History.— The name of the State is derived from an Indian word meaning °men.° The euphonic termination added by the early French explorers gives the name °Illinois? In 1659, Pierre Radisson and Medard Chonart des Grossilliers seem to have reached the upper Mississippi, but the real history of Illinois be gins with the coming of Marquette and Joliet. In June 1673, they landed upon the east bank of the Mississippi in what is now Illinois. They descended the Mississippi to a point possibly within 400 miles of its mouth. Marquette ,es tablished a mission at the ancient village of the Kaskaskias. La Salle, Tonti and Hennepin were also early discoverers. The former is credited with building the first fortress in the State, Fort Creve Coeur, in 1679, and with dis covering the mouth of the Mississippi River. Here, on 9 April 1682, he took formal possession of athe Louisiana country') in the name of his master, Louis XIV of France. Permanent French settlements were made at Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Fort Chartres about 1720. At first °the Illinois country° was the dependency of Canada but by decree of the Royal Council in 1717 it passed under the government estab lished for Louisiana. A little later, in 1721, it became, by virtue of the same authority, one of the separate provinces into which the Louisiana country was then divided. A commandant and Judge were duly appointed, and the seat of au thority was transferred to Fort Chartres. Popu lation meanwhile gradually increased in the great American bottom, then embracing the French settlements in Illinois. The French, however, claimed more than they had the ability to hold, and in the long continued struggle with their old rivals, they were decisively defeated on the Heights of Abraham at Quebec, 13 Sept. 1759. By the treaty of Paris, 1763, the Illinois country passed to Great Britain. British dom ination in the Mississippi Valley, however, was of short duration. While the Revolutionary War was in progress George Rogers Clark at the head of a band of sonic 200 followers and bearing the commission of Patrick Henry, gov ernor of Virginia, crossed the Ohio River, and landed near Fort Massac. After a perilous six days' march he surprised and captured Kas kaskia, 4 July 1778, and soon the whole Illinois country acknowledged his authority. In the month of October, following the capture of Kaskaskia, the Virginia House of Delegates ex tended civil jurisdiction over the territory. Courts were established at Cakokia and Kas kaskia, and an election was held for civil of ficers. John Todd was lieutenant-commandant of the Illinois country from 1778 to 1780. In 1783, the territory passed to the United States by treaty, and a year later Virginia magnani mously ceded her claim to the national govern ment with the understanding that the lands be sold to pay the war debts of the States.
In 1787, the Ordinance for the Government of the Northwest Territory was passed. The commission of Arthur St. Clair, the first gov ernor, bears the date of 1 Feb. 1788, and soon thereafter judges and other officers were ap pointed, and the new government was duly or ganized. In 1790, Governor St. Clair paid his first visit to Kaskaskia, the county bearing his name having been established meanwhile. Five years later out of its territory, the county of Randolph was created. The county seats of these two historic counties were Cahokia and Kas kaskia. Pursuant to the provision of the Ordi nance of 1787, the Northwest Territory having attained the requisite population, a general as sembly was convened in Cincinnati in February 1799, and Illinois was now, for the first time, represented in a legislative chamber. In May 1800 Congress created Indiana Territory, which included the present States of Indiana and Illinois, and the seat of government was estab lished at Vincennes. General William Henry Harrison, later a President of the United States, was the first governor. By judicious treaties with the Indian tribes, he maintained peace and obtained the cession of valuable grants which in time became the homes of white emigrants. The fierce hatred of the Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, for the whites was, in part, the result of these grants. His own tribe allied with the Pottawattomies and the Kickapoos failed to exterminate, as was the intention of Tecumseli, the white settlers, and ended with his own disastrous defeat at Tippecanoe in 1811, by which the power of these tribes was broken. The Fort Dearborn Massacre, 1812, also came about in part because of disputed land claims. From 1806 until 1809 a strong effort was made to organize Illinois as a separate territory. This movement succeeded in February 1809, and the capital was located at Kaskaskia. In 1812, a representative assembly was chosen, a territorial constitution adopted, and a territorial delegate in Congress was elected. Emigration from the older States had set in, and by 1818 the popu lation of the territory was near 40,000, The general assembly in January of that year pe titioned Congress for statehood. Nathaniel Pope was then territorial delegate, and through his influence the northern bouniary was made 42° 30' instead of 41° 39', which seemed likely to prevail before his amendment. The bill. as amended, was passed, and on 3 Dec. 1818, Illinois was duly admitted as a State.
The social history of Illinois is intensely in teresting. The first school was taught by Samuel J. Seeley in 1783 at New Design, in what is now Monroe County. The first Methodist church in Illinois was founded in 1793 at Shiloh in the New Design settlement, and the first camp meeting was probably held near the same place in 1807. The first Baptist church in Illinois was also organized at New Design by David Badgley in 1796. One of the first Presbyterian churches was organized at Turkey Hill, a set tlement four miles southeast of Belleville, 20 April 1820. Early missionaries and traveling ministers seemed disgusted with the religion and morals of early Illinois settlers, but the latter, it must be remembered, were typical frontiers men. A Mr. Low, who was in Shawneetown in January 1818, describes conditions as follows: °Among its two or three hundred inhabitants there was not a single soul that made any pretentions to religion. Their shocking pro
faneness was enough to make one afraid to walk the street; and those who on the Sabbath were not fighting and drinking at the taverns and grog shops were either hunting in the woods or trading behind their counters. A small audience gathered to hear the missionary preach. But even a laborer who could devote his whole time to the field might almost as soon expect to hear the stones cry out as to expect a revolution in the morals of the place.* Thomas Lippincott, for some time editor of the Edwardsville Spectator and later one of the trustees of Illinois College, said of Shawnee town in 1818: °We found a village not very prepossessing; the houses, with one exception being set up on posts several feet from the earth. The periodical overflow of the river ac counts for tins.° The first newspaper of the State was the Illinois Herald started at Kas kaskia, 6 Sept 1814, by Matthew Duncan. In 1819, times were hard, prices were low and money was extremely scarce. A cow and a calf would not bring over $5.00; wheat was 35 cents a bushel, and corn was as low as 10 cents. The following prices prevailed at Albion in 1819: a fine turkey, 25 cents ; chickens, 12 cents; beef, S cents per pound; eggs, cents per dozen; cheese, 30 cents per pound; butter, 16 cents; bacon 15 cents; flour, $9.00 per barrel; deer (whole carcass including the skin), $1.50; melons, 12% cents; honey, $1.00 per gallon; whisky, $1.00 per gallon; fine Hyson tea, $2.00 per pound; moist sugar, 31 cents; coffee, 62 cents ; fish, 3 cents. During the first decade which followed the organization of the State, the habits of the people, in the main, were simple and their wants few. Barter in a large measure supplied the place of a medium of exchange. Commerce, in so far as it had any existence with the outer world, was by wagons across the Alleghanies, and by flatboats down the Ohio and the Mis sissippi. The log cabin furnished protection to the pioneer from the winter's storm. With rude implements of his own construction, he culti vated his fields, and with his rifle defended his loved ones from the incursions of the savage. At the time of its admission, there were only 23 post-offices within the limits of the entire State. At the period indicated and for years afterwards, the frontiersman regarded himself as especially favored if located within a dozen miles of a post-office. The mails reached the settlements weekly or monthly upon horseback or by stage coach. The log cabin with its puncheon floor supplied the double purpose of temple of learning, and place for public wor ship. Articles of apparel, were, with rare ex ception, of home manufacture. Railroads, col leges and universities were unknown. The first seminary in the State was organized at Rock Springs, 1 Jan. 1827 by John Mason Peck; it is now known as Shurtleff College and is lo cated at Alton. Less than 10,000 persons were engaged in agricultural pursuits. Chicago had scarcely a place upon the map. Population drifted northward, however; in 1819 Vandalia had been made the capital, but in 1836 .it was changed to Springfield. From 1818 to 1860, the most interesting internal questions were those relating to slavery, banking and internal im provements. Northern Illinois' ad been largely settled by people from the free States; southern Illinois, by people from the slave States. In 1823 the legislature, by the necessary two-thirds vote, submitted to the people the question of calling a convention to revise the constitution. This was undoubtedly with the object of intro ducing slavery. For 18 months the most in tense excitement prevailed. Political leaders and newspapers were divided. Governor Coles, a Virginian and a former slave holder, Thomas Birkbeck, a gifted English writer, J. M. Peck, an influential Baptist minister, and Daniel P. Cook, an eloquent speaker, opposed the conven tion. Jesse B. Thomas, Richard M. Young, Jahn McLean, E. K. Kane, John Reynolds, Thomas Reynolds and Ex-Governor Bond took the stump for the convention. The Edwards ville Spectator, the Illinois Intelligencer at Vandalia, and the Illinois Gazette at Shawnee town opposed the convention; the other two papers, the Republican Advocate at Kaskaskia and The Republican at Edwardsville favored it. The election on 2 Aug. 1824 resulted in the de feat of the convention by a vote of 6,640 to 4,972. The total vote cast was 11,612 as com pared to 4,671 for presidential electors in No vember of that year. Eleven counties out of 30 favored the convention. They were Alexander, Pope, Jackson, Franklin, Gallatin, Hamilton, White, Jefferson, Wayne and Fayette. Johnson was a tie. Union was against the convention by 27 votes. All these countries, except Fayette, were in what was then regarded as the South. Slavery sentiment still persisted, however, and on 7 Nov. 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy was mur dered by a pro-slavery mob at Alton for trying to publish an anti-slavery paper. After this, sentiment seemed to change, and in 1842 the Liberty Party was organized; in 1848, it united with the Free Soil Party. The Republican Party was definitely organized in 1856. Immi gration from the northern States had out weighed that from the southern States. As early as 1816 the territorial legislature had passed a law chartering banks at Shawneetown, Kaskaskia and Edwardsville. The charter in corporating the State Bank of Illinois was passed in 1821, and was to continue 10 years. The capital was $500,000. The parent bank was to be located at Vandalia, and the branch banks at Edwardsville, Brownsville, Shawneetown and Albion. State bank bills were issued to the amount of $500,000, but they soon depreciated to 30 cents on the dollar. The State had lost at least $100,000 in this banking business, but after the expiration of the char ter, in spite of bitter opposition, another State bank with a capital of $1,500,000 was created. The principal bank was located at Springfield with a branch at Vandalia. The Shawneetown bank was revived with a capital of $300,000.