USA > Illinois > DuPage County > Hinsdale > Village on the county line ; a history of Hinsdale, Illinois > Part 3
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Although the gathering of homesteaders around Naper's settle- ment was the first in the area to be denominated politically, undoubt- edly there were many other persons who had arrived during or prior to 1831. In those frontier days when the fundamental requirements of existence occupied so much thought and energy, and before county governments were functioning, the keeping of statistics was altogether secondary. With so much desirable land between the Desplaines and Naper's settlement, it is likely that a dozen or more settlers, such as Thomas Covell, mentioned by Harley Mitchell in his Early Chicago, had chosen scattered sites in the Salt Creek-Flagg Creek area at about the same time, registered with no precinct and with no record of their arrival having been kept.
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CHAPTER III
Black Hawk's Threat
TN 1831 rumblings along the Rock River were heard in Cook County; and it wasn't thunder. A year later the western part of the county was to be touched by war.
Black Hawk, sometimes called Black Sparrow, was a chief of the Sac, or Sauk, tribe having its principal village and lands on the Rock River, near its confluence with the Mississippi. He had fought with the British in 1812, and rose to his position of authority with the Sauks largely through his ability as a warrier.
A disagreement arose between the Indians and Whites concerning the site of the Sac village, which culminated in the tribe being ejected and removed to the west bank of the Mississippi, where it remained for several months. During this time Black Hawk made plans for recaptur- ing title to his home territory and for regaining other rights which he believed due his people.
It is generally conceded that he wanted to avoid open conflict if his purposes could have been realized through conference with the white authorities, but failing in this he was ready to fight, in which event he looked for support from other tribes. His strength in fighting men, among the Sacs alone, was not formidable enough to win in a long struggle, but if reinforced by the comparatively large population of Pottawattamie of the Chicago region, their confederates the Chip- pewa, and by the Fox and the Winnebagoes, a full scale conflict, during which scores of isolated settlers would have been killed, could easily have resulted. The settlers were scattered, out-numbered, and inferior in armaments to the Indians, who had become well equipped with small arms over the years.
So Black Hawk counted heavily upon support from the other na- tives. (He had been assured of these increments to his forces by a sly old Indian named and known among the tribes as the "prophet," who lived at the place now called Prophetstown.) No doubt the rank and file of these neighboring tribes, having nursed their real and fancied grievances against the whites over many decades, were eager to fall in line. It was not a pleasant outlook for the settlers along Flagg Creek.
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At this point in our story there enters a character who appears to be unique in the annals of the American frontier, an Indian Chief named Shabbonee, or Shabbona, as he was called by the whites. A number of years after the Black Hawk uprising, General Lewis Cass introduced this chief to President Van Buren, in Washington, with these remarks:
"Shabbona is the greatest red man of the West; he has always been a friend of the whites, and saved many of their lives during the Black Hawk War."
Born in 1775 on the Kankakee River, the son of an Ottawa who had fought under Pontiac, Shabbona joined the Pottawattamie tribe, became a chief, and was closely allied with the famous Tecumseh, until the latter's death at the battle of the Thames in 1813. From then on, Shabbona displayed traits of character most uncommon for an Indian. He visioned the day when the whites would be supreme in the land and he saw the futility of resistance to white expansion. He urged his tribesmen, for their own good, to adopt the same view. Thus as moni- tor, as well as commander in chief, he was the leader and spokesman for all the Indians of the Chicago region, at the time these events were taking place.
It was in this spirit that he had argued with Big Foot at Lake Geneva to dissuade that chief from war in 1827. Big Foot was so in- censed, he threatened Shabbona's life and drove him from the village. Five years afterward, and again in the role of conciliator, Shabbona called his chiefs together.
Early in the month of May 1832, when, according to the frontier "grapevine," war appeared imminent, the Pottawattamies held a meet- ing on the banks of the Desplaines for the purpose of deciding on the stand the tribe should take in the event of hostilities. Although the exact place of this meeting is not given by historians, probably it was held at Lyons because so many trails converged there. It was attended by Shabbona, chief of the Pottawattamies, by Billy Caldwell and Alex- ander Robinson, two half-breed chiefs of the same tribe whose names are mentioned frequently in the history of this region, and by the wife of David Laughton who was a Pottawattamie squaw.
A full report of this council would be of considerable interest now, but like so many happenings of the past, a mere statement of the fact of the occurrence is nearly all we have. Nehemiah Matson, an Illinois
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historian, says that "after some deliberation it was decided to remain at peace. But many of these Indians had ill feeling toward the settlers and were ready to raise the tomahawk as soon as the Sacs and Foxes commenced hostilities." Mrs. Laughton is reported to have remarked to some of those standing by that some of her people were with Black Hawk and would begin to raid the settlements as soon as he gave the word.
While this meeting on the Desplaines was in progress, the first move of the uprising was taking form. Out on the west bank of the Mississippi, Black Hawk was gathering his followers, his warriors and their families around him, to lead them back to their homeland on the Rock River, and to re-establish themselves on their former lands, peaceably, or by force. When his band landed on the east bank of the Mississippi, the alarm quickly spread. Governor Reynolds decided the regular army contingents in the state, under Brigadier General Henry Atkinson, were insufficient to cope with the situation, and quickly called for volunteers. Black Hawk did not stop at his former village. At the head of his band he marched on, up the Rock. At Dixon's Ferry (now Dixon, Illinois) the Indians crossed the river, and camped a few miles beyond.
By happenstance, Major Isaiah Stillman, with 240 volunteer militia, out on a reconnoitering expedition, was likewise encamped in the same vicinity, at White Rock Grove, in Ogle County. Black Hawk became aware of his enemy's proximity, but he was not intent on a fight if battle could be avoided. Instead, he sent three envoys of peace toward Stillman's camp. These messengers, while on their way, and carrying a flag of truce, met a platoon of Stillman's soldiers, who were either extremely "green," drunk, or both. The soldiers opened fire, killing two of these emissaries of peace.
This incident infuriated the Indian Chief. He ordered an immedi- ate attack on the white force, and in the running fight which followed, Stillman's battalion was practically annihilated. The Black Hawk War had started.
News of this event spread rapidly throughout the frontier. Perhaps the first to hear it were the other Indian tribes and their leaders. In the jabbering native dialect it must have traveled quickly from campfire to village, through the woods and over the prairies. The news reached Fort Dearborn, and it was heard at the scattered settlements, including
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VILLAGE ON THE COUNTY LINE
those along the Du Page and the Desplaines. According to one writer, "The story of Stillman's defeat inaugurated a reign of terror between the Illinois and Wisconsin Rivers, and great consternation throughout the entire West." Probably the Indian victory had given the settle- ments an exaggerated impression of Black Hawk's immediate numbers and strength; but if his anticipated allies were to join him, as many thought they would, the consternation was well founded.
Events of the next few days did nothing to allay the general appre- hension. On Indian Creek, a stream which empties into the Fox River about ten miles above its mouth, forty-five miles south-west of Hins- dale, fifteen members of three families were slaughtered in that fiendish, exuberant spirit of barbarity of which the American Indian was so adept. Rifle, tomahawk, hatchet, and club were used in this attack. After the victims fell they were hacked and butchered. Some were strung up by their ankles to trees or cabin roofs. Two daughters of one of the families, Hazel and Rachel Hall, were taken captive and carried away to a Winnebago village in Wisconsin, where several months later they were ransomed and returned to their friends. A few Pottawattamie were with the Sauks in this massacre at Indian Creek.
Reverend Hawley, a brother of Pierce Hawley, at whose house Mrs. Kinzie's party had stopped, was tortured and murdered by roaming Indians, not far from the Hawley home. A mile or two from Plainfield Adam Payne was dragged from his horse and beheaded. Possibly there were other, similar depredations near by that have gone unrecorded.
(Interestingly enough, the name of Girty appeared on the Illinois frontier of these times. During the earlier Indian wars, in Kentucky and Ohio, the name of Simon Girty, the renegade American who helped the British incite the Indians against the settlements, was a household word used by parents to keep their children quiet at night. According to Matson, a Mike Girty was similarly active among the natives of this region during the initial phase of the Sauk uprising. He is said to have been present at the torture of Reverend Hawley, but to have been a friend of Adam Payne. Unfortunately, Mike was with a group of Indians who found Mr. Payne's head a few days after it had been removed, south of Plainfield.)
Black Hawk was not sure of Shabbona, but he thought the latter's sub-alterns, together with the general war-like sentiment that per- meated the tribes, would win him over. Then too, he of course was
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encouraged in this belief by his recent victory. At the first opportunity, he sought and obtained a council with Shabbona.
Never since then has Illinois seen a meeting such as this one that took place at Paw Paw Grove, near the head of Indian Creek. Accord- ing to P. A. Armstrong, one of the chroniclers of the uprising, "Black Hawk, mounted upon his favorite milk-white pony, clad in the red coat and epaulets of a colonel of British cavalry, with ponderous sword and belt, came trooping into the Pottawattamie village, followed by Neapope, Pashepaho, and other Sauk chiefs, at the head of the entire band of braves and warriors, accompanied by the beating of tom-toms and the singing of their war songs." On the other side of the council circle, the chief of the Pottawattamie sat with his lieutenants Wau- ponsee, Shemenon, Shaata, and Meaumese.
Shabbona flatly told Black Hawk that his people would not join in the fight against the whites, "because the palefaces will raise an army whose numbers are like the leaves on the trees" against which the Indians no longer could contend. And this was the decision, not of a pacifist, but of a shrewd and calculating warrior; the one who had taken over command at the Battle of the Thames, after Tecumseh had fallen. Shabbona could not speak for the Fox or the Winnebago, but the Pottawattamie, the Ottawa, and the Chippewa would not join in the uprising. And needless to relate, from that time on, Shabbona and Black Hawk were implacable enemies.
There still was danger that malcontents among the Pottawattamie would attack the settlers, if they had not already done so. In view of this possibility and of the uncertainty of the next move on the part of the Sauks, Shabbona, his two sons, and two or three of his lieutenants set out on their ponies to warn the settlers of their danger. Up the ravines, across the prairie, and to the cabins fringing the woods and along the streams rode these Mid-Western Paul Reveres. They called at Ottawa, at Holderman's, Hollenbeck's, and Walker's Groves; at the Big Woods settlement (Aurora), at Naper's settlement, and as far east as the Desplaines and Fort Dearborn. Shabbona's pony gave out, and he obtained another from a settler, but finally the mission was accom- plished.
Immediately, volunteer companies were formed; one under Joseph Naper, called the Du Page Company, and another was recruited at Fort Dearborn. General Atkinson ordered a company stationed at
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VILLAGE ON THE COUNTY LINE
Joliet to proceed to Naper's settlement, to build a fort there. It was called Fort Paine, in honor of the captain of that company. A few miles south of there, at Walker's Grove, a rough stockade was thrown up around the cabin of one Reverend Beggs, and Beggs became the name of this "fort."
The women, children, and the elderly at Naper's and at Walker's settlements were transferred to the fort at Chicago, and according to one historian some of them were almost intercepted, near the site of Hinsdale. Out where the old Plainfield Road crosses Flagg Creek, about a mile and a half southeast of the village, the land reaches to considerable heights on both sides of the tiny stream. Thick woods and underbrush at the bottom of that vale would make it an excellent spot for an ambush. According to the legend, it was there, where the trail crosses the creek, that a band of Indians lay in wait for the refugees from Fort Beggs. When, however, the Indians saw the settlers approach under military escort, they decided not to attack, and not to reveal their presence.
While Fort Paine was under construction, two young soldiers of the Joliet company, named Brown and Buckley, were sent with a wagon to Sweet's Grove near by for a load of shingles. As they approached their destination, Buckley jumped off the wagon to make an opening in a rail fence through which the wagon could pass. At that moment Brown was killed by three rifle balls fired from a nearby thicket. Buck- ley ran back to the fort for aid. When the soldiers arrived at the scene of the shooting, they found Brown's body, but the two horses were missing. A stone in the Naperville cemetery now marks the grave of young Brown.
An intermixture of tragic and amusing events took place in this neighborhood during that spring and early summer of 1832. In the midst of planting their crops, the farmers had to choose between aban- donment of their lands, or remaining and running the risk of massacre. They were faced with both the imminence and the doubtfulness of war. Dispatch riders frequently passed between Fort Dearborn and points to the west, carrying warnings, pleas, and other messages.
Those days in this neighborhood are clearly pictured by Mrs. Caroline Strong, wife of Robert Strong, a member of the Naper settlement, in a letter she wrote to her sister back East. Her letter follows:
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BLACK HAWK'S THREAT
Fort Paine, July 12th, 1832
My dear Venilea,
Our box which our kind friends in Ogden sent us was brought to this place last Monday. It came safe and uninjured. We were very glad of & thankful for the contents; they are very dear on account of their being sent to us such a distance by very dear friends. We were disappointed to see so few letters. We think it a pity so good an opportunity was not better improved. I did indeed laugh on seeing some particular things which you in your extreme kindness & thoughtfulness provided for me. I assure you I have no present use for them but I will keep them a while & if they continue to be useless to me I will give them to some of my richer neighbors. You know strange things happen some- times & I am not sure but you may want such before I do. I expect before I see you (if I ever have that pleasure) you will be as (word illegible) as (word gone) light can make you. I hope you will make a good choice and not be disappointed or deceived. I hope you will be as happy and contented as I am, then I will be satisfied. Married or not do come to see me. You who are con- stantly surrounded by intimate friends, can have no idea how I (who have seen but one for more than a year) do long to see you.
I was glad to hear that you continued to have protracted meetings and that exertions are making for the conversion of sinners. O, that a faithful devoted missionary would come into this dark corner of the earth! I wish this for my own sake and for the sake of the wicked wretches around me. You cannot imagine how sin and iniquity doth abound here. It is enough to make one shudder to see how the Sabbath is spent here, particularly by the soldiers stationed here (to whom we have given about one hundred tracts this week) . Surely here the "Harvest is great but the labourers few". Here is a wide field for some missionary to labour in. 'Tis true there are preachers here, but they are not the right kind. A man who would do good here must be one who is willing, for Christ's sake, to deny himself many of the comforts of life, the pleasures of society, meekly and cheerfully to submit to the derision and scoffs of a mocking multitude. We want just such a man as Mr. Sedgewick here. It is thought that if there is not a Protestant church formed at Chicago very soon there will be a Roman Catholic one. There are some good people here & some very bad ones.
I suppose by now you hear much said of the present affliction of this State. How eagerly must you search for and listen to all the news concerning us! How your affectionate heart must beat with anxious and tender solicitude for the fate of your far off R. & C. who are really in the midst of trouble! I tell you I am tired of war times & war fare & I guess you would be too if you had to live as I do. For four days after we came to this place we had to live entirely out of doors 'tho we were permitted to sleep under shelter. Since then we have had a comfortable house. There are 2 small rooms & six families to occupy them. There are twenty-two children. There are five or six crying, two or three scolding almost constantly besides all the rest of the confusion naturally ex- pected in such a place as this. And here I am in a crazy chamber (in the midst of this confusion) sitting on my feet, with my paper on a chair, scribbling to you. I tell you this, not as troubles but to let you see how pleasantly I am situ- ated! We stayed at Chicago nearly four weeks when thinking we should be as safe at home as there we ventured to return. A day or two after we got home
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VILLAGE ON THE COUNTY LINE
General Atkinson sent forty of his men, commanded by Captain Paine, to build a fort & to remain at this place which is four miles from our house. The day after they arrived here one of their men was killed by hostile Indians. The wretches after scalping him escaped with a span of horses. They had lurked about the place a number of days watching the road. We passed within a few rods of them on our return from Chicago. If we had had horses we should probably have lost our lives as these animals seem to be their first object. Where they find two or three men alone with horses they are sure to kill the men and take the horses. Where there is no danger of discovery they mangle them in the most horrid manner. Some were found, their heads in one place and bodies in another. Some with their eyes picked out & noses cut off. One man's body was cut to pieces, his entrails taken out and wound around his neck. One's heart was taken out & cut and chewed to pieces. But our unworthy lives are still spared, our Heavenly Father has delivered us from dangers seen and unseen whilst our neighbors (literally speaking) have fallen victims to the blood thirsty savages. Two months ago we were quietly pursuing our labours, thought not of danger or interruption, especially from such a quarter. But what a contrast! What before was peace & prosperity was suddenly re- versed into scenes of fear, distress & poverty. Homes were deserted, farms left uncultivated, large droves of cattle left to range unmolested their boundless fields. Now, people are just beginning to creep out of their hives & tremblingly take a peep at their old homes which I assure you do not look as though they had ever been inhabited by human beings. Some houses where the unfortunate owners were providentially permitted previously to escape, were visited by Indians & everything destroyed. It was not carried off or burned but left in the house to aggravate and distress the now destitute owners. Good furniture, iron ware, crockery smashed to atoms, clothing and bedding torn and cut to pieces. Murdered cats, dogs & hogs lay about the house. Other houses with their contents were burned. I never before realized the uncertainty of life so much as at present. Never before did I feel the importance of living every day as though it were our last to be so spent. I never felt so little desire to accumu- late worldly riches as at present. I look abroad upon the earth covered with all that is lovely & inviting to the eye. It looks mournfully pleasant but emptiness & vanity fear & danger seem to be inscribed upon everything I behold. In imagi- nation I visit all parts of the earth. I find war, pestilence, famine or discord of some kind raging throughout the whole of this sin abounding world. I cast my thoughts upward where there is such infinity of bliss, such abounding never ending happiness awaiting those who live as they ought to & then I wonder why poor shortsighted mortal I am anxious to have her days lengthened out. Yet, there is one tie, one strong tie which binds me to earth. There is one, a frail worm like myself for whom & with whom I would wish to live still longer. Here is human nature! With this desire would a mere nothing in the shape of a man wish to hurry his Maker, counteract His Own Almighty Plans & stoop to the gratification of his desires & wishes? O, pray for me all my praying friends that I may be enabled to say from the heart "My Father, Thy Will be Done." If I am not deceived I feel that it is good to be in the hands of the Lord-I feel sweet confidence in commending myself to him. I wish to put all my trust in him.
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It is thought there is little or no danger about here at present. The two young ladies who were taken prisoners by the Sac Indians were ransomed by the Winnebagoes & assisted by them in getting to their uncles. Their parents, brothers & sisters fell victim to the tomahawk & scalping knife. The young ladies said they were well treated. A young Indian Chief was calculating to marry one of them as soon as the war was over.
Tell your Ma that since she has sent me some "certain small furniture" I would like to have her remember a promise she used to make to me when I took care of her children in her absence. If she remembers it she had better select one or two of the best nurses out of the family & send them along. I would be willing to make her think it was time to fulfill her promise if I knew that would bring any of you here. Tell F. I thank her for her letter. I will answer it in a year or two if I have an opportunity to send it. I must bid you good bye & say a few words to Fidelia in answer to her diverting letter. Write again & do not forget your sincere friend & sister
CAROLINE STRONG
On the margin of the letter, is a post script written by Robert Strong:
"P.S. Gen. Scott is expected to march with his troops, in the course of a day or two from C. against the Indians. His soldiers are recovering of the cholera. Two steamboats have arrived loaded with troops."
Mrs. Strong, like Mrs. Kinzie, was better schooled than most of the pioneer folk of their times and her letter is the only one found in Chicago or vicinity giving a first hand personal impression of those days along the Du Page.
President Andrew Jackson evidently considered the Black Hawk uprising sufficiently serious to warrant the services of one of his best commanders, for in the early summer of 1832 he ordered General Winfield Scott, with a suitable force, to the scene of hostilities. The contingent came West by steamboat, an innovation in that day, though the boats carried sail as auxiliary power. While on their journey through the lakes, an unexpected and violent attack of the Asiatic cholera broke out among the troops. This was a new disease in Amer- ica, which had filtered down from Canada, where it first appeared. While contending with this epidemic, the force landed at Chicago, on July 9.
In regard to this sojourn into the West, Winfield Scott, the hero of Lundy's Lane, Queenstown, and later one of the commanders of our
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expedition into Mexico, makes the following remarks in his memoirs: "In 1832, Indian hostilities of some magnitude broke out against the then frontier settlements of the upper Mississippi. Brigadier Gen- eral Atkinson, a dear friend of the autobiographer - - - collected such forces as were at hand-regulars under Colonel Taylor, with a much greater number of Illinois volunteers-and marched against Black Hawk and his - - Sacs and Foxes, who were supported, not only by the sympathies, but material secret aid, of their neighbors the Winnebago tribe. As the example of Black Hawk was likely to become infectious among many other Indians in that quarter-Sioux, etc., Scott, who commanded at the time in the eastern half of the United States, was ordered to the northwest, with a respectable number of regulars." He goes on to tell of the cholera, the landing at Chicago, and of subsequent events.
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