[81] Alton, twenty-five miles above St. Louis, is the principal city of Madison County, Illinois. In 1807 the French erected here a small trading post. Rufus Easton laid out the town (1818), and named it for his son. The state penitentiary was first built at Alton (1827), but the last prisoner was transferred (1860) to the new penitentiary at Joliet, begun in 1857. Alton was the scene of the famous anti-Abolitionist riot of November 7, 1837, when Elijah P. Lovejoy was killed.--ED. [82] Captain Benjamin Godfrey donated fifteen acres of land and thirty-five thousand dollars for the erection of a female seminary at Godfrey, Madison County, Illinois. The school was opened April 11, 1838, under the title of the Monticello Female Seminary, with Rev. Theron Baldwin for its first principal.--ED. [83] The plans mentioned here were probably being agitated when Flagg visited Alton in 1836. The act incorporating the first railroad in Illinois was approved January 17, 1835; it provided for the construction of a road from Chicago to a point opposite Vincennes. By the internal improvement act of February 27, 1837, a road was authorized to be constructed from Alton to Terre Haute, by way of Shelbyville, and another from Alton to Mount Carmel, by way of Salem, Marion County; but the act was repealed before the roads were completed. The Cumberland road was constructed only to Vandalia, Fayette County, though the internal improvement act contemplated its extension to St. Louis.--ED. [84] The French village is no doubt Portage des Sioux. In 1799 Francis Leseuer, a resident of St. Charles, visited the place, which was then an Indian settlement. Pleased with the location he returned to St. Charles, and secured a grant of the land from Don Carlos Dehault Delassus, lieutenant-governor of Upper Louisiana, organized a colony from among the French inhabitants of St. Charles and St. Louis, and occupied the place the same autumn.--ED. [85] Grafton, Jersey County, Illinois, was settled in 1832 by James Mason, and named by him in honor of his native place. It was laid out (1836) by Paris and Sarah Mason.--ED. [86] The Illinois Indians (from "Illini," meaning "men") were of Algonquian stock, and formerly occupied the state to which they gave the name. They were loyal to the French during their early wars, later aided the English, and were with great difficulty subdued by the United States government. Separate tribes of the Illinois Indians were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigami, Moingewena, Peoria, and Tamaroa.