A Little Girl in Old Chicago

by Amanda M. Douglas

I liked my new place very much. I was general factotum, to be sure, with occasionally an over-measure of hard words. Mr. Harris always stood my friend. He soon found that I was ready at figures and had what he called ideas; my mother's homely name for it was "gumption." Mr. Gaynor used the word also.

Did any one then, with all the boasting and bragging, imagine that in half a century Chicago would spring into wonderful prominence, outstripping older towns with a vivid maturity, be burned to ashes, rise again and lift itself not only out of ashes but out of the slough, and if it could not be a city set on a hill, still become marvellous in its advancement of all kinds? I thought then that Eagle fleet of vessels was simply astonishing with the freights they carried across the lake. Men were fighting then for a canal, a clear waterway to the Mississippi without any portage.

I liked to hear Mr. Harris's reminiscences of the town. LeVasseur & Hubbard opened the first dry-goods store about 1820. Mr. LeVasseur was a fine man and did a good deal of trading with the Indians for furs, and had several outlying posts. Mr. Hubbard was a very public-spirited and ambitious citizen. Then for years he coasted up and down the lake in Canadian bateaux, commonly known as Mackinaw boats. Some years before this he had erected a large brick building on LaSalle Street, often termed Hubbard's folly, where beef and pork were packed for the outlying trade. His faith in the town was undaunted by the numerous mishaps, and he was Commissioner of the Illinois and Michigan canal, and turned the first shovel of dirt on the nation's birthday, July fourth, though it languished for several years.

I went early and often stayed late, but ran away at noon to see how it fared with the Little Girl, though I found my mother was taking a useful oversight of her. The house went along as if by magic. I can recall our reading a few fairy stories later on about palaces springing up in a night, and she laughingly said—"That was the way with our old house, do you remember?"

The main room had a wide fireplace, the smaller one beside it was for Ruth, and here stood her cot and a rude dressing-table and bureau, which was simply a large box shelved, with a curtain drawn before it. Then the old log house was patched up and made into a comfortable kitchen. There was plenty of scrubby pine for firewood when one could get nothing better. Mother's vendue furniture comprised a large table, with leaves supported with a brace and let down when not in use, a cot, a bedstead set up in the best room, quite a fashion then, several chair frames that could be new seated and various kitchen utensils with some dishes.

Mr. Gaynor was a "handy" man, an ingenious Yankee. In a couple of months he was in great demand, and his odd jobs supplied the family living, for money being a scarce commodity, barter was much in favor. He was very shrewd at bargain making, but he had a pleasant, half-whimsical way with him that made and kept friends.

There were several schools now, though it did not need a very old resident to remember the first one opened at the end of Mr. Kinzie's garden, where the children spelled in concert out of the book found in a tea chest, and learned arithmetic orally. Then Mr. Watkins taught boys in a room off the postoffice, or rather the building used for that and sundry other purposes.

A Miss Chappel with her friend, Mary Barrows, came from Mackinaw and opened a school for girls and young children. Afterward Miss Chappel married the Presbyterian minister, Reverend Mr. Porter, but she still took a warm interest in education. Miss Barrows went on with the school.

We were Methodists, though for some years every denomination had been represented. A veteran Methodist preacher, Rev. Jesse Walker, had succeeded in building a small frame church at Clark and North Water streets. The women were the most regular church goers. The children were fond of the Sunday School, for a large part of the exercises consisted in singing.

Mr. Gaynor was pleased to have Ruth go. Big boys were apt to stray off, but I was very regular now, and often walked home with the Little Girl, and on these occasions we had fine fun cooking supper. Then we would sit before the fire and talk or read. Books were not very abundant. Mr. Gaynor had an old Bible, the "Pilgrim's Progress," a copy of "The Lady of the Lake," and a few old school books. The "Pilgrim's Progress" we found very entertaining. To us it was real travels, and the characters absolute people.