Charles J. Searle Oration
Mr. President, Citizens of Rock Island County, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I feel highly flattered at being accorded the privilege of taking part in
the important ceremony of laying the corner stone of your new "Temple of
Justice," and while the nature of a statistical paper for permanent
preservation, requires me to indulge in a greater use of statistics than
is conducive to present any temporary interest, I have striven, in the
very limited time I have had to bestow upon the task, to cull out of the
records and traditions of the county such statistical information as in my
opinion would most interest those present, as well as future inhabitants
of the county, to whose curious gaze the contents of this corner stone
will be revealed, perhaps a century from now.
My endeavor shall be to confine myself almost exclusively to matters of
local interest, but no historical or other information concerning Rock
Island County would be complete without taking somewhat into consideration
the history and growth of our country as a whole.
The records of the world's history disclose the rise and fall of many
great and prosperous nations, but history never recorded such great,
rapid, and, we hope, enduring, progress of a people as has been witnessed
into the United States since its formation. Pre-eminently a peaceful
nation, our area has grown from 827,844 square miles in 1789, to 3,603,844
square miles in 1895, and that too, mostly by peaceful conquest. Our
population has grown from 3,929,214 in 1790, to 62,622,250 in 1890. Under
the benign influence of the free institutions handed down to us by our
illustrious forefathers, from a few scattered settlements, skirting along
the Atlantic seaboard. we have developed into a mighty nation. A nation
whose institutions are not beyond improvement, but in the main, filled
with a happy, prosperous people. A nation of inestimable wealth. A highly
civilized nation, filled with churches, schools and libraries. A nation
making unprecedented strides in industry, art, science and education. A
nation that is indeed the "land of the free and the home of the brave." A
nation of the utmost possibilities of resources and development, and
destined, I hope, to be during all time, the greatest, grandest nation the
world ever saw.
Illinois, our beloved state, taking its name from the Indian word, "Illini,"
signifying "Superior Men," has, in the short space of seventy-seven years,
from its admission in 1818, grown to be a mighty empire of 3,826,351
people. The virgin soil of her wonderful prairies, the wealth of her
primeval forests and the hidden treasures of her mines, have made her the
gem of that great galaxy of states known as the "Great North-west," which
has no equal in fertility, re-sources and possibilities of development on
the face of the earth.
Great as our National and State development have been, Rock Island County
has kept pace with our common country; and that, too, notwithstanding the
fact that we came so comparatively late in the order of settlement.
Marquette and Joliet were likely the first white persons to set eyes on
the then wild, beautiful and romantic scenery of Rock Island County, at
that time the home of the Indian and the buffalo, in the year 1673. The
first white settler was Colonel George Davenport, who located, with his
family, on the beautiful island in the Mississippi River between here and
Davenport in 1816, a time within the memory of quite a number of the grand
old patriarchs within the sound of my voice. Little did the unbroken
wildernesso surrounding that solitary habitation, distant hundreds of
miles from any other, forebode the marvelous development that has taken
place here since its erection. The first house erected on the main shore
of our county was by Colonel George Davenport and Russell Farnham, in the
eastern part of our present city. The first white child born in this
vicinity was George Davenport, in 1817. The first lands that were entered
were entered October 19, 1829, by Colonel George Davenport and Russell
Farnham, the government land office then being at Galena, Illinois. The
first marriage was that of James I. Burtis to Angeline Beardsley, in 1833.
In 1805 for the first time the flag of the Union proudly waved ,over Rock
Island County's present domain, is beautiful field of blue then only
contained a constellation of seventeen stars instead of forty-five, as
now.
The early settlement was slow, for, while nature was kind and presented
few obstacles to settlement, the savage and treacherous Indian did. It
required the Black Hawk War of 1832, that had for battle ground the
beautiful prairies and unbroken forests of Rock Island County, to drive
the able and revengeful Black Hawk and his tribe beyond the Mississippi,
to make way for the advancing tide of settlement and civilization.
It was not till 1833, that the inhabitants had increased sufficiently to
justify the legislative act of that year, providing for the organization
of the county, and even then the total vote of the county was only
sixty-five. The first seat of justice was established in the same year, at
John Barrel's house, in what was then called Farnhamsburg, now a part of
the City of Rock Island. In 1835 the seat of justice was changed by
commissioners appointed by an act of the legislature, to the present site,
in what was then called the town of Stephenson. Richard M. Young was the
first judge to preside over the circuit court, Joseph Conway was the
clerk, Benjamin F. Pike, sheriff; Thomas Ford, state's attorney, and Joel
Wells the foreman of the grand jury. Lists of the jurors, witnesses and
parties to suits, disclose the names of the ancestors of a great many of
our present 'citizens, many of whom are prominently known, but which my
limited time will not permit me to give. The circuit then including Rock
Island County was known as the Fifth Judicial Circuit, and included the
counties of Cook, LaSalle, Putnam, Peoria, Fulton, Schuyler, Adams,
Han-cock, McDonough, Knox, Warren, Jo Daviess, Mercer and Henry. The first
attorneys at the bar were Ford, Turney, Smith, Maxwell, Strode, Walker and
Mills; these were soon followed by such well remembered characters as
Knox, Drury and Wilkinson. The first hotel, tavern as they were then
called, -was opened in 1833, belonging to Jonah H. Case, whose family has
ever since been prominent in the county. Private schools were opened at an
early date, and free schools were established in 1856. The first church
(Methodist Episcopal) was built in 1844; the first library opened in 1855,
and the first newspaper, the Rock Island Banner and Stephenson Gazette was
started in 1839.
The City of Rock Island, including the towns of Stephenson and
Farnhamsburg, and outlying additions, was organized in 1841. What was
known as "Rock Island Mills" was in 1843 organized into the beautiful City
of Moline, "the city of mills." Camden, afterwards "Camden Mills" and now
Milan, was laid out in 1843; Port Byron, in 1836; Cordova, in 1837;
Hampton, in 1834; Rapid City, in 1833; Coal Valley, in 1856: Andalusia, in
1859; Edgington, in 1843, and Reynolds, in 1876.
The assessed valuation of the county in 1833, immediately after its
organization was so low that the taxes collected only amounted to the sum
of $53.72 1/2, so that it can be readily seen that the county's affairs
did not permit any great defalcations on the part of the county officials.
The population of the county in 1840, at the time of the first census, was
2,610 souls.
But few in numbers, and poor though they then were, the people of the
county in 1835, with commendable public spirit and ambition, and with a
realization of the future needs of the county, resolved to build a court
house. They let the contract for $10,500, furnishing the brick themselves
at a cost of $1,600, making a total cost of $12,100 at the time of the
acceptance of the completed building in 1838. Humble as it now seems, it
was then a grand structure, one of the finest buildings in the state, and
was the pride of the city and county for years. Its erection had entailed
an expenditure of perhaps not less than $10 for every man, woman and child
in the county, which in view of the poverty of the people and the scarcity
of money then in circulation, was indeed an evidence of the greatest
public spirit; an amount of money harder to raise then than $1,000,000
would be now by the people of this county. Could the walls of the old
building relate the scenes they have witnessed, what a story they could
tell. From it have issued more than 17,000 official licenses, authorizing
the solemn, God ordained rites of matrimony; and there we find the sad
record of thousands of deaths; records of joy and happiness on the one
hand, and of grief and sorrow on the other. There are recorded the story
of elections, the history of the rise and fall of many an ambition. There
are preserved the evidences of the titles of the people to their homes and
their belongings; the administration of the estate of departed loved ones;
the financial records of the county; the enlistment of the heroic
volunteer for the preservation of our National life, and his honorable
discharge; in the record of the 11,697 civil causes that have been
recorded on the dockets of the circuit court, we have a record of conquest
and defeat, justice and injustice, poverty and wealth, anxiety and
exultation, hope and fear. The criminal records, disclosing 4,554 cases,
tell us a tale of injustice, hate, malice, revenge, crime in all its
hideous forms, from the most trivial offenses, to robbery, rape and
murder. If its walls would reverberate the echoes it has heard and flash
upon our vision the sights it has seen, what sights we would indeed
behold, what sounds we would hear! We would see every phase of human
character, good and bad. We would witness the play of every emotion of the
human mind and heart. We would see the joyous, hopeful bride, the grief
stricken mother; we would see the anxious, uplifted faces of litigants as
they scrutinized the jury, or waited with bated breath for the decision of
the judge; we would hear the exultant, victorious laugh of the victor, and
the heart-broken sobs of the convicted criminal, his relatives and
friends; we would see many a fierce combat between giants at the bar; we
would be startled at their audacity; we would wonder at their display of
earnestness and passion; we would be thrilled by their eloquence as they
pleaded for the property, liberty and lives of their clients; we would
anxiously await the verdict of the jury; and at last we would listen to
the solemn sentence of the upright judge. But the old building has long
been inadequate.
From a population of 2,610 in 1840 we now number nearly 50,000 souls.
Instead of two marriages on record as in 1833, last year we had 390. To
keep abreast of the times and to meet the demands of the county, the
people have elected to build this fine building.
On the 20th day of June, 1895, the contract for its construction was let
for $112,201. According to the contract, it is to be fully completed by
November 1, 1896. From all indications, it will be a grand and stately
structure, an ornament, and the pride of the county for generations to
come, and commensurate with the needs and demands of the county. It will
perhaps remain the seat of justice of the county for a century. In it will
be repeated, only on a large scale and in a more multifarious form, the
history of the old court house. In it the county's affairs will be
hereafter conducted, justice will be administered, rights secured, guilt
punished, innocence vindicated; the constitutional rights of life, liberty
and the pursuits of happiness conserved. The time is not far distant when
court will have to be held throughout the year; yes, when the court will
have to be held in sections, for this court house will still be in use
when this county will have a population of 150,000 people or more.
Well may the people of Rock Island County anticipate the era of wonderful
increase of population, wealth and progress we are just now fairly
entering upon, by the erection of this grand building; for second to none
in natural resources, industry and thrift, we will be in the van of
enterprise and progress.
Early Settlements of Rock Island County
Source: Historic Rock Island County, pub. Kramer & Company, Rock Island, Illinois, 1908