The Settlement of Illinois, 1778-1830 Part 7

The best road from North Carolina to Indiana, for loaded wagons, was that which crossed the Blue Ridge at Ward's Gap, in Western Virginia, led through East Tennessee and Kentucky, and reached the Ohio River at Cincinnati,(399) and this was a part of the route for some of the Illinois immigrants. Ill.u.s.trations of the moving instinct, the ever-present desire to go frontierward, were constantly appearing.(400) Although the greater proportion of immigrants came by either wagon or boat, some came on horseback and some on foot.(401) One pioneer wrote: "My mother was a delicate woman and in the hope of prolonging her life, my father, in 1830, broke up his home at Windsor, Connecticut, and started overland for Jacksonville, Illinois. Most of the household furniture was shipped by water, _via_ New Orleans and did not reach its destination until a year afterwards, six months after our arrival. The wagon for my mother was made strong and wide, drawn by three horses, so that a bed could be put in it and most of the way she lay in this bed. Most of the time the drive was pleasant but over the mountains it was rough and over the national corduroy road of Indiana, it was perfectly horrible."(402) A journey was made in 1827 in about four weeks over the same route that it had taken the same traveler seven and a half weeks to cover in 1822.(403)

Within the state changes in facilities for transportation were constant.

From Shawneetown to St. Louis, by way of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, pa.s.sed the great western road. There was also a road from Shawneetown, by way of Carmi, to Birkbeck's settlement in Edwards county.(404) Frontier roads to different places seem to have been designated by different numbers of notches cut in the trees along the wayside.(405) New roads were in constant demand. In February, 1821, the legislature authorized the building of a turnpike road, one hundred feet wide, from the Mississippi, opposite St. Louis, across the American Bottom to the Bluffs. Toll was to be regulated by the county commissioners, but it must be not less than twelve and one-half cents for a man and horse, twenty-five cents for a one-horse wagon or carriage, six and one-fourth cents for each wheel and each horse of other wagons and carriages, six and one-fourth cents for each single horse or head of cattle, and two cents for each hog or sheep.

If at any time the county should pay the cost of the road, plus six per cent, the county should become the owner.(406) A traveler writing late in 1822 says that a public road had just been opened between Vandalia and Springfield.(407) During the same year, Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, one of the most active of the agents of the American Fur Company in Illinois, established a direct path or track from Iroquois Post to Danville. In 1824 this path, which was known as "Hubbard's Trail," was extended northward to Chicago, and southward to a point about one hundred and fifty miles southwest of Danville. Along this trail trading-posts were established at intervals of forty or fifty miles. The southern extremity of the trail was Blue Point, in Effingham county.(408) This became the regularly traveled route between points connected by it.

Springfield was the northern terminus of the mail route early in 1823, and the next year Sangamon county, in which the village lay, was almost entirely without ferries, bridges, or roads.(409) In 1830 mail was carried between Vincennes and St. Louis thrice a week; between Maysville and St.

Louis, and between Belleville and St. Charles twice a week. No point in Illinois, not on one of these routes, received mail oftener than once a week. There was at this time a mail route from Peoria to Galena.(410) The legislatures of Indiana and Illinois pet.i.tioned Congress for an appropriation to improve the mail route from Louisville, Kentucky, to St.

Louis, Missouri. The length of that part of the route which lay between Vincennes and St. Louis was one hundred and sixty miles, but a more direct route, recently surveyed by authority of the legislature of Illinois, reduced the distance to one hundred and forty-five miles. The distance between Vincennes and St. Louis was made up of about one-fourth of timber land and three-fourths of prairies, from five to twenty miles across. "The settlements are therefore scattered, and far between, and confined to the vicinity of the timbered land. More than nineteen-twentieths of the land, over which the road pa.s.ses, is the property of the Federal Government. To make the necessary causeways and bridges, and to keep the road in a proper state of repair, is beyond the capacity of the people who reside upon it."

Another writer says of the route: "It must, for many years, be the channel of communication, through which the Government shall transmit, and receive, all its intelligence relative to the mines in the region of Galena, and Prairie Du Chien, the Military Posts of the Upper Mississippi, Missouri, and their tributary streams, and the whole northwestern Indian frontier."(411)

Galena remained much isolated. A man who had horses and cattle, purchased in southern Illinois and driven to Galena, by way of Springfield and Peoria, in 1823, says that there was no settlement between Peoria and Fever River. A year before, a traveler who went from St. Louis to Galena, on horseback, arrived in time to a.s.sist in completing the second cabin in the place.(412) Two travelers who walked from Upper Alton to Galena, in January and February, 1826, had to camp out several nights, because no residence was in reach. Much of the way no trail existed.(413) About 1827 it was common for men to go with teams of four yoke of oxen, and strong canvas-covered wagons from southern Illinois to the lead regions. In those regions they spent the summer in hauling from the mines to the furnaces or from the furnaces to the place of shipment, usually Galena, and taking back to the mines a load of supplies. In the fall the teamsters returned to their homes, sometimes, in the early days, taking a load of lead to St.

Louis. These men lived in their wagons, and cooked their own food. The oxen lived by browsing at night.(414)

Transportation rates can be only approximately given, because they varied with the condition of the weather or of the roads, and were frequently agreed upon by a special bargain. In 1817 steamboats are said to have descended the Ohio and the Mississippi at the rate of ten miles per hour, and to have charged pa.s.sengers six cents per mile. Freight, by steamboat, from New Orleans to Shippingport (Falls of the Ohio), and thence by boats to Zanesville, was about $6.50 per 100 pounds.(415) It took about one month to make the trip from New Orleans to Shawneetown-June 6 to July 10 in a specific case. Nine-tenths of the trade was still carried on in the old style-by flat-boats, barges, pirogues, etc.(416) In December, 1817, freight from Shawneetown to Louisville was $1.12- per hundred weight; to New Orleans, $1.00; to Pittsburg, $3.50; to Shawneetown from Pittsburg, $1.00; from Louisville, $0.37-; from New Orleans, $4.50. The great difference between the rates up stream and those down stream was due to the difficulty of going against the current.(417) Cobbett estimated that Birkbeck's settlement, fifty miles north of Shawneetown, could be reached from the eastern seaboard for five pounds sterling per person.(418) In 1819, the pa.s.senger rate, by steamboat, from New Orleans to Shawneetown, was $110; the freight rate $0.04- to $0.06 per pound, the high charges being attributed to a lack of compet.i.tion, which the many new boats then building were expected to remedy.(419) A party of nine people with somewhat more than six thousand pounds of luggage, wishing to start from Baltimore for Illinois, in July, 1819, learned that the water was so low that large boats could with difficulty pa.s.s from Pittsburg to Wheeling.

They accordingly went from Baltimore to Wheeling, a distance of two hundred and eighty miles, by land. They had two wagons with six horses and a driver to each wagon. The price for transportation was three hundred and fifty dollars. At Wheeling a contract was made for transportation to Louisville, six hundred miles distance. For this, fifty dollars was paid, the pa.s.sengers agreeing to help navigate the boat. At Louisville an ark was bought for twenty-five dollars, and two men were hired for eighteen dollars and their board, to take the party to Shawneetown, about three hundred miles distant. At Shawneetown the master of a keel-boat was engaged to take the luggage of six thousand pounds to a point about eleven miles from Birkbeck's settlement, for 37- cents per hundred pounds. The travelers proceeded on foot. The time occupied in the journey was: From Baltimore to Wheeling, sixteen days; from Wheeling to Shawneetown, thirty-eight days; from Shawneetown to the Birkbeck settlement, four days.(420) A traveler in Illinois, in 1819, said that the usual price of land carriage was fifty cents per hundred pounds for each twenty miles; sometimes higher, never lower, and that it would not pay to have corn transported twenty miles.(421) In 1820, the charge for carrying either baggage or persons from Baltimore to Wheeling was reported as from five to seven dollars per hundred weight. Persons wishing to travel cheaply had their luggage transported while they walked.(422)

In 1823 the following pa.s.senger rates, by steamboat, were quoted: From Cincinnati to New Orleans, $25.00; to Louisville, $4.00; to Pittsburg, $15.00; to Wheeling, $14.00; from New Orleans to Cincinnati, $50.00; from Louisville to Cincinnati, $6.00; from Pittsburg to Cincinnati, $12.00; from Wheeling to Cincinnati, $10.00. The time quoted for pa.s.sage up stream was never less than twice that for pa.s.sage down stream.(423) Early in 1825 the _Louisiana Gazette_ (presumably of New Orleans) reported that a steamboat had made the 2200 miles from Pittsburg in sixteen days,(424) and a few weeks later another steamer arrived at Shippingport, at the Falls of the Ohio about two miles below Louisville, thirteen days from New Orleans, this time including three days detention from the breaking of a crank.(425) Rates quoted in 1826, per one hundred pounds, were: From Pittsburg to St. Louis, in keel-boats, $1.62-; to Nashville, $1.50; to Louisville, $0.75; to Cincinnati, $0.62-; to Maysville, $0.50; to Marietta, $0.40; to Wheeling, $0.18-3/4; in wagons, from Pittsburg to Philadelphia, $1.00 to $1.12-; from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, $3.00; from Philadelphia to Wheeling, $3.50.(426) A Columbus, Ohio, editor declared that it required thirty days and cost $5.00 per hundred to transport goods from Philadelphia to Columbus, while it required but twenty days and $2.50 to transport from New York.(427) No explanation was given, but the most probable one is the opening of the Erie Ca.n.a.l.

Illinois buyers could, of course, take advantage of the cheaper rate as well as the inhabitants of Columbus. The freight schedule agreed upon by the owners, masters, and agents of steamboats in July, 1830, was, per 100 pounds, as follows: Pittsburg to Cincinnati, $0.45; Pittsburg to Louisville, $0.50; Wheeling to Cincinnati, $0.40; Wheeling to Louisville, $0.45; Cincinnati to Louisville, $0.12-; in the reverse direction rates were the same, except that the rate from Louisville to Cincinnati was $0.16. Freight on pork, from Cincinnati to Louisville was $0.20 per barrel, and on flour and light (probably meaning empty) barrels, $0.15 per barrel. The schedule rates were not, however, generally adhered to, many boats carrying freight at from 2- to 5 cents lower than the quoted rate.(428) At this time there were 213 steamboats in use in western waters-an increase of about three-fold since 1820.(429) Improved transportation caused a better market price for produce in the West. In 1819, at Cincinnati, flour sold at $1.37- per barrel, corn at from $0.10 to $0.12 per bushel, and pork at $0.10- per pound,(430) while in 1830, in the same market, flour from wagons sold at $2.65 per barrel, or from store at $3.00; corn at $0.18 to $0.20, and pork at $0.05 per pound ($10.00 to $10.50 per barrel).(431) The influence of improved transportation on emigration is obvious. In regard to steamboat navigation it should be noted that in 1817 rates up-stream were more than three times as high as rates down-stream, in 1823 the former were less than twice the latter, and in 1830 the two were about equal. During the same period the time of up-stream pa.s.sage was diminished more than one-half. Steamboats had not driven out the ruder crafts, but more and more use was being made of the more expeditious means of transportation, and its effect on the future economic activity of the West could already be seen.

Naturally the difference in price of the same commodity in two different markets was dependent in large measure on the ease or difficulty of transportation. In the latter part of 1817, corn was $0.24 to $0.30 and wheat $0.75, in Illinois, while corn was $0.50 and wheat $0.75 at Cincinnati.(432) In 1825 wheat was worth hardly $0.25 per bushel, while it sold for $0.80 to $0.87- in Petersburg, Virginia, and flour was $6.00 per barrel at Charleston, South Carolina, and was scarce even at that price in Nashville, Tennessee. At the same time corn sold for from $0.08 to $0.10 in Illinois, and for $1.75 to $2.00 in Petersburg, Virginia.(433) In 1826 wheat sold in Illinois at $0.37-, and in England at $2.00 (nine shillings).(434) In 1829 flour was scarce at Galena. A supply from the more southern settlements in Illinois sold at $8.00 per barrel, and the farmers were urged to bring more.(435) This was in October. In November flour was quoted at Galena at $9.00 to $10.00 per barrel, while it sold at St. Louis for $4.50 to $5.50. In December, Cincinnati flour was from $10.00 to $10.50 and Illinois flour from $8.00 to $8.50, at Galena, whereas in the succeeding August they were $5.00 and $4.00, respectively.

In November, 1829, the one article of food that was quoted as cheaper at Galena than at St. Louis was potatoes. They were $0.25 per bushel, at Galena, and from $0.37- to $0.50 at St. Louis. b.u.t.ter was $0.25 to $0.37- at Galena, and $0.12- to $0.20 at St. Louis; corn, $0.50 at Galena, and $0.25 to $0.31 at St. Louis; beef, $0.03- to $0.04- at Galena, and $0.01- to $0.02 at St. Louis; whisky, $0.62- per gallon at Galena, and $0.30 to $0.33 at St. Louis.(436)

Life of the People.

Of the 13,635 persons who were following some occupation in Illinois in 1820, nearly 91 per cent (12,395) were engaged in agriculture.(437) To this pursuit the state was naturally well adapted. One of the most observant of German travelers in America wrote that the meaning of "fertile land" was very different in this region from its meaning in Germany. In America fertile land of the first cla.s.s required no fertilizer for the first century and was too rich for wheat during the first decade, while fertile land of the second cla.s.s needed no fertilizer during the first twelve to twenty years of its cultivation. Bottom-lands belonged to the first cla.s.s.(438) The prairies remained unappreciated by the Americans, although some foreign farmers preferred to settle in Illinois, because there they could avoid having to clear land, and could raise a crop the first year, while coal could serve as fuel,(439) and a ditch and bank fence, requiring little wood, could be constructed, or a hedge could be grown.(440) A traveler of 1819 speaks of one of the largest prairies as not well adapted to cultivation, because of the scarcity of wood, and in the fall of 1825 there was but one house on the way from Paris to Springfield, leading across eighty miles of a prairie ninety miles in length.(441)

It was easy to obtain land. After 1820 it could be bought from the government of the United States at $1.25 per acre, it could be rented-sometimes for one peck of corn per acre per year(442)-, or the claim of a squatter could be purchased. When Peter Cartwright moved from Kentucky to Illinois in 1824, he gave as reasons for moving the fact that he had six children and but one hundred and fifty acres of land, and that Kentucky land was high and rising in value; the increase of a disposition in the South to justify slavery; the distinction in Kentucky between young people reared without working and those who worked; the danger that his four daughters might marry into slave families; and the need of preachers in the new country.(443) The land being obtained, the first cultivation was difficult. Writers often give the idea that after a year or two the land which had been heavily timbered was left free from trees, stumps, or roots, but many a pioneer plowed for twenty years among the stumps. Stump fields are today no novelty in Illinois, and farming has not retrograded.

Usually the settler's first need was a crop, and in order to hasten its production the trees were girdled, a process which might either precede or follow the planting, according to the time of year in which the immigrant arrived. If prairie land was plowed six horses, or their equivalent of power in oxen, were required for the first breaking, and a summer's fallow usually followed in order to allow the roots to decay. In 1819 five dollars per acre was paid for the first plowing of the prairie, and three or four dollars for the second.(444)

Agricultural products exhibited considerable variety, although corn was the chief article raised, because it furnished food for man and beast, it gave a large yield, and it was more easily harvested than wheat. Wheat was raised without any great degree of care as to its culture, being frequently sowed upon ground that was poorly prepared, and being threshed in a most wasteful manner. Both wheat and flour were exported.

Flour-mills, often of a rude sort, were found at inconveniently long distances from each other. Ferdinand Ernst, traveling in 1819, found a turbine wheel at the mill of Mr. Jarrott, a few miles from St. Louis, and mentioned the fact as a peculiar feature.(445) Some of the settlers in Sangamon county had to go sixty miles to mill in 1824.(446) In 1830 the first flour mill in northern Illinois was erected on Fox River. It was operated by the same power that ran a saw-mill, and the millstones were boulders, laboriously dressed by hand.(447) Tobacco of excellent quality was grown, and sometimes formed an article of export.(448) Cotton was an important article for home consumption. In the early years of the state hopes were entertained that cotton might become an article of export, but it was found that the crop required so much labor as to make raising it in large quant.i.ties unprofitable. It was after 1830, however, that it ceased to be cultivated in the state. It was raised at least as far north as the present Danville, about one hundred and twenty-five miles south of Chicago.(449) A woman whose parents moved to Sangamon county in 1819 says that when in that county they raised, picked, spun, and wove their own cotton. The children had to seed the cotton before the fire in the long winter evenings. The importance of cotton as a factor in inducing immigration may have been considerable.(450) Large quant.i.ties of castor oil were made in the state from home-grown castor beans.(451) Vegetables were large, although not always of good flavor.(452) Peaches, apples, pears, quinces and cherries were cultivated successfully, while grapes, plums, crabapples, persimmons, mulberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries grew wild.(453) An agricultural society was formed in 1819, a chief purpose being to rid the state of stagnant water.(454)

It is not easy to exaggerate the simplicity of the farming of pioneer times. When one reads that in 1817 a log cabin of two rooms could be built for from $50.00 to $70.00; a frame house, ten by fourteen feet, for $575.00 to $665.00; a log kitchen for $31.00 to $35.50; a log stable for $31.00 to $40.00; a barn for $80.00 to $97.75; a fence for $0.25 per rod, and a prairie ditch for $0.29 to $0.44 per rod; that a strong wagon cost $160.00; that a log house, eighteen by sixteen feet, was made by contract for $20, and ceiled and floored with sawn boards for $10 more; that a cow and calf cost $12.00 to $16.00, and a breeding sow, $2.00 or $3.00; that laborers received $0.75 per day without board, and a man and two horses $1.00 per day; and that various other useful articles could be procured at certain prices, care is needed in order to avoid the conclusion that an immigrant must have had several dollars, if not a few hundreds of them.

This need for care is increased by the fact that the most detailed statistical data for early Illinois is given by Birkbeck or his visitors, and is applicable to the English settlement in Edwards county-a settlement with enough unique features to make the data almost more of an obstacle than a help. As a matter of fact, many immigrants before 1820 had only enough money to make the first payment on their land ($80.00), or after July 1, 1820, only enough to buy the minimum tract offered for sale ($100.00), while in both periods hundreds had not even as much money as $80.00 or $100.00, and had to become squatters. A log house, and practically all of the first houses were of logs, was usually built without the expenditure of one cent in cash, being erected by the family which was to occupy it, or, if neighbors were within reach, on the "frolic" system. Ceilings and floors were both rare, and if a floor existed it was usually made of puncheons. The number of pioneers who actually paid as much as $31.00 for a log stable must have been small indeed. First fences were often of brush, or brush and logs, and many times crops were raised unfenced. Territorial laws prohibited allowing stock to run at large during the crop season. An immigrant often brought his cow and sow, and if not he either did without, which in the latter case was small privation in a region almost crowded with game, or secured the desired animals by barter or by working for a few days. Men frequently traded work, but the payment of cash wages was rare, the cheapness of land and the ease of securing a living leaving small inducement to anyone to become a day laborer;(455) while for the same reason those who were professional laborers were often of an undesirable type.(456) Foreigners were sometimes shocked at the utter carelessness of Illinois farmers. A soil of great fertility, a region so abundantly supplied with game and wild products as to make it almost possible to live from the forest alone, combined with a lack of efficient means of transportation, made such a temptation to a life of idle ease as many pioneers did not resist. Be it remembered, also, that although towns, retail trade, and export trade had begun in Illinois by 1830, these changes were not simultaneous throughout the state. As 1830 closed Illinois still had squatters many miles from a mill, it still had Indians, it still had unbridged streams, it still had regions far from a market-in a word, it had still persisting in some part of its wide extent each of the ills that had at various times confronted it in respect to personal danger and lack of inducements to farmers. The minority of really progressive farmers overcame the difficulties confronting them by raising cattle or hogs and driving them to distant markets, the price received being almost clear profit, or by constructing their own boats and shipping their produce.(457)

Although the great majority of the population of Illinois was engaged in agriculture, there were salt works in the southeast and lead mines in the northwest. The salt industry was important. Far the greater part of the salt made in the state was made at the Gallatin county saline, near Shawneetown. In 1819 the indefinite statement was made that these springs furnished between 200,000 and 300,000 bushels of salt annually, the salt being sold at the works at from fifty to seventy-five cents per bushel.(458) In 1822, the price of salt in Illinois was reported to have fallen from $1.25 to $0.50, because of the discovery of copious and strong salt wells.(459) The next year a strong well was reported twenty miles east of Carlyle.(460) In 1825, a visitor to the Vermilion county saline found twenty kettles in operation, producing about one hundred bushels of salt per week.(461) In 1828, an official report of the superintendent of the Gallatin county saline stated that about 100,000 bushels of salt was made annually, and sold at from $0.30 to $0.50 per bushel. The lessees paid $2,160.50 rent during the year.(462) In 1830, the salt works in Gallatin county had a capital of $50,000; a product of from 100,000 to 130,000 bushels, selling at from $0.40 to $0.50; and three hundred employees. The saline in Vermilion county had a capital of $3500; a product of 3000 to 4000 bushels, selling at $1.25 to $1.50 per bushel; and eight employees. The works in Jackson county produced 3000 to 4000 bushels, selling at $0.75 to $1.00; and had from six to eight employees.

The difference in price is noteworthy as indicating what must have been the difficulty of transporting salt from Gallatin county to either Vermilion or Jackson counties. At the Gallatin county works fuel was becoming scarce and water had to be carried some distance in pipes, thus increasing the cost of production. At the springs in Indiana salt was $1.25 per bushel, and in Kentucky it was $0.50 to $1.00. The states of New York, Virginia, Ma.s.sachusetts and Ohio, respectively, produced more salt than did Illinois.(463)

The lead industry at Galena was still in its infancy, notwithstanding the fact that the richness of the mines was early known.(464) In 1822, a number of persons went to Galena from Sangamon county.(465) For some years it was a common practice to go to the mines in the summer and return to the older settlements for the winter.(466) The population of Galena was 74 in August, 1823;(467) about 100 on July 1, 1825; 151 on December 31, 1825; 194 on March 31, 1826; 406 on June 30, 1826;(468) and 1000 to 1500 in 1829.(469) In 1826 a part of Lord Selkirk's French-Swiss colony on the Red River moved to Galena and became farmers in that region.(470) The rush to the lead region began in 1826 and became intense in the next year.(471) In 1827, a rude log hut, sixteen by twenty feet, rented for $35.00 per month.

Galena had then about two hundred log houses,(472) and in the same year the first framed house was raised.(473) In July, 1828, five hundred lead miners were wanted at $17.00 to $25.00 and board per month.(474)

A pursuit that was once common and profitable is described by a lawyer who traveled the first Illinois circuit, consisting of the counties of Greene, Sangamon, Peoria, Fulton, Schuyler, Adams, Pike and Calhoun, in 1827, as follows: "On this circuit we found but little business in any of the counties-parties, jurymen and witnesses were reported in all the counties after Peoria, as being absent bee and deer hunting-a business that was then profitable, as well as necessary to the sustenance of families during the winter."(475)

Not until after 1830 was a common school system with effective provision for its support established, although subscription schools existed some years before the close of the eighteenth century. Instruction given in the earliest schools was slight, and in 1818 a most competent observer declared that he believed that in Missouri "at least one-third of the schools were really a public nuisance, and did the people more harm than good; another third about balanced the account, by doing about as much harm as good; and perhaps one-third were advantageous to the community in various degrees. Not a few drunken, profane, worthless Irishmen were perambulating the country, and getting up schools; and yet they could neither speak, read, p.r.o.nounce, spell, or write the English language."(476) These schools closely resembled those of Illinois.

Schoolbooks were rare and children carried to school whatever book they chanced to have, the Old Testament with its long proper names sometimes serving in lieu of a chart or primer.(477) In some schools pupils studied aloud. Reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic were the only branches commonly taught, although as early as 1806 surveying was taught in a "seminary" near the present Belleville.(478) In 1827 Rock Spring Seminary, now Shortleff College, was opened by Baptists, and the following year instruction was begun in what was to become McKendree College (Methodist).(479) The teacher of the first school in McLean county (1825) received $2.50 per pupil for the term of four months.(480) The next year a teacher in Jacksonville was to be paid in cash or produce, or in pork, cattle, or hogs at cash prices, and to pay board in similar commodities at the rate of one dollar per week. This included washing, fuel and lights.

School was open ten, and often twelve, hours per day.(481)

Religious societies were early organized, but the building of churches was not then common. In 1796 a Baptist society was organized, and previous to this time both Baptists and Methodists, without organized societies, had united in holding prayer-meetings in which the Bible and published sermons were read, prayers offered, and hymns sung.(482) Before the close of the century the Methodists organized. The Presbyterians were prominent in the early years of statehood, but in 1818 they were just beginning their work in Illinois.(483) Meetings were usually held in private houses until such time as the congregation felt that a church building should be erected, or at least until some one felt the need, for the first church was sometimes built by a few individuals.(484) Ministers were of two types-those who devoted all of their time to religious work and traveled over large areas, and those who combined ministerial duties with farming, hunting, or some other frontier occupation. Neither cla.s.s received much money. Peter Cartwright, one of the most famous pioneer preachers, received $40 one year (1824-25) and $60 the next-and this he considered good wages.(485) Pioneer energy was displayed in the overcoming of difficulties. For more than ten years the Baptists held meetings on alternate months at two places thirty-six miles apart, and several families regularly traveled that distance to the two-days' meeting, even in unfavorable weather-and this, too, after Illinois had become a state.(486) In 1829, the Presbyterians, true to their missionary spirit, occupied the extreme frontier at Galena.(487) Catholicism increased but slowly.(488) Divisions such as were found in the East or South reached Illinois, and at one time the Baptists were divided into three factions, which had about the same kind of fraternal relations as the Jews and the Samaritans. The chief questions for contention were whether or not missionaries should be sent out by the church and whether fellowship with slaveholders should be maintained.(489) An a.s.sociation of anti-slavery Baptists was formed, as also Bible societies and temperance societies.(490) Camp-meetings, with their well-known phenomena, were common in the early years of statehood, and it is no reflection upon their value to say that they were one of the chief diversions for the pioneers.

CHAPTER VI. SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS AS AFFECTING SETTLEMENT.

Slavery, as well as indentured servitude, existed in Illinois as late as 1845,(491) and the "Black Laws" of the state were repealed on February 7, 1865.(492) From 1787 until years after 1830 the slavery question was an unsettled one. In addition to the arguments for or against the inst.i.tution that were used everywhere, the pro-slavery party in Illinois a.s.serted that as the Ordinance of 1787 guaranteed to the French inhabitants their property, the French could hold slaves, and that as all citizens of a state had equal rights other persons in Illinois could hold slaves. The reply was that the Ordinance plainly forbade slavery.(493)

Whatever the merits of the argument, slavery did exist in Illinois. The fear of the French that they might lose their slaves, and the desire to attract slaveholders to Illinois, led to determined and repeated efforts to legalize slavery. Early in 1796 a pet.i.tion was sent from Kaskaskia to Congress, praying that the anti-slavery article in the Ordinance of 1787 might be either repealed or so altered as to permit the introduction of slaves from the original states or elsewhere into the country of Illinois, that a law might be enacted permitting the introduction of such slaves as servants for life, and that it might be declared for what period the children of such servants should serve the masters of their parents. This pet.i.tion was signed by four men, including some of the largest landowners in Illinois, but as the pet.i.tion, while purporting to come from Illinois alone, concerned the entire Northwest Territory, as there was no indication that the four pet.i.tioners represented Illinois sentiment, and as the congressional committee was informed that many of the inhabitants of the territory did not desire the proposed change, the prayer of the pet.i.tion was denied.(494)

In 1800, two hundred and sixty-eight inhabitants of Illinois, chiefly French, pet.i.tioned Congress to repeal the anti-slavery provision of the Ordinance, stating that many of the inhabitants were crossing the Mississippi with their slaves. The pet.i.tion was not considered.(495) A similar request, presented late in 1802, was twice reported upon by committees, one report (Randolph's) declaring that the growth of Ohio proved that a lack of slavery would not seriously r.e.t.a.r.d settlement, while the other was in favor of suspending the anti-slavery article for ten years, the male descendants of immigrating slaves to be free at the age of twenty-five years, and the females at twenty-one.(496) In 1805 a majority of the members of the respective houses of the Indiana legislature pet.i.tioned for the repeal of the anti-slavery article, and this pet.i.tion was closely followed by a memorial from Illinois expressing the hope that the general government would not pa.s.s unnoticed the act of the last legislature authorizing the importation of slaves into the territory. It violated the Ordinance, the memorialists declared, and although they desired slavery they professed themselves to be law-abiding.(497) A committee report on the pet.i.tion and memorial recommended that permission to import slaves into Indiana (then including Illinois) for ten years be granted, in order that the evil effects of slavery might be mitigated by its dispersion, but no legislation resulted from the report,(498) and the next year pet.i.tioning was resumed. The legislature sent resolutions asking for the suspension of the anti-slavery article, and elaborating the argument for such suspension. A committee of which the territorial delegate from Indiana was chairman, presented a favorable report.(499)

In September, 1807, a pet.i.tion for the suspension of the anti-slavery article was sent to Congress from the Indiana legislature. It was signed by Jesse B. Thomas, later author of the Missouri Compromise, but then Speaker of the territorial House of Representatives, and resident in what was to become the State of Indiana, and by the president _pro tem._ of the Legislative Council. Action in committee was adverse,(500) Congress being then busied with the question of the abolition of the slave trade.

During the territorial period in Illinois (1809-1818), the slavery question was not much agitated. The Const.i.tution of 1818 provided that slaves could not be thereafter brought into the State, except such as should be brought under contract to labor at the Saline Creek salt works, said contract to be limited to one year, although renewable, and the proviso to be void after 1825, but existing slavery was not abolished, and existing indentures-and some were for ninety-nine years(501)-should be carried out. Male children of slaves or indentured servants should be free at the age of twenty-one and females at eighteen.(502) In Congress, as has been seen, Tallmadge, of New York, objected to admitting Illinois before she abolished slavery, but his objection was ineffectual.

In March, 1819, a slave code was enacted. Any black or mulatto coming into the State was required to file with the clerk of a circuit court a certificate of freedom. Slaves should not be brought into the state for the purpose of emanc.i.p.ation. Resident negroes, other than slaves and indentured servants, must file certificates of freedom. Slaves were to be whipped instead of fined, thirty-nine stripes being the maximum number that might be inflicted. Contracts with slaves were void. Not more than two slaves should meet together without written permission from their masters. Any master emanc.i.p.ating his slaves must give a bond of $1000 per head that such emanc.i.p.ated slaves should not become public charges, failure to give such a bond being punishable by a fine of $200 per head.

Colored people must present pa.s.ses when traveling.(503)

Stringent as was the code of 1819, it was of a type that was common in the slave states. Its pa.s.sage may have kept some negroes, both free and slave, from coming into the state upon their own initiative without certificates of freedom. From 1810 to 1820 the number of slaves in Illinois increased from 168 to 917, Illinois being the only state north of Mason and Dixon's line having an increase in the number of slaves during the decade, although in the Territory of Missouri, during this time, the number increased from about 3000 to over 10,200. At the same time the number of free blacks in Illinois decreased from about 600 to some 450, while they increased in Indiana from nearly 400 to over 1200. Of the slaves in Illinois in 1820 precisely 500 were in the counties of Gallatin and Randolph, the former being the center of the salt-making industry, and the latter the seat of the early French settlement at Kaskaskia.(504)

Whether the anti-slavery clause of the Ordinance of 1787 freed the slaves of the old French settlers was long a disputed question, and it is certain that a strict construction of the Illinois Const.i.tution of 1818 made further importation of slaves illegal. Many slave-owners pa.s.sed through southern Illinois to Missouri, because the main road for emigration by land to that territory crossed the Ohio River at Shawneetown. Many of the slaves who produced the large increase in the number of slaves in Missouri from 1810 to 1820 must have gone over this route. In 1820 more than one-seventh of the population of Missouri was slave.(505) The people of Illinois could not fail to see that they were losing a certain cla.s.s of emigrants-the prosperous slaveholders. The loss became greater as the likelihood of Missouri's admittance as a slave state increased. As early as 1820 there was a rumor of the formation of a party in Illinois to introduce slavery into the state in a legal manner.(506) The next year an editorial in a leading newspaper of Illinois said: "Will the admission of slavery in a new state tend to increase its population?-is a question which has been of late much discussed both within and without this state.

It has been contended that its admission would induce the emigration of citizens of states as well where slavery was, as where it was not tolerated-that while it would attract the attention of the wealthy southern planter, it would not deter the industrious northern farmer." The editor cites Ohio and Kentucky as proof against the above argument. In 1810 Ohio had a population, in round numbers, of 230,700 and Kentucky one of 406,500; in 1820 Ohio had 581,400, while Kentucky had 563,300, giving a difference in favor of Ohio of over 18,000; and an excess of gain during the decade, in favor of Ohio, of 93,847. "We are willing to take into consideration the unsettled t.i.tles of land in the last-mentioned state [Kentucky], and admit that in this respect Ohio had a decided advantage-we will therefore deduct the fraction of 93,847, believing it equivalent to the loss of population from this cause-there is still a difference of 100,000."(507) The editor's figures for 1810 were correct and those for 1820 were approximately so. It is also true, and in line with his argument, that during the same decade Indiana showed an increase from 24,500 to 147,200, while Missouri's increase was from 20,800 to 66,500; the increase in Illinois being between the two in proportion of increase-from 12,282 to 55,162.(508) The pa.s.sing of the slaveholders to Missouri continued and the discussion of the slavery question became animated.

In the gubernatorial election of 1822 there were four candidates for governor, two being anti-slavery and two pro-slavery in belief. Edward Coles, from Virginia, an anti-slavery man, was elected by a plurality of but a few votes. His election was due to a division in the ranks of the opposite party, as is shown by the fact that the pro-slavery party polled over 5300 votes, while the anti-slavery party polled only some 3300.(509) In his message of December 5, 1822, Governor Coles strongly urged the pa.s.sage of a law to prevent kidnapping(510)-then a regular trade. This was referred to a select committee which reported as follows: "Your committee have carefully examined the laws upon the subject, and with deep regret announce their incapability of devising a more effectual plan than the one already prescribed by law for the suppression of such infamous crimes. It is believed that the benevolent views of the executive and the benign purposes of the statutes can only be realized by the redoubled diligence of our grand juries and our magistrates, aided by the well-directed support of all just and good men."(511) The legislature was politically opposed to the governor, and the committee's report sounds like the baldest irony. With the report was presented a scheme for introducing slavery into the state,(512) a scheme which eventually led to the vote of 1824.(513)

The Const.i.tution of Illinois provided that upon the vote of two-thirds of the members of each house of the legislature, the question of calling a convention for the revision of the Const.i.tution should be submitted to the people. For calling a convention only a majority vote from the people was necessary. This method of procedure the pro-slavery party determined upon.

The two-thirds in favor of the project could be secured without difficulty in the senate, but in the house the desperate expedient of reconsidering the right of a member to a contested seat and seating his opponent was resorted to.(514) This being done the resolution to submit the question of a const.i.tutional convention to the people was pa.s.sed by a bare two-thirds vote in each house.(515) Of the eighteen men who voted against the resolution, eleven were natives of southern states, two of New York, two of Connecticut, one of Ma.s.sachusetts, one of Vermont, and one of Sweden.

There were some northern men who voted in favor of the resolution.(516)

The campaign resulting from the pa.s.sage of the convention resolution was waged for eighteen months with great vigor. Press and pulpit were actively employed.(517) A large anti-slavery society was formed in Morgan county,(518) and it was in all probability one of many such organizations.

In August, 1824, came the final vote, and the official count of the votes showed a majority of 1668 against calling a const.i.tutional convention.(519)

It is noteworthy that in this struggle the governor of the state was an anti-slavery southerner; eleven of the eighteen anti-slavery men in the legislature were southern; the pro-slavery party, which polled 1971 more votes than its opponents in 1822, was defeated by 1668 votes in 1824. It is also true that of the leaders in the campaign some of the most noted were southern anti-slavery or northern pro-slavery men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Election Results.]

The history of settlement suggests several explanations for the votes of 1822 and 1824. The legislature which pa.s.sed the convention resolution had not been chosen with the avowed purpose of doing so. Some designing politicians had such an object in view and secured the election of pro-slavery men by anti-slavery const.i.tuents. The number of such cases was not large, but as the resolution pa.s.sed by the minimum vote they are important.(520) In 1822, however, there was almost without doubt a pro-slavery majority in the state, but it is improbable that there was a two-thirds majority. In the election of 1822, there were 8635 votes cast, while in that of 1824 there were 11,612 votes cast. This great increase indicates a large immigration. Immigration at this time was largely to the northern counties of the state, and it is a point of prime significance that each of the seven northern counties gave large majorities against the calling of the convention, and that without the vote of these seven counties the vote would have been 4523 for a convention and 4408 against a convention, thus changing the decision of the state. This vote of the northern counties can not be explained by an increased immigration from the north, because no such increase to any significant degree is discoverable. The admission of Missouri as a slave state would naturally lead pro-slavery emigrants to go to that state instead of to Illinois.

Another event which tended to influence the vote in Illinois was the decision of Indiana against slavery, in the summer of 1823, in the midst of the campaign in Illinois.(521) The unjust action of the Illinois House of Representatives in unseating an anti-convention member was a powerful argument against the pro-slavery party.

In his message to the legislature, on November 16, 1824, Governor Coles said: "In the observations I had the honor to make to the last Legislature, I recommended that provision should be made for the abolition of the remnant of African slavery which still existed in this state. The full discussion of the principles and policy of personal slavery, which has taken place since that period, resulting in its rejection by the decided voice of the people, still more imperiously makes it my duty to call your attention in an especial manner to this subject, and earnestly to entreat you to make just and equitable provision for as speedy an abolition of this remnant of slavery, as may be deemed consistent with the rights and claims of the parties concerned.

"In close connection with this subject, is my former recommendation, to which I again solicit your attention, that the law as it respects those held in service should be rendered less severe, and more accordant with our political inst.i.tutions and local situation; and that more severe penalties should be enacted against the unnatural crime of kidnapping, which then prevailed to a great extent and has since considerably increased, in consequence of the defects of the present law. Regarding the former, our laws in general are a mere transcript of those of the more southern states, where the great number of slaves makes it necessary for the safety of the whites, that the laws for their government, and concerning free blacks, should be very strict.-But, there being no such motive here, the necessity of such laws ceases, and consequently their injustice and cruelty are the more apparent. The latter are found every day more and more defective and inefficient; and kidnapping has now become a regular trade, which is carried on to a vast extent to the country bordering on the lower Mississippi, up the Red River, and to the West Indies. To put an immediate and effectual stop to this nefarious traffic, is the imperious duty of the Legislature."(522)

The house of representatives referred the governor's remarks concerning kidnapping to a select committee. A bill was reported, but after being weakened by amendments it was tabled.(523) In his message in 1826 the governor renewed his recommendations,(524) and a section of the criminal code of January, 1827, provided that kidnapping should be punishable by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than seven years.(525) An act of January, 1825, provided that anyone who had failed to give the bond required by the black code of 1819 from those who emanc.i.p.ated slaves, should be released from any verdict or judgment arising from such failure, upon indemnifying the county for any money expended for the relief of the freedmen.(526) By an act of 1829 relating to slaves, whites were not to marry blacks, slaves were not to come to the state in order to be free, and runaway slaves should be advertised in the newspapers of the state.(527) The number of slaves in Illinois decreased after 1820. In 1820 there were 917 slaves in the state; in 1830, 747; in 1840, 331,(528) and before the next census slavery in the state was abolished.