Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter VI The City Of Cairo From 1836 To 1846 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, 4:58 am Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois CHAPTER VI THE CITY OF CAIRO FROM 1836 TO 1846-THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY OF 1836-THE ILLINOIS EXPORTING COMPANY-THE CAIRO CITY AND CANAL COMPANY MANY years ago I was in the office of Judge Thomas Hileman, of Jonesboro, Illinois, for whom I had charge of important litigation, to which he was a party. I was looking over the books in his office and saw a small volume which had the signature of H. W1. Billings on the first blank page and the signature of D. B. Holbrook on the next page. Judge Hileman had found the book in the court-house yard, where it had been dumped with a barrel of old papers and documents. The book had probably last belonged to Mr. Cyrus G. Simons, a prominent lawyer of Jonesboro many years ago, who had also practiced law in Alexander County in the years 1840 to 1850, and represented Union county in the legislature. The book contained twenty-five separate documents or papers, all relating to Cairo. They were twenty-five small pamphlets, of various sizes, bound together. Some of them were printed by James Narine, No. 11 Wall Street, New York City, in the year 1837. Its table of contents is as follows: DOCUMENTS PRINTED RELATING TO THE CITY OF CAIRO 1. Report of the President and Treasurer of the Illinois Exporting Company. 2. Resolutions passed by the Board of Directors of the Illinois Exporting Company. 3. Deed of Trust, Cairo City and Canal Company to the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company. 4. Form of the Bonds issued in conformity with the Deed of Trust. 5. Form of Release Deed from the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company. 6. Opinion of Chancellor Kent concerning the "Deed of Trust." 7. Prospectus of the "Cairo City and Canal Company." 8. Charter and By-Laws of the Cairo City and Canal Company. 9. Form of Certificate of Stock Cairo City and Canal Company. 10. Map of Township 17 and Route of Proposed Canal. 11. Articles of Agreement, Illinois Central Rail Road with the Cairo City and Canal Company. 12. Articles of Agreement, Illinois Exporting Company with the Cairo City and Canal Company. 13. Letter from James Thompson, and Report of Survey. 14. Map of Survey of Township 17, by James Thompson. 15. Letter from Wilson Abel, Esq., respecting the site of Cairo and the health of the place. 16. Communication from George Cloud, Esq., on the same subject. 17. Letter from Hon. John S. Hacker on the same subject. 18. Sketch of the City of Alton, referred to in the "Prospectus of the Cairo City and Canal Company." 19. Internal Improvement Law of the State of Illinois. 20. Map exhibiting the Rail Roads and Canals in Illinois. 21. Charter of the City and Bank of Cairo, incorporated 1818. 22. Prospectus of the City of Cairo, published by the proprietors, A. D. 1818. 23. Charter of the Illinois Central Rail Road Company. 24. Release by the Central Road Company to the State of Illinois. 25. Plat of the "City of Cairo," as laid off by the Prospectus, A. D. 1818. As remarked about the City of Cairo of 1818, we know very little about the conferences, correspondence and other negotiations which lead up to the second attempt to establish a city here. The first attempt seems to have ended with the death of Comegys. The lands he and his associates had undertaken to purchase from the government and for which they failed to pay in full, had been forfeited, as provided by the act under which the purchases were made, and these being now gone or lost, the enterprise was wholly abandoned. It was not until the year 1835, that the same lands again, and many others in the township, were entered and paid for as the law then required. These entries were for the same purpose as that which lead to the entries in 1817. Following these entries, came, first of all, the incorporation of the first Illinois Central Railroad Company, January 16, 1836. Two days afterward, the legislature incorporated the Illinois Exporting Company, whose general place of business was at Alton or elsewhere in the State as might be agreed upon. The incorporators were James S. Lane, Thomas G. Hawley, Anthony Olney, John M. Krum, and D. B. Holbrook. By reference to the first of these two acts, it will be seen that the railroad provided for was to "commence at or near the mouth of the Ohio river and run thence North to a point on the Illinois river at or near the terminus of the Illinois and Michigan Canal." Following the incorporation of the railroad company and the Exporting Company, came the incorporation of the Cairo City and Canal Company, March 4, 1837, the incorporators of which were Darius B. Holbrook, Miles A. Gilbert, John S. Hacker, Alexander M. Jenkins, Anthony Olney, and William M. Walker.—This company had a short but a very active career. The purchasers of those lands and the incorporators of this Company saw clearly how the establishment of their proposed city depended upon a railroad connection with the great upper country of the state; and, had it not been for outside interference, their undertaking might have fared very much better. But the spirit of enterprise that was in them was also in many other persons in the state whose actions they could not control and who thought the times required the state to enter upon a system of railroad construction worthy of its extent and the richness of its soil. One railroad from the mouth of the Ohio River to the end of the proposed canal on the Illinois River was a very small part of what it was thought the state needed; and accordingly on the 27th day of February, 1837, the legislature passed the celebrated act entitled, "An Act to Establish a General System of Internal Improvements." To show how small an enterprise was that of the Central Railroad and the Cairo City and Canal Company, compared with that undertaken by the state, one has but to read the eighteenth section of the last-named act. It provided for the construction of eight different railroads and for the improvement of five of the rivers of the state, and for the establishment of a public mail route from Vincennes to St. Louis; and for these purposes, appropriations amounting to ten millions two hundred thousand dollars were made, a very large sum for those early days. The two hundred thousand dollar appropriation was for the benefit of counties through which none of the railroads were to pass, the same to be expended in the improvement of public roads therein. The seventh clause of the section is in these words: "The Board of Commissioners of Public Work, provided for by this act, is required to adopt measures to commence, construct and complete, within a reasonable time, a railroad from the City of Cairo, at or near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, to some point at or near the southern terminus of the Illinois and Michigan canal, via Vandalia, Shelbyville, Decatur and Bloomington, and from thence via Savannah to Galena; and for the construction and completion of the said railroad and appendages, the sum of three millions and five hundred thousand dollars is hereby appropriated." The situation the passage of this act produced was very embarrassing to the Cairo enterprise and its Central Railroad. The news of its introduction into the legislature must have produced in the minds of those Cairo people a state of feeling little short of consternation. They had their acts of incorporation and could well say that the act for their railroad was a contract which the state could not annul; and, no doubt, they made this claim and argument with great earnestness. But the whole state was not to be thwarted by the comparatively small part of it down here, and the Cairo people were soon brought to terms; but it was with promises that they should have a railroad from Cairo and about on the same line as that called for by their own charter of January 16, 1836; but it was not to be their railroad, but the state's alone. On the ayth day of June, 1837, Alexander M. Jenkins, David J. Baker, D. B. Hoi-brook and Pierre Menard, as directors of the railroad company and in its behalf, released to the state their rights and privileges under said last-named act, but on the condition of the restoration of their rights, should the state repeal the act of February 27, 1837. The operations of the Cairo City and Canal Company, at Cairo, and the work of the state in and about the construction of its internal improvements and especially of its central railroad, are so connected together that it is not easy to give them separate treatment, and they will hereafter be spoken of as occasion seems to require. This period of ten years witnessed not only another attempt at establishing a city, but it was characterized by such energy and management as gave promise of great and most favorable results. The long slumber of eighteen years was followed by activities which clearly indicated that sleep and dreaming were to disappear, and give place to hard but hopeful work, conducted by men of ability and enterprise and supplied with means adequate to the great undertaking. The men and means were thought to be all that the situation required, and hence the hopes of all who were in anywise interested rose as correspondingly high as they had sunken low before. Darius Blake Holbrook, of New York, whom we may call the successor of John G. Comegys, of Baltimore, was the man in charge and what was done and probably what was not done may be traced with a fair degree of safety and justice to him. He has been criticised much and severely, but quite unjustly, at least in some important respects. He seems to have had what may be called a local or home policy and a foreign policy as well, the former of which does not seem to have always been such as the real interests of the enterprise required. But, inasmuch as I have elsewhere given a short biographical sketch of this Cairo man of affairs, I will now proceed to relate what he did and caused to be done here at Cairo during this period. The building of the city and of the Central Railroad was intended to be largely one and the same enterprise; but the act of February 27, 1837, in relation to internal improvements, severed the two completely, and thereafter the city and the road had to proceed as separate and wholly independent undertakings. The road, or its construction, was transferred to the state, whose interest in the city was more or less remote, whereas, before, it was in the hands of men and a company whose chief interest was perhaps in the establishment and growth of the city. In proof of this difference in interest, we may here state that in January, 1839, while work on the road was going forward between Cairo and Jonesboro and on many other parts of the line, a strong effort was made in the legislature to change the line of the road from Vandalia southward through Salem, Mt. Vernon, Frankfort, Benton and Vienna, to a point on the Ohio River near Grand Chain. The citizens of these towns had petitioned the legislature concerning the matter, and committees were appointed to investigate and report, and January 28, 1839, there were two reports in the senate, a majority report in favor of the change, and a minority report against the change; and on January 31, 1839, a strong report was presented in the House by Mr. Smith, of Wabash, insisting on the retention of the line on which the work was going forward. The reading of these reports will show what an important matter this became. Those persons favoring the new line urged strongly that the site here was most undesirable, and especially did they dwell upon the encroachments of the Mississippi River on the western side of the town. They cited what the chief engineer of the railroad, Mr. Jonathan Freeman, had written about the matter in his letter to Kinney and Willard of December 24, 1838. Had the change been made, and it seemed very probable for a time, the subsequent acts of the legislature incorporating the second and third railroad companies would have likely required the same line to be followed. It was this well-grounded fear on the part of Holbrook and those acting with him that led them to insist as a condition to their surrenders to the state, one in 1837, and one in 1849, that the road should start at and be built from Cairo. Had they not thus insisted, the road might never have corne here at all, so great \vere the doubts of the public at large as to the security of the Cairo site. But it was held here stubbornly and tenaciously, and to the great and lasting credit of Holbrook, which should well nigh annul all the criticisms that were ever made against him. He is indeed a wise man who knows well just what he can and what he cannot afford to surrender. This act of February 27, 1837, establishing a general system of public improvements, gave no name to the state's railroad, nor to any of the others for the construction of which the act provided. The Board of Commissioners of Public Works, provided for in the act, entered upon their work, and the road was commenced at and built from Cairo and most of the grading was done for the distance of twenty-three or more miles. A bridge across Cache River was partly constructed; and so on, at many places along the line, all the way up to Galena. The line of the road in Cairo began at or near what are now the freight yards of the present company between Fourteenth and Eighteenth Streets, where the state purchased ten acres of ground for station or depot purposes. From this point above Fourteenth Street, the road extended westward, curving northward, and passing not far from the present court house and on through what is now the east side of St. Mary's Park, and thence on northward and very near the present main line of the road and crossing Cache River not over one hundred feet west of the present railroad bridge. Parts of the old earth embankment are yet visible one hundred feet or less west of the present road and south of Cache River and of the levee of the Drainage District. In many places the ridges are four feet high and all of them overgrown with trees. The seven commissioners of the Board of Public Works, one for each judicial district of the state, reported from time to time as the work progressed in their several jurisdictions. Elijah J. Willard, of Jones-boro, was the commissioner for this third judicial district. His report of December 10, 1838, sets forth many matters and things concerning the work, which we would like to give here did space permit. It gives the number of contracts made for work between Cairo and Jonesboro, through the latter of which the road was to run instead of over the site of the present city of Anna. The change of this line of the old Illinois Central Railroad of 1837 to the present line of 1851, running'' through Anna, occasioned a very^unfriendly feeling between the two places, which did not disappear for many years if entirely gone now. The report gives the names of the contractors and of the men on the work and to whom moneys were paid. Among them were Bryan Shannessy, who took contracts Nos. 1, 2 and 3, covering the distance from Cairo to a point beyond Cache River. Mr. Shannessy is spoken of in the report as of the city of Alton. Of the two hundred or more names on Willard's pay-roll, many of them would be remembered by a few of our oldest residents. He further reports that early in 1838, a right of way was procured, by proceedings in our Alexander County Circuit Court, through or over sections 25, 26, 23, 14, 11, 3 and 2, in our Township 17, 1 West, "without any award of damages to the proprietors of the land." The foregoing information was obtained from a large volume of reports of committees of our legislature, entitled "Reports of Session, 1838-1839." One of the exhibits attached to Willard's report is the long letter dated at the Central Railroad office, Vandalia, December 24, 1838, and directed to the Hon. William Kinney and Elijah Willard, Committee of the Board of Public Works. This letter as above stated was written by Jonathan Freeman, the "Principal Engineer Central Railroad," and he therein sets forth at length the difficulties encountered at Cairo, selected as it had been as the southern terminus of the road. It is a most interesting letter and would be given in full did space permit. From it, those of our public men who had desired to have the road come to the Ohio at a point toward Grand Chain, obtained many of their arguments. This work was begun in 1838 and continued until its suspension throughout the state and the final abandonment of the whole scheme of public improvements as provided for in the said act of February 27, 1837, and its amendments. The act was finally repealed February 1, 1840, at least so far as it related to every enterprise provided for therein except the Central Railroad. This short period of time, from February 27, 1837, to February 1, 1840, constitutes an era in the history of the state. We have had nothing like it since. It quite absorbed the attention of the people and the heated discussions it engendered continued for years after the scheme had broken down. A general state of semi-bankruptcy prevailed, especially on the part of the state, and repudiation was talked of and written about and actually favored by some persons of prominence in the state. See chapter 6 of Ford's History of Illinois, and chapters 37 and 38 of Davidson & Stuve's history. To show the importance of the Central Railroad, from Cairo to Galena, above all the other seven the state undertook to build, we may again refer to the effort made to save it from the wreck while everything else was abandoned. Col. John S. Hacker, the grandfather of our Capt. John S. Hacker, and a member of the legislature at that time, urged that the state should not give up the Central Railroad whatever of its other enterprises it chose to abandon. In the volume of reports of committees of our legislature, of 1840-1841, page 167, will be found the report of Col. Hacker as chairman of the committee on internal improvements made to the legislature January n, 1841. It is as follows: "In selecting the Central road, it will be seen that the committee have fixed upon the most important one in the whole system of improvements. By its completion, a continuous line of railroad communication will be made to pass through the very heart of this rich state, from the southern to the northern limits thereof. The southern portion of the state will supply the whole interior with the greatest abundance of timber for all time to come, which can be easily and cheaply transported on the railroad. And in addition to other advantages which will be conferred upon the citizens of Illinois, the building of a large commercial city at Cairo would, of itself, amply repay the expenditures of money which must necessarily attend the making of the road. "Located at the point where the vast waters of the Ohio and Mississippi mingle in their onward course to the ocean, the city of Cairo possesses the advantages of commercial position which few cities of the earth can rival. Neglected and abused as it has been heretofore, it nevertheless now possesses more than two thousand inhabitants, and pays into the State Treasury more than one thousand dollars in taxes, If any man is disposed to doubt the invaluable profits to a whole state, derived from a single city within its borders, let him look at the cities of New York, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, St. Louis, &c. Does not the city of New York pay into the State Treasury an amount of revenue almost equal to that received from the whole state besides? And is not the entire character and importance of Louisiana dependent upon the city of New Orleans? And so with other great cities. And then the incalculable and innumerable advantages, other than those of mere revenue, will be readily suggested, upon proper reflections; one of which is, that all the larger class of steamboats, which are plying between New Orleans and the ports on the upper Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, on account of the lowness of the water, and the obstructions by ice, are now discharging their cargoes at Cairo, to be forwarded to the respective places of destination by a smaller class of boats. "We have no great commercial emporium in Illinois; and without intending to draw any invidious comparisons, or to speak disparagingly of other rising towns and cities, the committee must express their sincere belief that Cairo presents as many flattering prospects of future greatness as any other place in the state. History illustrates the high estimate which rulers have placed upon cities, in all countries; and have we, in modern times, fallen among statesmen and philosophers who can see nothing in the example of past ages worthy of their imitation?" It was not until after this surrender of their railroad enterprise to the state, that the Cairo City and Canal Company people issued their prospectus. They had found it necessary to lay aside every other matter until they had ascertained what was to be done concerning a central railroad. They had to give up their own railroad scheme; but they succeeded in having their city site at the junction of the two rivers made the southern terminus of the state's railroad. From the Prospectus and Engineers' Report relating to the City of Cairo, printed at St. Louis by T. Watson & Son, 1839, and signed by D. B. Holbrook, president of the Cairo City & Canal Company, February 18, 1839, we quote three or four pages as follows:— The President of the Cairo City and Canal Company, having made arrangements in England for the funds requisite to carry out their contemplated improvements in the City of Cairo, on the most extensive and liberal scale, it is now deemed proper to give publicity to the objects, plans, and other matters connected with this great work, in order that every one who feels an interest, or has pride in the success of this magnificent public enterprise, may properly understand and appreciate the motives and designs of the projectors. The company from the commencement determined to withhold from sale, at any price, the corporate property of the city, until it should be made manifest to the most doubting and skeptical, the perfect practicability of making the site of the City of Cairo habitable. This being now fully established by the report of the distinguished engineers, Messrs. Strickland and Taylor of Pennsylvania, and also by that of the principal engineers of the state works of Illinois; the company are proceeding in the execution of their plans as set forth in their prospectus, viz.: to make the levees, streets and embankments of the city; to erect warehouses, stores and shops convenient for every branch of commercial business; dry docks; also, buildings adapted for every useful, mechanical and manufacturing purpose, and dwelling houses of such cost and description as will suit the taste and means of every citizen, which course has been adopted as the most certain to secure the destined population of Cairo within the least possible time. The company, however, wish it fully understood, that it is far from their desire or intention to monopolize or engage in any of the various objects of enterprise, trade, or business, which must of necessity spring up and be carried on with great and singular success at this city:—it being their governing motive to offer every reasonable and proper encouragement to the enterprising and skillful artisan, manufacturer, merchant and professional man to identify his interest with the growth and prosperity of the city. When the company make sales or leases of property it will be on such liberal terms as no other town or city can offer, possessing like advantages for the acquisition of that essential means of human happiness—wealth. The President of the company is fully empowered, whenever he shall deem it expedient, to sell or lease the property, and otherwise to represent the general interests and affairs of the Company. Information respecting the Company or the City, will be communicated at all times by the directors at Cairo; and also by: HON. SIDNEY BREESE, HON. JOHN REYNOLDS, HON. ZADOC CASEY, HON. ADAM W. SNYDER, HON. JOSEPH DUNCAN, HON. WILLIAM KINNEY, HON. DAVID J. BAKER, MR. JOHN TILSON, Illinois. MESSRS. THOS. BIDDLE & CO., MR. JOHN HEMPHILL, MR. WM. STRICKLAND, MR. RICH'D C. TAYLOR, MR. JOSEPH COPERTHWAIT, WM. A. MEREDITH, ESQ., Philadelphia. MR. E. R. BIDDLE, NEW YORK TRUST Co., MESSRS. NEVINS, TOWNSEND & CO., MR. SIMEON DRAPER, JR., MESSRS. TRAVIS & ALEXANDER, MR. DANIEL LOW, New York. MESSRS. JOHN BROWN & CO., AMOS BINNEY, ESQ., SAMUEL D. WARD, ESQ., HON. PELEG SPRAGUE, Boston. COL. ANTHONY OLNEY, Acting Commissioner. CONSULTING ENGINEERS WILLIAM STRICKLAND, Architect and Engineer, Philadelphia. MAJOR WM. GIBBS McNEIL, Chief Engineer of the Charleston and Cincinnati Railroad, E. R. BIDDLE, Treasurer, D. B. HOLBROOK, President. New York. When the company are prepared to dispose of their real estate, they 'will offer it on lease for a certain term of years at such rent or rents, as the business of the place will justify and warrant, conditioned, that if the consideration agreed upon is punctually paid for and during the time stipulated in the lease, the estate in question shall become bona fide the property of the lessee. This will give to every one, desirous to make Cairo his permanent place of business, the opportunity of becoming the possessor of a dwelling and place of business, by the annual payment of a sum for rent, that the profits of his business will justify if properly conducted — and the company may venture to say, that the rent which may be required will not in all probability exceed the rates now paid for buildings, whether for dwellings or places of business, in the city of St. Louis. The object of this liberal policy being to offer a sufficient inducement to men of enterprise, skill and industry, to identify at once their interest with the growth of the city, and at the same time secure to the place a desirable population as soon as the required and necessary buildings are erected. This last quotation from the company's prospectus contains an announcement of that policy of the company "which became the source of serious and long continued complaints, namely, the leasing of lots and lands instead of the sales thereof." Although seemingly very much out of place, we introduce here the matter of the high water of June, 1858, when a break occurred in the Mississippi levee and caused an inundation of the city. We do this chiefly because it enables us to present a concise account of the work and operations of the Cairo City & Canal Company after its attention had been fully withdrawn from its own central railroad enterprise. The latter part of what we will now quote is our first introduction to the Trustees of the Cairo City Property. On Saturday afternoon, June 12, 1858, in the time of what has already been called the June rise, the Mississippi levee, at or near the point where it turns and connects with the cross levee, or just west of the present Illinois Central Railroad bridge, gave way under the pressure of the great flood of water and inundated the entire city. So great was the surprise and loss of the people, and especially of the Trustees and shareholders, that the latter sent a committee of their number here to investigate and report concerning the calamity which had come to their property, and to the people here. The members of the committee were Harvey Baldwin, of Syracuse; Charles McAlister and Josiah Randall, of Philadelphia; Luther C. Clark, of New York City; Lyman Nichols, of Boston; and John Neal, of Portland. These gentlemen had been selected for this purpose under two certain resolutions of the shareholders at a meeting held at the office of the Cairo City Property July I, 1858, in Philadelphia. On the 22d of July, the committee conferred fully with William H. Osborn, the president of the Illinois Central Railroad Company, which by its contracts with the said Trustees of June n, 1851, and of May 31, 1855, had become almost as deeply interested in Cairo as were the shareholders and Trustees themselves. We cannot go further into the matter here, but will say that the committee made a most thorough investigation of the situation and made their report September 29, 1858, and gave therein at considerable length very many important historical facts in regard to Cairo. If there are any errors in it we have not been able to discover the same. It was not intended to be perfectly exact as to dates and many other matters and things, but it is quite sufficiently reliable to justify including a few pages thereof in this history. Did we omit these pages we would nevertheless feel required to state the substance of them ourselves. The fact, however, that this investigation and report were made fifty-one years ago should give to it a value above anything that might be now stated as the result of present investigations. The members of the committee were shareholders and deeply interested in the situation. They were appointed June ist and made their report September agth and therefore had an abundance of time to make a thorough investigation. They made it and seem to have felt that the scope of their appointment or duties embraced making of a full and correct statement to the shareholders not only of the then present situation but of the history of prior undertakings to do the work in which they were then engaged. Their report, with its accompanying documents, makes a pamphlet of 105 pages, and it is entitled "The Past, Present and Future of the City of Cairo, in North America," published in Portland in 1858. We quote from pages 14 to 19:— As early as 1817, the great business advantages of this remarkable spot began to attract the attention of leading statesmen, capitalists, and men of business. In 1818, a liberal charter was granted to an association, by the Territorial government of Illinois; and the territory was laid off in conformity with the charter, for the "City of Cairo," with banking privileges. Owing to deaths, commercial paroxysms, and other hindrances, nothing more was done toward carrying out the sagacious and magnificent enterprise, till 1837, when arrangements were entered into between the Proprietors holding under a charter for the "City and Bank of Cairo," and the State of Illinois; and a new charter was granted to the "Illinois Central Rail Road Company" for the construction of a Railroad, "to commence at, or near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and terminating at Galena." After this company had organized, and secured a large portion of the land they wanted, the State of Illinois undertook a large and comprehensive system of internal improvements, making the Central Railroad the basis of the whole; and the railroad company abandoned their privileges to the State upon the expressed condition, to be found in the law itself, that the Central Railroad should begin at the City of Cairo, at or near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi. Then followed the "Cairo City and Canal Company" incorporated March 4, 1837, with power to purchase any part of township No. seventeen, and especially that portion thereof which was incorporated in 1818, as the "City of Cairo," and "to make all improvements for the protection, health and prosperity of the City." The stock of this new Company being all taken, and the Company itself organized, arrangements were entered into for obtaining a loan of five hundred thousand dollars "to be applied to the payment and extinguishment of such mortgages and incumbrances as might exist on the lands purchased by the Company, within Township numbered seventeen" and for further investments in land and other property, by conveying the whole proprietorship in Trust, on the 16th of Dec. 1837, to the New York Life Insurance and Trust Co., and by a supplemental deed, of June 13, 1839, to the same Company, for securing the bondholders on further loans, to be employed in large improvements at Cairo; in protecting the city from overflow, on both sides; in building a Turnpike to the State road from Vincennes to St. Louis; and in opening a canal through the city, to Cache river, a distance of six miles, which, by the help of a dam, would secure a slack water navigation of twenty miles further, into a rich agricultural and timber region. Under this charter, the Company completed their purchases of land, amounting altogether to 9,732.4 acres, of which 3,884. acres were appropriated to the City of Cairo. The titles were investigated by eminent lawyers, and after a careful enquiry, and a comparison of prices at Alton, Chicago and other places with fewer natural advantages, the valuation of lots under the Deed of Trust, instead of being $400, per front foot, for business lots, and from $50 to $100 per foot for house lots, the prices paid in 1837 at Alton, with a population of 2,500 only, was fixed at $25 per front foot for lots of 25 by 120, on streets and squares, and $60 per front foot, for all such lots, on levees or landings. Of the former there were surveyed 22,774 lots at $625, and of the latter 1,180 at $1,500—being 23,954 lots, which, at the valuation agreed upon, yielded an aggregate of sixteen millions, thirty-seven hundred and fifty dollars. Other loans were obtained in the progress of improvement; and after bonds had been registered under the deed of Trust to the amount of £287,600 sterling, or nearly fourteen hundred thousand dollars, of which £155,800, or about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, had been sold, and while the company were negotiating for a further loan of £200,000, there came on that commercial crisis, which overthrew so many of the largest and wealthiest associations of both hemispheres, and completely paralyzed the business world. Thousands of merchant princes, bankers and capitalists were shipwrecked, both abroad and at home; and it being found that many of the largest, wealthiest, best-informed and most willing of the share-holders, had gone into bankruptcy; that nothing could be done with their assignees; and that the large outlays upon the city of Cairo, the buildings, levees and embankments, amounting, with interest, to about three and a half millions of dollars, might become unproductive, and all the unfinished works be rendered worthless, if immediate measures were not taken to secure the zealous and hearty: co-operation of all parties interested, whether as bond-holders, mortgagees or share-holders, a proposition was made in the month of January, 1845, by the late Darius B. Holbrook, President of the Illinois Exporting Company, through whom a large proportion of these funds had been furnished, for all parties interested to unite in a sale of the whole Cairo property, unencumbered, to a new Company, for seven hundred thousand dollars, or about one fifth of the actual cost, including interest; to divide the whole stock into thirty-five thousand shares; to subscribe for one-half, or seventeen thousand five hundred shares himself, as President of the Illinois Exporting Company, and to throw a like number of shares into the market, for sale at twenty dollars a share. This proposition being accepted, and the preliminary arrangements completed, on the twenty-ninth of September, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and forty-six, the whole Cairo City property was put into the hands of Messrs. Thomas S. Taylor, of Philadelphia, and Charles Davis, of New York, for the purposes mentioned in their Declaration of Trust, hereunto annexed, and marked D. Under this arrangement, the beneficial interest in the Cairo City lands and property, of every description, was divided into thirty-five thousand shares, of the par value of one hundred dollars each. Certificates, representing twenty thousand shares were to be delivered by the Trustees, Taylor and Davis, to the order of the Illinois Exporting Company; certificates representing seven thousand shares, to Charles Davis, attorney in fact for certain holders of bonds issued by the Cairo City and Canal Company; certificates representing three thousand shares to Messrs. Robertson, Newbold, Cope and Taylor, Assignees in Trust, for the Bank of the United States, and holders of the Cairo City and Canal Com-pan3r's bonds, which were to be surrendered and cancelled; the remaining five thousand shares to be sold by the said Taylor and Davis, and the proceeds applied to the expenses of the Trust, to the payment of five thousand dollars, advanced by Samuel Allinson, Esq., and to improvements of the Cairo City Property, It was further stipulated that whenever thereto authorized in writing, by two-thirds of the share-holders in interest, the Trustees might enlarge the number of shares, and sell them, either at public or private sale, and apply the proceeds to further improvements of the unsold Cairo property. On the 2ist of Nov., 1850, ten thousand additional shares were authorized, making forty-five thousand in all, thirty thousand of which were received at par, to extinguish the liabilities of the Cairo City and Canal Company, and to clear off all incumbrances; while the remaining fifteen thousand shares were to be used for the benefit of the Trust, and for the improvement and protection of the property. Of the whole 10,000 shares authorized to be issued, for these purposes, and of the other 5,000 shares appropriated under the Declaration of Trust, only 8,311 are now outstanding, and the whole number of shares now entitled to representation is but 36,491. Under this last mentioned organization it is, that all the present shareholders in the C. C. P., now act, and while to the bond-holders and original cash creditors of the Cairo City and Canal Company the actual cost of a share, with simple interest up to this time, is about one hundred and eighty dollars, the cost, with simple interest to the share-holders, who bought in at one-fifth of the original cost, is only about thirty-six dollars. Yet, a single share actually represents about one lot and one-twentieth of a lot, within the City, as originally laid out, with a correspondent proportion of the outside territory, equal to one and one-half lots more, of 25 feet by 120. The sales within the city had averaged up to January last, reckoning from December 23, 1853, when the first lot was sold, about $400 per lot; and the assessed value of the lots within the city limits in 1857, based upon sales for cash, was $1,434,679. This is a remarkably full and clear statement. It gives in the shortest possible space a comprehensive account of the origin of the Cairo City and Canal Company and its somewhat checkered existence, and of its merger into the Cairo City Property Trust. As in these present times, the one company had gone on as far as it could, and those in charge of its failing fortunes set about the organization of another company to take up the work the old company found too heavy to carry. New men were to be put in charge under supposedly more favorable circumstances. But we may inquire, what did the Cairo City and Canal Company actually do and perform in the way of starting a city here? To answer this question we have not much reliable information. It exists somewhere or in many different places, no doubt, but to gather it up and put it in shape would take weeks of hard work. But much of it is not needed; an outline is about all that could be asked for. We have seen a number of original records, but they contain so little that should be stated with any kind of detail that we shall refer to them only now and then. All their books, papers and records, covering a period of ten years, if now in existence, may be in Philadelphia, or New York, or possibly they may now be among the books and papers left by Col. Taylor here in Cairo. Were they before one and gone over with some care, they would present a remarkable record of corporate activity for that decade from 1836 to 1846. They would show, much more clearly than we now see it, how one man had been invested with absolute authority; how every one yielded to him, how hard he worked, how he traveled far and near and did everything to advance the enterprise. I have said so much about this in other places that I need not say more here, except to embrace it all in one comprehensive sentence, by saying that the Cairo City and Canal Company was D. B. Holbrook, or D. B. Holbrook was the Cairo City and Canal Company. The name of the company implied that it expected to build or start a city and to construct a canal. The canal was to extend from Cache River down to the point, a distance of about six miles, and about midway between the two rivers, and at its southern end, it was to send out arms or branches to each river. The map elsewhere found will show what was proposed. The canal part of the enterprise was abandoned. The design seems to have been to have a canal along and through the center of the city, which would very much better, as they supposed, accommodate the shipping interests than the river on either side of the city. Vessels of all kinds it was supposed could enter the wide canal either at the north on Cache or from the Mississippi or Ohio at its southern termini. The scheme must have soon appeared wholly impracticable. How the same could have ever been carried out with the rise and fall of the rivers through a perpendicular distance of forty to fifty feet can scarcely be imagined. How the water could have been maintained in the canal much higher than the level of the waters in the rivers or how the canal could have been made deep enough and yet suited to loading or unloading from vessels in the canal does not appear to us if it ever appeared plain enough to them. To enable the men in charge of the Cairo enterprise to manage their affairs to better advantage, the legislature had incorporated the Illinois Exporting Company. There were, therefore, three companies here at Cairo on and after March 4, 1837, the day of the incorporation of the Cairo City and Canal Company. These companies were thought not only needful but sufficient to contract with and for each other in and about building a railroad and a city, and carrying on such other work or enterprises as might come within the scope of the powers of the Exporting Company, if not within the powers of either one of the other two; and accordingly, we find these companies entering into two contracts on the a6th day of June, 1837, relative to the construction of the railroad, and, in particular, relative to its being started here at Cairo and not elsewhere. The Cairo City and Canal Company, having been relieved of all its contemplated railroad work, had nothing to do but to devote its whole attention to work here at the site of the proposed city, which was little less than a dense forest between the rivers. Levee building was, of course, the first thing to receive attention. It was useless to project anything requiring the expenditure of money without first arranging for the protection of the site from overflow by the rivers. As elsewhere stated, they do not seem to have considered the matter of filling even a small portion of the ground to a height sufficient to dispense with levees. Their plan was to inclose a large district of country by earth embankments along the rivers and across the point, and leave the natural level of the ground just about as it was. At the outstart, they do not seem to have known much about what we now call seepage. Had they or their successors, the Cairo City Property people, adopted a different plan, that is, the plan of filling a comparatively small district of territory to a reasonably high grade, which, if requiring levees at all would have required comparatively low ones, they nor we would ever have heard of seepage water. The money expended in building levees and in a dozen different ways, made necessary by the low grounds, would have gone far toward raising the general level of a large district to the present grade of our downtown streets and avenues, and in such case we would have been spared the large expenditures we are now making to free the city from the accumulated water within its levees. But all the plans and operations of this company seem to have presupposed a great demand for city lots and for such great prosperity that any comparatively slow method of preparing a site for a city could not be entertained; and it is altogether probable that no other plan was ever seriously thought of except that of inclosing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of acres within levees along the rivers. We are impressed by nothing in all the history of those early years so much as by what seems to have been the views of the promoters of the enterprise here as to the slight depth of the water over the point when the rivers were at their highest. Much allowance must be made for men in promoting their plans and schemes, for all experience teaches us that the advantages are highly colored and the disadvantages made little of; and hence we could hardly expect that they would represent the site of the city as low as it really was or that the rivers rose as high as they really do; but making all allowances possible, it still seems remarkably strange how, as far back as in 1836 and from thence up to 1850 and even later, it was represented in every way and manner that the site was not so low and that the rivers did not rise and overflow it to any considerable depth. It is true we have a far better knowledge of the actual situation than they could have had. None of them had ever seen any very high rivers. The flood of 1844 was out °f the Mississippi and could not have been very high here. The small levees then existing and inclosing 778.70 acres kept out what has always been represented as a very great flood. The flood of 1849 broke through the Mississippi levee for the distance of 1625 feet, but the record of that flood does not show it to have been a very great one. The flood of June 12, 1858, was not so high; but the levee on the west was weak and badly constructed and for that reason gave way. Returning to the Holbrook people as they were starting out with their work, we remark that they needed large means; first, for levee construction; for it was quite useless to make any considerable expenditures here on the point until they should be protected from overflows from the rivers. The first question was then, as it is now, how much money is needed and how can it be obtained. The men in charge knew that the money could not be obtained in this country on any reasonable terms as to interest or otherwise. There was not much money in this country then, and in all matters of importance, requiring large expenditures, it was always expected that resort would be had to London, the money center of Europe and of the world then, if not quite so much so now. But to get the money anywhere, there must be good security for the interest thereon and its ultimate payment at the time stipulated. The company had only its real estate to offer as security. But as the enterprise was generally regarded with great favor, it had no great difficulty in arranging to have its monetary affairs taken in hand by competent men in this country; and therefore it arranged with the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company, in the year 1838, to secure the bonds which the company desired to put upon the market by a trust deed upon its real estate to the said trust company. That deed of trust, executed by the Cairo City and Canal Company on the 26th day of June, 1837, is found recorded in book "D" on pages 42 to 47, of our county records. It was easy enough to make a deed of trust and to prepare bonds, but to sell the bonds readily and to advantage was often very difficult. At that time, American securities were not sought after as now, and those who dealt in them abroad frequently incurred unfriendly treatment from their rivals in the money markets. As elsewhere stated, D. B. Holbrook, the president of the Cairo City and Canal Company and the Illinois Exporting Company, proceeded to London and negotiated with John Wright & Company, Bankers, of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and arranged for them to take charge of the sale of his Cairo bonds, secured by the trust deed to the New York company. To arrange with these London bankers, Holbrook had to present the situation here very fully, both as to the title and value of the company's real estate as well as to the permanency of the site of the proposed city. They needed little assurance as to the geographical situation; but if the site was so low or otherwise largely unsuitable for the establishment of a city, the enterprise would be regarded with little favor. It was not to be treated as a real-estate investment alone. It was known that aside from the starting and building up of a city of some considerable size, the lands were of comparatively little value. Hence it was that Wright & Company must have been very well satisfied as to the outlook and prospects of a city here on the mortgaged property. There were then in London Daniel Webster, our ex-governor, John Reynolds, and our United States Senator, John M. Young. Holbrook laid before Webster his papers and documents, and obtained from him a favorable opinion as to the title to the lands here, the deed of trust, etc. Holbrook was successful in raising the means he thought requisite to their enterprise for some considerable time to come. I need not speak of them here again, since the matter is set forth at length in the above report to the shareholders of the Cairo City Property in September, 1858. It is quite impossible now to tell just how the large sums of money obtained from the sale of bonds in London were expended. They must have reached New York and Cairo in various amounts from time to time. The lands embraced in the trust deed to secure the bonds were only three to four thousand acres, whereas, when the Cairo City and Canal Company sold to the Trustees of the Cairo City Property June 13, 1846, there were 9734 acres, including the more recent purchases by the Cairo City and Canal Company. If the large sum of $1,250,000.00 was expended here by that company, from 1838 to 1844, a period of six years, one can scarcely imagine for what the various expenditures were made. The levees built were the two extending up the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, the one 12,320 feet in length and the other 4780 feet, the two making an embankment of about three and one half miles. They were narrow and not very high, compared with our present levees, and could not have cost more than two or three hundred thousand dollars at the most and perhaps not so much. Labor was cheap, although in this out-of-the-way place it may have been rather high. The expenditures for lands were, as I have already stated, large. Every one thought the place had a most promising future before it, and owners of lands asked high prices; and Holbrook seemed willing to pay almost any price in order to secure well nigh exclusive ownership of everything here between the two rivers south of Cache River. Next to the purchase of lands and the construction of levees was the clearing off of a strip of ground adjoining the Ohio River, of the width of a quarter of a mile, and for the distance from the point to Twentieth Street. This expense could not have been very great. Besides these we know of little else than the large expenditures made for improvements along the line of the Ohio and on this cleared strip of land. Cottages for temporary and more permanent residence purposes were constructed. Manufacturing establishments, such as machine shops, saw mills, foundries, brick yard work, dry docks, marine ways and other appurtenances for steamboat building, and the furnishing of machinery of all kinds to equip the different manufacturing plants, these and others of a like nature required large expenditures. It is said that the most modern and expensive machinery was provided for the various establishments and that much of it came from London and other very distant points. These matters of the character of the machinery and its importation from abroad are mentioned here not as established facts, but as matters of report, not to say of tradition. And yet one can easily believe all such representations, for they comport so fully with what we know of Holbrook. Everything he planned was on a large and expensive scale. His theory was that in this way only could the country and the world be convinced that what he and his company had in hand was a great thing and was certain of a remarkable success. It is one of those strange things of human experience and observation that large and lavish expenditures of money in almost any kind of an enterprise has the effect of impressing so many people with the belief that the matter in hand is one of great merit and promise. This is somewhat natural. People conclude that others know more about the matter than they do and that the expenditures would not be made were not the enterprise a very sure one. The manufacturing establishments were started, and work carried on for two or three years. But it could never have been to much advantage or profit. The outgo was always more than the income. The business on the river and in the vicinity was not sufficient to sustain extensive operations. For a while there was great activity, such as is always found at the first in doubtful enterprises. All of the establishments, or what are now called plants, were put in operation. The sawmills turned out great quantities of lumber for all purposes, including the building of steamboats and other kinds of watercraft. One steamboat, at least, the "Tennessee Valley," was built in 1841. Its owners resided at Florence, Alabama, and it was registered at New Orleans April 23, 1842. It was equipped with machinery furnished by the foundry and machine and boiler shops near by, just as the lumber and timbers for it came from the sawmills there at hand. The two large brick-making plants in the upper part of the little city got under way with their improved machinery and would no doubt have done good work had there been good materials for brick and a good demand for the manufactured article. It has never been supposed, however, at least in these latter days, that the point here afforded a good quality of clay for brick making. One can tell something of what was done and carried on here in those few short years, by examining the records at the court house, found chiefly in Book D, where are recorded the mortgages and other liens given by the company to its creditors upon its property here in Cairo, its buildings, its machinery of all kinds and descriptions, its lumber and building materials generally, forms, molds, and other foundry equipment, boilers, iron of all descriptions, brick in many thousands, horses, oxen, wagons, chains, in fact, everything one would expect to find in and about such manufacturing plants. The day of adversity had come, and those who had given credit spared no effort to secure something that would somewhat prevent a total loss. The situation was peculiar indeed, one seldom seen in the world anywhere. Cairo had been started once before and failed in the shortest possible time. It existed just long enough to spread its failure everywhere abroad. This second attempt had promised much, but when it became evident that it too must fail, a kind of frenzied feeling took possession of the people or of the creditors, of whom there were many, and the thought became general that not only the Cairo City and Canal Company was to go down, but that the whole large enterprise of building a city here was also to come to an end. It meant loss of debts and loss of home and removal to other parts of the country to commence life anew. No wonder the people or many of them exhibited a kind of rapacity of conduct as the full view of the calamity of the situation came before them. Holbrook saw the fast approaching end probably long before anyone else, and knowing well that were he in Cairo when it arrived, he could do nothing for anyone, left the place before the storm broke upon it. He knew whom the people or most of them would look upon as responsible for their misfortunes, and that his presence here would but add violence to the probable outbreak. 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/chapterv80nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 57.5 Kb