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Settlement
Through 1830
In 1800, when Indiana
Territory was created (including Illinois), many
French had left, and European settlers began taking
their place. Veterans, who served with George Rogers
Clark, and their families established themselves
at Bellefontaine, near the present town of Waterloo.
By 1800, Bellefontaine housed 286 of Illinois' 2,458
inhabitants. Most of this population came from the
south; with only thirteen percent coming from New
England. At this point, the government was not well
established and the threat of Indian attacks persisted,
as well as a clutter of claims and counterclaims
to the land. Severe crimes often went unpunished,
thereby giving Illinois an uninviting reputation
by the close of the 18th century.
After statehood, Illinois
continued to grow, with the northern part of the
state developing at a slower pace than the rest
of the state. This dynamic changed dramatically,
however, with the creation of the Erie Canal in
1825. Chicago and Galena, the two most important
towns in the north, were very small prior to 1825,
but grew rapidly afterwards. In 1826, Galena had
four log houses, but only one year later that number
grew to 115 homes and stores. Chicago was incorporated
as a town in 1833 with a population of 350. When
it obtained a city charter four years later, the
population had grown to 4,000.
So who were the pioneers
that ventured into Illinois? We already know that
the French inhabited the area first, followed by
some British soldiers and fur traders, but the settlers
who came next were somewhat different. The great
majority of the pioneers in Illinois were southerners
of English and Scotch-Irish decent who previously
lived in Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas and
Virginia. These settlers characterically were young
adults, newlyweds, or couples in their late twenties
and early thirties. Most were poor and agrarian.
They depended on subsistence agriculture and lived
without technology, cities, or money.
Although slaves were
not uncommon to Illinois' population, and had been
present in Illinois since 1720, they never amounted
to large numbers here. The Ordinance of 1787 seemed
to curb slavery in Illinois by discontinuing the
introduction of new slaves, however, blacks who
had been slaves before 1787 would remain slaves.
When Illinois became a state in 1818, the adopted
constitution prohibited slavery, but the issue remained
hotly debated until a convention to legalize slavery
was voted down in 1824.
Religion
Only a small portion
of Illinois pioneers were noted as religious people,
but those who were, were very devoted. Baptists
were most numerous, followed by Methodists, Presbyterians,
and the Disciples of Christ. The Baptists were highly
undisclosed, only men and women chosen by God for
eternal salvation and engrossed in a formal baptismal
ceremony could belong. The Methodists were more
centralized; building a network of churches and
employing circuit riders who appealed to farmers
and businessmen. The Methodists and Baptists, along
with the Presbyterians and Disciples, all maintained
similarities. All of these groups held annual revivals
to help recruit new members, and created fellowships
within the members of the church. Weekly meetings,
separate from church, were held to bolster camaraderie.
Another characteristic common of these pioneer religions
was the extent to which they valued and monitored
Christian morality of the people. Offenses were
taken very seriously, and members were sometimes
expelled from the church for misconducts such as
swearing, fighting, and drunkenness. Even though
the majority of pioneers were not church members,
the ethics of the church set the moral tone of the
frontier.
The Mormons, spending
a period of time there in the 1840s, added a unique
religious element to Illinois. Persecution had driven
them from New York to Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois
before embarking on their journey to Utah. In Illinois,
the Mormons occupied the town of Nauvoo. Receiving
a charter from the General Assembly, the Mormons
were nearly independent and allowed to maintained
their own army. Soon Nauvoo would become the largest
city in Illinois and Joseph Smith, the Mormon founder
and leader, would amass significant political power.
Smith's use of power and his practice of polygamy
garnered fear and disgust from many Illinoisans.
In 1844, Smith and his brother were arrested and
killed by a mob and the exodus to Salt Lake City,
led by Brigham Young, followed in 1846.
The Mormons were not
the only religious group to occupy the town of Nauvoo.
After the Mormons abandoned the town, a utopian
society inhabited Nauvoo from 1849 to 1858. The
Icarians were a group of French people dedicated
to the ideas of Entienne Cabet. Cabet, a French
lawyer and journalist, was born in 1788. He was
the publisher of a newspaper where he presented
radical political views that led to his exile. While
in exile, Cabet developed ideas about a utopia and
published his ideas into a book in 1839. In Voyage
to Icaria, he described a fictional utopia named
Icaria where everything was perfect. In Icaria there
is no ownership of land, money, or material goods
because the society provided everything one needed.
The book detailed how to run schools, farms, and
factories. The book also claimed that the Icarians
enjoyed theatre and the arts, producing a rewarding,
well rounded life. The book became a huge success
in France and Icarian societies began to appear.
The Icarians didn't achieve much success because
of the political enemies Cabet made before his exile,
so Cabet decided to give it a try in the United
States. He bought land in Texas, but found that
the hot days and mosquitoes were not like anything
they had in mind. They moved onto New Orleans and
learned of the newly deserted town of Nauvoo, so
Cabet purchased the site in 1849 and 240 Icarians
moved in. At first the colony ran smoothly, until
matters, such as long working hours and favoritism,
split the colony in two. In 1855 Cabet and his supporters
moved to a site near St. Louis, where Cabet suffered
a stroke and died within the first week. The Icarians
remaining in Nauvoo carried on until 1858 when they
moved to Corning, Iowa. In Iowa the society existed
for twenty more years before splitting again. In
1898 the movement dissolved altogether.
The Story of John Deere, a bit
of Americana from Illinois
The story of the creation
of John Deere and Company is both interesting and
fun, and is a piece of history both Illinoisans
and the rest of the country can enjoy!
Illinois enjoyed extremely
rich soil, but was very hard to scour (meaning it
won't slide cleanly off of a plow's mold board).
To cultivate the Illinois prairie, the pioneer farmers
needed a plow that would dig the furrow and turn
the soil over (this being the purpose of the mold
board). Unfortunately, plows in this day were made
of cast-iron, which the soil clung to intensely,
causing the farmer to stop and scrape the moldboard
frequently. In the town of Grand Detour, on the
banks of the Rock River, local blacksmith John Deere,
heard the complaints of the farmers, and came up
with a solution. While making a repair at a saw
mill one day, Deere noticed a broken saw blade,
which had been made of steel, and asked to take
it home. At his shop Deere converted the saw blade
into a moldboard and used it to make a plow. There
are two versions of what happened next, one version
slightly more exciting of the other, so I invite
you to believe whichever you like. In the first
version, according to Deere himself, the plow sat
around his shop for a few days until a farmer noticed
it and asked to give it a try. The farmer found
that the plow scoured beautifully, and ordered two
more. The second version of the story has John Deere
testing his plow in the stickiest soil of the Rock
River in front of a large crowd of farmers. As the
plow scoured without being cleaned, the crowed hollered
and cheered triumphantly.
Regardless of which
story is true, John Deere began his plow business
in 1837. Steel was hard to come by at that time
so he used any scrap steel he could get his hands
on. In 1848, Deere moved to Moline, Illinois and
started another factory, utilizing the Mississippi
River. By 1870, John Deere and Company was selling
40,000 plows, harvesters, and cultivators annually.
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