INDIAN CREEK MASSACRE
and
Captivity of Hall Girls
COMPLETE HISTORY
of the
MASSACRE OF SIXTEEN WHITES
on
INDIAN CREEK, NEAR OTTAWA, ILL.
and
Sylvia Hall and Rachel Hall
As Captives in Illinois and Wisconsin
during
THE BLACK HAWK WAR, 1832
BY
CHARLES M. SCANLAN
Author of
“Scanlan’s Rules of Order,” “The Law of Church and Grave,”
“Law of Hotels” Etc.
SECOND EDITION REIC PUBLISHING COMPANY 421 Matthews Building Milwaukee, Wis.

Copyright, 1915.
BY
CHARLES M. SCANLAN

PREFACE.

No one is satisfied with an incomplete story. The very meagre and inconsistent accounts of the adventures of Sylvia and Rachel Hall (familiarly known as the “Hall girls”) heretofore published, merely excited one’s curiosity to know the whole story. The ladies’ statements that have been published, gave only an outline of the facts as far as they knew them personally. To obtain all the facts, required much investigation of books and a great deal of correspondence with historical societies, editors of newspapers and the War and the Interior Department of the United States. Also, the writer has had personal interviews with relatives of the Misses Hall, and has traveled over the ground and examined all the evidence that now appears from the location of the little cottage on Indian Creek to Galena where the girls took a boat for St. Louis.

Mrs. A. Miranda Dunavan, a daughter of Mrs. Rachel Hall Munson (the younger captive), gave me the family history of her mother; and Miss Sylvia E. Horn of Lincoln, Nebraska, and Mr. C. L. Horn of Mackinaw, Illinois. grand-children of Mrs. Sylvia Hall Horn (the elder captive), contributed the history of the Horn family. Thus every fact in the following pages is stated upon the best evidence.

To gather all the traditions that still linger along the course over which the Indians traveled with their captives, the writer enlisted the services of his nieces, Miss Gertrude Scanlan of Fennimore, Wisconsin, and Miss Marian Scanlan of Prairie du Chien, whose grandfathers were pioneers in the lead regions. However, no fact has been stated on tradition without the clues being verified by land records or government documents.

Of course every lady wants to know how the girls looked. Unfortunately, there is no picture of either of them prior to middle life. Mrs. Dunavan lent to me a very rare daguerreotype picture of her mother, Mrs. Munson, taken at the age of about forty-two years, and a photograph of her aunt, Mrs. Sylvia Hall Horn, taken when she was over sixty years of age. Also, I borrowed from Mrs. Dunavan a tintype picture of herself when she was sixteen, which is said to be a very good likeness of her aunt Sylvia at the time that she was taken captive. These pictures are reproduced herein. The tradition of the neighborhood is that the girls were unusually handsome in both figure and face and of captivating kind dispositions. They were born in Kentucky and carried with them to Illinois the southern culture which has won for the ladies of the South considerable fame in story and song.

Milwaukee, Wis.
July 15, 1915.
CHARLES M. SCANLAN.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY.

In its natural condition, perhaps no more attractive country ever laid before the eyes of man than that in which occurred the incidents of the following narrative. On the south it is bordered by the Illinois river, with its historical events beginning with the old Kaskaskia Mission established by Father Marquette in 1673 amidst the most beautiful scenery in the whole state of Illinois, which is now included in Starved Rock State Park.

What memories cluster around old Kaskaskia! As the first capital of Illinois, it was visited by Gen. La Fayette and Presidents Jackson, Lincoln, Taylor and Harrison; by Jefferson Davis, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnson, and by nearly every other man who was prominent in United States history prior to 1837, when Springfield became the state capital.

On the east for more than one hundred miles the Fox river, with its source in a beautiful lake near Waukesha, Wisconsin, flows south into the Illinois at Ottawa. Westward the great prairie stretches off to and beyond the Rock river which has eroded a narrow valley through that otherwise flat plain. Besides Rock river the only important streams that lay in the course of travel of the Hall girls as prisoners, were the Sycamore (South Kishwaukee) and the Kishwaukee in Illinois, and Turtle Creek, the Bark River and the Oconomowoc in Wisconsin.

We are told by geologists that during the quaternary age of the world, a great ice-berg, moving down from the north, crushed all the trees and vegetation in its path, leveled most of the hills and filled most of the valleys as far south as the Ohio River. When that body of ice melted it formed lakes in the depressions which were not filled with till. Drumlins, eskers and kames, here and there, remain to indicate either the resistance of the prior formation or that quantities of earth filled the uneven under surface of the ice at the time of its dissolution.

By the action of the atmosphere, rains and dew, as centuries rolled on, vegetation sprang up all over that great plain, and springs to supply the greatest necessity of living things, broke forth and flowed in streams that united into rivers as they rolled on to the sea. Along the streams were forests of trees—including many species of the oak, ash, sycamore, elm, sugar maple, locust, hickory, walnut, butternut, linden, cherry, buckeye, blackberry and many other familiar varieties. Also, here and there stood groves that escaped the terrible prairie fires that almost every year swept over that vast plain.

Game of many kinds, from the monstrous buffalo and timid deer down to the rabbit, the turkey, the prairie chicken, and the quail, was abundant.

Last, and by no means least, was the beautiful flora of that country which was known as “The Paradise of the West.”1 A traveler who saw it in its natural condition, describes it as follows: “Above all countries, this is the land of flowers. In the season, every prairie is an immense flower garden. In the early stages of spring flowers, the prevalent tint is peach bluish; the next is a deeper red; then succeeds the yellow; and to the latest period of autumn the prairies exhibit a brilliant golden, scarlet and blue carpet, mingled with the green and brown ripened grass.”2

CHAPTER II.
INDIAN TROUBLES.

When the first white man settled in Illinois, the Mascoutin Indians occupied the lands between the Illinois River and the waterway formed by the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien. Later the Sacs, the Foxes, and the Pottawatamies, occupied the territory and had many villages. There were no national boundary lines. A prominent route of travel was the Kishwaukee Trail from Watseca in Eastern Illinois up the Kankakee to where it flows into the Illinois, and thence in a northwesterly direction to the mouth of the Kishwaukee on Rock River, about six miles below Rockford. Dixon was the great center of trails. The principal one was from Kaskaskia by way of Dixon to Galena, Illinois. Numerous other trails connected prominent points and various Indian villages.

In 1804 a treaty was made with the Sacs and Foxes at St. Louis, of which the principal provision were as follows:

“Article 1. The United States receive the united Sac and Fox tribes into their friendship and protection and the said tribes agree to consider themselves under the protection of the United States, and no other power whatsoever.

“Article 2. The General boundary line between the land of the United States and the said Indian tribes shall be as follows, to-wit: Beginning at a point on the Missouri River opposite to the mouth of the Gasconde River; thence, in a direct course so as to strike the River Jeffreon to the Mississippi; thence, up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Ouisconsing [Wisconsin] River, and up the same to a point which shall be 36 miles in a direct line from the mouth of the said river, thence, by a direct line to the point where the Fox River (a branch of the Illinois) leaves the small lake called Sakaegan; thence, down the Fox River to the Illinois River, and down the same to the Mississippi. And the said tribes, for and in consideration of the friendship and protection of the United States, which is now extended to them, of the goods (to the value of two thousand two hundred and thirty-four dollars and fifty cents) which are now delivered, and of the annuity hereinafter stipulated to be paid, do hereby cede and relinquish forever, to the United States, all the lands included within the above described boundary.

“Article 3. In consideration of the cession and relinquishment of land made in the preceding article, the United States will deliver to the said tribes, at the town of St. Louis, or some other convenient place on the Mississippi, yearly and every year, goods suited to the circumstances of the Indians of the value of one thousand dollars (six hundred of which are intended for the Sacs and four hundred for the Foxes), reckoning that value at the first cost of the goods in the City or place in the United States, where they shall be procured. And if the said tribes shall hereafter at an annual delivery of the goods aforesaid, desire that a part of their annuity should be furnished in domestic animals, implements of husbandry, and other utensils, convenient for them, or in compensation to useful artificers, who may reside with or near them, and be employed for their benefit, the same shall, at the subsequent annual delivery, be furnished accordingly.

“Article 4. The United States will never interrupt the said tribes in the possession of the lands, which they rightfully claim, but will, on the contrary, protect them in the quiet enjoyment of the same against their own citizens and against all other white persons, who may intrude upon them. And the said tribes do hereby engage that they will never sell their lands, or any part thereof, to any sovereign power but the United States, nor to the citizens or subjects of any other sovereign power, nor to the citizens of the United States.

“Article 7. As long as the lands which are now ceded to the United States remain their [U. S.] property, the Indians belonging to the said tribes shall enjoy the privileges of living and hunting upon them.”3

The Chippewas, the Winnebagos, and the Pottawatamies, made claim to the same territory. Even the Foxes and Sacs claimed that the young chiefs who signed the treaty, were made drunk, and while in that condition agreed to the treaty.4 Also, the Indians maintained that the United States would not allow them to hunt upon the “wild” lands, notwithstanding Art. 7 of the treaty and that the title thereto was still in the government. Therefore, the Indians refused to ratify the treaty, and the idea that they were grievously wronged became a fixed notion in the minds of the old chiefs, which led to the Red Bird War of 1827, and the still greater Black Hawk War in 1832.5

Black Hawk had fought with the English in the War of 1812, and by reason of the defeat of the English, including his own, he retained his natural desire for revenge against the Americans. He was born at Rock Island, and had as strong love for his native place as was ever retained by any white man. When Illinois became a state in 1818, Black Hawk with all his people was ordered to move across the Mississippi into Iowa, which he reluctantly obeyed. However, he was never satisfied with his new location, and in 1832 he again crossed the Mississippi with four hundred warriors and all their squaws and children and squatted on his former possessions at Rock Island. He was ordered back to Iowa, but refused to go until he learned that troops were being sent against him. With all his people he retired north along Rock River, followed by the Illinois militia, and when he reached a point about twenty-five miles south of Rockford, he halted and held a council of war with chiefs of the Pottawatomies and Winnebagoes, where he delivered the following speech:

“I was born at the Sac Village, and here I spent my childhood, youth and manhood. I liked to look on this place with its surroundings of big rivers, shady groves and green prairies. Here are the graves of my father and some of my children. Here I expected to live and die and lay my bones beside those near and dear to me; but now in my old age I have been driven from my home, and dare not look again upon this loved spot.”

The old chief choked with grief and tears flowed down his cheeks. Covering his face in his blanket, he remained silent for a few moments. Then wiping away his tears, he continued:

“Before many moons you, too, will be compelled to leave your homes. The haunts of your youth, your villages, your corn fields, and your hunting grounds, will be in the possession of the whites, and by them the graves of your fathers will be plowed up, while your people will be retreating towards the setting sun to find new homes beyond the Father of Waters. We have been as brothers; we fought side by side in the British war; we hunted together and slept under the same blanket; we have met at councils and at religious feasts; our people are alike and our interests are the same.”6

On the 14th day of May, 1832, the militia under Major Stillman arrived within eight miles of the camp of Black Hawk who sent three Indians under a flag of truce to negotiate a treaty with the whites. The wily chief also sent five other Indians to a point where they could watch the unarmed braves carrying the white flag. Stillman’s men refusing to recognize the white flag set upon the Indians, killed one and captured the others, and then set off after the other five who held their guns crosswise over their heads as a sign of friendship. The whites killed two of the five and chased the others into Black Hawk’s camp. Then the Indians set upon Stillman’s army, cut it to pieces, and chased the scattered remnants for many miles. The place of that battle is known as “Stillman’s Run.”7 The disgrace of the entire affair has been a dark blot upon the white man’s bravery and his manner of dealing with the Indians. Up to this time the Indians had committed no crime nor act of war against the whites.8

Immediately after the engagement Black Hawk called another council of his braves, at which it was determined to fight to the last and to send out small bands of Indians to the various white settlements to destroy them. Among the great warriors present at that council was the celebrated Chief Shabona (Shab-eh-ney)9 who fought beside Tecumseh at his down-fall at the battle of the Thames. Shabona pleaded with the Indian chiefs to give up the war and to return to Iowa, and when they refused to do so, he, his son Pypagee, and his nephew Pyps, mounted ponies and rode to the various white settlements and notified the people of the danger of the Indians. The first horse with which Shabona started, dropped dead under him; but he obtained another horse from a farmer and rode day and night until he had warned the whites at all the settlements.

CHAPTER III.
THE DAVIS SETTLEMENT.

The father of our heroines, William Hall, who was born in Georgia, migrated to Kentucky where he married Mary J. Wilburs, and in 1825 emigrated to Mackinaw, about fifteen miles south of Peoria, Illinois, where he opened a farm. Shortly afterwards he moved to the lead mines near Galena where he staid three years, and then returned to Lamoille, Bureau County, Illinois. In the spring of 1832 he sold out his mining claim and settled upon a homestead about two miles east of the farm of William Davis. Prior to that time his oldest daughter, Temperance, had been married to Peter Cartwright, but the other members of his family, consisting of his wife, three daughters—Sylvia, aged 19, Rachel, aged 17, and Elizabeth, aged 8 years, and two boys, were living with him. Some time prior to the massacre, two Indians named Co-mee and To-qua-mee, who had been frequent visitors at the Hall home and treated kindly by Mr. Hall’s daughters, endeavored, after the custom of the Indians, to purchase Sylvia and Rachel from their father.10

The Halls were noted for their hospitality. Judge Edwin Jerome of Detroit relates that he was the guest of the family one night in April 1832.11

William Pettigrew, also from Kentucky, who had just migrated to the Davis Settlement and had not yet established a home for himself, with his wife and two children, was temporarily stopping at the home of Mr. Davis at the time of the massacre.

In 1830, John H. Henderson emigrated from Tennessee to Indian Creek and settled on a homestead adjoining the land of Davis on the south. Subsequently the Hendersons became prominent politicians, both in Illinois and Iowa.

In the spring of 1830, William Davis, a Kentuckian, and a blacksmith by trade, settled on a land claim on Big Indian Creek, twelve miles north of Ottawa, in the northern part of La Salle County, Illinois. He was the first white settler at that place.

Agriculture and marriage have always been the great necessities to found permanent civilization. To establish a settlement in the great west, at that time, a blacksmith shop and a mill were the next two great necessities, and around those the early settlers broke up the wild prairie and on the upturned sod sowed buckwheat, turnips and sod-corn, which within three months produced their first food from the soil for themselves and their stock. To “break” the tough prairie sod required a sharp plowshare and colter, which had to be resharpened frequently. Without the blacksmith the prairie could hardly be cultivated. The big ox-teams of the neighbors, with which they had moved into the country, pulled the plow. Next, with the crop produced, the grist mill to grind the grain was a great necessity. The Indians and some of the early settlers with hammers and stones pulverized corn and wheat enough to supply their absolute wants from day to day, but the whites, who had been accustomed to corn-meal and wheat-flour bread, were not satisfied with the mashed product. Therefore, Davis, who supplied both of those great necessities, was a prominent man in the Davis Settlement.

The mill-site was where the Sauk trail from Black Hawk’s Village at the mouth of the Rock River crossed Big Indian Creek and continued thence east to Canada, where the whole tribe of Sacs went every year to get their annuities from the English Government.12 Just above the ford the creek meandered through a flat-bottomed gulch that was about two hundred feet wide with precipitous banks about fifteen feet high. At this point the stream flowed southeasterly and was fringed along its course with woods that grew dense, and here and there expanded into groves, but at other places there were openings where the prairie fires annually destroyed the undergrowth and left standing only the monarchs of the forest. The north bank of the gulch had an incline of about forty-five degrees to the level of the prairie. On that bank in a sparsely timbered opening from which the prairie stretched off to the cardinal points of the compass, William Davis located his home and erected his cabin. About that cabin there were trees that produced fruit, fuel and lumber, among whose branches were singing birds of great variety, including the Cardinal, the Dickcissel, the Carolina Wren, the Thrush and the Robin. By May the bank was covered with a carpet of thick, waving grass, diversified with ever-changing colored flowers, until the cruel frost of Fall destroyed them. It was an idyllic spot. No doubt Davis hoped that some day the Davis Settlement would become Davis City, and that his generations would revel in mansions that would replace the cottage on the bank of that new Jordan, where he, like King David, in his old age might kneel among his people to pray.

However, the hopes and aspirations of the Davis family were soon to be blasted. Davis was a powerful man and his Kentucky blood fairly boiled with resentment at any offense, particularly one given by an Indian, upon whom he looked as an inferior. With his gun and bowie knife Davis would fight a dozen Indians—aye, a score. It seemed as though he could play with them in the air as an athlete plays with Indian clubs.

About one hundred and fifty feet south of his cottage, Davis erected a blacksmith shop and a mill. To obtain water power for his mill it became necessary for Davis to put a dam across the stream. Six miles farther up Indian Creek there was an Indian village, and as the fish naturally went up the stream every spring, there was good fishing at the village for the Indians. The dam prevented the fish from going up, and the Indians protested against this invasion of their rights. Davis, however, insisted on his rights to build and maintain the dam, and bad feelings were engendered.

One day in April, 1832, Davis discovered an Indian tearing an outlet in the dam, and with a hickory stick he beat the Indian unmercifully.13 Had he killed the Indian it might have ended the affair; but to whip an Indian with a stick as you would whip a dog, was an insult that incurred the resentment of the whole Indian village, and instilled in the Indian a rankling desire for revenge. The incident, however, was settled by Chief Shabona with the assistance of another Indian chief named Waubansee, who advised the Indians not to resort to forceful reparation and to do their fishing below the dam. The Indians followed Shabona’s advice for some time, but after a while Davis noticed that they ceased to go below the dam to fish, and being quite familiar with the Indian character, he took it as an intimation of their anger, and he prepared for hostilities.

CHAPTER IV.
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.

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