Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter V Cairo's Site And Place From 1818 To 1836 1910 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com August 15, 2006, 4:55 am Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois CHAPTER V CAIRO'S SITE AND PLACE FROM l8l8 TO 1836 NOW taking leave of the City of Cairo of 1818, let us note some of the important events which took place in the state during this period, from 1818 to 1836. During that time the administrations of Governors Bond, Coles, Edwards, and Reynolds, and two years of Governor Duncan's term, had passed. The population of the state had increased from 55,211, in 1820, to about 325,000, in 1836. Alexander County was the first new county created by the legislature. It was established by the act of March 4, 1819. Fifty other counties were established during the period above mentioned. The county seat was, by the act of January 18, 1833, removed from America, on the Ohio River, to Unity. The population of the county in 1820 was 626 and in 1830 it was 1390. The attempt to make Illinois a slave state was made in the year 1826, under the administration of Governor Coles. A number of the men who had been interested in the first Cairo enterprise were very prominent in that celebrated contest. Some of them were on the one side and some of them on the other. During this period the Black Hawk War took place. The congressional grant to aid in the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal was made March 2, 1827, and on March 2, 1833, the state was authorized to substitute a railroad for the canal. At the end of this period, the state was worrying along with this canal enterprise. No railroads were built or undertaken. The first railroad company, the Chicago and Vincennes, was incorporated January 17, 1835; the second, the Jacksonville and Meredosia, February 5, 1835; and the third, the Belleville and Mississippi, December 28, 1835. Fifteen were incorporated in January, 1836. They were the Alton and Shaw-neetown, the Alton, Wabash and Erie, the Central Branch Wabash, the Galena and Chicago Union, the Illinois Central, the Mississippi, Springfield and Carrollton, the Mt. Carmel and Alton, the Pekin and Tremont, the Pekin, Bloomington and Wabash, the Rushville, the Shawnee-town and Alton, the Wabash and Mississippi, the Wabash and Mississippi Union, the Warsaw, Peoria and Wabash, and the Waverly and Grand Prairie. Contrary to what has often been claimed, Comegys and his associates never thought of an Illinois Central Railroad nor of any railroad at all. When they procured their charter January 9, 1818, there was not a railroad anywhere in the United States nor a charter for one. If there was one in England at that time, it would not there nor here be called a railroad now. They had tram roads there then, but it was not until 1825 that a locomotive engine was used to draw cars on a railway track; and it was four or five years later that the first railroad, a short one, was put in operation in this country. This period of eighteen years, so far as it relates to Cairo, is not a blank entirely, but it is so nearly one that little need be said of it. So little had been done under the Comegys charter of January 9, 1818, and the enterprise seemed so wholly abandoned, that public attention was withdrawn from the place as seemingly unworthy of further notice or attention. The great rivers came more and more into use, and the keelboats. and flatboats were in a large degree superseded by steam vessels almost everywhere on the rivers; but as to Cairo, or what had been planned to be Cairo, it was a mere wood-yard, at which the steamboats would land to take on wood for their furnace fires, and then proceed on their journeys up or down the rivers. Besides these, there were trading boats, which, while trading very little at the point, found it a convenient place to stop for a time; for while there was no town here, or anything resembling one, the point was a central one, a kind of half-way house, at which one would tarry a while before starting out on a long river journey northward, eastward, or southward. As Major Long and his party, on their way to the Rocky Mountains in 1819, observed, the grandeur of the place fell short of what one would suppose or expect from the conjunction of two such mighty rivers, draining so much of the world's surface; but while, as they said, there was no high elevation from which one, could view the approaching and uniting rivers, there was yet that strange but well-known feeling arising at the sight of the giant-like streams coming together and uniting, their forces to march onward to the sea. It was the mouth of the Ohio River, an expression in daily use since the time of Joliet and Marquette. It was a great landmark, measuring off almost all river distances in one of the world's greatest valleys. The failure of Cairo encouraged the people of Trinity and America to think they might profit by the supposed proof that no city could be built at the point. Especially was this the conclusion at America, which at once set up the claim that it was the head of navigation for the two great rivers. We speak of this somewhat fully in the chapter on Alexander County, and therefore merely mention it here. Settlements multiplied everywhere and grew larger and stronger. All fear of the Indians had passed away; but the remembrance of them long remained with the old settlers, who took real pleasure in recounting the trying and perilous times of the earlier days they remembered so well. In many cases, it had been burned into their memories, and it was a kind of relief to have occasion to tell about it. There was little to read. The mails were like angels' visits, and neighbors were few and widely separated. The Indian was therefore made the subject of conversation to pass away the long winter evenings; and in this way many traditions had their origins. They are almost all gone now. The children's children of the first narrators have all gone their way, and those of the later generations have had so much to learn and know that there remain to us now only the pages of history. Additional Comments: Extracted from: A HISTORY OF THE CITY OF CAIRO ILLINOIS BY JOHN M. LANSDEN WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS CHICAGO R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 1910 COPYRIGHTED, 1910 BY JOHN M. LANSDEN The Lakeside Press R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/alexander/history/1910/ahistory/chapterv79nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 6.8 Kb