USA > Illinois > Ogle County > The history of Ogle County, Illinois, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics history of the Northwest, history of Illinois etc > Part 35
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These men were the representative characters of the gang-the execu- tive managers who planned, guided, directed and controlled the movements of the combination; concealed them when danger threatened; nursed them when sick; rested them when worn down by fatigue and forced marches; furnished hiding-places for their stolen booty; shared in the spoils and proceeds, and under cover of darkness, and intricate and devious ways of travel, known only to themselves and subordinates, transferred stolen horses from station to station-for it came to be known as a well-established fact that they had stations, and agents, and watchmen scattered throughout the country at convenient distances, and signals and pass-words to assist and govern them in all their nefarious transactions.
The operations of the gang extended from one end of the country to the other -- from Texas, up through the Indian Territory, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois, to Wisconsin; from the Ohio River, at Pittsburgh, through the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, to the Missouri River-as far as civilization extended. Their hands and depredations were directed against society everywhere, and they preyed upon the substance of honest toilers, merchants and business men, with reckless and daring impunity, sparing no one who was not in some way allied with their murder-stained combination.
Besides the names quoted as local members and chiefs of the robber confederacy, there were many others of less prominence-tools and aids-de- camp-ready subordinates of the commanders-in-chief, but all the more dangerous because of their slavery to the men that governed and the oaths that bound them together, and by which their lives were held in forfeit when they failed to obey the commands of their superiors in power.
John Driscoll, who was recognized by the honest settlers as the general-in-chief of the plundering band, came from Ohio in 1835, and settled on Killbuck Creek, in Monroe Township. It has been said that he
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named that creek in honor of a stream bearing the same name in the Ohio county in which he lived. And it is further said that when he came here he eame directly from the penitentiary at Columbus, to which prison he had been sentenced for a number of years for some crime committed against the laws of that state. It has also been said that he escaped from that penitentiary some eighteen months before his term of sentence expired, so that he was in no sense a pardoned citizen or a "ticket-of-leave man," but an escaped convict. In many respects old John Driscoll is reported to have been a most remarkable man, both in physique, intellect, coolness and courage. One who knew him well, and who participated in his execution, thus describes him as he stood in the presence of five hundred outraged and indignant people on the day of his summary exeention, Tues- day, June 29, 1841.
" He was upwards of six feet in height, slightly inclined to corpulencey, and would have weighed about two hundred pounds. He was all' muscle and sinew, and every way the most powerfully built man in all that crowd of half a thousand men. His fave was the only repulsive feature about old John Driscoll, and this repulsiveness was occasioned by the loss of a part of his nose, which had been bitten off some years before in a fight with some human ghoul. His hair was iron gray and coarse; his eyebrows heavy and shaggy-like, and his face smooth, from recent shaving. Un- trembling and unmoved, he stood motionless in the midst of his inquisitors and executioners. He was not an ignorant man, nor void of generosity or charity. There were many kind aets passed to his credit in the neighbor- hood where he lived. In one instance he and his sons finished plowing and planting a field of corn for a wife and mother whose husband had died in the midst of the planting season. He might have been a useful and an in- fluential citizen in any community, but he chose otherwise, and became an outlaw and a renegade to all the better instincts of human nature."
William Driscoll settled at South Grove, De Kalb County. Next to the old man, William Driscoll was considered the worst and most desperate of the family-sly, seeretive, cunning and revengeful. He was unlettered and uneducated, but possessed of strong native sense. At the time of his exeention, June 29, 1841, he was about forty-five years of age, rather above the average height of men, of heavy build and very musenlar, and would probably have tipped the scales at one hundred and eighty pounds. His features were firm and presented a peculiarly heavy appearance. He was that type of man that could face any ordinary danger withont the least fcar, but in the presence of five hundred resolute men, determined to hold him to an account for his inanifold crimes, he was awed into the most terrible fear, and every lineament of his face showed evidences of inward torture.
David Driscoll settled a short distance east of the old village site of Lynn- ville, in what is now Lynnville Township. He was a man of very reserved character, cold, calculating, devilish, malicious and fearless, and in every sense a "chip of the old block."
John Brodie settled in a grove of timber in what is now Dement Township. The grove still bears his name, from the fact of his being the first settler in that immediate locality. He came there from Franklin County, Ohio, and was apparently about fifty-five years of age when he built his eabin. In physique he was rather under medium size, with very low forehead; stiff, black hair; small, black eyes set deep in his head, and in every particular had a very repulsive, piratical look. His three sons,
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John, Stephen and Hugh, were of nomadic, rambling, unsettled natures, practices and habits, reckless and indifferent to all social amenities, and void of every shadow of respect for the marital relations. They were accounted dare-devils generally, and were both feared and despised.
Old man Samnel Aikens and his son Charles settled at Washington Grove; his other two sons, Thomas and Richard, at Lafayette Grove, scarcely half a mile distant. When this family first settled here they were regarded as rather good men, and the father and younger son, Samnel (whose name has not been mentioned before), always maintained that regard. When speculation in claims became the ruling passion, they all joined the frenzied mob, and invested heavily, expecting to realize hand- some returns. But the wheel of fortune suddenly reversed its motion, and they lost heavily. They were men of considerable wealth and influence, and when they became victims to the claim speculating mania, they carried with them a number of their neighbors and acquaintances-men that regarded the old man Aikens with respectful consideration, and in whose thrift and ken they had every confidence. When the Aikens failed they all failed, for the old man had been their counselor and advisor. So, when fortune, the fickle jade, deserted them and left them high and dry on the shoals of adversity, the three sons, Charles, Thomas and Richard, became reckless, and finally identified themselves with the outlaws-if not directly, at least indirectly, and their houses and barns became places of concealment for such of the gang as needed concealment.
William K. Bridge also settled at Washington Grove. In stature he stood about six feet, and in every wav was well proportioned. "Indeed," said one of his old neighbors, with whom the writer conversed, " he was a model man in physical development, and one that would be singled out of a thonsand because of his fine, athletic proportions. In form he was an Adonis. Besides, his face was handsome, and his bearing every way that of a gentleman. His conversational powers were good. He had an oily tongue, and could ' soft soap ' any of ns, notwithstanding we knew he was one of the gang. As is sometimes said of counterfeit bills, 'he was well calenlated to deceive.' He would have made a noted lawyer, if he had turned his attention to that profession, or a good preacher, if there had been room in his heart and soul for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost; but the demon of darkness took possession of his nature before he was born, and grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength, until at last he was sent out here as a special agent of the devil, to deceive and prey upon the honest settlers who were struggling for homes. By his immediate neighbors he was accounted a model of rectitnde, charity and kindness. He was a Pennsylvanian by birth, and had the advantages of a liberal edu- cation; had mingled a good deal in society, knew the meaning of words, and how and when to use them. He was always on his guard. He never allowed himself to be betrayed by either word or gesture. Why, he would always find out just what we were hunting after without letting us know what he was 'fishing for.' We couldn't help it. He was the serpent and we were the victims." Such is the personel and characteristics of William K. Bridge, who was finally brought to bay and sentenced to the peniten- tiary for eight years, barely escaping the scaffold.
Norton B. Royce came from Delaware County, Ohio, and settled at Lafayette Grove. He, too, was a keen, shrewd, sharp, cunning fellow, and every way suited to fill any station in life, but too lazy and indolent to en-
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gage in honest toil or any of the professions, he turned his attention to counterfeiting, and was generally believed to be the principal director of the pirates' mint. At last, however, like the others, his villainy was un- masked, and he, too, was sent to the penitentiary.
Such is a brief outline of the characters of the gang who had claimed homes in the county whose history we are writing. There were some others, however, who were non-residents of the county, but who were so inti- mately connected with the transactions of the men thus far named, that this sketch would be incomplete without reference to them and their com- plicity.
Charles Oliver was much such a man as Bridge and Royce. He set- tled at Rockford in 1836, and made his home at the old Rockford House, where, among the boarders and citizens, he freely mingled, unsuspected of unlawful pursuits. He possessed a good education, fine conversational powers, a fund of humor, a rich store of anecdotes and stories, and came to be almost universally respected. He was a man of some means, his father having started him out in the world with $4,000 in cash, a part of which he invested in claim property and improvements near Rockford. About 1837 there was an election for justice of the pleace at Rockford, and Charles Oliver was chosen as a candidate on the one side, and James B. Martyn, now of Bellvidere, Boone County, a candidate on the other side. The election was closely contested. The polls were kept open until 10 o'clock at night, and every man known to be entitled to a vote was hunted out and taken to the voting place and made to vote for one or the other of the candidates. Oliver was beaten by only a few votes. A few years afterwards he was sent to the penitentiary, his crimes extending back and covering the period when he came so near being elected a justice of the peace.
South, at Inlet Grove, in what is now Lee County, another part of the gang had a habitation, and of whom it is necessary to make mention.
About 1835 or 1836, there came to that place, Adolphus Bliss and family, and two other men named Corydon Dewey and Charles West. The names of Bliss, Dewey and West appear frequently in the early records of the county as grand and petit jurors. justices of the peace, constables, etc., which will afford the younger generation and new comers to Ogle County some idea of the prominence attained and influence exerted by the unlaw- ful and crime-stained combination.
These three families were the first settlers at Inlet Grove, and from the close intimacy that existed between them, they come to be known to the later settlers as " Bliss, Dewey, West & Co." They had each settled on government land, and to the casual passer-by seemed to be intent on making farms and earning an honest living. But time and events proved otherwise. Bliss had built a log house, which was known all along the Rock River Valley as the " Log Tavern." On a board in front of the house, painted in large black letters, was this inscription: "Travelers' Home." To many a land hunter in those days that sign was a welcome sight, and many a family and individual sojourned there longer than they would have done had they known the true character of the proprietors. Later events showed that this "Log Tavern " was a rendezvons for counterfeiters, or, at least, a distributing point for their currency and coin, especially the latter. Making change is quite a business in its way with hotel keepers, and, as most people know, change is sometimes hard to get, but " mine host " of
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the " Travelers' Home " was never "short," for he had the means of mak- ing the supply equal to the demand. When the villainy of the clan began , to be unmasked, it was shown that no less that five sets of bogus dies were kept sewed up in one of the feather beds with which the " Home " was sup- plied. Dewey was Bliss' nearest neighbor on the one hand, and West on the other, the last of whom eventually turned traitor, and revealed the secrets of "Bliss, Dewey, West & Co.," as well as of the gang with whom they operated. As settlements in that neighborhood increased, Dewey was elected justice of the peace, and West was chosen constable. When- ever their funds began to run low, all that was necessary to replenish their exchequer was to call on the " keeper of the seals," and officially demand the dies, and their demands were never resisted-for such resistance would have been a criminal breach of the law! Whenever an attempt was made to arrest a villain, Justice Dewey would inform his comrades of the facts, then issue a warrant and place it in the hands of Constable West for service, who, knowing in what direction the outlaw had gone, would start ont in hot haste in a directly opposite direction, and, of course, always returned his warrants endorsed " not found." For years, the firm of " Bliss, Dewey, West & Co." boldly prosecuted this kind of business. At last, however, their true characters were unmasked, and Bliss and Dewey were arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to the state's prison at Alton-West appearing against them as a witness on the part of the people.
These personal references are necessary for a clear understanding of the historical events to follow-events that gave the Rock River country a national notoriety, and which ended in the arraignment and trial under one indictment and before one jury, of the greatest number of men ever pre- sented together before a judicial tribunal.
With an unlawful combination made up of such characters, and scat- tered about in different parts of the country, and with members enough to control the election of justices of the peace and other local officers, to influ- ence and break the force and power of juries, it is no wonder the honest, toiling, struggling pioneer settlers came to live in a continued state of ter- ror-a terror that brooded over them from about 1836-'37, until the gang was broken up and dispersed in 1845. For a period of one year after the killing of the Driscolls, the people of Oregon City never went to sleep until the citizen sentries had gone on duty. So bold and daring had the outlaws become, that the honest people were forced, as a matter of self-protection, to organize themselves for night patrol duty-taking turns every other night. And even then, they felt unsafe, for no one knew the hour when the night-watch would be overpowered, and a general butchery of the citi- zens-men, women and children-indiscriminately commenced.
These Prairie Pirates were well organized, and had well defined lines of travel throughout all the country in which they operated. Extending from the Ohio River at Pittsburgh on the east, to the Missouri River on the west; from different points in the south and southwest, up into Wiscon- sin, to the lakes and to Michigan, there were lines of horse thieves, along which stolen horses were continually passing and repassing. These lines were supplied with convenient stations, and the stations were in charge of men, who, to all outward appearances, were honest, hard-working settlers. Under this arrangement a horse stolen at either end of the line, or any where in its vicinity in the interior, for that matter, could be passed from one agent to another, and no one of the agents be absent from his home or
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business for more than a few hours at a time, and thus, for years, remain unsuspected. But their operations grew bolder and bolder. Horse after horse was stolen and spirited away, no one knew where or how; robbery after robbery occurred throughout the country; every once in a while a mangled corpse would be found in some uninhabited wood; counterfeit money flooded the country, but no clue to the authors of these crimes could be obtained. Ogle County, particularly, seemed to be a favorite and chosen field for the operations of these outlaws, but they extended into Winnebago and other counties as well. At last they became too common for longer endurance. Patience ceased to be a virtue; and hope that such things would die out as the country advanced in population and improvements, grew sick, and determined desperation seized upon the minds of honest men, and they resolved if there were no statute laws that would protect them against the ravages of thieves, robbers and counterfeiters, they would protect themselves. It was a desperate resolve, and desperately and bloodily executed.
Up to 1841 no decisive measures had been inaugurated to rid the country of the presence of the villains that had apparent control of every thing. The laws could not be enforced with any degree of efficiency. If arrested, tried and found sufficiently guilty to hold them to bail (in bailable offenses) there were no jails sufficiently secure to hold them; and even if there had been, there were members of the gang abundantly able to offer any amount of' bail required. Witnesses were always present to prove an alibi, and thus it came about that the ranks of the prairie pirates were never thinned out by law processes.
In April of this year, however, fifteen honest, sturdy, fearless and determined men who had been victims to the predatory raids of the outlaws, held a meeting in a log school-house at White Rock, for consultation. These fifteen men represented a large district of country upon which the gang had so long preyed unmolested. Some of them were native born Americans-some were Canadians, and some were Scotchmen, but all were resolute and determined. That meeting, after fully and carefully reviewing the situation and the repeated outrages to which the community had been subjected, and recognizing the fact, as it seemed to them, that law, justice and its executives were inadequate to the protection of the people and the arrest and punishment of the outlaws, they entered into a solemn compact with each other to rid the country of the desperadoes by which it was infested. The course resolved upon was to visit every known or suspected person, and notify them to leave the country within a given length of time, and that if they did not comply, they would be suminarily and severely dealt with-stripped and lashed until they would promise to comply with the decision and demands of the " Regulators." To the accomplishment of this work the Ogle County Regulators solemnly pledged themselves or to die in the attempt. The work was soon commenced. From fifteen, their num- bers soon increased to scores and hundreds. The first victim was a man named John Hurl, who had been charged with being instrumental in hav- ing his neighbor's horse stolen. He was taken ont of his house and ordered to strip, which order he obeyed. His hands were tied behind his back, when he was given thirty-six lashes with a raw hide, well applied, the blood following every stroke. He stood the ordeal, said an eye witness, without flinching, and when the terrible work was ended, he remarked: "Now, as your rage is satisfied, and to prove that I am an honest man, I will join
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HOutcher ATTY. AT LAW OREGON
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your company." He became a member of the Regulators, although it was almost certainly known that before this castigation his life had not been one of irreproachable honesty.
Their next victim was a man named Daggett, who had once been a Baptist preacher in the East, but had fallen from his high estate. Daggett was charged with being accessory to the stealing of three or four horses from the neighborhood of Rockford belonging to a man named Fish. He was taken into custody, tried by the rules adopted by the Regulators, found guilty and sentenced to receive five hundred lashes on his bare back. He was stripped for the ordeal, and every preparation made to execute the sentence, but before a blow was struck, his daughter, aged about sixteen years, of very prepossessing appearance, rushed frantically into the midst of the men. begging for mercy for her father. Her agonized appeals, together with the solemn promise of Daggett that he would leave the country immediately, and the influence of one or two of the representative men of the Regulators, secured a remission of the sentence, and he was left without the infliction of a single lash. The company, numbering one hundred men, then dispersed to their homes, and thus ended the first day's work of the Regulators. About two o'clock that night, however, Phineas Chaney, a prominent and influential member of the Vigilantes, was called from his bed by the presence of a number of the Regulators, who informed him they had found Fish, the owner of the horses Daggett was charged with having had spirited away, and that they wanted to go back to Dag- gett's, take him out and whip him until he confessed to the crime. Chaney opposed the scheme on the grounds that they had once tried Daggett, and entered into a solemn agreement with him to spare a punishment which was no doubt just, but to go back there and carry out the proposed purpose of his midnight visitors, before Daggett had time to make the least prepara- tion toward keeping his part of the contract, would be dishonorable and unmanly, and that he would in no wise countenance or enconrage such a proceeding. Exacting a promise from Mr. Chaney that he would not oppose them, the company proceeded to Daggett's house, took him from bed, and to a distance of two miles from his cabin, tied him to a burr oak tree, and gave him ninety-six lashes, well laid on. During the infliction of this terrible flagellation, Daggett confessed (as was reported) that he had helped steal the horses, but protested to the last that he did not know where they were-that they had passed beyond his knowledge. After the whipping he was released from his cords and allowed to go at will. The next morn- ing Daggett was reported to have left the county for Indiana, whither his family soon after followed him. Whether he really left that morning, or found concealment with some of the fraternity to which he belonged, was never certainly known, but it is a fact that he was never afterwards seen in the country.
Once started, the organization spread, and soon extended into Boone, DeKalb, McHenry and Winnebago Counties, and, had a red flag been hoisted during the night over every house the inmates of which sympathized with the Regulators, the people, when they awoke, would have supposed the whole country had the small-pox. The friends and comrades of the men who had been whipped and ordered to leave the country were fearfully enraged, and swore eternal and bloody vengeance. Eighty of them assembled one night soon after in the barns of Aikens and Bridge-first in one of the barns, and then adjourned to the other-where their plans were
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laid and preparations made to visit White Rock and murder .every man, woman and child in that hamlet. That they absolutely started on that bloody mission was positively known, but on the way they were met by another member of the gang, a little cooler headed than the masses, and, learning the terrible object of their raid, he implored them to desist from the undertaking, and was finally successful in prevailing upon them to disperse to their homes. The plans, however, of the desperadoes having been over- heard, and intelligence of the threatened massacre carried to White Rock, preparations were at once made by the people to defend their homes and their lives as dearly as the emergency of the occasion required. Armed with rifles, shot guns, pistols, pitchforks-any thing and every thing that could be made available as weapons of defense-nearly one hundred of the settlers of White Rock, including every boy who was old enough and big enough to handle any of the weapons named, met together and took up a position in a lane dividing the premises of T. O. Young and J. Sanford, and prepared to receive the threatened attack. The fences were torn down and a barricade erected across the lane. Rails were piled on the cross- fence, with one end resting on the ground on the side towards the defend- ing settlers, with the other ends projecting outward in the direction from which the murderous crew must come, thus forming a kind of abatis pro- tection. Fortunately, the pirates reconsidered their purpose, and their threat was not executed.
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