It is in La Salle's first _proces verbal_ for his government that we find the first mention of the river 'Chekagou,' a lonely stream then, but which now reflects a number of houses and stores, tall steeples, colossal grain depots, and--the splendid edifice which fitly enshrines the northern terminus of the Illinois Central Railroad, the greatest railway in the world, and certainly one of the wonders which even the ambitious and sanguine La Salle never dreamed of; a daily messenger of light and life through seven hundred miles of country, which, without it, would have remained a wilderness to this day. The first settler on the banks of this now so famous river was a black man from St. Domingo, Jean Baptiste Point-au-Sable by name, who brought some wealth with him, and built a residence which must have seemed grand for that time and place. He did not stay long, however, and the Indians, who had probably suffered some things from the arrogance of their white neighbors, thought it a good joke to say that 'the first 'white man' that settled there was a negro.' Like some other jokes, this one seems to have rankled deep and long, for to this day Illinois tolerates neither negro nor Indian. The Indian, _as_ an Indian, has no foothold in the State; and the negro, even in the guise of born and skilled laborer in the production of the crops which form the wealth of the country, and of the new ones which are to be transplanted hither in consequence of the war, is forbidden, under heavy penalties, to set foot within her boundaries--the threat of slavery, like a flaming sword, guarding the entrance of this paradise of the laborer.