Fourth of July for Naperville’s Founders

Joseph Naper and the first group of settlers didn’t arrive on the banks of the DuPage River until mid-July. Most likely, Naper’s family and friends marked Independence Day during their journey, perhaps even on board Naper’s schooner, the Telegraph, but mark it they surely did.

In the 1830’s people celebrated Independence Day with more enthusiasm than Christmas. Puritan reaction to wanton revelry at Christmas – so extreme they even outlawed mincemeat pie! – passed through successive generations of New Englanders, not to be relieved until the middle of the nineteenth century. But the young United States of America began celebrating July 4 by 1777, years before the War for Independence actually ended.

Even the earliest celebrations featured firecrackers, as well as the firing of guns and the ringing of bells to punctuate a spirited reading of the Declaration of Independence. After the war, festivities grew ever more extravagant, following President John Adams conviction that “it ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Naper built, owned or captained several ships before the Telegraph, several of them sailing regularly out of Buffalo, New York. A Buffalo Historical Society publication recounts the city’s celebrations on July 4, 1828, which Naper may have attended with his family.

The day started at the Eagle Tavern, where “the uniformed companies of the village were ordered out” to escort the mayor and city officials to the Brick Church, accompanied by “the Buffalo Village Band playing patriotic airs.” At the church, the Declaration was read aloud and an oration was given by a local reverend. Then the parade continued to the Mansion House, another tavern, where dinner was served.

But the Mansion House didn’t host the only party. Villagers also celebrated at other public houses, cruised on a lake steamboat, attended one of two concerts, danced at a ball, and marveled at the fireworks display in Mr. Basker’s public garden. And all of this was “less elaborate” than the originally planned celebrations, abandoned, according to the local newspaper, because of “the indifference that was manifested to the proposed arrangements.”

One reason Independence Day celebrations became so grand was to overshadow commemorations of George Washington’s birthday. While he was much beloved as a war hero and our first President, celebrating his birthday smacked of “monarchical” traditions and was unacceptable to Democratic Republicans. The Fourth of July served the celebratory purpose in a more politically correct way.

No party is complete without a feast and Independence Day celebrations often included “much drinking of spirits, and eating of unwholesome food,” as an 1836 publication for the edification of juveniles put it. Toasts were drunk to each of the original thirteen states, then the newer states, then the President, then the Congress, then – well, once they got going, they kept it up until the whiskey ran out.

Orations provided entertainment, a political forum and food for thought. Chief Black Hawk’s final public appearance was on a Fourth of July in 1838 at Fort Madison, Iowa. Over 180 years ago, Black Hawk attempted to regain control of tribal land in northern Illinois. Defeated, his people were forcibly relocated across the Mississippi River and were not even considered U.S. citizens until the next century. The words he spoke that day, however, are eloquent reminders to us in northern Illinois as we celebrate this year’s Fourth of July:

“[It} was beautiful country. I loved my towns, my cornfields, and the home of my people. It is yours now. Keep it as we did." 


Sources:
Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, "Had a Declaration..." [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society.

Juvenile Celebration of Independence. Parley's Magazine, August 1836, pp. 250-251

Fourth of July speech at Fort Madison, Iowa. Alexandria Gazette, 7 August 1838, 2
http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/blackhawk/bio.htm

Bingham, Robert W.  The cradle of the queen city : a history of Buffalo to the incorporation of the city Buffalo, N.Y.: Buffalo Historical Society, 1931, 535 pgs.

Naperville's First Business Partnership

This week in 1831 was when the first settlers arrived in Naperville, including Joseph Naper, his brother John, their sister Amy and their families.

We don’t know the exact day, but it was around July 15. The Napers’ schooner, the Telegraph, left New York around the first of June and after nearly four weeks of sailing the Great Lakes, anchored near Fort Dearborn.

Some of the families onboard stayed in the settlement that would soon be known as Chicago, but several others hitched oxen to their wagons and walked alongside for three days until they reached the DuPage River.

The area had previously been inspected by Joseph Naper and he had contracted to have some land cleared and a cabin built before the group’s July arrival.

Naper and a friend from New York, P.F.W. Peck, intended to go into business together, trading with the local native population as well as with the growing number of homesteaders.

They brought supplies with them to stock their trading post such as calico cloth, whiskey, and other necessaries not easily obtained on what was then the western frontier. Glass beads were also popular trade items with the Potowatami and other tribes who lived in the area.

Peck and Naper’s business plan was to operate two trading posts:  One at the DuPage River settlement and one at the Fort Dearborn settlement.

By the following summer, trouble was brewing between Chicago-area settlers and some of the native tribes who rallied behind the Sauk chief, Black Hawk. While the 1832 not as bloody a conflict as others in Illinois’ history, it spooked Peck enough to dissolve his partnership with Joseph Naper.

Peck remained in the larger Fort Dearborn settlement and became instrumental in building early Chicago. He amassed an impressive fortune through real estate.

During the Great Fire, Peck lost  a substantial amount of property and he was injured during the conflagration, dying a few days later. But his family rallied to become wealthy pillars of the early Chicago community.

The archeological dig at Naper’s cabin in 2007 uncovered glass beads dating from the time Peck and Naper were trading post partners.

For more photos of the Naper statue that was erected last year on the original cabin site, see
JosephNaperHomestead.com.

The Rutabaga: A Settler's Godsend

Photo by WikiMedia Commons

The mid 1800's wave of settlers moved into an Illinois that was still quite primitive. Until the Black Hawk War in 1832, native peoples farmed, hunted and lived on the prairies, but there were very few settlements of Europeans. Chicago itself wasn't even founded until 1833 and it only had about 200 inhabitants at the time. Since there were few places to buy food, settlers needed to bring provisions with them or grow it themselves.

Many settlers arrived by schooner through the Great Lakes, and they had to wait until the ice melted before setting sail which could be as late as April or May. If they walked across the country, they still had to wait for the worst of the thaw to be over so that the wagons could get through the mud and swollen streams.

Either way, settlers simply couldn't arrive at their Illinois destinations in time for spring planting. Even if they were able to protect seedling crops during midsummer's blistering heat, there wasn't enough time for most crops to ripen before the first frost.

The rutabaga, however, was one crop they could plant. Considered a "winter vegetable," rutabagas prefer the coolness of autumn and many claim they taste sweeter after a frost. Both the greens and the roots are edible and the roots keep well for a long period of time.

The folks from Naper's Settlement arrived in mid-July. No doubt they brought as many provisions as possible with them but it is also recorded that they planted rutabagas soon after they settled in order to make it through that first winter.

Remembering Some of America's First Soldiers

When the United States of America was a very young country, there wasn't a lot of gold in the treasury to pay for a standing army. Still, there were wars to be fought such as the War of 1812, the Mexican War and of course the American Revolution.

One way the government could pay its soldiers was to offer bounty land grants for their service. Discharged soldiers applied for a warrant, and if the warrant was granted they could apply for a land patent which made them owners of a portion of the land in the public domain.

Certain swaths of land were set aside for war land grants. Sometimes the soldiers actually took possession of their land, but often they sold their grants to speculators and took a smaller amount of ready cash rather than move their families to an unknown territory.

A large chunk of western Illinois was set aside for soldiers who served in the War of 1812. Each soldier was eligible to receive 160 acres of land. Where that 160 acres was located was determined by lottery.

Many of the soldiers chose not to travel out to Illinois, which wasn't even a state yet when the bounty land was being granted. Instead speculators bought out a lot of the claims and amassed large holdings. Pioneers from the east often ignored the speculators' claims, however and simply settled down where they wished, "squatting" until they were kicked out or could legally stake a claim.

The United States government felt they had the right to grant these lands because no one of European extraction was currently claiming them, but the native people of course felt very differently. This same area was home to several Native American tribes who already were using the land for farming and hunting and didn't see why they should have to give it up.

Black Hawk took a stand in 1832, but he didn't get the backing he hoped for and was defeated by U.S. troops. The Native Americans were relocated west of the Mississippi and European settlers continued to arrive in droves to stake their homesteads.

Abraham Lincoln's only military service was during the Black Hawk War until he became Commander in Chief of the Union Army during the Civil War.