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10 - Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch by Eaton G. Osman · Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch

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  Speaker 1: Section ten of Starved Rock, a historical sketch by Eton
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  Speaker 1: g Osman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: recording by Veronica Jenkins. Section ten modern Starved Rock methinks
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  Speaker 1: you take luxurious pleasure in your novel Western leisure throw
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  Speaker 1: the era of the white Man. Then the white Man
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  Speaker 1: came pale as the dawn, with a load of thought,
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  Speaker 1: with slumbering intelligence. As a fire raked up, he bought
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  Speaker 1: the Indian's moccasins and furs. Then he bought his hunting grounds,
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  Speaker 1: and at length he forgot where the Indian was buried,
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  Speaker 1: and plowed up his bones. The tale is soon told,
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  Speaker 1: for it is but a variation of the theme which
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  Speaker 1: but now is dying away in the West. As the
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  Speaker 1: Indian slowly disappears off the face of the earth. And
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  Speaker 1: from a feudal castle of Sieur de la Salle and
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  Speaker 1: a rock of refuge for hunted savages, Starved Rock has
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  Speaker 1: passed into its Western leisure, always a landmark of the
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  Speaker 1: Great Way in the more important epochs of its history.
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  Speaker 1: It still was such when the English settlers began to
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  Speaker 1: invade the Illinois country, and it would be difficult to
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  Speaker 1: find a traveler journeying in the Illinois Valley, spying out
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  Speaker 1: the land, who has not told of going out of
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  Speaker 1: his way to visit and call attention to this remarkable
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  Speaker 1: natural curiosity. Flint, in his History and Geography of the
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  Speaker 1: Mississippi Valley, published in eighteen thirty three, devotes a page
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  Speaker 1: to rock Fort, describing the beauty of the rock itself
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  Speaker 1: and its surroundings, and repeating the tradition that has given
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  Speaker 1: it its name, though Flint nowhere calls it other than
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  Speaker 1: rock Fort. Charles Fennow Hoffmann, a then distinguished New York
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  Speaker 1: author and literature who visited the rock in January eighteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty four while on winter tour through the West, on
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  Speaker 1: the other hand, calls the place starved Rock and nothing else,
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  Speaker 1: showing that such was its common name at that time
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  Speaker 1: in the Illinois country. Hoffmann has a note written by
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  Speaker 1: an unidentified friend and resident in Illinois, which repeats the
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  Speaker 1: familiar legend, with this single exception that while the writer
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  Speaker 1: says one person escaped from the rock, that person was
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  Speaker 1: a squaw who was still alive when the Englishman entered
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  Speaker 1: the country. Schoolcraft eighteen twenty, in his travels through the
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  Speaker 1: Central portions of the Mississippi Valley Records, having visited the
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  Speaker 1: rock when he made the sketch from which the engraving
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  Speaker 1: used as initial to this chapter has been made. Judge Halls,
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  Speaker 1: Ohio Tales of the Border eighteen thirties also contains the
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  Speaker 1: Starved Rock legend, which was the common property of all
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  Speaker 1: Western travelers of that early day. Of all the many
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  Speaker 1: articles that were written of Starved Rock in the past, however,
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  Speaker 1: none perhaps came to have a wider circulation or gave
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  Speaker 1: the rock wider celebrity than one written by Charles Landman,
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  Speaker 1: an article erroneously attributed by some of our more celebrated
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  Speaker 1: local historians to Washington Irving, who, unfortunately, so far as
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  Speaker 1: I have been able to discover, never saw and certainly
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  Speaker 1: never wrote a line about the rock. The article seems
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  Speaker 1: to have been mister Landman's swan song, but having been
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  Speaker 1: published as an elegant extract in prose from an eloquent
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  Speaker 1: writer in the famous Sanders series of readers. My copy
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  Speaker 1: is edition of eighteen fifty five, for the use of
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  Speaker 1: academies and the higher classes in common and select schools.
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  Speaker 1: It was read and declaimed by the youth of that
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  Speaker 1: and succeeding decades from one end of the nation to
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  Speaker 1: the other. And I have no doubt that the article
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  Speaker 1: so published has been the means of bringing thousands of
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  Speaker 1: curious visitors to the Rock. In the past forty years,
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  Speaker 1: the era of the plowshare in pruning Hook has come
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  Speaker 1: to starved Rock, grim visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,
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  Speaker 1: and the frightful and laborious past, soothed and softened by
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  Speaker 1: the tempering touch of lapsing time, has left its record,
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  Speaker 1: which now is like the legend and ruins of credulous days.
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  Speaker 1: Old fancies that have lain silent from boyhood taking voice again,
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  Speaker 1: warmed into life once more, even as tunes that frozen
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  Speaker 1: in the fabled hunting Horn thawed into sound. The modern
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  Speaker 1: starved rockby leaguerers come arrayed in bicycle suits and picnic habiliments.
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  Speaker 1: And where once the Frenchman braved the terrors of savagery,
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  Speaker 1: his nineteenth century successors, born of all nations, now invade
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  Speaker 1: the land to make an al fresco holiday. Today too,
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  Speaker 1: its Kaskaskia cabins have been replaced by a modern hotel
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  Speaker 1: with broad verandahs, an attractive dining room, and large and
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  Speaker 1: airy guest chambers supplied with water, gas, and the comforts
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  Speaker 1: of a hotel of the best class, and with private
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  Speaker 1: cottages attached for families, many comforts which, to the Rock's
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  Speaker 1: earliest master, Louis the Magnificent, would have been impossible luxuries.
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  Speaker 1: The broad verandas overlook the verdant, peaceful valley, while the
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  Speaker 1: cool shade of the forest, but a step to the
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  Speaker 1: rear of the hotel brings rost and refreshment to the
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  Speaker 1: tired workers seeking here summer rest and recreation for renewed
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  Speaker 1: exertion in the business world. Separated from the hotel as
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  Speaker 1: a clubhouse where dancing parties are held. And again the
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  Speaker 1: sound of music and merry laughter that once without doubt
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  Speaker 1: echoed from the summit of the Rock in the ancient days,
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  Speaker 1: when the pleasure loving Frenchmen found themselves at peace with
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  Speaker 1: savage foes, is caught up by the sweet south wind
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  Speaker 1: to fill again the quiet valley with the harmonies of
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  Speaker 1: peace and happiness. Near By, inaccessible to pleasure seekers are
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  Speaker 1: the cliffs, the glens, and the canyons of Illinois River,
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  Speaker 1: which unite to make this the most interesting locality from
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  Speaker 1: a scenic point of view on the entire stream. Farther away,
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  Speaker 1: but still within even walking distance a few miles, are
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  Speaker 1: the famous Bailey's Falls in deer Park Glen, the beauty
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  Speaker 1: spots of the big Vermilion River, which itself is, for
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  Speaker 1: many miles of its length, the most interesting region from
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  Speaker 1: the geologist and artists point of view, and all northern Illinois.
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  Speaker 1: Deer Park Glen has been greatly beautified of late years
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  Speaker 1: by the creation of roads and paths, and by the
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  Speaker 1: removal of the refuse of nature. But here, as is
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  Speaker 1: also the policy of the starv Rock management, not one
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  Speaker 1: jot or tittle of nature's own beauty or handiwork has
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  Speaker 1: been or will be disturbed of all this interesting region.
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  Speaker 1: The Starvrock Hotel is the natural center, and its management
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  Speaker 1: offers its guests all facilities for examining every portion of
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  Speaker 1: the region at their leisure. The hotel, owned by Walter
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  Speaker 1: and Hwell of Chicago and managed eighteen ninety five by
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  Speaker 1: William Tash, is the equal in all respects of the
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  Speaker 1: best summer hotels of the West, and thus Starved Rock
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  Speaker 1: is rapidly becoming the most popular summer resort in the
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  Speaker 1: Illinois Valley. Its register during the past few years, having
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  Speaker 1: contained names of visitors from nearly every state of the Union.
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  Speaker 1: End of section ten, recorded by Veronica Jenkins in Ottawa, Illinois,