Journey to Illinois.--Story of the Gilham family, captured by
Indians.--Hard fare.--Mr. Gilham attempts to recover them.--
Indian War.--Peace made.--The Family Redeemed.--Removes to
Illinois with Mr. Clark.--Navigation of Western Rivers.--Story
of Fort Massac.--Terrible sickness.--Settlement of New Design.
--An ungodly race.--First Preacher in Illinois.--A Stranger
in meeting.--First Baptisms.--Other Preachers.--First Church
Formed.--Manners and customs of the French.--Indian War.--
Stations or Forts Described.--PIONEER BOOKS projected.
And now we find the pioneer preacher trudging along the obscure pathway
that guided him down the country in a western direction, towards the
Green river district. He made appointments and preached in all the
principal settlements as he journeyed, and was treated kindly and
hospitably by all classes of people. It was in the Green river country
he became acquainted with James Gilham, who was then preparing to
remove his family and settle in the Illinois country, and wanted three
or four able bodied men to accompany him, and work the boat down the
Ohio and up the Mississippi. Mr. Clark had started from Lincoln County
with the intention of passing through the wilderness on foot, but he
had now a good opportunity of proceeding in a keel boat, or French
pirogue, by water. They fitted out at the Red-banks, on the Ohio.
While pursuing their journey of several hundred miles, Mr. Clark, in
accordance with a long cherished wish, had a fine opportunity to learn
much of Indian character and habits from this family. Mrs. Gilham and
three children had been redeemed from a long and distressing captivity
but two years before, and the story of her sufferings, privations, and
wonderful preservation, as told to Mr. Clark, while sitting around
their camp fire at night, deserves a place in our narrative.
Mr. James Gilham was a native of South Carolina, where he married his
wife Ann, and commenced the battle of life as a frontier farmer. He
removed his young family to Kentucky, and pitched his station in the
western frontier settlements of that district. There he purchased a
claim to a tract of land, and cleared a farm, cheered with the hopeful
anticipations of a peaceful and happy life; but, like many others, he
and his wife were doomed to disappointment. They had three sons and
one daughter living, between the ages of four and twelve.
It was in the month of June, 1790, that he was ploughing in his corn
field, some distance from his house, from which he was hidden by a
skirt of timber, while his eldest son Isaac was clearing the hills from
weeds with the hoe. At the same time several “braves” of the Kickapoo
tribe of Indians, from the Illinois country, were lurking in the woods
near the house, where Mrs. Gilliam, the two little boys, Samuel and
Clement, and the daughter, were sheltered, wholly unsuspicious of such
visitors. The Indians, finding the door open, rushed in; some seized
the woman and gagged her, to prevent her giving the alarm; others
seized the children, who could make no resistance. Mrs. Gilham was so
alarmed that she lost her senses, and could not recollect any thing
distinctly, until aroused by the voice of Samuel, “Mamma, we’re all
prisoners.” This excited her feelings, and she looked around to find
out whether the other children were all alive. Indians never walk
abreast, as white people do. One leads off on the trail, and the others
follow in single file, and are sometimes half a mile apart. One stout,
bold warrior, went forward as a guide, and another kept many yards
behind as a spy, watching cautiously to see if they were followed. They
kept in the thick forest, out of the way of all the settlements, lest
they should be discovered.
Mrs. Gilham and the children were in great distress. They were hurried
forward by their savage masters, whose fierce looks and threatening
gestures alarmed them exceedingly. The Indians had ripped open their
beds, turned out the feathers, and converted the ticking into sacks,
which they had filled with such articles of clothing as they could
conveniently carry from the cabin, but were in too much haste to be off
with their captives, to lay in provisions. They were used to periods
of starvation, and could go three or four days without food, but the
mother and her little ones suffered to an extent beyond the conception
of our readers. But human nature can endure much in extreme cases. The
feet of the children soon became sore and torn with briers; and the
poor woman tore her clothes to obtain rags to wrap around their feet.
The savages, as they thought, treated them kindly,--just as they would
have done to their own children,--and Mrs. Gilham and the children had
been familiar with the privations of frontier life, but they always
had enough of plain, coarse food to eat; now they were starving. The
Indians had with them a morsel of jerked venison, which they gave the
children, but for themselves and the suffering mother there was not a
particle of food to eat. One day they encamped in an obscure place,
and sent out two of their best hunters, who crept stealthily through
the thick brush and cane, and returned towards night with one poor
raccoon. Mrs. Gilham afterwards told her friends that the sight of that
half-starved ’coon was more gratification to her at that time than any
amount of wealth could have afforded. She was in great distress lest
her children should perish with hunger, or the Indians kill them. They
dared not hunt near the settlements, lest they should be discovered.
The coon was dressed by singeing off the hair over a blaze of fire,
and after throwing away the contents of the intestines, the animal was
chopped in pieces and boiled in a kettle with the head, bones, skin
and entrails, and made into a kind of soup. When done, and partially
cooled, the children, mother, and Indians sat around the kettle, and
with horn spoons, and sharpened sticks for forks, obtained a poor and
scanty relief from starvation.
They approached the Ohio river with caution, lest white people might
be passing in boats. They camped in the woods near the present site of
Hawesville, and made three rafts of dry logs, with slender poles lashed
across with thongs of elm bark, and placed them near the river, that
they might push them in and cross over before they became soaked in
water and heavy. The wily Indians were too cunning to cross by daylight
lest they should be discovered, and Mrs. Gilham was exceedingly
terrified at the danger of crossing by night. However they all got over
safely.
The warriors considered it a great achievement to capture a white
woman and three children in Kentucky, and elude all pursuit, and reach
their own villages on Salt Creek, in the Illinois country, without
being discovered. And they exercised all their cunning and sagacity to
accomplish this daring feat.
When they reached the wilderness south-west of the Ohio river, they
were in the Indian country, and proceeded slowly. They hunted with such
success in the country between the Ohio and White river that they had
plenty of provisions. They kept to the right of the white settlements
near Vincennes, and along the valley of White river, and crossed the
Wabash below Terre Haute, and proceeded through the present counties of
Clark, Coles and Macon to their towns in Logan county.[39]
There they held a season of feasting and frolicing with their friends
for their successful enterprize. And here we will leave Mrs. Gilham and
her children, distributed as they were among different Indian families,
and suffering all the hardships of Indian captives, until the war was
over in 1795.
We now return to the father and son in Kentucky. They continued their
labor in the cornfield until dinner time, when the horse was ungeared,
and they returned to the house. There every thing was in confusion.
The feathers from the beds were scattered over the yard, the mother
and children were gone! The “signs” were too plain to leave any doubt
on the mind of the husband and father of their fate! They were Indian
captives, unless some were killed. The first natural impression was
that in attempting to flee they were butchered by these monsters of
the woods. Isaac began to cry and call loudly for his mother, until
he was peremptorily told by his father to hold his tongue and make no
noise, as some of the Indians might lie concealed, watching for him and
his son. He knew the character and habits of these cunning sons of the
forest, and stealthily examined in every direction for further signs.
He soon fell on their trail, as they left the clearing and entered the
woods, and saw in one or two places the tracks of his wife and little
ones. He now felt encouraged, for he knew that Indians more generally
kill persons on their first attack, and that when they take possession
of women and children they take them to their towns that they may adopt
them in the place of those they have lost, and train them up in Indian
ways, and thus increase the number and strength of the tribe. White
children who are trained by Indians make the smartest and often the
most ferocious savages.
The country where Mr. Gilham resided was very thinly settled, and it
was not until the next day he could raise a party strong enough to
pursue them with any prospect of success. He and his neighbors followed
the trail for some distance, but Indians when they expect pursuit are
very cunning and skillful in concealing their tracks, and turning their
pursuers in the wrong direction. When a large number are together, they
divide into small parties, and make as many separate trails as they
can. They will step with singular caution, so as to leave no marks,
and they will wander in opposite directions and make their trails
cross each other. When they come to a stream of water they will wade
a long distance in the water, and frequently in a contrary direction
to that of their journey, and unless their pursuers understand all
their tricks, they will not fail in deceiving them. Mr. Gilham and
his friends understood their strategy, but could not find their trail
after they once lost it. It is probable they struck the Ohio river some
distance from the crossing place of the Indians.
No one who has never experienced the same affliction, can fully realize
the distress of poor Mr. Gilham, when, after a long search, he was
obliged to yield to the advice of his neighbors, turn back, and leave
his wife and children in savage hands. But hope did not desert him.
He knew they must be alive, and he hoped the time was not far distant
when he might hear of them. He sold his farm in Kentucky, put Isaac
in the family and charge of a friend, fully determined to reclaim his
lost family, or perish in the effort. He visited post Vincent (now
Vincennes) and Kaskaskia, and enlisted the French traders, who held
personal intercourse with the Indian tribes of the north-west, to make
inquiries and redeem them if they could be found. He visited General
St. Clair at Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, who was governor of the
north-western territory, and who had just returned from the Illinois
country. He learned that the Indians, stimulated by British agents and
traders in the north, were meditating hostilities. Anthony Gamelin,
an intelligent French trader, had been sent out by Major Hamtramck,
with instructions from Gov. St. Clair, on an exploring mission to the
Indians along the Wabash and Maumee, to learn their designs, and he
had just returned with abundant evidence of their hostile intentions.
General Harmar had commenced his unfortunate campaign, and the prospect
was dark and discouraging. It was the intention of Mr. Gilham to
penetrate the Indian country, and go from tribe to tribe until he found
his lost family, but Governor St. Clair and all others acquainted
with the state of things in the north-west dissuaded him from such a
hopeless attempt. After a lapse of five years of doubt, trial, and
disappointment, he learned from some French traders they were alive,
and among the Kickapoos of Illinois. At the treaty of Greenville, the
chiefs of the Indian tribes promised to give up all American captives,
but a French trader had made arrangements for ransoming them; the goods
having been furnished by an Irish trader at Cahokia, by the name of
Atcheson. With two Frenchmen for interpreter and guides, Mr. Gilham
visited the Indian towns on Salt Creek, and found his wife and children
all alive, but the youngest, Clement, could not speak a word of
English, and it was some time before he knew and would own his father,
or could be persuaded to leave the Indian country, and he was left for
a time among the savages.
Mr. Gilham had become enamored of the Illinois country, and after he
had gathered his family together in Kentucky, resolved to remove them
to the delightful prairies he had visited. As an honorable testimonial
of the hardships and sufferings of her captivity, Mrs. Ann Gilham, in
1815, received from the national government, one hundred and sixty
acres of choice land in the county of Madison, where they lived. Mr.
Gilham died about 1812, like a Christian. His widow and most of the
children professed religion, and some joined the Methodists and others
the Baptists. A large number of the Gilham connection followed this
pioneer to Illinois, where their descendants are yet living.
Mr. Clark and the Gilham family met with no difficulty on their voyage.
They floated down the Ohio with the current, aided by the oars and
setting poles, but to stem the strong current of the Mississippi, they
used the cordelle and setting-poles, and occasionally crept along the
shore by “bush-whacking.”[40]
Mr. Clark made a capital hand on the boat, and cheerfully engaged in
the labor and toil of the voyage. His experience in sea-faring business
made him an acquisition to the company, and laid the foundation for
friendship in this family and with all of the name until death parted
them. Many of the Gilham connection became Methodists in Illinois, but
Father Clark was the most welcome guest who entered their houses.
When night came on, they tied their boat to a tree at the shore, made a
fire, and camped in the woods, where they provided their two meals for
the day. They moved up the strong and turbid current of the Mississippi
at the rate of twelve miles each day. Indians occasionally hailed them
from the shore, but they were friendly, and only desired to barter
venison for whiskey, tobacco, corn-meal, knives and trinkets.
When the company reached Kaskaskia, Mr. Gilham disposed of his boat to
some French _voyageurs_, and made his first location in the American
bottom, about twenty-five or thirty miles above the town. Both him and
his family were hospitably received by the settlers, for they knew
their trials and the history of their captivity. Mr. Clark soon found
religious friends, and was ready to preach the gospel on these remote
frontiers.
The Indians of the north-west had been so severely chastised by “Mad
Anthony,” (as the soldiers call General Wayne,) that they were glad to
make peace; and now, after many years of distress, and the massacre of
many families in the Illinois country, the people had opportunity to
cultivate their little farms, and provide the necessaries to enable
them to live comfortably. The people then travelled from the older
settlements to this frontier country, and even caravans of moving
families went down the Ohio in flat boats, with their horses, cattle,
provisions, and clothing, to a place called _Massac_ by the French,
from whence they followed a trail through the wilderness, with their
wagons or pack horses, to Kaskaskia, and to the settlement of New
Design, and the American bottom, thirty miles further. Massac was
a contracted form of speech for _Massacre_, in the French mode of
abbreviating proper names. It is on the Ohio river, near where the
town of Metropolis is now situated, which is the seat of justice for
Massac County. Its name is a memento of a fearful calamity in the
early part of the last century. The French established a trading post
and a missionary station on the right bank of the Ohio, then called
_Ouabache_. The southern Indians, then hostile to these Europeans,
laid a stratagem to obtain possession of the fort. A number of them
appeared in the day-time on the sand-bar of the opposite side of the
river, each covered with the skin of a bear, and walking on all fours.
They had disguised themselves so completely, and played pantomime so
successfully with each other, that the French people did not doubt they
were really wild bears from the forest who came there to drink. A party
crossed the river in pursuit of them, while the rest left the fort and
stood on the bank to see the sport. They did not discover the deception
until they found themselves cut off from returning within the fort.
They were soon massacred by the tomahawk and scalping knife of the
savages. The French built another fort on the same spot, afterwards,
and called it Massacre, or, as they taught the American pioneers to
call it, MASSAC.
Early in the same season that Mr. Clark came with the Gilham family, a
colony of one hundred and twenty-six emigrants from the south branch
of the Potomac in Virginia, set out for Illinois. At Redstone, on the
Monongahela, (now Brownsville,) they fitted out several flat boats, on
which, with their horses and wagons, they floated down the current to
Pittsburgh, and thence down the Ohio to Massac, where they landed and
went across the country to the settlement of New Design. That season,
and especially after they left the Ohio, was unusually rainy and hot.
The streams overflowed their banks, and covered the alluvial, or bottom
lands on their borders; and the low ground in the woods and prairies
were covered with water. They were twenty-one days traveling through
this wilderness, the distance of about one hundred miles, and much of
it through dreary forests. The old settlers had been so long harassed
with Indian warfare, that farming business had been neglected, their
cattle were few in number, and bread corn was scarce. Their cabins
usually contained each a single room for all domestic purposes; and
though hospitality to strangers is a universal trait in frontier
character, it was entirely beyond the ability of the inhabitants
to provide accommodations for these ‘new comers,’ who arrived in a
deplorably famishing and sickly condition. They did all they could; a
single cabin frequently contained four or five families. Their rifles
could provide venison from the woods, but the weather that followed
the severe rains in midsummer was so unusually hot and sultry, that
their fresh meat spoiled before they could pack it from the hunting
grounds; and they were destitute of salt to preserve and season it.
Medical aid could be procured only from a great distance, and that very
seldom. Under such circumstances, no one need be surprised that of the
colony, who left Virginia in the Spring, only one-half of their number
were alive in autumn. A ridge in the western part of the settlement,
adjacent to the bluffs, was covered with the newly formed graves. They
were swept off by a putrid fever, unusually malignant, and which, in
some instances, did its work in a few hours. The old settlers were as
healthy as usual. No disease like this ever appeared in the country
before or since. Mr. Clark had good health, and found work enough among
these suffering families in nursing, instructing, and praying with
the sick, and consoling the dying. The settlement of New Design had
been commenced by American families about a dozen years previous. Its
situation was on the elevated plateau, about thirty miles north of the
town of Kaskaskia, and from ten to twelve miles from the Mississippi,
and from three to six miles east of the American bottom and contiguous
bluffs. Along the wide alluvial tract, or bottom, there were American
families settled at intervals from Prairie du Rocher to the vicinity
of Cahokia. The character of the American families was various. Some
were religious people, both Baptists and Methodists; some were moral,
and respected the Sabbath; others were infidels, or at least skeptical
of all revealed truth. They paid no regard to religious meetings, and
permitted their children to grow up without any moral restraint. They
were fond of frolics, dances, horse-racing, card playing, and other
vices, in which they were joined by many of the French population from
the villages. They drank _tafia_,[41] and when fruit became plenty,
peach brandy was made, and rye whiskey obtained from the Monongahela
country.
There has been a very marked difference between these two classes of
pioneers, down to the third and fourth generation. But a very few of
the descendants of the immoral and irreligious class are to be found
amongst the present generation of the religious, moral, industrious
and enterprising class. They followed the footsteps of their fathers,
and have wasted away. Even the names of a number of these pioneer
families have been blotted out, while the children’s children, of the
virtuous class, are numerous and respected.
There were several families in the very commencement of these
settlements, before a preacher of the Gospel brought the glad tidings
here, or a single person had made a profession of religion, that held
meetings on the Sabbath, read portions of the Scriptures, or a sermon,
and sang hymns, and thus set a good example to the others. They and
their descendants have been favored of the Lord.
The first preacher who visited the Illinois country, was James Smith,
from Lincoln County, Ky. He was a “Separate Baptist,” and came on
business, in 1787, but preached to the people repeatedly, and many of
those who had kept up the meetings just noticed, professed conversion
under his preaching. Of these the Hon. Shadrach Bond, Captain Joseph
Ogle, James Lemen, Sen., his son-in-law, were conspicuous persons.
He made another visit to the country in 1790, after the Indians had
become troublesome, and preached with similar effect. While riding
to the meeting place, on a week day, in company with another man, and
a Mrs. Huff, they were fired at by a party of Kickapoos in ambuscade,
near the present site of Waterloo, in Monroe county. Mrs. Huff was
killed and scalped. The other man was wounded, but escaped with his
horse, and Mr. Smith taken prisoner. The Indians took him through the
prairies to their town on the Wabash, but he was afterwards ransomed
through the agency of a French trader. After the visits and preaching
of Mr. Smith, there were persons who could pray in these social
meetings, and when it was safe to live out of forts, they met at each
others houses, and Judge Bond, James Piggott, James Lemen, and some
others, conducted the worship.
It was in January, 1794, while Judge Bond was officiating in this
informal manner on the Sabbath, that a stranger came into the log
cabin, where the people had assembled. He was a large, portly man, with
dark hair, a florid complexion, and regular features. His dress was in
advance of the deer-skin hunting shirts and Indian moccasins of the
settlers; his countenance was grave and dignified, and his aspect so
serious, that the reader was impressed with the thought that he was a
professor of religion; perhaps a preacher, and an invitation was given
him “to close the exercises, if he was a praying man.” The stranger
kneeled, and made an impressive, fluent, and solemn prayer.
There was a man in the congregation, of small talents, and rather
narrow views, who, from his national origin, bore the _soubriquet_ of
Dutch Pete among the people; or Peter Smith, as his name appears in
the land documents. Pete was a zealous Methodist, and when his own
preachers prayed, he felt moved by the Spirit to utter _Amen_, at the
close of every sentence. While the people were on their knees, or with
their heads bowed low on their seats, Pete manifested much uneasiness
at the prayer of the stranger. He fidgetted one way and then another,
uttered a low, but audible groan, and to those near him seemed to be in
trouble. The very impressive and earnest prayer of the speaker excited
his feelings beyond suppression. He might not be a Methodist; but Pete
could hold in no longer, and bawled out, at the top of his voice,
“_Amen, at a wenture!_”
The stranger proved to be Rev. Josiah Dodge, from Nelson county,
Kentucky. He had been to St. Genevieve on a visit to his brother,
Doctor Israel Dodge, and hearing of these religious people being
entirely destitute of ministerial instruction, he had arrived
opportunely to preach to them.
Mr. Dodge spent some time in the settlement, preaching daily, and
visiting from house to house, and in February, the ice was cut in
Fountain Creek; all the people for many miles around were present,
and there he baptized James Lemen, Sen., and Catharine his wife; John
Gibbons and Isaac Enochs, who were the first persons ever baptized in
this territory.[42]
During the next two years, the people remained without preachers; but
both Baptists and Methodists, without organized societies, united in
holding prayer-meetings, in which, as formerly, the Scriptures and
sermon books were read, prayers offered and hymns sung in praise to God.
The year previous to the visit of Mr. Dodge, Rev. Joseph Lillard
made an excursion to the Illinois country. He was a Methodist, and
in 1790-’91, was in the traveling connection in Kentucky, but he
withdrew from that connection from objections to the government and
discipline, and like Mr. Clark occupied an independent position. He
preached to the people and organized a class, the first ever formed in
this country, and appointed Captain Joseph Ogle the leader. Mr. Lillard
was esteemed by all who knew him, as a pious and exemplary man; but
while in Illinois he became temporarily deranged, made his escape from
his friends and outran them, and followed the trail towards Kaskaskia.
On the route he came across the body of a man by the name of Sipp,
whom the Indians had killed and scalped. While gazing at this horrid
sight, he became calm, his reason and consciousness were restored,
and he returned to his friends at New Design, and made report of the
discovery. The people made up a party who visited the place and buried
the unfortunate man.
From time to time, Baptists came into these settlements, so that by
May, 1796, there were ten or a dozen men and women in the country who
had been members of churches in Virginia or Kentucky, from whence they
came. Among these was Joseph Chance, who was an exhorter, and also a
_lay-elder_, from Shelby county, Kentucky. This office, now unknown in
Baptist churches, was regarded in Virginia and afterwards for a time
in Kentucky, as an appendage to the pastoral office. Lay-elders had no
authority in government and discipline, as in a Presbyterian church,
but aided the pastor in conducting religious meetings by exhortation
and prayer, visiting the sick, instructing the ignorant, and confirming
the wavering. Mr. Chance afterwards became an ordained minister. He
did not possess great talents as a preacher, but was faithful in the
exercise of the gifts bestowed on him, loved religious meetings,
devoted much time to preaching and visiting destitute settlements, and
died while on a preaching tour in 1840, aged seventy-five years.
The Baptists in Illinois did not appear to know they could have formed
themselves into a church, and chose such gifts as they had amongst
them as leaders; and kept up the worship of God without the authority
of an ordained minister. In the spring of 1796, Rev. David Badgley, of
Hardy county, Va., made a visit to the Illinois country. He arrived
in the settlement of New Design on the 4th of May, and preached night
and day until the 30th, during which time he baptized fifteen persons
on a profession of faith in Christ, and with the aid of Mr. Chance
organized the first Baptist church ever formed in this country, of
twenty-eight members. He returned to Virginia the same season, and the
next spring (1797,) came back with his family and several others to
settle this new country.
At that period the white population of the Illinois country, numbered
about 2,700, of which about two-thirds were of French descent, spoke
that language, and followed the customs of the Canadians, from whence
most of their forefathers originated. They were a contented race of
people, patient under hardships, without ambition, and ignorant of
the prolific resources of the country. They never troubled themselves
with political matters, engaged in no schemes of aggrandizement, and
showed no inclination for political domination. They were a frank,
open-hearted, joyous people, and careless about the acquisition
of property. Their houses were small, built of logs set upright,
like palisades, with the spaces filled in, plastered, and neatly
white-washed inside and out. They cultivated fruits and flowers, and
in this respect showed taste and refinement beyond the Americans. In
religion they were nominally Roman Catholics; in the morning of the
Sabbath they attended mass, and in the afternoon visited, played the
violin, danced, or engaged in other recreations and ruder sports out of
doors.
Another pioneer who was an exhorter in the Methodist connection, and
came to the country in 1796, was the late Rev. Hosea Riggs, who at
first settled in the American bottom. Mr. Riggs was born in Western
Pennsylvania in 1760, became a soldier in the revolutionary war; and
when twenty-two years of age, he enlisted in the army of Jesus Christ
and joined the Methodist Episcopal church, became an exhorter, and
proved himself a diligent and faithful soldier of the cross. When
he arrived in the Illinois country with his family he found Capt.
Joseph Ogle and family, Peter Casterline and family, and William
Murray from Ireland, the remains of the class formed by Mr. Lillard.
These he re-organized into a class at Captain Ogle’s house, and at a
subsequent period formed another class of immigrant Methodists, in
Goshen settlement. This was in Madison county, between Edwardsville and
the American bottom. Mr. Riggs, though then only a licensed exhorter,
attended these Methodist classes, and made appointments for meetings
for six years. He attended the “Western Conference” in Kentucky, 1803,
raised a Macedonian cry, and the Conference sent Rev. Benjamin Young
as a missionary, who was the first preacher of the Methodist Episcopal
church who traveled the circuit in Illinois. Mr. Riggs was tenacious
for the Methodist government and discipline, and hence did not so
readily coöperate with Father Clark. He was a good man, a faithful
preacher, lived a Christian life, and died a Christian death, in St.
Clair county, in 1841, at the age of eighty-one years.
We have now brought up the religious history of Illinois to the period
of the arrival of Mr. Clark. But to give our young readers a fuller
picture of frontier life, and of the people with whom he lived and
labored, and their deprivations, we must again look back on their
condition for a few years past.
From 1786, to 1795, the American settlements in the Illinois country,
as was the case throughout the north-western territory, were harrassed
by hostile Indians. A part of the time the families were compelled to
live in forts, or as they were called, “stations.”
A square was marked out, in proportion to the number of families. On
two sides log cabins were erected in rows, with the roof sloping
to the inner side of the enclosure. Block houses were put up at the
corners, and so constructed that in the upper part which jutted over
the lower story, the guard could watch the approach of the enemy and
attack them successfully. The spaces not occupied by cabins were filled
up with palisades. Strong doors made of thick slabs, or split timbers
protected the places of ingress and egress. These stations were a
sufficient protection against the small marauding parties, that came
stealthily into the settlements. When no signs of hostile Indians were
seen for some months, the people, tired of living in these stations,
would remove to their cabins and attempt to raise a crop, when the
first alarm would be by some family being massacred, or individual
killed, in attempting to pass from one settlement to another. We could
give many thrilling instances of savage barbarity, but our space is
limited. They shall all be told, if we are successful in getting out
our projected series of PIONEER BOOKS.
While the women and children were compelled to stay in forts, the
men cultivated a field in common within sight of the station, and
one party with their trusty rifles scouted around as a guard, while
another party plowed and planted corn. No schools nor regular religious
meetings could be held during these Indian invasions.
When they ventured out of the forts, and resided on their farms, in
the absence of the men, pious mothers barricaded the door lest Indians
might come on them suddenly, and gathered the little children around
the huge fire place, for the light that shone down the large chimneys,
and taught them the rudiments of learning. No log cabin had any glass
windows, and if apertures were cut in the logs, it was not safe to
leave them open when Indians were about.
The Americans in these early settlements in Illinois did not trespass
on Indian rights, by taking their country. The Kaskaskia Indians
and their allies sold this part of the Illinois country, and gave
possession to the French nearly a century before the period of these
depredations, and the Kickapoos, Shawanoes and other Indians, whose
country was from one hundred and fifty to five hundred miles distant,
committed all the murders and robberies. The Kaskaskias remained
peaceable during the war, lived within the range of these settlements,
in the American bottom, a few miles above the town of Kaskaskia,
cultivated corn, beans, and other vegetables, and hunted in the
vicinity of the white settlements.
Savage Indians have astonishing propensities for war and plunder.
Before the European race came to this continent, the different nations
and tribes were fighting and plundering each other, and they still keep
up the practice, unless prevented by the strong arm of our national
government. Nothing short of the influence of the gospel on their
hearts can cure these diabolical passions.
The Indians who were hostile to the Americans did not attack the French
inhabitants, for they had been accustomed to trade with them, and had
been on friendly terms for half a century.