USA > Wisconsin > Rock County > Rock County, Wisconsin; a new history of its cities, villages, towns, citizens and varied interests, from the earliest times, up to date, Vol. I > Part 5
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May 7, 1832, Abraham Lincoln and his company reached Gen- eral Atkinson at the mouth of Rock river and were mustered into the United States service. Lieutenant Robert Anderson, of the regulars (later the hero of Fort Sumter), was detailed inspector general of the Illinois militia, about 1,600 in all, who were placed under Brigadier General Samuel Whiteside, an experienced In- dian fighter, and accompanied by Governor Reynolds as major general.
May 9 the start was made, General Whiteside with his 1,300 mounted men leading on land and General Atkinson's 400 regu- lars and the 300 volunteer infantry, with guns and most of the baggage, following in boats. The baggage with Whiteside's com- mand was carried in wagons, and heavy rains made the traveling bad for both divisions. There was no road, of course, but through swamps and a rough country. Whiteside, his force advancing more rapidly than Atkinson, found the prophet's town deserted, and promptly following Black Hawk's trail, reached Dixon's ferry on May 12. Here he met two independent battalions con- sisting of 341 men under Majors Isaiah Stillman and David Bailey. These had abundance of ammunition and supplies, were boastful and eager to serve as rangers, and so were sent forward on the morning of May 13 as a scouting party. Late in the after- noon of the 14th they encamped in a small grove three miles
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THE BLACK HAWK WAR
southwest of Sycamore ereek, wholly unaware that the Indians were only three miles beyond them.
In the meantime Black Hawk, after losing a week in fruitless councils with the Winnebagoes at Prophetstown, pushed on to meet the Pottawatomies at Sycamore creek. The chiefs of that tribe having been influenced by the advice of Shaubena, he could only gain on his side about a hundred of the more hot-headed of the tribe. As a parting courtesy, however, he was arranging to give them a dog feast on the evening of May 14 when he was told that a party of white horsemen were going into camp three miles down the river. In after years Black Hawk asserted that at this juncture he had fully resolved to peacefully return to the west side of the Mississippi should General Atkinson again sum- mon him to do so. The hostile faction of the Pottawatomies and the majority of his own party were some seven miles north. Black Hawk, having with him only about forty of his warriors (Reynolds thought the number fifty or sixty), and thinking that Stillman's corps was a small party headed by Atkinson, sent to them three of his young men with a white flag to convey his offer to meet with the White Beaver (Atkinson) in council. He also had five others, mounted, follow the three at a safe distance to report how they were received. When the flag-bearers were seen by those rangers, many of whom were half intoxicated with liquor, a mob of the latter rushed out upon the envoys and ran them into camp with yells and oaths. Some twenty of the excited horsemen also, having sighted the second party of Indians, at once gave chase and killed two of them. The other three gal- loped back to their chief and reported that the three flag-bearers as well as two of their number had been slain. The old Sae and his forty or fifty braves, roused to a spirit of revenge, and being well mounted, at once started to meet the enemy and soon saw the entire white force of about 300 rushing towards them in a confused mass. Ambushing his men, Black Hawk waited until the enemy were within range, and then firing with deadly effect, charged upon them. At that first fire of the Indians Stillman's whole force turned and fled, pursued by about twenty-five sav- ages, until nightfall ended the chase but not the rout. The panic- stricken volunteers plunged on through swamps and creeks to Dixon's ferry, twenty-five miles away, and many of them kept
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HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
on for fifty miles further, carrying the report that Black Hawk was sweeping all northern Illinois with 2,000 bloodthirsty war- riors.
The Indians lost the two spies and one of the flag-bearers, who had been treacherously shot in Stillman's camp, while the others escaped by the fleetness of their ponies ; and of the whites eleven were killed.
But for this act of treachery the war might have been wholly avoided. From his easy victory, however, Black Hawk formed a poor opinion of the valor of the whites and an exaggerated esti- mate of the prowess of his own braves. The capture of Stillman's camp and rich stores of food and ammunition also supplied what he most needed, and having decided that war was now inevitable, he sent scouts to watch the white army and hurried his women and children northward to Lake Koshkonong. He was guided to that swampy fastness by friendly Winnebagoes, among whom he seems to have gained some allies, and then he returned, ap- parently with his whole force, to northern Illinois, prepared to resist General Atkinson's advance. It is a local tradition that he visited the Winnebago village located at what is now Hohon- ega Park, five miles south of Beloit, and after failing to draw that band into the war went to the Winnebago camp just east of Janesville, called Black Hawk's grove, and thence on up to Kosh- konong. It is quite certain at any rate that General Atkinson's command came this way in their pursuit.
May 15 Whiteside, with 1,400 men, reached the field of battle and buried the dead, and on the 19th Atkinson, with his entire army, moved up Rock river, leaving Stillman's corps, such as were left of them, to guard the supplies at Dixon's. These promptly deserted their post and went home, so Atkinson and the regulars returned to Dixon's, sending Whiteside to follow and locate Black Hawk. His troops, however, declared that the Indians had gone into the impenetrable swamps at the north, where pursuit was useless, and that they were not required to serve outside of the state in that Michigan territory. So before reaching the state line they turned around and marched south to Ottawa, Ill., where they were all mustered out by General Reynolds May 27 and 28, Lincoln among them.
Governor Reynolds called for 2,000 more volunteers to serve
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THE BLACK HAWK WAR
through the war and urged those who had been mustered out to reënlist for twenty days until the new regiments were formed. In reply to this appeal Abraham Lincoln enlisted and by Lieu- tenant Robert Anderson was on May 29 mustered into a company of mounted independent rangers, Lincoln furnishing his own arms, valued at $40, and horse with equipments, at $120. When mustered out at Dixon's Ferry June 16, the same day Lincoln enlisted again, and as a private in an independent cavalry com- pany was again mustered in by Lieutenant Anderson to serve under Captain Jacob M. Early. This was part of a force of 300 mounted volunteer rangers under Colonel Henry Frye and Lieu- tenant Colonel James D. Henry, who agreed to protect the north- ern line of Illinois settlements until the new levy could be mo- bilized.
Atkinson's army was now divided into three brigades, under Generals James D. Henry, M. K. Alexander and Alexander Posey. The latter led the left wing, Henry the right, and Alexander the center.
During the irregular hostilities which followed that first at- tack of May 14 Black Hawk's various bands, including some scalping parties of Winnebagoes and Pottawatomies, made sev- eral raids on the whites of northern Illinois, resulting in the loss of many lives and producing widespread terror and panic among the settlers. The most notable instance occurred May 21, 1832. Thirty Pottawatomies and three Sacs under Girty surprised and slaughtered fifteen men, women and children at the Davis farm on Indian creek, twelve miles north of Ottawa. Two daughters of William Hall, Sylvia, aged seventeen, and Rachel, aged fifteen, were spared, carried up Rock river through this region to a stronghold not far from Koshkonong lake, which is by some iden- tified with Black Hawk's grove, near Janesville, and were ap- parently adopted into the family of a Sae chief. Although obliged to endure some unavoidable hardships, they were not ill treated in any way, and by the influence and exertions of the Winnebago Indian agent, Colonel Gratiot, before mentioned, and the payment of about $2,000 (ransom offered by General Atkin- son), through the Winnebago chief, White Crow, they were res- eued, unharmed, less than two weeks after their capture. On June 3 White Crow delivered them to the occupants of the fort
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HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
at Blue Mounds (west of Madison), and in July they were given a permanent home in the family of Rev. Mr. Horn, of Morgan county, Illinois.
Another factor in this war was a voluntary military force from the lead regions, led by Colonel Henry Dodge, afterwards governor of Wisconsin and United States senator, who placed his command under the orders of General Atkinson. On May 25 near the head of the four lakes he had a conference with sev- eral Winnebago chiefs, through their agent, Henry Gratiot, and the Winnebagoes promised to be faithful to their treaties with the whites.
June 14 a party of thirteen Sacs killed five white men at Spaf- ford's farm on the Pecatonica river, in what is now Lafayette county, Wisconsin. Colonel Dodge, with Captain James H. Gen- try, two other officers and twenty-six privates, promptly fol- lowed the Sacs and on the 16th caught and killed all of them, having three of his own men killed and one wounded. The scene of this battle was a bend in the Pecatonica on section 11, town 2, range 5 east, in the town of Wiota.
On June 24 Black Hawk's own band of 200 attacked the Apple River fort fourteen miles east of Galena, killed one man and wounded one. The next day at Kellogg's grove (now in Kent, Stephenson county, Ill.) the same band attacked Major Dement's scouting party of 150, but General Posey having come up with a detachment of volunteers, the Indians were routed with a loss of about fifteen, while the whites lost five.
About June 28 all the forces under Colonel Dodge gathered at Fort Hamilton (town of Wiota, Lafayette county) and were joined by Posey's brigade, all expecting to meet General Atkin- son with the other two divisions of his army at Lake Koshko- nong. On June 27 Henry's brigade and the regulars under Zachary Taylor, accompanied by General Atkinson, resumed their march from Dixon's up the east bank of Rock river, Early's company, in which Lincoln was a private, being with Henry. June 30 this force crossed the state line into what is now Wiscon- sin at Turtle village (Beloit) and camped on the prairie, well back from the river and about two miles north of the village, which was then unoccupied. General Atkinson went into camp early in the afternoon and had his men bring wood and water
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THE BLACK HAWK WAR
up from the river before dark. Then posting sentinels about the camp, he was protected against any night attack. (Some poles of this camp on the prairie were still to be seen there in 1840, when my father, Benjamin Brown, first came to Beloit. He sev- eral times pointed out to me the site of that eamp as being on a slight ridge about eighty rods north of the present crossroads two miles north of Beloit.) The next morning, July 1, 1832, "the army continued its march up the river," says Westfield, "and after proceeding two or three miles saw an Indian spy on the high ground of the opposite or west side of Rock river." That high ground was probably Big hill, which in an early day was not covered with second growth as now, but had on it large tim- ber and little underbrush, so that the view from it was unob- structed.
The army soon reached an abandoned Indian camp, which seems to have been at what has ever since been called Black Hawk's grove, in the southeast part of Janesville. The tent poles and remains of camp fires found there by the earliest settlers indicated a camp site of some permanence. On the evening of July 1 one division of Atkinson's force encamped near Storr's lake, a short distance east of the village of Milton. The night was dark and Captain Charles Dunn, afterwards chief justice of Wisconsin, while going the rounds as officer of the day was accidentally shot by an excited sentinel and so severely wounded that soon after he had to be conveyed to Dixon by an escort. Colonel Dodge and General Henry, with about 600 men, having sought the enemy at the rapids of the Rock (now Hustisford, Dodge county) and learned that they had gone west, returned to the main force.
On the morning of July 2 Atkinson's command marched north to about the north line of Rock county and then, turning to- wards Lake Koshkonong, Early's rangers being in advance, soon struck the trail of Black Hawk's retreat and halted. It is al- leged that on July 3 the army was in camp on the north side of Otter creek, about two miles from Lake Koshkonong (on section 3 in the town of Milton). While they were at this camp scouts brought in an aged Sae Indian who was blind. When the army passed on they left him food and water, but some of the forces of Posey or Alexander, who followed, coming on him unex-
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HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
pectedly and supposing him a spy, shot him-the only Indian known to have been killed in Rock county. On the evening of July 3 Alexander arrived with his division. July 6 Atkinson marched to Burnt Village, at the junction of Whitewater creek with Bark river. That night Posey's brigade and Colonel Henry Dodge's regiment arrived at the mouth of the Whitewater. Cap- tain Early also returned from a scout. July 7 Atkinson marched several miles up the Rock, but on the 8th returned to the mouth of the Whitewater. Winnebago Indians falsely reported Black Hawk as being on an island in Lake Koshkonong (since called Black Hawk's island.) July 9 Early's company crossed to the island on rafts, but found no one there. A. A. Jackson, of Janes- ville, from whose article in Wis. Hist. Coll., Vol. 14, on "Lincoln in the Black Hawk War," part of this account has been taken, says : "I have been thus particular in tracing Captain Early's company for the purpose of showing that Abraham Lincoln was with the right wing of Atkinson's army and marched up the Rock through Beloit and Janesville."
By July 10, the provisions of the army having been exhausted, Henry and Alexander were sent to Fort Winnebago (at Portage) for supplies; Posey was ordered to Fort Hamilton (in the lead region south of Dodgeville) ; Taylor with the regulars went to Prairie du Chien; Emory's regiment returned to Dixon's, Ill .; while Early's rangers were mustered out of the United States service at Burnt Village July 11. The day after he was mustered out Lincoln started for his home in Illinois. That night his horse and that of a comrade were stolen and they had to walk. The two went from the mouth of the Whitewater to Peoria and very probably returned through this region by Black Hawk's grove and Turtle village, the trail over which they had already marched the other way.
The close of the war soon followed. The retreat of Black Hawk's band westward with their women and children having been discovered, the commands of Colonel Dodge and General Henry promptly pursued, and on July 21 found and fought them on the Wisconsin river at Wisconsin Ileights (two miles below Sauk City). The final battle was fought at the mouth of the Bad Axe river (opposite the north line of Iowa), where the larger part of Black Hawk's party, including many squaws and children.
THE BLACK HAWK WAR
were ruthlessly destroyed, August 2. Black Hawk and the prophet fied north, but were captured about two miles above the site of Kilbourn by two Winnebago chiefs, Chaeta and Decorra, and delivered August 27 to the Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, General Street, who at once sent them under charge of Lieuten- ant Jefferson Davis to Jefferson Barraeks, St. Louis, Mo.
General Winfield Scott had been ordered from the East, with 1,000 regulars, to take command, but was delayed by an epidemie of cholera among his soldiers and did not reach Rock Island until after the war was ended. It was estimated that some 850 Indians, with 250 soldiers and settlers, had been killed, and that the war had cost also about $2,000,000.
September 15 to 21, 1832, a treaty of peace was signed by the Winnebagoes at Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, and Black Hawk was held as a hostage during the winter at Jefferson Bar- racks. In April, 1833, he was taken to Washington, D. C., along with the prophet and Neapope, and they were kept as prisoners in Fortress Monroe until June 4 and then discharged. During his imprisonment there Black Hawk's portrait was painted by R. M. Sully, and it now hangs in the museum of the Wisconsin State Historical Society at Madison, Wis.
On their way west the party having charge of the Indians took Black Hawk through most of the principal cities, in each of which he was lionized, and at Fort Armstrong, August 1, 1833, formally placed him under the guardianship of the legal Sac chief Keokuk.
Black Hawk lived on a reservation in southeastern Iowa and died there October 3, 1838, aged seventy-one years. There also he was buried on the west bank of the Mississippi, according to Moses M. Strong, near what is now Montrose, Lee county. Sur- veyor Willard Barrows, however, wrote to the Davenport "Ga- zette" in 1859 that Black Hawk siekened and died near Iowa- ville, on the Des Moines river in Wapello county, and was buried near by; that at a later period his bones were placed in the hall of the Historical Society at Burlington, Iowa, and consumed when the whole collection was destroyed by fire. Barrows said that he noted Black Hawk's wigwam and grave while surveying in 1843.
The many prominent men connected with this war, the ex-
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HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
traordinary and widespread public interest in its progress, the reports of the soldiers engaged in it, together with the attention which Black Hawk attracted in the East, all gave to this fertile and beautiful Rock river region a wonderful advertisement. Nearly all previous settlement of the southern part of our terri- tory had been from and in the Southwest. But the Black Hawk War interested hundreds of eastern people in this locality, and so was the indirect means of bringing here that high quality of citizenship which has made the Rock county of today.
IV.
THE FORGOTTEN PLACES. By Horace McElroy.
The years 1836 and 1837 were years of wild speculation in western lands, and men seem to have been as readily duped in those days with fabulous stories of wealth to be picked up easily and quickly from the Wisconsin prairies as they are today with tales of riches to be gathered from the jungles of Yucatan.
Early in the year 1836, and while there were but few actual settlers in what is now Rock county, a number of cities, villages and towns were laid out that we may now call "the forgotten places," so absolutely have their names and locations passed away. What is now Rock county was then a part of Milwaukee and Racine counties, and no names had as yet been given to any of the townships; but for the purpose of more plainly designat- ing the points where those now forgotten places were located we use the present names of the townships as well as the government designation of townships and ranges.
In telling of the forgotten places in Rock county, as they were in the great boom of 1836 and 1837, we deal only with those that have absolutely ceased to exist. Wisconsin has grown into a great state with a growth that has been steady and sure, and in the same way Rock county has grown into one of the great counties of the state, with thriving cities and villages, and with rich farms; but upon no one of the sites of the cities, villages or towns described herein are there now any houses except those of the farmers who till the soil, with here and there a modest church or a little country school.
On December 13, 1836, Van Buren was laid out and platted by John Thomas Haight, Francis W. Hending, Giles S. Brisbin and John L. Hilton upon the north half of the southeast quarter of section 1 of the town of Union, in Rock county, and the south-
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HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
east quarter of section 36 in the town of Rutland, in Dane county. The town of Van Buren was platted into sixty-one blocks, that part in Dane county containing blocks No. 1 to 40 inclusive, and that part in Rock county blocks 41 to 61 inclusive. In compari- son with this and other similar places we will state that the original plat of the village of Janesville, our county seat, platted on May 14, 1840, contained but fifty-nine blocks. Van Buren was laid out upon both sides of Badfish creek, and upon each side of the creek a wide space was reserved for "hydraulic purposes," as stated upon the map of the town site. Some few convey- ances of lots were made during several years succeeding the date of the plat, but as early as 1843 that part of the town site in Rock county was sold under the government designation of the north half of the northeast quarter of section 1 in town 4 north of range 10 east, and the land upon which Van Buren had been laid out has ever since been conveyed as farming land and used for farming purposes.
A few miles southeast of Van Buren, and in the west half of the east half of the northwest quarter of section 15 of the town of Porter, the town of Saratoga was laid out by Calvin Harmon, William Payne and Thomas A. Holmes, on January 6, 1837. This land is part of the farm now owned by Charles White. There were thirty-six blocks platted in Saratoga. Block 23 was laid out around a large and beautiful spring of water, now called Cal- edonia spring, that may have suggested to the proprietors the name for the townsite. On November 17, 1837, the proprietors sold a number of blocks and lots to Alfred Bixby, and that is the only sale of which we have any record. The spring remains, pouring out its great volume of water, but Saratoga has long ceased to exist; the birds build their nest and fill the air with their songs about the flowing water, and cattle graze upon the lands upon which Holmes, Payne and Harmon had hoped and ex- pected to see a city grow up that in time would rival the Sara- toga of the East.
Warsaw was platted by Charles Mellin and Albert Fowler on September 21, 1836, on the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 11 of the town of Fulton, within a quarter of a mile of the present city of Edgerton. The town map shows twenty-four blocks and a public square. The last sale of any of the platted land was made on August 10, 1837, and after that
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THE FORGOTTEN PLACES
date conveyances of the tract have always been made as farming land.
The late Silas Hurd, who was one of the pioneers of Rock county, used to tell the following story: One evening a stranger came to his home on the east side of Rock river and asked for a night's lodging, which of course was given to him. The stranger stated that he was from New York city, and complained bitterly of the hardships he had experienced on his journey west. In the course of the conversation he asked Mr. Hurd how he could reach a place called Warsaw. Mr. Hurd told him that unfor- tunately his only boat was smashed up, and that there was no other within some miles of his place. "But," he said, "you can go right down back of my house and swim Rock river easily enough. Then you will go about half a mile north and about a mile east, and there you will find a lot of stakes stuck in the ground. That's Warsaw." "But are there no houses there?" asked the man from New York city. "Not a house," Mr. Hurd replied. "There's nothing but stakes." "Well," the stranger said, "that settles it. I have bought a lot of property in Warsaw, and have been assured that it is a growing, thriving place with great possibilities in the near future, and I've had a good, tough time getting this far. If there's nothing but stakes in Warsaw I don't care to look at it; and, any way, I wouldn't swim Rock river for all the land in this township. I'll go back to New York and get after the man that sold me corner lots in Warsaw."
On the west bank of Rock river, at the junction of the Rock and Catfish rivers, in section 19 of the town of Fulton, early in the year 1836 James D. Doty, Alfred Orendorf, John Bannister and Morgan L. Martin laid out a village that they named Car- ramana, containing fifty platted blocks, and being about the size of Janesville, the county seat, as originally laid out. The date of the plat cannot be ascertained from the records of the county, as the map of the village is somewhat defaced, but it was earlier than April 20, 1836, because on that day Morgan L. Martin con- veyed to Solomon Juneau an undivided one-half interest in the village site. Later a few lots were sold as platted land, but since 1845 the townsite has been sold and conveyed by the usual and ordinary description of farming lands. The word "Carramana" is the Anglicized spelling of the name of an old Winnebago chief, called "The Walking Turtle."
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