Kaskaskia, Illinois
Following the war, Kaskaskia was part of the United States and the large, French-speaking population became slowly Americanized. Lewis and Clark stopped here in 1803 and recruited many of the professional hunters and sharpshooters that accompanied them to the Pacific Ocean in their fateful 1804-06 expedition.
The village served as the only capital of Illinois Territory in 1809-1818, and briefly (1818–1820) as the first capital of the new U.S. state of Illinois following Illinois's admission to the Union on December 3, 1818. Pierre Menard, a wealthy fur trader who lived across the Kaskaskia River from Kaskaskia at the bottom of the Fort Kaskaskia redoubt, was elected the new state's first Lieutenant Governor.
Read more about this topic: Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site
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“An Illinois woman has invented a portable house which can be carried about in a cart or expressed to the seashore. It has also folding furniture and a complete camping outfit.”
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)