River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1911-04-06

II EGAL confirmation OF the prlnc1-
pie of community ownership of
land, Of which the philosophy Of
a Henry George is an extension,
has now been supplied in a deci-
sion of Judge George Crow of East st.
Louis upholding a grant of land in com
mon made 1876 years ago to the resi-
dents of Kaskaskia, Ill, by his most
Christian majesty, Louis XIV. OF
France
The decision also recalls the ancient
renoWn of Kaskaskia, the oldest settle
ment of white men in the Mississippi
valley and the provincial, territorial
and state capital of Illinois. Kaskas-
kia's capture by Virginian troops under
Gen. George Rogers Clark conveyed
Illinois from Great Britain to the Uni
ted States, and opened the way for the
conquest of the northwest.
Judge Crows finding repeats law
passed by the Illinois legislature au-
thorizing the village to sell it's COM
mons of about 5000 acres. The law was
enacted at the instance of tenants of
the common land, who claimed that
y
ownership had proved failure.
Kaskaskia, now a large island oppo-
site Fort Gage, ILL.,, was a peninsula
when the settlement was founded in
100 by Jesuit priests, Fathers James
Gravier and Gabriel Marest. The Mis-
sissippi river dug deep channel
across the base of the peninsula 30
years ago, so that, in the opinion of
many lawyers Kaskaskia, the first cap
ital Of Illinois, is now a part of the
state of Missouri.
No record of the French kings grant
has been preserved 1t was confirmed,
however, by a patent issued in 1743 by
Gov. Pierre Vaudreuil of the province
of Louisiana, and by Edme Gatien Sal
mon, commissary general
From the first, it is believed, a
uuasi-prfyate ownership of land existed
in that portion of the parish which was
under cultivation. But almost half of
the parish was a commons proper, part
in grazing land upon which the settlers
pastured their cattle, and part in tim
Der land, where they hunted
The farm land, because of peril from
Indian marauders, was divided on the
French arpent system. Each settlers
tract consisted of ribbon of land 1913
feet wide and three miles long
BY this means, although the farmer
cultivated several acres of land, he was
not isolated from his neighbors, at
whose elbows he almost literally
worked. This system made possible a
common protection against savage at
tacks.
There is no record showing whether
the early settlers paid rent for their
farm land to the community That
they were merely tenants, however,
was recognized when a petition to per-
nit the purchase of the land was pre-
sented by them to the United States
government, soon after Illinois became
a territory.
The petition was granted and the
cultivated land passed from common
into individual ownership. The le-
gality of the proceeding is doubted
by lawyers, but it has stood almost a
century, too long to be reversed.
To differentiate the farm land from
the commons, the government sur
veyed line between them as a boun-
dairy, known today as the Grand Line
The commons was regarded as of lit
tie value, because the expense of
clearing u of timber to make farming
possible was considered prohibitive
Forty acres of 1t was devoted to a
once famous race track, which had
stalls for 500 horses and a mile
course. The settlers hunted through
the forests and looked with disfavor
upon the swamps at the tongue of the
peninsula.
But about the middle of the last
century the timber business became
profitable, and soon numbers of saw
mills were busy cutting down the
woods The river continually depos-
tied soil at the end of the point, build
ing it up at the rate of about a mile in
% 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