The History of Peru Part 5

Early Settlers in Vicinity--Early French Settlements-- Buffalo Rock--Chronological glance at Illinois--Black Hawk War--Indian Creek Ma.s.sacre--Cork War--Murder of Story--John Myers--Ninawa t.i.tles--Col. Kinney--A. H.

Miller--Starved Rock--Deer Park--Sulphur Springs.

The writer indulges in the hope that he will be pardoned for the following digression, which, though forming no part of the "History of Peru," is so connected with it as to induce the belief that it will be not altogether uninteresting to its citizens, or to the general reader into whose hands this little book may fall. The present residents, as they turn their eyes over the beautiful State they inhabit, and behold it dotted with towns, cities, and cultivated farms, where the presence of its original inhabitants is as rare as in Europe, where churches, schools and libraries are strewn broadcast over the land, where the arts, embellishments and accessories of high civilization are everywhere present and pervading, and where rail road and telegraph lines intersect in every direction, may find it pleasant, for a few moments, to drop the present and turn their thoughts to the remote past, and briefly follow up the chain of events, in chronological order, to the period which immediately preceded the settlement of the town. A brief notice of events which occurred in the neighborhood, of the surrounding localities, and of the individuals who inhabited them, whose characters were marked with strong and original peculiarities, may also not be uninteresting.

Looking backwards three years before the commencement of this History--twenty-five years ago--we behold the site of Peru occupied as an Indian village. The very spot where is now the residence of the writer is said to have been an Indian burying ground. Northward, the nearest residence of the white man was at Dixon's Ferry, and westward, at Princeton, excepting, perhaps, the Hoskins family near the Bureau.

South of the river were some settlements. Along the timber towards Hennepin lived George Ish and Henry Delong; at Cedar Point, Nathaniel Richie; on the bluff, near the old Fort, John Myers; at Bailey's Point, Lewis Bailey, William Seeley, William Groom, Joel Alvord, Asa Holdridge, William Haws, and perhaps a few others; at or near Hennepin, the Willises, Stewarts, Thompsons, Durleys, Donlevys, Shepperds, Zenors and Dents; at Utica, Simon Crosiar; at Ottawa, the Walkers, Browns, Covills, &c.; at Dayton, John Green and William L. Dunnavan; at Indian Creek, the Halls, Davises and Petegrus; and further eastward, the Hollenbecks and Holdermans. At Bloomington, seventy miles distant, was the nearest mill, and thither all the people went to get their corn and wheat ground, until Green built one at Dayton, in 1833 or 1834. As late as 1837, as related by Mrs. Lockwood who then lived with her father, Isaac Manville, at Manville Hollow, in Cedar Creek bottom, two miles south of Peru, when a new mill was erected and it was announced that bolted flour could be obtained on a certain day, the people flocked around it in crowds; and so eager were they to enjoy that luxury, that they employed Mr.

Manville's family to bake cakes for them, keeping them thus engaged nearly the whole night, and standing around the kitchen fire--it is not to be supposed that the other apartments were very s.p.a.cious or numerous--with watering mouths and excited palates, ready to appropriate the delicious pasty, as it came smoking from the pans. Mrs. Lockwood says she was nearly exhausted, and thought the people never would get enough. The frame of this mill was afterwards removed to Peru where it was set up, and is now occupied by Capt. Lewis Goodell as a livery stable. We will now turn our attention nearly two centuries backwards.

The word, Illinois, is a French corruption of Leno. The Indians told the early French settlers that they were Leno-Lenapes--we are men--meaning, we are brave or masculine men, in contradistinction to cowardly or effeminate men. To an imperfect p.r.o.nunciation of the first word, the French added the termination peculiar to their own language--hence Lenois, and ultimately, by a further corruption, Illinois.

It has been often remarked that the topography and climate of Illinois bear a strong a.n.a.logy to those of some portions of France. In its primeval condition, there was, in its landscape and atmosphere, the spirit of gay and joyous life, and of soft and luxurious repose which distinguish the Gallic Empire. The broad plains were free from the enervating influence of the Tropics, on the one hand, or the stern and rugged landscape features which nurse the restless Norseman, on the other. These may have been among the reasons which tempted the Frenchman, after their existence had been made known by the explorations of his countrymen, to take up his abode along the streams and groves which diversify them. At any rate, French settlements were made immediately in the footsteps of Marquette, La Salle, La Hontag and other explorers, who carried the Holy Cross of the Church and the Fleurs de Lis of France into these wilds, as early as the reign of the Grande Monarque, Louis XIV. in the latter part of the seventeenth century.--Settlements were made at Peoria, Kaskaskia and Cohokia, to which were transferred the arts, customs, manners, faith and costumes of France, at the period, and where they flourished and were conserved, with very little innovation, until the approach of the American Goth--the rude and semi barbaric pioneer. Little jealousy and few feuds appear to have existed between these intruders and the tawny children of the forest and prairie, by whom they were surrounded, and upon whose hunting grounds they were trespa.s.sing. The imposing ceremonies of the Catholic faith, and the simple, frank and conciliatory manners of the strangers charmed the senses and soothed the pa.s.sions of these children of nature. The French rule in America was, in the main, marked by the absence of those terrible and prolonged conflicts which almost always accompanied Anglo Saxon settlement, in which the amenities of civilized, or even barbaric warfare, were entirely ignored, and each party strove to out do the other in acts of revolting atrocity. The stern, cold hauteur, the rude, coa.r.s.e insolence, and the grasping, insatiable cupidity of the latter inevitably aroused every demon in the Indian breast. The English colonists knew no arts of Indian conciliation. Their tactics were limited to fire water in advance, and the sword in reserve to avenge the acts of madness excited thereby. The race has not degenerated at all, in these respects, since the marauding Saxon scourged the Baltic sh.o.r.es of Britain. In support of this, witness the efforts of England to force an interdicted and demoralizing commerce upon the pa.s.sive Chinese; witness her success in saddling the sp.a.w.n of her aristocracy upon the necks of the subjugated Hindoo and Sepoy, compelling the wors.h.i.+ppers of both Vishnu, and Mahomet to bow before crosier and mitre; witness the long and cruel oppression of her Celtic neighbors; witness how we, shoots from the same scion, have carried the bible in our hand and the whisky bottle in the other, while in the rear came the rifle of the backwoodsman to enforce all arguments with the untutored savages; witness how volunteers have rallied around the stars and stripes, and pushed the original possessors of the soil backwards, ever backwards, until a new wave comes rolling from the Pacific coast upon his rear; witness the cruel and inglorious wars--if by that name they may be dignified--in Florida and Oregon, excited by mercenary and unscrupulous jobbers for the sake of a chance of plunder from the National treasury; witness the bullying of and final conflict with the mongrel races of poor, decrepit, imbecile Mexico, whereby the auriferous valleys of California and the sterile wastes of New Mexico were wrested from her nerveless grasp; witness the filibustering forays in Central America; and witness the undisguised l.u.s.ting after the Gem of the Antilles, and the unblus.h.i.+ng announcement made at Ostend, by dignified statesmen, claiming, in the nineteenth century, to be Christians, and representing, not cannibal savages or outlawed pirates, but a people who profess to acknowledge the divine injunction, "do unto others as you would that they should do unto you," and to believe that the command, "thou shalt not steal," is as imperative now as it was in the days of the great Jewish law giver.

But to return to the Acadian settlements of the French in Illinois. The manners and customs of the seventeenth century, as before mentioned, were cherished and conserved by these communities, isolated as they were in the heart of a wilderness continent, until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Pa.s.sing from French to English rule by the treaty of 1763, they finally came under the jurisdiction of the American Confederation by the treaty of 1783. After the treaty of Ghent in 1814 the restless American pioneer began to make encroachments. The contrast between these two representatives of their respective races, thus meeting face to face in the wilderness, was even more marked and decided than between the same races, separated by the English Channel. The Frenchman represented a by-gone age, softened and subdued by the influences of more than a century's sojourn, in aggregated communities, among the quiet, sylvan glades of le belle terre. The American, originally imbued with the heartless and licentious voluptuousness of the Cavaliers of the times of Charles II. or the morose, ascetic manners of the Commonwealth, was in either case, transformed and remoulded, but with many of his original characteristics yet clinging to him, by more than a century's residence upon a wilderness frontier, where "no pent up Utica confined his powers," where the most unbounded freedom of thought and action were enjoyed, where the wants of nature and the requirements of taste were gratified in the rudest, simplest and most primeval manner, and where, surrounded by the stern and gloomy grandeur of forest life, continual conflict with savages and wild beasts had produced characteristics which, transmitted from one generation to another, had culminated in a character original, unique and interesting. The salient points which distinguished him were unhesitating self reliance; reckless and chivalrous daring; imperious and resistless will; cool and imperturbable self possession; spasmodic and startling energy, contrasted with intermittent, if not habitual indolence; strong, masculine sense, undiluted with any poetry, sentiment or superst.i.tion; scorning wilds and strategy, but always prepared to circ.u.mvent and baffle them; hospitable to friend or stranger, and ever ready to share his wolf or bear skin, his hog and hominy, his tobacco and whisky, with all comers; to his enemies bold and defiant, but generous and forgiving; to his friends faithful and true, deeming desertion of their fortunes, in trouble or danger, the most aggravated of delinquencies; possessed of physical powers of endurance which mocked privation and fatigue; eye, nerve and brain steady and true in all emergencies; migratory in his habits as a Bedouin Arab; ready, at all times, to drink or fight, run or wrestle; unlettered and untutored as the savage who had been his companion or his foe; and uncouth and repulsive in action, manners and habits as the bear with which he had coped in a hand to paw and knife to fangs conflict.

Thus were the offshoots of the two greatest and most cultivated and refined of modern nations, vis-a-vis, in the heart of the American continent. Soon the song of the voyageur,

"Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian vineyards,"

as he floated with the stream, or propelled his batteaux against the current, with pole, and line, and oar, and sail, was hushed forever.

Soon the panting of the steamer awoke the long silent echos of the bluffs and startled the aquatic fowl from lagoon and bayou. Soon the swelling tide of a more advanced civilization rolled westward over the prairies, and the "common" of the rustic village, upon whose verdant sward and beneath whose branching elms, enamoured swains and blus.h.i.+ng maidens,

"Wearing their Norman caps, and their kirtles of blue, and the ear rings Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heir loom, Handed down from mother to child, through long generations,"

had been wont to "trip the light fantastic toe" to rude and simple music, was illumined with the camp fires and whitened with the wagon covers of the Saxon emigrant. Soon the alloted arpents which, in the exercise of "squatter sovereignty," had been appropriated by each family as a home lot, were surveyed, divided, staked and sold, and an embryo city was rising thereon. Soon the quaint and moss covered church, where Vesper, Matin and Ma.s.s had erst been said, chanted and sung, gave place to the "meeting house" of another creed and faith.

The early French explorers established a post at Buffalo Rock which, it is believed, was the first attempt at settlement by Europeans, in the valley of the Mississippi. This presumption is supported by the following facts. De Soto, after his two years wandering among the everglades of Florida and the swamps and mountains of what is now Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, arrived on the bank of the "Great river" in 1541, "but founded no settlement, left no traces, and produced no effects, unless to excite the hostility of the red against the white man." One hundred and thirty-two years later--1673--Marquette pa.s.sed up the Fox of Wisconsin, across the portage, and down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi, and returned by way of the Illinois. But he, too, according to Joliet, who was his companion, "founded no settlement, and left no traces." These two expeditions contained the only Europeans that ever set foot in the Great Valley until La Salle, five years later, pa.s.sed down the Illinois. His route was up the St.

Joseph in Michigan, across the portage by the Kankakee, and down that stream to the Illinois, upon the banks of which he made his first halt and built Rock Fort, where he established a Mission and settlement, but which was afterwards abandoned, the inhabitants taking themselves to Fort Crevecour. That Buffalo Rock was the site of Rock Fort is probable from the name, as well as from its superior advantages for such an establishment over any other place in the valley, from the confluence of the Kankakee to Peoria. This supposition is sustained by Perkins, Sparks and Bancroft. A year or two ago, a bra.s.s kettle was found in this locality, imbedded in a strata of coal which runs through this singular eminence. It was reported to have been overlaid by a regular seriated, unbroken coal formation; but as this statement is opposed to received geological theories, it is reasonable to suppose that it was deposited by design or accident, in an excavation made by these settlers.

On the 4th of July, 1778, two years after the declaration of Independence, Col. Clark, between whom and Boone the honor of founding Kentucky is divided, with a small band of frontier soldiers, surprised Kaskaskia, then garrisoned by the British, and shortly afterwards made himself master of Cohokia, without bloodshed. He first brought to the inhabitants intelligence of the alliance between the Americans and their former liege, the King of the French, which was received with rapturous enthusiasm, so galling and unwelcome had been the British yoke. Les long Conteaux, as the Kentuckians were called, and les Bostonias, as the Yankees were called were thenceforth welcome.

The attachment which the Indians always manifested towards their great Father of France, in opposition to the British rule, was quickly transferred to the Americans. In October, the House of Burgesses of Virginia erected the country north of the Ohio into the county of Illinois, over which they placed John Todd, of Kentucky, Governor. Two companies, raised in the French settlements, accompanied Clark in his famous expedition against Vincennes. In 1783, the treaty of peace was concluded, by which the western boundary of the enfranchised Colonies was declared to be the Mississippi. In 1784, the North West Territory was ceded by Virginia to the Confederation Congress. In 1787, it was organized by Congress, but no government was established in Illinois until 1790. This consisted of a Governor, three Judges and a Council, who combined executive, judicial and legislative authority. In this year, the county of St. Clair was organized.--From 1783, when the country pa.s.sed from under British rule, to 1790--a period of seven years--no government of any kind existed in Illinois. In 1809, Illinois, then including what is now Wisconsin, was organized as a first cla.s.s Territorial Government, the people electing a House of Representatives, and the President and Senate appointing the Governor and Council. Ninian Edwards was the first Governor and Nathaniel Pope, both of Kentucky, the first Secretary. In 1812, war was declared between the United States and England. Soon followed the surrender of Detroit, by Hull, and the Chicago ma.s.sacre. At this time no settlement existed in Illinois, north of Alton, except the small French settlement of Peoria. An expedition, in which the present Buchanan candidate for Superintendent of public instruction, John Reynolds, the "Old Ranger," partic.i.p.ated, attacked and destroyed an Indian village on the bluff, at the head of Peoria Lake. On the 24th of Dec. 1814, the treaty of Ghent was signed. In July, 1815, a treaty was made at Portage des Sioux, a short distance above the mouth of the Missouri, between the American Commissioners, consisting of Gov.

Clark of Missouri, Gov. Edwards of Illinois, and Auguste Chouteau of St.

Louis, and the various Indian tribes of the North West, except the Sacks and Foxes, under Keokuk and Black Hawk, who refused to come to the treaty ground. Two years afterwards, at St. Louis, a treaty was made with these tribes, an alleged violation of which led to the Black Hawk war in 1831 and '32. From this time to 1820, emigration poured into Illinois. It was almost entirely from the Southern States, and stopped south of the Sangamon. The population of Illinois was in 1790, about 2000; in 1800, about 3000; in 1810, 12,284; in 1820, 45,000; in 1830, 157,447; in 1840, 478,929; in 1850, 853,317; and in 1855, 1,300,000.

The first Legislature convened at Kaskaskia in 1812. Not a lawyer or attorney is found on the roll of names. Pierre Menard, of the French settlements at Peoria, presided in the Council.--The Legislature of 1817-'18 incorporated the "Illinois Bank of Shawneetown," the "Bank of Cairo" and the "Bank of Edwardsville."--They all became depositories of United States money. The latter failed soon afterwards, by which the Government lost $54,000. The two former failed, but were galvanized into life during the Internal Improvement mania of 1835-'36, and by their subsequent failure contributed to the distress of the people in 1841 and 1842. In 1818, Illinois became a State. Her const.i.tution was not submitted to a vote of the people. Shadrick Bond, of Kaskaskia, was the first Governor and Pierre Menard first Lieutenant Governor. Gov. Bond, at the first session of the State Legislature, recommended the construction of the ca.n.a.l. In 1820-'21 the "State Bank" was incorporated.--The faith of the State was pledged for its issues. It failed and the State made up a deficiency of one hundred thousand dollars which she borrowed of or through a gentleman named Wiggins. This was the famous Wiggins loan and the foundation of the State debt.

The suggestion of the ca.n.a.l was made as early as 1814, in Niles Register. The extract is as follows:

"By the Illinois, it is probable that Buffalo, in New York, may be united with New Orleans by inland navigation, through lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan, and the Illinois, and down that river to the Mississippi.

What a route! How stupendous the idea! How dwindles the importance of the artificial ca.n.a.ls of Europe!" Many Acts were pa.s.sed for forwarding this work--one in 1824, one in 1825, one in 1827, one in 1829, but the law, under which the work was actually commenced, was not pa.s.sed until 1835.

In 1824, the Sangamon river was the northern boundary of settlements.

North of the Illinois, the country was occupied by the Sacks and Foxes.

As before mentioned, these tribes were not represented at the treaty of Portage des Sioux, but afterwards entered into a treaty at St.

Louis.--Another treaty was made with them at Rock Island in 1822, another at Was.h.i.+ngton in 1824, another at Prairie du Chien in 1825, and another in 1830, by all of which they agreed to move across the Mississippi. Black Hawk, a brave but not a chief, refused to be bound by these treaties, and in 1831, commenced a series of depredations and murders on the scattering settlements on Rock River, but on the appearance of the troops retreated across the Mississippi. In 1832, he recrossed the river with most of the warriors of the tribes, and defeated Maj. Stillman with 175 men at a place about 20 miles above Dixon's Ferry.--Soon 3000 militia were rendezvoused at Fort Science, which stood near where the river sweeps northward from the foot of the bluffs above Peru. These were joined by a detachment from Fort Armstrong, on Rock Island, when the whole proceeded under the command of Gen. Atkinson, on the trail of the Savages. Gen. Scott, with six hundred mounted men and nine companies of artillery, was ordered from the seaboard, but before his arrival the western troops had put a termination to the war. These moved northward, and by a series of actions--one by a detachment under the command of Col. John Dement between Dixon and Galena, one by Gen. Henry near the Blue Mounds in Wisconsin, and one near the mouth of the Wisconsin--dispersed the savages and put an end to Blackhawk's power. Keokuk, the regular chief of the Sacks, had endeavored to dissuade them from the war, but the councils of Black Hawk, his rival, prevailed. The few settlers in La Salle county at this time--supposed to be about one hundred in number--suffered much from the atrocity of the Indians. After the rout of Stillman, the latter separated into small squads for the purpose of murder, pillage and the destruction of property. A party made an incursion upon Indian Creek, a few miles north of Ottawa, where they killed fifteen of the families of Hall, Davis and Petegru, who were all living in one house. The attack was made in the day time by about sixty Indians, who watched the men leave the house to go to their work upon a mill dam close by, when they rushed from their coverts, one portion firing upon the men, while the other entered the house and slaughtered all the women and children, with the exception of two daughters of Mr.

Hall. The men, five in number, had time to return the fire of the enemy several times, with probable effect, before they fell. Two of them threw themselves into the creek, but, on reaching the further bank, they were shot. William Davis and John W. Hall, sons of the elder Davis and Hall who were killed, swam down the stream, and baffled the search of their pursuers. Mr. Hall is now living in the vicinity of Peru. John Green, at Dayton, William L. Dunnavan, the Hollenbecks, Holdermans, and all the other settlers in the region of Fox River, were more or less sufferers, and all had to seek refuge in the fort at Ottawa. One man was killed on the Bureau, six or eight miles from Princeton. Some of the present citizens of La Salle county, remember with grat.i.tude the kindly services of Shabanna, a friendly Indian, at present living at Shabanna's Grove, to whose friendly warnings and active interference they owe their own lives and those of their families.

The two Miss Halls--Rachael about seventeen and Silvia about fourteen years of age--were carried captive to the Blue Mounds thence to the Desmoine, where they were purchased by the Winebagoes for three thousand dollars in trinkets, of whom the Government purchased them for five thousand dollars. They were taken down the Desmoine to Keokuk where their uncle, Reason B. Hall, had repaired to receive them. They were in captivity only fifteen days and were, upon the whole, treated with very little rudeness. Their faces were painted upon one side black and upon the other side red and their hair, upon one side, was clipped close to their heads, while upon the other it was suffered to remain long. One day they were ordered to lay themselves down, with their faces to the ground, while above them the warriors brandished their weapons and debated about killing them, their language being partially understood by the captives. It is probable that the circ.u.mstances were very favorable to the acquisition of the language. One day, on their march, an Indian's pony stumbled on the brow of a steep hill, when horse and rider went tumbling, one over the other, to the bottom. The younger Miss Hall has since declared that, notwithstanding all the horrors of her situation, she could not help indulging in a ringing shout of laughter. This, so far from prejudicing her with her captors, gained her their favor.

Subsequently, a young brave became enamoured with her and, as a consequence, two thousand dollars ransom were insisted upon for her, while only one thousand dollars were demanded for her sister. While on their march, they were allowed only one hours' intercourse with each other during the day, and a squaw took her place between them as they slept at night.--One of them was afterwards married to William Horn and now resides in Missouri, and the other was married to William Munson and resides on Indian Creek, near the place of the ma.s.sacre.--This account has been frequently given to the writer by different members of the family, and lately by Mrs. Scott, an aunt of the ladies, who at present lives in the town.

During the years 1837 and 1838, large forces of Irish laborers were employed upon the ca.n.a.l. Some time in the winter of these years, one of their characteristic feuds broke out between the Corkonians or Munster men and "Far Downs" or Lienster men at the Sagg, on the upper portion of the work. This gradually spread itself downwards, until in May, a united effort was made on the part of the Corkonians, who were the stronger party, to drive the "b.l.o.o.d.y Far Downs" from all jobs. A skirmish took place near Ma.r.s.eilles where the latter were worsted. The triumphant party, excited by victory and bad whisky, defying the civil authorities, destroying property, and abusing and maltreating every luckless county Longfort man who came in their way, continued down the line below Ottawa, to the job of Edward Sweeney, who was a Corkonian. Here they were reinforced by his entire force--about two hundred men--and marched, under his leaders.h.i.+p, to the extreme western end of the line, at Peru, whence they countermarched, having swept the line from end to end, of all obnoxious fellow laborers, and destroyed many of their shanties. The Sheriff, Alson Woodruff, summoned a posse to quell the disturbance. Word was sent to the Deputy at Peru, Zimri Lewis, late in the afternoon, to raise a party and form a junction with another from Ottawa on the next day. Lewis gathered what forces and arms could be raised in the town and neighborhood during the night, and was ready to march early in the morning. The rioters, some five hundred strong, bivouacked near the "Carey Patch," or "Split Rock" just above the Pec.u.msogin. In the morning they moved up the line, renewing the excesses of the previous day. All were armed with guns, knives, scythes, picks, and whatever other weapons could be seized. Lewis' forces were joined at La Salle, which then was a mere cl.u.s.ter of laborers shanties, by a reinforcement of Americans and "Far Downs" under the leaders.h.i.+p of that veteran contractor, William Byrne, Esq., who was himself a Lienster man, and whose employees were driven from their work. On the way, the Irish portion of the forces were with difficulty restrained from destroying the property and insulting the families of their enemies who were in the mob ahead.--Upon the ridge of table land, near Buffalo Rock, Woodruff, with his posse, met the tumultuous rabble. The former, tolerably well armed, were drawn up to prevent their further advance.--Woodruff ordered them to lay down their arms and submit to the civil authority, warrants having been issued for the arrest of the leaders. This order was answered by a charge from the mob which immediately produced a retreat of the posse. The forces of Lewis and Byrne were at first placed under the command of Capt. Ward B.

Burnett, the present Surveyor General of Kansas, but who soon relinquished the command to Lewis. They moved on rapidly to the place where the party was held, a short distance from which they overtook the enemy. Lewis repeated the demand before made by his superior, and was answered by defiance and their hostile demonstrations, upon which a well directed volley was poured into them, which was immediately followed by a cavalry charge of such of the forces as were mounted. The mob dispersed in every direction. Some threw themselves into the river whither they were pursued, and several were shot in the water. A large number were arrested and marched to Ottawa. Seven were killed, as known at the time, and three others were afterwards found in the gra.s.s and buried. Of the posse, now were killed, but Cornelius Lamb, a blacksmith, and John Bracken, a laborer, were severely wounded. This account of the matter can be substantiated by the testimony of many yet living in the vicinity who partic.i.p.ated in the affray, and particularly that by Lewis and Byrne, to whom the writer confidently appeals for the general truth of the statement.

On arriving at Ottawa, the prisoners were placed under guard, while their followers and a.s.sociates hung in groups about the outskirts of the town. Under the Const.i.tution and laws at that time, every Irishman, though he might not have been but six months from the bogs, was a voter.

Here, then, was a rich field opened for the demagogues, and the reader may be sure they did not neglect it. Here was democratic raw material which could not be permitted to run to waste.--Sympathizers were

"Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa."

Gen. Fry and other aspiring gentlemen commenced harangues, but were speedily cut short by the "boys" who insisted that this was not the entertainment to which they were invited.

The number of Irish, living along the lines of the ca.n.a.l and rail road, for many years, far outnumbered all other residents; but this was the only demonstration against the quiet of the community which, by concerted action, has taken place from that time to the present, if the riots on the Central Rail Road work, on the south bank of the river, be excepted. The excess and violence, in either case, must not be attributed to the Irish residents, as a cla.s.s. To the conservative influence of the more intelligent portion, rather than to any exhibition of physical power, is the community indebted for the general good order which has prevailed. The learned professions, merchants, farmers and mechanics are largely composed of their cla.s.s; and many, who came here as poor laborers, are now wealthy men, appreciating, in a degree equal to that of other citizens, the blessings of a government of laws. The writer is fully satisfied, by close observation, that the influence of the Catholic clergy has ever been on the side of order and submission to the laws.

Of the riots on the Central Rail Road the following account is presented.

In December, 1853, a force of about four hundred and fifty men was employed on the embankment and excavations on the south end of the Central Rail Road bridge at La Salle. A misunderstanding existed between the contractor, Albert Story, and the men about wages. The latter had been employed at one dollar and a quarter per day, but the contractor, being unwilling any longer to pay more than one dollar per day, so informed the men and appointed a day--the 15th--when he would pay such as chose to quit work. The men, on their part, alleged that they had been allured from the East by handbills circulated by Story and his a.s.sociates, announcing that one dollar and a quarter per day would be paid on the job; and that after they had expended all their means to reach the work, the promise was violated, and they were thrown out of employment, except at reduced wages, with families to provide for, at the commencement of winter.

On the day appointed the clerk commenced paying. Soon an error was found in the accounts which was announced to the men, and the business of paying was suspended. This incensed the men, who rushed into the office and declared they would help themselves to their pay. One of them struck Story in the face. During the scuffle, Col. Maynard, a Superintendent of the work and a resident of Chicago, left by the back way to find and take care of Mrs. Story and her children. While he was gone the a.s.sailants were forced from the room and the door refastened, when the crowd commenced with axes, picks and shovels to break down the door. One succeeded in entering, when Story, who was armed, asked his clerks whether it was best to shoot. They said, "no, we had better be quiet." Mr. Story, not knowing that Maynard had gone to take care of his wife and children, went by the back way to the house. Finding his wife gone, he started for the stable for a horse on which to leave the place.

The men, seeing him, rushed towards the stable, shouting "kill him! kill him! kill him!" and with picks, shovels and stones brutally and almost instantly murdered him, one man striking him with a stone on the head after he was dead. It has been a.s.serted that Story did fire upon the crowd, wounding one man, but this did not clearly appear on the subsequent trials.

The news of the murder soon reached La Salle, and a telegraphic dispatch was sent to Ottawa for Sheriff Thorn, who arrived with a military force about 7 o'clock in the evening. These, with Mayor Campbell, of La Salle, and about one hundred citizens, started for the scene of the murder.--On arriving at the spot a number of individuals were discovered, scattered over the hills, some of whom were armed, though only a few a.s.sumed a threatening att.i.tude. Being fired upon they stopped, and one returned the fire, and received, in return, two b.a.l.l.s in his arm, and was then arrested. The Sheriff then visited the different shanties and arrested all, or nearly all, the men he could find, amounting to sixty or seventy, of which some thirty or forty were recognized as partic.i.p.ators in the row, though none were of the supposed ringleaders, but these were subsequently arrested. The Sheriff left a portion of his force as a permanent guard; and the work being prosecuted by other parties, the vicinity, through out the winter, bore resemblance to a regular military encampment.

Twelve were indicted as ringleaders in the affray, four of whom, Kren Brennan, James Terry, Michael Terry and Martin Ryan took a change of venue to Kane county, where they were convicted of murder, when a new trial was granted which resulted in a second conviction. By the clemency of Gov. Matteson their punishment was commuted to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life; and among the last of his official acts, a full pardon was granted. The executive interference caused great dissatisfaction, and upon the occasion of the Governor visiting La Salle, he was burnt in effigy. Six were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to the penitentiary for one year and served out the term. The other two were not found.

On the bluff, near the old fort, and afterwards at Manville Hollow, for many years, there lived an individual whose peculiarities were so strongly marked as to demand a notice in this work.--His name was John Myers, but more familiarly known, among the early settlers, as the "stallion painter." He was a fair specimen of the frontier man--a type of which is attempted to be described in this chapter. In fact, he served as a model for that description. But justice was not done to his moral qualities. His rough garb and uncouth manners concealed a n.o.ble and true heart. He was brave, impulsive and generous, and scorned and loathed subterfuge, evasion, and chicanery as only a n.o.ble and true heart can. He liked whisky, as all frontier men do, but he seldom lost his bodily or mental equilibrium.--He was never in a condition when all his native coolness and resources would not have been at command in an instant, had he been a.s.sailed by any of his old familiar foes, whether man or beast. He was never quarrelsome, even in his cups, but the wronged or weaker party in any conflict, was sure to find in him a champion as chivalrous as ever raised a s.h.i.+eld or poised a lance. His exhilaration was generally manifested in yells, such as no human throat ever uttered before. The most ambitious steam whistle might have been envious of his screams. These he called his blessings. He sometimes indulged in songs. Such unearthly notes were never heard out of Pandemonium.

He would have made the fortune of Spalding & Rogers by singing an accompaniment to the calliope. Many of the present citizens of Peru will recollect his vocal performances as he pursued his way homewards across the bottom above the town. On the occasion of the first opening of a court at Ottawa, he went up to witness that novel performance. Having imbibed a few draughts of whisky, and being rather unfamiliar with the etiquette and decorum of courts, he indulged in exercises not very gratifying to judicial dignity or favorable to the progress of business.--Being frequently reprimanded he became somewhat incensed, whereupon he gave vent to his indignation in one of the most remarkable efforts of the lungs that ever electrified a court of Justice. Judges, lawyers and spectators recoiled in dismay, and it is believed that the pins and tenons which confined the roof were seriously strained.

When first known to the writer, he was nearly eighty years of age, yet his step was firm and elastic, his eye bright and l.u.s.trous, in the corner of which there lurked an expression of humor and fun, his mind clear and vigorous, and his voice--well, we won't say anything more about that. Born upon the outskirts of civilization in Georgia, he had wandered along the streams and valleys of Tennessee, Kentucky and Southern Illinois, resting from time to time, until advancing settlements crowded him still further into the wilderness.--He was entirely unlettered, though he managed to sign his name, and, as is reported, sometimes to his disadvantage. Notwithstanding this he noticed all the fasts and holy days of the Episcopal Church, a circ.u.mstance which indicated his southern origin. His usual dress was a buckskin hunting s.h.i.+rt, breeches and moccasins. In this costume he appeared, by special invitation, at the first ball given in Peru. This was largely composed of ladies and gentlemen, fresh from the saloons and drawing rooms of the eastern cities. As may be supposed, the etiquette and toilets of the a.s.sembly produced no little astonishment in the mind of the rough old pioneer. The ladies eagerly sought his hand in the dance, but shrunk back in agony from its vice-like grasp.

Being once more cramped and annoyed by the influx of strangers he left this part of the country in 1839 or 1840, and took up his residence in Southern Missouri, near the Arkansas line. Years and infirmities soon pressed upon him, when he returned to the banks of the Illinois to die.

He was buried in the burying ground at Cedar point. The writer has refrained from a notice of his most distinguished exploits, as he finds it prepared to his hand, in a much better manner than he could hope to accomplish, in the September number of Putnam's Magazine. He would say that, in the main, it corresponds with the accounts he has received from the mouth of Mr. Myers himself, and from those who knew him at the time of the events related.

A party of eight or ten Indians, accompanied by Myers, had been out two or three days on a hunting excursion, and were returning, laden with the spoils of the chase, consisting of various kinds of wild fowls, squirrels, racc.o.o.ns, and buffalo skins. They had used up all their ammunition except a single charge, which was reserved in the rifle of the chief for any emergency or choice game which might present itself on the way home. A river lay in the way, which could be crossed only at one point, without subjecting them to an extra journey of some ten miles round. When they arrived at this point, they suddenly came to a huge panther, which had taken possession of the pa.s.s, and like a skilful general, confident of his strong position, seemed determined to hold it.

The party retreated a little and stood at bay for a while, and consulted what should be done. Various methods were attempted to decoy or frighten the creature from his position, but in vain. He growled defiance whenever they came in sight, as much as to say, "If you want this stronghold come and take it." The animal appeared to be very powerful and fierce. The trembling Indians hardly dared to come in sight of him, and all the reconnoitering had to be done by Myers. The majority were for retreating as fast as possible, and taking the long journey ten miles round for home, but Myers resolutely resisted. He urged the chief whose rifle was loaded, to march up to the panther, take good aim and shoot him down; promising that the rest of the party would back him up closely with their knives and tomahawks, in case of a mis-fire. But the chief refused; he knew too well the nature and power of the animal. The creature, he contended, was exceedingly hard to kill. Not one shot in twenty, however well aimed, would dispatch him; and if one shot failed, it was a sure death to the shooter, for the infuriated animal would spring upon him in an instant, and tear him to pieces. For similar reasons every Indian in the party declined to hazard a battle with the enemy in any shape.

At last Myers, in a burst of anger and impatience, called them all a set of cowards, and s.n.a.t.c.hing the loaded rifle from the hands of the chief, to the amazement of the whole party, marched deliberately towards the panther. The Indians kept at a cautious distance to watch the result of the fearful battle. Myers walked steadily up to within about two rods of the panther, keeping his eye fixed upon him, while the eyes of the panther flashed fire, and his heavy growl betokened at once the power and firmness of the animal. At about two rods distance, Myers leveled his rifle, took deliberate aim, and fired.--The shot inflicted a heavy wound, but not a fatal one; and the furious animal, maddened with the pain, made but two leaps before he reached his a.s.sailant. Myers met him with the b.u.t.t end of his rifle, and staggered him a little with two or three heavy blows, but the rifle broke, and the animal grappled him, apparently with his full power. The Indians at once gave Myers up for dead, and only thought of making a lively retreat for themselves.

Fearful was the struggle between Myers and the panther, but the animal had the best of it at first, for they soon came to the ground, and Myers underneath, suffering under the joint operation of sharp claws and teeth, applied by the most powerful muscles. In falling, however, Myers, whose right hand was at liberty, had drawn a long knife. As soon as they came to the ground, his right arm being free, he made a desperate plunge at the vitals of the animal, and, as good luck would have it, reached his heart.--The loud shrieks of the panther showed that it was his death wound. He quivered convulsively, shook his victim with a spasmodic leap and plunge, then loosened his hold, and fell powerless by his side.

Myers, whose wounds were severe but not mortal, rose to his feet, bleeding and much exhausted, but with life and strength to give a grand whoop, which conveyed the news of his victory, to his trembling Indian friends.

They now came up to him with shouting and joy, and so full of admiration that they were almost ready to wors.h.i.+p him. They dressed and bound up his wounds, and were now ready to pursue their way home without the least impediment. Before crossing the river, Myers cut off the head of the panther, which he took home with him, and fastened it up by the side of his cabin door, where it remained for years, a memorial of a deed that excited the admiration of the Indians in all that region. From that time forth they gave Myers that name, and always called him the Panther.

(The writer has before given the name by which all the old settlers will recognize him.)

Time rolled on, and the Panther continued to occupy his hut in the wilderness, on the banks of the Illinois River, a general favorite among the savages and exercising a great influence over them. At last the tide of white population again overtook him, and he found himself once more surrounded by white neighbors. Still, however, he seemed loth to forsake the n.o.ble Illinois, on whose banks he had been so long a fixture, and he held on, forming a sort of connecting line between the white settlers and the Indians.

At length hostilities broke out, which resulted in the memorable Black Hawk war, that spread desolation through that part of the country.--Parties of Indians committed the most wanton and cruel depredations, often murdering old friends and companions, with whom they had long held conversation. The white settlers, for some distance round, flocked to the cabin of the Panther for protection. His cabin was transformed into a sort of garrison, and was filled with more than an hundred men, women and children, who rested almost their only hope of safety on the prowess of the Panther, and his influence over the savages.

At this time a party of about nine hundred of the Iroquois were on the banks of the Illinois, about a mile from the garrison of Myers, and nearly opposite the present town of La Salle.--One day news was brought to the camp of Myers, that his brother-in-law and wife, and their three children, had been cruelly murdered by some of the Indians. The Panther heard the sad news in silence. The eyes of the people were upon him, to see what he would do. Presently they beheld him with a deliberate and determined air, putting himself in battle array. He girdled on his tomahawk and scalping knife, and shouldered his loaded rifle, and, at open mid-day, silently and alone, bent his steps towards the Indian encampment. With a fearless and firm tread, he marched quietly into the midst of the a.s.sembly, elevated his rifle at the head of the princ.i.p.al Chief present, and shot him dead on the spot.--He then deliberately severed the head from the trunk, and holding it up by the hair before the awe-struck mult.i.tude, he exclaimed, "You have murdered my brother-in-law, his wife and little ones; and now I have murdered your Chief, I am now even with you. But now mind, every one of you that is found here to-morrow morning at sunrise, is a dead Indian!"