l:j .T7H2 4 O ^^-^'^^ '>W.^ V '^^ <^ : ^ ^: o5^... ^_ .^^"V. HO, 'bV'^ 0^ '-^0^ .V y/ i 4 O ^^ .'/^ICr- •^^0^ o Indian Trails Centering At Black Hawk's Village 3y JOHN H. HAUBERG ^**r i^ T^eprinted from the 'Uransactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1921. Cift Black Hawk's Watch Tower was a conspicuous landmark to all travellers coming from across Rock River. INDIAN TRAILS CENTERING AT BLACK HAWK'S VILLAGE. By John H. Haubehg. The facts set forth in the following paper were gathered during the last six years. In that time the writer has not neglected to see personally every man or woman claimed to have any knowledge of any Indian trail, or who was mentioned by others as probably having knowledge of a trail, and a diligent inquiry among the older residents of the counties of Rock Island, Henry and the northern part of Mercer County has been kept up. A liberal use was made of the automobile, and the method consistently followed was to make an appointment and take the person to the very spot which he knew, take photographs there, and carefully record the description given, as also all the side- lights in the way of a running narrative of the early-day life. This paper cannot, of course, give fully all these narratives. Nearly all of the informants had passed their three-score and ten, and some had passed the four score and ten years of life. Over and over again the writer would hear from their lips something like this : "If you had only started this a few years ago. Now nearly everyone that knew is dead", or one would say, "If you had begun this a year or two ago I could have directed you to a half dozen men who have since died". In practically every instance, the trail was fixed in the man's mind be- cause it crossed his father's farm; or that he plowed it up; used it as the path to the public school ; herded cattle over it ; hunted over it ; had seen straying bands of Indians using it ; that it was the common tradition among the pioneers that it was an Indian trail, and that it was not the kind of trail commonly made by animals or by white men. The Sauk and Mesquaki tribes, usually spoken of as the Sauk and Fox, formed a united nation. They had three villages about the vicinity of the mouth of Rock River. One of these, a Fox village, was on the west side of the Mississippi where Davenport, Iowa, now stands. The other two, both on the Illinois side, joined at the edges, but the distance from center to center of each village was about three and one-half miles as the crow flies. The one a Fox village, was located opposite the lower end of Rock Island, where the down-town part of the City of Rock Island now stands, and the other was the Sauk village which adjoined it to the south and extended to the blufif overlooking Rock River, known as Black Hawk's Watch Tower, practically all of the old Sauk village site also, is today included within the city limits of Rock Island, Illinois. This Sauk village was the home of the most prominent individuals of the United Nation. Both Black Hawk and Keokuk were born here. It had been the home of the former for seventy years when he was finally expelled in the contest known to history as the Black Hawk War. In its strictest sense, it was for possession of this particular village and its adjacent cornfields and pastures that the war was fought. Numerous mounds are scattered all about these Indian village sites. These mounds are believed to have been built by a people ante- dating the Sauk and Fox Indians and their immediate predecessors here, and it is probable that when the latter located here, they found the principal highways mentioned in this paper already existent. The Indian trails, sections of which are described in this paper, are the following: (1) The "Great Sauk Trail" or "Sauk and Fox Trail" which is of especial interest to us because the War Chief Black Hawk and his band used this trail regularly in going from their village at Rock Island, Illinois, to Fort Maiden, Amherstberg, Ontario, to secure the annuities which the British authorities continued to bestow upon them for services rendered during the War of 1812-'14. (2) The Indian and Military Trail, which was a short-cut from Rock Island to Oquawka, Illinois, on the Mississippi, fifty miles south- wards. It was a well known Indian trail, and its greatest use as a mil- itary trail was in the two campaigns of the Black Hawk War, 1831 and 1832 respectively, when the Illinois militia marched over it, to Black Hawk's village. (3) The Indian trail up the east bank of the Mississippi from the Sauk and Fox villages at Rock Island, to their lead mines in north- western Illinois and Southwest Wisconsin. (4) The trail up Rock River toward Prophetstown, followed alike by Indians, and by the Illinois soldiers of 1832, with Capt. Abra- ham Lincoln in command of a company. (5) Indian trails about Moline and Rock Island; some of them doubtless branches of the main highways. Of the local trails, a section is pointed out by W. C. Wilson of Moline. Mr. Wilson says he has known this trace as an Indian trail for forty years. It is located in Prospect Park, near the east line of the park. It is visible, beginning at a point 150 feet west of the west line of Park 15th St. at 34th Ave., Moline, Illinois, and extends south- eastwards along the crest of the ridge. The ground here for forty-five paces is still covered with native timber of oak, hickory, etc., and has never been cultivated. The trail has recently been filled to a level with the surrounding ground, but it is easily followed because the natural soil here is dark, nearly black, and without stone or gravel, while the filling used was clay containing gravel and bits of crushed limestone. This trail would probably be one of the branches of the "Great Sauk Trail" and a short cut to the Fox villages where Rock Island and Dav- enport now stand, and to Fort Armstrong on Rock Island. It was doubtless used also by the Winnebagoes, whose village was 40 miles above the mouth of Rock River, as they came to the fort and to trade with George Davenport, whose establishment adjoined Ft. Armstrong. It is said (by Alex Craig, Moline,) that there was an excellent ford across Rock river opposite Blossomberg, on the section line between Sections eight and nine, Hampton Township, and the ford across Green river was less than a mile above this Rock river ford. It is probable that these fords had connection with the trail in Prospect Park. Another section of an old trail is located along the crest of Black Hawk's Watch Tower — a bluff of about 150 ft,, having a view of rare beauty overlooking Rock river. The trail is back (north of) of Indian Lovers' Spring and leads eastward to the creek. A few hundred yards eastward from the creek on a gentle rise of ground from Rock river, one may find at any time, numerous fragments of pottery and flints of the days of the Indians or their predecessors. The adjoining hill-tops have numerous mounds, probably of prehistoric age, and it is most likely that residents here, from prehistoric times, used the trail above mentioned in going to and from the Watch Tower. In his autobiography, Black Hawk says that this spot — the Watch Tower, to which his name had been applied, was a favorite resort for the Indians of his day. In our present day it is continued as a pleasure resort where tens of thousands go each year to enjoy the scene. This spot adjoins the city limits of Rock Island. The trail from the top of the Black Hawk Watch Tower, down to the Sauk village which lay at its foot, immediately to the west, is men- tioned by Mrs. Mary Brackett Durham, late of Rock Island, in a poem entitled "Black Hawk's Watch Tower", as follows : (5) "Among the boughs of that tall tree The chief oft climbed to hide And plan his raids, while he could see The country far and wide." (6) "There, unobserved by friend or foe, Above the Indian trail, His piercing eyes watched all below, Isle, meadow, hill and dale". (7) "Narrow and deep the war trail ran, Diagonally down, Well worn by rain and foot of man, Down to the old Sauk town". Mrs. Durham, author of the above lines, secured her informa- tion at first hand from Mrs. Lewis, (as per letter of Col. C. W. Dur- ham in the writer's possession), mother of George L. and Bailey Davenport. Mrs. Lewis was a member of the Col. George Davenport household on the island of Rock Island, for many years preceding the Black Hawk War, was a good friend of the Indians, and became well informed as to the various phases of their life here. The site of a section of the trail from Black Hawk's village to the Fox village and to Rock Island, is pointed out by Phil Mitchell of Rock Island. It is on "Spencer Place, Out Lot 1" City of Rock Island, and this small section of it runs from a point beginning at the east line of 19th street, forty-four paces south of the south line of Sixth Ave., and taking a northeasterly course which would strike Twentieth St. at the northwest corner of 20th street and Sixth Ave. The location of this part of the trail is in a lot, an acre or so in extent, upon which is one of Rock Island's substantial residences. The ground was originally owned by John W. Spencer, who at the time of the Black Hawk War had his log cabin located on the adjoining block on what is now the southwest corner of 7th Ave. and 19th St., and that as long as this property was in the hands of Mr. Spencer, and that of his nephew, Spencer Robinson, this deeply worn trail was left as a relic of the olden days, but that when the property passed from their hands the lot was graded and the trail obliterated. It is prob- able that by digging cross trenches, the exact course of this trail might be found. Another trail which may have run somewhat parallel to the above named, or may even be a part of the same trail, and which may be a section of the "Great Sauk Trail" to the Mississippi and beyond, crossing at Rock Island, is to be found near the crest of the ridge from the Watch Tower, and passing northwards toward the island of Rock Island. A part of this trail is preserved just within the east edge of old Dixon Cemetery, now within the city limits of Rock Island. Another section of it is still to be seen in the virgin woodlands a little to the north in the west edge of the n. e. ^4, Sec. 14, South Rock Island township, which is owned by the Tri-City Street Railway Co., then after cross- ing a cultivated field a distance of about 40 rods, still going northward one finds another well preserved section of this trail in the woodland. To find this last mentioned section of the trail, start at the corner on the east side of Fourteenth Street, at the south side of Thirty-seventh Avenue, city of Rock Island, and go south one hundred sixty feet ; thence east seven hundred sixty feet, and you will find yourself right in the trail, and it is plainest as you travel northwards on it. On the testimony of Edwin Brashar and David Sears, both octo- genarians, and both of whom grew to manhood in this locality, this trail has always been known as an Indian trail. Mr. Brashar stated that it led from the Watch Tower to where the saw mill was on the Mississippi at 24th St., Rock Island, which is opposite the island of Rock Island. It is interesting to note that in 1908, when the grandson of Black Hawk visited here, Mr. Sears found him at the top of this same ridge looking for the trail back to the Down Town of Rock Island. This grandson of the old war chief was born here and was quite a boy at the time of their expulsion through the Black Hawk War, in 1832. This trail, since the early white settlements here, has not been used as a public highway. At page 26 of Armstrong's "The Sauks and the Black Hawk War" is to be found an account of a fence built of post and poles, extending from Rock river near the Watch Tower, northward for four miles to the Mississippi, to opposite the foot of the island of Rock Island. The southern part of this fence was kept up by the Sauks, and the northern part of it by the Foxes. Mr. Armstrong The Indian Trail from Black Hawk's Watch Tower to Fort Armstrong, 37th Ave. Rock Island projected east 800 feet would intersect this Trail. The Section of an Indian Trail in Prospect Park Moline, 111., as located by W. C. Wilson, who is standing in the trail. The trail down the right bank of Rock River between the Watch Tower and where the Mississippi and Rocl\^ Rivers join. Black Hawk's village bordered this trail. continues: "Immediately west of, and following the west line of this fence was a well beaten and extensively travelled road, leading- from Saukenuk (the Sauk village) to the Mississippi, or the island, where Fort Armstrong and the trading house of Col. George Davenport stood". Beyond question, the trail or road referred to by Armstrong is identical with the one to be seen today in Dixon Cemetery and northwards. Mr. Armstrong is believed to have gained his knowledge of this trail from Hon. Bailey Davenport, son of the Indian trader, who came in 1816 and who had his post on Rock Island. (See page 8, "The Sauks and the Black Hawk War", by Armstrong.) Another trail which should be mentioned, is one which follows closely the right bank of Rock river, from the Watch Tower to the Mississippi, a distance of about two and one-half miles. Today it is the usual fisherman's path. As you walk toward the Mississippi, you will find at your right hand, for more than half the distance, a high bank of, say thirty feet, while immediately at your left you pass the row-boats, canoes and fish-boxes of the natives of today. By the side of this trail one finds several fine springs from which the Sauk Indians, whose village was strung along these shores, got a part of their excellent water supply, as mentioned by Black Hawk in his autobiography (p. 62). This trail would be intimately associated with the life of the local Indian residents. In the mind's eye one can see, on a certain early morning in September, 1814, a throng of braves and spectators hurrying to the battle at Credit Island, opposite the mouth of Rock river, which Maj. Zachary Taylor, afterwards president, was hope- lessly waging against British artillery and an allied force under Black Hawk of 1000 to 1500 Indians, and again, a certain night of April, 1831, when Black Hawk's people, thoroughly frightened, fled under cover of darkness to the west of the Mississippi. There was a large force of U. S. Regulars on their right at Fort Armstrong and another force of 1500 Illinois militia a few miles below at their left. The Indians numbering perhaps a thousand all told, were taking their ponies, dogs, baggage and all with them, and not only the trail but every serviceable canoe was no doubt crowded. Of the Indian trail up the east bank of the Mississippi above Rock Island, Dr. William H. Lyford of Port Byron, Illinois, reports as follows : "The river road up here from Rock Island is the oldest road in Rock Island County and is on the old Indian trail between Black Hawk's Watch Tower and the lead mines around Galena. Sometimes the Indians went by way of the other side, but this (east) side had the main road. It was the only road through here, and Archibald Allen, who located on this trail in 1828, (in Section 24, Port Byron Township), traded with the Indians for their furs and skins, and carried mail on this road or trail between Fort Armstrong and Galena. December 30, 1833, he was appointed Post Master and kept the post office at his house. It was called Canaan and was the first post office in Rock Island County exclusive of the one on the island of Rock Island". 8 "My father, Dr. Jeremiah H. Lyford, M. D., in 1837 built his log cabin along the river right on this trail. Father would be away days at a time, looking after his patients in Iowa Territory and in Whiteside and other counties in Illinois. Mother and I would be home alone and the Indians would stop on their way up and down the river. Later, the stage line, Rock Island to Galena, followed this trail also". Of this trail Miss Mary Lydia Kelly, an octogenarian of Rock Island, had the following to say: "My father came to this county in 1841. We lived on the Mississippi two and a half miles above Cor- dova. As to Indian trails I know when I was a little girl I used to go from our house to our neighbor's in an Indian trail. It was right on the bank of the river and was a well trodden trail. It was wide enough for one man to go single file". This trail for twenty miles from Rock Island was followed by an eager throng of Sauk and Fox warriors, on the occasion of Maj. John Campbell's expedition up the Mississippi in July, 1814. "The savages were seen on shore in quick motion ; canoes filled with Indians passed to the (Campbells) island, * * * the Indians firing from the island and the shore under cover", (p. 749, Western Annals, 1850). In this engagement sixteen Americans were killed. Campbells Island is about nine miles above Rock Island. The head of the rapids is about eight miles farther up-stream, at LeClaire, la. — Port Byron, Ills., and here the determined Indians overtook the Contractor's and the Sutler's boats which would have fallen to them (Niles Register, Vol. 6, p. 429), but for the fact that to the surprise of all concerned, they here found the large protected gunboat the "Governor Clark", anchored along the shore. The Indians evidently were in hot pursuit, both in canoes, and along the trail, which on this occasion was liter- ally a "War-path". "At the time of the (Campbells Island) battle, Captain Yeiser in the gunboat (Gov. Clark) from Ft. Shelby, had arrived at the head of the Rapids, where he met the Contractor's boat, still in advance, and was fired on by the Indians, while lying at anchor near the shore in consequence of an unfavorable wind. The attack of the Indians induced him to haul off, and anchor beyond the reach of their small arms". (Page 443, History of the Late War, by McAfee, 1816.) The two trails, the one from Oquawka, and the one from the east, joined on the south bank of Rock river opposite Black Hawk's village. The place of junction was somewhere about the line between the east and west halves of the Northwest quarter of Section twenty-three, Black Hawk Township, Rock Island County. Mr. William O'Neal of Milan, 111., said: "The old Indian ford is really right in front of the main street of Milan. I could take you right across the (Ills, and Mich.) canal bank and show you where the ford is. It was right about where the old power dam was. There was a good rock bottom way across. I got this from Mrs. Ben Goble. Her father (Joshua Vandruff, after whom Vandruff Island is named) built a cabin right beside the Indian trail (in 1828) and the ford across the northern part (main channel) of the river was between the The Ford across Rock River rapids to Black Hawk's Village site. was not a better Ford on any River in the World." "There present wagon bridge and the railroad bridge, about where the Davis Power House is now". Rock river rapids at this point flow over a bed of flat rock, which provides a fordable bottom of a width of a hundred yards or more. Rev. Peter Cartwright, the "backwoods preacher", (in his autobiog- raphy (1856) at page 334) mentions this ford and quotes the stranger who crossed just before him as saying that "There was no better ford on any river in the world, and that there was not the least danger on earth". Of all the Indian trails mentioned herein, the "Sauk and Fox Trail" or "Great Sauk Trail" is the most widely known. The Chicago Historical Society has plats showing where it crossed certain sections in the State of Michigan, and also plats showing its location in some parts of Illinois. The Cook County, Illinois, Forest Reserve has at Chicago Heights, a wooded lot bearing the name "Sauk Trail Preserve." One hears mention of this trail among the residents of northern Indi- ana, about the sand dunes ; Mr. J. F. Steward has an article entitled the "Sac and Fox Trail" in Vol. IV, Journal of the Ills. State Hist. Soc, and at page 158 thereof he shows "Homan's map of 1687", which has a trail marked upon it, which is believed to be the same trace, later known as the "Sac and Fox Trail" or the "Great Sauk Trail". When the writer began his pursuit of Indian trails, he started with the idea that they were of rare occurrence; that Indians roamed over the country regardless of any beaten highway. As we had heard of only two trails, the one connecting old Yellow Banks (Oquawka) with Black Hawk's village, and "The Great Sauk Trail", we began by asking old settlers if they knew anything about "the" Indian trail. We soon changed to asking if they knew of "any" Indian trail, for we learned that Indians, like white folks, prefer when travelling, to go over courses which are reputed to be the best, all things considered, and that there were principal highways, each with its diverging branches leading to other Indian villages ; to favorite hunting grounds, or merely a different route to the same place because of a diflFerent contour of the country. They had many trails, many of them perhaps but a foot in width, threading their way for miles upon miles through the prairie grass and through wooded country, while others, travelled probably for centuries and eroded by heavy rains, became wide and deeply worn, and in places the travellers would march beside the old, washed out trail, until there would be a dozen distinct, deeply worn traces side by side. Mrs. Kinzie, writing of this type of highways in northern Illinois in the early days, says : "We were to pursue a given trail for a certain number of miles, when we should come to a crossing into which we were to turn, taking an easterly direction ; after a time, this w^ould bring us to a deep trail leading straight to Hamilton's. In this open country there are no landmarks. One elevation is so ex- actly like another, that if you lose your trail there is almost as little hope of regaining it as of finding a pathway in the midst of the ocean. The trail, it must be remembered, is not a broad highway, but a nar- row path, deeply indented by the hoofs of the horses on which the 10 Indians travel in single file. So deeply is it sunk in the sod which cov- ers the prairies, that it is difficult, sometimes, to distinguish it at a distance of a few rods". (Waubun, c. XIV.) The Sauk and Fox trail of which we are writing, took its name from the Sauk and Fox Indians, who had their permanent abode in the vicinity where Rock River joins the Mississippi. It retained this name at least as far east as to Fort Maiden, at Amhertsburg, Ontario. One should confidently expect that it joined with other trails in an unbroken chain, reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. We will start the route of the "Sauk and Fox Trail" at the Mississippi. From times immemorial these Indians had regarded the island of Rock Island as a bit of an earthly paradise. In the cave nea its lower end dwelt a good spirit in the form of a large swan (Black- Hawk's autobiography, p. 61). From this island we will cross the "slough" probably by swimming part way, then take one of the trails mentioned above in a southerly direction to the rapids of Rock river, passing through the Indian villages on the way there, ford Rock river to the south shore, and turn eastwards. It is just one mile to Mill Creek. Thomas J. Murphy of Coal Valley, 111., is authority for the location of the ford across this stream. He says (Interview of Apr. 9, 1917. "The Indian trail crossed right where the present pub- lis highway crosses", i. e. on the middle line of the north half of Sec- tion twenty-four. The creek bed here is of flat rock. Mr. Murphy says that after crossing the creek here the trail turned northeasterly to the shore of Rock river, which it followed for about three and a half miles to near Coal Valley creek, where it crossed that creek about the center of Section twenty-two, Coal Valley Twp., where it turned due south about a half mile to the point of the prominent bluff in the southeast corner of the southwest quarter of Section twenty-two, Coal Valley Twp., on the Charles Evener farm. We will retrace our course to Mill Creek. Two miles almost due east of the creek is a rise of ground forming a ridge of about one and a half miles in length, paralleling Rock river, and affording a fine view of the country on both sides. David W. Hunt of Moline, Ills., (interview of Feb. 3, 1921,) said: "I came to this part of the country in 1847, and it was in 1847 or '48 that I saw the Indian trail going over the sand mound near Rock river, east of what they called Cam- den Mills, now Milan. It was very distinct and went east and west, right up over the top of the hill, parallel with the present public road, but north of it". "It was very distinct and was well worn and looked different from similar trails I'd seen. Folks said it was an Indian trail". "At the time the Drury farm, which was at the lower end of the sand mound, was the only house between Camden Mills and the Glenn's in Colona Township in Henry County (a distance of nine miles)". Messrs. W. C. Wilson and Alec Craig, both of Moline, Ills., took the writer to Coal Valley creek in Section twenty-two. At about forty rods north of the center line of the section a private bridge spans the creek. Here, said they, is where the Frink & Walker Stage line ford- Here the great Sauk Trail left the level of the high prairie country and descended into the valley of Rock River but a few miles from Black Hawk's village. Messrs. J. N. Huntoon and Charles Evener on the farm of the latter. 11 ed the creek and Mr. Wm. Killing, who owned this place, also forded here until he built this bridge, and we think that in all probability the Indian trail crossed the creek here, and then turned south a half mile to the foot of the bluff, up which it then proceeded". The best vouched-for part of the "Great Sauk Trail" in this vicinity, is at the top of the ridge, starting on the Charles Evener farm in the south edge of Section twenty-two. Our first positive tes- timony to this location was by John N. Huntoon, of Rock Island, Ills., (Interview of June 30, 1916), who said, "Nathaniel Huntoon, my father, pointed out this hill top to me and said that in 1831, when he came here as advance agent for the Andover colony, to select a mill-site on Edwards river, he followed the Indian trail, and slept in the trail, at this point one night, with only a dog as a companion to keep the wolves off". Our next positive authority was T. J. Murphy, who said he used to be a great lad for hunting, and had followed the Indian trail all through here as far east as Sunny Hill, in Henry County. He came to this vicinity in 1857. Mr. John Campbell Bailey of Rural Township, Rock Island County, said he and his brother broke prairie hereabouts in 1853-'4 and '5, with six yoke of oxen to a single plow, and he knew the Indian trail. He said : "It was on the George Evener farm. It came up to Coal Valley, and passed along about where the public school house is". Mr. Austin Marshall, hotel keeper at LeClaire, la., knew the trail at this point also. He came here in 1842 when less than a year of age. He con- tinued : "We lived in the Washburne neighborhood, two miles east of Coal Valley, and a little north. I used to herd cows and I used to cross that Indian trail almost every day. This was three miles east of Coal Valley. It was washed out in places ; was six or eight inches deep and about eighteen inches wide. It was pretty near the line of the Rock Island & Peoria railroad". (Interview Feb. 14, 1921.) But best of all, the old trail itself is still there. For a distance of a quarter of a mile or more, one may walk in this very distinct trace. Approaching from the direction of the village of Coal Valley, one finds a fork in the trail. One course of it continues along the top of the hill, which it descends as shown in the accompanying picture. The other turns to the northward, leaving the hill-top by a more gradual descent, down the first hollow east of the western promontory of the hill. This last mentioned fork, from the depth and width of the trail, would indi- cate that it was the most used. From the point where they join, and southeasterly toward Coal Valley, the old trail is deeply worn. This ridge has never been plowed up. From the Charles Evener hill the trail follows the narrow crest of the hill, and crosses the Coal Valley school lot, according to the recollections of Messrs. T. J. Murphy and John C. Bailey, while Mr. John N. Huntoon remembered it as passing about seventy-five feet north of the school lot. All of them including W. C. Wilson and Austin Marshall remembered it as passing southeasterly from the Coal Valley school. 12 Two trips were taken to the northwest corner of Section five in Western Township, Henry County. Mr. W, C. Wilson hoped to find traces of the old trail at the very corner, while Mr. Huntoon, on a separate trip with the writer, pointed to its location several rods south of the comer, saying : "I was born in our log cabin which stood on the east side of the road a quarter of a mile or so, north of where the public school is now, in Section twenty-nine, Colona township, and lived there until I was thirty years of age. I used to herd cattle on the prairies all over this part of the country and so passed over the Indian trail thousands of times, and I can tell you exactly in places and in some others I can tell pretty closely where it was." "From the top of the Evener hill, the trail passed back on the top of the ridge, and passed just north of the road where it passes the Coal Valley school, and continues in a southeasterly course. I can follow as far as Cambridge, excepting for a couple of miles, where I was not so familiar with it". "In the northwest quarter of Section five, Western township, is the Wes. Crampton place, on the east side of the road. One day I was hunting cattle horseback, and was thrown from the saddle very violently, right into the old Indian trail. It was worn about two feet lower than the regular lay of the land. This spot was next south of Crampton's barnyard". Mr. Huntoon then took us to Shaffer Creek, near the east edge of Section five. Western township, a quarter of a mile or so south of the north Hne of the said section and showed where the Indian trail came down the slope toward the creek. At this point we met two men who were leaving the adjoining field with their teams. We hailed them, and one of them, an employe on the farm, said, "Henry Washburn who just died recently, told me the old Indian trail passed up the hill over there (pointing toward the east side of the creek) and I found an arrow-head there the other day". Henry Washburn came here in 1833". The next location to the southeastward was pointed out by Mr. Huntoon. It was at the old Denton farm, three miles east of Orion. Mr. Huntoon said : "This farm was laid out in lots in the early days and was called East LaGrange. Later, during the stage-coach days, there was an Inn here called the Buckhorn Inn. The old Indian trail crossed this farm, and in my judgment crossed about where the resi- dence stands, on the east side of the public road, and north of the R. I. & Peoria railway tracks, near the northwest corner of Section thirty, Osco township. Nine miles due east of old East LaGrange, at the northwest cor- ner of Section twenty-seven, Cornwall township, stood the "Brown church" of Presbyterian faith. On June 12th, 1918, we were guided to this spot by a party consisting of Mrs. Ella Hume Taylor, Miss Lydia Colby and Mrs. Dr. J. E. West, all of Geneseo, Ills. Mrs. West and Miss Colby were members of this church during their girlhood, and told of their parents pointing to the Indian trail over which the church was built. 13 Mrs. West said: "My father, Elijah Benedict, came here in 1855, He gave this lot for the church, and he used to say, as we would get out of the buggy at church, 'That's the old Indian trail', and Uncle Albert (A. J. Benedict) used to say the Pottawatomies took this trail going between Rock Island and Peoria, and that the trail ran diag- onally from the Brown church to Spring Creek, but I cannot tell you where the trail touched Spring creek". The brown church was so called because it was painted brown. It has long since been torn down. Miss Lydia Colby guided us to a spring, about three miles south- west of the Brown church, in Section four. Burns township, thirty rods or so west of the public highway, south of the small creek which flows easterly about midway of the north and south lines of the sec- tion. Miss Colby said : "My knowledge of the Indian trail comes through Mrs. Lucinda Clark. She was buried last week. She told me the trail passed by this spring, and that the Indians stopped here to refresh themselves". The spring is still flowing, and drains into the nearby creek bed. Miss Colby then took us to "Hickory Point", a hill on the public road, at the east edge of Section fourteen, Cornwall township. She said : "This point, too, was pointed out to me by Mrs. Lucinda Clark as a place over which the Indian trail passed". Later Miss Colby wrote as follows : "James A. Clark of Geneseo, son of Mrs. Lucinda Clark, remembers well seeing the Indian trail along the south side of Hickory Point. The trail was grass-grown but was sunken a foot and a half, and perhaps two to three feet wide. From Hickory Point the trail led northeast to the marshes north of Annawan. There in the marshes the Indians used to camp as late as fifty-five years ago". We made more or less diligent inquiry at Cambridge, Kewanee, Atkinson, Annawan, Sheffield and as far east as Wyanet, as also among the farmers who lived between these points, for people who might be able to locate the site of the Sauk and Fox trail to the east from the old Brown church, mentioned above, but were unsuccessful. Sheffield is about fifteen miles east of the Brown church, and at this point the trail may be pursued on the authority of N. Matson, who says : "The trail passed through Bureau County almost in an east and west direction, crossing Coal creek immediately north of Sheffield, Main Bureau east of Woodruff's, passing near Maiden and Arlington in the direction of Chicago". (Reminiscences of Bureau County, 1872, p. 95.) H. C. Bradley says this Sauk and Fox trail was "Followed by Gen. Scott's army in 1832, from Chicago to the Mississippi river". He also says : "The last time Indians were seen on this trail was in 1837 when the last of the Indians were being removed from Michigan to the Mississippi. Mrs. James G. Everett tells us she was on the occasion of the passing through the (Bureau) county of the last large body of Indians, teaching school just west of Princeton. She was then new in the west and knew but little of Indian character. She was occupied with her school duties when the red men began sud- denly to surround the building. She was terribly frightened, but some of the children had heard at home of the Indians going to pass that 14 day and explained to their teacher that they would not harm them, and in a little while the cavalcade passed along". (History of Bureau County, Bradley editor, 1885, p. 271.) Jesse W. Weik in an interesting article in which he speaks of the work of James M. Bucklin, Chief Engineer of the Illinois and Michi- gan canal, quotes the latter as saying: "While we were encamped on the (Calumet) river, on one occasion during our protracted stay, about two hundred Sac and Fox Indians on horseback passed on a trail not more than a hundred yards from our camp, without turning their faces to the right or to the left, on their way to Fort Maiden, for arms and ammunition. No doubt they marked us for their own, as the Sac or Blackhawk war was then about due, but was only post- poned for a year by the unexpected arrival at Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, of General Gaines with two or three companies of artillery". (p. 343, Vol. VII, Journal of the 111. State Hist. Soc.) We are not unmindful of A. M. Hubbard's (of MoHne) descrip- tion of the Sauk and Fox trail from Black Hawk's village, eastward, across Henry county, and on to Tiskilwa. We found no corroboration of his trace, except that through the Townships of Western, Osco, Munson and Cornwall, all in Henry county, we are but a mile apart, and at one place, in Munson township, our lines cross, his taking a more southerly course. (Hubbards is in Steward's write-up, Vol. IV, Journal 111. State Hist. Soc.) While pursuing the Sauk and Fox trail to the eastwards, we found that several of our Rock Island County men who located the trails for us, would mention Peoria as the destination of Indian travel over the trail past Coal Valley. Mr. John N. Huntoon believed it led to Peoria, and took us to the village of Andover, to which place he believed his father to have followed the trail in 1831. Here we made inquiry and were referred to George H. Johnson, as their most dependable author- ity. Mr. Johnson said: "I was born here in 1849. The Indian trail passed over that hill (pointing to it) and down there was a ford across Edwards river. Early settlers for many years before bridges were built here, used that ford. My dad and other old settlers all said this ford was on the old Indian trail. I remember it very well as a depres- sion worn down from travel. It passed on down into Knox County." The trail as indicated by Mr. Johnson passes through the center of Sections twenty-four, twenty-five and thirty-six, in Lynn township, Henry county. Mr. Johnson continued, "Wash. Hoyt was born just south of Ed- wards river, and now lives with his boys on a farm near New Windsor. He would know all about this Indian trail". (Interview Oct. 18, 1916.) We called on Mr. Wash. Hoyt, at his home near New Windsor, and he and his son accompanied us as guides. Mr. Hoyt said : 'T was born in Connecticut in 1836. We landed at Stephenson, now Rock Island, July 3d, 1842. My father, Edson Hoyt, attended the hanging of the Col. Davenport murderers at Rock Island. Nearly all the people from around Andover went. They were neighbors then. Anyone who lived ten or fifteen miles away was a neighbor in those days". 15 "The Indian trail went just east of WoodhuU. It might still be traced out where the timber was — the white oak grove". "The trail used to be very plain, I can locate it nearly all the way from Andover to Woodhull, but not south of Woodhull. For most part it was a single trail not more than four to six feet wide. In some places it was deeper than others, but on the level prairies it was still a depression. We lived about three quarters of a mile from it". "I do not know of anyone who knows the trail now. There are very few of those people left in the country, I can tell you". Mr. Hoyt took us to the southwest quarter of Section five, Clover township, Henry county. In the west edge of this quarter section is a farm house, forty rods or more north of the south line of this quarter section. Mr. Hoyt pointed to a depression or trace running from the farm buildings south to the east and west road between Sections five and eight, where we were, and said, that was the Indian trail. He then took us northward, and in Section thirty-two in Andover township he again pointed to the location of the trail, but did not show us any trace. He said : "The trail crossed Edwards river where the big willows are, about thirty rods west of the north and south road which runs straight into Andover". This places the ford about one and three-quarters miles east of the location pointed out by George H. Johnson. In his autobiography Black Hawk speaks of his trips to Peoria, to which place he doubtless followed a trail. In 1780, during the contest for possession of the Illinois country. Col. George Rogers Clark sent Col. John Montgomery on a punitory expedition against the Indians of the Upper Mississippi. Col. Mont- gomery with an allied force of three hundred fifty men of Virginia, Kentucky, French of the Illinois villages, and Spanish subjects from St. Louis, moved up the Illinois river by boats, to Peoria. Here they began their overland march to the Sauk village located about the mouth of Rock river — now within the city limits of Rock Island. They burned the Indian village, and then, because of a desperate shortage of food supplies, they retraced their way to Peoria. (Vol. VIII, Ills. Hist. Col- lection, page CXXXV.) It is probable that they came over the trail, via Andover, East LaGrange, and Coal Valley. They came in pursuit of a defeated Indian and British force, and therefore could make bold to travel over the best route, regardless of danger. For a further study of the Indian trails to the south of Woodhull, in Henry county, the reader is referred to the "History of Knox county, Ills.", by C. C. Chapman & Co., 1878, which has a township map of the county with the Indian trails traced on them. The trail from Black Hawk's village to Oquawka, in Henderson County, Illinois, was doubtless the principal highway of the Sauk and Fox to their possessions to the southwest, down into Iowa and Mis- souri. They owned all of Missouri north of the Missouri river. The Mississippi continues westerly from Rock Island for a distance of twenty-five miles ; then after flowing south for a dozen miles it turns southeasterly toward Oquawka. The trail under consideration was a short cut, twelve to fifteen miles nearer than if they had followed the Mississippi. The distance to Oquawka by trail was fifty miles. 16 This trail has been called the Indian and Military trail because both used it. It is a part of the route followed by Capt. Abraham Lincoln, in 1832, when the Illinois Volunteers marched from Beards- town to the mouth of Rock river in pursuit of Black Hawk. The Illi- nois State Historical Society at its annual meeting in 1909, appointed a special committee "To mark the route of Lincoln's Army Trail from Beardstown to mouth of Rock river", and Mr. William A. Meese re- ported that Hon. Frank O. Lowden had offered a gift of $750.00 to be used in marking the trail. The committee left its task unfinished — probably left it without having started work on it, and after a few years, further mention of the committee was dropped. Governor John Reynolds speaking of the march of the Illinois vol- unteers, says : "In this volunteer army were many of the most distin- guished men of the State. * * The brigade organized, and marching in the large prairies toward Rock Island, made a grand display". (My Own Times, p. 214), and Gov. Thomas Ford, speaking of the same cavalcade, says: "This was the largest military force of Illinoisans which had ever been assembled in the State, and made an imposing appearance as it traversed the then unbroken wilderness of prairie". (History of Illinois, Ford, p. 112.) It was on this trail also, directly south of Blackhawk's village, on the south side of Rock river, that the Illinois Volunteers, including Capt. Abraham Lincoln, were sworn into the Federal service, doubt- less Capt. Lincoln's first federal oath. It was administered here by General Henry Atkinson of the regular army. In 1828 Col. P. St. G. Cooke was ordered to take a detachment of recruits to Fort Crawford, at Prairie du Chien, Wis. One of his boats was left on the rocks of the Des Moines rapids, and it was necessary for some of his soldiers to march afoot. He says: "At a point fifty miles below Fort Armstrong (Rock Island) I heard that there was a trail to Fort Armstrong, which cut off much of the distance, so I imme- diately ordered my adventurous land detachment to take it". (Scenes and Adventures in the Army" by Cooke, 1859. Chapter III.) The history of Alercer and Henderson counties, Hill & Co., 1883, at p. 25, speaking of the Black Hawk war, says : "The brigade was ac- companied by Gov. Reynolds, and Joseph Duncan was Brigadier Gen- eral. On the 15th of June (1831), this the largest body of military that had ever been seen in the State, left their encampment at Rushville and marched to within a few miles of the Sac village. This line of march took them directly through the central part of Mercer county, and the exact route is still known and pointed out. It being the old Indian trail (which was nearly on the Henderson and Warren county line) and extending through Mercer county northward between Aledo and Joy". In the history of Mercer and Henderson counties, mentioned above at p. 300, history of Perryton township is the following regarding this trail : "Besides their knives and arrowheads of which numbers are still found, the Indians left no mark save the great trail their tribes followed in cutting off the bend of the Mississippi to the west. * * * jj^ ^345 there were still five or six distinct, deep worn paths throughout the entire dis- Another View of the Camp Site of 1832 111. Vol. looking toward mouth of Rock River. All the Historians of that day speak of this Camp as heing at "the mouth of Rock River." It is 3 Miles S. E. of the mouth of Rock River. The Oquawka to Rock Island Indian and Military trail passed through this Camp Site. ^ 4 -t .i '^ '^m i ^^^ Camp site on the open prairie of the Illinois Volunteers, which included Captain A. Lincoln and his company May 7-10, 1832. They were sworn into the Federal service here. The hill in background is Black Hawk's Watch Tower. The Army Ford Across Edwards River. 17 tance, and were the guiding path to Rock Island and Oquawka, the two points where it left the river. This trail entered the town (Perryton township) on the south side of 31 ; thence along the divide to Camp Creek, crossing at a ford in 19 ; then along the ridge through 20 and 17, and nearly diagonal through the north half of 9, southeast of 4, and northwest of 3". Attorney Isaac Newton Bassett of Aledo, says: (Interview Feb. 16, 1916.) "I came to Aledo in 1852. The Indian trail crossed Edwards river on the section line between Sections eleven and twelve in Millersburg township. That is what they call the Army Ford. It is right at the road. There is a riffle there, and that is where they crossed. This was the Indian trail and is the same trail on which the military crossed in 1831 and in '32 when Abraham Lincoln was with them". Principal Norbury W. Thornton of Geneseo Collegiate Institute said (Interview, Nov., 1915) : "My father took me to the Edwards river ford when I was seven years of age and said this was where Lincoln and the army of the Black Hawk War crossed". On our way to see the Army Ford on Edwards river we stopped at the nearest farm house southeast of the ford and made inquiry to see if the local people knew of its historic interest. Here we met Mr. John Noonan, who had lived in the vicinity for seventy years. To our ques- tion as to whether such a place was anywhere around, he promptly replied : "It's right down there", pointing in its direction, "right by the 'Downey bridge'. It's right below the bridge on the west side of the road". Mr. Daniel Laughlin who was present said Mrs. Margaret McGovern, now deceased, a sister of Mr. John Noonan, told him that they used to ford Edwards river at this old ford before a bridge was built, and that this ford was on the old Indian trail". We were referred to Mr. Joseph Terry, at Millersburg, Mercer County, for further infor- mation. Mr. Terry was born in 1841 and came to Millersburg in 1850. They corroborated what the others had said of the ford, and said : "Go east one mile from Millersburg, then south one and one-half miles to the river. You will see the Army Ford to your right, just below the bridge". To reach this interesting spot from Aledo, the county seat of Mercer county, go west two and one-half miles, then north one and one-half miles. It is in the east edge of Section eleven, Millersburg township. John Montgomery (formerly of Edgington township. Rock Island county), said: "That trail crossed by our farm and my brother Dan and I broke up a good part of it with a breaking plow. I can point out to you where it was. The trail was as plain — there were from four to a dozen tracks, and in places they were worn a foot deep. When the first settlers came here they used that trail for their first roads. There was no other road in the country. It ran from New Boston or Keiths- burg to Fort Armstrong". "One time — they used to tell the story, there were only a few whites anywhere around and they had an Indian scare. The settlers gathered together at New Boston for defense, and they wanted to send to Ft. Armstrong for help, but there were so few men they felt they 18 couldn't spare any of them. A boy 12 or 14 years old said if he could have a certain pony he would go. They got him the pony and he was escorted out onto the prairie by the men, and then he took to the Indian trail and headed for the fort. When he got near the Cooper settlement, in Mercer county, he saw some Indians and, of course, he was scared and he ran his pony all the rest of the way to Fort Armstrong". Mr. Montgomery, in Nov., 1916, took us to see Mr. Eli Perry who, he said, would be able to assist in locating the trail in Mercer county. Mr. Eli Perry of Perryton township, Mercer county, said : "1 have lived within a quarter to a half mile of this Indian trail all these years since I came here in 1843, at the age of two years. T know the old Indian trail and can pretty nearly follow it all the way from New Boston to Taylor Ridge. The trail was not used as a wagon road, but was used as a guide to go by. It wouldn't make a good road unless you were afoot or horseback. The trail led to the Bay Island where the hunting was excellent". Camp Creek is in Mercer county and is so named because the Illi- nois soldiers in the Black Hawk War made their noon-day camp there on the way from Oquawka to Black Hawk's village. Mr. Perry took us to Camp Creek, in Section nineteen, Perryton township, and taking us to the north side of the creek, at one hundred paces west of the public highway, said : "There used to be a walnut stump right here, and the story we got from way back, was that the walnut tree was cut down by the Black Hawk war soldiers, so it fell across the creek and they used it for a bridge. From the ford southwards and slightly southwesterly, across pasture land, to the crest of the hill, a distance of perhaps forty rods, one can walk in this historic old trail, for it is from a foot to two feet deep, and from about six feet to ten feet in width at the top, and as plainly to be seen as any natural object. It was deepest on the hill side where it had doubtless been washed by the rains. Mr. Perry said this was the Indian and military trail under consideration. It is on the Mrs. William VanMeter farm, in Sections nineteen and thirty, Perryton township. To find the trail, start at the fence, west side of the road, south of the creek, and go due west 100 paces. To the north- wards Mr. Perry pointed out the course of the trail as crossing the pub- lic highway near the foot of the hill and passing diagonally up the hill, in a northeasterly direction. In volume "A" of Roads, of the records of the county clerk's office of Rock Island county, at page 40 thereof, is a plat filed in 1856 showing the public road in Section thirty in Black Hawk township, on which the crest of the ridge in the southeast quarter of the said section is designated as "Army Ridge Bluffs", and the creek below is called "Army Trail Creek". At the present, however, the creek is called Tur- key Hollow creek, and the bluff is Turkey Hollow hill. The public road leads from the high ridge down to the bottom land and to the Black Hawk village site, six miles to the northeast. We were taken to this "Army Ridge Bluff" by Mr. Almon A. Buffum of Edgington, Illinois, and William H. Miller who resides two and a half miles south of the spot under consideration. Mr. Buffum's account of the trail The Ford at Camp Creek. Messrs John Montgomery and Eli Perry are standing where the large Walnut tree was felled across the stream for the crossing of the 111. Vols, in the Black Hawk War. ":¥^.:iA''- - i_ 13 ^^M I^HHpi^^'-^H ^M K^^^m^^^^l HH^^^^^^^^^^kJ?^ (/. .- ^^^^^^H ^Hn^^Hf^'^ ^in^OTH|P^ 1 ^^^B^^^^^iHL— tKBSS^^^K^SHSl^^^kt^^Sm^^'^ ^n H^^^^^S^^Sl SS tmK^B^R^^' The Indian and Military Trail immediately south of Camp e'reek. Mr. Montgomery at the left is standing in the trail. The Indian and Military Trail on the hillside at Turkey Hollow, showing that the highways of the Indian suffered no less from heavy rains than do ours of today. Messrs. Miller and Buffum appear in the picture. Traces of the Indian and Military trail in Turkey Hollow, used by the early settlers as a public highway. It was also 19 at this point was as follows : "There was a tree known as the "Lin- coln Tree" just at the edge of the bluff north of the school (which stands in the southwest corner of the s. e. quarter of section 30 in Black Hawk township). It was an ill-shaped tree, run over by wagons and the bark peeled off. I grubbed this tree out and planted potatoes there. It would be just south and a little west of Vetter's house. There was an old road there which I broke up and planted to potatoes. This road or trail was known as the Indian trail and also as the military trail, along which the soldiers came during the Black Hawk war, and the reason the tree was called the "Lincoln Tree" was because Lincoln had come past there as a soldier in that war. This road or trail came by the "Scotch" Taylor place and came on along the top of the ridge, sometimes on one side of the present road and sometimes on the other. It passed down the hill from where the tree was and on down across where the ditch or creek now is. There wasn't any ditch there at the time I knew it first; only a swale there. I could locate the old trail and location of the tree and will go with you some day and point it out to you," which he did in April, 1916." This place was the easiest way off the ridge. Mr. Miller's account was as follows : "I came here in 1847 at the age of sixteen months. When I was a boy I used to go to Rock Island over this trail driving oxen. * * * Our road was over this trail all the way down Turkey Hollow and on right across where the sand and gravel pit of the Peoria & Rock Island Railway is (at the west end of the line between Section 22 and 27, Black Hawk town- ship) and on east to Milan over the ridge on the bottom. The road was on an east and west line, at about the middle of the south half of the south half of Section twenty-two in Black Hawk township, and in the southeast part of the southeast quarter of Section twenty-two is where the military camp of 1832 was, when Lincoln and the 1800 Illinois soldiers came to fight Black Hawk". ]\Ir. Miller's knowledge covered about ten miles of the old trail, beginning at the Jahns' farm at the northeast corner of Section fourteen in Edgington township, crossing the public road south of the public school which is in Section Eleven, Edgington township, and continuing northeasterly passed east of the farm buildings on the "Scotch" Taylor place, in the south- east quarter of Section twelve, Edgington township, where the public road is now. From that point the old trail kept the top of the ridge, sometimes on one side, and at times on the other side of the present public road as it passes northward to the "Army Trail Bluff". It is a narrow ridge, some places being only a stone's throw across. Messrs. Buffum and Miller personally conducted us to the "Army Ridge Bluff" and showed us the old, abandoned public highway on the hillside which now is enclosed as pasture land. Both declared this road was originally the Indian and military trail ; that when the pioneers settled this country they had no roads other than this trail and therefore used it. The rains washed the old highway considerably, and a re-location of the public highway was made a few yards to the north of the old, and the old trace is sodded over, an olden days relic which might well be preserved because of its historic interest. 20 William S. Parks of Rock Island, and his brother, John Parks of Reynolds, Illinois, in October and November, 1915, took us to where the trail used to be on the "Prairie Home Farm" in Edgington town- ship. This was in 1915, our first trip to locate Indian trails here- abouts. They showed where it passed through the northwest corner of the southwest quarter of Section 26. The country here is rolling and the trail had from half a dozen to twelve or fifteen parallel traces. The rains undoubtedly would wash a worn trail and a new one would be made next to it. Mr. William Parks, giving his recollections of the trail, said : "We broke prairie here sixty years ago when we were little tots, and the trail crossed here. Brother John drove the three head 3'oke of oxen and I drove the three rear yoke. We had six teams of oxen to the plow". Mr. Fred Titterington of Rock Island took us to the east line of the northeast quarter of Section twenty-three, where the creek crossed the public highway. He expected to find some virgin sod there with the trail still visible, but was disappointed. He says he saw the trail there as late as 1860, at which time he, with his parents, frequently crossed it and he "remembers it as well as if it were yes- terday". It was deep on the side hill but on the top of the ridge it wasn't as plain". It had about four trails side by side, just south of the creek, which it crossed about where is now the public road. Mr. Titterington also remembers the location of the Lincoln camp as related to him by his Uncle George Crabs of Hamlet, Illinois, as being in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section twenty- seven in Black Hawk township. Rock Island county. Mr. George Crabs of Hamlet, Illinois, was visited in company with his nephew, Mr. Fred Titterington, in December, 1915. Mr. Crabs, a nonogenarian, had a memory which as to the early times seemed as clear as a bell.. He said: "The first time I saw that Indian trail was in August, 1844. I was on my way to camp meeting at Sugar Grove. There were four paths, worn a foot deep, three feet apart, plain as could be, like a cow path. At that time there was not a house on this prairie. I saw mounted soldiers on this trail once. They were on their way to Fort Armstrong from Oquawka and were traveling on a keen canter four abreast. About seventy years ago John Edgington and Jimmy Robinson went to mill where Quincy, (111.), is now, and they traveled down that old army trail. They drove four or five yoke of cattle and would be gone a week". Mr. Crabs gave the route of the trail all the way from Camp Creek in Mercer county to within a mile of Black Hawk's village at Rock Island, including the Lincoln camp site in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Sec. 27. He was hardly in a physical con- dition to be taken over the course in person, but his testimony corrob- orated, without any suggestion or question on our part, the accounts given by men who personally conducted us to places where the trail was known to them. The reader will notice that two different descriptions are given for the Capt. Lincoln Camp site — the camp of the Illinois Volunteers, May 7th to 10th, 1832. In reality the two locations are just across 21 the public road from each other, and the eighteen hundred men with their mounts would probably more than cover both tracts. Jacob Harris, December, 1915, of Edgington, said: "Speaking of the Indian trail, it went down Turkey Hollow on the east side of the present road, the right hand side as you go down the hill. I used to play in the Indian trail when I was a boy. We didn't think any- thing about it then. There used to be lots of Indians come here in my time and I've seen them traveling on the old trail. There was more than one Indian trail. The one across Little's farm, east of Taylor Ridge, w^as not the main trail. The Indians would have a path and they'd follow the leader like sheep. If there were five hun- dred of them they'd keep one path. The trail passed right by the old Prairie Union school which at that time was a half mile north and a quarter of a mile west of where it is now". "The Parks boys, John and William, and I used to go to school part way in that trail." Mr. Harris' description places the old school where the trail was, at the northwest corner of the east half of the northwest quarter of Section twenty-six Edgington township, Rock Island county. The old "Scotch" Taylor farm is in the southeast quarter of Sec- tion twelve, Edgington township. The public road passes northward through it. To this place in December, 1915, we were conducted by Sam C. Taylor, a son. Mr. Taylor said he remembered the trail very well, as it passed through between their farm buildings which are located just where the public highway bends northeastwards. He said : "There were several tracks of the trail. One time when I was a boy a lot of Indians came to our house and mother was trying to drive them away with a broom. She was afraid to let them into the the house because the men were away. There had been some fencing done on the trail and the Indians were asking about the trail. It looked to me as if the trail between our buildings in the hollow was headed to the high ground which led toward Fancy Creek". Ex-Senator William F. Crawford, formerly of Edgington town- ship, Rock Island county, said : "Yes, I saw the old Indian and army trail very often. I used to see the old, deep ditch-like trail going off the point of Turkey Hollow hill and I asked what that was and they said, 'Why, that's the trail Lincoln marched over on the way to fight Indians. I asked old man Miller, father of William H. Miller, one time, and he told me this. 'There was an old tree on the trail which had been tramped down and scarred up from being rode over. I've been in the cavalry and I know how the brush is tramped down that way. The tree was at the top of the hill, just at the bend, or a little southwest of the bend. We called it the Lincoln tree, and the trail was just as plain as could be and crossed where Turkey Hollow creek is now. Then it was just a tiny bit of a ditch with a couple of logs in it to drive over. Then we passed on down to the lowlands toward Milan, not keeping the section lines at all, but just driving across country". We interviewed Mr. Crawford in November. 1916. George Washington Griffin of Milan, said (Nov., 1915) : "There were several Indian trails. Father and my uncles (the sons of Joshua Vandruff) would go out hunting and sometimes they'd go 22 out to look for cattle, and we would go sometimes in one direction on an Indian trail and sometimes in another direction on an Indian trail, and Big Island had different trails that were called Indian trails." The village of Milan, Illinois, is situated on the south side of Rock River, opposite Black Hawk's village. We called on Mr, Ore- gon Pinekley, an octogenarian living at Milan, and an old resident there. He said: "There were two trails that met here, one from the east and one from the west, but I can't tell you just where they were. I know more about the old army trail in Mercer county. When I was a boy, we boys used to go swimming in Edwards river at the Army Ford. We lived in Millersburg at that time". The Oquawka-Rock Island trail as it came within ten or twelve miles of Black Hawk's village, had a fork, somewhere southwest of where the village of Taylor Ridge stands. It is possible that the loca- tion pointed out by Fred Titterington, mentioned above, is a part of the east fork. Another spot on this fork was pointed out to us by Deputy Sheriff R. E. Little of Milan, located on the farm of his boyhood, pass- ing along a line from the southwest corner of the north half of the northeast quarter of Section eighteen, Bowling township, Rock Island county, thence running diagonally to the northeast corner of Section eighteen. Mr. Little said : "The old Indian trail here was at least ten feet wide, and there was not a number of them, but just one path, which went in a straight line over hill and hollow, and on the hillside the water washed a sort of ditch, and part of this, when I saw it last, was grown over with grass. This trail could still be seen twenty-five years ago. Now it is pretty well obliterated". The field here was under cultivation. The next point on this fork was given us by C. P. O'Haver of Rock Island. It is located at the northwest corner of the northeast quarter of Section ten, in Bowling township, two miles due south of the camp ground of the Illinois Volunteers of 1832. Both the Indians and the soldiers followed the left bank of the Rock river in their ascent up-stream, in the 1832 campaign of the Black Hawk war. Judge John W. Spencer, who was an acquaintance of Black Hawk and who was one of the pioneers who disputed with the Indians for possession of their village here, says that : "When Black Hawk and his warriors returned in 1832, they kept on the south side of Big Island (at the mouth of Rock river), which I had never known them to do before". (Reminiscences, p. 44.) Gen. Henry Atkinson, writing from Fort Armstrong under date of April 13, 1832, says: "They (the band of Sauks under Black Hawk) crossed the (Mississippi) river at Yellow Banks * * and are now moving up on the east side of Rock river. * * toward the Proph- et's village". (Wakefield's Black Hawk War", p. 35.) Lieut. Albert Sydney Johnston's diary corroborates the above as follows: "April 13. Black Hawk's band was reported this morning to be passing up on the east side of Rock river. Their course indicates that their movement is upon the Prophet's village". (Life of Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston, p. 34.) 23 Attorney William Allen of Erie, Ills., says: "There was an Indian trail on the other (east) side of Rock river to Prophetstown, where there was a little city of Indians, and their lodges were strung out, down Rock river for a half mile. At the time of the Black Hawk War, Abraham Lincoln with the crowd of his company camped at Pink Prairie in the edge of Henry county where he was nearly eaten up by the mosquitoes. Lincoln told this to Judge Teets, of Erie. Teets was down to do some lobbying regarding a ferry boat across Rock river, in 1859, after the Lincoln-Douglas debates". (Interview, Aug. 10, 1917.) Nels Anderson, who had lived on an island in Rock river, in Coal Valley township, for thirty years, said : "I came here in 1865, and old man Porter, who came here in 1833, told me Lincoln came up on the east side of Rock river on his way to Wiscon- sin to fight Black Hawk". (Interview, April 9, 1917.) The Illinois Volunteers followed Black Hawk up Rock river over the same trail. Black Hawk and his followers were a religious people and in the course of their progress would make sacrifices to the Great Spirit. Gov. Reynolds, speaking of these evidences, says: "It made us sorry to see often at the camp ground of Black Hawk a small dog immolated to appease the Great Spirit". (My Own Times, 229.) Black Hawk reached Prophetstown, April 26th, as told by Wake- field in the following words : "On the 26th Mr. Gratiot saw at a dis- tance, about two miles down Rock river, the army of the celebrated Black Hawk, consisting of about five hundred Sacs, well armed and mounted on fine horses, moving in a line of battle — their appearance was terrible in the extreme. Their bodies were painted with white clay, with an occasional impression of their hands about their bodies, colored black. About their ankles and bodies they wore wreaths of straw, which always indicate a disposition for blood". (Wakefield's History of the Black Hawk War, p. 38.) Prophetstown is on the east bank of Rock river, and is so called because it was the village of the Winnebago Prophet, Wa-bo-kie-shiek (see Handbook American Indians, Vol. I, p. 886) who was one of the foremost of the Indian leaders in the Black Hawk War. This village was reached by the Illinois Vols, on May 10th, the same day they broke camp near Rock Island. The soldiers had made a march of forty miles, and "When they reached Prophetstown they found it de- serted, and at once applied the torch to the bark houses and reduced them to ashes". (Armstrong, Sauks and the Black Hawk War, p. 309.) In the march to Prophetstown both the Indians and the soldiers would follow the beaten trail ; in this case the Sauk and Fox trail from Milan is now, to the ford across Coal Valley creek, as located by Messrs. W. C. Wilson and Alex Craig, and Thomas J. Murphy. At the east side of this ford the two trails would part company, the one up Rock river continuing due east. Thomas J. Murphy said: "An old trail followed right on the bank of Rock river going up stream, then there was another trail which followed on the high ground right where the yellow barn on the Killing estate is". This "yellow barn' 'is due east of the ford, and as we walked over the course of this trail of the higher ground, the 24 writer found two flint arrow-heads not far from the barn, then as we proceeded eastward he began picking up chips of flint until he had thirty-three pieces; then seeing the plowed ground was full of them, the novelty of it dropped. Mr. Murphy continued: "The wider trail kept this ridge, and the one which followed the river bank was a nar- rower one and is still there just as it was when I was a boy". (April 9, 1917.) The next point which we believed to be on this same trail up Rock river, was about five miles easterly, namely the ford across Green river. We located it by the process of elimination, under the guidance of Messrs. Craig and Wilson, above mentioned. Mr. Craig said: "Lincoln? Right here. This is the only place they could cross. This is the old Indian trail right across here. There is no ford between here and Rock river. I've been along it hundreds of times hunting and fishing and strolling", to which Mr. Wilson added: "We've seined every foot of it from Colona to the mouth of Green river, and I know there was no other ford". Mr. Craig mentioned that in places the river was twelve to sixteen feet deep, to which Mr. Wilson replied : "We seined through all of it just the same". The ford is being used by the farmer today. On the right bank of Green river, a few rods from the ford, is a farm house and barns. Our two guides said the house was built on top of a large Indian mound and when they dug the cellar they found a space walled in with rock "round or oblong" and they found skeletons, "either sixteen or twenty-three, I don't know which, and lots of implements". Mr. Craig said: "I was told about it by Gully (Gulliver) Adams and Sheldon Hodge. They got the rock out and told me of it". These men also told of a "Kitchen heap" on the left (east) bank of Rock river, a short distance above this Green river ford, "A mile below the old Colona ferry", which they found thirty-five or forty years ago. They "found brown Indian pottery, implements, needles, deer horns and bones, and, mostly clam shells". Green river ford is not on the public highway. To find it, take the "Geneseo road" between Moline bridge over Rock river, and Brier Blufif ; when you come to the section line between sections fif- teen and sixteen, Colona township, Henry county, follow this line north to Green river (a distance of a little over a half mile) then fol- low the river down stream until you come to the ford, a distance of perhaps twenty rods, or thereabouts, northwest of the section line where it strikes the river. Rock River was a favorite among our aboriginals. Continuing up stream, passing the old Colona ferry site (a fine bridge is there now), and about five miles farther up stream, passing the primitive Cleveland ferry, and five miles farther up stream, the old Angell's ferry, also a relic of pioneer days, one finds just above the last men- tioned ferry and on the east side of the river, other remains of Indian occupation. One day on a hike with our band boys, we found there along a strip of higher land beside the river, a number of fragments of Indian pottery, a piece of a broken iron tomahawk, a stone celt, and ten well formed flint arrow-heads, and there are numerous pieces of chipped flints. THE FORD AT GREEN RIVER. .4— x.^ >; V: ■ ■ >^ M f^W )\ Campbells Ish ^4. V Cred'x /sW'4' MAP SHOWING INDIAN TRAILS CENTERINC; AT Bl IIA.ACK. TIIK TUAII.S APvIO SHOWN' l\ KHO INi\. 1 ' ,1 RD 1 2.8 ((\6 25 The writer makes no pretense of knowing the exact course of the Indian trail up Rock river beyond the part located by Mr. Murphy, and the Green river ford located by Messrs. Wilson and Craig-. En- quiry was made for information, but thus far without success. The evidences of habitations above mentioned, are included here, because they prove that the land was occupied, and there is no such occupation without its complement of highways or trails. In addition to the above one should expect to find trails radiating from Davenport, Iowa, to the north, west, and probably southwest, for the Sauk and Fox United Nation held Iowa by right of conquest (Kan. Hist. Coll. XI, 334), and during the latter years of their great- ness they had their principal villages, opposite Davenport, where Rock Island now stands. Presiding over the Fox village was Wapella, Principal Chief of the Foxes, while the adjoining Sauk village had such men of note as Pash-e-pa-ho, Keokuk and Black Hawk. The writer merely suggests this as a subject for Trails-Hunters, who should begin their quest at once, while information can be had at first hand. One would expect to find a short cut northwards from Daven- port to the Dubuque mines, approximately along the "Dubuque Road", and as to a west-bound trail, the following extract from the reminis- cences of M. D. Hauberg may prove of value: "The next place we broke (virgin prairie in 1850) was for Claus Vieths, about seven miles west of Davenport. The second day we were there an Indian came along and stopped. When we came to the road he hailed us. The boss was afraid but I went up to him. He was riding an Indian pony, and he carried a rifle, a revolver and a bow and arrows. The pony's bit, the stirrups and the rifle were silver plated. He asked me how far it was to Davenport. While he stood here he would sometimes look toward the west. Then he went in that direction and was gone about ten minutes, when he returned with the whole tribe. There must have been two hundred of them. They had ponies running loose with baskets on each side, a papoose in each basket, and some were carry- ing the tents". 0^ ^^^ ^-.^y' ^^ ^O^ 4 o x^-^^ vV "^^ r.%^ ,0* ^^-V. '. ,*^q 'bV^ ^°-^^, « • o, '^ > ^^'-rr.'^^' X "^o. '*„Tr^* ,o'^ ^^ -^v t* <>* 0' ^x. '" A* c -o^\' •^^.^ O M - .0' ^ '.^;^^/ N^* -"^ -^V ■•-^i^,*" ^*^'"\ "-^p-"' ^•^'\- ■ • ^ .r ,^q. V . ' * ■•-W-*> \°'-W\^'"\ w- / /.- •'^fk.\y:^:\ ,**' .va:?;-/^^ >''\'^ik- DOBBSBROS. O 'o . » * A, , "-"A-'VB.NO.NO ,.^ -^^ .4> .0-0 J ST. AUGUSTINE ^ _^^ FLA. -■ K*' 0^ x> ->%■■ • ^r. ^ O^ , ^?^ l^-' .-^" '0. '- '^b ; ^0 "^^^ ^ ^0"