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Reflections
Black Hawk War had lasting impact on northern Illinois : Reflections : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisBlack Hawk War had lasting impact on northern Illinois
| by Roger Matile
| 5/24/2012
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When the news of Maj. Isaiah Stillman's defeat on May 14, 1832 at Old Man's Creek spread, settlers drew together for mutual support and protection.
The refugees at the William Davis cabin on Big Indian Creek just south of the modern Kendall County line included Davis, his wife, and his six children; Mr. and Mrs. William Hall and their six children; Mr. and Mrs. William Pettygrew and their two children; John H. Henderson; William Norris; and Henry George.
The Davises had arrived on Big Indian Creek in 1830. Almost immediately Davis clashed with neighboring Indians, who were angered by a dam Davis built on the creek, contending it kept fish from ascending from the river to their village. When they tried to dismantle the dam, Davis severely beat one of the Potowatomis, a warrior named Kewassee,
At about 4:30 p.m. on May 21, 1832, a party of 20 heavily armed Indians painted for war, mostly comprised of local Potowatomis, vaulted the fence about 10 yards from the house and attacked the unprepared whites.
Later, 17 year-old Rachel Hall recalled: "Mr. Pettygrew made an effort to shut the door of the house but was shot down in the act of doing so, and indiscriminate murder of all the persons in the house consisting of one man, to wit, Mr. Pettygrew, four women Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Pettygrew, Mrs. Hall (my mother) and Miss Davis about fifteen years of age and six children four girls and two boys, and four men killed out of the house, Viz, Mr. Davis, Mr. Hall, William Norris and Henry George, in all fifteen persons, the whole scene transpired within ten minutes as I think."
John Henderson, three Hall boys, and two Davis boys escaped. Rachel Hall and her sister Sylvia, 19, were taken captive. While the panic-stricken survivors fled to Ottawa, the Indians carried the two girls to Black Hawk's band.
When word of the attack reached authorities, work on securing the return of the girls started, including dispatching Chief Waubonsee to negotiate their release. His mission was unnecessary, however, because the girls were quickly ransomed by the increasingly nervous Winnebagoes. Mindful of the role the Winnebago Prophet played in starting the war, the tribe was frantically trying to stay on the good side of the aroused Americans.
When news of Stillman's defeat reached the Potowatomi Indians here in the Fox Valley, Shabbona, 'peace' chief of the tribe, and his nephew Pipps rode to warn settlers in Kendall County of the coming Indian war. Most fled to the safety of either Ottawa or Walker's Grove-modern Plainfield.
Settlers who fled to Ottawa found a relatively large settlement and safety in numbers. Those who chose Walker's Grove, however, found something completely different. The Rev. Stephen R. Beggs, who settled on the DuPage River, left an account of what happened that May at Walker's Grove: "My house was considered the most secure place. I had two log pens built up, one of which served for a barn and the other for a shed. These were torn down and the logs used to build up a breastwork around the house. All of the people living on the Fox River who could not get farther away, made my house a place of shelter. There were one hundred and twenty five, old and young. We had four guns, some useless for shooting purposes," he later recalled.
On May 21 a company of mounted militia left Chicago to scout the trail to Ottawa, stumbling across the William Davis cabin shortly after the Indian Creek Massacre. The horrified men buried the mangled remains of the 15 unlucky settlers who were at the Davis cabin when Keewassee and his warriors struck before continuing. Reaching Ottawa, the party requested an escort back to Chicago. Maj. David Bailey, who by then was serving on Atkinson's staff, and 12 privates volunteered to escort the party. Reaching Walkers Grove, they found the 125 badly scared and poorly armed settlers huddled behind their hastily built breastworks. Sensibly, the settlers decided to go to Chicago with the armed party as escort, reaching safety on May 24.
Meanwhile, Gen. Winfield Scott was steaming west via the Great Lakes with more troops. Unfortunately, Scott's troops were infected with Asiatic cholera, which eventually killed far more soldiers and civilians than did any Indians in this war. When Scott arrived in Chicago with his infected soldiers, most settlers fled back to their homes, figuring while the Indians might kill them, the cholera surely would.
By the time Scott finally marched overland to western Illinois, the war was over. Black Hawk tried to surrender numerous times (with no interpreters, the soldiers couldn't understand the Indians' pleas) and finally tried to cross the Mississippi to safety. Instead, many of the men, women, and children in his band were killed by artillery fire from a U.S. steamboat. The Sioux, traditional Sauk enemies, with the encouragement of. government officials, killed many of the survivors when they reached the river's west bank. Black Hawk survived the war and eventually toured the U.S. before dying in 1838.
Illinois' last Indian war had several interesting sidelights. Keewassee and two other Potowatomis were charged with murder in connection with the Indian Creek Massacre, but the charges were dropped in 1834 because neither Sylvia nor Rachel Hall could positively identify the participants in the attack on their family.
Thirty years later, other participants would go on to play important roles during the Civil War, including Lt. Jefferson Davis, future Confederate President; Illinois Militia Pvt. Abraham Lincoln, future U.S. President; Gen. Winfield Scott, the future Union Army commander at the war's start; and Lt. Richard Anderson, who commanded Ft. Sumter when Confederates attacked in 1861.
The war gave hundreds of militia troops from surrounding states a look at the rich Illinois prairies in the Fox and Illinois River valleys, persuading many to emigrate during the next few years. It also displaced thousands, and killed hundreds of whites and Indians both by war and disease. But with war's end, settlement boomed.
Looking for more local history? Visit http://historyonthefox.wordpress.com
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