History of Crawford and Clark counties, Illinois, Part 3

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 826

USA > Illinois > Clark County > History of Crawford and Clark counties, Illinois > Part 3
USA > Illinois > Crawford County > History of Crawford and Clark counties, Illinois > Part 3

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ing in the pits, and their many roots make digging difficult. A trench was dug aeross one pit, throwing out the soil carefully until the former bottom was reached at a depth of about five feet. On this bottom, ashes and burnt clay gave evidence of an ancient fire; and at a few feet on one side, several pieces of pottery, a few bones of animals, and one stone arrow-head were found. A spot had evidently been struck where food had been cooked and eaten; and though there was not time to open other pits, there is no doubt but that they would tell a similar story; and the legitimate conclusion to be drawn from the faet is, that these pits were the houses of the inhabitants or defenders of the fort, who were probably further protected from the elements and the arrows of assailants by a roof of logs and bark or boughs. The great number of the pits would show that they were not for a definite and general purpose; and their reg- ular arrangement would indicate that they were not laid out with the sole idea of aeting as places of defense; though those near the walls of the fort might answer as covers, from which to fire on an opposing force beyond the walls; and the six pits near the eastern indent- ure, in front of three of which there are traces of two small earth-walls, would strengthen this view of the use of those near the em- bankment. The five small mounds were sit- uated in various parts of the inclosure. The largest was nearly fifty feet in diameter and was probably originally not over ten feet in height. It had been very nearly dug away in places, but about one fifth of the lower portion had not been disturbed. From this was exhumed one nearly perfeet human skel- eton, and parts of several others that had been left by former excavators. This mound also contained several bones of animals, prin- cipally of deer, bear, opossum and turtles; fragments of pottery, one arrow-head, a few flint chips and a number of thick shells of unios,

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

two of which had been bored near the hinge. This mound has yielded a number of human bones to the industry of Dr. H. Frank Har- per. The second mound, which was partly opened, was some twenty-five feet in diame- ter and a few feet in height, though probably once much higher. In this a number of bones of deer and other animals were found, sev- eral pieces of pottery, a number of shells and a few human bones. The other three mounds, one of which is not over ten or twelve feet in diameter and situated the farthest north, were not examined internally. The position of all the mounds within the inclosure, is such as to suggest that they were used as ob- servatories; and it may yet be questioned if the human and other remains found in them were placed there by the occupants of the fort, or are to be considered under the head of intrusive burials by the later race. Per- haps a further study of the bones may settle the point. That two races have buried their dead within the inclosure is made probable by the finding of an entirely different class of burials at the extreme western point of the fortification. At this point Dr. Harper, the year previous, had discovered three stone graves, in which he found portions of the skeletons of two adults and one child. These graves, the stones of one being still in place, were found to be made by placing thin slabs on end, forming the sides and ends, the tops being covered by other slabs, making a rough stone coffin in which the bodies had been placed. There was no indication of any mound having been ere ted, and they were placed slightly on the slope of the bank. This kind of burial is so distinct from that of the burials in the mound, that it is possible that the acts may be referred to two distinct races who have occupied the territory successively, though they may prove to be of the same time, and simply indicate a special mode, adopted for a distinctive purpose."

We have devoted considerable space to the Merom Mounds, from the fact that their near proximity renders them of peculiar interest in the history of Crawford County, more espe- cially, as another group of mounds on the west side of the Wabash, near Hutsonville, were investigated and described by the party to whom we are indebted for the foregoing description of the works near Merom. Of the mounds near Hutsonville, the same authority says: "A group of fifty-nine mounds is to be seen a few miles up the river from Merom, on the Illinois side at Hutsonville. The relative position and size of the mounds are shown by a cut from a plan made by Mr. Emerton. This group commences just beyond the river- terrace, and widens out to the east and west, covering a distance of about 1,000 feet from the mound on the extreme east to that furthest west, and continues southward, back from the river, on the second or prairie-terrace, some 1,400 or 1,500 feet. The greater number of the mounds forming the group are situated in the northern half of the territory covered, while only ten are on the south of this central line. The mounds are very irregularly dis- posed over the territory included in the limits, and vary in size from fourteen to eighteen feet to forty-five or fifty in diameter, and are now from a foot and a half to five feet in height, though probably formerly much higher. Four of the mounds at the southern portion of the group were surrounded by a low ridge, now somewhat indistinct, but still in places about a foot in height. These ridges are com- posed of dirt, evidently scooped .up from round the base of the mound, as between the ridge and the mound there is still a slight and even depression. The ridges about the southernmost mounds have openings nearly facing each other, while the one to the north of them has the ridge broken on both the eastern and western sides, and the one still further to the north has the ridge entire.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

"In referring to this group of mounds I have called them mounds of habitation, and it seems as if that was most likely to have been their use. First, from the character of the surrounding country, which is level, and only some twenty-five or thirty feet above the present level of the river, with every indica- tion of a clear, damp soil in former times, though the part now under cultivation is cov- ered with a heavy growth of trees, several large trees even growing immediately on some of the mounds. What would be more natural to persons wishing to avail themselves of this terrace-prairie and proximity to the river, than to make a mound on which to erect their dwelling?

"Secondly, their great variation in size and irregularity in positiou would indicate that a number of persons had got together for some common purpose, and each family working with a common view to provide for certain ends, had erected a mound, varying in size according to the number at work upon it, or the degree of industry with which its makers worked during the time at their disposal.

"Thirdly, four of the mounds were most carefully examined, to ascertain if they were places of burial, one of them being opened by digging a trench through it some three or four feet in wilth, and to a depth of about one to two feet below the level of the surface on which the mound was built. The other three were opened from the top, by digging down in the center until the original un ler- lined surface was reached. None of these ex- cavations brought a single bone or an imple- ment of any kind to light, but, on the con- trary, showed that the mounds had been made of various materials at hand, and in one case ashes were found which had probably been scraped up with other material and thrown upon the heap.

"Fourthly, the ridge surrounding four of the mounds may be the dirt thrown up to help

support a palisade or stake fence enclosing these particular mounds for some special pur- pose. The absence of human remains and all refuse in the shape of kitchen heaps, as well as implements, would seem to indicate that it was a place of resort at special seasous, or for some particular purpose. That the mounds are of quite ancient date there can be no question; but beyond the fact that at least a second growth of trees has taken place on some of them, we have no data for indi- cating their age."

There are no other mounds or earthworks, so far as we have been able to learn, in the county. But in many portions of the State they are numerous, and in some very large. Between Alton and East St. Louis there is a group containing some sixty odd structures in which is included the great mound of Ca- hokia, which is denominated the " monarch of all similar structures in the United States." But our space will not admit of further de- scription of the works and relics left by this strange people-works that contain no in- scriptions which, like those found on the plains of Shinar, or in the valley of the Nile, can unfold the mysterious of by-gone centu- ries. The questions, who were the Mound Builders? who reared these mysterious struct- ures? have never been satisfactorily answered. We can only exclaim with Bryant-

" A race that long has passed away Built them, a disciplined and populous race, Heaped with long toil the earth, while yet the Greek Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock The glittering Parthenon."

Following the Mound Builders, and sup- posed by some writers to have been their conquerors, came the red Indians, the next occupants of this country. They were found here by the Europeans, but how long they had been in possession of the country, there is no means of knowing. Like their preeur-

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

sors, the Mound Builders, " no historian has preserved the story of their race." The question of the origin of the Indian has long interested archæologists, and is one of the most difficult they have been called on to answer. It is believed by some that they were an original race indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. A more common sup- position, however, is that they are a derivative race, and sprang from one or more of the ancient peoples of Asia. In the absence of all authentic history, and even when tradition is wanting, any attempt to point out the par- ticular theater of their origin must prove un- satisfactory. The exact place of their origin, doubtless, will never be known, yet the striking coincidences of physical organization between the oriental types of mankind point unmistakably to some part of Asia as the place from whence they emigrated. Instead of 1,800 years, the time of their roving in the wilds of America, as determined by Spanish interpretation of their pictographie records, the interval has perhaps been thrice that pe- riod. Scarcely three thousand years would suffice to blot out every trace of the language they brought with them from the Asiatic cradle of the race, and introduce the present diversity of aboriginal tongues. Like their oriental progenitors, they have lived for cent- uries without progress, while the Caucasian variety of the race, under the transforming power of art, science and improved systems of civil polity, have made the most rapid ad- vancement. At the time of their departure eastward a strong current of emigration flowed westward to Europe, making it a great arena of human effort and improvement. Thence proceeding further westward, it met, in America, the midway station in the circuit of the globe, the opposing current direct from Asia. The shock of the first contact was the beginning of the great conflict which has

since been waged by the rival sons of Shem and Japheth .*

The first thought of the red men, when hostilities commenced on the Atlantic border, was to retire westward. From the eastern shores of the continent they were pressed backward toward the setting sun, strewing their path with the bones and skeletons of their martyred warriors. They crossed the Al- leghanies, and, descending the western slope, chanting the death-songs of their tribe, they poured into the Mississippi Valley. Halting upon the prairies of the "Illini," amid the forests that bounded the southern streams and shaded the luxurious valleys, the warlike Delawares and the bloodthirsty Kickapoos made the last home of their own choosing. How long they occupied this section of the State, is not definitely known, for no rude pyramid of stone or " misshapen tomb," with traditional narratives transmitted by heredi- tary piety from age to age, tell the exact pe- rio.I of time when they first planted their wigwams on the banks of the Embarras and the Wabash. It is enough to say, however, that they were not allowed to remain here in peace. From across the ocean the colonists of a new and powerful people came, and ef- fected a lodgment at isolated spots within hearing of the roar of the Atlantic surf. They grew into a great multitude, and like the little stone cut out of the mountains by unseen hands, were rolling on as a mighty avalanche, overwhelming all in its way. In the early glimmering of the nineteenth cent- ury, the Indians were forced to take up their line of march from southern Illinois, nor al- lowed to pause, until far beyond the great Father of Waters.

The Indians occupying this portion of Illi- nois, when the first actual settlers came to

* Davidson.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

the territory, were the Delawares and Kicka- poos, with occasional small bands from other tribes. The Delawares called themselves Lenno Lenape, which signifies "original " or "unmixed " men. " When first met with by Europeans," says Gallatin, "they occupied a district of country bounded easterly by the Hudson River and the Atlantic; on the west their territories extended to the ridge sepa- rating the flow of the Delaware from the other streams emptying into the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay." The Delawares had been a migratory people. According to their own traditions, many hundred years ago, they resided in the western part of the conti- nent; thenee, by slow emigration, they reached the Alleghany River, so called from a nation of giants, the " Allegewi," against whom they (the Delawares) and the Iroquois (the latter also emigrants from the west) car- ried on successful war; and still proceeding eastward, settled on the Delaware, Hudson, Susquehanna, and Potomac Rivers, making the Delaware the center of their possessions. By the other Algonquin tribes the Delawares were regarded with the utmost respect and veneration. They were called " fathers," " grandfathers," etc .*

The Quakers who settled Pennsylvania treated the Delawares in accordance with the rules of justice and equity. The result was that, during a period of sixty years, peace and the utmost harmony prevailed. This is the only instance in the settling of America by the English, where uninterrupted friend- ship and good will existed between the col- onists and the aboriginal inhabitants. Grad- ually, and by peaceable means, the Quakers obtained possession of the greater part of their territory, and the Delawares were in the same situation as other tribes-without lands,

without means of subsistence, and were threatened with starvation.

The territory elaimed by the Delawares subsequent to their being driven westward from their former possessions, by their old enemies, the Iroquois, is established in a paper addressed to Congress, May 10, 1769, from delegates assembled at Princeton, N. J. The boundaries as declared in the address were as follows: " From the mouth of the Alleghany River at Fort Pitt, to the Venango, and from thence up French Creek, and by Le Boeuf (the present site of Waterford, Penn.) along the old road to Presque Isle, on the east; the Ohio River, including all the islands in it, from Fort Pitt to the Onabache, on the south; thence up the River Ouabache to that branch, Ope-co-mee-eah, (the Indian name of White River, Indiana,) and up the same to the head thereof; from thence to the headwaters and springs of the Great Miami, or Roeky River; thence across to the head- waters of the most northeastern branches of the Scioto River; thence to the westernmost springs of the Sandusky River; thence down said river, including the islands in it and in the little lake (Sandusky Bay), to Lake Erie, on the west and northwest, and Lake Erie, on the north." These boundaries contain the cessions of lands made to the Delaware Nation by the Wyandotts, the Hurons, and Iroquois. The Delawares, after Gen. Wayne's signal vietory in 1794, came to realize that further contests with the American colonies would be worse than useless. They, therefore, submit- ted to the inevitable, acknowledged the su- premacy of the whites, and desired to make peace with the victors. At the elose of the treaty at Greenville, made in 1:95 by Gen. Wayne, Bu-kon-ge-he-las, a Delaware chief of great influence in his tribe, spoke as fol- lows: "Father, your children all well under- stand the sense of the treaty which is now concluded. We experience daily proofs of

* Taylor's History.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

your increasing kindness. I hope we may all have sense enough to enjoy our dawning happiness. All who know me, know me to be a man and a warrior, and I now declare that I will, for the future, be as steady and true friend to the United States as I have, heretofore, been an active enemy."

This promise of Bu-kon-ge-he-las was faithfully kept by his people. They evaded all the efforts of the Shawanee prophet, To- cumseh, and the British, who endeavored to induce them, by threats or bribes, to violate it. They remained faithful to the United States during the war of 1812, and, with the Shawanees, furnished some very able war- riors and scouts, who rendered valuable serv- ice to the United States during this war. After the Greenville treaty the great body of Delawares removed to their lands on White River, Indiana, whither some of their people had preceded them, while a large body of them crossed the Wabash into Southern Illi- nois. They continued to reside on White River and the Wabash, and their branches, until 1819, when most of them joined the band emigrating to Missouri, upon the tract of land granted by the Spanish authorities in 1:93, jointly to them and the Shawanese. Others of their number who remained behind, scattered themselves among the Miamis, Pottawatomies and Kickapoos, while others, including the Moravian converts, went to Canada.

The majority of the nation, in 1829, settled on the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. They numbered about 1,000, were brave, enterpris- ing hunters, cultivated lands and were friendly to the whites. In 1853 they sold the Government all the lands granted them, ex- cepting a reservation in Kansas. During the late Rebellion, they sent to the United States army 150 out of their 200 able-bodied men. Like their ancestors, they proved valiant and trustworthy soldiers.

The Kickapoos, who also dwelt in this por- tion of the State, were but a remnant of a once powerful tribe of Indians. The follow- ing bit of history contains some items of in- terest: In 1763 the Kickapoos occupied the country southwest of the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. They subsequently moved further south, and at a more recent date dwelt in portions of the territory on the Mackinaw and Sangamon Rivers, and had a village on Kickapoo Creek, and at Elkhart Grove, from which they roamed southward hunting game. They were more civilized, industrious, energetic and cleanly than the neighboring tribes, and, it may also be added, more implacable in their hatred of the Amer- icans. They were among the first to com- mence battle, and the last to submit and enter into treaties. Unappeasable enmity led them into the field against Gens. Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne, and to be first in 'all the bloody charges on the field of Tip- peeanoe. They were prominent among the Northern Nations, which, for more than a century, waged an exterminating war against the Illinois Confederacy. Their last hostile act of this kind was perpetrated in 1805, against some poor Kaskaskia children whom they found gathering strawberries on the prairie above the town which bears the name of their tribe. Seizing a considerable num- ber of them, they fled to their villages before the enraged Kaskaskias could overtake them and rescue their offspring. During the years 1810 and 1811, in conjunction with the Chip- pewas, Pottawatomies and Ottawas, they committed so many thefts and murders on the frontier settlements that Gov. Edwards was compelled to employ military force to suppress them. When removed from Illi- nois they still retained their old animosities against the Americans, and went to Texas, then a province of Mexico, to get beyond the jurisdiction of the United States.

S.G. Sure aringin

CHAPTER III .*

SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY BY WHITE PEOPLE-THE EARLY FRENCH EXPLORERS- THEIR CLAIM TO ILLINOIS-GEN. CLARK'S EXPEDITION TO KASKASKIA-EMI- GRANTS FROM THE STATES-FORT LAMOTTE AND THE RANGERS- THE CULLOMS AND OTHER PIONEERS-THE HUTSON FAM- ILY-THEIR MURDER BY INDIANS-PIONEER LIFE-HARDSHIPS AND DANGERS OF THE WILDERNESS, ETC.

'As some lone wanderer o'er this weary world Oft sits him down beneath some friendly shade, And backward casts a long and lingering look

O'er the rough journey he has thus far made So should we pause-

S the Indians succeeded the Mound Build- 1 A ers in this territory, so the Anglo-Saxons followed elose in the footsteps of the retreat- ing savages. The first white people who laid claim to the country now embraced in the State of Illinois were subjects of vine-clad France. The interest which attaches to all that is connected with the explorations and discoveries of the early French travelers in the Northwest but increases with the rolling years. A little more than two centuries ago, such men as Marquette, La Salle, Joliet, De Frontenac, Hennepin, the Chevalier de Trull, Charlevoix, and other Frenchmen. traversed the territory now embraced in the great State of Illinois, and made settlements along the Mississippi, Illinois and Wabash Rivers. Upon many trees and stones were to be seen the impress of the fleur de lis of France, and Kas- kaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes became enter- prising French towns, surrounded by flourish- ing settlements. The sainted Marquette dis- covered the " Great Father of Waters," and spent years of toil and labor and privation

in explorations, and in christianizing the na- tives, then laid down his life, with no kind hand to " smooth his dying pillow," other than his faithful Indian converts. La Salle penetrated to the mouth of the Mississippi, and there, on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, after planting the royal standard of France, and claiming the country in the name of his king, was basely and treacherously murdered by his own followers.

For almost a hundred years (from 1680) this country was under French dominion. But in the great struggle between France and Eng- land, known in our history as the "old French and Indian War," it was wrested from France, and at the treaty of Paris. February 16, 1763, she relinquished to England all the territory she claimed east of the Mississippi River, from its source to Bayou Iberville; and "the Illinois country " passed to the ownership of Great Britain. Less than a quarter of a cent- ury passed, however, and England was dis- possessed of it by her naughty child, who had grown somewhat unfilial. In 1778, Gen. George Rogers Clark, a Revolutionary officer of bravery and renown, with a handful of the ragged soldiers of freedom, under commission from the governor of Virginia, conquered the country, and the banner of the thirteen colonies floated in the breeze for the first time on the banks of the Mississippi. Thus in the natural

* By W. H. Perrin.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

course of events, the lilies of France drooped and wilted before the majestic tread of the British lion, who, in his turn, quailed and cowered beneath the scream of the American eagle. The conquest of Gen. Clark made Illinois a county of Virginia, and wrested it forever from foreign rule. This acquisition of territory brought many adventurous indi- viduals hither, and southern Illinois soon be- came the great center of attraction. But a few years after Clark captured Vincennes and Kaskaskia, emigrants began to cross the Wabash, and to contest the red man's title to these fertile lands.

As to the motives which set journeying hither so many people from the States south of the Ohio, we confess to have been moder- ately curious, until fully enlightened by a thorough investigation. Many of them had not reached life's meridian, but they were men inured to toil and danger. They were hopeful, courageous, and poor in actual worth, but rich in possibilities; men with iron nerves, and wills as firm as the historic granite upon which the Pilgrim Fathers stepped from the deck of the Mayflower, in 1620. Illinois was a territory when the first settlers came, reposing under the famous ordinance of 1787, and many of these pioneers have left their record, that they sought homes here because the land would not be blemished by negro slavery; or, that civil and social distinctions would be yielded only to those who owned " niggers." A fat soil, ready for the plow, cheap lands and a temperate climate, were not peculiar to Illi- nois, or to Crawford County. For the grand simplicity of their lives and their sturdy virtue, these early settlers got recognition and fame, as Enoch Arden did-after death. They had been brought up, many of them, amid " savage scenes and perils of war," where the yell of the Indian and the howl of the wolf were the principal music to lull them to sleep in their childhood and youth.

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History of Crawford and Clark counties, Illinois, Part 3

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 826

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 826