Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Abraham Lincoln's Nomination for President in Chicago in 1860.

Abraham Lincoln, June 3, 1860
Probably the most shocking political event to occur in Chicago in the middle 1800s was on May 18, 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency of the United States in a two-story wooden hall called the Wigwam.

It was a carefully engineered event and one that rarely occurred. To this day, many are still pondering the mystery of how a minor contender in the presidential race managed to achieve a sweeping victory with the third nomination ballot.

The key to solving the mystery is Chicago itself. Lincoln's supporters, who had fashioned the man with the image of a backwoods rail-splitter, were thrilled that the event was held in the city. Lincoln was an Illinois man with many friends and newspaper support on the prairie.

The Republicans were holding only their second National Convention and, for the first time, had a chance to usher one of their candidates into power. The dominant Democratic Party was split over the issue of extending slavery into the territories, and their divided vote gave the Republicans hope. Coming into Chicago, the favorite to win the nomination was New York senator William H. Seward. His supporters and delegates were so assured of his victory that they focused more on his choice of a running mate than on his actual nomination.
The Old Chicago Wigwam Building. The building in which Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency on May 18, 1860.
The Convention opened on Wednesday, May 16, with over 10,000 people packed into the Wigwam while an additional 20,000 stood outside. Four years earlier, in Philadelphia, the Republicans had drawn no more than 4,000 people to their Convention. The meeting was called to order and was followed by a stirring address from David Wilmot of Pennsylvania. After that, the day was spent electing a chairman and constructing a platform. The platform was adopted.

Served at the Republican National Convention in Chicago were David Berg hot dogs, founded in Chicago in 1860. It was a trendy item because it was hand-held and easy to eat. Lincoln did not attend the Convention, staying in Springfield, so there was no chance of him eating a David Berg hot dog.

The platform was modified on Thursday, with the first ballot scheduled for later that evening. Many expected Seward to be chosen by a landslide, so a chorus of groans greeted Chairman George Ashmun when he announced that the printers had failed to deliver the tally sheets. Since no vote could be taken, a motion was adopted to adjourn until Friday.
Inside the Wigwam at Chicago on May 18, 1860.
Lincoln's campaign manager, David Davis, was thrilled. He and his compatriots, who included Lincoln's long-time friends Ward Hill Lamon, William H. Herndon, and Stephen T. Logan, saw the delay as a sign from God. Led by Lamon, several of Lincoln's friends began scrawling the names of convention officers on admission tickets while Norman B. Judd, a railroad attorney, arranged for special trains to bring more Lincoln supporters to the city.

While Lincoln's men worked behind the scenes, Seward's followers publicly declared their man the winner and even put a brass band into the streets on Friday morning. They marched from their hotel to discover that the Wigwam was so crowded that few people other than delegates could find seats. The bogus tickets passed out by Lincoln's men had been used in such numbers that the hall was now packed with his supporters.

The first roll call of the states gave Seward 173.5 votes, but 236 were needed to win. Lincoln followed with 102 votes, with Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio and Edward Bates of Missouri each received about 50 votes. Recognizing that Pennsylvania would be crucial in winning the nomination, David Davis arranged for delegates of that state to be seated between Illinois and Indiana, both of which strongly backed Lincoln. He then convinced the delegates from Pennsylvania that if Seward won the nomination, the party would lose the election. As a result, Cameron withdrew.

When the second ballot was tallied, it offered a stunning surprise, especially to Seward's supporters. Their candidate had only gained 11 votes, but Lincoln's total had increased by 79. That left Chase of Ohio in third place with 42.5 votes.

Workers in the Lincoln campaign had been busy contacting delegates from every state, using a deceptively simple strategy. Instead of asking for votes on the first ballot, they persuaded as many men as possible to make Lincoln their second choice. They also stressed the contrast between Lincoln and Seward. Lincoln had been guarded in his campaign so far and had been careful not to offend anyone. Meanwhile, Seward had made his position clear on most national issues. Seward was the only nationally known Republican who had allegedly praised John Brown's recent attack on Harper's Ferry and had hinted at a civil war by warning that an "irrepressible conflict" seemed to be coming because of slavery. Lincoln, on the other hand, was on record as opposing the extension of slavery into the territories. He also underscored the conviction that slavery, where it existed, was lawful and that it should not be challenged. He believed that the institution would eventually die out.

There was a sharp contrast between the familiar candidate with controversial views and the little-known rival who was not nearly so eager to enter into war. The contrast was not enough to allow Lincoln to win on just those merits. Lincoln's managers seemed willing to promise almost anything to those who would back him. Legend has it that Lincoln sent a telegram to Davis from Springfield that instructed him to make no bargains. "Make no contracts that bind me," he allegedly wrote. It has been said that Davis used that message to show those who hesitated to back Lincoln that the candidate was not offering positions in his administration with a free hand. Rumor says otherwise, and stories have since been told that Davis managed to persuade delegates to abandon their favorite candidates with promises of positions in Lincoln's cabinet.

Whatever happened in Chicago's notorious "smoke-filled rooms" remains a mystery. We know that when the third ballot was taken, Seward lost 4.5 votes and now needed 56 to win. However, Lincoln gained 53.5 votes and was within 1.5 votes of the nomination. The interior of the Wigwam became nearly deafening with the assembled party's mingled shouts, cries, and laughter. As soon as he could be heard above the commotion, David K. Carter of Ohio jumped up and shouted that five of the delegates from the Buckeye State wanted to switch their votes over to Lincoln. When the commotion subsided again, other states began to call for Lincoln as their new nominee. After all of the 466 votes had been cast, Lincoln had 364 of them -- 128 more than the number he needed to win.
But how did Lincoln manage to pull off such a sweeping victory? Did his campaign managers really trade positions for votes? No one knows, and nothing was ever documented that said for sure either way. Journalist Charles H. Ray, a Lincoln's inner circle member, later said that the managers promised Indiana and Pennsylvania everything they requested. Carter of Ohio, who started the dramatic third-ballot uprising, was said to have been promised a high-level cabinet position. While other rumors abound, it has yet to be proven.

One thing is clear, though. Many who stepped aside for Lincoln and worked for him behind the scenes were chosen for important posts. Seward was made secretary of state; Chase received the Treasury Department portfolio; Cameron became secretary of war and the fourth contender for the nomination. Edward Bates became Lincoln's attorney general. David Davis had hoped to become a federal judge and was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1862. Ward Hill Lamon, who created all of the bogus tickets, became the District of Columbia marshal. William P. Dole, credited with securing the Indiana and Pennsylvania votes, was named commissioner of Indian Affairs. And the list went on.

Abraham Lincoln is today considered one of the nation's greatest presidents, but his nomination to that office came very close to never taking place. He might not have made it to the White House if not for backroom politics. In this case, it's a good thing that the Convention was held in Chicago - where questionable politics are the accepted method of doing business.

By Troy Taylor, Adam Selzer and Ken Melvoin-Berg.
Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Cemetery History of Early Chicago.

The locations for the burial of the dead weren't recorded until about 1835. In earlier times, each interment was made on or near the residence of the deceased or near their family's house or property.

Later, the settlements around the Chicago River forks had a common acre of property on the west side of the North Branch, where the dead were buried. Fort Dearborn's dead were generally buried on the north side of the main branch of the Chicago River, east of Kinzie's old house, near the lakeshore. John Kinzie was buried there in 1828.

The Fort Dearborn Cemetery, 
Fort Cemetery, or Garrison Cemetery. (1803-ca.1835)
The Fort Dearborn Cemetery, aka "Common Burial Ground or Garrison Cemetery," can be considered Chicago's first Cemetery. Very little physical description of Fort Dearborn Cemetery is known, but the site was not much more than sand, which shifted with the winds off Lake Michigan. It was difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the graves against the elements. Markers, at best, were probably simple wooden boards or crosses, and many graves were perhaps unmarked.

Cutting through the sandbar for the harbor caused the lake to encroach and wash away the earth, exposing coffins and their contents, which were afterward cared for and reinterred by the civil authorities.

Located southeast of Fort Dearborn, the Common Burial Grounds at Fort Dearborn was located between the road leading to the fort and the west bank of the Chicago River as it flowed southward to the lake, and it was before the channel was cut. According to modern street grids, the Cemetery would have been south and east of the intersection of Lake Street (200 North) and Wabash Avenue (50 East). It was located on what today would be the south end of the Michigan Avenue bridge at the Chicago River (300 North Michigan Avenue, today).

Although there might have been an earlier burial, the first grave at the fort other than Indian burials is that of Eliza Dodemead Jouett in 1805, wife of Charles Jouett (1772-1834), the first Indian agent and government factor at Chicago. Her grave was placed at the entrance to the garden of the fort. Eliza of Detroit married Charles on January 22, 1803, and had one daughter. After Eliza's death, Charles remarried in 1809 and had one son and three daughters with his second wife.

Soldiers and those who died from the Cholera outbreak of 1832 were buried quickly in the Cholera Cemetery.

sidebar
Cholera Cemetery is discussed a little further below.

On modern-day street grids, Eliza's grave would be in the middle of South Water Street (Wacker Place – 300 North) between Wabash Avenue (50 East) and Michigan Avenue (100 East). Although the special significance of her grave, by its location and identification on the Harrison map (marked in yellow), is not well explained, her death probably occurred before the formal beginning of the Cemetery at the fort.
1830 map drawn by F. Harrison Jr., U.S. Civil Engineer and approved by William Howard, U.S. Civil Engineer. The Fort Dearborn Cemetery is highlighted in green.
The documented history of this Cemetery can best be established when Captain Hezikiah Bradley was sent to Chicago to re‑establish Fort Dearborn after the Massacre of 1812. He returned to Chicago on July 4, 1816.

As is common with very early burial grounds, the exact location is sometimes hard to pinpoint, and accounts differ.

The dead from the surprise Indian attack were not buried. Their bones lay in the sand, half-buried where they were killed, until four years later, in 1816, when Fort Dearborn was reopened. They were reburied at the Common Burial Ground at Fort Dearborn, also called Fort Cemetery or Garrison Cemetery.

One account says that victims were left as they laid near what would now be 18th Street and Calumet Avenue on Chicago’s near south side. The site was described as being on 18th Street, between Prairie (300 east) and Lake Michigan.

A second possible location was by Mrs. George W. Pullman’s house (1729 South Prairie) or the Northeast corner of 18th Street and Prairie Avenue in the South Township Section: SW 1/4 22 Township 39 Range: 14. This is about where the massacre took place and where victims were buried. Another source states that the site was just behind the Pullman mansion. The Pullman three-story mansion was built in 1873 and was valued at $500,000 in 1880 ($13.3 million today), but was razed in 1922.

Another report suggests that the massacre burials were at what would now be 18th street and Calumet Avenue (325 east). Still another source states that the massacre was centered just east of what is now Prairie Avenue between 16th and 17th Streets.

Still another account statesin 18th street, near Fernando Jones house (1834 South Prairie), is a spot supposed to contain the bodies of some two score (40 souls), while for several blocks along the lakeshore, it is said, graves were scraped into the land.

Historical accounts state that his first task was to carefully gather the bones and bury them in what would be later called the Fort Dearborn Cemetery. 

The Fort Dearborn cemetery was most likely closed in 1835 when two regular cemeteries were established near Lake Michigan, at the edges of town. One was located at Chicago Avenue and the other at Twelfth Street (which was renamed Roosevelt Road on May 25, 1919). 

The Cholera Cemetery or the Lake and Wabash Burial Site (1832)
This burial site, now the northwest corner of Lake and Wabash, was used in 1832 to quickly bury soldiers from Fort Dearborn who died of Cholera. The Chicago Tribune of August 8, 1897, described the location as the west side of Wabash (50 East), between Lake (200 North) and South Water Street. 

Early reports described the site as the same corner as where the Brown & Tuttle's American Temperance House on the northwest corner of Lake Street and Wabash Avenue was later erected." A later report stated that the Leander J McCormick Building was built on that same corner in 1872. 
The History of the 1832 Cholera Cemetery, aka the Lake and Wabash Burial Site, Chicago.
Four steamers, the Henry Clay, Superior, Sheldon Thompson, and William Penn, were chartered by the United States Government to transport troops, equipment, and provisions to Chicago during the Black Hawk War, but, owing to the fearful ravages, made by the breaking out of Asiatic Cholera among the troops and crew on board, the Henry Clay and the Superior, were compelled to abandon their voyage, proceeding no further than Fort Gratiot. The disease became so violent on board the Henry Clay that nothing like discipline could be observed. Everything in the way of subordination ceased. 

During the trip, nearly one-fourth of the soldiers and crew contracted Cholera, and several were buried at sea. 
During the trip, nearly one-fourth of the soldiers and crew contracted Cholera, and several were buried at sea.
As soon as the steamer came to the dock in Chicago on July 10, 1832, each man sprang on shore, hoping to escape from a terrific and appalling scene. Some fled to the fields, some to the woods, while others lay down on the streets and under the cover of the riverbank, where most of them died unwept and alone. Eighteen more died and were quickly buried in a mass grave at this site.

In the next four days, 54 more soldiers died of the disease and were also buried there. Reports indicate that a total of 88 soldiers died, with about 72 more buried at this location. One victim has been identified as 2nd Lt. Franklin McDultie of Rochester, New Hampshire, who died on July 15, 1832. Today, the Cholera Cemetery would be under Harold Washington College.

City Cemetery Park
In 1843, a cemetery complex began on the Green Bay Trail Ridge (Green Bay Road; now North Clark Street) at North Avenue and slowly extended north with the 60-acre City Cemetery and south with the smaller Catholic Cemetery.
Chicago City Cemetery
A Jewish Burial Society bought six-sevenths of an acre in City Cemetery in 1846. Four years later, the city added 12 acres to its Cemetery by purchasing the adjacent estate of Jacob Milleman, a victim of Cholera. 
Built in 1858 for Ira Couch, costing $7,000, at the south end of Lincoln Park. The other above-ground tombs were removed, and all other bodies were reinterred shortly after the Cemetery was closed in 1869.
Citing the proximity of the burial grounds to the city's water supply as hazardous to public health, Chicago's sanitary superintendent, physician John Rauch, requested the abandonment of the city cemetery as early as 1858. Burials continued until 1866 when Chicago lost a lawsuit filed by the Milleman heirs, who claimed $75,000 was owed to them due to the mistake-ridden sale of 1850. The city chose to move the bodies to private cemeteries located outside of the city limits and return the land to the heirs. 

The Great Removal began. City Cemetery bodies were wagoned to Graceland, Oakwoods, Rosehill, and Wunder's cemeteries. The Roman Catholic choices were Calvary in Evanston and St. Boniface in Chicago. Jews had moved their burial ground to Belmont and Clark in 1856. 
Rosehill Cemetery Entrance, Chicago, Illinois (chartered February 11, 1859).

Chicago city government attempted to prohibit any new burials within the city of Chicago throughout the late nineteenth century. Yet, as the city annexed additional land, it contended with existing cemeteries inside its limits. Graceland, for instance, was situated two miles north of the city until the significant annexation of 1889.
Graceland Cemetery
The state of Illinois protected these private cemeteries from city bans on burials. Still, Chicago exercised some control over its extension by passing an ordinance in 1931 that made it unlawful for cemeteries to expand or change their boundaries without a special permit." 

An account of the laying out, by the town authorities of Chicago, in 1835, of two cemeteries, one on the Northside and one on the Southside. The Protestants used the Northside cemetery, while the Southside cemetery became the first Catholic burial ground in the city. 

No interments were made in the Southside grounds after 1842. In about 1847, the city authorities reinterred the bodies from the burial grounds in the Lincoln Park tract, known as Chicago Cemetery. The Chicago Cemetery tract contained 3,236 burial lots and was designated the "Milliman" tract under the old survey. By a decision of the Illinois Supreme Court, the city lost the title to the Milliman tract and the Common Council, in 1865, ordered the vacation of the parcel, authorizing lot owners to exchange their lots for lots in any of the new cemeteries, of equal size and of their own selection Graceland, Rosehill, and Oakwoods had, by this date been established. 

When the time allowed (two years) for the city to vacate the tract of land, the deadline expired. A special committee was appointed by the Common Council, consisting of Aldermen Woodard, Wicker, and Lawson, who selected about two hundred lot-owners who had not made any selection and could not be found. The committee selected lots of equal size and in the best obtainable location in that part of Oakwoods known as the "Third Division, Section B," where the bodies were reinterred in precisely the same order as they had been in the Chicago Cemetery. The city holds the title to the whole tract purchased in Oakwoods, and any of the exchanged owners were given the privilege of obtaining a deed to the new lot upon executing the release of the old one. After several years of litigation, the portion of the old Chicago Cemetery included in the present limits of Lincoln Park passed under the control of the park commissioners. Joseph H. Ernst, of No. 271 North Avenue, was the sexton of the Chicago Cemetery for several years and was charged with the bodies' exhumation.

The Jewish Congregations had a cemetery five miles north of the city on Green Bay Road (now North Clark Street). They formerly had a plat of ground in the Chicago Cemetery, and the Hebrew Benevolent Society established a burial ground here in 1855. The grounds are high, overlooking the lake, and contain several fine monuments. Sinai and Zion's congregations also had an extensive plat reserved at Rosehill Cemetery Company, chartered on February 11, 1859.

Wunder's Cemetery was founded in 1859 and was initially called The First German Lutheran or The Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery. The German Lutheran Cemetery was incorporated in 1912. On October 19, 1919, it was renamed Wunder's Cemetery Association to honor the Evangelical Heinrich' Henry' Wunder, pastor of First Saint Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church. Members of this congregation, jointly with First Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, were elected as the Directors of Wunder's Cemetery Association.

Graceland Cemetery was founded in 1861 by Thomas B. Bryan, who purchased eighty acres of land, five and a half miles from downtown, on rising ridges near the lakeshore. 

Oakwoods Cemetery lies three and a half miles due south of the city limits. It is reached by the boulevard drives through North Park, and Illinois Central Hyde Park trains stop at 67th Street, from whence a broad walk leads to the cemetery entrances. The Cemetery was laid out in 1864.

Forest Home Cemetery lies on the banks of the Desplaines River, four and a half miles west of Chicago, on Madison Street, and was founded in 1876.
Forest Home Cemetery. Circa 1890s
Waldheim Cemetery is directly opposite Forest Home Cemetery, to the south, between Harrison and Twelfth Streets on the Desplaines River. It is owned by a corporation re-organized in 1881 under the law 1879.
German Waldheim Cemetery. Circa 1890s
St. Boniface, a German Catholic Cemetery of about thirty acres, is located on Green Bay Road, three and a half miles north of the city (now North Clark Street). 

Calvary Cemetery was the favorite burial place of the Irish Catholic Churches. It lies nine miles north of the city near Evanston. It was consecrated shortly after the opening of Graceland Cemetery in 1861. However, before this, some of the bodies taken from the consecrated ground in the old Chicago Cemetery were reinterred here.

The early places, say up to the late 1840s, have been abandoned, and the deposits all removed to newer grounds provided by several cemetery associations of the city.

In 1893, the cemeteries east of the Desplaines River were in the Chicago City Directory. They are listed under their known names:
  • Anshe Maariv' Jewish' Cemetery. (N. Clark Street  and Belmont Avenue .)
  • Austro-Hungarian, [Waldhelm] Cemetery. (10 miles west of City Hall)
  • Beth Hamedrash 'Jewish' [Oakwoods] Cemetery. (67th St. and Cottage Grove Ave.)
  • B'nai Abraham' Jewish' Cemetery. (Near Waldhelm)
  • B'nai Shalom' Jewish' Cemetery. (N. Clark St. and Graceland Ave.) 
  • Calvary Cemetery. (9 miles north of City Hall)
  • Cemetery of the Congregation of the North Side. [Waldhelm]
  • Chebra Gemilath Chasadino Ubikar Cholim. (N. Clark St. near Graceland Cemetery)
  • Concordia. Cemetery. (Near Forest Home Cemetery, Oak Park)
  • Forest Home Cemetery. (Madison St., and Desplaines River, Forest Park)
  • Free Sons of Israel' Jewish' Cemetery. [Waldhelm]
  • German Lutheran Cemetery. (N. Clark St. and Graceland Ave.) 
  • Graceland Cemetery. (Clark St. and Irving Park Road) 
  • Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery. (Near Graceland Cemetery)
  • Moses Montefiore' Jewish' Cemetery. [Waldhelm]
  • Mount Greenwood Cemetery. (California Ave. and 111th St.)
  • Mount Hope Cemetery. (California Ave. and 115th St.)
  • Mount Olive Cemetery. (Narragansett Ave. and Addison)
  • Mount Olivet Cemetery. (California Ave. and 111th St.)
  • Oak Woods Cemetery. (67th St. and Greenwood Ave.)
  • O'Haney Emunah' Jewish' Cemetery. [Waldhelm]
  • O'Haney Shalom' Jewish' Cemetery. {Unknown}
  • Rosehill Cemetery. (Peterson and Ravenswood Aves.)
  • Sinai Congregational' Jewish' Cemetery. {Unknown}
  • St. Boniface Cemetery. (N. Clark St. and Lawrence Ave.)
  • Union Ridge Cemetery. (Higgins and Normandy, Norwood Park)
  • Waldheim' Jewish' Cemetery. (Roosevelt Rd. and Desplaines River, Forest Park)
  • Wunders Cemetery. ( 2280 N. Clark St., at Irving Park Rd., Chicago)
  • Zion Congregation Cemetery. (Peterson and Ravenswood Aves.) 
These were additional cemeteries east of the Desplaines River in the 1911 Chicago telephone directory. They are listed under their known names:
  • Bohemian National Cemetery. (Crawford Ave, North of Foster)
  • Elm Lawn Cemetery (Office: 172 East Washington, Chicago)
  • Elmwood Cemetery (Office: 293 North Carpenter, Chicago)
  • Mount Auburn Cemetery (Between Oak Park & Ridgeland Aves. near 39th St., Chicago)
  • Mount Mayriv (64th and Waveland Ave., Chicago)
  • Norwood Park Cemetery (Office: 84 La Salle St., Chicago)
  • Oakridge Cemetery (Office: 160 W Washington St., Chicago)
  • St. Adelbert's Cemetery (Milwaukee Ave., Chicago)
  • St. Lucas Cemetery (40th [Pulaski] and Foster Aves, Chicago)
Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Lost Towns of Illinois - Village of St. Philippe, Illinois.

St. Philippe was a French village in Monroe County, Illinois. The community was located near bluffs that flank the east side of the Mississippi River along the floodplain often called the "American Bottom." The concession of St. Phillippe du Grand Marais was located three leagues (approximately eight miles) north-north-west of Fort de Chartres in Prairie du Rocher, Illinois (Fort de Chartres was a French military fort constructed in the 18th century. It later was designated a National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a National Historic Landmark on October 15, 1966. It is currently open to the public).
In the spring of 1719, Philip Francois de Renault (var. de Renaud, Renaud, Renaut) had been appointed director of Mines of the Company of the Indies in the French colonies. In that year, he set out from Picardy, France for the Illinois country. Renault, a metallurgist, had come to believe that there were precious metals to be found in the Illinois country. A friend of the French King Louis XV, Renault was granted several large tracts of land, some of which were on the west side of the Mississippi River in what are now Ste. Genevieve County, and Washington County, Missouri. Renault sailed aboard a ship called the Maria with a company of some 200 miners, technicians, and laborers.  At Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, Renault bought 500 Guinea slaves to work the mines. 

Renaut had begun in 1723 to establish a smaller fort than Fort de Chartres; Fort Saint Philippe, which he had just erected as a defense for the Maramec mine. This was abandoned as a result of attacks by the Mesquakie (Fox) Indians, however, and the habitation resumed its activity only after that tribe had been destroyed. Later that year Renault began building a village which he named St. Philippe (named after Renaut's patron saint).
By 1752 St. Phillippe had a population of 122 souls, free and slave, white and Negro. Renault prospected for silver and gold on the banks of the Mississippi until 1744. What he found was trace amounts of silver and gold and some copper. He also found some lead in a commercially viable amount, and which continued to be mined into the late 20th century day. But his failure to find silver and gold in sufficient quantities discouraged Renault. 

According to the 1752 census, the population was 187 Negro men, 113 women, 83 boys and 62 girls. The white population was estimated at 134 men and 112 women. Buchet reported he had twenty-eight slaves as well as a number of hired hands working the plantation.

After the collapse of Renaut's mining and business ventures, the remains of his estate holdings at St. Phillippe were sold to Joseph Buchet and Antioine Bienvenu, who during the 1740s operated a large, slave-worked agricultural enterprise on the land. Bienvenu eventually sold his share to Buchet, who in turn sold the entire concession to Jean-Baptiste Lagrange and Francois Valle in early 1758. Two years later Lagrange and Valle sold the property.

In addition to the property, the concession included: "A stone house with four fireplaces, roofed with wooden shingles; barn, stables, and horse gristmill; a second gristmill on the creek close to the house, where there is also a sawmill; eight milk cows, seven oxen, seven workhorses, fourteen pigs; a negro named Louis; five arpents (French unit of land measurement equal to about 0.85 acre) of plowland; the land on which the house was situated, and all the furniture and furnishings of the house. 

The village of St. Philippe was producing a surplus of crops, which was sold to the towns and villages in the southern part of French Louisiana Territory. The town was strategically located along fertile Mississippi River bottomland. Surpluses from the plantations cultivation by habitants (Habitants were French settlers) later helped supply critical wheat and corn to New Orleans and other lower Louisiana Territory communities.

Finances in France were in turmoil and he could no longer count on support from France. So in the early 1740s, Renault decided to return to France. He sold the slaves to the other French settlers in the area. It is said that the black people who lived in Randolph County, Illinois, and Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, over the next 150 years were descendants of these slaves.

Because habitants did not practice fertilization, the soil became exhausted. In addition, an increase in population meant there was not sufficient land for everyone. Some villagers moved to the west side of the Mississippi and founded Ste. Genevieve about 1750, in present-day Missouri. They quickly created an agricultural community with characteristics similar to St. Philippe.

The Negro community thrived in Prairie du Rocher for a number of years. The Negroes were overwhelmingly Catholic. In Prairie du Rocher they had always attended Mass and received the sacraments along with the white people on an amicable basis. They also received an exceptional education for the times thanks to the religious teachers and, later, lay teachers in Prairie du Rocher. But there were few prospects in southern Illinois for even well-educated black youth.

Following their victory in the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years' War), the British gained possession of French lands east of the Mississippi, excluding New Orleans. The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763; however, the British did not arrive in force until 1765. To avoid British rule, many of the town's French residents moved across the Mississippi River to towns such as Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis in what was now, via the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, Spanish Louisiana. Additionally, King George III's Royal Proclamation of 1763 designated all the land west of the Appalachians and east of the Mississippi an Indian Reserve. He tried to prevent settlers entering from the then-British Colonies.

The cutting of the forest trees on each side of the Mississippi caused the river to flood many tracts of land including the village of St. Philippe which washed away after repeated floodings.

During the American Revolutionary War, George Rogers Clark captured Prairie du Rocher for the colonies in his campaign that resulted in the capture of Vincennes, Indiana. Reportedly, his campaign caused some of the remaining French settlers to immigrate to the Spanish-controlled territories west of the Mississippi, leaving relatively few in Prairie du Rocher. Many of the subsequent settlers of the area had been members of Clark's campaign, or were related to someone who was. They were convinced of the promise of the area by tales of the fertility of the soil in the area now called American Bottom.

The "French Negro" families of Prairie du Rocher gradually headed off across the Mississippi River to the city of St. Louis. By the 1960s, in Prairie du Rocher, only one black man remained; Felix Marshall Pascal. He was born in September of 1877 in Prairie du Rocher and died there in April of 1963.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.