USA > Illinois > DeKalb County > History of DeKalb County, Illinois > Part 4
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He was a man of remarkable nobility of character, and worthy of being held in respectful remembrance by all in- habitants of this State. He was born in Canada sometime about the year 1780. Of his early years we know but little, except that he was attached to some roving party with which he traveled extensively over the State. His knowledge of the country was extraordinary. He was a sort of aid to Tecumseh, and with him visited the Creeks in 1812, origina- ting that bloody Indian war which devastated Georgia and Mississippi, and in which Gen. Jackson acquired his first prominence. He remained with Tecumseh, actively engaged against the whites, until the death of that celebrated warrior. His account of the killing of Tecumseh is as follows, and there is no doubt of its truth. He says: "The battle was terrible ; Indians were killed off very fast; still so long as they could hear the "big whoop" of Tecumseh, the Indians 8
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HISTORY OF DE KALB COUNTY.
held on; then came the charge. Col. Johnson riding his horse, rushed down among them. Tecumseh raised his toma- hawk to strike him off, but quick as thought the Colonel pre- sented his pistol, leveling it across his wounded arm, which was very bloody, and shot the warrior dead. The Indians hearing his voice no longer, at once gave up and dispersed." Shabbona loved the memory of Tecumseh ; he said he was noble and brave, and did what he thought was for the good of his people. This was Shabbona's last effort against the whites ; from that time forward his aim was peace. He was styled the Peace Chief of his tribe ; he concluded it was useless to contend against what he knew to be a superior race. This County soon after became his residence. When in 1831 and '32 Black Hawk began his agitation for war, Shabbona op- posed him from the beginning, using every art to keep pcace. Finally, he secretly left the last Indian Council, held some- where on the Kishwaukie, and rode southward, sending out some of his own family in other directions, warning the whites of the approaching danger. On the Indian Creek, near "old Munsontown," in La Salle County, was quite a settlement of whites. He arrived there on his panting pony, told them Black Hawk was coming, and begged them to leave. They would not believe him. He went on towards Holdermand's Grove, and thence up Fox River, warning all and saving the lives of many. Black Hawk, following, soon after surprised these people at Munsontown, killed thirteen of them and took two girls prisoners. Only one person, Green Hall, escaped. He was near the creek, saw the Indians coming, jumped down the bank and hid under some flood-wood. The Indians, after hunting some time, concluded he was drowned. After they went away, he wandered down the creek nearly dead, with a broken arm, and finally reached Ottawa.
Shabbona has been blamed for his conduct on this occasion -on the plea that he was a traitor to his tribe. His defence was this, almost in his own words: He did not like Black Hawk, who was ambitious and cruel; he had lived long on
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LIFE OF SHABBONA.
terms of intimacy and friendship with the whites ; he loved his white friends and their children; he hated baby-killing and woman-scalping ; and he knew Black Hawk would fail in the end. Certainly his course was right.
At the treaties following the Black Hawk war, his grove was reserved for him. January 1st, 1836, the first house was raised at Shabbona Grove, by Edmund Town, assisted by David Smith, both living yet, and residents of the town. While building this house, they lived in the deserted wigwams of the Indians, who had gone west about three months before. A few days before the raising, Smith found two bottles of whiskey hidden in a tree and left by the Indians ; so they had whiskey at the first raising.
The Indians never after made a permanent home at this place till 1844, but came and went every year or two. In the meantime many settlers had been attracted to the grove, between whom and the Indians there existed elose friendship. At this time his band numbered some twenty-five in all, con- sisting of himself, his third wife, Pokanoka, (his first wife was buried in the grove and his second wife lived with her tribe near Council Bluffs) two sons, five daughters; sons-in-law, nephews, neices and grand-children. He was then between sixty and seventy years of age; a fine, portly man with an intelligent pleasant face, and distinguished for his kindliness of disposition and social qualities. He was prompt and hon- orable in his dealings ; and in every way an agreeable person except when in liquor. Drunkenness seems to be an especial vice with an Indian. His son Smoke was a magnificent fel- low ; tall, and well proportioned, with fine expressive features, dignified and courteous in his bearing, and distinguished as being perfectly temperate; he disdained to touch whiskey. He was a real "Uncas." Smoke died in Iowa. It seems he was attended by the whites in his last moments who gave him Christian burial. Shabbona told the story thus : " White man kind to Smoke ; make him box, (describing with his hands the shape of a coffin) put him in; then one white
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HISTORY OF DE KALB COUNTY.
man bend down and say, "O God ! O God ! O God !" over Smoke. Ugh! white man much good, much good." The other son, Wynonwy, was a heavy, good-natured fellow. They hunted, generally riding their ponies over the prairies after game; raised some corn; made sugar in the grove. Like all Indians, they were extremely disgusting in their do- mestic habits, though these were not in person very unclean. They were generally pleasant, intelligent and agreeable, and visited, borrowed and loaned with the whites, being usually prompt and honorable. Shabbona was particularly so. He sometimes attended meetings with his grandchildren, whom he was particular to keep in good order. There seemed to be strict discipline kept up among them. As, for instance : Mr. Isaac Morse relates that he went down into the timber to work, one day, and, noticing a pen built up around a tree, went there and found within, an Indian girl apparently about fifteen years old. To his questions she made no reply : at noon he tried to get her to eat of his lunch, but she would not eat nor speak. Next morning she was there yet : he again tried to converse with her, and pulled the pen down. She then told him she was " bad Indian," and must stay another day, carefully the while replacing the sticks.
Another time a number of them were coming over from Paw Paw in a wagon. They had been drinking, and one, being particularly disorderly, was tied hands and feet and left on the ground : then another and another, as they drove along, was served in the same manner, and left till evening, when they were released.
Shabbona sometimes went to Chicago with his neighbors, in those old days of overland expeditions, and was noted for his sociable and agreeable qualities. Mr. Harvey Allen tells an incident which he witnessed : One of the Band, "Joe," had been down to Ross' Grove, and returned with two bottles of whiskey, one of which he gave to Shabbona. They parleyed awhile in their Indian language, and finally loaded their rifles, went out and put up a mark. "Joe" shot first, just missing
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LIFE OF SHABBONA.
the mark ; Shabbona hit the center; Joe delivered the bottle to the old chief, who laughed immoderately over the incident. He had a " big drunk."
About twenty years ago, the large log house now standing at the grove, and known as the Shabbona house, was built by Gates for him. He never occupied it except for storage, be- ing displeased because it leaked. He and his family left to go to Kansas in the spring of 1849. In the fall following was the Dixon Land Sale, at which his "Reservation " was sold, as will be related in the history of the town. It seems that he never understood the matter, nor why he was dispossessed, as, when he left, he gave his premises and left some things in charge of Mr. Norton, telling him to keep the same until he came back, asking nothing for the use of his land the first year, but wanted "something saved for Shabbona the next, because maybe he come back poor." He was gone some three years. On his return Mr. Norton informed him of the sale of his land, and that his farm was gone. The poor old chief dropped his head upon his breast, muttering, "All gone ; Shabbona got nothing now." His band camped at the spring near the present road leading into the grove below Mr. James Greenfield's house, while Shabbona, dispossessed, started off to find another home. Upon his return he received a terrible cursing from the man who owned the timber upon which they were encamped, because they had cut some poles and burned some old wood. Sorrowfully and at once they gathered up their things, and Shabbona with his band left the grove for- ever.
Mr. Tracy Scott relates the following incident which occur- red at this time : He was returning from Aurora, and, com- ing through Big Rock timber, saw the Indians encamped. Shabbona seemed utterly cast down ; and, in reply to Scott's inquiry as to why he left and where he was going, said he had always been a friend to the whites ; that he had treated them well ; that his wife and some of his children were buried in the grove ; that he had lived there, and wanted to die there ;
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HISTORY OF DE KALB COUNTY.
that he had lost all-was very poor : then he told that, because his band had burned a few sticks of wood, "big white man call me, damn Indian ! Shabbona never damn white man !" and pointing upwards, while the tears ran down his old cheeks, he continued, "No big white man-no damn Indian up there -all 'like ; all 'like!"
Thus ended the residence and connection of Shabbona and his band with the County of De Kalb. He went down near Morris, Illinois, and died, some five or six years ago, in ex- treme poverty. On the 5th of July, 1865, his wife Pokanoka and two of her daughters came back to the grove, took quiet possession of a thicket near the old house, and remained there three days. Soon after, in crossing a small stream, she was thrown from her wagon (she was very old, fleshy and helpless) into the water and drowned. The family are scattered, no one knows where.
These are simple statements, just as related by the old set- tlers, and as known to the writer hereof, without an embellish- ment : but what a mournful story ! Is there in the whole field of reality a more pitiful case ?
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LIFE OF BARON DEKALB.
CHAPTER IV. LIFE OF BARON DEKALB.
Although the memory of the brave Baron De Kalb has been duly honored by the American people, so far as it can be done in the nomenclature of the Country, no less than fifteen towns, and about as many Counties in the Union, having received the name of this heroic general, yet few, very few of our countrymen are familiar with his history. While it is incumbent upon every intelligent American to preserve, fresh and green, the memory of those eminent Euro- peans who, like La Fayette, forsook the fascinations of for- eign courts, to fight for us the battle of our liberties, it is peculiarly desirable that we of De Kalb County should know and duly honor the memory of that generous hero of this class, who has given his name to our County and to one of our prominent towns.
Baron John De Kalb, was a native of the province of Al- sace, a German province in the possession of France, and was born about the year 1732. He entered the French army at an early age, and was there educated in the art of war, in which he attained great proficiency, having become a Briga- dier General in that army, and a Knight of the Order of Merit. In 1762 he visited the Anglo-American colonies as a secret agent of the French government, and no doubt on that mission, acquired that knowledge of our country, and something of that interest in its destinies, that led him in November, 1776, soon after the stirring news of our declara- tion of independence had reached Europe, to offer his services to Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, the first envoys of our young Republic to France, to serve in the armies of the
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HISTORY OF DE KALB COUNTY.
revolted colonies. His proffer was gratefully accepted, and in the following year he sailed with the Marquis de La Fayette and ten other French officers, to this country. On Septem- ber 15th, 1777, he was appointed by Congress a Major Gen- eral, and soon after he joined the main army under Washing- ton which was then operating about Philadelphia. The American officers were intensely jealous of these foreign allies as a class, and the high commands given them, excited great dissatisfaction, but the aims and acts of the veteran Baron De Kalb were of so high an order, his enthusiasm for the deliverance of all who were oppressed was so earnest and heartfelt, his desire for rank was so evidently for the purpose of better serving the new-born nation, and his military talents were so unmistakably eminent, that he disarmed this hostility of the native-born fellow soldiers, and served with their approbation, their confidence, their esteem.
After a few weeks of active operations about Philadelphia, he went with the army into winter quarters at Valley Forge where his active sympathy and enthusiasm for the cause, aided to lighten and brighten the dreariness of that most gloomy winter of American history. During the two following years, he served with honor to himself, and satisfaction to the coun- try, in the campaigns in Maryland and New Jersey. When in April, 1780, the capture of Charleston, the principal Southern seaport, was threatened by the British under Clinton, De Kalb was selected by Washington with the approbation of Congress, to proceed South with the Maryland and Dela- ware forces to reinforce Lincoln, who was in command at Charleston. Conveyed by water to Petersburg, Va., they commenced a long and weary march for the Carolinas. The country was poor and thinly inhabited ; no magazines had been laid up ; the commissaries had neither money nor credit. It must have taxed all the resources of their general, to pros- ecute the march in the face of these obstacles. But undaunted he pressed on, scattering his soldiers over the country in small parties. They collected their own supplies by impressing
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LIFE OF BARON DEKALB.
lean cattle from the canebrakes, and Indian corn, the only grain which the country produced.
Halting at length at Deep river, he was overtaken by Gen. Gates, who had been appointed by Congress to the command of the Southern department, and pressed on through a barren and disaffected country toward Camden. The little army was soon greatly augmented by reinforcements of Virginian and Carolinian troops ; but weakened by diseases, caused by eating unripe peaches and green corn as substitutes for bread. The patriot army approached Camden with nearly 6,000 men, but they were mostly raw militia, and weakened by disease and their arduous marches. Lord Cornwallis, who command- ed the British force, opposed to him, had a much smaller army, but they were veterans, and were so situated that defeat would have been their destruction. On the night of the 6th of August, Cornwallis put his troops in motion, determined to attack and surprise Gates. On that same night Gates had moved forward his army, intending to occupy another position nearer Camden. The advance of the two armies encountered each other unexpectedly in the woods. A council of war was called, and De Kalb, the second in command, who had caution- ed Gates against the result of a general engagement, recom- mended that the army should fall back to a more favorable position. Gates scorned the advice. "I would not give a penny to be insured a beefsteak in Camden to-day with Lord Cornwallis a captured prisoner at my table." De Kalb, who had repeatedly foretold the ruin that would ensue, and ex- pressed a presentiment that he would fall in the battle, was taunted by the rash Gates, who insinuated that his prudence was occasioned by fear. De Kalb instantly placed himself at the head of his troops on foot, replying: Well, sir, a few hours will prove who are brave.
The British rushed with charged bayonets on Gates' center and left, when his troops broke and fled, leaving their guns on the ground. Gates went with them, and did not cease his flight till he reached Charlotte, eighty miles from the field of battle. 9
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HISTORY OF DE KALB COUNTY.
The brave De Kalb, at the head of the right wing, manfully stood his ground, and contended with the whole British army more than an hour. Hundreds of his devoted troops had fallen around him, when at last he fell, pierced by eleven bayonet wounds. At the entreaty of his aid, the British officers interposed to prevent his immediate destruction, but he sur- vived only a few hours.
To a British officer, who kindly condoled with him on his misfortune, he replied: I thank you for your generous sym- pathy, but I die the death I have always prayed for-the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man ; and though I fight no more in this world, I trust I may still be of some service to the cause of freedom.
Many years after, General Washington visited the grave of the departed hero at Camden, and after gazing sadly awhile, he exclaimed : So here lies the brave DeKalb ! the generous stranger who came from a distant land to fight our battles, and water with his blood the tree of liberty.
Congress voted a monument to him, but it was never erect- ed. The citizens of Camden, however, many years after, enclosed his grave, and placed on it a handsome marble with an epitaph, descriptive of his virtues and his services to the country.
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THE CLAIM ASSOCIATIONS.
CHAPTER V.
THE CLAIM ASSOCIATIONS.
Until the spring of the year 1835, the feet of very few white people had trodden the soil of what now constitutes the County of DeKalb. It was the home of the Indian, and the Indian agent at Chicago, backed up by companies of United States troops, was authorized to drive off all whites who should encroach upon their land. But it having been noised about in this spring of 1835, that the Indians were about to remove west of the Mississippi, no further attempt was made to restrain the immigration of the whites, and they poured into the country in great numbers.
In pre-empting and claiming land, delays are dangerous, and each landless immigrant, desiring to have the first choice of lands, and to be sure of a location inferior to none, hurried into the territory, and camping near some favorable grove and stream, began to blaze the trees on a line surrounding as much of the timbered land as he thought he should want, and then ran his plow out on the prairie, making with its fur- row, a tract as large as he cared for, of the open prairie.
This, according to the primitive regulations which governed the new settlers at that time, gave him a right to hold the tract thus marked out, until the time when the government should have it surveyed, and the opportunity offered for a bet- ter title, by purchase of the United States.
But innumerable disputes arose under this arrangement. Some of the more ambitious of the new-comers claimed sev- eral square miles of land, and were preventing the settlement of the country by elbowing out those who would have been
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HISTORY OF DE KALB COUNTY.
glad to make their homes here. It was evident that something must be done to limit and regulate this privilege of the squat- ter ; and that which was done we cannot better relate than in the quaint language of one of the worthiest of those early settlers, as published in his "Reminiscences of Border Life," in the Republican Sentinel of this County, in 1855. He says :
"' In those days, there being no king in Israel, every man did that which seemed right in his own eyes.' The size of claims, therefore, varied from two eightys of prairie, and one of timber, to a half section of timber, and a tract of prairie two miles square. Some assumed the right to make and hold claims by proxy, being thereunto duly authorized by some brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin or friend. Meanwhile, new settlers poured in apace, astonished and perplexed to find the choice timber and prairie 'blazed' and 'furrowed' into claims, whose ample acres, the claimant with all his children, uncles, aunts and cousins, to the 'third and fourth generations,' would never be able to till or occupy. The new settler, perplexed, baffled, and becoming more and more desperate on finding 'God's green earth' thus monopolized, would approach his more fortunate neighbor with the spirit of Abraham to Lot-'now I have come a great way to get some of this timber and prairie, and one thing is certain, I am go- ing to have some. There is enough for you and me, and our boys. Now don't let us quarrel ; you turn to the right and I will turn to the left, or, vice versa. Sometimes this good scripture, and, consequently, good common sense logic, would win, but in other cases, the grasping spirit of the borderer would stave off all kind of division or compromise, and, laying his hand upon his rifle, he would bluster and threaten in 'great swelling words,' and drive away the 'stranger from his right.'
" Hereupon arose innumerable disputes and wranglings, concerning the size, tenure and boundaries of claims. The more reflecting among the settlers, saw a dark cloud, big with the elements of strife and social disorder, gathering in the
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THIE CLAIM ASSOCIATIONS.
not very distant horizon, whose tornado blasts threatened soon to lay waste all that was of value in the rising community. There was no municipal law reaching these cases; and if there had been, the settlers probably would have been nonc the wiser for it, for it is believed at this period, there was neither a Justice nor a statute book north of the Illinois River, and west of Fort Dearborn, unless we except Ottawa and Chicago. Wrongs and outrages for which there was no known legal redress, were being multiplied. Blackened eyes, bloody noses and chewed ears were living realities, while the dirk, pistol, rifle, with something like 'cold lead,' were signifi- cantly talked of, as likely to bring about some 'realities' which might not be 'living.' What could be done to ensure ' do- mestic tranquility,' 'promote the general welfare,' and secure to each settler his right ?- Evidently but one thing. Happily some had seen something in the New Testament about those who are without law being a 'law unto themselves,' and set- tlers found themselves in this fix exactly. It was therefore apparent both from scripture and reason, that the settlers must become a 'law unto themselves ;' and, 'where there was a will there was a way. 'A settlers' meeting,' at a given time and place, therefore came to be the watch word, from shanty to wagon, until all were alarmed. Pursuant to this proclamation, a 'heap' of law and order-loving American citizens convened on the. 5th of September, 1835, at the shanty of Harmon Miller, then standing on the east bank of the Kishwaukie, nearly opposite the present residence of Wm. A. Miller in the town of Kingston.
" Happily the best possible spirit prevailed. The hoosicr from the Wabash, the buckeye from Ohio, the hunter from Kentucky, the calculating Yankee, brother Jonathan's 'first- born,' and the 'beginning of his strength,' impelled by a sense of mutual danger, here sat down to dictate laws to Kishwau- kie and 'the region lying round about throughout all the coasts thereof.' Hon. Levi Lee, now chairman of a commit- tee to report on petitions for the 'Maine law' in the Legisla-
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HISTORY OF DE KALB COUNTY.
ture of Wisconsin, was chosen to preside over this august assemblage, where the three great departments of free gov- crnments, the executive, the legislative and the judicial, were most happily united ; and 'Capt. Eli Barnes was appointed secretary.' Gently glided the sometimes turbid waters of that 'ancient river,' the sonorous Kishwaukie, as speech after speech, setting forth the wants and woes of the settlers, the kind of legislation demanded by the crisis, went the rounds. Even those who were not used to 'talkin' much 'fore folks,' evinced their cordial approbation and readiness to co-operate by doing up an amount of encoreing, which no doubt really did, 'astonish the natives.' At last, ripe for immediate action, a committee was selected to draft and pre- sent to the meeting, a Constitution and By-Laws by which the 'settlers upon the public lands' should be governed. After some little deliberation back of the shanty, around the stump of a big white oak, which served as a writing desk, said committee reported a Preamble, Constitution and By- Laws, which, for simplicity, brevity and adaptation to neces- sity, it would be hard for any modern legislation to beat. The 'self-evident truths' proclaimed by Jefferson in the 'immor- tal declaration,' it is believed, were, for the first time, reiterated on the banks of Kishwaukie ; and, had there been a little more time for reflection and preparation, the top of some settler's wagon would have been converted into the 'Star Spangled Banner' and thrown to the breezes of heaven from the tallest tree-top in the grove. The common-sense, law and logic, as well as patriotism, contained in this Constitution and By-Laws, were instantaneously recognized to be the very things demanded by the crisis, and were adopted with unpar- alleled enthusiasm, each subscribing his name thereto with his own hand, thereby pledging 'life,' 'fortune' and 'sacred honor,' to carry out the provisions of the code. It is not known that a copy of this singular unique document is now extant, and still there may be. As nearly as can be recollected, its provisions were somewhat as follows : A prudential com_
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