Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter XX Trustees And Newspapers 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 September 19, 2007, 10:17 pm Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois CHAPTER XX THE TRUSTEES OF THE CAIRO CITY PROPERTY-THE TRUSTEES OF THE CAIRO TRUST PROPERTY-SOME OF THEIR CIVIL ENGINEERS-CAIRO NEWSPAPERS WITH the exception of Col. Samuel Staats Taylor, none of the Trustees have ever resided in Cairo. All of the others have resided in New York City, except Thomas S. Taylor, one of the first two, who resided in Philadelphia. The trustees, or some of them, may have visited the place now and then; but we have nowhere seen any notice of the fact. Mr. Miles A. Gilbert was in charge here from June, 1843, to April, 1851, about eight years, although during the last three or four years of the time he resided at St. Mary's but visited the place from time to time to see that affairs were going on properly. After building the cross levee in 1843, Mr. Gilbert could not have done a great deal here besides taking care of the lands and other property of the Trustees. It was a period of waiting, and it seems to have taken a long time to finish the preliminary work and make the necessary surveys and plats for starting the city again. Mr. Gilbert's lengthy stay here enabled him to become perfectly familiar with everything about the place during those important years from 1843 to 1851, and had we from him a somewhat full and detailed account of that period I am sure it would be very interesting. It began with the failure of the Holbrook administration, the ruin of business and the dispersion largely of the people, and ended with the actual beginning of what is now our City of Cairo. We have before remarked that no city in the country has been so identified with a land trust and a corporation as has been the City of Cairo with the Trustees of the Cairo City Property and Illinois Central Railroad Company. The first of the two bought all of the lands here between the rivers, and the other having had this point made the southern terminus of its railroad, the two very properly undertook the task of building the city. The land company owned nearly ten thousand acres of land, and depended chiefly upon the sales of the same in city lots for the profits of their investment. The railroad company could not deal in lands, but to have a prosperous city at its southern terminus in Illinois meant large profits in the transportation business. Not to dwell here and to express the thought in a word or two, Cairo was their town, and it is for this reason that I have had so much to say about the two in this historical narrative of the place. Thomas S. Taylor, of Philadelphia, was Trustee from September 29, 1846, to April 6, 1859, when he was succeeded by Mr. John H. Wright. Charles Davis was Trustee from September 29, 1846, to September 29, i860, when he and Wright were succeeded by Samuel Staats Taylor and Edwin Parsons. The court and other records here seem to show proceedings for the removal of both Davis and Taylor and the matter as to the former seems to have been pending for some time, but I have not deemed it of sufficient importance to search out the details and give them here. We may remark, however, that his widow, who subsequently married a Mr. Mayo, sued the Trustees, Samuel Staats Taylor and Edwin Parsons, in the United States Court at Springfield, and recovered a judgment for $12,957.57. The Trustees appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States and that court affirmed the judgment of the circuit court February 4, 1884. The case, entitled "Taylor and Another vs. Davis' administratrix," is found in 110 U. S. 530. It seems that on the 21st day of December, 1875, Edwin Parsons conveyed all his interest as Trustee to Samuel Staats Taylor. This was no doubt done as a preliminary step to the subsequent proceedings in the United States Court at Springfield to foreclose the Ketchum mortgages. The Trustees by authority of the shareholders issued bonds to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars in October, 1863, and secured the same by the execution of a mortgage to Hiram Ketchum, as Trustee, upon the property of the trust; and again in October, 1867, they issued other bonds to the amount of fifty thousand dollars and secured the same by another mortgage to the same Trustee, upon the same lands and lots; and in 1875, Charles Parsons, who had succeeded Ketchum as Trustee for the bond holders, began his suit in the United States Circuit Court at Springfield against Samuel Staats Taylor, Trustee, and at the January term of the court, 1876, a decree of foreclosure was entered, and on the 10th day of May of that year the mortgaged property, excepting such lots and lands as had been in the meantime released from the liens of the mortgages, were sold by Mr. John A. Jones, Master in Chancery of that court, to Charles Parsons as Trustee on behalf of the said bond holders. This deed is recorded in book 7, on pages 214, etc. On the 20th day of June, 1876, Charles Parsons, as such Trustee, conveyed the property to Samuel Staats Taylor and Edwin Parsons as Trustees of the Cairo Trust Property, and on the same day they as individuals executed a declaration of trust showing that the lots, tracts and parcels of land had been conveyed to them for and on behalf of the uses, purposes and trusts in the said instrument set forth. This declaration of trust is recorded in said book 7, on pages 270, etc., and shows that the beneficial interest in the trust property was divided into thirty-six thousand (36,000) shares of the par value of ten dollars each, but subject to assessment to an amount not exceeding in the aggregate five dollars per share. Let us recur for a moment to the Cairo City and Canal Company and the Trustees of the Cairo City Property and compare their respective high capitalizations with the capitalization of the Cairo City Trust Property. The capital stock of the Cairo City and Canal Company was two million dollars, divided into twenty thousand shares, of one hundred dollars each. The lands the company owned, as the sole basis of the value of the stock, amounted to about four thousand acres. These lands were mortgaged December 16, 1837, to the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company to secure the former company's bonds, from the sales of which it expected to obtain all the funds it needed for starting and establishing a city here. The four thousand acres would have to have been worth five hundred dollars per acre to justify a capitalization of two million dollars; but from that day to this the property, exclusive of the city proper, has never been worth any such sum. As before stated, this company was succeeded in 1846 by the Cairo City Property Trust, which purchased more land, and issued stock to the amount of three million, five hundred thousand dollars, half of which Holbrook agreed to take in behalf of the Illinois Exporting Company. On November 21, 1850, ten thousand additional shares were authorized, thus making forty-five thousand shares in all, thirty thousand shares of which were to be received at par to extinguish the liabilities of the Cairo City and Canal Company and to clear off all incumbrances; and the remaining fifteen thousand shares were to be used for the benefit of the trust and for the improvement and protection of the property. Just what the circumstances were that seemed to require or justify this increase in the stock we do not know. It seems to have been a mere matter of more water; and yet the outlook in 1850 may have been very promising. One is almost amazed at the extravagant language used by the proprietors in 1818 and again in 1836 and 1837; but that of the proprietors of 1846 seems to have been of the same tenor and effect. One would suppose that twenty or more years of experience here with the low site and the ever threatening rivers would have tended to some moderation in the description of the situation. This capitalization in 1846 and 1850 of four million, five hundred thousand dollars was at the rate of four to five hundred dollars per acre for the 9743 acres. We do not get down to anything like actual values for safe capitalizing purposes until we reach the year of 1876, when the present trust was created and which since June 30, 1876, has been known as the Cairo Trust Property. While a large number of city lots had been sold by the Trustees of the Cairo City Property, very small quantities of its lands above town had been disposed of at the time of the foreclosure of the Ketchum mortgages. There was then on hand almost all of the lands, probably nearly seven thousand acres, and also the wharf property and almost every foot of the river frontage on both rivers; and at the time of the sale, in the foreclosure suit in May, 1876, there was due upon the first mortgage of two hundred thousand dollars the sum of $39,305.00; upon the second mortgage of fifty thousand dollars the sum of $58,375.00, and there was also due to the Trustees about $27,831.00. These sums made the whole amount of the indebtedness for which the remaining real estate was sold $125,511. At the sale May 10, 1876, Charles Parsons, as Trustee for the mortgage bond holders, bought the property for $80,000.00 free and clear of all rights of redemption. The whole proceeding from beginning to end must have been in the nature of a friendly suit by and for the immediate parties in interest, otherwise it is hard to account for the absolute sale for $80,000.00, and the immediate capitalization of the property at many times that amount. We have before spoken of the protracted efforts of Holbrook to arrange for the taking over of the assets and estates of the Cairo City and Canal Company by the Trustees of the Cairo City Property. His work culminated in the deed of June 13, 1846, and the declaration of trust of the 29th of the September following. This trust instrument executed by Thomas S. Taylor, of Philadelphia, and Charles Davis, of New York City, will be found recorded in the book "N" on pages 465, etc., of our county records. It is a very interesting document made sixty-four years ago, and constituting, for all practical purposes, the foundation of all our real estate titles. No one now seeks to trace his title beyond this instrument or rather that of June 13, 1846. When the United States government, in 1871, purchased from the Trustees block thirty-nine (39), for the erection of the custom-house and post-office building, Colonel Taylor was required to make a showing of title beyond those instruments, and the same has been required by purchasers in one or two other instances. The land described as held in trust amounted to 9,743.01 acres. Something more than half of this was in township sixteen, most of the latter in Pulaski County. The instrument described by metes and bounds that somewhat noted ten-acre tract of land, a part of which is now embraced in the Illinois Central Railroad freight yards on the Ohio River between Fourteenth and Eighteenth Streets. Let me stop here and speak of that ten-acre tract of land. Jeremiah Diller, on the first day of April, 1835, entered the northeast fractional quarter (5.55 acres), and the east fractional half of the northwest fractional quarter (54.99 acres), of section 25-17-1 west. The first tract lies in a triangle on the Ohio just below the stone depot of that railroad company, and the other now embraces its freight yards and the Halliday milling property, between Fourteenth and Twentieth Streets. September 14, 1837, Diller sold ten acres of the last described tract to William Day, a captain of the United States Army at St. Louis. Day seems to have sold to Ethan A. Hitchcock, also of the United States Army at St. Louis, and on the 7th day of August, 1838, the latter sold the ten-acre tract to Elijah Willard, commissioner of the board of public works of the third judicial district of the state under the general improvement act of February 27, 1837. The railroad enterprises of the state having broken down within a year or two, the state seems to have held this ten-acre tract of land and the right-of-way of the old Illinois Central Railroad in the county in trust for a number of years; and finally in the incorporation, February 10, 1851, of the present Illinois Central Railroad Company, it was provided that these lands should be transferred to the latter company. The state, had, some years before, arranged for their conveyance to the Great Western Railway Company incorporated in 1843 and 1849, to build a central railroad. It seems that on the 13th day of July, 1876, for the consideration of fifteen thousand dollars, Samuel Staats Taylor, as Trustee of the Cairo City Property, conveyed certain property to Charles Parsons, trustee for the second mortgage bond holders of the Cairo City Property and the same is recorded in book 9, page 193. On the 31st day of October, 1895, Samuel Staats Taylor conveyed his interest as Trustee under the declaration of trust to Henry Parsons and Edwin Parsons, Trustees; and on the 9th day of November, 1895, Mary Llewellyn Parsons, administratrix, and Charles Parsons, administrator, conveyed to Henry Parsons and Edwin Parsons, as Trustees of the Cairo Trust Property. The instrument recites the death of Edwin Parsons August 21, 1895, and the resignation of Samuel Staats Taylor, and that the shareholders had chosen Henry Parsons and Edwin Parsons, the latter a son of Mr. Charles Parsons, successors of the said Samuel Staats Taylor and the former Edwin Parsons; and these gentlemen, the cousins of our present Mayor, the Hon. George Parsons, are now the present Trustees of the Cairo Trust Property and have been such since the 9th day of November, 1895. It will be remembered that on the 13th day of June, 1846, the Cairo City and Canal Company conveyed its property to Thomas S. Taylor and Charles Davis, Trustees as above stated, and that in the following September the latter made the declaration of trust above referred to. It will therefore be seen that from the formation of the trust of the Cairo City Property September 29, 1846, to the formation of the trust of the Cairo Trust Property of June 20, 1876, we have the period of about thirty years and that from the formation of the last named trust, namely, the trust of the Cairo Trust Property, to the present time we have the period of thirty-four years. To the public the change in the trust has been wholly personal. The trust has been continuous from September 29, 1846, to the present time, a period of sixty-four years. At the outset it owned the whole country here, except one or two small lots or tracts of land. It sold nothing until December, 1853, since which time it has from year to year sold more or less of its property. For the first few years after 1853 many sales were made and generally for good, not to say high, prices. Much of the property on the levee and in other parts of the town in 1856 and 1857 sold for very high prices. The most desirable lots and property having been sold within the first few years, the sales thereafter became fewer in number and the prices very much lower. Prices advanced from time to time as the outlook for the city became now and then brighter, but as a general thing, the situation was not encouraging if we except the stimulus which war times gave the town. Many years ago it became evident that the growth and prosperity of the town had ceased largely to depend upon the Trustees and that the people must look to themselves and make the most out of the growth which the city had attained. The trust still owns a large amount of property, the most valuable being, we suppose, the levee and frontage along the two rivers, carrying an exclusive right to wharfage charges. It seems somewhat remarkable, if not unfortunate, that the city nowhere owns a foot of river frontage. This is a fair representation of the city's environment, a cramped one indeed; but it has been that so long, that were enlargement or freedom to come to it now, it would feel that somehow or other something strange had happened to it, and that it was not in its natural and proper position. THE CIVIL ENGINEERS OF THE TRUSTEES.—Going back to 1818, we have elsewhere shown that the first map or plat of the City of Cairo was probably made by a Major Duncan for Mr. John G. Comegys and his associates. I have not been able to find anything concerning him further than what is said in the Prospectus of those early proprietors. Coming on down to 1836 and 1837, we find that Mr. James Thompson made a survey and plat of the township, an exact copy of the plat being found elsewhere in this book. The field notes accompanying this plat or map were very full and complete indeed. They are part of the small book mentioned in Chapter IV as given me by Judge Thomas Hileman. I have not been successful in ascertaining whether Mr. Thompson was a resident of southern Illinois or of the west anywhere or of the east. I have not made as careful a search for information concerning him as I would like to have made. William Strickland and Richard R. Taylor, both probably of Philadelphia, were the first and perhaps only engineers and surveyors here during the Holbrook administration. The reader is referred to other parts of the book for information as to the work done and maps made by them. They may have done some work before the Trustees of the Cairo City Property came into possession here about the middle of the year 1846. Mr. Henry Clay Long, a son of Stephen Harriman Long, was in charge of the engineering department of the Trustees for many years. He seems to have been an able man in his line of work and profession. Other parts of this book will show much about him and his father, Col. Long, chief of the corps of topographical engineers of the government, whose headquarters were, in 1850, at Louisville. I have referred to the report made by Henry C. Long to S. H. Long concerning the site of the city as probably the most important engineering work ever done for the city. It was in many respects the basis for all other plans, plats and work of the Trustees from 1852 or 1853 onward. In 1884 Mr. Harvey Reid published a biographical sketch of Enoch Long, an Illinois pioneer, which seems to have been taken from Apple-ton's American Cyclopedia. In this account it is stated that Henry Clay Long was born near Philadelphia February 18, 1822, and that he became a civil engineer, and died while in the employ of the United States government on board the United States steamer Montana at LaCrosse, Wisconsin, April 10, 1871. In the sketch of Enoch Long referred to, the names of other members of the Long family are mentioned as living at Alton, Illinois, where Stephen Harriman Long died. While Long was here at work helping the Trustees to start their city, Mr. Charles Thrupp came here, probably in the year .1850, and was assistant to Long for some years. Mr. Thrupp, whose death occurred on the 15 th day of July, 1900, was probably better acquainted with the City of Cairo in all its somewhat varied features than any other person, excepting Colonel Taylor. He was for a long time in the service of the Trustees after that early period, and was almost the first man to be inquired of concerning corners and boundary lines and other like matters in our city. He and Mrs. Thrupp were English people and up to the time of their respective deaths they were well known and highly esteemed in the city. There were a number of other persons who occupied the position of civil engineers for the Trustees, but their terms of service were generally of limited duration and arose long after most of the important work of that nature had been fully completed. I have elsewhere spoken of Mr. John Newell, who was for a year or two in the service of the Trustees, embracing the year 1855; and I have also in another place told of General McClellan's presence here so often when the levees were in the course of construction and when he was vice-president and chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad Company. I have often spoken of the offices of the Trustees as containing so many documents and records of a highly important nature. They often seem to me as in the nature of public offices; and I am quite sure that so far as historical facts or information are concerned they contain a hundred-fold more material than can be found at any or all other places in the city, excepting possibly the court-house, where the records are far more complete from the time of the organization of the county, in 1819, than can be found in almost any other of the older counties. CAIRO NEWSPAPERS.—The whole of Chapter VI of that part of the "History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties" which relates to Cairo is devoted to Cairo newspapers. It begins with the first one published in 184.1 for a short time under the Holbrook administration, the name of the paper not being given, and ends with the "Cairo Daily-Argus." The chapter is very full and we suppose complete, and were we to go over any part of that period from 1841 to 1883, it would be but to copy from that history. Since that time, we have had published here "The Citizen," "The Evening Citizen," a daily, "The Cairo Telegram," "The Peoples' Paper" and "The Weekly Star." If there were other papers started and published for a time, I am not able to recall the names thereof. Mr. Henry F. Potter continued the publication of the "Cairo Daily Argus" up to about the first of October, 1907, at which time he was compelled to discontinue its publication solely on account of failing health. Few persons can realize the very exacting duties imposed by the publication of a daily paper. The daily demand, while not always severe, sooner or later becomes very trying where so much of the responsibility falls upon one person. Mr. Potter's experience as a publisher and editor at Mound City and Cairo made him one of the best of writers. An able and forceful man naturally, his newspaper training developed all his intellectual faculties and gave him a strength of character which no other training probably would have afforded him. "The Cairo Telegram" was established by Mr. Eugene E. Ellis in the year 1887. He conducted it along with his long established jobbing office, but in the year 1906, after nineteen years of existence, he discontinued the paper. Different persons were its editors from time to time, but he always exercised a direct supervision over its columns and made the paper a strong force in the community and a great credit to the city. It was with the "Telegram" that Miss Bessie M. Turner began her newspaper work. She was also with the "Bulletin" a number of years and until she became Mrs. Jean M. Allen. It was with regret that the public gave her up. "The Peoples' Paper" was edited, and I believe published, by Mr. Solomon Farnbaker, whose parents were among the very oldest residents of the city. It was started in June, 1886, and was published a number of years. It was a kind of free lance, cutting in almost all directions, but not always with fine discrimination. Like many of the newspapers found in almost all the cities of the country, it seemed to-be most at home or in its proper line of duty when criticising some one or something. We found a large number of clippings from it among Col. Taylor's papers, which were and are as innumerable as the sands of the seashore. "The Citizen" was established October 1, 1885, by Mr. George Fisher, who had been for a number of years and up to that time the surveyor of the port of Cairo and long a practicing lawyer of our city. He began the publication of "The Evening Citizen," a daily, October 1, 1897, and carried on the publication of the two papers up to the time of his death, which occurred on the 19th day of December, 1900. Since then, his son, Mr. John C. Fisher, has continued the publication of the two papers, and it is believed with a success that is a credit alike to him and the people of the city who have supported the papers. They have always been strongly republican, strong party papers, but their management has seldom, if ever, been subject to just criticism. As favorably as "The Citizen" is regarded as a newspaper it cannot be said that it is not fully deserved. Its value to the people of the city can in no sense of the word be measured by its cost to them. Mr. Thomas W. Williams, long connected with "The Cairo Bulletin," purchased in 1905 "The Weekly Star," at Thebes. The "Star" was the successor of "The Thebes Record." Mr. Williams continued the publication of the paper at Thebes until 1906, when he removed it to Cairo, and since that time he has continued its publication here. Its circulation is confined largely to the county, and, we are glad to say, it seems to be well sustained. Mr. Williams has become well and favorably known throughout the city and county and is at present a member of our city council and represents the third ward. "The Cairo Bulletin," first published in 1868, is still one of our city papers. It is now in its forty-second year. This says so much for the paper that little more is needed. Sometime before the year 1883, when Mr. Bradsby wrote, Mr. Oberly had sold out his interest in the "Bulletin" to Mr. E. A. Burnett, now of St. Louis, and removed to Bloomington, where he began the publication of the "Bloomington Bulletin." Mr. Burnett, in the year 1903, sold the "Bulletin" establishment to Harry E. Halliday, Henry S. Candee and David S. Lansden, and they continued its publication up to the year 1908, when Mr. Lansden disposed of his interest. In 1904 they published for six to nine months an evening paper called "The Evening News." Mr. Samuel J. Stockard was the editor of the "Bulletin" for a year or two. He was a good writer and esteemed very highly not only as a writer but as a man and citizen. Mr. Edward W. Thielecke has been in charge of the editorial department of the "Bulletin" longer than any one else. He was in the city of St. Louis during the editorship of Mr. Stockard and returned here in the year 1905. He has been connected with the "Bulletin" in his present capacity for the period of twenty-four years. He has shown himself an able writer, and I think an able editor. My first recollection of him extends back to the time when he had not even thought of becoming a writer or an editor. If any one supposes his position, or the position of editor of "The Citizen," or of any other such paper, is easy to fill he is very much mistaken. Few persons are qualified for such positions. We are too often ready with our criticisms when, if we would but take the places of the persons criticized, we would soon see how unequal we were to the demands of the places we had assumed to fill. Many of us might, in a kind of flabby way, edit a mere newspaper, but to make the paper anything like what it ought to be in a community we would find ourselves largely, if not totally, insufficient. Whatever may be said for or against Mr. Thielecke's general course as an editor this at least can be safely said that he has learned to write clearly, strongly and fearlessly. Without the latter qualification the so-called editor is little else than a mere excuse. His long editorial connection with the "Bulletin" is far better evidence of his standing as an editor than anything I might say. Now leaving this subject of Cairo newspapers, may I not be permitted to say that we have perhaps a better state of things regarding them than has existed in Cairo for many years? Most of the time have we not had too many newspapers; too many for the people to take and too many among which newspaper support had to be divided ? As a general rule our Cairo newspapers, whether many or few, have been quite as good as could possibly be expected, considering the support due them from the public. With our daily morning paper and daily evening paper, the people of the city get all the city news, and their support enables the publishers to do better for their readers, and in this way the people are served to the best advantage. They obtain the best newspaper service at lowest reasonable rates. 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/chapterx134gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/ File size: 28.8 Kb