WHAT I FOUND IN CHICAGO
In May, 1837, about a month before my arrival, Chicago had elected its first mayor, William B. Ogden. Its population was about 3,000 and was mostly north of the river. There was a Presbyterian church where the Board of Trade stands, in which Rev. Jeremiah Porter preached. The Russell House on the North Side was the grand hotel, built of brick. The Couch brothers had a small hotel on the present site of the Tremont House of the same name, and the City Hotel was built on the corner of State and Lake Streets. There were few buildings south of Lake Street. There was a cornfield running south from Washington Street and east of State Street. Lots were worth from $100 to $500 then, but had been worth as many thousands before the panic of 1837. John Wentworth had just started his paper, the Chicago Democrat, in a little 7 × 9 wooden building on La Salle Street north of Randolph.[98] I had a letter of introduction to him and there made his acquaintance. The first settler, Gurdon S. Hubbard,[99] was here, William H. Brown, and many other
persons with whom I became acquainted, but most of whom have passed away. Some are here yet, and among them G. S. Hubbard & Son, S. B. Cobb, Jerome Beecher, and Mr. Carpenter. Chicago has now a population of 600,000.
I landed in Milwaukee the sixth of July, 1837. The boat could not land and we were sent ashore in the small boat, at the mouth of the river, then at Chase’s Point,[100] one mile below the present mouth. My friend, Ed Whitcombe, was yet with me and on the boat I made the acquaintance of John H. Tweedy[101] and formed a friendship which has endured the changes of the last forty-five years. He afterwards married a Fisher from Boston, who descended from the same ancestor that I did. I found Milwaukee with a population of about 1,000, the west side of the river mostly under water, many of the houses built on stilts, abandoned, and doors open, most of the population of 1836 having left the place by reason of the panic. I remember the Frenchman and first settler with a squaw wife was there.[102] I stopped at first at the Milwaukee Hotel, but soon crossed the river to the Leland House where I found my cousin, Dr. L. J. Barber, and remained with him at that house. We had not met since we were lads. We soon became warm friends. I had but little money and several young men boarding at the Leland House had often to borrow of me to pay for their week’s washing. All had been
speculating in lots and were broke. None of us knew what to do or where to go.
I remained about a week and decided to cross the country to Galena and go to mining for lead. I started in company with two men, one by the name of Frink and the other Blood. We traveled the first day to Waukesha where was the first house, occupied by a Mr. Pratt.[103] It was small, built of logs, and two berths on one side. The under one was occupied by Pratt and wife, the upper one by Frink and me, and Blood slept on the floor. The next day we lunched at the second house from Milwaukee, at Pewaukee Lake, kept by Harrison Reed,[104] afterwards governor of Florida. We reached Oconomowoc that night, where we found two bachelors in a log shanty with a floor of bark and nothing to eat but dry beans, which they stewed for us and which we ate with a relish from a bark plate with a chip for a knife. The mosquitoes were very large and hungry and feasted upon us that night. We slept but little and left early in the morning on our Indian trail for Rock River, having learned that there was a camp there where we could get food. My feet had become very sore, and the morning’s walk of twelve miles in the rain without food, and almost gored to death by the mosquitoes, had so exhausted me that I was sick and could go no farther. Fortunately, at the river I found Charles Goodhue, Esq., and two of his sons from Sherbrooke, Lower Canada, an old acquaintance in the East, who had a fine camp and ten or twelve men and three women in camp. They bade me welcome and gave me to eat and to drink—the best they had and
I was never happier than that day. I was soon refreshed and ready to travel again. Mr. Goodhue and sons had commenced building a dam across Rock River, and afterwards a saw mill was built to cut basswood lumber to raft down the river where new settlements were being made.
I remained with Mr. Goodhue and sons a few days and was persuaded by them to visit what was then called New Albany (now Beloit) before going to Galena, they representing it as a very desirable point for a town and offering me an interest in claims which they had recently purchased there. I accepted the proposition to visit Beloit. There was a large encampment of Indians on the opposite side of Rock River from our camp, of whom we purchased a large canoe, giving them $5 and a gallon of whisky. In it Mr. Goodhue and son George, Mr. Blood, Mr. Frink, and myself embarked for Beloit. Goodhue and I owned the canoe and Frink and Blood worked their passage. The river was very high and we went to Fort Atkinson the first half day and lodged that night with Alvin Foster in a log house, the only house there.[105] It had but one room of moderate size in which were domiciled that night Foster and his wife, mother, and niece, and seven travelers. The next day we reached Koshkonong Lake before 10 A. M., and the wind being high we divided, Messrs. Goodhue, Frink, and Blood going by land around the lake, while George Goodhue and I kept the boat, preferring our chances to drown to the tramp by land of six miles on a hot day over a marsh of some miles. We were to meet at the outlet of the lake. We in the boat had a rough voyage, bailing water part of the way to prevent foundering, and on our
arrival at the outlet found none of our party and after waiting some hours we went on and just after dark we met them on the river bank about ten miles below the lake, muddy and tired. We took them [in] and soon reached Janesville, a village of three families, viz., Messrs. Bailey, Stevens, and Janes.[106] We remained there over night and next morning by 10 A. M. reached Beloit, where there was one family.
It was Sunday morning, the fifteenth of July, 1837. I found Caleb Blodgett[107] and family there in a log house and we slept upon the floor two nights while there, in the only house except a log hut which had just been vacated by an Indian trader, by name Thibault, whose wife was a squaw. The first day, Sunday, I took a walk up where the College now stands and on to the banks of Turtle Creek where I saw many Indian mounds, some of them still preserved and where I had an uninterrupted view of prairie such as I had never had before. I said to my friend with me that it was the most beautiful landscape view that I had ever seen. Quite a number of Indian wigwams were standing upon the prairie near the creek and hurdles for drying their corn, which had been raised for years upon the Turtle bottoms.