On the appointed day, twenty-eight electors, the full number of citizens entitled to suffrage in the new town, found their way to Mark Beaubien's house and availed themselves of the privilege of freemen. Thirteen of them announced their willingness to shoulder the responsibilities of office. The first business transacted by the trustees was the establishment of a free ferry across the river at Dearborn Street; the second, the reconstruction of the "estray pen" into a solid and sufficiently commodious log jail. These two programmes—the extension of commercial facilities and the stern suppression of lawlessness—have ever since been conspicuous in the city's history.

Then the town was born. Its development into a municipal Titan is one of the marvels of history. In 1830, P.F.W. Peck arrived on a schooner, bringing with him a small stock of goods. "He built," says Mr. Colbert, "a small log store near the fort, which made an important addition to the trade of Chicago." In the year 1900, just seventy years later, the amount of wholesale goods distributed from this centre throughout the country amounted to $741,000,000, the volume of drygoods alone being $143,000,000; groceries, $99,000,000; clothing, $35,000,000; shoes, $58,500,000; books and paper, $70,000,000, and other items in proportion; while the manufactured products sent forth aggregated in value $786,000,000, and the total business of the city reached the high figure of $1,963,000,000. The year that concluded the nineteenth century recorded transfers of real estate amounting in round numbers to $87,000,000, in striking contrast to that early transaction wherein Chicago's first investor repented him of paying $50 for the northern half of the city.

But the little town was not to achieve great things without a struggle. Fire, flood, panic, and pestilence had first to be faced and fought. The small band in the incorporated town started out determined to develop the settlement into a city, notwithstanding the dismal prophecies of certain learned men that a city would never rise on this unpropitious swamp. Professor William H. Keating, geologist and historiographer, had furnished the pioneer townsmen with the melancholy message:

[AUDITORIUM HOTEL, CHICAGO.]

"The dangers attending the navigation of the lake, and the scarcity of harbors along the shore, must ever prove an obstacle to the increase of the commercial importance of Chicago. The extent of the sand banks which are formed on the eastern and southern shore by the prevailing north and northwesterly winds will likewise prevent any important works from being undertaken to improve the port of Chicago."

In the light of this prediction it is interesting to note that in 1900 the vessels mooring or weighing anchor there numbered 17,553, and brought and carried away cargoes aggregating 14,236,190 tons. Nevertheless, for some years, because of the quagmire condition of streets and the frequent inundations from lake and river, Chicago was termed derisively the "amphibious town." By filling in the land, the city long since literally lifted itself out of the mud, the level of streets to-day being eight feet above the original marsh. But even before the transformation of the town into a city, it was plain that the founders had come to build it into a centre of trade and population. Encouraging progress was being made on the Illinois and Michigan Canal, the population of the town was increasing, neighboring prairies were being tilled, and the water carriers who drove their carts into the lake, filled their barrels, and then distributed water by the bucketful, were giving way to the Hydraulic Company. A new era was at hand, and Chicago on the 4th of March, 1837, became an organized municipality.

The first census, taken in July, 1837, showed a population in the city of 1800 men, 845 women, and 1344 children. With a colored population of 77, the grand total of inhabitants in this its first year's existence as a city was 4066. To-day its population is nearing the two-million mark.

O.D. Wetherell, ex-city Comptroller, recalls a letter, written at an early date by a citizen, in which the prediction was made that some day Chicago would become a city of 10,000 people! At the time, that prophecy seemed to be more wildly optimistic than would a prediction now that the city might ultimately harbor the amazing total of ten million persons.

The early promoters of Chicago were sanguine of a great future, but none dreamed of the amazing destiny in store. At a political gathering in 1838, addressed by Stephen A. Douglas and John T. Stuart, his competing candidate for Congress, a local orator, warmed by the enthusiasm of the occasion, uttered what was derisively referred to the next day as "flamboyant prophecy."

"The child is already born," he exclaimed, "who shall live to see Chicago a city of 50,000 souls."