The Trip To Illinois and Flights From The Indians

Taken From : Life History Of A Woman Pioneer

By Her Grandson, James Elder Armstrong © 1931

 

  The history of La Salle County, Illinois, by Elmer Baldwin gives the names of over fifty old settlers who came from Licking County, Ohio, so Elsie was to take up her claim among them. Her son John, now twenty- one years of age had taken up a claim near Lacon in Marshall County, and one of her brothers lived there too. Doubtless the history of the settlement of that County and Putnam County would also show a large number of emigrants from the same county in Ohio.

  So she set out, a little woman who weighed less than a hundred pounds but with a will power of a ton. She had seven sons with her. George was nineteen and the youngest about three. They had all their goods and the food for the family and for the five horse team, stowed away in the great covered wagon. They wisely chose a course southward to the Ohio River, for, although it was a hilly road, it was dry and well beaten by travel. It was much longer than to have taken the direct route to Illinois. When they reached Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana, they followed the east fork of the White River most of the way across the state to Vincennes and then up the Wabash to Terre Haute.

  Up to this point they had no great trouble except that she caught a bad cold. Here they crossed the line to Illinois and their real trouble began. There were few roads to follow and those they found seemed to have no bottom. That heavy wagon sank to the hubs in the mud that seemed like grease. Sometimes they had to cross a slough and some of the goods had to be unloaded and carried across on their backs. Once the horses fell in a heap and nearly drowned the one under the rest before they could get the other off.

  The fifth son James was an invalid and one of the older boys had to carry their afflicted brother across the slough on his back. At one time they got stuck in the middle of a slough so she got on the saddle horse, one of the five, rode back several miles and got a farmer to leave his plowing and come and pull them out. He helped them about seven miles to dryer ground and they fared better for a time. When they came to a slough after that she got on the saddle horse and rod back and forth through the mire until she found the safest place for the wagon to cross. The fourth son, Joel showed himself the real teamster as he did later during the Black Hawk War. He drove the team all the way and showed that he knew horses and they knew him, for he could get them to do what no one else could.

  When they reached Painter Creek within forty miles of their destination, they found the stream so swollen they could not cross. They therefore had to camp there three days and then finding the stream too deep to ford, two of the boys on horseback swam the stream and rode on about thirty miles to where their Uncle lived to get help to build a raft and float their wagon over. They found their brother some distance farther on than their Uncle's place, building a log cabin on his claim. He returned with them and by this time the flood had so subsided that they found that they could ford it. The water came into the wagon however, and wet their goods. She was much distressed at this for fear her bedding, clothing and rugs would be mill-dewed, so as soon as they reached John's place she spread them out to dry.

  The presence of her oldest son as well as the fact that they had completed their journey in safety, greatly raised her spirits.

  John's house was a log pen roofed over, but with neither doors nor windows. It was Saturday night when they reached this longed for haven, but the Sabbath day had to be kept as strictly as ever, so nothing was done to affect an entrance into that much needed house until Monday. Four sturdy boys with crosscut saws soon cut out the logs for doorways, windows and for the fireplace. As soon as the doorway was cut out, she says:

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"Then I commenced the moving

In on the green grass floor.

The grass had seen the sun and rain

Not quite a week before."

 

  While the boys built the fireplace and chimney of stone and clay, she spread carpets on part of the floor and hung a quilt in the doorway. The boys then made a table out of thin slabs of logs and benches for chairs. No doubt she thought of her first home in Ohio twenty years before and she felt about as thankful as she did then. She says:

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"And off of that square table

Most cheerful meals we'd eat,

Of food, fish and potatoes

And different kinds of meat."

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  The boys then helped John split rails to fence his claim and break sod with the additional horses. They now had twenty acres ready for planting, but where could they get seed corn? The neighbors had none to spare for, the year before, the early frost had killed the corn before it was hard enough to keep. They had a little left of the corn they brought for horse feed and planted that as far as it would go. Then William, who seems to have been the leader among the boys, bought enough from an Indian to finish the field, though his mother lamented that he paid a silver dollar for what filled a small tin pail. Besides the corn, they raised pumpkin, beans and potatoes.

  All this was on John's claim near Lacon and that would never do for Elsie and her other boys. So, early in the fall, she commenced a search for a claim for herself. Whenever a horse could be spared she was off searching up the river for conditions she thought were essential for a good claim. Sometimes she took one of her boys along and on one occasion two of her brothers went with her. The things considered essential besides level prairie were, that it must include enough timber for building a house, fuel and fences and it must have a creek so cattle and sheep would have water and there must be stone enough for the chimneys. At last a claim was located that offered all these conditions in La Salle County, but great difficulty arose in getting a house built before winter set in, for not only were all the family sick with the ague, .but the neighbors too were suffering from the same malady. They thought a gas arose from the sod where it was turned up to rot, and this gas caused the ague. They, like the next generation or two, nursed the mosquito and blamed the sod. They used disgusting things for medicine, but lived in spite of it all. Elsie staggered forth for a bucket of water for her fever stricken boys when the fever was raging in her own veins, and nearly collapsed before she got back to the house. At last cold weather brought relief and help enough was found to finish a section of a third log cabin for her. Doubtless this was as joyful an event as each of the others had been.

  She relates an incident that was a great shock to her mind on her travels alone when searching for a claim. She saw a little log pen about six feet square. Alighting from her horse, she saw it contained five dead Indians, one in each corner and one in the middle. Each had his blanket around him and his gun and knives ready for the "Happy Hunting Ground" where Indians go after death, and she wrote of it :

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"I stood in solemn awe

To see the red man's fate,

Oh ! the firewater ! truely,

How much we should it hate!"

 

  Possibly her inference was wrong as to the cause of their demise, but doubtless she had heard of cases where Indians had behaved as badly as white men in the use of "fire-water".

  Early the next spring, two of her boys with a four horse team took a load of wheat and corn she had bought, to a grist mill over a hundred miles away to have flour and meal ground. The mill power was the horse power of the customers and while grinding their wheat one of their horses dropped dead, so one of the boys rode back home on one of the other horses to get another to pull the load home.

  This was a slight misfortune, however, compared with what followed. Fever and ague commenced again and greatly weakened their vitality and discouraged their very souls. They had just begun sowing oats and planting corn when the alarm was spread by a man on horseback, that the Indians were killing the settlers, burning their cabins and driving off their cattle. He warned them that they must go away at once if they would save their lives. William was sent on horseback to warn the neighbors and George was requested to take his rifle and go to the fort at South Ottawa and help defend the families gathered there. Joel seriously protested against leaving, for, he said they might as well be killed by the Indians as starve, which he feared they would if they did not stay at work. It was decided however that they would go to her brother near Hennapin, Putnam County, so they packed up clothing, food and such of their furniture as the big Ohio wagon would hold and set out, drawn by three yoke of oxen. George helped them load the wagon and started them off by five o'clock. He then ran some bullets, finished sowing grain, hid the tools under the floor and went to the fort at South Ottawa to assist in the defense. As usual, Joel drove the ox team, the other boys drove the cows, and their mother rode one horse and drove a mare and colt. While crossing the Vermillion River they were nearly upset but after some difficulties with one of the yoke of oxen that insisted on going down stream instead of across, they reached the other shore in safety.

  A farmer invited them to stay that night at his house, an invitation they gladly accepted. This neighbor, learning from them of the outbreak of the Indians, went at once to the fort and returned to them the next morning with the sad news of the massacre of three families, fifteen people, and of two sisters that were taken away as prisoners.

  These two sisters, named Rachel and Sylvia Hall, aged fifteen and seventeen respectively, saw their parents killed with tomahawks and scalped. They were then hurried away toward the Mississippi River as the Indians were then retreating. At one time during their captivity there was a near battle between a young chief and another Indian as to which one should marry the one with the beautiful head of hair. However, the girls were kindly treated and redeemed by the Government after a month, for five thousand dollars paid mostly in ponies which the Indians needed very much.

  This information excited Joel so much that he urged his mother to start that afternoon for her brother's place some fourteen miles further on. They traveled about five miles when it rained so hard that they had to stop, leave their cattle, their wagon and the dog and go back to the farmers place. She rode her horse with her youngest son on her lap, two boys on the horse behind her, and two boys on foot. Then, they retraced the five miles and leaving the cows without being milked to graze with the oxen, and the mare and colt.

  Early the next morning, as the rain had ceased, they returned and found their animals and goods as they had left them. The poor dog, however, was nearly starved. They fed him milk and meat and all took a hearty laugh at his size when his appetite was satisfied. She wrote:

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"His hind feet and his fore feet

Stood farther then apart,

And his back was straightened out

And he seemed in better heart."

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  They traveled with great difficulty through the mud but reached their destination that afternoon.

  They remained with her brother Jeremiah's family for a month and just as she was planning to start back with her family and cattle her son George came from the fort with bad news about another massacre, so it was decided that she and George would go on horseback to their place and plant potatoes and beans.

  They reached home in time to plant what was needed and rode on to the fort for the night. Here they were joined by William who had been serving in the volunteer army and was now allowed to go with them in looking after their fields. The two brothers went to work at the fort to put their plows in order and their mother returned on her horse to hoe and weed the part of the garden planted a month before.

  As she approached the house she was startled by seeing a small black pony and what appeared to be a red shirted Indian at the door. She also saw a column of smoke rising from the wood nearby. She debated with herself whether to whirl and retreat as fast as possible or to assure herself first that it was an Indian. She wished her horse would not walk so fast, but he seemed to think he was nearing home and was glad to quicken his step. Just then a white man came around the corner of the house and on his shoulder was her cat. She also saw a troop of horses feeding on the grass and she recognized them as horses of the soldiers of the fort.

  She begged the officer not to allow his horses to destroy her corn to which he readily agreed. After the soldiers had finished their lunches and the horses were satisfied, they all departed and she went at her hoeing.

  Several times that day she was alarmed by hearing voices and after climbing on the fence each time, saw more soldiers passing. Finally she saw a troop on horseback a half mile away traveling single file in Indian fashion, so she got on her horse and rode some distance to a neighbor's house and stayed there that night. She returned next day and found that George and William were already there at work sowing buckwheat and plowing corn. The boys went back to the fort each night and she to the neighbor's until the end of the week. On Sunday another massacre occurred in the neighborhood, so they decided to stay away until it seemed safe again.

  Such were the trials and hardships of the other pioneers, so she experienced only a small part of the suffering of the settlement. If the truth were only known, Black Hawk's tribe and other tribes had suffered great injustice and hardship at the hands of white men and from their standpoint they were doing what they could to drive the enemy from their homes and their hunting grounds.