Cook County IL Archives History - Books .....Early Chicago - Part 1 1876
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Book Title: Early Chicago - A Lecture

EARLY CHICAGO.

One year ago, I gave a lecture at this place, as I then stated to you, "with a 
view of exciting among our people a spirit of historical research which would 
result in recovering lost newspapers and documents, and placing upon record 
the experiences of our early settlers." I had no ambition to figure as a 
lecturer, or as a historian. I waited until the regular lecture course was 
finished. The proceeds were given with pleasure to the Committee for the 
employment of men more at home in the lecture field, as the proceeds of this 
lecture will be,—such men as pass six months in preparing one, two, or three 
lectures, and pass the next six months in delivering them. As this is their 
sole means of living, it is right that they should be well paid for them; and 
it is one of the noble objects of this Association to furnish you, at an hour 
when you have no worldly pursuits nor religious entertainments, for ten cents, 
what other people on a week-day pay from fifty cents to a dollar for.

I can think of no other object that would have brought me before you with a 
written lecture. I felt that the duty peculiarly devolved upon me, and I 
performed it with pleasure. There are scarcely half a dozen persons, 
habituated to public speaking, who were here before the city was incorporated. 
I was sole conductor of a public press for twenty-five years lacking a few 
months. It seemed proper that I should lead off in this important matter.

The Chicago Democrat was commenced on the 26th of November, 1833, by the late 
John Calhoun, whose widow now resides in this city. 

Augustine D. Taylor, now living in this city, saw the press landed; and Walter 
Kimball, now living in this city, was a visitor in the office, and saw the 
first number printed. That paper fell into my hands in November, 1836, and 
contained not only a history of current events, but also a vast amount of 
information touching the early history of the entire Northwest. It is a sad 
reflection that the same fire which swept away my files, also swept away those 
of everyone else, and all our public records. But there are copies of the 
Chicago Democrat scattered all over the Northwest, as well as of other papers 
and documents that will be of service in restoring our lost history. No person 
should destroy any papers or documents of a date prior to the fire. If there 
is no one who wants them, let them be sent to me, and I will take care of them 
until our Chicago Historical Society becomes reorganized. Our old settlers are 
fast passing away. Some of the few remaining have very retentive memories. Let 
them not be discouraged because they do not remember dates. It is events that 
we want; and by comparing them with other events, the dates of which we know, 
we can in time obtain the exact dates of all of them. 

While so many of our old settlers have passed away, there yet may be remaining 
among their effects old papers whose value their legal representatives do not 
appreciate. Many old packages have been given to me, with the remark that they 
did not see of what use they could be to me. One widow sent me some pieces of 
newspapers, which the mice had kindly spared, with the remark that she was 
ashamed to be sending such old trash to any one; but from-them facts enough 
were gathered to save another widow from being swindled out of her homestead. 
When I lectured before, it was a matter of dispute what was the name of the 
first steamboat that ever came to Chicago, and who was the person in command. 
She came to bring the troops for the Black Hawk War in 1832, and brought the 
cholera with them. All that was known for a certainty was the place where they 
dug the pit into which they most unceremoniously plunged the dead bodies. That 
was remembered because it was the site of the old American Temperance House, 
northwest corner of Lake street and Wabash avenue; and many old settlers 
remembered that from the fact that they always passed by the Temperance House 
on the other side, and so could read the sign. The river and lake water, which 
we had to drink in those days, was considered unhealthy. I made a statement as 
to the name of that boat, based upon what I considered the best authority. But 
when I had finished, a gentleman came upon the stage and gave me another name, 
claiming that he helped fit out the very vessel at Cleveland, and I changed my 
manuscript to correspond. But some of the reporters published the statement as 
I delivered it, and thus two statements were before the public, as given by 
me. Thus different persons, anxious to assist me in reestablishing the 
landmarks of history, had an opportunity, by quoting the one statement to 
provoke discussion by insisting that the other statement was true, when they 
really did not know any more about the matter than I did, and had perhaps 
consulted only one authority, when I had previously consulted many. But a 
lady, in looking over her old papers, found, where she least expected it, a 
Chicago Democrat dated March 14, 1861, containing a letter from Capt. A. 
Walker, giving a history of the whole expedition, showing that both statements 
were correct. The United States Government chartered four steamers to bring 
troops and supplies to Chicago, and their names were the Superior, Henry Clay, 
William Penn, and Sheldon Thompson; but the Superior and Henry Clay were sent 
back when the cholera broke out on board. Capt. Walker says, that when he 
arrived at Chicago, in July, 1832, there were but five dwelling-houses here, 
three of which were made of logs. There are other old newspapers yet to be 
found settling questions equally as interesting.

All must admit, that there has been more said about the history of Chicago, 
and more important publications made, the past year than ever before. 
Booksellers inform me that they have had within the past year, a greater 
demand than in all time before for all works appertaining to the history of 
the Northwest, and that they have had, all the while, standing orders for such 
works as are out of print. And it is to encourage a still further research 
that I address you to-day. And, if the result of this year's researches is not 
satisfactory, I shall feel myself in duty bound to address you again in a year 
from this time. Many aged settlers have thanked me for bringing them into a 
higher appreciation. One octogenarian lady informs me that, for the past 
fifteen years, when any young company came to the house, she was expected to 
leave the room. After my lecture, she said she saw a gentleman approaching the 
house, and she left the room as usual. But soon her granddaughter came out and 
said, "It is you he wants." And this was the first gentleman caller-she had 
had for fifteen years. When she entered the room, and he told her he wanted to 
inquire about early Chicago, she felt as if her youth had come again, and she 
told the others that it was their time to leave the room. She said, "He has 
been to see me six times, and has printed nearly all I said, and there is not 
another member of our large family who-has ever said a word that was thought 
of sufficient importance to be printed; and now I am thinking over what I know 
about early Chicago, and letting the newspapers have it." She observed with 
great force that the young folks were constantly asking her how she used to 
get along amid early privations, and she insisted that, if I ever lectured 
again, I should assert that the early settlers of Chicago were the happiest 
people in the world, as I believe they were. But a strict regard for the real 
historical purposes of this lecture will permit me to allude only incidentally 
to our early sources of entertainment.

We are apt to speak of Chicago as a new city. But it is not so, compared with 
the great mass of other cities in the United States. 

Take out Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans, and what is there 
older, in the date of its incorporation, in the West, extending to the 
Pacific? But when our city was organized we had no Pacific possessions, save 
Oregon Territory, which we then owned in common with Great Britain. The future 
historian of America will not, however, take into consideration the date of 
our incorporation. The ancient Romans were in the habit of dating events from 
the foundation of their city. But "Urbs condita" or "Chicago condita" will 
never be a reckoning point in our city's history. Even in this assembly, there 
are not as many who know in what year our city was incorporated as in one of 
our public schools there are children who can spell Melchisedec, 
notwithstanding modern politicians have kicked from the public schools the 
Book that contained the eighth commandment.

From Washington's inauguration, in 1789, to Chicago's first Mayor's 
inauguration, in 1837, we have but forty-eight years, a period of time that 
the future historian of America, when speaking of Chicago, will not notice. 
But a resident of Chicago was not elected to Congress until 1843, and yet he 
became associated not only with men prominent under every Administration of 
the United States Government, and many of them born before the inauguration of 
Washington, but with some born even before the Declaration of Independence, 
and two, at least, before the tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbor. John 
Quincy Adams was born in 1767, and he was accustomed to tell us that among his 
earliest recollections was that of hearing the report of the guns at the 
battle of Bunker Hill. Benjamin Tappan, Senator from Ohio, was born in 1773. 
Then there was Henry Clay, Secretary of State while John Quincy Adams was 
President, United States Senator as early as 1806, Speaker of the House in 
1811, born in 1777, nine months after the Declaration of Independence, and one 
who could collect a larger crowd and disperse it quicker and in better humor 
than any other man who ever lived in America. I shall never forget my last 
interview with Henry Clay, and its description is appropriate to the history 
of Chicago. Our harbor was suffering for appropriations. President Polk had 
vetoed them all. A change of dynasties had been effected. Millard Fillmore was 
the acting President, and he was a warm friend of our harbor. It was in the 
spring of 1851. The Harbor bill had passed the House, and was sent to the 
Senate at a late day, and the controlling spirits had managed to keep it back 
until a still later day. The Southern Senators, under the lead of Jefferson 
Davis, spoke against time, declaring the bill unconstitutional. Clay did all 
that man could do for us, but in vain. Our bill was talked to death. Clay came 
on with us to New York City, to take a steamer for New Orleans. As the vessel 
was about to sail, we went on board to take our leave of him, and we all 
expressed a hope that the next time he returned home he would go around by the 
lakes. He replied, "I never go where the Constitution does not go. Hence I 
must travel by salt water. Make your lakes Constitutional. Keep up the war 
until your lake harbors get their deserved appropriations, and then I will 
come out and see you." We finally got the Constitution out here, but not until 
after Henry Clay had paid the debt of nature.

Then there was John C. Calhoun, Vice-President while John Quincy Adams was 
President in 1825; a member of Congress in 1811; Secretary of War when the 
reconstruction of our fort was completed in 1817; born in 1782, the year 
before Great Britain acknowledged our independence. He said his name came once 
very nearly being associated with Chicago,- as the new fort had been completed 
while he was Secretary of War, and it was suggested that it be called Fort 
Calhoun. But he did not think it right to change the old name which had been 
given in honor of Gen. Henry Dearborn, who was Secretary of War when the first 
fort was built, in 1804. Official documents tell us that, in 1803, Capt. John 
Whistler, then a Lieutenant at Detroit, was ordered here to build the fort, 
that his troops came by land, and that he, with his family and his supplies, 
came round by the lakes in the United States schooner Tracy, with Dorr for 
Master. This probably was the first sail-vessel that ever came to Chicago. I 
can think of no business that could have brought one here before. This Capt. 
John Whistler was father of Col. William Whistler, who died in 1863, and was 
so favorably known by our early settlers, and who was father-in-law of the 
late Robert A. Kinzie, of this city.

Besides, there was Judge William Wilkins, of Pennsylvania, born in 1779; 
Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, born in 1782; John J. Crittenden, of 
Kentucky, born in 17863 and Judge Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, born in 
1789.

Then there were three men whose names are identified with the history of the 
West. There was Lewis Cass, born in 1782, appointed, in 1813, Governor of the 
Northwestern Territory, then embracing Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, 
and all west. And William Woodbridge, born in 1780, appointed in 1814, 
Secretary of the same Territory. These gentlemen where walking histories of 
the Northwest. Then there was Thomas H. Benton, born in 1782, Senator when 
Missouri was admitted in 1821, who made his first trips to Washington on 
horseback. Add his knowledge to that of Messrs. Woodbridge and Cass, and we 
have a complete history of the entire West. Many now before me will remember 
the patriotic lecture he delivered here in the spring of 1857, upon the 
approaching crisis to this country, about a year before his death, probably 
the last lecture of his life. Nor should I fail to mention Gen. Henry Dodge, 
the Anthony Wayne-of his period, born also in 1782, one of the first Senators 
from Wisconsin.

A single member of Congress, and the first one elected from Chicago, was 
associated in Congress with two members who served in President Monroe's 
Cabinet, one in President J. Q. Adams', three in President Jackson's, one in 
President Van Buren's, five in President Harrison's, four in President 
Tyler's, four in President Polk's, four in President Taylor's, seven in 
President Fillmore's, four in President Pierce's, five in President 
Buchanan's, and six in President Lincoln's; embracing a period of American 
official history from 1817; and some of these men were born before the tea was 
thrown overboard in Boston harbor.

For some years after Chicago elected her first member of Congress, the widow 
of President Madison gave receptions at Washington, and on the first of 
January her guests were shown apartments where were suspended dresses which 
she had worn upon all great occasions, including the receptions of Presidents 
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and her husband. James Madison was not only a 
member of the Continental Congress, but also a member of the first Congress 
under the Constitution, and so continued during the terms of Washington's 
Presidency; and was Secretary of State under Mr. Jefferson's Administration. 
So this lady had had ample opportunity to know the customs of every preceding 
period of our Governmental history. Now, if her heirs bring out these dresses 
for the Centennial (she had no children), the public will be astonished at 
their remarkably small number, she not having had, in over a quarter of a 
century, what the wife of the average officeholder of these days will have in 
a single year.

Then there was the widow of Gen. Alexander Hamilton, the confidant of Gen. 
Washington in the Revolution, and his Secretary of the Treasury, who was 
killed in a duel by Aaron Burr. She was born in 1757, and died at Washington 
in 1854. She was soliciting Congress to aid her in publishing her husband's 
works. She could tell all about her father, Gen. Philip Schuyler, of the 
American Revolution; the personal appearance of Gen. Washington and his lady; 
and of almost all other public persons of the Revolutionary period. In fact, 
when you sent your first member of Congress to Washington, all society was 
redolent with scenes of the Revolutionary period; and here in our midst were 
several Revolutionary soldiers; and one, Father David Keniston, who claimed to 
have been one of the party who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor.

You will excuse me for digressing from the direct purpose of this lecture if I 
here state to you, that since I commenced writing it, I have received a letter 
from an old colleague in Congress, who was born the same year Great Britain 
acknowledged our independence, 1783,—as it will probably be the last 
opportunity that many of you will ever have of hearing a letter read from a 
man now living who is older than our Government; I allude to the Hon. Artemas 
Hale, of Bridgewater, Mass. He is the oldest ex-member of Congress now living, 
in his 93d year. Do you want to hear what the veteran says?

My health, considering my age, is quite good. But my time for taking any 
active part in public matters is past. Still, however, I feel a deep interest 
in the welfare and prosperity of our beloved country, and am pained to hear of 
the corruption and frauds of so many of our public men. It appears to me that 
it is of the highest importance that our circulating medium should have a 
fixed and permanent value, which it cannot have but by a specie basis. I 
should be very much pleased to receive a letter from you, with your views of 
public matters.

I answered his letter in one word, "Amen !"

Thus you will see that our history laps so closely upon the Revolutionary 
period that there is no precise point at which we can say that Chicago began, 
unless it be in 1832, when the marching of the troops of Gen. Scott to Rock 
Island, on the Mississippi, called attention to the fertility of the soil and 
the beautiful locations west of us. We often hear of different men who have 
done much for Chicago, by their writings, their speeches, or their enterprise. 
But I have never heard of a man who has done more for Chicago than Chicago has 
done for him. God made Lake Michigan and the country to the west of it; and, 
when we come to estimate who have done the most for Chicago, the glory belongs 
first to the enterprising farmers who raised a surplus of produce and sent it 
here for shipment; and second, to the hardy sailors who braved the storms of 
our harborless lakes to carry it to market. All other classes - were the 
incidents, and not the necessities, of our embryo city. Chicago is but the 
index of the prosperity of our agricultural classes. And to this day we hear 
Chicago mercantile failures attributed to the inability of farmers to get 
their produce to market, when the roads are in a bad condition. If we pass by 
the impetus given to the agricultural development of the country west of 
Chicago by the Black Hawk War of 1832, we must admit that we are passing into 
the bi-centennial period. What did Chicago know of the Declaration of 
Independence, the Revolutionary War, the Peace of 1783, or the inauguration of 
Washington, until years afterwards? It is probable that Capt Whistler, when he 
came here to build the fort of 1804, brought to Chicago the first information 
on these subjects, and probably had to employ an interpreter to explain it. It 
was probably his Chaplain that made the first prayer for the President of the 
United States and all in authority; and his vessel that first floated the 
Stars and Stripes on Lake Michigan. But there were prayers here 200 years ago, 
and a flag that did not denote our national independence, but French 
territorial aggrandizement.

I have used my best efforts to find the earliest recognition of Chicago by any 
official authority. Charlevoix and other French writers make mention of the 
place, but I cannot find that the French Government in any way recognized it. 
After the Canadas were ceded to Great Britain, the whole Illinois country was 
placed under the local administration of Canada by a bill which passed the 
British Parliament in 1766, known as the "Quebec Bill;” but there is nothing 
to prove that the Canadian Government took any official notice of this place. 
It may be interesting to know what was religious liberty in those days. At the 
period of the change of Government from the French, under the treaty of Paris, 
in 1763, Thomas Gage was Commander-in-Chief of the British King's troops in 
North America; and in 1764, he issued a proclamation authorizing the Roman 
Catholics of Illinois to exercise the worship of their religion in the same 
manner as they did in Canada, and to go wherever they pleased, even to New 
Orleans.

In October, 1778, the House of Burgesses of Virginia created the County of 
Illinois, appointed John Todd, of Kentucky, Civil Commander, and authorized 
all the civil officers to which the inhabitants had been accustomed, to be 
chosen by a majority of the citizens of their respective districts. From this 
we should infer that there were then settlements somewhere in the State. But I 
can find nothing of Chicago while we belonged to Virginia. The late Wm. H. 
Brown, of this city, in a lecture before our Historical Society, in 1865, 
said: "The French inhabitants of Kaskaskia, in 1818, the year in which I made 
my residence there, claimed that that village was founded in 1707. There were 
evidences at that time (the remains of former edifices, among them the Jesuit 
College) that their chronology was substantially correct."

In 1788, Gen. Arthur St. Clair became Governor of the entire Northwestern 
Territory, and was the first man to fill that position. 

The seat of government for Chicago people was then at Marietta, O. In 1790 he 
came to Kaskaskia (some writers say Cahokia) and organized what is now the 
entire State of Illinois into a county, which he named for himself. Besides 
this there were but two counties in the whole Northwestern Territory—the 
County of Knox, embracing Indiana, and the County of Hamilton, embracing Ohio. 
But there is nothing to show that Chicago at that time was known to the civil 
authorities. Besides consulting all the early writers upon the subject, I have 
corresponded with all the men in the country who I thought would know anything 
concerning it. And I cannot find anyone who has any authority for stating that 
there was any official recognition of Chicago until Gen. Wayne's Treaty, made 
at Greenville in 1795, in which he acquired title from the Indians to a tract 
of land, six miles square, at the mouth of the Chicago River, where a fort 
formerly stood. Greenville is in the southwestern part of Ohio, in Dark 
County, upon the Indiana State line. 

There is nothing to show that, at that time, Gen. Wayne came any farther west, 
not even as far as Fort Wayne, although he appears to have had the same 
knowledge of the importance of the position of Fort Wayne as he did of that of 
Chicago. Why the fort at this place, referred to, was built here, and who 
built it, I have not been able to ascertain. As the French and Indians were 
always allies, there is no reason why the French should have built such a 
fort. It may be that it was built by one of the tribes of Indians to defend 
the place from some other tribe. But offsetting tradition against Gen. Wayne's 
official recognition of a fort here, it may be that there was a mere trading 
and store-house, surrounded by pickets. The prevailing impression is that such 
was the character of all those places called forts prior to the abdication of 
the French authority. Col. Gurdon S. Hubbard, our oldest living settler, who 
was here in 1818, favors this idea, and has reminded me of an almost 
forgotten, but at one time extensively received, tradition, that this old 
fort, or palisaded trading-post, was on the West Side, upon the North Branch, 
near where Indiana street now crosses it; and it was erected, or at least was 
at one time occupied, by a Frenchman named Garie, and hence the tradition that 
our North Branch river was one called "Garie's River."

There was a powerful chief of the Illinois named Chicagou, who went to France 
in the year 1725. The Hon. Sidney Breese, who settled at Kaskaskia in 1818, 
who was in the United States Senate six years during my service in Congress, 
and who still honors our Supreme Court, is the best informed man in Illinois 
history now living. He writes me:

I know of no authorized recognition of Chicago as a place on this globe, 
anterior to Wayne's treaty. I have a copy of a map, which I made from one in 
the Congressional Library, which I found among the papers of President 
Jefferson, made in 1685; in which is a place on the lake shore, about where 
your city is, marked "Chicagou;" and Father Louis Vivier, who was a priest at 
Kaskaskia in 1752, in a letter to his Superior, says: "Chikagou was a 
celebrated Indian chief, who went to Paris, and the Duchess of Orleans, at 
Versailles, gave him a splendid snuff-box, which he was proud to exhibit, on 
his return, to his brother redskins."

Some have contended that our city was named from him. But Charlevoix, in his 
History of New France, gives us that name as early as 1671, in which year, he 
says, a French voyageur, named Nicholas Perrot, went to Chicago, at the lower 
end of Lake Michigan, where the Miamis then were. This was before Father James 
Marquette came here.

The treaty of Greenville, at the time considered of no other importance than 
as settling our difficulties with the Indians, afterwards became a matter of 
very serious importance in the settlement of our difficulties with Great 
Britain, while the treaty of Ghent was being negotiated, 1814. When the 
Commissioners met, the Americans were surprised by the British Commissioners 
demanding the recognition of that treaty as the basis of negotiations as to 
the western boundary of the United States. The British at first refused to 
negotiate except upon the basis of that treaty, and insisted upon the entire 
sovereignty and independence of the Indian Confederacy. They claimed the 
Indians as their allies, and considered themselves bound to protect them in 
their treaty. It will be remembered that the Indians had, for a long time, 
received annuities from the French Government, and that these annuities were 
continued by Great Britain after the treaty of cession in 1763; and that, 
after our independence was acknowledged by Great Britain, the Indians annually 
sent delegations to Canada to receive these annuities.   

During the pendency of these negotiations, it was ascertained that there had 
been an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the celebrated Chief 
Tecumseh and the British authorities. After discussing the matter, and finding 
the Americans peremptorily refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of the 
Indians, the British Commissioners proposed that the United States and Great 
Britain should exercise a joint protectorate over the Indians, and consider 
all the territory not acknowledged to belong to the United States by the 
treaty of Greenville as embraced within that protectorate. This would have 
left the six miles square at the mouth of the Chicago River in a permanently 
Indian country. The West would have been situated similarly to Oregon, which 
was so long held under the joint occupation of Great Britain and the United 
States; and the final result of the joint occupation would have been the same 
as in Oregon, a division of the territory; a part of it, perhaps including 
Chicago, being attached, in the end, to the Canadian provinces. The British 
Commissioners were so pertinacious on this subject that it was thought at one 
time that negotiations would have to be given up. And when the British 
Commissioners finally yielded, the British Government received the bitter 
curses of the Indians.

Billy Caldwell, better known in Chicago as Sauganash, who lived here several 
years after I came here, and was well known to me personally, had been the 
intimate friend of Tecumseh, and declared that if Tecumseh had been living he 
would have aroused all the Indians in the Northwest in a general warfare upon 
the Canadian settlements, in retaliation for what he considered the treachery 
at Ghent. Caldwell, to the day of his death, insisted that Tecumseh, not long 
before he was killed, predicted that the British in time would abandon them, 
and seriously meditated, during the war of 1812, upon going over to the 
Americans with all his forces. Caldwell was the son of an Irish Colonel in the 
British army, stationed upon the Detroit frontier, whose name he bore. His 
mother was Tecumseh's own sister. He ultimately went to his tribe at the 
Pottawatomie Reservation in Shawnee County, Kan., and died there.

When the Illinois territory was a part of Indiana, our seat of government was 
at Vincennes. When it was set off from Indiana, in 1809, the whole territory 
was organized into two counties, St. Clair and Randolph. Judge Breese, whose 
home was in Kaskaskia in 1818, informs me that his home was never in the same 
county with Chicago, being in the southern County of Randolph.

From St. Clair County, what is now Cook County, was set off in the new County 
of Madison; thence in the new County of Crawford; in 1819, in the new County 
of Clark; and so little was then known of the northern country, that the act 
creating Clark County extended it to the Canada line. In 1821, we were set off 
in the new County of Pike; in 1823, in the new County of Fulton; and in 1825, 
in the new County of Peoria. I have not only caused the County records of 
these counties to be examined, but have also corresponded with their earliest 
settlers, and I can find no official recognition of Chicago until we reach 
Fulton County. The Clerk of that County writes me, that the earliest mention 
of Chicago in the records is the order of an election at the term of the 
Fulton County Commissioners' Court, Sept. 2, 1823, to choose one Major and 
company officers, polls at Chicago to be opened at the house of John Kinzie. 
The returns of this election cannot be found, if they were ever made. As the 
county was organized in 1823, this, of course, was the first election under 
the organization of the county. The same Court ordered, April 27, 1824, that 
the Sheriff, Abner Eads, be released from paying the money tax collected at 
Chicago by Rousser. In those days the Sheriffs were ex-officio collectors of 
taxes. The name indicates that our Tax-Collector was then a Frenchman, or a 
mixed-breed French and Indian. It seems that they had defaulters in those 
days, as well as now. It would be a gratifying historical fact if we could 
know how much this man Rousser collected, as showing the financial resources 
of our population at that time, when all the real estate belonged to the 
General Government. The numerous followers of this man Rousser have shown 
their ingratitude to the founder of their sect by their failure to erect any 
monument to his memory, or to name after him a street, a school-house, or a 
fire-engine house. These Rousserites are getting to be a numerous body of men, 
and their motto is, "Keep what you collect." One election and one steal are 
all that the records of Fulton County show for Chicago!

The Clerk of Peoria County writes me, that his earliest records commence March 
8, 1825. From these records I learn that John Kinzie was commissioned Justice 
of the Peace July 28, 1825. He was the first Justice of the Peace resident at 
Chicago. Alexander Wolcott, his son-in-law, and John B. Beaubien, were 
commissioned Sept. 10, of the same year.

I have also the assessment-roll of John L. Bogardus, assessor of Peoria 
County, for the year 1825, dated July 25, which is as follows:

Tax-Payers' Names.; Valuation.; Tax.
1. Beaubien, John B; $1000; $10.00
2. Clybourne, Jonas; 625; 6.25
3. Clark, John K; 250; 2.50
4. Crafts, John; 5000; 50.00
5. Clermont, Jeremy; 100; 1.00
6. Coutra, Louis; 50; .50
7. Kinzie, John, 500; 5.00
8. Laframboise, Claude; 100; 1.00
9. Laframboise, Joseph; 50; .50
10. McKee, David; 100; 1.00
11. Piche, Peter; 100; 1.00
12. Robinson, Alexander; 200; 2.00
13. Wolcott, Alexander; 572;  5.72
14. Wilemet [Ouilmette], Antoine; 400; 4.00
 
The entire valuation, land then being not taxable, of all the property in 
Chicago was $9,047, and the rate was one per cent. But the property of the 
American Fur Company was assessed to John Crafts, its agent, at $5,000. He was 
a bachelor, and died the next year, and Mr. Kinzie was appointed in his place. 
Deducting the American Fur Co.’s assessment, we have only $4,047 as the 
personal property of Chicago, in 1825, $40.47 as the tax, and thirteen as the 
number of the tax-payers.

The clerk sent me a copy of two poll-books used at Chicago - one at an 
election held Aug. 7, 1826, containing thirty-five names; the other at an 
election held Aug. 2, 1830, containing thirty-two names; thus showing a 
decrease of three voters in four years. I will read you the names of our 
voters in 1826, and you will see that only ten of the fourteen tax-payers in 
1825 then voted:
 
1 Augustin Banny. [Bannot?]
2 Henry Kelley.
3 Daniel Bourassea.
4 Cole Weeks.	
5 Antoine Ouilmette. 1825
6 John Baptiste Secor.
7 Joseph Catie.
8 Benjamin Russell.
9 Basile Displattes.
10 Francis Laframboise, Sr.
11 Francis Laframboise, Jr.
12 Joseph Laframboise. 1825
13 Alexander Larant.	
14 Francis Laducier.
15 Peter Chavellie.
16 Claude Laframboise. 1825
17 Jeremiah Clairmore [Clermont ?] ‘25
18 Peter Junio.	
 19 John Baptiste Lafortune. 
20 John Baptiste Malast. 
21 Joseph Pothier. 
22 Alexander Robinson. 1825
23 John K. Clark. 1825
24 David McKee. 1825
25 Joseph Anderson. 
26 Joseph Pepot. 
27 John Baptiste Beaubien. 1825
28 John Kinzie. 1825
29 Archibald Clybourne. 
30 Billy Caldwell. 
31 Martin Vansicle. 
32 Paul Jamboe. 
33 Jonas Clybourne. 1825
34 Edward Ament. 
35 Samuel Johnston.
 
I will now read, you the names of our voters in 1830, showing that only three 
of the fourteen tax-payers of 1825 then voted:
 
1 Stephen J. Scott.
2 John B. Beaubien. 1825, 1826
3 Leon Bourassea.
4 B. H. Laughton.
5 Jesse Walker,
6 Medard B. Beaubien.
7 John Baptiste Chavellea.
8 James Kinzie.
9 Russell E. Heacock.
10 James Brown.
11 Jos. Laframboise, 1825, 1826
12 John L. Davis.
13 William See.
14 John Van Horn.
15 John Mann.
16 David Van Eaton.
17 Stephen Mack.
18 Jonathan A. Bailey.
19 Alexander McDollo. [McDole?]
20 John S. C. Hogan.
21 David McKee. 1825, 1826
22 Billy Caldwell. 1826
23 Joseph Thibeaut.
24 Peter Frique.
25 Mark Beaubien.	
26 Laurant Martin.	
27 John Baptiste Secor. 1826        
28 Joseph Bauskey.	
29 Michael Welch.
30 Francis Laducier. 1826
31 Lewis Ganday.
32 Peresh Leclerc.

It is a remarkable commentary upon the fickleness of our population, that only 
six of the men who voted in 1826 voted in 1830; and these six-were half-breeds 
or Government employes. Father John Kinzie, however, died between the two 
elections, upon the 6th of January, 1828, aged 65. But there were some not 
voting at the second election, such as the late Archibald Clybourne, his 
father Jonas, and half-brother John K. Clark, who ended their days with us. 
The half-breeds and French who did not vote may have been away on a hunting 
and trading expedition. The voters in 1826 seem to have understood their true 
interest, being dependents upon the fort, as every one of them voted the 
Administration ticket, John Quincy Adams then being President. If there were 
ever three men in the United States who electrified the whole country with 
their fiery denunciations of the military power, they were President John 
Quincy Adams, his Vice-President John C. Calhoun, and his Secretary of State 
Henry Clay. Neither of the three ever forget Gen. Jackson! It would have 
seemed malicious, and yet quite pertinent, on the part of the Chicago member 
of Congress to have asked either of these gentlemen whether it was not a 
singular fact that, while Mr. Adams was President, the people of Chicago 
unanimously voted with the fort! Ninian Edwards for Governor, Samuel KL 
Thompson for Lieutenant-Governor, Daniel P. Cook for Congressman, the 
Administration candidates, each received thirty-five votes, being all there 
were. The much-complained-of military power of the present day has never 
secured a greater unanimity in the colored vote of the South. But four years 
later, in 1830, when Andrew Jackson was President, there was a material change 
in the politics of the place. John Reynolds, the Jackson candidate for 
Governor, received twenty-two out of the thirty-two votes cast. Of the six who 
voted at both elections, and who voted for the Adams candidate in 1826, five 
voted for the Jackson candidate in 1830; showing their consistency by each 
time Voting with the Administration, or more properly with the fort. Billy 
Caldwell, the Sauganash, the nephew of Tecumseh, voted the Jackson ticket; 
while Joseph Laframboise, a noted Indian chief, stood out and voted against 
it. Perhaps Gen. Jackson, in some of the early Indian wars, had caused the 
death of some of Laframboise's relatives or friends. Up to 1848, we had the 
viva voce system of voting in the State of Illinois. Each man went up to the 
polls, with or without a ticket in his hands, and told whom he wanted to vote 
for, and the judges so recorded it. But in those days the masses knew as 
little whom they were voting for as they do now. For the judges often read off 
the names of the candidates from the tickets, and the voter would nod his 
head. There was no chance, however, for stuffing the ballot-box under the viva 
voce system. It may account for the falling off of the vote between 1826 and 
1830, that some persons would not vote the Jackson ticket, and yet disliked to 
vote against the fort. There were four of the Laframboise family voting in 
1826, and only one in 1830. The names of voters in 1826 indicate that full 
three-fourths of them were French and half-breeds. The judges in 1826 were 
Father John Kinzie, the late Gen. John B. Beaubien, and Billy Caldwell. The 
clerks were the late Archibald Clybourne and his half-brother John K. Clark. 
The election was held at the Agency House, in Chicago Precinct, Peoria County. 
The Agency House was on the North Side, and was the second house built in 
Chicago, Mr. Kinzie's being the first. The Indian Agent was Dr. Alexander 
Wolcott, who died in 1830, son-in-law of Mr. Kinzie.

The election of 1830, was held in the house of James Kinzie, Chicago Precinct, 
Peoria County. This house was on the West Side, near the forks of the river. 
The South Side had no status at that time, there being nothing then on that 
side except the fort and light-house building, and the log-houses of the two 
Beaubien brothers,—one residing at the lake shore, and one near the forks of 
the river, with such a marsh between, that, much of the time, their most 
convenient, way of visiting each other was in boats in the river.

The judges at the election of 1830, were Russell E. Heacock, the first lawyer 
to settle in Chicago, Gen. John B. Beaubien, one of the judges in 1826, and 
James Kinzie. The clerks were Medard B. Beaubien, well known in this city, now 
principal agent of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians at Silver Lake, Shawnee 
County, Kansas, and Jesse Walker. The names of voters in 1830, indicate a 
large influx of the Anglo-Saxon race; but among them was one Irishman, 
probably the first Irishman who ever trod the Chicago soil. 

The first thought that occurred to me was, What could bring an Irishman out 
here all alone? Who was to help him celebrate St. Patrick's Day? Who was to 
attend his wake? His name was Michael Welch. What have our many Irish Aldermen 
been thinking of, that they have never given us, in honor of their first 
settler, a Welch avenue, a Welch street, a Welch schoool-house, or a Welch 
fire-engine? The next thought that occurred to me was, What could he be doing 
out here all by himself? Now, what would an Irishman naturally do when he 
found himself here all alone, hundreds of miles distant from any other 
Irishman? He was a bugler. He blew his horn. He was a discharged soldier, and, 
having faithfully served out his time, he stopped long enough to vote the 
straight Jackson ticket, and then joined Captain Jesse Brown's Rangers and 
marched on to clear the Indians out of the way of his coming countrymen, who 
were already aroused by his bugle's blast, as his patron St. Patrick, 
centuries before, had cleared the snakes out of his way in the land of his 
nativity.

Capt. Jesse Brown was a brother of the late Judge Thomas C. Brown, of our 
Supreme Court, and was authorized by President Jackson to raise a company of 
men, who were called "Brown's Rangers," and was ordered to report to Gen. 
Stephen W. Kearney, on the Western frontier.

There is a prevailing impression that Irishmen never go anywhere except in 
squads. But the history of the American Continent will prove that Irishmen 
have ventured as far alone upon hazardous explorations as any other men. But 
he dislikes to stay alone. Like the honey-bee, when he finds a good thing, he 
wants some others to come and help him enjoy it. My original Congressional 
district extended north to the Wisconsin line, west to the Rock River Valley, 
south so as to embrace Princeton, LaSalle, Bloomington, Urbana, and Danville. 
I had to travel all over this district with a horse and buggy, and visit the 
spare settlements. I often found an Irishman cultivating the soil alone. But 
when I made a second visit, I found some more Irishmen there, or else the 
original one had gone. Gov. Winthrop, of Boston, in his journal under date of 
1642, tells us of one Darby Field, an Irishman, who could not rest contented 
after his landing in America until he had climbed to the top of the White 
Mountains. He was the first man to ascend Mount Washington, and when asked why 
he went, replied, "Merely to take a look at the country!"
 
The official dispatches of one of the battles of the Mexican War commended the 
conduct of Private Sullivan, of one of our Chicago regiments. In the battle he 
had advanced before his company, engaged in a single combat with a Mexican 
officer, and killed him. I called President Polk's attention to the report, 
and asked for Sullivan's promotion. He referred the matter to the Adjutant-
General. Time passed along, and no appointment was sent to the Senate. I 
called upon the Adjutant-General, and he read me a letter from Sullivan's 
superior officer, commending his courage and general good conduct, but 
strongly protesting against his appointment as Lieutenant in the regular army, 
on account of his deficiency in West Point education. I appealed to the 
President, and it did not take long to satisfy him that good fighting in war-
time would counterbalance all deficiencies in education, and Sullivan was 
promoted. Some time after the close of the war, his father called upon me, 
said he had not heard from his son for a long time, and wanted me to find him. 
Many of you will remember the father, Jeremiah Sullivan, at one time Justice 
of the Peace,—a tall and well-proportioned gentleman, with as prepossessing a 
general appearance as any gentleman who walked our streets. I wrote to 
Washington, and received for answer that Sullivan resigned his Lieutenancy at 
the close of the war. Inside the official letter was a note marked "private 
and unofficial." "Tell Sullivan's father to read the news from Mexico. I 
enclose some scraps from a New Orleans newspaper, and the Col. Sullivan 
therein mentioned is reported to be the late Lieut. Sullivan of the regular 
army." Some time afterwards, an officer of the army gave me the following 
account: After the close of the war with Mexico, some of the officers were 
tarrying late at dinner, when Lieut. Sullivan entered and was saluted 
with "Will you join us, Lieut. Sullivan?" "Col. Sullivan, if you please, 
gentleman," was the reply. Whereupon one of the officers said, "It will not 
surprise us at all if you are Col. Sullivan. If your killing that Mexican was 
of so much account as to put you on an equality with us who have studied four 
years at West Point, and have seen considerable active service, a little 
personal favoritism might carry you still higher, and make you a Colonel. Why, 
Lieut. Sullivan, if you should kill another Mexican, those politicians at 
Washington would make you Commander-in-Chief!" "Gentlemen," said Sullivan, "it 
is business that brings me here. Here is my commission as Colonel in the 
Mexican revolutionary army, and now you know my authority. And now, here's my 
business in this paper, which I will read." He then read a paper authorizing 
and requesting him to employ a competent engineer upon his staff. The officers 
reminded him that they knew nothing of the face of the Mexican country, had no 
maps, knew not his route, and insisted that they could be of no service to 
him. 

"You do not understand me, gentlemen,” replied Sullivan; "it is not for what I 
am going to do that I want any of your assistance. I only want you to map it 
out after I have done it. You are always talking about your military school, 
and what you have studied, and the like of you will be at school hereafter, 
and they will want to study Sullivan's Route to the Capital of Mexico; and if 
ever I should be Emperor, whom would I want for Secretary of War but my own 
Engineer?" Sullivan set out upon his march with no one to map out his route. 
He penetrated regions where no man had ever been before. He came out of 
forests where men least expected him. He appeared to be everywhere, and the 
inhabitants could make no calculation where he was not. They either all joined 
him, or fled before him. He had everything his own way, until, in his efforts 
to join the main army, he found himself in the fortified country. 

Here he missed his engineer and his military education. He was wounded, taken 
prisoner, marched into the Plaza, a bullet pierced his heart, and that was the 
last of Sullivan. But it just took a Chicago Irish boy to teach the Emperor 
Maximilian how to die the death of a soldier some twenty years afterwards; and 
Sullivan had as much right in Mexico as Maximilian.

There are 67 names upon the two voting-lists of 1825, and 1830. Six voted at 
both elections, leaving 61 different names, which, with the four on the tax-
list of 1825 who did not vote at either election, constitute the 65 from whom 
our first families are descended.

And as there may be some pride in after years in tracing one's connection with 
our first families, the real Knickerbockers of Chicago, 1 have taken some 
pains to obtain interviews or hold correspondence with such of them as might 
be living, and with the descendants of such as are dead. Of a very large 
proportion of them I can obtain no knowledge whatever. I shall publish all 
their names, and at some future time shall publish what I have ascertained, or 
may hereafter ascertain, of their history and of their descendants. When it 
was known, in 1860, that the Prince of Wales was to make Chicago a visit, one 
of our society-men suggested that it was my duty, as Mayor of the city, to 
select about a hundred from our first families and give the Prince a ball. I 
asked him to give the names of the hundred from the first families. This he 
said he was unwilling to do. I asked him then to give me the names of even ten 
of our first families, meaning, of course, nine besides his own. This he also 
declared himself unwilling to do. 

But if, at any future time, any one of our society men should wish to make a 
party from our first families, he may derive some assistance from this lecture.

At this time I think there are but three of those voters-living. One is Medard 
B. Beaubien, son of the late Gen. John B. Beaubien, of this city, now the 
leading man among the Pottawatomie Indians, in Kansas. The second is David 
McKee, now living near Aurora, Ill. He was born in Virginia in 1800, and went 
to Cincinnati when a young man, as a blacksmith. Under the treaty of Chicago, 
made with the Indians by Gen. Cass, in 1821, the Government was to keep a 
blacksmith here, who was to work exclusively for the Indians. 

Col. Benjamin B. Kerchival, then Indian Agent, afterwards a prominent citizen 
of Detroit, went to Cincinnati and employed McKee to come here in that 
capacity. McKee reached Fort Wayne, and there waited for a guide. At that time 
the only mail Chicago had was a monthly one to Fort Wayne. He did not wait 
long before the exploring expedition of Maj. Stephen H. Long reached that 
place, and he accompanied it to Chicago. Turning to the history of that 
expedition, by Prof. William H. Keating, of the University of Pennsylvania, I 
find that orders were issued to Maj. Long, April 25, 1823, for him to commence 
at Philadelphia, thence to proceed to Wheeling, thence to Chicago or Fort 
Wayne, thence to Fort Armstrong or Dubuque lead mines, thence up the 
Mississippi to Fort St. Anthony, etc. The expedition reached Fort Wayne, May 
26, 1823, and Prof. Keating speaks of the fort then there as erected in 1814 
on the site of the old fort, the location of which had been designated by Gen. 
Anthony Wayne after his victory over the confederated Indians on the 20th of 
August, 1794, which gave rise to the treaty of Greenville in the following 
year. The Professor says also, that the expedition fortunately met at Fort 
Wayne the express sent from Chicago for letters, and obtained him as guide. 

They left Fort Wayne May 29th, 1823. Their cavalcade consisted of seven 
persons, including the soldier, mail-carrier, and a colored servant; and they 
had two horses loaded with provisions. On the 5th of June they reached Fort 
Dearborn, Chicago, having been eight days in traveling the distance of 216 
miles, an average of 27 miles a day, their distance exceeding the usual 
allowance, by 16 miles, in consequence of their circuitous route to avoid the 
Elkhart River. The railroad train now leaving here at 9 a.m. reaches Fort 
Wayne at 2 p.m. The post at Chicago was abandoned a few months after the party 
reached it, in consequence of the rapid extension of the white population 
westward, and the establishment of a chain of military posts along the 
Mississippi River, rendering the continuance of the force here unnecessary. An 
Indian Agent, Dr. Alexander Wolcott, uncle of our present County Surveyor, of 
the same name, remained here to keep up amicable relations with the Indians, 
and to attend to their wants, daily becoming greater in consequence of the 
increasing scarcity of game. Fort Dearborn was not occupied by soldiers again, 
except temporarily in transit, until 1832, when the Black Hawk troubles broke 
out. When Mr. McKee came here there were but two houses: one belonging to John 
Kinzie, the other to his son-in-law, Dr. Alexander Wolcott, the Indian Agent,—
Mr. Kinzie's having been built first. Both houses were built of logs, and 
lined with cedar bark. The third house was built by Joseph Pothier, a 
Frenchman, and one of the voters here in 1826, and who until recently was a 
resident of Milwaukee. He married an Indian half-breed, brought up by Mr. 
Kinzie, and was striker for Mr. McKee in the blacksmith shop. Mr. McKee was 
married by Mr. Kinzie, at Mr. Kinzie's house, and he built the fourth house. 
All four houses were on the north side of the river.

The inhabitants were soldiers, Frenchmen in the employ of the American Fur 
Company, and Indians. When the fort was not garrisoned, and the fur-traders 
were in the country making their purchases, the Indians constituted almost the 
entire population. In 1827-28, Mr. McKee carried the mail once a month to Fort 
Wayne. As his Indian pony had to carry the mail-bag and the blankets for him 
to sleep upon, he could not carry corn for the pony and provisions for 
himself. He drove the pony in front of him, and cut down an elm or basswood 
tree for the pony to browse upon during the night. He carried a gun with which 
he killed the game for his own food. His route was from here to Niles, Mich., 
thence to Elkhart, Ind., and thence to Fort Wayne. His average trip from this 
place to Fort Wayne was fourteen days; the quickest time he ever made was ten 
days. Gen. John McNiel, one of the heroes in the battle of Lundy's Lane, 
commanded the fort when Mr. McKee came to Chicago. Soon after his arrival, a 
sailing vessel, called the Heartless, undertook to enter the mouth of the 
river, ran ashore, and was beached in the sand. They tried to cut her out, but 
she went to pieces. About a year thereafter the first vessel entered the 
harbor, and anchored opposite the fort. It was the United States revenue-
cutter Fairplay. When we speak of the first vessel coming to Chicago, there is 
always a confusion between the vessels that anchored outside and the vessels 
that actually came up into the river. It is claimed that this United States 
revenue-cutter Fairplay was the first one to actually enter the river. In 
1826, there came here a sailing vessel called the Young Tiger, to enter the 
river, but she anchored out in the lake, slipped her cable, and went ashore.

Mr. E. Buell, now residing in Clinton County, Iowa, near Lyons, aged 75, 
claims that he was pilot and navigator on the schooner Aurora, Capt. Titus, 
that came to Chicago in 1820 or 1821; but he leaves the question unsettled as 
to whether or not he came up into the river. The steamers which brought here 
the troops of Gen. Scott, in 1832, had to anchor some distance outside. The 
persons claiming to have been upon the first vessel that passed over the 
Chicago bar and came up into the river, are even more numerous than those 
claiming to be descendants of the persons who had the first white child born 
in Chicago. I will not discuss this matter now, as the mass of you care less 
about those who had the first child than you do about those who are to have 
the next one, and what is to become of it.

The third man now living who voted in Chicago Precinct, Peoria County, in 
1830, is our well-known fellow-citizen, Mark Beaubien. He came here in 1826 to 
visit his brother, John B. Beaubien, who was an employe of the American Fur 
Company, and who lived in a log-house near the lake-shore, near the mouth of 
the river, on the South Side. Mark returned to Detroit, and brought his family 
here, and built him a log-house, fronting the river, on what is known as 
the "Old Wigwam Lot," on the corner of Lake and Market streets; it being at 
that time the only dwelling-house on the South Side, except his brother's.
 
He constructed it for hotel purposes, and, when the Indian Chief Sauganash 
learned his design, he told him that Americans named their hotels after big 
men, and asked him what he was going to call it. Mr. Beaubien took the hint, 
and said I’ll call it Sauganash!" A few years afterwards, he built a large 
addition to it, which was the first frame-house built on the South Side. It 
was in this house that I took my first meal, on my arrival here in 1836, it 
being then kept by John Murphy. Mr. Beaubien was born in 1800, and in Detroit, 
where his father was also born; but his grandfather was an emigrant from 
France. He established the first ferry, at the forks of the river. He was an 
original fiddler, having inherited the art in the natural way; and he will 
probably die one. In case of the absence of the music at any of our parties in 
olden times, Mr. Beaubien was always sent for, and when one fiddle-string 
broke, he was good for the three; and, when another broke, he could still keep 
up the music; and if there were only one string left, a party would never go 
away disappointed if Mr. Beaubien was left to play upon it. He has done much 
to keep up our first families, having had twenty-three children. His 
grandchildren had numbered fifty-three when the great-grandchildren began to 
make their appearance, and he stopped counting. I introduce him to you to-day 
as the only man you will probably ever see who witnessed the surrender of an 
American army. God grant that such an event may never happen again! During the 
War of 1812, Mr. Beaubien's father, hearing that the town (Detroit) was about 
to be bombarded by the British army, had ordered his children to go down into 
the cellar, when news came that Gen. Hull had surrendered. Mark Beaubien saw 
Gen. Hull and his staff rowed over to the Canadian shore, and then the 
soldiers were taken over under the charge of the red-coat officials.

Cook County was set off from Peoria County under an act passed in 1831. The 
first election was in Aug., 1832. The county was named for the Hon. Daniel P. 
Cook, son-in-law of Gov. Ninian Edwards, who was one of the first United 
States Senators from this State. 

Mr. Cook was a member of Congress from 1820 to 1827, and died in 1827, aged 
32, one of the most talented men who ever lived in this State. As our poll-
lists of the first election, in 1832, were burnt, I can no longer trace our 
first families, and those, who wish to marry into them must look back to those 
who were taxed in 1825, or voted in 1826 or 1830, if they do not wish their 
honors disputed. Cook County then included the present Counties of Lake, 
McHenry, DuPage, and Will, all west being included in Jo Daviess County. The 
only voting-place of Cook County at that time was at Chicago. The highest 
number of votes cast for all the candidates for any one office in 1832 was 
114, against 32 in 1830, and 35 in 1826.

It seems to have been the practice then, as now, to take our officers from 
Galena, and then, as now, they were very good men. 

Galena and Chicago were then in the same Representative and Senatorial 
Districts. Col. James M. Strode was elected to the Senate, and Benjamin Mills 
to the House, both being attorneys-at-law at Galena. Elijah Wentworth, Jr., 
who died at Galesburg, Ill., on the 18th of November last, received all the 
votes for Coroner at this election. He wrote me, just before his death, that 
he went with his father, Elijah Wentworth, Sr., from Maine to Kentucky; they 
moved thence to Dodgeville, Wis., where he was living at the time Jefferson 
Davis was constructing Fort Winnebago, about 75 miles distant. Davis had been 
ordered there soon after his graduation at West Point in 1828, and he often 
visited Dodgeville in attendance upon social parties, and is well remembered 
by old settlers there, to this day. In 1830, Mr. Wentworth and his father 
moved to Chicago, and rented a new hotel of James Kinzie, then the best in 
Chicago, on the West Side, near the forks of the river. It was a log-house, 
with upright boards upon the outside. He carried the mail from Chicago to 
Niles, once a month.

At the annual election in August, 1834, the highest number of votes for all 
the candidates for any one office was 528, against 114 in 1832. Thus our 
population began to increase. This vote was for the whole County of Cook. In 
1835, the highest number of votes in the entire county, for all the candidates 
for any one office, was 1064. And religious enterprise and liberality had so 
far advanced that, at the Ladies' Fair at the old St James, the mother of 
Episcopacy in the Northwest, on the 18th of June in that year, the receipts 
were $1,431. In the spring of 1837, at our first municipal election, the city 
alone cast 709 votes.*

It seems not to be generally known that, up to the time of the opening of the 
Illinois and Michigan Canal, Chicago was not at all troubled with mosquitoes; 
a blessing which amply compensated for many of our early deprivations.

*For list of names on the poll-book, see "Fergus' Directory for 1839."
 
The history of Chicago furnishes one with a complete history of an 
irredeemable paper-money system. Emigration was fast tending westward in 1835. 
Government land was $1.25 per acre. The emigrants had little or no-money, and 
would purchase land on credit at greatly advanced prices. Eastern speculators 
flocked here and took advantage of this, condition of things. The Government 
money received for lands would be deposited in the banks, credited to the 
Government, and then reloaned back to speculators. Thus the Government had 
credits in banks to more than the amount of their capital, and their assets 
consisted almost entirely of the notes of Western speculators. The Government 
was out of debt, and had no use for its surplus, which was forming the basis 
of those large speculative loans, and men became even more excited and 
reckless than were the land-operators here in Chicago at the time of the 
recent panic. Besides, money was taken from every branch of business to invest 
in these Western speculations. The President of the United States had no power 
to stop the sales of lands or to limit bank discounts. He saw the immediate 
necessity of arresting this condition of things, and he had no other way to do 
it than to issue an order that nothing but gold and silver should be received 
for the public lands. According to an invariable law, a redundancy of paper 
had driven the precious metals out of the country, and the banks had not the 
specie wherewith to redeem their bills, which were fast being presented to 
obtain land-office money. The banks all failed, and corporations and 
individuals issued certificates of indebtedness, which were interchanged as 
currency. 

States, counties, and cities paid their debts in warrants upon an empty 
treasury. The Canal Commissioners paid contractors in scrip, and the 
contractors paid their laborers in a lesser scrip, redeemable in the scrip of 
the Commissioners.

Nearly every man in Chicago doing business was issuing his individual scrip, 
and the city abounded with little tickets, such as "Good at our store for ten 
cents," "Good for a loaf of bread," "Good for a shave," "Good for a drink," 
etc., etc. When you went out to trade, the trader would look over your 
tickets, and select such as he could use to the best advantage. The times for 
a while seemed very prosperous. We had a currency that was interchangeable, 
and for a time we suffered no inconvenience from it, except when we wanted 
some specie to pay for our postage. In those days it took 25 cents to send a 
letter East.
 
But after a while it was found out that men were over-issuing. The barber had 
outstanding too many shaves; the baker too many loaves of bread; the saloon-
keeper too many drinks, etc., etc. Want of confidence became general. Each man 
became afraid to take the tickets of another. Some declined to redeem their 
tickets in any way, and some absconded. And people found out, as is always the 
case where there is a redundancy of paper money, that they had been 
extravagant, had bought things they did not need, and had run in debt for a 
larger amount than they were able to pay. Of course, nearly everyone failed, 
and charged his failure upon President Jackson's specie circular. In after 
times, I asked an old settler, who was a great growler in those days, what 
effect time had had upon his views of Gen. Jackson's circular. His reply was 
that Gen. Jackson had spoiled his being a great man. Said he, "I came to 
Chicago with nothing, failed for $100,000, and could have failed for a 
million, if he had let the bubble "burst in the natural way."

A single instance will illustrate to what various purposes those little 
tickets of indebtedness could be put. A boy had a ticket "Good for a drink." 
He dropped it into the church contribution-box, and heard no more of it. He 
told another boy, who did the same thing with the same result. That boy told 
his sister, who told her mother, who told her husband, who deemed it his duty 
to tell the Deacon. Meanwhile the boys were putting in the tickets "Good for a 
drink," and telling the other boys to do the same. The Deacon, alive to all 
the responsibilities of his position, for the first time in his life entered a 
saloon; called the barkeeper one side, and asked him to change a $1 scrip, 
well knowing he could not do so unless it were in liquor-tickets. The saloon-
keeper was afraid to offer such tickets, and declined to make the change, 
until the Deacon gave him a hint that, although he did not stimulate himself, 
he thought he could use the tickets. Then, said the Deacon, "I have a 
curiosity to know the extent of the circulation of these tickets, and really 
wish you would put a private mark upon them, and notify me when one returns." 
Think of a Deacon putting such currency into a contribution-box! But he did 
it, and the boys put in some more. On Monday afternoon, the Deacon was 
notified that one of his tickets had been redeemed. Oh, what a chance for a 
scandal case! Imagine that such a thing had happened in our day! 

Think of our enterprising newsgatherers calling upon a Deacon, and asking him 
what was the average time of a liquor-ticket's going from his church 
contribution-box to a saloon! With solemn tread the Deacon made his way to his 
pastor's residence, and asked him what disposition he made of the various 
tickets taken from the contribution-box. The reply was that his wife assorted 
them, strung them upon different strings, entered them upon a book, and gave 
the church credit as she used any of them. "And do you say, my dear brother," 
asked the Deacon, "that you have no knowledge of the particular uses to which 
these tickets have been put?" "I do say so," said the pastor. The Deacon 
breathed freer. He had cleared his pastor, but I have no doubt he prayed, "May 
the Lord have mercy on his poor wife!" The wife was called, and her husband 
said, "The Deacon wishes us to give an account of the proceeds of the 
contribution-box." "Not exactly so, my dear sister," said the Deacon; "but I 
wish to know for what purposes the liquor-tickets have been used." She 
comprehended the matter at once, and promptly replied, "Why, Deacon, did you 
want them? I never thought you were a drinking man. Now, as you didn't have 
the tickets, will you share with us the proceeds? Let us all take a drink!" 
She rushed to her pantry, brought out a pitcher, with tumblers, and it was 
filled with milk! In making the change with her milkman his eyes had fallen 
upon these tickets, and he said he could use them. Thus throwing the liquor-
tickets into the contribution-box was but a repetition of the old adage, "Evil 
be thou my good." They had discharged all the functions of the modern 
greenback, even to furnishing a poorly-paid clergyman's children with milk.

Not long after our Chicago citizens were victimized by another irredeemable 
currency device. Michigan legislators thought that, while there was not specie 
enough in the country for a banking basis, there was land enough. So they 
passed what is known as the "Real Estate Banking Law." They contended that 
real estate was better than gold and silver, because a man could not run away 
with real estate. Chicago merchants, business men, and speculators generally, 
instead of paying their debts with their money, bought Michigan wild lands, 
had them appraised, and then mortgaged them for bills, which they brought home 
to pay their debts with. Real estate, which is generally the first property to 
feel the effects of inflated currency, soon rose in value, and its owners paid 
Michigan another visit, secured a higher appraisal of their lands, and 
exchanged the second mortgage for some more bills. For about a year we had 
excellent times again in Chicago. But then confidence began to weaken. Agents 
were sent into the country to buy anything they could, provided Michigan money 
would be taken. Merchants would post in their windows a list of bills that 
they would receive for a given day, and then revise the list for the next day. 
The bubble soon burst, and every one was the poorer for the good times he had 
enjoyed. Manual labor, which was the last thing to rise, was the last resting-
place of the worthless bills.

During all this excitement incident to our great variety of irredeemable 
paper, our sufferings were the greatest for postage money, which had always to 
be in specie, and specie was then at from 50 to 100 per cent premium in our 
depreciated currency. But postage was then reckoned by the sheet instead of by 
weight. The result was that, although friends wrote but seldom, their letters 
were a sort of daily journal. When anything occurred to them, they would write 
it out; and when they had filled a sheet, oftentimes writing crossways also, 
they mailed it as soon as they could raise the postage. In traveling at the 
East, I have fallen in with several of these letters written in early times, 
whose publication would add materially to the early history of our city. But 
their contents were so mixed up with private matters appertaining to different 
families that it is impossible to obtain possession of them. As our laboring 
men were paid in currency, it often took more than a day's work to pay the 
postage on a letter to an Eastern friend.

I will relate an anecdote to illustrate this matter. Soon after my first 
election to Congress, a young man who had rendered me material service, made 
me a call, and observed that postage was very high; in which sentiment I 
concurred, and promised to labor to reduce it. He then remarked that I would 
have the franking privilege; to which I assented, and promised to labor to 
abolish it. But all this did not seem to interest the young man, and I was 
perplexed to know the drift of his conversation. Finally, with great 
embarrassment, he observed that he was engaged to a young lady at the East, 
and wanted to know if I could not frank his letters. I explained that there 
was but one way to avoid the responsibilities of the law, and that was for him 
to write his letters to me, and then I could write a letter to her, calling 
her attention to his; and she could have the same privilege. The 
correspondence took this form until the Congressman from her district asked me 
if, at the close of the session, I was going home by the way of his district. 
I did not comprehend him until he stated that he was well acquainted in the 
family of the lady with whom I had been corresponding, and suggested that, if 
I was going to be married before the next session, it would be pleasant for us 
to board at the same house! This put a new phase upon my way of dodging an 
abuse of the franking privilege, and I wrote to my constituent that he must 
bring his courtship to a close, and he did so. Four letters from him and three 
from her covered the transaction, and I stand indebted to this day to 
the "conscience-fund" of the Post-Office Department for $1.75. But this was a 
very insignificant sum to pay for the securing of a good Yankee girl to the 
West in those days. Besides, there are seven in the family now, and one went 
to the War; and that $1.75 was an insignificant bounty to pay for a soldier. 
After all, the best way to procure soldiers is to breed them yourself. But 
every time any one speaks to me about the corruptions and defalcations among 
public men of the present day, I see "mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" written on 
the wall! I think of that $1.75, and say nothing.

Not satisfied with the real estate banking experiment in Michigan, of trying 
to make easy times without prompt specie redemption, some of the speculators 
of Illinois thought that they would try the Michigan system, with State bonds 
substituted for lands. The result of this last experiment is too familiar to 
the mass of our citizens to need an extended comment. Money was borrowed, and 
State bonds were purchased. The most inaccessible places in our State were 
sought out for the location of banks, and bills were extensively issued. Money 
was abundant, prices of everything advanced, and a financial millenium was 
once more among us. The consequences of this system were quite as disastrous 
as those of the real estate system of Michigan. Considering its age, Chicago 
has been the greatest sufferer of any place in the world from an irredeemable 
paper-money system. Its losses in this respect will nearly approximate those 
from the great fire. And when you talk to one of the early settlers of Chicago 
about the advantages accruing from an irredeemable money system, you waste 
your labor. He has been there! One of our early amusements was that of wolf-
hunting. Experienced Indian ponies were plenty in our city. The last hunt I 
remember had for its object the driving of as large a number of wolves as 
possible up to the ice upon the lake shore, and as near the mouth of the 
harbor as could be done. There was to be no shooting until the wolves had got 
upon the ice. No person was to fire unless his aim was entirely over ice, and 
then to the eastward. Two parties started early in the morning, one following 
the lake shore south, and the other the river, to meet at a common centre not 
far from Blue Island. Then they were to spread themselves out, cover as much 
territory as possible, and drive the wolves before them. About 4 o'clock in 
the afternoon, a wolf made his appearance in the outskirts of the city. The 
news was spread, and our people turned out on foot, keeping along the margin 
of the river, so as to drive the wolves upon the ice of the lake shore. 

One wolf after another made his appearance, and soon we saw the horsemen. The 
number of wolves was about the same as that of Samson's foxes. The men were so 
eager to get the first fire at a wolf that the tramp of their horses broke the 
ice; and, as the wind was rather brisk, it broke away from the shore, with the 
wolves upon it, and drifted northeasterly, very much in the same direction as 
that taken by the recent unfortunate balloon. But the wolves, unlike the man 
in the balloon, took no reporter on board. Men, women, and children lined the 
bank of the lake, expecting to see the ice break in pieces and the wolves swim 
ashore. 

But it did not do so. Our people watched the ice, and could see the wolves 
running from side to side, until they faded away from view. When I took my 
last look, they appeared about the size of mice.

About two weeks afterwards, a letter appeared in a Detroit paper containing an 
account of some farm settlements, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, being 
attacked by a large body of hungry wolves. They destroyed fowls and cattle, 
and for several days spread terror through the neighborhood. We always 
supposed that those were our wolves, but our hunters never laid any claim to 
them, as the news of their arrival was so long in reaching here. And as an 
evidence of the tardy transit of merchandise and mails, in those days, I will 
state that our newspapers of September, 1835, announce the arrival of a 
schooner, with goods, twenty days from New York City, the shortest time ever 
made. A newspaper of Dec. 24, 1836, announces that President Jackson's message 
to Congress was only twelve days on its route from Washington.
 
It was published here Saturday, but the editor says he would have issued it on 
Thursday, but for the extreme cold weather.

The first divorce suit in our city was brought in 1835.

Land speculation had become so brisk here in 1835, that from Jan. 4th to Oct. 
21st of that year, the papers announce that Augustus Garrett (afterward mayor 
of the city) had sold land at his auction-rooms to the amount of $1,800,000. 
Our people had commenced litigation so much that at the commencement of Cook 
county circuit court in May, 1836, there were 230 cases on the civil docket, 
and the court sat two weeks. Litigation so increased that in May, 1837, there 
were 700 cases on the civil docket. The newspapers pointed to the alarming 
fact that over a million dollars were involved in these cases.

The West Side was the last to advance in population. Although at one time, 
prior to the city's incorporation, it undoubtedly had, as it does now, the 
largest portion of our inhabitants, there were only 97 voters on the whole 
West Side at our first municipal election. These were mostly from our first 
families, as there were living there about that time three Indian chiefs, 
Sauganash, Laframboise, and Robinson, (whose Indian name was Che-che-pin-gua), 
with occasional visits from Shaboneh; and any number of Indians, French, and 
mixed breeds related to them. The West Side was the last side to have a piano, 
but the strains of the fiddle were always to be heard, and the war-dance was 
no uncommon thing. I remember attending the wedding of one of Laframboise's 
daughters. She was married to a clerk in the post-office, and is now the wife 
of Medard B. Beaubien, heretofore alluded to in this lecture. The clerk was 
the one who delivered letters, and of course was well known to all our 
citizens, and was remarkably popular. 

He went to the printing office and had 50 cards of invitation struck off. But 
when people went for their letters, they politely hinted that they expected a 
card of invitation to the wedding. So he was compelled to go to the printing 
office and have 50 more struck off. These did not last long, and he had 100 
more. Then he said that tickets were of no use, and everybody might come; and 
about everyone did come. The ceremony was performed by Rev. Isaac W. Hallam, 
pastor of the St. James' Episcopal church of this city. Everything was high-
toned, well worthy of an Indian chiefs daughter. The house was of no 
particular use, as it was full and surrounded with people. This wedding made a 
strong impression on my mind, as it was the first time I ever saw the Indian 
war-dance. 

Some of the guests not only had their tomahawks and scalping-knives, bows and 
arrows, but a few of them had real scalps which they pretended they had taken 
in the various Indian wars. Their faces were decorated with all the favorite 
pictures of the Indians. And some of our young white men and ladies played the 
part of the Indian so well that it was difficult to distinguish them from the 
real ones. It has been a wonder to me that, while our professors of music have 
been inventing so many different kind of dances, none of them have reproduced 
the Indian war-dance, which to me is much more sensible than nine-tenths of 
those which are now practiced at so many of our fashionable parties. I presume 
that the trouble is, that our ladies consider that the Indian war-paint 
extemporized for the occasion, would interfere with the original paint put on 
before they left their homes, and which they wished to remain through the 
evening. One of our young men claimed that, at this wedding, amid the crowd, 
unperceived, he had clipped a lock from the bride's long, flowing, raven hair. 
Some of this hair he had put into a breast pin, and very soon thereafter, 
these Indian bridal breast-pins were about as thick as were the manufactures 
from our old court-house bell after the fire. One man who had worn one for 
some years was suddenly taken sick, and expected to die. He called his wife to 
his bedside, and told her he deemed it his duty to state to her that he had 
been deceiving her for years, and he could not die in peace until he had made 
a confession.

"I must tell you before I die, that the hair in that pin I have been wearing 
so deceitfully, is not the hair of that Indian chief's daughter, but your 
own." 

With pitiful eyes he looked to his wife for forgiveness. "And is that all that 
troubles you?" said she; "what you have just revealed in your dying hour, only 
confirms my opinion of you. I always supposed you thought more of me than you 
did of a squaw!" 

And now I suppose you think that that man died in peace. But he did not. He is 
alive now. There is occasionally an instance where a man has survived a 
confession to his wife. But where, oh where, is there an instance of a woman 
who has survived a confession to her husband?

After the marriage of this Indian chiefs daughter, several of our wealthy 
citizens (wealthy for those days) gave return parties. I remember attending a 
very elegant one given at the house of Medard B. Beaubien. I think the 
fashionable society of Chicago subsisted for about two months upon that 
wedding. Mr. Beaubien has given me several invitations, as he has others of 
our old settlers, to visit him at his residence among the Pottawatomies. He 
told me that I would be a big Pottawatomie! He gave as a reason for abandoning 
Chicago, where he was a merchant, that he would rather be a big Indian than a 
little white man. He has the reputation of being the handsomest man that was 
ever in this city. I met him at Washington, a few years ago, and he attracted 
great attention for his remarkable personal beauty.

The most of the families of wealth, education, and high social position, about 
the time of our incorporation, were settled on the North Side. The "Lake 
House" there was the first brick hotel constructed in our city, and it was as 
well furnished and conducted as any hotel west of New York city. Upon the 
South Side were most of the business houses, and hotels that were kept for the 
accommodation of farmers who came to Chicago with their loads of grain. 
Business men without families, clerks, and employes of business men, generally 
boarded at these hotels on the South Side, often sleeping in the stores. We 
could not have anything like a large party on the South Side without female 
domestics. The fashionable people on the North Side would invite our young men 
to their parties on that side; but when we had a party on the South Side, 
instead of coming themselves the ladies would send their domestics. And if I 
were, to go into details of the origin of the fashionable society of Chicago 
of the present day, I could satisfy our young men that whether they wanted to 
make money or raise healthy children, the best thing they could now do would 
be to imitate the example of some of our early settlers, and marry a lady who 
dares discharge an impudent or incompetent maid, and can do the work herself 
till she can get a better one.

There was considerable ill-feeling at one time between the North and South 
Sides in consequence of this discrimination. But politics then, as now, proved 
a great leveler in society. There was an elegant party given at the Lake House 
one evening, where one of the most fashionable men on the North Side, who was 
a candidate for office, thought he would throw an anchor to the windward by 
dancing with a South Side dressing-maid, while he supposed his wife was being 
entertained at the supper-table. But she entered the ball-room while the dance 
was going on. At once a proud heart was fired. Quicker than thought she spoke 
to a carriage-driver who stood at the door looking in: "Can you dance, 
Mike?" "It's only for the want of a partner," was the response. Seizing him by 
the hand, she said, "Come on!" and turning to the crowd she said, "This is a 
game that two can play at," and immediately the dance went on, amid the 
applause of the whole room; the man with the South Side dressing-maid, and his 
wife with the South Side driver. And thus free suffrage began its work against 
artificial social position.

Not long after my first election to Congress, upon opening my mail at 
Washington, I found a letter dated in the-western part of Iowa, then far in 
the wilderness, reading in this way:

"MY DEAR OLD CHICAGO FRIEND: I see you have been getting up in the world, and 
it is so with myself, who am the sheriff's deputy here, and I also keep hotel. 
I am the same one who made all the fuss dancing with the lady at the Lake 
House ball, and you were there; and the girl I married is the same domestic, 
her husband danced with. The judge of the court boards at our house, and he 
often dances with my wife at the big parties here, where we are considered 
among the first folks, and I reckon my wife Bridget would put on as many airs 
as the lady did at the Lake House, if she should catch me dancing with 
domestics. I found out that those people who made so much fuss at the Lake 
House were not considered much where they came from. But they emigrated to 
Chicago, and then set up for big folks. So I thought I would marry Bridget and 
start for a new country where I could be as big as anybody. And now remember 
your old Chicago friend, and tell the President that I am for his 
administration, and would like to get the post-office here."

I remember that, during that session of Congress I boarded at the same house 
with Horace Greeley, and he was frequently in my room; and I think that it was 
from this letter he borrowed his sentiment, "Go west, young man!"

In our early times, it was customary to excommunicate members of the church as 
publicly as they had been admitted. Now we hear of admissions, but never of 
excommunications. Professor David Swing has come as near filling that bill as 
anyone we have heard of recently, but future historians will differ as to 
whether he excommunicated the church or the church him. I remember in early 
times here of a clergyman's dealing, at the close of his service, with a 
member, one of our well-known citizens, somewhat after this fashion: "You will 
remember, my hearers, that some time ago Mr. Blank was proposed for admission 
to this church, and after he had passed a favorable examination I called upon 
everyone present to know if there was any objection, and no one rose and 
objected. It becomes my painful duty now to pronounce the sentence of 
excommunication upon him, and to remand him back to the world again with all 
his sins upon his head." Whereupon a gentleman rose in his pew and said: "And 
now the world objects to receiving him!" On which bursts of laughter filled 
the house; and the precise status of that man was never determined, as the 
civil courts in those days had not begun to interfere in ecclesiastical 
matters. In these times the church would undoubtedly have called upon the 
courts to grant a mandamus upon the world to receive him, or the world would 
have applied for an injunction to prevent the church from excommunicating him.

In most new settlements there can always be pointed out some particular class 
who give tone to the early society; such as the Pilgrims and Puritans of New 
England, the Knickerbockers of New York, the Huguenots of South Carolina, the 
Creoles of New Orleans; and, in the later days, men identified with 
manufacturing interests, mining interests, railroad interests, or with 
seminaries of learning. But here in Chicago, in early times, we had not any 
one prevailing class or interest; nor was there any sufficient number of 
people from any particular locality to exercise a controlling influence in 
moulding public sentiment. We had people from almost every clime, and of 
almost every opinion. We had Jews and Christians, Protestants, Catholics, and 
infidels; among Protestants, there were Calvinists and Armenians. Nearly every 
language was represented here. Some people had seen much of the world, and 
some very little. Some were quite learned, and some very ignorant. We had 
every variety of people, and out of these we had to construct what is called 
society. The winters were long; no railroads, no telegraphs, no canal, and all 
we had to rely upon for news were our weekly newspapers. We had no libraries, 
no lectures, no theatres or other places of amusement. If a stranger attended 
a gathering of any kind, the mass of attendants were equally strangers with 
himself; and the gentlemen outnumbered the ladies by about four or five to 
one. You ask what society lived upon in those days? I answer, upon faith. But 
faith without works is dead. From the close to the opening of navigation, 
nearly six months in the year, we had nothing to do. Our faith consisted 
principally in the future of Chicago. Nearly every one had laid out a town, 
and men exchanged lots with each other, very much as boys swap jack-knives. 
The greatest story-teller was about as big a man: as we had. If a new story 
was told, it was soon passed all round town, and due credit given to the 
originator. If a new book appeared in our midst, that was loaned around until 
another new one came to take its place. 

Occasionally, one of our young men would go East and get him a wife, and then 
we discussed her for a while. Dressmakers would invariably make her the first 
call, examine her dresses, and then go from door to door, like a modern census-
taker or tax-collector, soliciting orders according to the latest fashions.



Additional Comments:
EARLY CHICAGO

By Hon. JOHN WENTWORTH
 
EARLY CHICAGO.
A LECTURE,
DELIVERED BEFORE
THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
AT McCORMICK HALL,
ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 7TH, 1876,
BY HON. JOHN WENTWORTH,
LATE EDITOR, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR OF THE "CHICAGO-DEMOCRAT," THE FIRST 
CORPORATION NEWSPAPER
MEMBER OF CONGRESS FOR THE CHICAGO DISTRICT FOR TWELVE YEARS; TWO TERMS MAYOR; 
AND A SETTLER OF 1836.

CHICAGO: FERGUS PRINTING COMPANY,
244-8 ILLINOIS STREET.
1876.

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