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Title: Historic Towns of the Western States
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Historic Towns of the Western States" ***
[Illustration THE DEARBORN MONUMENT. _Frontispiece._]
American Historic Towns
HISTORIC TOWNS
OF
THE WESTERN STATES
Edited by
LYMAN P. POWELL
Illustrated
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1901
COPYRIGHT, October, 1901
BY
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
[Illustration]
PREFACE
In presenting to the reading public this fourth volume in the series of
_Historic Towns_, a volume which brings the series to a close, it is in
order for the editor to call attention to the necessarily large measure of
liberty accorded to the contributors in their treatment of the records of
the several towns. With several of his co-laborers the editor has on one
point or another found himself at variance. Examples of such difference of
conclusions are presented in the references to the Mormons and to the
Mound-builders.
The editor bears in mind, however, the essential difference between
editorial responsibilities and those belonging to the writers of the
papers. It was his duty to choose as contributors not writers who
necessarily share his own view, but those who are most fairly
representative of the towns described, who possess the necessary
familiarity with the historic records, and whose narratives would be
assured of an appreciative and sympathetic reception from their
fellow-townsmen,--men who love their town
"with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present."
In the studies of Western history made by the editor during the past ten
years, two historians have been his inspiration: Francis Parkman, of
blessed memory, revered by all who love good literature and good history;
and Theodore Roosevelt, now by the will of God President of the United
States, and a trustworthy and inspiring writer of our nation's history long
before he took his place among its distinguished makers.
In offering to the public this final volume of _American Historic Towns_,
the editor ventures to hope that by thus focalizing and localizing Western
history, the publishers, authors, and editor are contributing somewhat to
the popular knowledge of and interest in the history of the Great West
which Parkman and Roosevelt first made possible.
Since with this volume the series is brought to a close, the editor trusts
that the publishers, Messrs. G.P. Putnam's Sons, will lay aside their
reluctance to be mentioned in the Preface, and will permit the editor to
express his admiration and indebtedness for their share, larger than is
usual with publishers, in the production of the series. To his wife,
Gertrude Wilson Powell, acknowledgment is also due for aid given in this as
in the earlier volumes, the full value of which cannot here be indicated.
Besides making two important contributions to the volume, Messrs. R.G.
Thwaites and Harold Bolce have ever been ready with suggestion and counsel,
always valued and almost always followed. To Doctors Talcott Williams,
Albert Shaw, and George Petrie, the editor would speak this last word of
gratitude for cordial and skilled assistance in connection not alone with
this book but with the whole undertaking. This closing volume now goes out,
with the editor's best-wishes, to the earlier friends of the series and to
the new friends yet to be gained for it.
LYMAN P. POWELL.
ST. JOHN'S RECTORY,
LANSDOWNE, PENNSYLVANIA,
September 21, 1901.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION Reuben G. Thwaites xix
MARIETTA Muriel Campbell Dyar 1
CLEVELAND Charles F. Thwing 31
CINCINNATI Milton E. Ailes 55
DETROIT Silas Farmer 87
MACKINAC Sara Andrew Shafer 121
INDIANAPOLIS Perry S. Heath 147
VINCENNES William Henry Smith 169
CHICAGO Lyman J. Gage 197
MADISON Reuben G. Thwaites 235
MINNEAPOLIS } Charles B. Elliott 265
AND ST. PAUL }
DES MOINES Frank I. Herriott 301
ST. LOUIS William Marion Reedy 331
KANSAS CITY Charles S. Gleed 375
OMAHA Victor Rosewater 401
DENVER John Cotton Dana 425
SANTA FÉ Frederick Webb Hodge 449
SALT LAKE CITY James Edward Talmage 479
SPOKANE Harold Bolce 509
PORTLAND Thomas L. Cole 535
SAN FRANCISCO Edwin Markham 569
MONTEREY Harold Bolce 617
LOS ANGELES Florence E. Winslow 645
INDEX 685
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE DEARBORN MONUMENT _Frontispiece_
MARIETTA
MARIETTA 3
GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM 7
OLD BLOCKHOUSE, MARIETTA 9
THE MILLS HOMESTEAD, MARIETTA 17
HARMAN BLENNERHASSETT 19
MRS. BLENNERHASSETT 21
MARIETTA COLLEGE BUILDINGS 23
MOUND CEMETERY, MARIETTA 25
OHIO COMPANY'S LAND OFFICE 27
OLD TWO HORN CHURCH 29
CLEVELAND
VIEW IN GORDON PARK 33
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, CLEVELAND 35
SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT, CLEVELAND 38
ARMORY OF THE CLEVELAND GRAYS 42
LAKE IN WADE PARK, SHOWING ADELBERT COLLEGE IN THE
DISTANCE 45
PERRY'S MONUMENT, WADE PARK, CLEVELAND 48
CHARLES F. BROWNE ("ARTEMUS WARD") 49
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON 50
GARFIELD MEMORIAL, CLEVELAND 52
CINCINNATI
TYLER-DAVIDSON FOUNTAIN 59
ENTRANCE TO SPRING GROVE CEMETERY 65
RACE STREET, CINCINNATI 69
CITY HALL, CINCINNATI 73
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, CINCINNATI 77
SUSPENSION BRIDGE 79
RESERVOIR, EDEN PARK 83
DETROIT
CADILLAC SQUARE SHOWING CITY HALL AND MAJESTIC
BUILDING 89
THE DETROIT RIVER FROM "WINDMILL POINT," 1838 93
From a Pencil Drawing.
WEST GRAND CIRCUS PARK 97
WAYNE COUNTY BUILDING, FACING CADILLAC SQUARE 103
COLONEL ARENT SCHUYLER DE PEYSTER 112
EVACUATION DAY TABLET, ON POST-OFFICE 113
GENERAL GRANT'S HOME IN DETROIT 115
HURLBUT MEMORIAL GATE ENTRANCE TO WATER-WORKS
PARK 117
MACKINAC ISLAND
OLD MISSION CHURCH (CIRCA) 1823, MACKINAC ISLAND 123
ARCH ROCK, MACKINAC ISLAND 127
SUGAR LOAF ROCK, MACKINAC ISLAND 131
OLD BLOCKHOUSE (1780) OVERLOOKING THE LAKE 135
"OLD STONE QUARTERS," FORT MACKINAC, 1780 137
SIGNATURES OF THE CHIPPEWA CHIEFS, WHO, IN 1781,
DEEDED THE ISLAND TO KING GEORGE III 139
From "Mackinac," by John R. Bailey, M.D., Brevet
Lieut.-Col., U.S.V., by whose kind permission they
are here reproduced.
FORT MACKINAC, AND THE CANNON CAPTURED BY COMMODORE
PERRY 141
REV. ELEAZAR WILLIAMS 143
Reproduced from Latimer's "Scrap-Book of the Revolution,"
by permission of A.C. McClurg & Co.
INDIANAPOLIS
THE OLD STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS 149
THE NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY, INDIANAPOLIS 151
BENJAMIN HARRISON 153
STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS, EAST FRONT 155
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, INDIANAPOLIS 159
MARION COUNTY COURT HOUSE 161
COLUMBIA CLUB, INDIANAPOLIS 163
THE HENDRICKS MONUMENT 165
VINCENNES
EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS AT VINCENNES 175
FORT SACKVILLE, 1779 179
CLARK AND HIS MEN CROSSING THE RIVER 181
GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 187
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 192
ST. XAVIER'S CHURCH, 1779 193
CHICAGO
THE DEARBORN MONUMENT 203
THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BUILDING, CHICAGO 207
AUDITORIUM HOTEL, CHICAGO 211
THE ART INSTITUTE, CHICAGO 215
STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 219
By St. Gaudens.
RUINS OF THE GREAT FIRE, CHICAGO 223
PUBLIC LIBRARY, CHICAGO 231
MADISON
THE STATE HOUSE, MADISON 237
THE FIRST EXECUTIVE RESIDENCE (STILL STANDING) IN USE
BY GOVERNOR DOTY 241
PROFILE ROCK ON LAKE MENDOTA 244
VIEW OF MADISON ACROSS LAKE MONONA 247
THE FIRST STATE HOUSE, MADISON 251
MADISON FROM THE STATE HOUSE, SHOWING UNIVERSITY
BUILDINGS IN THE DISTANCE 253
PROFESSOR WILLIAM FRANCIS ALLEN 254
UNIVERSITY HALL, STATE UNIVERSITY 257
STATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY BUILDING 259
GENERAL LUCIUS FAIRCHILD 262
Ex-Minister to Spain.
MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. PAUL
THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY ABOUT 1850 267
TOWER AT FORT SNELLING 269
The Original "Fort" now used as a Guard-House.
ALEXANDER RAMSEY 272
COURT HOUSE AND CITY HALL, MINNEAPOLIS 275
FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY DURING HIGH WATER 279
THE MILLING DISTRICT 281
PUBLIC LIBRARY, MINNEAPOLIS 284
OLE BULL MONUMENT IN LORING PARK 286
LORING PARK, MINNEAPOLIS 289
THE FALLS OF MINNEHAHA 291
THE CAPITOL, ST. PAUL 295
A CALM EVENING 299
DES MOINES
FORT DES MOINES IN 1844 303
KEOKUK AT THE AGE OF 67 307
From a Daguerreotype taken in 1847.
IOWA SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT 315
GOVERNOR SAMUEL J. KIRKWOOD 319
HON. JOHN A. KASSON 324
THE CAPITOL, DES MOINES 325
THE IOWA HISTORICAL LIBRARY 327
ST. LOUIS
COLONEL AUGUSTE CHOUTEAU, ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF
ST. LOUIS 334
From a painting in Missouri Historical Society Collection.
THE OLD CHOUTEAU MANSION, BUILT FOR LACLEDE IN 1765 336
From a Daguerreotype in Missouri Historical Society
Collection.
OLD FRENCH POST-HOUSE, BUILT IN 1770, INHABITED UNTIL
1870 341
OLD MOUND, ST. LOUIS. REMOVED IN 1869 346
From a photograph in Missouri Historical Society Collection.
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AS PROJECTED, NOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION 359
ST. LOUIS IN 1854 365
From a print in Missouri Historical Society Collection.
EADS BRIDGE AT ST. LOUIS 367
FOREST PARK, ST. LOUIS 369
UNION STATION, ST. LOUIS 371
KANSAS CITY
KANSAS CITY FROM THE SOUTH 377
JACKSON COUNTY COURT HOUSE, KANSAS CITY 379
CONVENTION HALL, KANSAS CITY 383
THE CITY HALL, KANSAS CITY 387
THE POST OFFICE, KANSAS CITY 391
A BIT OF GLADSTONE BOULEVARD, KANSAS CITY 393
THE STOCK YARD EXCHANGE, KANSAS CITY 396
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, KANSAS CITY 397
OMAHA
ALFRED D. JONES 402
WILLIAM P. SNOWDEN, OMAHA'S FIRST WHITE SETTLER 404
A TYPICAL OMAHA INDIAN 407
Reproduced by permission of F.A. Rinehart, Omaha.
THE HIGH SCHOOL, OMAHA, ON THE SITE OF THE OLD
CAPITOL 411
Reproduced by permission of Heyn, Omaha.
THE CITY HALL 414
RETURN OF THE FIRST NEBRASKA VOLUNTEERS, AUG. 30, 1899 417
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, OMAHA 419
THE OMAHA EXPOSITION, 1898 421
Reproduced by permission of F.A. Rinehart, Omaha.
DENVER
SOURCES OF TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION IN COLORADO 427
DENVER, COLORADO 429
"SMOKY" JONES 431
THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER, THE PROPER CREST FOR THE COAT-OF-ARMS
OF THE WEST 433
FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE IN DENVER 435
FACSIMILE LETTER FROM WM. N. BYERS, THE FOUNDER OF
THE "ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS" 439
PROSPECTING PARTY, RICO, COLORADO, 1880 441
RICO, COLORADO, IN 1880, A TYPICAL MINING CAMP 443
WILLIAM GILPIN 444
THE CAPITOL, DENVER 445
SANTA FÉ
THE SO-CALLED OLDEST HOUSE IN SANTA FÉ 451
FORT MARCY AND THE PARROQUIA, SANTA FÉ 455
SAN MIGUEL CHAPEL BEFORE ITS RESTORATION 457
SAN MIGUEL CHAPEL IN 1899 465
From a photograph by A.C. Vroman, Pasadena, Cal.
CHRISTOPHER ("KIT") CARSON 467
THE OLD PALACE AT SANTA FÉ 471
SANTA FÉ IN 1846 473
THE TERRITORIAL CAPITOL, COMPLETED IN 1900 474
SALT LAKE CITY
PAVILION OF SALTAIR, GREAT SALT LAKE 481
BRIGHAM YOUNG 483
Founder of Salt Lake City.
EAST TEMPLE STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE TEMPLE 485
JEDEDIAH M. GRANT, FIRST MAYOR OF SALT LAKE CITY 491
EAGLE GATE 492
BRIGHAM YOUNG MONUMENT 495
MAIN STREET IN 1861 497
HOUSE BUILT IN 1847 WITHIN THE OLD FORT 499
MORMON TEMPLE 501
MORMON TABERNACLE 503
CITY AND COUNTY BUILDING, SALT LAKE CITY 505
LION AND BEE-HIVE HOUSES 506
SPOKANE
THE COUNTY COURT HOUSE, SPOKANE 511
THE LAST CHIEF TO INTIMIDATE THE INHABITANTS OF
SPOKANE 516
THE CITY HALL, SPOKANE 519
J. KENNEDY STOUT 522
THE "SPOKESMAN-REVIEW" BUILDING 525
MIDDLE FALLS, SPOKANE 529
MIDDLE FALLS, ECHO FLOUR MILLS, AND OLD POWER
HOUSE 531
PORTLAND
JOHN JACOB ASTOR 537
ASTORIA IN 1811 541
Based on a print in Gray's "History of Oregon."
FORT VANCOUVER, 1833 545
THE CITY HALL, PORTLAND 555
PORTLAND IN 1850 557
THE PORT OF PORTLAND 559
JUDGE MATTHEW P. DEADY 560
VIEW OF PORTLAND, 1900 561
A CORNER IN CHINATOWN 563
THE PORTLAND 565
SAN FRANCISCO
VIEW NORTHWEST FROM SPRECKEL'S BUILDING 571
THE DISCOVERY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY 575
From the painting by A.F. Mathews.
MISSION DOLORES, BUILT IN 1776 577
SEAL OF THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE 588
UNION DEPOT 597
CHINESE PHARMACY 599
CHINESE GROCERY STORE 603
SMOKING ROOM, CHINESE RESTAURANT 604
A BUSINESS CENTRE 605
PRAYER-BOOK CROSS, GOLDEN GATE PARK 608
SEAL ROCK AND CLIFF HOUSE 609
CITY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO 611
LELAND STANFORD 612
THOMAS STARR KING 613
HENRY GEORGE 615
MONTEREY
JUNÍPERO SERRA, FOUNDER OF MONTEREY 618
CARMEL MISSION (RESTORED) 620
TWILIGHT, MONTEREY BAY 621
SAN CARLOS CHURCH 624
OLD MEXICAN JAIL 630
FISHING VILLAGE 636
ANCIENT CYPRESS AT CYPRESS POINT 637
STATUE OF JUNÍPERO SERRA 638
OLD MEXICAN CUSTOM-HOUSE 641
ANCIENT ADOBE CABIN, MONTEREY 642
LOS ANGELES
BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL 647
SAN DIEGO MISSION, FOUNDED 1769 649
THE PUEBLO OF LOS ANGELES. EARLY SPANISH PLAN 653
Suertes from C. to E.
DON PIO PICO 655
The Last Mexican Governor.
DON ANTONIO F. CORONEL, WITH SPANISH CANNON BROUGHT
TO SAN DIEGO BY SERRA IN 1769 657
THE OLD PLAZA CHURCH, LOS ANGELES 659
A TYPICAL COTTAGE 663
JOHN C. FRÉMONT 666
OLD ADOBE, FRÉMONT'S HEADQUARTERS 671
FIRST STAGE IN THE ASCENT OF MT. LOWE, CONNECTING
WITH ELECTRIC ROAD ON ECHO MOUNTAIN 673
A MODERN RESIDENCE 677
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL 679
THE COURT HOUSE, LOS ANGELES 681
IMPROVED HARBOR OF SAN PEDRO, PORT OF LOS ANGELES 683
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION
BY REUBEN G. THWAITES
The first two volumes of this series--those devoted to the historic towns
of New England and the Middle States--dealt with communities each group of
which has had for the most part a common origin, has progressed along
practically parallel lines, and possesses characteristics closely akin. The
volume upon the towns of the South brought closely to view the cosmopolitan
character of the population which has settled our continent to the South
and Southwest of the Appalachian wall. The stories of Baltimore,
Washington, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and St. Augustine bring into
view widely-different origins, experiences, and interests along a single
stretch of coast; while Mobile and New Orleans, Knoxville, Nashville, and
Louisville, Vicksburg and Little Rock, are groups representing chapters in
our history which appear to have but slight connection save in the view of
those who have closely studied the mainsprings of American development.
The present volume represents even a wider range of historical interest.
The attentive reader will, however, discover that although these towns of
the far-stretching trans-Alleghany region have sprung from curiously
divergent beginnings, and are apparently incongruous in composition and in
aims, there really is and has been much in common among them.
In order to understand Western history, one must first have knowledge of
the details of the titanic struggle for settlement in North America, made
respectively by Spain, France, and England. The early decline of Spanish
power north of the Red and the Arkansas, save for the later temporary
holding of Louisiana; the protracted tragedy which ended on the Plains of
Abraham in the Fall of New France; the Revolution of the English colonists,
and its portentous results; the Louisiana Purchase of 1803; the Mexican
War, the episode of California, the story of Texas, with their consequent
ousting of Spain from lands north of the Rio Grande and the Gila--all these
are factors bearing the closest relation to the history of the West, and
consequently of many of the historic towns whose stories have been grouped
within these covers.
With these episodes of national rivalry, and consequent diplomacy and war,
were intimately concerned the French fur-trade outposts of Detroit,
Mackinac, Vincennes, and St. Louis, links in the forted chain which bound
Canada and Louisiana, and by means of which it was sought to form a barrier
against the Westward growth of the English colonies; also the Spanish
stations of San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles, and Santa Fé, which were
at once political vantage points and mission seats, for the spread of
Spanish power and civilization from Mexico, among the brown barbarians of
the North. St. Louis experienced both French and Spanish régimes, while
Mackinac, Detroit, and Vincennes were much affected by the period of
English occupancy.
As settlement grew upon the Atlantic coast, the English frontier was
inevitably pushed farther and farther from tidewater. The hunter followed
his game westward; so the forest trader, seeking the ever-receding camps of
the aborigines, and, in due course, the raiser of cattle, horses, and swine
who needed fresh pastures for his herds as tillage steadily encroached upon
the wild lands of the border. At first timorously occupying the valleys and
foothills of the eastern slopes, hunter, trader, and grazier, each in his
turn, cautiously followed buffalo traces and Indian war-paths over the
crest of the great range, and hailed with glee waters descending into the
mysterious West. Not less formidable than the barriers reared by nature
were those interposed by the savage, who with dismay saw his hunting
grounds fast dwindling under the sway of the land-grabbing English; and by
the jealous machinations of the military agents and fur traders of New
France, who brooked no rivalry in their commercial exploitation of the
forest.
When New France fell, the English crown strictly forbade further settlement
in the back country. This order was issued upon the representations of
London merchants interested, as had been the merchant adventurers of
France, in preserving the forest for the Indians and the fur trade; the
ministry were not unmindful also that the bold and liberty-loving
frontiersmen who crossed the mountains might come to consider English
political control as unessential to their being.
This policy was, however, diametrically opposed to the policy of the
border. The fertile fields of the West were far from the observation of
London officials, the spirit of unrest and the desire for gain laughed at
royal proclamations, and the trans-Alleghany movement but gathered force.
By the opening of the Revolution, Kentucky and Tennessee were practically
staked out; by its close, Americans were sole white masters of the West to
the east of the Mississippi, save for a brief holding by the British of
Detroit, Mackinac, and other upper lake posts, as security for treaty
obligations as yet unfulfilled.
It had been the custom of England to grant lands for military service; the
American colonies had likewise liberally rewarded their defenders in the
Indian wars; Revolutionary soldiers were now given free access to the broad
acres of the West, the direct result of this policy being the settlements
of Marietta and Cleveland.
Water courses have ever been of the highest importance in determining the
lines of continental settlement. The river St. Lawrence and the great lakes
offered to the people of New France a continual invitation to explore the
regions whence they flowed. It was not long before the French found that
the sources of south and west-flowing waters were not far from the banks
of the eastering waterways upon which they dwelt. By ascending short
tributaries, and carrying their light craft along practicable paths, or
portages, first used by the Indians, they could re-launch into strange and
devious paths which led to all parts of the continental interior--the
Ohio, the Mississippi, the Assiniboine, and their multifarious affluents
and connections. Thus easily did New France spread along the St. Lawrence
and the lakes, over into the Ohio and the Mississippi, and down their
gliding channels to New Orleans and the sea.
In crossing the Alleghanies, the English sought the Ohio and its
tributaries--the Alleghany, the Monongahela, the Cumberland, the Tennessee,
the Kanawha, the Big Sandy. The Ohio was long the chief gateway to the
West. Upon this royal path into the wilderness, the Ohio Company sent
Christopher Gist to prospect and report; for its possession, France and
England came to final blows through the action at Fort Necessity of Major
Washington, than whom no man knew the Ohio better; it was an approach to
Kentucky more inviting than Boone's Wilderness Road, through Cumberland
Gap; Clark's flotilla came swooping down the great river to conquer
Kaskaskia and Vincennes; and, the Revolution ended, Rufus Putnam and his
fellow veterans from New England claimed their military land grants along
this continental highway, at Marietta. Cincinnati, also, was an outpost
deliberately planted upon the great pathway to the West, although otherwise
differing in genesis. It was by the Great Lakes, that other principal
approach to the West, that Moses Cleaveland founded the settlement of
Revolutionary soldiers who were redeeming their land warrants in New
Connecticut, or the Western Reserve--an incident closely connecting Ohio
with colonial history.
Early in the Western experiences of the new nation, came Indian wars. These
resulted in treaties whereunder the defeated tribesmen were either
forbidden to enter defined areas of settlement, or were confined within
specific reservations. This necessitated the construction of rude but
effective frontier forts, which not unfrequently proved the nuclei of
hamlets that grew into considerable towns. Sometimes these forts were
essential to the direct protection of the white settlers, who, upon
occasion of alarm, flew to cover within the log palisades, which were stout
enough to resist a barbaric foe unpossessed of artillery; such was Fort
Washington, which in time became Cincinnati.
The forest trade was long the chief and only commercial interest in the
West, and at certain points garrisoned forts were necessary to serve the
traders as depôts and as havens of refuge; this was the part played by
Detroit, Mackinac, Chicago, St. Paul, Vincennes, and St. Louis. In the
case of Des Moines, the fort was established for the protection of a group
of reservation Indians who might otherwise have fallen victims to a
superior savage foe.
Agricultural settlers rapidly took up lands. Battle against it as he
would,--and the early history of the border is a piteous tale of man's
inhumanity to man,--the dispossessed savage found this army of occupation
impregnable. As the frontier moved to the westward of the Mississippi, it
was accompanied by the Indians and the fur trade. Territories were erected
by Congress out of the lands of the ousted Iroquois and Algonkins, and
these political divisions were soon admitted to the Union as states; mines
were exploited, forests were depleted, miscellaneous industries were
created, and these new interests not only profoundly affected the old
towns, but gave rise to a new order of cities.
Indianapolis and Madison are examples of town sites staked out in virgin
forests by ambitious and imaginative speculators, and, before a house could
be built, set aside by statute as capitals of their respective young
commonwealths. It is not always that towns thus artificially planted have
similarly thriven. Under normal conditions, a successful city is as much a
matter of natural growth as a tree, whose germ has chanced to fall in
favored soil. Many, perhaps most, Western towns of importance, that were
planted before the days of the railroad, when waterways were highways, are
upon the sites of early villages of aborigines, who made their stands at
natural vantage points--at a river mouth, convenient for transportation, or
close to considerable fishing grounds; at a waterfall, because here fish
are plenty, and canoes must be carried around the obstruction, so that the
villagers are masters of the highway; upon a portage path, because of ease
in reaching and controlling divergent water systems; upon a bluff
overlooking waterways, for facility of observation and control; upon a
fertile river bottom, because of good corn lands. In due time, whites came
to such a centre of population and established a trading post; here and
there, as at Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Vincennes, and Kansas City
(Westport), the post in due time developed into a garrisoned fort; and the
surrounding community, at first dependent on the fur trade or the military,
under modern conditions became a town of importance. Scores, possibly
hundreds, of such examples might be cited; and even when some thrifty towns
of the West appear at first sight to have no connection with such a past,
antiquarians have not infrequently discovered evidences that substantially
the same reasons which before the railway era had led civilized men to
select the site, caused its previous occupancy by aborigines--sometimes at
so early a day that the only remaining relics are the curious earthworks
which the progenitors of our Western Indians, prompted by religious fervor,
constructed anywhere from two and a half to ten centuries ago.
Minneapolis and Spokane, both of them old Indian sites, are the direct
outgrowth of the superb waterpowers which have given them pre-eminence in
the industrial world.
We have seen that the Great Lakes and the great rivers were the paths to
the Mississippi basin in the days of the canoe, the bateau, and the
pack-horse. The early movement of population over the trans-Mississippi
plains and through the passes of the Rockies was by means of wagons along
well-worn buffalo traces, which Indians had followed in the pursuit of
game. Where rivers intersected these overland trails, ferries were
instituted, their keepers doing a thriving business in helping upon their
way fur traders, explorers, miners, and settlers. Such was the origin of
Kansas City and Omaha, which naturally developed, with the rush of
immigration, into great centres of distribution. In every quarter of our
land, from the earliest colonial days, the frontier ferryman, with his
tavern and trading house, has been a town builder.
The discovery of precious metals in the hills of Colorado gave life to the
mining camp of Denver, which in time became the metropolis of a wide
district, to which irrigation brought a wealth more enduring than gold and
silver.
Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are the open doors of the Pacific
Coast, and their growth is thus easily accounted for. Prophecies are
current of the possible commercial supremacy of these Pacific-coast towns,
as a consequence of our new interests in the Far East. It is curious, in
this connection, to remember that Spain's motive in founding her California
colonies, four generations ago, was, on the temporal side, the more
strongly to establish herself in the Philippines.
Strangest of all stories is that of Salt Lake City, the product of
religious zeal seeking a supposedly inaccessible desert as a haven from
persecution. Finally, when the laborious development of the wilderness has
brought rich fruitage, this hermit city finds itself a station on one of
the world's most-travelled highways.
The coming of the railway, and the consequent practical abandonment of the
waterway, wrought a profound change in the fortunes of the Western towns.
The railway paid small heed to watercourses, save in mountainous country;
it struck out upon short-cuts over the plains and prairies, almost
regardless of topography. Hundreds of staid and promising river and lake
towns received a staggering blow when, for various reasons,--sometimes
their own failure to encourage the enterprise,--the railway passed them by
and entered rival and often less pretentious communities, which now were
quickened into new vigor. A more favorable situation for a bridge across
the stream was often the determining factor which caused several towns upon
a river to die and the fortunate one to be transformed into a metropolis.
The arbitrary erection throughout the West of new paths of commerce, of new
centres of distribution, during the decade and a half before the War of
Secession, was of itself a revolutionary element in urban history.
Almost as profound in its effects was the practically contemporaneous
dispersion through this vast territory of millions of European immigrants,
who came to open farms, to practise trades, and in city and in village to
carry forward, often to inaugurate, hundreds of new commercial and
industrial enterprises. The new-comers brought strange habits of thought
and social customs; some of the most desirable of these they engrafted upon
their American neighbors, while at the same time they themselves were being
consciously or unconsciously remoulded into American citizens--who,
whatever may be said, will always be essentially but transplanted
Englishmen modified by environment and political education.
Of the many nationalities of the European continent which have planted
stakes in North America, the Germans and the Scandinavians, closely allied
to our Anglo-Saxon stock, have been the most numerous and have exercised
the greatest influence. Many considerable towns, like Cincinnati, Detroit,
St. Louis, and Omaha, have become strongly German, with not a few of the
characteristics of old Germany, such as are evinced in a general fostering
of music and rational outdoor recreation. The Scandinavian element vies
good-naturedly with the German, as at Madison and Chicago; while
Minneapolis may be considered as the centre of Scandinavian influence,
fostering sturdy democracy and tenacious enterprise.
In the large towns which have their roots planted in New France, the French
element is no longer of considerable importance. The French borderer was a
vivacious, fun-loving, easy-going fellow, and upon the road to modern
opulence and power has long since been passed; to-day, as an urban dweller,
he is not seriously reckoned with by the politician, and this is a safe
guide to the relative standing of a race in any American city. The towns
which we have more recently inherited from Spain still possess, in their
older quarters, strong characteristics to link them with the past. Here and
there, as with the French, individual Spaniards or mixed-bloods rise into
prominence in our modern life--but only through the channel of
Americanization, which means effacement of the old régime. Spanish traits
have left permanent traces on the Southwest and the Pacific, as some French
traits are a part of the lasting heritage of the Old Northwest; but
Spaniards and Frenchmen as such are rapidly fading from our historic towns.
A half-century ago, few of the twenty-one Western towns whose stories are
herein collected had taken upon themselves the characteristics which to-day
chiefly distinguish them. We have seen that the advent of the railway was
for many the starting-point upon the road to prosperity; the arrival of
European immigrants, with traditions of toil and thrift, proved the turning
stage for others, and strengthened all. The War of Secession shook the
Republic to its foundations; but from it the North rose with fresh vigor,
and rapidly developed in growth and ambition, with the ensuing commercial
and industrial conditions which we encounter to-day. Nowhere has this
development been quite so noticeable as in the towns of the West.
Pioneer men and women are necessarily too closely engaged in taming the
wilderness to have either thought or leisure for any but the most
elementary education. But now that the West is no longer the frontier, and
mines, forests, fisheries, manufactures, and scientific agriculture have
brought wealth and comparative leisure, there is among her people no lack
of aspiration for culture. In no section of the United States are study
clubs relatively more numerous, in town and country; university extension
courses and the lyceum prosper everywhere; the common-school systems,
capped by the fast-growing State universities with their thousands of
students, are exhibiting a healthy growth along the most approved lines
under the guidance of teachers of national reputation; excellent private
academies and colleges are numerous in every commonwealth. Several of the
towns mentioned in this volume have won wide reputation as educational
centres--notably Cleveland, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and
San Francisco.
From these Western towns there issues no note of decadence. Theirs is the
glowing ambition of youth. Each of our several authors is quite confident,
and properly so, that his town is the handsomest, brightest, and most
prosperous of all; or, if it is not, that it is soon to be. Its commerce
ever widens, its industries expand in capacity and number, its railways
connect it each year with some new sphere of trade; and, what is better, it
is making strides, in breezy Western fashion, in the cultivation of the
higher things of life, in its churches, its schools, its libraries and
museums, its charities, its parks, its popular conveniences, its insistence
upon moral and material municipal cleanliness. It is pleasant and
profitable to trace the careers of communities such as this; to note, for
instance, by what means the Indian village became a trading post, then a
fort, next a hamlet, and at last comes to be pulsating with the ambitions
and struggling with the multifarious problems of a great modern city.
Herein is a record of urban development crowded into the span of a single
human life, that in the Old World it took centuries to accomplish.
It is often flippantly asserted that America has no history; and even
well-informed Americans, who have come to appreciate their national history
at large, are apt to fancy that, in any event, the West has had a prosaic
career, being simply an overflow or outgrowth from the East. But a perusal
of these pages will surely convince the thoughtful reader that Western
history is not so easily disposed of. It will be found a chronicle
abounding in complexities, aglow with life and color, freighted with
significance to the continent at large. The chief towns of this historic
West have come down to us from many sorts of beginnings, have travelled by
differing and devious paths, often encountering curious adventures by the
way, until, quickened by modern resources and demands, they have each in
its kind come creditably to serve mankind in some useful way.
HISTORIC TOWNS OF THE
WESTERN STATES
[Illustration]
HISTORIC TOWNS OF THE WESTERN STATES
MARIETTA
THE PLYMOUTH OF THE WEST
BY MURIEL CAMPBELL DYAR
"The paths from the heights of Abraham led to Independence
Hall, Independence Hall led finally to Yorktown, and Yorktown
guided the footsteps of your Fathers to Marietta."--_Daniels._
At the point where the Muskingum empties into the Ohio, the River
Beautiful, across whose waters the Ohio hills look tenderly away into the
distances of West Virginia, there was sown, in 1788, the tiny seed for the
development of the Northwest Territory. Here, on the memorable seventh of
April, landed forty-eight New England pioneers; here stayed the keel of the
second _Mayflower_, bearing as her burden not only the men whose names have
become immortal in American history, but, more than these, the Ordinance of
1787 with its momentous articles of compact--an ordinance ranking "next to
the Declaration of Independence in the establishment of Constitutional
liberty in the United States." Here was founded that other Plymouth,
Marietta, the brave little gateway through which the nation's civilization
journeyed onward from the Atlantic seaboard to the fallow empires of the
West.
[Illustration MARIETTA.]
No seer was needed to foreshadow the success the Marietta colony was to
have. Two years before its coming, the character of the colony was presaged
when there met in Boston, at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, whose gilded sign
creaked temptingly in her high salt winds, a convention called by General
Rufus Putnam and General Benjamin Tupper for the formation of the Ohio
Company, with the purpose of founding a new State in the territory
northwest of the Ohio River. The Company was composed of high-minded men,
largely officers in the late war. In their petition to Congress for the
purchase of western land they stipulated, for its organization, law and
order, provision for education and for the maintenance of religion and the
total exclusion of slavery. For these compacts, some of the greatest
statesmen in the young Republic brought to bear the power of their genius;
for these, the quiet Ipswich clergyman, Manasseh Cutler, as agent of the
Ohio Company, pleaded with matchless eloquence in Congress; for these,
Rufus Putnam, the "Father and Founder of Ohio," gave the largess of his
ability and rugged force.
"An interlude in Congress," says Mr. Bancroft, "was shaping the
character and destiny of the United States of America. Sublime
and humane and eventful as was the result, it will not take
many words to show how it was brought about. For a time wisdom
and peace and justice dwelt among men, and the great Ordinance
which alone could give continuance to the Union came in
serenity and stillness. Every man that had a share in it seemed
to be moved by an Invisible Hand to do just what was wanted of
him; all that was wrongfully undertaken fell by the wayside;
whatever was needed for the happy completion of the work
arrived opportunely and at the right moment moved into its
place."
To the forty-eight men sent into the wilderness by the Ohio Company history
gives a generous and well-merited praise. They were of the same race and of
the same upright faith as the brave Englishmen who in 1620 landed on the
bleak, gray rock of Plymouth. All that was true and forceful in the
Plymouth faith was theirs; they had the same love of law and religion, the
same genius for order and a firm self-government, the same courage of
conviction, the same independence of thought and action. They possessed,
too, much of that ancient war-ready temper which had shorn the English King
of his divine right and had created for the English people the House of
Commons. Their heroism had adorned every battlefield of the Revolution;
their roll included generals, majors, colonels and captains.
"No colony in America," said Washington, with that cautious,
unerring judgment of his, "was ever settled under such
favorable auspices as that about to commence at the Muskingum.
Information, property and strength will be its characteristics.
I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were
men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a
community."
"I know them all," cried the Marquis de La Fayette, his fine French voice
trembling with emotion when the list of their names was read to him on his
visit to Marietta. "I knew them at Brandywine, Yorktown and Rhode Island.
They were the bravest of the brave." General Putnam himself was at their
head, the "impress of whose character is strongly marked on the population
of Marietta in their business, institutions and manners." Here were Samuel
H. Parsons, the distinguished general, the able writer, the accomplished
jurist; James M. Varnum, the brilliant scholar, the gallant officer;
Abraham Whipple, the brave commodore, to whom belongs the glory of firing
the first naval gun in the cause of American independence, an act that gave
birth to the American navy. Here were Winthrop Sargent, the Secretary of
the Territory, Benjamin Tupper, the hero of many battles and the devoted
friend of Putnam in the forming of the Ohio Company; Return Jonathan Meigs,
afterwards Governor of Ohio. Here were Nye, Buell, Cutler, Fearing, Foster,
Sproat, Cushing, Goodale, Dana, True, Devol and others no less worthy and
distinguished, whose names are the richest heritage of their descendants.
[Illustration GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM.]
The story of the coming of the pioneers is a twice-told tale to the student
of our nation's history. In the disheartening gray dawn of a December
morning, 1787, the first little band paraded before Manasseh Cutler's own
church at Ipswich, and, after the firing of a salute, started "for the
Ohio country," as their leading wagon proclaimed. Another joined this at
Danvers, and yet another, pushing on from famous old Rutland, started from
Hartford, Ct., led by the beloved and always inspiring General Putnam. The
toilsome journey overland, along an old Indian trail through Connecticut
and Pennsylvania, at that season of the year white with winter, ended at
last at the Ohio River. Here, at Sumrill's ferry, out of timber that still
sang of the forests, was built the _Mayflower_, her bows raking like a
galley, her burthen fifty tons--a humble enough namesake of the famous
Pilgrim vessel. As the pioneers went onward down the river, the snow, which
at first lay heavy in the hollows of the hills, melted into thin patches
here and there, until, when they reached Fort Harmar, at the fair mouth of
the Muskingum, April bourgeoned into unexpected beauty about them. It was a
golden augury for the little town, to which its soldier founders gave the
name of Marietta, in grateful remembrance of the sympathy of Marie
Antoinette for the colonies during the weary period of their Revolution, a
name which still keeps her citizens lovers of that ill-fated Queen of
France.
[Illustration OLD BLOCKHOUSE, MARIETTA.]
Enthusiastic news of the first summer of the colony went back over the
mountains to Ipswich and Rutland. "The climate is exceeding healthy,"
blithely carols one of the old letters, "not a man sick since we have been
here. We have started twenty buffalo in a drove--deer are plenty as sheep
in New England. Turkeys are innumerable. We have already planted a field of
one hundred and fifty acres in corn." Another settler drips from his
ecstatic, and, we trust, veracious quill, "The corn has grown nine inches
in twenty-four hours for two or three days past." The garrison, very soon
erected for defence and called the Campus Martius in academic quaintness,
is described as the "handsomest pile of buildings this side of the
Alleghanies," and as presenting an appearance of almost mediæval
stateliness and strength, bastioned as it was with great blockhouses and
surrounded by a stout double wall of palisades. The Fourth of July was
celebrated by a great "banquet," eaten in a bowery set up on the banks of
the Muskingum; its menu tickles even a jaded modern palate--venison
barbecued, buffalo steaks, bear-meat, roasted pigs, "the choicest delicacy
of all," and a great pike, six feet long, the largest ever caught in the
river. "We kept it up till after twelve o'clock at night," succinctly
observes one of the participants, "and then went home and slept until
after daylight." On the fifteenth of July, a yet more memorable occasion,
General St. Clair, the first Governor of the Northwest Territory, was
welcomed with great ceremonies, and the Ordinance of 1787 was read with
much solemnity in the midst of profound silence. In early August a pleasant
little ripple of diversion was caused by the arrival of the families of the
pioneers. In the latter part of the same month, Dr. Cutler made a visit to
the settlement, and delivered the first sermon ever preached at Marietta.
In September was opened the first Court of Common Pleas in the Territory.
It was an august spectacle. The sheriff, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, of the
Massachusetts line, preceded by a military escort, marched with his drawn
sword and wand of office ahead of the governor, judges, secretary and
others, to the blockhouse where the court was held. As the picturesque
little procession wound its way along the river banks, the friendly
Indians, loitering about the new city, admired immensely the mighty form of
Colonel Sproat, who, being six feet four inches tall, towered conspicuously
above his companions. Ever thereafter they called him Hetuck, or Big
Buckeye, and ever since then the natives of Ohio have been dubbed
"Buckeyes."
Great provisions were made for good order in the settlement; almost before
the seeds of New England harvests had germinated in the virgin soil,
Marietta had her pillory, whipping post and stocks for the discipline of
evil-doers, instruments of torture which lingered as late as 1812. Every
man was ordered to "entertain emigrants, visit the sick, feed the hungry,
attend funerals, cabin-raisings, log-rollings, huskings and to keep his
latch-string always out." Once during the fruitful summer the settlers
assembled to attend a funeral, for the first death in the colony occurred
in August, when little Nabby Cushing, daughter of Major Cushing, passed
away. She was buried tenderly in the alien soil, where, in an unmarked
grave, she is slumbering still. Although many years have come and gone
between, a vague pity stirs to-day at the thought of that little pioneer
baby, whose feet so soon grew weary in the vast wilderness.
The hospitality of the latch-strings was put to the test two years later,
when a hapless colony of Frenchmen took shelter in the town, lured into the
wilderness by the unscrupulous agent of a land company, with the promise
that they should find a land where there were no taxes to pay, no military
services to be performed, where frost, even in winter, was entirely unknown
and where candles grew ready-made on the bushes and sugar dripped
spontaneously from the trees. They were a curious crew: carvers, gilders,
wig-makers and hair-dressers from Paris, even a Viscount of broken-down
fortunes and a young Marquis, with a few peasants as helpless as themselves
in the new conditions,--hardly a mother's son of them able to plough or
reap or chop for himself, and many a man without a sou in his pocket. The
major part of them drifted down the river that winter to what is now
Gallipolis, the City of the Gauls, where they at once began to give balls
in the cabins which the Marietta settlers helped them build, and proceeded
to spend what little money they had in hiring American hunters to bring
them game! A few became citizens of Marietta, notably Monsieur Thiery, a
Parisian baker and confectioner, who quickly adapted himself to the new
life, and made toothsome little sweet-cakes and bread for the
settlement,--there is a tradition that while Louis Philippe was whiling
away his exile in the United States, he visited Marietta, where he had the
pleasure of eating a fair wheaten loaf of his countryman's baking, and
Monsieur Cookie, bred to no trade, very short and very stout, who wore at
all times and in all seasons a very tall steeple-crowned hat which once
saved his life, when the Indians, catching sight of it bobbing up and down
in the paw-paw bushes, fired at it in a vain attempt to hit the head
within.
After the sober jollity of the first summer, the Marietta colonists
experienced the hardships which every early settlement knows. They had
their "sick years, their times of famine and their Indian wars." The sick
years played a sad havoc in their numbers by dreadful scourges of epidemic
diseases. The famous starving-time came in the spring and summer of 1790.
A black frost falling out of due season ruined their crops, and the
Indians, already beginning their hostilities, had driven from the forest
every startled wild thing within their reach. It was a period that tried
the Puritan mettle, for the solace of religion may prove vain if the
stomach be empty. The only food was nettle-tops and the tender shoots of
the pigeon-berry, boiled with a little corn pounded on the hominy block.
Occasionally a hunter, faring far afield, brought in a bit of bear-meat or
a wild turkey, which made a feast at least fitting if not full. The heroic
matrons sipped spice-bush tea, unsweetened, in lieu of a more stimulating
beverage. Many a heart turned back in homesick longing to where the blue
haze curled comfortably from New England kitchens, but hope returned with
the early squashes. The new corn crop was abundant, and from that day to
this, whatever may have been their vicissitudes of fortune, the citizens of
Marietta have never again been reduced to a starvation diet.
A much graver calamity, coming not long after, was the Indian wars, which
were not to end for five long, weary years. During this time the town was
strained to its generous capacity to receive under the shelter of the
Campus Martius the men, women and children from remoter settlements. The
settlers worked in the fields like the Israelites at the rebuilding of the
walls of Jerusalem,--every man with his weapon in his hand. On the puncheon
cabin-floors, mothers rocked their babies in the first cradles of Ohio,
while often, on some far-off hill, they could see savage warriors
brandishing their blood-stained hatchets in defiance at the fort.
The news of the defeat of General St. Clair's expedition caused
consternation, and threatened for a time to break up the settlement. So
disastrous was the defeat that when in 1793 Mad Anthony Wayne camped on the
General's battlefield, his soldiers could not lie down to sleep for the
bones of the unfortunate army. Humiliated by his misfortune and its implied
disgrace, the Governor soon left his Marietta home. The colonists mourned
with his loss that of his daughter Louisa, so brave, so lovely, so
brilliant, that it seems no mere legend that the great Indian chief,
Brandt, was madly in love with her.
In the grim terror of the times, an amusing incident now and then comes
like a lilt of girlish laughter. Once the signal gun gave the alarm that
the Indians were besieging the town. The night was dark and the confusion
indescribable. Men rushed to their posts and the women and children
scuttled to the central blockhouse. Colonel Sproat led the way with a box
of valuable papers; next came a woman with her bed and children, and
tumbling after her, old Mr. Moulton, with his leathern apron full of
goldsmith's tools and tobacco. His daughter Anna carried the china tea-pot.
Lyddy brought the great Bible. When all were in the frightened cry was
raised that Mrs. Moulton was missing--that she had been scalped by the
Indians. "Oh, no," said Lyddy calmly, "she'll be here in a minute. She
stopped to put things a little to rights; she said she _would not_ leave
the house _looking so_." And in a few moments the old lady scuttled in,
bearing the looking-glass--a triumph of New England housewifery!
A certain regularity of living was maintained in spite of the continuous
fear. Every Sabbath morning church was held in a blockhouse where Psalms
were droned with Puritan unction, and the sermon by Mr. Story, the
scholarly Massachusetts divine, was tasted with much critical acumen by
the learned backwoodsmen, many of whom were graduates of Harvard and
Dartmouth. On the long Sabbath afternoons the children of the settlement
studied their catechisms in the simple log cabin of Mrs. Mary Lake, the
earnest woman who thus started what was perhaps the first Sunday-school in
the United States. On week days they were gathered together for lessons,
nor was the rod kept in less perpetual pickle because of the proximity of
the Indians.
[Illustration THE MILLS HOMESTEAD, MARIETTA.]
The war once over, a busy activity ensued. Mills were built, bridges made,
and more comfortable houses erected. It was not strange that the sons of
the old coast States, with the siren voice of the sea still in their ears,
should become notable builders of ships. The great trees of the forest were
masts ready for felling, and many a stately vessel slipped into the water
from this inland ship-yard, to glide down the Ohio into the Mississippi,
and from thence to the shining ocean beyond. The town became a centre of
industry and traffic, a position which she was not long to keep, for
gradually trade drifted from her, and by and by she fell asleep
commercially beside her pleasant waters, to nod and dream serenely through
years to come. But not only was the early Marietta noted for her
industrial prosperity; she was a centre of culture as well, and her place
in this regard she has never lost. As soon as a greater wealth and leisure
came to the pioneer colony, there bloomed abundantly the flowers of an
intellectual refinement, which was the birth-right of those heroic men and
women.
[Illustration HARMAN BLENNERHASSETT.]
It is with this gracious era, redolent of sweet old customs and stately
courtesies, that there is associated the romantic, old-time tragedy of the
Blennerhassetts. On the lovely island lying some twelve miles below
Marietta, Harman Blennerhassett, the dreamy Irish exile, built his idyllic
mansion, whose grandeur was the wonder of the West.
"A shrubbery that Shenstone might have envied," wrote Wirt,
"blooms around him. Music that might have charmed Calypso and
her nymphs, is his. An extensive library spreads its treasures
before him. A philosophical apparatus offers him all the
secrets and mysteries of nature. Peace, tranquillity, and
innocence shed their mingled delights about him. And to crown
the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely
even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplishment that
can render it irresistible, has blessed him with her love."
[Illustration MRS. BLENNERHASSETT.]
Here he plotted a new empire with the bad and brilliant Aaron Burr, whose
hands were still red with the blood of the murdered Alexander Hamilton; and
from here he fled accused of treason to his country, disgraced and ruined.
Memories of the "Blennerhassett days" are many, for the great man was for
several years a partner of Dudley Woodbridge, the first merchant of
Marietta, and both he and his accomplished wife were familiar figures in
Marietta homes. Fancy, inspired by local annals, has a charming glimpse of
the loving mistress of the hospitable mansion, dashing through the woods on
her spirited horse, like some brilliant tropical bird, in her habit of
scarlet cloth, and white hat with the long drooping plume. A pretty story
is told of her wit and beauty at the famous "Burr ball" which the fashion
of Marietta once gave in honor of the crafty statesman and his daughter
Theodosia. To-day, the site of the regal dwelling is marked only by an old
well and some magnificent trees. "Blennerhassett's Island" is a point of
attraction for pleasure-seekers, who give little enough thought to its sad
story; but sometimes there journeys to it a lover of past years who looks
with blurred eyes at the spot where once was enacted one of the most
pathetic little tragedies in all American history.
But Marietta is not altogether a tale of yesterdays; she has as well her
to-day, with its rich promise for the morrow. To-day, a stranger in the
town has pointed out to him "New" and "Old" Marietta. In New Marietta,
brought into existence by the discovery of vast surrounding oil-fields,
there are thriving factories, modern business blocks, new hotels, improved
school-buildings, electric cars; there are evidences of wealth and business
prosperity, and signs of an increasing population. This commercial
progress, from a civic standpoint, is undeniably a benefit, yet it must be
admitted, for the time being, it gives Marietta a little the appearance of
a kindly, old-style grandmother, startled from a long afternoon nap in the
chimney-corner, to find her cap gone, her scanty petticoats replaced by
strangely ample frills, and the caraway seeds in her limp black bag
supplanted by indigestible bon-bons. In Old Marietta the scene shifts. Here
is the drowsy peace of a New England village; here are wide streets shaded
by avenues of splendid trees, and ancient houses, generous-portalled,
serene. Here is the burring of bees in old-fashioned gardens. And is not
this lingering fragrance the smell of the lotos-flower?
[Illustration MARIETTA COLLEGE BUILDINGS.]
The glory of the old dispensation is the venerable college, whose buildings
cluster picturesquely on the green lift of College Hill. Founded in the
fear of God by the first scholars of Ohio, it has behind it a proud
history. At its head have stood men of rich culture and ability, among
whose names shines pre-eminently that of Israel Ward Andrews. In the list
of its instructors have been scholars who have led it upward to all that is
noblest and best. From its classes have gone out students who have taken a
fitting and often distinguished place in the professions and in politics.
When the call of 1861 came, the student sons of Marietta responded with a
gallant patriotism and a devoted service, some among them winning the
highest recognition. To-day, with its able faculty, its fine library, its
well equipped class-rooms, it holds no mean place in the roll of American
colleges. It pays to its past the precious thanks of a worthy present. And
with happy confidence it looks forward to its future, under the guidance of
its sixth and latest President, Alfred Tyler Perry, but recently called to
its leadership from Hartford Theological Seminary.
[Illustration MOUND CEMETERY, MARIETTA.]
In the old Mound Cemetery sleep an honored dead. In its center is the
prehistoric mound, as well preserved to-day as when it was discovered by
the pioneer fathers, a vast monument to the unknown fittingly encircled by
the quiet dignity of this ancient Acre of God. General Putnam's grave is
marked by a plain granite monument, bearing the simple inscription more
touching than the loftiest eulogy:
GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM
A Revolutionary Officer
And the leader of the
Colony which made the
First settlement in the
Territory of the North-West.
Born April 9, 1738,
Died May 4, 1824.
[Illustration OHIO COMPANY'S LAND OFFICE.]
Not far from him are the majority of the Revolutionary heroes who came with
him from New England. It is claimed that there are buried here more
officers of the Revolution than in any other burying-ground in the United
States. About them lie thirteen soldiers of the War of 1812, and a number
of the brave men who fought in the Mexican War. Here too, are the
resting-places of many early citizens of Marietta, who are as a "Choir
Invisible"
"Of those immortal dead, who live again
In minds made better by their presence."
The gates are seldom open now to the silent caravans, for the graves in the
cloistral grass lie close.
Many relics of bygone days make Old Marietta interesting. The streets
running north and south bear yet the names given them by the early
settlers, of Washington and his generals. The "Sacra Via" and the breezy
"Capitolium" and "Tiber Way" bear witness to an old scholarship. "The
Point" recalls the picketed Point of the Indian wars. There still stands
the Ohio Company's Land Office, a wee, weather-beaten building, gray with
time, probably the oldest structure in Ohio. Opposite this is the old
homestead of Rufus Putnam, which stood within the Campus Martius. On the
park, fronting the river, is the quaint Two Horn Church of the
Congregationalists, erected in the wilderness in 1806 and now Ohio's oldest
church building. On the same street where it stands is the stately old
mansion of Governor Meigs, which was built two years earlier and which
still holds an honored place among Marietta's beautiful homes. In families
whose names mark their descent from the "forty-eight immortals" are
treasured numerous heirlooms,--ancestral portraits which look from their
tarnished frames pink-cheeked, confident and calm; old dresses, dim and
faintly odorous; and divers warming-pans, candlesticks and Blennerhassett
chairs, together with sundry bits of sprigged, delightful china.
[Illustration OLD TWO HORN CHURCH.]
"Age is a recommendation in four things," runs a Spanish proverb: "Old wood
to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, old books to read." To
these might well be added a fifth,--old towns to love. To those who know
her, Marietta is a hallowed spot. She is a tender-bosomed matron, this
mother of many sons. Around her is a fair line of hills, which, whether
green with the eternal promise of the spring, or wrapped in the blue smoke
from autumn's invisible battlefield, or hoary with winter's snows, are
changelessly beautiful. About her are broad fields, now quivering to their
resurrection, now white to the harvests. Before her are the lovely,
far-stretching rivers, calling to her all day long with their old, sweet
notes of running water. By the bonds of her historic beauty she holds her
children in a very tender thrall. In all times, and in all places, their
hearts yearn unto her in the far Horatian cry: "Septimius,--_that angle of
the earth laughs for me beyond all others_!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CLEVELAND
THE PLEASANT CITY
BY CHARLES F. THWING
The first thing to be said about Cleveland is what, with the change of a
pronoun, a Cambridge poet said about one of whom he wrote: "It is so
pleasant." Its streets are pleasant to live in and to look upon; its parks
are pleasant to stroll in or to ride in; its houses are, on the whole,
pleasant to the æsthetic sense; its libraries are pleasant for their
selectness though not for their bigness; its people are, above all,
pleasant for their dignity, graciousness, genuineness, simplicity and
appreciation. In the year 1838 the late Asa Gray spent a short time in
Cleveland, and wrote from Cleveland to a friend, saying that the city would
"ultimately be a very pleasant place"; he adds: "The people show some signs
of civilization; they eat ice cream, which is sold in many places."[1] I
wish I were able to assure my old friend and neighbor, as he now lives with
the immortelles and other fadeless flowers, that he has proved to be a true
prophet: Cleveland has become a "very pleasant place," and possibly I might
be allowed to assure him that signs of the ice-age of modern civilization
still linger.
In that relation in which men commonly use the word "pleasant," the
weather, Cleveland is not pleasant. It has as much cloudy weather as
almost any part of the world; and yet it has a pleasant climate. Its
summers are not hot, its winters not cold. To the worker of any sort this
pleasant climate of much unpleasant weather is very pleasing, for in it, as
in the climate of London, one can get much work out of himself.
[Illustration VIEW IN GORDON PARK.]
Cleveland is a singular creation of contraries. It is an inland town, but
it builds more vessels and owns more vessels than almost any other in the
United States. About a quarter of all the steel vessels, rated in tonnage,
built in the United States in the last fiscal year of the Government were
constructed in Cleveland, the order of precedence being Cleveland, Newport
News, Chicago, and Detroit; and almost three quarters of the modern steel
ships in service on the Great Lakes are owned or operated by Cleveland
vesselmen. It is a city of four hundred thousand people, but it impresses
both the visitor and the resident as a big village or a series of big
villages. From it can be reached in a long or short night's ride, New York
and Chicago, Buffalo and St. Louis, Detroit and Cincinnati; within seven
hundred miles of Cleveland dwell more than half the entire population of
the country, and yet Cleveland has been called provincial. Its homes are
among the most palatial of the world, but the owners of not a few are more
at home in New York and Paris than on Euclid Avenue. It is distinguished
for its iron, steel and coal interests, but it has scholars and teachers
who are known where its steel rails have never been carried. It is a city
of the East, and it is also a city of the West--of the East it is the
newest, of the West it is the oldest. It is often called conservative, but
it is also distinguished by its sense of power and of progress. It
represents in its citizens a pure New England type; but it has also
gathered up folks from all over the world,--"Parthians, and Medes, and
Elamites, ... strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians,"
who read their newspapers in a dozen different languages. But, be it said,
the New England, the Connecticut and Massachusetts type still dominates.
The names of the families which are most representative of the things of
the spirit include a large number of New England names.
[Illustration CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, CLEVELAND.]
This city of contraries and of contrasts is yet made a great city by only
one or two simple elements. One may say that Lake Erie makes Cleveland.
Were there no Lake Erie there would be no Cleveland. But Lake Erie is the
occasion and not the cause. One may say that the age of steel makes
Cleveland. But that this age is the age of steel is only the condition, not
the cause. The cause that makes Cleveland Cleveland is that at or near
Cleveland the various elements that are necessary in the manufacture of
iron and steel can be most economically and efficiently assembled. The
iron ores from the Lake Superior region, the coal from the Massillon,
Mohoning and Pennsylvania region, the limestone from the Lake Erie islands
and southern shores, can here be most profitably brought together.
Cleveland is, too, by rail and by boat a good point for the distribution of
the finished product as well as a good point for the bringing together of
the crude material. Here ore, coal and lime meet and mingle as naturally as
the heat of the sun and the life of the seed unite in the springtime.
Nothing can prevent their meeting, and little can subsidies or other
artificial stimulus do to promote it. From this union spring forth
factories making nuts and bolts and sewing-machines and engines and the
thousand products and by-products of this age and place of steel. Therefore
Cleveland is Cleveland.
[Illustration SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT, CLEVELAND.]
It may not only be said that Cleveland is herself; it should also be added
that Cleveland has done some things first which are worth doing anyway, and
which are especially worth doing first. As among the colleges Williams and
Harvard have done not a few first things, so among the cities Cleveland
may claim a certain priority. The city was, if not the first, among the
first to adopt the federal system of municipal government, a system which,
after ten years of usefulness, has proved to be like every other form of
democratic government, good if good men are in control, and bad if bad men
are in control. Cleveland was the first to adopt the proper method for the
government and administration of its public schools, namely the separation
of the business side of the administration from the educational, a system,
too, which, like the more general plan of government, finds its efficiency
in the character of the men who administer it. In Cleveland, too, was
organized the great Epworth League of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Here,
too, one of the first women in America to enter the medical profession was
trained in the old Medical College, now a part of the Western Reserve
University. Here the recondite experiments were made by Morley for
determining the atomic weight of oxygen, and practical experiments by Brush
for giving the best light, as well as the important experiments also made
by Brush which resulted in adding "etherion" to the elements. Here, also,
important facilities in the use of the public library and in the making of
finest machinery, such as is used in astronomical apparatus, were first
applied. One, too, should not in a commercial age be suffered to forget
that in Cleveland the Standard Oil Company was born and grew to be a lusty
youth.
This city of first things had as its first man and founder, one whose name
it bears, Moses Cleveland. A Connecticut man, born in Canterbury, Windham
County, in 1754, graduated at Yale in 1777, admitted to the bar,
interrupting his professional practice by service in the Revolutionary
army, serving in the Connecticut Legislature and also in the State militia,
Moses Cleveland was made agent for the Connecticut Land Company in 1796,
and came into the historic territory of New Connecticut, or the Western
Reserve.[2] He seems to have had those elements which usually are found in
founders of states and builders of cities. Reserved in speech, vigorous in
action, friendly with all, grave, shrewd, he was born to command. His
career was brief: he died in the town of his birth in 1806; but he lived
long enough to entertain a rational hope of the future greatness of the
city he founded and named. It is said that he once remarked: "While I was
in New Connecticut I laid out a town, on the bank of Lake Erie, which was
called by my name, and I believe the child is now born that may live to see
it grow as large as old Windham."
Moses Cleveland was a prophet at once true and false. Cleveland became as
large as old Windham and even larger, in the lifetime of children born in
the last decade of the eighteenth century. The method by which Cleveland
has attained the first place in its State, and the seventh place in the
United States, is a process, a growth, and not a manufacture. In the year
1830, thirty-four years after the coming of Moses Cleveland, it had only a
thousand people; but the one thousand had increased to six thousand by
1840, and in the next ten years the six thousand increased threefold. In
the next ten years the number more than doubled, becoming forty-three
thousand in 1860, and yet again doubled in the following decade. By 1870,
it had become ninety-two thousand. The doubling process could not long
continue, but it came so near it that in 1880 there were one hundred and
sixty thousand inhabitants, in 1890 two hundred and sixty thousand and
more, and in 1900 almost four hundred thousand.
[Illustration ARMORY OF THE CLEVELAND GRAYS.]
A growth more normal and steady, a growth which has also carried along
with itself elements far more precious than mere size, it would be hard to
find. For these folks do not deserve the epithet which Carlyle applied to
London's millions. They are a people of vigor, initiative, progressiveness,
carefulness, wealth, work, comfortableness, and good-heartedness.
Cleveland may be conservative; but it is the conservatism of the English
nation which Emerson describes in saying: "The slow, deep English mass
smoulders with fire, which at last sets all its borders in flame."
Cleveland's fires are the fires of anthracite and not of straw.
A city of comfort, Cleveland has no London's East End. I do not believe
that in any other population of the world of its size can be found so few
hungry stomachs or homeless bodies. Work abounds. All men work. Its rich
men are workers, and, what is far more exceptional, the sons of its rich
men are workers. Its wealth is of the solid sort. It represents investments
which pay dividends every six months, and which represent the advancement
of every commercial and manufacturing interest. But Cleveland is obliged to
acknowledge that not a few of its rich men are legal citizens of New York
City, ostracized from its pleasant borders by what they and others regard
as the unjust tax laws of the State.
The city has not yet reached the condition in which it is understood that
in case a will is probated representing a large estate which fails to give
at least a considerable sum to charity or to education, the court shall set
it aside on the ground that the testator was of unsound mind. Of course
money is given away both by gift and by bequest, but more, on the whole, by
gift than by bequest, and in large amounts, but not in amounts so large as
prevail in communities of an age of two hundred and seventy-five years
rather than of one hundred. The rate of increase which money may make for
itself is so great, that the holder and the maker hesitate to part with
such a remunerative agent. Yet the beneficence viewed in the light of
decades is great. A noble school of science, a noble college and
university, including professional schools, a noble foundation for an art
school, are easily found among the more obvious tokens. Hospitals and
orphanages, private schools, endowed churches, Young Men's Christian
Association buildings, parks and college settlements, are ready proof of
private beneficence for public ends. Testimony should also be borne to the
wisdom as well as the generosity which characterize the giving of this
people. My pen refuses to write names, but it is free to say that to find
beneficence which is, it shall not be said so little harmful, but which is
so gloriously efficient, as the beneficence of some of Cleveland's noblest
women and men would be difficult. With the gift, before the gift, and after
the gift goes the wisdom as well as the graciousness of the giver. One,
too, should not neglect to say that in not a few of the great manufacturing
concerns of Cleveland prevails a spirit that the employer owes to the
employee something more than wages. The dividend to labor consists, in the
more obvious relations, in providing rest and recreation rooms, facilities
for eating the midday luncheon, and in doing what can be done in creating
associations and conditions which make for the enrichment of life and the
betterment of character.
[Illustration LAKE IN WADE PARK, SHOWING ADELBERT COLLEGE IN THE DISTANCE.]
Of course Cleveland has societies and clubs: clubs into which the worthiest
life of the community naturally organizes itself for worthiest purposes,
and clubs which represent the life that is simply worthy and of which the
purposes are not the highest. Clubs of women and clubs of men, clubs social
and clubs professional, clubs literary and clubs commercial, clubs
anthropological and clubs sociological, clubs chemical and clubs
engineering, clubs collegiate and clubs pedagogical, clubs athletic and
clubs æsthetic, clubs piscatorial and clubs ecclesiastical, clubs
architectural and clubs of free-traders, clubs for municipal improvement
and clubs for no improvement of any kind--they all and many others are
found in this very pleasant city.
And underneath all these associations and organizations it is easy to
discover the growth of a distinctly civic spirit, also manifest in special
movements and conditions. The endeavor to build in one group buildings so
important as a county court-house, a city hall, a public library and others
reveals the willingness to surrender individual advantages to the public
weal. The attempt to deal largely and justly with all municipal franchises
proves the presence of a desire to serve all as well as each. The Municipal
Association, an organization of a few gentlemen of high purpose and of
patience as well as of great influence, has, in recommending or in refusing
to recommend certain candidates for office, promoted the growth of a public
sense out of which it has itself sprung. The determination that the public
schools shall not be used for partisan purposes is perhaps as strong an
illustration as could be given of the presence and potency of the civic
spirit of Cleveland.
[Illustration PERRY'S MONUMENT, WADE PARK, CLEVELAND.]
In the three great professions are found noble members. In this triple
service is manifest a high tableland of general excellence rather than a
level broken by high and distinct peaks of individual conspicuousness. The
highest relative standing belongs, I judge, to the members of the medical
profession. This prominence may be the result of the presence for more than
fifty years of a medical school which has numbered among its faculty some
great investigators and teachers. But not a few of those who are examples
of highest service have been unwilling, it must be said, to remain in
Cleveland. As the Atlantic draws down the level of the Great Lakes, so the
territory of the Atlantic draws away some (not all) of the more eminent
members of the great professions. The supply however never becomes
exhausted, nor does it deteriorate.
[Illustration]
[Illustration CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.]
But the most eminent of Cleveland's people belong to the literary or
political class rather than to the strictly professional. The earliest of
the writers who spread Cleveland's fame and his own was Artemus Ward. It
was a short career enough which Artemus Ward had, and its Cleveland part
covered only two years, but while it lasted it bore one of Cleveland's
daily papers round the world on the wings of his wit. One cannot forget
that here lived and wrote John Hay, beloved as among the best of men as
well as honored as the most efficient of Secretaries of State. James Ford
Rhodes here fitted himself while engaged in business to begin his career as
a fascinating writer of later American history. Constance Fenimore Woolson
was a Cleveland child, although not born here, and the Great Lakes are the
scenes of her stories. Mrs. Sarah Knowles Bolton, writer of useful and
pleasing biographies and other books, divides her residence between Boston
and Cleveland. Charles W. Chesnutt, too, is esteemed not only for his
sketches but also for a distinct charm of character. Cleveland would like
to claim that rare poet and great soul, Edward Rowland Sill, for his home
was only a few miles away, and in Cleveland he died, in 1887. One should
not decline to say that books written by college professors may not only be
the material for literature but also literature itself. Such books, written
in Cleveland, are neither few nor barren.
The eminence in politics of the Cleveland man belongs rather to the present
than to the past. If one should name the gentlemen who have served the city
in the national Congress the names would to most prove to be without
significance. The name of Senator Payne--and he had been long associated
with the life of the city--one recalls, but no name has the meaning of the
name of Wade or of Giddings, who came from the little town of Jefferson, a
few miles east of Cleveland, or of Sherman, who came from the south. Hayes,
Garfield and McKinley might be called citizens of the Greater Cleveland. At
the present time, however, in both the Senate and the House the city is not
without able and significant representation.
[Illustration GARFIELD MEMORIAL, CLEVELAND.]
Like a piece of music the chapter returns upon itself. It began with the
argument that Cleveland is so pleasant. From the breakwater which the
Government builds to keep Cleveland great and to make it greater, along the
avenues of residence or of trade, even through its smoky and sooty
atmosphere,--sign of prosperity,--out mile after mile to the city of the
dead where the well-beloved Garfield sleeps in nobly wrought sepulchre, in
all and through all, Cleveland is pleasant. Pleasant to live in, pleasant
to work in, I know, and pleasant to go to heaven from, I hope, is
Cleveland.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Letters of Asa Gray_, i., 72.
[2] This section, known as the Western Reserve, lying between parallels
forty-one and forty-two, and a line one hundred and twenty miles west of
the western line of Pennsylvania and parallel with it, was "reserved" to
Connecticut when she ceded to the United States certain territory which she
had received from the grant of Charles II. Of this territory Connecticut
granted one half million of acres to such of her soldiers as had suffered
from the British during the Revolution. The larger, if not the entire, part
of the balance passed into the control of a private-public corporation,
known as the Connecticut Land Company.
[Illustration]
CINCINNATI
ALWAYS A STRATEGIC POINT
BY MILTON E. AILES
On the day before Christmas, 1788, twenty-six adventurous men, in deerskin
hunting shirts and leggins, with tomahawk, powder-horn and scalping knife
at their belts, embarked at Limestone on the Ohio River in rude barges of
their own construction, and fighting their way through dangerous floes,
proceeded on a journey which was to prove memorable in the annals of
American colonization.
These pilgrims were well aware of the perils and tragedies awaiting them,
for their mission was to build them homes and found a city on the edge of
the rich Miami Valley, through which mixed tribes of raging Shawnees,
Senecas, Iroquois and Miamis roamed, determined to halt the threatening
advance of the hated paleface.
The Indian braves realized that a crucial moment in their history had come.
Their allies, the British, had gone down in defeat before the Thirteen
Fires. Henceforth the tribes must look to their own councils, and rely upon
their own strength, and they swore grimly that the Ohio should run with
blood, and that the advent of every western pioneer should bring an
additional scalp for the grewsome decoration of their lodges.
But these hardy voyagers, now celebrating a frugal Christmas as they
steered their course down the swollen and half-frozen Ohio, were not to be
turned aside by impending conflict with savage tribes. To meet grave danger
like brave men was for them no new experience; they had passed through
seven years of revolution; they had stood the trying tests of honorable
hardships, and were now making their way to found a community which was to
develop within a few generations into one of the greatest inland cities of
the world. Four days they fought their way through floating masses of
débris and ice, finally finding their haven in Sycamore Inlet, opposite
the mouth of the Licking River. To-day the traveller, smoking meditatively
in a Pullman, will cover the same distance before he has occasion to light
a fresh cigar.
In a grove of sycamores, osiers and water maples they struck their flint
and built their fires. There was no theatrical assertion of dominion, nor
is it on record that sacred rites were invoked to consecrate the struggle
for civilization that was to centre round this far outpost of the Republic,
and yet their first performance was one of the most dramatic incidents in
western history; for, knowing that savage armies lurked in the dim woods
that overhung the terraces above them, these twenty-six hardy Anglo-Saxons
dismantled the crafts that had carried them into the far wilderness, and
converted the planks and timbers of their barges into cabins. There was to
be no retreat. In the name of the new Democracy, they established the
primitive beginnings of a great city in the very centre of the famous
Indian path over which for unnumbered centuries naked aborigines from the
Great Lakes to the Kentucky hunting grounds had hurried to battle or the
chase.
The new settlement thus became a bold and significant challenge to the red
man, and in its fate was involved the future of the West and of the nation.
The earthquake of war, which the founding of Cincinnati invited, was not
long delayed, and when it came it startled Washington from his incomparable
composure, and shook the Republic to its foundations.
From the moment of its inception, Cincinnati was the most important point
on the Ohio River. Other settlements, it is true, at the start hoped to
outstrip Cincinnati in population. There was Marietta, founded two months
before, which had a more romantic birth. And there was North Bend, which
enjoyed the personal backing of John Cleves Symmes, the famous pioneer who
superintended the first development of the Miami Valley, and from whom
Denman, Patterson and Filson, the promoters of the settlement that
subsequently became Cincinnati, purchased the site of that city. These and
other settlements along the river were, for a time, pointed to with pride
by their founders as the coming commercial centres. Cincinnati, moreover,
began life with an impossible name. Filson, a fantastic pedagogue who had
drifted into Kentucky, combining a smattering of tongues with an unbridled
imagination, compounded the name "Losantiville," which means when
interpreted, "the village opposite the mouth of the Licking." Historians,
in malign humor, seem to rejoice in the sudden translation of this
picturesque polyglot and town-site boomer, remarking with a certain gleeful
unanimity of phrase that "shortly after naming the settlement he was
scalped by the Indians."
[Illustration TYLER-DAVIDSON FOUNTAIN.]
The offer of free lots to original settlers did not give Cincinnati
pre-eminence, for similar lures were held out by other aspiring communities
along the Ohio; nor will it be seriously contended that the location there
of Fort Washington, although this made the spot the headquarters of the
American army in the Northwest, gave Cincinnati a superior start, for the
sense of security expected because of the presence of the United States
garrison was not abiding. General Harmar marched to defeat in 1790 from
this pioneer fort and arsenal, and the victorious savages pursued him until
their cries of exultation terrified the little hamlet clustered about the
military station.
Then came St. Clair, bold and assertive. Heroes of the Revolution had
founded the town. The fort had been named in honor of the great General and
President, and as both town and fort represented the extension into the
West of that democratic strength of arms which had humbled the most
powerful kingdom of Europe, this new settlement from which civilization was
to radiate into the western valleys should be dignified with the name of
the order that held together in fraternal bond the grizzled survivors of
the great war. And so Losantiville, the dream of a bizarre scholar, became
Cincinnati.
In the name of that order and city, St. Clair went to war. But sickness
laid him low, and he was carried to the field of battle wrapped in
flannels. Managing the forces against him was Thayendanegea, the celebrated
Mohawk, or Joseph Brandt, as the English called him, as astute as Tecumseh
and as fearless. Thayendanegea had been secretary to Sir Guy Johnson. He
had learned the tactics of civilized armies, and with masterful native
cunning he planned to annihilate the forces of St. Clair. Nearly fifteen
hundred officers and men marched away from Cincinnati to crush the
semi-savage captain who had directed the massacres of Minisink and Wyoming,
and back to Cincinnati in rout and dishonor, their guns and blankets
abandoned, rushed in unspeakable terror a pitiful five hundred. Before
sundown on the day of that battle, November 4, 1791, nearly a thousand
scalps of white men dangled from the wigwams of the armies of
Thayendanegea.
Other communities along the Ohio looked with envy upon the federal ramparts
at Cincinnati, but the protection afforded by the garrison was at first
more fanciful than real. The pioneer clergymen of the town ventured to
Sabbath services cautiously, rifle in hand, peering down the dim aisles
hewn through dense woods of linden and birch that led to a clearing, in the
midst of which some charred stump served as a pulpit; or, as congregations
grew, a log-built chapel housed the earnest worshippers. And by the law of
Cincinnati and the territory every communicant was required to go to the
altar with loaded firearms, that savages, taking advantage of the hour of
prayer to attack the town, might be repulsed. Even when pews were built to
give regularity to worship, the brethren were commanded to sit at the outer
end, with their rifles in readiness.
If Fort Washington had not been built or had been located elsewhere,
Cincinnati would have still become the metropolis of the Ohio. Here water
highways crossed. And as it marked the path over which the red men had
passed for ages, so now it became the intersecting point of civilized
adventure. Out of the shadows of the Licking in their pirogues Daniel Boone
and George Rogers Clark had hurried across the Ohio to watch hostile
campfires from the Cincinnati hills, and thence had descended upon the
barbarians to avenge crimes committed in Kentucky. The long beaches at the
Cincinnati site afforded safe landing, while the settlement, secure upon
the higher ground and the succession of terraces beyond, could not be
engulfed by the periodical river floods. North and south the rivers that
mingled their waters here furnished natural pathways to vast and fertile
valleys.
Here, too, a vanished race once had had a city or perhaps a capital, for
Cincinnati is built upon extensive prehistoric ruins of the Mound
Builders. It was a walled city with great gates, pyramids and sacrificial
altars, and over these surviving memorials of a people whose origin and
destiny are alike a mystery grew, when Cincinnati was founded, oak, beech,
sycamore and cedar, whose concentric rings revealed that hundreds of years
had elapsed since the disappearance of the race which had reared these
shrines and tombs and city walls. Among the prehistoric pottery, the
polished pipes of catlinite and stone axes such as a race of troglodytes
might have swung to brain abhorrent monsters of forgotten periods, they
will show you in the artistic Cincinnati Museum in Eden Park, the famed
Cincinnati Tablet exhumed from a tumulus near Fifth and Mound streets in
that city. Some antiquarians believe the sculptured stone to be an
astronomical calendar or a table of measurement and calculation. Some have
imagined it to be a sacred relic from the tomb of kings. Nearby, in the
same museum, you see records lucidly deciphered from the second Theban
dynasty, and carved inscriptions, intelligently translated, from the
balustrade of the temple of Athene, but scholarship is dumb and imagination
is the only interpreter of these strange mementos of a race which found in
the site of Cincinnati a natural spot for the building of a large and
fortified city.
Although the star of empire may have been destined at all hazards to pause
over Cincinnati until the tenth census of the United States should show
that the center of the nation's population had moved westward to that city,
there was grave alarm in the settlement when the soldiers of St. Clair
arrived in confusion and defeat.
[Illustration ENTRANCE TO SPRING GROVE CEMETERY.]
Generations have thrilled over the story of the officer on horseback, who,
bearing important news, hurried to the President, tossed his bridle reins
to an orderly and leaped up the steps of Washington's reception room only
to find that the Chief Executive was dining with distinguished visitors and
could not be disturbed. The officer was so importunate and so impressive
that the secretary was impelled to grant him audience. The grave President
listened without visible emotion to the whispered message from Cincinnati,
the officer departed, and Washington returned to the banquet table. Not one
of his guests could guess that beneath the calm exterior the far-seeing
statesman was experiencing one of the most tragic moments of his career. It
was not merely that a trusted general had minimized warning and had met
defeat, for Washington had devoted a long life to warfare against both
savage and civilized foes, and he was not to be easily moved by the
uncertain fortune of battles. But he knew that the defeat which the
soldiers of Cincinnati had encountered now threatened the destiny of the
country. The East and West were not yet riveted by steel rails into
coherent union. Beyond the Alleghanies there were projects of a
protectorate under France or Spain, or both, and bolder dreams of a
Kentucky republic. With few connecting links with the East, what could hold
the western empire, since the federal government had displayed inability to
protect the pioneers? Washington's guests departed unaware that their
illustrious host who had entertained them with consummate decorum had
during those hours felt the nation slipping beneath his feet. But when they
had gone the pent spirit of the great leader, in one of the few instances
of his lifetime, found expression in tumultuous grief and rage. He voiced
in advance the storm of public protest, indignation and fear that broke out
when the dismal tidings from Cincinnati became known. And when Congress
learned that Washington favored the creation of an army of five thousand to
avenge the defeat of Harmar and St. Clair, there was little in the
resourceful vocabulary of political abuse spared the President.
Anti-expansionists called him an imperialist bent on converting the
Republic into an empire. Why send an army to inevitable slaughter beyond
mountain frontiers in a vain struggle for the wilderness of the Indians
when the colonies then possessed more domain than the citizens of the
Republic would ever be able to use?
Fortunately the anti-expansionists, while mordant and powerful, could not
prevail, and the war measures became law. Anthony Wayne, whose daring
during the Revolution had won for him the admiring sobriquet of "Mad," then
took command and hastened to Cincinnati but none too soon. The Six Nations
with Little Turtle as their spokesman had followed up their victories by
demands that Cincinnati, the capital of the Northwest, should be abandoned
and that the Ohio should mark the perpetual boundary between the white man
and the red. British arms bristled behind this native ultimatum, and at the
rapids of the Maumee, as if to stay Wayne's advance, British forces built a
fort and garrisoned it with three companies. The fears of Washington seemed
about to be realized.
[Illustration RACE STREET, CINCINNATI.]
But at the battle of Fallen Timbers "Mad Anthony" scattered the allied
tribes like forest leaves. Nearly half a hundred mighty chiefs fell in that
historic engagement, and in their defeat the Indians christened their
conquerer "Big Thunder" and for years trembled when they heard his name.
Cincinnati and Ohio were saved to the Republic.
Wayne in his campaign and in his no less notable treaties was brilliantly
seconded by a young man who, unannounced and unwelcomed, landed at
Cincinnati on the day the broken columns of St. Clair fell back upon the
fort. The generals there looked upon his smooth cheeks and his boyish frame
with soldierly disdain, one remarking that he would as readily send his
sister to the front as entrust this beardless neophyte with the
responsibilities of border warfare. This youth, in whose veins flowed the
blood of one of Cromwell's generals, was to shame his flippant critics, for
he was to win a lieutenancy at the battle of Fallen Timbers, and rising
steadily in the service of his country was to become a western Napoleon,
avenging the disasters of the River Basin and Detroit, defeating the
powerful Tecumseh at Tippecanoe, laying firm and broad the foundations of
northwestern statehood, serving in the Senate of the United States, and
finally going in triumph to the White House. Cincinnati has fostered many
famous sons, but none greater than William Henry Harrison.
To many new communities the first settlers have gone with the hope of
returning with fortunes to their former homes. Cincinnati was founded and
developed by men and women who came to stay. Harrison identified himself
with the West at the start by marrying the daughter of John Cleves Symmes,
the Miami pioneer, and to the Harrison homestead near Cincinnati, which for
a quarter of a century had been an American mecca, the body of the famous
General was borne for burial.
From the start, self-reliance has been a prevailing characteristic of
Cincinnati. Its isolation in the days of the canoe, the barge and the
pack-horse, developed its originality. A copy of the _Centinel of the
Northwest Territory_, published in 1794, graphically illustrates its
remoteness at that period, for news from Marietta had been eight days in
arriving, Lexington dispatches were twenty-one days old, fifty-six days had
been consumed in getting the latest information from New York, and European
news antedated the day of issue four months and a half. It was natural
among such conditions that the city should look to itself as the centre of
interest, and hence at an early day the journals of Cincinnati, instead of
canvassing distant localities for belated sensations, were encouraging
local writers to entertain the public. It was the press of Cincinnati that
first gave the poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary to the world, and they repaid
it by conferring immortality in the world of letters upon the blue Miami,
where they spent the simple years of their girlhood. And thither, because
of the fame their singing had won them, traveled Horace Greeley and other
celebrities of the day to do these gifted sisters homage. In Cincinnati was
born Gen. Wm. H. Lytle, author of _Antony and Cleopatra_, and it was the
journalism of that city that gave inspiration to his pen. Here, too, was
directed the early genius of Wm. D. Howells, Rutherford B. Hayes, Salmon P.
Chase, and other men who have dignified literature or public life.
[Illustration CITY HALL, CINCINNATI.]
Savage yells had not ceased to echo in its surrounding woods before music
began to charm in Cincinnati. Even before Wayne came to silence the
exultant war-cries of the tribes, Thomas Kennedy, in whose honor a street
in Covington is named, used to entertain the frontier society with his
fiddle, and a Mr. McLean, a butcher, took time to train the voices of the
primitive colony. The Rev. Daniel Doty, who visited Cincinnati at an early
day, was shocked at the singing and fiddling and dancing in the log cabins,
as if the people "feared not God nor regarded Indians." Music, since
directed in large measure by the German element in the city, has by its
Chorus, its musical groves, its Saengerbund, Haydn Society, and other
clubs, imparted distinction to Cincinnati and made it the Vienna of the
American continent.
It is not surprising that the pioneer butcher of the city found time from
his chopping blocks to strike the tuning-fork, for Cincinnati, even after
the location there of Fort Washington, was many times on the verge of
starvation, and would have starved but for the timely help of frontier
hunters under the noted Colonel Wallace, who brought the meat of buffalo,
bear and deer to the stricken settlement. To-day the city dines well. In
truth, it is famed for its good cheer and its bohemian independence.
Cincinnati is a city of homes and churches, and singularly free from the
crime that prowls in the slums of other cities. Therefore some of its
citizens take pride that the city is credited with being one of the
greatest whiskey markets in America, that forty-three breweries and storage
vaults are in demand, and that the city annually turns out 49,000,000 packs
of playing-cards, making it the largest center of this industry in the
world.
In many industries Cincinnati leads. The wealth of cities throughout the
continent is locked in banks and vaults manufactured in Cincinnati. The
cowboys on the plains and the horsemen on city paddocks sit in saddles
fashioned in Cincinnati. Cigars by the millions in this country are packed
in boxes manufactured in Cincinnati. It produces more schoolbooks than any
other city, and is near the head of the list in turning out religious
publications.
On the 22d of February, 1794, a canoe left Cincinnati with a federal
mailbag consigned to Pittsburg. This marked the beginning of regular
service with the East. In early days, a Cincinnati merchant seeking to buy
goods in New York consumed sixty days in making the journey to the
metropolis. To-day he may lunch in the Queen City, take a train and lunch
the following noon in Manhattan. Long before the advent of railways,
Cincinnati became a center of travel and distribution. As early as 1801, a
full-rigged brig took on a cargo at Cincinnati and set sail for the West
Indies. Not long after, and many years before Fulton turned his attention
to Western waters, citizens of Cincinnati met at Yeatman's Tavern to
consider a "contrivance for transporting boats against the current by the
power of steam or elastic vapor," but without tangible results; and, in
fact, when the first steamboat did paddle noisily past the city the
circumstance was dignified with only a four-line notice in the Cincinnati
press.
Before long, however, the steamboat revolutionized river travel, and
thenceforth Cincinnati leaped by bounds from a village to a great city, and
every recurrent trip of these harbingers of vast commerce seemed to find a
new suburb springing into bustling life on the Cincinnati uplands.
[Illustration CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, CINCINNATI.]
The fact that this city was originally included and still remains in the
New Orleans customs district shows its accessibility to ocean traffic. Its
superiority in water communication is shown by a computation made by the
Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce regarding the relative cost of transporting
freight from points of origin to all parts of the United States. The
comparisons per 100 pounds are as follows: From Cincinnati, 81 cents;
Chicago, 84 cents; St. Louis, 88 cents; Minneapolis, $1.22. A similar
computation applicable to a radius of 600 miles from the point of origin
gives the following averages per 100 pounds: From Cincinnati, 66 cents;
Chicago, 73 cents; St. Louis, 75 cents; Minneapolis, $1.11.
While growing into greatness, Cincinnati did not forget, in the critical
times of the Civil War, its honorable history as the former outpost of the
Republic. Its trade was largely with the South, but sternly its citizens
decided that arguments in favor of trade interests smacked of treason, and
with stoic heroism closed the city to rebellion. And when Lew Wallace,
fortifying Cincinnati to anticipate attack, called for volunteers, the
whole community responded, and from the Ohio valleys came the
sharp-shooting "squirrel hunters" in procession seemingly endless to defend
the city.
[Illustration SUSPENSION BRIDGE.]
Since then the growth of Cincinnati has been in keeping with the
development of the nation. It does not hope, as Harriet Martineau
suggested during her visit here, ever to become the home of the country's
capital, but it rejoices in being the great city nearest the American
centre of population. Its library of a quarter of a million volumes and its
Historical Society cherish the splendid stories of its past and the
accumulating data of its current achievements. Its artists and citizens
delight in dignifying that record in bronze and marble in the environing
parks and city squares.
The visitor to Cincinnati, on a clear afternoon, should take passage on an
incline road, rise to the heights of Eden Park, and traversing that high
plateau, whose natural beauty and landscape gardening earn for it its name,
find his way to the water tower. An elevator lifts him five hundred feet to
the observatory platform, where with field-glasses he may behold the
splendid panorama of Cincinnati. Far below, spanning the river over which
"a crazy craft with sails and paddles" once ferried the people, he sees
five massive structures of steel and stone, including the famous suspension
bridge, begun in the early part of the Civil War, and by its completion
during the stress of that conflict testifying eloquently to the faith of
its citizens that strife was not to sever the nation, and that these
mammoth girders of steel would constitute an important tie in the
inevitable reunion of North and South. It was of this structure that James
Parton wrote in 1867, that the whole population of Cincinnati might get
upon it without danger of being let down into the water. The five superb
bridges in their capacity and security afford marked contrast to the
earlier attempts to span the river which floods swept away, including the
arched structure which went down in the torrent of 1832, accompanied on its
seaward flight by a tumbling Methodist church which the roaring Muskingum
had added to the universal baptism.
Not all of the life that now courses through Cincinnati's streets could
crowd upon its bridges, for the people of the cities and villages across on
the Kentucky shore belong in every commercial and social sense to
Cincinnati, and swell its population to the half-million mark. In fact,
within a radius which the vision from this tower almost sweeps, there are a
dozen ambitious and wealthy Ohio cities, founded by the sturdy men of the
Revolution who went forth from Cincinnati and still tributary to the parent
town.
The traveler is surveying sacred ground. Mount Auburn beside him marks the
site where fell a captain serving under George Rogers Clark, one of the
first of the many brave soldiers of the American Revolution to mingle their
dust with Ohio soil, which thus enriched has produced many Presidents and
renowned statesmen almost without number.
Leading away from the city the observer on the tower sees the Miami and
Erie Canal, which, connecting Cincinnati with Toledo and furnishing a
highway by which boats could pass from New Orleans via the Queen City
through various inland waters, finally reaching the harbor of New York,
made Cincinnati as early as 1830 a half-way house for continental traffic.
The canal recalls that on the tow-path the barefooted Garfield began his
career.
While glancing at the surrounding reservoirs from which water is forced to
this tower for the supply of the terrace-built city, the traveler may
recall the story of the eccentric wanderer, the celebrated Cincinnati
"water witch" who with hazel or willow crook went about from hamlet to
hamlet indicating hidden springs and at whose direction, in truth, the
Queen City dug its first well.
[Illustration RESERVOIR, EDEN PARK.]
Descending now, the traveler may view the observatory which John Quincy
Adams dedicated to science, or move with the crowds flocking to the Zoo or
to the groves where free concerts are given, or he may find his inspiration
in roaming through the haunts that still treasure the memory of U.S. Grant,
or visit the site of taverns that entertained Webster and Andrew Jackson,
who paused here on his way to Washington, and that extended frequent
hospitality to Henry Clay, stopping here while journeying to or from the
national capital.
Passing over the suspension bridge, the traveler may let the sun go down
upon his itinerary as he stands upon the bank of the Licking, made
memorable by the vigilant canoe cruises of Daniel Boone. Near by is the
cottage home of the Grants. Passing a Shawnee effigy in front of a
tobacconist's stand, the visitor sees the illumination of the city
beginning to twinkle against the shadowy background. The multi-colored
lights of myriad street-cars flash over bridges and up the steep streets of
the hill-built metropolis. The headlights of locomotives on nineteen
railroads, representing over twenty thousand miles of track, gleam in and
out of the city. It is a moving picture, a perpetual memorial and
celebration of the valiant labors of those paladins of pioneer conquest who
on that Christmas week, 113 years ago, struck their flint and started
their fires in the primeval woods, kindling thereby a light which though
flaring at times before the whirlwinds of savage war, and all but quenched
with baptisms of fraternal bloodshed, now burns with a steadiness and
brilliancy that shall last as long as time.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
DETROIT
THE QUEEN CITY
"Here, beside the broad, blue river builded,
I am Queen City of the Lakes."
BY SILAS FARMER
A stream of crystal clearness, wide and swiftly flowing, the waters of
silver and blue alive with fins and scales, a course dotted with islands
large and small, wild ducks in myriads diving and dining along shores
bordered with pond lilies and flags, stretches of yellow sand and bluffs
of yellow clay peopled with buffalo, bear and deer, with wide leagues of
grassy pastures and pleasing vistas beyond, walnuts, oaks and maples
sentinelling the scene, and skies and sunsets of unrivalled azure and gold
adding the final touch of beauty--such was Nature's invitation to the first
visitors to the Detroit.
The earliest of the French travellers to this region was the Sieur Joliet,
who came in 1670, and was followed the same year by the Sulpician priests,
Galinee and Dollier. Eight years later La Salle in _Le Griffon_, the first
sail-vessel on the Great Lakes, passed through the "strait of Lake Erie,"
and July 24, 1701, Cadillac and his company landed at the present site of
Detroit to establish a fort and permanent settlement.
The desire to escape from Roman or Protestant oppression which led to the
founding of Baltimore and Plymouth had no place in the thought of those who
colonized Acadia and the West. True, there had been one or two feeble
efforts to found French Protestant colonies in America. The great Coligny
sent a Huguenot colony to Florida more than fifty years before the
_Mayflower_ arrived at Plymouth Rock. The Spaniards, however, fell upon and
hanged these colonists, their placards stating that it was done, "not
because they were Frenchmen, but because they were heretics." Under
Cardinal Richelieu, all Protestant emigration to America was discouraged
for fear the emigrants would unite with the English or make converts of the
Indians. The conversion of the Indians to the Romish faith was always
specially designated among the objects of French enterprise in America. The
charter of the "Hundred Associates" of April 29, 1627, expressly stated
that it was granted for the primary purpose of converting to the Catholic
faith the Indians, usually designated as "worshippers of Baal." All these
motives played their part in the founding of Detroit, but not quite so
important a part as the commercial motive.
[Illustration CADILLAC SQUARE, SHOWING CITY HALL AND MAJESTIC BUILDING.]
Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac, the founder and commandant, was no
mere adventurer. In courage, in scholarship, in mental grasp and in general
acumen he deserves a place with the founders of Baltimore and Philadelphia.
The confessedly fictitious description of his personal appearance and the
one-sided analysis of his character by Gayarré were founded on incomplete
knowledge. As an officer of the French marine, Cadillac fearlessly crossed
the Atlantic again and again as though it were but an inland ferry. On the
coast of America he explored the harbors and islands of New England and
noted at length their peculiarities and advantages. As a soldier and knight
of the Order of St. Louis, he penetrated into the wildest of western wilds,
served as commandant at Mackinaw, Detroit and Mobile, repeatedly defeated
the Indians at these posts, and compelled them to sue for peace. He had the
scholar's habit of writing detailed memoirs of the places he established or
was commanded to inspect. He wielded a pen as sharp as his sharp sword. The
opponents of his plans had need to fear its point. He spared no words. "A
traveller cannot afford to stop," he said, "for every dog that barks." And
illustrating the fact that many of the French lived so much among the
Indians that they became like Indians themselves, he sententiously said,
"With wolves one learns to howl."
He denounced frauds boldly. Count Frontenac spoke highly of his "valor,
wisdom, experience and good conduct." It was no ordinary man to whom a wife
could by word and deed alike bear witness as Cadillac's wife bore witness
to her husband. After they had been married for fourteen years, and when
the colony was less than two years old, in company with Madame Touty, in an
open canoe with Indians and woodsmen for an escort, she made the journey
of a thousand miles from Quebec to Detroit in the fall of the year when
fierce winds and rough waves and heavy rains might be expected. When one of
the Quebec ladies reminded her in advance, "At Detroit you will die of
_ennui_," she replied, "A woman who loves her husband as she should has no
stronger attraction than his company wherever he may be; everything else
should be indifferent to her."
The American cities that equal us in age and population are few indeed. Two
hundred years are behind us, and three hundred thousand people fill our
homes. Our people are and ever have been of many types. In the early days
_coureurs des bois_, bluff, hearty, reckless, and Indians, the squaw
trudging along bent double under her basket of bead-work, the unburdened
brave stalking proudly, noiselessly along, frequented the place. Dutch
traders from the Mohawk coasting along the Lakes early brought negro slaves
from Albany.[3] In our social life the Gallic spirit remains to soften and
harmonize. The dash of gorgeous coloring which the almost continuous
existence here of a military post has given, the distinction and grace
which the early arrival of some of old Virginia's noblest children has
lent, the intellectual vigor which Puritan New England has contributed, and
the solidity and conservatism furnished by the presence of the many wealthy
landed proprietors have all shared in the making of a social life as rich
as it is attractive.
[Illustration THE DETROIT RIVER FROM "WINDMILL POINT," 1838. FROM A PENCIL
DRAWING.]
After the first settlers came strange sights. Round-towered and red-painted
windmills began to dot the banks of the Detroit, and all "along shore"
narrow farms, a city block in width and fifty times as long, stretched from
the river rearward to meadows and woods. The canoe and the pirogue were
always in the stream, and in them the French girls were as much at home as
mermaids in the sea. The fort was the centre of every interest. It was a
log stockade enclosing a plot of ground three or four hundred feet square,
and lay south of what is now Jefferson Avenue, occupying at least the
western half of the block between Griswold and Shelby streets. Within it
commandant and soldiers were gathered, the church was located, justice
administered and goods were kept on sale.
A large influx of immigrants, especially in 1749 and 1754, caused the
extension of the stockade, but at no time were grants of farms made within
several hundred feet of the fort. The intervening space was in large part
used as a "common field," and year after year oats and onions were produced
where only paving-stones could now be raised. Eventually of course the
houses overflowed the stockade, stretching towards the farms, but for a
long time the owners of farms on either side resisted any encroachment of
streets or people, and for many years the city could grow only northwards.
The French farms that hemmed in the city possessed many advantages. Even
when included within the city they, for many years, practically escaped
taxation because undivided into lots. Indeed, until a comparatively recent
period there was no taxation of real estate and really no need for any; for
whenever the city needed money it sold a lot. This reckless style of
living continued till 1834, the extraordinary expenses connected with the
cholera season of that year making larger taxation needful.
In this connection it is well to recall an unusual state of affairs that
placed many lots at the disposal of the city. In the year 1778, during the
Revolutionary War, the English, to protect them against the Americans,
erected a large fort where the new Post-office is located, in the block
bounded by Shelby, Wayne, Lafayette and Fort streets. At the close of the
war this fort, with its grounds, passed into the possession of the United
States. In 1826 Congress gave this property, worth to-day more than a score
of millions, to the city whose expenses had before been paid by fees
derived from various licensed persons and pursuits. Upon the reception of
this property the city fathers deemed it necessary to level and grade the
old fort and its appurtenances and to lay out streets thereon. The cost of
the work was paid by the issuing of city "shinplasters" which could soon be
bought for sixty cents on the dollar. The lots laid out within the limits
of the old cantonment were sold at nominal prices, the purchasers paying
for them in the depreciated city bills. The result was that the net
proceeds to the city from the sale of this extensive domain amounted to
only $15,000, and even this was not permanently invested, and no vestige of
the funds remains. In contrast to the dissipation by the city of valuable
property is the wisdom displayed by individual holders whose property later
became worth millions. If the city officers of that day had possessed
foresight as well as power, they might have so conserved the city's
possessions as to have made Detroit an Utopia. All the public schools and
other civic buildings and appurtenances could have been built and paid for,
and the city government could to-day be carried on without taxation, or at
least with only a tithe of the amount that is now required to be paid.
[Illustration WEST GRAND CIRCUS PARK.]
It was during the decades of 1820-1840 that the tide of emigration from
East to West reached its height. It began in 1825, on the completion of the
Erie Canal, and was greatly increased by the larger number of steamboats on
the Lakes that immediately followed. The opening in 1854 of the first
railroad from the East to the West, the Great Western of Canada, made it
possible to go still faster and with greater ease, and during the whole
period Detroit gained largely in population. The introduction of
street-cars in 1863 afforded opportunity for easy access to outlying
regions, and since then the city limits have been several times extended,
until now they embrace an area of not far from thirty square miles, with a
river frontage of seven miles.
Contemporaneously with the rush of settlers to the State and city between
1830 and 1840, came what is known as the "flush times of 1837." Emigration
to the West had become almost a stampede, both steam and sail vessels were
crowded to their utmost, and knowing the dearness of Eastern lands and the
cheapness at which Western lands could be purchased, nearly every person
came prepared to buy and did buy lands for settlement or speculation. So
great was the rush that all careful preliminaries were dispensed with, and
if only a title could be shown, anything that "lay outdoors" could be
disposed of. Town sites were a favorite form of investment, and the supply
kept pace with the demand. Surveyors and draftsmen were soon busy day and
night representing imaginary cities on paper. On these plans, literally
like "Jonah's gourd," there sprang up in a night, stores, dwellings and
court-houses, indeed, all the appurtenances of an old established town. The
era of "wildcat" banks had just begun and the principal security of their
bills was the land covered by these imaginary towns. Theoretically, twenty
per cent. of the bills issued by the too easily organized banks were to be
secured by specie deposits. Actually, not five per cent. was so deposited.
The same coin--in some cases in the same boxes--was exhibited by a score of
different banks, and in some instances "coin boxes" were filled with iron
and other substitutes for specie. These frauds were winked at by bank
commissioners, who should have inspected the contents of the boxes. There
was thus a trinity of imaginings,--imaginary towns, imaginary banks and
imaginary inspection. When the bubbles burst there were left in some places
towns and houses without a single inhabitant, and certain of these houses
contained room after room in which the walls were literally papered with
bank bills in sheets that had never been cut apart or signed.
The most important local event was the fire of June 11, 1805, which
destroyed every house in the city save one. The memory of the fire is
preserved in the present seal of the city, the mottoes, _Resurget
Cineribus_, "She has risen from the ashes," and _Speramus Meliora_, "We
hope for better things," representing both prophecy and fulfilment. Out of
the fire grew an entirely new plan of the town, new lot alignments and
assignments, and a new form of government. The former streets, twelve feet
wide, grew into broad avenues, and the years have added areas and
improvements which in any city would be marks of prosperity and beauty.
The form of government which the fire introduced was, however, its unique
result. The beginnings of the strange methods of government that obtained
are found in the organization of the Ohio Company, and in that notable
document, the Ordinance of 1787. Under the latter, Congress was to appoint
a governor whose term was for three years, unless sooner revoked, who was
required to possess in freehold an estate of one thousand acres in the
territory; a secretary for the term of four years, unless revoked, who was
required to have five hundred acres of land; and three judges, any two of
whom constituted a court to have common-law jurisdiction, and each of whom
was required to own five hundred acres of land.
The governor and judges were appointed January 11, 1805. Judges Woodward
and Bates arrived at Detroit June 12th, and found the town wiped out by the
fire of the previous day. A few stone chimneys and, near the fire line,
several antique pear trees alone remained. Governor Hull arrived on the
evening of July 1st. The date of the arrival of Judge Griffin is unknown.
In many respects the Governor and judges were well fitted to enter upon
and complete the laying out of a new Detroit. Judge Woodward came from
Alexandria, Va., and understood and admired the plan of Washington, then
new. He manifestly desired and determined that Detroit should be modelled
after that "City of Magnificent Distances." Sections of his plan as drawn
by A.F. Hull, the son of the Governor, could be laid upon the plan of
Washington and matched to a line.
[Illustration WAYNE COUNTY BUILDING, FACING CADILLAC SQUARE.]
There was much delay in adopting the plan; but after summering and
wintering as best they could, however, among their friends outside, the
inhabitants were gratified with the news that April 21, 1806, Congress had
authorized the Governor and judges to lay out a new town, build a
court-house and jail, dispose of ten thousand acres near, give former
owners and householders lots, convey lots to others and in general settle
all details therewith connected. It was not, however, until September 6,
1806, or four months after the date of the act, that the Governor and
judges held their first meeting. Interminable slowness seems to have been
their purpose; plans and counter-plans, change and repeated change in
surveys, their method. Lots were numbered and renumbered, streets laid
out on paper, obliterated and then laid out anew in new directions and
locations. Decisions were bandied about and referred from one person or
authority to another, and questions of ownership of lots, like a
shuttlecock, were tossed to and fro. Plans were prepared, approved, used
and then discarded. Every new difficulty and scheme seemed to give rise to
new and radically different lot outlines and numbers. Lots were
capriciously granted and as capriciously withdrawn. Without bond or books
of account, without method other than the method of not leaving any record
of what moneys were received or how expended, they did as they pleased. As
a result, for a year and a half after the fire there was not a single house
erected, and up to May, 1807, deeds had been given for only nineteen lots.
Meantime, the débris of the fire covered the site of the ancient village,
the blackened stone chimneys standing as monuments of the disaster and of
the incompetency or worse of those in authority.
The three judges and the Governor in themselves possessed all power,
legislative, executive, judicial. They made laws, built court-houses,
issued scrip, laid out streets and lots, gave away lots to churches,
schools, societies and individuals and were practically "Lords of the
Manor of Detroit." The adoption of laws from the original thirteen States,
which was all that they were authorized to do, became under their methods a
mere burlesque. A writer of that period openly charged, and exaggerated but
little in saying, that they would
"parade the laws of the original States before them on the
table, and cull letters from the laws of Maryland, syllables
from the laws of Virginia, words from the laws of New York,
sentences from the laws of Pennsylvania, verses from the laws
of Kentucky, and chapters from the laws of Connecticut."
It is due to one or two of those associated as judges during a part of this
régime, to say that Judge Woodward, who was in office for the entire
period, was very largely responsible for the conditions that existed. The
accession of General Cass as Governor, the establishing of the _Detroit
Gazette_, which exposed the proceedings, and the coming of new immigrants
finally secured sentiment and people sufficient to have a General Assembly.
And with freer discussion and elective methods, order began to reign after
twenty years of disorder.
In military matters Detroit has had an almost continuous series of
startling experiences. Indians, French, English, and Americans have all
struggled in and about the city. Blockhouses, stockades, forts, and cannon
have defended it. Stories of attacks, sieges, battles, massacres, and
conspiracies crowd its annals. The tramp of regiments, the challenge of
sentinels, the bugle-call, the drum-beat, and the war-whoop of the savage
were familiar sounds in its past.
Within two years after Fort Pontchartrain was erected, hostile Indians
surrounded the stockade, and at varying intervals during many subsequent
years the savages sought to dislodge the French and destroy their
fortifications. The French traders, however, soon demonstrated that they
were willing to deal more liberally than the English, and there can be no
doubt but that many Indians came to prefer French methods and manners, for
they finally united with the French during the French and Indian War in
attacking the English settlements. The victory of Wolfe at Quebec in 1759
and the consequent surrender of Detroit to the English did not please the
Indians, and before the final treaty of peace was signed, Pontiac, an
Ottawa chief, who had declared his intention to "stand in the path," formed
his conspiracy to overthrow all the English posts. He secured the
co-operation of a number of tribes and in May, 1763, prepared to strike at
Detroit. Fortunately, as has happened more than once in similar plots,
female sympathy and tenderness caused the revelation of his design. An
Indian maiden gave warning to Gladwin, then commanding at Detroit, who made
preparations to foil the conspirators. On the morning of May 7th, Pontiac
and a number of his warriors sought admission to the fort.
On arriving at the gateway,[4] Pontiac and his warriors were freely
admitted, but found the garrison under arms, the cannons loaded for
service and the inhabitants ready for battle. At a glance he foresaw the
certain failure of his scheme, and after being warned by Gladwin that his
plot had been discovered, he retired still protesting friendship. Within a
day or two afterwards he threw off all attempts at concealment, summoned
his warriors, massacred several persons on the island now known as Belle
Isle and commenced a siege which lasted for five weary months. During the
siege, the garrison was relieved several times by provisions and
ammunition from Niagara, and on July 29th, by the arrival of 280 soldiers
commanded by Captain Dalyell together with 20 rangers from New Hampshire
under Major Robert Rogers. Captain Dalyell now determined to "turn the
tables" by an attack on the Indians. Gladwin opposed the idea, but was
compelled to yield, and on July 31st 250 troops in three detachments
marched against the savages. Pontiac in some way was informed of the plan
and, ambushed on the border of Parents' Creek, afterwards called Bloody
Run, awaited the approach of the soldiers. As the latter reached a small
bridge that then crossed the stream not far from what is now the corner of
Jefferson Avenue and Adair Street, they heard the war-whoop of the Indians
and from every side bullets thinned their ranks. Dalyell and seventeen
others were killed, nearly forty soldiers wounded and several captured.
Within six hours after this ignominious failure, the rest were glad to be
within the shelter of the stockade.
The siege was then renewed with increased vigor until at last General Gage
of Boston determined to send a force large enough to subdue the Indians.
Accordingly, Colonel Bradstreet was put in command of a combined force of
100 friendly Indians, 900 Canadians, and a detachment of 219 Connecticut
militia in charge of the noted Israel Putnam. They came by water from
Albany and reached Detroit on August 26, 1764. Their bateaux and barges
blocked the river; the display of flags and force alarmed the Indians, and
made them yield before an army such as they had never seen before.
Meantime the war-clouds of the Revolution were gathering. The common
impression is that the war was fought in the East, around Boston and New
York. The important events that occurred at Detroit are usually ignored;
that, too, in spite of the fact that at no other point was so much use made
of the Indians by the English.
King George and his ministers evidently feared that, unless kept busy
defending their homes, the hardy settlers of Western Virginia and Tennessee
would aid their brother colonists in the East. In order to prevent them
from so doing, deliberate and pitiless plans were made to incite the
Indians against the western settlers. Indians were invited to Detroit from
as far west and south as Arkansas, and gathered here by thousands. They
were feasted, clothed and furnished with guns, scalping-knives, and
tomahawks. Blankets, shirts, scarlet cloth and other things were given.
The value of the requisitions for this post in a single year reached
hundreds of thousands of dollars. The writer has personally seen the
original record of the supplying of "sixteen gross of red-handled
scalping-knives." Fully equipped, they set forth on their forays, returning
with men, women, and children as prisoners, and with many scalps. The
expedition which perpetrated the "Massacre of Wyoming" was equipped at this
post, as was also the expedition of Captain Bird against Kentucky at a cost
of over $300,000. The writer has an original account book of that period
giving the names and pay per diem of the French who as guides and
interpreters accompanied the English and Indians on some of their raids.
The noted Daniel Boone was brought as a prisoner to Detroit after one of
these expeditions. After the return of each party the guns of the fort were
fired, the prisoners and scalps were counted and recorded, and again the
Indians were feasted and given presents.
It was during these days that Col. A.S. De Peyster was in command at
Detroit, but he was not in full sympathy with such savage warfare. It will
be remembered that it was to him that Burns, while in his sick-chamber,
dedicated his last poem, on "Life," beginning:
"My honored Colonel, deep I feel
Your interest in the poet's weal," etc.
De Peyster himself could turn a bit of society verse. On one occasion he
addressed the following lines to the wife of Lieutenant Pool England, then
at Detroit:
"Accept, fair Ann, I do beseech,
This tempting gift, a clingstone peach,
The finest fruit I culled from three,
Which you may safely take from me.
Should Pool request to share the favor,
Eat you the peach, give him the flavor;
Which surely he can't take amiss,
When 't is so heightened by your kiss."
The English officers then at Detroit did not have an easy life. There were
resident rebel Americans who made much trouble--some of whom were sent away
and others fined. American prisoners, too, were brought here. Some were
compelled to work in the streets, in ball and chain, and others were forced
to cut wood on Belle Isle.
[Illustration COL. ARENT SCHUYLER DE PEYSTER.]
At last Detroit and the West were yielded by treaty to the United States,
but on one pretext or another they were not actually surrendered until July
11, 1796. On that day Fort Lernoult for the first time displayed the Stars
and Stripes.[5]
[Illustration EVACUATION DAY TABLET ON FORT STREET ENTRANCE OF
POST-OFFICE.]
The animosities growing out of the Revolutionary War were not allayed by
the peace declarations. The Indians continued to hold allegiance to King
George, and frequently massacred Americans. British officials on various
occasions assumed such authority that at last there came a renewal of
strife and the War of 1812. Again Detroit became a focal point. Twelve
hundred troops from Ohio, under command of Governor Hull, were soon
marching hither to secure the safety of Detroit. Governor Hull's trunk,
containing military papers and plans of great value, which had been sent by
boat, was captured near Malden, Canada, by the British who had apparently
received the earliest announcement of the declaration of war. Governor Hull
arrived at Detroit July 5th, soon afterward crossed to Canada and issued a
proclamation, but a few days later returned without having accomplished any
results of value. On August 16th, without any reasonable excuse, and
without the firing of a single gun, he surrendered his entire force and all
of the territory under his control to General Brock. He was tried and found
guilty of cowardice, unofficer-like conduct and neglect of duty. In his
memoirs, Governor Hull, trying to defend himself, seeks to make Secretary
of War Eustis a fool or a traitor, Gen. H.A. Dearborn a knave, and Colonel
Cass a conspirator. Original letters and testimony, however, from President
Madison, ex-President Jefferson, and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams
show that Governor Hull was justly condemned. On September 29, 1813, as
the result of Commodore Perry's notable victory of September 10th, the
whole region was restored to American control.
[Illustration GENERAL GRANT'S HOME IN DETROIT.]
Detroit's interest in several local and subsequent wars was large, but the
unimportance of some and the well-known results of others make comment
thereon unnecessary.
[Illustration HURLBUT MEMORIAL GATE ENTRANCE TO WATER-WORKS PARK.]
While these varied historical events were taking place, the city was
steadily gathering to itself prestige and reputation. Its houses now excel
in number and beauty, its streets, wide and well paved, are edged with the
smoothest of stone walks and lined with elms, maples, and grassy lawns. The
distinctive buildings of the municipality, its court-houses, schools,
police stations, water-works, and engine houses are remarkable for their
excellent architecture and well-kept condition. The churches, by their
number and in their construction, indicate the possession of religious
desire and æsthetic taste. The manufacturing interests of Detroit are
varied. Its commercial representatives are found in almost every country,
and "Detroit" stoves, drugs, and chemicals are known in every clime. We
have numerous parks, but Belle Isle is indeed the priceless jewel in the
crown of Detroit: woods of green and waters of blue, art and nature, moving
waves and waving grass, stillness and activity, vistas and broad views,
beautiful flowers and lofty trees, the white sails of numerous vessels, and
the swift motions of great steamers all alike are combined in the
captivating beauties of this favored place.
Besides serving as a charm to drive away care, our beautiful river gives us
one of the greatest ports in the world. More tonnage passes annually
through "the Detroit" than in the same time enters and clears the combined
ports of London and Liverpool. During the season nearly four hundred
vessels pass daily, bearing more grain and minerals than traverse any other
stream in the world. The city is a central starting-point for reaching all
northern summer resorts, and more steamboat passengers arrive and depart
from our wharves than from any others on the Lakes. The stream that
attracted the earliest visitors attracts later ones as well. The river
never overflows and therefore is never a menace, but always a joy and
blessing. Yachts, sail-boats, barges, shells, ferries, steamers, and great
"whale-backs" fly and ply over it, and in the season it is a panorama of
beauty, gay with music, streamers, and happy _voyageurs_.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Under treaty stipulations negro and Indian slaves were held until
Michigan became a State. Detroit has always had to do with slavery
questions. Before the Civil War it was an important station on the
"Underground Railroad," and occasionally slaves were seized on our streets.
Some of the conspicuous leaders of the party that secured the abolition of
slavery lived at one time or another in Detroit. General Grant's home may
still be seen. United States Senator Zachariah Chandler of "blood-letting
letter" fame was one of our oldest merchants, and the notable
"fire-in-the-rear" editorial appeared in a local paper.
[4] The gateway was located on what is now the corner of Jefferson Avenue
and Griswold Street, and a bronze tablet there erected bears a
representation of an Indian warrior and the following inscription:
"This Tablet designates the site of one of the gateways of Fort
Detroit. The original stockade was known as Fort Pontchartrain
and was erected when the city was founded in 1701.
"Through the gateway here located Pontiac, the Ottawa chief,
with a band of Indians, passed on May seventh, 1763, intending
to surprise and massacre the garrison.
"The exposure of his plot on the previous day caused the defeat
of his plans and gave the English the supremacy in this region
until the close of the Revolutionary War."
[5] The Post-office on Fort Street, which occupies a portion of the site of
this fort, displays at its southerly entrance a tablet erected in 1896
which bears the following inscription:
"This Tablet designates the site of an
English Fort erected in 1778 by
Major R.B. Lernoult as a defense
against the Americans. It was subsequently
called Fort Shelby, in honor
of Gov. Isaac Shelby of Kentucky,
and was demolished in 1826.
The evacuation of this Fort by the
British at 12 o'clock noon, July 11th,
1796, was the closing act of the War
of Independence.
On that day the American Flag was
for the first time raised over this
soil, all of what was then known
as the Western Territory becoming
at that time part of the Federal Union."
[Illustration]
MACKINAC
"THE HOME OF THE GIANT FAIRIES"
BY SARA ANDREW SHAFER
At the northernmost point of the meeting of the waters of the mighty trio
of lakes which divide the States of the Middle West from the Dominion of
Canada, lies an archipelago in size and beauty like that of the
"Sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily that o'erlace the sea,
And laugh their pride when the light waves
whisper 'Greece.'"
An old writer says that there are two-and-thirty thousand of them, great
and small, clustered chiefly where Huron leans her head to meet those of
Michigan and Superior, "as if they were discussing some great matter."
Perhaps they are talking over the old days and the things and people they
knew long ago. Perhaps they speak of the morning when, according to an old
saga, the worshippers of the Rising Sun in February saw the Island like a
great turtle--_Nocchenemockenung_--rise slowly out of the water, to become
the home of the Giant Fairies of the Michsawgyegan, or Lake Country, and to
be a place of refuge for the vanished peoples, whose names are as the sound
of many waters for beauty and for harmony. Perhaps they tell of the wild,
free life of those roving, painted bands of fishers, trappers, and hunters
which make pictures of so much action and color against the ever-shifting
background of these seas and shores. Perhaps they tell of the coming of the
Black Robes in the days when the lilies of France had no fear of the lion
of England, and the eagle of the American Republic was as yet unthought of.
There are things enough of which the Lakes may speak as their waves lapse
on the beach of
"This precious stone set in a silver sea."
[Illustration OLD MISSION CHURCH (CIRCA), 1823, MACKINAC ISLAND.]
Occupying as it does, one of the most important strategic points in the new
world, it is not strange that the Island of Mackinac should have a rich and
varied history, and that in its earlier Indian-French form
"Michilimackinac was a word familiar in the cabinets of European monarchs
before it was known to people dwelling along the Atlantic." The name was
given not only to pioneer settlements on either side of the Straits, but
also to a vast province which reached as far south as the Ohio River and as
far west as the Red River of the North. The Straits are but a dozen miles
in width, and the Island but nine miles in circumference, but whether it be
frozen in the long clasp of "Peboan, the Winter," when the white, endless
snows are marked only by the dark accents of evergreens on islet and
mainland, over which the cold stars look down, or the Northern Lights flame
and fade; whether it be decked with the unspeakable splendors of its early
autumn, or rejoices with the sudden coming of its tardy summer, it is a
land whose beauty is indescribable, and whose spell is supreme.
The village numbers many thousand flitting folk in summer, but it has less
than eight hundred permanent residents. It lies along the perfect crescent
of a bay worn into the southeastern end of the Island, at the foot of the
cliffs, upon which the long lines of the fort stand sentinel, and is a
curious conglomeration of huge caravanserai, summer villa, shop,
fish-house, pier, half-French, half-Indian cottage, and church. Old days
and new meet over and over again in the little streets, where, in the soft
_patois_ of the _habitants_, in the names they bear, and in many of their
strongly marked faces, much of the Island's story is suggested. St. Ann's
is a true daughter of the first chapels built by the old heroes of the
Church. The Mission House tells of the earnest early efforts to teach the
tenets and virtues of Calvinism to the savages, made by the reverend
geographer, Morse, father of Morse of the electric telegraph, and Mr.
Ferry, whose son, born in the village, ably represented Michigan in the
Senate of the United States.
Where the fort garden now stands once stood the agency, then the centre of
the vast trade of the fur companies. Within its walls Henry Schoolcraft
wrote down the precious results of his studies in Indian dialect and
folk-lore, from which, as from a root, sprang the perfect flower of our one
native epic, _Hiawatha_. Not to have read _Hiawatha_ with the pine-spiced
winds of the north blowing upon the page, with the magnificent prospect of
the Straits before one's eyes, lifted while a page is turned, and with the
waves breaking into a thousand jewels against the rocks at one's feet, is
hardly to have read _Hiawatha_ at all.
The Fort is the successor of the feeble early posts set up by the pioneers
of France. The great propellers and the swift-winged yachts that throng the
summer waters are of a kindred with the birch canoe, most poetic of all
water craft--own brother to the violin by reason of the perfect beauty of
its lines, having in it
"All the mystery and magic"
of the woodland and the wood life. As of old, the deep wild roses and the
frail harebells cling to the cliffs; as of old, in the gorges hushed into
fragrant silence by pine and larch and hemlock, arbor-vitæ and juniper,
beech, and birch, the shy, delicate flora of the north finds shelter. As of
old, the winds try their strength against the splendid masonry of the
curious limestone formations for which the place is noted, the Arch Rock,
the Fairy Arch, the Chimney Rock, the Sugar Loaf, Scott's Cave, Skull Cave,
the Devil's Kitchen. Around each of these the legends cluster like bees
about a linden-tree in blossom, but how can they be forgiven whose crass
stupidity gave them these commonplace titles and who have lost for us their
Indian names?
[Illustration ARCH ROCK, MACKINAC ISLAND.]
In the days when New France "had two fountain heads, one in the cane brakes
of Louisiana, and the other in the snows of Canada," a charter was given by
Louis XIII. to the Hundred Association Company, which was thereby invested
with rights almost monarchical, together with injunctions to do all that
was possible for Holy Church which was consistent with the keeping of a
watchful eye upon such earthly advantages as might accrue from a monopoly
of the fur trade and the acquisition of new territory. It was in 1634,
under the governorship of Champlain, that Jean Nicolet, a fearless
explorer, well versed in woodcraft and in the speech of many aboriginal
tribes, was the first paleface to see the white cliffs of Mackinac, as he
was also the first to carry back to civilization tidings of a great new
sea, the Lac des Ilinese, or Michigan, which he had discovered. That he
perished by the capsizing of his canoe in the St. Lawrence River was a
great loss to the infant colonies to whom his sixteen years' experience in
frontier life would have been very valuable. The path he opened, was,
however, soon followed by others. The explorers and traders, Des
Grosselliers, Radisson, Perrot, and their fellows did for the world what
the Jesuits, the Recollets, and the Sulpicians did for the Church. It is in
the _Relations_ sent home by the priests that we learn what were the trials
overcome by those dauntless sons of "the sturdy North." Perhaps from no
country but France, and in no other years than the glittering, romantic,
covetous, daring, devoted years of the seventeenth century, could have come
adventurers so tireless and churchmen so selfless as these. To read their
simple, patient chronicles is to have new belief in man, new faith in the
Church Universal, "which is the blessed company of all faithful people,"
and to clasp hands across years and above creeds with those courageous
pioneers and with those humble saints.
The story of Mackinac is for many years the story of the French in Canada.
"Not a cape was turned," says Parkman, "not a river was entered, but a
Jesuit led the way." Every year the establishment of new posts pushed the
realms of the Unknown Territory nearer and nearer to the sunset. Poor
little posts they were, slenderly garrisoned, and feebly armed, but beside
each one rose a chapel and a cross where the "bloody salvages" might learn,
if they would, the religion of the fathers. The missionaries made, perhaps,
but few converts to their faith, but they made many friends for their
country by their kindly offices to the sick, the aged, the dying, and the
infant, by the gentleness and urbanity of their high breeding, and by the
perpetual sacrifice of their lives of love and loyalty. Of their hardships
we can only read between the lines of their brave, uncomplaining
_Relations_, but what litanies of pain, sorrow, and disappointment, what
_Te Deums_ of hope and rejoicing lie in these marks, oft recurring on their
queer old maps:
[symbol] _marque des villages sauvages_
[symbol] _marque des etablissements françois._
By 1668 many missions were strung along the waterways. The Island was the
centre of a thriving trade, had thirty native villages, and a palisaded
enclosure for defence, and a year later its shores were hallowed by the
feet of "The Guardian Angel of the Ottawa Mission," Father Jacques
Marquette.
[Illustration SUGAR LOAF ROCK, MACKINAC ISLAND.]
Here, in what he called "the home of the fishes," and "the playground of
all the winds of heaven," he spent the hard winter of 1669-70, going later
to the first Fort Michilimackinac, at St. Ignace, where he built a
log-and-bark chapel, and whence he wrote the letters which reflect his pure
spirit, as a clear pool reflects a star. Ever alert, ever anxious, "_Ad
Majoram Gloriam Dei_," to hear of new countries to be brought to Him, his
great opportunity came when the tribes trooped past the Island on their way
to the Sault Ste. Marie and the Great Congress, convened on the 14th of
June, 1671, by the hardy Perrot. The French wanted to control the frontier
trade; the Indians wished a market for their furs. To both peoples pomp and
ceremony were natural and dear, so here, in all the splendor of war-paint
and wampum, tomahawk, calumet, feathers, bows and arrows, and handsome furs
came the braves of many tribes; in all the gay accoutrement of
blanket-surtout, scarlet cap, fringed elk-skin leggins, rifle, and
dagger-decked sash came the _coureurs des bois_ and the _voyageurs_; in the
dignity of their uniforms came a handful of soldiers; with cross and
cassock came the priests, to gather under a great wooden cross, to which
the arms of France had been nailed, where, by a _procès verbal_, the
overlordship of the Great West was assumed by Louis XIV.
Among the representatives of so many scattered savages, Father Marquette
doubtless made the inquiries about and gained the knowledge concerning the
Great Unknown River which served him in such good stead when, on the 17th
of May, 1673, he started with Louis Joliet, five _voyageurs_, and in two
canoes, on the voyage which made the Mississippi known to Europe. Of the
honor coming from the discovery the good father never thought, but only
with joy of new lands to which the message of the Cross could be carried.
It is the story of a hero, the story of his short life and of his
triumphant death, "alone, a Jesuit, and a Missionary," beside an obscure
creek on the Michigan shore, on the 19th of May, 1675, in the
eight-and-thirtieth year of his age. Descendants of his Ottawas and his
Hurons still tell of his "bright hair, like the sun," and of the great
funeral when, two years after his death, his body was brought back to St.
Ignace. Whether the dust now held sacred was his or no, is of little
moment. In the Book of Life, above and below, the name of Jacques Marquette
has long been written, and like the blessing of peace his spirit rests upon
the Northland.
In 1679, the _Griffin_, a little ship of sixty tons, took Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de la Salle, and the garrulous, mendacious Recollet friar, Hennepin,
past the Island on their way to the Great River, which they were to explore
to the Gulf, and beside which the murdered body of the great Norman was to
be flung. He only touched the Island, but the touch of La Salle was a royal
accolade.
In 1688, La Honton, a soldier of unusual sagacity, noted the importance of
the site, and in 1695 M. de la Motte Cadillac says that the fort, with its
garrison of two hundred soldiers, and the village of Canadians and Indians
to the number of six or seven thousand souls, made it one of the largest
posts in Canada. Disputes between the commandant and the Jesuits, chiefly
about the sale of liquor to the Indians, resulted in the discouragement of
the priests, who, in 1705, burned their chapel and their school, and went
back to Quebec. St. Ignace was then gradually abandoned for a second
Michilimackinac on the southern peninsula.
[Illustration THE OLD BLOCKHOUSE (1780) OVERLOOKING THE LAKE.]
When the French and English war was ended on the Plains of Abraham, George
III. became indeed sovereign of the soil of Canada, but Louis XV. was lord
of the hearts of too many French, half-breeds, and Indians to make the
transfer of allegiance easy. Loves and hates and racial sympathies are not
matters for cold diplomacy, and the people of the Northwest waited
longingly for a leader who should give them again the light-hearted,
friendly rule of the French, under which they had been far happier than
they found themselves as subjects of the stern, alien English. In the
person of an Ottawa chieftain, the most remarkable personage produced by
the Indian race, the leader was found. In the brain of Pontiac, grim,
far-seeing, fearless, heroic, there arose as a prophetic vision the
assurance that English encroachments upon the rights of his people would
never cease so long as they held a rod of ground coveted by an English eye.
To avert the evils he foresaw, he planned the capture of all forts west of
Niagara, the extermination of all English settlers, and the restoration to
the Great Father at Versailles of the lands he had just lost. With
incredible swiftness he formed the vast conspiracy whose story has been
told, once for all, in the living pages of Parkman's narrative.
[Illustration "OLD STONE QUARTERS," FORT MACKINAC, 1780.]
Whisperings of coming trouble had been heard at Fort Michilimackinac by
Major Etherington, the commandant, but none of so serious a nature as to
prevent the presence of the soldiery at a great game of baggatiway which
was to be played in a field near the fort by rival companies of Sacs and
Chippewas, in honor of the King's birthday, August 4, 1763. The game is a
very intricate and brilliant one, requiring great agility and skill, and
the participation of a large number of players. As was most natural, the
excitement of the onlookers was intense, and when an apparently stray ball
flew high over the palisades of the unprotected fort (which had been
silently invaded by a crowd of squaws with weapons hidden under their
blankets) and at least four hundred players in hot pursuit swarmed over the
stockade, nothing was thought amiss, until the cries appropriate to the
game changed into the war-whoop, and a massacre began. Of the English,
all were either killed or made captive, except Alexander Henry, whose
narrative curdles the blood even yet. This event led to the abandonment of
the southern fort and the establishment of one on the Island.[6]
[Illustration SIGNATURES OF THE CHIPPEWA CHIEFS WHO, IN 1781, DEEDED THE
ISLAND TO KING GEORGE III. FROM "MACKINAC," BY JOHN R. BAILEY, M.D., BREVET
LIEUT.-COL. U.S.V., BY WHOSE KIND PERMISSION THEY ARE HERE REPRODUCED.]
"It is now certain," writes Schoolcraft in 1834, "that the
occupancy of Old Michilimackinack--the Beekwutenong of the
Indians--was kept up by the British until 1774; between that
date and 1780 the flag was transferred ... the principal trade
went with it, the Indian intercourse likewise. Some residents
lingered a few years but the place was finally abandoned, and
the site is now covered with loose sand."
By the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, the Island was ceded by Great Britain to
the United States. Possession was, however, withheld on one pretext or
another, until 1796.
[Illustration FORT MACKINAC, AND THE CANNON CAPTURED BY COMMODORE PERRY.]
When the second war with England began, it was natural that one of the
first points to be attacked should be the fort so commandingly situated.
Far from all base of supplies and all possibility of rapid
communication, the oft-repeated appeals of General Hull for an effective
garrison at this and other important points were totally disregarded in
Washington. Only fifty-seven soldiers were in residence in Mackinac when
the British forces, 1021 strong, landed before dawn on the 17th of July,
1812, on a point nearly opposite St. Ignace. By eleven o'clock Captain
Roberts sent a flag of truce, and a demand of surrender to Lieutenant
Porter Hanks, who had had "no intimation" that a war between the powers
had been declared until that moment. After considering the futility of
resistance, and a consultation with the American traders in the village,
with the valor which was ever bettered by discretion, he capitulated.
In August, 1814, an attempt was made to retake the Island. A battle was
fought near the scene of the British landing two years before, in which
battle Major Holmes and twelve privates were killed, and many men were
wounded or missing. The routed Americans, under Colonel Croghan, withdrew
to their ships. The Island finally passed into the keeping of the United
States in 1815.
Then followed the great days of the fur companies, when the place was
astir with a life so gay and vivid that only to hear of it stirs the blood
of the untamed savage which centuries of the repressions of civilization
have not routed from our hearts. Hundreds of hardy, ill-paid _engagés_,
hundreds of happy-go-lucky, hard-working _voyageurs_ and _coureurs des
bois_ and hundreds of Indians crowded into the hundreds of tents set up
along the beach; into the log-houses of the primitive village, and into the
huge barracks of the company, which counted and weighed the rich peltries
they had gathered, paying them in return the miserable wages which in
dancing, gambling, drinking, fighting, feasting and sleeping, were spent
long before the _bateaux_ freighted with the poor necessities for the
fast-coming winter were again rowed out toward the wilderness, the brave
_chansons_ of the oarsmen growing fainter and fainter as the boats passed
steadily out of sight.
[Illustration REV. ELEAZAR WILLIAMS. REPRODUCED FROM LATIMER'S "SCRAP BOOK
OF THE REVOLUTION," BY PERMISSION OF A.C. McCLURG & CO.]
An incident but little known connects the Island with one of the great
mysteries of history,--the fate of the little son of Louis XVI. and Marie
Antoinette. That the Dauphin did not die in the Temple, but had been
secretly conveyed to America and had been placed among the Indians, was
believed by persons whose opinions were entitled to respect; but that he
might be found in the person of the Rev. Eleazar Williams, a half-breed
missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church among the tribes about Green
Bay, was a supposition stranger than any fiction. The story is too long to
tell here,[7] but as it touches Mackinac at a single point, it must have a
line in this chapter.
On the wharf of the moon-shaped bay, one bright day in October, 1841, a
crowd was gathered to see the Prince de Joinville, son of Louis
Philippe, then reigning in France, who was on his way to Green Bay, and
who had stopped off at Mackinac to visit some of the natural curiosities
of the place. A salute had been fired in honor of the royal sailor with
true republican fervor, and while the steamer which had brought him
waited his pleasure, the village was _en fête_. Waiting on the dock, and
also about to embark for Green Bay, was the Rev. Eleazar Williams, who,
before the boat left the bay, was, at the request of the Prince,
presented to his Highness. The acquaintance thus begun led to
disclosures which, if true, make the identity of the Dauphin and the
missionary all but certain.
Wrapped in a legend, the Island of Mackinac comes into sight. With a
thousand legends, its old fields, its cliffs, its caves, its gorges, its
wooded glens, its shores, and its far, dim distances are haunted. With a
thousand mysteries and bewilderments and witcheries it holds captive all
who come within reach of its magic. With a mystery, which too may be but a
legend, our story closes, as the light that smites the waters of the
Straits into a myriad of glittering flakes paints on the sunset sky the
old, old golden track which the Indians loved to call "the Path that leads
Homeward."
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The deed for the Island, bought from its Indian owners in 1781 by
George III. for £5000, was long in possession of Dr. John R. Bailey, Brevet
Lieutenant-Colonel U.S.V., and author of a most interesting monograph on
Mackinac. It is from its pages, and by his kind permission, that the Indian
signatures to the document are here reproduced.
[7] For an admirable statement of the facts bearing upon this interesting
problem, the reader is asked to turn to _My Notebook of the French
Revolution_, by Mrs. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer (A.C. McClurg & Co.). The
book upon which Mrs. Latimer has chiefly based her account, _The Lost
Prince_, by the Rev. Mr. Hanson, has long been out of print, and is almost
inaccessible.
[Illustration]
INDIANAPOLIS
THE HOOSIER CAPITAL
BY PERRY S. HEATH
The visitor to the Hoosier capital familiar with the capital of the nation
instantly observes a striking similarity between the two. Well he may, for
Alexander Ralston, who carried the chains for Pierre Charles L'Enfant, and
placed the stakes which fixed the lines and curves of the City of
Magnificent Distances, was the surveyor of Indianapolis. When, in 1821, he
carved out of the small cleared space in the centre of a great wilderness
the plan just one mile square for Indianapolis, his architectural abilities
and ambitions had more than a superficial justification. The result was
perhaps the handsomest city between Philadelphia and Denver.
When Indianapolis was platted on the surveyor's map it had but 800
inhabitants. By the year 1840 the town had grown to 2672 inhabitants. There
were only 48,244 souls in the city in 1870. But by 1890 the population had
increased to 105,436, and the census of 1900 placed the population at
169,164. In the latter decade Indianapolis outstripped Rochester, New York,
St. Paul, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, and Omaha in increase of
population. And the area occupied by the city grew in three quarters of a
century from one to twenty-seven square miles.
Entering Indianapolis to-day upon any one of the seventeen independent
railroads operated by steam locomotives, or any one of the many interurban
electric systems, the traveller is entranced, in passing the wide,
asphalted avenues, by the magnificent view which carries the vision to the
hub of the city, where the eye readily perceives the panorama of the State
House, four or five magnificent hotels, some majestic club-houses, and the
world-famed Soldiers' Monument in the Governor's Circle. The city is not
one over which dense clouds of smoke hover daily, marks unmistakable of
great manufacturing interests. The sky is usually clear. Natural gas and
oil are largely employed as fuel for the production of steam. Where coal is
used the consumers are largely located in the remote outskirts. During half
the year the foliage from the splendid system of shade and other trees
along the avenues and streets and in the parks clothes the city in a
verdure producing a pleasing effect upon the vision and the atmosphere. In
winter-time the well-paved streets and the universal system of cement
sidewalks are ever under the enforcement of perfect city regulations, clear
of snow and sleet and other impediments to boulevard driving and
pedestrianism.
[Illustration OLD STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS.]
There is about the history of Indianapolis much of quaint Indian tradition
and historical attractiveness. While almost every trace of the rural, or
the virgin forests which were in view from any point a few years ago, has
disappeared and modern structures and improvements abound, the visitor
wherever he goes, cannot forget, that he is in a city which made great
progress during the last half of the nineteenth century. On every hand this
fact is illustrated. It was as late as April, 1816, that Congress
authorized the construction of a constitution for the State. As recently as
three quarters of a century ago the White River, on which Indianapolis is
situated, was dotted from source to mouth, with the canoes of savages, and
lined along its banks, in the dense wilderness, with Indian villages. The
white man made his way in constant fear through the country. It is true
that Vincennes had been settled by white people generations before, but its
citizens had at this time few if any relations, social or commercial, with
any other section of the Territory, and everywhere the red man continued to
be a prime factor, holding and controlling the affairs of the domain. While
the White and Wabash rivers in the interior furnished during a part of the
year transportation by raft, the old buffalo trail from Vincennes to the
Falls of the Ohio, cleared by immigrants, afforded the only safe outlet or
inlet, and was in consequence a great thoroughfare. The Whetzels, known to
history as the intrepid Indian fighters, paved the way through the
Territory and made it possible for immigrants to find Indianapolis in its
early days.
[Illustration NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY, INDIANAPOLIS.]
At the time this city was located and titled there was so much of Indian
lore in the minds of the legislators, and in fact so much of the red man in
the wilderness around, a constant source of apprehension, that great
difficulty was found in securing a name for the new metropolis. Tecumseh,
Suwarrow, Whetzel, Wayne, Delaware, and other names familiar to the
paleface hunted by or hunting the red man, were suggested. Finally Mr.
Samuel Merrill, a name significant in the modern history of Indiana and
Indianapolis, and prominent in the upbuilding and development of the best
institutions of the State and city, proposed Indianapolis as the name for
the city which is now the pride of all Hoosier hearts.
The original city was platted with streets just one mile in length from end
to end. The avenues, or "diagonals," as they were termed on the original
plat, radiated from the Circle (the hub) in the centre and constituted that
beautiful design which makes the capital of France and the capital of the
United States so attractive in appearance, and yet in some respects "a
labyrinth or mesh to the unfamiliar." Near the radiating point or Circle
was early established a market, which is to-day one of the great
conveniences to the residents of the city and to those who market their
products and an attraction at most seasons of the year to visitors.
[Illustration BENJAMIN HARRISON.]
It was not until the removal in November, 1824, of the archives of Indiana
from Corydon to Indianapolis, that the latter became the actual capital. In
1827 the Legislature appropriated four thousand dollars for a Governor's
residence to be located in the Circle. Its construction was commenced, but
never completed. The unfurnished portion was occupied at one time as a
schoolhouse, until finally the officers of the Supreme Court made it their
headquarters. After some years the crude building was demolished and the
ground was converted into a park, the present location of the Soldiers'
Monument.
[Illustration STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS. EAST FRONT.]
It was not until a third of the nineteenth century had passed, not until
near 1840, that Indianapolis became more pretentious than any other country
town. The public squares were feeding-grounds for the ox and horse teams of
countrymen who came to market. There were practically no industries, and
the buildings were primitive and simple. As late as 1875 the wags of the
stage and the humorists of the press amused themselves with jeers at the
Hoosier capital. The Hoosier was a joke in the East. He was represented as
the typical raw character, greatly in need of common advantages and
ordinary enlightenment. And the impression persisted until some time after
three quarters of the nineteenth century had passed that Indianapolis was
simply a congregating-point for him and his kind. About 1880 the city began
to take on the appearance of a modern ambitious metropolis. As wealth
increased the people resorted in ever increasing numbers to the capital, to
enjoy the schools for their children and the best civilization for
themselves. Gradually there have gathered there not only the prosperous
citizens of the State, but many who have at home or abroad achieved renown
in letters, diplomacy, official life, the army and navy. Here have lived
two Vice-Presidents of our country. One of our Presidents, the late General
Benjamin Harrison, lived and died here. Dialect poets, local historians,
and novelists have spent their days here and been the pride of their
fellow-citizens.
In 1831 the Legislature made an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars for
the construction of a State House. The investment, when completed, however,
aggregated about sixty thousand dollars. And the State viewed the result
with satisfaction and believed she had one of the most attractive and
majestic State Houses in the entire country, as indeed she had after the
substitution in 1887, at an expense of $1,936,000, of the present
magnificent structure.
Indianapolis has more than one hundred church buildings. The City Hall,
with a seating capacity of over five thousand, the gift of Mr. Daniel
Tomlinson, was constructed at an expense of $150,000, and is principally
used for conventions and musical festivals.
In 1836 the State began an elaborate system of internal improvements.
Railroads, canals, and turnpikes were subsidized and encouraged in every
manner possible. The first railroad to reach Indianapolis came up in 1847
from Madison, on the Ohio River, creating the usual sensation of the new
railroad in those days. As long ago as 1860 Indianapolis became the
railroad centre of the Central West. The diversified and almost limitless
products of the State, of the farm and the mine, and the fact that
Indianapolis is in the direct pathway between the East and the West,
afforded great attraction to railroad builders. The Union Railroad Station,
until recently the largest and best in the United States, is still one of
the most commodious, comfortable, and beautiful in the country.
During the Civil War Indianapolis was a storm-centre. The State was not
surpassed by any other in the percentage of soldiers sent out to defend the
Union. Here they rendezvoused, and Camp Morton and other points about the
city for many years after the war bore signs of the long presence of the
"Boys in Blue." Indiana possessed a great war Governor in Oliver P. Morton,
the steadfast friend of Lincoln and a loyal anti-slavist. For five years in
Indianapolis the shrill sound of the fife and the roll of the drum scarcely
ever ceased, day or night. Those living to-day who recall the activities of
the days of the Civil War view the Soldiers' Monument, in the heart of the
city, and the many evidences of reverence for the memory of our Union
soldiers in the beautiful cemeteries without surprise. These to them are
but simple sequences, natural results.
[Illustration SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, INDIANAPOLIS.]
The straggling village of the first days of the war soon became a bustling
little city. For the first time business blocks began to appear along the
leading streets and avenues. The architecture in the residences evinced a
tendency toward the modern as time progressed. The corduroy or cobble
streets were improved. The heavy artillery and ponderous wagons carrying
munitions of war required something more substantial in heavy weather, and
gravel was thrown upon the muddy thoroughfares. Level as a plain, but
beautifully drained by the slight inclines to the White River, it was
possible to transform those streams of mud in winter-time and heaps of
brown dust in the dry summer into the magnificently paved or perfectly
asphalted streets of the present day. The city now has 150 miles of
improved streets--forty miles of asphalt, costing $2,514,576; twenty-three
miles of brick, $902,276; twelve miles of wooden block, $710,646, and
seventy-five miles of gravel and boulder, $777,306. There are 107 miles of
cement sidewalks, which required an expenditure of $552,489, and ninety-one
miles of sewers, at an outlay of $1,575,878.
[Illustration MARION COUNTY COURT HOUSE.]
Many beautiful residences, surrounded by well-kept lawns and parks, may be
viewed by a drive through the city or by a tour over any of the lines of
the splendidly managed consolidated street-railway system. The city has
1207 acres of parks, more attractive than the parks of Washington.
Riverside Park, containing 953 acres, the ground for which was purchased in
1900, lies along the White River. Garfield Park contains 103 acres;
Brookside Park, eighty-one acres; and there are various smaller parks
throughout the city. The municipality of Indianapolis has a large park
fund, created from the sale of bonds and from a tax levied for park
purposes. The financial condition of the municipality is the pride of the
citizens. The value of school property is $1,993,620. The city library is a
handsome building, erected especially for library purposes, and contains
one hundred thousand volumes.
In 1887 the Legislature appropriated $200,000 for the erection in
Governor's Circle of the monument to the soldiers and sailors of the State.
The conerstone was laid August 2, 1889. The monument was designed by Bruno
Schmidt, of Berlin, and was built of Indiana limestone, at an expense of
$600,000, including the images at the base. The monument stands 268 feet in
height. Around the approaches are eight magnificent candelabra, valued at
$40,000. The two cascades are the largest artificial waterfalls in the
world, discharging each minute seven thousand gallons. The water is derived
from driven wells beneath the monument, and after flowing over the cascade
returns to the reservoir, from which it is again used through power
furnished by force pumps. In 1900 the revenue of the city was $1,341,861,
and the expenditure $1,245,000. The bonded debt was $2,135,700. The
assessed valuation of property for 1900 was $126,672,652. There are five
national banks with a combined capital of $2,400,000, and four trust
companies with a combined capital of $3,000,000. The wholesale trade is
extensive, confined mostly to drygoods, boots and shoes, and hats, and
reaches as far south as Texas and west to Oklahoma.
[Illustration COLUMBIA CLUB, INDIANAPOLIS.]
Manufacturing interests are large, consisting mainly of structural iron,
mill machinery, engines and various kinds of bent-wood. It is contended
that only Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York surpass Indianapolis in
the amount of many manufactured products. Mill machinery and structural
iron is shipped in large quantities to Europe, South America, and other
foreign lands. Indianapolis is one of the greatest horse markets in the
country, and is surpassed by only three cities as a market for hogs and
cattle. A belt railroad circles the city, connecting the two immense
stockyards with all the steam railroads.
[Illustration THE HENDRICKS MONUMENT.]
In May, 1895, John Herron willed to the Art Association $200,000, with
which to erect an art gallery. A site has been purchased, and the gallery
is this year to be built. The Commercial Club, composed of the leading
business men of the city and devoted to advancing the interests of the
city, occupies its own building, an elegant eight-story structure. The home
for the Columbia Club, a Republican organization of State importance, which
has just been completed at an expense of nearly $200,000, is one of the
finest club properties in the entire West. The Marion and the University
clubs both own their buildings, and the women, too, have a club-house. The
Law Building is a handsome and valuable structure of twelve stories,
occupied exclusively by attorneys. The corporation has a large law library
for the use of the tenants.
State institutions are the Insane Hospital, containing fifteen hundred
patients; Institute for the Education of the Blind, and a similar
institution for deaf-mutes. The city has a large and handsomely equipped
hospital, and there are two others well appointed. A new hotel building
will this year take the place of the Bates House, at a cost of more than
$2,000,000. The city is adorned with impressive statues of her favorite
sons: Morton, Whitcomb, William Henry Harrison, and George Rogers Clark in
Monument Place, Vice-President Colfax in University Park, and
Vice-President Hendricks in the State House grounds. To these will be added
in 1901 one of General Henry W. Lawton, a native Hoosier, who fell in
battle in the Philippines, one of General Pleasant A. Hackleman, the only
general officer from Indiana killed in the Civil War, and one sometime, of
course, of the late ex-President Harrison.
Except Philadelphia, it is doubtful if there is a city in the Union where a
greater percentage of the wage-earners possess their own homes. Labor
strikes or disturbances are here almost unknown, and the conditions of
peace and prosperity are assured for many years to come.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VINCENNES
THE KEY TO THE NORTHWEST
BY WILLIAM HENRY SMITH
"On the banks of the Wabash" is one of the greater historic sites of the
great Northwest. Of no great importance, at least commercially, to-day, it
was once the seat of the empire of France in the Ohio Valley, and long
before, possibly when Moses was leading his people out of bondage, the seat
of an empire established by a race we now call prehistoric. When the Mound
Builders came, whence they came, when they went away, or whither, will, in
all probability never be determined; but they were surely here, and from
the works they left behind, must have been here for centuries, and must
have numbered millions. The site of their capital is not known, but if it
was not on the spot where Vincennes now stands, certainly one of the most
populous cities of their empire did stand here. In the immediate vicinity
are several large mounds, and around them are hundreds of smaller mounds.
There must have been something attractive about this spot on the Wabash,
for after the Mound Builders deserted it and the red men came to occupy the
land, they, too, selected it for the site of one of their principal towns.
No one knows what tribes have dwelt here, but when it was first visited by
white men, the Pi-ank-a-shaws, one of the leading tribes of the great Miami
Confederacy, organized to drive back eastward the Six Nations, occupied it
as their principal village, and called it Chip-kaw-kay. As the red men
depended upon the forests and streams for both food and clothing, this was
for them an ideal spot. The finest forests in America were here, filled
with buffalo, bear, deer, and other game; while the Wabash furnished them
fish and gave them a highway easily traversed by which to visit friends in
other sections or to make raids on hostile tribes.
The traditions of the Pi-ank-a-shaws indicate that they occupied the
site for more than a century before the coming of the whites. Just when
the first white man visited the spot cannot be determined. There is
little doubt that La Salle passed up the Wabash about 1669, gave it the
name of the Ouabache, and marked it on his maps.[8] Finding an Indian
town, he probably stopped and, as was his wont, made friends with the
tribes. A few years later the town was abandoned for a while, owing to
the irruptions of the fierce Iroquois, who were extremely hostile to the
French, and La Salle gathered all the other Indian tribes around his
fort on the Illinois, where they remained until about 1711. When the
Iroquois retired over the mountains the other tribes returned to their
old homes; the Pi-ank-a-shaws to their village on the Wabash, the Weas
erecting their wigwams near the mouth of the Tippecanoe, and the
twightwees locating at the head of the Maumee. Afterward the Delawares
took up their home in Central Indiana, the Shawnees in the eastern
portion, and the Pottawatomies around the foot of Lake Michigan.
The Indians had hardly gotten back to their old hunting-grounds before the
_coureurs des bois_ began to make excursions into the territory in search
of peltries and adventures. Some of them penetrated as far as Chip-kaw-kay
and dwelt for some time with the Pi-ank-a-shaws. Traditions tell of the
visit of a missionary or two, but there is no certainty.
Rumors grew of English traders crossing the mountains, and as all the
territory from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi was claimed by France
because of the explorations of La Salle, the French authorities in Canada
and Louisiana became alarmed, and in 1718 sent out Jean Baptiste Bissot,
the Sieur de Vincent, from Canada to establish posts on the Wabash. He
reached Ke-ki-on-ga, the town of the Twightwees, at the head of the Maumee,
selected it for one of his posts, and for another, Wea town, below the
mouth of the Tippecanoe.
At that time not all of the Ohio Valley was under the jurisdiction of
Canada, but the lower half of what are now Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
belonged to the province of Louisiana. For this reason Bissot made no
effort to establish posts farther down the Wabash than Wea town, afterward
known as Ouiatenon. He died at Ke-ki-on-ga, in 1719. The incursions of the
English growing bolder and more frequent, M. Broisbriant, Governor of
Louisiana, about 1725, ordered François Margane, Sieur de Vincent, who had
succeeded to the title of his uncle, Jean Baptiste Bissot, to prepare to
repel the advance of the English and drive them back across the mountains.
For this purpose Margane established a post at Chip-kaw-kay, and about
seven years later a number of French-Canadian families settled there. This
was the first settlement of whites in Indiana, although trading posts had
previously been established at the head of the Maumee and at Ouiatenon.
This was the beginning of Vincennes, which was called "the Post," "au
Poste," and "Old Post," till in 1735 it received the present name.
Margane commanded the Post until 1736, when he joined an expedition against
the Indians on the Mississippi, and was captured and burned at the stake.
After his death till the territory was ceded in 1763 to the British, the
Post was commanded by Lieutenant Louis St. Ange, who had assisted in
establishing it. The French during this period lived in peace and
friendship with the Indians, the Pi-ank-a-shaws giving the settlers a large
tract of land around the Post for their use. This land was held in common
by all the inhabitants. In the spring a certain portion was allotted to the
head of each family, or to any one else willing to cultivate it, but when
the harvest was over the fences were taken down and the land again became
public property. After the accession of St. Ange to the command, he made to
certain of the more important persons in the little settlement individual
grants of some of this land, which later caused great confusion.
Lieutenant St. Ange had much influence with the Indians, and as the French
made no attempts to claim the lands of the Indians, or to destroy their
hunting-grounds by cutting down the forests, the little settlement at
Vincennes lived without molestation or fear, until about 1751, when
British agents stirred up some of the tribes to attempt the destruction of
the French posts in the Ohio Valley. St. Ange put his post in a secure
state of defence, and although a few friendly Indians were killed by the
hostiles in the immediate neighborhood, the Post itself was not attacked.
[Illustration EARLY FRENCH SETTLERS AT VINCENNES.]
When Canada was ceded to the British it took with it the posts at the head
of the Maumee and Wea town. They were garrisoned by small detachments of
British troops. Pontiac's conspiracy to drive the British out of the
country included the capture and destruction of all the posts then held by
the British west of the mountains. The two other posts in Indiana were
captured, but Vincennes, being still under the command of St. Ange, was not
attacked. Pontiac endeavored to enlist St. Ange in his warfare against the
colonists, but that astute officer was proof against all his blandishments.
When the treaty of 1763 was made known, St. Ange was transferred to the
command of Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi, and left the affairs of
Vincennes under the control of three of the more prominent citizens.
The British reoccupied Fort Miamis, at the head of the Maumee, and
garrisoned Fort Chartres, but did not occupy Vincennes or assume control
over its affairs. General Gage, commander-in-chief of the British forces in
America, issued a proclamation to the people of Vincennes offering them the
privilege of remaining or of removing to the French or Spanish possessions,
assuring them that if they remained they should have the same religious
privileges as had been granted to the people of Canada. In a later
proclamation he informed the inhabitants that he would not recognize any
claim they had to the lands in and around the Post.
The priest of the little parish and some of the leading citizens
memorialized the General, showing that the lands had been held by them for
many years under grants recognized by the French government, and that it
would be a hardship now to deprive them of the rights they had so long
enjoyed. On the receipt of this memorial General Gage ordered that all
evidences of title be submitted to him at Boston. This, for various
reasons, could not be done. Many of the written grants had, as was the
custom in France, been left in charge of a notary, who had disappeared with
them. In other cases, the grants had been verbal, title passing again,
after a French fashion, by the giving of possession with certain
ceremonies. While this matter was in contest between the citizens of
Vincennes and General Gage, the first mutterings of the American Revolution
brought the General duties of more pressing interest, and nothing further
was done in regard to the land grants at Vincennes.
From 1763, when St. Ange left for Fort Chartres, until 1777, the people of
Vincennes had no civil government except such as they exercised themselves.
On May 19, 1777, Lieutenant-Governor Abbott, of Detroit, arrived and
formally took possession of the place for the King, establishing a
government and building a small stockade fort, which he named "Fort
Sackville." He reported the "Wabache" as one of the finest rivers in the
world, and spoke highly of the peaceful and correct attitude of the
citizens of Vincennes. He also took supervision of the garrisons at
Ouiatenon and Fort Miamis, and the work of the British agents in stirring
up the Indians to active hostilities against the Americans began.
The arrival of Lieutenant-Governor Abbott, and the hostilities of the
Indians he encouraged, gave rise to the most interesting chapter in the
history of Vincennes, and one of the most dramatic chapters in the history
of the United States. Through the influence of the British agents, the
savages made a number of forays against the people of Kentucky, and brought
about an event which added an empire to the United States.
In all American history there is no story more remarkable than that of
George Rogers Clark, yet it is one of the least known. Some of the
encyclopædias do not even mention him, while others dismiss with a few
lines a man who gave an empire to the United States. He lived a remarkable
life, performed great services for his country, and was then permitted to
die in extreme poverty in his old age. His country neglected even to
reimburse him for the expenses incurred while winning for it an empire.
[Illustration FORT SACKVILLE, 1779.]
In 1777 Clark was a citizen of Kentucky. The great question to the people
of Kentucky was how best to defend themselves against the Indian forays.
Clark, through reports of spies he had sent out, became satisfied that the
Indian hostilities were fomented by the British at the various posts
northwest of the Ohio River. He went to Virginia and laid the facts before
Governor Patrick Henry. He pointed out that the best, if not the only, way
to protect the people of Kentucky was to capture and hold the posts at
Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit; that with those posts in the possession
of the Americans they could overawe and hold in subjection the various
Indian tribes. He offered in person to lead an expedition for their
capture.
[Illustration CLARK AND HIS MEN CROSSING THE RIVER.]
It was known to Governor Henry that the Spaniards west of the Mississippi
had been secretly trying, with some encouragement, to induce the people of
Kentucky to place themselves under Spanish protection. When Clark
approached him with the suggestion to capture the posts northwest of the
Ohio, Governor Henry at first regarded the project as chimerical. One day,
after a long argument, Clark left his presence with the significant remark
"that a country that was not worth defending was not worth possessing."
Interpreting this remark to mean that if Virginia would not help to defend
Kentucky the people there would seek protection from Spain, Governor Henry
recalled Clark, and after a further conference, authorized him to recruit
350 men for the capture of the posts.
He gave him also a small supply of Virginia money and some ammunition.
Returning to Kentucky, Clark hastily recruited a number of men, without
divulging his purpose to them. They rendezvoused on an island in the Ohio
River, opposite the site of Louisville. There he explained his full design,
and all but about 150 refused to join the expedition. Undismayed, Clark
floated the few men remaining with him down the river in boats prepared for
the purpose, and captured Kaskaskia on the 4th of July, 1778. Hearing that
the British had a large force at Vincennes, and had gathered around the
fort a large number of Indians hostile to the Americans, he waited at
Kaskaskia till he could get further information.
The cordial welcome which the French inhabitants of Kaskaskia gave the
Americans led Clark to believe that the inhabitants of Vincennes would
prove friendly. French in both places, they were easily led by their
priests. The priest at Kaskaskia, Father Gibault, a warm partisan of
Clark, offered to go to Vincennes, sound the inhabitants, and learn the
strength of the British there. His offer was accepted, and with a single
companion he made the journey. He found the French inhabitants, in the
absence of the commander of the post, who had gone to Detroit, willing to
welcome a change of rulers, and induced them to go in a body to the little
church and take an oath of allegiance to the American colonies. After this
they took possession of Fort Sackville, and garrisoned it with some of
their own number. Father Gibault also induced the Indians to bury the
hatchet and promise to live in peace with the Americans, now the friends,
as he reminded them, of their great French father.
The news of his success was speedily sent to Clark. Though he had no troops
to send to garrison the fort, he dispatched Captain Leonard Helm to assume
direction of affairs. This was a fortunate selection, for Helm added to
great courage, tact and an intimate knowledge of the Indian character.
It was not long before the British authorities at Detroit were informed of
the change in the situation at Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and at once began
preparations to recover the lost ground. At this time Colonel Henry
Hamilton, of the British army, was Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit. He
assembled a force of five hundred men--regulars, militia and Indians--and
started for Vincennes. Captain Helm did not learn of the approach of this
force until, about the middle of December, it was within three miles of the
fort. His garrison consisted of one American and a few inhabitants of
Vincennes. Seeing that it would be impossible to defend the fort, the
inhabitants quietly dispersed to their homes, leaving Helm and his one
American in the fort. Though he knew he could not successfully defend the
fort, Helm put on a bold front, loaded his two cannon, and placed himself
at one and his solitary soldier at the other. To Hamilton's demand for the
surrender of the post, Helm replied that no man could enter the post until
the terms of surrender were made known. Being promised the honors of war,
he surrendered himself and his one man, to the chagrin of Hamilton, on
discovering the size of the garrison.
The approach of the British had been so sudden that Helm was not able to
dispatch a messenger to Clark, who in consequence remained for several
weeks in ignorance of the change in the situation. The last word he had
received from Helm was a request for more supplies. At that time Francis
Vigo, a merchant of St. Louis, happened to be in Kaskaskia. Loving the
Americans and hating the British, he volunteered to go to Vincennes and
make arrangements to furnish the garrison with supplies. Vigo started on
his journey at once, but was captured by the British just before he reached
Vincennes, and taken before Hamilton. To his demand for immediate release
on the score that he was a citizen of St. Louis, Hamilton was deaf, until
the Roman Catholic priest, heading a delegation of citizens, notified
Hamilton that they would furnish no supplies for the garrison unless Vigo
were released.
Vigo was released, after promising against his will that "on his way to St.
Louis he would do no act hostile to the British interest." He at once took
a canoe and was rapidly paddled down the Wabash to the Ohio, then on to St.
Louis. Keeping the letter of his pledge he did nothing hostile on his way
to St. Louis, but on his arrival there he jumped from the boat to the land
and then back into the boat, and pushed with all speed for Kaskaskia, where
he told Clark of the condition of affairs.
Clark at once saw the danger surrounding him. The term of enlistment of
most of his men was about to expire. By making them large promises he
induced about 150 to extend their enlistment for a term of eight months,
and recruited about fifty more from the inhabitants of Kaskaskia. He could
get no reinforcements short of Virginia, even if he could obtain them
there. If he waited until spring Hamilton would be largely reinforced, he
would be driven from Kaskaskia, and his whole design frustrated. He
determined to make a winter campaign. He sent forty-six of his men in
boats carrying provisions and ammunition around by water, and with 170 set
off February 5, 1779, to make a march of near two hundred miles. It was a
fearful enterprise. The land for most of the way was level, and water, when
it rained, or when the snow melted, lay in a broad sheet over the whole
country. He did not know how many of his foes were before him. He had no
tents to shelter his men and no way of transporting baggage; there were a
few pack horses to carry what provisions and ammunition the men could not
carry on their backs.
[Illustration GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.]
His men were all hardy frontiersmen; their leader had imbued them with his
own heroic spirit; they feared no danger. Before they left the little
settlement of Kaskaskia, the good priest gave them a blessing, and all the
people accompanied them the first three or four miles of their journey.
Scarcely had the farewells been said and the march begun when the rain
began to fall, and for nearly twenty days there was but a brief glimpse of
sunshine now and then.
Only a few miles had been covered when they struck a long stretch of
overflowed land. Although the water was cold, into it they plunged, their
gallant leader in front; and until the evening of the 22d they saw no dry
land, except an occasional half-acre or so barely peeping above the flood
of waters and furnishing a meagre resting-place. It can hardly be said they
rested, for on several occasions they had to remain standing throughout the
night, or were compelled to walk about to keep from freezing. When they
came to a river that had overflowed its banks and was too deep to ford,
they made canoes and rafts and floated over.
Always they found the water covered with a thin coating of ice in the
morning, and through the ice and water they forced their way. When the
water was deep the sergeant carried the drummer boy on his shoulders, and
from that perch he beat his charge. Sometimes the water was only knee-deep;
sometimes it reached the middle and often to the shoulders; but not one of
the men thought of turning back. The boat with provisions that had been
sent around by water failed to connect and to their other discomforts
hunger was added.
On the morning of the 21st they came within sound of the morning gun at
Fort Sackville, but it required two more days of wandering without
provisions before they could cross the Wabash River. At last they
captured some Indians and with them the half of a buffalo rump, which they
made into a broth. On the 23d they arrived at the heights back of the town,
and for the first time since their departure had an opportunity to dry
their clothing. Clark sent a letter to the French inhabitants of the town,
telling them of his presence, but warning them not to give any information
to Hamilton. The news caused the greatest excitement; the French ran about
the streets telling it with joy, for Hamilton had won their hatred. They
sent out provisions to the hungry Americans, who that night marched into
the town and by opening fire on the fort gave the first intimation to
Hamilton and the garrison of the presence of an enemy. The firing was
continued until about nine o'clock the next morning, when a surrender was
demanded, accompanied by a threat that if the place had to be taken by
storm the officers would be treated as murderers. A parley ensued, followed
after a few hours by the surrender of the fort, and once more the American
flag floated over Fort Sackville, which was then renamed Fort Patrick
Henry.
Hamilton and the other officers were sent to Williamsburg, Va., where they
were held in custody for a year or two. From papers found in the fort,
Clark learned that reinforcements, bringing supplies and stores, were on
the way, and at once sent a part of his little force to intercept and
capture the reinforcements, which was promptly done.[9]
Vincennes was now the most important place in the Illinois country. When
Colonel John Todd was appointed Lieutenant for the County of Illinois, he
made Colonel Legrace his deputy for Vincennes, who established the first
court the place ever had. Virginia ceded the territory to the United
States, and by the Ordinance of 1787 a civil government was set up,
Governor St. Clair sending Winthrop Sargent to assume direct jurisdiction
at Vincennes. The French inhabitants were finally permitted to hold the
lands to which they could show title, while all the rest were taken by the
Government.
Clark added an empire to the domain of the colonies, made possible the
Louisiana Purchase and the future extension of the country to the Pacific,
and then in his extreme old age Virginia sent him only a sword when he
asked for repayment of what he had disbursed for the country.
In 1800 Indiana Territory was established with Vincennes as its capital.
The jurisdiction of the Territory then included what are now the States of
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota, and to
this was afterward added for a short time the whole of the Louisiana
Purchase.
On the 4th of July, 1800, the government of Indiana Territory was formally
organized. The Governor, William Henry Harrison, was, however, not present.
General John Gibson, who represented him, was one of the Revolutionary
heroes. He had married a sister of Logan, the celebrated Mingo chief, and
it was to his brother that Logan made his famous speech. On his arrival,
Governor Harrison began the work of trading the Indians out of their lands.
He made one treaty after another, until more than one half of the present
Indiana, together with a good part of Illinois, was ceded. He erected the
first brick house in all that section, perhaps the first west of the
Alleghanies, in its day a structure so magnificent as to be called the
"Governor's Palace." It is still standing, and near it the tree under which
the Governor held his historic interview with Tecumseh, when the Indian
chief planned the Governor's death.
[Illustration WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.]
[Illustration ST. XAVIER'S CHURCH, 1779.]
In 1813 the territorial capital was removed to Corydon, and the political
importance of Vincennes ceased. Already a university had been established,
Congress giving to it a township of land, and the beginning was made for
what is now one of the most valuable libraries in the West. The first
church in the Northwest Territory was built in Vincennes about 1742, under
the rectorship of Father Meurin, who had come from France to care for the
spiritual wants of the settlers. In 1793 M. Rivet, a French priest, driven
from his native country by the terrors of the Revolution, arrived at
Vincennes and opened the first school taught in Indiana.
The Vincennes of to-day is a thriving, bustling city of ten thousand
inhabitants. It has modern schools and modern churches, modern ideas and
modern progressiveness. As a city it has had its ups and downs since it
lost political prestige, but for some years it has steadily grown, until
now it is classed as one of the beautiful cities of the State. Surrounded
by a magnificent agricultural section, and with many manufacturing
interests, it threw off long ago the old French habits and customs and took
on a progressive spirit, which promises a bright future.
Vincennes has had a glorious past; it occupies a unique place among the
historic towns of the country. Boston may have been the cradle of American
independence; Philadelphia the place where that liberty was first
announced; but after all Boston gave to the Union only Massachusetts, and
Philadelphia only Pennsylvania. Vincennes gave us Indiana, Ohio, Illinois,
Michigan, and Wisconsin, the great Middle West. But for the genius and
perseverance of George Rogers Clark, when independence came the United
Colonies would have stopped at the Alleghanies. The capture of Vincennes
spread the jurisdiction of the colonies to the Mississippi, carrying with
it American liberty, American progress, American ideas. More than this, it
made possible the Louisiana Purchase, which in turn opened the way to the
annexation of Texas, the securing of California and the Pacific coast, and
the later acquisition of Hawaii and the Philippines. The capture of
Vincennes carried American liberty to a domain stretching from the
Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, yea even to the Orient--a domain
which else would still be British or Spanish.
It was Indiana, of which Vincennes was the chief part, that stopped the
extension of slavery at the Ohio River, and made all the Northwest free
territory. It was at Vincennes that Aaron Burr received his first decided
check in his great scheme to dismember the Union. It was Benjamin Parke, a
citizen of Vincennes, who placed in the first constitution of the State the
clause making it obligatory on the Legislature to provide for the care and
treatment of the insane, the first provision of the kind made by any
civilized government, a provision which has revolutionized the treatment of
the insane throughout the world. Such is the story of Vincennes, no
frontier town like Albany or Pittsburg, for when its history began
Vincennes was hundreds of miles out in the wilderness beyond the frontier
line, and was still hundreds of miles beyond when the great event occurred
which changed it from a French settlement under the jurisdiction of Great
Britain into the chief seat of American power west of the Alleghanies.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[8] La Salle, in drawing his maps, made the Ouabache to empty into the
Mississippi at Cairo, According to him the Oyo (Ohio) was a tributary of
the Ouabache. About 1702, one, M. Juchereau, sent to establish a post for
the protection of the traders in peltries, reported that he had established
a post about forty leagues above the mouth of the Ouabache. Some writers
have taken that to mean Vincennes, and it is so recorded in some of the
encyclopædias, but his post was on what is now called the Ohio, and not on
the Wabash.
[9] Clark began at once to organize an expedition against Detroit, but it
never started. Francis Vigo, who had let Clark have provisions and money
for his expedition against Vincennes, aided in like manner in fitting out
the new expedition, lending money to the amount of $8616, for which Clark
gave him an order on Virginia. The order was never honored, and an appeal
was made to Congress. Finally, in 1872, nearly a century after the debt was
contracted, and nearly thirty-seven years after Vigo had died in extreme
poverty, Congress referred the matter to the Court of Claims, which four
years later allowed the claim, together with more than $41,000 in
interest.
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
LARGE IN EVERY WAY
BY LYMAN J. GAGE
The plotting of the site of Chicago was characteristic of the practical
sentiment that has ever stimulated the city. No less a personage than
Washington established the streets and boundaries of the national capital;
religious romance presided at the founding of San Francisco; interesting
legends cluster about the origin of other American communities; and in the
old world demigods were supposed to have watched over the beginnings of
ancient cities. Chicago, though neither hero nor fabled deity was present
when its foundations were laid, had a start none the less imposing, for the
genius of industry and trade fixed its metes and bounds. And in the growth
of the city into perhaps the industrial capital of the continent there has
been presented a supreme expression of that resourceful and triumphant
ingenuity which has redeemed the American wilderness. The desolation upon
which the plodding engineer planted his theodolite three-score-and-ten
years ago is a colossal hive of human activity. A marsh has become a
metropolis.
The promoters of the Illinois and Michigan Canal were not the first to see
the possibility of water communication via the present site of Chicago
between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.
In 1673, Joliet wrote to the authorities in Canada that by the cutting of
a canal through half a league of prairie it would be possible for boats to
"pass from the Lake of Illinois into the St. Louis River [the Illinois
including the Desplaines] which empties into the Mississippi." One hundred
years before our Republic was conceived, a mathematician, but no mere
_visionnaire_, the son of a wheelwright of Quebec, realized that the
"Portage of Checagau" was the meeting-place of the future traffic between
the chain of inland seas and the rivers flowing toward the Mexican Gulf.
It is plain that nature located Chicago. The meeting-point between
unparalleled watercourses could not but be a place for the distribution of
commodities. To the north, awaiting the woodman, were the lumber regions of
Michigan and Wisconsin; south and west and east stretched the prairie, to
be developed into farms; in Illinois alone, thirty thousand square miles of
coal fields were to be uncovered, while Pennsylvania's inexhaustible supply
was to find a vast market at this centre of lake shipping; and the iron,
red-stone, and copper regions of Lake Superior were to pile their output on
Chicago docks. The natural meeting-place of grain, lumber, fuel, and iron
would have become a city of commerce and manufactures, even if steam
railroads and navigation had not come to assist in the unique development
of this _entrepôt_, by making it the half-way house for transcontinental
traffic. But though nature, as the Rev. Robert Collyer has said, "called
the lakes, the forest, the prairies together in convention, and they
decided that on this spot a great city should be built," Chicago has been
singularly blessed in the alert and enterprising genius of her citizens.
Her business men have worked with catholic outlook, knowing that what
upbuilt the city in general would augment their individual projects.
The city has never been, even in its aboriginal beginnings, an
abiding-place for visionaries. The Minneways were a picturesque tribe.
Their chiefs assumed poetic names, and the young men cherished the
traditions of their people; but the tribe did not take advantage of its
strategic opportunities. Checagau to them was not a coign of vantage
between great waters. At the shore of a vast lake, or the brink of a broad
river, their dominion halted, for they were not navigators. In their
dialect, "Checagau" meant "wild onion." As if to typify the force that was
to dominate their region in later centuries, the Checagau country fell to
the conquering "canoe men," the adventurous Pottawatomies, the Chippewas,
the Sacs, and kindred tribes who, unafraid to venture on the water, turned
to trade, exchanging furs and pelts with the French pioneers for food,
blankets, and ornamental trinkets. They became the masters of the lake
country, and the broken remnant of the uncommercial tribe fled to the
Wabash, there to wail their plaintive songs.[10]
Meanwhile the conquering tribesmen, whose canoes paddled up the Mississippi
and the Illinois to the "Checagau Portage," to barter with Canadian
_voyageurs_, or glided thence across the Lakes, touching at the outposts of
colonizers and missionary friars, were prefiguring the gigantic activities
of civilized men who in a later age were to radiate from this same coveted
point of distribution. But as they had won their Checagau country by might,
and established their holdings by commercial enterprise, so they resisted
the coming of their European rivals and masters. Although as early as
1795, by the treaty of Greenville, they ceded much domain to our country,
including "one piece of land six miles square, at the mouth of the Checagau
River," the intrigue of the powerful Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet,
led the tribes to disregard these and subsequent treaty stipulations. So
that when, on the same day that saw the capitulation of Detroit, Fort
Dearborn was burned and its garrison massacred,
"the last vestige," says Henry Adams, "of American authority on
the western lakes disappeared. Thenceforward the line of the
Wabash and the Maumee became the military boundary of the
United States in the northwest, and the country felt painful
doubt whether even that line could be defended."
For four years the unburied bones of the Fort Dearborn victims lay where
the bodies had fallen. Then came peace, Christian interment of these
pathetic human fragments, and a reorganization of the valuable fur trade of
the region. The spot again became the centre of this industry. Trading
posts were re-established on the Illinois River and the Kankakee with the
Pottawatomies of the prairies; at Rock River with the Winnebagoes; at
Milwaukee with the Menomonies, and at Le Large with the Kickapoos. Trains
of pack horses carried the furs and peltries to Chicago, and in the spring
vessels touching at that port bore these valuable cargoes to Mackinac,
where the American Fur Company, organized by John Jacob Astor, had
established its headquarters.
[Illustration THE DEARBORN MONUMENT.]
In 1821, Governor Lewis Cass of Michigan Territory and Solomon Sibley, with
Henry R. Schoolcraft as their secretary, representing the United States,
met three thousand Indian braves at Chicago. Topinebee and Meeta were
spokesmen for the tribes. In consideration of five thousand dollars, to be
paid annually for five years, the Pottawatomies and other tribes ceded to
this Government 5,000,000 acres of land lying in Michigan and Illinois. The
marvellous real estate transactions subsequently negotiated in Chicago,
whereby citizens have multiplied their millions, have not eclipsed this
profitable investment of the Federal Government in 1821.
Although some minds foresaw a possible future for Chicago in this centre of
a rich domain owned by the Republic, there was no rush to the spot. In
1823, the officials of Fulton County, of which the village was then a part,
levied a tax of five mills to the dollar upon property in the new port,
with the result that there was carried back to the county treasury the sum
of $11.42. Surely a small beginning to lead to taxes in 1900 amounting to
$19,086,408.36. In 1823, when the sum of $11.42 was the aggregate of taxes
collected from Chicago, the total assessed value of property was $2284. In
1900, the actual valuation of Chicago property was fairly $2,000,000,000.
No one, perhaps, of the few settlers who drifted to the place dreamed of
such mighty possibilities, yet as early as 1831 the future of the city was
a chosen topic of conversation among those enthusiastic pioneers. One of
these, Dr. Elijah D. Harmon, true to his baptismal name, was singularly
prophetic. He located in Chicago in 1831, acquired a section of land, built
a sod fence about it, and there planted fruit trees of all descriptions.
Mrs. Kinzie states that the south path to the settlement led by Dr.
Harmon's nursery, and that as people passed he sought to impress upon them
"the certain future importance of Chicago."
In 1830, lots were being sold at prices ranging from $10 to $50. In that
year Thomas Hartzell purchased eighty acres (being the west half of the
northeast quarter section) for $1.55 an acre. Low as these prices were,
they were an advance upon valuations a few years before. In the archives
of the Chicago Historical Society is a letter written to John Wentworth by
Father St. Cyr, recounting how one Bonhomme sold the north half of Chicago
to Pierre Ménard for $50, but that the latter, finding land cheaper near
Peoria, and more fertile, repented of his bargain, and hurrying back
unloaded what he believed to be a poor investment upon John Kinzie, who was
not unwilling to take the property at the same figure at which Ménard had
purchased it. By 1835, values had so increased that the investment had made
Mr. Kinzie rich.
The belief which soon began to take possession of the minds of white men,
that the little settlement was to be a city set in the midst of a new
empire of civilization, had also aroused the celebrated Indian, Black Hawk.
He was convinced that, unless the tribes could be federated into compact
opposition to their conquering enemies, the hunting-grounds of his people
would speedily be converted into the homes and cities of the paleface.
Emulating the career of Tecumseh, Black Hawk in 1832 addressed a grand
council, attended by representatives of fifty tribes. "Let all our tribes
unite," said he, "and we shall have an army of warriors equal in numbers to
the trees of the forest." The appeal was eloquent and moving, but
Shawbonee, who had been with Tecumseh when that leader fell at the battle
of the Thames, answered Black Hawk. "Your army," he cried, "would equal in
number the trees of the forest, and you would encounter an army of
palefaces as numerous as the leaves of those trees." The arguments of
Shawbonee prevailed, the native attempt at coalition was defeated, and
henceforward the activities of the white races in peopling the valley of
the Mississippi and building to the northward, on the shore of Lake
Michigan, its great metropolis, proceeded without any one to molest or make
afraid. Thus Shawbonee (whose name is variously spelled), in successfully
opposing the red men's far-reaching conspiracy, assisted materially in
advancing the interests of Chicago. In token of this service, the
Historical Society has given his portrait a place of honor, and has
preserved the record of his deeds.
[Illustration THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BUILDING, CHICAGO.]
Late in July, 1833, three years after the canal surveyor, James Thompson,
had surveyed and mapped out the town which was to be, a public meeting was
held to decide whether incorporation should be effected. There were twelve
votes in favor of incorporation, and one against, and the place made its
start among historic towns. A few days later the following election notice
was posted:
"Publick notice is hereby given that an election will be holden
at the house of Mark Beaubien, on Saturday, the 10th day of
August, at 11 o'clock in the forenoon of that day, for the
purpose of choosing five trustees of the Town of Chicago."
"CHICAGO, August 5, 1833.
"E.S. KIMBERLY, Town Clerk.
"N.B. The poll will close at one o'clock."
On the appointed day, twenty-eight electors, the full number of citizens
entitled to suffrage in the new town, found their way to Mark Beaubien's
house and availed themselves of the privilege of freemen. Thirteen of them
announced their willingness to shoulder the responsibilities of office. The
first business transacted by the trustees was the establishment of a free
ferry across the river at Dearborn Street; the second, the reconstruction
of the "estray pen" into a solid and sufficiently commodious log jail.
These two programmes--the extension of commercial facilities and the stern
suppression of lawlessness--have ever since been conspicuous in the city's
history.
Then the town was born. Its development into a municipal Titan is one of
the marvels of history. In 1830, P.F.W. Peck arrived on a schooner,
bringing with him a small stock of goods. "He built," says Mr. Colbert, "a
small log store near the fort, which made an important addition to the
trade of Chicago." In the year 1900, just seventy years later, the amount
of wholesale goods distributed from this centre throughout the country
amounted to $741,000,000, the volume of drygoods alone being $143,000,000;
groceries, $99,000,000; clothing, $35,000,000; shoes, $58,500,000; books
and paper, $70,000,000, and other items in proportion; while the
manufactured products sent forth aggregated in value $786,000,000, and the
total business of the city reached the high figure of $1,963,000,000. The
year that concluded the nineteenth century recorded transfers of real
estate amounting in round numbers to $87,000,000, in striking contrast to
that early transaction wherein Chicago's first investor repented him of
paying $50 for the northern half of the city.
But the little town was not to achieve great things without a struggle.
Fire, flood, panic, and pestilence had first to be faced and fought. The
small band in the incorporated town started out determined to develop the
settlement into a city, notwithstanding the dismal prophecies of certain
learned men that a city would never rise on this unpropitious swamp.
Professor William H. Keating, geologist and historiographer, had furnished
the pioneer townsmen with the melancholy message:
[Illustration AUDITORIUM HOTEL, CHICAGO.]
"The dangers attending the navigation of the lake, and the
scarcity of harbors along the shore, must ever prove an
obstacle to the increase of the commercial importance of
Chicago. The extent of the sand banks which are formed on the
eastern and southern shore by the prevailing north and
northwesterly winds will likewise prevent any important works
from being undertaken to improve the port of Chicago."
In the light of this prediction it is interesting to note that in 1900 the
vessels mooring or weighing anchor there numbered 17,553, and brought and
carried away cargoes aggregating 14,236,190 tons. Nevertheless, for some
years, because of the quagmire condition of streets and the frequent
inundations from lake and river, Chicago was termed derisively the
"amphibious town." By filling in the land, the city long since literally
lifted itself out of the mud, the level of streets to-day being eight feet
above the original marsh. But even before the transformation of the town
into a city, it was plain that the founders had come to build it into a
centre of trade and population. Encouraging progress was being made on the
Illinois and Michigan Canal, the population of the town was increasing,
neighboring prairies were being tilled, and the water carriers who drove
their carts into the lake, filled their barrels, and then distributed water
by the bucketful, were giving way to the Hydraulic Company. A new era was
at hand, and Chicago on the 4th of March, 1837, became an organized
municipality.
The first census, taken in July, 1837, showed a population in the city of
1800 men, 845 women, and 1344 children. With a colored population of 77,
the grand total of inhabitants in this its first year's existence as a city
was 4066. To-day its population is nearing the two-million mark.
O.D. Wetherell, ex-city Comptroller, recalls a letter, written at an early
date by a citizen, in which the prediction was made that some day Chicago
would become a city of 10,000 people! At the time, that prophecy seemed to
be more wildly optimistic than would a prediction now that the city might
ultimately harbor the amazing total of ten million persons.
The early promoters of Chicago were sanguine of a great future, but none
dreamed of the amazing destiny in store. At a political gathering in 1838,
addressed by Stephen A. Douglas and John T. Stuart, his competing candidate
for Congress, a local orator, warmed by the enthusiasm of the occasion,
uttered what was derisively referred to the next day as "flamboyant
prophecy."
"The child is already born," he exclaimed, "who shall live to see Chicago a
city of 50,000 souls."
"Town lots, town lots!" shouted the audience in amiable sarcasm, not
wishing the visiting statesman to depart with the suspicion that dreams of
real-estate speculation had destroyed the sanity of the whole community.
For three years the town had been the centre of a great land craze, one of
the first real-estate booms that have played so important a part in the
location and development of Western cities. Dr. Horace Chase, writing in
1883 from Milwaukee, says:
"Soon after the sale of lots in Chicago, in 1833, I think, Robert
Kinzie, on his way to Detroit, stopped at Marsh's trading post near
Coldwater. There happened to be several of us present and Bob began
to boast about Chicago and what a great city it would become. 'Why,'
said he, 'I bought some of the best lots in Chicago for twenty
dollars apiece, and those lots are worth sixty dollars apiece
to-day!' It seemed to us utterly absurd that a lot should be worth
sixty dollars, when two hundred dollars would buy one hundred and
sixty acres of the best quality. Not a single person in the crowd
believed Bob's yarn."
[Illustration THE ART INSTITUTE, CHICAGO.]
As an example of the spirit which animated these old pioneers who came in
the early days to the great city that was to be, the story of one man
furnishes an interesting illustration. The writer had it from the lips of
the man himself, who recently died at the ripe age of eighty-two.
"I had heard of the West," he said, "in the little hamlet in
New England where I was born. My ambition was fired, and I
determined at all hazards to seek my fortune there. I soon
found myself in Buffalo with seven dollars in my pocket, and
with this I had to pay my transportation to the young city in
the West. After considerable 'higgling' with the captain of a
schooner I arranged for deck passage at a cost of three
dollars. Part of my money was then expended to get some cotton
cloth. This I sewed up in the shape of a bag, and into it I put
some shavings to soften the hard planks of the deck of the ship
at night. The balance of the money went for boiled ham, cheese,
and bread.
"I was twenty years old, had been a farm boy, and had attained
no special knowledge of any manual trade.
I arrived in Chicago and found it a dismal, swampy place, but
with every appearance of thrift and activity. My money was
exhausted, and work was indispensable. Going along the one
important street or road I found a man building a rather
pretentious boarding house. He asked me if I 'came off that
ship in the harbor,' and when I answered 'yes,' he inquired
whether there were any carpenters on board. I told him there
was none excepting myself. He wanted to know if I could 'lay
out work' so that his men could saw and hammer, which was all
they could do. It seemed to me that I could 'lay out work'
better than anything else, and engaged myself to him at four
dollars a day. Two days satisfied my new boss that my technical
knowledge was deficient, and he paid me off. I soon afterwards
found work in a harness shop, and by assiduity and attention I
acquired a knowledge of that business. Thus I got my start."
This man lived continuously in Chicago for more than sixty years. By early
and judicious investments in real estate he acquired wealth. He bought a
lot, now centrally located, for $400, and sold a part of it thirty years
later for $62,500. He sold it too soon, however, for that same corner will
bring at the present time not less than $500,000. At his death he left an
estate valued at between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000.
Fortunes were made over night. In 1835 the Federal Government opened a land
office, and this intensified the excitement. Boundless acres of outlying
farmland changed hands in Chicago. Towns and cities that had no existence
save on the blue prints of imaginative and wily promoters were plotted, and
their mythical blocks sold to hasty and credulous investors. But the panic
of 1837 brought both legitimate and illicit real-estate traffic to a close
with a crash. The dishonest and the defrauded went down in a common ruin.
By 1838 the sheriff was the only real-estate agent who could dispose of
property, and at these forced sales the returns were meager. Panic
paralyzing business, a mysterious disease like Asiatic cholera stopping
progress on the canal, and a drought destroying crops, impoverishing
streams, and spreading devastating fever in the city, was the calamitous
record of 1838.
Chicago as a city began with $1993 in its treasury. The need for municipal
improvement was imperative. Where to get money for sanitary drainage, for
the paving of a few streets, and the purchase of two fire engines, was a
problem. The Common Council appointed a finance committee with power to
act.
[Illustration STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN BY ST. GAUDENS.]
Peter Bolles was made chairman. It was finally decided to borrow $25,000
from the State Bank of Illinois, pledging the city to redeem the obligation
in five years. In due time the committee submitted as its report the
following letter:
"STATE BANK OF ILLINOIS,
"SPRINGFIELD, May 31, 1837.
"PETER BOLLES, ESQ.,
"_Dear Sir_:
"Your letter of the 18th, addressed to the president of this
bank and proposing on behalf of the city of Chicago a loan
from this bank of the sum of $25,000, has been laid before the
directors of the bank, and, I regret to have to state,
declined.
"I am very respectfully,
"Your o'bt serv't,
"N.H. RIDGELY, Cashier."
In 1900 the city which sixty-three years before could not borrow $25,000,
could boast of bank clearances amounting to $6,795,876,000.
The poverty and disasters of early days seemed only to nerve the city to
renewed determination and prepare her to meet with stoic faith the
appalling calamities of later years. In this résumé it is only possible to
catalogue the misfortunes that visited her. Floods swept away her shipping,
fire destroyed her accumulating industries, raging epidemics reduced her
population--cholera alone in 1854 causing 1424 deaths--and financial panic
again and again returned to manacle activities. Many times in Chicago's
history citizens could well exclaim: "One woe upon another's heels doth
tread, so fast they follow!"
Unconquerable in the presence of these recurrent visitations, the city
pressed forward to her place as the metropolis of the Mississippi empire.
At an early day "prairie schooners," pioneers of the great freight trains
to come, laden with grain from the fertile areas round about began to line
the prairie roads leading to Chicago. In 1839, two years after the city
was begun, a crude grain elevator was constructed. The farmers, too poor to
furnish sacks, brought their grain in sheets, blankets, and pieces of
canvas. It was hoisted by hand with block and tackle to the elevator, and
in the year mentioned 2900 bushels of wheat, consigned to Black Rock, New
York, were dumped loose into the hold of the brig _Osceola_. From this
primitive beginning has grown a mighty volume of trade in grain. In 1900
the wheat, corn, oats, rye, and barley shipped from Chicago amounted to
232,267,109 bushels, while the receipts aggregated 307,723,135 bushels.
It was not until 1843 that the Common Council came to the conclusion that
the place was sufficiently advanced as a city to warrant the enactment of
an ordinance declaring that hogs should no longer be permitted to run at
large in the streets. In 1900, far from being unwelcome, over 8,000,000
hogs, safely penned in cars, arrived in the city and were sent to the
slaughter.
In writing of Chicago it is customary to deal in superlatives, and this is
necessary in the nature of things. Its Union Stock Yards cover 400 acres,
nearly twice the area of the original town. Twenty miles of streets
thread this meat-packing colony, which pays wages amounting to nearly
$9,000,000 a year. In 1900 there were shipped to Chicago 277,205 carloads
of hogs, cattle, sheep, etc. Its trade in grain leads every city in the
world, while its general mercantile traffic is surpassed by few.
The first railroad at that time was the Galena and Chicago Union, which was
chartered January 16, 1836. Galena at that time was believed to be destined
far to outrival her neighbor, and therefore demanded and secured the place
of honor in the title of the road. To-day thirty-nine distinct railroads
enter Chicago, more than half the railway systems of America make that city
their objective point, and the aggregate distance travelled by freight and
passenger trains daily entering the metropolis is over 80,000 miles. In the
thunder of this traffic the clamor of rivalry long since died away. The
British critic, Mr. Archer, remarked that he was unable to detect the
slightest evidence of competition with Chicago even in a "Pisgah view from
the top of the Auditorium."
The employment of large adjectives in the recital of the city's history is
not without warrant. "The trouble with you people in Chicago," remarked a
visitor, "is that you exaggerate too much." "We have to," retorted a
citizen, proudly, "in fact we have to lie to tell the truth." Even when we
speak of the fire of 1871, we must call it the "great Chicago fire," for
never before perhaps in the history of the world were so many of the
piled-up monuments of man's hands consumed so rapidly. Such awful moments,
happily, seldom come in the history of communities. It was as if the fires
of Dante's Inferno had been permitted for a night and day to devastate a
great city of this planet. One thousand four hundred and seventy acres of
buildings were utterly consumed. The entire business portion of the city
vanished in smoke and flame. One hundred thousand persons were left
homeless and in many cases penniless. Seventeen thousand four hundred and
fifty buildings were destroyed, the total valuation of the loss by fire
being $186,000,000.
In the presence of a catastrophe, so vast that the imagination reeled as
the eye wandered over the mighty paths where the cyclones of fire had
swept, social inequalities and race prejudices were ignored. All
right-minded men stood together in a common bond of fellowship. Doubtless
much of the present spirit of amalgamation of the people of the city is an
outgrowth of the calamity which thirty years ago brought the
representatives of those divers races elbow to elbow in the common cause
of rebuilding their homes and reconstructing their lines of industry. The
riots at the Haymarket did not indicate bad blood between the races of the
city, but merely an incidental if not accidental social unrest not uncommon
in all our greater cities.
[Illustration RUINS OF THE GREAT FIRE, CHICAGO.]
The city staggered, but did not fall, under the woful wreck the great fire
wrought. Through a grim schooling of disaster in the past the city had
developed a force of character that fire could not consume. "Nothing,"
exclaimed the great French Cardinal and Premier of the seventeenth century,
when he was temporarily overthrown, "nothing remains but the indomitable
spirit of Richelieu." Chicago had similar faith in her own inherent power.
There were some broken spirits who, gazing on the melancholy ruin, caught
no glimpse of the magnificent city that was to rise, as if by command of a
magician's wand, upon the smoking desolation. But the majority did not
permit the calamity to crush. The faithful were exhorted to rebuild the
city. It was predicted then that Chicago would live, and live to be so
mighty and so vast that the great fire would be but an incident in its
history. The city was to live because beyond it were the giant forces, the
teeming millions, the imperial area of the mighty West, which, having made
Chicago the gateway to the East, would recreate it under the same natural
necessities.
The city's optimistic faith and determination enlisted the sympathy of the
world, and $5,000,000 in relief contributions poured in and thousands of
telegrams offering credit to merchants supplemented this hearty and timely
exhibition of Good Samaritanism. The deeds of valor displayed by firemen
and citizens in fighting an unequal combat with the fire were equalled only
by the heroism which appeared in the rebuilding of the city. The first
structure to rise over the ruins was a board shanty, twelve by sixteen feet
in dimensions. It was on Washington Street, between Dearborn and Clark,
near the site of a former flourishing block, where W.D. Kerfoot had
conducted a large business in real estate. The tiny structure was built
hastily on the morning of October 10th, while the surrounding ashes and
heaps of twisted iron were so hot that the little building had to be set in
the middle of the street. The comical cabin bore the legend, "Kerfoot's
Block. Everything gone but wife, children, and energy." Small as the shanty
was, it was an inspiration. It marked the beginning of a city now so vast
that the municipality existing before the fire seems but a shadow. Through
the city run paved streets whose aggregate length would reach from Chicago
to New York, and start the traveller some distance on his way to Boston.
More than 100,000 street lights, kept "trimmed and burning" by the
municipality at an annual cost of over $1,000,000, twinkle in the city by
night.
Over a quarter of a billion of gallons of water are consumed daily by a
city now protected by an efficient fire department against a repetition of
the disaster of 1871. Nearly 1500 miles of sewers preserve the sanitation,
while the superb ingenuity of engineers has changed the courses and
reversed the currents of rivers, and with connecting canals turned the
city's sewage toward the Gulf of Mexico.
The ambition of this characteristically American city is to excel in
everything. When she undertook to hold a World's Fair, she determined to
eclipse any previous exposition, and to secure a phenomenal attendance.
When she held a Parliament of Religions she arranged that the faiths of
every clime should be represented by their most learned and pious men, and
that the teachings there set forth should constitute a memorable
contribution to the best thought of the world. It has been said of Chicago
that when she decides to be the home of the greatest poet among mankind,
she will go out and get him, or, better still, produce him.
Cities affecting a more advanced culture sniff at the stock-yard atmosphere
which they pretend to believe permeates the literary life of Chicago, and
Eugene Field, in playful mood, accepting the jibes of distant critics,
printed as the frontispiece of his _Culture's Garland_ a wreath of sausage
links; but William D. Howells has acknowledged that out of Chicago is
coming a literary virility destined to leave classic record in the annals
of letters. Field himself occupies an honored place in the American
Pantheon, and his "Little Boy Blue," though dead, forever sings his way to
our firesides.
The city takes high rank as a centre for advanced education. In addition to
technical schools like the Armour Institute, it has two famous
Universities; the Chicago, and the Northwestern. The Chicago University
began its career ten years ago. The old denominational University of the
same name having been sold at auction under foreclosure, John D.
Rockefeller decided to reorganize it and found a great institution of
learning, and to that end pledged a portion of his fortune and secured as
President, Dr. William R. Harper, of Yale. The University opened in 1892
with 702 students. To-day it has nearly 4000. It began with no less than
135 instructors; it now has 205. The University made its start with
grounds, buildings, and equipments valued at $1,600,000, and invested funds
amounting to $1,500,000. To-day its productive funds aggregate over
$15,000,000. Women have been prominent among the University's donors, and
in all the departments women students enjoy equal status with men. A
student may enter at the beginning of any quarter and receive his degree at
the end of any term. The colleges continue throughout the year. Recently
the Chicago Institute, founded by Mrs. Emmons Blaine for training school
teachers, was absorbed by the University. In fact, Dr. Harper has succeeded
in merging so many professional schools that he has been amiably accused
of attempting to form an educational trust. The Northwestern University,
located partly in the city and partly in Evanston, a suburb, was founded in
1851. It has 296 instructors and over 3000 students. Its productive funds
amount to over $3,000,000. Although conducted under denominational
auspices, its charter provides that no particular religious faith shall be
required of students. It has a campus of 45 acres on the Lake Michigan
shore. The University includes a college of Liberal Arts, and schools of
medicine, law, pharmacy, dentistry, music, and theology. Many of the
departments are coeducational.
[Illustration PUBLIC LIBRARY, CHICAGO.]
The public schools of Chicago are crowded with three quarters of a million
children of parents for few of whom "Plato and the swing of Pleiades and
the tall reaches of the peaks of song" had a meaning. And these children of
every kindred and tongue are not herded into classes and indifferently
taught. Modern science assists them from the start with anthropometric
examinations, and scientific methods are in use in every school. There
could be no more hopeful "sign and portent" of the city's future than is
furnished by its public schools.
Voluntarily, by popular vote of the people, civil service was established
in all branches of the city administration, and the principle laid down
that industrious merit rather than political influence should fill the
thousands of positions in the school department and city branches in
general, a graphic illustration that the spoils system is not a Chicago
ideal. Benevolent institutions thrive under the munificent endowment of its
men of wealth. Seers like Professor David Swing have preached the Gospel to
an eager people, thousands on Sunday being turned away, unable to press to
the pews through the multitude of churchgoers. All these phenomena present
the interesting psychological truth that with Chicago's liberty and
cosmopolitan make-up has been developed a reassuring force "making for
righteousness." The city is not yet prepared for canonization, but in many
ways it is, in its largeness of life and tolerance, an example to the
cities of the world. She is still apt, perhaps, in speaking, for example,
of her art galleries to dwell overmuch upon the cost of the buildings and
paintings and the number of acres.
The unprejudiced critic or historian knows that not all Chicago is pork and
pig-iron, though why these industries are not as honorable as poetry and
prose, perhaps they who sit in the seat of the scornful will explain.
Booker T. Washington well says that a people cannot be truly great until
they recognize that it is as dignified to till the soil as it is to pen an
epic, and in the same line of thought it might be said that a people who
"live laborious days" packing meat and handling lumber, particularly by the
thousand carloads, are not necessarily belated travellers on the highway
that leads to national integrity and renown.
In wealth, in population, in the high character and eager attendance in her
great schools, in libraries, art, and architecture, as evidenced by
institutes, buildings, and academies of design, in her letters, as
displayed by the literary output, in her spiritual conquests, as shown in
the teachings of her poets and preachers, and even in the periodical
reforms that purify the political atmosphere, Chicago's future will
undoubtedly be, like her past, phenomenal.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[10] Among the Sacs, "Checagau" was the name of one of their
valiant warriors and colonizers, and meant "He that stands by the tree."
Among the several tribes of the Algonquin group "Chekago," "Chicagong,"
etc., was pronounced in a variety of ways and had as many meanings.
[Illustration]
MADISON
THE CITY OF THE FOUR LAKES
BY REUBEN G. THWAITES
In 1836, that portion of Michigan Territory which lay west of Lake
Michigan, was erected into the Territory of Wisconsin. Within the borders
of the nascent commonwealth there lived at that time about twelve thousand
whites and nine thousand Indians. Many of the sites of future cities of
Wisconsin were already occupied by agricultural settlers, isolated or in
tiny groups.
Green Bay, a straggling French-Canadian settlement, had come down from the
seventeenth century, maintaining a sickly existence upon the fur trade and
the coasting traffic of the upper Great Lakes; Forts Winnebago (at Portage)
and Crawford (at Prairie du Chien) were surrounded by meagre hamlets,
chiefly of French creoles; the lead-mining region in the southwest,
although sparsely settled, contained the bulk of the white population, with
Mineral Point as its centre--a village having at the time an apparently
brighter prospect than the new settlement at the mouth of Milwaukee River;
there were also a few notches carved, at wide intervals, from the gloomy
forest bordering the western shore of Lake Michigan. Outside of the
settlements just enumerated, Wisconsin was practically uninhabited by
whites. Here and there was to be found an Indian trader, the Yankee
successor of the _coureur de bois_ of the old French _régime_, or some
exceptionally adventurous farmer; but their far-separated cabins only
emphasized the density of the wilderness, through which roamed untrammelled
the shiftless, gipsy-like aborigines,--the comparatively harmless
Chippewas, Menomonies, Pottawatomies and Winnebagoes.
[Illustration THE STATE HOUSE, MADISON.]
On the 4th of July the territorial officers of Wisconsin qualified at
Mineral Point, with Henry Dodge, a Black Hawk War hero, as Governor. In
October following, the first Legislature assembled within a two-story
battlement-fronted house in the little lead-region hamlet of Belmont. The
highway which it faced bristled with stumps, while miners' shafts and
prospectors' holes thickly dimpled the shanty neighborhood. A month was
spent in selecting a capital for the infant Territory. There were seventeen
applicants. Some of them were actual settlements, like Green Bay, Fond du
Lac, Milwaukee, Racine, Portage, Belmont, Mineral Point, and Platteville;
but others were "paper towns," existing only on maps made by real-estate
speculators. Of such shadowy substance was Madison, the victor.
James Duane Doty, who had been United States Circuit Judge for the country
west of Lake Michigan, had formed a town-site partnership with Stevens T.
Mason, then Governor of Michigan Territory. These gentlemen preempted
several tracts of government land at presumably desirable spots in the
wilderness. Doty advanced the respective claims of these tracts, giving
them maps and attractive names. His favorite was an undulating isthmus
between Lakes Monona and Mendota,[11] in the heart of Southern Wisconsin,
midway between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. This claimant he
named "Madison," after the third President of the United States.
It was freely alleged at the time that Doty presented choice lots in
Madison to his legislative friends. However this may be, the ostensible
arguments produced were: that the chief centres of settlement in the
northeast (Green Bay), the southeast (Milwaukee), and the southwest (the
lead region) were so widely separated and had such divergent interests that
to select one would alienate the others and make it impossible to
harmoniously conduct the territorial government; again, that to build up
one corner of the Territory at the expense of the others would unequally
distribute the population; it was also urged that the unsettled central
portion of the Territory needed the incentive to growth which the capital
would give it; and lastly, Doty, the only man in Belmont that winter who
seems to have known Madison, declared the site to be the most beautiful
spot in the Wisconsin forest. And thus Madison won.
Beyond the understanding that the centre of the Capitol Park was to be the
common corner of four sections of land which met near the middle of the
isthmus, there had as yet been no thought of how this projected town in the
woods should be laid out. A French half-breed, Olivier Armel, who had a
temporary trading shanty on the tract, half brush and half canvas, was the
only man whom the surveyor found when he arrived in a blinding snowstorm
in February (1837) to set the stakes in this virgin wilderness for the
future State House of Wisconsin. The streets of the town were laid out, so
far as possible, upon the lines of the national capital: wide avenues
radiating from the Capitol Park upon the points of the compass were
bisected by other highways paralleling the shores of the two principal
lakes. For names of the thoroughfares, the patriotic surveyor had recourse
to the list of signatures to the federal Constitution, probably the only
instance of a city's streets being exclusively named from this venerable
body of lawgivers.
The first dwelling in Madison was a log house built in April by one Eben
Peck, for the entertainment of the mechanics who were expected out from
Milwaukee to construct the State House. It was June 10th before the
building commissioner and his thirty-six workmen put in an appearance,
after a toilsome overland journey of ten days through rain and mud, with no
roads, and unbridged rivers which had either to be forded or swam. On the
4th of July the conerstone was laid "with appropriate toasts and speeches"
by a small knot of territorial officials.
[Illustration THE FIRST EXECUTIVE RESIDENCE (STILL STANDING) IN USE BY
GOVERNOR DOTY.]
It was January, 1839, before the territorial Legislature could be
accommodated at Madison; and even then the situation brought little
comfort. Says a pioneer of those days: "With the session came crowds of
people. The public houses were literally crammed--shakedowns were looked
upon as a luxury, and lucky was the guest whose fortune it was to rest his
weary limbs on a straw or hay mattress."
The little village was charmingly situated in the primeval forest. One of
Madison's early teachers thus wrote of the hamlet of his young manhood:
"Those who only know of Madison now, have but a feeble
conception of its wonderful and fascinating beauty at the
beginning. In 1839 it had the look of a well-kept lawn, shaded
by fine white-oak and burr-oak trees, with a fragrant fringe of
red cedar all about the lake shores. There was then no
underbrush and thicket such as sprung up soon, when the
semi-annual fires ceased to do the duty of the rake and mower;
but the eye had a stretch quite uninterrupted, except as the
surface rose in beautiful green knolls on either lake. The
lakes then lay in natural silver beauty, prettily framed in
pebbly beach. For simple, quiet beauty, Madison in 1839 was
unequalled by anything I remember."
Despite its natural attractiveness, and its presumably favorable location,
Madison was a plant of slow growth. In the summer of 1838 the census
revealed the presence here of only sixty-two people, and it is recorded
that there were at that time "not more than a dozen houses, built and in
process of erection, counting every cabin and shanty within three miles of
the Capitol," while Indian wigwams were frequently set up within sight of
the doors. Four years later there were but 172 people, and in 1846 but 632.
By the close of 1850, however, the population had, largely as the result of
a mild "boom" in that year, grown to 1672. Five years later Horace Greeley
and Bayard Taylor paid the place a visit, and in letters to the New York
_Tribune_ highly extolled its beauties. As a result there was an almost
immediate increase of population and a considerable advance in the price of
real estate; so that at the outbreak of the Civil War there were 7000
Madisonians.
[Illustration PROFILE ROCK ON LAKE MENDOTA.]
Notwithstanding the general prevalence of financial stringency, Madison
prospered during the war. The State's troops were largely mobilized here,
and constantly enlivened the streets; a great deal of money was necessarily
spent by the State and nation for supplies and salaries, as well as by the
soldiers themselves, so that throughout it all the town grew substantially.
In 1870 there were 10,000 citizens, but the next decade only slightly
advanced this census. About 1882, however, a variety of causes led to the
commencement of a stronger growth--chiefly the rapid development of the
State University, the expansion of the State's administrative affairs, the
bettering of railroad facilities, and an enlargement of local manufacturing
interests. During the past eighteen years there has been a steady gain,
with every indication of permanency; the census of 1900 revealed the
presence at the Wisconsin capital of 20,000 residents, while an additional
5000 dwell in closely abutting suburbs.
Frequent attempts to remove the capital to Milwaukee were long a potent
factor in retarding the development of Madison. In 1870 the effort was
nearly successful. The fact, however, that the State had by this time
invested large sums of money in public buildings in and around Madison,
particularly in the State University,--which institution must, by the terms
of the constitution, be situated "at or near the seat of State
government,"--has of late years cooled the ardor of advocates of removal,
so that no fear of renewed agitation is now entertained.
In the early annals of this peaceful little city in the undulating oak
grove between Monona and Mendota,--surrounded on every hand by
far-stretching lakes and marshes, and thus in a measure isolated from her
rural neighbors,--the historian finds little of stirring interest; and that
little almost always the reflex of the Legislature, which annually until
1882, when the sessions were made biennial, came and went with much bustle
and sometimes brawl. The legislative sessions were, in ante-bellum days,
the events of the year, and attracted prominent men from all quarters of
Wisconsin. The crude hotels were filled each winter with legislators,
lobbyists and visiting politicians. The humors of the time were often
uncouth. There was a deal of horse-play, hard drinking, and profanity, and
occasionally a personal encounter during the heat of discussion: as in
1842, when Charles C.P. Arndt, of Brown, was killed on the floor of the
council chamber by his fellow-member, James R. Vineyard, of Grant, an
event to which Dickens alluded in his _American Notes_, and which gained
for Wisconsin an unenviable notoriety the country over. But an undercurrent
of good nature was generally observable, and strong attachments were more
frequently noticeable than feuds.
[Illustration VIEW OF MADISON ACROSS LAKE MONONA.]
Dancing and miscellaneous merry-making were the order of the times, and
society at the capital was, from the first, thought to be fashionable. Even
when the Legislature was not in session, Madison long remained the social
as well as the political centre of Wisconsin, and overland travellers
between the outlying settlements on the shores of the Mississippi and Lake
Michigan or Green Bay were wont to tarry here upon their way. Several of
them have left us, in journals and in letters, pleasing descriptions of
their reception by the good-natured inhabitants, and the impressions made
on them by the natural attractions of this beauty-spot.
In 1856, Madison was the scene of political excitement of a serious
character. William Barstow (Democrat) claimed to have been reelected
Governor over Coles Bashford (Republican), by 157 majority. The Democrats
controlled the State board of canvassers, and the Republicans claimed that
this board had tampered with the returns. Upon January 27th both Barstow
and Bashford took the oath of office, but the former and his friends
continued to hold the State House. The State Supreme Court was called upon
by Bashford, in a _quo warranto_ suit, to oust the incumbent and give the
office of Governor to the relator. Thus commenced the most celebrated case
ever tried by this bench. This was the first time in the history of the
United States that a State court had been called upon to decide as to the
right of a Governor to hold his seat. Its jurisdiction was questioned by
Barstow's attorneys. The contest waged fiercely for some weeks, with
eminent counsel on both sides, the court at last holding that it had
jurisdiction. The court then proceeded with its inquiry, and March 24th
declared that Bashford had received a majority of 1009. A few days before
this Barstow had resigned, and Lieutenant-Governor McArthur was holding the
office by virtue of the constitution. McArthur was defiant, and announced
his determination to hold the post at all hazards. But the court promptly
ruled that Barstow's title being worthless, McArthur could not, of course,
succeed to it.
Throughout this long contest, it may well be imagined that popular
excitement in and around Madison ran high. The respective bands of
partisans were armed and drilling, in anticipation of a desperate
encounter. It would have taken small provocation to ignite this tinder-box,
but the management on both sides was judicious; and although the opposing
forces had frequent quarrels, and made numerous and vigorous threats of
violence, no blows were struck. Upon the day after the court's decision
Bashford and a bodyguard advanced through corridors crowded with his
followers, to McArthur's office, and, showing his writ, quietly announced
that he would henceforth take charge of State affairs. McArthur hesitated,
but a glance at the threatening crowd induced him to retire hurriedly
through the door. The friends of Bashford cheered in triumph, and then
poured into the office to congratulate the new Governor.
As has been previously stated, the corner-stone of the old territorial
State House was laid July 4, 1837. The building cost about $60,000. An old
engraving of the structure, which we herewith reproduce, shows that it was
of the then prevalent Americanized-Greek style of which there are still
remaining a few examples, chiefly in the Southern States; contemporary
accounts agree that it was rather superior in character to most of the
Western capitols of sixty years ago. In 1857, the Legislature authorized
the enlargement of the capitol. This "enlargement" was but nominal; the
plans developed into a new building on the site of the old, to cost
somewhat over half a million dollars. Lack of funds because of the Civil
War caused the work to proceed slowly, so that it was 1870 before the dome
of the new State House was completed. In 1882, two new transverse wings
were provided for. Thus the total cost of the present capitol and the
development of the surrounding park has been about $900,000. The building
is, however, now sadly behind the times in respect of light, ventilation
and sanitary conveniences, and there is some thought of a new State House
which shall be more nearly worthy of a rich and fast-growing commonwealth
of over two millions of people.
[Illustration THE FIRST STATE HOUSE, MADISON.]
The University of Wisconsin was incorporated under an act of Legislature
approved the 26th day of July, 1848; but it was the 16th of January, 1850,
before the first chancellor was inaugurated, and the 5th of February before
the doors were opened for the reception of pupils. During the first twenty
years of its existence, the institution was beset with vicissitudes, and
obliged to battle against popular indifference and even opposition. The
congressional land grants which were designed to create a fund for its
endowment were recklessly disposed of by the legislatures of the 50's,
avowedly to encourage speedy settlement of the State, under the plea that
when the commonwealth became well populated it would be rich enough to
support the University by taxation; it was also maintained that pioneers
had little need for or patience with higher education. Gradually, the
University gained recognition as the logical head of the educational system
of the State; and at last, after a half-century of growth, it has developed
from a rustic academy of twenty students into an institution of national
reputation, with a talented faculty giving instruction to nearly 3000
students, assembled from many States and countries.
[Illustration MADISON FROM THE STATE HOUSE SHOWING UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS IN
THE DISTANCE.]
[Illustration PROFESSOR WILLIAM FRANCIS ALLEN.]
The University is admirably situated, chiefly upon two hills lying a mile
to the west of the State House and commanding wide views of the surrounding
country. The grounds comprise about 350 acres of hill and plain, the
western half of which is occupied by the buildings and experimental farm of
the College of Agriculture. Mendota, the largest and most beautiful of the
chain of lakes, lies directly to the north, its attractive shores often
rising into steep bluffs, surmounted by summer cottages, or swelling into
distant hills besprinkled with prosperous farmsteads, while the towers and
chimneys of the State Hospital for the Insane fret the sky-line beyond the
farthest bay. A broad straight avenue leads directly eastward to the ridge
crowned by the white dome of the State House; while to the south the view
ordinarily ends with the silvery expanse of Lake Monona, glistening through
the trees, but when the foliage has thinned, the southern horizon is
sufficiently extended, both from town and university vantage-points, to
comprise the far-off waters of Lake Waubesa. The outlook from University
Hill, over-topping the tree-embowered town, which spreads gracefully, with
up-thrust tower and dome and steeple, over Monona Ridge, is, particularly
upon a moonlit night in summer, one of the most charming in America; while
from Observatory Hill, just westward, one obtains a widely extended view of
lakes and forest and purple hills which, especially under the glow of
sunset, has won the unstinted plaudits of competent critics, some of whom
have likened it to Old World scenes far-famed in song and story.
Few of the buildings of the State University are architecturally worthy of
mention here. The original structures were North and South Halls, mere
four-story stone boxes. The Doric University Hall, surmounting University
Hill, and one of the early buildings, has of recent years been greatly
improved and extended, and now has some dignity of outline as well as
historic association. The new Engineering Building, in gray brick, is
pleasing in form and color; Science Hall and the Gymnasium, great piles of
staring red brick, are conspicuous examples of the average college
buildings of our day; while the best one can say of the old Library Hall,
Chemical Building, Machine Shop, and Chadbourne Hall (the women's
dormitory) is that they will continue to serve a useful purpose until the
day when the State feels inclined to replace them with creditable
structures. Upon Observatory Hill is the dignified Washburn Observatory,
and upon the western slope the growing mass of buildings appertaining to
the State Experimental Farm maintained by the College of Agriculture.
[Illustration UNIVERSITY HALL, STATE UNIVERSITY.]
At the eastern (townward) front of University Hill, and occupying land once
a part of the campus, a building has of late been reared by the
commonwealth which not only is far better than any of the University
structures, but quite outranks in dignity and thoroughness of modern
construction and equipment all other buildings owned by the State of
Wisconsin. This is the home of the library and museum of the State
Historical Society. The University library and its accompanying seminary
rooms for advanced study, each with its special library, occupy quarters
here, but the building itself is administered by the society, which serves
as the trustee of the State. Built in the Italian Doric order, of Bedford
sandstone, the State Historical Library Building is massive, dignified, and
graceful, a worthy housing for one of the most important reference
libraries in America. The Wisconsin Historical Society[12] has long ceased
to be merely a feature of Madison or of Wisconsin; it is to-day regarded as
one of the foremost institutions of this character in the country--its
splendid library of 235,000 volumes being one of the finest collections of
Americana extant, rich in maps and manuscripts as well as books; and its
publications rank with those of the similar societies of Massachusetts, New
York, and Pennsylvania.
[Illustration STATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY BUILDING.]
Madison is fortunate in her elementary and secondary public schools as well
as in possessing the State University; while several admirable private and
denominational schools have found it desirable to settle here, under the
wing of the great group of State colleges. As is becoming in an educational
centre, much attention is here paid to church life. The large congregations
have been careful to select for their pulpits men of prominence and
ability, fitted to attract the student mind; and the Christian associations
connected with the State University are conducted upon a high plane of
usefulness.
In Madison there dwell three well-accentuated classes of inhabitants: those
relying upon trade and industry, the State and federal officials, and the
university element, each of them growing in numbers and importance. There
is, however, far less differentiation of interests and aspirations than is
commonly seen in college towns. It has for many years been the continual
aim of several influential clubs, notably the Woman's, the Literary, the
Contemporary, the Six O'clock, and the Town and Gown,--in which both
"townfolk" and "gown folk" freely commingle,--to break down the usual class
barriers. The result is that college men coming to Madison from other
institutions find here few of the sharp social distinctions to which they
have elsewhere become accustomed.
But while town and gown are practically one in Madison, the official class
has not until of late been conspicuous in her social life. The brevity of
political tenure, rendering the permanent inhabitants in a measure
indifferent to the "come-and-goes," has doubtless had much to do with
this; while a contributory element has been the fact that many State
officials, finding the cost of living at the capital somewhat higher than
in the small interior towns, have heretofore left their families at home.
With the new statute prohibiting public employés from using railroad
passes, transportation to and from home now forms an important item of
expense to the office holder, and a large proportion of them are moving
their families to the seat of government. It is fair to predict that,
through the influence of the clubs, which have recently taken upon
themselves the payment of social courtesies to the official class, these
barriers may in turn be removed, as they have between town and gown.
[Illustration GENERAL LUCIUS FAIRCHILD EX-MINISTER TO SPAIN.]
The native American element in Madison is chiefly from New York State, with
a large sprinkling of New Englanders, especially from Vermont. Perhaps one
third of the 25,000 people in this community are of German parentage, and
there is a considerable and influential Scandinavian element, mostly
Norwegian; numerous other nationalities there are, but these are the most
conspicuous. Despite this large foreign contingent, however, and the
cosmopolitan tone of university society, the strong flavor of Vermont and
New York, originally given to this community in the days before the Civil
War, is still the dominant characteristic in the social life of Madison.
Many discriminating visitors frequently in their hours of first
impressions, liken her to a staid New England college town; while others
revert to some demure hill-town of Western New York for the type which best
describes the social side of this city of the Wisconsin lakes.
The railroad facilities of Madison are undoubtedly remarkable for a town of
its size; these are attracting wholesale houses and warehousemen, and new
factories are talked of. The existing industries employ some fifteen
hundred men. The schools, the university, the unusual library facilities
and the beauty and healthfulness of the town bring to it an ever-increasing
accession of cultured people with moderate fixed incomes. Summer visitors
from St. Louis, New Orleans, and other southern cities of the Mississippi
Valley are encouraged to come to the Four Lakes. The comfort of the
inhabitants is greatly enhanced by a system of macadamized streets which is
relatively the best in Wisconsin; and there is also maintained, by popular
subscription, a labyrinth of twenty-five miles of suburban drives,
enriched by the art of the landscape gardener, and leading to favorite
view-points. A "Forty Thousand Club" is strenuously seeking to exploit and
double the material interests of the town, within the present decade. But
when all is said, Madison's distinguishing characteristics, as well as her
neighborhood gossip, will probably long remain such as properly pertain to
the political and educational centre of a rapidly developing commonwealth.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[11] The Indian names now given to the lakes of this region are modern
appellations; originally they were numbered First, Second, Third, and
Fourth as they progressed towards the source--the order in which they were
encountered by the federal surveyors in ascending the Catfish, a branch of
Rock River, and the outlet of the lakes. Their present names, adopted in
1856, are Kegonsa, Waubesa, Monona, and Mendota, respectively.
[12] The author has, of course, omitted to say what many of his readers
understand, that as secretary he has had a large share in giving the
Wisconsin Historical Society its conspicuous position in the public
mind.--EDITOR.
[Illustration]
MINNEAPOLIS--ST. PAUL
THE TWIN CITIES
BY CHARLES B. ELLIOTT
"We are citizens of two fair cities," said a Genoese gentleman
to a Florentine artist, "and if I were not a Genoese I should
wish to be a Florentine." "And I," replied the artist, "if I
were not Florentine--" "You would wish to be a Genoese," said
the other. "No," replied the artist, "I should wish to be
Florentine."
Within a circle with a radius of ten miles, enclosing the Falls of St.
Anthony, are two modern cities with a population of almost four hundred
thousand. The pioneer settler died a few months ago and the first child
born there is now but passing middle life. And yet a little more than half
a century after the landing of the Pilgrims the cross of Christ and the
arms of France were carved on an oak tree which stood on the site of the
present city of Minneapolis.
In the summer of 1680 Louis Hennepin, a Recollet monk, in company with
Michael Accault and a Picard named Du Gay first explored the Upper
Mississippi. Hennepin wrote a famous description of his travels, and gave
the name to the falls he had discovered. But La Salle, Hennepin's
fellow-voyager across the Atlantic, was the first to write a description of
the Falls of St. Anthony, from information which must have been furnished
by one of Hennepin's party.
[Illustration THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY ABOUT 1850.]
For almost a century after Hennepin no white man visited the Falls of St.
Anthony. In 1776, Captain Jonathan Carver, of Connecticut, started on an
exploring expedition, to the Northwest and reached the falls about the
middle of November. Carver made the first picture of the falls and gives an
accurate description, from which it appears that the island which is now
many feet below the waterfall was then in its midst. Carver greatly
appreciated the beauty of the country, but, like Hennepin, passed away
leaving only his description and his picture. The War of the Revolution
came and left no trace on the Northwest. At its close the sovereignty of
France and of the new nation which had been born into the world faced each
other on the banks of the Mississippi. In 1803 the west as well as the east
bank became part of the domain of the United States. But the inhabitants
knew nothing of the change until Captain Zebulon M. Pike, of the army, came
to put an end to alleged improper transactions on the part of certain
British traders. On an island a few miles below the falls Pike held a
council with the Sioux and signed a treaty which extinguished the Indian
title to a tract of land extending nine miles on each side of the river
north from the mouth of the Minnesota River, and including the Falls of St.
Anthony. Twelve years later Major Long, with two grandsons of Carver,
ascended the river from St. Louis in a six-oared skiff, and wrote that "the
murmuring of the cascade, the roaring of the river and the thunder of the
cataract all contribute to render the scene the most interesting and
magnificent of any I ever before witnessed."
About 1811 the philanthropic Earl of Selkirk attempted to establish a
colony in the Red River Valley. Six years later it was threatened by
starvation. The noble Earl then visited the country, and his presence
caused so much disquietude in the breasts of the Indian agents that,
fearing improper foreign influence over the Indians, they induced the
Government to establish a military post in the country. In August, 1819,
Colonel Leavenworth, with ninety-eight soldiers of the Fifth Infantry,
pitched their tents near the mouth of the Minnesota River, about eight
miles below the falls. A year later, Colonel Snelling, who had succeeded to
the command, built the fort on the bluff where it now stands, and gave it
the name of Fort St. Anthony. In 1824 General Scott suggested to the War
Department the propriety of changing the name of the fort to that of one
whose services to the country had been more conspicuous than those of
Father Hennepin's patron saint.
[Illustration TOWER AT FORT SNELLING. THE ORIGINAL "FORT" NOW USED AS A
GUARD-HOUSE.]
In 1821 the soldiers built a mill on the west side of the river, near where
now stands one of the greatest flouring mills in the world. The fort was,
of course, the centre of what life there was in the country, and its people
occasionally came into contact with the great world beyond. In 1826 the
Indian agent, Major Taliafero, officiated at the marriage of the slave,
Dred Scott, who was destined to play a part in history doubtless out of all
proportion to his expectations. Colonel Snelling's son Joseph was something
of a _littérateur_, and, after fighting a duel with a young officer, he
became involved in a more savage, although less bloody, contest with N.P.
Willis.
The land about the falls was a military reservation and therefore not open
to settlement. As early as 1837 a Swiss watchmaker by the name of Perry
attempted to settle there, but was driven off by the soldiers. Going a few
miles down the river, he became in 1838, the first settler upon the present
site of the city of St. Paul. His only competitor for this honor is a
certain one-eyed personage of evil disposition and unattractive appearance
whose true name was Parrant, but who became known to fame as Pig's Eye.
With an eye to the advantages of the liquor business, Parrant located his
claim beyond the limits of the reservation and near the river, where it
became a flourishing resort for soldiers, Indians, and other frontier
characters. It was the head of navigation on the river and entered into
competition with the neighboring village of Stillwater for the proud
position of the metropolis of the Territory. A town near by was surveyed in
1847 and during the following two years, as we are credibly informed by a
local historian, "maturative and creative influence, slowly but surely
tended towards civilization." From the same source we learn that in 1848
"the _nuclei_ of civilization" consisted of a church, a school, and a
hotel,--surely not a bad beginning. The history of the modern city properly
begins in 1848, when Minnesota was organized as a territory with St. Paul
as the provisional capital. The territorial government was organized with
Alexander Ramsey (afterwards Governor of the State, Senator, and Secretary
of War) as Governor, and duly proclaimed on June 1, 1848. The enabling act
named St. Paul as the temporary capital, but left the people free to choose
at the first general election a permanent place of government.
[Illustration ALEXANDER RAMSEY.]
In the meantime, a rival town had grown up at the east end of the Falls of
St. Anthony, and the long struggle for supremacy began with the selection
of a permanent capital. The Indian title to the lands was extinguished in
1838, but two years earlier the commandant at the fort, Major Plympton,
availed himself of his superior facilities and staked out a claim and built
a cabin near the east end of the falls. Other claims were located soon
after, all of which ultimately became the property of Franklin Steele and
Pierre Bottineau, names famous in the early history of the locality. Early
in 1847 there were about fifty people in the village, but in that year the
van of "that great army which is moving yet but never stopping" began to
arrive.
In 1848 three hundred people were on the ground, and the two towns of St.
Anthony City and St. Anthony were duly surveyed and launched upon the
market. In the same year it is interesting to find the names of Robert
Rantoul and Caleb Cushing, famous statesmen of the day, among the
purchasers of a nine-tenths interest in the east-side water power. During
this year both the villages of St. Anthony and St. Paul were thriving under
the impulse given by the organization of a regular government. St. Anthony
now obtained a post-office, established a library association with two
hundred books on its shelves, and indulged in a lecture course by local
talent. St. Paul became the capital, but the controversy was not finally
settled until 1872, when a compromise was effected by the permanent
location of the State University at Minneapolis. The growth of the two
villages during the next decade was very rapid. In 1855 Laurence Oliphant,
diplomat and traveller, came down the river in a canoe and wrote
interesting descriptions of St. Anthony and St. Paul and uncomplimentary
notices of the people to _Blackwood's Magazine_. He was charmed with the
falls and the "comfortable, civilized aspect of the town," which was then
becoming known as a "watering place." Hotel manners in the capital city
were not satisfactory, but the opinions of England and the Crimean War
expressed by prominent citizens in the free and easy vernacular of the
frontier made good reading.
In the meantime another village had grown up on the west side of the falls.
In 1849 the old government mill, the little house a few yards back and two
cabins built by missionaries on the banks of Lake Calhoun were the only
buildings on the west side of the river. In that year Robert Smith, a
member of Congress from Illinois, through some means best known to himself,
obtained from the War Department the privilege of purchasing the mill and
the house and of making a claim to 160 acres of land. This tract was
carefully selected for the purpose of including the valuable waterpower
rights on the west side. In the same year John H. Stevens, then postmaster
at the fort, also obtained a permit and entered a claim to the land now
covered by the heart of the city. While Smith and Stevens were favored
others were driven from the reservation by the soldiers. Stevens built the
first frame house in Minneapolis, and it now stands in one of the beautiful
parks of the city as an evidence of the antiquity of things. Legal titles
could not be obtained on the west side until 1855, although by that time
more than two hundred houses had been built. In the following year the city
was incorporated, but in 1862 this form of government was abandoned, and
the people lived under a simple township organization until 1867. Five
years later, in 1872, the two cities of St. Anthony and Minneapolis were
consolidated under the name of the City of Minneapolis, which then entered
upon a period of phenomenal growth.
[Illustration COURT HOUSE AND CITY HALL, MINNEAPOLIS.]
We now find two cities in the stress of a rivalry which continued for many
years. The west line of St. Paul soon became the east line of Minneapolis.
The existence of two cities so near together was, as we have seen, due not
to deliberate choice but to circumstances. In early days the fall, with its
abundant waterpower and attractive scenery, was the point about which the
minds of people revolved; it was, however, on the military reservation
acquired by Pike, and settlers were driven to find a foothold farther down
the river but within reach of the fort. There were some difficulties in the
way of navigation to the falls, but these would soon have been removed. St.
Paul was the capital of the State, and thus became the political and
professional centre. In the contest for political honors this supremacy is
still maintained. Its leaders control the politics of the State. Governors
and senators are created in St. Paul and not in Minneapolis. The business
enterprise of St. Paul found vent in building up great wholesale houses and
in the development of railway and general transportation enterprises.
Minneapolis, by reason of its location, became a great manufacturing
centre. The vast pine forests of the north sent millions of logs to its
mills. Around the falls were built the greatest flouring mills in the
world, and its location upon the eastern edge of the great prairies of
Minnesota and Dakota soon made it the primary wheat market of the world.
The commercial and business interests of the two cities thus for a number
of years developed along different and clearly defined lines. The increase
of population is shown by the following table:
Year. St. Paul. Minneapolis. St. Anthony.
1850 1,083 .... 538
1860 10,401 2,564 3,285
1870 20,030 13,066 5,013
1880 41,473 46,887 ....
1890 133,156 164,738 ....
1900 163,632 202,781 ....
The falls was the point at which the early thought and life of Minneapolis
centred, and the foundation of its early business prosperity. Paul Bourget,
in his _Outre Mer_, speaking of the reasons for the location of American
cities, says, "If any feature such as a waterfall permitted factories,
industries were established. Minneapolis had no other origin. The falls of
the Mississippi lent themselves to a series of incomparable mills and this
was the starting-point of one of the future capitals of the world." When
the Government established a fort it took the name of the falls, and the
first town-sites were only distinguishable from each other by the
difference between St. Anthony and St. Anthony City.
[Illustration FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY, DURING HIGH WATER.]
When it was rumored that the waterpower was about to be destroyed,
consternation rested upon the little community. In 1868 the historian
Parkman had written:
"Great changes, however, have taken place here and are still in
progress. The rock is a very soft and friable sandstone,
overlaid by a stratum of limestone; and it is crumbling with
such rapidity under the action of the water that the cataract
will soon be little more than a rapid.[13] Other changes
equally disastrous in the artistic point of view are going on
even more quickly. Beside the falls stands a city which by an
ingenious combination of Greek and Sioux languages received
the name of Minneapolis, the City of the Water, and which in
1867 contained ten thousand inhabitants, two national banks,
and an opera house, while its rival city of St. Anthony,
immediately opposite, boasts a gigantic water cure and the
State University. In short, the great natural beauty of the
place is utterly spoiled."
Minneapolis is essentially a manufacturing city. For many years the
principal industry was the manufacture of lumber, which in its various
forms has now reached great magnitude. The annual output for the five years
prior to 1850 was 1,500,000 feet a year. In 1870 it reached 118,500,000
feet a year; in 1880 it was 195,500,000; in 1890, 300,000,000; in 1900 more
than 500,000,000, and in addition 57,000,000 shingles and 94,000,000 laths.
An army of men is engaged in the work of cutting the logs on the timber
lands of the north. These are driven or floated down the river to the booms
near the mills which line the river in the northern part of the city.
[Illustration THE MILLING DISTRICT.]
The prominence of the city in flour-milling is due to its location and to
the skill and ingenuity of the men who have been engaged in the business.
Minneapolis has passed through three well-defined milling periods. Prior to
1870 the ancient process of grinding wheat between the upper and nether
millstones was in use, which turned into middlings much of the precious
gluten. In 1872 an emigrant French miller named Legroux devised an
apparatus for purifying middlings, and as a result the product became
famous as "Minnesota Patent Flour," and brought pre-eminence and wealth to
the Minnesota millers. A practical monopoly existed until the Eastern
millers discovered that the process could be as well applied to the winter
wheat of Minnesota as to the spring. Then began a new struggle for
pre-eminence. After searching through the world, the Minneapolis millers
discovered in Hungary a process of milling hard wheat which finally
disposed of the ancient millstone and carried the wheat between rolls of
smooth and corrugated surface until, by a process of gradual reduction, the
desired fineness was secured. Foremost in the work of developing this great
industry was the late Charles A. Pillsbury, to whose enterprise the city
is greatly indebted.
At the present time the Minneapolis mills can produce 76,366 barrels of
flour a day, which is the largest daily capacity of any group of mills in
the world. The flour export for 1900 was 4,702,485 barrels. Thus the mills
of Minneapolis, if grinding steadily, could give a loaf of bread every day
to every man, woman, and child in the States of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New
York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and
Maine.
[Illustration PUBLIC LIBRARY, MINNEAPOLIS.]
The conditions in a new and rapidly growing city cannot be properly
understood without careful consideration of such material facts as we have
been considering. But there is yet another story to tell. It is doubtful
whether any cities in the United States of the size contain so many
beautiful pictures and fine libraries. The Minneapolis Public Library is
well known to all interested in library management by reason of the
liberality and novelty of its methods. In the spring of 1859 Bayard Taylor
delivered a lecture in the village and gave the proceeds, less than one
hundred dollars, to a library association, which took the name of the
Minneapolis Atheneum. Later Dr. Kirby Spencer devised to it a fund which
now yields about $8000 each year, for the purchase of books of a certain
designated class and character. The Atheneum was not a public library, but
it was liberally managed by the trustees and the community was enabled to
use it under reasonable restrictions. The trustees finally took the lead in
the establishment of a public library into which the collection of the
Atheneum was merged. The law created a library board with limited powers of
taxation. Public-spirited citizens contributed a valuable site on which
there was erected a building not surpassed by any structure of its kind in
the country for convenience and general efficiency. In addition to the
central building, there are two branch buildings, one erected by the city
and the other presented to the city by ex-Governor John S. Pillsbury, who
had already made his name synonymous with public generosity by his liberal
gifts to the State University. The first librarian was Herbert Putnam,
afterwards of the Boston Public Library, and now the Librarian of the
Congressional Library at Washington. His successor, an eminent scholar, Dr.
James K. Hosmer, has continued building upon the foundation laid by Mr.
Putnam. The system gives to the public a much greater liberty of access to
the books than had been considered safe and desirable in other large
libraries. The plan has been successful and there have been no losses or
injuries to the books which would justify the withdrawal or restriction of
such freedom. The library now contains 113,000 books, and during the past
year the circulation was over 600,000, which was an average of three books
for each inhabitant of the city.
[Illustration OLE BULL MONUMENT IN LORING PARK.]
The picture gallery and school of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts
occupies the third floor of the Library Building. The city owns a number
of good paintings, which it purchased at the sale of the gallery that
formerly belonged to the Exposition Company. Several fine paintings have
been presented to the municipality by Mr. J.J. Hill of St. Paul, whose
wealth has also been used to advance and cultivate the taste for artistic
work in the city of St. Paul. When the collection of casts selected by
General Cesnola for the Metropolitan Museum of Art arrived in New York
before the building was ready, it was promptly purchased by citizens of
Minneapolis, and donated to the Exposition Company, which was then holding
annual exhibits. It is now the property of Mr. T.B. Janney, by whom it has
been placed in the Public Library, and thus for all practical purposes
dedicated to the art education of the people. Mr. Hill in St. Paul and Mr.
T.B. Walker in Minneapolis have private collections which include many
famous and valuable pictures.
A start has been made in the work of beautifying the city and honoring
illustrious citizens by the placing of Fjelde's statue of Ole Bull in
Loring Park and Daniel C. French's statue of ex-Governor John S. Pillsbury
in the grounds of the State University. A law has recently been passed
which provides for the creation of permanent art commissions in St. Paul
and Minneapolis. It is hoped that these bodies will prevent the purchase or
acceptance of unworthy pictures or statues by the municipalities.
In proportion to the population the parks in Minneapolis exceed in acreage
those of any other city in America and of all but three foreign cities.
There are twenty-two parks and parkways, not counting numerous parklets
formed by the intersection of streets. At the present time the park board
controls 1552.81 acres. In the centre of the city lies Loring Park, with
its beautiful lake and well-kept verdure. Starting from this point, Kenwood
Boulevard carries us along a wooded bluffy region from whose heights are
obtained changing views of the Lake of the Isles, which is now entirely
enclosed by a boulevard. A short half-mile south is Lake Calhoun, along the
eastern terrace of which we pass to the borders of Lakewood Cemetery and
thence through Interlaken, rich in the beauty of its wild woods, to the
shores of Lake Harriet and its pavilion. At the south angle of the lake the
boulevard leads off to Minnehaha Creek, which is the outlet of Lake
Minnetonka and flows easterly through a romantic valley until, falling over
the Trenton limestone within a half-mile of the Mississippi, it forms the
romantic Falls of Minnehaha. Around the Falls of Minnehaha there is a park
of one hundred and twenty-five acres, containing a zoological garden and
bordered by the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, which for all æsthetic
purposes is a part of it.
[Illustration LORING PARK--MINNEAPOLIS.]
Another matter of striking interest is the bicycle-path system, which
crosses the city in every direction and extends for miles into the country.
The paths are constructed and sustained by a license tax of fifty cents on
each wheel which uses them. During the past year this tax produced more
than $20,000, all of which was expended in the construction and maintenance
of the paths.
[Illustration THE FALLS OF MINNEHAHA.]
The State University is the crowning feature of the non-commercial
institutions of the city and State. The first class was graduated in 1873,
and ten years thereafter the graduating class numbered thirty-five. Its
great weakness, as of all Western institutions, was the lack of proper
preparatory schools, and President Folwell devised a unique plan by which
the State high schools became feeders for the University. There are now
about 3500 students in the University, making it the second or third
largest in size in the United States. Upon the foundation broadly laid by
the first president of the institution, President Northrup has since 1884
builded until the institution now has a magnificent income and an
equipment second to few in the country.
Another notable feature in connection with the local government in
Minneapolis is her method in dealing with the liquor question. After a
period of controversy an ordinance was passed under which a line was drawn
around the downtown district. Within this patrol limit saloons can exist
upon the payment of a license fee of $1000 a year. As a result, the
residence part of the city is entirely free from the demoralizing influence
of the saloon.
In a general way the difference in population expresses the present
relation between the two cities in other respects. In appearance St. Paul
is more metropolitan than Minneapolis, as it is more compactly built. St.
Paul lies along the side of a steep bluff. It is rugged and diverse and has
the narrow streets and crowded appearance of a large city. From the crest
of the hills, many magnificent residences look down upon the river.
Westwardly the city straggles over the rolling country until it reaches the
Minneapolis line, enclosing in the meantime the State Fair Grounds and
centres of population which were originally separate municipalities, such
as St. Anthony Park, Merriam Park, and Hamline. Minneapolis is built upon
an almost level plain, lying between the river and Lake Calhoun, broken
toward the north by a line of high ground parallel with and a mile west of
the river. Its streets are broad and the houses set well back in ample
grounds. Enclosed grounds are the exception. In St. Paul the fashionable
residences are largely concentrated upon the crest of the bluff, while in
Minneapolis they are scattered in various localities. There is also a
general lack of concentration in the business districts of Minneapolis,
which does not exist in St. Paul.
St. Paul's wholesale trade, if we exclude lumber and flour, is greater than
that of Minneapolis. It is also the head of practical navigation on the
Mississippi and the railway centre of the Northwest, although all trains
reach both cities. The Minneapolis and St. Louis and the "Soo" are the only
railways with headquarters in Minneapolis, while St. Paul is the
headquarters of the Chicago and Great Western and of the great
transcontinental lines, the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern.
The electric street-railway system in both cities is owned by one company,
but the business is conducted in each city under a local management.
There are 150 miles of track in Minneapolis, and 123 in St. Paul. Two busy
interurban lines connect the centres of the two cities. The public-school
systems are of the same general character and stand well the comparison
with those of other cities. St. Paul has many children in the parochial
schools. Her park system is extensive and beautiful and comprises about
1100 acres. The most extensive is Como Park, which lies in the interurban
district and is a popular resort for thousands of people during the summer
months. St. Paul has a large number of successful denominational
educational institutions, such as Macallister College and Hamline
University. The most conspicuous building in the city is the new white
marble capitol now being erected by the State at an expense of over
$3,000,000. The St. Paul Public Library is not equal to that of
Minneapolis, but her citizens have the advantage of the use of the library
of the Minnesota Historical Society, which is the miscellaneous State
library.
[Illustration THE CAPITOL, ST. PAUL.]
A great deal of nonsense has been written about the characteristics of the
people of these two cities. To render the situation more interesting and
romantic all manner of inherent racial and sociological differences have
been invented. Their struggle for supremacy has been described as exceeding
in bitterness the ancient rivalry of Hooks and Kabbeljaws. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The municipal and commercial rivalry was natural
and beneficial, and was ordinarily kept within reasonable bounds. Both
cities bounded upward under the impulse thus given to energy and
enterprise. Each without the other would itself be less. The people are of
the same type,--restless, ambitious empire builders. They have striven
mightily and manfully in business and politics, but mingled amicably in
social intercourse. What differences in character do exist are largely due
to the different race elements which compose the population. If God sifted
three kingdoms to obtain the seeds with which to plant New England, he
resifted New England and the kingdoms for the planting of the Northwest.
The present population is diverse, but the predominant element is the old
Saxon blood.
For purposes of comparison, Ramsey County is St. Paul, and Hennepin County
is Minneapolis. By the State census of 1895, Ramsey County had 147,537
inhabitants, of which 140,292 were in St. Paul; Hennepin County had 217,798
inhabitants, of which 192,833 were in Minneapolis. Bearing this proportion
in mind, the following table, which gives the nativity of the population of
the counties, is of interest:
Ramsey. Hennepin.
Native born 96,486 146,848
England and Canada 7,036 9,646
Ireland 5,468 4,339
Germany 16,593 11,337
France 281 264
Sweden 10,665 22,480
Norway 3,087 12,762
Bohemia 1,245 815
Poland 1,541 1,093
This does not show the number of the descendants of such foreign born
residents now in the counties who are included under the head of native
born. It appears that the percentage of native born is much larger in
Minneapolis than in St. Paul. Thus, Ramsey County with 70,261 less
population, had 1129 more Irish and 5256 more Germans than Hennepin County.
In Hennepin, the Norwegians and Swedes form a large element. St. Paul with
its German and Irish born citizens, is Democratic in politics and strongly
Roman Catholic in religion, while in Minneapolis the Scandinavians and
Republicans predominate. The sons of Maine, Vermont, New York, and Ohio
maintain flourishing societies, but are completely eclipsed by the sons of
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. They are everywhere, in all positions and all
kinds of business, from the highest to the lowest. Coming of the old
Germanic stock, they take to self-government and officeholding as deftly as
the sons of the town meeting. At present it is not a homogeneous people but
an aggregation of all the elements,--a seething cauldron of the races, the
residuum of which we believe will be a type of genuine American
citizenship, broadened and liberalized by the ancestral outlook upon the
world.
[Illustration A CALM EVENING.]
It is fashionable at present to speak lightly of Buckle's theory of the
influence of climate upon the character of a people, but it is certain that
we cannot understand the development of a people unless we know something
of the climatic conditions under which they live. The northwestern climate
is much better than the reputation it succeeded in establishing in the
early days before the blizzard centre moved eastward. While not strictly
like that described in the old hymn,
"December as pleasant as May,"
there are few pleasanter localities in which to spend the entire year. It
is a climate for thinking and doing. Spring and autumn are delightful
beyond the power of description, and the heat of midsummer is tempered by
the myriad lakes which dot the surrounding country. In midwinter the
thermometer takes an occasional downward plunge which sadly disarranges the
record of averages, but for four days out of every five between December
and March the sun shines gloriously through an atmosphere of mountain
brilliancy. Then there is in the air a hidden food of life, upon which has
fed the strenuous race of men which within the short space of one life has
builded two great cities where none were before.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] The prediction was fulfilled the following year, when it became
necessary to construct elaborate works to save the waterpower.
[Illustration]
DES MOINES
IOWA'S CAPITAL CITY
BY FRANK I. HERRIOTT
The beginnings of the city of Des Moines are not shrouded in romance or
shadowy tradition. Thrilling episode and epoch-making events do not abound
in her history. Cannon have never thundered against the gates of the city,
nor hostile armies marched and counter-marched within her environs. Not
even the blood-curdling war-whoop of the Indian ever struck terror into the
hearts of her pioneers. Yet the story of the capital city of Iowa is
neither prosaic nor uninteresting. Her origin and early history typify the
beginnings of civilized life throughout almost the entire State of Iowa;
and since the seat of government was transferred to the city in 1857, her
history is in epitome the history of the great commonwealth of which she is
the capital.
The origin of the city's name is a moot question among antiquarians.
Popular etymology has derived _Des Moines_ from the early associations of
Trappist monks at or near the mouth of the river,--_la rivière des
Moines_: but Dr. Elliot Coues regarded this as spurious etymology. Some
local historians have contended that the name arose from the fact that the
valley of the Des Moines River was inhabited by the Mound Builders:
numerous mounds were found in what is now the heart of the city; hence, the
"river of the mounds." The French explorer Nicollet ascribes its origin to
the Algonquin name _Moingoinan_, and the earliest map showing the journeys
and discoveries of La Salle, Joliet, and Marquette designate the river by
the Algonquin name. In later times the French _voyageurs_ and traders
clipped the word, for we find _Des Moins_, _De Moin_, _De Moyen_, _Demoin_,
_Demoir_ and sometimes _Demon_. The French settlers probably had in mind
the great "middle region" between the Mississippi and the Missouri when
they referred to the _De Moyen_ or _Des Moines_.
[Illustration FORT DES MOINES IN 1844.]
The city of Des Moines was originally a frontier fort. Unlike the majority
of such in the West in early days, this outpost at the "forks of the
Raccoon" was not established to protect the whites from the Indians. On the
contrary, Fort Des Moines was founded to guard the Sac and Fox Indians, to
secure them in the peaceful possession of their hunting-grounds and to
protect them against rapacious land agents, the encroachments of the whites
and the bloody Sioux. And the event was typical of the relations of the
national Government with the Indian tribes of Iowa.
When Iowa became known to the people of the East the tide of emigration
soon began to run high and strong toward the Mississippi. It is not
extravagant to say that never have more beautiful lands been opened for
human settlement than lay beyond the "Father of Waters" in the
hunting-grounds of the Sacs and Foxes. "_Une ravissante contrée_" exclaimed
in 1842 King Louis Philippe's son, Prince de Joinville, as he gazed upon
the gorgeous green of the river bluffs, forests, and valleys, and meadows
and prairies of Iowa. The wonderful stories related of the marvellous
fertility of the soil and the attractiveness of nature in this Western
Mesopotamia gave a tremendous impetus to emigration. But the national
Government firmly held back the tide. The Mississippi was patrolled by
troops to prevent the settlers invading the lands. Colonel Zachary Taylor
and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, both later to achieve great fame, were
among those who guarded the rights of the Iowa Indians and ejected
overzealous frontiersmen and "squatters." But the pressure of population
westward was irresistible; and small pretexts were sufficient to break down
the barriers. The war with the Sacs and Foxes under their great leader,
Black Hawk, came on and by the treaty of 1832, known as the "Black Hawk
Purchase," negotiated by General Winfield Scott, a tract along the
Mississippi fifty miles wide was opened for settlement. This strip was
rapidly populated and in 1836 the Keokuk reserve was ceded to the United
States. In 1837 a large tract adjacent on the west, aggregating 1,250,000
acres, was purchased from the Indians. In a short time the settlers began
to clamor for the opening of the beautiful lands in the Des Moines Valley
and beyond, and to petition Congress; and on October 11, 1842, Governor
John Chambers, the second Territorial governor of Iowa, negotiated a treaty
at Agency City which obtained title to the rest of Iowa. By its terms the
Sacs and Foxes were permitted to remain three years in their beloved
hunting-grounds before their departure for Kansas. It was the latter
provision that led to the establishment of Fort Des Moines.
In May, 1834, a military camp styled Fort Des Moines was established at the
mouth of the river near where Keokuk now is, but abandoned in 1837. As
early as 1835 Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen W. Kearny had been ordered by the
War Department at Washington to "proceed up the river Des Moines to the
Raccoon fork" and reconnoitre with a view to the selection of a military
post. He reported adversely, however, believing that a fort should be
established farther north near the Minnesota line; and nothing was done
until the treaty of 1842 was ratified. Then General Scott, in order to
protect the Indians from molestation by the whites, directed that troops be
stationed near the Agency buildings then located a few miles south and east
of the present city. Captain James Allen of the First Dragoons selected the
"forks of the Raccoon," and in May, 1843, a steamboat came up the Des
Moines River and landed soldiers and supplies. The soldiers set about
building the fort, which, when completed, consisted simply of the officers'
and men's quarters, one-story log huts with puncheon floors, a storehouse,
hospital, and stables, all so arranged as to form a right angle, the sides
of which ran parallel to the banks of the converging rivers, and came to a
point at their junction. There was no stockade, embankment, or outlying
moat on the exposed view or any other protective feature.
[Illustration KEOKUK AT THE AGE OF 67. FROM A DAGUERROTYPE TAKEN IN 1847.]
During the time the fort was garrisoned there were a few whites permitted
to occupy lands near by,--a representative of the American Fur Company,
traders, a tailor, a blacksmith, and gardeners, persons who served the fort
in some way,--but the population never exceeded two hundred, soldiers and
all. Captain Allen and his dragoons had to give all their time to
restraining restless bands of Indians and crowding back the eager settlers
who were on the eastern boundaries of the purchase awaiting the departure
of the Indians. The latter, although they manifested a disinclination to
leave their old haunts, and trouble was anticipated when the order came for
them to move, nevertheless peacefully withdrew under their great chief
Keokuk.
Even before the Indians' title to the lands had expired many whites had
slipped over the borders, dodged the dragoons, spied out the most desirable
places for settlement and determined to claim them as soon as they could be
entered. Many a story is told of men roosting high in trees for days to
keep out of the sight of the troops. On the night of October 10, 1845, men
were stationed in all directions from the fort ready to measure off their
claims. Precisely at twelve o'clock, midnight, a signal gun was fired at
the Agency house. Answering guns rang out sharply in quick succession from
hilltop and valley for miles around. The moon was shining dimly and its
beams ill supplemented the fitful gleams of the settlers' torches as they
hastily made their rough surveys, marked by blazing trees or by setting
stones or stakes. Men helped each other. Two friends would run in two
directions and each fire a gun when the terminus was reached. When the sun
came up a new empire had come into being and the order and industry of the
white man had displaced the listless, unprogressive life of the savage.
The rush of the settlers into the region about Des Moines ahead of the
surveyor's chain led to the development of an institution of peculiar
interest in Western history. Not only was it unique, it was also a striking
instance of the spontaneous growth of an institution of government. It was
almost if not quite the realization under almost ideal conditions of the
theory of Jean Jacques Rousseau that Government arises from and rests on a
Social Compact. It was known as a Land Club or League or Claim Association,
and it played a large part in the organization of government in Iowa. It
overrode the law of the land, or rather it blocked the natural course of
the law; yet at the same time it maintained order and secured under strict
regulations equity for the early settlers when the enforcement of the law
would have worked harsh injustice, and possibly have produced serious
outbreaks against national authority.
When Iowa was first opened for settlement the pioneers could not preempt
lands or secure title to them until they were surveyed; and then only at
public sale. But the surveyor lagged far behind the pioneer, who considered
not the law, but, anxious for a home, hurried into the new tracts and
settled on his claim. The "squatter" had no legal title to his claim, nor
could he obtain it by priority of occupancy; and he knew that any stranger
or speculator with a longer purse string could purchase his land and oust
him and his family the moment the Government should offer it for sale. It
was the likelihood of this dire contingency that led to the formation of
Claim Clubs or Associations in nearly every locality in Iowa. These clubs
were composed of all the settlers in a township or county. They adopted a
constitution, elected officers and conducted their affairs by definite
procedure. They governed all matters relating to the amount and character
of claims, their occupancy, improvement, abandonment, transfers, and
disputes. The decisions of the club were rigidly enforced. Claims were
recorded and the members were under solemn agreement not only to guard each
other from interference but to prevent lands claimed from being sold to
strangers at the public sales. Unhappy was the fate of a man who had the
temerity to "jump" a claim or to outbid a claimant. Tar and feathers or
unceremonious banishment or even harsher treatment was not unlikely. At the
sale the club selected a member who would bid in the members' claims. He
was accompanied by a posse whose presence always prevented outsiders from
bidding as the law contemplated. If the Government officials were not
always in sympathy with the settlers, at least they were always discreet
enough to manifest no disapproval of the proceedings.
These Claim Clubs of Iowa aroused fierce opposition in the East. Calhoun
and Clay denounced them as "conspiracies of lawless men" who so terrorized
would-be purchasers that bona fide sales were impossible, and they urged
that vigorous measures be taken to abate them. Webster came to the
settlers' defence. He pleaded for what he called their "reasonable rights"
under the circumstances. The Government had delayed the surveys; yet the
settlers had been encouraged to go into the new lands and make their homes;
to dispossess them would work severe hardship; the clubs, although outside
the pale of the law, had enforced order and maintained to a marked degree
all the forms of law and government, and violence was extremely rare. To
Webster's eloquence was due the passage of the early preemption laws. They
were not liberal enough, however, and in 1848 a strong Claim Club was
formed at Des Moines.
Although the treaty of 1842 opened the lands in 1845 they were not surveyed
until 1847 and title could not be obtained until late in 1848. Meantime
claims in large numbers had been entered. In 1848 speculators and
"landsharks" came in and roamed about regarding the settlers' claims with
envious and designing eyes. Fear of them was a leading motive in the
formation of the Claim Club of 1848. Strangers were closely watched. Any
suspicious action led to the suspect being warned that discretion was the
better part of valor. There were some disturbances but none were serious.
The most notable arose within the club itself. One Perkins jumped his
neighbor Flemmings's claim. The latter appealed to his club members. A
"war" ensued in which Perkins narrowly escaped hanging. When the sale took
place at Iowa City, 125 miles east of Des Moines, the club's agent bid in
at $1.25 all of the claims and soon thereafter the club ceased to play any
part in the life of the community.
The first local government to which the inhabitants of Des Moines were
subject was the county government of Polk County provided for by the
Territorial Legislature in January, 1846. The town government was not
organized until 1851. By this time Fort Des Moines had become a thriving
place. It was an important way station on one of the main stage routes to
the West. In 1852, the establishment of a Government land office brought to
the town for the entry of lands the multitudes of speculators and settlers
then rushing into Western Iowa. In the days of the gold fever and during
the border wars in Kansas and Nebraska her ferries and hostelries did a
bustling trade.
In those early days life was free, easy, simple, and buoyant. The
population of Fort Des Moines was made up of people from both Southern and
Northern States. They lived in log huts or simple frame buildings. Pork and
"corn-dodgers," coffee, sometimes made of parched corn, and tea, often made
from native plants, constituted in the main their diet. They had to go many
miles to get their flour ground. Oxen were generally used in drawing wagons
and ploughs. Stage coaches were the common carriers until the railroads
entered the city in 1866. Prior to 1858 the State constitution prohibited
the establishment of banks of note issue and the money of the citizens was
chiefly "wildcat" and "red dog" currency. In 1857-58 the City Council so
far trenched on the powers of Congress as to issue "City Scrip," with the
twofold object of paying the city's debt and affording the citizens a
circulating medium. As the scrip did not become popular, in a short time
the city called in its paper and redeemed it. Like most frontier towns a
certain reckless disregard of the sober customs of the Eastern cities
characterized the social life. Sunday was a sort of gala day, when horse
and foot races between whites and Indians, accompanied by more or less
gambling and carousal, were not infrequent. But the garish and reckless
life soon gave place to the staid habits of well-ordered communities, and
since the Civil War Des Moines has justly sustained the reputation of a
"conservative" Western city.
[Illustration IOWA SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MONUMENT.]
The navigation of the Des Moines River was a great factor in the first
years of the city's growth. Steamboats came up the river from Keokuk in the
spring and summer months and brought most of the city's supplies. The
people living along its course soon perceived that the river could be made
a great waterway for commerce. Those were the days of "internal
improvements." Congress was induced in 1846 to give to the new State every
alternate section of unsold land in a strip five miles wide on either bank
of the river to be used for the improvement of the channel. A River
Improvement Company was formed. River traffic increased rapidly and the
people went wild over the project. As usual the matter soon drifted into
politics and decided the fate of political parties. Demagogism ran riot. A
story is told of two candidates for Congress in 1850, campaigning together,
who rushed across a field to greet a farmer. The first one to reach him,
extending his hand, cried:
"Hurrah for river improvement!"
The farmer so eagerly sought proved to be a scarecrow.
The net result of all the excitement and speculation attending the various
efforts to improve the river was failure and collapse. The State after
expending immense sums abandoned the task in 1862. Worse still,
complications arose over the extent of the grant from the Government, and
left the people above the city a sorry heritage of costly litigation that
continued till 1892 over the titles to their homes. The entire experiment
was an instructive illustration of the futility of most of the attempts at
"internal improvements" fostered by congressional land grants.
In the summer of 1894 the river achieved notoriety in connection with the
epidemic of "Commonweal Armies" that disturbed the public that year. One
division, mobilized at San Francisco under a "General" Kelley, when it
reached Council Bluffs was refused transportation by the Iowa railroads.
The horde then marched overland, levying on communities for provisions,
reaching Des Moines Sunday evening, April 29th. The citizens, in much
trepidation, lodged the tramps in an abandoned stove factory. The people
were frantic to pass them along, for their sojourn threatened plague,
pilfering, and multitudinous evils. But the tramps refused to walk farther.
The citizens were in despair. Finally some genius suggested that the army
be floated down the river. The "General" agreed to evacuate the stove works
when the fleet of flatboats was ready to launch. On May 9th, amid general
rejoicing, Kelley and his army floated away. The _voyageurs_ reached the
Mississippi only to suffer ignominious discomfiture.
In ante-bellum days the subject of slavery made life and politics keenly
interesting in Des Moines. Many stanch Southerners and not a few
abolitionists generated an electrical atmosphere. The first resident
Governor, James W. Grimes, who later brought Iowa fame in the United States
Senate, spoke out strongly against the arrogance of the slaveholders and
the border outrages. The city was on John Brown's "underground railway,"
and the spiriting of slaves through the town gave zest to public
discussion. When Brown came through with the slaves he had captured in
Missouri he stopped over night, February 16, 1859, with James C. Jordan, a
State senator. The next day his ferriage was paid by the editor of the
_State Register_, John Teesdale. One of Brown's most trusted companions,
who died by his side when Lieutenant Robert E. Lee recaptured Harper's
Ferry, was a Des Moines boy, Jeremiah G. Anderson, who had joined Brown's
forces in Kansas in 1857.
[Illustration GOVERNOR SAMUEL J. KIRKWOOD.]
One of the most dramatic incidents in Iowa history grew out of the
ill-fated expedition against Harper's Ferry. With Brown were Edwin and
Barclay Coppoc, of Springdale Ia., the Quaker village where the
conspirators were drilled. Edwin was captured and hanged. Barclay escaped
and after exciting adventures in Maryland and Pennsylvania got back to
Springdale, where the entire community armed to prevent his capture by the
Virginia authorities. On January 23, 1860, an agent of Governor Letcher, of
Virginia, called on Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood with a requisition for
young Coppoc. Kirkwood discovered flaws in the papers, among them that no
indictment had been found or crime charged, and he refused to honor the
requisition. The agent became excited. Just then two members of the
Assembly, Ed. Wright and B.F. Gue, came into the Governor's room, overheard
the conversation with the agent, and discovered his object. They left and
immediately dispatched a messenger to Springdale to warn Coppoc, who was
hurried off to Canada. Slavery sympathizers in the Legislature soon heard
of the matter and introduced a resolution calling on Kirkwood for an
explanation of his proceedings. He sent in a ringing message in which he
said:
"Permit me to say in conclusion that one of the most important
duties of the official position I hold is to see that no
citizen of Iowa is carried beyond her border and subjected to
the ignominy of imprisonment and the perils of trial for crimes
in another State otherwise than by due process of law. That
duty I shall perform...."
In the uncertain days preceding the Civil War, when the friends of liberty
in the North were timid, Kirkwood's message had the effect of a tocsin
call.
When Sumter was fired on and President Lincoln called for troops, Simon
Cameron, Secretary of War, telegraphed Kirkwood that one regiment was
expected from Iowa. The Governor was not then in the city. The messenger
who carried the telegram from Davenport to Iowa City found him out on his
farm working in a field. On reading the message he musingly asked:
"Why, the President wants a whole regiment of men! Do you suppose that I
can raise as many as that?"
Within a few days ten regiments were offered him. Iowa sent nearly 79,000
men to the front, who played a conspicuous part in the great struggle. Des
Moines contributed her full share; among the number three became generals,
one, M.M. Crocker, being an especially brilliant officer under Grant in the
campaigns in the West.
The history of the Western States is rife with struggles over the location
of county seats and State capitals, the incidents of which are often
picturesque and exciting. The selection of Des Moines as the capital city
of Iowa was an important event in her history. Largely in consequence
thereof the city has become not only the metropolis of the State but its
chief nerve centre too.
Iowa's first territorial capital was Burlington. From 1841 to 1857 it was
at Iowa City, when the State archives were moved to Des Moines. The change
was not made without a spirited contest, the marks of which are seen to-day
in the State's constitution. For, in order to placate the people of Iowa
City and secure permanency for the arrangement, the constitutional
convention of 1857 inserted the provision that the State University should
forever remain at Iowa City, and the capital at Des Moines,--a piece of
log-rolling not unlike that resorted to by Alexander Hamilton when the
national capital was located at Washington. There was a deal of politics
and dissension in Des Moines over the selection of the site of the capitol;
so much indeed that the animosities then engendered exercise a baneful
influence in dividing the city even now. A superb site was chosen on a
high hill in East Des Moines whence one can look over the hills and dales
of the river valleys for miles around. The first capitol was a plain
three-story brick structure, donated by the citizens of the east city as a
part of the inducement to the commission to locate where they did. After
the Civil War the building became inadequate; the ravages of time rendered
it unfit for a repository of the State's precious papers; and the people of
Des Moines began to agitate for the erection of a capitol commensurate with
the needs and dignity of the State. Thereupon followed a contest whose
incidents were most interesting and instructive.
[Illustration HON. JOHN A. KASSON.]
The urgent need of a new capitol was generally admitted. But the justness
or propriety of a measure is not alone sufficient to secure legislation.
The jealousy of rival towns was fanned into fierce opposition. Their
representatives fought an appropriation with tooth and nail. Two million
dollars was magnified into unheard-of proportions. Time-serving politicians
who admitted privately that the State needed a capitol badly, tore passion
to tatters in portraying the poverty and distress of the taxpayers. With a
State "full of barefooted women and barefooted children" they asseverated
such an expenditure would be criminal. Such "politics" long prevailed. In
1867, the people of Des Moines elected to the House of Representatives,
Hon. John A. Kasson, to conduct the fight for the appropriation. No better
man could have been chosen. He had attained distinction as Assistant
Postmaster-General under President Lincoln, and as a member of Congress.
With what tact, patience and diplomacy he carried on the contest his career
since as our country's envoy to the courts of Austria and Germany
indicates. For five years Mr. Kasson struggled with recalcitrant
representatives through trying vicissitudes before he got the
appropriation. As it was, he escaped defeat by but one vote to spare, and
that vote he would have lost but for the timely aid of a Catholic priest,
Father Brazil, of the city. The opposition resorted to the rascally ruse of
getting a bibulous member who was friendly to the measure dead drunk and
locking him up to prevent his attendance at the time of the vote. On being
informed of the trick, Father Brazil sought out the recreant son of Erin,
secured him, and marched him up to the House chamber just as the roll was
about to be called, and sat severely by until his charge had answered
"Aye."
[Illustration THE CAPITOL, DES MOINES.]
It took twelve years to build the capitol. During practically all of that
time its construction was under the absolute control of three
commissioners, John G. Foote, Peter A. Dey, and Robert S. Finkbine, and
the stately structure that now adorns Capitol Hill is a monument to their
intelligence and integrity. Not an unwise expenditure nor a dishonest or
corrupt transaction was ever charged against their stewardship, and the
people of Iowa hold their names and services in grateful memory. It is a
sad commentary on our public morals that the erection of a State capitol
without suspicion of corruption is so exceptional as to be noteworthy and
the proud distinction of the people of this Western commonwealth.
[Illustration THE IOWA HISTORICAL LIBRARY.]
From a frontier fort and a huddle of huts, Des Moines has grown to be a
stately city whose corporate limits include fifty-four square miles and a
population of nearly 70,000, almost double the population of any other city
in Iowa. Her citizens boast that "without riots, booms, or conflagrations"
she has steadily grown in strength and stature. Her industries and commerce
make the city a hive of activities. Seventeen railroads radiate from Des
Moines, enabling the city to become the wholesale and retail jobbing centre
of the State. Sixty miles of electric street-railways and fifty-eight miles
of paved streets make her suburbs readily accessible. There are vast
deposits of coal and clay under and about the city. The smoke of three
hundred factories, large and small, tinge her atmosphere with the hues of
Pittsburg. Among insurance men the city is called the "Hartford of the
West," as fifty-one insurance companies have their headquarters in Des
Moines and employ five thousand people. In her various colleges and schools
of law, medicine, and commercial practice there is a population of nearly
six thousand. Thousands of visitors annually come to the State Agricultural
Fair and to the political and educational conventions that assemble in the
city. Congress has recently provided for the establishment of an army post
just south of the city limits, and the War Department is about to expend
several hundred thousand dollars in erecting barracks and in the
preparation of drill-grounds for troops.
Few cities in the West possess scenery of greater natural beauty than that
which greets the eye in and about Des Moines. The junction of the rivers
near the centre of the city gives her topography a configuration similar to
that of Pittsburg. On the south and east her limits are marked by a range
of wooded hills through which the silver stream of the united rivers makes
its way. The view of the landscape across the river valley to the horizon's
edge which is visible from most points is particularly pleasing to the eye
in the spring and summer months. The main part of the city between the
"Forks" is in a forest of native oaks, elms, and hickories so dense that
the looker from the Capitol dome can scarce perceive the residences. To the
attractions of nature the landscape gardener and architect have added much.
Nearly five hundred acres of parks give the people fine pleasure resorts in
the hot summer months. Many handsome wholesale and retail houses and
manufacturing establishments grace her thoroughfares. The city has nearly
completed a beautiful Public Library, located on the west bank of the Des
Moines River, and, as a result of the years of devotion and unremitting
labors of Mr. Charles Aldrich, the State has begun the erection of the
Historical Library, which will be one of the chief attractions of Des
Moines.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ST. LOUIS
"THE FUTURE GREAT"
BY WILLIAM MARION REEDY
Situated at the heart of the continent, midway between the East and West,
the North and South, St. Louis is a unique mixture of the characteristics
of all sections of the United States. In the early seventies a weird
character named L.U. Reavis wrote a book called _St. Louis, the Future
Great City of the West_, in which he advocated the removal hither of the
seat of the national Government and predicted great things for the city.
The fourth of American cities in population, St. Louis is preparing to hold
a World's Fair in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the
purchase of the Louisiana territory, on a scale of magnificence which
attracts universal attention. With the completion of the Chicago drainage
canal, destined soon to be a ship canal connecting Lake Michigan with the
Mississippi River, with the necessary improvement of the Mississippi to
its mouth, and with the certain construction of an Isthmian canal, St.
Louis is sure to be in as close touch with the world at large as if it were
a seacoast city. Always the natural commercial centre of the Mississippi
Valley, since it became the focus of a mighty network of railroads St.
Louis has been the market of the prosperous West, the new South and the
great Southwest, with its wealth of agriculture, mining, manufactures, and
its almost magic development, shown, for instance, in the fact that Texas
is now only a few thousand behind Missouri in population, and must in
consequence of the recent discoveries of enormous oil lands soon overtake
States like Illinois and Ohio and Pennsylvania. The prophecies of the
city's greatness are coming to realization. Its future is here, but bright
as the future is, it is not so bright as to allure us into forgetting the
picturesque past.
The old town on the Mississippi has ever been modest to a degree that has
caused the thoughtless to make mock of its conservatism, but the steadiness
of character and the regard only for the realities of progress which have
marked St. Louis have their justification in that they have resulted in a
city known in times of depression and panic as "the solid city." A city
that owns itself, with a proper sense of dignity, it has never advertised
itself in the modern meretricious fashion. And so the story of St. Louis,
an honest tale, will speed best being simply told.
[Illustration COLONEL AUGUSTE CHOUTEAU, ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF ST. LOUIS.
FROM A PAINTING IN MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTION.]
St. Louis was founded by Pierre Laclede Liguest and a few companions, all
French _voyageurs_, in 1764; at least it was in that year that Laclede's
lieutenant, Auguste Chouteau, cleared away the site of the present city.
Laclede Liguest, or, as he is sometimes known, Liguest Laclede, a merchant
of New Orleans, had from the French Government a monopoly of the fur trade
in the Missouri River country. He left New Orleans with his family and a
small party in August, 1763, with the intention of founding a town near the
confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Shortly after the town
was laid out occurred the cession to Great Britain of the Illinois country,
on the east bank of the Mississippi. The French inhabitants of that country
having followed from the north in the wake of Marquette in 1673, and of La
Salle in 1678, hated the English, and began to move over to the new town,
which soon grew into importance. A trading point for the Indians, Laclede
and his companions so managed them that there was none of the friction
which marked the contact elsewhere of the English and the natives. When the
laying out of the city began a band of one hundred and fifty warriors, with
their squaws and papooses, outnumbering the whites five to one, appeared
and camped near the strangers. The Frenchmen treated the savages with such
tact and kindness that they not only did no harm, but even of their own
volition assisted in the work. The first cellar was excavated with the aid
of the squaws, who carried off the clay in baskets, and were paid in beads
and other trinkets which Laclede had brought up from New Orleans. The
Indians became so friendly that they were a hindrance rather than a help,
and finally, to induce them to depart, Laclede hinted that the French
soldiers at Fort Chartres were to be summoned.
[Illustration THE OLD CHOUTEAU MANSION BUILT FOR LACLEDE IN 1765. FROM
DAGUERREOTYPE IN MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTION.]
Shortly after the little village was begun, news came that the territory of
Louisiana had been ceded to Spain. The French Governor, M. d'Abadie, who
announced the fact to the people with tears, is said to have died of grief.
St. Ange de Bellerive became Commandant or Governor-General in 1765,
instituted a government, and demeaned himself in such manner generally that
unto this day he is remembered affectionately in every published history of
the town. The first two grants of land in the village were made to Laclede
by De Bellerive, August 11, 1766. The Spaniards do not appear to have paid
much attention to the village of St. Louis, for there was some doubt
whether De Bellerive had any authority to make grants. Although the best
authorities agree that De Bellerive acted with the authority and consent of
the Commandant-General of New Orleans, it seems that he was practically
elected Governor by the inhabitants. It is amusing to read in a history of
St. Louis and Missouri, published in 1870, that De Bellerive in 1776, began
to make grants, "hoping for a retrocession of the country to France, when
the grants would be legalized by confirmation." The first marriage in the
new colony was celebrated April 20, 1766, the contracting parties being
Toussaint Honen and Marie Baugenon. The first mortgage was recorded
September, 1766. It was specified that payment should be made in peltries,
though no definite value was attached to the number of deer hides to be
delivered by Pierre Berger to Francis Latour.
August 11, 1767, news came that Spain was making ready to take possession
of the country. The transfer had been made by secret treaty in 1762. The
people accepted the situation in a sort of dumb rage. The following year a
body of troops arrived under the command of a man named Rios, acting under
the authority of Don Antonio d'Ulloa, Governor of Louisiana. To the joy of
the inhabitants, De Bellerive was not disturbed in his office, and the
Spanish troops left in the summer of 1769.
It was the great distinction of De Bellerive that he was the friend of
Pontiac, the Ottawa chieftain, and about the time of the departure of the
Spaniards, Pontiac arrived at St. Louis. He represented all the poetry and
nobility, the grandeur and genius of the Indian character. After Red
Jacket, he was the greatest Indian the New World had known. Dreaming of
driving the English into the sea he had confederated the tribes between the
Allegheny and the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Lakes into a league against
them. He had been known and beloved by the gallant but unfortunate Montcalm
at Quebec. He had participated in the ambuscade in which Braddock with his
life had paid the penalty of narrow-mindedness, and had planned the
massacre of Michilimackinack, in which more than two thousand of the
English had lost their lives. The French "loved him for the enemies he had
made," and he was "fêted and caressed," says an early chronicler, "by many
of the principal inhabitants of the village." St. Ange de Bellerive
entertained the warrior at the house of Madame Chouteau, but Pontiac was
now a broken man. His dream of driving back the English beyond the
Cumberland had faded. His allies had been seduced from his support by
presents and by firewater. He, too, had made the acquaintance of the fiery
liquor, and drink was then such a passion with him that De Bellerive and
his friends not only endeavored to prevent the sale thereof to him in the
village, but tried to dissuade him from crossing the river to Cahokia in
response to the invitations of certain of his friends there. Not to be
dissuaded, Pontiac crossed the river in the uniform of a French officer,
which had been given him by Montcalm. Wandering on the outskirts of the
village of Cahokia, he was tomahawked by a Kaskaskia Indian, who had been
given a barrel of whiskey to do the deed by an English trader named
Williamson. His friend De Bellerive had the chief's remains brought to St.
Louis, and they were buried somewhere in the vicinity of the site of the
present Southern Hotel, in the corridor of which was placed, in 1901, a
handsome tablet to the unfortunate warrior's memory. Whether Pontiac was
assassinated in accordance with official English instructions, or met his
death in consequence of a private grudge, was long a matter of dispute, but
there is no doubt that the passionate and sympathetic Frenchmen believed
for many long years that the chief was killed to relieve the English of the
danger of his presence and a possible utilization of his undoubted
abilities by the Power in possession of the west bank of the Mississippi.
Pontiac's death, however, was promptly avenged upon the Illinois Indians by
members of the tribes with which he had been in alliance.
Next came Don Alexander O'Reilly to take charge of the territory of
Louisiana. He arrived at New Orleans at the head of three thousand men to
enforce his authority. There was need for the soldiery, for though seven
years had elapsed since the cession of the territory, the Spaniards had
never actually taken possession. The people were still French to the core.
When they heard that Don O'Reilly was coming they even conferred together
upon the advisability of meeting him with force and preventing his landing.
The head men of the town counselled against this, however, and their advice
prevailed, but such was the spirit of insubordination, so many were the
execrations heaped upon the Spaniards, so frequent were the threats of
violence against them that Don Alexander had at once to adopt stern
measures. He promptly arrested a dozen of the ringleaders, had five of them
publicly shot, and the others, except one who committed suicide, sent as
prisoners to Cuba. The Spanish code was put into operation throughout the
territory, and O'Reilly's deputy, Lieutenant-Governor Piernas, arriving in
St. Louis in 1770, took possession of St. Louis, with the help of De
Bellerive, wisely conciliating the villagers. The village settled into
peace. The church, for which ground had been set aside even before the
founders of the town had prepared to build their own homes, was dedicated,
June 24, 1770, with solemn ceremonies. Where that first church of flattened
logs set on end with the interstices filled with mortar stood, there stands
a church to-day, and, says Elihu Shepard, since that time "the worship of
God on that block has not been suspended for a single day." All De
Bellerive's acts were formally confirmed by Piernas, and the little
settlement forgot its woes under a benign administration, which recognized
village prejudices, and shut its eyes to the loyalty everywhere apparent to
France.
[Illustration OLD FRENCH POST-HOUSE. BUILT IN 1770. INHABITED UNTIL 1870.]
Piernas narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of an Osage chieftain
who thought himself insulted at a meeting at the Commandant's house. The
Osage, while drinking with other Indians, divulged his intention to kill
the Governor, whereupon a Shawnee warrior stabbed him to the heart. The
slain chief was buried with honors in the big mound to the north of the
village, an eminence that gave to St. Louis for many years the name of "The
Mound City."
For twelve years the village was orderly and quiet. The people liked the
Governor who succeeded Piernas, but the next, Don Fernando de Leyba,--"a
drunken, avaricious, and feeble-minded man, without a single redeeming
qualification," they did not like. He came upon the scene in 1778, at a
critical time. The American Revolution was on. The French and Spaniards,
hating the English, were inclined to sympathize with the colonists, so far
as they knew or cared about things happening so far away. Fearing an attack
of English and Indians, the villagers threw up a trench and stockade about
the town, having three gates on the sides other than the one on the river,
and built a fort in the centre of the city at what is now, approximately,
Fourth and Walnut streets, and supplied it with four small cannon and one
company of soldiers. The people were afraid to till the fields outside the
trench and stockade, and the men who might have braved attack were busy
building the defences. In the spring of 1780 fears of a famine forced the
men into the fields to plant the spring seeds.
On the morning of May 26, 1780, the attack came. It was led by
Canadian-French renegades, the main body being made up of about one
thousand Upper Mississippi Indians. The attacking party came from the
north, slew forty of the workers, carried fifteen up the river as
prisoners, in their war canoes, while the rest made their way back to the
fortifications, amid the booming of the cannon, which saved the fort.
Leyba, who was drunk, appeared upon the scene, it is said, sprawling in a
wheelbarrow and muttering incoherently, after the Indians had been
repulsed. He died a month later, covered with ignominy.
The succeeding Lieutenant-Governor, Francisco Cruzat, thoroughly fortified
the town, which was never afterwards molested by the savages. While the
more extensive fortifications were in process of construction, indeed to
the peace of 1783, the price of provisions in St. Louis was high, and
visitors from New Orleans, Ste. Geneviève, Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and other
settlements nicknamed the place "_Pain Court_," or "short of bread." Still,
it was a time of prosperity. The town grew, and nothing alarming happened
until, in 1785, when the people were terrified by their first sight of the
"June rise" of the Mississippi. They saw the great yellow stream spread out
over the American Bottoms on the east bank and the Columbia Bottom on the
west bank to the north, until it became a vast lake reaching farther than
the eye could distinctly see. They saw the mighty flood go raging past,
black with the trunks of mighty trees torn up by the wild waters, the
villages of Cahokia and Kaskaskia submerged, crops ruined, cattle drowned,
and houses melting into the yellow sea. St. Louis was flooded to what is
now Main Street, and part of the people were preparing to move farther up
the high bank that ran back from the stream, when the waters began to
recede, and the anxiety of the town was relieved. The people called this
"_l'année des grands eaux_,"--"the year of the great waters." There have
been many such floods since, but none more awe-inspiring than this, seen in
a setting of virgin wilderness. The flood increased the population of the
city, however, for the settlers in the bottoms went to town and joined in
its upbuilding. In those days, notwithstanding all the dangers of war and
flood, St. Louis seems to have been a gay place. Society was simple, yet
retaining an indefinable air of elegance that bore the flavor of old
France. Even if they were "short of bread," the people were hospitable, a
trait which still persists characteristic and conspicuous. The French
element has almost wholly disappeared in newer elements, but there yet
lingers, somehow, the atmosphere of deliberate ease among the people, even
in the pressure of modern business. So orderly was this frontier town that
during the entire period of the French and Spanish dominations but one
murder was reported.
[Illustration OLD MOUND, ST. LOUIS, REMOVED IN 1869. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN
MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTION.]
Following the annalists we learn that the city's commerce in those early
days was much hampered by a band of pirates that infested the river at a
place called Grand Tower, midway between the mouths of the Missouri and
Ohio. Lurking at this point, where the stream is very swift, the pirates
would dart out and attack the boats plying between New Orleans and St.
Louis, kill the boatmen and seize the goods. They secured rich spoil of
hides from the down trade, and many luxurious articles from the up
trade--treasures even from distant France. One _voyageur_ north bound
escaped the pirates through the strategy and courage of a negro who won the
confidence of the captors of the barge and the sympathy of two negro slaves
of the pirates. At a signal the negroes hurled the buccaneers off the
barge, and either shot them or left them to drown. The barge crew then took
the boat once more, went back to New Orleans, and told their story to the
Governor, who issued an order that all boats leaving for St. Louis should
go in company. In obedience in the spring of 1788 ten barges started up the
river with crews well armed. Arrived at the rendezvous of the robbers they
found none, but they recovered, however, much of the plunder that had been
stored away and brought it to St. Louis. The year of their arrival was
known for generations as "_l'année des dix bateaux_,"--"the year of the ten
boats."
St. Louis traded not only with New Orleans but with Canada as well. The
Indians gave no trouble up stream or down. The Spanish Government wanted
settlers, and was liberal in granting land. We read that "there were no
mails or taverns, but every house was a welcome house to new comers." In
1798 the population of Upper Louisiana was 6028, of whom 1080 were
colored. The population had risen in 1804 to 10,340. In 1803 the Louisiana
Purchase was made, and in 1804 St. Louis "contained one hundred and eighty
houses built of hewn logs and stone, the latter being generally the
rendezvous of the most wealthy, and surrounded by a wall of the same
material, enclosing the whole block, which continued in use many years,
protecting the fine fruit trees, which shaded the mansion." Frame houses
became fashionable after the transfer to the United States. "There were but
one bakery, two small taverns, three blacksmiths, two mills, and one doctor
in the town." Coffee and sugar were $2.00 per pound, and everything else
was costly in proportion. The United States took possession March 10, 1804,
when Major Amos Stoddard assumed the duties of Governor of Upper Louisiana.
Then history began to make quickly.
Near St. Louis, Lewis and Clark organized their expedition via the Missouri
and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean, departing in May, 1804. In August
Lieutenant Zebulon Pike started to explore the Mississippi to its source.
The Mississippi was opened up to free navigation. General William Henry
Harrison came from Indiana to preside over the district. He was succeeded
by General James Wilkinson, and the region formerly known as the District
of Louisiana became known as the Territory of Louisiana. Later a strangely
handsome, dark, romantic man, much honored by every one and indescribably
fascinating in manner, visited the town and was fêted. He was entertained
by General Wilkinson, through whom it is believed the authorities at
Washington first learned of that vast, vague treason which Burr--for it
was he--conceived in his restless brain. Wilkinson was later appointed to
watch Burr and was succeeded as Governor by Captain Meriwether Lewis, fresh
from his adventures in the mysterious Northwest. A ferry had been
established in 1797, and at the same spot there is to-day a ferry
operating, one of the most profitable of the vested interests of St. Louis.
The post-office was established in 1804. In 1810 the population was
fourteen thousand. In 1808 was founded the first newspaper, which exists
to-day as the _St. Louis Republic_, a daring enterprise begun when the
whole country was suffering from the embargo and non-intercourse with
England. The great New Madrid earthquake shook the little city in 1811. The
battle of Tippecanoe had been fought a little before the earthquake, and in
the same year appeared the first steamboat in Western waters. In 1813 the
Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of Missouri, and in June of
that year the Bank of St. Louis was founded. The year before that the
Governor of the Territory had gathered in the city of St. Louis the chiefs
of the Great and Little Osages, the Sacs, Foxes, Delawares, and Shawnees,
made peace with them, then conducted them to Washington, arriving there
just before the declaration of war against Great Britain, in time to
conclude a peace which saved the country from any such conspiracy as had
been formed among the Indian tribes to the east, under the leadership of
the great Tecumseh.
Being a frontier town, St. Louis was of course a resort for trappers and
traders but, unlike the frontier towns of to-day, not for desperadoes. The
early settlers seem to have stamped upon the place its distinctive quality
of quietness. Here the North American Fur Company had its headquarters for
a long time, and from this point the adventurous subordinates of John Jacob
Astor went forth in all directions in search of peltries. One of these, a
Colonel Russell Farnum, leaving St. Louis afoot reached Behring Strait in
1813-14, crossed over the ice, traversed Siberia and, arriving at St.
Petersburg, was presented to the Emperor. This memorable journey was the
wonder of Europe at the time, for Farnum went from St. Petersburg to Paris
and then came home by way of New York. He wrote a record of his adventures
and sent it to a New York publisher but it was lost and the writer died
before he could again transcribe his narrative.
The War of 1812 with Great Britain for a time was of small concern to St.
Louis. Later, however, the Indians of Missouri were armed by the people
and pitted against the Indians employed by the British. The trading-posts
in which St. Louis was interested extended twelve hundred miles to the
north and there agents from St. Louis counter-plotted against the British.
The Yanktons and Omahas were matched by the Americans against the Iowas and
several battles were fought in which the British-bought savages were
worsted. The war coming to an end, Indian hostilities ceased and the fur
trade throve under the peace. Rivals to the American Fur Company were
started. The business expanded, and soon the necessities of commercial
intercourse led to the organization of two banks, the second of which,
known as the Bank of Missouri, was organized February 1, 1817. Inflation
was the order of the day. The town took on airs of magnificence and
extravagance. Wealth accumulated so rapidly that some seemed at a loss to
spend it, and gave entertainments in which the tasteful and the barbaric
were strangely mingled. The United States held sales of public lands and
there were "rushes" such as we have seen in recent years in Oklahoma.
Building was undertaken in a lordly fashion and extravagant prices were
asked for everything. The demand for money was so great that recourse was
had to lotteries to raise funds for an academy at Potosi, to provide
fire-engines for the city, to erect a Masonic Hall. The lotteries soon got
into politics and were not dislodged until late in the seventies, after a
fight not unlike that waged for many years in Louisiana. It was in 1817
that the Legislature of Missouri established the public-school system and
incorporated the institution which persists to-day in the St. Louis Board
of Education, though it was many years before there was a public school in
the city. In the same year, in St. Louis, Thomas H. Benton, afterwards
United States Senator from Missouri for thirty years, leaped into notice,
engaged in a quarrel with Charles Lucas, United States Attorney for the
Territory of Missouri, and in a duel across the river, or rather on an
island in the river that has since become joined to the Illinois shore,
killed him. The place where the duel was fought became the rendezvous for
duellists and was called "Bloody Island." In 1817 the first Bible Society
in the Territory of Missouri was formed. The inflation of the day ended as
usual in collapse, but St. Louis and Missouri suffered less harm than other
sections.
When, in 1818, the Territory of Missouri applied for admission to the Union
the slavery question arose. There was a slight preponderance of sentiment
in favor of slavery, but very slight. The Missouri Compromise left its mark
on Missouri and St. Louis. The State was always regarded, however its
representatives stood, as doubtful on the slavery issue. From 1820 to the
breaking out of the Civil War it was always a compromise State and in that
war it was ever between two fires, furnishing soldiers in startling
abundance to each side and sympathizing with both. St. Louis suffered in
that long drawn out situation. A paralyzing incertitude was bred in the
city's mind, even toward progress. The people, especially the French, did
not take kindly to steamboats. "When Missouri was admitted to the Union,"
says Elihu Shepard, "there was no steamboat owned in the State and but one
steam mill." The assessed valuation of the town property was less than
$1,000,000 and the whole corporation tax less than $4000 per year while
Missouri remained a territory. The town contained six hundred houses, one
third of which were of stone or brick, the remainder wooden, one half of
which were framed. The population was estimated at five thousand, one
fourth of whom were French. The estimated annual value of the trade was
$600,000. Steamboats from the Ohio River took the carrying trade between
St. Louis and New Orleans, and the imports were estimated at $1,000,000.
All these conditions, while due in some measure to the extreme conservatism
and self-satisfaction of the dominant French element, were undoubtedly due
in larger measure to the hard times that prevailed when Missouri became a
State. St. Louis was incorporated as a city December 9, 1822. A spice of
adventure always entered into the then predominant business of the
community, for the fur companies fought with each other, and all of them
made common cause against the great Hudson Bay Company in the North, with
its headquarters in Canada. The people of that time thought little of
distances which even now seem great. Traders and trappers went without
hesitation through the wilderness to the very surf of the Pacific and the
people of the city never dreamed that what we now call Yellowstone Park was
very far away. Often enough the adventurous commercial traveller who left
St. Louis came back without his scalp or never came at all. The city was
picturesque. Men clad in buckskin and carrying rifles in their hands
elbowed representatives of first families attired in the fashion that came
from Paris, via New Orleans, or consorted with red Indians in paint and
feathers--and too often, too, in liquor. St. Louis and Missouri were "big"
in politics about that time. Missouri was for Clay, but Missouri's
representative did not vote for him and John Quincy Adams was chosen
President. After this Missouri became a Jackson State, and committed
herself to the South.
A patch of color in the drab details of the history of St. Louis for the
few years after the incorporation was the visit of Lafayette to the city on
April 29, 1825, and his sumptuous entertainment by the enthusiastic
inhabitants, most of whom, probably, loved the Frenchman more than the
friend of Washington. In June, 1825, the first Presbyterian church was
consecrated by Rev. Solomon Giddings, who "had a very respectable
congregation" for a city which was preponderantly French and Roman
Catholic. The French language was spoken in the homes of half the families
of the town. There were less than a dozen German families in a city which
now is more distinctly Teutonic than any other in the country, except
Milwaukee. The slavery issue was all the while growing, and in 1828 there
was formed at St. Louis a branch of the American Colonization Society, the
purpose of which was to further the settlement of free blacks in Liberia.
Many of the largest slave-owners in the city and State were members and
officers of the society. Between 1820 and 1831, a progressive movement
started. The new Court House was dedicated in 1829, and the work of opening
and paving streets was pushed with energy. The old French families resented
the new life and moved into the country. The pace was too fast for them.
The hunters, trappers, _voyageurs_ and bargemen began to disappear. The
city took on a truly American aspect, but the increase of population was
slow. Between 1820 and 1830, the population increased only 2000, but
between 1830 and 1840 the increase was nearly 10,000, reaching the total of
16,649.
Gradually Americanism made its impress. The wharf was lined with steamboats
and the levee with great stores. Steam ferryboats multiplied. The city
became a great river town, second in importance only to New Orleans. The
lead mines to the south of the city were productive. Manufactures of
various sorts sprang up. An insurance company was incorporated. Prosperity
was checked by fear of the great Black Hawk, who, at the head of the Sac
and Fox Indians, took the war-path in Illinois. Immigration and
transportation of goods to and from the North was checked till Black Hawk
was defeated and his tribe transported to the other side of the river,
where the influence of Great Britain could not reach them. No sooner,
however, had the city recovered from its slight panic than there came
another and graver excitement, another lull in business. Jackson's bank
veto was the cause. As if this were not enough to discourage the community,
along came the cholera, which in five weeks destroyed four per cent. of the
population. Cholera has reappeared since, from time to time, the most
serious visitation being in 1866, but the city as it grew began to pay
attention to the sewage question and in half a century had perfected such a
sewer system as is not surpassed in any city in the world. In 1835 the City
Council sold the town Commons, a tract of about two thousand acres, and
devoted nine tenths of the proceeds to street improvements and one tenth
to the public schools, and from this small beginning arose the system which
to-day directs the education of the children of a city of 575,000
inhabitants. In 1829 the St. Louis University, a Jesuit institution, was
founded, which has been since a centre of higher education for the sons of
the well-to-do Roman Catholics of the entire South and Southwest.
Considerably later was founded the institution now Washington University,
one of the best endowed educational establishments in the country, with a
manual training department famous the world over, and with its Mary
Institute for girls ranking with the best seminaries of the country. At an
early day the Roman Catholic religious sisterhoods of charity and
instruction established branches here. The Sisters of Charity founded a
hospital in 1832, aided by the liberality of John Mullanphy, which has been
in continuous service ever since. The Sisters of the Visitation came later
and established their convent for the higher education of girls and did for
the girls of the West and South what the St. Louis University did for the
boys. Still later came the establishment of medical colleges, one in
connection with the St. Louis University, and later the institutions
founded by McDowell and Pope, from which grew the swarm of large medical
and surgical colleges which now make St. Louis one of the most important
centres of medical education in the land.
[Illustration WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AS PROJECTED, NOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION.]
Events moved rapidly after 1835. The growth of river traffic was steady.
The drift of emigration westward was beneficial to St. Louis in every way.
Men and money flowed in from the East and the South. There were rumors of
railroads, and, in April, 1835, a convention was held by representatives
of eleven of the most populous counties of the State to take steps to
induce the construction of railroads in the State and to and from the city.
The modern spirit manifested itself in every direction, and the year 1836
found the people regarding St. Louis as a metropolis, though in that year
occurred an incident demonstrating that the taint of barbarism lingered to
some extent among the people. A negro who had stabbed a constable was
seized by a mob and tied to a tree and burned to death, amid a chorus of
execrations,--an episode only too frequently duplicated in different
sections of the country of late years. At this time St. Louis had 15,000
inhabitants, but it was not till the year following that a theatre was
known. In the same year a brick fire-engine house was built, and leading
citizens were proud to be members of the company and "run with the
machine."
St. Louis was much interested in the Texan war of independence, and from
its stores supplies went to the followers of Houston, while many of the
younger men of the community left to join the Lone Star warriors in their
struggle. Later, when the war with Mexico began, there were multiplied
activities in the city, because the Government here outfitted many of its
troops. Here next were heard the first mutterings of the storm that broke
in 1861. Elijah P. Lovejoy, anti-slavery in sentiment, edited the _St.
Louis Observer_. On the night of July 21, 1836, persons unknown broke into
the publishing room and wrecked the establishment, scattering the type into
the street. No one was punished for the offence. Lovejoy went to Alton,
where later he was slain by fanatical opponents of his abolitionism, who
unwittingly wrote his name high on the list of the martyrs to freedom. St.
Louis had its first daily mail September 20, 1836, and on the same day the
_Missouri Republican_ commenced the publication of a regular daily edition.
In 1837 Daniel Webster was banqueted, and it was estimated that there were
more guests at the banquet than there were inhabitants of the city when
Lafayette was fêted twelve years before.
[Illustration ST. LOUIS IN 1854. FROM A PRINT IN MISSOURI HISTORICAL
SOCIETY COLLECTION.]
[Illustration FOREST PARK, ST. LOUIS.]
Following in quick succession, events too numerous to be recapitulated
marked the history of the town. In spite of floods and cholera and a great
fire, which swept away the business portion of the city, the community went
steadily ahead. The gold-fever helped St. Louis, for the Argonauts going
overland outfitted here, as in very recent years their fellows bound for
the Klondike and Cape Nome outfitted at Seattle. As the West built up St.
Louis builded too. Something substantial from the westward-moving stream
always found its way into the coffers of the St. Louis merchants. The
prosperity and power of the South lent prestige to the city. The city was a
great cotton market. It had a vast trade up and down the Mississippi and
Missouri rivers, up and down the Ohio and the Tennessee. The fleets of
steamboats at the wharves grew in size, until, old inhabitants say, there
were three or four miles of them at the river front at one time, being
loaded and unloaded day and night by singing negroes. As agriculture grew
in importance, St. Louis became a great wheat market, a great market for
cattle and swine, horses and mules. Its manufactures in every line throve,
as well they might, for it was the great depot of the West, with a
straightaway water route to the sea. There was plenty of work, plenty of
money, and more than plenty of pleasure. The society of St. Louis was
exclusive and magnificent. The ante-bellum balls were gorgeous affairs. The
women were beautiful, of the Southern type, and when it was desired to say
of one of them that she was royally bejewelled, a common phrase used was
"She wore a nigger on every finger." Steamboatmen, planters, slave-traders,
merchants dealing in cotton or in sugar, spent money like water. The town
was, as we say in these days, wide open, and of a perilous liveliness, for
the incoming Northerners and Easterners were never equal to the task of
suppressing what the New England American regards as vices not to be
temporized with. The brightness and gayety, however, did not wholly conceal
the dread of the sorrow that was to come. St. Louis was, for the most part,
intensely Southern; but the Revolution of 1848 had brought to this country
and to St. Louis a great number of Germans, who were set against slavery
and secession. The storm broke, and the breaking was a severe setback to
St. Louis, whose prosperity was founded chiefly on that of the South. Its
sympathies, through social, political, business ties, were mainly with the
South. The war destroyed business. St. Louis, if not the enemy's country,
was strongly suspected of disloyalty, and for a time it seemed as if war
would smite the city itself, while there hung in the balance the decision
of the alternative of Governor Claiborne Jackson of Missouri that he would
"take Missouri out of the Union or into hell." Feeling ran high in the
community. Almost a battle was fought on its outskirts. St. Louis had
bitter experiences of martial law, while its commercial activities seemed
to be mostly controlled by people who had government contracts. Here, where
Grant had been known as a none too tidy farmer, his name was loathed, as
was Lincoln's, by the larger element, while the Germans were profoundly
loyal. The misfortunes of the South were unfortunate for St. Louis in every
instance, and when the scourge of war passed, the region whence St. Louis
had drawn most of its wealth was devastated, and the sceptre of trade
passed to the North. As the fortunes of St. Louis declined from these
causes, they and other causes operated to push Chicago to the front, even
though, when Chicago had been twice visited by fire, St. Louis, as the
greater city, made large contributions to the relief of the sufferers. St.
Louis did not go backward, but the country to the north recovered from the
war and improved more rapidly than that to the south and southwest, and the
northern and western trade went to Chicago. St. Louis managed, in the face
of such obstacles, to hold its own. The work of expansion and extension of
improvement went steadily ahead, though with great conservatism. The boom
idea, that grew after the war, was never hospitably entertained in St.
Louis, though the manufacturers and merchants found a new trade and
strenuously developed it in the new Southwest. The southwestern railway
systems began to take shape, and the prosperity of St. Louis came back in
great measure late in the eighties. The great St. Louis bridge had been
opened in 1874, and the city was put in touch with the East, but the
greater movement of the country's wealth and energy was being felt in the
territory that was out of trade touch and political sympathy with the
field in which St. Louis was once supreme. Nevertheless St. Louis added to
her beauties steadily. She acquired Forest Park, the greatest natural
public city park in the country, after Fairmount in Philadelphia, also
O'Fallon Park, but little less magnificent. Through the philanthropic
generosity of Henry Shaw she acquired Tower Grove Park, which is perhaps
the finest specimen of the park artificial to be found anywhere. Later, Mr.
Shaw left to the city by will his botanical garden, an institution famous
the world over for its collection of plants of almost every species. The
city paved all its downtown streets with granite, and later its outlying
streets with asphalt, erected a new custom house, a Four Courts Building,
stupendous water-works, and constructed a gigantic extension of the sewer
system. The development of the system of street railway transportation in
St. Louis was more rapid and more perfect than in any other city in the
world. A new mercantile library was built and the public-school library was
made free. Churches increased in great numbers. Schools multiplied and
were overcrowded in places where within twenty years had been quarry ponds
and cow pastures. The growth of business, the multiplication of banks, the
overspreading of the population since 1880, has been bewildering in its
progress, and remains so, in spite of the fact that there has been all this
time in process of building, directly across the river, a sort of overflow
city of sixty thousand people. The city lost its river trade but has made
up for it in utilization of the railroads, and is now preparing again to
use the mighty, free, natural highway for the transportation of products to
the world at large. St. Louis, so often thought of as slow, has really
grown with phenomenal rapidity. It is one of the wealthiest cities in the
country, a city of homes, and a city of perhaps more beautiful homes widely
distributed in different sections than are to be found elsewhere. The
wealthy men of St. Louis are almost all young men. The greater fortunes in
St. Louis, with but few exceptions, have been made within the past twenty
years, and many of them in the last ten years, and these now utterly
eclipse the fortunes that have been handed down from the earlier days. The
city has to-day a population of 575,000. In the suburban territory there
are over 700,000 more people in close relationship daily and almost hourly
with the business and social life of the city. The "slow old town" is not
so slow when it is remembered that within one year after a cyclone swept it
in May, 1896, there was not a trace of the visitation. Its conservatism is
very real, but it is not stagnation. St. Louis has gone on with its work,
even though war and the industrial tendencies consequent on war, and the
political and social drift growing out of war have been in opposition to
the city's progress. The city has built steadily but well, passing through
the panic of 1893 without a single failure. The earlier history of the town
shows how the conservatism so thoughtlessly derided came to be ingrained in
the life of the city. It shows, too, the pertinacity which has made St.
Louis the fourth city in the Union, in defiance of the disaster that befell
its prestige in the great war, and in defiance too of the circumstance that
the new popular national activities generated after that great conflict
found their most congenial field in regions practically out of reach of,
and wholly antipathetic to the interests of the chief city of Missouri. The
new South and the new Southwest mean a new St. Louis. And we shall see
what the new St. Louis means when the city expresses its higher and better
self in the Exposition with which its people purpose to celebrate the
purchase, by the United States, in 1803, of the Louisiana Territory.
[Illustration EADS BRIDGE AT ST. LOUIS.]
[Illustration UNION STATION, ST. LOUIS.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
KANSAS CITY
THE CENTRAL CITY
BY CHARLES S. GLEED
In early literature and in early United States Indian treaties the Indian
word "Kansas" appears as Caucis, Konza, Konseas, Kons, Kanzaw, Kanzau, Kaw,
and Kanzas. Kansas, meaning smoky, was the name of a tribe of Indians still
existing in the Indian Territory and it came to be applied to all the
country west of the Missouri River over which the tribe roamed (the country
which is now largely in the State of Kansas), and also to its chief river.
There are two Kansas Cities, one in Missouri, the other in Kansas. The
Kansas City in Missouri was named after the Kansas Indians, the Kansas
River, the Kansas country, or all of them. The Kansas City in Kansas was
named after the Kansas City in Missouri. The two cities are one except in
law and the line dividing them is not discoverable except by the surveyor.
The Kansas City in Kansas was made up of a number of small towns the chief
of which was Wyandotte. It was thought that the Kansas town would be helped
by adopting the good name belonging to the Missouri town. The Kansas City
in Kansas has about 60,000 people; the Kansas City in Missouri has about
225,000. The former is the largest city in Kansas, while the latter is the
second city in Missouri. In this sketch the two towns are considered as
one.
[Illustration KANSAS CITY FROM THE SOUTH.]
Among large cities Kansas City is central, for the exact centre of the
United States is about two hundred miles west in Kansas. At the point
where Kansas City is located, the Kansas or "Kaw" River coming from the
west empties into the Missouri River coming from the North. The
Kansas-Missouri State line runs south from near the junction of the two
rivers. In the angles formed by this junction are very high hills, almost
mountains. Standing on the high point close in the southern angle, one may
look away for ten to twenty miles to the north and the east along the
valley of the Missouri and to the west along the valley of the Kansas. It
is in these valleys and on these miniature mountains that the city is
built. The parts in the valleys present no special difficulties to the town
builder, but in the higher parts almost every difficulty is presented. The
hills are composed of rocks which must be blasted, and of yellow clay. The
original bluffs are cut by numerous ravines leading towards the rivers, and
those streets running parallel with the rivers and therefore crossing the
ravines are necessarily in many cases very steep. This topographical
situation has required the removal of enormous quantities of earth and
rock, the filling of great ravines, and the artificial establishment of
the grades of streets. This rendered the city unsightly through its earlier
years, but the unsightliness is rapidly giving way to great beauty and
picturesqueness.
The first plat of the "Town of Kansas" was filed in 1839. It included the
land bordering the Missouri River some distance south and east of the mouth
of the Kansas River and bounded by the river, the present Second Street,
the present Delaware Street, and the present Grand Avenue. There was no
technical incorporation, and the common name of the place was at first
Westport Landing--this being the river landing for the trading post called
Westport, four or five miles south of the river.
[Illustration JACKSON COUNTY COURT HOUSE, KANSAS CITY.]
In 1850, the County Court of Jackson County, Missouri, at Independence,
created the "Town of Kansas" as an incorporation governed by a Board of
Trustees. The first board, appointed February 4, 1850, failed to act and on
June 3d of the same year another board was appointed, composed of William
Gillis, Madison Walrond, Lewis Ford, Bennoist Troost, and Henry W. Brice.
This board controlled the town until the Legislature of Missouri, February
22, 1853, granted the right of incorporation to the city of Kansas. From
the small original town, by one addition after another, has grown a city
covering an area of nearly one hundred square miles.
Long before any incorporation or any platting of town sites there was much
activity in this locality. Judge E.P. West, an eminent local geologist,
produces indisputable evidence in the shape of stone arrow-heads and
spear-heads found on the present town site that the place was inhabited at
least 21,000 years ago. The local museum contains a great number of
specimens of flint and stone work indicating to geologists and
archæologists the presence of races dating back many centuries.
In 1825, the Jesuit Fathers penetrated all parts of the wilderness
surrounding what is now Kansas City. They were doubtless the first white
settlers and in all probability they had only the usual purpose, zeal in
propagating the religion of their fathers. They are known to have built a
small log house in the neighborhood of the northern part of what is now
Troost Avenue. It was as much a church as a dwelling, for here the tribes
to whom they had come attended religious service. In 1835 a missionary
named Father Roux established the first actual church in this locality.
There were many trappers and hunters of the French-Canadian type who had
intermarried with the Indians. In 1835 Father Roux purchased of a Canadian
some forty acres on the hill adjoining the present site of the Roman
Catholic Cathedral, almost exactly in the centre of the present city, and
in 1839 was instrumental in having a log church built on a part of the land
situated between what are now Eleventh and Twelfth Streets on Penn Street.
Here for a period of at least twenty years a congregation composed largely
of French Canadians and the children of the French and Indian
intermarriages worshipped together. In 1845 Father Bernard Donnelly was
made pastor of all Western Missouri, and ministered to the Indians and
whites alike. Through his efforts a brick church was erected on the corner
of what are now Eleventh Street and Broadway, and from 1857 to 1880, when
he retired from active work to die a few months later at the age of eighty,
he devoted himself entirely to his priestly duties. The church and the city
owe an unmeasured debt of gratitude to this unselfish and lovable man.
[Illustration CONVENTION HALL, KANSAS CITY.]
Questions of transportation have been of overwhelming interest to the
people of Kansas City from the beginning. The first crossing of the
Missouri River at this point was established in 1836 by the operation of a
flatboat at the mouth of the "Kaw." The Rev. Isaac McCoy and his son
established the ferry and operated it until 1854. Then came the horse-power
ferryboat, and the steam ferryboat. In due time full-fledged steamboats
made their appearance on the Missouri. Westport Landing, by reason of a
rocky bank and deep water in front of it, afforded an excellent landing.
Here were unloaded the goods for the great Indian and Mexican trade of the
West, and from here were shipped eastward wool, furs, buffalo robes, and
other products of the region. Immigration overland to Colorado, Utah,
Nevada, Mexico, and California came to this point in boats and then went
westward by the old Santa Fé trail. From about 1850 to the coming of the
railroads, from six to ten boats daily came to this landing. In 1857,
during the nine months of navigation, no fewer than fifteen hundred boats
arrived and departed. Some of them were palatial structures, judged even
by the standard of to-day, and many of them were magnificently furnished
and equipped to care for passengers.
One of the early features of the travel and traffic between Kansas City and
the West was the old Concord Coach and another was the ox and mule wagon
known as the "Prairie Schooner." The coaches carried from ten to fifteen
passengers, and the passengers as a rule carried from two to a dozen
weapons of defence against the Indians. At one time the fare per passenger
from Westport to Santa Fé, New Mexico, was $175 in gold, and the schedule
time was thirteen days and six hours. The trip involved travelling night
and day, asleep and awake, without stopping except for meals. The "Overland
Mail Express Company" maintained an office for years on the Levee, and for
carrying mails received $172,000 a year. Mail, passengers, and express
matter usually yielded from $5000 to $6000 a trip.
In 1843, the Mexican trade from this point was suspended by Santa Anna, who
closed the northern port of entry. As soon, however, as the embargo was
removed, trade revived and greatly increased. At this time Atchison,
Leavenworth, St. Joseph, and Omaha entered upon the same business, but
until the Civil War commenced Kansas City retained most of the trade. A
book published in 1843 shows the tonnage between Kansas City and Mexico to
have increased from 15,000 tons in 1822, to 150,000 tons in 1837, the
increase being fairly uniform over the entire period. In 1850, 600 wagons
began the overland trip from Kansas City; by 1855 the trade had grown to a
total valuation of at least $5,000,000, and by 1860 had still further
increased to a point which attracted national attention. In that year a
correspondent sent by the _New York Herald_ to study the statistics of the
business, reported that there were shipped from Kansas City in that year
16,439,134 pounds of freight, employing 7084 men, 6147 mules, 27,920 yoke
of oxen and 3033 wagons, to which should be added the statistics of the
trade with the towns of Kansas and Nebraska. This, for that time, enormous
bulk of business, passed over the Santa Fé trail which is now almost
exactly the route of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad.
At the close of the Civil War in 1865, during which Kansas City, in common
with all the border towns of Missouri and Kansas, was disturbed by the
conflict, a tremendous immigration began to flow westward through the city.
Railroad enterprises in Kansas and beyond were opening up the country for
settlement, and the families of those who had lately been engaged in war
rushed westward to take up the vacant lands offered them.
The first railroads entering the city were the Hannibal & St. Joseph (which
is now a part of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system) and the Missouri
Pacific--the first entering from the direction of Chicago, and the last
from the direction of St. Louis. The first built to the west was the Union
Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, afterwards known as the Kansas Pacific,
now a part of the Union Pacific.
[Illustration THE CITY HALL, KANSAS CITY.]
Railroad building in the country immediately tributary to Kansas City
became active at the close of the Civil War, and has continued until the
present time (1901), when two new main lines are under construction towards
the city. The railway companies with lines entering Kansas City now are the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the
Wabash, the Chicago & Alton, the Missouri Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas &
Texas, the St. Louis & San Francisco, the St. Joseph & Grand Island, the
Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis, the Kansas City Southern, the Chicago &
Great Western, the Kansas City & Northern, the Union Pacific, the Suburban
Belt, and the Kansas City Belt.
Nowhere in the United States can be seen a better demonstration of the
wonderful development of the transportation system of the country. Besides
its trunk-line railroads the city has two belt railway systems and numerous
private tracks, so that its equipment for industrial work is unexcelled.
Its street-railway system of nearly two hundred miles is one of the finest
in America. The tracks and the equipment are thoroughly modern in every
respect.
The first newspaper published in Kansas City was a weekly called the
_Kansas Ledger_. It was established in 1851, but was sold in about fifteen
months, and then sold again and removed to Independence. The city after the
death of the _Ledger_ was for eighteen months without a newspaper office.
In September, 1854, the _Kansas City Enterprise_ made its appearance,
edited by W.A. Strong, D.K. Abeel having charge of the publishing
department. In August, 1855, the _Enterprise_ was bought out by R.T. Van
Horn, who assumed editorial control in October. In January, 1857, Mr. Abeel
purchased a half-interest in the paper and in the following October the
_Enterprise_ became the _Western Journal of Commerce_, a larger and greatly
improved sheet. The _Kansas City Journal_ grew out of this and at once
began to assume the high position among the great dailies of the country
which it has since maintained. Theodore Case, in his history of Kansas
City, a volume of some seven hundred pages, says of the _Journal_ in 1888
what may well be repeated to-day:
"There is one feature that has always characterized this paper,
a never-failing devotion to home and local interests, and an
unyielding faith in the destiny of the city, that has made it,
more than any other interest, the builder and architect of the
present City of Kansas. It has furnished more information,
historical, statistical and commercial in regard to Western
Missouri, the great western plains and the mountains, their
trade, resources and capabilities, than any other paper in the
Mississippi Valley, and when the history of the New West comes
to be written, it is to its columns that the historian will
turn for its earliest facts and figures."
Colonel R.T. Van Horn continued to be the chief owner and editor of the
_Journal_ until 1896, besides attending to his duties as Congressman and in
other important relations. As the "Grand Old Man" of Kansas City, he is
to-day quietly enjoying the fruits of his long and honorable labors.
[Illustration THE POST-OFFICE, KANSAS CITY.]
The only other Kansas City newspaper besides the _Journal_ in existence at
the close of the war was the _Daily Kansas City Post_ (German) started in
the latter part of 1858, with August Wuerz, Sr., as its first editor. Mr.
Wuerz was a strong abolitionist and so aroused the antipathy of the
pro-slavery element that he was forced to abandon the city in 1860. He
crossed over to Wyandotte (now Kansas City, Kansas), published the _Post_
there for nine months, and then returned to Kansas City. The first
democratic daily established here after the war was the _Advertiser_, which
appeared in 1865. It was succeeded in 1868 by the _Kansas City Times_,
which was issued by the proprietors, Messrs. R.B. Drury & Co. Varying
fortune marked the paper until 1878, when, under the management of Messrs.
Munford, Munford & Hasbrook, it attained a high standing among the dailies
of the country. Of the papers which at about this time shared the honor of
representing Kansas City should be named the _Kansas City News_, an evening
paper, which suspended after a four years' existence; the _Evening Mail_,
an evening democratic paper, which came into existence in 1875 and which,
after frequently changing its proprietors, became, in 1882, the property of
the owner of the _Kansas City Star_, Mr. W.R. Nelson. The _Kansas City
Star_ achieved remarkable success in the hands of Mr. Nelson, and now
occupies a leading place among the dailies of the city and the country,
giving as it always has its best efforts towards the upbuilding and
expansion of the city. Another evening paper which has shown evidence of
the growth of the city by its own substantial growth, is the _Evening
World_, which, established in 1894, continues to rank well among the papers
of the city. Vicious newspapers have never been permitted to flourish in
Kansas City.
[Illustration A BIT OF GLADSTONE BOULEVARD, KANSAS CITY.]
What may be called the real-estate history of Kansas City is peculiarly
interesting. In the year 1830 James H. McGee built a log cabin for a
residence near what is now the corner of Twentieth and Central Streets. He
made the first kiln of brick west of Independence, built the first brick
residence in Kansas City, and furnished the bricks for Father Donnelly's
chapel chimney. Mr. McGee acquired by purchase nearly all the land between
the towns of Kansas City and Westport, and his name and that of his family
is to-day so associated with the record of the city's development that it
cannot be lost. The first working town company was formed in 1846 and was
composed of men whose names subsequently were conspicuous in the city's
history. They were H.M. Northrup, Jacob Ragan, Henry Jobe, William Gillis,
Robert Campbell, Fry P. McGee, W.B. Evans, W.M. Chick, and J.C. McCoy. It
is said that about 150 lots were then sold at an average price of $55.65
per lot. This was the nucleus of the old town and the beginning of its most
picturesque history as a real-estate market. In the years between 1878 and
1888 (the "boom" period) the city grew extraordinarily, the excitement over
real-estate transactions reaching a point probably unprecedented in this
country. An enormous acreage of what never can be anything but farm land
was platted and sold as city property, and prices for all classes of real
estate reached figures which will probably never be reached again, at least
until the city has a population greater than now seems possible.
[Illustration THE STOCK YARD EXCHANGE, KANSAS CITY.]
At the close of the war in 1865, Kansas City had three banks, one insurance
company, one daily and two weekly English newspapers, one German weekly and
one bi-monthly medical journal. The churches were two Methodist, one
Baptist, two Presbyterian, one Roman Catholic and one Christian. There were
two lodges of Masons, two of Odd Fellows, one of Good Templars, a Turn
Verein, a Shamrock Benevolent Society, a girl's school, a rectory school,
and a German school. The census of 1860 showed a population of 4418. Now
the city stands first among the cities of the land in the agricultural
implement trade, first in the Southern lumber trade, second in the
live-stock trade, first in the horse and mule trade, second as a railroad
centre, second in the meat-packing business, tenth in bank clearings,
nineteenth in the value of its manufactures. It has 50 public-school
buildings, 626 teachers and 34,142 pupils. It has the second largest park
system in the country, having over 2000 acres. It handled in 1900
$130,824,270 worth of live-stock; 32,625,850 bushels of wheat; 7,290,000
bushels of corn; 3,035,600 bushels of oats; 156,000 bushels of rye, and
12,000 bushels of barley. It did a wholesale business of $265,000,000, its
packing houses turned out $100,000,000 worth of products, slaughtering
1,000,000 cattle, 2,900,000 hogs and 650,673 sheep. Its bank clearings were
$698,755,530. Its banking and trust company capital was $8,000,000; it had
two hundred miles of paved streets, twenty-seven grain elevators with a
storage capacity of 6,484,000 bushels.
[Illustration THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, KANSAS CITY.]
On the non-material side the city has made a progress even more remarkable.
It is not devoted entirely to money-getting. The humanities have been
remembered. There are some thirty-four hospitals, asylums, and benevolent
homes. It has eight hospitals proper for the reception of the sick,
disabled, and diseased, the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company maintaining
one. There are five children's homes, and one industrial home. There are
three homes for the aged, one of which is for colored people entirely.
There is one convent and an institution each for the Sisters of Charity and
the Sisters of Mercy, besides others of lesser importance. In some cases
the buildings may not be pretentious, but they are all ample in size, and
in many instances would not discredit the cities of the largest population.
The exceptional intelligence of the people is proved by other unmistakable
signs. Strong, clean newspapers, beautiful opera houses, first-class
hotels, hundreds of churches, modern schools, great libraries, charming
clubs, beautiful parks and streets, fine hospitals, fine public buildings,
admirable public utilities, and above all an enormous proportion of
beautiful homes,--these are some of the signs that tell of the fruition of
the highest hopes of the hardy pioneers who first gave battle to savagery
and the wilderness at this point.
That the city has a much greater growth before it is the opinion of all who
are familiar with the conditions there. The vast agricultural, mineral, and
manufacturing region surrounding it and directly tributary to it for a
thousand miles in every direction is sure to push it steadily forward among
American cities until it ranks at last with Boston, Baltimore, and St.
Louis.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
OMAHA
THE TRANSCONTINENTAL GATEWAY
BY VICTOR ROSEWATER
Now a city of 100,000 population, with prosperous suburbs that make it the
business centre for 175,000 people, Omaha is the outgrowth of the Nebraska
& Council Bluffs Ferry Company. This company was organized under the
incorporation laws of Iowa, in 1853, to carry on the lucrative ferriage
traffic for transcontinental pilgrims in quest of the gold-fields of
California that had been begun two years previously by a halted
gold-seeker, Brown by name, who saw more gold in paddling passengers across
the murky Missouri than in washing the yellow sands near Sutter's mill.
[Illustration ALFRED D. JONES.]
As an adjunct to the ferry, the company staked out a claim adjacent to its
west landing directly opposite Council Bluffs, and employed Alfred D.
Jones, a young civil engineer, to lay out a town site which on pretentious
paper was invested, without particular thought or design, with the name
Omaha, from the tribe of Indians that was wont to camp upon the creek
brushing its north boundary. The survey was conducted in June and July of
1854, and the adoption of the name was doubtless suggested by the fact that
a month or more before the representative in Congress for the State of
Iowa had prevailed upon the Post-Office Department to issue a commission
to Mr. Jones as postmaster at Omaha City, which at that time must have
existed solely in his prolific imagination. Postmaster Jones carrying the
post-office around with him in his hat is a reminiscence founded on actual
fact and not in fancy.
That the ideas of these early pioneers were of the expansible variety is
readily gathered from the character of the plat prepared to mark the coming
town site as the seat of a great and mighty city. On the broad plateau
overlooking the river, building lots were staked out 66 by 132 feet,
divided by streets 100 feet wide and alleys of 20 feet. There were 320
blocks in all, each comprising eight lots forming squares of 264 feet. Two
squares were reserved, one in the business centre 264 by 280 feet, and the
other on the top of the most conspicuous hill 600 feet square, the latter
designated as Capitol Square and the hill as Capitol Hill, and a broad
avenue 120 feet wide leading to it as Capitol Avenue--all in foreordained
honor of the magnificent structure to be erected when the newly born city
should have achieved the distinction of the capital of Nebraska Territory.
Omaha City was not organized as an incorporated municipality until 1857.
Looking closer into the history and geography of the spot where now run
the busy streets of Nebraska's metropolis, lined with substantial business
blocks and attractive residences, precisely as platted in that lonely
summer of 1854, the conclusion is forced that it was not mere fortuitous
chance that built a wonder city upon an empty ferry landing. The location
was by nature destined to be a turning point on the great central
transcontinental highway bridging the divide between the Atlantic and the
Pacific.
[Illustration WILLIAM. P. SNOWDEN, OMAHA'S FIRST WHITE SETTLER.]
Lewis and Clark, who worked their way to Oregon up the Missouri Valley,
were the first white men to leave a record of their visit. From their
journal is taken the following extract noting their arrival and detention
at the mouth of the Platte in July, 1804, whence they continued northward
and passed over the ground now included in the city:
"July 27.--Having completed the object of our stay, we set sail
with a pleasant breeze for the northwest. The two horses swam
over to the southern [western] shore, along which we went,
passing by an island, at three and a half miles, formed by a
pond, fed by springs; three miles further is a large sand
island in the middle of the river, the land on the south [west]
being high and covered with timber; that on the north [east] a
prairie. At ten and a half miles from our encampment, we saw
and examined a curious collection of graves or mounds, on the
south [west] side of the river. Not far from a low piece of
land and a pond, is a tract of about two hundred acres in
extent, which is covered with mounds of different heights,
shapes and sizes; some of sand, and some of both earth and
sand; the largest being near the river. These mounds indicate
the position of the ancient village of the Ottoes, before they
retired to the protection of the Pawnees. After making fifteen
miles, we camped on the south [east] on the bank of a high,
handsome prairie, with lofty cottonwood in groves, near the
river."[14]
That the mounds referred to constituted the ancient Indian burial ground,
remnants of which long remained in the lower part of the town as objects of
curiosity to inquisitive observers, has been established to the
satisfaction of historical critics, as also that the council held by Lewis
and Clark with the Indians, from which Council Bluffs derives its name,
took place in reality not on the Iowa side opposite Omaha but on the
Nebraska side several miles farther up, in the vicinity of what is now Fort
Calhoun.
A no less interesting historical chapter is found in the Mormon encampment
that for a time promised to make Omaha the centre of its church
establishment. It is needless here to state details of the Nauvoo
persecutions and the early expeditions in search of the promised land. When
the advance-guard sighted the east bank of the Missouri, it took a stand on
Miller's hill,--so named after a Mormon elder,--where the various companies
into which the emigrants had been divided for their historic march across
Iowa converged. It might have been called Miller's hill to this day had not
just at that moment a call arrived to enlist a body of volunteers for the
United States in its impending war with Mexico, followed by the prompt
organization of the Mormon battalion under Colonel T.L. Kane, in whose
honor the name of the halting place was changed to Kanesville. Kanesville
it might have remained but for the fact that the post-office at that point
had been designated as Council Bluffs City, whither the last mail for the
emigrants setting out over the great divide was regularly addressed; and to
avoid confusion the name of Kanesville was dropped after two or three
years and Council Bluffs left in undisputed possession of that corner of
the map.
[Illustration A TYPICAL OMAHA INDIAN. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF F.A.
RINEHART, OMAHA.]
But the east bank of the river was not suitable for the Mormons' purposes.
They crossed over and established themselves in Winter Quarters at a point
about six miles north of what later became Omaha, making themselves as
comfortable as possible in seven hundred and more hastily built log cabins
and dug-outs. The place was fortified with stockades, a tabernacle erected,
and various workshops and mills were constructed to provide temporary
employment. At Winter Quarters was held the annual conference of the
church, April 6, 1847, attended by people from all parts of the country
prepared for moving west. From Winter Quarters, on the 14th day of the same
month, a party of about 150, all but four or five being men, set out, with
seventy-three wagons drawn by horses and oxen, under the personal
leadership of Brigham Young, the expedition culminating in the famous
founding of Zion in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. The excursion of
apostles and pioneers returned to the Missouri for their families and
friends, their arrival at Winter Quarters in October calling forth as an
occasion for special joy and thanksgiving an elaborate celebration. The
summer of 1848 saw the great body of Latter Day Saints following Brigham
Young to the new Utah settlement, but Winter Quarters was maintained for
years as the stopping point and outfitting station for the Mormon emigrants
on their westward wandering. By 1856 the name had been changed to Florence
and it is so referred to in the writings of the later Mormons. For years it
remained the busy hiving place for the church converts moving on Zion from
all quarters of the world. To-day it is a quaint, old-fashioned sleepy
village, interesting chiefly for a few ancient landmarks, and visited on
good-weather Sundays by recreation seekers from Omaha in cart or on wheel.
The earliest history of Omaha is a chronicle of bitterly waged fights for
the possession of the seat of government of the new Nebraska Territory. The
proud privilege of advertising itself as the capital city was eagerly
sought after not only by Omaha but by every other ambitious town-site
company along the eastern frontier. It should be remembered that the
initial steps in the territorial organization were taken under the
presidency of Franklin Pierce, who, although a Northern man, was almost
completely under Southern domination. The position of governor was first
offered to General William G. Butler of Kentucky, but unceremoniously
declined, whereupon it was passed on to another Southern gentleman in the
person of Francis H. Burt of South Carolina. Governor Burt arrived at
Bellevue in company with the secretary, Thomas B. Cuming of Iowa, in
October, 1854, but before he undertook in any way to exercise his official
powers he succumbed to a fatal illness, leaving the succession by virtue of
his office to Secretary Cuming. Governor Cuming in due time issued his
election proclamation and called the territorial Legislature to convene at
Omaha in January. In this connection it should also be remembered that
Omaha was located and settled by Iowa promoters while the competing towns
to the south looked on slave-holding Missouri as the parent. Had the first
capital designation been asserted by the South Carolina executive instead
of by his fortuitous Iowa successor we may well doubt whether Omaha would
have fared so fortunately.
[Illustration THE HIGH SCHOOL, OMAHA, ON THE SITE OF THE OLD CAPITOL.
REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF HEYN, OMAHA.]
The earliest territorial legislatures have been described by eye-witnesses
and participants as often bordering on an organized mob. To keep the
capital at Omaha was the watchword on the one side and to take it away the
battle-cry on the other. Money and town-lot stock are said to have played
an important part with members who seem to have anticipated later-day
legislative methods and yielded to "inducements" that overcame their local
loyalty. While the Capitol building rose on Capitol Hill, Omaha had to
contest for its retention at every annual session of the Legislature from
1855 to 1858, from which time it was left in undisputed possession until
1867, when with the investiture of Statehood a seat of government was
carved anew on the virgin prairie to be christened Lincoln after the
martyred President.
The great impetus that sent the infant Omaha forward by leaps and bounds
ahead of its rivals in the Missouri Valley north and south came from two
closely connected enterprises--the one the building of the Pacific
telegraph, the other the construction of the first transcontinental
railroad.
The Pacific telegraph assumed tangible form through the unquenchable
energies of Edward Creighton. Still in the prime of sturdy manhood,
invigorated by the Irish blood inherited from his ancestry, Creighton had
come to Omaha in 1856 to visit his brothers, engaging for a time in the
lumber business. In 1860 he built the Missouri & Western line from St.
Louis to Omaha, but already a year before had evolved a plan for a
telegraph from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast. With the
encouragement and material assistance of men like Jeptha H. Wade, Ezra
Cornell, and Hiram Sibley, whose confidence he earned and kept, his idea,
originally received as a weird fancy, took shape in surveys, contracts, and
actual construction, the first message transmission occurring in October,
1861, speeding on in an hour by electric current intelligence that would
previously have required weeks and months to journey. The fortune sprung
from this venturesome undertaking has given the name of Creighton a
foundation lasting to the end of time. Edward Creighton died in 1874,
leaving $1,500,000 to be bestowed eventually for educational and charitable
purposes. The good work he began has been carried further by his brother,
John A. Creighton, and the Creighton College, the Creighton Medical School,
and the Creighton Memorial Hospital, not to enumerate smaller benefactions,
all attest as enduring monuments the activity and foresight that paved the
way for the electric fluid to flow unchecked from ocean to ocean.
[Illustration CITY HALL.]
The telegraph was but the forerunner of the railroad. With Omaha the
initial point of the Pacific telegraph lines, it enjoyed a marked advantage
in the competition for the eastern terminus of the Pacific Railway. Up to
that time, all transportation had been by steamboat up the Missouri River
or in wagon and coach overland. The race of the iron horse across Iowa had
been interrupted, first by the financial crash of 1857, and then by the war
of 1861, so that the first locomotive to carry its train to the Missouri
River arrived January 17, 1867, bearing the escutcheon of the Chicago &
Northwestern. Within two years four railroads converged at the river
opposite Omaha eager to share the through transcontinental traffic already
in sight.
The history of Omaha and of the Union Pacific is inseparably linked. It is
not necessary to weigh the conflicting claims to credit for suggesting the
railroad to the Pacific slope. The war demonstrated the military necessity
of a rail connection with the coast States and forced Congress to take the
steps that made its immediate construction possible. Without the subsidy
offered in the Acts of 1862 and 1863 the road certainly would not have been
built for years, and the development of the whole western country would
have been long retarded.
At the recommendation of the chief engineer, Peter A. Dey, the eastern
terminus was fixed "on the western boundary of the State of Iowa, opposite
Omaha," an event so auspicious as to provoke a responsive demonstration
from the enthusiastic inhabitants of the young city, who made the
master-stroke of their celebration the actual breaking of the ground for
the newly projected road. This occurred December 2, 1863, with the
thermometer hovering close to the freezing point.
The work of construction was pushed with all possible rapidity, but with
the best expedition it was May 10, 1869, before the juncture of the two
roads heading for one another from east and west was effected, in the
presence of a distinguished body of spectators, by the driving of the
golden spike at Promontory Point, girding the continent with bands of
steel. According to all accounts the celebration at Omaha of the completion
of the Union Pacific was on a scale commensurate with its importance to the
commercial and industrial position of the city.
If Engineer Dey was the central figure in the initial work, Thomas C.
Durant, as First Vice-President and General Manager, had more to do with
its successful completion than any other one man. While many names have
since shown bright in the progress of this epoch-making enterprise, those
of Dey and Durant must form the base-stones of the arch that has raised
this great railroad to its eminence, and carried it through stress and
storm.
[Illustration RETURN OF THE FIRST NEBRASKA VOLUNTEERS, AUG. 30, 1899.]
The prestige acquired by Omaha as a railway centre in those early days has
been constantly maintained, until to-day the steel rails radiate in every
direction, while three magnificent bridges span the Missouri where Brown's
lonely ferry formerly transferred victims of the gold fever from one bank
to the other.
[Illustration THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, OMAHA.]
With a firmly established industrial foundation, the progress of the city
has gone steadily forward. Commercial expansion, it is true, has been
broken occasionally by bursting real-estate booms, grasshopper plagues,
drought-stricken crops or general financial depression, but in material
welfare and ever-widening public activity the community takes rank with its
most wide-awake competitors. Besides its extensive jobbing interests, its
manufacturing development has been along the lines of silver smelting and
refining, linseed oil mills, white lead works, machine and locomotive
shops, and the great live-stock market and meat-packing establishments
that have formed the nucleus of the magic city braced against its boundary
under the name of South Omaha, and sure, sooner or later, to be one with it
in corporate existence, as it is already in life and business. Although not
yet past the fiftieth anniversary, Omaha boasts of all those advantages
that make an attractive living place--good schools, well-stocked free
libraries, substantial churches, art galleries, well-paved streets, with
water, light, and rapid transit, fine public parks, imposing public
buildings. Above all, it is a city of homes and home owners, thick with
modest dwellings though only meagrely supplied with palatial mansions.
Omaha's contribution to the world of science, art, and literature is
perhaps small, but it has given two presidents to the American Bar
Association in James M. Woolworth and Charles F. Manderson, the latter also
having filled the position of President _pro tem._ of the United States
Senate; in banking circles Herman Kountze and Joseph H. Millard are known
throughout the country; Edward Rosewater and his newspaper, _The Bee_,
occupy a place in the front rank of American journalism; the art gallery of
George Whininger is classed among the best private collections on this
side of the Atlantic; and the benevolence of John A. Creighton has received
recognition in the title conferred on him of Count in the Holy Roman See.
[Illustration OMAHA EXPOSITION, 1898. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF F.A.
RINEHART, OMAHA]
The Trans-Mississippi Exposition of 1898 constitutes Omaha's crowning
achievement of recent years. Projected in the period of densest industrial
gloom and executed in the face of the war with Spain, the enterprise
proved an unexpected and unprecedented success, returning to the stock
subscribers ninety per cent. of the money they had advanced. The financial
success was, however, subordinate to the success in other directions. A
white city of such architectural perfection could not fail to afford an
æsthetic stimulus in itself of wonderful educational effect. Participated
in by all the trans-Mississippi States and Territories as an exhibition of
the resources and products of this vast region, the Exposition served to
open the eyes of visitors from both at home and abroad to the limitless
possibilities there spread before them. The Indian Congress alone,
including as it did representatives of nearly all the remaining tribes of
aboriginal inhabitants gathered together under the direction of the Indian
authorities of the Federal Government, formed an ethnic object-lesson the
like of which had never before been presented. No fitter culmination could
have been prepared than the Peace Jubilee, in its closing month of October,
attended by President McKinley, members of his Cabinet, and heroes of the
armed conflict just concluded, all uniting in acclaiming the end of war
typified in the Exposition as a towering triumph of the arts of peace.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[14] In this account the directions are misleading, as they thought the
river ran east and west instead of north and south at this point.
[Illustration]
DENVER
THE QUEEN CITY OF THE PLAINS
BY JOHN COTTON DANA
Denver has historic background. Behind its own brief chronicles we note the
outline of the story, full of the good work of strong men, of the
exploration and civic conquest of the wide country between the Mississippi
River and the Pacific coast. To ask of Denver's beginnings is to go back of
1858 and the hopeful Aurarians by the ford at the mouth of Cherry Creek, to
government explorations, California gold seekers, Mormon emigrants,
trappers and traders, and Spanish pioneers.
The incidents which lead up to Denver's origin took place here and there
in a great mid-continental area so vast as to make those incidents seem at
first sight isolated, unrelated to one another. But there is a simplicity
of plan in that great country which, taken with the gold of the west coast
and the migrant spirit of the early settlers of the Mississippi Valley,
makes the early ventures across the plains seem natural enough and binds
them to one another. Given the country and the factors mentioned, and a
great central city, at once a focus and distributing point for all that lay
across the plains, the Denver of to-day, was foreordained.
[Illustration Sources of Territorial Acquisition of Colorado.]
Westward of the Mississippi lie six hundred miles of plains, fertile and
attractive on their eastern edge, a desert waste beyond, ending abruptly
in rocky mountains. The mountains, dropping here and there into high and
barren tablelands, roll on a thousand miles to the Pacific. From the
Canadian to the Mexican boundary, plains and mountains thus dispose
themselves and make the arena for the drama of the Anglo-Saxon conquest
of the new West,--a conquest of a not too unwilling nature by energetic
and efficient men. The scene was remote; the land, generous when once
subdued, was repellent if not hostile in its aspect, and added to the
barrier of a desert waste upon its border the deterrents and terrors of
the unknown. The Indians who claimed the soil--chiefly Arapahoes and
their allies near Denver, and their hereditary foes, the Utes, in the
mountains--did all in their power to make a seemingly inhospitable
nature yet more inhospitable. They were never large in number. They were
foredoomed to defeat. Their presence in this vast area added more of
romance than of difficulty and danger to the coming of the white man.
Some of their travel-worn paths among the mountains, like the old Navajo
trail of Southwest Colorado, may still be traced, can still arouse
sympathetic interest in a people for whom the modern man could not wait,
and despised as laggard. From Aztec Springs, across Lost Cañon, over the
Dolores River near its big bend, out upon Dolores Plateau to
Narraguinnep Spring and the borders of Disappointment Valley, and then
on and on again, so runs the old Navajo trail; here a single foot-path
up the cañon side, there deep triple and quadruple ruts worn by men,
women, horses, and dragging teepee poles. With no signs of permanent
habitation on its way, out of wild nature it comes, into wild nature it
goes; significant of the passing of the people who made it and of the
petty trace they left on the world about them.
The Spanish had carried their religion and their rule up into the southern
margin of this great area long before the first settlements were made on
Massachusetts Bay. Coronado pushed as far northeast as Kansas in 1541. The
towns which the Spanish established, many of them three centuries and more
ago, led to the brief romance of the old Santa Fé trail, and still give a
peculiar flavor to the story of the southern border. But save for a few
small towns whose lack of root in the soil is evidenced by the ruins of
their churches--churches so far forgotten that our own historians have
called them remains of prehistoric times--the Spanish invasion was an
invasion always, not a settlement, not an appropriation of even the margin
of the vast area we are considering.
[Illustration DENVER, COLORADO.]
Lewis and Clark went northwest to the Columbia in 1803; Pike went up the
Arkansas in 1806; and that young man's simple tale of the things he dared
and the sights he saw in his march from the Mississippi to the lone fort he
built on the banks of the Conejos in the San Luis Valley is charming and
adventurous. He was the American pioneer of the future Colorado. Wandering
trappers and hunters had preceded him; but none told what they had seen.
Long, with his expedition, in July, 1820, crossed the spot where Denver
now stands. Long was an explorer, not a pioneer. Pioneers are prophets, and
see the fences and barns that are to come. To Long all west of the
Missouri,
"agreeably to the best intelligence that can be had ... is
throughout uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture
for their subsistence.... This region, however," he says,
"viewed as a frontier, may prove of infinite importance to the
United States, inasmuch as it is calculated to serve as a barrier
to prevent too great an extension of our population westward, and
secure us against the machinations or incursions of an enemy, that
might otherwise be disposed to annoy us in that quarter."
This opinion, widely circulated, perhaps helped to defer the day of actual
occupation of that Great American Desert which, after Long's report, took
possession, on our maps, of nearly all the country whose history is
Denver's prehistoric days.
[Illustration "SMOKY" JONES.]
Then came Sublette and his like, and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the
Santa Fé trail, trappers, Indians; and these also, beginning about 1822,
would furnish material for romance, were the simple story thereof not
romance enough.
Bonneville in 1832 vanished from sight in the Northwest for three years;
and many others, among them Irving, Bonneville's historian, sought profit,
adventure, or knowledge in the new land. In '42, Frémont, the Pathfinder,
on his first expedition pushed out nearly to the site of Denver. And
Frémont's travels, the romantic note in them heightened by the presence of
Kit Carson, prince of pioneers,--what color they add to our chronicles of
exploration! Five times he set forth. Once he camped on the site of Denver,
with 160 lodges of Arapahoe Indians near by. Once he nearly perished with
all his party in the Sangre de Cristo range.
Kearney's military expedition to Santa Fé at the time of the Mexican War;
Gunnison's exploration for a railroad route to the Pacific, in 1853;
Marcy's incredible midwinter march from Fort Bridger, across the very
backbone of the continent, south to New Mexico; all these were great deeds,
and all served to add to that knowledge of the still wild West which
brought about its final conquest.
[Illustration THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER, THE PROPER CREST FOR THE COAT-OF-ARMS
OF THE WEST.]
To speak feelingly of the Mormon exodus, of that venture into the western
wilderness of a few men of our own blood and faith, is to be misunderstood.
Some day that flight of a few brave exiles for conscience sake, from
their brother men to the heart of a continent, where a relentless nature
seemed, with her isolation and her desolation, doubly equipped for
cruelty--some day that flight, worthily and justly told, will find a place
in history.[15]
The gold seekers of California, who crossed by thousands the land the
outline of whose human history we are trying to sketch, these have,
perhaps, received their due.
Such, then, in broadest outline, is the background of Denver's history. It
is almost depressing to consider how little the outline holds of that
recognition element which makes "historic" for us a country, a scene, a
person, an event. Here is a wide and wonderful country; here have been done
great deeds by brave and true men. Coronado, Escalante, Pike, Lewis and
Clark, among explorers; Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, the Bents, Jim Baker,
among scouts, trappers, and traders; the names could be multiplied many
times. Their deeds are fit to provoke emulation or national pride. But
mention of either names or deeds stirs the emotions only of the few. This
is inevitable. They are not yet part of universal knowledge. They are not
yet types of men or actions, as are Ulysses, Agamemnon, Hampden, and the
voyage of the _Mayflower_. Things are not "historic" until later
generations have made them so. Perhaps the dominance of Old World types in
literature and art, together with the swift rush of affairs of the passing
day, will crowd much of the story of America's development out from the
domain of history as known to men at large. If so, the story of the taking
by our forebears and our brothers of the great West beyond the Mississippi
will always remain as little "historic," as barren in its emotional
content, as it is to-day. This were a pity, tho' perhaps best. But even
then it would seem proper to suggest, in the bare outline I have drawn, the
historic possibilities which lie back of, lead up to, explain, the Denver
of to-day.
[Illustration FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE IN DENVER.]
It is 1857; the country has become vaguely known, many have crossed it; the
Mormons have taken possession of the Salt Lake basin; from the mountains
across the plains there float back rumors of gold; and the region which has
been simply a desert to be crossed begins to be a region to be explored,
perhaps to be settled. Who first found gold it is idle to inquire. A party
of Cherokees from the gold regions of Georgia were perhaps the first to get
traces on the Platte. Certain men of Lawrence, Kansas, prophets perhaps,
boomers probably, certainly addicted to the town-site habit, and abounding
in hope, went up the Arkansas in 1858; tried to start a town on Monument
Creek under the shadow of Pike's Peak; wearied soon of waiting for a
population which did not come, and crossed the divide north to the Platte;
staked out a town, Montana, on that stream a few miles above the site of
Denver, and disbanded. Of this party a few moved down the Platte to the
mouth of Cherry Creek, and there in the bottom, among the cotton-woods,
just where the old military road crossed the creek, laid out the town of
St. Charles. Another party, from Iowa, in the same year, settled across the
creek on its west side and soon laid out a town and called it Auraria. Then
came another party over the divide from the Arkansas, found the St. Charles
town-site promoters were absent, saw the city that was to be, jumped the
site, and organized a company to build a town thereon to be called Denver
in honor of the then Governor of Kansas. And so, in the winter of 1858-59
Denver found itself, on what proved to be "Section 33 and the west half of
section 34, in township 3 south of range 68 west of the 6th principal
meridian." How fatal to the romantic element in the beginnings of the
Western city are the transit and the chain! What can there be of mystery or
poetry in "Sec. 33 and W. 1/2 of Sec. 34, Tp. 3 S. of R. 68 W. 6th P.M."?
Denver was a rival of Auraria. Her supremacy was settled early in 1859 by
thirty wagons which came up the Platte and unloaded their merchandise on
the Denver side of Cherry Creek. In the spring of 1859 a large company,
perhaps 1000, were already camped in and about the new towns. The Pike's
Peak excitement became intense. A new gold fever was on. Mr. William N.
Byers reached Denver April 21, 1859, with a printing outfit and issued the
first number of the first paper printed in Colorado, April 23d. On his way
across he met the returning tide. Report says 150,000 started that spring
across the plains; 50,000 turned back; 100,000 went on to the mountains;
not over 40,000 of them stayed. The early months of 1859 were troublous
times. Foolish, reckless gold seekers, led West on half-knowledge, tried to
lay the blame for their own folly on the shoulders of others. Gold in
paying quantities was as yet far from common. Horace Greeley crossed the
plains in July, looked over the ground with care, reported favorably on the
country in the _Tribune_, and, in good local phrase, "gave Denver the best
advertisement she ever had."
The city, now under way, attained little importance until after 1870. Rival
trade centres attracted attention. Mining camps scattered through the
mountains drew most of the population. After the Leadville excitement in
1878 and 1879, it rose in 1880 to 35,000, by fairly steady growth to
106,000 in 1890, was checked by the panic and hard times about 1893, and
yet rose to 133,000 in 1900.
[Illustration FACSIMILE LETTER FROM WM. N. BYERS, THE FOUNDER OF THE "ROCKY
MOUNTAIN NEWS."]
Once established as the leading distributing point of the mining regions of
the New West the city's growth was assured, and followed in the main the
lines of many other Western cities. Peculiar to itself were a few incidents
due to its position, to ignorance of the climate, its isolation and the
difficulty of extending Eastern railways to so remote a point. Early in
1863 a great fire destroyed much of the business portion of the city. The
summer following, the plains were burned by a terrible drought. The
barrenness of the wide stretches about the city was intensified. To this
day the sun-burnt plains of midsummer sweep up to Denver's very door-yards,
mock at the blue sky above them, and speak unutterable things of hunger,
thirst, and death. In the early 60's it was easy to imagine that they
spoke in earnest. Then came a winter, cold beyond all experience. Many
suffered. Cattle died. The pride some had felt over the balminess of
previous winters was forgotten. With early spring, Cherry Creek, the
miserable, despised bed of sand which crept through the town, scorned as a
possible stream and used for building sites over all its wide bottom, rose
in fury, rolled down from the divide, swept away the cheap bridges that
simply served to aggravate the flood, killed twenty persons, and destroyed
nearly a million dollars' worth of property. Nor was this the end of
troubles. For in 1864 the Indians planned a general massacre, killed a few
people near Denver, destroyed stage stations, cut off communication with
the East, and left Denver unspeakably alarmed and with only six weeks'
supply of food.
[Illustration PROSPECTING PARTY, RICO, COLORADO, 1880.]
In these first years gold seemed the one excuse for the white man's
presence in Colorado. Several million dollars were taken out from easily
worked placer mines before 1863. The supply then seemed exhausted. All
efforts to get the gold from veins were ineffectual. Millions were spent by
the overzealous in machinery and mills not adapted to the country's needs.
But over this, as over all other obstacles, the triumph was sure; and by
1871 new and proper processes of mining and ore reducing had been
successfully adopted.
The fertility of Colorado soil under irrigation was not realized fully for
nearly a decade after the founding of Denver. But before 1870 the
agricultural possibilities were demonstrated; the cattle industry continued
to thrive; and the region north of Denver lying under the several streams
which issue from the mountains within sight of the city began to grow into
the garden spot it now is, and to lend stability to Denver's factors of
growth.
The Union Pacific reached the city via Cheyenne in June, 1870, and the
Kansas Pacific soon after. Of that wonderful railway to whose growth Denver
owes so much, the Denver & Rio Grande, the first rails were laid in 1871.
What is now Colorado was variously known in early days of its settlement as
"Pike's Peak," "Arapahoe County," "Jefferson Territory." The story of the
settlement of its governmental difficulties; its miners' and its people's
courts; its independent government; the dramatic career of that prophet of
the great divide, William Gilpin, first Governor of Colorado, in his
headstrong yet wise handling of difficult problems in the opening days of
the Civil War,--all this is full of interest, of excitement, of adventure,
is instructive to the student of institutions, and full of confirmation for
those who have faith in the civic genius of the American people.
[Illustration RICO, COLORADO, IN 1880. A TYPICAL MINING CAMP.]
The city of Denver lies fifteen miles east of the mountains on the Platte.
Its elevation is 5280 feet above sea level. It is the meeting point of nine
railroads. It has 165 miles of street railways. It is well paved and its
health is well cared for. In parks, churches, journals, schools, hospitals,
banks, and kindred institutions it is well supplied. Its manufactured
products, including smelter output, amount to over $50,000,000 a year.
[Illustration WILLIAM GILPIN.]
What one may call the natural history of Denver's people is interesting
and, perhaps, explanatory of some things in its history. To it have come in
good measure the vigorous and energetic. They have brought with them the
ideas and customs of all parts of the United States. In the first two
decades, the formative period, about half of all comers were from the upper
Mississippi Valley, largely of New England descent; and one fourth each
from the extreme East and the South. Among these were many invalids. All
were young; and old men are still rare in Denver. Put these elements
together in a climate of sunshine and dry tonic air; separate them by six
hundred miles from all that is old and conventional; give them wide
opportunity of choice inoccupation,--agriculture, stock raising, mining of
precious metals, iron, coal, and stone, and the building of a city and a
State; let their city be--much as Paris is France--politically, socially,
and financially, the entire State, containing, as it does, nearly one third
of all the latter's population;--and you may look for, and you will find,
courage, swiftness of execution, easy adjustment of conflicting ideas and
habits, tolerance on all matters save those affecting general local
interests, where a certain natural State patriotism blooms into a fine
bigotry, quick adoption of all modern improvements in living, and a
readiness to try any promising social experiment. You would expect politics
to be continually threatened with reform; an occasional economic heresy to
get a passing boom; newspapers to be wide-awake, vituperative, and not
greatly influential. And you would expect to find Denver, as you do find
it, a brilliant, active, inspiring city, full of promise in itself and
possessed by a people who--being chiefly of American stock and wrought
upon by a climate which is the climate of the States intensified--in their
alertness and in their intensity perhaps speak of the American citizen as
this continent of ours will sometime mould him.
[Illustration THE CAPITOL, DENVER.]
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[15] See chapter on Salt Lake City.
[Illustration]
SANTA FÉ
THE CITY OF THE HOLY FAITH
BY FREDERICK WEBB HODGE
There is probably no settlement within our domain over the history of which
so much mystery has hovered as the capital of New Mexico. Some historical
writers early claimed for the ancient city a reputation for antiquity
exceeding that of St. Augustine, Florida; others were content to give it
second place in point of age, and this position it really holds,
notwithstanding the strong but groundless belief, still somewhat prevalent,
that Santa Fé had a teeming aboriginal population when the Spaniards under
Coronado first made their appearance in New Mexico in 1540.
The actual founder of Santa Fé, so far as we can determine, was Juan de
Oñate, a wealthy resident of Zacatecas, who married Doña Isabel,
granddaughter of Hernan Cortés, and great-granddaughter of Montezuma, the
Aztec chief. In the autumn of 1595 Oñate was granted authority and
vice-regal support to raise an army and to explore and colonize New Mexico,
but the intrigues of his rivals caused many delays and it was not until
February, 1598, that, with a force of some four hundred colonists,
accompanied by eighty-three wagons and seven thousand cattle, he was ready
to proceed from the Rio Conchas in Chihuahua, bound for the Rio Grande del
Norte and New Mexico.
It is not essential to follow the little army in its northward journeying
up the river, across the terrible Jornada del Muerto,--where, as scores of
times later, the bones of some were left to whiten the trail. The new
country was formally taken possession of, for the fifth time at least, in
the name of the King of Spain, and on July 11, 1598, Oñate with his
vanguard reached the still inhabited Indian pueblo of San Juan, some
thirty miles northwest of the present Santa Fé.
[Illustration THE SO-CALLED "OLDEST HOUSE" IN SANTA FÉ.]
A month later work was begun with Indian aid on the construction of ditches
to supply water for a new settlement, the site for which had been selected
at the confluence of the Rio Chama with the Rio Grande, on the west bank of
the latter stream, where the hamlet of Chamita now stands. On August 23d
the erection of a chapel for this new town of San Francisco de los
Españoles was begun; it was finished September 7th, and on the following
day was consecrated.
This town, which was built on the site of the abandoned Tewa pueblo of
Yukewingge (or Yuqueyunque as Coronado's chroniclers called it in 1541),
was thus the first European settlement in New Mexico, and the second within
the limits of the United States. In 1599 the village became known as San
Gabriel, a name which it retained for several years.
The exact date of the founding of Santa Fé is not known, ignorance of the
fact probably being due to the destruction by the Indians of the local
Spanish archives in 1680. In October, 1604, Oñate started on a journey to
the head of the Gulf of California, returning to San Gabriel on April 25,
1605. The return route took the explorer past El Morro, or "Inscription
Rock," thirty-five miles east of Zuñi, where he carved his name on April
16th. It seems likely that the building of Santa Fé was begun shortly
afterward, although there is also good authority that San Gabriel remained
the only settlement of Europeans until 1608, in which year, it is said, the
Crown fixed the governmental regulations of the province and assigned a
salary of two thousand ducats a year to the Governor, who immediately
departed for Santa Fé. About this time Oñate was relieved by Governor Pedro
de Peralta.
The prospects of the new capital during its infancy were not promising.
Although the Franciscan missionaries manifested such zeal that by 1617
eleven churches had been established in New Mexico and fourteen thousand
natives are said to have been baptized, there were only forty-eight
soldiers and colonists in the entire province. On January 3, 1617, the King
was petitioned to grant succor to the settlement, and by royal decree of
May 20, 1620, his Majesty ordered the Viceroy to render the necessary aid,
with the result that by 1630 it was recorded by Fray Alonso de Benavides
that the town contained 250 Spaniards (some fifty of whom were armed), in
addition to seven hundred Indians, "so that, between Spaniards,
half-breeds, and Indians, there must be a thousand souls." The expense of
the garrison was not borne by the Crown, but by means derived from an
_encomienda_, or trusteeship over the Indians, who paid an annual tribute
of a vara of cotton cloth and a fanega of corn per family in return for
their teaching and "civilization."
As at San Gabriel, among the first structures reared in the new town was a
chapel. The first edifice of this character was an unpretentious affair, a
mere hut, which served its purpose until 1622, when Benavides, having
become Father Custodian of the province, commenced to build a new church
and monastery which, after its completion in 1627, "would shine in
whatsoever place." This is believed to have been the Parroquia, which stood
on the site of the present cathedral; indeed, some of the walls of the old
building are incorporated in the present structure. The chapel of San
Miguel, greatly modified in recent years, dates from the middle of the
seventeenth century; while the Capilla de los Soldados, which formerly
faced the plaza, opposite the Palace, with its grand altar tablet erected
by Governor Francisco Antonio Marin del Valle in 1761, probably dates from
about 1730.
[Illustration FORT MARCY AND THE PARROQUIA IN 1846.]
As already mentioned, there is no ground for the belief that Santa Fé was
established at a populous Indian pueblo,--the "capital" of all the village
dwellers of New Mexico,--the only excuse for such belief, still popular in
New Mexico, being that, in prehistoric times, the town was the site of at
least one Indian pueblo.
Of the history of Santa Fé between Benavides's time (1622-1630) and the
year 1680 not much is known. More than a dozen governors served the kingdom
of Spain in the administration of the affairs of the colony during this
period, and knowledge of the geography was somewhat increased by
expeditions from the seat of government into parts little known. The Pueblo
Indians, always friendly when well treated, cherished the religion of their
fathers, which the Spaniards tried in every way to supplant, so that
comparatively little progress was made in this rich missionary field aside
from the erection of massive churches of stone and adobe and the baptism of
many of the natives. Jealousy arose between the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities, and so bitter became the feeling that the friars were accused
of inciting a rebellion of the Indians in 1642, which resulted in the
killing of Governor Luis Rosas. Henceforward the hatred of the natives for
the whites became deeper and deeper; many of the natives were hanged from
time to time for alleged religious offences, and in 1675 many others were
whipped and imprisoned. From this time affairs assumed such a serious
aspect that the sedentary tribes, under the leadership of Popé, a native of
San Juan pueblo, finally determined to throw off the Spanish yoke by
effecting an organization that is still noteworthy in Indian annals.
[Illustration SAN MIGUEL CHAPEL BEFORE RECONSTRUCTION.]
Popé was a medicine-man of no mean capacity. His story of the wrongs of his
people fell on eager ears, and it was not long ere his plan to exterminate
the Spaniards received support from all the northerly Pueblo tribes. The
day of reckoning was to have been August 13th, while the mystic means of
communication was a knotted yucca cord which was dispatched by fleet
runners to the outlying tribes. Although all were enjoined to the
strictest secrecy, treachery lurked in the Indian ranks, and before the
time allotted for the outbreak the Spaniards became aware of its approach
through neophytes loyal to their cause. Popé saw that immediate action was
necessary to the fulfilment of his designs; news that the secret had been
divulged was heralded afar in true Indian fashion, and on August 10th,
three days before the time originally fixed, more than four hundred of the
twenty-five hundred settlers, soldiers, and friars were cruelly massacred.
On the 13th the refugees at Santa Cruz were taken to Santa Fé, and on the
day following the enemy appeared in the suburb of Analco, in the vicinity
of the present chapel of San Miguel, which had been erected for the
Tlascalan or Mexican members of the colony. A parley was held with a
deputation of the Indians, who bore a white cross of peace and a red cross
of war: of these they gave the Spaniards their choice, but on condition
that if the former were selected their country must be immediately
evacuated. Every effort was made by the Spaniards to bring about peace, but
the Indians, encouraged by the success of their bloody enterprise, were
determined to drive the Spaniards forever from the home of their fathers.
Failing in his efforts at conciliation, Governor Otermin endeavored to
dislodge the natives from the outskirts; but already the warriors had
arrived by hundreds, and the first desperate effort of the Spaniards to
drive off the natives resulted in their own retirement to the great adobe
Palace where the surviving women and children had already taken refuge.
The siege continued until the 19th. The Indians grew bolder with the
continued arrival of warriors until three thousand were massed in the
outskirts of the town. The city was beleaguered; the chapel of San Miguel
had been destroyed, and the water-supply of the town cut off; consequently
the trembling thousand within the Palace walls under the protection of only
a hundred armed men were in desperate straits. The 19th passed. Otermin and
his imprisoned colonists spent the night in planning the escape which
seemed almost impossible. On the following day the brave hundred made a
sortie which met with such success that three hundred of the enemy were
slain, and nearly fifty captured and afterward hanged in the plaza, while
the main body was driven in confusion to the heights. The Indians became
demoralized by this first blow, thus affording the Spaniards the
opportunity, on August 21st, of gathering their belongings, and starting on
their march of six weeks down the river, under a midsummer's sun and
through a ravaged country, to the mission of Guadalupe near the present El
Paso, Texas.
The Pueblos were at last in possession of Santa Fé and of the dearly bought
independence which they had so long been craving. Everything Spanish was
laid aside under strict taboo--the language of the white man was to be
forgotten and his religion forever buried; his houses of worship and the
civil and ecclesiastical archives were to be fed to the flames, and their
own rites revived in the ceremonial chambers which the Spaniards had caused
to be abandoned; even the clothing and the crops of the foreigners were to
be discarded, and only indigenous products consumed as of old, while
soap-weed and the rivulet which flows through Santa Fé provided the means
for effacing their baptism into Christianity. The Palace (which then
occupied the entire block north of the plaza) seems to have been at least
partially spared and was occupied by the Tanos of Galisteo, who built a
kiva or ceremonial chamber in its courtyard.
More than one attempt was made to reconquer the province and to
re-establish the seat of government during the next few years, but nothing
of marked importance was accomplished until after Diego de Vargas Zapata
Lujan Ponce de Leon became Governor in 1691. Accompanied by some sixty
soldiers, one hundred Indians, and three friars, Vargas started up the Rio
Grande from El Paso August 21, 1692, and on September 13th appeared before
Santa Fé with part of his force. The fortified Tanos at first showed
hostility, but moral suasion soon resulted in effecting their surrender and
even in inducing the apostates to renew allegiance and to submit to
baptism. Vargas then withdrew for the purpose of extending the conquest
over other parts, and it was not until October, 1693, that he was enabled
to gather his force of a hundred soldiers, and to renew the journey from
El Paso with the seventy families and seventeen friars (about eight hundred
souls) who were to form the new colony. On December 16th the little army
entered Santa Fé under the very banner borne by Oñate nearly a century
before. Although the Tanos were now found to be friendly in the main, they
manifested little enthusiasm in providing the Spaniards with food, or in
rendering aid in the restoration of San Miguel Chapel, offering, however,
their pagan kiva for the white man's worship.
It was midwinter, and, the altitude being over seven thousand feet, many
children perished. As the Indians were occupying the official quarters and
such of the dwellings as had not been razed, they were ordered back to
Galisteo, but refused to go. Their stronghold was attacked; re-enforcements
from the kindred Tewas arrived, but the combined force was overpowered,
seventy prisoners were made an example of, and four hundred women and
children were distributed among the colonists. Hostilities continued with
the outlying tribes until September, 1694, but before the year closed the
missionaries were enabled to resume their fields of labor.
The winter of 1695-96 was one of discontent by reason of a failure of the
crops during the previous season. This probably in large measure was the
cause of another revolt in the following June, when twenty-six Spaniards,
including five friars, were murdered; and not until the new century dawned
were the last embers of the rebellion smothered. Vargas's term as Governor
expired in 1696; but he remained in Santa Fé, where serious charges were
preferred against him by his successor, Cubero, which resulted in his
imprisonment until 1700. In 1703 he was reappointed Governor, but died
April 8, 1704, and was buried in the Parroquia, which meanwhile had been
restored to its former condition. San Miguel Chapel remained in ruins until
1708, when its restoration was commenced by Governor José Chacon Medina
Salazar y Villaseñor, Marqués de Peñuela. The edifice was completed in
1710, as the following inscription on a gallery beam still testifies:
EL SEÑOR MARQUÉS DE LA PEÑUELA HIZO ESTA FÁBRICA: EL ALFÉREZ
REAL DON AGUSTIN FLORES VERGARA SU CRIADO. AÑO DE 1710.
The eighteenth century was marked by expeditions from Santa Fé in various
directions (including one in the year of American Independence that
resulted in the discovery of Utah Lake), which added materially to
geographic knowledge of the period; by an extension of missionary work
among some tribes and the chastisement of others who had been conducting
their raids uncomfortably close to the capital with its little garrison of
eighty soldiers; and by controversies between the authorities of Church and
State which did not tend to promote the peace of mind of either side or of
the colonists.
[Illustration SAN MIGUEL CHAPEL IN 1899. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY A.C. VROMAN,
PASADENA, CAL.]
In 1767 a freshet so seriously threatened the town that the citizens were
called to divert the course of the stream and thus saved the settlement. As
in the case of a previous proposal to move the capital to Sia, it was
planned in 1780 to transfer the seat of government to Santo Domingo, but
Governor Ugarte decided against the project and expended two thousand pesos
in improving the plan of the town and in establishing a presidio therein.
Before the middle of the century French-Canadian traders had found their
way to the Rio Grande, and sporadic bartering with the plains Indians
gradually developed into the important industry later known as the
"commerce of the prairies." A brisk trade also sprang up between New Mexico
and Chihuahua, which in 1780 aggregated $30,000 in value. Santa Fé,
therefore, at an early period became the seat of an inland commerce, mainly
in sheep, wool, wine, and pelts. In 1804 William Morrison of Kaskaskia
dispatched to New Mexico a consignment of goods, which were confiscated;
various attempts to introduce merchandise from the United States during the
next few years shared a like fate, the participants usually being
imprisoned. This action on the part of the New Mexican officials was later
probably more or less due to the ill-feeling engendered by the exploit of
Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike, who in January, 1807, while conducting an
exploration under military orders, erected a stockade fort in Spanish
territory. He and his command were arrested, conducted to Santa Fé, and
later taken to Chihuahua as prisoners.
[Illustration CHRISTOPHER ("KIT") CARSON.]
But all efforts to prevent the inroads of traders from the United States
were in vain; even the almost prohibitory duty, for a time, of $500 per
load of merchandise, regardless of its value, was overcome, and the
overland trade conducted by way of the great Santa Fé trail, first by
pack-animals from Franklin, and later by wagon from Independence, Missouri,
increased from $15,000 in 1822 to $750,000 in 1844. The names of McKnight,
Pursley, Choteau, Beard, Lalande, Chambers, Cooper, the Bents, Joel Walker,
Sublette, Kit Carson, and many other hardy pioneers will long be remembered
in the early history of the old Santa Fé trail.
Santa Fé had so long been the hotbed of revolt that its inhabitants must
have been lonely for several years without one to engage their attention.
The rebellion of 1837 was due to political intrigue for which a former
Governor, Manuel Armijo, was held to be largely responsible. The Pueblo
Indians participated as usual, and the Governor, Albino Perez, as well as
the chief justice and nearly a dozen others, were wantonly murdered. Santa
Fé once more fell into the hands of the enemy, who elected José Gonzalez, a
Taos Indian, as Governor. Armijo now deserted the rebel cause, and, raising
a sufficient force to overcome the Gonzalez faction, declared himself the
administrative head. The revolt was quelled in January, 1838, Gonzalez and
several of his adherents paying the death penalty, while Armijo's "loyalty"
was rewarded by a confirmation of his self imposed governorship, which he
retained for eight years.
Meanwhile the Texas troubles had been brewing, and discontent prevailed in
that quarter over boundary disputes, and because the large Santa Fé trade
came and went by the northern route. In 1841, President Lamar equipped a
force, known as the Texan Santa Fé Expedition, consisting of three hundred
rangers under General McLeod, for the main purpose of taking New Mexican
affairs into their own hands; but before reaching the capital the entire
"army" was captured by Armijo's militia, their belongings confiscated, and
the command marched to Mexico, where they were released in June, 1842.
The Mexican War and American occupancy followed closely on these exciting
episodes. Save during the brief periods of the arrival and departure of the
caravans at Santa Fé, with the resultant hubbub and flow of gold, the
capital was more dead than alive. The people, for the greater part, were
densely ignorant; in 1832 there were only half a dozen schools in the whole
territory, and although the salaries of the Santa Fé teachers aggregated
only $500 in that year, even this sum, from lack of funds, was unavailable
in 1834 and the schools were closed. By 1844 the only schools were "of the
lowest primary class," and a keen observer asserted that three fourths of
the people were illiterates. Santa Fé was without a newspaper, although a
sheet called _El Crepúsculo_ ("The Dawn") was printed at Taos for four
weeks in 1835 on the only press then in the territory of seventy thousand
inhabitants. Possibly the press later found its way to Santa Fé to become
the principal part of the equipment of a "government printing office" which
existed in one end of the Palace in 1846, and from which Kearny published
his "Code," the first Spanish-English production of the territory.
In its appearance Santa Fé had changed but little since 1807, when Pike
described its aggregation of low adobe houses as resembling from a distance
a fleet of flat-bottomed Ohio river-boats. The Palace occupied then, as it
did early in the seventeenth century and does to-day, the northern side of
the plaza. Besides being the only building in New Mexico that could boast
the luxury of glass windows, it contained the governmental offices as of
yore, as well as quarters for the guard and the government printing office.
In Pike's time the opposite side of the plaza was occupied by the houses of
the clergy and the public officers, in addition to the military chapel, but
with the advent of trade these gave way, before 1846, to the shops of
merchants and traders.
[Illustration THE OLD PALACE AT SANTA FÉ.]
General Stephen W. Kearny left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in June, 1846,
with his "Army of the West," comprising about eighteen hundred men (mostly
volunteers), equipped with a supply train of a thousand mules, and
overtaking _en route_ the Santa Fé caravan of four hundred wagons. A small
force was sent forward to open the way, and although it was favorably
received, Kearny later learned that his advance toward the capital would be
contested. Nevertheless, the army continued its march and entered the town
on August 18th without the slightest opposition on the part of Armijo, who
had fled precipitately. The Stars and Stripes were hoisted over the Palace,
which Kearny made his headquarters, and the now seasoned volunteers
encamped on an eminence overlooking the town. On the following day the
inhabitants were assembled in the plaza, where the oath of allegiance was
administered to the former Mexican officials, including the acting
Governor, Juan B. Vigil. On the 22d Kearny issued his famous proclamation
declaring himself Governor and the inhabitants of New Mexico citizens of
the United States.
Meanwhile, Captain W.H. Emory selected, as the site for a fort, an eminence
on the northern edge of the town, and the construction of defensive works
was immediately begun. The fort, named in honor of William L. Marcy, then
Secretary of War, was built principally of adobe; the only approachable
point was guarded by a blockhouse of pine logs, and the magazine was
erected of the same material. The embankments of old Fort Marcy are still
plainly traceable, but there is nothing to mark the graves of the two
hundred brave Missouri volunteers who were laid to rest at the foot of the
slope during the cruel winter of 1846-47.
[Illustration SANTA FÉ IN 1846.]
Kearny took almost immediate steps to provide civil government for New
Mexico by appointing as Governor Charles Bent, who had for many years been
a prominent trader in the country. But as the months passed many of the New
Mexicans grew tired of their new allegiance, and conditions ripened for
another revolt. On January 19, 1847, Bent, with other officials, was foully
murdered at Fernandez de Taos by Mexicans and Taos Indians, but retribution
swift and terrible followed, and the battle-scarred and ruined church at
Taos pueblo practically repeated the story of the Alamo.
Although it remained under military control until 1850, New Mexico very
soon began to feel the effects of American influence. In 1847 a legislative
assembly was held at Santa Fé; the first English newspaper, _The Santa Fé
Republican_, was founded, and the New Mexicans had their first opportunity
of becoming familiar with the mysteries of a sawmill, which was placed in
operation on Santa Fé Creek. In August, 1848, the treaty of peace was
proclaimed from the Palace, and the ancient city formally changed masters
for the fifth time in its history. The volunteers were glad to return to
their homes, the Santa Fé trade resumed its busy march, and modern ways
made further impress on the manners of the old adobe town. In 1848 the
first English school was put in operation at the capital; later in the year
the _New Mexican_ was founded, and, save for a few intermissions, has ever
since been published; while the ecclesiastical importance of the town was
augmented by the establishment of the Roman Catholic vicariate-apostolic of
Santa Fé, with Bishop Lamy at its head. On March 3, 1851, after much
wrangling and many attempts, New Mexico was organized into a full-fledged
territory of the United States, James S. Calhoun becoming its first civil
governor, and on July 14th the first legislative assembly fixed Santa Fé as
the seat of the new government.
[Illustration THE TERRITORIAL CAPITOL, COMPLETED IN 1900.]
Next came the Civil War, the principal operations of which were not so far
away that Santa Fé failed to participate. The severe defeat of the Federals
under Canby by the Texans under Sibley, at Valverde, in February, 1862
(where Kit Carson's bravery made him a brigadier), opened the northern way
to the Confederates. Santa Fé was abandoned by the Union forces on March
3d, and Sibley took possession a week later. On the 22d Colonel Slough's
Federal force of thirteen hundred men marched from Fort Union toward the
town. On the 26th the vanguard of four hundred met the enemy in Apache
Cañon, and in the severe engagements which followed on that day and on the
28th, the Federals were victorious and the way was again opened to their
occupancy of Santa Fé on April 11th, the Confederates having evacuated
three days earlier. This practically closed the war in New Mexico, the
Texans returning to their homes minus half their number.
The recent years of Santa Fé's history have more than ever marked the
passage of the ancient town from the lethargy characteristic of the century
of its founding to the enterprise which one expects in an American
settlement of the present day. The contrast between the sleepy Mexican
village in the wilderness during the early years of American occupancy and
the progressive, substantial, picturesque town of nowadays is vast. The
great awakening came with the first screech of the locomotive on February
9, 1880, which forever hushed the rumble of the long caravan as it rolled
its weary way into the crooked streets of the City of the Holy Faith. New
Mexico's capital was enabled at last to make the acquaintance of the outer
world, although rival settlements, created by the new trail of steel,
robbed it more and more, as year after year passed, of the trade which had
helped to make it famous. Its genial climate and other advantages attracted
many from the East; schools and hospitals were established, and as the seat
of federal and territorial administration, as well as of military and
ecclesiastical importance, its social advantages became widely recognized.
Despite its modern buildings devoted to various uses, there are parts of
the town which have not changed greatly during the half-century of American
influence. The plaza, of tragic memory, has evolved from a barren common
to a bower of beauty ornamented with a monument dedicated to the heroes of
Indian and civil strife. The old Palace, in which the gallant Vargas was
dungeoned, and in which Lew Wallace wrote the last chapters of _Ben Hur_,
has been refurbished, but probably no walls within our domain hold in
hiding such a wealth of cruelty and horror, of treachery and suffering, of
valor and chivalry, as the great adobe structure which still overlooks the
historic plaza of our oldest western town.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SALT LAKE CITY
THE DESERT THAT HAS BLOSSOMED AS THE ROSE
BY JAMES EDWARD TALMAGE
Long before the first settlement, little more than fifty years ago, of the
valley of the Great Salt Lake, strange stories of the briny sea and its
desert setting had found their way to the civilized and cultured East; and,
mingled with the weird accounts of sun-baked plains, waterless wilderness,
and saline solitudes, were the predictions of the wise that the country
would never be worth settling. This region was included within the area
against which Daniel Webster hurled his anathema of denunciation from the
floor of the national Senate, proclaiming the utter worthlessness of the
great West, and declaring that he would "never vote one cent from the
public treasury to place the Pacific coast one inch nearer to Boston" than
it then was. And concerning the Salt Lake Valley itself, Colonel James
Bridger, for whom the disputed honor of discovering the Great Salt Lake has
been claimed, said that he would offer a thousand dollars in gold for the
first ear of corn that could be ripened therein.
The motive spirit actuating the early travellers in these then Mexican
wastes was that of exploration and discovery. Worthy as it was, it was
insufficient to induce the settlement of the wilderness or to inspire the
ambition of subduing the desert and sanctifying the waste places with the
name of home. The most potent of all incentives, that of religious
conviction and conscientious devotion to what was regarded as sacred duty,
was necessary--and not wanting.
It was on the 19th of July, 1847, that the vanguard of the pioneer party of
"Mormon" colonists sighted the valley of the Great Salt Lake. For long,
weary months they had journeyed; their start from the frontiers of
civilization had been hastened by the musket and the sword and the
devouring flame of persecution; their course over plain and mountain had
been attended by vicissitudes that only those who have toiled through such
journeys can comprehend.
[Illustration PAVILION OF SALTAIR, GREAT SALT LAKE.]
And what emotions did that first view of the "Promised Land" inspire! A
valley, beautiful it is true, even as the desert is beautiful in its
parching splendor; as the mountains are beautiful in their terrible
grandeur; as the ocean is beautiful in its calm monotony or in its
storm-lashed fury; but such beauty is not suggestive of rest or peace, and
it was peace the wanderers sought. From the cañons of the Wasatch, though
not the first to traverse the region, yet the first to brave its desolate
and forbidding seclusion in search of a home, they looked down on a valley
walled by the Wasatch and the Oquirrhs, bare of tree or shrub, except for
patches of chaparral oak, and here and there a gnarled willow or
cottonwood bravely struggling for existence on the upper parts of the few
stream courses that opened from the mountain wall on the east; the only
blossoms those of the stunted sunflower and its desert companions, the
foliage that of the gray artemisia, or wild sage.
On the 24th of July, 1847, Brigham Young, the founder of Salt Lake City and
the pioneer colonizer of Utah, descended from the mountain gateway,
followed by the main division of the company, numbering a hundred and forty
and four souls, of whom three were women. One of this trio of heroines was
overcome by the treeless and desolate aspect of the valley. "Weak and weary
as I am," she said, "I would rather go a thousand miles farther than stop
in this forsaken place." Three days earlier an advance detachment,
including Orson Pratt and Erastus Snow, each of whom came to be known as a
prominent apostle of the "Mormon" Church, had entered the valley; but July
24th is regarded as the first day of occupation, and each recurrence of the
date is observed as Pioneer Day, a holiday by law established in the State
of Utah.
[Illustration BRIGHAM YOUNG. FOUNDER OF SALT LAKE CITY.]
The pioneers' purpose was not uncertain; having reached their destination
they paused not to make experiments or preliminary tests. "This is the
place," said their leader, "the very place"; and the company began at once
the work of permanently establishing themselves and of preparing for the
reception of other immigrant parties then on the march. Ploughs were
promptly brought into action, and the soil theretofore unused to the
husbandman's touch was in part torn and turned; yet so hard and resistant
was it that it measured its strength with the energy of man and for the
time held the victory. But the colonists were full of resource. The little
stream now known as City Creek, the chief source of the city's water
supply, was diverted from its course and made to flood the land chosen for
the first desert garden. With its long thirst appeased, its stony heart
softened, the virgin soil yielded and received the first seed sown by human
agency in the Great American Desert. Thus began the system of irrigation
which in its later developments has proved itself the magic wand under
whose sway the desert has been conquered and the wilderness transformed
into a garden of beauty.
[Illustration EAST TEMPLE STREET, LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE TEMPLE.]
On the 28th of the same month the city was planned and its boundaries were
indicated; five days later the survey of the city plat was begun under the
direction of Orson Pratt. All the plans were on a scale of unlimited
liberality. The streets, each eight rods in width, were made to cross at
right angles, dividing the city into rectangular blocks, each of ten acres.
The choicest block in point of situation was designated as the site of the
prospective temple; and is now occupied by the world-famed Temple, the
Tabernacle, and the less pretentious Assembly Hall. The original survey was
made to include a hundred and thirty-five of these ten-acre blocks; several
were chosen for public squares and parks; the remainder were to be divided
into city lots for the accommodation of the thousands soon to come.
Religious devotion, the inspiring cause of this seemingly reckless scheme
of colonization, demanded facilities for public worship; and, lacking
chapel, synagogue, or temple, the colonists provided a leafy tabernacle.
Trees were hauled from the mountains, and of these a bowery was
constructed, which for a time was church, court-house, and capitol.
Having learned by experience that Indian attacks were to be expected, the
settlers congregated on a single ten-acre block, which they enclosed by
erecting their huts of logs and adobe along the eastern border. Each hut
opened inward toward the centre of the square and was provided with a
loophole on the outer side; the space between the houses and the sides of
the block not occupied by habitations was protected by a continuous wall of
adobe. With the increase of population additions were made to the fort; but
as soon as the ruddy aborigines learned that the white invaders were their
friends, the fort was abandoned, and the settlers distributed themselves
over the city area.
At the time of its first settlement Utah was a part of the Mexican domain;
nevertheless, the "Mormon" colonists, confident as to the destiny of their
nation, patriotically raised the Stars and Stripes and took possession of
the region in the name of the United States. A prominent hill, part of the
Wasatch spur which bounds the present city on the northeast like a fortress
wall, was chosen as the flag site; and this elevation is to-day known as
Ensign Peak. From its summit, now surmounted by an enduring flag-staff of
steel, the banner of freedom is thrown to the mountain breezes on public
holidays and other occasions of patriotic celebration.
More colonists arrived in parties great and small; and by the spring of
1848 approximately seventeen hundred souls were encamped in the valley,
more than four hundred dwellings had been erected within the confines of
the old fort, and about five thousand acres of land had been brought under
cultivation. In May and June, the settlers were arrayed in battle order,
not against human foes but to fight the dreaded insect scourge, the Rocky
Mountain crickets, which in countless hordes descended from the mountains
and invaded the fields and gardens. Every member of the little community,
man, woman, or child, was called into action but to little purpose. When
the people had been reduced to despair they were saved by what they
devoutly believed to be a special and miraculous interposition of
Providence. There suddenly appeared on the western horizon a tremulous
cloud which grew in magnitude as it rapidly approached, until at last it
was seen to be the vanguard of an advancing army of gulls. Down swooped the
white-winged deliverers, devouring the crickets with incredible voracity
until but few were left alive. Since that day the gulls have been sacred in
Utah. Every spring they come to follow the plough as it turns the soil for
the season's seed, and so confident are they of their safety that they may
be approached almost within arm's length. Added to the ruin wrought by the
crickets was a further deprivation, due to drought and frosts. The harvest
of 1848 was little better than a failure, and the succeeding winter and
spring were seasons of extreme destitution. The people were brought to the
dire necessity of gathering the wild weeds of the desert and even of
boiling the raw hides in their camps for sustenance. The bulbous roots of
the sego lily--now the banner-flower of the State--were dug for food; but
the pangs of hunger were an experience from which none escaped. However,
the following season brought a more abundant return from the soil and the
prospects of the colony brightened.
In February, 1848, the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo secured by cession from
Mexico to the United States the region now embraced by Arizona, New Mexico,
Utah, Nevada, and California. The great republic reached the Pacific, and
Salt Lake City became an integral part of the United States. Up to this
time, and, indeed, for a year thereafter, the governmental affairs of the
new community were administered almost wholly by the Church authorities.
In February, 1849, the city was divided into nineteen ecclesiastical wards,
over each of which a "bishopric" presided, consisting of a bishop and his
two counsellors, who combined with their purely churchly function the
duties of magistrates and civil officers. They regulated the levying and
disbursing of taxes, the construction of roads and bridges, and the
like.[16]
[Illustration JEDEDIAH M. GRANT, FIRST MAYOR OF SALT LAKE CITY.]
In the early months of 1849 steps were taken toward the establishment of a
State government from which the city might hope to derive corporate powers.
It was proposed that the State of which Salt Lake City was destined to be
the capital be called Deseret--a name occurring in the records of the
ancient inhabitants of the continent, as set forth in the Book of Mormon,
and meaning "the honey bee." The hive, expressive of the characteristic
industry and thrift of the people, was chosen as the symbol and seal of the
prospective State. Pending action by the national Congress, the
"Provisional Government of the State of Deseret" was established, and its
officers were duly elected. The General Assembly of the State of Deseret,
in January, 1851, chartered "Great Salt Lake City" and appointed its first
Mayor, Jedediah M. Grant, and other municipal officers. The people were not
yet informed that four months before, September 9, 1850, the Congress of
the United States had refused their petition for statehood and had created
the Territory of Utah. The acts of the provisional government were
subsequently confirmed by the first territorial Legislature, and the city's
charter was thus legalized.
[Illustration EAGLE GATE.]
Each passing year added to the attractiveness of the new capital. An
orchard had been planted on every unoccupied lot, shade trees were placed
along the outer borders of the sidewalks, and to nourish these a small
stream was made to flow down either side of every street. The city became
the acknowledged business centre of the inter-mountain region. Situated on
the road to the gold regions, when the gold fever was at its height, travel
was heavy, and the settlers found a ready market for anything they could
produce from the soil. Gold-seekers hastening westward and successful
miners returning eastward halted at this oasis to replenish their supplies,
and left their wealth in lavish abundance to enrich the people of the
desert, who, however, had little need of gold in their local trade, and
valued it only for the implements of husbandry and building it would buy in
the East. A strange spectacle was presented of a city destitute of many
necessaries and of most of the luxuries of life, yet rich to affluence in
gold, which was sent back to "the States" by the bucketful.
Merchandise was brought in by fleets of "prairie schooners," and the
contents of each of these wheeled boats of mountain and plain were eagerly
bought up. There was danger of class distinctions arising, of the few who
had most gold to spare buying more than their share, and so becoming rich
at the expense of their fellows. Acting on the counsel of their President,
the people adopted rules to secure an equable distribution of imported
goods. Later the settlers established their merchandise business on a plan
of co-operation, and Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution began its
phenomenally successful career. The chief establishment of this system is
still operating, with headquarters in Salt Lake City, and its annual sales,
officially attested, average over four million dollars.
The city's very existence was threatened in 1857. A detachment of the
United States army numbering over two thousand men was ordered to Utah by
President Buchanan for the purpose of suppressing an alleged insurrection,
which, it was reported, had culminated in the destruction of the court
records and the driving of the federal judge, Drummond, from his bench.
When news of the libellous charges against the people reached Utah, the
clerk of Judge Drummond's own court issued a full denial under official
seal. But the mischievous misrepresentation had already produced its effect
at the nation's capital, and the army was on the march.
[Illustration BRIGHAM YOUNG MONUMENT.]
Mail contractors operating between the Missouri River and Salt Lake City
brought word of the approaching soldiery, and reported threats of both
officers and men as to the summary way in which they would dispose of the
people when once they found themselves within the "City of the Saints." The
Latter-day Saints understood the intensity of the public sentiment against
them; they felt, too, the injustice of the libel. They believed that the
army's invasion of their city and Territory meant their massacre. Brigham
Young was still Governor of Utah, and the territorial militia was subject
to his command. He promptly proclaimed martial law throughout the
Territory, and forbade any armed forces to enter its confines. Echo Cañon,
the easiest avenue of approach, was fortified. In its defiles an army might
well be stopped by a few. The people had been roused to desperation. Force
was to be met with force.
[Illustration MAIN STREET IN 1861.]
The army wintered at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, amid severe vicissitudes. In
the meantime a full report of the situation had been made by Governor Young
to the President of the United States. President Buchanan tacitly admitted
his rashness, but to recall the troops at that juncture would be to openly
confess the blunder. A peace commissioner, in the person of Colonel Thomas
B. Kane, was dispatched to Salt Lake City, and finally the President's
appointees were conducted through the "Mormon" lines by "Mormon" militia,
and were duly inducted into office. Then it was demonstrated that the court
records were intact, and the people at peace. The army followed later,
under pledge that its ranks be not broken within the city limits and that
its camp be not within forty miles of the capital. And when at last the
soldiers threaded the streets, a strange sight met their view. Salt Lake
City was deserted, except for a few men who stood with lighted torches in
hand ready to fire the heaps of combustibles that had been piled in every
house. For the people, loth to trust too implicitly in the unwilling
promises of officers smarting under the consciousness of defeat, had
abandoned their homes, with the solemn determination that if the invaders
made a single attempt at plunder they should find naught but ashes for
their loot.
But the promises were kept in good faith. The army established its
headquarters at Camp Floyd, forty miles southwest from the city. There the
soldiers remained until summoned back, at the outbreak of the Civil War.
During their two years' encampment in Utah, the soldiers were fed by the
people. Everything in the nature of food was eagerly bought up at an
unusual price, and thus the nation's gold found its way into the hands of
the citizens. Then, so great was the hurry of the army's departure, so
urgent the need of speedy travel, that all their belongings outside of
actual necessities were sold for a trifle or given away. The reason why the
people regard the coming of "Buchanan's army" as a blessing to their city
is evident.
[Illustration HOUSE BUILT IN 1847 WITHIN THE OLD FORT.]
In 1861 the Overland Telegraph Line, which had been approaching the city
from both east and west, was completed, and Salt Lake City was relieved of
some of the disadvantages of its desert isolation. Eight years later the
Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railways reached Utah, and from that
time to the present the development of both city and State has been of
phenomenal rapidity.
From the earliest period of its existence Salt Lake City has been strong
and untiring in its efforts to secure adequate educational facilities. In
October, 1847, only three months after the pioneer entry, a school was
opened within the walls of the Old Fort. The schoolhouse was a tent, and
for seats and desks hewn slabs and sections of logs were brought into
service. Other schools followed and the people thus early voiced their
desire for secondary and higher instruction. In February, 1850, when the
city was less than three years old, "The University of the State of
Deseret" with its seat at "Great Salt Lake City" was incorporated by the
legislative assembly of the provisional government. In November of that
year the "University" began its work in the field of secondary instruction
under the name of "The Parent School." As suggested by this title branch
schools were conducted in the smaller settlements. The institution thus
grandly projected in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles has
grown with the commonwealth, and to-day, under the name of the University
of Utah, compares favorably with other State colleges of the West. The
present public-school system is the pride of the city. Stately school
buildings, modern and efficient, and the best equipment procurable are
provided; and the schools are free.
[Illustration MORMON TEMPLE.]
And so the city has grown, gathering strength with its years, but in
surprising proportion. It has ever been quick to adopt the conveniences of
advancing civilization; for there was little of the old to sweep away. Its
street-cars are driven by the power of the mountain cataract thirty-five
miles away. Its streets, public buildings, and dwellings are lighted by
the same mysterious force, and its factories and industrial establishments
are electrically operated. In few cities indeed is the electric energy more
generally utilized.
Among its notable structures a few demand special mention. First in popular
interest, perhaps first also in historic significance, is the great
"Mormon" Temple, constructed throughout of solid granite from the eruptive
exposures of the Wasatch. The corner-stone was laid April 6, 1853, and the
completed Temple was dedicated April 6, 1893. During the four decades
occupied in the work over three and a half millions of dollars were
expended on the structure. Let it be remembered that the building was
begun amid most meagre facilities for such an undertaking--when the
services of several yoke of oxen were required for the bringing of a single
block of granite from the famed Cottonwood Cañon a score of miles south of
the city. Of the four temples already erected in the vales of Utah, the one
at Salt Lake City was the first to be commenced and the last to be
finished.
[Illustration MORMON TABERNACLE.]
The domed roof of the Tabernacle has attracted the attention of every one
who has seen even a picture of the city. In some of its architectural
features the building is unique. It covers an area of 250 x 180 feet and
has a seating capacity of eight thousand. The colossal roof-arch springs
from wall to wall without a supporting pillar. Within is the monster organ,
which for size and scope is approached by few instruments in the world. It
was constructed in early days from native material by Utah artisans, and
has been regarded as a marvel of mechanical and artistic achievement.
The story of Salt Lake City is really a chapter of "Mormon" history. To-day
its population would probably show a majority of non-Mormons, but the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the dominant sect in city
and State. Numerous other churches have established themselves; many of
them have reared imposing sanctuaries and are active in the promulgation of
their doctrines.
[Illustration CITY AND COUNTY BUILDING, SALT LAKE CITY.]
Non-Mormon citizens have been as ready and earnest in their efforts to
build up and sustain the city of their choice as have their Latter-day
Saint fellows; and the present beauty, strength, and vitality of the
inter-mountain metropolis are largely due to non-Mormon, or "Gentile,"
enterprise and energy. The "Gentiles" have ever been the more prominent in
mining undertakings, and the large and paying mines of to-day are mostly
theirs. Salt Lake City does not belong to the "Mormons"; it is the
possession of its citizens without regard to religious profession or
political preference.
[Illustration LION AND BEE-HIVE HOUSES.]
Since man and nature combined their energies in this once desert spot, the
favored situation, the many natural advantages have yearly grown more
apparent. Located at the very base of the Wasatch, bounded in part by a
spur of this majestic range, the city possesses a wealth of mountain
scenery beyond description. The valley floor is part of the bed of an
inland sea of Quaternary age; and the benches and hills constituting the
choicest residence portions are the terraces of this ancient lake, or the
deltas of the prehistoric streams whose mouths were at the present cañon
openings. Capitol Hill and the Northeast Bench are parts of the great delta
constructed by City Creek in Lake Bonneville. Of this Pleistocene water
body, approximately equal to Lake Huron in extent, the present Salt Lake,
in spite of its common appellation "great," is but a diminutive fragment.
The present population as attested by the recent census returns is 53,531;
though the current city directory, compiled immediately after the census
enumeration, gives names and addresses of nearly seventy thousand resident
inhabitants. The city's growing importance as a manufacturing, commercial,
railroad, and mining centre is generally recognized: while its enterprise,
progressiveness, and wealth are of national repute. But beyond all such it
is to be characterized as a city of homes. From cottage to mansion its
residences are very generally owned by their tenants. Its citizens are, for
the most part, permanent residents and the city is theirs. Its increase has
been that of development rather than of growth; the distinction is a vital
one, for it characterizes the expansion of the living organism as against
mere accretion of substance.
With such a development in the course of less than five and a half decades,
what shall be its condition and status when its years have linked
themselves into centuries?
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[16] Some secular officials, such as marshals and other peace officers, had
been chosen, but these were generally nominated by the Church leaders and
elected or "sustained" by vote of the people in Church gatherings. The
secular power exercised by the Church officials was expressly delegated to
them by vote of the people.
[Illustration]
SPOKANE
THE CITY OF THE INLAND EMPIRE
By HAROLD BOLCE
Sculptors have not yet chiselled the glory of the founders of Spokane, for
most of the pioneers of that city, heedless of remote epitaphs, still hurry
over its now "populous pavements," multiplying their wealth. Boys born in
the first year of the city's incorporation have not yet reached the age of
suffrage. Less than thirty years ago the settlement began with three
citizens and a sawmill. It has developed into a brick and granite city of
nearly fifty thousand.
A century ago a few brave men blazed perilous trails through the wilderness
of the far Northwest but their picturesque adventures gave no hint of the
city of wealth, industry, and architectural beauty that was to rise on both
banks of the Spokane cataract. Though Jefferson's renowned secretary,
Meriwether Lewis, and his comrade Clark, brother of George Rogers Clark,
heralded the day when the Oregon and its affluents should hear sounds more
significant than their own dashings, their pilgrimage had become as dim as
a tradition to the men of the present generation who first floated Coeur
d'Alene tamarack and cedar down the swift Spokane to their sawmill at the
falls.
On the Spokane River not far from its confluence with the Columbia the
Northwest Fur Company built a post more than ninety years ago, and thence
reckless _voyageurs_ found their way through the solitudes, pausing to
trade at the villages of the Spokanes, the Flatheads, the Umatillas, the
Walla Wallas, the Nez Percés, and others, taking red women cheerfully in
marriage and as cheerfully deserting them when occasion called. In this
remote frontier, beyond the utmost reach of ethics or law, in a region with
a cloud upon its national title, the pioneers fulfilled their semi-savage
destiny. Nelson Durham, a writer of Spokane, has patriotically designated
the Spokane Plains as the site of the annual horse-racing and saturnalia of
these skin-clad trappers and traders, but they left no landmarks and the
noise of their revelry had long since died away when the first Anglo-Saxon,
lured by the roar of the falls, came to harness those tumultuous waters to
his wheel.
[Illustration THE COUNTY COURT HOUSE, SPOKANE.]
There is a tradition that the Spokane Indians shunned this now famed
succession of wild cascades, for in the foaming maelstrom at the foot of
the falls dwelt a malign goddess, her long hair streaming in the cataract,
her shimmering figure half revealed in the enveloping mists of spray. While
the waters danced about her she sang merrily and the sound of her singing
was like the warbling of a thousand birds. With her outstretched arms she
lured Indian fishermen and devoured them. Her flowing hair was a trammel
that enmeshed her victims. None had ever returned. Shaman after shaman,
under his totem pole, had unavailingly invoked his tomañowash incantations
to destroy her power. Then Speelyai or Coyote, the great Indian god,
transforming himself into a feather, floated over the falls and was
speedily engulfed by the evil goddess. Assuming the form of a strong
warrior he began his campaign. Around him were the wrecks of skin and bark
canoes, the forms of unnumbered members of his tribes, and a bedraggled
eagle which proved to be Whaiama, god of the upper air. With a stone axe
Speelyai hewed his way through the monster's side and Whaiama bore the
resurrected company to the high banks of the Spokane River. Now Speelyai
pronounced a curse upon his groaning enemy. Her career as a destroyer was
at an end. Henceforth she might entice some helpless wanderers from distant
tribes, but the chosen ones she should destroy no more. And the god
prophesied in conclusion that a better race would come some day, a strange
people, whom she could not conquer, and who would bind and enslave her
forever.
These falls, whose total volume equals the power of forty thousand horses,
turn the wheels of factories the value of whose exports to China, Japan,
and other lands is expressed in millions. The waterpower speeds electric
street-cars over ninety miles of track, and conducts electricity through
two hundred and fifty miles of arc mains. All the elevators and
printing-presses of the city are operated by power from the falls, and to
this all-supplying current are attached many sewing-machines, typewriters,
phonographs, graphophones, churns, electric fans, music boxes, door-bells,
burglar alarms, clocks, and hundreds of other contrivances calling for
constant or occasional motive power. Spokane is credited with being the
most modern and best-equipped city in the world, and this is due, first, to
the falls whose power brings many utilities, considered luxuries in other
communities, within reach of the lowliest consumer; and secondly, to the
singular fact that the city is newer than the telephone, the electric
light, and other latter-day inventions and discoveries. There were no
ancient institutions and prejudices to supplant. To children reared in
Spokane, other cities seem archaic, their streets sloven, and their homes
grotesquely behind the times. A girl from Spokane visiting in New York is
known to have written home about the bizarre appearance of "electric cars
drawn by horses."
London gropes by night through dismal glimmerings of gas and it would
require millions of reluctant pounds sterling to substitute more modern
light. In the new city of Spokane it was the most natural procedure to
install the latest conveniences of modern life. When the little settlement
was but a cluster of ambitious cabins every abode had its telephone and its
electric lights. The Spokane workman does not stumble up the steps of a dim
tenement. Lumber is cheap and in variety, and even Spokane granite is
within his means. He dwells in a good home. A click of a button at the door
floods the dwelling with light. Sputtering wicks have no place in his
economy. He can afford, too, to order his groceries by telephone or use the
same medium to discuss politics with a friend in a distant part of the
city. All members of polite society in Spokane have telephones. A lady
planning an impromptu tea or lawn party gets out her calling list, reaches
for the telephone, and issues her amiable summons. A great amount of local
business is transacted over the wires in the city. The power of the falls
likewise enables the telephones of Spokane to talk and trade with a
thousand towns, the distant city of San Francisco coming within the Spokane
circuit.
Thus, in the employment of waterpower to serve the city in manifold ways,
the Indians say, has been fulfilled the prophecy of Speelyai that a race
would come which should yoke the goddess of the cataract in perpetual
servitude.
[Illustration THE LAST CHIEF TO INTIMIDATE THE INHABITANTS OF SPOKANE.]
In further fulfilment of the prediction that the demoniacal siren of the
falls should no longer have dominion over his people, the Spokanes and
kindred tribes shunned the river, and from a race of fishers, paddling bent
and kneeling in their crude canoes, they became an intrepid race of
horsemen. On horseback they rode to war or hunted the moose and antelope,
and horses became the sign of wealth and the medium of exchange. For their
obedience in carrying out the details of his malediction upon the water
demon, Speelyai prospered them. Their wealth increased and their numbers
multiplied. Their tepees were warm with many furs and picturesque with the
trophies of battle and the chase. Their larders abounded with dried meat,
meal, wapatoo, and camas root. They became the most valiant warriors
between the Bitter Root Mountains and the sea. The power of the allied
tribes of Eastern Washington became so formidable that the American
Government was compelled to send its most skilful military leaders to
effect their pacification, and it was not until Phil Sheridan eclipsed
them in daring and General Miles forced Chief Joseph to capitulation that
the scattered settlers in the Spokane country ceased to tremble at the
impending descent of mounted savages.
By repeated violation of treaty stipulations, by burnings and massacres and
thefts, they had asserted their dominion. In 1858 the Spokanes gave tragic
demonstration of their determination to enforce the native declaration that
the armies of the whites should never traverse their domain. In that year
Colonel Steptoe, seeking to lead a detachment to garrison the post of the
Hudson Bay Company at Colville, near the British border, was defeated with
great slaughter by the Spokanes. With an unscalped remnant of his force he
crawled at night from the scene of his disaster and, abandoning his guns,
rushed in confusion back to Walla Walla. The god of Indian battles still
reigned and the Government at Washington was alarmed. Then Colonel George
Wright was chosen to command, a man whose merciless determination and
sanguinary triumphs gave to his notable campaign a distinction not
paralleled until the Sirdar of Egypt just forty years later led his
expedition to Khartoum, silenced the dervishes near Omdurman, and hurled
the severed head of the Khalifa into the Nile. The Spokanes did not
attribute their defeat to the superior strategy of their pale-faced foe.
Their fatal mistake, they said, was in making their last stand on the
Spokane Plains, within sound of the exultant shrieking and sinister roaring
of their ancient enemy, the evil spirit of the Spokane cataract, and it was
she, not their white conqueror, who herded and stampeded them into
terrified surrender. They had fought with abandoned daring, and had
employed all their arts of strategy, but were forced back toward the abode
of the water monster until her roaring mockery thundered in their ears. Now
they set the tall prairie grass afire, and over the site of the coming city
there blazed on that parched day of September 5, 1858, a conflagration no
less formidable than war. It enveloped, but could not stay the pursuing
column. Destiny was striding through flame and blood that day to open a way
for civilized occupation of the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of painted
warriors, including the leader of the Palouses, a chief of the Pend
d'Oreilles, one of the chiefs of the Coeur d'Alenes, and two brothers of
Spokane Gary, the commander of the savage army, lay dead.
[Illustration THE CITY HALL, SPOKANE.]
As if by a miracle, not one of Colonel Wright's soldiers fell, a further
proof to the Indians that their evil goddess had presided over the
conflict. In token of their subjection they brought their wives, children,
horses, and all portable belongings and made complete offering at the feet
of their conqueror. Thus the site of the present city of Spokane became the
scene of one of the most striking and significant triumphs of civilized man
over the aborigines of the American continent. What William Henry Harrison
did at Tippecanoe for the old Northwest in scattering the allied natives
under Tecumseh, Colonel Wright accomplished at Spokane Plains for the
Northwest in demolishing the league of tribes under the Spokanes. It is
true that Chief Joseph later, emulating the ambitions of Black Hawk, sought
to reunite the tribes in rebellion against the whites, but though he
succeeded in stirring the Federal Government to vigilant campaigns, he
failed in his great object, just as did the successor of Tecumseh. Wright's
sway was undisputed. Indians convicted of crimes he ordered hanged.
Superfluous horses were shot. He spread terror as he moved, and peace
followed in his footsteps.
But the Civil War and financial panic delayed the Western movement. In 1863
there were but ninety registered citizens in the Spokane country. And when
the first sawmill came, in 1873, its wheels revolved slowly, for the
failure of Jay Cooke delayed the transcontinental railway, that was to
connect the city with the East. Eight years later, just twenty years ago,
the first locomotive rumbled into the new settlement. Now there was to be a
city. On September 1st of that year came the first lawyer, J. Kennedy
Stout, and it is characteristic of the spirit that has ever continued to
quicken the activities of the community that four days after his arrival he
had drafted a charter for the city, taken the necessary legal steps toward
its incorporation, and had been chosen its attorney.
[Illustration J. KENNEDY STOUT.]
In 1885, the city, numbering two thousand people, was an alert and
distributing centre. Grain was pouring in from the fertile acres of the
Palouse to be ground into flour, and the time was at hand when a remarkable
discovery in the neighboring mountains of Idaho was to turn the tide of
travel toward Spokane, and in less than a decade develop it into the
greatest railroad centre west of Chicago. It was in that year that three
men and an ass, in the Coeur d'Alenes, a few miles from Spokane, camped
toward night in a desolate cañon. Their provisions were nearly exhausted.
They held forlorn council, and decided to abandon their search for mines in
those gloomy and precipitous solitudes. Toward sundown the animal strayed
from its tether. They found it gazing across the ravine at a reflected
gleam of the setting sun. A marvellous series of ore seams had mirrored the
light. The dumb beast had discovered the greatest deposits of galena on the
globe. The whole mountain was a mine.
Within an hour after the arrival of the sensational news at Spokane, that
city's unparalleled boom began. Prospectors, engineers, and capitalists
from the four corners of the Republic hurried to the new city. A railway
magnate rode out on horseback to view the mountain, and within four months
from the day of his visit ore was being shipped by rail to Spokane. North
and south, for three hundred miles, mines were found on every mountainside,
and every additional discovery hastened Spokane's growth and quickened the
fever of its speculation. As a local historian said, "Men went to sleep at
night on straw mattresses, and woke to find themselves on velvet couches
stuffed with greenbacks." Wealth waited for men at every corner. The
delirium of speculation whirled the sanest minds. Of the many clergymen,
for example, who arrived to advocate the perfecting of titles to homes not
made with hands, eleven abdicated the pulpit and, indifferent to the menace
of moth and rust, laid up substantial treasure.
Five years from the discovery of the mines in the Coeur d'Alenes the city
numbered twenty thousand inhabitants. Fire swept over it and laid
twenty-two solid squares in ashes. Before the ruins cooled, the city was
being rebuilt, this time in steel and brick and stone. The
_Spokesman-Review_, which began its editorial career in a small, discarded
chapel, soon moved into a ten-story structure, and that evolution was, in
epitome, the story of the city. Architects of some renown designed palaces
and châteaux for the wealthy. Every citizen hoped to outdazzle his neighbor
in the beauty of his home, and this has resulted in giving Spokane unique
distinction in architectural impressiveness.
[Illustration THE "SPOKESMAN-REVIEW" BUILDING.]
Though Spokane has had abundant share of that rampant Western virility, the
story of whose unrestraint would constitute a daring contribution to
profane history, the city from the start displayed a dominating purpose
that made for civic righteousness. It is true that during its earlier years
there were many murders in Spokane, for citizens, in the midst of its
hurrying events, were impatient of prolix complaints and the tardy
judgments of the law. Nor did this reckless code much concern the hangman,
for the legal execution of a citizen in Spokane would have been regarded
much as the world would now look upon the shuddering crime of burning a
Christian at the stake; yet in its blood-shedding there was little, if
any, of the wanton element of anarchy, and upon few occasions in the
history of the Northwest has crime stooped to assassinate from ambush.
Outwardly calm, but with desperation in his mood, the insulted approached
the object of his wrath and warned him to "heel" himself. Inevitable
shooting marked their next meeting, and their funerals were not
infrequently held simultaneously.
The bad man of melodrama is an execrable creation of fiction, whose
counterpart was not long tolerated in Spokane's career, and who does not
seem to have made his presence felt in other sections of the West. A
desperado of the early days sent word from a neighboring town that, because
of some dispute, he would kill a certain Spokane citizen on sight. The
community could not afford to lose an influential pioneer, and the city
fathers met to consider the outlaw's menace. They decided that, inasmuch as
they would be called upon to execute him ultimately, they would better hang
him before he had opportunity to pull his criminal trigger, and to this
programme they pledged their official honor and forwarded notice of their
grim deliberation to the desperado, who thereupon deemed it expedient to
strike the Lolo trail that led to less discriminating frontiers. Spokane
has outlived its lawless days. For several years it enjoyed the police
protection of a noted bandit-catcher, whose nerve was unfailing and whose
aim was sure. The ensuing hegira of criminal classes was a spectacle for
other cities to contemplate with awe. During his stern _régime_, a riotous
stranger, mistaking the temper of the community, flourished weapons and for
a few agonizing moments made pedestrians his targets. The clamor brought
the cool chief of police. "Did you subdue the stranger?" he was afterward
asked. "We buried him the next day," was the reply.
In the few years that have ensued since the country's occupation by the
whites, the once masterful Spokane tribe has degenerated, the Indians
around Spokane to-day shambling about under the generic epithet of
"siwash"; and a writer visiting this region in recent days came to the
etymological conclusion that the first syllable in their unhappy title
stood for "never."
Though Spokane is famous, its precise locality is not generally known. When
it became ambitious and first held expositions, it ordered lithographic
posters from Chicago. They came representing steamboats plying placidly in
a river whose falls are as deadly as Niagara's. Spokane is twenty-four
hours' ride from the cities of Puget Sound. It is three days' journey from
San Francisco, and to go from Spokane to Helena or Butte is like travelling
from Chicago to Denver. Its future must be great. It has no rival. Eight
railroads, three of them transcontinental, assert its supremacy. Southward
stretches the most prolific grain empire in the world. Almost boundless
forests of valuable timber cover surrounding mountains to the north and
east, whose mineral wealth is beyond compute.
[Illustration MIDDLE FALLS, SPOKANE.]
A typical Westerner, in an interesting autobiography, states that the ass
that discovered the mines of the Coeur d'Alene, and thus caused a stampede
of civilization to Spokane, was buried with the ceremonial honors due a
potentate. It takes conspicuous place in distinguished company. On the
heights of Peor an altar was reared to canonize the ass that saw the Light
the prophet Balaam all but passed. An ass by its braying wrought the
salvation of Vesta, and the animal's coronation was an event in the
festival of that goddess. For ages the Procession of the Ass was a solemn
rite in religious observances. In Spokane, a favorite canvas pictures the
Coeur d'Alene immortal gazing enraptured across a mountain chasm at shining
ledges of galena. When explaining the various causes of the matchless
development of Spokane and its tributary region, the resident, in merry
mood, does not forget to pilot the visitor to this quaint memorial.
Afterward there was litigation over the mineral wealth now valued at
$4,000,000 located by this animal, the outcome of which was the following
decision handed down by Judge Norman Buck of the District Court of Idaho:
"From the evidence of the witnesses, this Court is of the
opinion that the Bunker Hill mine was discovered by the
jackass, Phil O'Rourke, and N.S. Kellogg; and as the jackass is
the property of the plaintiffs, Cooper & Peck, they are
entitled to a half interest in the Bunker Hill, and a quarter
interest in the Sullivan claims."
[Illustration MIDDLE FALLS, ECHO FLOUR MILLS, AND OLD POWER HOUSE.]
Spokane has a rare climate of cloudless days. The Indians say that once it
shared the fogs and copious rains of the seacoast, but that their tutelary
god, ascending to the heavens, slew the Thunderer, and that thenceforth
they dwelt under radiant skies, and were called Spokanes, or Sons of the
Sun.
A college of artists could not have devised a more beautiful location for a
city. It is set in a gigantic amphitheatre two thousand feet above sea
level. High walls of basalt, picturesque with spruce and cedar and pine,
form the city's rim. Against this background have been built mansions that
would adorn Fifth Avenue or the Circles of the national capital. Forming
the city's southern border winds an abysmal gorge, and along its brink has
been built one of the city's fashionable boulevards. The cataracts of the
Spokane some day must inspire poets. In some parts of the city, affording
adornments for numberless gardens, are volcanic, pyramidal rocks. The
Indians say that these columns are the petrified forms of amazons who,
issuing from the woods, were about to plunge into the river for a bath,
ignorant of the water demon, when Speelyai to save them turned them into
stone.
It is significant of the lure of Spokane that men who have accumulated
millions and sold their mines still make it their place of permanent
residence. Though the city as it is to-day has been built in the dozen
years that have elapsed since its great fire, there is no hint of hasty
development within its boundaries. Singular fertility in its soil has so
fostered its shade trees and its gardens that a sense is conveyed of years
of affluent ease and attention to æsthetic detail. Spokane is in many
respects the most consummate embodiment on the continent of that typical
American genius that has redeemed the wilderness of the frontier.
[Illustration]
PORTLAND
THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
"Where rolls the Oregon."--_Bryant_.
BY THOMAS L. COLE
One autumn evening in 1843, A.M. Overton and A.L. Lovejoy, two residents of
Oregon City, on their way home from Vancouver, landed from their canoe and
pitched their tent for the night under the pine trees upon the west bank of
the Willamette River. Before they resumed their journey, the next day, they
had projected a town upon the site of their encampment. Within a few
months, a clearing was made and a log cabin built. From this beginning grew
the present city of Portland.
But our story must go back of this beginning, for the historical
significance of Portland lies not so much in the fact that it is to-day the
great metropolis of that vast territory, once all called Oregon, and now
divided into the States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Wyoming
and Montana, not to mention British Columbia; but its significance is
rather to be sought in the consideration that in Portland culminated and
found final form the metropolitan life of Oregon Territory, which, in its
earlier and richer historical period, found expression successively in
Astoria, Vancouver, and Oregon City. Thus, for the essential beginning of
the history of the metropolis of the Pacific Northwest, we must go back to
the embryo metropolis established by Astor at the mouth of the Columbia
River. This point of departure, while relatively remote, yet carries us
back over less than a century of time.
[Illustration JOHN JACOB ASTOR.]
Nearly two hundred years had passed after Henry Hudson sailed the
_Half-Moon_ up the North River before the waters of the mighty Oregon were
disturbed by any craft save the Indian's canoe. Beyond suspicions and
reports of Indians, the great "River of the West" was unknown, and that
vast territory beyond the Rocky Mountains which it drains was undiscovered
until April 29, 1792, when Captain Gray, commanding the _Columbia
Rediviva_, from Boston, crossed its bar and landed upon its bank, to the
consternation of the Indians, who now saw a white face for the first time.
Gray named the river after his vessel, the Columbia, and took possession of
the country in the name of the United States. A few months later,
Broughton, a lieutenant of the explorer Vancouver, to whose incredulous
ears Gray had communicated his discovery, entered the Columbia, and in turn
claimed everything in the name of King George. These conflicting claims
furnish a key to the critical period in the history of the Columbia River
territory. For a long time neither America nor Great Britain forced a
determination of its claim, and a succession of treaties gave to the
citizens of both countries equal rights in the territory. Each government,
however, encouraged its citizens to make good the national claim by actual
possession. The first attraction to Oregon Territory was that which led
Captain Gray, with other expeditions, to the coast, viz., the abundance of
fur-bearing animals. The first British occupation was that of the Northwest
Fur Company of Canada, which pushed some posts across the Rockies to the
far north. The way for American occupation was opened when the successful
explorations of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which camped over the
winter of 1805 at the mouth of the Columbia, demonstrated the
practicability of an overland route to Oregon. Into this opening John
Jacob Astor promptly entered. As the "American Fur Company," Astor had
successfully checked the aggressions of the powerful Canadian companies in
the northern United States. He now projected a scheme, under the name of
the "Pacific Fur Company," whereby to check the movements of these same
companies beyond the Rocky Mountains, and to possess the new country for
the United States. The heart of his plan and purpose was a settlement at
the mouth of the Columbia River. Says Washington Irving, to whose
fascinating book, _Astoria_, the reader must go for the story of this
magnificent, if ill-starred, enterprise:
"He considered his projected establishment at the mouth of the
Columbia as the emporium to an immense commerce, as a colony
that would form the germ of a wide civilization, that would, in
fact, carry the American population across the Rocky Mountains
and spread it along the shores of the Pacific."
Jefferson, who had sent out the Lewis and Clark expedition, heartily
endorsed this project, as did also his Cabinet. In prosecution of Astor's
purpose, on April 12, 1811, the _Tonquin_, the precursor of an intended
"annual vessel," bringing partners, clerks, _voyageurs_, and artisans, as
well as material and merchandise, crossed the bar of the Columbia and cast
anchor. Point George, as it had been named by Broughton, was selected as a
site for the embryo metropolis, and was renamed Astoria, after the great
commoner whose enterprise it represented. Here, after the _Tonquin_ had
sailed away to its tragic fate, the little colony proceeded to establish
itself. A fort, a stone mansion, and other buildings were erected, and a
schooner, the _Dolly_, was constructed and launched. The colonists did some
trading with the neighboring Indians but delayed to reach out into the
surrounding country until the arrival of Wilson Price Hunt, who was
bringing an expedition overland and was to establish suitable trading posts
_en route_. Hunt, who was an American and the chief partner under Mr.
Astor, was to be in charge at Astoria. While engaged in their work of
construction, the colonists were disturbed by rumors that their rivals, the
Northwest Company, had entered their territory and established a post on
the Spokane River. This rumor was confirmed when a canoe came down the
Columbia flying the British standard, and a gentleman, stepping ashore,
introduced himself as David Thompson, an astronomer and a partner of the
Northwest Company. McDougal, who was temporarily in charge, was, like
several of Astor's partners, a Scotchman, and a former Northwest employé.
This visitor, therefore, was treated as an honored guest instead of as a
spy, which he really was. However, it was determined that David Stuart
should at once take a small party and set up a post as a check to the one
on the Spokane, which he did at Oakinagen.
[Illustration ASTORIA IN 1811. BASED ON A PRINT IN GRAY'S "HISTORY OF
OREGON."]
Another interruption was occasioned by the shocking news of the massacre of
the _Tonquin's_ crew by Indians and the destruction of the vessel. To grief
at the loss of their friends was added fear of the Indians, who they now
suspected were plotting against them. However, McDougal's wit served and
saved them. He threatened to uncork the smallpox, which he professed to
hold confined in a bottle, and so gained the fear of the Indians, and the
title, "The great smallpox chief."
After a gloomy winter, Astoria was cheered in the spring by the arrival of
Hunt and his party. These, after a journey the account of which reads like
a romance, through sufferings of all kinds and over difficulties all but
insurmountable, reached their destination, haggard and in rags.
The arrival, soon after, of the annual vessel, the _Beaver_, with
reinforcements and supplies, cheered them all and made possible the
establishment of interior posts. The _Beaver_ proceeded to Alaska, in
compliance with an agreement between Astor and the Russian Fur Company,
which had been made with the consent of both governments; and Hunt went
with her. The absence of Hunt, which was prolonged by untoward events,
proved fatal to the Astoria enterprise. Just as the partners from the
several posts were bringing to the rendezvous the first-fruits of what
promised an abundant harvest in the future, McTavish, another Northwest
partner, surprised Astoria's people with the alarming news that war had
been declared between the two countries, and that he was expecting a
British armed vessel to set up a Northwest establishment at the mouth of
the river. Without waiting for the appearance of this vessel, without any
attempt to send their treasure inland, and although the Astor Company was
in a stronger trading position than its rival, McDougal, chief factor in
Hunt's absence, sold out to McTavish all Astor's property for one third its
value. Opposition was offered by some of the partners and the American
clerks were furious, but Hunt's ominous absence dampened opposition and
cleared McDougal's way. It is significant that McDougal soon after received
a valuable share in the Northwest Company. Had Astor been there he would
have "defied them all." "Had our place and our property been fairly
captured I should have preferred it," wrote Mr. Astor to Hunt, who
doubtless shared the spirit of his chief. Shortly after the sale, a British
officer took formal possession of the country in the name of his Britannic
Majesty, and Astoria became Fort George. Although the treaty of Ghent
restored the _status ante bellum_, Oregon remained for many years in the
actual possession of England, through the occupation of its chartered
companies. Mr. Astor's desire to reoccupy Astoria received no backing by
the government and so no American settlement was even attempted until
Captain Wyeth's venture at Fort William in 1832, which proved futile.
[Illustration FORT VANCOUVER, 1833.]
This change from American to British possession was marked by a transfer of
the metropolis from Fort George to Fort Vancouver. When Dr. John
McLoughlin, upon the absorption of the Northwestern by the Hudson Bay
Company, in 1821, was sent out as "Chief Factor of the Columbia River
Territory," he declared that the chief post should be as central as
possible to the trade; that after leaving the mouth of the river there is
no disadvantage in going to the head of navigation; and that a permanent
settlement must be surrounded by an agricultural country. These
considerations which took McLoughlin to Vancouver are those which to-day
determine the commercial strength of Portland, across the river from
Vancouver. Thus Fort George sunk to a subordinate position. After the
boundary was determined a new American town sprung up under the old name
Astoria, where there are large salmon canneries.
Vancouver, with the outlying posts scattered throughout the territory, was
the centre of a semi-feudal organization, and its life was picturesque and
full of charm.
Within the palisades was the residence of the Chief Factor ("Governor" by
courtesy), surrounded by those of the other gentlemen servants of the
Company; together with the stores, offices, and all other important
buildings. Between the fort and the river lay a clean, neat, and decorous
village of about forty log houses, occupied by the inferior servants of the
Company, who were, for the most part, French Canadians. Nearly every man,
from the "Governor" down, had an Indian wife; for no white woman had as yet
set foot in Oregon. One of these servants writes: "They all had Indian
women, never more than one; old Dr. McLoughlin would hang them if they
had." The farm, blacksmith's shop, and other productive activities at
Vancouver not only furnished the subordinate posts of the Company, but
provisions were sent to Alaska, exports were made to the Hawaiian Islands,
and the American settlers were dependent upon this post for many of their
supplies. Not only was Vancouver the trading centre, it was also the "heart
and brains of Oregon Territory." The post hospital offered relief to
American settlers as well as to the subordinate posts. Here was established
the first school in the territory. The services of the English Church were
regularly maintained, and opportunity was offered to missionaries of all
denominations to hold service. An annual dispatch kept open communication
with the outside world and brought books and papers from the centres of
civilization.
The central figure and inspiring genius of Vancouver was Dr. McLoughlin,
who was a striking and remarkable character. The remoteness of his post,
combined with a self-reliant nature, made him practically independent of
his superior officers in Montreal or London. He was indeed, absolute
monarch of all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains. But the "good
doctor," though firm in character, was a benevolent and a beneficent
despot. "Standing over six feet, six inches, in height, he was of
commanding presence, with courtly, yet affable manners." Red man and white
man alike revered and loved him, for to each alike he was kind, and at the
same time just. He was the soul of hospitality and every traveller found at
Vancouver a ready welcome to a seat at the rich but temperate board in the
common dining-hall, and a bed in the doctor's house. Library, horses, and
boats were all at the visitor's command. This spirit of hospitality, joined
to a freedom from national prejudice, characterized the attitude of
McLoughlin towards the missionaries and other American immigrants who
ultimately began to come into the territory. There was scarcely a party
which was not indebted to him for material assistance in getting started,
as well as for a courteous welcome at the fort. Some indeed owed their
lives to him and the other officers at Vancouver, and once at least their
prompt help was in marked contrast to the indifference of the American
settlement. To this service the missionary records bear constant testimony,
and Lieutenant Frémont, "the pathfinder," says in his report: "I found many
American Emigrants at the Fort. Others had already crossed the river to
their land of promise--the Willamette valley."
We must now follow these American immigrants, for with them the political
dominance is to pass from Great Britain to the United States, and the
metropolis to move from Vancouver to the Falls of the Willamette. Curiously
enough, McLoughlin in his own course will typify this transition.
The very first settlers in the Willamette Valley were servants of the
Hudson Bay Company, who settled there by the advice and with the
assistance of McLoughlin, who from the first had properly estimated the
value of this river and valley. He himself took possession of the falls,
with the adjacent land, and held them as a personal claim, "until such time
as there should be established a government which could give him title."
The town which he developed on this site he called Oregon City.
The first American settlers on the Willamette were the Methodist missionary
party, under Jason Lee, which crossed the plains in 1834. To these
McLoughlin gave material aid. Of the Canadians, Lee's nephew writes: "They
gave us a very polite and generous welcome to the best they could set
before us."
Lee's mission was to the Indians, but meeting with great discouragement in
this direction, he turned his attention to the more interesting task of
forming a political state, which should be American and also Methodist. The
missionary work was not abandoned, but only subordinated. In furtherance of
his political plans, Lee secured both money and immigrants from the eastern
States and invoked the protection of the United States Government. Since
1820 there had been a party in Congress, representing a sentiment in the
country outside, which desired to abrogate our treaty with England and
establish our government over the whole of Oregon Territory. But
notwithstanding an "Oregon fever," developed by Lee and others, the United
States was not yet ready for any action with regard to the new territory.
In the meantime immigrations from the western States had brought to the
Willamette Valley a number of people differing in spirit from the
missionaries and not at all in harmony with them. These after a while
outnumbered the adherents of the Mission. Hence arose three parties in the
Valley of the Willamette, two American and one British. The new American
party was in favor of forming a provisional government, which should
maintain order until the boundary question now burning between England and
America should be decided. The missionary party accepted this as an evil
less than the rule of the Hudson Bay Company, which was the only
established authority. The Canadians wanted only quiet. As a result, in
1845 was completed the organization of an independent commonwealth, which
recognized the sovereignty of neither America nor Great Britain, but
which allowed every man to retain his individual citizenship under either
government until the territorial question should be settled. Against the
wish of most of the missionary party, but upon the insistence of the more
liberal Americans, the plan was extended so as to include the country north
of the Columbia River, and McLoughlin was invited to unite in this
organization. The Chief Factor thought it wise to put the property of his
Company under the protection of a government which would probably be formed
whether or no, and therefore he entered the organization.
The seat of the new government was called by the legislature, "Willamette
Falls," but the place was afterwards incorporated under the name of Oregon
City given it by McLoughlin, its founder.
There had long been disaffection in England over McLoughlin's liberal
attitude towards the Americans. A climax was reached when Lieutenants Warre
and Vasouver, who came to the Columbia River shortly after the formation of
the provisional government, reported McLoughlin to be a disloyal subject,
if not an unfaithful servant. The Chief Factor's defence was complete and
he was not without friends, both in the Council of the Company and in the
House of Commons. However, moved by a combination of considerations, he
resigned his office, retired to Oregon City, and, after the settlement of
the boundary question, became a citizen of the United States. For this
much-vexed boundary question was settled by treaty in 1846. Polk was
elected upon the platform, "Fifty-four forty, or fight." But more moderate
counsels prevailed, and a compromise was made upon the forty-ninth parallel
of latitude. This determination of the boundary line had as a result the
extinguishing of the Hudson Bay trade on the Columbia River, and Vancouver
was purchased by the United States for an army post, which is still
maintained. A town has also grown up outside the reservation.
Seldom has fate been more ironical than in its treatment of Dr. McLoughlin.
Driven from Vancouver for his kindness to the missionaries, he was now
defrauded of his claim at Oregon City by the missionary party, and to
accomplish this iniquity anti-British prejudice was appealed to, in
concealment of the fact that the doctor had applied for American
citizenship. After his death, restitution was made to his children. Some of
his descendants now live in Portland.
In presenting a portrait of Dr. McLoughlin to the Oregon Pioneers, in 1887,
on behalf of the city of Portland, Judge Deady said: "He stands out to-day
in bold relief as the first man in the history of this country--the pioneer
of pioneers."
With the passing of Vancouver, Oregon City became the metropolis. And when
Oregon was erected into a Territory of the United States, in 1848, Portland
was as yet only "a place twelve miles from Oregon City."
Shortly after the incidents mentioned at the opening of this chapter,
Overton sold his interest to F.W. Pettygrove. A year later Lovejoy and
Pettygrove erected a business building, known as the "shingle store," on
what is now the corner of Front and Washington streets. Hitherto known as
"the village" or "Stumptown," the little settlement was now dignified with
the name of Portland. Lovejoy, who was a native of Boston, wanted to call
the town after his birthplace, but Pettygrove, who was equally loyal to
Maine, preferred Portland, and the tossing of a coin gave the choice to
Pettygrove. What a pity they could not have compromised on the Indian
_Multnomah_! Lovejoy, who was a man of education and had been prominent in
the provisional government, sold his interest in the future city to
Benjamin Stark and eventually died a poor man. Other transfers of interest
made Daniel Lounsbury, Stephen Coffin, and W.W. Chapman partners with Stark
in the ownership of the town site, and under these four men began the
active development of the town. This development, however, soon met with a
decided check from two events which in turn led to the subsequent
upbuilding and supremacy of Portland.
[Illustration CITY HALL, PORTLAND.]
The massacre of Whitman and his companions at Walla Walla by the Cayuse
Indians led to a war of vengeance, which drew almost every man who could
bear arms away from normal pursuits. Portland contributed a company of
infantry. The movements of the troops, which rendezvoused at Portland
during this war, demonstrated its superiority over the city at the falls as
a point of arrival and departure with regard to the Columbia River. This
discovery was to influence the future location of the metropolis.
The other event mentioned was the discovery of gold in California. The
immediate effect of this discovery was a stampede from Oregon. Portland
contained at one time, it is said, but three adults. Soon, however, the
demand for provisions in California opened up a lucrative trade in the
products of the fertile Willamette Valley and drew men back to the soil.
This California trade afforded an opportunity to develop Portland's
advantages which the Cayuse war had emphasized, and which Lovejoy suspected
when he said, "I observed the masts and booms of vessels which had been
left there and it occurred to me that this was the place for a town."
[Illustration PORTLAND IN 1850.]
Up to 1848, the annual arrivals in the Columbia had ranged from three to
eight vessels. In 1849 there were more than fifty arrivals. The shore of
the Willamette at Portland was lined with all kinds of vessels, and wharfs
and warehouses were in great demand.
It is upon this command of the two waterways, with her superior port, that
the permanent commercial supremacy of Portland rests. The most conspicuous
name in connection with this development of Portland's shipping interests
is that of John H. Couch. In 1840 Captain Couch brought into the Columbia
the first American trader which had crossed the bar since the Wyeth
expedition. This was the brig _Maryland_, from Newburyport, Mass. After
subsequent voyages he brought his family from Newburyport and settled in
Portland, in 1849. In partnership with his brother-in-law, Captain
Flanders, he built wharfs and warehouses and established the first regular
shipping business in the city. The first brig sailing from Portland to
China, _Emma Preston_, was dispatched by Couch & Co.
Such has been the development of Portland shipping that it is now well up
among the great ports of the country. Last year (1900), according to the
annual review by the _Oregonian_, it was ahead of Philadelphia and
Baltimore. Its wheat shipments (15,858,387 bushels) exceeded those of San
Francisco, and more than equalled the combined shipments of Tacoma and
Seattle.
[Illustration THE PORT OF PORTLAND.]
[Illustration JUDGE MATTHEW P. DEADY.]
Henry Villard's great genius suffered no aberration when he selected
Portland as the centre of Pacific coast transportation. For not only does
this city command the waterways, but it is also the great railway centre.
Four transcontinental systems, beside local lines, make the Union Station
their actual terminus. The Hotel Portland, one of Villard's many projects,
should be to Portlanders a memorial of Villard's brilliance and public
spirit, as to the tourist it offers, with its elegance and comforts, a
suggestive contrast to the camp of the early traveller.
[Illustration VIEW OF PORTLAND, 1900.]
To conclude from Portland's rapid growth and commercial supremacy that it
is a typical "western" town, would be to strike wide of the mark. One must
go east from Portland to find the typical characteristics, good and bad, of
a western town. Portland's character was largely formed before the railway
came, for it had a population of nearly twenty thousand before there was
connection by rail with the United States. This population was made up of
the influx from the Willamette Valley, whose civilization had been deeply
impressed by the religious and educational establishment at its foundation,
and of a good class of immigrants coming directly from the eastern States.
A characterization of Portland by Judge Deady, in 1868, is illuminating:
"Theatrical amusements never ranked high. There is no theatre house in the
town fit to be called such. On the other hand, church-going is
comparatively common."
[Illustration A CORNER IN CHINATOWN.]
As early as 1849 some citizens of Portland organized an association,
elected trustees, and built a school and meeting-house at a cost of over
two thousand dollars. This was the first enterprise of the kind on the
coast. Within a few years all the prominent religious denominations were
represented by houses of worship. The earliest of these buildings were
those of the Methodists and Congregationalists. The Methodists, Roman
Catholics, and Episcopalians also supported institutions of learning and of
charity. No single religious denomination or individual clergyman has
exerted such a commanding influence in the religious development of the
city as to warrant any attempt at discrimination. It may be less invidious
if two among the many citizens who have influenced the thought and
ministered to the higher non-ecclesiastical life of the city should be
briefly noticed. Matthew P. Deady, who was prominent in the territorial
government of Oregon, and whose was a controlling mind in framing both the
organic and statute law of the State, was, upon the admission of the State,
appointed Federal Judge, which office he held until his death. Upon his
appointment he secured the location of the court at Portland, and
identified himself with the city. The city, too, became identified with
him, inasmuch as the act of its incorporation passed the Legislature as it
came from his hand. Judge Deady ever strove to promote the higher interests
of Portland, through his important office, which he filled with great
ability; through the institutions of the Episcopal Church, of which he was
an honored member; and through the various channels which offer themselves
to the public spirited citizen. His monument, perhaps, is the Public
Library, which, with its fine building, is largely the result of his
interest and efforts; although much of the money for the building was
directly derived from a bequest.
[Illustration THE PORTLAND.]
When it is known that the _Oregonian_ has been published in Portland
practically since the foundation of the city, and that it is deemed by
competent judges to be the best edited newspaper west of the Atlantic
coast, the conclusion is not far away that the man who has been the editor
and master mind of that journal for more than thirty years must have
wielded an immense influence upon the thought and opinion of Portland and
the Pacific Northwest. That man is Harvey W. Scott.
It is needless to say, these two men do not stand alone. C.E.S. Wood, Esq.,
might be named as one who has contributed more than any, perhaps, to the
development of the city in the appreciation of and interest in art. Judge
George H. Williams, who was Attorney-General in Grant's Cabinet, might be
cited as an example of those who have served the nation as well as the
city. Others, too, have shared in making Portland, but space forbids even
the mention of their names.
With almost a hundred thousand inhabitants, drawn from all parts of the
world, and with a "Chinatown" in its midst, the social character of
Portland has, of course, changed since 1868. And yet Judge Deady's
characterization given then would fairly hold good to-day. This means, of
course, that Portland is eminently conservative, with the advantages and
disadvantages of conservatism.
In externals, Portland is an attractive city, with the trees in its streets
and the lawns about its houses and its wonderful roses. Its early
architecture is poor, but many of the recent buildings, municipal,
ecclesiastical, commercial, domestic, and general, are not only large and
imposing, but good. The city is beautifully situated, with the rivers at
its feet and the wooded hills behind it, and in the distance the snow
mountains, of which the finest and the favorite is Hood. Portland sits
to-day mistress of the North Pacific, and with historic and prophetic
reasons for expecting to be the metropolis of the whole Pacific coast. If
the sceptre slips from her, it will be only because she lacks the faith,
the courage, and the enterprise to enter into her inheritance.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
SAN FRANCISCO
BY THE WEST GATE OF THE WORLD
"City of gold and destiny"
* * * * *
"With high face held to the ultimate sea."
BY EDWIN MARKHAM
If Xenophon had journeyed westward from Athens, pressing beyond the amber
caverns of the Baltic, beyond the tin mines of Thule, out past the Gates
of Hercules, exactly west, across an ocean and a continent, the next
_thalatta_ of his men would have saluted the Pacific at the Golden Gate
from the low, shifting sand-hills of the unrisen San Francisco. For the
violet-veiled city of Athene and the gray-draped city of St. Francis are in
one line of latitude.
San Francisco crowns the extremity of a long, rugged peninsula, a little
north of the centre of California,
"The land that has the tiger's length,
The tawny tiger's length of arm,"
the land that stretches from pine to palm,
"Haunch in the cloud-rack, paw in the purring sea."
The one break in the mountain wall of the California Coast Range is the
Golden Gate, the watery pass that leads from San Francisco to the Pacific.
Spurs and peaks and cross ridges of this mountain chain would at long range
seem to encompass the city round about; but, on nearer view, the edging
waters on three sides make her distinctly a city of the sea.
Looking from the bay, past the fortified islands of the city, one may see
San Francisco to the west, rising in airy beauty on clustered gray hills.
At night the city hangs against the horizon like a lower sky, pulsing with
starry lamps. By day it stretches in profile long and undulating, with
spires and domes climbing up the steeps from a shore lined with the
shipping of every nation--felucca, ironclad, merchantman, junk, together
with bevies of tiny busybody craft, all of them circled and followed by
slow-swinging gulls.
[Illustration VIEW NORTHWEST FROM SPRECKELS' BUILDING.]
For years after the magnificent, all-inclusive claims of the Cabots at
Labrador in 1497, nothing was known of the west coast of North America.
Cabrillo felt his way along it in 1542, claiming it for Spain. In 1579,
Francis Drake, fleeing from plundered Spanish galleons, tarried for repairs
beside Cape Reyes, the Cape of Kings, and claimed the country, as New
Albion, for Elizabeth of England. Although anchored in a cove within a mile
of San Francisco Bay, he doubtless sailed away without guessing its
existence behind the forest-covered mountains.
In 1602, Vizcaino, charting the west for Spain, as Gosnold was mapping the
east for England, made stay in Drake's old anchorage, and named it the
Port of San Francisco.
Notwithstanding the reiterated desire of the Spanish Crown that Mexico, or
New Spain, should set about colonizing upper California, it was not till
1769 that the work was begun. Spain needed a harbor in which to retire on
the way from the Philippines. The Russian fur-traders were heading down the
coast. The French and the English were rumored to be nearing from the east.
So it behooved Spain to be on the alert to maintain her right to the new
territory.
José de Galvaez, _Visitador_ of Spain, who had been sent to Mexico with
powers extraordinary, "to examine and reform all branches of government,"
seized upon the project of colonization, and found the administrator of his
plans in Padre Junipero Serra, of fragrant memory,--a Franciscan monk, who
had all his life passioned to save Indians as a Tamerlane would have
passioned to destroy them.
Spain's plan of colonization comprehended a triple series of
establishments: the ecclesiastical or the mission, the military or the
presidio, the civil or the pueblo. The theory of colonization carried the
idea of a military and a religious conquest of the new lands. The Indians,
whenever belligerent, were to be overcome by force; but as far as possible,
they were to be drawn into the mission life by peaceable expedients.
In 1769, four expeditions, composed of soldiers, settlers, and Franciscan
friars, set out from Mexico to enter upon the work of colonizing and
civilizing California. If in the mists of coming ages the Æneid of
California be lost, Spain may prove her sponsorship of the Californian
province by the litany of seraphic and apostolic names given to mountain
and mesa, to coast and cañon. Andalusian names of saints and angels chime
wherever the padres stepped or stopped.
One of the four expeditions, pushing northward by land, unwittingly passed
Monterey; and a fragment of the company, while out hunting, came suddenly
in sight of the waters now known as the Golden Gate and the San Francisco
Bay. For the name San Francisco was soon transferred to this greater water
from the old port known to Drake and Vizcaino.
In the summer of 1776 a company of padres, soldiers, and families, with
stock and seeds, arrived on the San Francisco peninsula, and built
temporary shelter of brush and tulès plastered with mud. On September 17th,
the feast of the stigmata of St. Francis, solemn possession was taken of
the presidio in the name of Spain; and on October 4th, the day of St.
Francis, the mission was formally dedicated. The cross was raised, the Te
Deum was chanted, while bells and guns chorused to sea and sky.
The mission was in a little fertile valley four miles from the Presidio,
near a small creek now filled in. It became known as the Mission de los
Dolores, in honor of the sorrows of Mary.
[Illustration THE DISCOVERY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY. FROM THE PAINTING BY A.F.
MATHEWS.]
Hostile tribes from the south had lately fallen upon the Indians of the
peninsula, firing their _rancherias_, murdering many of the inhabitants,
and terrorizing the rest into flight. So the savages proved scarce at
first. Even in 1802 the Indians at the Mission numbered only about eight
hundred. But these natives, like all the Californian Indians, though quite
docile, proved stupid and brutish and lazy. They made little progress from
savagery to the state of _gentes de razon_, or "reasonable beings," fit to
populate the pueblos.
This mission _régime_, however futile it may have been, however formal and
external its religious training, seems to have touched upon some of the
educational and sociological thought of our own time. It made use of the
wisdom Spain had learned from her Roman conquerors--the taking of the
conquered into full partnership. The idea of the daily contact of superior
with inferior; of community of property and co-operation in labor; of the
union of manual work with mental drill--all these were rudely exemplified
in the mission life. Sixty years was the span of the experiment, a brief
time for an effort in civilization.
[Illustration MISSION DOLORES. BUILT IN 1776.]
The Mission Dolores grew after the general plan of the score of others
in California. It was built about an open court, the place for work or
recreation. The chapel stood at one end of the rectangle; the living
rooms, storehouses, and shops lined the other sides. Only the chapel,
thrice restored, with its _campo santo_ beside it, remains of the
Dolores structure. When Beechy visited it in 1829, it was already a
crumbling ruin. The sun-dried bricks, here as at the other unprotected
mission relics, are fast melting back into the earth. The adobe, like
the swallow's nest, cannot endure the hammers and chisels of wind and
rain and sun.
Little of moment occurred at Dolores till the days of secularization. The
barren, sand-driven, wind-swept hills were not attractive to the Spanish,
and the Mission was not in high estimation with the authorities. Don Pedro
de Aberini wrote of it in 1776: "Of all sites in California this Mission is
situated upon the worst." Nevertheless, in 1825, the Mission, from a few
head of stock and a few sacks of seed brought in 1776, had accumulated
76,000 cattle, 79,000 sheep, 40,000 horses, and $60,000 in money and
products.
Mexico's jealousy of the sympathy which the padres felt for Spain, from
whom Mexico had torn herself in 1822; the clamoring of settlers for the
lands held by the missions; quixotic pleas of Mexican statesmen for Indian
autocracy; and perhaps, under all, an itching for the Pious Fund that
supported the mission work--these led on to the secularization of the
missions in 1836. The Indian, civilized only surface-deep, was unready for
civilized self-government; and so he fell back to barbarism, plus
dissipation--his last state worse than the first.
The Dolores Indians were especially incompetent, and no attempt was made
to organize a pueblo for them. So Dolores, after secularization, dragged
out an anomalous existence as a lapsed mission, carried on by political
rather than by ecclesiastical rule, with an alcalde rather than a padre in
charge.
In 1835 the embarcadero of Yerba Buena two miles from the Presidio, was, at
command of Governor Figueroa, made the port of entry. This place (named
from a medicinal weed growing about the cove) was only a landing-place for
fishermen and hide droghers. Only one house stood here at this time. Not a
sail shadowed the bay. Herds of deer came down to the water and schools of
seal swam to the shore. Yet Yerba Buena afterward absorbed the Mission and
the Presidio on the margin of Golden Gate, and took the name of the Bay,
thus becoming the germ of the present city.
A knowledge of the charm and worth of the sovereign bay queening the
western shore of North America was rapidly travelling the world. In 1806,
the Russian Rezanof had visited it officially. His coming and going has a
romantic interest, as his betrothal to Doña Concepcion, the beautiful
daughter of Argüello, commandant of the Presidio, his tragic death on his
way home, and her retirement to a convent, made the Evangeline tale of
early California. England in 1840 sent Belcher to the bay to gather
information, and France sent de Mofras.
Both of these nations were suspected of coveting the California province;
and the hope of getting possession of it, especially of San Francisco Bay,
was doubtless in the background of our national consciousness as one motive
of the Mexican War. It was felt by our country that the United States must
own the west coast or be pot-bound later on. The Government offered to buy
the territory from Mexico, but the proposal was refused.
Gradually it came to be known that the United States, fearing similar
action by European powers, was to seize and hold California in the event of
a war with Mexico. With the vexed question of motive and action this is not
the place to deal. But in 1846, after the Mexican War had fairly started,
Frémont, pursuing a scientific exploration in California, received secret
Government advices, and, gathering troops in the North, urged a
declaration of independence. Commodore Sloat, in command of a frigate at
Monterey, in July, 1846, raised the American flag in place of the Spanish
nopal and eagle standard, declaring California a part of the United States.
The next day, following the order of Sloat, our flag was set flying in the
plaza at Yerba Buena by the captain of a frigate in the bay, accompanied by
an escort of soldiers and marines. No opposition was offered by the
Mexicans. Portsmouth, the name of the vessel, was given to the plaza, and
Montgomery, the name of the captain, was given to the street, then along
the water front, but now pushed back a half a dozen blocks by the filling
in of the cove.
The first alcalde of Yerba Buena under the American flag was Washington
Bartlett. Hearing that a new town, Francesca, was to be established farther
up the bay, and fearing injury to his own from one with a name so similar
to that of the bay, Alcalde Bartlett proceeded, in 1847, to cast the
plebeian name of his pueblo. He declared the name Yerba Buena insignificant
and unknown to the world; proclaimed that henceforth the settlement should
bear the name of the fostering bay beside it. This somewhat tardy edict was
accepted by all, and San Francisco became a name to conjure with.
The village nucleated a little back of the cove about its inevitable
Spanish plaza, which was to be the scene of wild and whirling days to come.
Telegraph Hill, the old observation station, rose on the north of it, and
Rincon Hill was off toward the south. When California was ceded to the
United States in 1848, San Francisco was fairly afoot upon her triumphant
way. Brannan had established a newspaper, _The Star_, and had sent two
thousand copies East, describing the new land, and, curiously enough,
prophesying the gold and the wheat of the future--the first "boom" note
from California. A school was flourishing; churches were building; two
hundred houses were on the hills, and the population was about eight
hundred.
And now sweeps into the story the dominant major--the finding of the gold.
Told of in Indian legend and in Spanish tradition, the shining sands of
Pactolus were found at last in a Californian cañon. San Franciscans,
hearing the tale, felt again the wander spirit, and were off to the
mountains, seeking quicker fortunes. Soldiers and sailors deserted from the
bay. The school closed; the newspaper suspended. Business was at a
standstill: there was no one to work or to buy.
A wind of excitement passed across two hemispheres. The tidings of the gold
flashed from city to city, swift as the signal fires of Agamemnon telling
that Troy had fallen. The faces of men turned expectantly toward this land
at the edge of the world. Everywhere were heard the sounds of preparation
and farewell, as adventurers by land and sea, by craft and caravan, set out
for El Dorado.
By 1849 immigrants from the ends of the earth were pouring in; and the
bare, brown hills and curving shores of San Francisco were whitening with
tents. Goods were piled high in the open air, and all available walls were
covered with grotesque signs and placards speaking in all languages.
By the winter of '49, the drowsy, droning Spanish town had expanded into a
little excited city. Everywhere were springing up nondescript lodging and
boarding houses, drinking houses, and gambling saloons. Twenty-five
thousand people thronged the thoroughfares. There was scarcely such a thing
as a home. Crowds of people slept wedged together on floors and tables, in
rows of cots or in bunks fastened in tiers to the walls. The streets, full
of sticky clay and miry sand, were thronged with struggling horses, mules,
and oxen; and crowds of men from all nations and all levels of life jostled
by, laughing, railing, or cursing. A whirlwind had rushed in upon the
sleepy town. Old habits of life were broken through. Lawyers were turned
into draymen and bootblacks; doctors into merchants and carpenters;
soldiers into waiters and auctioneers. All men could find work; and none,
however rich, could wholly evade it. Gambling was the chief amusement;
speculation in a hundred forms was pressing forward, and fortunes were
changing hourly.
In all this rude democracy, there was one mark of an aristocracy--high
prices. Workmen charged twenty dollars a day; lumber was five hundred
dollars a thousand; flour was forty dollars a barrel; eggs were a dollar
apiece.
All unready for this tumultuous rise in population and precipitation of
business, the infant city had to evolve on the moment accommodation for man
and beast and craft, and organization for civic safety. To add to the
perplexities, in the first years of the city, fire after fire devoured its
flimsy fabric of canvas and shingle. The fourth and worst fire, in May,
1851, destroyed seven million dollars' worth of property. The recurrent
devastation made a demand for fireproof buildings, which gave a certain
stability and dignity to the city. The bay began to fill with the new
clipper ships, which brought steadier crews and more rational cargoes than
did the older clumsy ships now rotting at the docks. Secure wharfage,
passable streets, an efficient fire-department began to give a feeling of
prosperity and permanence.
San Francisco was the stopping-place of every comer and goer; the Egypt of
the corn, the depot of supplies for the gold territory. Naturally, forces
of good and evil streamed into the young city and came into collision.
Strange new conditions were in the environment. The old primitive
safeguards of the early mission era were outgrown. The population,
representing every form of tradition and government, found itself removed
from well-nigh all restraints, all bolstering-up of church and state. Each
man of worth, while bent to his private task, had forced upon him the
problem of helping to build up a social fabric and of holding it secure.
The Anglo-Saxon has an elastic genius for government. Wherever he goes,
finding new conditions, he finds new ways for maintaining the public
safety. The reaction of his spirit under the conditions about him in early
California furnishes an interesting study in social dynamics.
By 1850, California was running under a State constitution and the city had
a charter. The old stable forces of home, and school, and church, the
Argonaut soon evolved about him. However, great freedom of action and
opinion prevailed, and a tolerance of evil that well-nigh blunted the
distinctions between right and wrong. "Sydney coves," and other unruly
spirits took advantage of this laxity. Abuses thickened, and anxious
problems of public order were upon the young metropolis.
The affair of "The Hounds" was one of the organized outrages that
confronted the municipality. A band of lawless ex-convicts, affiliated for
mutual protection in evil designs, grew very obnoxious in their bold
defiance of authority, their open and wanton outrages upon citizens,
especially foreigners. The community, having no municipal organization,
rose against the law-breakers, put twenty on trial, and half of these into
prison. This show of public indignation quieted the pack for a time. But
there was no strong authority to conserve the public good. What was the
concern of all found an executive in none.
Yet, finally, out of this sagging and sinking of the public order and its
adjustment sprang the most spectacular popular uprising and the most
notable object-lesson in self-government known to the West or perhaps to
any other land,--the Vigilance Committee of 1852-56. The occasion of this
citizens' uprising was a series of unpunished crimes of arson, murder,
rapine, and burglary. The perpetrators of these outrages, owing to lax
administration of law by corrupt or careless officials, seemed immune from
apprehension or punishment. The many fires that had devastated the infant
city had without doubt been of incendiary origin. Over a hundred murders
had occurred in a few months and not a single capital punishment had
followed.
Feeling that this insecurity of life and property was intolerable, and
fearing that it would draw down the perils and uncertainties of mob law, a
party of prominent citizens, all above suspicion of self-interest,
organized a defensive league against the allied rabble. They determined to
take the law into their own hands, and to administer it with equal and
exact justice, with swiftness and finality.
[Illustration SEAL OF THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE.]
The first and most exciting case handled by this extraordinary court of
justice came swiftly to judgment. Upon the night of organization, in June,
1852, an ex-convict was seized in an act of theft. He was tried in the
presence of eighty members sitting with closed doors; was convicted,
sentenced, and hanged in Portsmouth Square that night. The general public,
sensitive and suspicious, dreading mob tactics, was troubled at first by
this summary show of power. But the Committee came out with a complete list
of its members, each member assuming equal share of responsibility, each
avowing the public welfare as the only end in view, each pledging his life,
his fortune, his honor, for the protection of his city and the upholding of
the public safety. A profound impression was made by the manifesto of this
self-constituted protectorate. When it was found that no secret society,
but, instead, a band of the solid men of the city was at the head of the
movement, the community rallied to its support with enthusiasm. The
Committee quietly kept at its work of investigation and punishment. Its
calm, swift justice, its lack of personal bias, its righteous vengeance
terrified evil-doers. Many were banished by formal warning. Three other
well-known criminals were hanged. Crime rapidly diminished, and for the
first time in years people began to feel secure in person and possessions.
After thirty days the occupation of the Vigilance Committee was gone. It
did not disband, but existed for years a merely nominal tribunal.
By 1854, the growth of San Francisco began to slacken. Inflation began its
inevitable counter-movement of collapse. The days of picking up gold were
over. Immigration fell off. A large part of the city's population
scattered, returning East, or going into the country to try life on ranch
or range. Disorder increased; the old suppressed crimes leaped into evil
eminence.
A new journal, _The Bulletin_, edited by James King, of William, assailed
the rising corruption, political and personal, social and individual,
public and private.
In 1856, without warning, King was shot down in the street by a man who had
writhed under the torment of the _Bulletin_ pens,--an unscrupulous
ex-convict, James Casey, a rival editor, and a man lately elected
supervisor. This murder precipitated public opinion, and exploded the lazy
optimism that had waited for things to right themselves. Casey was at once
jailed, by chance escaping lynching. It was inevitable that heroic measures
should be set in operation. And so there came about a second administration
of the Vigilance Committee, this unique social providence, this people's
protectorate. But this time it had before it not only the purging of the
city's crime, but also a struggle with jealous and sluggish authority
vested in city and State officials. In a few days 2500 men had enrolled as
Vigilantes, and were drilling in arms, under their former trusted
President, William T. Coleman. Meantime the Governor of the State was
summoned by the Anti-Vigilantes, representing chiefly the conservative
officeholders and the people affiliated in some way with the lawless
element. These Anti-Vigilantes came to be known in derision as the
Law-and-Order Party. The Know-Nothing Governor swayed first from one side
to another. He had no power behind him, for the militia were deserting to
the popular cause.
The Vigilantes took charge not only of Casey, but also of one Cora who had
wantonly shot a United States marshal and had evaded punishment. After a
dispassionate trial, with all form and ceremony, the two criminals were
sentenced to death and hanged on the day of King's funeral. It may be worth
remembering that this man Cora was defended in his first trial by the
eloquent Col. E.D. Baker.
The Law-and-Order Party now insisted that the Vigilantes disband. But the
Committee held that its purpose was not simply to deal out justice to
murderers, but also to so clarify the social atmosphere as to make future
assassinations punishable by law. Therefore it struck directly at city
politics, banishing the openly vicious, and laying the way for a clean
administration when the corrupt officials could be rotated out of office.
This Vigilance Committee drew a large following of citizens; but there was
a continuous undercurrent of opposition. General Sherman, commander of the
second division of the State militia, backed by the vacillating Governor
and representing constitutional authority, was the leader of the opposition
sentiment. In June, the Law-and-Order Party under him determined to rise
against the Vigilantes. He appealed to General Wool, United States
Commander in the Department, for arms, and also to Commodore Farragut at
Mare Island. These commanders declined to interfere in State troubles
without orders from the Government. Governor Johnson declared the city and
county of San Francisco in a state of insurrection, and asked aid from
Washington. General Sherman, finding himself powerless, resigned.
Chief-Justice Terry, an active opponent of the Committee, having come from
Sacramento to enforce the law, now complicated matters by stabbing an
officer of the Vigilantes. The Committee held him a prisoner but set him
free when his victim recovered. After three months of life, after hanging
in all four criminals, well-known desperadoes, banishing many others, and
paving the way for a purer administration of law, the Committee disbanded,
leaving a small body to settle its affairs. The next election saw a full
set of honest officials in power, and for twenty years San Francisco had
the name of being one of the best-governed cities in the world.
Looking back dispassionately, it appears that the Vigilance Committee had
something of the dignity and purpose and procedure of the ancient court of
the Areopagus. It was not like the extemporized Sanhedrim that tried
Christ, a body which kept the appearance of justice but mocked the reality.
It was not a masked band of regulators like the Ku Klux or the White Caps;
but it was an irresistible rising of the best citizens in calm debate, in
open daylight, with sobriety and decorum and every safeguard of justice.
Unlike the anti-Mafia of New Orleans, it put down the mob spirit, but did
not engender it. Though acting outside of the constituted authorities, it
had the severest reverence for law in the ideal. As President Coleman
expressed it, the Committee did not act under lynch law, but under a sort
of martial law that obtains in time of siege. Considering the daring
wantonness of crime, the subsidized or terrorized condition of the courts
of justice, and the immunity of criminals, law-abiding citizens seem to
have been justified in reverting to the elemental order of things, as is
the man who attacks the thief in the night. But, of course, loyalty from
the first to public interests instead of easy optimism and self-absorption,
would have held back the occasion for the heroic measures of the historic
Committee. Men never learn, save through suffering, that the support of
the common welfare is a sacred duty, and that this duty squares exactly
with their highest private interests.
During all these years and long after, San Francisco suffered greatly from
disputed land titles. Conflicting claims led to labyrinthine legislation,
and increasing hardship, one crisis being the Squatter Riots.
The treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo had decreed that all property rights
should be respected by the new government. So property rights founded on
cloudy and ill-understood laws and customs of Spain and Mexico had now to
be adjudicated in the Californian courts. San Francisco was entangled in
the mazes of two rival Spanish claims, embracing well-nigh all her
territory except the "made" land. There was much dispute as to whether or
not the city had ever been made a pueblo proper. On this depended the
holding or forfeiting of four square leagues of land. Though the city
petitioned the Land Commission in 1852 for confirmation of her public
grants, the controversy was pending through wearying legislation, with
repeated surveys and delays and continual jeopardy of property, until
finally settled by the decision of Secretary Lamar in 1887.
The decline of the gold output brought to the front the agricultural
resources of the State, and San Francisco came to be the centre of
distribution for wheat, wines, and fruits.
The Central Pacific Railroad was completed in 1867, with San Francisco as
the Western terminus, and as by a magic stroke the city was only three
thousand miles instead of nineteen thousand miles from Eastern markets.
Since then three other transcontinental lines and numerous local lines have
brought trade and travel into this emporium of the Pacific, while the ships
of all nations fetch and carry through her Golden Gate.
The war of secession found California wavering between the Stars and
Stripes and the Stars and Bars. A large Southern element, much to the front
in politics, had maintained a strong Democratic influence in the State. The
celebrated duel, just outside the city limits between Broderick and
Terry--the Terry of Vigilance Committee memory--turned the tide toward
Republicanism and sympathy for the North. The duel grew out of the
Broderick and Gwin senatorial contest. Terry stood for Southern chivalry;
Broderick stood for free labor and progressive politics. Not essentially
great or noble, Broderick was made heroic by his tragic death. During war
times he was a colossal figure in men's minds, and his anti-slavery
sentiments echoed through city and State, a slogan and a cleaving sword for
freedom and the North.
[Illustration UNION DEPOT.]
In the '70's there sprang up in San Francisco a tremendous excitement over
the silver mines on the Comstock Lode. The bonanza was estimated to be
worth over fifteen hundred millions of dollars. True, this argent field was
across the Sierras, in the State of Nevada. But most of the output found
its way to San Francisco. The principal owners lived there, and San
Francisco was the depot for Comstock supplies. The Stock Board operated
there, and stocks bought for less than one hundred thousand dollars soared
up to two hundred million. At the highest notch of prices the manipulators
sold out, and the airy fabric of speculation fell with a crash. The banks
had been emptied by speculators eager to buy stocks, and were greatly
embarrassed. Myriads were swept into poverty, leaving immense fortunes in
the hands of a few.
Soon after the Comstock collapse the Sand Lot agitation sprang into life.
Over one hundred and fifty millions of dollars had been removed from
circulation by the Comstock jugglery. The wealth of the outside world was
temporarily diverted from the San Francisco markets. A great drought had
been on the State during two years and the lean kine had devoured the fat.
Harvests were sparse or wholly lacking. Cattle perished beside the dry
watercourses. A large body of the outside unemployed had come to swell the
tide of the city's drifting, workless ones. The railroad was threatening a
reduction of wages to its thousands of men. Riots were on in Philadelphia,
Pittsburg, Baltimore, and had sent contagion on the enforced idlers in San
Francisco. Feeling long smouldering broke into fire against the Chinese and
the railroad, two factors believed by the working-men to be largely
instrumental in cheapening wages and robbing men of work. A mob gathered,
threatening to rout out the Asiatics. The police could not disperse the
rioters.
[Illustration CHINESE PHARMACY.]
On July 24th there came a third call for the Vigilance Committee to
assemble, which many thought an unnecessary and high-handed summons.
William T. Coleman was for a third time given charge. The Committee was to
proceed upon lines followed in the '50's. But this time they were to
co-operate with the authorities rather than to work in opposition. On July
25th, the mob, infuriated by the menace of the Committee and looking on it
as a mere support of capitalistic interests, gathered about the Pacific
Mail Dock, where immigrant Chinese were landed. The Committee, armed with
pick-handles, met the labor mob at the dock and a few men were killed. This
ended the uprising. But the issue was soon thrust into politics. The
anti-Chinese believers gathered upon the sand lots in the neighborhood of
the City Hall and organized the Working-man's Party. It spread throughout
the State. Dennis Kearny, an illiterate but rudely eloquent speaker, became
the leader, the Wat Tyler of the hour. The movement ended in the adoption
by the State of a new Constitution framed along progressive lines.
The people of San Francisco are of all kindreds and tongues. Buddha,
Mahomet, and Confucius are prayed to beside the Christian temples. The
Indians of the Mission have faded from the peninsula and the sombreroed
Spaniard dashes no more from the Mission to the beach about his bull-fights
and bear-baitings. But here are Anglo-Saxons, Teutons, Celts, Greeks,
Slavs, Latins, Hindus, Chinese, Kanakas, Japanese, and Chilenos, all mixing
in the great crucible and slowly shaping a new type of man, the Western
American. All seem to be mixing, it should be explained, except the
Chinese, for, after a quarter of a century of experience, San Francisco
feels that her Chinese population is still an alien body and sure to remain
so even to the third and fourth generation.
[Illustration CHINESE GROCERY STORE.]
The problem of Chinese immigration has come up again and again in San
Francisco. In 1869 the Chinese were invited and welcomed from China. In
1892, the Geary law was passed prohibiting the coming of any but the
student class and providing for deportation under certain conditions. A
generation grew up between this hail and farewell, China in the meantime
pouring her tens of thousands of coolies into San Francisco. California
welcomes any race that affiliates. But she has found that the Chinese race
is not as the impressionable Indian or negro; but is an arrested race in
the yoke of caste and ancient tradition, one looking with contempt upon
upstart Anglo-Saxon civilization. The Chinese swarmed into a quarter of the
city about Portsmouth Square, and have made there a small, evil-smelling
Canton, where only a foreign tongue is spoken, and where strange gods are
worshipped. Few have brought wives. Slave girls are the only women. Every
Chinese prays to die in China, or to have his bones rot there. American law
to most of them is but a pestilent thing to be evaded. They have no
interest in the growth of the country or its institutions. They work for
starvation wages, their living being extremely cheap, requiring only tea
and rice and a bare shelf to sleep upon in a room crowded with such
shelves. Being imitative, and as patient as cattle, and withal so cheap as
hirelings, they have taken the places of women in the household and factory
and the places of men and boys in the work of dock and shop and field. The
assertion that this labor liberates the whites for higher work does not
seem to be verified. Many trace the vicious "hoodlum" class of both sexes
to the enforced idleness of these young people, springing from the iron
competition of the Chinese in the labor market.
[Illustration SMOKING ROOM, CHINESE RESTAURANT.]
Notwithstanding all this, the little slant-eyed men with their grotesque
superstitions, their stiff, stark, unhomelike homes, add a quaintness and a
touch of color to this romantic city. Gay placards of intense greens and
vermilions flutter from their doorposts. Under the dull outer tunics of the
elders gleam surtouts of gay brocades, while the few children, little
faithful copies of their sires, all tricked out like the lanterns of the
night, go toddling on tiny, rocking shoes through the narrow, dingy
streets. The Chinese theatres, temples, and restaurants are full of the
Oriental strangeness. The interiors of some of them are lacquered and
varnished like huge tea-boxes.
[Illustration A BUSINESS CENTRE.]
As one gets a strip of Cathay in Chinatown, so he may find a corner of
Italy on the south slopes of Telegraph Hill. Here children, looking like
the cherubs of their kinsmen, the old masters, swarm through steep narrow
streets, upon curious little balconies, out of odd windows, or upon the
steps of chapels.
The architecture of San Francisco is a medley of many schools. The
buildings, especially the homes, are largely of wood; the recurring feature
is the bay window that focuses the light and heat. To the newcomer they
all seem of the same color, for the fogs and winds soon reduce all hues to
a fine, restful gray. In the beginning, by a curious irony, stone and
lumber were shipped from the East and from Asia to this land of forests and
granite to build some of the structures still holding their places against
the pressure of time. In the newer buildings of the city there is some
attempt to make the architecture express the function of the structure--the
stability of the business house, the aspiration of the church, the simple
security of the home. The new City Hall is an example of permanence and
chaste elegance. The old mission architecture is being revived. This
Spanish-Moorish adaptation is the most characteristic and harmonious
development of Californian architecture. Built of the earth, the old
mission piles seem almost as if not made by man, but nature. For they
repeat in long stretches and low swells the contour of the hills about
them, and give back their color-tones of dun and tan and rusty red.
The year the new and greater name was given to the city, a misfortune fell
upon the streets. Regardless of cliff and curve, ignoring height and
hollow, the streets were laid out in undeviating straight lines. And so a
city on fairer than Roman hills, with circling waterways more lovely than
the curve of Constantinople's Golden Horn, was deformed as far as its high
bearing could be hurt; was checkered by pitiless compass lines, when it
might have had windings and slow curves and gentle slopes.
Market, the main street, runs lengthwise of the peninsula. Its intersection
with Kearny is a nerve-centre of the city, whence radiate three great
streets. Near this spot are the main newspaper buildings and most of the
large hotels. San Francisco's streets, unlike those of Sacramento and Los
Angeles, are not lined with trees. But nearly every dooryard has its green
place where tall geraniums, camelias, heliotropes, or fuchias fling out,
the year round, their splashes of scarlet and purple.
[Illustration PRAYER BOOK CROSS, GOLDEN GATE PARK.]
The city boasts of one great park of a thousand acres, on the hills and
ravines out by the sea. Central, Prospect, and Fairmount parks of the East
fail beside the charm of this Arcadian Western park, probably the finest in
North America. The trees of the world, from conifer to cactus, are here,
and every flower that blooms. Beyond the park is the Cliff House,
overhanging huge rocks, the rendezvous of gulls and seals and shy things
of the water.
[Illustration SEAL ROCK AND CLIFF HOUSE.]
The old Portsmouth Square is dingy and draggled. It looks upon the scene of
the executions of the Vigilantes and is full of memories for the
chronicler. Its great charm now is the statue of Robert Louis Stevenson,
who when in San Francisco, often sat there, studying the quaint, broken
life about him. Another significant monument, poetic and historic presented
to the city by Mayor James D. Phelan, stands before the new City Hall in
honor of the Native Son of the Golden West.
It is doubtless only a question of time when expanding San Francisco will
absorb the cities an hour's ride across the Bay,--Oakland, Berkeley, and
Alameda,--the homes now of many of San Francisco's business men.
The University of California at Berkeley draws its largest clientele from
San Francisco. By the benefactions of the widow of Senator Hearst of San
Francisco, this university has under way a housing perhaps the most
spacious and symmetrical in the world. The structure, to cost nearly five
million dollars, follows a plan chosen by experts from designs submitted
after a world competition, and will crown a long hill slope, looking down
on San Francisco City and Bay and out toward sleeping Asia. The allied
professional colleges of the University are already in San Francisco. Its
art department is in the fine old mansion of Hopkins, the railroad builder,
on California Street, the home street of millionaires. A school of mechanic
arts, endowed by the pioneer, James Lick, who gave the great astronomical
observatory to the State University, is also under way in San Francisco.
[Illustration CITY HALL, SAN FRANCISCO.]
Another university drawing its student body largely from San Francisco is
an hour or more down the peninsula from the city,--the Leland Stanford,
Jr., founded by Jane and Leland Stanford and wife, of San Francisco. This
university, by the way, is built, after the old mission plan of one-story
buildings, about an inner court, with arcades and Roman towers and tiled
roof.
[Illustration LELAND STANFORD.]
The city has three great working libraries, the Public, the Mercantile, and
the Mechanics' Institute. Adolph Sutro, the late owner of about one tenth
of the territory of San Francisco City and County, whose fine grounds out
by the Cliff House have long been open to the public, left a unique
collection of two hundred thousand pamphlets and volumes of rare worth,
gathered for the public use. The Bancroft Library is phenomenal in that it
has cornered all the original material for the history of the far West.
Those myriads of manuscripts, pamphlets, and books have been indexed by
experts and the library is a sort of Vatican for California.
The Bohemian Club of San Francisco, a comradery of litterateurs, artists,
and lovers of the arts, is a unique expression of the æsthetic
individuality of the city, and is one of its strong social forces.
[Illustration THOMAS STARR KING.]
San Francisco has perhaps no famous name that dominates the city as
Franklin dominates Philadelphia; as Beecher, Brooklyn; as Carnegie,
Pittsburg. But if great-hearted Thomas Starr King had lived longer, he
might have been its crowning personality as he is now its most sainted
memory. His inflexible loyalty and impassioned eloquence made him at the
outbreak of the Civil War a commanding figure, if not the leading citizen
of California.
Though only fifty years old, San Francisco has given to literature and art
a few names that the world will not willingly let die. For forty years
Joaquin Miller, the "Poet of the Sierras," has been a friend and neighbor
of her hills and waters, telling in noble numbers the glories and the
terrors of the strange new land "by the sundown seas." Here Bret Harte
founded the _Overland Monthly_ and with "The Luck of Roaring Camp" began
his creation of Californian characters. What matters it if they never
existed outside of his pages,--those drinking, dirking dare-devils, those
tenor-voiced, soulful-eyed gamblers, striking sorrow to the hearts of
ladies? For, touched by his genius, they exist for us there, in perennial
charm and invitation.
[Illustration HENRY GEORGE.]
Here, too, Henry George wrote his _Progress and Poverty_, a book that was
a prophet-cry heard round the world, declaring that every man has a right
to a foothold on the earth. Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Charles Warren
Stoddard, John Vance Cheney, Charlotte Perkin Gilman, Kate Douglas Wiggin,
and Gertrude Atherton did here a deal of their early literary work,[17] but
now have wandered away into the world, leaving behind them, however, a
goodly group of critics, story-writers, and poets; painters, also, William
Keith and the rest, who have caught into splendid captivity some of the
immensities and radiances about them.
This is but an abstract and brief chronicle of the great city at the
Western gate of the world. There she sits, the ultimate outpost of the
passion of progress. Sleepless unrest, forever urging the peoples westward,
land by land, now, at the end of centuries, begins to surge and thunder on
the shores of Balboa's Sea. But this end is only a beginning--this great
city is only the first of a chain of cities fated, under the star of
empire, to spring into life on these circling shores, making the Pacific at
last the greater Mediterranean of mankind.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[17] The reader will yet more vividly recall that _The Man with
the Hoe_ came out of San Francisco and will heartily approve the editor's
selection of Mr. Markham to contribute this chapter to the volume.
EDITOR.
[Illustration]
MONTEREY
CIUDAD DE AYER Y DE HOY
BY HAROLD BOLCE
To know the story of Monterey, one must go back for a moment to the
southern coast of Europe. There, on an island a day's sail from the land
that later cradled a prodigy destined to make dynasties his playthings,
there was born, in 1713, a boy who by pacific conquests was to perform a
part no less significant than Napoleon's in determining the history of
nations.
While the infant Bonaparte was listening, perhaps impatiently, to Corsican
lullabies, Junípero Serra, a mendicant friar from Majorca, discovered, or
rediscovered, on the far shores of this continent the supposedly vanished
harbor of Monterey, and thereby marked the genesis of the movement that was
finally to give the American republic a western frontage on the sea.
[Illustration JUNÍPERO SERRA, FOUNDER OF MONTEREY.]
But for this auspicious event and the stimulating effect on Spanish
exploration it afterwards provoked, the great domain from San Diego to the
Straits of Juan de Fuca would not to-day be rendering tribute to the
Government at Washington. The western lines of the Louisiana Purchase
would mark our farthermost frontier; the incredible hoard of California's
roaring camps would be minted into sovereigns, shillings, rubles,
imperials, or francs; no Pacific Squadron would have carried our flag to
the gates of the East; and we would to-day be a hemmed-in nation, disputing
our land boundaries with encroaching colonies of Europe, instead of a world
power projecting canals to sever continents in the interest of our trade,
and sailing our ships east and west across the seven seas.
The average tourist, viewing the adobe ruins of the Monterey presidio and
recalling the futile guns of that crumbled fortress, does not dream of the
place Monterey filled in the march of international events. Nor will the
guide enlighten him as he takes him over the seagirt drive to Carmel and
the cliffs of Point Lobos, for that profane, though picturesque historian
omits even to say that Robert Louis Stevenson furnished the plan for this
famous highway.
Some gleams of Monterey's immortal past illumine the reverent traveller who
climbs the stone steps of Junípero's Mission at Carmel. He knows, then,
vaguely, that he is exploring the venerable tomb of one of the great men of
the world. And the irreverent guide, if asked, will indicate indifferently
the spot on the gospel side of the sanctuary where rest the bones of this
prophet and builder of empire, but before the hurrying train-catcher has
returned to the Golden Gate he has ceased to reflect upon the incalculable
debt America owes to this mendicant seer and colonizer who, in the name of
God, St. Francis, and the King, added half a continent to the Crown of
Spain, and, building better than he knew, established the western
foundations of the republic that was to rise above Spanish and Mexican
decay.
[Illustration CARMEL MISSION (RESTORED).]
Monterey was an old name on the crude maps of the Mexican frontier.
Eighteen years before the _Mayflower_ landed at Plymouth Rock, Don
Sebastian Vizcaino had rounded the pine-edged promontory that hides the
harbor of Monterey, and, anchoring in the bay, went ashore and with sacred
rites named the port in honor of Count de Monterey, the reigning Viceroy.
For more than a century and a half the spot was not revisited save by
savage hunters. Efforts to relocate the harbor were without success.
[Illustration TWILIGHT--MONTEREY BAY.]
Back of the concealing peninsula the bay of Monterey sweeps in a great
crescent to Santa Cruz, thirty miles away, and to exploring navigators,
shunning possible shoals, the coast presented a seemingly unbroken line. It
came to be the scientific belief that some geologic upheaval had altered
the contour of the coast. Mariners were mystified. Efforts to rediscover
Monterey assumed the nature of crusades. No less a personage than Gaspar de
Portala, with a retinue of sixty-five persons, set out overland from Loreto
in 1769 to find the vanished harbor. Without identifying the haven he
sought, he camped on its tree-rimmed beaches and erected a cross under the
ancient oak in whose shade Vizcaino had partaken of the sacrament.
A year later came the seer and scholar Junípero. Long before, in his
college in Majorca where he graced with distinction the chair of
philosophy, he had read and treasured the description Vizcaino had given.
Now he recognized the surviving oak and the neighboring springs, and,
turning, he saw unrolled before him the bay which, in its vastness, had to
other eyes seemed only a part of the open sea.
Inspecting Portala's wooden cross, Junípero saw that at the base were
votive offerings of birds, shells, strings of fish newly caught, and in a
beaver-skin quiver a cluster of arrows tipped with obsidian. Here were
signs and portents which to Junípero were ever a source of inspiration. In
after years he learned that the Eslenes, or Monterey Indians, had for ages
handed down a tradition that some day a messiah would come to them; and
that just before the advent of Junípero, the cross which Portala had reared
seemed to rise in the sky at night until its splendor filled the heavens;
and that then the tribes, believing their deliverer was at hand, came with
gifts of food and trinkets to this unaccustomed altar and, in token of the
peace they felt, tied a quiver of arrows to the cross.
[Illustration SAN CARLOS CHURCH.]
In the fertile valley of Carmel just over the pine-clad cordillera that
conceals the bay, on a slope above the thundering surf, Junípero dedicated
the Mission that was to be named San Carlos in honor of the King. Hanging
his bells on a cypress branch, he chimed the tidings of the gospel he was
to preach.
"Why sound this call?" protested his companions; "there are no heathen
here."
"Would that these bells might be heard around the world!" replied
Junípero.
Few events in Spanish history since the expulsion of the Moors three
centuries before had occasioned the joy that greeted the news of the
rediscovery of Monterey. In the Mexican capital cathedral bells pealed
throughout the night, rockets flared in the sky, and guns in the forts kept
up a cannonade. Later, in Madrid the rejoicing was even more tumultuous.
Royal salutes were added to the acclaim and the King declared a public
holiday. A sandalled monk, seeking neither gain nor temporal glory, the
leader of a handful of Franciscan pioneers, had restored a fabled harbor to
the world.
The discovery of the bay of San Francisco, reported at the same time, was
ignored as a trivial and miscellaneous item.
The celebration in honor of Junípero's discovery gave new impetus to his
plans of Christian conquest, and Monterey was declared the capital of the
colonial empire.
For a time it appeared that nothing more would be needed to stimulate Spain
to hold the western coast of America against the world. But Castilian
enthusiasm was short-lived. The mystery of Monterey having been cleared
away and the event deliriously lauded, Spain lapsed into an indefinite
programme concerning the Californian coast. Both Madrid and Mexico all but
forgot Monterey and the activities of wandering friars who, radiating
thence, were unconsciously preparing the way for a national destiny as
glorious as Spain's, even at the height of her circumstance and pomp.
Now came the critical moment in Junípero's career, a moment that was to
decide the fate of the western half of the New World. Antonio Bucareli had
been installed as Viceroy of Mexico. A keen man of conventional wisdom, it
seemed to him to be a waste of public money to divert a stream of gold to
maintain the far-away civilizing dreams of mendicants centred at Carmel.
He would close the harbor of San Blas, then maintained to equip expeditions
to the Californian settlements, and abandon the fruitless undertaking of
trying to populate bleak promontories swept by winds that brought home no
rich argosies. The enterprise of his subjects should be devoted to more
lucrative pursuits.
Here was need and opportunity for a supreme test of the resources that had
made the founder of Monterey the heroic figure of the West. He saw, as did
no other Spaniard of his day, the splendid future awaiting the Pacific
coast. There was no time to halt between two opinions. Already Captain
Behring had explored northwestern waters in the name of Russia, and now the
fur traders of that empire, establishing their commercial posts at
Unalaska, were prepared to claim the coast as far south as sea-otters run.
Captain Cook and Vancouver were about to sail to try to nail the Union Jack
on every headland from Sitka to San Diego. Disguised under the standard of
Portugal, privateersmen of various nations were hoisting full sail in the
race for western conquest, and Louis XVI. was planning to equip François de
Gallup, Count de la Pérouse, to transplant the eagles of France to
California crags. The end of the Seven Years' War, a decade before
Bucareli's remarkable decision, had led to a recarving of America among
European powers, and jealousy and world-wide ambition now steered the sea
in search of new empire.
All this was not then apparent on the surface, but the cowled monk in his
Mission at Carmel divined events. Worldly power and possession by him were
trampled underfoot. In humility he had turned his back upon the emoluments
of scholarship to labor among savages in the remote wilderness. The fame he
had achieved by the rediscovery of Monterey was not of his choosing.
Although he counted all earthly things as dross he knew the action of
Bucareli meant the downfall of his spiritual kingdom. In the flutter of
foreign sails he read a menace to Spain's sovereignty on the coast. And so
it happened that in the same year that Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and
Dabney Carr in the Raleigh tavern were pleading the cause that was to wrest
the Atlantic colonies from George III., an aged cripple in coarse robe of
gray serge, tied at the waist with a girdle of hemp, employed his splendid
eloquence in the vice-regal palace of the Mexican capital to save the
Pacific coast from the hands of navigators who with roving commissions of
conquest from European kings and emperors were cruising in the wake of
Spanish indecision.
Here, again, Monterey was playing an all-important part in history, for it
was the fame Junípero had won through its rediscovery that sped his message
to the Viceroy and through him to the King. The humble monk had made the
long journey from Monterey with no other escort save an Indian acolyte, and
though lame, infirm, and of lowly mien, was received with the consideration
due an accredited ambassador.
Bucareli was not only won over to maintain the Californian settlements, but
was fired to achieve new conquests along the upper coast. Junípero's
memorial, forwarded to Madrid, reawakened the sentiments his rediscovery of
Monterey had stirred. By the King's order every recommendation of the
pioneer friar was adopted, offices for California were created at permanent
salaries, the treasury at Guadalajara was pledged to the colonization of
the Pacific coast and Monterey named as the abiding capital.
Thus an open highway to the sea was unconsciously reserved for the United
States. Russia was forced up against the Arctic Circle, England did not
gain a foothold south of the island Vancouver named, the privateers tacked
toward the South Seas, and when the French explorer, Count de la Pérouse,
sailed into the harbor of Monterey the only thing he could do to save his
name from engulfing obscurity was to introduce potatoes to a smiling land.
The following season, instead of the fleur-delis, potato blossoms in the
flowering Carmel were the only token that the King of France had ever had
designs upon the coast.
[Illustration OLD MEXICAN JAIL.]
The relief the Viceroy sent to Monterey in response to Junípero's plea came
none too soon. For thirty-seven days the latter's boyhood friend and
lifelong collaborator, Palou, and his comrades at Carmel had gone without a
tortilla or a crumb of bread, subsisting patiently on a little meal ground
from peas. But now began the years of mission prosperity and peace, and
thereafter in Monterey was presented in miniature the story of the glory
and decline of Spain.
For half a century it was the brilliant capital of Spain's new empire. It
was a thriving metropolis and the gay seat of the Spanish Court fifty years
before the settlement at San Francisco became more than a straggling
pueblo, struggling to survive against wind and sand. In fact, for two
generations after the founding of Monterey San Francisco's chief claim to
distinction was that the first craft to pass through the pillared channel
that leads to its incomparable harbor was a launch hewn from a redwood
felled by Ayala on the banks of the Carmel.
Year after year in Monterey were great fêtes, the laughter of beautifully
gowned women, the melody of troubadours, the click of castanets, the
trampling of horsemen in gay attire, the triumphs of governors and
captains, and the booming of guns in the walled presidio. Here at this
capital titled officials sat at the receipt of customs; here galleons from
Manila put in for repairs and departed with cargoes of furs, and hither
came fragatas and paquebotes from the Mexican coast and imposing craft from
the four corners of the earth. Over picturesque adobe consulates in
Monterey floated the flags of foreign nations when the only standard reared
in San Francisco was a desolate wooden cross in the Mission Dolores. And
the road through the mountain pines to Junípero's spiritual capital, his
cabecera, three miles away, over which governors followed by glittering
retinues marched to solemnize their oaths of office and whither they were
borne for sepulture, was worn to its primal rocks long before the path from
the San Francisco Mission to the bay became more than a shifting trail.
San Francisco now can stand these invidious comparisons, for when glory
finally sailed through the Golden Gate, fame departed from Monterey.
The genius of Junípero gave to Monterey an impetus that long survived his
death. As unconscious trustee, Spain, centring power at Monterey, was
holding the coast for the larger destiny to follow.
The shadow of new events crept toward Portala's cross. In a winter month in
the third decade of the nineteenth century an unprecedented happening
awakened the fears of the Franciscans at Carmel,--the holy water in the
baptismal font in the San Carlos Mission was found to be frozen. This
unparalleled thing in that bland clime could not, they believed, but
portend some unhappy fate. In confirmation of their worst fears came the
news that the Viceroy had repudiated allegiance to the King. The eagle of
Mexico had soared above the lion of Castile, and a rebel had supplanted
the King in the litany of prayers. The conerstone of the mission system had
been broken; the crumbling process was at hand.
Then came Fernandez, the Canónigo, the most exalted ecclesiastical
dignitary that had ever set foot in Monterey. Junípero was a Puritan of
humble and contrite virtue. The Canónigo was a swaggering roysterer,
pledging the revenues of the Church in games of chance. On the occasions of
Junípero's journeyings from his capital, the tears of his neophytes, the
sound of mission bells, and the prayers of his comrades attested the
reverence he had won. Races, revels, and bull-fights in Monterey celebrated
the convivial departure of Fernandez.
A new era was at hand. Under the unstable Mexican _régime_, chaos followed
confusion. In the twenty-four years that intervened before the Stars and
Stripes, hoisted over Monterey, proclaimed the advent of the golden age in
the West, that city saw thirteen governors come and go. Communication with
Mexico was difficult. A governor at Monterey when he rose in the morning
did not know whether to salute the flag of a liberator, an emperor, a
rebel, a president, or a king. Monterey, too, had turmoils and revolutions
of her own. Ambitious intrigue placarded her adobe walls with flaming
ultimatos. The alcalde and regidores of one day were prisoners in irons the
next. Anarchy to-day sat gravely in the Ayuntamiento to-morrow, and
governors turned fugitive as usurpers assumed control.
Yet these Monterey revolutions were anæmic, attended with less shedding of
blood than the bull-fights that celebrated the triumphs of her voluble
warriors. It was the opera-bouffe warfare of little statesmen making their
clamoring exit from the stage of history.
The spectacular caballero in his jacket laced with gold was passing away
with the phantoms he had chased. The Mission bells grew silent. New
horsemen thronged over the mountain roads. New sailors cast anchor in the
harbor. A new flag floated over the presidio, a flag that was not to be
pulled down. The American Republic had reached the western sea.
Of these later events the guide informs you with some fidelity to the facts
as you start on the famous Twenty-Mile Drive. He tells you how the brig
_Natalia_, upon which Napoleon escaped from Elba, was wrecked by storms in
Monterey Bay in 1834 to typify that Europe's power over California was
gone forever, and he will sell you fragments of the wreck; he will tell you
how Commodore Jones in 1842, by mistake but in prophecy of things to come,
hoisted the American ensign over Monterey; how in 1846, that flag, in the
hands of Commodore Sloat, went up to stay; how in the following month the
first newspaper published on the Pacific coast made its appearance in
Monterey; in the corners of the public squares he will show you the cannon
of John C. Frémont, and he will point you to the Gabilan Mountains where on
their highest peak overlooking Monterey the famed "pathfinder" unfurled
the colors of his country and bade defiance to the Mexicans, even before he
knew that war raged between the two republics. Then your proud historian
will show you the ancient adobe capitol where in 1849, just one hundred
years from the time Junípero set sail from Majorca, the first convention
met to form the commonwealth of California,--a convention which, though
composed in the major part of adventurers, some of whom looked upon murder
as a pastime, sent to Washington the unanimous declaration that slavery
should never stain the Golden West, and thus revived the great conflict in
the Senate and caused the famous compromise.
[Illustration FISHING VILLAGE.]
Then your pilot will guide you to the fishing villages whence Spanish
pescadores once put out in their shallops to harvest the bay for the
governor and his Court. Later came the American whalers before the tide of
commerce turned the sperm whale and the finback to remoter waters.
Occasionally yet comes a sulphurbottom following the tides of the Kuro
Sirva, and then there is vast excitement in Pescadero Bay.
[Illustration ANCIENT CYPRESS AT CYPRESS POINT.]
Now through the groves of giant pines at the edge of the sea where the
western Chautauqua meets, and then to Cypress Point, whose trees, the guide
informs you loftily, are identical with the cedars of Lebanon, and you are
nearing the resting-place of Junípero.
[Illustration STATUE OF JUNIPERO SERRA.]
With the adjournment of the convention that met at Monterey in response to
the proclamation of the military governor to frame a State, the capital
passed from that historic town, and for many years the grave of its founder
was forgotten. The rush to the gold mines trod underfoot the old-time
glories of Monterey. From a throbbing capital it became for a while a
deserted village. Lichens grew in its streets and the roofs of its houses
crumbled.
As for the Mission at Carmel, rust muffled its chimes; Spanish moss covered
its tumbling pilasters; its sanctuary was choked with wild mustard; storms
blew through the fallen roof. The lizard alone kept watch of the ruin.
But when the new civilization had built its cities and established its
railways and there was time again to cultivate the arts of rest, romance
turned once more to Monterey. Capital saw in its ruins an opportunity for
gain. In its environs Stevenson beheld a paradise for poets, and Monterey
became a field of dalliance, a mecca for millionaires at play, an unfailing
inspiration to every spirit in a mood to dream.
Junípero at Monterey initiated the activities that held the coast against
envious nations, and now to his tomb comes the tide of travel. A few years
ago Mrs. Leland Stanford, representing patriotic citizens and students whom
the eloquent writings of the historian Hittell had inspired to veneration
of Junípero, restored the ruined Mission, so that now his tomb is marked by
no traces of neglect, and there with the Carmel surf chanting his eternal
requiem, side by side with the comrades he loved and the governors he and
his followers installed, this unconquerable friar who trudged, lamely, ten
thousand miles in the name of God, establishing the outposts of
Christianity and opening the way for the Democracy to come, is receiving
the tardy homage his genius and character deserve.
He was indeed one of Emerson's men who "pin continents together."
[Illustration OLD MEXICAN CUSTOM-HOUSE.]
Now you climb to the crest of the cordillera. Before you is the circling
bay with its border of white beaches. Beyond, Frémont's Peak, the tall
sentinel that first proclaimed the advent of the dominant American. At your
feet the quaint capital that Junípero founded, half adobe, half modern. You
can distinguish the time-tumbled walls that tell of Spain's departed glory,
and you see the crumbling Cuartel and Custom-House of the Mexicans, who
lacked the Spaniards' Moorish taste in their homes and public buildings.
The old capital has outlived its day. It thrives now on trinkets and
abelone shells, painted with memories of the past. But on your left, set in
the midst of five hundred acres of flowers and oaks and pines, are
luxurious touches of modern life where business comes to forget its cares,
and romance spends its honeymoon.
[Illustration ANCIENT ADOBE CABIN, MONTEREY.]
Descend the slope toward the city, passing on your way ruined adobe cabins.
Rounding a turn in the historic road you see the smoke of an incoming
steamer bringing holiday passengers through waters where, aforetime,
Spanish corvettes lurked for wily smugglers. From the Cuartel as you near
the old capital you hear, instead of the war ballads of quixotic guerreros,
the merriment of school-children at play. On the streets, instead of the
alférez coming on caparisoned horse to announce the presence in the harbor
of a stranger craft, you encounter hotel-runners clattering in 'buses to
the pier. On surviving fragments of villa walls you discern no solemn
reglamentos. Advertisements of swimming suits and fishing tackle have
supplanted the rhetorical decrees of the Spanish governors. The descendants
of the naked Indians that crowded round the royal carriage of Doña Eulalia
of Catalonia a century ago, shocking that titled lady to throw them some of
her purple and fine linen, now shamble by you in slattern calico and jeans,
bearing bundles of laundry to a neighboring lagoon. The cleansing process
of their trade has for them no personal contagion. In curio shops that
crowd the site of the old presidio where the soldiers of Charles III.
performed their part in the programme of civilization Junípero had
outlined, you buy your souvenirs.
Then climb to Vizcanio's oak. Beyond the cross reared here are the
tottering memorials in the ancient graveyard. A century of strange and
stirring romance is buried there. From this weed-grown cemetery haunted by
memories which your guide cannot recall, you again see the town and harbor
in panorama, and you get clearer glimpses of the paradise into which
landscape-gardeners have transformed surrounding acres of sand-dunes over
which pobladores once ranged seeking pasturage for their herds.
At your feet, along a well-kept road of pounded shells, and across bridges
framed of the skeletons of whales buttressed with moss-grown rocks, roll
automobiles and victorias in the pursuit of pleasure. Follow them blithely,
if you will, waving your hand to the past; or, in the true spirit of
historic pilgrimage, kneel in this place of burial and spell the
imperfectly chiselled story of the Spanish pioneers who, despite their
visionary dreams, held, for the government Washington was founding, a
highway to the Pacific.
[Illustration]
LOS ANGELES
THE CITY OF THE ANGELS
BY FLORENCE E. WINSLOW
"Very near the terrestrial paradise," said the old Spanish explorer of the
sunlit country, where stood in a later century the pueblo of Los Angeles.
Very near the terrestrial paradise has it seemed to weary travellers,
hopeful invalids, and delighted home-makers, who have from year to year
wandered across the desert to find rest, health, and comfort in a climate
where the terms winter and summer are misnomers, where snows are seen only
on the mountain-tops above the flowering plain, where severe heats are
unknown, and where Nature rewards those who seek her gifts in largest
measure. Climate and situation are the environing elements which count for
most in the development of the history of Los Angeles. These are
responsible both for the easy, courteous, pleasure-loving lives of the
Spanish rancheros, and the strenuous, vivid, progressive, municipal
experiences of the Americans in this modern "pleasure city."
Los Angeles treasures the memory of ancient Spanish days of daring and
romance, among which lie the beginnings of its civil life. All that is left
of the old Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles may be seen now
clustered about the old plaza, with its church, in what is known as Sonora
town. Here the sun-baked adobe walls of the houses nestle, with their
Mexican residents, in the midst of the bustling city, awaiting the final
decay which marks the passing of the Pueblo.
[Illustration BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL.]
Precedent to later social conditions of ease, the careful student will find
in the lives of the earlier settlers of Alta California a strong, vital,
self-sacrificing religious impulse, which, upon Pacific as upon Atlantic
shores, induced the initial movement in a civilization which moved to its
attempted end indifferent to climate or environment, and using the material
only to subserve the interests of the dominant spiritual. Junípero Serra,
with his mission settlers of 1769, was in subtlest ways akin to the Pilgrim
Fathers of the preceding century. As Los Angeles was but a humble dependent
on San Gabriel Mission, its beginnings may best be traced in connection
with the history of the mission fathers, the earliest colonizers and
civilizers of the sunset land. Their unstinted and self-sacrificing
devotion to the Indians of California, their great mission trade-schools,
where not only the salvation of souls but the training of the minds and
hands of the neophytes was undertaken, their wise administration of their
trusts, both spiritual and material, make this initial movement in the
colonization of California one of the brightest incidents in the story of
the Golden West.
Out of the mists of romance which envelop the earlier explorers of the
Pacific Coasts appear the forms of Cabrillo and Vizcaino, the first
historic visitors to Southern California.
It may be that Francisco de Ulloa had in 1539 gained from the Pacific a
glimpse of the land, or that Hernando de Alarçon from the Gila country saw
the plain of Los Angeles in 1540. Sure it is that Cabrillo in 1542, and
Vizcaino in 1603 visited San Diego and San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles.
The latter landed at San Diego, seeking a suitable port for ships engaged
in trade with the Philippines, dug wells, and erected a church tent for
three friars who were of the party, and then for 166 years this "fair land
without snow" drops out of history. It is left to its Indian residents,
left treasuring its resources for future generations, for new peoples.
[Illustration SAN DIEGO MISSION. FOUNDED 1769.]
In 1769 came Junípero Serra--saint, hero, and Franciscan father. In him the
romance of missionary enterprise finds embodiment; with him and his
missions the colonization of Alta California began. The missions in the
peninsula of Lower California were, by the expulsion of the Jesuits in
1767, left in charge of the Franciscans, and Serra's burning zeal for the
conversion of the Indians led him to urge the prosecution of a
long-cherished plan of the Government. This was to provide the Manila ships
with good ports on the northwest coasts and to promote settlements there.
There was a union of spiritual and physical forces--soldiers under the
military government of Portolá co-operating with the missionaries under
Serra. Four expeditions, two proceeding by sea and two by land, were
reunited at San Diego, where, on July 16th, the noble missionary dedicated
the first mission in Alta California. It was but two years later that the
Mission San Gabriel Arcangel was founded, with solemn chants of Veni,
Creator Spiritus and Te Deum Laudamus, and in the presence of many Indians.
Serra, who had entered in a litter the land of promise where his zeal and
courage were to accomplish so much, had already travelled toward San
Francisco, crossing mountain and desert on foot, and establishing the
Mission of San Carlos. The missions were firmly organized and devoutly
conducted, and there were eighteen of them by the end of the century. Forty
padres had gathered in these first industrial training-schools a population
of 13,500 converted Indian neophytes, to whom they had taught the arts of
civilization.
San Gabriel became one of the richest missions. Its church has never been
disused; to-day it welcomes strangers as in the time when it received those
weary pilgrims, the founders of Los Angeles, who came from Loreto across
the deserts of Colorado, on the route first taken by Anza through the San
Gorgonio pass, and were provided by the hospitable fathers with all that
was needed for rest and refreshment. The centre of the civilized and
agricultural life of the district, San Gabriel, was a great material as
well as spiritual force. It had its guard of ten soldiers and its three
padres. Two of these, Cruzado and Sanchez, ministered side by side to the
California Indians for thirty years, and the latter had a missionary
experience of fifty-five years.
The name of Los Angeles is first found in the Mission report of 1773. It is
given to the river first named Porzinucula discovered by Portolá's
expedition of 1769. This discovery, as recorded by Padre Crespi, was made
upon the anniversary of the feast of our Lady of Angels. The Pueblo de
Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles was founded in 1781. Till then there
had been in the new country only missions and presidios, the military
stations; but the settlement of colonies in pueblos was part of the
original Spanish plan, and the necessity of obtaining additional supplies
for the use of the presidios gave the needed stimulus.
[Illustration THE PUEBLO OF LOS ANGELES. EARLY SPANISH PLAN. SUERTES FROM C
TO E.]
Under instructions issued by Governor Néve a site for a dam was first
selected, water being then as now a primary essential. The pueblo was
placed on high land near these facilities for irrigation, a plaza of two
hundred by three hundred varas being laid out, with corners facing the
cardinal points, so that three streets should run perpendicularly from each
of its four sides, that no street might be swept by the winds. Yet
tradition saith that Los Angeles winds have not kept always to the cardinal
points. Solares, or house-lots, of twenty by forty varas were given to
settlers in numbers equal to the available suertes, field-lots. Two suertes
of dry, and two of irrigable land, were given to each family. One fourth of
the suertes were left vacant, as realangas or government lands, while a
number, called propios, were reserved for municipal expenses. Colonists
received ten dollars a month each, for two years; also regular rations,
seeds, clothing, and live stock. Twelve men with their families, including
eleven women and twenty-six children, were the colonizers of Los Angeles.
They were principally Spanish soldiers. On September 14, 1781, the plaza of
the new town was solemnly dedicated by the mission priests, who came in
procession from San Gabriel, attended by Indian neophytes and a guard of
soldiers. To the twelve settlers, twelve building-lots were given. These
were laid out on three sides of the plaza, while the fourth was reserved
for a church and public buildings. In 1786 the Governor sent José Arguello
to formally renew the leases of houses, lots, and branding-irons. At this
time not one settler could sign his name. A small church was erected in
1784. It was but twenty-three by fifty feet in size, and was served by the
padres of San Gabriel. One of these, Padre Oumetz, was for thirty years a
companion of Serra in his missionary labors. He died at San Gabriel in
1811. It was at least twenty years before Los Angeles ceased to be
dependent on San Gabriel and to develop a small trade of its own. Outside
the pueblo provisional grants of ranchos were soon made. The largest and
best of all of these was known later as Los Nietos, and was given to the
heirs of Manuel Nito by Figueroa, who divided it into tracts in 1834. The
Dominguez rancho, given by Fages to Don José Dominguez, was regranted by
Sola in 1822 to Sergeant Christobal Dominguez. La Zanja, the home of the
Verdugos, the Encino and the Simi ranchos, Las Virgines, El Conejo Santa
Ana, the Bartolo Tapia and Antonio Maria ranchos, were the homes of such
families as the Picos and Ortegas, whose wealth and power contributed to
the future glory of the pueblo near which they lived, while the Félix ranch
was actually within the pueblo bounds.
[Illustration DON PIO PICO, THE LAST MEXICAN GOVERNOR.]
Settled largely by soldiers, Los Angeles came under military government and
was slow to develop self-governing local principles. It was ruled by
commissionados, of whom Félix was the first, and by alcaldes. But local
jurisdiction was limited, and cases went beyond the towns to be decided by
military garrisons a hundred miles away. By 1810 the population was 365 and
the crops in the fertile, well-watered plain amazingly large. By 1820 the
ninety-one pobladores now occupying the town site were able to supply much
produce to the presidios, while 56,600 vines were flourishing in the
vineyards about San Gabriel.
In 1814 Padre Gil Taboada laid the corner-stone of a new church, but the
site was changed and there was difficulty in raising the necessary funds;
so the building was not completed until 1822. The builders were Indian
neophytes, who were paid at the rate of one real (12-1/2 cts.) a day. The
citizens contributed five hundred cattle, and the missions subscribed seven
barrels of brandy, worth $575, wine, cattle, and mules. A new government
building was added, and both this and the church were surrounded by houses
of the aristocracy. Ignacio Coronel was one who at this time petitioned for
a house-lot near the "new" church. The first resident priest, Fray Geronimo
Boscana, took possession of his parish house in a town of six hundred
souls. The church was enlarged in 1841, and reroofed in 1861. Education in
Los Angeles began with a village school taught by Maxima Piña, who began
his labors in 1790, receiving a salary of $140 a year. Coronel was a later
teacher.
[Illustration DON ANTONIO F. CORONEL, WITH SPANISH CANNON BROUGHT TO SAN
DIEGO BY SERRA IN 1769.]
In 1822 California became a province of the Mexican Empire, the military
office was abolished, the alcaldes were retained, a secretary and treasurer
were added, and an elective body, the Ayuntamiento, was established. Thus
the government of Los Angeles went on about as it had gone under the rule
of Spain. The Ayuntamiento was elected annually until 1839, and proved a
most versatile body, constantly changing its political attitudes during the
controversies of later years.
The mission fathers made little objection to this change of government, but
when, in 1824, Mexico became a republic and Alta California its territory,
they opposed themselves to the ruling powers. From this time on the Mexican
Government pressed its plans of secularization until, in 1834, the ruin of
the missions was complete, and that of the gentle Indians, whose rights
they had hitherto guarded, was begun.
Durant Cilly, a visitor to Los Angeles in 1827, found a "city of gardens,"
and in 1830, a prosperous year of large crops, there were one thousand
inhabitants who, by vessels landing at the port of San Pedro, engaged in a
large trade in hides and tallow.
[Illustration THE OLD PLAZA CHURCH, LOS ANGELES.]
In 1818 the first American arrived in Los Angeles. He was followed by a
succession of trappers and hunters. There was Captain Paty who, with a
party of Kentucky trappers, visited the town and was baptized into the
Catholic faith at San Diego, Don Pico acting as sponsor. Pryor's party
settled in the pueblo, and built houses and planted vineyards. Next came
sailors of the brig _Danube_, which went ashore off San Pedro on Christmas
Eve, 1828. These were all hospitably welcomed in Los Angeles. Samuel
Prentice of Connecticut came, and John Gronigen, the first German settler,
planted his vineyard on the ground afterwards occupied by the Domingo
block. A trade with Santa Fé sprang up, and Wolfskill, who came with a
party of trappers in 1830, brought Mojave blankets, exchanging them for
mules. In 1832-33 more Americans came from New Mexico. There were
Paulding, Carpenter and Chard, Moses Carson, and later Benjamin Hayes, who
was for eleven years district judge of Los Angeles, and, after 1847, more
trappers and many sailors, who were willing to remain and plough land. Last
of all came the American merchant, farmer, and speculator. By 1836, there
were in Los Angeles forty-six foreigners, of whom twenty-one were
Americans; also 553 Indians, the remaining 2228 inhabitants of the district
being Mexicans and Spaniards, the latter of pure Castilian blood, with a
generous and wise pride in a high descent, the aristocrats of the coast.
Slight attempts at ship-building were made at San Pedro in 1831, Padre
Sanchez of San Gabriel aiding Wolfskill, Pryor, Prentice, Fount, and
Loughlin to build a schooner. In 1833, when Antonio Osio had charge of the
port trade, Los Angeles shipped one hundred thousand hides and twenty-five
thousand centals of tallow, but the trade slackened after the
secularization in 1834. The cattle of San Gabriel were all slaughtered, and
by 1840 the mission live stock had disappeared. Padre Estenéga in 1845 gave
up the mission estates to the Government.
A strenuous and important period in the history of the town followed. From
1831 to 1840 the Angelenos held themselves largely responsible for the
salvation of California, as they understood it; and Los Angeles became the
centre of political agitation. The South was divided against the North, and
often against itself, and many typical California battles, terrific in
bluster and intent, but bloodless in reality, occurred near the old pueblo.
It was during the banishment of José Carrillo, with whom Vincente Sanchez,
alcalde of Los Angeles, had quarrelled, that the trouble with Victoria,
the Mexican Governor, came. Sanchez had been deposed by the Ayuntamiento,
but was reinstated as alcalde by Victoria, who at the same time ordered the
imprisonment of eight prominent citizens. An insurgent army defeated
Victoria in a fight near Los Angeles, and the Governor, deserted by his
army, surrendered to Echeandia December 4, 1831, and was allowed to depart
the country. Sanchez was put in irons. One hundred citizens took part in
this battle.
Los Angeles was made not only a city but the capital in 1835, and soon
became the storm-centre of the country. There may have been lack of zeal in
providing necessary public buildings for the Government, but there was none
at all in furnishing abundantly that quality of fiery zeal essential to
Mexican revolutions. Governor Carrillo made the town his residence in 1838.
Alvarado succeeded him when the plots and counterplots of the disputacions
had sent Carrillo to the North.
[Illustration A TYPICAL COTTAGE]
José Figueroa made an able governor, but he died in 1835, and a period of
conflict, during which Los Angeles, as the capital of the South, was
arrayed against the North, followed. Alvarado, who had declared California
a sovereign state, entered the town in 1837 and subdued the Mexican
sympathizers. Two years later Alvarado divided Alta California into two
districts, making Los Angeles the capital of the South, with Santiago
Arguello as prefect.
Great efforts were at this time made to beautify the city, and there were
gay scenes in these days in the old pueblo. The owners of the great ranches
entertained largely, visiting from house to house, dressing gayly, and
engaging in all sorts of equestrian sports. The men lived in their saddles;
the women were the gayest and sweetest of hostesses, while they were yet
domestic, and brought up large families easily in the free, open-air life
which the conditions of fine climate and rich soil made possible. When
Micheltorena in 1842 made his capital in Los Angeles, the gayeties reached
their height; he was received with enthusiasm by the Ayuntamiento; there
were speeches, salutes, and illuminations; balls and sports alternated with
juntas and revolutions. Yet Los Angeles was glad to be rid of Micheltorena
when he removed to Monterey, and its citizens were foremost in a revolt
against him in 1845, and fought him without the city in a battle where
there was much cannonading and no bloodshed. Pio Pico was head of the
Commission which met in Los Angeles and banished Micheltorena.
The city remained the capital of the department of the South, and Pio Pico
was Governor while José Castro acted as General. Castro again went to the
North and soon joined Carrillo against Pico in a new quarrel of North and
South.
It was in 1846, when California was rent with the controversy between
Castro, representing the military, and Pico, the civil power, and the March
Assembly was in session at Los Angeles, that the approach of the forces of
the United States, under Stockton and Frémont, forced the contending
commanders to unite at Los Angeles in opposition to a common foe.
Abel Stearns, the confidential agent of the United States in the South,
owned a warehouse in San Pedro. John Forster was made, in 1843, captain of
the port; in 1845 Commodore Jones landed here to make his apologies to
Micheltorena for his premature raising of the Stars and Stripes at
Monterey. Here Micheltorena embarked for exile; and here, in 1846,
Commodore Stockton disembarked with his sailors for the capture of Los
Angeles, having already raised the American flag at Monterey. Refusing all
the attempts at conciliation offered by Pico and Castro, Stockton united
his forces with those of the California battalion under Frémont, who had
landed at San Diego, entered Los Angeles, and raised the American flag at 4
P.M. of August 13, 1846.
Pico and Castro had left the city to escape the dishonor of surrender, and
the frightened inhabitants had fled to the neighboring ranchos, but
returned to their homes before night, attracted by the irresistible strains
of a brass band, and assured that they would be left unharmed.
[Illustration JOHN C. FRÉMONT.]
Stockton ordered the election of new alcaldes, and appointed Frémont
military commander of the district. When both commanders returned to the
North, Gillespie, with a garrison of fifty men, was left in charge of Los
Angeles. He seems to have interfered with the amusements of the people, and
to have made himself needlessly unpopular. A revolt was organized, and
Flores, one of Castro's generals, appeared, with three hundred men at his
back, and summoned the garrison to surrender. This Gillespie did, after
bravely holding Fort Hill for a time. The Americans took ship from San
Pedro on October 4th.
The reconquest of Los Angeles took place on January 18th. General Kearny,
with Kit Carson as guide, had succeeded in joining Stockton at San Diego,
and the united forces, after a two-hours' engagement at San Gabriel and
another brief skirmish without the city, entered Los Angeles, while the
leaders of the revolt fled to Cahuenga, and surrendered to Frémont, who
made generous terms of capitulation with Andres Pico, Flores, and Manuel.
This clemency endeared him to the Californians. It became his boast that he
could ride unharmed alone from one end of the conquered country to the
other. Stockton made him Governor of Los Angeles while the controversy
between Kearny and Stockton, as to which was the chief authority in the
conduct of affairs in the new country, was in progress. Frémont chose to
obey Stockton, with whom he had worked in unison during the Northern
conquests and before the arrival of Kearny. Kearny was technically in the
right in demanding the submission of Frémont, as the court-martial of the
latter (in Washington, at a later day) made evident; but under the
circumstances of the quarrel of the two leaders at Los Angeles, Fremont's
allegiance to Stockton seems to have been his only manly course.
This was an era in which Los Angeles grew from an easy-going Spanish pueblo
into a progressive American city. Nowhere have Americans stood more
completely in the position of conquerors in a new land. Called upon to
improvise hastily a government for a large body of strangers, these
citizens showed, together with carelessness and over-hastiness--and an
indifference to the rights of strangers, both Indians and Spaniards, of
which we cannot be proud--some of our best national traits. From the first,
the pioneers were courageous and teachable, and succeeded, after many
mistakes, in building up a permanent, well-organized, and progressive
municipality. General Frémont was undoubtedly most popular among the
Spanish people. His youth enabled him to enter in a large degree into
their sports; his clemency in pardoning Flores and the other generals of
the rebellion won their applause.
It was from his gubernatorial residence, the old two-story adobe at the
corner of Aliso and Los Angeles Streets, that Frémont set forth with Jesus
Pico and Jacob Dodson for his famous mustang ride to Monterey. The feat,
with its object--to defend his position as Governor against Kearny--was
such as to appeal to the imagination of the people of Los Angeles, both
Mexican rancheros and American trappers and sailors. Over desert and
mountain the three riders flew, leaving on the morning of March 22d and
reaching Monterey, five hundred miles away, on the afternoon of the fourth
day. The return was accomplished with equal speed, so that the trip of one
thousand miles was made in a little over eight days. Frémont did great
service in the Senate of the United States, where he pleaded for the land
rights of Indian and Spanish residents, and in later years, when his
influence aided in the exclusion of slavery from the new State of
California. The town council was re-established in 1847, Don José Salazar
and Don Enrique Abila being alcaldes; but in 1848 Governor Mason dissolved
the council and installed Stephen G. Foster as alcalde. A semi-military
rule was kept up under Colonel Stevenson until May, 1849, when a new
ayuntamiento was established.
The cattle trade was at its best from 1850 to 1860, when in one year one
hundred thousand hides at $15 apiece were shipped from San Pedro, but the
business was injured by the drouth of 1863 and 1864. The town grew slowly,
increasing in orchards and vineyards, its ranchos--many new ones having
been granted by Pico in 1846--sheltered in the bend of the Los Angeles
River, which, by ancient decree, is, from the mountains down, the property
of the city. In 1851 Los Angeles grapes brought in San Francisco 20 cts. a
pound; at the mines, $1. The city escaped the excitement of the gold fever,
although the yellow metal was first discovered near Los Angeles in 1835.
Among the noted Spanish families at the time of the conquest were the
Lugos, the Sepulvedas, the Bandinis, the Estudillos, the Oliveros, the
Picos, and the Coronels. Prominent among the pioneers of old Los Angeles
were the Workmans, Temples, and Wolfskills, David W. Alexander, Colonel
Couts, and Governor Downey, Judge J.R. Scott and Benjamin D. Wilson, Robert
S. Baker and Hugo Reid. Hon. H.C. Foster, one of the early mayors of Los
Angeles, became a resident of the city in 1847. Governor Pio Pico, who had
fled at the approach of Stockton to save the "honor" of Mexico, returned
and became a conspicuous private citizen. He lived to a great age, duly
performing his duty as a registered voter.
[Illustration OLD ADOBE. FRÉMONT'S HEADQUARTERS.]
It was Don Antonio Coronel, dead but a decade, who most picturesquely and
honorably represented to the new Los Angeles the old régime. He was of
"courtly presence, ripe experience, high integrity, and great personal
fascination," and was to his latest days "a quenchless patriot,
white-haired, clear-eyed, and supple," the life of any circle he might be
persuaded to adorn. His father, Don Ignacio Coronel, came to the town with
the Hijar Colony. He was a man of note and opened in 1839 a school--much
needed, if the fact be true that there were then in the pueblo but
fifty-four men who could read and write. Antonio was in 1843 Visitador del
Sud under the Mexican, and in 1853 Mayor of Los Angeles under the American,
Government. He was a warm friend of Helen Hunt Jackson, who thoroughly
identified herself with the interests of the older peoples of Los Angeles
and its environs.
[Illustration FIRST STAGE IN THE ASCENT OF MT. LOWE, CONNECTING WITH
ELECTRIC ROAD ON ECHO MOUNTAIN.]
Up to 1852 the houses in Los Angeles were of adobe,--the sun-baked brick of
the country,--and these were comfortable indeed, cool in summer and warm in
winter. It was in one of these ample residences--that of Colonel J.G.
Nichols--that the Rev. J.W. Brier, of the M. E. Church, held the first
regular Protestant service, and in another that the Rev. Dr. Wicks, a
Presbyterian, opened the first English-speaking school. These events were
in 1850, so that church and school were ready to receive the first American
child (Gregg Nichols, who was born in April, 1851).
The corner of Third and Main Streets blossomed into brick in 1852, in the
new, proud, one-story building, serving, in 1859, as the home of Captain
Winfield S. Hancock, who was always exceedingly popular in Los Angeles. He
revisited the city a few years before his death, and received an
enthusiastic ovation.
In 1849 San Pedro had the first steamer, the old _Gold Hunter_, and by 1859
the _Senator_ made three monthly trips. There was now a stage line to San
Diego, and overland stages left for the East three times a week. Frequent
freight trains passed between the city and Salt Lake, but it was not until
the coming of the several railroads that Los Angeles attained its
phenomenal growth and became the great city of the Southwest. Set richly
between the sparkling waves of the Pacific and the jasper heights of the
Sierra Madre Mountains, Los Angeles now rests in its fertile plains, a
radiating jewel, its suburbs climbing the bases of its hills, its roads
ascending cañons, its sparkling beaches curving sharply inward from the
sea. Its clustered cottages are surrounded with trees and flowers, which
bloom throughout the year in inconceivable profusion. Its streets are lined
with graceful pepper and eucalyptus trees, its palatial homes are set amid
tropic foliage, its hills are crowned with public institutions. The
southern portion of the city is level, but on the north and south are
hills. Within the city limits, at a level of three hundred feet above the
sea, may be found great variety of location, while seven public parks, soon
to be united by boulevards, add to the beauty of the natural scenery. No
wonder that in twenty years the population has grown from 11,000 to
103,000--increased during the winter months by thousands of tourists, who
are brought easily to the gates of this city of the sunset land. Its daring
trolleys mount the great hills from rose garden to snowy height, its
railroads, entering from east and north, bear the charmed traveller through
sunny ranches of olive and walnut tree, through great vineyards and orange
orchards; and to ships entering the harbor at San Pedro are revealed the
beauties of flower-swept hills, which in their season flaunt their fields
of yellow poppy toward the sea.
The saddest event in the history of modern Los Angeles was the land boom,
which, after first enriching and then ruining many inhabitants, collapsed
in 1889, leaving the town prostrate. The rise in values was so rapid that a
corner lot costing in 1851 thirty dollars, and worth in 1860 $300 a front
foot, increased by 1870 to $500 and by 1880 to $1,000 a front foot. In 1889
its sale was pushed to $2,500. Other lots worth in 1883 $20, brought in
1889 $800 a front foot. Lands outside the town, worth up to 1868 $1 an
acre, brought, in 1887, $1,000.
[Illustration A MODERN RESIDENCE.]
The effects of this over-expansion on the young, vigorous, richly dowered
community were, however, but temporary; the city of the Angels arose from
temporary defeat to enter at once upon an era of growth and prosperity
unexampled in the history of cities, and all but magic in its extent.
A dozen lines of railroad centre in the city, whose trade extends from
Fresno on the north to the easternmost limits of Arizona. Eighteen years
ago the city adopted a successful scheme of electric lighting, and its
trolley system is one of the best in the United States. For the last decade
the building trades have been rapidly growing. Building permits to the
value of $23,000,000 have been issued, and in 1900 alone $2,700,000 was
invested in new buildings.
The city has 200 miles of paved streets, 330 miles of sidewalks, and 160
miles of sewers; but its complete and perfect system of irrigation is one
of its greatest beauties. The "Zanjero" has from its earliest years been an
important municipal functionary, and the flowing of well-kept channels of
fine water, in sparkling zanjos along the sides of the principal streets,
adds to the beauty of roads and grounds, while through a system of new and
beautiful parks the visitor can obtain some of the finest views in the
world by simply driving about the city.
[Illustration STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.]
If the traveller seek the suburbs he will drive for mile after mile through
groves of orange and lemon, fig, peach, pear, and apricot orchards; he will
see on one side of the town great sweeps of almond and walnut trees; on
another, ranches planted in vineyard and olive. There are, perhaps, three
million fruit trees growing in the district, half of which are in full
bearing. The land bears, too, great crops of alfalfa, which in fertile
places is cut from three to six times a year. Oranges, of course, are the
chief export; but there are, besides, wine, brandy, wheat and barley,
sugar-cane, and all varieties of fresh vegetables. If the tenderfoot hear
that Los Angeles corn grows sometimes to a height of twenty feet, that
pumpkins weighing four hundred pounds have been raised, or even that holes
from which beets have been pulled are of a size sufficient for fence-posts,
he need not doubt. There are three large beet-sugar factories, and in the
county $100,000 worth of olives, and more than that of honey, are annually
produced.
[Illustration COURT-HOUSE, LOS ANGELES.]
The population of the city is cosmopolitan, as may be known from the fact
that, in addition to the exceptionally good English papers of the city,
organs in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Basque, and Chinese are issued.
A large number of Chinese, several thousand, are engaged in raising
vegetables or in domestic labor of the several kinds. As in all California
towns, they have a residence section of their own, and are quiet, orderly,
reliable, and useful.
Los Angeles is a city of churches, and its philanthropies are many; its
educational advantages are remarkably good. At the head of a noticeably
complete system of training stands the University of Southern California,
which opened its doors in 1880, with Dr. Bovard as President. Its College
of Medicine is a well-equipped institution, and its progress is identified
with the name of Dr. J.P. Widney. An exceptionally fine normal school
completes the training given by the public-school system, with its high
schools and fifty-five grammar schools, all housed in buildings which
might be the pride of any community. The buildings which house its free
library system, its City Hall, and its County Court-House, are well
conceived for their several purposes, and architecturally of great beauty.
[Illustration IMPROVED HARBOR OF SAN PEDRO, PORT OF LOS ANGELES.]
But Los Angeles is above all a city of homes and of gardens. The mildness
of the climate permits the most delicate plants and trees to flourish
throughout the winter. Giant bananas, fan and date-palms, rise above the
houses, and at Christmas are seen hedges of callas, geraniums ten feet
high, heliotropes covering whole sides of houses, and such wealth of roses
and orange blossoms as baffles description.
A feature of Los Angeles is its beautiful sea beaches. Easily accessible by
trolley and by rail, Santa Monica, Redondo, Long Beach, and San Pedro
provide unsurpassed facilities to the citizens, and the island of Santa
Catalina, twenty miles off the coast, is even more attractive--a seashore
resort where bathing is a comfortable pastime every day in the year, and
where fishermen find delights unending.
The construction of the Government breakwater at San Pedro is a great
commercial enterprise and will be of certain benefit to the city, which
will thus gain a larger share of the increasing trade with the Orient.
Three million dollars have been appropriated for deepening the water over
the bar, so that large vessels may come to the wharf. Dry docks and
fortifications are to follow; and a new railway, with its terminal at San
Pedro, will connect Los Angeles with Salt Lake City, and open to trade a
new and rich section of country in southern Nevada and in Utah.
[Illustration]
INDEX
A
Abbott, Lieut.-Gov., at Vincennes, 177, 178
Abeel, D.K., 389
Abila, Don Enrique, 669
Abraham, Plains of, 136
Acadia, colonizing of, 88
Accault, Michael, 266
Acts of 1862 and 1863, Congressional, 415
Adams, Henry, quoted, 202
Adams, J.Q., 84, 116, 356
_Advertiser, The Kansas City_, 392
Agency City, 305
Ailes, Milton E., on Cincinnati, 55-85
Alameda, California, 610
Alamo, the, 473
Alarçon, 648
Alaska, 547
Albany, 92, 109, 196
Aldrich, Charles, 330
Alexander, David W., 672
Allen, Capt. James, 306, 308
Alta California, 646, 649, 658
Alvarado, 662, 663
American Bar Association, 420
American Colonization Society, 356
American Fur Company, 202, 307, 352, 538
_American Notes_, Dickens's, 246
Analco, 459
Anderson, Jeremiah G., 319
Andrews, President Israel Ward, 24
Angelenos, the, 661
Antoinette, Marie, 144
Anza, 651
Apache Cañon, 476
Arapahoe County, 442
Archer, Mr., quoted, 223
Arguello, 580, 654, 664
Arkansas, Pike goes up the, 430
Armel, Olivier, 240
Armijo, Gov., 468, 469, 472
Armour Institute, 229
Arndt, Charles C.P., 246
Ass at the Coeur d'Alene, 523, 530
Astor, John Jacob, 202, 351;
establishes Astoria, 536-544
Astoria, colony of, 536-544
_Astoria_ quoted, 539
Atchison, Kansas, 385
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad, 386
Atherton, Gertrude, 615
Auraria, 436
Aurarians, the, 425, 437
Ayuntamiento, the, in California, 658 _ff._
B
Bailey, Dr. John R., 140, _note_
Baker, Col. E.D., defends Cora, 592
Baker, Jim, 434
Baker, R.S., 672
Balboa, 616
Baltimore, founding of, 88, 90
Bancroft, George, quoted, 4
Bancroft Library, 613
Barstow, Wm., 248-250
Bartlett, Washington, 581
Bashford, Coles, 248-250
Bates House, 166
Bates, Judge, 101-105
Baugenon, Marie, 337
Beaubien, Mark, 209
_Beaver_, the, 542
_Bee, The Omaha_, 420
Beecher, H.W., 614
Beechy visits Mission Dolores, 577
Behring, Capt., 627
Belcher visits San Francisco Bay, 580
Belle Isle, Detroit, 108, 111, 118
Belmont, 236, 238
Benavides, 453, 454, 456
_Ben Hur_ cited, 478
Bent, Gov. Charles, 434, 468, 473
Benton, U.S. Senator T.H., 353
Berger, Pierre, 337
Berkeley, California, 610
Bierce, Ambrose, 615
"Big Thunder," 70
Bird, Capt., 100
Bissot, 172, 173
Black Hawk, 206, 236, 305, 357, 358, 521
_Blackwood's Magazine_, 274
Blaine, Mrs. Emmons, 230
Blennerhassett, Harman, 19-22
Blennerhassett, Mrs. Harman, 21
Blennerhassett's Island, 22
"Bloody Island," 353
Bohemian Club of San Francisco, 613
Bolce, Harold, on Spokane, 509-533;
on Monterey, 617-644
Bolles, Peter, 220
Bolton, Sarah Knowles, 51
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 617
Bonhomme, 205
Bonneville, 431, 432
Boone, Daniel, 63, 84, 111
Boscana, Geromino, 656
Bottineau, Pierre, 272
Bourget, Paul, quoted, 278
Bovard, Dr., 682
Braddock, 338
Bradstreet, Col., relieves Detroit, 109
Brandt, 15, 61
Brandywine, battle of the, 5
Brannan and _The San Francisco Star_, 582
Brazil, Father, 324
Brice, Henry W., 380
Bridger, Col. James, 434, 480
Brier, Rev. J.W., 674
British, acquire Canada, 175;
in the Northwest, 173, 176, 184, 190
Brock, Gen., Gov. Hull surrenders to, 115
Broderick, duel with Terry, 596
Broisbriant, 173
Broughton, Lieut., 537, 539
Brown at Omaha, 401
Brown, John, 318
Bryant, W.C., quoted, 535
Bucareli, Antonio, 626-629
Buchanan, President, orders troops to Utah, 494-499
Buck, Judge Norman, quoted, 532
Buckle cited, 298
Buell, 6
Bull, Ole, 288
_Bulletin, The_, 590
Bunch of Grapes Tavern, 2
Bunker Hill Mine, 532
Burlington, Iowa, 322
Burns quoted, 111
Burr, Aaron, 20, 195, 349
Burr, Theodosia, 21
Burt, Gov. Francis H., 410
Butler, Gen. Wm. G., 410
Byers, Wm. N., 437, 439
C
Cabots, claims of the, 570
Cabrillo, 572, 648
Cadillac founds Detroit, 88-91, 134
Cahokia, 339, 344
Calhoun, Gov. James S., 476
Calhoun, John C., quoted, 311
California, 195, 401;
_see also_ San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles
Cameron, Simon, 321
Campbell, Robt., 395
Camp Floyd, 498
Camp Morton, 158
Campus Martius at Marietta, 8, 14, 28
Canada, 134, 175, 176
Canadians, attack St. Louis, 343;
on the Willamette, 550
Canal, Illinois & Michigan, 198, 213;
the Chicago Drainage, 332;
the Isthmian, 332
Canby defeated at Valverde, 476
Canterbury, Conn., 39
Cape Nome, 363
Cape Reyes, 572
Capilla de los Soldados, 454
Carillo, José, 660, 662, 665
Carlyle, Thos., cited, 42
Carmel, 619, 626, 627, 630, 639
Carnegie, Andrew, 614
Carr, Dabney, 628
Carson, Kit, 432, 434, 468, 476, 667
Carson, Moses, 660
Carver, Capt. Jonathan, 266
Cary, Alice, 72
Cary, Phoebe, 72
Case, Theodore, quoted, 390
Casey, James, 590
Cass, Gen., 105, 202
Castro, José, 665 _ff._
_Centinel of the Northwest Territory_, 71
Central Pacific Railway, 500, 596
Chambers, Gov. John, 305
Chamita, 452
Champlain, 128
Chandler, U.S. Senator, at Detroit, 92
Chapman, W.W., 554
Charles II., 40
Charles III., 643
Chase, Dr. Horace, quoted, 214
Chase, S.P., at Cincinnati, 72
Chautauqua, the Western, 637
Checagau, _see_ Chicago
Cheney, John Vance, 615
Cherry creek, 436
Chesnutt, Chas. W., 51
Cheyenne, Union Pacific reaches, 442
Chicago, 368;
Lyman J. Gage on, 197-234;
the situation, 197-200;
Indian denizens of the region, 200;
the Fort Dearborn massacre, 201;
purchased from the Indians, 202-204;
first settlers, 204-207;
incorporation of, 208;
early hardships, 210-213, 220;
booms, 213-218;
stockyards, 222;
the great fire, 223-227;
the World's Fair, 228;
an educational centre, 229-232;
civic and religious growth, 232-234.
Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, 415
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 386
Chick, W.M., 395
Chihuahua, 460, 467
China, exports to, 513
Chinese in San Francisco, 600-606
Chip-kaw-kay, 172, 173
Choteau, 468
Chouteau, 338
Cilly, Durant, 659
Cincinnati, M.E. Ailes on, 55-85;
settling of, 55-57;
the first name, 58-60;
location of Fort Washington, 60;
defeat of St. Clair, 60-62;
strategic point, 62;
its pre-history, 63;
victory of Wayne, 68-71;
isolation, 71;
the press of, 72;
music in, 72-74;
industries of, 75;
in the Civil War, 78;
panorama of, 80-85
Civil War, 78, 92, 243, 250, 316, 321, 323, 354, 386, 476
Claim Clubs of Iowa, 310-313
Clark, George Rogers, 63, 82, 167, 194, 510;
story of, 178-191
Clark, Lewis and, _see_ Lewis and Clark
Clay, Henry, 356;
at Cincinnati, 84;
quoted, 311
Cleveland, C.F. Thwing on, 31-53;
character of, 31-39;
founder of, 39;
growth of, 41;
population of, 41-43;
generosity of, 43-46;
clubs, 46;
civic spirit in, 47;
distinguished citizens, 47-53
Cleveland, Moses, founds Cleveland, 39
Coeur d'Alene, 510;
mines, 530
Coeur d'Alenes, 523, 524
Coffin, Stephen, 554
Colbert, Mr., quoted, 210
Coldwater, 214
Cole, Thos. L., on Portland, 535-568
Coleman, W.T., and the vigilance committees, 591, 594, 600
Colfax, Vice-President, 167
Coligny, 88
Collyer, Rev. Robert, quoted, 199
Columbia, Lewis and Clark reach the, 430;
_see_ Portland
_Columbia Rediviva_, 537
Colville, 518
"Commonweal Armies," 317
Comstock Lode, 597
Concepcion, Dona, 580
Concord coach, the old, 384
Conejos, Pike on the, 430
Confederates in New Mexico, 476
Congress, authorizes laying out of Detroit, 102;
authorizes constitution for Indiana, 150;
and the Vigo claims, 190;
and the Union Pacific Railway, 415
Connecticut Land Company, 40
Cook, Capt., 627
Cooke, Jay, 521
Cookie, M., at Marietta, 13
Cooper & Peck, 532
Coppoc, Barclay, 319, 320
Coppoc, Edwin, 319, 320
Cora and the Vigilantes, 591
Cornell, Ezra, 413
Coronado, 428, 434, 449
Coronel, Don Antonio, 672
Coronel, Don Ignacio, 672
Cortés, Hernan, 449
Corydon, Indiana, 154, 193
Couch, Capt. John H., 558
Couch & Co., 558
Coues, Dr. E., cited, 302
Council Bluffs, 401, 402, 406, 407
Couts, Col., 672
Covington, Kentucky, 73
Coyote, 512, 513
Creighton, Edward, 412, 413
Creighton, John A., 413, 420
Creighton Medical School, 413
Creighton Memorial Hospital, 413
Crespi, Padre, 651
Crimean War, 274
Crocker, Gen. M.M., 321
Croghan, Col., 142
Cruzado, 651
Cruzat, Francisco, 344
Cuba, 340
_Culture's Garland_, 229
Cuming, Gov. Thos. B., 410
Cushing, Caleb, 273
Cushing, Mayor, 6, 11
Cushing, Nabby, death of, 11
Cutler, Manasseh, at Marietta, 4, 6, 10
D
d'Abadie, 335
de Aberini, Don Pedro, quoted, 578
_Daily Kansas City Post_, 390
Dalyell, Captain, 108
Dana, J.C., on Denver, 425-447
Daniels quoted, 1
_Danube_, the, 660
Danvers and the Ohio Colony, 7, 8
Dauphin, the, 144
Davis, Jefferson, 305
_Dawn, The Santa Fé_, 470
Deady, Judge, 564, 567;
quoted, 553, 562
Dearborn, Gen. H.A., 116
De Bellerive, 335-338, 341, 342
Declaration of Independence, 2
de Gallup, François, 627
de Galvaez, José, 572
de Joinville, Prince, 144, 304
de Leyba, 342
de Mofras, 580
de Monterey, Count, 622
Denver, 528;
J.C. Dana on, 425-447;
historic background, 425-434:
origin of, 435-437;
the Pike's Peak excitement, 437;
before the Union Pacific, 438-442;
the first governor, 442;
character of, 444-447
De Peyster, Col. A.S., 111
Deseret, 490, 491
Desert, Great American, 431
Des Grosselliers, 129
Des Moines, F.I. Herriott on, 301-330;
the name, 302;
origin of, 302;
emigration, 304;
the fort, 306-308;
the Land Club, 309-313;
the first government, 313;
the early life described, 313-316;
river improvements, 316-318;
attitude toward slavery, 318-320;
in the Civil War, 320-322;
removal of the capital to, 322;
the new capital building, 323-326;
the present city, 326-330
de Taos, Fernandez, 473
Detroit, 177, 180, 183, 201, 214;
Silas Farmer on, 87-119;
early travellers to, 87;
motive for settling, 88;
Cadillac founds, 90;
ever cosmopolitan, 92;
extension of limits, 94;
acquires fort from Congress, 95;
sells lots, 96;
flush times, 98-100;
the great fire, 100;
government under the Ordinance of 1787, 101-106;
Pontiac's conspiracy, 106-109;
in the Revolution, 109-112;
in recent times, 112 _ff._
De Ulloa, Francisco, 648
Devol, 6
Dey, Peter A., 326, 415
Dickens cited, 246
Dodge, Gov. Henry, 236
Dodson, Jacob, 669
Dollier, 88
_Dolly_, the, 540
Domingues, Don José, 655
Donnelly, Father Bernard, 382, 394
Doty, Rev. Daniel, 74
Doty, James, names Madison, Wisconsin, 238, 239
Douglas, Stephen A., at Chicago, 214
Downey, Gov., 672
Drake, Francis, 572, 574
Drummond, Henry, 494
Drury & Co., R.B., 392
Du Gay, 266
D'Ulloa, Don Antonio, 337
Durant, Thos. C., 416
Durham, Nelson, quoted, 510
Dutch and negro slavery, 92
Dyar, M.C., on Marietta, 1-30
E
Earl of Selkirk, 268
Earthquake, New Madrid, 350
East End, London's, 43
Echeandia, 662
Echo Cañon, 496
Eden Park, Cincinnati, 80
Elba, Napoleon's escape from, 635
El Crepúsculo, 470
El Dorado, 583
Elizabeth, Queen, 572
Elliott, C.B., on Minneapolis and St. Paul, 265-300
El Morro, 452
El Paso, 462
Emerson quoted, 43, 640
_Emma Preston_, the, 558
Emory, Capt. W.H., 472
England, Gosnold's tour for, 572;
sends Belcher to San Francisco Bay, 580
English at St. Louis, 343
_Enterprise, The Kansas City_, 389
Epworth League, 39
Erie Canal, 98
Escalante, 434
Etherington, Major, 138
Eulalia, Doña, 643
Eustis, U.S. Secretary of War, 116
Evans, W.B., 395
Evanston, Illinois, 230
_Evening Mail, The Kansas City_, 392
_Evening World, The Kansas City_, 394
Exposition, of 1898 at Omaha, 420-423;
St. Louis, 373
F
Fages, 655
Fallen Timbers, battle of, 68
Farmer, Silas, on Detroit, 87-119
Farnum, Col. Russell, 351
Farragut, Commodore, 592
Federals in New Mexico, 476
Félix, 656
Fernandez, the Canónigo, 633
Ferry, U.S. Senator, 125
Field, Eugene, 229
Figueroa, Gov., 579, 663
Filson and settling of Cincinnati, 58
Finkbine, Robert S., 326
Fjelde's statue of Ole Bull, 288
Flanders, Capt., 558
Flemming, 313
Florence, Mormon settlement of, 409
Flores, 667
Fond du Lac, 238
Foote, John G., 326
Forster, John, 665
Forts:
Bridger, 432, 496;
Calhoun, 406;
Chartres, 176, 177, 335;
Crawford, 235;
Dearborn, 201, 202;
Des Moines, 304, 306, 313;
George, 544, 546;
Harmar, 8;
Leavenworth, 471;
Lernoult, 112;
Marcy, 472;
Miamis, 176,178;
Michilimackinac, 132, 138, 140;
Patrick Henry, 190;
Pontchartrain, 106;
Sackville, 178, 183, 189, 190;
St. Anthony, 268;
Snelling, 268;
Sumter, 321;
Union, 476;
Vancouver, 544;
Washington, 60, 62, 74;
William, 544;
Winnebago, 235
Foster, H.C., 672
Foster, Stephen G., 670
France, and the Northwest, 129, 169, 172, 174, 189, 266;
and the Southwest, 67, 333-335, 343, 466;
and California, 572, 580, 627
Francesca, 581
Franciscans, in New Mexico, 453;
in California, 573, 632, 650
Franklin, Benjamin, 614
Frémont, 432, 549;
in California, 580, 635, 665 _ff._
Frémont Peak, 640
French and Indian War, 106, 136
French's statue of Gov. Pillsbury, 288
Frontenac, Count, quoted, 91
Fulton and the steamboat, 76
Fur traders, Russian, 572
G
Gabilan Mountains, 635
Gage, Gen., and Detroit, 109;
and Vincennes, 176
Gage, Lyman J., on Chicago, 197-234
Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, 222
Galena deposits discovered in Idaho, 523 _ff._
Galinée, 88
Galisteo, the Taos of, 461
Gallipolis, 12
Garfield, Pres't J.A., 52, 82
Gate, the Golden, 569, 570, 574, 579, 596, 619, 632
Gayarré on Cadillac, 90
Geary Law of 1892, 602
George III., 110, 114, 136, 140, 628
George IV., 537
George, Henry, 614
Ghent, Treaty of, 544
Gibault, Father, 183
Gibson, Gen. John, 192
Giddings, Rev. Solomon, 356
Gillespie at Los Angeles, 666
Gillis, Wm., 380, 395
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 615
Gilpin, Wm., 442
Gladwin and Pontiac, 107
Gleed, C.S., on Kansas City, 375-399
_Gold Hunter_, the, 674
Gold in California, _see_ San Francisco;
in Colorado, 436-438
Gonzales, Gov. José, 468
Gosnold, 572
Grant, Gen. U.S., 84, 92, 321, 366, 567
Grant, Mayor Jedediah M., 491
Gray, Asa, quoted, 31
Gray, Capt., 537, 538
Great American Desert, 484
Great Britain, cedes Mackinac to U.S., 140;
Illinois country ceded to, 333;
_see_ Portland
Great Salt Lake, 479, 480
Greeley, Horace, 72, 243;
quoted, 438
Green Bay, 144, 145, 235, 238, 239
Griffin, Judge, at Detroit, 101-105
_Griffin_, the, 134
Grimes, Gov. James W., 318
Gronigen, John, 660
Guadalajara, 629
Guadaloupe Hidalgo, treaty of, 489, 595
Guadalupe, Mission of, 461
Gue, B.F., 320
Gwin, Senatorial contest of with Broderick, 596
H
Hackleman, Gen. P.A., 167
_Half-Moon_, the, 536
Hamilton, Alexander, 322
Hamilton, Col. Henry, 185, 186, 189, 190
Hamline University, 294
Hancock, Gen. W.S., 674
Hanks, Lieut. Porter, 141
Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, 386
Hanson, Rev. Mr., cited, 144
Harmar, defeat of, 60, 66-68
Harmon, Dr. Elijah D., 205
Harper, Pres't W.R., 229, 230
Harper's Ferry, recapture of, 319
Harrison, Gen. W.H., 70, 167, 192, 349, 521
Harrison, President Benjamin, 153, 156, 167
Harte, Bret, 614
Hartford and the Ohio Colony, 7
Hartzell, Thomas, 205
Harvard University, 37
Hawaii, 195, 547
Haydn Society in Cincinnati, 74
Hay, John, 50
Hayes, Benjamin, 660
Hayes, President R.B., 52, 72
Haymarket riots, 224
Hearst, Mrs. Phoebe D., 610
Heath, Perry S., on Indianapolis, 147-167
Helm, Capt. Leonard, 184, 185
Hendricks, Vice-President, 167
Hennepin, 134, 265, 268
Henry, Alexander, 140
Henry, Patrick, 180, 628
_Herald, New York_, 386
Herriott, Frank I., on Des Moines, 301-330
Herron, John, 166
_Hiawatha_, 125
Hill, J.J., 287
Hittell cited, 639
Hodge, F.W., on Santa Fé, 449-478
Holmes, Major, 142
Honen, Toussaint, 337
Horace quoted, 30
Hosmer, Dr. J.K., 285
Houston, Sam, 362
Howells, W.D., 72, 229
Hudson Bay Co., 335, 518, 546, 549, 552
Hudson, Henry, 536
Hull, A.F., 101-105, 114-116, 138
"Hundred Associates," charter of the, 89
Hunt, W.P., at Astoria, 540, 542
I
Idaho, galena mines of, 522, 532
Illinois country ceded to Great Britain, 333
Independence, Missouri, 394, 467
Indiana, _see_ Indianapolis and Vincennes
Indianapolis, Perry S. Heath on, 147-167;
plan of, 147;
growth of, 147;
background of, 149-153;
becomes capital of Indiana, 154;
modern history, 154-157;
in the Civil War, 158;
parks, 160;
finances and industries, 164;
clubs and institutions, 166
Indians:
Algonquins, 302;
Arapahoes, 426, 432;
Cayuse, 556;
Cherokees, 436;
Chippewas, 138, 200, 236;
Coeur d'Alenes, 520;
Flatheads, 510;
Foxes, 304, 306, 350, 358;
Hurons, 133;
Iowas, 351;
Iroquois, 55;
Keokuks, 305;
Kickapoos, 202;
Menomonies, 202, 236;
Miamis, 55, 170;
Minneways, 200;
Mohawks, 61;
Navahoes, 427;
Nez Percés, 510;
Omahas, 351;
Osages, 342, 350;
Ottawas, 133, 337;
Ottoes, 405;
Palouse, 520;
Pawnees, 405;
Pi-ank-a-shaws, 170, 171, 174;
Pottawatomies, 172, 200, 202, 204, 236;
Pueblos, 456, 468;
Sacs, 138, 200, 304, 306, 350, 358;
Senecas, 55;
Shawnees, 55, 172, 342;
Sioux, 267;
Siwash, 528;
Six Nations, 68, 170;
Spokanes, 510-518;
Taos, 468, 473;
Twightwees, 171, 172;
Umatillas, 510;
Walla Wallas, 510;
Weas, 171;
Winnebagoes, 236;
Yanktons, 351;
_see_ also abstracts of various chapters
Iowa, _see_ Des Moines
Iowa City, 313
Ipswich, Ohio colony starts from, 6, 8
Irving quoted, 432, 539
Isabel, Oñate marries, 449
J
Jackson, Andrew, 84, 356;
bank veto of, 358
Jackson, Gov. Claiborne, quoted, 366
Jackson, Helen Hunt, 674
Janney, T.B., 287
Japan, Spokane exports to, 513
Jefferson Territory, 442
Jefferson, President Thomas, 116, 510, 539, 628
Jesuits, 134;
at Mackinac, 129;
in Missouri, 381;
in California, 650
Jobe, Henry, 395
Johnson, Gov., 591-593
Johnson, Sir Guy, 61
Joliet, 88, 133, 198, 302
Jones, Alfred D., lays out site for Omaha, 402
Jones, Commodore, 635
Jordan, James C., 318
Jornada del Muerto, 450
Joseph, Chief, 517, 521
_Journal, The Kansas City_, 389
Juchereau, 171, _note_
Junípero Serra in California, 573. 617, 619, 624, 625, 629, 632,
633, 635, 637, 638, 640, 646, 649
K
Kane, Col. Thos. B., 496
Kane, Col. T.L., 406
Kanesville, Nebraska, 406, 407
Kansas City, C.S. Gleed on, 375-399;
location, 375-378;
origin, 378-380;
early denizens of the region, 380-382;
trade and transportation, 382-386;
railroads entering, 386-389;
newspapers of, 389-394;
real estate history, 394;
churches, 395;
industries, 396-398;
other interests, 398
Kansas, Coronado in, 428
Kansas Pacific Railway, 388, 442
Kaskaskia, 180-183, 185, 186, 344, 466
Kasson, Hon. John A., 324
"Kaw," the, 375, 382
Kearny, Dennis, 601
Kearny, S.W., 306, 432, 470-473, 667 _ff._
Keating, Prof. Wm. H., quoted, 212
Keith, Wm., 615
Ke-ki-on-ga, 172
Kelley, "General," 317
Kennedy, Thomas, 73
Kentucky, 67, 178;
Filson in, 58;
Spanish intrigues in, 180
Keokuk, 308
Kerfoot, W.D., 227
Khalifa, 518
Khartoum, 518
Kimberley, E.S., 209
King, James, 590
King, Thos. Starr, 614
Kinzie, John, 206
Kinzie, Mrs., quoted, 205
Kinzie, Robert, 214
Kirkwood, Gov. S.J., 320, 321
Klondike, the, 363
Kountze, Herman, 420
Kuro Sirva, 637
L
Labrador, 570
Laclede Liguest founds St. Louis, 333-335
Lafayette, at Marietta, 5;
at St. Louis, 356, 363
La Honton, 134
Lake Erie, 36;
_see also_, 238, _note_
Lake Mary, 18
Lalande, 468
Lamar, President, 469
Lamy, Bishop, 474
Land Claims Association, 309
Land Club, Iowa, 309
Land League, Iowa, 309
La Salle, 88, 134, 171, 266, 302, 334
Latimer, Mrs. E.W., 144
Latour, Francis, 337
"Latter-day Saints," _see_ Salt Lake City
Law-and-Order Party, _see_ San Francisco
Lawrence, Kansas, 436
Lawton, Gen. H.W., 167
Leadville, Colorado, 438
Leavenworth, 268, 385
_Ledger, The Kansas_, 389
Lee, Jason, 550
Lee, Lieut. R.E., 319
Le Grace, Colonel, 191
_Le Griffon_, 88
Legroux, 282
Le Large, 202
L'Enfant, Pierre Charles, 147
Lernoult, Maj. R.R., 114, note
Letcher, Gov., 320
Lewis and Clark, 348, 404, 430, 434, 510, 538, 539
Lewis, Capt. Meriwether, 349
Lexington, battle of, 71
Leyba, 343
Liberia, 357
Lick, James, 612
Liguest, Pierre Laclede, 333
Limestone, on the Ohio, 55
Lincoln, A., 158, 324, 366
Lincoln, Nebraska, 412
Little Turtle, 68
Logan, 192
Long, expedition of, 430, 431
Long, Major, quoted, 267
Loreto, 622, 651
Los Angeles, Florence E. Winslow on, 645-684;
early visitors, 645-649;
Junípero Serra, 649-651;
settling of, 651-659;
first Americans in, 659-661;
early trials of, 661-665;
taken by United States, 665-668;
the American régime, 668-676;
the land boom, 676-678;
the city to-day, 678-684
Losantiville, 58, 61
Louis XIII., 128
Louis XIV., 133
Louis XV., 136
Louis XVI., 144, 627
Louis Philippe, 13, 144, 304
Louisiana Purchase, 191, 195, 331, 348, 373, 618
Lounsbury, Daniel, 554
Lovejoy, A.L., 535, 554
Lovejoy, Elijah P., 362
Lucas, Charles, 353
Lytle, Gen. Wm. H., 72
M
Macallister College, 294
McArthur, Lieut.-Gov., 249, 250
McCoy, J.C., 395
McCoy, Rev. Isaac, 382
McDougal, 540, 542, 543
McDowell, 360
McGee, Fry P., 395
McGee, James H., 394
Mackinac, Sara Andrew Shafer on, 121-145;
situation, 121-124;
description of, 124-128;
first explorers and missionaries, 128-130;
Marquette and La Salle, 130-134;
Pontiac's conspiracy, 136-140;
comes into possession of United States, 140;
War of 1812, 140-142;
the fur trade, 142;
Rev. Eleazar Williams, 144
Mackinaw, 90
McKinley, Pres't Wm., 52, 422
McLean at Cincinnati, 74
McLeon, Gen., 469
McLoughlin, Dr. John, in Oregon, 544-553
McTavish, 543
Madison, President James, 116
Madison, R.G. Thwaites on, 235-264;
before the settlement, 235-238;
choosing a State capital, 238;
laying out the town, 240;
the first dwelling, 240;
coming of the Legislature, 242;
early description of, 242;
slow growth, 243;
attempts to remove the capital, 245;
early legislative sessions, 246;
the Barstow-Bashford case, 248-250;
the State House, 250;
the State university, 252-260;
the city to-day, 260-264
Madrid, 626, 629
Majorca, 635
Malden in War of 1812, 114
Manderson, C.F., 420
Marcy, march of, 432
Marcy, Secretary Wm. L., 472
Mare Island, 592
Margane, François, 163
Marie Antoinette, 8
Marietta, 58, 71;
Muriel Campbell Dyar on, 1-30;
Ohio Company formed, 2;
the colony, 4-6;
the journey, 7;
the first summer on the Ohio, 8;
the first governor, 10;
the coming of the Frenchmen, 11-13;
hardships, 13;
Indian wars, 14-18;
material prosperity, 18;
the Blennerhassett tragedy, 20-22;
the modern Marietta, 22;
the College, 24-26;
the Mound Cemetery, 26-28;
relics, 28 _ff._
Marin del Valle, 454
Markham, Edwin, on San Francisco, 569-616
Marquette, 132-134, 302, 333
Marsh's trading post, 214
Martineau, Harriet, 78
Mary Institute, St. Louis, 360
_Maryland_, the, 558
Mason, Gov., 670
Mason, Stevens T., 238
_Mayflower_, the, 88, 620
_Mayflower_, the new, 1, 7
Meigs, Gov. R.J., 6, 28
Menard, Pierre, 205
Merrill, Samuel, 152
Methodists on the Willamette, 550
Meurin, Father, 193
Mexico, and California, 572, 578, 626, 633, 658;
and Kansas City trade, 385;
war with, 27, 362, 432
Miami and Erie Canal, 82
Micheltorena, 664, 665
Michigan Territory, 235
Michilimackinac, 124, 136
Michsawgyenan, 122
Miles, Gen., 517
Millard, Joseph H., 420
Miller, Joaquin, 614
Miller's Hill, Nebraska, 406
Milwaukee, 202, 214, 238, 239, 245
Mineral Point, 236, 238
Minisink, massacre of, 61
Minneapolis--St. Paul, C.B. Elliott on, 265-300;
Falls of St. Anthony discovered, 265;
title to the region passes from the Indians, 267;
Fort Snelling established, 268;
first settler on site of St. Paul, 270;
St. Paul becomes State capital, 271;
growth of the rival town, 272-276;
the two cities compared, 276-300
Minnehaha, falls of, 290
Mission Dolores, 574-579, 632
Missouri, _see_ St. Louis and Kansas City
Missouri Compromise, 353
Missouri Pacific Railroad, 386, 398
Mobile, 90
Montcalm, 338
Monterey, 450, 574, 581, 669;
Harold Bolce on, 617-644;
historic background, 617-620;
Vizcaino finds the harbor, 620;
rediscovered by Junípero Serra, 622-626;
his great services, 626-628;
Spain sends relief, 629;
the Spanish capital, 630-634;
a visit to, 635-644
Montezuma, 450
Montgomery, Capt., 581
Mormon, Book of, quoted, 490
Mormons, in Nebraska, 406-409;
in Colorado, 425, 432;
in Utah, 435;
_see also_ Salt Lake City
Morrison, Wm., 466
Morse, S.F.B., 125
Morton, Oliver P., 158, 167
Moultons, the, at Marietta, 16
Mound Builders, 26, 63, 169, 302
Mount Auburn, Cincinnati, 82
Mullanphy, John, 360
Munford, Munford & Hasbrook, 392
N
Napoleon Bonaparte, 617, 635
_Natalia_, the, 635
Nebraska & Council Bluffs Ferry Co., 401
Nebraska Territory, 403
Nelson, W.R., 392
Néve, Gov., 652
New Albion, 572
Newburyport, Mass., 558
_New Mexican_, the, 474
New Mexico, _see_ Santa Fé
New Orleans, 76, 333, 340, 344, 346, 347
New Spain, 572
New York, 43, 71, 75, 514
_News, The Kansas City_, 392
_News, The Rocky Mountain_, 437, 439
Niagara, 108, 528
Nichols, Gregg, 674
Nichols, Col. J.G., 674
Nicolet, Jean, visits Mackinac, 128
Nicollet, 302
Nito, Manuel, 654
North American Fur Company, 350
North Bend, settling of, 58
Northrup, H.M., 394
Northwest Company, 540
Northwest Fur Company, 510, 538
Northwest Territory, 1, 10
Northwestern University, 229, 230
Nye, 6
O
Oakinagen, 542
Oakland, California, 610
_Observer, The St. Louis_, 362
O'Fallon Park, 369
Ohio Company, the, 2-4, 27, 101
Oliphant, Laurence, quoted, 273
Omaha, 462;
Victor Rosewater on, 401-423;
origin, 401-403;
location, 404;
visit of Lewis and Clark, 404-406;
Mormon encampment at, 406-409;
early government, 409-412;
the Pacific Telegraph, 412-414;
the Union Pacific Railway, 414-418;
recent history, 418-420;
the Trans-Mississippi Exposition of 1898, 420-423
Oñate founds Santa Fé, 449-453
Ordinance of 1787, 2, 4, 10, 101, 191
Oregon, _see_ Portland
Oregon City, 535, 549-554
_Oregonian, The_, 558, 566
O'Reilly, Don Alexander, 338
O'Rourke, Phil., 532
Osceola, 221
Osio, Antonio, 661
Otermin, Gov., 459
Oumetz, Padre, 654
_Outre Mer_ quoted, 278
"Overland Mail Express Company," 385
_Overland Monthly_, 614
Overland Telegraph Line, 499
Overton, A.M., 535, 554
P
Pacific Fur Company, 538
Pacific Railway, 414
Pacific Telegraph, 412
Parke, Benjamin, 196
Parkman, Francis, 129;
quoted, 280
Parrant, 270
Parraquia, 464
Parson, Samuel H., 6
Parton, James, quoted, 81
Paty, Capt., 660
Payne, U.S. Senator, 31
Peck, Eben, 240
Peck, P.F.W., 209
Peoria, 206
Peralta, Gov. Pedro, 453
Perez, Gov. Albino, 468
Pérouse, Count, 627, 629
Perrot, 129, 132
Perry, first settler at St. Paul, 270
Perry, President Alfred Tyler, 26
Perry's victory, Commodore, 116
Pettygrove, F.W., 554
Phelan, Mayor James D., 610
Philadelphia, 90, 193
Philippines, the, 195, 572, 649
Pico, Don Pio, 655, 660, 664 _ff._
Pico, Jesus, 669
Piernas, 340, 342
"Pig's Eye," _see_ Parrant
Pike, Lieut. Zebulon M., 267, 348, 430, 434, 467
Pike's Peak, 436, 437, 442
Pillsbury, Chas. A., 283
Pillsbury, Gov. John S., 285, 288
Pina, Maxima, 658
Pioneer Day, 483
Pirates on the Mississippi, 346
Pittsburg, 196
Platteville, 238
Plymouth, 2, 5, 88
Plymouth Rock, 620
Plympton, Major, 272
Polk, President, 552
Pontiac, conspiracy of, 106-109, 136-140, 175;
death of, 337-339
Pool, Lieut., 111
Popé, conspiracy of, 458-461
Portalá, 622, 623, 650
Portland, Thos. L. Cole on, 535-568;
origin of, 535;
Astoria, 536-544;
Vancouver, 544-549;
Oregon City, 549-556;
massacre of Whitman, 556;
California gold fever, 556;
situation of, 557;
a great seaport, 558;
Henry Villard's contribution to growth of, 560;
character of, 562-568
_Portsmouth_, the, 581
Potosi, academy at, 352
"Prairie Schooner," 384
Pratt, Orson, 483, 486
Prentice, Samuel, 660
Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles, 646 _ff._
Pursley, 468
Putnam, Herbert, 285
Putnam, Israel, at Detroit, 109
Putnam, Rufus, 2, 4-7, 26, 28
Q
Quebec, 91, 134, 198, 338
R
Racine, 238
Radisson, 129
Ragan, Jacob, 395
Raleigh Tavern, 628
Ralston, A., 147
Ramsey, Gov. A., 271
Rantoul, Robert, 273
Reavis, L.U., 331
Recollets, 129, 134, 266
Red Jacket, 338
Reedy, William Marion, on St. Louis, 331-373
Reid, Hugo, 672
_Relations_, 129, 130
_Republic, The St. Louis_, 349
_Republican, The Missouri_, 362
_Republican, The Santa Fé_, 474
Revolution, the American, 82, 95, 109-112, 177, 266, 342;
officers in, buried at Marietta, 27
Revolution of 1848, 364
Rezanoff visits San Francisco Bay, 579
Rhode Island, battle of, 5
Rhodes, J.F., 50
Richelieu, Cardinal, 88;
quoted, 225
Ridgely, N.H., 220
Rivet, M., 193
Roberts, Capt., 141
Rockefeller, John D., founds Chicago University, 229
Rocky Mountain Fur Company, 431
Rosas, Gov. Luis, 458
Rosewater, Edward, 420
Rosewater, Victor, on Omaha, 401-423
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 309
Roux, Father, 381
Russian Fur Company, 543
Rutland and the Ohio Company, 7
S
Sacramento, 608
Saengerbund, the Cincinnati, 74
St. Ange, 174, 176, 177
St. Ann's, Mackinac, 125
St. Anthony City, 273
St. Anthony, Falls of, 265, 267, 272
St. Augustine, Fla., 449
St. Charles, Col., 436
St. Clair, Gen., at Marietta, 10;
defeat of, 60-62, 64-68;
and Vincennes, 191
St. Clair, Louisa, 15
St. Cyr, Father, 205
St. Francis, 569, 574, 620
St. Ignace, 133, 136, 141
St. Joseph, 385
St. Louis, W.M. Reedy on, 331-373;
situation, 331;
founding of, 333-335;
Spanish rule, 335-346;
coming of Pontiac, 337-340;
trade of, 346-348;
early description of, 348-353;
and the slavery question, 353-357;
growing Americanism, 357-362;
ante-bellum days, 362-366;
in the Civil War, 366;
recent history, 366-373
St. Paul, _see_ Minneapolis
St. Petersburg, 351
Ste. Geneviève, 344
Salazar, Don José, 669
Salt Lake City, 684;
J.E. Talmage on, 479-508;
motive of settlement, 479-482;
the coming of the Mormons, 482-488;
the cricket scourge, 488;
creation of the Territory, 489-493;
trouble with the Federal government, 494-499;
educational development, 500-502;
the present city, 502-508
San Blas, harbor of, 626
San Carlos Mission, 632, 650
Sanchez, 651, 661
San Diego, 627, 648, 649, 666
Sand Lot Agitation, 598
San Francisco, 197, 515, 528, 632;
Edwin Markham on, 569-616;
situation, 569;
early visitors to the region, 570-572;
Spanish colonization plans, 572-574;
the Mission Dolores, 574-579;
Yerba Buena, 579-581;
California ceded to United States, 582;
the gold fever, 582-586;
the Vigilance Committee, 587-594;
in the Civil War, 596;
the Comstock Lode, 597;
the Sand Lot Agitation, 598-601;
the Chinese problem, 601-606;
architecture of, 606;
streets of, 607;
parks of, 608-610;
education in, 610;
libraries of, 612;
distinguished citizens, 613-616
San Gabriel, 452, 453, 454, 648, 650 _ff._
San Miguel Chapel, 454, 459, 460, 463, 464
San Pedro, 648, 674
Santa Anna, 385
Santa Cruz, 622
Santa Fé, 384, 386, 431, 432, 660;
F.W. Hodge on, 449-478;
founding of, 449-453;
infancy of, 453-458;
conspiracy of Popé, 458-461;
the Pueblo régime, 461;
Spanish restoration, 462-468;
rebellion of 1837, 468;
American occupancy, 469-476;
in the Civil War, 476;
recent years, 476-478
Santo Domingo, 466
Sargent, Winthrop, 6, 191
Schmidt, Bruno, 162
Schoolcraft, Henry, 125, 202;
quoted, 140
Scott, Dred, 270
Scott, Harvey W., 566
Scott, Judge J.R., 672
Scott, Gen. Winfield, 268, 305, 306
Seattle, 363
_Senator_, the, 674
Serra, _see_ Junípero Serra
Shafer, Sara Andrew, on Mackinac, 121-145
Shaw, Henry, 369
Shawbonee quoted, 206, 208
Shelby, Gen. Isaac, 114, _note_
Shepard, Elihu, 354;
quoted, 341
Sheridan, Phil, 517
Sherman, John, 31
Sherman, Gen. W.T., 593
Sia, 466
Sibley at Valverde, 476
Sibley, Hiram, 413
Sibley, Solomon, 202
Sill, E.R., 51
Sloat, Commodore, 581, 635
Slough, Col., 476
Smith, Robert, 274, 275
Smith, W.H., on Vincennes, 169-196
Snelling, Col., 268, 270
Snelling, Joseph, 270
Snow, Erastus, 483
Sola, 655
Spain, and the Southwest, 67, 180, 343;
Louisiana ceded to, 335-337;
in Colorado, 428;
in Kansas, 428;
in New Mexico, _see_ Santa Fé;
on the Pacific, 572, 573, 620, 630-634;
our war with, 422
Speelyai, 512, 513, 517, 533
Spencer, Dr. Kirby, 284
Spokane, Harold Bolce on, 509-533;
the situation, 509-512, 528;
the falls, 512-515;
troubles with the Indians, 516-521;
genesis of, 521;
discovery of galena mines, 522;
the boom, 523-525;
character of, 526-528;
the Spokane ass, 530-532;
climate, 532
Spokane Gary, 520
_Spokesman-Review, The Spokane_, 524
Sproat, 6, 10, 15
Stanford, Jane, 612, 639
Stanford, Leland, 612
Stanford University, 612
_Star, The_, 582
_Star, The Kansas City_, 392
Stark, B., 554
State Register, 319
Stearns, Abel, 665
Steele, Franklin, 272
Steptoe, Col., 518
Stevens, John H., 274, 275
Stevenson, Col., 670
Stevenson, R.L., in San Francisco, 609;
in Monterey, 619, 639
Stillwater, Minn., 271
Stockton, Commodore, 665 _ff._
Stoddard, Charles Warren, 615
Stoddard, Maj. Amos, 348
Story preaches at Marietta, 16
Stout, J. Kennedy, drafts charter for Spokane, 522
Strong, W.A., 389
Stuart, David, 542
Stuart, John T., quoted, 214
Sublette, 431, 468
Sullivan claims, 532
Sulpicians at Mackinac, 129
Sumrill's Ferry, 7
Sutro, Adolph, 613
Sutter's Mill, 401
Swing, David, 232
Symmes, John Cleves, 58, 71
T
Taboada, Padre Gil, 656
Taliafero, Major, 270
Talmage, J.E., on Salt Lake City, 479-508
Tanos of Galisteo, the, 461, 462
Taylor, Bayard, cited, 243
Taylor, Zachary, 305
Tecumseh, 61, 70, 192, 201, 206, 521
Teesdale, John, 319
Terry and Broderick, 593, 596
Texas, annexation of, 195;
troubles with, 469;
in New Mexico, 469, 476
Tewa pueblo, 452
Thames, battle of the, 206
Thayendanegea defeats St. Clair, 61
Thiery, M., 12
Thompson, David, 540
Thompson, James, 208
Thwaites, R.G., on Madison, 235-264
Thwing, C.F., on Cleveland, 31-53
_Times, The Kansas City_, 392
Tippecanoe, 70, 350, 513
Tlascalan, 459
Todd, Col. John, 191
Tomlinson, Daniel, 157
_Tonquin_, the, 539, 542
Tonty, Madame, 91
Topinebee, 204
Trail, Navajo, 427;
Santa Fé, 428, 467
Trans-Mississippi Exposition, 420-423
Trappist monks, 302
Treaty, of Paris, 140;
of Greenville, 201;
of Ghent, 544;
of 1832, 305;
of 1842, 306;
of 1846, 552;
of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, 489, 595
_Tribune, The New York_, 243, 438
Troost, B., 380
Tupper, Benjamin, 2, 6
Twain, Mark, 615
U
Ugarte, Gov., 466
"Underground Railroad," 92, 318
Union Pacific Railway, 388, 415, 442, 500
United States, and the Northwest Territory, 140, 178, 191, 267;
Keokuk reserve ceded to, 305;
and Salt Lake City, 490;
and California, 580
University of Southern California, 682
Utah, _see_ Salt Lake City
V
Valverde, fight at, 476
Vancouver, history of, 546-549
Vancouver the explorer, 537, 627
Van Horn, Col. R.T., 389, 390
Vargas, Gov., 462-464
Varnum, James M., 6
Vasouver, Lieut., 552
Victoria, Gov., 662
Vigil, Gov. Juan B., 472
Vigilance Committee, _see_ San Francisco
Vigo, Francis, 185, 186, 190
Villard, Henry, 560
Vincennes, 150, 152;
W.H. Smith on, 169-196;
prehistoric times, 169-171;
early explorers, 171;
French settlement of, 173-175;
English rule, 175-178;
captured by George Rogers Clark, 178-191;
Indiana Territory organized, 191;
later history, 193-196
Vineyard, James R., 246
Virginia cedes western territory to United States, 191
Vizcaino, 572, 574, 620, 622, 643, 648
W
Wabache, _see_ Wabash
Wabash, place of the, in history, 169, 170, 171, 189
Wade, J.H., 413
Walker, Joel, 468
Walker, T.B., 287
Wallace, Col., relieves Cincinnati, 74
Wallace, Gen. Lew, at Cincinnati, 78;
at Santa Fé, 478
Walla Walla, 518;
massacre at, 556
Walrond, Madison, 380
War, _see_ Revolution;
of 1812, 27, 114-116, 140-142, 351;
Mexican, 432, 469, 580;
Civil, 476, 498, 521, 614;
with Spain, 422
Ward, Artemus, 50
Warre, Lieut., 552
Washburn Observatory, 256
Washington, Booker T., 233
Washington, George, 5, 58, 66-68, 197, 644
Washington, Indians visit, 350
Wayne, Gen. Anthony, defeats Indians, 15, 68-72, 152
Wea Town, 172, 175
Webster, Daniel, 84, 311, 312, 362, 479
Wentworth, John, 205
West, Judge E.P., quoted, 380
_Western Journal of Commerce_, 389
Western Reserve, the, 40
Western Reserve University, 39
Westport Landing, 382, 384
Wetherell, O.D., 213
Whaiama, 513
Whetzels, the, 152
Whininger, George, 420
Whipple, Abraham, 6
Whitman, massacre of, 556
Wicks, Rev. Dr., 674
Widney, Dr. J.P., 682
Wiggin, Kate Douglas, 615
Wilkinson, Gen. James, 349
Willamette, first settlers on the, 549-552
Willamette Falls, 552
Williams College, 37
Williams, Rev. Eleazar, 144, 145
Williams, Judge George H., 566
Williamsburg, Col. Henry Hamilton sent to, 190
Willis, N.P., 270
Wilson, B.D., 672
Winslow, Florence E., on Los Angeles, 645-684
Winter Quarters, Nebraska, 408, 409
Wisconsin State Historical Society, 258
Wisconsin Territory, 235
Wolfe at Quebec, 106
Wood, C.E.S., 566
Woodbridge, Dudley, 21
Woodward, Judge, at Detroit, 101-105
Wool, Gen., 592
Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 50
Woolworth, James M., 420
World's Fair of 1893, 228
Wright, Ed., 320
Wright, Col. George, 518, 520, 521
Wuerz, August, Sr., 390
Wyandotte, 376, 392
Wyeth, Capt., 544
Wyeth Expedition, 558
Wyoming Massacre, 61, 110
X
Xenophon cited, 569
Y
Yale University, 39, 229
Yeatman's Tavern, 76
Yellowstone Park, 355
Yerba Buena, 579, 581
Yorktown, battle of, 5
Young, Brigham, 408, 409, 482, 496
Yukewingge, 452
Yuqueyunque, 452
Z
"Zanjero," 678
Zion, 408, 409
Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Union, 493
Zuñi, 452
[Illustration]
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