THE MASSACRE.
The year 1831 was known to early settlers in Illinois as “The Dry
Year.” There was little rain and there were long spells of great heat,
so that vegetation was parched and the crop a failure. The season of
1832 was just the opposite.[14] During the first half of the month
of May there were numerous heavy thunder storms with intervals of
hot weather that made the grass and flowers grow very rapidly, but
delayed the farmers in their planting. Also, the several Indian scares
interrupted the settlers in their regular work in the fields.
[14] “Historic Illinois,” Parish, 258.
As already stated, immediately after the breaking up of the Indian
council after the defeat of Stillman, Shabona rode in post haste to
the Davis Settlement and warned the people of the danger of an Indian
massacre. The whites loaded on their wagons such articles as could be
readily handled, and drove to Ottawa, the nearest fort, where there was
a garrison of soldiers.
The Indians did not make the expected raid, and slowly the settlers
returned to their homesteads. During this retreat some of the people
tantalized Davis for running away from the Indians, and his reply was
that he would never do so again.
On Monday morning, May 21st, Shabona again rode to the Davis Settlement
and warned the whites that there was immediate danger of a massacre. At
this time it happened that Davis was at Ottawa on some business when
Shabona called. However, his family and the neighbors hastily loaded
their furniture and other movable articles on wagons, and hurriedly
drove off to Ottawa. They had almost reached the fort when they met
Davis, who ordered his own family to return, and urged the return of
his immediate neighbors, inviting them all to go to his place where
they would be perfectly safe. The Halls, Hendersons and Pettigrews,
with two farm hands named Henry George and Robert Norris, reluctantly
returned with Davis, and arrived at his cottage about noon.
After dinner John W. Henderson, Alexander Davis and a younger son of
William Davis, Edward and Greenbury Hall, and Allen Howard, went to
a field about one hundred rods south of the Davis cottage, to plant
corn. In the middle of the afternoon William Hall, John W. Hall,
Robert Norris, Henry George and William Davis, Jr., who were working
on the mill-dam, gathered into the blacksmith shop where Davis was
repairing his gun, to get a drink from a pail of water which had been
brought from a nearby spring. All the loaded guns and the ammunition
were in the dwelling house, where Pettigrew, with his baby in his
arms, was chatting with the ladies who were sewing by the open door.
The afternoon was very hot and was not inspiring to great exertion.
The furniture which had been loaded to drive to Ottawa, was still on
the wagons that stood in the yard. The perfume of the blooming flowers
filled the air which was rich in its freshness after the many days of
rain and lightning. All nature seemed to instill in the little Davis
Settlement a feeling of safety or at least to relieve them from alarm
during the daytime. With the coming darkness, no doubt, they would have
all gathered into the little cottage and some of the men would have
stood guard with their guns to watch for Indians.
About four o’clock a party of sixty to seventy Indians suddenly leaped
over the garden fence, filled the yard, and part of them rushed towards
the house. Mr. Pettigrew leaped forward to close the door, but was
instantly shot dead. Through the open door the Indians rushed with
spears, and hatchets, and guns, filling the little cottage. There was
no place to hide and no chance for the whites to escape. In her despair
Mrs. Pettigrew threw her arms around Rachel Hall and was killed by a
shot so close to Rachel as to blacken her face with the powder. Rachel
jumped upon the bed, which only placed her in view of more Indians and
increased the danger of being shot.
The piteous screams of the women and children were terrifying. The
Indians stuck them with spears and hacked them with tomahawks without
feeling or mercy, and as they fell each victim’s scalp was cut off with
a big knife.
An Indian grabbed Pettigrew’s baby by the legs, rushed out doors, swung
the child over his head, and dashed its brains out against a stump in
the yard. There, also, an Indian on each side held the youngest Davis
boy by his hands, the little lad standing pale and silent, and a third
Indian shot him dead. As his limp body fell, an Indian scalped him.
In a few moments all the whites in the house excepting Sylvia and
Rachel Hall, namely: Mrs. Wm. Hall, aged forty-five years, her
daughter Elizabeth, aged eight years, Wm. Pettigrew, his wife and two
children, and Mrs. Wm. Davis and her five children, were killed.
The sudden appearance of the Indians bewildered the men who were in the
blacksmith shop, as they were cut off from their guns and ammunition.
Young Davis slipped behind the shop and thence escaped down the creek.
The others rushed towards the house and were met by a volley of shots.
William Hall, whose breast was pierced by two bullets, with a prayer
on his lips, fell dead at his son John’s feet. Davis called out to
John Hall to “Take care!” and then tried to escape to the woods.
Notwithstanding his prowess and that he made a desperate fight for his
life by using his unloaded gun as a club, he was in a short time so
overcome by Indian warriors with their spears and tomahawks that with
innumerable wounds he sank dead in his yard. John Hall was so paralyzed
by the awful carnage, that for a moment he did not move from where
his father lay. He watched the Indians reloading their guns, then as
a man awakening from a night-mare he jumped down the high bank and a
volley of bullets passed over his head. By hugging closely to the bank
next the Indians, he scrambled hastily down the stream and then ran as
he never ran before, thus escaping. Norris and George slid down the
bank and attempted to cross the creek, but a volley of bullets from
the Indians killed one of them as he was climbing the bank, his body
falling back into the creek, and the other fell on the green sward
above.
John W. Henderson, two sons of Wm. Davis and two sons of Wm. Hall, who
were at work in the cornfield when the Indians made the attack upon the
Davis cottage, comprehending the situation, hastily fled to Ottawa.
They had sped only about two miles when John W. Hall overtook them. By
reason of his scudding from death in the great heat and his excited
condition, John’s account of the massacre was incoherently told with
uncontrolled emotions of grief and rage. Believing that the Indians
were pursuing, he did not check his speed, but urged the others to
extra efforts until they reached the fort.
Sylvia and Rachel Hall were each seized by two Indians who dragged them
out of the cottage to the yard where the final acts of the massacre
were taking place.
In their fiendish desire for revenge for Stillman’s treachery and to
terrify the whites, the Indians cut out the hearts of some of the
slain and otherwise mutilated their bodies. Of all the whites none but
Rachel and Sylvia Hall remained alive to witness the closing act of the
horrible tragedy. As they saw scattered in the yard the bodies of their
murdered parents, their sister, and their neighbors--sixteen in all,
the girls were stupefied with horror. The wonder is that the shock did
not kill both of them.
The massacre has been described so often, and is so sickening in its
particulars, that we drop the curtain on the tragic scene.[15]
[15] 3 Smith’s “History of Wisconsin”, 187; “History of La Salle
County,” Baldwin, 95; “The Black Hawk War,” Stevens, 150; “Memories
of Shabona,” Matson, 145-155; _Ottawa Journal_, Aug. 30, 1906; 12
Transactions Ill. State Hist. Soc., 332; Ford’s History of Illinois,
122.