Full Text of HR0217 99th General Assembly
HR0217 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, The members of the General Assembly are proud to | 3 | | designate a section of Interstate
57 that encompasses an area | 4 | | where the first non-Native
Americans in Illinois settled as the | 5 | | "French-Canadian Heritage Corridor"; the majority of settlers | 6 | | in the area were French-Canadian pioneers who immigrated in | 7 | | large
numbers to what is now Kankakee and Iroquois Counties | 8 | | from the late 1820s to 1850s; those
settlements included | 9 | | Bourbonnais Grove (now Bourbonnais), Le Petit Canada (gone now, | 10 | | but
the site is located in the Davis Creek area of Kankakee | 11 | | River State Park), Rockville (gone now,
but the site is located | 12 | | in the northwest section of Kankakee River State Park), St. | 13 | | George,
L'Erable, Papineau, and St. Anne; after the Potawatomi, | 14 | | the first significant ethnic group to
make contributions in the | 15 | | Kankakee area were the French-Canadians; and
| 16 | | WHEREAS, The French were no strangers to the heartland of | 17 | | North America; as early as 1543,
France established the colony | 18 | | of New France, which eventually covered about half of the North
| 19 | | American interior; the nineteenth-century French-Canadians | 20 | | were very familiar with the land
south of the Great Lakes; they | 21 | | knew about Rene-Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle's (1643-87)
| 22 | | quest to explore the rivers of New France that flowed into the | 23 | | Mississippi; he and 33
men made a portage from the St. Joseph | 24 | | River to a marshy river's headwaters; in 1679, the
party |
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| 1 | | continued paddling into the "Great West" along a new | 2 | | "connecting river" with 8 canoes; the party eventually | 3 | | completed the journey from Montreal to the mouth of the | 4 | | Mississippi; La
Salle named the "connecting river" between the | 5 | | St. Joseph and Illinois Rivers, the Seignelay, in
honor of | 6 | | colonial minister of France; the name was later changed to the | 7 | | Theakiki and is now
called the Kankakee; the native Potawatomi | 8 | | called the land
adjacent to the river "Te-yar-ac-ke" | 9 | | ("wonderful land"); the word "Ky-an-ke-ke" evolved; some
| 10 | | Indian tribes called the land "Te-ok-e-kee" ("wolf") while some | 11 | | coureurs de bois (French
"runners of the wood") used the name | 12 | | "Quin-que-que"; and
| 13 | | WHEREAS, The Kankakee River Valley of the Illinois Country | 14 | | was sparsely settled until Noel Levasseur
(1799-1879) began | 15 | | recruiting settlers from his native Quebec Province, Canada; | 16 | | hundreds of
French-Canadians soon came to settle and farm along | 17 | | the fertile Kankakee River in an area
they called Bourbonnais | 18 | | Grove-extending from today's Kankakee River State Park to Cobb
| 19 | | Park in Kankakee - an area 12 miles long by 1 mile wide; at the | 20 | | age of 19 in 1817, Levasseur
was employed by the American Fur | 21 | | Company (headquartered in Astor, New York with a
recruiting | 22 | | station in Montreal) along with his friends Dominique Bray, | 23 | | Henri Boucher, and 15-year-old Gurdon Hubbard (1802-86); after | 24 | | the Black Hawk War of 1832, Levasseur and
Hubbard purchased | 25 | | land from the Potawatomi and opened the Chicago to Danville |
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| 1 | | Road
through the Grand Prairie along the Kankakee River (now | 2 | | Route 102), and the Hubbard Trail
which Illinois highway 1 now | 3 | | follows; in the late 1820s and early 1830s, 2 other notable
| 4 | | French-Canadians joined Noel Levasseur in the settlement along | 5 | | the Kankakee: the brothers
Francois Bourbonnais, Sr. and | 6 | | Antoine Bourbonnais "Bourbonnais Grove" was named after
them; | 7 | | and
| 8 | | WHEREAS, By 1846, there were at least 22 French-Canadian | 9 | | families living in Bourbonnais Grove; the records of St. Leo's | 10 | | Parish in Bourbonnais Grove (later to become Maternity of the | 11 | | Blessed
Virgin Mary Church in Bourbonnais) in 1847 noted 77 | 12 | | French-Canadian families or 471 people; when Canadian-born | 13 | | George Letourneau (1831-1906) - destined to become a renowned
| 14 | | statesman - arrived in Bourbonnais Grove in 1848, he attended | 15 | | church at St. Leo's Chapel, a
wooden structure which had been | 16 | | built in 1841; a new church (Maternity of the Blessed Virgin
| 17 | | Mary) replaced the chapel in 1849; this was the church in which | 18 | | Letourneau was married to
Elodie (Langlois) Letourneau in 1852; | 19 | | it burned to the ground in 1853; work began 2 years
later on a | 20 | | new church to be constructed of local limestone; construction | 21 | | was completed in
1858; over 150 years later, Maternity of the | 22 | | Blessed Virgin Mary Church appears much the
same as it was back | 23 | | then; and | 24 | | WHEREAS, George Letourneau became mayor of Bourbonnais in |
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| 1 | | 1875 and mayor of Kankakee in
1892; he was present at the first | 2 | | Illinois State Republican Convention in Bloomington in 1856,
| 3 | | and listened to Abraham Lincoln's "Lost Speech" - this | 4 | | reference denotes the few notes taken by the audience which was | 5 | | spellbound as Lincoln delivered an impassioned condemnation of
| 6 | | slavery; the address was the precedent for his famous "House | 7 | | Divided" speech delivered in
Springfield on June 16, 1858; | 8 | | Letourneau served in just about every Kankakee County political
| 9 | | office, and was elected State Senator in the Illinois 38th and | 10 | | 39th General Assemblies from 1892 to 1996; and | 11 | | WHEREAS, French-Canadian priests and brothers of the | 12 | | Viatorian Order and French-Canadian nuns
of the Congregation of | 13 | | Notre Dame were instrumental in the religious and educational
| 14 | | development of the Bourbonnais Grove community; in the later | 15 | | part of the nineteenth-century,
girls attended the new Notre | 16 | | Dame Convent and School after it was built in 1862; boys were
| 17 | | instructed by the Viatorian priests and brothers in the | 18 | | Bourbonnais Grove public school and then
St. Viator Academy | 19 | | after 1868; young men could attend St. Viator College when the | 20 | | Viatorians
were granted a university charter in 1874; when | 21 | | Letourneau became mayor of the Village of
Bourbonnais, when it | 22 | | was incorporated in 1875, the community was already a thriving
| 23 | | educational center; a new boy's school, another St. Viator | 24 | | Academy, was built in 1891; and | 25 | | |
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, The French-Canadians Noel Levasseur, George | 2 | | Letourneau, and Captain Francis
Seguin spearheaded the | 3 | | organization of Kankakee County in 1853; the new county had a
| 4 | | population of 8,000 people; the population would soon shift | 5 | | from Bourbonnais to Kankakee
with the arrival of the railroad | 6 | | in 1853; Kankakee was originally platted as the "town of
| 7 | | Bourbonnais" in 1853; 2 years later, the name was changed; the | 8 | | population of
Bourbonnais Township in 1850 was 1,720 with 81% | 9 | | or 201 out of 248 families of French-Canadian
descent; other | 10 | | French-Canadian settlements in Kankakee and Iroquois Counties
| 11 | | were St. George (1848), L'Erable (1854), St. Anne (1851), and | 12 | | Papineau (1872); and
| 13 | | WHEREAS, At about the same time as the formation of | 14 | | Kankakee County in 1853, Canadian-born
Father Charles Chiniquy | 15 | | (1809-99) was pastor of Maternity Blessed Virgin Mary Church in
| 16 | | Bourbonnais Grove; after disagreeing with the Bishop of Chicago | 17 | | over the bishop's treatment
of Catholics in Chicago, | 18 | | particularly French-Canadians, Fr. Chiniquy led an exodus of
| 19 | | Bourbonnais Grove French-Canadian Roman Catholics to the | 20 | | village of St. Anne; this
crisis split many French-Canadian | 21 | | families; older French-Canadians in the Kankakee area still
| 22 | | today resent Fr. Chiniquy's schism; Fr. Chiniquy was | 23 | | excommunicated in 1856; he then left
the Roman Catholic Church | 24 | | and formed the Christian Catholic Church of St. Anne; and
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, Up until the 1950s, French was a primary spoken | 2 | | language in Bourbonnais; French-Canadian
family names still | 3 | | abound in the telephone book, and the fleur-de-lis is the | 4 | | symbol of
Bourbonnais - as the village symbol and all street | 5 | | signs testify; therefore, be it
| 6 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE | 7 | | NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we | 8 | | designate a section of Interstate
57 as the "French-Canadian | 9 | | Heritage Corridor" with one sign located on 1-57 for southbound
| 10 | | traffic just north of the Manteno exit 322 and another sign | 11 | | located on 1-57 for northbound traffic
just south of Ashkum | 12 | | exit 293; and be it further
| 13 | | RESOLVED, That the Illinois Department of Transportation | 14 | | is requested to erect 2 signs
on a section of Interstate 57, | 15 | | consistent with State and federal regulations, giving notice of | 16 | | the name, "French-Canadian Heritage Corridor", with one sign
| 17 | | located on I-57 for southbound traffic just north of the | 18 | | Manteno exit 322 and another sign
located on I-57 for | 19 | | northbound traffic just south of Ashkum exit 293 by July 15, | 20 | | 2015.
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