HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
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limits of the State, and also Wisconsin and the peninsular portion of Michigan, was organized and Ninian Edwards was appointed its first Governor, and Nathaniel Pope its first Secretary, in March of that year, by President Madison. On April 7, 1818, a bill was introduced in Congress, enabling the people of a portion of the Territory to organize the State of Illinois. As presented, the bill designated the northern boundary of the new State, to be "an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan, west along the north parallel of 40 degrees, 39 minutes, to the center, of the Mississippi River." Nathaniel Pope was then the delegate from Illinois Territory in Congress. With rare political foresight he moved as an amendment that the eastern boundary of the proposed new State "upon reaching the northwest corner of Indiana, should turn due east, and be extended to the middle of Lake Michigan, and thence north, along the middle of the lake, to North latitude 40 degrees, 30 minutes, and thence west to the center of the Mississippi River." In the light of subsequent events, the argument of Mr. Pope in support of this amendment was wonderfully prophetic. In substance, he said that the new State, by reason of her accessibility, central location, and exceedingly fertile soil, was destined soon to become densely populous, and of potential influence; that her people long had been, and ever would be, closely bound to the South by ties of consanguinity and commerce; that, by the proposed line, they would be confined to that section in their future domestic and trade relations, through the use of those great arteries of communication, the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and their tributaries; and that these ties were liable to become so powerful that, in the event of an attempted dismemberment of the Union, she might be carried to the Southern Confederacy; that, from the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, great lines of communication by land and water were soon to be opened, reaching far to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west, uniting all in bonds of common intercourse; and that, to counteract her present and future strong southern tendency, these mighty forces should be included within the northern boundary of the new State; thus possibly placing her, at some time of future national peril, in the position of the keystone of the arch of perpetual union.
It will be difficult to find in all history a parallel to this wise political forecast; to note an hour pregnant with more wide and vital issues for good or ill. Had his amendment failed, Kane, with the other thirteen rich and populous northern counties of Illinois, would have passed to another State. In that event would this State have constructed the Illinois and Michigan Canal?-would the Illinois Central Railroad have been built? Could Chicago have attained its present magnificent proportions, and become the dominant financial, commercial, and industrial center of the nation? Could the loyal people have held the great State of Illinois in the front line of the defenders of the assailed Union, four decades later, without the potent political influence of these fourteen patriotic counties? Would Abraham Lincoln have been chosen President of the United States? The student familiar with the conditions leading up to the mighty conflict for the Nation's preservation, in 1861, will not doubt that, had that original line prevailed, the people of the great fertile delta of Illinois would have been as hopelessly divided at the crucial period of the Republic's history, as were those of Kentucky or Missouri, and the probable result too appalling to contemplate. Kane County has been a part of all these events, and her history is linked with all these changes.
Summarizing the governmental organizations of which Kane County has been a part, its political status may be traced as follows:
First, the home of various Indian tribes, whose title was finally transferred to the United States in the treaty negotiated by Gen. Harrison with the chiefs of the Sac and Fox tribes, Nov. 3, 1804, covering the region lying between the Fox River of Illinois, on the east and south, the Wisconsin River on the north, and the Mississippi River on the west. Under this treaty, the Indians conveyed about fifteen million acres of the fairest lands for the miserable pittance of twenty-five hundred dollars and a promised annuity of one thousand dollars. Indian dissatisfaction with the unfair terms of this treaty was one of the causes of the infamous Black Hawk War, which occurred twenty-eight years later, causing the loss of many lives and the expenditure of some two and a half million dollars. Second, it was a part of the famous "Illinois Country" from about 1765, claimed in turn by Indian, Spaniard, Frenchman, Briton and American;
