Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 14: The War Ended, 1877

Chapter 14: The War Ended

FEW days after the flight of the settlers, Peter Miller and wife, now of Sheridan, came out from Ohio and headed towards Ottawa. While crossing Grundy county, south of the Illinois river, they inquired their way of two drovers who were driving cattle to an Eastern market, and were then first informed of the war. They arrived, however, without accident at Ottawa, to the great relief of their friends - the Holdermans - who were anxiously expecting them. In June the pioneer miller of Kendall county, arrived at Ottawa, having accomplished the entire distance from Pittsburg a-foot and alone. He was unmolested throughout the entire journey. His brother Peter, now living in the Big Woods above Aurora, came with his family by steamboat around the lakes, but when the captain heard there was cholera in Chicago, he put off before half the goods were unloaded, and the unfortunate Peter never saw them from among the settlers. Those who had taken refuge in Chicago were at first housed in the fort, but when Major Whittlesey arrived with his regulars they occupied the fort, and the settlers moving out upon the prairie were gathered in shanties built of a raft of lumber just received by the Noble family. Half a dozen families were in some cases packed in a room fourteen feet square, and the confusion was great. Children quarreling, mothers chaffering, and men disputino^, Avorking, playing, or going on scouting expeditions, as they had opportunity. Black Hawk did not trouble them. He made a vitT^orous sie^e of the fort at Galena, but he was repulsed, and besides that seemed to avoid any open engagement. But a foe more deadly than the savage Indian was creeping up the country. It was the

Asiatic Cholera

It started in Canada, and followed the highways and navigable streams westward, leaving lines of dead behind to mark its fatal track. On Julv 8th, a steamer arrived havincy on board Gen. Winfield Scott and two hundred United States troops, and the Cholera. The latter was shipped at Detroit. The boat anchored a mile from the beach, as there was no harbor, and small boats and canoes put out to bring oif the men and cargo. Some had died on the trip, others were sick, and all were in fear. After landing it spread frightfully, defying all efforts to arrest or confine it, and in a few days ninety men had perished and were buried in a common grave, corner Lake street and Wabash Avenue. Those streets were not laid out at that time, though Lake street was surveyed the same fall, and the spot was included within the military ground. As soon as the news came to the ears of the settlers they fled again, being more willing to risk the Indians in the field than Cholera in the camp. While they needed an escort of forty men to bring them to Chicago, they needed none to guard them back, but fled in hot haste to the stockade at Plainfield, to Reed's Grove, to Hickory Creek, to Ottawa, wherever there was promise of safety.

- Gen. Scott's headquarters, while in Chicago, was at John Wentworth's tavern, familiarly called "- Rat Castle," in allusion to a large number of its regular boarders. It stood at the east end of Lake street bridge. The government sent two steamboat loads of provisions up the Illinois river, and they made their way as far as Lemont, the highest point ever reached by steamboat on the Illinois. There was great rejoicing when they came, both on account of the prospective opening up of commerce, and because of the present need, for as the cornfields were not planted there was danger of famine. The provisions were intended for the troops, and to be given as government supplies to the friendly Indians and the settlers. But the agent in charge sold to the settlers, and whether unjustly or not, was popularly supposed to have made a dishonest purse for himself. However, it was better to buy than to starve, though it was hard on many of the people, who had all they could do to live before.

The war finally ended in the latter part of July by a decisive battle on the Wisconsin river, after which the Indians retreated to the Mississippi, marking their route by their dead, and were defeated again. Dr. L D.

Boone, a relative of Daniel Boone, and one of the oldest living pioneers of Chicago, was regimental surgeon under Gen. Henry,- and was present at both engagements. These reverses settled the policy of the wavering Winnebagos, who pursued and captured Black Ilawk, of their own accord, and delivered him up to the whites. In the meantime, had been rescued by a ransom. They had lost little Jimmy Davis. Before he had gone many miles he became so tired as to be a burden to the Indians, and they stood him up by a tree and shot him. The two sisters were taken into Wisconsin, and were ransomed by the government for two thousand dollars and forty horses. Their case excited much interest, and the legislature voted them a quarter section of canal land at Joliet. Congress also voted them a small sum of money. They were taken to St. Louis, and from there by Rev. Erastus Horn, a friend of their father, to his house in Morgan county, 111. Sylvia afterwards married William Horn, and lives at Lincoln, Nebraska. Rachel married William Munson, and moved to Freehold, LaSalle Co., where she died a few years ago. The war being closed, scott's troops were not needed, and about August 1st the remnant of the little army, with baggage wagons and a" drove of cattle for supplies, marched through the northern part of Kendall county, on their way to Rock Island. Fresh deaths occurred every day, and nearly every camp was marked by its graves. The second night out they encamped near Little Rock, and the three soldiers' graves left behind were seen for years by the early settlers. Black Hawk, the cause of all the misery, was taken to Washington, where he made his celebrated speech to President Jackson, beginning : " I am a man, and YOU are another." He was confined in Fortress Monroe for the Winter, and released in the Spring, after making the tour of the eastern cities. He was lionized by the ladies, whom he complimented by saying, "pretty squaws." He returned by the way of the lakes to his tribe in Iowa, and died a very oM man, Oct. 3d, 1840. He was far inferior to Pontiac or Tecumseh, having little to distinguish him but his bravery.

Retribution

that followed his crimes is worthy of mention. He was taken prisoner at the final defeat of the Indians, and for subsequently killing a guard, was confined at hard labor, with ball and chain, in the garrison at Prairie Du Chien, for four years. It was probably the first honest work he ever did. When he was so far gone with consumption as to be unable to work, he was released and suftered to wander oft' to Bureau county, in this State, in search of his family. It was the locality of his murders, too, and where one poor man and his young wife had been burned alive. He entered Princeton in the last stages of consumption, with a violent cough, emaciated, and tottering under his load of blankets, copper kettle, pot, gun, tomahawk, knife, and a piece of venison. W^hen told that the Indians had all moved west of the Mississippi, he groaned in his despair, and shed the tears for his own misery that he could never shed for others. Reeling to and fro from weakness, he took up his march for the West. A week afterwards a body, eaten by wolves, was found on the prairie, and around the neck, attached to a buckskin cord, was a silver medal, on which was engraved, *'A token of friendship, Lewis Cass, U. S. A." It was the last of Mike Gurty, the assassin of Indian Creek. And over him might be raised the epitaph : '-' He showed no mercy in his life; he received none in his death." In August, 1832, John and Walter Pearce and arrived with their families. They were from the Mad river country, Ohio, and started almost the moment they heard the war was over, with horse teams, driving their cattle and sheep before them. It was a tedious journey, and the prospect, when they reached the quaking swamps around Chicago, anything but inviting. But from that point they struck for Fox river, and after a day's travel in that direction were better pleased. They touched the river at Aurora, though there was not one solitary cabin then to mark the spot, and passed on down the south bank to the present site of Oswego. There Mr. Wilson drove his stake, while the Pearces crossed the river and made their claims on the other side. Oswego is therefore, by a few months, the oldest inhabited town in Kendall county, being now in the forty-fifth year of her age. Mr. Wilson built his cabin near Walter Loucks' present residence. A few weeks afterwards, Ephraim Macomber and family arrived and claimed the place now owned by J. Budlong, on the Newark road, two miles west of Oswego. There were then two cabins on each side of the river.

The Settlers Return

This was not only the first settlement on Fox river in Kendall county, but, so far as known, they were the only settlers on the river, at that time, between Indian Creek and Geneva. During the same fall an unlearned and rather tedious preacher, well known in the early days of Chicago, made a claim covering the present site of Plattville. It was then known as The Springs, and was on the trail from Plainfield to Holderman's. Mr. See, no doubt, was charmed with the gushing fountain, beside which travelers used to camp, and wondering that no claim-stake had yet been driven there, resolved to drive his own. But he never occupied his claim. In September and October most of the settlers returned to their claims, which they found plundered of everything movable, so were obliged to begin over again. Some, however, wintered in other parts. George HoUenback and family and Mr. and Mr. Combs went to Ohio ; Mr. Harris went to his former home near Ottawa ; Mr. Ackley had gone on to Ohio on the breaking out of the war. Mr. Booth returned from Macomb and arrived on his claim October 31st. Mr Ilolderman sold his field of corn at Pekin, and returned so full of vigor that he was able to buy out Mr. Vermet, the last remaining old settler at the Grove. The sale of eighty acres was made November 10th, before J. Cloud, Justice of the Peace. John HoUenback and L. L. Robins were witnesses.

It Was Hard Times

got was ground in a coffee mill. Pork was supplied from the pigs that survived the war, feeding on acorns in the woods. But one by one the cold snowy days passed by.