Chicago Medium Rare

Title: Chicago Medium Rare:When we Were Both Younger by Robert J. Casey

Location: Internet Archive           Date: 1949

“CHICAGO, according to the experts, is a city that took root in a swamp about 1826, grew to noticeable size before 1890 and reached its ultimate magnificence day before yesterday.”

So begins Robert J. Casey’s (1890-1962) recounting of life in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century. Usually I would provide some biographical material on the author here, but have decided to post that information on The Journal next week. The reader might also note that the illustrations were provided by Ann and John Groth. More on Groth to be posted on The Journal also. In the meantime – enjoy the following story by newspaper man, author, adventurer, Bob Casey! This book is a treat I just had to share.

Bad-News Tillie

THEY were plowing up the last celery patch in Lake View to make room for Weiblinger’s saloon when Bad-News Tillie moved into Ashland Avenue near Cornelia Street. Her advent was considerably more spectacular than the unloading of Gentry Brothers’ Circus half a block down the street, and was reviewed with unmasked interest by all the kids of the neighborhood and most of the adults.

Tillie didn’t bring any moving van filled with the customary oddments of furniture generally revealed on such occasions. She was more practical. She appeared on the scene seated by the side of the driver of a steam roller behind which, on four stonemason’s trucks, was hitched a long, narrow, two-story house. Tillie’s possessions, whatever they were, remained where they had always been inside the house. And nobody got a look at them until long years afterward.

A moving crew got the house onto its waiting foundations before the day was out. In this work they were greatly encouraged by Tillie, who cursed at them with a spectacular vocabulary in English, Polish and German. When they had finished she chased away the observing children and retired through her somewhat accessible front door via a stepladder. The spectators then moved on to the circus which, after Tillie’s show, seemed to be lacking in savor.

Next day it became obvious that Tillie had come to stay. By the time the mannerly little children had gathered around she had a nondescript washing hung on a line in what was to be her backyard, and bricklayers were filling up holes in the underpinning of her house. Moreover, as determined by test, the ladder had been attached to the house with wooden cleats. Public interest waned rapidly.

The house, when it was permanently emplaced, looked like what it was a large square box, badly in need of the coat of paint it was never going to get. But Tillie had some eye for improvement. Maybe she found it inconvenient to get in and out of the place on a ladder. Anyway, at the end of the week a brewery truck arrived at her address carrying a spiral staircase of rusted iron.

Afterward came workmen who argued for a long time with Tillie about what they were going to do with the staircase. It was too long to serve the front door, the foreman mentioned in two languages. It couldn’t be cut off with a hacksaw because it was the wrong curve. It was going to look pretty ghastly no matter what was done with it. And he suggested that maybe she might throw the thing away and get somebody to make her some stairs and a porch out of wood.

Tillie solved the problem with the directness that the neighborhood was presently to recognize as her most charming characteristic.

“Run it up to the second floor and make a door out of the upstairs front window on the east,” she directed in German. “Then you can nail up the front door downstairs. I won’t be needing it.”

The foreman translated this order to his workmen and thereby let the neighborhood know what to expect. “She’s certainly going to have a fine-looking place,” he mentioned to give the message a personal touch. And he was right about that.

The result was something that people came from miles around to see. The little children would linger for hours just to observe Tillie making her exits and entrances. Unfortunately they were never around when she emerged at night swinging a lantern in front of her 200 pounds of bulk. John Spetti and Mike Mullen, conductors on the Ashland Avenue car line, who were frequent witnesses to this odd procedure, christened her place “The Ashland Avenue Lighthouse.” And the name stuck.

In time, from one source or another, we learned the name of our new neighbor. She was Mrs. Herman Gratzburg. She had come from Bowmanville. And she had a wispy little husband whose apparent object in life was to keep out of her way.

“He’s fine man,” Tillie told Mrs. Volk in the grocery store across the street. “He’s good to me. Never sticks around the house. Never bothers me. Just fine man.”

That was her last observation on the subject, but a few of the neighbors began to draw conclusions from what they could see for themselves.

Mr. Gratzburg sometimes got up enough initiative to get drunk at Schulze’s saloon no great distance away. But he never was sufficiently ingenious to enlarge on the program. He would come home, find himself unable to negotiate the winding stairs and sit all night on the bottom step. Next morning he would appear on the street with a black eye or a bandaged head. He worked somewhere as a freight-elevator operator, but nobody ever found out much about that.

Before coming to Ashland Avenue the Gratzburgs had lived near some carbarns in Clark Street and, whether because of this proximity or not, Tillie had developed a definite allergy toward streetcars.

There was a story that some conductor had once given her a misdated transfer or maybe had refused to accept a misdated transfer from her. There was a further report that in retaliation she had assaulted the motorman and broken some windows. These allegations were never proved. But it is true that she had been known to the trade in the old neighborhood as “Bad-News Tillie” for a considerable time.

She was some fifteen years in the Ashland Avenue Lighthouse and had an eventful life. Every now and then the police came from Town Hall station to arrest her for throwing rocks at passing streetcars or for one thing or another. But nothing came of it.

Tillie acquired a dog that seemed to have been trained to detest blue uniforms. But inasmuch as few trolley-car crewmen ever went by her house except in streetcars, the dog had a lonesome time of it. After a year or so in a mistaken moment he bit a policeman and died. The hazard of riding through the 3500 block in Ashland Avenue decreased from that day forward.

So, with little change in routine, the years went by until one night Herman Gratzburg made friends with a streetcar conductor named William Gavin in Schulze’s bar. When Herman decided it was time to go home Gavin escorted him not only to the foot of the iron stairs but all the way up to the second-floor door. A bucket of water barely missed him on his way down.

The next day, July 15, 1905, was to be memorable in the neighborhood. Tillie appeared in Volk’s grocery store and bought a bar of soap.

“He’s no good,” she told Mr. Fred Volk, the proprietor.

“Who?” inquired Volk.

“Herman, my old man,” explained Tillie patiently. “All the time with streetcar conductors he runs around. So now I guess I kill him.”

“So?” inquired Volk “And how are you going to do it?”

“With this,” said Tillie. And she held up the cake of soap.

Volk repeated the conversation with considerable amusement to everybody he saw that day, including the policeman on the beat.

But the next day he would have had difficulty reconstructing a smile. Toward evening of that day Mrs. Gratzburg was back in the store, looking fairly happy.

“Well, I do it,” she said. “The old man. Now he’s dead. No more streetcar conductors for him.”

Volk took a second look at her and called Town Hall station.

The police came. They found Herman in a bathtub with the back of his head caved in. It seemed likely that he had slipped on a cake of soap which they found underwater at the bottom of the
tub. A detective asked Tillie about it.

“Sure,” she said in German. “I guess maybe he slips on that. I try hard to fix him up again. But he don’t pay no attention to me. He just lies there.”

“And when was this?” inquired the detective.

“Three days ago,” said Tillie.

“Well,”  snapped the policeman, “where’s that cake of soap you bought day before yesterday from Volk?”

“Oh, that,” said Tillie. “That’s right here.” And she produced the cake of soap from the kitchen sink.

So they buried Gratzburg. Then they took Tillie in for mental tests. And they turned her loose again.

At last reports she was living on a little truck farm near Bensenville.

“I like it here,” she reported to one of her old German friends. “It’s a nice place. No policemen, no streetcars, no streetcar conductors. And there’s no way you can get drowned in the bathtub
because there isn’t any bathtub. There’s just some water that squirts in from a thing up near the ceiling. And I wonder what those policemen wanted with me when Herman died.”

“I don’t know,” said the friend. And, for that matter, neither does anybody else.

Memorial of Robert McCormick

Title: Memorial of Robert McCormick: Being a Brief History of his Life, Character and Inventions

Location: Google Books       Date: 1885

This little book is a memorial to the inventor of the reaper, the machine that changed the West. His name was Robert Hall McCormick ( June 8, 1780 – July 4, 1846). Cyrus Hall McCormick  Sr, the man usually credited with the invention, ( February 15, 1809 – May 13, 1884)  was his son.

According to the publisher, “This book is a photo-engraved reprint of a pamphlet printed in Chicago in 1885. As it contains much valuable history, it is thought to be a suitable compliment to ” Overlooked Pages of Reaper History, Chicago, Illinois, 1897. The name of the author is not given in the original publication, but the contents show plainly an effort to establish the fact that to Robert McCormick and Leander McCormick of Virginia belongs the credit of inventing the McCormick reaper.”

J. Russell Parsons,
Lewis Miller,
John F. Steward.

Chicago, Illinois, June, 1898

Following is a statement from Robert’s nephew, William:

By William S. McCormick, of Wayne County, Missouri.

My name is William S. McCormick. I am seventy-six years of age. I was born in Augusta county, Virginia.

I am intimately acquainted with the invention of the McCormick Reaper. I saw this great machine progress step by step from the unsuccessful experiment, my uncle, Robert McCormick, first tried prior to the fall of 1828 or spring of 1829, when I went to live with my uncle, Robert McCormick. This machine was a small two wheeled reaper, drawn by a horse in shafts, with stationary cutters. This failed to work and it was laid aside by my uncle.

And I was personally present when my old uncle, Robt. McCormick, the father of C. H. [Cyrus] and L. J. McCormick, first conceived the idea of his second reaping machine, subsequently patented. This was in 18291 or 1830. I myself and one Samuel Hite were the men who did the work for Robert McCormick while he invented and experimented with the machine. I know that Robt. McCormick was the sole inventor of the reaping machine. His skillful brain invented each parcel of the reaper in the order I now name:

The machine was drawn by horses in front by the standing grain. It had a master-wheel, say three feet in diameter. The sickle was vibrating and driven by a crank which got its motion from gear wheels from the main axle. The sickle was supported by projecting fingers about three inches apart. Behind this sickle there was a platform on which the grain fell, where it was swept back by the revolving horizontal reel to the sickle and cut, and was faked by a man. The reel was supported by posts at each end and was driven by a band from the main axle.

The foregoing described machine was invented solely and alone by my uncle Robert McCormick. This I know. There can be no doubt about it whatever. I was present. I lived with my uncle and worked with him on this machine. He gave his orders and they were followed by myself and other workmen. He made his suggestions and we followed them. He directed changes and we made them. I know that the conception and creation was wholly from his own brain. I never heard, his right as the ‘ inventor of this machine questioned by any one, nor did I hear any one else at that time claim any of the invention. On the contrary I know that my uncle, Robt. McCormick, claimed the invention of the machine, He was endowed with a mind skilled and inventive, and he had invented other matters.

In witness of the foregoing statement, I have. hereunto set my hand this 5th day of June, 1880.

(Signed) Wm. S. McCormick.

March 4, 1880.

Cyrus McCormick  improved on the reaper built by his father and gain a patent for the machine in 1834, but he was not the inventor.

Hands Up! In the World of Crime

Title: Hands Up! In the World of Crime or 12 Years a Detective by Clifton Rodman Wooldridge

Location: Google Books       Date: 1901

Clifton Rodman Wooldridge was, in his own words, “Chicago’s famous detective” and served on the Chicago Police force from 1888 to July of 1901. Much of his career was spent cleaning up the notorious Custom House Levee, now known as Printer’s Row and the former home of the city’s most famous publishing houses. Hands Up! is a fascinating look back at a time and place where getting “booked” on Printer’s Row had an entirely different meaning.

PANEL HOUSES.

DESCRIPTION OF THOSE NOTORIOUS RESORTS OF VICE WHICH WERE BROKEN UP BY DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE.

So much has been said in the public press about “panel houses” that it is deemed expedient to devote a few pages in this work to a detailed description of them. With the accompanying illustration it is believed a very clear conception can be had of them by the reader.

A panel house is the invention of thieves of both sexes, and in them hundreds of thousands of dollars have been stolen from the unsuspecting victims of vicious women. They thrived a long time in the levee district of Chicago, which is that portion of the city bounded by the river on the north, Twenty-second street on the south, Lake Michigan on the east, and the Chicago river on the west.

The police gave these places the name of panel houses, the proprietors calling them simply houses of ill-repute or sporting houses. A panel house may contain two or more rooms, a whole flat, or an entire building, and is adapted to the accommodation of a few or a large number of visitors or victims according to the designs of the owner.

The rooms for guests are usually small in dimension, and contain but one bed. If there is only one door, holes are bored in this, in order that every move of the visitor may be seen by some one on the outside, to whom a signal is given at the proper time to enter and secure the visitor’s money.

This signal is usually given by a movement of the hand or foot of the companion of the intended victim.

The victim is always told to lock the door himself, which he does and is satisfied that it is safe and securely fastened against intruders. He is sadly in error, however, because the bolt of the lock can be worked from the outside. This is done by the use of a small nail or any piece of metal or wood which will fit into the slot in the woodwork of the door where the lock is. This slot is about an inch and a half long and one sixteenth of an inch wide. A small hole has been made in the bolt of the lock, and the tumbler or spring in the lock, which is operated by turning the key, has been partly filed away to permit the bolt to be worked back and forth by the use of the nail without causing the key to turn or to make any noise.

This slot in the door is so small that it can never be discovered except by accident or close inspection.

The hinges of the door have been well oiled, and it is opened without attracting the attention of the victim, who is occupying the bed at the opposite side of the room. If perchance any noise is made by the thief, the lights are instantly extinguished by a confederate, and the intended victim is held fast until the thief makes his or her escape.

If no noise is made the thief gets all the money and valuables to be found and goes out quietly, and the victim upon dressing discovers that he has been robbed. He finds the door securely locked and knows that his companion did not go near his clothes, and therefore could not have taken his money.

Sometimes he is induced to believe that he was robbed before he entered the place, or that he had lost his money, and goes away without complaining to the police. A three-room flat with doors opening into each other on the side is the best adapted to working the above described panel game. Although no panels are used in this case, it is included in what is known as panel house robberies.

Another method used by panel house keepers is to have secret closets built in their rooms in which the thief conceals herself until the proper opportunity presents itself to rob the victim.

Another method, and the one which gave these houses their name, is a moving or sliding panel. These are placed ingeniously in the walls or doors and are operated by secret and invisible springs.

These panels are usually concealed by pictures or curtains. In the room containing these panels, there is only one chair or sofa, which is placed against the wall or door beneath the panel. This is done for the purpose of forcing the victim to place his clothes, when he has undressed, near the panel, he being compelled to use the sofa or chair for a clothes rack.

The thief keeps informed of everything that occurs in the room by peering through the holes in the wall or door, and at the proper time quietly slides or removes the panel, reaches in for the victim’s clothes, rifles them of money and jewelry, puts them back in their place, and when the poor dupe discovers his loss, he is confronted by a mystery which he is unable to solve.

In some cases long poles are used to get the victim’s clothes. If they are by accident or intention laid off beyond reach of the thief’s crafty hand, this pole with a hook frequently accomplishes the designs of the robber. Of course, in every case the plunder is divided with the companion of the victim.

The lock used on the doors of these rooms is the enterprise and ingenuity of a well-known saloon keeper who at one time owned several panel houses. He sold a number of these locks to the keepers of other panel houses, for which he received several hundred dollars each.

In cases of robbery keepers of panel houses try in many ways to prevent their victim from complaining to the police. One of these plans is to have a man or boy stationed in front of the houses, who is called a trailer. When the victim of robbery leaves the house this trailer is informed by signs made from a window, how much money has been taken. The trailer then follows the victim, and if it is ascertained that he is going to the police station he is intercepted and taken back to the scene of the robbery, it having been suggested that he may be able to get some of his money back or to get some assistance. If it is found that the victim is a stranger in the city, she will offer to procure his transportation to his home, declaring that he was robbed by an outsider and protesting that she could not possibly afford to allow such a thing to occur in her house. Sometimes this stops a complaint at the police station, and the victim leaves the city a poorer but wiser man.

To show the vast extent to which this panel house thieving is carried, it is only necessary to state that $1,500,000 were stolen annually in 1892, 1893 and 1894.

Ten thousand dollars have been taken this way in the levee district in one night, and from fifty to one hundred cases of larceny have been reported to the police in twenty-four hours.

Ten thousand dollars have been offered by these panel house keepers and those who shared their ill-gotten gains for the removal of Detective Wooldridge from the secret service work of the city. These thieves often had the protection of a certain class of politicians, and it is said of some officials also, who participated in the profits of their highway robbery.

It is but giving credit to whom it belongs, however, to say that Mayor Carter H. Harrison, during his several terms as the city’s chief executive, gave support and encouragement to all efforts to wipe out these panel houses. He, like other good citizens, looked upon them as a burning disgrace and a low form of lawlessness that should be exterminated.

Detective Wooldridge, in his vigilance and determination, closed fifty-two of these panel houses in 1896. He closed and broke up forty-five of these places in the latter part of 1898, and in 1899 he secured the indictment and conviction of twenty-eight panel house keepers at one time. Following this, he secured the indictment of the property owners who rented houses to these thieves, and this last stroke put an end to the panel house business in Chicago.

Through the excellent work of Detective Wooldridge, seven of the toughest strong-arm footpad women in the world were sent to the penitentiary. Their thefts, according to the police records, are said to have amounted to $425,000. The names of the women follow: Emma Ford, Pearl Smith, Flossie Moore, Minnie Shouse, Mary White, Alice Kelly, and Mattie Smith.

The Saloon Question in Chicago

Title: The Saloon Question in Chicago by John E. George

Location: Google Books       Date: 1897

At the turn of the twentieth century, Chicago was well-known as a hard drinking town. While saloons were often hives of crime they were also an important revenue source for the growing city and a centuries old aspect of the working class and immigrant culture. To his credit, the author of this early study investigates all sides of the issue, even the influence of Chicago’s weather…

Chicago, like every other large city, has its saloon problem. There is, no doubt, much misapprehension as to what the problem really is. To many, and especially to those who do not live in a large city, the saloon seems to be an unmitigated evil, the sole aim and purpose of which is to ruin men and to corrupt society. Temperance literature, too, and temperance speakers often decry the saloon unqualifiedly, as the chief cause of crime and poverty in our civilization. Annihilate the saloon, it is said, and crime and poverty will almost entirely disappear. On the other hand, the saloon-keeper maintains that his business is as justifiable as any other business ; that the saloon exists because the public demands what it supplies ; and that his is the most abused business there is, since he must pay an exorbitantly high license fee and constantly be harassed by laws and ordinances which regulate, govern, and sometimes entirely prohibit, his business.

The saloon in Chicago is the logical result of certain conditions, as it doubtless is everywhere ; and it would be a wild conjecture, at best, to say that the annihilation of the saloon would ameliorate those conditions to any great extent. Nor would crime and pauperism necessarily cease or largely decrease at once. Change the conditions, and the results will be changed. It may be said that the saloon is a condition, but also a cause. That is true to some extent. But it is effect as well as cause. It is the effect of pre-existing conditions, and it is directly a cause in so far as it exceeds normal demands and creates abnormal demands. The fundamental conditions exist in the human appetite for intoxicating beverages. Dr. H. I. Bowditch, in treating of ” Intemperance in the Light of Cosmic Laws,” says: “The first deduction we can make from this correspondence [letters from all parts of the world] is that this appetite for stimulants is one of the strongest of human instincts. It is seen in every nation, in all quarters of the globe. Savage or civilized man alike, purchases or makes his appropriate stimulant.”

When Mr. William T. Stead was in Chicago, he said in a public address in Central Music Hall, that the saloon supplied more human wants than the churches. This seemed at first a wild and unwarranted statement, and he was assailed from all sides.  But when we consider that there are nearly seven thousand saloons in Chicago that make every provision allowed by the law, and many prohibited by it, to make their places attractive and comfortable, and that they are open every day and every night, even on Sunday, we must admit that his statement has some force. And when we further consider that to counteract the influence of this large number of saloons there are but five hundred and forty eight churches in the entire city, his statement has added force. The saloon does supply wants that are not at present supplied in any other way to any great extent, and it supplies them at all hours to suit the customer. Bishop Fallows at his “Home Salon”, at 155 Washington street, recently said: ” We of the better classes have allowed men of low character to provide for wants in the institution of the saloon that we ought to have provided, minus the evils of the saloon.” Miss Jane Addams, of the Hull House Settlement, Chicago, in a recent address before the students of Northwestern University, said that the worst places, such as the saloon and places of iniquity in general, were made the most attractive, while the places that ought to be counted the best were usually the most unattractive.

It is said that the man still lives who with his rude wagon and ox team hauled the logs to build Fort Dearborn. From a small city of 4,170 inhabitants and an area of 10.5 square miles in 1837, Chicago has grown to a great metropolis, second only in population to New York city, and more than three times as large as that city in territorial extent. All this in less than sixty years. To Chicago have come people from all parts of the earth, bringing with them a mixture of good and bad influence. Dr. Bowditch says: ” The American republic, though broadly British in its origin, and therefore inheriting British tastes for strong liquors, has become by immigration truly cosmopolitan. For more than a century men from every country have taken refuge here and have brought their national habits with them.” This last statement is certainly true of Chicago. The rapid growth of the city, its territorial extent and geographical position, its climate, and its mixed population, all these facts are very pertinent to the subject under consideration ; and a careful examination of them will bring to clearer light some of the reasons why the saloon is so strongly rooted in Chicago. In territorial extent Chicago is the largest city in the world. London covers an area of 122 square miles, Paris 30 square miles, New York 40.22 square miles, while Chicago has an area of 186.5 square miles. In 1893 Chicago had 1,007 miles of improved and 1,460 miles of unimproved streets, a total of 2,467 miles of roadway, including more miles of paved streets than there are in New York and Boston combined.  Halsted street, running north and south from Little Calumet river to Lake Michigan, is 21.5 miles long, said to be the longest street in the world. From the lake front at Jackson Park or Lincoln Park, to the western boundary is nine miles. This great territorial extent of the city probably renders police supervision more difficult than it would be if the city were compact. And yet this can hardly apply to the police supervision of saloons, since they are most numerous in the down-town and compactly built portions of the city.

The climate of Chicago has undoubtedly not a little to do with the drinking habits of its people. Situated on the lake shore, it is subject to frequent and great changes of temperature. It has been maintained that an even temperature is conducive to temperance, while a constantly changing temperature is a fruitful cause of excessive consumption of intoxicating beverages.  Dr. Bowditch also says : “In further proof of the influences of climate, and at the same time to warn our people in regard to the use of liquors in America, I may add the well-known fact, that Englishmen on arriving in this country find themselves unable to bear the same amount of liquor of any kind that they have always used with impunity in Europe. Similar but exactly opposite results have been noticed by Americans when visiting Europe.”

If it be true anywhere that sudden fall and sudden rise of temperature influence the amount of liquor consumed and its reaction upon the consumer, it certainly is true in Chicago.

Biographical History of the American Irish in Chicago

Title: Biographical History of the American Irish in Chicago by Charles French

Location: Internet Archive     Date 1897

The numerous contributions of the Irish during Chicago’s early history are the focus of this extensive volume. Historians and genealogists will find the searchable text beneficial and the emphasis here is on both individual accomplishments and a detailed accounting of their Irish heritage.

As an entry example, I have chosen John M. Smyth. For many, Smyth’s furniture store advertisement jingle still rings in our memory. But, Smyth’s contribution to early Chicago was also political, serving as an Alderman and Committeeman, and he was known for his honesty in a time when corruption was the norm.

John M. Smyth

Equally a manufacturer, merchant, and one identified with political and public affairs, John M. Smyth is justly regarded as a thoroughly representative man. Personally he unites an old country lineage with the development and energy characteristic of the new world.

The parents of the subject of this sketch, Michael K. Smyth and Bridget (McDonnell) Smyth, left Ireland for America in the summer of 1843, and John M. Smyth was born at sea on the 6th of July of that year. The family came from Balliua, County Mayo, where their people had long been settled, and where Mr. Michael K. Smyth was a surveyor. Their first residence on this side of the Atlantic was in Quebec, but later they removed to Montreal, in which city they lived for five years, settling in Chicago in 1848. In the now historic days when early Chicago was mapped out, Mr. Michael K. Smyth surveyed lands for that notable pioneer real estate owner, William B. Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago. Mr. Smyth, like many others in those early days, had his opportunities of becoming wealthy by the acquisition of laud, subsequently very valuable, but to be had then for comparatively trifling; considerations. For instance, he was offered once for certain services, the Erie square block of land between Kinzie and Michigan, Market and Franklin, afterwards easily worth $1,400,000, but which he declined to accept because it would have taken a year of labor and some slight cost to have leveled a high bank upon it, removed refuse and put generally into marketable shape. Meantime, while the elder Smyth was taking a hand in making the ground plan of the future World’s Fair City, young John M. was attending the renowned “Kinzie” school, known among the youth of that time as “Wilder’s” from the name of the principal, then responsible for shaping and developing the young ideas. Having completed school terms sufficiently well to equip himself with a sound general education, he started out in life on his own account, he chose the typographic art and that section of it represented in the composition rooms of a daily newspaper. Mr. Smyth was employed successively upon the early newspapers of Chicago: the “Morning Herald;” the Chicago “Democrat,” when the historic paper was owned by that representative citizen, Mayor Wentworth, “Long John,” and lastly on the “Press and Tribune,” now the “Tribune.”

Mr. Smyth, when in a leisure hour, likes nothing better than to dwell upon the details of the early newspaper life and business of Chicago; that epoch in Chicago when James W. Sheahan started “The Times” (Sheahan & Price), afterwards purchased by the Hon. Cyrus H. McCormick, and subsequently advanced to a conspicuous place in modern daily journalism by the distinguished editor, Wilbur F. Storey. But the comparatively unremunerative business of the printer and publisher did not satisfy John M. Smyth.

He embarked in business for himself in 1867, opening a furniture store at 92 West Madison Street. This was the beginning of the business that has since grown to such immense proportions and has made the name of its proprietor almost a household word in every part of the city. To accommodate his increasing business, he removed his establishment in 1880 to its present location, where he greatly extended and enlarged the operations of the establishment. The store was destroyed by fire in April, 1891, but Mr. Smyth immediately rebuilt on the same site, completing and occupying, by November 1st of the same year, the largest and handsomest business block on the West Side. It is a business which now embraces literally thousands of individual accounts, and the fair and just management of the great time credit department has deservedly won for John M. Smyth thousands upon thousands of friends and well wishers in Chicago.

Mr. Smyth was sent to the City Council in 1878, re-elected as Alderman until 1882, and has twice served as a Presidential Elector in the successful campaign for Garfield in 1880, and also upon the Blaine ticket. He managed the latter campaign, in Chicago and Cook County in 1884 and also the Republican campaigns of 1894 and 1896. Mayor Hempstead Washburne appointed him a member of  the Library Board in 1892, and from that date until 1895 Mr. Smyth served the Library upon its Finance committee. In politics he has ever been a consistent Republican, and as member and chairman of the County Central Republican Committee, has always been active in that great political party.

With all this, he is much more of a family and domestic man than a political aspirant, and cares most to live simply within the conventional requirements of the responsible citizen. Mr. Smyth married June 14th, 1871, Miss Jane A. Hand, and [has] eight children. Three sons and five daughters, blessed a union which led to an exceptionally happy domestic life. The best exemplification of his energy and success as a Chicago business man, is found in the accomplishment of certainly the greatest business in his special direction ever known in the West.

The Autobiography of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard

Title: The Autobiography of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard: Pa-Pa-Ma-Ta-Be, “The Swift Walker” by Gurdon Hubbard

Location: Google Books     Date: 1911

Introduction by Caroline M. McIlvaine, Librarian of the Chicago Historical Society

PROBABLY no one life presented so many of the phases of Chicago’s life-drama as did that of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard. The brief autobiography here reprinted deals with the earlier years only. It remains for us to round out the picture by a swift review of the later scenes, and to try to so adjust the focus that we may see the picture as a whole and realize its relation to our own lives. Born in Vermont, a descendant of the Connecticut colonial governor, Gurdon Saltonstall, who was great-grandson of Sir Richard Saltonstall, Gurdon Hubbard bore, so far as ancestry is able to imprint it, the stamp of the metal from which America has been molded. But there was something else about Gurdon Hubbard than that which can be accounted for by ancestry.

Leaving his adopted home in the Canadian wilderness at the age of sixteen, to descend with the voyageurs of the American Fur Company through the waters traversed only a trifle over a century before by the explorers La Salle and Tonty, intimate as a brother with the Indians, and yet able to defend the whites from their treachery, possessed of the strength and skill of the former, with the diplomacy and aplomb of the latter, swift of foot, huge of stature, Hubbard seems as he looms up in history like the survivor of some former race, —a giant whose youthful adventures might have been passed on by tradition, as of a being more than human. Something he undoubtedly imbibed from the Indians, which, added to his own firm fiber, made him the hero that he was in the estimation of his contemporaries, and rendered him, in a very true sense, a representative American. That he was able to adapt himself to civilization, and to infuse into others something of the fire which burned within him, is in large part, we believe, the secret of much of Chicago’s extraordinary advance. If we have moved at a rapid pace, it is perhaps because that pace was set by Pa-pa-ma-ta-be, “The Swift Walker.”

The Lost City! Drama of the Fire Fiend

Title: The Lost City! Drama of the Fire Fiend, or Chicago, as it was, and as it is! and its glorious future! a vivid and truthful picture of all of interest connected with the destruction of Chicago and the terrible fires of the great Northwest by Frank Luzerne and John G. Wells

Location: Internet Archive     Date 1872

“When the general alarm sounded, and all the steamers flew through the streets, prolonging the boom of the bell in shrill shrieks, thousands of citizens rushed out to learn the location and progress of the conflagration. Most of the buildings in Dekoven and Taylor streets wore already destroyed, and the great tongues of flame were licking up the wooden structures in that part of the city as though they were the merest tinder boxes, leaving no trace of their form or material to mark the place’where they stood, but a moment before. The crackling of the fire among the dry lumber resembled the regular discharge of musketry by an army corps in retreat ; but there were still worse evidences of panic than are usually displayed by a routed army, in the hundreds of people, men, women and children, already fleeing to a place of safety, and bearing upon their shoulders such articles of household use as seemed to theni valuable at the moment. They were utterly demoralized, and mingled screams of agony, shouts of alarm, prayers and imprecations, with occasional blows right and left, in a jangling noise of words unknown, and gabble without meaning. Eyes blind with blood, and features wildly distorted with terror, people unclad, half-clad, some wrapped in bed-clothing, women dressed in the apparel of the opposite sex, and some protected only by their night-wrappers, carrying beds, babies, tables, tubs, carpets, crockery, cradles, almost every conceivable thing of household use, formed the most noticeable features of this terrific route.”

Chicago Antiquities By Henry Higgins Hurlbut

The Kinzie House from the 1856 edition of "Wau-Bun" by Juliet Kinzie.

Full Title: Chicago Antiquities: Comprising Original Items and Relations, Letters, Extracts, and Notes, Pertaining to Early Chicago by Henry Higgins Hurlbut

Book Location: Google Books    Date Published: 1881

A great primary source on early Chicago history. Filled with tales of Indians and the earliest settlers. The book is 673 pages long and does not have a “Contents” page. Thankfully there is an Index in the back. Consider this a must read – or at least browse.

 

FIRST THINGS IN CHICAGO

The first negro slave in Chicago, of which we have heard, was “Black Jim,” owned by John Kinzie, and brought here by him in 1804.

The first coroner’s inquest was over the body of a dead Indian.

The first civil execution among the whites, here, was that of John Stone, who was hanged July 10, 1840, for the murder of Mrs. Thompson. The place of execution was the racecourse, some three miles south from the river, near the lake shore, back of Myrick’s tavern. A portion of Col. Beaubien’s Goth Regiment was improvised as a guard for the occasion, the command of which Col. B. transferred to Lieut. Col. Seth Johnson. The return of the procession brought back the body of Stone, which was given by the sheriff to the doctors for dissection. [We will here refer to what was probably the last execution at this place of an Indian by his comrades. It occurred in the fall of 1832, or the ensuing winter, after a council, or their form of a trial. Being adjudged worthy of death, the man was taken outside, into the brush, south of

Randolph street, near where Market street is now, and executed, probably by shooting. Our informant, who was an early settler here, says such was the statement confidently told at the time, though he had no personal knowledge of the matter beyond the assurance of others.]

The first map of Chicago was by James Thompson, the surveyor employed by the State Canal Commissioners to lay out the town, or rather, village. This map bore date August 4, 1830, and the original was in the Recorder’s Offtce, and was probably burned. It is understood that the first plat of the village gave to Chicago a public levee upon the plan of the western river towns. Our levee, accordingly, was located on the south side, from South Water street to the river. But the lake vessels could not find it expedient to conform to the ways of the shallow craft of the Mississippi valley waters, and so the Chicago levee was abandoned, and the ground was sold, docked, and built upon.

The first street leading to Lake Michigan, was laid out April 25, 1832; it commenced at where was called the east end of Water street, and is described by Jedediah Wooley, surveyor, as follows: “from the east end of Water street” (at the west line of the Reservation, or State street?) “in the town of Chicago, to Lake Michigan; direction of said road is south 88 J^ degrees cast, from the street to the lake, 18 chains 50 links. Said street was laid out 50 feet wide. The viewers on this occasion also believe that said road is of public utility and a convenient passage from the town to the lake.”

THE first extended highway regularly laid out in Chicago. was “The Green Bay Road,” in 1835, under the direction of Gen. Scott, U. S. A.

The first white man’s tannery, was that of John Miller. It stood (1831) near to and on the north side of, his brother Samuel Miller’s tavern, near the Junction.

The first regularly appointed auctioneer was James Kinzie.

THE first debating Society formed here, was organized during the winter 1831-2 comprising nearly all the male

population, mostly within the Fort. Col. J. B. Beaubicn was chosen President.

THE first Druggist was Philo Carpenter, who arrived in Chicago in the month of July, 1832; his store was a small log- building, near where is now the east end of Lake Street Bridge. Mr. C. next occupied a log-building, just vacated by Geo. W. Dole, who had removed into his new store.

THE first steamboat fuel furnished by Chicago, was in 1832, when Captain Walker of the “Sheldon Thompson” bought an old log-cabin and took it on board for his return down the Lake.

The first printed list of Advertised Letters was in number seven of Mr. Calhoun’s paper, the Chicago Democrat, Jan. 7, 1834. The list comprised one letter, namely, for Erastus Bowen.

The first Fair was held by “the ladies of the Protestant Episcopal Church of this Town,” on the 18th June, 1835, and is referred to in the village newspaper, as “a novelty in Chicago.”

NOT in 1835, (as stated Dec. 5, 1875 in one of the Chicago Times articles, headed “By-Gone Days,’‘ those pleasantly told stories, even though occasionally marred with typographical, accidental, or sensational errors, which we shall notice hereafter,) but July 4, 1836, was the first spadeful of earth thrown out in the digging of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

The first ferryman was Mark Beaubien.

THE first rock for the harbor piers was furnished by John K. Boyer.

The first dray in Chicago was shipped from the Hudson, by Philo Carpenter; we think, also, that the first specimen of that renowned pleasure-vehicle of New England, “the one- horse shay,” which appeared here, was when that gentleman and his bride rode into the village in one, in the spring of

owned by Col. J. B. Beaubien, and brought from the East. It is said that the villagers, upon its arrival, paid it distinguished honor, “turning out in procession and parading the streets.”

The first engraver on wood or metal was S. D. Childs, senr.

The first church bell was placed upon the Unitarian Church edifice, 87-93 Washington Street, January, 1845.

The first vessel larger than a “shell” built here was the “Clarissa” launched May, 1836.

The first public edifice erected by the County of Cook, was an Estray Pen.

The first “balloon” built in Chicago or elsewhere, (a popular style of spike-fastened light frame buildings, which astonished by their firmness the old-fashioned mortise and tenon builders,) was erected in the fall of 1832 by Geo. W. Snow, and stood near the Lake shore. It was but a slight affair, yet served for the while, as his place of business, and to protect his goods or freight received by vessel. The greater share of said freight, we may here add, was made up of whisky or other kinds of the ardent.

THE first steam engine built in Chicago, was made and put up by Ira Miltimore. It was used to run a saw-mill located on the north branch, near the residence of the late Archibald Clybourn.

The first suggestion we think on record (or off) by a Chi- cagoan or indeed “any other man” for the establishment, in each of our Collegiate Institutions, of a Professorship to occupy “a Chair of Integrity,” for the teaching of that ancient and important accomplishment honesty, now so rare in our public men or officials, (not to speak of others,) was contained in an address by the late Hon. Wm. B. Ogden, not long since, before the Board of Trustees of the Chicago University.

The first book printed in Chicago was consumed by fire, in the bindery, late in 1840. Scammon’s Reports, vol. I. Four incomplete copies were not in that fire.

History of the Chicago Police by John J. Flinn

Full Title:  History of the Chicago Police: From the Settlement of the Community to the Present Time, Under Authority of the Mayor and Superintendent of the Force

Book Location: Google Books; Internet Archive     Year Published: 1887

The police force immediately preceding the fire is said by some authorities (notably by James W. Sheahan and George P. Upton, in their book, “Chicago, Its Past, Present and Future”), to have mimbered 400 men; but as the force only numbered 425 in March, 1872, according to Supt. Kennedy’s report, we are led to believe that it was much smaller in October, 1871. All data concerning the principal stations in the 1st and 3d precincts was swept away by the fire, and nothing of an official character was left to tell the story of the quarter of the year ending with Sept. 30th. And for many days succeeding the fire, the policemen of these stations had nowhere to report, except at headquarters, and confusion reigned supreme throughout the burnt district. One hundred and fifty of the police force were left homeless and almost penniless by the fire. Most of these were on duty during the nights of October 8th, 9th and 10th, doing what little they could to assist the firemen, to help the distracted and fleeing people, to protect property and to keep the peaee, while their own houses were being swept away, and their own families were being driven before the flames, to the lake side or the prairie. Testimony is not wanting to prove that many of the officers and men performed heroic service during these dreadful nights, and during many nights afterward, when the city was but a desolate and ghastly waste of ashes. “I desire to bear testimony to the cordial co-operation and efficiency of all branches of the service,” said Supt. Kennedy, in his report to the council, “especially during the trying times succeeding the disastrous conflagration of last October, when about 150 of our men were burned out, and while their families were houseless and homeless they rallied with but few exceptions to their posts of duty immediately after the fire, and did their utmost, along with the balance of the force, in the restoration and maintenance of order. To them and io the entire force, as the executive head of the department, I desire to bear testimony for their faithfulness and coolness in their duties, when so many of our citizens were apparently panic-stricken.‘‘

The fire had done its worst when it consumed everything in its path, but a new and even a more dreadful terror than that just passed seized the public mind when it became rnmored that incendiaries nnd robbers were attempting to complete the disaster which had already befallen the community. Not only the 75,000 homeless people who had fled before the advancing columns of flames, but the thousands who still hail roofs to cover their heads, in the sections that had escaped the calamity, were panic-strickeu by this newly threatened calamity. There was no water, and a fresh outbreak of fire on the West Side, or on the South Side, below the black line of debris, would probably result in the complete annihilation of the city. No wonder, then, that horror seized the people when the rumor spread that incendiaries, with an eye to plunder, were at their devilish work. The citizens at once formed themselves into patrol parties, to protect what little there remained in the burnt district, and to prevent, if possible, the designs of the incendiaries and thieves upon those sections which had escaped the fire. These patrol parties in the main did excellent service, but they did not always act with discretion, and it was popularly believed that many innocent persons met death at their hands. Undisciplined, inexperienced, panicky and inclined to look with suspicion upon every stranger who came along, they served to increase rather than to diminish the alarm of honest people in many quarters.

While the flames were leap.ng from house to house and from block to block on the South Side, and driving thousands of frightened people before them over the bridges and through the tunnel, there were gathered together in a little West Side church a few of the city officials. There, on the night of October 9th, on a coarse piece of paper, was drawn up with a lead pencil the famous proclamation of Chicago to the civilized world. It is preserved in the rooms of the Historical Society, plainly framed, and may now be easily read, for it is as legible as ever. It ought to be encased in a cabinet of solid gold, and placed beyond the possibility of loss or destruction. With many other treasures, above price, it is at the mercy of the first neighborhood fire, in the miserable quarters which are provided for the use of the Historical Society—quarters which, by the way, are a sad commentary on the vaunted public spirit, home pride and culture of our citizens. The proclamation touches upon police matters, but if it did not, it deserves a prominent place in any work which aims to follow the history of this city, no matter how lightly. It runs as follows:

Whereas, in the providence of God, to whose will we humbly submit, a terrible calamity has befallen our city, which demands of us our best efforts for the preservation of order and the relief of the suffering. Be it known that the faith and credit of the city of Chicago is hereby pledged for the necessary expenses for the relief of the suffering. Public order will be preserved. The police and special police now being appointed will be responsible for the maintenance of peace and the protection of property. All officers and men of the fire department and health department will act as special policemen without further notice. The mayor and comptroller will give vouchers for all supplies furnished by the different relief committees. The headquarters of the city government will be at the Congregational Church, corner of West Washington and Ann streets. All persons are warned against any acts tending to endanger property. All persons caught in any depredations will be immediately arrested.

With the help of God order and peace and private property shall be preserved. The city government and committees of citizens pledge themselves to the community to protect them and prepare the way for a restoration of public and private welfare.

It is believed the fire has spent its force and all will soon be well.

R. B. Masox, Mayor.

George Taylor, Comptroller.

Charles C. P. Holden, President Common Council.

T. B. Brown. President Board of Police.

Chicago, October 9th, 1871.

History of Chicago by A. T. Andreas

Full Title: History of Chicago From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

Book Location: Google Books   Year Published: 1884

Volume 1, ending in the year 1857,  of a 3-volume set. One of the most referenced books on early Chicago history. I’ve always been a bit curious about  Andreas’ background and only recently the following:

Biography of Alfred Theodore Andreas (1839-1900):

Died, on February 10, 1900, at New Rochelle, New York, where he was temporarily residing, Alfred  Theodore Andreas, a member of this Commandery since October 4, 1882. He was born at Amity, Orange County, New York, May 29, 1839. Soon after that time his father removed to Chester, in the same county, and engaged in mercantile pursuits, and later, to Holly, Pennsylvania. Having prospered at the latter place, he went to New York City and became a successful merchant. Alfred received his education at Chester Academy. Being of an adventurous and self-reliant disposition, he came Westward, arriving in Dubuque, Iowa, in July, 1857. He soon found employment, first as a clerk, and afterwards as a school teacher, in which latter calling he continued for about three years. In the fall of 1860 he went with an Iowa acquaintance to St. Louis to sell a lot of horses, and while journeying through Missouri,
was first impressed with the evils of slavery. Having completed the business of the trip, he came across into Illinois, stopping near Sparta, Randolph County. Here he found employment during the winter of 1860 and 1861, and up to the beginning of the war. Concerning his employment at that time, he says: “At that time I was little more than a boy. Circumstances had drifted me into a little place in Southern Illinois, some sixteen miles from a railroad, where I was getting a small salary for presiding over the rising generation of the neighborhood. In other words, I was teaching school.”  When the first call for seventy-five thousand troops was made, he made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the army. Later, on July 21, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company G, Twelfth Illinois Infantry, and the next day joined the regiment, then stationed at Cairo. He was with the regiment in its various camps at Cairo, Birdspoint and Paducah, in the summer of 1861, and in the latter part of the year at Smithland, Kentucky, where a detachment of the regiment was stationed. He was, by a singular act of good fortune, both for himself and the command, detailed for duty in the Commissary Department, for the discharge of which he had remarkable aptitude. At the first opportunity, May I, 1862, he was made Commissary Sergeant, a promotion already richly earned. In this position he soon became personally known to every officer and enlisted man in the regiment, numbering them all as his friends. No day was so stormy, no night so dark, no situation so hazardous as to deter him from doing all in his power to promote the  comfort and serve the necessities of the men in the command to which he belonged. January 1, 1863, he was commis-
sioned First Lieutenant and Quartermaster of the regiment, in which position his enlarged opportunities and
duties were met with the same zeal and fidelity that had won him his promotion. Always alert, the men of the regiment never were short in clothing and food, when it was possible for him to procure them. During the Atlanta Campaign he was made Commissary of Division, first on the Staff of General Sweeney and afterwards with General Corse, and held this position on the March to the Sea and through the Carolinas.

Having discharged faithfully and acceptably every duty of a soldier, in every capacity in which it came to him, he was mustered out at Goldsboro, North Carolina, April 1, 1865. He returned home, and on May 31, 1865, was married at Davenport, Iowa, to Miss Sophia Lyter, who made his home happy, and shared his successes and reverses during their nearly thirty-five years of married life, and who with two daughters, Eulalia Lyter Andreas and Elouie Lyter Atherton, survives him.

Returning to civil life with his views broadened and his energies quickened and strengthened by his military ex-
perience, which had been educational to him, he at once sought a field for active enterprise. He had seen great things done and had helped to do them, and he could see no reason why he could not undertake and accomplish great enterprises, as well as other men. He was a pioneer in the county atlas and history work in the West, and in it achieved notable success. This brought him to and identified him with our city, and his history of Chicago will long remain a standard work upon which the student and the future historian must rely.

Success soon crowned his efforts. He took at its flood the tide in the affairs of men which leads on to fortune, but that
same tide in its ebb bore him out on a tempestuous sea where the waves of financial disaster overwhelmed him. Though his energy never flagged and hope never deserted him, he was never able to retrieve his fortune. He envied no man’s good fortune, and in his many enterprises, successful and unsuccessful, we believe it can be truthfully said of him that he never intentionally wronged any man. Wearied with the struggle, he at last laid himself down to rest, and “After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well. ” He was a devoted member of the Loyal Legion and believed in it, not only as a fraternal organization, but as one of the reliable agencies through which the truth concerning the great struggle in which we were engaged shall be transmitted to the future.

Biography Source:  Memorials of deceased companions of the Commandery of the state of Illinois, Military order of the loyal legion of the United States  (1901)