Forgottonia's Forgotten Beginnings: The Military Tract and the Rise of Railroads
By: Harry Bulkeley
Old Locomotive “Reindeer” built in 1850 at Boston for the old New Hampshire Central Railroad.
Before there was Forgottonia, way before, there was the Military Tract. It was a pie-shaped territory stretching between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers set aside by Congress to give to men who enlisted to fight the British in the War of 1812. In other words, Forgottonia.
After the Blackhawk War in the 1830s, white folks felt safe moving out into that frontier and settling down. Towns and colleges and farms and churches sprang up as the population grew. At the same time, the U.S. had gone Railroad Crazy. It was a high-tech mania where everybody wanted to build a railroad. Plans and financing schemes and even some track sprang up, but, like with lots of investment bubbles, it soon came crashing down, leaving folks much poorer and more skeptical about railroads. It would take another fifteen years before the idea gained steam again.
In the mid-1840s, some grand plans were reignited, but mostly baby steps. A little railroad was planned to go from Chicago 30 miles west all the way out to the tiny hamlet of Aurora. Another one was supposed to go north out of Quincy to somewhere. (Nobody was quite sure where.) Construction was also begun on the Peoria and Oquawka to join the Illinois River to the Mississippi.
That line played a big part in this story. It was going to pass through Knox County, and the two principal towns, Knoxville and Galesburg, didn’t like each other. Each wanted the railroad to go through them but skipped the other. When it looked like Knoxville had won the battle, Galesburg began to develop different plans.
Galesburg obtained a charter to build the Central Military Tract Railroad to the northeast, probably to Lasalle. However, building a railroad cost a lot of money. Much more money than the fledgling company and town could raise. There were big plans but no capital to carry them out. Most of the grand schemes for railroads began to run out of money. The Peoria and Oquawka hadn’t decided whether to go through Knoxville or Galesburg but didn’t have enough money to go to either place.
So, let’s recap. There’s a track running north out of Quincy to somewhere. There’s a road running west out of Chicago as far as Aurora. And there’s the theoretical plan to join Galesburg somewhere near Chicago.
Enter Chauncey Colton. Who was he? He certainly wasn’t a railroader. He ran a little general store on the square in the little town of Galesburg. Not particularly impressive but he had big ideas. Every year, after the farmers sold their crops and paid their bills, Colton would go east to buy inventory for the next year. While staying at the American House Hotel in Boston, he happened to run into an investor in the Aurora Branch and James Grimes, an enterprising young lawyer from Burlington. Grimes had the ear of some eastern investors looking for projects “out west.” The three men came up with a proposal to build a railroad from Chicago through Galesburg and ultimately to Burlington and Quincy. Hmmm. Is that starting to sound familiar?
Chauncey Colton rushed back to Galesburg and told the folks of the exciting opportunity. There was only one small detail. The tiny village of 900 subsistence farmers needed to raise $200,000. That would be a significant goal even today, but it must have seemed impossible back then. Nonetheless, they managed to raise all but $50,000 of it. There was a meeting, and it didn’t look good. That was when Colton and his retail rival Silas Willard pledged the remaining amount, and the deal was sealed.
When it looked like Galesburg could build their portion of the road, the folks in Quincy decided to build there instead of Knoxville. At the same time, the Peoria to Knoxville plan folded, and Galesburg’s place was secured as the hub of the Nascent C B & Q.
Railroads became the lifeblood of Forgottonia and still are today. Existing villages grew quickly, and new ones mushroomed all along the route. The railroads laid out towns every ten miles or so to create new markets for shipping. On December 7, 1854, the engine “Reindeer” steamed into Galesburg, and within four years, the town had quadrupled in size.
The story (probably apocryphal) of the first Sunday trains that were to run in Galesburg is part of the mythology of the coming of the railroads. The town had been founded by fervently religious abolitionists who did not countenance working on the Sabbath. Jonathan Blanchard was the crusty president of Knox College and led the parishioners of Old First Church down to the newly built depot where a train was preparing to haul a load to Chicago. Blanchard stood athwart the rails, arms akimbo, and demanded that the engineer stop the train. The engineer asked, “Who are you?” “I am President Blanchard of Knox College, and I demand you halt.” “Well, President Blanchard,” shouted the engineer, “you can go to hell, and I’ll take my train to Chicago.”
Even if it didn’t really happen, the story is a perfect parable for what happened to this region as it went from being a rural region of fledgling farmers to an integral part of the nation’s new industrial backbone.