USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Records of the olden time; or, Fifty years on the prairies. Embracing sketches of the discovery, exploration and settlement of the country, the organization of the counties of Putnam and Marshall, biographies of citizens, portraits and illustrations > Part 5
USA > Illinois > Putnam County > Records of the olden time; or, Fifty years on the prairies. Embracing sketches of the discovery, exploration and settlement of the country, the organization of the counties of Putnam and Marshall, biographies of citizens, portraits and illustrations > Part 5
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53
HURONS-IROQUOIS.
was not unknown, but all historians agree it was never resorted to except upon occasions of dire necessity.
The Hurons, a numerous tribe that once peopled a part of Canada, built houses of bark and lived on corn, smoked fish, etc. Among them was individual ownership of land, each family having exclusive right to so much as it saw fit to cultivate. The clearing process was a toilsome one, for Indians, like the first settlers in the West, preferred a field in the tim- ber or oak and hazel barrens, rather than one cleared by nature. , The clearing was done by cutting off branches, piling them together with brushwood around the foot of standing trunks, and setting fire to them. The squaws worked with hoes of wood and bone, raised corn, beans, pumpkins, tobacco, sunflowers, etc. At intervals of from ten to thirty years the soil was exhausted, and firewood difficult to obtain, so the village was abandoned and fresh soil and timber found. They pounded their corn in mortars of wood hollowed out by alternate burnings and scrapings. They had stone axes, spears and arrow heads, and bone fish hooks. They had birch bark canoes,-masterpieces of ingenuity, and showed considera- ble skill in making a variety of articles.
Wampum, the money of all Indian tribes, likewise an ornament and evidence of value, consisted of elongated white and purple beads made from the inner part of certain shells. It is not easy to conceive how, with their rude and dull implements, they contrived to shape and perforate this intractable and fragile material. The New England Puritans beat the inventors in making wampum, and flooded the Indian markets with a counterfeit, which, however, was far more beautiful and valuable in the eye of the Indian than the best he could make. The bogus article soon drove the genuine out of existence!
The dress 'of these Indians was chiefly made from skins, cured with smoke. The women were modest in their dress, but condemned at an early age to a life of license or drudgery.
The Iroquois, who drove out the Illinois, were a warlike, cunning race. Each clan bore the name of some animal, as bear, deer, wolf, hawk, etc., and it was forbidden for any two persons of the same clan to inter- marry. A Hawk might marry a Wolf, or Deer, or Tortoise, but not a Hawk. Each clan had what was called its totem, or emblem. The child belonged to the clan not of the father, but of the mother, on the ground that "only a wise child knoweth its own father, but any fool can tell who his mother is!" All titles and rank came through the mother, and not
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54
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
the father, and a chief's son was no better than the son of the humblest in the tribe. He could neither inherit title nor property from his father, not even so much as a tobacco pipe. All possessions passed of right to the brothers of the chief, or to the sons of his sister, since all were sprung from a common mother. This rule of transmission of property and titles ap- pears to have been universal among all Indians. The Iroquois were divided into eight clans, and claimed to trace their descent to a common mother. Their chiefs were called sachems, and numbered from eight to fourteen in each of their five nations, making about fifty in all, which body when met constituted their government.
This great tribe of Indians, which once ruled the greater part of the Mississippi Valley, had a form of government closely allied to republican- ism. They had various bodies between the people and the High Council, or Cabinet, and a completely organized system of ruling on a demo- cratic plan. Their deliberations in the Congress of Sachems would shame our American Congress in dignity, decorum, and often, we fear, in good sense ! Here were some of their rules : "No haste in debate. No heat in arguing questions. No speaker shall interrupt another. Each gave his opinion in turn, supporting it with what reason or rhetoric he could com- mand, first stating the subject of discussion in full, to show that he un- derstood it.
Thus says Lafitau, an eminent writer: "The result of their deliber- ations was a thorough sifting of the matter in hand, while the practical astuteness of these savage politicians was a marvel to their civilized con- temporaries, and by their subtle policy they were enabled to take com- plete ascendency over all other Indian nations."
RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONS.
"The religious belief of the North American Indians," says Foster, 'was anomalous and contradictory, yet they conceived the existence of one all-ruling Deity, a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato! To the Indian, all the material world was intelligent, and influenced human des- tiny and had ears for human suffering, and all inanimate objects had the power to answer prayer! Lakes, rivers, waterfalls and caves were the dwelling-places of living spirits. Men and animals were of close kin. Each species of animals had its progenitor or king somewhere, prodigious
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SUPERSTITIONS AND TRADITIONS.
in size, and of shape and nature like its subjects. A hunter was anxious to propitiate the animals he sought to kill, and would address a wounded bear in a long harangue of apology! The beaver's bones were treated with especial tenderness, and carefully kept from the dogs, lest its spirit or its surviving brethren should take offense. The Hurons had a custom of propitiating their fishing-nets, and to persuade them to do their duty* and catch many fish, they annually married them to two young girls of the tribe, with great ceremony! The fish, too, were addressed each evening by some one appointed to that office, who exhorted them to take courage and be caught, assuring them that the utmost respect should be shown their bones. They were harrassed by innumerable and spiteful evil spir- its, which took the form of snakes, beasts or birds to hinder them in hunting or fishing, or in love or war.
Each Indian had a personal guardian or manitou, to whom he looked for counsel, aid and protection. At the age of fourteen the Indian boy blackened his face, retired to some solitary place and remained without food for days, until the future manitou appeared in his dreams, in the form of beast, or bird, or reptile, to point out his destiny. A bear or eagle would indicate that he must be a warrior; a wolf, a hunter; a serpent, a medicine man; and the young man procured some portion of the supposed animal seen in his vision, and always wore it about his person.
All Indian tribes trace themselves back to one mighty pair, like the sun and moon, a flood, and some shadowy outline of creation similar to that of all other nations of the earth.
Indian history rests on tradition alone, and they do not trace them- selves back beyond a generation or two. The Iroquois were the first In- dians in this country that white men could establish with any certainty. The Algonquins came next. They embraced all the known tribes, inclu- ding the Illinois, Pottawatomies, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos, etc. The Dakotas occupied the Great West, and claimed sovereignty from the Alle- ghanies to the Rocky Mountains.
The Illinois occupied the region now comprised in this State, the name meaning "superior men." They were a confederation of several Indian tribes, who built arbor-like cabins covered with waterproof mats, with generally four or five fires to a cabin, and two families to a fire.
After an eventful career, they were nearly all exterminated or driven from the State. They gave place to the Sacs, Foxes and Pottawatomies. The latter, in about 1600, were numerous about the Southern Peninsula
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RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
of Michigan. The Iroquois drove them to Green Bay, whence they spread over Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. They lived in this region until expelled by the whites, at the close of the disastrous Black Hawk war.
INDIANS OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
After Tonti's garrison was dispersed, about 1718, the Pottawatomies and a few remnants of other tribes continued to inhabit the region of country between Peoria and Ottawa. They dwelt mainly at the places named, while Indian Town, now Tiskilwa, was always a favorite resort. Hennepin, Lacon, Sparland, Senachwine and other localities along the river were the homes of certain members of the clan. They raised small fields of corn, trapped for muskrats and beavers, hunted wild game, and sold honey to the settlers in exchange for such "necessaries" as beads, whisky, brass jewelry, tobacco, and the like. They were true to all their superstitious beliefs and customs, notwithstanding the teachings of the missionaries and the example of the whites around them. They seemed attached to their hunting and fishing grounds, but chiefly because the river afforded plenty of fish and the country an abundance of game. Here were their sugar-camps, and in the bottoms their kindred were buried, and many years after their departure small parties were in the habit of re- turning and looking upon the graves of their departed friends. The set- tlers plowed over the burial grounds and destroyed the landmarks around them, so that now the locality of most of these is lost. They had a great veneration for their dead, and buried them with great ceremony.
In the winter of 1831-2, Henry K. Cassell, an old settler of Lacon, witnessed a curious performance by the Indians of this region. They had received word from Lieut. Governor Menard that they must leave their homes along the Illinois River, and prepared at once to obey, as by treaty they were compelled to do. Their first movement was to collect the dead upon the frozen river, packed in wooden troughs. When this was done, all hands joined, and with a mighty push they were moved across the channel. The white men were asked to assist, but it looked to them very much like robbing a grave-yard, and they declined.
The Indians found here were Pottawatomies, with a mixture of Winne- bagoes, Kickapoos, Sacs and Foxes. The leading chiefs were Senachwine, whose principal village was on the creek that commemorates his name, one
57
SENACHWINE-SHAUBENA -SHICK-SHACK.
mile north of Chillicothe; and Shaubena, whose village was above Ottawa, on the Illinois River. Senachwine was a fine-looking Indian, and education would have made him a leader in any community. In early life he joined the British, and was with Tecumseh when the latter lost his life. When peace was declared, he returned to his people, and was always after the fast friend of the white man.
About 1828-9, there came where Rome now stands a settler named Taliaferro, the first to rear his cabin upon the site of the "eternal city." His nearest neighbors were four miles away, and when sickness came, and neither doctor nor nurse were to be had, he felt that he was indeed a stranger in a strange land.
Old settlers say the "ague never kills;" but it was wonderfully annoy- ing, and when the emigrant saw his wife tossing in the delirium of fever and no arm to help or assist, he realized how poor, and helpless, and im- potent is man, cut off from his fellows.
One sultry afternoon, while fanning the fevered brow and bathing the burning temples of his wife, there dismounted at his door a band of twenty or more Indians, at the head of whom was Senachwine. The old chief, who was not unknown to the white man, entered unceremoniously, and with a gutteral "How," took his seat at the bedside. For some time he gazed upon the sufferer, and knowing that woman's aid was most needed, asked why he did not go for white squaw to help take care of her. Mr. T. replied that he could not leave her alone, when the Indian proposed to take his place and tend the patient until his return. The offer was ac- cepted, and the chief, first forbidding his people to enter the cabin, sat down and fanned her brow and bathed her temples as gently and tenderly as could her husband, until the latter's return.
Senachwine died somewhere about 1830, and was buried upon a high mound half a mile north of Putnam Station, in Putnam County. His name is given to the township in which he is buried.
Shaubena was another chief of prominence and influence among the Indians of this neighborhood. He was a friend to the whites, and was well known to the old settlers. He followed his people to the West, but re- turned with his family, and died about 1859. Another well-known In- dian chief had a village at the mouth of Clear Creek, in Putnam County. This was Shick-Shack, who was converted and became an earnest preacher of the Gospel. He was an ardent temperance reformer, and his code of morals would rival the Draconian code of ancient Sparta.
58
RECORDS OF THIE OLDEN TIME.
On the site of Chillicothe was an Indian village ruled over by a chief named Gomo. He was sent as a hostage to St. Louis, to insure the per- formance of certain treaty stipulations entered into by his tribe.
Across the river, in Woodford County, at what has long been known as the Big Spring, was the village of the noted chief, Black Partridge. He was long a friend of the whites, but in revenge for the wanton de- struction of his village became their relentless enemy, and during the years 1813-14 raided the settlements in the southern part of the State. He died peacefully at home.
Where Lacon stands a band of Indians had their village, led by a chief named Markwhet. Their winters were passed in the bottoms west of the house of the late Benjamin Babb. They were removed west of the Mississippi after the Black Hawk war. There was also a village at Sparland, but the name of the chief is not now known. It was probably governed by one of those previously named.
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FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENT.
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY FRENCH SETTLEMENTS.
HE first permanent settlement in the State was begun in 1698, when Father Gravier established a mission at Kaska'skia. Here came a portion of the dwellers at Starved Rock, where La Salle in 1682 built a fort, which he named St. Louis, and founded a colony. , It had a somewhat precarious existence until 1718, when the site was abandoned, and its occupants joined their friends in the southern part of the (future) State. Cahokia was settled in 1702, by Father Pinet. In after years it became a town of considerable importance, but its glory long since departed.
In 1699, D' Iberville, a distinguished Canadian officer, was appointed Governor of Louisiana, by which name the French possessions in the North and West were known; and after his death the King of France granted it to M. Antoine Crozat, a wealthy nabob, who, failing to real- ize as hoped for, abandoned it in 1717, and the notorious John Law, an enterprising but visionary Scotchman, became its owner under cer- tain conditions. He was the original "Colonel Sellers," and organizer of a scheme for acquiring sudden wealth, since known as the famous "Mississippi Bubble." He made Louisiana the principal field of his op- erations, where gold and silver mines abounded(!), out of which the share- holders in the "greatest gift enterprise of the day" were to become mil- lionaires.
His schemes all failing, in 1732 the charter was surrendered to the king and the territory divided into nine cantons, of which Illinois formed one.
After, the destruction of Fort St. Louis by the Indians, and the expul- sion of Tonti's garrison, a few white men continued in the vicinity until about 1720, when all left, and the country reverted to the possession of its original inhabitants. In 1718 New Orleans was settled, and trading posts established at different points along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. As early as 1690 some Canadian Frenchinen had located
60
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
themselves at a few points, primarily as attaches of tradesmen, and later as regular settlers.
In the summer of 1711, Father Marest, a Jesuit priest from Can- ada, preached at Cahokia and made a convert of an Indian chief named Kolet, who persuaded Father Marest to go with him to Peoria and preach to the heathen there. The proposition was accepted, and in November of that year, with two warriors, the missionary started in a bark canoe. The season was late, and after progressing about five leagues, the ice becanie so firm they had to abandon their canoes, and after twelve days wading through snow and water, crossing big prairies and subsisting on wild grapes with a little game, they reached the Indian village of Opa, a half a mile above the lower end or outlet of the lake, and were hospitably re- ceived by the natives.
In the following spring some French traders began a trading post here, and a number of families came from Canada and established themselves, living at peace with the Indians and generally intermarrying with them.
Until 1750 but little was known of the various French villages or set- tlements in the State. In that year a French missionary, named Vevier, writes from "Aux Illinois," six leagues from Fort Chartres, June 8: "We have here whites, negroes and Indians, to say nothing of cross-breeds. There are five French villages and three villages of the natives within a space of twenty-one leagues-between the Mississippi and Karkadiad (Kaskaskia) Rivers. In them all there are perhaps eleven hundred peo- ple, three hundred whites and sixty red slaves, or savages. Most of the French till the soil. They raise wheat, cattle, pigs and horses, and live like princes. Three times as much is produced as can be consumed, and great quantities of grain and flour are shipped to New Orleans."
In 1750 the French had stations at Detroit, Michilimacinac, Green Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, and were the only possessors, save the Indians, of the great valley east of the Mississippi River.
In 1761, Robert Maillet built a dwelling one and a half miles lower down, and moved his family there. This was called . the "New Town," in contradistinction from "Old " or "Upper Town." The new place was known as La ville de Maillet (Maillet's Village). For fifty years the sole settlers of the town were Frenchmen and Indians.
So far back as 1750, the English began to assert their claims to the country west of the Alleghanies, and adventurous explorers sailed down its rivers and explored the great lakes. English traders penetrated the
61
"THE COUNTY OF ILLINOIS."
forest, and competed for the fur trade with their ancient enemies. Collis- ions were frequent, and in the deep woods were fought sanguinary battles between adherents of the rival nations. A long and bloody war followed, ending in the final discomfiture of the French and the transfer of sover- ereignty over the northern part of the continent to England.
In 1763, Canada and all of Louisiana north of the Iberville River and east of the Mississippi were ceded to England. The British flag was hoisted over old Fort Chartres, in what is now Monroe County, Ill., in 1765. At that time, it is computed, there were about three thousand white people residing along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. The oldest town - Kas- kaskia-contained about one hundred, and Cahokia about fifty persons.
After the capture of these posts by Gen. Clark, as before stated, he sent three men to Peoria to notify the inhabitants of the change of sover- eignty, and require their allegiance. One of these messengers was Nich- olas Smith, a Kentuckian by birth, whose son Joseph, under the nickname of "Dad Joe," became in after years a noted border character, and the place where he once lived-ten miles from Princeton-still bears the name of "Dad Joe's Grove."
In that year the County of Illinois was established, "in the State of Virginia," which was to include within its boundaries as citizens "all who are already settled or may;" which leads to the belief that the then mem- bers of the House of Burgesses of Virginia had a very crude idea of the country over which by the right of conquest they assumed sovereignty.
With peace came the establishment of various colonies in the West, and in 1773 the "Illinois Land Company" obtained a grant from the Indians by treaty and purchase of a tract embracing all the territory "east of the Mississippi and south of the Illinois River."
In like manner the Wabash Company obtained a grant for thirty- seven millions of acres. After the Revolution, efforts were made in Con- gress to obtain governmental sanction to these enormous land grabs, but fortunately without avail.
In 1781, a colony from Virginia settled in what is now Monroe County, but the hostility of the Kickapoos, a fierce and warlike tribe of Indians, compelled them to live in forts and block-houses, and their improvements were limited.
MIKES AND JAKES.
During the devastating border wars that preceeded the final breaking
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62 .
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
of the Indians' strength by "Mad Anthony " Wayne, the infant settle- ments suffered severely, but with peace came a new impetus to emigration, and adventurous hunters, trappers, boatmen and land surveyors invaded the quiet French towns of Illinois. The former were termed "Mikes," from a noted flat-boatman named Mike Fink, while the surveyors and land- ยท hunters were styled "Jakes," from Jacob staff, a surveyor's implement. They were a lawless, turbulent race, given to whisky and broils, but in a certain way open-hearted, and generous to a fault. Their advent among the quiet, simple-minded French was neither conducive to the happiness or good morals of the latter, who are thus described by Gov. Ford, from whom we quote: "No 'genuine Frenchmen in those days ever wore a hat, cap or coat. The heads of both men and women were covered with Madras cotton handkerchiefs, tied around in the fashion of nightcaps. For an upper covering of the body, the men wore a blanket garment, called a 'capote' (pronounced cappo), with a cap to it at the back of the neck, to be drawn over the head for protection in cold weather, or in warm weather to be thrown back upon the shoulders in the fashion of a cape. Notwithstanding this people had been so long separated by an immense wilderness from civilized society, they still retained all the suav- ity and politeness of their race, and it is a remarkable fact that the rough- est hunter and boatman amongst them could at any time appear in a ball- room, or other polite and gay assembly, with the carriage and beha- vior of a well-bred gentleman. The French women were noticeable for the sprightliness of their conversation and the grace and elegance of their manners. The whole population lived lives of alternate toil, pleasure, in- nocent amusement and gaiety.
"Their horses and cattle, for want of proper care and food for genera- tions, had degenerated in size, but had acquired additional vigor and toughness, so that a French pony was a proverb for strength and endur- ance. These ponies were made to draw, sometimes one alone, sometimes two together-one hitched before the other, to the plow, or to carts made entirely of wood, the bodies of which held about the contents of the body of a wheelbarrow. The oxen were yoked by the horns instead of the neck, and in this mode draw the cart and plow. Nothing like reins were used in driving; the whip of the driver, with the handle about two feet and a lash two yards long, stopped or guided the horse as effectually as the strongest lines.
"Their houses were built of hewn timber, set upright in the
63
CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY SETTLERS.
ground or upon plates laid upon a wall, the intervals between the uprights being filled with stone and mortar. Scarcely any of them were more than one story high, with a porch on one or two sides, and sometimes all around, with low roofs extending, with slopes of different steepness, from the comb in the center to the lowest part of the porch. They were surrounded by gardens filled with fruits, flowers and vegetables, and if in town, the lots were large and the houses neatly whitewashed.
"Each village had its Catholic church and priest. The church was the great place of resort on Sundays and holidays, and the priest the adviser, director and companion of all his flock."*
Prior to 1818 the immigration was chiefly from Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Some of the emigrants had served under Gen. Clark in 1778, and the beauty and fertility of the country induced them to make their homes here.
In 1816, the American Fur Company, with headquarters at Hudson's Bay, established trading-posts throughout this region, one being located near Hennepin, and another about three miles below Peoria, with a dozen or so at interior points between the Illinois and Wabash Rivers.
Gurden S. Hubbard, for many years a resident of Chicago, a Vermonter. by birth, when sixteen years of age was in the service of the company, in 1818, going from post to post, distributing supplies and collecting furs.
In the autumn of 1821, Joel Hodgson came to this region from Clin- ton County, Ohio, in behalf of a number of families, to seek a location. He traveled on horseback, stopping wherever night overtook him, and sleeping in his blanket.
He crossed the State of Indiana to where Danville now stands, and then, with his compass for a guide, traveled northward until he struck the Illinois at the mouth of Fox River, whence he journeyed southward. He crossed the river several times, exploring both sides thoroughly, as well as its tributaries, and continued until he reached Dillon's Grove, in Taze- well County, when lie turned homeward, reporting that he found no suita- ble place for the proposed colony.
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