John Edgar was a merchant at Kaskaskia, and at that time the richest man in the territory. His wife was a lady of rare talents, and presided over the finest and most hospitable mansion in Kaskaskia. At this house was entertained General Lafayette, when he visited this country in 1825. Mr. Edgar’s memory is honored by having an Illinois county named for him.
In Mrs. Robert Morrison, Kaskaskia possessed another lady of Irish ancestry who was an ornament to Illinois society at that early day. Mrs. Morrison was reared and educated in the city of Baltimore, and in 1805 she accompanied her brother, Colonel Donaldson, to St. Louis, then in the far-off wilds of the West, whither he was sent as a commissioner to investigate the title lands. She was married the following year to Robert Morrison of Kaskaskia, which place became her residence thereafter. Well educated, sprightly and energetic, she possessed a mind gifted with originality, imagination, and romance. Her delight was in the rosy field of poetry.
Her pen was seldom idle. She composed with a ready facility and her writings possessed a high degree of merit. Her contributions to the scientific publications of Philadelphia, and other periodicals of the period, in both verse and prose, were much admired. Nor did the political discussions of her day escape her ready pen.
She was a member of the Roman Catholic communion, and shed lustre on her co-religionists. The Morrison family is one of the best known, politically and socially, in the state. While Mrs. Edgar entertained General Lafayette at a grand reception, Mrs. Morrison entertained him with a grand ball on the occasion referred to.
The territory of Illinois was organized on the 16th day of June, 1809. Michael Jones and E. Backus were appointed respectively registrar and receiver of the land office in Kaskaskia. At this time one McCawley, an Irishman, had penetrated further into the interior of the territory than any one else—to the crossing of the Little Wabash by the Vincennes road.
The writer cannot resist the temptation to relate an anecdote of Gen. James Shields, a hero of the Mexican War, who cut so conspicuous a figure in old Kaskaskia days. The anecdote he related himself, in a lecture delivered in Chicago shortly before his death. He arrived in Illinois on foot soon after he left Ireland for America, looking for employment. On the way, he fell in with a young man engaged in a similar pursuit, and who was companionable, so they traveled together. Reaching Kaskaskia, Mr. Shields secured employment there, as a school teacher, and remained. His companion was not so successful, and went on, traveling in the direction of St. Louis. Shields rapidly rose from one position of distinction to another, and when the Mexican War was declared he was filling the position of a land commissioner at Washington.
He hastened to Kaskaskia with President Polk’s commission in his pocket, to raise an Illinois regiment, of which he was to be colonel. He was successful in this, went to Mexico, and distinguished himself in several battles, in one of which he was supposed to be mortally wounded, but recovered. He became a general and a hero. When the war was over and he returned to the United States he was lionized and invited to a number of state fairs and cities as an attraction. St. Louis honored him in this way, and made unusual preparations for his reception. The mayor and corporation went out to receive him. His reception was most cordial. The mayor grasped him warmly by the hand and looked him significantly in the face. “Do you not know me, General?” “I do not, Mr. Mayor, who are you?” “I am the man who tramped with you to Kaskaskia, many years ago, and walked on to St. Louis.”
“Good God! I am delighted to see you,” was the exclamation of his distinguished guest.
The Irish not only made history in those early days, but have also written it. To the pen of John B. Dillon of Indiana, we are indebted for the best history of the Northwest; to John Gilmary Shea of New York, we are under obligation for a complete knowledge of the early Catholic missions among the Indians, and ex-Governor Reynolds has narrated for us our own pioneer story, with its varied conditions, its many deprivations and numerous deeds of daring. For many of the incidents in this essay, especially those relating to Gen. George Rogers Clark and his men, and the conquest of the Northwest, I am indebted to the “Life of General Clark,” by Mr. English of Indiana.
Were it not for the fear of making this essay too long, I might show how fifteen to twenty names of Illinois counties have Irish associations; what prominent parts Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen of Illinois took in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Mexican War, and the War of the Rebellion; how they filled gubernatorial chairs, prominent positions in state and nation, as the representatives of the people; how they have been foremost in the professions of law, medicine, and divinity. On the muster roll of famous men they have three Logans, the two Reynolds, Carlin, Kinney, Ford, Kane, Shields, Ewing, McLaughlin, Mulligan, Medill, Ryan, and many others too numerous to mention. Not as public and professional men alone has the Irish contingent been valuable to the state of Illinois, but also as tillers of the soil, as miners and manufacturers; for in the infantile condition of our commonwealth the men of hardest muscle and most exacting toil were our Irish immigrants. They did the excavating on our canals, and the grading on our first railroads, and wherever hard work was to be performed, there you were sure to find Paddy with his spade and pipe. May I not claim that that herculean form representing “the Digger,” in the statue of Mulligan, standing at the entrance of the Drainage Canal, near Chicago, answers for the Irish canaler of former as well as of later days?