MATTHEW LAFLIN. 



John Kinzie was the father of Chicago in a generic 

 sense. Matthew Laflin is entitled to that distinction 

 in a special sense, because he was the instrument by 

 which so many of her permanent and useful industries 

 have been built. He was born in 1803, in Southwick, 

 Mass., being of Anglo- Scotch-Irish extraction. The 

 genius of the bright New England lad drew its inspi- 

 ration from other sources than Plymouth Rock. Econ- 

 omy of pennies and of time, and a hardening of 

 muscle with use, are omnipresent in that land, that 

 Daniel Webster said was a good place in which to be born. 

 There we find Mr. Laflin's endowment for a business 

 life . His first venture was in the manufacture of powder, 

 to make a market for which Chicago offered an inviting 

 field, when work began on the Illinois and Michigan 

 canal in 1837. It was then he came to this place and 

 found a little mud clad village of 4,000 inhabitants 

 which won his confidence, and here he cast his lot, 

 and here, as well as at St. Louis, Milwaukee and 

 Springfield, he established agencies for the sale of 

 powder from his mills at Saugerties, New York. During 

 the winter of 1838-39 he lived with his family in Old 

 Port Dearborn, thus associating himself with the mili- 

 tary period of Chicago's history. His first venture of a 

 speculative character was buying real estate, which 

 soon made him a man of great wealth. He built the 

 original Bull's Head hotel, on Ogden avenue and Madi- 

 son street, as a resort for stock men, around which he 

 built barns, sheds and cattle pens. This was the pioneer 

 of the stock yards system, now so prominent a source 

 of wealth in Chicago. In 1851 he established the first om- 

 nibus line, running from Bull's Head to the State street 

 market, then in existence, but abandoned four or five 

 years later. The Bull's Head tavern was torn down 



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