Illinois.
The site of the present State was first explored by Marquette and Joliet, French missionaries from Canada, in 1763, who were followed by La Salle and Hennepin. Twenty years later mission stations were established at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Peoria; and early in the eighteenth century a French monastery was established at Kaskaskia. By the treaty of 1763, the “Illinois country,” as it was called, passed under the jurisdiction of the English. By the treaty of [3] 1783 it was ceded to the United States, and it formed a part of the Northwest Territory. The country conquered by General Clarke, in 1778-79, the Virginia Assembly erected into a county, which they called Illinois. It embraced all |
| State seal of Illinois. |
On Oct. 14, 1812, Gen. Samuel Hopkins, with 2,000 mounted Kentucky riflemen, crossed the Wabash on an expedition against the Kickapoo and Peoria Indian villages, in the Illinois country, the former 80 miles from his starting-place, the latter 120 miles. They traversed magnificent prairies covered with tall grass. The army was a free-and-easy, undisciplined mob, that chafed under restraint. Discontent, seen at the beginning, soon assumed the forms of complaint and murmuring. Finally, when halting on the fourth day's march, a major rode up to the general and insolently ordered him to march the troops back to Fort Harrison. Very soon afterwards the army was scarcely saved from perishing in the burning grass of a prairie, supposed to have been set on fire by the Indians. The troops would march no farther. Hopkins called for 500 volunteers to follow him into Illinois. Not one responded. They would not submit to his leadership, and he followed his army back to Fort Harrison, where they arrived Oct. 25. This march of 80 or 90 miles into the Indian country had greatly alarmed the Indians, and so did some good. Towards the same region aimed at by General Hopkins another expedition, under Colonel Russell, composed of two small companies of United States regulars, with a small body of mounted militia under Gov. Ninian Edwards (who assumed the chief command), in all 400 men, penetrated deeply into the Indian country, but, hearing nothing of Hopkins, did not venture to attempt much. They fell suddenly upon the principal Kickapoo towns, 20 miles from Lake Peoria, drove the Indians into a swamp, through which they pursued them, sometimes waist-deep in mud, and made them fly in terror across the Illinois River. Some of the pursuers passed over, and brought back canoes with dead Indians in them. Probably fifty had perished. The expedition returned, after an absence of eighteen days, with eighty horses and the dried scalps of several persons who had been killed by the savages, as trophies.
General Hopkins discharged the mutineers and organized another expedition of 1,250 men, composed chiefly of foot-soldiers. Its object was the destruction of Prophetstown. The troops were composed of Kentucky militia, some regulars under Capt. Zachary Taylor, a company of rangers, and a company of scouts and spies. They rendezvoused at Vincennes, and marched up the Wabash Valley to Fort Harrison, Nov. 5, 1812. They did not reach the vicinity of Prophetstown until the 19th. Then a detachment fell upon and burned a Winnebago town of forty houses, 4 miles below Prophetstown. The latter and a large Kickapoo village near it were also laid in ashes. The village contained 160 huts, with all the winter provisions of corn and beans, which were totally destroyed. On the 21st a part of the expedition fell into an Indian ambush and lost eighteen men, killed, wounded, and missing. So destitute were the troops, especially the Kentuckians, who were clad in only the remnants of their summer clothing, that the expedition returned without attempting anything more. They suffered dreadfully on their return march.
Among the prominent events of the War [4] of 1812-15 in that region was the massacre at Chicago (q. v.). After that war the population rapidly increased, and on Dec. 3, 1818, Illinois, with its present limits, was admitted into the Union as a State. The census of 1820 showed a population of more than 55,000. The Black Hawk War (q. v.) occurred in Illinois in 1832. There the Mormons established themselves in 1840, at Nauvoo (see Mormons); their founder was slain by a mob at Carthage, in 1844, and soon afterwards a general exodus of this people occurred. A new State constitution was framed in 1847, and in July, 1870, the present constitution was adopted. The Illinois Central Railroad, completed in 1856, has been a source of great material prosperity for the State. During the Civil War Illinois furnished to the national government (to Dec. 1, 1864) 197,364 troops.
In 1899 the equalized valuations of taxable property aggregated $953,099,574; and in 1900 the entire bonded debt consisted of $18,500 in bonds, which had ceased to draw interest and never been presented for payment. The population in 1890 was 3,826,351; in 1900, 4,821,550. See United States, Illinois, vol. IX.
Territorial Governor.
| Ninian Edwards | commissioned | April 24, 1809 |
State governors.
| Shadrach Bond | assumes office | 1818 |
| Edward Coles | 1822 | |
| Ninian Edwards | 1826 | |
| John Reynolds | 1830 | |
| William L. D. Ewing | acting | 1834 |
| Joseph Duncan | assumes office | 1834 |
| Thomas Carlin | 1838 | |
| Thomas Ford | 1842 | |
| Augustus C. French | 1846 | |
| Joel A. Matteson | 1853 | |
| William H. Bissell | 1857 | |
| John Wood | acting | March 18, 1860 |
| Richard Yates | assumes office | January, 1861 |
| Richard J. Oglesby | January, 1865 | |
| John M. Palmer | January, 1869 | |
| Richard J. Oglesby | January, 1873 | |
| John L. Beveridge | acting | March 4, 1873 |
| Shelby M. Cullom | assumes office | January, 1877 |
| John M. Hamilton | acting | Feb. 7, 1883 |
| Richard J. Oglesby | January, 1885 | |
| Joseph W. Fifer | January, 1889 | |
| John P. Altgeld | January, 1893 | |
| John R. Tanner | January, 1897 | |
| Richard Yates | January, 1901 |
United States Senators.
| Name. | No. of Congress. | Date. |
| Ninian Edwards | 15th to 18th | 1818 to 1824 |
| Jesse B. Thomas | 15th to 19th | 1818 to 1826 |
| John McLean | 18th to 20th | 1824 to 1830 |
| Elias Kent Kane | 19th to 23d | 1826 to 1835 |
| David J. Baker | 21st | 1830 |
| John M. Robinson | 21st to 27th | 1831 to 1841 |
| William L. D. Ewing | 24th | 1836 |
United States Senators—Continued.
| Name. | No. of Congress. | Date. |
| Richard M. Young | 25th to 27th | 1837 to 1843 |
| Samuel McRoberts | 27th | 1841 to 1843 |
| Sidney Breese | 28th to 31st | 1843 to 1849 |
| James Semple | 28th | 1843 to 1846 |
| Stephen A. Douglas | 29th to 37th | 1847 to 1861 |
| James Shields | 31st to 33d | 1849 to 1855 |
| Lymnan Trumbull | 34th to 42d | 1855 to 1871 |
| Orville H. Browning | 37th | 1861 |
| William A. Richardson | 37th to 39th | 1863 to 1865 |
| Richard Yates | 39th to 42d | 1865 to 1871 |
| John A. Logan | 42d to 45th | 1871 to 1877 |
| Richard J. Oglesby | 43d to 46th | 1873 to 1878 |
| David Davis | 45th to 47th | 1877 to 1883 |
| John A. Logan | 46th to 49th | 1879 to 1886 |
| Shelby M. Cullum | 48th to — | 1883 to — |
| Charles B. Farwell | 50th to 51st | 1887 to 1891 |
| John M. Palmer | 52d to 55th | 1891 to 1897 |
| William E. Mason | 55th to 58th | 1897 to 1903 |
