The Pekin Centenary, 1849-1949
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| Partner: | buecher.de |
| Hersteller: | Forgotten Books (Author, Unknown) |
| Stand: | 2015-08-04 03:50:33 |
Produktbeschreibung
Excerpt from The Pekin Centenary, 1849-1949: Commemorating 100 Years of Community Progress in the City of Pekin, Illinois Pekin became a city August 20, 1849, after its birth 25 years earlier in the rough and ready frontier tradition and its development as a community in that same atmosphere of violence and hardship. The river valley was dotted with Indian villages and little else in 1824 when Jonathan Tharpe built the first log cabin ever erected on the site of the city of Pekin and began farming an area including much of what is now Pekin´s principal business district. Only 10 years earlier there had been organized warfare on both sides of the river between Indians and American troops and militia, ending in the withdrawal of the troops. Even Fort Clark, temporarily erected at the site of Peoria, had been abandoned and burned. However, Tharpe had no trouble with the Indians that roamed the area and had camps and villages at Pekin, on Ten Mile creek near what is now East Peoria, and on the far side of the river, and others followed him promptly. Just three years after he built his cabin, Mordecai Mobley brought in the first consignment of goods and Jacob Tharpe, Jonathan´s father, set up the first store in his smoke house. That year, William H. Hodge, the county surveyor, made the original plat of Pekin. He had no surveyor´s chain, and made his survey with string, a fact which accounts for the variety of measurements engineers still discover when resurveying the original town properties and blocks. One year later, in 1828, just four years after the first cabin went up, a Methodist mission was established here, and settlers began to move up to the "river landing." Absolam and Joseph Dillon moved to "Townsite", as it was called, and Major Nathan Cromwell came up from Sand Prairie where he had settled, and Gideon Hawley, William Haines and Dr. John Warner became Tharpe´s neighbors. The first steamship came chugging up the river, churning water, blowing off steam and tooting Its whistle, so that old Jacob Tharpe thought the end of the world had come and routed his family out of their beds and summoned them to prayer. History records that one settler took after the monster with his dog and hunting rifle, and that it caused fear and consternation throughout the area. And it was then, in 1829, apparently, that the settlers ceased to be "squatters" and obtained legal title to their lands here after a series of incidents which resulted in the first lots costing just 28 cents apiece. The official plat was taken to Springfield in that year and an auction held to dispose of the property embracing much of what is now Pekin. The atmosphere of the land sale was typical of the robust pioneer tradition. The room was filled with men who were armed to the teeth, eyeing each other watchfully, and from time to time making threatening gestures and remarks. When the sale opened on the final day, a man identified only by the name of Harrington, reportedly jumped to his feet with pistol drawn and offered a bid of $1.25 an acre, adding that he would shoot the first man who raised that bid. Major Isaac Perkins paced the floor in a threatening manner, guns prominently displayed, and the room was quiet and tense as the auctioneer proceeded but the lands were knocked down to Harrington without another bid being offered and without gunplay. Harrington´s bold victory was short-lived, however. Perkins permitted him to complete the regulations and acquire title to the lands, and then he and a group of Pekin settlers virtually kidnapped the interloper and forced him to convey the lands over to them in the original title deeds on which present ownership of most Peki
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