to  make  the  venture  a  paying  one. 
The  farm,  which  was  about  a  mile  and  a  quarter  northwest  of 
the  village,  was  known  as  Fruit  Hill.  As  Quincy  afforded  him 
his  nearest  large  market,  Fell  set  to  work  to  have  a  good  road 
made  to  that  town.  He  succeeded,  largely  through  his  own  exer- 
tions, in  securing  a  straight  road  of  twelve  miles  which  passed 
through  his  farm.14 

During  this  period  he  found  time  to  take  an  interest  in 
various  public  affairs,  and  particularly  in  education.  He  spoke 
at  teachers'  institutes,15  and  was  much  concerned  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  local  Methodist  church,  of  which  he  became  a  member. 
When  he  moved  to  Fruit  Farm  there  was  only  a  private  school 
at  Payson,  but  during  his  residence  a  ' '  seminary, ' '  kept  in  such 
a  way  as  more  fully  to  serve  the  needs  of  the  community,  was 
opened.  Farming  did  not  prevent  an  active  interest  in  state 
and  national  affairs,  as  a  letter  from  Lincoln  at  this  time  shows. 
As  an  orthodox  Whig,  he  strongly  disapproved  the  management 
of  the  Mexican  War,  and  wrote  to  Lincoln,  then  serving  his  state 
in  Washington,  to  ask  him  to  present  a  petition  for  a  speedy 
peace.  Lincoln  promised  to  do  so  at  the  proper  time,  but  added 
that  there  was  in  Washington  a  feeling  that  the  war  was  over 
and  that  the  treaty  sent  in  would  be  endorsed.16 

In  1849  a  number  of  the  citizens  of  Quincy,  led  by  John 
Wood,  afterward  governor,  resolved  to  go  to  California,  where 
the  gold  fields  were  attracting  people  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 
Fell  was  asked  to  join  the  party,  and  made  preparations  to  go, 
altho  it  was  necessary  to  borrow  money  for  the  expedition.  He 
went  to  Bloomington  and  bade  his  friends  good-bye,  but  at  the 
last  minute  failed  to  raise  the  funds  necessary  for  an  outfit,  and 
gave  up  the  project. 

In  1851  he  arranged  to  return  to  Bloomington  by  trading 
his  Payson  farm  to  his  brother  Robert  for  a  farm  of  two  hun- 
dred forty  acres  near  Bloomington.  Robert  Fell  disposed  of  his 
nursery  stock  to  F.  K.  Phoenix,  who  came  to  Bloomington  from 
Delavan,  Wisconsin,  at  Jesse  Fell's  earnest  solicitation.  Start- 
ing with  Robert  Fell's  stock  of  trees,  Phoenix  in  time  developed 

"Lewis,  Life,  37.    Fell  to  Rachel  Brown,  Oct.  i,  1848. 
"The  report  of  one  such  address,  given  before  the  Adams  County 
Institute,  is  in  the  Western  Whig  of  July  20,  1850.    Lewis,  Life,  36. 
"Lincoln  to  Fell,  Mar.  i,  1848. 


32  JESSE  W.   FELL  [296 

one  of  the  most  famous  of  the  nurseries  for  which  Normal  was 
later  notable. 

Upon  his  return  to  Bloomington  Fell  first  engaged  in  news- 
paper work,  of  which  mention  is  made  elsewhere  more  particu- 
larly. He  soon  gave  that  up,  however,  to  reenter  the  field  of  real 
estate,  which  was  again  becoming  a  source  of  profit.  Having  lit- 
tle money  of  his  own,  he  made  a  trip  to  New  York  and  Boston 
in  the  autumn  of  1852,  for  the  purpose  of  interesting  eastern 
capitalists  in  Illinois  land.17  In  this  he  was  very  successful,  and 
during  the  decade  following  he  bought  and  sold  great  tracts  of 
land  throughout  Central  Illinois,  founded  several  towns,  and  en- 
larged others.  Pontiac,  Lexington,  Towanda,  Clinton,  LeBoy, 
El  Paso  and  other  towns  were  among  those  in  which  he  was 
largely  interested.  He  made  additions  to  Bloomington  and  De- 
catur,  and  dealt  in  town  lots  in  Joliet  and  Dwight.  North  Bloom- 
ington, later  Normal,  was  first  planned  in  1854.18 

With  the  founding  of  these  towns  came  the  need  of  means  of 
communication  and  transportation.  In  road-building  of  the 
primitive  sort  which  served  Illinois  for  years,  Fell  did  his  part. 
He  secured,  for  instance,  the  surveying  of  a  wagon-road  parallel 
to  the  railroad,  from  Bloomington  to  Towanda,  altho  he  did 
not  succeed  in  having  it  extended  to  Lexington.  He  was  active  in 
making  a  similar  road  from  Lincoln  to  Minonk.  Early  in  his  life 
he  had  learned  surveying,  and  this  stood  him  in  hand  later  in 
many  ways.  His  ability  to  measure  land  and  determine  lines 
saved  time  and  money  in  numberless  instances.19 

17Fell  to  his  wife,  Sept.  26,  1852. 

^Pantograph,  Sept.  i,  1899,  Nov.  28,  29,  and  Dec.  i,  1902.  Bloom- 
ington Intelligencer,  Aug.  10,  1853.  The  first  plats  of  North  Bloomington 
(undated,  probably  1854)  were  lithographed  by  Latimer  Brothers  and 
Seymour,  15  Nassau  st.,  corner  of  Pine,  N.  Y.  Mr.  Fell's  interests  in 
Pontiac  came  very  near  ending  disastrously.  An  addition  to  the  original 
town  was  made  on  land  bought  from  a  youth  whose  father  sold  it  as 
his  guardian.  Later,  the  Supreme  Court  made  a  decision  in  a  similar 
case  which  would  have  invalidated  the  Fell  title  and  all  subsequent 
titles,  had  not  an  astute  lawyer  of  Pontiac,  R.  E.  Williams,  been  able 
to  prove  that  the  young  man  had  accepted  his  guardian's  arrangements 
and  receipted  him.  The  Supreme  Court  upheld  the  Fell  title. 

For  an  account  of  an  unsuccessful  attempt  at  town-founding,  see 
J.  O.  Cunningham,  History  of  Champaign  County,  672  ff.  Judge  Cun- 
ningham quotes  Peck's  Gazetteer  (1837),  which  mentions  "Byron,  a  town- 
site  in  Champaign  County",  on  page  168.  Bloomington  Observer,  Nov. 
17,  1838.  Pantograph,  Aug.  24,  1901,  and  Nov.  29,  1902. 

"Interview,  Henry  Fell,  May  31,  1913. 


297]  BUSINESS  VENTURES  AND  HOME  LIFE  38 

Going  farther  afield,  in  1855  he  bought  timber  lands  in 
Southern  Illinois,  and  built  a  lumber  mill  at  Ullin,  where  the 
Illinois  Central  railroad  crosses  the  Cache  River  about  twenty 
miles  north  of  Cairo.  Lyman  Blakeslee  was  his  partner  in  this 
mill,  and  his  brother  Kersey  in  another  at  Valley  Forge,  which 
was  operated  by  Elijah  Depew,  an  old  neighbor  in  Bloomington. 
E.  J.  Lewis,  who  was  employed  by  Fell  for  about  six  months  at 
Ullin,  records  that  the  winter  of  1855-56  was  an  unusually  cold 
one  in  Southern  Illinois,  the  thermometer  often  falling  to  eight- 
een degrees  below  zero.  Armed  with  stout  sticks  and  a  compass, 
Fell  and  Lewis  tramped  over  the  frozen  swamps,  personally  in- 
specting the  low  lands.  The  growth  was  cypress  for  the  most 
part,  and  the  strange  "knees"  (root  protuberances)  greatly  im- 
pressed the  two  Pennsylvanians,  to  whom  growths  so  fantastic 
were  entirely  new.  The  mill  at  Ullin  was  kept  busy  sawing  out 
logs,  for  the  unusual  amount  of  ice  in  the  rivers  did  great  dam- 
age to  the  steamboats  on  the  Mississippi  and  the  Ohio,  breaking 
wheels  and  injuring  hulls.  Putting  into  Cairo,  they  secured  oak 
and  other  lumber  for  repairs  from  Ullin  by  rail. 

The  brisk  business  of  that  winter  led  Fell  to  put  great  faith 
in  the  Ullin  venture,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1856  he  moved  his 
family  to  that  place.  But  the  normal  demand  for  lumber  in 
Southern  Illinois  was  not  sufficient  to  guarantee  a  prosperous 
business,  and  in  the  spring  the  family  returned  to  North  Bloom- 
ington. The  mills  not  having  fulfilled  their  initial  promise,  Fell 
again  turned  his  attention  chiefly  to  real  estate,  which  had  not 
been  neglected  during  his  residence  at  Ullin.20  In  1856  he  adver- 
tised for  sale  ' '  about  5000  acres  of  land ' '  in  Livingston,  McLean, 
and  Vermillion  counties,  and  about  three  hundred  fifty  town 
lots  in  various  parts  of  Illinois.21  In  the  autumn  of  that  year  he 
conducted  at  least  one  auction  sale  of  lots  (at  Towanda)  and  this 
method  of  sale  was  repeated  on  a  considerable  scale  in  the  fall  of 
1857.  Late  in  the  decade  his  holdings  became  very  large,  while 
records  in  the  abstract  offices  show  that  he  drove  a  lively  business 
in  transferring  property. 

It  was  during  the  summers  of  1856  and  1857  that  Fell  built 
the  house  at  Fell  Park  in  North  Bloomington,  which  became  aft- 
erward one  of  the  landmarks  of  Normal.  The  house  still  stands 
(1916),  altho  removed  from  its  original  site.  It  was  a  roomy 
square  wooden  structure,  with  a  cupola  atop,  and  verandas  built 

20Lewis,  Life,  44. 

*lPantagraph,  July  2,  1856.    Tax  list,  May  14,  1859. 


34  JESSE  W.   PELL  [298 

around  three  sides.  It  stood  upon  a  knoll  which  Mr.  Fell  had 
selected  more  than  twenty  years  before  as  a  good  place  for  his 
final  residence.22  Here  he  secured  about  eighteen  acres  on  the 
edge  of  the  town,  and  planted  the  land  to  trees  and  shrubs  ac- 
cording to  the  plans  of  William  Saunders  of  Philadelphia,  a  land- 
scape gardener  of  reputation.  A  herd  of  deer  was  added  later, 
and  the  park  was  frequently  opened  to  the  public.23  Men 
great  in  the  history  of  Illinois  and  the  nation  were  entertained 
there ;  it  became  a  famous  meeting-place  of  notable  people.  Love- 
joy,  Bryant,  Lincoln,  Davis,  Swett,  and  other  leaders  were  fre- 
quent visitors.  The  Fell  children  entertained  their  friends  there 
freely;  it  was  a  center  of  social  life.  The  master  of  the  house, 
himself  usually  absorbed  in  business,  liked  to  have  people  about 
him  enjoy  themselves.  In  the  town's  first  years,  this  was  the 
only  private  house  in  Normal  in  which  dancing  was  permitted. 

The  years  at  Fell  Park  were  so  full  and  so  pleasant  that  one 
likes  to  linger  upon  the  story  of  its  life.  There  Mr.  Fell's  chil- 
dren grew  to  maturity,  busy  with  many  tasks  and  very  happy. 
Here  his  elder  daughters  Eliza  and  Clara  were  married,  the  for- 
mer to  W.  0.  Davis,  for  many  years  editor  of  the  Pantagraph, 
and  the  latter  to  Lieutenant  James  R.  Fyffe,  an  officer  of  the 
Thirty-third  Illinois  Volunteer  regiment.  Here  the  older  chil- 
dren went  to  school,  with  their  cousins  and  neighbors,  in  a  small 
building  used  temporarily  as  a  carpenter  shop  during  the 
building  of  the  house.  This  was  a  district  school,  but  as 
it  failed  to  meet  all  requirements,  Mr.  Fell  employed  Miss  Mary 
Daniels,  lately  graduated  from  Mt.  Holyoke,  to  teach  his  own 
children,  their  cousins,  and  the  McCambridge  children  in  his 
own  home.  This  private  school  was  continued  until  the  "model 
school ' '  at  the  Normal  School  opened.24 

The  master  of  the  house,  who  never  grew  away  from  the 
simple  ways  of  living  in  which  he  had  been  bred,  directed  the  in- 
dustries of  the  home  group.  He  was  himself  a  man  busy  with  his 

22In  1833,  when  riding  over  the  prairie  with  a  neighbor  named  Kim- 
ler,  Mr.  Fell  remarked  that  the  roll  in  the  prairie  would  be  an  ideal 
place  for  a  home ;  whereupon  Kimler  had  replied  that  probably  no  one 
would  be  fool  enough  to  build  so  far  from  the  timber.  Grace  Hurwood 
to  Fannie  Fell,  Mar.  16,  1913.  Captain  J.  H.  Burnham,  in  his  "Our 
Duty  to  Future  Generations,"  an  Arbor  Day  address  delivered  at  the 
I.  S.  N.  U.  on  April  21,  1905,  relates  the  same  incident. 

28J.  D.  Caton  to  Fell,  Aug.  9,  1866. 

24William  McCambridge,  My  Remembrances  of  Jesse  W.  Fell.    (MS.) 


299]  BUSINESS   VENTURES   AND    HOME   LIFE  35 

hands,  where  other  men  of  his  interests  would  have  had  manual 
labor  done  by  others.  He  pruned  his  own  trees  and  supervised 
personally  the  planting  of  shrubs  or  the  erection  of  new  build- 
ings. All  this  workaday  enterprise  was  not  conducive  to  an  ap- 
pearance of  immaculate  grooming.  His  wife,  and  more  especially 
his  daughters,  tried  to  look  after  him  to  keep  him  fresh  and  trig. 
His  friends,  driving  to  Fell  Park  to  consult  him  on  business  or 
politics,  found  him  perspiringly  industrious  on  the  warmest  sum- 
mer days.  Distinguished  company,  received  in  the  parlor,  waited 
while  Mr.  Fell  was  being  hunted  through  field  and  orchard.  ' '  The 
girls"  waylaid  his  path  with  the  paraphernalia  of  refreshment. 
Somewhere  between  the  back  porch  and  the  front  parlor,  a  hasty 
scrub,  a  brushing  and  a  clean  collar  must  be  administered.  He 
submitted  to  this  loving  supervision  good-naturedly ;  he  loved  to 
be  ' '  fussed  over ' '  by  his  daughters,  and  he  himself  was  a  man  of 
fastidious  personal  habits.  "It's  all  right,  girls,  it's  all  right," 
he  would  say.  No  amount  of  feminine  emphasis,  however,  could 
persuade  him  that  one's  personal  appearance  was  a  matter  of 
great  moment;  he  was  interested  in  bigger  things.  The  happi- 
nests  of  generations  to  come  was  the  enterprise  of  men  such  as 
he,  and  in  view  of  that  a  dusty  coat  or  work-soiled  hands  could 
matter  little.25 

25Mrs.  L.  B.  Merwin  (a  grand-daughter),  interview,  Nov.  29,  1912. 
Dr.  Sweney,  the  family  physician,  related  a  story  which  shows  Fell's 
indefatigable  energy.  A  refractory  horse  had  kicked  him  until  he  was  a 
mass  of  bruises,  and  the  doctor,  being  called  to  repair  the  damage,  had 
swathed  him  in  bandages  and  soaked  him  in  liniment  and  left  strict 
orders  that  he  was  to  be  kept  quiet.  The  next  day,  calling  to  redress 
the  bruises,  the  distressed  and  apologetic  family  had  to  "chase  after 
father"  down  to  the  edge  of  the  place,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  and 
bring  him  up  for  examination  and  admonition. — John  Dodge,  "Concern- 
ing Jesse  W.  Fell,"  in  the  Fell  Memorial. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  JOURNALIST,  1836-1858 

In  the  very  early  days  of  Bloomington,  General  Gridley  made 
a  yearly  trip  to  the  East  to  buy  stock  for  his  general  store.  In 
the  autumn  of  1836,  Jesse  Fell  and  James  Allin  intrusted  to  him 
the  important  commission  of  purchasing  the  equipment  of  a 
printing  establishment,  and  of  finding  a  man  to  edit  and  print  a 
newspaper  for  McLean  County.  Gridley  induced  two  men,  na- 
tives of  Philadelphia,  to  return  with  him :  William  Hill  and  W. 
B.  Brittain.  Hill  had  been  employed  for  some  time  upon  the  St. 
Louis  Democrat,  and  was  acquainted  with  Western  ways  and  con- 
ditions. Brittain  came  directly  from  Philadelphia,  having 
shipped  the  press  and  type  by  way  of  New  Orleans.  The  two 
men  arrived  in  October,  but  Brittain  became  discouraged  and 
went  back  to  Pennsylvania  before  the  coming  of  the  outfit.  Hill 
stayed,  and  setting  up  his  press  in  a  room  in  the  court  house, 
brought  out  on  January  14,  1837,  the  first  number  of  the  Bloom- 
ington Observer.  About  twenty  numbers  were  printed  before 
the  paper  suspended  publication.  It  was  well  edited  and  well 
printed,  for  a  frontier  paper;  but  in  the  little  struggling  town 
it  found  insufficient  support,  despite  its  spirited  interest  in  all 
that  concerned  the  welfare  of  the  place.1 

Fell  and  Allin  were  sadly  disappointed  at  the  fiasco.  Al- 
tho  his  finances  were  then  at  a  low  ebb, — or  possibly  because 
of  that — Fell  bought  what  he  did  not  already  own  of  the  sus- 
pended Observer,  and  began  to  edit  it  himself  in  January,  1838. 
This  venture  was  somewhat  more  successful  than  the  first  one, 
as  the  paper  continued  to  appear  for  over  a  year,  until  condi- 
tions caused  by  the  hard  times  forced  Fell  again  to  stop  its  pub- 
lication. The  last  number  appeared  in  June,  1839,  after  which 
time  Bloomington  had  no  paper  for  several  years.  Fell  sold  the 
printing  outfit,  which  tradition  says  was  moved  to  Peoria.2 

The  recovery  from  the  severe  depression  of  1837  seems  to 
have  been  especially  slow  in  McLean  County,  where  land  specu- 

*Pantagraph,  Jan.  14,  1857.    Interview  with  Henry  Fell,  May  31,  1913. 
Scott,  Newspapers  and  Periodicals  of  Illinois,  27. 

2The  Democratic  Press  was  established  there  in  February,  1840.   Scott, 
Newspapers  and  Periodicals  of  Illinois,  278. 

36 


301]  THE   JOURNALIST  37 

lation  had  been  very  brisk.  Not  until  1845  was  there  found  a 
man  who  had  the  courage  to  undertake  to  publish  a  newspaper 
there.  In  that  year  R.  B.  Mitchell  started  the  McLean  County 
Register,  but  shortly  gave  it  up  to  Charles  P.  Merriman,  who  es- 
tablished a  weekly,  the  Western  Whig.  He  associated  R.  H. 
Johnson  with  him  late  in  1849,  and  early  in  1850  Johnson  and 
I.  N.  Underwood  became  proprietors  and  editors.  They  asso- 
ciated Merriman  with  them  again  somewhat  later  for  about  six 
months.  This  arrangement  terminated  on  November  19,  1851, 
at  the  end  of  the  fifth  volume  of  the  Western  Whig,  when  Mr. 
Fell  and  Mr.  Merriman  undertook  the  joint  management  and 
editorship  of  the  paper.  A  new  outfit  of  type,  brought  up  the 
Illinois  River  and  carted  over  from  Pekin,  was  purchased  and  the 
name  of  the  publication  changed  to  the  Bloomington  Intelli- 
gencer. This  partnership  was  in  turn  dissolved  on  March  17, 
1852,  when  Mr.  Fell  became  sole  editor  and  publisher.  He  man- 
aged the  paper  until  the  end  of  that  volume,  November  17,  1852, 
and  then  retired,  being  succeeded  by  Mr.  Merriman  as  sole  owner. 
Mr.  Merriman  was  a  classical  scholar  of  some  repute,  and 
changed  the  name  again  to  the  Pantagraph,  a  name  under  which 
it  has  become  well  known  and  very  influential  throughout  Central 
Illinois.3 

Fell 's  connection  with  the  Pantagraph  did  not  cease  with  the 
termination  of  his  official  editorship.  His  name  appeared  as 
late  as  February  9,  1853,  as  contributing  editor  of  the  Intelli- 
gencer. As  a  medium  for  moulding  public  opinion,  he  found  it  a 
useful  ally,  and  wrote  for  it  often.  Its  editors  and  managers 
found  him  a  constant  source  of  helpful  suggestions,  and  seem  to 
have  consulted  with  him  on  questions  of  business  policy. 

For  many  years  after  disposing  of  his  partnership  in  the 
Intelligencer,  his  newspaper  work  was  of  this  occasional  and  un- 
official nature.  During  the  Civil  War,  his  interest  in  reform  cen- 
tered in  the  struggle  then  waging,  but  after  its  close  he  cher- 
ished the  hope  of  establishing  at  Normal  some  kind  of  journal 
which  might  become  the  mouthpiece  of  various  reform  move- 
ments then  more  or  less  before  the  public.  Interesting  some  of 
his  friends,  he  purchased  an  outfit  for  publishing  a  paper,  and 
was  rapidly  completing  plans  for  its  appearance  when  he  learned 

3Lewis,  Life,  38.  The  issue  of  the  Western  Whig  for  Dec.  n,  1847, 
is  No.  6,  Vol.  II.  It  was  published  at  No.  3  Brick  Row,  Front  street.  The 
inventory  of  the  printing  outfit  of  the  Western  Whig  (no  date,  probably 
Nov.,  1851),  is  among  the  Fell  MSS. 


38  JESSE  W.   FELL  [302 

that  Scibird  and  Waters,  then  proprietors  of  the  Pantagraph, 
were  seeking  a  buyer  for  their  paper.  He  had  already  carried 
negotiations  for  an  editor  for  his  proposed  paper,  through  corre- 
spondence with  Greeley  and  others,  almost  to  the  point  of  engag- 
ing a  certain  Dr.  Weil.*  But  as  the  Pantagraph  had  already  a 
wide  circulation  and  a  considerable  influence,  it  was  far  more 
valuable  to  a  man  with  a  propaganda  than  any  newly  estab- 
lished sheet  could  be,  and  Mr.  Fell,  with  James  P.  Taylor  and  his 
son-in-law  William  0.  Davis,  made  haste  to  secure  it.  This  was 
in  August,  1868. 

The  Pantagraph  was  a  Republican  organ  of  moderate  parti- 
zanship.  Mr.  Fell  abandoned  the  idea  of  making  Mr.  Weil  edi- 
tor, deciding  to  fill  that  post  himself.  He  entered  into  editorial 
duties  with  zest,  perhaps  remembering  his  experience  with  the 
ultra-ethical  Eclectic  Observer.  Mr.  Davis  became  business 
manager.  Fell  was,  however,  a  somewhat  impractical  chief,  by 
far  too  idealistic  for  the  environment  of  a  newspaper  office. 
Moreover,  the  confinement  of  office  life  was  as  irksome  as  ever. 
After  a  few  months,  he  gave  up  the  editorial  management,  which 
was  taken  over  by  his  old  friend  Dr.  E.  R.  Roe,  in  June  of  1869.5 
Mr.  Fell  retained  his  connection  with  the  paper  until  late  Octo- 
ber, 1870,  when  he  sold  out  his  entire  interest  to  his  son-in-law. 
Mr.  Taylor  also  disposed  of  his  share  to  Mr.  Davis,  leaving  the 
latter  entirely  responsible.  Mr.  Fell  thereafter  confined  his 
newspaper  work  to  occasional  editorials  and  to  special  articles 
upon  the  subjects  which  engaged  his  interest. 

«T.  Tilton  to  Fell,  Nov.  24,  1868.  In  this  letter  Dr.  Weil,  "long  .  .  . 
known  to  Mr.  Bungay  and  Mr.  Greeley,"  is  recommended  for  the  editor- 
ship. 

5Dr.  Roe  had  entered  the  Federal  army  as  "a  bitter  Jackson  Demo- 
crat," but  came  back  "a  Black  Republican."  He  was  in  every  way  the 
man  to  carry  on  Fell's  dream  of  a  popular  newspaper  advocating  reform. 
He  was  very  popular,  having  been  advanced  to  a  colonelcy  in  the  army 
from  the  ranks.  Upon  his  return  to  civil  life  he  was  elected  a  deputy  in 
the  circuit  clerk's  office  to  follow  Luman  Burr.  Luman  Burr  in  the  Daily 
Bulletin,  July  6,  1913.  Bloomington  Democrat,  Sept.  30,  1864;  Panta- 
graph, Oct.  i,  3,  1864;  Aug.  12,  1868;  Nov.  i,  1870;  Mar.  13,  Oct.  23,  1871. 


CHAPTER  IV 
FOUNDING  THE  NORMAL  SCHOOL,  1853-1860 

The  advocates  of  free  public  schools  in  Illinois  secured  a 
law  authorizing  but  not  establishing  them,  as  early  as  1825.  This 
law  was  so  amended  as  practically  to  annul  it  two  years  later, 
which  means  that  Illinois  had  no  public  school  system  until  1855. 
The  desire  for  an  effective  public  school  law  took  definite  form 
after  an  impromptu  conference  at  Bloomington  of  three  men 
who  realized  the  need  of  the  state  and  were  disposed  to  take 
measures  to  relieve  it.  These  men  were  J.  A.  Hawley  of  Dixon, 
H.  H.  Lee  of  Chicago,  and  Daniel  Wilkins  of  Bloomington. 
They  issued  a  call  to  all  friends  of  free  schools  for  a  meeting  to 
be  held  at  Bloomington  on  December  26-28,  1853.  The  call  was 
signed  by  the  secretary  of  state,  who  had  charge  of  all  educa- 
tional affairs  in  those  days,  by  the  presidents  and  faculties  of 
two  of  the  leading  colleges  of  the  state — Shurtleff  and  Illinois 
"Wesleyan — by  the  clergymen  of  Bloomington,  and  by  others 
who  were  interested.  E.  W.  Brewster  of  Elgin  was  made  presi- 
dent of  the  conference,  which  was  large  and  enthusiastic.  Every 
man  who  had  a  solution  to  offer  for  the  educational  problems  of 
the  state  was  there  with  his  resolutions,  his  friends,  and  his  ar- 
guments.1 

Several  of  the  principles  embodied  in  the  resolutions  passed 
at  that  meeting  were  afterward  incorporated  in  the  state  law, 
and  have  been  largely  instrumental  in  shaping  the  educational 
policy  of  Illinois.  They  included  a  plan  for  a  State  Teachers' 
Institute,  afterward  the  State  Teachers'  Association,  which  was 
carried  out  immediately  and  has  been  in  operation  ever  since. 
Another  called  for  a  state  superintendent  of  schools,  who  should 
devote  all  his  time  to  the  interests  of  education.  Authorized 

1State  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Reports,  I,  127-138.  Illi- 
nois Teacher,  I,  321-328.  The  convention  here  mentioned  was  not  the  first 
•of  an  educational  nature  in  the  state,  but  the  first  that  concerned  itself 
especially  with  the  common  school  system.  Illinois  Teacher,  I,  328-336. 
J.  H.  Burnham,  "Educational  Convention  of  1853"  in  School  Record  of 
McLean  County  (McLean  County  Historical  Society;  Transactions,  II), 
118-127. 

39 


40  JESSE  W.  FELL  [304 

by  a  new  state  law,  Governor  Matteson  appointed,  on  February  9, 
1854,  Ninian  W.  Edwards  as  the  first  superintendent  of  schools 
in  Illinois.  A  third  resolution  was  in  favor  of  a  journal  de- 
voted to  education.  This  periodical,  called  the  Illinois  Teacher, 
was  started  after  the  Peoria  meeting  of  1854,  with  a  curious 
scheme  of  editorial  management  by  which  a  different  man  was 
made  responsible  for  its  contents  each  month.  The  result  of  this 
division  of  labor  was  an  uncertain  quality  of  content  and  finan- 
cial disaster.  After  a  year's  trial  of  the  plan  Mr.  Charles  E. 
Hovey  of  Peoria,  one  of  a  valiant  group  of  New  Englanders  who 
were  then  the  educational  leaders  of  the  state,  was  made  editor 
and  manager.  He  was  vigorous  and  able,  and  put  the  publica- 
tion speedily  and  effectively  upon  its  feet.2 

Then  there  came  up  a  question  which  was  bound  to  cause  a 
discussion,  for  it  involved  the  fundamental  differences  of  men 
whose  training  and  ideals  gave  them  widely  diverging  concep- 
tions of  the  needs  and  the  consequent  policies  of  the  state.  This: 
was  the  question  of  the  establishment  of  some  institution  for  the 
better  training  of  teachers.  All  were  agreed  that  such  a  school 
was  a  vital  need ;  scarcely  any  two  were  agreed  as  to  just  what 
type  of  school  could,  in  this  new  and  growing  country,  accom- 
plish the  end  sought  in  the  best  way.  Jonathan  B.  Turner,  from 
whose  fertile  brain  came  the  vast  and  comprehensive  scheme  re- 
sulting finally  in  the  founding  of  the  great  state  universities  of 
the  Middle  and  Far  "West,8  was  trying  to  awaken  enthusiasm  for 
a  combination  school  to  include  agricultural,  industrial,  and  nor- 
mal school  departments.  The  friends  of  the  already  established 
denominational  colleges,  who  feared  the  results  of  separating 
education  and  religion  by  the  founding  of  state  schools,  wished 
to  add  normal  departments  to  Shurtleff,  McKendrie,  Knox,  and 
Wesleyan.  A  third  group,  armed  with  the  record  of  the  normal 
schools  of  Massachusetts,  strongly  advocated  a  separate  and  "un- 
trammeled"  training-school  exclusively  for  teachers.4 

Jonathan  Turner  had  organized  the  State  Industrial  League, 
a  society  working  for  a  state  industrial  college,  and  numbered 
Mr.  Fell,  who  was  director  of  the  McLean  County  division,5 

2State  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Reports,  I,  146.  Illinois. 
Teacher,  I,  8-18. 

»E.  J.  James,  Origin  of  the  Land  Grant  Act  of  1862,  25-27  (Univer- 
sity of  Illinois  Studies,  IV,  No.  i). 

Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Reports,  II,  52. 

5Organized  Feb.  9,  1854. 


305]  FOUNDING   THE  NORMAL   SCHOOL  41 

among  his  sympathizers  and  helpers.  Fell  was  eager  to  see  the 
industrial  college  founded,  but  knowing  that  a  normal  school  was 
both  more  popular  and  more  immediately  needed,  was  willing  to 
wait  for  the  realization  of  the  more  comprehensive  plan.  With 
Turner  he  bent  his  energies  toward  uniting  educational  forces 
for  the  accomplishment  of  some  one  definite  object. 

The  various  schemes  were  further  discussed  and  worked 
over  at  a  meeting  held  in  Peoria  in  December  of  1854.  At  the 
third  meeting  in  Springfield  it  became  plain  that  the  advocates 
of  a  separate  normal  school  were  strongly  in  the  majority,  and 
the  next  year  in  Chicago  they  secured  the  passage  of  a  resolution 
to  the  effect  that  the  Association  did  not  wish  "to  discuss  any 
university  question,  but  occupy  themselves  with  the  interests  of 
common  schools  and  Normal  schools."  Mr.  Turner,  whose  vis- 
ions of  the  future  did  not  blind  him  to  immediate  demands  and 
practical  methods,  yielded  his  own  larger  plan  with  a  grace 
made  possible  by  his  great  faith  in  its  ultimate  realization :  and 
the  Association  passed  a  resolution  which  called  for  an  appro- 
priation for  "the  immediate  establishment  of  a  State  Normal 
School  for  the  education  of  teachers."6 

The  legislature,  which  had  already  (in  1855)  established  a 
free  school  system,  passed  the  desired  law,  and  Governor  Bissell 
signed  it  on  February  18,  1857.  The  law  designated  the  members 
of  the  state  board  of  education,  who  were  in  charge  of  the  af- 
fairs of  the  school,  but  did  not  state  its  location,  which  was  to  be 
decided  by  competitive  bids. 

It  was  after  the  passing  of  this  law  that  Fell's  interest  in 
the  normal  school  became  intensified  by  the  hope  of  securing  it 
for  Bloomington.  Long  before  this  he  had  hoped  to  see  an  insti- 
tution of  learning,  the  exact  nature  of  which  was  not  then  clear 
to  himself,  in  the  town  of  North  Bloomington.  Upon  his  return 
from  Payson  he  had  become  a  member  of  the  first  incorporated 
board  of  trustees  of  the  Wesleyan  University,  serving  until  1857.7 
Now  he  saw  in  the  projected  normal  school  an  opportunity  of 
realizing  quickly  his  dream  of  making  North  Bloomington  a 
school  town,  and  so  attracting  to  it  the  class  of  citizens  he  wanted 

•Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Reports,  II,  53*?-  Illinois 
Teacher,  I,  254. 

7His  greatest  service  to  the  institution  lay  in  his  influence  in  changing 
its  location  from  Seminary  Avenue  near  the  present  Chicago  and  Alton 
shops,  in  the  outskirts  of  Bloomington,  to  the  central  site  which  it  occupies. 
James  Shaw  in  Fell  Memorial,  4;  John  F.  Eberhart,  ibid.  19. 


42  JESSE  W.  PELL,  [306 

it  to  have.  The  block  for  the  ' '  Seminary ' '  had  long  been  selected, 
but  he  abandoned  it  in  favor  of  a  larger  tract  farther  removed 
from  Bloomington.  Other  people  had  other  ideas  as  to  what  was 
the  best  site.  Five,  besides  the  one  favored,  were  offered.  The 
other  five,  however,  had  less  in  the  way  of  subscription  attached 
than  the  one  he  advocated.  This  was  part  of  the  Parkinson  farm 
of  three  hundred  fifty  acres,  owned  at  that  time  by  Dr.  Joseph 
Payne  and  Meshac  Pike,  who  had  recently  bought  it.  David  Da- 
vis and  E.  W.  Bakewell  each  added  about  forty  acres,  which 
made  the  tract  about  a  quarter-section. 

Mr.  Fell  carried  on  the  work  of  securing  subscriptions,  aided 
by  others  who  reported  to  him  regularly.  The  amount  of  the 
subscription  was  kept  out  of  the  newspapers,  and  very  little 
said  of  the  matter  where  rival  towns  might  hear  of  it.  Any- 
thing that  could  be  used  was  solicited;  and  land,  cash,  notes, 
even  nursery  stock  and  freight  donations,  were  given.  Friends 
of  popular  education  outside  the  state  were  appealed  to  by  some, 
altho  few  if  any  responded.8  As  is  often  the  case,  many 
of  the  offers  were  saddled  with  embarrassing  conditions.  One 
set  of  offers  stipulated  that  the  site  should  be  within  a  mile  of 
Bloomington ;  another,  that  it  must  be  within  three-fourths  of 
a  mile  of  the  railroad  crossing  at  North  Bloomington;  still  an- 
other, within  three  miles  of  Bloomington.  Mr.  Fell's  site  satis- 
fied all  these  conditions. 

Meantime  other  towns  had  not  been  idle.  Batavia  offered 
a  ready-made  plant  in  the  grounds  and  buildings  of  the  Batavia 
Institute  and  fifteen  thousand  dollars  in  cash.  Washington,  in 
Tazewell  County,  offered  the  buildings  and  grounds  of  Washing- 
ton Academy  and  cash  to  the  amount  of  twelve  hundred  dollars. 
Peoria  was  known  to  be  piling  up  a  large  subscription,  but  no 
one  in  Bloomington  could  find  out  just  how  formidable  this  rival 
was.9 

It  was  at  this  point  that  John  F.  Eberhart  gave  substantial 
help.  He  was  a  teacher  who  had  been  forced  by  ill-health  to  give 
up  regular  classroom  work,  and  who  spent  much  time  in  holding 

8Among  these  was  Alexander  Campbell,  the  founder  of  the  Church 
of  the  Disciples.  He  seems  to  have  been  favorable  to  the  project  at  first, 
but  later  declined  to  help.  Thirty  years  after,  Fell  attributed  this  to 
Campbell's  statement  that  "Mr.  Bakewell  and  wife  had  done  enough." 
Bakewell  had  married  Campbell's  daughter.  Campbell  (Bethany,  Va.)  to 
Fell,  1857. 

Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Reports,  II,  286-291. 


307]  POUNDING   THE  NORMAL  SCHOOL  43 

institutes  throughout  the  state.  This  gave  him  an  opportunity 
to  know  conditions  thoroly,  and  his  knowledge  of  conditions 
made  him  greatly  interested  in  the  projected  normal  school.  He 
met  Mr.  Fell  first  when  attending  an  educational  meeting  in  1855 
or  1856,  when  he  was  entertained  at  the  Fell  home.  The  two  men 
became  fast  friends,  and  when  Eberhart  found  out  how  keenly 
Fell  wanted  the  normal  school  for  his  own  town,  he  was  minded 
to  give  all  possible  aid.  This  resolution  was  strengthened  by  his 
own  dislike  for  Peoria,  which  he  considered  undesirable  because 
it  was  "a  river  town  and  a  whiskey  town."  He  entered  into  the 
contest  for  Fell  and  Bloomington,  even  as  Simeon  W.  Wright 
was  entering  it  as  a  champion  of  Hovey  and  Peoria.  For  about 
three  months  he  worked  with  Fell  in  McLean  County,  a  guest  at 
his  home  and  party  to  all  his  plans.10 

About  a  week  before  the  final  decision  was  to  be  made,  Eber- 
hart made  a  trip  to  Peoria  to  see  clearly  just  what  the  situation 
there  might  be ;  and  chanced,  fortunately  for  his  purpose,  upon 
a  friend,  a  teacher,  who  in  his  enthusiasm  told  him  the  amount 
of  the  subscription  already  secured.  Returning  at  once  to  Bloom- 
ington, he  told  Fell  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  raise  the  Bloom- 
ington subscription.  Fell  asked  him  if  a  ten  thousand  dollar  ad- 
vance would  be  sufficient,  and  Eberhart  replied  that  it  would 
have  to  be  more  than  that.  Fell  suggested  fifteen  thousand,  but 
Eberhart  repeated  that  it  must  be  still  more.  Fell  inquired  if 
twenty  thousand  would  do,  and  received  the  same  reply.  But 
when  he  was  asked  if  twenty-five  thousand  would  cap  Peoria 's 
bid,  Eberhart  replied  that  such  a  bid  would  secure  the  normal 
school.  Fell  vowed  that  Bloomington  would  raise  the  money. 

But  he  wanted  to  see  for  himself  just  how  things  were  at 
Peoria,  since  Eberhart 's  sense  of  honor  prevented  him  from  tell- 
ing details.  He  knew  that  a  powerful  stimulus,  combined  with 
knowledge  of  the  real  situation,  would  be  necessary  if  his  towns- 
men were  to  be  persuaded  to  raise  their  already  generous  bid. 
Eberhart  had  brought  him  the  news  from  Peoria  on  Friday,  May 
3,  1857.  At  Fell's  request,  he  set  off  at  once  for  Chicago,  to  in- 
terview the  three  members  of  the  board  resident  there,  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  Bloomington  location.  If  these  men  were  at  all  un- 
friendly, they  were  effectively  won  over  by  Eberhart  during  the 
week-end  he  spent  in  Chicago. 

Meantime,  having  seen  Eberhart  off,  Fell  harnessed  Tom  to 
the  buggy  and  set  off  for  Peoria,  where  he  knew  there  was  to  be 

"John  Eberhart,  in  Fell  Memorial,  23. 


44  JESSE   W.    FELL  [308 

a  citizens'  mass  meeting  that  night.  He  covered  the  forty-five 
miles  in  time  to  attend  the  meeting,  and  was  observed  in  the 
audience  by  Hovey.  No  attempt,  however,  was  made  to  keep 
secret  the  amount  of  the  subscription  at  this  meeting.  The  jubi- 
lant committee,  sure  that  in  the  short  time  left  no  competitor 
could  equal  their  offerings,  were  not  alarmed  even  at  the  sight 
of  their  rival's  appearance — an  apparition  that  would  have 
meant  more  to  them  had  they  know  him  better. 

It  was  late  when  the  meeting  adjourned,  but  early  the  next 
morning  Fell  was  back  in  Bloomington,  briskly  presenting  to  the 
leading  citizens  the  somewhat  appalling  dictum  that  an  addi- 
tional twenty-five  thousand  dollars  must  be  subscribed.  He  be- 
gan by  raising  his  own  cash  subscription  to  two  thousand  dollars, 
with  seventy-five  hundred  dollars  in  Jackson  County  lands,  worth 
about  five  dollars  an  acre.  Others  caught  his  enthusiasm  and 
added  to  their  subscriptions  until  the  individual  pledges,  already 
totalling  fifty  thousand  dollars,  amounted  to  seventy-one  thou- 
sand. The  county  commissioners,  who  had  before  subscribed  for 
the  county  a  sum  equal  to  the  private  subscriptions,  now  added 
to  the  swamp  lands  already  promised,  enough  to  bring  the  whole 
amount  raised  to  one  hundred  forty-one  thousand  dollars.11 

The  meeting  of  the  board  was  to  be  in  Peoria  on  the  seventh 
of  May.  A  tour  of  inspection  to  the  proposed  site  at  ' '  the  Junc- 
tion," as  Normal  was  commonly  called  then,  preceded  the  meet- 
ing. The  weather  had  been  very  rainy  and  the  bare  prairie  about 
Bloomington  was  a  hopeless  swamp,  not  liable  to  make  a  favor- 
able impression  upon  critical  visitors.  Mr.  Fell  went  over  the 
ground  carefully  the  night  before,  found  every  mud-hole  and 
every  dry  ridge,  and  mapped  out  a  course  for  the  carriages  in- 
tended to  minimize  the  danger  of  being  mired  in  a  bottomless  pit 
of  Illinois  mud.  When  the  board  made  its  tour  of  inspection, 
Fell  rode  in  the  first  carriage,  and  personally  directed  the  driver 
over  the  uncharted,  soggy  ground.  The  drivers  of  the  other 
carriages  had  orders  to  follow  the  first  undeviatingly  on  pain  of 
losing  life  and  wages,  and  on  no  account  to  allow  the  horses  to 
become  mired.  So  conducted,  the  board  made  a  safe  trip  and 

"The  three  county  commissioners  who  risked  their  popularity  and 
tenure  of  office  to  secure  the  normal  school  (for  the  pledge  had  to  he 
made  without  recourse  to  a  vote)  were  A.  J.  Merriman,  Milton  Smith, 
and  Hiram  Buck.  They  were  reelected  that  fall,  but  were  superseded  by 
a  board  of  supervisors  which  ratified  their  action  in  May.  Superintend- 
ent of  Public  Instruction,  Reports,  II,  Appendix  22,  37 iff. 


309]  FOUNDING   THE  NORMAL  SCHOOL  45 

was  returned  to  the  station  without  accident.  The  young  trees 
planted  along  the  streets  of  North  Bloomington  made  a  good  im- 
pression upon  the  members,  it  is  recorded.  From  the  proposed 
site  they  went  to  the  station,  where  they  were  to  board  the  train 
for  Peoria.  Some  half  a  dozen  Bloomingtonians  and  a  reporter 
accompanied  them.12 

At  Peoria  there  was  a  similar  inspection  of  the  site  offered, 
after  which  the  board  sat  publicly  at  the  court  house.  The  Bloom- 
ington bid  was  accepted,  with  conditions  attached  to  secure  the 
somewhat  precarious  county  subscription,  which  had  to  be  guar- 
anteed by  citizens.18  Over  eighty  prominent  Bloomingtonians 
signed  this  guarantee,  Abraham  Lincoln  drew  up  the  bond,  and 
the  pledges  were  all  met.14 

Bloomington  was  exultant  when  Fell  and  his  friends  brought 
back  to  them  the  news  that  they  had  won  the  new  school,  and 
plans  for  the  town  that  would  in  time  grow  up  around  it  were 
rampant.  Ground  for  the  building  was  broken  promptly,  the 
cornerstone  being  laid  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  September  with 
all  due  ceremony.  Fell's  address  on  that  occasion  revealed  hi* 
own  conception  of  the  future  of  the  school.  He  hoped  in  time  it 
might  become  what,  for  reasons  of  financial  expediency,  it  was 
then  called :  a  university.  Especially,  he  hoped  that  an  agricul- 
tural school  with  an  experiment  farm  would  eventually  become 
part  of  the  school,  and  that  courses  in  mechanical  studies  might 
be  added  as  opportunity  offered.15 

The  question  of  the  principalship  was  a  lively  issue.  Fell, 
who  was  a  warm  personal  friend  of  Horace  Mann,  had  long  cher- 
ished in  his  heart  the  hope  of  securing  his  services  for  the  need- 
ful West.  When  planning  the  "seminary"  which  was  to  have 
been  located  on  the  east  side  of  the  present  Broadway  in  Nor- 

12This  reporter  was  Edward  J.  Lewis,  later  editor  of  the  Pantograph, 
and  Fell's  lifelong  friend.  The  account  given,  with  many  incidents  not 
here  noted,  is  found  in  his  manuscript  Life  of  Fell.  Weekly  Pantograph, 
May  27,  1857.  Lincoln  Weldon,  interview,  July  12,  1913. 

"Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Reports,  II,  359-364. 

WWrf,  II,  373-378. 

"The  new  school  was  to  be  financed  from  the  income  of  the  college 
and  seminary  fund,  then  about  ten  thousand  dollars  per  year,  which  was 
permanently  diverted  for  this  purpose.  Many,  not  without  good  ground, 
objected  to  this  diversion,  and  it  was  to  answer  their  representations  that 
the  singularly  inappropriate  name  of  the  Illinois  State  Normal  "Univer- 
sity" was  used,  a  name  which  has  been  retained  even  after  the  founding 
of  the  state  university.  State  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Re- 
ports, I,  123;  II,  276;  Illinois  Teacher,  III,  395. 


46  JESSE  W.   PELL  [310 

mal,  he  had  corresponded  with  Mann  and  others  relative  to  its 
constitution,  scope  and  curriculum.  He  now  asked  the  great  edu- 
cator if  he  would  consider  the  presidency  of  the  proposed  nor- 
mal school.  Mr.  Mann  was  favorably  disposed,  and  before  the 
location  of  the  school  had  been  actually  secured,  a  subscription 
list  signed  by  Bloomington  citizens  promised  material  aid  in 
raising  the  salary  of  Horace  Mann  were  he  to  become  the  head 
of  the  new  institution.16 

The  meeting  of  the  board  at  which  a  ' '  principal ' '  was  to  be 
elected  was  held  in  Bloomington.  Shortly  before  the  time  of 
meeting,  a  prominent  friend  of  the  Peoria  faction  came  to  John 
F.  Eberhart,  who  with  Fell  led  the  pro-Mann  party,  and  told  him 
that  it  was  a  matter  of  political  necessity  that  an  Illinois  man 
be  elected  to  the  position.  "If  you  elect  Mann  we'll  kill  him,'* 
said  this  advocate  of  local  sovereignty ;  and  he  further  intimated 
that  nothing  but  the  appointment  of  a  Peorian  could  satisfy  the 
disappointed  politicians  of  that  city.  When  the  situation  be- 
came known  to  Horace  Mann,  he  telegraphed  to  Eberhart  that 
he  would  not  be  a  candidate  for  the  place  if  there  were  to  be  any 
fight  connected  with  it.  Since  Fell  was  equally  opposed  to  dis- 
sensions at  this  critical  time  and  realized  thoroly  the  need  of 
united  support  for  the  principal  of  the  struggling  institution,  the 
plan  of  securing  Horace  Mann  was  reluctantly  given  up  by  his 
friends,  and  the  Middle  West  lost  the  strength  which  might  have 
accrued  to  this  school  through  the  leadership  of  the  greatest  edu- 
cator of  his  day.17  After  Mann,  Mr.  Charles  Hovey  was  gener- 

16The  subscription  list,  dated  May  i,  1857,  was  signed  by  Jesse  W. 
Fell,  K.  H.  Fell,  W.  H.  Allin,  C.  W.  Holder,  Jos.  Payne,  John  Magoun, 
F.  K.  Phoenix,  John  Dietrich,  E.  Thomas,  McCann  Davis,  and  amounted 
to  $750.  Mr.  Mann  had  agreed  to  accept  the  presidency  at  $2500.  John 
F.  Eberhart,  in  Fell  Memorial,  24,  and  interview,  June  20,  1913.  Mann  to 
Fell,  June  23,  1856.  President  F.  Wayland  of  Brown  University  to  Fell,. 
Jan.  29,  1853.  Illinois  Teacher,  III,  107. 

17It  has  been  said  that  the  liberal  religious  views  of  Mann  were 
largely  responsible  for  that  disapproval  which  resulted  in  the  vigorous 
opposition  to  his  presidency,  the  powerful  Methodist  faction  in  the  state 
considering  him  a  dangerous  leader  of  the  young  in  spite  of  his  ability. 
Certain  it  is  that  his  abolitionist  leanings  aroused  antipathy  among  that 
large  number  who  sympathized  with  slavery  or  feared  to  have  the  ques- 
tion agitated.  Pro-slavery  advocates  especially  remembered  a  speech  of 
Mr.  Mann  in  which  he  had  vigorously  assailed  Daniel  Webster  and  the 
Compromise  of  1850.  These  considerations,  combined  with  the  fact  that 
Hovey  was  able  to  command  powerful  forces  in  support  of  his  own  can- 
didacy, were  quite  sufficient  to  defeat  the  large-visioned  plan  of  Fell 


311]  POUNDING   THE  NORMAL   SCHOOL  47 

ally  considered  the  best  man  for  the  position,  although  Eberhart, 
who  declined  the  nomination,  and  a  Mr.  Phelps  were  also  con- 
sidered. On  the  final  vote,  Hovey  was  elected  by  a  bare  majority. 

Once  elected,  Hovey  set  to  work  with  great  energy  and  abil- 
ity to  make  the  normal  school  a  success.  The  task  was  a  hard 
one.  School  opened  in  the  historic  Major's  Hall,  perched  atop 
a  grocery  store  on  Front  street  in  Bloomington.  There  were 
twenty-nine  pupils  on  the  opening  day,  October  5,  1857,  and 
more  followed  soon,  the  total  enrollment  for  the  year  being  one 
hundred  twenty-seven.  There  were  two  assistants,  and  a  "model 
school ' '  for  observation  and  practice. 

The  troubles  of  the  normal  school  began  with  the  panic  of 
1857.  Many  of  the  men  who  had  led  in  the  subscriptions  found 
themselves  unable  to  pay  what  they  had  promised,  and  the  com- 
missioners were  unable  to  sell  the  swamp  lands  that  had  been 
counted  upon  so  confidently.  Even  the  title  to  these  lands  was 
found  to  be  uncertain,  and  Fell  made  a  trip  to  Washington  to 
secure  the  complete  and  formal  deed,  in  order  that  the  lands 
might  be  available  in  case  buyers  appeared.18  He  returned  early 
in  November,  with  word  that  the  official  confirmation  would  be 
sent  to  Springfield.  New  complications  arose,  however,  after  he 
had  left  Washington,  and  the  patents  for  the  thirty  thousand 
acres  were  not  issued  until  January,  1858.  The  last  payment  on 
the  pledge  from  the  county  lands  was  paid  in  October,  1864. 

The  uncertainty  of  realizing  money  from  the  county  grant, 
with  the  scarcity  of  money  in  general  and  the  unwillingness  of 
one  or  two  of  the  wealthy  land-owners  to  turn  over  their  prom- 
ised acres  at  the  time  when  they  were  most  needed,  made  it  im- 
possible to  make  the  first  payment  to  the  contractors,  and  work 
was  suspended  in  December  of  1857.  Of  all  the  thousands  sub- 
scribed, not  even  six  or  seven  could  be  collected  for  immediate 
use.  The  ingenious  expedients  of  Charles  Hovey  during  the  dark 
days  that  ensued  included  every  possible  scheme  for  making 
something  out  of  nothing.  The  school  was  without  money,  with- 
out established  credit,  and  without  that  public  support  which 
comes  with  the  tradition  of  success.  Some  of  its  opponents  began 
to  suggest  that  a  failure  so  apparent  be  abandoned.  A  few  stanch 

18In  August,  1855,  being  himself  unable  to  go,  Fell  had  sent  his  son 
Henry,  now  grown  to  manhood,  to  Washington  to  look  after  the  school 
warrants  for  Illinois,  W.  F.  M.  Arny  being  then  in  the  patent  office.  He 
(Henry  Fell)  remained  until  the  last  of  October,  and  was  moderately 
successful  in  his  mission. 


\ 


48  JESSE  W.   FELL  [312 

friends  upheld  the  hands  of  the  determined  president  at  this 
time,  risking  their  own  property  by  signing  the  notes  it  was 
necessary  to  make.  These  men  were  Charles  and  Richard  Holder, 
and  Jesse  and  Kersey  Fell.  Dr.  George  P.  Rex  and  S.  W.  Moul- 
ton  also  helped  by  giving  personal  notes.  The  merchants  of 
Bloomington  stood  loyally  by  the  school,  furnishing  materials  on 
credit  upon  the  basis  of  the  faith  of  the  friends  and  guarantors 
that  the  next  legislature  would  make  appropriations  to  cover  all 
debts.  This  was  done  at  the  next  session,  and  work  upon  the 
building  was  resumed  in  the  spring  of  1859.  The  school  moved 
into  its  new  quarters  in  the  autumn  of  1860,  and  on  October  5 
•of  that  year  the  last  brick  was  laid,  with  short  speeches,  cheers, 
and  a  free  picnic  lunch  for  all.19 

It  seemed  to  Fell  and  to  other  friends  of  the  normal  school, 
that  a  formal  dedication  of  the  building  would  call  attention  to 
the  institution,  and  gain  it  friends  and  influence.  It  was  a  time 
of  great  anxiety  and  uncertainty,  and  there  were  some  who  hesi- 
tated to  take  time  and  expense  for  such  an  occasion  during  a 
period  of  national  peril.  The  dedication,  however,  which  was  on 
January  30,  1861,  not  only  gained  the  end  for  which  it  was 
planned,  but  afforded  a  relief  from  the  tense  anxiety  of  the  time, 
a  comforting  assurance  of  at  least  one  great  good  accomplished, 
which  gave  heart  and  encouragement  to  all  who  attended  it.  Mr. 
Fell  worked  indefatigably  to  make  the  occasion  successful.  In- 
vitations were  sent  to  all  the  prominent  men  in  the  state,  and 
great  crowds  attended  from  Bloomington  and  the  nearby  towns. 
It  was  one  of  the  first  normal  schools  built  west  of  the  Allegha- 
nies,  and  the  first  state-endowed  educational  institution  in  Illi- 
nois. Governor  Yates  and  Ex-Governor  Bebb  of  Ohio  were  there, 
and  many  lesser  stars.  The  speeches  were  given  in  the  great  hall 
of  the  new  building,  and  the  feast  which  crowned  the  occasion 
was  in  Royce's  Hall  in  Bloomington.  Mrs.  Fell  and  her  cousin, 
Mrs.  Holder,  planned  and  managed  the  banquet,  at  which  the 
mayor  presided  and  Mr.  Fell  was  toastmaster.20 

Fell's  interest  in  the  school  continued  always,  and  for  many 
years  was  actively  shown.  He  attended  the  public  meetings,  en- 
couraged the  literary  societies,  and  while  a  member  of  the  board 
of  education  superintended  the  planting  of  the  campus,  of  which 

"Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Reports,  II,  90-103. 
20Newspaper  clippings,  undated,  in  the  Scrapbook.    Illinois  Teacher, 
VII,  78. 


313]  POUNDING  THE  NORMAL  SCHOOL  49 

more  in  another  chapter.21  Through  the  years  of  its  gradual 
growth  and  establishment  he  was  regularly  the  man  who  secured 
the  necessary  appropriations  at  Springfield. 

21G.  B.  Robinson,  secretary  of  the  Wrightonian  Society,  to  Fell,  April 
30,  1861.    Mr.  Fell  became  an  honorary  member  of  this  society. 


CHAPTER  V 

• 

POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES,  1840-1860 

The  strong  admiration  which  Fell  had  for  Henry  Clay  led 
him  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  local  politics  during  the  first 
three  years  of  his  residence  in  Bloomington.  He  was  never  of 
those  who  consider  politics  so  inherently  and  ineradicably  evil 
that  honest  men  can  have  no  part  in  them.  Politics  interested  him 
in  an  absorbing  way  at  times.  He  used  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment as  a  means  of  securing  good  ends,  and  also  probably  with 
a  keen  appreciation  of  the  fun  of  the  game.  And  he  was  one  of 
the  few  men  who  do  not  ask  or  receive  material  compensation  for 
their  participation  in  public  affairs.1 

Until  1840,  his  political  activities  seem  to  have  been  mainly 
along  the  line  of  securing  various  favors  for  the  districts  in  which 
he  was  interested,  and  in  urging  the  election  of  men  who  fa- 
vored internal  improvements.  In  that  year  he  was  much  in  de- 
mand for  stump  speeches  throughout  Central  Illinois,  where  the 
campaign  lacked  none  of  that  picturesqueness  which  character- 
ized it  in  the  country  as  a  whole.  On  one  occasion  a  monster  pro- 
cession was  organized  in  Bloomington,  to  go  to  Peoria,  forty 
miles  away.  The  chef-d'oeuvre  of  the  expedition  was  a  great 
cannon — Black  Betty — drawn  by  twelve  horses,  and  with  twelve 
veterans  of  the  War  of  1812  upon  it.  The  procession  stopped  at 
Mackinaw,  Tremont,  Washington,  and  other  towns  on  the  way 
for  meetings.  At  Washington,  after  Fell  and  others  had  spoken, 
General  Gridley  was  called  upon  for  a  speech,  and  responded 
acceptably.  The  possibility  of  entering  political  life  appealed  to 
General  Gridley,  and  that  fall  he  was  nominated  and  elected  to 
the  lower  house  at  Springfield.  Fell  advised  him  the  next  year 
to  study  law,  and  had  afterward  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  very 
successful  in  this  profession.  The  friendship  between  these  two 
men  was  cemented  by  mutual  service  and  sacrifice,  for  part  of 
the  debts  for  which  General  Gridley  filed  a  petition  in  bankruptcy 
in  1842  were  contracted  as  security  for  Fell  and  others  in  enter- 

1James  Ewing,  Memorial  Address  to  Bloomington  Bar  Association, 
1887.    Manuscript  in  Fell  Papers. 

50 


315]  POLITICAL   ACTIVITIES  51 

prises  in  which  both  were  interested.2  Fell  was  able  later  amply 
to  compensate  his  friend  for  his  devotion,  but  he  never  forgot  the 
service  rendered  at  the  time  of  the  great  panic. 

Besides  the  stump  speaking,  Fell  reached  the  people  by 
means  of  a  circular  letter,  dated  January  20,  1840,  which  set 
forth  the  evils  of  the  Jackson  regime  and  the  necessity  for  re- 
form in  the  person  and  under  the  leadership  of  General  Harri- 
son. This  document  is  couched  in  somewhat  pompous  phrase- 
ology, but  direct,  pointed,  and  dignified — the  latter  a  character- 
ictic  rare  enough  to  be  appreciated  in  the  Western  campaign  lit- 
erature of  that  day. 

Fell's  position  on  the  question  of  repudiation  is  worthy  of 
comment.  The  financial  panic  of  1837  was  of  unequaled  sever- 
ity throughout  the  Middle  West,  and  its  effects  lasted  well  into 
the  next  decade.  Men  who  were  able  to  weather  the  first  months 
of  the  long  depression  went  under  after  brave  resistance,  when 
the  depression  had  continued  until  their  hoarded  resources  were 
exhausted.  One  after  another,  they  took  benefit  of  the  bank- 
ruptcy law  passed  by  a  special  session  of  Congress  called  by  Har- 
rison. Land  depreciated  in  value  until  the  best  tracts  were  sold 
for  a  song,  and  then  were  offered  vainly  to  buyers  at  any  price.3 
Not  only  were  individuals  ruined  by  the  panic  and  hard  times; 
it  was  many  years  before  the  state  of  Illinois  recovered  from  the 
effects  of  1837.  The  State  Bank,  as  has  been  noted,  suspended 
payment  in  1837,  and  failed  in  1842.  The  state's  internal  im- 
provement scheme  did  not  collapse  until  about  1840,  when  the 
legislature  repealed  the  law.  The  construction  of  the  Illinois 
and  Michigan  Canal  had  stopped  in  1839,  and  was  not  resumed 
for  some  years.  Interest  on  the  state  debt  was  paid  regularly, 
however,  until  1841,  when  payments  were  suspended  until  July, 
1846.  The  state  became  so  seriously  involved  that  many  recom- 
mended the  extreme  means  of  practical  repudiation  of  the  state 
debt.  This  proposal  aroused  the  more  thoughtful  of  the  men  of  Ill- 
inois to  a  strong  protest,  and  none  opposed  the  suggestion  more 
vigorously  than  Jesse  Fell.  He  published,  in  1845,  an  open  letter 
to  the  Senate  and  House  of  Illinois,  which  was  widely  copied  and 

2The  petition  was  made  under  the  law  of  1841,  and  bears  date  of  Feb. 
10,  1842.  The  schedule  of  debts  amounts  to  $52,999.42.  See  Fell's  sketch 
of  Gridley  in  Duis,  Good  Old  Times  in  McLean  County,  262-276. 

3So  late  as  1848,  Robert  Fell  was  offered  eighty  acres  near  the  farm 
of  his  brother  close  to  Bloomington  for  $3  per  acre.  Lewis,  Life,  27. 


52  JESSE  W.  FELL  [316 

probably  had  a  considerable  influence  upon  the  public  opinion  of 
the  day  regarding  repudiation.  He  recommended  the  imposition 
of  a  slight  tax,  which  he  said  the  people  would  gladly  pay,  and 
which  would  recognize  the  moral  obligation  of  the  state.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  primary  motive  of  common  honesty,  he  urged  that 
the  passage  of  such  a  law  would  relieve  the  state  of  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  which  the  bondhold- 
ers would  then  take  off  its  hands.* 

During  these  years  Fell  remained  a  loyal  Whig,  working  in 
the  party  councils  when  occasion  required,  but  steadily  refusing 
to  accept  office.  In  1850  the  Whigs  of  the  neighborhood  of 
Quincy — it  will  be  remembered  that  this  was  while  he  lived  at 
Payson — urged  him  to  stand  for  representative.  "  [Your  views] 
on  the  really  important  question  of  the  times — the  non-extension 
of  slavery,  will  not  only  meet  the  approval  of  the  entire  Whigs 

*Copy  of  a  Letter  upon  State  Repudiation,  Jesse  W.  Fell  to  the  Sen- 
ate and  House  of  Illinois,  1845.  The  following  quotations  will  serve  to 
show  his  position,  which  was  that  of  the  more  conservative  thinkers  in  the 
state  generally : 

"...  We  stand  as  on  the  verge  of  a  precipice,  and  one  false  step 
may  precipitate  us  to  a  depth  of  dishonor  and  infamy  from  which  we  may 
never  recover.  ...  In  such  a  contingency  [practical  repudiation]  our  credit 
and  reputation  as  a  state  will  not  only  be  gone  but,  it  is  feared,  past  re- 
demption ;  practical  repudiation  will  have  received  your  sanction,  and, 
in  return,  will  consign  the  State  to  a  depth  of  infamy  from  which 
she  can  never  hope  to  emerge;  .  .  .  Where,  let  me  ask,  is  the 
distinction,  in  morals  or  common  honesty,  between  the  man  who  boldly 
proclaims  he  will  not  pay  a  debt,  which  he  alleges  was  illegally  contracted, 
though  based  on  a  valuable  consideration,  and  him  who  acknowledges  that 
he  justly  owes,  has  the  means  of  making  restitution,  but  refuses  to  make 
the  first  effort  to  do  so?  ... 

"Let  us  inquire,  in  the  next  place,  what  will  be  the  practical  effect, — 
what  the  objects  to  be  attained  by  this  tax,  light  tho'  it  be.  If  no  other 
object  was  attainable,  that  of  merely  paying  the  amount  of  what  we  justly 
owe  would  of  itself  be  all-sufficient,  and  should  impel  us  to  a  prompt  and 
cheerful  performance  of  the  act.  But  this  is  not  all.  By  so  doing  you 
will  practically  extinguish, — you  will  relieve  the  people  of  $6,000,000  of 
their  public  indebtedness.  Our  bond  holders  stand  pledged,  in  the  event 
of  the  passage  through  your  bodies  of  a  revenue  law,  imposing  a  light  tax 
for  the  purpose  of  paying  a  part  of  the  accrueing  interest  on  our  debt,  to 
take  the  Michigan  and  Illinois  Canal,  with  its  attendant  burdens,  off  our 
hands,  and  prosecute  it  to  completion  within  a  given  period.  Thus  reliev- 
ing us  of  about  one  half  of  our  immense  State  debt." 


317]  POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES  53 

of  the  county,  but  will  I  believe  tend  to  secure  a  strong  vote  from 
the  free-soilers,  who  probably  in  this  county  and  certainly  in  the 
congressional  district,  hold  the  balance  of  power,"  wrote  a  local 
Whig  leader  to  him  at  the  time.5  Fell  refused  the  nomination. 

A  little  later  he  found  in  the  columns  of  the  Intelligencer  a 
means  of  influencing  public  opinion  which  was  practicable  even 
when  his  private  affairs  kept  him  busiest.6  He  was  untiring  in 
his  efforts  for  his  friends,  and  seems  in  all  cases  to  have  given  ad- 
vice which  subsequent  events  justified.  Again  in  1854  there  was 
a  demand  that  he  be  a  candidate  for  the  legislature,  and  another 
refusal.  He  was  wont  to  remark  to  his  friends,  indeed,  that  after 
1852  his  interest  in  politics  was  buried  in  the  grave  of  Henry 
Clay.  That  interest  experienced  a  prompt  and  complete  resusci- 
tation, however,  upon  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act. 
In  common  with  most  Friends,  the  Fell  family  had  long  been 
abolitionists,  and  when  it  became  clear  that  the  new  Republican 
party  was  to  be  organized  about  the  central  idea  of  opposition  to 
the  extension  of  slavery,  they  united  with  it  eagerly.7 

The  party  was  organized  in  Illinois  on  the  29th  of  May, 
1856,  in  Major's  Hall  in  Bloomington,  altho  several  prelimi- 
nary meetings  had  been  held  and  the  leaders  were  already  well 

BN.  Bushnell  to  Fell,  Aug.  23,  1850. 

'For  instance,  Richard  Yates,  in  a  letter  dated  Nov.  17,  1852,  explains 
his  methods  of  winning  the  election  of  1852,  and  thanks  Fell  for  his  de- 
fense of  him  in  the  Intelligencer,  and  for  his  help  for  several  years  past. 
Yates'  account  of  the  campaign  is  very  interesting.  He  wrote  letters,  of 
which  he  had  150  copies  made,  to  send  to  Whigs  of  influence,  both  known 
and  unknown  to  him.  After  ten  days  he  went  through  each  county  in  the 
district,  "had  a  little  night  meeting  in  each  (this  is  what  the  Register 
called  my  still  hunt)  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  I  commenced  speaking 
at  the  various  county  seats  on  a  run,  and  in  twenty  days  the  whole  Whig 
columns  from  center  to  circumference  were  moving  in  solid  phalanx  and 
shouting  victory  all  along  the  line — Calhoun  was  cowed — his  friends 
alarmed — Judge  Douglas  and  Shields  and  Gregg  and  Harris  &c  were 
brought  to  the  rescue — lying  handbills  and  malignant  falsehoods  were 
brought  in  requisition,  but  in  vain — I  went  to  bed  the  night  of  the  election 
conscious  of  victory." 

7Jesse  Fell  to  his  son,  Jesse  W.  Fell,  June  16,  1832.  In  this  letter 
Fell's  father  tells  of  his  mother's  activity  and  interest  in  meetings  held  to 
express  sympathy  for  the  colored  people.  Mrs.  Fell  the  elder  was  an  ad- 
mirer of  Mrs.  Mott  and  cofiperated  with  her  in  her  efforts.  E.  M.  Prince 
states  in  the  Fell  Memorial  that  the  senior  Fell  operated  a  station  of  the 
Underground  Railroad. 


54  JESSE   W.   PELL  [318 

united.8  The  convention  held  at  that  time  was  supposed  to  be 
composed  of  one  delegate  for  each  six  thousand  people,  which 
gave  three  delegates  to  McLean  County;  but  others  besides  dele- 
gates participated  freely  in  its  business,  especially  as  there  seems 
to  have  been  practical  unanimity  concerning  what  was  to  be 
done.  People  came  in  crowds  from  all  parts  of  the  state,  and 
there  was  great  enthusiasm,  which  reached  its  highest  pitch  when 
Lincoln  gave  the  famous  ' '  Lost  Speech. ' '  Local  tradition  places 
Fell  among  the  many  speakers  whose  efforts  were  entirely  lost 
sight  of  in  the  splendor  of  that  matchless  oration ;  but  his  charac- 
teristic activity  at  such  times,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing, 
was  rather  the  framing  of  resolutions  and  the  urging  of  progres- 
sive measures  privately  among  his  friends,  than  the  making  of 
speeches. 

By  1856,  Illinois  people  had  come  thoroly  to  realize  that 
the  Whig  party  had  ceased  to  be ;  but  the  character  and  policy  of 
its  successor  was  not  altogether  clear.  In  no  state,  perhaps,  was 
the  Republican  party  made  up  of  elements  more  diverse  than 
composed  it  in  Illinois.  The  third  congressional  district,  for  in- 
stance, comprised  in  1856  thirteen  counties.9  The  southern  coun- 
ties, still  largely  influenced  by  their  southern  antecedents,  abomi- 
nated abolitionists.  The  northern  counties  had  been  settled 
mainly  by  New  England  and  Ohio  people,  who  brought  with  them 
very  decided  anti-slavery  views.  Fifty-five  delegates,  represent- 
ing the  thirteen  counties,  met  in  convention  July  2,  1856,  and 
nominated  Owen  Lovejoy,  altho  McLean  and  all  the  southern 
counties  had  been  instructed  for  Leonard  Swett.  Lovejoy  was 
known  to  be  an  abolitionist,  an  ex-member  of  the  Liberty  party. 
Moreover,  the  southern  counties  had  long  yielded  the  nomination 
to  those  of  the  north,  and  thought  that  a  sense  of  fairness  should 
have  granted  them  the  nomination  when  they  urged  so  able  a 
candidate  as  Leonard  Swett.  Because  of  these  things,  the  dis- 
gruntled counties  held  another  convention  on  the  sixteenth  of 

8Major's  Hall  was  the  third  story,  now  demolished,  of  a  building  still 
(1916)  standing  on  Front  street  in  Bloomington.  Pantograph,  June  4, 
1856.  Joseph  Medill,  "Lincoln's  Lost  Speech,"  in  McClure's  Magazine, 
Sept.,  1896.  For  an  account  of  attempts  at  Republican  organization  before 
1856,  see  J.  H.  Burnham,  History  of  Bloomington  and  Normal,  109-114. 

9Kendall,  Will,  Grundy,  La  Salle,  Bureau,  Putnam,  Kankakee,  Iro- 
quois,  McLean,  DeWitt,  Champaign,  and  Vermillion,  of  which  the  present 
Ford  County  then  formed  a  part. 


319]  POLITICAL   ACTIVITIES  55 

July  at  Bloomington,  and  nominated  Judge  T.  L.  Dickey  of 
Ottawa.10 

Fell  had  been  in  the  East  during  the  first  convention,  at  Ot- 
tawa, but  he  was  known  to  be  strongly  in  favor  of  Swett.  He 
had  gone  on  private  business,  but  hoping  to  attend  the  latter  part 
of  the  Republican  convention  at  Philadelphia,  a  hope  which  was 
frustrated  by  delay  in  his  business  affairs.  He  returned,  how- 
ever, in  time  to  attend  the  great  ratification  meeting  in  the  square 
in  Bloomington,  on  the  evening  of  the  convention  day.  After 
the  "bolters"  had  spoken,  some  one  called  on  Love  joy,  who  had 
appeared  upon  the  scene.  He  came  to  the  front  and  delivered  a 
speech  so  powerful  that  he  won  the  unfriendly  crowd  completely. 
It  was  a  wonderful  victory  for  the  abolitionist,  and  for  the  prin- 
ciples of  freedom  and  equality  which  he  advocated.11 

On  the  second  evening  after,  another  mass  meeting  was  held 
on  the  square,  at  which  Fell  offered  resolutions  in  favor  of  Love- 
joy.  The  crowd  was  again  carried  away  with  enthusiasm,  and 
readily  adopted  them.  Lovejoy  sentiment  grew  from  day  to  day. 
Judge  Dickey  later  withdrew  from  the  contest,  and  Lovejoy  was 
elected  by  a  large  majority.  It  was  during  this  campaign  that 
there  sprang  up  the  warm  friendship  between  Fell  and  Lovejoy, 
which  was  to  last  until  the  death  of  the  latter  in  1864. 

During  the  campaign  that  followed  Mr.  Fell  made  many 
speeches.  The  Republican  organization  in  Illinois  was  rapidly 
completed,  and  the  party  pushed  its  campaign  so  energetically 
that  it  won  the  governorship,  altho  the  Democrats  were  suc- 
cessful in  the  general  elections.  During  the  summer  the  Bloom- 
ington Democratic  and  Republican  clubs  exchanged  speakers, 
Mr.  Fell  being  invited  to  represent  his  party  before  the  Demo- 
cratic Club.12  He  was  active  in  the  county  nominating  conven- 
tion in  September.  Throughout  the  summer,  however,  he  seems 
studiously  to  have  confined  himself  to  local  activities. 

Among  the  forces  that  were  powerful  in  shaping  public 
opinion  in  Illinois  after  1853,  were  the  Kansas  Aid  Committee 

10 Pantograph,  June  ir,  July  2,  9,  23,  1856;  April  n,  1868. 

"Brush,  The  Political  Career  of  Owen  Lovejoy  (manuscript  thesis, 
University  of  Illinois),  12.  Prince  says  (Historical  Encyclopedia  of  Illinois 
and  History  of  McLean  County,  1029)  that  this  appearance  of  Lovejoy 
had  been  planned  by  Mr.  Fell,  who  thought  it  the  best  way  of  reconciling 
discordant  elements  in  the  party.  Burnham,  History  of  Bloomington  and 
Normal,  114. 

12Adlai  Stevenson  in  Fell  Memorial,  4Qff. 


56  JESSE  W.  PELL  [320 

and  its  allies.  General  W.  F.  M.  Arny,  a  West  Virginian  who 
lived  in  North  Bloomington,  was  a  leader  in  the  work  of  helping 
Northern  men  in  Kansas.13  The  big  barn  at  his  home  was  a  depot 
of  supplies  for  Kansas  families  sent  in  by  sympathizers  from  far 
and  near.  The  town  was  a  recruiting  station  for  immigrants 
bound  for  Kansas.  The  Fells,  being  anti-slavery  people,  helped 
in  the  work.  In  1856,  at  the  national  convention  of  the  society 
held  in  Buffalo,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  appointed  on  the  National 
Kansas  Aid  Committee.  He  declined  to  serve,  however,  alleging 
other  pressing  duties,  and  recommended  Fell  as  a  substitute. 
General  Arny  wrote  at  once  to  Fell  offering  him  membership,  as 
representative  for  Illinois,  and  asking  him  to  attend  the  meeting 
in  Chicago  on  July  30.  Fell  in  turn  declined,  recommending 
Arny  himself  for  the  post,  to  which  in  due  time  he  was  ap- 
pointed, and  served  with  marked  ability.14 

After  1856  Fell's  interest  in  politics  did  not  flag.  His  map 
of  Illinois,  with  the  senatorial  districts  carefully  inked  in,  and 
the  party  vote  for  each  district  for  1858  written  in  the  margin, 
shows  how  closely  he  kept  track  of  conditions  and  tendencies.  He 
was  close  to  the  people,  and  knew  their  ideas  and  their  heroes. 
He  was  close  to  the  leaders,  knowing  their  ambitions  and  their 
motives.  He  was  interested  in  all  public  affairs,  concerned  with 
the  growth  of  the  country,  solicitous  for  the  right  solution  to  na- 
tional problems.15  In  1857  he  was  commissioned  by  the  state 
central  committee  as  corresponding  secretary  to  visit  different 
parts  of  Illinois  for  conferences  with  leaders.  He  knew  the  pulse 
of  the  state  as  no  one  else  could. 

As  has  been  noted,  Fell  met  Lincoln  in  1834-5,  when  Lincoln 
and  Stuart  were  serving  in  the  state  legislature.  At  circuit  court 
sessions  they  were  more  or  less  closely  associated  while  Fell  con- 
tinued to  ride  the  circuit,  and  after  he  had  given  up  law  for  real 
estate  their  friendship  continued.  In  the  campaigns  of  1840  and 
1844  they  were  active  and  friendly  Whig  partisans.  They  called 
each  other  by  their  Christian  names,  and  it  was  noted  with 

18Wm.  M.  McCambridge,  "My  Remembrances  of  Jesse  W.  Fell,"  man- 
uscript Pantograph,  June  25,  July  2  and  23,  1856. 

"Arny  to  Fell,  July  22,  1856.  Chicago  Tribune,  same  date.  The  Pan- 
tograph of  July  23,  1856,  says  that  "A.  Lincoln  is  a  member  of  the  na- 
tional committee."  The  facts  were  related  by  Fell  himself  in  a  letter  to 
a  newspaper,  Oct.  3,  1881 ;  Scrapbook. 

"Dept.  of  Interior  to  Owen  Lovejoy,  May  25,  1858.  Lovejoy  to  Fell,, 
undated. 


321]  POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES  57 

amusement  by  their  common  acquaintances  that  Fell  never 
called  Lincoln  "Abe"  after  the  easy  fashion  of  most  Illinoisans. 
It  was  one  of  the  Quaker  characteristics  which  gave  him  a  gentle 
dignity  which  all  men  respected,  that  he  did  not  use  nicknames. 
Lincoln  was  often  at  the  Fell  home  in  Bloomington,  and  the  two 
men  seem  to  have  carried  on  a  friendly  correspondence  whenever 
there  was  public  business  upon  which  they  might  cooperate. 

John  F.  Eberhart  says  that  Jesse  W.  Fell  and  his  brother 
Kersey  were  the  first  men  to  suggest  Mr.  Lincoln  as  presidential 
timber.16  Be  this  as  it  may,  there  is  no  question  that  the  idea  of 
joint  debates  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas  originated  with  Jesse 
Fell  and  was  repeatedly  suggested  until  the  debates  became  a 
reality.  They  were  first  proposed  by  Mr.  Fell  in  September  of 
1854  on  the  occasion  of  a  speech  by  Senator  Douglas  in  Bloom- 
ington. Mr.  Fell's  request  was  then  based  on  a  general  desire 
of  people  to  hear  the  two  together.  Douglas  declined  to  debate, 
and  Lincoln  goodnaturedly  agreed  to  postpone  his  own  talk  until 
1  'candlelight".17 

There  was  no  doubt  among  the  Republicans  of  Illinois  as  to 
their  choice  for  senator  in  1858.  They  wished  to  make  the  nomi- 
nation at  the  state  convention,  a  proceeding  until  then  unheard- 
of.  In  the  McLean  County  convention,  held  June  5,  Fell  offered 
resolutions  ' '  that  Lincoln  is  our  first,  last  and  only  choice  for  the 
vacancy  soon  to  occur  in  the  United  States  Senate ;  and  that  de- 
spite all  influences  at  home  or  abroad,  domestic  or  foreign,  the 
Republicans  of  Illinois,  as  with  the  voice  of  one  man,  are  unalter- 
ably so  resolved ;  to  the  end  that  we  may  have  a  big  man,  with  a 
big  mind,  and  a  big  heart,  to  represent  our  big  state."18  The 
resolutions  were  read  amid  shouts  of  approval,  and  were  adopted 
with  rounds  of  applause.  Throughout  the  state  the  feeling  was 
the  same.  At  the  state  convention,  held  in  Springfield  on  the 

16th,  practically  the  same  resolutions  were  adopted.19  It  was  at 
-  -* 

uFell  Memorial,  26.   J.  R.  Rowell  in  ibid. 

"Stevenson,  Something  of  Men  I  Have  Known,  8.  Lawrence  Weldon, 
"New  Lincoln  Stories"  in  Chicago  Tribune,  Feb.  9  and  Pantograph,  Feb. 
10,  1902.  Fell's  own  account  is  in  Oldroyd,  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  468- 
472.  James  T.  Ewing  tells  it  in  his  contribution  to  the  Fell  Memorial. 

^Pantograph,  June  I  and  7,  1858. 

"The  comment  in  the  Democratic  organ,  the  Illinois  Statesman,  of 
June  3,  1858,  besides  furnishing  a  typical  example  of  the  attitude  of  non- 
Republicans  toward  Lincoln,  refers  to  a  "secret  caucus"  of  the  night  be- 
fore. Probably  the  presentation  of  the  resolutions  was  carefully  planned 
by  the  leaders  at  this  meeting. 


58  JESSE   W.   FELL  [322 

the  evening  session  of  this  convention  that  Lincoln  delivered  his 
"House  Divided"  speech.  To  trace  the  courses  of  speeches  and 
replies  that  followed,  as  Lincoln  and  Douglas  pushed  their 
rivalry,  would  be  to  repeat  a  story  that  has  already  been  well  and 
fully  told.  Of  especial  interest  here  is  the  journey  of  Fell 
through  the  states  north  and  east  of  Illinois,  during  the  time 
when  the  debates  were  taking  place  in  Illinois,  and  later.  He 
visited  all  the  New  England  states  but  Maine,  and  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Michigan,  and  Indiana.  Every- 
where he  found  Republicans  who  were  interested  in  the  debates, 
and  who  were  eager  to  hear  about  the  man  who  was  succfssfully 
defying  and  answering  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  As  he  sounded  the 
praises  of  his  friend,  the  conviction  grew  in  him  that  in  a  still 
larger  field  Lincoln  might  become  the  successful  rival  of  the 
great  Douglas.20 

When  he  returned  to  Bloomington,  Fell  proposed  to  Lincoln 
that  he  should  be  the  next  Republican  candidate  for  president. 
This  was  in  his  brother  Kersey's  law  office.  The  story  of  that 
conversation,  which  Mr,  Fell  afterward  substantially  repro- 
duced, is  well  known.  Lincoln  professed  to  think  it  a  very  fool- 
ish idea,  and  declined  to  write  the  autobiography  for  which  his 
friend  asked,  that  he  might  acquaint  people  in  the  East  with 
Lincoln's  personal  history.21  Nevertheless  Fell  quietly  pursued 
the  realization  of  his  ' '  big  idea, ' '  which  other  f oresighted  Repub- 
licans shared  with  him,  through  1859.  He  was  secretary  of  the 
state  central  committee  for  his  party,  and  in  that  capacity  he 
kept  a  sensitive  finger  on  the  pulse  of  the  state.  He  found  occa- 
sion, moreover,  in  perfecting  the  state  organization,  to  visit  most 
of  the  counties,  where  the  people  as  a  rule  were  eager  to  see 
"Abe"  Lincoln  a  presidential  candidate.  There  was  no  need, 
apparently,  to  urge  Lincoln's  name  to  Illinoisans.  It  was  in 
other  states  that  the  Lincoln  propaganda  must  be  pushed. 

Lincoln  himself  began  to  think  seriously  of  running  for 
president  during  the  summer,  and  especially  after  visiting  Kan- 
sas and  Ohio  in  the  fall.  On  December  20,  when  Fell  repeated 
his  request,  Lincoln  gave  him  the  famous  autobiography.  With- 
out waiting  to  copy  the  paper,  Fell  sent  it  at  once  to  his  friend, 
Joseph  J.  Lewis,  in  Westchester,  Pennsylvania.  Mr.  Lewis'  use 

20Lewis,  Life,  64;  Oldroyd,  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  472-478. 

21Oldroyd,  Lincoln  Memorial  Album,  477  (Fell's  own  account).  Ar- 
nold, Life  of  Lincoln,  155.  Tarbell,  Life  of  Lincoln,  II,  128-130.  Bloom- 
ington Eye,  March  6,  1887. 


323]  POLITICAL   ACTIVITIES  59 

of  it  forms  one  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  in  the  story  of 
I  Lincoln 's  rise  to  the  presidency.22 

During  all  the  years  since  leaving  Pennsylvania,  Fell  had 
never  suffered  himself  to  lose  touch  with  public  affairs  in  his  na- 
tive state.  Through  correspondence  and  through  many  return 
visits,  even  after  all  his  family  had  removed  to  Illinois,  he  kept 
himself  well  informed  of  tendencies  and  opinions  in  Pennsyl- 
vania.23 He  knew  that  that  state  had  already,  in  1859,  become  a 
stronghold  of  the  new  party,  with  opposition  to  slavery  extension 
and  high  tariff  for  the  backbone  of  its  platform.  He  knew  that 
Seward,  who  held  the  unswerving  allegiance  of  New  York,  was  not 
popular  in  Pennsylvania.  He  knew  that  Lincoln,  popular  in  the 
"West,  needed  the  support  of  the  East  also,  if  he  were  to  win 
from  Seward  the  Republican  nomination  in  1860;  and  that  the 
influence  of  Pennsylvania,  direct  and  indirect,  would  be  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  coming  national  convention.  Pennsylva- 
nia, if  won  for  Lincoln,  must  know  about  him. 

"Arnold,  Life  of  Lincoln,  14.  Joseph  J.  Lewis  to  Fell,  Mar.  28,  1872. 
Lewis  to  J.  R.  Osgood,  same  date.  This  autobiography,  with  the  letter 
from  Lincoln  which  accompanied  it  (dated  Dec.  20,  1859,  and  now  in  the 
Oldroyd  collection),  was  later  the  subject  of  a  prolonged  controversy  be- 
tween Mr.  Fell  and  his  family  and  Mr.  Oldroyd,  who  made  a  notable  col- 
lection of  Lincolniana.  The  manuscript  was  returned  by  Lewis  to  Fell, 
and  was  later  loaned,  with  the  letter,  to  Mr.  Oldroyd.  Mr.  Oldroyd  re- 
turned the  autobiography,  but  has  never  returned  the  letter.  Memoranda 
among  the  Fell  Papers,  and  letters ;  from  O.  H.  Oldroyd  to  Fell,  April  3, 
1882;  Shelby  M.  Cullom  to  Lawrence  Weldon,  Aug.  30,  1887.  A  facsimile 
of  the  autobiography  was  published  in  1872  with  an  introduction  by  Mr. 
Fell. 

28Issachar  Price  to  Fell,  Downington,  Pa.,  Sept.  24,  1838.  In  this  let- 
ter, one  of  the  most  interesting  in  the  Fell  collection,  Mr.  Price  gives  a 
rather  pessimistic  view  of  political  conditions  in  Van  Buren's  administra- 
tion. "Ritner  cannot  be  elected ;  he  is  the  most  prevaricating  shuffling  tool 
that  ever  set  on  a  throne,"  he  says ;  "promise  one  thing  today  and  go  right 
to  the  contrary  tomorrow ;  this  he  has  done  in  20  instances  to  my  own 
knowledge  &  his  great  drill  Sargeant  Thad  Stevens  is  the  most  barefaced 
impudent  scoundrel  now  unchained  and  running  at  large  in  the  state." 
This  estimate,  from  which  doubtless  Fell  deduced  his  own  more  charitable 
conclusions,  is  followed  by  a  prophecy  of  the  vote  in  the  coming  election. 
Speaking  of  national  politics,  this  Pennsylvania  village  postmaster  pre- 
dicts :  "Abolition  will  entirely  swallow  up  antiism  in  fact  anti-masonry 
is  defunct — abolitionism  takes  its  place  &  the  party  that  adopts  it  as  a  test 
is  destined  to  growl  in  a  glorious  minority  for  many  a  year  to  come  &  this 
will  be  the  end  of  the  great  and  talented  Whig  party  in  the  U  States." 


60  JESSE   W.    FELL  [324 

Joseph  J.  Lewis  was  a  prominent  Republican  who  wrote 
persuasively,  and  who  was  personally  influential  in  Eastern 
Pennsylvania.  He  took  care  to  inform  himself  rather  minutely 
concerning  the  Westerner  before  he  prepared,  from  the  auto- 
biography and  from  other  material  which  Fell  furnished,  an  arti- 
cle which  introduced  Lincoln  to  the  people  of  his  part  of  the 
state.  This  article  appeared  first  in  the  Chester  County  Times 
of  February  11,  1860.  It  was  widely  copied  throughout  the 
state  and  beyond  it,  and  together  with  the  personal  work  and 
speeches  of  Lewis  and  others  whom  he  interested,  served  to  ac- 
quaint the  Pennsylvanians  with  the  career  and  character  of  Ab- 
raham Lincoln.24 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  the  two  men  who  planned  Lin- 
coln's introduction  to  Pennsylvania  selected  from  the  material 
at  hand  those  elements  which  they  knew  would  count  for  most 
with  the  people  with  whom  they  dealt.  He  was  ''certainly  not 
of  the  first  families,"  said  Mr.  Lewis.  His  ancestors  were 
Friends — a  circumstance  with  which,  it  is  safe  to  say,  very  few 
Ulinoisans  were  acquainted.  They  had  gone  from  Berks  County, 
Pennsylvania;  but  in  Illinois  no  one  traced  the  Lincoln  family 
back  of  its  Virginia  antecedents.  Descendants  of  the  same  stock, 
Mr.  Lewis  continued,  still  lived  in  Eastern  Pennsylvania.  He 
had  been  a  strong  Whig  leader,  a  friend  of  Henry  Clay,  a  great 
worker  in  the  campaign  of  1844,  and  was  master  of  "the  princi- 
ples of  political  economy  that  underlie  the  tariff "  question. 
Pennsylvania  was  especially  assured  that:  "Mr.  Lincoln  has 
been  a  consistent  and  earnest  tariff  man  from  the  first  hour  of 
his  entering  public  life.  He  is  such  from  principle,  and  from  a 
deeply  rooted  conviction  of  the  wisdom  of  the  protective  policy ; 
and  what  ever  influence  he  may  hereafter  exert  upon  the  govern- 
ment will  be  in  favor  of  that  policy."25  Lewis'  account  of  Lin- 
coln's sacrifice  of  his  own  chances  of  election  to  the  Senate  in 
1854,  when  he  asked  his  friends  to  vote  for  Trumbull  rather  than 
risk  the  election  of  Governor  Matteson,  a  Nebraska  Democrat, 
must  have  had  its  intended  effect  with  the  anti-slavery  Repub- 
licans of  Pennsylvania.  He  attributed  Douglas'  success  after  the 
debates  of  1858  to  an  "old  and  grossly  unequal  apportionment 
of  the  districts." 

As  the  time  for  the  national  Republican  convention  drew 

2*J.  J.  Lewis  to  Fell,  Jan.  30,  1860.    Vickers  Fell  to  E.  J.  Lewis,  June 
3,  1896.    Daily  Local  News  (Westchester,  Pa.),  Apr.  9,  1883. 
25Blaine,  Twenty  Years  in  Congress,  I,  196-207. 


325]  POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES  61 

near  Lincoln's  friends  realized  that,  barring  the  chance  of  one 
of  those  tricks  of  fate  which  sometimes  change  the  course  of 
events  at  political  meetings,  his  only  serious  rival  was  Seward. 
Cameron  and  Bates  had  only  local  support,  and  were  not  greatly 
feared.  Leonard  Swett,  David  Davis,  and  Jesse  Fell  were  the 
three  Illinoisans  most  active  in  their  efforts  for  Lincoln.  Fell 
had  declined  to  be  secretary  of  the  Republican  state  committee 
again,  that  he  might  have  more  time  for  field  work.  In  the 
spring  of  1860  he  had  endeavored  to  secure  full  lists  of  names 
from  the  entire  state  for  the  documents  sent  out  by  the  Repub- 
lican national  committee.  Nothing  that  could  aid  in  preparing 
Illinois  to  play  her  part  in  the  coming  drama  was  omitted.28 
Financial  support  was  assured  through  a  well-organized  system 
of  county  assessments,  collected  in  1859  to  be  ready  for  campaign 
purposes.  It  was  planned  that  a  great  delegation  should  go 
from  Central  Illinois  to  Chicago  to  support  Lincoln.27 

26Fell,  in  Duis,  Good  Old  Times  in  McLean  County,  280.  Circular  let- 
ter of  the  Republican  State  Central  Committee,  June  23,  1860.  This  letter 
was  issued  by  the  secretary,  Horace  White,  who  succeeded  Fell.  Circular 
letter  from  Fell  to  chairmen  of  county  central  committees,  May  8,  1860. 
Both  of  these  latter  circulars  show  the  methodical  business  administra- 
tion by  which  Fell  secured  an  unusual  degree  of  unity  and  assured  re- 
sources for  the  great  campaign. 

"The  account  of  the  convention  has  been  told  many  times.  There  is 
a  story  of  the  events  of  the  meeting  which  because  of  its  connection  with 
Mr.  Fell  may  be  repeated  here.  It  is  unsupported  by  any  sort  of  docu- 
mentary evidence  but  persists  among  the  older  citizens  of  Bloomington  to 
an  extent  which  at  least  warrants  its  repetition.  It  is  to  the  effect  that 
the  Illinois  leaders  discovered  that  the  tickets  of  admission  issued  to  dele- 
gates and  visitors  to  the  convention  were  almost  monopolized  by  the 
large  delegations  from  the  East  which  supported  Seward.  The  Lincoln 
contingent,  having  gathered  with  great  enthusiasm,  was  suddenly  reduced 
to  the  depths  of  despair  by  the  announcement,  on  the  morning  of  May 
18,  that  all  the  tickets  had  been  given  out,  and  that  they  would  therefore 
have  to  content  themselves  with  standing  outside  the  Wigwam.  The  West- 
ern leaders  gathered  quickly  for  a  conference,  because  the  popular  enthu- 
siasm for  Lincoln  of  the  delegations  from  Indiana  and  Illinois  was  an  as- 
set upon  which  they  definitely  counted  in  the  session  to  come.  Fell  prom- 
ised a  solution,  and  made  good  his  promise  by  securing  another  set  of 
tickets,  similar  to  the  first,  which  he  had  hastily  printed.  These  were 
fairly  distributed  to  the  leaders  of  the  various  delegations,  including  the 
Seward  men,  who  distributed  them  to  their  adherents.  During  the  morn- 
ing the  Seward  men,  feeling  secure  of  their  seats  in  the  Wigwam  because 
of  the  tickets  they  held,  organized  a  monster  parade  for  Seward,  led  by 


62  JESSE   W.    PELL  [326 

Joseph  Lewis,  with  other  delegates  from  Pennsylvania,  did 
valiant  work  for  Lincoln,  and  nominated  Lewis'  old  friend,  John 
Hickman,  for  the  vice-presidency.  General  Stokeley  was  a  dele- 
gate from  Ohio  who  gave  substantial  aid.28  The  Pennsylvania 
contingent,  returning  full  of  enthusiasm  to  its  own  state,  pushed 
the  campaign  vigorously,  Lewis  keeping  in  close  touch  with  Lin- 
coln through  his  correspondence  with  Fell.  In  order  to  bring  to 
Pennsylvania  some  of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Western  men,  Lewis 
tried  to  secure  Davis  and  Swett  as  campaign  speakers  for  his 
state,  but  failed  to  convince  the  central  committee  of  the  advis- 
ability of  this  plan.  Davis  and  Swett,  of  course,  were  well  oc- 
cupied in  Illinois.  Owen  Lovejoy,  candidate  for  the  House,  con- 
ducted a  lively  campaign,  guided  in  his  methods  by  the  advice 
of  Fell,  who  had  become  his  close  friend  and  hearty  supporter. 
Fell's  own  campaign  notebook,  filled  with  newspaper  clippings 
and  notes  for  comment  and  reply,  has  been  preserved,  and  shows 
a  collection  of  indictments  of  slavery,  Southern  commendations 
of  Buchanan  (with  caustic  comment  very  belligerent  for  a 
Quaker)  and  clippings  about  "Bully"  Brooks.  The  summer  and 
autumn  were  for  him,  as  for  many  Illinoisans,  one  long  effort  to 
make  Lincoln  the  head  of  the  nation.29 

the  band  which  had  come  with  them  from  New  York.  Returning  to  the 
hall,  they  found  the  Western  men  already  admitted  in  large  numbers,  and 
ready  to  shout  for  Lincoln,  while  other  crowds  filled  the  streets  for 
blocks  in  every  direction. — Henry  Fell  in  the  Fell  Memorial,  12.  Horace 
White  considers  the  story  improbable.  Horace  White  to  the  writer, 
April  30,  1914.  A  good  account  of  the  convention  from  the  standpoint  of 
an  Illinoisan  is  found  in  a  letter  by  Leonard  Swett  to  the  Hon.  Josiah  H. 
Drummond  of  Portland,  Maine,  and  dated  May  27,  1860.  Published  in 
the  Moline  (III.)  Mail,  and  later  in  the  Pantograph  of  Jan.  8,  1909. 

28J.  J.  Lewis  to  Fell,  May  28,  1860.  Gen.  Stokeley  to  Fell,  Dec.  21, 
1860. 

29Concerning  the  campaign  in  Pennsylvania :  Lewis  to  Fell,  May  28, 
June  17,  July  9,  Sept.  I,  Sept.  25,  Oct.  I,  Oct.  21,  1860;  John  G.  Nicolay  to 
Fell,  July  19,  1860;  Lincoln  to  Fell,  Oct.  5,  1860.  Concerning  Owen  Love- 
joy:  Lovejoy  to  Fell,  May  28,  June  27,  July  21,  Sept.  n,  1860. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  YEARS  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Following  his  election  Lincoln  stood  the  fire  of  a  brisk  siege 
of  office-seekers.  Joseph  J.  Lewis  was  actively  corresponding 
with  him  and  Fell  during  this  time,  not  only  because  he  hoped 
to  receive  some  sort  of  reward  for  his  services  in  Pennsylvania, 
but  also  because  a  man  whom  he  had  cordially  disliked,  and  of 
whose  loyalty  to  Lincoln  during  the  campaign  he  had  the  strong- 
est doubts,  seemed  destined  to  receive  a  cabinet  appointment. 
This  man  was  Simon  Cameron.  Stimulated  by  Lewis'  represen- 
tations concerning  the  character  and  ability  of  Cameron,  Fell 
visited  the  president-elect  and  told  him  what  Lewis  had  written 
him.1  Lyman  Trumbull  and  others  also  told  Lincoln  of  Camer- 

1  Lewis  to  Fell,  Dec.  17,  1860;  Jan.  15,  1861.  In  view  of  Cameron's 
subsequent  record  as  secretary  of  war  it  is  interesting  to  note  Lewis'  un- 
qualified condemnation.  "At  Harrisburg  I  found  but  one  sentiment  prev- 
alent, and  that  was,  of  extreme  satisfaction  that  the  incarnation  of  the 
idea  of  public  corruption  was  not  to  enter  the  cabinet.  Men  spoke  out 
who  had  before  been  restrained  by  fear,  and  the  feeling  was  one  of  great 
relief.  When  we  were  informed  that  the  place  of  secretary  of  the  treas- 
ury was  offered  to  Cameron,  and  accepted  by  him,  the  information  pro- 
duced grief,  and  mortification.  I  felt  mortified  and  humbled.  I  hap- 
pened to  enter  a  few  nights  after  a  room  where  a  number  of  leading 
Republicans  were  assembled  discussing  the  subject.  'Is  this  the  man,' 
said  one  of  them  to  me,  'that  you  promised  us,  had  such  an  instinctive 
horror  of  corruption  that  it  could  not  be  suffered  to  come  near  him? 
What  will  you  say  when  you  find  all  the  banality  of  Albany  and  Harris- 
burg  combined  transferred  to  Washington  and  pervading  all  the  highest 
places  in  the  government?'  I  was  urged  to  undertake  in  company  of 
Henry  C.  Casey  a  mission  to  Springfield  to  disabuse  the  mind  of  the 
president-elect,  and  relieve  it  from  its  delusion.  I  had  but  to  answer  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  but  to  know  that  he  had  been  imposed  upon  &  he  would 
certainly  retrace  his  steps — that  it  was  hard  for  a  man  in  his  position  to 
resist  the  pressure  upon  him  from  unexpected  quarters  and  from  men 
who  possessed  his  confidence  and  that  it  was  our  duty  to  make  the  truth 
perfectly  clear  and  apparent  to  his  mind  so  that  he  might  discover  it  even 
through  the  mist  which  the  hopes  of  personal  favor  or  the  fears  of  per- 
sonal resentment  had  raised  to  obscure  it.  When  the  news  came  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  become  informed  and  had  acted  on  that  information  the  joy 

63 


64  JESSE  W.   FELL  [328 

on's  reputation  and  record.  The  president-elect  seems  to  have 
given  up  the  idea  of  appointing  him  to  the  portfolio  of  war  by 
early  January,  but  afterward  again  altered  his  plans ;  and  Cam- 
eron's  name  appeared  with  the  other  appointments  in  March. 

In  the  case  of  Norman  B.  Judd,  who  made  the  nomination 
of  Lincoln  for  the  Illinoisans,  Lincoln  was  more  effectively  coun- 
seled. No  paper  left  by  Mr.  Fell  illustrates  better  his  sound  po- 
litical judgment  than  the  letter  of  January  2,  1861,  in  which  he 
discusses  with  Lincoln  the  possibility  of  a  cabinet  appointment 
for  Judd  or  Davis.  After  speaking  of  his  own  high  regard  for 
Judd,  he  said  that  in  the  state  there  was  much  bitterness  toward 
him,  particularly  in  the  Whig  element  of  the  party.  The  causes 
of  this  included  his  opposition  to  Lincoln  in  his  first  contest  for 
the  senatorship,  which  was  still  remembered  in  a  way  to  make 
his  appointment  ''a  bitter  pill  to  many  of  your  old  and  tried 
friends."  The  Republicans  of  "Whig  antecedents  wanted  to  see 
David  Davis  in  the  cabinet;  and  of  his  loyalty  and  devotion 
there  could  be  no  question.  But  Fell  thought  it  unwise,  since 
Illinois  had  the  presidency,  to  make  any  first-class  appointments 
there.  He  begged  Lincoln  not  to  increase  the  feud  between  the 
two  elements  of  the  party  (just  then  at  its  height  because  of  the 
imminence  of  the  slavery  conflict)  by  appointing  the  leader  of 
either.  Indiana  and  Pennsylvania  should  be  given  cabinet  ap- 
pointments, but  by  avoiding  the  gift  of  any  in  Illinois  friction 
could  be  allayed.  Davis  had  agreed  with  these  sentiments  in 
October;  nor  did  Fell  add,  what  was  probably  patent  to  him, 
that  Davis  might  have  changed  his  mind  since  then.  He  ex- 
pressed a  strong  hope  that  his  friend  might  be  given  a  "first- 
rate  second  class  appointment." 

Joseph  Lewis  would  gladly  have  accepted  a  foreign  post. 
But  this  was  not  forthcoming,  nor  was  any  other  federal  ap- 
pointment until  March,  1863,  when  he  was  appointed  commis- 
sioner of  internal  revenue,  a  position  for  which  Lincoln  had  been 
considering  him  for  about  a  year.2  Fell 's  friends  confidently  ex- 
pected to  see  him  appointed  to  some  place  of  importance,  but 
such  an  appointment  was  as  distasteful  to  him  then  as  at  any 
other  time  in  his  life.  The  circumstances  of  Lincoln's  elevation 
did  not  alter  his  own  fixed  plans,  principles,  and  preferences, 

was  great.     Many  felt  that  a  step  had  been  taken  which  would  save  the 
nation  from  disgrace  and  the  Republican  party  in  Penna  from  shame  and 
confusion  .  .  ."    See  White,  Life  of  Lyman  Trumbull,  142-152. 
2Lewis  to  Fell,  Mar.  i  and  27,  1862;  Mar.  13,  1863. 


329]  THE   CIVIL   WAR  65 

which  seem  to  have  been  to  bring  about  what  he  considered  desir- 
able events  and  results,  through  personal  influence  rather  than 
by  personal  administration.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  he  was 
offered  a  place  as  assistant  quartermaster,  with  rank  of  captain. 
This,  with  probably  other  similar  offers,  he  declined,  and  con- 
tinued for  a  time  to  carry  on  his  regular  business  as  usual.3 

When  the  certainty  of  war  was  clear  to  everyone,  at  the  fall 
of  Sumter,  men  who  felt  the  responsibility  of  leading  public 
opinion  bent  their  energies  toward  uniting  the  country  in  sup- 
port of  the  government.  The  friends  of  Lincoln  in  Central  Illi- 
nois wished  especially  to  hold  up  the  hands  of  the  president  by 
assuring  him  of  popular  support.  On  the  day  after  the  fall  of 
Fort  Sumter,  Mr.  Fell  hurriedly  gathered  together  a  group  of 
the  leading  men  of  Bloomington,  both  Republicans  and  Demo- 
crats, in  an  upper  room  on  "Washington  street.  He  had  resolu- 
tions ready  as  usual,  which  were  voted  for  by  everyone  except 
Mr.  Snow,  who  sympathized  with  secession  and  had  the  courage 
to  say  so  in  an  overwhelmingly  loyal  community.  Being  united 
among  themselves  these  local  leaders  next  turned  their  attention 
to  building  up  popular  union  sentiment.  They  had  handbills 
printed  and  distributed  announcing  a  mass-meeting  to  be  held 
in  Phoenix  Hall  that  night ;  and  before  separating,  agreed  upon 
a  long  program  of  speakers  upon  whose  sentiments  they  could 
rely,  that  there  might  be  no  time  for  possible  dissenting  volun- 
teers from  the  audience.4  Mr.  Spencer  presided  that  evening, 
and  one  prominent  man  after  another  addressed  the  people.  A 
great  flag  draped  across  the  platform  gave  the  keynote  of  loy- 
alty. The  people  cheered  it  enthusiastically,  and  sang  patriotic 
songs.  The  resolutions  were  presented  by  Rev.  C.  G.  Ames,  who 
called  upon  those  "who  in  their  hearts  swore  to  the  sentiments 
therein  expressed"  to  hold  up  their  right  hands  in  voting.  "A 
response  like  thunder  came  up  from  the  densely  packed  audience, 

8Fell  to  Richard  Yates,  Aug.  21,  1861.  This  letter  has  been  lost,  but 
is  on  record. 

4Among  those  who  attended  were  C.  P.  Merriman  and  Dr.  David 
Brier,  Republicans;  Hamilton  Spencer,  T.  P.  Rogers,  Allen  Withers,  Dr. 
E.  R.  Roe,  and  H.  P.  Merriman,  Democrats — the  last  two  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Statesman;  and  D.  J.  Snow  of  the  Times.  The  speakers  of  the 
evening  meeting  included  James  S.  Ewing,  Col.  W.  P.  Boyd,  Dr.  T.  P. 
Rogers,  Dr.  E.  R.  Roe,  Rev.  C.  G.  Ames,  Harvey  Hogg,  and  E.  M. 
Prince.  The  resolutions  are  given  in  the  Lewis  Life,  68,  and  in  the 
Pantograph,  Apr.  17,  1861.  Dr.  Roe's  account  of  the  meeting  is  in  the 
Pantograph  for  July  20,  1871. 


66  JESSE  W.   PELL  [330 

and  a  thousand  hands  flashed  in  the  light  above  the  sea  of  heads, 
like  the  drawing  of  myriad  swords."  This  meeting,  the  first  of 
its  kind  in  Illinois,  was  followed  by  many  in  other  towns  all  over 
the  region,  and  is  a  type  of  the  means  by  which  the  people  were 
stirred  to  loyal  support  of  the  administration. 

As  the  friend  of  Lincoln,  Mr.  Fell  found  himself  more  in  de- 
mand as  a  political  power  than  he  had  ever  been.  His  old 
friends  found  him  responsive  as  formerly;  new  friends,  called 
to  his  attention  by  the  circumstances  of  the  times,  found  him 
ready  and  anxious  to  help  where  help  was  needed.  Owen  Love- 
joy  called  upon  him  freely  for  aid  and  advice ;  Governor  Yates 
and  Lyman  Trumbull  asked  and  received  suggestions  from  him. 
He  united  with  Love  joy  to  urge  Davis'  appointment  to  the  su- 
preme bench.5  Yates,  who  met  determined  and  influential  op- 
position, largely  upon  personal  grounds,  especially  appreciated 
his  loyal  support.  Opposition  to  the  governor,  at  a  time  when 
every  element  in  Illinois  should  have  been  united  in  support  of 
the  administration,  seemed  very  foolish  and  wrong  to  Jesse  Fell, 
and  he  used  his  pen  and  his  personal  influence  to  gain  better  co- 
operation for  the  governor." 

Fell's  relations  to  Owen  Lovejoy,  whom  he  greatly  admired, 

5Owen  Lovejoy  to  Fell,  Apr.  i,  1861 ;  Fell  to  Yates,  Apr.  8,  June  12, 
1861 ;  Lyman  Trumbull  to  Fell,  Feb.  i,  June  7,  1861 ;  Yates  to  Fell,  Aug. 
13,  1864. 

Among  the  letters  of  this  period  is  one  from  Fell  to  Governor  Yates, 
dated  Aug.  18,  1864.  It  called  Yates'  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  was 
no  practical  farmer  among  those  appointed  to  suggest  an  application  of 
the  funds  accruing  to  Illinois  under  the  Morrill  Act,  and  suggested 
George  W.  Minier  of  Tazewell  County,  a  successful  farmer  and  a  forci- 
ble writer,  as  a  member  of  this  committee.  Letters  concerning  the  ap- 
pointment of  Davis  are  not  now  available,  but  Fell's  article  in  the  Panto- 
graph of  Apr.  ii,  1868,  contains  a  statement  of  his  agency. 

An  undated  petition  to  Lincoln  in  behalf  of  Jesse  Bishop  of  Marion, 
111.,  who  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  secession  sympathizers,  belongs 
to  this  period.  It  is  signed  by  Thomas  I.  Turner,  Jesse  W.  Fell,  Richard 
Yates,  W.  Bushnell,  Richard  Oglesby,  S.  M.  Cullom,  and  others.  Kersey- 
Fell  seems  especially  to  have  interested  himself  in  helping  those  upon 
whom  the  burdens  of  the  war  were  heavy.  A  set  of  letters  from  him  to 
Governor  Yates,  dated  from  Sept.  21,  1861,  to  Dec.  27,  1864,  are  filled 
with  requests  for  passes,  money,  or  permits  to  all  sorts  of  folk  who 
needed  help.  (Yates  MSS.) 

«Richard  Yates  to  Fell,  June  7,  1862. 


331]  THE  CIVIL  WAR  67 

were  especially  close  during  the  war.7  Lovejoy  at  Washington 
and  Fell  in  Illinois  and  other  states  of  the  Middle  West  found 
many  ways  of  helping  each  other;  and  they  liked  to  compare 
notes  and  opinions.  Writing  to  his  friend  early  in  October,  1862, 
Fell  said:  "Can  it  be  possible  that  the  Almighty,  (who  will 
pardon  my  presumption)  is  so  poor  a  general  as  to  suffer  this 
war  to  come  to  a  close  without  sweeping,  as  with  the  besom  of 
destruction,  that  damning  sin  that  has  thus  culminated  in  civil 
war.  We  will  trust  not — and  will  pray  not ;  at  least  till  the  '  old 
cuss'  shall  be  'placed' — as  Honest  Old  Abe  expressed  it — 'in 
process  of  final'  and  may  we  justly  add  'speedy  extinction.'  ' 
Lovejoy  replied,  "My  trust  is  in  God  for  the  nation."8 

Among  the  friends  of  Mr.  Fell  who  by  no  means  shared  his 
own  Quaker  aversion  to  war,  was  the  "Fighting  Schoolmaster," 
Charles  E.  Hovey,  the  normal  school  president  who  led  the  Thir- 
ty-third Illinois  out  of  the  schoolroom  into  the  field.  Without 
having  had  technical  training  in  tactics  he  proved  an  able  com- 
mander. But  he  was  never  able  to  qualify  his  outspoken  New 
England  anti-slavery  sentiments,  nor  did  he  find  any  common 
ground  with  the  West  Point  officers  with  whom  he  was  asso- 
ciated, and  who  were  able  to  understand  the  point  of  view  of 
Southern  men.  He  asked  and  received  Mr.  Fell's  aid  in  enter- 
prises for  which  he  needed  an  agent  in  civil  life,  while  Fell  ap- 
preciated the  opportunity  of  keeping  in  close  touch  with  field 
operations  through  a  man  whom  he  knew  to  be  trustworthy. 

His  own  participation  in  the  war,  until  now  delayed  by  the 
pressure  of  private  business  and  a  distaste  for  military  life,  be- 
gan in  1862.  He  had  gone  with  Hovey  to  Washington  in  late 
June,  1861,  to  see  Lincoln  about  the  organization  of  the  normal 
school  regiment,  and  to  observe  the  situation  there  for  himself. 
With  Hovey  he  went  out  with  the  crowds  which  followed  the 
army  to  the  disastrous  battle  of  Bull  Run.  After  the  battle, 

7Lovejoy  to  Fell,  Dec.  /,  1862;  Fell  to  his  brother  Vickers  Fell,  Oct. 
7,  1862. 

8Lovejoy  selected  Fell  to  prepare,  after  his  death,  such  a  memoir  as 
might  seem  suitable.  In  April,  1864,  therefore,  his  'daughter  wrote  to 
Fell  asking  him  to  do  this  last  service  for  his  friend.  Fell  was  also  among 
those  who  raised  money  for  the  erection  of  a  monument,  and  he  seems 
to  have  secured  payment  to  Lovejoy's  heirs  of  money  owed  him.  Lucy  I. 
Lovejoy  to  Fell,  Apr.  6,  1864.  Circular  letter  from  Princeton,  signed  by 
John  H.  Bryant,  C.  C.  Mason,  and  F.  Bascom,  May  jo,  1864;  Bryant  to 
Fell,  Nov.  18,  1865. 


68  JESSE  W.   FELL  [332 

while  Hovey  surveyed  the  field  and  interviewed  spectators,  Fell 
found  congenial  employment  in  helping  about  the  hospitals  which 
had  been  hastily  improvised.  He  found  there  a  certain  Captain 
McCook  lying  mortally  wounded.  He  was  able  to  help  many, 
and  remained  with  Captain  McCook  and  his  father  until  the 
death  of  the  former.  Returning  from  Washington  impressed  with 
the  magnitude  of  the  coming  struggle,  the  sense  of  his  own  obli- 
gation to  bear  a  part  in  it  grew  as  time  passed.  In  the  second 
year  of  the  war  he  arranged  his  nursery  and  real  estate  busi- 
nesses for  a  long  absence,  and  offered  his  services  to  the  presi- 
dent. Knowing  that  his  talents  were  not  military,  and  that  he 
had  passed  the  age  when  he  might  have  been  trained  into  a 
fighting  man,  he  accepted  gladly  the  position  of  paymaster,  to 
which  the  rank  of  major  was  attached.  The  appointment  seems 
to  have  been  a  pet  project  of  Lincoln,  as  his  letters  on  the  sub- 
ject attest.9 

He  accepted  the  appointment  on  the  19th  of  July,  1862,  and 
began  his  duties  soon  afterward  at  Louisville,  Kentucky.  He 
took  with  him  as  a  clerk  William  0.  Davis,  who  was  betrothed 
to  his  daughter  Eliza.10  As  a  friend  of  the  president,  he  was 
received  among  his  colleagues  with  unusual  interest,  which  gave 
place  soon,  as  Rodney  Smith  bears  witness,  to  deep  respect  and 
admiration.  His  habit  of  going  about  unarmed — the  expression 
of  a  fixed  principle  of  trusting  men — was  regarded  as  a  fool- 
hardy concession  to  these  ideals  by  his  colleagues ;  but  there  is  no 
record  of  any  attack  upon  him  during  the  entire  time  of  his  serv- 
ice. He  employed  himself  first  in  mastering  the  intricate  red- 
tape  of  the  service,  after  which  in  August  he  was  sent  to  Indian- 
apolis to  pay  the  Sixty-ninth  Indiana  Infantry.  From  there  he 
went  to  Springfield,  Illinois,  which  was  his  headquarters  while 
he  paid  the  Illinois  troops  then  being  hurried  to  the  front.  Ma- 
jor William  Smith,  a  more  experienced  paymaster,  took  Mr.  Da- 
Lincoln  to  the  secretary  of  war,  Dec.  23,  1861,  Mar.  29,  1862.  "I 
really  wish  Jesse  W.  Fell,  of  Illinois,  to  be  appointed  a  Paymaster  in  the 
Regular  Army,  at  farthest,  as  early  as  the  1st  of  July,  1862.  I  wish  noth- 
ing to  interfere  with  this ;  and  I  have  so  written  as  much  as  two  months 
ago,  I  think." — Adjutant  General's  Office,  War  Department,  Washington, 
File  No.  F-290-C.B.  1863.  See  also  O.  H.  Browning  to  Fell,  June  26,  June 
30,  1862. 

"Rodney  Smith  to  Captain  E.  J.  Lewis,  July  15,  1897.  The  letter  is 
copied  in  full  on  pages  73-78  of  Lewis'  Life.  Mr.  Davis  was  later  trans- 
ferred to  the  office  of  Internal  Revenue  at  Washington,  there  to  serve 
under  Fell's  old  Friend  J.  J.  Lewis.  Davis  to  Fell,  Oct.  18,  1863. 


333]  THE  CIVIL  WAB  69 

vis  into  his  personal  employ,  giving  Fell  Rodney  Smith,  an  ex- 
perienced clerk,  who  had  been  in  the  service  for  some  time. 
Smith  remained  with  him  during  the  time  of  his  service,  and  at 
his  request  then  became  his  successor. 

The  official  records  of  Mr.  Fell's  service,  which  lasted  about 
eighteen  months,  show  that  he  remained  in  Illinois  until  late  in 
September,  when  he  made  a  trip  to  Fort  Donelson  to  pay  the 
Eighty-third  Illinois  Infantry.  After  returning  to  Illinois,  he 
went  to  Camp  Morton  in  Indiana  in  November,  then  spent  six 
months  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  going  from  Paducah  to  Cin- 
cinnati about  the  first  of  August,  1863.  In  the  spring  of  that 
year  he  had  a  short  leave  of  absence.  Remaining  in  Ohio  after 
his  return  to  work  but  a  short  time,  he  returned  to  Kentucky, 
to  Covington  and  Camp  Wild  Cat.  His  last  payment  was  made 
to  the  Forty-eighth  Pennsylvania  near  London,  Kentucky,  on 
September  18,  1863.  The  condition  of  his  private  affairs  was 
such  at  that  time  as  imperatively  to  demand  his  attention,  and 
knowing  that  there  were  others  who  were  capable  of  doing  the 
work  without  loss  to  the  service,  he  resigned  at  Christmas  time. 
The  resignation  was  accepted,  and  Fell  hurried  from  Washing- 
ton to  Normal,  to  look  after  an  accumulation  of  both  private  and 
public  business.11 

Scarcely  had  he  arrived  at  home  when  his  friends  began  to 
urge  him  to  enter  politics.  The  first  public  request  was  a  "sug- 
gestion" in  the  Pantagraph  of  December  26,  1863,  that  he  be 
sent  to  the  next  Congress  as  representative  for  the  eighth  dis- 
trict. In  an  editorial  on  January  26  his  name  was  suggested 
again,  with  a  repetition  of  the  arguments  in  the  first  article.  He 
replied  at  once  that  the  public  work  he  had  already  done  had  en- 
tailed a  sacrifice  of  personal  interests  which  he  felt  he  could  ill 
afford  to  make,  and  added,  "while  the  district  can  boast  of  a 
Leonard  Swett,  my  consent  to  be  placed  in  such  a  position  would 
indicate  a  recklessness  of  the  public  weal,  not  to  say  vanity,  that 
I  trust  I  cannot  be  capable  of. ' '  Some  of  his  friends  refused  to 
consider  this  answer  final,  and  made  out  a  petition,  signed  by  a 
long  roll  of  names,  begging  him  to  accept  the  nomination.12  Al- 

"Major  William  Cumback  to  Fell,  Feb.  4,  1864.  Fell  to  his  wife,  Oct. 
19,  1862,  Feb.  23,  1863.  Receipts,  1863. 

12Mr.  Fell,  in  his  endorsement  upon  this  paper,  says  he  declined  it 
"as  incompatible  with  proper  attention  to  my  private  affairs  ...  &  for  the 
further  reason  that  I  had  solicited  another  and  a  better  man  to  become 
a  candidate — To  wit  Leonard  Swett."  No  date;  about  Feb.  i,  1864. 


70  JESSE   W.   FELL  [334 

exander  Campbell  paused  in  his  advocacy  of  the  "True  Ameri- 
can System  of  Finance"  long  enough  to  urge  Fell  to  run  for 
Congress;  John  H.  Bryant,  probably  feeling  with  Campbell  that 
Fell  might  take  the  place  of  the  sadly  missed  Love  joy,  begged 
him  not  to  decline.  But  Fell  was  firm  in  his  determination  not 
again  to  enter  public  life.  Shelby  M.  Cullom  was  nominated  at 
the  convention,  and  elected  over  John  T.  Stuart  by  a  large  ma- 
jority. It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  Fell  was  again  asked  to 
stand  for  Congress  in  1866,  and  once  more  refused.13 

Throughout  the  war  his  support  of  Lincoln,  with  that  of 
many  other  of  the  president's  old  friends  in  the  West,  was  un- 
swerving and  practical.  The  partial  emancipation  message  of 
March  6,  1862,  drew  from  him  a  burst  of  loyal  and  affectionate 
congratulation,  which  reveals  the  whole-heartedness  of  his  faith 
in  Lincoln,  at  a  time  when  even  Illinois  was  rife  with  criticism. 
He  took  the  stump  again  in  the  campaign  of  1864,  speaking  with 
E.  M.  Prince  at  a  series  of  meetings  in  country  schoolhouses  and 
village  halls.  But  he  declined  the  post  of  secretary  of  the  state 
central  committee.1* 

The  news  of  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  came  with  a  pecul- 
iar shock  to  the  Illinois  towns  in  which  he  had  been  a  familiar 
figure,  and  in  which  there  were  scores  of  his  personal  friends. 
Fell  heard  of  it  as  he  returned  from  a  business  trip.  Hurrying 
home,  but  not  stopping  to  have  old  Tom  unharnessed  from  the 
buggy,  he  told  his  wife  the  sad  news,  and  then  started  back  to 
Bloomington  to  verify  the  report  and  have  further  particulars. 
On  the  way  he  met  his  son  Henry,  took  him  into  the  buggy  with 
him,  and  begged  for  details.15  The  day  after,  the  McLean 
County  people  expressed  their  sorrow  at  a  great  public  meeting 

"Alexander  Campbell  to  Fell,  Apr.  2,  1864.  Bryant  to  Fell,  May  14, 
1864.  Fell  in  the  Pantograph,  Apr.  n,  1868. 

"The  Pantograph  of  May  23,  1862,  has  an  account  of  a  public  meet- 
i  ing  held  the  night  before,  at  which  Fell  spoke  warmly  in  defense  of  the 
presidential  policy,  then  much  criticized.  In  August  another  great  meet- 
jing  of  the  same  sort  was  held.  Fell  to  Lincoln,  Mar.  17,  1862.  Panto- 
graph, Oct.  5  and  Oct.  ir,  1864.  Lewis,  Life,  So.  Telegram  from  Thomas 
J.  Turner  to  Fell,  July  II,  1864.  Lincoln  to  Fell,  Oct.  5,  1860. 

"Henry  C.  Fell,  "When  Lincoln  Visited  Normal,"  in  Normalite,  June 
7,  IQI3- 


335]  THE   CIVIL   WAE  71 

held  in  the  court  house  square,  at  which  Fell  presided  and 
spoke.16 

A  very  dramatic  episode  gave  to  the  days  that  followed  a 
lively  interest,  and  may  be  related  here  because  it  illustrates 
a  prominent  trait  of  Fell's  character.  Rev.  Charles  Ellis,  the 
pastor  of  the  Free  Congregational  Church,  was  a  New  Englander 
of  strongly  abolitionist  views.  In  his  sermon  of  April  23,  1865, 
he  essayed  to  speak  upon  the  subject  of  the  assassination  and  its 
causes.  His  audience,  which  numbered  many  personal  friends 
of  the  dead  president,  was  perhaps  as  keenly  sensitive  to  the  es- 
timate placed  upon  Lincoln  as  any  audience  could  have  been. 
Mr.  Ellis  began  by  saying  that  he  believed  that  before  God 
Adams,  Jefferson  and  Washington  were  more  to  blame  for  the 
murder  than  Booth,  for  they  had  admitted  slavery  at  the  time 
when  the  constitution  was  made.  He  then  blamed  Lincoln  for 
so  long  supporting  a  constitution  which  protected  slavery,  and 
said  that  "he  had  not  the  moral  courage  to  step  forth  like  a 
strong  man  in  his  might  and  do  what  his  better  nature  told  him 
was  his  highest  duty.  He  sacrificed  the  demands  of  God  that  he 
might  not  offend  a  political  party  in  the  land,"  with  much  more 
to  the  same  effect. 

In  attributing  the  murder  of  Lincoln  to  his  own  fault  in  no 
uncertain  terms,  Mr.  Ellis  aroused  the  indignation  of  the  Bloom- 
ington  people  to  fever  heat.  Members  of  the  congregation  were 
so  angered  that  they  were  scarcely  restrained  from  creating  a 
disturbance  in  the  church.  Mob  violence  was  not  unknown  in 
Bloomington  during  the  war,  as  the  Snow  brothers  could  tes- 
tify.17 A  meeting  of  the  members  of  the  church  was  held  a  few 
days  later,  for  the  purpose  of  demanding  the  immediate  resigna- 
tion of  the  pastor.  Mr.  Fell,  however,  spoke  so  forcibly  of  the 

I60n  the  day  after  the  assassination  President  Edwards  called  a 
meeting  to  be  held  in  the  assembly  hall  of  the  normal  school,  at  which 
Pell  presided  and  spoke,  it  is  said,  with  singular  eloquence  of  his  old 
friend. 

"These  two  brothers,  with  their  sister,  the  president  of  the  Bloom- 
ington Ladies'  Library  Board,  were  considered  to  be  among  the  finest  peo- 
ple in  the  town,  but  were  extremely  unpopular  because  of  their  frank 
sympathy  with  the  South.  On  one  occasion,  when  recent  recruiting  had 
aroused  patriotic  feeling  to  fever  heat,  a  crowd  of  men  and  boys  bom- 
barded the  office  of  the  Times,  and  destroyed  it.  They  were  not  satisfied 
until  "the  crude  little  press  and  all  the  types  were  scattered  on  the  street 
"below."  The  Snows  sued  for  damages,  but  could  get  no  conviction.  Lu- 
Burr,  interview  in  Bloomington  Bulletin,  July  6,  1913. 


72  JESSE   W.   PELL  [336 

fundamental  principle  upon  which  that  church  had  been 
founded — the  principle  of  free  speech — that  he  dissuaded  the 
congregation  from  a  step  which  would  have  denied  it.  The  Con- 
gregationalists  adopted  instead  a  set  of  resolutions  which  he  of- 
fered, in  which  they  refused  to  censure  the  sermon,  asserting  the 
right  of  any  man  to  express  his  ideas  untrammeled  in  their 
church;  and  reproved  the  "mob"  which  had  caused  the  disturb- 
ance on  the  Sunday  before.18  Although  thus  formally  vindi- 
cated, Mr.  Ellis  found  public  opinion  so  against  him  that  his  use- 
fulness in  the  community  seemed  at  an  end,  and  he  resigned 
within  a  few  days. 

^Pantograph,  May  6,  1865.  It  is  said  that  Dr.  McCann  Dunn  paid  for 
printing  of  the  sermon,  that  all  might  know  exactly  what  was  said,  since 
highly  colored  reports  concerning  Dr.  Ellis'  words  were  promptly  circu- 
lated. John  W.  Cook  says  of  this  occurrence :  "This  community  has 
often  had  occasion  to  feel  a  sense  of  pride  in  the  citizenship  of  Mr.  Fell, 
but  on  this  occasion  he  illustrated  a  degree  of  fidelity  to  a  cherished  prin- 
ciple that  lifted  him  to  the  serene  heights  of  supreme  manhood.  His 
heart  was  heavy  because  of  the  national  calamity  and  he  mourned  the 
loss  of  his  honored  friend,  but  the  principle  of  free  speech  could  not  be 
violated  without  his  indignant  protest."  A  Western  Pioneer  (MS). 


CHAPTER  VII 
PUBLIC  SERVICE  AFTER  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Altho  keenly  interested  in  national  affairs,  it  was  al- 
ways for  the  concerns  of  his  community  that  Mr.  Fell  found 
deepest  pleasure  in  planning  and  execution.  In  1864  the  people 
of  the  township  in  which  he  lived  resolved  to  correct  an  old 
wrong  that  had  caused  great  confusion  and  expense  for  many 
years.  The  corner  marks  usually  set  up  by  government  survey- 
ors could  not  be  located  in  Normal  township,  and  people  came 
finally  to  the  conclusion  that  only  the  outside  boundaries  had 
ever  been  properly  run.  Judge  Davis,  C.  R.  Overman,  and  Mr. 
Fell  addressed  a  meeting  on  the  first  of  October,  1864,  and  Mr. 
Fell  secured  the  adoption  of  a  set  of  resolutions,  which,  after  re- 
citing the  conditions,  recommended  legislative  action  to  secure  a 
resurvey  and  an  adjustment  of  all  difficulties  between  those 
whose  boundary  lines  conflicted.  A  petition  was  signed,  a  com- 
mittee appointed  to  circulate  it,  and  Mr.  Fell  was  commissioned 
to  present  it  at  Springfield.  He  did  this  effectively,  and  the 
necessary  bill  was  passed  on  February  16,  1865.  A  case  in  chan- 
cery was  instituted  accordingly,  the  next  September,  and  a  de- 
cree for  the  resurvey  secured,  the  commissioners'  report  being 
confirmed  by  both  lower  and  supreme  courts.1  The  decisions 
which  were  thus  reached  in  the  most  friendly  and  united  spirit, 
doubtless  saved  endless  expensive  law  suits  and  hard  feelings. 
Perhaps  no  service  of  Mr.  Fell  to  his  community  required  more 
tact,  foresight,  and  hard  work  to  accomplish  than  this  achieve- 
ment of  the  resurvey  of  the  township,  or  meant  more  to  the  peo- 
ple among  whom  he  lived  and  worked. 

On  the  same  day  on  which  he  signed  the  resurvey  bill,  Gov- 
ernor Oglesby  also  approved  a  bill  changing  the  name  of  North 
Bloomington  to  Normal.  Under  that  name  it  was  incorporated 
February  25,  1867,  with  a  charter  which  embodied  a  perpetual 

JSamuel  Colvin  et  al  vs.  Kersey  H.  Fell  et  al.,  40  Illinois  Reports  418. 
The  petition  signed  at  the  meeting  is  among  the  Fell  MSS.  It  contains 
about  twenty-five  names,  with  subscriptions  for  the  expense  involved,  of 
from  twenty  to  twenty-five  dollars.  Pantograph,  Oct.  6,  1864.  Private 
Laws  of  Illinois,  1867,  III,  628-631. 

73 


74  JESSE  W.   FELL  [338 

no-saloon  clause.2  In  making  the  deeds  of  sale  to  lots  in  Normal 
(and  there  is  little  land  in  the  town  which  was  not  at  some  time 
owned  by  Mr.  Fell)  he  had  always  stipulated  that  no  intoxicat- 
ing liquors  should  be  sold  upon  the  premises.  Others  who  owned 
land  were  in  sympathy  with  his  ideas,  and  it  was  understood 
from  the  first  that  Normal  should  always  be,  as  Bloomington  was 
in  1854  and  1855,  a  prohibition  town.  In  1866  the  growing  town 
required  a  charter  and  its  people  wished  it  to  include  a  clause 
guaranteeing  the  continuance  of  this  policy.  The  legislature  of 
Illinois  was  not  so  ardently  temperate  as  Normal;  and  interests 
which  hoped  to  gain  advantage  from  the  change,  tried  to  induce 
it  to  omit  the  prohibition  clause  from  the  proposed  charter.  Hear- 
ing of  this,  Mr.  Fell  called  a  citizens'  meeting  at  the  Baptist 
Church  on  November  22,  1866,  at  which  the  people  discussed  the 
situation  and  adopted  a  set  of  resolutions,  ready  to  hand  as  us- 
ual.3 At  the  suggestion  of  John  Dodge,  a  close  friend  of  Fell 
and  a  man  thoroly  in  sympathy  with  his  ideas,  the  people 
present  signed  the  resolutions,  and  other  signatures  were  se- 
cured before  an  adjourned  meeting  held  on  December  6.  At  this 
subsequent  meeting  a  thoro  canvass  was  reported,  in  which 
President  Edwards  of  the  Normal  School  had  cooperated  by  se- 
curing the  signatures  of  the  students.  Over  nine  hundred  names 
appeared  on  the  petition,  the  names  it  is  said  of  every  man, 
woman  and  child  of  six  or  over  in  the  town.  William  A.  Pennell 
was  appointed  to  go  with  Mr.  Fell  to  present  it  to  the  legislature, 
which  granted  the  charter  with  the  desired  clause.4 

Mr.  Fell  had  been  able  by  careful  attention  to  his  affairs 
largely  to  free  himself  of  debt  by  this  time,  and  so  felt  free  to 
give  some  time  to  furthering  the  political  prospects  of  his  friends, 
and  to  take  a  rest  which  he  felt  that  several  years  of  unremitting 
labor  had  earned.  Early  in  July  of  1865  he  received  an  invita- 
tion from  General  Thomas  Osborn,  who  was  in  charge  of  the 
Twenty-fourth  Army  Corps  at  Richmond,  to  visit  that  city  as 
the  guest  of  the  corps.  He  accepted  this  invitation,  and  while  in 
the  East  went  to  New  York  and  had  an  interview  with  Henry 
Ward  Beecher.  Upon  his  return  he  was  busied  with  the  test  case 

2Private  Laws,  1867,  III,  321-336.  The  seal  was  affixed  to  the  char- 
ter Mar.  4,  1867. 

8The  resolutions  are  given,  with  an  account  of  the  meeting,  in  the 
Pantograph,  Dec.  19,  1866.  Fell,  letter  published  in  the  Normalite,  Mar. 
26,  1908. 

4Lewis,  Life,  57. 


339]  PUBLIC   SERVICE   AFTER   THE   WAR  75 

for  securing  the  resurvey,  spoken  of  before,  and  with  efforts  to 
facilitate  the  discharge  of  certain  Illinois  regiments.5 

During  the  years  following  the  close  of  the  war  Mr.  Fell  de- 
voted much  time  and  effort  to  the  building  up  of  Bloomington 
and  Normal.  He  planted  trees  indefatigably,  procured  grants 
that  improved  and  enlarged  the  normal  school,  and  encouraged 
every  enterprise  which  could  bring  desirable  citizens  or  increased 
wealth  to  the  sections  in  which  he  was  interested.  No  public  en- 
terprise asked  his  aid  in  vain,  it  is  said ;  certainly  the  list  of  his 
interests  is  a  long  one.  During  the  first  few  years  of  his  resi- 
dence in  North  Bloomington,  he  planned  to  develop  the  new 
town  as  a  manufacturing  place  as  well  as  a  school  town.  In  1857 
he  was  much  interested  in  the  production  of  sorghum,  for  which 
people  then  predicted  a  great  future.  He  planted  it  generously, 
set  up  a  mill,  with  press,  vats  and  reducing  pans,  and  put  his 
product  upon  the  market.  There  was  not,  however,  an  encour- 
aging demand  for  it,  and  farmers  generally  declined  to  trouble 
themselves  with  the  crop,  which  required  an  outlay  of  labor  in- 
commensurate with  returns.  Mr.  Fell  after  a  time  abandoned 
the  experiment.6 

At  about  the  same  time  he  secured  the  location  of  a  foundry 
at  North  Bloomington,7  but  this  enterprise,  after  a  career  of 

5C.  Macalester  to  Fell,  Nov.  7,  1864.  Thomas  O.  Osborn  to  Fell,  July 
i,  1865.  J.  H.  Bryant  to  Fell,  Nov.  18,  1865.  Lyman  Trumbull  to  Fell, 
Dec.  27,  1866.  Stephen  A.  Douglas  to  Fell,  Mar.  21,  1866.  Gov.  Oglesby 
to  Fell,  Sept.  16,  1865.  Fell  to  E.  J.  Lewis,  July  26,  1865,  quoting  a  letter 
from  himself  to  Secretary  Stanton.  (Lewis  letters,  in  MSS  of  the  Mc- 
Lean County  Historical  Association.)  These  last  letters  referred  to  one 
published  substantially  in  the  Pantagrafh  of  July  13,  1865,  from  Lewis, 
in  which  he  complained  of  being  compelled  to  lie  idly  in  camp  with  all 
his  men,  after  all  action  had  ceased.  Lewis  could  have  been  relieved  at 
any  time,  but  did  not  like  to  leave  camp  (at  Meridian,  Miss.)  without  his 
men. 

6In  1842  and  1843,  he  had  been  interested  in  some  experiments  look- 
ing toward  the  making  of  sugar  from  Indian  corn.  No  written  account 
of  these  experiments  remains.  His  conclusion  was  that  the  thing  was 
possible,  but  not  commercially  profitable.  Interview  with  Henry  Fell, 
May  31,  1913. 

7One  Blakesly,  his  partner  in  this  enterprise,  built  the  foundry,  and 
also  the  huge  boarding-house  which  was  to  accommodate  the  workmen. 
Addison  Reeder,  a  skilled  mechanic  and  inventor,  was  brought  from  Lay- 
town  to  be  foreman  and  manager.  Some  cast  iron  fixtures,  used  in  the 
construction  of  the  normal  school  buildings,  were  turned  out  before  the 
enterprise  had  to  be  given  up,  largely  because  of  the  impossibility  of  find- 


76  JESSE  W.   PELL  [340 

many  vicissitudes,  was  also  given  up,  Mr.  Fell  deciding  that  Nor- 
mal was  destined  not  to  become  a  manufacturing  town.  This 
was  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  in  1867  two  coal-shafts  had  been 
sunk,  and  had  found  coal,  in  or  near  Bloomington.  Mr.  Fell  was 
financially  interested  in  that  one  which  was  located  near  the  Chi- 
cago and  Alton  tracks,  and  which  has  been  operated  successfully 
to  the  present  time.  One  business  venture  which  was  a  success 
from  every  point  of  view  was  the  large  hotel  in  Normal  which 
he  built  in  partnership  with  William  A.  Pennell.  It  was  a  four- 
story  Mansard-roofed  structure,  with  spacious  rooms  and  wide 
verandas,  and  a  ballroom  that  made  it  the  social  center  of  both 
towns.  Good  hostelries  were  rare,  and  this  one  became  a  land- 
mark. It  was  burned  in  1872,  some  time  after  Mr.  Fell  had  dis- 
posed of  his  share  in  the  ownership. 

No  enterprise  upon  which  the  state  entered  after  the  close 
of  the  war  was  of  greater  importance  than  the  establishing  of 
the  state  university.  It  has  been  noted  that  from  the  first  ef- 
forts, sidetracked  for  the  normal  school  and  later  deferred  dur- 
ing the  struggle  between  North  and  South,  its  friends  hoped  to 
have  eventually  one  many-sided  institution,  wherein  training  of 
many  kinds  might  be  had.  No  sooner  was  the  war  well  over, 
than  the  project  was  again  urged  upon  Illinois.  In  Bloomington 
interest  was  especially  keen,  for  there  people  thought  that  now 
the  time  was  come  for  the  expansion  of  the  normal  school  into  a 
real  university.  The  funds  made  available  by  the  Morrill  Act 
would  provide  for  the  industrial  university  of  which  Turner  and 
Fell  had  long  dreamed.8 

ing  efficient  workmen;  and  Mr.  Fell  became  liable  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  loss  of  the  venture.  The  plant  was  used  about  1877  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  a  patent  furnace,  by  one  Ruttan,  a  Canadian,  who  was  the  in- 
ventor of  a  once-popular  ventilating  system.  Neither  the  furnace  nor 
the  stoves,  which  then  and  later  were  turned  out  of  the  same  factory, 
found  a  very  good  market.  William  McCambridge  in  the  Pantograph, 
Mar.  16,  1910. 

8John  F.  Eberhart,  in  his  contribution  to  the  Fell  Memorial,  tells  of 
an  interesting  but  unsuccessful  attempt  to  establish  a  great  state  univer- 
sity, early  in  the  decade  following  the  passage  of  the  Morrill  Act.  There 
was  to  be  a  central  school  in  Chicago,  "with  affiliated  institutions  through- 
out the  state,  especially  at  Normal.  .  .  .  Our  plan  was  to  get  donations 
of  $100,000  from  each  of  ten  different  men  in  the  state  and  to  have  in- 
corporated into  the  constitution  of  the  state  at  the  constitutional  conven- 
tion in  1870,  a  provision  for  the  maintenance  of  the  university.  The  $i,- 
000,000  had  been  duly  pledged.  Mr.  Fell,  himself,  pledged  $100,000,  and 


341]  PUBLIC    SERVICE   AFTER   THE   WAR  77 

The  first  legislative  action  for  the  school  was  a  bill  author- 
izing its  establishment,  and  throwing  open  its  location  to  bids. 
The  bill  was  introduced  in  1865,  but  was  defeated.  A  similar  bill 
was  introduced  two  years  later,  providing  for  elections  in  coun- 
ties or  cities  upon  the  question  of  raising  money  wherewith  to 
make  a  bid  for  the  location  of  a  state  university.  This  bill 
passed,  and  was  approved  by  Governor  Oglesby  on  January  25, 
1867.9  In  the  meantime,  however,  other  forces  were  at  work  to 
locate  the  school  definitely  at  Urbana.  After  President  Buch- 
anan had  vetoed  the  Morrill  Bill  in  1859  and  before  Lincoln  ap- 
proved it  in  1862,  Dr.  Charles  A.  Hunt  of  Urbana  conceived  the 
idea  of  securing  a  state  school  for  his  own  town.  A  "seminary" 
building  was  being  erected  then  at  the  north  end  of  what  is  now 
Illinois  Field,  and  Dr.  Hunt's  plan  was  to  use  it  for  a  larger  and 
better  endowed  school  than  could  be  had  by  merely  local  support. 
He  therefore  wrote  a  memorial,  which  was  signed  by  a  large 
number  of  Urbana  citizens,  and  which  was  presented  to  the  leg- 
islature in  January,  1861.  This  memorial  pleaded  for  agricultur- 
al education  on  the  two-fold  basis  of  the  elevation  of  labor  and 
of  public  economy.  The  time  was  unpropitious  for  such  an  en- 
terprise, however,  and  the  memorial  came  to  no  immediate 
success.10 

No  sooner  was  peace  restored  than  the  citizens  of  Urbana 
set  themselves  anew  to  secure  the  industrial  university,  as  it  was 
then  called.  Jonathan  Turner,  long  the  leader  of  the  movement, 
hoped  that  when  it  materialized  this  school  would  be  at  Jackson- 
ville. Jesse  Fell  wanted  it  at  Bloomington,  a  rounding  out  of 
the  university  which  had  been  begun  with  the  normal  school  ten 
years  before.  Several  other  communities  in  the  state  hoped  to 
gain  it,  and  made  generous  offers  for  it.  But  the  Urbana  people 
were  both  earliest  in  the  field,  and  most  resourceful  in  expedi- 

had  found  six  other  men  in  the  state  who  pledged  $100,000  each.  I 
also  pledged  $100,000  and  found  two  other  men  besides  myself  ..." 
John  Wentworth,  upon  whom  the  two  leaders  had  relied  to  push  the 
project  in  the  convention,  grew  cold  in  the  cause,  however,  and  it  was 
given  up.  Probably  Turner's  plan  to  put  the  state  university  upon  a  con- 
stitutional basis  appealed  to  Fell  as  a  better  idea. 

^Public  Laws,  1867,  122. 

10The  "Urbana  and  Champaign  Institute"  was  incorporated  by  an  act 
approved  Feb.  21,  1861.  Private  Laws,  1861,  24-26. 

Dr.  Hunt  entered  the  army  as  a  surgeon  and  died  at  the  hospital  at 
Mound  City  in  July,  1863.  Joseph  O.  Cunningham,  in  the  Times  (Cham- 
paign, 111.)  of  May  21,  1910. 


78  JESSE  W.   PELL,  [342 

ents.  They  introduced  a  bill  definitely  locating  the  institution  at 
Urbana,  providing  the  offer — therein  recited — of  the  people  of 
Champaign  County  were  made  good.11  Other  towns  were  indig- 
nant at  this  method,  since  it  gave  them  no  chance  to  compete. 
Bloomington  felt  especially  aggrieved,  for  the  success  of  the  Ur- 
bana bill  meant  for  them  the  death  of  a  hope  long  cherished; 
and  Jacksonville  was  hardly  less  angry,  because  it  had  supported 
Turner  through  the  long  years  of  his  unsuccessful  efforts.  Not 
a  little  heroic  sacrifice  had  entered  into  the  generous  donation  of 
Bloomington  in  1857,  made  when  hard  times  were  threatening 
and  war  seemed  imminent.  One  of  the  arguments  most  used  by 
those  who  had  raised  the  money  then  was  that  in  time  other 
schools  might  be  added  until  a  real  university  were  founded.12 

Mr.  Pell's  own  conception  of  the  educational  system  of  the 
state  was  a  comprehensive  one,  involving  a  university  compris- 
ing every  necessary  technical  and  cultural  school,  at  the  head  of 
a  system  of  common  schools  which  included  industrial  training  in 
their  curriculum.  Teachers,  he  said,  would  profit  by  the  breadth 
gained  by  coming  into  contact  with  those  who  were  in  turn  train- 
ing for  other  kinds  of  work ;  and  as  education  was  a  field  as  dig- 
nified as  that  of  any  other  calling,  it  was  practicable  to  make  the 
normal  school  one  of  the  colleges  in  the  university.  To  supple- 
ment this  theoretical  justification,  he  set  to  work  to  raise  a  sub- 
scription which  should  rival,  if  not  exceed,  that  of  Urbana. 

His  efforts  were  now  even  more  earnest,  if  that  were  possible, 
than  they  had  been  ten  years  before.  He  wrote  a  memorial  pre- 
senting the  claims  of  Bloomington,  which  was  received  by  the 
legislature  about  the  first  of  February,  1867.  He  and  a  number 
of  others  went  to  Springfield  to  use  what  influence  they  might  to 
assure  the  acceptance,  or  at  least  the  consideration,  of  the  bid. 
The  decision  hung  fire  during  the  greater  part  of  February, 
while  the  lobbies  of  Champaign,  McLean,  Morgan  and  Logan 
Counties  pushed  their  respective  claims.  The  people  of  Cham- 
paign County,  knowing  the  manner  of  men  they  had  to  deal  with 
in  Turner  and  Fell,  had  elected  to  the  legislature,  especially  for 
the  purpose  of  pleading  their  cause,  a  man  who  was  almost  if 
not  quite  Fell's  equal  in  powers  of  persuasion.  This  was  Clark 

^Public  Laws  of  Illinois,  1867,  123-129. 

^Illinois  Industrial  University:  Report  of  the  Committee  (pamphlet, 
no  date);  circular  letter,  Jan.  25,  1866;  J.  B.  Turner,  "Industrial  Univer- 
sity" in  Jacksonville  Journal,  Feb.  8,  1866;  subscription  lists.  All  in  the 
Turner  Manuscripts. 


343]  PUBLIC   SERVICE  AFTER   THE  WAR  79 

R.  Griggs.18  He  was  successful  in  his  mission;  Champaign 
County  won  the  Industrial  University.  An  inconsequential  sop 
was  thrown  to  the  defeated  parties  in  the  shape  of  a  supplemen- 
tary bill,  passed  March  8,  which  provided  that  the  trustees  might 
locate  the  school  in  McLean,  Logan  or  Morgan  Counties  if  Cham- 
paign County  failed  to  fulfill  its  contract,  a  contingency  which, 
of  course,  never  arose. 

The  new  institution  was,  at  first,  scarcely  more  of  a  univer- 
sity than  the  normal  school  had  been.  It  was  small,  poorly  en- 
dowed, limited  in  curriculum  and  service.  Its  friends  wanted  to 
see  it  really  fulfill  the  purpose  for  which  it  had  been  created. 
The  Northern  Illinois  Horticultural  Society,  meeting  in  Bloom- 
in  gton  on  March  2,  1870,  besides  criticizing  the  struggling  insti- 
tution roundly,  passed  a  resolution  which  showed  its  kindlier  at- 

18Petition  to  the  legislature,  signed  by  Jesse  W.  Fell  and  fifteen  others 
of  Bloomington  and  vicinity.  Illinois  State  Journal,  Jan.  17,  1867.  The 
subscription  as  given  in  the  petition  was  $500,000;  the  Pantograph  put  it 
at  $550,000.  (Lewis,  Life,  89).  Mr.  Fell  gave  $15,000  of  this,  the  largest 
single  subscription  except  that  of  Judge  Davis.  There  was  a  site  of  140 
acres,  and  many  smaller  cash  subscriptions.  Both  this  and  the  offer  of 
Jacksonville  exceeded  that  of  Champaign  County. 

No  shadow  of  reproach  attaches  to  the  methods  used  by  Clark  R. 
Griggs  in  winning  friends  for  the  Urbana  location.  There  were  open  ac- 
cusations of  bribery  at  the  time,  however,  which  involved  some  members 
of  the  Urbana  lobby.  E.  M.  Prince,  in  his  contribution  to  the  Fell  Me- 
morial (p.  42)  tells  the  story  of  the  proposal  of  a  bribe  to  the  Blooming- 
ton  men.  He  went  one  morning,  he  says,  to  Mr.  Fell's  room,  where  Fell 
was  making  plans  for  the  day  for  the  Bloomington  contingent  He  went 
over  the  names  of  the  members  of  the  legislature,  speaking  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  each  and  of  the  kind  of  argument  that  would  probably 
prove  effective  in  each  case.  One  man  "said  that  Urbana  had  contributed 
quite  a  large  amount  of  money  to  influence  the  members  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, but  said  that  he  thought  a  few  hundred  dollars  from  McLean  County 
would  give  it  to  them,  as  the  members  preferred  McLean  to  Champaign. 
Mr.  Fell  immediately  spoke  up  and  said,  'I  am  willing  to  procure  a  sub- 
scription that  will  be  conceded  to  be  the  greatest  of  any  of  the  towns, 
but  I  will  not  contribute  a  dollar  to  influence  any  member  of  the  Legisla- 
ture to  vote  for  us.  I  will  throw  the  whole  thing  up  before  I  will  have 
anything  of  the  kind.' "  See  Prince's  article  in  the  Pantograph  of  June 
7,  1907. 

See  also  affidavits,  Jan.  25,  1867;  G.  W.  Minier  to  Turner,  Feb.  10, 
1867 ;  History  of  the  Champaign  "Elephant"  by  One  of  the  Ring,  broad- 
side, dated  in  pencil,  Mar.  21,  1867;  certificate  of  expenditure  by  Henry 
E.  Danner,  Apr.  2,  1867.  All  in  the  Turner  Manuscripts. 


80  JESSE  W.   PELL  [344 

titude  toward  it.  This  was  that  the  constitutional  convention 
then  in  session  should  endow  it  by  a  constitutional  provision.14 
But  Fell  had  anticipated  this  action.  Representing  the 
State  Teachers'  Association,  he  had  addressed  a  memorial  to  the 
convention  on  the  last  day  of  January  preceding,  which  ex- 
pressed his  ideas  of  possible  means  and  measures.  It  did  not  dic- 
tate an  exact  scheme  of  support  and  management  for  the  univer- 
sity, altho  it  suggested  several.  It  appealed  to  state  pride, 
urging  that  eight  surrounding  states  had  already  established  uni- 
versities. It  contained  also  a  vivid  prophecy  of  the  service  now 
actually  rendered  the  state  in  the  study  of  soils,  entomology, 
engineering,  agriculture,  chemistry,  mining  methods,  and  the 
use  of  waste  by-products.  But  he  adds :  "To  accomplish  these 
grand  results,  however,  we  must  have,  not  a  university  in  name 
— another  pretentious  high  school — but  what  has  not  yet  been 
fully  organized  upon  this  continent,  a  University  in  fact ;  a  grand 
-and  comprehensive  school,  equal  in  its  scope  and  power  of  devel- 
opment to  our  present  and  future  greatness,  and  in  harmony 
with  the  advancing  civilization  of  the  age.  Anything  that  falls 
short  of  this,  at  least  in  its  scope  and  constitution,  is  alike  un- 
worthy of  us  as  a  people,  and  of  the  age  in  which  it  is  our  privi- 
lege to  live.  The  day  of  small  endeavors  in  enterprises  of  this 
kind,  and  with  people  like  ours,  has  passed  away,  never  to 
return.  WE  WANT  THIS  OR  NOTHING."15  Then  follows  a  very 

14Both  Turner  and  Gregory  were  at  this  meeting.  The  latter  invited 
the  members  to  visit  Champaign  and  see  for  themselves  what  was  being 
done  at  the  university.  Turner's  acceptance  marked  the  beginning  of  his 
personal  friendship  for  Gregory,  and  his  hearty  cooperation  with  him  in 
building  up  the  institution.  Carriel,  Life  of  Jonathan  Baldwin  Turner, 
227-231.  Joseph  O.  Cunningham,  interview,  May  10,  1914. 

"Saying  that  its  friends  were  not  urging  any  special  plan  for  pro- 
viding it  with  funds,  Fell  mentions  that  fact  that  "some"  propose  to  use 
for  the  university  the  five  per  cent  of  the  Illinois  Central ;  but  another 
plan,  if  more  acceptable,  would  be  considered  by  the  university  party. 
"In  view  of  tlie  general  desire  to  perpetuate  the  present  relations  of  the 
State  with  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  in  regard  to  the  fund  referred 
to,  and  of  a  morbid  sensibility  in  the  public  mind  in  reference  thereto, 
whenever  any  measure  affecting  the  same,  however  remotely,  is  proposed, 
it  may  be  wise,  should  you  determine  to  provide  for  such  an  institution, 
to  abstain  from  making  even  any  allusion  to  that  fund,  and  in  lieu 
thereof,  to  provide  that  the  one-tenth  part  of  the  two  mill  tax,  or  its 
equivalent  one-fifth  of  one  mill,  shall  be  set  apart  to  that  object,  after 
the  extinguishment  of  our  present  state  indebtedness.  ...  By  the  impo- 


345]  PUBLIC   SERVICE   AFTER   THE   WAR  81 

earnest  reply  to  the  chief  argument  being  urged  against  such 
a  plan — that  the  state  was  too  poor  to  afford  it.  The  plea  was 
an  eloquent  one,  but  it  failed  to  gain  its  point  with  the  consti- 
tution-makers, who  declined  to  saddle  the  state  with  any  such 
"  burden". 

Besides  writing  this  plea  for  the  teachers  of  the  state,  Fell 
traveled  much  in  the  interests  of  the  effort,  and  wrote  many 
letters.  A  draft  of  the  proposed  constitutional  provision  is 
found  in  a  set  of  resolutions  passed  by  the  State  Teachers' 
Association.16 

sition,  in  this  or  some  other  way,  of  a  slight  tax,  equal  to  the  fiftieth 
part  of  one  per  cent  and  by  deferring  the  collection  of  even  that  till 
our  present  bonded  indebtedness  is  fully  paid  off,  would  seem  to  obviate 
all  reasonable  objections ;  and  though  it  postponed  for  a  few  years  a 
work  already  too  long  delayed,  the  friends  of  this  measure  hope  by  this 
concession,  as  to  time,  to  receive  not  only  your  approval,  but  that  of  the 
people  to  whom  your  work  is  soon  to  be  submitted. 

.  .  .  "We  not  only  have  nothing  of  this  kind  within  our  limits,  but 
we  are  surrounded  by  six  states,  to  wit:  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Iowa, 
Missouri,  Kentucky,  Indiana,  to  say  nothing  of  two  still  younger  States, 
Minnesota  and  Kansas — all  of  which  have  State  Universities.  True, 
Ann  Arbor  only  has  at  present  any  just  claims  to  this  high  rank;  but 
may  we  not  reasonably  hope  and  expect,  .  .  .  that  in  time  some,  possibly 
all,  of  the  States  referred  to  may  have  their  Universities  in  fact  as  well 
as  in  name?  .  .  ." 

.  .  .  "What  we  mean  by  the  term  'University',  in  that  broad  and 
comprehensive  sense  used  to  designate  these  the  highest  institutions  of 
learning  known  in  the  world,  is,  in  the  language  of  Webster,  'An  assem- 
blage of  colleges  established  at  any  place,  with  professors  for  instructing 
students  in  the  sciences  and  other  branches  of  learning,  and  where  de- 
grees are  conferred.  It  is  properly,'  he  continues,  'a  universal  school, 
in  which  are  taught  all  branches  of  learning,  including  the  four  profes- 
sions of  Theology,  Medicine,  Law,  and  the  Arts  and  Sciences.'  To 
Americanize  such  an  institution  we  should,  perhaps,  in  present  condi- 
tion, at  least,  and  acting  for  the  State,  have  to  drop  the  first  of  the 
professions  above  named,  and  incorporate,  more  thoroughly  than  is 
usually  done,  what  is  known  as  the  elective  principle — a  principle  largely 
adopted  at  Cornell  and  elsewhere,  and  which  enables  the  student  to  strike 
out  in  any  given  direction  he  may  desire,  and  thus  fit  himself  for  the 
active  duties  of  life.  .  .  ." 

18Notes  indorsed  by  Fell  upon  an  envelope  containing  a  copy  of  the 
Memorial.  Henry  Wing  to  Fell,  Jan.  3,  1870;  Pantograph,  Feb.  i,  1871; 
"  'State  University' — To  the  Members  of  the  Illinois  Constitutional  Con- 
vention", reprint  from  the  Pantograph  and  the  Illinois  State  Journal,  in 
Illinois  Teacher,  XVI,  65. 


82  JESSE  W.   FELL  [346 

In  connection  with  the  constitutional  convention  of  1870 
one  other  occurrence  is  worthy  of  mention.  Joseph  Medill,  a 
member  of  the  convention,  wishing  to  procure  the  strong  influ- 
ence of  Governor  Palmer  in  favor  of  the  proposed  change, 
asked  Fell  to  call  on  the  governor  for  an  expression  of  opinion. 
This  Fell  did,  in  a  letter  published  in  May.  About  a  month 
later  the  governor  answered  in  a  long  letter  which  was  a  strong 
plea  for  the  new  constitution.  This  reply  was  widely  published, 
and  doubtless  had  much  to  do  with  the  subsequent  vote  of  the 
people.17 

Altho  his  efforts  for  the  location  and  endowment  of  the 
university  failed,  in  another  direction  Fell  succeeded  better. 
The  legislature  in  1865  authorized  the  erection  of  a  soldiers' 
orphans'  home,  which  was  to  be  located  by  a  commission.  Fell, 
deeply  disappointed  at  the  failure  to  build  up  the  longed-for 
university  at  Normal,  set  briskly  at  work  to  secure  this  smaller 
institution  for  his  own  community.  There  was  an  initial  appro- 
priation of  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  made  by  the  state,  to 
which  he  secured  an  addition  of  fifty  thousand  in  local  sub- 
scriptions, heading  the  list  with  a  generous  donation.  Bock 
Island,  Decatur,  Irvington,  and  Springfield  competed  for  the 
home,  but  the  Normal  subscription  was  the  largest  and  the 
commissioners  decided  unanimously  in  its  favor,  May  5,  1867.1* 

Mr.  Fell's  connection  with  the  Soldiers'  Orphans'  Home  did 
not  end  with  its  location  at  Normal.  Saying  that,  as  homeless 
and  almost  friendless  children,  they  would  have  mainly  to  depend 
upon  their  own  exertions  for  a  livelihood  after  their  dismissal 
from  the  Home,  he  claimed  that  it  was  both  wisdom  and  obliga- 
tion in  the  state  to  give  to  its  charges  not  only  a  shelter,  but  a 
training  that  would  make  them  self-supporting  upon  reaching 
maturity.  In  other  words,  he  wanted  the  school  which  was  con- 
ducted at  the  Home  to  be  a  trade-school.  But  vocational  educa- 
tion was  at  that  time  almost  unknown  in  the  United  States,  and 
was  looked  upon  with  disfavor  as  a  dangerously  paternal  institu- 
tion. No  trades  were  taught  at  the  Soldiers'  Orphans'  Home, 

"Palmer  to  Fell,  June  18,  1870. 

18A  characteristic  story  is  told  of  this  canvass,  concerning  Fell  and 
Davis.  Seeing  his  friend  as  he  approached  the  office,  Judge  Davis  de- 
clared to  Lawrence  Weldon,  who  tells  the  story  (Fell  Memorial,  p.  40)  — 
"There's  Fell.  I  reckon  he  wants  me  to  subscribe  more  money.  I  won't 
do  it.  I  won't  do  it.  Reckon  I'll  have  to,  though."  Fell  did  indeed  induce 
him  to  increase  his  already  generous  subscription. 


347]  PUBLIC   SERVICE  AFTER  THE  WAR  &3 

and  Mr.  Fell  was  thereat  much  disappointed.  ' '  Don 't  call  it  my 
school,"  he  is  said  to  have  rejoined  when  a  friend  asked  him  how 
"his  school"  prospered.  "It  is  not  what  I  wanted  it  to  be." 
Thirty  years  after  its  founding,  those  features  which  he  had 
sought  in  vain  to  incorporate,  were  added  to  the  Soldiers'  Or- 
phans' Home  school.19 

A  somewhat  similar  project  under  private  management 
failed  to  materialize.  This  was  the  "College  for  Soldiers  and 
their  Sons"  which  was  to  occupy  the  buildings  of  Western  Un- 
ion College  and  Military  Academy  at  Fulton,  Illinois.  Mr.  Fell 
held  some  stock  in  the  company  advocating  this  scheme,  but  seems 
never  actively  to  have  pushed  it. 

Shortly  after  the  dedication  of  the  Soldiers'  Orphans'  Home, 
a  competition  for  a  state  reform  school  was  opened.  Mr.  Fell 
started  a  subscription  in  Bloomington,  which  reached  a  total  of 
over  sixty  thousand  dollars.20  There  was  at  that  time,  however,  a 
strong  opposition  to  the  policy  of  concentration  which  he  advo- 
cated. The  state  was  still  imperfectly  unified,  and  state  institu- 
tions were  regarded  as  the  perquisites  of  citizenship,  to  be  dis- 
tributed as  equally  as  possible.  The  interests  of  the  institution 
were  a  secondary  consideration.  The  prejudice  against  the  pol- 
icy of  concentration  was  so  strong,  in  fact,  as  to  persuade  Mr. 
Fell  of  the  wisdom  of  abandoning  his  efforts  to  locate  the  new  in- 
stitution in  Normal.  He  did  this  the  more  willingly,  perhaps,  be- 
cause the  people  of  another  town  in  which  he  was  interested  be- 
gan to  hope  that  they  might  win  it.  This  town  was  Pontiac, 
where  Mr.  Fell  had  owned  land  for  many  years.  He  found  en- 
thusiastic response  when  he  started  to  raise  a  subscription  there, 
and  was  able  to  induce  the  township  to  vote  bonds  to  the  amount 
of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  to  which  the  board  of  supervisors 
added  twice  as  much  in  county  bonds.  He  and  his  brother  Ker- 
sey offered  the  site  for  the  buildings,  sixty-four  acres  lying  close 
to  the  town.  The  total  subscription  of  over  ninety  thousand 
dollars  won  the  location  of  the  school.21 

19E.  M.  Prince  in  Fell  Memorial,  41. 

20Based  on  the  "Classification  of  the  Normal  Bids  for  the  State 
Industrial  Reform  School"  among  the  Fell  MSS,  and  exclusive  of  five 
subscriptions  dependent  upon  a  particular  location.  Lewis  says  (Life, 
99)  that  the  subscription  was  $35,567. 

21  Pantograph,  July  8,  1869.  The  Fell  Papers  include  the  subscription 
list  and  map  used  in  the  campaign.  Comments  by  Mr.  Fell  are  to  the 
effect  that  "we  did  not  regard  such  an  institution  as  a  junior  penitentiary, 


84  JESSE  W.   PELL  [348 

The  last  state  institution  for  which  Fell  and  the  Bloomington 
community  made  a  strong  effort,  was  the  Eastern  Illinois  Insane 
Asylum.  The  location  of  this  institution  was  before  the  people 
in  1877.  Mr.  Fell,  chairman  of  the  committee  appointed  to  di- 
rect the  efforts  of  the  Bloomington  people,  made  a  report  of  the 
advantages  of  location  there,  which  was  printed  in  the  Panta- 
graph  of  August  3,  1877.  Its  chief  interest  for  us  lies  in  its  ad- 
vocacy of  advantage  to  the  state  as  a  whole  rather  than  to  any 
one  region — his  old  argument  of  "concentration  versus  scattera- 
tion."  Modern  ideas  of  efficient  and  economical  management 
counted  for  so  little  at  the  time,  however,  when  opposed  to  sec- 
tional jealousy  and  local  ambition,  that  the  really  excellent  in- 
ducements offered  by  Normal  were  declined  in  favor  of  the  town 
of  Kankakee.  Probably  the  same  reasons  accounted  for  the  fact 
that  a  committee  composed  of  Jesse  Fell,  Lawrence  Weldon,  and 
Hamilton  Spencer,  appointed  in  1885  to  investigate  the  chances 
of  Bloomington  for  securing  the  projected  home  for  the  feeble- 
minded, did  not  make  a  campaign  for  the  institution. 

but,  as  the  name  implies,  as  a  reformatory  institution."  Fell  presented 
to  Pontiac  the  land  for  a  city  park,  which  was  named  for  him  in  1915. 
Pantograph,  June  7,  1915,  quoting  from  Pontiac  Leader. 

In  1871  occurred  one  of  those  movements  for  changing  the  capital 
which  often  take  place  in  states  in  which  the  center  of  population  is  still 
shifting  and  uncertain.  In  March  of  that  year,  Peoria  made  an  effort 
to  have  the  capital  moved  to  that  place.  The  discussion  evoked  many 
statements  of  the  shortcomings  of  Springfield,  and  when  it  became  evi- 
dent that  the  idea  was  to  be  thought  of  seriously,  Bloomington  people 
had  a  meeting  in  their  court  house  "to  consider  the  question  of  making 
an  effort  to  have  the  capital  brought  here".  After  the  explanatory 
speeches  a  committee,  of  which  Mr.  Fell  was  a  member,  was  appointed 
to  prepare  an  appeal  to  the  legislature.  The  committee  probably  made 
inquiries  before  doing  the  bidding  of  the  townspeople,  for  nothing  further 
came  of  it.  Lewis,  Life,  101. 

No  account  of  Mr.  Fell's  service  to  his  community  could  be  com- 
plete without  mention  of  his  unremitting  efforts  for  the  colored  people 
of  Normal.  He  secured  work  for  them,  employing  many  himself,  and 
then  showed  them  how  to  save  and  invest  their  earnings  in  homes,  en- 
couraging them  to  educate  themselves  and  their  children,  and  constituting 
himself  advisor  and  friend  in  their  struggle  for  betterment  Largely  as 
a  result  of  his  interest  in  them,  the  colored  people  of  that  community 
have  become  as  a  class  self-respecting  and  property-owning  citizens.  Notes 
on  interview  with  George  Brown,  May  15,  1916. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RAILROADS 

Mr.  Fell's  active  efforts  in  behalf  of  railroads  for  Central 
Illinois  seem  to  have  begun  in  1835,  when  General  William  L.  D. 
Ewing  sent  a  number  of  Bloomington  men  a  request  for  their  co- 
operation in  building  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad.  This  docu- 
ment was  addressed  to  the  leading  men  of  Bloomington,  "Gen. 
Covell,  J.  W.  Fell  Esq.,  Jno.  W.  S.  Moon,  Esq.,  Doct.  Miller  &C."1 
It  apprised  them  that  General  Ewing  proposed  to  present  at ' '  the 
called  session  of  our  General  Assembly"  a  bill  for  a  railroad 
from  "Ottawa,  or  some  other  suitable  point  on  the  Illinois  riverr 
through  Bloomington,  Decatur,  Shelbyville,  Vandalia,  and  thence 
to  the  mouth  (or  near  it)  of  the  Ohio  river  on  the  most  practica- 
ble and  convenient  route."  He  asked  their  opinions  on  the  mat- 
ter, and  indicated  a  willingness  to  appreciate  the  cooperation  of 
McLean  County  people.  Nothing  came  of  this  early  project.  A 
little  later  Fell  became  one  of  the  incorporators  of  the  Pekin, 
Bloomington,  and  Wabash  Railroad,  which  was  to  unite  the  Illi- 
nois and  Wabash  rivers.2 

The  Illinois  Central  Railroad  became  the  backbone  of  the 
elaborate  internal  improvement  bill  of  1837,  was  taken  up  by  the 
Great  Western  Railway  Company  in  1843,  and  was  the  especial 
care  of  Senator  Sidney  Breese  during  1843-1850.  Senator  Doug- 
las finally  succeeded  in  endowing  it  by  a  grant  of  public  lands, 
in  September,  1850,  and  construction  began  December  23,  1851.* 
In  the  congressional  grant,  the  termini  of  Galena  and  Cairo  were 
stipulated,  but  the  course  of  the  road  between  these  two  points 
was  left  open.  Powerful  influences  were  endeavoring  to  change 
it  from  E wing's  proposed  route  eastward  and  westward,  and 
particularly  to  Peoria  and  to  Springfield.  Fell's  candidate,  Gen- 
eral Gridley,  elected  to  the  state  senate  in  1850,  worked  untir- 
ingly to  maintain  the  original  route  through  Bloomington,  and 
finally  succeeded  in  securing  a  clause  in  the  act  of  incorporation 
with  this  provision.  This  was  in  February,  1851.  The  railroad 

JOct.  20,  1835. 

^Private  Laws  of  Illinois,  1836, 8-12.   E.  M.  Prince  in  Fell  Memorial,  43. 
3Brownson,  History  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  18-48. 

85 


86  JESSE  W.   FELL  [350 

was  to  pass  through  Clinton  and  Decatur,  towns  in  which  Mr. 
Fell  was  much  interested,  as  well  as  through  Bloomington.  In 
the  spring  of  1852  the  road  was  started  northward  from  Bloom- 
ington to  meet  the  line  already  begun  from  LaSalle  southward. 
Regular  traffic  on  the  completed  road  began  May  23,  1853.* 

On  the  day  when  ground  was  broken  near  David  Davis' 
home  for  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad,5  engineers  were  locating 
an  extension  of  the  Chicago  and  Alton  (then  called  the  Alton 
and  Sangamon)  from  Springfield  to  Bloomington.  "Work  pro- 
gressed so  rapidly  that  trains  were  running  on  this  road  just 
five  months  from  the  date  of  location.  Passengers  from  St. 
Louis  could  change  at  Bloomington  to  the  Illinois  Central  and 
again  at  LaSalle  to  the  Rock  Island  route,  and  so  to  Chicago. 
At  Bloomington  there  was  no  direct  connection  for  many  years 
between  the  Chicago  and  Mississippi,  of  which  the  Alton  and 
Sangamon  was  a  branch,  and  the  Illinois  Central.  The  transfer 
was  by  cabs  and  omnibuses. 

In  1853  Fell  secured  the  right  of  way  for  the  Chicago  and 
Mississippi  from  Bloomington  to  Joliet,  and  work  began 
promptly.  Fell,  who  had  lands  along  this  route  from  which  he 
hoped  to  reap  a  profit,  also  secured  from  0.  H.  Lee,  who  had 
charge  of  the  building  of  the  extension,  a  contract  for  himself 
and  his  brother  Thomas,  to  furnish  ties  and  cord-wood.  The 
sale  of  lands  in  and  around  Pontiac,  Lexington,  Towanda,  Nor- 
mal, and  Joliet,  of  course  netted  him  handsome  returns  for  the 
investment  of  time  and  money  for  the  Chicago  and  Alton.  In- 
deed, the  dove-tailing  of  enterprises,  the  working-together-for- 
good  of  all  the  forces  that  made  for  prosperity,  was  an  accom- 
plishment for  which  he  had  a  peculiar  talent.6 

In  the  meantime,  ten  and  a  quarter  acres  of  ground  had 
been  conveyed  to  the  Chicago  and  Mississippi  for  the  depots 
and  shops  which  have  since  helped  to  make  Bloomington  in  a 
small  way  an  industrial  center.  Many  citizens  wanted  the  sta- 
tion-house of  the  new  road  built  close  to  that  of  the  Illinois  Cen- 
tral, with  the  point  of  intersection  near  the  present  site  of  the 
"Wesleyan  University.  But  Fell,  with  an  eye  to  the  founding  of 
a  suburban  town  at  the  intersection  of  the  two  roads,  at  a  point 
farther  west  where  he  and  others  had  secured  land,  stood  for 
its  location  at  a  considerable  distance.  The  Bloomington  station 

*Bloomington  Intelligencer,  May  25,  1853. 

BMay  15,  1852. 

«O.  H.  Lee  to  Fell,  July  4,  1853.    Pantograph,  Apr.  18,  1908. 


351]  RAILROADS  87 

was  located  about  a  mile  from  the  Illinois  Central  station,  and 
the  intersection  formed  a  center  for  the  new  town  of  North 
Bloomington.7  On  August  4,  1854,  the  Pantagraph  announced 
that  trains  were  running  from  Alton  to  Joliet,  the  full  length  of 
the  Chicago  and  Mississippi.8 

Central  Illinois  needed  in  addition  an  east-and-west  road. 
In  1853  Fell  and  others  organized  a  company  to  realize  a  pro- 
jected "Wabash  and  Warsaw"  railroad.9  On  the  third  of  May 
he  addressed  a  meeting  at  Carthage  favoring  a  proposed  road 
from  LaFayette,  Indiana,  through  Bloomington,  Pekin,  and  other 
Illinois  towns  to  Warsaw.  Bloomington  citizens  subscribed  fifty 
thousand  dollars  to  the  stock  by  the  middle  of  June,  and  the 
county  court  ordered  a  vote  on  a  county  subscription  of  a  hun- 
dred thousand.  The  fifty  thousand  dollars,  however,  were  rejected 
later  on  technical  grounds,  and  the  order  of  the  court  was  revoked 
accordingly.  The  enthusiasm  that  had  been  so  general  died  out 
suddenly  at  this  rebuff,  and  was  reawakened  later  with  some  dif- 
ficulty. 

Mr.  Fell  had  much  opposition  during  this  period  from  those 
who  would  not  be  served  by  a  road  of  the  proposed  route.  A 
Pekin  paper  questioned  his  motives  in  advocating  a  road  through 
towns  in  which  he  had  holdings.  The  Bloomington  Times  also 
attacked  him  vigorously,  but  was  answered  by  Mr.  Fell  himself 
in  the  Intelligencer.10  He  had  by  this  time  become  the  local  di- 
rector of  the  proposed  road.  In  September  he  urged  the  sub- 
scription of  the  fifty  thousand  dollars  at  a  meeting  at  the  court 
house,  and  the  subscription  of  a  like  amount  to  another  proposed 
road,  the  Quincy  and  Bloomington.  He  then  entered  into  an  ac- 

7John  H.  Burnham,  Our  Duty  to  Future  Generations.  An  address 
delivered  Apr.  21,  1905,  at  the  I.  S.  N.  U. 

8The  tracks  of  the  Chicago  and  Rock  Island  were  used  from  Joliet 
to  Chicago  until  March  18,  1858,  when  the  road  transferred  to  its  own 
tracks.  Lewis,  Life,  42. 

9The  Intelligencer  of  Mar.  23,  1853,  gives  the  names  of  the  corpo- 
rators of  "The  Bloomington  and  Wabash  Valley  R.  R.  Company*'  as 
follows :  David  Davis,  Isaac  Funk,  James  Miller,  A.  Gridley,  E.  H. 
Didlake,  R.  O.  Warriner,  John  W.  Ewing,  W.  H.  Temple,  Wm.  T.  Major, 
John  Moore,  John  E.  McClun,  Jesse  W.  Fell,  J.  H.  Robinson,  A.  Withers, 
Wm.  T.  Flagg,  W.  H.  Holmes.  The  issue  of  April  27  has  an  account 
of  the  meeting  at  which  .Mr.  Fell  was  sent  "to  the  western  part  of  the 
route"  to  interest  people  in  the  venture.  See  also  issues  of  May  18, 
July  20,  Aug.  10,  Aug.  24,  1853;  Pantagraph,  Apr.  26  and  June  28,  1853. 

10 'Intelligencer,  Aug.  3,  Aug.  24,  Sept.  12,  1853. 


88  JESSE  W.   FELL  [352 

tive  personal  campaign  to  secure  the  money.  The  city  voted  it 
almost  unanimously  on  October  15.  Large  subscriptions  had 
been  made  in  Tazewell  County,  Keokuk,  and  LaFayette,  so  that 
the  total  amount  by  December  14  was  over  a  million  dollars.11 

Despite  all  these  efforts  the  road  was  not  built.  In  March, 
1854,  it  was  announced  that  steps  had  been  taken  to  let  the  con- 
tract of  construction ;  but  construction  did  not  follow.12  In  the 
winter  and  spring  of  1855-56  more  meetings  were  held  in  the 
towns  along  the  proposed  route,  and  Mr.  Fell  with  others  again 
circulated  the  ready  subscription-list.  But  people  were  tiring  of 
the  subject,  and  there  was  little  success.  A  new  company  was  in- 
corporated in  1855,  for  the  building  of  the  Bloomington,  Kanka- 
kee,  and  Indiana  State  Line  Railroad,  with  Mr.  Fell  as  a  lead- 
ing stockholder  and  worker.13  It  also  failed  to  secure  popular 
support.  Then  in  1857,  when  the  panic  had  added  to  the  usual 
chariness  in  giving  to  public  enterprises,  a  futile  attempt  was 
made.  At  the  November  election,  a  proposal  that  the  county 
should  subscribe  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  defeated  by  a 
vote  of  1570  to  1166. 

The  east-and-west  road  was  not  again  actively  advocated 
until  1866,  when  a  number  of  Danville  people  began  to  push  the 
project.  There  were  several  groups,  each  urging  a  different 
route,  as  usual ;  but  those  who  proposed  a  road  from  Danville  to 
Bloomington  through  Urbana  and  LeRoy  were  most  active.  An- 
other projected  road  passed  directly  from  Bloomington  to  La- 
Fayette, through  Cheney's  Grove.  The  Tonica  and  Petersburg 
line  of  the  Chicago  and  Alton,  already  partly  constructed,  might 
be  deflected,  urged  Mr.  Fell  and  others,  to  Bloomington.  Fell 
spoke  in  favor  of  this  scheme  at  a  meeting  on  December  29,  1866, 
using  a  map — a  favorite  device — to  show  his  meaning.14  The 
resolutions  he  offered  at  the  close  of  his  speech  were  adopted. 
They  endorsed  the  idea  of  the  road  and  appointed  a  committee  to 
sound  the  community  concerning  the  hundred  thousand  dollar 
subscription.  It  proved  to  be  very  difficult  to  secure  pledges, 
partly  because  many  people  believed  that  the  road  would  come  in 
any  case,  and  the  spending  of  so  much  money  was  therefore  use- 

™Intelligencer,  Dec.  14,  1853. 

^Pantograph,  Mar.  15,  1854. 

^Private  Laws  of  Illinois,  1853,  342-346.  At  about  the  same  time 
Mr.  Fell  and  others  incorporated  the  Bloomington  Gas  Light  and  Coke- 
Company.  Ibid.,  1855,  650. 

^Pantograph,  Dec.  29  and  31,  1866. 


353]  RAILROADS  89 

less.  An  accusation  was  made  against  Fell  and  Gridley,  touching 
their  disinterestedness  in  the  matter,  to  which  Fell  replied  by 
publishing  a  letter  from  T.  B.  Blackstone,  the  president  of  the 
Chicago  and  Alton ;  and  the  canvass  went  on.  President  Black- 
stone  convinced  Mr.  Fell  that  the  new  road  would  be  built 
through  Washington  were  the  money  not  subscribed  at  Blooming- 
ton.18  In  April,  Fell  succeeded  in  securing  a  joint  appropriation 
of  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  from  the  township  and  the  city. 
In  June  the  township  voted  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  each  to 
the  "LaFayette,  Bloomington  and  Mississippi"  and  to  the  "Dan- 
ville, Urbana  and  Pekin"  roads. 

Then  followed  busy  days  in  Bloomington,  for  there  were 
three  railroads  being  built.  The  one  from  Jacksonville  was  com- 
pleted for  traffic  on  August  14,  1867.16  The  Danville  road  from 
Bloomington  to  Pekin  was  completed  in  1869,  and  to  Covington 
on  September  2,  1870,  giving  railroad  communication  between 
Indianapolis  and  Peoria.  The  other  east-and-west  road,  of  which 
General  Gridley  was  president  and  Fell  an  active  director,  was 
less  fortunate.  Financial  support  was  hard  to  find,  but  work 
began  in  spite  of  this  in  October,  1869.  The  contractors,  Howard 
and  Weston,  had  promised  to  finish  the  road  to  the  Indiana  line 
by  January  1,  1871 ;  but  the  company  failed  early  in  1870.  A 
new  contract  was  let,  but  it  was  only  partly  fulfilled.  The  Wa- 
bash  company  finally  finished  the  road,  which  established  regular 
service  on  July  13,  1872.  So  at  last,  after  efforts  extending  over 
twenty  years,  east-and-west  communication  by  rail  was  realized. 
It  was  not  in  a  form  so  direct  as  Mr.  Fell  and  his  colleagues  had 
hoped  to  have  it,  but  it  has  proved  practicable  and  helpful. 

It  has  been  noted  that  the  Chicago  and  Alton  Railroad  estab- 
lished shops  at  Bloomington  soon  after  entering  the  town.  These 
shops  were  largely  destroyed  by  fire  on  November  1,  1867.  Al- 
most at  once,  it  was  proposed  to  rebuild  them  in  Chicago,  or  some 
other  city  where  labor  might  more  easily  be  had.  The  loss  to 
Bloomington  would  have  been  very  great,  and  Mr.  Fell  with 
some  friends  set  himself  to  find  the  means  of  making  their  reten- 
tion sure.  Judge  David  Davis,  General  Gridley  and  Mr.  Fell  in- 
duced E.  E.  Williams,  then  local  attorney  for  the  road,  to  go 
with  them  to  Chicago  for  an  interview  with  President  Black- 
stone.  The  latter  assured  the  trio  that,  altho  feeling  for  re- 

15Blackstone  to  Fell,  Dec.  13  and  28,  1866,  Jan.  i,  1867. 
"This  road  was  leased  to  the  Chicago  and  Alton   for  99  years  in 
June,  1868. 


90  JESSE  W.   FELL  [354 

moval  was  strong  in  the  company,  he  himself  favored  the  reten- 
tion of  the  shops  where  they  had  been,  if  only  additional  land 
for  needed  extension  could  be  secured.  This  reasonable  request 
surprised  the  Bloomington  men,  who  had  expected  to  be  asked 
for  a  bonus  in  money.  Returning  to  Bloomington,  the  matter 
was  presented  to  the  people  at  a  mass-meeting  on  November  26. 
General  Gridley  and  Mr.  Fell  spoke;  the  latter  had,  as  usual, 
resolutions  to  be  adopted  and  a  definite  plan  for  raising  the 
money.  Many  in  the  audience  signed  the  guarantee  that  night, 
and  within  a  few  days  the  number  of  guarantors  reached  740. 
After  much  negotiation,  the  citizens  agreed  to  give  about  thirty 
acres  of  land,  some  of  which  had  to  be  gotten  by  condemnation 
proceedings.  The  railroad  company  advanced  the  money  to  pay 
for  it,  at  the  usual  rate  of  ten  per  cent.  The  new  shops  were 
larger  and  better  than  the  old,  and  correspondingly  more  valu- 
able to  Bloomington.17 

One  other  enterprise  of  a  similar  nature  remains  to  be  re- 
corded. In  1867  a  number  of  people  began  to  discuss  the  build- 
ing of  a  street  railway  from  Bloomington  to  Normal.  A  member 
of  the  board  of  education  who  lived  in  southern  Illinois  objected 
that  the  noise  of  cars  would  disturb  the  scholastic  quiet  of  the 
community,  but  people  in  general  thought  it  a  good  idea.18  A 
company  was  incorporated,  to  which  was  given  a  franchise  to 
build  the  railway  through  Bloomington,  Normal,  and  the  cam- 
pus. It  was  operated  at  first  by  a  dummy  engine,  later  by  horse 
and  mule  power.  The  cars  ran  every  forty  minutes  until  nine 
o'clock  at  night. 

The  purpose  of  presenting  the  somewhat  detailed  accounts 
of  enterprises  in  which  Jesse  Fell  was  interested,  which  have 
filled  the  pages  of  this  chapter  and  the  preceding  one,  has  been 
to  show  by  what  means  the  leaders  of  the  era  of  settlement  in  the 
Middle  West  managed  to  achieve  results  which  appear  marvelous 
in  whatever  light  they  may  be  seen.  Fell  was  but  one  of  a  host 

"To  raise  the  money  required,  the  Bloomington  constituency  framed 
a  bill  authorizing  an  issue  of  bonds.  It  passed  the  General  Assembly, 
but  was  vetoed  by  Governor  Palmer  on  grounds  of  unconstitutionality. 
A  committee  from  Bloomington  visited  Palmer,  and  after  explaining  the 
situation  to  him,  received  his  promise  not  further  to  oppose  the  bill. 
They  worked  to  secure  a  repassage,  succeeding  only  after  much  lobbying 
in  the  senate.  The  bonds  were  paid  duly,  with  no  question  of  their 
validity. 

18P.  G.  Roots  to  Messrs.  Hatch  and  Fell,  May  23,  1867. 


355]  RAILROADS  91 

of  workers  who  changed  the  wilderness  into  a  land  of  settled  in- 
stitutions within  the  measure  of  a  generation.  Few  men,  per- 
haps, united  so  many  qualities  of  leadership  as  he  possessed ;  but 
the  difference  between  him  and  other  men  in  this  respect  was 
one  of  degree  rather  than  of  kind.  It  was  a  period  rich  in  social 
service,  altho  "social  service"  had  not  then  become  so  much 
of  a  conscious  slogan  as  it  has  been  since.  It  was  a  period  when 
people  were  closer  to  the  government  than  they  are  now,  when 
living  was  simpler,  when  the  machinery  of  civilization  was 
formed  by  popular  effort,  in  a  more  direct  way  than  has  been 
the  case  in  later  years ;  when  men  of  limited  means  and  many  in- 
terests laid  the  foundation  for  economic  and  political  achieve- 
ment carefully  and  solidly,  knowing  what  structure  they  reared 
and  conscious  that  what  they  wrought  would  shape  in  great 
measure  the  future  of  their  commonwealth.  It  is  as  a  type  of 
such  men  that  Jesse  Fell  has  real  significance  for  the  people  of 
the  Middle  West. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  RELIGIOUS  LIBERAL 

The  Unitarian  movement  in  New  England  had  its  parallel 
among  the  Quakers  in  the  Hicksite  schism,  begun  in  1827  by 
Elias  Hicks,  a  brilliant  and  influential  Friend.  He  denied  the 
deity  of  Christ  and  the  special  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures, 
tenets  held  by  the  orthodox  Friends.  Rebecca  Fell,  Jesse  W. 
Fell's  mother,  was  a  warm  friend  and  admirer  of  Elias  Hicks, 
and  followed  him  into  the  sect  which  he  established.  The  father, 
however,  while  he  left  the  orthodox  meeting  at  the  same  time,  did 
not  become  a  Hicksite,  but  united  with  the  Methodists,  whose 
creed  agreed  more  nearly  with  his  own  personal  belief.1  The 
father  became  an  exhorter  in  his  new  church  home,  the  mother  a 
preacher  among  the  Hicksites.  The  harmony  of  the  family  was 
in  no  wise  disturbed,  for  both  parents  were  tolerant  and  not  dis- 
posed to  exaggerate  differences.  Some  of  the  children  followed 
the  father,  some  the  mother  in  their  religious  faith.  Jesse, 
whose  special  privilege  it  was  to  accompany  his  mother  to  meet- 
ing on  First  Days  and  Fourth  Days,  came  closely  to  sympathize 
with  her  in  her  religious  ideas ;  and  his  activity  as  a  leader  of  lib- 
eral religious  thought  in  his  community  in  after  years,  may 
largely  be  attributed  to  the  influence  of  his  mother's  teaching 
and  example.  She  was  a  woman  of  vigorous  mentality,  altho 
of  but  rudimentary  education,  as  were  most  of  the  women  of  her 
time.  With  her  husband,  she  centered  the  training  of  her  chil- 
dren about  the  necessity  of  uncompromising  honesty,  universal 
freedom,  and  fidelity  to  conviction.2 

After  removing  to  Bloomington  in  1837,  the  Fell  family  con- 
tinued to  hold  meetings  after  the  fashion  of  Friends,  altho 

*At  this  time,  the  simplicity  of  dress  and  manners  of  the  Methodists 
was  very  like  that  of  the  Friends,  and  such  a  transition  was  easily  made, 
entailing  little  change  of  accepted  doctrine  or  custom. 

2Jesse  Fell  to  Fell,  Sept.  2,  1832.  This  letter  shows  the  intensely 
religious  nature  of  Jesse  W.  Fell's  father.  It  describes  a  camp-meeting 
in  which  he  had  taken  part  with  great  pleasure  and  profit,  and  expresses 
the  tenderest  wishes  for  his  son's  spiritual  welfare.  Another  letter  of 
Fell's  father,  dated  Jan.  6,  1835,  shows  similar  characteristics. 

92 


357]  THE   RELIGIOUS   LIBERAL  93 

there  were  few  of  their  faith  in  the  town.  The  meetings  were 
held  on  Sunday  afternoons  at  the  house,  and  the  attendance  was 
such  as  often  to  crowd  the  rooms.  John  Magoun,  beloved  by 
everyone  who  knew  him  and  an  especial  friend  of  the  Fells,  came 
to  these  Quaker  gatherings.  The  elder  Mrs.  Fell's  voice  was 
often  heard  in  admonition,  and  her  husband's,  altho  he  was 
totally  blind,  in  song.  In  his  youth  Jesse  Fell  the  elder  had  been, 
a  famous  singer  in  his  community,  and  in  his  old  age  his  voice 
was  still  sweet. 

Under  such  influence,  it  was  inevitable  that  Mr.  Fell's  relig- 
ious faith  should  be  both  simple  and  strong.  Wherever  he  was, 
at  appropriate  times  and  places  he  joined  people  of  many  denom- 
inations and  shades  of  belief  in  their  worship ;  and  in  all  his  life 
there  appears  no  word  of  intolerance  for  the  beliefs  of  others. 
His  temporary  connection  with  the  Methodist  Episcopal  church 
at  Payson  has  been  mentioned  on  another  page.  Upon  his  return 
to  Bloomington  he  did  not  uite  with  any  church,  altho  he 
attended  the  "West  Charge"  Methodist  church,  then  under  the 
care  of  James  Shaw.3 

It  is  significant  of  the  character  of  the  people  of  Blooming- 
ton  that  there  were  in  the  town  a  great  many  of  differing  views 
but  tolerant  dispositions,  who  during  the  early  years  were  drawn 
together  for  purposes  of  worship.  Westerners  were  usually  af- 
filiated, when  they  had  religious  affiliations  at  all,  with  the  more 
radically  evangelical  denominations.  In  Bloomington  there  had 
been  a  Congregational  church  of  abolitionist  leanings  for  many 
years,  and  Baptist  and  Methodist  churches  which,  altho  they 
contained  many  families  from  the  South,  were  for  the  most  part 
opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery.  In  1855  the  more  radical 
element  in  the  Presbyterian  church  had  separated  itself  from  the 
mother  church,  and  formed  the  Second  Presbyterian  church. 
Thus  clearly,  during  the  decade,  the  political  and  sectional  prej- 
udices held  by  people  generally  affected  their  church  affiliations.4 

On  the  evening  of  the  tenth  of  July,  1859,  a  group  of  people 
who  were  interested  in  forming  a  religious  organization  to  which 
Christians  of  differing  creeds  might  belong,  met  in  the  office  of 
Kersey  Fell.  There  were  about  twenty  in  attendance.  Eliel 
Barber  was  chairman,  Jesse  Fell  secretary.  The  result  of  the 

3 James  Shaw  in  Fell  Memorial,  4. 

4Dr.  John  W.  Cook,  A  Western  Pioneer.  Address  at  the  semi- 
centennial of  the  founding  of  the  Unitarian  Church  in  Bloomington,  Oct. 
3,  19x19.  (Manuscript  in  possession  of  the  author.) 


94  JESSE  W.   FELL  [358 

conference  was  that  the  secretary  was  directed  to  write  to  Rev. 
Charles  G.  Ames,  of  Boston,  asking  him  to  come  to  Bloomington 
to  look  the  field  over.  He  came,  preached  a  series  of  eight  ser- 
mons, and  visited  the  people  who  were  interested  in  the  possibil- 
ity of  forming  a  new  church.  He  made  his  home  with  the  Fells 
while  in  Bloomington,  and  became  a  very  dear  friend  of  that 
household.6 

A  church,  known  at  first  as  the  Free  Congregational  Society, 
was  organized  on  the  seventh  and  eighth  of  August.  Many 
shades  of  Protestant  belief  were  included.  There  were  Universal- 
ists,  Friends,  Campbellites,  Baptists,  Episcopalians,  Congrega- 
tionalists  and  Spiritualists  among  the  members.6  The  resident 
clergymen  of  Bloomington  were  invited  to  preach  for  them  until 
the  new  pastor,  Mr.  Ames,  could  take  up  his  work. 

Phoenix  Hall  was  used  for  the  services  of  the  new  church  for 
almost  ten  years.  Here  the  pastors,  for  the  most  part  New  Eng- 
land men,  nurtured  anti-slavery  sentiments  and  fostered  devo- 
tion to  the  federal  union.  Rev.  Ichabod  Codding,  the  fourth  pas- 
tor, was  a  fearless  abolitionist,  and  spoke  boldly  his  progressive 
views.  During  his  pastorate,  which  like  those  of  most  Western  pas- 
tors was  a  short  one,  the  society  dedicated  its  house  of  worship, 
on  March  15,  1868.  Other  ministers  succeeded  Mr.  Codding — 
free  and  fearless  speakers  and  thinkers  for  the  most  part,  reform- 
ers rather  than  pastors,  intellectual  guides  whose  brief  stay  in 
the  community  served  to  waken  thought  and  to  deepen  religious 
faith.  Two  of  them,  Rev.  C.  C.  Burleigh  and  Rev.  J.  F.  Thomp- 
son, a  New  Englander  and  an  Englishman,  became  strong  friends 
of  Mr.  Fell.  Mr.  Burleigh,  a  friend  of  the  poet  Whittier,  was  a 
quiet  man  of  great  spiritual  force,  but  a  man  who  gained  no  de- 

5Ames  to  Fell,  July  15,  1859.  Ames  to  E.  M.  Prince,  Sept.  23,  1899. 
Vickers  Fell  to  Fell,  Mar.  4,  1862.  J.  J.  Lewis  to  Fell,  Mar.  2,  1862.  It 
was  Mr.  Ames,  a  radical  New  England  abolitionist,  who  preached  the 
famous  sermon  known  as  "the  funeral  sermon  of  John  Brown".  It  was 
delivered  on  Sunday,  Dec.  4,  1859,  was  printed  in  the  local  press,  and 
afterward  in  a  pamphlet  which  had  wide  distribution.  His  personal  esti- 
mate of  Mr.  Fell  is  given  in  the  letter  to  Mr.  Prince  just  cited.  C.  G. 
Ames,  in  the  Christian  Register,  Mar.  18,  1909. 

•At  a  meeting  held  at  the  close  of  the  regular  service  on  the  seventh 
of  August,  attended  by  about  fifty  people,  Fell  presented  a  set  of  resolu- 
tions looking  toward  the  organization  of  the  church.  He  and  Kersey 
Fell,  Mr.  Phoenix,  Mr.  Stillwell,  and  others  talked,  after  which  the 
resolutions  were  adopted.  Thirty-two  people  entered  the  society  the  next 
night,  twenty  more  on  August  14.  Dr.  J.  W.  Cook,  A  Western  Pioneer^ 


359]  THE   RELIGIOUS   LIBERAL  95 

gree  of  popularity  in  the  hustling  Western  town  in  which  his  lot 
was  for  a  short  time  cast.7  Mr.  Thompson,  who  followed  him, 
was  on  the  other  hand  most  acceptable  to  Bloomington,  and  later 
became  immensely  popular  in  Los  Angeles.  In  speaking  of  the 
friendships  which  came  to  Fell  through  his  church  relations,  it 
is  meet  here  to  mention  Robert  Collyer,  with  whom  he  often  con- 
sulted and  who  became  a  valued  personal  friend.8 

During  the  years  after  its  founding  the  church  gradually 
lost  its  composite  congregational  character,  and  became  more 
homogeneous  in  belief.  Unitarian  doctrines  came  to  be  the  pre- 
vailing opinion  of  the  congregation.  The  name  was  therefore 
changed  on  December  9,  1885,  to  that  of  the  "Unitarian  Church 
of  Bloomington."  Mr.  Fell  remained  an  active  member  and  con- 
stant attendant  of  this  organization  as  long  as  he  lived. 

7"Give  him,"  wrote  Robert  Collyer  to  Fell  in  1873,  in  introducing  an 
English  clergyman  who  was  viewing  the  sights  of  America,  "if  you  can, 
a  chance  to  meet  Charles  Burleigh.  He  may  not  otherwise  see  one  of 
the  Old  Ironsides."  Rev.  Burleigh  had  preached  in  Pennsylvania  many 
years  before  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  the  Fells  had  known  of 
him  then.  "...  last  third-day  evening  we  all  (a  few  excepted)  re- 
paired to  the  Meeting-house  where  we  heard  a  very  interesting  and 
eloquent  speech  delivered  by  Charles  Burleigh  on  the  subject  of  immediate 
emancipation.  He  is  employed  by  the  anti-slavery  society  of  Philadel- 
phia to  deliver  lectures  on  that  subject;  he  is  the  most  profound  reasoner 
I  ever  heard.  And  if  dignity  of  manners,  eloquence,  and  sound  reason 
can  do  anything  to  promote  the  cause,  he  is  well  adapted  to  the  office." 
Rebecca  Fell  to  Fell,  Christmas,  1836. 

'Robert  Collyer  to  Fell,  July  3,  Sept.  18,  Nov.  8,  1866;  June  7,  1870; 
Sept.  15,  1873.  A  spirited  letter  upon  "Broad-Gauge  Theology",  contain- 
ing a  clear  defense  of  his  liberal  beliefs,  appeared  in  the  Pantograph  of 
February  15,  1868. 


CHAPTER  X 

LATER  POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES 

The  congressional  campaign  of  1868  was  one  of  especial  in- 
terest to  Mr.  Fell.  In  March,  an  editorial  in  the  Pantagraph 
had  again  proposed  his  name  as  a  candidate  for  Congress,  a  pro- 
posal which  received  the  usual  short  shrift  from  him.1  The  pub- 
lic request  was  repeated,  and  again  declined.  The  Republicans 
of  McLean  then  asked  General  Giles  A.  Smith  to  be  their  candi- 
date, and  he  accepted.  Fell,  however,  thought  this  a  false  and 
foolish  move,  inasmuch  as  Shelby  M.  Cullom,  the  member  then 
sitting,  was  a  tried  and  proved  man.  There  followed  a  lively 
controversy  between  the  Cullom-Fell  party  and  the  Smith  ad- 
herents, waged  both  in  the  newspapers  and  in  all  public  and  pri- 
vate places  where  Republicans  gathered  for  council.  The  county 
committee  called  a  mass-meeting  for  the  purpose  of  selecting  and 
instructing  delegates  to  the  district  convention.  It  met  on  the 
eleventh  of  April,  but  was  so  tumultuous  a  gathering  that  little 
business  could  be  transacted.  General  Smith  seems  to  have  had 
control  of  the  party  machinery,  but  the  machine  was  so  power- 
fully opposed  by  Fell  and  his  colleague  Gridley,  that  none  of  the 
routine  business  decided  upon  could  be  forced  through.  A  dele- 
gate county  convention  was  therefore  called,  to  meet  on  the 
twenty-seventh ;  and  the  war  between  Smith  and  Fell  continued. 
The  friends  of  Smith  published  a  vigorous  attack  entitled  "The 
Other  Side, ' '  to  which  Fell  replied  as  vigorously.2  When  it  met, 
the  second  county  convention  proved  more  tractable  than  the 
first  had  been,  and  nominated  Smith  as  McLean's  candidate. 
Fell  continued  his  exertions  throughout  the  district,  however, 
and  on  the  fourth  of  May  the  friends  of  Cullom  were  gratified  by 
a  vote  of  five  counties  to  two  in  his  favor,  at  the  district  conven- 
tion. He  was  elected  by  a  large  majority  in  November. 

The  story  of  this  congressional  struggle  in  McLean  County 
illustrates  a  condition  of  division  which  was  fairly  typical  of  the 

1Lewis,  Life,  92. 

^Pantograph,  Apr.  9,  10,  n  for  the  notice  of  the  mass  convention; 
Apr.  II,  article  by  Fell  answering  attack  in  "The  Other  Side";  other 
interesting  matter  in  issues  of  Mar.  25-30,  1868. 

96 


361]  LATER  POLITICAL   ACTIVITIES  97 

situation  of  the  Republican  party  in  Illinois  after  the  war.  The 
unity  which  only  a  great  common  purpose  can  give,  had  passed 
away  with  the  coming  of  peace.  Discontent  with  the  extreme 
congressional  reconstruction  policy,  altho  not  then  so  decided 
as  later,  had  begun  to  appear;  Johnson's  foolish  blunders  had 
complicated  the  situation.  Locally,  many  men  aspired  to  the 
honors  which  the  Republicans  had  to  distribute.  The  struggle 
for  the  nomination  to  the  governorship,  for  instance,  was  unus- 
ually sharp.  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  who  had  expected  to  be  a  candi- 
date for  attorney  general,  upon  the  report  of  the  withdrawal  of 
Palmer  decided  to  try  for  this  higher  office.8  In  the  convention, 
however,  Palmer  took  the  nomination  away  from  him  and  also 
from  Jesse  K.  Dubois  and  S.  W.  Moulton.  Governor  Palmer's 
advocacy  of  states'  rights  divided  the  Republican  ranks  to  some 
extent,  and  finally  resulted  in  his  leaving  the  party  in  1872,  with 
some  adherents. 

In  1870  a  bitter  quarrel  arose  between  Mr.  Cullom  and  Mr. 
Fell,  which  resulted  in  Cullom 's  defeat  in  his  race  for  reelection. 
The  cause  of  this  difference  was  Cullom 's  appointment  of  John 
F.  Scibird  as  Bloomington 's  postmaster.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  the  firm  of  Scibird  and  Waters  sold  the  Pantagraph  to  Davis 
and  Fell  in  August,  1868.  Scarcely  was  the  sale  made,  when 
Scibird  and  Waters  began  to  plan  the  publication  of  a  rival  Re- 
publican paper,  which  appeared,  under  the  name  of  The  Leader, 
the  next  December.  Fell  and  Davis  regarded  this  as  a  breach  of 
faith  in  their  rivals,  inasmuch  as  they  had  purchased  the  Panta- 
graph with  the  understanding  that  they  were  buying  the  Repub- 
lican paper  of  Bloomington;  and  the  two  newspapers  soon 
worked  up  a  rivalry  as  spirited  as  usually  develops  under  such 
circumstances.  Added  to  this  circumstance  were  other  consid- 
erations which  gave  Fell  a  much  stronger  reason  for  resenting 
Cullom 's  appointment. 

8Ingersoll  to  Fell,  Mar.  25,  1868.  Another  letter,  dated  four  days 
later,  establishes  Fell's  position  as  favoring  first  Moulton,  then  Corwin, 
and  last  Ingersoll  himself.  "In  the  meantime,"  says  the  irrepressible 
Peorian,  "dear  friend,  stick  to  your  tree  planting.  There  is  nothing  like 
agriculture  and  horticulture.  Stay  in  the  beautiful  fields.  Hear  the 
birds  sing  praises  to  Corwin  and  Moulton.  I  would  rather  the  birds 
would  do  it  than  to  have  you.  I  know  that  you  will  enjoy  yourself  a 
great  deal  more  working  in  the  garden  than  meddling  about  the  governor 
question."  There  is  more  of  the  same  tenor,  and  finally  this  postscript: 
"Now  is  the  time  to  plant  trees.  All  should  be  planted  before  the  6th 
of  May." 


98  JESSE  W.   FELL  [362 

General  Gridley  had  asked  in  return  for  the  assistance  he 
had  given  Fell  in  supporting  Cullom  in  1868,  Fell's  influence  in 
favor  of  the  retention  of  Gridley 's  brother-in-law,  Dr.  Cromwell, 
as  postmaster.  Dr.  Cromwell  was  a  good  postmaster,  but  his  ap- 
pointment by  Andrew  Johnson  was  with  difficulty  confirmed  by 
the  senate,  as  were  many  other  appointments  by  that  unpopular 
president.  Mr.  Fell,  seeing  no  good  reason  for  opposing  his  re- 
appointment,  urged  it  upon  Cullom,  and  received  what  Fell  un- 
derstood to  be  his  promise  that  he  would  retain  him.  But  for 
some  reason  Cullom  changed  his  mind,  and  after  Grant's  elec- 
tion Scibird  was  given  the  appointment.  Added  to  this  was  the 
fact  that  Fell  had  urged  Cullom 's  renomination  in  1868  with  the 
understanding  that  he  was  not  to  run  again.  These  considera- 
tions put  Fell  in  the  position  of  a  man  who  must  either  vindicate 
his  own  honor  or  impeach  that  of  others,  and  he  took  a  course 
calculated  to  clear  himself  of  suspicion. 

Cullom  repeatedly  acknowledged  at  the  time  that  he  owed 
his  nomination  in  1868  to  the  efforts  of  Fell  and  Gridley.  The 
equally  vigorous  opposition  which  the  Pantagraph  and  its  guiding 
spirit  evinced  two  years  later,  made  his  prospects  hopeless  in  Mc- 
Lean County,  and  doubtful  throughout  the  district.  McLean  de- 
clared for  General  John  McNulta,  but  the  district,  after  a  bitter 
struggle  lasting  through  the  summer,  nominated  Colonel  Jona- 
than Merriam  of  Tazewell.  Mr.  Merriam  was  a  man  of  fine  char- 
acter but  comparatively  unknown,  and  was  defeated  in  Novem- 
ber by  the  Democratic  candidate,  James  C.  Robinson.  The  fact 
that  the  division  among  the  Republicans  had  resulted  in  Repub- 
lican defeat  did  not  tend  promptly  to  heal  the  wounds  among  the 
factions.  Nevertheless  Fell  and  Cullom  found  that  mutual  ex- 
planations removed  the  cause  of  their  personal  differences,  and 
they  became  again  the  best  of  friends.4 

Although  his  informal  and  unadvised  ways  of  doing  things 
were  distinctively  Western  and  might  have  been  expected  to  win 
a  degree  of  approval  in  that  section  of  the  country,  the  four  years 
of  Grant 's  first  administration  seem  to  have  aroused  as  much  crit- 
icism in  his  own  state  as  in  any  other.  There  was  in  Illinois  a 
strong  Southern  element  which,  altho  it  had  not  made  the 
state  disloyal  during  the  great  struggle,  still  felt  much  sympathy 
for  the  subdued  states,  subjected  to  the  indignities  of  military 

4Mr.  Fell's  own  account  of  the  controversy  to  that  date  is  in  the 
Pantagraph  of  July  22,  1870.  Shelby  M.  Cullom  to  the  writer,  Mar.  I&. 
1912. 


363]  LATER  POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES  99 

and  carpet-bag  rule.  Sumner,  toward  whom  Grant  had  behaved 
with  what  most  people  considered  inexcusable  injustice,  was  no- 
where more  beloved  than  in  the  Middle  West,  where  he  had  long 
been  a  popular  hero.  And  the  best  men  everywhere  were  dis- 
satisfied with  the  position  of  the  party  leaders  upon  the  civil 
service  question. 

Carl  Schurz  was  the  guiding  spirit  of  the  Liberal  Republi- 
can movement  of  1872,  and  its  strongest  adherents  were  in  those 
states  where  his  influence,  and  that  of  his  friends,  was  strong. 
His  election  to  the  senate  in  1869  was  the  first  sign  of  the  tri- 
umph of  a  new  set  of  ideas  in  the  Republican  party.  Tariff- 
reform  Republicans  joined  hands  with  the  reconstruction-reform 
men,  but  as  tariff-reform  men  were  comparatively  few  in  most 
of  the  states  where  the  insurgents  hoped  to  gain  a  following,  this 
issue  was  kept  in  the  background.  The  passage  of  the  Ku-Klux 
bill  in  1871  was  so  actively  opposed  by  Schurz  and  Trumbull  as 
to  cause  these  two  leaders  to  draw  together  and  to  gather  around 
them  the  more  liberal  elements  in  the  party ;  and  this  group  was 
further  unified  by  the  New  York  Custom  House  affair.  Never- 
theless, as  late  as  in  December  of  1871  neither  Trumbull  nor 
Schurz  had  openly  planned  to  oppose  Grant's  reelection.5 

Early  in  January  the  movement,  which  as  yet  had  appeared 
only  as  a  division  in  Congress,  began  to  take  on  a  more  popular 
aspect.  In  Missouri  and  in  Southern  Illinois,  where  the  South- 
ern element  was  strong,  there  was  a  great  deal  of  fighting  among 
the  people  in  support  of  Schurz,  Trumbull,  and  Sumner.  The 
Missouri  Liberal  Republicans  held  a  convention  in  January,  and 
issued  a  call  for  a  national  mass  convention  in  May.  Preconven- 
tion  speculation  as  to  the  presidential  candidate  of  this  seceding 
Republican  gathering  centered  at  that  time  about  two  men,  Ly- 
man  Trumbull  and  Charles  Francis  Adams.  The  people  of  the 
southern  third  of  Illinois,  as  well  as  many  throughout  the  state 
who  remembered  Trumbull 's  service,  were  very  hopeful  concern- 
ing his  chances.  Governor  Palmer  and  the  influential  Jesse  K. 
Dubois  were  his  leading  supporters.  Adams  was  probably  better 
known  in  the  nation  than  Trumbull,  and  had  proved  his  ability  in 

8Horace  White,  Life  of  Lyinan  Truinbull,  269-271,  quoting  an  inter- 
view published  in  the  Louisville  Courier-Journal,  Dec.  3,  1871,  and  New 
York  Times,  Dec.  6.  A  letter  from  Trumbull  to  W.  C.  Flagg,  among  the 
Flagg  MSS,  dated  Jan.  10,  1872,  however,  shows  that  at  that  date  Trum- 
bull was  contemplating  open  opposition  to  Grant  in  the  Republican  party. 
Flagg  was,  according  to  his  own  statement.  TrumbulPs  only  confidant  at 
this  time. 


100  JESSE  W.   PELL  [364 

the  difficult  position  of  minister  to  England  during  the  Civil 
War. 

Just  when  Trumbull  's  prospects  were  brightest,  Judge  David 
Davis  decided  that  he  would  be  a  candidate  for  the  nomination. 
Leonard  Swett,  the  famous  criminal  lawyer,  long  an  associate 
and  close  personal  friend  of  Judge  Davis,  became  his  manager, 
and  enlisted  the  services  of  Fell  in  arousing  the  people  of  Mc- 
Lean County  and  Central  Illinois  to  the  support  of  a  citizen  of 
their  own  community  for  the  nomination.  Fell,  from  the  first  an 
advocate  of  a  milder  reconstruction  policy  and  for  that  reason 
thoroly  in  sympathy  with  the  Liberals,  had  been  a  Trumbull 
adherent  until  Davis  made  his  decision,  when  he  changed  to  sup- 
port an  old  and  dear  friend.6  By  the  first  of  April,  then,  he  was 
being  consulted  as  to  the  plans  for  the  Davis  campaign  at  Cincin- 
nati. Swett,  ingenious  and  indefatigable,  estimated  the 
strength  of  the  Trumbull  faction,  and  proposed  that  to  counter- 
act it  a  train  load  of  Davis  supporters  should  go  to  Cincinnati, 
that  they  might  influence  the  nomination  there  as  the  Illinois 
delegations  had  in  1860.  McLean,  Tazewell,  Livingston,  Logan, 
DeWitt,  Champaign,  Ford,  Iroquois  and  Vermillion  counties  were 
strongly  in  favor  of  Davis,  and  from  these  counties  Swett  drew 
the  delegations  upon  which  he  mainly  depended.7  Peoria 
County,  and  especially  the  German  population  (the  strength  of 

6Fell  to  Lyman  Trumbull,  Mar.  4,  Apr.  u,  1872.  (Trumbull  MSS, 
Library  of  Congress.)  Trumbull  to  Fell,  Mar.  9,  1872.  Mr.  Fell's  sym- 
pathy for  the  once  oppressed  black  man  did  not  blind  him  to  the  shame 
of  the  existing  oppression  of  white  men  in  the  South.  A  letter  to  James 
G.  Elaine,  written  Mar.  3,  1885,  but  possibly  never  sent,  shows  plainly 
his  ideas  upon  the  subject,  and  contains  some  very  entertaining  com- 
ments. After  referring  to  the  failure  of  Republican  reconstruction,  he 
says:  "Unfortunately  the  Democracy  of  this  country  neither  learns  nor 
forgets  much,  and  without  outside  aid,  I  have  slender  hopes  in  that  direc- 
tion." He  thinks  reform  must  come  through  some  liberal  leader.  "As 
possibly  you  may  know,  I  was  quite  intimately  acquainted  with  Abm. 
Lincoln,  &  in  a  feeble  way  did  something  in  1858,  9  and  60  in  bringing 
him  before  the  people  as  a  presidential  candidate.  In  the  enclosed  I  have 
ventured  to  say  what  were  some  of  his  views  touching  the  matter  in 
hand — reconstruction.  Had  he  lived  doubtless  they  would  have  been 
modified.  .  .  .  Whilst  you  are  not  where  many  of  us  would  have  you, 
are  you  not  in  a  position  where  you  can  be  almost  as  influential?  Your 
2nd  vol.,  in  which  you  will  discuss  this  very  question,  is  yet  to  be  pub- 
lished. Why  not  give  this  matter  your  patient,  very  best  thought?" 

7  Swett  to  Fell,  Apr.  i,  1872. 


365]  LATER  POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES  101 

the  Republican  party  there),  would  accept  any  man  who  might 
be  nominated,  in  the  opinion  of  Robert  Ingersoll.8 

Early  in  April  a  number  of  disaffected  Republicans  met  at 
the  home  of  Horace  White  in  Chicago,  and  agreed  to  issue  a  call 
for  the  Cincinnati  meeting,  signed  by  as  many  influential  men 
as  might  be  induced  to  join  the  movement.  As  this  followed  the 
one  already  issued  by  Missouri  (and  was  copied  from  the  one  is- 
sued in  New  York),  it  was  called  a  "Response."  It  appeared 
first  in  the  Chicago  Times,  April  17,  1872.  Thirty-eight  men,  in- 
cluding Gustav  Kcerner  and  Horace  White,  Dubois,  Miner, 
Jayne,  and  Fell,  signed  the  call  as  first  published,  and  within  a 
few  days  a  longer  list  appeared,  comprising  the  names  of  hun- 
dreds of  Illinois  Republicans.9  Palmer,  at  first  inclined  to  favor 
the  Regulars,  decided  in  March  to  espouse  the  new  cause,  and  de- 
clined the  Regular  Republican  nomination  for  the  governorship, 
which  was  accepted  by  Oglesby.10 

Trumbull  kept  Fell  informed  of  the  trend  of  affairs  in  Wash- 
ington, while  Fell  wrote  him  of  the  local  situation.11  Trumbull 

8The  letter  from  Robert  Ingersoll  to  Mr.  Fell,  dated  Peoria,  Apr.  6, 
1872,  expresses  with  remarkable  frankness  that  would-be  statesman's 
resentment  of  his  rejection  by  the  people  of  Illinois.  "You  must  not 
expect  me  to  make  a  speech  at  Cincinnati,"  he  says.  "I  am  done.  I  can 
conceive  of  no  circumstances  under  which  I  would  make  a  political 
speech.  If  ever  in  this  world  a  man  was  thoroughly  sick  of  political 
speaking,  I  am  that  man.  Understand  me,  I  am  an  admirer  and  a  friend 
of  Judge  Davis.  I  want  to  see  him  president  of  the  United  States  and 
I  believe  he  will  be.  And  what  little  I  do  will  be  done  for  him.  I  am 
going  to  take  no  active  part  for  anybody.  For  some  reason,  the  leaders 
in  politics  are  not  my  friends,  and  never  have  been.  My  only  ambition 
is  to  get  a  living  and  to  take  good  care  of  my  family.  The  American 
people  have  lost  the  power  to  confer  honor.  .  .  .  Leonard  Swett  wrote 
me  upon  the  subject  of  going  to  Cincinnati.  I  wrote  him  that  I  was 
sick  of  politics.  By  the  way,  if  his  letter  had  been  about  one-tenth  as 
long,  it  would  have  been  infinitely  better.  His  letter  is  good ;  but  too 
much  of  it.  All  his  points  could  have  been  made  in  one  column.  A 
letter  never  should  be  so  long  as  to  require  an  index." 

•White  to  Fell,  Apr.  10,  1872.  Fell  to  Trumbull,  Apr.  8.  Chicago 
Times,  Apr.  17,  and  Pantograph,  Apr.  19,  20. 

10Carlinvillc  Democrat,  Apr.  17.  Pantograph,  Apr.  18.  On  the  23d 
of  April,  Palmer  delivered  a  very  influential  anti-Grant  speech  at  Spring- 
field, which  served  greatly  to  strengthen  the  forces  of  the  Liberals. 

"Fell  to  Trumbull,  Apr.  8,  n,  1872.  (Trumbull  MSS,  Library  of 
Congress.)  Trumbull  to  Fell,  Apr.  11,  16,  1872.  Trumbull's  letter  of 
April  n  spoke  of  the  Cooper  Union  meeting,  at  which  Trumbull  and 


102  JESSE   W.    FELL  [366 

would  give  no  formal  consent  to  the  use  of  his  name  before  the 
convention  until  late  in  April,  apparently  with  an  unselfish  de- 
sire not  to  hamper  the  success  of  the  reform  wave  by  introduc- 
ing personal  factions.  Indeed,  he  tried  to  impose  on  other  lead- 
ers an  entirely  impracticable  policy  of  entire  silence  with  regard 
to  candidates  until  the  meeting  at  Cincinnati. 

Meantime  the  Davis  group  was  vigorously  pushing  its  candi- 
date in  the  only  region  in  which  he  could  command  much  sup- 
port ;  for,  being  a  jurist  and  not  a  political  leader,  and  being  but 
little  known  throughout  the  country,  his  strongest  claim  to  rec- 
ognition lay  in  his  having  been  the  personal  friend  and  appointee 
of  Lincoln, — a  claim  that  amounted  to  little  except  in  Illinois. 
Since  men  with  even  less  fame  have  succeeded  in  winning  nomina- 
tions from  the  lottery  of  convention  chance,  Swett  and  Fell  had 
lively  hopes  that  with  a  good  delegation  of  local  supporters  they 
might  carry  the  day  in  Cincinnati.  The  Democrats,  strong  in 
Illinois,  were  rallying  to  his  support.  Among  these  was  Adlai 
Stevenson,  a  man  of  considerable  influence  and  a  neighbor  of 
Judge  Davis,  who  with  his  adherents  formed  part  of  the  Davis 
party  at  the  convention.  Swett  was  a  skilful  manager,  and  by 
convention  time  had  gained  half  the  Illinois  forces  for  Davis. 
The  Labor  Reform  party  had  already  nominated  him  for  presi- 
dent in  February.12 

Returning  from  a  tree-planting  expedition  to  his  Iowa  lands 
just  before  the  convention,  Fell  preceded  by  a  few  days  the  dele- 
gation which  started  from  Bloomington  at  five  o'clock  on  April 
29.  Judge  Davis'  generosity  in  providing  facilities  for  the  at- 
tendance of  his  supporters  made  the  following  a  large  one ;  con- 
temporary accounts  say  it  was  also  a  very  noisy  and  confident 
one.  About  550  men  from  Bloomington  and  vicinity  went  to 
Cincinnati;  the  entire  Illinois  contingent  numbered  over  a 
thousand.13 

The  Davis  party,  ensconcing  itself  early  at  headquarters  and 
marshalling  its  forces  in  well-organized  companies  which  gave  a 
strong  impression  of  confidence  and  success,  seemed  to  lead  all 
others  before  the  convention  opened.14  There  was  an  under- 

Schurz  both  spoke  to  an  immense  audience,  and  said  that  the  movement 
had  attained  such  proportions  that  no  one  faction  could  then  control  it 

"Stanwood,  History  of  the  Presidency,  336. 

13PantagraJ>h,  Apr.  10,  13,  17,  19,  27,  30,  and  later  issues. 

""It  is  obvious  that  the  Davis  crowd  is  the  calmest,  the  most  confi- 
dent, and  the  best  organized  and  disciplined.  They  pitched  their  tents 


367]  LATER  POLITICAL   ACTIVITIES  103 

standing — in  which  it  is  natural  to  suspect  the  old  combination 
of  Lewis  and  Fell — that  Davis  should  have  first  place,  and  Gov- 
ernor Curtin  of  Pennsylvania  second;  an  arrangement  which 
Curtin's  own  ambition  to  head  the  ticket  brought  to  naught. 
Adams,  by  far  the  most  able  and  best  prepared  of  all  possible 
candidates,  was  unpopular  in  the  West  because  of  the  very  quali- 
ties which  made  his  strength — his  distinguished  ancestry,  his 
long  and  successful  diplomatic  service,  his  thoro  education 
and  statesmanlike  qualities.  His  opponents  reviled  him  as  an 
"aristocrat;"  to  which  his  friends  answered  by  inquiring  with 
asperity  if  it  were  in  the  Constitution  that  the  president  had  to 
•come  from  Illinois? 

The  "hordes"  from  that  state  had  but  a  fictitious  strength, 
for  they  were  divided  into  three  factions,  supporting  Palmer, 
Trumbull  and  Davis  respectively.  On  the  twenty-ninth  of  April 
there  was  waged  an  all-day  fight  among  the  Illinois  leaders,  who 
could  arrive  at  no  kind  of  agreement.  Swett  and  Fell  found 
themselves  pitted  against  White  and  Bryant,  the  capable  Trum- 
bull managers.  On  the  thirtieth — Tuesday — the  leaders  decided 
to  divide  the  Illinois  vote  among  the  three  candidates.  They 
called  a  meeting  at  three  o'clock  in  Greenwood  Hall.  Dr.  Jayne 
of  Springfield,  a  Trumbull  supporter,  issued  the  call.  Fell  pre- 
sided, and  the  secretary  was  a  Palmer  man.  About  a  thousand 

the  earliest,  and  have  worked  up  in  detail  all  the  strong  points  of  their 
candidate  and  all  the  weak  points  of  his  rivals. 

"It  is  claimed  that  Davis  is  the  only  man  in  the  crowd  who  is  per- 
sonally popular.  Adams  is  aristocratic,  Brown  belongs  to  the  'hurrah' 
school,  but  has  few  warm  friends ;  Trumbull  is  cold  as  a  fish ;  Cox  is 
phlegmatic  and  Greeley  is  pudgy  and  eccentric.  'But  Davis,'  says  Jesse 
Fell,  'is  a  man  who  is  beloved  by  those  who  know  him.  I  have  known 
him  personally  and  intimately  for  thirty  years,  as  I  knew  Lincoln,  and 
he  is  just  such  an  honest,  faithful,  straightforward,  incorruptible  man; 
and  he  possesses  the  same  personal  magnetism.  He  would  give  us  the 
same  enthusiastic  campaign  and  the  same  overwhelming  victory.  All 
of  those  who  were  old  Abe's  associates  before  1860  are  now  asking 
Davis'  nomination.  He  now  lives  in  Central  Illinois,  and  has  made  two 
million  dollars  in  fair  dealing,  and  he  hasn't  an  enemy  in  all  that  region, 
nor  in  the  world.  The  last  two  times  he  was  elected  Judge  without  a 
single  dissenting  vote  from  either  party. [']  This  is  the  way  his  friends 
talk;  and  Fell  is  one  of  the  sincerest  of  men,  and  his  moderation  gives 
weight  to  his  words.  Davis  seems  ahead  at  this  hour.  Curtin  is  to  get 
the  second  place,  in  consideration  of  giving  Pennsylvania's  vote  to  Davis 
for  the  first." — Chicago  Post  of  Apr.  28,  quoted  in  Pantograph. 


104  JESSE  W.   PELL  [368 

Illinoisans  attended  the  meeting,  and  came  to  an  agreement  con- 
cerning the  division  of  the  votes.18  There  was  a  street  procession 
for  Davis  after  the  meeting,  and  great  enthusiasm.  In  the  even- 
ing an  adjourned  meeting  was  addressed  by  Judge  Wentworth 
and  John  Hickman,  the  latter  from  Pennsylvania. 

In  spite  of  all  these  well-laid  plans  Davis  was  foredoomed 
to  failure,  the  leaders  in  the  party  being  uncertain  both  of  his 
ability  to  attract  the  popular  vote  and  of  his  interest  in  the  par- 
ticular reforms  they  Advocated.16  Starting  with  a  vote  of  ninety- 
two  and  a  half,  he  lost  steadily,  retaining  only  six  in  the  final 
ballot.  His  supporters  were  scarcely  less  disappointed  than  was 
Sehurz  at  the  failure  to  nominate  Adams  or  Trumbull,  both  men 
far  more  likely  to  carry  the  Liberal  banner  to  victory.  The 
"Gratz  Brown  trick"  by  which  Greeley  won  the  nomination  in 
spite  of  his  eccentricities,  his  extreme  views,  and  the  lack  of  con- 
fidence of  his  colleagues,  seemed  to  stun  the  party  leaders  every- 
where. 

Governor  Palmer  was  among  the  first  to  recover  from  the 
shock  and  to  shape  a  definite  program.  Assuming  that  despite 
personal  disappointment  the  Davis  supporters  would  rally  to  the 
ticket,  he  wrote  to  Fell  asking  for  a  survey  of  the  field  in  his 
county  and  estimates  of  Liberal  strength,  and  asking  his  support 
for  Greeley.17  Palmer  was  personally  much  attached  to  Greeley, 
who  had  befriended  him  in  the  Tribune  the  winter  before,  and 
was  therefore  the  more  willing  to  urge  the  disgruntled  into  self- 
forgetting  efforts  for  the  cause.  A  state  convention  was  to  be  ar- 
ranged for,  and  strong  efforts  would  be  necessary  to  popularize 
the  erratic  editor  of  the  Tribune,  against  whom  the  Middle  "West 
still  remembered  his  harsh  criticisms  of  Lincoln.  With  Adlai 
Stevenson,  leader  of  the  Democrats,  Fell  arranged  a  mass-meet- 
ing to  ratify  the  nomination.  This  was  held  on  May  12.  Fell 

"Twenty-one  were  to  go  to  Davis,  eleven  to  Trumbull,  and  ten  ta 
Palmer.  Cincinnati  Commercial,  May  i ;  Chicago  Times,  May  I ;  Panto- 
graph, May  2. 

16Horace  White  attributes  the  failure  of  Davis  to  "the  editorial  fra- 
ternity, who,  at  a  dinner  at  Murat  Halstead's  house,  resolved  that  they 
would  not  support  him  if  nominated,  and  caused  that  fact  to  be  made 
known."  Lyman  Trumbull,  380-381.  A  letter  from  one  of  the  McLean 
County  delegates  to  the  Pantograph  of  May  3  says  that  "It  is  believed, 
and  is  doubtless  true,  that  Belmont's  visit  here  resulted  in  buying  every 
Cincinnati  paper  as  well  as  those  of  Louisville,  to  oppose  Davis  at  all' 
hazards."  This  letter  is  dated  1 130  p.  m.,  Thursday. 

"Palmer  to  Fell,  May  8,  1872. 


369]  LATER  POLITICAL  ACTIVITIES  105 

presented  the  ratification  resolutions  with  a  speech,  which  was 
followed  by  speeches  by  Adlai  Stevenson,  General  Gridley,  Major 
Sterlein  (speaking  for  the  Germans),  Dr.  Rogers,  and  others. 
A  letter  from  Governor  Palmer  was  read.  By  the  end  of  the 
meeting,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  the  leaders  themselves  were  al- 
most persuaded  that  they  wanted  Horace  Greeley  to  be 
president.18 

Horace  White  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  stanch  Trumbull  man 
that  he  was,  entered  heartily  into  the  Greeley  campaign  through 
loyalty  to  a  cause  which  he  did  not  feel  justified  in  abandoning  be- 
cause of  poor  leadership.  He  wrote  to  Fell  in  late  May  to  tell 
him  that  it  had  been  agreed  at  the  state  convention  (which  Fell 
did  not  attend)  that  the  Illinois  member  of  the  national  executive 
committee  was  to  be  Jesse  Fell.  This  appointment  was  declined, 
Mr.  Fell  doubtless  feeling  that  he  could  not  effectively  serve  a 
man  of  whose  fitness  for  the  presidency  he  was  not  sure.19 

Nevertheless  his  personal  relations  with  Greeley  during  the 
summer  and  autumn  of  1872  continued  to  be  friendly,  and  while 
in  New  York  late  in  November,  he  was  granted  one  of  the  last 
interviews  which  that  sadly  disappointed  and  broken  man  could 
have  given  to  any  of  his  friends.20  Fell  himself  gradually  with- 
drew from  active  participation  in  politics  after  the  Cincinnati 
meeting,  feeling  that  the  day  of  his  service  in  that  field  was  past. 

l8Pantagraph,  May  7,  1872,  for  Fell's  declaration  in  favor  of  Greeley ; 
May  9,  call  for  a  ratification  meeting ;  May  13,  account  of  the  meeting. 

"White  to  Fell,  May  28,  1872. 

20Greeley  to  Fell,  Nov.  23,  1872.  The  note,  in  Greeley's  altogether 
inimitable  scrawl,  is  very  characteristic : 

Dear  Sir : 

Call  at  the  Tribune  office  at  4  P.  M.   (Sunday,)  second  floor 
on  the  south  side.    Knock  and  it  shall  be  opened. 

Yours, 

Horace  Greeley. 
Mr.  Fell,  of  Illinois,  Astor  House,  city. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  TREE-PLANTER 

It  was  J.  A.  Sewall  who,  when  the  etherialized  earthiness  of 
Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps '  Gates  Ajar  had  set  every-one  to  discuss- 
ing his  idea  of  heaven,  replied  to  a  young  woman  who  had  asked 
him  if  he  thought  there  were  trees  in  heaven:  "I  really  don't 
know,  but  if  Jesse  Fell  gets  there  and  finds  none,  he  will  hunt 
around  and  find  some  somewhere  and  plant  them."1 

The  remark  shows  the  extent  to  which  Mr.  Fell  and  tree- 
planting  were  associated  in  the  minds  of  those  who  knew  him.  It 
was  his  great  passion,  perhaps  more  than  anything  else  his  life- 
work,  to  set  trees  in  the  bare  prairie  and  watch  them  make  of 
it  a  garden.  From  his  first  months  in  the  new  land,  when  the 
bleakness  of  its  prairie  struck  his  eyes  with  especial  force,  used  as 
they  were  to  the  rolling  wooded  stretches  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Ohio,  he  looked  forward  to  the  planting  of  trees.  That  there 
were  no  trees  except  along  the  streams  was,  to  him,  the  one  dis- 
advantage of  the  prairie.2  Therefore  he  planted  trees  in  the 
towns  in  which  he  owned  land.  He  lined  the  streets  of  Lexing- 
ton, Clinton,  Pontiac,  and  other  places  with  rows  of  maples  and 
elms.  Wherever  he  held  a  block  of  lots,  there  clumps  or  rows  of 
trees  marked  the  land  that  Fell  owned. 

But  at  no  other  place  did  Mr.  Fell  plant  trees  with  quite  the 
loving  enthusiasm  which  he  gave  to  that  work  in  Bloomington 
and  Normal.  In  the  summer  of  1856,  when  visiting  in  West 
Philadelphia  and  Germantown,  he  was  especially  impressed  with 
the  beauty  of  the  streets  there.  Germantown  was  shaded  by 
stately  old  trees,  but  West  Philadelphia  was  a  new  town,  al- 
ready beautified  by  careful  and  extensive  planting.  Vowing  that 
he  would  make  his  own  town  in  Illinois  as  lovely  as  West  Phil- 

1J.  A.  Sewall  to  Fannie  Fell,  March  15,  1909. 

2Fell  to  his  parents,  Nov.  17,  1833.  The  settlements  were  built  in  the 
edges  of  the  groves,  he  says,  in  some  places  extending  two  miles  into 
the  plain.  "As  the  settlements  move  out  into  the  prairie,  people  will  turn 
their  attention  to  the  cultivation  of  the  forest  trees.  This  in  some  neigh- 
borhoods has  already  been  done."  A.  W.  Kellogg  in  Pontiac  Sentinel, 
Aug.  29,  1889. 

106 


371]  THE   TREE-PLANTER  107 

adelphia,  Fell  planned  a  comprehensive  planting  campaign, 
which  he  began  to  put  into  effect  the  next  year.3 

His  first  move  was  to  secure  a  special  act  from  the  legisla- 
ture to  permit  the  fencing  of  young  trees  planted  hi  open 
streets,  for  their  temporary  protection.4  His  desire  was  to  plant 
double  rows  along  all  the  streets,  with  something  like  the  spa- 
cious prodigality  of  Hadley,  Massachusetts.  But  North  Bloom- 
ington  streets  were  not  surveyed  upon  so  generous  a  scale,  and 
so  only  a  few  streets  could  have  double  rows.  Even  so,  twelve 
thousand  trees  were  set  out  in  Normal  before  a  single  house  was 
erected.5  The  stimulus  and  example  so  given,  together  with  the 
ease  of  acquisition  afforded  by  the  nurseries,  made  planting  a 
fashion.  People  vied  with  each  other  in  making  their  private 
grounds  beautiful.  They  quoted  Mr.  Fell's  version  of  an  old 
couplet — 

"He  who  plants  a  tree  (and  cares  for  it) 
Does  something  for  posterity," 

and  acted  upon  its  suggestion.  Bloomington  had  already  be- 
come known  as  the  ' '  Evergreen  City, ' '  and  Normal  came  to  share 
in  the  name.  But  evergreens  do  not  attain  a  permanent  growth 
in  prairie  soil,  and  of  late  years  the  greater  part  of  the  conifers 
so  enthusiastically  planted  by  that  generation,  have  given  way 
to  the  more  adaptable  maples  and  elms.6 

Many  of  the  trees  planted  were  from  Mr.  Fell's  own  nurser- 
ies. Unsold  lots  were  utilized  as  branch  nurseries,  and  the  noble 
Fell  Park,  with  its  groves,  lawns,  drives  and  gardens,  set  an  ex- 
ample of  beauty  and  gave  Normal  a  place  of  recreation.  Mr. 
Fell  personally  supervised  all  planting,  and  it  is  due  to  his  great 
and  loving  care  that  of  the  trees  suited  to  Illinois  conditions, 
scarcely  one  has  died  in  the  half  century  since  their  planting. 
The  original  twelve  thousand  trees  were  increased  to  thirty-five 
thousand  before  many  years.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  long  before 
the  transplanting  of  large  trees  became  a  common  feat,  Fell  in- 
vented a  variety  of  huge  cart  which  could  be  used  for  this  pur- 

8Lewis,  who  tells  this  anecdote  of  Mr.  Fell  (Life,  54),  was  with  him 
during  the  drive  through  West  Philadelphia  when  this  resolution  took 
form. 

4Laws  of  Illinois,  1857,  I,  509.    Approved  Feb.  13,  1857. 

^Pantograph,  May  27,  1857;  July  26,  1865.  Raymond  Buchan  in 
Pantograph,  Mar.  16,  1898. 

•Henry  Shaw,  "Evergreens,"  in  Pantograph,  July  19,  1854. 


108  JESSE   W.   FELL  [372 

pose,  and  full-grown  trees  were  transplanted  in  Normal  to  beau- 
tify the  homes  of  those  who  wanted  results  quickly.7 

From  the  first,  Mr.  Fell  assumed  the  responsibility  of  look- 
ing after  the  grounds  of  the  Normal  School.  He  wanted  to  have 
planted  upon  its  campus  every  tree  that  would  flourish  in  Central 
Illinois,  that  the  studies  of  botany  and  forestry  might  be  pur- 
sued there  to  advantage.  He  insisted,  at  a  time  when  expert  ad- 
vice upon  aesthetic  matters  was  not  highly  valued,  that  the 
grounds  should  be  planned  by  a  professional  landscape  gar- 
dener, and  secured  the  services  of  William  Saunders  of  Phila- 
delphia, who  had  planned  his  own  grounds  at  Fell  Park,  for  this 
purpose.8 

The  rather  elaborate  plans  of  Saunders  were  not  carried  out 
by  the  board  of  education  during  the  first  hard  years,  when  the 
school  was  struggling  for  life.  Year  after  year  passed  indeed, 
and  the  campus  remained  almost  as  bare  as  in  the  beginning. 
Finally,  to  secure  the  realization  of  his  hopes  and  plans,  Mr. 
Fell  became  a  member  of  the  board  of  education  in  1866,  contin- 
uing until  1872.  He  secured,  with  the  cooperation  of  interested 
friends,  the  passage  of  a  law  which  went  into  effect  February  28, 
1867,  relative  to  the  planting  of  the  campus.9  This  act  included 
an  appropriation  of  three  thousand  dollars,  and  with  the  pros- 
pect of  this  cash  assistance  he  set  to  work.  The  entire  campus 
was  subsoiled  and  plowed  during  the  spring  and  summer  of 
1867.  Before  his  official  work  had  begun,  Mr.  Fell  had  planted 
some  trees  upon  the  grounds;  in  1868  he  set  out  1740,  and  107 
more  the  next  year.  Saunders'  plan  was  followed  as  closely 
as  circumstances  permitted.  In  1870,  patches  of  oats  and  pota- 
toes yielded  a  small  income  for  use  in  defraying  the  expense  of 
this  planting.  Even  with  this  help,  the  appropriation  was  in- 
sufficient, and  the  work  had  to  be  completed  at  Fell's  own  ex- 
pense. Having  finished  as  nearly  as  was  then  possible  the  work 
which  he  regarded  as  peculiarly  his  own,  he  resigned  from  the 
board. 

7Lewis,  Life,  55.  Raymond  Buchan,  of  Osman,  Illinois,  set  out  most 
of  the  trees  under  Fell's  direction.  "He  was  the  best  man  I  ever  knew," 
said  Buchan  of  him.  Pantograph,  May  27,  1857.  John  Dodge,  "Concern- 
ing Jesse  W.  Fell,"  in  Fell  Memorial. 

8Saunders  to  Fell,  Oct.  15  and  29,  1858.  Saunders  advised  that  a 
nursery  be  started  upon  the  grounds,  a  plan  which  was  carried  out  in  a 
small  way.  The  planting  plans  (for  which  Saunders  charged  $65)  are 
among  the  Fell  papers. 

9Public  Laws  of  Illinois,  1867,  21. 


373]  THE   TREE-PLANTER  109 

In  1885  he  became  interested  in  the  efforts  of  Dr.  Stennett 
of  the  Northwestern  Railroad  to  induce  railroad  companies  to 
plant  trees  for  ties.  The  more  scientific  control  of  the  supply  of 
wood  for  railroads  had  been,  years  before,  a  hobby  of  his  own.10 
Mr.  M.  G.  Kerr  of  St.  Louis,  also  interested  in  the  project,  asked 
him  to  write  for  the  forthcoming  report  of  the  bureau  of  forestry, 
which  Kerr  hoped  to  make  of  commercial  value.  So  far  as  known, 
this  article  was  never  written,  probably  on  account  of  the  condi- 
tion of  Mr.  Fell's  health.11 

His  interest  in  trees  led  to  his  friendship  with  Henry  Shaw 
of  St.  Louis.  For  Jesse  Fell  alone,  it  was  said,  would  this  rigid 
Presbyterian  Puritan  open  his  famous  garden  on  the  Sabbath. 
Then  the  two  men  would  walk  around  together,  admiring  new 
or  particularly  fine  specimens,  and  discussing  varieties  and  cul- 
ture. Sometimes  Mr.  Fell  took  his  son  Henry  with  him  on  these 
week-end  trips  to  St.  Louis.12 

Mr.  Fell's  last  extensive  venture  in  real  estate  was  so  essen- 
tially a  tree-planting  enterprise  that  it  may  best  be  related  here. 
In  1869  a  number  of  Bloomington  men  became  interested  in  Iowa 
lands.  As  the  representative  of  this  group  of  men,  Mr.  Fell  went 
to  Iowa  that  summer,  and  selected  a  tract  of  about  forty  sections 
— more  than  twenty-five  thousand  acres — in  Lyon  County  in  the 
northwestern  corner  of  the  state.  Even  in  its  unimproved  state 
this  section  of  the  country  was  exceedingly  attractive.  ' '  In  thir- 
ty-two of  the  thirty-seven  states  comprising  our  union, ' '  said  Mr. 
Fell  in  describing  it,  "I  have  never  beheld  so  large  a  body  of 
surpassingly  beautiful  prairie  as  is  here  to  be  found.  There  is 
absolutely  no  waste  land,  and  scarce  a  quarter-section  not  af- 
fording an  admirable  building-site." 

The  plan  of  the  proprietors  was  to  survey  a  town  in  the  cen- 
ter of  their  holdings,  and  to  start  the  work  of  improvement  on 
each  farm  by  breaking  a  few  acres  of  land,  and  by  planting  trees 
and  willow  hedge.13  The  town  was  named  Larchwood,  and  the 

10O.  H.  Lee  to  Fell,  July  4,  1853. 

"M.  G.  Kerr  to  Fell,  Sept.  22,  1885.  The  letter  is  accompanied  by 
*'A  Circular  addressed  to  presidents  of  Railways,  with  the  request  that 
you  may  express  to  me  your  views  and  experience  on  the  uphill  road 
of  interesting  Railroad  men  in  matters  of  Forest  Culture,"  a  set  of 
"Inquiries  addressed  to  Railway  Managers,"  and  a  circular  from  the 
Department  of  Agriculture. 

12Henry  Fell,  interview,  May  31,  1913. 

"Lewis,  Life,  104.  The  original  company  included,  besides  Mr.  Fell, 
Charles  W.  Holder,  John  Magoun,  R.  E.  Williams,  A.  Burr,  E.  H.  Rood, 


110  JESSE  W.   FELL  [374 

settlement  came  to  be  known  as  the  Larchwood  Colony.  For 
many  years  Mr.  Fell  devoted  much  time  each  spring  and  fall  ta 
personal  supervision  of  the  improvements  there.  As  in  Normal  and 
other  places  in  Illinois,  he  did  not  trust  the  work  to  employees, 
but  superintended  the  setting  of  the  trees  himself,  sometimes 
helping  with  the  actual  labor.  The  improvements  accomplished 
were  unusual.  In  May,  1873,  Fell  set  out  a  hundred  thousand 
trees  and  cuttings,  distributed  through  eight  sections  of  land.  At 
that  time  a  hundred  fifty  thousand  trees  had  already  been  set 
out,  and  a  tract  of  forty  acres  in  the  center  of  a  number  of  sec- 
tions insured  a  "start"  of  ten  acres  of  broken  ground  to  every 
immigrant  who  bought  a  quarter-section.  Larchwood  farms  at 
that  time  were  selling  at  from  four  to  six  dollars  the  acre.14 

The  history  of  Larchwood  serves  to  illustrate  one  of  Jesse 
Fell's  notable  characteristics.  General  Gridley,  who  knew  him 
well,  was  wont  to  say  of  him  that  he  was  never  mistaken  in  his 
estimate  of  the  ultimate  value  of  a  piece  of  land,  but  that  his 
eager  nature  greatly  discounted  the  length  of  time  which  would 
elapse  before  that  value  was  realized.  Imaginative  and  enthusi- 
astic, full  of  faith  in  the  development  of  the  West,  he  calculated 
upon  an  increase  in  value  far  more  rapid  than  the  actual  rate 
of  settlement  justified.  What  he  thought  would  be  an  accom- 
plished fact  in  ten  years,  the  slow  moving  forces  of  development 
realized,  perhaps,  after  thirty  or  forty.  Larchwood,  with  its  un- 
usual advantages,  did  not  grow  as  its  promoters  hoped  it  would,, 
and  about  1880  the  Illinois  owners  decided  to  sell  what  was  left 
of  the  tract.15  An  Englishman,  Richard  Sykes,  who  dealt  exten- 

Richard  Edwards,  Milner  Brown,  and  Daniel  Brown.  The  willow  hedge 
was  planted  because  it  would  grow  quickly,  and  later  furnish  fuel.  Fell, 
To  Hon.  George  D.  Perkins,  Commissioner  of  Immigration  for  the  State 
of  Iowa,  June  27,  1880.  (A  printed  letter.) 

14An  account  of  a  settler  appeared  in  the  Pantograph,  Apr.  12,  1872. 
One  by  a  settler  in  a  neighboring  vicinity,  ibid.,  Apr.  25,  1872. 

18At  that  time,  there  were  about  fifty  miles  of  willow  hedge  outlining 
the  farms,  and  many  of  the  trees  were  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet  high. 
White  willow,  box  elder,  white  maple,  white  ash,  cottonwood,  basswood, 
black  walnut,  honey  locust,  chestnut,  European  and  American  larch,  white 
and  Scotch  pines,  osage  orange,  arbor  vitae,  Norway  and  native  spruces, 
were  among  the  trees  and  shrubs  then  growing.  The  catalpa  speciosa, 
Mr.  Fell's  favorite  protege,  was  a  feature  of  the  village  planting.  See 
Dr.  John  A.  Warder,  American  Journal  of  Forestry  for  Oct.,  1882.  (Also 
reprinted  as  a  circular.) 

Captain  Henry  Augustine,  long  a  prominent  nurseryman  of  Normal,. 


375]  THE  TREE-PLANTER  111 

sively  in  American  lands,  purchased  the  Larchwood  farms,  and 
came  to  America  with  his  brother  and  a  party  of  friends  in  April, 
1882,  to  see  the  estate  that  he  had  acquired.16  He  had  previously 
brought  out  a  pamphlet  concerning  Larchwood,  and  after  in- 
specting the  farms  took  up  the  work  of  further  development  with 
enthusiasm.  He  sent  George  E.  Brown,  an  experienced  forester 
from  Scotland,  to  take  charge  of  the  groves,  and  sent  saplings 
for  planting.  Delighted  to  find  a  successor  so  in  sympathy  with 
his  ideas,  Fell  long  kept  up  friendly  relations  with  Mr.  Sykes 
and  various  Larchwood  residents.17 

has  told  of  his  first  meeting  with  Mr.  Fell  and  of  his  championing  of 
the  Speciosa.  A  shy,  awkward  German  boy,  seeking  his  fortune  in  the 
new  country,  Mr.  Fell  called  him  in  from  the  road  one  day,  and  had  a 
long  talk  with  him  in  his  office.  Finding  that  he  loved  trees,  Mr.  Fell 
explained  to  him  the  difference  between  the  worthless  and  harmful  varie- 
ties of  the  catalpa,  and  the  useful  Speciosa.  He  showed  him  the  slight 
difference  in  the  seed  which  is  the  only  distinguishing  mark  in  appear- 
ance. Mr.  Augustine  in  later  years  himself  became  an  extensive  grower 
and  dealer  in  the  Speciosa.  Henry  Augustine,  interviews.  Fell  in  the 
Pantograph,  Dec.  30,  1882. 

"The  sale  took  place  in  1881.  Sykes  to  Fell,  Nov.  26,  1881 ;  March 
10,  19,  1882;  March  10,  1884;  Aug.  4,  1886.  Close  Brothers  to  Fell,  Jan. 
26,  1882.  Newspaper  clipping  of  Jan.  19,  1881,  in  Scrap  Book. 

1TAs  late  as  1886,  Fell  was  still  corresponding  concerning  titles  to 
Larchwood  property.  Sykes  to  Fell,  Aug.  4,  1886. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  LAST  YEAES 

His  unsuccessful  efforts  for  David  Davis  were,  as  has  been 
said,  Fell 's  last  important  active  participation  in  politics.  After 
that,  altho  still  interested  in  the  issues  of  the  day,  he  did 
no  campaigning,  save  for  some  local  projects  in  which  he  was  in- 
terested. He  continued  to  correspond  with  men  who  were  in  the 
field,  and  occasionally,  upon  request,  expressed  his  opinions  in 
the  press.1  Logan,  engaged  in  1874  with  the  formulation  and 
passage  of  the  Resumption  Act,  wrote  to  him  upon  finance; 
Wentworth  and  Murray  discussed  the  election  of  1876  with  him.* 
As  the  faithful  friend  of  Judge  Davis,  he  seems  to  have  arranged 
for  his  election  to  the  Senate  in  1877.  He  induced  Palmer,  the 
incumbent  at  that  time,  to  withdraw  from  the  race,  and  to  throw 
the  weight  of  his  influence  to  the  side  of  Davis.  Logan  was  de- 
feated, and  Cullom  became  governor  of  Illinois.3  Any  injustice 
still  called  forth  a  spirited  defense  of  the  person  wronged,  as  in 
the  case  of  S.  "W.  Moulton,  who  was  accused  by  political  enemies 
of  having  had  secession  sympathies ;  and  in  the  campaign  against 
severe  corporal  punishment  at  the  Soldiers'  Orphans'  Home, 
waged  in  1877.4  With  his  brother  Kersey,  he  induced  William. 

JNote,  for  example,  the  undated  newspaper  clipping,  quoting  a  letter 
of  Fell's  dated  Sept.  20,  1880,  at  Larchwood,  giving  reasons  for  support- 
ing Garfield. 

2Logan  to  Fell,  Feb.  16,  1874;  Jan.  11,  1875.  Wentworth  to  Fell, 
July  3,  1876.  Bronson  Murray  to  Fell,  Dec.  18,  1876. 

3Fell  to  Palmer,  Jan.  15,  1877.  Endorsement  by  Fell.  Later,  Fell 
was  active  in  a  movement  for  erecting  a  bust  to  Judge  Davis.  H.  C. 
Whitney  to  Fell,  Jan.  23,  1887. 

*Moulton  to  Fell,  Jan.  9,  1884.  Davis  to  Fell,  Feb.  4,  1882;  Jan.  22, 
1885.  Oglesby  to  Fell,  Mar.  17,  1884;  Sept.  18,  1886.  J.  B.  Foraker  to 
Fell,  Jan.  26,  1887.  This  last  letter  is  in  reference  to  an  abortive  attempt 
to  secure  the  nomination  of  Robert  T.  Lincoln  for  president  in  1888. 
Pantograph,  Jan.  4,  1884,  Fell,  "Oglesby  and  Logan,"  in  Chicago  Tribune, 
Jan.  13,  1879.  Bloomington  Leader,  July  23,  1877. 

112 


377]  THE  LAST  YEARS  113 

A.  Allin  and  David  Davis  to  give  Franklin  Park  to  the  city  of 
Bloomington.5 

Business  was  not  by  any  means  given  up.  Altho  he  had 
always  made  money  easily,  he  had  lost  as  well,  and  had  given 
much  away.  He  was  no  hoarder;  money  in  itself  was  nothing 
to  him.6  Withdrawing  from  the  larger  enterprises  of  his  prime, 
in  his  old  age  Mr.  Fell  bent  his  energies  toward  securing 
property  which  might  be  depended  upon  to  yield  an  income  to 
his  family  after  his  death.  Some  land  he  owned  in  the  out- 
skirts of  Normal  was  planted  to  strawberries  and  larger  fruit, 
and  from  this  he  derived  an  incalculable  amount  of  pleasure  and 
a  satisfactory  return  in  money.  Fell  Park  was  sold  to  a  syndi- 
cate, which  after  his  death  divided  it  up  into  city  lots.  Its  great 
beauty  became  but  a  memory  to  the  people  of  Normal,  altho 
some  of  the  fine  trees  still  shade  that  part  of  the  town.7 

He  kept  in  close  touch  with  friends,  among  whom  Jonathan 
Turner,  Richard  Edwards,  Lawrence  Weldon,  John  H.  Bryant, 
and  Charles  G.  Ames  were  perhaps  nearest  to  him.8  His  grand- 
children, who  lived  very  close  to  his  home,  were  a  source  of 
great  pleasure  to  him,  and  he  took  the  keenest  interest  in  their 
education.  "When  not  in  school,  these  children  were  usually  at 
their  grandfather's,  "keeping  store"  in  the  playhouse  he  had 
built  years  before  for  his  own  children,  or  listening  to  him  as 
he  sang  to  them  or  told  them  stories,  working  as  he  did  so 
among  his  trees  and  shrubs.  They  took  long  drives  with  him 
into  the  country,  and  planned  with  him  wonderful  things  to  do 
in  the  future ;  for  when  he  was  an  old  man,  Jesse  Fell  retained 
that  fresh  and  buoyant  forward-looking  which  had  made  him 
strong  to  accomplish  in  his  youth,  and  passed  it  on  to  those  who 
had  their  lives  still  before  them.  And  with  these  family  ties  he 
kept  up,  later  than  any  secular  activity,  his  church  work  and 
church  attendance.  A  new  movement  to  which  he  gave  some 

5Franklin  Price  in  Pantograph,  May  10,  1900,  and  Normal  Advocate, 
Apr.  21,  1894. 

•He  told  Eberhart  once  that  he  liked  to  make  it,  and  enjoyed  spending 
it  for  the  benefit  of  other  people,  many  of  whom  didn't  know  how  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  The  remark  shows  his  somewhat  paternal 
attitude  toward  society,  and  explains  many  of  his  projects. 

7Pantagraph,  Mar.  18,  25,  1888.  Thomas  Slade  in  Bloomington  Leader, 
Mar.  2,  1877.  Bloomington  Eye,  Mar.  25,  1888. 

"Turner  to  Fell,  Jan.  i,  1879.  Bryant  to  Fell,  Feb.  25,  1885.  Ames  to 
Fell,  Mar.  20,  1883. 


114  JESSE  W.   PELL  [378 

time  and  attention  and  his  unqualified  assent,  was  that  of  woman 
suffrage,  then  in  the  days  of  its  greatest  struggle  for  a  hearing. 
When  Susan  B.  Anthony  debated  with  President  Hewitt  of  the 
normal  school,  it  was  he  who  introduced  the  pioneer  suffrage 
advocate,  and  in  his  home  she  was  entertained.9 

Some  time  was  spent  in  travel.  In  1872  he  made  his  first 
trip  to  the  Pacific  coast.10  In  1873  he  paid  a  visit  to  his  old  home 
in  Pennsylvania,  and  treasured  until  his  death  the  memory  of 
drinking  water  again  at  the  spring  in  the  milk-house,  sitting  by 
the  fire-side,  and  having  tea  with  the  hospitable  people  who  had 
bought  his  father's  old  farm.  He  spent  the  night  with  R.  Henry 
Carter,  as  he  had  the  last  night  before  starting  for  the  West 
in  1828.  In  later  years  he  took,  with  various  members  of  his 
family,  trips  through  the  farther  West,  which  seemed  to  him  a 
wonderful  new  world.  He  was  planning  a  winter  in  California 
when  overtaken  by  his  last  illness.11 

In  ripening  years  a  keen  sense  of  humor,  which  during  his 
more  strenuous  days  was  either  subordinated  to  more  important 
things,  or  forgotten  by  others  in  the  memory  of  accomplishment, 
found  frequent  expression.  It  crept  into  conversation,  bright- 
ened letters,  even  led  to  gentle  Quaker  jokes.  These  he  could 
take  as  well  as  give,  as  two  newspaper  notices,  quoted  by  Mr. 
Lewis,  prove.12  The  first  appeared  on  January  28,  1874,  and 
read — "J.  W.  Fell  mourns  the  loss  of  an  umbrella,  left  in  the 
court  room  yesterday.  He  would  be  pleased  if  the  finder  would 
leave  it  at  the  Pantagraph  office."  The  sequel  came  the  next 
day:  "J.  W.  Fell  desires  to  return  thanks  for  the  generous 
supply  of  umbrellas  left  for  him  at  the  Pantagraph  office  yester- 
day in  answer  to  his  advertisement  of  one  lost.  Altho  most  of 
these  offerings  are  better  adapted  to  dry  weather  than  wet,  Mr. 
Fell  is  not  disposed  to  look  a  gift  horse  in  the  mouth,  but  accepts 
the  varied  assortment  with  the  feeling  that  it  is  pleasant  to  be 
remembered  in  the  hour  of  one's  distress." 

»Fell  to  Sarah  E.  Raymond  (Mrs.  S.  R.  Fitzwilliam),  Nov.  22,  1886. 
"Leonard  Swett  to  Thomas  A.  Scott,  Sept.  6,  1872. 
"Newspaper  clipping  in  the  Scrap  Book,  Sept.  8,  1884.    Bloomington 
Leader,  Feb.  18,  1887. 
12Lewis,  Life,  104. 


379]  THE  LAST  YEARS  115 

It  was  a  few  years  later  that  a  young  girl  invited  him  to 
a  dance.    The  reply  was  as  follows:13 
Miss  Florence  Richardson: 

The  fair  invites !  and  so,  you  bet, 

Your  invitation  I'll  accept 

But  I  must  tell  you  in  advance 

My  Quaker  foot  it  will  not  dance. 

A  thousand  times  I  have  lamented 

That  Fox  and  Penn  were  so  demented 

As  to  proscribe  what  all  can  see 

With  half  an  eye,  is  poetry; 

If  not  in  words,  in  what  is  better,— 

In  motion,  life,  spirit,  letter. 

Yes,  if  I  could,  I'd  skip  and  prance 

In  all  the  ecstacy  of  dance; 

For  I  am  young,  and  supple  too, 

I'm  not  quite  three-score  ten  and  two. 

But  what's  the  use?    My  education's 

So  neglected  I'd  scare  the  nation! 

So  goodbye  dance,  it's  not  for  me, 

As  you  and  all  can  plainly  see. 

But,  what  of  that?    I  shall  propose 

To  play  a  game  of  dominoes; 

And  if  perchance  you're  so  inclined 

Will  play  a  game  of  mind  with  mind, 

Holding  to  each  other's  view 

The  things  of  life,  both  old  and  new ; 

The  ups  and  downs,  the  weals  and  woes 

That  follow  man,  where'er  he  goes. 
Meet  at  the  hotel?    Very  well, 

There  you'll  find  Yours, 

J.  W.  Fell. 

These  instances  will  suffice  to  show  the  quality  of  the  humor 
in  which  he  met  the  days  of  declining  strength.  His  last  years 
were  happy  as  they  were  busy.  "I  was  glad  to  know,"  wrote 
John  H.  Bryant  to  him  in  1885,  "that  you  had  got  beyond  all 
fears  of  the  future,  that  terrible  burden  that  weighs  down  with 
gloom,  misery,  and  wretched  forebodings  so  many  of  our  race, 
and  especially  innocent  children  who  are  reared  under  orthodox 
instruction."14 

In  the  winter  of  1885-86  he  suffered  a  severe  illness,  begin- 
ning with  an  attack  of  pneumonia  in  December,  from  which  his 

"Jan.  24,  1880.    Newspaper  clipping  in  Scrap  Book,  and  manuscript. 

Normal,  Jan.,  1880. 
"Bryant  to  Fell,  Feb.  25,  1885. 


116  JESSE   W.   FELL  [380 

convalescence  was  very  slow.  At  times  his  family  despaired 
of  his  recovery.  He  did  rally,  however,  and  grew  stronger  dur- 
ing the  summer,  so  that  people  hoped  he  might  be  spared  for 
several  years.  But  when  cold  weather  came  again,  there  was  a 
relapse.  He  became  really  ill  in  January,  but  refused  to  stay 
closely  at  home.  In  February  he  spent  two  days  in  Chicago, 
attending  to  business  for  the  Normal  School  which  urgently 
demanded  attention.  He  returned  to  his  home  in  a  very  serious 
condition,  made  worse  perhaps  by  worry  over  school  affairs, 
then  at  a  most  critical  juncture.  The  family  physician,  in  con- 
sultation with  others,  pronounced  it  a  case  of  anaemia  of  the 
brain.  For  a  week  he  lay  in  a  comatose  sleep.  Rousing  himself 
finally,  he  spoke  to  members  of  the  family,  repeated  Pope's 
''Universal  Prayer",  a  favorite  poem,  and  the  "Now  I  Lay  me" 
which  he  had  said  since  boyhood.  His  death  occurred  on  Feb- 
ruary 25,  1887." 

The  usual  marks  of  respect  and  regret  at  the  death  of  a 
prominent  and  beloved  citizen  were  paid  him.  Telegrams,  let- 
ters, and  flowers  were  sent  from  far  and  near.  Newspapers 
printed  eulogies  and  reviewed  his  life  and  work.  Town  councils, 
the  Bloomington  Bar  Association,  churches,  schools,  passed  reso- 
lutions of  respect.16  The  funeral,  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  Feb- 
ruary, was  held  in  the  large  assembly  hall  of  the  Normal 
School;  no  church  could  have  held  the  crowds  that  attended. 
The  public  schools  were  closed.  Business  in  Normal  was  sus- 
pended.17 Special  cars  were  run  from  Bloomington  to  Normal, 
to  accommodate  the  people  who  wished  to  pay  the  last  honors 
to  Jesse  Fell.  The  aisles,  corridors,  and  stairs,  and  the  steps  of 
the  building  were  filled  with  silent  mourners  who  could  not  find 
room  in  the  hall.  Rev.  Richard  Edwards,  his  old  friend  and 
neighbor,  preached  the  funeral  sermon.  Mr.  Fell  had  selected 
him  for  this  duty,  pledging  him  to  the  briefest  possible  account 
of  his  accomplishment,  a  pledge  which  Dr.  Edwards  kept  at  the 
cost  of  some  criticism  from  those  who  did  not  understand  the 
circumstances. 

^Chicago  Tribune,  Feb.  26,  1887.  Pantograph,  Mar.  7,  15,  19,  1887. 
Richard  Edwards  to  Fell,  Feb.  4,  1887. 

16A  lodge  of  Knights  of  Pythias,  shortly  after  organized  in  Bloom- 
ington, was  named  for  him,  altho  he  himself  was  never  a  member 
of  any  such  organization. 

"Bloomington  Leader,  Feb.  26,  1887.  California  (Missouri)  Demo- 
crat, Mar.  3,  1887,  quoting  from  St.  Louis  Republican  of  Feb.  26,  1887. 


381]  THE  LAST  YEARS  117 

The  service  over,  the  procession  formed  for  the  long  drive 
to  the  cemetery  at  Bloomington.  No  tribute  could  have  been 
more  eloquent  than  the  appearance  of  the  funeral  procession. 
The  country  roads  were  as  bad  as  Illinois  country  roads  can  be 
in  spring,  but  carriages,  carts  and  heavy  farm  wagons  had  come 
in  from  all  the  surrounding  country.  Shabby  and  smart  vehicles 
alternated  in  the  line  that  followed  the  hearse;  and  the  proces- 
sion was  so  long  that  when  the  last  mourners  were  leaving  the 
Normal  School,  the  first  ones  had  reached  the  court  house  in 
Bloomington.  The  Bloomington  school  children  joined  those  of 
Normal  at  this  point.18 

There  was  sincere  mourning,  for  in  death  men  pay  eager 
tribute  to  qualities  which  are  accepted  without  appreciation,  or 
quite  ignored,  in  life.  Mr.  Fell  had  not  been  unappreciated  in 
life.  He  had  won  from  men  the  only  thing  he  asked  of  them, 
a  trust  and  goodwill  answering  to  that  he  bore  them.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  those  among  whom  he  lived  had  any  adequate  idea  of  the 
part  he  had  played  in  public  affairs  for  many  years,  and  few  of 
them  understood  the  magnitude  of  the  work  of  development 
which  he,  and  others  like  him,  accomplished  for  the  Middle  West. 
But  those  personal  qualities  which  distinguished  him  among 
men,  all  men  saw  and  honored.  "It  is  a  good  thing,"  said  Judge 
James  Ewing  of  him,  in  voicing  this  appreciation,  "to  have 
known  one  man  whose  life  was  without  spot  or  blemish ;  against 
whose  honor  no  man  ever  spoke;  who  had  no  skeleton  in  his 
closet;  whose  life  was  open  as  the  day  and  whose  death  comes 
to  a  whole  community  as  a  personal  sorrow."  And  John  W. 
Cook,  who  knew  him  well,  said  of  him  at  the  memorial  service 
held  in  his  own  church  on  the  sixth  of  March  :19 

"In  that  picture  gallery  of  the  soul  that  we  call  memory, 
there  will  always  be  a  gracious  presence.  The  personality  is 
vivid ;  the  outlines  are  sharply  defined ;  the  face  is  full  of  earnest 
purpose ;  every  line  is  suggestive  of  tireless  energy  and  the  rad- 
iance of  hope.  A  simple,  honest,  unostentatious  man;  yet 
wherever  he  has  gone  good  deeds  have  marked  his  footsteps.  As 
if  by  magic,  stately  trees  have  sprung  from  the  path  over  which 

18The  telephone  was  then  just  coming  into  use,  and  the  one  connect- 
ing the  court  house  with  the  Normal  School  was  used  on  this  occasion 
by  Henry  Augustine,  who  had  charge  of  arrangements,  and  who  related 
the  details  given  to  the  writer. 

19James  S.  Ewing  in  the  Fell  Memorial.  Pantograph,  Mar.  /,  1887; 
Mar.  27,  1890;  June  20,  1892. 


118  JESSE  W.   FELL  [382 

he  has  walked.  In  their  gracious  shade  generations  yet  unborn 
shall  mention  his  name  with  gratitude.  Institutions  whose  only 
aim  is  helpfulness  to  man  record  his  generosity  and  public 
spirit." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

I.  MANUSCRIPTS. 

The  Fell  Manuscripts. — A  collection  of  letters,  memoranda,  drafts, 
and  other  documents,  in  the  possession  of  the  Misses  Alice  and  Fannie 
Fell,  of  Normal,  Illinois.  Unless  otherwise  indicated,  all  references  to 
manuscripts  are  to  parts  of  this  collection.  Transcripts  in  the  Historical 
Survey,  University  of  Illinois. 

The  Lewis  Life  of  Jesse  W.  Fell. — A  manuscript  biography  by  Ed- 
ward J.  Lewis,  a  friend  of  Mr.  Fell,  written  about  1900.  It  was  prepared 
from  facts  gained  by  long  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Fell,  from 
access  to  sources  in  the  Fell  Manuscripts,  and  from  notes  by  Richard 
Edwards.  In  the  possession  of  the  Misses  Fell.  Referred  to  as  the 
Lewis  Life. 

Notes  by  Richard  Edwards,  in  the  possession  of  his  daughter,  Miss 
Ellen  S.  Edwards,  of  Bloomington,  Illinois.  These  are  contemporary 
notes  of  interviews  with  Mr.  Fell  regarding  events  extending  down  to 
about  1840. 

The  Fell  Memorial. — A  collection  of*  sketches  and  appreciations  of 
Mr.  Fell  by  various  personal  friends.  In  the  possession  of  the  Misses 
Fell.  The  page  references  to  the  Memorial  in  this  thesis  refer  to  the 
abridged  transcript  in  the  Illinois  Historical  Survey,  University  of 
Illinois. 

Flagg  Manuscripts. — Transcripts  in  the  Illinois  Historical  Survey, 
University  of  Illinois. 

Photostatic  reproductions  of  letters  from  Fell  to  Trumbull,  from  the 
Trumbull  Papers  in  the  Library  of  Congress,  Washington.  The  repro- 
ductions are  in  the  Illinois  Historical  Survey. 

Transcripts  from  Records  of  the  War  Department  and  Copyright 
Office,  Washington,  in  the  possession  of  the  author. 

Brush,  Elizabeth  P.  The  Political  Career  of  Owen  Lovejoy.  Manu- 
script thesis,  University  of  Illinois,  1912. 

II.  PERIODICALS. 

Files  of  the  Bloomington  Observer  and  McLean  County  Advocate, 
the  Western  Whig,  the  Intelligencer,  the  Pantagraph,  in  the  McLean 
County  Historical  Society  Collection,  Court  House,  Bloomington. 

The  Illinois  Teacher. 

McClure's  Magazine. 

Clippings  from  newspapers.  A  collection  of  these  in  a  book,  in  the 
possession  of  Miss  Alice  Fell,  of  Normal,  is  referred  to  as  the  Scrap 
Book. 

119 


120  JESSE  W.   PELL  [384 

III.  DOCUMENTS. 

United  States  Congress,  Statutes  at  Large. 

Illinois,  Session  Laws. 

Illinois  State  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  Reports. 

IV.  MISCELLANEOUS. 

Arnold,  Isaac  N.     The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Chicago,  1891. 

Elaine,  James  G.  Twenty  Years  of  Congress.  Norwich,  Conn. 
1884-6. 

Browne,  Robert  H.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Men  of  His  Time. 
2  vols.  Chicago,  1907. 

Brownson,  Howard  G.  A  History  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad 
to  1870.  Urbana,  1915.  University  of  Illinois  Studies  in  the  Social  Sci- 
ences, IV. 

Cunningham,  Joseph  C.  (editor).  History  of  Champaign  County, 
with  Newton  Bateman  and  Paul  Selby's  Historical  Encyclopedia  of  Illi- 
nois. Chicago,  1905. 

Duis,  E.    Good  Old  Times  in  McLean  County.    Bloomington,  1874. 

Ford,  Thomas.     History  of  Illinois.    Chicago,  1854. 

Herndon,  William  H.,  and  J.  W.  Weik.  Lincoln,  the  true  story  of  a 
great  life.  3  vols.  Chicago,  New  York,  and  San  Francisco,  1889. 

Hill,  Frederick  Trevor.     Lincoln  the  Lawyer.     New  York,  1006. 

History  of  McLean  County,  Illinois.     Chicago,  1879. 

James,  Edmund  Janes.  Origin  of  the  Land  Grant  Act  of  1862. 
University  of  Illinois  Studies,  IV,  No.  7. 

Lamon,  Ward  H.    The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln.    Boston,  1872. 

Lapsley,  Arthur  B.  (editor).  The  Writings  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
New  York,  1005. 

McLean  County  Historical  Transactions.     Bloomington,  1809. 

Moses,  John.  Illinois,  Historical  and  Statistical.  2  vols.  Chicago, 
1892. 

Newton,  Joseph  Fort.  Lincoln  and  Herndon.  Cedar  Rapids,  Iowa, 
1910. 

Nicolay,  John  G.,  and  Hay,  John.  Abraham  Lincoln:  a  History.  10 
vols.  New  York,  1890. 

Oldroyd,  Osborn  H.    Lincoln  Memorial  Album.     Springfield,  1882. 

Peck,  John  Mason.     Gazeteer  of  Illinois.    Jacksonville,  Illinois,  1834. 

Portrait  and  Biographical  Album  of  McLean  County.     Chicago,  1887. 

Prince,  Ezra  M.,  and  John  H.  Burnham.  History  of  McLean  County, 
in  Newton  Bateman  and  Paul  Selby's  Historical  Encyclopedia  of  Illinois. 
Chicago,  1008.  2  vols. 

Scott,  Franklin  W.  Newspapers  and  Periodicals  of  Illinois,  1814- 
1879.  Springfield,  1910.  Illinois  Historical  Collections,  VI. 

Stevenson,  Adlai  E.  Something  of  Men  I  Have  Known.  Chicago, 
1909. 

Tarbell,  Ida  M.  The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  New  York, 
1896. 


385]  BIBLIOGRAPHY  121 

Tarbell,  Ida  M.  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  2  vols.  New  York, 
1900. 

Thompson,  Charles  M.  A  Study  of  the  Administration  of  Governor 
Thomas  Ford.  Springfield,  1911.  Illinois  Historical  Collections,  VII. 

Weldon,  Lawrence.  "Reminiscences  of  Lincoln  as  a  Lawyer,"  in 
Abraham  Lincoln,  Tribute  from  his  Associates.  Pp.  237-255.  New  York, 
ca,  1889. 

Whitney,  Henry  C.  Lincoln,  the  President.  2  vols.  New  York, 
1908. 


INDEX 


Abolition  movement,  54,  55,  93. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  99. 

Allin,  James,  17,  22,  24,  36. 

Allin,  William  A.,  113. 

Alton  and  Sangamon  R.  R.,  86. 

Ames,  Rev.  Charles  G.,  65,  94,  113. 

Amulet,  13. 

Anderson,  Dr.  John,  22. 

Anthony,  Susan  B.,  114. 

Arny,  W.  F.  M.,  47,  56. 

Barber,  Eliel,  93. 

Batavia  Institute,  42. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  74. 

Bishop,  Jesse,  66. 

Bissell,  Gov.,  41. 

Black  Betty,  50. 

Blackstone,  T.  B.,  ,89. 

Blakeslee,  Lyman,  33. 

Bloomington,  16,  19,  32,  106. 

Bloomington,  Kankakee  and  Indiana  State  Line  R.  R.,  88. 

Bloomington  and  Wabash  Valley  R.  R.,  87. 

Boyd,  Col.  W.  P.,  65. 

Brattan,  Frank,  28. 

Breese,  Sidney,  85. 

Brewster,  E.  W.,  39. 

Briar,  Dr.  David,  65. 

Brown,  Daniel,  no. 

Brown,  Eliza,  17. 

Brown,  Ellwood,  13. 

Brown,  Hester  Vernon,  26. 

Brown,  Jeremiah,  28. 

Brown,  Joshua,  16,  26. 

Brown,  George  E.,  in. 

Brown,  Milner,  no. 

Brown,  Rachel,  31. 

Brown,  William,  16. 

Brown's,  u. 

Bryant,  John  H.,  34,  70,  103,  113,  115. 

Buck,  Hiram,  44. 

Buckingham,  n. 

Burleigh,  Rec.  C.  C,  94, 

123 


124  JESSE   W.   PELL  [388 

Burr,  A.,  109. 
Byron,  Illinois,  32. 

Cabinet  appointments,  1860-61,  63. 
Cameron,  Simon,  63. 
Campbell,  Alexander,  42,  70. 
Carter,  R.  Henry,  12,  114. 
Caton,  J.  D.,  34. 
Charter  of  Normal,  73. 
Chippewa,  Wisconsin,  23. 
Clay,  Henry,  15,  28. 
Clinton,  Illinois,  20,  24,  32,  106. 
Colerain,  Pennsylvania,  n. 
College  and  Seminary  Fund,  45. 
Cook,  John  W.,  117. 
Covell,  M.  L.,  22,  85. 
Covell,  O.,  22. 
Cullom,  Shelby  M.,  70,  96. 
Cunningham,  J.  O.,  32. 

Daniels,  Mary,  34. 

Danner,  Henry  E.,  79. 

Danville,  Urbana  and  Pekin  R.  R.,  89. 

Davis,  David :  buys  Chicago  land  of  Fell,  22 ;  serves  as  best  man  at 
Fell's  wedding,  26;  takes  Fell's  law  practice,  27;  a  guest  at  Fell 
Park,  34 ;  a  Lincoln  supporter  in  1860,  61 ;  considered  for  a  cabinet 
position,  64 ;_  urged  by  Fell  for  supreme  bench,  66 ;  urges  resurvey 
of  Normal  Township,  73;  interested  in  retention  of  Chicago  and 
Alton  shops,  89;  decides  to  try  for  presidential  nomination,  1872, 
100;  elected  to  Senate,  1877,  112;  gives  part  of  Franklin  Park  to 
Bloomington,  113. 

Davis,  W.  O.,  34,  38,  68. 

Decatur,  Illinois,  32. 

Delavan,  Illinois,  16. 

Depew,  Elijah,  33. 

Dickey,  T.  L.,  55. 

Digest  of  State  Laws,  etc.,  28. 

Dodge,  John,  35,  74. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  19,  20,  85. 

Downington,  Pennsylvania,  9. 

Dwight,  Illinois,  32. 

Dubois,  Jesse  K.,  97,  99,  101. 

Duncan,  Gov.  Joseph,  20.  •  •«    •    • 

Dunn,  Dr.  McCann,  72. 

Durley,  William,  22. 

r 

Eastern  Illinois  Insane  Asylum,  84, 


389]  INDEX  125 

Eberhart,  John  F.,  42,  46,  76. 
Eclectic  Observer,  12,  38. 
Edwards,  Ninian  W.,  40. 
Edwards,  Richard,  II,  29,  74,  no,  113,  116. 
Ellis,  Rev.  Charles,  71. 
El  Paso,  Illinois,  32. 
Evans,  William,  16. 
"Evergreen  City",  107. 
Ewing,  James,  16,  18,  65,  117. 
Ewing,  William  L.  D.,  85. 

Fell,  Clara,  34. 
Fell,  Eliza,  30,  34,  68. 
Fell,  Hannah,  13. 
Fell,  Henry  C,  27,  30,  47,  70,  109. 
Fell,  Jesse,  ST.,  g,  53,  92. 
Fell,  Kersey,  24,  26,  33,  48,  83,  93,  112. 
Fell,  Rebecca,  13,  24,  26,  92. 
Fell,  Robert,  24,  31,  51. 
Fell,  Thomas,  24,  27. 
Fell  Park,  33,  107,  113. 
"Floats,"  22. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  98. 
"Gratz  Brown  Trick,"  104. 

Great  Western  R.  R.  Company,  85. 

Greeley,  Horace,  38,  104,  105. 

Gregory,  John  Milton,  80. 

Gridley,  Gen.  Asahel :  Bloomington's  leading  citizen,  1832,  17;  goes  to 
the  East  for  goods,  36;  begins  his  political  career,  50;  attitude  toward 
Illinois  Central,  85;  accused  of  self-interest,  89;  works  with  Fell 
against  Smith,  96;  wishes  to  retain  Dr.  Cromwell,  98;  endorses 
Horace  Greeley,  1872,  105. 

Griggs,  Clark  R.,  79. 

Harrison  Campaign,  1840,  50. 

Halstead,  Murat,  104. 

Hawley,  J.  A.,  39. 

Hewett,  C.  E.,  114. 

Hickman,  John,  62,  104. 

Hicksites,  92. 

Hill,  William,  36. 

Hogg,  Harvey,  65. 

Holder,  Charles  and  Richard,  48,  109. 

Hoopes,  Joshua,  10. 

Hovey,  Charles,  40,  46,  47,  67. 

Hunt,  Dr.  Charles  A.,  77. 

Hurwood,  Grace,  12,  18,  34, 


126  JESSE   W.   PELL  [390 

Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  51. 

Illinois  Central  R.  R.,  85. 

Illinois  Soldiers'  Orphans'  Home,  82,  112. 

Illinois  State  Normal  University,  45,  108,  116. 

Illinois  State  Reform  School,  83. 

Illinois  State  Teachers'  Association,  80. 

Illinois  Teacher,  40. 

Illinois  Wesleyan  University,  41. 

Industrial  University,  78. 

Ingersoll,  Robert  G.,  97. 

Johnson,  R.  H.,  37. 
Joliet,  Illinois,  32. 
Judd,  Norman  B.,  64. 

Kansas  Aid  Committee,  55. 
Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  53. 
Kimberton  Boarding  School,  24. 

LaFayette,  Bloomington  and  Mississippi  R.  R.,  89. 

Larchwood,  109. 

Leader,  97. 

Lee,  H.  H.,  39. 

Lee,  O.  H.,  86. 

LeRoy,  Illinois,  32. 

Lewis,  E.  J.,  16,  33. 

Lewis,  Joseph  J.,  29,  58,  60,  63,  64. 

Lexington,  Illinois,  32,  106. 

Liberal  Republican  Movement,  09. 

Lincoln,  Abraham :  in  the  Black  Hawk  War,  1832,  16 ;  meets  Fell,  19 ; 
with  Fell  works  for  Stuart,  1838,  20;  Fell  writes  him  about  Mexican 
War,  31 ;  a  guest  at  Fell  Park,  34;  draws  up  bond  for  I.  S.  N.  U., 
45;  the  Lost  Speech,  54;  appointed  on  Kansas  Aid  Committee,  56; 
nominated  for  Senate,  1858.  57 ;  autobiography,  58 ;  introduced  to 
Pennsylvania,  60 ;  Cameron,  63 ;  Judd,  64 ;  appoints  Fell  paymaster, 
68;  assassination  of,  70. 

Lincoln-Douglas  debates,  suggested  by  Fell,  57. 

Lincoln,  Illinois,  32. 

Little  Britain,  Pa.,  11. 

Livingston  County,  33. 

Lockwood,  Judge,  15. 

Logan,  John  A.,  112. 

Lovejoy,  Owen,  34,  54,  62,  65,  66. 

McCambridge,  William,  34. 

McCook,  Captain,  68. 

McLean  County,  16,  18,  20,  24,  33,  70,  78,  96,  100. 


391]  INDEX  127 

McLean  County  Register,  37. 
McNulta,  Gen.  John,  98. 
McRoberts,  Judge,  15. 
Magoun,  John,  93,  109. 
Major's  Hall,  47,  53. 
Mann,  Horace,  45. 
May,  W.  L.,  20,  23. 
Merriam,  Col.  Jonathan,  98. 
Merriman,  A.  J.,  44. 
Merriman,  Charles  P.,  37,  65. 
Merriman,  H.  P.,  65. 
Mexican  War,  protest,  31. 
Mills,  Benjamin,  20. 
Milwaukee,  23. 
Minier,  George  W.,  66. 
Minonk,  Illinois,  32. 
Mitchell,  R.  B.,  37. 
Moon,  John  W.  S.,  85. 
Morrill  Bill,  77. 
Moulton,  S.  W.,  97,  112. 

New  Salem,  Illinois,  16. 

Normal,  Illinois,  32,  74,  106. 

North  Bloomington,  Illinois,  32,  41,  45,  86. 

Northern  Illinois  Horticultural  Society,  79. 

Oglesby,  Gov.,  73,  77,  101. 
Oldroyd  controversy,  59. 
"Other  Side,  The,"  96. 
Osborn,  Gen.  Thomas,  74. 
Overman,  C.  R.,  73. 

Palmer,  Gov.,  82,  90,  97,  99,  101,  104,  112. 

Panic  of  1837,  47. 

Pantograph,  37. 

Paymaster's  service,  68. 

Payne,  Dr.  Joseph,  42. 

Payson  Farm,  30. 

Pekin,  Bloomington  and  Wabash  R.  R.,  85. 

Pennell,  William  A.,  74,  76. 

Pennsylvania  campaign,  1860,  62. 

Phillips,  E.  J.,  20. 

Pike,  Meshac,  42. 

Phoenix,  F.  K.,  31. 

Pontiac,  32,  83,  106. 

Preemption  laws,  22. 

Price,  Franklin,  14. 


128  JESSE   W.   PELL  [392 

Price,  Issacher,  u,  59. 
Prince,  E.  M.,  17,  29,  65,  70. 
Public  school  law,  39. 

Quincy  road,  31. 

Real  estate  operations,  32,  86,  109. 

Reeder,  Addison,  75. 

Republican  party  in  Illinois,  53,  61. 

Repudiation  in  Illinois,  51. 

Resurvey  of  Normal  Township,  73. 

Rex,  Dr.  George  P.,  48. 

Reynolds,  Gov.  John,  23. 

Richardson,  Miss  Florence,  115. 

Ridgley,  N.  H.,  20. 

Robinson,  James  C,  98. 

Roe,  E.  R.,  38,  65. 

Rogers,  T.  P.,  65. 

Rood,  E.  H.,  109. 

Ruggles,  Benjamin,  13. 

Saunders,  William,  34,  108. 

Schurz,  Carl,  99. 

Scibird  and  Waters,  38,  97. 

Sewall,  J.  A.,  106. 

Seward,  unpopular  in  Pennsylvania,  59. 

Sharpless,  Rachel,  26. 

Shaw,  Henry,  109. 

Shaw,  James,  93. 

Smith,  Gen.  Giles  A.,  96. 

Smith,  Milton,  44. 

Smith,  Rodney,  68. 

Snow  Brothers,  71. 

Snow,  D.  J.,  65. 

Sorghum,  75. 

Spawr,  Jacob,  30. 

Spencer,  Hamilton,  65,  84. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  15. 

State  Bank  of  Illinois,  20,  51. 

State  Industrial  League,  40. 

Sterlein,  Mayor,  105. 

Steubenville,  13. 

Stevenson,  Adlai  E.,  102,  104. 

Stokeley  and  Marsh,  14,  17. 

Stokeley,  Gen.  Samuel,  27,  62. 

Stuart,  John  T.,  15,  18,  70. 

Sumner,  Charles,  99, 


393]  INDEX  129 

Swamp  lands,  McLean  County,  47. 
Sweet,  Leonard,  34,  54,  61,  69,  100,  102. 
Sykes,  Richard,  no. 

Taylor,  James  P.,  38. 

Tazewell  County,  19,  24,  88. 

Thompson,  Rev.  J.  F.,  94. 

Towanda,  32. 

Trumbull,  Lyman,  66,  99. 

Turner,  Jonathan  B.,  40,  77,  80,  113. 

Tyler,  President,  28. 

Ullin,  Illinois,  33. 
Underwood,  I.  N.,  37. 
University  of  Illinois,  45,  77. 

Vandalia,  19. 
Vermilion  County,  33. 

Wabash  and  Warsaw  R.  R.,  87. 

Washington  Academy,  42. 

Weldon,  Lawrence,  19,  84,  113. 

Wentworth,  Judge  John,  104,  112. 

Western  Whig,  37. 

White,  Horace,  62,  101,  103,  105. 

Whittier,  John  G.,  94. 

Wilkins,  Daniel,  39. 

Williams,  R.  E.,  32,  89,  109. 

Withers,  Allen,  65. 

Wood,  Gov.  John,  31. 

Wright,  Rev.  Nathaniel,  26. 

Wright,  Simeon  W.,  43. 

Yates,  Gov.  Richard,  Sr.,  48,  53,  66. 

Young,  Richard  M.,  24.