USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 36
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From Vermilion street a little way south of the square, a trail led off southeast across lots . to the school-house. It was obscured by thick hazel bushes, whose branches interlocked overhead. The teachers and scholars (as Mr. Davis, Mr. Luddington, Mrs. Manning, Mrs. Russell and others have told the writer) would have to part the bushes in some places with their hands to effect a passage.
The temporary first school-house was burned up. A Mr. Henry Blunt had collected some two hundred venison hams and stored
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them in Haworth's smoke-house, where he was smoking and drying them, intending to ship them to New Orleans by flat-boat. Some of the mischievous men about the town (and they were all alike in that respect, and did not stop at carrying with a high hand if any fun was to be had out of the undertaking) amused Blunt at a neighbor- ing grocery one evening, while their confederates fired the building. The alarm was not given until the blaze was fairly under way, when Blunt and those keeping his company hurried over, too late to save the property. Blunt supposed, of course, that the fire was acci- dental, and had caught from the smudge with which he was curing his meat. Although his anticipated speculation was spoiled, yet venison half roasted or otherwise was quite cheap in Danville. The market was fairly glutted with it.
The next school-house was the one built by Amos Williams, on his own ground, and at his own expense, on the west side of Frank. lin street, just north of Leonard's planing-mill. This was fully twenty feet square, some twelve or fourteen feet high in the clear. and constructed out of logs hewn inside and out. It had a door and two windows fronting east, and was further lighted with a row of three or four 8X10 window lights in width, and extending nearly the length of the three other sides. The floor was made of sawed plank, matched and evenly laid. In winter time a stove occupied the center of the room. A double row of seats (one of which was in front, low down. next to the floor, and the other raised up like a gallery, some three or feet back of and above the first, with the wall behind and sloping desks in front) extended around three sides of the room, with openings cut near the middle of each row, and provided with steps, so the scholars could ascend to the higher plat- form. Here the "three months' school" was held for many years, and until a better system of education was adopted, and more pre- tentious buildings were constructed.
If the boys, -who for the most part ran wild in the streets, - should see a stranger coming into town dressed in gloss-worn breeches and a shabby-genteel coat, with the ancient rents neatly patched, and his other worldly effects tied up in a bandana handker- chief, and suspended at the end of a walking-stick over his shoulder, they would become alarmed. There was no mistaking the appear- ance and garb of the itinerant school-master, and if he could cipher as far as the rule-of-three his presence foretold that a "three-months school " would probably be taken up. Soon after this the " Street Arabs" might be seen gathered at the old school-house, the smaller ones, in tow-linen breeches, seated in a row upon the lower benches,
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their bare feet blackened and cracked open with seams from exposure to wind and weather. The larger boys were perched upon the seats above. Here the unruly were regularly thrashed through the rudi- ments, and were always in a state of semi-rebellion, while those, - and they were very few,- who were more submissive and well be- haved were allowed to do pretty much as they pleased, so far as get- ting their lessons well was concerned. There was little or no confidence or sympathy between teacher and scholar. As a rule, the former was brutal, and believed, as he practiced to the letter, the doctrine that "to spare the rod was to spoil the child," while the latter resented as they smarted under such inhuman treatment. Those who have survived this kind of an education can and do congratulate the chil- dren of to-day as they contrast the past with the present system of teaching. The "big girls " also occupied places upon the higher seats. A few of these " big girls,"-at least, they then seemed quite large to the writer,-are still living. Among them might be men- tioned the wives of Judge Davis, Hon. J. G. English, Dr. Woodbury and Mr. Manning. In another part of the work has been noted the progress made in the manner of conducting schools since the time when the children were emancipated from the tyranny of the "trav- eling school-master."
DAN W. BECKWITHI.
The name of this pioneer is so frequently referred to in connec- tion with the early settlers that the writer may here state that Dan W. Beckwith was born in 1795, in the present limits of Bedford county, Pennsylvania. His father was among the Connecticut set- lers, from New London, in the valley of the Wyoming, and his mother was a survivor of the Wyoming massacre, being a little girl at the time the Indians destroyed the inhabitants of the valley. Dan was one of a family of six brothers and two sisters. Three of his brothers lived in Vermilion county at an early day, viz: Jefferson H., called Hiram ; Norten, the doctor; Sebastian and George M. George and Dan left New York state, whither their father had emi- grated from Pennsylvania some years before, and reached Fort Har- rison as the so-called Harrison Purchase was being surveyed, in the summer of 1816. From Vigo county the two brothers went on to the North Arm prairie in 1818, and were living with Johnathan Mayo's family at the time Illinois was admitted as a state into the Union. From there they came to the salt works in the fall of the next year. George was a citizen of the county until 1834, when he opened a farm on the Kankakee, a mile below the mouth of Rock Creek,
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where he died some twenty years ago. Dan W. died at Danville in December, 1835. The writer has no personal recollection of him ; but from descriptions given by many citizens still living, the deceased was a man fully six feet two inches in height, broad, square shoul- dered and straight, spare of flesh, though muscular, and weighing when in health about a hundred and ninety pounds. He was, like his brother, an expert axman, and a pioneer, as his people for three generations back before him had been. His first mercantile venture was an armful of goods suitable for Indian barter, which he kept in a place partly excavated in a side of the hill at Denmark, as early, probably, as the year 1821. Subsequently he built a log hut on the brow of the hill, a little west of south of the Danville Seminary. His next store room was just west of the elm tree at the west end of Main street. He was county surveyor from the time of the organi- zation of the county until his death.
GURDON S. HUBBARD.
The writer deems it but just to refer to another early settler, whose name, like the last, is not found in the township histories. We allude to Col. Gurdon S. Hubbard. He is a native of Vermont. At the age of sixteen years he left Montreal, to come west and en- gage in business for the American Fur Company, whose headquarters were at Mackinaw. He reached Chicago some time in October, 1818, by way of the lakes, following the route of the great discov- erer La Salle. He crossed our county early the following year. The trading posts of the Illinois brigade of the American Fur Company were on the Iroquois, the Embarrass and Little Wabash. Mr. Hub- bard followed the Indians in their hunting rounds, and in this way acquired an early knowledge of all the country between the Wabash and Illinois Rivers, as far north as Chicago and as far south as Vin- cennes. In 1824 he succeeded Antonin Des Champs, who for nearly forty years before had charge of the company's trade between the Illinois and Wabash, and abandoned the posts on the Illinois, and introduced pack-horses in the place of boats, using the "Hubbard's trace," as his trail from Chicago to the salt works was called, to conduct the fur trade. In 1827 he abandoned the posts on the Em- barrass and Little Wabash, and shortly after constructed the first frame building - a store house - ever erected in Danville or the county. It is still standing on the south side of the public square, opposite Martin's block. This became the headquarters of the Indian fur trade in this part of the country. Among his clerks were Samuel Russell and William Bandy, both living. He had also with
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him three Frenchmen, viz: Noel Vassar, Nicholas Boilvin and Toussaint Bleau. Boilvin married a danghter of Dr. Woods, and Bleau a daughter of Dr. A. R. Palmer.
The Indians would file into town on their ponies, sometimes fifty or a hundred, with their furs, their squaws and pappooses, when trade at Hubbard's corner would be unusually lively for a few days. The Indians would camp on the bluff cast of Walnut street or farther down toward the railway bridge, where they would enjoy themselves and feast on bread made out of flour, and upon meat and other luxuries, for which they had exchanged their furs. Mr. Bandy re- lates many ludicrous incidents that occurred during his connection with Hubbard's trading house.
In 1832, the fur trade having declined on account of the scarcity of fur-bearing animals in, and the dispersion of the Indians from, this section of country, Col. Hubbard converted his stock into white goods, - as merchandise suitable for white people were called to distinguish them from the kind adapted to the Indian trade. During the same year he sold out his stock to Dr. Fithian, and in 1833 took up his permanent residence in Chicago, where he still lives, hale and genial as ever. The old records of the county, and the archives of early laws at Springfield, abundantly illustrate the activity and energy of this remarkable and public-spirited man. While a citizen of this county he was always foremost in every en- terprise calculated to develop the infant resources of the county, and he has retained the same commendable reputation at Chicago for now almost a half century. As canal commissioner he cast the first shovel of earth out of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Few hands have aided more than his in building up that great city ; and no man did more than he to give Vermilion county and Danville a start.
We will now again go back in point of time, as, for the sake of convenience and brevity, it is preferred in this chapter to treat mat- ters topically, rather than in chronological order, and note some troubles with the Indians, in which citizens of Vermilion county bore an honorable part. The first of these was in 1827, in the so-called " WINNEBAGO WAR," and the second in 1832, in the "BLACKHAWK WAR." The Winnebagoes, a tribe that occupied the country in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, between Green Bay and the Mississippi, became greatly outraged at indignities committed by some brutish, unprincipled white men in charge of two keel boats ascending the Mississippi river, near Prairie du Chien. We take the following extract from Ex-Governor "Reynolds' Life and
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Time ": The boatmen landed at a camp of Winnebagoes, not far above Prairie du Chien. The boatmen made the Indians drunk-and no doubt were so themselves, - when they captured some six or seven squaws, who were also drunk, These squaws were forced on the boats for the most corrupt and brutal purposes. But not satis- fied with this ontrage on female virtue. the boatmen took the squaws with them in the boats to Fort Snelling, and returned with them. When the Indians became sober, and realized the injury done them in this delicate point. they mustered all their forees. amounting to several hundred, and attacked the boats in which the squaws were confined. The boats were forced to approach near the shore in a narrow pass of the river, and thus the infuriated savages assailed one boat. and permitted the other to pass down during the night. It was a desperate and furious fight for a few minutes, between a good many Indians, exposed in open canoes, and only a few boatmen, protected to some extent by their boat. The savages killed several white men and wounded many more. leaving barely enough to navi- gate the boat. The boat got fast on the ground, and the whites seemed doomed ; but with great exertion, courage and hard fighting the Indians were repelled. In the battle the squaws escaped to their husbands, and. no doubt, the whites did not try to prevent it. Thus commenced and ended the bloodshed of the "Winnebago war." Blood had been shed, and, as a consequence, every Winnebago be- came the enemy of every white person. War parties were fitted out, who attacked, indiscriminately, every white person within their reach. One of these parties, led by the distinguished "Red Bird," killed and sealped two men and a child, and the inhabitants within the territory above described became at once greatly alarmed. The Pottawatomies about Chicago and westward of there sympathized with the Winnebagoes, and were upon the eve of openly joining them. The federal government ordered a movement of troops under Gen. Atkinson, while Gov. Edwards, of Illinois, ordered out a regi- ment, with instruction for them to march to Galena. It was while these movements were being matured and executed that the inhab- itants at Fort Dearborn became greatly distressed over their threat- ened destruction, and dispatched Col. Hubbard to Vermilion county for troops. Col. Hubbard left Chicago in the afternoon, and reached his trading-post, on the Iroquois, that night in the rain. He pushed on to Sugar Creek. which he found swollen beyond its banks, which obliged him to wait until daylight. The same day he reached Spen- cer's, two miles south of Danville, from whence runners were dis-
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patched to the settlements on the little Vermilion. Here follows the narrative of H. Cunmingham.
HEZEKIAH CUNNINGHAM'S NARRATIVE RELATING TO THE WINNEBAGO WAR.
Here follows the narrative of Mr. Cunningham : I was out in the Winnebago war. Myself, Joshua Parish, now living at Georgetown, Abel Williams, living near Dallas, and almost ninety years old, and Gurdon S. Hubbard, of Chicago, are the only survivors, according to the best of my present information.
In the night-time, about the 15th or 20th of July, 1827, I was awakened by my brother-in-law, Alexander McDonald, telling me that Mr. Hubbard had just come in from Chicago with the word that the Indians were about to massacre the people there, and that men were wanted for their protection at once. The inhabitants of the county capable of bearing arms had been enrolled under the militia laws of the state, and organized as " The Vermilion County Battal- ion," in which I held a commission as captain. I dressed myself and started forthwith to notify all the men belonging to my company to meet at Butler's Point (six miles southwest of Danville), the place where the county business was then conducted and where the militia met to muster. The captains of the other companies were notified, the same as myself, and they warned out their respective companies the same as I did mine. I rode the remainder of the night at this work up and down the Little Vermilion.
At noon the next day the battalion was at Butler's Point. Most of the men lived on the Little Vermilion River, and had to ride or walk from six to twelve miles to the place of rendezvous. Volunteers were called for, and in a little while fifty men, the required number, were raised. Those who agreed to go then held an election of their officers for the campaign, choosing Achilles Morgan, captain ; Major Bayles, first lieutenant, and Col. Isaac R. Moores as second. The names of the private men, as far as I now remember them, are as follows: George M. Beckwith, John Beasley, myself (Hezekiah Cun- ningham), Julian Ellis, Seaman Cox, James Dixon, Asa Elliot, Francis Foley, William Foley, a Mr. Hammers, Jacob Heater, a Mr. Davis, Evin Morgan, Isaac Goen, Jonathan Phelps, Joshua Parish, William Reed, John Myers ("Little Vermilion John"), John Saulsbury, a Mr. Kirkman, Anthony Swisher, George Swisher, Joseph Price, George Weir, John Vaughn, Newton Wright and Abel Williams. Many of the men were without horses, and the neighbors who had horses and did not go loaned their animals to those who did. Still there were c
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five men who started afoot, as there were no horses to be had for them. We disbanded, after we were mustered in, and went home to cook five days' rations, and were ordered to be at Danville the next day.
The men all had a pint of whisky, believing it essential to mix a little of it with the slough water we were to drink on our route. Abel Williams, however, was smart enough to take some ground coffee and a tin cup along, using no stimulants whatever. He had warm drinks on the way up to Chicago, and coming back all of us had the same.
We arrived at the Vermilion River about noon on Sunday, the day after assembling at Butler's Point. The river was up, running, bank full, about a hundred yards wide, with a strong current. Our men and saddles were taken over in a canoe. We undertook to swim our horses, and as they were driven into the water the current would strike them and they would swim in a circle and return to the shore a few rods below. Mr. Hubbard, provoked at this delay, threw off his coat and said, "Give me Old Charley," meaning a large, steady- going horse, owned by James Butler, and loaned to Jacob Heater. Mr. Hubbard, mounting this horse, boldly dashed into the stream, and the other horses were quickly crowded after him. The water was so swift that "old Charley " became unmanageable, when Mr. Hubbard dismounted on the upper side and seized the horse by the mane, near the animal's head, and swimming with his left arm, guided the horse in the direction of the opposite shore. We were afraid he would be washed under the horse, or struck by his feet and be drowned ; but he got over without damage, except the wetting of his broadcloth pants and moccasins. These he had to dry on his person as we pursued our journey.
I will here say that a better man than Mr. Hubbard could not have been sent to our people. He was well known to all the settlers. His generosity, his quiet and determined courage, and his integrity, were so well known and appreciated that he had the confidence and goodwill of everybody, and was a well-recognized leader among us pioneers.
At this time there were no persons living on the north bank of the Vermilion River near Danville, except Robert Trickle and George Weir, up near the present woolen factory, and William Reed and Dan Beckwith ; the latter had a little log cabin on the bluff of the Vermilion, near the present highway bridge, or rather on the edge of the hill east of the highway some rods. Here he kept store, in addition to his official duties as constable and county surveyor.
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The store contained a small assortment of such articles as were suit- able for barter with the Indians, who were the principal customers. We called it "The Saddle-bags Store," because the supplies were brought up from Terre Haute in saddle-bags, that indispensable accompaniment of every rider in those days, before highways were provided for the use of vehicles.
Mr. Reed had been elected sheriff the previous March, receiving fifty-seven out of the eighty votes that were cast at the election, and which represented about the entire voting population of the county at that time. Both Reed and Dan wanted to go with us, and after quite a warm controversy between them, as it was impossible for them both to leave, it was agreed that Reed should go, and that Beekwith would look after the affairs of both until Reed's return. Amos Williams was building his house at Danville at this time, the sale of lots having taken place the previous April.
Crossing the North Fork at Denmark, three miles north of Dan- ville, we passed the cabin of Seymour Treat. He was building a mill at that place, and his house was the last one in which a family was living until we reached Hubbard's trading post, on the north bank of the Iroquois River, near what has since been known as the town of Buncombe, and from this trading house there was no other habitation, Indian wigwams excepted, on the line of our march until we reached Fort Dearborn.
It was a wilderness of prairie all the way, except a little timber we passed through near Sugar Creek and at the Iroquois.
Late in the afternoon we halted at the last crossing of the North Fork, at Bicknell's Point, a little north of the present town of Ross- ville. Here three of the footmen turned back, as the condition of the streams rendered it impossible for them to continue longer with us. Two men who had horses also left us. After a hasty lunch we struck ont across the eighteen-mile prairie, the men stringing out on the trail Indian file, reaching Sugar Creek late in the night, where we went into camp on the south bank, near the present town of Milford.
The next day before noon we arrived at Hubbard's Trading House, which was on the north bank of the Iroquois, about a quar- ter of a mile from the river. A lot of Indians, some of them half naked, were lying and lounging about the river-bank and trading house ; and when it was proposed to swim our horses over, in ad- vance of passing the men in boats, the men objected, fearing the Indians would take our horses, or stampede them, or do us some other mischief. Mr. Hubbard assured us that these savages were
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friendly, and we afterward learned that they were Pottawatomies, known as "Hubbard's Band," from the fact that he had long traded with and had a very great influence over them.
It is proper to state here that we were deficient in arms. We gathered up squirrel-rifles, flint-locks, old muskets, or anything like a gun that we may have had about our houses. Some of us had no fire-arms at all. I myself was among this number. Mr. Hubbard supplied those of us who had inefficient weapons, or those of us who were without them. He also gave us flour and salt pork. He had lately brought up the Iroquois River a supply of these articles. We remained at Hubbard's Trading House the remainder of the day, cooking rations and supplying our necessities. The next morning we again moved forward, swimming Beaver Creek, and crossing the Kankakee River at the rapids, just at the head of the island near Momence; pushing along, we passed Yellowhead's village. The old chief, with a few old men and the squaws and pappooses, were at home; the young men were off on a hunt. Remaining here a little time we again set out, and, going about five miles, eneamped at the point of the timber on Yellowhead's Creek. The next morning we again set out, crossing a branch of the Calumet to the west of the Blue Island. All the way from Danville we had followed an Indian trail, sinee known as "Hubbard's trace." There was no sign of roads; the prairies and whole country was crossed and re- crossed by Indian trails, and we never could have got through but for the knowledge which Mr. Hubbard had of the country. It had been raining for some days before we left home, and it rained almost every day on the route. The [streams and sloughs were full of water. We swami the former and traveled through the latter, some- times almost by the hour. Many of the ponds were so deep that our men dipped up the water to drink as they sat in their saddles. Col. Hubbard fared better than the rest of us- that is, he did not get his legs wet so often, for he rode a very tall, iron-gray stallion, that Peleg Spencer, sr., living two miles south of Danville, loaned him. The little Indian pony which Hubbard rode in from the Iro- quois to Spencer's was so used up as to be unfit for the return journey.
We reached Chicago about four o'clock on the evening of the fourth day, in the midst of one of the most severe rainstorms I ever experienced, accompanied by thunder and vicious lightning. The rain we did not mind ; we were without tents, and were used to wet- ting. The water we took within us hurt us more than that which fell upon us, as drinking it made many of us sick.
The people of Chicago were very glad to see us. They were ex-
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pecting an attack every hour since Col. Hubbard had left them, and as we approached they did not know whether we were enemies or friends, and when they learned that we were friends they gave us a shout of welcome.
They had organized a company of thirty or fifty men, composed mostly of Canadian half-breeds, interspersed with a few Americans, all under command of Capt. Beaubien; the Americans, seeing that we were a better looking crowd, wanted to leave their associates and join our company. This feeling caused quite a row, and the officers finally restored harmony, and the discontented men went back to their old command.
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