James Semple is a Classic Example of a Prairie Entrepreneur.

Prairie Entrepreneurs followed opportunities where they led, carving winding paths through our state's history. James Semple is a classic example of this phenomenon.

James Semple

James Semple was born on January 5, 1798, in Green County, Kentucky. He received some private instruction and attended the common schools. He enlisted in the Army in 1814 (War of 1812) at age 16, and became an ensign in the Kentucky militia two years later. Semple studied law in Louisville, Kentucky, and was shortly admitted to the bar. He came to Edwardsville, Illinois, in 1827 and continued to practice law.

In 1828 Semple was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, serving as Speaker for four years. During the Black Hawk War (May 1832 to August 1832) he served variously as a private, adjutant, and Judge. In 1833 he was appointed attorney general of Illinois. After an unsuccessful effort as a Democrat to win election to the U.S. Senate in 1836, he moved to Alton, Illinois, at a place he called Semple Town. From 1837-1842 he was Charge d' Affaires to the nation of Columbia, appointed by President Martin Van Buren. In 1842 he was appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court and became Chief Justice.

Gen. Semple was also a land speculator and became involved in the real estate business. He and a relative named Bagsby, in 1837, seeking a suitable town along the projected Alton-Mt. Carmel Railroad chose a site east of Edwardsville for a new town. He did this after conferring with several prominent local residents, including Joseph Suppiger and Dr. Koepfli.

Semple suggested the name Highland because it reflected both the geography of his native Scotland and that of Switzerland. Naturally, he bought tracts of land in Madison County close to where he thought the railroad would go through in the hope that he might hit a future townsite and be able to sell at a big profit. Semple and Bagsby, with the cooperation of local men, laid out the town of Highland, sometimes known as Little Helvetia (Little Switzerland). A large steam gristmill was built by Suppiger. A sawmill and a store quickly followed. Jacob Eggen's pottery mill was started in 1835. Town lots were sold on Sept. 16, 1837, but the water was high on Silver Creek and Shoal Creek and, there being no roads or bridges, few could come from those areas. Less than 100 men attended the sale but few lots were sold because they were there mostly for curiosity's sake, having very little money.

The quaint town of Elsah (Jersey County), Illinois, situated on the bluffs north of Alton, was originally platted by Gen. James Semple in 1853 and named for the Scottish town of Ailsah, his ancestral home. The spelling was changed when a post office was established. At Elsah, he offered lots to settlers who would build with stone, ensuring durability. Semple was also instrumental in founding the town of Tamaroa.

Yet Semple's most intriguing brainstorm was an idea he had to build a steam locomotive that could cross the prairie without traveling on railroad tracks. Illinois' first passenger railroad, the Northern Cross, was completed in 1840, and it stretched from Meredosia to Jacksonville. Two years later it reached Springfield. The railroad's name came from the fact that it was part of a vast internal improvements scheme by the state legislature in the northern part of the state. There was also to be a Southern Cross in the lower part of the state, but the railroad, canal, and plank road scheme, coupled with the Panic of 1837, bankrupted the state by 1841.

The Northern Cross had strap iron fastened to wood rails. Unfortunately, they had a tendency to curl up and stab the cars - and sometimes the passengers. Called "iron horses" by the Indians, the railroad's two engines (Rogers and Illinois) had to stop often for more wood and water. The two engines soon broke down for lack of spare parts. After that, what little traffic remained was pulled by mules. The state's first railroad project ended in failure; its crude rail lay deserted and rusting, its steam engines abandoned along the right of way.

Semple came up with a better idea. What about a prairie schooner that could navigate without the expensive construction of a roadbed with ballast and rails. Semple's train would also be cost effective since it didn't need to purchase right of way for the tracks. Semple worked nearly six years devoting time and money to his scheme. He approached the project in a scientific manner, corresponding with railroad experts and carefully examining steam engines. He decided to replace the skinny wheels on his locomotive with broad wooden cylinders that would support the heavy weight of the engine, and it was less likely to get stuck in the mud. Semple made a drawing of the wheels and chassis for his locomotive and applied for a patent from the U.S. government.

Semple quickly realized that he lacked sufficient funds for building a locomotive so he decided to obtain his cab and boiler from one of the abandoned engines of the Northern Cross. In August of 1844 he hitched a team of mules to the chassis of his "prairie car" and took it to the site of an abandoned engine, west of Springfield. After a few trials and adjustments, Semple discovered that his invention actually worked, but it was too large for practical purposes.

After a redesign and modifications, he came up with a new schematic that called for a model that was only nineteen feet long and eight feet wide. The wheels were about four feet in diameter. The new vehicle was rather uncomplicated, consisting only of a boiler, a water tank, a coal bin, a large smokestack, and drive pistons. The engineer stood on a small platform and steered with a large wheel, similar to that on a ship. In 1847 the state legislature granted Semple a charter for the Illinois Transportation Company. He printed detailed pamphlets and distributed them widely in an effort to secure financial backing. But in the end, there was only one man interested enough to risk his money. Commodore George DeKay.

By the summer of 1848 Semple was ready for a test run of his metal behemoth. On several occasions Semple's engine easily pulled a car loaded with nearly a dozen people. In another test, near Lick Creek, the vehicle traversed prairie soil that was covered with several inches of water. But Semple ran into financial problems when DeKay, his benefactor, died. Semple's land schooner made its final run from Alton to Edwardsville, traveling along the existing plank road. Near Carlinville, on his way to Springfield, the smoke-belching vehicle fell into a hole and broke an axle. It was abandoned on the side of the road, and the rusting hulk became derisively known as Semple's Folly.

Semple died at Elsah in 1866 and was interred in Bellefontaine Cemetery in north St. Louis. Semple is best known for helping to establish the town of Elsah. Today it is a quiet place that attracts tourists because of its quaint name, antique shops, and bed and breakfast offerings. But if you find the right old-timer in that town, he'll tell you the story of a man who once tried to conquer the Illinois prairie with a contraption that puffed black smoke and traveled across the land on wooden rollers.

By Bill Nunes
Edited by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

One Man's Story of "Indian Hating" in the Illinois Country Frontier.

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In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

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As more settlers filtered into the Illinois Country in the years after the Revolutionary War, the local tribes cast a suspicious eye on these newcomers. Sometimes, this tension erupted into violence that hardened and scarred many early settlers.

Here's one man's story. John Moredock (1776-1830) [alternate spellings: Murdock, Murdoch, Moredoch] was the son of a woman who was married several times and was as often widowed by the tomahawk of the savage. Her husbands had been pioneers; with them, she had wandered from one territory to another, always living on the frontier. She was, at last, left a widow at Vincennes with a large family of children and was induced to join a party about to move to Illinois, to which region a few American families had then recently moved. On the eastern side of Illinois, there were no settlements of whites; on the shore of the Mississippi, a few spots were occupied by the French, and it was now that our own backwoodsmen began to turn their eyes to this delightful country and determined to settle in the vicinity of the French villages.

Mrs. Moredock and her friends embarked at Vincennes in boats intending to descend the Wabash and Ohio rivers and ascend the Mississippi. They proceeded safely until they reached the Grand Tower on the Mississippi, where, owing to the difficulty of the navigation for ascending boats, it became necessary for the boatmen to land and drag their vessels around a rocky point, which was swept by a violent current. A party of Indians, lying in wait, rushed upon them and murdered the whole party. Mrs. Moredock and all her children were among the victims, except John, who was proceeding with another party.

John Moredock was just entering the years of manhood when he was thus left in a strange land, the sole survivor of his race. He resolved to execute vengeance and immediately took measures to discover the actual perpetrators of the massacre. It was ascertained that the outrage was committed by a party of twenty or thirty Indians from different tribes, who had formed themselves into a lawless predatory band.

Moredock watched the motions of this band for more than a year before an opportunity suitable for his purpose occurred. At length, he learned, that they were hunting on the Missouri side of the river, nearly opposite to the recent settlements of the Americans. He raised a party of young men and pursued them, but that time they escaped. Shortly after, he sought them at the head of another party and had the good fortune to discover them one evening on an island, where they had retired to encamp more securely for the night. Moredock and his friends, about equal numbers to the Indians, waited until the dead of night and then landed upon the island, turning adrift their own canoes and those of the enemy and determined to sacrifice their own lives or to exterminate the savage band. They were ultimately successful. Only three of the Indians escaped by throwing themselves into the river; the rest were slain, while the whites lost not one man.

But Moredock was not satisfied while one of the murderers of his mother remained. He had learned to recognize the names and persons of the three that had escaped, which he secretly pursued, but with untiring diligence, until they all fell by his own hand. Nor was he yet satisfied. He had now become a hunter and a warrior. He was a square-built, muscular man of remarkable strength and activity. In athletic sports, he had few equals; few men would willingly have encountered him in single combat. He was a man of determined courage and great coolness and steadiness of purpose. He was an expert in the use of the rifle and other weapons and was a complete master of those numberless expedients by which the woodsman subsists in the forest, pursues the footsteps of an enemy with unerring sagacity, or conceals himself and his design from the discovery of a watchful foe. 

He had resolved never to spare an Indian, and though he made no boast of this determination and seldom avowed it, it became the ruling passion of his life. He thought it praiseworthy to kill an Indian and would roam through the forest silently and alone, for days and weeks, with this single purpose. A solitary red man, who was so unfortunate as to meet him in the woods, was sure to become his victim; if he encountered a party of the enemy, he would either secretly pursue their footsteps until an opportunity for striking a blow occurred, or, if discovered, would elude them by his superior skill. He died an old man, and it is never supposed in his life that he failed to embrace an opportunity to kill a savage.

The reader must not infer from this description that Colonel Moredock was unsocial, ferocious, or cruel. On the contrary, he was a man of warm feelings and an excellent disposition. At home, he was like other men, managing a large farm with industry and success and gaining the goodwill of all his neighbors through his popular manners and benevolent deportment. He was cheerful, convivial, and hospitable, and no man in the territory was more generally known or universally respected. He was an officer in the ranging service during the war of 1813-14 and acquitted himself with credit. He was afterward elected to command the militia of his county when such an office was honorable because it imposed responsibility and required the exertion of military skill. Colonel Moredock was a member of the legislative council of the territory of Illinois and, at the formation of the state government, was spoken of as a candidate for the governor's office but refused to permit his name to be used.

Moredock's tragic story and an insatiable thirst for revenge mark him as a complex character shaped by the brutal realities of pre-statehood Illinois.

John Moredock is buried in the
Miles Cemetery, Monroe County, Illinois.

From "Sketches of History, Life, and Manners, in the West." By James Hall, Published 1834.

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Pierre Menard House at 4230 Kaskaskia Road in Ellis Grove, Illinois.

The Pierre Menard House, located in Ellis Grove, Illinois, was the home of Pierre Menard (1766-1844), a successful trader who became the first lieutenant governor of Illinois from 1818 to 1822. Menard was born near Montreal, Canada on October 7, 1766. The third of ten children, Menard sought to make his fortune by trading furs in what was then "Illinois Country."

Having become a successful businessman by the age of thirty, Menard went on to become a successful U.S. political figure, eventually becoming the first lieutenant governor of Illinois, after having served as the presiding officer of the Illinois Territorial Legislature. Despite his various political accolades, including delegate to the Indiana Territorial Legislature, regimental Major, and being one of the select few chosen to help draft Illinois' first constitution, Pierre Menard is still remembered to this day for his good-natured will and for his generosity towards the poor.

The house itself is believed to have been constructed around 1815. It is an illustration of the Southern French Colonial (sometimes referred to as "Creole") and has various features which highlight this, including its beautiful veranda that wraps the building’s front façade and gable ends. The house is located within only a few hundred yards of the Mississippi River during certain periods of the year. Due to the annual flooding and erosion, the rest of the original town of Kaskaskia, Illinois' first capital, has been washed away.

The Pierre Menard House now stands as the only testament to where the first state capital once stood. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. Also preserved by the state as the Pierre Menard Home State Historic Site, it contains a museum which includes audio-visual program. The museum is devoted to the Menard family, as well as local history, and is governed by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

The two-story home is an unusually fine example of French Creole-style architecture and features early 19th-century period furnishings. The rooms on the main floor include the entry hall, parlor, master bedroom, dining room, two additional bedrooms, maid's room and a nursery. Behind the home is a period stone kitchen.

The grounds include a poteau sur solle (post-on-sill) privy, a reconstructed smokehouse and springhouse, and an historic herb and vegetable garden that is located near the kitchen.

VIDEO

Pierre Menard State Historic Site.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.