Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter XXI Cairo In Servitude To Land Companies 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, 10:19 pm Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois CHAPTER XXI CAIRO IN SERVITUDE TO LAND COMPANIES IN law we have what are called dominant and serviant estates. Cairo's existence, both corporate and otherwise, has always been that represented by the latter of these conditions. The limitations upon her corporate life and action and upon her people have been of a peculiar nature, and have to a greater or less degree interfered with her growth and prosperity. These have changed somewhat from time to time, but have not yet disappeared. She never had a civil government of her own until 1855, when she was thought entitled to become a town or village. This form of civil administration was superseded, about two years later, with a city government, whose fifty-three years of experience under its limitations ought to be of considerable municipal value. Cairo was started by a land company three several times. To a limited extent, at least, this explains why it had to be started so often. It is very true, the natural difficulties of the situation were great, and it may be that the enterprise could not have gotten under way at all except by means and methods in the nature of corporate initiatives. This, however, is but accounting for a condition of the things necessary in itself though unfortunate. The lands were entered in 1817 for the purpose of building a city. They were soon forfeited to the government and the attempt abandoned. In 1835, the lands were again entered for the same purpose; and with the year 1836, began an actual and most earnest attempt to build a city, worthy somewhat, at least, of its remarkable geographical position. This decade of years, ending with 1846, was in many respects the most important of all in the history of the city. It was in many respects a stirring time, a time of great things, under the lead of a man of character and great enterprise, above any one, no doubt, who has ever had the interest of the place in his charge. But it was a land company, a company that did not want to sell any of its lands until after it had gotten its city under way; and during the whole period of its ten years of existence, it sold neither lands nor lots, until it found that it also had to retire out of being, and turn over all it had, both real and personal, to another and third land company, which likewise found it necessary to invest no one else with ownership of real estate until the lapse of eight years, ending with December, 1853. We thus have the long period of eighteen years, ending with the year 1853, during which these land companies of 1836 and 1846 held all the lands and country here as in a kind of mortmain or dead hands. No protest or remonstrance could avail anything at all. The land companies had mapped out their policies, which were essentially one and the same, and that was to hold on to everything they had until they had a city of tenants who might be induced to buy on terms largely dictated by the landed proprietors. I have carefully examined the real estate records of the county from 1836 to 1854, and with the fewest possible exceptions, I have been unable to find that the Cairo City and Canal Company, during its life of ten years, or the Trustees of the Cairo City Property, from 1846 to 1854, sold any town or city lot or land to any one. As much as they may have desired to see the place grow and prosper and to induce people to become residents, they retained in their private ownership the whole river frontage on both rivers, aggregating a distance of twelve to fifteen miles, over which no one scarcely might or could pass for water or for any other purpose whatsoever, without becoming a trespasser, either in an actual or legal sense. This exclusive dominion over approaches to the rivers has always enabled them to lay under tribute all the commerce of the rivers; and this became a matter of serious complaint by the river interests, which demanded free or cheap wharfage. Their complaints often degenerated into abuse, but it was against the city itself, between which and the landed proprietors they made no distinction; for as a general rule they knew of none. These complaints, of every kind and nature, were carried up and down these great rivers and their tributaries and were thus widely disseminated; and to them is due, in no small part, the reputation in which the city was so long held. These landed proprietors, with one or two possible exceptions, were merely foreign landlords, whose interests somehow seemed to be one thing while that of the people here seemed to be quite another. Very naturally, there arose at the very outset a want of sympathy and co-operation, to remove or change which the landed interests made little or no effort. In the last days of the Cairo City and Canal Company, when the proprietors, or their representatives, were taking their departure, what they had left here was seized upon and made way with without ceremony or any form of legal proceedings. The people were little or no part of the enterprise. This they well knew and fully realized. They had acquired no lands nor lots—could acquire none; and now that the city, or what was left of it, was to be abandoned, they found themselves unexpectedly fortunate in not being incumbered with anything but movables to prevent their departure to other parts of the country; and so it was easy enough for the number of people in the place to fall in a comparatively short time from two thousand to the two hundred which was the population of Cairo when Col. Taylor arrived here April 15, 1851. To further establish what is said above about the policy of the land companies, we refer to the editorial in the "Cairo Delta," of September 20, 1849, quoted in Chapter VII. Judging from what Editor Sanders said, the people had hoped that the administration of the Trustees of the Cairo City Property would differ widely and favorably from that of the Holbrook administration; but they seem to have been disappointed. The change was but from one land company to another, and the end and means thereto seemed strikingly alike. The Holbrook enterprise of 1836 to 1846 was largely western; that of the Trustees was more largely eastern. The Trustees tightened their hold on the river frontage and brought the river interests into satisfactory subjection to their demands of wharfage dues. This seems to have been their legal right, and the matter could only be questioned on the ground that it was most unfavorable to the public and to the general interests of the city. 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/chapterx135gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/ File size: 7.4 Kb