Transportation Committee. Passes provided for Persons leaving the City. - Railroad Companies honored these Free Passes. Half Fare Passes issued. Telegraphic Communication between the Warehouses and Stations. - Number of Passes issued during Shelter Committee. Isolated Houses. Houses with One and Committee on Special Relief.- The Need of such Committee. - - Employment Bureau. Object of the Committee. Assisted by kindred Societies. - Number given Employment during the first A. T. Stewart Fund. - Letter of A. T. Stewart. Donation of -- REPORT OF THE CHICAGO RELIEF AND AID SOCIETY. THE CHAPTER I. TOPOGRAPHY OF CHICAGO. HE conflagration of Chicago, October the 8th and 9th, 1871, in the amount of property destroyed, and the number of people rendered homeless and dependent, is without parallel in the history of ancient or modern times. In order to show how it was possible that such a fire could occur, it is deemed necessary to give some account of the topography and physical conditions of the city, and so much of its history as will indicate its rapid growth and hasty construction. Chicago, the chief city of Illinois and of the Northwestern States, is situated on Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Chicago River, eighteen miles north of the extreme southerly point of the lake, and has an elevation of six hundred feet above the ocean. On the west of the city is a wide expanse of prairie, on the south and north is timber, making the precise point of Chicago an opening or sort of funnel through which the adverse winds of prairie and lake sweep over the city. The Chicago River affords the only good harbor on the west side of the lake near its southern extremity, and to this fact is due the natural fitness of this site for a mart of commerce, and primarily its chief importance. The city is located on both sides of this river; a sluggish stream originally of the nature of a lagoon, and which at a point threequarters of a mile from its mouth is formed by the junction of two branches, one flowing from the northwest, and the other from the southwest. The city is thus divided into three natural parts. The South Side, as it is called, includes the territory east of the South Branch and south of the main river. The North Side embraces the area east of the North Branch and north of the river. The West Side is that part of the city west of the two branches. The United States Government established a military post at this point in 1804, which was destroyed in 1812. It was rebuilt in 1816, and continued to be garrisoned till 1837. During these years Fort Dearborn served as a resting-place for emigrants passing to the west, and a hamlet slowly clustered about it, which took the name of Chicago. In 1831 Cook County was organized, and in 1832 the total tax list of the county was returned by the sheriff at $148%. In the spring of 1833 Congress made an appropriation of $30,000, for improving the harbor; a post-office was established; and in the month of August of the same year Chicago was incorporated as a town. The following are the statistics of the corporation for this year: In 1834 the poll list had increased to one hundred and eleven, and a loan for sixty dollars was negotiated for the opening and improvement of streets. The construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which was begun in 1836 and completed in 1848, and by which the chain of the great northern lakes was united to the waters of the Mississippi River, made Chicago the entrepôt of this water traffic, and constituted the first memorable impulse in the growth of the city. The first charter of the City of Chicago was passed by the Legislature, and approved March 4, 1837, and the first election was held under this charter on the first of May following. The first census was taken in the following July, and the population was shown to be four thousand one hundred and seventy-nine souls. In this year the city contained four warehouses, three hundred and ninety-eight dwellings, twenty-nine drug stores, nineteen provision stores, ten taverns, twenty-six groceries, five churches. In 1839 three thousand cattle were driven in from the prairies, slaughtered, packed, and shipped, and thus began one of the chief branches of business here largely controlled, and one which has contributed to the rapid increase of the city's population and wealth. In the same year the first shipment of wheat, amounting to one thousand six hundred and seventy-six bushels, was sent from this port, which is now the world's chief market for bread-stuffs and provisions. The following table shows the increase of population from the time Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 to 1871. |