Although Joliet, Marquette, LaSalle, and others received much credit for the discovery and settlement of Illinois, Henri de Tonti was not only a moving force under LaSalle, he was truly the founding father of what was to become Peoria 300 years ago.
Born in 1650, the son of a Neapolitan banker, he joined the French army at 18. During fierce fighting at Libisso, a grenade blew away most of his right hand. With a knife, he amputated the remainder of it, and a metal hand was later attached in its place, which he usually covered with a glove. Because of this the Indians gave him the name "Iron Hand."
In 1677, Robert de LaSalle returned to France to seek support to further explore the unknown interior of this continent south of the Great Lakes. Upon the recommendation of Prince Conti, LaSalle engaged young de Tonti as his lieutenant. But before the French missionaries and fur traders came to this area, it was occupied by the Illinois (or Illini) confederacy of five tribes; the Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Moingwena, Peoria, and Tamaroa.
But by the mid-1600s, these more peaceful people had been driven west of the Mississippi by attacks from the Iroquois. By 1670, the Illini had begun to return to the east side of the river. But in 1673, on their trip down the Mississippi, Joliet and Marquette visited the Peoria tribe in what is now Iowa.
On their return upstream, the two French explorers chose to come up the Illinois River instead of the way they had come down, at the suggestion of the Peoria Indians. Marquette mentioned staying three days with the "Indians of Peoria" at Lake Pimiteoui (Fat Lake) on this return trip to give the missionary an opportunity to announce the faith. Then, in the winter of 1680, the French explorer, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle, came to Lake Pimiteoui, where he found the Illinois tribes in winter camp.
He and his contingent, including Father Hennepin and Tonti, built a small compound which he named Fort Crevecoeur (French for Broken Heart), in memory of the recent loss of his 45-ton capacity boat, the "Griffon." Fort Crevecoeur was planned as a base for an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico.
It was, unfortunately, abandoned in the spring of 1680, following the mutiny of its workmen. One of several forts named St. Louis, in honor of France's King Louis XIV, had its beginning at Starved Rock, on the Illinois River. In 1682, after LaSalle's return to Illinois from his historic journey down the Mississippi, he decided to build a new outpost at Starved Rock, near the great Kaskaskia Indian village. Around it he collected several Indian tribes for the united defense against the warlike Iroquois.
But the restless LaSalle left his lieutenant, Tonti, in charge while he hurried off to establish a settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi, a venture that cost him his life in 1687. When Tonti heard of LaSalle's death, he and his business associate, Francois Daupin de la Forest, requested King Louis for the concession at Fort St. Louis as payment for expenses they had incurred to maintain the post. In 1690 their request was granted, giving them the same rights and privileges LaSalle had enjoyed.
A condition of the grant was that they would develop the post and influence the Illinois against the Iroquois. Tonti was at Michillimackinac in the autumn of 1691. He had left a relative named De Liette (probably his cousin) in charge of Ft. St. Louis. With him were three men and the Jesuit Father, Jacques Gravier. Tonti sent a communication to De Liette, informing him of the grant to transfer the concession of the fort.
He also told him he planned to return as soon as possible, and instructed him to sound out the Illinois about a new location for the post. The Indians had previously complained about the lack of wood near the fort, and the difficulty of getting water up to the rock. De Liette presented the request to the chiefs, who immediately chose the lower end of Lake Pimiteoui for the new location. Tonti arrived here in the winter of 1691-92 and began constructing his fort. It was designed so the friendly Indians could come into it for protection against the Iroquois. The new Fort St. Louis was surrounded by a wall of 1,800 pickets. Inside were four buildings, two large and two smaller ones.
One large log house was for lodgings, the other was a warehouse, and the two smaller houses were for the soldiers. La Forest arrived in the spring of 1692 with a large number of engagees and soldiers. A United States survey team from the general land office in Washington, D.C., later listed the approximate site of this earliest French village to be at the vicinity of Cornhill and Adams Streets. It later expanded northwest from the river to Perry Street, and southwest from Hayward to Caroline Street.
Father Gravier probably began his mission among the Illinois tribes around 1689 or '90. He may have begun his mission at Starved Rock and moved it with the fort to Pimiteoui.
On Jan. 13, 1825, the Illinois General Assembly approved an act creating Peoria County "out of the country in the vicinity of Fort Clark." It authorized the county to purchase the county seat site from the federal government and, finally, provided "That all of the tract of country North of said Peoria County, and of the Illinois and Kankakee Rivers and the same is hereby attached to said county, for all county purposes."
Putnam, Knox and Henry counties were also erected by law in 1825, but none of them organized immediately, so the attached territory of Peoria County originally had the Mississippi River as its western boundary, and it included Galena and Chicago. Also attached to it on the east side of the Illinois River were the present Tazewell County and parts of Mason, Logan, McLean, Woodford, Marshall and Putnam counties.
The very first officer of Peoria County was Norman Hyde, a native of New York state. On Jan. 18, 1825, the General Assembly elected Hyde judge of the probate court. By appointment, he also served three months as clerk of the commissioners court and later as county recorder, treasurer, surveyor and U.S. postmaster.
The second Peoria County officer was another New Yorker, John Dixon. He was appointed clerk of the circuit court on Feb. 4, 1825, by Judge John York Sawyer, who was then sitting in Springfield. Dixon moved to the Rock River crossing of the Peoria- Galena trail in 1830, where he purchased Joseph Ogee's ferry and established a tavern, which became famous as a rendezvous during the Black Hawk War. Known as Dixon's Ferry, it later became the town of Dixon. Indians called Dixon "Nadah-chura-sca," meaning "gray head." In accordance with the act that created Peoria County, an election for county officers was held on March 7, 1825, at the house of William Eads. Only 66 votes were cast. William Holland, Nathan Dillon and Joseph "Dad Joe" Smith were elected the first county commissioners.
Samuel Fulton, brother of Josiah and Seth Fulton, was elected sheriff, and William Phillips, coroner. All but Fulton lived on the east side of the river. This was not unusual because, at the time, there were more people living on the east side than on the west. The following day, the commissioners met in the cabin of Joseph Ogee and formally organized the commissioners court.
At its first session the court ordered that the county seat be called Peoria. Before that time, the little settlement had more frequently been called Fort Clark. The court granted ferry and tavern licenses and fixed their rates. They appointed constables, road viewers and election officials, selected jurors and recommended people for appointment by the governor as justices of the peace. They also levied taxes, controlled expenditures and generally took jurisdiction in all county affairs, except criminal and civil actions, which were brought to the circuit court. William Stephen Hamilton, the son of Alexander Hamilton of New York, who was then attached to the surveyor general's office in Springfield, was engaged to survey the town.
He laid out the town on the fractional quarter section, which contained 147 1/2 acres. Certain streets were named Hamilton (for the surveyor), Fayette (evidently for Marquis de la Fayette), and others for the presidents, Washington through Monroe. One block was reserved for a public square, which has since been the site of various Peoria County courthouses. Hamilton was allowed $58.75 for his services, but he took two lots instead. Later, in 1834, Charles Ballance, a lawyer, surveyor, real estate divider and historian, made a survey of the town.
He made provisions for alleys in certain blocks, where Hamilton's survey had provided for none. County commissioners advertised a sale of town lots at a public auction to be held in July 1826. Numerous lots were bid on at prices ranging from $25 to $96.25. When the county attempted to pass title to the buyers it discovered that it had no title to the land and it took another nine years for the county to gain clear title to the town site. Most of the first settlers were natives of Virginia and Kentucky and brought their county-commissioner system of government with them. But by 1848 the northern Illinois counties had a majority of residents from New England, New York and Pennsylvania, and they favored the town-meeting system.
The new 1848 state Constitution gave counties the option of adopting township government. Surveys of the United States had set up "congressional townships," which were six miles square, and these formed convenient political divisions. Township government was adopted in 1849 by a vote of 2,147 to 19, and several supervisors were elected in April 1850.
Samuel Dimon of Orange (afterward Kickapoo Township) was elected chairman and names were adopted for 19 townships. (Source: Ernest E. East's unpublished "History of Peoria")
In 1819 -- six years after Fort Clark was built at what is now seven men were looking for a place to settle. After hearing of the great beauty around Lake Peoria, they came here and formed the first American settlement on the site that was to become the city of Peoria.
They had been living at Shoal Creek in Clinton County, but left that place to found a settlement at Manvaise Terre Prairie, near the present site of Naples on the Illinois River. But that locality was not satisfactory. The group ferried their two horses over to the west side of the river, where Abner Eads, a native of Virginia, and Joseph Hershey, who was called "the New York Dutchman," rode northward to Fort Clark.
The two arrived here April 15, 1819, and decided this was the place. The remaining party of five proceeded upriver by keel boat, bringing with them all their effects. Eads and Hershey waited at Fort Clark for two days, when a deserter from Fort Dearborn came floating downstream in his canoe. Eads joined him as a passenger to see what had become of the rest of the party, while Hershey remained here with the horses.
They were met by the others near La Marsh Creek and Eads returned with them to Fort Clark, where they were welcomed by Hershey on April 17. These final five members of the group were Josiah and Seth Fulton, Virginians by birth and brothers of Eads' wife, Rebecca; and Kentuckians Samuel Dougherty, Thomas Russell and John Davis. About June 1, Eads, with one of the Fultons and Dougherty, returned to Shoal Creek with their two horses to move Rebecca and her three children to their new home.
The family and their household effects were loaded on a two-horse wagon and headed toward Peoria Lake. They crossed the river at Wesley City (now Creve Coeur), where they found Indian canoes to carry them across. The wagon was torn down and transported over the same way, while the horses and cattle swam across. Rebecca Eads became the first American woman to see the site of Peoria. Abner Eads bought 160 acres here. Part of it became City Cemetery, which has since been abandoned. It is now Lincoln Park, the location of the Lincoln branch of the Peoria Public Library.
Eads was elected sheriff of Fulton County (which then included Peoria), when it was organized in 1823. He also engaged in trade with the Indians of the Peoria Lake area. A daughter, Rebecca, was born in Peoria on April 19, 1834.
Abner moved his family to Galena around 1834. He died March 18, 1853, while returning from a business trip to California, and is buried in St. Louis. Abner's wife, Rebecca, died Feb. 22, 1855, in Alameda, Calif., where she was living at the home of her daughter, Margaret, the wife of Orin Hamlin, also a former Peorian. Josiah Fulton was born in Ohio County, Va., on Feb. 19, 1800. He married Auguste P. Hughes, and the couple had 10 children.
Josiah farmed in Richwoods Township until his retirement, and died here March 4, 1894, at age 94. Seth Fulton later settled in Princeville, and died there in 1889, at the age of 88. Dougherty, Hershey, Russell and Davis soon moved elsewhere. Other early Peoria settlers were: James Latham, a probate judge of Sangamon County, who was appointed Indian sub- agent at Peoria in 1821. It appears he maintained residence here until he died in 1826.
Philip Craymer was employed in 1822 as blacksmith to the Indians here, in line with the policy of the U.S. Indian department. He appears to have been discharged by Latham in 1824. William Holland, later the founder of Washington, succeeded Craymer. John Hamlin, also of Sangamon County, settled here in 1822.
He traded with the Indians, built the first frame house here in 1825, built a flour mill on Kickapoo Creek, and became county commissioner, a member of the House and Senate of the Illinois General Assembly, a justice of the peace, a banker, and a businessman. Hamlin first lived on the riverfront in a two-room log cabin.
He had a foot lathe and turned out chairs and other pieces of furniture. The Indians called Hamlin "Put-i-quis-tia," meaning "wooden blacksmith.' He was also the first president of the Old Settler's Society in 1867. John Hamlin died March 29, 1876. Other Fort Clark pioneers included William Eads, brother of Abner; Samuel Fulton, brother of Josiah and Seth; John L. Bogardus, Peoria's first lawyer; Dr. Augustus Langworthy, Peoria's first physician; William Blanchard, earliest Woodford County pioneer; Joseph Moffatt, his wife, sons Alva, Aquilla and Franklin, and daughters Mary and Olive, the first family to settle Peoria's South Side; and Joseph Ogee, a French and Indian interpreter. Sources: "Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, Vol. II" and Ernest East's unpublished "History of Peoria."
We have covered the earliest French involvement in Illinois from Fort St. Louis at Starved Rock to the move to Lake Pimiteoui (Peoria) in 1691 and the establishment of Fort St. Louis here. This fort later became known as Fort Pimiteoui. We left off with the Rev. Gravier returning here in 1700 to again serve the Peoria Indians, as he had promised, and with Tonti and his partner, La Forest, continuing their trading operations here until at least 1703.
But the Peoria region never regained its early prominence even though a French settlement remained nearly continuously until 1812, when it was attacked by American militia troops under the command of Captain Thomas E. Craig. Shortly after 1700, French influence in Illinois shifted to the Mississippi Valley region, not far from what is now the city of St. Louis. With it, river traffic shifted from the Illinois to the Ohio and Wabash rivers, and Lake Peoria lost its strategic importance to the French.
Gravier remained here with the Peoria tribe, but little is known about this period of his work. We do know that his life in the wilderness was very lonely, because he later wrote that he was alone most of the time, "without a colleague, without a companion, often without a servant." Then, he was personally attacked in 1706, which brought an end to his mission work here. This personal attack was precipitated by a prominent man among the Peoria tribe who was hostile to the French and who stirred up his people against the "black gown" and other Frenchmen in the village.
During the assault Gravier was struck by five arrows, one of which became stuck in the sinews near his elbow, severely wounding him in the arm. The priest suffered terribly from the festering wound for three months and was not permitted to leave or send out word of his condition. But, somehow, the Rev. Mermet heard of his plight and sent several converts to rescue him. He was taken to the Kaskaskia village and then on to Mobile for further treatment. From there, he went overseas to his homeland to recover.
But he returned to America and died shortly after, from complications of his injury. Little is known about De Liette after Tonti and La Forest left, probably because he was engaged in illegal trade.
The Rev. Marest, in his account of the attack on Gravier, named only one man, St. Michel, a blacksmith. And the same discontent that caused the attack on Gravier, forced De Liette and his men to leave Fort Pimiteoui. La Forest told about the departure of both De Liette and Gravier in a letter he wrote in 1706.
A few years later Marest learned that the Peorias had repented and were eager to have the old mission reopened here, so he paid a visit to the village in 1711. He spoke of French traders doing secret trade with the Peorias, and he found a number of Frenchmen apparently living with the Indians at Lake Peoria but, by and large, the French had had little contact with the Peorias after the death of Gravier.
The bad treatment had prompted the governors of Canada and Louisiana to forbid all trade with them, but Marest decided to reopen the mission. He sent the Rev. Jean Marie de Ville, a newcomer to the Illinois country. No further information about the Peorias is available but it's known that de Ville remained in Illinois Country for some time, and it's suggested that he remained at Pimiteoui until at least 1715. In 1713, the governor of New France was instructed to abandon Fort Pimiteoui and was asked to determine the facts regarding the Illinois property alleged to have been granted to Tonti and La Forest.
After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, the restrictions on French trade with the Indians were abandoned, and in 1716 the French government authorized 25 trading permits. Three years later, however, the fur trade was made a monopoly of the new Company of the West. The posts in the west were to be permitted to trade with the Indians at Pimiteoui, Michillimackinac and Detroit, and the reopening of trade on the Illinois nearly coincided with the military occupation of the old fort.
The French and their Indian allies were in a long struggle with the hostile Foxe tribe, who were attempting to oust the Illinois from their homeland. The French government determined to destroy the Foxes as early as 1713, but it took nearly two decades before they were finally beaten. In 1715, the governor of New France decided to re-establish Pimiteoui with a sergeant and a band of eight soldiers but, again, little is known about their activities during this brief time, although French documents mention repairs being made to the fort.
The permit system at the fort was abolished in 1719, and all trading was absorbed by the Company of the West. The garrison at Fort Pimiteoui was ordered back to Montreal. The fort was finally abandoned in 1720 during a short period of truce on the western frontier.
Meanwhile, La Forest and the Tonti heirs were pressing claims for damages alleged to have been sustained by the fort's abandonment. Following his death, La Forest's widow pushed her case before the Paris authorities.
Finally in 1722 the French council agreed to pay her 1,500 livres, which was half the sum granted to Tonti's heirs.
The settlement of these claims left Pimiteoui a no- man's land for anyone to occupy, and brought to an end one phase of French Peoria history. (Sources: Floyd Mulkey's "Fort St. Louis at Peoria" from the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society; Sister Mary Borgias Palm's "The Jesuit Missions of the Illinois Country.")
Father Gravier's favorite convert, while he was a French missionary of the Immaculate Conception Mission here at Fort Pimiteoui, was a 17-year-old Indian maid named Marie Rouensa, the daughter of Chief Rouensa of the Kaskaskia Indian tribe.
After much soul-searching, she married a French "voyageur" named Michel Accault, who was born in Poitiers, France, about 1646, and by 1666, was a resident of Canada. Being a fur trader, Accault had long frequented the Illinois country. As a matter of fact, he had been with LaSalle and de Tonti when they built the short-lived Fort Crevecoeur in 1680. Later that same year, he accompanied Louis Hennepin on his exploratory journey to the upper Mississippi Valley, and by the 1690s, Accault had become well known in the Illinois country.
Across the Illinois River from Starved Rock, where Fort St. Louis was originally located before moving to Lake Pimiteoui (Peoria), was the Kaskaskia village where Marie Rouensa was born, probably in 1677. Those were violent times, and in 1680, an Iroquois tribe attacked and destroyed her village.
It was because of the warlike Fox and Iroquois tribes (in addition to the lack of firewood, game, and adequate water) that the French and their allied Indian tribes were forced to move southward to Lake Pimiteoui in 1691.
So it was here, then, in 1694 that Accault and Rouensa were married, surely by Father Gravier, but because surviving church registers began later, there is no official record of the marriage. Gravier himself, however, described the circumstances of the wedding and also the legitimate birth of their first son, Pierre Accault, on March 20, 1695, at Pimiteoui. But the warring tribes didn't allow the Kaskaskias much peace here, either, so they continued their southward flight, and in 1700, they settled on the west bank of the Mississippi at the mouth of the Des Peres River, near the present site of St. Louis.
Michel and Marie Accault moved with them, and seven years after their first son was born, their names again appeared in written records. On February 22, 1702, Father Pierre Gabriel Marest baptized their second son, Michel Accault.
The Kaskaskia tribe didn't stay long on the west bank of the Mississippi, again, probably because of hostile tribes, especially the Sioux. So, early in the winter of 1703, Marie and her two sons, one an infant, and the other 8 years old, joined what remained of the Kaskaskia tribe and a handful of Jesuit missionaries and fur traders.
The final destination of their long southern migration was on the east bank of the Mississippi, at its junction of what was named the Kaskaskia River. This land between the two rivers was as rich as any in the world, and the Kaskaskia outpost established a new economic basis, the production of wheat and maize (Indian corn), for the French in the middle Mississippi Valley.
It's not clear if Michel Accault settled at this new town. It's believed he must have died shortly after the birth of his second son, although there's no record of his burial. But the daughter of the Kaskaskia chief wasn't likely to remain a widow long, and less than two years after the birth of Michel Accault, Marie bore a daughter, Agnes, by her second husband, Michel Philippe. They would eventually have two more girls and three boys.
In the autumn of 1718, a convoy of administrators and French marines left New Orleans, the newly founded capital of Louisiana, for the Illinois country. It was about to be brought into the official structure of French colonial North America, and would have a great effect on the lives of the Philippe family.
Michel Philippe's life became more settled. He had been a fur trader, but now he devoted himself more and more to agriculture and the acquisition of property. He became part of the local power elite and served as a lieutenant in the newly formed Kaskaskia militia company.
Originally, Kaskaskia Indians, French Canadians and people of mixed blood all lived in the same community. But in 1719, an Indian village was established several miles north, up the Kaskaskia River. Indian wives of the French, of course, remained in the French village, but Marie worried about her second son, Michel Accault, who preferred Indian ways.
On June 13, 1725, Jesuit priest Jean Baptiste Le Boullenger, with a notary, an interpreter and a witness, assembled at the Philippe home to draft a last will and testament for Marie, who was ill in bed and near death. It was decided that the total Philippe estate be divided between her husband and her children, including those by her first husband. Philippe would receive half and the children would share equally in the other half. But an unusual feature of her will was that her second son, Michel, be "disinherited because of his disobedience, as well as the bad conduct he has exhibited towards me and the entire family."
A week later, a group of men again assembled at her sickbed so a codicil to her will could be recorded. In effect it stated that she felt pity for her wayward son, and if he would repent, he would have a right to his share.
On June 25, 1725, Marie Rouensa Accault Philippe, the only woman so highly honored, was buried under the floor of the Immaculate Conception parish church in Kaskaskia, as requested in her will. Marie's story is an excellent example of how European culture absorbed and changed the American Indian culture in one short generation.
Two months after her death, it took two days to appraise her large estate of 45,000 livres, including five slaves. Marie's apparent indifference about owning slaves (including Indian slaves) suggests the extent that slavery was accepted as normal in French colonial society. But, happily, Marie's family ended as she would have wanted. Not only did many of her descendants marry well, but her wayward son, Michel Accault, eventually repented and returned to Kaskaskia. In 1728, three years after Marie's death, he reconciled with his stepfather and received his share of Marie's estate, 2,861 livres.
Marie could finally rest in peace.
(Source: "Marie Rouensa and the Foundations of French Illinois," by Carl J. Ekberg in the Illinois Historical Journal.)
In 1702, two years after Marie Rouensa Accault and her family moved from Peoria, Fort St. Louis (or Fort Pimiteoui) was more or less abandoned by the French traders because of French trade restrictions. But other unlicensed trading continued.
The fort became the southern- most point of Canadian and northern-most point of Louisianan jurisdiction. There were about 3,000 Indians still living there at the lake, and De Liette (Tonti's nephew) continued trading in the area until 1711.
The dark years
In 1717, the Peoria area became a part of Louisiana, but the time between 1712 and 1750 is considered Peoria's dark years, since very little documentation exists. We do know that the Peoria mission was re-established here between 1711 and 1714 by Father DeVille, and Father De Kereben was at the mission from 1718 to 1720. And when Father Charlevoix passed through in 1721, he reported finding several hundred Indians and four Frenchmen at the site.
But, on a trip upriver the following year, De Lisle found no one at Peoria. The Illinois Indians had moved north to join those at Starved Rock. Then in 1723, Renault was given a grant at Peoria under the Company of the West. In 1733, the village of Peoria was reoccupied by Peoria Indians, but no French soldiers or priests were present. In 1750, the Peoria village had 1,200 Indians and a small Jesuit mission under Father Meurin. From then until 1773, there apparently was a small garrison here as well as occasional traders.
In 1752 the garrison was under the command of a man named Adamville, and in 1757 an author and soldier, Louis Antoine Bougainville, reported finding a commandant residing in a fort named Pimiteoui among the Peorias on the Illinois River.
English take over
There was little or no impact on the settlement when the English defeated France and the Illinois Country was surrendered to England in 1763. The French commandant, De Villiers, recalled Sieur Toulon and his garrison, which was, presumably, stationed in the Peoria Lake fort.
The fort had probably been rebuilt several times and was still in existence when the British actually took over the area in 1765. It was described as "stockades of green timber, enclosing a square with log structures within."
The French were farming around old Fort Pimiteoui at this time. Antoine Saint Francois sowed corn here in 1765, but the population seems to have been a floating one. Patrick Kennedy, a man who visited the region in 1773, found the stockade of the fort destroyed by fire, but the houses in the village were still standing.
`Old Peoria Village'
But the small settlement continued intermittently for more than 30 years, ranging from six to 15 residents until 1796, when the names of 63 individuals who lived at this "Old Peoria Village" became known.
The town had a horsemill, and a blacksmith was living behind the fort. Among these old village residents were Pierre de Beuro (for whom Bureau County was named), Pointe du Sable (the founder of Chicago), Jean Baptiste Maillet (the founder of the new Peoria village) and Louis Buisson (who later established a trading house at Wesley City).
The old village was abandoned because of Indian attacks during the American Revolution, and by 1796 the residents had all moved away. But the blockhouses of old Fort Pimiteoui were still visible. In 1826, property owner John Birket reportedly saw fragments of burned pickets and heaped earth (presumably the remains of the fort) at the foot of Mary Street. This was about 150 feet above the Peoria Pottery. By 1933, the site was an abandoned stone and gravel pit.
New founding father
The French of Peoria were mostly illiterate, but they were a care-free people. Able to adjust quickly to changes of political fortune, many of their lives were filled with adventure and romance.
Maillet, who was born at St. Denis in Richelieu County, Quebec, Canada, on July 3, 1753, founded the new village of Peoria. He was the son of Augustin and Marie Madeleine Ebert Maillet, and his grandfather, Pierre, came from Paris, France, in 1685. Maillet had one known son, Hypolite, who was born in Peoria.
Maillet, a French trader, settled at "Old Peoria's Fort" probably before 1773, because on March 13, 1773, he sold land to Pointe du Sable. He moved 1 1/2 miles south in or before 1778, and founded the new Peoria village known by the French as Au Pied du Lac (translation: at the foot of the lake). It was later referred to as La Ville de Maillet (although probably not in Maillet's time).
Maillet built a stockaded house here near the foot of the present Harrison Street. He was an influential member of French Peoria, and, gradually, the inhabitants of the old village followed him.
New Peoria Village
A U.S. survey in 1840 showed the New Peoria Village beginning at a point 125 feet above the river at Liberty Street, up to Washington Street, southwest on Washington to Oak Street, then back down Oak to the river. This new site featured a fort and about 50 buildings along the river. It was described as having "narrow streets, log houses surrounded by fences and gardens and larger tilled fields behind and around the village. The inhabitants raised cattle, pigs and chickens.
There were stockyards and barns, a wine-press and underground vault for wine, a windmill for grinding grain, about six stores or places of trade with Indians and a church with a large wooden cross on the roof and gilt lettering over the door.
There were blacksmiths, wagon makers, carpenters and shoemakers." Out of this new village, on the riverfront at the south end of Lake Peoria, sprang Peoria's still ever-changing downtown area. (Sources: Matson's "Pioneers of Illinois," Judith A. Franke's "Peoria Chronology," Ernest E. East's "History of Peoria" and Sister Mary Borgias Palm's "The Jesuit Missions of the Illinois Country.")
On March 13, 1773, five years before he founded the new village of Peoria, Jean Baptiste Maillet sold a house and 3-acre farm at "Old Peoria Fort" to Jean Baptiste DuSable, the French black man who was later credited with founding Chicago. DuSable is also believed to be the first black resident of Peoria.
It is generally believed that DuSable was born around 1750 of an African mother and French father in either Santo Domingo or Canada. This future wealthy proprietor of trading posts at both Peoria and Chicago was a free man in a rampant age of slavery.
Here in Peoria, this young man in his 20s was already showing extraordinary trading skills. It's also thought to be here that he met and married Kittihawa (Catherine), a Potawatomi Indian. They had two children, Jean Baptiste Jr. and Suzanne.
The large, handsome, intelligent and well-liked senior DuSable sold his Peoria property in 1783 and located his base of operations at Eschikagou (Chicago). DuSable had been on the site of Chicago in 1779, but he was driven out by the British, who suspected him of giving aid to the Americans. But he later moved to Chicago, and it appears he lived there until 1800, when he sold his property, consisting of a house and seven other buildings, to Jean Lalime. DuSable was known to be back in Peoria in 1802 or 1803, because he signed his initials, J.B.P.S., as a witness to two real estate transfers. He died Aug. 28, 1818, at St. Charles, Missouri Territory, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Borromeo Catholic Church.
After selling his property to DuSable, Maillet was appointed commandant at Peoria by George Rogers Clark. He continued in that capacity under Gen. Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory.
The stockaded house Maillet built in 1778, near the foot of the present day Harrison Street, was part of what became a fort and two block houses. It was surrounded by earthworks and palisades, with an open gateway to the south, next to the town. This stockade was only intended as a place of retreat in case of trouble with the Indians. The fort was never occupied, except for a short time by Maillet.
One of these two block houses was his dwelling, and the other was a store. Some years later, it is said, he moved to a more desirable place to live and trade. The fort then remained vacant for many years, the enclosure being used by the citizens as a common for their cow-yard.
In 1820, Maillet's son, Hypolite, in sworn testimony relating to French claims at Peoria, stated that he was (then) 45 years old and was born in a stockade fort that stood near the southern extremity of Peoria Lake. This must have been the first Maillet house. Hypolite also testified that his father was killed in 1801.
Along came the soldiers
In the summer of 1780, Virginia soldiers visited French Peoria, when Col. John Montgomery, with 225 men in nine companies, led a punitive expedition against Indians in the Rock River Valley. His forces included a fifer and a drummer, and a flag (description unknown) was carried by the troops.
A wealthy trader in Cahokia, Daniel Maurice Godfrey Linctot, offered his services to Col. Clark and came to Peoria during the Revolutionary War period with 30 mounted militia. He came to encourage a large number of Indians here to join them and offset the savage allies of England in the north. When Col. Clark took possession of Illinois in 1778, he sent three soldiers, accompanied by two Frenchmen, in a canoe to Peoria to notify the people there that they were no longer under British rule but were now citizens of the United States. Among these soldiers was a man named Nicholas Smith of Bourbon County, Ky.
(Smith's son, Joseph "Dod Joe," was later among the first American settlers of Peoria).
A large town
Smith described Peoria at the time of his visit as a large town (for those frontier days), built along the beach of the lake, with narrow, unpaved streets and houses constructed of wood. In back of the town were gardens, stock yards, barns, etc., and among these was a wine press, with a large cellar or underground vault for storing wine. There was also a church with a large wooden cross raised above the roof, and gilt lettering over the door. There was an unoccupied fort on the bank of the lake, and close by there was a windmill for grinding grain. The town contained six stores or places of trade, all of which were filled with goods for the Indian market.
The inhabitants included French settlers, Indians and people of mixed heritage, and not one of them could understand or speak English.
The royal banner of Spain was carried by militiamen who spent one day in Peoria in January 1781. Commanded by Don Eugenio Pouree, the Spanish, supported by a company of Indians, came by river from Pancour (St. Louis) and marched over land to the British post of St. Joseph, which was captured. Jean Baptiste Maillet guided this expedition.
Spain claimed the Illinois River and all its tributaries by right of conquest, but its claims were rejected when England made peace with the American colonies, and with France and Spain, in 1783.
In the winter of 1788, a party of Indians came to Peoria to trade. They made their quarters in the abandoned fort, and then went on a drunken spree, burning the fort down. Hugh Heward, a clerk for Detroit traders, visited Peoria in May 1790. He found Louis Chatelreaux here, and recorded in his journal: "At the village of the Pioras at the South Side of this small lake are Seven French settled among the Indians." He identified Maillet (whom he called "Capt. Mye") as one of those settlers.
(Sources: Matson's "Pioneers of Illinois," and Earnest E. East's unpublished "History of Peoria.")
Back in 1778, Col. George Rogers Clark, who had captured the British outpost at Kaskaskia on the Mississippi with fewer than 200 men, sent word up to Peoria that they were no longer under British rule and were now citizens of the United States. In 1795, the Treaty of Greenville was negotiated by the former revolutionary general, "Mad" Anthony Wayne. Under this treaty, the Indians ceded a 6-mile-square piece of land at the old fort and village, near the south end of Peoria Lake. But by around 1796, the old French village had been completely abandoned for the new village.
In 1807, 24 men asked that Peoria be placed within the jurisdiction of the Kaskaskia Land Commission for consideration of claims at Peoria Lake. Congress granted petition, and a number of claims at Peoria were subsequently confirmed.
Thomas Forsyth, who was born at the British post of Detroit, was an important figure in the last years of New Peoria. Not only was he Chicagoan John Kinzie's half-brother and partner in the Indian trade, he was appointed U.S. Indian secret agent at Peoria in 1812, reporting on the movements of unruly Indians.
Other inhabitants of New Peoria who left their imprint on the pages of history were: Antoine "Delard" Deschamps, Illinois brigade manager of the American Fur Co.; Antoine Le Claire, who later was a founder of Davenport, Iowa; and Michael La Croix's common-law wife, Catherine, who became the wife of John Reynolds, governor of Illinois from 1830 to 1834.
In October 1812, mounted militia under the command of Col. William Russell, came up from Fort Russell near Edwardsville and attacked a Potawatomi village at the head of Peoria Lake. It was the village of Chief Black Partridge, the hero of the Fort Dearborn Massacre. Gov. Ninian Edwards accompanied the expedition. Without waiting to see if the Indians were friendly, the troops stormed the Indian camp at night, killing 25 to 30 people. Expected reinforcements failed to arrive and, fearing for its safety, the governor's army hurried away and set up camp near Cruger.
However, at the time of the attack, Black Partridge was with Forsyth on a mission of mercy to rescue a Lt. Helm from Indians on the Au Sable River. Helm was married to Forsyth's niece, Kinzie's daughter. When Black Partridge returned, he found his village destroyed and his favorite daughter and her infant child killed.
End of New Peoria
Capt. Thomas E. Craig of Shawneetown and his militia company had been sent to cooperate with the mounted militia. But reaching Peoria Lake several days after the land forces had departed, Craig found New Peoria half empty. Craig's men then proceeded to loot vacant houses, including the Kinzie & Forsyth warehouse.
Forsyth returned to New Peoria and demanded restoration of the plunder. Only a portion of the stolen goods was surrendered, however. During the night, shots were fired at Craig's boats. The angered commander accused the French of perpetrating the attack, but the French denied it. Craig then took the inhabitants under his "protection." He forced 41 men, women and children into two open boats and transported them to Savage's Ferry near Alton.
There, the prisoners were held for four days before Gov. Edwards ordered their release. Forsyth charged that before departing Peoria, Craig had set fire to four houses and four barns, two of which were full of wheat. Two weeks later, Craig reported to the governor: "I burnt down about half of the town ... The damned rascals may think themselves well off that they were not scalped." Actually, he had destroyed most of the village.
New Peoria never rose from the ashes. A few of the kidnapped inhabitants returned to an Indian village on the east side of the Illinois River, three miles below the outlet of Peoria Lake. In 1818, the American Fur Co. established a trading post here, called Opa Post. Early Peoria and Tazewell county records refer to it as the French Trading House. This village was incorporated in 1836 as Wesley City, and in 1921, the name was changed to Creve Coeur.
Peoria French claims
The famous Peoria French claims, which were before Congress and in the courts for more than a half-century, arose as a consequence of Craig's lawless act.
The evicted inhabitants petitioned in 1813 for redress, and Congress passed acts in 1820 and 1823 that provided grants to the French lots they had occupied. By 1837, when surveys were made, American settlers were occupying these lots -- but the sales to these inhabitants were made subject to the French claims.
Approximately 32 French inhabitants (or their heirs) filed claims to 70 lots in both the Old and New Peoria villages. A series of suits also arose for claims that were in Peoria's business section. Thirty-six suits were filed in Peoria County Circuit Court, while others were brought in to the U.S. Court at Chicago, the Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Abraham Lincoln was engaged in four U.S. Circuit Court cases and one U.S. Supreme Court case. The French won nearly all of these claims.
Finally, in 1867, Charles Ballance, a landholder, paid Robert Forsyth, the son of Thomas, $31,000 to release the claimant's interest in eight lots. This ended 20 years of litigation over Peoria's French claims. (Source: The unpublished "History of Peoria" by Ernest E. East.)
After Col. Clark of Virginia captured Kaskaskia from the British in 1778 (which is when he sent word to Peoria about U.S. rule), he led about 170 men -- called "long knives" because of the long, deadly knives they carried -- and recaptured Vincennes (now Indiana) from the British on Feb. 25, 1779.
The previous Dec. 9 the Virginia Assembly had established far-off Illinois as a county of Virginia. Then, in 1784, Virginia gave up all claims in Illinois and ceded this area to the central government. The Ordinance of 1787 established the pattern for all future territories to proceed toward statehood. It provided for the organization of a new unit of government to be known as the Northwest Territory. It included what is now Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota.
Gen. Arthur St. Clair, an officer in the Revolution, was named territorial governor, with headquarters at the newly formed town of Cincinnati. He then came to Kaskaskia and organized the area west of the Wabash River and gave it his own name, the County of St. Clair. For political reasons, Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Prairie du Rocher were all made its county seats.
In 1800, the Northwest Territory was divided and a new territory of Indiana was created, which included much of the present state of Illinois, including Peoria. Then, in 1809, Illinois became a territory in its own right, and Ninian Edwards was appointed territorial governor, a post he held during all of Illinois' territorial period. The present Wisconsin was included in this territory.
The year 1811 brought the first steamboat to the Ohio River and the first major earthquake to be recorded in the area. The quake centered near New Madrid, Mo., but was felt over a vast area that must have included Peoria. That year also saw an increase in plundering and robbery by the Indians, and Gov. Edwards dispatched Capt. Samuel Levering with a small escort to Peoria to confer with the Indian chiefs here, headed by Chief Gomo.
They demanded the surrender of the slayers of some white settlers and the return of stolen property. However, the net outcome of the meeting was the return of two stolen horses and promises. The following year brought another kind of violence to the territory. It was the War of 1812, in which the United States and Great Britain went to war for a second time.
This is how it was in the fledgling United States and its Illinois Territory in October 1812, when Gov. Edwards joined Col. William Russell and his militia on a raid of Black Partridge's village and Capt. Thomas E. Craig's followup raid on Peoria's New French village.
This last raid resulted in the destruction of most of the town and the transporting of 41 of its inhabitants by boat to Savage's Ferry near Alton. American military forces took possession of the Peoria Lake area in 1813, when they erected and garrisoned a stockade and named it in honor of George Rogers Clark. Fort Clark stood at the foot of the present Liberty Street.
Benjamin Howard, governor of the Missouri Territory, had resigned to accept a commission as brigadier general in the U.S. Army, and he commanded this expedition. A detachment of 150 men of the 1st U.S. Infantry, headed by Lt. Col. Robert Carter Nicholas, first arrived here on Aug. 29. They came from St. Louis in reinforced keel boats and immediately began to build the stockade.
While the first blockhouse was under construction, 150 Indians, under the command of Black Partridge, made an attack on the troops but were beaten off. This was obviously in retaliation for the attack the previous year on Black Partridge's village, in which his daughter and grandchild were killed.
A troop of 800 mounted rangers from Illinois and Missouri reached Peoria Lake three days after the arrival of the regulars. The rangers marched to the head of the lake and destroyed two Indian villages from which the occupants had already fled. Six years later, on April 15, 1819, after hearing reports of Peoria's beauty and looking for a favorable place to settle, two men arrived by horseback. Two days later, five of their companions came by keel boat and joined them. This group of seven formed the first permanent American settlement here.
The story of the city of Peoria begins with that of Peoria County in 1825. It was in January 1825 that the county commissioners court authorized William Holland to employ someone to survey the county seat.
William Stephen Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton, was then attached to the surveyor general's office in Springfield, and subsequently was engaged to survey the town. But it wasn't until 1835 that Peoria became the town of Peoria and, finally, in 1845, it became the city of Peoria. On March 1, 1835, the state Legislature passed an act providing for the incorporation of towns and cities. On the following July 18, the citizens of Peoria met and voted to incorporate the town of Peoria.
The voters at this meeting elected five trustees: Rudolphus Rouse, a physician; Chester Hamlin, a carpenter-contractor; Rufus P. Burlingame, a merchant; Charles McClallen, a contractor; and Isaac Evans, a blacksmith. Evans, however, refused to serve as a trustee, and Cyrus Leland, a lawyer, was appointed to fill the vacancy. Rouse was elected president of the board.
Annual elections were held until the city of Peoria was chartered 10 years later. At the initial meeting, the trustees fixed the boundaries of the town to embrace an area of 1 square mile, with its center at Main and Madison streets. Meetings were held in the courthouse and the places of business of the trustees. The first and only building owned by the town was a "market house" constructed in 1838, at a cost of $500. It stood in the middle of the 100 block of North Washington Street. The roof covered open stalls, which were leased for one-year periods. Rentals were $25 to $27 a year.
When the city was incorporated, it took over the market house and operated it until 1856, when it became so dilapidated, the council voted to abandon it. The structure was sold to Peter Lamb for $25. Early facts about the town were included in the first issue (April 1, 1837) of the Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer newspaper. Its editor and publisher, Samuel H. Davis, printed a history of the town, which included information on industry, population and growth.
The newspaper listed 17 dry goods stores and nine other retail outlets; two Presbyterian meeting houses; one Presbyterian, one Methodist and one Unitarian clergyman; two schools, one for girls and one for boys; 10 physicians; 12 lawyers; eight carpenters and 41 other craftsmen in several trades; five saw mills; three flour mills and one brewery.
In the winter of 1844-45, the Illinois Legislature passed a measure entitled "An Act to Incorporate the City of Peoria," providing that the charter be submitted to a vote of the people. An election was held at the courthouse on April 21, 1845, and a large majority voted in favor of the incorporation. Of the 197 votes cast, only 35 were against the proposition.
A week later, an election for new city officials was held. William Hale was elected mayor, and Jesse L. Knowlton, Peter Sweat, Charles Kettelle, Clark Cleveland, John Hamlin, Chester Hamlin and Hervey Lightner were elected aldermen, with a tie between Jacob Gale and Amos P. Bartlett for the last seat. Knowlton also was elected city clerk.
Hale and the other aldermen were sworn in the next month, and they immediately passed an ordinance allowing the mayor to decide the tie vote. Hale voted in favor of Bartlett. At the time Peoria became a city, its population numbered 1,619. By 1910, just 65 years later, the thriving city had 66,950 residents. On March 21, 1848, a committee was appointed to purchase Lot No. 3 in Block 6 for $300, for a city hall and engine house. (This is believed to have been in the middle of the 100 block of SW Adams, between what is now a Caterpillar parking lot and the Jefferson Bank.)
A two-story building was erected, with the first floor devoted to the fire company. The cellar was used as a "calaboose," and the second floor consisted of a council room and offices for the police magistrate, city clerk and others. In 1858, lots were purchased at Madison Avenue and Fulton Street and a new city hall was built the next year, at a cost of $10,000. This two-story brick and stone structure had a 60- foot bell tower. The fire engine room and offices for the mayor and police were on the ground floor, with the city prison in the rear. The second floor consisted of rooms and offices for the council, city clerk, city engineer and other officials.
Also in 1859, a market house was built adjoining City Hall facing Madison Avenue, which also cost $10,000. Our present day City Hall was completed on this same corner in 1898, at a cost of $234,592. The four-story structure includes a tower extending above the roof, where the alarm bell, formerly used in the old city hall, was hung. The city prison was erected at the same time, adjoining the new city hall, on Fulton Street. (Sources: "History of Peoria City and County, Vol. I" and Ernest E. East's unpublished "History of Peoria.")
This history was written from the beginning, when Fort St. Louis moved here from Starved Rock in 1691, to the building of our current Peoria City Hall in 1898. Now that the Tricentennial year has drawn to a close, it only seems appropriate to remember some of the early settler families that have been a part of Peoria's growth since the first American settlement in 1819. Here, then, are four of those pioneer families and their descendants who still live in our town:
VIRGINIA BIRKET BOGGS and HELEN BIRKET live in East Peoria and are direct descendants of the pioneer Birket family. In 1826, one year after Peoria County was formed, John Birket drove his horse and wagon into town, and on that same day he bought 154 acres of prime real estate. His claim stretched from 1 1/2 to three miles north of Peoria's present downtown. It included portions of today's Glen Oak Park, Woodruff High School, Detweiller Marina and most of the North Side from Spring Street to the Peoria Waterworks. It also included all of the site of former Old Peoria's fort and village.
Birket was born in England in 1798 and came to the United States when he was 21. Trained as a carpenter, he built his first home at the foot of Caroline Street and in the spring of 1827, planted Peoria's first apple orchard. He later built old-fashioned plows, the first recorded farm implements made here. Birket married Marjorie Thomas of Chillicothe, Ohio, and they began their married life here in 1831. Their first child, John C., was born in 1834. Five years later the family moved to a location near Washington in Tazewell County, where their second son, Arthur T., was born.
In the 1840s, the family moved back to Peoria, where Birket built a home at 800 Hayward. There, a third son, William, was born. Today's Virginia Birket Boggs and Helen Birket are daughters of Arthur's son, Alonzo Lorenzo Sylvester Birket. DR. HARRY C. STONE resides on Galena Road with offices at 5401 N. Knoxville. He's a direct descendant of the Gistorf-Stone-Proctor family that dates back to a German immigrant, Frederick Julius Gustorf, who arrived here in 1836.
Gustorf married Harriet Benson in 1837 and they had three children, one of whom was Gertrude, who later married William E. Stone, the first cashier of the First National Bank. One of their seven children, Harry Clayton Stone, married Edith Proctor, the daughter of John Proctor II. One of their three children was John Proctor Stone, who became president and treasurer of H.C. Stone Lumber Co. Today's Dr. Harry C. Stone is his son.
FLORENCE GILES is now a retired District 150 schoolteacher, and lives at Proctor Home. She's a direct descendant of Thomas and Ann Picken Giles, who also came to Peoria in 1836. Thomas Giles was born in Gloucestershire, England, of Welsh parents. Upon arriving here, he immediately purchased 80 acres of land from William Hale, at $9 an acre, in the vicinity of Knoxville Avenue, Mount Hawley Road, Kellar School and Giles Lane. He died in 1838 when his son, William, was 20 years old. William and his three brothers worked the farm until 1849, when William joined the California gold rush, experiencing moderate success. He later returned to, again, work the family farm, and married Ann Uphoff. Their son, Albert E., was born here in 1862. In 1890, son Albert opened a brick yard on Sheridan Road, across from Buehler Home, and later married Jane Merritt of Champaign. Their two children were Florence and Merritt Giles.
HELEN RADLEY MARQUESS of 725 W. Eleanor Place is descended from the Schimpff-Triebel-Radley family that began when Carl Schimpff brought his family here from Landau, Germany, in 1849, and Louis Green brought his bride, Karolina Triebel, from Springfield in 1855. Schimpff's son, Albert, enlisted in the Civil War as a bugle boy in Peorian Col. Greenhut's regiment. He later became a merchant, school board member, founder of the German Merchant's Bank and co-founder of the Commercial National (now First of America) Bank.
Albert married Frieda Green, the daughter of Karolina Green, who was Fritz Triebel's aunt. (Fritz was the sculptor who, among other things, sculpted the Civil War monument that still stands in Courthouse Plaza.)
Albert and Frieda Green had a daughter, Lilly Caroline, who married Henry Radley of Jubilee Township, and today's Helen Radley Marquess is their daughter. There are more present-day Peorians who have lineage dating back in our town's early history, and we'll look at some of them in future columns.
The facts on these pioneer families came from Gloria Hetherlin LaHood's "Tricentennial Homecoming" article, which appeared in Peoria County Old Settler's Association's 125th Annual Reunion program.)