‘Military Tract’ plan helped settle western Illinois

Bill Knight column for 1-7, 8 or 9

The War of 1812 is arguably one of U.S. history’s “second-tier” conflicts. Compared to the American Revolution and the Civil War, two World Wars and the Vietnam War, the War of 1812 almost seems like a footnote. Indeed, many historians regard it as largely a senseless war sparked by the British Empire’s interference with U.S. shipping and the seizure of American sailors, as a war that ended as a draw (if not a U.S. defeat).

Oddly, 204 years ago this week, 4,700 mostly untrained militia fighters, Choctaw Indians, rural whites and free Black men defended New Orleans against about 8,000 British troops in that war, which had been mostly fought to a stalemate until Britain defeated Napoleon in Europe and moved military resources to North America. Having burned the unfinished U.S. Capitol, Britiain aimed to choke U.S. ports such as New Orleans, which would have given Britain control of the Mississippi River.

In the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson led the upstart Americans in a half-hour clash on Jan. 8, 1815, decimating the redcoats with artillery, and British troops suffered 2,034 casualties while Americans lost just 62 soldiers. It was a resounding victory for the young nation, but since that was when news from Europe took a month to reach the western hemisphere, it happened weeks after the Treaty of Ghent ended hostilities.

Despite that unusual “ending,” if it weren’t for one of the war’s other factors – Congress’ massive land giveaway to veterans to encourage pioneers to move to the country’s sparsely populated frontier (specifically, western Illinois) – the region undoubtedly would have taken years longer to settle.

            Approved by Congress on May 6, 1812, the Military Tract law encouraged enlistment as well as settlers. Technically offering “patents” for “bounty land” issued to War of 1812 veterans, Illinois’ Military Tract grants covered an area that included all of the present counties of Adams, Brown, Calhoun, Fulton, Hancock, Henderson, Knox, McDonough, Mercer, Peoria, Pike, Schuyler, Stark and Warren, plus parts of Henry, Bureau, Marshall and Putnam counties, totaling some 5.4 million acres (about 8,400 square miles) – about 3.5 million of which were determined by surveys in 1815-1816 to be fit for farming.

            “Before Fulton County was formed, and before Illinois was admitted to statehood, the U.S. government set aside a vast region of land in Illinois for veterans of the War of 1812,” wrote John Drury in his 1954 history of Fulton County. “This Military Tract lay between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.

            “Any veterans of the War of 1812 could have a free quarter-section of land [160 acres] if he wanted it,” Drury continued. “A lot of veterans sold their ‘prairie quarter’ for $100 or less, while others traded theirs for a horse, a cow or a watch.

            “Often, a ‘land shark’ would turn up as the owner and demand an exorbitant price for a tract that the settler had cleared, cultivated and on which he had built a home,” he added.

            Land records from the 1800s are sketchy, especially since such speculators were involved.

            “Issuance of the patents was one factor that drew people of disparate cultural backgrounds of the Northeast and the Central/South to Illinois,” said Melissa Calhoun, a McDonough County genealogist. But “many veterans didn’t want to move to Illinois, so they sold their patents, often to land agents, who in turn sold to speculators, often in the East.”

In fact, 4th Infantry soldier Theodore Sargent (whose family said he did get a Tract land grant) initially settled on the wrong acreage in the Canton area and had to vacate, according to Drury. Sargent eventually relocated and helped found Farmington in present-day Fulton County.

Still, it worked. Not formally established until 1823, Fulton County for years included virtually all of the state north of the Illinois River, but its only real communities were Canton, Lewistown, Rushville and inhabited areas around Fort Clark (Peoria) and Fort Dearborn (Chicago).

Today, there are 80-some graves of War of 1812 veterans throughout Fulton County, according to research by Mason County resident Herb Stufflebeam. Certainly, many of them and their descendants benefited from the government program, a positive outcome from a negative episode in U.S. history.