USA > Illinois > Lee County > History of Lee County, Illinois, Volume I > Part 4
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The story is printed in the July number, 1912, of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, pages 246, et seq.
Thus it will be perceived, another item in Ogee's life was furnished; he came to the old American Fur Company's trading point, established by Gurdon S. Hubbard in 1818.
The next notice we have of Lee county was in the year 1827. In that year, Red Bird, a Winnebago chief. of Wisconsin, was irritated into a declaration of war against the whites by the intrigue of the Sioux, and the massacre of a family of whites at Prairie du Chien followed. Fear for the Illinois settlements in the lead mines prompted the Illinois governor to send a battalion of troops thence to assist in quelling Red Bird's insurrection. After a tedious march to Galona, it was found that Gen. Henry Atkinson and Col. Heury Dodge had captured Red Bird and the so-called Winnebago War had been terminated.
Tlms even before the establishment of Ogee's Ferry, this point had attached to itself considerable importance as a place of ren- dezvons in times of danger and for the first time, Dixon became a theatre of war.
Mrs. S. W. Phelps of Lee Center has given us the best deserip- tion of the old Peoria trail I have found. In 1832, her family trav- eled from Springfield to Galena. "Then a child of eight, I was the
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junior member of a party of five en route from New York City to Galena, Ill. . . The route was via Hudson river to Albany, thence across New York state by Erie canal to Buffalo, onward by stage to Wheeling. Va., down the Ohio river and up the Mississippi by steamboat, and without detentions, required a full month's time.
Arriving at Springfield, Ill., it was found to the dis- may of the older travelers that the mail stage would travel no further northward before spring. After days of search for a good team for sale, my uncle bought a stout pair of horses, an emigrant wagon, buffalo robes, and provided with a compass, a large sack of crackers and some dried beef, the best provisions for emer- gencies of hunger which the town afforded, we set forth, soon to leave the 'settlements' behind and to pass through a wilderness country made still more desolate by the 'Black Hawk War.'
"Stopping places become more infrequent, till for the latter days of the dreary way they were forty miles apart, the blackened . ruins of cabins now and then marking the deserted 'claims.' ( I do not know of a cabin on the trail burned in 1832 by the Indians; some other cause must have contributed. Editor.) Roads, more properly called 'trails' by the inhabitants, long unused and either overgrown by prairie grass or burned over by autumnal fires, were difficult to follow. Late in the afternoon of Dec. 13, our wagon halted before a little cabin known as 'Daddy Joe's.' Daddy Joe had espied us from afar, and awaited our approach leaning upon the rail fence, smoking a cob pipe, his rotund figure topped off by a well ventilated straw hat. His son, vet a lad, occupied a post of observation upon a 'top rail,' his head also sheltered from the wintry winds by a similar structure.
" 'Winnebago Inlet,' known to early settlers as a slough of despond, lay between us and Dixon's Ferry, our haven of rest for the coming night, and my uncle asked directions to a safe crossing from Daddy Joe. His advice given between long puffs of his pipe was that we should go no further that 'evening.' He kindly offered shelter, food and his son as guide in the morning, as he was sure we could not 'make the ford' before dark. ITis assertion that the old ford was impassable and that the trail to the new was too blind to folks after night, was assuring, but anxious to push on, my uncle urged the tired horses to a lively pace. The result proved Daddy Joe the wiser man. The winter dusk came on all too early, the 'old trail,' too easily mistaken for the new, and in the uncertain twi- light, the horses plunged down the steep, slippery bank into the black abyss of the 'old ford.' The poor beasts floundered breast
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deep in the iey mush, till just beyond midstream they could go no further. The wagon settled to its bed and the three feminine occu- pants climbed upon the trunks in the rear end, there to perch for several hours. By desperate struggles an occasional jerk brought ns a few inches forward, after each one the wagon again settling into miry bed. Thus after several hours of exhausting effort the two men were able to leap to the shore from the backs of the horses, bye and bye to land the stronger horse and with his help to pull out his fellow, now hardly able to stand alone. Then one by one, we were helped along the tongue of the wagon to terra firma. My aunt, exhausted by fatigue and fright, was lifted to the back of the better horse with a buffalo robe as saddle, her husband leading the horse. Mr. Hull followed coaxing along the other, Miss Pierce and myself bringing up the rear. We started by the light of the new risen moon along the trail in 'Indian file' for a walk of three miles to ' Dixon's Ferry.'
"I recall distinctly the feelings with which I trudged on in the deep silence of midnight under the glistening stars over the bound- less prairie. The weary march ended at last, twinkling lights greeted our eager eyes and as we quickened our pace the moon- beams revealed a most picturesque, though somewhat startling scene. White tents gleamed and in every direction smouldering campfires showed dusky, blanketed forms crouching or lying prone around them while a few men in army uniform bearing lanterns moved abont with alert step and keen eye. We halted at once, the ladies greatly alarmed. but the watchers had noted approaching hoof beats and hurried to reassure us. explaining that several thonsand Indians were there encamped, for the final settlement of ammities and other matters included in their recent treaty with the Goverment. A moment later we were made welcome to the warmth and comfort of her neat cabin by Mrs. Dixon, who hastened to make ready a hot. relishing supper. a royal feast to our famish- ing appetites.
"Our kind hostess gave up her own soft bed by the cheerful hearth fire to the ladies, theking me singly away at the foot to a dreamless sleep, finding a resting place somewhere among her many guests for my uncle and Mr. Hall.
"In the gray of the early dawn, Mr. Dixon and his stalwart sons started out with oxen, chains and poles to resene the aban- doued prairie schooner from the Inlet Slough, returning with it in trimphal procession a few hours later. Meanwhile, some one had taken me out into the `great font' among the warrior chiefs,
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adorned with paint and feathers and earrings, and gorgeous in all the new toggery obtained from the agents. As we passed around the circle, a painted chief caught me up in his arms, seating me on his knee, admired and patted my red cheeks, calling me 'brave squaw, brave squaw,' because I did not turn pale and run away in fear. All preparations for a fresh start were soon completed, and we made haste to leave Lee county soil-at least so much of it as we were not compelled to carry away upon our belongings. But getting away proved no easy matter. The horses had not been con- sulted. Once at the river's brink our troubles began anew. The ferry was a rope ferry, the boat a flat boat 'poled' across the swift flowing river. The quivering horses, terrified at sight of the water, refused to enter the boat. After long and vain urging they finally made a wild plunge forward which sent the boat spinning from the shore as they sprang upon the boat, dragging the fore wheels of the wagon with them, the hind wheels dropping into the river, almost tossing us into the stream. Instantly, Mr. Hall was in the shallow water with his shoulder to the wheel, and somehow, between the efforts of the men and horses the whole wagon was got on board. After a halt upon the shore for advice and thanks to our friends, and a changing of the soaked garments for dry ones by the chilled men, their dripping raiment fluttering from various points of the wagon cover, our long ride to the lead mines was again resumed."
The old trail from Peoria to Galena became the most famous trail in the country. Northward a constant stream poured in the spring to make money from the lead mines. In the fall the same stream flowed backward. This movement so like that of the fish called sucker, gave the name Sucker to the people of Illinois and ever since it has clung to them.
It is known quite generally that Ogee was an intemperate man. It is known that he married a Pottawatomie woman because at the treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1829, his wife, Madeline, was given a section of ground in Wyoming township, Lee county ; but for what services, I cannot tell. The treaty simply recites, "To Made- line, a Pottawatomie woman, wife of Joseph Ogee, one section west of and adjoining the tract herein granted to Pierre 'Leclerc,' at the Paw-paw Grove." Ogee did a famous business. For some reason or another, possibly because he had not complied with the law governing ferries, Ogee took out a license from Jo Daviess county, Dec. 7. 1829. Possibly it was because a postoffice was about to be established at this point. In the year 1829 any way a postoffice Vol. 1-3
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designated "Ogee's Ferry" was established and a Mr. Gay was made postmaster.
From the American State Papers-Post Offices, I made the discovery that the receipts for the first year of Ogee's Ferry as a postoffice, ending March 31, 1830, were $4.64, while from Galena they were the largest in the state, $824.54; over at Elkhorn they were 48 cents; at Peoria, $58.82; New Salem, Lincoln's old home, $4.16, and Chicago, nothing.
Ogee's habits became so lax that rather than see the ferry lose its prestige, Mr. Dixon took it off his hands and on April 11, 1830, he moved his family, consisting of himself, Mrs. Dixon and their five children, to this spot. On Sept. 29, 1830, he was commissioned postmaster of "Dixon's Ferry," the new name of the place. As such postmaster, he continued until the year 1837.
As soon as Father Dixon obtained the ferry, a new order was introduced ; a rope ferry was substituted for the Ogee method of "poling."
Travel increased along the trail and the fact that it became known generally that John Dixon was the only man between Peoria and Galena who had money, settlers were drawn here, expecting to get work enough from him to pay living expenses while they were getting their claims cultivated.
This log house was store and tavern combined and many a famous man has tarried with Father Dixon. Up and down and down and up, Father Dixon fed and lodged them and Father Dixon loaned those old argonauts money. He traded with the Indians and out of their affectionate regard for him they named him Na-chu-sa ( Head-hair-white). Some have tortured the name into Nadah-Churah-Sah. Perhaps that was the correct version and perhaps their explanation is true that the Indian habit of abbreviation made it sound Na-chu-sa: the last named is the pro- mmeiation that has come to us by no less an authority than John Dixon himself.
With Mr. Dixon's settlement here, Ogee Joitered about the ferry until about 1839. Not very long before Father Dixon bought the ferry from him, his wife, angered at his worthlessness, threatened to leave him. Quarrels became the rule rather than the exception, and one day without ceremony, Mrs. Ogee trailed off under the knowledge and the certain belief that being rich in her own right, she would not have long to wait before her hand was sought in marriage, and sure enough it was. Madeline was a wise lady for an Indian. A man named Job Alcott living near the present
2
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village of Paw Paw married her and together, man and wife removed to the West with the tribe of Pottawatomies.
As the records of Lee county show at this time, the land was sold to David A. Town, of Paw Paw, the first settler. The sale was effected by the execution of two deeds ; but as the descriptions were rather vague, a third deed was executed with something like accuracy.
From an inspection of the treaty of Prairie du Chien, one would believe that the grant to Madeline Ogee was in fee simple, but I am told by the Secretary of War that in all cases, the consent of the Government was required to alienate a piece of land and that in the case of Mrs. Alcott, the Government gave that consent to all three transfers.
More than likely some doubting reader may inquire when and where Madeline got her divorce before taking on a bigamons Inis- band. Alas! Madeline, charming widow that she was-not-took Mr. Alcott for better or for worse without asking consent of any of the courts. A divorce proceeding was quite unknown and superfluous. Alcott proposed and she took him before he could escape.
From the execution of the last deed, all trace of the Alcotts and Ogee vanished. Ogee's disappearance was the beginning of the end ; the passing of the red man from our land. In the year 1835, the year of the great migration westward, the last of the Winne- bagoes were taken west to their new reservation. While they remained they traded with Mr. Dixon ; they trusted him implicitly and they carried his fame for honesty so far into neighboring tribes that while other whites were molested and robbed and others were murdered, the family of Mr. Dixon never was disturbed.
During the presence of Black Hawk, in advance of the troops, he ate at Mr. Dixon's table and Mrs. Dixon waited upon him. For this notable service Mrs. Dixon had his affectionate regard.
In another place I have told of the old account books still owned by Mr. Henry S. Dixon, which Mr. Dixon kept with the Indians, but I did not include one entry which of itself should be selected as the brightest piece of himor ever written about Dixon. The entry is this: "Col. Z. Taylor, To Mdse., including shirt pat- tern, $6.50."
And then follows the story of its liquidation: "Settled by note."
Col. William S. Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton, traveled that famous old trail and stopped many a time with Father Dixon,
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and many an item may be found charged against him for mer- chandise and money borrowed.
Winfield Scott, a candidate for President and the general of all the armies, when he came out to relieve Atkinson, stopped with Father Dixon and he bought goods too. But the entries show that he was a cash customer.
But those acquaintances and those credits, like the one to Taylor, had their influence. When in 1840 John Dixon went to Washington to secure the removal of the United States land office from Galena to Dixon, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott made it their busi- ness to assist him with the result that in 1840 the land office was ordered removed to Dixon and in 1840 it was removed.
While in 1834 the importance of this trail was diminished and the Peru and Peoria shipping and trading points lost in influence to the rising young city of Chicago, Dixon became a center of larger influence by reason of the establishment in that year of the mail route by the Government from Galena through Dixon to Chicago, and with that year, the history of Lee county may be said to begin.
Stations in Lee county were established at Inlet, Melugin's Grove and Paw Paw, though for a considerable period East Paw Paw maintained a higher degree of importance, than its Lee county namesake. It seems remarkable that notwithstanding the selec- tion of a north and south route through Lee county and its use for many years by a constant stream of travel, few stopped by the wayside to settle in Lee county. The tide of immigration which began in 1835, came almost entirely from the east along the Dixon mail and stage road which traversed the county diagonally from the southeast to the northwest and while the Peoria trail is but a memory and is an utter stranger to the maps of today, yet the old Dixon-Chicago trail today is almost identical with the old 1834 route from Dixon, clear through to Chicago. After the settlement of the Dixons here, Mr. John K. Robison was about the first to follow. Listening to the rumors of Mr. Dixon's money, he followed in 1833 and obtained employment teaching Mr. Dixon's children and some others from Buffalo Grove. He used the old Dixon man- sion for his school room ; thus the mansion became the first tavern, the first store and the first school in Dixon and in Lee county. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Robison moved to Melugin's Grove, mar- ried a daughter of Zachariah Melugin and lived there practically all the rest of his life.
Some few variations were attempted in the route when settle- ments came into importance as they did with great rapidity ; but
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with the exception of a change to take in Aurora when that place had reached a prominent position in the census reports, little or no change ever was made in the famous old Chicago road.
On March 2, 1839, the change was made to Aurora. The road was to begin on the west bank of Fox river at or near a house built by Harvey Bristol, occupied by Horace Town, then west to strike the Dixon's Ferry road. Such was the language of the act of the Legislature which authorized the change. Roadmaking at that time occupied the public mind quite as much as it does today while we are talking about the Lincoln Highway and other great road schemes. On the same day mentioned above, the Legislature authorized the laying out of a road from Dixon's Ferry to Linder, Union Grove and thence on to Fulton City. Dixon was a center, it will be observed! On the same day all roads established as county roads were declared to be state roads and thereafter every Legis- lature dealt with the subject of roads with greater frequency than any other subject.
On March 2, 1837, an act was passed by the Legislature to view and lay out a road from Princeton in "Putnam" county, to inter- sect the state road leading from Chicago to Dixon's Ferry in Ogle county. And this road actually was laid out and it became the thoroughfare from Princeton to Chicago. By the laving out of that road, Mr. George E. Haskell, the Inlet merchant, secured a large volume of trade at his Inlet store. Only a few days ago Mrs. Haskell told me that her husband's trade was largely from the country over in the direction of Princeton and that it was her custom always to put up the customer for the night, feed him and his team and send him back with the best of opinions of Mr. Has- kell and his generosity.
The commissioners to lay out that Princeton branch of the Chicago road, were men who subsequently secured national fame. Their names were Charles Bryant, Joseph Knox, and John Kim- ball.
As I have mentioned before, the road designed to run from Lewiston to Galena never reached the period of infancy. It died in childbirth. But the road from Beardstown to Galena by way of Prophetstown, Savanna, Plum river on the north and Hen- derson, Knoxville, Rushville on the south, came near rivaling Kellogg's and Boles' trails out of existence. Father Dixon had more to do with the ultimate extinction of the Beardstown road than any other influence. He put it out of commission just as he put the Galena land office out of commission, and Dixon's Ferry
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was saved. The road was so important in the eyes of the Legis- lature, that five commissioners were appointed to lay it out : A. M. Seymour, of Henry county ; Asa Cook, of Whiteside county ; Israel Mitchell, of Jo Daviess county; Russel Tanerey, of Schuyler county, and G. A. Charles of Knox county. The intention of the act was to create a great state road.
One reason why many of the contemplated north and south roads were failures, was the lack of bridges of any character by which to cross the low ground which lay from Lee county clear over to the Mississippi river.
On the Peoria road through Lee county, the distance over marshy ground was made trifling by reason of the narrowness of the strip which laid between Inlet and Winnebago swamps (all then called Winnebago swamp). That at times was very bad, but efforts were made early to afford the traveler a passage over, sometimes perilous. but nevertheless certain. The older method already has been recited by the Lee Center lady.
On Feb. 19, 1839, Henry W. Cleaveland, obtained an act of the Legislature, by which he was granted the privilege of building a bridge across the Winnebago swamp, and this bridge and its neces- sary causeway were to be finished by a certain date in 1840. Like every other venture authorized in those days it was not finished on time and Cleaveland had his franchise extended on Feb. 26, 1841, to Dee. 1, 1841, in which to finish his bridge and causeway.
The causeway was to be raised at least three feet above the sur- face of adjacent ground and was to extend north of south of the bridge across Green river so as to embrace all the wet ground. It was to be made of good timber, and was to be covered with earth. Furthermore, the bridge need not be more than fifteen feet wide.
Mr. Cleaveland dallied until Feb. 3, 1843, when a supplement- ary aet was passed amending the original act so that "it shall not be so construed as to compel the said Cleaveland, his associates, ete., to use timber or stone in the erection of the causeway across Winnebago swamp only at such place or places where it is abso- lutely necessary.
"Section 2. Said Cleaveland may procure one disinterested householder of Lee county to examine the bridge and canseway ; the comty commissioners another and the two so chosen to select a third and if they think the bridge and causeway are completed according to law and this explanation, they shall file an affidavit thereof in the office of the clerk, which shall be satisfactory evidence until contrary appears." That ended Cleaveland's legislation.
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The road was made of dirt and timbers, but many times the dirt left the logs beneath and then all the tortures of travel on a cordu- roy road were endured.
In another part of this book, (May town,) there has been written a faithful and very interesting story about this noted old causeway and its history, good and bad. It tells of the old toll house and tavern, so lonesome that flies and mosquitoes fled when they chanced that way. The murders too are told minutely.
The old Galena, Dixon, Chicago road, which became the ulti- mate stage road and state road, was surveyed by Capt. Joseph Naper of Naperville in 1833. The first stage coach on this stage- mail route to leave Dixon, started eastward Jan. 1, 1834.
On Jan. 12, 1836, John Boles and James L. Kirkpatrick were, by enactment, permitted to build a toll bridge over "Fever river, at or near a place in Galena, called Meeker's furnace and at the termi- nation of the state road."
On Feb. 10, 1835. a bill was approved which authorized the laying out of a state road from Chicago to Galena, crossing Rock river at the residence of John Phelps (Oregon). And the road. passing through Sycamore and St. Charles, was surveyed duly, and used for many years, under the provisions of an act approved March 4, 1837.
On the same Feb. 10th, the aet was approved authorizing the survey of the road from "the Paw Paw Grove, on the road lead- ing from Chicago to Dixon's Ferry, running from said grove by the groves on the headwaters of Burean river, to the settlements at Dimick's Grove, on said stream, and from thence to Princeton, so as best to accommodate the inhabitants between those points, and from Princeton, on the shortest and best route to the county seat of Rock Island county." The reader will find this road mentioned many times in the history of Sublette, through which township it passed. But evidently, either the route was unsatisfactory or some hitch halted it until Feb. 24, 1843, when another act authorized Commissioners William Hoskins, Robert E. Thompson and Enos Smith of Bureau county to view, survey, mark, locate and establish a state road from Princeton, via Dover and LaMoille to the inter- section of the state road leading from Paw Paw to Princeton.
I am convinced the road had been built already and that this act, but changed it somewhat, because in the title, the word re-view is used.
Among other measures put through various Legislatures to amend old roads and make new ones, was one passed Jan. 14, 1836,
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to straighten out the road from Peoria to Dixon, and James Wilson of Tazewell county, Henry Thomas of Putnam county and Simon Reed of Peoria county, were appointed commissioners "to view, survey, mark and locate a state road, to commence at the court- house in Peoria, running thence by the most direct route to Rock river, to strike the same at a point on the first rapids below Dixon's Ferry ; thence by the most direct route to Galena."
For this work, which by the way never was done, the commis- sioners were to be paid $2 per day, which, with the surveyors and chaimen's fees were to be paid by William Kirkpatrick of Rock river. In consideration therefor, said Kirkpatrick was to be per- mitted to build a toll bridge across the Winnebago swamp, at the place where said road crossed the swamp. The bill was passed to help Kirkpatrick and for no other purpose, and like so many otliers, failed.
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