[83] The plans mentioned here were probably being agitated when Flagg visited Alton in 1836. The act incorporating the first railroad in Illinois was approved January 17, 1835; it provided for the construction of a road from Chicago to a point opposite Vincennes. By the internal improvement act of February 27, 1837, a road was authorized to be constructed from Alton to Terre Haute, by way of Shelbyville, and another from Alton to Mount Carmel, by way of Salem, Marion County; but the act was repealed before the roads were completed. The Cumberland road was constructed only to Vandalia, Fayette County, though the internal improvement act contemplated its extension to St. Louis.—Ed.
[84] The French village is no doubt Portage des Sioux. In 1799 Francis Leseuer, a resident of St. Charles, visited the place, which was then an Indian settlement. Pleased with the location he returned to St. Charles, and secured a grant of the land from Don Carlos Dehault Delassus, lieutenant-governor of Upper Louisiana, organized a colony from among the French inhabitants of St. Charles and St. Louis, and occupied the place the same autumn.—Ed.
[85] Grafton, Jersey County, Illinois, was settled in 1832 by James Mason, and named by him in honor of his native place. It was laid out (1836) by Paris and Sarah Mason.—Ed.
[86] The Illinois Indians (from "Illini," meaning "men") were of Algonquian stock, and formerly occupied the state to which they gave the name. They were loyal to the French during their early wars, later aided the English, and were with great difficulty subdued by the United States government. Separate tribes of the Illinois Indians were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigami, Moingewena, Peoria, and Tamaroa.
On a high bluff just above Alton there was formerly to be seen a huge painted image known among the Indians as the Piasa Bird. To the natives it was an object of much veneration, and in time many superstitions became connected therewith. First described in the Journal of Father Jacques Marquette (1673) its origin was long a subject of speculation among early writers. Traces of this strange painting could be seen until 1840 or 1845, when they were entirely obliterated through quarrying. See P. A. Armstrong, The Piasa or the Devil among the Indians (Morris, Illinois, 1887).
The version of the tradition given by Flagg was probably from the pen of John Russell, who in 1837 began editing at Grafton, Illinois, the Backwoodsman, a local newspaper. Russell had in 1819 or 1820 published in the Missourian an article entitled "Venomous Worm," which won for him considerable reputation. Russell admitted that the version was largely imaginative; nevertheless it had a wide circulation.—Ed.
[87] For a sketch of Tonty, see Nuttall's Journal, in our volume xiii, p. 117, note 85.—Ed.
[88] Beardstone, Cass County, Illinois, was laid out by Thomas Beard and Enoch Marsh (1827). During the Black Hawk War (1832), it was the principal supply base for the Illinois volunteers.—Ed.
[89] For an account of the Illinois Canal, see Flint's Letters, in our volume ix, p. 186, note 93.—Ed.
[90] By act of Congress approved May 6, 1812, three tracts of land, not exceeding on the whole six million acres, were authorized to be surveyed and used as a bounty for the soldiers engaged in the war begun with Great Britain in that year. The tract surveyed in Illinois Territory comprehended the land lying between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, extending seven miles north of Quincy, on the former stream, and to the present village of De Pue, in southeastern Bureau County, on the latter; it embraced the present counties of Calhoun, Pike, Adams, Brown, Schuyler, Hancock, McDonough, Fulton, Peoria, Stark, Knox, Warren, Henderson, and Mercer, and parts of Henry, Bureau, Putnam, and Marshall.—Ed.