Chapter II

BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ILLINOIS

BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ILLINOIS

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT IN ILLINOIS

FOUNDING OF KASKASKIA

AS PART OF LOUISIANA

FORT CHARTRES

UNDER FRENCH RULE

CHARACTER OF THE EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS

A POSSESSION OF GREAT BRITAIN

CONQUEST BY CLARK

LAND TENURES

CIVIL ORGANIZATION
BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ILLINOIS

IT IS NECESSARY to treat the history of this great State briefly. And first we direct attention to the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi. Hernando De Soto, cutting his way through the wilderness from Florida, had discovered the Mississippi in the year 1542. Wasted with disease and privation, he only reached the stream to die upon its banks, and the remains of the ambitious and iron-willed Spaniard found a fitting resting place beneath the waters of the great river. The chief incitement to Spanish discoveries in America was a thirst for gold and treasure. The discovery and settlement of the Mississippi Valley on the part of the French must, on the other hand, be ascribed to religious zeal. Jesuit missionaries, from the French settlements on the St. Lawrence, early penetrated to the region of Lake Huron. It was from the tribes of Indians living in the West, that intelligence came of a noble river flowing south. Marquette, who had visited the Chippewas in 1663, and established the mission of St. Mary, now the oldest settlement within the present commonwealth of Michigan, formed the purpose of its exploration.

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In company with Joliet, a fur-trader of Quebec, who had been designated by M. Talon, Intendent of Canada, as chieftain of the exploring party, and five French voyageurs, Marquette, on the 10th of June, 1673, set out on the expedition. Crossing the water-shed dividing the Fox from the Wisconsin rivers, their two canoes were soon launched on the waters of the latter. Seven days after, on the 17th of June, they joyfully entered the broad current of the Mississippi. Stopping six days on the western bank, near the mouth of the Des Moines River, to enjoy the hospitalities of the Illinois Indians, the voyage was resumed, and after passing the perpendicular rocks above Alton, on whose lofty limestone front are painted frightful representations of monsters, they suddenly came upon the mouth of the Missouri, known by its Algonquin name of Pekitanoni, whose swift and turbid current threatened to engulf their frail canoes. The site of St. Louis was an unbroken forest, and further down, the fertile plain bordering the river reposed in peaceful solitude, as, early in July, the adventurers glided past it. They continued their voyage to a point some distance below the mouth of the Arkansas, and then retraced their course up the river, arriving at their Jesuit Mission at the head of Green Bay, late in September.

Robert, Cavalier de La Salle, whose illustrious name is more intimately connected with the exploration of the Mississippi than that of any other, was the next to descend the river, in the early part of the year 1682. At its mouth he erected a column, and decorating it with the arms of France, placed upon it the. following inscription:

Louis Le Grand, Roi de France et de Navarre, Regne;
E Neuvieme Avril, 1682.

Thus France, by right of discovery, lay claim to the Mississippi Valley, the fairest portion of the globe, an empire in extent, stretching from the Gulf to the Lakes, and from the farthest sources of the Ohio to where the head waters of the Missouri are lost in the wild solitudes of the Rocky Mountains. La Salle bestowed upon the territory the name of Louisiana, in honor of the King of France, Louis XIV.

The assertion has been made that on La Salle's return up the river, in the summer of 1682, a portion of the party were left behind, who founded the villages of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, but the statement rests on no substantial foundation.

THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN ILLINOIS

THE gentle and pious Marquette, devoted to his purpose of carrying the gospel to the Indians, had established a mission among the Illinois, in 1675, at their principal town on the river which still bears their name. This was at the present town of Utica, in La Salle County. In the presence of the whole tribe, by whom, it is recorded, he was received as a celestial visitor, he displayed the sacred pictures of the Virgin Mary, raised an altar, and said mass. On Easter Sunday, after celebrating the mystery of the Eucharist, he took possession of the land in the name of the Saviour of the world, and founded the "Mission of the Immaculate Conception." The town was called Kaskaskia, a name afterwards transferred to another locality.

La Salle, while making preparations to descend the Mississippi, built a fort, on the Illinois River, below the Lake of Peoria, in February, 1680, and in commemoration of his misfortunes, bestowed upon it the name of Crevecoeur, "broken-hearted." Traces of its embankments are yet discernible. This was the first military occupation of Illinois. There is no evidence, however, that settlement was begun there at that early date.

On La Salle's return from this exploration of the Mississippi, in 1682, he fortified "Starved Rock," whose military advantages had previously attracted his attention. From its summit, which rises l25 feet above the waters of the river, the valley of the Illinois speeds out before the eye in a landscape of rarest beauty. From three sides it is inaccessible. This stronghold received the name of the Fort of St. Louis. Twenty thousand allied Indians gathered around it on the fertile plains. The fort seems to have been abandoned soon after the year 1700.

Marquette's mission (1675), Crevecoeur (1680), and the Fort of St. Louis (1682), embrace, so far, all the attempts made toward effecting anything like a permanent settlement in the Illinois country. Of the second few traces remain. A line of fortifications may be faintly traced, and that is all. The seed of civilization planted by the Jesuit, Marquette, among the Illinois Indians, was destined to produce more enduring fruit. It was the germ of Kaskaskia, during the succeeding years of the French occupation -- the metropolis of the Mississippi Valley. The southern Kaskaskia is merely the northern one transplanted. The Mission of the Immaculate Conception is the same.

FOUNDING OF KASKASKIA

ON the death of Marquette, he was succeeded by Allouez, and he by Father Gravier, who respectively had charge of the Mission on the Illinois River. Gravier is said to have been the first to reduce the principles of the Illinois language to rules. It was also he who succeeded in transferring Marquette's Mission from the banks of the Illinois south to the spot where stands the modern town of Kaskaskia, and where it was destined to endure. The exact date is not known, but the removal was accomplished some time prior to the year 1690, though probably not earlier than 1685.

Father Gravier was subsequently recalled to Mackinaw, and his place was supplied by Bineteau and Pinet. Pinet proved an eloquent and successful minister, and his chapel was often insufficient to hold the crowds of savages who gathered to hear his words. Bineteau met with a fate similar to that which befell many another devoted priest in his heroic labors for the conversion of the savages. He accompanied the Kaskaskias on one of their annual hunts to the upper Mississippi, that his pastoral relations might not suffer intermission. His frame was poorly fitted to stand the exposure. Parched by day on the burning prairie, chilled by heavy dews at night, now panting with thirst and again aching with cold, he at length fell a victim to a violent fever, and "left his bones on the wilderness range of the buffaloes." Pinet shortly after followed his comrade.

Father Gabriel Morrest had previously arrived at Kaskaskia. He was a Jesuit. He had carried the emblem of his faith to the frozen regions of Hudson's Bay, and had been taken prisoner by the English, and upon his liberation returned to America, and joined the Kaskaskia Mission. After the deaths of Bineteau and Pinet, he had sole charge until joined by Father Mermet shortly after the opening of the eighteenth century.

The devotion and piety of Mermet fully equaled those of his companion. He had assisted in collecting a village of Indians

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and Canadians, and had thus founded the first French port on the Ohio, or, as the lower part of the river was then called, the Wabash. At the Kaskaskia Mission his gentle virtues and fervid eloquence seem not to have been without their influence. "At early dawn his pupils came to church dressed neatly and modestly, each in a large deer-skin, or in a robe stitched together from several skins. After receiving lessons they chanted canticles; mass was then said in presence of all the Christians in the place, the French and the converts -- the women on one side and the men on the other. From prayer and instruction the missionaries proceed to visit the sick and administer medicine, and their skill as physicians did more than all the rest to win confidence. In the afternoon the catechism was taught in the presence of the young and the old, when every one, without distinction of rank or age, answered the questions of the missionary. At evening all would assemble at the chapel for instruction, for prayer, and to chant the hymns of the church. On Sundays and festivals, even after vespers, a homily was pronounced; at the close of the day parties would meet in houses to recite the chaplet in alternate choirs, and sing psalms until late at night. These psalms were often homilies with words set to familiar tunes. Saturday and Sunday were days appointed for confession and communion, and every convert confessed once in a fortnight. The success of the mission was such that marriages of French immigrants were sometimes solemnized with the daughters of the Illinois according to the rites of the Catholic Church. The occupation of the country was a cantonment of Europeans among the native proprietors of the forests and the prairies.(1) A court of law was unknown for nearly a century, and up to the time of Boisbriant there was no local government. The priests possessed the entire confidence of the community, and their authority happily settled, without the tardy delays and vexatious of the courts, the minor difficulties which threatened the peace of the settlement. Of the families which formed part of the French population in the early history of Kaskaskia, there is some uncertainty. There is, however, authority for believing that the following were among the principal settlers: Bazyl La Chapelle, Michael Derouse, (called St. Pierre), Jean Baptiste St. Gemme Beauvais, Baptiste Montreal, Boucher de Montbrun, Charles Danie, Francois CharlesvilIle, Antoine Bienvenu, Louis Bruyat, Alexis Doza, Joseph Paget, Prix Pagi, Michael Antoyen, Langlois De Lisle, La Derroutte and Noval.

AS PART OF LOUISIANA

THE settlements of Illinois had been a separate dependency of Canada. In 1711, together with the settlements on the Lower Mississippi, which had been founded by D'Iberville and Bienville, they became united in a single province under the name of Louisiana, with the capital at Mobile.

The exclusive control of the commerce of this region, whose boundless resources, it was believed, were to enrich France, was granted to Anthony Crozat, a merchant of great wealth. "We permit him," says the king in his letters patent, "to search, open, and dig all mines, veins, minerals, precious stones and pearls, and to transport the proceeds thereof into any part of France for fifteen years." La Motte Cadillac, who had now become royal Governor of Louisiana, was his partner. Hopes of obtaining great quantities of gold and silver animated the proprietors, as well as agitated France. Two pieces of silver ore, left at Kaskaskia by a traveler from Mexico, were exhibited to Cadillac as the produce of a mine in Illinois. Elated by this prospect of wealth, the Governor hurried up the river to find his anticipations fade away in disappointment. Iron ore and the purest lead were discovered in large quantities in Missouri, but of gold, and silver, and precious stones not a trace was found After Crozat had expended 425,000 livres, and realized only 300,000, he, in 1717, petitioned the king for the revocation of his charter. The white population had slowly increased; and at the time of his departure it was estimated that the families comprising the Illinois settlements, now including those on the Wabash, numbered three hundred and twenty souls.

The commerce of Louisiana was next transferred to the Mississippi Company, instituted under the auspices of the notorious John Law. The wild excitement and visionary schemes which agitated France during Law's connection with the Company of the West, and while at the head of the Bank of France, form the most curious chapter in the annals of commercial speculations. These delusive dreams of wealth were based mainly upon the reports of the fabulous riches of the Mississippi Valley. Attempts to colonize the country were conducted with careless prodigality. Three ships landed eight hundred emigrants in August, 1718, near Mobile, whence they were to make their way overland to the Mississippi. Bienville, on the banks of that river, had already selected the spot for the Capital of the new Empire, which, after the Regent of France, was named New Orleans. From among the emigrants, eighty convicts from the prisons of France were sent to clear away the coppices which thickly studded the site. Three years after, in 1721, the place was yet a wilderness, overgrown with canebrakes, among which two hundred persons had encamped.

Phillip Renault was created Director-General of the mines of the new country, and an expedition was organized to work them. Renault left France, in 1719, with two hundred mechanics and laborers. Touching at San Domingo, he bought five hundred negro slaves for working the mines. On reaching the Mississippi, he sailed to Illinois, the region in which gold and silver were supposed to abound. A few miles from Kaskaskia, in what is now the southwest corner of Monroe County, was the seat of his colony. The village which he founded received the name of St. Phillip's. From this point various expeditions were sent out in search of the precious metals. Drewry's Creek, in Jackson County, was explored; St. Mary's, in Randolph; Silver Creek, in Monroe; and various parts of St. Clair County, and other districts of Illinois. On Silver Creek, tradition has it that considerable quantities of silver were discovered and sent to France, and from this the stream has its name. By the retrocession of the territory to the crown, Renault was left to prosecute the business of mining without means. His operations proved a disastrous failure.

FORT CHARTRES

MEANWHILE war had sprung up between France and Spain, and to protect the Illinois settlements from incursions of Spanish cavalry across the Great Desert, it was thought advisable to establish a fort in the neighborhood of Kaskaskia. A Spanish expedition had, indeed, been fitted out at Santa Fe, but their

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guides, leading it by mistake to the Missouri Indians, instead of the Osages, enemies instead of friends, the whole party was massacred, with the exception of a priest who escaped to relate the fate of his unfortunate comrades. Previous to this La Salle, on the occasion of his visit to Paris, had shown the necessity of building a chain of forts from Canada to the Gulf, in order to secure the territory to the crown of France. In 1720, Boisbriant was despatched to Illinois. He began the building of Fort Chartres, long the strongest fortress on the Western Continent, and of wide celebrity in the subsequent history of Illinois.

Fort Chartres stood on the east bank of the Mississippi, seventeen miles northwest of Kaskaskia, and between three and four miles from the location of the present village of Prairie du Rocher. The Company of the West finally built their warehouses here. In 1721, on the division of Louisiana into seven districts, it became the headquarters of Boisbriant, the first local Governor of Illinois. Fort Chartres was the seat of the government of Illinois, not only while the French retained possession of the country, but after it passed under English control. When the fort was built, it stood about one mile distant from the river. In the year 1724 an inundation of the Mississippi washed away a portion of bank in front of the fort.

Captain Philip Pitman visited Illinois in 1766. He was an engineer in the British army, and was sent to Illinois to make a survey of the forts, and report the condition of the country, which had recently passed under British control. He published in London, in 1770, a work entitled, "The present State of the European Settlements on the Mississippi," in which he gives an accurate description of Fort Chartres:

"Fort Chartres, when it belonged to France, was the seat of the government of the Illinois. The headquarters of the English commanding officers is now here, who, in fact, is the arbitrary governor of the country. The fort is an irregular quadrangle. The sides of the exterior polygon are four hundred and ninety feet. It is built of stone, and plastered over, and is only designed for defence against the Indians. The walls are two feet two inches thick, and are pierced with loopholes at regular distances, and with two port-holes for cannon in the facies, and two in the flanks of each bastions The ditch has never been finished. The entrance to the fort is through a very handsome rustic gate. Within the walls is a banquette raised three feet, for the men to stand on when they fire through the loopholes. The buildings within the fort are, a commandant's and a commissary's house, the magazine of stores, corps de garde, and two barracks. These occupy the square. Within the gorges of the bastion are a powder-magazine, a bake-house, and a prison, in the floor of which are four dungeons, and in the upper, two rooms and an out-house belonging to the commandant. The commandant's house is thirty-two yards long and ten broad, and contains a kitchen, a dining room, a bed-chamber, one small room, five closets for servants, and a cellar. The commissary's house is built on the same line as this, and its proportion and the distribution of its apartments are the same. Opposite these are the store-house, and the guard-house, each thirty yards long and eight broad. The former consists of two large store-rooms, (under which is a large vaulted cellar), a large room, a bed- chamber, and a closet for the storekeeper. The latter of a soldiers' and officers' guard-room, a chapel, a bed-chamber, a closet for the chaplain, and an artillery storeroom. The lines of barracks have never been finished. They at present consist of two rooms each for officers, and three for soldiers. They are each twenty-five feet square, and have betwixt a small passage."

Such was Fort Chartres, believed at the time to be the most convenient and best-built stronghold in North America! Just before the French surrender, forty families lived in the neighboring village, in which stood a parish church, under the care of a Franciscan friar, and dedicated to St. Anne. At the time of the surrender to the English, all, with the exception of three or four families, abandoned their homes, and removed to the west bank of the Mississippi, preferring the government of La Belle France to the hated English rule, ignorant that by secret treaty the territory west of the Mississippi had been ceded to Spain, even before the transfer of the region eastward was made to the English.

But the glory of the old fortress soon departed! In 1756 nearly half a mile intervened between Fort Chartres and the bank of the Mississippi. A sand bar, however, was forming opposite, to which the river was fordable. Ten years later the current had cut the bank away to within eighty yards of the fort. The sand-bar had become an island, covered with a thick growth of cottonwoods. The channel between it and the eastern bank was forty feet in depth. In the great freshet six years after, in 1772, in which the American Bottom was inundated, the west walls and two of the bastions were swept away in the flood. It was abandoned by the British garrison, which took up its quarters in Fort Gage, on the bluff opposite Kaskaskia, which then became the seat of government. From this date its demolition proceeded rapidly. In 1820 the southeast angle was still remaining. Only vestiges of the old Fortress can now be traced. Much of the stone was carried away, and used for building purposes elsewhere. Trees of stately growth cover the foundations. The river has retreated to its original channel, and is now a mile distant from the ruins. A growth of timber covers the intervening land, where less than a century ago swept the mighty current of the Father of Waters.

UNDER FRENCH RULE

DURING the few years immediately succeeding the completion of Fort Chartres, prosperity prevailed in the settlements between the Kaskaskia and the Mississippi rivers. Prairie du Rocher, founded about the year 1722, received considerable accessions to its population. Among the earliest French settlers to make their homes here were Etienne Langlois, Jean Baptiste Blais, Jean Baptiste Barbeau, Antoine Louvier, and the La Compte and other families, whose descendants are still found in that locality. New settlements sprang up, and the older ones increased in population. At Kaskaskia, the Jesuits established a monastery, and founded a college. In 1725 the village became an incorporated town, and the king, Louis XV., granted the inhabitants a commons. The Bottom land, extending upward along the Mississippi, unsurpassed for the richness of its soil, was in the process of being rapidly settled by the larger number of new arrivals in the colony. Fort Chartres, the seat of government and the headquarters of the commandment of Upper Louisiana, attracted a wealthy, and for Illinois, a fashionable population.

After having been fourteen years under the government of the Western Company, in April, 1732, the King issued a proclamation

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by which Louisiana was declared free to all his subjects, and all restrictions on commerce were removed. At this time many flourishing settlements had sprung up in Illinois, centering about Kaskaskia, and the inhabitants were said to be more exclusively devoted to agriculture than in any other of the French settlements in the West.

M. D'Artaguette, in 1732, became commandant of Fort Chartres, and Governor of Upper Louisiana. Between New Orleans and Kaskaskia the country was yet a wilderness. Communication by way of the Mississippi was interrupted by the Chickasaws, allies of the English and enemies of France, whose cedar barks shooting boldly out into the current of the Mississippi, cut off the connection between the two colonies. It was in an attempt to subdue these that M. D'Artaguette, the commandant, lost his life. An officer arrived at Fort Chartres from M. Prerrier, Governor-General at New-Orleans, in the year 1736, summoning M. D'Artaguette, with his French soldiers, and all the Indians whom he could induce to join him, to unite in an expedition against the enemy. With an army of fifty Frenchmen, and more than one thousand Indians accompanied by Father Senat and the gallant Vincennes, commandant of the post on the Wabash, where now stands the city hearing his name, D'Artaguette stole cautiously in the Chickasaw country. His Indian allies were impatient, and the commander consented, against his better judgment, to an immediate attack. One fort was carried -- another -- and then in making the assault on the third, the young and intrepid D'Artaguette fell at the head of his forces, pierced with wounds. The Indian allies made this reverse the signal for their flight. The Jesuit Senat might have fled, Vincennes might have saved his life, but both preferred to share the fate of their leader. The captives afterward met death at the stake under the slow torments of fire.

La Buissoniere succeeded as commandant at Fort Chartres. In 1739 a second expedition was undertaken against the Chickasaw country. La Buissoniere joined Bienville, then Governor-General of Louisiana with, a force of two hundred Frenchmen and three hundred Indians. The whole force under Bienville was twelve hundred French and five hundred Indians and negroes. His men suffered greatly from malarial fevers and famine, and returned the following spring without conquering the Chickasaws, with whom afterward, however, amicable relations were established.

The period from 1740 to 1750 was one of great prosperity for the colonies. Cotton was introduced and cultivated. Regular cargoes of pork, flour, bacon, tallow, hides and leather, were floated down the Mississippi, and exported thence to France. French emigrants poured rapidly into the settlements. Canadians exchanged the cold rigors of their climate for the sunny atmosphere and rich soil of the new country. Peace and plenty blessed the settlements.

La Buissoniere was followed, in 1750, by Chevalier Macarty as Governor of Upper Louisiana, and Commandant of Fort Chartres. Peace was soon to be broken. The French and English war, which terminated in 1759 with the defeat of Montcalm on the plains of Abraham, and the capture of Quebec, began with a struggle for the territory on the Upper Ohio. Fort Chartres was the depot of supplies and the place of rendezvous for the united forces of Louisiana, and. several expeditions were fitted out and dispatched to the scene of conflict on the border between the French and English settlements. But France was vanquished in the struggle, and its result deprived her of her princely possessions east of the Mississippi.

CHARACTER OF THE EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS

THE early French inhabitants were well adapted by their peculiar traits of character for intercourse with their savage neighbors of the forest, with whom they lived on terms of peace and friendship. For this reason, the French colonists almost entirely escaped the Indian hostilities by which the English settlements were repressed and weakened. The freest communication existed between the two races. They stood on a footing of equality. The Indian was cordially received in the French village, and the Frenchman found a safe resting place in the lodge of the savage. In scenes of social pleasure, in expeditions to remote rivers and distant forests, in the ceremonies and exercises of the church, the red men were treated as brothers, and the accident of race and color was made as little a mark of distinction as possible. Frequent intermarriages of the French with the Indians strongly cemented this union. For nearly a hundred years the French colonists enjoyed continual peace, while the English settlements on the Atlantic coast were in a state of almost constant danger from savage depredations.

It was doubtless greatly owing to the peculiar facility with which the French temperament adapted itself to surroundings and the natural address with which Frenchmen ingratiated themselves in the favor of the savages, that this happy condition of affairs existed. But something must be ascribed to the difference of character between the French and English in regard to their aggressiveness. The English colonists excited the jealousy and fear of the Indians by their rapid occupation of the country. New settlements were constantly being projected, and the white population pushed farther and farther into the wilderness. When the Indians saw their favorite haunts broken up, and their hunting grounds invaded, a natural feeling of distrust and jealousy led them to warfare against the English. With the French it was different. There was but little disposition to found new settlements, or occupy the wilderness. They were essentially a social people, and the solitary life of a pioneer in the forest was repugnant to their disposition. They lived in compact villages. Their houses were in close proximity. With abundant room for spacious streets, they yet made them so narrow that the merry villagers could converse with ease across the street, each from his own cottage. Hunting was a favorite pursuit, and the chief means of support. With this mode of life the French were content. Ambition failed to incite them to conquer the wilderness, and push their settlements to unknown regions, and avarice was wanting to lead them to grasp after great possessions. The development of the "territorial paradise," as La Salle had called the region through which he passed on his first voyage down the Mississippi, was to be accomplished by another race.

A POSSESSION OF GREAT BRITAIN

BY the treaty of Fountainbleau, 1762, the vast possessions of France, east of the Mississippi, with the exception of the island of New Orleans, passed under British control. Fort Chartres and the other Illinois posts were surrounded by an impenetrable barrier of hostile savages, friends to the French and enemies to the English, and the French officers were authorized to retain

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command until it was found possible for the English to take possession. M. Neyou de Villiers was commandant of Fort Chartres, and until his retiring in 1764, St. Ange d'Bellerive took upon himself the duties of that position. It was the time of Pontiac's conspiracy, when the Indian tribes, inflamed by the savage spirit of that warrior, were precipitating themselves on the English settlements from Canada to Carolina. The French commandant of Fort Chartres was besieged for arms and ammunition to be used against the English. The French flag was still flying over the Fort, and the fact of the territory having been ceded to Great Britain was not generally known except to those in authority. The commandant was visited by embassies from the Illinois, the Delawares, Shawnees and Miamis, and finally Pontiac himself, at the head of four hundred warriors, entered the council hall. St. Ange d'Bellerive, unable to furnish arms, offered instead his good will. The reply was received with dissatisfaction. The Indians pitched their lodges about the Fort, and for a time an attack was seriously apprehended. Finally Pontiac dispatched a chosen band of warriors to New Orleans to obtain from the Governor there the assistance St. Ange refused to grant.

Pontiac was killed a few years after. Disappointed by the failure of his plans against the English, he retired to the solitude of the forests. In the year 1769, he suddenly made his appearance in the neighborhood of St. Louis. Arrayed in the French uniform given him by the Marquis Montcalm a short time previous to the latter's death on the Plains of Abraham, he visited St. Ange d'Bellerive, who at that time had removed from Fort Chartres to St. Louis, where he had become one of the principal inhabitants and commandant of the Spanish garrison. While at St. Louis, he crossed the Mississippi to attend a social gathering of Indians at Cahokia. Becoming intoxicated he started to the neighboring woods, when an Indian of the Kaskaskia tribe, bribed by an English trader with a barrel of whiskey, stole up behind him and buried a tomahawk in the brain of the renowned warrior. St. Ange procured the body, and buried it with all the honors of war near the fort under his command in St. Louis. The tramp of a great city now sweeps over his grave.

Two attempts, on the part of the English, to take possession of Illinois and Fort Chartres, had been made by way of the Mississippi, but hostile Indians on the banks of the river had driven back the expeditions. Meantime a hundred Highlanders of the Forty-second Regiment, those veterans "whose battle cry had echoed over the bloodiest fields of America," had left Fort Pitt, now Pittsburg, and descending the Ohio, appeared before Fort Chartres while the forests were yet rich with the varied hues of autumn. St. Ange yielded up the citadel. It was on the tenth day of October, 1765, that the ensign of France on the ramparts of the Fort gave place to the flag of Great Britain. Kaskaskia had now been founded more than three-fourths of a century.

On the surrender of Fort Chartres, St. Ange with his garrison of twenty-one soldiers retired from the country, and became commandant at St. Louis, an infant settlement just founded. A large number of the French residents of Kaskaskia and other settlements refused to live under English rule. Many of the wealthiest families left the country; some removed across the Mississippi, to the small village of Ste. Genevieve, under the impression that on the west bank of the Mississippi they would still find a home under the government of France, while in truth that territory had been ceded to Spain by a secret treaty in 1762. Others joined in founding the city of St. Louis. The French settlements in Illinois, at a period immediately preceding this date, were at the zenith of their prosperity. From that day the French inhabitants have declined in numbers and influence. In 1765, the population of the Illinois settlements was computed as follows: White men able to bear arms, seven hundred; white women, five hundred; white children, eight hundred and fifty; negroes, nine hundred; total, two thousand nine hundred and fifty. One-third of the whites, and a still larger proportion of the blacks, removed on the British taking possession. A population of less than two thousand remained. Few English, or Americans, with the exception of the British troops, were in the country.

Captain Stirling, who now had command of the Fort, issued a proclamation guaranteeing the inhabitants the liberty of the Catholic faith, permission to retire from the country, and enjoyment of their full rights and privileges, only requiring an oath of fidelity and obedience to His Majesty, the English King. Captain Stirling died some three months after his arrival. In the period that elapsed before the coming of his successor, St. Ange d'Bellerive returned from St. Louis, and discharged the duties of commandant. Major Frazier, from Fort Pitt, exercised for a time an arbitrary power, and his successor, Col. Reed, proved still worse. He held the office eighteen months, and during that time aroused the hatred of the settlements by his oppressive measures. Lieutenant Colonel Wilkins assumed command in 1768.

Captain Pitman, to whose book on "The, Present State of the European Settlements on the Mississippi " reference has already been made, gives the following description of Kaskaskia, as it appeared in 1766:

The village of Notre Dame de Cascasquias is by far the most considerable settlement in the country of the Illinois, as well from its number of inhabitants as from its advantageous situation.

"Mons. Paget was the first who introduced water mills in this country, and he constructed a very fine one on the river Cascasquias, which was both for grinding corn and sawing boards. It lies about one mile from the village. The mill proved fatal to him, being killed as he was working it, with two negroes, by a party of Cherokees, in the year 1764.

"The principal buildings are the church and the Jesuits' house, which has a small chapel adjoining it; these, as well as some of the other houses in the village, are built of stone, and, considering this part of the world, make a very good appearance. The Jesuits' plantation consisted of 240 arpents (an arpent is 85-100 of an acre) of cultivated land, a very good stock of cattle, and a brewery which was sold by the French commandant, after the country was ceded to the English, for the crown, in consequence of the suppression of the order.

"Mons. Beauvais was the purchaser, who is the richest of the English subjects in this country; he keeps eighty slaves; he furnishes 86,000 weight of flour to the King's magazine, which was only part of the harvest he reaped in one year. Sixty five families reside in this village, besides merchants, other casual people, and slaves. The fort which was burnt down in October, 1766, stood on the summit of a high rock opposite the village

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and on the opposite side of the river. It was an oblong quadrangle, of which the extreme polygon measured 290 by 251 feet. It was built of very thick square timber, and dovetailed at the angles. An officer and twenty soldiers are quartered in the vil- lage. The officer governs the inhabitants under the direction of the commandant at Fort Chartres. Here are also two companies of militia."

Of Prairie du Rocher, Pitman writes that "it is a small village, consisting of twenty-two dwelling-houses, all of which are inhabited by as many families. Here is a little chapel, formerly a chapel of ease to the church at Fort Chartres. The inhabitants are very industrious, and raise a great deal of corn and every kind of stock. The village is two miles from Fort Chartres. It takes its name from its situation, being built under a rock that runs parallel with the Mississippi river at a league distance, for forty miles up. Here is a company of militia, the captain of which regulates the police of the village."

In describing the distance from Fort Chartres, the author, doubtless, refers to Little Village, which was a mile or more nearer than Prairie du Rocher. The writer goes on to describe "Saint Philippe" as a "small village about five miles from Fort Chartres on the road to Kaoquias. There are about sixteen houses and a small church standing; all of the inhabitants, except the captain of the militia, deserted in 1765, and went to the French side (Missouri.) The captain of the militia has about twenty slaves, a good stock of cattle, and a water mill for corn and planks. The village stands on a very fine meadow about one mile from the Mississippi.

From the same authority we learn that the soil of the country is in general rich and luxuriant. It was favorably adapted to the production of all kinds of European grains, which grew side by side with hops, hemp, flax, cotton and tobacco. European fruits arrived to great perfection. Of the wild grapes a wine was made, very inebriating, and in color and taste much like the red wine of Provence. In the late wars, New Orleans and the lower parts of Louisiana were supplied with flour, beef, wines, hams, and other provisions, from this country. At present, its commerce is mostly confined to the peltry and furs which are got in traffic from the Indians; for which are received in turn such European commodities as are necessary to carry on that commerce and the support of its inhabitants."

CONQUEST BY CLARKE

ON the breaking out of the War of the Revolution, it is probable that the British garrison (removed in 1772 from Port Chartres to Fort Gage, opposite Kaskaskia,) had been withdrawn. Illinois was remote from the theatre of action, and the colonists were little disturbed by the rumors of war which came from the Atlantic coast. The French inhabitants were rather in sympathy with the Americans than the English, but probably understood little the nature of the struggle. Illinois belonged to the jurisdiction of Virginia. George Rogers Clarke, who visited Kentucky in 1775, seems to have been the first to comprehend the advantages which would result from the occupation of Illinois by the Americans. He visited Virginia, where he laid his plans before Patrick Henry, the Governor of the State. Clarke received his instructions, January, 1778, and the following month set out for Pittsburg. His instructions were to raise seven companies of men, but he could only succeed in enlisting four, commanded by Captains Montgomery, Bowman, Helm, and Harrod. On Corn Island, opposite Louisville, on the Ohio, Clarke announced his destination to the men. At the mouth of the Tennessee, a man named John Duff was encountered, with a party of hunters, who had recently visited Kaskaskia, and also brought the intelligence that one Rocheblave, a French Canadian, was in command at that point, that he kept the militia well drilled, and that sentinels were posted to watch for the "Long Knives," as the Virginians were called, of whom the inhabitants were in terror. Securing his boats near Fort Massacre (or Massac,) Clarke undertook the journey across the country, one hundred and twenty miles, to Kaskaskia. It was accomplished with difficulty. On the afternoon of the fourth of July, 1778, the exhausted band of invaders came to the vicinity of Kaskaskia, and concealed themselves in the hills to the east of the town. After dark Clarke proceeded to the old ferry-house, three-fourths of a mile above the village, and at midnight addressed his troops on the banks of the river. He divided his force into three parties. Two were to cross to the west side of the river, and enter the town from different quarters. The third, under the direction of Clarke himself, was to capture the fort on the east side. Kaskaskia at that time was a village of about two hundred and fifty houses. The British commander last in charge had instilled in the minds of the people the impression that the Virginians, otherwise the "Long Knives," were a ferocious band of murderers, plundering houses, slaughtering women and children, and committing acts of the greatest atrocity. Clarke determined to take advantage of this, and so surprise the inhabitants by fear as to induce them to submit without resistance. Clarke effected an entrance to the fort without difficulty. The other parties at a given signal entered Kaskaskia at the opposite extremities, and with terrible outcries and hideousness aroused the terrified inhabitants, who shrieked in their alarm, "The Long Knives! The Long Knives are here!" The panic-stricken townsmen delivered up their arms, and the victory was accomplished without the shedding of a drop of blood. M. Rocheblave, the British commandant, was unconscious of the presence of the enemy, till an officer of the detachment entered his bed-chamber, and claimed him as a prisoner. In accordance with his original plan of conquering the inhabitants by terror, and then afterward winning their regard and gratitude by his clemency, Clarke, the next day, withdrew his forces from the town, and sternly forbade all communication between it and his soldiers. Some of the principal militia officers, citizens of the town, were next put in irons. The terror now reached its height. The priest, and a deputation of five or six elderly men of the village, called on Clarke, and humbly requested permission to assemble in the church, to take leave of each other and commend their future lives to the protection of a merciful God, since they expected to be separated, perhaps never to meet again. Clarke gruffly granted the privilege. The whole population convened at the church, and after remaining together a long time, the priest and a few others again waited upon the commander of the American forces, presenting thanks for the privilege they had enjoyed, and desiring to know what fate awaited them.

Clarke now determined to lift them from their despair, and win their gratitude by a show of mercy. "What!" said he; "do you take us for savages ? Do you think Americans will

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strip women and children, and take bread from their mouths? My countrymen disdain to make war on helpless innocents." He further reminded them that the King of France, their former ruler, was an ally of the Americans, and now fighting their cause. He told them to embrace the side they deemed best, and they should be respected in the enjoyment of their liberty and the rights of property.

The revulsion of feeling was complete. The good news spread throughout the village. The church-bell rang a merry peal, and the delighted inhabitants gathered at the chapel, where thanks were offered to God for their happy and unexpected deliverance. The loyalty of the inhabitants was assured, and ever after they remained faithful to the American cause. The French inhabitants of Kaskaskia were readily reconciled to a change of government. In October, 1778, the Virginia Assembly erected the conquered territory into the County of Illinois. This County embraced all the region northwest of the Ohio, and five large states have since been formed from it. Colonel Clarke was appointed military commander of all the western territory north and south of the Ohio, and Colonel John Todd, one of Clarke's soldiers, who next to Clarke had been the first man to enter Fort Gage, was appointed lieutenant-commandant of Illinois. In the spring of 1779, Colonel Todd visited Kaskaskia, and made arrangements for the organization of a temporary government. Many of the French inhabitants of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and the other settlements readily took the oath of allegiance to Virginia. Colonel Todd was killed at the famous battle of Blue Licks, in Kentucky, August, 1782, and Timothy de Montbrun, a Frenchman, succeeded him as commandant of Illinois County. Of his administration but little is known.

LAND TENURES

THE early French settlers held the possession of their land in common. A tract of land was fixed upon for a Common Field, in which all the inhabitants were interested.

Besides the Common Field, another tract of land was laid off as the Commons. All the villagers had free access to this as a place of pasturage for their stock. From this they also drew their supply of fuel.

Individual grants were likewise made. Under the French system, the lands were granted without any equivalent consideration in the way of money, the individuals satisfying the authorities that the lands were wanted for actual settlement, or for a purpose likely to benefit the community. The first grant of land, which is preserved, is that made to Charles Danie, May 10th, 1722. The French grants at Kaskaskia extended from river to river, and at other places in the Bottom they commonly extended from the river to the bluff. Grants of land were made for almost all the American Bottom, from the upper limits of the Common Field of St. Phillip's to the lower line of the Kaskaskia Common Field, a distance of nearly thirty miles.

The British commandants, who assumed the government on the cession of the territory by France, exercised the privilege of making grants, subject to the approval of his Majesty, the King. Colonel Wilkins granted to some merchants of Philadelphia a magnificent domain of thirty thousand acres lying between the village of Kaskaskia and Prairie du Rocher, much of it already covered by French grants previously made. For the better carrying out their plans, the British officers, and perhaps their grantees, destroyed, to some extent, the records of' the ancient French grants at Kaskaskia, by which the regular claim of titles and conveyances was partly broken. This British grant of thirty thousand acres, which had been assigned to John Edgar, was afterward patented by Governor St. Clair to Edgar and John Murray St. Clair, the Governor's son, to whom Edgar had previously conveyed a moiety by deed. Although much fault was found with the transaction, a confirmation of the grant was secured from the United States government.

When Virginia ceded Illinois, it was stipulated that the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers, who had professed allegiance to Virginia, should have their titles confirmed to them. Congress afterwards authorized the Governor to confirm the possessions and titles of the French to their lands. In accordance with this agreement, Governor St. Clair, in 1790, issued a proclamation directing the inhabitants to exhibit their titles and claims to the lands which they held, in order to be confirmed in their possession. Where the instruments were found to be authentic, orders of survey were issued, the expense of which was borne by the parties who claimed ownership. The French inhabitants were in such poverty at this time that they were really unable to pay the expenses of the surveys, and a memorial signed by P. Gibault, the priest at Kaskaskia, and eighty-seven others, was presented to Governor St. Clair, praying him to petition Congress for relief in the matter. In 1791, Congress directed that four hundred acres of land should be granted to the head of every family which had made improvements in Illinois prior to the year 1788. Before this, in 1788, Congress had also directed that a donation be given to each of the families then living at either of the villages of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, Cahokia, Fort Chartres, or St. Phillips. These were known as "bead-right" claims.

At an early date, speculation became active in the land claims of different kinds; bead-rights, improvement rights, militia rights, and fraudulent claims were produced in great numbers. The French claims were partly unconfirmed, owing to the poverty of that people, and these were forced on the market with the others. The official report of the commissioners at Kaskaskia, made in 1810, shows that eight hundred and ninety land claims were rejected as being illegal or fraudulent. Three hundred and seventy were reported as being supported by perjury, and a considerable number were forged. There are fourteen names given of persons, both English and French, who made it a regular business to furnish sworn certificates, professing an intimate knowledge, in every case, of the settlers who had made certain improvements upon which claims were predicated and when and where they were located. A Frenchman, clerk of the parish of Prairie du Rocher, "without property and fond of liquor," after having given some two hundred depositions in favor of three land claimant speculators, "was induced," in the language of the report, "either by compensation, fear, or the impossibility of obtaining absolution on any other terms, to declare on oath that the said depositions were false, and that in giving them he had a regard for something beyond the truth."

The report of the commissioners raised many doubts in regard to the validity and propriety of a number of Confirmations by the Governors, and much dissatisfaction among the claimants; and in consequence, Congress, in 1812, passed an act for the revision of these land claims in the Kaskaskia district. The

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commissioners under this law were Michael Jones, John Caldwell and Thomas Sloo. Facts damaging to persons who occupied positions of high respectability in the community, were disclosed. They reported that the English claim of thirty thousand acres confirmed by Governor St. Clair to John Edgar and the Governor's son, John Murray St. Clair, was founded in neither law nor equity, that the patent was issued after the Governor's power ceased to exist, and the claim ought not to be confirmed. Congress, however, confirmed it.

For a period of several years, emigration was considerably retarded by the delay in adjusting land titles. The act of Congress passed in 1813, granting the right of pre-emption to settlers, was influential in bringing the public lands into market. Emigrants poured into the country, and improvements were rapidly made.

CIVIL ORGANIZATION

THE history of Illinois has been traced while a possession of France, and when under the British government; and the formation of Illinois as a County of Virginia has been noted. The several States afterwards agreed, on the adoption of the Articles of the Confederation, to cede their claims to the western land to the General government. Virginia executed her deed of cession March 1st, 1784. For several years after, there was an imperfect administration of the law in Illinois. The French customs partly held force, and affairs were partly governed by the promulgations of the British commandants issued from Fort Chartres, and by the regulations which had subsequently been issued by the Virginia authorities.

By the ordinance of 1787, all the territory northwest of the Ohio not constituted into one district, the laws to be administered by a governor and secretary, a court was instituted of three judges. A general assembly was provided for, the members to be chosen by the people. General Arthur St. Clair was selected by Congress, as Governor of the northwestern territory. The seat of government was at Marietta, Ohio.

In the year 1795, Governor St. Clair divided St. Clair County. All south of a line running through the New Design settlement (in the present County of Monroe) was erected into the County of Randolph. In honor of Edmund Randolph of Virginia, the new county received its name.

Shadrach Bond, afterward the first Governor, was elected from Illinois, a member of the Territorial Legislature which convened at Cincinnati, in January, 1799. In 1800 the Territory of Indiana was formed, of which Illinois constituted a part, with the seat of government at Vincennes. About 1806, among other places in the West, Aaron Burr visited Kaskaskia in an endeavor to enlist men for his treasonable scheme against the government. In 1805, George Fisher was elected from Randolph County a member of the Territorial Legislature, and Pierre Menard was chosen member of the Legislative Council.

By act of Congress, 1809, the Territory of Illinois was constituted. Ninian Edwards was appointed Governor of the newly organized Territory, and the seat of government established at Kaskaskia. Nathaniel Pope, a relative of Edwards, received the appointment of Secretary.

For nearly four years after the organization of the Territorial Government no legislature existed in Illinois. All election for representatives was held on the eighth, ninth, and tenth of October, 1812. Shadrach Bond, then a resident of St. Clair County, was elected the first Delegate to Congress from Illinois. Pierre Menard was chosen from Randolph County member of the Legislative Council, and George Fisher of the House of Representatives. The Legislature convened at Kaskaskia on the twenty-fifth of November, 1812.

In April, 1818, a bill providing for the admission of Illinois into the Union as a sovereign State was passed by Congress. A Convention to frame a Constitution assembled at Kaskaskia in the following July. The first election under the Constitution was held in September, 1818, and Shadrach Bond was elected Governor, and Pierre Menard, Lieutenant Governor. Illinois was now declared by Congress admitted to the Union as on equal footing in all respects with the original States. The Legislature again met at Kaskaskia in January, 1819. This was the last session ever held at Kaskaskia. Vandalia, the same year, was selected as Capital of the State. It was stipulated that Vandalia was to be the Capital for twenty years. At the end of that period it was changed to Springfield. Below we give list of governors and chief officers of Illinois.

Illinois was constituted a separate Territory by act of Congress, February 3d, 1809.

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(1) Bancroft

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