USA > Illinois > Stephenson County > History of Stephenson County, Illinois : a record of its settlement, organization, and three-quarters of a century of progress > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72
28
HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY
TRENTON LIMESTONES.
The Trenton limestones are the Galena, the Blue (Trenton proper) and the Buff limestones. All three of the Trentons outcrop in Stephenson County. The Galena, the upper division, is essentially a coarse grained granular, crystalline, porous dolomite which weathers into exceedingly rough, pitted, irregular forms. It is the underlying rock of about 3/4 of Stephenson County. It is found beneath the Cincinnati limestones at Waddams and Eleroy. Quarries and lime kilns have been operated near Lena. A heavy section of Galena is found in Freeport, in the northwest corner of the city near the Illinois Central Railroads. Three ex- tensive quarries have been worked, which have furnished material for lime and building purposes. The top layers are soft and crumble in the hand. The quar- ries are shaly towards the top but grow massive and solid as they are worked into. These quarries are worked 30 ft. or more. Three miles southwest of Freeport, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad cuts through Galena. Three miles northwest of Freeport is a similar cut. A mile to the west is another Galena cut, 1,000 feet long and 24 feet deep. Here the rock is covered by ten feet of the usual gravelly clay. About a mile west of Rock City, is another cut, 350 yards long and at the deepest point, 15 feet into the solid stone. Here the rock is hard, glassy and conchoidal in Fracture and approaches the Blue or Trenton proper. One-half mile further on and near Rock City is a 12 foot cut through the real Blue limestone. East of Dakota at the railroad bridge is a 24 foot cut through Galena, and Blue limestones. Here may be seen the Yellow Galena, passing into the Blue. One-fourth of a mile east of Davis is cut through Galena, 1,000 feet long and 31 feet deep, 24 feet of which is solid limestone, slightly bluish and conchoidal in fracture.
The Pecatonica River after about five miles from the Wisconsin line, cuts into the Galena limestone. At McConnell an outcrop has been worked. Rich- land and Cedar Creeks expose the Galena their entire lengths, at many points heavy outcrops and escapements stand out in bold relief. At Cedarville the out- crop is 75 feet thick. A large quarry opened here furnished the stone for Adam's milldam. There is a twenty foot quarry at Buena Vista. There are expostures and quarries also at Scioto Mills. Crane's Creek, at the west end of Crane's Grove, cuts into the Galena.
An interesting outcrop of Galena is observed near Burroak Grove, half way between Lena and Winslow. Several small quarries have been opened on the hill tops west of the grove. Southeast of Rock City a 24 foot exposure is operated. There are outcroppings in Ridott and Oneco townships. Stephenson County, be- tween the Pecatonica River and Yellow Creek, except a small strip east and south of Winslow, and the Niagara at Waddams, the Cincinnati at Eleroy, Kent and along the banks of Yellow Creek, is underlaid by Galena limestone. The south- eastern part of the county, nearly up to the Pecatonica and almost to the Illinois Central, is also underlaid by Galena, with the exception of a strip along the southeastern corner and a few points in the eastern part of Silver Creek town- ship. Galena limestone fossils found in the county are, Receptaculites Oweni ; Receptaculites orbicularis ; Nurchisonia; Orthocera; Orthis; Pleurotomania ; Bellerophon and Ambonychia.
29
HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY
BLUE LIMESTONE.
The Blue limestone, the middle division of the Trenton group, is not found extensively in Stephenson County as surface rock. Rock run cuts into Blue lime- stone soon after entering the county and along its banks until within a mile or two of its mouth shows Blue outcroppings. Some of the rocky banks are over- capped with Galena. At the Milwaukee railroad bridge over Rock run the Blue is thirty-nine feet thick. The lower part is very blue. One and a half miles below is a quarry opened in a 25 foot cut.
BUFF LIMESTONE.
The only place in the county where Buff limestone is the underlying rock is about Winslow. The outcrop is heavier at Martin's Mill in Wisconsin. The Winslow quarry is about 30 feet deep and the one at Martin's Mill is 38 feet. On either side of this strip are the outcroppings of Galena. The fossils are Pleurotomania subconica ; a large Orthoceras, five or six inches in diameter, and some six feet long; a Cypricardites ; Oncoceras pandion; two species of Telli- nomya, and a few others.
ST. PETER'S SANDSTONE.
This is a soft, white sandstone, at places over 200 feet thick. It is found below the buff of the Trenton series. It is 134 feet below the surface at the Freeport Water Company's plant, 168 feet below at Cedarville and comes to the surface near Winslow. It outcrops largely in Wisconsin and also in LaSalle County, Ill., where it is used as a glass sand.
ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY.
The chief economic value of the geological formations of Stephenson County is in the agricultural resources of the soil. Next in value, probably, is the water supply in the drift, the Galena limestone and St. Peter's sandstone. Certain portions of the Galena, Blue and Buff limestones have been successfully burned into lime of fair quality. The reddish clays over the Galena limestones make excellent red brick. A tough, tenacious fireclay which underlies the peat marshes has been made into a light colored brick, but this industry has not been developed.
BUILDING STONE.
The Niagara is quarried in several places and is a handsome colored, endur- ing, building material. But it is of irregular stratification which makes it un- shapely and unmanageable. Barn foundations, houses and bridge abutments are made from quarries from Cincinnati rock about Eleroy and Kent. Some of the lower strata are massive and very hard. 1
Galena limestone is a good material for the heavier kinds of masonry. When dressed and well laid, it seasons into great hardness. Almost all the stone work
30
HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY
in Freeport is of Galena from the Freeport quarries. It is used extensively in foundations. Several store buildings are built of it. The best example of Ga- lena and probably the most imposing architecture in Freeport is the First Pres- byterian church at the corner of Stephenson and Walnut Streets. The Blue and the Buff afford as good building stone as is to be found in this part of Illinois, but are not used extensively because of the vast amount of useless surface ma- terials to be removed.
The day will come, no doubt, when the greatest value of Stephenson County stone will be in road-building. Crushed stone has been used extensively in mak- ing the bed for brick streets and in making macadam streets in Freeport. Out- croppings of stone are well distributed over the county and in this way nature has provided a means for making permanent hard roads.
MINERALS.
.
There is but little mineral wealth to be found in Stephenson County. A little bog-iron ore is to be found in the swamps. Small pieces of float copper have been found in the drift, having been carried down from the Lake Superior region by the ice sheets. Small quantities of common lead ore have been taken from the ground. Considerable prospecting has developed the fact that lead mining is not a profitable business in the county because there is no lead. Years ago a lead crevice was developed without success near the mouth of Yellow Creek. Pieces as large as the fist have been taken out of quarries near Lena, A Freeport company secured several hundred pounds in Oneco township thirty years ago.
PEAT.
Peat is a more or less compact mass of vegatable matter formed in swamps It is an early stage of coal formation. In Township 26, range 9, a bed of 50 acres was found by Shaw. It was 3 to 6 feet deep and underlaid by fire clay. Almost every swamp south of Yellow Creek has some peat formations. Small beds have been found about Lena and Ridott. The best peat bed is in the town- ship of Florence, between section 25 and 26. It is 40 rods wide and over 100 rods long, and contains about 50 acres. It is from 6 to 9 feet deep. Peat may be used as fuel and as fertilizer. When mixed with ashes or lime, it becomes a good fertilizer. If peat compressing machinery is perfected, these beds may be profitably developed.
A machine has been invented which presses 50 tons of peat a day. Recent experiments show that where peat contains over 1% of nitrogen, the value of ammonia as a by-product will more than pay the expense of extracting the gas, leaving the latter as clear profit. Prof. Fernald of the Geological Survey found that Europe uses ten million tons of peat annually as fuel. In Sweden, power plants are located in the peat bogs, and electric current transferred to the cities. Prof. Dans, also of the United Geological Survey, says "The day is near at hand when American cities away from the coal fields and near peat bogs, will obtain their power and light from peat." Work has already begun
-
31
HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY
in Florida on a plant for generating electric power by producer-gas engines, using air dried peat as a fuel. The value of peat in the United States is estimated at $39,000,000,000. Peat also makes incomparable coke, being nearly free from phosphorus and sulphur. It is of utmost value in metallurgical reductions- iron-smelting, steel making and copper refining. Peat by-products are illuminat- ing and lubricating oils, paraffin wax, phenol, asphalt, wood alcohol, acetic acid, ammonia sulphate, and combustible gases. In Europe, great quantities of fibrous peat are used in bedding live stock. It is superior to straw and an Indiana fac- tory is now making a product of this kind that sells for $12.00 a ton. In Michigan, paper is made from peat; in Germany it is used for packing, insula- tion, etc., and in Norway is made into ethyl alcohol.
THE BLACK HAWK WAR.
The Black Hawk War was an inevitable conflict between the advancing tide of American civilization and a quarrelsome band of Indians. The Sacs and the Foxes had been inependent tribes in Canada near Montreal. Both tribes were troublesome and like other American Indians they drifted westward before the onward moving wave of frontier settlement. In Wisconsin the remnants of Sacs and Foxes united to form a confederation. As a confederacy, they became in- volved in frequent wars with their neighbors. They moved southward and lo- cated finally in the valley of the Rock River, with headquarters near the present site of Rock Island.
At the close of the Revolutionary War, the settlers from the Thirteen Colonies pushed their way over the Appalachian Mountains and out into the great Mis- sissippi Valley. The Ordinance of 1787 provided civil government for the Northwest Territory and Illinois was admitted as a state in 1818. The northern part of the state received many new settlers after the war of 1812. Small bands of Indians had occupied almost every part of the state. The United States government had bought up the claims of these Indians and had moved most of them west of the Mississippi.
The Indian lands were then open to settlement and as the scattered outposts of hardy pioneers pushed farther north and west the inevitable conflict between the Rock River Indians and the people of Illinois became evident. The valley of the Rock River and its tributaries had long been the undisputed hunting ground of the confederacy of the Sacs and the Foxes. Part of this country was occupied by the Winnebagoes, the Kickapoos, and other small tribes, all of whom were subordinate to the power of the Sacs and Foxes. Following the beautiful val- leys of the Rock, the Pecatonica, and the Wisconsin, roamed unmolested, the hunting parties of Indians in free enjoyment of the wild life of the savage. Here and there in favored fertile spots, the squaws planted their corn and In- dian villages prospered. Occasionally, bands of braves in war paint and feathers went out to make war on the Sioux, the Iowas, the Osages, or the Cherokees. Too often murderous bands, many times inspired by British agents, went on long journeys to the south and east, robbing and killing among the defenseless outlying settlements. Traders, trappers and adventurers had brought the Sacs and the Foxes and the Winnebagoes in touch with the skirmish line of advanc-
32
HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY
ing settlements. But the Indian had come to regard the country as his own. Annually the chiefs and braves went over the old "Sauk" trail which ran from Rock Island through Joliet, to Malden, to meet the British father from whom they received gifts and gold. But the white man crossed the trail of the surly Indian when settlements were made at Galena, and around Ottawa and Joliet. Frontier difficulties soon arose that ended only with the final defeat of Black Hawk, August 2, 1832.
The lead mines proved to be the magnet that drew the rapid advance of the frontier line to the Rock River. The Indians had already found the lead, and in a rude way, the squaws had worked the mines. In 1819, the first white settle- ment was made at Galena. Others came in 1820 and soon adventurers poured into the lead regions from all quarters of the world. Some came up the Mis- sissippi River and some overland from Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, via Vincennes and Peoria, through the unbroken wilderness. The increasing overland travel caused O. W. Kellog to break a trail from Peoria to Galena in the spring of 1827. "Kellog's" trail crossed the Rock River at Dixon, passed near Polo, Ogle County, through "Kellog's Grove" now "Timms Grove," Erin Township, Stephenson County, then by way of Apple River Fort to Galena.
In 1828, Joseph Ogee established a ferry at Dixon and this same year, John Dixon made a contract with the United States government to carry the mail from Peoria to Galena. In 1830, Dixon bought the ferry from Ogee, built a house and moved his family to Dixon. He conducted the ferry, a store and a hotel.
Along Kellog's trail came two classes of settlers into northwestern Illinois: the soldiers from the Eastern States, released by the close of the War of 1812; and the men from North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. They came with their families to found permanent homes. They were schooled in the hard- ships and dangers of the camp and the frontier, and were not likely to be over- patient with Indians who crossed their purposes. Only the brave and the hardy dared the perils of pioneer travel and frontier life. In 1829, many settlers occu- pied the fertile plains about the mouth of Rock River. President Jackson ordered a government survey which included Black Hawk's village and fields. A proclamation was issued opening these lands to settlement. Frequent quar- rels across between the settlers and the Indians and each in turn devastated the fields of the other.
In April, 1830, a petition signed by thirty-seven settlers was sent to Gov- ernor John Reynolds, asking protection from the Indians. Governor Reynolds took up the matter with William Clark, the Federal Indian superintendent at St. Louis, and with General Gaines, and the Indian agent at Rock Island, Felix St. Vrain. These officials testified that every effort had been made to persuade the Indians to move across the Mississippi into Iowa. Most of the Indian chiefs including Keokuk, Wapello, head chief of the Foxes and Pash-e-pa-ho, of the Sacs, had agreed to abandon the Rock River lands peaceably. They also re- ported that the opposition arose from a brave, called Black Hawk, who had much influence with the quarrelsome element among the Sacs and Foxes. At a conference with General Gaines at Rock Island, Keokuk, Wapello and other
.
BLACK HAWK
INDIANS ATTACKING A STOCKADE
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
33
HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY
chiefs advised Black Hawk to move into Iowa and to avoid trouble with the whites. But because of his hatred for the Americans and his jealousy of Keokuk, the warning fell on deaf ears. When General Gaines asked at that conference, "Who is Black Hawk?" the old Indian replied: "I will tell you who I am. I am a Sac. I am a warrior. Ask those young men who have followed me to battle, and they will tell you who Black Hawk is; provoke our people to war and. . you will learn who Black Hawk is." So, on April 6, 1832, Black Hawk, with five hundred braves with their women and children, crossed the Mississippi and took possession of their old hunting grounds and cornfields along the banks of Rock River in Illinois. Black Hawk said they had come to plant corn. That meant war, and the Americans were to know who Black Hawk was. The gaunt- let was thrown down to people sure to take it up.
Black Hawk, or Ma-ka-tai-she-kia-kiak, was now sixty-five years old. He was born in a Sac village on the Rock River, three miles from the Mississippi. His father, Py-e-sa, was the medicine man of the tribe. Black Hawk was five feet, eleven inches tall and weighed one hundred and forty pounds. His features were marked by high cheek bones, a Roman nose, a sharp chin and black spark- ling eyes. He was a typical Indian fighter, skilled in strategy and magnetic in leadership of his braves. Even his severest critics admit that he was an excel- lent husband and father and that he was honest with his own people. But he was constitutionally an "Insurgent." He was ready to command and to lead, but he was loath to obey. Fretted by restraint and envious of chiefs above him, he was quarrelsome and a seeker of trouble. He was brave in battle but as an organizer, he fell far short of Phillip of Pokanoket, Pontiac or Tecumseh.
Little is known of Black Hawk's early life except what he tells in his auto- biography. He says he was permitted to wear paint and feathers at fifteen be- cause he wounded an enemy in battle. He always possessed a warlike spirit and was never so happy as when leading a band of young Indians to battle. At sixteen, he killed an Osage in battle and thereafter was permitted to join in the scalp dances of the braves. He led frequent expeditions against the Osages, the Cherokees, the Iowas, the Sioux, the Chippewas and the Kaskaskias, almost always returning with many scalps of his own taking, which seems to have been the sole object of many of his attacks.
From the Revolutionary War to 1803, Black Hawk's warlike tendencies were encouraged from two sources: from his Spanish father at St. Louis and from his British father at Malden. He received presents and money from both. From both he drank deep of the hatred of the Americans. When St. Louis passed to the Americans in 1803, Black Hawk was sorry because he would see his Spanish father no more. All this time along the extended frontier of the New Republic, British agents incited Indians to prey upon the American pioneers with scalping knife and rifle. Black Hawk earned his share of British gold in these murderous enterprises.
November 3d, 1804, under direction of President Jefferson, General William Henry Harrison met the chiefs of the Sacs and Foxes at St. Louis and made a treaty by which the confederacy ceded to the United States, all the Sac and Fox claims east of the Mississippi, amounting to over fifty million acres. In return the Indians were to receive lands in Iowa, $2,000.00 in supplies and a $1,000.00
34
HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY
annuity. Section 4 of the treaty binds the United States never to interrupt the Sacs and Foxes in their Iowa lands. The treaty was signed by William Henry Harrison; Layowvois, Pashepaho, the Stabber; Quashquame, the Jumping Fish ; Outchequaha, the Sun Fish; Hashequavhiqua, the Bear, in the presence of wit- nesses and interpreters. The United States had made a treaty of friendship with the Sacs and Foxes in 1789, and this treaty of 1804 seemed to be as fair a treaty as Indian tribes of that day could expect from Americans or any other nation. Besides, frequent hunting expeditions into Iowa had already proved that that country was better fishing and hunting land than Illinois. There was no general complaint against the treaty by the chiefs of the Sacs and Foxes.
But the surly Black Hawk did not recognize the treaty of 1804. He claimed that the chiefs were made drunk before they signed the treaty. He said the American, General William Henry Harrison, said one thing and put another thing on the paper. British agents were active at this period and, no doubt, did all in their power to foster Black Hawk's discontent and antagonism for the Americans. In 1810, over one hundred Sacs visited the British agent at Huron and returned with presents, stores, rifles, powder and lead. Acting on the ad- vice of the British, Black Hawk joined Tecumseh against General Harrison in 1811. On his return from the battle of Tippecanoe, Black Hawk attacked Fort Madison, on the Mississippi River below Rock Island. Failing to take the Fort by assault, he resorted to treachery and was foiled only by the exposure of the plot by a young woman who had formed an attachment for a soldier in the Fort.
During the War of 1812, after the surrender of Detroit by Hull, Black Hawk with two hundred braves joined the British against the Americans. He was as- signed as aid to Tecumseh. Evidently he did not relish general, open war on the battlefield, for he said then that he preferred to descend the Mississippi River and make war on the settlements. He soon found, to his sorrow, that the Americans could fight although the British had told him they would not. Be- cause the British met with poor success and because he received no "plunder," he returned to the Rock River in 1814, after the battle of the Thames, deserting in the night.
Black Hawk now satisfied his desire to slay by inciting and leading raids against defenseless frontiers. In 1814, he defeated Major Zachary Taylor and again defeated the Americans in the battle of the Sink Hole in 1815. At Black Hawk's instigation, defenseless men, women and children were murdered in their homes and their bodies horribly mutilated.
Word that General Andrew Jackson was organizing an army to move against the Sacs, brought the chiefs to terms in the Treaty Portage des Sioux in 1815. This treaty ratified the treaty of 1804. Twenty chiefs signed the treaty but Black Hawk again gave evidence of his intense bitterness toward the Americans by refusing to affix his mark. The next year, however, 1816, he signed the Treaty in St. Louis, thus ratifying the Treaty of Transfer of 1804. Later the wily old malcontent said he did not know the contents of the treaty he had signed and would not obey its terms. In 1820, he kept the British flag flying over his village. In 1822, 24 and 25, he signed other treaties all of which recog- nized the' Cession Treaty of 1804.
35
1
HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY
In 1831, Black Hawk crossed into Illinois. General Gaines and Governor Reynolds cooperated to defend the settlements. Volunteer companies were or- ganized and marched from Central Illinois to the Mississippi, near Rock Island. Black Hawk quickly came to terms and with twenty-seven chiefs and warriors representing the British band, some Kickapoos, Pottawattomies and Winne- bagoes, and the United Sacs and Fox Nations. In this treaty Black Hawk agreed to remain west of the Mississippi in lasting friendship with the United States. His women and children were destitute and General Gaines and Gov. Reynolds supplied them with provisions to last till the next harvest.
Soon after signing the treaty of June 30, 1831, Black Hawk again showed his perfidy. He began almost at once to attempt to organize an Indian Con- federacy to fight the whites. His emissaries, besides visiting nearby tribes, were sent to Canada and as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. One of his emissaries, Neapope, returning from Canada, stopped at the camp of the Prophet Wa-bo- ki-a-shiek, on Rock River, forty miles from its mouth. After going through his incantations, the prophet saw a vision and said "If Black Hawk makes war against the whites, he will be joined by the Great Spirit and by a great army of worldings, and will vanquish the whites." Thus was encouraged the spirit of resistance that would not die out in the old enemy of the advancing civilization.
Against the advice of the chiefs of both Sacs and the Foxes and in viola- tion of treaties of his own hand, Black Hawk determined to return to Illinois in the spring of 1832. But whatever dreams he may have had of being another Phillip of Pokanoket, or Pontiac, or Tecumseh, vanished. No tribes rallied about his standard. His failure as an organizer was followed by an ill-fated error in judgment. With a few hundred of his British band, he forced the issue against overwhelming odds and led his people to starvation, defeat and annihilation.
This was Black Hawk's record when, in 1832, he recrossed the Mississippi with his five hundred men, his women and children, and took possession of lands along the Rock River. By numerous treaties, the Sacs and Foxes had agreed to retire beyond the Mississippi. These tribes had taken up their lands in Iowa and for the most part had remained friends of the Americans. They had received $27,000.00 in supplies-Black Hawk never failing to take his share from the hated Americans. At this time, 1832, he was advised by his own chiefs not to go to war with the United States: He was not a chief, only a brave who was always able to rally to his standard the discontented warriors who were bent on plunder and murder. He was a chronic grumbler, a mercenary in the pay of the British, fought with Tecumseh at Tippecanoe, aided the British in the War of 1812, and was a free lance among the Sacs and Foxes whose hands were stained with the blood of many a defenseless frontier family. The war he chose to begin in 1832 was not a war by the confederated Sacs and Foxes, but a personal campaign by Black Hawk and his British band. Nor is it true that he was a patriot fighting for the possession of the villages, the hunting grounds and the burial places of his people; for he, himself, says he offered to give up the Illinois land for a $10,000.00 cash payment to himself-a cheap sort of pa- triotism. The history of the dealings of the United States government with this Indian, taken together with his own statement, leaves no ground for emotional
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.