208 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts, and Letters. 



CHAPTEK III. 

 THE LEAD REGIOX OF ILLIXOIS.^ 



BEEXAED M. PALMER, B. L. 



The lead region of Illinois is sitnated in Jo Daviess County, 

 the extreme northwestern corner of the state. The mines found 

 in this county were at one time among the richest in the world, 

 and furnished great quantities of lead. But about the year 

 1850, when the mineral began to be found less abundantly, it 

 became increasingly hard to work the mines on account of the 

 water encountered at the lower levels to which the shafts had 

 now^ been sunk, the industry declined, and after a period of 

 years, nearly ceased altogether.^ The purpose of this paper is 

 to investigate the effect of the lead industry upon the life of the 

 people in the region, along social, economic and political lines. 



The lead mines of the Upper Mississippi river were early 

 known to the French possessors of the country. As early as 1690 

 lead, obtained by the Indians, was an article of traffic with the 

 French traders at Peoria.^ The mines were held i\s crown 

 property in accordance w^th the French custom, and were 

 worked to some extent under various grants* between the years 

 1723 and 1745.^ 



Under British control the mines seem to have been as little 

 worked as under French occupation, and it remained for the 

 United States to fully develop them and obtain the benefit of the 

 enormous wealth they contained. Although the richness of the 

 mineral region of Illinois was a matter of common knowledge, 



1 A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Vv'isconsin for the degree of 

 B. L., June, 1900. 



^ Libby, Significance of the Lead and Shot Trade in Early Wisconsin History. Wis- 

 consin Historical Collections, Vol. XIII. 



2 Senate Doc. 87, 29th Cong., Ist Session, p. 3. 



■* See notes on Early Lead Mining in the Fever River Region, by R. G. Thwaites, Wis- 

 consin Historical Collections, Vol. XIII., pp. 276-7. 

 * Senate]Doc., 87, 29th Cong., 1st Session, p. 3. 



