Kaskaskia The Lost Capital of Illinois David MacDonald and Raine Waters

“This book skillfully limns an engaging account of Kas- kaskia’s colonial beginnings, its multitudinous tribulations, and its ultimate surrender to the waters of the Mississippi. Highly reliable and readable, and furnished with numer- ous illustrations, the work will appeal to the specialist and general reader alike.”—Morris S. Arnold, author of Colonial , 1686–1804: A Social and Cultural History

The rise and fall of the first capital of Illinois

This first comprehensive account of the Illinois village of Kaskaskia covers more than two hundred years in the vast and compelling history of the state. David MacDonald and Raine Waters explore Illinois’s first capital in great detail, from its foundation in 1703 to its destruction by the in the latter part of the nineteenth century, as well as everything in between: successes, Paper: 978-0-8093-3731-6 setbacks, and the lives of the people who inhabited the space. E-book: 978-0-8093-3732-3 $26.50, 226 pages, 99 illus. At the outset the Kaskaskia tribe, along with Jesuit missionaries Shawnee Books and French traders, settled near the confluence of the Kaskaskia and Mississippi rivers, about sixty miles south of modern-day St. Louis. The town quickly became the largest French town and David MacDonald is an emeritus professor of most prosperous settlement in the . After French history at Illinois State University and the author of control ended, Kaskaskia suffered under corrupt British and then Lives of : Commandants, Soldiers, inept American rule. In the 1790s the town revived and became and Civilians in French Illinois, 1720–1770. the territorial capital, and in 1818 it became the first state capital. Along the way Kaskaskia was beset by disasters: crop failures, Raine Waters is an instructor of history at Heart- earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, epidemics, and the loss of the land Community College and Illinois Valley Com- capital-city title to Vandalia. Likewise, human activity and industry munity College. eroded the river’s banks, causing the river to change course and eventually wash away the settlement. All that remains of the state’s first capital today is a village several miles from the original site.

MacDonald and Waters focus on the town’s growth, struggles, To request a review copy, schedule an prosperity, decline, and obliteration, providing an overview of its author for an interview or a signing, or obtain domestic architecture to reveal how its residents lived. Debunking information about course adoption, contact the notion of a folklore tradition about a curse on the town, the [email protected] authors instead trace those stories to late nineteenth-century journalistic inventions. The result is a vibrant, heavily illustrated, For rights and permissions inquiries, contact and highly readable history of Kaskaskia that sheds light on the [email protected] entire early history of Illinois.

To order Online: www.siupress.com · Phone: 1-800-621-2736 Also available at bookstores and online retailers CONTENTS Appendix B:Lexicon Appendix A: Notes onPhotographersandSketch Artists 10. TheCurseofKaskaskia—CreativeFiction, NotHistory 9. MidwesternFederalandEclecticHouses andTheirOwners 8. Franco-AmericanHomesofKaskaskia 7. Introduction 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. Introduction Acknowledgments List ofFigures Index Bibliography Notes 1. DawnofKaskaskia,1673–1719 although theydoincorporateafewfolktaleelements amidstaforestofmodernmisrepresentations. accounts ofthecurse. The storiesarefilledwithgrossfictions andarerevealedasjournalisticfictions, of thetwentiethclaimingthatKaskaskiawasdestroyed becauseofacurseandprovidingdetailed Examines twotalesthatfirstappearedattheend ofthenineteenth-centuryandduringthefirstyears homes modifiedby Victorian orpurelyutilitarian additions. Provides examplesofthebestdocumentedhomes oftheMidwesternFederalstyleandseveral colonial andearly American architecture. Describes thebest-documentedearlyhomesinKaskaskia,whichcombinedelementsofFrench Explains thethreebasicstylesofhomesthatexistedinKaskaskiaduringnineteenthcentury graphs ofthetowntakenbybothprofessionalsandamateurs. the historictownamongpeopleofIllinois,resultinginnovels,newspaperstories,andphoto Describes andfollowsthedestructionoftownbyMississippireactiontoloss of Destruction, 1881–circa1913 tion ofthetown. through avarietyofnaturaldisasterstotheencroachmentMississippithatbegandestruc Chronicles thecalamitiesthatbesetKaskaskiafrommovementofcapitaltoV Kaskaskia inDecline,1820–1881 and floods. Illinois. This wasalsoaperiodofdisasters,suchasthegreatNewMadridearthquakes,tornado, Recounts therevivalofprosperitywhileKaskaskiawasterritorialandthenfirststatecapital Mixed Fortunes,1790–1820 the greatfloodof1785alsoplaguedKaskaskiaatthistime. George RogersClark,andearlyyearsofneglectbytheUnitedStates.Repeatedcropfailures Follows KaskaskiathroughthedifficultyearsofBritishrule,conquestIllinoiscountryby Kaskaskia andIndianunderBritishEarly American Rule,1765–1790 Kaskaskia enjoyedrelativeprosperitydespitethehostilityofFoxandChickasawtribes. Reviews theperiodofFrenchregimeatKaskaskiaandIllinois. French andIndianKaskaskias,1719–1765 sionaries whoaccompaniedthematwhatbecamethetownofKaskaskia. Describes themigrationandfirstyearsofsettlementbyKaskaskiaIndiansJesuitmis Part 2.Domestic Architecture atKaskaskia Part 1.HistoryofKaskaskia Part 3.Pseudo-Folklore The inhabitantsof andalia - . - -