USA > Illinois > Grundy County > History of Grundy County, Illinois > Part 15
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"I had found a enrions mound at the west side of a small grove, north of the old river stage road and a little west of south from Seneca, and upon asking Clark about the stones carelessly thrown about it he said : 'Oh, yes, that was a very bad Indian! Steal horses, ete. They killed him; put him in this old mound by himself,' and then when any Indian passed the mound he felt bound to show his contempt for the onteast who would not, or did not take scalps-but horses (he was a horse funcier), and before reaching the place they would piek up finger stones and east them upon the mound and spit upon it, showing their utter contempt for his want of good taste while living.
"Clark said Nnequette was killed in battle-that the fight began at Blue Island. The Illinois tribe retreated, and again had a fight three miles east of Joliet, at a vil- Jage on north bank of Hickory Creek, where Oakwood cemetery now is, then a retreat and a hard fight at Nettle Creek (Morris), the Indian name for which has escaped
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me ; then a retreat and pursuit as far as Starve Rock, where Clark gave a descrip- tion of the siege and the daring conduct of the devoted band, rushing up to the very edge of the cliff to challenge the foc to combat. Of course, these were the acts of a few men in a desperate situation, but when relating these things the eyes of Clark, usually mild enough, would assume a ferocious appearance quite shocking. He was evidently a friend of the weaker party. He gave also the exploits of a very few who escaped down the Illinois River in a skiff and were pursued for days, though finally escaping. Those left upon Starve Rock generally perished. * * *
" In regard to the cedar pole, Clark told me the tribe or some of them came at times, as late as 1837-S, to replace the white flag upon the pole, when the winds had blown it away. Our men went on the sly to dig about the cedar pole in the mound, and upon their return to camp
were told decidedly to go back and fix the mound and the pole, and to leave every- thing as they found it or there would be trouble ; that the savages were then about, and that they would miss their top-knots by delay. I went back with them to see the order executed, and it was. We had no trouble with the Indians on account of the act."*
* Mr. Matthewson adds : " The death of Nuequette was probably between 1680 and 1700, and the cedar pole may have been placed there at that time." This date is not probably derived from the narrative of Clark. The description of the series of Indian en- gagements and the incident of Starve Rock corre- sponds with the historical account of the exterminat- ing war waged by the Pottawatomies and their allies against the lllinois to avenge the murder of Pontiae by one of the latter nation at Cahokia in 1769. It is possible that Nnequette fell in a series of conflicts with the Iroquois, and that Clark confused the tra- ditions of these fights with those which terminated at Starve Rock. Even the later date gives the pole a respectable antiquity.
CHAPTER III .*
EARLY FRENCH SETTLEMENTS-FRONTIER SETTLEMENTS IN LA SALLE AND GRUNDY COUNTIES-CIVILIZED LIFE IN A NEW COUNTRY-POLITICAL ORGANIZA- TION-FORMATION OF GRUNDY COUNTY-COUNTY BUILDINGS.
" IN southern Illinois near the Mississip-
pi, a hundred miles or more above the mouth of the Ohio, is situated the ancient village of Kaskaskia, supposed to be the oldest permanent European settlement in the valley of the Father of Waters,"+ bnt while thus attaining an unparalleled emi- nenee in one partieular, it must not be sup- posed that the whole State permanently shared in this distinction. Though thus promised with an early dawn of civilization in the latter part of the 17th century, the promise proved illusive before the mareh of greater events, and the bright flush of a hoped-for day paled into the darker obseu- rity of a more savage barbarism.
In 1700, the settlement of the French and Indians at old Kaskaskia was removed to the spot where the village of that name now stands; two years later followed the abandonment of Fort St. Louis on the Illi- nois; and in 1718, the erection of Fort Chartres on the Mississippi, sixteen miles above the former village, confirmed the tendeney of the white population to con- centrate in the southern part of the State. About the fort, rapidly sprang up a village
which was subsequently called New Char- tres ; five miles away the village of Prairie du Rocher became a growing settlement, while all along the river between Kaskaskia and the fort a strong chain of settlements was formed within a year after the fort was finished. The erection of Fort Chartres, at this point, however, was dietated by na- tional considerations rather than by fear of the savages. The colonization of Louisiana consequent upon the exploration of the Mississippi and the influx of colonists who found a home at Cahokia and Kaskaskia, made this section the key to the French possessions in America, the connecting link between Canada and Lonisiana. Here the French settlers, but little disturbed by the forays of the Sacs and Foxes, pushed their improvements up to the Illinois, while lands were granted, though perhaps never occupied, some distance up this stream. The military force found occupation in sup- porting the friendly Illinois tribes against the Iroquois and Sacs and Foxes, and in unsatisfactory or disastrons campaigns against the Chickasaws. In the meantime this " neek of the woods" was rapidly be- coming a spot of national importanee. From the southwest the Spaniards were jealously watching the French colonists, while the British gradually pushing west-
*By J. H. Battle.
+Paper read before Chicago Hist. Soc., by Edward G. Mason, 1879.
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ward were building forts near the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The European war of 1741-6, in which France and England were opposed, was echoed in these Western wilds, and it was found that the fort must be strengthened or abandoned. The former course prevailed, and in 1750 the old for- tress of wood was transformed into one of stone, and garrisoned by a full regiment of French grenadiers. It was from this point that an important contingent went out to the capture of George Washington and his forces at Fort Necessity, July 4, 1754, and thus furnished to George II one of the causes for a declaration of hostilities and a beginning of the " Old French War." In the ensuing war a detachment burned Fort Granville, sixty miles from Philadelphia ; another party routed Major Grant near Fort Duquesne, but compelled to abandon that fortress, set it on fire and floated down the river in the light of its destroying flames ; again a large detachment aug- mented by a considerable number of friend- ly Indians, assisted in the vain attempt to raise the British siege of Niagara, leaving dead upon the field, the flower of the gar- rison. The fort was no longer in condition to maintain the offensive, and learning that the British were preparing at Pittsburgh to make a hostile descent upon him, the commandant writes to the Governor-Gen- eral : " I have made all arrangements, ae- eording to my strength, to receive the enemy." The victory on the Plains of Abraham decided the contest, but the little backwoods eitadel, knowing but little of the nature of the struggle, dreamed that it might be the means of regaining, on more snecessful fields, the possessions thus lost to the French crown. The news that this
fort, with all territory east of the river, had been surrendered without so much as a sight of the enemy, came like a thunder-elap upon this patriotie colony. Many of the settlers with Laelede, who had just arrived at the head of a new colony, expresse. l their disgust by going to the site of St. Lonis, which they supposed to be still French ground.
Though transferred by treaty to the Eng- lish in 1763, the fort was the last place in North America to lower the white ensign of the Bourbon King, and it was not until the latter part of 1765 that the British formally accepted the surrender of Fort Chartres. Pontiae, the unwavering friend of the French, took upon himself, unaided by his former allies, to hold back the vie- torious English. Major Loftus, Captains Pitman and Morris, Lieutenant Frazer, and George Crogan, some with foree, some in disguise, and others with diplomacy, sought to reach the fort to accept its capitulation, but each one was foiled and turned back with his mission unaccomplished, glad to escape the fate of that Englishman for which Pontiac assured then, he kept a " kettle boiling over a large fire." Wearied out with the inactivity of the French, the In- dian sought an audience with the con- mandant, and explained his attitude. " Father," said the chieftain, "I have long wished to see thee, to reeall the battles which we fought together against the mis- guided Indians and the English dogs. I love the French, and I have come here with my warriors to avenge their wrongs." But assured by St. Ange that such service could no longer be accepted, he gave up the struggle, and the flag of St. George rose in the place of the fair lilies of France.
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Thus another nationality was projected into this restricted arena, a situation which was immediately afterward still further compli- cated by the secret Franco-Spanish treaty, which made the west bank of the Mississippi the boundary of the Spanish possessions. " It is significant of the different races, and the varying sovereignties in that portion of our country," says a writer, "that a French soldier from the Spanish city of St. Louis should be married to an Englishwoman by a French priest in the British colony of Illinois."
The effect of this political change upon the growth of the Illinois settlements was disastrous. At the first announcement of the treaty, the natural hostility of the peo- ple to the English induced large numbers of the colonists to prepare to follow the French flag, and a hegira followed which swept out of the colony fully one-third of its three thousand inhabitants. There was still a large number left, forming the larg- est colony in the west; but there were forces constantly at work which gradually depleted its numbers. Under the British rule an abnormal activity among traders and land speculators was developed. The natives were constantly overreached in trade by unscrupnlons persons, protected by the dominant power, and representa- tives of land purchasing organizations were acquiring vast tracts of country from igno- rant savages, who had little comprehension of the meaning or consequences of these transactions. These schemes and practices, though happily brought to naught by the Revolution, rendered the Indians, for a time, savagely hostile, and left their blight- ing influence long after their removal. The lack of proper sympathy between the
governing race and the governed, the hos- tility of the savages in which they were involved with the British, induced many of the Old French colonists to leave their old homes as rapidly as they could make arrangements to do so. Unfortunately there was at this time no emigration to repair this depletion constantly going on; few English or Americans even visited this region, much less settled here.
The British garrison had hitherto occu- pied the old French Fort Chartres, but one day in 1772, the river having overflowed its banks, and swept away a bastion and the river wall, the occupants fled with pre- cipitate haste to the high ground above Kaskaskia, where they erected a palisade fort. This was the principal achievement of the British forces, up to the beginning of the war with the colonies. In this struggle, removed from the scene of active operations, the commandant, resorting to the favorite means of the British during the entire early history on this continent, furnished supplies and munitions of war to the savages, and thus equipped, incited them to war upon the unprotected frontier settlements in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia. So disastrous in their con- sequences, and distracting in their influ- ence, were these attacks, that Col. George Rogers Clark early set about procuring the means to effectually check them. Rec- ognizing the British post at Kaskaskia as the source of the Indians' supplies and inspiration, he directed his efforts toward the capture of this point, and enlisting the interest of Patrick Henry, governor of Vir- ginia, securing such help as he could give, Clark was able on June 24, 1778, to start from the falls of the Ohio with one
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hundred and fifty-three men for lower Illinois. So skillfully did he manage his movements that he caught the garrison mapping, and captured on the 5th of July, both foree and fort without the spilling of a drop of blood. Cahokia fell in like manner without a blow, and in the follow- ing October, the Virginia Assembly erected the whole country seenred by Clark's sev- eral victories, into the county of Illinois; a territory now divided into five States.
This eonnty thus erected was at once placed under control of civil authority, John Todd representing the sovereignty of Virginia as County Lieutenant. His in- structions were broad enough to meet the whole case; he was to conciliate the French and Indians; to inenleate on the people the value of liberty, and to remove the griev- ances that obstruet the happiness, increase and prosperity of that country. These cer- tainly were the great ends to be achieved if possible, but in the nature of things their accomplishment was not possible. The French population were easily coneili- ated, but the education of a life-time, and the hereditary characteristics of the race rendered them incapable of appreciating the value of liberty. They had grown up under the enervating influence of the most arbitrary manifestations of monarchial gov- ernment, and self-government involved too great a risk for this simple folk. The re- sult was a lack of sympathy with the new order of things, more decided perhaps than under British rule. To this was added a business competition, to which they were unaccustomed; more frequent hostile in- cursions of the Indians in which the say- ages gradually forgot the old-time love for the French, and repeated losses by the in-
undations of the river, made up a sum of discouragement which gradually deple- ted this country of the French inhabitants. This loss was but imperfectly repaired by the immigration which came in from Vir- ginia and Maryland. Notwithstanding the fertility of the soil had been widely pub- lished, and a considerable number had al- ready found mnel better advantages here than the older colonies afforded, yet the Indian depredations that followed the Rev- olntionary war, deterred others from fol- lowing until the general pacification at Greenville in 1795.
In 1787, the whole country northwest of the Ohio was erected into the Northwest Territory, and in February, 1789, General Arthur St. Clair arrived at Kaskaskia as first Territorial Governor. Among the earliest acts of his administration was the erection of the first county, including all of the present State extending north as far as the mouth of Little Mackinaw Creek (now in Tazewell County), and named St. Clair after the governor. May 7, 1800, Ohio was set off and the balance of the ter- ritory called Indiana; on February 3, 1809, the Illinois territory was constituted, in- cluding the present State with the State of Wisconsin, and on April 18, 1818, the present State of Illinois was admitted into the union. These dates are approximate indications of the advance of settlements in the State. The population in 1809 was estimated at 9,000; in the census of the fol- lowing year a total population of 12,282 was returned. The frontiers had been steadily advanced by the adventurous pio- neers. To the north, the settlement had extended to the Wood River country, in the present Madison County; castward on
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HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.
Silver Creek and up the Kaskaskia River; south and east from Kaskaskia, some fif- teen miles out on the Fort Massae road; a family had also located at the mouth of the Ohio, and at old Massae and Shawneetown were the remains of old colonies. The new settlements were very sparse and all feeble, and from 1810 to the elose of the war, four years later, immigration was almost at a standstill .* With the elose of hostilities, however, and the cessation of Indian ag- gressions, stimulated by the passage of the act granting the right of pre-emption to settle upon the public lands, the tide of emigration set in toward this State with unequaled volume.
At the time of the admission of the State, fifteen counties had been organized, em- braeing about one fourth of the territory of the State. The settled portions were all sonth of a line drawn from Alton via Car- lyle to Palestine, on the Wabash, but within this area were large traets of unset- tled country, several day's journey in ex- tent. At this time there were some 40,000 inhabitants, of whom scareely a twentiethi part were descendants of the old French colonists. Nineteen-twentieths of the bal- anee were Amcrieans from the Southern states, with the exception of some from Pennsylvania. In 1820, the population was returned at 157,447, while the political organization represented fifty-six counties, though some of the northern ones were large and thinly settled. The territory lying between Galena and Chicago, extend- ing southward to the Kaskaskia, the head- waters of the Vermillion, along the Rock River, and far down into the " Military
Tract," was a traekless waste occupied by various Indian tribes. The results of emi- gration had been shown in the interior of the southern part of the State, and the country bordering the Embarrass, the San- gamon and their tributaries, where the hitherto unoccupied wilderness had been made to blossom with the harvest of the frontier farmer. The advanced settlements still elung to the edge of the timber lands that fringed the streams, and along the Illinois to Chicago-which was just then beginning to attract attention-were found at this time a few scattered settlements, weak in numbers and situated long dis- tanees apart. The tide of emigration which continued to sweep into the State-some- what changed in character-coming largely from the Eastern States, and comprising a considerable percentage of foreigners, fol- lowed the old channels, and gradually spread over the northern part of the State until it met the tide which came latterly by way of the lake region. The rapidly increasing demand for the organization of new counties at this period, gave sure indi- eation of this rapid development of thic State.
Up to 1812, St. Clair and Randolph Conn- ties had sufficed, but for the purposes of better representation in the territorial coun- eil, three more counties were added at this time. In 1815, two more were added; in 1816, five; in 1818, three; and in 1821, seven. Of the latter were Sangamon and Pike, the latter including all of the State north and west of the Illinois, and what is now Cook County. Sangamon included the territory east of the river to the boun- dary of Pike on the north. In 1825, the county of Peoria was formed of the north-
*Hist. of Ill., Davidson & Stuve, pp. 245-246.
-
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HISTORY OF GRUNDY COUNTY.
ern part of Sangamon, and in 1831, Peoria was divided and La Salle formed, which then ineluded what is now Grundy County, and the larger part of Kendall.
The advaneing tide of emigration coming up along the river made its first permanent settlement on the territory of the present county of. La Salle, near the present site of Sonth Ottawa, in 1823-4-5. As early as 1821, Joel Hodgson came in the interest of several families resident in Clinton County, Ohio, to seek a place suitable for the found- ing of a colony. Crossing Indiana, he en- tered the State of Illinois near the present site of Danville, and guided only by his compass and an occasional Indian trail, he reached the Illinois, near the mouth of the Kankakee, and following the larger stream down to the month of the Fox River, he, for the first time since he entered the State, rec- ognized his position on the map with which he was provided. He carefully explored the land along the Illinois and its tributa- ries in this region, making his way finally to the settlement at Dillon's Grove, where he met the first white men after leaving Danville. It is not a flattering considera- tion to those who now rejoice in pleasant homes and fruitful farms in this seetion, to reeall that this explorer returned to his principals only to report that there was no land here suitable for the purposes of the proposed colony. But there were not laek- ing those who could see beyond the present forbidding aspect, and who had the conrage to dare and do. In 1827, there were some fif- teen or eighteen families within the present territory of La Salle, situated some distanees apart on both sides of the river. The eol- ony located south of the river, ineluded a considerable part of this number, and when
the news of the Winnebago outbreak reached them, although the scene of action was a long distance off, they realized that they were on the frontier, and at the mercy of a horde of savages whose motives and impulses could not safely be conjeetured, and they at onec set about building a fort which served as a rallying point for the pio- neers in this seetion. The speck of war, however, soon vanished, and emigration, temporarily stayed, began again to push its way up the Illinois. In 1828, the first settler on the present territory of Grundy County made his appearance in the person of Will- iam Marquis. He came untrammeled by contingencies, and npon no uncertain mis- sion; he came here to stay, and settling on the banks of the Illinois, above the mouth of Mazon Creek, he reared his cabin and was found here by those who reached this country after the Black Hawk War. Dur- ing these hostilities, the brunt of which fell npon the settlements of La Salle County, Marquis, although a trader and on the best of terms with the natives, found greater security in the protection of the fort at Ottawa than in the friendly dispo- sition of his patrons, and spent the interval at the settlement. Ile did not return to his place on the Mazon, but settled fur- ther north in the connty, and Jater left for the more unsettled parts, where trading with the Indians was more profitable.
The second family in the eonnty was that of William Hoge, who settled north of the river in what is now Nettle Creek town- ship, in the fall of 1831. IIere the first white child of the county, James B. Hoge, was born, May 6, 1834. In 1833 a number of families eame in and settled on both sides of the river; John Beard, Sr., and his
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son-in-law, James McKeen, settled near the Kankakee north of the river, the latter building the first house in Morris, a log structure, for John P. Chapin, in May, 1834. Col. Sayers built a cabin in Wan- ponsee, which was occupied in the following year by W. A. Holloway; W. H. Perkins built his cabin in Au Sable; Zachariah Walley settled in the same township, and A. K. Owen in Mazon. The latter in a published antobiography says: "At the close of the war (Black IIawk) I sold my claim on Corille Creek to a man by the name of Moore, and in the following spring Edwin Shaw, Dr. S. S. Robbins, Sheldon Bartholomew, John Hogoboom and myself fitted ont an exploring expedition, and on the second day arrived safe and sound at the celebrated Sulphur Spring on Mazon Creek, and proceeded to make claims as follows, to wit: Dr. Robbins at the Sulphur Spring, John Hogoboom at John Grove, Shaw and Bartholomew at Parers' Groves, and myself on the south branch of the Mazon, one mile below Mazon Town.
"While we were exploring we made head- quarters at Johnny Grove, and on leaving we organized a meeting for the purpose of naming the different points selected. Dr. Robbins proposed that from its location, it should be called Center Grove, but I pro- posed that it should be called Jolin Grove, in honor of John Hogoboom, the wealthy proprietor, and my name was adopted, so the name is Jolin Grove in place of Johnny Grove. Wanponsee-tradition had it that the old chief had, in a drunken fit, taken his butcher knife and killed six wives in one day, so from this and the fact that he had lived here during the Black Hawk War, we gave the name of Wanponsee Grove. Pa-
rer's Grove was christened Spring Grove, in honor of a big spring I found just at the foot of the grove, but as these claimants failed to put in an appearance, it was snb- sequently claimed by an Englishman by the name of Parer, hence the name. Sul- phur Spring was called Robbins' Sulphur Spring, and my claim Owen's Spring, with reference to a spring at the top of the bank and a small point of timber running into the prairie, which I subsequently cleared off. I think this was in the spring of 1833." In the following year Robbins alone moved onto his claim. Early in the same spring also came James McCarty, an old bachelor, who took two or three acres in Wanponsee Grove. He built him a little camp and raised a crop of corn which he put in with a hoe. In the fall he erected a shelter ont of the stalks, in which he passed the winter. About this time came also the families of Claypool, Collins, Cryder, Tabler, Chapin, Cragg, Hollands, Kent, Millers, Griggs, Ewing, Adkins, Newport, Taylor, Robbs, Enbanks, Snowhill, Samuel and Isaac Hoge and others. These were the principal fam- ilies here before the government land sale of June 15, 1835.
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