[93] Peoria, now the second largest city in Illinois, is situated a hundred and sixty miles southwest of Chicago, on the west bank and near the outlet of Lake Peoria, an expansion of the Illinois River. Its site was visited in 1680 by La Salle. Early in the eighteenth century a French settlement was made a mile and a half farther up, and named Peoria for the local Indian tribe. French missionaries were in this neighborhood as early as 1673-74. In 1788 or 1789 the first house was built on the present site of Peoria and by the close of the century the inhabitants of the old town, because of its more healthful location, moved to the new village of Peoria, which at first was called La Ville de Maillet, in honor of a French Canadian who commanded a company of volunteers in the War of the Revolution. Later the name was changed to its present form. At the opening of the War of 1812-15, the French inhabitants were charged with having aroused the Indians against the Americans in Illinois. Governor Ninian Edwards ordered Thomas E. Craig, captain of a company of Illinois militia, to proceed up the Illinois River and build a fort at Peoria. Under the pretense that his men had been fired upon by the inhabitants, when the former were peaceably passing in their boats, Craig burned half the town of Peoria in November, 1812, and transferred the majority of the population to below Alton. In the following year, Fort Clark--named in honor of General George Rogers Clark--was erected by General Benjamin Howard on this site; but after the close of the war the fort was burned by the Indians. After the affair of 1812, Peoria was not occupied, save occasionally, until 1819, when it was rebuilt by the Americans. The American Fur Company established a post there in 1824. See C. Ballance, _History of Peoria_ (Peoria, 1870).--ED. [94] Benjamin Howard (1760-1814) was elected to the state legislature of Kentucky (1800), to Congress (1807-10); appointed governor of Upper Louisiana Territory (1810), and in March, 1813, brigadier-general of the United States army in command of the 8th military department. He died at St. Louis, September, 1814.--ED. [95] Kickapoo Creek rises in Peoria County, flows southeasterly and enters Illinois River two miles below Peoria.--ED. [96] Robert Walter Weir (1803-89), after studying and painting in New York, Florence (1824-25), and Rome (1825-27), opened a studio in New York, and became an associate and later academician of the National Academy of Design. He was professor of drawing in the United States Military Academy at West Point from 1832 to 1874. Weir is best known for his historical paintings, prominent among which are "The Bourbons' Last March," "Landing of Hendric Hudson," "Indian Captives," and "Embarkation of the Pilgrims." He built and beautified the Church of Holy Innocents at Highland Falls, West Point. His two sons, John Ferguson and Julian Alden, became noted artists.--ED.