History of Grundy County, Illinois, Part 11

Author:
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, O. L. Baskin
Number of Pages: 506

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EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

conspieuons part. Mrs. IIeald was an ex- cellent equestrian and an expert in the use of the rifle. She fonght the savages bravely, receiving several severe wounds. Though faint from the loss of blood, she managed to keep her saddle. A savage raised his toma- hawk to kill her, when she looked him full in the face, and with a sweet smile and in a gentle voice said, in his own language, "Surely you will not kill a squaw !" The arm of the savage fell, and the life of the heroie woman was saved.

Mrs. Helm, the step-daughter of Mr. Kinzie, had an encounter with a stout In- dian, who attempted to tomahawk her. Springing to one side, she received the glaneing blow on her shoulder. and at the same instant seized the savage round the neek with her arms and endeavored to get hold of his scalping knife, which hung in a sheath at his breast. While she was thus struggling she was dragged from her antag- onist by another powerful Indian, who bore her, in spite of her struggles, to the margin of the lake and plunged her in. To her astonishment she was held by him so that she would not drown, and she soon per- ceived that she was in the hands of the friendly Black Partridge, who had saved her life.

The wife of Sergeant Holt, a large and powerful woman, behaved as bravely as an Amazon. She rode a fine, high-spirited horse, which the Indians coveted, and several of them attacked her with the butts of their guns, for the purpose of dismount- ing her; but she used the sword which she had snatched from her disabled husband so skillfully that she foiled them; and, snd- denly wheeling her horse, she dashed over the prairie, followed by the savages shout-

ing, " The brave woman! the brave woman ! Don't hurt her!" They finally overtook her, and while she was fighting them in front, a powerful savage came up behind her, seized her by the neck and dragged her to the ground. Horse and woman were made captive. Mrs. Holt was a long time a captive among the Indians, but was afterward ransomed.

In this sharp confliet two thirds of the white people were slain and wounded, and all their horses, baggage and provision were lost. Only twenty-eight straggling men now remained to fight five hundred Indians rendered furious by the sight of blood. They sneceeded in breaking through the ranks of the murderers and gaining a slight eminence on the prairie near the Oak Woods. The Indians did not pursue, but gathered on their flanks, while the ehiet's held a consultation on the sand-hills, and showed signs of willingness to parley. It would have been madness on the part of the whites to renew the fight; and so Capt. Heald went forward and met Blackbird on the open prairie, where terms of sur- render were agreed upon. It was arranged that the white people should give up their arms to Blackbird, and that the survivors should become prisoners of war, to be ex- changed for ransoms as soon as practicable. With this understanding captives and eap- tors started for the Indian camp near the fort, to which Mrs. IIelm had been taken bleeding and suffering by Black Partridge, and had met her step-father and learned that her husband was safe.

A new seene of horror was now opened at the Indian eamp. The wounded, not being ineluded in the surrender, as it was interpreted by the Indians, and the British

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

general, Proetor, having offered a liberal bounty for American sealps, delivered at Malden, nearly all the wounded men were killed and sealped, and price of the trophies was afterward paid by the British govern- ment.

This celebrated Indian chief, Shabbona, deserves more than a passing notice. Al- though he was not so conspicuous as Teeniseh or Black Hawk, yet in point of merit he was superior to either of them.

Shabbona was born at an Indian village on the Kankakee River, now in Will County about the year 1775. While yonng he was made chief of the band, and went to Shab- bona Grove, now De Kalb County, where they were found in the early settlement of the county.

In the war of 1812, Shabbona, with his warriors, joined Teeumsch, was aid to that great chief, and stood by his side when he fell at the battle of the Thames. At the time of the Winnebago war, in 1827, he visited almost every village among the Pot- tawatomies, and by his persuasive argu- ments prevented them from taking part in the war. By request of the citizens of Chicago, Shabbona, accompanied by Billy Caldwell (Sauganash), visited Big Foot's village at Geneva Lake, in order to pacify the warriors, as fears were entertained that they were about to raise the tomahawk against the whites. Here Shabbona was taken prisoner by Big Foot, and his life threatened, but on the following day was set at liberty. From that time the Indians (through reproach) styled him " the white man's friend," and many times his life was endangered.

Before the Black Hawk war, Shabbona met in council at two different times, and

by his infinenee prevented his people from taking part with the Sacs and Foxes. After the death of Black Partridge and Senachwine, no chief among the Pottawat- omies exerted so much influenee as Shab- bona. Black Hawk, aware of this influ- ence, visited him at two different times, in order to enlist him in his eanse, but was unsnecessful. While Black Hawk was a prisoner at Jefferson Barracks, he said, had it not been for Shabbona the whole Potta- watomie nation would have joined his standard, and he could have continued the war for years.

To Shabbona many of the early settlers of Illinois owe the preservation of their lives, for it is a well-known faet, had he not notified the people of their danger, a large portion of them would have fallen vietims to the tomahawk of savages. By saving the lives of whites he endangered his own, for the Sacs and Foxes threatened to kill him, and made two attempts to exeente their threats. They killed Pypeogce, his son, and Pyps, his nephew, and hunted him down as though he was a wild beast.

Shabbona had a reservation of two sec- tions of land at his Grove, but by leaving it and going West for a short time, the Government declared the reservation for- feited, and sold it the same as other vacant land. On Shabbona's return, and finding his possessions gone, he was very sad and broken down in spirit, and left the Grove forever. The citizens of Ottawa raised money and bought him a tract of land on the Illinois River, above Seneca, in Grundy County, on which they built a house, and supplied him with means to live on. IIe lived here until his death, which occurred on the 17th of July, 1859, in the eighty-

EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

fourth year of his age, and was buried with great pomp in the cemetery at Morris. His squaw, Pokanoka, was drowned in Mazon Creek, Grundy County, on the 30th of November, 1864, and was buried by his side.

In 1861 subscriptions were taken np in

many of the river towns, to erect a monu- ment over the remains of Shabbona, but the war breaking out, the enterprise was abandoned. Only a plain marble slab marks the resting-place of this friend of the white man.

HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.

CHAPTER I .*

TOPOGRAPHY-POST-TERTIARY FORMATIONS-ROCK-FORMATIONS-CARBONIFEROUS FOS- SILS-ECONOMIC GEOLOGY.

TIIE relation of the physical features of a country to its development is an im- portant one, and he who would learn the hid- den causes that make or mar a nation at its birth must seek in these " the divinity that shapes its ends." Here is found the elixir vitæ of national life ; the spring from whence flow those forces that on their broader current wreck the ship of state or bear it safely on to its appointed haven. It is in these physical features that are stored those potent industrial possibilities that make the master and the slave among the nations. From the fertile soil comes fruit-laden, peace-loving agriculture; from the rock-bound stores of mineral wealth springs the rude early-time civilization of the Pacific slope, or the half savage clashing of undisciplined capital and labor in the mining regions ; from the rivers rises, fairylike, the commercial metropolis, which " crowned with the glory of the mountains," and fed with the bounty of the plains, stands the chosen arbiter be- tween the great forces that join to make a nation's greatness. The influence of this subtle power knows no bounds. Ilere it

spreads the lotus plant of ease and binds the nation in chains of indolent effeminacy ; here, among the bleak peaks of a sterile land,

" The heather on the mountain height Begins to bloom in purple light,"

type of a hardy and unconquered race ; here it strews the sand of desert wilds, and man without resource, becomes a savage.

The manifestations of this potent factor in human economy are scarcely less marked in the smaller divisions of the State, and in them is found the natural introduction to a consideration of a county's social, po- litical and military history.

Grundy County, situated in the north- eastern part of the State of Illinois, is bounded on the north by Kendall, ou the east by Will and Kankakee, on the south by Livingston, and on the west by La Salle. It includes twelve townships, or about 420 square miles, forming a rectangle of twenty-four miles long and abont seven- teen and a half miles wide. Of this, about two thirds is slightly rolling prairie, and the balance mostly well timbered ercek banks and river bottoms.

The Illinois River divides the county near the middle of its northern half, running

* By J. H. Battle.

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HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.

a W. S. W. course, with but little variation. Its principal affluent on the south is Mazon Creek, which drains fully one third of Grundy, and portions of Livingston, Kan- kakee and Will Counties. Its principal water supply is from surface drainage, but few springs being found along its course. From this character, one would readily predicate the truth that a very wet season often causes it to overflow its banks, though twenty feet or more in height, while a dry one leaves its bed bare, except where deep pools have formed.

A few miles west of the Mazon is the Waupecan, draining a comparatively small extent of country ; but in an ordinary sea- son, carrying nearly as much water, the product of several strong springs on the lower part of its course-some of them from the drift, others from the sandstones and shales of the Coal Measures, which show a small onterop here. Still farther to the westward, are Billy Run, Hog Run, and Armstrong Run, which are simply prairie drains, and show no onterop of rocks. Nettle Creek, on the north side of the river, is principally of the same character ; but in the lower part of its course, there are a few springs, and two or three outerops of the shales and sandstones which overlie the lower coal. Finally, in the northeast eor- ner of the county is the Au Sable Creek, with a comparatively large amount of water, partly derived from springs and partly from drainage of this and Kendall County.

Of the post-tertiary formations, the beds of the alluvium formation are very largely developed in the terraces of the river valley and the beds of the smaller streams. From the west line of the county nearly to An Sable Creek, the Illinois and Michigan eanal

follows the north bank of the present river valley pretty elosely, while the second ter- raee varies from half a mile to two miles to the northward. On the south side of the river the high, gravelly banks of the second terraee hug the river banks very closely, as far as the Waupeean Creek. Here they lose mueh of their elevation, and have as their continuation a low ridge about a mile distant from the present bank. East of Mazon Creek this declines still more and becomes the heavy sand ridge which bears still farther sonthward and then eastward, south of Wilmington into Kankakee County. This sand ridge forms the water shed between Mazon Creek and Kankakee River, so that, where it strikes the bank of the latter stream, to the southward of Wil- mington, the water flows from within two hundred yards of the river, through swamps and sloughs and finds its way through the Mazon, into the Illinois, opposite Morris.

The flats of the old river valley, back of the present banks, show in many places plain evidence of the comparatively reeent date of their formation. On seetion 11, (in Erienna) town 33 north, range 6 east, a layer of thin slabs of fissile sandstone of the Coal Measures is found a short distance below the surface. They were evidently distributed here by the enrrent of the river, not long before it became so con- tracted as to leave this level dry. When this old channel was the ontlet of Lake Michigan, a large body of water must have flowed through here, and appearances seem to indicate that its diversion toward Niag- ara must have been sudden rather than gradual; otherwise the present valley would probably have been wider, and the descent to it less abrupt.

102

HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.

A topographer would take peculiar pleas- ure in studying the various islands of the old valley, especially at the confluences with the Illinois of the Au Sable and Nettle Creeks, both of which streams, apparently, were innch larger than at present. Upon one of these islands stands Morris, the county seat. Another, and far the largest in the county, is the high land lying be- tween the head of the Illinois, the lower part of the Kankakee, and the slough which contains Goose Lake, and runs thence to Pine Bluff, near the embouchure of the Mazon, upon the Illinois valley.

The following level points within this connty, are gathered principally from the notes of the Illinois River Survey. The figures indicate distances below the estab- lislied "datum of six feet below the lowest registered water of Lake Michigan ":

Feet.

Bluffs at Morris, north side (level of town) 55.938

south

59.48

lower terrace. 78.00

Level of river, at head of the Illinois $7.809

" mouth of Au Sable ervek 92.664

" Morris, under roadbridge 95.13

" Marseilles, La Salle Co., above dam 99.808

.. below 1.3.256

" Goose Lake, about 60.

.. " Minooka, as per railroad survey above datum 35.

These levels show that the elevation of first terrace above the river, opposite Mor- ris, is a little over seventeen feet, and that the elevation of the second bluff or gravel ridge above the first terrace is about eiglit- een and one half feet.

The coarser portion of the beds of river gravel consists mostly of fragments of the Niagara group limestone, which forms so heavy beds, from below Joliet to Chicago and beyond. Much of the sand is probably due to the disintegration of the Coal Measure sandstones, while some of it may

have come from the northward. There is, however, in these beds, but a very small proportion of the metamorphic material from Canada, which forms so large a part of the true drift, but upon the surface of the soil, and often partially buried, are great numbers of small boulders of quartzite, gneiss, granite and trap, unquestionably of northern origin. These are especially abundant south of Goose Lake, over the surface of the valley which starts from the Kankakee, near the county line, includes Goose Lake, and joins the Illinois valley near where the Mazon first strikes the bot- toms. This was probably a shallow chan- nel, in which floating fields of ice lodged, melted and dropped the loads of stone which they had brought from the north- ward. Similar aggregations of boulders occur in the adjacent parts of Will County, at points where eddies would have been likely to detain the ice fives. It is sus- pected that this Goose Lake channel was formerly the main channel of the Kankakee, which there met the Des Plaines only four miles above Morris.

The bed of "potter's clay," worked near. the southwest bank of Goose Lake, and ly- ing " near the level of the fire clay," owes its origin and deposition to river action, thoughi principally consisting of the decom- posed shales and fire clays of the Coal Meas- nres.

During the autumn of 1868 the remains of a Mastodon were found at Turner's strippings, about three miles east of Morris, under eighteen inches of black mucky soil, and abont four feet of yellowish loam, and resting on about a foot of hard blue clay, which covered the coal. The bones were badly decayed, and most of them were

103

HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.

broken up and thrown away by the miners; a portion were saved, however, of which a fragment of a lower jaw, a part of a thigh bone, three teeth, and a few small bones were presented to the State Cabinet. The locality is a portion of the old river bottom, but it is uncertain, from the lack of scien- tific investigation at the time, whether to believe that the presence of the bones indi- cates that the animal was mired and died here, or to suppose that the careass was de- posited here by the river.

The Coal Measure rocks of this county are too soft and too readily disintegrated to allow of the preservation of any seratehes that may, at any time, bave been impressed upon their surface; so that, although we find in the gravel very numerous seratehed and polished pebbles and boulders, it is within only a very small area that striated and polished roek surfaces have been notic- ed. In the S. E. quarter of See. 23, town- ship 34 north, range 7 east, (Saratoga) at Walter's quarry of Trenton limestone, smoothly polished surfaces have been fre- quently met with; so in one or two other lo- calities. As these localities, however, are all within the old river valley, we can not, with certainty, predicate upon these facts the eon- elusion that those seratchings and polishings are attributable to glacial action. In fact, these and some other eireumstances give some reason for assuming that they are re- sults of river action alone. At Petty's shaft, the outer portion of the shale next to the ereek banks, is found broken up for sev- eral feet, and thoroughly mingled with the dritted materials which here forin an over- lying bank of about fifteen feet. This dis- turbance, as well as the grinding of the sur- face, may fairly be attributed to the action

of the creek while at its former level. But, while allowing that, in these particular eases, river agencies are sufficient to account for all observed phenomena, the frequent occurrence in the Drift of gravel of large and small boulders unquestionably planed and striated by glacial action must also be recorded. These are especially abundant along the Mazon.

The True Drift, in the western part of the connty consists, mainly, of the tough blue " boulder elay," with pebbles and boulders, sometimes also ineluding frag- ments of wood, overlaid but slightly, or not at all, with gravel, and underlaid, so far as known, with a bed of "hard-pan," and a water-bearing quieksand which has thus far prevented any knowledge of the under- lying materials. The eastern part of the county, on the contrary, shows but little boulder elay, this being replaced by a heavy layer of sand and gravel. Township 34 north, range 6 east, (Nettle Creek) has no known outerop of roek, and wells near its south line have reached depths of forty- eight, fifty and fifty-two feet, before meet- ing the quicksand. Townships 31 and 32, (Highland and Vienna) of the same range, and so much of 33 as lies south of the river, (Norman) together with townships 31 and 32, range 7 east, (Goodfarm and Mazon) possess no outerop of roek, but the depth of the Drift is not known. At Gardner, in seetion 9, township 31 north, range S east, (Greenfield), the Drift is said to be one hnn- dred feet deep at the coal shaft. At Brace- ville, section 25, township 32 north, range S east, it was found to be forty-tour feet deep. Going northward into township 33. in ranges 7 and 8, (Wauponsee and Felix.) it rapidly thins out, owing partly to the

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HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.

downward slope of the surface, partly to the upward slope of the underly- ing rocks, which come to the surface in . the northern part of these townships. Much of the " coal land " in the immediate neigh- borhood of Morris is bare of drift, having been stripped by the old river. To the northward, however, through township 34 north, range 7 east, the gravel and boulder clay lie, in some places, forty feet deep. Township 34 north, range S east, is deeply buried in Drift; at Minooka, on the line between sections 1 and 2, a well-boring found one hundred feet of gravel overlying the shaly limestone of the Cincinnati Group.

Of the rock formations, the beds of the coal measures occupy far the larger part of the surface of the county. The outcrops, however, are so disconnected, and the beds so irregular, that it has been found practi- cally impossible to construct any general section to represent connectedly all the outerop. Apparently the higher beds ex- posed in the county are those which out- crop near the old coal openings on the Waupecan, in the southeast quarter of sec- tion 20, township 33 north, range 7 east, (Wauponsce). No outcrop of beds above the coal has been discovered, nor has any been seen in the deeper parts of the mine. Near the outerop a foot of coal was left as a working roof. The scam is now five feet thick, resting on a bed of fire clay. It is coal No. 4 of the Illinois section. The connection below is not exposed, but at a short distance from the floor of the seam, not over ten feet, there is a coarse, ferrngi- nons, shaly sandstone, filled with fragments of Lepidodendron, Calamites, Neuropte- ris hirsuta, etc., with an occasional streak

of coaly matter. Of this bed, there is a low, nearly continuous outcrop for a mile up the stream, the last spot observed being at " Hog-grove quarry," in the southwest quarter of section 28. At the road cross- ing, about half a mile down the creek from the coal mine, the sandstone rises a little, and exposes about six feet of blue and black shales filled with a variety of small mol- lusca. The lower part of the blue shale holds two thin layers of rusty brown nodules of carbonate of iron, which often, partially or wholly, include shells of these mollusca. The upper part of the black shale also con- tains nodules of the same material (with probably some phosphate of lime) but small- er and less evenly distributed; the smaller of these contain comminnted scales and bones of fishes, and judging from both form and contents, are probably the fossil excrement of larger fishes. These beds, with others, onterop at intervals for about a mile along the right bank of the stream; and the fol- lowing section will fairly represent the whole:

Fcet.

1. Sandy shale ...

2. Blue clay. 3

3. Fissile sandstone. 15

4. Blue clay shale, with iron nodules. 2 to 5

5. Black shale, top slaty, with small nodules, bottom very fragile ..... 2 10 3

6. Cone-in-cone, locally becoming solid sandstone ... 12 to 11/2

7. Soft olive shale. 116

8. Solid gritty sandstone. 1

Another outerop, on nearly the same horizon, occurs on Mazon ercek from the center of the south line of southwest quarter of section 6, township 32 north, range S east (Braceville), to near the center of the south line of section 25, (Wauponsee). The strata are here very irregular in thickness, but the following scetion gives an average representation of the exposed ontcrop:

10%

HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.

Feel. Inches.

1. Ironstone conglomerate, (local) ..... 6

2. Sandstone ...

3. Black shale, some slaty, with large ironstones 3 to 4

4. Cone-in-cone running into Diassive limestone 2

to 6

5. Olive shales, changing into concretionary argillaceons limestone ... .. 5 to 7

6. Soft black shale. .. 2 to 3

7. Blue Clay shalc.

8. Coal No. 3 ....

9. White fire-clay. ?

Small quantities of coal have been mined at this seam at several points along the limited onterop. The coal is said to be good house-fuel, but rather soft. The argil- laceous limestone of No. 5, of this section generally contains numerous shells of the genera Productus, Athyris, Terebratula, ete., and some fragments of criniods. The coal apparently holds the position of the thin coal which locally underlies No. 56 of the La Salle County section.

The outerop along the Mazon appears nearly continnous, but still I have not been able to satisfy myself as to the connection of the above beds with those of the lower part of the stream. The strata, there de- veloped, consist of very variable sandy clay shales and sandstones, in some places be- coming nearly pure elay shales, but con- taining many nodules of carbonate of iron. Pine Bluff, at the lowermost crossing of the Mazon, is composed of about forty feet of heavily bedded, but rather fissile sand- stone, partly nearly white, partly highly ferruginous. Less than a mile up the creek the lower part of this bed changes to highly argillaceous sandy shales with occasional streaks and nodules of sandstone. The section is not quite continnous, but there is no distinet line of demarcation to separate these latter beds from the ferruginous sandy shales, twenty to thirty feet thick, of sec- tion 24, of township 33 north, range 7 east (Wauponsee), which contain large numbers

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History of Grundy County, Illinois, Part 11

Author: Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago, O. L. Baskin Number of Pages: 506

Author:
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, O. L. Baskin
Number of Pages: 506