Peoria Township History
Second Nat'l Bank...Davis &
Hogue...H. Thielbar...H & N. Kreisman...Mechanics Nat'l Bank...S. Pulsifer & Co.
City of Peoria
Atlas Map of Peoria County, Illinois, 1873,
page 19
Early History - French Settlement
"The old village of
Peoria was situated on the northwest shore of Lake Peoria, about one mile and a
half above the lower extremity of the lake. This village had been inhabited by
the French previous to the recollection of any of the present generation. About
the year 1778 or 1779, the first house was built in what was then called LaVille
de Maillet, afterwards the new village of Peoria, and of late the place has been
known by the name of Fort Clark, situated about one mile and a half below the
old village, immediately at the lower point or outlet of Lake Peoria. The
situation being preferred on account of the water being better and its being
thought more healthy. The inhabitants gradually deserted the old village, and by
the year 1796 or 1797 had entirely abandoned it and removed to the new village.
"The inhabitants of Peoria consisted generally of
Indian traders, hunters and voyageurs, and had formed a link of connection
between the French residing on the waters of the great lakes and the Mississippi
river. From that happy faculty of adapting themselves to their situation and
associates for which the French are so remarkable, the inhabitants of Peoria
lived generally in harmony with their savage neighbors. It would seem, however,
that about the year 1781 they were induced to abandon the village from
apprehension of Indian hostilities; but soon after the peace of 1783 they again
returned, and continued to reside there until the Autumn of 1812, when they were
forcibly removed from it, and the place destroyed by Capt. Craig, of the
Illinois militia, on the ground, as it is said, that he and his company of
militia were fired on in the night, while at anchor in their boats, before the
village, by Indians, with whom the inhabitants were suspected by Craig to be too
intimate and friendly.
"The inhabitants of Peoria, it would appear from all I
can learn, settled there without any grant or permission from the authority of
any government: that the only title they had to their lands was derived from
possession, and the only value attached to it grew out of the improvements
placed upon it. That each person took to himself such portion of unoccupied land
as he wished to occupy and cultivate, and made it his own by incorporating his
labor with it, but as soon as he abandoned it his title was understood to cease,
with his possession and improvements, and it reverted to its natural state, and
was liable again to be improved and possessed by any one who should think
proper. This, together with the itinerant character of the inhabitants, will
account for the number of persons who will frequently be found; from the
testimony contained in the report, to have occupied the same lot, many of whom,
it will be seen, present conflicting claims.
"As is usual in French villages, the possession in
Peoria consisted generally in village lots, on which they erected their
buildings and made their gardens, and of outlets or fields, in which they
cultivated grain, etc. The village lots contained, in general, about, one-half
of an arpent of land; the outlots or fields were of various sizes, depending on
the industry or means of the owner to cultivate more or less land.
"As neither the old nor new village of Peoria was ever
formally laid out or had defined limits assigned them, it is impossible to have
of them an accurate map. * * * * I have not been able to ascertain with
precision on what particular quarter-sections of the military survey these
claims are situated."
This is the first written reference to the French
settlement at Peoria we have been able to find, and it is indefinite and
unsatisfactory. There is no authority extant, so far as we can find, to show
that there were any French people here previous to 1760, or until eighty years
after LaSalle's party left.
Under a treaty made by the United States with Great
Britain in 1783, and under the Jay treaty made in 1794, the French people in
Illinois became citizens of the government of the United States. When the war
broke out between Great Britain and the United States, it was treason under the
terms of these treaties for the French to take sides with the British or British
allies, the Indians. But notwithstanding this, the Peoria French were charged
with obtaining ammunition and other munitions of war from the British in Canada,
and with furnishing it to the Indians; with murdering the American settlers in
the southern part of the Illinois Territory, and Captain John Baptiste Maillet,
the chief military man at Peoria, who was afterward rewarded for his supposed
fidelity to the government of the United States, was openly charged with
stealing cattle from the settlers in the Wood river country, in Madison county,
and driving them north to feed the Indians. Whether true or false, these stories
had sufficient plausibility to demand investigation from Governor Edwards, and
he ordered Captain Craig, of the Illinois militia, "to ascend the Illinois river
— there were no roads between the southern part of the territory and Peoria then
— to ascertain the truth or falsity of these accusations, and to act
accordingly. That Governor Edwards believed they were founded in fact, is
evidenced by the following letter to Mr. Eustis, then United States Secretary of
War, under date of August 4, 1812, in which he said, speaking of the Indians:
"Those near Peoria are constantly killing and eating
the cattle of the people of that village. The Indians on the Illinois are well
supplied with English powder, and have been selling some of it to the white
people. A few days ago they sent some of their party with five horses to the Sac
village for lead." In a postscript to this letter he added: "No troops of any
kind have yet arrived in this territory, and I think you may count upon hearing
of a bloody stroke upon us very soon. I have been extremely reluctant to send my
family away, but unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a few rangers, I
shall bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and stand my ground as
long as possible."
Craig's command reached Peoria in small row-boats on
the 5th of November, 1812, remained four days, and left on the 9th. In his
report to Governor Edwards he stated that on his arrival at Peoria he was told
the Indians had all left, but that he believed from the actions of the citizens
the statements were false; that the sentinels on his boats could see them
passing through town with candles, and hear their canoes crossing the river all
night during the time he remained. On the night of the 6th of November the wind
blew so hard they were forced to drop down the river about a quarter of a mile
below town, where they cast anchor, but the wind continued with such force that
their cable parted and the armed boat drifted ashore. Between the break of day
and daylight on the morning of the 7th, the boat was fired on, as Captain Craig
thought, by ten or more guns, not more than thirty yards distant from the boat.
Arrangements were made immediately to give the Indians battle, but it seems they
fell back and escaped as soon as they had discharged their pieces. Immediately
after daylight Captain Craig landed his boats opposite the center of the village
and sent to know what had become of the citizens, to which he received the reply
from those interrogated that they had heard or seen nothing unusual. He then
sent to the place from which his boat had been fired upon, and found plenty of
tracks leading up to the village. This was sufficient to convince Captain Craig
that the Frenchmen there were not faithful to the Americans and that they were
in league with the Indians and siding with the British, and ordered them taken
prisoners. He found them all in one house, and their guns were empty and had the
appearance of having just been discharged. We quote in full the concluding part
of Captain Craig's report:
"I gave them time to collect their property, which was
done immediately. Howard's express came on board my boat and told me that seven
of the citizens went out (they said to hunt beef) the morning we were fired
upon. They started about the break of day, and returned about daylight. He said
perhaps there were more, for they would never let him know what they were going
to do, and would talk together in his absence. We stayed two days after they
were taken prisoners. I made them furnish their own rations all the time I kept
them. I burnt down about half of the town of Peoria, and I would have burnt the
whole and destroyed all the stock, but I still expected Hopkins' army to pass
the place. I found four American muskets in their possession, and one keg of
musket balls, and one musket in the house under the floor, and some brass musket
moulds. On our way down the river, they were all unarmed. I gave them permission
to camp on shore, while I anchored in the river. They always preferred the
Indian side for their camping ground."
This is all we find in this report about the old French
village of Peoria. Captain Craig does not give any estimate of the population
nor the extent of improvements, and much less of the character of the
inhabitants. Mr. C. Ballance, in his history of the city of Peoria, published in
1870, says on this subject:
"I apprehend that the men LaSalle and others brought
here were of the lower class, and the most ignorant of the French population. If
not, they had woefully deteriorated between the time they were brought here and
the destruction of their village. I have not been able to ascertain the
population of Peoria, when the village was broken up by Captain Craig. Every man
of them, I believe is dead, except Robert Forsyth, of St. Louis, who was then a
boy. I wrote to him for a list of them, as near as his recollection could
furnish it, and I suppose he knows, for besides being born among them, he spent
fifteen years in hunting them up, and bringing and conducting suits, in which he
derived his title through them; but he has never answered my letter. Nor do I
find any record or history giving the number of the population at that time.
From all information I possess, I can only find the names of sixteen men who
were there (here) at the time. As this statement will probably be disputed, I
here insert their names: Thomas Forsyth, Louis Pilette, Jaques Mette, Pierre
Lavoisseur dit Chamberlain, Antoine LeClair, Michael LeCroix, Francis Racine,
sen., Francis Racine, jun., John Baptiste de Fond, Felix Fontaine, Louis Binet,
Hypolite Maillet, Francis Buche, Charles LaBelle, Antoine LePance, and Antoine
Bourbonne. Of these, Michael LeCroix escaped to Canada and accepted a commission
from the enemy, and fought against us. Others claimed lots by reason of their
residence at this place; but the proof on file at the land office, an abstract
of which can be found in the third volume of American State Papers, page 422,
shows that they had previously abandoned the place, some of them more than
twenty years before. But I will suppose I have overlooked some, which is
possible, and call the number twenty-five. Then, if these men had, on an average
five in a family, which is the usual calculation, we have in this village, that
has made so much noise and caused so much trouble, a population of one hundred
and twenty-five souls, all told; and, except these, I know of no French
inhabitants on the Illinois river in those days, nor between the Mississippi and
Wabash, excepting, always, a very ancient Frenchman, by the name of Bissow
(pronounced Besaw), who always lived at Wesley, then called the Trading House. I
have seen many affidavits and other papers signed by these men, but signed with
a mark. I remember as exceptions to this rule that Thomas Forsyth, Michael
LeCroix and Antoine LaPance wrote their names. There were probably others that
could write, but I do not remember them. I recollect no case where a French
woman could write her name. The depositions in the Peoria French claims at
Edwardsville, and in the many suits brought on them, will show if I am right.
These were fishermen and hunters, and not farmers. All the fields they pretended
ever to have in cultivation amounted to less than three hundred acres, even if
none of the fields had been deserted before they left. When the village was
burnt I think they had less than two hundred acres in cultivation. They,
however, sometimes acted as voyageurs for the Indian traders, but of
manufactures they had none. They had not a school-house or church, nor a
dwelling-house that deserved the name. I saw and examined the ground on which
their houses had stood, before it was disturbed, and I am able to state that
there was not a stone nor brick wall in the village, for any purpose, nor was
there a cellar. Some of the houses had a small place excavated under the floor
in front of the fire-place, for potatoes. Some of the houses had posts in the
ground, and some were framed with sills ; but instead of being boarded up as
with us, the space between the posts was filled with pieces of timber laid
horizontally, with mud between them. The chimneys were made of mud and sticks.
That they had no gardens, in the common acceptation of the term, is manifest
from this: many of the cultivated plants, when once introduced in a place, will
never cease to grow there. This is true of all the fruits that grow in this
climate, and it is true of many herbs, and of some culinary vegetables. Every
one knows that long after a farm is deserted, the apple trees and gooseberry and
currant bushes will continue to grow; and tansey, flags, lilies, mustard and
many other plants, were never known to voluntarily abandon the place where they
had once grown. Yet, when the present population commenced to settle here, about
forty (fifty?) years ago, there was not to be found in this vestige of a tree,
shrub or plant belonging to Europe. They would have made wine of the sour grapes
of the woods, if they had had sugar to assuage its acidity and cellars to
preserve it, but the sugar could not then be afforded, and the cellars they had
not. And we know they had no French grapes, for the reason above—no vines remain
* * * *."
SECOND EXPEDITION TO PEORIA—FORT CLARK
A second expedition to the Lake Peoria country was
planned and carried out in the Summer and Fall of 1813. Large numbers of
Indians, disaffected with the turn of affairs between the British and American
Governments, collected among the Pottawatomies and Kickapoos, from whence they
made frequent predatory raids on the frontiers of Illinois and Missouri. These
harrassments were so annoying and threatening that a joint expedition from
Illinois and Missouri was projected, an army of 900 men were collected, of which
Gen. Howard — who had resigned the governorship of Missouri to accept a
Brigadier General's commission in the United States army — was placed in
command. Most of the Illinois troops concentrated at Camp Russell, near
Edwardsville, in Madison county, from whence one company was ordered to the
Mississippi, at a point called the Piasa, opposite the Portage des Sioux, where
it remained several weeks, during which time the men suffered seriously from
sickness. The Illinois troops were organized as the second regiments, with
Benjamin Stephenson, of Randolph county, as colonel; W. B. Whiteside and John
Moredock, majors, and Joseph Phillips, Samuel Judy, Nathaniel Journey and Samuel
Whiteside as captains. When the time for the forward movement came, the
Illinoisans marched up the Mississippi river by companies, to the Illinois,
which they crossed a few miles above its mouth. The Missouri division marched up
the west side of the Mississippi for a distance of one hundred miles, and
crossed to Illinois, at Fort Mason, where a junction was formed with the
Illinois division. The Missourians crossed the Mississippi by swimming their
horses, on which they were mounted, naked. Their clothes were carried across on
a platform supported by two canoes. The Missouri division was commanded by
Colonel McNair, who was afterwards made Governor of the State. After crossing,
the whole force was re-organized, of which General Howard was
commander-in-chief.
After the re-organization was perfected, the march was
continued up the Mississippi, and at the present site of Quincy, the column
passed the Indian camp and village which had recently been deserted, and
supposed to have contained one thousand Sac warriors. At "Two Rivers," the army
turned east, and crossed the high prairies to the Illinois, near the mouth of
Spoon river, and not far from the present site of the city of Havana, where the
provision boats were met, and to which the sick were transferred. The march was
then continued up the Illinois to Peoria, where there was a small stockade in
charge of Captain Nicholas, of the U. S. army. Two days before the arrival of
General Howard's command, the Indians had attacked the stockade, but were
defeated and driven away.
In the heart of the enemy's country, accustomed to the
stealthy habits of the Indians, and the troops being without thorough
discipline, unprovoked night alarms were of frequent occurrence. The troops were
often paraded and ordered to arms; and under the general excitement incident to
a constant dread of an attack, and not knowing from which side the attack would
come, every little noise added to the uneasiness of the situation; guns were
incautiously discharged, and a state of constant alarm existed. In one of these
panicky spells, one of the troopers, a young Kentuckian, was shot dead by a
terror-stricken sentinel. "All this time," says the authority from which we
quote, "the Indians were far away."
From Peoria, Howard's army went up the river as far as
Gomo's village, at the present site of Chillicothe, but the Indians had fled.
After burning two of the deserted villages, the command made a retrograde
movement to Peoria Lake, and went into camp at the outlet, and remained several
weeks. As a precautionary measure of safety and protection in case of a sudden
Indian attack, a small stockade was built, which was named Fort Clark, in honor
and memory of General George Rogers Clark, the hero of Vincennes and Kaskaskia,
whose gallant exploits in connection with the early history of the Illinois
country are elsewhere detailed.
While Howard's army remained here, Major Christy, of
the Missouri division, was sent up the river as far as the rapids to rout and
chastise such of the enemy as might have stopped in that region. Major Boone,
with another detachment, was sent out to scour the country in the direction of
Spoon and Rock rivers, for a like purpose. Both expeditions returned without
finding any signs of Indians, except the signs of alarm and retreat. In October
the army left the port and took up its line of march for Camp Russell, and
arrived there on the 22nd day of that month, 1813.
Fort Clark is thus described by Mr. C. Ballance. It was
a simple stockade, constructed by planting two rows of logs firmly in the
ground, near each other, and filling the space between them with earth. This, of
course, was not intended as a defense against artillery, of which the Indians
had none. This fort was about one hundred feet square, with a ditch along each
side. It did not stand with a side to the lake, but with a corner towards it.
The corner farthest from the lake was on the upper side of Water street, near
the intersection of the upper line of Water and Liberty streets. From there the
west line ran diagonally across the intersection of Water and Liberty streets,
nearly to the corner of the transportation warehouse, at the lower corner of
Liberty and Water streets. At this corner was what I suppose military men would
call a bastion; that is there was a projecting corner made in the same manner as
the side walls, and so constructed, as I imagine, as to accommodate a small
cannon to command the ditches. And the same had, no doubt, been at the opposite
corner, but when I came to the country in November, 1831, there was no vestige
of it remaining, In fact, at that time there was but little to show that there
had ever been a fortification there, except some burnt posts along the west
side, and a square of some ten or twelve feet at the south corner with a ditch
nearly filled up, on two sides of it, and on the west side of the square. The
fort had been burnt down to the embankment of this square and of the west side,
after which the embankments had been mostly worn away by the rains and other
means until that part of the logs that was under ground had become charred
posts. Some of them, however, had become entirely decayed and were gone. On the
other sides there was but little to be seen of logs or embankment. I lived where
the transportation warehouse is for more than ten years, and when I leveled down
the southerly angle, for my own convenience, one of those posts become high
enough and was strong enough for a hitching post, and I employed a blacksmith,
Isaac Evans, to put hooks in it for that purpose. That post was thus used until
I removed from there in May, 1844. It was then taken up by Mr. Drown, and sawed
up into walking canes and sold on speculation at fifty cents each."
Colonel G. J. Hubbard, an Indian trader in Illinois,
was prominently identified with the affairs of the commonwealth and of Chicago
in after years, is authority for the statement that Fort Clark was burned by the
Indians in the latter part of the year 1818. In a letter to Mr. Ballance, under
date of "Chicago, Dec. 30th, 1867," he says:
"I have to say that I was in Peoria in the last days of
1818, for the first time on my way to St. Louis passing there, returning about
the 20th November, and wintering about one mile above Hennepin. It was my first
year as Indian trader.
"As we rounded the point of the lake above Peoria, on
our down trip we noticed that old Fort Clark was on fire, just blazing up.
Reaching it, we found about two hundred Indians congregated, enjoying a war
dance, painted hideously, with scalps on their spears and in their sashes, which
they had taken from the heads of Americans, in the war with Great Britain from
1812 to 1815. They were dancing, rehearsing their deeds of bravery, etc. These
were the only people then there, or in that vicinity."
This statement of Colonel Hubbard has been the subject
of some controversy, as appears from a paragraph on page forty-four of
Ballance's History of Peoria, in which he writes:
"Since writing the above I have talked with Josiah
Fulton and William Blanchard who first came here in 1819, and they are both
positive that they found it (the fort) on fire, and put it out. Perhaps they are
both right. Perhaps when it was first set on fire it was only partly consumed.
Earth having been filled in between the pickets, they would not burn fast, and
the fire would be easily extinguished."
On page forty-five, Mr. Ballance says: " In the Spring
of 1819, seven men, then living in a settlement called Shoal Creek, Clinton
County, Illinois, to wit — Abner Eads, Joseph Hersey, Seth Fulton and Josiah
Fulton, S. Dougherty, J. Davis, and T. Russell, made up a company to emigrate to
Peoria, then called Fort Clark. Eads and Hersey came through by land with two
pack-horses. The others came up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in what was
then known in the west as a keel boat."
Mr. Blanchard's name does not appear in this paragraph.
And, according to Mr. Ballance's own statement (see page forty-seven in history
of Peoria), that gentleman did not come until about the 10th of June of that
year. Eads and Hersey arrived "on the 10th day of April, 1819, and pitched their
tents against some of the remaining timbers of Fort Clark, which had been burnt
by the Indians." The other five men arrived on the 17th. If Mr. Fulton came in
April and found the fort on fire, how could Mr. Blanchard, who did not come
until June, help him extinguish the burning timbers? But Mr. Fulton said to the
writer on the 27th of September, 1879, that only the west side of the fort was
burned away when he came here in April, 1819. This is no doubt true, for it has
always been stated that Eads and Hersey, who arrived on the 15th of April, of
that year, pitched their tents against one side of the fort. Hence Colonel
Hubbard is right in so far as one side of Fort Clark was burned in the last days
of the year 1818. The other parts of it were burned at a later period, and at a
time when Fulton and Blanchard were present and extinguished the flames, as Mr.
Fulton claims they did, but does not fix the date.
AMERICAN OCCUPATION
Between October, 1813, and the Spring of 1819, there is
a blank in the history of Fort Clark. The garrison that had occupied it had been
withdrawn, and there is no evidence to show the presence of white men anywhere
in the vicinity, unless it were the U. S. soldiers garrisoned at Fort Clark, and
the surveyors of the military tract in 1816-17; hence we are left to conclude
that the country was occupied only by wild beasts as a grazing place, and as a
hunting ground by the Indians. But, with a diversity of soil, an abundance of
good water, and a most desirable climate, it could not long remain in
unproductive idleness. First, the country had been traversed by a small army in
1812, of which Captain Craig's company formed a part, and again in September and
October, 1813, by the army of General Howard. These armies were made up of
Kentuckians, Missourians, and men from the southern part of Illinois, with
probably some from Virginia and other States. When they were discharged from
service and returned home, they carried with them golden stories about the
country's beauty and fertility of soil. These stories were heralded wherever the
discharged soldiers went, and wherever their friends were found. Under such
circumstances Illinois soon come to be regarded as a region of unsurpassed
excellence—a very Valparaiso [Spanish for Vale of Paradise], where nature had
lavished her fondest touches and stored her richest treasures.
In the early Spring of 1819 a small colony was made up
from among the settlers on Shoal creek, in Clinton county, to found a settlement
on what was then called Mauvesterre Prairie, near the present site of Naples.
This colony was represented by Abnear Eads, Seth Fulton and Josiah Fulton,
Virginians by birth; Joseph Hersey, a New Yorker; S. Daugherty, J. Davis and T.
Russell, of Kentucky parentage and birth. They left Shoal creek in the last days
of March and traveled across the country (forty miles) to St. Louis on foot.
There they purchased a keel-boat and other necessaries preparatory to the trip
up the Illinois. Eads and Hersey returned to Shoal creek for a pair of horses,
while the other five proceeded up the river to their point of destination, where
they arrived in safety, and where they were soon joined by their two companions,
Eads and Hersey, with their two horses. After a careful examination of the
country around there, they were not satisfied, and Eads having heard from a
French trader of the beauties of the country around Fort Clark, they determined
to push on to this place. They launched their boat and ferried their horses
across to the west side of the Illinois river, where Eads and Hersey mounted
them and struck out for Fort Clark. The country was swampy and the waters high
at that season of the year, and they either swam or forded all the streams on
the route, and arrived at Fort Clark on the 15th, and made a camping place
against one side of the remaining timbers. The other five men, the two Fultons,
Daugherty, Davis and Russell, were left to the management of the boat and the
care of its cargo." On the 17th," says Mr. Fulton, "Eads hailed a deserter from
Fort Dearborn (Chicago), who was coming down the river in a canoe, and joining
him as a passenger, started out to see what had become of their friends and
outfit. He met them in the vicinity of La Marsh creek, slowly forcing their way
against the current, and returned with them to the camp at Fort Clark, on the
afternoon of the same day, the 17th. They were pleased with the lay of the land,
and determined to remain here and found a settlement.
"We found," continues Mr. Fulton, "the walls of two
small log cabins, which we supposed to have been built by the soldiers of the
garrison stationed here, and at once set to work to cover them over and finish
them up for dwelling places. While we were employed at this work, we made out to
be comfortable in the shelter of our tents and boat. The cabins stood in what is
now Water Street, and almost directly in front of the Germania Hall Building.
These cabins were the first American dwelling places at what is now the city of
Peoria.
"There were also rails enough, which the soldiers had
made, to enclose fifteen acres of ground. The ground was broken up and planted
to corn and potatoes, from which a pretty good crop was gathered in the Fall.
The north line of that first field ran west from the river, and not far from
Fulton Street.
"About the first of June, Eads, Fulton and Daugherty
returned to Shoal creek with their two horses to move Eads' family, consisting
of his wife and three children, to their new home. After settling up his affairs
in that neighborhood, Eads loaded his household effects, wife and children on a
two-horse wagon, and headed across the country in the direction of the beginning
of Peoria—the new settlement at Fort Clark. They reached and crossed the
Illinois river, at the present site of Wesley City, where there was a trading
post, and where Indians and Indian canoes were nearly always to be found. Some
of the canoes were secured, the household goods were unloaded from the wagon,
and with the family transferred to the canoes, and carried over to the west side
of the river. The wagon was taken to pieces and carried in the same manner. The
horses and cattle were made to swim across.
"After Eads and his family were landed on this side of
the river, the balance of the trip to the location of the new colony only
required a few hours, and it was not long until the presence of his wife
relieved the monotony of bachelor life in the wilderness. Mrs. Eads was the
first American woman to see the site of Peoria."
While Eads and his family was toiling over the prairie,
where roads were unknown, Captain Jude Warner arrived in the lake from St. Louis
with a small fishing smack. They made the trip from St. Louis in a keel-boat,
and brought seines, salt, etc., and came to spend the season catching and
salting fish, with which the lake then abounded. Only the choice kinds, such as
bass, pickerel, pike, etc , were saved, and these found a ready market at St.
Louis and Louisville at sixteen dollars per barrel.
Warner's company, on arrival, consisted of Isaac De
Boice, James Goff, William Blanchard, David Barnes, Charles Sargent, and
Theodore Sargent. The arrival of this fishing party increased the number of men
at Fort Clark to fourteen, "and we were just about as happy a little circle,"
says Mr. Fulton, " as has ever lived in Peoria. We were isolated, completely
shut out from the rest of mankind, it is true. We heard but little from the
outside world, and the outside world heard but little from us. But little was
known at that time about the Fort Clark country. There were no roads, nor
steamboats, nor mail routes, nor communication of any kind, so that in point of
fact, we were as much a community by ourselves, as if our cabins had been built
on an island in the middle of the sea. Our post-office was St. Louis, and we
never got our mail, those of us who got any, only when we went there for
supplies, and then our letters cost us twenty-five cents, and we couldn't muster
that much money every day.
"Mrs. Eads was duly installed as housekeeper, and the
rest of the company, except Hersey, who didn't remain long, boarded with her. It
was a pretty hard Winter on us, but we managed to get through. Breadstuff gave
out and we had to fall back on hominy-blocks and hominy. It was a coarse kind of
food we got this way, but it was a good deal better than none, and served to
keep hunger away. Hominy blocks went out of use long ago, and there are thousand
of people in Peoria county that never saw one, but they were a blessing to
hundreds of the pioneers to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and in fact
to the first settlers of the entire country, and were the means of keeping many
of the pioneers and their little ones from starving to death."
Hominy blocks are so long out of use that a description
of them is introduced here as pertinent to the memory of pioneer times. They
were made from a section of a suitably sized tree, say from twenty inches to two
feet in diameter. The tree was felled, and the stump and squared or "butted"
with a cross-cut saw or the axe. The desired length, three to four feet was then
measured off, and the axe or cross-cut saw again brought into requisition, and
the section or block cut off. It was then hauled or rolled if there happened to
be no teams at hand, to the cabin of the settler where it was set on one end,
and the work of preparation continued. The mortar end was made by boring or
burning out. Sometimes both fire and auger were used, the auger first, and then
the fire. The holes were bored slopingly from near the outer edge towards the
center, the auger being directed so as to attain the required depth, and have
the several holes meet at a common center. A fire was then started at the bottom
of the auger holes, and carefully watched until the end had burned out. Then the
"ragged edges" were dressed away with such tools as happened to be most
convenient, after which it was ready for use. The pestle or crusher was made by
fastening an iron wedge, with the large end down, in a block of wood. Sometimes
the wedge was fastened to a spring stick attached to an upright post, like an
old fashioned well-sweep, to which handles were attached, when the operator
commenced pounding, the elasticity of the spring stick lightening the labor by
raising the wedge after it had struck the corn. Sometimes one hominy block would
serve a whole neighborhood. With hominy, venison, wild turkey, wild honey, and
wild fruit, and plenty of fish, the pioneers in most of Illinois fared
sumptuously. At least with such fare there was not much danger of starving.
But it was not long after settlements were commenced
until mills, of some kind, superseded the hominy blocks. Some of the first mills
were very primitive concerns. They were made of two prairie boulders, fashioned
like ordinary mill-stones. One of them was fastened to a beam or block of wood,
and served as a lower mill-stone. An eye was drilled through the one intended
for the upper stone, which was hung as all mill-stones are hung. This kind of
mill was operated with an upright stick, one end of which rested in a socket
drilled towards one side of the upper stone, and the other end in a socket or
auger hole in a beam overhead. Such mills were usually operated by two men.
There were no hoppers, and while each of the two operators took hold of the
upright stick with one hand giving it a circular motion, and turned the upper
stone, they fed the grain into the eye of the revolving stone with the other.
Many hundreds of bushels of corn and buckwheat were ground in this way in the
first settlement of the western country. There was no bolting apparatus, and the
only refining process to which the meal or flour was subjected after leaving
these hand mills, was a wire sieve. Under the manipulations of the pioneer
mothers, corn meal ground at these mills made the best kind of Johnnie-cakes —
that is made in dough of the proper consistency, spread on a board and baked
before the fire in an old-fashioned open fireplace.
The Shoal Creek pioneers were soon followed by others,
although the settlement of the country was very slow as compared with that of
many of the northern counties after settlements commenced there, or of Iowa,
Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It must be remembered, however, that
1819 was a long while ago. Ohio, as a separate organization, was only in its
teens, and but very little of its territory, comparatively speaking, occupied by
settlements. Hundreds of thousands of acres of the lands were vacant, and
Illinois was "away out west," Indiana, with millions of acres of unoccupied land
and a climate equally as good as Illinois, was awaiting settlement. Then come
the other great facts — the great distance of Illinois from the centers of
civilization, and the difficulty and trouble of getting here. There were no
railroads in those days to reduce distance to hours, nor steamboats to defy wind
and waves. The first steamboat, the Clermont, the invention of Robert Fulton,
had been launched on the Hudson river in 1807, only twelve years before this
settlement was commenced. Ten years passed away after the launching of the
Clermont before steamboats were introduced on Western waters. On the 2d day of
August, 1817, not quite two years before the Shoal Creek colony came to Fort
Clark, the General Pike, the first steamboat on the Mississippi, ascended as far
as St. Louis. Previous to that time, all foreign products consumed in Illinois
were first brought to New Orleans in ocean sail vessels, and from New Orleans
they were brought up the Mississippi in keel-boats, which, with their mode of
management, have already been described. When not brought that way, they were
wagoned across the Alleghany mountains from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, or from
Baltimore to Wheeling, thence floated down the Ohio river in flat boats, landed
at convenient points, and wagoned to their final destination. A trip with
keel-boats from St. Louis to New Orleans and return generally consumed six
months. As stated elsewhere, the most of the settlers in the southern part of
the State came by keel-boats, or family boats — i. e. boats made expressly for
the journey, in which several families had a co-interest.
Steam railroads were not introduced in the United
States until 1829 — ten years after the date of the planting of the colony at
Fort Clark, and it was more than a quarter of a century after that before iron
ways and steam locomotive whistles were known in Illinois. In addition to the
absence of steamboats and railroads, there were neither canals, wagon roads or
bridges, and it was a long tedious way to come down the Ohio and up the
Mississippi and Illinois, or by the lakes and down a hundred miles overland to
the navigable waters of the Illinois and Mississippi. Besides all these
obstacles, it was more than a hundred miles from the centers of emigration to
either the lakes or the Ohio. These were all hindrances to travel and
immigration, and under them it was not to be wondered at that the country
settled up slowly.
PERSONAL
Submitted by your Host
Any contributions, corrections, or suggestions would be deeply
appreciated!
Copyright ©
Janine Crandell
Of the first seven men who came to Fort Clark in 1819:
Josiah and Seth Fulton went across the river in 1820, selected a claim on Farm
creek, at the place now owned by Thomas Cornlin, and commenced to make a farm.
They sold that claim in 1824, after which Josiah pre-empted the quarter section
now owned by William Hall, near Peoria. He subsequently sold that, and in the
Fall of 1832 bought what is known as the "Pulsifer Eighty," and in 1834 settled
at his present residence in Richwoods.
Seth Fulton lived at different places, part of the time
at the lead mines at Galena, and is now residing with a son in Henry county.
Abner Eads bought the quarter section which includes
the old Peoria graveyard, and began to improve it. He subsequently bought a
timbered quarter section on the south side of Kickapoo creek, now cut up in coal
lots, and commenced to make improvements there. About 1833 he moved to Galena
and engaged in business until 1854, when he went to the Pacific slope and
commenced to make a farm in Lower California. After he had the farm well under
way, he started back for his family, which he had left at Galena. On the trip
homeward he contracted was was called the Chagres fever, died and was buried at
St. Louis.
Daugherty was a wild, reckless, daring Kentuckian, and
was never better pleased than when he could engage in a fight. He did not remain
long in the country. An incident occurred while he remained with the little
colony, at one of the cabins, the relation of which will serve to illustrate his
character. Some Virginians had come to Fort Clark to locate some land for which
they held military warrants, and were guests at the Eads cabin. One evening
while they were here, three Indians came into the door yard having in their
possession a bottle of fire water." Two of them belonged to one tribe, and
the other to a different band. They were friendly with the white colonists, but
soon began to quarrel among themselves. At last one of the two kindred red men
gathered up a club, and, in the presence of the "pale-faced " spectators, dealt
the "lone Indian " a blow on the head that felled him a corpse at their feet.
The Virginians were shocked and frightened, and declared that they would not
remain a week in the country for all the land in the military tract. They urged
the Shoal Creekers to abandon their cabins and flee to a land of civilization
and safety, and wanted to know how they could think of remaining in such a
heathenish, outlandish country, where their lives were in danger of being
sacrificed to the fury of drunken Indians every hour. Daugherty had drank enough
with the Indians to arouse his recklessness, and he replied to the Virginians
something like this: "O, that's nothing but fun. We are used to that kind of
thing, and if you are so chicken-hearted you can't stand to see one Indian kill
another without getting scared, you'd better git. We have no use for such
critters in this part of the country. Them that don't know any thing, don't fear
any thing. You may go, but by G —— d we're going to stay." But he didn't stay
long, not because he was afraid to remain, for Fulton says he didn't "know any
thing," and consequently wasn't " afraid of any thing," but because whisky and
fighting white men were too scarce; so he turned his back upon Fort Clark and
drifted down the river and out of sight.
Hersey, the "New York Dutchman," as he was called, went
down to the southern part of the State and, with another man, got into trouble
in trying to confiscate " a herd of cattle belonging to Governor Kinney. The old
court records at Bellville show that he was arrested for the offense, but by
some means escaped punishment and got away. He was followed to Terre Haute,
Indiana, where he was again arrested. The matter was finally compromised by the
payment of damages or the value of the cattle, after which Hersey was never
heard from again. When he came here in April, 1819, he had about seventeen
hundred dollars in money, and subsequent inquiries, instituted by his heirs in
New York, showed that he was the owner of valuable property in that State. Some
years after Fulton settled out on his present farm, an agent for the heirs, a
preacher, came there to find, if possible, some clue to Hersey, living or dead,
The agent had been employed by the heirs, and stated to Fulton that he had
traveled all over the United States in search of him, and that at St. Louis he
heard that a man of that name had come to Fort Clark with a company from Shoal
Creek in 1819. It seemed that two brothers of Hersey were conspiring to defraud
his rightful heirs — whether children or not Mr. Fulton did not state — and
hence the search. The description of the Hersey the agent was hunting tallied
exactly with the Hersey who came here with Fulton. The agent was referred to the
court records mentioned above and departed on his way. Whether Joseph Hersey was
ever found or not, was never known to his old comrades from Shoal Creek.
Davis went to Farm Creek in 1821, remained there
awhile, and then removed to Sangamon county. From Sangamon county he removed to
Texas, where he died.
Russell was not here long until he took to the river
and drifted back to St. Louis, where he was last heard from.
Four of the men who came with Captain Warner,
Blanchard, Barnes and the two Sargents, were discharged soldiers. They had
served in the United States army, and had warrants for one hundred and sixty
acres of land each in the military district, which they came to locate.
Blanchard has always remained in the near neighborhood, a useful citizen, and
now lives in Woodford county, a few miles from Peoria. He married here, his
marriage license being the first issued from Peoria county.
Barnes located his warrant some where in the country
west of Fort Clark, and died at Bushnell some time in 1878. Charles Sargent
located in what is now Hancock or Warren county, where he was still living at
last accounts. Theodore Sargent located his warrant on a tract of land with
which he became dissatisfied, subsequently sold it and bought another tract at
the present site of Farmington, where he died.
Some time in August, 1820, Captain Warner dreamed a
dream that he didn't like. In the midst of a profound slumber it was revealed to
him by an angel of the Lord that on the first of the next October, all the
settlers at Peoria Lake, except two young women, were to be massacred by the
Indians. The young women were to be taken captive and subjected to a fate worse
than death. The dream so preyed upon the mind of Captain Warner that he closed
up his fishing and trading operations and left the country. The settlers were
not massacred, nor were the young women taken captive. When Warner abandoned the
lake, his employees scattered away to other parts of the country and were lost
forever to Fort Clark.
The only addition to the Fort Clark community in 1819,
was a shoemaker named Douglas Thompson, who came late in the Fall.
In the Winter of 1819-20, a man named Andrews came with
his family down the river on a sled from Fort Dearborn. They stopped at Fort
Clark a short time only, and then went over to the east side of the river.
John Hamlin, Judge Lockwood and Judge Latham came up
from Sangamon county in the Spring of 1821. The Moffatt family, consisting of
Joseph A. Moffatt, the father, and five children, three sons — Alva, Aquilla B.,
and Franklin — and two daughters — Mary and Olive — came on the 2d day of June,
1822. Aquilla, now seventy-seven years of age, and Alva, some years his senior,
have lived in sight of the location of old Fort Clark for fifty-seven years, and
have seen the country developed from an untamed wild to its present highly
prosperous and thickly populated condition. Aquila says when they landed from
their boat, and he looked out over the prairie plain on which the busy city of
Peoria has grown into existence and to the summit of the bluffs beyond, he
thought it was the prettiest sight his eyes ever had or ever would behold. The
prairie was covered with a dense, rank growth of tall grass that was plumed with
myriads of flowers of every conceivable hue. As the grass was swayed by the wind
it fell and rose and rose and fell like the billows of the ocean, while the
flowers seemed to dance with delight at the beauty of the landscape over which
they spread their fragrance. Far away to the right and to the left, as far as
sight could reach, this garden of nature's handiwork was hemmed in by a range of
bluffs whose summits seemed almost to kiss the clouds and to have been planted
there as an impenetrable barrier and protection against the cold, bleak winds as
they come whistling from the snow-capped mountain regions of the far-away West.
"It was a scene of natural beauty and grandeur," concluded the venerable and
honored Aquilla Moffatt, "which I can never forget; and when the time comes
that I must close my eyes to all things earthly, the last sight upon which I
would like for them to rest would be that landscape as I saw it on the 2d day of
June, 1822. Its gorgeous beauty can only be excelled by the glories of the world
beyond."
When the Moffatts came at the date mentioned, there were only four cabins at
Fort Clark. Three of them were occupied as residences, and the fourth one was
occupied as a chair shop by John Hamlin. The elder Moffatt built the fourth
residence-cabin not far from the location of the C., B. & Q. railway depot.
The next settlement after that made at Fort Clark by
the Shoal Creek company, was commenced on LaSalle Prairie, in the neighborhood
west from Chillicothe and fifteen miles north from Peoria. It was called the
Upper "Settlement," and was commenced about 1824. It was named in honor of
LaSalle, the French explorer and founder of Fort Crevecoeur in 1680. In early
times it was a noted settlement, and was known all over the country.
The first settlements were generally confined to the
near vicinity of the river, either in the timber or on the prairies skirting its
borders. None of the pioneers ventured very far back into the country, and it
was several years before improvements, to any great extent, were commenced out
"over the bluffs," and as late as 1832, there were only twenty-two buildings in
the town of Peoria. (The
History of Peoria County, Illinois, 1880, pages 273-285, submitted by Janine
Crandell)
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Updated December 13, 2004