Early Western Travels, 1748-1846 (Volume XXVI) Part 17

"The company, persuaded of the truth of the indications which had been given them, and that the incapacity of the founder had been the sole cause of their bad success, sent, in his room, a Spaniard called Antonio, who had been taken at the siege of Pensacola; had afterward been a galley-slave, and boasted much of his having wrought in a mine at Mexico. They gave him very considerable appointments, but he succeeded no better than had done the Sieur de Lochon. He was not discouraged himself, and others inclined to believe that he had failed from his not being versed in the construction of furnaces. He gave over the search after lead, and undertook to make silver; he dug down to the rock, which was found to be eight or ten feet in thickness; several pieces of it were blown up and put into a crucible, from whence it was given out that he extracted three or four drachms of silver; but many are still doubtful of the truth of this fact.

"About this time arrived a company of the King's miners, under the direction of one _La Renaudiere_, who, resolving to begin with the lead mines, was able to do nothing; because neither he himself nor any of his company were in the least acquainted with the construction of furnaces. Nothing can be more surprising than the facility with which the company at that time exposed themselves to great expenses, and the little precaution they took to be satisfied of the capacity of those they employed. La Renaudiere and his miners not being able to procure any lead, a private company undertook the mines of the Marameg, and Sieur Renault, one of the directors, superintended them with care. In the month of June last he found a bed of lead ore two feet in thickness, running to a great length over a chain of mountains, where he has now set his people to work. He flatters himself that there is silver below the lead. Everybody is not of his opinion, but will discover the truth."--FLAGG.

[70] Flagg's account agrees with a much longer treatment by Lewis C.

Beck, in his _Gazetteer of the States of Illinois and Missouri_ (Albany, 1823), with the exception that the latter says there were no inscriptions to be found on the gravestones. Beck himself makes extended quotations from the _Missouri Gazette_, November 6, 1818, and subsequent numbers. Though no doubt exaggerated, these accounts were probably based on facts, for a large number of prehistoric remains have been found in St. Louis County and preserved in the Peabody Museum at New Haven, Connecticut, and elsewhere.--ED.

[71] For an account of Jefferson Barracks, see Townsend's _Narrative_, in our volume xxi, p. 122, note 2.--ED.

[72] For the history of Carondelet, see Maximilian's _Travels_, in our volume xxii, p. 215, note 124.

For reference to Cahokia, see A. Michaux's _Travels_, in our volume iii, p. 70, note 135.

On May 20, 1826, Congress made an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars to the secretary of war, for the purpose of purchasing the site for the erection of an a.r.s.enal in the vicinity of St. Louis.

Lands now far within the southeastern limits of the city were purchased, and the buildings erected which were used for a.r.s.enals until January 16, 1871, when they were occupied as a depot for the general mounted recruiting service.--ED.

[73] A name of Algonquin origin--_Missi_ signifying great, and _sepe_ a river.--FLAGG.

[74] Indian name for the "Falls of St. Anthony."--FLAGG.

[75] That the Mississippi, the Missouri, and, indeed, most of the great rivers of the West, are annually enlarging, as progress is made in clearing and cultivating the regions drained by them, scarcely admits a doubt. Within the past thirty years, the width of the Mississippi has sensibly increased; its overflows are more frequent, while, by the diminution of obstructions, it would seem not to have become proportionally shallow. In 1750, the French settlements began upon the river above New-Orleans, and for twenty years the banks were cultivated without a _levee_. Inundation was then a rare occurrence: ever since, from year to year, the river has continued to rise, and require higher and stronger embankments. A century hence, if this phenomenon continues, what a magnificent spectacle will not this river present! How terrific its freshets! The immense forest of timber which lies concealed beneath its depths, as evinced by the great earthquakes of 1811, demonstrates that, for centuries, the Mississippi has occupied its present bed.--FLAGG.

[76] In 1764 Auguste Chouteau made tentative plans for the fortification of St. Louis. In obedience to an order by Don Francisco Cruzat, the lieutenant-governor, he made a survey in 1781 for the purpose of perfecting these earlier plans. In the same year the stockade was begun immediately south of the present site of the courthouse. In 1797 the round stone tower which Flagg mentions was constructed and preparations made for building four additional towers; the latter were never completed. From 1804 to 1806 these fortifications were used by the United States troops, and then abandoned for military purposes. The commandant's house served as a courthouse from 1806 to 1816; and the tower as a jail until 1819. For a detailed description of the plans, see J. F. Scharf, _St. Louis City and County_ (Philadelphia, 1883), p. 136 ff.--ED.

[77] For a brief sketch of William H. Ashley see Maximilian's _Travels_, in our volume xxii, p. 250, note 198. He purchased (1826 or 1827) eight acres on the present site of Broadway, between Biddle and Bates streets, St. Louis, where he built a handsome residence.

b.l.o.o.d.y Island, now the Third Ward of East St. Louis, was formed about 1800 by the current cutting its way through the neck in a bend of the river. For a long time it was not determined to what state it belonged, and being considered neutral ground many duels were fought there, notably those between Thomas H. Benton and Charles Lucas (1817), United States District Attorney Thomas Rector and Joshua Barton (1823), and Thomas Biddle and Spencer Pettis (1830). The name was derived from these b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sociations.--ED.

[78] For a sketch of Charlevoix, see Nuttall's _Journal_, in our volume xiii, p. 116, note 81.--ED.

[79] D'Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, sent a detachment of soldiers to St. Louis in 1767. Later, these troops were transferred to the south bank of the Missouri, a few miles above its mouth, where "Old Fort St. Charles the Prince" was erected. General Wilkinson built Fort Bellefontaine on this site in 1805. From 1809 to 1815 this was the headquarters of the military department of Louisiana (including Forts Madison, Ma.s.sac, Osage, and Vincennes). It was the starting point of the Pike, Long, and Atkinson expeditions. On July 10, 1826, it was abandoned for Jefferson Barracks, but a small a.r.s.enal of deposits was maintained here until 1834. The land was eventually sold by the government (1836). See Walter B. Douglas's note in Thwaites, _Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition_ (New York, 1905), v, pp. 392, 393.--ED.

[80] North of Missouri River, twenty miles above its confluence with the Mississippi, where the bluffs of the two streams unite, two smooth, treeless, gra.s.s-covered mounds stand out from the main bluffs.

These mounds, a hundred and fifty feet in height, were called by the early French "mamelles" from their fancied resemblance to the human breast.--ED.

[81] Alton, twenty-five miles above St. Louis, is the princ.i.p.al city of Madison County, Illinois. In 1807 the French erected here a small trading post. Rufus Easton laid out the town (1818), and named it for his son. The state penitentiary was first built at Alton (1827), but the last prisoner was transferred (1860) to the new penitentiary at Joliet, begun in 1857. Alton was the scene of the famous anti-Abolitionist riot of November 7, 1837, when Elijah P. Lovejoy was killed.--ED.

[82] Captain Benjamin G.o.dfrey donated fifteen acres of land and thirty-five thousand dollars for the erection of a female seminary at G.o.dfrey, Madison County, Illinois. The school was opened April 11, 1838, under the t.i.tle of the Monticello Female Seminary, with Rev.

Theron Baldwin for its first princ.i.p.al.--ED.

[83] The plans mentioned here were probably being agitated when Flagg visited Alton in 1836. The act incorporating the first railroad in Illinois was approved January 17, 1835; it provided for the construction of a road from Chicago to a point opposite Vincennes. By the internal improvement act of February 27, 1837, a road was authorized to be constructed from Alton to Terre Haute, by way of Shelbyville, and another from Alton to Mount Carmel, by way of Salem, Marion County; but the act was repealed before the roads were completed. The c.u.mberland road was constructed only to Vandalia, Fayette County, though the internal improvement act contemplated its extension to St. Louis.--ED.

[84] The French village is no doubt Portage des Sioux. In 1799 Francis Leseuer, a resident of St. Charles, visited the place, which was then an Indian settlement. Pleased with the location he returned to St.

Charles, and secured a grant of the land from Don Carlos Dehault Dela.s.sus, lieutenant-governor of Upper Louisiana, organized a colony from among the French inhabitants of St. Charles and St. Louis, and occupied the place the same autumn.--ED.

[85] Grafton, Jersey County, Illinois, was settled in 1832 by James Mason, and named by him in honor of his native place. It was laid out (1836) by Paris and Sarah Mason.--ED.

[86] The Illinois Indians (from "Illini," meaning "men") were of Algonquian stock, and formerly occupied the state to which they gave the name. They were loyal to the French during their early wars, later aided the English, and were with great difficulty subdued by the United States government. Separate tribes of the Illinois Indians were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigami, Moingewena, Peoria, and Tamaroa.

On a high bluff just above Alton there was formerly to be seen a huge painted image known among the Indians as the Piasa Bird. To the natives it was an object of much veneration, and in time many superst.i.tions became connected therewith. First described in the _Journal_ of Father Jacques Marquette (1673) its origin was long a subject of speculation among early writers. Traces of this strange painting could be seen until 1840 or 1845, when they were entirely obliterated through quarrying. See P. A. Armstrong, _The Piasa or the Devil among the Indians_ (Morris, Illinois, 1887).

The version of the tradition given by Flagg was probably from the pen of John Russell, who in 1837 began editing at Grafton, Illinois, the _Backwoodsman_, a local newspaper. Russell had in 1819 or 1820 published in the _Missourian_ an article ent.i.tled "Venomous Worm,"

which won for him considerable reputation. Russell admitted that the version was largely imaginative; nevertheless it had a wide circulation.--ED.

[87] For a sketch of Tonty, see Nuttall's _Journal_, in our volume xiii, p. 117, note 85.--ED.

[88] Beardstone, Ca.s.s County, Illinois, was laid out by Thomas Beard and Enoch Marsh (1827). During the Black Hawk War (1832), it was the princ.i.p.al supply base for the Illinois volunteers.--ED.

[89] For an account of the Illinois Ca.n.a.l, see Flint's _Letters_, in our volume ix, p. 186, note 93.--ED.

[90] By act of Congress approved May 6, 1812, three tracts of land, not exceeding on the whole six million acres, were authorized to be surveyed and used as a bounty for the soldiers engaged in the war begun with Great Britain in that year. The tract surveyed in Illinois Territory comprehended the land lying between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, extending seven miles north of Quincy, on the former stream, and to the present village of De Pue, in southeastern Bureau County, on the latter; it embraced the present counties of Calhoun, Pike, Adams, Brown, Schuyler, Hanc.o.c.k, McDonough, Fulton, Peoria, Stark, Knox, Warren, Henderson, and Mercer, and parts of Henry, Bureau, Putnam, and Marshall.--ED.

[91] Cap au Gris was a point of land on the Mississippi, in Calhoun County, Illinois, just above the mouth of the Illinois. J. M. Peck, in his _Gazetteer of Illinois_ (1837), from which Flagg derives his account of this place, says that a settlement had been formed there about forty years earlier. The town of this name is now in Lincoln County, Missouri. There is no foundation for the belief that La Salle had erected a fort here.--ED.

[92] Montgomery, on the right bank of Illinois River, in Pike County, was laid out by an Alton Company, for a new landing. Naples is a small village in Scott County. Havana, founded in 1827, is the seat of justice for Mason County. Pekin is in Tazewell County.--ED.

[93] Peoria, now the second largest city in Illinois, is situated a hundred and sixty miles southwest of Chicago, on the west bank and near the outlet of Lake Peoria, an expansion of the Illinois River.

Its site was visited in 1680 by La Salle. Early in the eighteenth century a French settlement was made a mile and a half farther up, and named Peoria for the local Indian tribe. French missionaries were in this neighborhood as early as 1673-74. In 1788 or 1789 the first house was built on the present site of Peoria and by the close of the century the inhabitants of the old town, because of its more healthful location, moved to the new village of Peoria, which at first was called La Ville de Maillet, in honor of a French Canadian who commanded a company of volunteers in the War of the Revolution. Later the name was changed to its present form. At the opening of the War of 1812-15, the French inhabitants were charged with having aroused the Indians against the Americans in Illinois. Governor Ninian Edwards ordered Thomas E. Craig, captain of a company of Illinois militia, to proceed up the Illinois River and build a fort at Peoria. Under the pretense that his men had been fired upon by the inhabitants, when the former were peaceably pa.s.sing in their boats, Craig burned half the town of Peoria in November, 1812, and transferred the majority of the population to below Alton. In the following year, Fort Clark--named in honor of General George Rogers Clark--was erected by General Benjamin Howard on this site; but after the close of the war the fort was burned by the Indians. After the affair of 1812, Peoria was not occupied, save occasionally, until 1819, when it was rebuilt by the Americans. The American Fur Company established a post there in 1824.

See C. Ballance, _History of Peoria_ (Peoria, 1870).--ED.

[94] Benjamin Howard (1760-1814) was elected to the state legislature of Kentucky (1800), to Congress (1807-10); appointed governor of Upper Louisiana Territory (1810), and in March, 1813, brigadier-general of the United States army in command of the 8th military department. He died at St. Louis, September, 1814.--ED.

[95] Kickapoo Creek rises in Peoria County, flows southeasterly and enters Illinois River two miles below Peoria.--ED.

[96] Robert Walter Weir (1803-89), after studying and painting in New York, Florence (1824-25), and Rome (1825-27), opened a studio in New York, and became an a.s.sociate and later academician of the National Academy of Design. He was professor of drawing in the United States Military Academy at West Point from 1832 to 1874. Weir is best known for his historical paintings, prominent among which are "The Bourbons'

Last March," "Landing of Hendric Hudson," "Indian Captives," and "Embarkation of the Pilgrims." He built and beautified the Church of Holy Innocents at Highland Falls, West Point. His two sons, John Ferguson and Julian Alden, became noted artists.--ED.

[97] By order of the war department (May 19, 1834), Lieutenant-Colonel S. W. Kearny was sent with companies B, H, and I of the 1st United States dragoons to establish a fort near the mouth of Des Moines River. The present site of Montrose, Lee County, Iowa, at the head of the lower rapids of the Mississippi, was chosen. The barracks being completed by November, 1834, they were occupied until the spring of 1837, when the troops were transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

As early as 1721 a French fort (La Baye) had been erected at Green Bay, on the left bank of Fox River, a half league from its mouth.

After suffering many vicissitudes during the Fox wars it was later strengthened, and when occupied by English troops in 1761, was re-named Fort Edward Augustus. After the close of the War of 1812-15, the United States government determined to exercise a real authority over the forts on the upper Great Lakes, where, in spite of the provision of Jay's Treaty (1794), its power had been merely nominal.

In 1815 John Bowyer, the first United States Indian agent for the Green Bay district, established a government trading post at Green Bay, and made an ineffectual attempt to control the fur trade of the region. The following year, Fort Howard, named in honor of General Benjamin Howard, was built on the site of the old French fort. With the exception of 1820-22, when the troops were transferred to Camp Smith, on the east sh.o.r.e, Fort Howard was continuously occupied until 1841, when its garrison was ordered to Florida and Mexico. Later, from 1849 to 1851, it was occupied by Colonel Francis Lee and Lieutenant-Colonel B. L. E. Bonneville, and then permanently abandoned as a garrison, although a volunteer company was stationed there for a short time during the War of Secession. Almost every trace of the old fort has been obliterated. Consult _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, xvi, xvii; also William L. Evans, "Military History of Green Bay," in Wisconsin Historical Society _Proceedings_, 1899, pp. 128-146.--ED.

[98] Hennepin, on the east bank of the Illinois River, was laid out in 1831 and made the seat of justice for Putnam County.

Ottawa, the county seat of La Salle, was laid off by the ca.n.a.l commissioners (1830) at the junction of the Fox and Illinois rivers.--ED.

[99] Flagg's description of this noted bluff is accurate. After careful investigations, Francis Parkman, the historian, was convinced that _Le Rocher_ or Starved Rock is the site of Fort St. Louis, erected by La Salle in December, 1682. On his departure in the autumn of 1683, La Salle left the post in command of his lieutenant, Henri de Tonty, who was soon succeeded by De Baugis. In 1690 Tonty and La Forest were granted the proprietorship of the stronghold, but in 1702 it was abandoned by royal order. By 1718 it was again occupied by the French, although when Father Charlevoix pa.s.sed three years later, it was once more deserted. The tradition which gave rise to the name Starved Rock was well known; see _Tales of the Border_ (Philadelphia, 1834); Osman Eaton, _Starved Rock, a Historical Sketch_ (Ottawa, Illinois, 1895); and Francis Parkman, _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_ (Boston, 1869).

Pontiac was a.s.sa.s.sinated in 1769 instead of 1767. For accounts of the Ottawa and Potawotami, see Croghan's _Journals_, in our volume i, p.

76, note 37, and p. 115, note 84, respectively.--ED.

[100] For a biographical sketch of Pierre and Auguste Chouteau, the elders, see James's _Long's Expedition_, in our volume xvi, p. 275, note 127.--ED.

[101] The imprint of a human foot is yet to be seen in the limestone of the sh.o.r.e not far from the landing at St. Louis.

With reference to the _human footprints in the rock at St. Louis_, I have given the local tradition. Schoolcraft's detailed description, which I subjoin, varies from this somewhat. The print of a human foot is said to have been discovered also in the limestone at Herculaneum.

Morse, in his _Universal Geography_, tells us of the tracks of an army of men and horses on a certain mountain in the State of Tennessee, fitly named the Enchanted Mountain.

"Before leaving Harmony, our attention was particularly directed to a tabular ma.s.s of limestone, containing two apparent prints or impressions of the naked human foot. This stone was carefully preserved in an open area, upon the premises of Mr. Rappe, by whom it had previously been conveyed from the banks of the Mississippi, at St.