Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1900
n the Seventeenth Ward is standing the oldest house in Chicago and in the Eighteenth Ward is the scene of the wildest night riot Chicago ever saw. In the Seventeenth Ward is the site of the first fort Chicago ever saw; a fort built before there was any United States and the first regular portage to the Desplaines had its beginning there. In these two wards one may find the spot where many a West Side “first thing” was situated. The first frame house, the first public school, the first Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptists churches, the first academy, the first parochial school, and the first hotel. There are also the sites of the first things in Chicago on either side of the river. The first locomotive works and the first agricultural implement factory Chicago ever had were in these wards, and the Seventeenth Ward includes the piece of land which gave to Chicago its name for many years—Wolf Point.
Wolf Point was the name of the jut of land between the forks of the river. It got its name from a tavern and in turn gave it to the hamlet that once represented everything in Chicago outside the fort and the Indian agents. There are several tall elevators and warehouses standing in the site if the old Wolf Point. The exact spot where Wolf Point tavern stood is not marked. The identical spots where the corner stones of the log building stood that became as famous os Wolf Point Tavern in the latter ’20s and early ’30s could not now be located, but the sages at the Chicago Historical society are nearly agreed that the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad company’s elevator stands where the old elevator stood in 1828—north of Lake street on the west side of the river. Some, however, who argue from Thompson’s plat made in 1830, say it stood between what is now Milwaukee avenue and Clinton street, a quarter of a block south of Fulton street. The “Jim Kinzie House,” built in 1836, stands on that spot now, opposite the present site of Green Tree Tavern.
First Hotel Sign.
While the Green Tree Tavern, which originally stood on the northeast corner of Lake and Canal streets, was built in 1833, only five years after the Wolf Point Tavern was built, the latter hostelry has the most romantic history of any of the early hostelries of Chicago. It was built by Jim Kinzie, a son of the pioneer, John Kinzie. It appears from the early annals that this Kinzie was an inveterate tavern builder. He not only built the Wolf Point and Green Tree, and the old house, once used as a tavern, that stands opposite the Green Tree today, but he built several other taverns. The proprietors of Wolf Point Tavern and the date of the terms are as follows:
- John Kinzie, 1828
Archibald Caldwell, 1829
Elijah Wentworth, 1830
Charles Taylor, 1831-’33
William Walters, 1833-’36
It got its name from the fact that a wolf strayed into it one day in 1830 and Landlord Wentworth killed it. This incident was much talked of, and at the same time Samuel Miller had a tavern across the river, where the coal yard is now, in the Twenty-third Ward, and there was rivalry between the two log taverns, which was patronized by the men and officers of Fort Dearborn. Wentworth was ambitious, and wanted a sign to attract wayfarers. Lieutenant Allen made one for him out of a piece of a box. He painted a picture of a wolf on it. The fort blacksmith made hinges, and the wolf sign was hung on a sapling. The tavern was the first institution to have a sign board in Chicago, and Wentworth’s predecessor, Archibald Caldwell, had the distinction of being the first licensed liquor seller and landlord in Chicago, and therefore Wolf Point Tavern was the first and the starting point of the many thousand liquor-selling establishments in Chicago today. The first ferry across the river for hire was between this tavern and Miller’s.
Another incident in the history of Wolf Point was that this tavern was the g=headquarters of General Winfield Scott. When he came to Chicago by boat, to proceed from here by land against Black Hawk and his rebellious Indians, he made his headquarters at the tavern. He was detained there for some time by reason of cholera, among his troops.
- Green Tree Tavern
About 1876
The building of the Green Tree Tavern marked the decline of the Wolf Point Tavern. A bridge was built across the river at Randolph street, and the Green Tree, being newer and larger, and nearer to the bridge gained most of the West Side patronage and was the leading tavern until Mark Beaubien built the Sauganash, where Lake and Market streets cross now. This old house was moved in 1880 to 33-37 Milwaukee avenue, where it stands. It has had a varied history. Its name was changed in 1838 to that of the Chicago Hotel, and when the Galena and Chicago Union railroad was built (now the Chicago and Northwestern) the name changed to suit the new era, and it was called the Railroad House. When Proprietor Noyes took hold of oy he called it the Noyes Hotel. After he gave it up the name was changed again, and this time it was called the Atlantic Hotel. Once more it changed hands, and the new proprietor called it the Lake Street House. In 1881 it was used as a boarding-house, and again it came to its own, and was called the Green Tree Tavern. It is no longer a tavern, but the old name clings to it.
The last successful effort to make a popular hotel on the West Side was in 1839, when John Murphy, who, as manager of the Sauganash, made that tavern famous, started the United States Hotel1 in Canal street, just north of Randolph. He was the first landlord to introduce modern things. He astonished his guests at the old Sauganash by bringing in what are known in boarding-house circles now as “side dishes.” They were regarded as great things in those days. When he opened the United States Hotel he went even further than this and introduced napkins. His hotel was a success as long as he lived to conduct it. After his death in 1852, the hotel dropped out of the annals of the West Side.
Chicago’s First Fort.
In looking back to the beginning of Chicago’s history one finds an interesting spot in the Seventeenth Ward. Fir years the historians left a gap of a little more than 100 years. They could tell nothing of Chicago for the century lying between the visits of Marquetts, 1673-’75, to the coming if the Black Dominican, Jean Baptiste Point de Sable, 1776. When they had concluded that it took other white men a century to follow the footsteps of the Jesuit. They accidentally discovered references in writings preserved in the Jesuit archives in Canada of a French fort and garrison being established in Chicago in 1730.
This fort is called Durantye’s fort, because the only commandant of any mention is found is Durantye, a French officer. The spot where this fort was established is on the west side of the river where Indiana street, or Grand avenue crosses it. The west approach to the Indiana street bridge is on the spot. The purpose of this fort was to afford a shelter and a resting place as well as a harbor in times of Indian troubles for the French traders who came on the heels of Marquette into the country of the Illinois. Secretary Evans of the Chicago Historical society relates that this fact was discovered by the accidental finding of a French notary of Chicago at that date. In searching to learn why a notary was here then the meager account of Durantye’s fort and garrison was brought to light. How much more of history was made hereabout by the daring French voyageurs is a matter of conjecture.
Although the South Branch was called Portage River, in honor of the first portage made from it by Father Marquette, the portage of Durantye’s time was made from the North Branch, from the fort. Nothing remains of this old trail to the Desp[lains now except Ogden avenue. Between Union Park and the river the trail has disappeared with the laying out of streets.
After Durantye the next resident on the North Branch was a French trader named Guarie. He carried on a fur business with the Indians and had his house on the river bank just north of Fulton street in 1778. From him the North Branch took the name of Guarie River. This name it held until the latter day mapmakers cut off the fame of the hardy French pioneer by giving it the less euphonious name of “North Branch of the Chicago River.”
- The myth of a French fort at the mouth of the Chicago River emerged following the publication of this map of Lake Michigan by Louis Hennepin in 1698. His map showed Fort Miami near the mouth of the St. Joseph River, however, he showed the river as emerging from the southernmost tip of the lake. Hennepin’s map was widely copied, but cartographers—knowing that there was no river at the southern tip of Lake Michigan—erroneously assumed that Hennepin had intended to show the Chicago River, and so it became widely accepted that there had been a French fort at the mouth of the Chicago River.
Some “First Things.”
The first West Side school was taught in 1832 by John Watkins in a log house near the northeast corner of Washington and Canal streets. Billy Caldwell, otherwise known as the Sauganash, the half-breed chief, offered to pay for the books and tuition of every Indian child that would attend and to pay for civilized style of clothes for all the Indian children who would wear such garments.
Just south of the Green Tree Tavern, but facing Canal street, is where the first West Side public school was built, in 1837. The West Side formed District No. 5 of the Chicago public schools, and this schoolhouse served the whole West Side, and was called “Schoolhouse No. 5.” The first teacher was C. S. Bailey.
One may easily find the site of the first West Side fire engine house at the northeast corner of Clinton and Washington streets now stands. This was before the days of paid firemen, and the engines had pet names. This engine was called “Island Queen,” and it was installed in 1857. The present engine-house is the headquarters of Fire Marshall Campion, who was the officer of the first engine company to respond to the call of fire that announced the blaze in the barn of Patrick O’Leary, at 137 De Koven street, Oct. 9, 1871, which was the beginning of the great fire. The last volunteer fire company to be organized prior to the big fire was in the Seventeenth Ward. This engine was called the “R. A. Williams,” and was stationed on Lake street, between Clinton and Jefferson.
The first frame house built on the West Side was erected in 1832 by W. H. Stow at Randolph and Canal streets. Six years before that a frame house had been built on the North Side. Frame houses were great luxuries in those days. The United States government built the first one. It stood about where the parochial residence of the Holy Name Cathedral now stands, at Cass and Superior streets. It was built for Billy Caldwell, whose friendship the government badly then, for he was the most potent factor for peace in this part of the country.
The first institution of higher education on the West Side was St. Patrick’s Academy, 1856, established in connection with St. Patrick’s Church. It has been the alma mater of more West-Siders than any other school.
At Morgan and Monroe streets stands the Second Baptist Church, which once stood where the Chamber of Commerce Building now stands. It was built there in 1848, but was moved to its West Side location before the fire.
The first factory for making agricultural implements was established in the Eighteenth Ward in 1833 by Ashbel Pierce. It was a plow factory. At the beginning it was not a large one, but it was well known in its day. Mr. Pierce made what was known as “bull plows.” He did not continue the business long, but his successors are making plows to this day not far from the spot where he began making “bull plows” sixty seven years ago.
The first locomotive made in the West was manufactured at Canal and Adams streets in 1854. It was called the Enterprise, and was built for the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad company.2
- St. Patrick’s Church Presbyterian and Schools
The Haymarket Riot.
The scene of the haymarket massacre is in the Eighteenth Ward. The monument standing in the haymarket commemorates this event. It is the bronze figure of as policeman with uplifted hand, and is the only monument in the United States with the figure of a policeman on it. This figure was posed for by Thomas Birmingham, a patrolman. Attention to it was called recently by the decision to move it to Union Park. It does not stand on the scene of riot and murder of the policemen. The causes of the massacre was the presence of the police to prevent disorder. The Anarchists were in a high pitch of excitement by the killing of six men in the riots on the Black road about the McCormick harvester works the day before. A meeting was held on the evening of May 4, not in the haymarket, but in Desplaines street. A wagon was placed on the east side of the street, a few feet north of Randolph street. The speakers were on the wagon addressing the crowd. The presence of the police was a signal and someone standing in the shadows near the alley between Randolph and Lake streets threw a bomb among the police and it exploded.
When the smoke cleared away more than a score of policemen were stretched on the ground. Seven of them were mortally wounded. Few of them escaped without some injury. The man who threw the bomb is believed to have been an Anarchist named Schnaubel. He was never apprehended.
That night the police station in Desplaines street was full of Anarchists. The leaders were Spies, Parsons, Fischer, Neebe, Fielden, Schwab, Lingg. The office of the Arbeiter Zeitung in Fifth avenue, near Washington street, was searched and bombs were found there. This paper was the organ of the Anarchists and was edited by August Spies, who was the most intellectual of the Anarchists in Chicago, as well as the most forceful of the leaders. Albert R. Parsons was a contributor to the paper. Samuel Fielden, an Englishman, was the most incendiary of the orators among the Anarchists. It was he who said “Hang the law, stab the law,” and whose words were taken as literally as Schnaubel knew. Parsons was not arrested at the time, but he surrendered himslf. All seven of these leaders were condemned to be hanged. Louis Lingg committed suicide by exploding a small bomb in his mouth while min his cell in the old county jail. Three iof them, Fielden, Schwab, and Neebe, were saved from the gallows by having their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel were hanged in the old county jail on Nov. 11, 1886, and their bodies were buried in Waldheim Cemetery. The three who were sent to Joliet were pardoned in 1893 by Governor John P. Altgeld.
One of their places of rendezvous was at 54 Lake street in Greif’s Hall. Thomas Greif kept a saloon there until recently, and above his saloon was the assembly hall.
These are the names of the policemen who fell in the massacre:
Mathias J. Degan, who died almost instantly; George Miller, John J. Barrett, Timothy Flavihan, Nels Hansen, Thomas Redden, Timothy Sullivan. Fifty-nine others were wounded. among the wounded were Captain Adam S. Barber and Lieutenant James Stanton, still serving as commanding officers.
- Haymarket Square during normal business hours in 1890, Note the famous Haymarket Policeman statue.
NOTES
1 The United States Hotel was built by John Murphy and stood on Canal Street, near Randolph. The house changed hands often during its career, and at the time it burned, in 1852, was kept by David L. Rogers.
2 The Chicago Car & Locomotive Works had its beginning at Chicago, Illinois, in 1848, when H.H. Scoville entered into partnership with his three eldest sons, Addison, William and Ives to establish a foundry. They purchased a lot at the corner of Canal and Adams streets, near the south branch of the Chicago River, and moved a frame building there that had formerly stood at Randolph and Clinton streets. Then they erected a 50′ x 85′ brick building and as time went by added other buildings.
When the budding Galena & Chicago Union Railroad needed cars, Scoville & Sons contracted to build them. John B. Turner, president of that road, had a car shipped by schooner from Michigan “as a sample for them to pattern after.” Scoville’s cars were the first to run into and out of Chicago. Soon they were building passenger cars as well as freight cars, and apparently were building cars for other railroads as well.
In 1853, Scoville & Sons out-shopped the Enterprise—the first locomotive manufactured west of the Allegheny Mountains, {apparently designed by William Scoville. The next year, the Chicago Mechanics Institute gave him an award for “the best locomotive engine.”
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