Mary Ann Ball Bickerdyke known as "Mother Bickerdyke," a woman from Illinois who became one of the most influential and celebrated veterans of the Civil War.

Mary Ann [Ball] Bickerdyke "Mother Bickerdyke" was born in Ohio in 1817. She enrolled at Oberlin College, one of the few institutions of higher education open to women at this time in the United States, but she did not graduate.

Upon leaving Oberlin, Ball became a nurse at the age of 20. She assisted doctors in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the cholera epidemic of 1837. Ball married Robert Bickerdyke in 1847, and the couple moved to Galesburg, Illinois in 1856. Robert Bickerdyke died two years later. Mary Bickerdyke continued to work as a nurse to support her two young sons.

Mary Ann [Ball] Bickerdyke "Mother Bickerdyke"

Early in the war, a friend of 45 year old Bickerdyke's, a Dr. Woodward, wrote home describing the poor conditions at the military hospitals in and around Cairo, Illinois. The letter was read to Bickerdyke's church congregation and they took action. They collected $500 worth of supplies and chose Bickerdyke to deliver them.

When she arrived in Cairo, Bickerdyke found appalling conditions. She used the supplies to establish a hospital for the Union soldiers. She stayed on in Cairo, helping to organize and clean up the field hospitals. This caught the attention of Ulysses S. Grant, who appreciated her efforts.

Ignoring rank, protocol, and allegiance, she pursued fearlessly and with inexhaustible energy her mission to care for the sick and wounded. Rebel, Union, and Negro soldiers all received the same attention.

Bickerdyke followed Grant's army. She risked enemy fire, especially through Grant's Western Campaign, Sherman's Georgia Campaign, Vicksburg, Shiloh and Atlanta. During battles, Bickerdyke commonly risked her own life by searching for wounded soldiers. Once darkness fell, she would carry a lantern into the disputed area between the two competing armies and retrieve wounded soldiers. She eventually served on nineteen battlefields.

Both Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman admired Bickerdyke for her bravery and for her deep concern for the soldiers. She also earned a reputation for denouncing officers who failed to provide for their men. To assist the soldiers, Bickerdyke gave numerous speeches across the Union, describing the difficult conditions that soldiers experienced. She also solicited contributions from the civilian population. The soldiers nicknamed Bickerdyke "Mother Bickerdyke" because of her continuing concern for them. Gen Sherman woukld say to staff who grumbled about her unorthodox methods and forceful personality: "She outranks me! I can't do a thing in the world about it!"

With the help of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, by the end of the war, Bickerdyke had helped to establish over 300 field hospitals.

When the victorious armies of the North were in Washington, Sherman requested that she ride at the head of the Grand Review, "Mother Bickerdyke" road her faithful white horse beside the generals and colonels. Veterans along the line of march gave her the loudest cheers.

With the Civil War's conclusion, Bickerdyke continued to assist Union veterans. She provided legal assistance to veterans seeking pensions from the federal government. She also helped secure pensions for more than three hundred women nurses. Bickerdyke herself did not receive a pension until the 1880s. It was only twenty-five dollars per month. Bickerdyke moved to Kansas following the war, where she helped veterans to settle and begin new lives. She secured a ten thousand dollar donation from Jonathan Burr, a banker, to help the veterans obtain land, tools, and supplies. She also convinced the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad to provide free transportation for veterans hoping to settle in Kansas. Due to Bickerdyke's efforts, General Sherman authorized the settlers to use government wagons and teams to transport the belongings of the veterans to their new homes.

Bickerdyke remained in Kansas for most of the rest of her life. She settled in Salina, Kansas, where she opened a hotel. She continued to fight for the rights of veterans. She moved briefly to New York, before returning to Kansas with her two sons. Bickerdyke moved later to California, hoping that a change of climate would restore her declining health. She settled in San Francisco, where she accepted a position at the United States Mint. Bickerdyke eventually returned to Kansas, where she died on November 8, 1901. She was buried in Galesburg, Illinois.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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Free PDF Book in my Digital Research Library of Illinois History®
Mother Bickerdyke, Her Life and Labors for the Relief of Our Soldiers. published:1886 

The History of the Charles Dickinson Inn and Tavern in Today's Portage Park Community of Chicago.

The Chicago Portage Park community was once the site of an American Indian portage used for transport from the Chicago to Des Plaines Rivers. The land in this area would flood easily when it rained, creating this shallow portage navigable by canoe.

In the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis the Nations of Chippewa, Ottawa, and Pottawatomi Indians (the Council of Three Fires) ceded a 20 mile wide and 70-mile long strip of land to the United States, which connected Chicago and Lake Michigan with the Illinois River, which including the portion now known as Portage Park.

Indian Boundary Road in the Rogers Park Comunity of Chicago.

Though the land was originally intended to be used for a canal and military road, the government opened the land for "settlement" in 1830. After the completion of a government land survey in 1837, land sales began in earnest. In 1841, E.B. Sutherland built one of the first permanent structures along the Northwest Plank Road, now known as Milwaukee Avenue, where Milwaukee Avenue intersects with Belle Plaine Avenue.

The Chester Dickinson Inn and Tavern was located at the current intersection of Milwaukee and Belle Plaine Avenues in the Portage Park community of Chicago.

In the late 1840s and early 1850s, a private company had run this wooden plank road for  distance of 23 miles, making formerly impassable roads somewhat more navigable for new settlers. 

In 1845, Chester Dickinson purchased Sutherland's Inn. Dickinson's Inn and Tavern was also home to the local post office and interim town hall. The tavern served as a central hub of activity for Jefferson Township after it formally formed in 1873. Despite the preservation efforts of local residents, the Dickinson Tavern was razed in 1929.

It is said that both Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were frequent guests of the Dickinson Inn and Tavern in their travels through the area.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Monk and the Earthquake at Cahokia Mound in the Illinois Territory, 1811-1812.

TRAPPISTS IN THE WILDERNESS

The story of Father Urban Guillet in the Illinois Territory started when his group of Trappists[1] left Kentucky to move further west in 1809. Having been unsuccessful in establishing a self-sufficient community near Bardstown, Kentucky, they received an offer of land and buildings in Florissant, Missouri by John Mullanphy. Mullanphy was an Irish immigrant and a successful St. Louis entrepreneur and philanthropist. In the meantime, the superior of the Trappists received another offer of land, this time from prominent Cahokia citizen Nicholas Jarrot. Jarrot offered 400 acres of land, situated nine miles north of Cahokia, completely free of charge. The Trappists took Jarrot's offer and began to establish their settlement at the foot of the long-abandoned pre-Columbian temple mound of the Mississippian culture. It was this settlement that led to the site's current nickname, Monks Mound.

An artist’s depiction of the Monks Mound is found within the interpretive center at Cahokia Mounds State Park, (Collinsville, Illinois, today).

Although Guillet and his colleagues established farms, built buildings, and opened a school for boys, the monastery of Notre Dame de Bon Secours (as they called it) never flourished. Bad weather, recurrent waves of disease, and crop failures made the Trappist ideal of a self-sufficient community difficult to pursue. Unclear title to the land, furthermore, led to problems with squatters. It seemed clear that the effort to establish a community of self-sustaining religious brothers at the foot of Monks Mound would not succeed."

It was amidst this backdrop of struggle, on December 16, 1811, that the earth shook and perhaps, for Guillet and his confreres, served as another signal of the fate of their errand into the wilderness.

LETTERS TO QUEBEC ABOUT THE EARTHQUAKE

Fr. Guillet corresponded regularly with Jean-Octave Plessis, the Bishop of Quebec. While not his superior in the Trappist order, Plessis was an important figure in French-speaking North America, and Guillet sought his counsel and assistance.

Two of these letters, written on February 18, 1812, and March 14, 1812, discuss the terrifying events surrounding the earthquake that would come to be known as the New Madrid Earthquake of 1811-1812.

In his letter of February 18, 1812, Guillet tells Plessis that “an almost continual earthquake which lasted from the night of 15-16 December until now, helped much to bring people back to their religion. Earthquakes, long harbingers of evil in the Christian tradition, might have been seen as a sign from the beyond. Guillet also describes the destruction wrought by the quake, which damaged houses and "opened the earth in many places.”

The earthquake that Guillet was describing did indeed begin on the morning of December 16, 1811. A series of three earthquakes, measuring between 7 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, shook the entire eastern portion of the United States. Centered in northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri, these earthquakes caused damage and fear over half a continent. Another significant earthquake occurred on February 7, 1812, destroying the town of New Madrid, Missouri and toppling buildings in St. Louis.

In his March 14, 1812, letter to Plessis, Guillet again describes the destruction in the wake of the earthquakes. He writes that the damage locally was minor, but that he was nearly crushed by a falling chimney." He mentions the destruction of New Madrid and relates a story about the supposed source of the earthquakes: a volcanic eruption in North Carolina. This story, while likely credible, passed through many hands before it got to Guillet in the Illinois Country and may have been exaggerated.

THE AFTERMATH
The struggles to eke out a living from the unforgiving environment of the American Bottom, coupled with the shock of the 1811-1812 earthquakes, may have finally convinced Fr. Guillet that the mission at Notre Dame de Bon Secours was doomed to failure. In 1813, the Trappists gave up their effort, abandoned the monastery, and returned to Europe."

While it would be speculation to suggest that the earthquake drove Fr. Guillet and the other Trappist Monks away, it would be fair to conclude that the earthquake was another major factor in the decision to abandon the mission.

Fr. Guillet's account of the earthquake is one of many that exist, and this account cannot be considered without attention being paid to the context. If the many accounts of the earthquake are compared, a picture of the earthquake emerges. If, however, one account of the earthquake is set in its historical context, a deeper rendering of the meaning of the event to the lives of those who lived it arises. In considering historical sources, one must always consider the context along with the source itself if an understanding of the past is to be had.

The memory of the earthquakes of 1811-1812 doubtless lived on in the unrecorded memories of those who lived through it. The recorded accounts, like that of Fr. Guillet, are a small sample of the widespread experience of the event. The past, in its totality, may be unknowable. We can come to understand it, though, through what remains from it.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] Trappists - The order takes its name from La Trappe Abbey or La Grande Trappe, located in the French province of Normandy. A reform movement began there in 1664, in reaction to the relaxation of practices in many Cistercian monasteries. Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, originally the commendatory abbot of La Trappe, led the reform. As commendatory abbot, de Rancé was a layman who obtained income from the monastery but had no religious obligations. After a conversion of life between 1660 and 1662, de Rancé formally joined the abbey and became its regular abbot in 1663. In 1892 the reformed "Trappists" broke away from the Cistercian order and formed an independent monastic order with the approval of the Pope.