Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter XXVI Alexander County, Its Other Towns, And Its Earliest Settlers 1910
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Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois

CHAPTER XXVI

ALEXANDER COUNTY, ITS OTHER TOWNS, AND ITS EARLIEST SETTLERS



THE territory of the county was a part of St. Clair County, when that county was

organized by Governor Arthur St. Clair March 27, 1790. It became a part of

Randolph County, which was organized by him October 5, 1795. It became a part of

Johnson County, when that county was organized by Governor Ninian Edwards

September 12, 1812. It continued a part of Johnson County until January 2, 1818,

when it became a part of Union County, then organized, but only by attachment

thereto until it should be formed into a separate county, which was done March

4, 1819. It was, therefore, a part of or attached to Union County from January

2, 1818, to March 4, 1819. Its boundaries were the two rivers, and on the east,

a north and south line between ranges one and two east, and, on the north, an

east and west line between townships thirteen and fourteen, south range. These

boundaries embrace about three hundred and seventy-eight square miles.



   The first section of this act of March 4, 1819, fixed the boundaries of the

county and gave it the name of Alexander County, for William M. Alexander, who

lived at America, the county seat. I have not been able to obtain much

information concerning Doctor Alexander. He was a practicing physician in

America and its vicinity, and also something of a politician and public man. He

represented the county in the lower house of the legislature in 1820 and 1822.

He was also speaker of the house in 1822 and 1824. In the "Historical

Encyclopedia of Illinois," of 1900, is a short sketch of him. He is there said

to have gone from America to Kaskaskia and subsequently to some part of the

south where he died, but the date and place of his death could not be given by

the writer of the sketch. In Chapter I of that part of the "History of

Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties" which relates to Alexander County are

found extracts from the diary of Col. Henry L. Webb, of Trinity, at the mouth of

Cache River. Col. Webb speaks of Doctor Alexander and of his being in

co-partnership with him in certain business enterprises. In Chapter II Doctor

Alexander is again spoken of. I regret very much that I am not able to say more

concerning this man whose name our county bears. The second section of the act

appointed Levi Hughes, Aaron Atherton, Daniel Phillips, Allen McKenzey, and

Nesbit Allen, commissioners to locate the permanent seat of justice or county

seat. The third section required the courts, elections, etc., to be held "in the

house of Wm. Alexander, in said county, until the public building should be

erected." His house was very probably at America on the Ohio River. The

commissioners located the county seat at America, where it remained until it was

removed to Unity by the act of January 18, 1833.



   The county of Pulaski was organized March 2, 1843, and all of Alexander

County east of the west bank of Cache River and east of Mill Creek was taken off

and included in Pulaski County. This left no part of the river in Alexander

County, and reduced the area of Alexander from three hundred and seventy-eight

square miles to about two hundred. The county seat remained at Unity until

February 4, 1845, when the legislature enacted a law removing and permanently

locating it at Thebes, in the southeast quarter of section eight, township

fifteen south, range three west, "commonly called Sparhawk's Landing " on the

Mississippi River.



   On the 18th day of February, 1859, the legislature passed a law providing for

the holding of an election on the first Tuesday of November, 1859, to determine

whether the people of the county desired to remove the county seat from Thebes

to Cairo. The election was held on the 8th day of November and resulted in a

vote of five hundred and seventy for removal and three hundred and ninety

against removal. The polls were open at Cairo, Unity, Thebes, Santa Fe, Clear

Creek, Dog Tooth, and Hazlewood. The judges of the election at Cairo were Daniel

Hannon, John Ryan and Hugh Dolan; and the clerks were J. W. Timmons and John H.

Robinson.



   It will, therefore, be seen that America was the county seat of the county

fourteen years; Unity twelve years; Thebes fourteen years, and Cairo now fifty

years. The court-house at Thebes, a stone structure, still occupies the hillside

just as it was built in 1845. The property now belongs to Isaac D. Dexter.



   The courts of the county, after 1859, were held at different places in Cairo

until the erection and completion of the present court-house on Washington

Avenue and Twentieth Street. The contract for its erection was let March 2,

1863, to Mr. J. K. Frick, whom a few of our citizens will remember very well,

for $28,000.00. It seems that Mr. Frick surrendered his contract after he had

done a large part of the work. He was released, his sureties discharged, and the

contract for the completion of the building let to John Major for $32,000.00.

The building was not completed until the early part of 1865, and the first court

held therein was the July term 1865 of the Court of Common Pleas, presided over

by Judge John H. Mulkey, the judge of that court. (The writer was present at

that term of court and obtained from the court the requisite certificate, which

he subsequently presented with his New York license to the clerk of the supreme

court at Mount Vernon and obtained an Illinois license. At that time he had not

decided to locate in Cairo.) The lots now constituting the court-house grounds

were conveyed by the Trustees of the Cairo City Property by deed of October 20,

1862, recorded in Book D, pp. 291, etc. The lots are 13 to 27, block 48, First

Addition to the city. The deed is upon condition as to the use of the property;

but no reversion is provided for, as in the case of lot 30, block 47, in the

city, on which the first school-house was erected in 1853.



   In the "History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties," will be found

interesting notices of America, the first county seat, and of Trinity on the

Ohio at the mouth of Cache River. Besides these old towns, which no longer

exist, there was the town of Marseilles laid out by Dr. Daniel Arter and

Benjamin F. Echols, located on the east half of the northeast quarter of section

three, township sixteen one west. The plat was acknowledged March 6, 1839, and

recorded in Book D, pages 60, 61, and 62. The town embraced part of the

immediate neighborhood of our present Villa Ridge. The Illinois Central Railroad

of 1837 ran across the northeast corner of the town as platted.



   There was also the town of Alexandria on the Mississippi River just below the

present Sante Fe. It was laid out by Alexander M. Fountaine and Chas. M.

Thurston, of Louisville. The plat was recorded in Book D, on pages 46, 47 and

48, March 23, 1838. It contained eighty-nine blocks or squares, and 1038 lots.

It embraced part of those claims and surveys, of four hundred acres each, which,

with other claims and surveys, will be found fully described hereafter.



   The public and business men of those early days kept up with the times quite

as well as our public and business men do now, perhaps even better. There was so

much less going on and so much more leisure, that what was comparatively easy

then would be quite impossible now. It was well known at Kaskaskia and all over

the state, which was then what is southern Illinois now, that the Cairo

enterprise (of 1818) had failed and the effect of this was to cause other men

acquainted with this region to seek another and a better site for a city, near

enough to the confluence of the two rivers to avail of all advantages the same

afforded. The site chosen was America on the Ohio, about twelve miles from its

mouth. Comegys and his associates were quite pretentious enough in choosing the

name of a city in Africa for the name of their city at this point; but these

other men who chose their site further up the Ohio were still more pretentious,

it seems, and gave the name of a continent to their proposed town and called it

America. Trinity became a rival of America and to a large extent supplanted it,

so far as the river business was concerned. Both claimed to be the head of

navigation. Trinity had the best harbor and was closer to the junction of the

two rivers.



   The earliest settlers in what is now Alexander County, of which we have any

account, were the families of Joshua, Abraham and Thomas Flannary, John

McElmurry and Joseph Standlee. Their settlements were on the Mississippi River

just south of Sante Fe. They established there a "Station Fort," and the same

was known far and near as McElmurry's Station. Governor John Reynolds, in his

history of Illinois, speaks of this station fort; and in another place, he gives

the names of the early settlers, in southern Illinois, whose claims to land had

been investigated, allowed and confirmed. When these settlements were first made

we have not been able to ascertain. All we know is that they were made prior to

September 3, 1783, the date of our treaty of peace with Great Britain at the

close of our war of the Revolution; and it may be that they were made prior to

the treaty of February 10, 1763, when the French surrendered the Illinois

country to Great Britain. In other words, these settlements may have been made

under grants of some kind from the French prior to 1763, or under grants from

England prior to 1783. Our government was required by the fifth clause of the

treaty of 1783 to protect all settlers in districts of country surrendered by

Great Britain to our government and which had not been in actual arms against

it; and as early as 1788, it took steps to secure to such settlers their rights

to lands occupied and cultivated by them. The acts of congress of March 3, 1791,

and of March 26, 1804, prescribed the course to be pursued by claimants desiring

to establish their rights to the lands occupied by them. These acts and certain

prior resolutions of 1877, limited the quantity to be claimed by heads of

families, their heirs or assigns, to four hundred acres, and claimants were

required to show actual occupancy and cultivation as conditions to the allowance

and confirmation of their claims. The act of March 26, 1804, established a land

office at Kaskaskia, and the claimants were required to present their claims and

the evidences thereof to the register and receiver of public moneys there, who

were called commissioners, and who investigated each claim and allowed or

disallowed the same, and reported all claims to congress for confirmation or for

such modification of their action as congress might choose to make.



   We do not know how many claims were presented to the commissioners for lands

in what is now our county; but of those presented, six were allowed and

confirmed, as follows:



   To John McElmurry, Jr., Claims 680 and 681, Surveys 525 and 526; to Joseph

Standlee, Claim 2564, Survey 684; to Abraham Flannary, or his heirs, Claim 531,

Survey 529; to Joshua Flannary, or his heirs, Claim 530, Survey 528; to Thomas

Flannary, or his heirs, Claim 529, Survey 527. These four hundred acre tracts of

land will be found outlined on all of our county maps.



   By the treaty of Paris of February 10, 1763, Spain acquired from France and

from Great Britain all their claims to territory west of the Mississippi River,

and she retained all that territory until October 1, 1800, when she ceded it to

France, and the latter on the 30th day of April, 1803, ceded it to the United

States. Under the French and Spanish a number of settlements had been made on

the Mississippi River in what is now the state of Missouri; at New Madrid, at

Cape Girardeau, at Ste. Genevieve and at some other points. As late as x795>

Gayoso de Lemos built a station fort at what is now Bird's Point. He had come

there to meet a delegation from Kentucky and probably to confer with

representatives of General James Wilkinson. He was the governor of Louisiana and

was endeavoring to further Spanish interests in this part of the country.

Houck's ("Missouri.") It will be remembered that during our war of the

Revolution, General George Rogers Clark and many other public men of that time

feared that Spain, being so near us on the west, might make some movement or

other which would require strong measures to counteract or resist, as is shown

by General Clark's letter of September 23, 1779, given elsewhere. We cite these

historical facts to show that there were no doubt very early settlements on the

easterly side of the Mississippi River from the mouth of the Ohio to Cahokia,

besides those at or near Kaskaskia.



   When we recall the fact that Kaskaskia was settled as early as 1700 and that

John Laws' operations twenty years later extended up the river as far as Fort

Chartres where he expended probably a million of dollars in the construction of

the fort and other works and that hundreds of slaves were carried there and to

other points to do the work required by their various enterprises, we cease to

regard it as strange to find that settlements were made here and there on the

river but of such small extent as to have well nigh escaped the searches of his

torians. It is very interesting indeed to read of the extent and nature of the

intercourse between the French settlements in upper and lower Louisiana, from

the years 1700 to 1763, when the French relinquished to Great Britain well nigh

everything they had in America. The Mississippi was the great bond or rather the

artery between the Canadians and Louisiana French. All north of the Ohio was

Canadian and all south Louisianaian.



  This is quite a digression; but it is given here as evidence of the earliest

settlements on our side of the Mississippi and near to the mouth of the Ohio,

and also strengthening what has been said elsewhere about Juchereau's settlement

here in  1702.

   Returning to the Flannarys, we have only to add that the following letter

from the General Land Office shows the source of our information regarding those

four hundred acre tracts of land.



                                    General Land Office,

                               Washington, D. C, April 5, 1909. 

Miss Edna L. Stone,

    Stoneleigh Court, Washington, D. C. 

Madam:—

   In response to your recent personal inquiry, I have to advise you that the

claims Nos. 681, 680, 529, 530, 531 and 2564, mentioned in the letter of Mr.

John M. Lansden to you, which letter is herewith returned to you, were confirmed

by the act of Congress of May 1, 1810 (2 Stat., 607), to the persons whose names

are shown on the surveys thereof on the plats of Tps. 16 S., Rgs. 2 and 3 W.,

photolithographic copies of which were secured by you. These claims are embraced

in the statement of claims in virtue of improvements affirmed by Commissioners

Michael Jones and E. Backus, register and receiver at Kaskaskia, said statement

being dated December 31, 1809. This statement may be found in printed form in

the American State Papers, Duff Green's Edition, Vol. 2, pages 132 to 134,

inclusive. This statement does not contain a transcript of the evidence

introduced in support of these claims, but in their general report, found on

page 102, said Commissioners state:



   There are four species of claims upon which, as commissioners for this

district, we have had to act,  .  .  .  3d. Those founded on the having

actually-improved and cultivated land in the country, under a supposed grant of

the same by court or commandant.    .    .   .



   Relating to these claims, there have been passed by Congress the following

laws, viz:  .  .  .  A law of the 3d of March, 1791, ordaining, thirdly, that

where lands have been actually improved and cultivated, under a supposed grant

of the same, by any commandant or court claiming authority to make such grant,

the Governor of said territory be empowered to confirm to the person who made

such improvements, their heirs and assigns, the land supposed to have been

granted as aforesaid, or such parts as he may judge reasonable, not exceeding to

any one person four hundred acres.

    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .



III. OF IMPROVEMENT RIGHTS.



   From the proclamation of Colonel Todd, the first commandant under Virginia

after the conquest, and from the many proofs we have had of verbal permission

having been given by him and succeeding commandants to individuals to settle on

the public lands, we have raised the presumption, that in all cases where we

have found an actual improvement and cultivation upon vacant lands, it was made

under what the law of 1791 terms a "supposed grant;" as we fully believe every

individual settling upon such lands thought himself authorized to do so by the

then existing authority of the country.



   In our own construction of the term "actual improvement and cultivation," we

have supposed it to mean, not a mere marking or deadening of trees; but the

actual raising of a crop or crops, it being in our opinion a necessary proof of

an intention to make a permanent establishment; and we have allowed but one

improvement claim to the same man, in which we are clearly warranted by the 4th

section of the law of 1791.



   For the authority of the said commissioners to make report on these claims,

reference is had to the act of March 26, 1804 (2 Stat., 277), and the act of

March 3, 1805 (2 Stat., 343).            Very respectfully,

                                              FRED DENNETT,

                                                      Commissioner.



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



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