Lincoln, the Illinois county that never was.

The Illinois General Assembly created most of the state's counties in the 1820s and 1830s and added several additional ones in the 1840s and 1850s for a total number of 102 counties. During the antebellum period[1], the legislature considered and created many other counties, which never materialized because the electorate voted against their formation in a referendum, failing to complete the enabling act requirements. One example of this was the 1867 effort to create the state's 103rd county — Lincoln County — named for Illinois' greatest citizen and recently assassinated president, Abraham Lincoln. 

The proposed Lincoln County was
sandwiched between Champaign
and Vermilion counties, but never
found a home on any Illinois map.

As a means for the state to honor Lincoln, Champaign County Representative Clark R. Griggs introduced a bill to create Lincoln County on January 17, 1867.

The House unanimously passed the bill by a vote of seventy-nine to zero, and the bill moved to the Senate, which also unanimously passed it twenty-four to zero. 

The bill became law on March 9, 1867. The proposed county would consist of lands from western Vermilion and eastern Champaign counties. It would be a small, thin county, thirty-six miles long and from eleven to seventeen miles wide. The act called for a referendum for voters from both counties to approve the measure four months later.

On July 9, 1867, voters went to the polls to cast their ballots for or against the formation of the new county. While no county seat had yet been selected, citizens of Homer felt that their town had the best chance to become the county seat and strongly supported the new county.

However, residents of Danville, Champaign, Urbana, and Rantoul strongly opposed the new county because it would "haggle off a strip" of both counties, lessening the size of each. South Homer township voted 301 to 8 for the county, but the rest of the townships in Champaign and Vermilion counties overwhelmingly defeated it. 

Several townships failed to tally one vote to support it, and West Urbana township defeated it 503 to 2. The final tally showed nearly a 4,000 vote majority against the new county. Lincoln County, which would have been the state's 103rd county, was never established. This was the General Assembly's last effort to create a new county in Illinois. Clark Griggs served only a single term in the Illinois legislature. While Griggs' effort to create a county honoring Abraham Lincoln failed, another of his bills in the General Assembly was quite successful. Griggs introduced the bill and campaigned hard for the creation and location of the Illinois Industrial University at Champaign. The land-grant university later became the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Illinois Periodicals

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

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[1] The antebellum period refers to the years after the War of 1812 (1812-15) and before the Civil War (1861-65). The development of separate northern and southern economies, the nation's westward expansion, and a spirit of reform marked the era. These issues created an unstable and explosive political environment that eventually led to the Civil War.

The Kaskaskia Indian Reservation in Illinois.

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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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The Kaskaskia Indian Reservation, just west of Murphysboro in Jackson County, Illinois, has been all but forgotten.

The name Kaskaskia is the anglicized version of the tribal term "Kaskaskahamwa," which means "he who scrapes it off using a tool." The Kaskaskia tribe was part of the once-powerful Illinois Confederacy.

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The Illinois (aka Illiniwek or Illini) is pronounced as plural: (The Illinois') was a Confederacy of Indian tribes consisting of the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamarais (Tamaroa, Tamarois), Moingwena, Mitchagamie (Michigamea), Chepoussa, Chinkoa, Coiracoentanon, Espeminkia, Maroa, and Tapouara tribes that were of the Algonquin family. They spoke Iroquoian languages. The Illinois called themselves "Ireniouaki" (the French word was Ilinwe).

In 1673, representatives of the French government came to The Illinois County and observed where the native tribes were living. They discovered that the Kaskaskia were living in the vicinity of the present-day city of Peoria; the Peoria were living on the western, or Missouri, side of the Mississippi River, just south of Alton; the Cahokia was near Wood River; the Tamaroa lived between East St. Louis and Alton, and the Mitchigamie lived in the southern tip of the state.

Jean Baptiste Ducoigne, Kaskaskia chief, was born in 1750 to a French father and a Tamoroa Indian mother. He was baptized as an infant at the Church of St. Anne outside of Fort de Chartres (after whom the Perry County town of DuQuoin is named). Ducoigne was made chief of the Tamaroas in 1767. It was the same year the Illinois Confederacy dissolved when Indians from the Michigan tribe murdered notable Chief Pontiac. In retaliation, the other tribes drove the Michigans onto Starved Rock (<--- fact or fiction?) and starved them to death.

Chief Jean Baptiste Ducoigne was born in 1750. At 17, he was named the chief of the Kaskaskia Indian tribe. As chief, he actively participated in the Revolutionary War by traveling from Illinois Country to Virginia to meet with Thomas Jefferson and General Marquis de Lafayette. He was also instrumental in negotiating treaties with the government to secure land for the Chaokias, Tamaroas and Kaskaskia Indian tribes. The city of DuQuoin is named in honor of him.

The tribes of the Illinois Confederacy were rivals of the Iroquois, Sioux, and, most notably, the Shawnee. The best-known battle between these tribes occurred in 1802 and was fought between the Kaskaskia and Shawnee. Both tribes constantly fought over hunting grounds. It was mutually decided to hold one final battle, with the winner dominating the contested grounds. The Shawnee, who lived along the Wabash River, met the Kaskaskia at the Big Muddy River in present-day Franklin County. The battle ensued, and the Shawnee drove the Kaskaskia within twenty miles of the old French city to which the latter tribe gave its name.

The Kaskaskia were nearly annihilated. After the defeat of the Kaskaskia, the supremacy of the Illinois Confederacy over their rivals continued to diminish. By 1832, almost 70 years after moving from Peoria to Fort de Chartres to seek protection, the Illinois Confederacy barely numbered 300. Those who remained were on a half-mile wide by two-mile-long reservation along the Big Muddy River in Sand Ridge Township -- The Kaskaskia Reservation.

Their stay at Sand Ridge was a short one. After a few months along the banks of the Big Muddy, the surviving members of the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Cahokia, Tamaroa, and Mitchigamie tribes signed a treaty on October 27, 1832, with the United States at Castor Hill, near St. Louis. The treaty was signed by William Clark, Co-Captain of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He was then employed as the government's western Indian agent after his return from the Voyage of Discovery. Clark was regarded by natives and the government as being very fair and honest. Among others who signed on behalf of the government were Pierre Menard and Clark's son, Meriwether Lewis Clark.

In this treaty, the Confederacy ceded all lands the tribes held in Illinois. In exchange, the tribes received 96,000 acres in northeastern Kansas, promised to be theirs forever. Besides this land in Kansas, the Peoria, the name the tribes collectively adopted after signing the treaty, received an annual payment of cash or farm supplies, whichever they preferred, for improvements to the land at Sand Ridge and the area surrounding Fort de Chartres. 

Chief Ducoigne's daughter, Ellen, could keep 350 acres in northern Ora Township, given to her and her white husband by Ducoigne.

The Jean Baptiste Ducoigne house at Kaskaskia.

Shortly after the treaty was signed, the ragged Indians were rounded up and led west by a local man known only by the name of Worthen. In Kansas, the renamed Peoria were given farm implements as foreign to them as the land itself. The tribes of the former Illinois Confederacy never fully adjusted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to that of farmers. On the Great Plains, they continued to decline. In 1950, only 439 Indians remained out of the twelve native tribes of Illinois.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Marquette and Jolliet "Cross" Chicago, Illinois. 1907

At the request of Count Frontenac, governor of New France (Canada) and emissary to King Louis XIV, French-Canadian fur trader Louis Jolliet (Jolliet, the correct spelling) and French Jesuit missionary Father Jacques Marquette set out from the Straits of Mackinac in 1673 to explore North America and search for the Mississippi River.

They aimed to find a waterway connecting the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

Marquette and Jolliet navigated 2500 miles by canoe in 120 days, and while they didn't find a direct waterway, what they did see, with help from local Native Americans who knew it well, was a short portage. On this route, they could carry their canoes overland (and at certain times of the year, when the water was high enough, continue through the water) and ultimately connect Chicago and the Mississippi. That little portage was very important indeed. It changed the future of Chicago, placing it right in the middle of a waterway that stretched all the way from the St. Lawrence River to the foot of the Mississippi. It would also change everything for the Native Americans.

The "Chicago portage" was later excavated into the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. During their explorations on the return trip up the Chicago River, Marquette camped for the winter of 1674 at a spot where Damen Avenue intersects with the Sanitary and Ship Canal.

In 1907, a large cross was erected to honor Marquette and Jolliet. The cross is no longer on the site, but a plaque still marks this critical early exploration into this area.

In 1907, grateful local business owners commemorated the expedition of French-Canadian fur trader Louis Jolliet and French Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette by placing a large cross and a plaque where Damen Avenue meets the Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Old photographs document an early mahogany cross where Robey Street [now Damen Avenue] ended on the left bank of the West fork of the South arm of the Chicago River. It was designed by Thomas A. O'Shaughnessy and erected on September 28, 1907, by the Willey Lumber Company, guided by the Chicago Historical Society.

A tablet on the back side of its concrete base was inscribed: “In memory of Father Marquette, S.J., and Louis Jolliet of New France (Canada) first white explorers of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and Lake Michigan, 1673, navigating 2500 miles in canoes in 120 days. In crossing the site of Chicago, Jolliet recommended it for its natural advantages as a place of first settlement and suggested a lakes-to-the-gulf waterway, by cutting a canal through the "portage" west of here where begins the Chicago Drainage-Ship Canal. Work on this canal was begun Sept. 3, 1892, and it received the first waters of Lake Michigan, Jan. 2, 1902. This remarkable prophecy made 234 years ago is now being fulfilled. This end of Robey Street is the historic "high ground" where Marquette spent the winter 1674-1675. "To do and suffer everything for so glorious an undertaking." Marquette’s Journal. Erected Saturday, Sept. 28, 1907 by the City of Chicago and Chicago Association of Commerce.”

Photograph shot from across the Chicago River.

This text was taken in 1907. ["... It would only be necessary to make a canal, by cutting through but half a league of prairie, to pass from the foot of the lake of Illinois to the river Saint Louis... which falls into the Mississippi..." Relation de la descouverte de plusieurs pays situez au midi de la Nouvelle-France, faite en 1673 - Quebec, le 1er Aout, 1674].

This original cross was sawed off and carried away by vandals on August 11, 1914, but was replaced by a very similar cross on May 16, 1915. Also shown in the 1907 photograph is a small iron cross to the left of the large wooden one, with its history. It is said to have memorialized only Father Marquette, who has been present in this location since at least 1898 and still exists in 1950. On February 29, 1924, a Chicago Daily Tribune article announced that the large wooden cross would have to be removed because a bridge needed to be built across the river at the lower end of Robey Street, with a replacement to be considered nearby. This replacement was not another cross but the Marquette 1930 bas-relief sculpted monument with a bronze plaque.

The circle on this picture indicates the approximate site where the cross was.

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The Marquette Cross Chicago, Illinois - 1973.
(This cross was for Marquette only)

A 20-foot rough cedar cross at 2639 South Damen Avenue, just north of the bridge over the Chicago River's south branch, with an inscribed bronze plaque: "Near this Site Father Jacques Marquette, S.J., Missionary, Explorer and Co-discoverer of the Illinois River, spent the Winter of December 1674 to March 31, 1675."

This photograph is from a 1976 Chicago Tribune article.

Erected during the tricentennial observances of the voyage by Marquette and Jolliet, the cross was dedicated by John Cardinal Cody on September 1, 1973. The cross is no longer there as of 2008.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.