USA > Illinois > Cass County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Cass County, Volume II > Part 4
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"I have the honor to be, with great respect, "GEORGE GRAHAM, "Acting Secretary of War."
Under these instructions, negotiations were had with the Kickapoos, and on July 30, 1819, they ceded to the United States all their claim to the tract mentioned in the above order.
INDIANS IN CASS COUNTY.
Few Indians remained within the present limits of Cass County at the time it was separ- ated from Morgan County. During the early French explorations the "Illinois Country" was occupied by numerous tribes of Indians, the most powerful being the "Illinois," from which tribe the Illinois River and the state itself, derive their names. The word Illinois is from "Innini" of Algonquin origin, signifying "the men," which was changed by the French into "Illini," with the suffix, signifying "tribe." The Illinois appear to have consisted of several bands or a confederation, including the Kas- kaskias, Peorias, Cakokias, Tamaroas and Michigamies. The Mascoutens, though classed by some Indian historians as a band of the Illinois confederacy, seem to have been a sep-
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arate tribe which had their early habitation around Green Bay, Wisconsin, and later were either forced out by other warring tribes, or voluntarily moved south inte the Illinois coun- try. From the fact that the government made a treaty with the Kickapoos and Pottawatomies in 1819 whereby the United States obtained title to the lands in the Illinois country, these tribes, whose former homes had been about the shores of Lake Michigan, must have drifted southward at a very early date. The Mascoutens were established in a village of considerable size on the banks of the Illinois River at the present site of Beardstown, and tradition at least says, that they were driven away from that locality by the Miamies and Iroquois, fierce tribes from the east, who waged a relentless war of ex- termination. Later these tribes, also, must either have withdrawn from central Illinois, or have been in turn driven out by the Kickapoos and Pottawatomies, who were in possession of the Sangamo and Illinois country, claiming' owner- ship when the first white settlers appeared in this part of the state. Much of the so-called Indian history is merely legendary, and, though interesting as a story of a vanishing race, has little value as real history.
The treaty of July 19, 1819, between the gov- ernment and the Kickapoos ended the owner- ship and every claim held by that tribe to lands now within the limits of Cass County. From that date the Indians began, though reluctantly, to move out, some to the north to old Fort Clark, now Peoria, and to various places, but the majority went to the western shores of the Mississippi River to lands traded to them by the government for their holdings here. By 1822 there were remaining in Illinois about 400 of this broken and dispirited tribe ; quite a number being yet in Cass County. A few scattering families lingered within our border for several years, and were on very friendly terms with the white settlers who were rapidly putting into cultivation the Indians' former hunting grounds.
On the Sangamon bottom in Richmond Pre- cinct, where Philip Hash settled in 1826, there were at that time a number of families of the Pottawatomies living in the valley under a chief of that tribe named Shick Shack. Zachariah Hash, a son of Philip, who was yet a small boy when brought to that spot by his father, be- came well acquainted with the Indians, and learned considerable of their language. Mr. Hash lived to the advanced age of ninety-five
years, and in later life told many interesting stories of the early times, and especially of his Indian neighbors. He relates that once an Indian and his squaw came to the cabin to beg a bushel of corn. The corn was given them, but being in the ear, and the weather quite cold, the Indians were invited into the house to sit by the fire and shell the corn. They came in and both sat down on the floor before the open fireplace and began shelling the corn, but after the man had shelled an ear, he stopped and pointing to the palm of his hand said to Mr. Hash : "Och! Hurt Indian, no hurt squaw," and with that he permitted the squaw to finish the task, which she did in silence. She then shouldered the sack of corn and followed her master, the "brave," in a dog trot towards their wigwam.
Chief Shick Shack had a summer home on the top of one of the highest bluffs overlooking the valley, and being asked one day why he went up there to live in summer, said: "Skeeter no bother." Again when asked how he carried water up that high hill, said: "Humph, squaw do that." Shick Shack and his small tribe were very friendly and sociable with the Hash fam- ily, and when they left the valley for Fort Clark, on the Illinois River, the chief came to . the house and bid his white friends a fond fare- well. The high bluff, the scene of his former summer home, still bears the name Shick Shack Knob. It is a part of the piace now owned and occupied by J. W. Lynn, who has named his place "Shick Shack Farm."
THE WINNEBAGO WAR.
The disturbance known in history as the Win- nebago war, occurred in the summer of 1827. A treaty of 1804, between the Sacs and Foxes, and the United States Government, and another of 1816 between the Ottawas, Chippewas and Pottawatomies, dispossessed the Winnebagos of the lead mines and other territory about Galena. In response to remonstrances on the part of the Winnebagos, in 1825, commissioners of the United States, decided in favor of the Winne- bagos. The rich lead deposits in the vicinity of Galena, had, in the meanwhile, attracted white settlers, and many serious disturbances arose between them and the Indians. In order to drive out the white intruders, the Winnebagos formed an alliance with the Sioux, but their pur- pose was divined, and Governor Edwards, in
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July, 1827, authorized Colonel Thomas N. Neale, of Springfield, to raise a detachment of not over 600 volunteers who were willing to equip and feed themselves for a period of thirty days. A most interesting account of the campaign was given by the late Hon. William Thomas, of Jacksonville, who volunteered from this section :
"When the volunteers reached Peoria, the place of rendezvous, I was appointed quarter- master sergeant. I accompanied the regiment to White Oak Springs, some ten or twelve miles from Galena, where I remained several days, when the colonel, being satisfied that the further service of the regiment was not required, ordered the return home. The regiment, composed of independent farmers and mechanics, was raised, organized, marched to White Oak Springs, and returned home in not exceeding thirty days. Two men were drowned in a branch of Crooked .Creek returning home. We had no baggage wagon from this county. My mess had a very good tent, which very few of the other messes had. Having no baggage wagons, and having to carry our provisions, arms and equipments on horseback, we had but little room for tents even if they had been supplied. We slept on saddle blankets, with our heads on the saddles, and for covering had overcoats and blankets; but during that season of the year we had but little use for coverings other than overcoats.
"The question of pay was not considered of much consequence; it was well understood that this depended upon the action of Congress, and no fears were entertained of the success of General Duncan, our representative in Congress, in obtaining the necessary appropriation. We were not disappointed, for appropriations were made by the Congress of 1827-8, and we were paid in the spring of 1828, the following rates : Each sergeant-major and quartermaster ser- geant received $9 per month; each drum and fife major, $8.33 per month; sergeants, $8 per month ; each corporal, drummer, fifer and team- ster, $7.33 per month; each farier, saddler and artificer, included as a private, $8 per month ; each gunner, bombardier and private, $6.66 per month. In addition to which we were paid for the use of horses, arms and accouterments, and for the risk thereof, except for horses killed in action, ten cents per day. For rations, twenty- five cents per day, and one day's pay for fifteen miles' travel to the place of rendezvous and re- turning home.
"On the arrival of Colonel Neale with his
command on the scene of danger, he found the war virtually at an end. General Atkinson with 600 regulars and the Galena militia under General Dodge had penetrated the enemy's country and compelled the hostile savages to sue for peace."
THE BLACK HAWK WAR.
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A general account of the Black Hawk war is given in the first volume of this publication and very little need be said about it in this connection, but there are some incidents con- nected with the war that are of local and per- haps of general interest, that should be referred to. This famous war drama was produced in two acts. The first occurred as a result of persistent rumors of Indian depredations under Black Hawk, chief of the Sacs, who, with his tribe had been removed across the Mississippi River into Iowa, where they spent the winter of 1830. It was the year of the deep snow and the Indians, not being provided with suffi- cient food at their temporary camp, suffered greatly during the long, cold months, so were in an angry mood when the snows melted and spring opened up with prospects of a fruitful year had they owned suitable lands to put in crops. They had not searched out, nor even cared to make investigation of their reservation to which they had been exiled, but longed for their old villages and fertile soil in which their squaws had so often planted maize, and the valleys and uplands of Illinois over which they had for so many years chased the deer and buffalo and other game which kept them abun- dantly supplied with food. Thus on the verge of starvation, and nursing their deep seated anger at what they deemed an injustice in de- priving them of their lands, wholly disregarding the treaty made with the government, they recrossed the Mississippi and sought their old
homes, about three miles below Fort Armstrong (the present city of Rock Island), only to find their villages partly destroyed and their fields in possession of the white settlers. They imme- diately set about to oust the intruders. In order to accomplish this, the Indians threw down the fences of the whites, tore off the roofs of the houses, killed the stock and made a general havoc of the white settlements. So frequent and annoying were their depredations and so ferocious their threats that the settlers became greatly alarmed and sent a hasty re-
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port to Governor Reynolds of the Indian up- rising and threatened massacre.
Governor Reynolds responded promptly to the appeal and issned a call for 700 volunteers, di- recting them to rendezvons at Beardstown, on the Illinois River. He also notified General Gaines at Jefferson Barracks, and General Clark, superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Lonis, requesting aid in driving the Sacs back across the Mississippi. In response to the governor's call for volunteers nearly 2,000 frontiersmen gathered at Beardstown and Rush- ville, in the latter part of May, 1831, and were soon organized into two regiments and a spy battalion. Those who had not bronght their own rifles were armed with guns purchased from Francis A. Arenz, a merchant of Beards- town, who had recently come from Germany. The guns were a light, brass-barreled fowling piece, made in the East, for the use of one of the South American governments, and not prov- ing satisfactory, were shipped to the West, and a number of them were purchased by Mr. Arenz with a view of selling them to hunters for shooting birds and water fowl.
By this time Governor Reynolds had joined the martial forces in person, and placing him- self at their head, crossed the Illinois River and gathered up the recruits stationed at Rush- ville. They then proceeded northward, arriv- ing on June 1, 1831, in the enemy's country. At Rock River they were joined by General Gaines who had come np from St. Lonis by boat. The combined armies of the whites com- prised abont 2,500 men, while Black Hawk's forces numbered only 300 warriors. Black Hawk, who had kept himself informed of the movements of the whites, finding himself so overwhelmingly ontnumbered, slipped away in the night, and recrossed to the Iowa side of tlie Mississippi River. General Gaines learning that what the army had come to accomplish, was achieved without their assistance, and bent on doing something warlike, ordered the Indian village burned, which order was carried ont. He then sent word to Black Hawk that he would pursue him across the river, which brought the erring chief to the general's head- quarters, where another treaty was made, to the effect that Black Hawk and his band would remain west of the Mississippi River un- less permitted by the federal government to return. This treaty was executed June 20, 1831. All hostilities being ended, the victorious
army returned home, and the volunteers were disbanded, and thus ended the first act of the Black Hawk war.
The second act was a more serions matter. Black Hawk and his band of Sacs, with their women and children, had spent the winter of 1831-2, on the site of old Fort Madison in the present state of Iowa. They still clung to the idea that they had been wronged in the purchase of their lands by the government, and believing, or pretending to believe, that there could be no actual sale of land, Black Hawk conse- quently, in the spring of 1832, again made preparations to cross the Mississippi into Illinois. In a writing relative to the sale of lands, Black Hawk had declared that lands were given by the Great Spirit to his children to live npon and cultivate as far as necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they culti- rated the land and occupied it, they had a right to the soil, but when they left it voluntar- ily, other people had a right to settle upon it ; that nothing conld be actually sold but such things as conld be carried away.
On April 6, 1832, Black Hawk crossed the Mississippi River, this time about fifty miles below Fort Armstrong, at the present site of Ognakwa, hoping thus to escape the vigilant eye of General Atkinson, who had taken charge of the troops at Fort Armstrong. He claimed that if he were not permitted peaceably to occupy his old village. that he then only de- sired to pass through the country to join the Winnebagos on Rock River, near the Wisconsin line, there to raise crops. The settlers were on the outlook. and Black Hawk had no sooner crossed with his band, than the event was re- ported to General Atkinson, who immediately notified Governor Reynolds of the Indian inva- sion, and asked for assistance to repel the hos- tile savages. The governor again responded promptly with a call for "a strong detachment of militia" to rendezvous at Beardstown. The call was issued April 16, 1832, and the meeting was set for April 22. 1832. A large force re- sponded to the call, and was soon organized into four regiments, and also a spy battalion, and an odd battalion. The promptness of this action will be appreciated when it is recalled that bnt sixteen days elapsed between Black Hawk's crossing of the Mississippi and the organiza- tion of the regiments. All the messages had to be carried on foot or on horseback, over hun-
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Claude I amalong
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
dreds of miles of broken country, interspersed with bogs, swamps and unbridged rivers.
It was a motley crew that gathered at Beards- town. No government uniforms were furnished them. Each man was dressed as he appeared every day, some appearing in homespun jeans, some in leather leggins and jacket, and a few in store clothes, or in the rough cloth that had just begun to make its way westward. A num- ber wore coonskin caps. Their arms consisted of the squirrel rifles or the larger bored ones used for shooting game, while some had double barreled shot guns. It is quite probable that some came with the guns furnished by the gov- ernment for the previous campaign which had been purchased from Mr. Arenz. Each man had his powder horn and shot pouch slung over his shoulder. They were a brave, hardy set of men, used to their own way of handling arms, though very awkward in any sort of regular drill. However, they had had some little ex- perience in drill, as the then admirable law of the state made every able bodied man sub- ject to militia call, and required that at certain times each year he should practice drilling under penalty of the payment of one dollar for failure to respond. As one person speaking of this requirement said : "Dollars were hard to get hold of so drilling was cheaper."
In that group of patriots appeared one who subsequently proved to be the most interesting figure of his times, Abraham Lincoln, who had been at Salem, in Sangamon County, now a part of Menard County, for about a year, and was a clerk in Denton Offett's store. When the messenger appeared in Salem with the governor's call to arms, Mr. Lincoln, with a number of other young men, responded imme- diately, and soon a company from Salem ap- peared at Beardstown. There each company elected its own officers, and Mr. Lincoln was made captain of the Salem company. The election was held in an open field, and at a given command, the troops surrounded their can- didate.
Travis Elmore, of Cass County, was a private in Captain Lincoln's company, and served forty- eight days when he was honorably discharged. The certificate of discharge is signed by A. Lincoln, and shows that Elmore was enrolled in "Lincoln's company of mounted volunteers, in the regiment commanded by Col. Samuel M. Thompson, in the brigade under Generals S. Whiteside and H. Atkinson, called for the pro-
tection of the Northwestern Frontier, against an invasion of the British band of Sac and other tribes of Indians."
A number of men who subsequently became prominent in the affairs of this state and the nation, were soldiers in the Black Hawk war, either as privates or officers, one of whom was Hon. Adam W. Snyder, the father of Dr. John F. Snyder, of Virginia, Cass County. Adam W. Snyder was a state senator, from St. Clair County, but the legislature being adjourned when the Indian outbreak occurred, he re- sponded to the call of the governor by enlist- ing as a private in Captain John Winstanley's company, where he served in that capacity and as adjutant of the regiment until mustered out in May. Several companies were mustered out and a number of the members, who were dissatisfied from one cause and another, or frightened at the prospect of having their scalps dangling at the belt of some redskin, went home. The regiments were re-organized, and Dr. Snyder was elected captain of a company made up almost exclusively of men from his own county of St. Clair, and the adjoining county of Madison. Adam W. Snyder was born in Con- nellsville, Pa., October 6, 1799. He came to Illinois in 1817 and settled at Cahokia, where he formed the acquaintance of Jesse B. Thomas, who was the president of the first Constitutional Convention of this state, and was also one of the first two United States senators from Illi- nois. Before the organization of the state, Mr. Thomas was one of the territorial judges. Through the persuasion of Judge Thomas, Mr. Snyder was induced to study law, which pro- fession he followed during the remainder of his life, though he devoted a great deal of his time to the state and general government as a state senator and as a member of Congress. He was the nominee of the Democratic party in 1841, for governor of Illinois, and would without doubt have been elected had not a serious ill- ness overtaken him from which he died May 14, 1842, three months before the election. The following is quoted from General Usher F. Linder's "Early - Bench and Bar of Illinois." Writing of Mr. Snyder, he, in part, says: "He was a most elegant gentleman, and was the only man that ever beat old Governor Reynolds for Congress. I never knew a man possessing higher colloquial and conversational powers. He was never at a loss for a word or idea. I never enjoyed a richer treat than the society
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and conversation of Adam W. Snyder. Had he lived he certainly would have been governor beyond all doubt for he was decidedly the most popular Democrat in the state of Illinois."
Captain Snyder served his country well and bravely until the close of the Black Hawk war, through all the dangers attendant upon conflict with a cunning, merciless and brutish savage. Careful historians of that war give Captain Snyder a prominent place in the story of the last Indian war in the state of Illinois.
To resume the history of the war, Captain Lincoln, by the muster out of his company in May, 1832, was reduced to the ranks, but not by any fault of his own. He, together with General Whiteside, re-enlisted as privates, Mr. Lincoln in Captain Iles' company, and was fi- ually discharged at Whitewater, in the present state of Wisconsin. From there, he and a comrade started home, but having their horses stolen the first night, they were obliged to make the rest of the journey as far as Peoria on foot. There they secured a canoe and pad- dled down the Illinois River to Havana, where they sold the canoe and went on foot across the country to Salem, where Mr. Lincolu imme- diately engaged in the more hazardous occupa- tion of running for the legislature.
Governor Reynolds, who had placed himself at the head of the army, collected at Beards- town and other poiuts, surrounded himself with a full staff of officers, including a chaplaiu, the latter officer secured in the person of Rev. Reddick Horu, a Methodist preacher of Cass County. He came to Beardstown iu 1823, set- tled there, and afterwards entered land in town- ship 1S north, range 11. Rev. Horu was evi- dently the first minister of the gospel to invade and preach the word in the wilderness of Cass County. The Captain Iles above mentioned, who afterward became Major Iles, came to Cass County by way of Beardstown, in 1819, and made his way across the woods and prairies to Calhoun, on the present site of Springfield, where he became a permanent settler. The volunteers not already discharged on August 15, 1832, were mustered out, at Dixon's Ferry, whence they returned to their homes, feeling safe from any more Indian invasious or depre- dations.
From that time on the early settlers of Cass County devoted their time to improving their farms, building schools and churches and lay- ing out roads, erecting bridges over streams to
reach the village markets and the grist mills that were now being put up in convenient and suitable localities.
CHAPTER IV.
MOUND BUILDERS.
CASS COUNTY ONCE THE ABODE OF AN UNKNOWN RACE-THE ILLINOIS VALLEY PERHAPS ATTRACTED AN AGRICULTURAL PEOPLE-A MYSTERY UNSOLV- ABLE-DIFFERENT TYPES OF MOUNDS FOUND --- -- CAHOKIA MOUND-NUMEROUS MOUNDS ONCE IN THE VICINITY OF BEARDSTOWN-A REMARK- ABLE HISTORIC RELIC OF THAT PLACE NOW DE- STROYED-THE INDIANS MIGHT HAVE SUCCEEDED THE MOUND BUILDERS.
ABODE OF AN UNKNOWN RACE.
No other evidence is required than that af- forded by a look over the Illinois and Sangamon valleys, from the high bluff along the eastern and southern borders, to convince the beholder that whatever prehistoric people inhabited Illinois before the Indians, that people must surely have selected and occupied this particular part of Illinois as a more or less permanent abode. All human beings of intelligence are moved and actuated by similar conditions. Were these prehistoric people agriculturally in- clined, they found here everything suitable for the purpose. Excellent alluvial soil, a climate favorable to the growing of necessary cereals to support life of themselves aud domestic animals ; streams navigable for vessels of sufficient size to transport their surplus products : plenty of fuel on the uplauds; abundance of fresh water below - the earth's surface but a short distance, and cropping out in many springs along the bluffs. There is nothing certaiu, however, known as to who or what character of people they were who made this highly favored section their abiding place aud called it home. A race of people called the Mound Builders, certainly did occupy the Illinois Valley. They are called the Mound Builders, not because mound build- ing was their principal occupation, but because
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they left no other evidence but the mounds they built, of their presence here.
Much speculation has been indulged in by archaeologists, and many volumes written by scholars who have become deeply interested in the subject, but all to little purpose so far as solving the mystery is concerned. An article on the subject of the Mound Builders appears in the first volume of this work, and though differing materially in many respects from the writings of others on the subject, covers the main points and gives the reader a general idea of what the Mound Builders did and who they were supposed to have been.
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