W. N. Gales.
Answer.—The birth of the Democratic party, or “Jacksonian Democracy,” as it used to be called, dates from the disruption of the old Democratic-Republican party, consequent upon the election of John Quincy Adams as President Soon after the Inauguration of Adams in 1825 the Adams and Clay factions of the Democratic-Republican party separated from it. The Jackson and Calhoun factions rallied around these men, and the Presidential election contest of 1828 was fought on almost purely personal issues. Jackson was elected President over Adams by 178 electoral votes to 83, although the popular vote stood 647,231 for Jackson and 509,097 for Adams. At the same time Calhoun was elected Vice President by 171 electoral votes to 83 for Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania. Before the next Presidential canvass Jackson and Calhoun had become inimical to each other; the “Jackson men” carried the day, and, through the first National Democratic Convention—held in Baltimore in May, 1832—nominated Jackson for re-election, and Van Buren in place of Calhoun for Vice President. Dating from Jackson’s first term, the Democrats held unbroken control of the Executive office until the end of Van Buren’s term, in all twelve years, which is the longest period of consecutive Democratic administration of our Federal Government. The next longest was from March 4, 1853, to the bankruptcy of the National Treasury and the civil war, reached before its close, eight years later.
FIRST WHITE CHILD BORN IN CHICAGO.
Pekin, Ill.
I was born in Chicago, Oct. 1, 1827, and my elder brother tells me there were but four houses there at that time, and two of them belonged to Frenchmen. I claim the honor of being the first white child born at that place. I am the son of Reuben and Hannah Reed.
Levi Reed.
Answer.—The first white child born in Chicago was a girl, Ellen Marion Kinzie, sister of the late Colonel John H. Kinzie. According to the testimony of Mrs. Whistler, wife of Lieut. William Whistler, this was in December, 1804. Mrs. Whistler was the mother of the first white boy born in Chicago, Merriweather Lewis Whistler. He first saluted the light in old Fort Dearborn in the autumn of 1805. He was drowned at the age of 7, at Newport, Ky. Your brother is certainly mistaken as to the number of houses in Chicago in 1827, for a series of reminiscences dictated by the early pioneer, John H. Fonda, quoted in Hurlburt’s “Chicago Antiquities,” says that when Fonda visited Chicago in 1825, though it was then but an Indian agency and trading post, the place contained “about fourteen houses.”
INSTITUTIONS FOR FEEBLE-MINDED CHILDREN.