The war was over: the Indians had been driven to the north and west, and the tide of emigration had again set toward the Mississippi. The northwestern territory--especially that part of it which is now included within the limits of Illinois and Indiana--was rapidly filling up with people from the south and east. The advanced settlements had reached the site of Springfield, in the "Sangamon country,"[78] now the capital of Illinois, and a few farms were opened in the north of Madison county--now Morgan and Scott. The beautiful valley, most inaptly called, of the _Mauvaisterre_, was then an unbroken wilderness.
The grass was growing as high as the head of a tall man, where now well-built streets and public squares are traversed by hurrying crowds. Groves which have since become classic were then impenetrable thickets; and the only guides the emigrant found, through forest and prairie, were the points of the compass, and the courses of streams. But in the years eighteen hundred and seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen, the western slope of the Sangamon country began rapidly to improve. Reports had gone abroad of "the fertility of its soil, the beauty of its surface, its genial climate, and its many advantages of position"--and there is certainly no country which more richly deserves these praises.
But the first emigrant who made his appearance here, in the autumn of eighteen hundred and nineteen, was probably moved by other considerations. It was none other than Abram Cutler! And his family consisted of a wife and three young children! That wife was Margaret Roberts--or rather Margaret Stone; for, notwithstanding the representations of Cutler, her union with Stone had been perfectly legal. By what arts he had succeeded in inducing her to elope with him, we can only judge from his previous proceedings; but this is certain, that resentment toward Stone, who, she probably believed, had unfairly trapped her, was as likely to move her impulsive and unstable spirit, as any other motive. Add to this, the wound given to her vanity by the sudden departure of her young husband upon a long campaign, with the acuteness given to this feeling by the arts of Cutler, and we shall not be at a loss to explain her action.