The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1911-04-06

- - = 80 - -
mills were busy cutting down the
woods The river continually depos
| tied soil at the end OF the point. build
| ing II up at the rate of about mile in
20 years. The swamps disappeared
and turned into land OF the highest
| fertility
In 1851, at the request OF the resi-
dents OF the parish, the legislature
empowered them to lease the com.
mons to farmers the rent 10 be paid
into the village treasury. Part of the
land was surveyed into 4Oacre sec
tons and offered for rent at one dol.
lar an acre per year. The leases were
TO run for 90 years.
At various times other sections OF
the commons were opened to settle
ment Oh the lease system. One sec.
ton became known as "ten-cent land"
because the board of five trustees in
charge Of the rents leased 1t at ten
cents an acre per year.
1t was charged that the friends OF
the trustees profited BY the nominal
price and that their opponents were
excluded from participation.
Then came the CONFUSION which
rent the peninsula from the main
land of Illinois and set the channel
OF the Mississippi to the east instead
OF the west of Kaskaskia. The histor.
c site of the old village was almost
completely engulfed by the invasion
of waters, and only one corner OF the
old state house, the first in Illinois,
was spared.
The villagers had foreseen the
catastrophe, and obtained permission
from the legislature to move the town
two miles further south As con.
sequence, It is said that little proper.
~ and no lives were lost.
In the meantime there grew UP n
bitter antagonism between the tenants
Of the commons and the residents In
the village of Kaskaska. Governor
Naudreuil's grant expressly vested the
ownership of the commons in all the
inhabitants OF the immaculate Con.
ception parish. which included the en-
tire island
But for more than a century, the
villagers excluded all but themselves
from voice in the government and
the expenditure of the rents. The
tenants were not permitted to vote
for village trustees
The settlers resentment was the
greater because they outnumbered the
villagers three TO one. At present the
village has 80 voters and the rest OF
the island about $50.
The present Kaskaskia, venerable as
II is, is the daughter of still older
Kaskaskia, an Indian village on the
Illinois river near Utica, which was
discovered in 1873 by Father Mar.
quette. There he established a mis-.
sion, the first in the Mississippi val
ley.
Twenty-seven years later, the Kas.
kaskia indians, who were on the peril
GUS frontier between the warning
tribes Of Illinois and Iroquois, deter.
mined upon an exodus to safer stu.
alton Let by priests, they settled up
on the fertile site of the present Kas-
kaskia.
In 1863 the Illinois territory was
coded by the French to Great Britain.
which took possession Of Kaskaskia in
l765 and appointed as governor the
Chevalier de Rocheblave In 1878 it
was wrested from Great Britain by
General Clark, commanding an expedi.
ion of VirginIan troops. called Long
Knives" by the Indians. Virginia
,oded Illinois to the United States In
1874 and six years later. when Illinois
vas erected into n territory OF the
United States. governor was sta
toned at the capital. Kaskaskia.
As has been related but few of the
'uins of the old Kaskaskia remain to-
lay The destruction wrought by the
lood of 1874 was completed by the In.
-aslon OF the Mississippi river.
Even before that time the house in
which General Lafayette slept in
S25 had been carried away piecemeal
" souvenir hunters. There still re-
mains, however, the ancient parish
ell. which was founded In Rochelle,
rance. and whose peal was the first
card between the Alleghenies and
he Mississippi river.