P. 124 APPROACHING STATEHOOD
NEW COUNTIES—BANKS AND BANKING—IMMIGRATION—
FIFTEEN COUNTIES UP TO 1818—NATHANIEL POPE ELECTED TO CONGRESS
Illinois upon its separation from Indiana in 1809 became a territory of the first class with a governor, secretary, three judges, and such minor officers as were needed, In the spring of 1812 by a vote of the free-holders the territory became one of the second class. This gave the people, in addition to the governor, secretary, and the three judges, which were all appointed by the president, a legislative body consisting of an upper and a lower house. The territory was also entitled to a delegate in congress who would be entitled to all the privileges of that body except that of voting.
NEW COUNTIESElections were held in the five counties then organized—namely:
Randolph, St. Clair, Madison, Johnson, and Gallatin, for members of the two branches of the territorial legislature. The following persons were elected to the upper house from the counties respectively—Pierre Menard, William Biggs, Samuel Judy, Thomas. Ferguson, and Benjamin Talbot. The members of the lower house were: from Randolph, George Fisher; from St. Clair, Joshua Oglesby and Jacob Short; from Madison, William Jones; from Johnson, John Grammar; and from Gallatin, Phillip Trammel and Alexander Wilson. There was not a lawyer in either house. The delegate selected to represent the territory in congress was Shadrach Bond.
Under the second class form of government the legislature met biennially. In the summer of 1814 Col. Benjamin Stephenson was elected delegate in congress, and in 1816 Nathaniel Pope, who served till the admission of the state in 1818. Two new counties were added in 1815, White and Edwards, making seven in all. In 1816 four more were added—Monroe, Jackson, Pope and Crawford. In 1817 Bond was added, and in 1818 Franklin, Union, and Washington were added, these making fifteen counties at the admission of the state in 1818.
BANKS AND BANKING
A bit of interesting legislation
occurred in the session of 1816. It will be remembered that the
charter to the first United States bank, which was passed in 1791,
expired in 1811 and failed of renewal.
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JOHN MARSHALL’S RESIDENCE IN SHAWNEETOWN,
IN WHICH HE KEPT A BANK AS EARLY AS 1813
P 125 Almost immediately the states began to charter state banks. Of course there were state banks before this time, but now there seemed an increased demand for such banks. Ohio and Kentucky were quite active about this time in chartering state banks. Illinois had just passed through four years of strain in the Indian wars. Considerable money had been distributed among those who had served in the war, but it was rapidly disappearing, and so the demand for banks of issue was very strong. Probably the first bank in Illinois was conducted by John Marshall who resided in Shawneetown. He settled there in 1804 and was a successful merchant. It is said he rode to Philadelphia on horse back to order his stock of goods taking the silver in a sack. The goods were freighted over to Pittsburg in wagons and then floated down the Ohio to Shawneetown. He early built a two story brick residence just on the bank of the river, and in one room of the first floor he conducted his bank as early as 1812 or 1813. The land office was located in Shawneetown in 1812 and no doubt there was need of a banking house for that reason. In 1816 when the territorial legislature met at Kaskaskia there was a very strong desire for a banking system. A bill was introduced and passed creating by charter the “Bank of Illinois” located at Shawneetown. At another session of the same body held in the fall of 1817, banks were authorized in Edwardsville and Kaskaskia. These were not state banks in the sense that the state was back of their issue—only that the state had authorized their organization. These banks all issued bills which they put in circulation. In a letter written May 25, 1816, by John Marshall, president of the Bank of Illinois, at Shawneetown, to Governor Ninian Edwards, Marshall complains that his bank is not treated fairly by the receiver of public moneys at Kaskaskia, nor by the Bank of Missouri. Marshall says the receiver at Kaskaskia will accept the bills of the “Bank of Illinois” one day and the next day refuse them. P 126He also says the Bank of Missouri makes it a point to collect large quantities of the issue of the Shawneetown bank and then present them all at once for redemption, hoping, evidently, thereby to embarrass the Shawneetown bank. Mr. Marshall says he recently redeemed $12,000 of his bank’s notes which were presented by the Missouri bank.
In the same letter he makes it plain that the best of relations exist between the Shawneetown bank and the bank at Edwardsville in the latter of which Governor Edwards seems to have been financially interested. We shall have occasion to refer to this banking system from time to time as we proceed.IMMIGRATION
Following the return of peace in 1814, there was a great movement of immigration into the west. The political and international conditions which obtained in the United States from 1807 to 1812, and the period of war which followed all tended to hold the people in the Atlantic states. The economic changes which the war and governmental policies wrought in New England greatly unsettled the people of that section, and for the next two or three years there were constant streams of immigration flowing westward. Thus Indiana grew so rapidly that her population justified her admission in 1816. The population of Indiana was 24,520 in 1810; in 1820 the census showed 147,178. In like manner the growth of Ohio is shown. In 1810 her population numbered 230,760, while in 1820 it was 581,295. Illinois was getting her share of this westward immigration, though her increase was not so marked as that of the two states to the east. There were five factors which, taken together, may account for the increased immigration following the close of the War of 1812. 1. First, the preemption law, to which reference was made in the preceding chapter. When one feared that his lands might be taken from him, he was not likely to take much interest in moving into a new territory. This law allowed the settler to select his quarter section or other unit of survey, begin his improvements, and hold the same against the claims of anyone for a limited time. That is, his labor on the unimproved lands gave him an equity of which he could not be deprived. This law was a very great factor in bringing eastern people where lands were poor and scarce into the rich prairies of Illinois. 2. The modes of travel had greatly improved within the past twenty years. The national road from the head of navigation on the Potomac over the Alleghenies to the Ohio river had greatly stimulated the movement of immigration from the Chesapeake region to the Ohio. On the Ohio there were steamboats in a very early period—as early as 1811. The national road and the Ohio river therefore furnished a direct route from the tidewater region of Virginia to Shawneetown, Cairo, or St. Louis. Thousands of people came in wagons and still others built their own flatboats and floated down the Ohio. 3. It was the policy of the territorial government in Illinois to organize counties just as rapidly as there could be found any excuse for it at all. Many counties were organized with only a few score of people. This practice has proved a great advantage in building up all of our western states. People do not like to move into regions of a new country where civil government is administered at some inaccessible P 127
4. The treaties with the Indians made immediately at the close of the War of 1812 had given assurance that there would be no more “Indian massacres’’ in Illinois. Besides there were released large quantities of land which the government could offer the settlers for permanent homes. And in connection with this may be mentioned the setting aside of the military tract which lies between the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers for those soldiers who had served in the War of 1812 and who were entitled to bounty Lands.
5. Not least was the fact that war is a time of more or less restlessness and at its close there is always a period of readjustment in which there is a considerable movement from one region to another. All these factors were at work building up the population of Illinois. The accompanying map shows the relative location of the fifteen counties which had been organized up to 1818. The people were thinking of statehood and when the movement was once under way there was constant growth of statehood sentiment. The Ordinance of 1787 provided that the region known as the Northwest Territory might be, when sufficiently populated, admitted into the union as three, four, or five states. The westernmost state, if three, should include the territory west of the Ohio, Wabash, and a line due north from Vincennes; or if two states were to be made of this territory then the south state should be bounded on the north by a parallel passing through the southern bend of Lake Michigan. The northern boundary of Indiana had been placed at this parallel. The citizens of Illinois had began almost immediately after the admission of Indiana to agitate for the admission of Illinois as a state.NATHANIEL POPE ELECTED TO CONGRESS
Mr. Benjamin Stephenson’s term as delegate in congress from Illinois territory expired March 4, 1817. In the winter preceding the territorial legislature had elected Nathaniel Pope as his successor. Pope took his seat in congress December, 1817, and immediately took rank as a useful member of the national house. Nathaniel Pope was a native of Kentucky, having been born at Louisville in that state in 1774. He was educated in the old Transylvania University at Lexington. He studied law with his brother, Senator John Pope, and came into Illinois about 1808. He settled at Kaskaskia and became the first territorial secretary under Governor Ninian Edwards. He was a shrewd lawyer with a judicial mind, quick and farseeing. He rendered a great service to his state and to his country.
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